A Prayer for the Ship

by Douglas Reeman

  He pulled a bottle and two glasses from a side drawer. “Here, me boy, let’s drink to it. I’ve done all I can, you just give Captain Marney the right idea tomorrow, and you’ll be all set.”

  Royce sat dazed in the chair, and scarcely noticed the neat gin, yet another phase was unfolding, seemingly beyond his control. A command, well.

  As he left the office, walking on air, he could still hear Wright laughing.

  6 |

  CAPTAIN REGINALD MARNEY, D.S.O., Officer-in-Charge Coastal Forces at the base, paced impatiently up and down the spotless interior of his stateroom-cum-office. A Writer, and the Royston ’s Yeoman of Signals stood discreetly at one end, motionless, but for their eyes, which followed the great man back and forth on his journey.

  Captain Marney was an imposing man in his late forties, his face brown and lined by years of service from Iceland to Shanghai, and his short hair greying rapidly under the weight of his many responsibilities. “Well, that about covers it for this morning.” His voice was clipped. “Make another signal to F.O.I.C., Yeoman, repeated Staff Officer Operations and all Commanding Officers.”

  He paused, and let his keen blue eyes drift through the well-polished scuttle, and finally rest on an M.T.B. which was manoeuvring alongside the Gun Wharf. Young fool, he thought, too much rudder. The M.T.B. appeared to stop rather suddenly, as it bounced off the rubber fenders of the jetty, and the Captain felt vaguely satisfied that his observations had not been mistaken. He cleared his throat, and the Yeoman licked the point of his pencil.

  “During the next month, maximum effort is to be made against all enemy coastal shipping, in order to withdraw as many of the German Forces as possible from our own convoy routes. It will be appreciated if Base and Operations Staffs will co-operate with Commanding Officers to the best of their ability during the next decisive period. Send that off Restricted, as usual,” he ended.

  He had been dictating letters and signals for two hours, as was his usual custom each morning. As the other two turned to leave, he added, “And, Yeoman, make a signal to M.T.B. 7784, er: Suggest change of rudder at the right time may prevent change of command at the wrong time.”

  He smiled drily. These Wavy Navy chaps . . . ah well, it was all new to them. He sighed heavily.

  His Chief Writer, a ferrety little man called Slade, entered stealthily. “Commander Wright and Commander Thirsk, for the Board, sir.”

  “Very well, Slade, table, chairs, etc. The usual.” He was a man of few words.

  The “Board” assembled every so often, to arrange replacements for commanding officers, to fill the vacancies caused by death, promotion, new boats, and the many other nerve-racking problems of supply and demand. At this moment, with ships being lost left and right, the demand was very great, and the supply was getting less and less experienced.

  When Royce eventually sat down facing the grim-faced trio, he felt the first qualms of possible defeat, but he steeled himself, and took consolation from Wright’s nod of encouragement.

  Captain C-F came quickly to facts. “Read your history, Royce. Quite like it, but I want you to tell me the story again. Right from when you first reported here.”

  They listened in silence, studying the younger man’s face, understanding the full impact of his words. When he finished, they sent him out of the room, to wait in maddening solitude. Not for long, and he studied their faces, especially that of the Captain.

  “I think you’ll be pleased to know that we’re satisfied, and I am quite sure you’ll do your best to make up in resourcefulness and courage what you lack in training.”

  He paused while Royce mumbled his thanks.

  “Don’t thank me, Royce. Remember it’s a great task you have before you. You must realize that you will be quite alone in your small way, just as I am here. There will be many difficulties which you must face without a pause, and without consultation with others. Your men will be mostly new to the trade, much more amateur than you ever were. And the reason I have selected you for the task, quite apart from your technical qualifications, which are obvious, is because you have not lost your sense of humanity, you have not allowed yourself to become hard. Remember, to become too hard, even in war, is to become too brittle.”

  “I’ll try to live up to that, sir.”

  “Well, good luck. Now off you go, and get that well-needed drink. Commander Wright will give you all the details this afternoon.”

  As the door closed behind him, the three regular officers relaxed, and looked at each other.

