First Command

by Richard Freeman

  Elphick and Greenwood didn’t merit a steward to wait on them. Now two hours into their watch at the torpedo tubes, cold and oozing water like two newly-dipped sponges, Elphick looked at his colleague.

  ‘Time for cocoa. You or me?’

  ‘Toss for it.’

  Greenwood flipped a penny and Elphick called ‘Tails.’

  ‘Off you go,’ said Greenwood.

  Elphick heaved himself off the deck where they were both sitting. Grabbing a stanchion he stood uneasily for a moment as his body adjusted to the lurching movements of the ship. There was no hope of walking to the ladder. All he could do was to fling himself from stanchion to stanchion, from rope to rope. As he reached the ladder a towering wave of black water and white foam crashed over him, flooding down the companion way. Elphick followed it down and waded to the galley.

  ‘Rough up top?’ asked the cook.

  ‘Bloody tornado, I’d say. It beats me why we’re out there in this weather. We’d never be able to stand up and fire the torpedoes.’

  ‘Never trust Jerry.’

  ‘Anyway, we’re up there, so we need something to warm us.’

  Swaying and rolling, the cook somehow filled a jug without spilling a drop, and handed it to Elphick.

  ‘This’ll make you forget the gale.’

  ‘Some hope,’ replied Elphick.

  Clutching, the cocoa jug and cups he fought his way back to his station, much as Peters had done to the bridge.

  ‘Didn’t think I’d see you again,’ joked Greenwood.

  They poured out the cocoa – two full cups each – and momentarily enjoyed its sweet warmth. Then they settled back into their silent waiting, huddled in their sou’westers, oilskins and sea boots. From time to time they shuffled to ease their numbed bodies, while they stared out over the rain and mist-strewn sea.

  Chapter 6 – Disaster Aft

  Back on the bridge, Ross was inwardly confident that he could handle Defiant in the pitch-black night, despite the storm. He took out his glasses and surveyed the scene. On the starboard bow was, he hoped, the Mermaid. At times she was just visible as a hint of a black lump. At other times Ross could make out nothing. After an hour or so he no longer trusted his eyes. Sometimes he was sure that he had found Mermaid dead ahead, then she disappeared and he found her well to starboard. Every now and again he would call out to the lookouts, never letting on that he had next to no idea of what was ahead.

  ‘Anything to report?’

  ‘Mermaid still ahead,’ replied the starboard lookout.

  ‘Nothing to this side, sir,’ came the voice from the port lookout.

  It’s easy for them, thought Ross. They changed watch every half-hour. But he might not have trusted them so much had he thought of the time needed for a man’s eyes to adjust to the darkness when he came up from below. In the submarines a man lay in total darkness for fifteen minutes before going on watch at the periscope. No such precautions were taken on Defiant. So when a new watch came on Ross’s faith in the men was on the optimistic side.

  The watch changeover coincided with the storm reaching a fresh crescendo. As the men of the new watch came up onto the bridge, the old watch was near enough washed away down the ladder. Mountainous waves fell on the bridge, forcing Ross to grab any rail or handhold that he could in order to stay upright. Briefly the bridge deck would show beneath the men’s feet, but almost immediately a new wave left them paddling in inches of water. As the men looked out to sea they had to repeatedly turn their backs to the oncoming waves. Their lookout role was as much for themselves as for the ship.

  Ross had been on watch for three hours. Three hours of anxiety. Three hours of trying to make sense of the senseless black. And three hours of an exhausting personal battle with waves and wind. When not clinging for his life as the sea cascaded over him, he was desperately grasping on rails, binnacles and seats to counteract the pitching and rolling of the ship. Never for a moment did the ship seem to be horizontal. His legs ached from the endless effort of buttressing his body against the motion. His arms felt as if they were being tugged from their sockets as the sea strove to sweep him from the bridge into the black depths below. And every corner of his body was dulled with cold. He felt as if the numbing cold of the wintry sea had entered the deepest parts of his being.

  In short, Ross was paying more attention to himself than to the wanderings of the convoy and the course of the Defiant. He was brought rapidly back to reality by a cry from one of the lookouts.

