Convoy East (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  ‘Could have done a lot more damage, Bose. Structurally, that is.’ He looked around, not able to see much except when the nearer gun-flashes brought some light to the scene. There were human remains, legs and arms, and there was a stench of burned flesh. At one moment Ramm slipped on something greasy: a pool of blood. Tod Ridgway, reacting fast, saved him from a tumble over the side. The guardrail had been blown away in the explosion, and the sea yawned ready. Ramm said, ‘Jesus Christ, eh! Near one, was that.’ He knew well enough that the ship wouldn’t have stopped to pick him up. He watched the hose parties still at work, making sure, although the fire after the explosion had been nipped smartly in the bud. With all the explosive cargo under hatches, there was a clear need to keep the decks cooled down. More than anything else, Ramm wanted a fag. When he saw that the bosun didn’t need his further assistance, he made his way for’ard to the bridge, where the close-range weapons were keeping up their fire whenever a target came within their capacity. They were, Ramm thought sardonically, doing bugger-all good though you never knew what a lucky shot might do. He thought ahead, to after the action, if there was an after. There would be a scooping-up operation to do, if anything remained to be given some sort of sea burial. In point of fact, the hoses would already have disposed of most of the carnage.

  As Ramm reached the bridge there seemed to come a lull in the general racket, a quietening of the guns. Kemp saw the PO’s approach.

  ‘Well, Petty Officer Ramm. Someone on the 6-inch did a good fob.’

  ‘Yessir. Leading Seaman Nelson, sir.’

  ‘Casualties?’

  Ramm said, ‘No survivors, sir. All gone when the ammo went. Including Nelson.’

  ‘He’ll be mentioned in my report. For what good that’ll do him.’ Kemp brought up his binoculars and scanned the sea all around. ‘I think they’re pulling out. For now, anyway.’ All the Seafire squadrons had been flown off from the Indomitable and the Formidable and appeared to have swung the action in favour of the convoy. The Stukas had had enough, and the heart had been taken out of the Italians by the loss of the cruiser and, as reported by Captain (D) within the next few minutes, the loss of no less than three of their submarines, sunk by the depth charges from the destroyer escort.

  ‘A fair night’s work,’ Kemp said to Champney. With no losses to the convoy itself, it could be considered a kind of victory. But there was a long way to go yet. As the aircraft-carriers turned into the wind to begin the operation of landing on their squadrons, Kemp had a word with Captain Champney and then passed the order for the remnant of his guns’ crews to stand down from first degree of readiness and resume cruising stations. Kemp himself remained on the bridge, head sunk into his arms folded on the rail of the fore screen. He was thinking about the casualties: all those men from the 6-inch. There would be letters to be written to the next-of-kin, a job that Kemp hated. No words of his could ever hope to compensate...the words, always in his own handwriting, must seem hollow. Killed in action...died for his country...they should be proud...never let his shipmates down, fighting to the last.

  A load of guff? Only up to a point, for the words would be true enough. But sometimes Kemp doubted the sentiments behind them. War was a bastard, never did any good, just shifted the power balance for a few years after it was all over, and then you started preparing for the next time, so that more good men could die for their countries on both sides. The same throughout history, and no reason, really, why it should ever change.

  Kemp was still on the bridge with Champney when the first light of the dawn stole over the eastern horizon, bringing the sun’s rays peeping over a calm blue sea with a brilliance of colour, reds and greens and golds shot with orange. No enemy in sight: like a peacetime cruise had it not been for the twisted wreckage aft, the metal burned black, the wooden deck charred, and of course the casualties. And the great camouflaged shapes around the Wolf Rock, steaming now in the orderly rows of the convoy formation, the battleships as steady and as large as blocks of flats, their White Ensigns streaming in a light breeze added to by the wind made by their own passing, the St George’s Cross of the Admiral flying from the Nelson’s foremast as a challenge bold and flaunting to those who would interrupt the convoy’s passage through Mussolini’s mare nostrum.

  THIRTEEN

  I

  There was a knock at Jean Forrest’s cabin door. ‘Who is it?’ she called. She was in her dressing-gown, meaning to go along to the bathroom set aside for the WRNS officers’ use. Even with the weather warming up now, she kept her door shut, not trusting to the curtain.

