The Challenge (A World War 2 Naval Adventure)

By J.E. Macdonnell

“Stand-by torpedo attack!” the order rapped out.
Not more than half a mile away, bulking huge at that close range, came the enemy cruiser.
“Port thirty,” he snapped down the voice pipe, and over his shoulder at the torpedo officer “Fire when your sights come on!” Torps was crouched over his pronged sight. His voice came crisp and clear: “Fire one, fire two, fire three, fire four ...”
“Midships!” the captain roared.
The wheel came off her, and at once she heaved up from her acute lean. Then Pelican’s ancient guns snapped their challenge at the grey monster racing alongside them.
And, clear in the silence between broadsides, a sharp buzzing from the engine-room voice pipe. Pilot answered it and Dutchy Holland heard the chief’s voice from where he stood.
“Bridge. That bloody bearing’s gone. I’ve got to shut down on the starb’d engine.”
Pilot stared at Holland and the captain raised his hand in acknowledgement. He did not speak: he could not speak. There was nothing to say.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piccadilly
• Release date: Jun 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224823352

J.E. Macdonnell

JAMES EDMOND MACDONNELL was born in 1917 in Mackay, Queensland and became one of Australia’s most prolific writers. As a boy, he became determined to go to sea and read every seafaring book he could find. At age 13, while his family was still asleep, he took his brother’s bike and rode eighty miles from his home town to Brisbane in an attempt to see ships and the sea. Fortunately, he was found and returned to his family. He attended the Toowoomba Grammar School from 1931 to 1932. He served in the Royal Australian Navy for fourteen years, joining at age 17, advancing through all lower deck ranks and reaching the rank of commissioned gunnery officer. He began writing books while still in active service.Macdonnell wrote stories for The Bulletin under the pseudonym “Macnell” and from 1948 to 1956 he was a member of The Bulletin staff. His first book, Fleet Destroyer – a collection of stories about life on the small ships – was published by The Book Depot, Melbourne, in 1945. Macdonnell began writing full-time for Horwitz in 1956, writing an average of a dozen books a year.After leaving the navy, Macdonnell lived in St. Ives, Sydney and pursued his writing career. In 1988, he retired to Buderim on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. He died peacefully in his sleep at a Buderim hospital in 2002. He is survived by his children Beth, Jane and Peter.Macdonnell’s naval stories feature several recurring characters – Captain “Dutchy” Holland, D.S.O., Captain Peter Bentley, V.C., Captain Bruce Sainsbury, V.C., Jim Brady, and Lieutenant Commander Robert Randall.

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Stand-by torpedo attack! the order rapped out.

Not more than half a mile away, bulking huge at that close range, came the enemy cruiser.

"Port thirty," he snapped down the voice pipe, and over his shoulder at the torpedo officer Fire when your sights come on! Torps was crouched over his pronged sight. His voice came crisp and clear: Fire one, fire two, fire three, fire four ...

Midships! the captain roared.

The wheel came off her, and at once she heaved up from her acute lean. Then Pelican’s ancient guns snapped their challenge at the grey monster racing alongside them.

And, clear in the silence between broadsides, a sharp buzzing from the engine-room voice pipe. Pilot answered it and Dutchy Holland heard the chief’s voice from where he stood.

Bridge. That bloody bearing’s gone. I’ve got to shut down on the starb’d engine.

Pilot stared at Holland and the captain raised his hand in acknowledgement. He did not speak: he could not speak. There was nothing to say.

J E MACDONNELL 23: THE CHALLENGE

By J E Macdonnell

First published by Horwitz Publications in 1960

©1960, 2024 by J E Macdonnell

First Electronic Edition: June 2024

Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate

Series Editor: Janet Whitehead

Text © Piccadilly Publishing

Visit www.piccadillypublishing.org to read more about our books.

Chapter One

THE FOUR-RINGED captain stepped into the dim hallway of Naval Base Headquarters in Alexandria and took off his cap with a small Phew, of thankfulness.

He was tall and sparse, and though he had arrived in Egypt only half an hour earlier his face bore the same burned veneer as the soldiers and seamen he had passed in the streets.

