She paused by the gate and said, “I’m sorry to do this to you again, Commander Howard.” She reached out impulsively and touched his arm.
He stared at her, sensing her nearness, her freshness and youth, so that he felt old and dirty by comparison.
“Please come in, my dear. I’m afraid it’s in a bit of a mess!”
A voice called after her from the car. “Don’t be too long, Celia, we’re late as it is!”
The Guvnor strained his eye but the car was in deep shadow so that he could not see the man, except that he too was in uniform.
“Ten minutes, Daddy!”
She walked with him up the path and took off her hat to shake out her short curls.
The Guvnor said, “How can I help you? I’m afraid …” He smiled. “There, now I’m apologising again too!”
She turned and faced him in the same direct manner she had used with David. “I hope you like dogs.” She hurried on, “Some friends of mine were bombed-out. The dog escaped. I would take her, but I’m back in the ‘regiment,’ as you can see.” She looked at him and added quietly, “They were both killed. My friends, I mean.”
He saw her lip quiver and guessed they had been close.
He said awkwardly, “Well, fetch her over, my dear. A dog would be nice company. I get a bit fed up discussing Venice with my two POWs!”
She called, “Let her go, please, Tom!”
The door opened and then the gate, as a plump Labrador padded curiously up the path.
She stooped down and ruffled her ears. “She’s called Lucy. She’s not young, but she’s such a dear. She’ll eat you penniless if she gets the chance!” She hugged the animal and said, “You can take care of each other. I’ll come and see you one day!” When she stood up there were tears in her eyes.
He said gruffly, “Be certain you do.” He walked with her to the gate and was astonished to see that the dog was already lying on the mat by the front door.
“See? She feels at home already!”
The girl replaced her hat, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. She said, “Goodbye, again.” Then she was in the car without another glance at the yellow Labrador, who was snapping at flies by the mat. But not before the Guvnor had seen the gold lace on her father’s sleeve. A rear-admiral, no less.
He watched as the big car reversed carefully, to the main road before turning across it towards Portsmouth.
Aloud he said, “Don’t keep punishing yourself, my girl. It’s the bloody war, not you.”
He walked back to the gate and stared at his new companion. “Well, now. That was a turn up for the book, eh?”
8 | Convoy
DAVID Howard returned the salutes of the dock sentries and presented his identity card to an armed policeman. Around him the place seemed to be teeming with sailors, naval and merchant alike, and although it had only just stopped raining there was an air of scruffy defiance which appeared to be Liverpool’s stock in trade.
Howard slowed his pace as he approached Gladstone Dock, where Gladiator lay with many other Atlantic escorts. He had just left the imposing presence of the new Captain (D), a tall, powerful man with the battered features of someone who had been well known on the rugby field in the impossible days of peace. Even the flotilla-leader had changed while Gladiator had been fighting to stay afloat on the North Russian “run,” as it was discreetly called in the press. Captain Ernle Vickers DSO, DSC, Royal Navy, had as his own command the Kinsale, one of the famous K’s which had been almost the only new destroyers available when the war had begun. Like Mountbatten’s Kelly, which with some of her consorts had been bombed and sunk near Crete in the spring of last year. Raked bows, with a single funnel instead of the usual pair, and an impressive armament, she would make any recruit’s heart beat faster, Howard thought. Like her captain, whose record he knew very well; he was exactly what they needed when things looked so bad in the Western Ocean.
All the captains had been there to meet the great man, and Howard was relieved to discover that Spike Colvin’s Ganymede and another of their old team, Garnet, were still with the flotilla. She was commanded by an impish two-and-a-half named Tom Woodhouse whom Howard had known for years. They had done the long gunnery course at Whale Island together as sublieutenants, and the instructors in that fearsome place had more than met their match with Woodhouse and all his practical jokes.
