Norris cleared his throat and jumped at the noise the sound brought to the silence around him. He still could not believe that he was Officer of the Watch, for four hours in sole charge of the ship and the safety of every man aboard. For the four months he had been aboard he had been assistant to Lieutenant Fox, the Navigating Officer, and had shared the Middle Watch without complaint. Fox was a hard-bitten professional seaman from the Merchant Navy, who until the outbreak of war had been First Mate of a banana boat. He was an uncouth, outspoken man who frequently gave vent to criticism of his straight-laced companions and all the Royal Navy stood for. As the months passed and the ship took on more amateur officers like Norris, Fox’s criticism and complaints gave way to contempt and finally long periods of silence, broken only occasionally by a string of fierce swearing and rage when an error of seamanship or navigation offended his watchful attention. If nothing else, Norris conceded, Fox was a first-rate seaman, and when you shared a watch with him you had nothing to worry about. Norris had been content to dream and dwell in the brave world of his imagination, and carry out the minor jobs of the night’s most hated watch.
He realised now only too well that he should have made more use of his time. Overnight everything had altered. The watches had been changed around because Erskine, the senior watchkeeper, had been taken off the rota in order to assist the new captain during his takeover period. In a flash Norris found himself in charge of the watch, and, even worse, had been given Harbridge, the Gunner (T), as his assistant. Harbridge was a squat, vindictive little warrant officer of the old school. He had worked his way slowly and steadily from the spartan misery of an orphans’ home to the undreamed power of his one thin stripe of gold lace. The journey had covered many years, through a boys’ training ship, destroyers, cruisers, naval barracks and practically every other type of ship or establishment which flew the White Ensign. He had become used and hardened to harsh discipline, and had never expected anything else. Accordingly, he treated his subordinates with the same lack of feeling and understanding, and had never altered his own rigid standards of efficiency.
Norris knew all this about his companion, and had felt the man’s bitter resentment the moment he had joined the wardroom. Norris had been a teacher in a London secondary school. Apart from a few evenings a week at lectures given by a fierce-eyed instructor at the local drill-ship, he knew little of the Navy. All he knew was that he loved and admired everything about it. The war had been the one final opening previously denied him. After an uneventful few months aboard an old cruiser which spent most of its time anchored in the Firth of Forth, Norris had been sent to a gunnery course at Whale Island. The shouting, noise and robot-like drill had appealed to him instantly, and although he had finished the course not far from the bottom of the list, the impression of the gunnery school had been marked on his mind like a battle honour. He had gone on leave and revisited the old school. How small and untidy it had seemed after Whale Island. The sticky paper across the windows as a safeguard against bomb-blast, the brown glazed tiles and the rain-dappled playground. Most of the children had been evacuated for the duration, but to the remainder, and the members of the dingy staff-room, Norris had tried to pass on the new-found glory and happiness which he had found in his new life.
When he had been appointed to the monitor Norris had outwardly expressed indignation and dismay. Inwardly, however, he was satisfied. The ship seemed big and safe. There always seemed to be another officer or a competent petty officer close by when a small crisis arose. In a destroyer it might have been different, but as it was Norris found himself in his present position with hardly an idea of how he got there.
Joyce, his wife, had been scornful whenever he had dared to mention his inner doubts to her. ‘Don’t you let them push you around, Male!’ He hated the way she abbreviated his name, just as he did her sharp South London accent. ‘You’re as good as they are, and don’t you forget it!’
In his mind’s eye Norris saw himself sitting in the wardroom as he had so often in the last four months. Outwardly attentive and bright-eyed, he had carefully watched and listened to the men who shared his steel world, and had tried to pick the ones he should follow, even copy, and those he should avoid.
John Erskine was his secret hero. Calm, handsome and so very sure of himself. The senior member of the mess, a Dartmouth officer, all the things which Joyce would have warned him about, yet the very accomplishments which would have made her purr should they have come in her direction. Norris liked the way the ratings respected Erskine yet never took advantage of his casual manner. He saw himself like that. Well, one day.
