62

The hardships of war in Halifax should not be exaggerated, and to many of its citizens, the war was merely an inconvenience. The chasm between them and the stunned, seasick, and lonely sailors looking for some solace was unbridgeable and eventually ended in anarchy. In the meantime, the battered survivors from yet another convoy battle, caked with ice and wallowing high out of the water, came straggling over the grey horizon for refuge. The Boarding Service met them outside the gate vessels, rode into harbour filling out intelligence forms, and then jumped right back onto the harbour craft to head out and meet another ship.

Each one of these freighters or tankers or munitions ships was a world of its own. On one Swedish ship, Patrick found the captain in a steaming bathtub, with a bottle of schnapps half-finished on a board over his knees. He had been singing, and he told Patrick that he had gone to school with the son of a Swedish noblewoman who had married Captain Hermann Göering. The German aviator took the boys for rides in an open touring car and showed them his bullet wounds. Patrick wrote this story down on damp paper, over a glass of schnapps in the steaming bathroom, while using the toilet for a seat. The water sloshed in the bathtub and the Swede looked like a boiled whale. His ship had sailed in a German convoy through the Baltic before launching into the North Sea and eventually crossing the Atlantic to Halifax.

The mountains of ice that covered both the escorts and the merchant ships were a vast hazard in these northern seas, and required constant chipping and hosing and prying to prevent the light ships of returning convoys from “turning turtle”. The troopships still sailed—and Patrick was almost carried overboard while executing one of Captain Bayard’s little tricks, delivering a last-minute change of orders. When he leapt off of the ship’s side onto the top of the harbour craft’s wheelhouse, he skidded on the ice and two sailors caught him as he was heading for the deep. The soldiers lining the ship’s railing were disappointed, but they cheered anyway. Not far away from that spot, high on a hill, lay the low silhouette of Fort Sandwich, where Patrick had sat and watched the first troopships leave over four years ago.

At higher levels, the brass hats were reorganizing everything, and the Halifax admiral emerged as commander-in-chief Canadian Northwest Atlantic. It was the only theatre of war commanded by a Canadian, and it stretched from Iceland to the Azores, and over to include Bermuda. The Mid-Ocean Escort Groups were organized into “C” Groups for the Canadians and “B” Groups for the British, with the “A” Groups for the Americans, mostly withdrawn. The British and Canadian groups were somewhat intermingled, and they came under the commander-in-chief Western Approaches when they passed the mid-ocean mark. The escort bases were in St. John’s and Londonderry, Ireland. The Triangle Run escorts delivered the convoys to the mid-ocean escorts, who took them across.

The Americans were late in organizing the convoy system, and their whole eastern seaboard was ablaze with burning tankers. In mid-ocean, the U-boat wolf packs concentrated in the air gap, where land-based assistance couldn’t reach. Some called it the “Black Pit”. Small aircraft carriers were being produced to try and close this. The U-boats got bloody noses in the spring of 1943, and most of them were withdrawn until a new strategy could be devised. It was an expensive victory. In Halifax, the new commander-in-chief was Rear Admiral L. W. Murray from Nova Scotia. Patrick thought that he would never get to sea.

But then the captain released him. It is axiomatic in the services that if you do a good job you will be stuck continuing to do it, but this was a break. The lieutenant commander was indignant, but Patrick raced to the officer’s appointments office, where he was received by another lieutenant commander. An enormous diagram filled one wall, and on this was located the place of every officer under the admiral’s command.

“Let me see now,” said the lieutenant commander, in an important voice that was quite justified. “Every new sub-lieutenant in the navy is clamouring to go to sea, but you have some seniority. I could squeeze you onto a destroyer—one of the four-stackers—on the Triangle run, but I think you’d have to berth in the wardroom. Their facilities are terrible.”

Patrick sat in anguish.

“Here we are,” said the lieutenant commander. “How about this one? Just out of refit and working-up in Pictou—a Flower-class corvette. She’s an old veteran and has seen lots of action.”

“Where is she heading, sir?” asked Patrick, holding his breath.

“Next stop St. John’s, and then over to Derry, I guess,” replied the lieutenant commander. “She needs a gunnery officer.”

“That’s me,” said Patrick. “I think guns are beautiful—er—sir.” The remark slipped out. He momentarily recalled his talk with Sergeant Cyples an eternity ago in the West Nova Scotia Regiment.

“Really?” asked the lieutenant commander skeptically. “Then you’re our boy. Here’s your chit. I’ll set the wheels moving. Take two days’ leave and get the hell up to Pictou. The duty harbour craft leaves the wharf at noon, so you will report to the captain of HMCS Fleur-de-Lis at thirteen-hundred hours on…what is today?”

“Friday, sir.”

“Yes, so you will be there on Monday. Good luck.”

They shook hands, and Patrick felt as though he were casting off his lines. He would be away from the overwhelming frustrations of headquarters and Halifax and off to the serious business of defending the empire. He thought the name of the ship was great.

He was embarrassed by the farewells, and he hated himself for the joy he felt at seeing the last of all these fine and dedicated people. His landlord was delighted to see him go and planned to turn his room into a nursery for their awaited child. The boarding parties presented him with a carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes, and the lieutenant commander gave him a signed book of his own poetry. The pleased captain shot him a conspiratorial wink, and then everyone forgot about him.

Sub-lieutenant Patrick MacQueen boarded the crowded train in the CNR station beside the Nova Scotian Hotel where he had delivered the admirals. In three hours he would be in Truro, where his mother would meet the train. Their property in Bermuda had been sold, and she was now living with her parents at Rosemere. Caesar was there too, of course, snorting and kicking the walls, as usual.