Once when Vernon went for coal the third engineer took him along the ‘tunnel,’ a narrow passage, about six feet in height, through which the propeller-shaft ran from the engine-room to the stern. Vernon followed the third engineer down the hundred-odd feet of tunnel with the massive shaft revolving very close to him on the right.
“Six bearings,” said the third engineer, pointing along the shaft, “and damned important ones too. Come along; let’s go to the end.”
At the end of the tunnel the shaft disappeared through the stern of the ship. Here was a constant trickle of water seeping in, and Vernon could hear the massive blades of the propeller churning the ocean outside. When the stern lifted and the propeller came out of the water there was a fearful racket as the engines raced.
“That’s bad for them,” said the third engineer.
A ladder led up out of the tunnel at the after end, and, as far as Vernon could discover, that and the path by which they had come from the engine-room were the only ways out of the tunnel. The realization that they were standing at the bottom of the ship, that they were possibly thirty-five feet below deck-level, and that anything might happen made him suddenly uneasy.
“I’d better be getting back,” he said.
“Just as you like,” said the third engineer. “I’ve got another three hours down here.”
Vernon was glad to be on deck again, away from the confining walls of the engine-room, with the iron ladders leading up, up, far away above you. He thought of the men working down there during submarine attacks, hearing the depth-charges and unable to do anything except work on. He thought of them wondering if the ship would suddenly split open and icy water come gushing in. What chance had they? What possible chance?
God, he thought, I’d rather be on the guns!
Night fell, and the gale had not abated. The seas, if anything, were more violent than ever, and there had been no opportunity for the convoy to regroup. Overhead a thick cover of lead-grey cloud shut out the sun by day and the stars by night; the cloud-cover was so low and so metallic in appearance that when the Golden Ray soared high upon the crest of a wave Vernon almost expected her mast-heads to scrape the ceiling.
Leading-seaman Agnew was gloomy. “This wind’s driving us off course—driving us south. We’ll end up on the Norwegian rocks if we ain’t careful. What with no sun and no stars, I bet nobody knows where we are. Dead reckoning ain’t much use in this drift. We’re lost—that’s what we are—lost.”
He seemed to draw some kind of gloomy satisfaction from this—as though it were a state of affairs which he had foretold and was now seeing come to pass. “Well,” he seemed to be hinting, “they got us into this mess; now let ’em try and get us out.” One might almost have supposed that nothing would please him more than to see the Golden Ray wrecked on the coast of Norway, and that if this failed to happen he would be disappointed.
When he came down from the afternoon watch he had more news to impart with his usual lugubrious gusto.
“The D.G.’s had it. About fifty feet of cable’s been ripped away from the port side. Bloody good if we come up against magnetic mines now!”
“How did it happen?” asked Willis.
“Happen! Easy enough! A sea came over and washed some loose ironwork bang against the cable—there’s some force in those seas, I can tell you. It cut the cable in two places and carried a damned great chunk overboard. Made the sparks fly and all. Now we’ve got no D.G. Healthy, that is!”
Nobody disbelieved Agnew. The de-gaussing cable was not built into the Golden Ray, but lay, for the most part, just above the scuppers. A heavy sea armed with metallic debris could easily have carried some of it away, thus breaking the electric circuit which served to neutralize the ship’s magnetic field, and exposing her to the menace of magnetic mines.
“Oh, well,” said Willis, “the engineers will soon mend it.”
“No, they won’t,” said Agnew. “They’ve had a shot; but they can’t manage it. Haven’t got the right cable or something. It’ll have to be left till we get back—that’s if we get back. Well, boys, don’t forget your life-jackets. We’ll be lucky if we get through this lot.”
Which thought appeared to cheer him considerably, for he immediately began humming the tune of Lilli Marlene, a little off key, while he made himself a mug of cocoa. He even sang a few of the words, but in the region of “underneath the lamplight” found himself suddenly out of his depth, and reverted to humming. He sipped cocoa with a sound like that of dirty water making its final escape from a bath. Then he looked slowly round the mess-room and asked, “Do any of youse bastards believe in a life hereafter?”
