The dust from the wheat covered that other sooty layer which was always present, and it was so fine that it penetrated into the wooden cabin on the boat-deck and lay like a pale film on everything within. Wherever your fingers went you felt it; it stuck to the sweat on your face and got into the folds of your clothing and bedding; you breathed it in and tasted it on your tongue. While the grain poured into the holds the dust was something you had to live with.
Sterne went ashore and had scarcely got clear of the docks when a large American car drew up beside him and a fat bald-headed man who was at the wheel leaned out and addressed him.
‘Hey, soldier, can you tell me which way I gotta go to get back to the United States? I’ve been drivin’ all over and hell if I can find which road to take.’
‘Sorry,’ Sterne said. ‘I’ve only just arrived from England. I’m a stranger here myself.’
The American stared at him. ‘You kiddin’?’
‘No kidding. And I’ll tell you something else. It’s going to be a lot harder for me to get back home than it is for you.’
‘Sonuvabitch!’ the man said, and drove off.
He took a sightseeing tour round the city and suburbs on the upper deck of an open-topped tramcar. The Frenchness of it was apparent everywhere; all the street signs were in the two languages, and he heard people speaking French for the first time since he had left France by way of the beach at Malo-les-Bains.
He went into a stationer’s shop to buy a notebook. The assistant spoke English and brought up the subject of the effect of the War on the Canadian economy.
‘Everything’s going up in price. Take Coke. I used to pay five cents for a bottle; now it’s six.’
‘Is that so?’ Sterne said.
He could see how war in Europe was beginning to bite even here in Montreal. But life had to go on, whatever the price of Coke.
*
One day a Canadian official of some kind came on board. The mate introduced him to Sterne and said that the man had a wish to take a look at the Bofors gun, if that was all right.
Sterne could see no reason why it should not be all right. The man looked perfectly harmless and he was hardly likely to be a spy trying to obtain the secrets of the armament carried by British merchant ships.
So they climbed the ladders to the poop and the gun enclosure, and Sterne explained the working of the mechanism and the method of loading and firing, all of which the visitor seemed to find quite fascinating and would probably tell his wife when he got home. When they returned to the mid-castle he pointed at some jagged holes in the ship’s funnel.
‘Enemy action?’
Sterne did not deny it. Why spoil a good story by telling the plain truth, which was that the holes had been caused by nothing more exciting than common rust? And that the entire ship was gradually disintegrating under the effect of this insidious disease.
Before leaving the man gave him a five-dollar bill for his trouble. He had slaved six days on the ballast to earn just that amount. Now he got it for a few minutes of his time and a slight lack of honesty regarding the ship’s funnel. That was life.
*
They were there for three days. Then, with the wheat levelled off in the holds on either side of the central shifting-boards, the hatches were covered and the tarpaulins battoned down and the wedges driven home. Then the derrick booms were lowered into their cradles and the ship, with provisions for the voyage taken on board and the fresh-water tanks replenished, was ready to depart.
Unfortunately from Bombardier Sterne’s point of view, when the time for departure next day was fast approaching it became evident that one of his men was missing. Hamish Douglas had been ashore all night and had not yet returned. Angus McNab had also spent the night ashore, but he had come back on board early in the morning looking rather the worse for wear and with the smell of alcohol on his breath.
The minutes ticked away and still no Douglas appeared. Sterne decided that Captain Wilson would have to be informed; there was nothing else for it. It was not a revelation he cared to make, but it had to be done. As might have been expected, the Old Man was not at all pleased.
‘And you don’t know where he is?’
‘No, sir.’
‘This is a bad business, a very bad business. You must understand we cannot wait. We have to leave on time. If he is not here by then we shall have to sail without him.’
‘I realise that, sir.’
‘And you’ll be short of a man on the gun.’
Sterne thought of telling him that this would be no great loss; that Douglas was a useless bastard who had flogged his sea-boots and duffel-coat for beer money in a Tyneside pub before the ship left port in England, and that he had probably flogged more of his gear in Montreal. But there would have been no point in it.
