III
As the convoy made the turn off the Dubh Artach light and headed up for the Minch the wind came. A bitter wind from the north, from Iceland and the Arctic wastes, funnelling down on the ships between Tiree and Mull. The convoy altered again when Skerryvore was abeam to starboard, to head up between Barra and Rhum, and then they met the blow head on. The bows dipped to a roughening sea and, with the guns’ crews by this time stood down, Petty Officer Napper turned into his bunk after rubbing some camphorated oil on his chest, now shrouded in a woollen scarf pulled tight about his ribs. Napper would have liked to strangle the drafting jaunty down in Pompey barracks, and a certain surgeon lieutenant as well. Napper had reported to the sick bay when he’d got his draft chit, spinning a yarn about vague pains here and there, principally in his chest. The sick bay tiffy had passed him on to the doctor because he’d insisted, and the doctor hadn’t been interested beyond a brief bit of play-acting with a stethoscope, after which he’d said Napper was as fit as a fiddle, which Napper knew was a load of codswallop and proved the doctor, like all seagoing doctors, didn’t know his job. To have said as much would have been to chance his arm too far, so he had to put up with it and now look where he was: Russia-bound with a dickey chest, the sods, a chest made worse by having to hang about in the open and bloody holler. Strike a light, Napper thought, Yanks!
Napper thought about home. The missus would be worried about him: she knew all about his chest. He wasn’t too worried about her; home was in a Hampshire village behind Portsdown Hill, far enough away from Pompey and Gosport to be safe, nothing nearby to attract the Nazi bombers. Napper was more inclined to worry about his daughter, who at nineteen was man mad, go out with anything in uniform, even airmen. Marleen was a constant worry, liable at any moment to get a bun in the oven and destroy Napper’s respectability. At his age, it wasn’t fair.
Napper’s last leave stuck in his mind like a bad go of tooth-ache. On his last night, Marleen had announced she was catching the bus into Pompey. There was a dance at Clarence Pier.
‘Not on your nelly,’ Napper had said.
‘Why not?’
‘Cos I say so.’
Marleen’s nostrils had flared and her mother had made a bid to defuse the situation. ‘It’s not just that. Your dad’s worried about the bombs.’
‘What bombs?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Napper said wearily. ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on? It’s me last night, too. Anyway, you’re not going, so that’s that.’ He took up a poker and thrust angrily at the fire, or what there was of it. The Napper household was a patriotic one, even in the bath: like the King in Buckingham Palace, they never exceeded four inches of hot water.
‘I am going! I’m bloody going so there!’ A foot was stamped and Marleen’s eyes flashed. ‘I’m meeting Danny —’
‘Not that wet weekend —’
‘I don’t care what you say. You never say anything good about any of my boyfriends —’
‘That’s cos there’s nothing good to say.’
‘Oh! You — you —’ Words had seemed to fail Marleen after that; there was too much head of steam inside. She whirled about and stormed out of the parlour, slamming the door with a crash that shook the whole house. A second later the door opened again and Marleen delivered her parting shot: ‘Go and get stuffed, you rotten old fool!’
Old fool eh? Napper could hear the shrill yell still. When Marleen had gone he’d stormed about the room, he remembered, talking about a taste of the belt when she got back, but Ethel had gone to Marleen’s defence, saying that if he laid a hand on her she would walk out of the house. In the end he’d calmed down, though the scene had had an effect on his stomach and he felt quite sick and had to go to bed with some milk of magnesia and two aspirins, and even then hadn’t slept a wink, lying there beside an unresponsive Ethel waiting for the sounds of Marleen’s return and fearing the worst, not just the possibility of bombs but also Danny, even though he doubted if Danny was capable of putting a bun in anyone’s oven. Thinking back now from somewhere north of Rhum, Napper began to sweat. At first he thought it was the effect of his own thoughts and bitter memories but after a while realized that it was the tightness of the wound scarf and too liberal a hand with the camphorated oil that was making his vest stick.
