Convoy of Fear

by Philip McCutchan

  ‘From seaward?’

  ‘Ashore, sir.’

  ‘There’s a difference,’ Kemp said briefly. ‘The question is whether we survive the broach-to, or not. All right, Finnegan?’

  ‘I guess so, sir.’

  ‘Hang on, then.’

  Kemp held fast himself to a stanchion, wedged in one comer of the wheelhouse. Bracewell was in the other. The senior second officer who had the watch was by the binnacle, holding on with the helmsman. Although they were in shelter, they had to shout to make themselves heard. The shriek of the wind was horrifying, carrying its own hint of terror. The seas were dropping aboard, coming more and more to port as the ship’s head began to go to starboard, thundering down on the bower anchors and the slips and bottle-screws, surging to starboard and aft over the break of the fo’c’sle to drop down on the windlass beneath, or over that to crash down on the fore cargo hatches, surging round the feet of the derricks, swilling up, building up against the base of the midship superstructure. The ship was lurching, wallowing, thrown over now to starboard bodily as the scend of the sea and the tearing wind, blowing now at something around 130 knots, pushed her over and over. Kemp and Bracewell watched the gauge that showed the degree of list; Bracewell’s knuckles stood out white as the indicator hovered close to the point of no return, the angle of list from which there would be no recovery. There was a tense moment when the indicator touched that danger mark, and stayed there for what seemed an eternity. Then it swung back a little.

  From the binnacle the officer of the watch reported the ship’s head steady.

  Bracewell nodded. He shouted across to Kemp, ‘She’s held now. This is where we stay. God knows how long for.’

  FIFTEEN

  They were now totally at the weather’s mercy. The ship lay right across the wind and sea that tore and smashed at its canted port side. Within a couple of minutes of her falling off in her heading, all the lifeboats along the port side had been smashed to splinters, the remains dangling from the davits for a while before being blown clean away. The Orlando lay in the trough, the trough from which there was no possible escape, pounded and hammered by the sea’s weight. The shriek of the wind was now above them, passing over their heads from trough to trough, but the ship’s motion as she wallowed and went on filling with water amidships was frightening.

  By now, except for the ship’s personnel required for duty and for the troops manning the pumps, there was no movement. Everyone remained where he or she had been when the Commodore’s last warning had come, wedged, clinging on for their lives, more of them sustaining physical damage from shifting furniture or being torn from the grasp of tiring muscles. Sea-sodden, Miss Hardisty and a group of her girls were in a comer of the A deck lounge, more or less safe behind a big settee that had become wedged across between a pillar and the bulkhead, and didn’t seem likely to shift again. Although scared to death, she was keeping up a brave face; as she had done before on other fraught occasions, she suggested singing.

  One of the Wrens asked if she meant a hymn. She said that would be a good idea; she had always liked For Those In Peril On The Sea and now she started singing it and they all joined in, the troops as well.

  When the hymn ended, Miss Hardisty was crying unashamedly.

  ii

  OC Troops had been with the Captain and Commodore in the wheelhouse when they had been caught by the offswing and now he had to remain. He was clinging onto the sill where the glass of the port side-window had shattered under the sea’s impact and he had been unable to let go for fear of being hurled across the wheelhouse. He was wet to the skin; they all were. As the ship steadied in its position of extreme danger, he spoke up.

  ‘Is this sort of thing normal, Captain?’

  ‘In a typhoon … yes and no.’

  ‘An inconclusive answer.’

  ‘That’s the way things are, Brigadier. It’s always possible to broach-to in a typhoon. As I said on the tannoy — when you have no engines, it’s inevitable.’

  ‘But surely good seamanship —’

  ‘I’ll thank you not to question my seamanship, Brigadier.’

  ‘Well — no, I don’t, of course. Perhaps some explanation might help, however.’

  Bracewell looked across at Kemp, lifting an eyebrow. Kemp took the meaning: Bracewell, in a time of extremity, wasn’t going to be bothered with OC Troops. Kemp took over and explained about typhoons at sea and the effect of being brought across the wind and sea, but Pumphrey-Hatton very clearly lost interest after a minute or so. He was concerned now about his comfort.

  ‘Wet clothing,’ he said. ‘That can’t go on. Too risky — we still have the cholera aboard.’

