Convoy Homeward (John Mason Kemp Thriller Book 6)

by McCutchan,Philip

  And he had not been informed.

  As a matter of courtesy he should have been. The Commodore and OC Troops were slighting him. He began to tremble as that realization came to him. He might have no official standing aboard the Aurelian Star but he remained a brigadier of the British Army on active service and as such he was not going to be disregarded.

  He stalked away towards the orderly room, shaking, his anger boiling up inside him. On the way he passed the entry to the B deck lounge. He hesitated, then turned back. He went inside, went to the bar, where he stood in preference to sitting like a lounge lizard on a stool. He felt vaguely unwell. Not gin today. ‘Brandy,’ he said to the bar steward. ‘Courvoisier.’

  ‘No Courvoisier, sir. Only Van der Humm.’

  ‘Damn. All right.’

  ‘Coming up, sir.’ Maclnnes turned away. Pumphrey-Hatton became aware of a person on a stool nearby.

  This person wished him good morning.

  ‘Good morning. Hench, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right, Brigadier.’

  ‘I remember. Told you not to overdo the drink. And that awful woman. No good to you at all, Tench.’

  ‘Hench —’

  ‘Don’t damn well argue. I’m sick and tired of being damn well disregarded.’

  Hench gave a laugh. ‘Snap.’ He sounded bitter.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Snap. So am I. Fed up with being —’

  ‘Ah. You, too? That woman?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hench said viciously.

  The Van der Humm arrived. Pumphrey-Hatton took it, examined it closely, then knocked it back and demanded another. He said, ‘I did tell you. If you can’t take advice, then you’ve only yourself to blame. I think I also said, don’t do anything silly. Remember?’

  ‘No,’ Hench said.

  Pumphrey-Hatton shook with anger. ‘Damn stupid,’ he said in a high, almost hysterical voice. ‘I …’ His voice tailed away and suddenly he seemed to crumple. He slid to the deck, knocking over a stool. The Van der Humm spilled over his uniform, the glass broke.

  Hench stared. ‘My God,’ he said. He remained as though rooted to his stool. Maclnnes came round the bar, asked Hench for assistance. Hench didn’t react; it was old Colonel Holmes who came across and helped Maclnnes to carry the limp form to a settee. Maclnnes felt for a pulse. ‘Alive,’ he said. ‘I’ll put out a call for the doctor.’

  *

  Yeoman of Signals Lambert had happened to look in at the W/T office when the leading telegraphist was picking up an overseas broadcast from Germany. The tones of the broadcaster were nasal. ‘Lord Haw-Haw,’ Lambert said. ‘Stand by for a laugh, eh?’

  William Joyce, British subject, traitor who spread propaganda for Adolf Hitler, trying to undermine the morale of the home front, had long been dubbed Lord Haw-Haw. Earlier in the war he had constantly asked the question over the air, ‘Where is the Ark Royal?’ in reference to Britain’s newest and largest aircraft carrier, the inference being that she had been sunk and the British public had not been told by a cowardly Admiralty. In fact, though she had later been sunk by submarine attack a little east of the Gibraltar Strait, she was at the time of Lord Haw-Haw’s queries very much in being. That had been one of Lord Haw-Haw’s boobs; but mostly he had been extraordinarily accurate in his war news. It was supposed that he had any number of informers inside Britain who made clandestine radio contact with Berlin, men and women who described with deadly precision the air attacks that had been made the night before. Lambert himself had heard Lord Haw-Haw speak of local damage, Pompey damage: Haw-Haw had told Britain of the massive attack by the Luftwaffe on the Royal Naval Barracks in early 1941, when the petty officers’ block had been demolished by a land mine, with more land mines smashing onto the parade ground and the air raid shelters beneath. Lambert had heard him speak of a terrace in Arundel Street that had taken a direct hit and had mostly gone up in flame and rubble. Lord Haw-Haw had spoken of the demolition of Palmerston Road in Southsea, of the total destruction of what had been Handley’s Corner. Lord Haw-Haw had known his stuff. He had said in that peculiarly offensive nasal tone, The naval officers of the Portsmouth base and their families will never again dilly-dally over coffee and biscuits in Handley’s cafe next to the china and glass department nor use the old-fashioned lift like a mobile parrot’s cage …’

  To naval personnel serving overseas such a broadcast would have struck home very forcibly. And it had been the same all over the country. The result could have been devastating, could have impressed people with the perspicacity of Germany’s all-seeing eye, could have made them fearful of their own neighbours. But that had never happened: Lord Haw-Haw had become a comic turn even though he was known to speak the truth on most occasions. He had become compulsive listening, enlivening many an evening of short rations and a huddling in thick clothing over almost non-existent fires in winter. He was as popular as Tommy Handley in It’s That Man Again, as popular as Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh.

