Non-Combatants

by Non-Combatants (retail) (epub)

  Also, a sallow individual in a dark suit and light-coloured fedora, whom Andy took for press and stopped, but was actually from the Blood Line’s New York agency, carried a bulging briefcase and was looking for Captain Beale: who was going to need him for sure, but probably not in the next few minutes. From above them, on their way down ten seconds ago, he’d heard the Old Man shout, ‘You say this evening?’, and it had sunk in now: dry docking within hours was all it could mean. No wait at all. Too good to be true, almost. If they worked Saturdays, and as Chief Verity had hoped could do the work in one day – undock Sunday, bunkers etc. Monday, sail for Cuba Tuesday?

  Maybe wouldn’t work a full day Saturday, though. Even then…

  Dr Creagh and the vice-consul were shaking hands. Andy called to Sam, who was on her way to join them, ‘Customers on the way up. And you have reservations at the Barbizon Plaza. Sounds pretty grand.’

  He wasn’t sure she’d heard him: she’d looked at him, but by then the doctor had been introducing her and the vice-consul to each other, and he, Andy, was heading back up to where Parker Lloyd was telling the Old Man, ‘Pilot’ll board you five p.m., 1700. No more ’n a stone’s throw across the river to Hoboken, the McLellan yard, they’ll start pumping down soon as you’re in, start work first thing in the morning. OK?’

  ‘I’d say it would be, Mr Lloyd.’ Telling the Dundas Gore agent then, ‘Be with you shortly, Mister.’

  ‘See, Captain, it’s kind of urgent—’

  ‘Commander Lloyd, for the record.’ The big man – Andy’s height, more or less, and about twice his bulk – showed a lot of teeth when he smiled. As now, telling them, ‘Don’t spend much time watching the grass grow, this side of the old pond.’

  ‘But you’re from our side?’

  Verity had asked that, and Lloyd nodded. ‘Been here a while, however. Master Mariner, chief officer when I first come. Home port New York, five-month voyages outbound via Panama, homeward round the Cape, ports of call after LA – hell, China, Japan, Philippines, Dutch East Indies. Saw Blighty once in a dozen years.’

  ‘And how come you’re STO here now?’

  ‘Oh – wife here, coupla kids. Might’ve gone back, for all that – war and all, and masters in short supply, I know, but – see, this is where they wanted me. Ministry of Supply, that is. They have a local director here, I’m sort of teamed with him, see to stowage plans, so forth. Speaking of which—’

  Verity had been taking a look at whatever was happening on deck, cut in as he returned, ‘Pump down in the dock tonight, work a full day tomorrow, bunkers and fresh water Monday?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Rubbing his jaw. ‘Tell you for sure in the morning. But tell me – ever hear of a steam-ejector system for lower holds and bilges, Chief?’

  ‘May or may not have heard of it, who’d want it?’

  ‘Well.’ Lloyd switched to the Old Man: ‘You were bound Nuevitas, Cuba – right?’

  A nod: suspicion replacing his usual amiability. ‘Far as I know, still am.’

  ‘And that may be the case. We’ll know better in the morning.’ Offering a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes: the Old Man declined, Verity took one and flicked a lighter into flame; Andy, at the chart table with Dixon, out of range and taking no part in this, hadn’t been included in the offer. Parker continuing, through a cloud of the first lungful of his own smoke, ‘When we’ve had a look below. See, there was a cargo dumped here the Ministry’d like to be shot of, and Barranquilla could be the answer to our prayers. It’s not a cargo you’d exactly jump at, but if your lower-hold layout’s adaptable to steam-ejection—’

  ‘Noxious, or what?’

  The agent had asked that. The name on the card he’d given Andy was MacPherson. The thought in Andy’s mind meanwhile being that however noxious this cargo might be, if it was one for the UK – and Parker Lloyd’s ‘that may be the case’ suggested a possibility of cutting out Cuba – therefore, saving weeks – well, grab it and run… There was an interruption, though, at this point, Steward Hastings and his assistant Chumley arriving with corned-beef sandwiches and coffee, Lloyd taking advantage of this to avoid a straight answer to that question, talking instead about the dry docking and McLellan’s yard. Andy barely listening: interested in both sandwiches and coffee, also wondering about the cargo. The only truly noxious ones in his seagoing experience having been wet hides and fishmeal, both of which stank, but neither of which one would expect to load on this coast.

