Convoy South

by Philip McCutchan

  Kemp flicked on the loud hailer in anticipation of a verbal exchange. As he did so an amplified voice came across the gap. ‘Commodore, please.’

  ‘Listening,’ Kemp called back.

  ‘Trouble ahead.’ The Rear-Admiral’s voice came over loud and clear. ‘A long cypher from Admiralty. It seems the German Naval Command has got word of the troop lift. Or may have — it’s being assumed so, because an unusual load of operational signals has been intercepted though not broken down. Our cypher boys haven’t cracked the new codes yet — pity!’ There was a distorted buzz from the loud hailer. ‘Are you hearing me?’

  ‘Loud and clear, sir.’

  ‘Right. Now, here’s the point: Naval intelligence believes those signals to have been addressed to the U-boat packs operating across the North Atlantic convoy routes. For the last three days there’s been no U-boat activity up there, no attacks at all on the convoys other than by air when they’ve been in the zone from the airfields in occupied France. It’s thought that they’ve been diverted towards us. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘If our boys are right, I think we can expect attack, a heavy attack, after we haul away from the African coast. The area of most danger will be from Freetown onwards. A long haul, Commodore. I’m expecting an extra destroyer escort to rendezvous off Freetown.’ There was a pause. ‘I’ll leave it to you to inform the convoy accordingly. All right? Now there’s something else. I’m about to send a heaving line across with a message, so have your hands standing by for’ard.’

  The loud hailer clicked off. Dempsey, at Kemp’s side, called down to the fore deck. Hands moved to the fo’c’sle-head and along the tank deck. Stripey Sinker was working on the for’ard close range weapons. He had a nasty feeling in his gut, a kind of premonition. When the heaving-line snaked across the fo’c’sle behind the monkey’s-fist that gave it carrying weight, it was Stripey who caught it; he heaved in and brought a light canvas bag aboard. Cutler had come down from the bridge and was standing by to take it. As the heaving line was cast back to the cruiser, Cutler went up to pass the bag to the Commodore.

  ‘Not another,’ Kemp said. He opened it. Inside was a sheet from a signal pad. His face set hard as he read the message. Dempsey was looking at him but Kemp avoided his eye. ‘Cutler, a word in my cabin.’

  When they reached his cabin Kemp came straight to the point, tight-lipped, angry. He waved the signal form. ‘The Admiralty reports that German naval intelligence is aware of the existence of the sealed bag. The one entrusted to me. Not many people — on our side — know about that bag, Cutler.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Cutler’s voice was quiet, but there was a sudden shake in his fingers. ‘Do I take it you’re accusing me of something, sir?’

  ‘You were, are, one of those who know.’

  ‘And so you’re suggesting —’

  ‘That girl, Cutler. Lady whatnot. Did you ever speak of the bag to her?’

  Cutler had flushed deeply. ‘I did not. Never. To her or anyone else. You have my word on that. I wouldn’t be that kind of a fool.’

  Their eyes met and held. Cutler’s gaze was level. There was clear honesty there. The gaze held for half a minute, then Kemp gave a short, rather embarrassed laugh and said, ‘I accept that, Cutler. Fully. And I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir. You were bound to ask. It’s obvious someone’s talked out of turn. So what happens now?’

  ‘The Nazis are going to try to get hold of the bag. Coverdale will be the principle target when the attack comes. I’ve half a mind to dispose of the damn thing now…but if they don’t find the convoy — if — then I’ll have mucked up someone’s —’ Kemp broke off from a near indiscretion. Aboard the Coverdale only he was aware of the nature of the bag’s contents. ‘Anyway, there’ll be time when the attack comes.’ He paced the cabin, backwards and forwards, hands clasped behind his back, his weather-beaten face troubled. ‘Look, Cutler. For now, we keep mum. I’ll take Captain Dempsey into my confidence, of course, and after that, we’ll see. All hands will have heard the Rear-Admiral on the loud hailer, so they’ll know that part of it. I don’t suppose you’ll need to chivvy the guns’ crews in the circumstances. How’s Rattray, by the way?’

  ‘Still on the sick list, sir. I guess Sinker can cope.’

  ‘If we’re attacked, then the sick list goes by the board.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Cutler paused. ‘Talking of Sinker, the Rear-Admiral spoke of the Nazis having got the word about the convoy. That could be enough to kind of sink Sinker.’

