Sparrow let out a long breath of relief. It was cold outside and he didn’t want to know, didn’t want the cold to come through broken plates into his engine-room, nor seawater either. Sparrow didn’t like the sea, not after thirty-odd years of it. He’d spent much of those thirty years wishing he hadn’t gone to sea at all. It was an unsettling life, here today and gone tomorrow, and not overpaid although there were the perks of duty-free fags and whisky plus free living and a steward to wait on you. It had been all right when he was a younger man, in fact it had been fine, but not after he’d got married. By that time it was hard to find a job ashore; he’d become too set in the ways of a ship’s engineer and then he’d come up for chief and had settled for it. He would never have got an equivalent status anywhere other than aboard a ship.
He was joined on the starting platform by his second engineer, Bob Weller, who gave him what Sparrow considered a careful look as he did each time they came into contact. Sparrow knew why: Weller was next in seniority for chief of one of the Bricker Dockett Line’s ships and Sparrow was getting long in the tooth, although he still had two years to go to retirement — unless the war went on that long and kept him at it. Bob Weller was impatient for promotion, and a man of Sparrow’s age might well kick the bucket at any time, so Weller was always on the lookout for signs of illness, like a stroke or a heart malfunction. Mr Sparrow knew this perfectly well and occasionally played up. He did this time.
‘Sudden flaps,’ he said, sounding breathless. ‘Don’t like ‘em.’
‘Don’t blame you, Chief.’
‘Flutters the heart.’ They were having to shout over the engine sounds, and Sparrow, for the sake of ageing bones, was hanging on tight as the Hardraw Falls rolled heavily to an alteration of course. The starting platform was a slippery place. Sparrow sometimes wondered if Weller sprayed oil on to the plates when he knew his chief would be down.
‘You should take it easier, Chief.’
‘Maybe I should.’ Sparrow put a hand on his chest and managed to make his cheeks look hollow. He didn’t miss the sudden look of hope in Weller’s eye. There was no surer way to promotion than to have the chief engineer die at sea: the second stepped automatically into his shoes, at any rate for the rest of the voyage, and then with Weller’s seniority it would be equally automatically confirmed on arrival back in UK. But Sparrow felt as fit as a fiddle and Weller was going to have a long wait yet.
II
‘Nottingham and Neath returning, sir!’
‘Thank you, Corrigan.’ Kemp, his binoculars levelled towards the port bow where the firing had been heard, had already seen the cruisers reappearing over the horizon. Once again a light was flashing from the Flag. Corrigan reported: ‘Commodore from Flag, sir. “Interception successful. Both destroyers sunk. Have sustained superficial damage only.” Message ends, sir.’
That was all: no indication of casualties, no indication of whether or not anyone had survived those terrible sea temperatures. Kemp said, ‘Make to all ships, resume formation, course and speed.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Kemp looked at the clock on the wheelhouse bulkhead: an hour had passed, four more to go to the rendezvous. And the wind was increasing now, coming up to around Force Five on the Beaufort Scale, and it was filled with the threat of snow, bitterly cold and bringing the sea up in white horses that blew icily from the wave crests. Not bad enough to inhibit the operation of the U-boats, however; and Kemp was surprised that no attack had developed. Of course there was plenty of time yet: the U-boats and surface vessels and aircraft could be waiting for the convoy to make its landfall off the North Cape, and come round it into the Barents Sea. Why cover the whole ruddy ocean, Kemp thought, when you knew the convoys had to close towards the North Cape whatever happened, whatever their courses up from Scotland or Iceland?
With the ship now secured from action stations, Cutler came back from the after gun positions: the routine had to be gone through, the close-range weapons manned however useless they, might be in some situations.
‘All correct, Cutler?’
‘All correct, sir, Commodore.’
Kemp clicked his tongue. ‘You don’t give up easily, Cutler.’ The American grinned tightly, more of a baring of teeth. ‘My apologies, sir. Guess I’m thick at times. Or just a Yank.’
Kemp gave him a sharp look. ‘You sound bitter.’
‘Maybe I am. That Napper, he doesn’t like Yanks.’
‘He said so?’