He disliked his immediate superior, the Gunnery Officer. McGowan always seemed to be watching him, just as Fox had once watched him on the bridge. It was more curiosity than concern, he thought, and this irritated him very much. He also avoided Tregarth, the Chier Engineer, and Robbins, his assistant. They were both ex-Merchant Navy like Fox, and kept very much to themselves. He quite liked Wickersley, the Doctor, but the man’s cheerful indifference to ceremonial and tradition marked him as a man too dangerous to befriend seriously. The latest example of the Doctor’s unreliability had caused a wave of laughter in the wardroom the previous day. He had actually come aboard with the new captain, apparently after cadging a ride in the boat, and even offering the Captain a drink in his own ship!
Harbridge’s harsh voice cut into his thoughts. ‘Watch yer course, Quartermaster! You’re wandering about like a ruptured duck!’
Norris swallowed hard with disgust. He heard Harbridge slam down the mouth of the wheelhouse speaking-tube and stump to the rear of the bridge, the sound of his footsteps sounding like an additional rebuke. Norris knew that he should have checked the compass and warned the helmsman himself. On the other hand, Harbridge might have warned him.
A bosun’s mate appeared in the gloom. ‘Fifteen minutes to go, sir.’
‘Very well. Call the Starboard Watch.’ He tried to avoid listening to his own stiff, unnatural voice as he passed his orders. It was like Joyce, he thought. When she spoke to the headmaster, or met some of the awful school governors, Norris could hardly recognise her voice then. At home she changed back again, but in front of what she called ‘our sort’ she used her mock-B.B.C. accent.
Harbridge said suddenly, ‘Bloody helmsman’s half asleep again!’
‘I shall deal with him later.’ Then, in an effort to break the ice, ‘Still, he’s not been an A.B. long.’
Harbridge sniffed loudly. ‘Not the only one either!’
Norris sighed and turned away. The watch was almost done. He had managed it on his own. After this he could meet Harbridge’s eyes across the table without embarrassment.
The whirr of a telephone at his elbow made him start violently. He jammed it to his ear, his eyes screwed with concentration. ‘Officer of the Watch.’ He waited, his heart pounding once more. Probably some fool asking for a time check.
From the other end of the ship came a frantic voice: ‘Man overboard, sir! Starboard side, aft!’
The handset dropped from Norris’s fingers. For several more seconds he could only stare at the bridge screen, his mind blank, his eyes refusing to recognise even the familiar objects nearby. With each agonising second the monitor’s big screws pushed her further and further away from that anonymous man who had brought Norris to the fringe of complete panic.
Harbridge said, ‘What’s up, then?’
‘Man overboard.’ Norris answered in a small voice, like a boy replying to his form master. Helplessly he twisted his head to stare at the swaying bridge, the great tower of steel which he suddenly did not know how to control.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ Harbridge almost fell in his eagerness to reach the voice-pipe. ‘Stop engines!’ Then, as a bosun’s mate scurried into view: ‘Away seaboat’s crew! Man overboard!’ He then turned and stared fixedly at Norris’s white face. ‘You useless bastard!’ He was shaking with sudden anger, but from across the darkened bridge Norris had the impress
ion that he was grinning.
* * * * *
Richard Chesnaye rolled on to his side in the narrow bunk and turned his back on the glare from his desk lamp. He tried not to look at his watch, but knew nevertheless that he had been in the tiny sea-cabin for nearly three hours without once closing his eyes. Through the door and beyond the charthouse he could hear the faint shuffling footsteps of the watchkeepers on the upper bridge and the regular creak of the steering mechanism as the Quartermaster endeavoured to keep the slow-moving Saracen on her course away from Malta.
Chesnaye had had to force himself to leave the bridge. It had been almost a physical effort, but he knew that when daylight came the ship would still be less than a hundred miles from Malta, well within range of enemy aircraft as well as all the other menaces.
