Raging Sea, Searing Sky

by Christopher Nicole

  When he was finished there was a rush for the reference books. Lew let them get on with it; he had already looked up the Carlton, thanks to Brenda’s inside information, knew she was a new ship, launched the previous year, and that she displaced just over a thousand tons, was armed with two four-inch guns, and two twenty-one inch torpedo tubes, as well as several depth charge racks; she would be very like HMS Hazard. But she was going to hunt U-boats.

  He knew he should be wildly excited about that, and yet wasn’t. He still had Brenda Grant on his mind. His thinking had rather led him round in circles, yet it was slowly crystallising that he wanted her more than he had supposed. If only he could be sure that it was her he wanted, or not just someone to replace the memory of May...or worse, that he had simply got into the habit of thinking of himself as being betrothed.

  But he was at least sure she was there to be taken, if he really wanted to. And if he did it her way. He was leaving here tomorrow, and she knew that. Yet she had suggested he might see her again. That afternoon he called at the Grant’s house.

  ‘Why, Mr McGann,’ Mrs Grant said. ‘How nice to see you. Was it Charles you wanted? I’m afraid he’s playing golf.’

  ‘Ah...it was actually Brenda, if I may, Mrs Grant.’

  ‘Brenda? Why, surely, Brenda,’ she called. ‘Here’s Lewis McGann to see you.’

  There was a moment’s silence from upstairs. ‘I’ll be right down,’ Brenda replied.

  Lew was given a seat in the lounge, and waited for fifteen minutes, while Mrs Grant made small talk, before Brenda made her appearance. She had obviously been hastily changing her clothes and brushing her hair and doing whatever else she had thought necessary. And in preparing herself? There were pink spots in her cheeks, but that might have been because she had run down the stairs. ‘Why, Lewis,’ she said. ‘How good of you to call. Is it to say goodbye?’

  ‘Well...’ he stood up, his cap in his hands. ‘I guess it is.’

  ‘Lewis is going on destroyers, Ma,’ Brenda said.

  ‘Your father was on destroyers, once,’ Mrs Grant said. ‘Very noisy things.’

  ‘It’s a great afternoon, out,’ Lew said hopefully.

  ‘I know, I had just finished gardening when you came,’ Brenda said. ‘Would you like to see what I was planting?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘You’ll excuse us, Ma.’ She led him to the glass door leading to the fenced garden, and he followed her down a short flight of steps, carefully closing the door behind himself. ‘Asters,’ she said, showing him the freshly turned earth. ‘By the time you come back, Lewis, they’ll be a mass of red. Do you like red?’

  ‘My favourite colour. If I come back.’

  ‘Do you worry about things like that? Pa always says you shouldn’t.’

  ‘I don’t worry about being killed, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Because you’ve survived three shipwrecks already.’ She was walking again, with apparent aimlessness, down the path towards the shed at the far end. ‘Aren’t the mimosa lovely this time of year?’

  ‘So are you,’ he said.

  They had reached the shed, and now she turned. The house was some distance away, but they were still overlooked, so he stepped past her and went inside. She followed him, but remained in the doorway. Her face was composed, but as he had come back at all, she had to know what he had come for.

  ‘Come here,’ he said.

  Her chin tilted upwards. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Just like that.’

  ‘I hate masterful boys even more than masterful men,’ she remarked, but she came into the shed, and apparently inadvertently kicked the door shut. ‘I suppose you want to say more than just goodbye, in your peculiarly masculine way.’

  ‘Are you going to stop me?’ he asked, holding her arms and bringing her against him.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You are going to stop yourself. Because you are a gentleman. Remember?’

  He gazed into her eyes, then released her arms to slide his hands over her back and down to her buttocks. She closed her eyes and them opened them again, but remained standing very still, although the pink spots were back, and her nostrils flared as she breathed. ‘I would like to marry you,’ he said.

  Her mouth fell open, then snapped shut again. ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘Are you unmarriageable? Skeletons in the old closet, eh?’

  ‘I’m...you’re seventeen.’

