Dangerous Waters
Philip McCutchan
Copyright © Philip McCutchan 2014
The right of Philip McCutchan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
First published in Great Britain by Arthur Barker Limited in 1980, as ‘Cameron Comes Through’.
This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
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Extract from Drums Along the Khyber by Philip McCutchan
1
MALTA in May 1941, when Cameron arrived to join Wharfedale, was an island fortress under siege and under almost constant attack from the air. There was bomb damage everywhere: Cameron’s first impression on arrival had been of heaps of sandstone, shattered and lying as junk around the steep, stepped streets of Valletta and Senglea. The whole place seemed filled with the British Navy, at least in the evenings when the bars and brothels of Strada Stretta, known to generations of seamen as The Gut, did their usual brisk trade. Indeed bars were everywhere, mostly named after ships past and present of the Mediterranean Fleet upon which the people of Malta depended almost entirely for their living: the Queen Elizabeth Bar, the Resolution Bar, the Revenge Bar and very many others. It was all something of an eye-opener for Donald Cameron: it was a far cry from his home in Aberdeen, not least weather-wise. In May Malta began to swelter, and the Fleet, or such of it as lay in the Grand Harbour, or French Creek, or Dockyard Creek, or in the Coastal Forces base in Sliema Creek, shifted into Number 13s, in other words white shirts — or ‘flannels’ in the case of the lower-deck seamen and stokers — and white shorts, with white cap covers to lighten the winter blue of home waters.
It was a change, too, from the rigid formality of HMS King Alfred, whence Cameron had gone after leaving the old Carmarthen in Rosyth and being put before the Admiralty Selection Board at the Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth. On acceptance for training for a commission as sub-lieutenant, RNVR, he had gone with some seventy other CW candidates to the first part of his three-months’ course, held at Lancing College in Sussex. The surroundings were idyllic to an ordinary seaman fresh from the fo’c’sle messdeck of a destroyer pitching and rolling to the North Atlantic gales and suffering the attacks of U-boats and the German long-range Focke-Wulfs. Nevertheless, Ps and Qs had to be minded at all times, for the cadet ratings, as they were now called, were under close scrutiny of the King Alfred’s executive and instructor officers from start to end of each day. Behaviour in the bar, deportment, meal-time manners — these things counted, if perhaps not quite so much as gunnery, torpedoes, navigation, seamanship, signalling and parade-ground drill. Officers were still expected to act as gentlemen. The cloistered ambience of Lancing helped; the unfinished municipal swimming baths at Hove, which housed Part Two of the cadet ratings’ course, helped less. The cadet divisions were accommodated in what was intended to be, and but for the outbreak of war would have been, an underground car park; and the garage-like, concrete surroundings were a good deal less salubrious than the Lancing dormitories. Nevertheless, at the end of the second six-week period Donald Cameron, Cadet Rating ex Ordinary Seaman, passed the examinations, went before the final Admiralty Board composed of elderly admirals and captains and emerged on to the dignified streets of Hove as Sub-Lieutenant Donald Cameron, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, proud possessor of a single wavy stripe on either cuff, a stripe that in pre-war days would have been of pure gold thread but under the exigencies of war had become a yellowish substitute known as Orris lace; and, moreover, in the interest of economy, went only half-way round the cuff instead of right round.
‘Never mind, gentlemen,’ the course Gunner’s Mate said, addressing them as such for the first time next morning. ‘Half-way doesn’t wear out the pockets like all round does — or so they tell me.’
It was satisfactory enough, in any case. It had been worked for and won. From now, life would be totally different, though the dangers to be faced would be no less than before. At the passing-out board, each new officer had been asked by the President in which branch of the service he would like, if he was given the chance, to serve; Cameron had answered, ‘Destroyers, sir.’
‘Why?’
Cameron said, ‘I liked the Carmarthen, sir.’
‘In what way?’
‘A good ship’s company, sir. And I know something of what it’s like now, sir.’
The Admiral had given him an approving look. ‘Well, I suppose that’s as good an answer as any. And you still want to go back?’
Cameron nodded. ‘Yes, I do, sir.’
