HMS Marlborough Will Enter Harbour (1947)

by Monsarrat, Nicholas

  ‘I’ll do it myself, then.’

  ‘And there’s no need to be a martyr, either.’

  Godden said nothing.

  ‘Don’t mess up the stove while you’re at it,’ Edie went on. ‘I’ve enough cleaning to do as it is.’

  She put her hat straight before the mirror, buttoned her coat, and left the house.

  Godden sat on, thinking of the coming night’s work, wondering what time the raids would start. In a way, he was looking forward to the air raids. It was a chance to do something at last.

  For the first time for many years, he put on his medal ribbons before he set out for the depot.

  It was good to walk out of the house, not pointlessly as so often in the past, but on his way to work.

  Just before eight o’clock that night, ‘Rescue and Stretcher Party Depot No.1’ was a very full and noisy place. The day shift, rather a scrappy, disorganized collection on that first Sunday afternoon, were turning in their equipment and preparing to leave: the incoming night shift, after signing on in the Control Room, were waiting about until they had a bit of elbow-room to organize themselves. At the moment they were all mixed up together in one moving, aimless throng – rescue parties, stretcher parties, drivers, first aid instructors, with a sprinkling of Red Cross and St John uniforms here and there; but already, as they waited and watched the day-workers leave, there was a subtle tension in the air.

  It was that prime tension of the war, the edge of something unknown but inevitable. September the third had been quiet so far, but they were now embarking on its crucial hours – the night shift; and from now on, as the crowds in the main hall thinned, leaving only themselves to take the weight, theirs was the true ordeal and the true danger.

  So far the others had only been playing at it, filling in the time; but the real thing might break loose at any moment – the newspapers and the radio, with their brutal news from Poland, underlined this continually – and they themselves were left, the Stoic garrison, to live out the coming night.

  Presently, as they waited, a tall man, in a well-cut dark suit, stood up on a chair and called for silence. The crowd in the main hall, who had been waiting for something of the sort, stilled expectantly; and the man began to speak, with a brisk confidence which they recognized and welcomed.

  ‘I just want to tell you,’ he began, ‘a few things about the job you’re taking on, and the sort of work you can expect. This depot is part of the Borough organization for dealing with air raids. I don’t know when they’ll come – tonight quite possibly – but we’ve got to be ready for them in any case. In the next few weeks we’ll have plenty of training, I hope: in the meantime we’ll have to do the best we can.’ He let his eyes go round the room. ‘We’re very glad to have so many volunteers: it’s been a splendid response, and a great credit to Paddington. You will probably find this place a bit crowded and uncomfortable until things shake down: but we hope to organize a proper meal system in the canteen, and beds and mattresses for those squads which aren’t at immediate readiness.

  ‘If there’s an air raid you’ll all be going out together as soon as an incident is reported in this district, whether the raid is still on or not. There’s a steel helmet for every man on the job, by the way, and we should have enough service gas masks for everyone by next week. The stretcher parties will deal with the casualties lying about the streets, in the first place; and the light and heavy rescue parties will get to work releasing people who may be trapped in houses, so that the stretcher-bearers can deal with them too. As soon as we can arrange it, there’ll be a full programme of first-aid training, with an examination, for all stretcher-bearers; and we may have to ask the Rescue Parties to take elementary training too. But that’s looking into the future a bit. For tonight I just want to be sure that you’re ready to move out if you’re called on.

  ‘You’ve all been organized into squads, as you know: stretcher-bearers and rescue parties alike. Make sure you know your squad leader and squad number. There’ll be sentries provided by these squads, to look after the lorries and to watch the doors. Squad leaders will fix the rotas for this themselves: they’ll also be responsible that their squads are ready to go out at short notice, any hour of the night. The warning system should give you plenty of time, as we’ll get a confidential warning before the sirens go. But,’ he smiled, ‘accidents do happen, and you’ve got to be ready to move quickly if necessary. Cars and lorries should be warmed up every hour, just to make sure they’re in working order. That’s about all, I think,’ he concluded. ‘If there’s anything you want explaining, go along to the Control Room and see the officer in charge. I hope there’ll be nothing happening tonight, but if there is, the best of luck, and I’m sure you’ll all do a good job!’

