* * *
Two forty-seven. Cloud thinner and with gaps in it, a few stars visible but no moon, sky brightening in the east and the ships to starboard – Montreal Star on the beam, Imperator on the bow and Cedarwood on the quarter – no longer smudges but black cut-outs with increasingly hard edges, blacker than black against the beginnings of a dark shine on the sea.
U-boats on their way back to Lorient? Leaving one destroyed for five of the convoy sunk? Five tonight, five last night – less the one that struggled home. Nine crews, each averaging forty men, say, and you might guess at about fifty percent surviving – in boats, rafts, and some no doubt rescued by the sloop: call it nine ships and 200 men, in two nights and out of one convoy. How many convoys at sea at this moment, and how many steamers on their own?
Telepathy to Julia, sleepless and fretting on her narrow bed: Still afloat, intact, and wanting only to get back to you, my darling…
Spark of light, meaningless for a split second because one’s mind had been elsewhere. Expanding though, brightening swiftly, brilliant then, too bright to look at without being blinded – filling the overhead about five points to starboard. Roughly over the head of column four – which was the Commodore-ship Highland Fame. But could as easily have been launched by one of the old boy’s close neighbours. Using binoculars one could see ships’ silhouettes as far away as column five. He thought, column five. The Old Man had glanced round, growled something to himself, and Waller had muttered, possibly addressing Andy, ‘Here we go again…’
Right, and right on the moment – thud of a torpedo hit. Not going – bloody gone. Just when one had decided one could allow oneself to believe it was over for the night. And this one having made its kill despite having been spotted – that snowflake an indication that something had. Stayed on the surface long enough to get its torpedo or torpedoes on their way.
The plural had been correct: another hit. Bastard inside the convoy on that side, he guessed. Tonight’s score now seven. Unless—
‘Holt, what course to a point three hundred miles off St John’s, Newfoundland?’
Thinking of ducking out?
‘Roughly 235, sir, but I’ll—’
‘Near enough, for now.’
With adjustments for the westerly, wind and tide, probably was. And 300 miles off that Newfoundland coast you’d be well clear of the Grand Banks, where at this time of year there tended to be fogs. If one’s guess as to what was in the Old Man’s mind was anything like right, he’d alter there to something more like 210, heading for the Bahamas and Cuba through waters that should be U-boat free – even if any of their larger boats did happen to possess that phenomenal range. Unless they’d risk bringing America into the war, which surely they would not.
Distress rocket, from somewhere in the convoy’s rear – roughly where the first of those two victims might be by now, if when she’d been hit she’d been in the van. Commodore’s neighbours there being the Eaglescliff, Muriel Sykes, Tancred, Colombine: unless any of those had been knocked out before, he realised. Recalling the names of a few other possibles now – Highmoor, Brigadier, Samaritan. But one had no way of identifying earlier casualties, other than those who’d been close neighbours.
The second rocket had burst and fizzled out, and the candelabra-like brilliance of the snowflake was fading as it floated seaward. Old Man addressing Waller: ‘You handier with an Aldis than you used to be, Third?’
‘I hope so, sir – at least I’ve—’
‘Plug it in out there, make To Commodore from seventy-four, with your consent, propose continuing from here independently.’
‘Aye, sir.’ He was repeating it while getting the Aldis lamp out of its stowage. Low-voiced to Andy then, ‘Call up the Montreal Star or the Eaglescliff, d’you think?’
‘Either or both.’ Meaning aim in that direction, either of those two might take in the message and pass it on. Quilla calling herself seventy-four, despite actually being in position seventy-two, because she’d started as number four in column seven and those remained her identification numerals for all signalling purposes while in this convoy. Andy rethinking the Old Man’s decision and appreciating what had to be his reasoning: remaining in convoy wasn’t doing anyone else any particular good, so departure couldn’t do them any harm, and with dawn in the offing it looked like a safer bet to break away under cover of four-fifths darkness than to wait for general dispersal in the first light of day. Especially being in this column and having nothing astern of her, having only to put her helm over and vamoose.
