“Excellent idea, Chandler!”
I went down to the saloon pantry, switched on the boiler and the toaster. I found the largest teapot, some loaves of bread. There were five hungry mouths to feed—Teddy, the chief officer, two cadets and myself. I made an enormous pile of toast and was generous with the butter and the anchovy paste. I brewed the tea. I loaded everything, including cups and spoons and milk and sugar, on to a big tray. All the time I had been conscious that there was only a thin sheet of steel between me and the German projectiles; I had been much less unhappy when I could see what was going on.
During my return up top with the loaded tray I had to come out on to the lower bridge. The wind scooped the toast off the dish and on to the deck. I thought, If we’re going to die, a bit of dirty toast won’t kill us. I gathered up the toast, put it back in the tray and completed my journey without further mishap. (Later I told the story, in confidence, to the second officer. He told the Old Man. Teddy took me severely to task about it.)
Shortly after we had finished our delayed breakfast the Third Officer wandered up to the bridge. He said cheerfully to Teddy, “We’re being followed, sir.”
Teddy accorded him a laserlike glare from his monocle and snapped, “A blinding glimpse of the obvious, Owen.”
“Look astern, sir.”
Until now we had been scanning the sky ahead through our glasses, searching for the Coastal Command flying boats that must, surely, be on the way. Now we looked aft. There was the U-Boat, still slowly gaining on us. And, hull down, three gray pyramids, the upperworks of destroyers. Like ourselves the submarine’s people had not been keeping a lookout astern. Had she dived in time she would have escaped. She did dive eventually and almost immediately was surrounded by a pattern of depth charges. She surfaced and surrendered.
When the shooting was over the chief steward came up to the bridge and addressed the captain. “Splice the main brace, sir?”
“Of course, Mr. Davis.”
“Scotch, sir?”
There was another laserlike glare from Teddy’s monocle. “Scotch, Mr. Davis? What are you thinking of? Nelson’s blood!” he thundered. “Nelson’s blood!”
So rum it was.
The third officer took over the watch and the rest of us went down to the officers’ smoking room for our main brace splicing. Mr. Moffatt, the chief officer, a few years previously had been second Officer of the old Mamari when she hit an iceberg off Cape Horn during his watch, in the small hours of the morning. He had seen it—there was some moonlight, I believe—but had assumed, until it was too late, that it was low cloud. Anyhow, Mr. Moffatt was tending to pat himself on the back for having saved Karamea by going hard-a-port as soon as he saw the submarine, even though he did not learn that a torpedo had been fired at us until well afterward.
Teddy brought his monocle to bear. (I’ve often wondered why that thing never melted.) ‘‘It’s a bloody pity, Moffatt,” he drawled, “that you aren’t as good at ramming submarines as you are at ramming icebergs!”
And that’s about all, I think, that I shall be writing about World War II. Oh, I could tell the tale of how I missed the wreck of the old Matakana by being landed in Panama, on the homeward passage, with chickenpox, which infantile ailment I must have caught from my current girlfriend in Wellington, who was a schoolmistress. And there was the time in the notorious Raranga when we were trapped in the ice, in Buzzard’s Bay, and almost drifted on to the Hen and Chicken Shoal. Also in Raranga was a Night to Remember: a Western Ocean convoy slamming at full speed through an icefield in thick fog. In theory the escorting destroyers were picking up the bergs on their radar and laying calcium flares at the base of each one; in practice it didn’t work out too well. Ice is a very poor radar target. There was my spell as armaments officer in the troopship Mataroa and the way in which my rocket weapons invariably failed to reciprocate my affection for them. And vivid in my memory is the occasion when the Bo’s’n of the same ship almost wiped out the entire crew of the six-inch gun—and myself!—with a point thirty stripped Savage Lewis. And there was that event-crowded morning when the admiral took off his cap, threw it down on the deck and jumped on it . . .
Nonetheless World War II, as well as providing me with experience and material, as it did so many other writers, also got me into the right place at the right time. In days of peace New York just isn’t among Shaw Savill’s ports of call. In wartime, the ships of the Shaw Savill Line—like the ships of every other company—were required to go anywhere and everywhere.
