Hammond had told Trewin earlier that the gunner was paying for a new bungalow in Southsea to which he had hoped to retire. The war had stopped all that and Tweedie had been sent to the Far East immediately after the first shots had been fired. Now apparently he relied on his wife’s letters to keep him informed, not about her wellbeing, but of all the recent progress to bungalow and garden.
He had a tight, tapered mouth, and Trewin guessed that he probably suffered from stomach trouble. When the ship was in harbour and he was not required for duty, Tweedie just disappeared. Nobody knew where he went, and no one, it seemed, cared very much either.
Trewin forgot the morose gunner as a voice-pipe intoned, `Steam on capstan, sir!’
He recognised the voice as belonging to the chief E.R.A., Nimmo, whom he had met the previous evening when exploring the engine room. Porcupine did not warrant a commissioned engineer, but Nimmo’s square, competent face left Trewin in no doubt that the ship’s power department was in excellent hands.
`Very good, Chief.’ He looked round the bridge as a loudspeaker blared. `Special sea dutymen to your stations! Stand by for leaving harbour!’
He loosened his shirt, feeling suddenly tense. All at once it was new and different again. He heard the clatter of running feet on ladders and sidedecks and saw the white-clad seamen scampering below the bridge as if their lives depended on it. Others appeared on the bridge, and below in the wheelhouse he heard C.P.O. Unwin, the coxswain, testing the wheel and speaking severely to one of the telegraphsmen.
There was a step behind him and Trewin turned to face a tall, lanky lieutenant who was carrying a folded chart under one arm. His shoulder straps showed that he was a reservist, and before Trewin could speak he said easily, `I’m Ted Mallory, navigating officer.’ He held out his free hand and raised one eyebrow. `How are you doing?’
Trewin grinned. Mallory was the sort of man you either took to immediately or disliked on sight. He had dark, steady eyes and deep lines around his mouth which gave him a sort of permanent derisive smile. He was very tanned and his cheeks were covered with tiny pockmarks, mementoes from some childhood acne.
`Glad to meet you.’ Trewin looked across at one of the anchored gunboats. She too had steam up, and he could see the white caps of her officers along the bridge screen. `We’re sailing in company then?’
Mallory clipped the chart on to the bridge table and laid his ruler and dividers on top. `Sure. We often do.’ He smiled. `A proper toy fleet, this is!’ He glanced at his watch and became very serious. `I was ashore till this morning, otherwise I’d have had a quiet word.’ He screwed up his eyes and added, `You seem a nice bloke, so I’d better warn you.’ He waved his hand across the bridge. `You may not know it, but the screws on this gunboat are in tunnels right inside the hull.’
Trewin nodded slowly. `The chief did mention it.’
Mallory eyed him admiringly. `You’ve been doing your homework! Anyway, what you may not know is that at halfspeed or so you need very little helm.. She’s flat-bottomed and will sail on wet grass. Also, she’ll swing round like a terrier if you put the wheel hard over.’
Trewin made a mental note of it. `Thanks again. And I’m taking her out this morning. I might have muffed it.’
`Too right you would.’ Mallory scowled and rubbed his eyes.
`He’d have loved that!’ He sounded bitter. `The captain?’
`Who else?’ Mallory dropped his voice as a bridge messenger hurried past. `He’s off his nut; you realise that, I suppose?’
Trewin did not know what to say. Around and below him he could feel the ship coming alive, yet there was something strangely compelling in the Australian’s tone which held him and made him listen.
Mallory shrugged. `You’re the first lieutenant now, so naturally you can’t say anything.’ He touched Trewin’s arm. `And I’m not giving you the cold shoulder either. No, you’ll have to watch your step and see for yourself.’ He grinned and breathed out noisily. `Well, that’s that. I guess from what I’ve heard you can take care of yourself.’ He looked meaningly at the open hatch which led down to the captain’s quarters. `Apart from his lordship, you are the only joker aboard who has seen any action!’
