Convoy North (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  ‘Any sign of the convoy?’

  ‘No, sir, but the masthead lookout reports wreckage ahead, fine on the port bow, looks like woodwork in a big patch of oil.’

  Kemp said, ‘I’ll be up, Amory. Better inform Portree.’ He turned to von Hagen. ‘We’ll talk again later, Colonel.’ He called for Cutler, and the German was taken back to his cabin under escort. Kemp felt as though he had been reprieved.

  SEVEN

  I

  Theakston had reached the bridge and all the binoculars were on the wreckage. It was heaving up and down, sliding over the swell, disappearing now and again. There was no snow now and the visibility was fair to good, the sky clearing fast. The cold was worse than ever and each breath was like a knife-thrust in the lungs.

  ‘One of the convoy?’ Theakston asked.

  ‘I fear so.’

  ‘You’d think there’d be more.’

  ‘Could be a single straggler, the usual arse-end Charlie,’ Kemp said. Arse-end Charlies — like themselves currently — were always at extra risk. You couldn’t stop or even slow for just one ship, and you only detached a warship to stand guard if you had a big enough escort, which was not the case this time — the Hardraw Falls herself wouldn’t have been given a destroyer if it hadn’t been for the importance of embarking von Hagen and delivering him to Russia safely.

  Three minutes after Kemp had reached the bridge there was another report from the masthead: a boat, some distance beyond the wreckage, a ship’s lifeboat and a man waving from it. Theakston didn’t wait for orders: he told Amory to alter towards the boat and have men standing by the jacob’s ladder.

  Kemp demurred. He said, ‘We’ll leave them to the destroyer, Captain. There’s a doctor aboard. Corrigan?’

  ‘Yessir?’

  ‘Ask Portree to pick up survivors.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘And add that I wish to be informed immediately of any news of the convoy.’ Kemp watched anxiously as the destroyer swept up towards the wreckage. As she slowed her engines the lifeboat was lost to view behind her hull; but within a short time she was once again moving fast and heeling under full port helm to circle back towards the Hardraw Falls. As she came up on the Commodore’s port beam her loud hailer came on.

  There was an amplified shout across the water: ‘Commodore ahoy!’

  Kemp waved an arm from the bridge wing, and took the megaphone handed him by Cutler. He called back in response. ‘How many and where from?’

  ‘Six men in the boat, only two alive, sir. From a freighter, SS City of Khartoum. Convoy came under U-boat attack. Two ships known to be lost...could be more.’ There was a pause. ‘One U-boat sunk, sir. Our survivors don’t know how many there were.’

  ‘We could be steaming right into it.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Any orders?’

  ‘No change,’ Kemp said. ‘We press on to rejoin the convoy. I take it they’re holding their course?’

  They were, Portree’s captain said. Kemp waved a hand again and turned away. The Hardraw Falls would join the battle, if it was still going on when they caught up, with her armament useless against U-boats unless and until one of them was forced to the surface by depth-charge attack from the A/S screen and the destroyers.

  Kemp remarked on this to Cutler.

  Cutler said, ‘You have a dilemma, sir.’

  ‘Have I?’ Kemp raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t know I had.’

  ‘Well...maybe you don’t, sir. But it occurred to me...that is...we’re putting another ship, us, at risk unnecessarily. We have a valuable cargo. And like you’ve just said, we don’t add anything to the fire power.’

  ‘Just a target.’

  ‘In a nutshell, sir — yes.’

  ‘We could just bugger off?’

  ‘Well now, I guess —’

  Kemp said evenly, ‘It did go through my mind, Cutler, and it went right out again. Of course, you’re quite right to bring it up. But there are two points that come uppermost. The first is that I’m the Commodore. It’s my convoy. I have a duty to be there, Cutler.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And the second?’

  Kemp gave a mirthless grin. ‘It’s a hundred to one we’ll meet the U-boats in any event, returning to base.’

  Cutler nodded. He had half a mind to tell the Commodore that he could deviate, alter course westwards and get the hell out until the returning U-boats had made it south past their position, but he didn’t say this. He could guess what Kemp’s answer would be, and as for him, he hadn’t come over to avoid action. Once again he recalled the words of the RCNVIZ’S theme song: We came over for the fighting, not the fun...

  That conversation reached the crew of the Hardraw Falls via the agency of the seaman on lookout in the port wing of the bridge.

