by David Black
‘Now. Have a drop of this,’ said Shrimp, pouring a golden liquid from a stone bottle into Harry’s coffee mug. ‘A bloody nice Armagnac. We’ve had a convoy in while you were away. Suddenly there’s more to eat … and drink. Especially for the civilians. Place is almost getting back to normal. I’m assured someone even spotted what might have been a smile on a dghaisaman’s face the other day, although I think that might have just been wind.’
When Harry finally got back to his stone cabin behind the Lazaretto gallery, he didn’t even bother undressing before collapsing on his cot and falling into a deep sleep. It was already dark when one of the stewards came in and shook him awake, telling them it was time for wardroom sundowners and that Captain Simpson was already there.
He didn’t recognise anyone in the wardroom gallery. No-one was left from the old days, apart from John the steward. John, who was now handing him a whisky and soda, and not the usual gin.
‘The convoy?’ Harry inquired.
‘Four ships,’ said John with a discreet smile. ‘Just thirty-five thousand tons, but it’s been amazing what was in it.’
The talk among the officers was about a signal that had come in direct from 10 Downing Street a short time before – in Churchill’s own hand.
‘The old lush was outraged apparently,’ Harry heard a disconnected voice somewhere in the darkened throng. ‘His plucky submariners, forced to serve on boats with only a number and not some noble name? Desist forthwith, he says to their lordships! Each valiant vessel shall have its own moniker as befitting the valiant traditions of valiantness! Action this day! Gawd bless Winston!’
‘Well, I think my boat’s new name should salute the King,’ said another. ‘HMS Morning George! I like the sound of that!’
Loud guffaws.
Harry drifted off to the edge of the crowd. He’d head off to see Katty after this; he wasn’t in the mood to get caught up here in an all-nighter. Not that there seemed much danger, seeing as he didn’t know anyone.
Katty.
He’d hardly thought about her at all while on patrol, not even on those long days off Naples, covering the port where the Italian battleships had run, waiting for Tenacious and Niobe to relieve him.
It had been Shirley he’d thought about – and himself.
And he was back again, to that afternoon in Kelvingrove Park, where he and Shirley had gone. And then afterwards, in the West End apartment where he’d lodged as a student; that belonged to his parents’ friends, now moved out to their wooden shack at Carbeth because of the bombing, and forgotten to come back.
He’d been making tea when she’d said, ‘You remember what we did on the Camel’s Hump that day?’
And he’d said, ‘You mean what you did to me? How could I forget?’
‘I’m not apologising …’
‘I sincerely hope not … it was … lovely.’
The Camel’s Hump was a hill behind Dunoon, and on the day in question, Shirley had caught him crying because of the whole damn war – and because she’d just spent the previous two days driving through the Clydebank blitz and felt like crying too, so she’d just upped and made fumbling, inelegant love to him.
‘Do you think about it?’ she’d said.
‘The hills above Dunoon will never be the same for me again,’ Harry had said, turning now to look at her, grinning, wondering where all this was leading. She met his gaze then gave him a brief elbow in the ribs before returning to contemplate an indeterminate future. Then at length, she said, ‘I found it … very helpful … given the state of mind I was in. Theraputic.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ Harry had said, all sardonic now.
‘Shhhh!’ She’d snapped. ‘I’m still talking.’ Then after a long pause during which he hadn’t dared open his mouth, she’d said, ‘I also found it very enjoyable.’ Another long pause, then, ‘So I’d like to do it again, if you’d like to. Maybe even more than once. It was very nice.’
Harry had sat down as if he was considering some new, expensive purchase. ‘I rather think I might, but you’ll have to promise me you’ll be more gentle this time.’
She took her cap off and hit him with it, several times; and in between the blows Harry saw for the first time how much of her hair she’d had cut and felt an anguished crushing in his heart.
Afterwards, sitting drinking tea in the bay window of the apartment, looking out onto the leafy Dowanhill Road, she’d said out of the blue, ‘I’m not your girlfriend, you know. Just because we’ve done it, and might even do it again, it doesn’t mean I’m going out with you.’
