The Broken Sword

by R. Mingo Sweeney

  Despite his mal de mer MacQueen liked the tone of that. The steward tidied the cabin and took the tray. “Better get your sea legs,” he said. “You won’t get service like this after Boston.”

  “I’ll be okay,” said MacQueen.

  “You’re sitting at the captain’s table,” said the steward as he left. “He doesn’t turn up much. It used to be an honour, but it’s the only one open right now. No one turned up for breakfast.” He lifted the tray above his head and fumbled for the door latch.

  “You’re an expert,” said MacQueen in admiration. He recalled his amateur efforts in the sergeants’ mess.

  “I ought to be by now,” replied the steward with a smile. “Ta-ta. I’ll bring you a sandwich for lunch if you don’t appear. Is chicken okay?”

  “You’re the doctor,” said MacQueen.

  28

  MacQueen was sitting alone in the music room of CNS Lady Hawkins. This large room was located at the top of the stairs leading from the purser’s square; it sat behind a large oil painting of Admiral Hawkins on the wall where the stairs divided. It had plate glass ornamental doors and large windows looking out onto the promenade deck and forward to the mast, fo’c’sle, and prow. Across the stairwell was the smoking room, or bar. The Ferry Command pilots, in civilian clothes, were seated there, drinking planter’s punch.

  The music room boasted a grand piano, a few odd tables and comfortable wicker chairs, and two glassed-in, locked bookshelves containing works by such authors as Somerset Maugham, Hervey Allen, and someone named Thorne Smith. MacQueen procured some postcards from the purser and borrowed a fountain pen. He wrote one each to Barbara, his father, his grandparents, Sergeant Cyples, and to Tony c/o the Regiment. He was wearing a Prince of Wales checked sports jacket that his aunt had given him from Bloomingdales in ’39. The pageboy had knotted his maroon necktie, and it was a bit tight.

  They were entering Boston Harbour, and the fog was assuming a yellowish tinge in the half-light. A sleek American destroyer, with large white numerals on its side, had rushed past them like a greyhound, whoop-whoop-whooping as it cut a curved slice through the murky and oily water. A light on its bridge had flashed signals in Morse code, and a number of signal flags were flying from a halyard. The warning whistles of anchored ships blew at regular intervals and in all scales of the octave. Small boats chugged past, and the pilot had climbed a rope ladder to see them safely to their berth.

  The blackout curtains had been pulled from the windows and MacQueen could see the great stone and concrete terminal of the Boston Port Authority looming in the yellow fog. The flag of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts hung from a flag staff to remind foreigners that this state styled itself as “sovereign”. Its most prominent son was the rather anti-British Joe Kennedy, US Ambassador to the Court of St. James, and father to a youth named Jack, who was training to be a naval officer.

  One of the doors opened, and an officer put his head into the room, then smiled and entered. He had four golden rings on each sleeve and a gold-braided cap under his left arm.

  “You are young MacQueen?” he asked in clipped, British tones. “I am Captain Griffith. I remember you as a boy, and knew your parents, of course.” MacQueen rose, and they shook hands. “I heard that you were aboard—how is your father?”

  “He is well, sir, thank you,” answered MacQueen. He recalled the captain as always wearing a winged collar with his uniform. “We didn’t know which ship it was, or he would have sent you his regards.”

  “Yes, the war has got us all bolluxed up,” said Captain Griffith. “I hope you are being looked after—we are short staffed. You had an accident?”

  “Yes,” answered MacQueen. “I’ll rest up in Somerset for a while; my mother is still there.”

  “Indeed, she is,” said the captain. “She organizes parties and dances for the troops, which are very popular. She is a charming lady, and has sailed on the Hawkins before—in 1931, I believe. You were just a boy, and I think you had a baby sister?”

  “My sister died in ’38,” said MacQueen.

  “Ah, how sad,” said the captain. “My, my—at such a young age. The tragedies of this world! I don’t get to table much, as I am required on the bridge during emergency times. Why don’t you lunch with me there tomorrow? We will be free of Boston and you’ll awake in the Gulf Stream.”

