Convoy of Fear

by Philip McCutchan

  Meanwhile, down below, Stouter’s acting senior second had suggested that the ship’s surgeon take a look at him.

  ‘He’s too busy … and so am I, God damn it!’ The sickness racked him, the pain in his gut was intense. Something had to give and it did. This devastated him: he was unclean, a horrible sight. Soon after this he was reduced to clinging onto the guardrail, hanging over it rather than just clinging, and he felt his senses slipping away. The acting senior second took over then, detailed three men to steady the chief up the ladders, and rang the bridge.

  ‘Middleton here, sir. I’m taking over below. The chief’s down with the cholera … or I reckon it’s that, anyway.’

  Bracewell put down the phone and looked grim. He passed the news to the Commodore. He said, ‘We’ll cope — or they will below. Middleton’s a good man, according to the chief. But it’s bloody bad luck.’

  On the embarkation deck OC Troops was facing more bad luck. Moving along beside the waiting boats, followed by his brigade major, he came upon what looked like a corpse, just as stiff as one, but which he recognized after another shocked look as RSM Pollock. There seemed to be nothing left of him, skin and bone, the skin hanging in folds as he lay in a Neil Robertson stretcher, handy for one of the lifeboats, tended by a medical orderly.

  ‘How is he?’ OC Troops asked the man, who had come to attention.

  ‘Conscious, sir.’

  ‘Yes, but —’ Pumphrey-Hatton broke off, taking in the burden of the orderly’s words: he didn’t want to say in the hearing of a conscious man that he’d just about had it. Pumphrey-Hatton spoke instead to Pollock.

  ‘You’ll be all right, Pollock. Fresh air, you know.’

  ‘Sir.’ The word was little more than a croak, but the RSM, Pumphrey-Hatton saw, was doing his best to lie to attention as the patients in the military hospitals were accustomed to do when the medical officer made his rounds.

  Pumphrey-Hatton gave a cough. ‘Yes, well. We’ll see that you’re first into the boats if we abandon.’

  ‘Sir. Thank you … but there’s the women, sir. The Wrens … they must be first, sir.’

  ‘Ah yes, yes. That’s the tradition, of course. Well — get better. As I said before, I need you.’ OC Troops passed on, marvelling that Pollock had lasted this far when he was clearly in such a low state. As he moved away, he was overtaken by the brigade major, who saluted and barred his passage. ‘Yes? What is it, Major?’

  ‘The sar’nt-major, sir. He has something more to say.’

  ‘To me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Pumphrey-Hatton turned back with a touch of impatience. The sick shouldn’t overtire themselves, for one thing. ‘Well, Pollock, you wished to speak to me.’

  ‘With your permission, sir.’ The voice was croakier than ever and very faint now. Pumphrey-Hatton had to bend close to hear it. ‘Carlisle, sir. The regiment … the castle. My wife sir. And the children.’

  Pumphrey-Hatton frowned. The RSM was wandering, he was disjointed. ‘Yes, yes. Your family. Of course —’

  ‘To be looked after, sir. My regiment … Border. If they’re told, sir. If they’re told …’

  ‘Oh, of course they’ll be told, Mr Pollock. Don’t bestir yourself. The families are always looked after, you know that, surely.’

  He turned away again; he had much to do to ensure that the embarkation in the boats went without fuss or difficulty. Many of the men would have to make use of the Carley floats that were ready in the slides to be shot into the water if and when the abandon order came. He spoke to the brigade major about Pollock. ‘Make a note, Major. Pollock’s family — his regiment to be told — the depot to be told. Of his death.’

  ‘He’s not dead yet, sir.’

  ‘Oh, don’t argue, Major, I’ve so much to think about.’ OC Troops jumped as an immense explosion came from somewhere on the port beam. ‘Good God! What was that?’

  ‘Ammunition ship blown up,’ the brigade major said, staring in horror. Caught before she had moved out of the Admiral Richter’s fifteen-mile range on the scatter order, the ship had disintegrated. The ship herself couldn’t be seen. There was a heavy pall of thick black smoke shot through with roaring flames of red and orange, a fearsome sight. The brigade major remarked that the bottom must have been blown out of her. She was going down like a lump of fragmented concrete.

