Kleber's Convoy

by Antony Trew

  The doctor waited for the ship to come back from a sudden lurch to port. ‘What’s he like at sea?’

  Wilson stared at him. ‘You’re very nosey about him, aren’t you, Doc?’

  ‘Not really. But he’s the kingpin around here and I’m the new boy; rather like wanting to know what the Head’s like when you go to your first big school.’

  ‘Well. He’s okay. Gets a bit ratty at times when things go wrong. Not surprising really. Doesn’t get much sleep. Tired, I expect.’

  ‘He is,’ said the doctor.

  Wilson yawned, shook his wrist and held the watch to his ear. ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘I’m a doctor.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so. I mean I’d forgotten that. I’m sure you’re a doctor.’

  ‘Very good of you,’ said the doctor. ‘One likes to be sure.’

  He leant forward. ‘But seriously. When did he last have a decent rest?’

  Wilson poked at his forehead with a forefinger and frowned. ‘Well. Let’s see. He missed the last one and …’

  ‘The last one?’

  ‘Our last boiler clean and leave period. Shortage of escorts. We had to do two quick trips to Iceland. Then take an assault ship down to Gib. Don’t ask me why. There was no war going on when we were there ten days ago. We reckoned a Wren must have caught her tit in the cipher machine and mutilated the destination group. We loved her for that. The sun. So warm, you know.’

  The doctor wasn’t to be shaken off. ‘When was the last leave period?’

  ‘About eight weeks ago for the starboard watch. Eleven for the port. That’s me.’

  ‘You mean the captain hasn’t had a decent sleep for eight or eleven weeks?’

  Wilson got up. ‘Thank God, Carana,’ he said to the mess-man. ‘I thought there was a catering strike.’ He looked at the doctor absentmindedly. ‘Not as bad as that. We’ve had eight to ten days in harbour in the last couple of months. He gets his head down then. Unless he’s ashore on a thrash.’

  ‘Good heavens.’ The doctor stood up, the sleeping midshipman began to stir. ‘No wonder.’

  ‘No worider what?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just thinking.’

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ said Wilson. ‘Here comes that conceited bastard Pownall. Stand by for les bons mots.’

  Shortly before dark that evening the radar buzzer sounded on the bridge. Redman went to the voice-pipe. ‘Forebridge – radar.’

  ‘Radar – forebridge.’ It was Petty Officer Blandy’s voice. ‘Captain, sir. Numerous blips on green one-six-nine, twenty-six thousand yards.’

  Redman looked at his watch. ‘Good, Blandy. That’ll be the Home Fleet destroyers with the escort carrier and cruiser. Coming up from Scapa Flow. Due to join at 1425.’

  Blandy knew this. That was why he was in the radar hut helping the operator. Nonnally he only manned the set in action, his principal duty being its maintenance.

  Before long the TBS speaker was alive with exchanges between the Vice-Admiral, the senior officers of escorts, and the commodore of the convoy.

  Daylight had all but gone when the carrier and the cruiser screened by the Home Fleet destroyers came up from astern at high speed, their bows throwing clouds of white spray into the air, their grey hulls glistening wet in the twilight. Fidelix the escort carrier and Northampton the heavy cruiser took station in the ‘box’ in the centre of the convoy. Two Home Fleet destroyers fell in astern of them, the rest of the flotilla forming a fighting screen round the convoy. The corvettes and frigates continued to provide the close anti-submarine screen, while Bluebird, Vengeful, Violent and the other ships of the Fifty-Seventh Escort Group proceeded at twenty knots to form the outer screen, eight miles ahead of the convoy.

  When at last they were in station nothing could be seen from Vengeful but a blanket of darkness, thickened by storms of rain and sleet. The ship seemed alone on an empty sea, but the pips of light flowing and fading like fireflies on the PPI revealed the position of the convoy and its escorts. To the officer-of-the-watch these presented an intelligible picture: Violent a mile and a half on Vengeful’s starboard beam, beyond her a long line of ships steaming abreast – the outer screen.

