by David Black
‘If you get all your requisitions in order, ready to go to Forth the minute we’re alongside, you can have six hours,’ the Skipper had told him after the party in the torpedo room. ‘Six. Not a minute more.’
The paperwork was on the wardroom table as they steamed past Paddy’s Milestone just after dawn. And so here he was, home in time for lunch.
He opened the kitchen door and stepped into the familiar . . . except it wasn’t familiar anymore. For a start it was cluttered. Washing on a makeshift pulley hung above the kitchen table – could such an affront have been perpetrated against the good order of the house? And the room was busy . . . with children! Two of them, a little boy and a slightly older girl, were frowning at him with what could only be described as suspicion – especially the girl. Then he noticed a third child, a toddler, coming right at him clutching some rag thing that looked like something he’d seen before; and the wide beaming face of Shirley, standing back in the gloom of the dangling washing, and then his mother coming around the edge of the table in the toddler’s wake.
He looked down into the tiny face of a little girl as she hurtled headlong, unsteady, aiming directly at his knees . . . 2 years old? Less? It wasn’t the poor, threadbare, washed-out look of her little pinafore, or the fact that she was wearing small yet still too big socks half slid down her little legs. It was the smile on her face; except smile didn’t quite encompass it. It stopped him completely as surely as a blow. It was a smile that split her tiny doll-like face with an excitement and an unalloyed joy she could barely contain. He was quite sure he had never clapped eyes on this little girl in his life, yet he had never, ever, seen anyone so happy to see him. His throat closed, his sinuses tingled and, bloody hell’s teeth, he could feel the bloody tears starting behind his eyes! After all those months in the company of men, at sea, and at war, the sheer guileless pleasure bursting out of the little mite quite un-manned him.
And in front of Shirley, too? And the other two glum-faced brats and his mother? Surely not! Oh god, he thought, and in panic, he took the only cover he could and swept the little girl into his arms, holding her to his still whiskery face, and spun her so his back was to the gawping crowd.
‘Hallo!’ He barely managed the words, and even then it was in a daft voice to hide his choking. ‘And who are yooo?’
The little girl gave such a gurgle of glee that it almost made matters worse; he had to slip one arm under her rump and whip his cap off and on to her head to give himself more time to recover. His mother was up to him by then, and her hugs finally saved his manhood. What in hell was going on?
‘This is Margaret,’ said his mother, taking the little girl’s fist, and tapping it against the end of Harry’s nose, and then gesturing to the other two, ‘and that is Archibald . . .’
But the glum girl interrupted. ‘Erchie,’ she said.
‘And Agnes,’ continued his mother.
‘Aggie,’ the glum girl said.
‘They’ve come to stay with us; they’re our new family,’ continued his mother.
‘Wu’ve bin evacuatet,’ explained Aggie, in very broad Glaswegian, ‘fae Govan,’ she added.
‘Hello, Harry,’ said Shirley, from across the table. ‘You look like someone’s dragged you through a hedge backwards.’ All of them, even glum Aggie, laughed.
Everyone sat round the table and tea was served. The children continued to look at him with a concentrated suspicion, except Margaret of course, propped on his knee, rubbing at the four days growth on his cheeks, and chortling to herself. He sat there in his increasingly greying white pullover, a pair of stiff work trousers and the ex-RAF flying boots he often wore on watch, with the white socks turned over the tops. His salt-streaked watch jacket with its single wavy stripes was draped over the back of his chair, and his watch cap was now pushing out the flappy white ears on Erchie’s head.
‘Are you aff wan o’ they sumbarines, mister?’ asked Erchie.
‘That’s Harry. He’s my son,’ said his mother.
The boy smiled at her and nodded. It looked like a pat response he practiced to keep her happy. ‘Huv ye sunk any Jerries?’ The serious, intent little face demanded an answer.
‘Oh no,’ said Harry. ‘We just carry secret messages . . . underwater . . . so that the Germans don’t see us.’ The very thought of telling this little boy anything approaching the truth didn’t even enter his head.
‘Whit kinda secrit messages?’
‘Oh, they don’t tell us . . . they’re too secret.’
