Convoy of Fear

by Philip McCutchan

‘Wouldn’t get a bloody commission else,’ PO Perryman said with certainty. He rubbed at his eyes and swatted at the merciless, unending flies. ‘Talking o’ which … couple o’ years back I was gunner’s mate o’ the commodore’s guard in RNB Chats. Every third day, we did duty on the cell block, looking after the blokes doing —’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Ramm interrupted. ‘I’m not all green when it comes to that.’

  ‘Sorry. Well, anyway, one night, I calls down the cell alleyway towards the OD on guard, who I couldn’t see cos ’e was round the corner, right? ’E answers in a posh accent and I was took flat aback, thinking an officer had got down there.’ Perryman sucked at his teeth. ‘Know what? I called the little bleeder sir. ’E was one of them CW blokes. I could ’ave pissed myself, after, when ’e come in sight.’

  Ramm laughed. ‘One thing,’ he said. ‘The officers’ll get the cholera with the rest of us. All on a level like … germs don’t respect gold braid.’

  The convoy moved on. Ramm saw Kemp in the starboard wing of the bridge, with Bracewell and the Staff Captain. He fancied they looked worried. Ramm flapped at his shirt, getting some air between it and his skin as the day’s heat increased. The ships were moving faster now; more air should be penetrating below decks. Not long after, they came up to Suez and the canal company’s buildings lining the bank. Ramm went below to the heads: his bowels felt loose. He sat there a long while, dead scared. Then he went along fast to the surgery, where he found Sister McCann. Mary McCann reported to the ship’s surgeon.

  ‘Diarrhoea, Doctor. Just the one case.’

  ‘So far. Any other symptoms?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So we make tests. And pray, Mary.’

  SEVEN

  Ramm was the first of many. The many became a flood, most of them being in fact the troops attending the RAMC surgery, men who hadn’t been through the canal until now. Also some of the WRNS, who likewise hadn’t been through before. That one fact tended to make Crampton and the army medical officers believe it was just a simple case of gyppo tummy. Except for Ramm, who was not by any means doing his first trip through; generally speaking, it was only that first trip through that caught people out; after that, they acquired an immunity. But Ramm, as a result of the tests, didn’t show any sign of cholera any more than did the others.

  Crampton said, ‘He’ll have to be watched, Mary. A simple precaution.’ He told Ramm to report to the surgery twice daily but not to consider himself relieved of any duties. He was probably perfectly all right. Ramm went away feeling happier and spoke to Perryman, whose gut seemed to be behaving normally. That worried Ramm; why didn’t Perryman have the squitters, with his rotten gut and all, yet he did?

  Crampton made his report to the Master. ‘Normal so far as I can say, sir. The proportions are about the same as peacetime and all the tests have been negative.’

  ‘Think we’re in the clear?’ Bracewell asked.

  ‘No, sir, I don’t. It’s much too early to say that.’

  Bracewell sighed. ‘All right, Doctor. Keep watching.’

  ‘I will, of course. I’ll say this much — I’m fairly hopeful. We’ve taken every possible precaution with food and water.’

  ‘Flies?’

  ‘They’re the weak spot, sir. But we’re doing all we can against them.’

  ‘Dirty little beasts,’ Bracewell said. ‘Look after yourself, Doctor.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not irreplaceable, sir. The army has plenty of medics.’ Dr Crampton excused himself and went below to his surgery. The place was empty now of all but Mary McCann, who was busy re-arranging bottles and packets of swabs and all the other paraphernalia of a surgery. Crampton gave her a close, searching look.

  ‘All right, Mary? You look white. Anything up?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I hope not.’

  ‘You’d better tell me. If you’re off colour, we don’t want —’

  She said abruptly, ‘I’ve just vomited, Doctor.’

  ‘H’m. Diarrhoea?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She looked close to tears, Crampton thought. ‘There’ll have to be tests, of course. But I’ll carry on. I can’t infect anybody.’

  ‘No,’ Crampton said. ‘No, you can’t, Mary.’ They both knew that to be a fact. But there was something else that had equally to be accepted as a fact. The lay mind was not going to believe she couldn’t be infectious and when it became obvious that the ship’s nursing sister wasn’t well there could be a panic. He said, ‘I’ll have to put you off duty at once, Mary, if the tests show anything. I’m not having you putting yourself at risk. And that’s final — doctor’s orders!’

