The Cruel Sea

by Nicholas Monsarrat

  Presently Lockhart became aware that Ericson had come up to the bridge and was standing some paces behind him, accustoming his eyes to the darkness. As usual, he waited a few moments, while the Captain glanced up at the sky, and bent to the compass bowl, and stared at the nearest ships, and raised his glasses and looked at Harmer, then Lockhart turned, and said: ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘Morning, Number One.’ The gruff voice, the phrase a thousand times used, were as much a part of Lockhart’s watch as the sound of that bow wave breaking below them. Ericson moved up to his side, leaning over the front of the bridge, and stared down at the fo’c’sle, and the seven attendant shadows which were the figures of B gun’s crew.

  ‘Cocoa, sir? It’s just been made.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Ericson took the cup from the bridge messenger, and sipped it cautiously. ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘About half-past four, sir. Did you sleep?’

  ‘A little . . . Anything I haven’t seen in the signals?’

  ‘A routine one about a change of ciphers. And Petal came through on R/T. One of the ships was showing a stern light.’

  Ericson lowered his cup, and Lockhart felt rather than saw that he had stiffened to attention.

  ‘When was this?’ he asked curtly.

  ‘Just after I came on watch, sir. Petal hailed them, and they switched it out.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ The tone, infinitely cold, was no longer a novelty to anyone on board.

  Lockhart frowned in the darkness. ‘It solved itself, sir. I didn’t want to wake you for nothing.’

  ‘You know my standing orders, Number One.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  With anyone else, Lockhart knew, Ericson would have already been in a rage: even now, the margin between control and anger was paper-thin. ‘Anything,’ said Ericson, with extraordinary force, ‘anything that happens at sea – to an escort, to a ship in convoy, to this ship – is to be reported to me straight away. You understand that perfectly well.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Lockhart formally, and waited. He knew that there would be two more sentences, in the same raw tone of reproof, and that Ericson would then let it go. It was not that he was becoming set in any offensive mould; but he really did feel that he should be told of every conceivable development, no matter how trivial, and the idea that Lockhart might try to stand between him and petty interruptions – and was, indeed, perfectly capable of doing so on many occasions – was still unacceptable, and still provoked him.

  The taut shadow at Lockhart’s side spoke again. ‘If anything goes wrong, it is my responsibility.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And I expect you, as First Lieutenant, to set an example to the other officers.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  There will be a pause now, thought Lockhart, and then he will relax; and after a bit he will remember that he often does trust me to an extraordinary degree, and he will want to bring all this back to normal again, and he will do so – though perhaps obliquely. The Captain would never apologise, Lockhart knew, because there was no warrant for it. He was allowed to make any rules he liked, in the interests of the ship or the group; the order that he was always to be called, if they sighted as much as a single smudge of smoke thirty miles away, was a perfectly legitimate one, and he was entitled to give it, and to see that it was obeyed. But behind all this there were other things, threads of a different weaving that were just as strong – the past years, the imponderables of their friendship, Compass Rose, the two rafts . . . Ericson set down his cup, and straightened up again, and looking ahead towards the horizon said: ‘It’s getting to be a different kind of war, now.’

  Lockhart smiled to himself, sensing the first proffering of the olive branch, though he could not yet accurately divine the form that it would take. But all that it was proper for him to say was: ‘In what way do you mean, sir?’

  Ericson gestured vaguely, as a man groping towards an idea whose outline was still blurred.

  ‘It’s so much less personal than it was at the beginning,’ he said slowly. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any room for – for individual people any more.’

  ‘I suppose not, sir.’

