III
The cold seemed to increase, although it hadn’t seemed possible that it could worsen. The temperature stood at nearly fifty degrees below freezing. The Hardraw Falls made desperately slow progress in her sternway motion; the collision bulkhead, watched constantly by Amory and the ship’s acting bosun and the carpenter, was holding yet and the seepage hadn’t got any worse, though this was probably due to the lack of water pressure even though some water was splashing up against the bulkhead as a bitter east wind drove against the metal. By nightfall Kemp was back on the bridge, his sea-soaked bridge coat and duffel coat dried out in the galley. He still looked a little pinched about the mouth but otherwise, he insisted, was fit enough, and he didn’t like being confined to his cabin. Von Hagen, according to the chief steward, was also recovering but was in a state of serious depression. Kemp said he would talk to the German agent in the morning: he preferred to let him stew for the time being. If the depressive state worsened, he might be made to be more forthcoming: Kemp still had in mind his orders to extract any information that was going.
At a little before midnight the snow started again, coming down heavily and at times almost horizontally, borne along that piercing east wind that felt as though it was coming direct from the Siberian wastes. Emerging from the comparative warmth of the ship’s interior into the driving snow was sheer torture. Cutler, staying on the bridge with the Commodore, was concerned for Kemp. In his view, Kemp didn’t look at all fit. Cutler came out with it straight, said he ought to go below. There was nothing he could do by remaining in an exposed position: with the shattered glass of the screens, there was no protection even in the wheelhouse although temporary canvas dodgers had been secured across the lower halves.
‘I’m all right, Cutler.’
‘You won’t be by the morning, sir.’
Kemp said, ‘Do you know something, Cutler? I served my time, my apprenticeship, in sail. I just caught up the tail end of the windjammer era. Four years, a little more by the time I had my second mate’s ticket, then three more for first mate and master. I was on the South American and Australian run...around Cape Horn for Chilean ports — Puerrto Montt, Val-paraiso, Iquique, and then across to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Fremantle. Cape Horn, the Australian Bight — the Horn especially, of course — the Barents Sea has nothing on them.’
‘You were younger then, sir.’
Kemp laughed. ‘Kindly don’t remind me! You’re right, of course, but we were given a toughness that lasted. I’ll remain on the bridge, Cutler. Don’t forget that damaged bow. And don’t forget that in this muck, we’re going to be hard to find.’
‘You mean the ship detatched from the escort to stand by us, sir?’
‘Exactly. I want to be handy. There’s no need for you to stay. You’ve done your share, Cutler. Go below and get some sleep — and that’s an order.’
After Cutler had left the bridge Kemp wedged himself into a corner of the bridge wing and sunk his head down on to his arms crossed on the guardrail, the hood of his duffel coat pulled down over his ears. He faced aft, in the direction of the ship’s stern-way, into the appalling drive of the heavy snow. The night was very dark now, no sight of the Northern Lights, with only the faint loom that was always present over the world’s oceans to allow a faint glimpse of the snowflakes. The ship was covered now, its outline vanishing more positively than in the earlier blizzard. Kemp’s thoughts, once aroused by his brief conversation with Cutler, went back to those early days at sea.
Happy times, however hard — good comradeship and the world at his feet as the wind blew a sixteen-year-old youth in his old windjammer away from Liverpool town on a thirty-thousand-mile round journey. A motley enough crew at times, but all of them knowing that each depended on the other for his life in the many dangerous situations that could and did arise. Kemp recalled the desperate battering into the teeth of the westerlies off the pitch of the Horn — Cape Stiff, as the old shell-backs had known it - the attempts to find a shift of that never-ending wind that would carry them round towards the South Pacific. On many a voyage a ship had taken up to six long weeks of cold and hunger to beat round, with all hands and the cook aloft on the swaying footropes to take in sail or adjust the trim, frozen hands grabbing at frozen canvas whipping in the gale and sometimes throwing men off the yards to land on deck with broken backs or go sheer into the icy water with no hope of rescue. One hand for the ship and one for yourself had been the watchword, but with some of the more bullying mates right behind you, you didn’t take that too literally: the discipline was iron hard, even at times sadistic, and if you didn’t survive, you didn’t and that was that. No questions asked afterwards, no letters of complaint to Members of Parliament. ‘Lost overboard’ was the notation in the log, and that was enough.
