Convoy East (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  ‘Yes.’ Jean Forrest thought: how like a man, never raise questions that are best left unanswered. Just expect the wife to accept. Even Kemp, it seemed, had his selfishnesses. Again, like any man. She finished the whisky and set the glass down on a table beside her chair. ‘Thank you, Commodore. That did some good.’

  When she had gone, Kemp went back to the bridge, back to the never-ending gale. The wind had backed a little now, and the convoy, on its easterly course, was once again steaming directly into it.

  IV

  Passing Gibraltar the Nelson had reported to the signal tower that the Langstone Harbour was coming along astern, her engine useless, in the tow of Burgoyne with Hindu standing by. The assistance of an ocean-going rescue tug had been requested to take over the tow. The Flag had made the point that the stricken ship was urgently needed in Malta and should be allowed to continue through the straits with her destroyer escort rather than be deviated into Gibraltar for repair. Once she had discharged those vital foodstuffs, she could undergo engine repairs in the Grand Harbour, where the Navy maintained all necessary facilities.

  ‘She’ll never make it,’ the Admiral commanding in Gibraltar said. ‘On her own, virtually! Two destroyers against Musso’s battleships — and the U-boats!’

  ‘Or what’s left of them, sir,’ his Chief of Staff said.

  ‘H’m?’

  ‘They’ll have met our battleships and aircraft carriers by that time.’

  ‘You mean they’ll do a bunk?’

  ‘That’s what I mean, sir. They’ve done it before. I believe an arse-end Charlie would have a pretty fair chance.’

  ‘Well, it’s undoubtedly true that Malta needs that cargo. No use holding it here until we can find another ship to carry it on. I wouldn’t care to be aboard that freighter, though, a damn sitting duck.’

  Nor would the Chief of Staff, a captain RN who had done his share of seagoing in the past. But the cargoes had to be got through and it was the merchant ships and crews that had to take them. Dangers were the daily ration now, the norm. You just carried on regardless. If you had to give certain orders that led to men’s deaths, you just shrugged it off and forgot about it. If you didn’t, you’d go round the bend. No use brooding; once the Admiral signified his assent to the rescue tug the Chief of Staff would put it all in hand and authorize the tower to call the freighter when she appeared around Tarifa Point and tell her she was not to enter.

  The Admiral asked, ‘What do we know about the ship, Barnett?’

  The Chief of Staff gave him the bare details: tonnage, hold capacity, speed when the engine worked.

  ‘Who’s her Master?’

  ‘Captain Horncape, sir.’

  ‘Horncape, what an extraordinary name. Very well, Barnett, see to it, will you. Tug and so on. Now.’ The Admiral turned his attention to other matters. ‘It’s late but since I’ve been called...have a word with my secretary in the morning, Barnett — the question of the guest list for that French admiral’s visit, the dinner...’

  V

  By dawn the convoy was east of Gibraltar, and moving now into the danger zone. Signals went from the Commodore to his charges, reminders of the need henceforward to be extra vigilant as regards lookouts and guns’ crews. The weather was still foul but the reports indicated an improvement expected within the next twenty-four hours. U-boat attack would be unlikely in the currently prevailing conditions but was to be expected when the weather moderated. And over all would be the threat from the German dive bombers as the convoy moved within range of the airfields in Sardinia and Sicily.

  A few more hours yet of comparative safety, Chief Officer Harrison thought as he paced the bridge in the morning watch, the four to eight, together with Kemp who seemed never to sleep. They chatted as they walked; Harrison found Kemp somewhat heavy going, one of the old guard, rigid with liner discipline and a career background of sail and the rounding of Cape Horn, something that Peter Harrison was glad to have been young enough to escape. When Kemp had been a young man, it had been more or less obligatory to take one’s certificates of competency in sail, in the square-riggers: second mate, mate, and master. Seven years minimum of hell, terrible weather, filthy food and very long voyages. And definitely no women until that long voyage was over, except sometimes for the Master’s wife which in effect added up to the same thing. Masters’ wives were mostly grim in any case, often more autocratic than their husbands. No life for such as Peter Harrison, who liked the fleshpots and all that went with them.

