Fingal had to smile. Big Paddy’s answer to potential danger had always been to joke, but the other sick bay staff, Richard Wilcoxson and three other SBAs, ignored the CPO and instead stared intently at the loudspeaker. The atmosphere in the windowless room was tense. Fingal could sense every man, including Paddy, thinking, What the hell now?
“Something’s up for sure,” Paddy said as the notes of the ship’s turbines increased in pitch. Warspite was putting on speed. Fingal had just sat down with his war diary and scratched today’s date, May 22th, at the top of a page. He’d been using Deirdre’s latest letter, dated February 12th and delivered to the Warspite three months later, for a bookmark and he picked up the pages now like a talisman. He’d taken to carrying the letters around with him, a comforter to be enjoyed during lulls in the action.
“Could be almost anything,” Richard Wilcoxson said. “It’s been three days since the Germans invaded Crete.”
“You’d’ve thought,” Paddy said, “the forty thousand British and Commonwealth troops we evacuated from the Greek mainland to the island could’ve held the Jerries off, but I guess we’re losing again.”
“Those German paratroops that captured Maleme Airfield made it possible for reinforcements and supplies to come pouring in by air,” Richard said. “The defenders are being overrun. And the Axis are trying to supply by sea as well. It’s part of our job to support the army.”
“Which Tom Laverty says is pretty risky,” Fingal said. “The remaining British fighter planes were withdrawn from the island on the nineteenth, and that means no air cover for us.”
“The gunnery POs are sayin’ dat the Luftwaffe pilots are a damn sight more dangerous than the Eyetie ones,” said Paddy O’Rourke.
“Aye,” said Fingal, “but fair play to the RAF. So few fighters were serviceable that they could provide no defence anyway. And poor old Formidable only has four planes left so she’s no help. She’s safer back in Alex.”
“So,” said Paddy, “that leaves the bloody navy like the little Dutch boy all alone with his finger in the feckin’ dyke trying to hold back the flood of sea-borne supplies to the Germans.”
“It’s more like having a whole hand stuck in,” Fingal said. “Last time I was talking to Tom Laverty he explained that Warspite was part of a fleet divided into five ‘forces,’ A1, our force under Rear Admiral Rawlings, and B, C, D, and E all trying to intercept and sink enemy troop and supply convoys and bombard enemy-held positions on the island. Admiral Cunningham’s in Alex directing the complex operation and—”
The Tannoy interrupted. “The time is twelve-thirty hours. We are increasing to twenty-four knots and steering for Admiral King’s Force C, which attacked a German troop convoy in the Aegean last night. They are running out of AA ammunition and have been under heavy and repeated German air attack for three and a half hours. His flagship Naiad has been badly damaged and the Carlisle, the antiaircraft cruiser, hit and her captain killed. Force C is withdrawing west.”
“Here we go again,” Paddy said.
“Our force, A1—two battleships, Warspite and Valiant, and four destroyers—is proceeding east into the Kithera Channel between the islands of Kithera and Antikithera north of Crete to link up with C and provide additional antiaircraft support. Other naval forces will soon be joining. We will keep you informed.” The speaker went dead.
Paddy O’Rourke turned his eyes to the heavens, crossed himself, and said, “If you’ve a minute or two free, Mother Mary, would you keep an eye out for the poor ould British Navy, would you? Thanks. We’d be much obliged.” Then his voice lost its bantering tone and he said seriously, “I don’t much like the sound of this neither. The Jerries have airfields all over the mainland and on Crete and on Scarpanto now. A pal in signals reckons the brass think the Luftwaffe have more than four hundred bombers and dive bombers at this end of the Med.”
“Dunno how much use our fifteen-inch and six-inch guns’ll be against that lot. Bit like trying to kill a swarm of wasps with a pistol,” Richard said.
The man was right. Warspite’s only hope for delivery from air attack lay in her antiaircraft weapons, not her big rifles.
“But I’m sure we’ll give them a run for their money.” As ever, the principal medical officer exuded calm and passed it on to his subordinates. “With any luck we’ll be all right, but to recap what we’ve planned, if casualties do arrive, the other team in the aft distribution station will deal with lesser wounds, simple fractures. We’ll get the serious ones. I’ll operate; Fingal, you’ll anaesthetise; Paddy, you’ll assist.”
