The lieutenant looked at his watch. 'I am sure we can rely on'that very point being watched by the powers-thatbe, sir.'
`I'm sure.' Lindsay signalled to Jupp with his empty glass. `Like they watched the- Denmark Strait and the fjord where this bastard raider was anchored. Oh yes, I'm sure we can rely on them.'
Fraser said unsteadily, `What about some food? My guts feel like a rusty oil drum.'
The sudden silence which had followed Lindsay's angry outburst broke up in laughter, and Lindsay saw Fraser watching him grimly.
The lieutenant stood up and said, `Well, I'll be on my way, sir.'-He forced a smile. `I'm sure you're sincere, sir, but-'
Fraser took his elbow and pulled him away from the table. `Look, sonny, if you want to play games, that's all right with me.' He tried to focus the lieutenant with his geyes. `But don't come aboard this ship and try it, see?' He estured with his glass, whisky splashing across the carpet. `That man you were being so bloody patronising to has done more,. seen more and cares more than you'll ever know! While you sit on your bum, sticking pins in some out of date map, it'll be men like him who get on with the job!'
The lieutenant looked down at him, aware that some of the civilian dockyard men were grinning at his confusion.. `Well, really! I don't see there's any occasion to speak like that.'
Fraser lurched away. `Piss off !' He collapsed into a chair and added as an afterthought, `And stick, that on your bloody map!'
The others were leaving now. Most of them were used to dealing with men like Fraser. Western Approaches was unkind to those who served there. Death and constant danger had long since pared away the outward niceties and veneer of normal behaviour.
When they had all gone Lindsay said, `Chief, I think you are one of the most uncouth people I have ever met.' -
Fraser grinned. `Could be.' He was unrepentant.
Lindsay held out his glass against the grey light from a scuttle. `You'll be going home as soon as we've docked, I suppose.'
Fraser nodded. `Aye. I'll have a good row and get this damn ship out of my system.' He grimaced. `Still, I'll be there for Hogmanay. The wife'll have forgiven me by then.'
`Do you always have an argument when you go on leave?'
Jupp said, `I think the chief engineer 'as dropped off, sir.' He removed the glass from Fraser's limp hand and added, `I'll bring 'im some black coffee.'
Lindsay stood up. `No. Let him sleep. He's done enough for ten men. His second can take over when we shift berth.'
`And when will that be, sir?'
`Tomorrow. Forenoon.'
Lindsay listened to the mournful bleat from some outgoing tug. It reminded him of the sinking ship. The siren going on and on as the shells blasted her apart.
He could hear muffled laughter from the wardroom .and imagined them making plans for their unexpected leave. Wives and parents, girl friends and mistresses. Dancy's iceberg, as it had come to be known, had done them all a bit of good. Well, most of them. There were some, like Ritchie, who had nowhere to go. Wanted nothing which might remind them of what they had lost. And there was Goss. He had nothing but the ship, or so it appeared.
He said, `I'm going ashore.' He had spoken almost before the idea had come to him. He had to get away, just for a few hours. Go where he knew.no one and could find a moment of peace. If there was such a thing.
Jupp regarded him sadly. `Aye, aye, sir. I'll run a bath for you.'
He hurried away to lay out Lindsay's best uniform and to make him some sandwiches, knowing the captain would not wait for a proper, meal.
Lindsay walked to a scuttle on the outboard side and watched a rusty freighter being edged by tugs into the mainstream. But he was thinking of the signal and of the two ships lost on the other side of the world. Especially
the Prince of Wales. He could see her clearly in his mind as she had been at Scapa Flow.
The memory of that windswept anchorage brought it all back again in an instant. The staff car. The girl with her duffel coat and jaunty cap.
He was still thinking about her as he left the ship and walked slowly along the littered jetty, his greatcoat collar turned up against the drizzle.
