by James Hanley
'Who the hell's taking the letters on this goddam boat? Has the postman fallen down the lavatory or something? I say, who's the goddam mail-man?' Rochdale asked, one voice against many. 'Have you all gone bloody deaf?'
'Did you hear about the dozen in hospital aft? Got the fever! Christ! I'd hate to be a bloody soldier. You get jabbed with a needle, whether you like it or not, and then you sit calmly on your behind and watch your arm swell.'
'Who's collecting the bloody letters this trip? One of you indifferent swines?'
'I heard we're going straight through with these fellers and we'll be covered by half the bloody Navy and then they'll go ashore, and jolly good luck to them, and then we're off to Honolulu for a health trip. Cheer, boys, cheer. You can't beat the bloody war, and those two sods, Vesuvius and Williams, are coining money. Bare-faced bastards they are and no mistake. Oh, boy, there won't be a short time for anybody before you get to Marseilles on the home run. That stinking, pox-ridden town. Good night!'
'So nobody knows who's collecting the mails this – you indifferent lot of bastards – nobody knows,' and Rochdale immediately got up and went out of the fo'c'sle. It almost looked as though he had been put in Coventry. But he hadn't really. Laughing, he went down the alleyway to the petty.
'And that's where you are then – you sly pair of kids! So that's where you are. My dear bloody friends, you can only do one thing in this place. Your duty.'
'Shut your damned mouth – can't you see he's trying to count?'
Vesuvius stood menacingly over the squat figure of the special look-out. ' 'Ear him! And listen to the lovely click, click, click. A judy in every port, Rochdale, aren't you sorry you're married?'
Rochdale sat down beside them. The man Williams was so preoccupied counting money that he was quite unaware of the look-out man's entrance. He hadn't heard a word – the only sound of which he was conscious was the money he was counting into his filthy palm. 'Three-thirteen and a tanner. How's that? Not so bad says I to myself, says I. All in an hour. D'you know, Vesuvius' – pause – 'why hello, Rochdale! Blown down from the mast or something?' – pause – 'd'you know, Vesuvius, there's a feller down there now in B deck, he's got fever, too. They say it's this bloody 'noculation. I don't know, mind you – but, goddam, he's got the swellest pair of boots I ever saw on any man's feet! Marvellous boots. I asked him if he'd sell them to me, they won't be much use to him after a couple of days, but he wouldn't, he was stubborn, silly sod, but he lost five bob on the sergeant-major. They'll shift him aft now, I guess. Well, Rochdale, my old barnacle, how's the old body standing up to it all, at all, at all.' He put the money in his pocket and sat down. There was a strong draught coming through the lavatory door. 'Oh! come! come! Rochy, don't look so miserable! We're having a wonderful time. This war's velvet, no doubt about it. And I like those sods down there! Always bloody well cheery, even when they're losing money. That's the spirit, I say. But you earn what few bob you win. What with those M.P.'s and the bloody fox Walters, you earn it.'
'We don't want to louse round here long. Here, Rochdale, you keep douse a minute. Be a swell for once.'
Begrudgingly Rochdale said, 'Oh, all right! But your days are coming, you pair of bloody swindlers.'
He went out. Laughs from the others. Rochdale stood in the alleyway looking aft. He heard movements in the lavatory. 'Don't be all night changing, either,' he called in. 'There's the bell gone.'
'We heard it.'
Mr. Williams, quartermaster of a hospital-ship and now reduced as the result of a night's drunk to be a common sailor aboard A.10, was busy changing his clothes. He was wearing the uniform of a rifle-regiment, whilst his companion Vesuvius was just removing his lance-corporal's coat. Where they had obtained these uniforms nobody really knew, though there was a strong rumour that both outfits were legacies from one of H.M. late hospital-ships, and the source of Mr. Williams's and Vesuvius's spare-time income whilst engaged in transporting troops to the Dardanelles. How they managed to move about unnoticed amongst the troops, armed with the tools of their trade, only they themselves knew. The ship didn't interest them – they never gave a thought to the war – was there a war really on? – nor the officers, nor the crew – they were only interested in carrying out their allotted tasks and after that they were free men, free to do what they liked, and what they liked were troops – troops and money. They now came out of the lavatory dressed in their ordinary sailor's clothes. 'Thanks, Rochdale.' They went up the alleyway. They passed the open door of Mr. Tyrer's room. The bosun saw them. He looked enquiringly at his mate.