Fingal and Paddy muttered their assent.
“If two patients need surgery at the same time, then Paddy, you’ll take over the anaesthetic from Fingal—”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Fingal, you stun the next patient, hand over to SBA Arthur, and then scrub. Sick Berth Attendant Fletcher will assist you.”
It made sense. Inducing the anaesthetic was always the trickiest part, and even if Fingal did the operation, he could then direct his attention to helping the patient recover. Now, thanks to Angus Mahaddie and Haslar, Fingal was quite at ease with what he might soon have to do when the need arose.
So there was no imminent danger, but it sounded as if things might soon start heating up. Fingal opened Deirdre’s letter and began reading it again.
… and old Doctor Flanagan in Ballybucklebo was sweet. I went to see him yesterday. I didn’t want to go to any of the medical staff at the hospital here because regulations say I must retire as soon as they know, but I want to go on working for a bit longer. When I’d finished seeing the doctor, Kinky insisted on making me a cup of tea and barmbrack just like the day we popped in before you went away after your first leave. She sends her love and says she hopes to see you back in the practice for good very soon. So, darling, do I, because Doctor Flanagan says if the frog confirms his clinical findings you’re going to be a daddy in September. Isn’t it wonderful?
Fingal closed his eyes. God, but she was a brave girl. He was so glad they’d discussed things again on Christmas Day. She’d not be all alone when she left her job. She’d go home to her parents and how, how he wished he could be with her in September. Perhaps Warspite would get a posting to home waters by then? Londonderry would be grand altogether, thank you. He grinned. Well, he could dream, couldn’t he?
He was nursing the thought when the air raid warning bells sounded and the Tannoy announced, “The Kapsali Bay Light bears green oh five zero, distance eight miles. There are enemy aircraft approaching the force from both beams and the destroyer screen has opened fire…”
He shoved her letter back into his diary.
Even four decks down, Fingal could hear the distant cracks of high angle 4.7-inch guns, the clamour of Oërlikons, the pom-pom-pom-pom of Chicago pianos and the harsh rattling of 0.5 calibre machine guns. Judging by the lack of deck vibrations so far, Warspite had not opened fire, but the sky over the force would be alive with molten steel. Over the racket of the guns he heard the screaming roar of aero engines rising in a crescendo only to be silenced in a moment. One enemy bomber would do no harm, but …
“Three Messerschmitt 109 fighter bombers have burst through the smoke and are approaching our bow…”
A machine gun seemed to be Warspite’s only riposte, but she heeled violently to port like a boxer trying to avoid a straight left. The skipper must have ordered full port wheel.
From somewhere aft and overhead came the sounds of a vast explosion. The steel of Warspite’s hull shuddered and rang like a great tuning fork.
Fingal wasn’t sure who yelled, “Ooooh, shit…”
Corticene insulation fell in lumps from the deckhead above. He was nearly dislodged from his seat as Warspite bucked again, thumped hard twice by nearby underwater explosions. One hit, two misses, but even near misses could spring plates, do underwater damage.
“Bloody hell,” Paddy O’Rourke said as he picked himself up off the floor and bent to collect the bandage
s he’d been rolling earlier. They were now unravelling across the sole.
“We’ve taken a hit,” Richard said. “We’re going to be busy.”
“Damage control parties, stretcher-bearers, first-aid men report to your stations,” the Tannoy bellowed. “Damage control parties…”
Sea-booted feet clattered along a passageway overhead.
There was a deafening hissing of escaping steam.
Fingal dusted his shirt free of corticene fragments and took a deep breath. Where had the bomb hit—and how many casualties had it caused?
