The Redeemed

by Tim Pears

  ‘Listen up, lads,’ Ernest Cox announced once there was silence and full attention directed towards him. ‘We’ve got a new diver here, name of Leo Sercombe. He’s a Sassenach like myself so you Jocks better not give him any grief on that account.’ He pointed to a table. ‘There’s some divers,’ he told Leo. ‘They’ll settle you in.’

  5

  William Peterson was the dive leader, a fair-haired, stocky man in his forties. That afternoon he took Leo out in a launch. They sailed up Gutter Sound and into the channel between Hoy and the small Island of Cava. It was all as Leo remembered. A battlecruiser was lying on her port side, with thirty feet of her starboard side above the high-water line. Two cranes were situated on a floating platform beside her, their grabs gutting the ship. The crane-drivers were extracting black matter from her innards and transferring it to a barge.

  ‘With the strikes, the price a coal’s gone up four-fold,’ Peterson said. ‘That’s if ye can get it at all. We need two hundred tons a week fer the tugs and all the machinery. Father Cox had the idea to open her up. Found her bunkers full. We’ve got enough free German coal here to see us through tae Christmas. The wee big man’s a genius. Ye’ll see.’

  The ship was the Seydlitz. Peterson said that there were four further battlecruisers below the water in a line running north. One was so big that her bridge, funnels and two masts were still above the water. Leo remembered her well. The others were fully submerged. Each one weighed more, Peterson said, than the weight of all the twenty-six destroyers they’d already raised.

  ‘He’s a genius but he’s a madman,’ William Peterson declared of Cox. He showed Leo where coloured floats or marker buoys floated above the first battleship to have been surveyed and selected for salvage. SMS Moltke.

  The Admiralty had decided to transfer all operations south. It was strange to look across the Flow and see no Royal Navy ships, just as it was strange to see the naval base at Lyness taken over by the salvage company of Cox & Danks. The sight was uncanny to Leo, used to seeing the British Fleet in occupation.

  ‘She’s upside down,’ Bill Peterson said. ‘As if there’s not enough to be worrying about.’ He explained how they’d used the spring or flood tides to help raise the destroyers. How they got wires under the hulls at low tide, drilling through the silt the ships were sinking into, and lifting them at the highest tides, pulling them clear from the suction of the ocean floor.

  6

  On the day following, the divers got to work on the wreck of SMS Moltke. She weighed over twenty-six and a half thousand tons, unloaded. She was six hundred and twelve feet long, and ninety-eight feet abeam at her widest point. Her draught was a little over thirty feet. The great ship lay upside down in eighty feet of water.

  The German destroyers or torpedo boats had been raised with wires attached to two floating platforms, tightened by twenty hand-operated ten-ton winches. It was a revolutionary method that had worked amazingly well but it would not be sufficient for these far larger battleships.

  The divers went down in pairs, each with an assistant on the boat plus a reserve diver, ready to descend to their aid in an emergency. As well as Bill Peterson, three of the other four divers had been with Ernest Cox from the beginning. Their names were Sinclair MacKenzie, Nobby Hall and William Hunt. The fourth, named Harry Grosset, had been there almost as long.

  Leo was kitted out. The men wore deep-sea diving suits of rubberised twill. The sleeves had vulcanised rubber cuffs for a watertight joint at the wrists. They wore heavy round helmets made of copper, with a glass aperture or window at the front, and a smaller one to each side. These helmets were screwed to the breastplate or corselet by a slight turn.

  The divers worked two three-hour shifts per day. Leo went down in the afternoon with Bill Peterson. Harry Grosset was the reserve diver up in the boat. Leo was connected to his linesman, Magnus Scott, by a breathing hose and a lifeline. The air supply was fed to him from a hand-winched compressor. A pressure gauge on this pump indicated the depth Leo had reached and regulated the air pressure accordingly. The hose was made of tough rubber and fed into the helmet. As he breathed, Leo found the window steamed up with condensation. To clear this, he had to open a small tap or spitcock and gulp in a mouthful of seawater to spit on the glass.

