Pigboats

by Ellsberg, Edward

  A grim smile spread over the admiral’s face; the wrinkles on his high forehead gradually smoothed out as the idea sank home.

  “So you’ll carry on where the mystery ship left off; you’ll be able to go through with your attack even if the U-boat never rises. Good. You know about Captain Campbell and his mystery ships?”

  Tom nodded. “Yes, sir, he did fine till the U-boats quit rising as targets for his masked guns after they’d torpedoed him. Now we’ve got to go him one better, and get the U-boat even if it doesn’t rise. And after we’ve got a few of their boats, and the Germans begin to wonder what’s happening, why they don’t come home, that’ll put the fear of God into the rest of ’em!”

  “A very worth-while plan, quartermaster. You say you thought of it while trapped on the bottom, eh? It’s certainly remarkable how a good quiet spot helps meditation.” He glanced at his desk. “If I could only get away from all these papers, cables, conferences, and interruptions, to some quiet spot and think myself! Too bad the Thames isn’t deeper, I’d order a sub sent up here and go down in her whenever a little high-powered thinking was necessary.” He held out his hand again. “Congratulations, Knowles. We’ll try that at once. And I’ll swear that, at the worst, it’ll give us the added punch to hold the U-boats back till our northern mine barrage blocks off that North Sea exit.” He clapped Tom warmly on the back. “I’ll send word to Queenstown right away to fit out the necessary ships.” He walked rapidly back and forth, planning the details.

  Emboldened by the admiral’s enthusiasm Tom played his last card.

  “Give me a tramp, admiral, and the L-20, and let me try it out for you.”

  Sims paused, looking curiously at the eager chief quartermaster facing him. Certainly he was an unusual seaman. And it was his own idea. No one would be more likely to put his heart into carrying it through.

  But he was only an enlisted man, after all. What could he do in command of a submarine?

  “What do you know about handling a sub, Knowles?”

  “Enough to get the L-20 up, admiral, and get her back with hardly any crew at all. And I know her from duct keel to conning tower. Give me a good crew, the boys of the L-18 for instance, and I’ll show you!”

  Sims thought rapidly. The idea of making a chief petty officer skipper of a sub looked ridiculous — especially in the American navy, with its sharp line between officers and men. But — it was the men from the ranks who finally commanded Napoleon’s armies. And besides, if it had not been for this man, there would be no L-20 back in port to assign to any officer, however able. He made up his mind.

  “You’re right, Knowles; I’ll give you the boat,” he exclaimed. “And we’ll see what the Huns think of this stunt.” He raised his voice, “Orderly!”

  Brenner double-timed up the stairs, saluted stiffly. “Tell Commander Barber to come here.”

  Barber came immediately. Swiftly Sims outlined to him the idea, went briefly into the layout of the decoy ship and the towing arrangements. Barber discussed with the admiral the best scene of operations for the initial trial.

  “The Channel approaches look best to me,” decided the admiral, “but we’ll make it definite when the L-20's finally ready to sail. How soon can you get the ships ready, Barber?”

  “I think it’ll take two weeks to fit up our decoy. We’ll try to beat that, sir.”

  “Expedite it all you can. Wire the Melville this gets number one priority.” He looked at Tom a moment, then added, “I guess I’ll have to make an officer out of this young man.” He sat down, wrote rapidly on the pad before him, tore off a sheet, and handed it to the chief quartermaster. “Take this to Commander Young, personnel officer, on the first floor. He’ll make you out a commission as a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve.”

  Tom flushed happily. An officer again! Even if only in the Reserve. Till the war ended, that commission was as good as anybody’s.

  He took the note.

  “Thank you, admiral, I’ll do my damnedest to carry this thing through!” Leaning heavily on his cane, he saluted awkwardly, touching the admiral’s note lightly to the visor of his c.p.o. cap. An amusing conceit struck him; he smiled faintly. The admiral’s note would be a magic wand, changing by its touch the brass fouled anchor and the leather strap of his c.p.o. cap into the brilliant gold shield and gold lace of an officer’s cap. And with those, he would have an independent command, a commission to roam the seas looking for enemy submarines — and the U-38.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  “Cheerio! If the fairy queen hasn’t been at it again!” Mary Martin stared at the new lieutenant’s stripes on Tom’s sleeves, then sank wearily into the chair alongside him. “This canteen hasn’t been the same since you left, Tom. I missed you terribly. There’ve been scads of officers round, all anxious to help me, but I suspect their motives.” She sighed but her brown eyes sparkled as they rested on Tom’s bronzed profile. “Most of them wouldn’t even wait till the end of an evening before they’d suggest that we elope. And I thought of how wonderful you were, Tom; you helped me for a whole month and never suggested running away once.” She lighted a cigarette, offered him one. He shook his head.