  II

  Stripey’s thoughts were similar: the dirty looks had started up again and he was a worried man, casting looks over his shoulder, fearing a knife in the back when below decks, fearing to be on the tank deck or the flying bridges during the dark hours when all manner of things could happen at sea. He’d known, or anyway he’d heard, of unpopular bastards of petty officers who’d ended up gagged and tied with rope and battened down into a wash-deck locker which had then been conveniently ‘lost’ overboard in bad weather and not a man of the ship’s company but had kept his lips sealed thereafter. It was easy to lose men at sea, the sudden curling wave that swept aboard to engulf the ship and take its toll, breaking hand-grips on lifelines or stanchions. Stripey thought again about Jonahs, and the often superstitious natures of seamen, not that superstition came into it this time, but still — it was all of a piece, and any suggestion of being a spy was worse than being an ordinary Jonah. It was just as ridiculous as ever, of course: anyone should know that Stripey was in no position to gain information, let alone pass it on, and also if they’d kept their eyes open they’d have seen that he hadn’t gone ashore in Simonstown.

  Except to the quack.

  The sweat of fear broke out all over Stripey’s vast body, adding to the sweat of the tropical heat. After seeing the quack in the shore sick bay he could have gone anywhere, made any sort of clandestine contact. And of course he did know, like everyone else, that the convoy carried a big troop lift and was bound for the US. Like everyone else. Surely that let him off the hook? The whole of Simonstown would have seen the transports entering and leaving again. So why pick on him?

  Stripey knew the answer to that: because they’d been after him ever since leaving Sydney, all because of bloody Rattray’s daft remark. They would be like terriers, never let go once the teeth were in.

  The glances followed him along the deck. Not glances: bloody long, lingering looks, the fat bugger who’d put all their lives at risk. He wanted to shout out at them, ask what about his own life? He was just as much at risk, wasn’t he? He didn’t want to come under attack any more than they did, but he knew from past experience that some people were thick as planks, not taking anything in except what they wanted to take in. Jonah. A marked man. Stripey quaked on aft to his cabin, his CDA mess, his limbs shaking. Someone had got there before him, losing no time after that loud hailer had shattered his peace. Once again, like before the Cape arrival, there was a dead rat in his bunk: he could smell it, though he didn’t see it until he’d ripped the sheet back.

  III

  Now it was dark: the convoy steamed on, the shaded blue stern lights assisting the station keeping. The days had passed, the ships were now well north. From Freetown two more destroyers had joined the escort, taking up their positions on the port and starboard wings, their asdics searching continually through their arcs. The sea was calm though there was still a swell: near perfect weather for the U-boats. More signals had come in from the Admiralty: more indications via intelligence reports that the Nazi packs were dropping south from the North Atlantic. It was to be a massive blow, the prize the destruction of an entire Australian division. To help counter it, a cruiser force of the US Navy, with destroyer escort, was preparing to leave Norfolk, Virginia to steam towards the convoy, still so many days away to the southeast.

  ‘They can’t get to us in time,’ Kemp said when the word came in by lamp from the Nassau. ‘Too much to hope for!’
/>
  ‘Just to pick up the pieces,’ Dempsey agreed.

  Kemp looked sideways at him. ‘You fellows have the worst job of the war — tankers, my God!’

  ‘This time, you’re with us.’

  Kemp needed no reminder. He thought of the cargo tanks beneath the clamped-down hatches, the immensity of the explosion that could come, the shooting flames, the spurting, burning oil that would spread its blaze all around the ship to fry any survivor of the main blow-up, or, on the fringes perhaps, to sear the lungs and guts of any man who got that far. Kemp felt in his bones that the convoy was virtually doomed: at the very least there were going to be heavy losses. He had passed the initial warning to all the ships in his charge. It was up to each master to make his own arrangements, to decide for himself how much he made known to his crew and, in the case of the transports, to the soldiers, in consultation with the OC Troops in each ship. Already Kemp knew the situation was dodgy, that the Australians were far from happy with the overall military decision that was sending them across the world.