  Any case, if it meant an early trip home, saving Julia about a month of her ordeal…

  Lloyd was saying that the guy to see if they had any problem or special requirement when they got into McLellan’s was Hank Smith, general manager and vice-president. He was the guts of the business, McLellan himself no engineer but a shrewd businessman who’d seen the writing on the wall and bought in when it had been not exactly a steal but certainly an investment of very high potential.

  ‘He’s counting on the US getting into this war before we’re any of us much older, the yard then coining it in in a big way with the repairing and refitting of minor warships – destroyers, sub-chasers and so forth, never-ending stream of ’em, as there will be. US Navy an unstinting paymaster – and Gil McLellan incidentally a buddy of all the top brass – any case, they’ll have no option, or damn few—’

  Verity commented, interrupting, ‘How it’s done. Like the fortunes that were made last time.’

  The stewards had gone down. Old Man coming in on Verity’s heels with, ‘This cargo now – as you were saying?’

  ‘Yeah. Was about to. It’s just you won’t like the sound of it. Any case, we can’t know till morning, and it’s not my decision but the Ministry’s.’

  ‘So?’

  He took a breath. Told them quietly, ‘Hundred octane gas – aviation spirit – in forty-gallon drums that leak a little.’

  ‘Leak…’

  ‘Had some rough handling. Came out of a Greek that had been through a hurricane, damn near foundered, got in here under tow. They took the gas out of her, other stuff as well, also in lower holds. Drums’d be stowed on end, see, except maybe at the sides – and a heck of a lot of dunnage – more’n you’d have on board, so we’d supply… All right?’

  Old Man looking at Verity. ‘Christ.’

  Slow shake of the engineer’s grey-streaked head. ‘Not April Fools’ Day, is it?’

  ‘Thing is’ – Parker Lloyd’s spaniel eyes shifting to and fro between them – ‘with the steam-ejection, nothing like it sounds. Basics of it is – well, petroleum vapour heavier than air, left to itself it’s going to lie in the bilges, accumulate. Which OK, you wouldn’t want. Steam-ejection, however – see, you’d have pipes connecting your main deck steam-line to the after bilge bay both sides of each hold, other pipes open-ended, leading outboard, so flooding steam into the bilges drives the vapour up and out via these outlets. Hot air rises, huh, taking the stink up with it?’ Toothy, friendly smile: ‘Chief – I’m a plain seaman, could be technical aspects you’d see and I may not have. All I can tell you is we do know it works – OK?’ The Old Man was thinking about it, watching him. Andy remembering Harve Brown telling him that Nat Beale detested bullshit; he guessed from his expression – or lack of one – that he was suspecting its presence here.

  Glancing at his engineer. ‘Huh?’

  A shrug. ‘Might work.’

  ‘Does work. Has worked. Documentary evidence of that, and blueprints of the installation.’

  ‘What else you offering us, Commander?’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Leaking drums in the bottom of lower holds, stowed on end, then dunnage – all five holds, would this be?’

  ‘Say that for sure when we measure up, but the estimate’s three holds, leaving two lower holds and all five ’tween-decks for other cargo. We’d fit steam-ejection only to the holds that are to have high-octane in ’em.’

  ‘Other cargo such as what?’

  ‘Likely thing’s timber from St John, New
Brunswick. But there again—’

  ‘In the two empty holds and five upper and lower ’tween-decks. What else in there with the high-octane, on your dunnage?’

  ‘Well, in the Greek’s case – that is, if they want you to take the whole parcel —’

  ‘They will, won’t they? Meaning you will? Wouldn’t sail us with half-empty lower holds, would you?’

  ‘No. No.’ A pause. Old Man and Chief Verity silent, watching him. A shrug, then. ‘What the Greek was carrying was boxed ammunition. Entirely stable, I might say. The high-octane’s safe on account of the steam-ejection arrangements, and the ammo’s boxed, heavy timber boxes as sound as you could want ’em. Shells, 5.25-inch – that’s a Royal Navy calibre, no use to anyone this side of the pond, main armament of just one class of British cruisers. The Greek took it on from – oh, Grenada or Bahamas, someplace, must’ve had a ship or ships of that class based there, and now we don’t.’