He left the bridge and encountered McNab, who had a suggestion to make.
‘I could gang ashore and fetch wee Hamish.’
‘You know where he is?’
‘Och aye. He’ll be in the whore-house he’s been spending his time in wi’ the women.’
Sterne gave him a sharp glance. ‘Is that where you’ve been too?’
McNab gave a sheepish grin. ‘Some of the time.’
‘And you’re asking me to let you go and pick him up?’
‘So I am.’
Sterne thought about it for two seconds and dismissed the idea. If he let McNab go he might end up with two men missing.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You stay here.’
McNab shrugged. ‘It’s your say-so.’
*
The S.S. Dagon left Montreal without Hamish Douglas. Under the guidance of the river pilot they slipped downstream towards Quebec; but before they got as far as that a Norwegian ship overtook and passed them, moving pretty fast. The river was very wide at this point and the ship was some distance away.
‘There’s somebody in a hurry,’ the gunlayer said. He was standing with Sterne on the poop. ‘I’ve never seen that happen before. And there’s no point in it anyway. We’ll all be in the same convoy going home.’
It was not until they anchored off Quebec to change the pilot that the reason for the manoeuvre became apparent. A police launch came out from the shore, and when it drew near they could see standing in the cockpit the missing gunner, Hamish Douglas. He was bareheaded and wearing nothing but a shirt and trousers. When the launch came alongside he climbed on board, grinning sheepishly but not in the least repentant for the trouble he had caused.
It appeared that the Montreal police, alerted by Captain Wilson, had picked him up from the house in the red light district and had put him on board the Norwegian ship that was about to depart soon after the S.S. Dagon. The Norwegian, a fairly modern vessel, had a good turn of speed and had no difficulty in overtaking the aging British one. It had arrived at Quebec almost half an hour earlier.
‘I waved to you as we went by,’ Douglas said. ‘Did ye not see me?’
Sterne had in fact seen someone waving but had thought it was one of the other ship’s crew; at that distance it had been impossible to recognise the Scot. Now he told Douglas what he had refrained from telling the captain.
‘You’re a bloody useless bugger, Hamish. And you’re a stupid bugger too. You know you could face a court-martial for this when we get back to England?’
Douglas seemed not at all put out. ‘Och, there’s no harm done, is there?’
‘No thanks to you. And there’s another thing: you’re going to have to pay for all that kit you’ve flogged. There’ll be a kit inspection when we get back and you’ll need a good excuse to explain where it all went.’
Douglas gave a shrug. ‘So mebbe I’ll no be getting hame.’
There was always that, Sterne thought. But it was not something you liked to dwell on too much.
*
Quebec and the Plains of Abraham where long ago General Wolfe and a British army had defeated the French under Montcalm, were left astern and they proceeded downriver and into t
he Gulf of St Lawrence, the weather still hot and sultry. A convoy was assembling off Sydney in Cape Breton Island, and they joined it for the long voyage home, loaded with wheat and much lower in the water than they had been on the outward run.
Captain Wilson had left it to Sterne to deal with Douglas as he thought fit, and he had not yet made up his mind whether or not to report the incident when they rejoined the battery in Southport. It would cause a lot of bother for him as well as the gunner, and he wondered whether it was really worth it. Would it not be better to forget the whole thing? Perhaps.
The S.S. Dagon was in the middle of the extreme starboard column of the convoy. Leading Seaman Gregg, who always tended to look on the gloomy side of things, said it was not a good position.
‘They can pick you off too easily.’
‘Well, let’s hope it won’t come to that.’
‘Ah, let’s hope. That’s what we live on. Hope.’