  Pumphrey-Hatton turned away with a bad attack of the shakes. His face said that he knew only too well that the Orlando could well be next. He was not the only one; not for the first time since the convoy had left the Clyde, the terrible ambience of death on so total a scale beneath the smoke and flame had brought for a while the silence of awe to the crowded decks. Then they all seemed to start talking at once; Pumphrey-Hatton believed he detected a difference this time. The sudden voices gave him the thought that panic could come and the men could rush the boats. They’d been through air and submarine attack in the Mediterranean as well as in the North Atlantic soon after leaving the Clyde, but to come under the huge guns of a battleship was a very different experience. The shells seemed to come from nowhere, right out of the blue. And some were coming closer.

  Pumphrey-Hatton saw the falls of shot on his way to the bridge. He spoke to Kemp. ‘The German’s concentrating on us now, I fancy.’

  ‘With one of her turrets only, I believe. She’s also engaging the Valiant, Brigadier. As for us — we’re a troop transport. I expected we’d take the brunt.’

  Pumphrey-Hatton nodded several times then spoke about his anxiety: possible panic along the troop-laden decks. ‘They’re jumpy,’ he said.

  ‘Naturally. Jumpiness isn’t panic. And I’m sure you have good NCOs.’

  ‘Oh yes. Indeed. A damn pity about Pollock, though.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about panic,’ Kemp said. He brought up his binoculars; he didn’t want to go on discussing panic and wondered why OC Troops should broach the subject at all, especially with the Commodore. Any incipient panic would be nipped in the bud by the ship’s officers and senior ratings, as well as by the NCOs and redcaps. He watched the brigadier go with his jerky walk to the other wing of the bridge where he approached Bracewell. Kemp fancied Pumphrey-Hatton might be trying to fight down personal feelings of panic, airing the subject in the hopes of steadying himself. The matter went right out of his mind in the next instant when he saw a vivid flash come from the quarterdeck of the Valiant, now some five miles to the south.

  Lambert reported. ‘Valiant hit aft, sir!’

  Kemp stared through his binoculars. There was a lot of smoke and some flame and so far as he was able to make out the after turret had taken a direct hit from the Admiral Richter, in which case two of the old battleship’s 15-inch guns were now out of action, a quarter of her main armament gone. If the fire bit down into the shell handling rooms and the after magazines … that didn’t bear thinking about. Meanwhile the Valiant was still under way and appeared to have her steering under control as well. That indicated no residual damage to her engines, or to her screws or rudder. And she was maintaining her fire from all remaining LA guns, the 6- inch barbettes along her starboard side appearing to be joining in now, judging from the puffs of smoke rising above her main deck.

  Kemp was thinking to himself that for the moment at any rate the Admiral Richter was being fully engaged by the Valiant and that the Orlando was in for a respite, when another shell screamed across, lower than the previous ones, its path taking it slap into the mainmast which crashed down to the boat deck and then lay half over the side, its top hamper slamming into the swung-out boats along the embarkation deck. There had been some casualties: yells and cries came up to the bridge and Kemp saw OC Troops rush to the starboard ladder and start shouting down to the troops.

  Then another shell sliced across the troopship’s stern, there was an eruption of smoke and flame and a shatteringly close explosion that rocked the bridge and sent shock waves right through the ship. A surge of troops came for’ard at the rush, as Kemp saw when h
e leaned dangerously out from the bridge wing. A report came up that there was fighting along the embarkation deck.

  Panic?

  Pumphrey-Hatton was still shouting uselessly from the head of the bridge ladder. No-one was taking any notice of him.

  ii

  When the shell hit aft, Petty Officer Ramm went at the double from his action station at the for’ard 6-inch, pounding up the ladders and along the boat deck, avoiding the embarkation deck and its surging, fighting troops. Reaching what had been the after gun he found just one survivor of its crew and him only just about alive. Ramm squatted on the deck and took the man’s head in his hands. There were mangled bodies that told their own story. There was an arm that had been blown from the trunk, wearing the tattered remnant of a short-sleeved white shirt, Number Thirteen rig. The remnant carried a blue badge of rank: the leading seaman in charge of the gun. Of the rest of him there was no sign. Blood was everywhere, dripping from shattered steel. There was a gaping hole in the deck where the gun-mounting had been. The deck itself was ripped up, the woodwork burning. The after ends of the upper decks were black and twisted, and along them there were more casualties, men who had caught the blast. The medical teams were coming aft now, with Neil Robertson stretchers.

