The Cruel Sea

by Nicholas Monsarrat

Ericson was not notably pleased that Compass Rose was based on Liverpool; in fact he was inclined to resent the fact, without being too sure why. The theory was admirable: they came in from a convoy, and there was Grace, knitting away in her little house across the river and waiting for him. But it was an undeniable distraction, at a time when he wanted to concentrate exclusively on the ship: and, in some indistinct way, it seemed to be cheating – he had embraced a hard life and an exacting job, and here now was another embrace, to make things pleasant after all . . . He could not have said why he found that wrong, and certainly he never hinted anything of the sort to her; but it was a fact that he preferred to live on board when they were in harbour, and was faintly irritated at having to find excuses for doing so.

  The man it suited most was Tallow: his home also was in Birkenhead, just over the river from Gladstone Dock, and he had no false notions as to the relative comforts of Compass Rose and No. 29 Dock Road . . . It was a home he shared with his widowed sister Gladys, who had kept house for him ever since her husband died, four or five years previously: whenever he came back on leave, his room was waiting for him, and a cheerful welcome as well. Gladys Bell (Bell had been a postman) worked in a Liverpool office, supplementing a tiny pension: she was fortyish, plain, good-natured, and she and Tallow got on very well together, in an undemanding sort of way. He had hoped that she would marry again, even though he would lose thereby; but there had never been any sign of it, and by and by the idea ceased to worry him. If a decent widowhood suited her, it certainly suited him.

  When he went round to the house on their second night in harbour, and walked into the tiny gaslit kitchen with a ‘Well, Glad!’ which had been his greeting ever since she could remember, her plain sallow face lighted up at the surprise. She had not seen him for six months.

  ‘Bob! Where’ve you sprung from, lad?’

  ‘We’re in for a bit,’ he said. ‘It’s our home port – couldn’t be better.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice.’ Her mind darted immediately to the larder, wondering what she could give him on his first night ashore. ‘Have you had your tea?’

  ‘Tea?’ He smiled mockingly. ‘Have you ever known me have my tea on board, when I can get your cooking just by crossing the river?’

  There was a hesitant cough behind him in the doorway.

  ‘Oh,’ said Tallow awkwardly. ‘Brought a friend, Glad. Chief E.R.A. Watts. Same ship.’

  ‘Come into the front,’ she said, when they had shaken hands and mumbled to each other. ‘This kitchen’s not fit to be seen.’

  In the front parlour, she lit the gas: the overcrowded room sprang to life, as if the hissing noise had been a stage direction. (It was the best part of the shabby old house, carefully cleaned and cherished: the creaking wing chairs were comfortable, the mahogany table sat four-square and solid in the middle, the ornaments were mostly souvenirs brought home by Tallow himself, from Gibraltar and Hong Kong and Alexandria. Lace curtains gave them a genteel privacy, at the cost of three-quarters of the available light: from the mantelpiece, Tom Bell the postman regarded them importantly, as if he carried registered letters for each one of them.)

  Gladys turned from the flaring gaslight, and looked at the two men with pleasure. They were both very smart – spotless jackets, gold badges, knife-edge creases to their trousers: she found herself wondering, not for the first time, how they managed to keep their clothes so nice, in the cramped quarters on board.

  ‘How’s the new ship?’ she asked her brother.

  The two men exchanged glances, before Tallow answered: ‘She’ll never live to be old, I’d say.’

  Watts laughed, scratching his bald head. ‘That’s about the size of it, Mrs Bell. We’ve had a rare trip, I can tell you.’

  ‘Was it rough?’

  ‘Rough as I’ve ever known it,’ said Tallow. ‘We were chucked about like – like—’ He sought for a suitable simile, and failed. ‘Remember I wrote you how small she was? I didn’t tell you the half of it. We were standing on our heads most of the time.’

  ‘What about those submarines?’

  ‘We were the submarine, I should say.’ Watts, warming to the friendly atmosphere, chipped in with a readiness rare to him. ‘Never got our heads above water for days on end. Must be the new secret weapon – the corvette that swims underwater.’

  Gladys clicked her lips. ‘Well, I never . . . You must be ready for a bit of a rest.’