Most of the other ships had been less lucky and had been sunk in the first two years of conflict. Their names, the places where they had gone down, read like a brutal record of the country’s lost campaigns. Gipsy, mined off Harwich just two months after the declaration of war. Glowworm dying bravely off Norway, Grenade and Grafton bombed and sunk at Dunkirk, and Grenville lost in the North Sea, all in 1940; the list seemed endless.
Captain Vickers had presented his own summing-up of events and the current measures, which it was hoped would cut down the appalling loss of tonnage in the Atlantic convoys. “The enemy are already moving more submarines from the Norwegian and Baltic bases down to the Biscay coastline. Large surface units too, but at least the Air Force should be able to keep an eye on them after what happened in March.”
Howard recalled it well. While they had been riding out storms in the Arctic, dodging bombs and torpedoes while trying to protect their convoys, there had come one of those bright moments which flare up in all campaigns. A touch of hope, like the sun after a northerly gale. An ancient destroyer named Campbeltown, one of those transferred from the US Navy almost at the end of their useful life, had been expended like one giant, floating bomb when she had rammed the lock gates at St Nazaire and blown them to pieces. It had been the only dock on Hitler’s impregnable West Wall which was large enough to hold and repair the battle-cruisers, or even the mighty Tirpitz if she ever left her Norwegian lair.
Destroyer men always felt different from anyone else. That one incident had convinced them.
Vickers had continued in his thick, resonant voice, “We shall use new tactics too. To meet their wolf-packs of U-Boats we shall increase the use and deployment of small killer-groups. To this end the yards are now producing newer and faster frigates, solely designed to find and destroy U-Boats. If we can get these vessels to sea, and release other destroyers and corvettes from elsewhere, and if we can cling on until that time.” He had given an eloquent shrug. “I will not dwell on the consequences of the if nots, gentlemen. You know them as well as anyone.”
Howard had found a quiet moment to explain to him about Treherne, and his new standing as first lieutenant.
Vickers had nodded, his mind already grappling with some other problem. “I shall see what I can do. Good navigators are at a premium just now. But so are efficient escorts. I’ll try and get you fixed up with an extra hand as soon as I can.” A pretty Wren had entered at that moment to present Vickers with a clip of new signals, and he had left.
Howard had pondered on the girl called Celia Kirke a good deal while his ship sorted herself out from the Greenock refit.
While his father had told him about his new companion, Lucy, he had thought about her even more. What had prompted her to do it after she had left so abruptly? There were so many things he wanted to know about her, even though he knew he was being ridiculous. An escape, then? Perhaps; but it stayed with him nonetheless.
The Guvnor had told him that the girl had been returning to Portsmouth, but when he had found occasion to speak with that naval base on the telephone and had asked casually about her, the Wren on the end of the line had replied sharply, “No second officers of that name here!”
Perhaps she had put it about that she wanted to speak with no one who might remind her of her husband’s terrible death.
No wonder she had been so confident about returning to the WRNS; her father held flag-rank and could probably pull all the strings for her. But with the way the war was going it seemed unlikely she would have any difficulty in getting back to the world she understood.
Howard was pleased about the Labrad
or. His father had spoken of little else. Just what the doctor ordered.
The thought brought a frown to his face. He had hoped to get rid of Surgeon-Lieutenant Jocelyn Lawford, but doctors, like good Scotch, were apparently very thin on the ground. If Lawford was confronted with another convoy like the last one Gladiator had brought across the Atlantic, he would be utterly useless.
He paused and saw his ship waiting for him, her dazzle-paint shining faintly in the smoky sunshine.
If ever he was ordered into Portsmouth … He felt his lips move in a smile. Pompey. He would try and find her himself. It would probably mean the brush-off, he thought. Everyone would be after her once they knew what had happened.
He strode down the brow and touched his cap to the quarterdeck where the gangway staff and Sub-Lieutenant Ayres stood at attention.
“Hello, Sub, got you on duty already? Good leave?”
Ayres stared away, seeing nothing. “My brother’s missing, sir. In the desert.”