  ‘At the beginning, there was time for all sort of things – making allowances for people, and joking, and treating people like sensitive human beings, and wondering whether they were happy, and whether they – they liked you or not.’ Ericson drew in his breath, as if his ideas, cloaked by darkness, were running away with him. ‘But now, now the war doesn’t seem to be a matter of men any more, it’s just weapons and toughness. There’s no margin for humanity left – humanity takes up too much room, it gets in the way of things.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘It used to be a family sort of job, this. Christian names, lots of parties, weekends off if your wife could get up to see you—’ he gestured – ‘all that sort of thing. People could still afford to be people – in fact, they felt offended if you didn’t allow them to be. That was specially true of a small ship, like Compass Rose. It was a very cheerful sort of wardroom we had there, wasn’t it? From time to time it was serious, but mostly it wasn’t, it was just a lot of friends doing the best they could with the job, and shrugging their shoulders if it went wrong, and laughing it off altogether. It was friendly – human – but it’s certainly finished now. It finished with Compass Rose, in fact.’

  ‘Port ten,’ said Lockhart.

  ‘Port ten, sir.’

  ‘Steer oh-six-five.’

  ‘Steer oh-six-five, sir.’

  Ericson waited, while Saltash came round in a wide circle, and settled down on her new course. Then: ‘I don’t mean that Compass Rose was a bad sort of ship, or that that was a bad way to fight the war, at that stage. Far from it. I just meant that it’s out of date now. The war has squeezed out everything except the essentials. You can’t make any allowances now, you can’t forgive a mistake. The price may be too high.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Lockhart.

  ‘Do you remember,’ said the Captain reflectively, ‘that kid Gregg – able-seaman – whose wife was playing him up, and who broke ship and went home to try to fix things up? That’s almost two years ago now, and two years ago I could afford to let him off with a hell of a lecture, and a caution.’ He shook his head in the darkness. ‘Not now, by God! If Gregg came up before me now, I wouldn’t listen to any of that damned rigmarole about his wife. I’d give him three months in prison for desertion, and take very good care that he stayed an able-seaman for the rest of the war. We can’t afford wives and domestic trouble and sympathetic understanding any more. That sort of thing is finished with.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘It’s just the way the war has gone, that’s all. It’s too serious now for anything except a hundred per cent effort.’ He thought for a moment. ‘A hundred per cent toughness, too. I remember when we sank that U-boat, and I had the German captain in my cabin. He was rude to me – damned insolent, in fact – and I remember thinking that if I got just a little bit angrier, I’d probably pull a gun and shoot him.’ He drew a long breath again. ‘If that happened now, I wouldn’t wait, I wouldn’t count ten and think it over. This time I’d plug him and chuck him overboard afterwards – and everyone else who was inclined to argue the toss about it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I know that that isn’t the sort of thing we’re fighting for – but we’ve got to win before we can pick or choose about moral issues. Get this thing over, and I’ll be as sweet as you like to anyone, whether it’s a German captain, or Able-Seaman Gregg, or’ – Lockhart felt him smiling as he came at last to the point – ‘or you.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, sir.’

  ‘I suppose you think, Number One, that this is all wrong, and that you should never allow yourself to be deteriorated by war.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘But you’ve become dedicated to it yourself, surely? You believe in that hundred per cent idea, don’t you? N
o room for mistakes, no room for mercy – no room for love or gentleness, either.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so . . . Difficult, isn’t it?’

  Saltash ploughed on, and the convoy with her, creeping steadily across the dark sea. Ahead of them, on the far eastern horizon, it was already lighter, already a whole night and a quarter day nearer home. Home, thought Lockhart. The Clyde again, the anchorage, calm and rest. Julie Hallam.

  5

  ‘Julie Hallam,’ said Lockhart distantly, ‘I thought you were high up in the Wrens, I thought you were the strictest Wren in the world.’

  ‘So I am,’ said Julie. ‘I terrorize all the others. Tell me more.’

  ‘Then what about the feet, the toes . . .’ He pointed. ‘What could be less official, less strict? How can you justify that sort of thing?’

  Julie glanced over the side of the dinghy, where her bare toes trailed in the gently passing water. She raised one foot, and the shining drops, catching the sunlight, chased each other down her leg and fell inboard. She looked up at him again.

  ‘Do I have to justify?’ Her voice was slow, rather dreamy, as though, at this happy moment, she was hardly listening to what she was saying, and trusted him not to take advantage of it. ‘What regulation am I breaking?’