  Kemp reminded him that the companion ladder from the chart room to the Master’s deck was still available: he could go from there to his stateroom if he took care, and didn’t venture onto the open deck.

  ‘Yes, a good idea.’ OC Troops, with Kemp’s assistance, went gingerly across the wheeihouse and into the chart room. Bracewell watched him go, then met Kemp’s eye.

  ‘Not a word about his soldiers, Commodore. Or us, come to that! We’re as wet as him.’

  Kemp grinned. ‘You could have put that a little better, Captain.’ He went across to the fore screen. The glass ran with water, the spin of the Kent clear-view screens now stopped along with all other electric power. It was almost impossible to see anything, but there was in fact little to see apart from the huge waves on either beam, waves that ran on their courses beneath the ship to lift her bodily and then, as they passed, drop her down again into the next trough where she rolled soggily like a dead thing. The next time one of those waves went beneath him, Kemp opened the wheeihouse door and went out into the open wing. The wind hit with the force of the an express train, but he clung on to the teak rail and looked around, finding it hard to keep his eyes open when facing the wind. In the short time before the ship once again dropped and the wind and its deafening shriek was cut off, he was able to see the close horizons, the distance drastically cut by the appallingly close visibility. But he did see, or fancied he saw, something else: another vessel that he couldn’t identify for sure. He waited for the next uplift to the heights, but this time saw nothing but those close horizons, the impenetrable walls of spray and flung spume, like a thick white carpet over the sea’s turbulence.

  He went back inside for a word with Bracewell.

  ‘I couldn’t be sure, Captain. The eyes play tricks in these conditions.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Let’s hope they did this time.’ Another ship so close represented yet more danger. Any collision in such conditions would be fatal to all hands. All hands and the cook, as they used to say in the days of sail, as if the cook didn’t count. Kemp went out again to the bridge wing, this time with Bracewell, and they watched, straining their eyes through the murk, trying to keep the binoculars focussed, a hard job in itself.

  ‘There!’ Kemp said suddenly, and indicated a bearing with his outstretched arm. ‘See it?’

  ‘Yes. Certainly a ship. Can you identify?’

  ‘No. Now she’s gone again.’ They waited for the next upsurge and the one after that. Then again: and there was no doubt that they had another ship too close for comfort, a ship undergoing similar difficulties though most likely with her engines intact. Neither Kemp nor Bracewell could make a positive identification though both agreed she gave the appearance more of a warship than a merchant vessel.

  ‘Not a battleship,’ Kemp said. ‘Could be one of the cruisers. Or a destroyer. I can’t be sure … except that she’s there.’

  ‘What do you make the distance, Commodore?’

  Kemp shrugged. ‘Very hard to say. A guess — six cables.’

  ‘Just about.’ Six cables was 3,600 feet, say three-quarters of a mile.

  ‘Nasty,’ Bracewell said.

  iii

  Petty Officer Ramm, his role in charge of the guns now interrupted until better times came along, was helping out at the pumps, taking charge of squads o
f pongoes as they laboured and sweated, uttering words of encouragement as he had done to his guns’ crews.

  ‘Come on now, put some guts into it, a few pulled muscles and broken backs don’t signify now, all right? You’ll all ’ave ’eard of Davy Jones’s locker I don’t doubt.’

  One of the privates looked up at him. ‘What’s that, a knocking shop?’

  ‘Not the sort you’d like, lad. Knocking bones, maybe. Matlow’s idea of ’ell.’

  ‘Not what I heard, PO.’

  ‘What did you hear, then?’

  ‘Sailor’s idea of hell: where all the bottles have holes in ’em and none of the women have.’

