Free Send a Gunboat (1960) by Douglas Reeman Page B

while, and then shook his head. “Not just yet, Chao. Too much to do!”
    He stared unseeingly at the boy’s thin shoulders, as he padded away to his pantry, thinking of Sylvia again. She often crept back into his mind, usually at night, as he lay sweating on his bunk, unable to sleep. The more her memory tried to torment him, the more he drove himself, and the more he suffered.
    Even Chase had lost pounds in weight, he thought, running hither and thither about the ship, usually followed by steel-helmeted seamen, either warding off imaginary boarders, or preparing for a landing party with all the clutter of rifles and signalling equipment rattling along behind them. Even as the thought crossed his mind, Chase’s bull-like roar shattered the quiet of the battery deck. He was having another try at the Oerlikon gun apparently.
    “Nah then, Ferguson, you long streak of ’addock water!” Ferguson was one of the Quartermasters, who also did duty as gunner on the Oerlikon, and he was so tall and fantastically thin, that he could never move an inch about the vessel without either banging his head or tripping over some object or other. “Jus’ short bursts, that’s all I want! Not poopin’ off the ’ole ruddy magazine!”
    There was a faint splash, as another empty crate plopped over the stern, and as it bobbed farther and farther behind on the shimmering white wake, Ferguson squinted through the ring-sight with rapidly watering eyes.
    “S’long way off now, Chief!” he pleaded, watching the crate growing smaller every second.
    “’Old it! Jus’ think of it as a ruddy patrol boat, an’ make sure of your first burst!”
    Ferguson sucked his teeth. He would rather think of it as a Chief Gunner’s Mate, but he sank into the leather harness of the gun, feeling the straps hot across his naked back, and gently swung the slender barrel downwards.
    “Right, fire!” screamed Chase, and instantly the harsh rattle of the gun and the stench of cordite filled the air. Over and around the nodding crate plumes of spray rose lazily in a series of picturesque white feathers. Whey they had died, the gun was silent, and the crate still intact.
    Chase’s comments were drowned by the shrill of a voice pipe set apart from the others massed around the wheel.
    Rolfe leaned over. “Wheelhouse!” he answered.
    “Engine-room here, sir.” Louch’s voice rattled tinnily from the bowels of the ship. “Would it be possible to stop the ship for half-an-hour, sir? There’s a loose gland in one of the tunnels.”
    Rolfe frowned at the pipe’s bell-mouth. Tunnels? What the hell was he talking about? Then he remembered. These old gunboats had their screws mounted high up inside the hull in twin tunnels, so that they were actually revolving above the ship’s waterline, thus enabling the ship to bump, if necessary, across a mud-flat or sandbank without damaging them. The water was seemingly sucked up these tunnels as the screws turned.
    “Very good. Stop engines!”
    The throbbing, their constant companion so far, died away, and the ship rolled uneasily on the green water.
    Fallow paused in his work with his ear cocked. “We’ve stopped!” he exclaimed, and peered at Herridge as if for some explanation.
    Herridge continued to check the contents of the ancient ice box against his list, and said nothing. He’s really windy, he thought. It was almost as if he had some premonition of disaster. Ah well, he shrugged, perhaps I shall be like that when I’m his age!
    Vincent too, raised his head wearily, as he lay sprawled out in a wardroom chair, a tall glass in his fist. Another damned delay! He downed the gin in a gulp, feeling it claw its way through the rawness at the back of his throat. He banged it on the table and signalled to the steward, Peng, unable to speak without choking.He watched the steward broodingly, and weakly scratched the inside of his bare legs. God, it’s hot, and there are still another forty-eight hours to go. He