The Bonny Boy

by David Black

  So everybody was looking forward to Cdr Lipsey’s promised announcement, hoping it would be good.

  Lipsey tapped his glass of pink gin.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow officers and all that nonsense,’ he said in a commanding voice, ‘make sure tanks are all topped off. We have a few toasts to get through!’

  There was a little laughter, a few muted ‘hurrays!’, and the Cdr carried on, a benign grin on his face, ‘Now I know we all enjoyed toasting the service’s own colonial firebrand, Lieutenant Malcolm Carey, Royal Australian Navy, for his sinking or crippling of every single ship in a Jerry troop convoy the other month; and we raised our glasses again when news of his Victoria Cross for the action came through last week. The colonial authorities are well known for recognising the achievements of their servicemen with far greater alacrity than our own, as I’m sure we’re all aware …’

  There were a few guffaws of approval.

  ‘… however, we do manage to get around to it eventually in Royal Navy,’ continued the commmander ‘and on this occasion, it is Malcolm Carey’s first lieutenant during that engagement who is to receive official recognition of His Majesty’s approval!’

  A ripple of applause spread round the gathering, and all eyes turned on Harry, whose face felt, and indeed suddenly looked, like it had caught fire, right up to his hair roots.

  ‘Lieutenant Gilmour,’ said Cdr Lipsey, now positively beaming, ‘it is my great pleasure to inform you that I have in my hands two signals. The first confirms that you have been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in recognition of your conduct on the occasion of HMS Nicobar’s splendid action against the Axis troopships, and well deserved I’m sure it is too.’

  Lipsey put one hand in his pocket, and with the other gestured Harry forward. Harry couldn’t move at first.

  ‘Come on,’ said Lipsey, not unkindly, ‘Chop! Chop! Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything so gauche as to pin it on you. I’m sure the King will get round to doing that all in good time. Here, it’s this,’ and he reached out to hand Harry the signal confirming his award, and a small patch of dark blue and white medal ribbon. ‘Get that sewn on, or you’ll be improperly dressed. And wait. This isn’t all I have for you.’

  Harry, composed himself, accepted the ribbon and signal flimsy, and said, ‘Thank you very much, sir.’

  Lipsey coughed, ‘When I said earlier that we always get around to it, eventually, in Royal Navy, the concept of eventually I’m afraid can be somewhat of a moveable feast, Mr Gilmour.’ He paused, going back into his pocket again, then, ‘Some time ago, while serving aboard HMS Umbrage, you were involved in another action, the circumstances of which I am certain are well known to everyone in this wardroom, and indeed throughout the Trade. In the course of that action you managed to cripple the Italian cruisers Fabrizio del Dondo and Gradisca di Izonso, thus thwarting an attempt by the Italian Navy to fight off attacks by our surface units on a major Axis convoy. It’s taken their lordships some time to get around to advising His Majesty of your conduct on that night, but now that they have, His Majesty is also now happy to confirm his pleasure for that one too … by awarding you the Distinguished Service Order …’

  There was more clapping – lots more. And even laughter to go with the grins all round. A DSO! Bloody hell, everyone was thinking, that’s not a gong they chuck out lightly.

  Which was undoubtedly true. In fact some used to joke it was the medal their lordships dispensed when they’d exhausted that month’s quota of VCs. Lipsey handed over the signal confirming it, and the blue and red ribbon. Harry nodded, and then just said, ‘Sir,’ because no other words would come.

  Mandy Trevanion stepped forward and proffered her hand, ‘My goodness, Mr Gilmour. Your very own Dicky, Shot Off. Imagine that. The things you young men will do for King and Country.’ Then she changed her mind and gave a huge hug instead.

  Paddy Cullinan and Guy Serrell, who were both rocking with laughter, raised their glasses, and called out to Harry, ‘My God, Harry! Your own Dicky, Shot Off!’ … which as everyone knew was the military’s unofficial name for the medal. The toast was then taken up by the entire gathering, Cdr. Lipsey leading, ‘Harry Gilmour! Dicky, Shot Off!’ General whooping and cheering followed. And then more gin. Lots more.