* * *
“You can go ahead, Richard,” Fingal said. The man on the operating table was the first serious victim to arrive. Fingal sat watching his Boyle’s machine and adjusting the flow of the anaesthetic gasses while Fletcher soaked the patient’s legs with disinfectant before the gowned and gloved Richard and Paddy O’Rourke started cutting off the remains of the man’s dungarees. All Fingal knew of the patient was that he was a Scot from Aberdeen. Twenty, blue eyes that had held the fear of death before he’d been put to sleep, ginger hair, a jagged scar on his left cheek. He’d been one of an ammunition handling party when the cordite charges had gone up in flames. His asbestos antiflash gear had protected his hands, arms, and face, but his legs …
Fingal cringed. He had met the smell of burned flesh before at Narvik and from a wounded fighter pilot.
At least this man was well asleep. Trying to remove cloth fused to flesh would have been excruciating without anaesthesia, but now the patient would feel nothing as Richard began to clean the burns before using the tannic acid treatment.
It had been less than ten minutes since the stretcher-bearers had brought this patient here. As the SBAs had been getting him onto the table and Fingal was preparing his anaesthetic Richard asked, “Where were we hit?”
“We took it only six feet from the midships edge of the foc’s’le deck, sir. Bloody nearly missed us, sir. A five-hundred-pound bomb hit the baseplate of one of the two starboard four-inch guns. Threw it and the crew overboard, made a bloody great hole in the deck, and exploded in the six-inch battery…”
“Is there a lot of damage?” Richard asked.
“There was a hell of a fire in there, sir, smoke everywhere, pouring out through the hole in the deck, but the executive officer, Commander Sir Charles Madden’s in charge and he’s got fire parties in there with hoses and extinguishers. They had to smash a door down with sledgehammers to get into the battery. They seem to be getting things under control, but there’s still a man in there and there are tons of wounded on the starboard mess deck too.”
“Mess deck?” Richard said. “Of course. It’s directly below the battery.”
Fingal could picture the blast and flames tearing through the deck where the guns were and down onto the men below. Grim.
A seaman stuck his head into the room. “Begging your pardon, sir, but Commander Madden has sent me. Can you spare an MO? There’s a man trapped and the exec thinks if a doctor took off the bloke’s hand we could save his life before the fire gets him.”
“You’ve that case to finish, Richard.” Fingal stood. “Paddy, take over. I’ll go,” and he called himself a fool. He was terrified of fire, but the poor trapped bugger would be too. Fingal grabbed morphine, syringes, a bottle of disinfectant, rubber tubing for a tourniquet, a scalpel, a bone saw, Gamgee, and bandages, shoved them in an empty first-aid satchel, and said, “Show me the way.”
He followed as the sailor led the way aft while climbing up two decks from the middle to upper deck. A door amidships had separated the port from the starboard six-inch batteries. Smoke irritated Fingal’s eyes, made him cough.
“This way, sir.” The rating stepped over the door’s coaming. The armoured door itself hung drunkenly on its hinges as if great force had been used to open it. Its steel still glowed cherry red.
Inside the battery the heat was palpable even though by looking past the wreckage of number three and four guns he could see daylight and the sea as it seemed to rush past. Fingal sloshed through filthy water from the fire hoses that snaked along the deck. Through a huge hole overhead he could see attacking aircraft. One of the fire crew shook his fist at them and screamed, “Bastards. Bloody Kraut bastards.”
Fingal was deafened by the thundering of Warspite’s turbines. Her speed hadn’t dropped so the engine spaces and steering must have escaped unscathed. He tried to ignore the barking cacophony as her antiaircraft guns blazed defiance at the aircraft overhead, the ship a great wounded beast still hurling her venom at her tormentors.
Although most of the fire in the battery had been extinguished, leaving nothing but blackened debris and, he flinched, charred bodies, flames producing greasy black smoke still sprang up from the remains of number-four gun. Two seamen were playing a hose on a man wearing an antiflash hood and gauntlets who lay facedown on the deck and whose left arm vanished at the wrist under a huge piece of twisted steel.
The flames were creeping toward him. No time to lose.
Fingal tightened his grip on his satchel and steeled himself to advance when a voice said, “O’Reilly. Glad you’re here. Anything you need?”
Fingal turned to see the executive officer. “Only a man to help me,” he said, but thought, Yes. I need to be anywhere but here.
“AB Phillips. Bear the surgeon a hand. Lively now.”
“Aye aye, sir.” A young seaman dropped a hose and stepped forward.