  He waved his hand vaguely, releasing the tiller for a moment to do so. The small boat yawed, and he pulled it back on its course again. ‘Oh – good order and naval discipline generally. You’re a Wren – fully naval, subject to the Articles of War, and they lay it down clearly that you must not dabble your toes in the water, while in any ship under my command.’

  The foot splashed over the side again, and the boat rocked momentarily. ‘You’re rather sweet,’ she said, ‘when you’re talking nonsense . . . On the contrary, I’ve suspended all the Articles of War for at least five hours. I’m on a picnic, far out of reach of the naval tentacles. I’m in very shabby slacks. My hair is down – literally. Dabbling my toes fits in perfectly with all that. Nelson would approve.’

  He looked at her. ‘Nelson would not approve. But your hair is very pretty that way.’

  It was true. As he looked at her, half-sitting and half-lying on the middle thwart of the dinghy, he was deeply conscious that she had foregone nothing by assuming a holiday air. Enjoying his leisurely scrutiny, he presently decided that it was the shape of her face which was the continuing focus of her loveliness: the dark hair down nearly to her shoulders could not detract from its distinction, any more than the slacks and the yellow shirt could alter the rest of her. Rather did they proclaim it louder, as if her beauty were free to say: ‘I am available in any version – take your choice!’ She was elegant still, without the groomed hair, and wearing washed-out blue denim slacks instead of a tailored skirt: if the elegance were now on a totally different plane, it did not make any difference. Nor could he decide whether, thus relaxed, she was nearer to the natural Julie Hallam, or further away. It was difficult to decide her true métier, and it was not in the least important, when she filled all of them so well. And, beyond all this, to have her exclusive company, at any level, in any circumstances, was still a rapturous surprise, disarming completely the subtleties of preference.

  They were picnicking, as she had said by way of excuse: the boat was a borrowed sailing dinghy, which was taking them, before a light breeze, from Hunter’s Quay to the head of Holy Loch. The early September afternoon could not have been lovelier: as sometimes happened in these bleak northern waters, the relenting sun shone down with spring-like fervour, warming the water, bathing the whole estuary of the Clyde in a comforting glow. Their tiny boat ran between brown and purple hills, leaving far astern the busy anchorage, making for the peace and solitude which were promised them at the head of the loch. Lapped in a lazy quiet, they seemed to be deserting the normal world, whose demands they knew too well, for a private realm which they could fashion to their own liking. He was proud to be taking her there – proud, and happy, and something else as well, something gently beckoning which he could not define, and did not want to. The occasion had, he could not help realising, all the elements of a ‘party’; she was a beautiful girl in a boat, they were alone on a picnic, he was already much aware of her as a woman. But like that first time, when he had not kissed her, so now the moment was not necessarily that moment, and need not become so. What they shared between them – the boat, the ripples that chattered under their prow, the sunshine, the hills – were clearly enough for her, and were thus enough for him.

  Presently, breaking the companionable silence, she said: ‘About Nelson.’

  He smiled, recognising in her a wayward but questing attention, and in himself a delight to be talking to her, on any subject under the sun, so long as her voice still linked him to her by its lovely clarity.

  ‘About Nelson,’ he repeated after her.

  She leant back on the thwart, and the drops of water from her leg fell inboard again. ‘I should say,’ she remarked thoughtfully, ‘that he would have liked my hair, whether it was officially approved or not. He would have made any allowances for a woman, surely? Look at Lady Hamilton.’

  Lockhart stiffened, in spite of himself, in spite of the moment. ‘What about Lady Hamilton?’

  Julie was glancing up at the sail, whose shadow had just touched her face as the boat heeled. ‘Didn’t he come rather near to giving up everything for her – or at least, neglecting a lot of things which were really a great deal more important?’

  ‘Nelson?’ Lockhart drew in his breath. ‘He would never have done anything of that sort, never in his life.’ There was something in his tone which made her turn and look at him, and something in his face which surprised her when she saw it. ‘He wouldn’t have done so for anyone,’ Lockhart repeated. ‘He loved three things – the Navy, England, and Lady Hamilton. He loved them all very much – overwhelmingly, sometimes – but he always loved them in that order.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Julie smiled, still watching him. ‘I only asked . . .’ But her curiosity continued. ‘I didn’t know he was a hero of yours. In fact, I didn’t know you had such things as heroes.’