As long as there were no U-boats on this side of the convoy, of course. That was the risk the Old Man was accepting; would be why, after asking for a course to steer, he’d given himself a minute or two to think about it.
Aldis clacking away out there. Not audibly from inside here, but you could see the fall-out of light: Waller flashing ‘A’s, calling up whoever’d see them and give him an answering flash, the ‘go ahead’. Andy had turned away from it, not wanting to have his night-vision spoil, focusing on the Catherine Bell’s wake and stern light and sweeping slowly left. Anything out there, this would be a good time to spot it: at least, a bad time not to.
Catherine Bell would be very much on her own once Quilla hauled out. ‘Column’ of one. Maybe she’d follow suit.
‘Third mate’s passing your signal, sir.’
Samways: his eyes were back on the compass now. Stuttering of dots and dashes from outside there, and – Andy had swung in that direction, caught an acknowledging flash from about six points on the bow. The Eaglescliff, he supposed: she had the Commodore on her beam, so it might not take long to get his answer. If he was still there, the Highland Fame still afloat, and if that was the Eaglescliff, not whoever’d been astern of her now closed up in her billet. The Brigadier, that would be, if she’d survived this far… But if the Commodore had gone, the Eaglescliff (or whichever else it was) wouldn’t be slow in passing back that information, he guessed. Thinking also that it was a cold-blooded as well as murderous business: just a few minutes ago two ships lost, two crews, or at least some of them gone with them, and here and now their erstwhile companions plodding on – grim, anonymous, even aloof. Until it was you it was – well, some other lot.
But what else: how else?
Well, maybe this way – a signal lamp way out to starboard sparking, calling-up with ‘A’s. He stayed on it as Waller gave it the go-ahead and the dots and dashes came flickering in:
Barranquilla from Commodore: Good luck and God bless.
4
Mid-afternoon, 6 August, Quilla on her own, pitching southwestward through ocean blue-tinted by remnants of the Gulf Stream and white-flecked by a breeze of about force four right on her nose. Moderate swell too, to which she was reacting in her usual light-ship manner, scooping up the white stuff and tossing it back in streams. She’d been on this mean course of 238 degrees since leaving the convoy at 0300, at that time increasing from twelve to fourteen and a half knots, and at 0400 commencing zigzag number seventeen, which as it so happened gave away fifteen percent of speed-made-good, bringing her down to actually covering about twelve and a quarter nautical miles per hour. There was a book of zigzag patterns, and number seventeen was the Old Man’s choice: it was open at that page in front of the helmsman, and the zigzag clock was set to buzz every twenty minutes, reminding officers of the watch to put her on the next leg of it.
The main purpose of zigzagging was to make things less easy for a U-boat making a dived torpedo attack, the man at the periscope needing to make a reasonably accurate estimate of his target’s course and speed in order to aim-off by the right amount. Andy discussed this with Harve Brown, after handing over the watch to him at four p.m., making the point that all recent reports of attacks on independently-routed ships had been of U-boats surfacing and using their guns; indeed the Old Man’s orders to officers of the watch took account of this: ‘Spot the bugger coming up, press the bloody tit and turn stern-on to bring our gun to bear.’
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‘So why the zigzag, if they aren’t going to attack from dived?’
The mate had shrugged. ‘Always the exception, I suppose?’
‘From their angle, surfacing and using the gun makes sense though, doesn’t it? Saving their torpedoes for the kind of night attack we’ve been seeing? They must be expensive things, compared to a few shells. And they only carry about ten – one lot in the tubes, other half reloads, and when they’ve used them up—’
‘Yeah. Dare say.’
‘Of course, if one could be sure of seeing the thing surfacing, and quick enough bringing the gun to bear, since while he’s actually surfacing he’s blind, isn’t he—’
A nod: ‘Slam on wheel good and quick, and if you can shoot straight you got the sod.’ A raised forefinger: ‘If, Andy!’
