The Skipper's Dog's Called Stalin

by David Black

  The Windward Islands, thought Harry, gazing at the fuzzy peak in the distance; fancy I should ever get to see the Windward Islands. Although it must be said, his sense of boyish amazement was dulling a little by now. They had steamed the 2,500 miles from Halifax down to the latitudes off southern Florida through open ocean; hugging the offing, yes, but with land seldom more than a loom in daylight or the glow of reflected coastal lights at night.

  After Florida, however, Captain Syvret had navigated them on an inter-island cruise, with luxuriant landfall after landfall, past a succession of verdant outcrops and silver strands: chocolate box settlements and anchorages out of paradise. They had slipped into the Bahamas chain between Eleuthera and Cat Island, and steered south-west, keeping Long Island and the Acklins to starboard before passing between Great Inagua and the Turks & Caicos and heading to raise the northern coast of Hispaniola, just west of its border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

  From there they’d headed for the Mona Passage, the strait that separates Hispaniola from Puerto Rico and connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. Over eighty miles wide, buffeted by huge tidal flows and dotted with sand banks and three islands, yet still choked with shipping, all heading to and from the Panama Canal; one of the most vital and busy shipping lanes in the world.

  Harry was convinced Syvret had chosen the Mona Passage out of contrary badness aimed directly at him; no malice intended, just to keep him on his toes. Because Harry had offered to do the navigating.

  ‘So you’re a bit of a navigator, Harry,’ Syvret had replied, during their last after-dinner debate before entering the strait, when Harry had broached the subject. ‘Well I think you should spell M’sieur Bassano on the chart table. He’s been very busy bringing us down through the islands. He needs a break for sunbathing now too.’

  And that was when Harry’s main role aboard Radegonde had changed from lying around contemplating his navel, to practically living inside Radegonde’s conning tower kiosk, where he spent several hours every day between scooting up to the bridge to take chart fixes through his sextant, and then back down again to drip sweat over the chart table; but everyone else knew better. The Captain was playing with him.

  ‘It’s a sad day,’ Captain Syvret would say, ‘when you can’t get a laugh at someone else’s expense.’

  When ribbed, Harry had blamed all his sweating on the sweatbox air, and it was only on the day after he’d watched the steel lattice of the Mona Island lighthouse pass by on his starboard quarter, so that it was just a matter of a direct 500-odd mile run out to Martinique – Leeward Islands a long way to port – that Harry began to make his own jokes about Captain Syvret choosing this route; accusing him of being just a ship-spotting twitcher at heart; and didn’t he get to see an awful lot of really big boats in the passage to write up in his really big spotter’s book.

  When he stopped to think about it, Harry felt quite sick at the level of insubordination he’d sometimes find himself lapsing into; backchat to a degree that would have been unimaginable in the Royal Navy. Yet he kept getting away with it. In fact, Syvret seemed to find it hilarious. The Captain certainly never gave the impression he felt his authority was being undermined, and nor did anyone else. On the contrary, everyone seemed to find it held a certain entertainment level. So in the end Harry just acquiesced in the knowledge he’d never really understand, or get used to, the way they did things in the Marine Nationale; but it was a habit he’d better shake off pretty damn quick when it came time to return to the old Andrew.

  As they closed on Martinique, the Captain allowed a succession of crew up on to the deck. Even the soldiers were allowed to take the air and look at the passing scenery. Harry could see now that the peak they had spotted earlier dominated the north end of the island and was a sort of velvety green with foliage and bearded with jungle. The entire north end, in fact, looked pretty rugged, with deep slit ravines running down to scores of little scalloped bays, rimmed with dull, pumice grey-black volcanic sand and tiny settlements. And there were lots of Tricolours, wafting listlessly in the scrappy breeze.

  By the time Radegonde was only a few miles off, a large bay opened ahead and as they came up it, on its north corner, a large town revealed itself, scattered up a narrow rising plateau that ended in yet another escarpment jutting out from the island’s central massif.

  ‘Fort-de-France,’ Captain Syvret announced. ‘Capital of Martinique and a department of France. Our destination, gentlemen.’

