The Skipper's Dog's Called Stalin

by David Black

  There, he’d thought, enough to stun a mullet. But after witnessing Radegonde’s reckless rampage through that assembling wolf pack, the idea had seemed to Harry to be so bleedin’ obvious – so elegant and so simple. There had been no tactical forethought, they hadn’t had a clue what they were about, but one rogue submarine among Jerry had wreaked havoc: sunk two U-boats and allowed a convoy to escape uninjured. Imagine what could have been achieved if they’d weighed in mob-handed?

  Not submarines though, he’d decided, but surface warships. Something fast and with more endurance – sloops, say, or those old V&W class destroyers. Four of them, six even. The escorts could never leave a convoy to go off prowling for U-boats, but an independent hunting group could. Ranging ahead or astern of the bunched-up merchant ships, waiting for Jerry to pop up, then fixing their positions with D/F – their radio direction finder; getting in among them while they ganged-up to attack and were too busy drooling over the nice big fat convoy.

  And so off it had gone with his patrol report. Harry had always found it odd that he’d been expected to write a patrol report at all. But for some reason, as the BNLO – British Naval Liaison Officer – aboard this particular Allied vessel, he was apparently expected to deliver his account to the Admiralty of what the aforementioned boat had been getting up to in the Allied cause.

  Nor was Harry sure whether the Captain of his aforementioned Allied vessel was supposed to know that his BNLO was writing a report card on him, which was why Harry had decided to show his patrol report to Captain Syvret before he sent it. He’d finally tracked down Radegonde’s Captain to a dockside shed where he’d been sitting in oversized, greasy overalls, with a set of inventories before him and a flask on his desk that should’ve held coffee but held red wine instead. Syvret had looked mildly surprised, but he did not comment on the fact that Harry had been asked to report on him. He merely sat down to read it.

  ‘What do you think, Sir?’ Harry had asked.

  ‘If they hadn’t asked you, I’d’ve been surprised,’ said Syvret. ‘They’ll want to know what we’ve got up to on our nice day away.’

  ‘What about my observations, Sir. Should I send them?’

  Syvret had looked him up and down. ‘Well if you have to send them, you’ll be doing the right thing sending them as a separate report. You don’t want to confuse the poor operations people with matters of strategy.’ Then he composed his face to look more serious. ‘As for the observations contained therein, what can I say? For a start, they are an accurate and concise tactical appreciation of our action. They also offer well-argued and eminently sensible suggestions based on our tactical experience for future anti-submarine operations; and they are written by you. Well, it’s not that it’s you personally, but by the likes of you. As for whether you should send it – I wouldn’t like to comment, except to say, good luck.’

  ‘That bad, eh, Sir?’

  ‘Oh no! It’s not bad. It’s very good. That’s its trouble. Wine?’

  So Harry sent his comments off with his patrol report. After that, glum, with nothing else to do, but thinking, well at least I’ve tried, Harry addressed himself to drinking in the town’s hotels where the other RNVR officers off the corvettes and destroyers drank; and where the respectable but bored ladies of Nova Scotia would sometimes gather too.

  In his life ashore, nothing happened for a while; then several things happened at once.

  A pile of mail from home caught up with him, at the same time as, on the other side of the Atlantic, Bismarck came out, and then a week later got sunk, and here in Halifax, Harry received a summons to go to the office of the Royal Navy’s Liaison Officer to the Royal Canadian Navy.

  The Royal Canadian Navy’s headquarters was in the town’s Admiralty House. My God! But that was quick, he’d remembered thinking, assuming it was in response to his observations. However, it was only after he had arrived at Admiralty House that he discovered the summons had nothing to do with a junior officer’s musings on the future conduct of the Battle of the Atlantic.

  There were three men waiting for him; one in uniform and two in civvies.

  The building itself was a Georgian pile overlooking the harbour, and he walked there on a beautiful, crisp spring morning along Barrington Street behind the dockyard, then up a little lane. There was a Royal Marine at the door, who inspected his little cardboard identity card with great care, sniffily regarded his single wavy braid ring and then stood aside to admit him, all without saying a word. He was eventually shown to an anteroom of considerable opulence, corniced with high ceilings, and garlanded with paintings, none of which looked a day younger than eighteenth century.

