Convoy East (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  ‘The doctor was unsure whether or not to amputate.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jean Forrest’s tone was bitter. ‘I don’t believe he has any idea what he’s talking about, Commodore Kemp.’

  ‘But if the leg’s trapped —’

  ‘It is, and I don’t mean that. I mean I don’t think he’s fit to operate. Which is a different kettle of fish.’

  Kemp didn’t comment. As he went through into the alleyway and came clear of the teeming rain and the wind’s buffeting he asked, ‘Who’s the girl — her name?’

  ‘Third Officer Pawle. Susan Pawle...she and Anne Bowes-Gourley had gone aft to take charge of the girls.’ She added, ‘To reassure them, really. I hadn’t told them to. I was there myself anyway. It’s such filthy luck.’

  Kemp nodded. He went on towards the shattered compartment where the bomb had gone through. The bomb was still there, wedged like the young Wren officer by the girder that had come down on top of it. Presumably it could go up at any moment; on the other hand it was very likely a dud: the British arsenals often produced duds, and the Germans were known to suffer the same. Kemp sent up an urgent prayer that this was one of the aborted efforts of Krupps or whoever. Petty Officer Ramm was bent in an attitude of listening, his ear against the bomb casing — a brave man Kemp thought, like all the others in the bomb’s vicinity. But he doubted if the bomb had a timing mechanism and he said so.

  ‘Just making sure, sir. But I reckon you’re right, sir.’

  ‘Get the hands round it, Ramm. Get it over the side.’

  Ramm wiped a hand across his forehead, which was streaming sweat. ‘Jammed solid, sir, bloody solid. It’s the girder, sir...same as the young lady.’

  Kemp moved across to Susan Pawle. He didn’t believe she was fully unconscious; her face was tear-streaked and deathly white, and she was moaning, a sound that went to Kemp’s heart. He knelt by her side. Her eyes opened but she didn’t appear to be aware of his presence. Kemp looked at the leg. He believed the knee was smashed. The flesh had been laid bare almost all the way along and there were tendons, as he believed them to be, showing. He got to his feet, bending away from the damage overhead. Deck beams hung, and the overcast sky was visible through the shattered poop decking, and the rain was coming through.

  Kemp spoke to First Officer Forrest. ‘I’m no doctor, but I think an amputation’s essential. Look at that girder!’ The heavy steel had cut into the thigh, right down to the bone. So far the deck gang, assisted by the Naval party, had been unable to shift it so much as a fraction of an inch. But on his way aft from the bridge Kemp had seen Harrison unsecuring the after derrick and preparing to swing a boom over the poop. With the whip of the derrick lowered through the gaping hole and hauled taut around the girder it should be possible to lift it clear enough to release the girl. Thus far it was a question of seamanship, but from the moment of release it would be purely medical. In Kemp’s lay view the leg couldn’t be saved anyway: the injuries were too horrific. He looked round for O’Dwyer: the doctor had disappeared. A few moments later he came through the door from the well-deck. Kemp’s diagnosis was that he had gone to his whisky bottle for support.

  O’Dwyer caught the Commodore’s eye, then looked away. He said, ‘Really there aren’t the facilities aboard. No proper operating facilities, that is.’

  ‘In emergencies, Doctor, you dispense with all that goes with operating theatres, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ O’Dwyer stared across at the girl, pulling at his chin with a shaking hand.

  ‘If it’s the after-care you’re worried about,’ Kemp said, though he knew that wasn’t the doctor’s chief concern, ‘it may be possible to transfer her to one of the capital ships, but not until the weather moderates.’ Kemp’s voice was cold. ‘I suggest you make up your mind, Doctor.’

  ‘Yes,’ O’Dwyer said again. There was a sound from overhead, and he and Kemp looked up. The whip of the derrick was over the hole made by the bomb, and Harrison was visible, giving hand signals to the seaman at the winch. As the whip came down it was grappled by the men waiting below and was lashed to the girder under the orders of the ship’s second officer. As the slack was taken up there was a shouted warning from Petty Officer Ramm.

