Ian Cameron, another R.N.V.R. lieutenant, sat thumbing through a catalogue of something or other. He was a first-class fighter pilot, and had shot down a big Focke-Wulf and two German seaplanes in one month. Thin as a stick, with a drawling accent of a music hall marquis. His crew called him ‘Lord Algy’, but in fact he had been in his father’s furniture business.
Apart from those three, the squadron commander and himself, the rest were competent, apparently keen, but as yet unchallenged.
He looked at the latest to join the ship, just after the first convoy. Two sub-lieutenants, Mariot and Creswell. Very, very young, with that smooth freshness which always made them appear vulnerable.
Andy Miller, the squadron commander, strode through from the Air Operations Room, and before he could close the door Rowan heard the usual hum of plots and static from receivers as the round-the-clock watch went on.
Lieutenant Commander Miller, ‘Dusty’ to his friends, was a square man. He had a jutting black beard, and when he was wearing his flying helmet looked like the devil himself. But he was very professional, even though he had been a market gardener prior to the war.
‘Hello, Tim.’ He waved his hands as Rowan made to rise. ‘Just looking in to see if all my yokels are present and –’ he paused and glanced scornfully at the lounging figures, ‘and correct, I was going to say.’
Most of the men around him were in their usual assortment of dress. Grey flannel trousers, battledress blouses or old monkey jackets with the gold lace almost black and crumbling with wear. Battered caps or woollen, home-made efforts, anything went in the Ready Room.
Rowan asked, ‘When are we sailing, sir?’
Miller shrugged. ‘Tomorrow. It was tomorrow yesterday, if you catch my meaning.’
Rowan grinned. He liked Miller. He had done it all. Chased the battleship Bismarck, and had been shot down twice. He had flown raids over Taranto, North Africa, just about everywhere that a carrier could take him.
Miller added, ‘The admiral’s aboard. Slipped in with barely a whisper. The commander told me that he like it that way. Tries to catch people on the hop.’
Rowan considered the idea of an admiral on board his own ship. Did it mean, as some thought, that Growler was going to some dull billet? Or would it imply that something special was being hatched?
‘Anyway.’ Miller looked at the watch on his thick wrist. ‘He’s coming here to speak with all of you shortly. That’s why you’re here instead of wandering up and down the walkways shooting lines at each other.’ He sounded irritated. ‘I hate speeches.’ He held the watch to his ear as he always did.
Even the watch had a story. Miller had been shot down over the channel and had dropped into the sea almost alongside the German pilot he had himself brought down. The German had been in a bad way. Bleeding and dying in his little rubber dinghy as Miller had swum to join him and await rescue.
For three hours he had done all he could to ease the other pilot’s last moments on earth. The man had been delirious for much of the time and had called out a woman’s name. Wife, girlfriend, sister, who could say?
Even as an air/sea rescue launch had ploughed towards them the German had died. But in his final minutes he had realised that Miller had tried to help him, and had dragged off his watch, thrusting it at him with a fierce desperation which had just as swiftly frozen the eagerness on his face like a mask.
Miller was looking at the watch now. ‘It’s got his name on the back. I may go and hand it over to somebody one day.’
Bill Ellis said without opening his eyes, ‘Like bloody hell you will! You’ll be after the poor bastard’s widow, more likely!’ His mouth split into a grin. ‘Sir.’
Miller grunted. ‘Oaf!’ He walked to the door. ‘He’ll be here in about five minutes.’
Ellis dragged off his dark glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘Who? God?’
‘The admiral.’ Rowan felt for his pipe but decided against it. The air in the Ready Room was foul and quite unmoving.
‘Oh.’ Ellis was unimpressed. ‘I’ll bet he’s an old dear with an ear trumpet and two gorgeous Wrens to push him round the flight deck in his bath chair!’
The door banged open and Lieutenant Commander Eric Villiers, Growler’s Commander (Flying), peered in at them.
Just as Commander Jolly was responsible to the captain for the state of the ship and her efficiency, so was Villiers responsible for the flying and air maintenance personnel.
Rowan had served under him before. Villiers had been a senior pilot while he had been as green as grass. He had been everyone’s idea of an ace, confident, level-eyed, efficient. Yet with that touch of recklessness which had singled him out as a leader.
