The Lion at Sea

by Max Hennessy

  Ropes flew through the air. ‘Who the blazes are you?’ the officer of the watch snarled.

  ‘Lieutenant Maguire sir,’ Kelly yelled. ‘Late of Norseman and before that Cressy. Together with Norseman’s pinnace party from Antwerp, survivors of the 10th Royal Marine Light Infantry and the Hawke battalion of the Naval Brigade, and two prisoners.’

  The officer’s jaw hung. ‘The devil you are,’ he said. ‘You’d better come aboard.’

  As Kelly stepped on to the destroyer’s deck, a midshipman appeared. ‘Sir. Message from Arethusa. You’re to report on board at once. We’ve called away the cutter.’

  Kelly turned to Rumbelo. ‘Hold your hat on, Rumbelo,’ he said. ‘Tonight I’ll be setting down “reasons in writing”. Let’s have those shoulder tags and one of the pickelhaubes.’

  As he stepped from the cutter to the cruiser’s deck, a lieutenant commander was waiting to lead him to the commodore’s cabin. Tyrwhitt was a sharp-featured man with a keen bronzed face, strong nose, determined chin and bright eyes shielded by huge eyebrows. There was no sign of ostentation or self-importance about him and his manner was brisk as he stared at Kelly under his shaggy brows.

  ‘That’s the first time my flag’s ever been acknowledged by a vessel as scruffy as yours,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Maguire, sir. Lieutenant Maguire. I thought you might like this as a souvenir.’ As Kelly produced the German helmet he’d brought, Tyrwhitt’s mouth widened in a smile.

  ‘Where the hell did you get that, you young puppy?’

  ‘Antwerp, sir. I took it off a German. I don’t think he had any further need of it. We have two prisoners as well.’

  Tyrwhitt gestured at a chair. ‘Well, rest your legs, dammit, and tell me all about it, and let’s have a drink while we’re at it. What about Antwerp?’

  ‘It’s gone, sir. We saw the Germans arrive.’

  ‘Well, that’s that. Winston hoped to hold it because the Germans couldn’t have advanced along the coast without it. However–’ Tyrwhitt smiled and Kelly was aware of charm and kindliness beneath the rugged exterior ‘–that’s not for you to worry about. I expect you’ll be wanting to get some sleep and then back to your ship.’

  Kelly swallowed. ‘Sir. I haven’t got a ship,’ he said. ‘I was in Cressy and I’m a bit overdue for survivor’s leave.’

  Part Two

  One

  A thin drizzle was wetting the pavements as Kelly’s taxi headed for the station. He was feeling on top of the world, certain by this time that he couldn’t ever be killed and with a bit of luck not even wounded.

  Despite his tiredness, he felt ready for anything, even a bit of a rakehell. This time, he decided, he might try to get Charley in a corner at the back of the house. Then he drew a deep breath, almost a steadying breath. Charley still wasn’t that old and he’d have to watch his step or he’d be making a fool of himself and trouble for them both.

  He sat up straighter in his seat. Through the rain that was smearing the windscreen, he saw a sailor trudging towards the station. He recognised him by his bulk as Rumbelo and stopped the taxi.

  ‘Fancy a lift, Rumbelo?’

  Rumbelo grinned and spat the rain from his lips. His blue serge was saturated.

  ‘No overcoat?’

  ‘Haven’t got one, sir. It’s in Norseman.’

  ‘Did you get leave? I suggested under the circumstances that you ought to.’

  ‘Yes, sir. They gave me leaf.’ Rumbelo settled himself in the taxi, smelling of wet wool, and they spoke as old friends and shipmates separated only by rank.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘London.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Lor’ bless you, no, sir. I ain’t got any family. I’m an orphanage entrant.’

  ‘Oh! What will you do then?’

  ‘Hang about the pubs, sir.’

  It seemed a desperately sad way for Rumbelo to spend his leave.

  ‘Haven’t you any brothers or sisters?’

  Rumbelo smiled. ‘Had a brother, sir. But my old man was a sailor, too, so there might be one or two others about as well.’

