II
Leading Signalman Goodenough prided himself on his ship recognition: he’d made a study of it, partly because it was his job to spot an identity if possible, partly because he was interested and had read every reference book he could lay his hands on. He knew all the pre-war liners — Cunarders, Union Castle and so on, and the foreigners — Bremen, Ile de France, Normandie, Rex, Conte di Savoia. The war had taught him more: the books of silhouettes of ship types had brought the smaller cargo vessels into his range. Thus, when the smudge on the horizon had grown into a ship, he was able to report at once to the Commodore.
‘Gerhardt Abusch, sir. 3500 net register tons.’
‘One of the Kormoran’s supply ships — just as I thought,’ Kemp said, steadying his binoculars on the emerging ship. ‘Armament’s what — 3-pounders plus ack-ack?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Goodenough answered.
Kemp looked round: already Cutler was calling down to the guns’ crews through a megaphone and as Kemp watched he saw both the ship’s main weapons train round onto the bearing. The Gerhardt Abusch was coming on fast: Coverdale was her nearest target after the destroyer; and Kemp realized that the Nazi was making a bee-line for him and seemingly had the legs of the action-damaged escort, now opening fire with her remaining twin guns for’ard, pumping out shells that were so far failing to find their mark, though with water-spouts from near misses cascading like fountains over her decks, the onrush of the Gerhardt Abusch had all the appearance of a suicide bid. Kemp thought of his earlier remark about her captain having ideas of heroics. Currently, it was the sort of lunatic heroism that looked like paying off: flashes came from the Nazi as she turned slightly so as to bring her armament to bear, and more spouts arose astern of the Coverdale, which seemed still to be somewhat outside the German range.
Kemp passed the order to Cutler: ‘Open fire!’
Fore and aft, Rattray and Stripey Sinker repeated the orders to the guns’ crews. There was a shudder throughout the ship, a series of ear-splitting cracks as the rapid fire was kept up. Shell cases clattered down to the tank deck and the stench of cordite wafted across the bridge. The firing seemed almost frenzied: if the Nazi couldn’t be held off, they were all due for a very nasty fry-up. Petty Officer Rattray gave a shout of joy as an explosion was seen on the Nazi’s fo’c’sle, just for’ard of the bridge superstructure, orange flame followed by thick, billowing smoke.
‘First blow to us,’ Kemp said on the bridge. He was about to say something further when there was a high whine from immediately above his head and he went flat instinctively. There was the sound of splintering woodwork, the smash of glass, and a high, strangled scream from behind Kemp.
He pulled himself upright. Dempsey, who had been beside him, was running for the wheelhouse, which was a shambles. The Nazi shell appeared to have passed right through without exploding but had left havoc behind it.
And blood. The whole place was spattered: the chief officer, Harlow, lay on the deck, a gap where his chest had been. He was almost cut in two. The helmsman lay decapitated behind the wheel, which was spinning out of control; Coverdale was beginning to move in a circle. Dempsey himself grabbed the wheel, and brought the ship back on course.
‘Steering all right?’ Kemp asked breathlessly.
Dempsey nodded, looking out through the shattered side of the wheelhouse towards the Gerhardt Abusch. The German opened again and a moment later there was a big explosion aboard the Bass: something had landed on her fo’c’sle, and had taken out what was left of her main armament. It was a lucky shot from a pea-shooter that had perhaps scored its freak hit either just as a shell was being rammed home in the breech or more likely had landed on the ready-use ammunition in the racks. With probable subsidiary damage to her bridge and command personnel, the destroyer fell away, her head paying off to port with her engines still giving full power to her shafts. In the meantime the Coverdale was standing into danger. They had the speed to get clear of the German gunners and they were valuable to the war effort, more valuable than the problematic sinking of a supply ship. But there were those jam-packed troop transports for the Commodore of the convoy to consider. Captain Dempsey seemed to sense the way Kemp’s mind was working, to sense his indecision, and he said promptingly, ‘Just us and our guns between the liners and the Nazi. And as you remarked earlier, Commodore, the Coverdale’s my ship. I’m willing to take a chance.’
