Fairfax recognized Raikes, the Commodore, and another four-ringed Captain, a clutch of other officers and some dockyard experts, all turning now to watch the ship finally moored alongside, the brow already being shackled into place. What a time for a visit. Hakka was a mess. It always fell at the first lieutenant’s door . . . He smiled suddenly, aware for the first time of the strain he had been under.
Hardly an unbroken bottle in the wardroom, either, except what they had managed to scrounge off Tyne.
He heard Martineau’s feet on the bridge ladder and turned as he said, “They must take us as they find us, Jamie!” Then he hesitated. “I thought they said . . .”
Fairfax saw the girl getting out of the car, answering something one of the others had asked her, but looking directly at the ship. Up at the bridge where the holes were still stark against the paintwork, maybe remembering that time he had taken her up there, how she had touched the chair, and had spoken of the previous commanding officer.
From what he had heard, she was lucky to be alive after the bombing.
Martineau was looking at the corpses.
“She shouldn’t see this, Number One.”
Fairfax answered simply, “She wants to share it, sir.”
Their eyes met, then Martineau said, “Man the side.”
They came up the brow in order of rank, Raikes responding to the trilling calls, his eyes hard as he glanced along the ship, at the dead, the assembled prisoners, and finally the crisp new ensign which Onslow had got from somewhere.
She came last, stepping lightly over the brass name plate, and saluting the flag as smartly, as easily as any Royal Marine.
But her eyes were on Martineau. She took his hand and whispered, “I’m so glad. So glad.”
Raikes said, “Couldn’t keep her in hospital! Not like some I know!”
Everyone laughed politely.
Then Raikes said, “The Admiral will want to see you, Graham. As soon as you’ve cleaned up.” His eyes took in the faded gold lace and tarnished cap badge, and the darn on one sleeve, without apparent emotion. The other visitors were moving closer. “Two of the press bureau are with me. Do ’em good to see a real fighting ship.”
Lieutenant Driscoll saluted. “Escort for the prisoners has arrived, sir.”
Raikes said to him, “Your gun crews did well, I’m told,” and Driscoll’s pale eyes shone with pleasure.
“Thank you, sir!”
“Quick march, there!” Ted Crabb, the chief gunner’s mate, gestured to the Germans. “Move yerselves!”
They walked to the brow, some carrying items of clothing, one a parcel which someone had given him. Authority, it seemed, sounded the same in any language.
One, a petty officer, his uniform still stiff with salt water and from being force-dried in Hakka ’s boiler room, suddenly stopped dead, and looked quickly over the group on the quarterdeck. His eyes fastened on Martineau.
Before anyone could stop him he marched across the deck, and then halted, as if uncertain what had made him do it. Then he saluted, his hand to his cap, his eyes intense as he spoke, his voice surprisingly steady after his ordeal, and the destruction of his ship and most of her company.
Then he swung around and marched after the others. For a moment there was no sound, and then Martineau heard her say quietly, “He thanks you. For stopping to pick them up.”
Martineau looked at her, seeing the pain and the emotion in her dark eyes. Everyone else seemed to fade into the distance; even the ship was unreal.
Raikes broke the silence.
“I said your German would come in handy!”
The Chief of Staff intervened. “I have your orders, Graham. Devonport dockyard, the only place with a spare berth. Two or three weeks should do it. Plenty to do, new ratings, supplies, that sort of thing. All in hand. The Boss gave it priority.”
Martineau heard the waiting ambulances revving their engines. Eleven burials. Relatives informed. Travel warrants arranged.
He felt her hand on his sleeve. It might have been accidental, but he knew it was not.
She said, “I must see you.”
He looked at her, barely able to accept that she at least was real.
“You held me together, Anna.”
“I could say the same about you.” Then she smiled, and it was like seeing a cloud clearing away. “I’m so glad I was here to see you come in. Like that first time. It was meant.”
Raikes said airily, “You chaps can take a look round, but no photographs.”
