by Nevil Shute
He crossed to the door and opened it. “Come in,” he said, and went back to his desk. “Now, what about this ship? Has any one reported her?”
Squadron Leader Petersen said, “Nobody saw anything of her, sir. Are you sure that she was in our area?”
“The Navy say that she was fifteen miles from St. Catherines, bearing one nine two.”
The flight lieutenant said, “What time did it happen?”
“At five minutes past ten.” The little wing commander stared arrogantly at the young officer. “Whose zone was that?”
Hooper thought for a minute. “That’d be Matheson, I think.”
“And he saw nothing of the ship?”
“Not a thing, sir.”
“Nor of the boat that was picked up?”
“He didn’t see anything at all. The weather was very thick.”
The wing commander said, “Well, I think that’s a pretty bad show. This squadron has been given a job of doing patrol. It’s not been done. Say it’s the weather, if you like, although it’s not too bad for flying. Whatever the reason is, the squadron hasn’t done the job that it was told to do.”
There was a tense silence in the office.
Dickens went on, “It’s no use coming along now to tell me that the weather was too bad to do your job efficiently. The time to tell me that is before the patrol starts, not after they’ve made a muck of it. Tell me before you start and I can do something — double bank the patrol, perhaps.”
There was another silence of strained nerves. He went on, “Well, that’s all for the moment. You’ll be interested to know that I’ve just had Captain Burnaby on the telephone, telling me that the coastal patrol’s no bloody good to him. Judging from this morning’s performance, I rather agree. That’s all. You can go.”
The squadron leader set his lips, and said nothing. The young flight lieutenant stepped forward impulsively. “There’s just one thing, sir,” he said hotly. “I’d like to hear from Captain Burnaby why his ship wasn’t in convoy, as it should have been.”
“That hasn’t got a thing to do with you, Hooper,” said the wing commander. “Your job is the patrol and I’m not satisfied with that patrol at all. You can go now. Send Matheson to see me.”
They left him; the wing commander remained seated at his desk, tapping a pencil irritably on his blotting pad. He would have to see the Air Officer Commanding and tell him all about it — no good letting Burnaby get his tale in first.
He brooded darkly for a time. That flight lieutenant had a nerve . . . although, why hadn’t the Lochentie been in convoy, anyway? He would put up the A.O.C. to find out that. He’d been too open with these lads like Hooper; the result was that they all thought that they could run the war. They’d have to learn that they’d got just one job to do, and one only, without reasoning too much, or digging into everybody else’s job. He’d see in future that his orders were framed for their jobs alone.
In the pilots’ office the four pilots wrote their short reports. Presently Matheson was summoned to see Wing Commander Dickens; the others went over to the mess. Chambers went up to his room and had a wash, yawned for a few moments before the glass, and went down to the anteroom for a beer before lunch.
He found Hooper brooding sullenly alone over a tankard. “Dickens tore me off a strip just now,” said the flight lieutenant. “I’m fed up with this job. Think I’ll put in for a transfer.”
Chambers said, “Where was the ship, anyway?”
“Bung in the middle of Matheson’s zone. Thank your stars it wasn’t yours. There’s the hell of a row going on.”
“Am I out of it?”
“So far.”
“That’s a bloody miracle,” said Jerry, and went in to lunch.
He went into the junior mess room after lunch, got himself a cup of coffee and a copy of For Men Only, and stretched himself in an arm chair before the fire. He turned over the pages of the little publication and looked at the pictures, smiling a little. Presently the eyelids drooped over his eyes and he slept, his long legs reaching out towards the comfortable glow, his slim body at rest.
He woke an hour later, rested and refreshed. He had grown accustomed to this sleep after his lunch since he had been on the morning patrol. He stirred in the chair, and planned the remainder of the day. Tomorrow was the change-over of patrol; he would not be flying till the afternoon. Therefore, another late night wouldn’t hurt him. He had arranged to meet the girlfriend in the evening; he looked forward to that with some pleasure. He might pick up Matheson or Hooper and take in a movie, and go on to the Royal Clarence for ham and eggs in the snack bar. In the meantime, he would have an hour or so for working on the galleon.
He spent the afternoon in his room, threading minute cords through little blocks upon the yards and securing them with tiny dabs of secotine. He was pleased with his work. His imagination showed the ship to him as she would have been; she became real to him, magnified. Studying the bluff lines of her hull, he felt that he could hear the bubbling of the bow wave at her stern, see the long trail of eddies in her wake. He could feel her deck heaving gently beneath his feet. He could hear the yards creaking and complaining as she rolled. To him, she was a real little ship. He was immensely pleased with her.
Presently he went down to tea, then got his car and drove into Portsmouth. He had one or two small items of shopping to do. For one thing, he wanted an electric torch; he was tired of falling over bicycles each time he parked his car. But torches were scarce. He tried three shops without success; the blackout had created a demand that had swept torches off the market.
