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MALTA CONVOY — CHAPTER THREE

Disabled!

We felt the gradual loss of speed; there was no surge of strength from astern. The noise of battle could be heard still, but growing fainter, ahead of us …
The tannoy was silent. The midshipman tried to call gunnery control: no reply. The bridge: line also dead. The lighting in the turret began to dim.
'Emergency lighting!' ordered the middie. 'All guns check, check. check!'
'Ignition broken, centre gun!'
'Ignition broken, port gun!' The two reports were virtually simultaneous.
I quietly shut the flap at my knees, to cover the cartridge case I had been about to lift out when we were struck.
'The convoy's a mile or more ahead now, action continuing,' announced the midshipman, sweeping all round with his periscope. 'All quiet to port and starboard ... No, I can see lights to starboard - it's a coast line, must be North Africa.'
'How far away, Sir?' Toop asked.
‘Hard to say. Less than five miles certainly; perhaps three.’
I thought at once: at least there's land nearby. And if they leave us alone, we may be able to repair our engines and rejoin the convoy, or sail home, keeping close inshore. But if we can't make it, if we are attacked and sunk on the way, then I can perhaps swim to safety - if the currents permit.

By now there was scarcely any way perceptible on the ship. Everything had turned silent. We were waiting for the tannoy to crackle into life, or the phone buzzer to sound at the middie's elbow. But the minutes dragged on.
'Can't see anything of the convoy now.' The middie’s voice had dropped too, and yet he could be heard throughout the turret. 'We must be lying still so as not to attract the E-boats back here.'
I hadn't thought of that danger. We waited.

'Petty Officer Toop!'
'Aye-aye, sir!'
'Carry out rounds on the whole turret shaft and report back!'
'Aye-aye, sir. Leading Seaman Durnford, come with me!'
The starboard gun captain crossed the turret floor and opened the hatchway for Toop and him to get down into the first level of the hoist. In the opening Clowes' face appeared: the mischievous twinkle had not disappeared. The two men clambered down, and the hatch was shut after them. We could hear voices faintly from below, for a short while.

Still nothing on the tannoy or the phone.
What had gone wrong with the TS? Perhaps it was the TS that had been hit: that might explain the failure of all communications.

After ten minutes Toop and Durnford returned.
'All men present and correct down below, sir,' Toop reported. ‘Some six-inch ammo left. But the shaft is a bit out of alignment, and won't turn. Not properly, as you might say.'
'You've tried manually?'
'Yes, sir. She'll budge, but only slowly. Seems the cogs are stickin'.'
That meant, in effect, that A-turret was out of action.

Abandon ship!

As the minutes passed by, and turned into a full half hour, then more, we noticed that the list to starboard was gradually increasing. With a hole in her side, how long might it be before the ship would heel right over, and turn turtle? The absence of all communication was unnerving. Possibly all the officers on the bridge had been killed in the blast. Or the torpedo might have struck just aft of us and cut us off from the bridge, with no means of escape through flooded compartments and watertight doors. Perhaps, as a result of chaos further aft, we had been forgotten; or else, since we had failed to make contact, it had been assumed that everyone in A turret was dead. But we weren't, and had to await orders before moving from our action stations; to abandon our posts would amount to dereliction of duty, almost to desertion.

'We have to make contact with the bridge,' announced the midshipman in a calm voice that reached us all. 'We have to ask for orders. Any volunteer, a man to make his way to the bridge?'
He was looking in my direction as he spoke. The image of drowning invaded my mind - between decks, without light, unable perhaps to retrace my steps back to the turret. I saw myself perhaps getting through to the bridge, but then having to make the return journey through the watery unknown in the dark, swimming by feel through the corridors, hoping to find a hatch at the other end ready to open to me when I knocked on it - or not ready, not responding to my frantic bangings and shouting, until ...
My eyes were already averted; I could not face that unknown. I felt greatly ashamed, for this was just the kind of exploit in adventure book stories where the courage of the volunteer for a dangerous mission came to the fore.
'One volunteer,' the midshipman repeated, quietly. I realised that no-one had spoken, though almost half a minute had gone by.
Then a voice spoke up from the front of the turret, between the port and centre gun barrels.
‘I’ll go, sir.’ It was a three-badge AB, whose action station was in the secondary control — from where the turret could be operated independently of the control tower.
The midshipman instructed him briefly, and he disappeared down into the first level of the hoist, from where a door in the shaft wall gave out onto the messdeck.
Then there was silence again. The ship was slowly listing further over to starboard. From time to time we glanced at each other, scanning faces for re-assurance, even for an interpretation of our situation. Would the E boats return? Perhaps they had crept back under cover of the coast, and were now preparing an attack out of that darkness ... One torpedo hit on the six-inch ammunition locker directly below us and we would be blown sky-high, with only a very few survivors ...