  Mary puffed reflectively.

  “You were just a bit of all right, when you were a gob, Tom.” She eyed him archly. “Now that you’re a bally officer, like the rest of them, I suppose you’ll think that every girl who smiles at you twice is just dying to sink into those gold-laced arms.”

  Knowles looked at her. Curly hair, cropped short; large brown eyes; a fair English complexion. Good-looking girl, he thought. Question though whether at Annapolis the midshipmen would ever have rated her “a queen.” Probably not, she wouldn’t suit their ideas of vivacity. But over here, those same midshipmen, grown up a little, were falling all over themselves to possess themselves of her. The old law of supply and demand, he meditated; at Crabtown there was an oversupply of femmes flooding in from all over the country on the surfeited midshipmen; here, among thousands of fighting men, interesting girls were scarce, or girls of any kind, for that matter.

  Mary was weary; her close-fitting khaki jacket and her short skirt looked decidedly rumpled and in need of laundering. She crossed and recrossed her knees frequently, trying to rest her tired feet, and she smiled wanly as she contemplated her dusty shoes. Being hostess in a waterfront canteen was a wearing business, especially when you danced with all comers and half of them drunk. She had few illusions left.

  Tom sat back, quietly drinking in her beauty. Lots of poise, too, he admitted; she more than held her own with the mob, limey and yank, that rolled through the port of Queenstown. Not stand-offish either with the men who had come in from the sea today, having looked death in the face and who would go out tomorrow, probably to embrace it this time. Certainly doing her bit to ease the strain of war. Rough on any woman. She stood it well though, he reflected, examining her sidewise. Navy girls all seemed to grow up, be they British or American, with that same indefinable poise.

  “You haven’t answered yet about those stripes, Tom. Congratulations, no end, on having them, but how? From quartermaster to leftenant! Some step in the Royal Navy, and I’ll bet no less in yours.” Her eyes twinkled, she glanced at his blouse. “I haven’t heard of any battle this time. Let’s see, when I first met you, Uncle Lewis was pinning a Navy Cross on your breast for bringing in the Walton. But I don’t see any new ribbons on you this time. What’s the secret? What brave deed has the boy hero done this time?” she asked banteringly.

  Tom laughed. “You’d be surprised, Mary, really nothing. I just sat back and meditated. You know, just like this,” he crossed his knees, knitted his brows comically and rested his chin in his palm and his elbows on one knee in the attitude of “Le Penseur.”

  “And that was all there was to it. It got to the ears of the Admiralty in London. Admiral Sims sent for me to verify the fact, and I had to plead guilty. Well,’ said he, ‘I can’t afford to have any gobs who waste time acting as if they had brains. That
’s what we’re paying the officers for, though it’s damn rare when we get our money’s worth.’ So he made me an officer. And that’s all there was to it.” He held up his sleeve and rubbed the gold braid across her cheek. “Aren’t those stripes nice?”

  She pouted, then laughed at him.

  “Aren’t we getting forward since we’ve become an officer! But you’re only spoofing me about those stripes. Well, never mind, I’ll find out from Uncle Lewis. You know Admiral Bayly really is my uncle, a second or third one, don’t you?”

  Tom shook his head.

  “No, but who cares? You can’t scare me with rank now. I wasn’t afraid of you when all I knew was that your father was a Rear Admiral in the Grand Fleet and I was just a gob. But go ahead and ask your Uncle Lewis. I’ll bet he’ll tell you it’s just what I said.”

