Convoy North (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  ‘Coming right up, sir.’ Torrence went to the cupboard and brought out the bottle. ‘Bad news on the wireless, sir.’

  ‘Right.’

  Torrence shoved his polishing cloth into his trouser pocket, from which it dangled like a yellow pennant. ‘Reckon the US’ll have to come in now, sir.’ There was something of a gloat in his voice.

  Cutler stared at him, a reddish fleck in his eyes. ‘Fuck off,’ he said tightly. ‘Just for Christ’s sake fuck off out of it.’

  IV

  Two days later, by which time the convoy was not so far off the rendezvous position and steaming unattacked through bitter but calm seas, the BBC brought more news: Germany and Italy had declared war on the United States. The feeling throughout the Hardraw Falls was one of relief tinged with guilt: America had proved a good friend short of actual war and it was not up to British seamen to wish the agony of war upon her, but the fact that America and Britain would henceforward stand together was immensely heartening.

  According to Petty Officer Napper, Adolf Hitler would now be wetting his pants in large quantities. ‘Have the bugger on the run soon,’ he said with satisfaction to Leading Signalman Corrigan.

  ‘Well, let’s hope so, PO. He’s far from finished yet.’

  ‘Ho! Know so, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then don’t shoot your mouth orf, son. Think of all those Yankee troops that’ll be coming over any minute!’

  ‘Poor sods. Why should they pull our chestnuts out of the fire?’

  Napper glared. ‘That’s a fine thing to say! We’re all white, aren’t we?’

  ‘So’s Hitler — Aryan white. So’s Musso, so’s Stalin...what’s colour got to do with it, PO?’

  Napper knew Corrigan was a superior bugger. Angrily he said, ‘Don’t be bloody cheeky, all right? I just don’t like blacks, that’s all.’ He turned and walked aft along the well-deck, past the after hatches towards the superstructure above the engine-room and the engineers’ accommodation, realizing he’d said something daft that would make Corrigan even more superior in his attitude. There was something about Corrigan that made Napper say daft things; he’d tried to be matey since Corrigan was not only something of a medic but also a leading hand and those in authority had to stick together. But maybe that had been a mistake: Corrigan’s lofty tones were reacting on his state of health and the chest pains had returned to plague him, together with a vague unrest in his stomach, a churning feel. He wished he could diagnose it, but wishing was vain, and in fact Corrigan hadn’t been much help. Napper thought of the seaman’s bible, the Admiralty Seamanship Manual: by rights there ought to be an issue to all hands of an Admiralty Medical Manual, then they’d all know what was up with them and be able to keep a check on the quack.

  Petty Officer Napper had his own checks to make, on the ship’s armament. He’d done his stuff on the bridge and monkey’s island before encountering Corrigan; now he climbed the ladder to go through the drill on the close-range weapons mounted on the after superstructure, first chivvying the AB sitting in the straps and dreaming of home. Or looking as if he was. And half-frozen with it.

  ‘Come on then, lad.’

  Able-Seaman Grove looked round. ‘Come on where, Po?’

  ‘Bloody look lively!’ Napper snapped.

  ‘How?’ Grove looked blank.

  ‘Don’t give me any lip, lad. I said, look lively, look as if you belonged .’

  Napper, in Grove’s view, was a right old tit, a dug-out from very deep down who even now hadn’t yet quite surfaced. What Napper knew about modern weapons could be written on a half-farthing. And what the sod did ‘look lively’ mean when you were all ready at your gun and all that was missing was the enemy? Grove had a sudden impulse: he gripped the gun, swung it in a circle and made loud phut-phut noises at imaginary Nazi aircraft swooping in from all directions.

  Napper stared, his long grey face reddening. ‘What’s all that in aid of? Going round the bend, are you? Or being bloody cheeky?’

  ‘No, Po. Looking lively, that’s all. Dealing with the Luftwaffe —’

  ‘That’s enough o’ that, sonny boy. Moment you come orf watch, you’ll be on the bridge, one-one-two, up before Mr Cutler, all right?’

  ‘You putting me in the rattle, PO?’

