The Cruel Sea

by Nicholas Monsarrat

‘And you’ve taken a gunnery course here?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve just come from Whale Island.’

  ‘Did they make you run about much?’

  Allingham grinned. ‘I don’t think we ever stopped, from the time we stepped inside the gates. I must have lost pounds, myself.’

  There was a ripple of laughter round the table. Whale Island, the Royal Naval gunnery school, had a reputation for tough, everything-at-the-double discipline which no one who had taken a course there ever troubled to deny.

  ‘Well, you’ve got plenty of guns to practise with . . .’ He looked for the next name on his list, and read: ‘Raikes, Sub-Lieutenant.’ He turned inquiringly to the young man at the bottom of the table. ‘Where have you come from, Sub?’

  ‘East coast, sir,’ answered Raikes, the sub-lieutenant who was to be navigating officer. He was a brisk young man with a precise, rather high-pressure manner: Ericson got the impression that his peacetime job had probably involved selling some slightly unpopular household gadget, and that he had carried the necessary tricks of speech and habit with him into the war.

  ‘Whereabouts? Harwich?’

  ‘Yes, sir. We did convoys from there up to the Humber.’

  ‘What sort of ship?’

  ‘Corvette, sir. The pre-war type. Twin screw.’

  ‘I remember them . . . You must have had plenty of practice in coastal navigation.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Raikes hesitated, not knowing how much Ericson knew about the east coast, or wanted to know. ‘There’s a swept channel for the convoys, with a buoy every five miles or so. If you miss one of them you probably run aground, or end up in a minefield.’

  ‘How many times did that happen to you?’

  ‘It didn’t, sir.’

  Ericson smiled at the forthright answer. ‘Well, you’ll have to rub up on the other sort of navigation now. How long is it since you used a sextant?’

  ‘Not since the training course, sir – a couple of years. There was never any need on the east coast. But I’ve been practising a lot lately.’

  ‘Good. I did most of it myself in my last ship, but I’ll want you to take it over.’

  The next officer of Ericson’s list was the doctor. ‘Surgeon-Lieutenant Scott-Brown,’ he read, and found no difficulty in identifying him, even without the bright red rings on his sleeve. Scott-Brown reminded him of Morell: he had the same assured, slightly dégagé air, as if, without in the least disparaging the present, he felt all the time that his real background, the structure of his competent life, was elsewhere. He was large and fair: he sat solidly in his chair, giving the impression that it was he who was conducting the interview, and that Ericson was the patient whose duty it was to reveal everything. But that doesn’t matter, thought Ericson: all we want is a good doctor.

  He said: ‘Where do you come from, Scott-Brown?’

  Scott-Brown said, somewhat surprisingly: ‘Harley Street, sir.’

  ‘Oh . . . This is your first ship?’

  Scott-Brown nodded. ‘I was in practice, sir, and then I was doing research work for Guy’s Hospital, and then there were the big raids on London. They’ve only just released me.’ He said this with no apologetic air, as if it were beyond dispute that he had not been wasting his time, before his late arrival in the Navy.

  ‘You’re something of a luxury,’ said Ericson. ‘We’ve never had a doctor before.’

  ‘Who did the doctoring for you?’

  ‘I did,’ said Lockhart. He had been watching Scott-Brown, and he too had been reminded, like Ericson, of Morell. This man seemed patently sure of himself and of his skill, in just the same way, but the fact was a comfort, not an irritant. No more first aid for me, thought Lockhart thankfully: not unless things go very wrong . . .

  Scott-Brown turned in his direction. ‘How did you learn the job?’

  ‘As I went along . . . I’m afraid I must have killed a lot more patients than you have.’

  A brief smile showed itself on Scott-Brown’s face. ‘That’s a very large assumption,’ he answered slowly. ‘I’ve been in practice nearly eight years.’

  Once more the ripple of laughter round the table linked them all together. This might be rather a good wardroom, thought Ericson: plenty of variety, plenty of common sense, something solid and confident about it.

  ‘We could have kept you pretty busy during the last two years,’ he said: ‘I don’t know what it’s going to be like now . . .’

  There were two more names on the paper in front of him, those of the second sub-lieutenant and the midshipman. Out of the corner of his eye he had been watching the latter, a tall, slim, and wonderfully innocent-looking young man who was at present fidgeting with an ashtray in the nervousness of waiting for his turn. He’s almost a schoolboy, thought Ericson: in fact, that was probably exactly what he was, until a few weeks ago. Perhaps one so young could afford to wait a little longer . . . He looked at the other man, the sub-lieutenant, who sat at his side.