Nobody answered him; nobody appeared interested in this sudden entry into the realms of theology. Agnew began slicing a plug of tobacco and stuffing the shreds into his pipe.
“You’ll soon find out,” he said.
Miller had begun to wander in his mind, muttering and mumbling, appearing to see things at which he stared with wild eyes. Sometimes he lifted his hands as though in an attempt to ward off evil shapes. At times there was fear in his eyes, at times anger and hatred; at times their expression turned to something gentler; at times they filled with tears.
Often Miller would talk with every appearance of rationality. “No, George, it wasn’t my fault, I tell you! Don’t blame me, George! You can’t blame me; you can’t! George, George! You do understand, don’t you?”
Miller’s tone would change. He would begin to talk wheedlingly. “You know me, George; you know me—Fred Miller. You know I wouldn’t do a thing like that—not me, George—not me.”
Then his voice would rise in a note of alarm. “George, don’t look at me like that. Keep away, George; keep away!”
At other times Miller would speak more softly, so that it was impossible to hear his words except by listening very closely. It was at these times that his expression softened and his face appeared less mean. There was nothing noble about Miller. Yet at such times his battered features seemed to acquire a vague trace of nobility.
“Yes, Jess, I’ll do that; I’ll do anything you say, Jess. Help me, Jess. I need you. You’re the only one can save me.”
Then again his voice would rise with that note of alarm. “No, Jess, don’t leave me. I can’t do without you. I can’t; I can’t.” The alarm was subtly different now. “Jess, I can’t see you. Where are you, Jess? Come back to me. I want you. Please come back to me. Oh, Jess, Jess, I can’t see you.”
He would finish in a sob of despair.
Sometimes he would try to sing. It was a pitiable effort. He would sing snatches of bawdy songs—Army verses set to Salvation Army hymn tunes—and occasionally a bar or two of The Red Flag. Then he would start to cough, and his body would be racked by paroxysms. Blood would come, staining his thin lips. And after a while he would be silent, staring with unseeing eyes at the bunk above him.
At midnight on the third night of the gale Miller awoke from sleep or coma and spoke in his normal tone—quietly and sanely.
“Hullo, Harry,” he said, looking up at Vernon, who was sitting by him. “You’re a good pal, really. I take back all I ever said about you. You’re a pal.”
He paused, wrinkling his forehead, as though trying to collect his wits. Then he went on almost in a whisper: “I want you to do something for me. You will, won’t you?”
Vernon nodded.
“That’s right. I knew you would; you’re a pal. I want you to see that Jessie has my things—all of them. You’ll do that?”
“Jessie who?”
Miller did not appear to understand. “That’s right. Give them all to Jessie; she’s got to have them—all to Jessie.”
His voice trailed away, and he seemed to be sleeping again. But after a moment he opened his eyes. “You’ll do that, Harry?”
“Yes,” said Vernon, “I’ll do that.”
“Thanks,” said Miller. “Tell her—with Fred’s love. Just that; she’ll understand—with love from Fred.”
> When he closed his eyes again he was smiling. He smiled in his sleep, and the iron in his stomach seemed to have lost the power to hurt him.
Half-way through the middle watch a light came on in one of the rafts hanging on the after rigging. Willis guessed what had happened: the light was of a type which would float in water, bulb uppermost, and in that position it automatically switched itself on. It was tied to the raft by a length of cord, and normally was stowed with the bulb downward. The rolling and tossing of the ship must have shifted this one, so that it had turned the other way up and come alight.
In the murky blackness of the storm it showed up bright and clear—a beacon marking the position of the ship. With all around it the smooth, unbroken darkness, there was something almost obscene about that one shining light; it was like a beggar’s sore exposed to view or the white scale of a leper. The immediate reaction was to try to cover it, to hide it at all costs.
Willis cupped his hands and shouted to Randall. “Do you think you can climb on to the raft and put that light out?”
