Liverpool in early December with a noontime drizzle that had been falling on its soot-stained buildings for three days had all the gaiety of wet sticks of charcoal planted in a pile of damp grey ash, but the taxi driver was cheerful and Yorke’s train from London, delayed for hours by an unexploded bomb on the line ten miles short of the city, had arrived in daylight so that he could join the ship. The taxi had to detour round streets barricaded and blocked because bombs had toppled a building or two across them in untidy piles of rubble or the trestles were hung with the familiar red notices:
Danger – Unexploded Bomb.
Finally, through gaps in the streets which were like missing teeth in grey gums and showed the damage from two years of intensive night bombing, Yorke saw a few masts. They were stumpy because merchant ships had removed their topmasts to lower their silhouette. Long gone were the coloured stripes or bands on funnels showing the different companies; instead they were all painted a uniform grey, the ‘crab fat grey’ which in daylight or darkness provided the most camouflage.
‘Queen’s Dock you said, guv?’ the driver said conversationally.
‘Yes, number two, Queen’s Dock.’
‘That’s the other end from the entrance we use. You’ll need some paper to show the coppers at the gate. Uniform ain’t enough these days. Some of these foreigners look like commissionaires so the coppers is tightening up. ‘Fraid someone’ll go in and drill an ’ole in one of the ships, I s’pose.’
Finally the taxi swung into the great gateway to the dock, an entrance that owed its size to the need to admit heavily-laden lorries rather than a desire to impress. Ships alongside the quays were sharply-angled examples of perspective, their harsh lines in the dull light making the whole scene look like an old print, the paper dulled and foxed, the illustration lacking only the square-sail yards and furled sails to slip back a century or two with ships about to sail in other wars, yet the crews facing the same threat, death. The taxi stopped by a small office at the gate and a policeman came out and saluted.
‘What ship was you wanting, sir?’
‘The Marynal.’
‘Ah, the Mar-ie-nal,’ the policeman said, as if correcting Yorke’s pronunciation and certain it rhymed with ‘urinal’. ‘You have papers, sir? You just visiting her – an inspection?’
‘No, I’m joining her.’ Yorke avoided speaking the name, which sounded like mariner, and handed over two papers which the policeman read quickly and handed back.
‘Thank you, sir: she’s the third ship, just abreast the burned-out warehouse. Have a good trip, sir.’
The taxi moved off. Quays in busy ports looked the same the world over, the only difference being the weather, the presence or lack of bomb damage, and the colour of the dockers’ skin. Piles of small crates alongside the first ship were being loaded on to large flat metal trays before being hoisted on board by the ship’s derricks and two lorries were obviously waiting to unload whatever they carried direct into cargo nets or trays.
Mooring warps curved from stem and stern, their great spliced eyes looped over stone bollards and holding the ship. Each rope had a circular disc of thin metal lodged halfway along it, like the spinning coloured disc of a child’s toy. Rat guards were compulsory and although ports insisted on them being used to prevent rats, perhaps infected in some tropical port, from immigrating into Britain, they also stopped rugged British rats from climbing on board a ship and stowing away for a warmer climate where there was no rationing or bombing. A stick of bombs or a few hundred incendiary bombs on a warehouse, Yorke reflected, must play havoc with a rat’s personality.
The wreckage of a small crate which had been dropped, with the black printed exhortations ‘Use No Hooks’ and ‘Stow Away From Boilers’ still visible on pieces of the deal boards, had been kicked out of the way. Again, on any quay there would be such wreckage, and if the contents had been edible or saleable, they would vanish like smoke in a high wind.
The second ship was loading tanks and lorries, the sandy-coloured camouflage paint betraying their destination, although many a ship, merchant or war, had ended up in the tropics just after all the crew had been fitted out with thick woollen Arctic underwear and heavy clothing. The ship was also beneath one of the few big cranes left standing, and Yorke saw several large crates close against the wall of the warehouse: aircraft in crates, probably fighters to be stowed on top of the hatches, so big that one on each hatch completely changed the silhouette of a merchant ship.
‘’Ere you are, then,’ the driver said, pulling up at the gangway of a modern-looking ship, turning the car round a pile of crates and a swinging cargo net. A group of dockers looked up incuriously, saw an officer in uniform getting out of the taxi and, noticing two gold bands on each sleeve, assumed he was the second officer or one of the engineers – they were too far off to distinguish any coloured stripes between the gold. And Yorke knew that apart from the basic uniform, the insignia of rank and cap badges in the Merchant Navy usually varied, depending on the company. Some favoured straight gold stripes with the regular diamond instead of the curl used in the Royal Navy. Every large company had its own cap badge; the smaller ones made do with the regular Merchant Navy cap badge.