And that had been that.
He’d seen her again several times more, travelling up from Greenock while he was standing by what was to be his new command, the still under construction HMS P268.
But on the only occasion afterwards that he’d broached the subject of them, all she’d had to say was, ‘I don’t mean to be cruel, but I’m not playing the role of grieving widow for the rest of my life if you get the chop. So, there isn’t going to be any us!’ Later, as an afterthought, she’d added, ‘We’ll only speak of this again after the war is over, if we both survive. So shut up and ask me to dance.’
Then that Luftwaffe bomb had broken HMS P268’s back in the Scott’s dry dock, and he’d ended up back out in the Mediterranean in pretty short order.
‘This is Lieutenant Commander Bryant,’ said Shrimp in Harry’s ear, destroying his reverie, ‘He has P211, or Safari as we now must call her.’
A rugged-looking man, with a square jaw and open, no-nonsense expression on a weathered face, held out his hand, ‘Ben. Pleased to meet you, Harry. Heard about you. Bad luck with the Eyetie battleships. They seem to live a charmed life. Beautiful ships though, don’t you think? The Italians know how to build them even if they’re not so hot when it comes to fighting them.’
Lt Cdr Ben Bryant. Harry had heard of him too. Another of the Trade’s stars.
‘Beautiful indeed,’ said Shrimp. ‘I almost sometimes feel it would be shame to sink them. It’s not as if they’ve actually done anybody any harm.’
And they all laughed, not so much because it was a joke, but because it was undoubtedly true.
Eventually his feeling of personal squalor had driven Harry from the party and down to the engine shop for his bath; as a submariner coming off patrol he was allowed one, courtesy of the flotilla engineer Sam MacGregor’s water heater, assembled from an old 50-gallon oil drum and a dirty diesel lub-oil burner. There were no other means of heating water on the island by then, not even on the sub base.
Soaking in the tub, he reflected on the way Shirley used to look at him in a way he never wanted her to stop, during that brief time of not being his girlfriend. He’d told his mother that he was seeing her again and she’d told him in no uncertain terms, ‘Don’t you go breaking that girl’s heart, d’you hear me!’ Then after a pause, ‘Not that she’d let you.’ And then later, after he’d told her how Shirley had assured him that under no circumstances was she his girlfriend, his mother had said, ‘When you’re wondering about what to do about it, Harry, think about what your life would be like without her.’
Whatever the hell that meant. Which left him where he was now, lying in a bath in the middle of a bombed-out ruin on an island in the middle of the Med with a girl back home who wasn’t waiting for him, and another down the road who, when they were together, clung to him like her life depended on it, which it probably did. He let his head slip under the water and started to blow bubbles.
****
Coming in from patrol that afternoon, Harry couldn’t help notice several submarines on the surface even though there were still several hours until sunset. Obviously it wasn’t necessary anymore to have them dive at first light and spend the day sitting on the bottom of the harbour to keep them out of reach of the bombers.
Sitting on Wincairns’ terrace later, Katty told him full air raids were few and far between now.
Over the following days he’d noticed how much ta
rting up was going on around the base – a new underground maintenance shop, new crew sleeping quarters being hewn out of the rock. The place was almost becoming liveable again. Even the pig sties behind the Lazaretto had been given a tidy, although the little herd had become much depleted with just one breeding sow. Her ability to continue farrowing, however, meant there was still roast pork for Sunday lunch and for crews going back out on patrol, sausages that didn’t come out of a tin. But then, being home to the island’s principal offensive arm, the authorities had always made sure the submariners had an easier life. It was their pay-off for doing what everyone agreed was a job you wouldn’t want to do yourself. That, and the rum ration. Officers however, still had to depend on boats transiting through always bringing gin.
