Convoy East (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)
Page 20
‘You’ll request a tow, sir?’ Finnegan asked.
Kemp snorted. ‘What else?’
‘Sorry, sir.’ Finnegan paused. ‘What about the convoy?’
‘I have that in mind, of course. You have a penchant for stressing the obvious sometimes, young Finnegan. The convoy’s going to pass close enough to Malta — the farthest from Sicily and the toe of Italy the better. I shall see the Wolf Rock into the Grand Harbour...then I shall transfer to another ship in the convoy. Whoever’s detailed to tow us in will hand over to the harbour tugs on arrival and can then take us off to catch up the convoy and embark at sea.’ Kemp paused. ‘Draft a signal to the Flag, Finnegan, outlining what I’ve just said.’
‘Aye, aye, sir. Then we wait for the reaction from the Admiral, I guess.’
‘You guess well, Finnegan. But anticipating the Admiral’s concurrence, you’ll tell Petty Officer Ramm and all staff to prepare to transfer with me.’
‘Yes, sir. And the Wrens?’
Kemp said, ‘The WRNS detachment is under orders for Trincomalee, which means they’ll have to keep with me. You can tell First Officer Forrest that I’d like a word with her — if she can fight her way through the soldiery! I have to consider Third Officer Pawle, you see — and Wren Smith.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Finnegan left the bridge, passing Petty Officer Ramm waiting to climb the starboard ladder. He passed the Commodore’s order. Ramm said, ‘Malta, eh. Thought as much, I did, sir.’
‘Sure. But not to remain.’ Finnegan passed the rest of the orders: the transfer of the Commodore’s staff to another ship. As he moved away he was aware of a sour mutter under the PO’s breath, something about sod that for a lark. Pushing through the throngs of khaki-clad figures lying, sitting and standing about the decks, Finnegan found Jean Forrest in Susan’s cabin. PO Wren Hardisty was with them, her face a mess. Susan was lying very still and Finnegan realized that under the sheet she was encased in plaster. Her face looked haunted but although she had obviously been crying, her cheeks were dry now.
Finnegan was overcome with embarrassment. Avoiding the girl’s eyes he spoke to Jean Forrest. ‘Commodore’s compliments, ma’am. He’d like a word...on the bridge.’
‘On the bridge?’ Jean Forrest gave a rather shrill laugh. ‘The last time I went up there, I was threatened with death. Almost.’
‘This time it’s different, ma’am. If you’ll come with me, I’ll push through the troops for you. Act as an escort.’
She said, ‘Oh, I’ll manage. I’d sooner you stayed with Susan if you can be spared.’ She lowered her voice. ‘She’s been asking for you, as a matter of fact. You did some good before. See if you can do it again.’
‘Sure,’ Finnegan said, still much embarrassed. ‘I’ll do my best, anyway.’
‘Good,’ she said, and gave his arm a squeeze before she left the cabin. He stood by the bunk, looking down in concern but trying to keep it out of his face: he had to be cheerful, keep her spirits up, but he hadn’t an idea in the world of what to say that wouldn’t sound forced and trite.
Rose Hardisty came across and stood beside him. She said in a flat tone, ‘It’s that Dr O’Dwyer, that’s what it is. If he’d been any use I’d never have lifted her, but I knew he wouldn’t come that quick. Not in time. And she was lying there.’ She went on impulsively, ‘It’s the drink, sir. I’ll say that whoever tells me I shouldn’t do. It’s not right, specially in wartime, is it, sir?’
Finnegan said, ‘Well, I guess it’s not for me to comment, ma’am, POI mean. But I don’t reckon you should blame yourself any. You did what you thought best and me, I reckoned you were right.’ He turned and found Susan staring at him and he gave her a smile.
There was no answering smile on the girl’s face. Their voices had carried. In a hard tone she said, ‘For God’s sake, don’t argue about it now. It’s done. Like me.’
Finnegan shook his head. ‘Not you, ma’am, Susan. Far from it. You’ll be okay.’
She laughed, another hard sound. ‘Where did you study medicine?’
He flushed. ‘Sorry. It’s...it’s just that I’m dead sure you’re going to be okay.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’ll live. That army doctor assured me of that. In a bloody wheelchair. The rest of my life.’
