Convoy of Fear

by Philip McCutchan

  Kemp gave a hard laugh. ‘It’s not the Neuss, Staff Captain. It’s the Admiral Richter. A pocket-battleship of 26,000 tons.’

  TWELVE

  The Admiral Richter was a ship name well-known to the Allied fleets. Her tours of extended duty from the Fatherland had taken her into the North and South Atlantic, and round the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean in the past; and here she was again and likely to be closing the convoy, which before long she must surely pick up on her radar. A sister ship of the Admiral Scheer and the Deutschland, she was known to mount a main armament of six 11-inch guns with a secondary armament of eight 5.9-inch, six 4.1 HA, plus eight torpedo tubes. It had been understood at the Admiralty that she was capable of a maximum speed of twenty-six knots; but even this, a comparatively high speed for a heavily armoured ship, was believed to have been exceeded. It was possible she had a reserve speed of around thirty knots. Although her guns were of lesser calibre than those of the Valiant, they would almost certainly prove much more effective. The German radar-controlled gunnery was admitted to be superb; and the Valiant’s guns were old, virtual museum pieces when set against those of the Admiral Richter.

  ‘One old, slow battle-waggon,’ Kemp said, ‘and two cruisers. God knows, it’s not much.’

  ‘And the destroyers, sir,’ Finnegan said.

  ‘Yes. If they can get inside the guns, they could do some damage certainly, but the point is, can they? They’ll meet a hail of fire all the way in. Yes, Yeoman?’

  ‘Signal from the Flag, sir. Addressed all ships. I intend to lie low unless brought to action. If the convoy is picked up the cruisers will stand between the merchant ships and the enemy while the destroyers carry out close torpedo attack under cover of Valiant’s main armament. Message ends, sir.’

  Kemp nodded. ‘Right, thank you, Yeoman. Make to all ships repeated Flag, convoy is to be ready to scatter.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Finnegan was hovering, a frown on his face. Kemp asked, ‘Well, what is it, Finnegan?’

  ‘The scatter order, sir. If the cruisers are to stand between us and the Heinies, do we want to be too far apart?’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Kemp snapped.

  ‘Sorry, sir. Just asking.’

  ‘The cruisers are all very fine, but it’s essential to disperse the targets. Then the Germans can’t get us all. All right, Finnegan?’

  ‘All right, sir.’

  ‘Now we have other things to think about, and fast. I have the sick especially in mind. And talking of the sick, that’s another reason I’m not relying on the cruisers too far. We know Glamorgan’s got the cholera aboard. Her guns’ crews will be depleted.’ Kemp turned to Bracewell. ‘I suggest we jump the gun, Captain, and send the ship to action stations at once. And I’d be obliged if you’d send down for all medical officers and OC Troops.’ He added, ‘In the meantime, I’ll speak to the men over the tannoy.’

  ‘You think the Richter will pick us up, Commodore?’

  ‘I’m damned certain she will,’ Kemp said.

  ii

  Kemp’s broadcast brought apprehension throughout the ship. This could scarcely be a worse time in which to go into action against a heavy ship. When Petty Officer Ramm heard the news it reacted deep in his guts. He’d had those thoughts about doing a Jervis Bay and reaping glory. Now he remembered that it had been the Admiral Scheer that had sunk the Jervis Bay, pounding her into wreckage, bloodied with strips of human flesh and the remains of men who’d been burned in the spreading fires until their eyeballs melted. The Scheer’s sister ship might be all set to bring about a repeat of history, and a lot of Ramm’s courage ebbed away. No peacetime liner was built to take what the Richter could dish out.

  On the bridge, Kemp conferred with the army’s medical officers and Dr Crampton. He said, ‘We may have little time. I’m no medic, I need hardly say. I’m open to suggestion as to how we cope with the sick. But I’ll make a suggestion of my own, and it’s this: I’d like to see all of them brought up handy for the boats. It may do them no good medically, but it’s a case of the lesser evil. If we have to abandon, it’s going to be a question of time. You’ll see the point.’

  They did; any attempt to bring up the sick once the ship was under bombardment and possibly holed and on fire would be doomed. Colonel Munro of the RAMC, agreeing with the Commodore, turned to OC Troops for formal approval.