‘Didn’t go too badly this morning, I thought?’
They’d had a practice shoot during the forenoon, putting over a target composed of vegetable crates lashed together, and firing a dozen twelve-pounder shells at it, the last few of which had fallen close. He’d done the spotting and correcting himself, with Merriman standing by – careful not to look as if he was thinking he could have done it better. Maybe no such thought in the boy’s head, but that expressionless look made one wonder: especially being aware that one hadn’t done all that marvellously. Brown said – with his glasses up, searching for periscopes – ‘The first few went wide, didn’t they. Them’s the ones that need to hit – especially as the swine’s shooting back at you.’ A shrug. ‘Need more practice, lad, that’s all.’
‘Tomorrow forenoon, if that’s OK?’
‘Sure…’
The Old Man had come up while they’d been talking. Zigzag clock buzzing at that moment, Harve Brown glancing round as the quartermaster – Freeman, middle-aged, three-quarters bald and bat-eared – put on starboard wheel. Brown said, ‘Saying we might lay on another shoot tomorrow, sir.’
‘More the better.’ Eyes shifting to Andy. ‘It’s hitting with the first shot that counts.’
Andy nodded. ‘Means getting the range right – up to me, I know, sir.’
‘Target was – what, thirty to fifty yards away, your first shot this morning?’
‘About that, sir. But I’d say the amount of movement on her—’
‘Tell Patterson try loosing off at the top of a rise or the bottom of a trough. As she hangs, like.’
‘Yessir.’ It wasn’t all that simple, in fact, and you needed to be right for line before you could correct for range. Which the Old Man had to know at least as well as one did oneself, probably better. OK, this forenoon’s effort having started at virtually point-blank range, the opening shots really should have hit, or at least fallen a lot closer than they had. Harve Brown opening a new subject then – the Old Man having moved to his customary port for’ard corner – ‘Your young lady’s uncle’s ship – as fought a gun duel with some U-boat – uh?’
‘Yeah?’
It wasn’t his watch now, the mate had taken over, but since he was still up here he had his glasses up, out of habit, searching down the starboard side. He checked, told Brown, ‘Didn’t even let ’em get the boats away. Hammered the daylights out of them – smashed the bridge and set her on fire. They got Julia’s boat down all right, thank God—’
‘What ship, and where?’
The Old Man, showing interest…
‘South of the Azores, sir. Motor vessel Cheviot Hills, A. and J. Hills of Tyneside. On her way back from New Zealand via Panama. Her survivors – one boatload – were picked up later by a Hun steamer – Glauchau, the one we—’
‘That famous business of yours – aye, course. I’d not appreciated the young lady as just mentioned was the subject—’
‘Niece of the master, sir, who went down with his ship. He’d taken her on a visit to another uncle who’s farming in NZ – only one of the family who’s not a seaman. Oh, he was, I think, when he was young. Anyway, her father had a trawler, drowned somewhere off Norway when she was little, and her two cousins – sons of the Cheviot Hills master – are second mates.’
‘Good wife for a sailor, Holt.’
He nodded. ‘Had crossed my mind, sir.’
Harve Brown smirked. ‘Crossed it and continued into the wide blue yonder, eh?’
‘So happens, sir’ – addressing the Old Man – ‘we’re going to marry.’
‘Going to what?’ Harve glancing at his captain: ‘Beg your pardon, sir, but – I don’t believe it. Honest, simply don’t.’ Eyebrows hooping then: ‘Unless she’s in the family way? But even then—’
Andy cut in, asking the Old Man, ‘If you’d excuse me, sir…’
* * *
Harve brought the subject up again that evening in the saloon over mugs of coffee, asking him, ‘Pulling my leg were you, young Holt, or are you truly contemplating matrimony?’
