He heard the order repeated, the immediate scrape of wire over the iron deck, someone falling and being roundly cursed by Leading Seaman Morris, who would know by now that his request for a petty officer’s course had been rejected.
“All clear aft, sir!”
This was the moment. “Slow ahead port.”
He felt the vibration through his shoes, the distant thrash of one screw. Dead slow, but enough to carry her forward.
He ignored the bustling figures hauling the fat rope fend-ers along the narrowing gap of water as the spring lifted slowly to become bar-taut.
“Let go forrard.”
He saw the forecastle party dashing towards the bridge, hauling the rebellious wire with them.
“All gone forrard, sir!”
Just the spring now. He glanced aft and saw the stern slowly angling clear from the other ship. Wider and wider, almost forty-five degrees. He raised his hand and heard the last wire screeching through the bull ring in the eyes of the ship.
The Jack had vanished; the hands were already falling in again, distance hiding the patches and darns on their working Number Threes.
“Stop port.” They were clear.
He waited, counting seconds as a fresh-water lighter with a bad list chugged dangerously close astern. There was nothing he could do.
He saw the cruiser’s Captain watching him from his lower bridge, oak-leaved peak shining in the grey light.
“Slow ahead together. Port ten.” He studied another harbour craft and nodded, as if the burly coxswain could see him. “Increase to fifteen!”
“Fifteen of port wheel on, sir!”
He saw Kangaroo ’s raked stem coming around the cruiser’s quarter, heard the shrill of calls, the salute answered by a bugle. Probably the same Royal Marine who had been on watch when he had gone aboard to speak to her on the shore line.
“Midships. Steady. ”
Big Bill Spicer knew what to do; unnecessary helm orders only confused things when leaving harbour. Trust reached in both directions. Martineau looked down at some seamen running aft with spare wires to be stowed away. Did they know him enough yet to trust him? Did they have cause to? He touched the new pipe in his pocket. And back there in that vast Operations Room, where the battle was really fought, Hakka and her consorts would already be only a coloured marker, or an arrow.
Somebody said, “Here comes Harlech. God, she’s smoking a lot today!” and he heard another laugh.
“I said she should try to give it up!”
He must never give up, not for a second. He would crack wide open, and their trust would have been a lie.
“Fall out forrard, fall out aft! Starboard watch to defence stations!” The tannoy gave them no peace. “Hands will exercise action stations in thirty minutes!”
The forecastle was empty, as was the Gunner (T)’s domain aft. A few of the off-duty hands still lingered at the guardrails, some with their special friends, their wingers, others quite alone, watching the land opening out to release them. Wondering perhaps, when, or if, they would see it again.
Martineau took out the pipe, and waited while Kidd took a fix on the old monument ashore, probably as much to occupy himself as to help Seton and train young Wishart.
“Starboard watch at defence stations, sir.”
“Very well.”
Sub-Lieutenant Cavaye had come to the bridge. He had proved himself a very competent officer. Martineau watched a starboard hand buoy sliding abeam. It was a pity he was so unlikeable.
He raised his glasses again and Harlech ’s upper bridge leaped into focus; he could even recognize her Captain’s wind-reddened features. Old-Timer. He would be proud of that.
He saw the smoke, remembering the sky which had greeted their return here. The street, where one brave girl had died, and another had survived. And had saved him.
He could almost hear her laugh.
12 | The Suicide Run
Scapa Flow, the main fleet anchorage in two world wars, was the support group’s next breathing space before final orders were received. Scapa: even the word was enough to set the sailors’ teeth on edge. A grey, cheerless place in the midst of the Orkney Islands, and protected by nets and booms, with gates to allow only authorized vessels to pass in and out.
Fairfax walked along the iron deck, and paused to listen as Ossie Pike, the chief boatswain’s mate, gave instructions to a stand-by whaler’s crew.
“If you fall in this lot,” he gestured around the Flow with his hand, “you don’t drown, you dies of poisoning, see? So watch yer step!”
