Convoy of War (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  ‘I’ve no comment on that, Mouncey.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Mouncey sat there, looking expectant since Kemp wasn’t throwing him out yet and looked as if he might have some more to say. Mouncey looked at the broad gold band on the Commodore’s cuff: if that meant anything at all, Kemp might be able to pull something out of a hat.

  But all Kemp said was, in a kindly voice, ‘Leave it with me, Mouncey. I’ll see what can be done, though I don’t hold out a lot of hope. I’ll send for you later. I take it you won’t be going ashore today?’

  ‘No, sir. I’ll wait for news, sir. Me and the missus ... ’ He couldn’t go on, there was something in his throat. He saw Kemp’s sympathetic look and he left the cabin with a mist before his eyes. Commodore Kemp, he was all right; Mouncey knew he would be doing his best. Half an hour later he saw the Commodore leave the ship in a tender that had come out with some dockyard mateys or whatever they called them in Nova Scotia to attend to some job or other in the engine-room.

  ***

  There were no letters for ex-Colour Sergeant Crump: he had no relatives left. He’d been a widower for some years and had no children. The ship was his life and he didn’t go ashore except when he had to. The shore didn’t appeal; Crump didn’t go much for the drink and he was well past women, and what else was there ashore? So he retired to his cubby-hole and looked after his parsley for the purser’s sandwiches. That early evening, taking the air on deck, he watched the libertyboat leave from the starboard accommodation ladder, taking among others Master-at-Arms Rockett, who if past form could be relied upon, and it usually could, would return aboard late and blotto. With him was Mr Portway, looking distrait.

  Purser Pemmel didn’t go ashore: there was too much to do, things he should have seen to at sea. Pemmel wasn’t much of a shore-goer any more than Crump, since drink was so much cheaper and more plentiful aboard. Most of the assistant pursers went, all except one who was required by Pemmel for duty aboard. Jackie Ord went ashore, not because she was on pleasure bound but because she felt she would go mad if she didn’t get a change of scene. Once the wounded men from the ships sunk in the convoy had been discharged ashore in a hospital tender she had nothing to do. The ship’s surgeon went with her, leaving her at the jetty and mumbling something about paying a call on the hospital and his former patients, but she knew he would in fact make for the nearest hotel and sit boozing in the bar and trying to forget his session on the bog seat.

  That was where Lieutenant Williams, who had gone ashore earlier, met him. Williams had looked in at the naval offices in the port, seeking Wrens and looking what he was, just in from sea, though he looked it differently from a man like Mason Kemp. He put on a sort of world-weary look as though he’d borne the whole weight of the convoy and wanted the Wrens to know it. It didn’t work; he was being a nuisance and they all but said so, being busy.

  Williams drifted away and tried some shopgirls with equal lack of success. They seemed to sum up his wants with an extraordinary accuracy. In the end, down by the sleazier areas around the docks, he found a prostitute. She was a gold-digger and he couldn’t afford the all-night tariff: the British Navy wasn’t paid on the same scale as the RCN. He settled for a short time, maximum half an hour and away whatever stage you’d got to, unless you brought out more cash. Romance over for the night, Williams made his way towards drink and found the doctor. The doctor seized upon him as a long-lost friend, though they’d met but briefly aboard, recognizing, perhaps, someone equally lonely and willing to get drunk.

  ‘Delighted to see you, young feller. Delighted!’

  ‘Nice of you to say so, sir.’

  The doctor looked surprised but pleased. No one with a gold stripe had called him ‘sir’ for years. He offered Williams a gin.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ They drank large gins, then more large gins, no suggestion that they might eat, eating being a waste of time when you were enjoying yourself. The gin began to cost Williams a great deal of money at shoreside prices, for after a while the doctor stopped paying. But Williams grew reckless and paid up, drowning his sorrows and looking more and more war-weary as the time passed. Eventually, bleary-eyed and smelling like a couple of distilleries, they staggered back to the docks and the last boat back to the Ardara. They arrived clutching at each other for support and singing loudly. Something about the nocturnal proclivities of Old King Cole, who sent for his wife and his retinue in the middle of the night.