  ‘Vincent,’ he said. ‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’

  Vincent was small, dark, and rather shy: before he spoke, he seemed to be gathering himself together, and making a tangible effort to arrange his words properly.

  ‘I was in the same group as you, sir,’ he brought out finally. ‘In Trefoil.’

  Ericson nodded slowly. ‘I thought it was something like that.’ His voice was normal, but within himself he had been startled by the familiar name. Trefoil had been a sister ship of Compass Rose, for nearly two years: she had been the stern escort on the last convoy, and it was she who, blessedly wide awake, had noticed Compass Rose appear and then disappear on the radar screen, and had reported the fact to Viperous. It was probable that he and Lockhart owed their lives to Trefoil, it was even possible that this small shy sub-lieutenant had had a direct hand in it. But he did not want to raise the subject now: it would keep for a more private occasion.

  ‘Then we know all about each other,’ he said pleasantly, ‘and you know what the job entails . . . That leaves you, Holt,’ he said suddenly to the midshipman. ‘How have you been spending your time lately?’

  The ashtray fell off the table with a clatter. Midshipman Holt blushed vividly: the colour rose to his clear face, producing an enviable air of youth and health. Heavens! thought Ericson: he must be about seventeen: I could be his father – in fact, I could damned nearly be his grandfather.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Holt. He collected himself manfully. ‘I’ve just finished the course at King Alfred.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘Er – Eton, sir.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ericson caught Johnson’s eye, and was amused to see in it a perceptible degree of deference. Certainly Eton gave the wardroom a touch of class, a leavening of distinction for the rough sailormen . . . He took another look at Holt, and saw that, in gaining confidence, his face had taken on a lively intelligence and humour. Perhaps it wasn’t simply the Eton label that they would come to remember him by.

  ‘Did they teach you anything about the sea there?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ said Holt, in surprise. ‘It was a very narrow sort of education.’

  For the third time a small laugh went round the table, and again Ericson welcomed it. As soon as this kid finds his feet, he thought, he’ll keep us all young – and God knows we need it . . . A pause intervened, while Ericson looked at them each in turn, and tried to sum up what he and they had learnt. Now we know where we all come from, anyway, he thought: we come from the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the east coast of England, North Australia, Harley Street, and Eton. But the assorted backgrounds had given them a valuable range of experience: Saltash, providing them all with plenty to do and plenty to learn, would have a substantial fund of skill and energy to draw on.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Well, that will do for a start,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a lot of hard work, getting the ship ready for sea, but I know I can rely on all of you to do your best. The First Lieutenant will be allocating the vario
us jobs to you, as far as divisional work is concerned, and of course you have your own departments already: that is’ – he looked down again – ‘Allingham – gunnery: Raikes – navigation: Vincent – depth-charges: and Holt – correspondence. I don’t expect we’ll be ready for trials for another three weeks, so you’ll have plenty of time to get things in running order.’ He stood up, and signed to Lockhart to come with him. At the door he turned and said: ‘We can have a less formal meeting at six this evening, if the gin’s arrived.’

  When the door shut behind them, a silence fell on the wardroom. Johnson was studying an engineering manual which had been open on the table in front of him: Scott-Brown, the doctor, and Raikes were lighting cigarettes: Holt was picking up, as unobtrusively as possible, the fallen ashtray. Finally, after a long pause, Allingham looked across at Vincent, the sub-lieutenant who had been in Trefoil, and said: ‘What happened to the skipper’s last ship? She was torpedoed, wasn’t she?’

  Vincent nodded, searching for the right words again. ‘Yes. She was catching up the convoy after taking a couple of ships to Iceland: we got her on the radar, just after midnight, a long way astern of us, and then she faded out. We waited a bit, but nothing happened, so we reported it to Viperous – she was senior officer of the escort – and Viperous went back and found the rafts in the morning.’

  ‘It was damned lucky that someone noticed them on the radar,’ said Allingham.

  ‘Yes,’ said Vincent non-committally.

  Scott-Brown looked at him. ‘Was that you?’

  Vincent said: ‘I was officer-of-the-watch, yes.’

  ‘Nice work,’ said Allingham. ‘How many of them were picked up?’