  When a nondescript Wren, rendered into greater invisibility by her ill-fitting uniform, finally appeared to show him into his audience, none of the three men inside rose to greet him. They sat in the middle of a chamber of even more imposing gravity, behind a desk large enough to make each of them appear grand in his own right. There was an elderly Captain, bareheaded, so Harry was prompt in removing his cap to avoid any confusion over saluting; a fusty looking civilian, more vintage than veteran, in a morning coat, a pinned dark-blue spotted tie and turned down cellulose collar; and another civilian, of an altogether more dapper cut, age indeterminate, class, definite.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Gilmour,’ said the Captain in a commanding voice, toned down for indoors. ‘I am Captain Embury, LO to the RCN, and the RN PNO Halifax. Thank you for coming.’ This latter was said more by way of, let’s get this over with and not waste any more of my time.

  Harry said, ‘Sir’, and sat, knees together, cap in lap, like an errant public schoolboy in the headmaster’s study, as he knew was expected of him. He was, alas, still expecting this meeting to be about something entirely different.

  The Captain was tanned, with a full head of neatly trimmed, grey hair and an immaculately cut uniform with two neat little rows of medal ribbons recording what must have been a distinguished First World War career. In short, he was proper, up-and-down, squared-away Royal Navy, all the way through. So much so, just seeing him sitting there was like returning to the known world for Harry, after all those weeks aboard with the foreigners.

  ‘What an exciting time you’ve been having aboard your temporary berth, Mr Gilmour,’ Captain Embury said with a thin smile. ‘While I’m sure our esteemed French allies are to be congratulated on their sinkings, you have no idea of the problems they have caused the Canadians by their resulting demands on the dockyard facilities.’ There was a sigh and a shuffle of the papers before him, as if to say, now to the business at hand.

  ‘Radegonde, once her repairs have been effected, will pass out of operational control of Flag Officer, Submarines and will come under the direction of the Free French naval staff in London. That handover notwithstanding, you are to remain as BNLO aboard Radegonde until further notice. While FOS will have no further interest in Radegonde’s operations, apparently there will be a continuing diplomatic interest on the part of His Majesty’s government; one which you will be required to serve. These gentlemen’, and he gestured with a nod and a smile to the civilians, ‘are here to acquaint you with your duties in that respect. Do you understand, Mr Gilmour?’

  Harry did all in his power, first, to prevent his jaw dropping, and second, to stop himself asking all sorts of damn fool questions about what was happening to his ideas on future anti-submarine tactics. But he had been in a blue suit long enough to know when to keep his trap shut unless it was to say, ‘Aye aye, Sir’, which he duly did.

  The old civvy peered at Harry over a pair of tiny, metal-rimmed glasses. ‘Mr Dilnot. Foreign Office,’ he said. ‘Pleased, I’m sure’, and then he went into some dirge about Anglo-French relations, the future of France’s far-flung colonies and the potential of Vichy to muddy waters, before assuring Harry that the complexities therein were none of his concern. His mission was not to ask questions of the French, or to seek clarifications, or offer interpretations. He merely had to report. What was said and w
hat was done; and by whom to whom, and when. All delivered in a voice that sounded like the pages of an ancient Greek Grammar being riffled. The exact mechanics of how all this was to be achieved would be explained by Mr Fleming, and Mr Dilnot nodded to the Savile Row suit with the carnation in his buttonhole, who’d been doing nothing but appraising Harry over steepled fingers since he’d sat down. What age was this one? Mid- to late-thirties? Older, God forbid? Harry always found it hard to guess the age of older men.

  As soon as Mr Dilnot had finished, Mr Fleming shot out of his seat and came round the desk, his hand extended. Harry stood ready to put out his hand, but Fleming grabbed him by the elbow. ‘It’s all kilocycles and code books, so no need to detain these gentlemen any longer,’ he said in a voice that managed to be quite steely, yet plummy at the same time. Harry disengaged by stepping back and putting his cap under his arm, he came to attention in front of Captain Embury.

  ‘You are dismissed, Mr Gilmour,’ said the Captain, looking somewhat balefully between him and Fleming.