  The Lucky Strikes were out again: Old Man and Verity ignoring them, just looking at him. Lloyd gesturing as if he thought they were making too much of this: ‘All right – mention aviation spirit and ammo in one breath as it were, sounds sorta—’

  ‘Damn right it does!’

  ‘Shells wouldn’t be in any way susceptible to petrol vapour, as some other cargoes might. So you’re maximising space left available for – oh, sawn timber, say? Look, it’s how they had it in the Greek, and you’re near enough the size of her—’

  ‘Captain, sir?’

  Waller – getting a nod from the Old Man, telling him, ‘Last of the children are on their way ashore, sir. Doctor and Miss Vaughan’d like to say goodbye.’

  9

  The Old Man would no doubt have gone down to say goodbye to them in any case, but he’d jumped at it as a way of seeing Parker Lloyd on his way too. Not that the commander could rightly have been blamed for foisting the high-octane on them, in Andy’s view: STOs in foreign and neutral ports were responsible for loading plans and cargo-handling in British and Allied ships, and if the Ministry of Supply had a local representative who wanted a certain cargo sent on its way, the STO would have no option but to take any chance of doing so. Just as the Old Man had no option but to accept it, if he was so instructed.

  Probably what was annoying him. As Harve Brown put it later, having his ship converted into a floating bomb, whether he liked it or not.

  Anyway, the Old Man had elected to go down and say goodbye to Samantha and old Creagh, growling at Lloyd, ‘No further business, have we?’

  Verity had gone down too, but Andy had stayed put. Having already said goodbye to Sam, not especially wanting to do so again more publicly; also he’d been toying with the notion of paying a visit to the Barbizon Plaza – probably not tonight, but tomorrow maybe, depending on how all of this turned out, on the off-chance of finding her still there and at a loose end, as it were.

  Better not though, he’d decided at this stage. Definitely better not. For reasons including an earlier resolve not to spend money he was going to need when he got home; also that there’d really be no point. Samantha being no Manuela was the nucleus of that thought. Another factor in not going down to say goodbye for a second time was that when the others had left the wheelhouse his priority had been to check distances and timings in relation to what really mattered – the hope of getting home to Julia a lot sooner than expected, if they were to cut out the Cuban jaunt.

  He’d told Dixon, when the others had gone down, ‘Time being, may as well forget the Caribbean charts.’

  Acting on earlier instructions – Andy’s – Dixon had begun sorting out chart corrections, a wad of Notices to Mariners pulled out of a box-file of them; he’d been somewhat morosely setting aside those applicable to charts they’d have used on the Cuban leg, and being told he could put it all away again obviously brightened him up a lot. Rather to his credit, Andy thought: one might have expected anyone who was not actually desperate to get home double-quick to have been happier with the prospect of five holds full of sugar to that of three floored with a mix of petrol and high-explosive.

  ‘Reckon we will be loading high-octane, sir?’

  ‘I’ve a hunch we will.’

  Had in fact begun counting on it, on saving the five days it would have taken to get down to Nuevitas, plus say a week loading the sugar, and another five days returning to this latitude. About seventeen days saved, he’d been thinking while listening to Parker Lloyd, and after those three had left the wheelhouse he got out the North Atlantic, Northern Portion chart and a pair of dividers, measured the distance from New York to St John, New Brunswick: 180 miles to pass outside Nantucket Island, plus another 300 into the Bay of Fundy – 480 nautical miles, at twelve knots, forty hours’ steaming. Calling that thirty-six hours, a day and a half, and guessing at needing two full days here to load this other stuff – or three, say, to include storing ship, bunkering and taking on fresh water, and this next day a Sunday, presumably not a working day.

  Sliding that chart back into the drawer, he’d concluded that the net result of cutting out Cuba would be to save sixteen or seventeen days. Be knocking on Julia’s door, therefore, in—

  No. Hang on… Allow for at least a day’s wait for a timber-loading berth at St John, then two or three days’ loading, and one more steaming around the bulge to Halifax. Saving therefore not seventeen days but twelve, but still getting home – God willing – nearer the middle of September than the end of it.

