Irvine grimaced. ‘If the Old Man had not been so mad keen to put this ship on a Dunkirk footing none of the lads would have known any difference.’ He spread his hands and yawned. ‘As it is, it turned out to be a great let-down, just as I prophesied.’
Standish looked at him calmly. ‘There will be no discussion on the captain in front of me. You should know that.’
Irvine smiled. ‘Just as you say, Number One. But if this is to be an informal discussion, then I think we should put our views in the open.’
Standish looked across at Quarrie. ‘Chief?’
The engineer placed his scarred hands palms down on his knees and studied them.
‘What you do on deck is your affair. My department is always on top line. It doesn’t matter to me what you do with your time.’
Standish smiled slightly. Quarrie was a hard man to know, but he always spoke his mind.
He looked at Hornby. ‘What about you?’
The electrical officer dabbed his forehead and eased his bulk carefully away from the chairback.
‘Yes, I think we ought to be frank about it.’ He flushed as Irvine laughed quietly. ‘Although I can’t really see what the captain expects to get out of this ship.’
Wishart said quickly, ‘Well, I think he’s done wonders. For me anyway. All the months I’ve been aboard I have been used either as an errand boy or a filing clerk. At least under Dalziel I’ve learned something.’
The deck canted slightly and faint shouts filtered down from above.
Irvine said dryly, ‘Sounds as if Bill Pigott is learning, too. The hard way.’
Wishart met his amused gaze and replied hotly, ‘And why not? I think any officer should be able to take charge of the bridge, in a limited fashion at least.’
Standish looked at each of them in turn. ‘You all know the state this ship was in.’ Even saying the words made him feel uneasy. It was like betraying Mitford’s memory. He added harshly, ‘Petty officers almost had to plead with some men to get things done. Now they at least know they have the captain’s backing, and several faults have been ironed out.’
‘And there are more men at the defaulters’ table!’ Irvine dragged out a cigarette and lit it irritably. ‘Dalziel talks as if there was a war on, for God’s sake. You can’t expect our people to play war games just because he’s happy to have a ship again.’
Standish eyed him coldly. ‘That’s a bloody stupid attitude to take.’
‘In your opinion.’ Irvine looked at the deckhead fan. ‘When Captain Jerram was aboard I did get time to ask him about Dalziel and the big collision. Jerram was there, too. He had a staff job and was temporarily aboard Dalziel’s ship, the Harrier.’
Quarrie said dourly, ‘Took you into his confidence, did he?’
Irvine glared at him. ‘My father still has some influence, you know. I imagine Jerram is well aware of that fact.’
Standish said, ‘Get it off your chest and then drop it for good.’
‘Well.’ Irvine seemed momentarily off guard. ‘It seems that the wrong helm order was given and the carrier had no chance to avoid the Harrier.’
Quarrie gave a rare grin. He had small teeth, each spaced apart from the next, like a line of matched stones.
‘Well, the court martial let him off with a reprimand. I remember the case quite well now. And that was for placing too much trust in the officer of the watch.’
‘Who was killed in the collision.’ Irvine’s smooth interruption was perfectly timed. ‘There was only our captain’s word.’
‘Are you disputing it?’ Standish closed his folder with a snap. He had been wrong to let it go on. It was a bad mistake and he was to blame for misjudging the situation. Yet when he had decided to call this informal meeting to discuss the programmes he had thought it best to bring it all into the open. Clear the air and release each of them from his own theories and apprehensions.
He continued sharply, ‘You know as well as I do that the captain, any captain, is well within his rights to use all legal means to get his ship to first-line efficiency. So far he’s not had much help from his officers, or at least some of them. Like that business with the motor boat for instance. Because of it breaking down the Sub here had to do your job.’
Irvine said uneasily, ‘He was just saying it was a good thing for officers to know each others’ jobs.’
‘Because of this failure a man died, Pilot, so just think about it.’
‘I hope you’re not blaming me for that?’ Irvine half rose to his feet. ‘When the captain tried to stop a Russian ship I thought things were going too far. But when he charged alongside that moth-eaten junk I knew he had no idea what he was doing.’
