Soldier, Sail North (1987)

by Pattinson, James

  “Certainly,” said Vernon. “Oh, most certainly it is Russia. God help it!”

  The tanks were taken off by a British ship equipped with heavy-lift derricks. The ship came alongside the Golden Ray and picked up the tanks as though they had been so many toys.

  “Thank God for that,” said Vernon, as he watched thirty tons of steel and engineering skill twisting in mid-air. “Now we shall be able to move along the deck without for ever tripping over wires.”

  “See that,” Petty Officer Donker said; “not a crane ashore that’s strong enough to lift a tank; we even have to provide a ship with jumbos to do the job.” He sniffed contemptuously. “Anyway, I don’t suppose they’ve got any trucks on that tinpot railway what’d take a tank.” He pointed to the ship into whose holds the tanks were disappearing. “That’s the Empire Nightingale; she’ll take that lot to Archangel when the White Sea thaws out enough for the ice-breakers to get through. What price serving in her, eh? Oh, my, my; I don’t envy them their job. Oh, my, my!”

  And Petty Officer Donker shuffled away to see how the working-party was getting on with the twelve-pounder, shaking his fur-capped head as he did so.

  Vernon was just turning to make his way back to the gunners’ quarters when a hand smacked him on the shoulder and a thick, hearty voice cried, “Well, Harry, you old devil! Fancy meeting you here!”

  Vernon knew that voice, and he knew the florid, ugly face that went with it.

  “Smithy!” he cried, grasping the hand that had thumped his shoulder. “Smithy! How did you get here?”

  “By the standard methods,” replied Lance-Bombardier Panton-Smith. “As a matter of fact, our ship was next to yours on the starboard side—the Merryweather—and not a bad packet on the whole.”

  “When did you join her?”

  “We left Southport the day after you. Remember that Friday night? What a booze-up! Remember that tart—what was her name? Rita or Nita, or something of that sort. Lord! it was time to get away.”

  “Where’s your ship now?”

  Panton-Smith jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Two berths farther up. We moved in a couple of days ago. Looks as if it’ll take the Russkis two weeks to unload us.”

  “How did you know I was on this ship?”

  “I didn’t. Hadn’t the foggiest idea where you were until I got to the top of the gangway and saw you. No, old man; the fact is I’m delivering mail.”

  “Mail? In Murmansk?”

  Panton-Smith grinned. “Not for you. One only—wrongly delivered to our ship in Loch Ewe too late for transfer. You’ve got a gunner of the name of Randall, haven’t you?”

  “Sid Randall? Yes.”

  “That’s the boy. Is he aboard?”

  “Sure to be; probably in the cabin. Come on; I’ll show you the way.”

  Randall was lying on his bunk reading a book.

  Vernon said, “There’s a letter for you, Randy.”

  The book dropped from Randall’s fingers, and his eyes went wide, terror peeping out of them.

  Panton-Smith was feeling in his pocket. “Why, don’t look so scared, lad,” he said. “It’s not a summons—only a letter. You’re lucky; we don’t all get letters in this godforsaken hole.”

  His fingers found the letter, and he drew it out. The envelope was mauve, rather crumpled, rather worn at the edges. He handed it to Randall. “There you are—and a love-letter, or else I’m greatly mistaken.”

  He turned to Vernon. “How are you off for fags, Harry? Our bastard of a steward has run out of supplies.”

  “I can let you have some,” Vernon said, “Couple of hundred, anyway.”

  “You’re a pal,” said Panton-Smith. “It’ll save my life.”

  He sat down on one of the boxes by the stove, stretching his feet out towards the warmth and turning his back on Randall. “Talking of Southport,” he said, “do you remember Betty?”

  Vernon puckered his forehead. “Betty? Betty?”

  “Betty Peters—that bit old Jock was trotting around.” Panton-Smith drew imaginary lines in mid-air with the cigarette Vernon had given him.

  Vernon nodded. “I remember.”

  “You’ll laugh,” said Panton-Smith. “Jock thought he’d shaken her off when he got posted to Shoeburyness; but dash me if she didn’t follow him there—and she’s in the family way.”