He rubbed his sore eyes and marvelled at the amount of ship’s correspondence he had read and absorbed during the night watches. Piece by piece he had built up a picture of the men and equipment which filled the ship like machinery and made it work badly or well. During his one day in Malta he had toured every quarter of the monitor, and made a point of being seen by as many people as possible. He had spoken to all his senior ratings, and some of the new ones as well. Before lunch he had visited the wardroom and had confronted his officers. He was not sure what he had been expecting, but the meeting had left him feeling more than a little uneasy. He had known that the wardroom was comprised mainly of new and untried officers, but there was something more, an air of nervous cynicism, which seemed to border on contempt. Chesnaye did not care what they thought of him. Every captain had to prove himself. But much of their casual attitude seemed directed towards the ship. The respectful but distant interview had been interspersed with ‘What does it matter?’ and ‘What can you expect in a ship like this?’ When an air-raid warning had sounded it had come as something like a relief.
Erskine had followed him around the ship, full of information and quick suggestions which he was careful not to offer as advice. Chesnaye would have felt better if Erskine had been more outspoken, even critical, but he was careful not to commit himself. It was well known that any ship could be under a cloud after her captain’s court martial, but with Erskine it seemed to go much deeper. The memory of Commander Godden kept returning like an old nightmare, and the way that he had secretly undermined the Saracen’s first captain. The monitor no longer even warranted a commander. There was this matter of the sailing orders, for instance. Chesnaye frowned as he remembered Erskine’s reactions.
The ship was to proceed to Alexandria, escorted part of the way by one A/S trawler. It was incredible how short of minor war vessels the Fleet had become. In Alexandria she was to take on ‘military stores’ in accordance with so-and-so signals. When he had questioned Erskine about the stores he had replied with a shrug: ‘Oh, we do any old thing! Hump stores, petrol, bully beef, anything the Senior Officer thinks fit!’ He had spoken with such fierce bitterness that Chesnaye had looked at him with sudden anger.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nobody cares about the Saracen, sir. She’s old, clapped out, like half the ships we’ve got here!’ He had waved his arm vaguely. ‘Now we’re putting the Army into Greece to help out there. That’ll mean ships to support them, and more work for the rest of us.’
‘We shall just have to manage.’
Erskine had given a small smile. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t like this ship, do you?’ Chesnaye had felt the old agitation once more.
‘I’m used to it. That’s about all. She’s slow, out-of-date, badly equipped and manned. Her main armament is so worn out by practice use in peacetime that the barrels are almost smooth-bores! No wonder we dropped shells on those poor pongoes!’
Chesnaye afterwards cursed himself for allowing himself to be drawn. He was tired and worn out after his journey and the excitement of joining the ship. Otherwise he might have been more guarded. ‘When I first joined Saracen it was an honour to be selected. She was brand-new then, a different kind of weapon. But there were old ships in the Fleet as well, even older than she is now. The job had to be done. Any job.’ He had regarded the other man coldly. ‘And if our orders are to hump stores, then we will be better at it than any other ship, d’you understand?’
Erskine had stiffened, his face suddenly a mask. ‘I think I do, sir.’
Chesnaye rolled on to his back and stared up at the deckhead. Of course he didn’t understand. But I should have told him. Made him! A ship was what you made of her. It had always been true. It had not changed.
He thought again of his officers. Very mixed. Two or three strong characters who could make or break any ship. He started once more to mentally sort them into categories. Tregarth was a good man. Not much to say. But in his round Cornish voice, coupled with a hard handshake, he had told Chesnaye that when the time came he could rely on the engine room giving its best.
That’s when Fox, the Navigator, had interrupted. ‘We’ve got two speeds here. Dead slow and stop!’
Fox would have to be watched. Independent, and very stubborn. McGowan, the Gunnery Officer, seemed competent enough. A dead pattern of a regular officer. Like a hundred others, he thought. Reliable, but not much imagination. Then there was Norris, the officer on watch on the other side of the door at this moment. He could go either way. If only he could relax and concentrate on his job. Chesnaye had kept away from the bridge during the Middle Watch in order to give Norris a chance to assert himself The watch was quiet enough. It might be of some use.
