Non-Combatants

by Non-Combatants (retail) (epub)

  ‘Come on.’

  The Aurelia was turning east, he noticed, would no doubt be working up to – whatever, fourteen knots or probably more. Following Bennett in through a weather door and up by a dual ladderway on the centre-line: less ladderway in fact than staircase – carpet on its treads, for Pete’s sake. Giddiness returning now in waves… Three decks in all, to reach bridge level, and entering it from the rear, passing the entrance to a proper chartroom. Wide bridge with a modern layout, and in its forefront several men with glasses up, the heavily-built master lowering his as Bennett called to him, ‘Second officer Holt, sir. Barranquilla.’

  ‘Poor damn Barranquilla.’ A hand out to him: Andy remembering at that moment that his name was Coverdale. ‘Damn sorry, Holt. That captain of yours, very decent feller. Name Beale?’

  ‘Yessir.’ He’d shaken the hand. ‘Nat Beale. And – well, all but four of us. Want to thank you, sir – owe you our lives, for sure.’

  ‘Owe damn-all.’ Peering at him. ‘You said you blew up – carrying explosives, that it?’

  ‘High-octane petrol in drums in lower holds with ammo on it. I was telling Mr Bennett—’

  ‘All right, he can tell me. You’d best go down, get out of that wet gear, so forth.’

  ‘Aye, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much.’

  ‘One question, if you’ve an answer to it. With that cargo, why’d your captain say yes to the rescue job?’

  ‘He didn’t think it made any odds what we were carrying. Also – he told our mate this – believed in taking things as they come. Not ducking and weaving, was how he put it.’

  ‘Suppose he’d have known what he meant by that?’

  ‘Well.’ A shrug. Remembering old Harve’s grey face and tired eyes, telling it and clearly not understanding it or in agreement with it. Andy’s own short answer to it being that the Old Man had counted on his chances of bringing her through, and what else mattered?

  He’d nodded. ‘I think I get it, sir.’

  ‘Good for you, then. Explain it to me some other time.’ A nod to Bennett. ‘See he has what he needs.’

  * * *

  Hadn’t asked him about prospects of rejoining the convoy, but guessed he’d make his best speed to rejoin, might hope to come up with them around first light tomorrow. With of course the possibility of further U-boat activity during the dark hours: and touch wood staying clear of that, despite being to all intents and purposes a straggler, with all the attendant hazards.

  He asked the cadet who’d shown him to his cot and blankets and was going to take his wet clothes to dry in the engine room, ‘What’s this steamer’s best speed, flat out?’

  ‘Close on fifteen, sir. Fourteen point eight five, something like.’

  ‘Spitting distance of being routed independently, then?’

  ‘Suppose so… Get you some soup, shall I?’

  ‘If that’s what I can smell – yes, please.’

  This end of the saloon had been curtained-off with a tarpaulin slung from the deckhead: there were other bodies humped on cots or donkeys’ breakfasts, and a lot of coming and going on the tarpaulin’s other side. The cadet told him, ‘It’s got kidney in it. Don’t know what else.’

  ‘Smells marvellous. What’s the time now?’

  ‘About three, sir.’ A pause while checking, then, ‘Three-ten. Is soup in a mug all right?’

  ‘Perfect.’ They had what Harve had called the ‘hotel management’ well organised. Bayliss had been given morphine and passed out again, so Brice – second mate – had told him. His own priorities now were (a) to get some of that good-smelling soup inside him, and (b) sleep, rest his head.

  Ten past three, the lad had said. Quarter-past now, maybe. Three and a quarter hours since Quilla had blown up. So much having happened in that space of time that it could have been a month. One of the images in mind as he started on his soup – wrapped in a blanket – was of the shattered forefront of Quilla’s wheelhouse and the other bridge-wing starting into flame, and inside there the Old Man, Selby, Waller, Dixon. Images in one’s brain like charred snapshots, vestiges of friends who only a month ago had been strangers. Stone had been right, none of it made sense.

