by James Hanley
'Go and tell Mr. Hump that I want to see him at once,' Walters said. The steward was staggered.
'But the whistle! The bell, sir. Everybody's above deck, sir. We're being chased, sir. I – I—'
The steward was agitated, eager to be off. He didn't want to be caught like a rat in a trap. Above decks – well, there was there a chance if anything did happen. And blast it all, the crazy damn ship seemed to be caught in a whirlpool – whizzing round in mad circles. He gripped the iron rail.
Mr. Walters sat on the tea-chest. He now folded his arms, hunched his shoulders. He seemed ready to spring at the steward at any moment.
'Did you hear what I said, Harrison? It's more than your job is worth to act like a fool. Go and bring Mr. Hump here at once.'
'But everybody's on deck, sir – Mr. Hump'll have gone, sir. And I'm going, too. Can't you hear? They're lowering the boats.'
'Mr. Hump, if I'm not mistaken, will be found sunk in his bloody old Sherlock Holmes. You bring him here!'
'The submarine, sir! There! They've fired. We're being chased. I won't stand here, sir. You're mad. God damn, I can get a job anywhere! Find Hump yourself. You're crazy sitting there.' He made a dash for the store-room door. Mr. Walters jumped from the tea-chest and gripped the man's arm. He shook the frightened steward.
'Damn you and your submarine. And damn the whole war to hell.' He thought: 'Fourteen hundred men, five sittings, not enough to eat. Confound it, I can't get grub like manna from heaven.' A.10 gave a violent pitch and catapulted both men through the open door, into the dark stuffy alleyway. And the steward vanished. Mr. Walters was alone. 'Damn the bloody submarine.' Mr. Walters was angry. Not the submarine – nor indeed the war itself. It was something far more personal than that. It was a cog in the wheel of his plans. Again he had caught one of that crowd from the fo'c'sle selling their filthy food to the troops. Their damned slops for sandwiches. Sixpence each! Well, it was going to be stopped. Yes – sir. Submarine or no submarine. 'I will stop it, too,' he cried aloud, and heard the echo of his anger come back to him in the deserted 'tween-decks. Then he rushed to the deck, pushed his burly form through groups of soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, everywhere— Mr. Walters's eye saw a khaki forest rising on all sides. And here was the boat! Thank the Lord for that. Ah! There was Mr. Hump, the second steward, actually standing beside him, tall, bony, stoop-shouldered, thin anxious face, protruding grey eyes, standing in a line with the others. The boat's crew coxswained by Rochdale. Mr. Walters's anger, like a curtain, covered everything. He saw no troops, no tobacco-chewing Rochdale, no anxious faces; heard no orders, no sound of bells; saw no zigzagging ship. The orbit of his vision was clouded by a man. A sailor – a sailor with pimples on his face. War! Submarines. Hang the bloody war. It was only he, Walters, who had the right to sell food to the troops, and though he charged ninepence a packet for five Woodbines, and a shilling for 'two doorsteps' and a slab of bully-beef in between, at least they knew, everybody did, that there were no shops nearer than Salonika, and no fresh food nearer than Base supplies. And the sly devils they were, robbing the troops, poor beggars, robbing them of their few bob playing banker – and that damned Crown and Anchor board. Well, they were not going to continue it. It wasn't allowed on other ships and A.10 was no exception. Mr. Walters saw the shillings, the bright shillings, as clearly as he saw the pub he hoped to buy at the end of the war. He was cut out for running a pub. What right had he to complain about a farting little war? He knew it – and nobody was going to interfere with him. No, sir! He leaned towards Hump now, to whom as yet he had not spoken a single word.
'Hump, you're thinking that at any moment we'll be holed. Well, I'm not! And even if we are, Hump, I'm going to tell you that I caught a man again today! This time on B deck, walked right into him. They're deliberately doing us down. Under-cutting, Hump! They're making bloody fools of us, Mr. Hump, laughing at us. Don't you see that when they get their grub from the galley they only eat half of it? Even what they leave on their plates is taken out and washed under the tap and sold to these fellers. It isn't fair! You're in on this, and you're doing nothing. I told you to watch them, didn't I? At your rate of going on I can't see that you'll ever manage a pub for me.' All this was poured into Mr. Hump's ear, in whispers, but it passed directly out of the other one. Mr. Hump felt the chief steward's breath, the hair in his ear tickled him, but it was all a buzz to him, sound only, the buzz of a busy bee. Mr. Hump was afraid. He was helpless. He saw nothing now but disaster, open boats, a watery grave. How could the man talk of his bloody sandwiches now, now of all times? He stood erect now, resolute, looking out on the waters, feeling the deck firm beneath his feet, and he was very conscious of the breathings of men about him. Of a sudden Walters's flow of words ceased. A silence. The uproar in the wind, temporarily shut off by the flow of the chief steward's words, broke into flood again. Mr. Hump was no longer alone. He was one with the mass.
