I happened, by no contriving of my own, to spend a lot of time as X’s only companion. I could watch him at meals, picking among the food, like a seagull picking among scraps, greedy but concerned to have only the good. I could see his little eyes turning like a seagull’s from right to left, and left to right, watching how much others were getting, watching what was happening to the spare piece of butter left on the plate. I watched him manoeuvring to be out of sight when any unpleasant duty was to be performed – slying pieces of chocolate and sweets from his pockets, and never asking anyone to share. I once saw him volunteer to be a batman – to escape from other more onerous duties – and then curse at the work he had to do, when he found that his manoeuvre had not turned out to his advantage. How I grew to dislike every motion of those lips, those thick stubby fingers, those little seagull eyes.
Two more things about him. His interests never went beyond his creature comfort. Where he was going, would the food be good, would the climate be congenial, would there be little to do – those were all the thoughts that exercised his brain. Beyond that nothing. He never read – but dosed away his leisure in the sunshine – eyes closed, but ready to open, whenever there was anything to be seen. He had fallen into the annoying habit of saying ‘Eh?’ to every sentence spoken to him, although he had heard perfectly – and often when someone near him spoke, to a third person, not to him at all, apropos of nothing at all that was his concern, then would break in his harsh ‘Eh? Eh?’ – all ears he was to pick up any scrap of gossip. I noticed by the way that he never said ‘I beg your pardon’ or ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch you’ – always ‘Eh?’ ‘Eh?’ I grew – and I wasn’t the only one – to hate the sound of that Eh? Eh? Eh? Ah dislikeable X – never have I seen anyone less capable of a generous thought and a disinterested action than you! You hypocrite!
A few days ago, a young fellow here lost his wallet containing five pounds and ten shillings, and someone kind started a fund for him – threepence or fourpence each. Wasn’t that a generous thought!
Diary of a day on board ship
6.30
Wakened, jumped out of hammock to wash and shave
7.00
Rolled up hammock, stowed it
7.10
Went on deck to eat an orange and smell the morning air
7.20
Took the padres their morning cup of tea, cleaned buttons, boots for them
7.45
Breakfast. After breakfast snatched 2 minutes for a smoke on deck, then returned to wash up
10.30
All ready for inspection. The Admiral and all his gang around to see the state of things
(If I had not been mess orderly I’d have been at boat drill from 10.20 – 11.00)
11.00
Up on deck to walk up and down taking the air, noting disposition of convoy
11.50
Waited impatiently for dinner
12.00
Dinner arrived and was eaten with relish
12.30
Set about washing up again
13.30
All cleared away, set about making my notes, writing and reading – then dozed
15.00
Woke, roused myself, went to wash. Sea water only available – unsatisfactory. Then walked up and down deck again, talking or thinking or reading
17.30
Had tea and set about washing up for the last time. Ate orange I bought this afternoon
18.30
Washing up completed. Washed again. Went up on deck again to watch the sea, to take exercise and play darts
21.30
Down below to sling hammock
21.45
In bed, listened to the scurrilous conversations around me. Great noise and fooling
22.00
Lights out. Went to sleep
Thursday 14 May 1942
Entered Ship’s Essay Competition yesterday. Weather – still not warm. Nothing at all to indicate where we are. Nothing at all – as cold as crossing to Isle of Man.1
Nostalgia
Washing-up was a long business, with hot water to fetch from far aft, along draughty corridors and down steep steps slippery with vomit, and sixteen mugs and thirty-two plates to wash and dry, and then the mess space to sweep up; and when it was over I lay down with my lifebelt under my head to rest for a few minutes. Up above on deck the weather was wet and harsh, and few had courage or inclination to stay on the cold, slippery decks. As soon as I had washed down the table, it was invaded by the housey-housey school. So I settled down to muse and listen to the school leader’s fascinating incantation. When he had sent out his nark to canvass players, and was satisfied that the school was big enough, he began –
‘All in? All paid and all weighed?’
‘All in’ called back his nark, with his fist full of coppers.
‘All right then, lads! What are we having? Top line only? Top line it is then! Here we go – all in and eyes down for a top line!’
The deck became very quiet. All I could hear was the rattling of the wooden counters in the dirty bag, and the even-voiced incantation of the schoolmaster.
‘Three and one, 31; four and seven, 47; Kelly’s Eye, number 1; by itself, number 3; key of the door, 21; doctor’s favourite, number 9; all the fours, 44; blind, 80; half a crown, 26, and another dip in the bag…. Off we go again – seven and six, 76; three and five, 35’ until suddenly some one cried ‘House!’
‘House here!’ came the reply from the high priest of the game, and still in his unnatural monotone, like a tribal witch doctor chanting out some ritual, ‘House here! Eyes in everybody! Eyes in for a check.’ Then the check was called, and the copper clattered on the table, then on went the voice again. ‘Full house this time, boys? Pyramid? All in for a full house! All in, all paid, all weighed, off we go! First number – by itself, number 3; dinky doo, 22; four and one, 41; unlucky, 13.’
