68

“Who named these fuckin’ ships anyway?” asked the signals officer while ruffling a hand through his curly brown hair. They were sitting in the small panelled wardroom of HMCS Fleur-de-Lis, and Patrick was trying to update his gunnery logs, entering the amounts of high explosive or armour-piercing shells, star shells, depth charges, and crates of Oerlikon tracers and pom-pom clips. They were all stored in the magazine, or ammunitions room, which was below the gun platform and beside the spirit room that rested on the keel itself. The magazine was flanked by oil tanks; a bulkhead separated it from the boiler room.

“We’re going across with HMS Narcissus,” added the signal’s officer. “I wonder if the Royal Navy ever thought of calling one the ‘Pansy’?”

“When do we leave?” asked Patrick. He experienced a little spasm of euphoria that spread from his heart and curled up his spine, before continuing to fold over his whole skull and settle behind his eyes. The only time that he had ever felt that before was in church.

“Twelve-hundred hours tomorrow. We’re escorting something called the Lord Kelvin.” The signals officer looked at his watch. “I’d better tell the captain,” he said. “He had a hard night at the party and he won’t welcome this news. From now on no one goes ashore without written permission from the duty officer—except officers, of course. If we cast off at noon you’ll be on the first watch. I’ll try to get an update on the weather.”

It was nearly midnight. The signals officer called for the bosun’s mate—and then he told the captain the news. The captain grunted and rolled over in his bunk. The signals officer completed rounds of the ship, checking the lines and the sleeping quarters. Then he initialled the log and turned in. The officer’s steward had left a bottle of rum in his pantry and some Cokes in the icebox. Patrick poured himself a rum and Coke and returned to the wardroom. This was square and panelled, with a leather bench around three sides and a table riveted to the deck at one end. There were three curved leather chairs secured to the deck with brass chains, and a closed square aperture into the steward’s pantry. There wasn’t room for anything else, and there were no pictures of Donald Duck here. A photograph of the king was framed on the bulkhead.

The minuscule cabin that Patrick shared with Sub-lieutenant Rockwood was at the foot of the companion ladder from the wardroom. He occupied the upper bunk, and there was a mirror, plus two small closets. Under the bunks were some brass-handled drawers, and there was also a small shelf under the mirror that could be used as a desk. The standing room was slightly larger than that of a telephone booth, and in very rough weather the seas cascaded down the ladder as they sloshed around the deck. It was not luxury, but it was possibly better than being slung in a swaying hammock in the fo’c’sle with the seamen or the stokers.

The wardroom flat also contained the other officers’ cabins, and the captain slept above them. The bathroom, or “heads”, was at the top of the ladder; the officers had a giant bathtub and the ratings had showers. The captain, of course, had a small heads to himself.

Patrick finished his nightcap and went into the stuffy little cabin to take his clothes off for the last time for days. His companion was snoring fitfully and mumbling in his sleep. He brushed his teeth in a tiny basin wedged into the corner, threw the soiled, stiff shirt collar into a bottom drawer, and put his Half Wellingtons into the closet. He hung his uniform carefully on a hanger, patted his face with aftershave lotion, and climbed into his bunk. The steel bulkhead beside his head kept the waters of the harbour at bay, just a few centimetres on the other side. It was always cold. Unknown to them all as they gasped in their little bunks, the fan of the air vent had been put in backwards at Galveston. It functioned fine, but its task was reversed.

Patrick wondered if he would ever get to London. He had bought some lipsticks and other cosmetics, which were unattainable there. Nothing was rationed in Newfoundland.