They would not lie alongside the oiler for more than an hour and a half. It was just time enough for him to write a letter. Half an hour later he sat, pen in hand, wondering what he could say. Then, at last, he began a letter to Magda. For twenty minutes he scribbled the reproachful words, making several alterations until Frobisher knocked on his cabin door.
‘The chief troll says we’ll be finished in five minutes, sir.’
Clark was in no mood for Frobisher’s joke. ‘You’ll get caught one day, Number One. All right, get someone to collect the mail. I’ve some too.’
‘It’s already done. There are only seven letters to go and the men seem to have caught your drift about keeping their mouths shut. Pearson’s censoring the stuff. Leading Seaman Lambert is the only exception, I understand…’
‘All right, Number One. I don’t really want to know what Leading Seaman Lambert is up to, if you don’t mind. Give me a moment or two.’
‘I’ll be back then.’
Hurriedly Clark shoved the letter to Magda to one side and drew another sheet of paper towards him. Thank God he did not have to submit his letters to Pearson’s scrutiny. The resentment of married ratings roused by the compulsion of doing so to a man of Pearson’s youth and inexperience was perfectly understandable. He drove the thought out of his head. He could prevaricate no longer: despite the fact that she said she expected no response from him, he must consider Jenny’s plight.
He sighed; there was nothing to consider; he had no choice. If he was still alive after this task, he could only do the decent thing; if not he must see she and the unborn child were provided for. Dear Jenny, he replied to her, bending the truth for the sake of its impact on its reader,
I received your letter just before sailing, so I only have a few minutes. I cannot say much more than to tell you not to worry. You may be wrong, but if not you must go to my father and explain to him when the time comes.
Show him this letter. Be brave. He will understand.
Clark paused, feeling foolish, trapped, unable to offer her more than this cold comfort. It would be a lie to say he wanted her again. Perhaps if she were here, pushing her eager body with its plump roundness against him, he would, but she was not here, and in her distance lay more than mere mileage. He did not want to think of it; he had no time to think of it. War denied him even the indulgence of feeling sorry for himself. He was in a hurry. But he must give her some sign of their shared intimacy, particularly if a child, his child, was quickening in her womb.
Oh, Christ! he thought with a half-blasphemous savagery, why had God linked so trivial a thing as sex with so serious a matter as the making of human lives? Why could He not have ordered things differently? Why was nothing in life uncomplicated by something else? Why did he have to write this fucking letter in a hurry with Frobisher breathing down his neck? Why did he have to receive hers just when he was sailing on this mission? Why did Jenny have to conceive at all? Why by him? Why did he have to bump into her that night? Why did the fucking Germans have to bomb Liverpool? And why, oh why must he tell her a lie?
You are too sweet to be lost to me, Darling Jenny, he wrote, and pausing at the thought that his father, too, must draw some conclusions from the tone of this letter, he concluded: With all my love, Jack.
And then he hurriedly folded and sealed the letter before he had second thoughts, putting his name and rank on the reverse of the envelope. Picking up his hat and duffel coat, he turned off the low desk lamp and hurried out in search of the first lieutenant. Frobisher was in the wheelhouse.
‘One more for the post,’ he said lightly, handing over the envelope. ‘Now let’s get this show on the road,’ he added, bending over the chart table and the black hachured outline of Seidisfjord. He had difficulty in concentrating, in seeing Storheill’s pencilled line indicating their outward track.
‘You all right, sir?’ He looked up. Pearson was staring at him. Clark straightened up.
‘I was looking for swastikas on the chart, Sub,’ he said with brittle frivolity, pleased with Pearson’s uncomprehending facial expression.
‘Old Man’s a bit battle-weary, if you ask me,’ Pearson said to Frobisher later, when they met over cocoa in the wardroom just after midnight.
‘Fortunately, Derek, I’m not asking you,’ Frobisher said.
‘I don’t know why you have to be so bloody mean, Number One,’ Pearson burst out.
‘Because I am bloody mean, Derek. That’s why I’m here.’ The first lieutenant crossed one long leg over the other, lifted his mug but paused before putting it to his lips. ‘Now tell me, why precisely are you here?’