  Ramm said sourly, ‘Go on, get on with it, lad.’ Women, with or without attributes, were a mixed blessing. The barmaid at the Golden Fleece had had plenty of attributes, as well as he knew, and he was still worried about her, dead worried about the fact she’d let on, last time home in Pompey, that she knew his address, something he’d always been very, very astute about not letting her know — or thought he had. He was scared stiff … the missus must never get to know. Now he knew he was facing the possibility of early death; he didn’t believe they were going to come through this and he wanted to make amends. There was no way, of course. He didn’t believe for a moment that God would pay any attention to a plea from a sinner like himself, a plea that some divine intervention should keep the missus and the barmaid far apart — a difficult job in itself, since the Golden Fleece was less than a tram ride from his home. God would only say it served him right. As he uttered his routine chant of ‘Hup, down, hup down’ at the toiling soldiers, Ramm’s mind was absent. He might compose a letter to the missus, full of fibs of course, saying that he’d bought the barmaid the odd drink in the Golden Fleece and she’d taken advantage, or tried to, wanted to get him into bed and he had refused point-blank. But he knew the missus wouldn’t ever believe that one. If only he could think up something foolproof that would scupper the barmaid in advance … but he couldn’t. And anyway, how would the letter reach Pompey if the ship went down? Put it in a bottle? He told himself: don’t be bloody daft!

  After many more minutes of worry Ramm became aware that someone was watching him and looking sort of sardonic. Ex-Colour Sergeant Parkinson.

  ‘What’s that look supposed to mean, eh?’ Ramm asked.

  ‘You tell me, PO. Know what? You’re out of step.’

  ‘How d’you mean, out of step?’

  Parkinson grinned. ‘You’re saying hup when the brown jobs are going down. And down when they’re going hup.’

  ‘Fuck off, can’t you?’

  Parkinson said, ‘Your mind’s not on the job. That’s bad.’

  ‘Got me worries, haven’t I?’

  ‘So we all have. Like, what’s going to happen to the ship. What’s yours in particular? Tell your sea-daddy.’

  Ramm gave him a hard look: petty officers, unlike ordinary seamen, didn’t have sea-daddies. But sea-daddy was about right as it happened — Parkinson was a real oldie for seagoing, made even him look a youngster. Also, he’d been around — Royal Marines first, then another lifetime in the liners, in the passenger days when he must have seen plenty, especially as a nightwatchman which was only another term for night steward. Floating gin palaces, floating brothels. Parkinson was a man of experience and had asked him the question. He might have the answer. Ramm broke off from the pumps.

  ‘Women,’ he said.

  ‘Ah?’

  ‘Missus and —’

  ‘The lady love. Well, well. You know what sailors are, as the admiral said to the lady. Juxtaposition, eh?’

  Ramm looked puzzled. ‘Never ’eard of that position.’

  ‘Never mind. I got the picture. More fool you, PO. Too close to home — that it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Parkinson poked him in the ribs. ‘You should have kept it buttoned-up,’ he said, and moved away on the slant, negotiating the heavily listed deck as the liner did one of her slides down a watery mountain. Ramm cursed savagely and went back to his job.

  iv

  The cholera had not left the ship; the seas and winds had not washed or blown her clean while in her extremity. Dr Crampton and the army medical teams were working round the clock still, the various burns cases and other injuries adding to their work-load. They were mostly out on their feet but were carrying on. There were more deaths and more new cases, though the rate was tending to drop. The latest to be reported sick, not long after he had left the wheelhouse, was OC Troops. His batman had gone to the medical section and said the brigadier was vomiting. Colonel Munro himself went at once to Pumphrey-Hatton’s stateroom, where OC Troops bitterly blamed the fly-blown gin.

  ‘Dirty ship, Munro.’

  ‘I doubt if it was that, sir. Too long past.’

  ‘Oh, dammit, more fly-blown gin then!’ One thing: the typhoon had finally disposed of the flies, blowing them to extinction, OC Troops said as much. The clean air of God.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ Munro, busily taking samples for analysis, hadn’t heard.

  ‘The clean air of God!’ OC Troops snapped, and was sick again. ‘Blown the buggers to glory,’ he said when the spasm had passed. Munro went below with his samples and confirmed the cholera. He remarked to his number two that the brigadier had appeared to be wandering already, a bad sign. He made a poorish report to the senior battalion commander, seeming to suggest a warning that Pumphrey-Hatton might not make it and that he had better stand by to take over. The lieutenant-colonel concerned thought fleetingly about early promotion, but knew that in any case it might not last long enough even to register at the War Office. But he knew what his duty was now, and he went at once to the brigadier’s quarters to take any orders Pumphrey-Hatton might wish to give for execution whilst on the sick list.

