The Surgeon (Word War II Naval Adventure) by J.E. Macdonnell

Author:J.E. Macdonnell [Macdonnell, J.E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Naval warfare
Publisher: Piccadilly
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

NEXT DAY WIND Rode sailed.

She slipped out with her flotilla and for half an hour the destroyers hunted round like hungry otters in a pool of fish. But their asdic hooks caught nothing.

“Battleships coming out, sir,” the signal-yeoman reported.

Landis was on the bridge, invited there by Randall.

The first-lieutenant had poked his head into the sickbay on his way up.

“If you’re not busy, Doc, there’ll be something to see from the bridge after we get out.”

“Thanks,” Landis had answered, grinning self-consciously, “I’d like to.”

He was thoughtful after Randall had pulled-to the sliding door. It may have been a casual invitation, with nothing behind it; or it might have been the first-lieutenant’s way of indicating that the cabin and wardroom business of yesterday was forgotten—that internal friction in a ship the size of a destroyer was intolerable; the senior officer of the mess had made his gesture, now it was up to the surgeon to make his.

“I’ll be on the bridge,” he had said to Jagar.

“Right you are, sir, it’s a good place to be and up there you’ll learn a hell of a lot and fast, and you’ve got to learn it sooner or later, so you might as well...”

He picked up his cap and cleaned his sun-glasses and as he let the loquacious flow run over his head he understood that his assistant’s reticence was confined to moments of emergency.

He had watched with appreciation the eight destroyers in Wind Rode’s trot slip their buoys simultaneously at a signal from the leader, and then form-up in line astern for the run down harbour and through the boom-gate into the open sea.

Randall had talked to him about signals and turning-circles and lines of advance, of flotilla manoeuvres and anti-submarine screens, and he had listened with interest to the deep, quiet voice.

In his interest there was no analysis of motive; he did not guess that the first-lieutenant was working to a plan, that he had decided that the more and quicker the surgeon learned, the more quickly he became familiar with the complexities of his new home, the sooner his touchiness would subside into the easy camaraderie so necessary to a destroyer’s efficient functioning.

Now, as he turned his head at the yeoman’s call, Landis realised what Randall had meant by “something to see.”

He had no intention of again asking for glasses, but the flotilla was so close to the harbour entrance, and what it was spawning was so large that he did not need them.

The cruisers came first, their turreted guns weaving about the sky as the crews tested mechanism. Behind them, bulking like a block of flats against the green background of the jungle, steamed the battleships.

Landis had never seen a battleship under way. Now he stared with intent fascination, his eyes running up over the thick armoured stem, the vast flare of the bows, up past the two massive turrets on the foc’s’le and on to the steely cliff of the bridge structure, towering up to the gunnery directors.

Beyond the

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