Convoy Homeward (John Mason Kemp Thriller Book 6)

by McCutchan,Philip

  *

  ‘Cypher, sir.’

  Kemp turned, lowering his binoculars. The report came from the leading telegraphist on his staff. The leading telegraphist said, ‘From Flag Officer West Africa, sir. Freetown, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Phillips.’ Kemp took the cypher, passed it to Finnegan who had come across from the starboard wing of the bridge. ‘Over to you, Finnegan. Break it down straight away — the prefix is urgent.’

  ‘Okay, sir —’

  ‘Not okay, Finnegan. Dammit, you’ve been long enough with the British Navy!’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ Finnegan grinned. ‘For okay, substitute aye, aye, sir —’

  ‘Oh, just get on with it,’ Kemp said irritably. Americans were irrepressible, though God alone knew how Britain would have survived without them. Kemp, pacing the bridge in deep thought, pondered on the likely purport of the signal, which was in fact addressed to the senior officer of the escort, CS23, the prefix indicating that it was repeated to the Convoy Commodore. In naval signalling procedure, this meant that any action required would be taken by the naval escort commander; the Commodore was merely being informed. But to Kemp, the urgent prefix meant that it was a report of enemy activity somewhere in the vicinity of the convoy’s north-westerly course.

  He had a word with Maconochie. ‘There may be an alteration signalled from the escort. He may move us farther west.’

  Maconochie nodded. ‘That’s about the only option. Are you expecting word of the raider?’

  ‘It could be, yes. Or submarine packs farther south than was thought likely back at the Cape. Let’s take a preliminary look at the chart, Captain.’

  They went into the chart room just abaft the bridge. The chart of the area was laid out on the polished mahogany table, a pair of dividers and parallel rulers laid upon it, and the ship’s position at the last fix noted by a small pencilled cross inside a circle. Kemp scanned the area; the South Atlantic was vast, but both Kemp and Maconochie knew from long experience that in war there was little enough of the needles-in-haystacks element. A determined enemy had ways of making contact however immense the area of operations. Long-distance radar, intelligence passed from the German Admiralty in Berlin, intelligence passed by a great network of operators — spies was the better word — throughout the world; and intelligent guesswork and anticipation by the enemy captains to fill any gaps. Kemp, as he waited for Finnegan to report back to the bridge with the broken-down, plain language version of the signal, found his mind going back to the days of peace when the great liners kept to their regular schedules without any need to deviate, any need to cover their tracks, any need to wonder what intelligence agents were reporting behind their backs. All the way — in his case — from the locks at Tilbury, all the way to Sydney via the ports of call — Gibraltar, Port Said, the Suez Canal, Aden, Colombo, the long stretch across the Indian Ocean to Gage Roads at Fremantle, round stormy Cape Leeuwin and across the Great Australian Bight and the Southern Ocean to Adelaide and Melbourne, through the Bass Strait and round Cape Howe for Sydney Heads and the berth at Woolloomooloo or Circular Quay or under the harbour bridge to Pyrmont. All that way like clockwork, the whole voyage worked out minutely months before so that the Line could publish its passenger schedules well in advance. Long before you dropped the mud-pilot at the Downs, you knew the precise moment you would, four weeks ahead, pass into Sydney’s Port Jackson harbour.

  They had been fabulous days in many ways, and Kemp doubted if after the war was over they would ever be quite the same again even if there were any liners left. For years now, the pilots and crews of, for instance, Imperial Airways had been predicting the end of the ocean liner. Speed was to be the watchword of the future, the great god of speed and never mind the comfort and atmosphere of a liner. Attentive stewards, excellent and varied meals in the saloons — mess dress at night for the ship’s officers, dinner jackets and evening dresses obligatory for first-class passengers, a bugle blown warningly for dinner and all that went with all of that. So many ports with excursions laid on for those that wanted them … and the glamour of the sea itself, the low-slung stars in the night skies of the Mediterranean, myriads of them like glowing lanterns, a sight never seen beneath British skies; the moon sending its beams over the violet waters of the Indian Ocean, and then the contrast, after Cape Leeuwin, of the grey, heaving seas — often majestically spectacular — of the Bight.