  Would there be trouble? No, surely not. They were all disciplined men and in any case had nothing to gain by adopting any stroppy attitudes. All the same, the knowledge that they were steaming slap into Hitler’s U-boat packs — and there was no possibility of taking any avoiding action since no one had a clue as to the actual positions of the packs — that knowledge wasn’t going to ease anything. Kemp remembered his conversations in Cape Town with the liner masters and with the military officers. There had been a lot of disgruntlement around and bad feeling had spread amongst the soldiers. One of the colonels had said, tongue in cheek, that he wouldn’t blame the troops if they mutinied.

  That sealed bag again.

  Some of the colonels aboard the transports might be in Hennessy’s confidence for all he, Kemp, knew. But where did that lead anybody? No OC Troops could take it upon himself to divert a ship from known attack, and save his men to fight another day, in another land — in Australia, against the Japs. And supposing he could — what would Matthew Grout of the High Commission in Cape Town think of that one? Lay the blame on the Convoy Commodore, probably, for not delivering the bag to him for destruction and obliteration of Hennessy’s schemes.

  Thoughts bordering on the fantastic: Kemp gave a laugh, shaking his mind free of useless speculation. He heard a step on the starboard ladder and he turned. Rattray was coming up, stiffly. Kemp heard the PO report to Sub-Lieutenant Cutler.

  ‘Back to duty, sir.’

  ‘Chief steward say so?’

  ‘No, sir. I did. Can’t loaf about now. The leg’ll work good enough, sir.’

  ‘Sinker can cope.’

  ‘Can he, sir?’ The voice said clearly that he could not. ‘In a dream, sir, and scared of ‘is own shadow —’

  ‘He reported there’d been another rat.’

  ‘That’s correct, sir. And I’d like to get me ‘ands on the rat as put it there.’

  ‘Any ideas as to who it was?’

  Rattray shook his head. ‘No, sir. Soon as I get something, I’ll be dealing with it. Or him.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ Cutler said. ‘Report to me first, all right?’ Rattray’s answer was wooden. ‘If you say so, sir.’

  ‘I do, Petty Officer Rattray. This isn’t our ship. Captain Dempsey’ll deal with any trouble from his own crew. If it is one of the ship’s crew.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be any o’ the gunnery rates, sir. They all know Leading Seaman Sinker. Slow but sure, if you get me, sir. Not a lot on top but — well, honest.’

  Cutler nodded. ‘All right, PO.’

  Rattray saluted and turned away for the ladder, thinking about Sinker and his woes. Thinking also about the attack to come, wondering who was going to get through. An oiler was a nice target, but so, of course, were the crammed transports. They had a reasonable escort though Rattray would have liked to see a bigger anti-submarine screen to cover such an important convoy. But even if they’d had that, there was always the bugger that got through to loose off his tin fish and create havoc. Petty Officer Rattray went below for a word with Chief Steward Lugg, to tell him he’d put himself back to duty. Lugg was in his cabin, looking at some snapshots of home. Pompey: there was a snap of what Rattray took to be Mrs Lugg, standing with her back to a Pompey tram, near South Parade Pier.

  ‘Pompey trams,’ Rattray said nostalgically. ‘Remember ‘em, do you?’ His mind went back into the past. Fratton Park when there was a big match on, the enormous crowds, the way those old clanging electric trams used to come up one after another, clearing the crowds as if by magic, each one crammed full with standing passengers clinging to the straps dangling overhead, the bench seats packed like sardines — like troop transports. The piping days of peace, no Hitler to loose off bombs and torpedoes. Red Corporation trams, green ones run by the Horndean Light Railway Company, all gone by the middle thirties. Rattray when courting had taken his intended out for an afternoon on a green tram, all the way from South Parade Pier, out through North End past what had been the Town Hall before Pompey had become a city, through Cosham and over Portsdown Hill and on to Horndean, a small country village noted only for Gale’s Brewery. Gale’s Ales, Rattray could taste them now. They’d walked through to Rowlands Castle — a three-mile country walk — a tiny place but four pubs — The Railway, The Fountain, The Castle, The Staunton Arms. A drink in each then, giggling together, back to Pompey by the Southern Railway, for Rowlands Castle had a railway station as well as four pubs. That jaunt — fares, drinks, fish-and-chips afterwards in Arundel Street before delivering Doris back to Ma Bates — had cost Rattray most of a ten-bob note. He’d never been so spendthrift since.

  ‘Good days, eh.’