  Unconsciously, Godden had been standing stiffly to attention all the time that the man spoke to them. The words and the manner of delivering them, had recalled very strongly the long-past war years, with their sense of some supreme effort soon to come, and the stimulation of being trusted by authority at a moment of crisis. So often had Godden’s platoon commander spoken to his men, when there was a job – a patrol or a raid – to be undertaken, and their comradeship in danger was nearing its testing-time. So often had Godden tensely listened, striving to feel he was worthy of the trust, and would not let his part of the undertaking down. So, now, the link with that past and all it had stood for made itself felt, pulling him into the team again, giving this job its final worthwhile feeling.

  Air raids tonight, the man had said. Very well – let there be air raids … In that room they were all ready, and would not fail each other, or the man who had trusted them and wished them luck.

  Across the room Godden saw the squad leader, Watson, talking to a small group of men who stood round him, and he made his way towards him through the throng. Watson, who was explaining something to Isaacs, broke off as he approached, and said cheerfully: ‘Here’s the missing link now. That makes up the squad.’

  Godden smiled without saying anything, and then looked round the group of men. There were seven of them, well assorted: Watson and Isaacs (who was looking rather disgruntled, as if the speech had offended his principles in some way) seemed like old friends compared with the rest. There was a foreign-looking chap – that would be Wilensky, thought Godden, recalling the name on the list and immediately labelling with it a man with a big, curved nose and a halo of greying hair, who had the self-contained, inward look of a foreigner feeling his way in entirely novel surroundings. Next came two young fellows so alike that they must be the two with the same name – C Peters and B Peters – brothers, most likely. That left the tall, thin man in the faded boiler-suit who must be Platt, because the last one, nearest to Godden now, was – yes, by God, it was old George Horrocks, his pal from years back that he hadn’t seen since just after the war! Godden had specially noticed the name on the list, but it was a common one and he hadn’t really connected it with old George. And now here he was – or what was left of him. For it was clear, at a glance, that the same thing had happened to Horrocks as had happened to Godden: they had both stepped down, today, from the same dingy scrap heap where, on and off, they had both spent the arid, desolate years between the wars.

  Godden felt sad about that for a moment, because Horrocks had been, in the old days, a rolling, jolly sort of man, the unpromotable buffoon of the company but the kind of buffoon who can turn serious in a tight corner and do his bit as well as any long-faced ‘dependable’ type: now he was not much more than a tramp, by the look of him – frayed flannel trousers, the pocket-linings of his coat hanging down in tatters, the greasy old cap on the back of his head framing a grey, lined, stubbly face. ‘Godden and Horrocks – the Old Firm’ – that was what they used to be called, in those companionable days in Flanders; and that was what they still looked like, only in a shabby futile sort of way – a pair of old dead-beats with nothing to choose between them, now resuming partnership at the bottom of the scale.

  Godden
held out his hand. The others, except Watson who was working something out on the squad list, were watching their meeting with the slightly envious interest of people who are for the moment, without anyone to talk to.

  ‘Why, George, fancy meeting you!’

  Horrocks smiled broadly for a single moment, as if within his dulled face someone had flicked a lamp on and then off again. He said: ‘Bill Godden!’ in a rough, pleased voice, and shook hands. Then he resumed the featureless expression, the obvious desire to escape notice, which now seemed to be normal with him.

  ‘What got you into this, George?’ asked Godden, sure that Horrocks would produce some surprising reason which would make them both laugh.

  After a pause, Horrocks said: ‘It’s a job.’

  Just that, nothing more. No jokes about it, no pretence (as in the old days) that because the two of them had taken on this odd job, there was something cheerfully shady about it which would put the firm of Godden and Horrocks in a cheerfully privileged position. Horrocks, clearly, was past all that sort of thing: now he either worked and ate, or did neither, and the intervening shades of experience had disappeared in an overall grey acceptance of fortune. He had been defeated too long.