  Kemp had never grown tired of the sea’s variety, of the satisfaction of bringing his command into each port with miles of safe steaming behind him. He thought now, in the Aurelian Star’s chart room, of many years ago and his very first sight of the great Rock of Gibraltar, the bastion that now guarded the Mediterranean from entry by Adolf Hitler’s warships. Turning between Algeciras on the Spanish coast and Europa Point at the southern extremity of Gibraltar he had seen with awe the immensity of the Rock, green and brown looming into the sky above the white buildings of the town behind the breakwater guarding the naval port, looming huge and impressive as though to block out the very sky. The winking lights of the port and town as the scented dusk descended, the sound of bugles and Royal Marine bands as the battleships and cruisers of the Mediterranean Fleet struck their colours for Sunset. Or in the daytime the evocative sounds of the fifes and drums, or when a Scots regiment was in garrison the pipes and drums, from the parade grounds of South Barracks, or Buena Vista Barracks, or Red Sands fringed with palms, pepper trees and eucalyptus. They were the sounds to stir the heart, the sounds of Empire and a long history of valour and sacrifice.

  But such thoughts were best put behind him for the duration of the war. Kemp straightened and returned to the bridge, leaving Maconochie to confer with his second officer, one of whose responsibilities was the navigation of the ship.

  There was a blustery wind coming up from southerly, taking the ship on her port quarter and causing her to roll somewhat heavily as her course took her across the wind and a rising sea. The men on the troop-decks would be having an uncomfortable time. Kemp hunched himself into a corner of the starboard bridge-wing and used his binoculars to scan the horizons all around. Still peaceful, and the convoy was maintaining its formation well, no need for chasing by signal from the Commodore or from the escort, which was often the case when unwieldy cargo vessels fell behind their station or surged ahead of it to lie dangerously close astern of their next ahead. Convoys could become a nightmare: each ship was an individual with her own characteristics of handling, very different from, say, a cruiser squadron each member of which had similar power and helm-answering habits, even though it was true enough that no two ships of the same class handled precisely the same. Merchant ships came in all shapes and sizes, the average convoy containing some deep-laden, some in ballast, some big, some smaller — tankers, dry-cargo ships, transports, some liable, simply because of the unending sea-time that the merchantmen were putting in now, to sudden and unpredictable engine-room breakdowns, usually at impossibly awkward moments.

  No picnic; and it looked as if it would go on for ever, world without end.

  *

  ‘Mind if I join you, eh?’

  Pumphrey-Hatton looked up from some notes he was making. He was sitting in the B deck lounge with a gin-and-bitters, and jotting down items for the rough draft of a list of complaints that he proposed submitting to the War Office when he reached London. Unless you made notes, you forgot. You forgot even important things, oddly enough, though certainly you couldn’t forget the damn flies. Fortunately the flies had by now been left behind, but there was still the electric fan and the attitudes of various people, and various lapses in efficiency …

  Looking up, he saw the Australian colonel. Harrison, now OC Troops.

  ‘I’m rather busy. Surely you can see.’

  Harrison wasn’t in the least disconcerted. Australians, Pumphrey-Hatton thought, probably never were; they were much too brash. Harrison grinned and said, ‘Sorry about that. Just wanted to ask your advice, that’s all. But if you’re writing
your bloody memoirs, or your love letters, why, I reckon —’

  ‘You are damned impertinent, Colonel Harrison.’ Pumphrey-Hatton half rose from his chair. ‘I would expect —’

  ‘Sorry again, mate. Just take it easy, eh? Reckon I didn’t intend any disrespect, nothing like that. Only you’re experienced in things I’m still green at and I don’t mind admitting it.’

  Pumphrey-Hatton made a sound like, ‘Hah.’

  ‘Me first go at OC Troops. I need to get the oil.’

  ‘Oil?’

  ‘The dinkum oil. You know? The … gen. The bloody knowhow. Don’t want to go and make a duck’s arse of it.’ Colonel Harrison turned to a hovering lounge steward. ‘A refill for the brig,’ he said, ‘and then there’s me, eh? Got a Foster’s, have you? Swan beer, eh?’

  ‘I think we can manage, sir.’