  The lifeline was a rope used to pass signals up or down by means of tugs according to the simple code he had used in the Navy and that fortunately was universal. The lifeline was passed around Leo’s waist, between his legs and up under his right arm. Bill Peterson assured him that it had a breaking strain of over a thousand pounds and that if he was in trouble Magnus Scott would pull him to the surface. All the assistants understood how to prevent the divers suffering from the bends, and knew to pull them up gradually, in stages. There was also a telephone line attached to the lifeline, but Bill warned Leo that this quite often shorted, especially when you’d been obliged to use the spitcock.

  The diving suits were filled with air, which was pumped into the suit through a line from above. The diver himself could regulate this, and thus adjust his buoyancy, by means of an outlet valve. If he opened this valve, air would escape and so he descended. When it was time to return to the boat, he closed the valve and the suit would fill with air and so help his ascent.

  Leo wore lead boots weighing fifteen pounds each that anchored him and helped him keep upright while walking on the seabed or the wreck. He bore forty-pound weights, one strapped to his chest, another to his back, that aided his balance beneath the water.

  Leo Sercombe and Bill Peterson descended slowly into the waters of the Flow. Even now, in midsummer, beneath the surface the water was cold. Under his suit Leo wore first an all-in-one suit of cotton underwear, then another of wool. Over this he wore a full set of clothes. Shirt, pullover, trousers. He wore two pairs of thick socks and a woollen hat.

  They descended into a strange world. When they reached the capsized, upturned SMS Moltke, Leo did not realise it was the ship they had come to, he thought it a huge rock or reef no one had told him about for it was covered by an aquatic forest of seaweed, taller than a man. The hull was blistered with barnacles, soft corals, anemones. The two divers took the small knives from the scabbards at their waists and hacked at the trunks of the seaweed, but these were thick and tough, and they made little progress. When they rose to the surface and reported on what they’d found, the next pair, in the afternoon, went down with axes.

  The seaweed had to be cleared so that the external vents, torpedo tubes and side valves could be found, and any other holes opened when the ship was scuttled, for in order to be raised it had to be made watertight again. The first weeks were spent clearing these limbs and saplings from the hull. Small openings were filled with wooden plugs, which were taken underwater and hammered in tightly. The wood then expanded as it absorbed seawater. Larger holes were measured and the divers made templates out of thin plywood. These were sent to the workshops on Lyness Pier, where stronger versions in metal were produced. The divers then used bolt-punching guns to attach these plates onto the hull, and rendered them waterproof with so-called pudding joints made of canvas strips or gaskets packed with loose fibres of old rope oakum. These joints were compressed when the bolts were tightened.

  Leo Sercombe and Sinc Mackenzie were performing the final part of this operation one afternoon, smearing the joints all over with tallow. They’d been underwater for a couple of hours, applying the tallow with a large paintbrush, when the water above them went black. Before he could begin to make sense of what might be causing this, Leo was yanked upwards by his rope and breathing tube, and dragged through the water. He collided with Sinc Mackenzie, who was hurtling by likewise. In the turmoil, Leo fell still, lying face up, and caught a glimpse above him of massive creatures gliding over his head. Then he was yanked askew again. It occurred to him that this was a strange experience, spinning around in the sea, he must remember what it felt like. Then as suddenly as the whirlpool had engulfed them the water stilled. Leo came to rest
. He saw that Sinc was all right. When he looked up, the creatures had moved on. There were pulls on the lifeline that told the divers to ascend. When they reached the surface and clambered back into the boat the two men there told them with great excitement that a school of forty-foot whales, larger than either of them had ever seen, had just passed over the wreck site. One of the whales must have tickled the divers’ lines with its huge tail.

  Once the outside of the upturned hull was secured, the divers ventured further down. They found, still attached, a large boat made of two-ply oak in fine condition. They detached this boat from her fixtures, floated her, and towed her ashore. She was still in such good shape that from then on Ernest Cox used her as his own launch in the Flow.

  The divers worked their shifts six days a week, through the autumn and into the winter. The occasional Orcadian gale stopped all work, but otherwise the divers agreed with each other that beneath the bleak grey northern sky and the bitingly cold winds, underwater was the best place to be. At least every other day each man did a shift as the reserve diver, which should have been a rest, but none of them enjoyed being stuck in a boat that bobbed and bucked in the surface swell. The reserve diver and the diving assistants were customarily soaked by water washing over the deck. It was better by far to sink beneath the surface from the furious wind and waves above.

