The Cruel Sea

by Nicholas Monsarrat

  ‘Waiter!’

  ‘Sir?’ The waiter, a very old man in a soft frilled shirt, appeared by his side.

  ‘Another pink gin, please.’

  ‘Pink gin, sir.’

  ‘And waiter—’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  Lockhart pointed to the water jug on his table. ‘This water has some dust on it.’

  The old man clicked his tongue. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ He lifted the jug, examined it for a moment, and then put it on his tray. ‘I’ll have it changed immediately, sir.’ He bent forward. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he repeated. ‘It’s the war, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Lockhart. ‘In that case I don’t want to make too much out of it.’

  The old waiter shook his head. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like now, sir. Cracked glasses – not enough ice – bits of cork in the sherry . . .’ He bent forward again. ‘We had a cockroach in the potato chips, just the other day.’

  Lockhart swallowed. ‘Should you be telling me this?’

  ‘I thought I’d just mention it, sir. It’s not at all what we like to give our customers, but what can we do? We just can’t get the supplies like we used to. There was an American officer here only last week, complaining about the soda water being warm.’

  ‘Warm soda water is a terrible thing,’ said Lockhart dreamily.

  ‘It spoils everything, sir.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. Horrible to swim in, too.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Lockhart. ‘I was just thinking of something.’

  ‘Pink gin, then, sir?’

  ‘Yes, and make it a big one.’ He looked up suddenly and caught sight of Ericson standing at the entrance to the bar. After staring at him closely for a moment, he added: ‘Make it two big ones, in fact. I think we have something to celebrate.’

  Ericson caught his eye, and began to twist his way through the crowded room towards the table. There was a certain faint self-consciousness about the big figure which Lockhart noticed, understood, and indubitably loved. This was a man to go through the war with . . . When Ericson reached his table, Lockhart stood up, and smiled broadly.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘congratulations.’

  Ericson looked down, a trifle shyly, at the cap he was carrying under his arm. The shining gold braid on its peak proclaimed a very new promotion. ‘Thanks, Number One,’ he said. ‘They only told me last week. The passage of time, of course.’

  ‘Nothing else,’ said Lockhart equably. ‘But here’s to it, all the same.’ He drank off the last quarter-inch of liquid in his glass, and looked towards the bar. ‘I ordered you a large pink gin.’

  ‘That,’ said Ericson, ‘will do for a start.’

  The drinks arrived. As Ericson nodded and raised his glass, Lockhart glanced down once again at the gold braid on the peak of the cap. He was now feeling a trifle shy himself: he had not seen the Captain for over two months, and their last dockside parting – a strange blend of formality, raw emotion, and mutual astonishment at their survival – was not a thing to be recalled, in these or indeed in any surroundings.

  ‘I doubt if I shall ever be a commander,’ he said finally. ‘The passage of time won’t be enough – at least, I hope not – and nothing else will operate in my case.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure,’ said Ericson. He paused. ‘I was at the Admiralty most of yesterday. Things are starting to move again.’

  Lockhart was suddenly attacked by a spasm of the nervousness, the near-terror, which he had not yet learned to subdue. If things were ‘starting to move again’, he himself must move with them: it meant the end of the hard-won interval, the end of relaxation and recovery: it meant taking the whole thing on again. He knew Ericson must have been settling his future, or at least suggesting to the Admiralty the line it might take; and he was almost afraid to learn what the future was going to be. For him, the balance between control and surrender was delicate still: his nerves, tautened and laid bare under the shock of Compass Rose, seemed ready to treat any change as if it were the end of the whole world. Even Ericson’s brass hat came into this category: it was like a secret signal, dismissing all he knew and trusted, promising nothing but change and complication. It could mean anything: it could mean loneliness, strange difficulties, goodbye . . . Aware of how odd it must sound, he switched the subject abruptly, and asked: ‘What else have you been doing? Did you go and see Morell’s wife?’