‘Sure he said so. Loud and clear - but not meant to be heard. Correction — meant to be heard but not meant to be addressed directly. If you get me, sir.’
Kemp grunted. ‘Don’t take it to heart, and don’t hear — if you get me.’
‘I get you all right, sir, and I agree. But I keep thinking of Pearl Harbor.’
‘Of course you do. I think we all do, probably even Napper. But try to remember that the British Navy’s been fighting the Atlantic war a long time now —’
‘Not Napper. Not sitting on his ass in Portsmouth barracks till now. I’d like to have been there, to kick that ass of his all around the parade ground till he got prised loose —’
‘All right, Cutler, I appreciate your feelings, but for God’s sake and the convoy’s don’t let them show any more. You’ve let off steam. Let’s leave it at that.’
‘That an order?’
Kemp nodded briskly. ‘It’s an order, Cutler. I’m not having friction of that sort.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Cutler said, and tore off his weird salute, his face set. Then he turned about and went into the chartroom behind the wheelhouse. One of a commodore’s assistant’s jobs was to keep the chart corrections up to date on the Commodore’s folio, and a whole batch of Notices to Mariners, incorporating the latest corrections, had come aboard in Hvalfiord. They would take time to enter in red ink on the relevant charts. But Kemp knew that Cutler’s main preoccupation currently was to keep out of range until he’d simmered down.
III
By now the snow had started, thin so far, but the sky spoke of a really heavy fall to come. That sky was bleak, dark and heavy and foreboding as the day stretched into the afternoon. No sun at all, just that grey overcast and the spray being blown back over the bridge and wheelhouse and monkey’s island, over the decks and the watchkeepers, over the reduced guns’ crews of the watch, soaking into duffel coats and down the collars of oilskins to bring discomfort and piercing cold. Spindrift came, blown along the wind to search out every nook and cranny, and now the snow was blown with it, all the way, as it seemed, from the North Polar regions. The visibility was already coming down with the snow. Captain Theakston stood huddled in the port wing of the bridge, along with his chief officer, Amory. No use taking the easy way and keeping in the comparative warmth of the wheelhouse and trying to peer through the Kent clear-view screens as they whirled electrically at a speed that anyway in theory kept them clear of rain and snow. That was in Theakston’s view the pansy way, the way that led to accidents in convoy. And because the master was on the bridge, Amory was also out in the open. The Old Man expected that and would have said so had Amory not come out into the biting cold...
‘You look frozen, Mr Amory.’
‘I am frozen, sir.’
Theakston was sardonic. ‘A little bit of snow! Come now. We don’t complain about it in the North Riding, you know. Shepherds...do you think they aren’t out in it continually, seeing to the sheep? Lambs get born in this sort of weather, in the dales.’ Theakston flapped his arms about his body and his breath went like steam into the wind. ‘You’re a good chief officer, Mr Amory, but you’d make a poor shepherd, very poor.’
Amory laughed. ‘I’m not much bothered about my qualities as a shepherd.’ He looked around the convoy, at the warships of the escort, lean and hard but with their outlines blurred by the different shades of grey-blue of the camouflage paint, cutting through the waves with bones in their teeth and the water flinging back. The little ships of the A is screen were ha
ving, as ever, the worst of it. Amory knew that those small ships were manned mainly by hostilities-only ratings and officered largely by the RNVR, what used to be called the Saturday-afternoon sailors until they’d proved themselves through two long, hard years of war at sea, never out of uniform, often enough watch on, stop on when the weather was bad or the enemy was out. And they and their mates in the cruisers and destroyers were the shepherds now, tending the convoys along the world’s trade routes, keeping Britain fed, ensuring she and her allies were armed and supplied with troops...Theakston was going on about his favourite subject: Yorkshire and its dales and fells and great stretches of moorland. The road that wound through Wensleydale from Leyburn to Hawes, through the little villages, Wensley, West Witton, Aysgarth, Bainbridge, and off the main road the tiny, isolated communities of Thoralby, Thornton Rust, Stalling Busk, Countersett...Amory had never seen any of them but he knew them intimately by now. There, Theakston said, was where the snow bit hard. You could be cut off for weeks, no movement except on horseback. And the winds blew strong too. Amory wondered why Theakston hadn’t become a farmer instead of a seaman. There was, in fact, a lot of similarity between the two callings. Each was deeply committed to facing the weather in all its moods, facing it and beating it. And now, in wartime, even that shepherd simile was apt.