  It was indeed a big town, and colourful too; like a giant box of Liquorice Allsorts spilled across a series of hillsides. It was dominated by a tall church steeple, as well as a promontory sticking out into the bay on which sat a seventeenth-century fort, all dull grey stone and mossy, with bluff walls that looked as if they might brush off any insult a cannon might have to offer. And above it flew a preposterously large Tricolour, practically the size of a farmer’s field, and so big it made Harry laugh. He thought about saying something witty along the lines of, Is the Captain sure this is France? Until he saw the look on Syvret’s face as he regarded him, and he shut up.

  But Syvret wasn’t looking at him anymore, he was watching the progress of a small steam pinnace, huffing and wheezing its way out from the fort on the promontory and definitely heading in their direction as they slid in under the loom of the town. Standing, peering at them, were two men in suits far too stuffy-looking for this weather, and an indeterminate gaggle of others in blue uniforms who looked more like gendarmes than soldiers.

  Syvret turned to Harry and said, ‘Mr Gilmour, please go below now, take your signallers and make yourself scarce somewhere aft of the motor room please. For the time being.’

  In all his time aboard Radegonde, Harry had never more than stuck his head into the aft crew’s quarters. Cantor and Lucie had been in there for cards, but for the voyage out this had been the domain of the Fusiliers Marins. They were no longer resident now. Harry had watched them go up through the aft hatch to be mustered on the deck boards as he, Cantor and Lucie had come squeezing in. But the place still smelled different from the rest of the boat; ranker, Harry thought, as he sat down to sulk. Radegondes had always had what he’d assumed was a garlicky whiff to them, that took the edge off the usual cocktail of armpits, crotches and diesel. But these Fusiliers Marins were just pongos in blue suits, and stank no better than they should. And he said so to Cantor and Lucie before he’d thought about it. Hmm, he said to himself, I am getting slack, being so familiar. But the two sailors laughed and agreed with him.

  Cantor produced the latest crop of signals for him to decode, should he be looking for something to pass the time; and then Lucie, who’d slipped back for’ard into the motor room a moment earlier, reappeared clutching a bottle of gin that had already taken quite a few hits.

  ‘Lucie!’ said Harry in his best quarterdeck tone. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Gin, Sir,’ said Lucie, admiring the bottle. ‘There’s not much left, but since we’re here now I thought we might polish it off. Would you like a nip, Sir?’

  Harry’s jaw dropped, and he gawped at the older man, whose face was now gazing back at him, wreathed in a benevolent smile. Many thoughts passed through Harry’s mind in that brief second. The first thought was, what in God’s name was Lucie doing in possession of a bottle of spirits on board – spirits that were obviously his own, and not issued as part of his ration? And then, had he, Sub-Lieutenant Harry Gilmour now lost every last vestige of his authority over these two men, that one of them felt free to openly offer him illicit alcohol? Aboard their boat? While on an operational patrol? What was he to do? Put Lucie on a charge? Certainly, he was spoiled for choice on what he could haul him up on. But here, now? While the French were in the middle of some political negotiation? And what would Captain Syvret think? What would his own chain of command think? That he had allowed the standard of discipline of two crewmen he was responsible for to have collapsed to such a degree; and everything that implied about his fitness
to command, to hold the King’s commission. Oh, dear God!

  Cantor, he reckoned, must have read the turmoil on his face and understood what was really happening.

  ‘George, he doesn’t like that vin rouge stuff they give us, Sir,’ explained Cantor.

  Well, said Harry to himself, you haven’t understood that much, Leading Telegraphist Cantor. And look, Lucie is already pouring tots of the damn stuff . . . and has his own little flask of angostura bitters! He must’ve been guzzling since they left Halifax; probably even had stashes aboard since . . . Plymouth? Before? Harry suddenly saw him again, sprawled in that wheelbarrow being rushed back aboard before Radegonde left on patrol from Dundee. Other visions sprang up, of Lucie at sea; his glassy stares and slow reactions. But then, Harry recalled, never while he was on duty. Ever. A bloody good radio watchman, and a very, very fast – and disturbingly accurate – finger on the Aldis trigger. Dammit, Harry had seen him read Morse from a flashing Aldis lamp through horizontal rain in a full gale.