Astounding Science Fiction had long been my favourite magazine. On one visit to New York I decided that I would like to meet the Great Man who edited the great periodical. I visited the editorial offices of Street & Smith and, having made my request to the receptionist, was ushered into the Presence. John received me cordially. We talked. He complained that as most of his writers were now in the armed forces of the U.S.A. he was very short of material. Perhaps I, as a Faithful Reader of very long standing, would care to contribute . . . I didn’t take his suggestion seriously . . .
But . . .
Why not? I must have asked myself.
It was shortly after this that I left Mataroa to sit for my Certificate of Competency as Master of a Foreign Going Steamship. I had to go to school for this; I could have passed an examination in gunnery easily but, over quite a long period, had not been able to spare the time to continue my studies of navigation, seamanship, maritime law and all the rest of it. I passed and, shortly thereafter, was appointed as second officer to the old Raranga, a big, coal-burning, twin-screwed steamship. She had been torpedoed during World War I but had survived. She got through World War II unscathed although she once distinguished herself by shooting down a German bomber and a British fighter in the same action.
She was infested with rats. We kept a .22 rifle on the bridge so that, on moonlit nights, the officer of the watch could amuse himself sniping at the brutes. (The use of heavier armament, such as the 20mm machine guns, would have been frowned upon.)
Anyhow, the first time that I came into New York in Raranga I had my first short story ready for personal delivery to John Campbell. It was 4,000 words long and had taken me all of a fortnight to peck out on the ancient Remington. (Today that would be little more than a forenoon’s work.) It was called “This Means War.” It was about the captain of a Venusian spaceship who, making a landing on one of Earth’s seas, is shot at by everybody and assumes that all this hostile fire is directed at him personally. The period, course, is during World War II.
I handed this masterpiece to and said that I’d better leave return postage with it. John assured me that there was no need for me to do so and that he would send it back. Raranga made her way to England in a very slow convoy. Awaiting me was a letter from Street & Smith. In it was a cheque.
Raranga was a frequent visitor to New York, sometimes calling there for bunkers on her homeward voyages from Australasia, sometimes loading refrigerated cargo there for the U.K. I became one of the Campbells’ regular week guests, others being Lester del Ray, Theodore Sturgeon and George O. Smith. I became, too, one of Campbells’ regular writers during the remainder of the war years. John always asked members of his team use pseudonyms when peddling his rejects to other magazines. I had two: George Whitley, for use in the U.S.A. and, a little later, the U.K. and Andrew Dunstan for use in Australia. Later, when John relaxed his house rules, it was not unusual for me to have two stories, under different by-lines, in the same issue of a magazine. It made my day, once, when I read a letter in somebody’s correspondence column saying that Whitley was better writer than Chandler . . .
It was while I was in Raranga that I wrote what many people regard, as my best story—“Giant Killer.” It was those rats that gave me the idea. The first version was written from viewpoint of the crew of a space who find this derelict adrift in some cockeyed orbit. Boarding her, they attacked by the ferocious mutated rodents. John read it then said, “No, won’t do. Try it from the v
iewpoint of the original crew of the derelict.” (That first version did sell to a projected English sf magazine that, however, never got off the ground due to the paper shortage.)
Version No. 2 was a real beaut. I’m still sorry that it never saw print. It was called “The Rejected,” the title coming from the first verse of The Internationale. The spaceship was a Russian one, with brass samovars bubbling on the bulkheads and portraits of the Little Red Father decorating every crew space. She had a mixed crew. The navigator was having an affair with the catering officer, who was also captain’s wife. The amount of vodka consumed by one and all would have fuelled a rocket to Far Centaurus. And, of course, I heavily stressed the irony of this mess of mutinous mutants seething under the comrades’ feet.
