Westbound, Warbound

by Westbound, Warbound (retail) (epub)

  Andy had repaid the twenty-five shillings he’d owed, as soon as they got back on board that night; he’d got it from a locked drawer in his own cabin and taken it along to the mate’s, finding him stooped at the mirror over his handbasin, bathing those wounds and dabbing Milton on them. Andy recalled noticing the mildly astringent odour of it as he put two ten-shilling notes and two half-crowns on the desk, muttered ‘Goodnight’, and left him.

  Halloran told him now – on the bridge, 0800 2 December, a Saturday – ‘Same course, same revs, lookouts as before. You know where we are, huh?’

  ‘Well enough.’

  The Old Man had left the bridge by this time, gone down to his own breakfast. Horizon being clear, no smoke or warship’s upperworks in sight. If you’d been close enough to see that, of course, there’d have been nothing to do except send up prayers; with a much greater height of eye from say the Spee’s fighting-top, she’d have seen you long before you saw her. For the moment, though, all was well. A matter of luck entirely: you ran into the bastard or you didn’t.

  The Anna’s grey hull plunging westward – actually west by south – with spray from the smashed crests of the swells flying in regular bursts over her foc’sl and for’ard welldeck, the tarpaulin-topped hatch-covers of numbers one, two and three holds agleam with it. There’d been porpoises escorting her all day yesterday, but no sign of them this morning. Late-risers, maybe, in these latitudes. He pivoted slowly with the binoculars Halloran had surrendered to him, searching the northern and western horizon; then moved around checking the lookout positions – bridge-wings, monkey island – meaning the compass platform above the bridge – and the gun platform aft. All were manned by lookouts who seemed to be alert – would be: they all knew of the menace out there, and weren’t idiots.

  He came back to the mate. ‘All right, I’ve got her.’

  ‘Make Monte day after tomorrow, will we?’

  Apparently wanting to chat. It was a question for Fisher, if anybody; the mate was perfectly capable of checking it for himself, in any case. Feeling isolated by this time, perhaps. He and Fisher hadn’t ever got on well, and the Old Man, who mostly kept his own counsel, seemed wary of him. Halloran did have the bosun to talk to, but Batt Collins wasn’t much of a conversationalist, except on matters connected directly with the working of the ship, especially the employment of the hands, a subject on which mate and bosun needed to confer at least once a day. Or the cadets – he could have conversed with them, if he’d made a point of it. One of them – Janner – had been up here with him throughout the four-hour watch; he’d just sent him down.

  Andy said, answering his question about arrival at Montevideo: ‘Should do, I’d say. Barring diversions. Or a Pampero…’

  Pamperos were storms that blew up suddenly, roaring seaward out of the River Plate and Argentina. Halloran shook his head: ‘Late in the year for those.’

  ‘Dare say you’re right. Yes – sure…’

  ‘Barring only Huns, then.’

  Barring them – please… But it was one hundred per cent good luck or bad luck – steaming blind, hoping for the best, or at least to avoid the worst. Retrospectively, one knew now how close PollyAnna had come to disaster in the southern approaches to the Moçambique Channel a month ago – although there and then they’d known damn-all about it. Unless maybe the Old Man had known; ships’ masters were kept as fully informed as they needed to be – had the owners’ private code kept under lock and key – but weren’t obliged to pass anything on to their officers or crews unless they wanted to or there was sound reason to, and Josh Thornhill did tend to play his cards close to his chest. Anyway, the Moçambique business – the Anna had left Calcutta on 5 October, carrying out frequent gun-drills under Don Fisher’s direction, gunnery as well as navigation being a second mate’s responsibility now, and passing not through that channel but to the east of Madagascar, reaching Durban on the 25th. Eight days then discharging the manganese ore into lighters, using the ship’s own gear, derricks and steam winches, the port must have been unusually congested for that to have been necessary – hard, hot work, performed as always by dockside labour while the ship’s crew got on with maintenance both on deck and below. After which, instead of the hoped-for on-routeing homeward, maybe via some other South African port where you might have picked up cargo for West Africa or Britain or both, orders came via Messrs Dundas Gore’s Durban agents to turn back northward to Lourenço Marques – a three-day trip in ballast – and load coal for Montevideo, Uruguay.