  Coming off watch he washed and shaved and had his breakfast in the saloon. Then he went below to the chief steward’s cabin. He had established, some days earlier, an understanding with Jock Campbell, not without some surliness initially from the chief steward.

  ‘Got your own cabin, Mr Harrison. Why involve me?’

  ‘My cabin’s kind of...out of bounds. There are two people with large, prying eyes and big ears. I refer to First Officer Forrest and that bloody man Ramm, who I think is jealous. Any help you can give, I’d be much obliged. If you follow?’

  ‘I think I do, sir, yes. But you’re asking plenty, asking me to connive —’

  ‘Not connive. Certainly not. Just ease the Way a little, that’s all.’ Harrison grinned. ‘I’m not pinching the stores or asking you to smuggle booze ashore for me, am I?’

  ‘Yes, well.’ Jock Campbell sucked in a deep breath and blew it out again. You met all sorts at sea and some could be nasty if you didn’t meet them half way. Take Mr Harrison, now: one day, and probably quite soon, he would have his own ship as Master. He, Jock Campbell, might well find himself as Captain Harrison’s chief steward, and then what, if he’d already fallen out with him? You had to have an eye to the main chance, after all. Campbell preferred an easy life, liked to keep on good terms with those around him, and in particular those above him. An ill-disposed Master could turn life into a variety of hell if he wanted to, and there was something about Harrison that said loud and clear that he was one who would do just that. Jock Campbell decided to compromise with his conscience. Mr Harrison, he said, would find a key on his keyboard and he, Campbell, would turn a blind eye...the key was that of the linen store and no-one ever went in there unaccompanied by the chief steward himself. Jock Campbell, with his end-of-voyage bonuses ever in mind, kept a very careful check on his stocks and made the necessary issues himself.

  So this morning everything was arranged ahead. Peter Harrison, entering the chief steward’s cabin, said, ‘Good morning, Mr Campbell.’

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘The blind eye if you don’t mind.’

  Campbell said nothing; grinning, Harrison took the key from its hook and left the cabin. Making along the working alleyway one deck down from the chief steward’s cabin, he reached the linen store, let himself in, locked the door behind him, and waited for a knock. Five minutes later it came; Wren Smith was admitted and the door locked again.

  She looked worried. ‘You sure this is all right?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘All arranged. What’s the trouble?’

  ‘I’ve not got long,’ she said. ‘That old bag Hardisty, snooping on me most of the time...’

  ‘You gave her the slip?’

  ‘Yes. Just about.’

  ‘Stop worrying,’ he said, and took her in his arms. He kissed her. He could scarcely wait now; nor, he knew, could the girl. Harrison felt a momentary twinge about the naval rating from Portsmouth, waiting for her in Trincomalee; but he dismissed the twinge easily. The girl was easy meat and promiscuous, like so many women at sea; and being already pregnant, or so she believed, he had no worries on that score. Afterwards, Harrison and Wren Smith left the linen store separately.

  ELEVEN

  I

  Petty Officer Ramm emerged from the cabin he shared with Yeoman of Signals Lambert. He was not in the best of moods. During the night indigestion had hit him; his stomach felt as sour as a dustbin that hadn’t been emptied for weeks. Also, he was worrying about his wife Gre
ta and the proximity to her of the barmaid from Commercial Road, Pompey. Sometime after the arrival in Trinco, the mail from UK would catch them up. There was no reason, really, to fear that mail; no reason why the barmaid should have shopped him in the interval since he’d left Pompey to rejoin Kemp’s staff. But it was a continual, nagging worry and henceforward he would fear every incoming mail.

  Walking along the alleyway with his worries and his indigestion, intending to go up on deck for another check around the ship’s armament that would shortly be in action, he witnessed an interesting sight: Wren Smith emerging through a hatch in the deck, a hatch that Ramm knew led down to the working alleyway where the various store-rooms and such were situated, a place where Wren Smith, or for that matter any other member of the WRNS, had no business at all to be.

  Seeing Ramm the girl looked confused and startled, as well she might. Guilty conscience, Ramm thought. He said nothing to her as she scuttled past him. But he waited, a sardonic look on his face, sucking at a hollow tooth. His wait was rewarded. Up the hatch came Peter Harrison. Harrison, seeing him, looked as confused as Wren Smith.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Harrison, sir.’