  ‘So are you. But guess what, in another couple of months I’m going to be eighteen. And so are you.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘I will marry you, when I come back from the war. Who knows, I may even be nineteen, and you’ll be going on to old maid rating. But I wanted you to know.’ He slid his hands over her shoulders and down the front of her bodice; he had already worked out that she had small breasts, but they were there, and he did not doubt they were going to be everything he wanted. Because they would be his alone.

  ‘Don’t I have any say in the matter?’

  ‘Now’s your last chance.’

  Her mouth opened, and he kissed it, resuming his grasp of her arms. Then he let her arms go and put his hands round her back to hold her even closer, and felt her arms go round his neck. He wondered if she would do anything else, as she could certainly feel him against her. But she was so well brought up he doubted she knew there was anything else to do. He pulled his hand back. ‘I have a strange feeling you’re not saying no, Miss Grant.’

  ‘Lewis,’ she said. ‘You are going to come back?’

  ‘Brenda,’ he said, ‘to take you to bed, I would come back from hell.’

  Chapter Six

  The North Atlantic, 1918

  ‘Good afternoon. My name is Hashimoto Kurita.’

  Lew looked up in surprise as the man wearing the uniform of a naval officer entered the compartment and sat opposite him. Carlton was based in Boston, and thus he was once again travelling north; he had not expected to meet another officer, certainly not one joining the train in New York — and this man was a Japanese. A Japanese? But of course the Japanese were also fighting in the war, on the Allied side.

  ‘You will forgive this intrusion into your privacy,’ Lieutenant Kurita said, ‘but I observe you are travelling north. Are you for Boston?’

  His English was as impeccable as his manners, but Lew was not sure he did want to forgive the intrusion. He had been sitting in a pleasant daydream, recalling yesterday’s events, the memory of Brenda in his arms, and on his arm when they had returned to the house, of Mrs Grant’s delighted squeals, and Captain Grant’s somewhat forced frowns, when he had returned from his golf game to find his family increased by one, almost.

  ‘Now is no time to be marrying,’ he had protested, ‘and anyway, Brenda goes to college in September.’ But he had been entirely mollified when Lew explained that they did not mean to marry for at least two years, and had opened a bottle of champagne. Lew had stayed for dinner, and then had had to tell Dan. Who had wrung his hand again and again, while saying over and over, ‘You Goddamned son of a gun. You know I love that girl too?’

  ‘Then you should have got in there sooner,’ Lew told him.

  ‘Yeah. Old slowcoach, me. But say, Lewis, can I be your best man? That way I’ll at least get to kiss the bride.’

  ‘You will be my best man,’ Lew had promised.

  *

  Brenda had come to the station to see him off. There had been no time to buy her a ring, but he had promised to send it to her. There had been no time to tell Father either: Father was at sea. But Father would have to approve of this one. Father was a traditionalist, and it was not possible to get more traditional than marrying the daughter of another Navy captain.

  There was so much to be thought about, to be planned, and to be anticipated. When he thought that he might not see Brenda again for several months he felt choked, but she would be there, a dream waiting for him. And now this goddamned oriental wanted to interrupt his dream. But he supposed he had to be
polite to a senior officer, even from another navy. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m going to Boston.’ He held out his hand. ‘Midshipman Lewis McGann.’

  Kurita nodded; he had seen the absence of any stripes on Lew’s sleeve. ‘You are going to join a ship?’

  ‘That’s right. USS Carlton.’

  ‘But that is very quaint,’ Kurita remarked. ‘I also am bound for Carlton.’

  ‘You, sailing on Carlton?’ Lew couldn’t believe his ears.

  ‘I am a...how do you say, a looker-on.’

  ‘An observer,’ Lew said. ‘You mean you’re an attaché.’

  ‘Attaché, yes. From the Embassy. I have been on furlough, in New York.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lew said.

  ‘You know New York?’

  ‘Not really,’ Lew said. He’d only been there three times in his life, and he didn’t want to remember the middle one.