  ‘Whop it up and down, up and down said the painters,

  Move it in and out, in and out said the barmaids,

  Screw away, screw away, screw away said the carpenters,

  Throw your balls in the air said the jugglers,

  Very merry men are we,

  For there’s none so fair as can compare

  With the boys of the King’s Navee ... ’

  They were still singing as the boat came alongside the Ardara and the racket disturbed Commodore Kemp and Captain Hampton. It continued as the two officers staggered along the alleyways to their cabins. Master-at-Arms Rockett was unavailable: he, too, was drunk.

  ***

  Kemp himself was having a couple of large whiskies with Captain Hampton and feeling more relaxed than he had felt since leaving Meopham. He looked forward to all night in his bunk and waking refreshed but he had a good deal on his mind. Not just the dangers of the homeward run for the Clyde and the responsibilities of his appointment; there was the nagging anxiety about Mary and the boys — no letter. He could think up all the reasons in the world, and had; they were all logical but the nag remained and wouldn’t go away. And he felt very much for Mouncey; his understanding was complete. Going ashore that day as seen by Mouncey, he had made for Naval HQ and had talked first to a Captain RCN and then to a Rear-Admiral. He had put Mouncey’s case and had strengthened it by some observations of his own.

  ‘He’ll worry himself sick,’ he said.

  ‘So would we all, Commodore.’

  ‘I know. But I’d rather not have to rely on a signalman with only half his mind on the job, sir. I don’t need to stress how vital the Commodore’s signalmen are.’

  ‘No, I take your point.’ The Rear-Admiral drummed his fingers on the desk in front of him. ‘The same could apply to you, you know — God forbid, but if you had similar news ... you’d have to carry on.’

  ‘True enough. But I’ve been trained to it for so many years, and I think there’s a difference between a commodore and a leading signalman. Hard to put it properly, but — ’

  ‘Yes, all right, I think I follow. The bigger responsibilities concentrating the mind more — something like that. Again I take your point. But what do you suggest, Kemp?’

  Kemp looked down for a moment, studying his fingers, noting the heavy nicotine stains: he was smoking too much. Then he looked up directly and said, ‘The Prime Minister’s escort, sir. I don’t know when they’re sailing, of course, but Mr Churchill won’t hang around for long, and they’ll get home a damn sight faster than the HX will.’

  ‘H’m. A transfer?’

  Kemp nodded. ‘So long as your drafting commander can let me have a replacement.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see. No promises at all. But if I can bring it off there’s to be full secrecy — even your man himself is not to know where he’s going till he gets there.’

  Kemp had returned aboard feeling he’d done all that could be done. The war wasn’t going to wait for a leading signalman and his wife but something might happen now, like a miracle. He wasn’t going to say anything definite to Mouncey yet but since he knew Mouncey would be waiting to hear something he sent for him and told him to keep his fingers crossed. Just that. Kemp said nothing to Hampton either when they had their whiskies together: it wasn’t his concern, the signal ratings were firmly on the Commodore’s staff. From the master’s accommodation they heard the racket as the boat from the shore came alongside. Kemp recognized the song and also believed he recognized his assistant’s voice. He would be having a word with Williams
in the morning.

  Hampton said with a grin, ‘Not all that different from passengers really!’

  ‘Only when cruising — be fair! My God, they were a mob, some of them! Cruising was my idea of hell.’

  They yarned as they had yarned before about old times and different days, reliving their early years at sea. Both Kemp and Hampton had done their time in sail and both held square-rig masters’ certificates. Master in sail — that had been something. Neither of them had held actual command in sail, even then sail had been on its last legs and in any case they hadn’t stayed in the old windjammers for long enough before following the trend and going into steam for the sake of their careers. But both of them remembered the crash and thunder of the seas off Cape Horn, the days, sometimes weeks, spent beating into the westerlies off the pitch of the Horn, seeking a shift of wind to carry them on and past and eventually into the calmer waters of the South Pacific en route for Chilean ports and the long haul to Sydney. Those had been vastly uncomfortable days of wet and cold, with no hot food, days of laying aloft with the fo’c’sle hands, out along the yards with the windjammer rolling so far that the yardarms seemed about to touch the water, desperately keeping a hold on the foot-ropes with seaboots that slipped continually, one hand for the ship and one for themselves as they fought the gale-blown canvas, often enough stiff with ice.