Kemp nodded his agreement: he understood Dempsey’s attitude. In war you didn’t run away. He went out into the bridge wing and watched the effect of the gunfire from both sides. Coverdale now alone against the German while the convoy, continuing on its steady course, moved westerly — well out of range by this time. Kemp believed he was now waiting for the end, and half his mind, at this late stage in which he could play no active role, went homeward across the waste of seas, home to Meopham and his wife, now facing a double tragedy — a son to be followed by a husband. Bleak thoughts, and so much to be laid at the door of Adolf Hitler, plotting mass murder from his eyrie at Berchtesgaden. Kemp’s fists clenched hard behind his back: he felt so helpless, not for the first time as a convoy Commodore. He was nine-tenths a figurehead, though he could also be considered a rallying point when there was anything left to rally. In the last war he’d been active enough as a lieutenant RNR in destroyers and minelayers. Age went hand-in-hand with seniority and now he was too old and too senior for the more active role, an Ancient Mariner drifting across the last seas of life…
Vengeful cracks, more acrid smoke, explosions aboard the Gerhardt Abusch, another awesome whine across the fore part of the Coverdale…a minute before, seconds before, the ship’s bosun had been on the fo’c’sle, God alone knew what sense of duty had made him go up there to be an extra target. Now he was gone, taken out like Harlow by a shell that went on to hit the sea and send up another waterspout. Then an explosion by the after superstructure above the engineer’s accommodation, a blast that cleared the poop of all the smaller impediments but so far as could be seen left the 3-inch intact.
After that the miracle, by courtesy of Petty Officer Rattray who had taken over personally as layer on the for’ard 3-inch — seeing as he knew best, as he put it later. His gun’s crew put it down to sheer luck but whatever it was the result was satisfactory: two projectiles took the Nazi smack amidships, penetrated the unarmoured sides and caused havoc inside the hull. A magazine, was the general verdict. The Gerhardt Abusch erupted in smoke and flame and began to settle fast, with her back apparently broken, her stem and stern both pointing up to the skies until each part slid separately beneath the surface, leaving assorted wreckage and a handful of men struggling in the water. Away to the north-west, the Australian destroyer was still moving in circles, her helm stuck fast and neither her secondary nor emergency steering positions yet connected up.
A matter of minutes only since the action had begun, but to Kemp it had been an eternity.
He went into the wreckage of the wheelhouse. ‘Captain, I’d be obliged if you’d send a boat away to pick up survivors. Cutler, make to Bass from Commodore, report situation aboard. And after that, my congratulations to Petty Officer Rattray —’ He turned as he heard a step on the starboard ladder. ‘Oh, there you are, Rattray.’
‘Yessir.’ Rattray never missed a chance of pushing himself forward. He saluted smartly. ‘Come to report like, sir —’
Kemp smiled. ‘I saw for myself. Very well done. You saved the ship. We’re all grateful to you.’
‘Yessir — thank you, sir.’
‘All right, Rattray. My congratulations to all men of the guns’ crews — they all did splendidly.’
Rattray saluted again and went down the ladder, making aft where the Coverdale’ s seamen under the third officer were sorting out the damage to the poop. The second officer had taken over the watch; Harlow’s remains had been removed below to his cabin when the reply to the Commodore’s signal came in from the Australian destroyer. The ship was seaworthy but virtually defencele
ss. There was some damage to the connecting links between the tiller flat and the secondary steering position aft of the searchlight platform but the warrant engineer expected to be able to report a successful repair shortly. HMAS Bass could continue to the Cape but with fingers crossed. If the warrant engineer should prove to have been over optimistic, the ship could be steered by use of the emergency steering in the tiller flat where, right above the rudder, the hands could move the rudder-head by means of heavy beams, like capstan bars.
Kemp, as the Coverdale lay with engines stopped, watched the progress of the ship’s motor-boat as it moved in amongst the survivors from the Gerhardt Abusch. He counted only five out of probably forty seamen and engineers, being helped over the gunwale. For the rest, Kemp could feel no regrets. The Nazi philosophy had been responsible for the war. Let them get on with it and suffer with everybody else.
The motor-boat came back across the water and was hooked onto the falls aft. The survivors were hoisted on the falls and assisted from the boat to the after deck, some of them suffering wounds that still bled freely. They were met by the third officer and the chief steward, who would need to employ his medical skills as well as find the survivors accommodation. One of the Germans wore shoulder-straps with three gold bars: the chief officer, Kemp assumed.