  ‘It’s me, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh. All right, PO, come in.’

  Rose Hardisty entered. Jean asked, ‘Is it important?’

  ‘It’s about Third Officer Pawle, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She’s complaining of funny feelings, ma’am. In her leg. Pain, ma’am. The one that’s off.’

  ‘I believe that’s quite usual, PO. There’s a name for it. Sympathy pains, I’m not sure. It’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I’ve heard it happens. But does it really? I mean —’

  Jean Forrest gave a short laugh. ‘It certainly doesn’t mean Mrs Pawle’s hallucinating or anything like that. There’s nothing mental in it — not in that sense anyway. It can go on a long time, I think.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Well, I’m relieved to know that.’ She still looked worried. ‘It’s that Dr O’Dwyer, you see. He’s not up to it, not really he isn’t. Though of course it’s not for me to say. But there doesn’t seem to be much use asking him anything. And though I shouldn’t say this either, ma’am, he does smell of whisky most times.’

  ‘A seafaring failing, Petty Officer Hardisty. If I were you, I wouldn’t talk about it to anyone else, and —’

  ‘Oh no, ma’am, no, I wouldn’t ever dream of doing such.’ Rose Hardisty looked shocked at the suggestion. ‘Only to you, ma’am, feeling it my duty in a manner of speaking.’ She paused. ‘I remember when I was in service there was trouble about Barker, Barker being the butler, ma’am, and inclined —’

  ‘Yes, all right, PO. Is there anything else?’ Jean Forrest lifted her sponge-bag into a more prominent position, hoping the hint would be taken. There was a stickiness about sea air that urged her towards a bath.

  ‘Just Third Officer Pawle, ma’am.’

  ‘But you’ve already —’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. But I was going to say, apart from those funny pains, she’s better. In herself if you take my meaning, ma’am. Brighter like. I’m ever so glad to see it.’

  ‘The depression lifting?’

  Rose Hardisty nodded. ‘That’s it, ma’am, yes. And it’s all that Mr Finnegan. The American,’ she added in a somewhat wondering tone as though being American was something out of the ordinary. ‘Commodore Kemp’s —’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware of Mr Finnegan, PO. What’s he done?’ There was just a hint of somewhat sardonic naughtiness in Jean For-rest’s accompanying smile and PO Hardisty, recognizing it, flushed. It was, she thought, out of place, considering, though of course you never knew with Americans, who she understood were overpaid, over-sexed and over here.

  She said, ‘He hasn’t done anything, ma’am. Just talked to her, that’s all. He’s just a gangling boy, really, ma’am, though I say it as perhaps shouldn’t, but he does seem to understand. He drew her out...or not that, quite. I don’t know if you follow. She said she wanted to talk to someone. To him, ma’am. That Mr Finnegan.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Well, it’s her way, perhaps, of coming to terms...it’s very natural I think. Really we should have known.’

  ‘Ma’am, I didn’t think it —’

  ‘All right, PO, I’m not blaming you, far from it. I should have known. It often helps, to talk. Talk things out.’ Jean Forrest was thinking again about the Blenheim brigadier and her own need for a shoulder to cry on. Yes, she should have thought; in bereavement one’s friends so often shied off the subject, mainly out of embarr
assment but also, Jean fancied, from some notion that they would be intruding, a notion that grief was a very private thing. That was fairly conventional these days although once it had not been the case at all, the bereaved had worn deepest black and had been encouraged to mourn, Queen Victoria having been perhaps the best known example of mourning widowhood. Conventional now to do the opposite, but not necessarily right. On the other hand, Susan definitely hadn’t seemed to want to talk about anything, had in a sense been turning her face to the wall. Or bulkhead, now that they were at sea...thinking of their current situation, Jean Forrest asked if the Wren draft was being kept occupied.

  ‘So far as possible, ma’am. Physical training on the upper deck, but that has its problems, ma’am.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Rose Hardisty answered primly. ‘That PO Ramm, ma’am. He has a funny look in his eyes sometimes.’

  ‘Lecherous?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, I think so. He stands about and watches...when they bend down mostly. But other times on deck too.’