‘Well, perhaps you will, though it’s in the hands of NA2SL,’ the Admiral said, referring to the officer holding the appointment of Naval Assistant to the Second Sea Lord, whose department in the Admiralty, housed in Queen Anne’s Mansions off Birdcage Walk, dealt with all officer postings to the Fleet and shore establishments at home and abroad. ‘I’ll add my recommend for what it’s worth — and good luck, my boy.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Cameron had a further fortnight to spend at the Hove swimming baths to complete training, this time as an officer, learning an officer’s divisional and other duties: learning his responsibility towards the men of his division, the men with whose day-to-day lives he would become involved, not always as the giver of orders but often as friend, corrector and adviser on personal problems brought to him via his divisional petty officer. The relationship would not always be an easy one and would depend largely on his own personality and character, especially when dealing with men many years his senior in age and naval experience. The fortnight passed quickly; in the evenings, Cameron, exchanging for a white starched collar and black tie the white roll-neck sweater that was the rig, beneath the monkey-jacket, for officers under training at King Alfred, went ashore to enjoy such night life as was to be found in wartime Brighton. There was more freedom now: no more tiered bunks in the subterranean car park, but lodgings in Hove under the aegis of a youngish widow who soon began giving her lodger many inviting looks. These he failed to respond to; Mary Anstey, now a Leading Wren, was still somewhere in his thoughts. Mary had had a fortnight’s leave during his time at King Alfred, and she had come down from home for an evening to see him, a little self-consciously, wondering, he believed, if she was being too obvious. He had put her at her ease and given her an expensive dinner at the Norfolk Hotel. He believed that his request to be sent back to destroyers could have had something to do with Mary’s presence in Rosyth; he might be appointed to one of the escorts operating, as Carmarthen had done, from Scottish waters.
But in the event he wasn’t. He was at home on leave when his appointment came through from Queen Anne’s Mansions: his orders directed him to report two days’ hence at 1500 hours to the Navy Office in Albert Harbour, Greenock, for passage overseas to join the destroyer Wharfedale as replacement for a sub-lieutenant killed in action. He went down from Aberdeen next day to see Mary in Rosyth, and the following day reported as ordered to Albert Harbour, which was full of drifters, many of them brought down from Stornoway with their own peacetime crews of fishermen to act as tenders and liberty-boats for the warships anchored off the Tail o’ the Bank or shackled to the buoys. He was informed by a trim Wren that he was to take passage to the Mediterranean in the battle-cruiser Repulse, lying at the flagship buoy and due to sail
for Gibraltar at 1800 hours.
*
Out into the Firth of Clyde through the boom, leaving Cloch Point to port, Repulse steamed with her great turreted fifteen-inch guns, behind the destroyer escort, down towards Toward Point at the entrance to Rothesay Bay where the old depot-ship Cyclops acted as parent to the Seventh Submarine Flotilla. On past the Cumbraes to leave the Isle of Arran to starboard as she made down towards Ailsa Craig, standing seagull-whitened beneath a potentially brilliant sunset. Out above Northern Ireland and the Londonderry escort base, into the Atlantic, making some westering in order to drop down on Gibraltar in a wide arc well clear of the coast of occupied France and unfriendlily neutral north-west Spain. They entered Gibraltar some seven days later. In the inner harbour Cameron recognized Repulse’s sister-ship Renown, wearing the flag of Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville, commanding Force H which with Renown included the aircraft-carrier Ark Royal and the heavy cruiser Sheffield with their destroyer escorts. Signals were exchanged between Repulse and the Tower in the dockyard: among more pressing matters it was indicated that a message would arrive by hand of officer within the next half-hour indicating the onward destination of Sub-Lieutenant Cameron. Two hours after this, he found himself transferred with his gear to HMS Foresight, a destroyer of the Force H escort. Aboard Foresight he was told that Wharfedale was in Malta.
That night, under cover of the darkness and with no time allowed for shore visiting, the destroyer slipped out of Gibraltar, bound through the Mediterranean with an important supply and ammunition convoy that included some troopships for Alexandria; Foresight was under orders to detach for Malta with ships carrying vital food and oil fuel for the island, while the other ships of Force H steamed on with the main body of the convoy.