His calm, authoritative face had been treated by another sun, in the South Pacific, just as hot as this one now beating down fiercely from a cobalt sky. As he walked down the passage he limped a little, favouring his right leg. That was another South Pacific legacy—a splinter from a Zero’s cannon-shell which had lanced into the adductor longus muscle on the inside of this thigh.

Then he had been on the bridge of a cruiser, which carried two surgeons, both of them competent. They had done a sound job of splicing. But the adductor helps pull the legs toward each other, and crosses them. So that now if he wished to cross his right leg over his left he had to help with the palm of his hand beneath his kneecap.

The captain knocked briefly on a door marked Staff Officer Operations and opened it. The commander sitting behind the desk looked up, then got to his feet, extending a smile and a hand. His face, until he saw who his visitor was, had been worried, tired.

Hello, Roger, he said, nice to see you again. I’m afraid I can give you only a few minutes.

This, from three rings to four, indicated an old friendship. The captain sat down, leaning a little so that the weight was on his left buttock. His smile was twisted.

That effusive welcome is all I needed to cheer me up. You’re busy? I understood you had only a handful of ships here.

That’s the trouble, the commander nodded, they’re so few that they’re constantly on the go. Which, he looked up from under his eyebrows, you’ll find out soon enough.

The flotilla’s in now? I didn’t notice them.

Your new flotilla is due in this afternoon, the staff man told him, all six of them.

Six? The captain’s tone was wondering.

That’s if they all make it, his friend answered grimly, "Pelican’s got fuel-pump trouble again, but no doubt the old devil will bring her in." He offered cigarettes, looking up interestedly at his old friend and new Captain (Destroyers).

You seemed surprised that we rate only six boats to a flotilla here. It was easier in the Pacific?

Somewhat, the captain answered, and rubbed his chin. The smallest flotilla the Americans had rated eighteen boats.

The staff-officer pursed his lips in silent and envious appreciation.

It’s a hell of a lot different here, he warned.

So I gather, the captain smiled drily. All right, now, Tommy. You said you were snowed under. But I came here first to learn something about my captains. He leaned back in the chair. I’m waiting.

This disclosure, even more than the commander’s first words, offered the real measure of the friendship between both officers. Captain Roger Moore had flown to the Mediterranean from the Pacific to assume command of the Tenth Destroyer Flotilla, none of whose commanding-officers he had met for a long time.

But he would never have approached the staff-officer for information had he not, twenty years before, joined the Service with him, and been his good friend since. You were very careful indeed from whom you asked an opinion on another senior officer.

I’m damned sorry about the rush, Roger, the commander said, but the flotilla is going out again tonight as soon as they refuel and ammunition.

As bad as that?

Often worse. Luckily this time I don’t have to worry about damage. They must have had a holiday cruise to Tobruk … He lit both cigarettes. Okay, here goes. Every one of your six captains is a good seaman—and, it follows in this unhealthy bit of country, battle-wise. But you’ll know that.

The captain nodded. He had been appointed to this berth in such a hurry that he’d had no time to find out the names of his ship-commanders.

They would be all lieutenant-commanders, which meant they had been long enough in the Service for him to have met, or heard of them, somewhere. Once he knew their names he might be able to begin judging. Who are they?

The commander tapped his thumb with his other forefinger.

Donaldson, McGuire, Curtis ...

Curtis? The rear-admiral’s son?

None other. He’s the youngest, and quite a bright boy. The only trouble is that he’s fully aware of it.

I see, the captain said slowly. Lieutenant-Commander Curtis he had known well enough—with a father of that rank a junior officer was invited to all sorts of senior occasions. There had been talk of unfair patronage in his fast rise to command, but Captain Moore had been too long at sea to place much credence in that sort of envious gossip. If young Curtis successfully commanded a destroyer in this area he commanded it through his own competence, not long-distance parental influence.

He decided to make his own judgment of Curtis. Holland and Kennedy, the commander went on. "You’ll wear your pendant in Wolverine, of course. You’ll remember her? She’s one of the …"

Did you say Holland? the captain interrupted him. Not old ‘Dutchy’ Holland?

There is, said the commander tightly, only one Holland—thank God!

Oh? From what I remember of the man he was a pretty taut seaman.