IV
By 1600 hours next day the convoy had left Cape Wrath on its starboard quarter and was heading into what had become a full gale. Out now from the narrows, out from the land’s shelter, they moved into the danger zone that stood between Cape Wrath and their Iceland landfall, as yet some two days’ steaming ahead. The convoy was now larger: two ammunition ships had joined out of Loch Ewe, tagging on astern of the centre column after an exchange of signals with the senior officer of the escort and the Commodore. The ships moved on into the night and the gathering storm, their fo’c’sles swept by the heavy seas that dropped back aft to swill over the hatches and against the mid-ship superstructures, pouring in white cascades from the hawse-pipes and washports while the wind sang through the steel-wire rigging and buffeted the watchkeepers. No weather for U-boats; but Hitler had other methods and the first alarm came early next day as the morning watchmen were about to be relieved. Leading Signalman Corrigan made the report to Captain Theakston, wedged in a corner of the wheelhouse, grey with lack of sleep.
‘Senior officer calling, sir. Aircraft bearing green two oh, hostile, closing.’
Theakston spoke to the officer of the watch. ‘Call the Commodore, Mr Amory.’ As he spoke he moved across the wheelhouse and brought a heavy hand down on the action alarm.
THREE
I
‘Unexpected,’ Kemp said. Up to now, the Luftwaffe had left the PQS alone, as he remarked to Theakston.
Theakston gave him a sideways look. ‘There’s always a first time,’ he stated flatly. Kemp scanned the skies, which were a clear blue with a scud of white cloud racing before the wind. The attacking aircraft were at first hard to pick up; they were coming out of the sunrise. The cruiser Nottingham, away to starboard, was already in action, her ack-ack sending up shells that burst in puffs of smoke to dot the sky. Soon the Germans were in sight from the Hardraw Falls, keeping high, sweeping right over the convoy before coming back in for their bombing run.
‘Buggers are well out of range,’ Kemp said, referring to their height.
‘Aye, they are that.’ Captain Theakston was phlegmatic, almost indifferent. You did what you could, you handled your ship in accordance with your training and experience, and you hoped for the best. No use worrying. If you got hit, you got hit and that was all about it. Aboard the Hardraw Falls you’d go fast enough if you did get hit, blown straight up into the heavens to sit somewhere on God’s right hand and look down on it all happening.
All the ships of the escort were firing now, all except those of the A/S screen who were forming the guard against U-boats and whose depth-charges would be vulnerable in the racks and throwers. The sky above the convoy seemed filled with the shell bursts, a shrapnel curtain to keep the attack high and hinder the bomb-aimers.
‘Here they come,’ Kemp said suddenly. ‘Laying eggs...’
They watched as the bombs dropped from the bays, clusters of them that spread wider as they fell. The sea became dappled with waterspouts. A ragged cheer went up from the decks of the Commodore’s ship as the convoy steamed on unscathed: not one hit. The next bombing run came in at reduced height, the Germans taking a chance on the ack-ack fire, zooming across with a roar of engines and this time to better effect: three ships, two in the port column and one in the starboard, were hit. Those in the port column, not badly damaged apparently, moved on. The starboard one had carried a cargo of cased oil and had taken a bomb on her fore hatch. There was a brilliant flash and a spreading column of smoke that spiralled and billowed for hundreds of feet into the sky. More explosions came, and more thick, oily smoke, as the fire took charge below and the shattered ship settled lower in the water.
‘Not
many’ll come out of that,’ Theakston said in a flat voice. There was no response from the Commodore: these were the times that Kemp detested with every part of his mind. A seaman’s instinct was to stop and help, and all he could do was to steam on and make sure that all the other ships steamed on as well. The overall business of the war came first, and you didn’t hazard more cargoes and more lives in the middle of an attack. But it still left a nasty taste and a certain knowledge that however long your life lasted there would be no forgetting.
This time, it was to be pointed up cruelly.
Leading Signalman Corrigan reported. ‘Signal from SS Wick-steed Park, sir — request permission to stand by for any survivors.’ Corrigan added, ‘Wicksteed Park’s next astern of the one that went up, sir.’