As the taxi driver took Yorke’s case out of the boot, a Royal Navy seaman came hurrying down the gangway, hair untidy and wearing working clothes.
‘Mr Yorke, sir? I’m Watkins, been fitting the radio gear. Let me take your case.’ His eyes rested for a moment on the medal ribbon before he grabbed the luggage.
With the taxi paid off, Yorke followed Watkins up the gangway and paused for a moment at the top. The Marynal’s decks looked as though every available length of loose rope, empty cardboard carton and cigarette packet had been emptied over them; at least three welding torches spurted eerie blue tongues and showered sparks, twentieth-century dragons huffing and puffing to frighten the enemy.
The convoy was due to sail the day after tomorrow and it seemed the Marynal could never be ready in time, but Yorke had seen enough warships in port for a few hours, hurriedly getting stores on board and welding repairs to action or heavy-weather damage, or putting in new equipment that needed extra fittings, to know how soon it could be cleared up.
‘This way, sir,’ Watkins said, holding the suitcase in front to clear a path through the seamen and dockers. ‘Your cabin’s all ready sir. One of the two passenger cabins, so you have a choice. If you don’t like the one I got the chief steward to prepare, you can change, but it’ll be the coolest in the tropics.’
A bed, not a bunk; a big, double-bladed fan fitted to the deckhead above, obviously the slow-turning type that moved a lot of air, plenty of polished mahogany – wardrobe, built-in chest of drawers, two easy chairs, a small writing desk.
Yorke sniffed. ‘O-Cedar, from the smell of it.’
Watkins grinned and looked round the cabin with pride. ‘That’s the stuff, sir; best there is to bring out a good shine. Me and a couple of the lads nipped in yesterday with a can and some rags and gave things a polish here and there.’
‘Thanks. Looks more like an admiral’s day cabin.’
‘Cor, you wait ’til you start on the grub, sir; I’m tellin’ you, they eat well, these Merchant Navy chaps. Regular Ritz, this ship is. She called in South America on the last trip and stocked up with plenty of meat. Steak fer dinner tonight, sir. Now, you’ll be wanting to see the Capting, but ’e’s gorn on shore until four o’clock. Convoy conference ten double oh tomorrow morning, and the ship has a shore phone and–’ he opened the top drawer in the desk and took out a slip of paper, ‘I’ve written the number down here. Will that be all for now, sir?’
‘Where are you berthed?’
‘Aft, with the DEMS gunners, sir. Nice and snug down there.’
‘Out of sight, out of mind, eh?’
‘Well, sort of, sir,’ Watkins admitted with a grin, ‘but I got all me radio gear rigged in the Marconi cabin. That’s one deck above you and just abaft the bridge.’
‘The DEMS gunners,’ Yorke said. ‘How many of them?’
‘Eight brown jobs, six HO ratings, and a hookie what’s Regular, sir.’
‘All quiet down there?’
‘Their third trip together, sir. They play a wicked game of uckers.’
‘Very well,’ Yorke said, ‘you can vanish until nine tomorrow: I may want you to come with me to the convoy conference.’
With that he hung up his heavy coat, put his hat on a hook and sank into one of the easy chairs. The DEMS gunners were not directly his responsibility, but if he needed them the Marynal’s captain had been told he had the authority to take them over as a unit. The eight soldiers, Watkins’ ‘brown jobs’, were of course volunteers from the Maritime Regiment of the Royal Artillery, and the six ‘Hostilities Only’ ratings with a regular leading seaman in charge, should be useful – particularly because they had already done three trips together and still enjoyed playing ‘a wicked game’ of ludo. Clearly they were a happy crowd, and that usually meant efficient, too.
By now Watkins would be aft and reporting to his mates what he had been able to glean about the new officer who had unexpectedly entered their lives, along with Watkins himself, another operator and their radio sets. Fourteen DEMS gunners who had been going along quietly with a leading seaman in charge had probably ‘got organized’, with a good supply of duty-free cigarettes, pipe tobacco and liquor stowed away. Well, as long as they did not smoke on deck at sea after blackout time and did not go on watch ‘in liquor’, as the charge usually worded it, he was not going to interfere: the Marynal’s chief officer, the equivalent of a warship’s first lieutenant, would keep an eye on them. Lieutenant Yorke, as far as the Marynal’s captain was concerned, was ‘on special duty’ with Watkins and another operator, and although Yorke had not seen the letter from the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff, the Marynal’s owners had been told under conditions of secrecy that the ‘special duty’ concerned the ‘insider’ attacks, and that the captain should be told as much as the owners thought necessary to avoid any difficulties. In other words, while not interfering with the Captain of the Marynal’s authority and responsibility, if Lieutenant Yorke asked him to steer the ship straight out of the convoy, turn three circles and then rejoin, the Admiralty backed him and the Marynal’s captain was expected to comply.
