Gone to Sea in a Bucket

by David Black

  The navy would forgive quite a lot, if necessary, but striking a superior officer put you way beyond any prospect of mercy. The two were now standing nose to nose, the lad definitely in the flyboy’s personal space. Dumaresq had no idea what was about to happen, and he would have been even more alarmed to realise that neither did Harry. There followed a moment when those just beyond the immediate vicinity also began to notice something was up, and the noise levels began to drop. Then the lad began to speak, with just a hint of his soft West Highland lilt in otherwise perfect received pronunciation. He wasn’t loud, nor was he sarcastic or aggressive in any way; he might have been complimenting the other on a new suit.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Harry, ‘for your constructive comments.’

  And then there followed another pause, with Harry’s open gaze still locked on the pilot, whose own eyes were visibly swelling with affront and outrage. Then Harry added: ‘I would welcome any further instruction you might offer, sir, in order that I might improve my performance and more effectively discharge my duties. If you would be so kind. Sir.’

  ‘Performance? What performance?’ said the pilot. ‘So far as anyone has been able to work out, the only performance you’ve been able to perform with any observable level of competence is to draw your rations and convert them into shite! You perform no other function aboard this ship. You are in short, a shiteing machine. And what gives additional offence to your betters is that you are too stupid to know it! As thick in the head as the thing that made you and about as much use as the hairy tits that likely dangled above it!’

  The pilot continued in this vein, and at first the gathered officers grinned and sniggered, and whispered to each other behind hands. Beyond the immediate circle, others craned to see and gave running commentaries to colleagues not sufficiently bothered to shove their way to eye-witness positions. The youth was still nose to nose with the pilot, who was spluttering abuse and spittle, and the youth took it all without a flicker, his face flat and calm, as if he was listening to one of the padre’s sermons. Well perhaps not quite like that, seeing as he was still awake. But the Lieutenant started to sense it, and see that others were sensing it too, that the flyboy was going on too long. The smirks were wilting and people began to study their shoes. And still the young Sub stood there, silent, unflinching, a mirror to their less than noble prejudices.

  When the pilot, the corners of his mouth flecked with froth, began to run out of invective, the majority of his audience began to turn away and a somewhat artificial hubbub began to rise. Attention shifted. The rest of the wardroom remained as it had throughout, unaware and indifferent.

  Harry remained on his spot, well into the silence, still gazing impassively into the pilot’s now-puce countenance.

  Finally, the pilot said: ‘Your manners leave much to be desired. If it’s instruction you want, I suggest you learn not to impose yourself on other officers, when it is obvious your presence is . . . is . . . is a bloody affront!’

  Harry came to attention in a military fashion and said: ‘Sir.’

  He turned on his heels and marched through a swiftly cleared alley and out of the wardroom.

  Dumaresq watched him go, oddly cheered by everything he had witnessed. Well, well, well, he said to himself. Nothing of the whipped cur about you, young man.

  Harry lay on his bunk in the junior officers’ cabin he shared with two other Sub-Lieutenants. He’d been staring at the deckhead for several hours, unable to sleep despite his deep weariness. Redoubtable was butting into a quartering sea at close to twenty knots, but she was a big ship, over 600 feet long and over 30,000 tons, so Harry barely felt the motion. What he felt instead was claustrophobia.

  Redoubtable might have seemed a big ship from the outside, but below decks she was an interconnecting maze of diminishing spaces. She might be 600 feet long, but she was also home to over 1,000 sailors and all the materiel needed to sustain them and the ordnance required to allow them to wreak bloody havoc on the enemy. Stuff and crew were squeezed together and below decks Redoubtable felt tiny, almost subterranean.

  The other two officers were on watch, so the cabin seemed marginally larger. Four bunks, four sets of drawers, a washbasin and spaces for four personal trunks. The steel was painted the same brilliant white as the porcelain of the basin and splashback; the fixtures, brass and a dark varnished hardwood. Personal clutter was all chased away, apart from Harry’s watch-keeping duffel coat hanging from the cabin door. There was no scuttle. This was an internal cabin with the deckhead bundled with cable runs and ducts, any light having to come from a set of light fittings, like toy steel and glass sarcophagi, bolted on to welded brackets. There were also small strip lights above each bunk for reading.

