Abaft number five, another pair of ventilators and the steam warping winch, then the poop structure, with a steel weather door leading into the crew’s quarters, and near-vertical outside ladders to the gun-deck port and starboard. There being two of them allowed for one of them being used for ammunition supply, leaving the other clear for access.
‘Morning, Layer.’ Gunlayer – Patterson, able seaman – separating himself from the knot of men around the gun and its angled shield. Identifiable by his height, which was about the same as Andy’s – six-three, taller than most. Five men in the gun’s crew: one wearing a telephone headset and the others acting as lookouts – or had been until the snowflake fizzled out. Couldn’t see much now, especially if you’d been so unwise as to look up at it. Patterson observing, ‘Not that good sir, I’d say.’
‘Well – maybe not.’
Not for those two, anyway. And doubtless others before much longer. One recent convoy had lost close on sixty percent of its ships. Admittedly that had been an HX lot, home-bound from Halifax, and laden ships were the U-boats’ priority targets; but still – more than half. Cargoes the country needed, couldn’t do without: food, fuel, weaponry, ammunition, medical stores, vitally needed raw materials.
Quilla’s stern lifting as a swell slid under her – poop and gun-deck soaring, hanging for a moment while gradually tilting over and sliding into a swift descent. Looking for’ard you saw the dark bulk of funnel and bridge structure leaning to starboard as her forepart rose: then astern, over the great mound of fizzing wake, for a while no view of the Harvest Queen. No snowflake effect now, either. Andy and Patterson agreeing in an exchange of shouts that it might be getting up a bit – the sea, height of the swell – and ‘Not an easy platform to shoot from, that’s a fact.’ Looking around at the other men’s dark shapes, he was remembering their names, or trying to. There’d been only one chance of mustering for gun-drill – when they’d been at Tail of the Bank, drilling with a single dummy shell for half an hour or so before weighing anchor to file out through the boom gate. But the sight-setter, the man in headphones, was Hardy, Ordinary Seaman, and the gun trainer was AB Pettigrew. Ugly little sod – squat, toad-like. Doubtless a heart of gold: in any case a first-rate seaman, according to Harve Brown. The rest of them – well, loader and breechworker were Stone and Fox – or the other way about – but Stone was an OS and Fox was a fireman or a greaser. One of the black gang, anyway. Engine room hands being fewer than in the PollyAnna, since Quilla being oil-fired had no need of trimmers. But that one, now… He got it: supernumary to the gun’s crew of five, the assistant cook, Bayliss, whose defence station was at this sharp end of the ammunition supply team. Young, rotund and talkative – gabbling away excitedly, which was what had drawn one’s attention to him – falling silent as Pettigrew bellowed at him that yon was no bloody U-boat, boy, yon was their bloody escort!
Andy beside him then. ‘Where?’
‘There – there, sir.’
Two points on the bow to port: he had his glasses on it, and it was the sloop – HMS Rustington, the escort. Coming more or less towards them – which was to say coming back along the convoy’s track. She’d be passing close. On her way to pick up survivors from the Daisy Oakes’ boats, he guessed. He told the gun’s crew as much: it couldn’t be bad for morale to know that rescue attempts were being made, especially as they were all aware it was contrary to convoy discipline for any merchant ship to stop for such a purpose, making an easy target of herself; might also suggest to them that there could be some benefit in having even that single escort, with her limited turn of speed and feeble armament. Or at least would be if she could find those boats. Time had passed, and a boat could very quickly become a needle in a haystack. And in point of fact, escort vessels were prohibited from stopping for rescue purposes either, in action conditions such as applied here and now. Although if there was a lull in the assault, she might stop. The sloop was abeam now, passing close enough and making heavy weather of it, some of these men giving her a cheer, which of course couldn’t possibly have been heard. But – torpedo hit – that could. Out to starboard somewhere, he guessed several columns away, but you still almost felt it as well as heard it – like a kick in the gut. Then, after maybe two seconds, another. The hell, two more. Making five in all in the past half-hour. Distress rocket streaking up: that would be from the first of the three to have been hit. From somewhere around the centre, it looked like – where the tankers were, tankers even when in ballast invariably being placed where they were less exposed – the next streak searing the darkness from further over and further back. Two of the three hits could have been on one ship, he’d been about to remark to Patterson, but was saved from any such speculation as a third rocket soared up and burst. So all right, five.