Finally he went into a large chemists and stood looking around him for a moment, uncertainly. It did not look a likely place to buy a torch. It was largely devoted to soap and perfumes, and all manner of feminine cosmetics. He stood irresolute, a tall figure in an Air Force blue greatcoat, pink-cheeked and rather embarrassed.
A girl came up to him from the beauty stand. “Can I get you anything, sir?”
He said, “I’m not quite sure. I wanted an electric torch.”
“I think we’re out of torches. We have lamps.”
He brightened. “A lamp would do. Could I see them?”
He followed her down the shop. “I didn’t really think you’d keep that sort of thing. Like trying to buy a lipstick at the ironmonger’s.”
She said, “We always keep a fancy line.” She opened a carton. “This is the only lamp we have at the moment.”
It was a moulded glass rabbit, with red eyes. It stood upon a round chromium base with a little handle; when you turned the switch a bulb lit up inside it and the rabbit glowed with light.
The pilot said, “My God, that’s wizard. Just look at its eyes! What sort of battery does it use?”
He made her take it to bits to show him; then he bought it and took it away, very pleased with himself.
He went on to a cinema and sat for a couple of hours watching a gangster melodrama; at about nine o’clock he was in the snack bar of the Royal Clarence Hotel.
It was the busiest hour of the day; the long room was crammed with people. Most of them were young, most of the men were in uniform. There were naval officers, a fair sprinkling of naval surgeons, a good many sub-lieutenants and lieutenants of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, the Wavy Navy. There were lieutenants and captains of Marines, and anti-aircraft gunners, and young Sapper officers. There were young Air Force pilots with the drooping silver wings upon their chests, and young Fleet Air Arm pilots with the golden wings upon their sleeves.
The room was filled with smoke, a smell of grilled food and a great babel of conversation. There were two bars serving drinks, and a snack bar with stools arranged around a grill. The centre of the room was filled with tables and the walls were lined with settees. There were perhaps a hundred people there, all talking and smoking and eating and drinking.
Chambers took off his coat and hung it on an overloaded stand, and pushed his way to the bar where Mona was at work. There wer
e two other barmaids with her, all immensely busy. She gave him a swift smile and served him deftly with a gin and Italian.
He said, “Dancing?”
She smiled brilliantly, and nodded. He took his glass, and elbowed backwards from the crowd into a corner.
A man behind his back said, “We never got that signal. I got it from Purvis in T. 87. He flashed it to me by lamp, round about one o’clock.”
Chambers turned; there was a little knot of R.N.V.R. officers standing beneath a blue poster warning them not to discuss naval matters in public places. He judged them to be off the trawlers that came into harbour every night. Another said:
“We ought to carry more life-saving equipment. I’d have got more of them if I’d had a couple of Carley floats.”
“Couldn’t the boat have got them?”
“There were only two proper seamen in the boat. They had all that they could do to keep her head to sea, of course. The ones in the water were just drifted away.” The speaker paused, and then said very quietly, “It was a stinking bloody mess. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Much fuel oil about?”
“God, yes. They were covered with it — the ones that were in the water. Just choked with the bloody stuff. I’d have picked up a few more of them if it hadn’t been for that.”
“How many did you get in all?”
“Thirteen in the boat, and then we picked up seven from the water. We got three bodies, too.”
“The women were all in the boat, weren’t they?”
“No — of the seven we picked up, there were three women and four men. But two of the women died within ten minutes, and one of the men. They’d been in the water over an hour.”
Somebody said, “Christ. I suppose they were practically gone when you got them?”
“Just floating in the life jackets, you know. To all intents and purposes, they were dead.”
“What about another?”
“I don’t mind.”
One of the Wavy Navy pushed his way towards the bar. Another said, “I don’t understand why they only got one boat away. They weren’t shelled, were they?”
“Not that I know of. We’d have heard it, anyway. But she went down still steaming ahead at about six or seven knots, as far as I could make out from what they said. They never got her stopped to get the boats down.”
“She just went on till she went under?”
“That’s right.”
“Christ.”
Another said, “Who owned her?”
“I’ve no idea.” And then another said, “Sanderson and Moore — Sunderland. They had the Lochentie, and the Glen Tay, and the Glen Ormond.”
Chambers turned to them. “I’m sorry — I heard what you said about the Lochentie. I’m Coastal Command, patrolling in your sector.”
The other nodded. “In an Anson?”
“That’s right. Tell me — was it a submarine?”
“Must have been. Too deep for a mine — there’s thirty fathoms of water out there.”
“Did you see anything of the submarine?”
“Not a smell of it. Did a bit of listening, but she’d been gone an hour. Nothing to go by.”
Another said, “She’d slip away ten miles and then lie quiet on the bottom till nightfall. She might be anywhere.”
Chambers said, “Can’t you get her when she surfaces?”
The trawlerman shrugged his shoulders. “Got a couple of drifters out there now on listening patrol. It’s just a chance if they contact her in the dark.”
One of the others said, “What are you drinking?”
Chambers said, “I don’t see why you should. Well, gin and Italian.”