The entire convoy changed direction at regular intervals, zig-zagging its way across the Atlantic. Some sea-captains maintained that this was a useless manoeuvre and simply lost valuable time by lengthening the distance travelled, but the weight of opinion was against them. One thing was certain: it was not easy to keep the ships in position when all this zig-zagging was taking place. And there were always stragglers to be taken care of and those which went romping on ahead. The S.S. Dagon was continually being admonished by Aldis lamp or loud-hailer for making too much smoke. Smoke from a convoy could be seen for many miles and give away its position to searching U-boats. But how did you keep the speed of an old tub like this one up to the necessary rate of knots without making smoke?
For the North Atlantic the weather was passably good, and the convoy progressed without incident for the first week or so. For the gunners there was one improvement which they themselves had made: no ballast on the after well-deck impeded their journey from cabin to gun; it was now simply a matter of descending two ladders, crossing the deck and climbing two more ladders. On a fine day it was not unpleasant to stand in that little enclosure on its tall steel column and survey this portion of the world that lay within the limits of the great circle of the horizon. You came to know each individual ship in the convoy by sight, though those on the far side were small and indistinct except when viewed through binoculars. You had the feeling of being a member of a family; a family of nomads, forever on the move.
Sterne remarked to Leading Seaman Gregg that things were very quiet. ‘Where have all the U-boats gone?’
The gunlayer sucked his breath in sharply. ‘Don’t ask. Don’t even think about it.’
It was as though simply mentioning such things might bring them swarming round the convoy. Sterne knew that sailors were a superstitious lot. Nobody whistled in a ship. Maybe Gregg believed that a word could bring bad luck.
‘We’ve got near two thousand miles still to go,’ he said. ‘And we’re coming to the bad part.’
Sterne thought he was being pessimistic. There had not been any trouble on the voyage out, so why should there be any on the homeward run? He looked at the gently heaving sea around them and found it hard to imagine that any killer could be lurking beneath the surface. Yet reason told him that it was all too possible. The number of ships that had already been lost in convoys proved it. But maybe they would be lucky again.
Two days later he knew that they would not.
Chapter Seventeen – RESCUE
It happened late in the night, at two a.m. by the clock or four bells in the middle watch. Douglas and Carr had that watch on the gun, while the other four were asleep in the cabin.
There was no warning. The U-boat had approached undetected or had possibly been lying in wait with engines stopped for the convoy to move into position for the attack. The torpedo struck just forward of the poop.
Sterne was awakened by the blast and the shaking of the cabin. For a moment he was too confused to realise just what was happening. Was it a dream, a nightmare? The moment passed, his brain cleared, and he knew that this was no dream but stark reality. The cabin was not in complete darkness; there was a small blue bulb that was kept on all night, and he could see the other three men who had been wrenched from their sleep and were sitting up in their bunks. They all started talking at once, asking the same question.
‘What happened? What was it?’
Sterne provided the answer that should have been obvious to all of them. ‘We’ve been hit.’ He spoke sharply, suppressing his own fear and putting a clamp on the panic that might have taken hold if given half a chance. ‘Get dressed. Move it, move it.’
They were all out of their bunks now, reaching for clothes, pulling trousers on, knocking against one another in that confined space, the deck beginning to tilt under their feet.
Tuck was swearing. ‘We’re sinking. The bloody ship’s going down!’ His voice rose hysterically.
Sterne gripped his arm fiercely. ‘Stow it!’
They could hear the ship’s whistle going now. It was like the cry of a mortally wounded animal shuddering into the night, and it was the signal to leave. It jarred on frayed nerves, screaming at them as if to emphasise the extremity of the situation and the need for haste.
Sterne pulled his trousers on, tucking in the shirt he had been wearing, supporting his back against a bunk, slipping the braces over his shoulders. He looked for sea-boots and could not find them. Someone staggered into him; it was McNab. He was muttering over and over like a refrain:
‘Here’s a carry-on, here’s a carry-on, here’s a carry-on.’
He clutched Sterne to hold himself up, but Sterne pushed him off.
‘Get away from me. Get your life-jacket on. Move, damn you.’
