RENDEZVOUS –
SOUTH
ATLANTIC
Douglas Reeman
Douglas Reeman's reputation as a front-rank writer of sea stories is now secure. He has been hailed as `a born storyteller' (Sunday Telegraph) and as `a master in whose hands British naval fiction is safe' (Chicago Tribune). Rendezvous - South Atlantic has all the qualities that have won him acclaim: forceful narrative, convincing characters, and strongly drawn backgrounds.
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To the armed merchant cruisers Rawalpindi, Jervis Bay, Laurentic, Dunvegan Castle and to all those other proud ships which sailed in peace but went to war when they were most needed
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1972
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I am the tomb of one shipwrecked; but sail thou: for even while we perished, the other ships sailed on across the sea.
From The Greek Anthology
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Contents
1 Scapa
2 The nightmare
3 Raider
4 A ship burns
5 Learning
6 Officers and men
7 A Wren called Eve
8 A small error
9 The trap
10 Christmas leave,
11 Memories
12 Convoy
13 Abandoned
14 Hittingback
15 The dinner party
16 A miracle
17 The house by the sea
18 Passage home
19 `They made it safe . .
1 Scapa
The camouflaged Humber staff car ground to a halt, its front bumper within feet of the jetty's edge, and stood vibrating noisily as if eager to be off again.
The small Wren driver, muffled to the ears against the intense cold, made to switch off the windscreen wipers, saying, `Well, here you are, sir. There'll be a boat across at any minute.'
She turned slightly as the car's only passenger said, `Don't switch them off. Not yet.'
Oblivious to her curious stare, Commander Andrew Lindsay leaned forward to peer through the rain-slashed glass, his face outwardly devoid of expression.
Grey. Everything was grey. The misty outline of the islands, the sky, and the varied shapes of the ships as they tugged at their cables in the wind and rain. The waters of the great natural anchorage of Scapa Flow were the deeper colour of lead, the only life being that of swirling tide-race and the turbulent undertow.
Scapa: That one word was enough. To thousands of sailors in two world wars it spoke volumes. 'Damp and cold. Raging gales and seas so fierce as to need every ounce of skill to fight clear of rocks and surrounding islets.
As his eyes moved slowly across the anchored ships he wondered what his new command would be like. You could never tell, in spite of your orders, your searching through manuals and intelligence reports. Even at the naval headquarters in Kirkwall they had been unhelpful.
H.M.S. Benbecula, an armed merchant cruiser, had been fitting out for six months, and now lay awaiting her new captain. On the stormy crossing by way of the Pentland Firth from the Scottish mainland he had seen about a dozen young seamen watching him, their inexperienced eyes filled with what curiosity, hope or, like himself, resignation? One thing was certain, they had all been as green as grass. In more ways than one, for within minutes of casting off most of them had been violently seasick.
And this was only September. The second September of the war.
The Wren driver studied his profile and wondered. Her passenger was about thirty-three or four. When she had picked him up by the H.Q. building she had seen him staring moodily at the glistening street and had sensed a sudden throb of interest. And that was unusual in Scapa. The Wrens were vastly outnumbered by the male services, and it had become hard to raise much excitement over one more newcomer. Yet there was something different about this one, she decided. He had fair hair, longer than usual for a regular officer, and his blue eyes were level and extremely grave. As if he were grappling with some constant problem. Trying to come to a decision. As he was at the moment as he stared over this hateful view. He had that latent touchof recklessness about him which was appealing to her, but at the same time seemed withdrawn. Even lost.
He said quietly, `You can switch them off now. Thank you.'
Lindsay settled down in the seat, pulling his greatcoat collar about his ears. Grey and cold. Greedy and impatient to test him again.
He knew the girl was watching him and wondered idly what she was like under all those shapeless clothes and scarves. In her twenties probably, like most of the Wrens he had seen in the warm rooms of the H.Q. building. He smiled grimly. In her twenties. He had entered the navy as a twelve-year-old cadet in 1920. Twenty-one years ago.