'I wonder what those tykes are up to?'
'Playing mothers with the troops. What else! You're not blind.'
'It's not right,' the bosun said.
'You couldn't stop them! Hang it all, Jack. You'd do the same yourself, only you and I are respectable. We have an anchor on our jackets. It doesn't worry me much. So long as they do their work properly I'm not going to interfere. A lot of thanks you'd get for being peeping-Tom for the bloody Government.'
Mr. Tyrer laughed. 'Navy, sir,' he cautioned. 'Navy, not Government.'
The raised voices of Vesuvius and Williams could be heard in the fo'c'sle. Rochdale heard them, too, and the high-pitched voice of O'Grady, the almost sepulchral one of Turner. But he didn't mind about that. It didn't mean anything to him. The only thing that meant anything was the mailman. Would it be one of the P.O.'s? He didn't know. The mail-man's identity seemed as mysterious as the present destination of A.10. Yes. Where all those fine-looking chaps were going. God love them. Watching them he often asked himself questions. What they thought about it all? The trip, the excitement of not knowing what was coming next. That was the bloody fun of the thing, he supposed. He had got pally with one or two youngsters. One from London, one from Devon, a farmer's boy, an accounts-clerk. Well, they were just one with the others now – God! The decks were a bloody mess. Still, he'd seen it worse. He often looked up at the bridge. The distance between bridge and fo'c'sle seemed that of a whole world. He walked down amongst the soldiers, watched some playing nap, stood looking at a tall, stout soldier, all by himself, looked a bit lonely, too. Went on till he came to the alleyway by the well-decks. And there he bumped into the second steward. They were strangers. The second steward's name was Hump. And that was all Rochdale knew about him. He retraced his steps. Pulled up outside the bosun's room. 'Hello, Bosun! Taking it easy, eh?'
'Come in, Rochdale, come in, lad,' said Mr. Tyrer. Rochdale stepped in, and sat down. 'I've been asking in there for the last half-hour who the mail-man was this trip. Hanged if I could find out!'
'Walters, the chief steward, takes all the mail now. New orders. And he censors them, too. If you put one more kiss in than necessary, plump into the waste-paper basket with your letter.'
'Well, well, is that so,' drawled Rochdale, 'thanks for the information, anyhow. Mine's full of damp squibs. So he won't need to worry over mine. Heard anything lately, bos?' He began to smile. Everybody's attitude seeemed leisurely, devil-may-care. A.10 was running plump into the danger zone, but nobody seemed to mind. This two-hour day-watch was two hours grabbed from the cock-eyed world, two hours in which men could at least feel they were themselves and not the cogs in the machine. Rochdale was full of questions.
'No! I don't! In fact I never have – and I've made a few secret journeys in my time. Only this morning I touched Ericson – young slobberer. He said he didn't know and even if he did what was the good of telling me, of talking about it at all? Strike me for a bloody goddam bosun, they're all living on their nerves up on that bridge. Don't you worry, my lad. Last time it was stinking bloody mules from Yonkers – and the froggies in their white coats came aboard and promptly shot half of the poor beggars. They don't know how to run this blasted war, Rochdale; you have to have a sense of humour. They haven't got one. Now those lads down below, they have, but they know nothing, so they can't run it, can they? Ah, well. I have two sons. One's a bosun now just like myself and he's got a bit of a swelled head
. The other's in a repair shop at Rallos. I'd sooner see them dead than see them where these fellers are. And now scoot because I'm clearing out. I'm going aft on a bit of business. My mate here, he reads all the papers, he'll tell you all you want to know.' And without another word or a glance at Rochdale he left the room.
But the bosun's mate seemed chilly.
Rochdale too stepped out and went back into the fo'c'sle. Somehow or other unless you were really working time weighed heavily on your hands. One washed and shaved, put on a clean shirt and jersey, all dressed up for a walk round the decks. There were cards, tall stories and dirty ones, and Rochdale didn't gamble and he thought the stories as flat as hell. Well, until it was time he might as well sink into his bunk. There one could lie and think about anything or nothing, or fall asleep, and wake to the same world, the same sounds as lulled one to sleep, A.10's engines' powerful throbbing, A.10 threshing water, the clatter of tins, pails and accoutrements, snatches of song, bells, whistles. Rochdale shut all this out and thought of Annie. It was nice to think of Annie and Rosie and the shop. It was a sort of anchorage – one could always come back there, to safe anchorage. But he could not drown out the voice of Williams from Llanelly. He had a tongue miles long, but the Welsh were all talkers, like the Irish. O'Grady, for instance. But suddenly and without warning a greater voice, a harsh shrieking non-human voice, broke upon his ears. He held his breath! There was complete silence in the fo'c'sle. Men looked at each other, the unspoken question on the lips, an awed silence, and the strident voice called, 'ALL HANDS OUT. THE BOATS.'