  Ericson, who seemed content to follow his lead for the moment, nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve just come from her flat.’

  ‘How was she?’

  ‘She was in bed.’

  ‘Oh . . . Is she taking it badly?’

  ‘I think she was taking it very well,’ said Ericson grimly. ‘There was someone there with her.’

  For a moment the two men’s eyes met.

  ‘Damn the war,’ said Lockhart.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ericson. ‘To hell with it.’

  For some queer reason Lockhart suddenly felt relieved. Sex, he thought: the universal cure . . . ‘Tell me all,’ he said: ‘Omit nothing . . . She hadn’t wasted much time, has she?’

  ‘I shouldn’t say she ever has,’ answered Ericson. ‘But you shall be the judge . . . When I got to the flat, some sort of maid or charwoman opened the door. She said straight away that Mrs Morell couldn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t want to have the journey for nothing, so I said: “Will you tell her that the captain of her husband’s old ship would like to see her for a few minutes?” She said she’d ask and went off.’ He paused. ‘It’s queer, you know I didn’t imagine for a moment that anything funny was going on, even though I had to wait for a very long time. I should have guessed, really: the place smelt like a brothel, from the start.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Lockhart, primly.

  ‘I’ll give you the address, if you like . . . Well, after a bit, Mrs Morell came into the room where I was.’ Ericson paused again.

  ‘Pretty?’ asked Lockhart.

  ‘Very . . . She had a dressing gown on, but she looked tidy otherwise, and damned attractive. She apologised for keeping me waiting, and sat down, and waited for me to start. I said how sorry I was about her husband, and how much we’d all liked him – the usual thing.’

  ‘But true,’ said Lockhart.

  ‘But true . . . Then I waited, in case she wanted to say something, but she just sat there looking at me. So I said, would she like to hear about the torpedoing, and what probably happened to Morell.’ He paused. ‘She said: “No – I don’t think I’m terribly keen to hear about that. Those things are all the same, aren’t they?”’

  ‘Oh,’ said Lockhart inadequately.

  Ericson nodded. ‘By this time I was feeling rather a fool. There she was, having obviously just got out of bed, lounging on the sofa to the very best advantage – and I must say she had a wonderful figure: not a line or a shadow on her face, beautifully made up, and about as much in mourning as the man that sank us . . . It was all so unreal, when you remember what Morell was like.’ He laughed shortly. ‘As a matter of fact, I’d had a sentence ready in case she was too upset – something to the effect that though it was terribly sad now, later on she could be proud of the way he died and the job he was doing – but by God! that was one sentence I didn’t use. After a bit I’d had enough, so I stood up to go. I said: “If there’s anything I can do, please let me know”, and she – she gave me a great big smile and said: “That’s swell – and if you’d like a couple of tickets for the show, I’ll leave your name at the box office. And mind you come round afterwards”.’

  Ericson sipped his drink. After a moment he continued: ‘I’m not sure how I answered that one, but anyway I didn’t take up the offer . . . I said goodbye, and she followed me out into the hall; and just as she was opening the front door there was a lot of noise from behind us, a sort of thumping. I heard a door being opened, and then a man’s voice, rather drunk, called out: “For Christ’s sake throw that sailor out and come back to bed
!” By that time I was in the corridor outside the flat, and as I turned back she said “Goodbye” very quickly, and shut the front door between us, and after a moment I heard her on the other side.’

  ‘Talking?’ asked Lockhart.

  ‘No – starting to laugh.’

  The ordinary sounds of the bar, which had been somehow held at bay during Ericson’s recital, now seemed to break in upon them. Voices sprouted here and there: glasses rattled on the tabletops: a man and a woman giggled in chorus. Lockhart sighed gently: the sigh covered many things, many futile and conflicting thoughts: but all he said was: ‘I wonder if Morell knew about it.’

  Ericson raised his head. ‘She didn’t strike me as the sort of woman who would bother to keep it a secret, if she saw anything she wanted.’

  ‘Poor old bastard . . . What a waste of a good man.’

