by Dudley Pope
‘The wireless operators…?’ Yorke prompted.
‘Three, all employed by the Marconi Company, as I expect you know. Chief, second and third. Only the chief has any real sea time; the other two are pretty new. The third sparks was a monk this time last year. He thought he ought to do his bit but didn’t want to kill anyone, so he joined the Marconi Company. Plucky sort of thing to do – the lads tease him a bit.’
‘My two signalmen…’
‘Oh, they’re already fixed up. They arrived a couple of days ago and worked with the chief sparks to fit their sets. They’re berthed aft with the DEMS gunners, as you probably know. I gave ’em the opportunity of berthing near the wireless cabin, but they preferred to be aft. Probably like a game of uckers with the other lads.’
‘What radio watches do your operators normally stand, captain?’
‘Just listening watches. They could just as well be doing embroidery because every ship keeps a watch on the call and distress frequency and there’s usually nothing to listen to, but the convoy instructions say listen, so we listen. Four on and eight off, just reading thrillers in the warm…’
‘My two lads will have to keep a continuous listening watch,’ Yorke said, ‘so–’
‘What, you mean two on and two off, or four on and four off? Bit hard on them, isn’t it?’
‘We didn’t think you’d welcome too many extra men,’ Yorke said.
‘Well, unless it’s all very secret, I know what I’d do: put a mattress down in the radio room for one of your lads, and have a word with the chief sparks: there’s no reason why my chaps can’t listen to two receivers at once, and if your set starts playing music or whatever it is, he can rouse your man.’
‘You think the chief will–’
‘He’ll be only too glad; those poor buggers get bored stiff just listening to static. Why, their big day is when the BAMS receiver breaks down!’
‘BAMS? What’s that?’
‘Oh, that’s our own Merchant Navy radio station. “Broadcasts to Allied Merchant Ships”, a fixed frequency thing – apparently the Germans can detect someone twiddling a receiver through the frequencies. Anyway, these BAMS sets just receive the one station. The programmes aren’t much. The news, Monday Night at Eight, and Vera Lynn on Forces Favourites is about all I ever hear. That Tommy Handley, I like him.’
‘The convoy conference tomorrow,’ Yorke said. ‘I’ll be coming with you. Do you wear uniform?’
‘Not bloody likely! Leastways, one or two captains do, and some of the foreigners, but most of us wear civvies. Why?’
‘I should have thought of that, I don’t want to draw attention to myself, but…’
Hobson looked him up and down. ‘I’ve got just the thing for you. A lightweight, single-breasted I had run up in Rosario on this last trip: never worn it, except for a couple of fittings. Want to borrow it? And a mac. Not very formal, these convoy conferences – except for your chaps.’
Chapter Eleven
The room was high-ceilinged like an old-fashioned church hall, with rows of cheap chairs (whose single coat of varnish was wearing off) facing a small table which had three more chairs behind it, as though waiting for the vicar and his wife and the guest speaker.
A naval rating at the main door carefully pointed out the chairs to the motley crowd of men now beginning to come into the room. They could have been prosperous farmers attending a branch meeting of the local National Farmers’ Union, Yorke realized: most had a suntan, the resulting colour depending on the type of skin. One auburn-haired master, plump and blue-eyed, had a face so red that he might have been verging on apoplexy, and the man he was talking to was a leathery brown, as though he had spent a lifetime following the plough, tanned by sun and wind. Few of them, with the exception of Hobson and one or two others, looked comfortable in civilian clothes. Obviously they were so used to the shape and relative tightness of uniform that the easy fit of civilian clothes made them seem like men wearing suits a size too large. All, he noticed, carried small attaché cases or leather dispatch cases and several had bowler hats. All looked shrewd men.