All that time without a break. Working and studying. Travelling and learning his trade. His smile vanished. Just for this. Command of some clapped-out merchant ship, which because of a few guns and a naval crew was classed as a warship. An armed merchant cruiser. Even the title sounded crazy.
'I think I can see a motor boat coming, sir.'
He started. Caught off guard. All at once he felt the returning anxiety and uncertainty. If only he was going back to sea in a destroyer again. Any destroyer would do, even one like the old Vengeur. But he must stop thinking like that. Vengeur was gone. Lying on the sea-bed in mid-Atlantic.
He saw the distant shape of the motor boat, her blurred outline scurrying'above the white moustache of her bow wave. Soon now.
Warily he let his mind return to his last command, like a man touching a newly healed wound. He had been given her just two days after the outbreak of war. She had been old, a veteran V & W class destroyer built in the First World War, and yet he had come to love and respect her quaint ways and whims.
As the first nervous thrusts by friend and foe alike gave way to swift savagery, Lindsay, like most of his contemporaries, had had to start learning all over again. Theories on tactics, became myths overnight. The firm belief that nothing could break the Navy's control of the seas was stretched to and beyond the limit of even the most optimistic. Around them the world went mad. Dunkirk, the collapse of Norway and the Low Countries, the French surrender with the subsequent loss of their fleet's support, piled one burden upon another. In the Navy the nearness of disaster and loss was more personal. Right here, within sighting distance of this quivering car, the battleship Royal Oak had been sunk at anchor by a U-boat. The defences were supposed to be impregnable. That was what they always said.
And just six months ago, while he had been in hospital, the battle-cruiser Hood had been destroyed by the mighty German Bismarck. The Navy had been stunned. It was not just because a powerful unit had been sunk. In war you had to accept losses. But the Hood had been different. She had been more than just a ship. She had been a symbol. Huge, beautiful and arrogant, she had cruised the world between the wars, showed the flag in dozens of foreign ports, lain at anchor at reviews ablaze in coloured lights and bedecked with bunting to the delight of old and young alike. To the public at large she was the Royal Navy. Unreachable, a sure shield. Everything.
In a blizzard, just one shell had been enough to blast her to oblivion. From the hundreds of men who served her, only three had been found alive.
Perhaps his own Vengeur had been closer to reality, he thought vaguely. Old but well-tried and strongly built. She had served her company well, even at the last.
He could remember the moment exactly. As if it were yesterday. Or now.
His had been the senior ship of the escort to a westbound convoy for the United States. Twenty ships, desperately needed to bring back the stores and needs of a nation alone and at war.
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Two merchantmen had been torpedoed and sunk in the first three days, but after that it seemed as if the Atlantic was going to favour them. A great gale had got up, and for day after day the battered convoy had driven steadily westward, with Vengeur always hurrying up and down the straggling lines of ships, urging and pleading, threatening and encouraging. The rest of the escort had consisted of two converted trawlers and a patrol vessel which had been laid down in 1915.
It was all that the greatest navy in the world had to spare, so they had made the best of it.
Perhaps the invisible U-boats ran deep to avoid the storm and so lost the convoy, or maybe they went searching for easier targets. They would have had little difficulty.
But one U-boat commander had been more persistent and had managed to keep up with the ragged lines of merchantmen. He must have been trying for the most valuable ship in the convoy, a big, modern tanker which with luck would bring back enough fuel to carry the bombers across Germany and show them what it was like.
The wind had eased, and the sky had been clearer than for many days. It had almost been time to rendezvous with the American patroll vessels, an arrangement which made a lie to their neutrality, but one which was more than welcome to merchantmen and escorts alike.
There were three torpedoes, all of which missed the tanker by a narrow margin. But one hit the' elderly Vengeur on the port side of her forecastle, shearing off her bows like a giant axe.