  ‘Ten, I think. Ten or eleven.’

  Allingham whistled. ‘Not so hot.’

  ‘What’s the medal he’s wearing?’ asked Scott-Brown.

  ‘The D.S.C.,’ said Holt, the midshipman, readily. ‘And the First Lieutenant’s got a mention.’

  ‘I wonder what they were for.’

  Johnson looked up from his book. ‘They sank a submarine, coming back from Gibraltar. About a year ago. Took a lot of prisoners, too.’

  Scott-Brown smiled. ‘You’ve got an accurate memory, Chief.’

  ‘She was a good ship, Compass Rose,’ answered Johnson seriously. ‘One of the best.’

  ‘Jolly bad luck losing all those chaps,’ said Holt. His young voice and ‘London’ accent were a curious contrast with Johnson’s rough north country tone. ‘I wonder what it’s really like, being torpedoed.’

  ‘Don’t you bother with it,’ said Raikes succinctly. ‘They say it’s not worth finding out.’

  ‘I’m not in the least inquisitive myself,’ commented Scott-Brown.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Allingham. ‘I just want to see Australia again.’

  ‘What a curious thing to want,’ said Holt innocently.

  Allingham looked at him for a moment, and then said: ‘Young fellow, you want to buck your ideas up a bit. Didn’t they teach you about Australia at that slap-up school of yours?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Holt. ‘Convicts and rabbits.’

  ‘Now see here—’ began Allingham energetically.

  ‘I think,’ said Scott-Brown, intervening, ‘that your leg is being pulled, in the best Etonian manner.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Allingham finally achieved a smile. ‘Isn’t there some system of flogging midshipmen in the British Navy?’

  Johnson looked up again. ‘It went out a long time ago.’

  ‘I’m an old-fashioned sort of joker,’ said Allingham. ‘I’m thinking of bringing it in again.’

  In the Captain’s cabin, Ericson was saying: ‘They’re not a bad lot at all, Number One. They’ve had a good deal of experience, anyway – about two hundred per cent more than Compass Rose started with, I should say.’

  Lockhart smiled. ‘Don’t rub it in, sir.’

  ‘I remember you and Ferraby coming into that dockside hut, looking like a couple of white mice . . . You know, it’s funny to have an Australian in the ship again. Reminds me of Bennett.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lockhart. ‘Horrible, isn’t it?’

  3

  It was Holt who normally made the twice-a-week journey into Glasgow, to collect their secret signals from Operations and to see to the other odd jobs which attended the progress of Saltash towards her readiness for sea. After a couple of weeks, however, Lockhart found himself growing restless, as if he had spent long enough on board at one stretch and needed to move outside the atmosphere of routine and detail which was his particular and unending share of that progress. For a fortnight he had been wrestling with stores lists, alterations lists, accommodation lists, and the various complicated schemes which would keep Saltash in running order at sea and in harbour: he was finding it dry work, and he felt that he needed a break. He was also curious to learn what was going on in the outside world, the world that lay beyond the mouth of the Clyde which was still their closest contact with the sea: he had been away from the Atlantic for nearly four months, and the personal interest, the feeling almost of responsibility for the whole ocean, which had retreated under the deep hurt of Compass Rose, was now returning. It was time to be drawn into the swim again, time to find out what was going on and how the battle was faring; particularly so as they would be returning to that battle, with their brand-new contribution, in a matter of a few weeks.

  At breakfast one morning, therefore, Lockhart said to Holt: ‘I’ll do the Glasgow trip today, Mid. I want some fresh air.’

  Scott-Brown looked at him over the top of his newspaper. ‘That’s the one thing you won’t find in Glasgow.’

  Lockhart smiled. ‘I want a change, anyway.’

  ‘Sir?’ said Holt. Lockhart turned to him inquiringly. ‘Sir, there’s a commissioned lovely in Operations—’

  ‘There’s a what?’

  ‘A Wren officer, sir.’

  ‘I prefer that version . . . What about her?’

  ‘They say she’s the prettiest girl in the Wrens. She’s got everyone at Operations tied up in knots.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a Wren who’s responsible for that . . . What about her, anyway?’

  ‘I just thought I’d mention it, sir.’

  Lockhart inclined his head gravely. ‘Thank you . . . Where can one see this paragon?’

  ‘In the Ops Room itself, sir. She practically runs the place.’

  ‘What were you doing in Ops Room, when the signal section is miles away, and on a different floor?’