  II

  ‘He’s got no right,’ Chief Steward Buckle said. ‘What bloody use are we anyway, I ask you!’

  Buckle had encountered the bosun, who had been checking the fire hydrants along with the second engineer: orders from the bridge, since they might be in need of the fire hoses any time now. Jock Tawney said indifferently, ‘I don’t reckon that’s the point.’

  ‘Oh. What is, then?’

  ‘We’re the Commodore’s ship, that’s what. The Commodore don’t scarper from trouble.’

  ‘I don’t see why not, Bose.’

  ‘P’raps you don’t.’ Tawney sniffed; in his view chief stewards thought only of lining their own pockets, which was why they’d gone to sea in the first place, and Buckle saw no profit in this, only danger. The danger was there, all right; but it was always there at sea in wartime, just part of the job and you got on with it. Meanwhile Buckle was getting on with his complaint.

  He said, ‘The Russians stand to lose a lot of bloody ammo. They won’t like that.’

  ‘Let ‘em shove it, then.’

  ‘Christ Almighty, Bose, they’re the whole reason we’re here!’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ Tawney said, and turned his back. Buckle shrugged; no point in saying any more. Like all seamen, Tawney was thick as a plank. Horny-handed shellbacks, haulers on ropes and tackles, no intelligence but thought they were bloody marvellous just because they were seamen...Buckle carried on along the alleyway to his cabin, where he had some stores lists to go through. The ship was short on a few provisions, items that couldn’t be obtained in enough quantity in UK ports: the war was nothing but shortages. Most likely the Russians would be unable to top up but he would try. Buckle toyed with thoughts of caviar. That should be plentiful, with luck. Probably not much would be eaten aboard and if he could buy in quantity there might be something in it for himself when they got back to home waters, a really good profit from under the noses of the company. If they didn’t go and get bloody sunk in the meantime.

  Bugger Kemp!

  And bugger that Jerry too, Buckle thought. If the brass in Berlin happened to have got word that he’d been nabbed and put aboard the Hardraw Falls, well then, obviously they’d be trying especially hard to knock the ship off before he got where he was going and was made to spill a whole lot of beans...

  Beans...Heinz. Chief Steward Buckle’s mind clicked smoothly on to matters within his province. Baked beans were a vital part of the crew’s menu and were one of the items he was short of. He didn’t know if Russians ate baked beans.

  III

  ‘You there, Corrigan.’

  Corrigan looked up: he was sitting at the naval mess table, writing a letter home for posting in Archangel, knowing it would get to his parents no quicker than if he posted it in a UK port on return but wanting to get it off just in case he didn’t make it on the homeward run. ‘Yes, Po?’

  ‘Letter writing!’ Napper clicked his tongue. ‘Action alarm might go any time.’

  ‘That’s right. Commodore didn’t want to have the hands closed up before it was necessary, so —’

  ‘I know that, thank you. Soft-’earted, is Kemp. And bloody right to press on,’ Napper said rather surprisingly. He wasn’t usuall
y all that keen, Corrigan thought. But now he was leading up to something and it began to emerge. ‘Said you was a makee-learn doctor, right? I need an opinion.’

  Corrigan nodded, sighed and pushed his writing pad aside. Perhaps it was good practice for after the war. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’ he asked.

  ‘Dunno. That’s for you to say...I mean, if you’d do me a favour, that is.’

  ‘Of course I will, short of opening you up, Po.’

  Napper blenched. ‘I never bloody asked —’

  ‘I know, I know. Just my way of saying I’m not on the medical register and it’s little I can advise in fact. I’m not supposed to pronounce at all, actually.’

  Actually. No doubt about it, Corrigan was officer material. Napper said, ‘Exigencies o’ war...extenuating circumstances.’

  ‘All right, PO. Let’s have it.’

  ‘I gets a funny feeling,’ Napper said, screwing up his face in undiagnosed discomfort.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘All over like.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When? Never know when it’s coming on, do I?’

  ‘When there’s a U-boat contact?’

  Napper glared. ‘None o’ your lip, Corrigan. I didn’t ask for cheek. And the answer’s no...not specially then.’

  ‘I see. I think you said the doctor aboard Nottingham prescribed Black Draught?’

  ‘Yes! ‘E did an’ all!’

  ‘Very effective stuff, Po.’

  ‘Well, ‘e can stuff it, effective or not.’