Cameron had been buttonholed for action duty by the First Lieutenant immediately he had set foot aboard Foresight. ‘No room for passengers in a destroyer,’ Number One said.
‘I know, sir.’
‘You do, do you?’ Lieutenant Parsons looked him up and down. ‘Been in destroyers before?’
‘I was in Carmarthen, sir, doing my sea time.’ Cameron added, ‘North Atlantic convoys out of Scapa, sir.’
‘Yes, I know, and don’t keep calling me sir — other than on duty in front of ratings, that is. Number One’ll do the rest of the time.’ Parsons frowned. ‘I heard the story — who bloody well hasn’t — of a rating who chucked grenades down a U-boat hatch and blew the bugger up. A CW rating — wasn’t it?’
Cameron grinned. ‘Yes.’
‘You?’
‘Yes, it was.’
Parsons blew out his cheeks. ‘Bloody murderer... I don’t mean that really. What a fantastic show, though! Must have been like putting ferrets down a rabbit-hole.’
‘I rather hope I don’t have to do it again,’ Cameron said. ‘I’ve always had a certain sympathy for things caught in traps... like rabbits with ferrets after them.’
‘I take your point, old chap. Anyway, you won’t find any U-boats in the Med — they’ll be swarming here one day I don’t doubt, but so far they haven’t come through the straits. The Eyetie submarines are a rather softer option — but what we have to worry about is the Gap!’
‘Gap?’
‘A gap in the deep minefield laid across the Narrows between Sicily and Pantellaria, where the water’s just too deep to be mined. That’s what we have to get through to reach Malta, and that’s where the buggers concentrate their dive-bombers — while we’re in irons, as it were. We go through the Gap at night, of course, but it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference — the sods always find us out. You’ll see! You’ll see because at action stations I want you in the conning-tower as a spare Officer of the Watch if anyone buys it on the bridge. All right?’
They were ghostly beneath a bright, unkind moon that brought up the big ships’ massive silhouettes: the great fighting-tops of the Renown standing out above her main armament; the enormous and ungainly bulk of the Ark Royal; the smaller, leaner outline of the Sheffield; and the sturdy hulls of the ships in convoy — the former Orient Liner Orontes, a stately ship with two funnels and two masts, carrying an infantry brigade to the Middle East; the Canadian Pacific Line’s Empress of Britain similarly loaded and bound, two fast tankers to supply Malta’s air and military needs, two ammunition ships for Alexandria, and two food ships for Malta’s relief. Malta was said to be down to eating rats and mice; taking convoys through the Gap was a business that had all too often ended in glorious failure. Ahead and on the wings steamed the destroyer escort; aboard Ark Royal the old Stringbags, the Swordfish torpedo-bombers, were ready to be ranged on the flight deck when needed by the Admiral. In case of Italian fleet movements — the battleships Vittorio Veneto and Giulio Cesare were believed to be at sea with their destroyers — heavy units of the main Mediterranean Fleet under Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham would be on station to the south of Sardinia. As the convoy moved eastwards each ship was starkly illuminated by the sea’s phosphorescence as the bows clove through at something approaching twenty knots, phosphorescence that lit the bones in their teeth and streamed back along the sides in green light that added to the ghostly effect of the night.
Dusk action stations had been piped as soon as the warships of the escort were off Europa Point, where they had reduced revs to allow overtaking by the convoy, which was moving through the strait to meet them from the west after dropping their escort from home waters. Cameron was at his allotted station in the conning-tower when the Captain’s voice came down.
‘Cox’n?’
The Torpedo-Coxswain answered, ‘Cox’n here, sir.’
