Surface!

by Surface! (retail) (epub)

  Shadwell looked at Rawlinson, and put on his “classy” voice:

  “Excuse me, Mr Rawlinson, but have you any ideah what the flippin’ ’ell’s goin’ on?”

  The T.I. snapped: “Get forward, help ’em shut off.” Shadwell lowered himself into the tube space, muttering fiercely.

  In the Control Room, Number One watched the needle steady itself at the sixty mark.

  “Sixty feet, sir.”

  “Very good,” muttered the Captain. The submarine was going dead slow on one motor: overhead, two anti-submarine launches were searching for her. Seahound was on the wrong side of the entrance: she still had to get out.

  “What was the seaplane doing, Number One, when you last saw it?”

  “Circling over the harbour area, sir.”

  The Captain thought: Perhaps the idiots think we’re still hanging around at that end. Actually the submarine had been going her best speed towards the exit: a fairly obvious move, it would have seemed.

  “Where are they now, Saunders?”

  Saunders twiddled the wheel on his set: his ears looked so big that it might have been only the headphones that kept them from flapping.

  “One right ahead, sir. Second one: I can’t find the second one, sir. Must be stopped.”

  The Captain glanced at the clock: dusk now, dark in an hour.

  Saunders spoke: “H.E., sir, right ahead, closing. Second H.E., sir, green two-oh. Closing, sir, moving slowly left to right.”

  Those little bastards had to pass overhead: they had to pass overhead without detecting the submarine. God knows where they came from, the Captain thought: he hadn’t any idea that there was anything of the sort in the area. He hoped there weren’t any others in the bay.

  Cat and mouse, creep quietly along, no sound, no sight. Eyes on Saunders: eyes on the Captain. The Captain turned to the Navigator at the chart table.

  “There aren’t any gun batteries on the point, are there, Pilot?”

  “Nothing we know of, sir.” Was he thinking of trying to get out on the surface, with a Jap aircraft overhead?

  Saunders looked up from the dial on his instrument.

  “First one about to pass overhead, sir. Second one green seven-five, moving right.”

  In the next five minutes they’d either pick up the submarine, or they’d have passed over and missed her. Engine-room Artificer Featherstone stared ruminatively up at the deckhead, as though he was trying to imagine the scene on the surface: he was wondering whether or not there’d be any charges dropped, in the next few minutes.

  Saunders said, “One passed over, sir, right astern, opening. Second one green nine-two, sir, moving right.”

  The Captain turned to Number One.

  “Sounds healthier,” he said. “We’ll keep on like this for an hour, then we’ll surface and get out in the dark.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” As long as something else didn’t turn up, thought Number One, as long as those launches didn’t come back again and pick them up.

  Nothing else turned up. An hour later Seahound surfaced, left the bay at full speed on her diesels. Sub was on the bridge with the Captain: the land towered black over them on either side, fell away astern. They were out.

  The Captain said quietly, “All right, Sub. I’ll tell you when to come round to the new course.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Just as the Captain joined Number One and the others in the Wardroom, they felt a series of heavy explosions. The Captain hurried back into the Control Room. “What was that?” he asked the man who had relieved Saunders of the headphones.

  “Right astern, sir. Depth-charges, I think.”

  The Cox’n laughed. “They must be dropping charges on some flippin’ rock, sir.”

  The Captain thought: Yes, or on poor old Stringent’s wreck. Stringent was the last submarine to have entered the Bay, and she’d been there ever since.

  * * *

  Is a man mad to talk to the stars, or, in the stillness of the empty night, to hold a conversation with the sea? When the sea leaps, and the stars are hidden, is he insane that he answers the thunder of the wind? Or is it possible that such things can be excused in a man who spends many hours alone, with only these for company?

  He asks no man to excuse him, he offers no excuses for his actions. He knows that in the hand of the sea are the lives of men and the fate of nations, the happiness of millions and the future of the world. He knows also that under the sight of the stars the world was made, and in their light the miserable things called men are caused to be born, allowed mercifully to live, and forced, struggling like frantic animals, to die. Between the sea and the stars, he has seen it.