  ‘Collier on starboard bow, sir!’

  ‘Where? I can’t see anything.’

  ‘There, sir, there!’

  Out of the mist, rain and spray a dark grey mass appeared, heading straight for Defiant’s stern.

  ‘Hard to port,’ he yelled into the wheelhouse voice-pipe.

  ‘She’s coming at us, sir!’

  ‘Stop the port engine!’

  In terror Ross glanced at the compass. Would Defiant respond? Would the needle never move? The grey mass was gaining on them. Two thousand tons of steel was heading for Defiant’s bow. One degree. Moving at last. Two degrees… three… four.

  ‘Starboard engine full ahead!’

  Suddenly Ross realised that the terror-struck lookouts were watching him.

  ‘Get to your posts! Get to your posts!’

  By now the lurching of the Defiant had awakened the whole ship. Men were thrown from where they slept. The few remaining loose items in the ship went skidding across the decks and tables. In his sea cabin the pad on which Steadfast was writing was wrenched from his hand and his pen fell to the deck.

  ‘What’s happening, Ross?’ cried Steadfast as he bounded onto the bridge.

  But he hardly needed to ask. There was the collier on the starboard bow. Under his feet Steadfast felt the rapidly turning Defiant, heeling as she sought to avoid collision.

  Still turning, Defiant seemed to heel ever nearer into the raging sea on her port side as she gained speed.

  ‘We’ll make it, sir,’ cried Ross.

  All eyes were now on Defiant’s bow – the latest target of the approaching collier. The collier’s high bow now towered over Defiant as the distance between the two ships shortened. Thirty yards… Defiant kept turning… twenty… ten… Defiant’s swinging stern now seemed to rush towards the collier’s prow. Ross closed his eyes. Crash!

  ***

  All on the bridge felt the terrifying crunch as the two ships collided. It was perhaps a matter of seconds but it felt like hours as the collier ground into Defiant, sheering chunks off her as she buried into the ship’s side. The sound of tearing, grinding metal could clearly be heard above the howling gale. Every man froze as he waited for some final cataclysmic injury to the ship. Then Defiant swung clear of her assailant. The collier passed ahead of Defiant and disappeared into the swirling mass of sea and darkness.

  There was no sudden list. No great rush of water into the hold. Defiant was still in one piece.

  ‘Get her back on course, Sub Lieutenant. At this rate we’ll lose sight of the convoy in minutes,’ said Steadfast in a calm voice.

  Steadfast may have been cool and in control, but Ross’s legs had turned to jelly and his heart was pounding like an engine on a Blue Ribbon run. Despite the cold of the sodden ship, a rush of sweaty heat rushed through his body. Gripped by a terror which was tempered by his relief that the ship was still afloat, he came near to passing out. A barked, ‘Sub Lieutenant!’ from Steadfast brought him back to his senses.

  ‘Half ahead port,’ said Ross to the engine room.

  ‘Course one-three-five.’

  ‘Coxswain, find Mr Beverton and tell him to take some men aft to check the damage.’

  Phillips handed the wheel to Able Seaman Hancock and disappeared down the ladder to find Beverton.

  Meanwhile, Steadfast mulled over what to do about Ross. By rights he ought to come down hard on him, yet Ross was the man from the Admiralty and a career sailor. What a bunch, he thought. Lothario Gardiner, who
seemed to lack any aggressive streak, and Paris, whose head was back in the ancient world. Young Beverton showed promise, but it was early days with him. The one hopeful amongst them was Ross. No, he muttered, ‘I’m going to need him before this convoy gets home.’ And, of course, as an Admiralty man, Ross could prove useful back on land. Better to help him along and leave the others to muddle through.

  ***

  While Steadfast was plotting how best to advance his career, Phillips, who had no desire at all to be promoted, had rushed off to find Beverton. He ran and slid down the ladder and burst into the wardroom, already panting from the strain of such unaccustomed rush on his ample and ageing frame.