But the hunger elsewhere on the island was real enough; Harry couldn’t miss how gaunt and skinny everyone still looked despite the recent convoys. There was little local produce to eat in the way of vegetables and absolutely no potatoes. All of the island’s other livestock had been slaughtered and eaten long ago, apart from the odd scrawny donkey for transport or goat for fresh milk – and there were precious few of them.
As a result the Victory Kitchens were still the only port of call for a hot meal. And there was absolutely no beer. And wine was just something you occasionally saw on the endless supply of Hollywood movies that kept coming in on the “Magic Carpet” boats. The cafés that had managed to re-open served only thin coffee and some local hooch Harry could never remember the name of. ‘That’s because it rots your brain,’ Ben Bryant had joked him with him one evening back in the wardroom.
As for life with Katty, long, beautiful sunny days followed, although being winter, there was often a chill in the evening air. He went to see Katty every day, sometimes even staying the night when Wincairns was holed up in his bunker under the island’s operations room at Lascaris. Harry, nor Katty, still had any idea exactly what it was he did there, but then both of them were old in war now, and knew better than to ask, or care.
They went swimming off the rocks round at St Paul’s, all the sandy beaches being mined and fringed with barbed wire now. The difference was you could do it these days without taking your life in your hands because there was no longer an endless parade of strafing Me 109s coming over. Neither farmers in their fields, nor children in playgrounds had been safe from them. The bastards. Now, if you heard an aero engine overhead, it was most likely a Spitfire. And they’d wave at the pilot.
Then had come the next fight.
Harry couldn’t remember how it started. He just remembered her words: ‘So you’re going to sacrifice yourself for me, to save me? Is that your plan? Is that what you think I want? Is that the level of your contempt? That you think I’m so worthless that I’d let you?’
And she’d turned and walked upstairs. A slammed door said she wasn’t intending to come back down. Harry stood in the darkened kitchen, unable to think straight, wondering what had just happened.
‘Come out on the terrace, Harry!’ It was Wincairns; he must’ve been sitting out there all along. ‘Come and have a drink!’
They talked banalities until Harry couldn’t not mention Katty; he wasn’t known for discussing the circus that had become his private life, but sometimes you just got pushed so far, something had to give.
‘Why didn’t Chally take her with him, when he went?’ he asked. ‘I mean theirs was the great romance.’
‘He couldn’t,’ said Wincairns, inhaling deeply from one of his Navy cigarettes.
‘Yes he could,’ said Harry.
‘You mean marry her? No he couldn’t.’
‘Why couldn’t he?’ said Harry, just a little belligerent now.
‘Because he was already married … is already married,’ said Wincairns, laying down his ace.
‘… what?’ Harry whispered. ‘Married? Christ, I didn’t see that one coming.’
‘Alas, neither did anyone else, including Katty.’
‘Bastard,’ said Harry.
‘They always are, the gorgeous ones. You’re not a bastard, though. Are you?’
Harry frowned at him, and considered while he sipped his brandy. ‘Are you saying I’m not gorgeous?’ he asked eventually.
Wincairns laughed, loudly. ‘Chaps like you shouldn’t ask questions like that of chaps like me,’ he said, his eyes narrowing with mischievous glee. ‘You might misconstrue the answer.’
Harry clammed, immediately, realising.
Which only made Wincairns guffaw louder. ‘Oh, please,’ he said, eyes rolling, ‘I mean, you’re not a bastard, so you better be good to her. While you’re still here, of course. It’s not as if you’re going to have anything better to do on this godforsaken rock. You never know, you might even fall in love with her. Then you can marry her and take her home. I can imagine worse things happening to a chap like you. She needs you, you know. Or at least someone like you. Someone like me can only do so much, if you get my drift.’
Harry considered all this for awhile: falling in love with Katty, marrying her; Katty Kadzow, having tea in his parents’ kitchen. Him actually doing all the things she’d just finished mocking him for. All the images all jarred. It’d never work; for a start he’d have to stop thinking about Shirley Lamont all the time. But he knew Wincairns meant well. He cared about what was going to happen to this doomed girl. ‘You really are a nice man, George,’ he said.
