Kleber's Convoy

by Antony Trew

  Three of the four Avengers were recovered but there was no sign of Red Three. No word had come from her since she’d reported on the ice-edge and weather north of Bear Island. It was more than an hour later that the VHF loudspeaker on Vengeful’s bridge relayed repeated calls from Red Three to Fidelix. These were answered by the carrier, but the Avenger was not receiving Fidelix’s VHF signals due either to a defect in the aircraft’s VHF receiver or the weather. This posed a tragic but not unfamiliar problem. If Fidelix switched to long-range VHF, German tracking stations on the Norwegian coast would pick up the signals and by means of cross-bearings plot the position of the convoy. The secret of the diversionary routing would be out. The Vice-Admiral had to decide between risking the lives of the Avenger’s aircrew or hazarding the convoy. In a sense the decision made itself. No action could be taken which might help the enemy intercept JW 137. The Avenger and its crew would have to get within short-range VHF of the convoy unaided or come down in the cold wastes of the Arctic.

  Getting no response to its calls, the distant voice in Red Three, a very young one it sounded to Redman, took on a note of desperation.

  ‘We’re lost, and cannot read you,’ it said. ‘Please give us a bearing on W/T frequency.’

  The Avenger carried a telegraphist/air gunner and powerful W/T equipment. Technically, Fidelix could have switched to Red Three’s W/T frequency and thus have enabled the lost aircraft to obtain the vital bearing, but to do so would have given away the position of the convoy. Red Three’s only hope now was to carry out a square search. If fuel and weather permitted she might find the convoy.

  On three more occasions the calls for help were repeated. The last message was abbreviated. ‘Please answer,’ pleaded the worried young voice. ‘Just one quick bearing. No more.’

  Tension had been building up in Redman, his imagination stretched by tired nerves. The last message was too much for him. ‘For Christ’s sake.’ He struck the bridge-screen with his gloved fist. ‘For Christ’s sake. This bloody war.’ With that he left the bridge, on it a shocked first-lieutenant He, too, had been upset by the Avenger’s messages, but one just didn’t give way to that sort of emotion. It was bad for the men on the bridge. It was the captain’s duty to set an example of resolution. After all, reflected the first-lieutenant, we’re at war. Addressing no one in particular, he remarked with a note of cheerfulness he didn’t feel. ‘Well. We’ve shot down three of theirs. And they now don’t know where JW 137 is.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ agreed the yeoman respectfully. The signaiman-of-the-watch added under his breath, ‘Nor do the poor bastards in Red Three.’

  The attack by the German torpedo-bombers did not materialise, but the gale did. It came with sudden violence from the north-east bringing snowstorms which so reduced visibility that ships in the convoy had difficulty in seeing their next ahead. JW 137 was now steaming almost directly into wind and sea and its speed of advance was down to four knots.

  Throughout that day the gale blew relentlessly and storms of snow and sleet deepened the Arctic darkness, laying a screen over the convoy which protected it from attacks by bombers or submarines.

  In the escort carrier’s wardroom absence of the Wildcat pilot and the crew of Red Three was noticed but not remarked upon.

  At 1915 that evening the Vice-Admiral ordered an alteration of course to the south-east and the convoy performed a ninety-degree wheel to starboard. Under normal conditions this was a difficult manœuvre for merchant ships at night. In a north-easterly blizzard in Arctic darkness, with the master of each ship struggling to keep contact with his next ahead, the problems were magnified many times. Unlike their escorts, the merchant ships were without radar.

  Nevertheless the wheel was successful, the close escorts shepherding back into station those ships which lost contact, and convoy JW 137 settled down on its new course. It would take the convoy sixty miles south of Bear Island which lay just over one hundred miles to the north-east.

  With the gale now on its port beam, JW 137 staggered and rolled through freezing darkness towards the Barents Sea.

  The alteration of course was not without its vicissitudes for Vengeful. As port wing ship she was on the outside of the turn and had to sweep round in a wide arc, increasing speed to keep in station with the other ships of the outer screen. This involved taking a considerable battering from the weather: seas had jumped the breakwaters and flooded her messdecks forward; in the engine-room an artificer (ERA) had been struck on the head by a fire extinguisher jerked from its rack by violent movement; and the flash screen to B gun, the forward four-inch, had been buckled by a heavy sea.