  MacQueen readily agreed to arrive at the captain’s quarters under the bridge at one o’clock. Bells commenced ringing, and a winch on the forward well deck rattled into life. The whistle on the funnel blew three blasts.

  “Goodness, I must run,” said the captain. He jammed his cap onto his head and, after a brief handclasp, hurried out of the door.

  All sea captains are both monarchs and fathers, which are complementary roles. The appointment of this master mariner was a shade different from the others. He was less casual and more introspective. He was also a bachelor, and knew no love but the sea. His attitudes had been set on British ships, and, contrary to most merchant seamen, he admired the Royal Navy. He held the prevalent view that soldiers were to be admired—and travelling salesmen were not. He had overseen the selection of the crew of the four-inch gun on the stern and took a personal interest in their training. He was also a philosopher of sorts, enjoyed good concerts when possible, and read Herman Melville and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Inwardly, he felt that the war was taking a bad turn and that the Yanks would be the only victors. He could understand Napoleon’s disdain when he called England a “nation of shopkeepers”; he felt that the British Empire was doomed by horse traders, and that Winnie was too bewitched to see it.

  Captain Henry Horton Griffith joined the pilot on the port wing of the bridge. The first officer was on the fo’c’sle, and the lead lines attached to the hawsers were just being cast ashore. There, a small crew of dockworkers would pull the hawsers to the jetty and secure them to the wharf while the winches tightened or slackened them as necessary.

  “There y’are, sir. Not a bump nor a scratch,” said the pilot.

  Of course, Captain Griffith could have done equally well, but a union of harbour pilots exists worldwide, and in some places they are necessary. At worst, they were a part of the cost of doing business.

  “We have some cargo to load—just a bit to take off—and some passengers,” said the captain. “We should be finished by early evening. Would you like a drink?”

  “Yes, now that might be a good idea,” said the pilot. “A little of the Irish, if you have it, would suit me fine.”

  The small niceties of every job lend dignity, and that must always be respected. The captain’s quarters were the sanctum sanctorum of this miniature sovereign state that sailed the seas, and the stern but affable captain was the king. The pilot felt this gesture to be his right as temporary stand-in, but he would never dream of assuming that right, nor attempting any familiarity. The captain gently enforced his own formality on everyone, and no one was the worse for it.

  MacQueen sat in one of the stuffed leather sofas of the purser’s square and watched the new passengers come aboard. They were a mixed lot as they assembled with their luggage, reading material, documents, passports, glasses, hats, and anything that could be mislaid. There were only three women, and no children. The steward had mentioned that there were three sick children with their mother in second class. The thought of the condition of that cabin was too grim to bear.

  MacQueen rose and offered his seat to an elderly lady dressed in a tweed suit with a purple scarf and low-heeled golfing oxfords. She carried three large bundles and had a copy of Dostoevsky, in which was stuck her documents. Her spectacles were around her neck on a chain. She accepted the seat with relief and thanked him in a heavy Scot accent.

  Realizing that he was occupying valuable space, MacQueen turned to leave, but as he did he noticed an odd group standing beside the door leading to the deluxe cabin suite. They all wore belted trench coats and slouch hats, with wide cuffs on their trousers. There were six men, just being joined by
a woman wearing a black beret. In trying to be inconspicuous, they stood out in the noisy throng. He heard them muttering in French. Just as he put his foot on the lower step to go up top, they were joined by a vigorous looking bareheaded man, also wearing a trench coat. His hair was crew cut, his face sunburned, and his eyes an icy blue. His gestures were short and sharp, and his French was atrocious. Nonetheless, he was rounding them up and steering them towards the corridor that contained MacQueen’s cabin. They retrieved shopping bags, books, and some bits of battered luggage. The woman waited beside another small pile of belongings heaped on the deck.

