Convoy Homeward
Philip McCutchan
© Philip McCutchan,
Philip McCutchan has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in.
This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter One
It was a brilliant dawn, the best time of any eastern day before the sun had had a chance to scorch away the freshness and bring lethargy in its train. From the bridge of the Commodore’s ship, the former liner Aurelian Star, John Mason Kemp looked at the awesome colouring of the sky as the sun began to show its tip from somewhere over Burma, somewhere over the embattled troops of the Fourteenth Army, General Slim’s ‘forgotten army’ sweltering in swamp and jungle as they fought the hordes of the Japanese emperor. Not for the first time in this seemingly endless war, Kemp gave thanks that he had made his career at sea. The sea was clean, at least until the bombs or shells turned it into a hideous hell of screaming, torn bodies and often enough — should a deep-laden tanker be hit — a murderous, burning carpet of spilled fuel oil.
But that colouring: crimson, green, orange, yellow, streaking like fingers across the lightening sky, touching the blue of the sea and turning it to gold as the convoy, behind the warship escort, moved out of Colombo for Simonstown and then the long haul up the South Atlantic and North Atlantic for the sanctuary of the Firth of Clyde.
Scottish waters, the great anchorage of the Tail o’ the Bank between Greenock and the Gareloch.
Kemp turned as he heard a cough behind him. His assistant, Sub-Lieutenant Finnegan of the RCNVR — Finnegan, a citizen of the USA who had got into the war in advance of his countrymen by joining up in Canada back in 1939 and not too many questions asked.
‘What is it, Finnegan?’
Finnegan tore off one of his curious American salutes. ‘Reporting a moan from Petty Officer Ramm, sir.’
‘Already?’
‘Already, sir. Four of his guns’-crews, they’ve got the gut rot.’
Kemp grunted. Convoy Commodores had many worries, from sickness to air attack, from defaulters to bombardment by heavy ships, from bad weather to torpedoes from the ever-ready U-boat packs into which the convoy would steam once they came towards home waters. ‘Hangovers from last night ashore, Finnegan?’.
‘Just simple Colombo tummy, I guess, sir.’
‘They’ll have to get on with it,’ Kemp said. ‘We’re not going to enter the danger zone for twenty-four hours at the least. But keep me informed.’
Another salute. ‘Yes, sir, Commodore.’ Kemp forbore to comment; he had been totally unable to break his assistant of his habit of addressing him by, as it were, two titles at once. It was an irritation but one Kemp had learned to live with. In every other way young Finnegan was first class, and had brought an American keenness and freshness of outlook to the onerous task of shepherding the great convoys across the world’s oceans, those vital convoys that had endlessly carried troops and food and the hardware of war from Canada, the USA, Australia and South Africa to the Mediterranean and the Far East, and into the Arctic Circle past the North Cape for the replenishment of the Russian armies repelling Hitler from his wintry march on Moscow.
Finnegan was lingering, staring like Kemp at the sky as the sun’s rays extended to bring the first hint of the day’s coming heat. He was screwing up his eyes and there seemed to be a pensive look, Kemp thought, beyond the effort to protect his eyesight.
‘A penny for ’em, Finnegan.’
Finnegan nodded. ‘You know something, sir?’
‘Not what’s in that American mind of yours, Finnegan.’
‘No. Well, I guess I’ll tell you, sir, Commodore. Me, I just can’t wait to see the Clyde again.’
‘Not the Ambrose Light … or Nantucket Bay … or the hot spots of New York?’
‘Well, them too I guess. But the Clyde. It’s got something, you know that?’
Kemp nodded. ‘I know that, Finnegan. It’s been home from so many wartime convoys. I think everyone who’s ever been to sea feels something special about the Clyde. And not just the Scots.’
‘I guess that’s probably right, sir.’ Finnegan paused. ‘I’ve just been listening to a guy singing on the radio.’
‘Ah?’
‘About sailing up the Clyde.’
‘I know it. Sing it, Finnegan.’
Finnegan stared. ‘Me, sir?’
‘Yes, you, sir.’ Kemp’s face was dead-pan.
‘Right here on the bridge, sir?’
‘Yes, right here on the bridge.’