The bulkhead telephone buzzed and Wishart answered it, his eyes still on Standish’s face. Then he said, ‘Captain wants you on the bridge, Number One.’
Standish stood up, suddenly thankful for the summons. He paused by the door and said slowly, ‘In future we’ll have a bit more co-operation all round. Or I’ll want to know why.’
When he had gone Hornby said in an aggrieved tone, ‘I don’t see why he’s so edgy about it.’
Irvine pressed his fingertips together and replied evenly, ‘Because he too is sweating on another command. Anyway, whatever he really thinks, he still has to back up the commanding officer.’ He glanced coolly at Wishart. ‘And next time you feel like a bit of death or glory just remember one thing, Sub. To cause a disaster in the Service is bad, but not overwhelmingly so. As we all know, a court martial can often bring an officer into the limelight, and therefore to advancement by other, less tedious means.’ He frowned. ‘But to condone a disaster is something else. The stigma can follow you everywhere, can wreck your career just as much as if you had been the principal offender. If you live long enough, you’ll learn that when the chips are down it’s no use saying you were only obeying orders.’
Wishart flushed and walked to the door. ‘I’m going to my cabin.’
Irvine remarked, ‘Wants beating with a sixth-form cane, does that one!’
He looked at the others and sighed. Quarrie had dropped into a doze and Hornby was already studying another catalogue of sports gear.
To the wardroom at large he said, ‘No Dalziel is going to foul my yardarm. Not now and not ever.’
Quarrie opened one eye. ‘You on watch soon?’
Irvine looked at him coldly. ‘In about ten minutes.’
Quarrie closed his eye. ‘Thank Christ for that!’
* * *
Standish found Dalziel in the small chartroom at the rear of the upper bridge, his white shirt gleaming in the gathering shadows as he stared through an open scuttle at the horizon.
‘You sent for me, sir?’
Dalziel did not turn. ‘I did. Odd thing just happened. Petty Officer Keeble’s chaps picked up an S.O.S. Very strange indeed.’
Standish waited. Keeble was the radio supervisor, a competent, nuggety little man, who like Quarrie spent most of his time amidst his outworn equipment.
Dalziel continued in the same calm tone, ‘Very faint, and extremely brief. Good chap that Keeble, didn’t waste any time. I must see that he is encouraged to sit for promotion.’
Through the open door Standish could see Pigott’s figure framed against the darkening sky as he prowled along the gratings in the forepart of the bridge. He may not have learned much more about standing a watch, but he certainly looked the part, Standish thought.
He asked, ‘Did Keeble get a fix on it, sir?’
Dalziel turned and peered at him searchingly. ‘Capital thinking!’ He nodded. ‘Due south of us somewhere.’
Standish looked down at the illuminated chart, feeling Dalziel’s eyes on him as he studied the ship’s plotted position. She was heading north-east by north, creeping along the furthest extremity of her patrol area.
He asked, ‘Any other ships in the vicinity, sir?’
‘None as far as I know.’ Dalziel leaned on the table, dropping his voice suddenly. ‘And nobody else
attempted to reply to the signal, according to the W/T office.’
Standish straightened his back and said carefully, ‘Even supposing it was genuine, it would take us well out of our area, sir. We could make a signal to ask for an air search, I suppose.’ Even as he spoke he knew what Dalziel would say. The captain was itching to break away from the destructive boredom of patrol, and to him this vague and unfinished S.O.S. was an obvious chance.
Dalziel said, ‘Be dark soon. If the S.O.S. was from a ship in real trouble, sinking perhaps, they’d be too late to save anyone. The sharks would see to that.’
There was some sense in what he said. But a last note of warning made Standish ask, ‘Will you inform Captain Jerram too, sir?’
‘No need, Number One. I’ll cope with all that side of it later, eh?’
A shadow fell across the door and Irvine stepped inside the chartroom.
Dalziel said, ‘Ah, Pilot. Lay off a new course. We will carry out a sweep to the north for fifty miles.’ He looked at Standish and added crisply, ‘Tell Pigott to bring her round to zero-one-zero and ring down for full speed.’ He grinned. ‘No sense in wasting time!’