  ‘Mind that bomb, sir! Best not let it shift, not suddenly.’ Kemp said, ‘Get some hands round it, Ramm. Hold it steady.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir. Leading Seaman Nelson?’

  Stripey Nelson approached the bomb, sweating in spite of the chill of the rain from overhead. Ramm said, ‘Get your gut alongside it. Act as a fender!’ Ramm gave a short laugh: no-one responded. Above on the deck, Harrison gave the order to start lifting, dead slow. The strain came on, the whip tautened and began trembling slightly, there was a sudden scraping sound as the lashing settled; but there was no movement of the girder. Kemp swore beneath his breath. The winch clattered again to the chief officer’s order, just briefly, then was ordered to stop.

  Harrison called down, ‘It’ll start stranding any minute if I put more strain on. I don’t think that bugger’s going to shift.’

  Once again Kemp met O’Dwyer’s eye and, very reluctantly, the doctor nodded. As he did so the action alarm sounded: it seemed another attack was about to develop. Kemp left the after compartment and went at the double to the bridge.

  Petty Officer Ramm, before going up to take charge of the armament, took the doctor’s arm in a grip like a vice. He said, ‘Get ‘er out of danger, Doctor. Get that leg off for God’s sake.’ Ramm’s voice was hard, bitter. He’d seen the indecision in the doctor’s face, the unwillingness to take any sort of drastic action, because he didn’t feel capable. But, Ramm was thinking, anything’s better than nothing and you couldn’t go far wrong in hacking through a bone. Afterwards would be different, and Commodore Kemp would take the necessary action.

  IV

  The radar aboard the big ships had picked up the approach of the second wave of aircraft and shortly afterwards they were seen, coming in on their bombing runs. The Seafires, up again from the carriers, twisted and turned as they attacked the heavy aircraft and their fighter escort. Once again the convoy had scattered outwards, once again the water was dappled with the misses, once again fires broke out aboard the ships as the bombs found their targets. More casualties — the enemy was making the most of his chances while the convoy was still within range. A few more days and they would come out from under as it were, beyond the attentions of the shore-based bombers. Then would come peace for a while if they were lucky. There would still be the threat of U-boats but to a lesser extent. There might be surface raiders, but Kemp still didn’t consider them likely in view of the strength of the convoy’s escort. So there might well be peace — until they entered the Straits of Gibraltar and came into the war-torn waters of the Western Mediterranean.

  When the attack had again been beaten off, and the Langstone Harbour was proceeding safely under tow, a report came to the bridge: the amputation had been performed and the girl had come through. That was all: O’Dwyer was not committing himself further. But later, when he came to the bridge himself, he seemed a changed man, much more confident. Nevertheless, he repeated to the Commodore that the Wolf Rock’s facilities were somewhat lacking and Susan Pawle would be better off aboard a ship equipped with a proper sick bay.

  Kemp asked the question direct: ‘Is she going to live, Doctor?’

  ‘Early days...but one thing’s sure, and that is, she’d have a much better chance —’

  ‘Off the ship. All right, that point is taken. I’ll put it to the Flag but I can guess the answer. Finnegan?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Report the facts to the Flag — get the medical details from the doctor. Ask for a transfer soonest possible. Indicate urgency.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ As Finnegan called for the yeoman of signals Kemp looked across toward the Nelson. Bringing up his binoculars he believed he could make out the Admiral standing by the guard rail of his bridge...a double row of gold oak-leaves on the peak of the ca
p above eyes watchful through binoculars like himself. Had he, Kemp wondered, the right to bring extra worry to the Admiral? He had felt obliged to meet the doctor half way but in fact he could have taken the decision himself to retain the girl aboard until conditions were easier. The Admiral had plenty on his plate, was faced daily with many decisions that could affect the conduct of the war and the lives of hundreds, thousands of men and through them their families ashore. And within the next five minutes one of those decisions, a very minor one really in the whole pattern of the war, was flashed across the turbulence of the North Atlantic.

  Commodore from Flag. Do not repeat not propose endangering convoy for transfer requested. Resubmit if still necessary when weather moderates and convoy is further from danger zone.

