Westbound, Warbound

by Westbound, Warbound (retail) (epub)

  ‘I was thinking the same.’

  ‘Old Man’s gone down to his breakfast. He’d put a DR on – you see it?’

  ‘Forty miles northeast of Sable Island.’ Andy put the glasses up, adjusted their focus slightly on the British Stream. He’d left Finney at the chart first to extend their track and DR’s to midday, then to see that the lookouts in the wings were wide awake and taking notice. Andy added, with the glasses at his eyes, ‘Should be home by Easter, at this rate.’ Then: ‘Think Easter eggs’ll be on the ration?’ From British newspapers received in Halifax one had gleaned that butter, sugar, bacon and ham were now rationed – as from just after New Year, and for the first time since 1918. A glance at Halloran: ‘All right, I got her.’ Glasses down again, to clean their lenses, and – as Halloran withdrew – nodding a good morning to Ingram at the helm. Since the schemozzle in Vitoria he’d come closer – or felt he had – to his fellow members of the boarding party. Not that he’d ever been all that remote from them: only that having shared those few minutes of action – above all, successful action – the experience was a bond you all had in common.

  PollyAnna bow-down, butting into it, the white stuff rising like boiling milk, flooding over and aft; over hatch-covers and leaping around foremast, ventilators and lashed-down derricks, streaming and flying on the wind over the gun’ls and via scuppers on the lower side, whichever way she happened to be rolling. It was easier than it had been during the night, though, and the small reduction in revs was making it easier still.

  Little doubt, for all that – remembering the convoy-conference forecast, the note of certainty about it as recorded by Fisher – that worse was to come.

  Not that it mattered. Except that it was bound to slow them down – as even last night’s blow already had. Julia, he guessed, might enjoy a spell of really wild weather – might find it exhilarating, once she got over her present indisposition… Glasses up again, checking on the neighbours. On the St Benedict who was moving up into her proper station, then – well, the gap between PollyAnna and the Soissons had become more like 400 than 600 yards. He hauled himself over to the pipe, unplugged it and blew down it, heard the whistle from its lower end followed by a yell of ‘Aye?’ – which would have come either from McAlan or Howie – and shouted into it, ‘Down four!’ This whistle went back into this top end, like a stopper. Glasses on the Soissons again then – and St Benedict briefly, then back to the frog – but thinking again of Julia – as one tended to, off and on – and of the Cheviot Hills’ steward, Benson, who now that most of his former shipmates had moved elsewhere was working mainly in the saloon, also tending to Julia’s needs, and had told Andy and Finney during their hurried breakfast half an hour ago that she was a game ’un, wouldn’t let a bit of a blow confine her to her cabin much longer. He’d tapped on her door, apparently, asked her was there anything she’d like – black tea and toast, he’d recommended – but she hadn’t wanted anything, had thanked him and said, ‘Maybe later. Sooner get this over, be done with it.’ No mention of the bucket – presumably she was taking care of that herself. Benson wagging his head as he gave Andy a plate of beans and thick, rather greasy bacon: ‘Game ’un, to be sure.’ At midday he was going to take her some dry toast and beef tea – without asking her, just take it along – querying this with Finney, who’d approved it: ‘Just the thing. We’ll soon have her on her feet.’

  It was the same syndrome, Andy realised, thinking back on it and on his own much lesser business of the boarding party: Julia and company had been through hell together, in a sense belonged to each other through the shared experience. While he himself was and could only remain an outsider, not of that ilk, irrespective of having feelings for her of a kind he’d never had before.

  * * *

  At noon the Commodore ordered a return to ten knots; by this time the convoy was more or less rectangular again, with previously empty spaces reoccupied. There’d been excessive smoke emissions from old coal-burners fighting their way back into station, and commodorial attention had been paid to them. As indeed it should have been: that old boy’s job was to enforce certain basic disciplines in all such matters, to have an orderly, manageable mob, at least by the time he led it into U-boat territory. In PollyAnna, Andy still had the watch, and ordered the increase in speed; Fisher was with the skipper at the chart table, deciding between them what latitude and longitude to hoist as their reckoning of the noon position. Every ship in the convoy was required to show its own hand on this within a few minutes of midday, having by then in normal circumstances, i.e. halfway decent weather, worked out a meridian altitude; there was a competitive element in it, to be first (or at least not last) as well as navigationally correct, but since there’d been no glimpse of sun, moon or stars since leaving Halifax, one could only offer an EP – Estimated Position – which was obtained from the DR – Dead Reckoning – position calculated from the course steered and distance covered as recorded by the log, this DR then adjusted by an estimate of the effects of wind and tide, which in present circumstances had to contain an element of guesswork.