'Hard aport there.'
The voice pierced through the tangled web of confusion. The six-inch monster on the poop spoke with a quick staccato. Mr. Hump fastened his eyes on Rochdale and kept them there. The man stood motionless, chewing tobacco. He was calm, unruffled, he was merely waiting for new orders. The ship wasn't holed yet, in fact A.10 was moving very well indeed, they were going somewhere, anyhow. 'Keep your shirts on, lads! There's nowt to worry abaht, and keep quiet. That's the stuff to give 'em.' He gripped the boat's rudder, leaned out over the water and squirted a quid into the depths. He stood back, looked at the lines of men, at Mr. Walters and Mr. Hump.
'What a crew,' he thought.
'Oh, I reckon he's cleared out, sir,' said Rochdale to Mr. Hump.
Mr. Hump nodded. 'Oh, yes – oh, yes—' He seemed to be shivering.
The whistle blew again. Everybody seemed to be talking. Voices shouting through the megaphone, 'Dismiss! Dismiss. Keep your life-belts on! Keep your life-belts on!'
'We've beat her to it, Mr. Hump,' Rochdale said. Mr. Walters smiled.
He took Hump's arm. They went away, locked in the rush of men, whispering to each other. Rochdale made his way slowly for'ard.
Dunford stood looking down, watching the effect of the dismissal order. Bradshaw came rushing up, smiling, wiping his face, saying, 'Narrow do, sir?'
'What!' Dunford laughed. Then he ignored Bradshaw. He watched the crowds spilling down to the decks, descending the companion-ladders, watched the troops disappear down the lower dccks. The bugle was calling. He saw others stretch out on their backs in the hot sun, all shelter was choked by bodies. Those in the glare placed their helmets over their faces. Poor beggars. Was it really worth all the trouble? He saw the crew going for'ard now. In little groups, all talking. Not about the war, or submarines, they talked about Salonika, about the Italian soldiers, about Greek latrines, and about women.
'We must all mess together if possible, Mr. Bradshaw,' Dunford was saying. 'That silly man Deveney coming up here shivering. I told him, the silly fool, everything would be O.K. Well—'
Bradshaw thought it a good idea to mess together. That would mean that Ericson would run the show himself for an hour or two. Quite useless to put Deveney up there. Dunford was talking again.
'I'm afraid we'll have to land poor old Deveney,' he said. 'There's no escort yet, you see,' he went on. 'So much for their set course, Mr. Bradshaw. Their geography's all wrong. They leave chance off the map. In this game chance, and not the set course, is the first principle. Just consider a moment. Supposing we had been one of a convoy, and suppose we had had an escort, where would we have stood! Well, the question's already answered. In a convoy you are under control. Here we can exploit chance. We made a circle three miles wide, went right off our course, fooled that silly swine, and now here we are. We're ninety miles farther towards the land. Has the escort been caught and holed, I wonder? Don't you see the idiocy yet, Bradshaw? We plunge on, but like a blind man in a snowstorm. We reach our position at midnight tomorrow – or should do unless my reckoning's wrong, bu
t the escort should have arrived long ago! Long, long ago! The official mind passes all comprehension! I suppose a stage must be reached when the thing so confuses them that they don't know really how they've arrived at the confusion point. Not a sign of a destroyer. There are mines here, and the submarines get supplies about these parts. It's a mystery to me; Ericson!'
'Yes, sir.'
'Take over now. Mr. Bradshaw and I are going below.'
'Yes, sir.'
They went below then. It was half-hour to dinner-time. The look-out was being relieved – Rochdale was going up. He was already writing a letter in his mind – a long letter to Annie and Rosie. It had begun in the fo'c'sle after dismissal! He would have taken pen and paper there and then – but it was too late. Seven bells had rung. He had the letter in his mind a long time. The other letter, the unposted one, he had torn up and burned. It seemed sillly, and besides, there was more to write about now. He had found the mail-man, no sailor this time, but no less a personage than Mr. Walters. And in two days' time, with luck, the letter would be on its way to Lancashire.