  ‘What’s he on about now?’ Lambert asked.

  The leading telegraphist put a finger to his mouth. Lambert listened.

  ‘… told me by, let us say, a little bird. Are you listening, down there in the South Atlantic?’

  Lambert stiffened, stubbed out a fag-end in a handy ashtray. Lord Haw-Haw went on, ‘Are you listening, Commodore Kemp? Are you still acting the good shepherd of your convoy aboard the Aurelian Star, bound for the Firth of Clyde, and home? If you are listening I have, I’m sorry to say, some bad news for you.’ There was a pause. ‘Your son, Sub-Lieutenant Harry Kemp, has been drowned at sea when his ship was sunk by action of one of our U-boats …’

  Lambert’s face had gone white; he listened for a moment longer, but Lord Haw-Haw had gone on to other matters, describing the fate of more than a hundred people, men, women and children, in a cinema in south-east London that had taken a direct hit the night before.

  ‘I’ll be buggered,’ Lambert said in a voice little above a whisper. ‘That’s bloody horrible.’

  The leading telegraphist said, ‘Typical, is that. Will the Old Man have heard?’

  ‘Not on the bridge, no. I wonder … will somebody tell him?’

  The answer was a shrug. ‘Wouldn’t care for the job myself, Yeo.’

  ‘Nor me neither. I’ll have a word with Mr Finnegan, see what he thinks — leave it up to him. He and the Commodore, they seem to understand one another.’ Lambert paused. ‘I reckon he’ll have to be told, and you know why as well as I do. That Haw-Haw … he knows where we are, what our orders are for the Clyde. You know what that means, eh? What with the bloody Stuttgart and all …’

  *

  ‘Heart attack,’ Dr Grant said succinctly. He stood up. ‘Get him down to his cabin,’ he said to Maclnnes. ‘I’ll treat him there. He’ll pull through, I believe, it’s not too serious.’ He added. ‘Can you rustle up a couple of hands with a Neil Robinson stretcher?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Leave it to me, sir.’

  ‘Sister Forman’ll go with the stretcher party.’ Maclnnes got on the phone to the second steward, and two men came up within the next couple of minutes, carrying a stretcher. Pumphrey-Hatton was carried below, the ship’s nursing sister walking beside him along the cabin alleyways. Outside in the lobby was Petty Officer Biggar, and Biggar happened to see the face in the stretcher as the party came past him, out of the lounge door to head for the ladder down to the accommodation decks. Biggar moved away thoughtfully and went in search of Leading Seaman Purkiss, who was having a smoke by the guardrail aft, it being stand-easy.

  He retailed what he had seen.

  Purkiss gave a low whistle. ‘May let us off the ’ook, PO.’

  ‘Yes. If he ’appens to kick the bucket, that is.’

  ‘How did ’e look, eh?’

  ‘White. Or sort of parchment. Face gone all thin like.’

  Purkiss nodded. ‘Not too good?’

  ‘No, I’d say not. So here’s hoping, eh? Looks like the good Lord’ll provide.’
/>
  Purkiss clicked his tongue. ‘That’s bloody blasphemious, PO.’

  ‘Much you care, eh? And don’t be bloody impertinent, all right?’

  *

  Finnegan came up the ladder to the bridge. Kemp asked, ‘How’s the invalid now, Finnegan?’

  ‘Haven’t enquired, sir. But I guess he’s okay. The doc didn’t seem worried, so Sister Forman said.’

  Kemp grinned. ‘So you did make some sort of enquiry? If only as an excuse to chat up the nursing sister.’

  Finnegan didn’t comment; there was a formality about his manner. He began to fidget and said, ‘Commodore, sir.’

  Kemp raised an eyebrow. ‘Well?’

  ‘I guess … well, if I could have a word.’

  ‘With me?’

  ‘That’s so.’

  ‘Here I am,’ Kemp said impatiently, ‘so go ahead.’

  Finnegan hesitated, not meeting Kemp’s eye now. He said, ‘In your cabin, sir?’

  Kemp frowned. ‘In my cabin? What have you been up to, young Finnegan?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. It’s not me. But I guess it’s — it’s important.’