  Corrigan grinned. ‘Talking of stuffing it...there was a well worn joke that used to make the rounds of the medical schools and probably still does. A chap went to his doctor, said he was suffering from constipation...the doctor prescribed suppositories. A fortnight later, the chap went back and said he’d taken them twice daily as instructed but for all the good they’d done, he might just as well have shoved them up his arse.’ He paused; Napper’s face was blank. ‘You don’t get it?’

  ‘Don’t sound too likely. To swallow suppositories, they’re bloody poisonous, aren’t they?’

  Corrigan said, ‘I expect so, yes, but never mind, it was just a joke.’

  ‘I don’t reckon doctors ought to make jokes like that. I’m being serious. There’s something wrong. Maybe it’s me nerves. Think it could be?’

  ‘I simply don’t know. I hadn’t got very far in medicine, hadn’t even taken my anatomy exams.’

  ‘Taken?’

  ‘Yes, but they’re not suppositories, Po.’

  IV

  The shout came from the masthead lookout: ‘Torpedo trail starboard, sir...green four five!’

  Kemp brought his binoculars up; Cutler beat him to it. ‘Got it, sir. Two of them.’ He pointed. ‘There.’

  ‘Right.’ The twin trails, some two cables’-lengths apart, had now come up clear in Kemp’s lenses. He called out, ‘Steer between them, Captain! Starboard your helm.’

  Theakston gave the order: in the wheelhouse the helm went over. Theakston sounded the alarm and Kemp watched closely as the ship’s head came round to starboard. The master checked the swing as the bows came to a point midway between the torpedo trails.

  ‘Port ten...midships...steady!’

  In the wheelhouse the helmsman met the swing and steadied his course on 046 degrees, saw the thin marks just beneath the surface as they raced towards the ship. Kemp was holding his breath now, staring ahead, staring down the starboard side as the torpedoes closed. One of them passed no more than a dozen yards clear. From the port side, Cutler called out that the second torpedo had also passed: Theakston’s judgment had been spot on, but the attack was only just starting, unless the U-boat had no more fish left, the others expended on the convoy ahead, between the Hardraw Falls and the North Cape. Kemp found his fists clenched tight: the ship was a bloody great target. The Nazis couldn’t miss a second time. But by now Portree was flying the attack signal and moving in at high speed, following the pings of her Asdic, water flinging back from her fo’c’sle and the depth-charge racks and throwers ready aft. Aboard the Commodore’s ship the close-range weapons were manned in the bridge wings, on monkey’s island, and on the after superstructure. Kemp looked around: if only the U-boat could be forced to the surface...it was time that his gunnery rates were given a chance to show what they could do.

  Kemp saw Petty Officer Napper moving along the after well-deck, coming for’ard, an anxious expression on his long, gloomy face. This, unknown to Kemp, was due to the action alarm having cut short Napper’s medical consultation. Corrigan had been in the process of giving him some good advice, having got his rotten jokes out of the way, and Hitler had buggered it all up. Corrigan had suggested inter alia that Napper should go and see the doctor again, and when Napper had retorted that the quack was about as useful as a whore at a wedding, Corrigan had said he could do worse than put in a request to see a Russian doctor in Archangel. At first Napper had refused absolutely to see a Russian quack, a bloody Communist, but Corrigan, who had had enough of Napper though he didn’t let it show, had gone on about the Russians having a lot of advanced knowledge and medical technology and more resources ashore than any ship could have. Napper had been much impressed: Leading Signalman Corrigan was nearly half a doctor, and doctors were important people even if some of them didn’t know much, and then there was that very special way in which Corrigan said the word ‘actually’. A proper gent, was Corrigan.

  Napper’s expression of anxiety as he hurried about his gun positions was due to a snag: in order to see a Russian quack, he would have to tell the surgeon commander aboard the Nottingham, if ever they made Archangel, that he was too bloody useless to be consulted again. That would take some doing. In the meantime, Napper’s stomach was playing him up. He saw a connection with his chest: after all, the two parts were adjacent.

  Proceeding for’ard, Napper reached the ladder leading to the midship superstructure just as the Portree’s first pattern of depth-charges went up. Napper took the steps fast and arrived on monkey’s island panting. Away to starboard the sea was heaving up, boiling water breaking surface in great humps, but no U-boat. Napper checked around the guns.

  ‘All right, lads?’

  ‘Yes, Po.’

  ‘Give the buggers hell if they surface,’ Napper said, sounding efficient. Then he saw Sub-Lieutenant Cutler coming up the ladder from the bridge.

