North Strike

by John Harris

  ‘Is that her?’ he said.

  The grey-haired lieutenant commander from the Falmouth dockyard sniffed. He was a veteran of the first war called Snaith and he had all the Navy’s icy ability to put his contempt into his sniff. He gestured in the opposite direction. ‘Not that,’ he said. ‘That.’

  As Magnusson turned, what he saw didn’t seem a lot better than the first ship. There was a string of washing across the poop attached to the iron chimney of her cabin, and on her bow and stern sheets of shaped plywood, painted like gilt-work, formed curved artificial buttresses and rails, the colour on them faded and old. She seemed dead; just not quite so decayed as the other.

  She was riding high out of the water, sails unbent, yards askew, odds and ends of gear left about. The river around her was dirty but the grace of her line and her original seaworthiness shone out of her, and there was about her still an irresistible air of readiness to do battle with the winds.

  ‘What sort of condition’s she in?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s getting all her old cordage and sails replaced,’ Snaith said. ‘And work has already been done on her bottom.’

  ‘Sounds like a Wren being pawed by a stoker.’

  Snaith frowned at the levity. ‘All the rubbish that was put aboard her for the film company will be removed,’ he said. ‘Her fish tanks will follow. She has a short poop and an open main-deck and she’s steered from aft. She draws twenty-one feet when fully loaded.’

  Magnusson followed Snaith down the jetty. At close quarters the ship looked even more of a wreck than at a distance, but it was obvious work had been started on her because piles of rust and chipped paint lay about the deck and there was no moss on her planks. She’d been caught just in time.

  An old man appeared on deck, emptied a pail of washing-up water into the river, spat after it, and turned away.

  ‘Hey, there!’

  At Snaith’s shout, the old man turned.

  ‘We’re coming aboard.’

  ‘It’s your ship, mate.’

  The vessel didn’t improve with further inspection, and it was hard to believe the reeking ill-lit forecastle had ever contained human life. There were the remains of clothing, boots and newspapers, and the smell was that of a very old and decrepit dog basket.

  ‘Looks like someone’s brought a cartload of planks and portholes and bits of rope, and thrown them all down in a heap in the river,’ Magnusson said.

  Snaith sniffed again. ‘She’s in better condition than she looks,’ he said. ‘Her timbers are sound and we’ll have her shipshape in no time. She’s been closed up for months, but when we open some doors and portholes and get the hatches off the smell will disappear. To keep a ship tied up all this time’s sheer murder. A ship’s for sailing, not for collecting stinking mud from a riverbed.’

  Magnusson glanced quickly at him but he was perfectly serious.

  ‘How many crew are we having?’ he asked.

  Snaith shrugged. ‘Well, I don’t know what you’re up to,’ he said. ‘It’s none of my business. But we’ve got seventeen or eighteen laid on. Biggest part of ’em Finns or Balts or something. That should be quite enough. After all she’s not colossal.’

  ‘You a sailing ship man?’ Magnusson asked.

  Snaith smiled. It was the first time he’d let his face slip.

  ‘William Holder’s half-deck in 1909,’ he said. ‘I decided the Navy would be a lot easier.’

  Seago and Campbell were bad enough, but to Magnusson the arrival of the communications officer was like thumbscrews after the rack. He had been expecting a newly-qualified youngster straight from radio school, full of knowledge and brisk as a kipper; instead he got Sub-Lieutenant Willie John MacDonald, RNR.

  Willie John came from Portree in Skye and had first gone to sea as a second operator in the Merchant Navy twelve years before. It was in that capacity that Magnusson had met him in Bahia – as drunk as a coot and tearing a nightclub apart, much to the annoyance of the local police – and the occasion had been hectic enough for him to remain firmly etched in Magnusson’s memory. He was thirty, looked sixty, and had only four interests in life: drinking, radios, women and making mischief. His heavy face had all the appeal of an elderly bloodhound’s, his kit was a disgrace, and he was bedraggled, unshaven and stank of whisky. His reputation ran through the entire Merchant Navy. There was only one consolation: drunk or sober, he was a good operator, was experienced with sail and, like all Skye men, knew the sea and in an emergency could act as a spare deck officer.