  ‘Got it in one. Charged with insolence to your superior officer.’ Napper turned away, seething and feeling more unwell than ever, his check on the rest of the after close-range weapons left undone. As his cap disappeared down the ladder Grove made a rude gesture towards where he had been standing. The PO was totally impossible: nag, nag, nag. Maybe he was missing his sex life, but so were they all...and in point of fact, Grove reckoned, Napper didn’t get any anyway. He didn’t look the sort: to Napper, the word ‘fanny’ would mean nothing more than a mess kettle.

  V

  Still ahead of the PQ convoy, the pick-up submarine had remained submerged as close in to the Norwegian coast as was navigationally possible. Now, under cover of the darkness, she had come to the surface. With his navigator and a signalman the lieutenant in command scanned the surrounding water through his binoculars. He was a shade early on his ETA as notified to the local Resistance command by a coded broadcast from London. No need for anxiety yet; but the tension was there already. Fortunately there was no moon: the sky was nicely overcast, the night pitch dark. But that wasn’t a hundred per cent protection. The Nazis could be waiting: the Resistance had reported that there were no surface radar stations in this part of the coast so there were no worries on that score. But there could be other things: there could have been a leak. Even in the Resistance there were Quislings, and the man to be picked up wouldn’t have been operating entirely on his own.

  The minutes passed, agonizingly slow. The terrible cold encroached, penetrating duffel coats and oilskins, scarves, mittens and balaclavas. It was cold enough almost to freeze thought. The hills, the rocks of the coast, were aloom with snow and ice, making men aware of them even through the thick dark: high, impregnable, threatening.

  They all knew they could have entered a trap.

  The lieutenant turned as the scrape of feet was heard on the ladder leading up to the conning-tower. A voice said, ‘Kye up, sir.’

  ‘Keep your bloody voice down!’ The Lieutenant spoke in a hiss.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ A seaman emerged from the hatch, miraculously carrying a tin tray with three mugs of thick, sweet cocoa which he handed round. ‘Not a drop spilt, sir.’

  ‘Congratulations!’

  ‘Watch out for cockroaches, sir.’

  ‘If I find just one, you’ll need to watch out for yourself.’

  The man grinned and vanished back down the ladder to the boat’s interior. The watch, the seemingly interminable wait, went on. The lieutenant looked continually at the luminous dial of his wrist-watch: he had a deadline after which he was under orders to extricate his submarine to sea. But there had been something underlying those orders: a hint that failure to bring off the German agent would make the submarine’s CO an unpopular officer in high Whitehall circles. A whiff of cigar smoke, perhaps...Mr Churchill was said to be often irrational and impetuous and blame didn’t always end up in the right quarter. A lieutenant in command of a submarine was in no position to control the actions and movements of the Norwegian Resistance or to ensure the security of their communications. But to tell Mr Churchill that would be to risk personal disaster. The lieutenant, as the minutes ticked past towards the deadline, was on tenterhooks. A nasty decision was coming up. Did he obey orders and scarper out to sea? Or did he heed that hint, and hang on in defiance of the orders? Typical Admiralty, he thought. Whatever you did, they could have you by the short hairs. If blood, the lieutenant thought, was the price of Admiralty, then ambiguity was its watchword.

  When it happened the suddenness caught them all on the hop and the lieutenant literally felt the pause in his heartbeat: a voice came from the darkness on the port quarter of the submarine.

  ‘Captain
, we are here.’

  The lieutenant turned quickly. He could see nothing. No one had seen anything. There had been no sound, just nothing, no sound of oars or paddles, no swish of water. A moment later, as the lieutenant climbed down to the after casing, a hand appeared and made a grab for the triatic stay. A body heaved itself up, followed by another and then another. The lieutenant saw a black inflatable dinghy being held alongside.

  ‘Thank God you got here,’ he said, finding nothing else to say.

  ‘Yes. God is good and is on our side — with a little help from us! A case of Schnapps carelessly left...there is drunkenness in a certain German mess tonight, and tomorrow more than heads will be sore. But now you are in a hurry —’

  ‘You can say that again!’

  ‘Therefore I will stop.’ The Norwegian was a big man, built like a bear and almost as hair-covered as to his face. He turned to the man who had come aboard behind him, a man with a revolver held against his spine by the other Norwegian behind again. ‘Here is your cargo, Captain.’