Fairfax felt Midshipman Seton behind him, so close that he could hear his teeth chattering. He would have to get used to it. The stores people had done well, and there was plenty of warm, protective clothing on board. If the latest buzz was true, they were going to need it.
He looked at the swirling current alongside, dark, like the place and its reputation. The war had been only a few weeks old when a U-boat commanded by the ace Günther Prien had made a mockery of the Flow’s impressive defences. Submerged, he had waited and watched until the boom-gate had opened in Kirk Sound to allow a ship to enter, and had simply followed her through. It was not certain which target he had been hoping for, but the Royal Oak was the first big ship he had discovered. It had been night, and many of her people were in their hammocks when Prien had fired his torpedoes. Most of the first salvo had gone astray, so he had calmly reloaded and fired again. The great battleship so often shown at the beginning of cinema newsreels, her R.O. painted on a forward gun turret, turned turtle and sank. They said you could still smell the oil seeping from her.
Scapa’s defences had been strengthened since Prien’s daring attack, although most sailors classed it as another stable-door blunder. Now only the oil and a green wreck buoy marked the place, reminders of a great ship and her company, over eight hundred of whom still lay with her.
But there was humour too, as might be expected with the navy. Like the story of a sailor who had been caught trying to have his way with one of the many Orkland sheep, and had protested his innocence to his commanding officer by claiming that he had thought the sheep was a Wren in a duffle coat.
Atlantic escorts came and left as swiftly as possible; bigger ships swung around their anchor cables, and prayed that their German opposite numbers would leave their Norwegian hideouts, if only to end the boredom of waiting.
Fairfax had been doing Rounds with Pike, the Buffer, the previous evening after they had finally anchored and secured the ship. Outside the chief and petty officers’ mess Pike had grinned and said, “’Ere, sir, listen to this. The old Scapa ’and!”
It had been “Knocker” White, the Chief Stoker, a man rarely seen about the upper deck, but who obviously had a very fine singing voice. Urged on by tipsy cheers from his mess-mates, he had been finishing what was apparently a song written just for Scapa.
No bloody sport, no bloody games,
No bloody fun, no bloody dames,
Won’t even give their bloody names,
Here in bloody Scapa.
Best bloody place is bloody bed,
With bloody ice on bloody head,
You might as well be bloody dead,
Here in bloody Scapa.
They had continued with their Rounds without disturbing the mess.
Pike saw Fairfax now and grinned.
“Just givin’ these Jolly Jacks a few hints, sir.”
They all laughed, as if it was a great joke.
Midshipman Alan Seton gripped the guardrail below the whaler’s davit and gritted his jaws together so tightly that the pain seemed to steady him.
He had seen how easily Fairfax got along with the ratings, without ever seeming to lose his authority. One of the seamen joining in the banter had been on the first lieutenant’s report as a defaulter just before leaving Liverpool, and Fairfax had come down on him heavily. A bottle, they called it. If you got caught you took what was coming. No grudges. And Fairfax was always so confident.
He had heard his own father say it often enough. “Never try to be popular. They think it’s weakness—wet, if you like! They’ll end up having you for breakfast, mark my words!”
It always came back to him.
He looked away, sweat like ice rime under his cap. It was coming again. He gripped the guardrail even more tightly. Please, God, no.
He tried to think of anything which would hold it at bay. Even of his father, the Rear-Admiral, who never seemed to be satisfied. Seton had two older brothers in the service, both lieutenants, one in the Med when he had last heard, the other on a long navigational course.
Making something of themselves.
He had never understood why his father was the way he was. His mother rarely commented on it, or merely said, “He’s only thinking of you, dear!”
It had all begun when he had told them that he did not want to follow family tradition and enter Dartmouth. Now, he could scarcely believe he had had the courage at that early age to say it.
