We Saw The Sea

by John Winton

  “Oh Mrs Porter what shall I do?” sang a voice in a shrill, uncertain falsetto, “Can I spend my next weekend with you? Can I bring my three-badge oppo too?”

  The bathroom door was obscured by a large ventilation trunking and the headroom was insufficient for anyone but a dwarf to stand upright. When The Bodger climbed in and crouched inside, the singer, a tubby stoker with “N.O.R.W.I.C.H.” on the pocket of his shirt, who had been polishing the washbasins, politely put away his cloth and waited for The Bodger to comment on his bathroom. “What’s your name?”

  “Crab, sir.”

  “Why’ve you got Norwich written on your shirt?”

  “It’s me home town, sir. And it’s what I always write on the back of me letters to me wife, sir.”

  “Norwich?” The Bodger was baffled. He had heard of

  S.W.A.L.K.--”Signed with A Loving Kiss” and I.T.A.L.Y. --”I Trust and Love You” and even of B.U.R.M.A.--“Be Undressed Ready My Angel”--But N.O.R.W.I.C.H. defeated him.

  “All right, I’ll buy it. What’s it mean?”

  “Nickers Off Ready When I Come Home, sir.”

  “Ah. Stupid of me. Bit stuffy in here, isn’t it? Is the ventilation working?”

  “Partly, sir. We put in a defect but the electricians is too busy at the moment, sir.”

  “I see.” The Bodger observed the discoloured paint on the bulkheads, the cracked mirrors, and the rust which lay on the deck under the basins.

  “Lot of rust about,” he said.

  The Bodger looked at a small screen bulkhead near the showers. The white paint was streaked with long red trails of rust. Stoker Crab followed The Bodger’s eye.

  “Now take that bulkhead, sir. A month ago I scraped that bulkhead, sir. I scraped it to the bare metal. Then I wirescrubs it, gives it two coats of detel red and one of yellow chromate. Then I finished with two coats of white paint. It looked beautiful, sir. And now look at it. Makes you want to cry. It’s like painting the Forth Bridge, this bathroom, sir, honestly. When I first see it, I tell you struth it made me ’ackles rise. Sometimes when I looks round me at the end of a hard day’s work, sir, I feel I want to sit on the deck and sob like a little child, sir! “

  “How many good conduct badges have you got, Crab?”

  “Three, sir.”

  “I’ll see what I can do about the ventilation.”

  “Thank, you sir, and if you could slip a word to the painter, sir, we could get a bit extra paint and make a job of this place.”

  “I’ll see, but first you want to get all that rust off.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Well, what you waiting for?” said Chief Petty Officer Marks to Stoker Crab. “Hadn’t you better get on with yore Forth Bridge before it breaks yore heart?”

  The Bodger went to visit the Deputy Electrical Officer. The D.L.O. lived in a brightly lit and well ventilated office on the main deck. There were four electrician’s mates and a petty officer sitting at the desks. The Bodger remarked how all electrician’s mates were either lanky with long hair and glasses, or with cropped hair and pimples.

  “Eric . . .” The Bodger began.

  “I know what you’re going to say. Ventilation. Bodger, you see that large green tome at the end of the shelf there? That’s the only book on that shelf not full of ventilation defects. Seriously, Bodger, I’m at my wit’s end to find blokes to keep abreast of current defects without bothering about back numbers.”

  “But unless we have ventilation in these bathrooms we might as well wrap up painting them,” said The Bodger. “The condensation is so bad in some places they’re absolutely weeping. They’re not only scruffy, they’re unhygienic.”

  “I know. And since it’s you Bodger, I’ll make a special drive. I’ve been meaning to have a blitz on ventilation. I’ll do my best.”

  “Thanks, Eric.”

  The Bodger also visited the Senior Engineer. He entered the Engineers’ Office gingerly. As an executive officer in the very heart of the engineers’ capital, it behoved The Bodger to walk warily. The Bodger knew of some executive officers, the Gunnery Officer in particular, who never entered the Engineers’ Office at all but did all their business by proxy, through emissaries. The office was full of drawings, gloves, torches, messengers, overalls, ringing telephones and the largest tea-urn The Bodger had ever seen. The Bodger had not believed such tea-urns existed outside the Victoria and Albert Museum. Above Ginger’s desk was a large notice, hand-painted on wood:

  “Their Lordships feel it their bounden duty upon national and professional grounds to discourage to the utmost of their ability the employment of steam vessels as they consider the introduction of steam is calculated to strike a fatal blow at the Naval supremacy of the Empire.”

