“Brown,” he said, “that was the first time in my life that I have heard one officer deliberately insult another in the presence of ratings. Is that sort of thing a habit of yours?”
“I don’t see that kid as an officer. He’s hardly weaned, and he thinks he’s some sort of bloody Admiral.”
“That’s neither here nor there. This is one of His Majesty’s Ships, and I’ll not have an Engineer Officer in her who behaves like a hard case in the stokehold of a Panamanian tramp. What are you going to do about it, Brown?”
“I do my job, sir.”
“About half of it. I’m taking a happy ship away when we leave, Brown. I don’t think you fit in.”
“Suits me, sir.”
“Very good. I’ll ask for a relief for you when we get in.” Score Three. And that was the hardest part over and done with. Now he could get on with the job in a better atmosphere. But other troubles came along, too. There was a theft, and a man charged, punishment by Warrant. There was a call at a small Scottish port where a bunch of seamen got themselves mixed up in a dance-hall fight: someone was hurt, a knife wound, and the dance-hall people blamed one of the Seahounds. The Sub was Duty Officer when a Lieutenant from the shore base rang through on the telephone, told him to send a patrol to the dance-hall.
“Sorry,” replied the Sub. “I have only the Duty Watch on board, and I can’t let any of them go.”
“I’m giving you an order.”
“I am acting under the orders of my Commanding Officer.”
“Do you realise that men from your ship are tearing the place apart, you young fool?”
The Sub didn’t like being called names by strange, shore-based officers. “I think that’s extremely unlikely,” he answered.
The Captain, returning later, backed him up. But as a result they were forbidden to enter the port: on subsequent exercises, they anchored outside. Arthur Hallet smiled when he heard the Signalman remark, “Thank God f’ that. ’Oo’d want to spend a night in that ’orrible little ’ole?” Where they lay at anchor, it was blowing a gale. That same night, over a bottle of whisky, the Captain told Number One the story of how he had lost a year’s seniority once, by striking a policeman in Malta. It was the sort of story he had not been able to tell before, when he was regarded as a pusher, as a man who had got on by always being a good boy.
The gale increased, and Seahound dragged anchor: while they were moving her to a more sheltered berth, the freezing wind was warmed by the language thrown against it. There was a healthy spirit among the smells of shale oil and wet clothes, the talk of leave and the eagerness to sail and join their flotilla.
The Captain remembered the relief that he had felt at that time: now, looking down on his submarine from the Depot Ship’s rail, he knew that he commanded a ship as happy and as efficient as any that floated.
He lit a cigarette, turned and headed towards the Wardroom. As he appeared, the Captain of another submarine hailed him.
“Be with you in a moment, Barney.” Arthur Hallet crossed the room, joined his First Lieutenant who had a drink already poured for him.
Chapter 2
The Sub and the Navigator lived not in the Depot Ship itself but in another large ship, an old passenger liner which lay at anchor close by and was used as an accommodation ship for some of the crews and for junior officers. As far as the junior officers were concerned this was a very satisfactory arrangement, since with only junior officers using the Mess, life was considerably less formal than in the Wardroom of the Depot Ship. Certainly there is nothing formal about the game called Bok-Bok. This game had been introduced to the flotilla by a group of South African officers, and since the first introduction it had remained a firm favourite amongst after-dinner recreations. Two teams are drawn, the leaders choosing them with an eye to weight and stamina. A toss decides which team goes first to the wall, where they form a line, crouching one behind the other, each man’s head between the legs of the man in front of him. Hang on with your arms, bind tight like a rugger scrum, and wait for Jannie van Rensburg to come down like a ton of bricks on top of you. They come rapidly, the other team, one after the other, leaping high in the air in order to land as heavily as possible on the enemy line. If you’ve been the man under Jannie van Rensburg, you will not be expected to take part in the following bout.
At about midnight everyone stripped and dived over the side to cool off, another thing that was not allowed in the Depot Ship, where senior officers were present to enforce the regulations. It felt good, to get some exhausting exercise after three weeks patrol.
