Convoy of Fear

by Philip McCutchan

  v

  ‘I’m sorry, Mary,’ Dr Crampton had said ten minutes before the action alarm had sounded.

  ‘Positive?’

  Crampton said, ‘I’m afraid it is. You know what to do now.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know.’ Mary McCann was shivering, though her intestinal temperature had been well above normal. ‘Bed. Everything to be disinfected with carbolic acid. Then just wait for the bloody bugs to do their worst. Who’s going to do the disinfecting, Doctor?’

  ‘I’ll do it myself if I have to.’

  ‘So what’s the prognosis?’

  ‘You know as well as I do, Mary.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I suppose I do. I just want to hear you say it’s not always fatal —’

  ‘It certainly isn’t. Chin up, Mary. You’ll be taken very good care of. But you know that too.’

  She nodded. She felt very weak, and the violent shivering was itself weakening. And the sick feeling, and the almost constant diarrhoea. Soon there would come the cramps, and then, perhaps, the state of collapse. She also knew that it was the early cases in which the disease was most virulent and that if no favourable reaction to the collapse took place then she could die within a matter of hours.

  Crampton left the cabin to report to Bracewell on the bridge, adding to the Master’s worries. Bracewell asked, ‘Any theories as to how it came aboard, Doctor? Contact with the shore authorities, however minimal?’

  ‘I’d doubt that, sir. Dust blown aboard in Port Said, distributed via the ventilators. Flies … possibly the fruit and vegetables not washed in disinfectant as thoroughly as they might have been, something missed out.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s very hard to say, but it’s not entirely surprising.’

  ‘Well, anyway, it’s here now,’ Bracewell said. ‘We just have to fight it.’ He turned to Kemp. ‘Do we inform the escort, Commodore?’

  Kemp nodded. He made a signal to the flag, for information. When the answering signal was received it contained information of its own: there was cholera aboard the Glamorgan and one of the destroyer escorts. Crampton went below again, this time to contact the army’s medical section to report a confirmed case. It was just as he reached the boat deck that the sound of the alarm rattlers shattered through the ship and the alleyways became a seething mass of men moving to their boat stations.

  EIGHT

  ‘From Captain (D), sir. Am about to attack’

  ‘Thank you, Lambert.’ Kemp focussed his binoculars on the sector of the sea where he would expect to find the feather of water from a periscope. The reports had continued following the first contact; the submarine, nationality still unknown but by this time unlikely to be British, was nearer as a result of the closing courses and was well within torpedo range of the convoy. Kemp had not scattered the ships; but he had ordered the columns farther apart and the distance between ships in column to be extended. The targets were thus more widely dispersed; and the zig-zag was in operation for the first time since leaving the Suez Canal.

  Kemp watched the destroyers racing across the flat blue water, crossing to the starboard bow of the right-hand column. He said, ‘I wish to God Captain (D) would get on with the attack if he’s going to. He’s giving the bugger too much time.’

  ‘Maybe the sub’ll have gone deep by now, sir.’

  ‘And maybe not, Finnegan.’ Kemp was edgy. ‘They’ve not reported lost contact.’

  ‘The Japs have guts, sir. If it’s a Jap. I guess I wouldn’t like to be in that boat.’

  Kemp said nothing. It was true enough about guts. He’d already spoken of a suicide job and that was precisely what it was. That submarine couldn’t possibly get away, but in the meantime —

  ‘Torpedo starboard, sir, 090 degrees!’ The report came from Lambert, his voice high.

  ‘Captain —’

  ‘All right, Commodore.’ Bracewell gave his orders fast. ‘Hard a-starboard … engines to emergency full ahead!’