Trewin replied slowly, `I’d have thought you were the obvious choice for number one?F
‘Me?’ Mallory’s grin broadened. `I was mate of a bloody meat freighter. I used to make the run from Aussie to the U.K., and very nice too. But I am an Aussie, and, let’s face it, there are too many stuck-up bastards in this Navy to allow a common bastard like me to get on. With no disrespect to you, of course.’
Trewin smiled. `None taken.’
Mallory continued thoughtfully. `The skipper thinks that all Aussies are a cross between bushrangers and the bloke who says fair dinkum and good on yer in every second breath. In fact, he likes everyone in a nice, neat category, so you’d better conform if you want to stay in one piece.’
A look-out muttered, `The captain, sir.’ He was addressing Mallory.
The Australian winked and looked down at his chart. `Here we go then!’
Commander Corbett climbed briskly on to the freshly scrubbed gratings and stared fixedly at the forecastle.
Trewin saluted formally. `Ship ready to proceed, sir.’ He saw Mallory watching him and wondered how much of what he had said was true.
Corbett said, `A fine morning, Trewin.’ Then, `Very well. Carry on.’ He looked across and Mallory and added, `Pilot here. will have the necessary charts, I hope.’
Mallory spread his hands. `Oh too right, sir.’ He spoke in the most terribly assumed drawl, and Trewin stared at the captain expecting him to cut the Australian down to size, but he merely nodded and then lifted his glasses to study the other gunboat.
Trewin leaned across the chart table and hissed, `What the hell are you trying to do?’
Mallory’s big hands moved the parallel rulers with skilled ease, and he replied calmly, `I always speak like that to him. It makes him feel secure.’ He grinned hugely. ‘Wogs and Aussies, the skipper likes to know who he’s dealing with.’
A signalman shouted, `Signal, sir! Proceed when ready!’
Corbett frowned. `I’m ready now!’
Trewin tried to ignore him and walked to the side of the bridge. He saw Hammond wave back to his signal and heard the steady clank of the capstan. He said, `Stand by.’
Below his feet he heard the clang of telegraphs and felt the responding tremble of engines through the soles of his shoes.
Clank, clank, clank. He watched the cable jerking through the hawsepipe where Chinese seamen were busy scrubbing each link with their brooms before it vanished below decks. Then Hammond yelled, `Up and down, sir!’
It was now or never. Trewin held the picture of the current in his mind like a chart and snapped, `Slow ahead together! Starboard fifteen!’
`Anchors aweigh!’
Trewin watched narrowly as the blunt bows started to swing across the backdrop of green hills. He had done the first part. Not too quick, but not too late either. He crossed to the compass, and checked the slow swing around the anchorage.
‘Midships. Steady. Steer one one zero!’ Around him the business of paying salutes was well under way. Trilling pipes, and once when they surged past a massive cruiser, the lordly blare of a bugle.
Trewin suddenly found that he had almost forgotten about Corbett. He was actually enjoying conning the little gunboat down the Strait towards the open sea. As Mallory had predicted, the Porcupine answered well to minimum helm on her triple rudders, but he knew that but for the man’s warning he would have made a mess of it. In the M.L. he had found it necessary to put the wheel hard over for anything but full speed.
Once when he glanced sideways at Corbett he saw him staring astern at the other gunboat which had weighed and picked up station automatically with the Porcupine. It was odd that Corbett had failed to mention about the ship’s handling. It might have been an oversight, but Corbett did not seem the sort of officer who overlooked a
nything.
Minutes dragged into half an hour, and Mallory unclipped the chart and replaced it with another as the finger of Changi Point reached out to starboard and the channel began to widen and fall away on either beam. He said quietly, `Sandbars now. Check your bearings.’ He made sure that Corbett was facing the other way. `He’s waiting to dash in and rescue the ship from your clutches!’
Trewin frowned but checked the bearings from the compass. A nodding buoy dipped in the gunboat’s wake and a motionless junk threw its shadow across the port rail as the bows lifted slightly to another increase of speed.
