Convoy South

by Philip McCutchan

  Kemp had still believed there would be a good deal of brooding once the convoy was away in limey ships, pommie ships taking them out of Australia’s immediate defence…

  He had gone on to Garden Island and collected the canvas bag still in its brown-paper parcel. The Rear-Admiral had had a word with him, personally. Burnside was, strictly, no concern of Australia, being a British ship manned from the home ports, but Naval HQ in Sydney, on Kemp’s account, had asked for details to be signalled. It appeared there was still no complete list of survivors…the Rear-Admiral hadn’t said much, but Kemp could read between the lines well enough: there could have been severe burns cases, even some of the survivors unrecognizable, and identity discs often became detached: held by string around men’s necks, they were not all that secure in fire and explosion. In any case it was often a long job to sort out the facts and the Admiralty liked to be sure before informing the next-of-kin.

  III

  In Coverdale’s chart room Kemp laid his parcel on the chart table. He was alone with Dempsey. Dempsey asked, ‘A present for home?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Kemp stripped away the brown paper, balling it in his fist. The canvas bag emerged.

  ‘Despatches?’

  ‘Yes. Highest classification.’

  ‘My safe —’

  Kemp shook his head. ‘No, Captain. They have to go overboard in certain circumstances. Such as — capture and a boarding party. The safe could be unavailable, say after being shelled. I want them immediately handy. Any suggestions?’

  Dempsey said at once, ‘Surely. I keep my revolver handy — similar sort of reason! You might not be able to get to your cabin. There’s a locked drawer in here. I have the key.’

  ‘Good. May I suggest, then, that we share the key? Whichever of us is on the bridge?’

  ‘By all means,’ Dempsey said. He produced a bunch of keys and opened the drawer. Kemp put the canvas bag in and the drawer was locked again. Dempsey glanced at the bulkhead-mounted clock. ‘Half an hour to go. If you’ll excuse me, Commodore.’ He went into the wheelhouse and Kemp heard the orders passed to the chief officer who had now come to the bridge: stand by in the eyes of the ship to weigh anchor and meanwhile shorten-in to two cables. Kemp left the chart room to stand in the starboard bridge wing. Now the escorts were coming off the berths in Garden Island, Rhondda followed by the destroyers. In the distance, up beyond the harbour bridge, the first of the transports was manoeuvring off Pyrmont. A couple of minutes later there was a rattle from for’ard as the links of the Coverdale’s cable started coming home across the chafing plate, drawn in by the windlass below the break of the fo’c’sle. Now there was a feeling of expectancy, a sense of departure, of being away across the seas, away from the constrictions of the land. It was always like that at the start of any voyage, even to some extent in peacetime a probing into the unknown since no one could foretell what joys and difficulties each voyage would bring.

  Kemp knew there wouldn’t be any joy this time.

  He watched as the senior officer aboard the cruiser turned to starboard for the outward passage, the destroyers following in formation Line Ahead. The minutes to departure ticked away. The leading transport was now coming up to the harbour bridge: the RMS Asturias, once of the Royal Mail Line, a smart ship and a popular one with passengers in pre-war days, now in her camouflage paint; behind her the Carlisle Castle of the Union Castle Line, a ship launched immediately before the outbreak of war so that she had never known the peacetime run from Southampton to the Cape. Now the Coverdale was at stations for leaving harbour, Dempsey standing in the bridge wing with Kemp. As the last of the troop transports came past from beneath the harbour bridge, Captain Dempsey passed the order to weigh; and then, with the anchor held underfoot until the ship was through the Heads, the Coverdale moved out into the main stream to be followed after an interval by the remainder of the convoy, the armament carriers and the grain ships, all of them seemingly surrounded by the well-wishers, the godspeeders in their various sailing boats. Hands waved and shouts were exchanged.

  ‘Good on yer, cobber! Sod bloody Hitler, eh?’