He reached for his own kapok-padded jacket and slipped it on, not wasting time in fastening the tapes.
‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’
They were still milling around in confusion. The deck under their feet was sloping more acutely. He began pushing them towards the door, using brute force as an aid to exhortation.
‘Go, go, go! Boat stations! Go!’
There was a heavy canvas blackout curtain screening the door. Someone pulled it aside and pushed the door open. As they went out the warm fug of the cabin gave way to the fresh cold air of the night. A crescent moon, like a thin slice of melon, was hanging in the sky and giving a little pale light to the scene. Already some of the crew were at the boats which, as was the rule at sea, were hanging from their davits in the outboard position ready for lowering as soon as the gripes that secured them were released.
Sterne’s boat station was on the port side, and he went to it immediately to give a hand with the falls as he had been instructed to do during boat-drill. McNab was with him, still muttering under his breath:
‘Here’s a carry-on! Here’s a carry-on!’
Glancing aft, Sterne saw how much lower the after-castle was than normal. There was no doubt that the stern of the ship was going down, and there was water flowing across the well-deck, the ghostly pallor of the froth showing through the gloom. He could just make out the gun platform, which was leaning away from him now, and he wondered whether Douglas and Carr had been able to make it to the bridge-deck before the sea came surging across and cut them off. If not, they would have to trust to one of the rafts which were mounted on steel slides, one on each side of the poop. These could be launched with one blow of the hammer hanging on the mounting. But suppose they had been caught in that rush of water as they tried to cross the well-deck. He banished the thought from his mind, having more pressing matters to think about.
The third mate, who was in command of the boat, arrived. Under his orders they began to lower away. The slope of the deck made it difficult to keep the boat level. There were two men in it, and they were almost tipped out as it hit the water stern first. It levelled and began to bounce on the swell, banging against the side of the ship.
‘Get aboard now,’ the third mate said. ‘Smartly.’
The rest of the party sli
d down the ropes and into the boat. The third mate followed them.
‘Release the falls.’
The falls were unhooked and the boat floated free. Two men pushed it away from the side of the ship with oars. Others took up oars, Sterne among them, and began to pull away from the ship, which was now going down more and more by the stern.
She had lost way and the ships that had been astern of her were passing her by and ploughing on. Soon she had dropped completely out of the convoy. They stopped rowing and rested on the oars. Sterne gazed ahead at the dark shapes of those other ships going steadily away from them and had a feeling of being abandoned. There was another boat not far away, but he could see nothing of those which had been on the other side of the ship, nor could he see any raft which might have come from the poop.
His gaze returned to the receding convoy and as he watched suddenly a great column of fire shot up into the sky, followed by the dull rumble of the explosion.
‘Jesus Christ!’ one of the seamen said. ‘There’s a bloody tanker’s bought it.’
So the U-boat had struck again, or it might have been a different one. Maybe there was a pack of them. He thought about what Leading Seaman Gregg had said respecting tankers. He had called them hell-ships; and it looked as if some people were going through a very nasty piece of hell at that very moment.
He wondered whether Gregg had got away safely, and if so whether he would be blaming all this on those incautious words he, Sterne, had spoken two days ago. Gregg had told him that he had been on board the old Dagon almost from the start of the War, and he had seen plenty of ships go down, but this one had borne a charmed life. Now that happy state of affairs had come to an end with the very first voyage that a certain Bombardier David Sterne had made in her. So was he a Jonah? Maybe Gregg would think so, but of course it would be nothing but superstition: the ship would have suffered precisely the same fate if he had never set foot on board.
She was going down rapidly now; the poop was almost submerged. The bows, in a kind of seesaw movement, were actually rising. But it would not save them; the stern would go down and drag everything else with it. And a few minutes later it happened: the rusty old ship had come to the end of her life and was taking her cargo of wheat with her to the bed of the ocean, leaving on the surface only a scattering of flotsam that was scarcely visible from the boat.
A Wind on the Heath Page 11