Taut? his friend growled. Taut, light and bloody touchy! Half my worry’s caused through that old ... nuisance.

The word was mild, but the speaker’s expression of it was almost venomous.

He’s not that old, surely?

On the lee side of forty. And that’s ancient for a destroyer-driver!

Captain Moore restrained his smile. He was climbing up the last leg of the thirties himself.

How do you mean—he worries you?

You should be here to see for yourself. I’ll give him fifteen minutes after he lets go his anchor—then he’ll be storming in here with a fistful of repairs he wants done in five minutes! I don’t know what the hell he thinks we run here—probably a combination of Southampton and Cockatoo Docks!

But he gets his repairs done? the captain enquired gently.

He does! his friend blurted, and then caught himself. I give him priority just to get rid of him! Which, Captain Moore grinned to himself, is precisely the old reprobate’s intention ... He had come to command this flotilla, had to keep it seaworthy, and he viewed Holland’s persistence through entirely different eyes to the commander’s. But he said nothing of his thoughts. Instead:

"Holland’s got Pelican, I imagine?"

That’s right. The damned old bucket should have been sent to the knockers years ago.

The captain found himself in full agreement with that opinion. He had not sighted the ship for years, but she had been well-worn, he remembered, when he had served in her as a lieutenant well before the war. Now, under these savage conditions, she must be held together by rust and little else.

Suddenly, warm and affectionate understanding for Holland’s persistence surged through him. He said: He’s got a problem, Tommy, keeping a craft like that going.

Oh, I know that, the other admitted, shaking his head, but what gets my pressure up is that the old devil seems to think I have nothing to do here but constitute a one-man-band to keep him afloat.

You might try a spot of putting yourself in the other bloke’s shoes—or ship—the captain thought wryly. But he said, mildly:

Well, I won’t keep you further. You couldn’t lunch with me?

I’m sorry, Roger, shaking his head. There’s nothing I’d like more, you know that—if only because of the fact that you’re a new face round here. But …

He stared at the pile of papers on the desk.

All right, I’ll get out of your hair. Some other time, perhaps? By the way, I seem to remember a breakwater from way back ...

It’s still there, on the seaward side of the harbour.

I can get out to the end?

Oh yes. There are a few bomb holes to climb over but you’ll make it all right. Why? You want to see them come in?

I’d like to, yes.

The commander nodded. A man like you, he was thinking, could tell a lot from just watching a line of ships making up for the harbour entrance. He glanced at his watch.

They should be within visual in about an hour from now.

Lieutenant-Commander John Benedict Holland—he could not remember the last time he had answered to his correct Christian name—stood with his short thick legs straddled on the bridge of the last destroyer in the line.

His ship was in that position not because of his junior status as a lieutenant-commander—he’d had his two and a half gold rings when some of his brother captains rated one. She was there because at any moment her fuel-pumps or her bearings or her steering gear might collapse, and so long as she was behind everything else her enforced gyrations could cause no harm.

A cruel opinion might have classed the ship with the man.

He was a little older than her, having been launched in the opening year of the twentieth century, while she first met the water she was to know for so long during the closing year of the First World War.

They had both been at sea for exactly the same number of years—twenty-three. They were both weatherworn, old for the job they had to do. And they were characterised similarly in another direction—both ship and captain were odd, bastards of their species.

When Pelican had been launched she had been in the nature of an experimental ship. Then, thirteen hundred tons of new metal, more than three hundred feet long overall, she had been fitted with most of the modifications gained through the experience of four years of war.

Most ships of her class mounted two or three torpedo-tubes, and four single four-inch guns. Pelican was given six big tubes, in triple pairs; and her guns were mounted in twin turrets.

But with the end of that war she had remained an oddity—no further ships were fitted as she had been. Now, by looking along this modern destroyer line, you could see the influence of the old experimental ship.

They were Javelin Class, brand-new. They weighed nearly five hundred tons more than Pelican, were fifty feet longer, and could speed at thirty-six knots compared to her thirty-one. But the influence was there, in their armament.

They carried, like the old ship, banks of torpedo-tubes, and their guns were mounted in pairs. But where Pelican rated six tubes, her modern sisters boasted ten; to