by David Black
‘I’m going to call you Jane from now on,’ Syvret had said. ‘The Jane who publishes that nice book about Fighting Ships. Now go below and wait in the wardroom. We don’t want to confuse them with a Royal Navy officer on the bridge before they’ve had a drink. Later we’ll confuse them.’
And there he was, standing on the control room deckplates; Harry’s first US Navy officer, a clean-cut, sportily built blond American, with a square jaw yet to sprout a whisker, wearing a cap that had never been sat on, and a uniform so starched it could support a bridge span. Bassano was there to greet him.
‘Good morning, Sir.’ Harry heard the American say, ‘I’m Lootenant Jay-Gee Foster, of the USS Pruett. Glad to be aboard.’
Harry would later discover Jay-Gee wasn’t actually his first name; the J. G. apparently stood for Junior Grade – same rank as Harry, a Sub-Lieutenant. The next man down was a lot older, and a full Commander; he was followed by Syvret who introduced him to Bassano.
‘Commander Gene D. Bewley USN,’ said Syvret. ‘Pruett’s Captain.’ They all made their way into the wardroom. Bewley was also fair-skinned, but instead of tanned, his face was all razor rash, pockmarks and lines of perpetual disgruntlement. Same squared-away uniform though, unlike Harry’s which, when you compared them, looked as if it had done more sea time than the ancient mariner. As he passed through the bulkhead door, the first thing Commander Bewley said on seeing Harry standing up to greet them in his Royal Navy uniform was, ‘What’s with the Limey?’
The encounter set up the subsequent atmosphere of suspicion.
Commander Bewley had no pleasantries to exchange.
‘The government of the United States of America has a defined policy that covers all its dealings with European powers seeking to exert their influence in the western hemisphere,’ intoned Commander Bewley in his finest Boston Yankee. ‘It is called the Monroe Doctrine, after the fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, and it is a doctrine that we take mighty seriously, gennelmen.’
And so began the lesson, where Commander Bewley talked, and a patient, polite Captain Syvret, who knew all about the Monroe Doctrine – and more, because he had read de Tocqueville – listened. The thrust was the US government wasn’t going to stand around and let the European powers export their damn war into Uncle Sam’s backyard, and Commander Bewley was here to make sure nobody got up to any monkey business. It was bad enough having the damn Limeys sailing their merchant ships in and out of US ports, but that was all about making a buck. Just so long as they were fighting their convoy battles out in the Atlantic, who cared? But here, in the Gulf and the Caribbean, that was Uncle Sam’s backyard. And no French warship, Free or otherwise, was gonna be allowed to drag their war over here. And where was that other damned French submarine, anyway?
He was obviously referring to Durandal. Harry wanted to say, you don’t mind fixing their warships, though. Was that all right, because it was making a buck? But he didn’t, and then suddenly Captain Syvret was talking, asking everyone else to leave him and Commander Bewley, as matters could proceed more smoothly if they could be left to speak freely with each other. Bassano headed back to the control room and Harry nodded to the young Lt. j.g., and led him up the conning tower ladder. The Lt. j.g. went first, and Harry followed via the galley area of the conning tower kiosk, bringing with him two mugs.
The two young officers stood aft at Harry’s favourite spot, and Harry offered one of the mugs. The Lt. j.g. peered in, puzzled.
‘Vin rouge,’ said Harry. ‘All the rage in the Marine Nationale. Cigarette?’ and he proffered his open packet.
‘Umm,’ said the Lt. j.g.
‘Oh, go on. I won’t say, if you don’t’, and with that Harry lit both cigarettes and passed one to the young American, along with the mug of wine.
‘Sorry. We have a no-alcohol code aboard US warships.’ He hesitated, then relented. ‘But when in Rome, eh? And yes please.’ He reached for the offered cigarette. ‘My name’s Harcourt. Harcourt Foster. But I answer to Harry.’
Harry burst out laughing. ‘My name’s Harris. But I answer to Harry too.’
‘How about that?’ All wreathed in grins now. ‘But better than Henry, huh? I’m Harcourt because that was my maternal grandfather’s name. How about you? This vin rouge is no diesel juice by the way. Nice. Very nice.’