He turned back to the first speaker. “I was on the morning patrol,” he said, “but my zone was to the east of you. It was filthy visibility — we couldn’t see a thing. I’m afraid the chap who had that zone missed the ship altogether.”
The other nodded slowly. “An aeroplane flew near us twice while we were picking up the boat. We heard it, but we couldn’t see it.”
One of them said, “It’s a wonder you come out at all, this sort of weather. Bill Stammers picked one of your Ansons out of the sea on a day just like this, about a month ago.”
Chambers said, “I know. Chap called Grenfell was the pilot. Flew right in. He and the wireless operator ruined themselves. That’s the one you mean?”
“That’s right. The other two were in a little rubber boat.”
“Too bloody cold for that, this weather.”
“You’re right. Though for December, it’s not as cold as it might be.”
The pilot said, “We could do without all this blasted rain.”
He stayed with them for a quarter of an hour, and stood a round of drinks. Then he said, “Well, I must go and feed. I’ll keep my eyes skinned for your little friend when I’m out tomorrow.”
The officer who had rescued the survivors said suddenly and harshly, “If you see the bloody thing, give it everything you’ve got.”
There was a momentary silence.
The young flying officer nodded soberly. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do that, with your love.”
He went off to the grill.
2
IN THE PAVILION the lights swung and changed colour on the dancers. The floor was crowded. Most of the dancers were in uniform, sailors and officers mixed indiscriminately. There was a sprinkle of khaki and of Air Force blue, but most of the uniforms were naval.
Chambers swung the girl deftly in and out of the crowd of dancers on the floor. They were laughing together in the changing lights. She still wore the plain black frock that she had worn when serving in the bar; he had not allowed her time to go back home to change.
I like to dance and tap my feet
But they won’t keep in rhythm —
You see I washed them both today
And I can’t do nothin’ with them.
They turned and sidestepped merrily in an open space.
Ho hum, the tune is dumb
The words don’t mean a thing —
Isn’t this a silly song
For any one to sing?
He said, “Don’t sing that song. It sends an arrow right through my heart.”
She bubbled with laughter. “You do talk soft. What’s it this time?”
“I had a date with Snow White. I broke it to come here and dance with you.”
“You do tell stories. It was Ginger Rogers last time.”
“I know it was. They’re all after me, because I dance so well.”
“Do you tchassy in a reverse turn when you dance with Ginger Rogers?”
“We won’t go into that again,” he said with dignity. “I do it every time I dance with Snow White. And what’s more, Disney makes it look all right.”
She laughed again up into his face. “He must stretch out one of your legs to make it look all right, like Pluto’s tail.”
Presently the dance came to an end. He took her back to the table which they had left loaded with their overcoats to retain it, and bought strawberry ices for them both. Presently she said, “What do you do when you aren’t flying?”
He said, “I’m writing my autobiography. It’s the right thing to do that when you’re twenty-three.”
She looked at him uncertainly. “You don’t know how to write a book, I don’t believe.”
“Any one can write that sort of book. I’m going to call it Forty Years a Flying Officer.”
The dance hall was built out upon a pier on the sea front. Beneath their feet the tide crept in over the sand, menacing in the utter darkness. Outside no lights whatever showed upon the waste of waters. On the black, tumbling sea a very few ships moved unseen, unlit, and stealthily. Twenty miles out two little wooden vessels lay five miles apart, with engines stopped and drifting with the tide. In each of them a man sat in a little, dimly lit cabin. Before him was an electrical apparatus; he wore headphones on his head. From time to time he turned the knob of a co
ndenser.
He sat there listening, listening, all the winter night.
Over her strawberry ice the girl said, “No, but seriously, what do you do when you aren’t flying?”
He said, “I build ships.”
She laughed again. “No — seriously.”
“Honestly, that’s what I do. I’m making a galleon.”
“Like what you buy in shops, in bits to put together?”
“That’s right.”
Her mind switched off at a tangent. “Wasn’t it terrible about them people in that ship today?”
His mind moved quickly. There had been no mention of the loss of the Lochentie in the evening paper. He said innocently, “What ship was that?”
She said, wide-eyed, “The one you was talking about in the bar. You know.”
He said, “I never talk of naval matters in a bar. It tells you not to, on the poster.”
She said, “Don’t talk so soft. You was talking to the officers off the trawlers all about it, the ones what picked the people up out of the water.”
He said, “I knew you were a spy, right from the first. The next thing is, I threaten to denounce you to the police unless you let me have my way with you.”
She said, “If you’re going to talk like that, I’m going home.”
He said penitently, “I’m sorry. I was only going by the books.”
“Well, don’t be so awful.”
“Did you hear all that we were saying?”
She said, “Not all of it, because of turning round to get the things from the shelves. But you’d be surprised if you knew what we get to know behind the bar.”
He nodded, serious for a moment. When old friends in the service meet for a short drink and a meal, not all the posters in the world will stop a few discreet exchanges on the subject of their work. Leaning upon the bar, they say these things in low tones to each other, so low that nobody can hear except the barmaid at their elbow.
He said, “Let’s go and dance again.”