Erchie sat back, adjusting the cap, then stared silently at his hands folded on the edge of the table in a blatant gesture of disbelief.
Harry’s mother began talking over the awkwardness: ‘The children are here to get away from the bombing, and since we’ve got all this room . . .’ She smiled and opened her hands.
Aggie provided the truth: ‘The wummin frae ra corporation sent us. Aw the weans are gettin’ sent.’
‘The bombing isn’t as bad as London but there’ve been a few raids,’ added Shirley, ‘and anyway,’ she said, turning to the children, ‘there was only your mummy to look after you and she was too busy working for the war effort to look after you properly, isn’t that right.’
‘Wur da’s deid,’ said Aggie.
‘He was in the Argylls,’ said Harry’s mother, reaching her hand towards Aggie, as if the little girl’s father being in the local regiment gave them some kind of affinity. Not like his mother at all to hint at something so meaningless, but what do you say to a child with a dead daddy?
‘Saint Valery,’ said Aggie, not taking the proffered hand, and concentrating on the two words like they were some kind of explanation in themselves. But then she could only have been about eight or nine years old, so what did you expect?
They drank tea, and the women wanted to hear all about Harry.
‘We didn’t think you’d get here quite so fast,’ said his mother, ‘otherwise I’d at least have got the washing down . . . children . . . I’d forgotten what you’re like,’ she said, ruffling Erchie’s hair, irritating him. Being Harry’s mother, she knew better than to jump up flustered and start stripping the pulley while everyone was sitting at the table.
‘You were expecting me?’ said Harry. ‘How did you . . .?’
‘Shirley saw your boat.’
‘I saw your number,’ said Shirley. ‘It’s painted all over the little hut you have on top.’
The conning tower, she meant. And indeed it was. All Royal Navy submarines had their pennant numbers painted on their conning towers.
‘Do you look at all the boats coming in?’ he asked.
‘Of course. P . . . umppity tumppity. Don’t want to say it out loud cause walls have ears,’ and she gave an arch smile. ‘It’s your address. When I write. Sub-Lieutenant H Gilmour, RNVR, care of HM Submarine P . . . umppity tumppity, HM Ships.’
Which was true; you only used the number. And she looked for him. Coming in.
‘That was lucky,’ he said, ‘because I’m just passing through. I’ve only a few hours, then I have to be back on board to load stores and be off; they never tell us where.’
The conversation tootled on; local news, his father’s disposition. They didn’t press Harry for any of his news beyond the usual platitudes. He was grateful, and so were they. West coast Scots weren’t expected to unburden themselves in front of the womenfolk, let alone the visitors. And what could they ask anyway? Stuff like, what’s it like being at war? How on earth could you reply to that? Have you killed people? Have you seen people die? Were you brave? Were you frightened?
So they talked about the difficulty of getting clothes for the children. Who’d have thought his old childhood cast offs would have come in so handy? That was when he started realising why some of the children’s clothes were familiar, and why he had recognised the rag thing that Margaret continued to clutch; it was a sewn-together representation of some indeterminate mammalian genus, home-made with asymmetrical ears and a bright red vel
vet grin.
‘And I bet you remember Rousseau?’ added his mother.
Indeed he did. Rousseau, the rabbit. He had no idea all those things had been preserved. His mum had kept everything. Shoes though; they were the hardest things to get for the kids these days, but when Shirley went up to Glasgow there’d be more shops, and she’d volunteered to keep an eye out. Glasgow? Yes. Shirley was going off to be an ambulance driver, after she’d turned eighteen in January. Of course. He remembered.
His mother took him out to inspect the new vegetable garden while Shirley and Aggie washed up.
‘There are children all over, billeted with people who have the room,’ she was saying, bent over snatching at the odd weed. ‘Your father has a very . . . ambivalent attitude towards them.’
‘I can imagine . . .’
‘Actually, Harry, I doubt you can,’ she said, standing up to look at him. She always defended his father. Always. ‘He’s happy they are here and not in Glasgow under the bombs . . .’
‘. . . but? And where is he anyway?’
‘He doesn’t know how to deal with small children. He didn’t even know how to deal with you. He just sort of looks on in amazed horror.’