  As Magnusson knew from the past, however, his capacity for mischief was vast, though he seemed a likely relief from the ‘life-is-real-life-is-earnest’ attitude of Campbell. He was the Merchant Navy at its worst and it seemed to Magnusson that the Naval Appointments Board had sent him to Oulu simply because they couldn’t fit him in anywhere else.

  As he dragged his kit from the taxi, which had brought him and dumped it on the jetty alongside Oulu, he fished a whisky bottle from his pocket and offered it to Campbell with a wink that screwed his battered face up like a worn concertina.

  ‘A wee deoch an’ doruis?’ he suggested.

  ‘No, thanks,’ Campbell said coldly.

  ‘’Tis uisge beatha! Whisky, mon! The water of life!’ Willie John looked shocked. ‘The best it iss, too.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Suit yersel’.’ Willie John took a quick swig himself. ‘Slainte mhor, boy, anyway.’ An eyebrow cocked and he looked up at Campbell from a bleary grey eye alive with humour and cunning. When he spoke again, his accent was noticeably thicker and he began to talk with the light, high-pitched tone of the Western Isles. ‘Are y’ all richt, poy?’ he asked. ‘Pecause ye sount ass if ye had a potato in yer gob.’ He offered a grimy paw. ‘Ma name’s MacDonalt. Willie John MacDonalt fra’ Skye.’

  As Campbell somewhat reluctantly introduced himself, Willie John’s eyes gleamed and his shaggy eyebrows worked like a set of railway signals operated by a man with St Vitus’ Dance. ‘Ye’re no’ one of them treacherous Campbells who murdered ma ancestors, the MacDonalts of Glencoe, are ye?’ he asked.

  Campbell looked startled. ‘I come from Yorkshire,’ he said quickly as if he thought Willie John were about to attack him. And the massacre at Glencoe was over two hundred years ago.’

  ‘No matter, poy, ’tis will remempered. Especially by the likes o’ masel’. I’m also related to the MacDonalt of the Isles.’

  As MacDonald disappeared, breathing whisky fumes and dragging his appalling kit, Campbell stared after him disgustedly. ‘If he is related to the MacDonald of the Isles,’ he said coldly, ‘it’s a pity he doesn’t behave as if he were.’

  The sun was out the following day. The Cornish slate roofs shone brightly and the air was fresh after the rain. The old watchman had disappeared from Oulu and there were four very obvious naval ratings in civilian dungarees sweeping the decks. They had formed three tidy piles and had the hatches open. Even the forecastle had been cleaned and, though the dog-basket smell still lingered, it was clearing rapidly.

  ‘Only wants a bit of ’oly-stoning, sir,’ one of the sailors said to Magnusson, ‘and she’ll do for a fleet review. I’m Leading Seaman Myers, sir.’

  As Magnusson introduced Willie John, the sailor flinched visibly. Though he was stone cold sober, Willie John still managed to look drunk, his eyes sunken, the lines on his face deeply etched by his years of debauchery. Recovering, Myers introduced the other three men. ‘I don’t recommend living aboard yet, sir,’ he ended. ‘We’re all right in the forecastle. There’s plenty of room and it’s been occupied, but the cabins is a bit damp still.’

  During the afternoon, shipwrights, riggers, caulkers and sailmakers appeared. They were all elderly men who had been employed by the boatyards. Between the wars, they had been occupied in building and rigging yachts for weekend sailors or had opened ‘gifte shoppes’ for holidaymakers; but with its usual efficiency, the Navy had dug them out and recruited them for their skill and
knowledge.

  There was a metalworker who knew about rigging a ship, who’d come from a foundry at Devoran, far up the river where it was little more than a stream and meandered among fields. He’d been making lanterns for sale to tourists. There were also two old men, a shipwright and a rigger, who had been bribed to come out of retirement because they had worked on ships like Oulu in their youth and were pleased to do so again.

  ‘They don’t build ships like these nowadays,’ the shipwright said.

  ‘An’ a bluidy good job it iss, too,’ Willie John murmured.

  The old ship had not had so many feet across her deck since the queues of holidaymakers had lined up to goggle at the tanks of fish, and she seemed to heave and lift with the tide as though she were aware of what was happening.

  ‘This ’ere planking’s so ’ard, me dear,’ the shipwright said, ‘there ain’t a worm in ’er anywheres. What she wants is a good zinc sheath round her now that’ll keep her clean.’