  ‘Up the poms!’ That could be taken either way at choice; Stripey Sinker, watching from the after three-inch, made his own choice and lifted two fingers in a jerking motion.

  ‘Cut it out, Stripey.’ This was Petty Officer Rattray, being officious.

  ‘Winnie does it, PO.’

  ‘With a flippin’ difference. The Aussies, they’re touchy when it comes to poms.’

  Stripey nodded agreement; they were. Even Dinah Deeling could get very Australian when she wanted to. He believed it had underlain their whole brief relationship; at times he had felt she’d been waiting for an opening to make slighting remarks about poms and their ways and in fact, the night before, or rather that early morning, they hadn’t parted on quite the best of terms. Stripey was suffering a touch of unease because of what had led up to it: that evening he’d got a little tight, not unusually of course, but he believed he’d been indiscreet. During the day he’d been checking around the close-range weapons, stripping down and greasing the bridge Lewis guns; and he’d happened to see what he shouldn’t have seen, and that was a hand message from Naval HQ. Naturally, he’d read from the corner of his eye: the convoy would leave for Simonstown at 1030 hours next day, and the order of leaving had been given. Troop transports…well, you couldn’t ever hide a troop embarkation and all Sydney knew. Nevertheless, Stripey had had no business at all to let the Aussie beer prize it out of him for the benefit of Feeling Deeling and never mind that she would be able to see, with all the rest of Sydney, the convoy’s very open departure. Careless Talk Costs Lives. Very true, was that. But of course he’d had to say goodbye properly, which meant reaping the benefit of sadness at his going out across the seas, all heroic. There were not all that many highlights in the life of a middle-aged leading seaman and you had to make the most of the drama of distant waters filled with lurking enemies. And really it wasn’t likely that Feeling Deeling had a personal hot line from the Cross to wherever Adolf Hitler might be, Berchtesgaden probably, or Berlin. All the same, the nagging thought that he hadn’t Been Like Dad Keep Mum had made Stripey a little short and withdrawn at their farewell and he’d tried to walk back on what he’d said the night before.

  ‘Don’t know for sure, like. I could be back this evening for all I know.’

  ‘Make yer bloody mind up fer God’s sake.’

  Something in her tone, a sharpness, made him ask, ‘Why, eh?’ She pushed at her hair. ‘Oh…nothing, I reckon.’

  Another man; it would scarcely be surprising. Even though not on the game, she wasn’t made for celibacy. But Stripey had been stung into making a remark about tarts and she hadn’t taken it well. He could have wrecked a lovely friendship, destroyed an up homers the next time he came back to Sydney. If ever he did. In wartime, you never knew the next move…

  ‘Look at that,’ Rattray said in tones of astonishment. ‘Just bleedin’ look!’

  Stripey looked where bid: the cockpit of one of the closer yachts. There was a girl standing up, straight and tall and slim, waving the Australian flag. She was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and that was all, never mind the cold. No bra. Twin tanned hillocks, with sharp peaks. A cheer went up from the Coverdale’s decks and a storm of acclaim was heard from the transport next ahead as the yacht winged on the wind faster than the outward convoy’s progress in confined waters.

  ‘No bloody modesty,’ Rattray growled sourly. ‘Besides which, it ain’t fair — not when we’re outward bloody bound!’

  On the bridge, Kemp caught Dempsey’s eye and they both grinned. ‘A refreshing lack of inhibitions out here,’ Kemp said. ‘I must say she’s very well equipped.’

  ‘It’s an Australian attribute,’ Dempsey said, and added solemnly, ‘so I’m told. It’s all the fresh air and sun, I expect.’

  ‘And plenty of steak.’

  Dempsey moved to the azimuth circle on the gyro repeater. ‘Br
adley’s Head abeam, Commodore.’

  He spoke to the helmsman. ‘Port ten.’

  ‘Port ten, sir.’ A pause, then: ‘Ten o’ port wheel on, sir.’

  ‘Midships…steady!’