The Swedish captain was in every way an exception. He was one of the youngest of the masters; his blond hair, brilliantined and combed back flat on his head without a parting, looked like a skull cap made of omelette; his face just missed being thin and had high cheekbones; his nose seemed fleshless but too large to match the rest, and his ears stuck out. But his tailor was a craftsman and the material of his suit could not be bought in wartime Britain, despite the black marketeers: it was a loosely-woven blue, almost like linen, which kept its shape perfectly. The overcoat over his arm was a charcoal grey; the hat he carried in the other hand was a light tan with a wider brim than was fashionable in England. The briefcase under his arm had the rich mahogany brown of good leather; a young barrister starting out for his first day in chambers would have been glad if his wealthy Aunt Jessica had given it to him as a present. Despite the blue suit, Yorke noticed, the man’s shoes were brown.
With the Swedish captain was one of his officers of a type at the other end of the obviously Nordic scale: his hair was so blond it seemed almost white, skin so pink and dead he might have been an albino, no eyebrows noticeable at ten yards, hair cut en brosse – the American forces, Yorke remembered, called it a ‘crew cut’ – and he had an unfortunate tendency to what gunnery instructors at Whale Island called ‘bleedin’ camel marchin’ ’–swinging an arm in time with the leg on the same side. The officer’s face was crude and cruel; his captain’s face was – bland? Yes, bland to the point of seeming smug. And smug almost to the point of sneering, as though he and his ship were above all this lowly crowd; that convoys – well, he was taking part under protest. The two Scandinavians marched to chairs, sitting on two near the back.
‘Choose seats a couple of rows behind our Swedish friends,’ Yorke murmured to Hobson.
Hobson glanced round. ‘The Swedes interest you, eh? They stick out like sore thumbs, don’t they? Making a rare profit out of the war and they know it. Treat us all like poor relations.’
Five minutes later, with all the masters seated, three men came through the door and went to the table. The door was shut, with the naval rating obviously standing on guard outside. One of the two naval officers, a lieutenant commander wearing the ribbon of a DSC, took the middle chair with a distinguished-looking white-haired man in civilian clothes (a well-cut but obviously comfortable old tweed suit) on his right and a Royal Navy lieutenant on his left.
The masters stopped talking but several continued puffing their pipes while others opened their cases and took out notebooks and pencils. The lieutenant commander stood up, a slim, almost angular young man whom Ned had known for years and who probably had more experience as an escort commander than anyone else afloat. His name was before the Honours and Awards Committee for a DSO and his wife had just left him because – so gossip had it – she could not stand the strain of knowing that he was at sea month after month and dreading a telegram. She was said to be living with a squadron leader in the RAF Regiment, a man responsible for defending airfields and who spent every night in bed – her bed.
If the Swede was bland, then Jonathan Gower was blithe; he had the self-assured but friendly manner usually associated with the better Harley Street specialists. Gower whispered something to the old man on his right and then stood up.
‘Good morning, gentlemen. I am Lieutenant Commander Gower and will be the senior officer of your escort. I shall be in the Echo frigate. The Commodore…’ he turned slightly to his right to indicate the old man, ‘is already known to several of you, Vice-Admiral Sir Sydney Shaw, who came out of a well-earned retirement to get back to sea.’ He turned to the other officer. ‘Lieutenant Knight commands the second frigate, the Argo, and is therefore my deputy in the case of any mishap.
‘You should all have received your sealed order
s,’ he looked round for any wave of dissent, ‘which give your positions in the convoy. There are thirty-five ships and we’ll be in the usual seven-column formation. We’ll probably have an ocean-going tug with us, and she’ll act as rescue ship. I must repeat the order, gentlemen, that no ship, except the tug, is to stop for survivors. Most of you know that in a pack attack it is standard procedure for a U-boat to stand by a ship she has just torpedoed and wait for someone else to stop for survivors, presenting a perfect target, so that then we have two sinking ships…
‘We shan’t know exactly what escort we have until tomorrow because two corvettes are being cleaned up and refuelled and reammunitioned, and it is not certain they’ll be ready in time.’