Theakston fell silent. Not a man of many words normally, he had talked in spasms, with long gaps. Amory, who knew about Theakston’s wife, guessed he had been talking to stop himself thinking. There were times when Amory was glad enough not to have married: the fact that Felicity was dead meant that now he had nothing in the world to worry about. Had she lived, had she married him as had been intended, she would have been his constant worry as well as a brief delight every now and again when he had leave from the sea. He would never have stopped worrying about her; in a sense, like children, wives were hostages to fortune. They could fall ill like the Old Man’s wife. Amory was saved all that, now. Or anyway he kidded himself he was: he couldn’t forget the bad nights, thinking of what might have been, tossing and turning, flicking on the light over his bunk and smoking one cigarette after another. Or the hours on watch in fair weather and safe water, pacing the bridge with nothing to do but keep an eye on the course and the occasional avoidance of another ship coming up on his starboard bow. That was when a man’s thoughts, like the snow in Wensleydale, bit hard. So he could understand Theakston.
‘I’ll take a look at the chart, Mr Amory.’ Captain Theakston came away from the bridge rail and walked into the wheelhouse and then the chartroom. When he came back after a minute he said, ‘We’re closing the rendezvous position.’ He had told Amory, as he was bound to, of the rendezvous but had not gone into any details. ‘Half an hour I’d say. Call the Commodore, Mr Amory.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Amory went to the voice-pipe to Kemp’s cabin and blew down it, activating the whistle. Kemp was on the bridge within the minute. After a word with the master he scanned the seas ahead through his binoculars. The light was fading fast now, it would soon be full dark, and the sky was heavily overcast though as yet the snow was still falling only thinly.
‘Plenty more up there,’ Theakston said.
Kemp nodded. ‘Let’s hope it holds off for a while.’
‘Aye...’
There was no sign of a submarine and no reports had come back from the escort. Fifteen minutes later a blue-shaded lamp started flashing from the Flag: not a contact report, but the expected order to reduce the speed of the convoy. Theakston passed the order down to the engine-room on a nod from Kemp, and the speed of advance came down to seven knots as the ships butted into the sea and the wind and the whirling snowflakes. That snow was already building up on the decks, thin as it was, and the Hardraw Falls was mantled in ghostly white, like a shroud, Kemp thought. Sub-Lieutenant Cutler came to the bridge, carrying his own white covering: he had been checking around the guns once again and he looked like an animated snowman.
Kemp caught his eye. ‘Almost there, Cutler.’ He turned to Theakston. ‘What d’you make it now, Captain?’
‘Within a mile or two. Mr Amory, have the hands ready with the jacob’s ladder now. Mr Paget to be in charge, with the bosun.’ He added, ‘Port side amidships.’
Amory passed the word. Below the bridge, shadowy figures moved and there was a clatter as the rolled-up jacob’s ladder, rope and wire and wooden treads, was hoisted to the rail ready to be sent down the ship’s side along with heavy fenders.
Cutler asked, ‘Any contact yet, sir?’
‘Not a bloody murmur,’ Kemp answered, sounding on edge. He drummed his fingers, half frozen already despite thick gloves, on the teak of the bridge rail. By now they were as near as dammit in position; Portree should have picked up the submarine on the Asdics quite a while ago. But there was just nothing. Kemp could not take the Hardraw Falls too far beyond the rendezvous. He would in fact very much have liked to do so . if he failed to take off the German agent he would be relieved of a very dirty job.
Now was the time for decision: Theakston reported the ship had reached the rendezvous. Kemp said, ‘Very well. No contact. Signalman?’
‘Sir?’
‘Call up the Flag. Make, “In the absence of contact propose breaking off now in accordance with earlier planning. Request destroyer be detached.”’