  Those are desperate people, thought MacQueen as he mounted the stairs. If they were refugees someone was looking after them; very few refugees travelled first class. The rest of the arrivals were more or less identifiable: bureaucrats, architects, management personnel for the bases, translators for the censorship board, and a scattering of naval and military officers in civilian clothes. Military personnel from both Canada and the United States usually provided their own troopships or aircraft, and it was becoming the happy season for generals on the move. The bar was closed while in port, which he should have known, so he returned to his cabin to drink his last bottle of beer.

  MacQueen found the crew cut man sitting on the opposite bunk. He had his shirtsleeves rolled at the wrist, one of which sported a large gold watch bracelet. A pair of black loafers were on the deck, and he had his legs crossed in some sort of lotus position. He was doing isometric exercises, with his arms clasped in front and his biceps bulging and relaxing. A pair of smoky, gold-rimmed glasses were on the bureau, and beside them sat an empty shoulder holster.

  29

  Dr. MacQueen returned to his empty apartment, switched on a reading lamp over his favourite chair, and hung his overcoat in a closet. He went to the small kitchen, ran some water, and plugged in an electric kettle. He felt a mixture of relief and loneliness that his son Patrick was no longer present. He had just completed his house calls, and it was nearly midnight. He was due at surgery in the morning but knew that he wouldn’t sleep yet. He poured the boiling water over a tea bag, into a large mug to wash a Nembutal sleeping capsule down his throat.

  The difficulties of raising a family and coping with the mundanities of life outside of his profession had always bewildered him. He had been a brilliant scholar but had few aptitudes for coping with other people’s eccentricities. His happiest years had been spent in the army.

  Not surprisingly, the devastation he had seen in Halifax following the explosion in 1917 had affected him more than anything he had witnessed in Europe. He had been unprepared for it when he stepped off the troopship nearly a year after it had happened. His duties had included the escorting of thousands of Chinese labourers from Halifax to Vancouver for trans-shipment back to the Orient.

  He had met the vivacious, dark-haired emergency nurse at a party, and had laid quiet siege to her heart. The west had captured his imagination, and he took his socially ambitious bride to the limitless horizons of rural Alberta. There he was attached to a field ambulance unit with the cavalry brigade of a rapidly diminishing Canadian army. They had two sons, witnessed the discovery of oil in Turner Valley, and then the advent of the Depression followed by the drought. In 1931 they returned to Halifax—and then to Bermuda.

  There was no lack of servants in Bermuda, but the social life was demanding, and a new daughter shunted the boys onto an emotional siding. They were sent to an English school, which completely disoriented them. They found their bearings just in time to be sent to a Canadian school to complete the wreckage. Then the little girl’s illness and death, and the separation of their parents, sealed the turmoil into the two wounded shells. Both boys rocketed into the war with relief.

  Neither of the parents had much comprehension of their youngest son’s motivations or inner turmoil. The death of their daughter had been so unusually traumatic that a world at war had almost seemed anticlimactic. The doctor had simply packed a few belongings and left. His wife sought solace first from her favourite sister in New York and then returned to Bermuda, presumably determined to save something from the wreckage. The colony was deserted by everyone except the residents in the fall of 1939, then it filled up with rich refugees from the sterling area who were escaping the bombs of the Luftwaffe.

  Dr. MacQueen’s head nodded over his book and he woke with a start. He rose wearily and turned on the bedside radio to catch the midnight news. He washed, donned pyjamas, and then returned to the kitchen for another mug of tea.

  The announcer stated that the German High Seas Fleet had broken through the British blockade and was loose in the north Atlantic. The doctor lit a cigarette, unplugged the kettle, and drenched another teabag. He didn’t listen to the rest of the broadcast, but rubbed his eyes and shuffled back to his bedroom. He switched the radio off and got into bed.

  He had not told Patrick of the possibilities of a commission in the Royal Canadian Navy. He now wondered if the boy might be destined for watery adventures before he even got into the navy. He had thought it best not to get him excited, nor to face confrontations, which he hated. The lad will return, he thought, or the war will be over or he will go his own way. It had never occurred to him that the trip itself might pose a danger. He did not worry, but he was always interested in the unfolding of fate. He had seen death in too many forms to be surprised that it knows no age—especially in dramatic times like these.