Why had he ever gone to sea? Why had he endured the hard-ships, the food that consisted of such messes as burgoo, cracker hash, sea pie, weevily biscuits, corned dog and so on, why had he settled for no pay as an apprentice and the gradual advancement to what was then a master’s niggardly twelve pounds a month?
He grinned to himself: it had been bred into him by his old grandmother...her father had been a master in sail and so had Kemp’s grandfather, her husband; their memories had been idolized and kept alive in the young Kemp’s home, and he had listened to many yarns of the old times and had become imbued with a perhaps over-romanticized view of the seafaring life, a life of adventure far removed from the humdrum business of the shore. Seamen were a race apart, with a different set of values of honesty and fair dealing, men working together for the good of each and for the ship; ships had been prideful things to sailors and to Kemp’s grandmother. He had found the reality not quite the same as the dream but even so there was still some of the romance left, some of it in the form of the shantymen and the nostalgic songs sung with the fiddler on the capstan as a ship put out to sea for a voyage that could last two years before they sighted a home port again. Stirring times for a young man, experiences that had left behind them that enduring physical hardness of which he had just spoken to Cutler. But Cutler would probably never really understand, even though he clearly liked the sea himself, even though his own country of America had also had a long sea tradition of hard men and hard-driven ships, bucko mates in plenty and grim masters who pounded the down-easters along the trade routes of the world, ruling their kingdoms with the fist and the belaying-pin, and the cruel punishments of being mastheaded for long periods in bitter weather or in blazing tropic sun.
Kemp gave a sudden deep-seated shiver: the immersion hadn’t in fact done him any good and never mind the hardness of sail. As Cutler had hinted, he was growing old — at any rate in Cutler’s eyes. In his own view, the early fifties didn’t make anyone an old man. Kemp shook himself free of the snow that covered him, and beat his arms around his body. Old be buggered!
IV
The Hardraw Falls, missing bosun Tawney, was by now short of officers as well: a watch had to be kept at the collision bulkhead as well as on the bridge, which meant the Captain had to take a turn on his own. The bridge watch was being split between Theakston and the second officer, while Amory and the third officer shared the duty for’ard, protected from the weather but as bitterly cold, or almost, as the bridge. There was a deadness, a particular kind of coldness, about being enclosed in metal that you couldn’t touch with an unprotected fingertip unless you wanted the flesh to freeze to what was touched and remain there until it was torn bloodily away. Amory, taking the middle watch, the twelve to four known at sea as the graveyard watch, walked up and down with difficulty, dodging past the great beams that shored up the collision bulkhead, for’ard of Number One hold with its lethal cargo of high explosive, trying to keep his circulation going. For want of anything better to think about as he kept an eye lifting for trouble, Amory, like Kemp, found his mind going back into the past, fruitlessly and painfully. The bomb that had killed Felicity had changed Amory a good deal and he had little left in life except
a consuming hatred for the Nazis. The killing of Nazis was his interest now; he wanted to live so that he could go on contributing what he could to the defeat of Hitler’s pestilential doctrines, so that he could have the final satisfaction of seeing the Allied armies entering Berlin, even though he would see it only on the newsreels in his local cinema — that, and the surrender of the German Navy, the last striking of their detested, flaunted ensign.
Vengeful?
Amory gave a hard, humourless laugh. Of course it was, and why not? He’d had the prospect of a whole life to live with Felicity; now all he had to go home to was a crusty and widowed father, pensioned off, too old now even for the police War Reserve, and not liking it, and taking it out on his neighbours as an air-raid warden. On leave, Amory had heard him at it: ‘Put that light out...don’t you know there’s a war on...who the hell d’you think you are?’ He’d also heard the remarks, sotto voce when he was recognized, in the local pub, about the old bastard who thought he was still a police super.