  The lieutenenat saw the outline of a tall man, slim and upright. He was aware of a heel click and a stiff bow. He asked, ‘Colonel von Hagen?’

  ‘At your service, Captain.’ The English was faultless, no trace of an accent. Presumably his command of Norwegian was as good. A hand was extended and the German said, ‘How d’you do.’ As he spoke, the bear-like Resistance man smashed down hard on his wrist.

  ‘There was no need for that,’ the lieutenant said.

  ‘Captain, that hand is not for shaking by us or you. It has killed...innocent people, patriots. Remember that. Now we shall go. And God go with all of us.’ He and his companion dropped back into the dinghy and moved away as soundlessly as they had come. The lieutenant nodded at an armed seaman who had followed him down from the conning-tower and the German was led for’ard towards a hatch in the casing, a hatch that was clipped down behind him as he descended. The moment this had been done the submarine moved out, her motors going dead slow.

  VI

  ‘Cutler?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘How far to the rendezvous?’

  Cutler had just taken a look at the chart and had the answer ready. ‘Seventy miles, sir.’

  ‘Five hours’ steaming,’ Kemp said. ‘Let’s hope that sub-marine’s on time. I don’t want to have to hang about. Nor will the Rear-Admiral.’

  ‘Out of our control, sir.’

  ‘I know.’ Kemp turned and paced the bridge wing, backwards and forwards, feeling caged — or feeling that he might become caged in a sense if he had to lie without way on the ship, or had to steam around in circles, waiting for the submarine to show. The German U-boats loved such a situation, and if a contact was found by the A/S screen there would be nothing they could do about it immediately in case it was the pick-up. In any case, if the wait was a long one, Kemp was going to endure it almost on his own. That had been thrashed out back in Hvalfiord: Kemp would not risk the main convoy. If the submarine was thirty minutes late he would fall out in company with one destroyer while the convoy steamed on, leaving him to catch up later. If the distance was great, then the chief engineer of the Hardraw Falls was going to have to give him everything he’d got in the way of power. The nearer they approached the North Cape, the greater would become the danger of attack. It would not be possible to reduce the convoy’s speed, and never mind that it would be the Commodore who was arse-end Charlie. But all this was speculation, the crossing of bridges in advance that was a vital part of a commodore’s job so that one was not caught with one’s pants down. With any luck that submarine would be dead on time and dead in position. If she was not...like the submarine CO, Kemp had been aware of the pressures, the unspoken urgings of Whitehall, and he, too, would face dilemma: did he give it so long, and then chase up the convoy? Or did he risk the men aboard the Hardraw Falls, and wait? Again there was the similarity: any convoy commodore who frustrated the will of the Prime Minister would soon find himself on the beach.

  As he paced, Kemp became aware of Petty Officer Napper approaching Cutler together with a rating from the guns’ crews. The rating had a mutinous look: Kemp kept his distance when he heard Napper say, ‘Defaulter, sir. Will you see him, sir, please?’

  Some niggling trouble. Napper was a real old woman. But of course discipline had to be maintained. Once again, Kemp wondered how Cutler would handle it.

  Cutler said, ‘Oh, Jesus. Yes, all right, Napper.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ There was a pause then Napper’s nagging voice. ‘Off cap! Able Seaman Grove, sir, official number P/JX 004399…was insolent towards his superior officer, to wit, myself, sir, in that he —’

  ‘You representing your own case yourself, Napper?’

  ‘The ship, being a merchant ship, sir, has no regulating staff as such. Just me, as you —’

  ‘All right, all right. Well? What are the grounds?’

  Napper said, ‘Made daft noises, sir. Phut-phut-phut, like. Shooting at imaginary aircraft, sir. After I’d give ‘im an order.’

  ‘What order?’

  ‘To look lively, sir. ‘Is response was like I said. Phut-phut-phut.’

  ‘Aha.’ Cutler kept a straight face. ‘How many phuts?’

  ‘How many —?’ Napper’s face was scandalized: he was having the mickey taken. He said stiffly, ‘Didn’t count, sir.’

  ‘Didn’t count? Well, never mind, perhaps it’s not all that important.’ Cutler turned to Grove. ‘What have you to say, Grove?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘Nothing? Then you admit the charge?’