Over an hour had gone by when we heard voices below and then Clowes hammered at the hatch for us to re-open. The three-badge sailor re-appeared and stepped over to the midshipman.
'Did you get through to the bridge?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Who did you speak with?'
'The Commander, sir.' Hammersley-Johnston, the man next in rank to the Captain.
‘What orders did he give you?’
'We're to abandon ship, sir.'
A gasp of surprise from all over the turret.
'Anything else?'
'Yes, sir. They're putting charges to the sea-cocks, to scuttle her.'
'What time are they due to go off?'
'Around five a.m., sir.'
'That's in just over an hour’s time. What else?'
'We can collect any personal gear we can swim with from the mess-deck.'
'What's the lighting like, down below?'
'It's that blue emergency lighting everywhere, sir.'
'And then?'
'Muster at our raft stations and get rafts and floats in the water. And get away from the ship well before scuttling time.'
'Why were you so long in getting back? Is there damage below, obstructing movement?'
'No damage I could see, sir. But as I was making my way to the bridge, a Chief Petty Officer told me that the whole ship's company was to assemble on the flight deck - Captain's orders - and he wouldn't let me come back here to tell you.'
'What happened then?'
'I went to the flight deck and a minute later the Captain spoke to officers and men. He told us that we had been holed in the after engine room, and that the water was coming in through a hole too large to repair with canvas. Also the turbines have been thrown out of line and the port ones could only give us about five knots. Oh, and that we had almost run out of ammo for the Oerlikons and four-inch, so we wouldn't be able to defend ourselves. So he had decided to scuttle the ship to save its falling into the hands of the enemy, and that we were to abandon ship before dawn.'
'Petty Officer Toop!'
'Aye-aye, sir!'
'Carry the Captain's message and orders to everyone in A-turret shaft. When you are satisfied that everyone knows what to do, report to your abandon ship station and carry on independently.'
‘Aye-aye, sir!’
'And to the Captain's orders add my advice, to make for the North African shore a few miles to starboard. Right. Gun crews fall out and carry on! And good luck to you all!'
'The same to you, sir!' from several throats. The midshipman had kept his head throughout the engagements, and had given us information as far as he was able. He had shared danger and hardship with us, and earned our respect.

Already some men were scrambling out on the fo’c’sle. The fear of another E boat attack was driving them to hasten. To me it felt strange to be abandoning the turret, knowing I would never return - that no-one would ever see it again. Should I leave the cordite charge in the hoist channel, or remove it? But everyone, I saw, was leaving the turret as it was, with shells on the loading trays; the port and centre guns were still loaded. Almost the last to leave, I went down the short ladder to the hoist deck. Toop was there, giving the final items of the Captain's orders to the turret hoist crew.

Out in the ship's corridors, there was a sense of discipline having broken down. Figures were hurrying this way and that with a strange intensity to their manner. Only a very few words were exchanged. Many were already quitting the messdeck, having taken what they could, and were on the way aft to get to the rafts and floats. Some, I noticed, had already inflated their life-jackets. In the dim blue emergency lighting, I could still see the determination to escape in their eyes; everyone was thinking only of saving his own skin. From having been a ship's company, we had become a crowd, under threat; it was each man for himself.