  ‘I’m ready for a pint,’ said Tallow with alacrity. ‘How about it, Glad? Anything in the larder?’

  She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t expecting you, Bob. Why not walk round to the Three Tuns while I’m getting the tea?’

  Tallow cocked his eye at Watts. ‘What d’you say?’

  Watts nodded. ‘Suits me.’

  ‘Half an hour,’ said Gladys firmly. ‘Not a minute more, otherwise it’ll spoil.’

  ‘What are you going to give us?’

  ‘Never you mind.’

  They collected their caps, and made for the door gradually, like boys preparing to play truant and pretending to do something else. She watched them amusedly as they sidled out. Men . . . But it sounded as if they’d earned it. She went through to the kitchen and made ready, happily, to welcome them back as they deserved. Later, in the cosy parlour with a big fire going, they all enjoyed themselves: the two men talked of the trip, and of other trips, while she sat back and listened to them, and threw in an occasional comment. She did not like the sound of Compass Rose; but when she said so, bluntly, they were curiously quick to put in a good word for the ship, to make excuses for this and explain away that. Men, again . . . But it was good to have them there, and to know that they were relaxed and happy, after the hard times.

  As soon as they got in at the end of their first trip, Ericson applied for another officer to be appointed to the ship; it was clear that there was far too much work for a First Lieutenant and two subs to handle, leaving out of account the chance that accident or illness might make them more short-handed still. He presented a good case, arguing the matter first with a faintly supercilious staff officer who seemed to think that corvettes were some kind of local defence vessel, and then incorporating his arguments in a formal submission to the Admiralty: it must have been an effective document, since Their Lordships acted on it within three weeks. Sub-Lieutenant Morell, they said, was appointed to Compass Rose, ‘additional for watchkeeping duties’; Sub-Lieutenant Morell would join them forthwith.

  Morell arrived, fresh from the training establishment, accompanied by an astonishing amount of luggage: he was a very proper young man, so correct and so assured that it appeared fantastic for him to grace anything so crude as a corvette. In peacetime he was a junior barrister, a product of the other London which was so great a contrast to the bohemian world that Lockhart knew and worked in: Lockhart, indeed, could only imagine him in black coat and pinstripe trousers, moving from his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn to a sedate lunch party at the Savoy, or later, impeccably tailcoated, squiring the least impulsive of the season’s débutantes to Ciro’s or the Embassy. He was grave, slow-moving, and exceedingly courteous: in his brand-new and beautifully cut uniform he seemed far better suited to a diplomatic salon than to Compass Rose’s rough-and-ready wardroom. He was a living reproof to the solecism of displaying emotion. He was, inevitably, an Old Wykehamist.

  He and Bennett could hardly be expected to mix. On the first evening, at dinner, Morell watched, with an expression of disbelief which Lockhart found ludicrous, as Bennett greeted the tinned sausages with his usual salute, tucked his napkin under his chin, and fell to on this deplorable dish. Morell offered no comment, but it was clear that the scene had made an impression: later, when he and Lockhart were alone in the wardroom, he remarked: ‘I understand the First Lieutenant comes from one of the Dominions,’ with an absence of expression which was itself the best substitute for it.

  ‘Australia,’ answered Lockhart, himself non-committal.

  ‘Ah . . . I have met one or
two Australians – usually the victims of confidence tricksters. We can never persuade them that in London they are likely to encounter people with sharper wits than their own.’

  ‘It’s amazing how people still fall for that sort of thing.’

  ‘It is not amazing,’ said Morell, after reflection. ‘But it is, at least, continually strange . . . Do we often have tinned sausages for dinner, by the way?’

  ‘Very often.’

  ‘Whether this war is long or short,’ said Morell, after reflecting again, ‘it is going to seem long.’

  That was the only comment he made which could have been construed as any kind of criticism. But in spite of this discretion, he must have come into early collision with Bennett: next afternoon, when work was over, he sought out Lockhart and asked him, with some formality, for guidance.

  ‘The First Lieutenant used an expression which is novel to me,’ he began. ‘I wish you’d explain what it means.’

  ‘What was it?’ asked Lockhart, with an equal gravity.