  The TBS crackled again on Vengeful’s bridge: it was Bluebird passing orders for the night: mean course 012 degrees, speed 12 knots, zig-zag diagram 31a, convoy’s speed of advance 9 knots,

  Cupido brought the captain’s meal at 1930. It came in a straw-lined wooden carrier, purpose made. But the journey from the wardrobm galley on the quarterdeck, along the length of the iron deck and up three ladders to the sea-cabin on a cold December night – with the Faeroes astern to port, the temperature close to freezing and icy spray and sleet sweeping the ship – was too much for it. So the captain’s hot meal arrived, as usual, cold. Redman, against all reason, invariably attributed this to inefficiency, if not bloody-mindedness, on Cupido’s part, whereas Cupido did his best to keep the meal hot, fighting his way along the upper deck in all weathers, sometimes falling and spilling the carrier’s contents. Then he’d go back to the galley for more. There he was abused by the cook for clumsiness and at the other end by the captain for being late. Cupido, having long since realized he couldn’t win, accepted his misfortune with a stoicism which bordered on the heroic. He never defended himself, never apologised.

  Unless there was an alarm of some sort, the moment Redman looked forward to at sea arrived at about 2000 when, an unpalatable meal finished, he would ask the officer-of-the-watch to let the engineer-officer know that he would like to see him. This was the signal for Emlyn Lloyd to arrive in the sea-cabin. The two men would discuss the day’s events, its problems and highlights, and then the ritual would begin.

  ‘Care for a game, Chiefy?’

  ‘Well now. And that’s a good idea,’ was the Welshman’s invariable reply.

  Redman would unfold the small chessboard with its pegged pieces, and they would sit side by side on the bunk, the board between them, considering their moves by the dim light of the red lamp. The stake never varied, a Mars Bar, the day’s nutty ration, and it was the winner’s privilege to bisect it neatly, passing half to the loser.

  Redman usually won if it had been a bad day for him, if there had been problems and things had gone wrong; whereas the engineer officer won on the others. It was some time before Redman suspected that this was no accident. Emlyn Lloyd was the soul of kindness, perhaps the warmest-hearted man in the ship, and Redman felt that in letting him win, the Welshman was trying to make up for the troubles of the day. Though he disliked the privilege, he never complained.

  When the first-lieutenant wrote up the logbook at 2000 that night he recorded the wind as south-west, force 6; sea and swell westerly, 6; air temperature 38°F; sea temperature 42°F; sky overcast, cloud ten-tenths, ceiling low, visibility poor, rain and sleet frequent.

  With wind and sea astern, or on either quarter depending upon the leg of the zig-zag, the ship laboured heavily, a sliding corkscrewing motion. Resigned to these conditions, her company settled down to another night of acute discomfort. Because they’d done these journeys before they knew that what they were experiencing now was mild compared with what was to come.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  To the accompaniment of strong winds shrieking through rigging and never-ending movement in rough seas, the convoy and its escorts made steady progress, plodding on doggedly to the north. To starboard, two hundred and fifty miles away, lay the west coast of Norway; to port Jan Mayen Island and Greenland.

  In the early hours of the third day the convoy crossed the Arctic circle in a south-westerly gale. It blew itself out fifteen hours later and was followed by a blizzard from the north-east. Snow lay like a shroud upon the ships and their escorts. Next day the wind changed again, backing to the north-west and blowing with unremitting fury, the spray thrown up by plunging bows freezing on upperworks and rigging to swell them with ice.

  The nights grew longer as convoy JW 137 reached into high northern latitudes and by the
fifth day the sun had ceased to rise. Other than a brief period of twilight between ten and noon, black darkness prevailed throughout the twenty-four hours. With air temperatures now twenty and thirty degrees below freezing the men on Vengeful’s upperdeck – watchkeepers, signalmen, lookouts, guns’ crews, depth-charge and ‘hedgehog’1 mortar parties – wore Arctic clothing: anorak suits with fur-lined hoods, the men’s gloved hands inside mittens which hung from their necks. Binoculars and other metallic objects could not be touched with bare hands for fear of frostbite.

  The battle now joined was not against the formal enemy but the Arctic winter. Its purpose was to keep guns, depth-charge chutes and throwers, the ‘hedgehog’, searchlights, radar aerials and other weapons and equipment serviceable.