‘He didn’t say that?’ Finnegan was shocked.
‘Oh, no, he didn’t say it. They don’t, do they? Always reassuring, look on the bright side. So I’ll live, yes. As I said, in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. Do you know what that means, do you really think that’s what I want?’
‘Well, now —’
‘I’d rather die. There’s nothing to live for anyway. There hasn’t been, ever since —’ She broke off; tears ran down her face.
Rose Hardisty came across, eyes troubled, close to tears her-self. ‘Now, ma’am, don’t take on. Things’ll come brighter one of these days, they always do if you don’t give in.’ She bent and straightened the blanket over Susan’s body. ‘There now,’ she said, back again in the nursery. ‘That’s better.’
Finnegan felt himself superfluous: he was doing no good and he knew he looked as awkward as he felt. And he would be needed on the bridge, maybe. Also there would be much to see to in getting the Commodore’s staff and equipment ready for the transfer after they reached the Grand Harbour. If they did. As he left the cabin he realized that Susan Pawle had asked no questions about what was going to happen; maybe she just didn’t know about the engine-room and the Commodore’s dilemma about to be resolved in a change of destination and the transfer. Very likely she didn’t; but Finnegan believed that she genuinely didn’t care anymore. She might even welcome the quick end that could come from a bomb in the next attack by the Stukas. Finnegan was very thoughtful as he climbed to the bridge. This war was turning out somewhat differently from what he’d expected in the heady days, seeming far off now, when he’d left home to join in the fight for freedom via Canada and the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. Guns and shells were on the menu, and sinkings, and death — he’d known all that, of course. It hadn’t worried him; he would come through whatever happened, and he would see Adolf Hitler topple from his grisly pinnacle of power. He would be there, along with the Canadians and the Yanks and the French and the British Empire when the grand victory parade was held, as held it would surely be, in London, plus a ticker-tape welcome through the New York streets to the returning veterans. All that was part of war, part of his own plan as he saw it. What he had never reckoned on was what was happening in the cabin he had just left, a young and vital girl wishing only that she could die because of the double tragedy inflicted by the Nazi war machine.
Once again he encountered Petty Officer Ramm. Ramm asked, ‘How’s the young lady, sir?’
Bitterly, Finnegan told him, releasing some of his own frustration at being able to do damn-all to help. He saw the hard look in Ramm’s face and the way the PO’s fists clenched. In a wooden voice Ramm said, ‘Them buggers!’ and turned away, trying to march along the crowded deck, shouting for a gangway through the troops and cursing luridly about brown jobs when he stumbled over out-thrust, weary feet.
III
‘It’ll depend on the Admiral, of course, Miss Forrest,’ Kemp had said. ‘But you’d better prepare your draft for transfer with my staff.’ He paused, lifting his binoculars to rake the skies to the north, expectant of attack at any moment. The convoy was reassembling under his orders since it had to maintain some kind of cohesion and make its easting through the Mediterranean for Alexandria and Port Said; but Kemp was not intending to bring the ships into any close formation and had signalled a warning that the scatter order might come again. He turned back to Jean Forrest when he found the skies clear.
‘The only question mark is around your Mrs Pawle. And that Wren Smith. Not that there’s much of a query about Mrs Pawle, of course. She’ll be landed to the Bighi naval hospital.’
Jean Forrest nodded. ‘I’ll see that everything’s ready, Commodore.’
/> ‘Let the army doctors have charge of her meanwhile, Miss Forrest. Not Dr O’Dwyer. If he doesn’t like it...he knows what he can do.’
She grinned. ‘Take a running jump?’
‘That’s putting it politely. Has he been seen around?’
‘No.’
‘That’s blunt!’
‘Well...he’s been seen I admit. Wringing his hands. I think he knows when he’s not wanted.’ She added after a moment, ‘I don’t think it’s quite his own fault, Commodore.’
Kemp snorted.