  Really, Kemp thought, they all had it soft now. Apart from the war, that was, and even that was worse for some than others: the men aboard the Stephen Starr, for instance, of which there was still no news.

  ***

  Like Lieutenant Williams, Mr Portway, that first night ashore, had found women hard to come by. In fact he was more bereft than Williams, for there was a fastidiousness about Herbert Portway that wouldn’t let him go to a prostitute. It wasn’t just the dangers of disease: he saw no reason why he should pay for it when it was all there for free. Or mostly it was; not in Halifax, not yet anyway, but there was time yet, and he could bide it. Anyway, he had plenty of women in other parts of the world, currently minus two if you counted Mrs Portway, and he could practise abstinence as he was forced to at sea. That evening he moved around Halifax like a zombie, worrying about the Tilbury-Grays-Thurrock situation. Trust his wife to shove her proboscis in and stir up trouble, bloody bitch ... and Mabel, caving in at the first obstacle! It made you sick. You just couldn’t trust women. They were all the same, married or single, you were just a meal ticket to them and when things got rough they upped sticks and away.

  Just as he was coming out of a bar, rather the worse for wear by this time, shifting berth to another bar where there just might be a decent woman, he bumped into the senior nursing sister.

  ‘Evening, Sister,’ he said.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Portway.’ Jackie Ord looked him up and down, a smile on her lips. ‘Been enjoying yourself, I see.’

  ‘Not really I haven’t. Not really like.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Portway.’ Then she saw his worried look, the look of acute anxiety. ‘Is there anything wrong?’ She knew what the arrival of the mail could do to seamen in from deep water, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

  Tears came to Mr Portway’s eyes, maudlin, drunken tears with a basis of good, solid trouble behind them. He said, ‘Oh, my, Sister, yes there is. It’s the wife.’

  ‘Oh dear, I’m — ’

  ‘Bitch. That’s what she is! Bitch.’

  ‘Really?’ Jackie was shaken: she’d expected a tale of illness or worse. Perhaps Mrs Portway had been unfaithful and it had all come out. Often enough, nosey neighbours caused trouble with the best of intentions. She went directly to the point: nurses so often did, it was part of the training. ‘Is it another man, Mr Portway?’

  ‘Like fuck it is,’ Mr Portway said, then realized who he was talking to and apologized profusely. She cut him short; the wind was cold and filled with creeping wetness and it was blowing round her legs and up her skirt.

  ‘If you want to talk, we’ll talk. But no more drink, thank you very much.’ She looked around: she remembered she had passed a Salvation Army citadel some way back along the street. That would offer comfort and sobriety and perhaps a hot drink. She took Mr Portway’s arm and propelled him up the road, more or less quiescent but having difficulty with his legs. Mr Portway was trying to visualize his wife with another man — trying without success. The two just didn’t go together. He entered the doorway of the Salvation Army without protest. Jackie Ord sniffed: certainly the place was teetotal but only by the skin of its teeth. Drunk seamen were everywhere, sobering up. There was a strong smell of beer recently taken. There were a Major and Mrs Moline in charge and they seemed delighted to see Jackie, who had obviously not been drinking herself, and they produced steaming hot cups of tea.

  ‘The cup that cheers,’ Major Moline said, beaming through gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘That’s what I always say.’

  Mr Portway gave him a glare, wishing he’d bugger off so he could open his heart. As soon as the Major had withdrawn, he did. And began to get ideas: after all, the nursing sister was a woman — a woman without a man. All women except his wife wanted it and you could often play on their sympathy. There was just one snag: their relative positions aboard the Ardara. He was of the lower deck, the rank and file, she was an officer. It was all right for male officers to hump female ratings, but not the other way round. The world was a funny and difficult place.