I lay on my back, listening desultorily, and sniffing the faint whiff of old vomit that came from the lifebelt under my head, growing hotter and hotter. As the game went on, the school grew bigger and bigger, and the air became hotter and heavier, and the sweat was glistening on the face of the housey-housey leader. Breaking the spell of his rhythmic chant, I jumped up and went above.
The well decks were uninhabitable. Although a weak sun was shining through the cloud in the west, the wind beat down on the hatchways with violence, the tarpaulins lifted and bellied and smacked back sharply with every gust. A heavy rain, mixed with the spray from the bows whirled round the corners and flung itself down in sharp showers. But, further up, the promenade deck was more sheltered. I strapped my lifebelt over my shoulders and began to pace up and down the slippery wooden floors.
It was a violent night. The ship pitched like a rocking horse; and as its bows fell smack in the water, the gorgeous ravelled spindrift was flung out and out. As the waves rose, their heads gleamed a pure pale jade, then crashed furiously into the whitest of whiteness, that spread, dillied and dallied for one moment, then dissolved its glimmering lacery into heavy leaden waves.
The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds
The wind-shak’d surge, with high and monstrous mane,
Seems to cast water on the burning bear
And quench the guards of th’ever-fixed pole.
(Shakespeare, Othello 2, i)
Through such a sea, I thought, Othello sailed to meet his Desdemona – but we all, alas, were sailing away from home, away from our Desdemonas.
Nevertheless it was invigorating to walk the decks in such a sea – to feel the wind wrapping the trousers round the legs and blowing the feet pitter patter down the deck – and then to turn and force the way strenuously up against it. The rain sneaked under the roofing of the deck and splashed now and then in the face. But the air was pure with the purity of a million million acres of unpeopled water – and a joy to breathe. Up and down I went, enjoying the buffets of the wind until I was tired.
When my lifebelt was to
o wet, remembering that it was my only pillow, I looked around for shelter and went under an awning, well forward. There were a few others there, listening through the open windows to a concert in the lounge; and I could hear sounds of raucous laughter coming from inside. Some comedian was just finishing his act. I could not see, but I heard the ovation his bawdiness won him. And then another entertainer went up to the stage. What was it? A piano solo. A piano solo – the word was passed back from those nearest the window to us behind. The information had just reached me, when the pianist began to play the first few chords of Wien! Wien! Nur du allein.
Wien! Wien! – Oh God, why did he play that? As he played, my heart stood still. Like a subtle scent caught in the woods, transporting one back to a glorious boyhood minute, the music opened the floodgates of my memory and cast me back, back, back to the years before the war, to the opening of the year and the spring of our married life. I was coming downstairs, fresh after sleep and was pausing on the stairs to listen. Gwen was dusting. She had come now to the piano – Gwen, lovely as the morning itself, whose face was lovely as the moon as she bent over me while I was waking. She had come to the piano, stopped, and was playing the tune she so often played before breakfast in those cool mornings, Wien! Wien! Nur du allein…. Ah Gwen – so far away now!
When the music stopped, I did not care to walk any more. Down again into Hell’s Kitchen to lie and grow cold-hearted and unfeeling, to stupefy myself with the foul atmosphere and the scurrilous talk – to forget.
The housey-housey game was over and nearly all the hammocks were slung. Before the war this deck had been a storage room for carcasses of Argentine beef. How little the change! All trussed up close to the roof in their hammocks, or lying stretched out inert on the floor – the men looked like more sides of beef. Probably considered less profitable. No profiteer could have looked less kindly after his sides of beef and shoulders of mutton than ‘they’ looked after us.
In this little place, no bigger than a village cricket square, and so low that the tall among us hit their head against the rafters – two hundred men slept, fed, played and were sick. Many of them were laid out now with not enough energy to sling a hammock. Prostrate on the floor, they lay and retched, while others stepped clumsily over and on them.
The heat was almost insufferable. It was so great that we could not bear a blanket to touch us, but lay and sweated uncovered in the hammocks. As the boat rolled the hammocks all swung over together, paused, shook, then swung back again violently; and as it pitched, a wave seemed to pass from the ankles to the calves, then up the back and into the head. But not even all these sickly motions could completely silence the men. The old familiar catcalls still rent the room.
‘Put those bloody lights out, you!’
‘Leave the buggers on!’
‘Go and get stuffed, you stupid cunt!’
But there was less tumult than usual; and when the boat pitched badly, a noise that was half a groan, half a cry ran through the deck.
Misery, misery! As I settled in my hammock and began to read, two of the sick men crawled on their hands and knees and began to spew into the pail that stood at the end of the table, and which we used for washing up. Shockingly they retched, and I put my fingers in my ears and closed my eyes, impatient for the lights to go out, and for sleep to come. Ah Wien! Wien! Ah – so far away now – so far away.
What a wonderful bird – the guillemot! Weather most beautiful. On upper deck I read No Man’s Wit by Rose Macaulay – a book about the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. And the sea – a magnificent blue, true ultramarine, a true Reckitt’s blue. An idle day – all reading, conversation and no thinking.