  ‘Just that, Colonel?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Just while I’m sick, man! Or do you imagine I’m dying?’

  ‘No, sir, not —’

  ‘I expect,’ Pumphrey-Hatton said disagreeably, ‘you hope I am.’

  v

  Radar would have been useless now; the only echoes would be those that came off the waves. The unknown vessel had to be watched for by human agency alone, and that meant the bridge personnel — not long after Kemp had made his first sighting the foremast had been ripped out from the ship, breaking away from its heel like a beanpole and carrying the masthead lookout with it, as it smashed over the side to starboard and was almost immediately lost to view in the boiling sea. Kemp, remaining now in the bridge wing on constant watch, knew he was wasting his energy since there would be nothing anyone could do if the other ship and themselves were driven together. But those in authority had to be seen to be ready. To remain in the wheelhouse would not do. Troops, any more than civilian passengers, didn’t know the sea. Aboard any ship there was one man and one man only who was strictly never off duty, and that man was the Captain. In a convoy at war stations, the same applied to the Commodore. And the enemy was still, or might be, in the vicinity.

  Currently, however, it was the weather that was the main and very present enemy.

  Captain Bracewell was sharing the vigil in the bridge wings, taking the port side for his watch. Kemp saw nothing but the sea itself, and no report came from Bracewell. It was dark now, dark not just from the lowering sky but from the encroaching night. Hanging in gimbals over the binnacle, the useless binnacle, was a storm lantern with a flickering candle, its light enhanced by mirrors. Kemp, glancing towards the water-drowned wheelhouse windows, saw something he didn’t expect: the outline of a woman. He recognized Jean Forrest.

  A moment later the starboard door opened and she came out into the screaming wind. Kemp shouted at her to get back inside, but the wind sent his words flying away. She was blown towards him like a leaf in a gale, and he caught her, wrapped his arms around her, held her fast as he leaned back against the angle of the teak rail.

  ‘What the hell,’ he said furiously. Her hair blew i
n the wind, all rat’s-tails. She wore an oilskin about ten sizes too big for her. She was shivering. Kemp said, ‘You’ve no damn right out here.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ He believed she was crying. ‘I’ve been with OC Troops … doing what I could. He’s wandering … I don’t really think it’s the cholera. I believe he’s a bit unbalanced or — or something. He talked at random, a lot of creepy stuff about death and corruption and the inevitability of the grave. And there’s been so much death.’

  ‘I know that.’ Kemp’s tone was still brusque. ‘It’s a fact we have to accept.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know, of course. But I … I don’t think I can take any more. I’m scared. I — I wanted reassurance, I suppose. So I came to you.’

  She was obviously crying now. Her voice had broken. Kemp held her tightly to his body. He said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ve come this far and we’re not beaten. The worst the weather can do and we’re still afloat. It’ll moderate before much longer. Nothing goes on for ever, Jean. The worst of storms blow themselves out.’

  He was scarcely conscious that he’d used her name, Jean. And a moment later it would have been forgotten in any case. A shout, faintly heard as it came on the wind from Bracewell, made Kemp look up sharply in time to see the shape dead ahead, the exposed side of the other ship lying right across the troopship’s track as she wallowed in the deeps of a trough.

  SIXTEEN

  Nothing to be done — nothing, except watch and wait. Kemp’s gloved fingers gripped the guardrail tight while his other arm remained for her safety around Jean Forrest. In the port wing Bracewell shut his eyes and waited for the impact. If the huge weight of the Orlando took the ship — she had switched on a searchlight and in its loom he believed he had recognized her as one of the destroyers of the escort — then she would be cut in two, a case of a knife through butter when the great stem struck thin steel sides.

  It happened fast; but afterwards both Kemp and Bracewell felt they had seen it in slow motion. Their reports, their recollections, were similar: the destroyer, if such she was, had been deflected by a big wave, her head thrust to starboard, and then her whole hull was moved aside so that she crossed the Orlando’s bow, becoming for a moment invisible beneath the overhang, and then emerging with her searchlight blazing to crash her way down the troopship’s port side, crushing her thin plates against the bulk of the big vessel. Quickly then she was gone, lost in the sea’s violence, drifting further and further astern until her seachlight was lost in the flying spray and the general murk of the night.