by Maggie Craig
‘Hello there, Kate,’ called a familiar voice. ‘Are ye having a hing? Getting a wee bit o’ fresh air?’
She turned her head. It was one of their neighbours, coming back from the shop with a newspaper and rolls for his family’s breakfast.
‘Robbie’s just gone,’ she called down. ‘On the tram.’
The man looked along the road.
‘Do you tell me that?’ He looked up at Kate and smiled. ‘Well, God bless him, eh? You’ll mind and tell us if you need anything while he’s away, hen?’
‘I will,’ she said, returned his wave and drew her head back through the window. She had promised Robbie that she would go back to bed, so she did. She managed ten minutes before she got up again. She got dressed and made the bed. Then she went through to the kitchen to tidy away the breakfast dishes.
‘I just have to get on with it,’ she told herself out loud, surveying the task without enthusiasm. Ach well, the sooner she was finished, the sooner she could go along to Yoker. What she needed today was company. Jessie wouldn’t mind her turning up early. They would drink tea and then they would take Grace to the park. Being with her sister and her daughter would cheer her up.
She reached for the sugar bowl and the milk jug - removing Scapa Flow’s defences, she thought with a wry smile. It’s a good job the War Office doesn’t know about me. Robbie seemed to think the real ones were pretty solid. Safe as houses, he’d said. Safe as houses.
‘If that man Hitler thinks I’m leaving my house on his account, he’s got another think coming.’
Kate laughed. ‘What are you going to do, Agnes? Send him a strongly worded lawyer’s letter?’
Thirty years old now, she was a mature woman, on an equal footing - and first-name terms - with her mother-in-law. War had finally been declared on 3 September and everyone was just waiting now for it all to start. Agnes Baxter, however, was not the only woman who had stoutly declared that if the yards were going to be working at full tilt for the war effort, she was going to do her bit too - at home in the Yoker. What would she do stuck out in the country? This Hitler was just a bloody nuisance. Like her two sons, she thought bullies had to be faced up to.
Her granddaughter, however, was a different matter, and she had encouraged Kate to make the heart-rending decision that Grace should go off with her Aunt Jessie and her pupils when Britain, en masse, evacuated thousands of its urban children to the safety of countryside two days before the official declaration of war. They were in Perthshire, close enough for Kate to have already made one visit and to be planning another one very soon.
‘Speaking of letters,’ Agnes asked, ‘have you heard from that son o’ mine since he went back after his leave?’
‘I got a letter the other day.’ A mature woman Kate Baxter might be, but she awaited her husband’s letters like any lovesick schoolgirl, and she wrote lots to him.
Dear Robbie,
Well, I’m a working girl once more and guess what? The tracing apprenticeship has gone down to four years and they’re going to give me credit for what I’ve already done, so I’ll be time-served in six months - maybe by the next time you come home on leave! Isn’t that great? The funny thing is that I’m one of the older ones, so the Chief Tracer relies on me to help keep what she calls the silly wee lassies in order. She’s nothing like Miss Nugent (She, I hope and pray, was unique!) I’m enjoying it. There’s a lot of work, but it’s nice having company all day. We have some good laughs - even us oldies who should know better!
She covered several pages, chatty and cheerful, giving him all the news of their families and their friends.
Everybody’s asking for you, by the way. Jessie says that Grace gives you a special mention in her prayers every night. So does Grace’s mother. I’ve tried doing a picture of you, but I’m no good at portraits. Still, it keeps my beautiful easel in use. Have I ever told you about the really handsome man who made it for me?
I will close now so I can get this off first thing tomorrow. I love you always and I miss you more than words can say. Write soon.
All my love,
Kate.
She had no idea how long her letters took to reach him, no idea where he was. She’d got one letter from the training base at the end of August and then nothing for a while. She worried herself sick as news began to filter through of German U-boats attacking British ships. She missed Grace dreadfully, but in some ways it was a relief to be able to drop the air of cheerful unconcern once she was safely alone, behind her own front door.