  ‘Let’s get on with the tests,’ she said. She was putting a brave face on it but they both knew the score: if she’d got it she wouldn’t be able to carry on. It was the early cases in a cholera epidemic that were often the worst, and the disease moved very fast in the body once established.

  ii

  Rounds again, after the convoy had cleared from the canal and the Orlando was moving through the Gulf of Suez towards the wider waters of the Red Sea. The usual retinue followed behind the troopship’s Staff Captain and Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton, the latter looking edgy as he made his way along the troop decks, making great play with a handkerchief doused with eau-de-cologne, touching it now and again to his nostrils.

  He emerged into the open deck aft. ‘Damn smelly,’ he said to the brigade major.

  ‘Very, sir.’

  ‘Don’t know how they put up with it really. Great self-control. Damned if I’d like it. Did you notice anything else, Major?’

  The brigade major said cautiously, ‘If you mean the atmosphere — the sweat apart again — yes, I did, sir.’

  ‘Brittle.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The brigade major was surprised that Pumphrey-Hatton had noticed anything; usually, he didn’t. It was also surprising that he’d spoken more or less sympathetically about what the soldiers were enduring. Again, usually he didn’t. As for the atmosphere, the emanation of surliness along the troop decks, it was there all right and must have grown worse since RSM Pollock had made his report. The brigade major was about to speak again when OC Troops cut him short.

  ‘They’ll just have to put up with it, Major.’ That was more like Pumphrey-Hatton. ‘Where are we now?’

  ‘Still in the Gulf of Suez, sir.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Damned hot!’

  ‘Once we’re clear of the Gulf, we’ll be well out of sight from the land, sir.’

  ‘Yes. What you’re saying is, the men can come out on deck again. Well — we shall see.’

  ‘But surely —’

  ‘Thank you, Brigade Major. What I said was, we shall see.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Rounds dispersed, the various officers and senior NCOs going about their duties. Pumphrey-Hatton went to his stateroom, the spacious accommodation rivalling the Master’s, the special suite that in peacetime had carried the most important, or most noble, or simply the richest family in the passenger list. Lord Nuffield had travelled frequently in the Orlando; the husband of Amy Johnson the air ace had gone by Orient Line to Sydney; dukes and earls had sailed in her; admirals taking up or relinquishing appointments on loan to the Royal Australian Navy had walked the liner’s decks and sat at the Captain’s table in the saloon. Today the honour and glory were all Pumphrey-Hatton’s. He was very comfortable and had an excellent batman who worked with a steward from the liner’s catering department to minister to the needs of OC Troops. Loosening his khaki-drill tunic Pumphrey-Hatton ordered a long gin-and-lemon with ice. Thinking of how damnable it was down below in the troop decks, Pumphrey-Hatton drank and felt a great deal better.

  Then he looked again at his glass, now almost empty. There was a speck on the inside. Frowning, he looked at it closely: could it be a fly-blow? He believed it was; and the ice could have been from contaminated water, you never knew, there was inevitably carelessness around. Somebody was going to suffer for this.

&nb
sp; Pumphrey-Hatton called loudly for his batman and steward.

  iii

  It was in fact another six hours after clearing from the Gulf of Suez that OC Troops passed the word that the men could be allowed on deck. This was as a result of representations from the battalion commanders, to whom in the interval RSM Pollock had reported in no uncertain terms.

  ‘I smell trouble, gentlemen. Men at the end of their tethers. The troop decks, gentlemen, are diabolical. You’ll have noticed that there’s a following wind.’

  That had been noted; the wind, a hot one, was blowing directly against the wind made by the ship’s own passage, and the two forces were negating each other. The result aboard the ship was a state of windlessness. No air was going down the ventilators. Below, it was a case of swelter, with everything — uniforms, bedding — soaked in sweat. The general effect was that of a kettle on a hob; heated by the sun from above, the ship’s plates were heated by the sea from below, RSM Pollock went on, ‘If you ask me, gentlemen, there could be a breakout.’

  ‘You really think it’s come to that, do you?’