  ‘Oh, very well, if you must.’ Kemp called across to the Officer of the Watch that he would be in his cabin if required, then went down the ladder with Finnegan.

  *

  Pumphrey-Hatton, given a sedative, slept for some hours. When he awoke, Sister Forman was sitting by the side of his bunk. Jane Forman was a cheerful girl with a placid expression that the uncharitable called cow-like. Her figure tended to stoutness. Being cheerful, and seeing the signs of life as the patient’s eyes opened and he stared around somewhat vacantly, she spoke brightly.

  ‘How do we feel now?’ she asked.

  Pumphrey-Hatton focussed. ‘I don’t know how you feel, my good woman. I feel bloody.’

  ‘That’s only to be expected. We’ll feel better soon, won’t we?’

  ‘How the devil do I know?’

  ‘Because I say so.’ Sister Forman had been put out by being addressed as ‘my good woman’. She went on, ‘Now we’ll make you all comfy, shall we.’ She lifted Pumphrey-Hatton’s head gently and fluffed at the pillow, straightened the sheet over the recumbent body. ‘There. That’s better, isn’t it?’

  Pumphrey-Hatton said disagreeably, ‘Will you kindly tell me what’s wrong with me?’

  ‘That’s up to Doctor,’ she said in a reproving tone. ‘He’ll be along just as soon as I tell him we’ve come round —’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, woman! Kindly remember I’m singular, not plural. I’ve come round. We haven’t. And I’ve had a heart attack. Haven’t I?’

  Sister Forman busied herself at the wash-basin. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘P’raps Doctor will say that, I don’t know. But we’re — you’re doing very well so there’s no need to worry about —’

  ‘Oh, go away, woman, and fetch the doctor.’

  ‘Oh, very well.’ Looking hurt Sister Forman left the cabin. Pumphrey-Hatton glared after her. He disliked being fussed over and he disliked nurses; they were a bossy, interfering bunch. And he had no intention of finishing the voyage in his bunk. Confined to his cabin he would be angered beyond measure by his electric fan and his wash-basin, and there might well be flies in the vicinity of the equator, and he had yet to deal with his attackers, Biggar and Purkiss. He felt groggy when he tried to sit up, and he broke out in a profuse sweat. But that nurse woman had said he’d feel better soon. One had to assume she knew her job. When he felt better he would get up and that would be that, nurse or no nurse, doctor or no doctor. After a while, staring at the deckhead, he saw a fly. Worse than a fly: it was, he believed, a bluebottle. He couldn’t have that. By the side of his bunk was a magazine, a very old copy of the London Illustrated News. He reached out and rolled it up.

  Sister Forman was reporting to Dr Grant that her patient had woken up and seemed likely to prove a difficult and very rude man, when Pumphrey-Hatton, standing on his bunk and feeling groggier than ever but flailing away at the bluebottle, if such it was, suddenly clutched at his chest and fell, landing in a heap on the cabin deck.

  *

  The news went quickly round the troopship, together with Dr Grant’s theory of what had happened, reconstructing from the rolled-up magazine, the continuing presence of the bluebottle on the deckhead, and the well-known antipathy of the brigadier towards flies and such.

  ‘Killed by a blue-arsed fly,’ Leading Seaman Purkiss said in something like awe that Petty Officer Biggar’s thoughts had borne fruit so quickly. ‘Would you bloody well believe it, PO?’

  ‘It’s fact, anyway. You don’t speak ill of the dead, I know that and respect it like. But I can’t deny it’s a relief. Almost like it was meant to ’appen. Providence, see?’

  *

  In the chart room aboard the Stuttgart a conference was being held. Present with the Captain were his navigating officer, the gunnery and torpedo officers and the radar and communications officers.

  The Stuttgart was now within twenty-four hours’ steaming of the northbound convoy. Captain von Bellinghausen’s face was formidable as he outlined his plan of attack, emphasizing with blows of his fist on the chart table the great glory that would accrue to the Third Reich and to his ship’s company if an important troop convoy was successfully attacked. A number of Iron Crosses of the Military Division were likely to be awarded.

  ‘I propose to open fire the moment the convoy is sighted, gentlemen,’ Captain von Bellinghausen said. ‘The first point of aim is to be the ship of the Convoy Commodore — the Aurelian Star. At the same time as I open fire with my heavy batteries the escort will increase speed towards the convoy.’ The raider was accompanied by four destroyers, one on either bow, one ahead and one astern acting as rearguard. ‘They will go in amongst the ships of the convoy and will fire their torpedoes. We must naturally expect opposition from the convoy’s escort, but as you know, gentlemen, the British escort has no battleship, whilst its light cruisers have no armament that can match our eight-inch batteries.’ He paused, seeing that his gunnery officer was anxious to speak. ‘Yes, Schürer?’