  ‘He said – ah – “Don’t come the acid with me”.’ Morell screwed up his eyes. ‘”Come the acid” . . . I must confess I have not heard that before.’

  ‘What were you talking about?’

  ‘We were discussing the best way of dismantling the firing bar on the asdic set.’ He paused. ‘That’s not too technical for you?’

  ‘No,’ said Lockhart. ‘But it may have been too technical for Bennett. He’s been trained in a rough school.’

  ‘That may well be the case . . . So “coming the acid” . . .’

  ‘It means that you probably corrected him without wrapping it up enough.’

  Morell smiled: it was the first time Lockhart had seen him do so. ‘I could hardly have been more diplomatic.’

  ‘You must have overdone it, then.’

  The other man sighed. ‘How strange to meet Scylla and Charybdis in Atlantic waters . . . Perhaps I should explain the allusion. There were—’

  ‘Do not,’ said Lockhart, with a fair approximation of Bennett’s accent, ‘come the acid w ith me.’

  ‘Ah!’ exclaimed Morell. ‘Now I understand.’

  They both laughed. Lockhart was glad that Morell had joined them: he promised to enliven the wardroom, though with little intention of so doing, and the wardroom could do with all the enlivenment possible.

  Lockhart himself had his own collision with Bennett soon afterwards. A new Admiralty Fleet Order decreed that sub-lieutenants over twenty-eight years of age, with three months’ sea service to their credit, were eligible for a second stripe, if they got the necessary recommendation from their commanding officers; but when, at the due time, he put in his application through the usual channels – Bennett – he met such a barrage of scorn and sarcasm that he could hardly keep his temper.

  ‘Jesus Christ, sub!’ said Bennett. ‘You must be round the bend. Who’s going to recommend you for lieutenant, after a couple of convoys?’

  ‘I hope the Captain,’ answered Lockhart evenly. ‘It’s within the regulations – it’s on age as well as sea time.’

  ‘Think you’re fit to take my job, eh?’

  Lockhart said nothing.

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ Bennett went on after a pause. ‘Not for a hell of a long time, either.’ He fingered the sheet of paper, on which Lockhart had set out his application in the formal language the occasion demanded. ‘I can’t sign this bloody thing,’ he said peevishly. ‘It’s much too early. Let it stand over for a bit.’

  ‘I want it to go to the Captain,’ said Lockhart stubbornly.

  ‘Well, I don’t.’

  ‘You can’t refuse.’

  ‘I can do anything I like,’ Bennett flared up. ‘You bloody kids make me sick, putting in for promotion before you’ve hardly got your uniforms. I suppose Ferraby’ll be along next, wanting my job too.’

  ‘One thing at a time,’ said Lockhart, angry in his turn. ‘That’s my application. It’s in accordance with the A.F.O. Are you going to put it through?’

  Bennett tried to stall. He really had no authority to hold up the application: he was simply extracting the maximum unpleasantness out of it. He said: ‘I’ll see about it. There’s no rush.’

  ‘I want it to go to the Admiralty before we sail again.’

  ‘What makes you think the skipper will recommend you?’ sneered Bennett. ‘Been doing a bit of crawling?’

  ‘No more than you,’ said Lockhart curtly.

  The wrangle, far from edifying, continued on these lines till Bennett, with a singular ill-grace, agreed to forward the application. In the end it went through, with Ericson’s recommendation, and Lockhart got his promotion. Thereafter Bennett addressed him always, with thick irony, as ‘Lieutenant Lockhart’. But that did not matter at all: he was a step further on his way, and the way itself was beginning to seem clearer.

  4

  The first few convoys followed the pattern of their initiation. They still worked with Viperous as leader of the group, which had been strengthened by Sorrel joining it: they were still, as a fighting escort, untried by the enemy. There were submarines about – other convoys kept running into them – but so far their luck had held: the log recorded no shot-in-anger, only a succession of comments on the weather. This, at least, continued to put Compass Rose to the test: whatever the season, it seemed that the Atlantic could never wholly abandon its mood of violence.