  Kemp felt rebuked. Third Officers of the WRNS loomed large in family environments but were of little account at sea.

  SIX

  I

  Dr O’Dwyer poured himself a stiff whisky and knocked it back neat. It was satisfactory that he had performed the operation; but he knew that it could have been more expeditiously done. He had been clumsy and hesitant. He had been assisted by the chief steward and the Captain’s steward, both of whom had looked green and sick while the grisly work proceeded. A lot of blood had been left behind when the girl had been brought clear; she may well have lost too much. Had there been the facilities, O’Dwyer would have carried out a transfusion. As it was he could only hope for the best and keep the wound clean and bandaged. He wished he had the assistance of a nurse. All the Wrens, including their First Officer, had volunteered to help and that was something, but not the same as a qualified nurse. They had to be instructed and then supervised most of the time.

  O’Dwyer looked through his port at the heaving, restless seas: there was no moderation of the weather in prospect and Gibraltar, where he hoped the girl would be put ashore, was as yet some five days’ steaming ahead.

  Five days might prove too long.

  O’Dwyer poured another whisky, this time drinking it more slowly, thinking back to the operation. He had only the basic bachelor’s unspecialized degree as a surgeon; as a ship’s doctor he had had to deal with broken limbs and such in the ordinary course of his duties, although in the liners he had had the assistance not only of a nursing sister but also of an assistant surgeon, usually a much younger man signed on articles at a nominal rate of pay and working his passage to, say, Australia, or homeward bound to UK to take London qualifications. Since leaving the big liners he had been lucky: in the passenger-carrying cargo ships no operations had been required until now. On the few occasions when an appendix had come up, he had been able to postpone operating until a port had been reached and the patient put ashore. Dr O’Dwyer had not operated for very many years. Never had he operated under such conditions: the threat of the unexploded bomb had been very close, though at the time his concentration on the job in hand had excluded it from his mind.

  Now, just thinking about it, he sweated: that bomb was there still. He poured another whisky.

  II

  In rear of the convoy the Langstone Harbour came on at slow speed behind the towing destroyers. Captain Horncape, dead tired and wet through, remained on the bridge for most of the time, relieved for short naps by his chief officer. Towing was a difficult business at the best of times; in such weather it was tricky in the extreme, though in all conscience there was little anyone aboard the Langstone Harbour could do without power if anything went adrift.

  Horncape watched the towing pendants between the destroyers and his ship: they were lifting clear of the water for most of the time even though the bower anchors had been hung off and the cables shackled on to the towing wires and then paid out fully from the cable locker to bring the maximum weight on the tow. It was when the middle of the towing pendants lifted clear that the danger came: there was then immense strain on the wires and cables as they took the whole direct weight of the deep-laden ship, coming up bar taut and dripping water until they were submerged again by the next wave.

  And the Langstone Harbour was dropping farther and farther behind the convoy: Horncape had never expected the Commodore or the Admiral to reduce speed to accommodate one ship. He was lucky to have both a tow and an escort. But as the great hulls of the merchant ships and the aircraft-carriers, and the high superstructure of the Nelson drew away with the cruisers into the distances of the ocean, Horncape felt a strong sense of isolation. In peacetime, you didn’t worry about that, it was part of a sea-man’s calling. In war, it was very different.

  He was almost asleep on his feet when he was spoken to by his chief officer.

  ‘You’re all in, sir. Let me take over.’

  ‘I’m all right. You’ve not had much sleep yourself come to that.’ Chief officers got no rest when supervising the long business of taking a tow, and they had their own watches to keep as well. Horncape said again, ‘I’m all right, Mr Marlow. Sail got me used to this sort of thing.’

  ‘That was a long while ago, sir.’

  ‘Rubbish, man!’

  Marlow thought: obstinate old shellback. Horncape had never been bashful as to his own opinions, which were that sail was the only real training for a seaman and that the modern product could never stand comparison with the old-timers. The Old Man was accustomed to holding forth at meals in the saloon, all about wooden ships and iron men who had now become iron ships and wooden men, about the ferocious winds and seas off the pitch of the Horn, of rotten food — cracker hash and burgoo, or biscuits filled with weevils, no vegetables and often little fresh water; of masters who had driven the crews like slaves, of coffin-ships on which the owners spent as little money as possible with the result that masts and yards carried away under stress, often carrying men with them as they plunged to the deck or over the side to be swept away forever by the roaring greybeards of Cape Horn. It all became boring; but you had, Marlow thought, to admire his guts. Even his obstinacy...