  “He’ll have to marry her.”

  Panton-Smith laughed. “Not Jockie—not without committing bigamy.”

  Randall had drawn back into his bunk. Payne and Warby and Andrews were in the cabin, but they were gathered round the stove with Vernon and Panton-Smith. Randall wished he could have found some private cell where he could have hidden with his letter; but there was nowhere—no privacy at all; not even a curtain that he could draw across his bunk. He lay there, holding the letter in his hand and waiting for the address on it to stop dancing before his eyes, waiting for courage to flow back into his heart.

  The address was written in block capitals; there was his Army number, then his rank, name, and initials: Gunner Randall, S.M.O. He pushed a trembling finger in under the flap and ripped the envelope clumsily open. The letter was folded twice, and Randall’s nostrils caught the faint odour of cheap perfume.

  He began reading: “Darling Sid, When are you coming home? I’m that lonely without you—”

  Randall closed his eyes, holding on to sanity, holding on to self-control.

  Panton-Smith was saying, “What do you mean—you shot it down? Let me tell you that Heinkel was ours; no doubt about it.”

  “Yours,” said Payne. “Like hell it was! Why, we could see our tracer going into it.”

  Randall opened his eyes and looked at the date on the letter. It was six months old—an echo sounding out of the past. He looked again at the envelope, and saw that it had been to New York and other places; it had followed him across the world.

  “Darling Sid, When are you coming home? I’m that lonely without you—” It was childish handwriting, done with a thick nib on ruled notepaper. It was blotchy, characterless; and it had belonged to Lily as completely as the tiny mole on her left breast. Randall drew in his breath with a sharp stab of pain as the memory came to him.

  “Sergeant Fordwent,” Panton-Smith was saying, “Sergeant Fordwent was on that tanker. Poor devils! They hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell. Wonder what it feels like to be burnt alive?”

  “Darling Sid, When are you coming home? I’m that lonely without you—”

  Randall crumpled the letter in his hand and bit his lip until the blood came.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Wondrous Life

  MOVE over, Harry,” Warby said. “I want to make a bit of toast.”

  Vernon shifted the box on which he was sitting to one side, and Warby raked the ash out of the bottom of the stove, so that red-hot cinders fell down into the opening.

  “Nothing like a bit of toast,” said Warby, “a bit of toast and cheese to keep the cold out. You can’t beat that.”

  He held the bread close to the stove, using a knife as toasting-fork, and Vernon watched the steam drifting out of the bread.

  “Bit doughy,” said Warby. “Damned cook don’t know how to make decent bread. Now, when I was on the Reina del—”

  “All right! All right!” interrupted Payne. We’ve had about enough of the Reina del; give it a rest.”

  Warby looked aggrieved, but made no answer. He could never forget the six months he had spent on board the Reina del Pacifico and the wonderful food that had been served in that graceful liner. She was the standard by which he judged other ships, and much of his conversation began with the words “Now, when I was on the Reina del—” He was surprised to find that his shipmates might become tired of such an opening gambit.

  Before Warby had asked him to move Vernon had been half asleep; half asleep and dreaming of the past. In that way he was able for a while to forget his surroundings—all the filth and discomfort, even the ache in his thumb which would never leave h
im. This was how it was, he mused: you lived in two worlds—one the world that was around you; the world of guns and night-watches, of drinking and seasickness, of bawdy talk and stinking blankets, of long boredom and sudden terror, of aching, longing, and hoping; the world of Warby and bread toasted on a knife, of old Donker with the knob on his neck, of young Randall with misery in his eyes; the world that your shipmates saw, experienced, and shared with you. But there was another world which none of the others shared because it was yours alone—the world of memory. And it was this that gave you strength to endure; this that fed the lamp of hope. In a way the world of memory was the real world, and this solid present the dream; a nightmare interlude that must eventually fade and drift away into those hazy regions over which kindly time will always cast its mantle of warm colours, smoothing out the peaks of pain, filling in the valleys of despondency.

