‘Yes, ma’am —’
‘Tell me. I’m not a child.’
‘Oh no, ma’am.’ Rose Hardisty hesitated, wondering how far to go. Then she plunged; after all, war was war and they were all in it very positively now. ‘The aeroplane’s shooting at those poor soldiers, ma’am. The survivors. In the water and up the side of the ship...’
‘Oh, God!’ Susan lifted her still-clenched fists. ‘What’s everything coming to? Those bastards!’
Rose Hardisty felt a slight sense of shock at the word, coming from the young lady. ‘Yes, ma’am, that they are. But don’t take on, now. Nothing we can do is there, dearie?’ She caught herself up sharply. ‘Oh! Beg pardon, ma’am.’
‘What?’
PO Hardisty, flustered, explained.
‘Oh, don’t be silly, PO.’
‘No, ma’am.’ Rose Hardisty knitted stolidly on, easing a cramp in her legs by stretching them out farther. She wished that Mr. Finnegan was with them still; he was such a nice young man and so polite, and good-looking too. If anything should happen, he would be a tower of strength, but, though it was obvious he liked Mrs Pawle, he’d been very restive about being below with her while things were going on up top and he’d taken the first opportunity of leaving. Rose Hardisty could understand, of course; men were like that. She remembered her young male charges in her nanny years, so much more combative than the girls. And often very rude with it...and the things they used to pick up! Miss Hardisty remembered little Master Donald, who at the age of not quite three had picked up very common language from a village boy and, when rebuked for some really trifling matter long forgotten now, had told nanny she was ‘a fuckum bloosance.’ Rose Hardisty had interpreted bloosance easily enough but had been stumped by fuckum, and she recalled, with a middle-aged blush, the embarrassment when she had asked cook for enlightenment. Little Master Donald, now a major in The Blues — Rose Hardisty always kept up with ‘her’ families — had unfortunately had the makings of a Petty Officer Ramm. She was, however, sure that Mr Finnegan, American though he might be, never used such language.
Even in the midst of war, even in the midst of attack, there was a placidity in the occupation of knitting and the regular click of needles that somehow settled the mind back into happier and safer days before the world had gone mad. Rose Hardisty found little sense in war; the last one hadn’t really settled anything in spite of the sacrifices and her old dad’s best efforts in the stoke-hold of Admiral Beatty’s flagship. And now just look at what this one had done to the poor young lady in the bunk, her life in ruins and her only in her early twenties — and lost a husband too.
Rose Hardisty knitted faster, her head shaking a little from side to side as the needles flashed in her hands and her lips moved as she counted stitches.
She was about to cast off when the Wolf Rock’s luck ran out and the bomb hit. The whole cabin seemed to lift into the air and sway curiously, a very funny feeling and an alarming one, then it dropped suddenly and left Rose Hardisty’s stomach behind as it did so. She dropped her knitting. She gave a cry of dismay as she saw that Susan Pawle had fallen from the bunk — the retaining board had come adrift and her young lady was lying on the floor and was in obvious pain. As she bent to see to her, Mr Finnegan appeared, blood running down the side of his face, which had a nasty gash.
‘Oh my, sir,’ Rose Hardisty said. ‘Just look at you!’
‘Bomb splinter,’ Finnegan said briefly. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay.’ He bent down by Susan, his face showing his concern. He looked up. ‘I’m no medic. Do we lift her, or do we wait for the doc? Don’t want to add to the damage.’
Miss Hardisty knew that the wait for Dr O’Dwyer would be a long one. She said they would lift; the young lady would be more comfortable in the bunk. As they lifted her, Susan Pawle screamed. She was still screaming as they laid her as gently as possible in the bunk.
II
The bomb had taken the Wolf Rock slap in the eyes of the ship, right for’ard beyond the hawse pipes and the anchors. The fo’c’sle-head was shattered, the links of the cables parted and the anchors smashed away from the bottle-screws and Blake slips. The force of the explosion had driven down into the fo’c’sle mess, the seamens’ living space now filled with troops wounded in the vicious machine-gun fire from the Stukas. It was now a charnel house, filled with mangled flesh and bloodied strips of khaki drill. In the midst of the carnage Dr O’Dwyer moved like a zombie, overwhelmed by death and suffering, not knowing what to do, where to start. It was all too much for one doctor to cope with and after one appalled look he stumbled back into the fresh air, emerging on to the fore well-deck shaking in every limb.
