“Plymouth, Hallet,” he observed, pointing to the gin bottle as his steward poured out the liberal measure that he had been taught to pour. “Lots of chaps say that Plymouth isn’t what it was, but I can’t drink anything else. Pink?”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Well, Hallet, first of all I’ve to tell you that you’ve got a bar to that D.S.O. You’ve earned it. Shut up, you young ass. I hope to get a D.S.C. for your Number One and your Chief, and we may manage a Mention for young Ferris. By the way: I’ve had a complaint about him, from some woman called Compton, in Kandy. But we’ll talk about that another time. With any luck we’ll get a decent allocation of medals for your Ship’s Company: not a word, of course, until I’ve got it on paper.”
The S.O.O. began to murmur congratulations, but Meadows cut him short.
“Now, Hallet, where’ll we send you this time? Somewhere nice and quiet, for a rest?”
“I don’t think that ‘d do any of us any good, sir. I’d like – may I make a suggestion, sir?”
“What the hell do you think I asked you for?”
“Well, sir, we can find our way through that minefield, now. There’d be some targets lower down.” Meadows grinned broadly, took a sip at his gin.
“What do you think, S.O.O.? Send him down to make a shemozzle off Malacca, eh?”
“I think it’s a good idea, sir, so long as he comes out straight away when he’s shown he’s down there. Can’t get caught hanging around in that alley.”
“All right. Fix it. Steward! Fill these officers’ glasses. And mine… here’s to you, Hallet.”
* * *
Half-past nine: Sub, in Seahound’s Wardroom, was busy with some official correspondence: there was more to be dealt with, and tonight, when he was Duty, was the time to get it done. But to hell, he thought, there are lots of duty nights to come. He shoved the papers back into their cardboard folders, slid the folders into a converted gas-mask locker. He had a new Peter Cheyney story that had arrived in the last post: he pulled it out of his drawer, settled himself in a corner and began to read about Slim Callaghan and the women with long shapely legs and lots of money. This was undiluted escapism. They didn’t fall like that, not in real life: you had to fight for them, one way or another.
He put the book down, wondered what the noise was about. That was Shadwell’s voice: “Why, y’little pimp, I’ll kick y’ flippin’ –—— up y’ flippin’ –——!” Feet rushing, shouts, Rogers shouting, “Ar, shut it, Shaddy, for flip’s sake!” A thud, more angry voices, a roar from Bird: “Stow it, y’ silly bastards!” A series of bangs that sounded like a man’s head being thumped on the deck. The Sub leapt out of the wardroom, ran for’ard: where in hell was the Duty Petty Officer?
In the for’ard compartment, half-a-dozen men were fighting on the deck. Three of them were trying to hold down Shadwell: it took only one to hold the telegraphist, who was evidently the cause of the big torpedoman’s displeasure.
“Get up, and stop that Goddamned row!”
The Sub was dwarfed when Shadwell, obeying the order, flung two men off his back and rose to his feet. The telegraphist, a man named Barney Rookes, stood panting heavily, his back to the bulkhead door. The Sub stood between them: he noticed a galley knife in the telegraphist’s hand.
“Drop that knife, Rookes.”
“I wasn’t going to use it, sir. I just ‘ad it in me ‘and.” Rookes’ mouth was split and bleeding.
“Drop it.” The knife clattered on the iron deck under the torpedo racks.
Shadwell growled, “Like flip you wasn’t goin’ t’ use it, yer dago bastard!”
“That’s enough from you, Shadwell. Bird, where’s the Duty P.O.?”
“Went inboard, sir. To fetch something.”
“Go and get him. Rookes, go and wait in the Control Room.”
“I didn’t start it, sir.”
“I didn’t say you did. Go aft.” The telegraphist lurched away. Chief Petty Officer Rawlinson dropped through the hatch. Sub moved out of the compartment, beckoned him. He walked aft as far as the Petty Officers’ Mess.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Went up to the Mess, to get this book, sir.”