Five so far.
The sloop, he supposed, would stick to what she was doing now – searching for Daisy Oakes survivors. Who could light themselves up with flares – if their boats were properly equipped, and if they had any notion they were being looked for. And the sloop itself could use its searchlight and fire starshells. While for the rest of them there could be no protection, and for the time being no rescue attempts either. In mitigation of which one also knew that (a) not every torpedo hit caused a ship to sink, and (b) taking to the boats didn’t necessarily lead to loss of life.
The thought brought to mind Julia’s experience. The ship in which she’d been a passenger, guest of her uncle, its master, had fought a gun-duel with a U-boat somewhere southeast of the Azores, and she’d found herself in a lifeboat with about twenty others, several of whom didn’t last long, these including a seventeen-year-old cadet who’d died in her arms. He’d had a shrapnel wound in the head and a foot blown off. She’d survived that as well as later ordeals that must have been pretty well as horrible, and remained quiet-mannered, sweet-faced, in some ways you might say ultra-sensitive, and yet as far as anyone could tell, unfrightened.
As far as she’d let anyone see, or guess.
Quilla’s steam-whistle stopped such thinking in its tracks. One short, mind-jarring blast, then another on its heels; pause, followed by two more. Emergency turn to port. Similar wails through the salt-wet darkness from the rest of the herd out there to starboard and astern, in differing tones and varying decibels. The convoy Commodore, at the head of column four, would have ordered the turn by switching on a red-light display on his ship’s mainyard. Red for a four-point turn to port, green for the same thing to starboard. Four points meaning forty-five degrees, and ships in the seven columns seeing the lights from their bridges because they were high and there were no other lights showing – except stern lights, which were low to the sea and low-powered so as to be visible only at close range – and acknowledging the order by sound-signal – two blasts for a turn to port, single blast for one to starboard – and also alerting neighbours who might have missed it.
From all ships’ bridges they’d be watching for the lights to be switched off, the executive signal to put helms over. As now: helms over, rudders hauling them all round. The new course would be 260 degrees, a little south of due west. Object obviously to lose the U-boats, Commodore maybe having reason to believe that the main threat was a concentration of them either on the starboard bow or keeping pace/overhauling on that side. Front-runners of the convoy now effectively the ships of this column seven – the Catherine Bell, then the Polish Byalystok, Barranquilla, and on Quilla’s quarter the Harvest Queen. From Quilla’s station-keeping point of view it meant keeping the Pole and the Bell on a gyro bearing of 305 degrees – four points on her starboard bow, and the SS Cedarwood, who had been on her beam, on 035 degrees. This simple calculation would have flashed through the brains of the Old Man and one might hope Third Mate Waller, although maintaining the new echelon formation would require close attention, especially in terms of periodic adjustment of engine revs turning the lines ragged.
Quilla pitching harder as she settled on the new course, with wind and swell nearer the bo
w than the beam. Less roll, for sure. The convoy now incidentally on a course to pass south of Rockall instead of to the northeast of it. With the chart in his mind – second mate’s primary function being navigation – realising that depending on how long they continued on this diversion there’d need to be some adjustment of pre-established courses and turning-points. At first light, he guessed. Distance from here to Rockall being something like 150 or 160 miles, on the face of it there was plenty of room for manoeuvre; and the Commodore would have been informed of the routings of other convoys either north or south of Rockall – home-bound convoys in particular, the kind that would draw the U-boats away from this one, touch wood.