* * *
It was funny to think that people used to pay a lot of money to travel from one place to another in this old ship. If anything there was less room in the cabins than there was in the Wardroom of the submarine, and the place was alive with cockroaches. Cockroaches have a musty smell all of their own, and their breeding capacity would fill rabbits with envy: getting rid of them had always been a problem. Lying there in his bunk and listening to them nibbling something in the ventilation trunk over his head, the Sub remembered how they had tried to get rid of the pests in the wardroom of a destroyer. They put a full-sized smoke-float in the pantry and the Torpedo Gunner set it off, then rushed on deck and battened down. An hour later he went down to see how things were, vanished into the heavy white smoke and failed to return, so the First Lieutenant, wearing a breathing apparatus, went down and dragged the Gunner out half dead. Eventually the fans cleared the smoke out and there were more cockroaches than ever, big, happy cockroaches in the best of health and with enormous appetites.
Sleep held off, probably a result of the violent exercise of the evening, and the Sub’s mind ran over the excitements of the last patrol. The start had been unfortunate, a lesson that whatever you were doing and wherever you were you must keep an eye on the sky, even when you’re busy shooting at something on the surface and the shoot is taking all your concentration. They had started a patrol off the Nicobar Islands and the weather was kicking up a bit, the sea rough enough to make it tricky keeping periscope depth without showing too much periscope or even a bit of the bridge. On the second day Number One was on watch in the Control Room, when he sighted one of the two Tank Landing Ships which the enemy used for supplying the Nicobars and the Andamans. Jimmy’s poker-face grew a little redder than usual and he said all in one breath, “Captain in the Control Room, Diving Stations.” The bored men on watch were suddenly bored no longer: after a day or a week or two on patrol you began to feel that life was rather pointless when no enemy came near and there was no return for the continued discomfort.
“Tank Landing Ship, sir. Red four five.” The Captain took a look and saw at once that there was no chance of getting into position to fire torpedoes.
He hoped the enemy’s armament didn’t amount to too much as he said, “Stand by Gun Action.”
Up for’ard, the T.I. cursed under his breath and wondered why they bothered to do routines on tubes and torpedoes when the Japs only went afloat in rowing-boats.
The Gun’s Crew were closed up, and behind them the Ammunition Party had the first shells ready on the wardroom deck. The cook’s face peered anxiously out through the small aperture from the magazine, where he worked passing up shells during the action. He looked like a rat staring out of a drain-pipe.
The Captain, looking into the periscope, said, “Target a Tank Landing Ship. Bearing… that! Range…” he fiddled with a knob on the periscope, “Range… that!”
Sub set the angle on another machine and said, “Seven thousand eight hundred.” His face, he hoped, showed none of the anxiety in his mind. It wouldn’t be easy, shooting in this weather.
The Captain spoke again. “Enemy speed nine. We’re on her starboard quarter.”
Sub used the instrument again and reported, “Deflection two right.” He shouted up the Gun-tower hatch to the Gun’s Crew: “Bearing Red two-oh, range oh-eight-oh, deflection two right, shoot!” The order Shoot meant that as soon as the gun w
as ready and aimed at the enemy the Gunlayer could fire without having to wait for an order from the bridge. The Layer repeated back the order to show that he understood it.
“Down periscope… Surface!”
As soon as the submarine broke surface they knew how rough it was: when the Sub climbed out of the hatch into the bridge they were right over to port, swinging over: he saw the crest of a wave before it slapped into the bridge. A second later he was sitting on the front of the bridge, watching through his binoculars for the splash that would mark the fall of their first shot. No splash was sighted, so the shot was repeated with the same settings on the gun and the splash went up left.
“Right eight, shoot!” In line, short.