  Pumphrey-Hatton said, ‘Yes, yes, I agree. Much better, obviously. Where’s Mr Pollock?’

  Munro stared. ‘Sick list, sir.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Still?’

  ‘Very much so. Bad prognosis I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Prognosis?’ Pumphrey-Hatton appeared not to be entirely registering, looking away to the south-west in obvious anticipation of the Admiral Richter’s arrival.

  ‘I mean he’s unlikely to recover, sir.’

  ‘Damn! I rely on Pollock above and beyond my officers, or most of them.’ Pumphrey-Hatton was starting to shake and his voice was rising. ‘It’s too much. Too much altogether. All the sickness and now this. Here I am. I’m dependent upon my senior RSM, the best blasted man in the brigade, and he’s sick.’

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir.’ Munro’s tone was formal. ‘Have I your permission to carry on and bring up the sick?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes.’

  Munro turned away, catching the eye of one of the other medical officers and giving a slight shrug as he did so. The message was clear: OC Troops could do with a sedative and a check-up but it was a case of first things first. It was going to take a lot of time to organize so many sick men up from below and range them along the embarkation deck.

  Munro found an ally in Jean Forrest. She was still pale, still weak, but she had struggled out of her bunk on hearing Kemp’s broadcast. She had to be useful, not just lie there being an incubus. Leaving her cabin, she all but bumped into Munro. She said she wanted to help.

  ‘You’re not fit, Miss Forrest.’

  ‘Fit enough. I’m sure I can be of some use? They aren’t going to like being moved —’

  ‘It’s for their own good.’ Munro was already moving away. She caught the sleeve of his khaki-drill tunic. ‘I can be with some of them, talk to them. Reassure them. I think a woman can always help.’

  Munro was about to say again, and impatiently, that she wasn’t fit. But then he thought: what’s the point? Save her for what? They could all be dead or dying within the next hour or so. He said abruptly, ‘Oh, very well then. Follow me.’

  They went down to the troop decks and the various sections curtained off for use as sick bays. The troop decks themselves were emptying fast as the men were shepherded out by the platoon sergeants in orderly fashion, their lifejackets secured, tin hats on their heads, rifles held against their bodies as though they were about to go over the top in some past war, most of them with cigarettes burning. They went with chaff and laughter and here and there a snatch of ribald song, and Jean Forrest was given wolf whistles and on a couple of occasions as she brushed past the men, her bottom was pinched. She took all this as a compliment from doomed men and was glad to feel that she was still woman-looking enough to attract. She felt tears on her cheeks at the spirit of the troops as they went with military discipline to face the Admiral Richter’s guns.

  In the sick bays there was a different feeling. The air was thick, the stench not quite overlaid by the carbolic. The very ill were put gently on stretchers and, Jean thought, were almost oblivious of what was happening. The less sick were inclined not to want to leave what seemed to them to be the security of steel bulkheads around them. In the open, there would be shell splinters flying around. Jean put it to them: a liner’s sides were paper thin. There would be no special security below. They could become trapped: they were better off handy for the boats.

  ‘Going to come to that, is it, Miss?’ a young private asked, his face pinched and yellow-looking.

  She said, ‘It’s just a precaution. Don’t forget the Valiant’s with us.’

&nb
sp; iii

  On the bridge, all the personnel were looking out on that south-westerly bearing, watching through their binoculars for the first sign of the German’s fighting-tops. Kemp was almost at the nail-biting stage: he was not going to scatter the convoy until it became unavoidable but he mustn’t leave the order until it was too late. Many signals had been exchanged between the Commodore and the masters of the ammunition ships, all of them liable to go sky high if the Admiral Richter made contact. They had had their orders for the subsequent rendezvous after scattering if they should come through. By now the cruisers of the escort had moved across the columns to take up station on the starboard beam of the convoy, and had been joined in her slow and ponderous fashion by the old battleship whose guns were now cleared for action, the canvas hoods and the tampions removed and the great barrels swung towards where the enemy was expected to appear.

  Kemp remarked, ‘She’s a brave sight, Finnegan.’