  Watson now interrupted the exchange by saying: ‘Let’s get this sentry duty settled before we do anything else.’

  They gathered round him as he stood there with the squad list in his hand. All over the big hall there were similar groups clustered round their leaders, settling the first outlines of their new job.

  ‘We’ve got to cover four hours,’ Watson went on, ‘from midnight to four o’clock. We’re working on a rota with the other squads, and the time we cover will change every night. There’s seven of you to do it–’

  ‘Eight,’ broke in Isaacs suddenly. ‘Eight in a squad.’

  ‘I’m not doing sentry duty myself,’ said Watson shortly, after a pause.

  There was a silence in the group, and then Isaacs said: ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m the squad leader – that’s why not.’

  Godden and the others thought this was a sufficient answer: Isaacs clearly did not.

  ‘There’s nothing in the rules,’ he began belligerently.

  Watson frowned. ‘What rules?’

  ‘The rules that chap was talking about. He didn’t say anything about squad leaders not doing sentry, did he? Seems to me–’

  ‘Awkward bastard, aren’t you?’ Watson interrupted him, almost genially. ‘I’m not doing sentry because I’m the squad leader, and I’ll be in the control room when the squad’s on duty, ready for when there’s a report of a raid, and anyway I don’t want any bloody argument about it from you.’

  The others were watching them. They were not backing up Isaacs in the least, but they wanted to see how Watson justified his position as leader. So far he seemed all right.

  ‘I wasn’t arguing about it,’ said Isaacs, trying another tack. ‘I’m entitled to know the rules, aren’t I? This isn’t Germany, you know. We don’t want any dictatorship here.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake get on with it,’ broke in one of the Peters brothers. ‘I want a cup of tea.’

  ‘I’m only standing up for all your rights,’ complained Isaacs.

  ‘You wait till you’re asked.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ broke in Watson. ‘Let’s start again.’ He read out the list of names, and the time of sentry duty for each man – thirty-five minutes apiece. Then he went on: ‘The lorries are what we’ve got to look after – to see that they’re not meddled with, and that the lamp on the corner is kept alight. If there’s a warning the sentry will wait until the driver – that’s Isaacs,’ he added, with a trace of a smile, ‘until Isaacs comes out, and then join up with his squad, ready to go. Is that clear?’

  One or two of them said, ‘Yes’. And then the Pole, who had been watching them all warily without speaking, said suddenly: ‘We will have arms?’

  ‘Arms?’ echoed Watson, rather puzzled.

  ‘Arms,’ repeated Wilensky. ‘The sentry, to guard the cars.’

  ‘No,’ said Watson. ‘There’s no call for that.’

  ‘There could be sabotage,’ said Wilensky laboriously. ‘In Poland it is reported that some of the fire engines were sabotaged.’

  ‘Nothing like that here, mate,’ said the other Peters brother. ‘This is England, you know.’ But he said it kindly, without any edge: echoing in his tone what they felt towards Wilensky now that they knew he was Polish, because of what was happening at that moment to Warsaw.

  It was growing darker outside: the beginning of the crucial night. Number Three Squad drew its meal tickets (to the value of ‘One Shilling’) and settled down in a corner of the mess hall with tea and sausages and chips. An old woman and a nightclub singer, a young man famous at a different social level for the polish and obscenity of his repertoire, were running the volunteer canteen: the woman cooked the food on a stove as battered and cranky as herself, the young man served up the plates with a bright allusive prattle which might have been a riot at the Four Hundred or the Coco-nut Grove but it was nearly incomprehensible here. He had been christened Cuthbert by the rescue parties, many of whom thought he was a lunatic. But the food was all right; and free, too.

  Horrocks, warming a little to the meal and the cheerful atmosphere, was volunteering to Godden something of what had happened to him since they last met.

  ‘I had a bit of a shop, to start with,’ he said. He talked in a very quiet voice, out of the side of his mouth, as if what he was saying could land him in trouble if it were overheard. ‘Sweets and tobacco – over in Camden Town. But it didn’t go.’

