Battlecruiser (1997)

by Reeman, Douglas

  He was on his feet, although he did not recall having left the desk. He looked at the ship’s crest, an upraised double-edged sword surrounded by a victor’s laurels. And her motto, Gedemus Nunquam. We will never give in.

  It must have been in this same cabin where he had said goodbye to the captain of the day, the vice-admiral he had met at the funeral. Surely he was not that old . . . But then, all senior officers had seemed ancient to him in those days.

  There was a picture of the King in uniform, and several spaces left by others which had been removed recently. He glanced at a pile of boxes and packages, discreetly covered with a tartan rug near the door, the personal effects of his predecessor, Charles Cavendish. In a separate cardboard box was a photograph of Jane in a silver frame; the glass was broken. The captain’s steward had told him that Cavendish had always taken the picture to the upper bridge with him when the ship was at sea, in an oilskin bag. He had added as an afterthought, just in case.

  Sherbrooke held the photo to the desk light. The same poise, the candid eyes. The woman he had once hoped . . .

  He swung round. ‘Yes?’

  It was the steward, Petty Officer Arthur Long, doubtless nicknamed ‘Dodger’ by the members of the petty officers’ mess. The navy’s way. Long had been in the ship since she had recommissioned at the outbreak of war, and had already served two captains. Prematurely bald, with bent ears, he had the appearance of a mournful pixie. When Sherbrooke had asked if he would like to continue with the same duties, he had not even hesitated.

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  At first, Sherbrooke had wondered why he had accepted the job so readily. It would not be a soft number, with some captains.

  He was glad, nonetheless. All his new clothing, uniforms and shirts had been pressed and stowed away as soon as they had arrived: it seemed as though a part of him had already been here. Waiting, like the ship.

  Long paused in the doorway and regarded the tray, on a small table, still covered with a napkin. He shook his head sadly.

  ‘Won’t do, sir. They’ve just piped Rounds, an’ you’ve not eaten a scrap!’

  Sherbrooke sat down and glanced at his gleaming new pipe, and the tobacco pouch. He had used neither. He touched his face. Not since . . .

  ‘Sorry. I got a bit bogged down.’ He stared at the mass of books and ledgers, brought and sometimes removed by another face he would soon come to know. A chief petty officer writer, a dry, austere man, who had not once looked him in the eye.

  Another visitor had been Commander John Frazier, Reliant’s second-in-command, The Bloke, as he was known to wardroom and lower deck alike. Another one who seemed young for his rank, he had a serious, intelligent face, and Sherbrooke supposed that women would consider him very good-looking. He knew from his confidential file that Frazier had been due for a command of his own, but had remained instead with Cavendish for some reason. He might well be regretting it now, he thought.

  Long was saying, ‘Scrambled eggs, and a slice or two of bacon, sir. I’ll tell the chef.’ He almost winked. ‘He’s a mate of mine.’

  Suddenly Sherbrooke found that it sounded very appealing.

  Long was studying the tartan rug. ‘I’ll have this lot sent ashore tomorrow, sir. I’ll fix it with the baggage-master.’ He shook his head. ‘Very sad.’

  Sherbrooke looked penetratingly at him. He was obviously a man who knew more than he was telling, at this point, anyway. The broken photo glass. Not dropped, but smashed to fragments. Here, or in the adjoining sleeping cabin. Another secret.

  Long said, ‘Captain Cavendish used to fancy a Horse’s Neck when he got a spare moment, sir.’

  Sherbrooke looked away, troubled that it affected him so much, and afraid Long would notice it. ‘Yes. I remember now. I’ll have the same, please.’

  Long brightened as much as was possible. ‘Something similar. That’s the ticket, sir.’

  The glass suddenly appeared on the desk, and Long was gone, doubtless to see the chef, his mate.

  Sherbrooke sat down, and stared at the new jacket with its four bright gold stripes, the blue and white ribbon of the Distinguished Service Cross on the breast. He raised the glass, forcing himself to do it slowly. Had he died with the others, he would probably have been awarded a posthumous V. C.