‘Yes. Answer: “You are not repeat not to stop engines but may lower nets”.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Corrigan flashed the answer with his Aldis, voice and face expressionless. Kemp wondered what he was thinking — probably the same as himself: that in such desperately cold sea, men would die within the minute, that to lower nets and hope to catch anything would be as forlorn as looking for a sixpence in the Sahara? Just a sop to Kemp’s own conscience, better than a flat refusal order. A ship sweeping past, the shocked survivors, if any were alive, too dazed and broken to reach out a hand for the trailing nets — he might just as well have sent that refusal.
Cutler was on the bridge now, come up from aft where he’d been with the close-range weapons above the after island, yelling words of encouragement as the gunners pumped away, sitting in their harness as the guns swivelled after the enemy to no effect.
Kemp faced him. ‘I gave no order to open fire, Cutler.’
‘No, sir.’
‘You know the general order, given at the convoy conference: no firing from the merchant ships except when under individual attack or when aircraft are clearly within range.’
‘Yes, sir, Commodore —’
‘God damn it, the country’s desperately short of all kinds of ammunition! So is the ship. We’re going to need to make every round count. Remember that, all right?’
‘Yes, sir. It was just that I wanted to have a crack at them, that’s all.’
Kemp nodded, understanding only too well. ‘All right, Cutler. Just bear in mind what I said. See that the order from the bridge is awaited in future.’
‘Yes, sir, Commodore.’ A hand started to go into one of Cutler’s odd salutes, but wavered before its manoeuvre had been completed. Two minutes later the attack was broken off, very suddenly. Soon after that the reason became apparent: the RAF had arrived, presumably from Shetland.
Theakston said, ‘Better late than never.’
II
With just the one loss to report, the PQ convoy reached the shelter of Iceland and the anchors were let go in Hvalfiord. Shelter was not quite the word, except as regards the enemy: the wind was bitter, the cold intense. A naval motor-cutter came off to fetch the Commodore and his assistant and Mason Kemp made his report to the Naval Officer in Charge while the escort vessels and merchant ships topped up their fuel tanks for the long run to Archangel. The damage to the two ships, Kemp reported, was not enough for them to be taken out of the convoy provided the base had facilities to effect temporary repairs. This, NOIC said, would be attended to so far as possible in the time available. ‘Can you delay our sailing if necessary?’ Kemp asked.
NOIC shrugged. ‘My scope for that is limited, Commodore. The Russians are said to be bellyaching for supplies...but of course they won’t be wanting a short delivery. There’s another angle, though: we’re not so far off the winter freeze-up around Archangel. It’s going to come early this year, so the Met boys say now. An unexpected shift in the weather charts. You might get in, but you might not get out again after discharging cargo if we cut it too fine.’
‘Murmansk instead?’
‘Yes, we may have to ask the Russians to approve a re-routeing — you’ll be kept informed while at sea, of course.’ NOIC, a captain RN named Frobisher, seemed, Kemp thought, to have something else on his mind but if so was either keeping it to himself or hadn’t yet got around to it. Frobisher asked abruptly, ‘Gin?’
‘Thank you. Just a small one.’
‘That’s all you’ll get. It’s not easy to keep Iceland properly supplied with all the essentials! You don’t know how lucky you are to have a sea appointment.’
Kemp smiled politely but was thinking of the ship that had blown up. Lucky to be at sea? Perhaps the dead had thought so too, until they’d stopped thinking altogether in the instant of disintegration. But Frobisher, whilst pouring two small gins with plain water, was speaking again...
‘I’m sorry,’ Kemp said. ‘My thoughts were — somewhere else. I’m not convinced that there’s much luck about the sea. Not for some.’
Forbisher looked at him keenly. ‘Yes, I think I understand. That ship. Rotten — I know that. Goes against the grain, just leaving them to it. But there wouldn’t have been many left — any left most likely.’
‘I still hate my own guts.’
‘Well — don’t. You know perfectly well you had no choice. Here, drink this.’ Frobisher put the gin glass in Kemp’s hand. ‘I can rake up another if you feel you need it, and you’ll be more than welcome. And a word of advice if I may offer it: when you get back aboard, relax and have a bloody good skinful!’
‘I’ve a damn good mind to,’ Kemp said.
He did have a second gin and while he was drinking it NOIC relieved his mind of its burden.