Yet Yorke knew that for all the Admiralty letter to the owners, conferences between the owners’ marine superintendent and captain, and discreet explanations, much of the success of this voyage might depend on the impressions that the Marynal’s captain and Yorke formed of each other in the first minute or two of their meeting. The job would be twice as difficult with a touchy master, although if it became too bad Yorke could always arrange with the commodore to transfer to another ship.
It was almost exactly an hour later that Watkins knocked on the door and Yorke was embarrassed to realize that he had dozed off in the armchair, uncomfortable as it was. An overnight rail journey these days made anything softer than a plank seem a sybaritic extravagance, and the distant hum of the Marynal’s generators was restful.
‘The Captain’s back on board, sir,’ Watkins reported. ‘Sorry I woke you but I guessed you’d want to see him. And the DEMS leading seaman is asking if you wanted to see him.’
Yorke stood up and walked over to the handbasin, then turned away when he realized he had not unpacked his washing gear. The DEMS hookie obviously wanted to have a look for himself. ‘Is he there now?’
‘Yes, sir, Leading Seaman Jenkins.’
‘Tell him to come in.’
The leading seaman was smartly dressed, freshly shaven, hair carefully combed, the anchor badge on his sleeve showing his rank and providing the Navy’s nickname, hookie, for a leading seaman. ‘Jenkins, sir. I was wondering when you wanted to inspect the DEMS gunners, and the guns, sir.’
‘Good evening, Jenkins,’ Yorke said sleepily. ‘If you think an inspection is necessary I’ll make one, but I’m nothing to do with the DEMS organization. As far as you’re concerned I’m a passenger on this trip, unless,’ he added cautiously, ‘there’s an emergency. So you carry on as before. To whom do you normally report?’
‘Well, the Chief Officer, sir. Then when we get into port usually an officer from the DEMS organization inspects us and we draw more ammunition if we’ve expended any. And–’ he gave a conspiratorial grin, obviously knowing that Yorke had just come from a destroyer, ‘occasionally they bring us a new secret weapon. We’re getting quite a collection.’
‘Secret weapons? What have you got in the way of ordinary weapons?’
‘Well, there’s the 4-inch aft, made by Vickers at Elswick in 1917, according to the plate on it. Then two 20-millimetre Oerlikon cannons. They’re in good nick, sir; well mounted and we’ve plenty of ammo. Then we got twelve machine-guns in twin mountings. They’re right bastards, sir, if you’ll excuse the expression; known in the trade as ’Orrible ’Otchkiss.’
Yorke frowned. They must be American and by now would be an old design, probably stored after the First World War, like the 4-inch. ‘We have to be thankful for what we’ve got,’ he said. ‘You’ve reported all this to – well, whoever you report to in the DEMS organization?’
‘Yus, sir,’ Jenkins said sourly, ‘but it’s the same answer: every ship that has ’em is complaining. “Try the projector”, they say; and “What about using the parachute-and-cable”. My bleedin’ life, sir, these things scare me but they won’t scare the bloody Germans!’
‘The projector? Parachute-and-cable?’ a puzzled Yorke asked.
Jenkins shook his head sadly, like a father despairing of delinquent sons. ‘New inventions they are, sir; leastways, that’s what they tell us. Some madman chained up in a cellar at the Ministry of War Transport, or one of those places, is inventing these things. The projector is a sort of – well, like a length of drainpipe poking up on a tripod. You feed in compressed air – there’s a pressure dial – drop an ordinary Mills hand grenade down the spout (you’re supposed to take the safety pin out, of course, tho’ I don’t advise it) and when the Ju 88 comes rushing past you open a valve and the compressed air hurls the grenade up in the air, the safety handle’s released, and if he’s quick enough the German pilot catches it and chucks it back…leastways, that’s how it seems to me.’
‘You haven’t tried it out, then?’
‘Not yet, sir,’ Jenkins said, adding darkly: ‘But I’ve ’eard tell of what’s ’appened in ships where they ’ave…’
‘What happened?’
‘Well sir, you can imagine a Mills grenade with the pin removed popping out of this diabolical weapon, landing about thirty feet away and just rolling down the deck like a black orange… There’s a five second fuse, and then it makes an ’orrible bang, and the welders repairing the ’ole always scorch the deck paint, and the captain gets ratty and – well, it’s best to leave ’em in the packing cases, sir. The captain of this ship,’ he added, lowering his voice so that he sounded like a black marketeer in Oxford Street offering silk stockings, ‘keeps showing an interest in it, but so far…’
‘What about the parachute-and-cable thing? How does that work?’
‘The PAC? Well, sir, no one knows really. We’ve got four fitted, two each side of the monkey island and fired by wires coming through tubes to the wheelhouse with toggles on the end. I could show you the manual if you’re interested,’ he added without enthusiasm.