  ‘Where can we get one fitted?’ Commander Snaith asked.

  ‘I know a master caulker lives up to Bossiney’d do it for a price sir.’

  ‘What sort of price?’

  ‘Navy price.’ The old man grinned. ‘Government’s payin’, ain’t she? ’E’d probably do it for fun otherwise. He’s been retired for six months and ’e’s bitin’ ’is thumbs for somethin’ to do. ’E’s me brother-in-law.’

  Two days later Oulu, née Jacob Undset, was towed to a builder’s yard downriver. Several of her crew were aboard her now, but all wearing civilian clothes and showing no sign of naval discipline.

  The Navy had provided the tug and, to disguise their interest in what was going on, had put out a story through the Western Morning News to the effect that they were lending a hand to help the Finns reach home. An elderly newspaper reporter, clearly in Snaith’s confidence, had been allowed aboard and had produced a guarded article that didn’t even mention her name and a photographer had taken a picture from a dinghy.

  ‘Makes her look almost as though she’d float, poy,’ Willie John observed, glancing at Magnusson. ‘’Tis a nice picture of you, too. Makes ye look very Errol Flynn.’

  Campbell’s attitude was one of stiff rectitude. Despite the fact that they were supposed to be merchant seamen – and Finnish merchant seamen at that – he chose to stalk about the ship as if he were Nelson watching the Battle of the Nile. He rarely smiled his stiff humourless face rigid with self-righteousness, echoing Seago’s thoughts to the point when he seemed to be trying to think them for him.

  Seago’s manner, while still that of a beaten spaniel, managed yet to be one of solemn hopefulness. ‘Most of my experience,’ he said as they gathered in his room at the Green Bank Hotel, ‘was in Swallow, which is a brig, but sailing’s the same in principle, whatever the ship, and it seems there’ll be no need to try anything clever or silly; I shall take big tacks rather than try to sail fine into wind, and take the canvas off if it comes to a blow. We aren’t taking part in the grain race and we aren’t a tea clipper trying to be first home from India. We’ve only to get to Norway in one piece, sail down the Leads in short stretches and when the job’s done, sail home again. The hard work’ll be getting the ship ready for sea.’

  Magnusson was pleased to hear it.

  Seago produced a pink file tied with red ribbon. ‘Oulu,’ he said, ‘née Jacob Undset. Dimensions, rigging plan, deck plan, and surveyor’s report. In addition, we have the log book of the real Oulu and what manifests and documents they were able to dig up. You’d better study them.’

  He leaned forward. ‘By the time we set off home,’ he said, ‘we ought to have collected enough valuable information to stand us in good stead in the event of the Germans going into Norway. With our job done, therefore, we shall appear to head for the Skagerrak, the Kattegat, the Baltic and Mariehamn, but instead, we shall head west for Rosyth, and hope to be escorted home.’ He looked at the shabby shape of Willie John who was slouched in his chair with his cap still on. ‘In ports, our reply to the identification letter transmitted to us, will be only O – for Oulu. Understood?’

  Willie John seemed to be asleep and Seago raised his voice. ‘Understood?’ he repeated.

  Willie John stirred himself at last. ‘It iss listenin’ I am,’ he said. ‘An’ I’m after addin’ that I do not like this job.’

  Seago seemed faintly dismayed by the unexpected disclosure. In his world what the Navy wished went without question. ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  ‘Because o’ yon hold where we ha’e the radios just.’ Willie John’s lined face twisted with disgust. ‘She hass the rats and other beasties down there, hass she not?’

  Seago was still more often in Devonport than in Falmouth and with most of the work about the ship falling on Magnusson’s shoulders, he found it surprisingly heavy. As somebody he could appeal to for assistance, he had long since written off Willie John, who wouldn’t have lasted five minutes on a ship with any vestige of naval discipline. Willie John would attend to communications and, apart from emergencies, from him that would be the lot. Campbell was always willing, of course, and knew his job, but it was clear there was little rapport between himself and the other members of the wardroom.

  ‘Do ye no’ ever smile an’ gi’e y’r face a joy-rite, boy?’ Willie John asked, staring at him as if he’d just appeared from under a stone.

  ‘My father,’ Campbell said coldly, ‘didn’t get his rank – or his decorations – walking about the quarter-deck with an inane grin on his face.’

