A Prayer for the Ship by Douglas Reeman Read Free Book Online Page B

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    â€œOpen fire, first trawler!” yelled Royce, and the pompoms joined in the tattoo with a steady bang-bang-bang, their twin tracers lifting and dropping towards the hunched, menacing shape of the trawler. The range closed rapidly, five hundred yards, two hundred, one hundred, until they saw their shells rippling along her sides. The Oerlikons and machine-guns added their ear-shattering rattle, as if in desperation, but still the trawler came on, her decks a mass of spitting muzzles.
    Royce felt the boat lurch beneath him as white-hot metal tore into her sides, and something clanged against the gun-shield and screamed away into the night. Another violent flash illuminated the boat, and he saw the mast and aerials stagger and pitch across the bridge. Simultaneously a deafening explosion came from aft, the shock sending him spinning to the deck. He scrambled to his feet, dimly aware that the pom-poms had ceased fire. Leading Seaman Parker sat moaning softly by the ready-use ammunition locker, his face a bloody mask. The other gunners were twisted together in a distorted embrace by the guns. With horror he saw a white hand on the already darkening decks, like a discarded glove.
    Of the trawler there was no sign, although her gunfire roared and whined through the steep bank of smoke forming astern, which was tinged with pink and orange hues, making it look a real and solid thing.
    He realized too that they were maintaining their speed, but turning in a wide circle. Forcing his way behind the port Oerlikon gunner, who fired steadily into the smoke, he pushed his way into the shuttered wheelhouse. Even as the door opened, he smelt the cordite fumes, and above the rattle of the guns, he could hear a persistent, shrill screaming.
    As his eyes became adjusted to the feeble light, he realized that the interior of the wheelhouse was a complete shambles. Pieces of equipment were scattered about the deck, and he could see the flashes from the starboard Oerlikon’s intermittent bursts through a six-foot gash in the plating. Petty Officer Raikes was on his knees by the wheel, hard at work; with a screwdriver, which he was using like a jemmy, as he used all his strength to free the steering gear, which was jammed tight by a corner of a steel plate, bent over like wet cardboard. Royce noticed that his unruly hair was speckled with little pieces of paint which had been torn from the deckhead. Lying pinned under the twisted metal of the gash in the bridge side was the wretched creature whose spine-chilling screams made Raikes fumble and curse, and turn an imploring eye to Royce.
    â€œCarn you stop ’im, sir?” he gasped. “God knows what’s keepin’ ’im alive!”
    Indeed, there seemed little resemblance to a man in the twisting bundle of rags which caused Royce to step back with horror. Able Seaman Lund, already wounded, had been dragged to the bridge for safety, only to be pounded into human wreckage by the last salvo of cannon shells, which had raked the boat from stem to stern. With a final jerk, the Coxswain freed the wheel, and clambered to his feet, spinning the spokes deftly in his scratched and bleeding fingers, and as if that was the awaited signal, the awful cries ceased, for ever.
    â€œI’m on course, now,” shouted Raikes, “but if you can get me a relief, I’ll give you a hand on deck.” He sounded cool and confident.
    Royce nodded dumbly, and went outside into the cold air, to pull his aching body on to the bridge. With despair he saw the tangle of wires and halyards wrapped round the mast, which pointed over the side like a broken limb, and under it, the shattered chart table, wood splinters, and the upended signal locker spewing out its cargo of coloured bunting. Harston knelt in the pose of a runner waiting for the starting pistol, moaning softly, and trying to pull himself to the voice-pipe, each movement causing him to clench his teeth and close his eyes with