  ‘They’ll come again. It needn’t all be in the past.’

  Rattray scratched his cheek. ‘I dunno so much. Things is going to be different when this lot’s over.’

  ‘In some ways, yes, probably. Better, maybe, for the likes of you and me…if ever we get through. Tell you something: why don’t the Commodore, or the Rear-Admiral, divert us back into Freetown? Eh? Just till the panic’s over?’

  Rattray gave a jeering laugh. He hadn’t liked what Lugg had said — the way he’d said it, rather — about things being better and so on. It had sounded bolshie somehow. He said, ‘You don’t fight a war by running away. Convoys…they ‘ave to go across and we ‘ave to fight. Bloody ‘Itler, ‘e’d only lie in wait. Fighting through, that’s what we’re here for.’

  Lugg sighed, a heavy sound. He shoved the snapshots back in a drawer, then took them out again and crammed them into his wallet, which he kept in a pocket of his white uniform shorts. If he had to swim for it, he wanted to take his mementoes with him.

  ‘Watch that leg,’ he said. ‘Still looks swollen. I s’pose you think you know best.’

  IV

  The worries out at sea were reflections of worries back home, a two-way business. In spite of the difficulties of civilian life in wartime, of the air raids and the gloom on the BBC News broadcasts, of ever-rising prices and the shortages of virtually everything; in spite of the adjurations of one set of food experts to eat plenty of nourishing potatoes, of which at one stage there was a glut, and then the advice (when a shortage came) of another bunch of experts not to eat them since they contained fattening starch; in spite of Lord Haw-Haw and his ‘Jairmany calling’, the traitorous tones announcing, with the aid of his town maps and his Kelly’s Directories, that Mrs So-and-so down the street was going to get Hitler’s full attention that night, and his continual claims that such-and-such a ship had been sunk; in spite of strikes that interrupted war production and put the fighting men at greater risk — in spite of all this and much else beside, the overriding worry of the women left at home was for husbands, sons, fathers and brothers facing shot and shell on land and sea. Some of the civilians hadn’t seen their men for two years or more; and letters were sometimes infrequent.

  Rattray didn’t write often and when he did, not much: he was no litera
ry man and his imagination was stunted and in any case what could you write in wartime? You couldn’t say where you were for one thing, or what you’d seen and done ashore — if you did the officers who censored your letters before they left the ship would cut it out. And in Rattray’s case you didn’t want to invite too much in return about Ma Bates and her disabilities.

  Porter’s girl-friend in Rothesay hid his letters from her parents after she’d read them for the umpteenth time. They might pick up hints if they found them lying about, though she had as yet had no response from Fred Porter to her most recent letters about the definite pregnancy. She longed desperately for that response as in the afternoon she left the Victoria Hotel, where she worked, and sat in the summer sun by the shore of Rothesay Bay and looked across at HMS Cyclops, depot ship of the Seventh Submarine Flotilla, and sometimes at aircraft carriers lying at anchor until a wind tore down Loch Striven and sent them scurrying out to sea in the Firth of Clyde rather than drag their anchors onto a lee shore.

  She liked looking at ships: it made her seem somehow closer to Fred Porter as she nourished their secret and hoped to God it wouldn’t show too soon. She would probably get the sack from the Victoria Hotel, to say nothing of what Dad would say. As she sat she thought bitterly of Dad and his bagpipes and his churchgoing, Presbyterian old bugger. She knew all about the whisky; she’d used it against him when he tried to forbid her working at the Victoria Hotel, which naturally had a bar — two bars, one used by Naval officers, the other by ratings. According to Dad’s bigotry, all hotels were sinks of iniquity where such things as unmarried coupling — his phrase — took place.

  She worried ceaselessly about Fred Porter and his dangerous life aboard the Coverdale. If anything happened, if he didn’t come back, she would do away with herself, another sin. Two sins, for the unborn baby would die too, but she knew she would never be able to carry on. But surely all would be well; Fred had had permission to take her aboard the Coverdale when the ship had last been in home waters, at anchor off Greenock — indeed she believed that conception had taken place in the Captain’s pantry while Captain Dempsey was ashore at a convoy conference — and later, when the Captain had returned aboard, he’d seen her on deck and had spoken very nicely to her and she thought he was a decent old stick and looked reliable, so he’d probably keep his ship safe.