“Up four hundred, shoot!” The first shot couldn’t have been far short: this one was over. “Down two hundred, shoot!” Short, again. “Up one hundred, shoot!” A red-orange flash and a puff of smoke on the enemy’s bridge, right aft. But that had come too soon to be a hit: it was the enemy firing back. Seahound’s shell hit the Jap Landing Ship’s stern a few seconds later. That was at least a three-inch they were shooting back with from the gun-deck just abaft the bridge: it had to be knocked out, that gun. The submarine was rolling like a drunkard and her next shot missed, while the enemy fired again and the splash was plain to see a cable’s length on Seahound’s quarter. It was hell’s own job trying to shoot at this range on a platform that was about as steady as a bucking horse, but the submarine scored one more hit out of three more shots before the Captain yelled “Down Below!”
That meant an emergency, no time for securing the gun, no time for anything but getting down below like split lightning: the submarine would be on her way down before the hatch was shut, what American films call a “Crash Dive”. Sub blew his whistle, a long hard blast that sent the Gun’s Crew leaping for the hatch, leaving the gun aimed out over the port bow with the smoking breech still open. As the Gun-tower hatch clanged down, Sub jumped for the bridge hatch, dropping through on top of Wilkins, the Oerlikon Gunner, who wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid injury. As he dropped through, Sub looked up and saw the reason for the hurry: a Jap bomber with its nose down coming out of the sky like a rocket.
The next minute passed like half-an-hour, waiting for the bomb, but when the boat was steady at sixty feet the tense looks eased off and expressions of angry frustration took their place. The Captain muttered, “Stay at sixty feet, Number One…” He turned away, rubbing the side of his chin with the back of his left hand, and he added, “I’d like to meet that bugger again, one day.”
Perhaps they would, thought the Sub, dreamily. He was dropping off to sleep, and as he dropped off there was a smile on his face: in forty-eight hours’ time, he’d be on leave, he’d be in Kandy. He’d see Sheila.
* * *
Carrying his suitcase, the Sub walked from the café in Kandy’s main street, where the lorry had discharged its passengers, up and around the corner towards the Queens Hotel. The Queens was one of those places, like the Cecil in Alexandria, the Mount Nelson in Cape Town, or the Four Seasons in Hamburg, that nobody who visits the country can help having something to do with. In Kandy, no officer had ever been known to stay anywhere else, except perhaps out of town at a planter’s house. The reputed disadvantage of staying at a planter’s house was the overwhelming hospitality of some planters: an officer who returned from leave with the symptoms of delirium tremens was likely to be frowned upon.
The Sub handed his case to the hall porter, and leant over the reception desk.
“Ferris. I sent you a wire.”
“Yes, Mr Ferris.” The Singhalese clerk pushed the book across the marble counter, and handed a key to the porter. “Number thirteen.”
“Hell! Do I have to have thirteen?”
“You are superstitious, sir? It is the room you occupied when you were last here in Kandy.”
“Not particularly superstitious,” the Sub answered as he turned away. “But it certainly failed to bring me any startling success, last time.” Sheila’s green eyes were all over the place as he followed the porter through the foyer and acknowledged a minor salaam from the bar-boy. The bar-boy had an easy life: his customers supplied their own liquor, and, in return for the iced water or minerals that he produced, tipped him as though his services were of the usual value.
The porter deposited his burden on the huge bed, which, festooned with mosquito nets, still occupied only a small part of the room. The Sub tipped him, then emptied his case and rang the bell.
“Master?” A little brown man bowed himself in, grinning happily.
“I want these things pressed, and my half-boots cleaned.”
“Yes, master.” The little man pattered round, picking things up. “Master want bath?”
“Yes, please. At six.” He put all the bottles back in his case, and locked it, slipped a flask into his pocket and strolled down to the lounge.
“A glass, please, and some iced water.” He lit a cigarette, and relaxed. A couple of gins in a comfortable chair, and the lorry stiffness was wearing off. He crossed over to the telephone box, and rang Sheila’s number. She was out: Missy had gone into town with her mother. He went back to his table, poured out a little more gin and lit another cigarette. The place was almost empty. At one table two majors stared glassily at each other, trying perhaps to match the vacancy on each others’ faces, while at another a young captain and a plump, motherly Wren were engaged in small-talk. The Sub finished his drink, stubbed out his cigarette and headed for the doors.