  But the longer days of spring and early summer did, in fact, afford them some relief: watchkeeping by day was certainly less of a strain, whatever antics the ship was going through. They were now divided into three watches, four hours on duty and eight off: Bennett and Lockhart were both on their own, and Morell and Ferraby shared the third watch together. The eight hours off duty were so great an advantage, bringing them fresh to their watch, that it was almost impossible to believe that they had once done without them. Certainly the new arrangements suited Ericson, who could now sleep most of the long day and be available, comparatively rested, at any time during the night. Of his watchkeeping officers, he found that Bennett was all right as long as nothing unexpected happened: that Lockhart was completely trustworthy, and not afraid to call him in good time to deal with any crisis: and that Morell and Ferraby, between them, added up to something like a dependable pair of hands and eyes. He could hardly expect more, from this cheerfully amateur collection.

  But the nights were still a strain and a challenge to them all, whether the enemy were near or far. ‘Darken Ship’ was piped at sunset each day: from that moment, no glimmer of light must show either in the convoy or among the escort – the faintest gleam might beckon a submarine which otherwise would have no suspicion that ships were in its area. That moment when they drew the covers on was always significant: usually there had been some sort of U-boat warning during the day, and if other convoys were running into trouble it must, sooner or later, be their own turn. Thus there would be a feeling throughout the ship, each time dusk fell, that they were approaching uncertainty again, extending the chances of action: from then on, at any moment, there might be a U-boat sniffing the air a few miles off, there might be a torpedo track, there might be a bang close by them – or even in their own guts. The canvas screens were drawn across the entrances, the lights were dimmed inside, the galley fire damped down: Compass Rose, steaming through the cold evening air towards a horizon barely distinguishable from the sky, became a grey shadow clinging to other shadows which she must not lose. In thick weather, when the moon was down, to keep their correct station on the convoy as it hurried through the essential darkness, was a strain on the attention and the eyesight which left them, at the end of their four hours, exhausted and blinking with fatigue. But if they lost the convoy, or got grossly out of station, the price was not simply a red face in the morning: it might be a U-boat piercing the gap they had left, and lives and ships on their conscience.

  There were other cares at night, complicating a plain effort of seamanship. The current orders were that escorts were to z
igzag, so that they could move faster and lessen the chance of being hit themselves; it was a sensible precaution, and one they all approved of, but a zigzag on a pitch-black night, with thirty ships in close contact adding the risk of collision to the difficulty of hanging on to the convoy, was something more than a few lines in a Fleet Order. Lockhart, who now kept a permanent middle watch – midnight to four a.m. – and on whom the brunt of the dark hours fell, evolved his own method. He took Compass Rose out obliquely from the convoy, for a set number of minutes: very soon, of course, he could not see the other ships, and might have had the whole Atlantic to himself, but that was part of the manoeuvre. Then he turned, and ran back the same number of minutes on the corresponding course inwards: at the end, he should be in touch with the convoy again, and in the same relative position.

  It was an act of faith which continued to justify itself, but it was sometimes a little hard on the nerves. He once had a nightmare, and later evolved a fairy story, in which Compass Rose, steaming towards the convoy again on the inward course, never met it: she went on and on, over a blank dark sea which presently paled with the daylight, and there was never a ship in sight . . . And once the Captain had come up, when they were at the very limit of the outward leg and out of touch with the convoy, and had looked about him as if he could scarcely believe his eyes.

  ‘Where are they, Lockhart?’ he asked with a certain grimness.

  Lockhart pointed. There, sir . . . We’re on the outer zigzag,’ he added, to justify a blank horizon. ‘We’ll meet them again in seven minutes.’

  Ericson grunted. It was not a reassuring sound, and Lockhart, counting the minutes, wondered what on earth he was going to say if this time his nightmare came true. When at last the ships came up again, black and solid, he had a surge of relief, which he felt the Captain was aware of.

  ‘Zigzagging on time?’ said Ericson curtly.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Check your course each time you alter. Don’t leave it to the quartermaster – he might make a mistake.’ Then he walked off the bridge without further comment. That was what Lockhart liked about the Captain: if he trusted you, he showed it – he didn’t fiddle about in the background, pretending to do something else, and all the time watching you like a nursemaid. And he was quite entitled to be worried, and to ask questions when he felt like it: if they did lose the convoy, whichever one of them was responsible, it was, as far as the official record went, the Captain’s fault.