Surface!

by Surface! (retail) (epub)

  Now, at the age of twenty, the Sub expected no warmth in human relationships. Rather he shunned it, telling himself that it was sentiment, womanly, unbecoming in a man. He had no close ties, now that his mother was making her own life: good luck to her!

  The future? Dreams took the place of the future, dreams and a lack of thought. The future held nothing of interest, only the past held whispers of promise. In his mind there was no idea of what he wanted in the years ahead. But then, in war-time, people were killed. Knowing that he looked forward to nothing, the Sub sometimes wondered whether that would not, perhaps, be a logical conclusion.

  * * *

  The Captain, the Engineer and the Navigator sit round the wardroom table, having breakfast. The first Lieutenant is on watch in the Control Room, and the hiss that comes frequently from that direction as the periscope is raised and lowered tells its own story of a careful watch. The Sub, who was relieved of the watch an hour and a half ago, at six o’clock, is asleep in his bunk.

  “Better shake John, Chief,” suggests the Navigator. “Won’t be anything left to eat.” Chief reaches behind him and hangs his fist on the figure in the bunk, and Sub heaves himself up on one elbow and stares moodily at the scene. Smelling sausages he feels better, swings his legs out and eases himself straight on to the locker which serves as a seat for two men.

  “Morning,” he says, his eyes half open and looking for food.

  “My God!” murmurs Chief, looking at him sympathetically.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I’ve heard the expression ‘death dug up’,” answers Chief, sipping his coffee, “and I’ve seen things crawl out of heaps of muck in wet gardens, but – did you sleep well, Sub?”

  “Very amusing. Wilkins – coffee, please!” Able Seaman Wilkins brings it in and sets it down.

  “Morning, sir. Bangers?”

  “Yes, please. Did you eat yours, Chief?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “I’ll have the Engineer Officer’s too, please.”

  “Sorry, Sub,” puts in the Captain. “I had them.”

  “H’m. Wilkins!”

  “Sir?”

  “Have you reloaded the other two Oerlikon magazines?”

  “Yes, sir.” Apart from being Wardroom Messman, Wilkins is also the Oerlikon Gunner.

  Breakfast is finished and cleared away, and Sub turns in again. It is very warm and quiet, an atmosphere full of sleep for the men off watch as the submarine motors slowly along at periscope depth, thirty feet on the depth-gauges. The Captain climbs into his bunk and closes his eyes. Then he opens them again and presses the Control Room buzzer. A messenger appears.

  “Sir?”

  “Ask the First Lieutenant to see me.” The Captain stares at the wardroom lamp while he hears Number One send the periscope down before reporting.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Let me know if you see any fishing-boats big enough to hold the Chinks we’ve got.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Number One moves back into the Control Room, and they hear him say “Up periscope”, the hiss and thump as it rises and stops. There is a loud cough, and Chief looks up to see Engineroom Artificer Featherstone drooping in the gangway.

  “Want me, Featherstone?”

  Featherstone regards him sourly. “Them flippin’ ’eads is flipped,” he announces. The Captain rolls over on his bunk.

  “What, again?”

  “Yessir. I’d like to catch the bugger that keeps flippin’ ’em up, sir. Spend ’alf me time off watch putting ’em right and before I got time to put me flippin’ tools away the bloody door’s open an’ shut a couple o’ times and the bastard’s floodin’ up and jammed!”

  The Engineer Officer sticks his dirty feet into a pair of sandals that should have been thrown away a long time ago. “Let’s see what’s wrong,” he suggests.

  “I know what’s wrong.” Featherstone’s off again. “Some bugger goes in ‘ere an’ does ‘is bit an’ leaves the flippin’ valve open. Or ’e tries to blow ’em with the valve flippin’ well shut.”

  In a few moments, Chief comes back. “He’s quite right, you know. It’s time you people learnt to use the heads. Every damn day of your lives you go in there, and someone hasn’t got the guts to ask what he’s doing wrong.”

