A FLOCK OF SHIPS

by Callison, Brian

  *

  They left the Petty Officer and two rather uneasy ratings aboard the mouldering ship and, on the way back to the survey vessel, took the gleaming black and white pinnace on a complete circuit of the rusty, once-grey hull towering above them.

  As they rounded the great, overhanging stern they could still see the ship’s name and port of registration cut into the rounded steel plates of her counter: CYCLOPS ... LIVERPOOL.

  ‘It’s a long time since she last saw the Formby Light,’ said the Commander reflectively.

  *

  They cut sharply under the surprisingly modern flare of her bows and the First Lieutenant watched as the black shadowed line of the corroding starboard anchor cable ran quickly aft across the upturned faces of the Navymen. The once fine edge of her weed-trailing cutwater was twisted and distorted, with several rusted plates gaping wide at the seams.

  ‘Seems she was involved in some sort of collision,’ he observed to the impatient Commander.

  Which at least accounted for the slender hull being slightly down by the head; though it was still strange, because one would have thought that her chief engineer would have had time to trim his tanks in the placidity of that island lake.

  *

  Dinner was served rather later than usual in the survey ship’s wardroom that evening and, when her officers did eventually take their places round the table, the Commander’s seat remained vacant.

  Because the Commander was already sitting down in his own quarters, and the plate of finely-cut ham sandwiches slowly curled at the edges while the pot of untouched coffee beside him grew colder. Outside, the sun sank lower over the motionless, silent fleet of mutilated ghosts that had sat there since before the survey ship had been even a pensive twinkle in her builder’s eye.

  And the Commander sank lower in his solitary chair. And read, and read ...

  The Personal Log

  of

  Jonathan Kent

  Chief Officer

  M.V. Cyclops

  Voyage No. 13

  CHAPTER ONE

  I was eating a jam sandwich when the first ship of our group went down.

  At least I think it was jam, it was red and sticky like blood anyway. I wasn’t really enjoying it though—have you ever tried eating jam sandwiches at five-thirty in the morning in the South Atlantic? By the time the Third Mate has picked out the best of them around ten p.m. the evening before, then the Second has poked and prodded them during his middle watch and forgotten to put the lid back on the box when he’s finished, they’re more like curled up little wafer biscuits when it’s your turn. The only consolation was that, being Chief Officer, at least I had priority over Brannigan, the Fourth, and young Conway, who shared the four to eight watch with me.

  Stepping out through the chartroom door I stood chewing gloomily and looking around for a few moments. It was shaping up to be another hot, listless day, which was what you’d expect with us well into the Benguela Current and the coast of South West Africa nine hundred miles away on our port beam. The stand-by quartermaster was already rolling down the canvas bridge dodgers to allow what little breeze there was to fan the bridge, and I mentally thanked God that at least we had the advantage of a seventeen-knot passage to help create a wind.

  We were four ships altogether; all much faster than the normal 1941 convoy establishment, but that was because we were something special. I didn’t really know why, not then, but it was certainly an unusual set-up. Three freighters and an escort corvette, all modern and all capable of pushing at least nineteen knots—twenty even, once the engineers heard the dull thud of underwater charges rebounding off the hull. There’s nothing like a bit of explosive as an incentive for getting the best speed out of a ship.

  We were steaming in a sort of ‘L’ formation—my own ship, Cyclops, at the head of the ‘L’, with the Frenchman, Commandant Joffre, and our sister ship, Athenian, lying one thousand yards astern and steaming abreast with about six cables between them while, darting in and out of the group like a frustrated moth round a candle, little Mallard showed us with monotonous persistence just what an eleven-hundred-ton corvette could do in the way of tight, stern- skidding turns.

  I watched her morosely, thinking that was about all she could do—she didn’t have enough fire power to fight us, never mind the bloody Germans, with her single four-inch main armament! Even Cyclops had an antiquated 4.7 mounted on the poop aft and I felt some sympathy for Mallard since, while she had to be facing the enemy to fire, we could at least make fearsome if ineffective bangs while running away. Mind you, the early escort corvettes were almost purely designed for anti-submarine measures and, with the new Asdic gear and the twin rows of depth-charges on their after-decks, they were pretty well equipped for that.