Sub-Lieutenant Derek Pearson slammed his mug down and went to his cabin.
By this time the Sheba had long since cleared Seidisfjord and dropped Glettinganes over the port quarter. As they drew away from the land they felt the first manifestation of a low swell.
‘Wind from the sou’west, Captain,’ Storheill remarked, looking up at the dark sky. ‘And the glass is dropping.’
‘Yes. We’re going to have a blow,’ said Clark. Going below, Clark took up the envelope containing his secret orders. They had left their last contact with civilisation and, although a few miles below the 66th Parallel of latitude, he felt justified in opening them. Besides, he would not sleep without having something to think about other than Jenny and her unborn child.
An hour later he went back up to the bridge and ordered an alteration of course to due north. He had been given a series of positions as far as Spitsbergen’s South Cape by which to make his passage, and at some point he had to cross the track of convoy PQ12. Thus, as the convoy swung round to an increasingly eastern heading to transit the Barents Sea, HMS Sheba would be to the north of it. The alteration of course brought the swell and the rising sea further round on to the port quarter. Sheba reacted accordingly, beginning to roll uncomfortably as she headed for Jan Mayen Island. The men of the duty watch were hunkered down at their cruising stations and he could just see the lookouts looming darkly out on either bridge wing. In the wheelhouse the chart spread out on the chart table was faintly lit, as was the compass, behind which the glim fell upon the hands of the helmsman as he passed the wheel spokes back and forth. Forward, silhouetted against the glass of the windows, Storheill’s wrapped-up form bulked, while the eerie, questing ping-ing-ing of the Asdic reached out into the cold waters of the Atlantic.
HMS Sheba, Lieutenant Commander John Clark, was at sea on special service. Then he reproached himself for being a fool! Such silly pride was asking for trouble and he was in trouble enough already. He left orders to keep a sharp eye open for the convoy and for German reconnaissance aircraft.
‘Of course, Captain,’ Storheill said, turning from the window.
‘Let me know if and when you see anything of the convoy, and call me at any time if in any doubt whatsoever.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He felt a trifle foolish telling an experienced watchkeeping officer like Storheill how to suck eggs. But then he felt bloody foolish anyway.
‘Good night, Pilot,’ he said.
‘I hope I don’t have to call you again, sir,’ Storheill said.
‘So do I.’
Clark took one last look about him then went below. He would brief Frobisher in the morning.
* * *
Clark was called at half past three. He had been asleep for an hour. The screech of the voice pipe beside his pillow dragged him from a deep slumber, but he was awake instantly, his heart hammering.
‘Captain, sir. Signal from Admiralty.’
‘I’ll be up.’ He threw off the bedding, swung his legs over the leeboard of the bunk, dragged on his doeskin trousers and thrust his already stockinged feet into his leather sea boots. Pulling on a white polo-necked sweater, he made for the bridge ladder. Sheba’s motion was a good deal livelier than when he had turned in. Storheill handed him the chit.
Clark read it. The order was for him to turn south for Loch Ewe. It took a moment for him
to recall his instructions. He handed the message back to Storheill. ‘Put it in the signals log, Pilot, but take no further action.’
‘No alteration of course, sir?’
‘No alteration of course.’ Clark watched the Norwegian as he studied first the message and then his commanding officer.
‘Stand on,’ Clark said. ‘This is to make the enemy think we have been ordered back to Scotland.’
‘Do we acknowledge it, sir?’
‘No. We simply stand on.’
‘Ver’ good, Captain.’
Clark wanted to say more, but decided this was not the moment. The man at the wheel would have overheard the exchange and by breakfast time the ship would be buzzing with the little mystery.
‘Would you like a cuppa kye, sir?’ Storheill asked.
‘No, thank you. I’ll go and get some more shut-eye.’
Back in his bunk Clark lay staring at the deckhead and waited for sleep to claim him. But the manner of his rousing had wakened him fully and it seemed he would never drop off. In his irritation he thought of Magda and the pale perfection of her long-limbed and lovely body, the smell of her hair, the hollows of her neck and the feel of her breasts under his hands. Tumescent, he turned over and drove himself into the mattress with a groan of fury. But then he was lying with Jenny, soft, biddable, running-to-fat Jenny with her pleasant, trusting face, glad to be acknowledged as desirable by dashing Jack Clark, the boss’s son.