Dempsey called down aft through a megaphone to the third officer. ‘Mr Peel…send up the German officer.’
III
Now the Coverdale had more deaths to assimilate: the bosun, Jack Pedley, had been a much liked man and a first-rate seaman. He was going to be missed. The feeling throughout the ship was far from good: yarns had circulated, however unfairly, however ludicrous, about Leading Seaman Sinker, these rumours having originated from that early careless remark by Petty Officer Rattray, overhead, repeated throughout the ship by the fo’c’sle hands and in the repetition exaggerated.
No one, as it seemed, paused to consider that a leading seaman might be an unlikely purveyor of useful information to the enemy, that a prozzy from the Cross might be an even more unlikely Berlin plant, making daily contact across the world by secret radio transmitter into the listening antennae of the German Naval Command. The seamen had a Johah, and that was enough. Somebody had to have the can fixed to them, and the somebody was Leading Seaman Sinker, the more so as word had filtered through from the Old Man’s tiger, Porter, that Sinker had a dose of the clap. That proved something: it fitted the buzz about the prozzy, fitted the story they all wanted to believe. But all this might in the end have amounted to nothing more than dirty looks and the cold shoulder had not something more positive taken place as the small group of survivors made their way for’ard under guard of four of the naval ratings and passed Leading Seaman Sinker on the flying bridge. It was spotted by Kemp among others as he looked over the after screen of the bridge, an apparent contact between Sinker and one of the Germans.
EIGHT
I
Kemp asked Dempsey to belay his last order: he would prefer the German officer to come to the bridge later. Then he leaned over the after screen.
‘Leading Seaman Sinker.’
Stripey looked up. ‘Yessir!’
‘On the bridge, Sinker. Fast.’
‘Yessir.’ Still puzzled about what had taken place, Stripey put on speed and hefted his stomach up the ladders. That Jerry…odd, it was. He arrived on the bridge panting from his exertions, red in the face and dreading the next time he was forced to have a leak.
He saluted the Commodore. ‘You wanted me, sir —’
‘Yes.’ Kemp led the way into the starboard wing of the bridge, motioning the signalman away. Dempsey, taking what seemed to be a hint, moved through the wheelhouse into the port wing as the Coverdale’ s engines again went ahead and the ship moved fast to catch up the main body of the convoy. Kemp said, ‘Now Sinker. An explanation. Do you know the man who spoke to you?’
Sinker shook his head. ‘No, sir, I don’t reckon I do. Not really, like.’
‘Not really?’
Sinker licked his lips. The Commodore’s tone was sharpish. ‘He said —’
‘Said, in English?’
‘Sort of, sir. Pidgin English as you might say.’
Kemp nodded. ‘Go on, Sinker.’
‘Yessir. Well, sir, he said as ‘ow we’d met. In Pompey…the fleet review, sir, the Coronation, 1937. Just before I went out on pension, like. Well, sir, me, I don’t recall him, not personally that is.’ Sinker lifted a hand and fingered his lurid birthmark. ‘Mind, I did meet some o’ the Jerry ratings, sir, from the Admiral Graf Spee. In the pubs, like — Queen Street, Commercial Road —’
‘Yes, I see. So this man’s a German naval rating, not a merchant seaman?’
‘Seems like it, sir, yes, if he’s got it right. About recognizing me, sir.’
Again Kemp nodded. ‘That could be useful information, Sinker. Keep it to yourself for now — just in case I can make some use of it.’
‘Yessir. Sealed lips, sir.’
Kemp smiled. ‘That’s the ticket.’ He paused. ‘That was all he said — all there was in it?’
‘Oh, yessir! Me, I didn’t say anything at all, bloody Nazi, if you’ll excuse me, sir. I just give ‘im a dirty look an’ passed on aft.’
‘Yes. All right, Sinker. I may send for you again — that’s all for now.’
Stripey Sinker saluted again, a trifle unctuously. It wasn’t by any means often that you had a private conversation with a Commodore, seldom indeed that you were able perhaps to be of some assistance to the brass, and Stripey rather liked his sudden leap from obscurity, it gave him something extra and in a sense could be considered one in the eye for that Rattray who acted as though he was the Holy Trinity at times.