  ‘Good old British Navy solidity, sir. But she does look rather like a tub, I guess.’

  Kemp laughed. ‘I prefer to say she has plenty of beam, and that makes for a steady gun platform. The trouble being the damn accuracy of the German gunners.’

  Finnegan glanced at Kemp’s face. ‘Thinking of the Hood?’

  ‘Yes. All over in, what, two minutes or so. Just a bloody great explosion and finish. But the Valiant’s got more armour around her magazines. Also, her guns should outrange the Richter’s I fancy. Heavier calibre.’

  Finnegan nodded. He had the idea Kemp was talking just to fill a gap, a gap of immense tension as the minutes ticked away. The Hood was history — recent, but past. There was no reason why they should go the same way. But it was good to know that the Valiant could outrange the Heinies. The action, if it came, would probably open with the Valiant’s heavy batteries.

  In the engine-room, Mr Stouter was all ready for whatever might happen. All ready mentally, that was. In point of fact his engine spaces were always all ready for whatever might happen, since that was the way of engineers to whom things did tend to happen at awkward moments. Minor breakdowns, trouble with the ring main causing electrical faults, generators on the blink causing ditto, or the condensers reacting to being over-worked in the passengers’ interest. Physically, Stouter knew there was very little he could do if a shell should smash through into the engine spaces and turn his kingdom into a fiery hell with blazing oil fuel running from shattered tanks and furnaces, and steam escaping under pressure and searing the flesh from anyone who got caught in it. About all that could be done if the worst happened was to try to get all his men up the network of ladders and into the safety — for a while anyway, with luck — of the engineers’ alleyway up top, and then to the open decks handy for the boats.

  Waiting for orders, waiting for the start of action, the chief engineer felt a wave of sickness.

  Nerves?

  He clutched at the guardrail of the starting platform, an involuntary action that was seen by his junior second engineer, acting senior second owing to the cholera.

  ‘You all right, sir?’

  ‘I’m okay. Everything on top line?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I was about to report when I saw you —’

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’ There was a snap in Stouter’s voice, because he was now very alarmed. The sound of the engine-room seemed to have altered somehow, in an extraordinary way. It seemed to drum against his ears and to reverberate, and that increased the sick feeling. A few moments later he felt a griping pain in his stomach, enough almost to curl him in half, but with an effort he remained upright, standing with his arms rigid against the guardrail. The sound-powered telephone from the bridge rang. It was the Captain.

  ‘All right, Chief?’

  ‘All right, sir.’

  ‘Valiant reports contact and is altering course. Stand by for fireworks, Chief.’ Bracewell cut the connection. Stouter wiped sweat from his face and neck with a handful of cotton-waste. So now this was it: action imminent. A bloody good time for the cholera to strike! Well, the cholera would have to wait, that was all about it. He was needed where he was. In any case he might be dead from other causes, any moment now.

  iv

  PO Wren Hardisty was shifted from her cabin with the others and set into a deck chair on the embarkation deck. She was feeling better, a little but not much, but at least she felt she had a grip on life again if only the Germans would leave her alone. First Officer Forrest, on her way below to help bring more men up on deck, stopped by her chair.

  ‘You’re looking better, PO.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, thank you. Don’t you go overdoing it, now.’

  Jean smiled down at her. ‘No, nanny.’

  ‘Oh, dear, ma’am! Did I sound like that?’

  ‘Yes, you did, and why not? Nannies are comfortable persons, good to have around. Now I’ll say the same thing: don’t you overdo it, Rose. No thoughts about getting up to help, and that’s an order.’

  She went away, back to her self-imposed task. Miss Hardisty was too overcome to say any more before she went. Miss Forrest had called her Rose. She didn’t ever remember that happening before. It was just like the old days, when she had in fact been a nanny, and the master and mistress had called her Rose while the children called her nanny and the below-stairs servants called her Miss Hardisty. Having those days brought back she cried a little, partly from sheer weakness, partly from nostalgia. She thought of little Master Donald in his tank in the Western Desert, giving orders and that, and fighting that Rommel. She hoped he was all right and looking after himself, taking care to air his vests. He’d always been such a little rascal. Rapscallion, she’d called him when he was naughty. She blushed, even now, when she thought about the fuckum bloosance.