Pigott listened to the new instructions and replied grimly, ‘Here, we go again!’
‘Shall I take the con?’ Standish saw the lines of strain round Pigott’s mouth and found time to sympathize with him.
‘No. I don’t mind this part of it so much.’ He leaned over the voicepipe. ‘Port fifteen.’ His spectacles glittered in the dying red sunlight as he turned to watch the curving wake astern. Then he glanced at the gyro and snapped, ‘Midships. Steady.’ To Standish he said, ‘The captain just gave me my programme. I’ve to put topics of interest into a hat and pass them round the wardroom.’ He cocked his ear over the voicepipe and then replied, ‘Very good. Steer zero-one-zero.’ He bit his lip and added, ‘Full ahead both engines.’ To Standish he added, ‘Once, I’d have increased speed before the turn. With all that broken crockery listed in my stores returns things are bad enough without adding to the trouble.’ He frowned. ‘As I was saying, each officer will draw a slip of paper, and whatever topic comes his way will be the subject of a lecture to any off-watch people who are either too slow or stupid to be somewhere else at the time.’
The deck trembled as the revolutions mounted, and Standish saw Quarrie, hatless and almost running as he hurried to his engine room to find the cause for such violent treatment.
Pigott rested his hands on the screen and smiled. ‘It does feel good, I must say!’
Dalziel strode on to the bridge and glanced up at the masthead pendant. ‘Fine weather for a search. Capital.’
From the chartroom door Irvine called, ‘No moon tonight to speak of, sir. If there is a ship out there, or survivors in the water, we’ll be hard put to find them.’
Dalziel looked at the radar scanner. It was revolving steadily, and from the funnel came an increasing plume of smoke.
‘Men on the moon, heart-transplants are as common as corned beef, and we can’t find a bloody ship, Pilot? Really, I must see what can be done about you!’
Irvine looked away, and a signalman lowered his head to hide a smile.
Dalziel climbed on to his chair and settled himself comfortably to watch the distant horizon.
Standish turned slightly and studied the captain’s profile, the hooked nose, the gunmetal sideburns on his tanned face.
What do we know about him? Really know. He could be married or divorced. A secret drinker, or a man so driven by some inner compulsion that even now he was carrying the ship and everyone in her to disaster.
He thought suddenly of Irvine’s words, his obvious contempt for what Dalziel was trying to do. It was unlikely that Jerram had discussed anything important with him, but Irvine was nobody’s fool, and what was unsaid was almost as important as evidence.
He heard Dalziel say, ‘Ah, Caley, I did not see you hiding over there.’ A pause, and the T.A.S. officer mumbled some sort of reply. Then Dalziel added cheerfully, ‘Better go and check our budding Kildare in the sickbay. He may have work to do before he’s much older.’
As Caley hurried away Dalziel murmured, ‘We should have a qualified doctor aboard, not just a medical assistant. No foresight, that’s half the trouble with our so-called planners.’
He turned and looked suddenly at Standish, his teeth shining in a broad smile of pleasure.
‘Feel her, Number One? She’s just loving this, you know. I’ll bet many a U-boat sailor wet his pants when he heard her screws grinding overhead, eh?’ The smile faded. ‘I always regret that I was too young for the war. Korea was all I got, but even that was better than most of the present day Navy has had. They’re getting soft, like a lot of bloody women. A nine-to-five Service, with the little wife and the television waiting every night.’ His voice rose slightly. ‘Semi-detached minds, that is all that sort of nonsense produces!’
Standish said, ‘I take it you’re not married, sir.’
‘Never found the time. One day perhaps, but from what I’ve seen, it’s not worth a candle. Once upon a time women married sailors either because they liked it or because they just wanted a man. Now, well I ask you, all they think about is status and respectability. Result? Moral oblivion!’ He reached out and gripped Standish’s wrist. ‘I was forgetting. That was quite unthinkable, Number One, in view of your own, er, misfortune.’
‘It was nothing like that. I can assure you.’ Standish looked at the shadows on the heaving water beyond the bows. ‘Anyway, I’m trying to forget it.’
