Convoy East (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  Miss Hardisty sighed. ‘That I don’t know either, ma’am, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I don’t think I could take that. I want to carry on...for Johnny’s sake. He was a submariner.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Oh, I’m sure you’ll be all right. There’ll be plenty of appointments once you’re up and about, while the war lasts. Never say die, ma’am, that’s my motto. Now I’m going to get the doctor. I won’t be long, ma’am.’

  She left the cabin. She found Dr O’Dwyer out on deck, eyes bleary and bloodshot, mouth slack. He was taking deep breaths, using the Atlantic gale to clear his head, Miss Hardisty thought with disgust.

  She said, standing square with her hands behind her back, ‘The young lady, sir.’

  ‘H’m?’

  ‘Third Officer Pawle, sir —’

  ‘Oh, yes. How is she?’

  ‘Poorly. In pain again. It’s very distressing.’

  ‘You’re asking for another jab?’

  ‘It seems the only way, sir. I mean, if you agree, of course. But I was thinking, though it’s not for me to say, I know that...’

  ‘Yes?’

  Miss Hardisty had been thinking along lines similar to Jean Forrest. ‘Is there any danger in too much morphine, sir?’

  O’Dwyer laughed, a croaking sound. ‘That depends on what you mean by too much. Too much — just like that — yes, there would be danger. Too much means — a fatality. Miss Pawle hasn’t had too much.’

  ‘But,’ Miss Hardisty persisted, ‘there might come a time, mightn’t there? I mean...what happens then?’

  ‘That time hasn’t come yet. We shall see that it doesn’t.’

  It was, she thought, an unsatisfactory answer and it indicated to her that the doctor didn’t know. She went below with him and stood by while he administered the morphine and remained while Susan drifted off into her drugged sleep again. Soon after that she was relieved by Wren Smith.

  ‘You,’ Miss Hardisty said grimly when the girl came into the cabin. ‘I don’t know as I ought to leave you with the officer.’

  ‘Why ever not, eh? I’m not contaminated, am I?’

  ‘Some would say you were, Wren Smith. And do your jacket buttons up, girl, try not to look like a walking scran-bag.’ Miss Hardisty left the cabin and as she dropped the curtain back into place across the door she heard Wren Smith’s verdict loud and clear.

  ‘Silly old bitch, needs a man herself.’

  She halted, scandalized and hurt. Then she moved away: she had to pretend she hadn’t heard. The remark had gone deep, and her face had lost its colour. It was so unkind, so unfair. She thought of Tom Perkins, gone for many years but never to be forgotten. A gentle man, and decent. Miss Hardisty’s work in the haberdasher’s had filled something of the gap, now filled by her responsibilities as a PO Wren. That thoughtless remark that had come through the curtain with an intent of being overheard brought back the gap very strongly: what would she do when the war was over and she faced demobilization? Middle-aged and crusty, loved by none, stripped of her petty officer’s status, just another ageing civilian looking for rehabilitation in a world in ruins, the aftermath of war. There would of course be thousands, millions, like her. Women who had lost husbands or fiancés. Like her, but not quite the same. In Wren Smith’s terms at all events, she had never had a man.

  IV

  Aboard the Langstone Harbour Captain Horncape had watched the preparations for sending the breeches buoy across. It had been a tense operation, with the destroyer being at times flung towards the freighter’s side, collision being avoided by good seamanship and a fair dose of sheer luck. Horncape’s second officer was on the cack-handed side and the operation had taken a good deal longer than Horncape would have wished; but at last the ropes had been secured, leading across the water between the plunging ships, and Horncape had seen the destroyer’s doctor being put into the legs of the breeches buoy, one hand clasping a steadying line above his head, the other clutching the bag of medical gear that he would need once aboard. With the Naval seamen tailing on to the rope rove around a big block, the breeches buoy with its human cargo began to move out over the warship’s deck, out over the turbulent waves that rose between the ship like gigantic waterspouts. The haul was slow; everything depended for success on the pulley-haulers being able to walk back in time should the scend of the sea fling the ships apart and bring sudden and undue strain on the rope spanning the gap.