Corbett said suddenly, `Fall out harbour stations. Red watch to cruising stations, if you please.’ He settled himself in a tall wooden chair which was bolted to the port side of the bridge and tilted his cap over his eyes. Then he said, `You’re getting the idea, Trewin. But don’t be too impulsive next time. A ship is a living thing. Not a lump of scrap.’
Hammond scrambled on to the bridge and saluted. `Secured for sea, sir.’
Corbett did not turn. `When you weigh anchor again I want the Jack and the Ensign hauled down together, not when the signalmen feel like doing it.’
`Aye, aye, sir.’ Hammond looked at Mallory who merely shrugged.
`And get the cable repainted. It looks like salvage!’
Trewin walked to the other side of the bridge and stared forward. Already the hands were busy with brooms and scrubbers, and he could see the chief bosun’s mate supervising a party of men who were armed with paint and brushes. He wondered how they could all be kept so busy. Like the offending anchor cable, the whole ship looked absolutely perfect.
The decks were so clean that he would have been happy to eat off them. Upperworks and rigging shone in the morning sunlight and would not have seemed out of place aboard the Royal Yacht.
Corbett said abruptly, `Make a signal to Squalus in fifteen minutes, Trewin. Tell them to exercise secondary armament in accordance with the admiral’s instructions. We will do likewise.’
`Ay, aye, sir.’
Trewin beckoned to a signalman but stopped as Corbett added, `Without ammunition, of course. There is absolutely no point in squandering war materials.’
Once again Trewin’s mind returned to England. When he had left Liverpool the summer was already finished. Now it was November, but out here there was no reality or comparison. In London they would have the additional hazards of long nights in which to cower in shelters and beneath stairways as the bombs hammered down. Like the other November when he had returned from Harwich for an unexpected twentyfour hours’ leave. He had telephoned Chris from a railway station where the train had stopped for some unaccountable delay. She had been laughing over the telephone. Laughing. Two hours later he had stood at the end of the street. Or where the street had once been. It still did not seem possible.
They had only been married for a year. Even that had seemed like an accident at-the time. They had drifted into it, and had both been surprised by the intensity of the love which grew between them. Now she was dead. Wiped away as if she had never been.
Mallory picked up a pair of glasses and studied the low green coastline and the jutting fingers of pale sand. `Do you think the war will come out this way, Number One?’ He kept his voice down and he had to repeat his question before Trewin was dragged from his brooding thoughts.
He replied harshly, `I should think so. The Japs are playing merry hell right through Indo-China, so what is to stop them having a crack at us?’
Mallory grimaced. `They’ll never attack Singapore, that’s for sure. The Yanks will be the target this time.’
Corbett turned in his chair. `I hope they do attack Singapore !’ Beneath his cap his pale eyes flashed with sudden anger.
`My God, our country could do with a few victories ! Just let them come, that’s what I say!’
Mallory asked innocently, `Singapore’s that good, is it, sir?’
`Of course ! If you spent a little more time studying our defence systems and a little less on the local fleshpots you might tend to understand it better.’
Mallory winked behind his back, but Trewin still felt strangely angry. They all looked on it as some sort of game. What the hell was the matter with them?’
He said coldly, `They thought the Maginot Line was good, too!’
Corbett sighed. `The danger out here is infiltration and sabotage. We must all be on our toes. We won’t have time for making excuses, eh?’
A silence fell over the bridge, and apart from the occasional helm order Trewin was prepared to let it remain so.
On the battery deck the gun crews went through their drills like regimented dummies, with nothing more warlike to break the silence than the occasional click of metal or Tweedie’s grating bark of command. It struck Trewin that the gunnery, like the ship’s very presence off the coastline, was merely a pretence, an annoying necessity which had to be tolerated, but which must in no way interfere with the daily routine and the preservation of old standards.
