Convoy South

by Philip McCutchan

  Kemp said, ‘Shallow settings. We’d not have seen them otherwise.’ Within a minute the first of the explosions came, an almighty bang and an upsurge of red and orange flame in the middle of which the outline of one of the grain ships was clearly seen, with debris falling like rain over a wide area of the sea. Heat beat across the water: the grain ship had been steaming on the port quarter of the Coverdale and not very distant.

  Dempsey said, ‘Two hits, fore and aft. She hasn’t a hope.’

  True words: in the hellish glow of flame and red-hot metal, the ship could be seen to be settling on an even keel, filling at both ends. She was ablaze from stem to stern and steam was rising as the sea encroached. Dempsey glanced aside at the Commodore. Kemp’s face was set, no emotion visible as the Coverdale moved on, no word about survivors. Not that there would be many — but a life was a life, someone’s husband or father, son or brother. Someone left to die in agony, perhaps, or just to drown while the convoy passed on, each ship an automaton with no voice for the dying. This was the fear faced by anyone who sailed in convoy and it was an accepted fact that the convoy as a whole was of more importance than those who fell by the wayside. But Dempsey had come to know Kemp well since the departure from Sydney and he was aware of the mental conflict that would be in the Commodore’s mind. His own too, though with a difference. The unspoken order to leave the survivors to die was not his to decide. He wouldn’t be carrying it to the grave as he suspected Kemp might be. In Dempsey’s view the job of Commodore was a bastard.

  Below in the engine-room acting Chief Engineer Evans was listening to the reverberations of the torpedo hits and of the explosions of depth charges as the destroyers of the escort pressed home the double attack on the two U-boat packs. Evans’ metallic, oily kingdom shuddered and rang as the shock waves reached the hull and he began to worry about sprung plates. From time to time the electric lights dimmed but always came back to full power. The shafts turned on, disdainful of outside interference. Evans left the starting platform to his acting second engineer, and made his way around, watching, feeling joints and bearings, wondering if he would be able to cope if anything went wrong. That was always the test, when things went wrong and you had to think fast and think correctly to put them right — that was one of his father-in-law’s pearls of wisdom and Evans knew it happened to be dead right.

  He looked up through the maze of steel ladders leading to the air-lock: the only way out and a long way up, and many men to be got up there before the chief engineer made it himself, the shepherd of his oil-streaked, sweaty flock in pants and singlets.

  Not that any of them would, if the ship was hit — not unless there was a miracle. One big bang and that would be all they knew about it.

  Evans went back to the starting platform and stood beside the acting second. A huge eruption came from close by, made the ship lurch so that both men were flung from the platform to fetch up in a heap on the greasy deck plates. As they scrambled to their feet the lights dimmed once again and this time went right out. As Evans shouted for the electrician the voice-pipe from the bridge whined at him. He put the tube to his ear.

  ‘Chief here.’

  ‘Bridge.’ It was Dempsey’s voice. ‘Close shave, that’s all. Another grain ship…swung close astern of us just as she took a fish. All well below?’

  ‘Lights gone, sir, otherwise OK.’

  ‘We still have power on the steering, Chief, so it must be just local, the lighting circuit. Report when all’s well.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Evans had just replaced the tube when the lights came up again and he breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief, found he was bathed in sweat just as though he’d stepped out of a bath. Even his shoes seemed to squelch…he looked down and saw blood. He must have damaged something when he was propelled off the starting platform but he hadn’t felt anything. Now that he’d seen the blood, however, he felt the pain. A torn leg, bleeding freely, but nothing to be done about it at the moment. You had to carry on in action and that was that.

  ‘Getting a shade too close, Chief.’ Vetch, acting second engineer, noticed the blood. ‘Better get that seen to. I’ll take over if—’

  ‘No, I’m all right. It’ll keep.’ Evans looked around the engine-room: no sprung plates, no leaks. Like the Light Brigade, they moved on. Evans said, ‘You’re a praying chap. Now’s the time, if ever there was one.’

  Vetch nodded, but didn’t appear to be praying. Evans said, ‘Or d’you think God knows, without being asked?’