Howard watched his despair. “I’m sorry.” How stupidly inadequate it sounded. Like all the other times. I saw him go. “It’s not definite, is it?”
Ayres shook his head wretchedly while the quartermaster and gangway sentry tried to melt away. “Not yet, sir.”
He touched his arm impetuously. “Keep your chin up. Come and talk if you feel like it.”
Treherne appeared in the lobby door and saluted. “Orders have arrived, sir.” They fell in step and Treherne added quietly, “I’m keeping the kid busy. Take his mind off it.”
They reached the door marked Captain and found Petty Officer Vallance hovering by his pantry.
Howard tossed his cap on to a chair and sat down at his desk where Ireland the PO writer had lined up his papers in order of importance.
He said, “Drinks, if you please, Vallance.” His eyes skimmed the neatly worded signal and pictured one of the Wrens typing it, watched over perhaps by someone like the girl with green eyes.
“Day after tomorrow, Number One.” He glanced at him. “It’s confirmed, by the way. The Boss just told me he would do what he could to keep you with me, until—”
Treherne grinned. “We can discuss that later on, sir. Thanks a lot!”
He was thinking of Joyce, her supple body taking him, holding him.
Howard turned over another sheet. “Send for Sub-Lieutenant Bizley.” He waited for Treherne to speak on the bulkhead telephone and then said calmly, “He’s getting a gong after all.”
Treherne tried to look pleased, although he could not bring himself to like Bizley. He replied, “There’ll be no holding him now!”
There was a tap at the door and Bizley entered the day cabin, his features filled with curiosity, or was it something else? Like guilt?
“It’s just been put in orders, Sub. You are being awarded the Distinguished Service Cross at their lordships’ convenience. Suit you?”
But Bizley seemed unable to speak or take it in. His eyes moved instead to the solitary blue and white ribbon on Howard’s reefer.
Howard smiled. “‘Like yours,’ were you going to say?”
Bizley stammered, “T-thank you very much, sir! I never expected …”
Treherne looked at his empty glass. Not much you didn’t, you little twit!
“More good news.” Howard ignored Treherne’s expression. “You are to be made acting-lieutenant on the first of the month. So you can put up your second stripe any time after that. You’ll get all the bumf about it after we’ve done our next convoy.”
Bizley did not even hear him. He muttered something which made little sense and then found himself on the mat outside the cabin door.
He had done it. It was even better than he had dared to dream. He stared wildly at the single stripe on his sleeve. Lieutenant Lionel Bizley. It even sounded right, and he wondered dazedly if the King would make the award personally. He thought of Finlay and the others, and found himself laughing but making no sound. He was on his way.
The wardroom steward, PO Vallance, watched him around the curtain that hung across the pantry entrance. There would be no more peace down aft after this, he thought gloomily. Bizley was a proper little toe-rag, and would be a bloody sight worse now.
Two days later as Gladiator’s narrow hull throbbed steadily to the deeper beat of her main engines, Howard sat at the same desk and thought of the sea cabin on the bridge where he would have to snatch his catnaps whenever possible. There was still a lot to do, and there should have been more time for the flotilla, or escort group as it was now termed, to work together. But Vickers had made his thoughts clear to each commanding officer. “There is no more time. So let’s get out there and beat the hell out of them!”
Treherne entered the cabin and waited for Howard to look up. “Special sea dutymen closed up, sir. Postman’s gone ashore with the last mail.” He hesitated. “One man absent, sir.”
“Stoker Marshall?” He saw him nod. The rating who had lost all of his family in an air raid. Where was he? What would he be doing?
Treherne spoke for him. “He should be here, with us, sir. A lot of the men have lost relatives.” He added harshly, “My God, it seems as if the civvies get all the casualties in this war!”
Did he mean the people who crouched in their primitive air raid shelters, Howard wondered. Or was he still thinking about the merchant seamen?
He asked, “What about young Ayres?”