By a crouching gantry he paused and looked back. Benbecula seemed very tall and gaunt, rising like a wet grey wall above the winches and coiled mooring wires, the nameless piles of crates and the clutter of a seaport at war. From this angle her list to starboard was all the more apparent, so that she appeared to be leaning against the wet stonework, resting from the ordeal which men had thrust so brutally upon her.
How was it that Lieutenant de Chair had described her? Long funnelled and rather elderly. It suited the old ship very well, he thought wearily.
Right aft an oilskinned seaman readjusted the halliards on the staff so that the new ensign flapped out with sudden vigour against the grey ships and sky beyond. But it took more than a flag to change a ship into a fighting machine. Just as it needed something extra to transform men into one company. Like Aikman, he thought. You could not expect a man to catch the same train to work day after regular day and then change into a dedicated, professional fighter. He strode on towards the gates. And when it was all over, would Aikman and Dancy, Hunter and Boase, and those like them, ever be able to break free from all this and return to that other, almost forgotten existence?
Then he stopped and took another look at his ship. It was up to him and the Benbecula to try and make sure they got the chance, he thought.
He showed his identity card to the dockyard policemen and then stepped outside the gates, suddenly confused and uncertain. Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe he was the one to be pitied and who needed help.
Some sailors disentangled themselves from their girl friends and saluted him as he passed, and he tried to read their faces in that small moment of contact.
Respect, envy, disinterest. He saw all and none of it. They were home from the Atlantic and were making the best of it. In a way, that answered his question, and he quickened his pace to look for a taxi.
11
Memories
During the forenoon of the second day in January 1942, His Majesty's Armed Merchant Cruiser Benbecula was warped from dry dock and made fast to her original jetty. In Western Approaches Command her appearance excited little comment, and if there was any reaction at all it was one of impatience. Impatience to be rid of her so that the dock, jetty and harbour services could be used again for the procession of damaged ships which came with every incoming convoy.
All leave for the ship's company was due to expire at noon, and as officers and ratings returned to Liverpool, with varying degrees of reluctance and according to the success or otherwise of their unexpected freedom, they could only stare at their floating home with a mixture of surprise and apprehension. For in their absence the old ship had shed her drab grey, and now rested at her moorings with an air of almost self-conscious embarrassment. From stem to stern, from the top of her single funnel to the waterline she was newly covered with dazzle paint. Green and ice-blue, strange angular patches of black and brown made it difficult to recognise her as the same ship. Only her list remained to prove her true identity, and as one amazed stoker remarked, `She looks like some old Devonport tart in her daughter's summer dress!' There were other comments even less complimentary.
Lindsay had returned from leave several days earlier, and as he sat in his cabin studying the piles of stores folios, signals and the latest Admiralty Fleet Orders he heard some of the raised voices and remarks, and could appreciate their concern.
As usual, nobody knew what role was being cast Benbecula's way. It was someone else's department. The dockyard people had made good the damage below the waterline and had added some of the extra refinements he had been asking for since taking command. There was an additional pair of Oerlikons on the boat deck, which he had not requested, so it rather looked as if the ship would be working within reach of enemy aircraft, at least for some of the time. Fresh armour had appeared abaft the bridge and wheelhouse, pre
viously regarded as a very tender spot should an attacker be fortunate enough to approach from astern. Several new.liferafts, an additional generator in the engine room and a generous repainting job in the lower messdecks showed the dockyard manager had not been idle, even allowing for Christmas.
For Lindsay the leave had been a strange and frustrating experience. Far from seeking seclusion in some hotel as he had first considered, he had instead gone south to London. After several attempts he had managed to obtain an interview at the Admiralty with a fairly senior intelligence officer. As he had expected, the department had heard nothing from the suave young lieutenant in Liverpool, nor did they know anything of Lindsay's report and suggestions about the German raider. Looking back, the intelligence officer had been extremely courteous but vaguely unhelpful. He had known very little about the raider, other than she was the Nassau which had sunk Loch Glendhu as well as the recent losses. She had not returned to Norway, and even now, as Lindsay sat staring at the littered desk, nobody had heard or seen anythingof her at all.