Randall said, “I don’t mind trying.”
That was true enough. He was in that state of mind in which he would have tried anything. He was past caring.
He clambered down from the Bofors platform, climbed upon the rail that surrounded the four-inch-gun deck, reached up towards the rigging, and was just able to grasp the bottom of the raft with his hands. He was on the starboard side, and he waited for the ship to roll to port, then, with a great heave, pulled himself up and got one leg on the raft. Another heave, and he was lying crab-wise upon its slatted surface, clinging tightly as the ship heeled over again upon her starboard side.
The wind tore at Randall’s clothing, shrieking in his ears, so that he heard no other sound—neither the shouted instructions of Sergeant Willis nor the vibration of the ship’s engines —heard only the high, shrill screaming of the gale. He found that the rescue-light had become wedged in an upright position between two slats, but it came away easily enough in his hand. He reversed it, and the light faded away, losing itself in the darkness. He hung the lamp up by its cord, so that it was unable to light again, and, having done so, he lay for a time motionless upon the raft, clinging to it as the ship rolled, first one way, then the other.
Looking down as the ship heeled over to starboard, Randall could see the white glint of water rushing past in a frothing ocean of foam. It was only a few feet below him as he hung there, and it was like a torrent tumbling into some dark, infinite cavern—a cavern of oblivion. Randall decided to let himself slip into that oblivion. There was no future for him; he had forfeited his future and might as well make an end of things at once. He had simply to loose his grip, let himself drop like a plummet, and allow the cold waters to close over his head.
Yet he still clung to the raft. The hood of his duffel-coat had fallen back, and fine spindrift, blowing like white smoke off the crests of the waves, penetrated the thick Balaclava helmet that he was wearing. It was as though the icy breath of death were already upon his neck.
He thought, Now I will leave go—now, as she heels over. It will be a swift end. I shall disappear, and they will all think it was an accident.
He began to kick his feet free, imperceptibly loosening the grip of his fingers.
Now, he thought, now! In a moment it will all be over. And then he felt Willis’s hand upon his arm and heard Willis’s voice shouting in his ear. “Are you all right? Can’t you get down?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes; I’m coming.”
And he followed Willis back to the deck, and climbed after him up the rocking Bofors ladder.
“What the hell!” shouted Willis. “What the hell were you doing? Couldn’t you hear me yelling? You must’ve been hanging there for ten minutes or more. Did you go to sleep?”
“I was thinking,” Randall said.
“My God,” said Willis, “what a place to sit and think!”
By morning the storm had abated considerably and the seas were going down. And as relative calm settled on the waters the convoy began to reassemble its scattered members, the destroyers, like sheep-dogs, searching far and wide, and drawing in strayed sheep from this horizon and from that. And as the destroyers searched, collecting a ship here and a ship there, the others steamed round and round in a wide circle, waiting for the strays to join them—waiting impatiently, with watchful eyes upon the sky and watchful eyes upon the sea.
And as the convoy lay waiting for the lost ones to return a destroyer drew close to the Golden Ray, and a voice shouted through the loud-hailer. It seemed like the voice of the destroyer—metallic, yet cultured—a naval voice—a voice of unemotional efficiency—a voice to drive away doubts and fears. “Ahoy, Golden Ray! Ahoy! I am coming alongside to take off your wounded rating. Is everything ready?”
It was Captain Pownall himself who answered, speaking through a megaphone.
“You are too late—too late. He died last night.”
Miller was buried at sea, sewn up in a hammock, with an iron grating at his feet to make him sink. They laid him on a board, and the captain read a brief service. Then the board was tilted on the bulwark, and Miller slid silently down into the ocean.
None of the gunners had really liked Miller; yet they all felt the loss of him. There was a blank in the mess and an empty bunk, and these were unpleasant reminders—reminders of man’s mortality—reminders of the slenderness of that thread by which each one of them clung to life.
“He hardly made a splash,” Andrews said. “He just went down—straight down.”