  ‘Independent operator, eh?’ said Godden, grinning.

  Horrocks said: ‘That’s it,’ without taking in the point of the remark. In the old days, ‘independent operator’ had been their term for the sort of one-man scrounging which could, at the risk of a stiff sentence for looting, sweeten life in the back areas of the Western Front. It was clear that Horrocks had forgotten almost everything that was cheerful about the past: the history and feeling of his defeat had swamped all the unessentials of life.

  ‘Then I got taken on in a shop – same line, tobacco and cigarettes – but they started putting in girls instead of men, so I was out again. I tried for a factory job, but they wanted girls again after a bit – kids, most of them, fifteen bob a week, instead of paying men’s wages.’ He said this without bitterness: these were things which ‘they’ decided, and there was nothing to be done but go somewhere else. ‘Then I got a porter’s job – block of flats in Hampstead: that was all right for a bit, but there was a mistake over a parcel being delivered to the wrong flat, and I got the sack. I was working at Smithfield Market for a time, on and off, till a little while ago. And then this came along.’

  He stopped, and took a sip of his tea. It was hard to realize that this meagre recital had covered twenty years of his life, that this had been, for him, the sum of the brave post-war world they had talked about so cheerfully in Flanders … Godden traced with his finger the circle of a wet stain on the rough deal table. Horrocks’s story, with one or two changes, might have passed for his own, but obviously Horrocks had come out of it very differently. He wasn’t bitter about it, neither was he still hopeful: he was just dead. And this present job – obviously they felt differently about that, too. Horrocks had come into it with none of Godden’s memories and feelings of the last war: he hadn’t ‘joined up’ because there was work to be done and people to be helped in air raids, he had just taken it on because it was the only thing that offered.

  ‘How’s the wife?’ asked Horrocks after a pause.

  ‘All right,’ said Godden.

  ‘You had a picture of her. I remember. Used to pass it round.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Godden.

  He got up and went over to the canteen hatch to replenish his cup of tea.

  ‘Here you are, ducks,’ said the nightclub singer. ‘Cheers but does not inebriate, I always say.
If you don’t like our goods, put ’em where Cleopatra put the asp.’

  ‘What?’ said Godden.

  ‘No offence where none intended, I’m sure.’ The young man, whose style after six hours of this sort of thing was getting rather ragged, hitched his shoulders impatiently. ‘What’s the Savoy Grill got that we haven’t got here, except a few tablecloths and Carroll Gibbons? Knock three times and say that Joe sent you.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Godden, and retreated with his cup of tea. The young man reminded him of an officer they had once had. Not a good officer.

  ‘Can’t make that chap out,’ he remarked when he got back to the table. ‘He goes on and on and you can’t get any sense out of it.’

  ‘Slumming, that’s all he’s doing.’ said Isaacs viciously. ‘Coming down here and pretending he’s one of the workers. We don’t want his sort here.’

  ‘He’s working hard enough,’ said Watson. ‘How would you like to sling cups of tea and plates of food around for six or seven hours on end?’

  ‘A bid for sympathy, that’s all it is. You always see a lot of that, at times like these.’

  ‘What good would that do him? What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Isaacs mysteriously. ‘There’ll come a day when we’ll know who’s on our side, and it won’t be fancy young bastards like him.’

  ‘What side is that?’ asked Watson curtly.

  ‘Backside, I should say,’ broke in one of the Peters brothers, the one who had clashed with Isaacs before. ‘You talk like one of those daft chaps in the Park.’ He rapped on the table in front of him. ‘If you want to kick up a row, for Christ’s sake go and do it somewhere else.’

  ‘I wasn’t kicking up a row.’

  ‘It was a bloody good imitation then.’

  ‘Now then,’ said Watson with determination. ‘This is a rescue squad, not the bleeding House of Commons. Let’s give it a rest.’

  In the silence that followed (for already they all recognized Watson’s clear authority) the Pole, Wilensky, took out a ponderous silver watch and looked at it.