  Commander Thirsk, a ruddy-faced destroyer Captain, shook his head. “Poor little beggars! In peacetime it’d have been years before we heard what that young man has just heard. Now they’re expected to take a command when they can hardly salute properly.”

  “Don’t forget, Harry, it was harder to get killed then,” said Captain Marney soberly.

  The somehow derelict-looking end of the port installations, known as the repair yards, was as usual a wild, carelessly distributed tangle of discarded machine parts, and uneven piles of rusting sheets of armour plate, while here and there, panting diesel generators chugged and roared, as they pumped power along the snaking cables, which wriggled away in every direction. Along the slipways, running with a potent mixture of green sea-slime and oil, various small ships of war were suffering the many indignities of repair and destruction heaped upon them by the dockyard workers, who, in boiler suits and cast-off clothing, ambled from one job to the other in a manner, which to the uninitiated, appeared to have neither planning nor reason.

  It was difficult to connect the stripped or slimy hulls, which loomed uncomfortably on the trestles, their intimate parts strewn around the ramps in wild profusion, with the graceful grey shapes which rode at their moorings in the harbour. They were apparently lost, doomed to lie for ever amid chaos. The maintenance staff, however, took all despair and criticism in their stride, and in the manner of all dockyards, went their own peculiar way, and completed most of the work to schedule.

  One particular boat caught Royce’s eye as he and Commander Wright strode through the winding cobbled fair-way, their chins tucked into greatcoat collars, to stop the penetrating north wind from undoing the good work of an excellent breakfast. She lay on the second slipway, her paint stripped from her sides, the mahogany planks sharp and bright, like a naked wound. Various wires and power cables trailed over her sides, and a small army of men hammered and scraped, sawed and painted, with workmanlike indifference. A lifebuoy lay on the ground by her side, the flaked gilt lettering still showing boldly, M.T.B. 1993, Emberson’s old boat. The two men stopped for a while in silence, as if paying homage.

  “Getting a well-deserved spruce up,” muttered Wright at length. “Should have had it long ago.”

  A harassed-looking Lieutenant, in dirty flannel trousers and battledress blouse, stepped out from behind a pile of oil-drums, his greasy hands clutching impressive bundles of official forms and lists. Wright returned a fumbled salute cheerily.

  “Hallo there, Page, how’s the jolly old refit progressing?”

  Page grimaced. “Up the wall! That’s what I’ll be before long. I don’t know when she’s more trouble, in the water or out!”

  As they left him, Wright glanced keenly at Royce who trudged purposefully at his side, his eyes peering ahead.

  “That’s what you’ll be like after today, my lad. The grandeur of command. Oh, my hat!”

  Royce nodded, but hadn’t really heard, his mind, brain, and soul were captivated and controlled by one thought, one swelling desire, to get to his new boat as soon as possible. He and Wright had pored over her facts and details, dimensions and builder’s claims, until the early hours of this morning, and even then he had tossed and turned in bed, running over every last piece of available information about H.M.M.T.B. 9779. This was his greatest moment, or very soon would be, and he prayed silently that he would be equal to it. He had been vacantly munching his breakfast, when Wright had strolled in, and announced casually t
hat the boat, fresh from the builder’s yard, and her hurried trials, had just arrived at the repair yard, to have her final armament fitted. She was ready for him.

  The crew had been drafted aboard her at Dover, the nominal list and other eagerly perused details lay in his greatcoat pocket within easy reach, and as he unwittingly quickened his pace, he felt like the new boy joining his first boarding-school.

  “Here, slow down a bit!” puffed Wright. “She won’t disappear before you get there!”

  He had been at the game too long not to recognize the symptoms, and he rested his hand on Royce’s arm. “Take a piece more of advice from an old hand, if you think it’s worth anything. Remember one really important thing, and that is, the crew are much more worried about you, and what you’re going to be like. And they are, for the most part, real amateurs, green as grass; you’ll have to be really patient, and work for them, show them the way. And that goes for the officers too.”

  Royce smiled gratefully. “Thanks, sir, I was beginning to get in a flap, but what you said has helped more than you’ll ever know.”