  Right now, Harry lay with the big fittings off and only his bunk’s light illuminating the cabin; a pale glow that only added to his feeling of being entombed. Being alone, the gloom allowed him a relapse into the adolescent luxury of wallowing in misery. For it has to be pointed out that despite all the mature resolve he had shown just now in the face of his tormentors, Harry was still at an age when such slights as the one he had suffered at the hands of the pilot were the end of the world.

  He revelled in the unfairness of it all. Since he had come aboard, he had never been given a chance to show what he might do. He was nimble and competent aboard small boats, he was comfortable in coastal navigation; he could hold a course, reef, wear and tack a yacht. But here, he was little more than an ocean-going charlady, his naval duties consisting almost entirely of standing over lumpen sailors doing housework. He’d stood in companionways, on mess decks, maintenance spaces, weather decks, hands clasped behind his back and a look of feigned diligence fixed to his face. A posture ingrained by constant reprimand from the First Lieutenant. Just standing, doing absolutely nothing, while the men performed tasks no less ingrained: cleaning, polishing, scraping, brushing, painting; and all the time a wall of dumb indifference between him and them.

  That he had once entertained such notions that he might stand a bridge watch aboard a ship of war, command a gun crew, even one day learn celestial navigation, let alone anything else remotely, properly naval, seemed now so mockingly naive he could feel the tears in his eyes.

  He looked at his watch: he had a couple of hours to go before he was back on duty. He wished it was never, and that he could spend that ‘never’ here, forgotten. But he hadn’t managed to get a bacon roll back in the wardroom scrum and hunger was pinching at his innards, made worse by fatigue. If he moved now, there would be few about. That was the decider. He swung his feet on to the deck.

  It was well into the forenoon watch, and the previously crowded wardroom was almost empty. A steward was sweeping up, his bent figure small in the hall-like space. Empty, the wardroom looked huge, a hangar; except that it was decorated throughout as a Home Counties’ drawing room. All the wood panelling and soft furnishings were bathed in a crystal northern light streaming through portholes framed by chintzy little curtains. The homely effect was spoiled, however, by the ranks of little picture lights bent over blank spaces on the walls. The paintings of sea battles, past alumni and the photographic record of more recent glories were long gone. Like the plate and the silver from the now empty display cabinets, they had been all struck down below, beyond the reach of enemy bomb or shell.

  Harry finally managed to attract the steward’s attention and ordered a corned beef sandwich and tea. That was when he noticed the back of a head peeking above one of the easy chairs. Harry sat down far away, not even thinking about joining the other officer. The sandwich and tea arrived and he pounced on them with a vengeance, his misery suspended while he stuffed his face. The distraction of food was sufficiently great that he didn’t notice the other officer had joined him. One second, the chair opposite was empty, and the next, there he was; that smooth cover of a Flag Lieutenant with the prissy little braid thing draped over the left shoulder of his uniform jacket. Dumaresq, that was his name, and he was sitting there
cradling a very large pink gin – at this hour of the day.

  Harry and Dumaresq were already on vaguely familiar terms; had had the odd chat about yachts, which Harry knew about, and stalking deer in Argyll, which Harry didn’t. In fact it was fair to say that Dumaresq was the only man in the wardroom who had been more than just passably civil to Harry since he’d come aboard, despite the fact that Dumaresq wasn’t just Royal Navy, but old navy, to boot.

  As others were quick to point out, lest Harry should be in any doubt in whose presence he had sometimes found himself, the Dumaresqs had history. His father had commanded an armoured cruiser at Jutland, his grandfather had been with Codrington at Navarino Bay, and his great-grandfather had served at the Glorious First of June and the Battle of the Nile under Nelson, for god’s sake!

  ‘The scuttlebutt has it that the Bloke caught you throwing a drinks party . . . in the fo’c’sle . . . for the lower deck . . . in the face of the enemy,’ said Dumaresq, with an amused insouciance that poor teenage Harry could only aspire to. To compound his shame, he felt himself start to blush. The Flag Lieutenant didn’t wait for a reply: ‘How splendid! Your first action, too. You should have a portrait painted.’ There was a genuine smile on Dumaresq’s face. Harry realised he wasn’t being mocked. The opposite, in fact.