And everybody else seemed to be better than he was. Under training, even aboard the old cruiser where he had done his first sea time, and where he had been prepared to come to terms with it, something had gone wrong. The instructors had offered little sympathy. “We all went through it—what’s so special about you?” was the main argument. And of course his father always got to hear about it.
He was not good at team sports, and disliked those who were. Only when he had joined Hakka, his first operational ship, had he found a glimmer of hope. The tail-end of the North African operation, when the Captain and several others had been killed, had left him shaken but more confident than he could ever remember. Then the slow passage back to the Tyne where this ship had been built. He felt his shirt sticking to his skin. Impossible in this wet, cold air. But it was.
Newcastle . . . a different world. He had met a subbie from another destroyer undergoing a refit, whom he had known briefly at Dartmouth although he had been in a senior class.
It had been like meeting an old friend. They had met several times, and then his friend had told him that his ship was leaving. They would have a party.
Seton did not drink, not to that extent. He could remember very little of the party, except that their number had thinned out until only his friend and two girls were left. He could not even recall the house, or to whom it had belonged.
He only remembered the girl. Short blonde hair, and a wide, sensuous mouth. She had done everything, had laughed at his clumsy inexperience. He had become a different person again when she had roused him to a state of excitement he had never known before.
The next day before joining his ship his friend had dismissed it airily, the man of the world. “Don’t get so serious about everything, Alan! A quick shag—she expected it, you didn’t. Perfect combination!”
He should have known. Guessed. They had seen enough of those terrible films which showed what disease could do to a man so infected. At first he had refused to believe it.
Soreness, discomfort; you could expect that when you were in and out of the same blanket, on and off watch, trying to learn from your superiors. He heard Fairfax laugh again. Like now.
And that night when they had gone through the Channel and had seen Grebe explode, men on fire in the sea.
They had imagined that he was seasick, or so scared that he had wanted to throw up.
Damn them. Damn them all!
It was not going away. It was worse. He screwed up his face. Worse than when?
“We’ll check the motor boat. It’s coming back now.” Fairfax looked at him. “All right, Mid? Coming down with something? Why not have a chat with the new doc, he’d welcome some business.” He turned aside as the Buffer called out to him.
Seton said, “No, sir. It’s nothing. Something I ate.” He was not even sure if he had spoken aloud, but the first lieutenant was on the other side anyway, watching the motor boat as it spluttered towards the boom.
“Excuse me, sir?”
He turned and saw Wishart hovering beneath the whaler. The boy who wanted to be a naval officer, who had no background, no tradition. An ordinary, middle-class boy, probably with parents who were proud of him.
He asked, “What is it?”
Wishart frowned. “When you lay off a course, sir, and you allow for the current, I’m not sure how you should make a fix.” He half-smiled. “It got me a bit tied up, sir.”
Seton nodded, his mouth like parchment.
“Chart room. I’ll show you. Pilot been on to you, has he?”
Wishart followed him, glad that he had plucked up courage to ask. He watched Seton striding ahead, so smart in his uniform with its white collar patches. He would be leaving for his sub-lieutenant’s course soon. He sighed. He would have no trouble. An admiral’s son; it would be taken for granted.
“Wait there.” Seton did not look at him. “I’ll get my notebook.”
Wishart waited, but all he could hear through the water-tight door was Seton retching, almost sobbing, as if he were in pain.
Leading Seaman Morris, a heaving line coiled over one shoulder, paused to say, “Crawlin’ round the officers’ bums again, are you? You’ll get no change out of that!”
Bob Forward appeared from around the forward funnel. “That’s right, Hookey. Didn’t do you much good, did it?” He rocked gently on his feet, balanced as if for an attack. “I could have told you. Thick as two planks, you must be!”
Wishart could only watch, unable to move. He had seen his friend like this before, with the big three-badgeman in that pub when he had made some sneering remark about him. As if it was always there, waiting to come out. And it was happening again.
The other leading hand said angrily, “Can’t you even take a joke in this ship?”