  Our Junior Cadet, Conway, was hanging over the sand and canvas scrubbed teak rail of the starboard bridge wing. The backs of his knees looked very white under the slightly too long tropical shorts, and I noticed how the sun, reflecting up from the green-painted navigation light screen, threw a sickly pallor over his pale features. He was watching the skips of water as flying fish skimmed across the oily swell with an expression of youthful fascination. It was his first trip to sea, and four-winged fish that flew in the air for up to a quarter of a mile were still a source of constant wonderment to him.

  So were torpedoes—to me!

  I waved the drooping sandwich at him, ‘Maybe you’d like me to send Mister Brannigan below for a deck-chair, Conway?’

  He jerked as his mind came back to 1941. ‘Thanky ... er ... No, Sir. Sorry, Sir.’

  I looked grimly disapproving. ‘Just remember where you are, lad. This is the bridge of a ship in a war zone—not the aquarium at Blackpool.’

  He nodded silently. I noticed the big eyes under the drooping lock of fair hair and tried to smile a little more reassuringly. He was shaping up to be a good lad one day, but good lads got killed just as often as bad ones in a war at sea.

  ‘Flying fish will be there ten, twenty years from now for you to watch, Conway. If you miss one you’ll see the next. But torpedoes ...? They’re different! You only get one chance to sight them and, if you do, and God’s in an expansive mood, then you might, just might, get enough time to put your helm hard over and ...’

  But it seemed He wasn’t feeling so tolerant that morning. The column of dirty, yellow-stained water seemed to climb ever so slowly up the side of the Commandant Joffre, just abaft her tall, wire-stayed funnel. Nervous reflex made me bite another half moon out of the sandwich as I watched the spray reach its zenith and hang, suspended momentarily like a slow motion shot from some old film. It was a silent film, too, for a few eternal seconds. Nothing seemed to mar the noiseless passage of the four ships through the whispering sea, yet I knew that great mushroom of atomised water just shouldn’t be there. Then the clap of the explosion rumbled across the thousand-yard gap and the Frenchman’s funnel jetted a high spurt of white steam as she started to swing broadside, out of control, right across the bows of Athenian.

  I didn’t wait to see any more.

  My deck shoes pounded across the coir matting of the wheelhouse as I threw myself at the telegraphs. The brass handles felt surprisingly cold as I grasped them and, swinging them fore and aft, gave two rings for ‘Full ahead both.’ This was our emergency full speed warning and, while perhaps I should have waited for Mallard’s instructions, I wasn’t going to leave room for regrets while I sat on a wet backside in a lifeboat— if I ever made it to one in the first place.

  Before the answering jangle had come from below I was slamming my palm against the engine room phone buzzer. I heard the metallic clack as it was ripped off its hook sixty feet below me. ‘Engine room! Second speaking!’

  The shocked white face of the quartermaster at the wheel stared at me as I answered, ‘The Mate here. I want full revolutions immediately, Bert. Open her right up. Check?’

  The voice sounded tinny and distant. ‘Aye, aye, John ... was that a torpedo, f’r Ch
rist’s sake?’

  I nodded at the phone, ‘The Froggie.’

  ‘We guessed as much, it seemed to come from the starboard quarter.’

  I wasn’t surprised they’d heard it, an explosion like that must have sounded to the white boiler-suited men below like being in a metal dustbin when someone was hitting it with cymbals. It wasn’t the time for chat, though. ‘I want you standing-by on the platform for manoeuvring down there, Second.’

  ‘I’ll adjust the governors ...’

  I slammed the hand set down with a crash and blew down the voice pipe to the Old Man’s quarters while, under my feet, I could feel the vibration increase as the engines built up the revolutions. Somewhere behind me something started to rattle irritably. Impatiently holding the brass bell of the pipe to my ear, I took a swift glance at McRae, the helmsman. He looked scared and I didn’t blame him.

  ‘Just keep her steady as she goes, McRae,’ I said, still waiting anxiously for the Captain to answer. ‘Be on your toes for helm orders though, we might have to do a bit of dancing.’

  He smiled weakly, ‘Jus’ like at the Palais.’