  ‘Good on you, bloke. Let’s have ’em.’ Harrison sat down, pulling up a chair close to Pumphrey-Hatton, who looked furiously angry and was in fact quite speechless at the fellow’s effrontery. And the appalling modes of expression, of terminology — duck’s arse, bloody love letters, dinkum oil, the brig, mate, and take it easy! It was utterly grotesque that such a person should be found wearing the crown and two stars of a full colonel even in a colonial army. Trembling as if with a high fever, Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton hoisted himself to his feet, spilling his gin-and-bitters as he did so. He stuttered incoherently with sheer fury, unable at that moment to express himself. Muttering, he moved away, out of the lounge, while Harrison mopped the spilled gin off his uniform trousers. Pumphrey-Hatton heard the shout just as he reached the door.

  ‘Clumsy bloody bastard! Bloody pommie snob.’

  That, too, would go in the report for the War Office. The man was obviously totally unfit for the position of OC Troops. A moment later, Pumphrey-Hatton faced another upset. Moving with his jerky walk aft along B deck, he came face to face with Petty Officer Biggar, proceeding for’ard from aft. Stiff-faced, Biggar saluted and moved past.

  ‘You, there. That petty officer.’

  Biggar turned. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Name.’

  Biggar licked at his lips. ‘Biggar, sir. PO, Royal Fleet Reserve.’

  ‘That will be noted. You may carry on.’

  Biggar remained where he was. ‘Sir, I —’

  ‘That will do. You may carry on. Is it necessary for me to repeat my orders?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m sorry, sir, but I —’

  Pumphrey-Hatton lifted a foot and stamped it on the deck. ‘Hold your tongue and do as you’re told!’

  Petty Officer Biggar’s face flushed. As a petty officer, the equivalent of a sergeant, he was not accustomed to be bawled out publicly — bawled at publicly — nor to be told to hold his tongue. He had a bloody good mind, he told himself, to make an issue of it and report to that Mr Finnegan for transmission to the Commodore. As Pumphrey-Hatton marched away aft, Petty Officer Biggar continued angrily but thoughtfully for’ard. It needed reflection — that it did. There were many angles to it, and he had to consider Leading Seaman Purkiss.

  *

  Sub-Lieutenant Finnegan reported back to the bridge with the plain language version of the Admiralty signal.

  Kemp and Maconochie read it together. The estimated position of the Stuttgart was indicated: Kemp and Captain Maconochie, with Finnegan, went back into the chart room and laid off this position on the chart.

  Maconochie said, ‘Her superior speed’s taken her a long way nor’-nor’-west.’

  ‘But she’s on a closing course. More or less. A little north in fact.’

  ‘So as to cross our track?’ Finnegan suggested.

  Kemp nodded. ‘Looks like it, sub.’ He glanced again at the signal. ‘No information as to whether or not it’s suspected that the Stuttgart knows our position currently. But we can certainly assume she knows we’ve left the Cape — and what our present course will be.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Maconochie asked.

  ‘Mastery inactivity for the moment, Captain,’ Kemp said with a grin. ‘We wait for orders from CS23. If his signal officer’s as quick off the mark as young Finnegan, we’ll know any moment now.’ He added, ‘And to forestall what I think you’re going to ask, Captain, we announce nothing to the troops and other passengers about the raider. Not yet, that is.’

  Chapter Eight

  The reaction came quickly from the senior officer of the escort, in a signal made by lamp addressed to the Convoy Commodore and repeated to all ships. Convoy will alter ten degrees to port on the executive and will steer 320 degrees until further orders. Ships to maintain second degree of readiness continuously from now.

  Kemp nodded at Yeoman Lambert. ‘Thank you, Yeoman. Acknowledge.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ As Lambert went back to his signalling projector, the alter-course signal was hoisted from CS23’s flag deck to her fore upper yard, being held at the dip. When all ships had made their acknowledgements, the signal was hoisted close-up to indicate the executive order for the turn to port. Kemp nodded at Maconochie, who passed the orders to his Officer of the Watch. The ships came round, and for a while the convoy was in some disarray as each vessel altered its speed either up or down to resume the original formation. Across the bows of the Commodore’s ship came a big freighter — dangerously close in Kemp’s view. Maconochie reacted fast.

