Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  He could meet Bennett ashore … work it so that they both got leave at the same time. He groaned aloud. It was madness, vile madness. But it was there. What would Leach think, if he learned – one of the nicest men in the navy, besides being a first-rate captain? To gratify this … disease, Tom would betray his friends, shame his family, disgrace his parents. His knuckles ached inside his pockets. He knew he looked pale and ill, but no one was looking at him, and everyone was pale from the long patrol, the endless seas, the endless staring into the dull northern light.

  ‘Bridge,’ the voicepipe from the foretop called. ‘Lifeboat adrift bearing green three-oh. There are people in it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Leach said. ‘Maintain course and speed, sub. Pilot, plot its exact position, speed, drift, and wind.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  No one said anything more. They knew why the skipper was not changing course. There was a fight going on over the horizon and this was a warship of the Royal Navy. No excuse would be accepted, and no mercy shown to a captain who did not head for the sound of the guns at full speed. Tom saw the lifeboat a few minutes later, a small helpless thing, tossing on the waves. They had rigged a small jury mast and sail in it, and were scudding down wind. The man at the tiller waved as Penrith approached.

  ‘Signal “Will return”, in the international code,’ Leach snapped. ‘They can hear the guns. They’ll understand.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ the yeoman shouted across the bridge. The flags whipped up to the peak. The cruiser plunged on, dead into the seas now. The lifeboat became smaller astern.

  The captain walked back and forth across the bridge, head down. After a few turns he stopped by Tom, and without looking at him, said, ‘What a bloody business.’

  ‘It can’t be helped, sir,’ Tom said.

  ‘I know. But that doesn’t make it any less bloody.’

  ‘They looked in good shape.’

  Leach nodded and returned to his pacing.

  Ten minutes later the yeoman said with a broad grin, ‘Signal from Almanzor, sir … Raider on fire and sinking. Am rescuing survivors.’

  ‘Great!’ Leach cried. ‘Port twenty, course reciprocal! Foretop, keep a sharp lookout for that lifeboat.’

  Penrith heeled far over into the turn and everyone on the bridge held on to the forward rail for support.

  Leach shouted cheerfully at Tom, ‘Ready to do your rescue act again, Tom?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Tom said. He tried to answer the captain’s grin, but the smile was frozen in him. He was making a decision even as Leach spoke: and by the time he had answered, it was made.

  He had on his heavy sea boots. The duffel coat would keep him afloat for only a few seconds before it got waterlogged – but those few would matter. He ought to have something heavy.

  The lifeboat became visible, and Penrith slowed. Tom left the bridge and hurried aft to his cabin. He took off the duffel coat, stuffed his service revolver into one pocket of his reefer jacket and the nose cone paperweight into the other. It wasn’t much but it would have to do … that and his determination to go down.

  The cruiser’s frame shuddered as the engines went into reverse. He hurried up the ladders and on to the deck. The same men were there, including Bennett, but Tom did not dare meet his eyes.

  A bridge messenger ran up and said, ‘Captain says not to launch a seaboat, sir. He’s seen they’re all fit in the boat. He’s putting a scrambling net over.’

  Tom nodded and a leading seaman beside him said cheerfully, ‘Reckon we’ll have enough ladies on board for a concert soon, sir. There’s one in this ‘un, too. Skipper’s wife, I suppose.’

  ‘Belay that chatter,’ Tom snapped.

  The killick assumed a serious face, obviously thinking that the Bloke must have had a blast from the Old Man otherwise why would he be in a bad temper at a moment like this – a Jerry raider sunk and another merchant crew to be rescued?

  The cruiser was very close to the lifeboat now. The scrambling net was in place. There were sixteen people in the lifeboat – the whole crew, probably. They were cheering and shouting. British. The woman was young and tall, her husband much older and wearing a pointed grey beard. Tom went over the side and half-way down the scrambling net. A sailor in the lifeboat was reaching out for the net with a boathook. judging the distance carefully, Tom expelled the air from his lungs, let go, and stepped off into a thousand fathoms of water a foot short of the lifeboat’s side, between it and Penrith’s flank.