  ‘I reckon He knows we’re busy, Chief.’ Vetch belonged to the Elim Tabernacle where members of the congregation got to their feet and spouted when they felt the irresistible urge. At the moment, he didn’t know why, he didn’t feel it. Maybe that was because there was so much he wanted to pray for, and he might not have much time, and his mind was in a jumble, a kind of torrent in which his family and the ship and himself were whirling around. It was best left to God to sort out. He always knew best, that was one thing that was sure and unequivocal.

  The Coverdale steamed on, so far unscathed. On the bridge there was partial relief — only very partial so far as Kemp was concerned. They were not coming under direct attack and obviously there was intent behind that fact: they were wanted for other things. Any moment now it might become necessary for that sealed bag to be ditched. Kemp was about to tell Cutler to stand by in instant readiness when someone came up the starboard ladder to the bridge, swayed at the top and then collapsed in a heap, blubbering like a child.

  Leading Seaman Sinker.

  FOURTEEN

  I

  There had been more dead rats; it had become in fact a daily occurrence, a daily nightmare, a daily torture of the innocent. Stripey Sinker, knowing just how horribly unfair it was, had shaken like a leaf each time he entered his cabin. Rage and fear were uncomfortable bedfellows in themselves, to say nothing of the succession of rats and their stench. Someone was deliberately keeping corpses until they stank. Stripey had become a bag of nerves. He had kept watch when he could, but he couldn’t all the time, and whoever was doing it knew when the cabin would be empty. Stripey had no idea at all as to who the culprit might be. It could be any one of the crew.

  But tonight had been different.

  Stripey had turned in during the late afternoon, off watch and dead tired from many sleepless nights. Before turning in he’d gone along to see the chief steward for his continuing dose of sulpha whatsit and he’d come out with his troubles, man to man. Lugg had said he’d best have a good, stiff slug of Scotch, or better still some of the Van der Humm he’d been able to bring aboard in Simonstown. Stripey had agreed; and the Cape brandy, a really big double, had done the trick. He’d gone out like a light after a while and he was still asleep and breathing like a steam engine when the alarm had come; and he’d remained unaware in his bunk. But when the racket started outside, the thump of explosions and so on, he’d come awake with a bang. And when he did so he knew there was someone in his cabin, someone moving stealthily towards his bunk. That someone would believe that he, Sinker, was at his action station: another rat for delivery?

  Stripey’s mind moved with unusual speed: there was no rat smell and if the intruder believed the cabin to be empty why didn’t he flick on the light, and why the stealth?

  It was more than a rat, this time. In the heat and kerfuffle of action, murder could be done. Someone had gone round the twist. Stripey heard heavy breathing and then moved his unwieldy body as fast as his mind. He came off the bunk like an elephant and threw himself towards the breathing sound. He made contact and came down hard on top of the intruder. They both crashed to the deck of the cabin and Stripey’s beefy hands found the throat and squeezed, and went on squeezing.

  When the body went limp Stripey knew he’d gone too far. Shaking, giving a high sounding moan of anguish, he found the light switch. One of the engine-room gang, a bloke named Passmore he believed. The eyes staring, the tongue lolling, garish red marks around the throat, all the limbs still. No
heartbeat. He had become a murderer. He couldn’t hide from what he’d done, everyone would know. And you didn’t kill people just because of stinking rats. There was a rat beside the man’s body, probably a fresh one since there was no smell, and there was no sign of a weapon such as a knife or a belaying-pin. Stripey wouldn’t be likely to get away with self-defence. But there had been a lot of torment and maybe Commodore Kemp would understand.

  II

  Kemp was watching out for a surfacing U-boat: Cutler took Stripey Sinker over. Sinker was like a jelly, eyes large, limbs all over the place, a jelly-octopus talking in a high voice about victimization and the ends of tethers, dirty looks and rats and veiled threats and what he’d believed to be an attempt at murder. There was currently no point in trying to sort out the facts and in any case, with the ship in danger, this was no time for an investigation.

  Cutler said, ‘Hold it, Sinker. Shut your gob. I’m taking no note officially of what you’ve said — you’re in a panic right now. It’ll be gone into later. I —’

  ‘I didn’t mean to do it, sir, honest I didn’t!’

  ‘Maybe not —’

  ‘It’s all right for you to talk. They got their bloody knife in me, drove me bloody mad they did.’