  ‘Your name is familiar to me,’ Kurita remarked. ‘McGann. McGann.’ He pronounced it MacGann instead of M’Gann. Then he frowned. ‘Were you ever in the Royal Navy?’

  Lew sighed. ‘I’m afraid I was.’

  ‘Of course. You were sunk twice at Jutland. I read about it in the newspapers. That ribbon you wear...’

  ‘The Distinguished Conduct Medal,’ Lew told him. ‘British. I was a rating then.’

  ‘I read about it,’ Kurita said again. ‘May I shake your hand again? I wish I had been at Jutland. My uncle was at Tshushima. I...I have been at nothing. There are no navies left to fight, in the Pacific. But perhaps, with your new ship, I may be more fortunate.’

  ‘We’re after submarines,’ Lew told him.

  ‘The silent assassin from the deep,’ Kurita observed.

  ‘You have that exactly right,’ Lew agreed. ‘Do you know our ship? Her captain?’

  ‘No,’ Lew said.

  ‘I wonder what he will be like? But I am sure he will be pleased to have such a distinguished sailor as yourself serving with him.’

  *

  Hashimoto Kurita, with whom Lew had struck up quite a friendship by the time they reached Boston, was some distance wide of the mark. Lieutenant Hallstrom was a little man, sandy haired and with a matching moustache supporting a sharp nose, who was clearly old enough to have been a commander by now, and was fairly resentful of the fact that he wasn’t. ‘Well I’ll be goddamned,’ he said, gazing from one to the other of the two new members of his complement. ‘You been to sea before, Mr...’ he looked at the warrant. ‘Kurita?’

  ‘Of course,’ Kurita answered equably. ‘And they think there’s room for supernumaries on board this fucking tin box,’ Hallstrom remarked, apparently to himself. ‘You’re gonna have to share.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kurita agreed.

  ‘With him.’ Hallstrom gazed at Lew, who was some ten inches the taller. ‘I won’t say welcome aboard, mister. I know your name; family histories don’t mean a damn to me. And I’ve read the file, like how you make a habit of having ships shot out from under you. Well God damn, that ain’t gonna happen here. You got it?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lew replied, realising it was going to be a long hard war from his point of view.

  *

  ‘I guess he’s kind of touchy,’ said Ensign Carter, who was a slender, friendly Texan. ‘Well, things haven’t been going too good for him. And now to have a real life hero who also has a famous name joining the ship...’ he grinned and shook hands. ‘Welcome aboard.’

  Lew liked him immediately, and decided maybe things weren’t going to be too bad after all. But that life on board such a small ship in the North Atlantic was going to be uncomfortable at best was obvious even before they left Boston for Halifax and their first assignment. The USS Carlton was just on two hundred and fifty feet long, with a thirty-foot beam and a draft of only nine feet, fully laden. Into this confined space were crammed, in addition to her boilers and coal store, her magazine and water and food stores, one hundred and forty men.

  The only other officers were Surgeon-Lieutenant Digby and Engineer-Lieutenant Benelli, and Hallstrom made it clear from the start that he expected Kurita to fill a watchkeeping role when necessary.

  The ship was almost ready for sea when Lew joined her, and he had just time to dash into Boston, buy a diamond and emerald ring and mail it by registered post to Annapolis, with as loving a note as he could compile, never having written anything like that before except to May — when it had been a matter of remembering rather than anticipating — and then they were at sea, rolling and plunging off the Grand Banks as they made their way to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where their convoy was assembling.

  The British had only just adopted convoys, and indeed it had been the insistence of Admiral Sims, the American commander-in-chief, that had finally persuaded the Admiralty that they would work. According to reports they were working already, and the number of casualties was being steadily reduced. But it was extremely tedious work, as the convoy could of course only travel at the speed of the slowest of its members, which was usually in the vicinity of eight knots.

  The whole little fleet was under the command of a light cruiser, and there were five other destroyers, who rolled almost scupper to scupper at this speed, for which they had not been designed — and this was high summer. ‘Wait until winter,’ Hallstrom growled. ‘You’ll be puking blood.’