  He gulped water, sinking fast, stiff and unmoving. It must be over soon. His head was thick, dark, everything cold as though his blood had been frozen in a single instant of time. His lungs were cracking, his thoughts going, going …

  Hands grasped his hair, tugging, slowing the speed of his descent. He struggled, striking out at the person, dimly seen through the water, now facing him … There were two, one at each side. Oh God, they’d got him and he was too weak, almost unconscious, to fight … He was staring at Charlie Bennett at a few inches’ range. The other man had him by the neck, both dragging him upwards. All light went, and with it all strength.

  He lay in his bunk, the captain sitting in a chair beside him. Leach was talking – ‘We’ve pumped a few gallons of water out of you, but Sawbones says you don’t appear to have any other damage. I was afraid you’d be crushed between us and the boat. Those lifeboats are damnably heavy ’

  ‘I’m all right, sir. I apologize for all the trouble I caused, through my own stupidity.’

  ‘It could happen to anyone, in a swell like that,’ Leach said. ‘The two ships must each have lurched the wrong way just as you dropped. Bennett went right in after you and Bailward a moment later. The skipper held off the lifeboat till they’d got you up. They were lucky to get you, though. What on earth were you carrying your revolver for? And this thing?’ He tapped the nose cone, now set back on the table with Tom’s revolver.

  Tom said, ‘I often carry the revolver, on boarding, sir. You never know … That – I don’t know. I must have picked it up for some reason, put it in my pocket, and … I can’t remember.’

  Leach nodded, though there was still a hint of a question in his eyes. He stood up. ‘You get back to sleep And stay off duty till we’re back in Scapa. You remember that convoy idea we were talking about a couple of days ago?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, think about it in more detail. Work out some simple mean-course zigzagging formulas that merchant skippers could understand and adhere to, and I’ll present them to the admiral. Convoys are going to have to come, sooner or later. It’s damned nonsense that raiders – surface or submarine – should be able to approach any merchant ship – even the Mauretania – without risk, unless they’re unlucky enough to pick on a Q ship. We’ll talk about it when you’re feeling better.’

  The door closed behind him and Tom closed his eyes. He felt immensely weary and immensely sad. All his adult life he had tried not to recognize himself for what he was. Gradually the tensions created had surfaced, as the truth thrust itself deeper into every part of his life. Today, unable to face the future’s prospect, he had tried to end a life which could only lead to shame and degradation for his Service and everyone he loved. He had failed. The failure was a verdict: there is no escape. You must live with what you are.

  So be it.

  Seaman Bennett’s face appeared round the edge of the door with a little knock. ‘The doctor said I could see you, sir,’ he said in a soft voice.

  Tom slowly reached out his hand. A part of him was saying, ‘Don’t, it’s disgusting,’ – another part, ‘Go on. touch, feel.’ Charlie took the hand. Tom found that he was squeezing. The other squeezed back. ‘Thank you,’ Tom said.

  ‘I love you, sir ’

  Tom looked into the young man’s soft eyes, now brimming with tears, one rimmed by the purpling bruise. He thought, oh God, I wish I could say it out loud, but I can’t. Not yet.

  The seaman slipped his hand free and went out of the ca
bin. Tom closed his eyes, thinking that he would never sleep again, but in a few minutes sleep came.

  Daily Telegraph, Friday, December 3, 1915

  2ND YEAR OF THE WAR –

  18TH WEEK, 3RD DAY

  The Germans are surrounding their movements in the Western zone with the utmost secrecy and, according to our Rotterdam correspondent, there is much specualtion as to the cause. A French military critic hazards the conjecture that the enemy is preparing another violent offensive, but there is no present sign of this developing.

  Another spy has been executed as the sequel to the verdict of a court-martial in London.

  Down to a late hour of Wednesday the heroic little Serbian force was still holding out at Monastir, and Colonel Vassitch is stated to be receiving reinforcements.

  From the rest of the Serbian and Macedonian front there is no definite news. The Germans claim to have captured some small towns in the northern corner of Montenegro.

  In the Italian Chamber on Wednesday Baron Sonnino, the Italian Foreign Minister, announced that Italy has signed the compact of September 5th, 1914 – to which Japan later also became a party – by which Great Britain, France, and Russia pledged themselves not to make peace except in agreement with one another.