  ‘It’s a waste of a good man, quite apart from her. In fact, if you relate his death to her at all, you poison the whole thing.’

  Lockhart nodded. ‘True . . .’ He raised his glass. ‘Absent friends.’

  ‘Absent friends.’

  Immediately they had drunk, and set down their glasses, Lockhart squared his shoulders, and said: ‘And the Admiralty?’

  Ericson sat back, and rubbed his hands together, as if at last ready to share a pleasant prospect. ‘Now then . . . It’s a new ship, Number One: new job, new everything. They’re giving me a frigate – that’s the latest type of escort. They’ve given me that’ – he pointed to the gold peak of his cap – ‘so that we’ll be in charge of the escort group. And they’re giving you a half-stripe.’

  Lockhart, genuinely startled, sat up in his chair. ‘Good Lord! Lieutenant-Commander? What will they do next?’

  ‘There’s a new Fleet Order, just come out,’ answered Ericson. ‘You’re the right age, and you’ve done enough time as First Lieutenant, and you’ve got the necessary recommendation.’

  Lockhart smiled. ‘That’s you, I suppose?’

  Ericson smiled back. ‘That’s me . . . But there’s a snag. Or rather, there could be, as far as I’m concerned.’ He paused. ‘I’ll be senior officer of the group, as I said. They agreed that I could have a lieutenant-commander as First Lieutenant, to keep an eye on the rest of the group as well as my own ship. The job’s worth the step-up in rank. They said that I could have you, if I wanted. I said I didn’t know.’

  Lockhart waited, not sure what was behind Ericson’s last phrase. Was it doubt as to whether he could handle the job – or had Ericson noticed that his nerves were still shaky – or was it something else?

  It was something else, something quite different. ‘Listen,’ said Ericson, ‘I’ll be quite honest with you. You could have your own command if you wanted it – command of a corvette, that is. They’re moving up one or two First Lieutenants already, and you could do the job on your head. I could give you that recommendation too.’ He was looking, once more, a trifle shy. ‘I don’t know how you feel about it. If you stay with me, it’ll postpone your command for at least a year, or you might even miss it altogether. Sometimes these things have to happen with a rush, just at the right moment, or they don’t happen at all. The job with me – senior First Lieutenant of the group – is a good one, and I’d very much like to have you with me; but it’s not the top job for you, and I can’t pretend it is.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘This is all slightly embarrassing. You’ll have to make up your own mind about it. I won’t make any comment, either way.’

  Lockhart’s thoughts, in that moment of decision, were swift and undelaying. A or B, he thought: the crossroads of the career, the choice (maybe) between fame and obscurity, living and dying. Then he thought: this is all nonsense – I don’t have to weigh it up at all. We’re a good team – none better – and it’s a blessing that we’re going to be allowed to continue. Why fool about with it, why invent a dilemma where none exists? He smiled afresh, and sat back, nursing his drink, and said: ‘Tell me about the new ship.’

  Ericson’s glance was the full equivalent of the comment he had promised not to make: he had no need to enlarge upon it. Instead he said: ‘It’s a new class – frigates – and they’re really something. Same size and shape as a destroyer: eight or nine officers, about a hundred and sixty men. It’s got everything, Number One: turbines, twin screws, three big guns, new asdics, new radar. The group will probably be three frigates and four or five corvettes, so we’ll have plenty to do, playing round with them and keeping them up to the mark. Ours is still building, by the way; she’s on the Clyde, and we’ll be commissioning her in a couple of months’ time.’

  ‘What’s she called?’

  ‘Saltash. They’re all called after rivers.’

  'Saltash . . .’ Lockhart rolled it round his tongue. It was going to be strange, getting used to a new name. ‘It has a nice sound,’ he said, ‘but I can’t say I ever heard of it, as a river.’

  ‘It’s a very small and obscure river in Northumberland,’ answered Ericson. ‘I looked it up. It flows into the Tyne. It’s not on the map.’