'Aye! Aye!' he called up. 'Relief.'
'How do,' the other answered. 'Christ, it hasn't half been exciting on the bridge, showed him the windward side of his nose all right. Righto! mind your bloody leg there Rochy.'
So he was in again. Shut away from the life below. He watched the other man descend. It would be getting dark in an hour or so. The ventilators were being changed round again. Troops came and went from the different sittings. Tea seemed to be a five minutes affair – and then the long wait until first sitting for breakfast. Quarter to six. Rochdale made himself comfortable. The letter – home – was forming in his mind again. He began writing it in his mind. 'Dear Annie, just a line hoping this finds you as it leaves me at present' – blank – 'no, that's no bloody good.'
'Dear Annie, today we were chased by a submarine and—' Too scary altogether. 'My dear Annie, three days out at sea now. I hope you are well, also Rosie, that you're not worrying about anything particularly. We've fourteen hundred men aboard. Nice lads, they are, some from Wigan and Bolton, but a lot from London and a place called Devon. The weather is as hot as hell, and it's a caution down below. I don't know how they sleep at all. Packed like sardines an' all. But they don't seem to mind. Gosh, they don't half make a mess of the old ship. Talk about keeping the bar-parlour clean at the "Brown Owl", isn't in it. You never saw such a blurry mess. Old pimple-face is with us again – and we have the queerest Welshman you ever saw. But they're decent chaps all the same. I hope the shop's doing all right. Trade's bound to be up and down, you know – with folk going backwards and forwards to the war. I'm glad I haven't got a son. I'd hate him to be on this—' He paused, drew a line through the sentence in his mind and wrote – censored. 'Well, Annie, I can't tell you where we are. Against the rules you know. So you see I head the letter – "At sea!" We aren't allowed to say nothing – leastways anything that could fall into the hands of the Germans. How's the old cow next door – you know, Mrs. Tight? We've got a steward here named Mr. Hump, and he's the living spit of old Mr. Tight. Does she still hang her bloomers out on Sunday? At the moment I'm sitting alone in the fo'c'sle. Most of the fellers have turned in, don't half snore. The others are cleaning down decks. That's all you have to do on these boats. Brush up. Brush up. I ought to have told you that I got promoted. The bosun told me that the mate said I had the best eyesight of any man aboard the ship. So I'm special look-out man now. Nowt to do except climb up here and stand doing nowt but stare for two hours. It's a bit of a coop all right, but not at night. Anyhow, it means ten bob extra a month besides the ten bob a month danger-money, so all in all, Annie, it's not bad, is it? Maybe the extra ten bob would pay for Rosie's lessons on the piano. Still, you please yourself about that, old girl. It was funny shoving off. Raining cats and dogs, and black dark and we didn't make a sound going out. Then we went round to and picked up fourteen hundred cargo and then we were off. Ah! These ships aren't a patch on the old ones: all sugi-mugi, and polishing brass, though we're all grey now and can't see a spot of white paint anywhere. The captain seems a nice man, very quiet, and you hardly see him on deck except for inspection. A funny thing happened at inspection yesterday. When the party arrived at D deck two of our fellows were lined up with the soldiers. They were wearing uniform. But nobody noticed, not even the chief officer, who is as clever as a rat. It's hot, as I say, so hot that you daren't walk the deck in your bare webs. How the black crowd manages is a mystery to us. There's all kinds of rumours floated about too, some say we're going to—— to land these soldiers, and yesterday I heard we were going to be turned into a decoy ship after we'd done this outward trip. Nobody takes any notice. It's all a bloody game, anyhow. The fellers in the fo'c'sle argue their socks off about the ship, but only our skipper knows what's going to happen. Well, Annie, old girl, look after yourself and don't forget about those lessons from McDougall when you go down for money next week, and cheer up, I know it's a bit lousy being away for duration and all that, and never knowing where I am. All the same compared with these poor sods we're really on velvet, Annie, and that's a fact. They say there's a ship full of loonies been lying in the stream outside Sal—no, lying outside the harbour and nobody does owt about it, as they say the skipper's gone loony too. That's what I'm told. But the yarns, God bless us, they're ten a penny aboard here. You can stand here and look up at the saloon-deck and see the officers, I mean the troops' officers, walking round in threes, all bloody day. Still, there's nowt else to do. Now I'm going to ring off as they say. Love to you and Rosie.'