  Working in darkness, the ship pitching and rolling, Venge-ful’s crew fought with picks and steamhoses at ice which threatened the stability of the ship and the efficiency of its weapons. It was a continuous struggle which they could not have won but for rigid maintenance routines and the steam-jackets and lagging around gun mountings and other moving parts.

  There were other problems: thermal layers formed in the sea at different depths, with widely varying temperatures. These deflected the asdic beams with which escorts hunted submarines, providing a protective blanket under which a U-boat could dive knowing that it would be immune from detection. Though gales and blizzards, storms of snow and sleet, freezing cold, a cloud ceiling which never lifted more than a few hundred feet, and almost continuous darkness imposed great hardships on the men, they protected the convoy by screening it from observation and making operations by enemy aircraft impossible and for submarines extremely difficult. This, however, did not please the Vice-Admiral who with large forces at his disposal was looking for a fight … to seek out and destroy the enemy wherever possible. But it made the passage of the convoy safer and this was welcomed by many, particularly the crews of merchant ships who suspected that they were likely to be on the receiving end of any serious encounter with the enemy.

  A man who was deeply disappointed at the lack of contact with U-boats was Lieutenant Sunley in Vengeful. Quiet, dedicated, immensely skilful in handling the ship’s HF/DF apparatus, Sunley and his operators listened in vain for a B-Bar message. So-called because of the unchanging characteristics of its prefix group, it would not only have told Sunley that the convoy had been sighted but he would have got a directional bearing of the U-boat transmitting it. Other ships in the group would also get its HF/DF bearings and by exchanging them the position of the submarine could be plotted. But no B-Bar message came and Sunley and his men prayed for better weather.

  So convoy JW 137 with its load of tanks and aircraft, guns and ammunition for Russia’s Eastern Front, pushed northwards. There were the customary alarms: depth-charge attacks took place suddenly and without warning, usually on asdic contacts which turned out to be shoals of fish; a US Liberty ship’s cargo shifted in the north-easterly gale and she fell out of the convoy while a frigate stood by until the list had been righted by pumping and flooding ballast tanks. Then they began a long stern chase to catch up.

  On several occasions ships lost contact and had to be shepherded back into station by units of the close escort.

  After one of these, Vengeful heard a corvette reporting by TBS the loss of a seaman overboard in heavy seas. The brief exchanges which followed told of the failure of the rescue attempt. Men died quickly in Arctic waters.

  On the afternoon of 5th December, the convoy then five days out from Loch Ewe, the first major alteration of course for navigational purposes was made. It was a forty-five degree turn to starboard and it put Bear Island ahead, distant 370 miles. It maintained the distance from the Norwegian coast – and therefore the distance of the nearest enemy airfields and submarine bases-at about 250 miles, and it left the Vice-Admiral’s options open. He could, depending upon weather and enemy action, pass north or south of Bear Island as JW 137 made its easting towards the Barents Sea.

  It was known throughout the convoy that the critical phase of the journey had begun. In Vengeful, morale was high notwithstanding the daunting weather and miserable living conditions, particularly on the messdecks under the fo’c’sle, which were seldom less than inches deep in icy water. Here men tried to sleep in hammocks which performed incredible gyrations, or sit on benches to eat at tables which tilted bizarrely and without warning. It was difficult to remain dry. The heat which came from steam radiators and the bunching together of many bodies in confined spaces was scarcely enough to keep warm.

  Morale in Vengeful was normally high. It was a reflection of the confidence which the captain and first-lieutenant showed in the ship’s company and the fighting efficiency of the ship. Despite occasional moans about the conditions under which they lived, the men responded to this confidence. On the 5th December, as the convoy altered course towards Bear Island, Vengeful’s morale was particularly high for they had already notched up their first kill. Her crew knew that but for Violent which had shared in the hunt of the U-boat outside Loch Ewe, the convoy had made no contact with the enemy. This gave Vengeful’s men a sense of superiority, of being ready to take on successfully anything which might come along. Like the Vice-Admiral, they were looking for a fight.