‘Something wrong with the bloody tannoy. I want to speak to the ship’s company. Send an electrician up.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ A messenger was despatched at the double. The ships steamed on. Cameron stepped outside to take a look at the moving, blacked-out vessels. He was feeling awkward; in his brand-new uniform he looked brand-new himself — and was, of course; the men in the conning-tower would know, or easily guess, that in his last ship he had been an ordinary seaman, lowest of the low, and had been elevated over their experienced heads. There might be resentment, probably would be from some of them at least, and more importantly the same would apply to the Wharfedale when he joined her in Malta. That could make life difficult; and, oddly perhaps, it was something he hadn’t thought about until now, when they could be moving into action and he would be expected to react as an officer if things went wrong. Initiative would be called for, that most officer-like of all the OLQ factors.
Apart from the engine sounds and the low hum of the ventilators there was a curious silence, a night silence, until the repaired tannoy came up loud and clear, bringing the Captain’s voice to all parts of the ship.
‘This is the Captain speaking. There’s been a signal from Gibraltar — the main Italian battle fleet is reported on station westward of the Gap. Admiral Somerville is taking the heavy ships ahead to engage, in support of Admiral Cunningham’s battleships and cruisers, while the destroyers remain as the close escort for the convoy. The ship’s company will remain closed up at first degree of readiness until further notice. That’s all.’ The clipped tones ceased, and the tannoy clicked off.
Cameron felt a curious sensation in his stomach: convoy escort was one thing; surface action against the immense gun power of the Italian battleships and cruisers was quite another. Back in the conning-tower he met the eye of the Torpedo-Coxswain, faintly outlined in the soft glow from the gyro repeater before the wheel. He said, ‘Sounds ominous, Cox’n.’
‘Not a bit of it, sir. We’ve had these scares before now. Know what happens, sir?’
‘What?’
‘The Eyeties see our big ships... and they bugger off. You mark my words, sir. They’ve got the speed and they use it. It’s said they mount their biggest guns aft, ‘cos they’re always bloody retreating!’
In the event, this proved to be the case. The heavy ships of Force H, gone from the convoy’s vic
inity by the time the dawn came up, were reported by the lookouts towards noon, returning to rejoin. As they came up and turned to take station, the signal was made, general from the Flag by masthead light: ENEMY DISPERSED AFTER INITIAL EXCHANGE OF GUNFIRE. NO CASUALTIES OR DAMAGE. That was all; the rest was left to the imagination: Admiral Somerville’s ships would not have had the speed to catch the Italian fleet even if he had felt it wise, which for a certainty he would not, to jeopardize the vital convoy by detaching the main strength of the escort for long enough to be of use against the Italians; any chase could be left to Admiral Cunningham’s Mediterranean Fleet units. For similar reasons he would not have flown off his torpedo-bomber strike force of Swordfish from Ark Royal; the carrier was needed to rejoin the convoy and use her aircraft to attack any surface vessels that might appear over the horizon.
And the convoy was not to be left unmolested: that night, still beneath a bright moon, the ships entered the Gap. Away to the south lay the rocky island of Pantellaria, to the north lay Sicily with its squadrons of dive-bombers and torpedo-bombers; to both north and south the deep minefield stretched. The aerial attacks began soon after the convoy was in the minefield. Down they came, diving through the bursting shrapnel from the ack-ack batteries, screaming in to aim their bomb-loads and their torpedoes. The sky was full of noise and menace. Cameron was called to the compass platform when the Officer of the Watch, a shoulder badly torn by shrapnel, was taken below to the sick bay: just as Cameron reached the compass platform, he saw three aircraft come down in the water not far off. Shortly after this one of the ammunition-ships went up, shattered to fragments by her own exploding cargo as she was taken by a tin fish from a torpedo-bomber that had gone screaming into her starboard beam at little more than a foot above the water before lifting to skim the decks. The whole sea seemed to be lit up with an immensity of flame that dimmed the moon, and the shock waves thudded through the destroyer like blows from a sledgehammer. It was obvious that there could be no survivors, unless some of the bridge personnel had by some miracle merely been blown clear. In any case, this was the sort of situation where survivors could not be picked up. Shortly after the ammunition-ship had gone, there was another explosion away to port and fire lit the fo’c’sle of one of the laden tankers. The fire appeared to be confined to the fore end but would surely spread aft whatever the efforts made to control it.
Dangerous Waters (A Donald Cameron Naval Thriller) Page 1
