Free On the Edge of Darkness (Special Force Orca Book 1) by Anthony Molloy

port, broadside on to the convoy. I want all guns to bear on the target… Oh and before you go to your action station tell ‘Guns’ I want the for’ard four point sevens to engage the lead ship, the escort. Our after guns are to fire at the aftermost coaster. With a bit of luck we’ll trap the other two ships in between and in mid channel.” He looked at the bow, swinging rapidly now. “Tell him to fire as his guns bear. Without waiting for a reply he lifted a sound powered telephone from its cradle, whirled the handle and spoke briefly. Abruptly ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets erupted simultaneously in a blast of noise and shooting flame, the sea flickering and flashing a pale green in the stark glare.
    Grant had a clear view of’ ‘B’ Gun as he made for the ladder. It was a hive of disciplined activity as shell after shell roared from it’s blackened barrels towards the distant target. It was a fiery demon belching forth a billowing cloud of acrid cordite fumes. The crew were its companions answering its every call in fiendish servile haste. In the flashing light they moved at the jerky pace of an old movie. Duffel-coated and tin-helmeted they laboured like slaves to sate the insatiable hunger of their terrible master.
    On the bridge, enveloped in clouds of choking smoke, men strained streaming eyes as they tried to gauge the results of the satanic activity around the four point sevens. Across the water in short spells of clear visibility the terrible damage could be seen. Massive explosions and great swelling clouds of black smoke, enveloped the target; clouds that were aglow from the flames licking and flaring from the doomed convoy. The lone German escort lay dead in the water, aflame from stem to stern, listing heavily to starboard like a wounded sea bird. Taken completely by surprise, at point blank range, she’d had no chance to return fire.
    ‘ Nishga’s’ after guns shifted target to the next merchantman and almost immediately she swung out of line and stopped in the water; bludgeoned to a halt by the continuous, devastating and rapid fire. Suddenly she exploded, her placid heart ripped out, as her cargo of ammunition ignited. The massive fireball rose rapidly into the sky illuminating the remaining ship, a tanker, aft men could be seen wrestling with her flag, dragging it unceremoniously to the deck.
    “ Cease Fire,” yelled Barr, from behind his binoculars. Above the fearful noise; the gongs sounded at each of the ‘Nishga’s guns and they fell silent; their crews falling exhausted to the cold decks.
     
    *     *     *
     
    The sea boat pulled slowly back to the German tanker, weaving its way amongst the flotsam through oil streaked water.
    The oarsmen were tired; their blackened faces illuminated by the glow from the two fires still burning; they had spent much of the night crossing backwards and forwards between the two ships.
    It had been they who had ferried the First Armed Guard out to pick up the pitifully few survivors from the water. The cutter had collected the survivors from the escort, twenty-five men in all. There had been none from the ammunition ship.
    The prisoners were a sorry looking lot, wide-eyed and dejected, their faces and clothes covered in oil.
    Only one, a crop-headed rugged looking individual, had been defiant, shaking his fist at the boat ’s crew as they drew near. Another, coughing oil had died in the boat. They had simply slipped him back into the water like an unwanted fish.
    Then there had been the trip with the two Petty officers. The ‘Jack Dusty’, to supervise the commandeering of useful stores and a stoker to dip the fresh water and fuel tanks of the enemy vessel.
    The prisoners were ferried across to the tanker. The enemy tanker was carrying aviation fuel, there were no volunteers to crew it; no one, as Wyatt put it. Before adding, ‘anyway, the ‘Flow’s’ a lousy run ashore anyway, more life in the body they had just put back in the