  Ramm straightened and, almost unseeing, moved away from the hole where the 6-inch had been. His feet slithered on a big patch of blood, and, reaching out an arm towards a twisted stanchion for support, he contacted something sticky, something hairy. He looked. It was a head, just a detached head that had somehow been blown into the twist of the stanchion and had become lodged. Ramm just about reached the ship’s side before he brought his stomach up. Then, pale and shaking, he made his way back for’ard again. That was where he could still be of use: all the close-range weapons had gone from the after end of the boat deck.

  iii

  PO Wren Hardisty had been submerged in the rush from aft along the embarkation deck, where now four of the lifeboats hung in shreds of woodwork, rendered useless by the fall of the mainmast and the banging of the cross-trees that had broken away to dangle over the edge of the boat deck above. Miss Hardisty’s deck chair collapsed beneath her and as she lay helpless a number of feet trod on her, no notice being taken of her cries.

  Not until a tall, straight-backed figure emerged from a door in the bulkhead close by and gave a roar of rage and shoved through to her assistance. Nightwatchman Parkinson couldn’t believe his eyes at seeing the melee. He grabbed a passing sergeant by the arm and swung him round.

  ‘What’s all this, then?’

  ‘Look for yourself, mate —’

  ‘I’m looking. I’m seeing a piss-poor twerp wearing sergeant’s chevrons and failing to take charge as he ought.’

  ‘Who’re you, then, bloody nightwatchman to talk —’

  ‘Ex-Colour Sar’nt Parkinson, Royal Marines. Eastney Barracks. Right. Now then.’ Parkinson took a deep breath, still hanging onto the sergeant. ‘Get your mates together and stop this bloody stampede. If you don’t, I’ll have you on the bridge with a report to the Master and OC Troops and have you broken to the ranks.’

  He gave the sergeant a heavy shove, sending him smack into another man trying to struggle past. Parkinson raised his voice in a mighty shout and barred the way with his big body. He got hold of two privates, holding one in each hand.

  ‘There’s a woman here.’ He was almost standing on Miss Hardisty by this time. ‘Get her inside the bulkhead, through the door. Lift her careful, she may be injured. Get moving!’

  Miss Hardisty was carried through. Parkinson followed behind, closing the door on the mob. He wiped sweat from his face. He said, ‘What a perishing carry-on, I never see the like! You hurt, PO?’

  ‘No, I — I don’t think so. Only bruised. Oh, dear! Thank you so much …’

  ‘Don’t mention it. I’ll stay by till you’re on your feet.’

  ‘Oh no, please don’t bother, I’m sure you’ve other things to do.’ She was very breathless; she’d been very frightened by the troops’ behaviour, such as she would never have associated with trained soldiers. She said, ‘Of course, it’s the cholera.’

  ‘Eh? What is?’

  ‘The way they behaved. There’s been so much anxiety about the cholera, and —’

  ‘No excuse,’ Parkinson said.

  ‘Well, I don’t know … what’s going to happen now, do you think? To the ship?’

  Parkinson was encouraging. ‘She’ll be all right. I put my trust in the skipper.’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I tell my girls. But there are things even captains can’t guard against.’

  ‘There’s always God.’

  ‘Oh, I know, and I do really and truly believe. I’ve been praying ever since the first broadcast. I’m sure I’m not the only one. The trouble is, God must also be worrying about the Germans, and —’

  ‘If He is, then He’s wasting precious time. Them Jerries aren’t ’uman. You all right now, PO?’

  ‘Yes, thank you very much, Mr Parkinson. But I think I’ll stay where I am rather than go back out there.’

  iv

  Nightwatchman Parkinson had gone back through the door to assist the army’s NCOs, who seemed much in need of it. But order was restored fairly quickly when the staff sergeants and company sergeant-majors got in amongst the troops and were not too particular as to how they dealt with what had had the appearance of a situation leading to mutiny. The officers were keeping out of it until the NCOs had restored control. There were times when officers were superfluous and even inflammatory, and if there was rough stuff being doled out by the NCOs then the turning of the blind eye was the sensible thing to do.