The broadcasters and commentators were calling this period the ‘Phoney War’. Nothing much seemed to be happening on land or in the air, and it was to be several months before the two sides got to grips with each other in those areas. As far as the Navy was concerned, however, there was nothing phoney about it. The hostilities were becoming all too real.
When a second letter finally arrived from Robbie at the end of September, Kate pounced on it. She read it so often that it began to tear along the creases.
The hard-learned lesson that careless talk costs lives had not yet been fully understood. There were many, even in the forces themselves, who doubted that the war would last beyond Christmas, so the censorship was erratic, allowing Robbie to tell Kate which ship he was on - although not where he was. Well, not in so many words anyway.
Well, what did I tell you? I’m on a battleship called the Royal Oak and I’m as safe as houses. Remember that? As safe as houses - so you can stop worrying about me.
The sea is everywhere here, even when you’re ashore you’re never very far from it. It gives a particular quality to the light. I’m sure you’d love to paint here. There are lots of ancient monuments, all very mysterious and full of atmosphere. I went to this place called the Ring of Brodgar, a circle of standing stones, you would have loved it. Shall we come here after the war and you can paint them and I can write poetry about them?
I bet Grace is loving the country, and it’ll be good for her - all that fresh air and good food. I’m sure they never eat marge! How the locals are coping with the influx might be another story. All those wee wildies from Yoker and Clydebank!
I try not to think about you all the time - after you gave me a row for not keeping my mind on the job! So instead I just think about you most of the time. Give Grace a big hug and a kiss from her Daddy when you next see her. We two will have to wait for our hugs and kisses. How about staying in bed for about a month when I come home? (I can see you blushing when you read that.)
All my love,
Your Robbie.
P.S. How’s the job going? Hope you’re keeping the silly wee lassies in order. If you see Peter Watt at work, tell him I was asking for him.
Carefully, with a smile, Kate folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. So instead I just think about you most of the time. Thank God. He was in Scapa Flow. As safe as houses.
Chapter 33
Everyone said that it couldn’t be done. He was the kind of man for whom such a statement was a challenge. All the same, when the suggestion was put to him he asked for time to consider. He did, studying the charts and plans carefully before sleeping on it. The next day he told them that he would do it. They congratulated him on his bravery and daring. If he could pull this off it would strike a devastating blow right at the heart of the enemy.
They left their home port at the end of the first week in October. It took them five days to reach their destination. Just before midnight, carefully timed to avoid the strong currents of high and low tide, they squeezed their way between the two islands. It wasn’t easy. They almost didn’t make it. He had to risk coming to the surface to get past the obstacles deliberately placed in the narrow channel to try to block it, but he got past those, and remained undetected. Just after midnight on the morning of 14 October 1939, Lieutenant-Commander Günther Prien brought his U-boat into Scapa Flow. Then he went hunting for a target.
Robert Baxter was sound asleep when the first torpedo hit the hull of the Royal
Oak about an hour later. So were most of the ship’s company - well over a thousand men. After all, everyone knew that the Flow was impregnable - didn’t they? There was no need to expect an attack in here, no need for nerves to be on edge. They were at night defence stations of course, the hatches battened down. That was to prove fatal.
Woken by the first explosion, Robbie was not at first too alarmed. It didn’t sound like anything serious: a piece of machinery blowing somewhere on the ship. That would give the men on watch something to do, make the night pass quicker. He closed his eyes and settled himself more comfortably, trying to imagine himself back in bed with Kate.
Twenty minutes later the U-boat fired three torpedoes at the Royal Oak. They all hit home, tearing into the battleship. The lights went out and the ship quickly began to list to starboard. Everyone was awake then, all right, hastily pulling on clothes and making for the upper deck. With most of the hatches closed, there were only really two effective escape routes for those on the lower decks.
There was, however, little panic. Officers and men with torches stationed themselves at strategic points and urged their comrades to keep moving and keep calm.
Robbie, following others along an alleyway, groping his way towards the beam of a torch which seemed a long way off, heard a disturbance: raised and frantic young voices.