  * * *

  Sounds of knives and forks at work, and men’s voices. Behind that, the humming of the ship’s diesels, regular slamming of her pitching. Memory kicking in then: she’d be heading east or as near east as made no difference, and unless the weather had changed dramatically she’d have it all astern. Getting the feel of it now: weather hadn’t changed, not in that respect. The lighting was dim on this side of the tarpaulin, brighter the other side where they were eating. Turning his head with difficulty – stiff neck – he saw that two of the other four cots were empty, and that on one of the others a man was sitting, bald head resting on forearms on raised knees.

  Andy raised a hand in greeting. ‘Hello there.’

  ‘Ach. You wake.’ Pointing. ‘Some boy is bringing you your clothes.’

  It had sounded like ‘clothses’. Foreign accent, maybe Dutch. There’d been several Dutch ships in the convoy, although for the moment he didn’t remember any of their names. But someone had indeed brought his clothes – at least, some of them: shirt, trousers, sweater, underpants and socks; no reefer jacket and no shoes. Items presumably not dry yet. And ‘some boy’ he guessed meaning a junior steward, galley-boy, whatever.

  ‘You a Dutchman?’

  ‘Belge. Motor vessel Saint Luc. I was her mate.’

  ‘Many of you saved?’

  ‘Sadly, not so many.’

  ‘Nor of mine. I was second of the Barranquilla. Me and three others – and we had a lot of survivors on board. Maybe not as many as in this ship, but—’

  ‘I think is your name Holt?’

  ‘How’d you know that?’

  ‘Was here also a person who look for you. You sleeping, he say coming back ozzer time.’

  Bennett, he thought, or Brice. Or even Fellaby. Could have been something about Bayliss. Might well have been Fellaby, he thought. He struggled up, reached for his clothes, thinking he’d maybe get something to eat. The soup had been good, but he’d suddenly felt too tired to finish, put it down on the deck before he dropped it.

  Gone now. That cadet would probably have taken it. Or whoever had brought his clothes. Head still bloody hurting. Dressing, he asked the Belgian, ‘D’you know what time it is?’

  ‘I think per’aps nine o’clock. I was having to eat at eight-thirty. Baked beans, was it.’

  Nine. So he’d got his head down six hours ago. Baked beans would be fine, and tea. They’d have tea all right. But pee first. If I can remember where the washplace is. On his feet, he tried, ‘Au revoir, Monsieur’

  A smile: ‘So long. I mention, however, I am Flemish, French my second language. I am from Antwerp, it so ’appens.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Wife and little boy – still in Antwerp.’

  ‘Where Germans are now.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Must be tough.’

  ‘That is one way to say it. You too young to be married yet, I think?’

  ‘I have a girl I’m going to marry.’

  ‘And where she?’

  ‘Newcastle. Tyneside.’

  ‘I am there many times!’

  ‘Well. Talk again later, eh?’

  He found the washplace easily enough. Rather more sumptuous than Quilla’s. Washing his hands and face, unwisely allowing a vision of her interior as it might be now into his throbbing head. Twelve hundred fathoms down, ruptured, filled, bodies you’d have recognised and a lot you wouldn’t. The mind shut down, shut it out, seeing himself in the mirror above the steel basin and recoiling from that too: bruised, dirty, crazy-looking, needing a shave, eyes like pink slits.

  Then another moving into frame behind it.

  ‘Andy Holt…’

  Dick Carr: also unshaven but otherwise much as always. You’d never have thought he could have been any close relation of Juli
a’s.

  ‘Well, Dick.’

  Remembering having seen the Blackheddon Hills hit, and having wondered whether she might float on the buoyancy of her timber. He showed him his wet hands, as a reason not to shake. ‘Glad you made it.’ Actually was, for Julia’s sake. ‘I saw you hit and go on fire.’

  ‘Fire didn’t last, and we got three of the four boats away. Very sorry for you and your Barranquilla. Brice, second mate, told me. I says not a man by name of Holt by any chance, and—’

  ‘All a toss-up, isn’t it. But Julia’ll still have a husband.’ He noticed a flinch, and went on, ‘Where’ve they put you?’

  Blank look: thinking about what Andy had just said, no doubt – said purposefully, the message being take it or bloody leave it. He prompted, ‘Cabin, or what?’

  ‘Cabin, one deck up – on a donkey’s breakfast. Come looking for you, Brice told me where, and that frog’

  ‘Belgian. Most of your people got away, eh?’