‘I’m Harris because that was the island upon which I was conceived . . .’
‘Yuck! Your folks liked to tell you that stuff?’
‘It could’ve been worse. There are other islands in the Inner Hebrides, like Eigg . . . Rhum . . . Canna . . . Muck.’
‘I guess you’re right there. Muck!’ and US Navy Harry raised his mug of vin rouge with a merry glint in his eye.
‘I don’t think your Skipper likes me,’ said the newly rechristened Muck.
US Navy Harry took a drag on his cigarette like he needed it; then a slug from the mug of wine.
‘He’s fourth generation Boston Irish. He doesn’t like the English as a matter of principle. But don’t take it personally. He doesn’t like any son-of-a-bitch as a matter of principle. So, how’s your war going?’
Harry considered pointing out that he wasn’t English, but when he thought about having to explain everything that this meant to a man from a culture that didn’t know the difference, and cared even less, he couldn’t be bothered. ‘Nobody tells me anything,’ said Harry and took a belt of his own wine.
‘Seen any action?’
‘A bit.’
‘What’s it like?’
‘The minute I get a handle on it, I’ll let you know.’
‘You sure are a sociable fellow, Muck.’
Harry suddenly realised he was looking way out into the distance. He turned back to see Harcourt frowning at him.
‘Sorry, Harcourt. Really. Sorry,’ he said, fumbling his words. ‘I didn’t mean to be so offhand. I read somewhere we’re two people divided by the same language. I think I’m being all suave and nonchalant. And you think I’m being a rude son-of-a-bitch. Sorry. She’s a fine-looking ship, the USS Pruett.’
Harcourt smiled, accepting the apology. ‘She is. A real thoroughbred.’
‘So tell me, Harcourt, what is the US Navy doing chasing all over the Windward Islands, after a clapped-out French spam can that carries fewer torpedoes than you do bottles of booze?’
‘Well, Harry . . .’
Ah, thought Harry, I’m back in his good books.
‘. . . that’s a very specific question to be asking an officer from another service, on such a short acquaintance. I might ask a similar question about why a clapped-out spam can has schlepped 5,000 miles across the Atlantic to play hide-and-go-seek with one of her big buddies, and we don’t know where the hell she is.’
‘That’s fair enough, Harcourt. So, how should we deal with that? What if I tell you about us, and then you tell me about you?’
Chapter Sixteen
The matelots dragged Radegonde’s rubber dinghy right up the sand, above the wave line so that Harry and Bassano wouldn’t get their good shoes wet. Harry was in his best tropical whites – shorts and all; Bassano’s French Navy whites let him wear long trousers.
‘You’re going ashore smart,’ Syvret had told them before they’d cast off. ‘I don’t want Dr Harbinson to mistake you for a pair of shipwrecked pirates. I want him to take you seriously.’
‘Take Harry seriously? In those shorts?’ said Bassano.
It was a sublime night, not long after eleven o’clock, warm with barely a catspaw of breeze, and the moonless sky a riot of stars. Radegonde lay out in the bay, barely half a mile away, but invisible now; even this celestial light show was not strong enough to separate her dark hull from the dark of the ocean and the sky. They were to be back at the same spot at the same time tomorrow night, with Dr Harbinson’s answer, or, even better, with Dr Harbinson himself.
Try as he might, poor Harry couldn’t quell his excitement; standing on a beach in the Windward Islands!
Harry hurried up. They were on la Plage de la Pointe Marin, an immaculate white strand guarding the entrance to a long, narrow bay that opened to their left. To their right was a tiny settlement – Sainte-Anne – a collection of shacks and a few bungalow-type wooden houses with extensive verandas. They had looked at them through Radegonde’s periscope this afternoon, and even identified the house they were looking for. Sainte-Anne was only a short stroll down the beach to their right, with half a dozen wooden fishing boats hauled up on the sand in between, and rows of frames for drying fish and nets.
Harry heard the matelots run the dinghy back into the sea and then the only sound was the lapping waves. This was the south-west tip of the island so there was no surf to speak of. Everything so far had gone to plan, the dinghy couldn’t have dropped them closer if they’d rowed them up to the front door. The two men plodded up the sand and on to a dirt track through the scrub.