  Later, Mandy threaded through the crowd to where two other, much younger Wren officers were flirting outrageously with Harry. ‘Take your jacket off …’ she told Harry.

  ‘Ooh, m’am! Shouldn’t you wait ’til you get him back to your berth before you start that,’ said one of the Wrens, rendered injudicious through too much drink. Mandy silenced her with one arch of her eyebrow, then to Harry, ‘… and the ribbons. I’ll sew them on for you.’

  ‘I can sew,’ he replied.

  ‘I’ve seen how you boys sew … it looks like you’ve used a knife and fork,’ said Mandy, already forcing Harry out of his sleeves. As she did, she squinted at him, ‘I know you’re Scottish, but you’ve got a face on you like a wet Tuesday in February. Oh God! Tell me this isn’t you getting yourself all worked up into a lather of false modesty.’

  The two Wrens, who had sobered instantly after Mandy’s arching eyebrow, didn’t take long to realise their usually fun-loving older friend was ignoring them on purpose. It was a few moments before Harry noticed they had vanished.

  ‘No,’ said Harry, ‘Not that I have to account for myself to you. You realise I out-rank you,’ he added, remembering in the nick of time not to call her, ‘Third Officer’.

  ‘Oh, puh-lease!’

  ‘These,’ said Harry, flourishing his two medals, ‘have reminded me of serious things.’

  They were standing near the main wardroom entrance, and not in full view. Mandy snatched the ribbons, then with her hand flat against his chest, pushed him forcefully against the wall. ‘I get a lot of the likes of you through here,’ she said, ‘You come and go, and I never expect to see you again. So seeing you’re only going to be here once, I decided a long time ago every one of you was going to enjoy yourselves, whether you liked it or not. Because that suited me too. Because it meant I didn’t have to think about the fact that most of you who pass through here, sooner or later, usually sooner … well, let’s say it’s not just me who never gets to see you again.’

  Harry, forcing a smile, said, ‘It’s regarded as bad form to start doing sums like that.’

  ‘So what is it that’s so important that you want to waste whatever time there’s left worrying about?’ she said.

  Harry sighed and looked at the ceiling. ‘You really are a crowd-pleaser, Crusty Cate,’ said Harry, forcing a laugh.

  ‘Crusty Cate’ was what she’d once claimed she’d called herself in civvy street. From the start, Mandy’s peacetime private life and occupation had been the subject of much speculation among the Perishers. Once, when they were pressing her particularly hard, she appeared to relent, ‘You’ve heard of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show? Well, Cornwall’s west, and it’s wild … he had a show here too, and I was the star.’

  ‘I was Guzz for years, and never heard your name there.’ George Maude had jumped straight in, all haughty and smart, like he’d caught her out – finally – Guzz being Jack’s name for HM Dockyard, Plymouth.

  ‘Of course you didn’t,’ Mandy had said, ‘I had a stage name. “Crustacean Cate”. Crusty for short. My lobster lassoing was legendary from Tintagel to Mevagissey.’

  They were no further forward.

  Mandy draped Harry’s jacket over a chair and grabbed him by the tie. ‘We need more pink gin,’ she said, leading him back up the wardroom.

  ‘What did you really do before the war? Harry asked, trotting along behind her.

  She turned and gave him a level, “trust me” look, and replied. ‘I was sous chef at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel.’

  “The Duke” was Plymouth’s big railway hotel, a shambling Victorian gothic pile that dominated the town’s skyline, and boasted a guestbook that included stars from Charlie Chapli
n and Bing Crosby.

  ‘Really?’ said Harry, impressed. ‘What was your signature dish?’

  Mandy turned again, treating him to the same cool look, and said, ‘I cooked the books, my lovely,’ then she winked, and led him to the gin.

  The following day was their last day on the attack teacher. Guy Serrell was on the periscope when his target model suddenly burst into flames. When Paddy Cullinan stepped up, his target model, the German liner Bremen, suddenly took off and flew over his head. There was the sound of much hilarity coming down the voice pipe.