‘Oh, shush! You’ll have me blushing.’
Thirteen
‘HE bearing red one two zero!’
The voice from the cubby wasn’t one Harry recognised right away, one of the other telegraphists doing his turn on the Asdic set.
It was mid-way through the afternoon watch and Scourge was at 60 feet, running south west at three knots, about 20 miles east north east of the island of Cavoli, off Sardinia.
Harry rolled off his bunk, where he’d been dozing behind his curtain, and was in the control room before Powell, on watch, could call him. He ordered Scourge up to periscope depth, and a turn towards the target.
Something coming up behind. From Palermo? He didn’t care. It was something to poke his nose into at last. Shrimp had warned him to expect a busy time of it before he’d handed him his orders – a railway ticket with, “Patrol Cagliari to Marettimo until January 31st, and return”, scribbled on the back. But nothing had come their way since they’d arrived on the billet three days ago.
Harry told Harding to begin a plot and sent Scourge to diving stations, then he leaned against the main search periscope, his hands stuffed in his pocket, waiting for the target’s track to emerge.
‘Target’s track is two seven five degrees, true, sir.’ It was Biddle, back at his diving station, on his Asdic set. ‘I have three targets, sir. Two high-speed HE, and a third, heavy. Two destroyers … escorts of some type … and a transport … their bearing is now … red eight five degrees.’
‘Up periscope,’ said Harry, kneeling to grab the handles as it came up. “Dickie” Bird, the balding, baby-faced yeoman of signals, slipped in behind him, ready to read the bezels.
The weather upstairs had been overcast but clear, with a bit of a chop on the water; good visibility and enough wind to break up any periscope feather. Harry did his all-round sky sweep.
‘Shagbat sweeping to the southeast,’ he called his face pressed to the periscope’s rubber eye piece. ‘At least five miles away. Down periscope … stop.’ The tube slid down a mere foot, under the finger-tip control of the stoker on its hydraulic lever. Harry stood up and put his hands back in his pocket and said to no-one in particular, ‘Looks like a Cant …’
‘A complete Cant,’ interrupted Harding, leaning over his plot.
‘… Five O Six seaplane … We’ll need to watch her.’ Harry finished what he’d been saying with forced deliberation, while drawing Harding a sideways look. But he couldn’t suppress the smile on his face, and anyway, he was too late; everyone in the control room was already smirking too.
He held the periscop
e down for a few more moments, looking up and checking he had it just off Biddle’s last bearing to target. He then ordered it up again for a look round the horizon, stopping back where the targets should be … and there they were.
‘The bearing is that! Two Spica class torpedo boats, and a big tub of a ship …’ said Harry, sounding puzzled. Bird called off the bearing and McCready, at the fruit machine, dialled it. Right then, targets in sight and periscope above the surface, Harry should have been concentrating on the big ship’s bow wave, to get some idea of her speed, but the shape of the damn thing had mesmerised him. ‘Five thousand tons,’ he said, trying to focus. ‘High-sided … a box shape running almost her entire length … like a giant ferry … or a whale factory ship …’ Then his concentration came back, ‘Make the masthead height sixty feet. I’m going to say she’s doing fifteen knots … maybe a bit less. Range is … that! Down ’scope.’ And he stepped back.
Using the sixty feet and the minutes of angle just called by Bird, McCready calculated, and called it as he was dialling it in, ‘Range five thousand six hundred yards … track angle is … seventy eight degrees, sir.’
Harry stepped over to the plot, where Harding had it all marked up. Over his shoulder he gave a course correction to starboard, and brought Scourge onto a track angle of one zero five.
Perfect, he thought to himself, knowing that after the debacle of the battleships, he’d better get this one right. He knew no-one was blaming him, but two balls-ups in a row and folk might start to worry. He’d start to worry. Everybody said the knack of command wasn’t just about being able to shoot straight – but sometimes it was.
