A FLOCK OF SHIPS

by Callison, Brian

  The other strong-room cargo was veiled in considerably greater mystery. Referred to on the manifest simply as ‘Confidential Bags. Safe Hand. By British Master Only’, the three locked and lead-sealed bags had been brought aboard just as the gangway was being shipped and hustled up forward to be placed in the steel chamber under the foc’sle. The two Naval officers delivering them had seemed extremely relieved at the handing-over proceedings under the wet glare of our shaded cargo lamps, but I hadn’t thought much about it at the time. I was more interested in the excessive number of dockside longshoremen hanging about with apparently only casual glances at the ship but, at the same time, possessing an undefinable military bearing out of keeping with what they appeared to be.

  Were these weighted bags the reason for our odd convoy set-up? For our having at least a token escort all to ourselves while many forty- and fifty-ship convoys had to make do with one warship per every eight or ten vessels?

  ‘Those confidential bags?’ I queried, looking suspiciously at the Old Man.

  He nodded. ‘I don’t know what the security position is, John, but as you’re my senior officer I feel I’m justified in explaining just what we have up forr’ad.’

  Stepping with rather dramatic secrecy to the chartroom door he checked to make sure we were out of earshot. Over his shoulder I could see the flutter of a White Ensign as Mallard made another of her periodic, death-defying dashes under our looming, predatory bows, the ping of her Asdic audible even at this distance across the silent sea. ‘She’s going to do that once too bloody often,’ I muttered to myself as Evans came back in and, removing his cap with the trimming of gold brain round the peak, used the hankie to wipe the leather sweat band inside.

  He looked at me with a funny, sad expression in his eyes that I couldn’t explain. ‘You know that Hesperia passed us a few weeks ago, off Cape Finisterre, when we were homeward bound from our last trip?’

  I remembered all right. It had been during my early morning watch when we’d seen her heading towards us out of the grey spindrift of the Bay. Biscay had been at her bloodiest that time, with great green and white-flecked waves rearing high over the foc’sle-head like greedily clutching fingers. Hesperia was another of the Company’s fast cargo liners built, like us, just before this war had started. She’d scudded past us, going like a bat out of hell, outward bound to somewhere unknown, with the Red storm Ensign streaming out from her stern in tattered pennants and the long, flared bows crushing tons of water into flying gouts of spray which curled viciously aft over the plunging bridge and superstructure. Her Aldis had flickered through the ochre morning light. CAN OFFER YOU A TOW OR WOULD YOU PREFER US TO HEAVE TO AND WIND UP YOUR ELASTIC BANDS AGAIN SIGNED CLINT CHIEF OFFICER END.

  I had grinned despite the rain which had found its way under my oilskins and the towel round my neck. Eric Clint, Bill Henderson and I had been cadets together in twenty-eight, on the China run, and no three human beings could have loved each other more than we did. I signalled back,

  SORRY BUT WE THOUGHT YOU WERE ALREADY HOVE TO SIGNED KENT CHIEF OFFICER END.

  The last I’d seen of Hesperia was her high rounded stern being swallowed by the low overcast, and the signal lamp still flickering forlornly from her bridge. JUST PLAYING IT SAFE JOHN KNOWING YOU WERE DRIVING SIGNED ERIC A PROPER CHIEF OFFICER END.

  Two minutes later she was out of sight and the tumbling seas had erased all traces of her passing. He’d always been one for having the last word, had Eric.

  ‘I remember. She was outward bound and going like the clappers,’ I said.

  Evans bit his lip nervously. ‘She was reported lost with all hands three days later, John. I’m sorry. You were a friend of her Mate’s, weren’t you?’

  I stared at him dazedly, feeling a sick knot compacting in my stomach. Eric gone? I couldn’t accept it. Not Eric Clint? Oh, Jesus, the bloody, bloody War. The Old Man frowned in embarrassment at the chart and fiddled awkwardly with the parallel rules. ‘I knew Tom Everett, her master,’ he murmured quietly. ‘He is ... was ... little Julie’s Godfather.’