  ‘Steady, sir. Course, oh-four-five, sir.’

  ‘Steer oh-four-seven.’ Dempsey straightened. The outward convoy was now on course for the Inner North Head and the next alteration would come when Middle Head was abeam to port. In the van of the escort HMS Rhondda was already turning for the passage between the North and South Heads and the harbour launches were already preparing to take off the pilots once the ships had moved out into the Pacific.

  IV

  As usual there was a deep-sea swell outside the Heads, but that was all. As yet, little wind. The pilots were transferred and the signals began from the senior officer of the escort, bringing the convoy onto its southerly course for Cape Howe and then Wilson’s Promontory to the north of the Bass Strait between the mainland and Tasmania. Weather reports followed: a blow was now expected in the Bight, but this was normal for the south-land’s winter season. There was time yet before they moved into the Bight.

  Kemp had a word with the Captain; and Dempsey spoke down the engine-room voice-pipe: ‘Chief…’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  Dempsey said, ‘The Commodore would like a look around the engine spaces, Chief. All right?’

  Chief Engineer Warrington’s initial response was loud. ‘Good God!’ It was seldom enough any deck officer even recognized the existence of the engine-room, except on the occasions something went wrong when it was a different story. Warrington added, ‘Of course. At his convenience.’

  ‘Now,’ Dempsey said, and clipped down the voice-pipe cover. ‘All yours,’ he added to the Commodore. ‘Any orders for the convoy while you’re below?’

  ‘No, thank you, Captain. Just my usual standing orders: I’m always to be called to the bridge immediately if required, if you’ll be so good to let all your watch-keeping officers know that.’

  Kemp went below, taking, at Dempsey’s suggestion, the third officer as guide: he was not familiar with the layout of tankers. Down three ladders from the bridge, past the master’s accommodation — and his own, for he was being accommodated in Dempsey’s spare cabin — past the deck officers’ cabins and onto the starboard after flying bridge, one of the long, narrow walkways that ran over the tank tops on the cargo deck, the covers well clipped down against sea and fresh air. He spoke to Third Officer Peel whose single gold stripe was very new.

  ‘Did you do your apprenticeship with the RFA?’

  ‘No, sir, British Tanker Company —’

  ‘Persian Gulf?’

  ‘Largely, yes, sir.’

  Kemp grinned. ‘I believe it’s a bloody awful place. It didn’t put you off seagoing?’

  ‘No, sir, only off the Gulf itself!’

  Kemp grinned again. ‘Hence the RFA — more variety?’

  ‘Yes, sir, though there’s still been time up the Gulf since.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They moved on aft, making for the engineers’ accommodation at the end of the flying bridge. Young Peel had reminded Kemp of things he would prefer not to think about — the third officer was about Harry’s age and there were other similarities, a youthful keenness, perhaps a youthful lack of imagination, no bad thing when you served in tankers with their immense explosive potential. Peel didn’t seem concerned with the dangers. The boredom of Abadan and the Persian Gulf loomed far larger, as no doubt did the terrible enervating heat and the airlessness that would hang about the cabins and all below-decks spaces throughout the ship. It would be nothing short of hell in the engine-room and boiler-room.

  Reaching the after deckhouse Kemp followed the third officer down many decks to the air-lock leading to the engine-room and its criss-cross of shining steel ladders, the spider’s-web that led down to the starting platform with its many dials and gauges and the indicator from the engine-room telegraph in the wheelhouse, the pointers currently showing half ahead. As Kemp reached the platform bells rang stridently and the order from the bridge was seen in the shifting pointers: full ahead. A moment later there was an eerie howl from the sound-powered telephone, answered by Warrington.

  ‘Full away,’ he repeated, speaking to his second engineer. This was the signal for the engine-room to stand down from stations for leaving harbour: the Coverdale was away on passage for the Cape, no more messing about with alterations of speed for a while.

  ‘Mr Warrington?’ Kemp asked, having to shout.