  James Beverton, almost a schoolboy, was the midshipman. His father had been a flotilla commander in the First World War and had stayed in the Navy until his retirement in 1935 as a rear admiral. For as long as Beverton could remember, dinner table talk at home had been about the Navy and the Great War. His childhood years had been filled with naval yarns told in the library in winter, and the same yarns repeated on the terrace and lawns in the summer. When no one was in the house he would sneak upstairs and try on his father’s cap in front of the tall mirror on the landing. Never for a moment had he thought of any career other than the Navy. Now, just two months out of the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, he saw himself at the start of a great naval career. His ambition was writ large in his deportment and manner. He strutted rather than walked, posed rather than stood, and commanded with the authority of a young man who saw the Navy as his birthright.

  When Phillips found Beverton he was reading a sailing magazine. ‘How does he do it?’ Phillips asked himself. ‘This storm’s half-killing most of the men and there he sits, as happy as sandboy. He’s got guts that young lad.’

  ‘Captain wants to know the damage aft pronto. You’re to take a party and report ASAP.’

  ‘Damage?’

  ‘Didn’t you feel the collision? Bumped by a stray collier we were. Maybe a scratch. Maybe worse.’

  ‘No, I think I must have been carried away by this article. It’s about…’

  ‘Doesn’t matter now, what it’s about, sir. It’s an emergency up top.’

  ‘Right,’ replied Beverton, excited at the sound of the word ‘emergency’. He leapt up and shoved his large feet into his sea boots.

  As soon as Beverton appeared in the mess he saw a mass of anxious faces betraying their concern about the horrendous tearing and scraping sounds that they had just heard, even if he had not. But Beverton avoided their gaze and quickly picked out three men whom he could trust for the perilous task ahead.

  ‘Johnson, Higgins, Roberts: up double quick. We’re damaged aft.’

  Beverton had picked his men with care. The weightlifting Able Seaman Johnson, who was worth two men in terms of muscle; the ever-willing Ordinary Seaman Higgins; and the quick-thinking Signalman Roberts. They were a good combination, and not one of them would shrink from a dangerous trip down the storm-swept deck. All were strong men, as the tug-of-war match photo in the mess testified.

  There was a rush of putting cold feet into already damp sea boots, thrusting arms and legs into stiff oilskins and ramming sou’westers down onto heads. As the party reached the ladder they were greeted by a cascade of water from a massive wave which had just struck the ship. They paused a moment and then rushed up in the hope of beating the next onslaught.

  On deck Beverton, Johnson, Higgins, and Roberts attached themselves to cold, dripping lifelines and began to make their way aft along the narrow deck between the sea and the ship’s superstructure. The violently rolling ship flung them now against the superstructure, now against the guardrail. At times the roll touched thirty degrees. They strained every muscle to cling to the lifeline and the stanchions, their boots slithering on the foaming deck. The huge sea towered over them and crashed down as if determined to tear them from the vessel. Beverton was leading the file of bedraggled men when he suddenly stopped. He put up a hand to signal halt and then pointed to the edge of the ship. Shouting was no good in this storm, but the men soon got his message: the last twenty feet of guardrail had been torn away in the collision. A seaman lay sprawled on the deck, apparently motionless. Ross edged forward a few feet more in an attempt to reach the sailor. He stopped and waved a frantic ‘Back! Back!’ to the men behind him.

  Swaying in the wind and slipping on the greasy deck, Beverton slowly turned round and inched his way back to his men. Above the thunder of the wind he yelled ‘There’s a man on the deck and the lifeline’s gone.’ They were still twenty feet from the injured man. Twenty feet of slippery deck, washed over by crashing wave after crashing wave.

  Beverton pushed his men under the mean shelter of the rear gun.

  ‘Higgins: get thirty feet of cable and a line for each man. Johnson and Roberts, wait here with me.’

  Higgins staggered off to a locker, swaying and tottering, stopping at intervals to grab a railing or a stray handhold. Every few paces he had to wedge himself tight and grip whatever was at hand as yet another wave crashed over him. When he reached the cable locker, his cold hands fumbled at the catch. The lid sprung open and Higgins pulled out a cable and some lines. Ramming himself into a corner he passed the coiled lines and cable over his head, leaving him looking like the Michelin man. His hands now free, he prepared for the death-defying walk back to the rescue party.