  The divers worked with their bare hands in the cold water and their fingers became numb and swollen, but the deeper they went, the calmer the silent world into which they descended. As they could only move sluggishly so it seemed to Leo that time itself slowed down. He did not know if this was some mysterious quality of the ocean, combined with their transit closer to the centre of the earth.

  The divers were cordial enough with the other members of the workforce yet remained separate from them. All the men went to the flicks, and to the bar and canteen, but most of the time the divers sat at their own table, or retreated to their dormitory to play cards or listen to the wireless. They lived within a larger community of men but at one remove from them. At first Leo thought it was because they were the highest-paid workers and so saw themselves as superior, or others saw them so, but it was not that. It was something else. Perhaps the danger of their job. Perhaps others could feel that danger and smell it and kept away for fear it might somehow threaten them.

  Ernest Cox brought his wife and daughter up North on occasions, and the engineer Ernie McKeown lived in a small hut with his wife, but otherwise it was just like the Navy, a world without women. Apart from Leo and Cox himself, Nobby Hall was the only other Englishman, another ex-Navy diver.

  Leo read books Missis Cox obtained from a library on the mainland. When the divers played vingt-et-un it was for matches, not money, for none wished to waste wages that were hard-earned.

  At Christmas some of the men went home, but others stayed in Lyness. Either they were from parts of Scotland far from Orkney, or they had no home to go to.

  On New Year’s Eve they gathered in the canteen to see the New Year in. The cook made them haggis with mashed swede and cabbage and mashed potato. They ate by candlelight, the candles stuck with their own dripped wax to the wooden planks of which the tables were made. When they had finished eating the men all sat and drank steadily. Leo sat with Nobby Hall at their table. None of the other divers had stayed and there were empty seats at the other two tables, occupied by no more than a dozen men in all. The cook joined the men on the furthest table.

  One of the labourers called across, ‘You’s drinking beer even tonight?’

  ‘That firewater don’t agree with me, mate,’ Nobby told him. ‘It burns me up.’

  The labourer did not respond. He only stared at his own glass and continued to do so. Leo had a bottle of malt whisky before him, Nobby a dozen bottles of ale. These were sealed by ceramic stoppers with rubber gaskets, held in place by wire bails. With each bottle it took Nobby a little longer to lever the wire loose. By the sixth or seventh he’d acquired the need to examine this contraption closely, blinking, before attempting to open it. It became a steadily increasing challenge as the night wore on.

  ‘How the fuck do ye drink that piss water anyways?’ the labourer called out. Nobby grinned stupidly. Leo poured himself another glass of malt. He drank the whisky neat, but with a glass of water beside it, which he swallowed in between sips of the liquor.

  ‘On this night of all nights,’ the labourer said, his voice loud and slurred. ‘Suttin over by their selves like a pair a fuckin Toby jugs.’ He did not look over but continued to gaze into his own glass of dark brown liquid.

  Every now and then a man would rise clumsily from his chair and stagger out of the canteen. Either to stumble to his dormitory or more often to throw up then return for more drinking. The labourer and the other men at his table sat in sullen silence, but the furthest table seemed to accommodate comedians, for there was badinage and laughter. Leo considered joining them but he was not sure his legs would carry him there. He told himself that he could not hold his liquor, he was an idiot, he should abstain from alcohol. Then he wondered if he had said this aloud and looked around, but so far as he could tell, no one responded. Well, it was hardly interesting. Then he realised he’d forgotten what was not interesting. He tried to remember but could not. His brain did not work. Neither did his vision. The canteen building was not built on firm foundations, it tilted and swayed. Someone should tell Mister Cox.

  ‘Ye’d rather sup that gnat’s piss than good Scottish whisky,’ someone said. Who said it? It was that man over there again, with the black beard and the red skin, gazing into his glass.