Forward smiled, but his eyes remained hard, steady. “You’re the only joke around here, matey!”
The door swung outwards and Midshipman Seton said, “Come on, then.”
Forward watched them going to the bridge ladder. Something funny was going on there. Seton looked like death. As if he’d lost a quid and found sixpence.
He smiled and held up his wrist to examine the new watch. Then he turned and shaded his eyes to peer up at the bridge, the clack-clack-clack of the signal lamp. Trouble.
He covered the watch with his cuff again. It was to be hoped that it was waterproof.
Fairfax looked swiftly around the wardroom and saw Tonkyn give a curt nod.
“All present, sir.”
Martineau said, “Please be seated if you can find a pew.”
He had never seen the wardroom so crowded, except for a party. Officers, chief and petty officers, every head of department large or small, their faces set in varied expressions as they waited for him to speak. Behind the pantry hatch he could hear the occasional stealthy clink of glasses, the stewards making the most of their privileged positions while they pretended not to listen.
Not that it could make much difference, not any more. With the other commanding officers of the group, he had listened to Lucky Bradshaw as he had put them all in the picture.
The next convoy to Russia was on. Some of the ships were already gathered in Iceland. Words like essential, vital, strategic necessity, seemed somehow at odds with the personal opinion Bradshaw had expressed to Commodore Raikes.
He looked around at their faces, Kidd with his notepad, Driscoll, keen-eyed, probably thinking of his guns and what would be expected of them. Trevor Morgan, the Chief: a different set of calculations. Miles steamed, fuel, wear and tear of everyday machinery, condensers, fans, everything. And Lieutenant Giles Arliss, the signals expert. He would be more than busy when the group was called to join the fight.
And fight there would be. He said, “We shall leave Scapa in three days, so this is the last chance I shall get to talk to you all together. You will all be far too busy later on, Number One will see to that!”
It brought some grins, as he knew it would.
“It’s a convoy to Ru
ssia.” They knew, of course, but he let it sink in. No doubts. They would all have their own ideas about the Arctic convoys. The Russians were bearing the brunt of the fighting until the Allies could put their feet on European soil again. It was so easy to explain, to justify, but there had been so many disasters. Only last year a convoy had been wrongly ordered to scatter. The merchantmen had been massacred.
He said, “At this time of the year, daylight is reduced to a couple of hours or so each day. The rest is almost perpetual darkness. In its favour, it makes it harder for shore-based aircraft to locate and attack a convoy, likewise enemy submarines. The Russians are in desperate need of war supplies. We must deliver them. Those of you who have not served in those waters before will have heard all the horror stories. Those who have will know that most of them are true.”
More grins, and he saw Pike, the Buffer, nudge his friend Crabb, the torpedo gunner’s mate.
“Our job is what it says. We support the escort commander whenever we can. Anti-submarine work, driving off surface craft, and covering the larger ships in convoy, if so requested.” He looked slowly around the wardroom, faces he had thought he would never come to know, had perhaps even dreaded it. “Go to your departments and tell each man why this is important. You can blame their lordships, you can lay the blame at my door if you like, but tell them.” It was like hearing someone else. “Like most of you, I’ve seen too many men, and women, killed for no good reason. Let us not forget them.”
He saw the new doctor, Surgeon Lieutenant Morrison, fingers interlaced in his lap, the scarlet cloth between his stripes like blood in the deckhead lighting. How did he feel about it, he wondered. After a big fleet minelayer with all the comforts of home despite the lethal cargo between decks, to be tossed into Arctic convoys. One would be enough.
The sailors had a word for that, too. The Suicide Run, they called it.
He gestured to Kidd. “Pilot here will brief you on the possible route we shall be taking, ice and the enemy permitting. The rest you will be told closer to the time.”
The pantry hatch opened half an inch, and he added drily, “After that, some refreshments will be available.” He smiled at Fairfax. “At the wardroom’s expense, of course.”
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