  ‘Well done, Higgins,’ said Beverton, as Higgins rejoined the party. Beverton lifted the dripping cable from over Higgins’s head.

  ‘First, the easy bit,’ he continued, ‘Johnson: secure the cable to that ring-bolt.’

  With his cold, wet hands, Johnson wrestled with the stiff cable, passing its sodden dripping mass through the ring-bolt and securing it with a buntline hitch.

  ‘Cable’s secure, sir,’ yelled Higgins.

  ‘Now comes the tricky bit,’ said Beverton. ‘I’m going to tie myself to the cable end and take it across the deck.’

  Beverton attached his lifeline to the cable. Then he took a second line, tied it around himself and handed the end to Roberts.’

  ‘Roberts: you hold tight to this in case things get sticky.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘Johnson, Higgins: you look after the cable.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Beverton waited for the next big wave to pass for a moment when the ship was reasonably level. Then, lying down flat on the deck, he began to crawl across towards the injured man. He grabbed at the least projection that he could find in order to gain a handhold, pulling the cable end behind him. Johnson and Higgins took up the slack at the other end.

  Beverton had only gone a few feet when the next big wave smashed over him. He disappeared under the flood of water falling back into the sea from the heavily sloping deck. Then a crumpled, sodden hump reappeared. Beverton was still there.

  After five minutes or so Beverton had got about fifteen feet down the deck. Each foot won was more perilous than the last, as the lengthening cable gained more and more play.

  It was Higgins who saw it first. A monster wave. He shouted to Beverton, but the midshipman could hear nothing and, flat on the deck, had no view of the sea. ‘It’ll do for him,’ shouted Higgins.

  The wave – tons and tons of foaming, thundering water – plunged down as if determined on tearing the ship apart. The deck vanished before the eyes of the men. And they waited. Would the water never fall back into the sea? Then it did.

  There was Beverton, clinging to a jagged remnant of the ripped off guardrail. A few moments later the ship was momentarily almost righted. Beverton seized the opportunity to haul himself over to the injured man. He was lying prostrate with one leg at an unnatural angle, a huge bleeding gash in his forehead and unconscious, and was clearly in a bad way. Beverton fumbled at his line, trying to work out how to attach it to the seaman, but he could find no means of getting the rope round the deadweight. As he clung to the seaman, wave after wave came thundering down onto them, throwing the unnaturally
coupled men from one side of the deck to the other.

  Beverton abandoned his attempt to secure the man. His only hope was to hold him tight. Riskily putting one hand into the air, he waved a ‘pull me’ signal to Higgins and then hastily regained his hold on the unconscious seaman.

  ‘He’s coming back! Heave, lads!’

  Higgins, Roberts and Johnson pulled like they had never done before. With two men on the rope, the rolling deck and the thundering waves they felt they were in battle with the inferno itself. Inch by inch the deadweight came towards them. From time to time Beverton and the seaman disappeared under cascades of dark water. But each time, as the foaming mass fell back into the sea, their precious load reappeared.

  And then came the greatest wave of all. They could see it coming like a towering juggernaut, high about the ship. The white-crested top was beginning to curl as the terrifying mass of water careered towards the deck. For a moment it seemed to hang, a threatening, raging mass. Then down it came, tearing, roaring, thundering until it exploded with a crash that shook the ship.

  Higgins and his men had closed their eyes and recoiled in horror from the cataclysmic force. Each thought his last moment had come – and perhaps the ship’s last moment too. So when they found themselves unharmed and the angrily crashing wave falling back into the sea they felt like condemned men on the scaffold hearing a prison officer reading out their reprieve. But when they looked aft, the deck was bare, with the cable now dangling over the side of the ship.

  The men on the cable had felt the weight of the fall of Beverton and the injured seaman, but despite the heavy jerk, they had not lost their hold.