  ***

  Halifax absorbed them all: not the town but the fact of being there and having to make preparations for the homeward run, the forming up of the HX convoy and the embarkation of the troops, the loading throughout the ships of the stores, ammunition and general supplies for home. RFA Wensleydale, which had not after all detached — the returning naval escort ex-Prince of Wales had brought changed orders — filled her cargo tanks so that she could fuel the destroyers on the homeward run. Aboard the Ardara life became hectic as the days passed. Purser Pemmel was glued to the office, scanning regimental lists of officers and men, organizing the cabins and the troop-deck accommodation, his staff of assistant pursers making out the meal sittings and allocating tables to the military officers who would embark for the war in Europe. The chief steward’s department worked around the clock, ordering and loading foodstuffs for the galleys, getting the ship cleaned through all ready to be made dirty again. The surgeon checked his medical supplies of drugs, bandages, splints, aperients — there was always much constipation at sea owing to lack of exercise — and ointments. After the first two or three days there was little shoregoing except as a duty for the Commodore and Williams, who seemed to be needed constantly at conferences and discussions of the convoy’s tactics under the attack that they all knew was bound to come as they neared home waters and came within the range of the U-boats and the air armadas that Goering would send out to try to halt the army reinforcements in their tracks.

  On the second day Leading Signalman Mouncey left the Ardara, bound he knew not where and by this time not caring all that much: the dreaded telegram had come, telling him the worst. Notwithstanding this, Kemp had held to what had been arranged: Mouncey should get home as soon as possible and he wouldn’t have been much use to the convoy had he remained. A replacement joined, a leading signalman who had been landed sick into hospital from an earlier convoy.

  Six days later the troops embarked: thousand upon thousand of them pouring up the accommodation ladders of the Ardara and the other hired transports, milling men in an unaccustomed world afloat, getting lost along the alleyways and up and down the ladders and main staircases, chivvied by raucous-voiced sergeants and sergeant-majors as lost as their charges, and by an OC Troops, a brigadier named O’Halloran, MC and Bar from the last war, a loud officer who announced to Commodore Kemp that, by hokey, he was no hanger back and intended to keep him company on the bridge all the way through. Knowing this would prove unlikely, Kemp responded in a friendly fashion, but took an instant dislike to a bellicose, blustering man who showed all the signs of b
elieving that the OC Troops commanded the ship.

  As soon as the troops were aboard the big ships of the convoy, the Rear-Admiral commanding the rejoined cruiser squadron asked permission to proceed. One by one the ships, their cables already shortened-in, weighed their anchors and secured them for sea; and one by one they moved out from the port, out into the North Atlantic behind the old battle-wagon and the leading cruisers of the escort. It was a grey day and there was some wind and rain. Kemp’s prayer was that the weather would worsen by the time they came into the main danger zone past the longitude of Cape Farewell. But that was too much to hope for.

  ELEVEN

  More mail from UK had come aboard before the convoy’s sailing and Kemp had heard from his wife, to his immense relief: one worry the less as he set out across the seas for home. It was a homely sort of letter, the sort he liked to get. The daily round, so far removed from his life at sea if not from the war: there had been some raids but not close enough to Meopham to worry about. The boys were well and sent their love; he wished they would write more often, but there it was, they were young and had their own concerns. Rufus, just finished with Pangbourne, was enjoying his last summer holiday before being appointed to the fleet as a midshipman RNR. His first appointment was likely to be for further training and courses, probably at one of the naval barracks. Harry, the elder, had been some while in the navy now, an ordinary seaman with a recommend for a commission as sub-lieutenant RNVR. He was finishing his qualifying sea-time in the flagship of the 15th Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean, no quiet place to be and another anxiety to nag away at a father. And the war looked like going on interminably, a long haul ahead yet. Kemp thought back to the outward voyage. Those losses — each ship that went down was a sad blow to Britain’s heart, another nail in the coffin that Hitler saw for the British Empire. Starving out was no empty threat. The country was so vulnerable, so dependent upon its seamen and upon keeping the trade lanes open.