  ‘So where is it?’ Dumaresq inquired.

  ‘Where is what?’ said Harry, puzzled.

  ‘The Commander’s pickaninny. He must have had one when he stumbled on your festivities,’ Dumaresq stared squarely at him, before guffawing. ‘Gawd, I’d have paid my bar bill just to have seen the look on his face.’

  ‘I just let them smoke, there was nothing happening, I didn’t think it was . . . the Master-at-Arms and the PO seemed to find it funny.’ Harry had rediscovered his indignation.

  ‘Did they now? Well there you are. You learned a lesson?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The hand that wanks the Jaunty rules the ship.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘An old Navy bon mot, but none the less true,’ Dumaresq sighed. He was a prickly little sod, this young RNVR Sub. But no wonder really, after all his travails as he toiled to learn his trade in the teeth of Redoubtable’s tribal prejudices. He had put in a creditable performance in facing down that bullying oaf Turl-d’Urfe last night. It showed that he probably had the ‘bottom’ to make something of himself, his single wavy ring notwithstanding, and that he was of a type the navy would soon sorely need. It was why Dumaresq had decided to take an interest, for he had things to say that this young man seriously needed to hear.

  ‘Now stop pretending to be a prude, Gilmour, and listen to your betters.’ Dumaresq made the taunt in a consoling voice. ‘Of course they found it funny. You made an arse of yourself, and the Bloke saw it.’

  Harry snapped back: ‘All of them, the PO and all the ratings, they knew what they should be doing more than I did. Why aren’t they on Commander’s Report?’ He was indignant, having at last found a vent for his spleen.

  Dumaresq maintained his calm, let the sparks fall to earth, and then began: ‘This little village of ours has its “us” and “them” like all little villages. There’s “us” – the officers – and there’s “Jack”. We each have our own little rituals, dos and don’ts. Take the Jaunty. He’s the ship’s most senior non-com. He bestows favours; his powers amuse him. He has his favourites: that PO of yours was obviously one of them. To him, having you appointed as the damage-control party officer was like presenting a classroom of tearaways with a student teacher. We both know the Jaunty has no responsibility for assigning officers. Of course not. But the Jaunty can suggest. And a good Jaunty is always on hand to take the strain off an over-worked Commander. You were obviously a gift from him to his boys, someone for them to torment.’ Dumaresq gestured to Harry’s single wavy ring. ‘Especially because of that. You were their sport, and they not only got away with it, they managed to drop you right in it, to boot. It’s a wonder you can’t still hear them laughing all the way from the mess deck.’

  With that, Dumaresq finished his gin, leant back and called for the steward. Harry had been impressed from the start how the Flag Lieutenant addressed the wardroom stewards with a politeness that was not common. The logic of his approach was now obvious, seeing as wardroom rules said the bar was closed right now. Truth be told, Harry was impressed, period, with this young tyro who had always seemed a cut above the herd on this ship in every way.

  If you were to look at the two sat there in cosy confab you might have thought them an older and a younger brother, for in certain ways the two young men looked very much alike. Both were tall, with angular features and flops of dark-brown hair. But Harry was still all legs and elbows, his hair refused to take a comb, and his neck stuck out of his shirt collar like an unfinished plinth. His face was too mobile to suggest any hint of gravitas behind it, and the pasty skin still held vestiges of a pimply past at the edges. Dumaresq on the other hand, had the residual shading of a deep tan. The face was taut, full of subtle nuance. His ice-blue eyes didn’t dart, like Harry’s soft brown ones. Also, Dumaresq was in his late twenties, and already very much a man. Harry, on the other hand, aged nineteen, with his extensive repertoire of expressions that varied from vacant to unbridled enthusiasm, gave off an overall impression of a yet-to-be-broken-in gun dog; he was still too obviously a boy.

  The steward brought two gins. Harry hadn’t asked for one but didn’t have the nerve to refuse. He looked at it with trepidation as Dumaresq proposed a toast to the Bloke.