  ‘Well, it is now,’ said Lockhart, almost belligerently. He snapped his fingers. ‘Waiter! Bring a lot more pink gin . . . Saltash,’ he said again. ‘Yes, I think we might make something out of her . . .’

  ‘It rhymes with “hash”,’ said Ericson tentatively.

  ‘True,’ said Lockhart. ‘I’ll bear that in mind all the time.’

  They lunched well and, towards the end, hilariously. Once committed to a new and definite course, Lockhart felt very much better; and Ericson seemed to catch his mood and to turn, with him, away from the dark past, and to bend every hope on what was to come. Indeed, it was with something like a holiday cheerfulness that they arranged a meeting, in Glasgow, later in the month, as a preliminary to the first look at the new ship. There was much that they had left unsaid concerning the fact that they would be together again; but it seemed that they were both taking it for granted that nothing else, however promising, would have seemed wholly right, and that something in the past had already shaped the future.

  If we are both content, thought Lockhart, looking across at Ericson as he drew gingerly on an unaccustomed cigar, then we are both lucky, and we can leave it so. War won’t offer us much more than that . . . There’s a lot of gin in that thought, he said to himself wisely, and a lot of claret too; but it’s a good thought, all the same, a rare thought.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I’ve had a rare thought.’

  ‘So have I,’ said Ericson. ‘Brandy or Benedictine?’

  But later that week, alone, Lockhart found that the past still lived, and was not to be exorcised by the simple act of thinking and acting their next trip. Caught off his guard, he was tricked into a last, inadvertent, backward glance at Compass Rose which was acutely moving.

  He had gone to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, to hear one of the ‘lunchtime concerts’ which were just beginning to draw the London crowds. He found the big gathering somewhat intimidating, and he sat down well at the back of the gallery, half-hidden behind a pillar. Myra Hess was playing the piano, and playing Chopin; in the perfect stillness which the audience accorded her, the lovely notes dropped like jewels, exquisitely shaped and strung, sculptures and liquid at the same time, falling straight upon the heart.

  He listened unguardedly, surrendering to the music, keeping no reserve and no awareness of the outside world. She played two gentle nocturnes, and then one of the studies, one with a repeated descending passage which sounded like a terrible lament. Lockhart sat back, and the music carried him, like a child, from note to note and phrase to phrase. He drew a long breath, and suddenly he found that he was crying.

  He knew, without doubt, why. He was crying, uncontrollably, for the many things which he had hoped to have forgotten. It was not only because of the weakness, the nervous frailty which was still with him, two months after the appalling ordeal: the tears were drawn from him by Compass Rose herself, and the wasted love and effort, and the many dead. And by ot
hers besides the dead . . . Earlier in the month he had gone to see Ferraby, who was still detained in hospital. Looking down at him as he lay in bed, Lockhart had wondered, indeed, whether he would ever come out of it. Ferraby was now a ruin of a young man, thin, wasted, intolerably nervous: the face on the pillow was like a damp skull. Tied round one of his wrists was a piece of string. ‘It’s my string,’ said Ferraby, embarrassed, and began to play with it. Then, more confidently: ‘They gave it to me. It’s for my nerves. They said I was to play with it whenever I felt I had to do something.’ As he spoke, the hooked fingers wrenched and pulled at the string, and knotted it, and twisted it, and set it swinging like a pendulum. Then Ferraby said: ‘I’m much better now, though,’ and turned over on his pillow and began to cry.

  He had cried as Lockhart was crying now: perhaps with the same tears, perhaps with others. Many tears could flow for Compass Rose: too many to be staunched, or swallowed, or ignored. Lockhart turned aside in his chair, and tried to control his moving face and lips. The music ceased: the applause filled the hall. Nearby, a girl stared at him, and then whispered to her companion. Under their prying gaze he got up, awkwardly, and walked through into one of the empty galleries. His throat was aching, but the tears, ceasing to fall, were drying on his cheeks.