  He seemed remarkably cheerful and his very cheerfulness depressed Kelly.

  ‘You’ll be seeing friends, I suppose.’

  ‘Ain’t got none, sir. Least, not ashore. My friends are in the ship I’m in. The ship’s me home, see.’

  ‘No girlfriend?’

  ‘One in every port. Nothing regular, though.’

  ‘Pity.’ An idea struck Kelly. ‘You any good with horses, Rumbelo?’

  Rumbelo smiled, unperturbed, the typical seaman. ‘Used to be a stable boy, sir. After I left the orphanage. Two years at it, and six months as a hotel porter before I joined the Navy.’

  ‘We’ve got horses, Rumbelo. At least, my mother has. I always fall off ’em myself.’

  Rumbelo turned, his eyes shrewd. ‘You don’t have to be sympathetic, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll manage. I’ve managed before.’

  ‘It’s not that. It seems so rotten a chap like you having nowhere to go. After all, you did save my life there in Antwerp.’

  ‘Just wiping off a debt, sir. You saved mine at Spithead a few years back, I seem to remember.’

  ‘My mother might be glad of someone who’s good with horses. She’s potty about them. How about coming home with me? There are stables and I know there’s a room for the groom.’

  Rumbelo eyed him with a gentle expression. ‘That’s kind of you, sir,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m not offering charity, Rumbelo. It just seems rotten that a seaman under my command should have nowhere to go for his leave. Or perhaps you don’t like being in the country?’

  ‘I like the country, sir. But where can a sailor doss down in the country? London’s different. Plenty of soldiers’ and sailors’ clubs. The Salvation Army looks after you, sir.’

  ‘I think you’d better come home with me, Rumbelo,’ Kelly said quietly. ‘My mother will probably fall on your neck, especially if you can handle a pony and trap.’

  Rumbelo seemed to be having difficulty speaking. ‘Look, sir–’

  ‘Forget it, Rumbelo. It’s decided. After all, if we’re going to serve in submarines together–’

  ‘Are we, sir?’

  ‘I thought you’d decided we were.’

  Rumbelo grinned. ‘I didn’t know you ’ad, sir.’

  There was a strange silence about the house when they arrived. Bridget, the little maid from Ireland, opened the door but instead of the wide, pink-faced grin with which she usually greeted Kelly, there was only a sniffle and a flash of red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘Bridget, what’s wrong?’

  ‘You better see your mother, Master Kelly. She’ll tell you.’

  Alarmed, Kelly looked at Rumbelo, who was waiting quietly behind him. ‘Just hang on, Rumbelo,’ he said. ‘Something’s up. Bridget, this is Able Seaman Rumbelo. Take him to the kitchen and see he gets something to eat. I’ll collect him later.’

  His mother was sitting silently in the drawing room with the curtains drawn. She looked up as he entered but said nothing.

  ‘Mother, what’s happened? Is it Father?’ With his own recent experience in Cressy, the first thing that occurred to Kelly was that his father had been sent to sea at last and torpedoed.

  She said nothing but handed him a telegram. ‘The War Office regrets to inform you–’

  ‘Gerald!’

  His mother nodded.

  ‘Oh, Lord, no!’ The news came as a shock. Kelly had already seen many men die, but he had never from the first day of the war been able to imagine himself dying; and it had somehow always been an even stronger conviction that it could never happen to Gerald. Gerald was like his father, stolid, unh
urried, correct, never providing surprises but certainly never in trouble.

  Kelly frowned, guiltily aware that, despite the initial shock, he felt remarkably little pain. Somehow, he felt, he ought to have a greater sense of loss than he did, a greater consciousness of hurt. But there was surprisingly little because, since his first day at Dartmouth, Gerald’s leaves from the army had never seemed to coincide with his own and they’d grown up almost as strangers.

  Troubled that his emotions weren’t deeper than they were, he tried to find out more without causing his mother extra anguish.

  ‘Where, Mother?’