  He switched off the desk lamp and opened the nearest deadlight, and, after a slight hesitation, unclipped the big polished scuttle. The cold air in his face was refreshing after the canned air of the elegant quarters he had inherited. But everything was so still . . . like being on dry land. Only occasionally he felt a slight tremor, like a nerve, some remote piece of machinery, perhaps a pump or generator inside this great hull. Thirty-two thousand tons, and almost eight hundred feet from flared bows to graceful stern. Even Reliant’s beam was over one hundred feet. A ship of war, a weapon, but she was more than these. She was a way of life to the men who served her from bridge to boiler room, from flag-deck to the ungainly Shagbat balanced on its catapult abaft the funnels, soon to be piloted by a young Canadian who said ‘gee’.

  Now, in the darkness, with the chill of salt air across his mouth, he had the sense of her, the powerful armament of six fifteen-inch guns, which could drop high explosive on a target twenty miles away at the rate of seven tons a minute. He touched the glass. If the target was obliging. And she had the power to do it. Turbines which could give her quadruple screws twenty-nine knots or more, and which could leave some modern destroyers astern. A battlecruiser, an idea, a dream which had ended at Jutland.

  He heard singing, and inclined his head closer to the scuttle to listen. One of the many motor fishing vessels, M.F.V.s, used as tenders by the fleet, this one carrying returning libertymen. A run ashore, too much to drink, with the hope of sneaking past the eagle eye of an officer-of-the-day or some hard-fisted petty officer. It was the sailor’s way. Tomorrow could wait.

  ‘Roll on the Nelson, the Rodney, Renown,

  This long-funnelled bastard is getting me down!’

  He slammed the scuttle and screwed down the deadlight. He had heard the libertymen singing much the same thing many times in Pyrrhus.

  He looked at the empty glass in his hand, as if he expected it to be trembling.

  At least Vincent Stagg had not been aboard when he had arrived. In London, The Bloke had informed him. Something important. It would be.

  But tomorrow Stagg would be flying back, no messing about with trains or other wartime delays. What would he be like now, he wondered. He was a man who had always been full of surprises, even as a lieutenant. Stagg had taken the appointment of flag lieutenant to an admiral with royal connections and little else to recommend him, while they had all pulled his leg for missing a chance at proper sea-duty.

  As he had been in London, it was strange that he had not turned up at the funeral of his own flag captain.

  He heard Long humming to himself, and the cheerful rattle of yet another tray.

  Tomorrow was Sunday. He examined his feelings. There would be Divisions; Reliant even carried her own chaplain, the Reverend Beveridge. Sherbrooke had already heard that he was nicknamed ‘Horlicks’ by the lower deck.

  It would be the first real test. All those faces, watching, assessing him, considering how they might be affected by the man who stood alone before them, under the scrutiny of thousands of eyes. And in the afternoon, the rear-admiral would come aboard.

  ‘Ready, sir?’

  Sherbrooke touched the ship’s crest. We will never give in. It was somehow apt.

  He looked at the tray. There was a bottle of wine on it, opened and ready.

  Long shrugged glumly. ‘From the wardroom, sir. Welcome aboard.’

  Sherbrooke sat down, and tried not to watch as the balding steward poured.

  It was a small thing: it might even have been only Frazier’s personal gesture. But to the new captain, as he raised his glass to the ship’s crest, it meant everything.

  Any visitor or guest in Reliant’s wardroom would usually rece
ive a first impression of size, and an austere dignity. But, like all ships of war, the wardroom had several personalities, rarely seen by strangers or the casual observer. Rowdy mess nights when the young bloods went wild, turning the place into a mock battlefield or practising field-gun drill, with chairs and anything else movable used to charge across tables laid down as barricades. The aftermath of huge mess bills and punishing hangovers acted as some deterrent, until the next time. Birthdays and engagements, toasts to scarcely remembered victories, and to lost friends too soon forgotten. And those other grim times at sea, when this same wardroom became a hospital for sick and wounded, men picked up from yet another butchered convoy. Men burned and poisoned with fuel oil, men without hope, and beyond fear. A different face.

  But Sunday in harbour showed the other side. It was, after all, rare enough.

