Non-Combatants

by Non-Combatants (retail) (epub)

  Hatch-covers were removed from all five holds that evening; by the time it was done, Quilla’s keel was about settling on the blocks along the dock’s centre-line, props in place and wedged all down her length and men wanting to draw dollars against their pay mustering outside the Old Man’s cabin.

  * * *

  Saturday 17th: by 0700 the sun was up and work had started on the puddled dock-bottom around Quilla’s screw and shaft, as well as internally, in the shaft tunnel – that would be going on all day. At the same time, McLellan fitters accompanied by Quilla’s third engineer, Claymore, and with Harve Brown clucking around up top, were checking measurements and alignments in the lower holds, until close on 0800 when the man Hank Smith had put in charge of the steam-ejector project emerged from number five to tell Harve there’d be no problem fitting the system to any or all of the bilges. As it happened, Parker Lloyd, wearing the same electric-blue suit, arrived on board within minutes of this pronouncement, raised a thumb towards Harve and called, ‘That’s it, then. Load here, not Cuba.’

  ‘But – your decision – sir?’

  ‘Ministry of Supply’s.’ He patted his breast pocket. ‘In writing, and a copy for your captain. Sooner we start, sooner finish.’

  ‘How many holds?’

  ‘Three. I’d guess one, three and five.’

  Harve’s business, this, cargo distribution being very much the mate’s department, although as Quilla would be sailing from here to St John with two holds completely empty and all five half-empty, spreading the load over numbers one, three and five obviously made sense. He’d nodded. ‘I’ll check with Captain Beale. Come on up?’

  Andy got a résumé of all this from Harve a quarter of an hour later, when he’d just finished his breakfast and Harve had come down for his. The fitting of those holds with piping for steam-ejection had been agreed to by the Old Man, and they’d already started on it. Harve shaking his head, muttering, ‘High-octane and bloody ammo – in an HX convoy. I ask you, just bloody ask you…’

  * * *

  According to the New York Times, the Battle of Britain was growing in intensity with every passing day, its outcome far from predictable. Airfields and ports had been the enemy’s prime targets, but there were bombers over London now most nights. On the 15th, as that pilot had said, 180 German planes had been shot down, but the RAF too was suffering heavy losses, military analysts predicting that Nazi success would inevitably be followed by seaborne invasion.

  None of which was exactly new. Only that it was mounting in ferocity, maybe approaching climax. You crossed your fingers, said your prayers. Were doing that more and more frequently, in fact. Most would be. You didn’t talk about it much because you didn’t want to admit the possibility of ultimate defeat, not even to yourself. Andy had gone back to reread an item higher on the same page, to which Foster, the CRO, had drawn his attention, to the effect that a British freighter had docked in New York yesterday, 16 August, to land a number of children saved from a passenger vessel in which they had been evacuees in transit from Britain to the US for safety from the German air assault. Their ship had been torpedoed in mid-Atlantic and it was understood, although not officially confirmed, that a considerable number of crew and passengers, including children, had been lost.

  ‘Torpedoed, this is saying. And no names, no numbers. Better than it might have been.’

  ‘A lot better. Just hope our blokes don’t get blabbering ashore when they’ve a few beers inside ’em. You thinking of going ashore, Holt?’

  He nodded. ‘Thought I might stretch my legs. You?’

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  They landed after lunch, Waller and Merriman with them – in civvies, of course, this being a neutral port – walking briskly northward along the New Jersey foreshore, eyes mainly on the Manhattan skyline across the river. Andy had in fact drawn the sum of ten dollars – at four to the pound, two pounds ten shillings – and used only about a quarter of that on a round of beers and bacon sandwiches in a waterfront bar called Quinns. Work was of course still in progress all over the ship when they returned on board at about seven p.m., and it continued under arc-lights until close on midnight.