John read it. He looked at me in sorrow than in anger. He said, “I would point out that Astounding Science Fiction is neither Thrilling Romances nor a monthly edition of The Daily Worker. Take it away—and do it again from the viewpoint of the rats!”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
The next time in New York I had the first two thousand words completed. I took it out to one of the Campbells’ weekend house parties. John read it, passed it to Ted Sturgeon. He read it, passed it to George O. Smith. He read it. They all demanded, “Where’s the rest of it?”
I said, “There ain’t going to be no rest unless John promises to buy it.”
Peace broke out shortly thereafter. Until my promotion to chief officer I remained a very prolific short-story writer, contributing to magazines in the U.S.A. (there were so many of them!), the U.K. and Australia. Gradually the George Whitley and Andrew Dunstan by-lines were phased out, the former, however, being used for quite some time or stories that did not fall into the typical Chandler space opera pattern.
When I got my penultimate rise in the world I had far less time for writing although I was, by this time, toying with the idea of making the switch from short stories to novels. One such was in fact, written during my final years with Shaw Savill: Glory Planet (my title was Glory Shore), eventually published by Avalon, some years after its completion. When I wrote it very little was known about Venus. When finally it was published far too much was known. Impossible as it has turned out to be I still feel affection for the story locale that I created—a colony strung out along the banks of a long, long river, the people living in towns given the names of Terran riparian conurbations, travelling back and forth by sternwheel paddle steamers . . .
My first ship after World War II was Coptic, running for a time on charter to the U.S. Navy. Then there was Tamaroa, sister ship to Mataroa, running alternately as a peacetime troop transport and as a civilian passenger ship. Then Empire Deben, one of the spoils of war. A one-time German passenger liner—Thuringia, on the Western Ocean trade, General San Martin on the South American trade—she had spent the war years as a U-Boat depot ship. Under the British flag she was a peacetime troopship, owned by the Ministry of Sea Transport (all such vessels were named after British rivers) and managed by Shaw Savill.
Then there was Cufic there was Doric, which vessel I joined for her maiden voyage. She should have been a fine ship but she was not, mainly due to the appallingly low standard of workmanship in the yard where she was built.
My last ship in the Shaw Savill Line was Waiwera, in which I sailed for quite some time. She represents another crucial point in my life. If I had not served in that particular vessel it is highly probable that there would never have been any Rim Worlds or any Commodore Grimes to be a pain in the arse to the rulers of that far-flung Confederation.
It was while I was serving in Waiwera that I met the lady who became my second wife. She was travelling out as passenger from England to Australia but had no fixed intention of settling in that country. She was at my table in the dining saloon and, during the meal-time conversations, and at other times, we discovered that we had a great deal in common. But this is not Thrilling Romances. Suffice it to say that I resigned from the service of the Shaw Savill Line, emigrated to Australia and, after seeing what the various Australian shipping companies had to offer, joined the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand as third officer.
USSCo, although its Head Office was (and still is) in Wellington, New Zealand, in those days owned quite a large fleet of small vessels under the Australian flag. What made the company attractive to me was that the majority of officers were, like myself, refugees from the big English companies: Shaw Savill, the Blue Funnel Line, the Port Line, the Royal Mail, even Cunard. Our marine superintendent in Sydney had started life, as a seafarer, in the P & O. To American readers all the above may seem to be without great significance but the old established English shipping lines, before industrialisation replaced the now outmoded ideals of service, were practically private navies.
It was not long before I was back in my old rank, as chief officer. I served on Australian coastal trades, on the Bass Strait passenger ferry service, on the New Zealand coast, on the Pacific Islands trade, on the trans-Tasman service. I became used to and came to love relatively small ships. Relatively small? Some were bloody small, by anybody’s standards.
And I started writing hard again, short stories and novelets at first. A spell on the Strahan Trade—back and forth between Strahan, a small port on the wild West Coast of Tasmania and Yarraville, a grimly and gimily industrial suburb of Melbourne—somehow gave me the idea for the Rim Worlds and for their major shipping company, Rim Runners, with a fleet officered by refugees from the big Terran spacelines. Rim Runners had to have an astronautical superintendent just as today’s shipping companies have marine superintendents. That vacancy was filled by Captain (later Commodore) Grimes. At first Grimes was only a background character.