  The Orlando started her swing under full starboard helm so as to present the smallest possible target. Bells rang in the wheelhouse to be repeated back from the starting platform below in the engine-room as Chief Engineer Stouter wrenched his pointers over to follow the indicators on the bridge. A shudder ran through the ship as the increased revolutions bit and the wake began to curve and tumble harder as the ship’s head went round to starboard. As the full impact of the helm was felt, the Orlando heeled heavily and everywhere men were thrown off their feet, grabbing for support to anything handy. From the galleys and store-rooms, crockery pantries and issue rooms, came the sound of chaos as things flew from their moorings. Chief Steward Bliss shut his eyes and tried not to think about breakages and their effect on his bonus at the end of the voyage when he had to report losses. In the purser’s office an unsecured typewriter, one of those with an exceptionally long platen for the typing of port forms, slid from a desk and crashed to the deck. Miss Hardisty, at her boat station along with her girls and a number of men, staggered and found herself willy-nilly in the rough arms of a sergeant, a man of about her own age who grinned at her, called her darling, and slid a hand round her bottom. She was in a state of dither and didn’t immediately detach herself from the sergeant’s embrace, for which afterwards she mentally kicked herself because the wretched man obviously needed no encouragement. She was still in his embrace when he stepped back suddenly and looked down over the ship’s side.

  ‘Bloody torpedo!’

  The torpedo had passed down the starboard side harmlessly. Simultaneously another was reported passing down the port side. Miss Hardisty felt quite faint; it had been a very close thing indeed. If the ship had been a matter of feet to either side of her avoiding course, they would have been stopped in their tracks by a massive explosion. But faint or not, Rose Hardisty was the PO Wren and immediately she reassured her girls.

  ‘There’s no danger,’ she said briskly, ‘thanks to Captain Bracewell and Commodore Kemp. We’re in very good hands.’ She straightened her uniform hat, dislodged a little by the sergeant. A moment later the reverberations of exploding depth charges hit the ship as the destroyers at last mounted their attack. Below decks the sound waves through the water clanged and echoed around the ears of the damage control parties and the men standing by the fire hoses along the working alleys and the troop decks. Ex-Colour Sergeant Parkinson heard them with relish. Soon there would be a little less enemy.

  ‘Every little helps,’ he remarked to one of the stewards of the hose party.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘As the old lady said when she piddled in the sea.’

  From the bridge Kemp watched the attack through his binoculars. The great spouts of water rose in what seemed to be an unending succession and then a black snout was seen to thrust through the surface like a wounded whale, rising high in the air amid a bubbling of the sea as the tanks continued to blow. Human figures were seen, clinging to the emerging conning tower and the gun mounted on the fore casing, men like flies who, losing their grip as the angle increased, dropped away into the water. As the submarine began quite suddenly to slide back into the deeps, two of the destroyers were seen to race across to pick up survivors. As they went, another signal reached the Orlando, this time from Captain (D).

  Lambert reported to Kemp. ‘No further contacts, sir.’

  Finnegan said, ‘Hence the ability to pick up survivors, I guess.’

  Kemp made no comment. There had been the times, on other convoys as well as this one, when the picking up of survivors, British or enemy, had not been possible. He thought bitterly: for possible read expedient. You didn’t put your own men at risk while you were under attack. But it always left that sour taste and a large measure of self blame for leaving men to drown. This time, the submarine’s crew had been lucky; they had also been brave. Later that afternoon, it was confirmed that the attacker had indeed been Japanese, a big ocean-going submarine of the Takatsuki class.

  ii

  First Officer Forrest came to the bridge: she came without hes
itation now; since that first time before the Malta arrival, when she had been blasted back down the ladder, Kemp had recognized that she came only when essential.

  She saluted smartly.

  ‘Yes, Miss Forrest?’

  ‘I’ve been approached by the ship’s surgeon, Commodore. His nursing sister’s on the sick list, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I know — Dr Crampton’s reported. Cholera … we haven’t escaped after all. Well, Miss Forrest?’

  ‘Dr Crampton’s asked if my Wrens could help out, Commodore.’

  ‘Help out, in what way? You haven’t any trained nurses among them.’

  ‘No. Apparently that’s not necessary. In the circumstances the girls could — help. Dr Crampton makes the point that all the army orderlies are men, Commodore.’

  ‘I know that. No QAS embarked. I gather that’s normal.’ Kemp paused, seeing Jean Forrest’s embarrassment. ‘Yes, yes, I understand.’ There would be intimacies to be dealt with, of course. ‘Well — it’s up to you really. You’re their officer.’

  ‘I’ve no objection, Commodore. The girls want to help. And anyway, we’re all in the same boat. Rather literally.’