  ‘That’s my view, sir. I do think that. It has worsened a great deal, sir, since I went round the troop decks last night. If I may make the point, sir, when the War Office issued the instruction, there was not a cholera epidemic.’

  The point was taken. The three battalion commanders waited upon OC Troops in his stateroom. They put the point strongly. To carry on the charade any longer was farcical.

  ‘Charade, Colonel?’

  ‘That was my word, sir.’

  ‘It’s not that of the War Office.’

  ‘The War Office doesn’t live on the troop deck, sir.’

  ‘There’s no need to be impertinent!’ Pumphrey-Hatton snapped. Then he seemed to go off at a tangent. He took a few jerky turns up and down the day cabin then swung round on the three senior officers. ‘I had some damn fly dirt in my gin this morning. That’s serious. Or could be. I won’t have all this damned carelessness, it’s very worrying. And I do see … yes, all right. Pass the word that the soldiers can come on deck. Make sure it’s done in an orderly fashion. No scrambling.’

  Looks were exchanged as the colonels left the stateroom. The word was passed. The senior NCOs of the brigade stood by the exits from the troop decks, RSM Pollock stationed himself at the after end of the main alleyway from the ship’s interior, another warrant officer taking the for’ard exit. The men came out like a tidal wave, shouting and cheering, a stampede that couldn’t wait to gulp down air. In the melee RSM Pollock was biffed by an elbow and swung round like a top before falling to the deck. A number of feet passed over him before he was able to wriggle out of the main stream. When the mob had gone, he clambered to his feet, his khaki-drill filthy, his cap crushed, his cane gone he knew not where.

  The air became blue. Then he was addressed by a large plump woman wearing a Wren’s hat and blue crossed anchors on the left sleeve of her white blouse. ‘Such language in front of a lady! I never did hear the like,’ Miss Hardisty said. ‘You ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself!’

  It was not Miss Hardisty’s lucky day: she was in for worse. One of her Wrens was also in the vicinity, a young girl of nineteen. Miss Hardisty was gently upbraided. ‘Did you know who that was, PO?’

  ‘No, and I don’t —’

  ‘Mr Pollock.’ The silly girl giggled and looked coy. ‘They call him Bull’s Bollocks.’

  iv

  Kemp looked down once again on full decks, a sea of khaki. He was glad and relieved to see it. The order had been inhuman, but it wasn’t for him to query the dictates of the War Office or the military command. There was already that coldness between himself and OC Troops, an unwelcome state of affairs. He paced the bridge with Sub-Lieutenant Finnegan and got rid of some of his feelings.

  ‘About time, Finnegan. Typical army, I call it. Constipated minds, h’m?’

  ‘If you say so, sir.’

  Kemp glared. ‘I just have. What’s that remark supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just that I wouldn’t criticize the British Army, sir.’

  ‘Ah. Because you’re an American?’

  ‘I guess so, sir.’

  ‘Feel free, Finnegan.’

  ‘You mean that, sir?’

  ‘I don’t usually say what I don’t mean, Finnegan.’

  ‘Okay, sir, okay.’ There was a gleam in the sub’s eye. ‘In that case, sir, I reckon that OC Troops is a stuffed shirt with a pea brain and a —’

  ‘That’s too free, Finnegan. But to use your own words — if you say so.’

  Finnegan grinned. ‘I guess we’re in accord after all.’

  ‘I guess the same. But never whisper it elsewhere, Finnegan.’ Kemp turned as the yeoman of signals approached, looking urgent, with a signal pad in his hand. ‘Yes, Yeoman?’

  ‘Signal from the extended escort, sir, repeated by Guernsey. Addressed Flag repeated Commodore, sir. Asdic contact bearing due south, sir, distance three miles.’

  ‘Submarine? For God’s sake … in the Red Sea?’ The question was rhetorical; Lambert gave no answer. Kemp went at the double for the voice-pipe to the Master’s cabin. Bracewell was on the bridge within thirty seconds, and by the time he got there Kemp had already pressed the action alarm. Bracewell asked, ‘Where the hell have they come from, Commodore?’

  ‘Probably Japan. Or could be U-boats having made the passage of the Cape. Fuelled from a parent tanker. But personally I go for Japs. It’s a suicide mission — it has to be, in comparatively confined waters so far up. And we all know the Japs.’

