‘Handled like a man,’ Miss North way said, her eyes glittering. ‘I don’t think.’ She turned away and left the lounge. Her very walk told Gregory Hench that there was no invitation to him to follow her. In a way it was a relief; in another way it was not. In any case there was always the bottle. He downed the refill fast and asked for another. As he was drinking it he became aware of someone standing by his side. Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton.
‘Hench, isn’t it?’
Hench nodded. ‘Correct.’
‘I heard some of that, Hench. Australians — a very primitive lot, very rough diamonds. Damn good in a fight. I expect you realized that. That man was a damn sight bigger than you, h’m?’
Hench stared wordlessly. What the devil was it to do with Pumphrey-Hatton of all people?
‘Don’t brood, Hench. That woman’s not worth it, you must realize that. Don’t overdo the drink, Hench.’
‘I —’
‘It’s risky. On account of the flies.’ Pumphrey-Hatton seized Hench’s arm. ‘Tell me frankly: have you noticed any flies since Simonstown? Fly-blows in the glasses?’
‘No, I —’
‘No more have I, thank God! But you never know. Just a friendly warning, Hench. Heed it for your own good.’
‘Well, thanks —’ Hench broke off; Pumphrey-Hatton was on the move again with his jerky walk. Hench shrugged, met the eye of the bar steward. Maclnnes winked but said nothing. Hench reflected that it took all sorts; and he’d heard odd stories about the brigadier.
*
In the chart room in rear of the bridge, Kemp listened at 1600 to the BBC’s Overseas news broadcast. There had been air raids over London during the night, the usual thing, and although there had been some damage in Clapham and adjacent districts a number, unspecified, of German aircraft had been shot down. There had been heavy fighting in the western desert, the 8th Army and the German Afrika Corps exchanging artillery fire and the armoured columns engaging. A convoy entering the Western Approaches had been attacked by enemy aircraft but this attack had been fought off, though not without some loss, a number of ships having sustained damage.
After the news there was a food programme. The role of the humble potato was being changed once again. Kemp remembered his wife saying that when there was a shortage of potatoes there were Government-sponsored propaganda broadcasts urging those who wished to preserve their figures not to eat potatoes; when there was a glut, then the eating of potatoes was advanced as an excellent and nourishing food with no weight-inducing qualities.
So much for propaganda.
And so much for the news broadcasts, which Kemp had largely ceased believing. Always so many enemy aircraft shot down, always the damage to British cities and ships and men played down. It was no doubt necessary in order to keep up morale. Or was it? The British public had already shown that it could take it. They’d taken Dunkirk, they’d taken the Battle of Britain. Right at the start of the war they’d taken the sinking of the liner Athenia, laden with women and children bound for the safety of the United States, they’d taken the sinking of the battleship Royal Oak right inside the supposed safety of the boom at Scapa Flow; they’d taken the blowing-up of the mighty battle-cruiser Hood, largest warship in the world. And much else beside.
Nevertheless, the attack on that convoy in the Western Approaches nagged at Kemp. ‘A number of ships had sustained damage.’ What ships — merchantmen or naval escort? And how much damage? How many casualties?
Back on the bridge with Maconochie, Kemp forced the news broadcast out of his mind. The tones of Alvar Liddell, or Gordon MacLeod, or Bruce Belfrage, or Frank Philips or whoever it had been, faded. Kemp wasn’t the only man in the world with sons at sea, sons at risk of their lives twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There would be very many fathers and mothers reading unpleasant things into that broadcast and all the other broadcasts that had gone on throughout the terrible years of war.
*
During the afternoon of the following day Kemp spoke on the Tannoy to all the passengers and crew, a brief and informative announcement to still rumour and speculation as issued by what was known at sea as the galley wireless.