  Julie was the Old Man’s nine-year-old daughter and the apple of his rather fierce eye. I knew how he felt, too. We were all of one family in the Company, most of us had sailed with each other at some time in the past. We hadn’t been at war long enough to harden ourselves to the realisation that we were going to lose a lot of friends before it was over. But big Eric Clint? I wondered whether Bill Henderson knew yet, over on Athenian.

  ‘What ... what had Hesperia got to do with us, Captain? Why should her being sunk affect our voyage?’

  ‘Because we’re carrying the replacement information that she should already have arrived with in Adelaide, John.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Those bags in the strong-room contain all the current Notices to Mariners, giving the very latest information on minefields and swept areas, the new Naval code conversion tables for masters, full details of convoy routes and procedures. Without them every ship leaving Aussie and what we have left of the Far East will have to play it strictly by ear, and you know that can be bloody dangerous. Until we get through there could be perhaps fifty, even a hundred ships a day leaving port without proper information.’ He looked at me very hard and I shifted uncomfortably. ‘Some of them will be sunk through the lack of it! Hesperia would have been there in plenty of time, but she’s gone. Now it all depends on us. I’m not a religious man, John, but this is one time I’d even pray if I thought it would help any.’

  Well, if he wanted to pray, it was all right by me—I was quite happy to accept any help I could get. There were a few things still bothering me, though. I lit another Players and nervously sucked the smoke down into the back of my lungs. ‘What about Athenian, Sir? And the Commandant Joffre? Did they have the same cargo? And, if the Navy’s in such a goddamned hurry, why don’t they fly it out?’

  He shook his head. ‘The Admiralty can’t afford to take any chances. Aircraft can be shot down, their contents are more liable to capture. I understand there are duplicate copies being shipped independently of us, just in case, but the other ships in this particular group aren’t of vital importance.’ He dropped his eyes, ‘Athenian and the Frenchman are—were—well, they’re here to spread the selection slightly. To give us at least a one-in-four chance of not being picked as the primary target. Any U-boat sighting us would at least be stuck for choice.’

  First, the news of Eric’s death, and now—This! I felt my anger flushing into my face. ‘Athenian’s just a bloody decoy, then? And the Frenchie? She went down so we could save a few days by travelling in a straight bloody line instead of taking reasonable evasive action?’

  Evans scratched his barrel chest uncomfortably. ‘Not so that we could save a few days—so that we could save a few ships. And the Commandant Joffre wasn’t just thrown away, man. She was still loaded with cargo that had to be shipped one way or another. Any merchantman rounding the Cape is at risk. Good God, even a zig-zag can bring you right into a sub’s range instead of taking you out of it.’

  I stared out at the little corvette, now skipping playfully abeam of us. Aft, a torpedoman moved among the rows of ready-armed depth-charges, seemingly unmoved by the knowledge that he was surrounded by tons of high explosive and that, in the event of Mallard’s being sunk, the water pressure acting on the charges would send the whole bloody lot up, back out of the Atlantic, as high as Cyclops’s mastheads.

  I pointed accusingly at her with the butt of the Players. ‘What about the Grey Funnel boat? Is she expendable too?’

  Evans’s face started to get red but he kept on trying to be nice. ‘She’s our escort, John.’

  I savagely ground my stub in the Company ashtray on the chronometer case. ‘Escort? That motorised skitter-bug? We’d be better off with a yellow bloody duck in a tin bath for an escort.’

  Now the Old Man was really getting needled. I could see it would be ‘Mister’ any moment now. Maybe he didn’t like the things that were happening either, but he had the sense to a
ccept them and not keep knocking every idea the Navy had.

  ‘All right, Mister Kent. If you must know ... Mallard’s not so much with us as an escort—we both know she can’t do much to protect us from submarines working on her own— she’s with us more to ensure that the enemy don’t get their hands on those confidential bags. If we are hit, Commander Braid is charged with the duty of trying to take the bags aboard Mallard. If there isn’t time, if the strong-room is inaccessible due to the ship being down by the head, say, or through any other reason, then he has orders to sink us himself!’

  I stared at the Captain. This was getting better and better. Not only were we carrying enough secret information to make us the target of every Kriegsmarine unit in the South Atlantic if they knew, but also, apparently, the Royal Navy were quite prepared to give them a hand with it, if convenient. I remembered Sparks’s thin, self-confident sneer at breakfast, and the contemptuous voice. ‘... Not me, Mister Mate. And I’ll get a proper signal off first, too. Don’t you worry!’ Well, I was worried now—bloody worried! And I had a sick premonition that Larabee was going to have the opportunity to prove himself.