‘Why is not the sailing postponed for the whole convoy?’ a precise voice demanded, and Yorke saw that the Swedish captain was speaking without bothering to stand up. ‘An extra two corvettes is important.’
‘This isn’t the only convoy sailing or arriving,’ Gower said evenly.
‘It seems to me – but I am only a neutral, of course – that sailing without a proper escort is asking for trouble.’
Yorke and Gower, in a last-minute conference at the Admiralty before leaving for Liverpool, when allocating the positions for the ships, had anticipated this line of questioning, just as they had invented the delay for the corvettes and the fictitious reason that Gower was now going to give.
‘One must expect trouble in wartime, Captain Ohlson, but I think the corvettes were delayed getting here because they went to the rescue of a neutral ship – Swedish, I’m told. A nasty air attack, I believe, with many casualties.’
Yorke watched Captain Ohlson glance round sharply at the other Swede with him. Ohlson had gone white and was now whispering to the other man. Gower was waiting politely, and Ohlson said abruptly: ‘What is the name of this ship? What was her position?’
Gower shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve no idea; my only concern was for the corvettes.’
‘But this is a Swedish ship; I must…’
‘Captain Ohlson, many British and American ships are being lost every day. I regret every sinking. But this conference is about our particular convoy; no doubt your government will take up the matter with Berlin direct…’
Ohlson flushed at the implication of Gower’s words and resumed whispering to his companion, who seemed to Yorke either to be hard of hearing or not very bright. Gower continued giving details for the forthcoming voyage, with the masters taking notes. Finally he handed over to the commodore.
The old admiral spoke crisply. ‘Position-keeping, gentlemen: please do your best. I know what it’s like having to ask an engineer for only one more revolution or one less, but if he grumbles point out the alternative might be a torpedo bursting right where he’s standing. One revolution of a ship’s screw a minute can make all the difference between a straggling convoy and one in good formation. You’ve all seen what happens when it is necessary to alter course with a straggling convoy…there’s usually a U-boat waiting to pick off the odd ship.
‘Now for signals. You all have copies of Mersigs, and remember the only way I can communicate with you is by signal lamp, flag hoists, or, in an emergency, blasts on the siren. I trust the siren will stay quiet, so flags and lamp mean it is essential you always keep an eye on the commodore. Noon positions will be hoisted at 1215 – and hoist ’em dead on time; don’t wait to see what the commodore is hoisting so you can copy him. We can all make mistakes, and I’m no exception. I see Captain Hobson sitting over there. He probably remembers sailing in a convoy with me. Forty or more ships. I hoisted my position at the same moment he did. They didn’t coincide. All the other ships had the same position as me. Thirty-nine to one. Some odds. I had him called up by lamp and asked to check his figures. He answered at once that he did not need to. Seemed a bit saucy at the time but I checked mine. I (and every other ship in the convoy but the Marynal) was wrong and Captain Hobson right. Obviously all the others hadn’t made the same mistake; they had just waited until I hoisted my position and hoisted the same – except for Captain Hobson. So remember – hoisting positions isn’t a game of housey-housey.
‘Lights. Watch your blackouts. I must ask you to punish severely any man caught smoking a cigarette on deck. A glowing cigarette can be seen a considerable distance. No Aldis lamps to be used after sunset – if you use one to call me, remember there might be a U-boat in the distance beyond me who can see a pinpoint of light when he might have missed the low silhouettes of the ships, and thus find the convoy. You have the low-powered blue signal lamps, so use them, even if it means passing a message to me via another ship. And those ships using cadets as signalmen – please make them polish their Morse… That’s all, gentlemen; I wish you luck and let’s hope we have an uneventful trip.’