Martineau looked at the deck by the whaler’s davits, but all the corpses had gone, and the flags had been put away.
He said, “I have no right . . .”
She touched his arm again. “You have every right!” Someone called her and she turned away.
Fairfax had heard the exchange, and was moved by it.
“When you have a moment, sir?” It was the Buffer.
“Now will do.” He straightened his cap, the first lieutenant again.
Surgeon Lieutenant Roderick Morrison said, “Right, sir, that’s me finished.”
Martineau picked up his shirt and after a slight hesitation pulled it over his head. Strange that his day cabin still looked unlived in. Only the sleeping cabin had been used, for one of the wounded who had been taken off the ship at Scapa.
The sickbay was undamaged, apart from jars and bottles shattered by the gunfire. He wondered if Morrison understood how much he hated hospitals, and anything which reminded him of them.
He said, “How is it, Doc?” and was surprised by the edge in his voice. Morrison had examined his back, the wound which had healed so well. Or so they had thought at the time.
Morrison said, “It was a bad one, deep but clean. Good surgery if I may say so, not like some of the knife-and-fork jobs I’ve seen lately. But . . .” He walked to the desk and touched it with his fingers. “Under normal circumstances I’d say it was sensible to do nothing. Let it bide its time.” He turned, and his face was grave. “But nobody in his right senses could have expected you to do what you have done since your discharge from hospital. A new command, a different assignment, to say nothing of working with people you did not know. It was asking far too much. Of anyone. Of you.”
Martineau faced the bulkhead mirror and slowly knotted his tie, if only to give himself time.
He said, “It was painful, lower down, when we went to assist the tanker.” He tried to smile. “I shouldn’t have wasted your time.”
Morrison looked at the deckhead as calls trilled again and feet scampered along the upper deck. He could hear the murmur of machinery, the scrape of mooring wires, a man’s sudden, uninhibited laugh. A good sound, he thought, for a ship which had been in the thick of it. A ship on the move again, so soon.
He said, “While we’re in Devonport, you could take some time to go over to Portsmouth. Shouldn’t be too difficult.” He paused, feeling his way. “With your rank, sir.”
Martineau watched him in the mirror. A round, homely face, more like a country vet than a doctor.
“Go on.”
“Actually, the naval hospital at Haslar. The P.M.O. is a friend of mine.” He saw Martineau’s eyes fall on his two wavy stripes and added cheerfully, “We met at school, sir.”
More voices from that other, impatient world. At any moment now Fairfax would be coming to make his report. The ship was ready to proceed. He thought of the high steel chair on the bridge, where he had first felt the pain.
Or was he making excuses?
Morrison watched the hesitation with professional interest. “He’s a nice chap, sir. It won’t go around the fleet, I can promise that.”
Martineau reached for his jacket and winced as he pulled it across his back. It was strange how he thought about his father much more now than he had when he was alive. They had always got on well, but had never been close. Perhaps his father had resented seeing his son progressing in the service which had rejected him.
Of his first command he had o
nce said, “A great privilege, I thought. I soon learned that responsibility went far deeper.”
Martineau said, “I’ll think about it.” He guessed that Morrison had seen his discomfort. “It may go away.”
He glanced at the opened letters on the desk and wondered if Morrison had seen the paper with the lawyers’ names printed at the top. Alison, or rather her father, had fired the first shot. The protection of reputations of all parties concerned. A more flexible view from the outset, and so avoid damage to future ambitions. They had all the right words, he thought. It was a pity some of them could not have been in Hakka on that last run.
And the other letter, the one which Tonkyn had brought to him personally in this cabin at breakfast. His expression had been a mixture of curiosity and suspicion; he had probably had a sniff at the envelope to test it for perfume.
My dear Graham.
A very short note, written, he guessed, before she had left on some mission at which Raikes had hinted. She could not say how long it might be. She would write to him. Call him, if possible.
It was so good to see you.
She had signed it simply, Yours, Anna.