  The seaman’s soul knows the vastness of the universe and the overwhelming savagery of forces that are uncaring of the suffering that they cause. He puts his trust in the things to which he owes allegiance. Do not laugh at the faith of such men, whose lives are bound in the ways of the elements: for if you do, you only snigger at yourselves and at your God.

  Chapter 5

  Stoker Johnson wiped the blade which he had just removed from his razor, and replaced it in the wrapper of blue paper. He stroked his large, smooth chin, admired it in the mirror on the wall of the after heads.

  “Can’t see why you all get so excited,” he remarked. “Just because we’re gettin’ back to that bloody ’ole, Trinco, you act like a lot of flippin’ kids off on ’oliday.”

  Nobby Clark, the Leading Stoker, took his place at the basin and began to wash out the suds that Johnson had left in it.

  “Well,” he said, “it’s better ’n being at sea, ain’t it?”

  “No it ain’t, not to my way of thinking. At sea you know where you are, like: it ain’t comfortable, but you don’t expect the Ritz. You gets back to Trinco, and where are yer? Shouted at to do this an’ that, no big cats, no flippin’ room on the messdeck, queue up for a flippin’ bath, clean the bugger up afterwards. An’ what’s the use o’ going ashore in Trinco? You can swim better over the side. First time I goes ashore, I thinks to meself I’m going to ’ave a bit o’ fun. What do I get? Flip-all, that’s what. Not a woman in the ’ole flippin’ area, and if you see one she’s with an officer. An’ mark you, Nobby, a man like me needs a woman.”

  “Why you an’ not me?”

  “Well, I’m married, see. An’ my wife ’as what you might call an appetite. So I’m used to it. Flippin’ well need it, see? Not like you single bastards, take it when it’s there an’ forget it when it ain’t. I’m used to ’avin’ it when I want it, nice an’ regular, see? Trinco: blimey, I’d be chasing the flippin’ monkeys if we were in longer ’n a couple o’ weeks.”

  * * *

  In the bar of the Depot Ship’s wardroom, Number One and the Sub looked at their empty glasses and called for two more pink gins.

  On the way in from patrol, everyone thinks the same thing: early night, turn in straight after dinner. But the first thing that comes is a bath, and the bath makes a difference. It washes off the smell of shale oil, eases out the tiredness in your body and your mind. You lie back in the bath, and sing: there are four baths in the bathroom, so it’s quite a big sing. In the course of it, you forget the early night plan and you develop a thirst. As soon as you’ve changed, feel clean and smart after a long time of feeling dirty and unkempt, you find yourself quenching that thirst in the bar, one foot on the brass rail and a glass in your hand that has something in common with the widow’s cruse.

  “The Seahounds are back! Party tonight, boys!”

  “We’re turning in early.”

  “The two of you, dears?”

  “Tiny, if you want a kick where it hurts, just say that again.”

  “I’ve been kicked there so often that it doesn’t hurt any more. Now, what am I going to have?”

  “A baby, by the look of you.”

  The remark came from Arthur Hallet, who had just entered the bar with two other C.O.’s. Tiny, who was certainly on the large size, murmured to Number One,
“You know, I don’t think I like your Captain very much.”

  “You don’t? Well, that’s all right. You don’t have to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean as long as you keep any criticisms to yourself.”

  “Oh. Like that, is it?”

  “It’s like that, Tiny.”

  The bar was filling up as the bathrooms and cabins emptied themselves. A few odd pieces of soap clung to the soap-racks, discarded shirts and shorts littered the empty cabins. Below, in the cabin and bathroom flats, the singing was over.

  “Hello, Jimmy! Wotcher, John! Sink anything?”

  “Nothing much. Only half the Imperial Navy.”

  “Both junks, eh. But what did you really get?” They told him.

  “Not bad for beginners. Steward – gin bottle, please.”