“You know damn well you’ve no business to leave the boat without my permission.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Shadwell and Rookes were fighting. Find out what it was all about, and report to me in the wardroom.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The Sub sat down at the wardroom table, cursing quietly. Now both men would have to come up as defaulters: there was enough to do, enough to worry about, without this sort of thing.
Rawlinson reported. The telegraphist had knocked into Shadwell, who was writing a letter. Shadwell had cursed him, told him that just because he never wrote letters to his whore at home there was no call to go buggering up other people’s letters. Rookes had assumed the term “whore” to have been applied to his wife. He had grabbed the knife, which had been lying on the lockers, and had flung himself on Shadwell.
Shadwell said that he hadn’t even known that Rookes had a wife. All he knew was that the bastard had a lot of pictures of naked women stuck up all over the Wireless Office: he didn’t like Rookes, he said, and he reckoned that he’d bumped into him on purpose. Then Rookes had attacked him with a flippin’ great knife, and he, Shadwell, had only defended himself.
“All right. Bring them up now. Rookes first.”
He walked into the Control Room, heard Rawlinson bark, “Telegraphist Rookes: get y’ cap!”
One at a time they came before him: Rawlinson ordered, “‘Shun! Off cap!” and read the charge.
“Anything to say?”
Each told his story, Rookes bitter, conscious of his battered face, Shadwell innocent and apparently shocked at the other man’s rough behaviour.
“First Lieutenant’s Report,” snapped the Sub. Tomorrow morning they would see Number One, who would either deal with the matter himself or, if he thought the case more serious, pass it on to the Captain. Sub wondered if he couldn’t save everyone a certain amount of trouble: he called the two men together, unofficially.
“Look,” he said. “You’ll both be seeing the First Lieutenant in the morning. Meantime, to save any more of this nonsense, listen to this.
“Rookes: Shadwell didn’t know you were married. The word he used was not directed at anyone in particular. Do you accept that?”
Rookes muttered that he did. He had difficulty in moving his lips.
“Shadwell: Rookes thought you meant to insult his wife. If you’d thought that someone had used an expression like that about your wife, I reckon if you’d been the smaller man you’d have grabbed the nearest weapon and used it, eh?”
“No, sir. Well, I dunno, really.”
“Good God, man! Someone refers to your wife as a whore, and you don’t do anything about it?”
Shadwell scratched the side of his head. “Well, y’ see, sir, in a manner o’ speakin’, she is.”
Chapter 9
Once again, His Majesty’s Submarine Seahound was about to sail from her base. Only one rope for’ard and one rope aft held her alongside, and as soon as the Captain came aboard and gave the order; these last links would be thrown off. Sub stood waiting on the for’ard casing: Bird, the Second Cox’n, stood massively beside him, coiling a heaving-line.
“Bit different to sailing from ’Oly Loch, ain’t it, sir?”
It was, indeed. When they had left Scotland, just over a year ago, they had left foul weather, a gale and bursts of hail. A squall had lashed across the Loch just as they were slipping their ropes and wires, and some of the men, with the sailor’s tendency towards superstition, had seen this as a bad omen for the future. But nothing had occurred to justify such fears, unless it had been the crossing of the Bay of Biscay in weather that made a misery of watchkeeping and a hell of everything except lying flat on your bunk, in that position with your knees up.
Bird muttered, “Captain coming, sir.”
Sub moved aft to where the plank rested on the casing, waited there and saluted the Captain as he stepped on board and turned away to the bridge.
Rogers murmured, “All aboard the flippin’ Skylark, trip rahnd the ’arbour ’alf a tanner!”
Sub glared at him, shouted: “Away plank!”
Two men of the Spare Crew, on the inside submarine, hauled it off. Number One yelled from the bridge, “Let go aft!” and a minute later, as the stern swung out, “Let go for’ard!” The ropes were thrown off the bollards, and the submarine backed away from the Depot Ship, driven by her electric motors. Clear of the side, she swung her bow away towards the harbour entrance, and at the same time her diesels roared into action. A shrill pipe was answered once more by the bugle on the high quarterdeck: gathering speed, Seahound headed for the open sea and the Malacca Straits.