  ‘I pet,’ Willie John said darkly as Campbell vanished, ‘that yon father o’ his wass about ass popular with the crew ass a loat o’ mad dogs.’

  It was obvious it was not going to be easy, especially with Seago a stiff humourless Norfolk man as dour as his own flat countryside and Willie John regarding King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions merely as a thick volume with which you could prop up the leg of a broken table. For him at least the venture had the aspects of a lark and, with the clannish freemasonry of a fellow Scot, he took great delight in discussing the other two in their presence in the Gaelic that only Magnusson understood.

  ‘Perhaps they’re dead,’ he suggested. ‘They’re pretty good at embalming these days.’

  As often as not, Lieutenant-Commander Snaith, like the rest of them dressed for the occasion in civilian clothes, was on board to discuss what was to be done. He was usually accompanied by a Wren writer called Dowsonby-Smith, whose family owned an enormous house at Perranarworthal and used her private means to support herself in a flat in Western Terrace. She was engaged to the son of the owner of one of the shipyards along the river who was now, unfortunately, in the Navy and stationed in Thurso, which was as far as you could get from Falmouth in the main mass of the British Isles without falling off the edge. Magnusson and Willie John both already had their eyes on her, and the mating sounds made Snaith wince.

  ‘Ye ha’e no need tae worry about yon Snaith, boy,’ Willie John said gaily. ‘He goes with Seago. One wass trainin’ vegetables tae stand in rows when war broke out, and the other wass runnin’ a trainin’ school for little girls.’

  It was a callous lie, because Snaith was a good engineer with a sound knowledge of sailing ships and, whatever his faults, Seago appeared to know his job.

  They had moored the ship as far from prying eyes as they could but, despite the cold weather and the fact that there was a war on, visitors from Exeter and Truro down for the day still managed to find their way among the old ropes and blackened timbers on to a patch of waste land to watch. By this time, on the understanding that there was no point in living aboard ship until necessary, Magnusson and Willie John were sharing a flat in the old part of the town. Conscious of a guilty feeling at excluding Campbell, they had offered him the spare bedroom but he had declined with the comment that his place was aboard ship.

  ‘I’d rather be where I can be on hand to watch developments,’ he said.

  The flat was a tiny affair of low
ceilings and minute bedrooms. It could hardly be called comfortable but they’d already started trying to live up to their roles as poverty-stricken Finnish ship’s officers and they were lucky to get it because Falmouth was full of people who had evacuated themselves hurriedly from London at the beginning of the war when they’d expected plane-loads of bombs to drop on them.

  With a pub just round the corner it was never easy to keep Willie John entirely sober, however, and it was as he sang his way to bed one night that the owner, a small, pink-faced widow called Vera Tredinnick, thundered on the panels.

  ‘Pin a rose tae y’r permanent wave,

  The Navy’s at the door!’

  He was singing as he wrenched at the knob. ‘Well if it iss not herself. Come in beauty like the night! Come away in, cearc fhraoich, an’ put y’r feet up.’

  ‘I’m not used to this sort of thing,’ Mrs Tredinnick informed Magnusson sharply. ‘And I can get a much higher price than you pay if I want.’

  ‘Who from?’ Willie John was standing at an angle, propping himself up with his head against the sloping ceiling. ‘Dwarfs?’

  To keep up the picture of distressed seamen, they hired bicycles from a shop, which let them out to holidaymakers during the summer. The frames were so crooked they seemed to have been run over.

  ‘Made for the Swiss, boy,’ Willie John said gaily. ‘One leg iss shorter than the other for walkin’ on mountains.’

  The dishevelled appearance of the ship began to change surprisingly as rust was chipped and paintwork was scraped and the old men gradually made sense of the rigging. They were bent and grey but they were enthusiastic and capable of an extraordinary amount of hard work. Ballast was carted aboard, and a grizzled chief petty officer by the name of Marques had appeared. Since Oulu was to be a naval ship – at least below decks – she had to have someone to run the discipline, and Marques was master-at-arms. The ratings all seemed good sound men and at one time or another they had all done time in sailing ships, either in boys’ training for the Navy or in fishing boats, and all knew the difference between a hoist and a downhaul and how to handle sails. Every one of them had been carefully selected and they had all given an undertaking that what they were up to was to be kept secret.