The ship's company had mercifully been at action stations at the time of the explosion, otherwise the watch below would have died or been drowned later when the forepart tore adrift.
As it was, the ship went down in fifteen minutes, with dignity. Or as the coxswain had said later, `Like the bleedin' lady she was.'
Only five men had been lost, and all the remainder had been picked up from the boats and rafts by a Swedish freighter which had been an unwilling spectator to the sinking.
Lindsay dug his hands into his greatcoat pockets and clenched them, into fists. Just one more sinking. It happened all the time, and the powers that be would be glad the Vengeur and not the big tanker had caught the torpedo.
It was later. Later. He gritted his teeth together to stop himself from speaking aloud.
The girl asked, `Are you all right, sir?'
He turned on her. `What the hell do you mean by that?' She looked away. `I'm sorry.'
'No.' He removed his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. It felt damp with sweat. Fear. `No, I'm the one toapologise.
She looked at him again, her eyes searching. `Was it bad, sir?'
He shrugged. `Enough.' Abruptly he asked, `Are you engaged to be married or anything?'
She eyed him steadily. `No, sir. I was. He bought it over Hamburg last year.'
`I see.' Bought it. So coolly said. The resilience of youth at war. 'Well, I'd better get out now. Otherwise the boat will go away without me.'
`Here, sir. I'll give you a hand with your bags.' She ignored his protests and climbed out of the car on to the wet stones of the jetty.
The wind slammed the door back against the car, and Lindsay felt the wind lashing his face like wire. Below the steps he could see the tossing motor boat, the oilskinned figures of coxswain and bowman.
He said, `Maybe I'll see you again.' He tried to smile but his face felt like a mask.
She squinted up at him, the, rain making her forehead and jaunty cap shine in the grey light. `Maybe.' `What name is it?'
She tugged down the sodden scarf from her mouth and smiled. `Collins, sir.' She wrinkled her nose. `Eve Collins. Daft, isn't it?'
She had a nice mouth. Lindsay realised one of the seamen was picking up his bags, his eyes on the girl's legs. He said, `Take care then.'
He walked to the steps and hurried down into the waiting boat.
The girl returned to the car and slid behind the wheel, her wet duffel coat making a smear across the worn
leather. As she backed the car away from the jetty's edge she saw the boat turning fussily. towards the anchorage. Nice bloke, she thought. She frowned, letting in the gear with a violent jerk, nice, but scared of something. Why did I give him my name? He'll not be back. She looked at herself in the mirror. Poor bastard. Like all the rest of us in this bloody place.
Lindsay remained standing as the boat dipped and curtsied across the wind-ruffled water, gripping the canopy with both hands. as he watched the anchored ships. Battleships and heavy cruisers, fleet destroyers and supply vessels, the grey metal gleamed dully. as the little boat surged past. The only colour was made by the ships' streaming ensigns or an occasional splash of dazzle paint on some sheltering Atlantic escort. His experienced eye told him about most of °the ships. Their names and classes, where they had met before. Faces and voices, the Navy was like a family. A religion. And all these ships, perhaps the best in the fleet, were tied here at Scapa, swinging round their buoys and anchors, waiting. Just in case the German heavy units broke out again to try and destroy the convoys, scatter the defences and shorten the odds against England even more.
Bismarck had been caught and sunk after destroying the Hood. But it had been a close run thing and had taken damn near the whole Home Fleet to do it. Graf Spee had been destroyed by her own people in Montevideo. rather than accept defeat by a victorious but inferior British force. But again, she had done well to get that far, had sunk many valuable ships before she was run to earth. And even now the mighty Tirpitz and several other powerful modern capital ships were said to be lurking in Norwegian fjords or in captured French ports along the Bay of Biscay. Just gauging the right moment. And until that moment, these ships had to lie here, fretting, cursing and wasting.
He glanced at the boat's coxswain. Probably wondering what sort of a skipper they were getting. Was he any good? Could he keep them all in one piece?