  ‘Yes, all right, Sinker.’ Cutler was thinking fast while Stripey Sinker went on. He had to be placed in restraint for his own good but you couldn’t shut a man in, say, the fore peak with the ship liable to go sky high at any moment. There was only one thing for it and Cutler made the decision without reference to the Commodore or Captain Dempsey, who each had other worries. He interrupted what had become an incoherent ramble, using the voice of authority. ‘Get down to your gun, Leading Seaman Sinker. We’re in action. You’ll help fight the ship — all right? Just one moment.’ He went to the after rail of the bridge and shouted down for Petty Officer Rattray to come up at the double. Officers, Rattray thought to himself, bloody officers just don’t think…double, with his leg? He went for’ard and climbed the ladders as fast as he could. When he arrived Cutler told him the facts as briefly as possible.

  ‘Keep an eye on him, PO. Detail a hand to be with him all the while. When we come through, we’ll see what’s to be done. In the meantime, don’t let him do anything stupid.’

  ‘Like going overboard, sir?’

  ‘Yes —’

  ‘Best thing for ‘im if ‘e did, sir.’ Rattray sucked at a hollow tooth. ‘Best for ‘is family too. Better than swinging, is lost overboard in action.’

  Cutler’s voice was hard. ‘See that it doesn’t happen that way, Petty Officer Rattray. There could be a case for manslaughter. The poor bugger’s been hazed too far. As you should have known — as you should have prevented.’

  ‘If you say so, sir.’ Rattray turned away and shouted at Sinker to get below to his gun as ordered. He kept close behind as Sinker stumbled blindly down the ladder. Cutler went across to join Kemp, and made his report. Kemp nodded but didn’t comment at first.

  Cutler said, ‘I guess he was driven to it, sir. That’s if I’ve got the facts right. And we did know about the rat in the first place. Maybe we’re all to blame. Not just Rattray.’

  ‘All the facts’ll come out, Cutler, at the proper time. At this moment, I can say nothing more.’ Kemp turned to Dempsey. ‘Your man Passmore, Captain. What’s he like?’ He added, ‘What was he like, I should say.’

  ‘On the bolshie side — not amenable to discipline, as reported by Warrington. Also a natural chip on his shoulder about the Nazis — they bombed his house in Stepney.’

  Kemp nodded again: it seemed to fit. And every man had his limits, the point beyond which he would retaliate. Leading Seaman Sinker was a harmless, good-natured man by all accounts — Kemp had always made it his business to familiarize himself as quickly as possible with the men under his command and although the guns’ crews were, in the case of the Coverdale, strictly part of the ship’s wartime complement and not part of his own staff as Commodore, he knew that much about Sinker, a three-badgeman of previously excellent character. Rattray, according to Cutler, was disparaging about his capabilities but that was a different story and Rattray was inclined to be disparaging about everyone other than himself, another thing that Kemp knew.

  He lifted his glasses again, stared intently through the encroachment of the night. So far the transports were moving along unscathed; and the destroyers’ attacks on the U-boats had achieved some success, Kemp believed. At any rate there were no more hits. Perhaps the Nazi packs had withdrawn, gone deep to lie doggo for a while — but as sure as fate they would resume the attack before long. Kemp lowered his glasses and rubbed wearily at tired eyes. You could go on looking out for too long, until you began seeing things that weren’t there.

  And murder, in the middle of an attack. If murder had to be done at all, what a time to choose!

  Binoculars up again, and something obtruding, right astern of the Coverdale…Kemp used the old seaman’s trick of looking away and then back again, looking slightly to one side, obliquely.

  ‘Cutler…’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Dead astern. See anything, or is it my eyes?’

  Cutler was onto the bearing pronto. ‘Feather of water, I believe, sir. Can’t be sure.’

  ‘Periscope. Or our wake, playing funny buggers with our vision? Keep on it, Cutler.’

  From behind Kemp, Dempsey spoke. ‘Something black emerging, getting bigger.’ He paused, looking hard through his binoculars, oak-leaved cap-peak low over the eyepieces. ‘It’s a surfacing U-boat — slap in our wake.’