‘This is the Commodore speaking, with the approval of your Captain.’ He paused, clearing his throat. ‘At a little after dark tonight the convoy will heave-to off Ascension Island. Whilst stopped all ships will take oil fuel replenishments from two fleet tankers, naval tankers — RFA Brambleleaf and RFA Oligarch. This operation will naturally be conducted as speedily as possible but at this moment I’m not able to say precisely how long it will take since this has to depend on a number of factors, among them the weather, which at present happens to be fair.’ Kemp didn’t go into the other factors, which included any enemy presence and the difficulties of oiling at sea in darkness, which could lead to collisions. Nor did he add that on the previous day a wireless transmission from the Admiralty’s Operations Room had indicated that the battleship Duke of York was adrift on her original time of departure from the Clyde owing to a union dispute over the handling aboard of an item of engine-room machinery by the ship’s company, a job that should by rights belong to the Amalagamated Engineering Union or whatever. The battleship’s rendezvous would thus be delayed — which fact Kemp now believed had swayed the senior officer’s decision not to hold up the convoy overnight but to get the ships as far north as possible, as soon as possible, so as to bring them under the 14-inch batteries of the Duke of York before there was an encounter with the Stuttgart. He went on, ‘I shall not disguise the fact that there is some danger in lying hove-to, but the exigencies of the convoy make this inevitable. Because of this possible danger, I intend to send the whole ship to boat stations for the period of refuelling. I know this will be uncomfortable to say the least, but the first concern of us all is the safety of all aboard. That is all. Except to assure you that you are in very capable hands under Captain Maconochie.’
He clicked off the Tannoy, saying a silent prayer that the lifeboats wouldn’t have to be filled and lowered.
Instructions had already been issued by Maconochie and were now being put into effect throughout the ship. Chief Officer Dartnell, with the bosun, went round all lifeboats, inspecting their equipment — boats’ bags, Verey lights, spare rudders, compasses, emergency rations — and seeing the falls in good running order, checking the Robinson’s Disengaging Gear in each boat. Before arrival off Ascension all lifeboats would be ready for lowering to the embarkation deck with the gripes slipped and their crews standing by, and the Carley floats would be ready in their slides for instant release. In the engine spaces Chief Engineer French made ready for the taking of fuel into his tanks; Purser Scott and Chief Steward Chatfield made their arrangements, the Purser and his staff placing the ship’s cargo manifest, passenger lists, Portage Bill and cash into leather bags ready to be taken to the lifeboats. Chatfield mustered his overtime sheets for the catering department and made them ready for fast removal if the worst should happen. With them he put his silver-framed photograph of Roxanne taken during a stay at Butlin’s Holiday Camp in Skegness, Roxanne in a gay and happy mood, the happier because a redcoat had somehow got into the background, a redcoat, young and romantic, at whom she had made eyes frequently during their stay. Stowing away this reminder of times past, Chatfield wondered if that perishing Morris Eight would be round at his house that night. And what if the convoy got knocked off during refuelling? Was there someone already waiting to step into his shoes, take over his home, Roxanne and all?
Like Kemp, Chatfield tried to cast worry from his mind as he carried on with his duties, detailing his second steward to have hands ready to assist the masters-at-arms in ensuring that all cabins and other below-decks spaces were vacated when the bridge passed the order for boat stations, seeing to it that those of his department needed for the running-out of fire hoses were all on the top line. There were a hundred and one things to be seen to and thoughts of Roxanne’s carryings-on receded.
Chapter
Twelve
As Ascension loomed through the night, the convoy reduced speed to ease its formation into the position where the ships would lie off to await the tankers. As a single flash came from the escort commander’s masthead light, Kemp said, ‘That’s it, Captain. We’re in position.’
Maconochie nodded. ‘Stop engines,’ he ordered.
‘Stop engines, sir.’ The Officer of the Watch pulled over the handles of the engine-room telegraphs. Bells rang in the wheel-house, were repeated below in the engine-room. ‘Engines repeated stopped, sir.’
‘Slow astern both engines, wheel amidships.’ Maconochie watched his bearings as the Aurelian Star’s headway came off. As the troopship began to ease astern, the final order was passed. ‘Stop engines. Engines to remain on stand-by until further orders.’
When this had been passed below, Maconochie had a word with his chief engineer on the voicepipe. ‘Here we wait, Chief. I can’t say how long — there’s no sign of the tankers yet, for one thing. I may need full power at any time and at short notice.’
‘We’ll be ready, sir. Ready for anything.’
‘I know, Chief. And thank you.’
When the Captain had closed the voicepipe cover on the bridge, French left the starting platform and walked around on the greasy, slippery deck plates, checking here and there, watching the long, probing necks of the oil cans as the greasers kept the bearings sweet, felt the close heat that seemed to radiate from the very metal of the great shining steel shafts that, when in motion, turned the screws … those shafts were idle now. How long for?