  Officers who might be seen only occasionally, because of their varied watchkeeping schedules or their stations deep in the hull or behind armour plate, were free on this one day to meet and share an hour or so of normality: men who were scarcely recognizable in their best uniforms and dazzlingly clean white shirts, instead of the usual scuffed Wellington boots, grey flannel trousers, and old seagoing reefer jackets, with rank markings so tarnished and worn by salt and wind that they often looked like survivors themselves.

  The stewards, too, were different on Sundays, bustling around amongst the various groups with a quiet efficiency reminiscent of some pre-war hotel.

  One corner of the wardroom retained a semblance of privacy because of what appeared to be a curved pillar, like a partition. It was, in fact, the casing of a shell-hoist, which led directly from one of the lower magazines to a triple four-inch gun mounting on the after superstructure, far above the din of voices and the enclosing fog of pipe and cigarette smoke.

  Any member of the wardroom mess, no matter how senior or lowly, was entitled to sit anywhere he liked, except on special occasions. Officially, the mess was democratic. But this particular space, known to Reliant’s officers as The Club, was, unofficially, for the ship’s senior officers, the heads of departments, where they could sit, talk, drink and complain, without any chance of a word being overheard or misinterpreted.

  In a corner, close to a sealed scuttle, one armchair was occupied by Commander (E) Hugh Onslow, ‘the Chief’ as he was known here, as in most ships. He was a large, heavy man with a round, jowled face, and bushy eyebrows which were almost white. The face could be cheerful or angry as the occasion dictated but it was not one to cross at any time. The engine room department in any warship was separate from all the rest; exclusive, some might say; bloody-minded, others would describe it. In Reliant’s massive engine and boiler rooms, with their teams of stokers, artificers and mechanics, the Chief was like a god, and his word was law. Not only was he the most senior member of the mess, but he was the oldest man in Reliant’s company. He was quietly proud that he had, he said, come up the hard way.

  He glanced around at the crowded wardroom, and wondered briefly what their new orders would be. A vital convoy to protect, a bombardment somewhere, or perhaps another spell in Arctic waters in case Scharnhorst came out of her lair. He saw the commander, The Bloke, standing characteristically with feet apart, one hand in his reefer pocket, a drink in the other, while he listened to the ship’s chaplain, Beveridge, going on about something or other.

  The Chief signalled to a steward for a refill, and frowned. This was their third consecutive Sunday in harbour. It was too much, especially for the chaplain. It had gone completely to his head.

  This morning at Divisions, for instance. The lines and lines of seamen and Royal Marines, the stokers and the supply branch, gathered together to hear the Word. He wondered cynically if Beveridge really thought it did any good. Did he still not know that when the air rang to the well-known hymn, What a friend we have in Jesus, the old sweats, who were careful not to sing too loudly and alert their divisional officers, used their own version?

  ‘When this bloody war is over,

  Oh, how happy I shall be . . .

  No more queuing in the N.A.A.F.I.,

  No more waiting for my tea . . .’

  And then there had been that bit about Cavendish. The sad tragedy of it. Had Beveridge forgotten that many of Reliant’s people had lost relatives and friends, wives and girlfriends? Some had lost everything.

  He had studied the new captain, Sherbrooke, his features calm, and betraying nothing while he had stood before his ship’s company for the first time. They said he had been a friend of Cavendish’s, and in this ship, too. Onslow’s eyes moved to a framed photo of the battlecruiser as she had looked before the clutter of new weaponry, signals equipment, and the secret, invisible eye of radar with all its additional fittings. She was a beautiful ship, and still unspoiled by the modern box-like bridges they had built on other old veterans: she had even retained the original tripod mast, and the slightly raked line of her unmatched funnels.

  Everybody aboard above a certain rank had heard of Captain Guy Sherbrooke, but who really knew him? He had an introspective, attentive face, and when they had met, only briefly, Onslow had noticed the eyes. Blue, but not hard like some, and not cold. Eyes that did not forget. Or did not want to forget . . .

  The steward said, ‘Gin, sir.’