  ‘Sir. Mr Dilnot,’ said Harry to the two seated men, before Fleming had him again and was leading him to the door. That was when Harry noticed Fleming was carrying a plain Admiralty canvas folder bulging with paperwork.

  ‘Had to drag myself all the way up from our embassy in Washington DC just to see you, y’know,’ Fleming was saying, like they’d been up at Oxford together. ‘Hope you’re suitably impressed,’ he said as he ushered him across the anteroom, down the stairs and out of the door. ‘Let’s get a bloody drink’, and he didn’t stop talking all the way up on to Gottingen Street, where they found a colonial-looking hotel and made straight for the bar.

  ‘Came up by train,’ Fleming was saying. ‘Actually bloody comfortable. Wouldn’t know there was a war on. There isn’t of course! Not here! Ha ha! Big, roomy buggers, their railway carriages – railroad cars, they call them – same gauge though. Same feet and inches between the rails, but they overhang by miles. That’s why all their platforms are about three inches off the deck instead of the bloody great precipices we have. Gives them all the room they need. Wide as your Auntie Beattie’s bum. Damn cunning, the Yanks, when it comes to accommodating big bums. Although a bugger getting on and off if you’ve got housemaid’s knee, eh! Gin, I think. Two, with angostura bitters. We’ll push the boat out. Got nothing else to do today.’

  And he slapped down the canvas bag and flung himself in a big floral easy chair like he owned the lounge. Harry lowered himself into a similar chair opposite and sank back into its grip.

  ‘It’s all in there,’ said Fleming, pointing to the canvas folder. ‘You only need to transmit if there’s something to say. You seem like a smart young chap, I’m sure you’ll know. Send it via Halifax, 4,900 kilocycles, the usual Admiralty wavelength. Get your sparkies to tack it on to the end of the routine stuff. Wouldn’t want to arouse suspicion. But make sure you mark our traffic for the attention of the call sign in the book. The book’s got our own little code too, for you to dress our traffic up in. Piece of cake really. Now this Skipper of yours, Syvret, what’s he like?’

  The gins arrived. Fleming took a belt of his with deliberate relish. Harry didn’t want to be so rude as to look at his watch but it couldn’t be much after twelve thirty. Oh, well, when in Rome . . .

  ‘Like, Sir?’ he said, observing the niceties. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Like. You know; his politics . . . is he light on his feet . . . would you invite him to your club? That sort of thing,’ said Fleming, still the affable chap, despite the more specific change in their conversation.

  Am I being asked to spy here? thought Harry.

  ‘Hard to say really, Sir,’ said Harry. ‘We don’t really do much chit-chat. It’s all very professional.’

  He was buggered if he was going to blab about the wild blasphemies and treason talked at Radegonde’s wardroom table, if for no other reason than he somehow sensed he wasn’t among friends.

  ‘They like you apparently.’

  ‘Sorry, Sir?’

  ‘Mr Dilnot was all for swapping you for some other Johnnie who’d know his way around this sort of nonsense better than you. French would have none of it. Any idea what it was you said that’s so endeared you to them?’

  Harry didn’t reply and Fleming, sitting cross-legged, didn’t seem to be interested in any answer. He brushed the razor crease of his trousers absently. ‘Know much about our Captain’s background? You swap any fireside anecdotes? What life was like chez Syvret?’

  ‘Life on board an operational boat doesn’t leave you much time for that sort of thing, Sir,’ Harry lied blithely.

  ‘A good family, the Syvrets. Very society in Lyons,’ said Fleming, toying with his gin. ‘Commercial interests . . . pater big in local politics . . . mater, quite the salon führer. And our friend . . . an only child . . . and a very bright child to boot. Betcha didn’t know that then?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Won a place at the École polytechnique,’ said Fleming, fixing his eyes on Harry, looking for a reaction. ‘That’s the shop where they cultivate their high flyers, the Frenchies. Strictly exam passes only. It’s all very égalité over there. Just being the fruit of le loins of the Comte de Bon Bloodline won’t cut it. Not like us with our old school ties. You have to be a proper clever-clogs to get in. Cut throat competition too, I believe. Very short on the fraternité in that department. He never tell you anything about that?’