  “Grumpy old bastard. If the heads didn’t go wrong occasionally your department ‘d have nothing to do. And it’s you that wrecks them, as likely as not. Shouldn’t eat so much.”

  “Young man, I was blowing submarine heads before you were bloody well born!”

  “Before I was born there wasn’t any such things in submarines. I’ve read about it. When they surfaced at night, chaps sat over the side of the bridge with someone hanging on to their feet.”

  Tommy, the Navigator, grins at the cork-painted deckhead over his bunk. “That reminds me,” he says, “of the story about the sailor in Chatham dockyard who—”

  “Shut up!” barks the Captain. “I want some sleep.”

  Twenty minutes is all he gets, because Tommy has only been on watch in the Control Room for five minutes, having taken over from Number One, before he sights a fair-sized fishing-boat. The messenger shakes the Captain, who tumbles out of his bunk, takes a quick look and orders: “Diving Stations. Chinese passengers stand by in the Control Room.”

  The submarine is on the surface for about two minutes, during which time the Chinese are hurried into the fishing-boat and the only occupant of that craft is supplied with an outsize tin of corned beef and a tin-opener. It is probably the most solid food the man has seen for years; and his puzzled expression is tinged with pleasurable anticipation as the submarine sinks slowly from his sight. Through the periscope from thirty feet the Captain is amused to watch introductions and explanations taking place in the fishing-boat, which is overcrowded enough without the owner and his guests having to bow to each other from precarious positions around the gunwales.

  * * *

  The Sub leant down to the voice-pipe and shouted:

  “Control Room!”

  “Control Room,” answered the helmsman.

  “Tell the Captain: land in sight, red three-oh to red ten.”

  Low on the port bow lay part of the East coast of Ceylon. Trincomali, the base from which the submarine flotilla operated, lay right ahead. Three and a half days ago, Seahound had left the Straits: this evening, she’d be secured alongside her Depot Ship.

  The Captain, wearing only a pair of khaki shorts, arrived on the bridge and turned his glasses on to the hazy, cloud-like line of coast that would soon resolve itself into dark-green forests edged with white sand and an even whiter line of surf.

  “Dead on,” he commented. “I suppose you’ll all disgrace me again, tonight?”

  “Early night for me, sir.”

  “One day, Sub, I daresay someone’ll get back from patrol and turn in early. But not before the Socialists or the Yanks have deprived us of our liquor.”

  “Think the Socialists have a chance of getting in, sir?”

  “A lot of people seem to think so. Get a bearing of the edge, when you can see it.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  In the Control Room, the Signalman was sitting with the Jolly Roger in his lap, sewing on the marks of a successful patrol. A group of men stood around, getting in the light and impeding his efforts with suggestions and advice. The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate, Chief Petty Officer Rawlinson, looked down at the flag with evident displeasure. “This ain’t a submarine. It’s a ruddy gunboat.”

  The Captain stops at the bottom of the ladder.

  “Cheer up, Rawlinson. We may use some fish, yet.”

  “What on, sir? Junks?”

  “There’s always hope of meeting something worthwhile, before we finish.” The First Lieutenant came for’ard, from the Motor Room.

  “Number One: we’ll be in about five. Better get cracking on the brass.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Cox’n in the Control Room.” A messenger went for the Cox’n
.

  “Yessir!”

  “Turn some hands to up top, on the brasswork. Gun’s Crew off watch on the gun.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” The Cox’n went shambling for’ard, roaring names as he passed from compartment to compartment.