  I didn’t smile back; it wasn’t that funny anyway. Then the Old Man charged up the port ladder, still shedding shaving soap from a half-finished toilet like an angry dandelion in a high wind. I shoved the voice pipe back in its brass clip and stepped aside.

  Captain Evans was stark naked except for his gold-braided cap—and the shaving soap. Obviously the U-boat had picked an inconvenient time to introduce itself. I suppose I must have looked a bit startled as I stared at the Old Man, noting detachedly how his red beefy face and tanned bull neck faded away into a bleached expanse of snowy skin under matted black hair. Ship’s masters never sunbathe of course, but then, neither does God, I suppose, and they are more or less on a par.

  Somehow I’d never imagined Evans would shave in the nude. It seemed a bit obscene and disloyal even to think about him like that and I was glad he’d had the time to put his cap on to maintain decency, what with Brannigan and young Conway and McCrae staring at him out of the corners of their eyes. Or maybe he shaved with his hat on every day?

  ‘The Captain’s trousers will be in his cabin, Conway,’ I murmured discreetly as I turned to follow the Old Man’s gaze aft.

  *

  The sunlight reflecting from the water sprinkled the grey hull of the Commandant Joffre with dancing patches of light as she lay tiredly over on her side. The two deck cargo railway engines, stopped down to rails welded on her foredeck, leaned right over at a crazy angle never allowed for by their designers. It was the only length of permanent way they were ever going to settle on, and not for much longer at that judging by the way the wire lashings must have been humming under the impossible strain of arresting over one hundred tons deadweight.

  The boats on her port side were the only ones they could hope to use owing to the list, and we could see a cluster of gnome-like figures mobbing round her davits, looking like orange hunchbacks in their bulky kapok life-jackets. The steam from the funnel had died to a trickle, but she was on fire round her number four hold, with the thick, oily smoke climbing almost vertically into the clear blue sky.

  Suddenly I remembered Athenian, our Company sister ship, and swung quickly round, looking for her. Somehow they’d managed to shave past the careering Frenchman and there she was now, drawing up on our port quarter. The 4.7 on her poop was already manned by her D.E.M.S. crowd, and the long barrel glared wickedly, if a bit pointlessly, out over the empty, burning sea. They were really pushing hard in her engine room judging by the way the white foam belched and tumbled under her rounded counter—she was going like a bomb, to use an unfortunate phrase under the circumstances. I grinned a bit to myself, despite the tension. It reminded me of the story I’d heard last time in about the Wellington that landed with a fused thousand-pounder still stuck in her bomb bay— the truck that hurried the crew away from the scene at top speed was overtaken by an L.A.C. on a bicycle.

  Athenian was a beautiful ship though, almost as smart as my own, and, as she swept up abeam of us, a figure raised a hand from her bridge. I waved back. It was Bill Henderson, her First Mate and my opposite number. We loved each other like brothers, Bill and I, apart from an occasional twinge of professional jealousy, and I hoped nothing was going to happen to the second-best ship in the Company. Not with Bill aboard her.

  Conway arrived panting with the Old Man’s shorts and, as Evans struggled into them, Mallard cut across and under our bows with heart-stopping elan, making the Old Man growl angrily under his breath: ‘Bugger all week-end bloody sailors!’

  She still looked damned good though as she creamed along our side, in between the two cargo liners which dwarfed her. The long sleek forefoot dipped into the slight swell and the white bone in her teeth rose nearly to a level with the foc’slehead as she raced past. We could still hear the clamour of her attack alarm system, while steel-helmeted ratings moved swiftly and methodically around the thin shield of the foredeck gun, their white anti-flash hoods giving them the sinister appearance of avenging monks. Aft, her White Ensign streamed out over the boiling wake and the sub-­lieutenant in charge of the depth-charge crew raised a hand in salute. A solitary white cap cover defiantly caught the sun among the cluster of steel helmets on her postage-stamp bridge and I guessed it belonged to our escort commander, Lieutenant Commander P. Braid. RN, otherwise laughingly known as Comescort. The Old Man and I had grinned when he heard them use that description first; it seemed a very grandiose title for a corvette captain sheep-dogging three freighters. In that case, Evans had remarked, with him being senior master, that sort of made him Comconvoy.