“He was small,” said Payne; “no more than a scrap of a lad. He didn’t need much space.”
Andrews seemed unable to take his mind off the picture of Miller, no more than an oblong bundle in a canvas covering, sliding silently down into the water.
“Hardly a splash. Straight down he went. I wonder what it’s like down there. Cold and dark. I wonder what lives down there. Horrible things; slimy things. It’s awful—going down, down, down, and never coming up no more. It’s—”
Willis broke in savagely. “Forget it! Forget it, I tell you! Ben, for Christ’s sake play that bloody mouth-organ!”
By nightfall all the stragglers had been found and drawn again into the fold—all except the lame duck. Somewhere, some time, in that terrible gale, the lame duck, struggling along on her crippled engines, had ceased to struggle. Some time, somewhere, she had foundered, sinking without trace beneath that cruel sea. So, when the convoy formed again into its ranks and steamed on towards the setting sun, the lame duck was no longer with them, and would never be with them again.
And now the others experienced a feeling akin to guilt, because they had secretly wished the lame duck to die. Now that she was dead, her death hung about their necks like the Ancient Mariner’s albatross, and they wished her alive again, so that the sense of guilt might fall from them. But she was dead—dead and gone for ever.
So they steamed on as the sun sank and the daylight faded—on into the night. And the sky was like a perforated hood with light shining through the holes; and soon the aurora sprang up in the north and cast its eerie glow over them all. And as they moved on beneath the aurora and the myriad stars they thought of the lame duck and of others which were no longer with them, and they wondered who would be the next.
Then the fog came upon them—a grey, opaque blanket, chill and clammy, folding the ships within its dripping arms and hiding them, one from another. Soon visibility was down to a few yards, and out of the fog came the sound of ships’ sirens braying their warning, as all moved nervously forward, crying out at brief intervals, and seeing nothing but the grey blanket above them and all around, and the grey water below.
Captain Pownall was on the bridge of the Golden Ray with the second mate. Both of them were peering into the gloom; both were listening for the sirens, trying to judge the direction from which the sound came, trying to gauge the distance. But the fog confused sound, altered directions, played tricks with h
earing; and they could not tell with certainty where any other ship was. They knew only that within the radius of a few miles there were nearly forty vessels—merchantmen and men-of-war—with any one of which they might collide.
There was a look-out in the bows watching for danger ahead. It was a cold post, and he shivered, wishing himself back in Swansea, where he had been born. His eyes smarted with the strain of gazing into a blank wall. What was that creeping out of the gloom? Was it the shape of another ship? Was it a shadow? Was it only the child of his own imagination?
He shivered again and stared ahead—wondering—wondering.
On the Bofors platform Andrews cried suddenly, “Look, sarge! Look down there! It’s a periscope—a periscope!”
Willis looked where Andrews was pointing, and saw a little column of churned-up water, like a fountain playing. It rose and fell, rose and fell; and it kept pace with them, moving along beside the ship, level with the stern of the Golden Ray.
“It’s a periscope,” Andrews cried again. “What do we do?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Willis said harshly. “It’s a fog-buoy.”
Andrews felt silly. Now that Willis had told him he could see that it was a fog-buoy—one of those T-shaped wooden floats that ships towed in fog to make a spurt of water and warn following ships to keep their distance. But it ought not to have been where it was; it ought to have been ahead of the Golden Ray. They must be getting uncomfortably close to the ship in front.
Willis picked up the telephone and rang through to the bridge. “There’s a fog-buoy running beside us, sir. It’s about level with the gun-deck.”
The voice of the second mate answered him. “Thank you, sergeant. I wondered where it had got to. Keep your eyes skinned for that tanker astern of us. We don’t want a boot in the arse.”
He rang off, and Willis watched the fog-buoy gradually drawing ahead. He stamped his feet and looked for the tanker following them, listening for the voice of her siren, and, when it came, not able to say for certain whether it was hers or that of some other vessel wandering off its course.
Soldier, Sail North (1987) Page 19