And she was, Yours sincerely, making a baby for him.
Distant Gunfire
March–April 1942
A steam ship, unlike a diesel-powered motor vessel, moves through the sea with remarkably little noise. That was why they heard the engine noise of the aeroplane while it was still some way away and above the clouds. The Sheba was running north with a heavy following sea as the wind increased relentlessly to gale force, with every prospect of it getting worse before long. Late that morning they had seen the convoy, a faint smudge of smoke and the jagged outline of the rearmost ships on the horizon. Clark had turned them away to the westwards. The last thing he wanted was an inquisitive destroyer rushing towards them flashing her Aldis.
‘What about their radar, sir?’ Pearson had asked.
‘I just hope that there’s enough sea clutter to obscure us at this range.’
Apparently there was; but the aeroplane was a different matter. At noon the noise of its engines grew louder and the starboard lookout caught a glimpse of it: ‘Heading straight for us, sir!’
‘Action stations, sir?’ Pearson called from the wheelhouse as Clark strained to see what he guessed was a large, four-engined Focke Wulf 200.
‘Yes! No, belay that! Keep her on course!’
Clark dashed for the ladder, bumping into Storheill as he came up to relieve Pearson. ‘A bloody Condor,’ he explained as he disappeared below. A moment later he was back.
‘He’s circling, sir!’ Pearson said excitedly.
‘Here,’ Clark said, ‘hoist this!’ he shoved the Nazi ensign into Pearson’s hands. ‘Get on with it man!’ Clark raised himself so that the men on duty could hear him. ‘Look pleased to see him, you lot!’ he shouted. ‘Leave your guns fore and aft! Hide your caps and give him a wave if he comes low!’
‘Captain!’ Clark turned. Storheill stood in the doorway. ‘In the German navy the captain has a white cap.’ He was holding a soft white summer cap cover. ‘Give me your cap, sir.’
‘There the bugger is! Green thirty and coming in low!’ bawled the starboard lookout, pointing.
Clark passed his cap to Storheill and turned back to the starboard bridge wing, jostling the lookout in the confined space. The big German reconnaissance aircraft was at no more than one hundred feet, the roar of her engines rapidly rising as she flew at them. In a minute that might have been his last and would have saved him from Jenny, Clark waved enthusiastically. Beside him the lookout did the same. It was Ordinary Seaman Peacock.
‘Well done, Peacock,’ Clark shouted, because he felt unable to remain silent as the noise reached its crescendo, resenting the racket and perceiving silence as submission. They saw faces in flying helmets staring from the cockpit of the bullet-nosed machine, then the monstrous thing had swept past and was climbing and banking.
‘He’ll be back!’ Clark roared, turning fore and aft, and repeating the words. He was right. Pulling out to a distance of about half a mile, the Condor began to circle them. ‘Oh, Christ, he’s signalling, sir,’ Pearson called from the port wing.
‘Here, sir.’ Storheill held out Clark’s hat with its unseasonal white cover. Clark put it on. Then Storheill picked up the Aldis and began flashing at the Condor. Clark did not interrupt but contented himself with observing the ‘received’ flash from the cockpit of the Condor as she circled them and listening to the clatter of the signal lamp’s shutter as Storheill operated the lamp. Then Storheill had finished and there was a rapid series of dots and dashes from the Condor in response. A moment later the aircraft banked sharply and overflew them again.
‘Wave, you bastards!’ Clark roared, now decked out in his white cap.
The Condor roared overhead, then it climbed and banked round towards the east, to disappear into the clouds. Clark saw it three times; each time it grew smaller, and each time it was still heading east.
After a moment the relaxation was palpable.
‘Dear me!’ said Ordinary Seaman Peacock.
‘What the hell was all that about?’ asked Frobisher, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
‘A bloody great Focke Wulf Condor, Number One!’ explained Pearson.
‘Oh, is that all?’
