Read HMS Marlborough Will Enter Harbour (1947) for Free Online

single-handed … He put the thought on one side for the moment, and said to the sick-berth attendant: ‘Take over from Petty Officer Adams. Have a look at the others first, and then get the midshipman aft to the wardroom.’
    He waited again, as the man got to work. The heavy clanging from below, which had stopped momentarily when the gun was fired, now started once more. Presently the doctor came up to the bridge, to report what he had been expecting to hear – that Guns, and the whole crew of seven, had been killed by the last shot from the U-boat. Even though he had been prepared for it, it was impossible to hear the news with indifference. But for some reason it confirmed a thought which had been growing in his mind, ever since the U-boat had been sunk. They were on their own now, and the only danger was from the sea. His loved Marlborough had survived so much, had produced such a brilliant last-minute counterstroke, that he could not leave her now. Reason told him to carry on with the order he had given down below, but reason seemed to have had no part in the last few minutes: something else, some product of heart and instinct, seemed to have taken control of them all. That last shot of ‘X’ gun had been a miracle. Suppose there were more miracles on the way?
    Adams, straightening up as the sick-berth attendant took over, once again tried, respectfully, to recall the critical moment to him:
    ‘Carry on with that pipe, sir?’
    ‘No.’ The Captain, divining the uncertainty in the man’s mind, smiled in the darkness. ‘No, Adams, I hadn’t forgotten. But we’ll wait till daylight.’

Chapter Two
    There were fourteen hours till daylight: fourteen hours to review that decision, to ascribe it correctly either to emotion or to a reasonable assessment of chance, and to foresee the outcome. What struck the Captain most strongly about it was the unprofessional aspect of what he had done. Down there in the shored up fo’c’sle, he had made a precise, technical examination of the damage and the repairs to it, and come to a clear decision: if the U-boat’s shell had not hit them, and interrupted the order, they would now he sitting in the boats, lying off in the darkness and waiting for Marlborough to go down. But something had intervened: not simply the absolute necessity of fighting the U-boat as long as possible, not even second thoughts on their chances of keeping the ship afloat, but something stronger still. It was so long since the Captain had changed his mind about any personal or professional decision that he hardly knew how to analyse it. But certainly the change of mind was there.
    He could find excuses for it now, though not very adequate ones. Daylight would give them more chance to survey the damage properly. (But he had done that already.) With the motorboat wrecked by the first shell-burst, there were not enough boats for the crew to take to. (But some of them would always have to use rafts anyway, and if Marlborough sank they would have no choice in the matter.) They had a number of badly wounded men on board who must be sheltered for as long as possible, if they were not to die of neglect or exposure. (But they certainly stood more chance of surviving an orderly abandonment of the ship, rather than a last minute emergency retreat.) No, none of these ideas had really any part in it. It boiled down to nothing more precise than a surge of feeling which had attacked him as soon as the U-boat was sunk: a foolish emotional idea, product of the past years and of this last tremendous stroke, that after Marlborough had done so much for them they could not leave her to die. It wasn’t an explanation which would look well in the Report of Proceedings; but it was as near the truth as he could phrase it.
    The answer would come with daylight, anyway: till then he must wait. If the bulkhead held, and the weather moderated, and Chief was able to get things going again (that main switchboard would have to be