‘I know the look. Then they grow up, and they go from objects of horror to causes of disappointment.’
His mother sighed, then spotted another weed needing attention. As she bent, she said: ‘He worries about you. Every letter you send, he demands I read. Again and again . . .’
‘Can’t he read them himself?’ Harry interrupted.
Rising again, she said: ‘Then he rants and raves . . . about you, the war, the stupidity of man, and you, and you, and you.’ She paused. ‘He won’t touch your letters because he says you’ve got blood on your hands.’
‘He’s a madman.’
‘Yes, Harry, he is. Mad with fear.’
Then his mother mentioned Janis had been round . . . just as Shirley was coming down the garden.
He got away with Shirley eventually on a cycle ride through the woods over the back road to Sandbank.
‘You told fibs to wee Erchie about sinking Germans,’ she said. They were sitting on a mossy bench by the side of a muddy path through the brooding trees, everything October-damp and chill, the birdsong long silenced by the threat of winter, and the light a faerie green.
‘Umm,’ he said.
‘Do you tell fibs when you write to me?’
‘No!’ A pause. ‘Sometimes I don’t tell everything.’
‘You said you would.’ This time Shirley made the pause. ‘Is Janis your girlfriend?’
He hadn’t thought about Janis in that way for ages. Not in a ‘girlfriend’ way. Only his loins had really ever thought about Janis, and just because your loins thought about that, it didn’t necessarily mean the rest of you actually had to follow. Although as everyone knows, when you’re a 20-year-old bloke, your loins have a pretty big say.
But Harry was no longer just your average 20-year-old. While most blokes could still afford to be daft at his age, months at sea as an officer aboard one of His Majesty’s submarines had fashioned a somewhat more sophisticated model; sophisticated enough to know that for all the bland casualness of this conversation, pivotal decisions were about to be made, and subtlety was required, as well as decisiveness.
‘I thought you were,’ he said, evading the telling-the-truth-in-letters business quite nimbly, he thought.
Shirley laughed, which was a good sign. ‘I’m not sure I want to be the girlfriend of a chap who doesn’t tell the truth in his letters.’
Damn, he thought, then said: ‘They get censored, Shirley.’
She liked him using her name. He could tell by the smile.
‘Who censors them, Harry?’
He stared into the stygian gloom of the dripping undergrowth and saw his future in a wrong answer. It was his turn to laugh. ‘Me.’
But she didn’t laugh this time. ‘Is it really not very nice? Out there?’ she said, studiously not looking at him.
‘No. It’s not.’ And that’s when he kissed her. He breathed in the fresh air and pine needle smell of her hair, and felt her arms hold him far tighter than he’d expected, and immediately wondered why he’d never done it before.
‘You took your time,’ she said. ‘I was dying for one of those.’
When he walked into the Third Flotilla offices aboard HMS Forth the first person he met was Jack Twentyman, the flotilla’s Commander (S).
‘It’s Mr Gilmour!’ barked Twentyman, offering Harry his hand. ‘Nemesis to the Von Zeithen and saviour of Padgett. You stayed in the trade . . . and you’re still alive! Bloody good show! – Two bloody good shows!’
Twentyman bustled through the tight little space made tighter by the Petty Officer Writers and typing ratings all beavering away. Against the bulkhead, a leading stoker from The Bucket was hovering over a desk watching his paperwork being shuffled.
‘Actually, sir,’ said Harry to the beaming face, ‘I’m here to ask a favour.’ A lie. It was happenstance, but why miss a chance to look decisive? ‘It’s about our torpedo reloads.’
Twentyman’s eyebrows shot up: ‘Its duffel coats and long drawers you should be a-begging, where you’re going, not torpedoes.’
Harry was surprised.
‘You’re on The Bucket, yes?’ said Twentyman. Harry’s jaw tightened and out of the corner of his eye, so did the leading stoker’s, if he wasn’t mistaken. Only ‘buckets’ got to call their boat The Bucket.
‘HMS Trebuchet, yes, sir,’ said Harry.
‘Hopefully you won’t need any torpedoes where you’re going,’ said Twentyman; which Harry didn’t understand at all. What did Twentyman know that he didn’t? Stupid question of course; Twentyman knew everything.