  Sunday 18th: cloudy, for a change, with a threat of rain, although the natives were saying it wouldn’t. The main deck, with its new clutter of piping in the vicinity of those three holds, was swept and hosed down to clear it of asbestos dust and other litter, while the dock gradually filled. Parker Lloyd arrived on board early, as did Hank Smith with a few other McLellan people, the steam-ejector system was inspected and a little steam passed through it from the main deck line – the steamline that powered winches and the windlass up for’ard – work sheets then being signed by Chief Verity and the Old Man. The McLellan team went ashore, a pilot boarded, the one remaining gangway was removed, and Quilla, with Parker Lloyd on board, undocked at eleven a.m. – destination the Bayonne fuelling wharf, where she was to top up bunkers first thing next morning and then shift to a berth alongside in Brooklyn to start loading the high-octane, also take on fresh water and ship’s stores. All as arranged by the flamboyant but unquestionably effective STO, who from the fuelling wharf took the Old Man to lunch at the Master Mariners’ Club – wherever that might have been, but he wasn’t back from it until some time in the dogwatches.

  Monday 19th: fuelling was completed early forenoon, and Quilla secured in the Brooklyn berth before midday. Holds one, three and five had been made-ready before this, and teams of longshoremen were standing by, lighters being brought alongside one and five to start with, dockside cranes with jibs that reached to them across Quilla from the jetty soon at it, bringing the drums aboard in rope slings – rope, not wire, since friction between steel-wire rope and metal had been known to spark-off fires.

  You could smell the stuff, all right. Drums weren’t visibly dripping as they were swung down into the lower holds, but there undoubtedly was leakage. Akin to sweating, Andy wondered, if that was possible, through the drums’ steel – which it was not, according to the donkeyman, Passmore, who’d served in tankers and reckoned he knew all about it: more likely seams that had been ‘started’, he thought, during the rough handling in that Greek.

  In the holds the stink worsened as the day wore on, the three deck officers including Andy supervising the loading, essentials being tight stowage with dunnage mats wherever they were needed, and ensuring that loads were set down gently, drums then rolled carefully into place and stood on end in close support of each other: that way they’d stand the weight that was going to be put on top of them. Please God, they would. Stand it a lot better than they would on their sides, anyhow. Meanwhile, the carpenter, Fellaby, and Hobbs, fourth engineer, saw to the taking-in of fresh water by pipeline from shore, and around midday a truckload of chandler’s stores drew up alongside. No-one had an easy day of it. Numbers one and five being finished an hour or so before knocking-off time, Quilla’s own people were turned-to to tidy those off, topping the drums with a layer of dunnage mats and timber, while the dockers worked on number three. By six p.m., when the foreman’s whistle blew, it was about a third done, one lighter load remaining alongside, work to be resumed at eight a.m.

  Steam-ejection now, though, in accordance with Parker Lloyd’s advice to run it for an hour each night and morning. With steam on the main deck line, valves had to be opened on the new connections, port and starboard inlets to each bilge, and within a few minutes it was first seeping and then gushing from the outlets, Quilla soon shrouded in petrol-scented steam, which on the southerly breeze drifted away only slowly. It would be a lot better at sea, of course – wind or no wind – when she was making her twelve knots or more; although she’d look peculiar enough to other ships in convoy, Harve Brown pointed out, regularly spouting-out steam from three points on each side.

  One was sensitive to one’s own ship’s appearance to others in company.

  ‘Dusk and dawn, maybe. But they’ll still smell us…’

  Hatches were being left un
covered overnight, with a quartermaster and two other watchkeepers on the gangway and patrolling, and No Smoking signs on deck and on the quayside. Harve was staying on board, having paperwork to attend to, so Andy, after showering and shifting out of dungarees, went ashore with Waller and Charlie Bridgeman for a beer or two.

  Bridgeman said glumly at one point, ‘Kicking myself. Meant to get that girl’s address, just clean forgot.’

  Andy smiled at him. ‘Do recall you angling for it.’

  ‘Forgot I hadn’t got it. Remembered sort of last minute, went up and they’d gone. Bloody daft…’ Long swallow of beer, and slight shudder. ‘Christ, but that’s cold… Didn’t give it to you, did she?’

  ‘Her address? Think she would have, knowing I’m engaged? Or I’d bloody ask for it, even?’ Touching his glass: ‘Yanks only like it frozen. If we asked for it at room temperature, they might have some at the back, so to speak unprocessed. Try, next round.’ He asked Waller, the red face down there at elbow height, ‘Sam give you her address, by any chance?’

  ‘Me?’