  Gorst and Janner were hovering around the flag-locker at the after end of the bridge deck, hanging on to stanchions and other solid fittings to hold themselves in place while waiting to be told which flags to hoist; Andy had sent Finney to help them. It would require two separate hoists, one for latitude and one for longitude, each with five flags in it. The halyards were turned-up back there, ran through blocks in a wire stay linking foremast to funnel-top. Fisher coming from the chart-table conference now with the magic figures in his notebook, calling them to the cadets as he pushed out into the wing and around the back end of the wheelhouse – to what Gorst had grandiloquently referred as the ‘flag deck’. Flag-hoists were already climbing above the bridges and fore-decks of several other ships. Andy, watching the distance shorten between PollyAnna and the Soissons – PollyAnna for some reason responding more quickly to speed changes than the Frenchman did – excessive propeller-slip in the frog’s case, presumably – heard Fisher’s yell of ‘Forty-four thirty north, fifty-eight ten west!’ and stepped out into the wing to see the two hoists rising simultaneously. They’d got them right, too – thank God – given their neighbours no grounds for ridicule. But Soissons was definitely too close: he lurched back inside, whistled down to Howie and bawled, ‘Down four!’ Skipper coming from the chart now, on his way out to the wing to see how his guesswork compared with others’ – with the tankers’, for instance, and of course the Commodore’s.

  He’d stuck his head back inside. ‘Too close to that bloody frog, Holt!’

  ‘Just came down four, sir.’

  ‘None too soon – eh?’

  ‘Sir…’

  Shuttleworth, who’d been on the wheel since ten-thirty, had only half an hour to go, was grinning to himself as he watched the compass card and the lubber’s line; Adam’s apple wobbling like a turkey’s, long thin legs braced against the roll. Strange-looking fellow, with that striped woollen hat covering his bald dome, but as prime a seaman as you’d find. PollyAnna was rolling more than she had been, he realised: wind most likely shifted a point or so, veered to something like east by south. Checking that by the way the spray flew off waves’ crests… She wasn’t pitching any less either, come to think of it. Looking back over his shoulder as the starboard-side door opened and slammed shut again, admitting Fisher. ‘Our lads did all right, you’ll be glad to hear!’

  ‘It’s the quality of the instruction they’ve been getting.’ Pointing at the clock, the one fitted with the zigzag apparatus, electrical contacts collar-like around its dial. It was well after noon. ‘Don’t feel like taking over, do you, by any chance?’

  14

  Course 050 degrees, revs for eight knots; 26th now, one week out of Halifax. They’d been on this course and speed since noon on the 23rd, the day (actually early evening) that Julia had emerged from hibernation, made her way unsteadily down to the saloon and forced herself to eat whatever it was the galley
had laid on for high-tea that day. Pale and shaky, and PollyAnna pitching as hard as ever, if not harder, jolting and battering and rolling like a barrel, the change of course having put the obstinately unseasonable wind and sea 30 degrees on her bow: so you could say – as Julia did, charitably, at that first meal – that it wasn’t poor PollyAnna’s fault.

  ‘But why such a big change of course suddenly?’

  Finney had told her, ‘They call it evasive routeing.’ Cocking an eye at Andy for confirmation. He – Finney – had been under the weather himself for a couple of days, staying on his feet but making frequent use of buckets on the bridge and elsewhere. ‘Evasive routeing – that right?’

  ‘Has to be. Held on like this, we’d fetch up in the Faeroes – so you can count on it we’ll be altering again in a day or two.’