Although in that respect one had to bear in mind that in a few weeks’ time, after loading a full cargo of sugar at Nuevitas, Cuba, Quilla herself would be part of a deepladen home-bound convoy, helping to draw the sods away from less appealing targets such as this one. At least, if she survived the next few days and nights she most likely would be. Tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night – then you’d be passing longitude 15 degrees west, which in theory was the current limit of U-boat operations, therefore the stage at which you lost whatever escort you had had; the convoy dispersed and its escort or escorts transferred themselves to the nearest home-bound one.
Because they were so damn short of escorts. Hundreds of destroyers, corvettes, etc. were said to be on the stocks or fitting out, but here at sea they were still few and far between. Losses in the Norwegian campaign and in the Dunkirk evacuation accounted for some of it, and the need for a substantial number of them to be deployed on anti-invasion watch and patrol was another factor. Things would get better soon, one was assured, especially when the production of corvettes came into full flood.
‘That you, Holt?’
Harve Brown, the mate, on walkabout. His defence station job was to move around, checking on whatever needed checking and dealing with it as might be necessary – everything that wasn’t immediately under the Old Man’s eye, or in the domain of the chief engineer. Accompanied by his right-hand man, the bosun, a five-by-five tobacco-chewing Irishman, by name McGrath. Brown asking as he fetched up beside Andy between the gun and the starboard-side rail, ‘How’s it feel, back at sea, then?’
‘Same as always, Harve. Where we belong, eh?’ Except for bloody Germans and their torpedoes, which it wasn’t strictly necessary to mention. He added, ‘You’d know, had long enough on the beach yourself, eh?’ Still sweeping with his glasses, back between the echeloned columns – which were in some disorder here and there. Telling old Harve, ‘We were in Calcutta when we heard you were going to be OK. And missing you by that time, I can tell you!’
He’d collapsed with his heart ailment shordy before the PollyAnna had sailed from Cardiff with her cargo of coal for Port Said, and had been replaced as mate in a pierhead jump by a man who’d had certain personal problems and brought most of them aboard with him. Almost exactly a year ago that had been – August of ’39, only a few weeks short of war, which had seemed more or less inescapable but no-one could have been 100 percent certain – efforts were still being made to avert it. In any case, owners weren’t letting tonnage lie idle when it could be earning money. So it had started as an ordinary tramping voyage, and PollyAnna had been in the Red Sea, bound light-ship Port Said to Calcutta, when the balloon had finally gone up.
Brown observing now, ‘Did yourself no harm, that voyage, eh?’
‘Yeah.’ He had his glasses on the Byalystok; either she was ahead of station, or Quilla was astern of hers. ‘How things happened, was all.’ He couldn’t see the Catherine Bell, muttered, ‘Something of a buggers’ muddle developing out there.’
That remark about doing himself no harm, though – in February, on return from her voyage to Uruguay and Brazil, the PollyAnna’s owners – owners also of Barranquilla and half a dozen other tramp steamers, Messrs Dundas Gore of Glasgow, known familiarly as the Blood Line because of that name Gore – had in collusion with the Board of Trade rewarded Third Mate Andrew Holt, for what they’d considered to have been exceptionally fine service, with what amounted to half a year’s seniority, allowing him to sit for his first mate’s certificate right away instead of after another six or eight months’ sea-time. First mate’s ticket leading straight to an appointment as second mate. Hence these recent months ashore – on Merseyside, at the Nautical College, living in digs and swotting himself cross-eyed, spending as little of his dwindling store of cash as possible, there being an enrolment fee at the college, and the cost of lodgings, meals, an occasional pint at the Villiers in Elliot Street – also known as Ma Shepherd’s – and now and then a visit to the cinema with a girl by name of Susan, whom he’d known since she was fifteen and he’d been finishing his schooling in the training ship HMS Conway. Susan Shea – her father was an Aintree vet, and she was studying accountancy in Liverpool – very pretty girl, with a mass of dark red hair. Julia had been adamant at that time that he shouldn’t take any more weekends off to visit her in Newcastle, because she wanted him to (a) get his ticket, and (b) not spend money he didn’t have, especially when he wasn’t earning – and one couldn’t go forever without any female company, or for that matter cold-shoulder an old friend like Susan.