  “It’s closing time, I think.” Mary looked round at the petty officers of the Shore Patrol who were roughly clearing out the remnants of various liberty parties. “Those poor boys! They come into port like all sailors looking for wine, women, and song. About all they get is whisky. I’ll bet they wish they were in France, where people aren’t so interested in saving their souls.” She rose wearily. “Good night, Leftenant Knowles. Do drop round whenever you’re in port.” With a mock salute, she drifted off to join the other canteen workers.

  Knowles picked up his overcoat and sauntered out of the stuffy hut into the night. A stream of sailors staggered irregularly past, headed for the quay. A little farther off he heard the sputtering of motor-sailors, the sharp crash of bulwarks as they came alongside the float, the hoarse cries of the coxswains — curses, songs, and groans, as the boats took aboard their loads and shoved off in the darkness.

  Steam launches, motor-dories, clumsy motor-sailors, bumped one after another alongside the landing. “Santee boat!” “Conyngham boat!” “Talbot boat!” Dim forms staggered down the stone steps, sprawled over the thwarts. “Shove off, coxswain!” Boathooks flashed in the moonlight, black water foamed, the motors sputtered more loudly, the float was clear for the next liberty boat. A motor-sailor shot in, bumped the float, backed viciously to check its headway. The coxswain jammed his helm hard down to throw his stern against the landing. Enough. A single stroke on the boat bell, the engine suddenly quieted. More shouts, another group moved down the steps. “Melville boat! All the Melville liberty party!” More pushing, unsteady forms crowded down on the swaying platform, swarmed over the bulwarks, jammed themselves in on the wet thwarts. Tom stepped forward and was swept along by the crowd in the darkness. He stumbled against the engine, sank back on a boat cloth in the stern sheets. In a moment the boat was filled, was on its way, rolling gently as it headed across the harbour for the dark hulk of the Melville.

  CHAPTER XIX

  “Hoist away!”

  The winch creaked, a cloud of steam exhausted in puffs over the side. The men on the barge alongside leaped clear, the slings lifted from the deck, swayed gently, and then rose steadily up the rusty side of the Galway. The planks in the slings gave a little, readjusted the load to a circular section as the slings tautened, then teetered to the pull of the steadying lines as they went up the side.

  The planks cleared the rail. A shrill blast on the boatswain’s pipe, the winchman shifted his levers, and the boom swung rapidly in over the deck till the slings hung poised over an open cargo hatch.

  The boatswain looked down.

  “Stand clear below!” Another blast of the pipe, the winch drum slacked away, the load of planks shot down through the hatch into the dark hold.

  From the bridge of the Galway, Tom Knowles watched absorbedly as load after load of timber was whipped aloft from the scows alongside and stowed in the fore hold. Planks, pit props, old timbers — an odd assortment of lumber to be loading in Queenstown.

  “You’ll have to be careful how you stow that stuff, Erickson; your life is going to depend on it before long.”

  Lieutenant Erickson nodded. A rough seaman, clad in a baggy civilian suit; only a nondescript cap without any

  insignia bore the slightest relation to a seaman’s uniform. A short stubby pipe was clenched between his teeth and he puffed vigorously at it while he watched the loading.

  Lieutenant Knowles scanned him carefully.

  “As a merchant skipper, you’re perfect, old man. Your own roommate wouldn’t know you’d ever sailed in anything but tramps.”

  Erickson smiled. “Ye’re bloody well right, matey,” he mimicked, then resumed his natural tone. “When the war’s over, I’m going to get me an actor’s job. No more sailoring for me. Well, what do you think of the cast? I’ve been rehearsing them a week now and they’re only waiting for the curtain to rise to start the show. There’s my leading man, answering his cue now.”

  A tough looking bruiser emerged from the forecastle and swaggered aft. An old derby hat — “a bowler, ’e calls it,” explained the skipper — crowned his head; a striped blue and yellow blazer protruded from beneath a brown coat, which was held together with only one button, while his wrists stuck awkwardly out beyond the frayed sleeves; the cuffs on his grey trousers flapped above a pair of brilliant tan shoes. He puffed occasionally on a cigarette, then tossed it overboard and spat carelessly on the deck.

  “That’s Mr. Mate; what do you think of his makeup?”

  Tom’s thoughts drifted back to the bucko mates he had known in his own experience before the mast; they had nothing on this boy. He grinned approvingly.

  “He’s got it down pat, all right. What is he anyway?”