‘No, I mean it. He has a history — I’ve talked to him. He opened up —’
‘When drunk?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Very drunk! Anyway, he talked about himself. In the last war...I gather it was what we’d call shell shock. They deal with it differently now. But back in fifteen or whenever, they —’
‘Yes, I know. I was in that war too, Miss Forrest. In destroyers and minelayers — lieutenant RNR. So you’re saying it was that that led to the bottle. Whatever the reason, the man’s no damn use as a doctor.’ Kemp’s tone was dismissive of any further discussion about Dr O’Dwyer. ‘Now, what about that blasted pregnant girl? What do we do with her, for God’s sake?’
‘She’s part of the draft, Commodore.’
Kemp gave a short laugh. ‘Even pregnant?’
‘Which she still insists she isn’t.’
‘Quite a change of story — but we’ve been into that before. My recommendation is that she’s put ashore in Malta and left as a problem to the authorities there. However, I doubt if the decision lies with me. It’s your pigeon, I fancy!’
Jean Forrest said, ‘Yes, I suppose it is. Have you specific reasons for recommending she’s landed, Commodore?’
‘Yes, very. Disruptive influence. I may be the old so-and-so whose world is bounded by the bridge and is scarcely human, but I do have eyes and ears. I understand there’s been hanky-panky between your Wren Smith and the Chief Officer. I also understand that Petty Officer Ramm has been, shall we say, trailing his coat at her door —’ Kemp broke off, having been interrupted by an involuntary giggle. ‘Now what have I said, Miss Forrest?’
‘Just something rather old-fashioned, Commodore.’ Jean Forrest had had a vision of the Blenheim brigadier, trailing his coat outside her door in Oxford.
‘I’m an old-fashioned man,’ Kemp said, ‘but that won’t prevent my putting it into basic English if you wish.’
‘It’s quite all right,’ she said with a touch of rather wicked primness. ‘I did get your drift. And I agree with you. I’ve certainly no wish to carry that girl on.’
‘Give her the order, then,’ Kemp said briskly. ‘Bag-and-ham-mock, immediately on arrival.’ He was about to go into further details, ask Miss Forrest if there were any WRNS detachment in Malta, and if not, to whom Wren Smith should report, when there was a shout from the yeoman of signals.
‘Flag calling, sir, via Glamorgan as repeating ship.’ The Nelson with the main battle line was now well out of visual signalling distance and was using the cruiser as an intermediary. Lambert read off the signal. ‘To Commodore, sir. Your 0830 concur. You will be taken in tow by Probity and will hoist your broad pennant in Orlando on rejoining. Message ends, sir.’
‘Thank you, Lambert. Acknowledge.’ Kemp turned to Miss Forrest. ‘Orlando — another Orient liner. We certainly don’t want Wren Smith running riot about a liner, do we? And we’ll take that decision upon ourselves...making the assumption the Flag’s too busy to be bothered!’
Jean Forrest left the bridge for an unwelcome interview with Wren Smith; and as she went down the ladder a report reached Kemp from the masthead lookout, the report that a destroyer was coming in fast from the east. Shortly after this the signalling started up again: the Langstone Harbour was reported only a short distance to the westward. Later, while the Wolf Rock, her engine-room evacuated, was taking up a tow from the destroyer Probity, the laden freighter with her vital food cargo was seen hull down, emerging gradually over the horizon behind her own tow, the ocean-going rescue tug cleaving the blue water with its bluff bows, bringing Jake Horncape to rejoin the convoy.
Kemp sent him a welcoming signal. Two lame ducks now, he said. Two lame ducks that were going to make the Grand Harbour come what may. That signal had scarcely been sent when the Flag broke wireless silence to report the next attack coming in but not, this time, the Stukas. The destroyers screening the battleships, way out ahead, had picked up a nest of submarines on their Asdics.
IV
‘All hell’s being let loose,’ Steward Botley reported to Jock Campbell.
‘Where, eh?’
‘Miss Forrest’s cabin.’ Botley clicked his tongue. ‘Such language! I dunno...talk about Billingsgate.’
‘Not Miss Forrest?’
Botley jeered. ‘Not likely. She sent for that Wren Smith, the one with the —’
‘Yes, I know all about that.’ Jock Campbell’s eye wandered to his keyboard: the key of the linen store hadn’t been absent since the pongoes had embarked. Mr Harrison would be missing his oats right enough. ‘So what’s going to happen? Don’t tell me you didn’t hover, Botley.’