  For Julia’s sake he hadn’t wanted to go on about the U-boats that were assumed to be deployed out there and might already be getting long-range direction-finding bearings of an eastbound convoy and planning later interception, the convoy (or Admiralty wirelessing rerouteing instructions) doing what it could to outwit the bastards. Maybe shift them northwards, while praying that they’d be getting weather at least as bad as this.

  As this now – on the 26th. Estimated noon position 52 degrees north, 33 30 west. Heavy cloud-cover persisting, no sextant observations possible in the course of the past week, wind between 25 and 30 degrees on the bow, gusting force nine, convoy surprisingly enough still more or less intact but – Andy guessed, and had overheard an exchange between the Old Man and Halloran in which the same doubts had been expressed – might well not be able to maintain even this rate of progress, unless conditions improved substantially. Not that the rate of progress would be making the Commodore all that happy even now. Revs for eight knots didn’t give you eight knots when you were slamming into a force nine. Lucky to be making-good even five. On the other hand, if conditions did improve, they’d improve for the bloody U-boats, too.

  Other ships had taken it harder than PollyAnna had in any case, three of the fifty-eight having dropped out now. Fifty-eight, not sixty, because although they hadn’t known it at the time, there’d been two non-starters – for reasons best known to themselves and presumably the Commodore – each of the two outer columns starting one ship shorter than the others.

  Julia said – this was lunchtime, with the saloon table’s fiddles raised and a wet cloth on it as a further stabilising measure – ‘At least we didn’t run into the fog you were expecting on the Newfoundland Bank.’ Brown eyes flickering to Andy: ‘Or did we, after I’d keeled over?’

  ‘Couldn’t have, in that blow.’ Halloran cutting in, turning his black snake’s eyes on her. ‘You can have wind and fog together sometimes, but when it gets up to that extent – see, what makes fog is the cooling of damp air – and OK, slight increase in wind can create it, by mixing air of different temperatures –’

  ‘What it is to have studied for a master’s ticket.’ Chief Hibbert, drily, forking up corned-beef hash. A shake of the head then: ‘Sorry, Halloran. Didn’t intend that to sound as it did.’

  There was some general surprise – emphasised by a silence around the table – CEO Hibbert being such a quiet-spoken, good-hearted character – you wouldn’t think ever likely to be gratuitously rude. Halloran could be a dead bore, though: had been lecturing during a recent meal on Cyclonic Depressions and Irregular Disturbances – which no one had asked for. Hibbert smiling – repeating, ‘Sorry.’

  Crash…

  An exceptionally big one she’d slammed into. You could hear the rush and roar of it pounding aft, the ship shaking herself like a dog as it drained away, shakes all through her as her forepart rose and she leaned hard to port – stem now pointing slantwise at the sky, stern deep, engulfed in white: in your mind’s eye you saw pretty well exactly how it would be out there – how you’d been seeing it for days, only now suddenly worse. Hibbert said to Julia, with a smile that might have been intended to reassure her, ‘Excuse me. Take a look below.’ Steward Benson, who’d been circling the table, pulled his chair back for him, pausing there as she rolled the other way and Hibbert made it to the door in two long strides, Benson staying where he was for a few seconds, using the chair-back for support and, as it happened, holding Halloran’s black glare across the table: the mate demanding, ‘Something the matter, Benson?’

  Shake of the head. Short, tubby man in what a few minutes ago had been a clean white sweater that was now patched with tomato ketchup. ‘Nothing at all, sir. Caught us on the wrong foot like, is all.’ He’d been able to let go of the chair now. ‘Minute back, though – since you ask, sir – speaking of fog as you were, I was thinking of them two days we was in it, on the old Grant Stuart?’

  ‘Hell, weren’t we just.’ The mate’s tone was affable enough. ‘Couldn’t see as far as you could spit. Two whole days and nights, wasn’t it. And bloody ice all around us.’ But he was on his way too now – on his feet, a hand flat on the bulkhead for support while she stood on her ear again and a few more tons of ocean thumped down on her fore-deck. Pushing off then – with a sardonic smile and a bow in Julia’s direction – mimicry of course of Hibbert – ‘Excuse me, Miss Carr…’

  Gone. That had been a hell of a sea they’d shipped, and he’d be thinking of the hatch-covers. In a sea like this they did tend to come to mind. While the chief engineer’s concern would be for the morale and wellbeing of his team in the engine room and stoke-hold; also for the effects of the propeller racing in air or at least nothing more than foam, as it had been in those moments – bow digging deep, stern soaring, racing screw, danger of shaft-bearings overheating.

