Convoy South

by Philip McCutchan

  ‘In the services, I s’pose?’

  ‘Not on your life! Fishmonger. Got a gammy leg, or so he says.’ Lugg turned to other matters. ‘Now, those stores lists. NSO’s bum boy’ll be aboard next thing, asking for ‘em. When he appears, bring him straight to me and I’ll bash his ear till he passes every last item we’ve indented for.’

  The second steward tried to be funny. ‘Not his earwicker, Chief?’

  Lugg glared. ‘Don’t joke. I don’t like it, all right?’

  In the Captain’s pantry, sitting as tense as a spring by a cupboard of crockery bearing the Admiralty crest, Porter read a letter from Rothesay. He’d hoped, he’d prayed on his knees that the bun hadn’t really been there at all, that it had been a false diagnosis; but it was there all right and growing. The mother-to-be was in a right state. She had yet to tell her parents — she was on the plump side anyway and her stomach wasn’t so big yet that they’d noticed anything amiss — and what was she going to do?

  The letter was an appeal from the heart: Porter, she knew, would fix anything. She simply awaited his word. He hadn’t a clue what that word was to be. He still wouldn’t let her down but, if marriage was to be the only answer, he wouldn’t be home for quite a while yet, if ever, and weddings took time to arrange even if you went to a register office; and the result of the union was going to be a pretty obvious illegit — or rather, a pretty obvious dummy run before the off, since holy matrimony would presumably legalize it in the eyes of the law. And he would have the wrath of the grandparents to face. The old man was formidable and very large, played the bagpipes, ate haggis and attended the kirk. He also drank whisky but only in secret, fondly imagining that no one could smell it on his breath. When he had done this he was touchy and dangerous. More immediately so than Hitler, who hadn’t yet come to England; grandfather-to-be was poised to cross the border at any moment he chose, and Porter’s home, was in Carlisle.

  Nevertheless it was Beryl herself who was Porters’ chief worry. So far away, the war standing between them just when she needed him most.

  III

  Two days before the Simonstown arrival Kemp had had those promised further words with Leading Seaman Sinker about the German who had appeared to recognize him; but Stripey Sinker had nothing to add to what Cutler had already got out of him. It all seemed to amount to very little and Kemp found no reason to catechize the German naval rating involved. Interrogation wasn’t in his line and the naval authorities at the Cape could be relied upon to do all that was necessary once Kemp’s report had been assimilated.

  In obedience to the signal received on arrival, Kemp left the ship in a car to wait upon the Flag Officer in Charge, a rear-admiral of the British Navy, at Area Combined Headquarters in Cape Town. The South African Naval Service had not yet taken over.

  It was a longish drive with time to think about many things: Kemp was scarcely conscious of the passing scenery, of the route through the Cape Town suburbs, of the immensity of Table Mountain looming over the city and the bay. Leaving the car and entering the HQ building to be directed to the office of FOIC he was aware of the thump of his heart, of some constriction in his breathing. He was one of those who had had a letter from home, from Mary. It had been written before news of the sinking of the Burnside. Mary wrote simply that she hadn’t heard from Harry for some while and hoped he was all right. Christopher, the other son, had been home on leave from another destroyer acting as convoy escort out of Scapa. Granny — old Mrs Marsden, Kemp’s nonagenarian grandmother — was as well as could be expected but was getting more and more fractious. She kept asking when Kemp was coming home and seemed never to take in the answer; and she had been having trouble with her false teeth - the dentist was an old man come back from retirement to stand in for the practice, the partners having joined one or other of the services, and granny’s teeth didn’t have much priority. The result was that she was kept going on pap - soups and porridge, Bovril and Benger’s Food. There had been the usual air raids, largely the jettisoning of bomb loads before the Luftwaffe crossed the coast for France. But all was well.

  Teeth and bombs, old ladies under threat from Goering…Kemp cast all but one thing from his mind as he was admitted to the presence of the Flag Officer.

  ‘Ah, Kemp. Sorry to send for you so soon.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir —’

  ‘You had a disturbed trip, I know that. The German wireless signals, the Kormoran.’ The Rear-Admiral seemed ill-at-ease and Kemp, guessing why, felt as cold as death. ‘Your report should be valuable.’