  In the afternoon, Cdr Lipsey said it was the Perishers’ turn to challenge their tormentors to see if they could do any better. The five prospective commanding officers came up into the plot room to take over the table and the extension arms and pulleys, while the four Wrens went down into the control room; and in quick succession, Mandy Trevanion alone sank the battleship Duke of York and the aircraft carrier Illustrious, thus demonstrating, ‘any idiot can do this,’ as one helpful Wren had called up through the voice pipe. No-one was churlish enough to mention the months’ worth of lessons they must have benefitted from, from simply watching how not to do it.

  The next day, all five candidates and Cdr Lipsey squeezed into a Coastal Command Anson for the flight up to the Royal Naval Air Station at Abbotsinch on the outskirts of Glasgow. As they came down through the clouds Harry could see the river winding away in the murk, the docks crammed with the serried, slug-like shapes of merchant ships discharging cargo, and beneath the clumps of huge, heavy-lift cranes, the shipyards with hull upon hull rising up along the river’s banks, all a-glitter with the random flashings of welding torches. Beyond the yards, the whole city was a giant factory belching smoke – all noise and furnace-heated to feed the war – where Harry knew, somewhere on the streets in between the industry, Shirley Lamont was driving an ambulance.

  Five

  They were at the start of the third week of the sea-going part of the course now, and the evolutions Cdr Lipsey was taking them through were becoming ever more complex and hairy, not least for the poor CO of HMS Sepoy, the S class boat currently assigned for Perisher duties. He was Lt Barbour, a somewhat bland, taciturn young regular who didn’t seem to react much to any of the crazy scrapes Teacher and his five pupils inflicted on his command, even though he was ultimately responsible for Sepoy’s safety in the eyes of their lordships – apart from his highly stylised repertoire of forehead wrinkling.

  He was doing it now, as Jacko Dunham crouched before Sepoy’s housed attack periscope. Dunham was nervously tapping its brass tube with one hand, while he held the other hand close to his face, studying his watch. Guy Serrell was on the plot, so Harry and the other two Perishers technically had nothing to do right then. However, unlike Lts Cullinan and Maude who were sipping coffee in the wardroom immediately for’ard, Harry was curious, and so he was standing right at the aft end of the control room just by the door to the Asdic and wireless offices, watching.

  Cdr Lipsey had had them running in attacks all morning, against a loose convoy comprising a requisitioned motor yacht and two armed trawlers, escorted by an old B class destroyer of late 1920s vintage, and one of those ancient ex-US Navy four-stacker jobs foisted on the RN when the Atlantic convoys’ need for escorts was nothing short of desperate. They were operating somewhere between Sannox Bay on Arran and Little Cumbrae, having drifted a little too far out the usual exercise box as a result of persistent squalls coming up from the southeast. So much for summer.

  Since they’d arrived for the sea-going part of the Perisher, Lipsey and the five of them had been billeted on the island of Bute in the palatial Glenburn Hotel which presided over Rothesay, the island’s principal town. This day had started like every other day since they’d arrived. They’d all risen in the early dawn of these latitudes and then hurried down to the town’s coal pier where a tender waited to take them out to HMS Cyclops, the training flotilla’s depot ship; then it was a quick breakfast in the wardroom and aboard Sepoy for the day’s business.

  The Perisher was an arduous, unforgiving course, and had been designed to be so. From the start of The Great War it was a given that the skills necessary to command a submarine should be passed down from a boat’s skipper to his replacement. But the high chop rate quickly meant many new-build boats were going to sea with COs who’d never commanded a submarine before, and whose subsequent achievements seldom went beyond adding to the chop rate.

  The new service’s answer had been to cut out its most senior and successful skippers before they too became a statistic, and to turn them into teachers. The first course sat in 1917, and the rules were simple: Teacher imparted everything he knew; then the students got to demonstrate how closely they’d been paying attention – at sea, aboard a real submarine. You were allowed to make mistakes, as long as you rectified them immediately, and certainly before you endangered the boat and Teacher had to step in. If you didn’t, you failed, and were removed from the course, and from the submarine service forthwith. And you could fail at any time, right up until the final minute, on the final exercise.