“He’s heard nothing more, sir.” He glanced up as a mooring wire was dragged noisily over the deck. “Bit of a breeze across the dock. We may have to use the back spring to work her clear.”
More quivering from Evan Price’s engine-rooms. The beast stirring herself, getting ready to face her old enemy. At least they were in better weather this time.
Howard stood up and began the routine of patting his pockets for the things he would need. He wore a comfortable grey roll-necked sweater he had bought in Reykjavik, his oldest reefer and battered sea-going cap with a paint-stain on the peak. Binoculars, fresh towel. He glanced at himself in the mirror. Hardly what they might expect at Dartmouth or Greenwich.
“Fifteen minutes then, Number One.”
Treherne smiled through his beard. “The old firm, sir.”
Howard nodded, remembering.
And so once more HMS Gladiator went back to war.
For many of Gladiator’s ship’s company the days that followed their leaving Liverpool were more of a strain than if they had faced immediate action. Day in, day out, with a convoy of some forty vessels of every type and size, the escorts swept ahead and abeam of them seeking the tell-tale “ping” of Asdic to betray a submarine, or, if half the rumours were true, a whole pack of them.
But apart from exercising action stations and testing guns, the hands worked watch-and-watch, four hours on, four off, a kind of stumbling sleepwalk in which they ate the greasy meals brought down to the messes, catching a few moments of rest where they could. Sometimes they slept on the steel decks where cursing watchkeepers stepped over them in the darkness, or faced a torrent of abuse from the ones who were forced to sleep by the vertical ladders which linked the messdecks to the world above.
Lashed hammocks stood like monks in their nettings in each crowded mess, not to be used in case they jammed a hatchway, or were needed as lifesaving floats if the ship bought it.
It was a dawdling convoy, the speed of which was that of the slowest vessel in it, in this case a Greek freighter that looked as if she had dropped out of a picture book from the Great War.
The old sweats were not surprised at this or much else either. Every kind of hull was needed, and those which should have been scrapped years ago were ploughing the Atlantic with all the rest. Long tankers in ballast which with luck would be almost awash on the return trip, every bunker filled to the brim with fuel, the life-blood of any war-machine.
Ships which had come from the Clyde and the Solway Firth, from Liverpool Bay and Londonderry to join in this great array of salt-smeared and rusty silhouettes,
around which the escorts plunged and harried like terriers. The merchantmen were more used to it, while for the lean destroyers the slow passage was hard to take, and for the new hands it was an introduction to the Atlantic roll and the seasickness which went with it. The slow lift of the bows, so that the ship seemed to hang motionless while the sea surged against one side, before giving that terrible corkscrew plunge down again, hurling water high over the bridge and sheltering gun crews.
Many a meal went flying, or untouched; personal possessions clattered about the messdecks in a mixture of spilled tea and vomit.
This, then, was the world Ordinary Seaman Andrew Milvain shared with the old hands—old to him anyway—and those like himself who had joined straight from the spit-and-polish of a naval training establishment.
Apart from the usual quips about his very youthful appearance and what the seamen called his “posh” accent, he was accepted far more easily than he had expected. His quiet dedication and almost fanatical efforts to learn all he could, even when he was laid low with seasickness, won him both respect and curiosity.
As the forenoon watch was relieved on this particular day Milvain climbed down the ladder to join his new companions in the mess. Nine Mess was little more than a scrubbed wooden table, which was covered in oilcloth for the main meal of the day. There were benches to sit on, and the curved side of the mess was lined with cushion-covered lockers, above which the lucky ones stowed their cap-boxes and other personal items on shelves.
Leading Seaman Bruce Fernie, “killick” of the mess, sat on one of the lockers reading an old newspaper while the meal was passed down from the deck above by the duty cooks. He glanced up and said wearily, “All out of bloody tins again! I’ll bet them buggers in the barracks do better!”
The plates were passed along the table where fiddles were fitted to restrain them when the ship rolled, which was often.
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