  Marlow left the bridge, sliding down the ladder to the Master’s deck and down again to the fore well-deck whence he climbed the ladder to the fo’c’sle-head for another look at the tow and the securing slips of the cables, the Blake slips taking the strain off the cable clenches in the locker below. As the tow lifted again and again, the whole weight of the plunging ship was being taken on the Blake slips and the bottle-screws. On either bow the destroyers appeared and vanished to the tremendous surge of the waves, down into the valleys to rise again and lie perched on the peaks until once again they slid down into the depths.

  III

  Sub-Lieutenant Finnegan came up the ladder to the Wolf Rock’s bridge and saluted the Commodore who was standing as he seemed always to be standing, in the wing with his oilskin collar pulled up around his ears. ‘How’s it going, Finnegan?’

  ‘No luck, sir. Still jammed fast.’ There had been a hope that when Susan Pawle had been taken from under, the girder would have given a little, but this hadn’t happened. The bomb remained and the engineers’ cabins had been evacuated. The engineers and wrens were now redistributed amidships and in the fore part of the ship, to the discomfort of everybody.

  ‘What’s Ramm’s opinion?’ Kemp asked.

  Finnegan shrugged. ‘He really doesn’t know, sir. Obviously it could go up.’

  ‘None of us know,’ Kemp said. More signals had been made to the Flag, asking for the views and instructions of the Fleet Gunnery Officer. The response had been unhelpful, adding nothing to what those aboard the Wolf Rock had worked out for themselves: try to free it without sending it up and dump it overboard and if it couldn’t be freed, leave it and pray. The Admiral, once within visual signalling distance of Gibraltar dockyard, would ask for ordnance ratings to be sent off at a pierhead jump and embarked to proceed through the Mediterranean and render the bomb safe on passage. But there would, the Admiral signalled firmly, be no delay to the convoy which was sailing on a very tight schedule.

  ‘Sitting on death, sir,’ Finnegan said.

  ‘Put a soc
k in it, Finnegan. No alarmist talk, if you please. It’s only what civilians in the UK have been putting up with for a long time now.’ Kemp gave a tight grin. ‘Although I admit they do evacuate the adjacent streets and buildings!’

  ‘That’s quite a point, sir.’

  Kemp was looking astern through his binoculars. ‘Langstone Harbour’s out of sight.’

  ‘Yes, sir. She ought to be okay...we’re beginning to come to the limit of the aircraft range, I guess—’

  ‘Yes. But the conditions are rotten for the tow.’ Kemp’s mind went off at a tangent. ‘I wonder if old Horncape remembers my name. I —’ He broke off as he saw another figure coming up the ladder. ‘Well, Miss Forrest. How’s the girl?’

  ‘Susan Pawle?’

  ‘Who else?’ Suddenly Kemp remembered: that other bomb, potentially anyway, the pregnant Wren Smith. ‘Oh — yes. Well?’

  ‘Third Office Pawle...the doctor doesn’t seem inclined to say, Commodore. He won’t be specific, won’t commit himself. But she doesn’t look too good to me.’

  Kemp nodded. Jean Forrest, hatless and with her dark hair blown all over the place, looked suddenly — Kemp thought —attractive. Perhaps she was the sort that responded to emergencies, feeling herself less of a spare hand and thus showing more personality. She went on, ‘Third Office Pawle...Mrs Pawle...I don’t suppose you know the story, do you?’

  Kemp shook his head. ‘Is there one?’

  ‘Yes, there is.’ First Officer Forrest told him about the husband lost aboard a submarine on patrol, about the desperate desire to get away from the scenes of the past and the memories of shared experiences. She would, Jean Forrest said, come back to her memories in due course but currently everything was too red and raw. And now this had happened.