Weather muggy and warm, drizzling, wet and a heavy overcast sky. The corporals are all talking this morning of a shocking orgy by the officers in their lounge – caterwauling and yahooing, indescribable hooliganism and smashing of glasses, howling and struggling and singing of filthy songs. The adjutant very drunk and abusive to the orderly sergeant. Our opinion of the officers sinks low after beer-house scenes like this. But romanticism – no glorifying of the common folk and vilipending of the upper classes. Last night our mess deck all uproarious for hours with the filthiest of filthy talk – the lowest depths of licentious abuse. Canaille!2 – the people of both orders who wallow in dirt like this.
– Canaille!
– And to think of the fine, sensible fellows, commissioned and noncommissioned, who could rule a ship with sobriety and intelligence and good humour.
Flying fish, porpoises seen. And I had a marvellous view just half an hour ago of two dolphins – sharp fins, backs brown as horses, up in an upward dive and then down again under the water.
Slept on deck last night and this poem’s the result. Washing day yesterday – less room than ever in the Inferno with the lines of washing.
Before Sleep
Softly the ship steals into the arms of the night,
And softly, softly close the doors of the dark;
The doors of the dark all studded with gems of stars;
Softly swings the moon in her silver hammock.
Crocus and campion, one big star in the south,
Stirs in the paradisal draughts of the night,
Glittering down on the heads of the sleepers here.
And now come the little stars, crowding together,
The inquisitive eyebright stars, listening together,
Listening down through the silent skies towards me.
O open the jewel-crusted doors of the dark!
Turn, oaken portals, turn on your azure hinges!
And let your dreams, little stars, come down to me now,
Visions to smooth the brow of my lonely slumbering,
Visions of her who is far – so far – away.
Flying fish
Saw hundreds of flying fish today – they rise out of water and fly – not leap – really fly for yards, waving wings and stretching out back fins for rudders. I saw some fly 50 yards – little toy aeroplanes whirring off – coloured like swallows – white shining bellies. They land awkwardly with a splash. Lovely to watch.
Lost and found
Next to the intense, scarce-sufferable heat, our greatest inconvenience was lost kit. At no given moment, during the whole of the journey, was every man in possession of all his kit. The only near-solution of our problem was the packing and repacking of each separate item of equipment as it was needed or finished with – to open the kitbag for a towel, wash, then put it away again; open the rucksack for socks and stow away the old pair; to stand over your washing until it was dry; never to part company with your life jacket or hat, your raincape, your ‘irons’; – your every article in constant use and need, to keep them all within sight and reach, even in bed. But those conditions were insupportable as the heat. Lifebelts were whipped from beneath your nose. Rucksacks were unstacked, scattered and restacked while you were at the ablutions. Caps were absentmindedly moved from hand to hand until they were untraceable. Hammocks were shifted as constantly as pebbles in a stream. Even the most conscientious constantly lost equipment. Even the most cautious had to put aside half an hour every day for finding missing articles.
As for the more careless, like myself, people used to abundant space and an uncrowded life, 20 per cent of our day was spent in chronically futile searching. Hour after hour we spent in the Inferno, looking up at hammock labels, turning over disorderly piles of webbing, unpegging and repegging arrays of overcoats. The longer the voyage lasted, the longer the hours of searching – and the shorter the tempers. At any time of the day men could be seen moving moodily and irresolutely from mess to mess, the sweat of tropical heat and indignation rolling down their faces, uttering the most bloodthirsty threats.
Wrangling, counter-wrangling, pushing, shoving and purpled bawling, with every altercation the air grew hotter – until the heat stifled. No solution but to say goodbye to your undiscoverables – and wait till some mysterious reshuffle deposited it – as a wave wil
l throw up a bottle or a spar – before your eyes again.
New mood
A new mood is animating the ship today. We are wearing tropical kit for the first time, and feel all new and smart. The bathing pool has been opened, and we used it today for the first time. The weather is wonderfully clear and fine. Hundreds of flying fish can be seen skimming over the waves. Sleeping on the upper deck is a success – no more sweltering in the suffocating heat between decks. The VADs3 are in print dresses – the padres in civvies – the sailors in white. There was a concert this afternoon in the Warrant Officers’ lounge for us – a Beethoven quartet. And we are only two days from Freetown.
Gaiety, relief, expectancy – all mingle here today.
Boat drill
Every morning, at 10.20 hours, all troops assembled at various boat stations for some obscure purpose. I cannot write ‘at their proper boat stations’ for no one ever knew his proper boat station; and what’s more, there seemed no one on board who was competent to say authoritatively ‘This is Port 3 Raft. This is Starboard Boat 6’ etc. After a few days of being bewildered, most people attached themselves to some station, much as a cat will take to a particular corner – and with admirable patience and constancy turned up there at 10.20 every morning.
We stood by these stations every single day of the journey for half an hour a day. Occasionally an officer came to watch us at this rather boring pastime, but he said little. Often we wondered why we had to stand there – which raft we would have to cling to if the boat was torpedoed – what we would do with it – what we would do with ourselves. But no one knew. No one imparted any information at all. Eventually at 10.45 or so, the little groups disintegrated and we all considered ourselves dismissed.
War's Nomads: A Mobile Radar Unit in Pursuit of Rommel during the Western Desert Campaign, 1942-3 Page 7