Every moment was a time of danger if the enemy should be anywhere around. But if he was, then surely he would be picked up on the radar or the Asdics. The Commodore had made the point earlier that the A/S screen would still be guarding the convoy. Until their turns came to lie alongside the tankers to take on fuel, the destroyers would be continually under way, circling the convoy and keeping a continuous watch on the Asdics. And if an echo was picked up, the ships would quickly be got under way. Except, of course, those that happened to have the tankers alongside when the lurking enemy was picked up.
‘A matter of luck, that’s all,’ French said to his second engineer who had joined him in his tour of inspection.
‘What’s that, Chief?’
‘Nothing really. Just thinking aloud.’ French explained. ‘A matter of luck that it’s not us who get caught short.’ He gave a brief laugh, one with no humour in it. ‘We’ve always been a lucky ship. So far, anyway. We’ll just pray it holds — that’s all.’
The second engineer nodded but didn’t comment. They both knew — or could guess intelligently — what it would be like to be torpedoed whilst alongside a laden tanker, taking oil fuel through pipelines that could hardly fail to fracture or tear away from the couplings. Explosion, fire, a searing blast from the tanker and they would emerge from the engine-room and boiler-rooms, if they emerged at all, into a world of flame, and a sea aflame as well, a sea beneath a carpet of burning oil into which it would be suicide to lower the lifeboats or rafts, assuming any were left intact.
Nobody wanted to die, that went without saying. But the second engineer happened to know that Chiefy French had a very particular reason for wanting to stay alive. The two of them were good friends, with shared confidences, and the chief had opened up about his family problems, needing someone to talk to, someone he could trust. He’d spoken about the sons, Alan and Billy, and the pending police court — shoplifting. Billy was the ring-leader and a right tearaway by the sound of it, and French’s wife seemingly couldn’t cope. If French should be killed, the family could disintegrate. Probably the Chief was visualizing that at this moment.
A very nasty worry on a night like this. The second engineer echoed the earlier thoughts of the Commodore: the Navy back at the Cape must have been like Harpic — clean round the bend — to have made the decision to bunker outside a port at night.
*
Once again the B deck lounge had been cleared for the reception overnight of the Germans. Once again those Germans were under guard of the native riflemen. But this time Sergeant Tapapa would if required be backed up by a half-company of the Australian troop draft, OC Troops had agreed with Captain Maconochie and the Commodore that security was of more importance than having all the soldiers sticking rigidly to their allotted boat stations.
‘Flaming Nazis c’d make real trouble,’ Harrison had said in the orderly room. ‘Watch the buggers like hawks, all right? But don’t you be too bloody obtrusive, Sar’nt-Major,’ he added to RSM Treddle. ‘We don’t want to cause trouble. Or give the Nazis the excuse to say we caused it. Understand?’
Treddle nodded. ‘I’ll act like a lovely, cuddly little bloody baa-lamb, Colonel. That do?’
Harrison grinned and clapped the RSM on the shoulder. ‘Wolf in bloody sheep’s clothing more like. Just keep the wolf hidden, that’s all.’ He added in an incredulous tone, ‘Lovely, cuddly little baa-lamb my arse! Just don’t look the part somehow. Tell you what, Sar’nt-Major. The rifles’ RSM — he’ll be, as he’d put it himself, on parade throughout the night. Let him do the high profile bit, eh?’
RSM Treddle said, ‘Reckon he’ll do that without bloody encouragement, Colonel. Bloke’s a walking stuffed-shirt, as full of bullshit as you can get without being a bull’s bum. Oh, beg pardon, I’m sure,’ he added as RSM Nunn appeared in the orderly room doorway, his tight-lipped face indicating that he’d overheard the closing remarks, RSM Treddle grinned cheerfully. ‘No offence, mate, eh?’
RSM Nunn disregarded the overture. His pace-stick held rigid and precisely horizontal with the deck beneath his left arm, he crashed his boots and gave Harrison a magnificent salute. ‘Sir! Reporting for duty as may be required, sir. I have the German prisoners in mind, sir. I —’
‘Funny,’ Harrison broke in with a straight face. ‘We were just talking about you and the Nazis, Sar’nt-Major …’
‘Sir!’
‘What was that?’
‘Sir! I said sir, sir.’