  He switched off the light and turned onto his side. His mind drifted back in time to France, and the long line of soldiers moving up to the rumbling front. It was growing dark, and they were slowly trudging along a rutted road. Someone was singing.

  It’s a long way to Tipperary,

  it’s a long way to go.

  It’s a long way to Tipperary,

  to the sweetest gal I know.

  Why had he survived all of those chaps, and was it right that he had done so? The doctor’s sadness stretched up the rutted road into the darkness, punctuated by gaunt and ghostly trees against the flickering horizon, where all sanity ended. “It’s a long way to go…”

  The doctor slept.

  30

  Marshal Pétain, the greatest hero of France, had established his capital at a small city named Vichy. The victorious German army had drawn a demarcation line across the country, and the aging Marshal reigned supreme in the southern part. The line stretched to the Spanish frontier. He had been serving with the British Expeditionary Force that was rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk. The Royal Navy had destroyed the French fleet at Oran in North Africa, which had not endeared them to many Frenchmen. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor had fled to Spain, and then to Portugal. On the continent, General de Gaulle was regarded as a traitor.

  The complications of these events on the French empire were profound, and were reflected in its possessions in the Near East, Africa, and as far away as Vietnam. Even the small islands of Saint Pierre et Miquelon, a few miles south of Newfoundland, were affected. They remained loyal to the marshal, much to the consternation of the authorities in Ottawa and Washington. Their major trump card was the largest submarine in the world, named Surcouf. It mounted a twin waterproof turret of two eight-inch guns and carried thirty torpedoes. The loyalty of its crew wavered between the general and the marshal, seeming to coincide with whatever harbour it visited on the east coast. The French island of Martinique in the West Indies was also loyal to the marshal. The submarine was a huge political embarrassment and a potential threat to the shipping lanes. The Royal Navy put a naval liaison party on board during one of its visits to Bermuda. Socially, the crew were popular in all of the ports.

  During the Lady Hawkins’ brief stopover in Boston, Captain Griffith was visited by a stern man in a tweed suit and a hat that looked like it should belong to Sherlock Holmes. He was from the British Consulate in Boston, and carried top secret information regarding the disposition of the enemy in the north Atlantic. This information was staggeringly imprecise, but had to be ha
nd delivered because of radio silence at sea. The captain was alarmed, but not much wiser. The German High Seas Fleet, including four battleships, was loose on the high seas, and no one knew where they were. The known presence of the Surcouf somewhere off Boston merely added spice to that dangerous brew. The U-boats would come later.

  Captain Griffith placed his whisky and soda on the table and bent over a chart of the northwest Atlantic covering the sea-lanes from St. John’s to Charleston and out to Bermuda. He traced an imaginary line directly south from Halifax with his finger.

  “We are within the Pan-American Neutrality Zone,” he said quietly. “Surely they wouldn’t venture within that with their big ships?”

  His guest shifted in his seat and looked out of place in these nautical surroundings. His hair was grey and neatly parted; his face was craggy with parenthesis lines enclosing a narrow, down-turned mouth. His collar was too big for his sinewy neck.

  “Who knows what the German High Command has in mind?” he asked. “They have the entire coasts of France and Norway to operate from now, and everything is heating up. Winston won’t buy any of their peace plans, so it’s a standoff. They have Russia on their side and we have the Yanks. The immediate problem is the Froggies, and specifically Surcouf.” He drained his glass.

  “Maybe she’s headed for Martinique?” queried the captain. “She can’t be up to much trouble with a British liaison officer on board?”

  “That only complicates matters,” replied the man from the consulate. “We don’t want to sink our own people but that sub is no earthly use to us. The French hold it in enormous esteem, however, and both sides are trying to capture the crew’s loyalty. That business at Oran probably scuttled our hopes for good, and de Gaulle has been furious ever since. It’s an untouchable menace.”