‘Didn’t need to, not really. That little tart was shouting the odds and getting nowhere fast. She’s to be shoved off the boat in Malta. I reckon she was hysterical...flinging all sorts of charges around.’ Botley paused, eyeing the chief steward somewhat circumspectly. ‘Said if she was landed in bloody Malta she’d bring out a load of dirty washing.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Jock Campbell suddenly felt uneasy. ‘Such as?’
‘She’s going to say that Ramm had tried to rape her.’
‘That all?’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ Botley said. ‘She’s going to implicate Mr Harrison. Forced her to have it off.’
‘Go on, Botley.’
‘In your linen store, Mr Campbell. That’s what she said.’
‘I see. And Miss Forrest? How did she react?’
Botley shrugged. ‘I dunno. She was keeping her voice down, all ladylike. But it’s going to set the cat among the bloody pigeons, I reckon, if that girl does what she threatened.’
‘You can say that again.’ Jock Campbell pushed himself back at full arms’ stretch from his desk and stared blankly at the deck-head above him. He had suddenly become a very worried man. Petty Officer Ramm may or may not have tried to rape the girl — probably hadn’t, Ramm was no bleeding fool — but it was a certain fact that Mr Harrison had had it off with her. It was likewise a fact that the venue had been the linen store of which only he, Jock Campbell, had the key. There was no way anybody could get that key from its locked keyboard except himself, or with his connivance. If asked, Jock Campbell would not deny the facts. He prided himself on never having told a lie. Chief officers were chief officers, but chief stewards also had their responsibilities and were little kings in their own territories. The Company in London would not take kindly to a chief steward who’d hired out his linen room for fornication. They wouldn’t sack him, not in wartime, but as soon as the war ended he would be in disfavour to say the least and would quite likely not be offered a ship. And a chief steward eased out for being in dereliction of his duties and responsibilities would face the end. No other Line would employ him, except maybe as a cabin steward like Botley, or a saloon waiter aboard a liner. And the home in Liverpool, if it remained standing against Goering’s perishing Luftwaffe, depended on its lord and master bringing home the lolly as a chief steward. What was he going to say to Mary, when the chop came? And in fact the chop could come even while the war lasted. There were plenty of blokes coming up for chief stewards’ berths: he wasn’t the only one available to the Company. If he got pushed out in wartime, well, he knew the next step: no longer seagoing, he would be called up for military or naval service, end up as a pongo or an ordinary steward, berthed in a hammock on the mess deck of a warship and emptying the officers’ piss-pots. And the last person to help him would be that Mr bloody Harrison...
SEVENTEEN
I
Chief Engineer Turnberry plus all the rest of the engine-room and boiler-room complement was now mostly on deck. With the engine-room flooded and the tow buttoned-on the Wolf Rock was proceeding slowly with no power of her own, lower in the water than was usual. Turnberry and his second engineer were taking watches turn and turn about on the watertight bulkheads. If those reinforced bulkheads, running right across the ship immediately for’ard and aft of the engine spaces, should fail to take the load of the water and started to spring their seams then the Wolf Rock would be in real trouble and would probably go down like a stone as the sea rushed through to bring its weight to bear on her stability.
It was in fact unlikely; but it could happen. And now the Eyeties were coming in with their submarines, and just one torpedo hit on the Wolf Rock would be the end.
Pressing through the massed troops while his second engineer took the watch, Turnberry climbed to the bridge. He approached Champney.
‘How’s it going, Captain?’
‘Convoy and escort are altering course to come closer to Malta, Chief. We’ll break off on the signal from the Flag.’
‘With the Langstone Harbour?’
Champney nodded. ‘Yes. And our own escort which’ll take off the Commodore’s staff after we’ve entered.’
‘I heard a buzz...Kemp’s going across to the Orlando — right?’
‘Yes —’
‘Lap of luxury. All right for some.’
‘Just as likely to get a fish. Or a bomb.’
‘I never said not.’ Turnberry looked around, looked at the unruffled blue Mediterranean. ‘Where are these submarines, Captain?’