  A man at the far table was singing, another had produced a small squeeze box, and a third was dancing. Leo watched him. All the other men on that table were laughing, but Leo considered the man’s dancing to be elegant, even graceful. From out of his stupor he enjoyed watching this candlelit performance. Yes, it was mightily impressive. He wished only for that hectoring man to say nothing more.

  ‘On New Year’s Eve ye’ve nae wish tae drink with us,’ the labourer called out. ‘Are ye stuck up because ye’re a divin fuckin swankpot or because ye’re a pair of English cunts?’

  Leo was stupefied. Then all of a sudden he was not. He was sober. His vision was clear. His mind was lucid, though he had no thoughts as such. He simply acted. Leo stood and walked over to the closer table. The labourer glanced up and saw his approach and rose awkwardly, his chair clattering on the floor behind him. He stood on his own feet for no more than a second. The diver Leo Sercombe hit him with two punches, each to the man’s jaw. The first with his left fist spun the labourer’s head, the right shortly following caught the man’s jaw while it was still turning. Everyone heard the crack. The man was unconscious as he fell, collapsing like a boneless doll.

  The singer ceased singing, the musician stopped playing his squeezebox. The men around them stopped laughing. The dancer still cavorted, for he was as drunk as anyone in the room and lost in his flailing. After a while he began to become aware of the fact that things had changed, though even as he looked up and around him he stamped on his boot toes to and fro. Then he came to a halt, swaying.

  Leo looked at the prone figure of the man he’d laid out. Then he walked out into the bleak Orcadian night. He strode away from the barracks, down to the jetty, shocked by what he’d done. He’d thought he lacked the capacity for violence. He felt sick, not from the alcohol but of himself. Where did it come from? Did a man’s seed condemn his progeny to defects similar to his own? The same flaws? A son becoming his father. Was there no escape? That pure wash of anger that drove him into action, it was instinctive, and had felt as natural as anything he’d ever done.

  The waters of the Flow were filled with stars, but the surface of the sea was choppy and the stars bucked and swam in his vision as if the heavens themselves were not fixed but all in flux. Perhaps they were, and their stasis in the firmament above was an illusion created by the great distance between them and the earth. All was impermanent – th
e rocks, the seas, the planets – to imagine otherwise was obtuse. All he had here was a brief span. Was he compelled to be someone he did not wish to be? Better surely to fill his pockets with stones and jump from the jetty.

  ‘Don’t let ’em get to you, mate.’

  Leo felt a hand press his shoulder.

  ‘Jocks love to get aggressive when they drink,’ Nobby Hall told him. ‘It don’t mean nothin. Bobby back there’ll be his friendly old self come Monday. At least he will if his jaw ain’t wired up. If I weren’t drunk myself I’d a give him back the banter. That’s all he wanted.’

  ‘How’d you stop yourself?’ Leo asked. ‘Gettin angry?’

  ‘Just let it sail over me, mate,’ Nobby said.

  ‘A wise man,’ Leo told him.

  Nobby laughed. ‘I s’pose it helps that I weren’t never much cop at fightin. Come on, mate, let’s get to the dorm. It’s freezin out here and I’m about done in.’

  7

  As they took the launch out to the wreck each morning and afternoon, it was tossed on the waves. The wind blew loud and wild. Rain fell, soft or hard, from vertical to wind-driven horizontal, in large sharp drops that stung the face or else so fine Leo did not know it was falling until he realised his face and hair were damp, his clothes covered in tiny droplets barely visible to the naked eye. Thunder rolled and rumbled over the Flow. Lightning crackled. The black sky loomed over them.

  Yet there were other days when the sea was eerily calm and the sky clear and blue, the air warm, a summer’s day in the middle of winter. On one such, Leo went down with Bill Hunt, the second lead diver, to survey what had been the upper decks of the ship, but were now underneath. They found her funnels and masts and the upper bridge all buckled under the weight and skewered into the ocean floor. The Moltke was stuck fast, but her bow was higher than her stern, and she was on a list, so that there was room to attach explosives. Tom McKenzie performed the demolition, placing charges of gelignite made from guncotton, nitroglycerine and potassium nitrate, with which they blasted the funnels and other impediments off the superstructure of the battleship.