  Lord Melville, 1st Lord of the Admiralty, 1828

  Ginger seemed pleased to see The Bodger.

  “Wotcher, Bodger. What can I do for you? If it’s more hands for store ship, you can’t ’ave ’em.”

  “No, it’s not that, Ginger. It’s bathrooms. I wondered if something can be done about all the valves and things in them. They’re as rusty as hell. I know we’re not supposed to paint the working parts but could they be greased or something? I don’t know what any of them are for, but I bet over half of them are seized up right now.”

  “Bodger, I’d love to have every valve in the ship shining. But I can’t. No hands.”

  “No hands? But the engine-room department is. . .

  “ . . . One of the biggest in the ship. I know, but just let me demonstrate something.” Ginger pulled out a sheet of paper. “Now, just watch this. There are three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. Right? Now, everyone sleeps for eight hours out of twenty-four which comes to roughly a hundred and twenty-two days a year. Don’t interrupt. That leaves two hundred and forty-three. They get thirty-two days leave each year. Two hundred and eleven. They don’t work on Sundays, fifty-two, nor Saturday afternoons and make and mends, another fifty-two. Which brings us down to a hundred and seven. One moment. I’ve calculated that the length of time they all spend up at requestmen and defaulters comes to twenty-three days a year. Eighty-four left. Then there’s going to the sick bay, nineteen days, payment and mismusters for payment, seventeen, and divisions, nine. That leaves thirty-nine. Then there’s holidays. They get Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Whitmonday, August Bank Holiday and Nelson’s Birthday off. Seven. Making thirty-two working days in the year. But wait, what’s this? All the rest, the rum issues, hearing warrants, slops issues, sports parties, extra make and mends, clear lower deck for entering and leaving harbour, going to naval stores, Captain’s rounds, kit musters, collecting laundry, patrols drawing and returning webbing equipment, all that comes to thirty-three days a year. So out of a whole year I get minus one day’s work. I’ve got well over a hundred ratings in this department and I get minus one day’s work from each one of them. Except in a Leap Year, of course, when I proff and get no work at all. . .

  “All right, Ginger, I take your point. . .

  “However, since it’s you asking, Bodger, I’ll bear down on this very thing. We’ll have a big blitz on it. It’s been in the back of my mind for some time.”

  “Thanks very much, Ginger.”

  “Stay and have a cup of tea, Bodger.”

  “Well, that’s a very civil thought, Ginger.”

  “All done by steam, you know.”

  The Bodger made himself felt in the ship in other ways. It was he who persuaded Joan to muster her nieces in two ranks at Sunday divisions and have them inspected by the Captain. It was also The Bodger who put the American destroyer Hiram J. Salt in her place during Carousel’s exercise with the American Fleet.

  On their last run ashore in Hong Kong, the Commander and The Bodger had shared a bar, for a short time, with some Americans. The Americans were drinking Scotch whisky alternately from the bar and from thermos flasks which they had brought with them. They wore T shirts, Bermuda shorts and dark glasses. The
leader of the party was addressed by all present as Wilbur and The Bodger understood from his conversation that Wilbur was the Commanding Officer of the destroyer U.S.S. Hiram J. Salt and that he had a poor opinion of the Royal Navy’s ability to maintain a fleet train at sea and in particular to transfer such elementary fluids as oil fuel from ship to ship. Jimmy

  Forster-Jones had barely succeeded in removing The Bodger in time.

  “He must have seen something nasty in Piccadilly Circus when he was two,” The Bodger said loudly.

  When The Bodger read the signal detaching Carousel from the main exercise to refuel Hiram J. Salt he howled gleefully.

  “Yonder’s Wilbur!”

  The Bodger went away to consult with the D.L.O. and the radio artificer in charge of the ship’s broadcast.

  As First Lieutenant, The Bodger was in charge of refuelling at sea and he prepared very carefully for the event. He had long conversations with the Bos’un; the rest of the wardroom could hear snatches, the Bos’un saying “Two trough method” and “jackstay method” and The Bodger saying, “Of course, if we had self-rendering winches. . .