  On patrol the going is rough. It is not considered necessary to shave, and it is not possible to have a bath: moreover, fresh water is precious and must be conserved in order that the patrol can last several weeks and there may still be something to drink. Excessive washing is not encouraged. At the end of a patrol, however, the submarine and her men have to look smart when they enter harbour, as smart as any other ship which may have been swinging round a buoy in that harbour for weeks. So the bright-work is polished, jowls are shaved, and there is a queue for the use of the washbasins. Each man has a spotless set of white uniform, carefully stowed out of the way of dirt all through the patrol, kept inside-out for greater safety, so that when the time comes to enter harbour with the eyes of the fleet upon them every man will look what he is, a seaman, and what is more, a seaman in the Royal Navy. It is a form of pride, a pride well nurtured and now a tradition. And proud Seahound looked as she swept through the gap in the boom, her Ensign fluttering wildly and the heavier black flag flapping more lazily from a slightly raised periscope. The casing was lined fore-and-aft by seamen standing properly at ease as they would on a parade ground: the brass in the bridge, the brass rail round it and the bright-work of the gun gleamed golden in the evening sun as the submarine reduced speed and approached the Depot Ship whose decks were crowded with her own men and with the crews of the submarines in harbour.

  Passing the Depot Ship’s stern, Number One ordered “Pipe!” and the Signalman, standing at the after end of the bridge, sounded the “Still”, a high, clear note on a Bosun’s Call: at the same time the men on the casing were called to attention as the Captain faced the Depot Ship and saluted. Loud and clear over the harbour, a bugle-call from the big ship’s quarter-deck answered the salute.

  His Majesty’s Submarine Seahound was home from another patrol.

  * * *

  Arthur Hallet, the C.O., came out of his cabin in the Depot Ship, tightening the cummerbund that served two purposes. First, it kept his trousers up: second, it served as an essential part of Red Sea Rig, the compulsory dress for officers at dinner. White open-necked shirt with epaulettes, black trousers, black cummerbund. It was a smart rig, cool and comfortable as well.

  He turned out of the cabin flat, stopped to look down over the side, a bird’s-eye view of the submarine alongside. Seahound, just returned, was outside the two other submarines on this side: in the morning there would be a reshuffle, the two inside would lie off to let Seahound re-berth alongside the Depot Ship, so that the cranes and derricks could plumb her hatches, haul out the torpedoes due for overhaul in the big ship’s workshops.

  There was pride in his eyes as he looked down at his ship. Another patrol finished, some more of the enemy destroyed, his ship and his men brought safely back. It wasn’t chance that turned a lot of apparatus and a bunch of widely-assorted men into an efficient submarine. He remembered his first impressions of this new command. A cold, autumn morning in Scotland, a dirty submarine in a grey dock: he had met his officers in the base, ashore, and the meeting had hardly been reassuring. He found he had a First Lieutenant who regarded him with suspicion and distrust. He found a Navigator who could probably be relied upon to do his job but who was too quiet and colourless to lend much influence on the character of the ship itself. The Engineer Officer’s attitude was decidedly hostile, and the Torpedo Officer was a young Dartmouth Sub-Lieutenant who happened, at the time of their meeting, to be under arrest.

  Hallet saw that the Engineer was the worst of the lot, and he decided, within a minute of shaking the man’s hand, that this particular Engineer would not sail East in Seahound. Not if he could help it. The combination of familiarity and subservience was vaguely sickening. This was an officer who would try to be popular with the men at the expense of the officers, popular with the officers at the expense of the men. Privately, Arthur would have described him as a tyke.

  He knew the reason for his First Lieutenant’s distrust. He knew how young Commanding Officers were regarded by experienced yet less successful submariners. They called them “Boy C.O.’s”. They were assumed to have got where they were by pushing, by always saying the right thing to the right people. Arthur had an idea that in any walk of life young men who went rapidly to the top would be regarded in much the same way. He understood: he’d feel the same way himself if he were still a First Lieutenant and one of his immediate contemporaries were his C.O. He had no worries about this First Lieutenant, though: he knew the man’s record, and he knew that by the time they left for the East the distrust would be gone. If he had been what the term “Boy C.O.” suggested, perhaps he would have returned the distrust with dislike: as it was, he left it for the next few months to dissolve.