* * *
The music and the wine were finished: Kandy, moonlit, was a place of beauty. Hoping that Sheila would say no, the Sub asked her, “Shall I try to find a taxi?”
“I’d rather walk. It’s so lovely at this time, so cool.”
They walked slowly up the deserted road and along beside the low wall that encircled the lake.
“Did you know that the lake is supposed to claim three lives a year?”
“No. Does it run true to form?” He tossed a glowing cigarette end into the water.
“It does. Children, drunks, or people just found dead and nobody knows how. It’s not very deep.”
Their footsteps were the only sounds in the warm scented night. This place has always been here, he thought. When I was in Sussex, or at school, every night the Sacred Lake was shining and the priests in their yellow robes were hurrying past to the Temple of the Tooth. When dogs were barking in the quiet English night, those drums were throbbing, here in Kandy. Years will pass, and perhaps one day I’ll be here again, fighting another war, and although I’ll be much older and quite different, this lake will be exactly the same and I’ll look at it and think, I was here before, once, and the things that seem important now will be dead and forgotten. Sheila will be old and changed, married to a planter, playing bridge four times a week, and people will say, “Sheila Watson was quite lovely when she was young. You’d never think it now, would you?”
“What the hell’s it all for?” He spoke as much to himself as to her, and she had no answer; only the lake told him, Nothing, it just goes on, and on, because that’s the way God made it. And we, he thought, Sheila and I, are about as important and necessary as a couple of ants.
They came to the house, turned in through the gates between the flanking trees. A little way up on the right was a small secluded lawn, palms surrounding it with the tips of their graceful branches almost meeting overhead.
“Let’s sit.” She sat down beside him and he took her in his arms, her body warm and supple, her breathing sweetly close to his, the scent of her skin more lovely than that of the night.
“John: we…” The palms bowed low and the lawn rocked, the stars were singing and the world had burst into flames, white flames, when she said, urgently, “John – look!” All around the little lawn sat small, brown people. Sheila whispered, “The gardener and his family. That’s their hut, behind us.”
The brown people sat cross-legged with their hands folded in their
laps. Motionless, silent, they watched the couple in the centre. The Sub stood up, helped Sheila to her feet.
“Is this some ancient form of Singhalese hospitality?”
She answered, quickly, not looking at him, “It’s late, John. I must go in. Good-night.” She moved away, then stopped to add, “It was a lovely evening.” This was a stranger to whom he said good-night, and it was anger and bewilderment that made him stumble as he hurried down the drive.
He had been silly, he thought. He had put all his trust in a human relationship. Quite properly, naturally, the thing had mis-fired. He wouldn’t let himself down like that again.
He had not only wanted Sheila as a mistress. He had wanted her to love him. He had wanted to have her sharing with him, intimately and secretly, something warm and personal.
I’ve been a fool, he thought: soft! For years I’ve needed no help, no sympathy. Now I’ve thrown myself open, and it hurts.
It wouldn’t happen again.
* * *
Seahound was the inside submarine in the “trot” of three that lay on the Depot Ship’s starboard side. A long gangway ran down from the Depot Ship’s well-deck, and narrow planks bridged from the casing of each submarine to the next.
Seahound was embarking ammunition, several hundred rounds, some three-inch High Explosive and some Semi-Armour-Piercing, the latter easily distinguished by their long pointed noses. Most of the crew were employed in this task, standing in a long snake of men down the gangway and over the plank, along the casing up to the for’ard hatch. On the well-deck of the Depot Ship the shells were taken out of their boxes and passed down the line, hand to hand, until they were stacked in the for’ard compartment of the submarine. The Gunlayer worked down in the tiny magazine, which was as hot and as big as an oven, stowing shells in their racks and fitting in the wooden battens between each layer. Occasionally he shouted, “O.K., ’Oppy!”, and Hopkins the Trainer began to pass down more shells until he was told to stop. As Hopkins called for them, a couple of seamen brought more shells aft from the hatch.
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