  The day could not have been better chosen for The Bodger. The exercise had started in rough weather and a heavy sea was still running on the third day when Hiram J. Salt began her approach from Carousel’s port quarter.

  The Bodger had his team ready on the boat deck: the Bos’un with a whistle and an anxious expression, the Chief G.I. holding the line-throwing gun and wearing a red luminous waistcoat like a medieval knight’s breastplate, the Chief Bos’un’s Mate with lungs ready inflated to bellow orders, the crane-driver hoping someone would remember to tell him what was happening and not leave him (as last time) to guess for himself, a party of sailors ready with the lines, a telephone rating, flags and boards. Mr Pilgrim stood nearby with his Chief Stoker and a huddle of depressed-looking stokers. Mr Pilgrim was looking wistfully at the crane-head as though he were longing for the old days at Scapa when they coaled Irresistible in six hours, ten minutes.

  The Bodger glanced for the last time over his arrangements, at the hose slung in its two cradles, the men on the topping lifts, and the lines rove through blocks on the boatdeck. The Bodger ran over the sequence in his mind: gun-line, messenger, distance line with coloured markers and the telephone cable, hose line, and then the hose itself.

  All was ready and dependent upon Hiram J. Salt and upon Wilbur.

  Hiram J. Salt approached confidently, perhaps, in the opinion of Carousel’s ship’s company who crowded the upper deck to watch, too confidently. On the bridge, the Captain muttered anxiously.

  “He’s one of these Grand Prix drivers obviously. Midshipman, ring up the engine-room and tell them I want absolutely steady revs from now on.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” said Andrew Bowles, who was midshipman of the watch.

  The Commander stood on the bofors gun deck below the bridge and looked down on the boat deck.

  “This,” he told himself, “should be a guinea a minute from now on.”

  Hiram J. Salt’s bow bit deeply into the sea and threw a solid curtain of spray over her superstructure. She was near enough for the watchers in Carousel to distinguish the figures on her bridge and the cluster of men at the fuelling point amidships. A negro cook was sitting on a stool by the after screen wearing that expression of supercilious disdain which small ship sailors reserve for coming alongside larger ships. The negro cook exasperated The Bodger.

  “A murrain on his black hide,” The Bodger said.

  When Hiram J. Salt was level with Carousel’s quarterdeck her bows unexpectedly swung towards Carousel. The destroyer wavered uncertainly and at last turned away and began to open out from Carousel.

  “Now what’s he up to?” said the Captain irritably.

  “He’s turning away, sir. Going to go round again,” said the Navigating Officer.

  “I can see that. But why?”

  A telephone rang at the back of the bridge. Andrew Bowles answered it.

  “From the First Lieutenant, sir, suggest we make a signal to Hiram J. Salt, Matthew, eleven, three, sir.”

  “What’s that? I don’t know the reference.”

  Andrew Bowles consulted the telephone.

  “The First Lieutenant says it’s ‘And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?’ sir.”

  The whole bridge exploded into laughter, as though The Bodger’s suggestion had put Hiram J. Salt’s antics back into perspective again.

  “Right,” said the Captain, “make that to our friend right away.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The Navigating Officer put up his glasses. “Hiram’s signalling, sir. Can you read that, Signalman?”

  “Just getting it, sir. Message is . . . Sorry . . . Quartermaster . . . has toothache . . . here . . . I . . . come . . . again. Sorry, quartermaster has toothache here I come again, sir.”

  “Very good.”

  Hiram J. Salt approached for the second time at almost half the speed, so slowly that the Captain grew impatient.

  “Come on, man, we can’t stop here all day.”

  As Hiram J. Salt crept up to Carousel’s side, The Bodger held up his thumb. A hand behind a scuttle in the bridge superstructure acknowledged the gesture. Hiram J. Salt plunged and swooped at her slower speed and was at the extent of a roll when Carousel’s upperdeck loudspeakers burst into raucous music.

  “One for the money! “

  Wilbur lifted his head from the voice-pipe.

  “Two for the show!”

  Wilbur cocked his head enquiringly at his First Lieutenant.

  “Three to be ready and go cat go!”

  Hiram J. Salt swung nearer Carousel and her bow rose and fell sharply.

  “Rock! Rock! ROCK EVERYBODY! “ roared Carousel’s loudspeakers. “Roll! Roll! ROLL EVERYBODY!”