  The Sub was rather a problem. The youngster had done a few patrols, and his record from those patrols was good. The other part of his record was not so striking: as a Midshipman in surface ships he had been regarded as insubordinate and lazy. On his Sub-Lieutenant’s courses, young Ferris didn’t bear thinking about. Now, he was under arrest. He’d have to see the Captain of the Submarine Flotilla in the morning. The story, as Arthur had heard it, was that Ferris and two other young officers had drunk too much on the evening before, that Ferris had produced a .38 revolver of which he was illegally in possession, and that they had hung fire-buckets from the garden railings of the Junior Officers’ Hostel and blown holes in the buckets from a distance of twenty yards. The bullets that missed had fallen in the dockyard around a destroyer’s gangway, and sailors returning from shore-leave had been forced to take cover. The Officer-of-the-day had sent his messenger down to put a stop to the shooting, and the messenger had been sent back with a message to the effect that the officers were only having target-practice. It was after midnight, and the officers had then been placed under arrest.

  After dinner in the Mess, Arthur Hallet sent for Ferris. The youngster stood to attention, just inside the door of his C.O.’s cabin.

  “Well, sir, that’s the whole story. I didn’t think we were doing any harm: that was why I sent that message back, sir. But I’m sorry about the street lights.”

  “Street lights?”

  “Didn’t you know about them, sir?” There was only honesty in the boy’s face.

  “Oh, yes, the street lights. But don’t mention them tomorrow morning.” So the young idiots hadn’t been satisfied with fire-buckets. “Look, Ferris. I think you’ve been drinking too much lately.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, the least you can expect is to have your wine-bill and your leave stopped. Will you give me your word in any case to stop drinking for three months?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your record at sea, Ferris, is passable. Your record ashore is disgraceful. In my ship I won’t have my officers behaving like hooligans. The war’s nearly over now, Ferris: there aren’t many operational flotillas left. There are hundreds of young officers who’d fall over themselves to take your place in Seahound. When Seahound leaves for the Far East, she’ll have only good officers in her. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly, sir.”

  “Very well. I’ll see the Captain in the morning, before you do. Carry on, please.” John Ferris wheeled about, returned to his quarters. At ten-thirty next morning he was given the dressing-down of his life: he was also given three months’ drink stopped and three months’ leave stopped. The offence and the punishment were to be recorded in the ship’s logbook.

  After that incident, the Sub became a model of good behaviour: sooner than leave Seahound, he’d have shot himself. Score One, thought the Captain, as he leaned on the rail and thought of the early days of the commission.

  During the “work-up” period, th
e months which they spent practising every possible evolution, the weather was no help: off the Scottish coast the gales were as they are reported every year, the worst for forty years. Arthur Hallet remembered bringing his ship up alongside a destroyer in Larne, the little Irish port, the rain lashing horizontally, the wind a tearing force that could easily have blown the whole casing party off the casing if they hadn’t the sense to hang on with one hand while they worked with the other at the ropes and wires: heave in, surge, check, keep it out of the water – Number One shouted himself hoarse through a brass megaphone at the men who toiled with frozen fingers on the wave-lashed casing. Seeing that help was needed aft, Number One climbed down and joined them. He’d seen his C.O. do a first-class job in bringing Seahound alongside, and there had been several months of the same sort of impressions. When he rejoined the Captain on the bridge, there was confidence and respect in place of suspicion and distrust. The Captain thought, Score Two.

  He heard, while they were in Larne, that the Engineer was giving a birthday party ashore. That evening he found that Sub was Duty Officer.

  “Evening, Sub. Sorry you’re missing Chief’s party.”

  “I’m not worried, sir.” Next day, the Sub went into the engine-room to hang up some wet clothes to dry. They’d been at sea all day, under the usual conditions.

  The Leading Stoker asked, “Why wasn’t you with us ashore, sir, last night? Proper do, we ‘ad.”

  “I was Duty, Williams, or I’d have been there.”

  “No you wouldn’t ’ve, m’lad. It was my birthday party, see, and I don’t ask young Dartmouth twirps when I have a party!” It was the Engineer. The group of Stokers looked embarrassed. So was the Engineer, when he turned and saw the Captain on the steel step. Later, the Captain called the Engineer aside.