  ‘Yessir. Or rather no, sir. I was obeying orders.’

  ‘To look lively?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. On’y way I saw of doing it.’

  ‘Yes, I see. Don’t do it again, Grove, or you’ll be in trouble. No one’s going to put up with insolent behaviour. So watch it, all right?’

  ‘Yessir, thank you, sir.’

  ‘Don’t thank me, you’ve had a ticking off. Case dismissed.’

  Napper looked as though he couldn’t believe his ears. His eyes almost popped from his face and his mouth opened. But he met Cutler’s cool stare and shut it again. He shouted, ‘On cap! Salute the officer! ‘Bout turn — double march! Down the bleedin’ ladder.’

  Grinning, Cutler moved to the extremity of the bridge wing and joined Kemp. ‘Did I do right, sir?’

  ‘Yes, very right. I’d have done the same myself.’

  ‘Napper’s not pleased, sir. He wanted Commodore’s Report.’

  ‘Yes. Petty Officer Napper...a word of advice, young Cutler: use his rate when speaking to him in front of junior ratings. It’s only his due.’

  Cutler said, ‘Okay, sir.’ Then, looking past the Commodore towards the van of the convoy, he stiffened. ‘Flag’s calling up, sir.’

  Kemp turned. The signalman on watch was reading off the flashing light. He began calling out as he read. ‘Commodore from Flag, sir: “RDF contact two surface vessels bearing red four five. Am investigating.”’

  Kemp saw the flagship heel over to port and increase speed even as the signal was coming through. ‘RDF’s a handy thing to have,’ he said. ‘One day, perhaps the merchant ships’ll be fitted with it.’

  Cutler asked, ‘Think the enemy’s out, sir?’

  ‘I’ve no idea but I’ll take no chances.’ Kemp turned to the signalman, ‘Pass the bearing to all ships by flag hoist.’ He took up his binoculars. Nottingham was coming up now to her maximum speed of thirty-two knots and was being followed by the second cruiser now threading through the convoy columns on a dash across from her steaming position on the starboard beam. Ten minutes later the flagship signalled again across the widening gap of water: ‘Two enemy destroyers in sight.’

  Almost on the heels of the signal the Nottingham and the Neath had engaged. The sound of the big guns rolled back on the wind and Kemp saw the distant orange flashes and the smoke as the eight-inch batteries opened.

  FIVE

>   I

  The voice-pipe from the engine-room whistled in the wheel-house and Captain Theakston answered. ‘Bridge, Captain speaking.’

  ‘Chief here, Captain. What’s up?’

  ‘Enemy destroyers ahead. Two of them.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘The convoy’s opening formation. Stand by for engine alterations. And maybe bumps.’ Theakston banged down the voice-pipe cover and concentrated on handling his ship. He’d seen bumps, and more than bumps, when a convoy was changing its formation — or barging freely about the ocean would often have been a more apt description. Kemp had a similar anxiety. Ships of different sizes and shapes and speeds, each with its own handling characteristics in the way it answered its helm — it was a far cry from warships of a single class responding to fleet manoeuvres on the executive from the Flag, carrying out red turns, white turns, blue turns, the colour being the indication of the particular manoeuvre to be carried out...currently it would be a case of each ship for itself and never mind the rule of the road. Kemp, who had had no option but to spread the ships out so far as possible — short of an actual scatter order, which might be given under much heavier attack — so as to disperse the target, felt like shutting his eyes and asking Cutler to tell him when something hit. The Hardraw Falls was maintaining her own course and speed, acting as some kind of lode star while the others altered around her, but Theakston was having to watch it pretty carefully. When a ship came slap across his bows, Theakston caused a flurry in the engine-room: the telegraph rang down for emergency full astern and Mr Sparrow, chief engineer, gritted his teeth hard. Engines never liked going from full ahead to full astern without a pause in between, but the bridge had spoken and that was that. The engine-room shook and shuddered and the plating of the starting platform, where Sparrow was standing, vibrated beneath his feet. He used his imagination as to what was going on up top: some silly bugger getting in their way and any moment they might be in collision. Then the engines were eased and put ahead again.