  At that moment they turned the corner of the giant edifice of the machine shops, and the whole northern sweep of the headland came into view, and they shuddered at the vicious punch of the wind. Below them, pointing out into the stream like a rugged stone monument, was the loading-wharf, along which trundled vans and cranes, trucks and wheelbarrows, packed with the essential materials for keeping a ship at sea, from rope fenders to toilet paper.

  Most of the vessels were store ships, or tenders to larger vessels lying out at the deep anchorages, but Royce had eyes for only one craft, which shone in her new grey paint, gleaming and confident of her powerful beauty. She seemed aware of the bright splash of colour she made among the bustling shapes of the hard-worked launches and lighters, a slender, graceful creature, a living thing.

  Royce stopped dead in his tracks, causing Wright to stagger backwards.

  “Good God, what’s up?”

  “Oh, sorry, sir, I was a bit swamped by all this. She’s a beauty!”

  As they drew nearer, and lower down the sloping road, Royce began to realize how vast his new command was, compared to the rest of the flotilla. Like the boats he had seen at Harwich, she was one of the latest, powerful additions to the Mosquito Fleet, and to him at that moment she looked enormous. He forced his mind over the details again. She was nearly 115 feet long, and her engines generated over four thousand horsepower, giving her well over thirty knots. Although she only carried two torpedoes like her smaller sisters, she positively bristled with guns, ranging from a Bofors on the fo’c’sle, to heavy Brownings aft, while around the bridge pointed the familiar, slender snouts of two Oerlikons. A very tough customer, if properly handled. That thought made his mind turn to the crew, which, apart from the officers, consisted almost completely of Hostilities Only ratings. A sobering thought.

  Of the officers, apart from their names, and brief service records, he knew nothing. Sub-Lieutenant John Carver, a twenty-one-year-old ex-professional photographer, was to be his Number One. He had been eleven months in the service, three months in an Atlantic destroyer, the rest under training of one sort or another. The other officer was an eighteen-year-old Midshipman, Colin Leach, who, nine months before, had still been at college.

  They halted a discreet distance from the gangway, where a young seaman lounged, an enormous revolver hanging from his belt.

  Royce smiled grimly. I’ll have to do a “Kirby” on him, he thought.

  “Well, Royce, this is as far as I go. I think it’s important for a new C.O. to have this moment all to himself. Cheerio!” And before Royce could protest, he was gone.

  He flicked open the collar of his coat, took a deep breath, and walked slowly towards the boat.

  Several things happened at once. First, the sentry jerked to attention, and caught the lanyard of the revolver in the gangway rail, causing him to wriggle awkwardly, and preventing him from saluting at all. Royce gave him a suitably cold stare. The next thing was the sudden appearance of an officer in immaculate uniform and white muffler at the guard-rail.

  He saluted stiffly as Royce climbed to the deck, feeling like an ancient mariner. This must be Carver. A tall, striking young man, with a long, handsome face and fair hair, whose general appearance was only marred by rather protruding eyes, which gave him a haughty, if not actually arrogant look.

  Returning the salute, Royce shook him by the hand, his eyes darting quickly round the decks. Clean and neat, but then, of course, it was a new boat. Too early to judge yet.

  “So sorry we haven’t finished loading stores,” Carver’s voice was surprisingly low and pleasant. “I’m afraid I’ve succeeded in upsetting the gentleman in the bowler hat over there.”

  Royce glanced at the gentleman in question, who squatted grimly on his lorry by the boat’s side, smoking his pipe.

  “He said his tea-break came first or something. The war could, er, ‘bloody well wait!’”

  Whether this was true or not, the joke was extremely well timed, and Royce decided to allow himself to be drawn slightly from his protective wall of authority. He grinned, and clapped the other on the shoulder.

  “He’s setting us a good example. Let’s go below and have a cup, that is if you’ve managed to get all that installed yet?”

  The wardroom was long and slender like that on Emberson’s boat, but there the similarity ended. The newly varnished furniture, and clean white paint, gave it an unlived-in atmosphere, bordering on discomfort.