Dalziel nodded, apparently reassured. ‘That’s the ticket. No sense in brooding, eh?’ He swung round and yelled, ‘Where the hell are the navigation lights? Come on, Pigott, jump about then!’
Standish walked to the port wing and stared out across the creaming bank of foam which swept from either bow in a solid, unbroken arrowhead.
No wife, and he suspected, few real friends. The more he learned of Dalziel, the more remote and unreal he seemed to become.
At that moment the big light below the bridge wing came on, bathing his hands in deep red. He shuddered and thrust himself away from the jerking steel plates as the memory came back like part of a nightmare.
Before the drugs had carried him down into an empty, painless world he had seen his hands like that. Stripped and burned raw by the fire, shining in that mad enclosed world of screams and curses before the watertight door had been screwed shut and only his own cries had followed him into the blessed darkness.
He gritted his teeth and pressed his hands hard against the screen. He had to forget it. Shut it from his mind forever. After all, Alison had found it easy to forget him, so why was her memory still so necessary and so constant?
Dalziel said suddenly, ‘Pass the word to keep a good lookout for anything unusual. Lights in the water, things like that.’
But as the first pale stars appeared above the flapping masthead pendant the Terrapin kept the sea to herself, with only the hard white line of her wake to show for her efforts.
* * *
By midnight it was pitch black on the bridge, and after the unwavering heat of the day the air touched the watchkeepers like ice. Beyond the quivering glass screen the upsurge of the ship’s bow wave rolled away into the darkness, tinted eerily on either beam with the red and green of the navigation lights.
The sound of the sea breaking away from the stem was masked entirely by the many other noises which made talking almost impossible. Creaking metal, the clatter of loose gear and signal halliards, the discordant chorus was continuous and kept time with the racing screws which had maintained full power for almost four fruitless hours.
It was a strange, unnerving sensation, Standish thought, quite unlike a submarine in every way. On watch at night in the cockpit of a submarine’s high fin, even more so in the open conning tower of the older conventional boats, you had the feeling of being on a partially submerged rock. But beneath your feet there was another living world, a whole synchronized and dependable
mechanism waiting for the merest word, when at the slam of levers you could be carried deep to smooth safety, to wait or to ponder, and if need be escape from the dangers overhead.
But now, standing with one arm wrapped around a stanchion he could feel no such security. The ship was charging further and further to the north, as if she cared nothing for the puny creatures on her bridge, or those who lay in their hammocks and bunks cursing the racing shafts while they tried to close their minds in sleep.
Irvine stepped out of the chartroom and crossed the gratings below Dalziel s chair.
He sounded tired and resentful. ‘Captain, sir?
‘Hmm?’ Dalziel turned and glanced down at him, his shirt etched against the dull steel and the sky beyond.
‘We’ve logged twenty-two miles beyond your search limit.’
‘I see.’ Dalziel seemed to be considering it. ‘Seventy-two miles all told. You know that just shows, doesn’t it? The Chief must be very pleased with his department tonight. I do not suppose this ship has maintained such an excellent average speed since she was launched.’
Irvine said, ‘I did not mean it as a compliment, sir.’ He sounded as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. ‘We should break off now and make a signal to that effect. If there is a wreck somewhere, then it certainly seems to have kept clear of us.’ He paused before saying, ‘And if the W/T office picked up some false static by mistake it leaves us seventy-two miles off station.”
‘Thank you Pilot. I shall bear your survival ratio in mind.’ Irvine turned sharply and walked back to the chartroom. Standish heard the door slam, and imagined him swearing amongst his charts and calculations.
Dalziel said quietly, ‘He is unhappy about it.’
Standish stepped up beside the chair so that the others should not hear him.
‘He has a point, sir.’
Dalziel looked away. ‘But suppose there is a ship out there. Could be just a handful of poor devils in an open boat. They might be able to see our lights right now.’ In a more subdued tone he asked, ‘Do you think I should turn back?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘Don’t reply to that. My decision. Right or wrong. No other way.’ He lapsed into silence and stared straight into the salt-stained glass screen.
The Greatest Enemy Page 9