  ‘I have it with me, sir.’ Kemp reached into the inside pocket of his uniform and brought out a buff manila envelope with the Admiralty crest on the flap. He laid this on FOIC’s desk.

  ‘Thank you. Sit down, Kemp.’

  Kemp sat, feeling the shake in his fingers as he crossed his arms. The Rear-Admiral went on, ‘You’ll want to know…I’ve had a signal from the Admiralty. Perhaps you’d like to read it yourself.’ He handed over a signal form. Kemp read, his vision jumping about unsteadily. ‘Inform Commodore Kemp…Sub-Lieutenant H.G. Kemp RNVR missing presumed drowned.’

  That was all; stark, simple, cold. Kemp swallowed hard and felt his eyes mist over. FOIC said, ‘I’m very sorry, very sorry indeed. Remember, though, it’s not final. Missing…there’s always hope. Burnside went down off Pantelleria.’

  Always hope? Was there? Missing at sea meant only one thing to Kemp: death by drowning. What hope could there be out in the Mediterranean during heavy attack, probably by combined air and surface forces plus U-boats, and never mind an apparent proximity of land? Pantelleria, a great dry rock currently held by the Italians.

  All the same, it was perhaps something to cling to - or to prolong the agony right across the South Atlantic to Chesapeake Bay.

  FOIC was on his feet and crossing the room to a mahogany cabinet. He was at Kemp’s side with a glass of neat whisky. He said, ‘Get that down.’

  Kemp did so. He closed his eyes for a moment, felt the room sway round him, then he steadied.

  He said, ‘My report, sir. There’s a good deal to discuss.’

  IV

  Soon after berthing, shore leave was given to the Australian troops after all. They surged down the gangways. Like the Coverdale, the transports had taken up berths alongside, other vessels being shifted out to the anchorage to make room for them, since to disembark thousands of men by tender and re-embark them again would take far too long. Simonstown and Cape Town filled with khaki uniforms beneath bush hats, and the bars did a ferocious trade in beer, whisky and gin. The shore patrols were kept busy as a result. Leading Seaman Sinker remained aboard the Coverdale after returning from the shore sick bay, finding it safer than risking his life if any of the crew decided to beat him up ashore. Sinker was not a fast-moving man and was no fighter. So he remained, after delivering drugs and instructions to the chief steward, in his CDA cabin in the engineers’ accommodation. There was no mail for him and he felt forgotten, and grew maudlin about home, his wife and his physical condition.

  Petty Officer Rattray had mail, the usual: two letters from his wife full of news about Ma Bates, who’d had a nasty turn in the first letter but had recovered by the second. Just his bloody luck, Rattray thought, and when leave was granted went ashore to drown his sorrows.

  Among the rest of the mail were letters for Chief Engineer Warrington and Bosun Pedley. They wouldn’t be opened until they had gone back to their writers, sad boomerangs of the war at sea. Sub-Lieutenant Cutler had quite a batch of mail, from his parents, from an aunt in Wisconsin and an uncle in New York, and from a number of girl friends in both the USA and Britain.

  Cutler had been distressed at Kemp’s news when the Commodore returned aboard. He had felt at a loss, not finding the right words, and had been cut short by Kemp.

  ‘Thank you, Sub. I appreciate…’ Kemp’s voice broke a little and he didn’t go on. ‘From tomorrow there’ll be a lot to do. Not today. Get ashore and make the most of it wh
ile you can.’

  ‘I’m not particular about going ashore, sir, if I can —’

  ‘I shan’t want you, Sub.’ Kemp had turned away as he spoke and Cutler fancied he understood: the company of a sublieutenant RCNVR of about the son’s age wasn’t quite what the Commodore wanted at that moment. So he went ashore in a clean Number Thirteen white uniform of shorts and shirt and circulated around the bars until he fell in with a gaggle of English girls, all except one third officers WRNS out from the UK, sitting on a bench in a park looking out across Table Bay. It wasn’t long before he had cut a Yankee dash and separated one of the girls, the one who wasn’t WRNS but was English and worked for the South African administration, suggesting that she should act as personal escort for a little sight-seeing. Just in from a perilous sea voyage from down under, he couldn’t go wrong.