‘Well, I’ll be … do I take that as an order, sir, Commodore?’
‘Yes, Finnegan. And sing it with a Scottish accent.’
Looking as though he believed the Commodore to have gone suddenly round the bend, Finnegan obeyed orders. He obeyed them to the best of his ability.
‘We’re sailing up the Clyde,’ he sang, ‘Sailing up the Clyde … Sailing home tae Scotland and ma ain firrreside … an’ a lump comes in ma throat, an’ a tearrr Ah canny hide, for we’re sailing hame tae Glasgie where the auld folks bide …’
From the corner of his eye Kemp saw the Aurelian Star’s master approaching from the starboard wing of the bridge. Kemp, grinning, said, ‘That was in your honour, Captain. I hope you found it nostalgic.’
Captain Maconochie, a large, jovial man whose home was in Ayr on the Firth of Clyde laughed and said, ‘Music-hall Scots. Was it Will Fyffe, or Harry Lauder? Anyway — the effort was appreciated. But it’s a long haul yet to the Mull of Kintyre. I hope to God we make it intact.’
Kemp said, ‘Amen to that, Captain.’
*
A long haul by the exigencies of the wartime tracks to the Mull of Kintyre and the great seagull-whitened rock of Ailsa Craig at the entry to the Firth of Clyde it certainly was. Some fourteen thousand sea miles of hostile waters to be left behind them by the time they reached journey’s end. The convoy was to proceed largely empty as far as Kilindini in East Africa; at Kilindini the Aurelian Star would embark a battalion of the King’s East African Rifles, a native regiment with British officers bound for the UK for training before being drafted for service in the Second Front against Germany, a concept not yet formalized but which by this stage of the war was on everybody’s lips as an inevitable followup to the thrust of the Desert Rats through Italy. At Simonstown the convoy would be joined by two vessels carrying explosives, and a formation of Australians and New Zealanders would be embarked aboard the three former liners, while the fifteen cargo vessels would load mixed cargoes urgently needed in the UK. Also at Simonstown a tanker carrying sixteen thousand tons of crude oil for the refineries at Grangemouth and Milford Haven would come beneath the umbrella of the escort. From Colombo to the Cape the cover would consist of the old R-class battleship Resolution, the escort aircraft carrier Rameses, the cruisers Lincolnshire — wearing the flag of CS23, the Rear-Admiral Commanding, 23rd Cruiser Squadron — Swansea, Bodmin, Marazion, Lydford and Okehampton. The destroyer escort, the anti-submarine screen, would be provided by the 32nd Destroyer Flotilla. Resolution, on temporary detachment from the British Far Eastern Fleet and wearing the fl
ag of the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton, would leave the convoy at Simonstown.
A large convoy; and a vital one for Britain.
This had been stressed at the sailing conference the day before departure. ‘You’ll not have an easy passage, gentlemen,’ the Naval Control Service Officer had said. ‘It’s known that U-boats are operating in the southern half of the Indian Ocean, and there’s this surface raider at large in the South Atlantic — the Stuttgart.’ He addressed Kemp: ‘You’ll know all about surface raiders, Commodore.’
Kemp nodded. The NCS officer continued. There was going to be an unceasing need for full alertness on the part of the watch-keepers and lookouts; the destroyers of the A/S screen would need continual use of asdics to inhibit submarine attack; they would share the duties of ‘eyes of the fleet’ with the aircraft from the carrier. Kemp had heard it all, or something like it, countless times before since back in the autumn of 1939 he had brought the Mediterranean-Australia Lines’ Ardara into Tilbury from Sydney via Colombo and the Suez canal, to be informed by the chairman of the Line that his peacetime days as a shipmaster were over for the duration of the war. He had as an officer of the Royal Naval Reserve been called into naval service to act as commodore of convoys. Now, he found his mind going back to the convoy he had only recently brought out from the UK to Trincomalee. A difficult passage, what with air attack in the Med, the fact of having girls of the WRNS aboard, the cholera that had struck the troop convoy after leaving Port Said, and then, after passing through the Strait of Bab el Mandeb — known to seafarers as the Gates of Hell — the attack in filthy weather by the German surface raider, the Admiral Richter. The Commodore’s ship, the liner Orlando, had been sunk, damaged as much by being broached-to by the sheer force of the typhoon as from the effect of the German guns. Kemp, along with many other survivors, had spent some days in an open lifeboat.