He stared up at the bright sky and tried not to think of what would happen if it suddenly filled with attacking aircraft. They would all die bravely, no doubt. But that was not enough. It never had been enough. It was strange how in every recent war it seemed to take several years to weed out the empty minds of peacetime strategy. Men who had reached their powerful commands by seniority or influence, and were more amateur in their trade than those untrained beyond the requirements of battle. Except that in this war there was no longer any time
left. England was walled up behind her defences, feeding from the lacerated Atlantic convoys which daily ran the gauntlet of bombers and U-boats. Only the Far East possessions were so far immune from the heat of battle. But for how much longer?
Corbett snapped, `Signal the Squalus, Trewin! She’s out of station!’ He moved in his chair as if it was restricting him. `You must try to watch these things!’
The flags soared up the Porcupine’s yards almost before Trewin could pass the order, and the other gunboat’s acknowledgement was just as swift. Either they were all well trained or they were used to Corbett’s sudden complaints.
Mallory tapped the chart and said, `We shall be putting into the Talang River, Number One. It’s about one hundred and fifty miles up the east coast and pretty treacherous. The Army are building a fuel dump there and we usually drop in to show the flag.’
Corbett had excellent hearing. `I shall expect you to con her into the anchorage there, Trewin. Good practice for you, eh?’ He was looking the other way but seemed to be expecting a reply.
Trewin said flatly, `I think it’s a mistake to do these patrols so regularly, sir. If there are any Japanese agents hereabouts they’ll not hang around to wait for us !’
Mallory laughed but fell silent as Corbett said scathingly, `The very fact that we are here is enough ! Anyway, we are not at war with Japan. In the last war they were our allies. And damn good ones, too!’
Trewin walked to the rear of the bridge. To himself he muttered angrily. `And so were the Italians!’
Four o’clock the following morning found the Porcupine steaming steadily northwards parallel with the Malayan coast. After the clammy stuffiness of his cabin Trewin found the upper bridge cool and refreshing, and he stood relaxed by the voice-pipes as Sub-Lieutenant Hammond finished writing hip
comments in the log before handing over the watch. The sky was full of stars, but already there was a brightness above the horizon, and Trewin knew that it would soon be like an oven in the open bridge.
Hammond signed his name in a flourish and said with a yawn, `She’s all yours, Number One. Course three five nine.’
Trewin leaned over the chart table and nodded. `Still knocking up a steady eight knots, I see.’
Hammond half listened to the gabble of voices in the pipes by his side. `You’ve got a good quartermaster in Jardine. He never falls asleep at the wheel!’ He turned towards the ladder. `The captain’s down for a shake in two hours, sir. He always likes to be on the
bridge when we turn into the Talang River.’
Trewin glanced astern. Still on station, as if pinned to an invisible towline, he could clearly see the white crescent of the other gunboat’s bow-wave and the gleaming eyes of her navigation lights.
Hammond followed his glance. `Squalus will push on another twenty-five miles to Kuantan. We rendezvous again in fortyeight hours.’ He yawned even wider. `God, you can set your watch by it. I wish that just once we would change places or something.’
Petty Officer Kane, the ship’s G.I:, loomed out of the darkness. `Blue watch closed up at cruising stations, sir!’
Trewin nodded. `Very good.’
Hammond threw one leg on to the ladder. `I’m for bed.’ His head vanished over the side of the bridge, and Trewin had the watch to himself. Methodically he filled and lit his pipe and hung his cap on one of the voice-pipes. Then he leaned on his arms on the screen and stared emptily over the pale wedge of the gunboat’s forecastle.
He could feel the gentle tremble of the engines coursing up through his shoulders, and occasionally caught the acrid tang of funnel smoke as it fanned down over the bridge, caught by the offshore breeze.
It was strange that they were going into Talang, he thought. Porcupine was the senior ship, the flagship in fact, and from what he could gather Talang was a pretty remote outpost compared with Kuantan to the north.
The Pride and the Anguish Page 3