‘Concern you all that much, Harve?’
‘Well – yeah.’ He looked surprised. ‘Known you long enough, lad – you and your antics. Can’t get my mind round it, somehow. I mean, at twenty-one, and – well, apart from your well-known natural inclinations – not to mention there’s a war on—’
‘Ever hear of people falling in love?’
Two slow blinks. A shrug then. ‘Done it meself, even. But – crikey… Told your folk, have you?’
‘Not a soul.’
‘How about her? Told her?’
He looked around. No-one was in easy earshot. There was a noisy game of cribbage going, one of dominoes, third engineer and CRO throwing dice. He told the mate – whose interest was benevolent, he was well aware – ‘I’ve proposed to her and she’s accepted. That’s the long and short of it.’
‘I’ll be damned.’ Round-eyed, speaking softly. Shake of the head then. ‘Better tell your folk, hadn’t you? What about hers – they know?’
‘There’s only her mother. But I’d forgotten – I’ve told my sister. Haven’t posted the letter yet, but—’
‘Don’t want to seem nosy, boy, but I’m a lot older than you, known you a few years, family man myself – two grown daughters of my own, damn it—’
‘Hoping I’d marry one of them – that it?’
‘I wouldn’t let you in the same room as either of ’em, not even if you were encased in plaster of bloody Paris!’
‘They must be hot stuff. Tell you what, Harve—’
‘Seriously, now. What about the young cadet – apprentice – she was so close to? Your chum Fisher told me—’
‘Him again.’ Don Fisher, who’d been second mate in the PollyAnna. ‘Really bent your ear, didn’t he?’
‘Well – just him and me having time to kill, and an interest in your various carryings-on—’
‘You’re talking about an A. and J. Hills’ apprentice, name of Mark Finney – formerly of the Cheviot Hills. He and another one who died of wounds in the boat with Julia – died in Julia’s arms. Head wound and – other injury. Anyway, Mark Finney – age seventeen, and Julia by the way is twenty-one, same age as me – he and Julia were what you might call inseparable. It was a trio, when we first had ’em aboard, the Cheviot’s chief engineer playing daddy and young Mark as little brother.
They’d gone through all that together, d’you see, sort of hand-in-hand: he’d looked after her all through – time of the sinking, and in the boat, then prisoners in the Hun steamer, and later in the Anna when it was a toss-up whether she’d stay afloat another night – another bloody hour… But how it was between those two – listen, a way I can describe it, in her own words, near enough. She’d said something about me being kind to her – dare say I had been, I was dead scared for her at some of the really bad times, and I said something like, “It’s not just blooming kindness” – yeah, all right, wanting to let her know how I felt about her – and she warned me off, saying Mark Finney was “quite a sensitive soul”. Believe me though, I’d given it a lot of thought, and whether you’d believe it or not I may say I was being as good as gold: that remark was the
first what you might call approach of any kind I’d made – and I said then, about Finney, something about she and him being close like a sister and young brother might be, and her answer was, “He may think it’s become more than that. I’m very fond of him, and he’s been marvellous, there’ve been times I couldn’t have done without him. What I’m saying is I wouldn’t want him hurt.’”
Brown’s eyes were thoughtful. ‘Won’t he be, though?’
Andy hesitated. Having the answer, but no reason to let Harve in on every damned aspect of the business, one thing constantly leading to another as it seemed to. He shook his head. ‘No. But that’s how it was. She wasn’t only telling me to lay off, she was saying that what was between her and Mark was not “any more than that” – d’you see? I was standing well back anyway, I truly was. Thinking how bloody marvellous she was, but leaving the pair of them to hold hands and whisper in each other’s ears, all that. Because that was best for her. My way of looking after her was to make sure he was with her every damn minute. What kind of bull did Fisher come up with?’
‘His only reference to it – that I recall – was when you went off to Newcastle, he wondered about her and the youngster and you maybe barging in on love’s young dream.’
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