  ‘Morning, Petty Officer Ramm.’

  Very formal, Ramm thought. Harrison smiled. ‘Checking round below,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir, I see. Routine, is it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Very necessary I’m sure, sir. What with the damage aft an’ all.’

  ‘Yes — yes, exactly. I —’

  ‘Did you,’ Ramm enquired innocently, ‘see any sign of that Wren Smith while you was below, sir?’

  ‘Wren Smith? Good heavens, no. Why d’you ask?’ Harrison paused. ‘Is she missing?’

  ‘Missing, sir? Oh no, sir. Only a little up top, that’s all, sir,’ Ramm said, and tapped with a finger at his forehead. Harrison seemed to get the drift: it had been a crazy risk for a Wren rating to take and if anything came out the heavens would fall on her. On him, too.

  He said, ‘You seem to have set yourself up as a sort of moral guardian, Petty Officer Ramm. If I were you, I’d watch it.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I could say the same to you, sir, but then it wouldn’t be my place, would it?’ Ramm turned about and walked away, left-right-left, every inch the gunner’s mate, arms swinging, aware of Harrison’s angry stare behind him. Ramm thought, let him bloody sweat. He won’t do it again. Much too risky: he wouldn’t know how far Ramm meant to take it, either. As Ramm came out on deck he saw PO Wren Hardisty walking, or lurching, up and down the after well-deck. Her morning constitutional: Ramm had seen her at it every day so far. They exchanged good mornings; Ramm had a strong urge to report what he’d seen, but he overcame it. He overcame it for two reasons: one, he’d sinned himself and had the worry that Greta was going to find out one day soon about the close-to-home sins in Pompey, and it didn’t do for the pot to call the kettle black in case it brought nasty luck; and two, he was going to sin again before long, and he knew very well who with, and there was no point in alerting Ma Hardisty so that she would stick to Wren Smith like a leech.

  II

  Astern of the convoy, the Langstone Harbour came round Tarifa Point in the daylight hours behind the ocean-going rescue tug that had met her south of Cape St Vincent. Word had already been passed to Captain Horncape from the tug that he was not to enter the dockyard but was to continue through to Malta for discharge of his cargo. But as soon as he was round Tarifa into Gibraltar Bay he made his own signal to the shore-bound Admiral indicating that he had casualties aboard, men who needed urgent hospitalization and he proposed to lie off the mole in calmer water and await a launch from the dockyard.

  The response was fast: within twenty minutes a Naval picquet-boat was on its way out between the arms of the breakwater, with a surgeon lieutenant in the sternsheets and four sick-berth attendants carrying Neil Robertson stretchers. Some fifteen minutes after that the two injured men, strapped into the stretchers, had been carefully carried down the accommodation ladder into the picquet-boat on their way to the military hospital, where naval as well as military personnel were admitted. The naval doctor had shaken his head over the loss, as now reported to him, of the surgeon lieutenant from the Hindu. Horncape asked him the question direct: had he, Horncape, done the right thing in asking for a doctor to be sent across in such dangerous conditions?

  ‘Well, it was the destroyer’s responsibility. They could have refused.’

  ‘That wasn’t quite what I asked, doctor. I’m sure you understand.’

  The surgeon lieutenant nodded . The two casualties had in the event lived without the attentions of the doctor from the Hindu. But whatever the Board of Trade had to say about it, masters of ships were not medics and it was right enough to err on the side of safety. And why add to Horncape’s worries? He was no longer young and had worries enough when commanding a ship without viable engines, bound through to the Sicilian Narrows and Malta, along one of the war’s most dangerous waterways. The surgeon lieutenant said, ‘Yes, I’d say you were quite right, sir.’

  ‘A doctor would have made a difference?’

  ‘I think so, yes. The prognosis...they’ve got here all right, but with medical care en route — well, they’d have had a better chance on hospitalization.’

