‘Looked all right to me, killick — ’
Mouncey jeered. ‘Call yourself a bunting tosser! Blind as a bat, you are. Tarted-up little ponce. Stuck up as a pr — ’
MacCord never heard the rest of it. Mouncey was interrupted by the broadcaster coming on suddenly, almost in his ear. A voice said, ‘Leading Signalman on the bridge. Leading Signalman on the bridge, immediately.’
That meant the Commodore of the convoy was aboard. Mouncey went up the ladders at the double. On arrival he got a bollocking from the Commodore’s assistant, which didn’t please him: he should have been on the bridge waiting for the Commodore, Williams said, not skulking below. Mouncey didn’t answer back, you didn’t answer officers unless you liked being put in the rattle, but he fizzed and muttered like a bomb. For his part, Lieutenant Williams didn’t like that. He said something hasty, about dumb insolence. Mouncey’s mouth fell open in astonishment. Daft young bleeder ...
A moment later Kemp called Williams across for a quiet word. ‘Laid yourself open, haven’t you?’
‘Sir?’
‘Dumb insolence went out of the crime sheet years ago — as you must surely know.’
‘Sorry, sir. Heat of the moment — ’
‘Well, don’t let us have any more such moments, Williams. You did right to utter a reprimand, but don’t overdo it. I like a happy signal staff. Understood?’
Williams, red-faced, said, ‘Yes, sir. If I might explain, Mouncey strikes me as a — ’
‘All right, Williams, that’s all.’ Kemp turned away, walked with Captain Hampton to the port bridge wing. Signals were passing between the King’s Harbour Master and the battleship, and between KHM and the senior officer of the close escort. The moment of departure had come. Five minutes later the great concourse of shipping was on the move, the battleship and the cruisers going ahead to be followed by the Commodore and the other ships in convoy, with the destroyers and smaller escorts bringing up the rear, proceeding in line ahead; the ships would remain in single column until the waters of the Clyde opened out beyond the Cumbraes, widening into the firth between Holy Island and Ardrossan so that the convoy could begin to move into its ocean formation. On the bridge of the Ardara Kemp stared ahead through binoculars, towards the anti-submarine boom strung across from Cloch Point to Dunoon, a strange stirring agitating his mind. This, he believed for no real reason beyond a hunch that he avoided thinking of as psychic, was going to be no easy convoy.
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Convoy South Page 23