  He realized that Payne was speaking to him. “What’s that? I’m sorry; I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

  “I said, why haven’t you got a commission?”

  “Why should I have one?”

  “I d’know,” said Payne. “You talk like a ruddy officer. You’ve had education—public school, university—all that bilge. I’d have thought you’d have been an officer. Did you try for a commission?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. They turned me down.”

  “They did!” cried Payne incredulously. “Why?”

  “Well,” said Vernon, “you know how they test you: a couple of quacks look in your ears, one on either side of you. If they can see each other they give you a commission; if not, you’ve had it. I carried too much wood up top.”

  Payne laughed. “That might explain a lot. I didn’t know the method.”

  Payne’s question had set the train of recollection going again in Vernon’s mind. Certainly he had tried for a commission; he remembered clearly the day when he had gone for his interview with the selection board. It had been such a vile day in every possible respect that he was not likely to forget it.

  It was an Austin utility van, and there were six prospective officers in the back. One of the others was Panton-Smith. It was mid-winter; there was six inches of snow on the roads, and a journey of a hundred and fifty miles ahead of them. The interview was to take place at Oakham—none of them knew exactly why, but they did not question the necessity. All they knew was that they had been roused abominably early, that breakfast had been a cold failure, and that they were frozen, cramped, and completely fed up.

  They had travelled about ninety miles when the driver lost control of the van, and it skidded into a snow-filled ditch. It took them half an hour, using the time-honoured ingredients of brute strength and ignorance, to put the vehicle once again on the road; and by then they were more fed up than ever. At the next public house they unanimously insisted on stopping for a livener. Perhaps they had too many liveners; perhaps it was that which robbed Panton-Smith and him of their commissions. What did it matter? Perhaps in any case they would have made poor officers.

  Vernon’s recollections of the rest of the proceedings were vague, as though a haze had settled over them. He remembered a bare, cold room in which they waited. He remembered being marched into another room—“Quick march! Right turn! Left turn! Halt!”—it was like being a defaulter. He remembered an officer with a face like a toad and assorted gold upon his shoulder-straps—possibly a brigadier; possibly even a general; Vernon was unable to tell. The officer was sitting at a table, and there were other officers on each side of him. Vernon stood facing them across the table, and they began shooting questions at him.

  “What school did you go to?” “Were you at university?” “Which one?” “College?” “What games did you play?” “Have you ever been convicted?” “Why do you wish for a commission?” “How old are you?” “Were you in the O.T.C.?” “What was your civilian occupation?” “Do you drive a car?”

  Then the officer with the face like a toad puffed himself up and asked a question which, to Vernon’s mind, in its rather alcoholic state, appeared altogether funny. It was: “Have you ever fired your gun in anger?”

  Looking back on the event, there seemed nothing particularly amusing in the question; yet at the time it had been so, irresistibly so. Perhaps it was the toad-like face of the officer; perhaps tie way he rattled out the question like a burst of machine-gun fire. Whatever it was, Vernon found himself unable to control his laughter. He supposed that was why he failed to get a commission.

  And because of that failure he had lost Gillian. What was it she had said? In a moment he would remember. Yes, now he had it. “We may as well face it, Harry; you haven’t got success in you; you’ve never really succeeded at anything, have you? I can’t marry a failure. We’d better call it off.”

  He had been cut up at the time; but he had got over it. You got over most things. There had been other women—plenty of them. In a way, it was better not to have one in particular; when you were tied up with a girl it was worrying, both for her and you. Everything was so uncertain; you could never tell what might happen to you; it was best not to have any ties.

  All the same, he had been in love with Gillian—damnably so. There could never be anyone else quite like Gillian.

  Warby belched and turned his toast. Payne walked to the port and looked out.

  “It’s snowing again,” he said. “There’s a couple more ships moved up-river. They’re lying at anchor over there. There’s a tug taking a string of barges across the river. You’d wonder what there is over there; it looks dead—just dead.”