Harve Brown asked him – as if he was some sort of mind-reader – ‘Seen much of the young lady you rescued out of the Hun steamer?’
He kept his glasses at his eyes, thinking about it for a moment before enquiring, ‘How d’you know about her?’
‘What a question! Whole shebang in the papers, weren’t it?’
‘Not about her. Not in any way that might’ve made you ask me that. I mean, why should I have?’
‘No should about it. But – must’ve been – yeah, Don Fisher was your second in PollyAnna, weren’t he?’
‘And what did he know about anything?’
‘All I remember he said was you were keen on her. Chasing off to visit her in Newcastle, right?’ A chuckle and a heavy pat on the back. ‘Leopard don’t change his spots, was what I said. No offence, Andy, far from it, but –’
‘That girl had been through it, Harve, really had. Passage to NZ in her uncle’s ship to visit another uncle who’s farming there – they’d reckoned to get her home before the war started, but – well, the Cheviot Hills was sunk after a gun battle with a U-boat, she and others were picked up by a German steamer, support-vessel to the Graf Spee, seems to’ve been –’
‘The one you nobbled.’
‘That was no picnic for her, either. Not for any of ’em, but her – well, imagine… Don signed on again in PollyAnna, am I right?’
‘Don Fisher – yeah. South Africa bound, she was then.’
Quilla had increased revs: you could feel it, the thrumming through her frames. Since she was in ballast, her single screw was high in the water, barely covered, so that right aft here you heard that too, between whiles, the regular thrashing that had quickened to give her an extra quarter-knot or so. Andy added – about Don Fisher – ‘He was third of the old Burntisland when I was a cadet in her.’
Twenty minutes since the emergency change of course, maybe twenty-five since the last torpedoings. Brown commenting, ‘Real old deathtrap, the Burntisland. Should’a been took out of service long ago.’ A snort: ‘How it is, now – anything that floats…’
‘Draw the line somewhere, you’d think.’
‘Or one of our chums out there’ll do it for ’em.’ A gesture into the outer darkness. ‘Compensation or replacement’d be more than her worth as scrap – and meanwhile there’s cargoes offering everywhere they bloody look, so’
‘Owners not feeling the pinch exactly.’
‘I’d say they’re not. Nor neglecting their own best interests. But we got off the subject of the young lady from Newcastle somehow?’
‘You may have.’ Keeping the glasses at his eyes, finding gaps astern to probe. The columns were reshaping themselves a bit, he thought. Telling the older man, ‘I was never on it. Except the rotten time
she’d had, and being one in a million.’ Evading it again then: ‘Must be half an hour since the last three copped it?’
No answer: the mate having moved away to commune with Bosun McGrath. But how many, Andy wondered, from the five gone down already – how many drowned or drowning, how many saved? Give it another half-hour, what’ll the score be then? Or after another minute, even these next ten seconds? Torpedoes on their way this moment? Thoughts reverting to Julia, to his having sworn he would come back. He’d added, he remembered, ‘Not just this time, every time!’ His own presumption, that – that there’d be convoy after convoy, years and years of it, not what some gloom-mongers and communists had been prophesying: England starved, forced to her knees within months. But Julia accepting that assurance – Julia Carr of all people, with two cousins at sea now as second mates, babyhood memories of a father who’d drowned when his trawler had foundered off Norway – when she’d been three years old, toddling around Tyneside in the 1920s – and the uncle who’d gone down in his MV Cheviot Hills. As she herself might have gone down with him, might well have – that girl would take seriously any such nonsensical assurance?
But she had. At any rate had seemed to. Needed to. She’d sounded quietly desperate on the telephone; he’d called from Liverpool to tell her he’d got his mate’s certificate and now the offer of this berth in the Barranquilla, following an exchange of telegrams with the owners, so that he couldn’t fit in a visit to Newcastle as he’d have liked – loved – had to get himself to Glasgow doublequick…
‘Back in ten weeks, maybe. Seems about the average. Twelve at most, say. See you then. I’ll call as soon as we get in, and –’
Non-Combatants Page 2