  The answer would be to slow down. Skipper might have cut the revs already; or Tom McAlan, second engineer, currently on watch down there, might have done so off his own bat if he’d thought the need was urgent. PollyAnna was a tough old bird, but there had to be a bloody limit. Fortunately, Josh Thornhill OBE was also a tough old bird, Andy thought – on his feet, to take a look up top as well. Might be wanted, might as well be there. Hatch-covers, and boats too: they were secured in their davits still, davits not turned out as they would be later when attack by U-boats would have to be anticipated, but – well, Christ, seas of that size could smash lifeboats no matter how well they were secured. He nodded to Benson: ‘You and Mr Halloran were shipmates at some time, then.’

  ‘Was indeed.’ Reminiscent smile, cocking his round head. ‘In the Grant Stuart. Cargo-liner, Grant Line?’

  ‘Tartan funnels.’

  ‘Shortbread tins, we used to call ’em.’

  Finney was looking up, mutely querying whether Andy might require his company up top: Andy shook his head, indicating Julia – look after her.

  * * *

  The Old Man had decided to hold on, anyway. It was a fact – you’d get a rogue wave like that occasionally, it wasn’t by any means unheard of, didn’t necessarily mean there’d be others like it. The Commodore hadn’t ordered any reduction, nor was the screw racing now: Chief Hibbert, after his inspection of the nether regions, had reported that the shaft bearings were a degree or two warmer than he’d have liked, but the old girl had been at it hammer and tongs for the past week. As of this moment, anyway, no problem. If it got any worse, mind you –

  ‘All right. Thank you, Chief.’

  Fisher had put the weather down in the deck-log as force nine, the Beaufort Scale measurement for ‘Strong Gale’. PollyAnna was not fitted with an anemometer, which left this kind of assessment as a matter for one’s own judgement – or for one’s skipper’s. Force nine meant a wind-speed of between forty-one and forty-seven knots, and the next step up – ten, or ‘Whole Gale’ – covered speeds of forty-eight to fifty-five. Above that you had force eleven, which meant ‘Storm’ – fifty-six to sixty-five knots – or force twelve, anything over sixty-five, qualifying as a hurricane.

  Meanwhile, revs for eight knots, the Old Man reckoned, wouldn’t be giving her more than four. Might come down to
revs for six – obviously would if His Nibs so ordered; might have to anyway. At anything less than that, though, you’d be just about stemming wind and sea – making no forward progress at all. You’d turn her head into it then, just ride it out.

  Andy had thought the Old Man might want an inspection made of hatch-covers. In this sea-state it wouldn’t be much fun, risking your neck down there, but since damage to any of the hatches could lead to that hold flooding and – not to put too fine a point on it – sink the ship, it might have to be done, and Third Mate Holt being young and fit might be the man to do it – along with old Batt, maybe. All right, so a hatch smashed in was a hatch smashed in and the ship immediately in extremis – especially when her cargo was iron ore – but such damage could possibly be averted – stitch in time stuff – by hammering in any of the wedges that might have been loosened; alternatively – if physically possible, in these conditions – by lashing an additional tarpaulin over any that had been ripped or looked like carrying away. There were three thicknesses of tarpaulin on each hatch at present. As far as could be seen – looking down from the wheelhouse and bridge-wings, the Old Man and Fisher with binoculars – they looked all right: under continual, heavy assault, but so far standing up to it. Under the stretched tarpaulins were hatchboards – rectangular sections of thick timber – resting on iron beams running both fore-and-aft and athwartships. The boards’ edges butted against flanges on those beams – which were removable for purposes of loading and discharging, were then replaced and bolted down. Had last been bolted down in Vitoria, of course. And holding the tarpaulins down tightly on the boards were battens which passed through cleats surrounding each hatch and were held tightly in the cleats by timber wedges driven in above them. These wedges could – theoretically – be loosened or even driven right out by heavy seas, and were therefore what you’d check on first.