  After the first-lieutenant had reported that the fighting efficiency of the ship was not impaired, and the doctor that the ERA was in the sick bay with concussion, Redman went down to his sea-cabin.

  But Vengeful’s wild rolling and pitching made rest, let alone sleep, impossible. To stay in the bunk he had to curl up, lie on his side and wedge himself between bunkboard and bulkhead. This required an exertion of pressure which could not be maintained asleep so, dog-tired, he gave up the unequal struggle, got off the bunk, pulled the anorak hood over his head and went to the bridge where the first-lieutenant and Groves were on watch.

  ‘Can’t sleep in this,’ he explained.

  ‘Bloody, isn’t it, sir.’ The first-lieutenant was customarily cheerful.

  Redman grunted and they were silent for a time, together in the darkness, holding on to the bridge-rail, sheltering as best they could from snow, sleet and douches of freezing spray which swept the ship. Behind them the wind shrieked through the rigging, a continuous piercing shrill of such intensity that it hurt the eardrums and inhibited speech.

  They stood by the PPI, the first-lieutenant at times ordering adjustments of course and speed to keep Vengeful in station. Groves, the sub-lieutenant, was at one of the spinning clear-view screens looking ahead into a wall of darkness where he saw only the pictures of his thoughts. They were of his last leave and a land girl in Somerset. He was reliving those days, part romantic, part erotic, worrying and wondering. Wondering if she was thinking of him, what she was doing at that moment, trying to remember her smile and the sound of her voice. Wondering if she was being faithful and worrying about that. There was a lot of competition. The farm where she worked was near a US Air Force base. She used to tease him with stories of crazy parties with glamorous US fighter pilots. She would imply enough to make him jealous, then protest that infidelity was something of which she was incapable He wondered if she didn’t protest too much.

  The first-lieutenant, too, was thinking of a girl: Susan, a third-officer Wren in Greenock, who came from Blandford in Dorset where his family lived. He had wanted to tell the captain of their plans and this seemed the moment, even if it did mean having to more or less shout the news.

  ‘We’re announcing our engagement next time in, sir,’ he said.

  Who’s we?’

  ‘Susan and me, sir.’

  ‘Susan?’ said Redman doubtfully. ‘Which Susan?’

  ‘Susan Blake. The girl in FOIC’s cypher office.’

  ‘Ah. You mean Susie. The dark girl with grey eyes and nice teeth.’

  The first-lieutenant thought she had a lot more than grey eyes and nice teeth but he said, ‘Yes. That’s her, sir.’

  ‘Too good-looking for you, Number One.’

  ‘D’you really think so, sir?’ The darkness hid the first-lieutenant’s lop-sided grin.

  ‘Yes, I do. Can’t imagine what she sees in you.’

  ‘She thinks I’m fabulous, sir.’

  ‘You must have shot her a hell of a line, Number Orte,’

  ‘I did, sir. Terrific one.’

  There was another silence. Redman felt his way across to the chart-table, thrust his head and shoulders in under the canvas screen and switched on the light. He was not looking at the chart. It was an excuse to break off the conversation. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Later he switched off the light and sto
od at the bridge-screen, away from the PPI. The first-lieutenant’s news had taken his thoughts back over the years to Marianne.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was in Avignon, having finished his work in the Languedoc, that Redman decided to go to Paris. There had been a business excuse, but the real reason was a sudden irrational desire to see Marianne. He telephoned his uncle, said he’d completed the tour of the Languedoc vineyards and would return via Paris where he would look up Lefevre the wine-shipper. He’d added that he’d like to take a few days’ leave there. His uncle had agreed and the next day Redman caught the train for Paris.