‘Oh, right. Well, good on you, Mr Nunn.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ RSM Nunn looked baffled. ‘Sir! If I may be acquainted with your proposals for the night, sir, in respect that is to the Germans, sir.’
‘Right you are, Mr Nunn, but I reckon I’ll have to leave that to my sar’nt-major here. Me, I need to go to the bridge. A word with the Commodore.’ Harrison was already moving for the door as he spoke. He paused on the threshold and waved a hand at Treddle. ‘See you,’ he said, and vanished, RSM Treddle returned the wave to an empty doorway and grinned at RSM Nunn.
‘Bloody jack-in-the-box, I reckon ’e is. Dinkum bloke, though, no bloody bull, just like one of the ordinary diggers is Harrison.’
‘Ha,’ RSM Nunn said.
‘Come again, mate?’
‘I said ha, Mr Treddle.’ RSM Nunn did not approve of warrant officers who spoke familiarly of their colonels, no more than he approved of colonels who were just like one of the ordinary diggers, whom RSM Nunn understood to mean the rank-and-file. It was not like that in the British Army. He rose and fell for a while on the balls of his feet, back straight, service cap very square on his head, peak well forward so that he had in fact to keep his back straight in order to see. ‘If you would be so good, Mr Treddle, as to inform me —’
‘Cut the bloody formality, mate, why not? I’m Jim. You, mate?’
RSM Nunn remained very still. There was a pause. ‘I do not approve,’ RSM Nunn said heavily, ‘of the use of Christian names on, shall we say, early acquaintance or like on parade. Neither am I “mate”. My name is Mr Nunn, Mr Treddle, and that, I am of the opinion, we would do best to stick with. I’ve no doubt I make my meaning clear, Mr Treddle?’
‘As bloody crystal, Mr Nunn. Now, where were we, eh?’
‘The matter of the night detail, Mr Treddle.’
‘Dead right, Mr Nunn, so we were.’ RSM Treddle grinned. ‘If you’d care to come down off of your high bloody horse, mate,
we’ll get on with it. All right with you, is it, eh?’
*
‘It may be cold, Mildred. The nights often are, you know that. If I were you I’d take a jumper.’ Colonel Holmes added, ‘It’s going to be a long night at boat stations.’
‘I do think it’s so unnecessary,’ Mildred said.
‘Oh, no. We have to take on fuel.’
‘I didn’t mean that. Though why at night … What I meant was this business of being at boat stations all the time. We would be just as handy sitting comfortably in the lounge, wouldn’t we?’
Holmes sighed. Women seemed at times to lose all sense, all contact with the world of war. ‘Perhaps, Mildred, perhaps. But the Germans are being mustered in the lounge so none of the passengers can use it.’
‘That’s another thing,’ she said. ‘I call it very dangerous to have Germans —’ She broke off as the Tannoy clicked on in the alleyway outside their cabin, and the Captain came on the air.
‘This is the Captain speaking. All personnel are to proceed to their boat stations and remain there until further orders. I ask all civilian passengers to give priority in the alleyways and on the accommodation ladders to the troops. There is no urgency and no need for any rush. You will be kept informed throughout the night as to the progress of the fuelling operation. That is all.’
The Tannoy went silent. Holmes extended an arm to his wife. ‘Come along, my dear. We’re rather slower than most I’m sorry to say.’
‘Why not do as the Captain said, and give the soldiers time to get to their stations, Stephen? The night’s going to be long enough as it is, you said so yourself.’
‘Oh, very well, very well.’ Colonel Holmes sat down again while his wife searched through drawers for a woolly jumper. The old man gave an involuntary sigh: they were both too old for this kind of thing and one way and another Mildred was taking it pretty badly, he thought. Not like her; she was used to army life in both an active service sense and a retired one. Back in Mombasa they’d led an army-oriented life in so many ways, still stuck to the old routines, down to the club for coffee in the mornings, possibly a luncheon party, siesta in the afternoons, drinks as soon as the sun went down, dress for dinner and then after dinner perhaps bridge. Part of all that was the stiff-upper-lip tradition of Britons abroad. What Mildred needed really was a strong whiff of the real old times before the war, when everything had been jollity and security and, well, British. What would do wonders for her would be an evening with good old Bill and Arse-end Portlock, fun and games and a lot of army talk and reminiscences, but that was wishing for the moon of course.
Convoy Homeward Page 14