  Bridgeman chuckled. ‘Yeah. Likely… Look, my round, I’ll see if they do have warm ones.’

  Waller watched him head for the bar, then told Andy, ‘Near Exeter, in Devon, her aunt’s place.’ He looked smug about it. ‘Told her be nice to swap Christmas cards.’ Shrugging. ‘There on, see how it goes.’

  * * *

  Tuesday 20th: steam-ejection was run from 0700 to 0800, when work recommenced on number three. Ammunition lighters were arriving then, and after they’d been secured alongside, a start was made on one and five. It was a more complicated operation than it had been the day before, using ship’s gear, one of the after five-ton derricks, as well as the cranes, and three shore-side gangs being employed instead of only two, all of which called for close co-ordination and control. Work on five in fact continued for about an hour and a half after the other two gangs had finished and gone, steam-ejection procedure being initiated only after that. Hatch-beams and boards had been replaced by then on numbers one and three; five to be left uncovered until morning.

  Claymore, third engineer, commented in the saloon that evening, ‘Must get decent pay and overtime, those blokes.’

  ‘I believe they do.’ Harve Brown nodding over bread and cheese. ‘STO was telling me they’ve had no end of trouble with the union or unions in recent years, but now it’s been sorted, things go smoother. Left to themselves in other respects – gang bosses only allocating men who toe their line, so forth. Mafia’s involved, he said.’

  ‘Certainly keen enough to rush us out.’

  ‘Hidden hand of the STO. What he wants out is the high-octane.’

  ‘Hardly surprising. Still smell it, can’t you?’

  ‘Bloody taste it!’

  ‘Be better at sea.’ Andy touched wood. ‘With a blow around us.’

  ‘Unless we get into real dirt like the Greek’s supposed to’ve done.’

  ‘The steam-ejection’ll take care of it. What’s more, the drums are well stowed now, and maybe in the Greek they weren’t.’

  ‘Greeks being Greek.’

  ‘Well. Do tend to be.’

  Waller asked Harve Brown, ‘Out of Halifax, think they’ll put us in the middle, with the tankers?’

  ‘Let’s hope not.’ Claymore. ‘Seeing as it’s tankers the buggers go for.’

  * * *

  Wednesday 21st: with all hatches battened down and deep-tanks ballasted to trim her as well as compensate for the empty holds, Quilla left her berth at eleven a.m. with about two hours of ebb tide to help her on her way. Estimated time of arrival at St John New Brunswick first light Friday, which might mean a couple of wasted days, if there wasn’t a loading berth available in that allegedly very busy port – and if the naval authorities weren’t in any rush to have her join an imminently departing home-bound convoy, which might otherwise justify the extra cost of weekend work, i.e. the Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

  Might be a lengthy wait at Halifax in any case. Recalling that in the PollyAnna, January last, they’d swung around an anchor in the Bedford Basin for the best part of a week, with Julia on board, Julia and young Finney…

  Poor sod. Rough start, rough finish. Decent kid, at that.

  Over the ten miles between the Narrows and Sandy Hook they worked-up from six to ten knots without any untoward propeller vibration or heating in shaft bearings, and Chief Verity was beginning to relax a bit. Andy’s watch now, although the Old Man was still conning her when they stopped off Sandy Hook to drop the pilot. Tide slackening, weather fine, clear skies and good visibility; several other ships in sight, the pilot boat not returning shoreward after taking its man out of Quilla but awaiting the arrival of an Argentinian freighter.

  ‘Course from here, Holt?’

  ‘075, sir.’

  Old Man stooping at the gyro repeater, checking that 075 would leave the Argie well clear to starboard. He was his old cheerful self, seemed to have reconciled himself to the cargo he’d been lumbered with. That long lunch session at the Master Mariners’ Club might have helped. But another thing, which Harve had stumbled on, probably heard from the Old Man, was that the high-octane and the ammo constituted a war cargo, war materials, and this was a neutral port. So they’d want to be rid of it, first chance they got, you could take that as read, but as Harve had pointed out, ‘Even so, if we were Huns, think we’d get away with it?’

  Old Man nodding as he straightened from the pelorus. ‘Half ahead.’ And to Freeman, as Andy jangled the telegraph over, ‘Port wheel, bring her to 075.’