But when Lindsay had persisted with his theme, that the Germans were planning another series of widespread attacks on Allied commerce to thin the resources of escort vessels and air patrols as well as to aid their new Japanese
ally, the officer had been more definite. He was being hard-pressed to the limits of his department. There was no evidence to suggest that Lindsay was right. And anyway, the war was quite difficult enough without adding to it with ifs and maybes.
Lindsay groped for his pipe, remembering London. The ruined buildings, the gaps in small terraced houses where the bombs had carved a path like some giant axe. Sandbags around stately Whitehall offices, policemen in steel helmets, the blackout, and the wail of air-raid sirens, night after night, with hardly a break.
The people had looked tired and strained, as with each new day they picked their way over rubble and firemen's hoses to queue with resigned patience for buses which still somehow seemed torun on time.
And everywhere there were uniforms. Not just the three services, but all those of the occupied countries as well. Poles and Norwegians, Dutch and Czechs, whose alien uniforms seemed to show the extent of the enemy's successes.
When not waiting in an Admiralty lobby or going through the latest intelligence reports in the operations room, Lindsay had found himself walking. He still did not know how far he had walked nor the full extent. The East End and dockland. Green Park and the scruffy gaiety of Piccadilly. Quiet, faceless streets south of the river, and the proud skyline of the city darkly etched against the night sky with its criss-cross of searchlights and sullen glow of burning buildings. He had been bustled into an air-raid ,, shelter by an indignant warden who had shouted, `Who do j you think you are, mate? God or something? You'll get . your bloody head blown off if you walk about while there's a raid on!'
He had sat on a bench seat, his back against the cold concrete, while the shelter had quaked and trembled to the exploding bombs. Beyond the steel door, where the same warden had stared at him fixedly as if to discover the reason for his behaviour, he had heard the clang of fire bells, the shrill-of a police whistle. But inside the crowded shelter he had found the same patience, the sense of oneness which had. made such a mark on his memory.
From the day he had entered the Navy as a cadet Lindsay had been trained in all matters of the sea and; above all, sea warfare. Ship-handling and seamanship, gunnery and navigation, the complex management of groups of vessels working together in every conceivable condition which past experience and history could offer.
Nobody had said anything about the other side of it. At Dunkirk and Crete, Norway and North Africa, the lessons had been hard and sharp. Terrified refugees on the roads, scattering as the Stukas had sliced through them with bombs and bullets. Soldiers queueing chest-deep in the sea to be taken off devastated beaches by the Navy, which like London buses always managed to reach them in time. But .at what a price.
The loss of his own ship, the agonising memory of the sinking transport which refused to leave him in peace, had all left their scar on Lindsay. But this last visit to London had shown him more than anything else that he knew -nothing of the other war at all. It was not-a battle to be contained in a gun or bombsight, with an enemy beyond reach or personality. It was right here. It was everywhere. No one was spared, and he knew that if these people with whom he had shared an air-raid shelter and all the others like them were to lose faith and hope the end was even closer than some imagined. It was amazing they had not given up already, he thought. Yet in the battered pubs with their shortages and watery beer he had heard plenty of laughter and optimism. Although on the face of it he could find no reason for either. The war was going badly, and the first breath of relief when it was learned that, willingly or otherwise, the Americans were now firm allies, was now giving way to an awareness that the real struggle had not even begun.
Even the newspapers found it hard to explain the daily events in Malaya. In a month the Japanese had driven almost the full length of the peninsula, smashing resistance and leaving a wake of horror and butchery which was impossible to measure.
' During his leave Lindsay had toyed with the idea of finding out where Eve Collins had lived. He would visit her parents. Would make and hold on to some small comfort by the contact., He had dismissed the idea almost immediately, despising himself for his own self-pity. What would he have said? That he saw the ship burn with their daughter condemned to a hideous death? That he was there, a witness who should have been able, to help but could not?