  Not homebound yet, therefore, none of that feeling of being over the hump; nor by any means, although they hadn’t realised this at the time, in anything like safe waters. They’d arrived in Portuguese East – Lourenço Marques – on Guy Fawkes’ Day, 5 November, loading had taken nine days, and on the day of departure southbound the Graf Spee sank a small tanker right there in the Moçambique Channel, and next day – the 16th – stopped and examined some neutral steamer in the same area, thus establishing her own identity beyond question. For PollyAnna it must have been about as near a squeak as one could imagine; and in Cape Town then – on 20 November, that brief call to replenish bunkers, water and fresh stores before the long haul westward – the STO (Sea Transport Officer, a bearded RNR commander) had told the Old Man, who’d afterwards relayed most of this to his officers, that the Royal Navy had thought the Graf Spee had been in the South Atlantic, until she’d shown up in the Indian Ocean. Now a cruiser force was patrolling south of Good Hope to intercept her if or when she tried to head back west, which it was thought she would do, having drawn attention to herself off Moçambique as a ploy to confuse and divert the naval forces who were searching for her. Having achieved that much, it was expected that she’d sneak back to the South Atlantic’s richer hunting grounds, catching both prey and hunters off guard.

  Josh Thornhill had commented – at the window of the STO’s office, putting a match to his pipe – ‘Could be back already.’

  ‘In which case you could have him on your tail again.’

  The temporary and somewhat ramshackle office was on the town side of the Duncan dock. PollyAnna was alongside in a fuelling berth in the Victoria dock, and her master had plodded all the way round on foot. It was hot enough too: but it had been hotter in LM and Durban, and would be more so, also more humid again, on the coast of Uruguay. This, however, was a fine Cape summer, hot enough but with none of the Indian Ocean swelter they’d been through recently; here, Table Mountain, Devil’s Peak and Lion’s Head were clear-cut, dramatic against a sky that didn’t have a wisp of cloud in it. It would be a fine place to live, Josh had thought, to retire to. Most of his seafaring life he’d thought it – although a rider to that now, which he hadn’t found in his thoughts before, was if one lived long enough to retire anywhere at all.

  Touching wood that could have done with a lick of paint, turning from the window, removing the pipe from between his teeth… ‘Do what I can to stay clear of the bastard.’ And a rider to that, as he sat down: ‘Toss-up, though, isn’t it. Hit or bloody miss!’

  Darkening ship would be one thing: from here on, PollyAnna would show no lights. Restrictions on dumping gash and stoke-hold ash he’d already discussed with Halloran and the chief engineer respectively. Watch-keeping officers would be told that if they saw any other ship that was showing lights – navigation lights, steaming lights, or just leaks through uncovered portholes – they were to turn stern-on to it at the same time as calling him.

  He’d asked the STO, ‘South of here, you say, some cruisers. Any other friendly forces along my route?’

  ‘Right at this moment, I couldn’t say. There was a hunting group off Freetown when I last heard, another in the West Indies. Could be anywhere by this time. Where you’re headed, as of three or four days ago there were two cruisers in Port Stanley, two others somewhere off Rio and the Plate. We don’t get that kind of intelligence on any regular basis, only when it affects us or they reckon it might do. For instance, one piece of bad new
s – all right, long way off, Northern Patrol – some elderly cruisers and AMCs patrolling Faeroes-Iceland and the Denmark Strait –’

  ‘Far enough off my beat.’

  ‘Yes, but – sadly, seems we’ve lost an AMC. Can’t tell you which, no name supplied, I got this about an hour ago from a leatherneck on the staff at Simonstown, but whoever she was, seems she took on the Deutschland single-handed. Result – foregone conclusion, obviously. As her captain would have known before he started. Christ, some old liner dished-up with a few six-inch guns, no armour, comparatively slow – put her up against a socking great Hun battleship – huh?’

  ‘Wouldn’t’ve been there to take on battlewagons, would she.’