  Moving at the double to the wheelhouse he shouted the orders. ‘Emergency full astern, wheel hard-a-starboard!’

  Kemp held his breath, hands gripping the bridge guardrail until the knuckles showed white. If two big ships should hit … but Maconochie’s instant reaction had saved them from that, if only just. As the stern pull of the engines took effect and the Aurelian Star’s head began to pay off, the freighter slid past to safety with what looked like only inches to spare.

  When the next order reached the engine-room by the telegraphs, the order to resume normal speed, the Chief Engineer let out a long breath and wiped a fistful of cotton-waste across his forehead. A moment later the Captain came on the sound-powered telephone from the bridge. ‘A near miss, Chief. All’s well now, thanks to your engines.’

  Chief Engineer French grinned into the mouthpiece. ‘We try to give satisfaction, sir.’

  ‘I know you do, Chief. What’s more — you succeed.’

  French clipped the telephone back on its holder. He was lucky in the Old Man. With some masters, it was a case of running warfare. Many deck officers regarded what they called the black gang as beneath their notice, nasty foulers of God’s good fresh air with the smoke that they sometimes made, especially when more oil fuel was fed to the furnaces when the call came for extra speed. Not Maconochie: he recognized that in the last resort it was the engines that got the ship home. As from the starting platform John French surveyed his noisy, pulsating kingdom, watched his engine-room ratings moving about the great spinning shafts with their long-necked oil-cans, he thought of home and of homecomings. Thirty-three years at sea, Chief of the Aurelian Star since the outbreak of war, he’d had more homecomings than he could remember. As many departures too, leaving home life and his family behind while he set out on the world’s oceans, living a bachelor existence for months on end until his next leave, seldom more than a fortnight before the next departure.

  A hell of a life for a married man.

  Daft, really.

  Absolutely potty. That was his wife’s term for it. Monica hated those departures that came like the clockwork that regulated the Line’s sailings. But John French had seen no alternative. When he’d married he’d been senior third engineer, which meant many years in the Line’s service, too many years to throw away in an attempt to find a job ashore where he’d have had to start all over again, at the bottom. He’d left the bottom behind a long while ago, signing as a junior engineer, little more in truth than an oiler or greaser, with a tramp shipping company running out of Cardiff. There was a world of difference between a junior engineer in a tramp line, and senior third in a liner.
So he’d stayed at sea, because of that and because, despite the absences, he liked the sea and its variety, its challenges when something went wrong and he was able to put it right.

  But Monica, now. When the war had come she had been devastated. She lived a nightmare all the time he was away, always fearing the worst, always dreading the telegram that would come without warning from the Line or maybe from the Admiralty. She’d had a cousin who’d been an engine-room artificer in the RN. He’d been aboard an aircraft-carrier that had been hit by a torpedo and had then taken an eight-inch projy from a German cruiser, slap in her starboard engine-room. The cousin had in fact survived, but only by a miracle, and survival hadn’t been worth while. He was now confined to one of those contraptions made of basket-work, bed-length, on four wheels, paralysed from the neck down, couldn’t do anything for himself and a pittance of a pension from the Admiralty. John French had been at sea when the cousin had been brought to the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar; and he hadn’t been there to stop Monica hearing all about it when she visited her cousin.

  She knew the horrors now. The scalding, escaping steam, the raging fires as the oil fuel spilled, the oil fuel that covered men’s bodies, spewed into their mouths and nostrils, the twisting of the network of steel ladders that led from the deck of the engine-room to the air-lock at the top, the only way out from hell. She heard about the burns suffered by the cousin before he had managed to reach the air-lock, only to lose his grip and fall from the upper platform, back down into hell, to break his back on one of the shafts before being hauled to safety by a heroic stoker petty officer.

  Since then, she’d been a bag of nerves. Not surprising, of course; but that had reacted badly on their two children. They had become tearaways as a result of too much protective mothering that had never let them out on their own. Taken and fetched to and from school, inquisitions every time they were asked home by a school friend, every movement to be accounted for in detail, that sort of thing. They’d rebelled and that wasn’t surprising either. With dad away at sea, there was no one to appeal to. The family home was in Southampton, and both sets of grandparents were in Sunderland, right up north and too far to visit in wartime, travel being not all that easy.