The Great Magazine Market Crash came just when I had nicely re-established myself as a short story writer. One of the reasons was the proliferation of paperback novels. So, like many others, I had to make the switch from short to long material. That was when the never-ending Grimes saga really got off the ground. It was some time, however, before he had a novel all to himself. My protagonist should have been one Derek Calver—but he was last seen heading in the general direction of the next galaxy and hasn’t been heard from since.
Finally, having attained sufficient Union Steam Ship Company seniority, I was appointed to command. Somehow, when I made the transition from “Mr.” to “Captain,” Grimes made his from “Captain” to “Commodore.” Much later, when I was a sort of honorary Commodore, being the senior (but only) captain in a one-ship company (actually one of USSCo’s subsidiaries) Grimes became an honorary Admiral of the Rim Worlds planets.
When Commodore Grimes was firmly established as a series character I took a leaf from the book of the late C. S. Forester and started to tell the story of Grimes’ early life just as Hornblower’s creator did regarding him. The first book was The Road To The Rim, dedicated to Hornblower. For quite a while two series were running concurrently: the somewhat elderly and cantankerous Commodore Grimes of Rim Runners, and the Rim Worlds Naval Reserve and the young Mr.—eventually Commander—-Grimes of the Federation Survey Service. There were novels, some of which were serialised in If. There were short stories, appearing in If, Galaxy and Analog, which later came out in book form.
All the time I was hinting that there was some Big Black Mark in Grimes’ career, some crime or colossal blunder as a result of which he had been obliged to resign his commission in the Survey Service and emigrate to the Rim Worlds.
At last I decided to write the book that would fill the gap between his two careers. I didn’t even have to think up a plot; there was one readymade. All that I did, essentially, was to retell the story of Bligh and the Bounty. The only real difference between real life and fiction was that Bligh survived his mutiny and went on to become, in the fullness of time, a rear admiral in the Royal Navy. Grimes—considerably less vindictive in his dealings with the mutineers than Bligh was—was obliged to make a fresh start.
I thought th
at I had filled the gap with The Big Black Mark but readers were not slow to tell me that I had done nothing of the kind. And not only readers . . . If anybody is to be blamed for the third Grimes series—Grimes, Survey Service drop-out, yachtmaster, owner-master, still to make his way to the Rim Worlds—it is Hayakawa Publishing of Tokyo. A few years back that company purchased Japanese paperback rights to all the Rim Worlds novels then in print. They had the bright idea of publishing these in the correct order insofar as Grimes’ biography was concerned starting off with The Road To The Rim. Before they got around to printing The Big Black Mark they were demanding a direct follow-up to this book.
For various reasons the sequence in the U.S.A. has, once again, gotten out of order. Star Courier has been published by DAW before The Far Traveller (the novel, that is, not the Analog novelette). At the moment of writing I can report that To Keep The Ship, the follow-up to Star Courier, has been purchased by DAW and Hayakawa but not yet by my usual publishers in London.
Then there is the Kitty And The Commodore series, the first episode of which will be appearing in Isaac Asimov’s. In this the somewhat elderly Commodore Grimes tells stories of his misspent youth to one Kitty Kelly who produces a programme called Kitty’s Korner for Station Yorick, on Elsinore. Other episodes will be written between novels.
Looking over the above few paragraphs I realised that I made the transition from shipmaster and part-time writer to full-time writer. But the transition still is not complete. I would class myself now as part-time shipmaster and full-time writer. Since my retirement, I seem to have been spending quite a lot of my time in charge of laid-up ships and have been referred to as the Union Steam Ship Company’s Commodore Baby Sitter. These last pages, as a matter of fact, are being written aboard out of commission vessel.
So far—like Grimes—I have been lucky. The first baby-sitting job ended just before the Aussiecon, the second shortly prior to my trip to the U.S. to attend the Expo-That-Wasn’t, the third immediately before the QCon Brisbane. All being well I should be free to make a trip to Japan to meet my publishers and readers later this year.
Gateway to Never (John Grimes) Page 62