‘He nearly took the mast trucks out of her, actually, Number One,’ said Clark, turning to Storheill. ‘What on earth did you send to him, Pilot?’
‘I said: “Weather Trawler on passage north maintaining radio silence British convoy to north-east. Heil Hitler!”’
‘He didn’t ask our name, then?’ Clark queried.
‘Yes, that was what he wanted to know. He replied: “Convoy seen and reported. What ship?”’
‘I sent “Good Hunting Heil Hitler” and he seemed content.’
‘Well, he’ll soon find out there are no weather trawlers out here, so we’d better be ready for him when he comes back,’ Clark said. ‘And thanks for remembering the hat.’
‘Bit of luck, Captain. I had just washed my cap cover,’ Storheill said with a grin. ‘I would not have thought about it otherwise.’
‘He’s transmitting, sir!’ The wireless-telegraphist called from the wireless office at the rear of the wheelhouse.
‘I’ll go and see…’ Storheill disappeared, reappearing a few minutes later. ‘He’s reporting the convoy, sir. Then came a coded message that I couldn’t understand.’
Clark nodded. ‘Right. I didn’t know you spoke German.’
‘I speak it very badly, Captain, but I read it. Before the war I used to admire German literature.’
‘Well, well.’ In his conceit it had never occurred to Clark that the Admiralty had provided a second German speaker beside himself. ‘Thank you anyway, that was well done.’ Storheill looked embarrassed. ‘But I think he will be back,’ Clark added. ‘Let us alter course thirty degrees to port.’
But the Condor never returned. Instead, a gale enveloped them just as, forty miles away, it overran convoy PQ12. The Sheba rolled and scended, her decks awash with green water, and conditions below became chaotic. Despite their best endeavours, water got into the mess decks, flushing out from obscure corners even more detritus from the Smith’s Dock Company yard which they long ago thought they had scoured from the ship.
By the second day of the gale it was blowing a Force 10, with huge waves humping up astern, threatening to poop them as their curling crests were torn off and driven to leeward with the violence of birdshot. But Sheba’s round cruiser stern rose to each wall of water and she drove forward until the great sea had passed under her and, her bow pointing at the sky, she slid down its
receding back into the trough hollowing out in advance of the next comber.
And to this longitudinal oscillation she added a slow, lateral roll that drove her shoulders into the seas ahead, foaming up into the torpedo-tube apertures with a curious, unfamiliar booming sound that took them some time to locate.
Clark and Storheill managed to get an ex-meridian sight at noon. They had passed the 70th Parallel and Clark altered their course to the north-east. Daylight was now appreciably longer than when they had left Scapa Flow. Full darkness fell for only a few hours and the temperature in the wind chill had fallen well below freezing. The spray froze on the ship’s upperworks and Sheba’s roll slowed still further as her top-weight increased. Now they ran into ice. Loose, small floes began to appear, along with those small bergs known as bergy bits. At first it caused them few problems but the next day they were adjusting course and speed to avoid damaging collisions. Twice they struck growlers before Clark put the ship about and hove-to. The ice moderated the violence of the sea, but the wind-strength was now storm force and the only way to avoid damage to the ship was to dodge about, head to wind and sea.
Hove-to, the Sheba made hardly any headway, just enough to keep steerage way on her. At daylight all hands were called to clear the ice off the upperworks. Steam hoses were rigged, while fire axes, a handful of shovels, spikes and seamen’s knives hacked at the fateful accretion as the men skidded about on the wet decks; dark, muffled and desperate figures, Clark thought, wiping the condensation from the windows as he watched them from the comparative comfort of the wheelhouse.
‘What a bugger,’ remarked Frobisher, the officer of the watch. Jammed in the corner of the wheelhouse he sipped at his kye.
‘God knows what effect this is having on the convoy,’ Clark remarked. But both men could guess. ‘We’ll go on to double watches, Number One, at least until this lot blows over. You and Pearson, Storheill and myself.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘We’ll make some easting by keeping the wind on the starboard bow, but we don’t want to get too far south.’ Clark crossed to the aneroid barometer and stared at it for a moment. ‘Well, it’s risen a touch. Perhaps we’ve seen the worst of it…’
Dead Man Talking Page 20