And there had been the OC Troops, Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton, who had cracked under pressure after making life as difficult as possible for the troops under his command. Also for the Convoy Commodore.
And Pumphrey-Hatton was now bound back for the Clyde. He was to be a passenger aboard the Commodore’s ship. Kemp foresaw any amount of trouble.
*
When on sailing day the convoy had moved out of the port, Kemp, from the bridge of the Aurelian Star, saw the slim figure standing in the sternsheets of a launch, touched by the early sun’s rays. First Officer Jean Forrest, lately in charge of the WRNS draft … Kemp had not expected her to see him off, though he had half hoped she might. Now she was where she had no business to be: aboard a harbour launch belonging to the King’s Harbour Master. She was following him out; but not too far. Kemp gave her a wave, resisted the temptation to blow a kiss across the water. She returned the wave and then the launch turned away, back into the port. Kemp brought up his binoculars, watched until the launch was out of sight. His hands shook a little as he lowered the binoculars to dangle at the end of their codline stay. Jean Forrest … they’d been through a lot together in the outward convoy and he would miss her badly on the long haul to the Firth of Clyde. He had almost made a fool of himself, not that she had been any slip of a girl infatuated by a man old enough to be her father — Jean Forrest was a little on the wrong side of forty. But it was not to be. A master mariner with a solid career behind him and a good few years to go yet, a commodore RNR in charge of a number of merchant ships in convoy, a happily married man: he had no business thinking in terms of infidelity.
He had a home in the village of Meopham in Kent, until the war so handy for the captain of an incoming liner to the London River. A happy home, and Mary now struggling with war conditions, the shortages of everything, the blackout, the air raids, the worries about a husband and two sons at sea in wartime, always half expecting the telegram from the Admiralty.
Resolutely Kemp turned his back on Colombo. There was work to be done, a war still to be fought.
*
Petty Officer Ramm, gunner’s mate on the Commodore’s staff and thereby very important in his own eyes, sucked at a hollow tooth and glared across the sea at the huge bulk of the Resolution as the battleship with its admiral’s flag — a red St George’s Cross on a white ground — took station ahead of the two columns of merchant ships, disposed abeam to starboard. Aboard the battlewagon his status as gunner’s mate in charge of one of the big fifteen-inch gun-turrets would have been assured and respected. Here, he looked like being dog’sbody. The Aurelian Star carried DEMS ratings — standing for Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships. And there was another PO, also a gunner’s mate, in charge of the DEMS party, Petty Officer Biggar. PO Biggar had refused to concede an inch to Petty Officer Ramm, who had already mentally renamed him Petty Officer Bugger.
‘A matter o’ seniority, chum,’ Biggar had said. ‘Stands to reason, don’t it, eh?’
Ramm, who resented being called chum on first acquaintance, said, ‘That’s all very well. But me, I’m on the staff, see?’
Biggar stared rudely. ‘So what? Still comes down to seniority. I got me rate in —’
‘Yes, all right, all right, you’ve already told me that —’
‘And my draft chit from Guz says I’m in charge o’ the guns.’
Ramm had walked away in disgust. Guz meant that Biggar was a Devonport rating. Ramm was Pompey; and Pompey was in all things superior to Guz. And for bloody Biggar to talk about guns! Peashooters more like. Aboard the Orlando Ramm had had a six-inch gun. Obsolete certainly, and liable to blow up when fired, but a sight more gun-like than three-inch and two-pounders which, apart from such articles as Oerlikons, was all the Aurelian Star was equipped with.
The most dignified thing to do, Ramm decided, was to ignore PO Biggar as though he didn’t exist. Easier said than done; and Ramm was delighted when, just after sailing, Biggar reported sick with gut rot. Immediately, Ramm had taken over. Almost as soon as he had done so, three more of the DEMS ratings turned green and were sent off to the sick bay.