  ‘Where the A/S screen’s Asdics can’t pick her up,’ Kemp said. ‘And for my money she’s not going to fire off any fish at us. Cutler?’

  ‘You reckon the time’s come, sir? That bag?’

  Kemp nodded.

  ‘I’ll go get it,’ Cutler said, took the key from Kemp, and moved fast into the chart room. Coming back with the sealed bag, he stood beside the Commodore. ‘Say when, sir.’

  Again Kemp nodded, watching the emerging submarine, its outline blurred by the disturbance of the ship’s wake. He was about to pass the order to Leading Signalman Goodenough to warn the senior officer of the escort of the U-boat’s presence when the main attack was resumed with startling suddenness and devastation. There was a colossal explosion away on the Coverdale’s port beam, a huge blaze of light, red and orange and purple with shafts of searing white, a conflagration from which shoots of fire appeared, as though some gigantic firework display had been set off.

  ‘One of the armament carriers, sir, Bull Run.’

  ‘Poor buggers.’ It would have to be the Bull Run, one of those that had left Sydney in ballast…she’d loaded ammunition in Simonstown, just one out of the three with a cargo, and had been under orders to detach for the Windward Islands, which in a few more days she would have done. Kemp watched in awe, helplessly. This was not the first time he’d had to witness such a sight; but it was one that he never grew hardened to. All those men…now disintegrated, the flesh burned from their bones virtually in the wink of an eyelid. A mercy, of course, that it should be fast. There could be no survivors. Scorching heat came across the moving convoy, the terrible fires continued, the pieces of debris came down like rain. Something large and red-hot took the after tank deck, right on the tank tops between the flying bridges. Dempsey took charge, going down himself to get the fire parties on the job before the heat could get through to his lethal cargo. Petty Officer Rattray stood by his gun, watching the half-surfaced U-boat and lining up his sights ready to open the moment he had the Nazis where he wanted them. Any second now. He was about to give the firing order and bugger the bridge and the Commodore when he saw a light flashing from the conning tower.

  Funny, was that! U-boats, they didn’t waste time in making signals. There just might be something on that he didn’t know about, and it wasn’t for a gunner’s mate to bitch up anything. So he didn’t give the order to open fire.

  The Nazi signal was read on the bri
dge and Goodenough reported to Kemp.

  ‘Heave to or be sunk, sir.’

  Kemp met Cutler’s eye. ‘Right, Cutler.’

  Cutler moved to the port rail. ‘Just hold on a moment, sir? Till the situation clears?’

  Kemp’s mind went to the importance of the bag’s contents, the importance to many highly-placed officers in Canberra, to the lives of thousands of Australian troops, to the security of Australia itself at any rate in the eyes of those who disagreed with the movement of so many men out of the Commonwealth. There was time in hand perhaps, time while he played games with the U-boat’s commander, time in which the senior officer might pick up the U-boat’s presence and detach a destroyer to blow her out of the water. And there were the Coverdale’s own guns.

  ‘All right, Cutler. Hang on.’

  Cutler remained ready at the bridge rail, the canvas bag balanced on the teak woodwork. Kemp took up a megaphone, there was a lot of noise around, more explosions, continual depth charging from the destroyers and gunfire from the cruisers: probably something else had come to the surface, a damaged U-boat to be finished off by the big guns — no quarter would be given tonight, Kemp knew. Through the megaphone he spoke to the guns’ crews.

  ‘I believe there’ll be an attempt to board us. All men —’

  He was interrupted by the leading signalman. ‘Flashing again, sir.’ Goodenough read off the message as it came through. “‘You have sixty seconds to stop your engines.”’

  For Kemp, time seemed to stand still: so many considerations, and the moment of final decision had come. He turned to Dempsey. ‘All right, Captain. We’ll do as he says.’ He added, ‘For now.’

  Dempsey moved into the wheelhouse and himself pulled over the handles of the telegraphs. Bells rang on the bridge, and were repeated in the engine-room. The big shafts idled to stop. There was near silence. Gradually the way came off the ship and she lay rolling in the ocean swell, on an otherwise flat sea with a bright moon coming up to lay a silver sheen across the water. From the bridge, from the upper deck, the watchers saw the U-boat, still with little more than her conning tower above the surface, move across to starboard.