III
Returned aboard, Kemp went to his cabin, looking grim and upset. He poured himself a whisky: like any other ship, naval or merchant service, the Hardraw Falls carried a plentiful supply of spirits and tobacco and Kemp had ordered cigarettes and a bottle of whisky from the chief steward’s stores. The drink, a short one, poured, there was a tap at the door and Sub-Lieutenant Cutler came in.
‘Well, Cutler?’
‘Request, sir, Commodore —’
‘I have one of my own, Cutler. A request.’
‘Sir?’
Kemp said, ‘Aboard a ship I may be God, but I’m not the Holy Trinity nor even the holy couple, if there is such a thing. Get me?’
‘Why, no, sir, Commodore, not —’
‘There you go again! I’m sir or I’m Commodore, but not both at once. Let’s settle for the unadorned sir, shall we?’
‘Why, sure, sir, Commodore...sir. If that’s what you want.’
‘I do. Like a whisky?’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Kemp poured, the broad gold band on his cuff catching a shaft of sunlight striking through the scuttle. ‘You had a request. What is it?’
‘Not me personally, sir. Petty Officer Napper. To see the doctor ashore, if there is one. If not, then the doctor aboard the Nottingham, sir.’
‘Reason?’
‘Chest pains, sir. And a few more elsewhere.’ Cutler paused. ‘If I may offer an opinion, sir, I reckon Napper doesn’t want to go to Russia.’
‘No more do I, Sub. But you may be right. Whether you are or not, he’ll have to be allowed to see the doctor. Make a signal to the Flag...ask for a medical appointment soonest possible. Better ask them to send a boat, too. They’ve got more spare hands and boats than the Hardraw Falls.’
‘Very good, sir.’ Cutler finished the whisky. ‘Sir, the orders from NOIC —’
‘I have them in mind. I’ll be talking to Captain Theakston shortly, Cutler. For now, keep the orders under your hat.’
‘I’ll do that thing, sir, Commodore...sorry, sir.’ Cutler left the cabin. Kemp went over to the square port beside his bunk and looked out across the fore well-deck and the battened-down cargo hatches to the shore beyond. Iceland in midwinter was a cheerless, grim place, snow and mostly iron-hard skies, rock-like mountains, sea-worn ships with rust marks drooling from the hawse-pipes and the engine-room outfall and along the sides, the odd small boat pushing through leaden water, and overall
the terrible, biting cold made worse when the wind blew up. Turning away from a depressing scene, Kemp poured himself another whisky. NOIC had been right: one or two over the odds often helped when it was safe and prudent to take them, as it was now. The Hardraw Falls was not his responsibility and Theakston was well capable of dealing with anything that might arise in that direction. In port the Commodore was a spare number for most of the time.
The Commodore might as well enjoy his respite and kill the pain of memory. Kemp seldom drank alone but by this time he had ascertained that his initial belief had been correct: Captain Theakston was a teetotaller.
The whisky went down and he felt better. He had one more, a small one and the last, and was about to put the bottle back in the cupboard over his washbasin when there was another knock and Theakston came in.
IV
Petty Officer Napper disembarked on to the bottom platform of the flagship’s port accommodation ladder and ascended to the quarterdeck, which he saluted punctiliously. A starchy looking lieutenant RN strode the deck complete with looped sword-belt straps of black patent leather dangling empty of any sword in indication of his current duty as officer of the watch. He looked Napper up and down, and Napper saluted again.
‘Petty Officer Napper, sir, from Hardraw Falls to see the qu — medical officer, sir.’
The lieutenant made no reply but lifted a hand to the corporal of the gangway, a Royal Marine. Napper was taken in hand and led by a sideboy along pipe-lined alleyways with corticened decks, over coamings in the watertight sections, the well-remembered ambience of a warship, not experienced for quite a while; until his draft to the Hardraw Falls, Napper had served ashore ever since his recall on mobilization in 1939, a nice soft number in Pompey barracks as petty officer i/c cleanliness in the seamen’s blocks. It was a rotten shame he’d been propelled out of it at his age.
Convoy North (A John Mason Kemp Thriller) Page 3