  ‘So what d’ye think Cap’n Syvret and that Frenchy marine officer are up to upstairs, Sir?’ asked an oblivious Lucie, ‘. . . and here’s yer tot, Sir.’

  As he reached out and accepted the little glass of pinkish gin, Harry was thinking now, not about how to punish this man, but his own acts of insubordination towards Captain Syvret; and how Syvret had thought them all too hilarious.

  ‘I shudder to think, Lucie,’ said Harry, realising that he had just been taught a lesson about discipline; submarine discipline. That there was a difference between being shown disrespect, and being shown he was trusted. And, anyway, wasn’t Lucie entitled by right and naval tradition to a tot a day? So what if it wasn’t regulation issue. The three of them knocked back their glasses.

  ‘D’you think they’ll let us ashore, Sir?’ asked Cantor. ‘Eh, the West Indies, George. I’ve never been to the West Indies.’

  ‘I can’t imagine Captain Syvret will keep us cooped up too long,’ said Harry, smiling now, ‘not unless there’s a fight.’

  ‘Oooh. A fight, with shootin’ and all. That’d make Ens’n Thierry’s boys happy,’ said Lucie. ‘I’d pay money to watch that.’

  ‘Rum, Lucie?’ asked Harry.

  ‘What, Sir?’

  ‘Rum. I’m not sure they do gin in these latitudes. You might have to go back to the local rum for replacing your stash.’ said Harry, always concerned for his men’s welfare.

  Radegonde’s diesels shut down, and Harry heard the electrical hum as they went on to motor power and slowed. Suddenly, there was a bang, and a reverberation through the boat. They all looked at each other.

  ‘The deck gun,’ said Lucie. ‘We’re firing at something, Sir!’

  Then another bang. Was there really a fight starting after all? A big fight if the Captain was shooting off the deck gun at somebody. And then there was another bang, and another. But a rhythm was starting; it wasn’t random shooting. They sat in silence until the gun had fired fifteen times, and then silence. Complete silence; no sporadic rifle fire or a machine-gun rattle in response.

  ‘No. It’s a salute,’ said Harry eventually, his conclusion final. ‘A fifteen-gun salute. I think that’s for a Governor. Captain Syvret’s paying his respects. Doesn’t look like there’s going to be a fight after all, Lucie. You can put your wallet away.’

  ‘At least until we get ashore, Sir,’ said Cantor.

  Then they had another tot, and Harry could feel the thump of feet above, and voices. Then there was a distinct bump. They had come alongside somewhere.

  A little over fourteen hours later, they were at sea again, steaming south with a magnificent sunrise emerging from the Atlantic over their port quarter, sending its low rays to glint off the bridge glass and searchlight faces of another warship, coming down on them from the north at what Harry estimated as a good fifteen to sixteen knots to Radegonde’s ten. She was already only a couple of miles away, advancing out of the vanishing gloom, however the angle on her was a bit too tight for Harry to make a proper identification. A destroyer, definitely, and the stiff morning breeze coming out of the sun, showed the Stars and Stripes straining out from her foremast halyards.

  ‘Can you identify her, M’sieur Gilmour?’ asked Captain Syvret, but before Harry could answer, the other warship’s signalling lamp opened up with a series of staccato flashes. Harry had Lucie, binoculars stuck to his face, on the bridge beside him. The signalman began to read off the message, ‘. . . I am United States Warship P . . . R . . . Pruett . . . I wish to converse. Request you heave-to and identify yourself . . .’

  International law was pretty clear-cut on who could and who couldn’t stop any ship on the high seas, and the couldn’ts far outweighed the coulds. But the Americans were requesting, not ordering.

  ‘Well, since they’re being so polite,’ said Syvret to the bridge in general, before turning to Harry. ‘Have your signalman make, “I am Free French submarine Radegonde. Am heaving-to. Please approach me on my starboard quarter.” There. Since it’s him that wants the chat, he can do it with the sun in his eyes.’ And he leaned to the voice-pipe and ordered a ten-degree turn to starboard to show the US destroyer Radegonde’s flank. ‘And M’sieur Gilmour, ask your man in the radio kiosk to make to Halifax from Radegonde: “I am heaving-to to converse with US destroyer Pruett at its request”, and give time and exact position.’