  ‘Port wheel, sir…’

  A lot of wheel: she had no steerage way on her as yet. Soon would have, and he’d take some of it off once she began to swing. Old Man buzzing the engine room, getting Verity on the tube and telling him, ‘You can work up to revs for twelve knots, Chief.’

  Bomb-vessel on her way.

  10

  Friday morning, the 23rd, when handing over the watch at 0400 to Harve Brown, Quilla was down to eight knots and had been since last evening, in order not to arrive off St John before sunrise. Some ship that had completed loading at dusk was sailing at 0600 and Quilla was to take over her berth; the information had come by signal from the St John harbour master some time during the first dogwatch, when as it happened Andy had had his head down and only realised on waking that revs had been cut, guessed at new trouble having developed with the shaft, which could have meant serious delay – dry docking in Halifax, for instance. However, false alarm – although a message that came in later was not so good. Quilla was to load not just timber, but grain, bulk wheat, in the lower holds of two and four, and this meant the fitting of shifting-boards, fore-and-aft barriers shored-up to the ship’s sides with heavy timbers to prevent a bulk cargo shifting laterally in foul weather. Essential, obviously, shifting cargoes being potentially extremely dangerous, but rigging the barriers was a biggish job and needed to be done right away, so that loading could start as soon as they got in – which was the reason they’d been warned, of course.

  It had been completed well before midnight, anyway, when he took over the middle watch as always, but he’d been two hours on his feet in number two hold, and knew – knew it even better after another four. Showing Harve their position on the chart, with only two hours to go before arrival and the sky already lightening over Nova Scotia. Sea calm, light westerly breeze. They’d been passing the island of Grand Manam when he’d come on watch, now had Point Lepreau abaft the beam to port and the entrance to Musquash Bay coming up on that beam at a distance of about six miles. Course a few degrees east of north, and AB Samways on the wheel. The charted position was as good as it could have been, since Canadian lights, like US ones, were all showing.

  ‘All right then, I’ve got her.’ Harve, with his many years at sea, had been here a few times before. Only thing was, the Old Man had said he wanted a shake at 0400, and had had one – Dixon having been down to bang on his door, and obtained some sort of answer – but h
e hadn’t yet shown up, might have gone back to sleep. So maybe on the way down…

  No need. Here he was, clumping up. Scent of tobacco indicating that he’d taken the time to get his pipe going. Extraordinary – straight out of one’s bunk… Pipe out of mouth for a moment as he moved towards his corner, telling Harve, ‘Best run some steam through the bilges, Mister.’

  ‘Aye, sir…’

  Andy offered, ‘See to it, shall I – with Dixon and Merriman here?’ Asking Harve, hence the omission of a ‘sir’, but the Old Man gruffly approving the suggestion anyway. ‘Do that, Holt.’ It saved getting spare hands up. Andy took a torch down with him, let the cadets do the work while he shone it on the right valves, two to each of the three holds. Within a few minutes of finishing the job, warmed-up petrol vapour was gushing out of her, rolling away into the dark like ectoplasm.

  An hour or so’s kip now. Fairly whacked, but things looking very good, he thought: the loading berth available to them immediately, possibility therefore of completing by noon tomorrow – or evening, maybe, working overtime – and making it to Halifax on Sunday. Then, if an HX convoy was leaving within the next few days…

  Really surprise her.

  * * *

  He was on the stern when they entered, enjoying the panorama of the harbour and its surroundings in the hazy early morning light, the sun’s hardening glow dispersing layers of mist, gilding the waterfront and shipping and the swirl of tide. The ship whose berth they’d be taking now and with whose master the Old Man had exchanged greetings by megaphone while the pilot had been transferring from her to Quilla was one of the ‘Barons’ – Hogarth Line, out of Glasgow – her master an old friend of his. Would as like as not be seeing each other again in the Bedford Basin, they’d agreed, and then in convoy homeward. Timber was a good cargo, everyone said, tending to keep a ship afloat when she was torpedoed; unlike ore, for instance, which sank you like a stone in a matter of seconds. In PollyAnna they’d been carrying iron ore – had been very much aware of it too, and in the circumstances applying then, exceptionally lucky to have got away with it.