  ‘Only lost seven. She was a good while settling… Want to talk to you, Andy.’

  ‘About me and Julia?’

  ‘Well – about her, yes. Last time—’

  ‘In St John you weren’t keen to.’

  ‘Plain truth is I couldn’t, and – Christ, wish I didn’t have to now. Then – that fucking awful morning – look, I’m sorry, how it must have seemed to you—’

  ‘Didn’t much matter. I was simply telling you, not asking your damn blessing.’

  ‘Not the right place for this, is it.’ Looking around: basins, urinals, lavatories, and open to interruption at any time. Andy suggested, ‘Try in the saloon, if you like. Where I was bound, in search of food. Why couldn’t you talk at St John?’

  ‘Couldn’t have – found the words, like. I’d only heard that morning. A Friday – right, twenty-third?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  But seeing it then. Sudden glimpse of the unthinkable.

  ‘She was killed, Andy. She and her Mum. August fifteenth, Gerries hit Tyneside, more than a hundred bombers with a big screen of fighters. Got this from my brother Garry, he’d docked the day before in his old Redheugh. Two letters in one mail, t’other from our ma. Well – one stick of bombs went miles off-target – docks, of course – hit their road, and a direct one on the house, and – finish, no more ’n a heap of rubble. See, we got into St John from Sydney Cape Breton two days before you came. Twenty-first, you got in twenty-third. No mail at Sydney, but they’d written – oh, sixteenth, air-letters, in a mail as come that Friday. Ma’s was saying – well, they’d gone – plain and simple, not much else, but Garry’s with stuff in it from the paper or maybe the BBC, how the RAF was waiting for ’em, shot down thirty at hardly no cost at all—’

  ‘Can’t see that as having much to do with it, tell you the truth.’

  ‘Part of the story as it come though, see—’

  ‘Damn-all to do with Julia or me.’ Why wasn’t he on his knees, why just semi-collapsed against a steam-wet bulkhead? ‘Christ all bloody mighty…’

  * * *

  He’d got into the saloon at some time after ten p.m. – alone, thank God, having requested Dick not to hang around and go on and bloody on about it – and had not only baked beans on toast but soya links as well. A link being a sort of skinless sausage which he happened to like, although a lot of people didn’t. He also drank two mugs of strong, dark tea, and managed not to weep again.

  No-one had seen that anyway.

  Had told Dick, when he’d apologised again for that extraordinary carry-on in St John, that he understood, didn’t blame him. It was a lie, he’d only said it – well, for her sake, putting the thing to rest between him and Dick, whom one saw now as a peculiar, mixed-up character with child-like weaknesses behind a rough-neck front.

  A thought that strangely enough was helping a little was that it would have been worse for her if it had been him who’d died – if she’d been alive, and he’d drowned before they got him in the raft for instance, leaving her on her own to face all that discordant music. For all her guts, it would have been truly hellish for her, a long-lasting hell. The thing he’d had in mind throughout recent weeks, an imperative to survive.

  Which no longer applied. Wouldn’t pretend disinterest in survival, but didn’t need to be as fixated on it as one had been.

  Had been dozing, and now woken or half-woken to a chorus of snores from the tarpaulin’s other side. Had dreamt of her, also of his parents. Awake now, thinking of his sister Annabel, the desirability of contacting her as soon as possible, asking her to destroy his letter and forget it all. See Dick’s mother too – in case there’d been suspicions or Julia had told them, make certain the old woman knew they’d intended marrying. Otherwise – well, having taken soundings, would have called to express – what did they call it – sympathy.

  Sympathy, God’s sake…

  Let her have died without knowing a thing about it, believing I’d be back next week?

  * * *

  Brice woke him. Having come to the saloon for coffee before going up to take over the middle watch. Time by the clock on the bulkhead – eleven-forty. He was getting his coffee from the pantry, called to Andy, ‘Bring you one, shall I?’

  ‘Well – thanks. Hell, I’ll—’

  ‘No, stay where you are. Take sugar?’

  ‘Please. One spoon.’ Condensed milk, of course. Brice said when joining him with the mugs, ‘Must be horrible, losing all your mates. I’m sorry, very sorry.’