  * * *

  After dinner, the Sub read the letters that had been waiting for him. It was a routine, well established, to save them for the quiet after-dinner period. First he read the ones from his family, then the one from the girl in Sussex, but he kept to the last the one and only letter addressed in Sheila’s neat handwriting. He finished his black coffee, put the cup down and tore open the blue envelope. This was a thing that he had looked forward to doing.

  Not what he’d hoped to read, though. She told him that she was engaged to Gerry Watson, and that she didn’t think he ought to see her again. It would be better, she suggested, if he didn’t spend another leave in Kandy.

  The Sub could only agree with that. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to face Kandy without Sheila. He thought of the lake, and knew that the affection which he had developed for it and for all the strange atmosphere of the place was only an offshoot of the way he felt about Sheila. Quickly he thought, that’s nonsense: I’ve learnt a lesson, that’s all.

  As he sat there, opposite the big tray with the cups on it, a Medical Officer came along for his coffee. This was not only a doctor: this was the flotilla’s psychoanalyst, the man who put chaps back on the rails when they had begun to go a little bit queer.

  The doctor paused, lingering over the array of cups. There were white ones, and a minority which bore a floral design around the edges. He picked up one of these coloured ones, and started towards the coffee urn. Suddenly he whirled round, dropped the cup back on the tray as though it had burnt his fingers. He took one of the white ones instead, and smiled cautiously at the Sub who was watching in astonishment.

  “I can’t stand the ones with little pictures on them,” said the doctor.

  * * *

  After the late News from London, the B.B.C. orchestra played the National Anthem.

  There were only a handful of men left in the bar: the Seahounds, a couple of other submarine officers, and an R.N.V.R. Sub-Lieutenant whose green stripe marked him as non-executive, an officer whose duties confined him to an office where he ciphered and deciphered secret signals. The Anthem ended, and the young man said:

  “Lot of tripe.”

  “I beg your pardon?” asked Sub, and Number One rose to his feet.

  “This King business,” said the Cipher Officer. “It’s out of date. What do we need a King for?”

  The others were also on their feet. It was a long distance from the wardroom deck to the water-level, a very long drop indeed. They came back into the bar, and Jimmy suggested a nightcap. While the steward poured it out, Jimmy lifted the receiver off the intercom telephone.

  “Quartermaster’s Lobby,” he said to the exchange.

  “Quartermaster? An officer has just fallen overboard on the port side. You’d better send a boat round. Yes, that’s right. He may have broken his neck.”

  * * *

  The next afternoon they went swimming from a beach called Sweat Bay. It was fifteen minutes’ walk from where the boat dropped them, through the trees where the monkeys lived, across a neck of land to the wide sweep of fine white sand on the other side.

  Sub had brought a fitted charge, and when they were tired of swimming it was thrown into the water, as far out as possible. It went off like a miniature depth-charge, and they dived in to collect the stunned fish. Tiny made a fire of driftwood on the beach, and they baked the fish for tea. The meal tasted of mud and raw fish.

  Number One spat out a lot of bones, and said, “What about a run ashore tonight, Sub?”

  “All right. Where?”

  “Officers’ Club, I suppose. Coming, Tiny?”

  “Not me. Waste of money.” Tiny looked bigger than ever when he had nothing on.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. There’s liquor in the bar, and there are usually some women to look at.”

  “Yes, at a distance, and that only makes it worse. Our own bar is all I want, and what’s more it’s Duty Free. Besides, there’s not so far to walk, when you feel like turning in.”

  They caught a boat for the shore after a couple of quick gins in the bar, and at the landing-stage they engaged a ricksha to pull them along to the Club. They ordered drinks on the verandah, sat next to a party of four people, two Naval officers and two Wrens. Jimmy waved and smiled at one of the girls, and she discreetly returned the greeting. She was small, blonde, bright-looking: she had a snub nose in a well made-up face. She reminded the Sub of some Hollywood girl who had a raucous voice and a big mouth: he couldn’t remember the name. He asked Number One who the girl was.