Only one light showed in the settlement and it looked like it was coming from the house they were looking for. Not even a dog barked. They walked on, peering into the gloom of the slapboard and shanty dwellings, surrounded in shadows of domestic stuff: buckets and stools, woodpiles and all the other paraphernalia of island life that didn’t have to live indoors. The starlight was enough to navigate the path by, so Bassano kept the torch by his side. Neither man was armed. ‘Please,’ Captain Syvret had sighed when Bassano had asked about guns, and rolled his eyes when it became apparent Bassano had actually expected an answer.
Both men stopped. They could hear singing. They moved on a bit further. A manly baritone was coming strongly out of the night, controlled, enunciating with great feeling. After a few more strides it became apparent it was coming from the house they sought. They advanced to the sound of the as yet to be identified aria. Then the voice stopped; not just a pause, or for a breath; but as if abruptly interrupted.
They were at the corner of the house now, the one they had identified through the periscope, and they could see slats of light in reflected strips laid across the packed dirt in front of the stairs up to the veranda. As they turned, they could see the light was coming from behind a row of closed shutters. The light revealed the veranda to be a scene of squalor: a burst suitcase and a burst sofa; two old stoves, with snapped-off rusted stumps where claw legs should have been, their pipes attached to thin air; a rocking chair with one arm missing; and piles of indeterminate refuse. The two men mounted the steps, and Bassano reached out to knock on the door just as the man started singing again. Harry instantly recognised the tune; and not from a place he’d liked to remember.
‘Now the Pope, he had a pimple on his bum; and it nipped, nipped, nipped so sore . . .’ boomed the voice.
Bassano, who had been about to knock, frowned at Harry and simply thrust the shutter door open.
‘. . . and it was on the twelfth’, tailing off in adagissimo, ‘that he hung hisself’, and then up again in crescendo, ‘with the sash my father wore! Bum-dy dum! Who the fuck are you?’
‘Are you Dr William Harbinson?’ asked Harry.
‘Huh? What? What the . . .?’ garbled the singer. It was obvious now why his voice had so suddenly fallen silent a moment ago; he’d been taking a hefty belt from the huge mug of rum that he gripped in his fist.
‘Take your time, M’sieur. After this the questions get tougher,’ said Bassano, advancing into the room so that he and Harry now flanked the man sprawled on the large Chesterfield chair.
‘He’s Irish,’ Syvret had informed Harry, as they’d all sat discussing Syvret’s plan for ‘opening the back door’ to Martinique. Better to sneak on to the island than have the Fusiliers Marins storming the town, shooting everybody, he’d been explaining. Harry had stated, with some authority, that the man being Irish would just as likely mean he hated the British Empire as much as he reputedly hated the regime in Fort-de-France. He might not welcome a Royal Navy officer as cordially as Syvret was banking on.
‘You speak English,’ said Syvret. ‘He speaks English. As a mother tongue. You’re going because I do not want any misunderstandings. And as you are a member of your Majestic Navy he’ll be in no doubt that you definitely represent the opposition to Vichy. And, since when did you pick up this habit of arguing over your orders, Sub-Lieutenant Gilmour? You are picking up some ideas from us that do not suit you. Or me. I think I preferred you when you marched about as if you had something large up your bottom, like every other rosbif.’
However, as any native of the British Isles could have told Captain Syvret, there are two Irelands: one independent, Catholic and staunchly republican, and the other not. And as was now all too apparent, Dr William Harbinson hailed from the other one, the northern one. Loyal to the Crown. Maybe Harry was going to get a cordial reception after all.
Dr Harbinson was a wreck; his face grey and collapsed beneath a deep tan, and clumped stubble that was more mange than beard. He was dressed all in grubby white linen, anciently crumpled; the trousers sagged over thin hips, while the tails of a collarless dress shirt that had not seen a collar or a tie in a long time, billowed over the waistband. Huge bony feet stuck out, bare, from frayed turn-ups, but his shoulders showed they had once been broad, and his chest once deep. If you looked closer, which Harry was not sure he wanted to do, you could see that maybe, once upon a time, Dr Harbinson had probably been a handsome man.