  So, write and tell her this was now on the cards. Should be quite a fillip to her morale. Mention also that owing to the changes that were making this earlier return really quite probable, he mightn’t have any of her letters before getting home – might have all the news from her own sweet lips before getting any of them. This in fact was virtually certain – if Cuba was being cut out, mail awaiting them at Nuevista was very unlikely to be forwarded to Halifax in time to catch them before they sailed east in convoy.

  Quilla with her explosive contents likely to be put in the middle of it, as tankers were?

  He went below, moved his gear back to his own cabin from Waller’s, wrote the letter and then visited the saloon for a mug of tea: finding Harve Brown there for the same purpose, having just said goodbye to the Dundas Gore agent, who’d brought the usual paperwork – Customs entry forms, etc. – and dollars for the Old Man to dish out to those in credit who wanted any, and had also taken Harve’s and Steward Hastings’ lists of stores to be ordered from chandlers. Some of the paperwork had been more involved than usual, since although ships’ owners were still responsible for pay and victualling, feeding survivors from other ships was a recoverable cost.

  Harve had talked gloomily about the high-octane cargo: he was praying for the shape or dimensions of the bilges and bilge bays to be found unsuitable for steam-ejection gear. Andy hadn’t expressed his own contrary hopes, largely because they’d have been difficult to explain – to Harve, of all people. In any case, it had been getting towards five p.m. by then, time to get ready for the move over to Hoboken. The pilot, a swarthy character with an Italian-sounding name, had come over the gangway exactly on the hour, Quilla casting off shortly afterwards, crossing to the New Jersey side of the river, nosing into the McLellan graving-dock and its gates then closing astern of her well before six p.m. Visual memory of a gangway swinging over, suspended from a dockside crane, and of other McLellan workers standing by the baulks of timber that would support her as the water drained away. Andy on the ship’s stern meanwhile – having seen to the putting out of wires on both sides to hold her middled until the props would be floated into place to hold her upright – seeing a somewhat outsize, brown-suited figure come stumping over the gangway as soon as it was in place, Harve Brown hurrying from for’ard to meet him, and a second gangway being lowered on the port side.

  But in the vicinity of where they’d dumped the first one, as well as the timber lying around there’d been stacks of some other material. He left Patterson and Pettigrew to look after the stern w
ires, went for’ard and up to the boat-deck for a bird’s-eye view of it.

  Pipes, different lengths, in separate stacks, greyish-white. Asbestos piping, something like four-inch diameter. Heck of a lot of it: might be on the other side too? He crossed over, and found he’d guessed right – similar stacks of piping. And the second gangway thumping down.

  Piping for the steam-ejector system, one might assume. Two conclusions then – one, they didn’t waste much time in this yard, and two, they had to be counting on Quilla’s interior being suitable for the treatment – a lot more sure of it than Commander Parker Lloyd had claimed to be.

  The commander hadn’t necessarily been dissimulating, he thought, only trying to break the news gently, knowing it wasn’t likely to be welcomed and that Merchant Navy masters tended not to be the most persuadable of customers. And in fact that bit about the ammo being stable might be seen as something of an overstatement. Shells would be ‘stable’ enough, in normal circumstances, but not if you happened to ignite a few thousand gallons of aviation spirit right under them. OK, no reason that should happen: it was only the way one’s imagination reacted when thinking of the crossing that lay ahead. These and other reflections being then intruded upon by loud conversation from the bridge-wing: he’d gone up there and found the Old Man, Chief Verity and Harve Brown in conversation with the big man in the brown suit, who turned out to be Hank Smith, the yard’s general manager whom Lloyd had mentioned. Heavyweight, balding, middle forties to maybe fifty, yet for all his bulk as quick-eyed as a ferret: glancing round to see who this was, giving him a friendly nod then turning back to the Old Man, ‘Might have hatch-covers off so the boys can start six a.m., Captain, that feasible?’

  Old Man cocking an eyebrow at Harve Brown, who nodded. ‘Get it done right away might be best.’

  A nod. ‘What I was hoping.’

  Verity put the question then: ‘Are you so sure we’re right for it?’

  A jerk of one rather short, thick arm: ‘Find it’s no go, too bad. Can’t be dead certain until we get in there, is all.’ Glancing down at the nearer stacks of piping. ‘Jobs on hand, however – wham, one day, finish the one or both, Sunday we have the dock clear, uh?’