  “Mary-Ann. Her surname’s Chard. She was Smiley Martin’s girl-friend: he’s just gone home, you know. I’ll have a chat to her later: she shouldn’t be seen out with General Service chaps. It’s not respectable.”

  After dinner they drank in the bar on the ground floor. Jimmy said, “Excuse me a minute, old boy.”

  “Going to be sick?”

  “No. Going to talk to Mary-Ann.”

  Twenty minutes later he came back, looking pleased with himself.

  “Sorry, Sub. Couldn’t get away.”

  Sub had been talking to someone in the bar, or rather the other fellow had been doing the talking and Sub had pretended to be listening while he drank his drink and thought about Sheila.

  “Submarines!” said the man. “What on earth, now, do people join submarines for?” He went on to answer his own question at considerable length, and Sub thought about the real answer in his own case.

  Well, his first ship had been a battleship in the Mediterranean, an unusual sort of battleship because it had a damn great hole in it. An Italian submarine had done that: a midget submarine controlled by only two men had put one of the mightiest ships afloat out of action for months. It gave him a strange, exciting impression of the power that a few men hold in their hands. Seeing the submarines in the harbour at Alexandria he felt again that impression of swift, ruthless power, and it captured his imagination. The submarines lay alongside each other, amongst the rest of the fleet, and he saw them suddenly with the eyes of a submariner. They were wolves, amongst dogs.

  So he joined them. But he couldn’t explain that sort of thing to a half-drunken bore who only raised the subject to give himself something to talk about. He wouldn’t understand, even if he’d listen. Sub couldn’t explain it any more than he could explain how much Sheila had meant to him. The only thing that a man like this would really feel would be a kick in the belly. He thought, Odd, that’s how I feel, like I’d just been kicked in the belly by a horse. But only now, he thought, because I’m a bit tight. In the morning, it won’t matter.

  Jimmy’s glass was empty, so he finished his own and addressed the barman.

  “Two brandy and sodas, please.”

  * * *

  Golf at Nuwara Eliya was played on a course which was far from easy to the uninitiated: streams criss-crossed the terrain in numbers to rival the streams of the Nile delta, and the streams were by no means as sluggish as the waterways of that insanitary area. These ran fast, in some places torrentially: golf balls, one after the other, vanished into their crystal depths. The caddies, small coffee-coloured urchins, had so many repaints ready to hand that it
seemed not unlikely that secret pools or backwaters were the sources of their raw material.

  Chief and the Captain were short-tempered long before they ended the round, and when they limped into the clubhouse in search of the watery tasteless beer which was all the bar stocked, and the elderly stranger who wore the uniform of a Captain in the Pioneer Corps addressed them in terms of some familiarity, it was perhaps pardonable that Chief’s reaction was more brusque than might have been expected from an officer from the cream of the Senior Service.

  “‘Ullo, Jack!”

  “My name,” growled Chief, “is not Jack.”

  “Jack’s good enough for me. Any Navy lad’s Jack to me. Care for a spot?”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  “Boy, three glasses o’ that yellow stuff. Beer, is it?” The man’s thin bony knees looked cold in their whiteness, and his hands trembled where they rested on the edge of the bar. He suggested: “Tell y’ a story?”

  “No, thanks,” answered Chief.

  “Listen, boy, I got some stories ‘d make y’ hair curl. Sure, I have. The real McCoy. I been around, I have. Ah, the beer, my boys, the beer it is to be sure!”

  “Excuse me,” put in Chief. “Forgive a personal question. But a moment ago you were speaking in an American accent, and shortly before that it was Cockney. Now it’s Irish. Where do you come from?”

  “Oh, I been around. Sure, I been all over. Tell y’ about it: drink first.”

  “They’ve got a nerve to call this stuff beer,” observed the Captain, lowering his glass.

  “Tell y’ what I call it,” offered the Pioneer. “Horse-piss.”

  Chief shook his head. “It can’t be horse,” he argued. “I’ve had that: it’s what they call beer in Egypt. This is quite different.”

  “Some other sort. Elephant, eh?”

  “Can’t be elephant. That’d be stronger. Something else.”