  Kemp was watching out ahead, binoculars to his eyes, looking for more signals. The contact was three miles ahead of the extended screen; that made it around fifteen miles ahead of the Orlando’s present position. A little time in hand but not much, and then there could be bloody chaos, Kemp thought, with a submarine loose among the ships of the convoy. Already Lambert on Kemp’s order had passed the signal to the merchant ships, the armaments carriers; aboard them the DEMS gunners would be manning their weapons, the masters looking out as anxiously as Kemp was. Meanwhile the troopship’s own gunners were doubling to their stations carrying steel helmets and white anti-flash gear for the protection of heads and faces, necks and hands. With them, Perryman and Ramm took charge of their sections fore and aft. Within two minutes, all the armament was manned and ready, awaiting firing orders from Sub-Lieutenant Finnegan on the bridge. Ramm’s stomach was still playing him up. He’d been evacuating himself again when the alarm rattlers had sounded, and by now he was a very worried man though he hadn’t vomited. Not yet. But just thinking about the fact that he might do so, and thus take a step nearer a diagnosis of cholera, made him feel slightly sick. But that was probably no more than imagination, a sort of auto-suggestion.

  On the bridge, Kemp was still trying to make an assessment, by which he meant a guess, as to the unknown submarine’s nationality. Back at the convoy conference on the Clyde, when the complete convoy had left Scottish waters for Trincomalee via Malta and Alex, there had been no mention of the likelihood of submarine attack in the Red Sea, though it was known, of course, that the Japanese naval forces were operating across the Bay of Bengal and possibly round the southern tip of India into the Indian Ocean and possibly even the Arabian Sea.

  ‘But to come round Gardafui, Finnegan!’ Gardafui was the cape at the north-eastern tip of Italian Somaliland. ‘And then to come right through the Gates of Hell. That’s what we call the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, this side of Aden.’

  ‘The narrows?’

  ‘Yes. It’s unbelievable. Makes me think that contact could be a British submarine.’ Kemp turned aside and called to Lambert. ‘Yeoman, make to the Flag from Commodore. Have you any British submarines on the plot.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Lambert hesitated. ‘If they had, sir, I reckon they’d have reported.’

  ‘You’d think so, Yeoman, but cock-ups can occur and I don’t want to open fire on our own side.’

  ‘No,
sir.’ Lambert went across and took up his Aldis lamp. The-acknowledgement came quickly from the flagship’s signal bridge, and was almost immediately followed by the answer.

  Lambert reported, ‘Commodore from Flag, sir. Nothing of any nationality on plot but am bearing all possibilities in mind.’

  ‘Right, Yeoman, thank you.’

  At Kemp’s side Bracewell said, ‘If it’s British, she’ll surface when she’s identified us.’

  Kemp nodded. ‘That’s what I’d expect. And that’s when I hope no-one’s going to be trigger-happy. Unless she surfaces, I’ll be expecting Captain (D) to go into the attack. After that, there won’t be any further doubt.’ He looked down again along the boat deck; by now the troops were at their stations on the embarkation deck below, the deck to which the lifeboats were being lowered as a precaution by the ship’s crew working at the davits under the chief officer. A few moments later OC Troops came up the ladder to the bridge and approached Bracewell.

  ‘Ah, Captain. All in hand I trust?’

  ‘Of course,’ Bracewell answered, displeased at the question.

  ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not checking on you.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that, Brigadier.’

  ‘It’s because I had a fly-blow in my gin this morning.’

  Bracewell gaped. Kemp was aware of an explosion from Finnegan. ‘I beg your pardon?’ Bracewell said.

  ‘Oh, I’ve already blasted the steward and my own man. Disgraceful! It’s carelessness, you see. Just damn carelessness. That sort of thing can spread if it’s not checked very, very firmly. I thought I’d mention it.’

  Bracewell said carefully, ‘I shall have words with the purser, who’ll speak to the chief steward. I shall have those words in due course. Currently, I have to do what I can to avoid a possible torpedo attack.’

  ‘Quite so, yes.’

  Kemp, listening, had a fleeting thought that OC Troops had had a little too much gin, fly-blown though it might have been. But his speech wasn’t slurred and he was perfectly steady on his feet. Kemp decided that it must be simply the worry of the cholera. They all knew about the flies.