  From time to time the doctor was invisible in the blown spume off the wave crests, from time to time his body was submerged in the rising waves themselves. Horncape gripped the teak bridge rail like a vice, knuckles standing out white, lips moving in prayers for the doctor’s safety. In those agonizing minutes all was forgotten except the operation in hand, no thought for the enemy that might be lurking beneath the seas, waiting to attack in better weather, no thought for the forthcoming passage of the Western Mediterranean and the hoped-for arrival in the Grand Harbour.

  Then Horncape heard the high shout from Phillips, second officer: ‘That bloody strop...the eye’s opening!’

  Immediately, Horncape left the bridge, sliding down the ladder and doubling for the after well-deck and the mainmast. As he went he saw two seamen, men who seemed to be all thumbs and no fingers, trying to rig a back-up strop and to seize the end of the main rope to the mast before the strop went.

  Too late: Horncape could only watch in horror as the eye of the strop opened right up under the strain of the breeches buoy, the rope came clear in a fraction of a second and the end whipped back to drop over to seaward of the after guardrails. When the heavy spray cleared for a moment, there was no line stretched between the ships; a tangle of rope drooped from the sheaves of the block aboard the Hindu. There was no sign of the breeches buoy itself or of the doctor. Everyone was looking down into the water, uselessly enough. Even if a body was seen, it could never be brought aboard either ship. Captain Horncape put his head in his hands, seeing what could have happened before the destroyer’s captain had had time to stop his engines, needed for close manoeuvring, the doctor’s body, drawn into the whirl and wash of the screws, shredded into mincemeat by the great blades.

  Second Officer Phillips faced Horncape. ‘I don’t know what to say, sir. It —’

  ‘Say nothing, lad. Not your fault...except that it would have been better if you’d checked that strop before using it. Basically, it’s to be laid at poor Marlow’s door, I fear.’ It was the chief officer’s job to overhaul the deck gear and see it fit for use at all times.

  Later that day, after an exchange of signals between the Langstone Harbour and the Hindu, the course of the tow was altered to the east in accordance with the instructions from Naval Control in the Clyde.

  TEN

  I

  Past the great eminence of Cape St Vincent currently not visible to port behind the night’s darkness and the heavy overcast of continuing foul weather, past Cape Sagres and Cape Santa Maria, below the Gulf of Cadiz for Cape Trafalgar and Tarifa Point, the convoy and its escort steamed on, the aircraft carriers taking seas across their flight decks as their bows pitched under. From the bridge of the Wolf Rock Commodore Kemp studied the lights along the Spanish coastline as Cape Trafalgar was raised on the port bow of the convoy.

  ‘German agents in plenty over there,’ he remarked to Captain Champney.

  ‘As ever. Franco may have kept his country out of the war, but...’ Champney shrugged. ‘They see everything, those bloody Nazi agents. All movements of shipping. Compositions of convoys and strength of escorts, the lot. Straight back to Berlin. Even though it’s night.’

  Kemp nodded. The overcast might help this time, but there was not much security in a night passage when the weather was fair since the phosphorescence of the ships’ wakes would be seen clearly and there was always a luminosity over the water even in the darkest night. Black silhouettes would give the game away, sure enough. This time, unless the overcast did give them some security, the German Naval Command would know within th
e next hour or so that the convoy with its capital ship escort was on passage through the Gibraltar Strait. That news would go as quickly to Mussolini and his battle fleet waiting in the port of Taranto. There was just a hope that the aircraft carriers of the Mediterranean Fleet had been sent on a foray against those Italian battleships, flying off their squadrons of elderly stringbags, but if this was so, then there had been no cyphered confirmation from the Admiralty, or at any rate no such indication from the Flag.

  Ahead of them now around Tarifa was the glow of light from the Rock of Gibraltar: the rock had never been subject to the blackout regulations, since in any case it would have stood out under the lights from neutral Algeciras and La Linea. Then, as the leading ships of the escort, with the Nelson behind, came round Tarifa Point to make below Gibraltar Bay and enter the Mediterranean proper past Europa Point, a signal lamp started flashing from the signal tower in the dockyard.

  Yeoman Lambert reported, ‘Calling the Flag repeated Commodore, sir.’ He read off the signal, a brief one. ‘From Admiral commanding Gibraltar and North Atlantic, sir. Force H is ordered to join escort.’