  ‘Sailors are like that, PO. I suggest you take a leaf out of the book of the usual run of men divisional officers and order something like a kit muster from time to time — that’ll keep the girls busy and out of sight for a while.’ Jean Forrest got to her feet, dismissingly. As Miss Hardisty turned to leave the cabin, the First Officer said, ‘By the way, I believe Dr O’Dwyer means to get Mrs Pawle out of bed soon.’

  ‘Out of bed, ma’am?’ Rose Hardisty stared in disbelief. ‘Why, that’s —’

  ‘It’s the modern idea,’ Jean Forrest said, slightly tongue in cheek since Dr O’Dwyer didn’t seem the sort to keep up with modern trends even supposing he’d heard of them. ‘Get them mobile. I expect there’s something in it. But there aren’t any crutches aboard the ship. She’s going to need support. Some-thing else to keep the girls occupied.’

  She went off to her bath.

  II

  Many hours steaming astern, the crippled Langstone Harbour came along behind the ocean-going rescue tugs. A warning had come from Gibraltar that ahead of her track the main body of the convoy with Force H had come under combined German and Italian attack; and Captain Horncape had been expectant of action at any time after leaving Europa Point behind to the westward. The escorting destroyers, Hindu and Burgoyne, had gone to first degree of readiness, with all guns crews closed up behind the gunshields, with the signal staff and Asdic cabinets fully alert to spot the enemy’s approach, all lookouts scanning the sea’s surface for the tell-tale feather that would indicate a submarine at periscope depth.

  Captain Horncape remained on his bridge, dead tired, almost zombie-like, steadying himself against the ship’s roll by wedging his body into a corner of the bridge wing. Every now and again he fell asleep standing up, coming to with a jerk and a guilty feeling after no more than a couple of seconds. Age, he decided, was catching up with him; the war had come along at a time when he was past his ability to go for long periods without sleep. There was a lack of energy, too. His mind drifted from the war, from the alarums and excursions of the sea, crossing the miles of ocean back to his home on the fringe of Southampton, back to Nesta his wife whom he loved dearly. Age had not dimmed her capacity to enjoy the delights of the bedroom, far from it; but so often, after coming home from sea, he had been tired, unromantic and not as eager as he ought to have been, which had explained the chief engineer from P. & 0. among others. (It had rankled that he was an engineer, one of the black gang that were spoiling the sea’s cleanness with their filthy smoke.) A couple of times a week was the most he could muster now and the more Nesta tried to nag him into further action, the less willing he became to have his much needed sleep interrupted.

  Captain Horncape, detesting the onset of age, wished he were young again. All he could do now was to grow even older, each wartime day a little tireder than the day before, on and on to the inevitable conclusion of mankind, senility and doddery legs, full of niggling complaints and a mind that looked backwards rather than into a negative future.

  Twenty-five years of marriage. Their silver wedding day would in fact be the very day the Langstone Harbour was due to enter the Grand Harbour of Valletta with her life-saving cargo. There had been no celebratory party in advance, before Horncape had sailed from the Tail o’ the Bank: like most seamen, he was superstitious and the party would be held when one day he got back to UK. But on the day itself Nesta would be having a few friends in for such drinks and food as could be mustered in wartime, and he wished her well. His thoughts would be with her, but not too closely after bedtime.

  During the early hours of next day the crow’s-nest lookout reported a vessel coming up astern: this was identified as another ocean-going rescue tug, making to the east with a big bone in her teeth. As she passed the Langstone Harbour signals were exchanged, the matey chit-chat of the sea, no hard information. But as the day wore on there was another sighting, this time from ahead, and the crippled destroyer passed them Gibraltar-bound behind her tow and this time gave Horncape interesting and very satisfactory news of an action involving the convoy. The assault had been met and overcome and the convoy was intact, or had been when the destroyer had parted company.

  ‘Luck’s with us,’ Horncape said to his acting chief officer. ‘The way’s been cleared for us, it seems.’

  So far. After their mauling the Italians probably wouldn’t mount another attack immediately on the heels of the last one. But there was still a long way to go to Malta and its half-starved garrison.

  III

  ‘Kit musters,’ Steward Botley reported to Petty Officer Ramm.

  ‘For the Wrens, like.’

  Ramm stared. ‘Kit musters, eh. How do you know?’

  Botley said, ‘I have my ways and means, Mr Ramm.’