  The midshipman smiled engagingly. ‘Just keeping in touch, sir.’

  Scott-Brown looked at him. ‘How old are you, Midshipman?’

  ‘Nearly eighteen.’

  ‘I can’t help feeling that you’ve got plenty of time ahead of you for this sort of thing.’

  ‘Don’t rush it,’ said Raikes. ‘Leave a little for when you come of age.’

  ‘In Australia,’ said Allingham, ‘he’d be married by now.’

  ‘I dare say he would be in England, if there were any justice.’ That was Scott-Brown again, precise and authoritative as usual. ‘But there are people who can evade their responsibilities almost indefinitely.’

  ‘One law for the rich,’ said Raikes.

  ‘I’m not rich,’ interrupted Holt.

  ‘You are doubtless well-endowed,’ said Lockhart. ‘It’s better really.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Scott-Brown. ‘Some say that those are the only true riches.’

  Lockhart nodded. ‘A lot of women think so.’

  ‘Particularly the rather older ones, of independent means already.’

  ‘This conversation is beyond me,’ said Holt.

  ‘Then there’s hope for you yet.’ Lockhart stretched. ‘Well, I shall be seeing your pretty Wren, as it happens, because I’m going to Ops Room to find out who’s winning the war.’

  ‘H’m,’ said Scott-Brown.

  ‘H’m,’ said Holt, on a more meaning note still.

  ‘Cough your fill,’
said Lockhart, preparing to leave. ‘I’ve got a good deal of leeway to make up.’

  A barrage of coughing from the entire wardroom followed him down the passage to his cabin.

  On this bleak March morning, the grey town was infinitely drab. Spring must come to Glasgow some time, thought Lockhart, as he made his slow way down Argyll Street, through the crowds of apathetic shoppers, and the depressed hangdog men waiting for the pubs to open; but it’s not happening yet, it simply hasn’t got anything to work on . . . He remembered the weeks he had spent in Glasgow, more than three years ago, when he and Ferraby were sharing a hotel room, and, in their time off from Compass Rose, had walked round the town doing their best to feel that they were gay young blades giving the place a treat. Glasgow had not suited that part, any more than it now suited the idea and the promise of spring; today it had the same dour unimpressionable aspect, the same futureless air, as he remembered from 1939. Presumably something had been happening in the meantime: babies must have been born, love must have been made, money must have been lost and won; but it did not show on the grimy wet pavements, nor in the desolate, half-empty shops, and all the inward-looking pallid faces he passed in the streets denied it utterly.

  One is on one’s own here, he thought, staring momentarily into the window of a cheap jeweller’s shop, where tray upon tray of wedding rings waited for the customers that never came, the sparks that were never kindled. If a man did not carry, within his breast, the urgency, the flicker of risky life, the touch of wilful self-conceit that turned a body into a person, then he would never catch it anywhere in these ten square miles.

  But perhaps it was the war . . . At the Naval Headquarters he collected a bundle of signals and some sealed envelopes, and then went down two floors and walked along a dark echoing corridor until he came to a room labelled ‘Staff Officer, Operations’. He knocked and opened the door.

  One desk was empty: at the other was a girl. She was telephoning as Lockhart came in, and for a full half-minute, as she listened, her eyes rested on his face. He was very glad to have the enjoyment of them for so long, without interruption: they were large eyes, with long lashes, and they were the principal feature in a face of extraordinary distinction. This was not ‘the prettiest girl in the Wrens’, as the midshipman had phrased it – anyone could have that title. She was lovely: there were those eyes, and an oval face with high cheekbones and dark hair swept upwards, and a pale and flawless skin. What have you not got, wondered Lockhart, as he came nearer, and saw that the eyes were grey and that her hands were slim and beautifully kept. He looked down and away, not yet prepared to hold her glance indefinitely. There was a card on her desk, with ‘Second Officer Hallam’ printed on it, and underneath, ‘S.O.O.2’. ‘S.O.O.2’, he thought, without the least surprise: second staff officer in charge of operations: she must be good. But what else could she be, looking like that, lovely, intelligent, her trim tailored uniform as becoming as any ball dress ever made? I’m building this up, he thought, a trifle wildly, but by God I’m not inventing it . . . She said: ‘Send it to me, please,’ into the telephone, put down the receiver, made a note on a pad in front of her, and looked up again. Then she said: ‘Yes?’