  ‘The British battleship Duke of York, Herr Kapitan. Is she not —’

  ‘There has been a signal a matter of minutes ago from the Naval Command in Wilhelmshavn, Schürer. The sailing of the Duke of York was delayed. So very British a delay — a dispute with their trade unions. We in Germany are fortunate that our Führer has never in Germany permitted such stupid disputes. Heil, Hitler!’

  The dutiful chorus of heils came. Von Bellinghausen continued. ‘The British battleship is believed to be currently no closer than five hundred miles westward of Cape Finisterre. We shall not be bothered by her, and we shall destroy the convoy. When that has been achieved, then we shall head at once, but not directly, for Germany. There will be many warships searching for us, but we shall set our course westwards towards the vicinity of Venezuela and then head east and north for the Denmark Strait. There will be dangers but we shall overcome them — with the assurance that the Reich has God on its side. God and our Führer, gentlemen, cannot be defeated.’

  There was a lengthy dissertation on the various technical details of navigation and ship-handling after the attack, talk about frequent alterations of course and other ways of evading the British who would be bent upon a swift revenge. Von Bellinghausen refrained from drawing any comparisons between the sinking of the British battle-cruiser Hood and the subsequent swift pursuit and destruction of the mighty Bismarck; there was nothing to be gained from gloom. The Stuttgart was going into the attack and afterwards she would steam safe home to glory and that was all about it.

  When the conference broke off the various heads of departments went about their duties to their parts of ship. In the big turrets the gunner’s mates put their guns’-crews through their paces for the hundredth time; the torpedo crews were exercised time and time again aboard the Stuttgart and the destroyers of the escort. In the engine-rooms extra checks were made of the propelling machin
ery and all bearings were examined and given an injection from the oil-cans. The telegraphs were checked, dummy runs to ensure that orders from the bridge were transmitted to the starting platform without delay due to any mechanical fault. All the electrics were checked and double-checked throughout the ship. Every man worked at the peak of efficiency. The honour of the Third Reich was the guarantee of that; a notable blow was to be struck, hammer-like, at Britain and the monster Churchill to the glory of the Führer and his so-victorious Navy.

  Next morning, after dawn action stations had been fallen out the final accolade reached the Stuttgart: a cypher had been received in the main receiving room deep below the ship’s armoured belt. Captain von Bellinghausen, when this signal had been de-cyphered, read it himself to all his ship’s company over the internal broadcasting equipment.

  ‘May God be with you,’ von Bellinghausen read in a voice that shook with the emotion of the moment, ‘in your so splendid bravery and loyalty to the Third Reich that will last a thousand years.’

  It was from the Führer himself. The ship rang with cheering.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Finnegan left the Commodore’s cabin, went into the pantry next door and spoke to Kemp’s steward. ‘Commodore’s had bad news, I guess, Horton. Wouldn’t hurt to take him in a whisky.’

  ‘Commodore doesn’t drink at sea, Mr Finnegan —’

  ‘I know. Just this once, all right?’

  Finnegan went back to the bridge, had a word with the Officer of the Watch. Captain Maconochie was in the wheelhouse, using the voicepipe to the engine-room. Finnegan moved into Kemp’s position in the starboard wing of the bridge. He was very concerned about the Commodore. Kemp had said little, had seemed to be in a state of shock. That was far from surprising. Finnegan had stressed that since the name was known, Harry Kemp must have been picked up and that anyway the word had come only from Lord Haw-Haw, who could be, probably was, wrong. But Kemp had known all about Lord Haw-Haw’s curious ability to get at the facts. He’d heard that from his wife among others. On leave once, Mary had told him that Lord Haw-Haw had announced, after German aircraft, chased by Spitfires, had ditched some bombs over a nearby village, that a certain Mrs Brampton, address given, had had her house taken out by a direct hit. Mrs Brampton, Lord Haw-Haw had said, had two daughters named Lilly and Lucy who attended Queen Anne’s School in Caversham, Reading. Mrs Brampton had been killed but her husband Tony, who worked in the Bank of England, had been away for the night and was safe. Lord Haw-Haw had added, as a sort of throw-away line, that Mrs Brampton’s bridge-playing friends would miss her. Mary had been one of the bridge addicts and had known just how correct all the details were.