  He also declared that there was every hope of a satisfactory settlement of the questions at issue between Greece and the Allies.

  That the Italians expect the fall of Gorizia shortly is indicated by a report that civil officials have been sent to the front to organize the administration as soon as the town capitulates. Meanwhile the general position on the Italian front shows no particular change.

  Cate looked at the opposite page – in the West, mining, counter-mining, and artillery, otherwise, ‘There is nothing to report from the rest of this front.’

  Rain drove against the windows, shaking them in their ancient sashes. The fields were waterlogged, but it would do no harm to the crop at this season. The dead leaves lay dark in the spinneys, the wind unable to stir their sodden drifts.

  The year was drawing to a close … the year 1915, not the second year of the war: as the Telegraph pointed out, that was only in its 18th week, 3rd day … Africa was cleared of the enemy, all but the indomitable von Lettow Forbeck and his will o’ the wisp native forces. Palestine … quiet, the Canal safe; Italy … no change, but no triumph; Salonika, the same: Rumania, Russia, Serbia, Montenegro – all in trouble … At sea, quiet, the Grand Fleet waiting patiently at Scapa for the German High Seas Fleet to come out … but it was wrong to call it ‘quiet’, for the Germans were waging a new and very effective war under the sea, instead of on it, trying to starve Britain … Taxes, prices, interest rates, all going up, but England not bankrupt yet, by a long chalk.

  And now, another great offensive brewing on the Western Front, according to some of the experts … he couldn’t help putting that last word in mental inverted commas now, whenever it referred to the war.

  Would the blow fall on the British? More probably on the French. They had been at war longer, and they were losing their first fire, he heard … not surprising, considering the tremendous casualties they had had, especially among officers. He thought of the map in his study, which he had studied so often, and of Quentin standing in front of it, his arm still in a sling, saying heavily, ‘When we attack, there’s little that the Germans must defend … They are so far forward of their frontiers – industrial areas, coal mines, rail centres – that they can fall back anywhere, move reserves not to shore up a break-through, but to counter-attack … somewhere far away even, perhaps. But on our side, there are areas which we have to defend. A break-through in them would be disastrous … in the far north, for example, to cut us off from the Channel. We’d have to throw in everything we have to prevent it … fighting on German terms.’

  Cate remembered asking, ‘What about the French? Is there any sector that’s vital to them in the same way?’

  ‘I don’t know, really,’ Quentin had answered after a while, scratching his ear thoughtfully with his free hand, ‘but Verdun probably would be. Yes, Verdun.’

  Stella said, ‘Daddy, how many sets of cutlery would we want?’

  Cate said, ‘Eh?’ then recalled where he was: in rain-swept Kent, with a daughter about to be married. He said, ‘I’d better send you up to your Aunt Fiona’s for the weekend, and she can help you work it all out. And you’ll be in Hedlington, close to Johnny, won’t you?’

  33 Walstone: Friday, December 17, 1915

  Probyn Gorse stood in the doorway of his cottage in the early twilight, about four o’clock in the afternoon. Smoke curled away from the chimney towards the north-east, a fact which he was aware of without specifically noticing it: Probyn always knew where the wind was coming from, and where it was going to. His Woman was inside, washing the dish from his supper. He would have liked at this hour to go to the Beaulieu Arms and have a pint or two. And when he came out the moon would be up, four days from full, casting its golden gleam over bare trees and moving clouds and the rippling Scarrow. But since that dratted DORA, the pubs couldn’t open when they wanted to, only for so many hours a day: the Arms wouldn’t be open till six o’clock, and he had to be on his way by then.

  He stood a full fifteen minutes, barely moving a muscle. What he had to do, and what others had to do, ran slowly through his mind, was severally examined, checked, and put back in its place. The night would be partly overcast, with this slight breeze, warmish for the time of the year, a moonglow even when clouds obscured the moon’s face.

  All was as well as could be expected. The planning had been thorough, and there Guy Rowland had helped a lot. Now came the doing, and he knew that he, at least, would not fail. Nor would young Rowland – he would have made a good poacher himself, if he’d chosen that line of life … Florinda and Fletcher and Bert – they’d do their parts, even though they were not really important.