  TEN

  I

  There had been another interview in Cape Town, one that Kemp said nothing about to Cutler or to anyone else. After he had gone through his convoy report with FOIC, Kemp had been told that a high-ranking civilian had asked to see him, and he had been taken by a petty officer writer to another office one floor down. Here a short, thick man with a hectoring Australian voice rose briefly from behind a desk before sinking back onto a well-padded backside.

  ‘Commodore Kemp?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Matthew Grout, Australian High Commission. Sit down.’

  Kemp sat. The man looked like a bully, one who no doubt terrorized his subordinates. Grout said, ‘I don’t beat about the bush, Commodore. Too bloody busy. In your possession you have a sealed canvas bag.’

  Kemp stared. ‘May I ask how you know that, Mr Grout?’

  ‘No, you may not. Point is, I do — too right, I do! You were handed it by Hennessy, back in Canberra. I reckon you won’t know what’s in it. Eh?’

  Kemp hesitated: he felt matters moving a little way beyond him, that he was being caught between the military and civilian authorities. Hennessy had made no secret of his views as to the troop lift out of Australia, and the wisdom of leaving the continent stripped of fighting men when the Japanese armies were poised for an attack. As Kemp saw it, the only thing to do was to be truthful in his answer to Grout. He said, ‘Only very broadly.’

  ‘Hennessy told you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then maybe you’ll see the implications.’

  ‘I don’t know that I do.’

  ‘Listen and I’ll tell you.’ Grout leaned across his desk, heavily, a scowl darkening his fleshy face. ‘What’s in that bag is dynamite, or could be, right?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Kemp remembered that ‘dynamite’ had been his own mental simile when he’d come away from the offices of the Military Board in Canberra.

  ‘No perhaps about it. The military down under, they want to put a spanner in the works, they want those troops back under their own command —’

  ‘Not surprising, Mr Grout.’

  ‘Eh? Now look.’ Grout’s face darkened further. ‘I’m not asking your bloody opinion, Commodore, I’m just telling you, that’s all. There’s good reasons, political reasons, why those troops have left Australia for the USA. And —’

  ‘And you represent the political aspect?’

  ‘I represent the High Commission, I represent our Government, the Commonwealth Government in Canberra. Get it? I don’t want that bag to reach the Pentagon. So I’m telling you to hand it over to me. I override the military — you’ll understand that.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I’m personally responsible for that bag and for its delivery as entrusted to me by Brigadier Hennessy.’

  ‘It’s right and proper you should say that. I appreciate your position.’ The Australian was keeping his temper with difficulty. ‘But I’m telling you I want it delivered, by you personally, right here — and as fast as possible. All right?’

  ‘Not all right at all,’ Kemp said crisply. ‘I’m under no duty to take orders from you and it would be totally wrong of me to accede to your request —’

  ‘Request be buggered, it’s an order and in fact you are obliged to—’

  Kemp got to his feet, his face set hard. ‘I repeat, I take no orders from you, Mr Grout. If the order comes to me from FOIC, then of course I should be obliged to take a different view. But I rather fancy no such order will come. Unless and until it does, the bag remains with me.’

  He turned for the door. Matthew Grout sat like a motionless toad with dangerous eyes. He said in a low voice, ‘By God, Kemp, you’re going to regret this.’

  Kemp made no answer beyond a shrug as he left the room. He believed he had Grout’s measure, that he had been right when he’d said no order would be forthcoming from any naval source. Grout had his axe to grind and he was grinding it clandestinely: Kemp was caught up in internecine warfare between the Australian military command and the civilian administrators. It might well prove an uncomfortable situation but in his mind his duty was clear, and it was to Brigadier Hennessy alone. Leaving HQ, he told the staff car to wait and he walked for a while, trying to clear his thoughts, trying to acclimatize to his personal bad news. By now Mary would have been told…he must write to her, a first priority when he got back aboard. He pushed through the crowds in the streets, almost unseeingly, found he needed a drink and went into a bar where he threw back a whisky. As he finished it a surge of bush-hatted troops came into the bar, the advance guard of the liberty men from the transports, loud voiced, thirsty. A hefty arm went around his shoulders and a hand tapped his commodore’s broad gold band on the shoulder-straps of his white uniform.