  He nodded. ‘It’s not – good… But thanks, this’ll do me a power of good.’

  ‘Interferes with sleep, though – which could be what you need most?’

  ‘Been doing nothing else. Half the day, and on and off all evening. Had about enough of it. Cheers. How long since you took your mate’s ticket?’

  ‘So long that I’m now due to take my master’s. After this trip, I’m booked in to the Nautical College for it. How about you?’

  ‘Only took my mate’s this summer.’

  ‘Yeah. Course. You were third in your PollyAnna when you got that bunch out of the German prison-ship – correct?’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Your Old Man in the Barranquilla reminded ours of it on their way back from the conference. The famous Andy Holt, eh?’

  ‘Sooner forget it, tell you the truth. I was there, did what I was told, that’s all.’

  ‘Made headlines, didn’t it. I’d better swallow this down and get along. Going to turn in when you’ve drunk yours?’

  Gulping his own down, hot as it was. Andy moved his head; it was better than it had been, but he knew better than to shake it. Telling Brice, ‘No point. Wouldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Want something to read, then?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Tell you what, though – as you’re going up, might I tag along, have a decko at the chart?’

  ‘Well, if you feel up to it—’

  ‘Captain won’t object?’

  ‘Hell, no, he’ll be glad to see you on your feet.’

  * * *

  The mate, Bennett, had taken a set of stars at about 1900, since when they’d been steering east with wind and sea astern, now at midnight had covered seventy-four miles by log since that fix, in other words were making-good as near as damnit fifteen knots.

  ‘Convoy should be – here.’ Brice, with a pencil-tip. ‘So another hour like this, then we reduce to twelve knots, to stay this distance astern of ’em. First light, all things being equal, crack on speed again to close up.’

  ‘And come up with ’em by eight, nine, thereabouts.’

  ‘As you say. Have to leave you now, though – having a watch to keep. Unless you’d like a spell in the wheelhouse with us?’

  ‘Well – might lend a hand as lookout?’

  ‘Come on, then. Here—’

  Spare pair of binoculars.

  ‘Fine. Thanks.’

  ‘Glutton for punishment, eh?’

  ‘It’s no punishment.’

  Never would
be, either. In fact compared to sitting down there doing bugger-all except thinking and trying not to think: well, your life, what you were for – serving at least some purpose. Dark, wide bridge – wider than Quilla’s, though not as deep, on account of the chart-room taking up as much space as it did – the ship juddering as she pitched, thrum of her machinery, creaking of steel and timber and wire stays. Quartermaster a stooped, thin figure at the wheel dead-centre, a cadet lowering his glasses to look round at them, captain a dark bulk in the port fore corner. Brice calling to him, ‘Brought Holt up with me, sir, extra lookout, says he’s had as much shuteye as he can stand.’

  ‘Good man. Good man.’

  The starboard for’ard corner had no occupant, so he put himself there, put the glasses up: vision in mind of the convoy making its eleven knots at that distance ahead, quite possibly with U-boats stalking or shadowing, so if you saw one it would be surfaced and stern-to, doubtless making more than eleven knots. Black, white-streaked sea, dark overhead with a patch or two of stars. Aurelia’s beam and forepart down there was noticeably broader than Quilla’s, blunter for’ard and the foremast shorter, sturdier. Andy reflecting, as he lowered the borrowed glasses to polish their front lenses, that he now lacked glasses of his own, lacked also a sextant, as well as uniform and other gear, all of which would have to be replaced. Some way to start married life, this would have been. Saving all one’s pennies, and having to borrow more – advance of pay from owners, probably – in order to acquire such basic necessities. Let alone a ring and whatever else, and the cost of even a few days’ stingy honeymoon. All that other stuff you’d need before you could sign on as second mate wherever a job might be offering.

  There’d be one going here in the Aurelia, for instance, with Brice going back to school. Unless her captain had someone else in mind, which he might well have. The timing mightn’t work out too well either. But there’d be berths on offer, all right. Might be in one’s best interests to stay with the same owners – especially needing an advance.

  Don’t think about it now, though. For the time being just keep your bloody eyes peeled, help to get this one home.