From the bridge Kemp looked down on the destruction, at Harrison examining the cargo hatches with the ship’s carpenter. Tod Ridgway, bosun, lay dead by the windlass below the break of the fo’c’sle, his head and shoulders a crumpled, shapeless mess. The fire hoses were in action, their jets pouring water over the hatches. Harrison disappeared below with the carpenter. The jumping nets were still heavy with soldiers; the Orduna herself was burning now to the waterline; in addition to the fire, she had taken another bomb that had fractured her fuel tanks and her bunker oil was escaping, pouring a thick blanket of choking black that spread out fast among the men in the water.
The liner’s purser was among those who had clambered aboard the Wolf Rock. He came to the bridge to report.
Kemp asked, ‘Captain Pope?’
‘Last seen on the bridge, sir. That’s all I know. He’d given the order to abandon...I think he intended staying.’
Kemp nodded. Pope was the sort to do exactly what ship-masters’ were popularly supposed to do: go down with their commands. In the RN the idea was that the ship and captain were a single entity, one and indivisible; Pope would see it in the same light. He’d been that sort of man.
The Orduna’s purser asked, ‘You knew him, didn’t you, Commodore?’
Again Kemp nodded. ‘I was Mediterranean-Australia Lines before this lot.’
‘I know. Captain Pope spoke of you. He said he was glad to be sailing under your command, sir.’
For the third time Kemp nodded but didn’t trust himself to speak. Pope wouldn’t be all that glad by now, assuming he was still alive which he almost certainly would not be. A spirit, passing overhead, looking down on tragedy, of the loss of all those lives, the loss of a great ship? Kemp felt a great weight settle on his shoulders: he had let poor Pope down, hadn’t been able to do anything to help when the crunch had come. Looking down into the fore well-deck, he caught sight of Dr O’Dwyer making his way aft, stumbling and bumping into everything in his path. The Orduna had carried two doctors, two nursing sisters; and there would be an RAMC detachment with the troops. Kemp asked, ‘What about your medical people? Survived — or not?’
‘The nursing sisters were in a boat, sir. I don’t know how they’ve made out.’
Kemp put a hand on his shoulders. ‘Do something for me, Purser. Find any medics you can and ask them to contact our own doctor. They’re all going to be needed now. Down below, there’s a young girl who’s recently had a leg amputated...’
III
It had seemed like hours, weeks, a lifetime even; but in fact it had been going on for little more than twenty minutes before the Stukas withdrew, pursued by the Seafires flown off by the aircraft-carriers. Ten of the Stukas had been destroyed by the combined efforts of the ack-ack and the attentions of the British fighters; the loss to the Seafires had been four, shot down by the Nazi fighter escort. Kemp counted the score: those four aircraft gone, one of the destroyers standing by the scattered convoy sunk, the Orduna burned out and one of the armaments carriers blown up while the survivors from the transport were being embarked. He didn’t yet know about the main fleet but it was, Kemp thought, not exactly a British victory.
He looked around the convoy. The ships were by now widely separated, and were mostly heading west still. The situation, as Kemp remarked to Finnegan w
ho had now joined him on the bridge, was under control for the moment, at least until another wave of dive bombers came in.
‘Which might not be long. I’ll not reassemble the convoy yet.’
‘I guess not, sir. There’s still the surface...the Eyeties.’
‘Yes. You’d better get that face seen to, Finnegan.’ Kemp could see right through into Finnegan’s mouth as the sub talked, could see his teeth through his cheek. ‘Where’s Dr O’Dwyer, by the way?’
‘Making himself scarce, sir. I reckon he’s shit scared if you ask me.’
‘I didn’t ask you, Finnegan, and I’m not asking you now. Go and report to one of the medics from the army, or the Orduna’s doctor if he’s survived.’
‘I’m okay —’
‘You don’t look it. That’s an order, Finnegan. Get yourself bandaged before the next attack comes in.’