A conversation of sorts was begun. Bassano went to look for the components for coffee making.
‘Yer off a fookin’ submarine!’ formed much of what Dr Harbinson had to contribute, but eventually, excruciatingly, credentials were established, and the reason for Harry and Bassano’s call made clear. Bassano’s coffee helped; a lot. They managed to confirm no other living creature shared the bungalow with Dr Harbinson, although Bassano, on his trip to find a kitchen, did find one surprise which he chose to withhold from Harry, for the time being.
Guides were what they wanted. People who could be relied upon to get Thierry and his mob from here to Fort-de-France to arrest M’sieur le Gouverneur and his henchmen in their beds, and have Captain Syvret’s backside on the seat of power before the island of Martinique woke up.
Dr Harbinson mulled and thought and scratched his mange; and as he did so, and the coffee flowed, he became more sober and the harsh barks and expletives of broad Belfast moderated into a more educated voice.
Guides could be arranged, he’d conceded. But when asked how popular M’sieur le Gouverneur Tassereau and his sidekicks actually were among the populace and whether they might rise in support, he lapsed.
‘That fookin’ pious, sanctimonious prick! Papist bastard! I’ll give him God’s representative! Gawd’s anointed! The power of France is vested in me, he says! Vested in his fookin’ arse!’
So, the answer was no; M’sieur le Gouverneur and his sidekicks were not popular. Why? Well, all trade had ceased, for a start. Since France had fallen and the war been lost, all the coming and going between Martinique and the British and the Dutch islands had been banned. The American tramp steamers and cruise liners, the schooners and luggers from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, even Brazil; all stopped by order of the Vichy regime. No contact with anyone allowed. No luxuries, no tourists, no money. Everybody living off fish and plantains; no meat or grain or vegetables. And all the sugar piling up. At least there was no shortage of rum. In short, since they were asking, everybody was hungry, drunk and very unhappy.
‘So there’s no need to start trying to explain about any bloody politics,’ said Harbinson. ‘Fer fook’s sake don’t do that. It’s not complicated. All you have to do if anyone asks is just tell them you’re here to let the Americans back; and every brown-eyed little temptress on the island will be demandin’ to have yer love child,’ was Dr Harbinson’s final verdict on their venture. ‘Oh, and if you don’t mind doing yer old friend William here a favour
while yer at it . . . tell them it was me that organised it, will ye.’
The sun came up, and two boys – mere slips of lads, barefoot in skivvies and singlets – came padding down the track from the settlement, carrying fish. Dr Harbinson got up to meet them on the stoop, and as he went out, Bassano indicated they should go further inside the house.
With the light flooding in, Harry could see the interior was all faded colonial Victorian: brass oil-lamp fittings on panelled walls, wood floors with rugs that had lost their pattern, dark wood furniture, and piles of newspapers. Neglect was everywhere: on the peeling paint and the cobwebs and the moth-eaten fabric of the punkah, suspended from the shallow angle of the roof above the beams, whose cords had long-since frayed.
The whole house was like that, until Bassano led Harry into the corner room. Given that Harbinson was the local GP, the fact that it was a surgery shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. The sheer pristine perfection of it, however, was. The room was painted a bright white, with pale blue posts and beams, and a wooden floor sanded through to the grain of the pale wood and varnished to a high polish. There was a desk with a chair, and a patient’s chair in one corner, and in the other a tall, glass-fronted cabinet stacked with medicines, dressings and instruments, a screen and a high examining table, all of obvious European origin, constructed from mahogany and gleaming, shining leather.
A huge fan hung from the centre of the room, and the electric cable that led from it disappeared through the wooden panels high on the wall. Harry leaned out of the shutters and saw that it was connected to a motor vehicle battery nestled amid the rubbish on the veranda.
Dr Harbinson’s degrees hung in wooden frames from the wall by the door so that patients entering or leaving had a clear view. He held his doctorate from the University of Glasgow’s Faculty of Medicine, and was qualified to practise as a ship’s surgeon, if the certificates were to be believed. They certainly looked authentic.