  ‘Somewhere called the Aisne. Where’s that, Kelly? Your Uncle Paddy’s there as well. At his age, too!’

  ‘It’s a river in France, Mother.’

  His mother sighed. ‘Somehow,’ she said slowly, ‘I always thought it would be you.’ She drew a deep breath and Kelly watched her, living every moment of misery with her but bitterly recognising that he was unable to feel the same.

  ‘The Upfolds sent a message,’ she went on. ‘The general’s dead, too.’

  ‘Brigadier Upfold?’

  ‘They made him a major-general. To take the place of someone who became ill. They thought it was a nice safe job but it seems a shell hit his headquarters and there were quite a lot of them killed.’

  Up to that moment Kelly’s war had been almost too swiftly-moving for him to be able properly to absorb the tragedy of it. There had been no time to dwell on anything as he had been snatched from Clarendon to Cressy, from Cressy to Malice, and Malice to Norseman, and then on to Antwerp. He’d barely had time to assimilate the fact that he’d been in danger, and, so far, there’d even been a strong farcical element about it all.

  He looked at his mother, his heart filled with compassion for her. Since he’d grown to manhood, he’d realised just what she’d had to endure in the manner of lies and disinterest from his father. Yet she’d never made any comment on her situation, trying to show loyalty and interest in her husband’s career, sympathy in his retirement and encouragement in his re-employment. It was only now that Kelly realised just how much of it was based on pretence and how much of it was done for her children.

  His mother spoke. ‘Mabel’s friend, that young man in the dragoons, was killed, too. Somewhere near this place, Mons, everybody’s talking about.’

  Her hand waved vaguely at the newspaper and Kelly could see the casualty lists, solid columns of type running the whole length of the sheet. They seemed almost too long to be believable.

  ‘The Upfolds have rented a place about two miles away,’ she went on. ‘They thought it would be nice for your father and the general to be close. Now – well–’ her voice died away.

  ‘How is Father?’

  She looked at him wearily. Her life had not been a satisfying one. Indeed, she had never really been able to understand how she had come to be married to Admiral Maguire, and had put all her future in the hands of her sons. Now, with one of them dead and the other a stranger after several years at sea so that he’d grown up differently from the rest of the family, tough-minded, self-reliant and touched with that element of variety all born sailors – in which category she did not include her husband – possessed, she knew that their positions had changed and that she was no longer the dominant one of the two.

  ‘There’s a letter on my desk,’ she said. ‘I gather he might go to the Middle East in some shore job for the Mediterranean Fleet. He’s due home on leave. It’s such a funny war, isn’t it?’

  Walking in the fields at the back of the house, Kelly pondered the strangeness of life.

  With Gerald dead, he was now heir to his father’s title. From now on he’d have to try hard not to get killed, because otherwise there’d be no one to take it over. Sir Kelly Maguire. He tried it round his tongue for size and was ashamed to realise he liked it. It would make Verschoyle green with envy if nothing else, but it was a poor way to come to it, having to have Gerald lying buried somewhere beneath the soil of France.

  Rumbelo was sitting on the fence at the edge of the paddock, smoking a pipe bound with twine. Kelly could smell the navy twist fifty yards away.

  ‘Hello, Rumbelo,’ he said. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Bridget – that is, the girl – showed me where I could sleep.’

  ‘Is it all right?’

  ‘It’s fine, sir.’

  ‘Bit spartan, I expect.’

  ‘Better than a dosshouse or the Salvation Army.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. I’ve just heard that my brother’s been killed, Rumbelo.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry. Bridget told me. My brother was killed with the West Kents.’ Rumbelo spoke matter-of-factly. ‘Orphanage entrant, like me, but he decided for the army. They sent me a telegram to Gib. I hadn’t seen him for years.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rumbelo.’

  Kelly tried to change the subject. He had a suspicion that the war was going to go on a long time – at least, Kitchener seemed to think so and from the way it was shaping it looked as though he was going to be right – and they would have to get used to tragedy and personal loss. It seemed to be something it would be unwise to brood on.