Finnegan went down the bridge ladder. Soon after, the various reports reached the Commodore and Captain Champney: the cargo holds were intact and such fires as had broken out had been doused, the hoses still playing on smouldering wreckage. In addition to the bosun and the ack-ack gunner, four seamen of the Wolf Rock crew had been killed. The Orduna’s doctors, both survivors, were at work together with two RAMC doctors and a number of medical orderlies. The transport’s own nursing sisters had not been accounted for as yet but the rescue operation was still proceeding, currently without interruption from the Nazis. Jock Campbell was tearing his hair and was on the verge, like Dr O’Dwyer, of giving up. Troops were everywhere, below and along the decks, lying on the hatch covers, crowding the boat deck and impeding access to the bridge ladders. Peter Harrison was trying to sort them out and bring back some semblance of order.
The trouble spot was the engine-room. Chief Engineer Turn-berry had a broken arm and some rib damage but had been given a temporary repair by the RAMC and was carrying on grimly. His engine-room was a foot deep in water and he believed the ingress was overcoming the pumps. The seam had widened a little and the second engineer had a gang working, trying to make a seal.
Kemp asked, ‘What’s your assessment, Chief?’
‘Hard to say, sir. If we can’t seal it, well, the engine spaces will flood.’
‘And fast, by the sound of it.’ Twelve inches in so short a time was very bad news. Kemp did some sums in his head. They wouldn’t have long if the pumps failed to cope. Like Horncape in the Langstone Harbour somewhere behind the convoy, they would be in need of a tow. And a tow at this stage would seriously affect the manoeuvrability of the reduced escort.
There was, however, some good news and it came via Yeoman of Signals Lambert as he read off a lamp flashing from the Nelson. ‘From the Flag, sir...Italian fleet has suffered severe damage and is running for home. Am pursuing.’
Kemp looked out towards the distant battleships and cruisers. The sound of heavy gunfire was still there, still loud and continuous as the for’ard batteries of the big ships flung their projectiles across some twelve miles of the Mediterranean. The gun flashes could be seen, and the billowing clouds of black smoke that followed them. Kemp leaned over the bridge rail and called down to the troops massed in the well-deck, then turned aft to repeat his words to those aft, the message that the enemy was on the run. A storm of cheering rose from the decks, went on and on. Petty Officer Ramm, in the port wing of the bridge with Able Seaman Cardew, was sardonic.
‘Just done what they always bloody do, that’s all.’
‘Run away?’ Cardew wiped a hand across his sweat-streaked cheeks: his anti-flash gear was wet and clammy, and no longer a nice virgin white. ‘They say the buggers carry their heaviest guns aft, to fire while buggering off — right, GI?’
Ramm nodded. ‘Admiral’s wasting ‘is bloody time, chasing. Them Eyeties have got the legs of those old battle-wagons...twenty-two knots flat out, my arse!’
‘Well, I’m glad enough to see ‘em go,’ Cardew said with feeling. ‘When an Eyetie projy hits, it bloody blows up just as much as a Jerry one.’ He paused. ‘Kemp going to —’
‘Commodore Kemp to you, Able Seaman Cardew. The enemy may ‘ave fucked off but I’m still ‘ere to keep you sods up to the mark, all right?’
Cardew grinned. ‘Commodore Kemp, then. I was going to ask, is he going to —’
‘I’m not party to what takes place in the mind of the Convoy Commodore, Able Seaman Cardew, but if you’re going to ask, is he going to fall out the guns’ crews so they can do a loaf, I’d say we’re still a long, long way from home and there’s plenty of Nazis stationed in Sardinia and bloody Sicily.’
‘I wasn’t going to ask that, GI,’ Cardew said. ‘I was going to ask, d’you think we’ll head in for Malta now?’ The word had spread that the engine-room was flooding and they might find themselves without power, wallowing in the water like a lop-sided duck.
‘Don’t know, do I? I reckon it’ll be on the cards.’ Ramm chuckled. ‘Wouldn’t mind a night ashore, down the Gut! All them tarts.’ Strada Stretta, known to generations of British sea-men as the Gut, was a kind of paradise to be descended upon as soon as libertymen were piped after a ship arrived in the Grand Harbour. Wine, women and song, and dirt cheap too, all of it. It had to be admitted, there were compensations in the sea life. Even in wartime...Petty Officer Ramm had started to elaborate on the pleasures he’d enjoyed down the Gut when he was interrupted by urgent signals from Cardew, who was indicating someone behind his back.