  Pumphrey-Hatton had remained in his stance at the head of the bridge ladder throughout. He had contributed nothing to the restoration of discipline, but when it was all over he appeared to think that the mere fact of his visible eye taking it all in had won the day. He talked again about panic and the need for firmness to bring it under control. He was almost cocky, believing the feared panic to have materialized and been dealt with so fast it wouldn’t recur.

  Reports were coming in from the various after sections of the ship. There had been no damage below, other than the fact of the hole where the 6-inch mounting had been. There had been casualties at the after ends of the boat deck, embarkation deck and promenade decks but the army medical details were coping. The ship was seaworthy and was still moving at her maximum speed when Kemp saw another hit on the Valiant, this time immedately before the midship superstructure. It was evidently a heavy calibre shell from the German’s main armament and the results as seen from a distance looked devastating. The blast went upwards and fire spread fast towards the battleship’s compass platform. On the heels of the hit there was another one right aft, another heavy shell that took the quarter fair and square. Smoke billowed, shot through with flames.

  Kemp said, ‘She’s swinging off course!’

  Bracewell was beside him. ‘Steering gone by the look of it.’

  ‘Probably got the rudder. Twisted the shafts too. If that’s happened, she won’t even be able to steer by main engines. She’ll lie at the Richter’s mercy … be pounded to pieces.’

  There was nothing they could do but watch and hope as the old battleship started to go round in circles and then gradually slowed and lost her way through the water. Kemp believed that his diagnosis had been right: shafts twisted, rudder gone. One of the cruisers of the escort was altering now, racing towards the stricken ship. The destroyers were still making at speed towards the Admiral Richter on their errand to get off their torpedoes, but Kemp knew that they would be moving into a curtain of gunfire. They were the last hope; with the Valiant crippled though firing still, the German was going to have it virtually all his own way unless the destroyers could get their tin fish into the massive hull.

  Bracewell, watching the pathetic contortions of the Valiant, said suddenly, ‘More trouble, Commodore.’

  ‘What is it this time?’

>   Bracewell pointed towards the south-east. ‘Just look at that.’

  Kemp did. He saw a long, low line of cloud, very black, very threatening, building up along the horizon and starting to extend. Curious colourings fingered along the sky above the cloud, red and purple, green and orange. Kemp said, ‘Talk about filthy luck! First the cholera, then the Richter. Now a typhoon by the look of it. We must have a jonah aboard.’ He paused. ‘I’ve never known a typhoon as far north as this, Bracewell. Have you?’

  ‘No.’ Typhoons, hurricanes as they were called in the West Indies and the Caribbean, were to be expected in the Indian Ocean and also in the Bay of Bengal, though properly they belonged to the China seas and the Philippines. But to find them here was something rare.

  ‘Someone, somewhere,’ Kemp said heavily, ‘doesn’t like us very much. You’d think the bloody Met men would have issued a warning!’

  ‘We couldn’t have done much about it, Commodore. And it’ll hit the Richter as well as us.’

  ‘It won’t help the convoy. We’ll be all over the show by the time that lot’s passed through.’

  Bracewell was about to speak when Sub-Lieutenant Finnegan gave a shout down from monkey’s island above the wheelhouse where he’d been checking the crews of the close-range weapons mounted for the protection of the bridge. ‘I guess the destroyers have got through, sir! The Richter’s concentrating her secondary armament on —’ He broke off.

  ‘What is it, Finnegan?’ Kemp called.

  Finnegan was beside himself with excitement now. ‘The Richter, sir! A bloody big explosion on the waterline, port side for’ard. They’ve got the bastard!’

  v

  The word spread; there was a storm of cheering along the decks, PO Wren Hardisty emerged from cover, chancing the embarkation deck again.

  ‘Whatever’s happened?’ she asked breathlessly.

  Someone told her. She said, ‘I knew we’d be all right. I always knew it.’