Perhaps Raikes saw his own promotion drawing nearer. The Admiral, the Boss as they called him, had made naval history by selecting a Wren officer as his flag lieutenant. A pretty one, too.
He said abruptly, “Anyway,” and smiled, “Roddy. I can’t keep calling you ‘doctor,’ it makes you sound like an antique!”
Morrison hid his relief, something at which he had become quite good.
“I feel it these days!”
Martineau thought of the letter again. How could he involve her with the mess of his own life? He had not been hurt by the lawyers’ careful wording, an echo of Alison or her father. Instead he had been angry, perhaps unreasonably so.
He looked at the clock. Fairfax was right on the dot as usual; a tap at the door, and here he was. No barriers, but a new understanding, friendship.
“Postman’s ashore, sir, special sea dutymen closed up, ship ready to proceed.”
Martineau picked up his cap and studied the gold oak leaves around its peak. There had been another bill from Gieves, too.
“But not the cox’n, Jamie.” He felt the doctor watching and listening, hearing the casual use of his name. The man on the bridge few ever really got to know.
“Leading Seaman Forward is acting chief quartermaster. He’s the best I’ve got.”
Martineau took down his binoculars and nodded. The senior quartermaster, the man whose face had been covered with a piece of signal bunting, had been buried with the others.
He said, “We’re not too likely to run into the Tirpitz between here and Plymouth, d’you think?”
They laughed and went out into the cold air.
The doctor closed his bag. He would go to the sickbay and check up on the few inmates. Real lead-swingers, a pleasant change after the pain and fear of the wounded he had treated on passage back to Scapa.
He thought of the savage wound on the Captain’s back. Fairfax would never know how close he had been to having Hakka as his own command.
Their departure from Liverpool was noisy compared to their arrival, horns and whistles drowning everything while the bobbing cranes and gantries, chugging tank engines and bustling tug boats made it seem almost incidental. Except to those who knew. Who always knew.
Martineau stood on the port side of the bridge, watching the grey city, the cathedral and the familiar Royal Liver building sliding away. Then he glanced down at the unmanned Oerlikon gun, and thought of the letter he had written to the seaman’s parents. He had been nineteen, like so many in this ship.
Responsibility.
“Port ten. Midships. Steady.” That was Kidd, watching the markers, the buoys, and any moving traffic which might ignore the rules of the road.
Martineau saw him turn and stare astern, his features not so strained as before. There were cheers now from men working on a big ship with a deck cargo of fresh timber.
He heard Leading Signalman Findlay chuckle. “Och, look at them, will you? Their patriotism measured by their pay packets!” But he waved to them nevertheless.
He leaned forward and saw the line of seamen on the forecastle, swaying slightly to the swell as Hakka broke through a tug’s steep wash.
Responsibility.
Midshipman Seton was down there as well, beside Fairfax. Perhaps he had had a letter too, from his father. He looked very on edge; maybe Fairfax had noticed it.
He tried to think of Devonport, wondering if Raikes had succeeded in speeding up the repairs. There would be no leave, except for locals and compassionate cases, and most of the company would have to eat and sleep in the Royal Naval Barracks. They would hate that, with barrack stanchions in gaiters bawling their heads off and chasing them about.
And after that?
He saw a small coaster blowing out black smoke. Any convoy Commodore would love that one.
It would be back to the North Atlantic again. The wolf packs and the bombers, and surface vessels if the weather improved. Like the one Hakka and Java had sunk . . . and the German who had thanked him for stopping to pick them up. A handful out of two hundred or so. But it mattered.
He saw her face again as she had translated for him, and thought of the letter in his inside pocket.
My dear Graham.
Someone swore as he caught his foot on a piece of bent steel, where shell splinters had cracked around this same bridge, and Lieutenant Arliss had been killed outright only a few feet away.
He eased his shoulder under his jacket, the pain like a reminder.