  Between the end of the last war, and the start of this one, up to 30 per cent of those who sat the Perisher failed to pass. Hence the course’s nickname. Those who did fail were returned to General Service, it was said without any prejudice to their future careers. The smart ones however immediately went shopping for a nice, new bowler hat. That option wasn’t open anymore, now there was another war on: failure these days usually meant a berth on some storm-tossed corvette in the North Atlantic.

  Harry hadn’t been aboard a submarine since he’d been relieved as Nicobar’s Jimmy that pitch black night on a bomb-wrecked quay in Grand Harbour. But going aboard Sepoy, in a perverse, disconcerting kind of way, had been like coming home for him.

  Every morning Cdr Lipsey had picked one of them to take Sepoy to sea, and once there, each had their turn in command as Teacher took them through a never-ending, escalating series of exercises.

  Since actually stepping back aboard a real submarine, it had been noticed by Teacher that Lt Gilmour’s attitude and performance had improved dramatically, no matter how hard he drove him. This was a matter of considerable satisfaction to Teacher, although he said nothing to Lt Gilmour about it.

  Today it had been Jacko Duham’s turn to take them to sea. Jacko was on the bridge, leaning over calling, ‘Let go aft, let go for’ard!’, manoeuvring on motors to swing out the stern, then going ahead and clutching in the diesels as he laid a course to the exercise area in Inchmarnock Water between Bute and Arran. Then he carried out the first trim dive of the day. Harry, watching, knew he could have done it blindfold. So did Teacher.

  ‘Group down, slow together.’ It was Jacko Dunham, still crouching by the periscope. ‘Periscope depth.’

  Harry felt Sepoy begin rising as he watched Jacko, his eyes fixed on the depth gauge as the boat planed up from sixty feet. ‘Plot,’ he called to Serrell, ‘what was my last angle on the bow.’ Serrell called it back and Jacko checked the periscope’s bearing bezel, and turned it slowly on to where he expected to see the convoy. Sepoy’s periscope depth was 32 feet. At 35 feet, Jacko called, ‘Up periscope!’ so as he would see his target as soon as the ’scope broke the surface. Harry knew from previous all round looks there was a fair chop on the surface and a lot of flying water, so there was little danger of the periscope being spotted right away.

  ‘Three targets, bearing is that …’ called Jacko, as one of Sepoy’s senior rates stepped in to read off the bezel, ‘… and the range is …’ and the senior rate read out the range. The numbers were dialled into the fruit machine by Sepoy’s Number 4, a studious young sub lieutenant whose name Harry couldn’t remember.

  The three targets would be the “merchantmen”, thought Harry – the two trawlers and the yacht. The escorts, HMS Bedivere, the B class destroyer, and HMS Berkhamsted, the old Yank four-stacker, would be out on the convoy’s wings – out of sight of a periscope just doing a quick look.
So Jacko should have spun it a little, just to make sure where everybody was. Shouldn’t he? Harry would’ve. In fact would’ve done an all-rounder, just to make sure where he was, and no-one else was where they shouldn’t be.

  ‘The distance between their masts is narrowing,’ said Jacko, half to himself, ‘They’re turning … down periscope. Group up. Half ahead together. Keep sixty feet.’

  Jacko stood up, his head obviously deep in the box, trying to keep his picture of where he was relative to the targets’ course, or track, and what the targets were now doing. ‘Asdic,’ he called, ‘what do you have?’

  A voice came from the cubby behind Harry, ‘I have five targets on the bearing … the bearing is opening out … targets turning … maintaining speed.’

  Ah well. The Asdic had it; all five were out there. No destroyer was bearing down on them to bracket them with depth charges. Jacko had been doing well so far on his simulated attacks, and he was doing so again, using all the tools to hand. But still …