  Harry could not help but be aware from wardroom banter that the young Flag Lieutenant was on a fast track to command. His job as a flag officer’s aide spoke volumes. He’d be getting his half ring soon, promotion to Lieutenant Commander, probably a berth as second-in-command in a cruiser. That he was being so affable was not at all usual, and that was why it was so discomfiting for Harry. He remained silent and sipped his gin under Dumaresq’s steady gaze.

  ‘They haven’t a bloody clue what to do with you, Gilmour, you do realise that don’t you?’ Dumaresq said eventually, smiling his confiding smile. ‘You’re an intruder in their world: “Jacks’” and the Commander’s. And what makes it worse is this is war. It means everything is all-change. We don’t like change in the navy, don’t even like to think about it. But war means that come it must. “Jack” and the Commander and all the gold braid from Admiralty Arch to the China Station can’t win this war on their own. They don’t know how. They’re peacetime, bullshit-baffles-brains officers, and bullshit-baffled-brained matelots. They don’t want you on this ship, because you are most definitely not one of them. You’re a civvy in a blue suit, an ordinary chap plucked off the street and tricked out in the uniform of an officer in His Britannic Majesty’s Royal Navy. Except you don’t see things the navy way. You are an intelligent adult from a world where there are no blinkered traditions or pointless procedures, salute this and polish that. You’re going to see through all the folderol, the things they’re doing wrong. In other words, you represent change. You have opinions they don’t want to hear. Ideas and, god help us, innovations. If they’re going to save their world they need to nip you in the bud. Dismiss you, start laughing at you before, god forbid again, you start laughing at them. Of course they’re quite right really, if saving their world is what this is all about. But it isn’t. If we’re going to win this war, they’re going to need you.’ Dumaresq looked into the distance: ‘You could almost feel sorry for them.’

  Up until this moment Harry had been quite buoyed by Dumaresq’s interest in him. He almost dared to hope he might have found a friend and ally in the older man. But those last words deflated him. Harry was conscious he was expected to say something, but he couldn’t think what. Dumaresq was watching him closely, waiting for him to speak up for himself and stop sitting there looking like a whipped cur. Harry had to say something. He settled on, ‘So I don’t belong?’ Lame, he though
t, stating the bleedin’ obvious, certainly, despite having attempted to disguise the fact by putting an edge to his voice.

  Dumaresq didn’t deign to notice. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But not for the reasons you think.’

  Suddenly Harry really did feel indignant: ‘I volunteered for this. I’m here to do my duty . . .’ He was spluttering and he knew it. So much he wanted to say, and the words wouldn’t come. Dumaresq leant forward, and in softer tones began to speak with measured gravity.

  ‘There are certain things you must understand before you are much older, young Gilmour. And the first and foremost is this ship. She’s only good for frightening natives. She’s too slow, too old, and is about as manoeuvrable as a broad-beamed Pompey whore with gin aboard. She’s a has-been. You take any of the modern capital ships on the Kriegsmarine’s order of battle. Redoubtable can’t catch them if she’s chasing, and can’t run away if she’s being chased. She’s vulnerable to air attack, and as our sister ship Royal Oak so tragically demonstrated, a sitting duck to submarines. Redoubtable is no longer a major fighting unit. She’s a target. This war will be fought in the North Atlantic against the U-boats. Lots of small ships and aeroplanes and nasty little battles. In the Mediterranean, keeping Hitler away from the oil. Small ships and aeroplanes and nasty little battles. In the Channel, keeping the armies supplied until they turn Hitler back and break him once and for all. Lots of small ships and aeroplanes and nasty little battles. That’s why the navy is going to need officers like you, and thousands more of you. To man the small ships, to have nasty little battles. The only thing Redoubtable and her type are going to be good for is being escorted to the enemy’s back door just like we’re doing up here, so she can lob bloody great shells at anyone silly enough to wander too close to the beach. And now we have to be escorted away again before the Luftwaffe or an Unterseeboot turns up and blows the arse out of us. Otherwise, all that Redoubtable’s fit for is sitting in Scapa, grounding on her corned beef tins.’