*
All too soon, the day took on its heat. The convoy steamed over a glassy sea beneath spread awnings that would be quickly frapped if action stations were sounded. The water was of deepest blue, turquoise, cut now by the white wakes of the ships as the screws churned the water into tumbling foam and the stems cut their swathes to stream aft down either side. In his cabin, Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton fiddled with his electric fan. There was something wrong with it; it wouldn’t turn and twist as it should but remained stuck obstinately in one position, which wasn’t the right position to bring comfort to Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton, who was sweating like a pig. He had been on a search for flies, the flies that he was convinced had brought the scourge of cholera to the outward-bound convoy in the Red Sea. He could find no flies but he was convinced they lurked somewhere.
He rang for his steward. The summons was not answered. Growing angrier by the minute, he rang again. Confound these seafaring people — no discipline, not like the army where everyone jumped to it instantly or else.
He went out on deck. It was almost as hot as his cabin. True, there was a little wind made by the ship’s own progress through the water but it was a hot wind and brought out his dormant prickly heat so that he was obliged to scratch furiously.
Some things had to be brought to the attention of the ship’s master. Or that of the Commodore of the convoy.
Pumphrey-Hatton made for the bridge ladder. His dark, lean face was set into angry lines. Kemp, who happened to be at the head of the starboard ladder, saw the brigadier’s approach and thought: here it comes. Already.
He said, ‘Good morning, Brigadier.’
‘Morning. I have a complaint to make.’
Kemp sighed inwardly. ‘Flies?’ he asked.
‘I’ve searched for flies. I’ve found none — so far, that is. My complaint’s to do with my electric fan. It’s not working as it should. I find that inexcusable — damned inefficiency if you ask me. And the blasted steward doesn’t answer my bell.�
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It was not Kemp’s business. He glanced towards Captain Maconochie. Maconochie was checking his station, taking bearings on the flagship. Kemp wouldn’t interrupt. He said shortly, ‘A matter for —’
‘Fiddlesticks! Kindly don’t fob me off, Kemp. What do you propose to do about it, may I ask?’
Again Kemp sighed inwardly. There was no point in provoking anything. Pumphrey-Hatton was in a poor state mentally and needed kid-glove treatment. He said, ‘I’ll report it to Captain Maconochie. A message will be sent to the chief steward. That’s all I can do, Brigadier. It’s not my ship.’
Pumphrey-Hatton was trembling now. He said harshly, ‘That’s all you people ever say. Always passing the buck. When I commanded a brigade … things were very different, I assure you. It was the same with those blasted flies, even in my gin if you remember though I don’t suppose for a moment you do, you were never a help, never blasted well listened.’
‘I’m sorry if you felt like that, Brigadier.’
‘It’s a little late to be sorry now. I’ve no doubt you put in a word against me to that blasted medico in Trincomalee —’
‘I —’
‘Oh, don’t bother to deny it and kindly don’t argue with me. I’m not fit.’
Pumphrey-Hatton, who had remained clinging to the rails at the foot of the ladder, turned away and stalked aft, his angular body having a suddenly frail look about it. Kemp couldn’t help feeling immensely sorry: it was not pleasant to be relieved of one’s command in the middle of the war, to have to hand over an infantry brigade to the senior colonel until such time as another brigadier could be appointed. Kemp had been told privately (which he was aware he should not have been) of the result of the medical board: Pumphrey-Hatton had little wrong with him physically apart from the after-effects of the cholera and had in fact made a remarkable recovery considering his sojourn in the open boat in the Arabian Sea; but he was in no mental state to continue in any command capacity. The military medics in the convoy, and the Orlando’s own doctor, had reported Pumphrey-Hatton’s over-riding concern with flies, for one thing, also his lunatic behaviour in ordering the confinement below decks of the troops in the appalling heat of Port Said, the Suez canal, and the Red Sea, all in the interest of what he had believed to be secrecy. Kemp wondered now what his future would be, what the War Office would do with him after arrival and disembarkation in the Clyde. A desk job in Whitehall, probably; he couldn’t do much harm pushing paper around. A sad end for an officer who had been a fighting soldier in the First World War when as a subaltern he had seen his battalion of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry wiped out around him at the Marne …
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