  He’d not seen Marianne since the summer of 1938 when she and Hans had stayed at his aunt’s house in East Horsley. It had been a splendid week. He’d liked Hans and found his sister attractive. He and the girl enjoyed the same things, shared the same tastes. Like long rambling walks through Ranmore Forest and along the rim of the downs, a preference for the country as against the town, for comedy rather than tragedy. They talked endlessly, laughed a lot, he helped her over stiles and fences, held her hand and kissed her when the opportunity occurred, which was not often because Hans was so often there. Redman was much aware of the difference in their ages: she nineteen, he twenty-nine. For this reason, though she attracted him, he’d not taken her seriously. Afterwards they’d exchanged letters at increasingly long intervals and in time he’d accepted that she was nothing more to him than a friend abroad. A foreign girl he liked.

  At the end of the year she’d written to suggest he might spend a week at her parents’ house outside Frankfurt. Hans would be there. But it had not been possible. Redman had only recently left the Royal Navy to go into his uncle’s wine business and there was little prospect of getting to Germany at that time. In any event he was no admirer of the Third Reich and the idea of visiting Germany – much as he liked Marianne and Hans-was distasteful.

  That Christmas she wrote to say she was going to Paris in the New Year to study art. She gave him an address. Asked him to write when he had time.

  He’d not warned her that he was coming and her surprise when she saw him that afternoon waiting at the gates of the Ecole des Beaux Arts was unfeigned and delightful. She’d left a group of chattering students and rushed across the courtyard calling, ‘Francis, Francis,’ as if she feared he’d not seen her. When she reached him she panted, ‘What are you doing here?’ Her eyes were wide with amazement.

  He’d laughed. Explained that he’d come to Paris to see her, and she’d said, ‘Is that true? Do you really mean that?’ And he’d said, ‘Yes, of course I do.’ She’d taken his hand and squeezed it affectionately. ‘Oh, that’s marvellous. I’m so happy.’

  The few days of leave had run into a week and might well have been more but for a caustic telegram from his uncle. The time in Paris had been the happiest he’d ever known. By the third day he realised he was in love and life took on a new dimension. In the mornings and afternoons he would explore the Left Bank in a leisurely unplanned way. Always they would meet for lunch, most often at a little restaurant near the wrought-iron gates at the foot of the Rue des Beaux Arts. After lunch she would return to the art school and they would meet again in the later afternoon at the Café Royale in the Place St Germain. Each night they would sample a new restaurant. Usually she made the choice, and it would be small and inexpensive but the food good. ‘We students know where to go’ she would explain. ‘We have to. We cannot afford the other places.’

  Lovely lazy spring days followed each other all too quickly and, inevitably, what was for Redman an idyllic existence had to end. He remembered every moment of the day before his departure. They’d walked down the Boulevard St Germain arm in arm, past the Odéon Métro station, the Seine out of sight on their left. She was strangely quiet and when they crossed streets and he took her hand she clasped his tightly as if afraid to let it go. It was a warm evening in late April. Trees not yet in leaf stood gaunt and bare against grey buildings. ‘They need only a tricolor to make an Utrillo,’ she’d said. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Nature’s catching up.’

  She made a moue. ‘You know what I mean, you awkward Englishman.’

  They’d gone into a bistro and he’d ordered a Pernod and she citron and perrier water. She remained silent and preoccupied. He chided her and she smiled, looking at him with limpid affectionate eyes. ‘Don’t worry. It’s nothing.’ She squeezed his hand to reassure him. ‘Let’s move on. I feel restless.’

  So they’d strolled on, turned left into the Boul’ Miche and gone down to the Place St Michel. They’d looked at displays in the little journal kiosks and played a game, guessing the number of countries represented by the papers and periodicals on display, then counting them. She’d taken him into the Church of St Séverin, and they’d wandered about its beautiful ambulatory, discussed the stained-glass window beyond the altar. Why was it cubist whereas all the other windows were orthodox theological? They had seen people praying in the chapels. Wondered about them. The sad young woman. What was she praying for? Sick child? Erring husband? And the old woman? Perhaps easier to guess in her case. He remembered the quiet rather humble mood in which he and Marianne had left the church because they’d had nothing in particular to pray for. It was a gorgeous spring evening and they were in love.