  ‘What happens if the bags are captured, Sir?’ I asked without enthusiasm. ‘If Mallard’s sunk, and we’re boarded?’

  He looked at me very hard, the warning cone was being hoisted. ‘In that case we must make every effort to jettison them over the side, Mister. I repeat ... every effort and sacrifice!’

  ‘But if they are captured?’ I persisted, starting to feel bloody minded. ‘If there’s no one left on board to dump the goddamned things? What happens then? The whole idea’s crazy. The enemy will have enough information to sink every ship in the Eastern Hemisphere by appointme ...!’

  Evans slammed his fist down on the chart table savagely. I had pushed my luck too hard with him and, as the red weatherbeaten face glared at me angrily, I remembered my own reaction to young Conway’s display of little-boy pique that morning. Now I was in his position. We all had a superior to chew us out when we forgot ourselves. A ridiculous, almost forgotten childhood rhyme started running through my head. ‘Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them; And little fleas have littler fleas, and so ad infinitum.’ The particular flea on my back crammed the gold-braided cap on his head and stuck his jaw out ferociously.

  ‘If you don’t like it, Mister Kent, you can complain to the bloody Board of Trade! Until then you will carry out your duties as required by me, the master of this vessel. My orders are not that you should dedicate yourself to finding flaws in everything the Admiralty does, despite your seemingly unerring capacity for so doing.’

  He turned away and, reaching the chartroom door, hesitated. The stern features softened slightly. ‘I, myself, confess to a little disenchantment with the circumstances surrounding our present voyage, but I can, however, pride myself on my ability to carry out my duty as master of a British vessel. The Owners have dictated that I accept my instructions from the Royal Navy without demur, and this both I and my officers will continue to do.’

  He smiled suddenly and it was like the sun coming through a cloud. ‘Duty, Mister Kent, does not necessarily equate with common sense. But, if common sense prevailed over every decision, then perhaps we wouldn’t be at war?’

  I nodded silently, at the same time wondering how far Eric Clint would go along with that profundity—washing about face down in some anonymous patch of oily sea, his long blond hair floating like dead tentacles and the wreckage of his beloved Hesperia as an obscene shroud—A monument to ‘Duty.’

  The Old Man must have read the doubt still in my white face. ‘Don’t worry about the capture of the bags, John. Common sense still retains a foothold, even in Whitehall. In the event of our being unable to destroy the documents we are to attempt to get a signal off advising them ...’

  ‘Larabee fancies himself a bloody hero,’ I murmured sardonically.

  He didn’t catch the sarcasm. ‘... the Shipping Control people will, of course, immediately alter all codes, sea routes and so forth, rendering the majority of the captured intelligence useless. If we are ... er ...’

  ‘Sunk?’ I suggested brutally.

  ‘... sunk,’ he affirmed smoothly, ‘then they will pick up a message either from us or either Mallard or Athenian, wireless silence then being unnecessary. They will at least know that the documents are still out of enemy hands and they must hope to God the ships behind us get through. The plans will remain unchanged.’

  I didn’t like to risk appearing bloody-minded again—Evans in full battle rig was something to be avoided—but there was one thing I just had to know. The most obvious flaw in the whole proposition. ‘I’m sorry, Sir . but what happens if they don’t receive any call from us? If every ship in the group disappears without trace?’

  To my relief he smiled tolerantly. ‘It’s hardly likely, is it? I mean, for every ship here to just vanish into thin air without leaving any indication of what’s happened? But, to set your fertile mind at rest, if we don’t arrive on our E.T.A., and the Admiralty have no certain proof that we have taken the bags down with us, then they are to assume that the documents have been captured and act accordingly. I trust, Mister Mate, that the Royal Navy’s proposals have your approval?’