  Their exact position was some fifteen miles east-north-east of the Presqu’Île de la Caravelle lighthouse, about two thirds of the way down Martinique’s west coast. Harry had been wrong when he’d told Cantor and Lucie he was sure Captain Syvret would be granting leave when they reached Fort-de-France. No one had been granted leave. Indeed, only Captain Syvret and Bassano – carrying the Captain’s pencil case – had gone ashore. Everyone else had had to stay aboard, by direct order of the Governor; and there were four gendarmes, with guns, posted on the jetty where they’d moored up, to discourage any dissenters.

  ‘M’sieur le Gouverneur, Chevalier de Legion d’Honneur Tassereau has assured me he is a loyal servant of the legitimate government of France,’ Syvret had confided to the wardroom after he’d returned from his visit to M’sieur le Gouverneur in his official residence. ‘And since, according to M’sieur Tassereau, General de Gaulle’s origins in no way can be regarded as legitimate – and yes, he personalised that assertion, using the usual epithet – that can only mean his loyalties and that of this department of France must lie with the government of Maréchal Pétain and his administration in Vichy. And if I think otherwise, then I must be a traitor and must be arrested, tried and shot. I think he wants rid of us.’

  Syvret, Harry and all Radegonde’s officers, and even Thierry, were sitting down to a splendid dinner of goat stew courtesy of the port’s traders’ eagerness to make a franc, although they had stated a preference for US dollars, and the loyalties of France’s Lesser Antilles colonies were the subject of that night’s debate. The wine flowed, and so did the outrage. No one does indignant like a Frenchman, thought Harry. The list of punishments they wanted inflicted on M’sieur le Gouverneur for his Vichy stance and collaborationist sentiments would have outdone the Book of Revelations; not even the quality of his goat stew was going to save him.

  The talk was fast and vernacular, and Harry gave up trying to follow it, and instead watched the indulgent smile on Captain Syvret’s face fade to a strained expression that told him the Skipper was now finding these rants tedious.

  ‘Ecoutez moi!’ barked Syvret, but he had to shout it twice more and bang the wardroom table before he brought the wardroom to order. He’d then treated them to one of his baleful gazes, before puffing out his chest and beginning a speech that Harry would have found comic if it hadn’t been for the reaction of his French shipmates.

  ‘It is to France, above all the great civilisations, that the responsibility has fallen . . . of upholding the ideal of humanité,’ said Syvret, all sonorous and serious. ‘But if we, here, now, allow Frenchmen to fire upon Frenchmen . . . we
have lost that mantle. We cannot go charging through this island, guns in our hands . . .’

  And on and on he’d gone, grandiose, authoritative, until Harry had tuned out, attentive instead to the seriousness with which his French shipmates were lapping up the speech. They weren’t going to storm the island like Christ come to cleanse the temple, apparently. He, Captain Syvret, had been given a name, several names; people who he’d been told would help them out in just such an eventuality. Yes, they were going back to land on Martinique, ‘l’honneur of France demands it,’ Syvret had declared. Except this time they were going in through the back door.

  They’d been on their way to do just that when the USS Pruett had come over the horizon, stalking them.

  Pruett was now lolling gently on the Atlantic swell about a hundred yards off Radegonde’s beam, and approaching them was one of her motor whalers manned by four US sailors in their blue denim work fatigues and those silly little white sailor hats Harry had only seen in the movies.

  In the whaler’s stern stood two officers, head to ankle in khaki, caps on heads. Once the whaler had, in one elegant sweep, come alongside Radegonde’s saddle tanks and lines had been thrown and the officers had stepped aboard, the French crew could see how scarily polished were the Americans’ shoes. And it was only when Harry, leaning out of the wardroom banquette, saw the first set of feet coming down the conning tower ladder, that he too, saw the scarily polished shoes. Now that’s serious Nay-vee, he thought, this being his first encounter with the US fleet.

  ‘She’s a Gleaves-class destroyer,’ Harry had told Syvret, when he’d got a good look at her, as she was lowering her whaler. ‘New. They only launched the first one three years ago. She’s about 1,600 tons, 350 feet long, twin screws; does about thirty-eight knots flat out. And well armed. As you can see, five 5-inch guns, ten 21-inch torpedo tubes and two depth charge racks.’