* * *
“Well,” said the Captain, “before we leave for the next patrol, Chief, we may have seen our wives. Number One: when do you plan to get married?”
“Not in a hurry, sir. When we get back to U.K. Think this war’s going to last long, sir?”
“Don’t ask me.” There had been a lot of rumours going around in Trincomali: one of an imminent Japanese surrender, and one of a Second Front being opened in Malaya. There was no doubt that the Fourteenth Army in Burma was moving steadily, rapidly forward: but there were always these rumours, in every ship, and they always started on the messdecks.
The Captain’s cup and saucer began to slide slowly across the table. He pressed the bell for the messenger.
“Ask the Officer of the Watch what the weather’s doing.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Presently the man returned.
“Officer of the Watch says it’s blowing up a bit, sir.”
Number One patted the Engineer Officer on the shoulder.
“That’s it, Chiefy: you’re looking paler already.”
“You go to hell. Let’s have the dice out, shall we?”
“Wants to take his mind off it,” observed Number One as he reached into the locker and brought out the dice.
“Ace up, King towards.” He flipped the dice with his finger: it trickled along a few inches and rested with the Ace on top again.
“Mine, by the looks of it.”
* * *
When the messenger of the Watch shook Sub at ten minutes to two in the morning and shouted in his ear that he was due to be on watch in ten minutes’ time, Sub felt more than usually disinclined to leave his bunk. He was tired, and the violent motion of the submarine as she rose and fell to the sea left little doubt in his mind that this was one of the nights when a bunk was by far the best place. He tried to pretend that it was all a bad dream, this listening to the sea crashing on the hull over his head, but the messenger knew his job, and sharp at two o’clock Number One was delighted to hear the helmsman ask permission for the relief Officer of the Watch to come up. Number One, of course, was wide awake, and cheerful at the prospect of getting down to a cup of the Cox’n’s cocoa before turning in for four lovely hours in his comfortable bunk, but his gay conversation was quite lost on the Sub, who had caught a bucketful of flying sea in his bleary face the moment he rose out of the hatch.
“Get your nose out, you old cow!” The bow digs deep into an enormous wave, then soars, flinging back a ton of salt water at the bridge. Sub ducks, cursing, cracks his head on the edge of the voice-pipe and curses more wildly as the water drenches him. Now the bow stands clear, the stern low and buried in the sea: a huge gulf opens ahead and the submarine swoops forward, her bow crashing down like a giant hammer. Bow up, roll to port: bow down, roll to starboard, swinging over until it looks as though she’s going all the way. But she never does, she staggers for a moment then comes back fast while the bow swings up, up, high over the bridge while she stands on her tail and you hang on for your life. The sea crashes over, slams into the bridge and bursts like flying shrapnel up through the holes in the platform.
It’s strange to think that at other times you feel like a trespasser, spoiling the smooth flat mirror of the ocean. This is the sea as you know her when her mood is bad, and you know all the moods she has. She’s like the girl in that song that the sailors sing, a fascinating bitch. A bitch that has the devil’s temper, and she lets it rip whenever she feels like it. Look down at the bow, at that crazy hammer-head that swings in a great arc up and down a dozen times a minute. Inside that thing are men asleep in their hammocks: asleep, in that! At home they used to pay sixpence a time to have that done to them in a fun-fair: at home they were woken if the wind flapped a curtain in the bedroom.
Keep your watch. This is your life, the one you chose.
* * *
The sea had changed her mood when the submarine approached the entrance to the Straits, two days later. Not a ripple, not a single streak of white showed that twenty-four hours earlier this placid beauty had been a chaos of pounding waves and flying foam. She was the Indian Ocean again: she had worn herself out pretending to be the North Atlantic.
“Why don’t you get a new pipe, Chief?” The Captain looked critically at his Engineer Officer’s briar, which had half the mouthpiece bitten off.
“I like this one,” answered Chief, with his usual simplicity.
“What made you bite the end off? Lose your temper?”
“Well, it’s rather a long story, really. And I don’t think I ought to tell it, with this youngster here… sorry, Sub, I was forgetting you’d come of age.”