  He grinned fleetingly again to soften the sarcasm and stepped out into the glare of the sun washing over the bridge deck. I watched him go, then reached for the tin with the bearded Jack Tar on the label. Of course he was right. It was sheer fantasy even to imagine for one moment that three ships like ours could vanish without trace, leaving no evidence, no indication of the way of their passing. I mean - two ultra­-modern cargo vessels and a warship, all with wireless equipment capable of blasting the ears off the operators at Simonstown Naval Base who would be listening specifically for us? I must have been bloody crazy even to consider it.

  I lit up and felt a bit better.

  At least, I tried to convince myself I did.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We were forced to alter course still further to the west just as I was starting my soup course at dinner that evening.

  Charlie Shell, the Second Mate, was prodding doubtfully at his curried rice while bitterly bemoaning the trials and tribulations of being the only bloke on the ship who had to do a proper day’s work on account of his standing the graveyard watch seven nights a week—which struck me as being a bit of an Irishism for a start—when I noticed the stand-by quartermaster hanging nervously around the saloon doorway trying to catch Ling’s Oriental eye. The little steward finally consented to observe him and, after a bit of dramatic pidgin, came scuttling over. ‘Number Four Mate, he say Mister Kent go up along blidge, chop-chop.’

  I tried to console myself with the thought that the night was too hot and humid for soup anyway, and chop-chopped up to the bridge wondering what it was all about. As I hurried along the prom deck I didn’t note any feverish activity over on Mallard or the looming Athenian, so I assumed we couldn’t be under attack. As I swung up the ladder and into the wheelhouse I saw Brannigan deep in conversation with the elderly Mister Foley, our Chief Wireless Operator. He waved a signal form at me as I approached and I followed him out to the starboard wing.

  ‘Just picked up a triple-S call, Mate,’ Foley said, pushing his lined face forward to catch the stream of cool air flowing over the furled dodgers. It was a hot, airless little hole they had for a wireless room, perched as it was on the extreme after end of the boat deck.

  I grabbed the flimsy. ‘Position?’

  Sparks shrugged, looking apologetic. ‘He didn’t have time to finish. I managed to get a D.F. fix though. It was bloody loud. Couldn’t have been all that far away.’

  I glanced at the neatly pencilled letters, SSSS: MV KENT STAR TO ALL SHIPS ... TORPEDOED IN ENGINE SPACE WE ARE GOING POSIT ... My mouth set tight as I imagined that poor bastard operator clinging grimly to his key as he felt the ship laying over with him still aboard. They could hardly have had time to realise what had hit them though, not w
ith a garbled distress call like this as their only legacy.

  ‘Is that all you got, Alf?’

  He nodded and I caught a trace of whisky in his breath. ‘That’s all, Mate. Poor buggers must’ve gone down like a block of lead.’

  I started to walk towards the chartroom. ‘Nearly blew my earphones off,’ Foley said behind me. ‘Couldn’t have been more than forty miles away, not at that strength. D.F. bearing 358 degrees.’

  I stopped abruptly and stared at him, dead shattered. ‘You did say 358, Alf?’

  Then the Captain stumped up the ladder, fully dressed this time, and looked at the signal. I think the florid features went paler under the tan, but otherwise he didn’t even blink. ‘You didn’t manage to get her position then, Mister Foley?’

  ‘No, Sir,’ Alf answered uncomfortably, and I felt sorry for him and the inadequate way he waved his hands.

  ‘Mister Foley got a fix though, Sir,’ I said quickly. ‘Bearing 358, range approximately forty miles.’

  Evans looked up sharply. ‘My God!’ he said.

  Brannigan picked up the Aldis, ‘Escort’s signalling, Sir.’

  The Old Man didn’t glance at him. He just murmured, ‘I don’t want to know when she’s signalling, Mister Brannigan. I’m only interested in what she has to say.’

  ‘Aye, aye, Sir,’ the Fourth Mate muttered, pulling a face at old Foley as he turned away towards the flickering blip on the corvette’s bridge. Evans held the signal sheet up to me.

  ‘Seems you were right about our cutting it too fine, John,’ he conceded slowly.

  I nodded, but didn’t feel very pleased with my vindication. Radio direction finder bearings are obtained relative to the ship’s head only, which meant that Foley’s bearing on the sinking Kent Star was only two degrees to the left of our present course. At seventeen knots we would be within spitting distance of the sub which sank her within two hours. Unless we altered course again .