Rowan watched him gravely. In the years between something had gone badly wrong for Villiers. His eyes were dull and his shoulders looked stooped. Everyone knew Villiers had crashed in the sea near Tobruk and had been taken prisoner. For a whole year he had been out of circulation, and then one night in the North Sea a patrolling Asdic trawler had challenged a Danish fishing boat. It had been crewed by members of the Resistance, and after unloading their passengers, several escaped prisoners of war, they had returned to Denmark to risk their lives all over again. One of the exhausted passengers had been Villiers.
He snapped, ‘Stand by, all of you.’
There was a shuffling of feet and scraping of chairs, and then Rear Admiral Chadwick appeared in the entrance.
Rowan studied him curiously. Chadwick was much younger than he had expected, but then he had only seen a few senior officers, and at a distance. This one looked very alert, extremely sharp. He smiled. No bath chair.
At his back the captain and Commander Jolly kept a discreet distance.
‘Sit down, gentlemen.’ Chadwick placed his beautiful cap with its double line of oak leaves around the peak, squarely on the desk. ‘I won’t keep you long.’
He took a few paces towards them and halted. He almost shone against the dull paint, the scribbled notes on the blackboards.
‘I am getting to meet each section in turn. With the captain’s permission,’ he turned and shot Buchan a broad smile, ‘I will meet the ship’s other officers in the wardroom later, and the new squadron officers, the replacements, when they fly-on at sea. Some of you will have heard the rumour, the “buzz”,’ again the ready smile, ‘that we are all part of a new Air Support Group. This is true. What you will not be told outside of this command is that it is going to be the best of its kind.’
One arm shot out, a finger pointing at the youngest pilot, Sub-Lieutenant Frank Creswell. The arm was quite rigid, the one inch of white shirt, the gleaming stripes of gold, one thick, one thin, above it, like part of a perfect machine.
‘How old are you?’
Creswell lurched to his feet, blushing wildly, a copy of Men Only falling from his battledress blouse and bringing a spread of chuckles all around him.
‘N-nineteen, sir.’ Creswell looked as if he wanted to vanish.
‘Well.’ Chadwick seemed satisfied. ‘Sit down again.’ He looked slowly round the room. ‘When I was his age I was also flying a machine of sorts.’ He tapped the wings on his sleeve. ‘I was too late to fight in the Great War, but I flew just about every kind of sortie and patrol before I quit that side of the Service and went on a staff course.’ He let the words sink in. ‘I learned to do every side of an officer’s duties. I don’t give a tinker’s damn if you’re an engineer or paymaster, pilot or bloody marine, I expect every one of you to be first and foremost a naval officer!’
His voice had become very loud, or to Rowan it appeared so. Perhaps it was because of this metal box of a room, and the fact that every man present seemed to be holding his breath in front of this compelling admiral.
‘I am not blaming you, or any member of this ship’s company. Not yet. But I intend that this new group, my group, is going to be of real use in the war, not just one more idea that is going to go off half-cock because some bonehead at the top doesn’t know what to do wit
h it.’
Rowan could sense the tension around him, the resentment, the hostility.
Chadwick added sharply, ‘In the first year or so of this war, I suspect that more British servicemen were killed because of stupid leadership than by anything the enemy could do to them.’ He had their full attention now. ‘Ships and men are not always lost by bad luck, they are thrown away by incompetence or plain ignorance. Capital ships sent inshore without air cover cost us command of the sea in Malaya and Singapore when we most needed it. It cost us an army, fine ships.’ He dropped his grey eyes for the first time. ‘And one hell of a lot of honour.’
He glanced at the bulkhead clock. ‘I expect you to make mistakes. Once. Only rear admirals are allowed to make more than that.’ Nobody laughed. ‘But in the end we will have something to show for it. And God help you if you foul it up.’ He smiled calmly. ‘I just wanted to have a look at you. To make my number. Thank you, gentlemen.’ He made as if to leave as once again they all rose to their feet.