Not much of a life, on leave. Might just as well stay aboard the ship, really. Better, in fact: Amory was a vigorous man with normal wants. The girls were more co-operative in the seaports than at home with their little respectabilities and what would the neighbours think. Amory meant girls — not prostitutes. He’d been at sea quite long enough to see the results of risks taken in extremity. For the same reason he was always careful not to drink too much: tight, you lost your discrimination and the urge grew stronger even if the ability tended to lessen at the crucial moment...
Up and down, up and down, half stumbling with sheer tired-ness, frozen right through, the very marrow in the bones feeling it. The ship heaving, groaning, weird and disquieting noises from distorted frames. Could they ever reach Archangel, arse first, at little more than four knots?
Just watch the bulkhead, that was the thing. Forget the past, don’t worry about the future — just watch the bulkhead for the smallest sign of further strain. Amory knew that if anything happened it was likely to happen suddenly and he wouldn’t have much time to clear the compartment.
Dawn came, weak and straggly, no sun but still the everlasting blizzard. It was no more than a faint lifting of the dark, you couldn’t really call it a dawn. Kemp had at last given in and gone below when Theakston had come up at 0400 hours to take over the bridge from the second officer. Once on his bunk, he had dropped off to sleep almost fully dressed — weariness had overcome him by the time he’d got his outer clothing and seaboots off. At 0800 his steward, Torrence, looked in, shook his head at the inert figure and went out again, closing the door gently behind him. Moving along the alleyway he met Cutler. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said briskly. ‘Not that it is.’
‘Morning, Torrence. How’s the Commodore?’
‘Sleeping, sir, flat out and snoring. I was going to bring ‘is breakfast but I thought, well, why disturb ‘im, sir, let ‘im rest.’ Torrence flicked at a speck on his white jacket. ‘Did you want ‘im, like?’
Cutler shook his head. ‘No. But he wanted to see the prisoner…leave him for now, though. Keep a watch now and again, all right? And let me know when he’s awake.’
‘I’ll watch over ‘im like a mother, sir,’ Torrence said cheerfully. Cutler was glad of the happy tone; there had been too many long faces around the last few days. Not surprising since there was nothing to be cheerful about, but depressing.
Even more depressing was the snow, which was cutting them off from all contact with the outside world; he felt they were like a blind man trying to walk across Dartmoor. They moved in a world of their own with no knowing if the promised destroyer or corvette from the escort would ever reach them.
Cutler went back to the bridge, refreshed after what passed in wartime for a full night’s sleep. He had just reached the wheelhouse when there was a buzz from the wireless room and Theakston, who was handing over the watch once again to the second officer, answered it. He swung round on Cutler.
‘Signal from the Admiralty,’ he said. ‘In cypher. Prefixed Most Immediate.’
FOURTEEN
I
Cutler brought out his naval deciphering tables and broke down the signal into plain language. Then, need for sleep or not, he knew he had to call the Commodore.
Kemp came awake at once, the attribute of a seaman, the ability to clear the mind fast.
‘What is it, Cutler?’
‘Signal from the Admiralty, sir.’ Cutler held out the naval message form and Kemp read fast, his forehead creased into a frown.
‘God damn and blast,’ he said. ‘What do the buggers expect of us?’
‘Miracles, sir?’
‘It bloody well looks like it!’ Kemp swung his legs off the bunk and stood up. He swayed a little and reached out to steady himself on the bunk board, reading the signal again as if he hadn’t taken it in fully the first time. It read: ‘Moscow anxious about delay. Vital repeat vital that passenger reaches Archangel within seventy-two hours of time of origin of this signal. Met reports now indicate freeze likely at any time.’
Kemp said, ‘So we take orders from the Kremlin now.’
‘Seems so, sir.’ Cutler paused. ‘Why not have breakfast, then —’
‘Oh, balls to breakfast, Cutler. I told you I was tough. We didn’t often have breakfast in the windjammers in the old days!’
Cutler grinned. ‘The days when ships were wood, and men were made of iron?’