  Things actually improved as they reached the War Zone, for now there were alarms often enough, and then it was necessary to put on full speed and go racing away to the danger point. Whether the alarm was false or not it made a welcome change from the crawl. And more than once on that first crossing the alarm was anything but false. If the sight of the warship squadron appeared to be deterring many U-boat commanders, who preferred to hunt for the odd straggler, there was always a bold spirit about who might try his luck, and on this voyage one of the merchantmen was sunk, right under the nose of the cruiser. The destroyers raced about, dropping depth-charges, but with no visible result. ‘Fucking hell,’ Hallstrom said. ‘Why can’t we sink the skunk?’

  *

  The pattern of the first voyage was repeated, with varying degrees of success, or lack of it, until the crossing became a routine. Lew had had some private fears that his personal experiences might be inhibiting, however fiercely he welcomed the opportunity to meet the U-boats on their own ground as it were. But he soon became used to the sight of sinking ships and drowning men, to the task of plucking them, and their passengers which often enough included women and even some children, from the tossing sea, of projecting massive comfort and confidence to these shivering, terrified survivors, whose emotions he could recall so well.

  He also became used to the frustrations of being unable to sink as many U-boats as he would have liked. They did get one or two, judging by the great pools of oil which would accumulate on the surface, but they never actually saw the crafts themselves, or any survivors; he envisaged the bottom of the Atlantic littered with rusting hulls, each one a tomb for seventy odd men — in between the tombs would be the wreckage of their victims. But the fact was that everyone knew that such kills, if they were kills, were entirely fortuitous, that once a U-boat had time to sink some hundred feet into the depths of the ocean it was immune, simply because no one had any idea where it was.

  ‘According to a book I have read,’ Hashimoto Kurita remarked, ‘it is technically possibly to ascertain the whereabouts of an enemy, even under the water, by the use of a sophisticated listening device.’

  ‘A Japanese book, I’d say, Hash,’ Lew suggested. The two were now close friends.

  Hashimoto smiled. ‘Of course. But it is the idea of an English scientist. It will probably happen.’

  ‘But not in time for this war,’ Lew pointed out.

  As the autumn wore on, their principal task was to protect the troop convoys which were now beginning to cross the Atlantic in ever increasing numbers. The United States were putting some two million men into France, and no one could have any doubt that when they had all arrived, the Germans were
going to be beaten, despite the alarming news coming out of Russia, where the monarchy had collapsed in red revolution. The necessity of getting the soldiers to France as quickly and safely as possible meant that the ships were working round the clock and round the Atlantic, too, doing nothing more than fuel in their English ports before heading back west to meet another convoy. These were of course much more heavily guarded than the merchantmen, and as such lost hardly a ship, but it was straining the resources of the American and British Navies combined to keep them that safe.

  The unending sailing to and fro across the Atlantic was wearing on the nerves, and Lew missed Hashimoto, who had departed after two voyages of ‘looking-on.’ Lieutenant Hallstrom was particularly edgy, not from fear Lew felt so much as fatigue and continued frustration, and he made life difficult for his officers, but Lew took his lead from Carter, and merely saluted and said ‘Aye-aye, sir,’ to every barked command or complaint.

  But the strain was not less on the men, and Lew, now seeing the quarrels and problems of the lower decks from an officer’s point of view, gained a good deal of sympathy for the officers of ships like Queen Mary, of whom he had never given much thought except that they were often a nuisance.

  The unceasing work meant that there were no opportunities for furloughs, of course, and Lew had to content himself with dashing off hasty notes to Brenda, and to Father, and to being disappointed when there were no replies waiting for him in Halifax. The replies did come, at irregular intervals. Brenda in fact wrote regularly enough, but curiously stiffly, as if she distrusted what she might say if she allowed her thoughts to flow too freshly. He could understand that, and her farewells were always tender, and loving, enough. He could hardly wait to hold her in his arms again, and was very happy to think of the war ending tomorrow, especially if, in addition to marrying Brenda, he could obtain a posting under some other captain than Hallstrom.