  ‘No, Sir,’ said Harry, thinking, how does he know all that? And, if he knows that about Captain Syvret, what does he know about me?

  ‘Hmm. So I suppose he didn’t tell you why he never took up the place,’ said Fleming, eyes now fixed on Harry. ‘Ran away to sea. A woman. And not just any. The wife of one of their big politicos. Caught with le pantalons down. Had to give it the old body swerve pronto; if you get my meaning.’

  And then Fleming seemed to lose interest in all talk about Syvret. Harry, later, would guess the open incredulity on his face that must have greeted all those revelations had convinced Fleming that Harry really did know very little about Captain Syvret.

  But it was what Fleming wanted to talk about next that really took Harry aback.

  ‘I also wanted to get a proper look at you, Harry,’ said Fleming, with an extra spurt of oiliness. ‘Especially as you haven’t come with exactly glowing references.’

  Harry felt his throat tighten.

  ‘The Skipper of your first boat didn’t think much of you.’

  The Bonny Boy, thought Harry, and again saw that gargoyle figure, still half drunk, the pipe-cleaner legs sticking out of his shirt tails, pointing an accusing finger at Pelorus’s downright bloody marvellous Jimmy, Lieutenant Sandeman. Charlie the Bonny Boy Bonalleck, Pelorus’s Skipper, blaming Sandeman for pressing home an attack Bonalleck should have been in the control room to launch himself, instead of lying drunk. And it all happened on Harry’s first submarine, on Harry’s first war patrol. That had been one to remember.

  The Bonny Boy, who later, in a royal strop against his crew, had allowed his boat to be rammed and sunk by a friendly merchantman on a pitch black night, blundering into a convoy lane where he should never have been.

  But Fleming hadn’t finished. ‘Your boat was lost, and the only reason you survived was you deserted your post,’ he added.

  Fleming let that hang between them, until he was forced to say, ‘Do shut your mouth, Harry. People will stare.’

  Harry did as he was told. He couldn’t think straight; how could Bonalleck have come up with such a lie? He wanted to blurt out his denial, but caution prevented him from saying anything. He should have been off watch when Pelorus had been rammed – in his bunk and not at any damn, bloody ‘post’! And anyway, the word was ‘station’ in the Royal Navy, not ‘post’. This ass didn’t know everything. But he was right about one thing; indeed he hadn’t been at his Diving Station. He’d been in the engine room spaces, conducting a spares’ inventory with two of the boat’s se
nior rates; on the Bonny-bloody-Boy Bonalleck’s orders! Because Pelorus hadn’t been at Diving Stations.

  Fleming watched Harry chew his rage, then added blandly, ‘Runs in the family, too, I discovered, when I was giving your record the once over . . . being not quite the proper chap.’

  Still, Harry remained silent, taking some comfort from the little tell-tale twitches of irritation that he was detecting round the edges of Fleming’s determinedly indifferent expression.

  ‘Your father being a bit of a conshie . . . in the last lot . . . a blemish on any family’s good name, I’d have thought,’ added Fleming, delivering what he’d expected would be his coup de grâce when it came to putting this young pup in his place; showing him who was boss, and intimidating him into the necessary subservience for the job he wanted him to do. But the little shit had just smirked at him. He’d had to bestir himself on more than one occasion in the archives looking for some lever to use on this otherwise irrelevant little squirt, and he was smirking at him. Fleming wasn’t happy.

  Harry, on the other hand, had been . . . well, if not exactly happy, then relieved. Duncan Gilmour, head of languages at Dunoon Grammar School, and father to Harris John Gilmour, far from being a conscientious objector in ‘the last lot’, had won a Military Medal. Harry had even held it in his clammy six-year-old hands, having discovered it while rummaging, as children do, in the back of his father’s wardrobe. Duncan Gilmour did not talk about his medal; was in fact very circumspect about his role in the Great War, to an inordinate degree; as was everyone around him. Nonetheless, and Harry hadn’t needed anyone to explain it to him, the British Army didn’t hand out Military Medals to conshies. Ergo, Mr smarty-pants here hadn’t known everything about him after all.