Kemp stopped in the act of pulling on his monkey-jacket and stared at his assistant. ‘Where the hell did you hear that?’
‘Read it somewhere, sir.’
‘You surprise me, Cutler. But never mind. I’ll be on the bridge directly. I’ll take a look at the chart on the way.’
‘Aye, aye, sir —’
‘And my compliments to the Captain...tell him what’s in the signal and say I’ll be asking for the impossible — more speed.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Cutler left the cabin and went back to the bridge. Theakston had in fact gone below. After a word with the second officer Cutler used the voice-pipe to the master’s quarters and gave him the news. There was a curse but Theakston was back on the bridge before Kemp had entered the chartroom.
Theakston said, ‘I can’t get any more out of her, lad, and that’s flat.’
‘Perhaps a knot or two, sir?’
‘Just you say that to my chief engineer! Engines don’t like going astern for too long. Or too fast. She has to be nursed. And there’s another point, isn’t there?’
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘The visibility. Just look at it, eh?’
Cutler nodded: the snow was thickening and the visibility was down to something like two cables, coming down farther in patches as an extra swirl of snow was driven into their faces. ‘Bad,’ he said. ‘But I doubt if there’s much shipping around.’
‘Oh, no! Only maybe a homeward convoy coming the other way.’ Theakston lifted his binoculars and stared into the white blanket ahead; then lowered them again. It wasn’t worth the effort of lifting, the glasses brought up only a thicker blank. He said no more; a couple of minutes later Kemp emerged from the chartroom and approached Theakston.
‘Good morning, Captain. You’ll have heard about the signal...I’ve just looked at the last dead reckoning position on the chart. We have around four hundred miles to go. Say a hundred hours’ steaming...it’s too much, in the light of that signal.’
‘There’s nowt to be done about it, Commodore.’ Theakston’s tone was stubborn; Kemp had expected no less. He pressed, but tactfully. The ship was Theakston’s responsibility, he reminded himself for the hundredth time since leaving the Firth of Lorne. Theakston, however, did come under the overall orders of the Trade Division of the Admiralty as he did himself, and if necessary, with reluctance, Kemp would make the point forcefully. Theakston said, ‘She’ll not take more speed...just maybe another knot,’ he added grudgingly as he saw the set of Kemp’s jaw.
‘I shall need more than that, Captain. I’m sorry, b
ut there it is. We have the Kremlin at our throats, if that’s not too dramatic a phrase —’
‘I give nowt for the Kremlin.’
Kemp laughed. ‘I don’t give much myself. But I do have my orders. And there’s the ice — we haven’t all that long. The signal says it’s vital — you know the contents.’
‘Aye, I do. Why is it so vital?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just the Commodore.’
‘You should maybe find out from the prisoner.’
‘That,’ Kemp said, ‘is what I propose to do to try to, anyway. But in the meantime we can’t afford to fall behind the progress of the freeze off Archangel. I have to assume the Admiralty knows its own business.’
Theakston’s face was aggressive. ‘I said, there’s nowt —’
‘Yes, I know. I’m going for’ard, Captain —’
‘What for?’
Kemp said, ‘To look at the collision bulkhead.’ He didn’t wait for any explosion from Theakston; he turned away and went down the starboard ladder to the well-deck, into the fo’c’sle accommodation and down again to where Amory was once again at his station abaft the bulkhead, watching the shoring beams.
II
The word had spread quickly that something extra was in the wind along with the blinding snow, that fresh orders had reached the Commodore. No one knew what it was, but all were certain it wasn’t good news: it never was, in wartime. Chief Steward Buckle nabbed Petty Officer Napper as the latter went crab-wise past his office.
‘Mr Napper —’
‘Yer?’
‘No better, eh?’
‘Worse.’
‘Well, well. Never mind, it’ll clear up soon, bound to.’ Buckle lowered his voice. ‘Heard the buzz, I s’pose?’
‘Yer. What about it? You heard something too?’
Convoy North (A John Mason Kemp Thriller) Page 15