  ‘Hey there, Napper. Petty Officer Napper.’

  ‘Yessir?’

  Cutler reached out and tapped Napper’s arm. ‘Not so warlike, okay? Remember the orders - no firing except on the order from the bridge, all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Napper said, scowling. Little git. Little Yankee git! It was no wonder he didn’t feel well. Cutler was enough to give the cat kittens. Cowboys from Texas just didn’t fit the sea scene, they were born and bred to be soldiers.

  V

  There were no more torpedoes: the U-boat was apparently operating singly and there was no way of knowing whether or not it had been part of the attack on the main PQ convoy. But the gunners were going to get their chance even if it wasn’t much: Portree’s attack, one pattern after another going down with different depth settings on the charges, was effective. The reverberations shattered through the plating of the Hardraw Falls, ringing like deep-toned bells in the engine-room and boiler-room, shaking Buckle’s office where he was obeying company’s orders by gathering up invoices and requisitions and other ship’s papers and stuffing them into the big safe with all the cash — aboard the Bricker Dockett ships the chief steward acted also as purser — so that they would go to the bottom rather than float to the possible benefit of the enemy, though Buckle often wondered, why the hell bother? It wouldn’t help Hitler much to be in possession of corned beef bills, though possibly it would give away the identity of the supply ports which he might then decide to bomb, but since he bombed them anyway it didn’t really seem important.

  The job done, Buckle slammed the safe door shut and twirled
the combination locks which he’d set to the date of his former mother-in-law’s birthday, making the old bag a damn sight more important than she’d ever imagined. Then he went up on deck, circumspectly. Basically anyone was safer on deck than down below, but Buckle didn’t want to stop a personal bullet or shell if the U-boat surfaced and attacked by gunfire.

  But he wasn’t due for that, not yet.

  He heard a rising shout along the decks, a shout — almost a baying — of triumph, a real blood-lust, Buckle thought. Not far ahead, a little to starboard of the ship’s track, he saw the long, low, black shape, the conning-tower manned by a press of Nazis, officers and ratings, some of whom were spilling over on to the fore casing and running for the gun platform for’ard of the conning-tower. The boat had a list on her as though she’d taken something that had caused some plates to be sprung, and there was smoke drifting up from the conning-tower. But she wasn’t done yet and the gun was coming to bear. That U-boat, Buckle thought, she’s bloody close, and getting closer.

  VI

  The U-boat had been forced to the surface fine on the starboard bow of the Hardraw Falls and distant little more than six cables — not quite as close in fact as Buckle had estimated. Kemp had brought the guns’ crews to readiness to open. Theakston asked, ‘Do you want to turn away, Commodore?’

  ‘No point. I’m going to close — and pray! Take her in, please, Captain.’

  ‘You don’t mean ram the bugger?’

  ‘I do. A course to ram, as close to the conning-tower as you can make it.’

  ‘But my bows! They may not take the impact.’

  ‘We must chance it. It’s our only hope if —’ Kemp broke off, ducking instinctively as he saw the flash from the U-boat. Portree was racing in now but seemed unable to bear with her guns since she had the Hardraw Falls immediately behind the target. Theakston was forging on now, heading for the U-boat: the two vessels were close. The first shell from the Nazi went over the bridge, the second took the foremast and carried it away in a tangle of wire and shattered wood, some of it falling across the port wing of the bridge and only just missing Cutler. The masthead lookout was thrown clear, coming down in the water off the ship’s port beam. Then the Hardraw Falls hit, a glancing blow but a heavy one, immediately below the conning-tower, a crunch that sent the U-boat heeling over to starboard, flinging men into the water. The ship gave a lurch as the speed came off suddenly. Everywhere men went sprawling: Petty Officer Napper spun along the after well-deck, legs and arms flying, to fetch up in the scuppers and half-way through a washport: he was jammed there helpless and swearing as, on the order from the bridge, the close-range weapons opened on the Nazis. Chief Steward Buckle was flung back against a bulkhead, only partially cushioned by a sizeable rump. Kemp found himself pressed against the fore rail of the bridge, just for a moment. He looked across at the U-boat: he could see she wasn’t going to last — the blow from the Hardraw Falls had completed the work begun by the Portree’s depth-charge attack. The close-range weapons were proving deadly: the casing was strewn with bodies, some of which had slid into the sea, trailing blood.