The junior officers were all R.N.V.R., except Midshipman Gayler and the two warrant officers. They would behave and react according to the example set by their superiors. How I behave.
Of course, it was a disappointment to be relegated to a kind of store-ship. There was no hiding the bitterness and hurt he felt in his own heart. But, as Erskine had rightly pointed out, the line would be stretched even thinner, and there was no saying what might happen in the next months, even weeks.
The Fleet had scored a tremendous victory over the Italians off Cape Matapan only a fortnight earlier, when in a brilliant night action they had routed and decimated a force of powerful, modern cruisers without the loss of a single man.
But the land battle was something else. After a breathtaking advance along the North African coast they were now being forced to fall back. It was said that even Tobruk, the one hard-fought port of any true importance, was in danger of being retaken.
The Army, too, had problems, it seemed. With more and more troops and aircraft being withdrawn from the desert to help the beleaguered Greeks, and the Germans arriving daily to support the disgraced Italians, it would get a damned sight worse unless some sort of miracle happened.
Chesnaye thought of his officers’ attentive faces and felt vaguely angry. They were amused, even scornful, he thought.
He sat up suddenly and stared round the little cabin. How many captains have sat here wondering about their officers? How many reputations have been formed or lost? Like Royston-Jones planning to hurl his untried ship into a battle already decided, or his most recent predecessor, out of touch but determined, who had ended his command in failure and disgrace.
He felt cold all over, and was conscious of the numbness in his leg. ‘Not me,’ he whispered. ‘Not me!’
Outside a telephone buzzed impatiently. He peered at his watch. Ten minutes to eight bells. There was the sound of running feet, muffled shouts and the sudden jangle of engine-room telegraphs. With a shudder the engines’ steady vibrations stopped, and as Chesnaye jumped to the deck and tugged on his leather wellingtons his mind began to click into place. He had wondered how he would react when the time came. It had been a long while since he had been tried. But the time was now. Perhaps they had overtaken the little trawler escort in the darkness and were about to run her down. He realised that his breathing was faster and his hand was shaking as he groped urgently for the door.
It was all over in minutes. He was grateful
that he had been awake and that the darkness hid the anxiety on his face. He heard himself say: ‘Resume course and speed. Secure the seaboat.’
And as Lieutenant Norris started again to stutter what had happened he barked: ‘Make a signal to escorting trawler. Tell them to make a sweep astern for the missing man immediately!’ Then to the bridge at large, ‘Who was he, by the way?’
Harbridge answered. ‘O’Leary, sir. One of the boat-lowerers. He was skylarkin’ on watch and slipped on the guard-rail!’
‘I see.’ Chesnaye had a brief picture of a cheerful seaman suddenly thrown into nothingness. From a safe, well-worn deck to a nightmare of black water and cruel stars. ‘He should be wearing a lifebelt and safety-light. The trawler might spot him.’
Erskine was suddenly at his side, his face made boyish by his dishevelled hair. ‘Are you not waiting, sir?’
Chesnaye shut out the intruding picture of the terrified drowning seaman, who could probably still see the monitor’s fading shape above the water-crests. God! ‘We are not. I will not endanger the ship for one man.’ He forced himself to look at Erskine’s shocked face. ‘I am far more concerned about the apparent lack of control and discipline. I shall want a full report from the Officer of the Watch tomorrow morning.’ He turned slightly. ‘And, Norris?’
‘Sir?’ Small voice. Shaken. Unsure.
‘Never stop the ship unless absolutely necessary. This area is alive with submarines and heaven knows what else. There are risks and risks.’
Harbridge said sullenly, ‘Another minute an’ I could’ve had the seaboat lowered, sir!’
‘Then you can thank your stars you did not find that minute, Mr. Harbridge. I would have ensured it to be your last order!’
H.M.S Saracen (1965) Page 19