  Horncape was much relieved. The Hindu’s doctor had been on his conscience ever since the breeches buoy had gone for a burton; to have to live with the thought that his death had been totally unnecessary would have been to spend the rest of his life in a kind of hell. From his bridge wing, Horncape watched the picquet-boat making across the bay and in through the breakwater, its bowman and sternsheetsman standing smartly fore and aft with their boathooks, their white uniforms standing out in the early sunlight creeping over the Rock of Gibraltar. As once again the tow was resumed behind the rescue tug that would take him all the way to Malta, with the destroyer escort standing by to act as their sole defence, Captain Horncape heard the bugles from the one remaining capital ship in the dockyard, heard the beat of drums and the resonance of the brass as the band of the Royal Marines played for Colours and the White Ensign rose slowly up the ensign staff on the quarterdeck. God save the King. A mist came to Horncape’s eyes as his ship moved towards Europa Point: all over the Empire, or such of it as was still free of the enemy, similar ceremonies would be taking place aboard the ships in port. But it would be a long time before such sounds were heard again in Hong Kong and in Singapore and if things continued to go badly in the Mediterranean, then the bugles, the drums and the brass might yet be silent in Gibraltar and Malta as well. As regards the latter, the old Langstone Harbour might bring some temporary succour, help to keep the flag flying over the brave little island a little longer.

  Captain Horncape would use every endeavour to reach the Grand Harbour.

  III

  Dr O’Dwyer’s whisky-laden thoughts went back across the years and he grew maudlin. Once he had been a keen young medico; that had been before the last war, when Edward VII had been on the throne and life had been gay and full of promise. On qualifying from his medical school, a London hospital, he had gone straight into practice as assistant to two elderly partners in the East End of London. The prospects had been quite good: one if not both the partners would be retiring in the not too distant future and even though the practice was not a lucrative one, young Dr O’Dwyer would at least be senior partner quite quickly.

  They had been days of hard work, with not much pay as an assistant although he got free board and lodging in the senior partner’s house. Dr O’Dwyer had done his rounds on foot or by the omnibus, carrying his black bag and an air of importance with him. Always by the end of a long day he was very tired. The senior partner’s house had been a dreary place, he remembered, the senior partner’s wife a frugal one and something of a drudge, as dreary as the house, a taker of messages for the partners, mistress of just one general living-in servant who seemed never to keep the rooms properly dusted and was a poor cook. There had been
a daughter so negative that Dr O’Dwyer could not now recall her name. She was in her thirties and unmarried and of a consumptive appearance and she sat around the house all day doing nothing to help her mother. She had seemed to resent the young O’Dwyer, who was a vigorous young man and well set-up, popular with the young women upon whom from time to time he attended and whom he most studiously avoided at all other times, having taken to heart the warning of the senior partner at his first interview.

  ‘No hanky-panky, O’Dwyer. You know what young women are.

  ‘Oh yes, sir, indeed —’

  ‘Your medical school will have impressed that upon you, naturally. Let me impress it further.’ The old man had leaned for-ward in his chair and with a shaking hand had tapped O’Dwyer on the knee. ‘One word — one word — out of place and you’ll be in trouble. So many of them are like that — troublemakers, you see. Never allow them an opportunity. Never carry out an examination without a chaperon, a mother, a sister, an aunt. Even then, if they’re so minded, they can make accusations of impropriety. Lies, you see. Often their presence is worse, if they care to lie.’

  ‘So what does one do, sir?’

  ‘You use your brain, O’Dwyer. You sum them up. I shall give you a list of those to beware of — they’re best avoided. Tell them to go to the hospital — never examine them. Once the undergarments are off, you’re in danger. A doctor’s life’s a minefield, O’Dwyer, and you must bear that in mind at all times. You can be brought before the General Medical Council at the drop of a hat — and should your name be struck off, your career’s at an end.’

  O’Dwyer had heard all this before; but having the points made by a practitioner actually in the field as it were impressed him deeply. He had best have a care; and he did. He kept examinations of females to a safe minimum, thus learning little of the female form during his early medical experience. Pregnancies and suspected pregnancies were referred to one or other of the partners. There were, of course, other women, those who were not patients, and these had been encountered mainly in public houses where Dr O’Dwyer was wont to relax after the day’s work and before reporting back to the discomforts of the senior partner’s house.