He saw Tonkyn coming up through the chart room carrying his bridge coat, looking neither right nor left, as usual.
The bridge messenger glanced up from a voicepipe.
“Permission to fall out fore an’ aft, sir?”
Another youngster. His name was Buckley, ordinary seaman. Fairfax had told him about it. Buckley’s mother had been killed in an air raid, another case for compassionate leave. When he had arrived home he had found his father consoling himself with another woman. A wound which even Morrison’s friend could never heal.
He smiled. “Carry on, Buckley.”
He saw the young seaman blink, surprised that the Captain should remember his name.
Responsibility.
James Fairfax stepped into the wardroom, carefully avoiding the shining paintwork and varnished fittings. His day-to-day uniform already bore several stains to mark the speed of the repairs after only two weeks in Devonport dockyard. The noise had been incessant, with hardly a space unoccupied or unused by dockyard mateys. Rivet guns and welding torches, hammers and drills; at times it had sounded worse than the action which had put Hakka in dock.
Commodore Raikes had obviously had the influence to get things moving. Fairfax had endured several visits to yards for repairs in the past. It usually took a ship months to recover, or so it seemed.
The wardroom carpet was new; the curtain which divided “the eats from the seats,” as Malt the Gunner (T) had put it, was also new. Some of the furniture was the same, patched and cleaned, but comfortingly familiar.
It was good to feel the ship moving slightly at her moorings. She was still connected to the dockyard by wires and power cables, pipes, and brows for hauling the heavier stores on board.
He had been right round Hakka, and she was alive again, although in the daylight you could still see the scars beneath the paint and the new plating, and the dents along the hull where shell fragments had made their mark.
Even the Chief was happy with his engines, although he was known for his mistrust of dockyards. Screw it down or lock it up, or they’ll pinch the stuff!
The promised Bofors had been mounted, and trained seamen gunners had been drafted into the ship’s watch and quarter bills. Driscoll was as pleased as punch with his new toys. They would be useful in convoy work; each had a crew of four, and could fire up to one hundred and twenty rounds a minute.
Accurately, it was claimed.
Fairfax sat down and the pantry hatch opened instantly.
“Pink Plymouth, please.” He looked at the new pictures of the King and Queen on either side of the ship’s crest. But nothing could wipe out the memory, not completely, not yet anyway. The wounded lying here waiting to be treated, the dead covered over, their blood staining the carpet; Hakka had seen it all before, and she had survived.
He glanced at the clock. That was new, too. The Captain had left the ship the previous day, probably worried sick about handing over to him at a time like this, although he had not shown it.
“You’ll be all right, Jamie. I’ve left a number where I can be reached. Call me any time if you get worried.”
It was something to do with his back, and that was all Fairfax knew. He knew that the doctor had examined a wound Martineau had received when he had rammed the German cruiser; he had seen the pain in his eyes sometimes, after hours on the bridge, but had not understood the reason for it. Morrison was like a clam; he probably knew more about Martineau than any of them.
Day by day, the dockyard workers grew fewer, and more of Hakka ’s own company were released from the R.N. Barracks nearby.
There had even been word that the coxswain would be rejoining the ship sooner than expected. He grinned to himself and sipped the gin. The team . . .
And then there was Midshipman Seton. He was obviously unwell, although he had denied it when Fairfax had questioned him. He had slipped up on a couple of his duties, and even the Buffer had remarked, “Got somethin’ on his mind, sir.” The doctor was ashore, and had mentioned casually that he was going to beg some extra gear from the hospital. Under the Old Pals’ Act, he called it. When he returned he would see Seton and examine him.
There had been no mention of a replacement for Lieutenant Arliss, but that could mean anything. As a compensation Sub-Lieutenant Cavaye’s promotion had come through, and he had put up his second ring. Fairfax thought privately that he would be more insufferable than ever now. Cavaye was O.O.D., and although it was very cold on deck Fairfax guessed he would not be wearing anything which might conceal his new status.
For Valour Page 24