  ‘Navy, eh? Commodore.’ The speaker, a man well over six feet, was an infantry lance-corporal. ‘From the convoy, are you, eh?’

  Kemp said, ‘I am.’

  ‘The bloke that got us here. Well, good on yer, cobber!’ A huge hand smote Kemp’s back. ‘Reckon you did all right by us even though the poor bastards in the escort took a bloody beating. You’ll have a drink, mate.’ The soldier shouted across to the bartender and another whisky came. Kemp drank it but refused another: this could go on all day. He had work to do, he said, and he had to remain fit to do it. There was laughter and more shouting, but they understood. They were a free-and-easy bunch, no awe of rank, and the encounter cheered Kemp a lot: it was nice to be appreciated. But he got a good deal of unsolicited comment from the Australians, comment that made him more thoughtful as he walked back to HQ to pick up the staff car for Simonstown and his ship. As Hennessy had hinted in Canberra, the troops were reacting to their situation, to the uncomfortable knowledge that they were needed back home to fight the Japs more than they were needed in the United States, a cushy billet until more orders sent them into the firing line, maybe, in Europe, while Australia bled. That brought him back to Grout, who also had a soft job in Cape Town, and who clearly didn’t want information to leave Australia and perhaps be the means of the troops being sent back. The politicians again, and their private axes. Butter up Whitehall and even an Australian could get a knighthood…

  II

  A knock came at Kemp’s cabin door: Dempsey. Dempsey said, ‘It doesn’t do to brood alone. Have a change of scene — come along to my quarters and have a drink. Do you good. And you won’t be needed tonight.’

  It was dark now, though the moonlight showed up the great mass of Table Mountain in the distance and the lights of Simonstown glittered like a fairground as Kemp looked out of his port. He said, ‘Right you are, Captain, and thank you.’

  He went along to the master’s day cabin, a spacious affair with a row of square ports facing for’ard across the tank deck and the flying bridges. It reminded him of his own peacetime quarters aboard the Mediterranean-Australia Line’s Ardara. As they entered, Porter came in behind, his cloth over his arm.

  ‘Whisky?’ Dempsey asked.

  Kemp nodded. The steward went to his pantry and came back with a bottle of Dewar’s and a siphon, plus a jug of plain water. He poured two stiff drinks and went away again.

&n
bsp; Dempsey lifted his glass. ‘To hope,’ he said. ‘There’s always that, believe me.’

  ‘You sound as if you really do believe that.’

  ‘Oh, I do. My elder brother…like me, he was in the last lot. Only he was army. His battalion was overrun by the early German advances across the Marne. We got the usual telegram, of course.’ Dempsey’s face had a faraway look, remembering trauma. ‘We all thought that was that.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘He turned up two years later…kept himself going with the help of the French, never got caught by the Huns, and got away through Belgium. Pinched a fishing boat and got picked up by a destroyer of the Dover Patrol.’

  Kemp was about to comment when a racket was heard from the quayside, raucous singing and shouting, a party of drunks returning aboard. Some of the noise came aboard the Coverdale, most of it went on past towards the big transports berthed astern. Kemp and Dempsey exchanged glances, grinning: the words of the song were loud and clear and they were not those of Waltzing Matilda. They brought back memories: neither Kemp nor Dempsey had been puritanical in their younger days. Then, from the after decks of the Coverdale, a loud voice was heard, an angry and slurred voice.

  ‘Bugger the Commodore. Bugger you too. Le’ me be.’

  Dempsey lifted an eyebrow. ‘Recognize the soft and gentle tones, Commodore?’

  ‘Yes. Petty Officer Rattray, being persuaded to go to his quarters quietly.’

  ‘And you didn’t hear a word.’

  ‘Not a thing. Rattray’s a good PO if a trifle set in his ways, his pre-war ways. At a guess he’s in the hands of Leading Seaman Sinker. I wish Sinker luck!’

  ‘Me, too. It’s not an easy life.’ Dempsey pressed a bell-push and Porter appeared. ‘More whisky, Porter. Bring the bottle and leave it. Then go and get turned in.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir. Thank you, sir.’