  Warby was thinking about the Reina del Pacifico; the Reina, with her twin funnels, her 18,000 tons, and her speed of nearly twenty knots. Payne might sneer, but the Reina del was a fine ship, really fine. And the food! you would not have found better food in a first-class hotel. Snug little cabin, too, handy for the gun and connected to the galley by a working alleyway, so that you never had to carry meals across the open deck. That was how things ought to be. And the galley-boy bringing sausages and bacon and eggs for you to cook in the night in case you got hungry on watch. Bread made by a real baker, too; not by an unwilling cook with other things on his mind. Why, on some cargo ships you were still eating shore bread when you had been at sea for two or three weeks, bread as dry as dog-biscuits and almost as hard. There had been nothing like that on the Reina del.

  Warby began to scrape the toast where he had burnt it.

  Petty Officer Donker and Sergeant Willis were playing draughts on the mess-room table.

  After long deliberation Donker moved a piece, and promptly lost two others. Leading-seaman Agnew, who was following the game, drew in his breath sharply. “You shouldn’t have gone and done that.”

  Donker said stiffly, “When I want your advice, killick, I’ll ask for same. Meanwhile you can keep your trap shut.”

  “All right,” said Agnew. “Don’t get shirty.”

  “I’m not shirty,” said Donker. “I’m just telling you. I’m playing this game, not you.”

  He began to roll a cigarette, studying the draught-board as he did so. He appeared to be in no hurry to move again, and Willis did not attempt to hasten him. Donker went on with a tale he had been recounting; it was the tale of a convoy early in the War.

  “Cut to pieces,” Donker said; “cut to pieces—that’s what we were. Seventeen ships sunk out of about forty. Every night those blessed U-boats would come and knock somebody off. Seemed like you had nothing but ships doing down all round you. And there was no proper rescue ship in those days; corvettes used to pick up a lot of the survivors; but there ain’t too much room in a corvette for the crew, let alone a pack of survivors.”

  Donker lit his cigarette and wheezed smoke into his lungs. The smoke came up as he went on speaking, drifting out of his mouth as though coming from some smouldering fire deep inside him.

  “We was at the tail of the convoy, and when things got real bad our skipper asked for permission to help pick up survivors. It didn’t seem so bad a
fter that; we had something to do to take our minds off things. What a sight! What a sight it was! All those poor devils floating about in the dark with their life-lights on; we’d never have seen ’em else. They looked,” said Donker, and paused, trying to think exactly what they had looked like, “they looked like a carpet of blessed glow-worms stretching away across the sea.” He seemed pleased with the simile, and repeated it. “A carpet of glow-worms. Ah, but there wasn’t much glow inside of ’em—not in that water—not in the North Atlantic in the middle of the night. Oh, my, my!

  “Funny thing, too! When we drifted up slow as possible to avoid running any of ’em down some of the silly bastards started swimming away; thought we was a blessed derelict. Then we let nets down over the side, and a lot of us went down to help ’em up. It was a tough job; they were half frozen, proper numb with the cold, and they couldn’t help themselves hardly. We got ’em in, though; we got ’em in and steamed on. All told, we collected nearly a hundred.”

  Donker moved a draughtsman and sat back with a look of triumph.

  “We was pretty full up after that. You couldn’t hardly move in the quarters. And you could never tell what those fellers were going to do; it took some of ’em funny, you know. There was one man wanted to kill our captain because he thought his own skipper had been pushed out of the way. We couldn’t persuade him different. Nutty, I reckon. Then there was some couldn’t keep still; used to walk about on deck all the time; never seemed to sleep. And some just used to lean on the rails and stare out across the convoy; and if you spoke to ’em, like as not they’d start crying just like kids. Some was kids—not twenty, some of ’em. One boy couldn’t stop shivering, even when he was in the warm; and there was another did nothing but moan about some silk stockings he’d lost. ‘My Judy won’t arf carry on,’ he used to say. ‘Special order, they was. She won’t arf let into me!’ Not pleased at all that he’d been saved; all he could think about was those blessed silk stockings. I told him a whole skin was better than fifty pairs of stockings; but he couldn’t see it. ‘She’ll be mad at me,’ he’d say. ‘She won’t arf be mad!’”