  The Aldis spluttering from her bridge was obviously operated by a yeoman who held the signalling capabilities of the merchant navy in low esteem. It was so slow it was insulting. Mind you, it did also mean that our junior mates could read it first time without having to request a repeat. Brannigan spelled it out as the Old Man finished making fast the cavernous pair of shorts.

  ‘COMESCORT TO MASTER CYCLOPS: REPEAT TO MASTER ATHENIAN ... MAINTAIN PRESENT COURSE AND FULL EMERGENCY REVOLUTIONS ... U BOAT NOW PRESUMED ABAFT YOUR BEAM AND UNABLE TO MAKE FURTHER ATTACK ... NO ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE TO PICK UP SURVIVORS COMMANDANT JOFFRE REPEAT NO ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE TO PICK UP SURVIVORS SIGNED BRAID END.’

  I stared at Brannigan in horror. ‘Sure you got that right, Four Oh? They aren’t going to pick up the Frenchies?’

  His face was very white. ‘Yes, Sir. Positive.’

  I swung round on the Old Man. ‘The yellow bastard. We can’t leave them out here, nine hundred miles from anywhere.’

  Evans looked back at the Commandant Joffre. The way was right off her now and she was lying almost flat on her side, slightly down by the head. We could see a swirl of white foam against the sluggishness of the encroaching sea as the foc’sle windlass broke surface, otherwise the oily placidity of the water was uninterrupted until it curled sullenly round the near vertical steel hatch coamings.

  Some poor bloody sailor was still left standing on the top side of the spindly funnel, masked occasionally by the swirls of steam that trickled from it, while two boats were sculling frantically in the shadow of the dead hull like grey water-beetles, overloaded with survivors. Suddenly I tensed. The boats were splashing fruitlessly and apparently aimlessly, instead of pulling straight away from the bulk of the dying freighter. Something was terribly wrong.

  I groped for the Barr and Stroud 10 x 50’s in the binocular box at my hand and lifted them, feeling a little sick. Those boats should have been well away by now, fighting for distance between them and the inevitable suction as thousands of tons of water poured into the cavity that would be left when the Commandant Joffre finally went. Instead they were paddling round in panic-stricken circles and getting nowhere fast. It was lunacy.

  Then my nervous fingers found the knurled ranging wheel and the powerful lens fused into sharp focus. I found out why they were putting up such a pathetic attemp
t at self- survival—and it wasn’t anything to do with Gallic excitement.

  The French ship was lying with her great masts almost brushing the water. I could make out the heavy forward jumbo derrick gear as it dangled ridiculously in the slight swell like some gigantic black-varnished fishing rod. Between the mastheads, now only a few inches from the oil-scummed surface, stretched her heavy jumper stay and H.T. wireless aerial. Together, they combined to form an impenetrable fence—a sort of nautical corral—with the Frenchman’s lifeboats trapped in the middle. They were trying to escape, though, with the desperation of the damned. One boat had nosed up to the stay and a gnome jerked frantically as he chopped at the heavy cables.

  ‘Bastards!’ I whispered bitterly, not really knowing if I meant the U-boat crew, the corvette’s exec’s or even the poor bloody Frogs and their pathetic attempts to save themselves.

  Evans apparently thought I meant Mallard. ‘Braid has his orders, Mister Kent—to get us through to Adelaide, no matter what. If he stopped to pick up the Frenchmen he’d be a sitting target for the bugger that hit her. They’re still out there somewhere, still watching and waiting ... and hoping we’re heroic-minded enough to put humanity before common bloody sense.’

  I watched as Mallard performed another of her tail wags round the far side of the stricken ship, then came racing back dangerously close to the lopsided masts like an excited dog that’s just recovered his master’s walking-stick. Something splashed over her stern and, for one horrifying moment, I had the impression that she was depth-charging the area where the boats were, then I saw they were heaving over Carley Floats and yellow survival packs. Seemingly, Comescort Braid had it figured the same as me—that if any crewmen survived the inevitable massacre when the freighter sank, then they wouldn’t have any boats left to swim to.