  He smiled back at her. ‘Certainly. I like dogs, too. And football matches, and beer, and life insurance. Every Sunday we put the nippers in the sidecar—’

  She held up her hand, rather firmly. ‘Just you go back a bit.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am . . . He’s very much a hero of mine, as a matter of fact – a wonderful seaman, a wonderful leader, a kind man, a brave man, a lover whose mistress was perfectly content to bear his child, in or out of wedlock.’ Lockhart, in his turn, looked up at the sail, as if he might find there the words he wanted to use. ‘You know, there was a time when he held all England in the palm of his hand, and all Europe too: a single mistake at Trafalgar – the difference between saying “port” and “starboard” – might have been the difference between winning and losing, and could have changed the map of the world – and he knew it, and he was equal to it. He didn’t lose sight of that, and he didn’t lose sight of the rules he fought by, either.’ Lockhart paused. ‘If I were to give you the words of his last prayer, would you laugh at me?’

  She shook her head. ‘Tell.’

  ‘”May the great God whom I worship grant to my country and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory: and may no misconduct in anyone tarnish it; and may humanity after victory be the predominant feature of the British Fleet”.’

  Now she nodded. ‘That really covers everything, doesn’t it? Right up to date, too. Were those the last words he wrote?’

  ‘No. As far as I remember, he wrote to Lady Hamilton the last thing of all, just before Trafalgar, when he knew the French fleet was coming out and was going to fight. At least, he started the letter, and then stopped and said that he hoped to be able to finish it after the battle.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘He just sent his love.’

  After a moment, Julie said: ‘She must have been beautiful.’

 
He shook his head. ‘Not even that. Most people loathed her on sight: she had a lot of enemies – partly jealousy, partly because she was rather too candid and downright, and she was an easy person to sneer at – even her friends agreed that she wasn’t attractive to the eye by the time she met Nelson. Undistinguished, fat, rather blowzy.’

  ‘What, then?’

  Lockhart shrugged. ‘She had something for him. She was the other half of him, emotionally, the person he had to have, to make up for the difficulty and strain of what he was doing. You know, it doesn’t really matter what a woman looks like, where a loving relationship is concerned. She’s either desirable, or she is not: if she is, her looks and her manners don’t matter, and if she isn’t, no amount of small talk and smart alec stuff will make any difference.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Julie despondently.

  ‘You should complain . . .’

  ‘But if he was so exceptional a person,’ she said, ‘I wonder why he needed a woman, anyway. People like that are usually entirely self-sufficient.’

  ‘I think it’s reasonable,’ said Lockhart after a moment. ‘He was a complete man – a man of action, a man of imagination, a man capable of love. England provided half of what he needed to fulfil himself, she gave him the other half.’

  ‘And they never overlapped, or got in the way of each other?’

  ‘No. That was the admirable part. He was dedicated to both, and there was room for both.’ Then he paused, and frowned. ‘I’ve an idea,’ he said after a moment, ‘that all this contradicts completely something I’ve said to you already.’

  She nodded, and smiled, and sat up suddenly. ‘But I’m certainly not going to remind you, on this lovely day . . . Are we nearly there?’

  They were nearly there; and presently the boat grounded on the rough shingle beach, and slid forward a few feet, and came gently to rest. As they lowered and stowed the sail, they looked about them at the strange secret world they had reached. They were five miles up the still water of the loch, and almost out of sight of its entrance; they, and the boat, were dwarfed by what lay all round them, but it was a benevolent dwarfing, as if they were held within some capacious natural embrace that would never press too hard on them, never fail to cherish. Behind them was the deserted stretch of water, before them a curved beach, a single pine tree, and a ring of silent hills; the sun was warm on their faces, the whole air enchanted. Their voices when they spoke seemed to fall into deep silence, challenging it for a moment, and then becoming lost for ever.