  Kemp gave a bleak smile. ‘Yes, true. Volunteers?’

  She nodded. ‘All of them without exception.’

  ‘So long as that’s the case, all well and good.’

  Jean Forrest saluted again and turned away down the ladder. She had a feeling that Rose Hardisty had seen to it that all the girls had volunteered. After Dr Crampton had come to see her, she had sent for the PO Wren and put the case to her. Miss Hardisty had said she would talk to the girls; Jean had stressed that they must volunteer and not be conscripted; but Miss Hardisty had a way with her. The first officer had watched her from the start of the convoy when it had left the Clyde, grow into her position of authority and responsibility, and she was very jealous of the good name of her charges. When Miss Hardisty had spoken to her girls Jean Forrest had not been present.

  ‘Now then,’ Miss Hardisty had said severely in her old-time role of nanny to a county family. ‘You’re all going to be needed very badly, relieving each other in looking after that poor sick nurse. It’s your duty. Or rather, I’d like you to see it that way. I’d like to see you put self aside. It’s a case of you volunteering, of course. I’m taking it you’re all going to volunteer. I’m very proud of you all, I must say. You’re all a credit to the service, my dears. Yes, Wren Peters?’

  ‘Isn’t there a risk —’

  ‘Dr Crampton will be issuing his instructions shortly,’ Miss Hardisty said. ‘That’s all for now.’ Wren Peters, she had noted early in the convoy, was not one of the most enthusiastic of her girls, but was easily enough sat on when necessary. There was one more thing Miss Hardisty had to say before she dismissed the muster. ‘I shall be taking the first turn of duty myself,’ she announced.

  iii

  Rose Hardisty was, or had been, purely a nursery nurse; by no means a hospital one. But she had nursed her small charges through many a childhood ailment — measles, whooping cough, chicken-pox, even scarlet fever. Always the family doctor had congratulated her afterwards, saying that had it not been for her devoted attentions the story of recovery might have been different. She knew when someone was very ill, knew the moment when crises passed into the first stages of recovery. She knew now, looking down on the sick girl, that Mary McCann was passing towards death. No-one needed to tell her; she knew the signs even though she didn’t know cholera. As the troopship steamed on through the Red Sea’s terrible heat, still with no air coming down through the ventilators, she sat and sweated at the bedside, face frowning and concentrated, feeling herself all the torments that the racked body was enduring. Mary McCann was growing colder by the minute, it seemed; when Miss Hardisty bent over her, wiping at the face with a damp cloth, the breath itself was strangely cold, almost as though it was passing over an ice-block, and she was suffering badly from the cramps in arms and legs, crying out with the pain. When she tried to speak the voice was low and hoarse.

  ‘Don’t talk, dear. Just lie quiet. It’ll pass, it’ll be better soon. You mark my words.’

  Dr Crampton came and went; he couldn’t stay long. He whispered to Miss Hardisty, ‘More cases, I’m afraid. It’s spread faster than I thought likely.’

  ‘The soldiers, Doctor?’

  ‘Yes. The army’s had to section off part of the troop deck as an isolation area. Both the padres have gone down with it — C of E and RC. It’s not only the army. I’ve got a number of the ship’s crew on the sick list.’

  She nodded. ‘You’ve got your hands full, Doctor. Don’t worry about Miss McCann, I’ll manage.’

  ‘I’m sure you will. I’m very, very grateful. Sister McCann … we’ve sailed together a long while, you know.’ Crampton indicated the telephone. ‘That’ll get me through the exchange. Call me at once, please, if the general condition worsens. I’m hoping she’ll fall into a proper sleep, a deep one. If that happens, there’s every hope.’

  Miss Hardisty knew from his tone that he expected the worst. No sleep came; the girl tossed and turned, complained of the cramps more than ever. She remained clear-headed throughout even though after another spasm she passed into a state of collapse, unable to help herself in any way. When the collapse came, Miss Hardisty rang through for the doctor. There was, she reported, no sign of that deep sleep coming. Crampton came along, shook his head at what he saw. Ten minutes later he rang through to the Master, and Bracewell, after taking the call, climbed slowly from his cabin to the bridge.