Ramm turned to find PO Wren Hardisty. There was a funny look on her face, sort of faraway and worried, and Ramm believed she hadn’t heard what he’d been saying, which had been fairly lurid, anyway would have been in female ears. Ramm lifted an eyebrow, enquiringly.
Rose Hardisty said, ‘I’m looking for First Officer Forrest.’
‘Won’t find her up here, PO Hardisty. Commodore’d do his nut if —’
‘Where’s the Commodore?’ she asked in a flat tone.
Ramm gestured. ‘Starboard wing.’
He looked at her closely. ‘Anything I can do, is there, eh?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, there isn’t, thank you, PO Ramm. The Commodore...it’s that poor young lady. Third Officer Pawle.’
‘Bad, is she?’
Rose Hardisty answered as though she couldn’t bring herself to believe her own words. ‘She’s been seen to by an army doctor. A major. He says her back’s broken. She may never walk again.’ Tears rolled down Rose Hardisty’s cheeks. ‘He didn’t say, but I think it’s my own fault. I told Mr Finnegan, I said, Dr O’Dwyer wouldn’t be any use and we’d better lift her back into her bunk.’ She turned away, rather stumblingly, making over to the starboard side of the bridge. Ramm watched the movement of an ungainly backside, like a couple of full-size Stilton cheeses rubbing together. Poor old cow, he thought, she’s really upset. And no wonder: he found he wasn’t unmoved himself.
SIXTEEN
I
‘Vessel ahead, sir. Fine on the starboard bow.’
The report came from the masthead lookout and on the bridge of the Langstone Harbour all the binoculars swung onto the bearing which was being indicated visually by the outstretched arm of the seaman in the crow’s-nest. Something, some ship, had already been picked up on the escorting destroyers’ radar, and one of them was making ahead, investigating at full speed. It was a day of sunshine now, sunshine and deep blue water, the Mediterranean at its best after the foul weather that had accompanied the convoy all the way from the Irish coast; the streaming, tumbling wake of the destroyer reached back towards the Langstone Harbour like a brilliant white sash across a blue dress as the freighter came on behind the rescue tug. All seemed to be peaceful: Captain Horncape had heard the distant sounds of the heavy gunfire some hours back but these had faded.
He went into the chart room and looked at the chart, worked out his position by dead reckoning from the last fix, and noted it with a cross in a neat circle. At their current speed, Malta lay some thirty-two hours’ steaming — or towing — ahead.
‘Yes, sir. By which time we’ll be in the Narrows.’
‘That’s right. That’s when the buggers’ll attack. On the last lap...just our luck!’ Horncape lifted his glasses once again. Now the ship ahead was coming into view: he thought she had little movement and there was no smoke. He studied her for a while, frowning. ‘She looks like —’ He broke off as the distant ship started flashing towards the destroyers. ‘Signalling,’ he said.
They waited. Within the next three minutes the answering destroyer began calling up the Langstone Harbour, sending slowly. Horncape gestured to his second officer, who read the signal and noted it down on a signal pad. When the message was complete, he read it off to Horncape.
‘Destroyer reports Wolf Rock ahead, sir—’
‘The Commodore!’
‘Yes, sir. Commodore reports engine-room flooded, ship without power, convoy scattered but re-forming. Commodore intends entering Malta under tow.’
‘Well, I’ll be buggered,’ Horncape said softly. ‘Me and John Mason Kemp...what a way to meet again, both of us lame ducks under tow. We’re going to make it, though.’ To enter the Grand Harbour with his vital cargo intact would make his imminent silver wedding day into something never to be forgotten. He wondered if Nesta was going to spare a thought for him. He would like to feel that she did, as he took his ship on towards the Sicilian Channel and that last lap.
II
Kemp had made the decision after a good deal of thought during which he cleared his mind by a frank discussion with Captain Champney and Finnegan. There was, Champney agreed, no alternative but to enter Malta. The split seam had widened, the packing was proving ineffective, and the pumps were not coping. Turnberry had reported that in his view the engine-room would flood within a couple of hours.
Convoy East (A John Mason Kemp Thriller) Page 19