By the time Yorke arrived back on board with Captain Hobson, the Marynal was beginning to look more like a ship than a rubbish dump. Odd pieces of timber, dunnage, used to secure cargo in the holds by wedging or separating, were being thrown down on to the quayside; seamen with hoses were washing down the decks; the welding gear had been put away and the welds were dark patches surrounded by bubbled paint. The boatswain was talking with the chief officer at number two hatch, where the thick hatchboards were already across and the canvas hatchcover stretched over, and men with mallets and large wooden wedges were preparing to secure them. Number one hatch had already been battened down, number three was still being loaded, and the two hatches aft were also battened down.
Captain Hobson grunted contentedly. ‘The lads get a move on when there’s a need…’
Yorke realized the remark was both a boast and an apology; for various reasons a Merchant Navy seaman was not subjected to the same rigid discipline as a man in the Royal Navy, and as this was his first experience of the Merchant Navy system, Yorke was prepared to wait before he passed judgement. So far he could see that a dozen Merchant Navy men worked quite happily without any petty officers keeping an eye on them. Whether or not it was necessary, a similar number of Royal Navy men would have had at least one petty officer standing there.
Hobson said quietly: ‘I know it’s not your job, but I think the DEMS gunners would like you to make an inspection this afternoon. Just have a look at their quarters and walk round the guns with that leading seaman, and the Army lance corporal. Lance bombardier, rather. The chief officer tells me that this morning early they were after him for a couple of new mops, another bucket, a gallon of O-Cedar and a dozen tins of Brasso, and I saw one of them coming out of the engine room with enough cotton waste to make a nest for a family of albatrosses.’
‘When is your regular inspection?’ Yorke asked.
‘Ten o’clock on Sundays. That’s what I mean: today is only Wednesday!’
‘Maybe they think it’s Christmas Day tomorrow,’ Yorke said with a grin, but he could guess what was happening: as they were leaving for the convoy conference, Leading Seaman Jenkins had been very casual in asking if Yorke would be on board this afternoon.
In his cabin sprawled in an easy chair, dark hair uncombed, eyes still bloodshot from the night journey in the train, nerves tautening as he thought of the forthcoming voyage – he always had this tension, like Nelson and his seasickness – Yorke felt curiously out of place. He had a sense of not belonging to the Marynal, and he tried to work out why. She had a fine old name, the ancient word for a mariner. She was a modern ship, launched almost exactly a year before the war began and built for a reasonably prosperous firm, so there were no signs of penny-pinching. Perhaps it was the cabin – he was not used to large portholes, through which he could see the quays of a bustling port which, although pitted with bomb craters, was still obviously in business. A warship alongside in naval dockyards would hear none of the sounds that now welled up round the Marynal, with dockers and stevedores alternately cursing and joking, taxis hooting and weaving among lorries and rop
es to deposit officers and seamen at their ships after well-deserved leave. Half a mile of quayside surrounding rectangles of oily water, and not a Royal Navy uniform to be seen; just cloth-capped dockers and stevedores, an occasional Merchant Navy man, and piles of crates and rubbish… This was the land of ‘Use No Hooks’ – and where a fight could flare up in a moment between a couple of dockers, who would not hesitate to attack each other with the hooks which, like extensions of their hands, were used to haul sacks and crates. The most noticeable similarity with the naval dockyard was that all fire hydrants were marked in bright red and yellow paint, while here and there sandbagged positions gave shelter for air raid wardens.
The Marynal herself, of course, bore no resemblance to a warship: this cabin was palatial and there was not the jumble of background noises he was accustomed to in a destroyer. Probably fewer generators running, because a destroyer used a vast amount of electricity even when at anchor or alongside. Many fewer men and therefore much less shouting and pounding feet. And no Tannoy…the public address system in a warship attracted men to its microphone like wasps to a picnic, as though nothing could be true unless bellowed over the Tannoy. And of course a merchant ship was so damned big, even a single-screw motor ship like the Marynal. Comparing her to a frigate (let alone a destroyer) was like putting a charabanc alongside a racing car.