  Later Marianne complained that she was tired and they’d gone to a little restaurant off the Rue St Séverin, attracted there by stands of lobsters, prawns and mussels glistening under the light of a street lamp. Inside it was dim, and flickering ships’ lanterns, fishermen’s nets, glass buoys, cork floats and ropework gave it character. They’d eaten fish soup and mussels, drunk Muscadet, and talked in subdued voices, touching each other, sometimes laughing, sometimes sighing.

  When the bill came she was shocked. ‘I don’t like to see money thrown about like that,’ she’d said. There was so much poverty. Did he not know? Realize that it was wrong? He’d learnt in that week that she was a radical. Filled with compassion, eager to change society, to remove the inequalities. He argued for the status quo but had to give up. He could get nowhere. On this they were too far apart. His thinking had been conditioned by Dartmouth and seventeen years in the Royal Navy. ‘You are a Junker,’ she’d said, eyes flashing, nose wrinkling in disapproval. ‘You believe in the status quo. In class distinction.’

  He shook his head. ‘Your trouble, Marianne, is an overdose of Left Bank ideology,’ At that point they’d decided not to spoil their last evening together.

  The meal finished, they’d gone down to the Pont St Michel and walked back along the Seine, stopping at the print stalls on the Quai des Grands Augustins, chatting to the owners. They moved on and there was another long silence when neither said what was on their minds. Tomorrow would be the last day.

  At ten o’clock she began to shiver and complain of the cold. Said she was tired. They took a taxi to the Rue des Beaux Arts. It stopped outside the small apartment house in which she had a room. He paid it off and for a moment they stood on the pavement looking at each other.

  She asked him if he’d like to see her room. She’d never done that before. On other nights he’d taken her to the front door and she would fish in her bag for a key. Then she’d unlock the door and, very tenderly, they would say good night. He would kiss her and she would go in, turning and waving before running upstairs.

  He would walk a few blocks, then take a taxi or the Métro back to his hotel off the Place Vendôme. Before falling asleep he would think of the time they’d spent together during the day. He would go over everything they’d said and done and make mental notes of things she’d said which, in retrospect, were not clear.

  Once they were sitting on a bench in the grounds of the Church of St Germain-des-Prés. It was a quiet peaceful place. Little lawns and flower-beds, chestnut trees putting out tentative leaves, tangled ivy on old stone walls beyond which traffic rolled unceasingly down the boulevard. He questioned her about something she’d said the night before.

  ‘You read into the
se things meanings which were never there,’ she said. ‘Then you question me as if you were full of suspicion. As if I had done wrong.’ She frowned and her cornflower blue eyes regarded him seriously.

  ‘It isn’t that,’ he said. ‘I do think over things you’ve said. They interest me. Then sometimes I wonder what you meant. The next day I ask you. It’s nothing more than that.’

  ‘For example?’

  ‘Like yesterday when I asked if you loved me and you said, “Give me time. How can I know?” And now I’ve just asked you what you meant by “How can I know?” You see, I’m so sure I love you, I wonder why you had to say “How can I know?”’

  She touched his arm and smiled, looked round quickly, kissed him. ‘I think I love you, Francis. But I have never been in love, so how can I know if this really is love? This is why I want time. Do you not understand?’

  But on that last night it had been different Without affectation or embarrassment she’d said, Would you like to see my room?’ and he’d said, ‘Yes, I would.’ They’d gone up the narrow creaking staircase together, synchronising their footsteps, laughing at each other with their eyes.

  She’d put down her things, given him the only chair, and made coffee on a hot-plate. They sat and talked and drank it, and afterwards he took her in his arms and kissed and caressed her and lifted her on to the bed. She’d not protested when he undressed her and afterwards she lay there and he saw how finely she was made, her arms crossed to conceal small breasts, her head turned away in a gesture of modesty.

  He asked her if she’d made love before. Quietly, seriously, she said, ‘Yes.’ His surprise had shown because he’d not expected that reply. He was a man with little experience of women, naïve and idealistic in his beliefs about them. Most of his adult life had been spent at sea, much of it on the China and West Indies stations. There had been the usual flirtations and an unsuccessful affair with a married woman. Nothing more.