No, it was better to leave them to their own resources.After the harsh cruelty of an official telegram they would have to draw upon each other for strength. With time, even this unreality might ease and they would be able to think of her memory without pain, as countless others were having to do.
There was a tap at the door and Goss walked heavily into the cabin.
He said, `Eight bells, sir. Still seven absentees, but there's been a' train delay. They might be on that.'' He opened his notebook. `One call from the R.N. hospital. Able Seaman NIcNiven is detained in the V.D. wing for treatment.' He closed it with a snap. `I've detailed another A.B. to replace him as quartermaster, sir.' He did not sound as if he cared much about McNiven's unhappy predicament:
`Thank you.' Lindsay eyed him steadily. Goss looked very strained, and he could imagine his feelings about the ship's new appearance. `I expect we shall be getting our orders shortly.'
Goss nodded. `Yes.'
It was as hard as ever to make contact with Goss.
Lindsay said, `We will be taking on fuel and ammunition this afternoon. We'll work into the dog watches if necessary. If there's an air-raid on the port we don't want to be sitting ducks.'
In the distance he heard a man laugh, and pictured the returning hands far below his chair as they struggled out of their best uniforms, folding them carefully into kitbags and lockers until the next time. They would all be telling each other of their leaves. Their conquests and their failures. Their families and their expectations for the next leave. It was always the same.
Goss said suddenly, `I've been ashore a few times. Made it my business to find-out where we're going next.'
Lindsay asked, `Discover anything?'
He sighed. It seemed to come from his very soul. `Snotty lot of bastards, sir.' His eyes gleamed. `But I did hear we might be going south.'
Lindsay nodded. `Could be.' He had already noted the extra fans and ventilation shafts, and the bright dazzle paint pointed to something more than another Icelandic patrol. He realised too that he did not care where it was, except for one thing. The faint, impossible chance of meeting that raider again.
Goss said, `If we do.' He moved slightly so that Lindsay could no longer see his face. `I don't think we'll ever get back.'
Lindsay turned in his chair. Goss was deadly serious. As he always was. He was also more troubled than he had ever seen him.
Goss continued in the same empty tone, `While you were
away, sir, they got the old Eriskay. Torpedoed her. Didn't say where.'
Without asking, Lindsay knew the ship must be another of Goss's old company.
Goss said, `Only three left now.' He moved restlesslytoa scuttle, his face very lined. in the grey light. `They'd no right to put them where they can't survive. It's always the same.' He turned, his eyes in shadow. `The big warships
i„ round their buoys in harbour. The best destroyers stay with em just in case they might be in danger. While the poor bloody escorts which should have been on the scrapheap years ago,' he took a deep breath, `and ships like the Becky are made to take the brunt of it!' He clenched his big hands as if in pain. `It's not bloody right, sir! It's notbloody fair!'
Lindsay watched him gravely. Goss's sudden-outburst was both vehement and moving. He knew he was hitting not only at the nameless warships but at the Service which controlled them. Perhaps indirectly at him, too.
`I've seen people in London, Number One, who are in much-the same position. They've no choice.' He hardened his voice. `Any more than we have.'
Goss recovered himself. 'I know that.'
The deck gave a delicate tremor, and Lindsay wondered if Fraser was already in his engine room, testing some machinery or the new generator.
He said, `Well, carry on, Number One. We'll make an early start after lunch.' He saw Ritchie peering in the door and added, `Come in, Yeo.' He watched Goss stride past Ritchie and wondered why he could not face the inevitable.
Ritchie said, `New batch of signals, sir.'
`Thanks.' He flicked over the top one. `Good leave?' He looked up, seeing the distress on the man's round face, cursing himself for his stupidity. `I'm sorry. That was bloody unforgivable.'
Ritchie smiled. `S'all right, sir.' He added, `I'm not sorry to be back.' He glanced around the cabin. `I stayed at the Union Jack Club. Better'n nothing, I suppose.'
Rendezvous-South Atlantic Page 19