  Wilbur handed his cap to his First Lieutenant and did an impromptu dance on the wing of his bridge. The music faded as the two ships came level.

  The crack of the line-throwing rifle was like a race starting-gun. The spidery white line soared out over the water. The distance line was hauled in and passed forward to the destroyer’s fo’c’sle. The telephone was connected and Ordinary Seaman Darnay, the telephone rating, began to test communications. Meanwhile Hiram J. Salt’s sailors, led by the negro cook, hauled in the hoseline, Carousel’s sailors eddied to and fro, the Chief Bos’n’s Mate barked sharply, the crane-driver swore monotonously, and The Bodger grew purple in the face.

  Hiram J. Salt were having trouble. Twice they attempted to haul away the hoseline at the run and twice they were brought up short. Wilbur leaned over the bridge rail and shouted at the negro cook through a megaphone.

  “Satchmo, is you is or is you ain’t a cook?”

  “Will you say again all after ‘Goddam limeys,’ please,” said Ordinary Seaman Darnay.

  “Roll on my --- twelve,” said the crane-driver fervently.

  “Just as I thought,” said the Commander. “A guinea a minute.”

  Apart from his duties as First Lieutenant The Bodger was also Defence Officer and responsible for the ship’s damage control. He had organized a few minor exercises but he had discovered that the only ratings taking part were one watch of stokers and E.R.A.s, and the shipwrights; the rest of the ship’s company were unaffected and uninterested. The Bodger resolved to remedy that and, with the Captain’s permission, organized a full-scale exercise while the ship was at sea.

  Michael’s action station was on the Gun Direction Position, but when the Captain saw him there with the rest of the G.D.P. crew he objected to the crowd.

  “Too many bloody people up here,” the Captain said. “Hobbes, go down to one of the section bases and see what’s going on. It won’t do you any harm to see how the other half lives.”

  Michael made his way down the ladders to the Canteen Flat where Bongo Lewis was in charge of Number One Damage Control Section.

  A motley rabble of stokers, elect
rician’s mates, shipwrights, E.R.A.s, stewards and sick berth attendants choked the flat outside the Base. A Chief Stoker was standing on a hatch cover calling out names and ticking them off on a board. Michael could see no order or rote in the roll-call but one by one men crept furtively away to unknown destinations and for unnamed reasons.

  Inside the Base itself were Bongo Lewis, a stoker on the switchboard, an E.R.A. wearing a pair of headphones, and a miscellaneous rating, who might have been a cook or a steward, crouched in a corner smoking a cigarette.

  Bongo was speaking on the telephone and grimacing at the bulkhead.

  “I don’t think that’s possible, sir. ... If you remember, we tried it last time, sir. . . . No, we couldn’t get it out for days. . . . But sir. . . . Aye aye, sir.”

  Bongo replaced the telephone and looked despondently at Michael.

  “Christ Almighty,” he said. “Commander (E) wants to exercise taking a pump down the Naval Store and pumping it out. Last time we did it, it broke somebody’s foot and got jammed down there. We had to burn away a stanchion to get it out.”

  The loudspeaker on the bulkhead hummed, and spoke.

  “All sections, this is H.Q. One, report when your sections are closed up and in Damage Control State One.”

  The stoker on the switchboard, who had the name “Yorky” in white paint across his shirt pocket, came to life. He picked up a telephone and made two switches.

  “This is D.C. Base One section closed up and in Damage Control State One,” he said, without consulting Bongo Lewis or even asking any other person for information.

  “All sections, this is H.Q. One, test communications.”

  Yorky began to test communications. He settled down to the job in comfort, as though he understood it perfectly and knew that it would take him at least an hour.

  “ ‘C’ Fire and Repair Party,” he said, “this is D.C. Base One, testing communications, how do you hear me?” He paused and looked up at the deckhead. “ ‘C’ Fire and Repair Party this is D.C. Base One, how do you hear me?” He paused again. “ ‘C’ Fire and Repair Party, this is D.C. Base One, how do you hear. . . . Hello, that you Jumper? Yorky here. How’s yourself? Loud and clear? Loud and clear also. Cheers, oppo.” Yorky reset the switches and made two more. “ ‘A’ Magazine Flood, this is D.C. Base One. . .