Our messdeck was almost abandoned when I got there. I opened my locker. My clothing, all tightly wrapped and rolled up so as to fit in the tiny space, lay there dumbly, each piece looking like a small creature condemned to die. I put my passbook in my overall breast pocket, and took a handkerchief to protect my head against the sun. What else did I need? I fingered one or two of the few small personal possessions my locker held. What about the wrist-watch I had inherited from Uncle Harold? But it would never withstand the water. Suddenly I knew: there was nothing I wanted to take. I slammed the locker shut and was about to lock it, out of habit. What for? I let it swing, the key still in the padlock ...

By now the interior of the ship had become very silent. As I made my way aft down the corridor, I wondered at the absence of signs of damage. Yet certain communicating doors seemed to have jammed shut, perhaps with the whipping motion that had immediately followed the explosion. So in order to get to my float, I had first to go aft to the flight deck, and from there make my way forward again, climbing up and down several vertical ladders on the ship's superstructure, now leaning over at about ten to fifteen degrees, and cross two Oerlikon platforms before I found myself on the upper deck by B turret, on the port side. I walked over in the faint night light to where the float to which I had been assigned was lashed. It was gone; and no-one standing around.

I realised from the voices and splashing that several floats and rafts were by now in the water. At the ship's side I saw that seamen were swarming down ropes to get on them, and make away from the vessel as smartly as possible. Turning round. I noticed that a few men were trying to cut free the last carley float in that area. Taking out my knife, I helped to sever some of the lashings, and we carried the heavy structure to the ship’s side, where the guardrail had been removed.
'Under below!' we called out twice, not daring to raise our voices too much, for we had been warned by Petty Officers to keep as quiet as possible; sound carries far across the water on a still night. Then we tipped the float over the side, holding on to one or two of its mooring ropes. It splashed heavily and then settled, right way up. Seamen already in the water began heaving themselves in, while others slid down ropes as fast as they could.

'Help me!' said a thin voice beside me. It was Jones, a non-swimmer. He looked quite terrified.
'All right, Joner,' someone said. 'We'll see you safe.'
'Stand by in the float below,' an AB called out in a firm voice. 'We've got a non-swimmer here, coming down this rope.' He shook it vigorously. 'It's Joner.'
It was fortunate for Jones that he was popular on the messdeck; his somewhat feminine ways had aroused a protective feeling in quite a number of sailors towards him. So instead of moving off rapidly to ensure that the float didn't gather too heavy a load of men, the men below responded.
'Right, Joner: down you come!'
He peered at the water and began to shake. 'I c-c-can't!'
'Go on down, Joner, or the float'll leave without you!'
'I'll go down alongside of you,' said the AB. 'I’ll be there as you go into the water. You can hold on to me.'
Jones, still shaking with fear, grasped a bight of rope from below the deck edge, lay flat on deck, and levered himself over the ship’s side. In the starlight, he gradually disappeared from my view.
A voice sounded from below. 'Here, Joner, put your foot here. That's it, boy ... Easy does it … Now you're aboard.'

A swish of movement in the water told me that the float was making away from the ship's side. A handful of us had failed to board it. We looked around to see what remained for us. Only two small balsa wood rafts were left; one was being prised loose by the only other group of sailors I could make out on deck. We made straight for the other, a half dozen of us. It was only about four feet square, and intended merely to provide handholds around its edges, where loops of rope were fitted. Anyone trying to sit on so small a raft was liable to overturn it.
One of the seamen cutting the raft free alongside me was Lankester, in peace time a forester from Essex, with whom I had struck up a kind of friendship. He had told me he was a poor swimmer, and I had promised to help him if ever we found ourselves having to take to the water. By good fortune we had met up at the very moment when the last rafts were to be put into use.
Once the raft was lowered - not a difficult task as it was relatively light - I saw to it that he climbed down by the tethering rope. From the darkness down there, he called out that he had hold of the raft, and I looked about me to see if there was anything else to do before actually going over the side. In those final moments I found I was reluctant to abandon the stability of the ship for a little bouncing thing on the water's surface, but there was nothing else to be done. The Manchester already had a doomed feel to it, as though the life that had inhabited the vessel had fled.

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