'It must be a sub,' somebody was saying, when the voice of the bosun roared up the alleyway. 'All out! All out there! And shake your merry bloody legs. "Squint-eye's" seen a packet somewhere! Hurry up for Christ's sake.'
No voice spoke. In silence they rushed out, flying bodies, eyes towards the boats. Beyond the alleyway, bedlam, and in bedlam, destruction. They rushed on. And from the bridge Dunford saw them – sailors, soldiers, firemen, stewards, officers, saw them all. Men, boys, children, cowards, heroes, innocents, lunatics. The ageless aria of the sea was now hushed, gave way to the fugue and chorale, and the fugue was the secret rage tracing its message upon the waters, and the chorale was flesh. With Dunford was Bradshaw, tall, thin, expressionless features. Calm, unmoved, a steady hand holding the binoculars. Ericson, hand to the telegraph, Mr. Deveney, isolated, immune, overwhelmed by nothing more than his great-coat, huddled in the port wing, eyes staring through the window, huddled and shivering. Dunford saw. God damn! That man. Why didn't he stay in his room? Full of fever. Everything was all right. Let him be, isolated, separated from his fellows, and from the frenzy and from the desperate life, he was forgotten, there was the hidden fugue and the eye to search for it. The fugue was the steel finger, pointing. Now lost, now seen, drifting, the steel point caught in shining cascades of foam, the world above ploughed, circled, swung. The fugue played on. Its message was written in bright foam, the chorale patterned and weaved in flesh and in steel. In the tense face and the half-open mouth, and in the shut one, in the held breath, and in the throb of thought. And in the terrible rests between bedlam and destruction. 'All hands out! All hands out!' Sharp, clear, urging, the voice had rung out, swelled, was delayed by louder cries. Men had poured out from fo'c'sle and alleyway, from room and house and hold, one living stream flooding decks, swarming companion-ladders. Surged on towards the boat-deck. And from the bridge he saw them. He saw them whilst he snapped an order, whilst Ericson's hand trembled upon the telegraph handle. He saw them not steadily, not whole, but in ever-changing patterns. In flashes and glimpses, bodies, faces, sweeping forward, falling and struggling and climbing, and threading the phalanx a sort of frenzy, the tattered edges of the screen of fear. He spoke through a megaphone. 'Quiet, please! Order, please! Order, damn your souls.' The herd stampeding, like stricken cattle. He glimpsed at the anxious face, the greedy one, the child and the man, heard the cursing, the shouts and cries. Heirs to ignorance, foil of the secret rage. Saw a face and then a body that fell, was trampled upon, the rush, the headlong rush and saw the terror behind unkindness.