  ‘That’s me, sir.’

  They shook hands. There was clamour all around, a controlled clamour, a smell of oil and of hot metal inseparable from any engine-room. Ratings moved about with long-necked oil cans, the second engineer felt around bearings. There was an air of efficiency and the place was clean, shining. Kemp passed a complimentary remark; Warrington was clearly pleased at his interest and put into words the thought that had come to him earlier. ‘The deck people don’t always appreciate us. But you’ll know that, I dare say!’

  Kemp nodded. ‘I’ve been as guilty as any, Mr Warrington. I’ll try to improve! I’ve some appreciation of what you have to put up with down here. My first convoy…two years ago and more now…’ He didn’t go on: all too clearly he could see the shattered bulkhead aboard the old Ardara, could see the mess that he had inspected during the final hours of that Atlantic convoy as the Ardara, in the care of ocean-going rescue tugs, had inched homewards for the safety of the Clyde. From the air-lock he’d looked down at the water-filled engine spaces, where the pulped body of the liner’s chief engineer lay submerged, trapped as the damaged bulkhead finally went, the end result of torpedoes from the Nazi U-boats. The worst job in any ship, Kemp often thought, helpless down below when things went awry.

  ‘I’d appreciate being taken round, Chief. It’s helpful to know just what I’ve got down here, what power’s available — you know what I mean?’

  ‘I do, sir, and it’ll be a pleasure. If you’ll follow me?’

  Kemp took an interest in everything. The Coverdale’s propulsion was by steam turbines and she had a normal cruising speed of sixteen knots; the extra six knots could be produced when required in an emergency. Warrington, a tall, spare man with receding hair, somewhat grey, was a good instructor, a man of plenty of patience with deck officers when they showed an interest. His own dedication to his engines was obvious to Kemp: he spoke of them as he might of his children. Kemp was not to know that in a sense that was what they were now. Warrington had had a son, killed at the age of fourteen a few years before the war, knocked off his bicycle by a speeding car when on his way to school. His job filled a blank, and he himself reckoned he was better off than Jean, his wife, sitting at home in Southsea and thinking. Sitting because there was nothing else she could do: war work, for instance, was out for her. A bad case of multiple sclerosis; she was virtually helpless and dependent on Warrington’s sister. Warrington tried not to think at all if he could help it. Just sail the seas, tend his engines and do what he could to flatten Hitler before Hitler, or Goering, flattened any more of Portsmouth and Southsea. Last time at home, he’d seen that Palmerston Road had gone, just ceased to exist, along with King’s Roam and most of the little streets between there and the Guildhall. By some quirk of fate, Brickwood’s brewery had survived to continue to bring some sort of cheer to the shoregoing sailors of the fleet. Perhaps there was a kind of justice, but not too much: Warrington’s old mother had bought it during one of the raids. She was probably better off out of it all, though…

  ‘Thank you, Chief.’

  ‘No bother. You can rely on us down here, sir.’

  ‘I’m sure I can.’ Kemp turned away and went back up the ladders. He felt a sense of relief as he made his way from the airlock into the engineers’ alleyway. The Ardara was a little too much on his mind: he must watch that. He’d done plenty of convoy runs since then. So why? He gave a sudden shiver; there was almost an element of
foreboding.

  FOUR

  I

  Now well past Wilson’s Promontory, the convoy was in the grip of the winds roaring along the Great Australian Bight that ran below Melbourne and Adelaide to Cape Leeuwin at the western end, an area of almost constant storm at this time of the year. The ships rose and fell, plunging into mountainous seas that washed them from end to end, swilling, in the case of the Coverdale, over the tank tops to rush aft and discharge themselves through the washports or straight over the side. Semi-laden and in partial ballast, the ship was not down deep to her marks and she rode like the old County Class cruisers of which Rhondda was one: roll and pitch, the roll being the worst, a constant motion that made life uncomfortable in the extreme as men moved about the decks trying to keep some sort of balance.