“Let’s have it, Chiefy.”
Chief thumbed down the mixture of Admiralty Issue and Three Nuns, and said, “I was training at Keyham at the time.” He struck a match, and puffed hard at the blackened object in his mouth. “Very young and inexperienced. I’d been rather flirting with a bit of stuff called Elsie, who used to dish out fish and chips in a café that we used quite often. Nice-looking girl. Well, we decided, three or four of us, including old Batchy Wilson, who went down in the Med., to have a party. Took the girls out to dinner and dance in some local dive. Mind you, I’d had practically nothing to do with women. Nothing much, anyway. Party ended: I was quite sober. She asked me to see her home to her flat, so I did, and she asked me to come in for a cup of coffee. Nothing else entered my head, you know: it was bloody cold, and coffee sounded just the job.
“We went up, and she said she was just going into the kitchen to put the coffee on. I sat down and lit my pipe: this one. A few minutes later I heard her coming into the room, and I looked up, expecting to hear her say that the coffee wouldn’t be long, or something of that sort. But she didn’t say a word. Just stood there. And she’d taken all her clothes off.”
Chief puffed strongly at the jagged mouthpiece.
“That,” he said, “was when I bit through the stem of this ancient burner.”
They were silent for a moment. Then Number One said, “I suppose you thanked her for a lovely evening and shook her warmly by the hand on the way out.”
“As a matter of fact, I did, more or less. I felt sort of shell-shocked, you know.”
The Captain was looking steadily at Chief.
“Chief,” he said, slowly, “you’re either a born liar, or a bloody fool.”
* * *
Southwards again through the Malacca Straits, slowly and very quietly southwards into the bottleneck. By now it’s all routine, not only the patrol and the watch-keeping but also the boarding, the Gun Action: all of it is taken as a matter of course, performed easily, effortlessly, with quiet efficiency.
The dentist’s drill in the middle of the night, the harsh buzzing of the Night Alarm. It’s hardly necessary to wake up: you could do it in your sleep. Gear ready, wait. The order, “Boarding Party on the Bridge.” Up the ladder, the thin rungs biting into the rubber soles of your shoes which were designed to be worn on a tennis-court. Tennis: they’ll be playing, now, in Sussex, in the soft English summer while they wait for the war to end. For most of them it’s e
nded already, ended on the day they called “VE Day”, and that night the people danced in the streets of London, Lewes, Hastings: the little pub at Pevensey was full, so you’d heard. You’d heard too that they gave a cocktail party at home that night, no doubt on the war-time civilian lines where the only drink was a cocktail that was less alcoholic even than war-time beer. Some beer was not so bad, though, when you could get an occasional pint of “Old” which the landlord kept for his friends and regular patrons. Remember Mr Oast, who kept the Ram’s Horn and was always glad to see you when you were home on leave? Dear old Mr Oast, so proud of his son in the Hartillery, in Foreign Parts.
“VE Night”: that was the night you sank two junks, and one of the Chinese came up to you afterwards in the Control Room, bowed and smiled, handed you a grubby card with his name printed on it: “High Class Officers’ and Gentlemen’s Outfitting” it said underneath, and gave an address in Singapore. He had wanted to come back to Trinco with you, and he had been very upset when you put him in a fishing-boat instead. That was “VE Night”.
You’re on the bridge with your belt round your waist, the .38 and the bayonet heavy at your side. You peer for’ard between the Captain and the Navigator, who was on watch when he sighted the junk, and you study the dim shape ahead. It looks big, and you think it may have a Jap guard on board: the big ones very often have, although nowadays they’re getting short of Japs and it’s always a surprise to meet one. No pleasure in the meeting.
“Down you go,” comes the Captain’s order, and you slide down the side and take your men up for’ard, warning them again to crouch down so that the Captain can see over their heads and so that you present a smaller target in case it’s a booby-trap with a machinegun. That has been known, and also the trap of a guard with a bunch of grenades which he tries to lob into the hatch as the submarine draws alongside.
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