‘One more thing and then I’ll not mention it again. When you are waiting to fly, to fight if need be, you can dress as you please. In port, and on all other occasions, I want you to dress like members of the Service.’ He paused, balanced on his toes as if to fight off their obvious anger.
He added softly, ‘When you see your admiral walking the bridge with his arse hanging out of his trousers and a day’s growth on his chin, you can do likewise!’
Creswell’s youthful face opened into a great smile, and some of the others laughed, caught out completely by Chadwick’s bluntness.
Rowan watched, not wanting to miss a second. What sort of man was this? An actor? A gifted leader? He looked at the captain, but his features gave nothing away. They were like stone.
The admiral turned about and removed his cap from the desk all in one economical movement. Then the door was closed, the visitors gone, and for a moment they all stood as before, as if under some kind of spell.
Kitto rubbed his blue chin furiously. ‘Well, I’ll go to the top of our stairs!’ He looked at Rowan and Ellis. ‘What sort of a Napoleon have we got now?’
His voice broke the silence, and the room swelled with confused and noisy conversation.
Cameron drawled, ‘He has a point, of course.’
Kitto glared at him. ‘Pipe down, Algy. I’ve come a long way, taken too many short cuts, to be talked down to like a kid on his first day at school!’
Ellis watched Rowan, his eyes questioning. ‘You’re very quiet, Tim.’
‘I’m not sure about him.’ Rowan wondered at his own feelings. Uncertainty. Apprehension perhaps. ‘You go on for months on end. Flying, worrying, playing the fool.’ He saw some of the newer pilots moving in to listen. ‘You don’t think much about the pattern.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘The war.’
Ellis nodded. ‘All separate bits and pieces, you mean.’
‘Something like that. Perhaps our new admiral is a sign of the times. A fresh mind to put right earlier mistakes.’
Rolston, a tall, gangling lieutenant known for his short temper, said, ‘He’ll have us in cocked hats and frock coats if we let him! Stupid bugger!’
Cameron eyed him mildly. ‘It’d make a change.’
Ellis touched Rowan’s arm. ‘Let’s go on deck.’ He gestured to the noisy throng around him. ‘This is no use.’
Together they wandered along the starboard walkway, hands in pockets, watching the continuous activity of men and vehicles on the dockside.
It was strange. Rowan thought, to look out over Liverpool, to feel so detached even though the ship was motionless. The gaunt overhead railway and the grey roofs of the houses and sheds were below the level of the flight deck. Bombed buildings, puddles left by the night’s rain. It was a dismal place.
Ellis said, ‘I’m not sorry to be going out again. I don’t much care where.’
Rowan glanced at him. He sounded unusually serious.
Ellis added, ‘In London it was like another existence. I met this girl. A Czech who works with her people at their embassy. Some bloody fool I knew in Devonport introduced us at a party. A pushover, he said.’ He gave a great sigh. ‘And we think we’ve got troubles.’
Rowan leaned on a stanchion. ‘Nice girl?’
‘She knows London better than I do.’ Ellis was thinking aloud. ‘Took me to restaurants and a club where her own people go. It was all so –’ he searched for the right words, ‘different, so bloody sad. Here they are in Britain, fighting alongside us, their own country occupied by the Krauts, and God alone knows what is happening to their friends and families. Yet they can still put on a cheerful front. Make you welcome in your own country.’
Rowan tried to shake him out of it. ‘Did you win her over?’
Ellis nodded. ‘She won me. Utterly. She’s got a husband somewhere. Doesn’t even know if he’s still alive. Christ, what a bloody mess it all is!’
He looked at Rowan’s grave profile. ‘What about you? Good leave?’
‘Not really.’ It was easy to be frank with him.
Ellis slapped his shoulder. ‘We’re a right pair. Next time we’ll –’
‘Yes.’ Rowan fell in step beside him. ‘Next time.’
Captain Buchan tucked his cap under his arm and stepped into the freshly-painted quarters which the admiral had occupied. They had been built into the carrier’s structure for just such a purpose, or to be used as an additional operations area should the ship be used at some later date as a command vessel. They looked spartan, unlived in, even by Growler’s standards.
Chadwick looked up from his new desk. ‘Yes?’