The signal was flashed across on the blue-shaded Aldis and quickly the reply came back: ‘Commodore from Flag, concur. Portree will stand by you.’
‘Acknowledge,’ Kemp said. ‘Stop engines, if you please, Captain.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Theakston said.
‘No more do I.’
‘I have my ship to consider.’
‘Yes, I know. I have the convoy to consider. And my orders. The engines will be rung to stop, Captain.’
Theakston shrugged; he had made his protest. He knew the Commodore was under strain; and orders had to be obeyed. He passed the word to Amory and the telegraphs were pulled over. Soon after the engine sounds had ceased and the telegraphs had reported back that the engines were stopped, Theakston ordered the sound signal to indicate that the way was off his ship: the siren gave four short blasts and the ships astern altered to port and starboard to pass along the sides of the Hardraw Falls. In the rear of the convoy HMS Portree moved up to take station ahead of the Commodore and act as guardship. The other ships moved on, bulky shapes in the darkness — and what had suddenly become a full-scale snowstorm. They were soon lost to sight from the Hardraw Falls. And still no contact from beneath the sea.
IV
Below in the engine-room Weller used words similar to Theakston’s. ‘I don’t like it, Chief. Circling like a bloody catherine wheel only not so fast. Too bloody slow in fact.’
‘Go fast and you get dizzy.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Weller said irritably.
‘Yes, I know all right. Sitting duck. I’d like to know what’s going on. Those buzzes earlier...something’s in the wind, that’s for sure.’ Sparrow’s voice had sounded too loud to be true when the engines had so suddenly been brought to stop and then to slow ahead. ‘Maybe this won’t last long.’
‘Why not ask the bridge, Chief?’
Sparrow laughed. ‘You know Theakston. Still, I’ll give it a try.’ He reached for the voice-pipe, blew down it and put the flexible tube to his ear when the bridge answered.
‘Bridge. Captain. What is it?’
‘Chief speaking. Wondering what’s up, that’s all.’
‘Nothing to worry about.’ Theakston slammed down the cover of the voice-pipe.
‘See?’ Sparrow said. ‘They don’t give much away in York-shire. Like Scotland, is Yorkshire. Know what they say, do you?’ The chief put on what he imagined was a Yorkshire accent. ‘Never do owt for nowt, but if thee do, then do it for thissen.’
On the bridge Theakston was thinking that perhaps he could have taken his chief engineer into his confidence. After all, once the German was embarked his presence would be common en
ough knowledge. But he had been playing safe in informing only Amory: the Commodore was RNR and although he was as basically of the Merchant Service as was Theakston himself, the RN would have rubbed off on him; and you never knew quite where you stood with the King’s men. They had a different outlook and at times they could be as thick as a docker’s sandwich, though he didn’t think Kemp was that.
Theakston said, ‘I think we’d do best to increase to nearer half speed, Commodore.’
Kemp nodded. ‘I agree. Signalman...inform Portree I’m increasing to seven knots.’
The signal went out: the destroyer was just about visible, keeping station ahead still, circling with the Hardraw Falls as the snow came down. Kemp cursed to himself: the blizzard was making life extremely difficult at just about the worst possible time. It was as he was thinking this that the destroyer’s Aldis started flashing again.
‘Contact, sir,’ Corrigan reported. ‘Bearing red four five, an echo, distant one mile and closing.’
A U-boat, or the British submarine?
Almost certainly it must be the latter, though coincidences could occur. Kemp was taking no chances. Action stations had in fact been sounded at the time the Hardraw Falls had detached from the convoy, just so that all hands were on the top line and ready. Now Kemp sent Cutler down to warn the guns’ crews aft; and at the same time Theakston used the voice-pipe to the engine-room and warned Sparrow that there might be an attack. From then on the men were on a knife-edge above and below as they waited for the unknown, the unpredictable. It became a time for breath holding, for wonderment, on the part of the majority not in the know, that the destroyer wasn’t attacking there was no reverberation from depth-charges going off. Kemp felt a shake in his hands as he peered uselessly through the snow-filled darkness. If he had miscalculated, a torpedo might strike at any moment.
Convoy North (A John Mason Kemp Thriller) Page 6