  ‘Of course not. Northern Patrol’s job is enforcement of a blockade of German trade – the right of ‘visit and search’. Stopping and searching neutrals, so forth. But as you say, when anything like that colossus shows up – no more chance than your PollyAnna’d have. Or Anna, as you call her. And flying the White Ensign she can’t turn and run as you’re advised to.’ The STO shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t catch me in the queue for that job, I tell you. Anyway – what interests us here is that if it was the Deutschland, who was in the South Atlantic not long ago, odds are she was on her way home to Germany. If so, three cheers!’

  ‘Not the Andalusia, was it, this AMC?’

  ‘No idea. Why?’

  ‘Happens my third mate’s father is her second-in-command. RNR, same rank as yourself. No reason it should have been that ship, but –’

  ‘I’ll get on to my chum in Simonstown again. Let you know as soon as there’s an answer.’

  Next afternoon at about four, PollyAnna had been on the point of departure, pilot on board and a tug on its way to pull her off the wall, when the STO arrived at her berth on a bicycle, propped it against a bollard and hurried up the gangway, barking at deckhands who’d been about to swing it up and inboard to hang on, he had to see the master on urgent business. He was with him in his cabin for about two minutes, then left, and the Old Man stalked up to the bridge, told the pilot all right, let’s get the show on the road. And later, when they were out in the bay and had stopped for the pilot boat to get in alongside and take him off, he’d beckoned to Andy to join him in the port wing of the bridge.

  ‘Word in your ear, Holt.’

  Andy waited for it.

  ‘Forty-eight hours ago, an armed merchant cruiser, the Rawalpindi – former P&O, right?’ Andy had nodded; the skipper went on, ‘On the Northern Patrol, which you mentioned the other day – I was asking you about your father? Seems Rawalpindi fell foul of a German warship they think but still aren’t certain was the Deutschland. And of course, goodbye Rawalpindi. Well, I heard this yesterday, but my informant didn’t know the AMC’s name, and – see, there was a possibility it might turn out to be the worst possible news for you. Just could have been – eh? Not too nice for me if I’d had to break it to you, either. So there you are – pleasure to tell you that to the best of my knowledge, your father’s alive and kicking; don’t let anything you hear suggest he might not be.’

  It was perhaps the longest speech Andy had ever heard from Josh Thornhill. He didn’t just respect him now, he liked him. As it happened, he’d had a letter from his father the day they’d arrived in Durban – addressed, as the form was now, to SS PollyAnna c/o GPO London, and giving his own address as HMS Andalusia, similarly c/o GPO. His main purpose in writing had been to say he was likely to be out of touch for a while, ‘doing what comes naturally’; with any luck, he’d added, some of their leave periods might coincide –’meanwhile, God bless you, old lad.’

  Andy had replied at once, improperly – contrary to all the principles of security – letting the old man know where he was at that stage by mentioning the racket kicked up by mynah birds, which proliferated at that port, as his father would well know.

  * * *

  At midday Andy was waiting to hand over the watch to Don Fisher, who was out in the wing getting his noon meridian altitude. He had young Gorst with him, and came back into the wheelhouse at a few minutes past the hour, sending Gorst to the chart alcove to complete the figure-work. Fisher telling Andy quietly, ‘He may be getting the hang of it. Half his problem is he thinks he’s not up to snuff – which is nonsense.’

  ‘He’s better than Janner at signals, anyway. I had Starkadder give ’em a Morse test the other day, and he wasn’t at all bad.’ As third mate, Andy was responsible for signals other than wireless. He glanced at his watch: ‘Anyway – want to take over now? Course and revs the same, lookouts changed over at the half-hour. You’ve got Edmonds on the wheel here – if he looks older suddenly, it’s because it’s his thirtieth birthday.’

  ‘Well!’ A hand out to shake the helmsman’s. ‘Many happy –’

  ‘Smoke!’

  A lookout had yelled that from monkey island, above their heads. ‘Three points on the starboard bow, sir – smoke!’

  ‘Port wheel, Edmonds.’ Andy added, ‘Steer due south.’ He still had the watch, and was at the voice-tube to the Old Man’s cabin now. You blew into it, and it whistled at the other end – same as with the tube to the engine room. He heard the answering bark of ‘Yup?’ or ‘What?’ and shouted, ‘Smoke starboard bow, sir, I’m altering away to port.’ Edmonds was still winding-on port rudder, the lookout in that bridge-wing was shouting and gesticulating, Fisher had shot out and up to monkey island – access to it was external, vertical ladders port and starboard – and now the Old Man came pounding up. Andy told him, ‘Was three points on the bow, sir, lookout on the island reported it. Bearing would have been about three-one-oh. I’m altering to steer south.’