  “We’ll have to get some gear in town, Number One, and make the place like home.”

  A curly-haired seaman, in the conventional white jacket, clumped in with a tray of tea.

  Royce studied the man’s impassive face, as he laid the table. One of his crew. “What’s your name?” he queried pleasantly, and the man jumped.

  “Er, Trevor, sir, Able Seaman.” The north-country burr was strong. “Starboard Oerlikon gunner, sir.”

  For a brief instant, Royce felt a chill run down his neck, as he saw again the mutilated body of A. B. Poole hanging from the starboard Oerlikon, swinging gently in the flames. He shuddered, then nodded. “Thank you, Trevor, I hope you shoot as well as you handle a teapot!”

  Carver was watching him closely, and when the seaman had departed behind the serving hatch, he coiled himself down in a shining new chair.

  “What’s it like, sir, going into action—in one of these boats, I mean. It’s hard to visualize somehow.”

  Royce looked at him hard. This was the first sign of Captain Marney’s words coming true. He now had to show he was able to control his own emotions, and those of his men as well.

  “Don’t try, Number One. It’s never so bad or good as you expect anyway. I’ll keep you so busy that you’ll probably not even notice.”

  Carver smiled, and examined the toe of an elegant shoe. “When I was training we were told about your last boat. I’m very glad to be learning under you.” He was quite sincere.

  There was a scuffle, and a crash outside the door, and a youthful voice was raised in anguish. “Blast the ladder! Ouch, my blessed leg!”

  A new cap flew in the door, and landed neatly on a chair, and there were further sounds of heavy packages being put down. “I say, Number One, has the Old Man blown in yet?” piped the voice.

  Carver flushed, and rose awkwardly, but Royce silenced him with a wave.

  “Lord, I’ve got so many Confidential Books to correct, I’ll never be done.” And with a bang, Midshipman Leach burst in.

  “I’ve just seen a boat all shot up on one of the slipways. I—” He stopped, his jaw dropping. “Gosh, sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t know . . .”

  “As you see,” said Royce drily, “the Old Man has arrived!”

  At the same time he was thinking, how incredibly young; he makes me feel like a grandfather.

  Leach certainly looked every inch a midshipman, but the uniform seemed to accentuate his youth. His round, pink face
, blue eyes, now wide with horror, and unruly hair, gave him the appearance of a startled schoolboy.

  Royce smiled. “It’s all right, Mid, have some tea, relax.”

  “It’ll probably be too strong for him,” said Carver severely.

  As they chatted, and Royce fired questions concerning the crew, he knew that this was going to be a happy ward-room, and as they would not be living aboard the Royston, leaving her to the cramped crews of the little boats, it was just as well.

  He spent the afternoon exploring the boat, and checking the lists with Carver who, although most willing, was lamentably uncertain of practically all the normal procedure. He would have to be led for some time. Leach’s duties were confined at present to correcting A.F.O.s, charts, and all the other books and papers required of even this small warship, and this he did, with an enthusiasm which made Royce chuckle.

  The Coxswain had not yet joined, and a Leading Seaman called Denton accompanied Royce on his rounds. He was a burly Londoner, a peacetime R.N.V.R., and a reliable influence on the mess-deck.

  He piloted Royce into that long, homely space, now deserted while the hands worked on deck, and he saw with affection the neat lockers, with the garish pin-ups already in evidence. The built-in cupboards, the lines of damp dhobying, and rolled towels, gave the appearance of packed habitation, the discomfort borne by most sailors.

  Next, Royce met the Chief, a P.O. Motor Mechanic from Derby, named Anderson. A lively young man, with a long face like a racehorse, he nevertheless impressed him by his knowledge and love of his giant charges.

  “They make the boat fly, sir.” He rubbed his hands. “You’ll see, when we get out.”

  Royce left him in the engine room, feeling confident of one other good man. But for the most part, the men he questioned were seamen by training, and not by experience. Gunners according to their badges, although they had shot at nothing but reliable and condescending targets towed by aircraft and trawlers. “Give me time!” he muttered.