Buchan saw Godsal, the flag lieutenant, writing in a large file by an open scuttle, and at another table Lieutenant Commander James, the Operations Officer, was initialling a whole list of neatly typed signals.
Buchan said formally, ‘Ready to get under way in about half an hour, sir.’
Chadwick nodded, his features very composed. ‘Good. Fine.’ He looked at the others. ‘A Scotch, I think.’
Godsal opened a cabinet and started to fumble with some glasses as Chadwick asked, ‘Satisfied with everything, Bruce?’
Buchan stared at him, caught out by the use of his first name. He had been with the admiral almost continuously since he had slipped aboard. Since yesterday. It felt ten times as long. But their conversation had been entirely confined to matters relating to the ship, the group, the state of readiness, anything but personal. Chadwick had been like a whirlwind. He had spoken to the ship’s officers, all of them, from the executive ones to the engineroom staff and the paymaster’s branch. Whenever he had met a seaman, or any other rating during his fast-moving tours throughout the ship, Chadwick had snapped, ‘What’s your name? What do you do?’ Buchan did not know how his company had reacted to this sort of brisk informality, but it had certainly left its mark.
He replied, ‘I think so, sir.’
‘Good.’ Chadwick reached out, taking a glass from his aide. Knowing it was there. Expecting it. ‘Well, she’s your baby, as our Transatlantic friends would say.’ He tossed back the glass. ‘Down the hatch.’ He slid the glass across the desk towards Godsal and the decanter. ‘By the way, what time do we rendezvous with our other carrier?’
James, the Operations Officer, said quickly, ‘Eighteen hundred, sir. Hustler is also flying-on some replacements.’
‘Hmm.’ Chadwick swirled the whisky round his glass. ‘Have you informed the escort commander of all the problems?’
‘Of course, sir.’
James dropped his eyes as Chadwick snapped, ‘Of course nothing! Take nothing for granted, right?’
James glanced unhappily at Buchan. ‘Right, sir.’
Chadwick sighed. ‘Perhaps you gentlemen would continue your work in the office. My secretary has a few details to clear before the postman nips ashore.’ He gave a slow smile as they downed their drinks and hurried away.
Alone with Buchan he said, ‘Got to watch ’em. Especially James. About as much idea of
convoy protection as my aunt.’
Buchan said quietly, ‘I’ve always found him very helpful, sir.’
‘Really?’ Chadwick eyed him coolly. ‘We shall see.’
Buchan could feel the old anger returning like a wound throbbing in his chest. Chadwick sitting there, relaxed, watching him, mocking him.
He said, ‘He’s been the Ops Officer since I took command, sir. I think I know him pretty well.’
Chadwick gestured to a chair. ‘Sit down.’ He slopped two generous measures of whisky into the glasses. ‘Now listen. I want, no I demand loyalty of all my officers. Likewise I do not expect them to love me. Not all the time.’ He held the glass to a shaft of watery sunlight from a scuttle. ‘And I do not wish to be treated as a complete cretin.’
‘Sir?’
‘I have been aboard for twenty-four hours. Not much, I agree. In that time I have found several weaknesses, a few things which together we can put right.’ He placed the glass on the desk. ‘Did you know, for instance, that your Commander (Flying), er, Villiers, has had treatment for mental trouble?’
‘I heard he had a bad time as a prisoner of war, sir.’
Chadwick ignored him. ‘And James, the Operations Officer of whom you think so highly, did you know he had a German wife?’
Buchan swallowed hard. ‘Well, as it happens, sir, no, I did not, but –’
‘But you did not think it mattered, eh?’ Chadwick stood up, his dark hair almost brushing a deckhead fan. ‘Believe me, everything matters if you want to stay alive, to win.’
Outside the cabin a tug hooted mournfully, and on one of the walkways somebody was dragging a length of mooring wire.
Buchan found that he too was on his feet. ‘I realise that. I also know there’s a way of winning.’
Chadwick picked up a pair of brand-new binoculars and walked to a scuttle.
‘Like cricket, you mean?’
‘Look, sir, it’s not my fault we’re in the same ship.’
Chadwick trained his glasses on a Wren officer who had come out of a nearby dock building to look up at the carrier.
Winged Escort Page 3