‘But I suppose if it turns out you do . . .’ Twentyman scrunched his brow, then turned to a fellow who looked like a bank clerk, overweight and in shirtsleeves, with steel-rimmed specs, chunky hair slicked down with something greasy and a Lieutenant Commander’s two and half rings on his shirt epaulettes. Obviously his staff officer. ‘See Mr Gilmour loads with mark eights, and make sure he gets the correct exploders.’ And then Twentyman was gone, calling over his shoulder as he left, ‘Drop in for a sherry before you slip, if you’ve got time . . . and wrap up warm!’
The leading stoker caught Harry’s eye, grinning. This would be all over the boat by the time he . . . Aw, let’s face it, said Harry to himself, it probably was already!
The officers’ briefing was fixed for 22.45 in a CO, S/M’s cabin which had been allotted to Andy Trumble for the duration of HMS Trebuchet’s stay alongside Forth.
HMS Forth was a new depot ship in the Loch, a replacement for the small Titania which had been a mere converted cargo passenger liner of pre-Great War vintage. Forth, on the other hand, was built for the job: a huge slab-sided beast of over 9,000 tons, she was a warren of workshops, stores, magazines and messes, to the point where you could be forgiven for thinking she was even bigger on the inside than out. This was no mean feat, given that those grey slab sides seen from the deck of a submarine reminded Harry of nothing more than Lewis’s department store on Glasgow’s Argyle Street.
Harry and the Tigger were at full trot haring down the passageways, having already got lost twice and fearing being late, when they all but careened into The Bucket’s dark, disapproving and notoriously monosyllabic engineering warrant officer, Mr Partridge, standing at ease, cap on, but in a set of blue oil-encrusted overalls, at the entrance to officer country.
‘Mr Partridge,’ said Harry, ‘Are you looking for the Skipper’s cabin too?’
Since neither Harry nor the Tigger were wearing their caps, Mr Partridge did not salute, but he did come to attention with a slight incline of his head, and said: ‘Fourth door on the left, Mr Gilmour,’ and that was it. No explanation, no expression; just the gaunt flat grey planes of his pewtery skin, impossibly stretched over the framework of his immobile face, peering down even on five-foot-ten-and-a-bit H
arry.
Harry, with Tigger trotting behind, went down the passageway to a door clipped back to reveal a regulation-perfect naval officer’s sleeping cabin: spartan, functional and occupied by a Lieutenant RN, all buffed-up and wavy-dark-hair handsome, looking a bit like Tyrone Power in his number ones, polished oxfords and glittery double gold and so very solid Royal Navy rings on his tailored cuffs. He even had a medal up, but Harry didn’t recognise the blue and white ribbon.
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Harry. ‘We were looking for Lieutenant Trumble’s berth.’
‘Tyrone Power’ looked up, then down at Harry’s wavy stripes, where his flat gaze lingered for a telling moment.
‘This is it,’ was all he said as if he owned the place, before bestirring himself to make an affected gesture that said, come in – if you must. There was no attempt to introduce himself. The stranger was sitting on the only seat in the cabin, a small desk stool; so Harry and Tigger squeezed in and sat on the single bunk, neatly made up and still unslept in.
Harry thought about introducing himself, but a little voice in the back of his head said, Bugger you, mate! The senior officer always spoke first; always did the introducing. Harry might have had a bellyful of naval etiquette aboard the Redoubtable, but it didn’t mean to say he’d learned nothing.
That was when the Skipper and Carey hauled up, both bare-headed and in oil-smeared white overalls.
‘Ah, the gang’s all here . . . no it isn’t,’ said Skipper. ‘Where’s Mr Partridge? I left him here five minutes ago.’
‘He’s standing at the end of the passage, sir,’ piped up the Tigger. ‘Shall I . . .?’ But the Skipper cut him off with a raised hand, as he looked quizzically at ‘Tyrone Power’.
‘Tyrone’ spoke: ‘If you mean the warrant officer that was here in oily overalls, on his own, he was a warrant officer, non-commissioned. I didn’t think he had any business in officer country. I told him to get out.’
No ‘sir’, noted Harry. This was going to be interesting.