  “The chief boatswain off the battleship Texas. We’re about to present the latest thriller, — ‘S.S. Galway, Bound In For Cardiff,’ with an all-star cast, obtained at vast expense, and regardless of the howls of their former skippers. Whenever I saw a type I needed, he joined the company. That order Admiral Sims sent down quashed all the protesting execs, and here they are. When that lumber’s all stowed, we’ll sail whenever you’re ready.”

  “Be sure you get it stowed in tightly, captain. When you’re torpedoed, that buoyancy is all that’ll be left to get you back to port.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got the carpenter off the Melville in the hold, personally supervising the job. There’ll be damn little room left for water to get into the cargo holds and that lumber’s going to be packed in right up to the deck beams to help our buoyancy in case we take a bad trim. We won’t sink.”

  “I hope not for lots of reasons,” replied Tom. “If I lost the Galway, especially without getting the U-boat, I might have trouble getting another tramp for a decoy. Shipping’s getting too scarce to waste now.”

  “Well, if anybody’s got more interest in seeing this bucket stay afloat than her crew, I’d like to know who. It’s bad enough to go round begging to be torpedoed, without having to swim for it afterwards.” Erickson bit viciously into his pipe stem. “Say, I wish I could smoke a cigar instead of this blooming pipe.”

  “No hope, skipper, not a chance. Where would the master of a tramp be smoking cigars? If a sub looks the Galway over through her periscope and sights the master smoking a cigar, she’ll smell a rat immediately.

  You might as well get used to it; it’s one of the props that go with the part.”

  “I suppose so. Well, anyway, I don’t have to look the picture of contentment while I puff, do I? At least a periscope can’t pick up that much detail.”

  “No, you can swear at it if you want, but I have a hunch they’ll be using your picture as a pipe ad. before you’re through with it, like this: ‘Captain Erickson, master of the S.S. Galway, claims that with Blank’s Tobacco in his hod, he keeps cool while being torpedoed.’” Erickson laughed.

  “Not a bad idea. When the war’s over, I’ll send in my picture and see what they’ll pay for the testimonial.”

  “This is the last time anybody in uniform’s coming aboard, captain,” said Tom seriously. “When I leave, you and your crew want to forget all about the Navy; you’re a tramp steamer; you’ll go in an
d out of port by yourself and never in company with my sub. You’ve got to fool the pilots that bring you in and out; that’ll not be so hard if you use the merchant service language while you’re at sea — no ‘Aye, ayes,’ no salutes, no ceremonies. And your crew have got to keep their mouths shut when they’re ashore — they’re just the deck force on a tramp, don’t know anything about the Navy, never saw a sub and never want to, and they hate the hell out of these ‘spit-n’-polish’ naval lads going around in sailor suits, calling themselves seamen, and monopolizing all the girls. Secrecy — everything depends on that, and you know how secret this’ll be from the Germans if the word once gets round Queenstown about what the Galway’s really doing.”

  “I’m with you on that, lieutenant,” agreed the Galways master. “I had that in mind in choosing the crew. They’re all old hands in the Service; they know enough to be clams about that even when they’re drunk. You can stow any doubts about them.”

  “I certainly hope you chose the right ones then; it’s remarkable what whisky and women’ll do to an unsuspecting sailor’s tongue. Well, let’s go below to the ward — ” he caught himself hastily — “to the saloon and see that we’ve got our signal arrangements and our manoeuvres laid out right.”

  CHAPTER XX

  S.S. Galway, still two days out, ploughed steadily along toward Cardiff. She was deeply laden, her Plimsoll mark showed only when her irregular rolling brought it above the waterline. Over her bulwarks showed a huge deck load of pit-props, lashed firmly down to rails and hatch covers, adding to her burden.

  At seven knots the straining vessel pounded along, rising sluggishly to the seas, falling away heavily as she struck the troughs. Her faded camouflage, not very brilliant in colouring, and much peeled off in large sheets, did little to disguise her outline, and certainly its pattern failed to give her anything but a nondescript appearance, no different from dozens of other tramps. Her rusty plates were streaked with salt, and along her rails, patches of icy spray, frozen solid over the deck cargo, glistened in the dying rays of the setting sun.