  Without a word, when clouds covered the moon, he started off. There’d be light enough for the peeping eyes behind the curtain of the second cottage along the lane. The man was an idle labourer, and Probyn was certain that Skagg was paying him a few pence to report at once if he, Probyn, headed towards the Park after he had left his cottage: then the man would slip out of his back door and hurry to Skagg’s cottage close by the main gate, and pass the word – Probyn’s out.

  Probyn did not look towards the curtain, but passed by at his rapid bent-knee gait, and into the village. The street was empty, except for a few women back from late shopping in Hedlington, walking up from the station. Probyn walked on through and into the country along the Taversham road, heading east, away from Walstone Park. A mile beyond Taversham, round a sharp corner in the road, he dived suddenly into the hedge, eased back, and waited.

  No one came, except a motor car, its acetylene headlights hissing as it passed, the rubber tyres crunching the gravelled road, the engine very quiet seeming.

  After fifteen minutes, Probyn slid on through the hedge into the field behind and in the moonglow headed south, crossing the railway, then the Scarrow once more – he had crossed it on the road bridge just short of Taversham – and walked west. The slope of Bohun Hill lay across the sky ahead of him as he skirted the buildings of Lower Bohun Farm, a dog barking once, then along the edges of wheat stubble on the south slope of the shallow hill, round Abbas, keeping well away from the lighted farmhouse, flitting silently along blackthorn hedges, through elm copses, so to the southern limit of Walstone Park. There, outside the four-foot wall which marked the Park boundary, he sat down and looked at the moon. About quarter to seven. He could afford to have a few minutes’ rest.

  He leaned back, his eyes closed, his ears attuned to pick up any untoward sound … The old earl, not this one nor his father, nor grandfather, but his great grandfather, had had the wall built all round the estate except on the Scarrow side, not to keep people out but to make the exact line inside which his keepers could handle trespassers as roughly as they wished. It was also to keep in the fallow
deer, and to force fox hunters to tackle a stiffish jump, rather than burst through a hedge. There was only one gate on this side of the Park. There used to be a gatekeeper on that, too, but since the old Queen died, the gate had been kept locked, and Dan, the youngest keeper, lived in the lodge, with his wife and baby.

  Seven o’clock. He rose to his feet, took an electric torch from his pocket and switched it on, keeping the light down. After shining the light along the bottom of the wall for a few moments he found what he was looking for – a spade, thinly covered with earth and grass. He took it up, measured off four paces away from the wall, and began to dig, fast. In a few minutes he had uncovered a package wrapped in oiled silk. He unfastened the silk and put it in his pocket, leaned the folding .410 shotgun against the wall, put some cartridges in his pockets, filled in the hole. and rehid the spade.

  He was ready: and at that instant, he heard the sound he was expecting to hear, faintly at first, then clearly, coming and going in the clouds.

  Guy Rowland sat in the rear cockpit of the Caudron, the joystick in his right hand, watching the wanderings of the compass needle with half an eye, but keeping his course by following the windings of the Scarrow as it meandered up from the south. The moon, piercing through holes in the clouds, shone here and there on the water, painting it a reflective silver: there was Hedlington, unmistakable, the rectangular bulk of the gaol under Beighton Down and the barracks under Busby Down clear in the moonlight. There was the county cricket ground where he had battled with Rhodes and Hirst and the rest of the doughty Yorkshiremen seventeen months ago – no more country cricket for the duration, though … The engine purred, the wind whistled past his flying helmet and goggles, and he felt as he had every time he’d mounted in the air, since he had first flown solo, this past summer – as though he were not a human being but some new creation, filled with higher powers, higher hopes and dreams, and subject to new dangers, unheard of down there. Though he knew that people were stirring below, the moonlight and darkness made it seem as though the whole earth slept, while he himself felt never more awake, never more alert and tuned for action. I am brooding, he thought, over a sleeping earth, and a sleeping people: I am no longer quite human: if I ever become afraid in the air, it will be different from a groundling’s fear, just as his exhilaration now was an exhilaration none could know who had not flown a bird as right and docile, yet as powerful as this.