  ‘First death, Commodore. Sister McCann. First of many, I suppose.’

  iv

  The disposal of the body took place that same afternoon; the dead were not kept long in the hot climates of the world. A plank was rigged in the starboard gunport door, the passenger embarkation point in peacetime days. The body, sewn into its canvas shroud, lay beneath the Red Ensign as Bracewell, in the absence of the brigade’s padre on the sick list, read the words of the committal.

  ‘Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear sister here departed; we therefore commit her body to the deep …’

  At the appropriate moment the plank was tilted, there was a movement of the Red Ensign, and the body twisted down into the water as the ship’s engines lay briefly stopped. In the engine-room Chief Engineer Stouter awaited the telegraphed order from the officer of the watch on the bridge to set his big, shining shafts into action again to propel the ship on to whatever might await it in the days ahead. Stouter thought of death, of the body that would meander through the depths of the Red Sea until it found rest, of the many bodies that were surely yet to come. Cholera was a scourge and an unkind one in the midst of war, in the midst of so many other forms of death from bombs and torpedoes and gunfire and drowning. As if there wasn’t enough to contend with … beside him on the starting platform the bridge telegraph rang and the pointers went over to Full Ahead. Stouter saw the power put through, saw the shafts start their spin and felt the shudder of the plates as the screws began their thrust and the ship moved on towards the Gates of Hell.

  Bracewell, before going back to the bridge, insisted on Crampton accompanying him to his quarters. Or tried to. ‘You were shipmates for a long while, Doctor. You can do with a whisky.’

  Crampton shook his head. ‘If you’ll excuse me, sir. I have a lot to do, so many cases. I’m needed below.’ He paused, mopped at the sweat pouring down his face. ‘I’m thanking God for those Wrens, more so than ever now. They’re splendid.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Bracewell said. ‘Any more key personnel gone down with it yet?’

  ‘Not from the ship’s staff, sir. One of the naval gunners has it, a PO. I’ll be having a word with the Commodore.’

  Captain Bracewell returned to the bridge. The doctor went below to carry on. Petty Officer Ramm watched him go and believed himself struck by a miracle insofar as it wasn’t him who was needing medical atten
tion to date. It had after all been Perryman who’d succumbed, which was in a way natural seeing what his gut was like. Ramm’s diarrhoea and sickness had cleared up. In his ditty box he’d found a bottle of Dr J. Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne, stowed there by his wife back in Pompey and forgotten about till now. That had done the trick, cured what must have been simple gyppo tummy.

  He’d been lucky. But the bottle of cure-all had the effect of reminding him of his wife and the proximity to her of that barmaid from The Golden Fleece. You never knew; plenty of bombs had fallen on Pompey and could fall again, and Ramm’s home and The Golden Fleece were not all that far apart. Civvies got very matey under blitz conditions, swopping yarns in the air-raid shelters, gossiping while they knitted. Things could come out.

  Best forget about it, Ramm told himself. He went aft along the boat deck, towards the 6-inch in the stern. There was another bit of luck to concentrate on: sorry as he was about PO Perryman, his removal from the scene did leave himself back in full charge of his own ratings, and Perryman’s as well. Of course, he hoped poor old Perryman would recover; but if he didn’t, well. And if he did, he’d be far too shaky on his feet to act the senior gunner’s mate this side of Trinco.

  Ramm had words with the after gun’s crew, finding fault like any PO. That way, you kept the lads up to the mark. Ramm was lucky in finding a small patch of rust on the breech-block. He made the most of that.

  v

  There were no more gins in Kemp’s cabin now; Jean Forrest was too busy. With all the girls helping out still with the escalating case-load, Jean acted as relief where and when required, letting the girls get away for meal breaks and to catch up on their sleep. The result was that she got no sleep herself and after some forty-eight hours was feeling the strain.

  Miss Hardisty remarked on this. ‘You’re overdoing it, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh no, I’m fine.’

  ‘Beg pardon, ma’am, but you’re not.’ Great hollows under the eyes, haggard cheeks and a twitch at the corner of the mouth didn’t add up to being fine. Miss Hardisty went on, ‘I’ll take myself off the rota, ma’am, and take watch-and-watch with you for the reliefs. That’ll spread it a little, ma’am, and we’ve got to be sensible.’