‘What’s going on here?’ he asked, stopping at the door of a cabin and peering into the gloom. As long as nobody panicked and started a stampede, they might all get out of here.
The voices stopped.
‘We don’t know how to get out, sir.’
He allowed himself a smile in the darkness. ‘I’m not one o’ the officers, son, but if you walk along this alleyway there’s a man with a torch who’s pointing the way up to an open hatch. Then I reckon we’re all going for a nice swim.’
‘It’s Eric,’ came another young voice. ‘We can’t leave Eric. Something’s come loose and crushed his leg. It’s bad.’
Robbie stepped over the high threshold. ‘Can you lead me to him? Where are you?’ He could distinguish their shapes in the darkness. He put out his hand and it was seized and guided to the shoulder of a man slumped against the bulkhead. Robbie’s fingers passed over his face. It was smooth. Not a man, then, just a boy. Some mother’s son. His hand travelled gently downwards, over the young sailor’s chest and onto his legs. There was no response. The lad must be unconscious.
Robbie drew his breath in sharply at what he felt next. One knee was smashed, the leg beneath it almost severed, the other trapped against the bulkhead by something that felt like a heavy piece of metal.
‘We can’t move it, sir. We’ve tried.’ The speaker was close to tears.
‘Let’s all try.’
They were right. There was no budging the object. It seemed to have lodged itself in the bulkhead. The only way this boy was leaving the ship was without his legs. His friends, thought Robert Baxter, didn’t need to know that. They were dangerously close to hysteria as it was; all credit to them for staying with their injured comrade.
He was moaning in pain now, having regained consciousness during their attempts to free him. Robbie rose to his feet and spoke calmly.
‘You two go on,’ he said ‘and tell the first officer you come across that we need a medical team down here. All right? I’ll stay with your mate till help comes.’
They argued, but he insisted, asking only that when he crouched down, they help guide the boy’s head onto his lap, so that he could give him comfort. The ship gave another list to starboard. One of the boys whimpered.
‘Go!’ Robbie ordered. ‘There’s no time to lose!’
One of them gripped him soundlessly by the hand. Then he heard a ‘God bless you, sir,’ and they were gone. Hadn’t he told them that he wasn’t an officer? Ach well, maybe he deserved the promotion at that. He laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder, a bit of human contact. The moans were growing quieter now.
He heard the water coming. It was whooshing along the alleyway, although it was some distance away yet. The great ship gave another lurch.
‘Not long now.’ He patted the boy’s shoulder, but there was no answer. He must have slipped back into unconsciousness. That was a mercy, at least.
The sound of the approaching water was growing louder. He knew that it was completely unstoppable. Funny, that. He had never felt so alive. Robert Baxter muttered a prayer and squeezed his eyes tight shut.
She was there, turning her head to smile at him, her green eyes bright and her bonnie hair being blown across her face by the wind off the river... His last conscious thought was of Kate, her name the last word on his lips. Then the sea took him.
Kate sat bolt upright, heart racing, blood pounding through her ears. She was in Perthshire, visiting Grace and Jessie.
‘Mammy?’ Grace’s voice was puzzled. Jessie, in the other bed in the room, hadn’t stirred.
It’s all right, pet,’ Kate said, patting her daughter’s hand. ‘Go back to sleep.’
Soon the quiet breathing told her that Grace was asleep again, but she herself slept only fitfully, rising early to open the blackout curtains on the misty October dawn. Icy fingers were clutching at her heart. Something had happened. She knew it had.
Chapter 34
Her grief was to be overwhelming - so total that Jessie Cameron began to secretly worry that her sister might never recover from the blow fate had dealt her. Grief was not, however, the first emotion that Kate was to experience in those terrible days.
The first one was fear - a wave of cold terror which swept through her body when she heard the official announcement on the wireless, delivered in the measured tones of a BBC broadcaster.
‘This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news. The Secretary of the Admiralty regrets to announce that HMS Royal Oak has been sunk, it is believed by U-boat action.’