  ‘South?’

  ‘Well –’

  ‘Steer southeast.’

  ‘Southeast, sir.’ Edmonds kept the rudder on her. The skipper’s orders had been to turn stern-on to any such sighting; Andy’s intention had been to compromise on that, reckoning that from the position they were in now, steering south and watching to see which way that smoke ‘grew’ –

  ‘Who’s that – McAlan?’

  The Old Man had whistled down to the engineer officer of the watch: the answer came thinly through the tube, ‘Howie, sir.’ Howie was fourth engineer – from Ardrossan; McAlan was the second, a Glaswegian. The master shouted, ‘I’m turning away from an unidentified vessel’s smoke, Howie. I don’t want to see any, not a damn smidgin, coming out of the Anna’s stack.’

  ‘Do our best, sir.’

  He’d left it. Edmonds was letting the wheel’s spokes slam through his palms as the rudder came off her: Andy leaning that way to check on her heading as the rate of turning slowed. She was rolling more than pitching, now – beam-on to the swell, rolling quite hard. On southeast she’d be more comfortable than on due south, though. Coming to her ordered course now. This was a repeater of the gyro compass – which was down below, well protected from the weather – and there was another on monkey island, as well as the standard (magnetic) compass, which was sited up there so as to be as far as possible from other magnetic influences. The Old Man, Andy saw, was out in the wing now, checking on PollyAnna’s funnel-top, which he himself had just had a peek at from the other side and seen hardly any smoke, no more than a haze. Old Man back inside again, Fisher too, Old Man telling him to take over the watch from Holt, Holt to find the chief engineer and ask him to make damn sure no more smoke was emitted than was visible now. Andy shot down there: it was vital, he knew it – very little smoke at one moment could become a gush with a long tail to it a minute later; depending on the quality of the coal, it wasn’t always easy or even possible to control. It was South African coal they were burning now – at the rate of about twenty-five tons a day. He found Hibbert, chief engineer, in his cabin, and gave him the skipper’s message; the big man nodded, tapped his pipe out and got to his feet. ‘Wondered why we was turning circles…’

  * * *

  Within half an hour they’d lost sight of the smoke. Gorst and others watching i
t from the island after PollyAnna’s turn to the southeast, which had put the dark stain of it directly astern, had seen that it was drawing right – eastward, at no great speed and not in sufficient volume to leave a trail; only a smudge like a thumbprint on the horizon. Could have been a raider on the hunt, or a cruiser on patrol, or an enemy armed merchant raider or support-ship; any of those seemed more likely, from a study of the chart – the big one covering the whole South Atlantic – than its being another steamer, British or neutral, on a course only slightly divergent from the reciprocal of PollyAnna’s Cape Town–Montevideo track. The point being that it didn’t seem to be leading from A to any recognisable B, and the alternative was to be simply on the prowl – hunting or patrolling, or in the case of a raider’s support-vessel, perhaps waiting for a pre-arranged rendezvous.

  If the Old Man had made any guesses, he wasn’t airing them. Only when visual contact was lost did he tell Fisher to hold this southeasterly course for another half-hour, and at one-fifteen bring her round on to a corrected course for Montevideo. Then went down to his lunch – sausage and mash – in the saloon, which was most unusual for him when they were at sea, let alone in present circumstances. A deliberate display of calm, maybe? Andy and others were already at it when he came down, were masking their surprise, or trying to, but were somewhat silenced. The Old Man’s eye roamed over them and settled on the chief engineer.

  ‘Your lads been doing a good job, Chief.’

  ‘Thank you, Skipper.’ A nod and a half-smile. ‘I’ll pass it on.’

  Old Man to Andy, then: ‘Why’d you have steered one-eighty, Holt?’

  ‘I guessed he’d be steaming either east to west or west to east, sir, reckoned due south’d be the quickest way to lose him.’