  ‘Bloody bat-ears.’

  ‘I s’pose that’s one way of putting it, yes. Not my fault if some people ‘ave loud voices, is it?’

  ‘When’s this caper going to take place, then?’

  ‘I didn’t establish that, Mr Ramm.’

  ‘Listen out again, then. Bung your lug against the key’ole.’

  Ramm went on his way to his cabin, thinking about kit musters for Wrens. He’d never before associated kit musters with the female sector. It would be a real lark, would that! Everything laid out: bras, knickers, suspenders, petticoats, sanitary towels, pantie-girdles such as he’d seen on the counters of Marks and Spencers and the Landport Drapery Bazaar in Pompey. Things, some of them, that the missus didn’t wear. French knickers, perhaps...but then he’d heard that the Wrens wore regulation knee-length bloomers, navy blue in colour. Taxi-cheaters, he believed they called them. Hard to get a hand under.

  Ramm gave a sudden chuckle. Old Ma Hardisty would bust a gut if she found a french letter or one of those douches that his missus used. It would be worth his while finding some excuse or other to get in on the act, turn up unexpectedly when all the gear was laid out for inspection. Some lark!

  A bloody shame Leading Seaman Nelson wouldn’t be there to share the laugh with him. Old Stripey had had his drawbacks but now Ramm missed him more than he’d ever thought he would. In his shared cabin, which was fitted with a wash-hand cabinet, Petty Officer Ramm washed and shaved, staring intently at his stubble and his long, lined face, and then went up on deck for a tour of the ship’s armament and a little chasing of the hands. When he emerged from the midship superstructure and looked down into the fore well-deck he stopped and stared and said, ‘Lor’ love a bloody duck!’

  Third Officer Susan Pawle, on her one leg, was being led past Number Two hatch, making towards the break of the fo’c’sle, slowly and very hesitantly, between the ship’s surgeon and the Commodore’s assistant, that Finnegan. Ramm made a clicking sound with his tongue and shook his head from side to side. What a thing for a girl to have to go through life with. Or without, to be precise. It was a pathetic sight, Ramm thought. She was in a dressing-gown and underneath was a pyjama leg, just the one, like a stork asleep wit
h its head tucked under its wing feathers. To add to the simile she had her head down, staring at the ground as she hopped along between her two supporters. When the small party turned about to come aft again, Ramm believed the girl was crying. Or had been: her face, pretty really, was a mess, all streaked. He saw that when she looked up and happened to catch his staring eye. Ramm’s leathery face would have shown a flush if it had been capable of doing so. He looked away at once. Poor girl, he thought, being stared at like something in a circus.

  He went down the ladder, into the well-deck and straight up to her. He saluted and said, ‘Well done, ma’am, if I may say so. Glad to see you’re better. Very glad I am.’

  She smiled at him, a somewhat wobbly smile. ‘Thank you, PO. I appreciate that.’

  ‘You’re welcome, ma’am. Anything you want, you just ask.’

  She thanked him again; he gave another salute and marched away towards the fo’c’sle, very formal, doing his gunner’s mate’s left-right-left, boots banging the deck as he went. He was a little surprised at himself: the ‘ma’am’ had come out quite spontaneously and naturally and he reckoned it had been the first time in his life he’d ever called a woman ma’am. He’d never come up against any WRNS officers before, not to address personally. He wondered what his missus would think. What she would say. Greta had always been a bit of a bolshie, no time for class distinctions. She’d once been a skivvy in one of the private hotels in Southsea, along the sea front, places full of mouldering old colonels and their wives, the latter sitting round the lounges in a circle, like a lot of old trout. They had been very snooty towards Greta and she had seethed underneath. That had been before she’d become Mrs Percy Ramm, but she had never forgotten. One day, she’d said after war had broken out, there would be a big change. That would come with the peace; Socialism would take over and rub the noses of the nobs in the dirt. She couldn’t wait for it. Ramm had not agreed. He was a basic conservative who knew where his own best interests lay. Petty Officers in HM Fleet were persons of importance, and once you started sodding up the hierarchy from the top, it wouldn’t be long before you sodded it up all the way down. If people like Greta had their way, he could see himself ending up eating his meals in a broadside mess instead of the comparative dignity of the PO’s mess.