The seaman said gruffly, `There she is, sir. Fine on the starboard bow.'
Lindsay held his breath. For a moment she was just one more shadow in the steady downpour, and then she was right there, looming above him1ike a dripping steel cliff. Lindsay knew her history, had studied her picture and layout more than once, but after a low-lying destroyer, or any other warship for that matter, a merchantman always appeared huge And vulnerable. It took more than drab grey paint, a naval ensign and a few guns to change that.
Five hundred feet long from _her unfashionable straight stem to her overhanging stern, and twelve-anda-half thousand tons, she had steamed many thousands of miles since she had first slid into the Clyde in 1919. Born at a time of dashed hopes and unemployment, of world depression and post-war apathy, she had represented jobs to the shipyard workers rather than some source of a new hope. But she had done well for herself and her owners. Described in the old shipping lists as an intermediate liner, she had been almost constantly on the London to Brisbane run. Port Said, Aden, Colombo, Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Her ports of call were like a record of the merchant navy itself, which in spite of everything had been the envy of the world.
Cargo, mail and passengers, she had pounded her way over the years, earning money, giving pleasure, making jobs.
After Dunkirk, when Britain had at last realised the war was not going to be won by stalemate, if at all, she had waited for a new role. The stately ocean liners had become hospital ships and troopers, and every other
freighter, tanker or aged tramp steamer was thrown into the battle for survival on the convoy routes. Benbecula had done some trooping, but she was of an awkward size. Not suitable for big cargoes, too small for large numbers of servicemen on passage, she had been moved likela clumsy pawn from one war theatre to the next.
With the Navy stretched beyond safety limits she had been earmarked at last as an armed merchant cruiser. She could endure the heaviest weather and stay away from base far longer than the average warship. To patrol the great wastes of the North Atlantic off Iceland, or the barren sea areas of the Denmark Strait. Watch for blockade runners, report anything suspicious, but stay out
of real: danger. Any heavy naval unit could make scrap of an unarmoured hull like hers. Rawalpindi had found that out. And only some nine months ago the Jervis Bay had been sunk defending a fully loaded convoy a thousand miles outward bound from the American coast. The convoy had scattered in safety while the Jervis Bay, outgunned and ablaze, had matched shot for shot with a German battleship. Her destruction, her sacrifice, had brought pride as well as shame to those who had left the country so weak and so blind to its danger.
The motor boat cut across the tall bows and Lindsay saw the overhanging bridge wing, the solitary funnel and the alien muzzle of a six-inch gun below her foremast.
He said, `She seems to have a list to starboard.'
The coxswain grinned. "S'right, sir. I'm told she nearly always has had. One of the old hands said she got a biff in some typhoon afore the war an' never got over it like.'
Lindsay frowned. He had not realised he had spoken his thoughts aloud. A slight list to starboard. And he was not' even aboard her yet.
Again he sensed the chill of anxiety. He forced himself to go over the facts in his mind. Six six-inch guns, two hundred and fifty officers and ratings, most of whom were straight from the training depots.
The first lieutenant's name was Goss. John Goss.
The hull towered right over him now, and he saw the accommodation ladder stretching away endlessly towards several peeringfaces at the guardrail. How many passengers had swarmed up and down this ladder? Souvenirs, dirty postcards from Aden, a brass bowl for an aunt in Eastbourne.
Stop. Must stop right now.
He stood upright in the pitching boat as the bowman hooked on with studied ease.
As Lindsay jumped on to the grating the boat's mechanic hissed, `Woes 'e like, Bob?'
The coxswain watched Lindsay's slim figure hurrying up the side and replied through his teeth, 'Straightringer. A regular. Not like the last skipper.'
The mechanic groaned. 'Either'e's blotted 'is copybook an' is no bleedin' good for nuthin' else, or we're bein' given some special, bloody-awful job! Either way it's no bloody use, is it?'
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