Fingal handed him the satchel. “Hold that, keep it open, and stay close to me.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Fingal filled a syringe with a quarter grain of morphine. He got on his knees and, shielding his face from the blaze with one arm, crept forward. Steam rose from the gunner’s soaking clothes and Fingal, feeling the heat, wished that he himself had something more than tropical rig, shorts and a shirt, to protect him. The flames were nearly beating him back but he gritted his teeth and crept on.
“Soak the doctor and Phillips too.”
Fingal heard the exec order and welcomed the relief afforded as cold water hit his bare arms and legs. A hand to the man’s throat confirmed that he had a pulse. He was breathing, but unconscious. There was no time for niceties. Fingal drove the hypodermic needle through the gunner’s overall sleeve into the big muscle over the shoulder, the deltoid, and injected.
“I’ll be asking you for what I need, Phillips. Give me that bottle of brown fluid.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The seaman passed Fingal the Dettol, which he poured over the wrist of the trapped hand.
“See that rubber tubing?”
“This, sir?”
“Thanks.” Fingal slipped it under the arm below the elbow and knotted it tightly for a tourniquet.
“See the scalpel?”
“This it, sir?”
“Good man.” Fingal accepted the surgical knife. He couldn’t manipulate the arm so he’d have to cut straight through skin and flesh, worry about making proper flaps later back in the operating theatre, deal with the bone, then the flesh and sinews of the underside. The patient moaned and tried to writhe, but was held fast by his hand.
Fingal felt a tugging at his sleeve. “What is it?”
The rating pointed to a small river of oily fluid that was running from the wrecked gun and forming a pool under Fingal’s knees. Dear God. Hydraulic fluid. If that went up … Fingal took one deep breath, shouted, “Give me the satchel and bugger off.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The rating did and fled.
Despite himself, pictures of Flip Dennison’s charred and scarred face kept flashing into Fingal’s mind. His hand started to tremble.
The executive officer yelled, “Leave him. Save yourself, Doctor. That’s an order. Our hoses are useless on hydraulic fluid. And we haven’t got enough medical staff. We can’t afford—”
Fingal heard the shout as a distant command, a wasp buzzing, distracting him from his purpose of completing the amputation and getting the man to safety. Sod it. He slung the
bag by its strap over one shoulder and bent to his work. He willed his hands to behave. Firm scalpel strokes soon revealed the forearm bones. There was virtually no bleeding because of the tourniquet. The saw bit and soon had done its work. From the corner of his eye he saw tiny flames like the ones on a brandy-soaked Christmas pudding begin to dance on the surface of the pool in which he knelt. Every fibre screamed run.
He dropped the saw, picked up the scalpel, and severed the remaining tissue. He got the semiconscious man in a fireman’s lift and as the fluid erupted with a loud whoomp scorching Fingal’s face and burning off his eyebrows and the hair on the front of his head, he ran to the far side of the battery to the cheers of the fire-fighting crew and a couple of stretcher-bearers who had appeared.
Fingal set the man down with his back to a bulkhead and ripped off the gunner’s antiflash hood. No. Och, no. Dear God, not Alf Henson. Not Alf. No time for those thoughts now. Fingal grabbed Gamgee and bandages and fashioned a crude dressing.
He straightened to find himself looking into the eyes of Commander Sir Charles Madden. “That, O’Reilly,” the commander said, “was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. You should have run.”
Fingal simply shook his head. Tried to stop seeing himself charred into the foetal position like one of the ash-preserved bodies from Pompeii.
“I shall be recommending you for the DSC.”
Fingal lost control. “Sir,” he said, and his voice was icy. “I don’t want your flaming medal. Give Henson back his hand.”
Whether from the relief at knowing he’d not been roasted alive or the realisation that all he and Elizabeth Blenkinsop had tried to do for Alf Henson had been futile, Fingal found himself laughing. Hysteria. He brought it under control. “You two,” he pointed at the stretcher-bearers, “get Leading Seaman Henson on the stretcher and take him to the for’ard medical distribution station. I need to fashion a stump so we can get him fitted with an artificial hand when he’s healed up.”