  Out of earshot but not out of sight, two of Miss Hardisty’s current charges giggled together: in this predicament you had to have a laugh or you’d go round the bend.

  ‘Crying — did you see?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The old cow.’

  ‘Didn’t think she could.’ To some, all PO Wrens were akin to gunner’s mates — quarried, not born of woman. ‘What’s up with her?’

  ‘Scared, probably. So am I come to that.’ The girl paused, then said somewhat diffidently, ‘Let’s go and talk to her. She’s not a bad old stick.’

  The other girl murmured something about her friend wanting mummy’s comfort, but they went over and stopped as Jean Forrest had done, and talked to Miss Hardisty who realized their own need. They squatted on the deck by her side and she told them not to worry, the Navy would protect them, and back in London the King and Queen were depending on them all to keep smiling through, the King and Queen who’d had a bomb on Buckingham Palace and hadn’t turned a hair, just stiffened their backs and their upper lips and carried on, going round the dirt and rubble of the East End bringing cheer and courage to the bombed-out victims of the war … they were embarrassed and tended to giggle again. It was so typical of the old girl, but what she said did help and it was perfectly true that the King and Queen had refused to leave London in the blitz when they could have had every excuse to do so.

  Miss Hardisty was saying what a wonderful man Winston Churchill was, him and his cigar and his V for Victory sign and his derisive remarks about Hitler and Mussolini, when a matter of two miles on the convoy’s starboard beam the heavy guns of the Valiant went into action.

  v

  The first sighting report from the Glamorgan extended towards the enemy had come in just a matter of minutes before and the bridge personnel had been too busy to make a broadcast. From the Commodore the order had gone out to the convoy to scatter as soon as the Valiant had reported contact; the armaments carriers had swung away to port before steadying to get clear north-west of the German guns. Orlando continued on her course until the other ships were on safe bearings, then Bracewell too altered to port. The zig-zag was maintained in hopes of throwing off the Admiral Richter’s gunners. As the Valiant opened in a sudden belch of
flame and smoke the destroyers were seen to be increasing speed to their maximum and going bravely in towards the enemy, while the two cruisers stood guard over the scattering ships of the convoy. From the Orlando’s bridge the Admiral Richter was as yet invisible over the horizon, though within the next two minutes a report from the masthead lookout came down.

  ‘Enemy in sight, sir!’

  Almost on the heels of this report there was a whistle overhead, a whistle like an express train coming closer and then passing on. All the men on the bridge ducked instinctively. Then a great waterspout rose in the ocean, around four cables on the Orlando’s beam.

  ‘Ranging shot,’ Kemp said. ‘And a good one at that.’

  THIRTEEN

  By this time all watertight doors had been shut and all boats lowered to the guardrails of the embarkation deck with the ship’s officers and petty officers standing by the falls with the lowerers. Below, the fire parties were ready with the hoses. Petty Officer Ramm was making the rounds of the guns, moving fast, exhorting the guns’ crews with words of wisdom about making every shell count.

  ‘Every bloody shell,’ Ramm said. ‘God knows we haven’t got Woolwich bloody Arsenal aboard.’

  ‘Whites of their eyes, PO?’ a leading seaman asked, winking at one of the gunnery rates.

  ‘Don’t be bloody cheeky. There’s no time for it. Pull that anti-flash gear down over your mug, set an example as a leading ’and, can’t you?’

  Ramm went on his way; behind him the leading hand muttered ‘Daft sod,’ and adjusted his anti-flash gear. Petty officers were a pain, if it had been Perryman he’d have been looking for rust which he wouldn’t have found. As Ramm went for’ard, another shell screamed overhead. This time those on the bridge felt the wind of its passage.

  ‘Closer,’ Bracewell said as they watched the fall and the waterspout. ‘Too ruddy close!’

  They did what they could, which could only be to keep up the zig-zag; that, and get the utmost speed out of the engines. Bracewell had already passed the order for that. He wouldn’t press the chief engineer further: he would be doing his best.