'Two points starboard.' And for them, the thing was there, the legacy for innocence and the simple heart. From the calm, from the long cool swell of the sea it pushed its ugly snout. Suddenly a silence as though for a moment frenzy itself had taken breath. No cries, no cursings, only the flying bodies, the deep breathings, the open mouth and the stopped one, the wild eye and the calm one, on towards the boat-decks. Belted bodies clinging to the boats, fighting to the boats, scratching a way to the boats, and to safety. The boats swung dangerously in their davits. The men stampeded again. Order in disorder. Number. One. Two! One – two! The bell, the whistle, the dread signal, touching the quick of each life, life held in bond. It broke over their world, the world disintegrated. For'ard, a wilderness, all life verged amid-ship. Aft men winced no more, the signal, the calling voice, 'To the boats! Stand by! DANGER!' And then the pause, for wonderment, the stopped needle in the flesh, the running men, uncoated, blood smears upon the arms, inoculation-caused. The gun laid, the crew ready. A.10 zigzagging her way and Dunford quietly thinking, 'She'll get a damned good run for her money.' They had seen the periscope and lost it again. It confounded, goaded, rose, submerged, ever following. The engines roared defiance, her nose ploughed through the living water. Two officers talking. 'Well, if the worst came to the worst' – and the rest of the conversation lost in the upwelling surges of voices. 'Ten rafts aft.' 'Fifty to a raft.' Perhaps. The clue was hidden in deep water upon which the rays of a hot sun poured. A sea of fire. And far beneath the water the same tenseness, the held breath. Armed with poise, the hand over the lever, the hand held, paused between nothingness and action, shining wheels, burning light. Eyes looking up and outward at the huge ship staggering this way and that, the still island holding life, all life in bond. The eye trained upon a place, a certain place in the steel wall, hovering. The clock's hand racing. A game of waiting, juggling. And hidden behind the steel wall, life again, where power lay in hands. And the hands had a living voice. Men in the half-savage light of furnaces spilled their power, poured it upon the hour and the minute, upon the gleaming piston and the hot slice, the shining rake, the heavy shovel. Feeding! Filling the hungry maw. Oil to the engines, coal to the furnaces. The moving figures, cockroaches in the spun net, the smoke, the steam, the ammoniac smell, the emptied bladder, the slobbery gulp of oatmeal water freshening the dry mouth. More oil! More coal! More movement, more action, MORE POWER. Without, the thing, the shining steel body, waiting. Fantastic movement, silhouettes of faces, the shining sweatdrop, the bared breast, the rippling muscle. One shot, one hole. One shot, one hole. The thought in the mind, livid, tormenting. And then the trap, the black darkness, the rushing figures, the spun net, the flare from the furnace upon steel, the ladder to freedom, the screeching engines enveloped in steam, the flying coals. More action! More power! Oil to the engines, coal to the furnaces. More power! More power! A.10 zigzagging to destruction or triumph. The hand of courage closing down the door against the hidden rage, the steel point, the ceaseless fugue. Unheard in hell. Voices speaking down the tube. A.10's course changed. More action! More power! More speed! The engines raced against the hidden enemy, each plied for power. Against the hot sun and the sea's long unbroken swell. Dunford lived between bridge and wheel-house.
Glancing along the boat-deck Dunford could see a forest of craned necks. And above the sea of murmurous sound he heard Bradshaw's voice. The gun fired. The exultant shout, the smell that seemed to stain the ship, the fountain of angry water shining in the sun. The spent shot. The exclamations. More orders. A momentary silence and then the rating's voice – 'Give him one right in the bloody behind.' A.10 heard their private opinions, their blasphemies, their oaths. Dunford glanced into the wheel-house again. Bearing south-south-east. He saw A.10's wake, a long threshing ribbon of white foam that seemed like the writhings of some tormented snake. She had made a circle a mile
wide. Dunford was quite calm as he leaned over the bridge. He knew now that he would beat her. And his thoughts fed themselves from the tenseness of the moment. He thought of the escort. Strange she had not been sighted yet. Here the damned submarines were nested, he knew this. It was the look forward that disturbed. One could get holed, sink, vanish, and one could get through and land the men and if the gods were so disposed they would be lucky, and if they were not, the difference was not important, it was merely a question of task. Slaughter was inevitable, anyhow. It was a question of hoping for the best. He chose being holed. It seemed much cleaner. Suddenly he seized the telegraph handle and pulled – 'Go astern'. He rushed into the wheel-house. 'Over with the helm, man.'
'Aye, aye, sir – over she goes.' The quartermaster closed his eyes for a moment. The compass dizzied him – sometimes he saw it spinning as though she were swinging free, as though the spirit of A.10 broke clear, stood outside the control of men, and bore her head where she willed. The compass-point pained the eye, it was the edge of a dizzy whirling world. Dunford remained watching the compass. They were going astern. The ship seemed to shudder.
There was one man aboard who was indifferent. His name was Walters. When the emergency whistle blew he was sitting on a tea-chest in a store-room. Mr. Walters was short and fat. He was in the middle fifties. His face which was round and very red should have worn a smile, it should have mirrored a joviality suited to his rotundity. But Mr. Walters was quite indifferent. If fat people were supposed to be jolly, then he was an exception. Nature had made a mistake. His face wore a kind of mock seriousness, the expression was ingrained upon it, it was final, definite. Wars, plagues, no turn of fortune's wheel would alter Mr. Walters's curious expression. And as he sat there, hands in pocket, swinging his legs, the whistle blew. The signal for him to rise at once and go this boat. And whilst it blew a steward was running down the dark alleyway in answer to Mr. Walters's call.