  ‘Force H! Well, that’s something we didn’t expect! Must be on account of the Taranto business,’ Kemp said. The news was heartening. Force H, based on Gibraltar and consisting of the battleship Rodney, sister ship of Nelson, the battleship Malaya and the aircraft carrier Formidable with their escort of twelve destroyers, would be a very welcome addition to the convoy’s defence. A few minutes after the yeoman had read off the signal, Champney, looking through his binoculars, saw the movement of the great shapes out from the dockyard.

  ‘Coming through the breakwater now, Commodore,’ he said. It was an encouraging sight, but it was also an indication of the expected strength of the enemy.

  II

  Aft by the 6-inch gun, Petty Officer Ramm had watched the occasional lights along the distant Spanish shore inwards from Cape Trafalgar, along with Stripey Nelson. ‘Makes you think,’ he said.

  ‘What of, GI?’

  ‘What of?’ Ramm’s tone was scornful. ‘Of your bleeding namesake, Leading Seaman Nelson. Of England’s glory. Of the whopping of the Frogs and dagoes, all them years ago. The great Lord Nelson...who else? Pity you aren’t more like him an’ all.’

  ‘Never ‘ad the chance, GI.’

  Ramm didn’t respond: in his mind’s eye he was seeing the great ships of the line with their massive areas of square white sail, the gun-ports with the cannon pointing through — the Victory had had a hundred and six of them — the gunners sweating and running red with blood along the gun-decks, the hammock netting on the upper deck filled with the seamen’s hammocks as some protection against splinters and cannon-balls and sniping from the enemy rigging as the fleets came together for a fight to the death, some of the ships dismasted with their rigging and yards trailing down into the water, some of them on fire and burning furiously to the waterline, the officers with their cocked hats and epaulettes standing by the diminutive figure of their admiral on the Victory’s quarterdeck as the British fleet blasted its way into the history books and the nation’s hearts. Petty Officer Ramm saw other things as well: Lord Nelson ashore in Naples, having his way with that Lady Hamilton and never mind the husband. Ramm’s thoughts were still with women as the Wolf Rock brought Gibraltar abeam: more precisely, with Francisca.

  ‘So near and yet so far,’ he said aloud.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Never mind, Leading Seaman Nelson, keep your thoughts on the ship.’

  Stripey grinned in the darkness. ‘Like you, I s’pose, GI?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not ‘arf,’ Stripey said. Then he saw the movement of the heavy ships, the great bulk of the Malaya and the Rodney coming out behind the destroyer escort. ‘Battle-wagons!’ he said. ‘Coming with us, I wonder?’

  ‘If they are,’ Ramm said, ‘and I reckon they are, then we’re in for something big.’

  III

  As the convoy moved on past Europa Point with no shore contact, Kemp was thinking back to the previous day when despite the weather the canvas-shrouded body of Third Officer Anne Bowes-Gourley had been sent overboard from a plank rigged in the after well-deck. He had read the committal service. That had been a heart-rending business. To have to watch the body of a young woman slide from under the White Ensign provided by. Yeoman Lambert from the Commodore’s flag outfit, had been something he would have wished never to do. Women should not, in Kemp’s view, be part of war but in this war that had become inevitable. Plenty of civilian women had died in the bombing raids on the ports and other big cities — Wrens too, in Portsmouth and Devonport.

  Mercifully there had been no need for Kemp’s revolver: the body had been well weighted by order of Peter Harrison, who had anticipated difficulty in the heavy waves, and she had sunk quickly. All the WRNS draft except for Susan Pawle had been present, standing wet and sad in the rain and the spray. Many of them had been in tears, including Jean Forrest and PO Wren Rose Hardisty. The girl had been only twenty-one or thereabouts. Her parents wouldn’t know yet; in due time Kemp would write to them, offering useless words of sympathy; so would Jean Forrest. After the simple, agonizing service Kemp had personal words with each of the girls and then once again took Jean Forrest to his cabin and gave her, not gin this time, but a strong shot of whisky, no water at all.