  He grunted. A good lunch shortly, but no nap afterwards. His department was on top line, and his staff knew what was expected of them. All the same, like other heads of department, he would probably go round and check a few items before the great man returned on board sometime this afternoon.

  He thought of Sherbrooke’s impassive features while Beveridge had been droning on, and wondered how he felt about Stagg. Reliant had always been a very pusser ship, even in peacetime, and without an admiral’s flag.

  He looked across at the commander. His glass was empty, but his position and expression were unchanged.

  He knew that Frazier had been offered a command of his own. He was good; for one so young, better than most. He would make a competent skipper anywhere. But he had stayed. His jowls moved into a grin. Like me.

  Frazier would be weighing up the new captain as well. As second-in-command, his main purpose was to present his captain with an efficient, reliable, fighting ship. But his duties encompassed far more. The promotion or selection of key ratings for advancement or courses ashore, which would improve their own skills but weaken the ship’s self-dependent team, matters of discipline and punishment, or recreation and training, all fell on his shoulders. It was like being the mayor, quartermaster and magistrate of a small town. But know him? That was something else.

  He turned, his train of thought disturbed as somebody came to an empty chair and asked, ‘This taken, sir?’

  Onslow contained an angry retort. This was the new boy. Wavy Navy, wings on his sleeve, and the innocent good looks which would soon get him into trouble.

  He relented. ‘Take the weight off your feet. Settling in?’

  Lieutenant Rayner looked at him, perhaps warily.

  ‘Getting the hang of it, sir.’ He shook his head. ‘All that spit and polish, though. I thought that was over for the duration.’

  Onslow grinned. ‘In the navy, it’s never over. The war is just a bloody inconvenience!’ He chuckled. ‘Have a gin. On me.’

  Rayner smiled. ‘Juice, please.’

  Onslow waved to a hurrying steward. ‘You would! Costs twice as much as gin!’

  The commander walked over to the Club, and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’ll join you, Chief.’ His eyes said, you must be slipping.

  ‘What did the God-bosun want this time?’

  Frazier smiled. ‘One of your stokers, actually. Lucas. His wife’s having a baby.’

  Onslow snorted. ‘Doesn’t know his arse from his elbow! I’m surprised he managed it!’

  Frazier took a glass. ‘Wants the kid to be baptised in the ship’s bell.’

  Onslow tapped the young Canadian’s knee. ‘Told you.’

 
Rayner stood up and excused himself. ‘My observer has just arrived.’ He smiled gently. ‘Another foreigner, I’m afraid. From New Zealand.’

  Onslow sighed. ‘Take it off your back, son. They mean no harm. You’ll see.’

  As he left, Frazier said, ‘Are you giving him a hard time?’

  Onslow ignored it. ‘How’s the Old Man?’ Then he grinned hugely. It seemed ridiculous to call Sherbrooke that.

  Frazier hesitated. ‘He’s . . . different.’

  ‘How so, John? From Cavendish? Don’t keep it a secret!’

  Frazier leaned back, his face relaxed, but his mind buzzing with details, lists, people to see, work to be completed before they left the Firth of Forth.

  ‘Something’s driving him. I can’t explain. But I could feel it.’

  ‘So long as it’s not revenge. When I first went to sea, I was with a skipper who’d lost his ship. I’m out for revenge, he told us.’

  The long curtain was drawn aside; officers were making their way to the tables, pausing to collect a napkin from the rack by the entrance, watched closely by the chief steward, as if he expected one of them to steal something.

  They downed their drinks, and Frazier asked, ‘And was he?’

  Onslow grinned. ‘Christ, we were blown up ourselves within a week!’

  Frazier sat down. It was hard to accept that the Chief had served in that other war. He must have been just a kid, like some of the midshipmen and junior ratings in this ship. He glanced over the bobbing heads and thrusting soup spoons. Reliant had been there, too. All those years, all those miles. It was surprising what he had learned about this ship in the eighteen months since his advanced promotion. He had even heard about the most important day for any captain: when his ship, new from the builders, had been commissioned. He had discovered that Reliant’s first captain’s wife had waited for that particular day to announce that she was leaving him. Just like that.