Stripey lowered himself down the ladders and made for the messroom set aside for the guns’ crews, thinking about the Jerry. He didn’t recall the bloke at all though he quite likely had met him the time of the review — and Stripey was well enough aware that his birthmark made him more memorable than the majority of ratings in the Portsmouth Port Division. He did remember meeting quite a number of foreign seamen, Germans among them. There had been Frogs from the French battleship Dunkerque, Americans from the USS New York, Reds from the Russian battleship Marat though he didn’t recall any of them being allowed ashore freely, Italians, Dutch, Norwegians, Japanese, Turks, Greeks, Argentinians, Cubans, Portuguese, Spanish…Queen Street and Edinburgh Road and Commercial Road had been quite cosmopolitan and the hundreds of Pompey pubs had done a roaring trade.
Stripey remembered making some derogatory remarks about Adolf Hitler to a bunch of Nazis — it had been a time when the British Union of Fascists, the Blackshirts, had been a lot in the news and feelings were running high. But the Nazis had only smiled politely and although Stripey had intended causing trouble it hadn’t come about.
Funny that one of them should turn up in the High South Latitudes and recognize him. Like his chat with the Commodore, it gave him a touch of mystique, actually to have hob-nobbed with the enemy in peacetime, but, of course, for a number of reasons it wouldn’t do to talk about it. For one thing, Commodore Kemp was trusting him not to, and he’d find himself in the rattle for careless talk or something.
So he watched his tongue and went about with a knowing and furtive air. One that was not lost on certain members of the Coverdale’s crew who had, like Kemp, noticed a verbal exchange taking place. In the seamens’ messroom other conversations took place shortly afterwards.
‘Mate o’ the Nazis — that Sinker.’
‘Checks, don’t it?’
‘What we heard earlier. Rattray.’
‘And the tiger.’
One of the speakers, a small, wizened man, a fireman who’d come along from the engine-room ratings’ mess to stir up trouble about Leading Seaman Sinker, made a suggestion: there should be a deputation to the bridge, a report of their suspicions to the Old Man. More reasonable voices spoke against this proposal: neither Sinker nor the Nazi could do anything dangero
us, and the prisoners would be kept under guard until they were landed at Simonstown, now not so far ahead. Better not to stick their necks out with unfounded accusations.
But no one was forgetting the men who had died as a result of the Nazi gunfire.
II
The days passed towards Simonstown. Weary from long hours on the bridge, Kemp was in his borrowed quarters below, sitting at his desk. There were reports to be written up before the ship reached the Cape about tank damage, the death of the chief engineer, the actions and the further deaths. Dempsey also would be compiling his reports from the ship’s point of view, reports that would go ultimately to the Fourth Sea Lord at the Admiralty. Kemp’s convoy report would go initially to the senior British naval officer at Simonstown and then to the Admiralty’s Trade Division. Kemp, who disliked writing reports, indeed disliked all bumph, delayed his task. One of the things he would have to note would be the fleeting contact between one of his gunnery rates and a Nazi from the Gerhardt Abusch. It was interesting though not totally unexpected for a German naval rating, if such he was, to be aboard a merchant ship and not be wearing naval uniform which, supposing he was one of the gun’s grew, he presumably would be. The Admiralty might like to know; but first Kemp would need to have further words with Leading Seaman Sinker…
His mind drifted; his head fell forward and he brought himself up with a jerk. He ought to turn in for a spell or he would become useless, but sleep brought dreams, nightmares about sinkings in the Mediterranean. No news, and it had been such a long time now. Half Kemp’s mind seemed to urge the convoy onward, to make Simonstown in the shortest possible time, the other half was filled with dread at the thought of what that arrival would bring. The end of all hope, the final confirmation?
He gave a heavy sigh: God damn the war! But he wasn’t the only father in the world. Admirals had lost sons and had had to carry on with their high responsibilities, concentrating their minds for the sake of their commands. He was beginning very much to feel his age. He was about to call the bridge and say he was turning in for a couple of hours unless needed when Sub-Lieutenant Cutler knocked at his door and came in.
Convoy South Page 9