There they were standing right in front of him, no longer ghosts or dreams but flesh and blood. Annie and Rosie perched like a couple of fairies on the edge of the nest. And they were looking at him, unsmiling, looking in a queer sort of way, a questioning in their eyes. Rochdale rubbed his eyes, blinked. Crikey, it was getting dark awful sudden. 'Hello! There's a light. Looks like a bloody light, anyhow.' He rang the bell. About a point on the port bow. What could that be? Perhaps the destroyer coming to meet them. Day and a half late, what a war. What a funny shape the ship was, the decks seemed queer. Funny sucking noises. He shook himself. Beggar it, he must be falling asleep. Darkness grew, wrapped itself about Rochdale, swallowed him up. He leaned out of the nest, looked down the hold. Phew, the stink down there! And the fumes, the smoke, the way the fellows were packed together, playing cards, singing, lying lonely in bunks, snoring, laughing, multiply by five. 'A proper stink-house,' he thought.
He thought of Annie again, perhaps he'd better leave off writing his letter until tomorrow. Tomorrow might be more exciting. Ah! There was the light again. He rang again. He was answered, Ericson was watching the light too. And hundreds of soldiers watched the light, but to them it was nothing. Just a light in the darkness, the immense darkness that covered ship and men and great wilderness of water. It was drawing nearer. What could it be?
Recumbent forms sat up, went to the rails. Stared across the waste. The ship was so silent that Rochdale could hear bridge conversation distinctly. Mr. Ericson was talking to the quartermaster. Then he heard Mr. Tyret's voice. Later Mr. Bradshaw's, Mr. Dunford's.
'I believe our escort has turned up at last, has he signalled yet?'
'No, sir.'
'You haven't signalled him, I hope?' Dunford was saying. The words floated in air, wafted into the nest where Rochdale stood.
'There is only one signal he can send,' Bradshaw remarked. He pressed his thumb into the bowl of his pipe and extinguished it. A moment ago he had been talking about gardens to Captain Dunford. It had been a nice dinner, too. One could at least get to know one's captain at dinner table. The backwash of current rumour – tall talk, smirking references, floating from stem to stern, carrying Dunford's name in its flow – was unimportant. In fact it didn't count at all. He was really beginning to understand him. What a sensitive nature lay behind the gruff remark, the curt order, the hopeless effort of a cheap joke. Bradshaw thought over these
things even whilst he decided in his head, it was the destroyer then. Yes. It was the ship after all. The official mind hadn't gone dead absolutely. Forces were moving still. The world was alive. The war was going on. The troops counted. The purpose was important. Means to an end. The re-establishment of belief, a little faith. The uncertainty vanished when she signalled. Proceed. Yes. She was turning her head round. Proceed. The course was – Half-speed! Minds worked, bodies were inert, bodies were rigid, three of them, leaning on the rail. Hearing the call.
'And all's well, sir.'
'And all's well?' Yes. All was well. Business was business now. No meandering, no hopeless flopping about, not even furtiveness and the hellish secrecy. All open and above board. They were on their way. They saw the green navigation light, veering over, lost to view then, as though a sudden wash of water had overwhelmed it. She was turning right round. Decoding again. Proceed. Half-speed.
'Half-speed,' Dunford said. 'Half-speed.'
Below the thousand eyes looking outwards, where were they going? They did not know. Darkness everywhere. Faint whisperings. Where did their star set? The answer is written in the waters, flowing on, washing the sides of their ship, carrying the murmur of their endless song on through greater distances. Thoughts – of the world lost to their view, of remembered faces – they were washed away in the clamour of the unknown, the new country, the world of their knowing was only a memory, the something new hovered upon the horizon. Thoughts swung from one to the other. And then the inner clamour died down, the world they had left was only a feeling now, a something locked in the breast, sacred to each life. For all now the look forward. For each and everyone the look forward. They were silent, thoughtful, noisy, laughing, talking, singing, scratching, sweating, blaspheming, the air was full of it, the girl left behind and the bent mother, the dirty tale and the fairy tale. Distance and depth surrounded. There were prisoners. Remembered things took their toll of the spirit. Look forward, across the water and darkness and with the still wondering eye follow the light.