  Rumbelo seemed to sense his unease. ‘If there’s anything I can do, sir? Help about the place, for instance. I mean – I shouldn’t think your Mum’ll be doing much riding while you’re home.’

  ‘No, but she’ll be using the dog cart. Can you handle one?’

  ‘Done it often, sir.’

  Kelly managed a twisted smile. ‘Where have you been all this time, Rumbelo? I think we’re going to enjoy having you around.’

  ‘I think I’m going to enjoy being around, sir.’

  ‘Yes – well – look, Rumbelo, I ought to go and see our next-door neighbours. Name of Upfold. How about giving it a try? This evening, say? I expect Bridget will be able to tell you where they live.’

  ‘I’ll make enquiries, sir.’

  ‘Christ, Rumbelo, you sound like the family butler.’

  Rumbelo smiled. ‘Don’t think that’d suit me much, sir.’

  As dusk was falling, the dog cart with Rumbelo at the reins, clad in a pair of Admiral Maguire’s flannel trousers and a jacket and an old shirt belonging to Kelly, clattered down the gravel drive and on to the main road.

  ‘Know the way, Rumbelo?’

  ‘I walked it to have a look.’

  ‘My God, Rumbelo, you’re efficient.’

  ‘Thought I might just as well be on the safe side, sir. Sorry to hear about your young lady losing her father, sir,’

  Kelly’s head turned. ‘How did you know about my young lady?’

  Rumbelo’s eyes were on the road. ‘Bridget likes to talk, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose she does. I never thought he’d be killed, though. He seemed too old for that sort of thing. Her sister also lost her young man.’

  ‘So I heard, sir.’

  ‘It’s a bloody funny war, Rumbelo.’

  ‘I think it’s going to get funnier, sir.’

  ‘I think it is. I think we’re going to need all the courage we’ve got before we’ve finished.’

  ‘A sense of humour helps, I’ve found, sir. A bit of a laugh goes a long way.’

  Charley saw them coming down the drive and was out on the front steps to meet them. She’d had her hair cut short and instead of the woollen stockings Kelly had always seen her in she was wearing silk ones. She smiled, suddenly shy with him, but fresh and clean and calm.

  ‘Hello, Charley. This is Able Seaman Rumbelo. We’ve just come from Antwerp. He saved my life. I’m going to try to get him into the same ship as me. He hadn’t anywhere to go to spend his leave so I brought him home. Everybody has to have somewhere to go.’

  Charley smiled at Rumbelo. ‘I think if you’d like to ti
e the pony up,’ she said, ‘they might be able to find you some beer in the kitchen.’

  She was brisk, informative and no-nonsense, but she looked desperately pale, too, and there was a look of shock and a youthful lack of comprehension in her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry about your father, Charley,’ Kelly blurted out.

  ‘Yes. Mother’s gone up to town about his estate.’ Her eyes moistened and he kicked himself, wondering if he’d been unnecessarily cruel. Then she made a sad little gesture with her shoulders like a shrug, as though trying to ignore it. ‘We’ve got over it a bit now,’ she went on with a hard matter-of-factness that he knew was all put on to help her steel herself against what had suddenly become a very brutal and relentless stream of events.

  ‘I’m sorry about Gerald,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Poor Mabel, too!’

  Charley sighed, then she seemed to take hold of her emotions, forcing herself to face the fact that their world – that place of warmth, security and stability they’d known as children – had started to fall apart the day the first shot of the war was fired and was vanishing now in a welter of adult unreason and misery. Young as she was, she’d reached the conclusion that all the tears that could ever be shed would never make it the same again.

  ‘Mabel’s going to be all right,’ she said sharply. ‘She’s too good-looking and too stupid to be alone for long. He wasn’t important to her, anyway. It’s sad, isn’t it, because he probably went away thinking he was, and probably even died thinking he was helping to prevent the Germans coming here to bully her.’

  She sounded remarkably grown-up. ‘In any case,’ she ended, ‘there’s another one here already.’

  ‘There is?’