  He raised the question of the parents. They had a right to know. He said, ‘The report’s gone by light to the Flag, of course —I saw to that. We can only assume the Admiral will pass it to the tower at Gibraltar.’

  She nodded. ‘Do you know when the next mail will leave the ship, Commodore?’

  ‘Port Said I should imagine. There’s been no word from the Flag about putting it ashore at Gibraltar.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. No contact.’ Jean Forrest sounded very bitter. ‘That girl...Susan Pawle. It’s criminal really. At times I wish we still had that bomb aboard, then the Admiral would have had to lie off to embark the bomb-disposal people.’

  ‘Ifs and buts,’ Kemp said shortly. ‘No use dwelling on that, Miss Forrest.’

  ‘There are plenty of things it’s no use dwelling on.’ She was thinking of the Blenheim brigadier. He’d been a so-and-so, of course, but she’d liked him and he had brought something to her rather lonely life: with the onset of real war, after the so-called phoney stage, all social life had been broken up, old friendships ended as men were called away, new links to be forged, so many things changed, all the outlooks different, everyone busy with war work of one sort or another. Jean Forrest had unashamedly enjoyed sex and the brigadier had been good at it; which thought made her ashamed when it came to dealing with Wren Smith now about to be carried on from Gibraltar with her personal problem. Where was the difference between herself and Wren Smith, except that Wren Smith hadn’t been very clever about it? The moral issue was precisely similar; but morals had largely gone by the board now. It was a case of here today and gone tomorrow, and enjoy life while you could. Drink and sex were largely the means of wartime enjoyment and there were plenty of entrepreneurs to meet the demand. Little drinking clubs had sprung up everywhere where there were officers of the three services — London’s West End where the office admirals and generals hung out, Southsea for the Portsmouth-based ships and establishments, Plymouth for Devonport, Rochester and Gillingham for Chatham. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Salisbury, Colchester, Aldershot...some people were coining it, all part of war, some lost and others gained.

  ‘A penny for ‘em?’ Kemp’s voice broke into her thoughts; he was smiling kindly across the cabin. ‘Things it’s no use dwelling on,’ he prompted.

  ‘Oh...nothing really, Commodore.’ She had summed Kemp up from the moment of first meeting over his breakfast table in that Glasgow hotel: she needed a shoulder to cry on but although he seemed a kindly man his wasn’t the right shoulder in the circumstances of her own particular bereavement, the so-and-so brigadier. John Mason Kemp, Commodore RNR, late senior Master in the Mediter
ranean-Australia Line, was the faithful sort. Jean Forrest doubted if since marriage he had ever slept with any woman other than his wife, and that despite the long and frequent partings and the easy proximity of women afloat between Tilbury and Sydney, all inhibitions cast aside in so many cases as they met the hothouse atmosphere of a great liner. Floating gin palaces-cum-brothels, she’d heard them described as. In peacetime; not any longer. Now they were all hired transports on charter to the War Office, like those currently in company. She said, ‘Just home thoughts, that’s all.’

  Kemp nodded understandingly. ‘We used to call it an attack of the channels.’

  ‘Channels?’

  ‘Yes. It used to come on homeward bound. On the outward run you were looking ahead to Australia and somehow you didn’t think backwards too much. But the moment the ships left Fremantle homeward, the whole crew seemed desperate to get home quickly, couldn’t wait to see the English Channel and the good old White Cliffs. Then a spot of leave.’

  ‘Then back to Australia again.’

  ‘That was the pattern, yes.’

  ‘Not much of a life for a married man.’

  ‘Well — no, I suppose not. But I wouldn’t have changed it, never thought of leaving the sea. The sea gets into the bloodstream, I think! And seafaring people. They’re about the only sort I really get on with.’ Kemp gave an embarrassed cough. ‘I refer to men, Miss Forrest. The ladies...well —’

  She laughed. ‘It’s all right, Commodore, I know what you mean. How did Mrs Kemp take the absences? It’s harder on the wives, I’d have thought.’

  ‘Yes, it is. My wife grew accustomed, I suppose.’

  There was a twinkle in her eye. ‘You never exactly asked her?’

  ‘Well — no, I don’t think I did. She knew what she was in for, marrying a seaman.’