Kate’s frozen brain heard one more word. Survivors. She heard it and she clung onto it, so there was hope - for a while. As the days wore on and lists of survivors’ names were published, she searched in vain for his. Even when the official letter finally came, she refused to give up.
‘What if he managed to get ashore?’ she speculated feverishly. ‘Maybe he was hurt - or ill after being in the water. Maybe somebody up there’s looking after him, in some wee isolated farmhouse on one of the islands. There’s a lot of islands - Robbie told me there were. They can’t have checked them all, can they?’
The people who loved her shook their heads, reluctant to take the lifeline away from her but not wanting to give her false hope either. Only Agnes Baxter, devastated by the loss of her eldest son, agreed with Kate. Something like that could easily have happened. In the weeks that followed the two women clung to each other in their shared grief.
Eventually, as winter drew on, Agnes began to shake her head too, frowning as she regarded her pale and thin daughter-in-law. The lassie was going to make herself ill if she went on like this. She said as much to Jessie Cameron, called home to Clydebank to see what she could do, on this occasion having left Grace with their landlady in Pitlochry.
‘Can you not do something, hen?’ Agnes asked, her face lined with worry. ‘She’ll listen to you.’
Jessie didn’t have Agnes’s confidence, but she was desperately worried about Kate. So she simply told her sister that she was coming back to Perthshire with her. Kate turned huge eyes on her.
‘I can’t, Jessie. What if he comes home and I’m not here? That would be terrible, don’t you see?’
Jessie, crouching on the floor in front of Kate’s chair, spoke gently.
‘Aye, that would be terrible, but we’ll tell all the neighbours where you’re going. We’ll leave our address in Pitlochry. There’s a telephone there, as you know, so he could go to a box and get in touch straight away.’
Jessie stopped short. Robbie was never going to get in touch, but Kate wasn’t ready to admit that yet. She forced down the lump in her throat and reached for Kate’s hand, lying lifelessly
in her lap.
‘Come on, Kate. Come with us. It would be good for you and it would be good for Grace.’ As she had hoped, the mention of Grace’s name had roused Kate. ‘She misses her Daddy too, you know.’ Wondering though she was if she was a monster to push her sister so hard, Jessie pressed her advantage. ‘Grace needs you, Kate.’
Kate’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Jessie!’
‘Wheesht now. Come on.’ Rising swiftly to her feet, Jessie slid an arm around Kate’s shoulders. ‘You’ll come back with me, then? For Grace’s sake? And to help me entertain all the wee horrors at the weekend? So they don’t run wild and have all the posh folk in Pitlochry looking down their noses at us.’ She put on the pan loaf. ‘ “Oh dear, look at all these dreadful little working-class children.” ’ Jessie reverted to her own voice. ‘I need your help, Kate. Honest. For the honour of Yoker. That’s better.’
For Kate had managed a watery smile.
So she went to Perthshire. Anniversaries came and went. Six months since the Royal Oak had sunk. A year. Kate found that you couldn’t put a time limit on grief. One day she would realize that she had laughed at something Jessie had said. The next she would be once more in the depths.
Being Kate, she kept most of it to herself. Jessie had been quite right. Grace did need her Mammy. I need you to be strong. That’s what Robbie had said that last morning. For Grace and for him Kate did her level best. She made herself useful around the house too, taking on her share and more of the housework, cooking and shopping.
With Jessie, she began to build up a circle of acquaintances in their new home. They were billetted on a Mrs Robertson, a middle-aged widow who lived in a spacious Victorian villa in Pitlochry. Set on a road which climbed steeply up from the main street, it had a terraced garden at the front and a large green sward at the back surrounded by trees. Grace was clearly entranced by it all. In the winter she and the three other children staying with them played endless games of hide and seek in the rambling old house. When the spring arrived she followed Mrs Robertson and her gardener about like a little dog, delighting their hostess by her eagerness to learn the names of all the flowers and by the charming little drawings she made of them.