  Pitching and rolling, the wind screeching through ice-covered rigging, convoy JW 137 pressed on to the north: thirty-five merchant ships, twenty-six warships, 275,000 tons of war supplies and close on 10,000 men committed to this twentieth-century odyssey in the perpetual night of Arctic winter.

  1 The hedgehog was a multiple mortar which threw missiles ahead of the ship. These exploded when they struck a submerged submarine and sank it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Forebridge – captain, sir,’ the first-lieutenant’s call from the voice-pipe above Redman’s pillow awakened him from brief sleep.

  ‘What is it, Number One?’

  ‘Bluebird has an A/S contact.’

  ‘Right. I’m coming up.’ He rolled off the bunk, steadied himself against the movement of the ship, frowning through red light at the ice on the inside of the porthole. Wedging himself against the wash-basin, he picked up night-glasses and mittens and pulled the anorak hood over his head. As he made for the bridge he was thinking not of Bluebird’s A/S contact but of the lump of ice. It was an old enemy. Despite attempts by the dockyard, the rubber seal round the porthole still remained defective and a jet of icy air came through when the wind blew. In the Arctic the moist air froze and within a short time an ice lump formed on the inside of the porthole. At a certain stage, caught between the warmer temperature of the sea-cabin and the freezing air outside, the lump stabilised and effectively sealed the leak. For this reason Redman had instructed Cupido to leave it alone.

  A lump of ice so close to his body was a physical and psychological irritant, but it was better than a jet of icy air. For these reasons the ice lump had over the last two convoys become the subject of a love-hate relationship.

  Redman, eyes not yet accustomed to the dark, got to the bridge by feel and instinct. Once there he made for the PPL The first-lieutenant, standing next to it, anticipated his question. ‘Chaffinch is investigating with Bluebird, sir.’

  ‘Who’s on the TBS?’

  A voice in the darkness said, ‘Me, sir. Burrows.’ It was the yeoman of signals.

  ‘Close to one thousand yards, Chaffinch.’ Ginger Mountsey’s voice sounded on the bridge-speaker.

  ‘Will do. Bearing two-eight-eight, thirteen hundred yards, came the disembodied reply.

  Redman said, ‘They’ll never hold an A/S contact in this weather.’

  ‘No, sir,’ agreed the first-lieutenant.

  They waited in semi-darkness seeing nothing but the glowing and fading pips of light on the PPI, listening to the brief exchanges between the ships two and three miles away to starboard. It was early morning and the luminous dial of Redman’s watch showed the time to be almost half past four. Wind and sea had moderated and the motion of the ship had be
come less violent in the two hours since he’d last been on the bridge. The sky was overcast but the ceiling had lifted and there were breaks in the clouds ahead. It was no longer snowing.

  ‘Weather’s improved, Number One.’

  ‘It has, sir. Not for long, I imagine.’

  ‘Fidelix should be flying off aircraft in this half-light.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Ginger Mountsey’s voice came in again. ‘Target classified non-sub. Resume station Chaffinch. Sorry to have troubled you. Over and out.’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Chaffinch. ‘The pleasure was ours.’

  Redman said, ‘I’d like a fiver for every shoal of fish that’s murdered my sleep.’

  ‘Bad luck, sir.’ The first-lieutenant was as cheerful as always. ‘Probably won’t happen again for some time.’

  Redman grunted, depends what you mean by ‘some time’, he thought. He stood silent, his mind empty, watching the Aurora Borealis, its curtain-like drapes in constant movement, opening and closing, one colour succeeding another, filling the northern sky with radiant movement.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sir?’ The first-lieutenant was at the PPI watching Bluebird and Chaffinch get back into station.

  ‘The northern lights. Aurora Borealis to you.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir. Marvellous to see them again, isn’t it? Always bucks one up.’

  Redman decided once more that the first-lieutenant, though extremely capable, was still adolescent. An enthusiastic schoolboy. For him the war was a game, romantic and exciting. The first-lieutenant, on the other hand, was thinking that he didn’t much like the wheeze in the captain’s throat and wondering what caused it. In his view the captain took life too seriously. Of course he was tired and had a lot of responsibility, but good humour helped. The first-lieutenant always made a determined effort to be cheerful when he spoke to him, though often he didn’t feel as cheerful as he sounded.