‘Just give me a rough idea.’
‘Well, sir, same as before: a Ju 88 galloping down out of the clouds and you pull the toggle and a rocket goes rushing up from the monkey island trailing an ’undred feet or so of thin flexible wire with a small canister on the end. Once it reaches a certain height the rocket bursts and out pops a parachute. The canister at the other end goes pop, too, and out comes another parachute. Now you have – so says the manual – one ’undred feet of very strong wire suspended ’orizontuallily between the two parachutes. If the German pilot is very clever, he can hit it all and wrap his plane up in silk and wire and float down into the sea on the parachutes, surrender to one of the escort, and spend the rest of the war in England as a POW eating dried egg and drinking weak tea and listenin’ to Vera Lynn singin’ We’ll meet again… Sorry if I sound a bit ’pertinent, sir, but all these toys are just a waste o’ materials and factory time. But…’ his voice dropped even lower, so that he sounded like an over-enthusiastic conspirator in a touring Shakespearean company, ‘I think this ship’s captain wants to play with ’em, which might get some of us killed, so if…’
‘You don’t fancy doing a high wire act between two parachutes, eh?’
‘Well, sir,’ Jenkins said with a grin, ‘I wouldn’t want to take advantage of the fack I’m senior rating if anyone else wants to try it first.’
‘I hope the 4-inch is all right,’ Yorke said.
‘When it was last inspected in Freetown they told us we should use it only in an emergency, sir, except for firing a couple of practice rounds every six months…’
‘Apart from the Oerlikons, what have we got that works without the need for prayer?’
Jenkins’ face lit up. ‘A couple of stripped Lewis guns, sir. They’re on single mountings on each side of the poop. They’re in good nick. Best guns ever designed, I reckon. Oh yus, sir,’ he added contemptuously, ‘the brown jobs have got rifles and bayonets in case the Germans drop paratroopers on us, and topees what look like coppers’ ’ats.’
Watkins nodded his head in confirmation, and Yorke said: ‘If the worst comes to the worst, we can always frighten the Germans by putting on the topees back to front. Still, I know the sort you mean; very reminiscent of a policeman’s helmet for some people.’
‘Me for one,’ Watkins said with a grin. ‘Still, I never did time.’
The mention of the word reminded Yorke of the reason for Watkins’ visit. ‘Right, you two, carry on; I must call on the captain.’
Captain Edward Hobson was a Yorkshireman, born in Bingley and very proud of it. He was within a few days of his fiftieth birthday, though most people would guess at forty because his face was just plump enough to keep away wrinkles and his wavy black hair had only a few random grey strands. He was a quiet man without being dour, and had the same contempt for the engineers that they had for the Marynal’s deck officers. It was a tradition going back to the earliest days of steam and as much a part of the Merchant Navy as the fact that most ships’ engineers came from Newcastle. With his homely North-country accent and smart appearance, Hobson would have commanded one of the company’s smaller passenger ships in peacetime: he had enough of the social graces and the physical presence to reassure old ladies in a storm and on quiet days have them giggling over an endless stock of mildly funny stories.
He glanced up as Yorke came into the cabin, his eyes catching the single medal ribbon. He stood up and held out his hand: ‘You’ll be the Mr Yorke they’ve been telling me about.’
It took Yorke only a couple of minutes to realize that the directors of the Western Ocean Shipping Company had made a good choice of captain in their effort to help the Royal Navy. Yorke sat down, shaking his head at Hobson’s offer of a drink and a cigar.
‘You’re regular, then,’ Hobson commented.
Yorke nodded. ‘Like you, though not as much sea time!’
‘That’s a DSO, isn’t it? I’m not up on ribbons, but they don’t give ’em away. What did you get it for, eh?’ he asked with disconcerting directness.
‘I was left in command of a destroyer.’
‘And then?’
Yorke realized that Hobson’s questioning was not idle curiosity but simply part of weighing up the newcomer; he wanted to know more about the young man – half his age – who might want him to risk the safety of the Marynal. With the question not prompted by curiosity, the answer could hardly be boasting.
‘Air attacks for hours. We didn’t dodge enough bombs, and we were leaking so badly the sheer weight of water was slowing us down. Finally we sank.’
‘A lot of men lost?’
‘Most of them.’
‘That’s where you got your hand messed up?’
Yorke nodded. Hobson’s blue eyes did not miss much.
‘That DSO – was it for something special, or the whole operation?’
Yorke shrugged his shoulders. ‘You know how vague citations are… I think it was for the time after the captain was killed and I was left in command.’
Hobson had obviously made up his mind about the young naval officer sitting opposite him. There was a silence for a minute or two as Yorke looked round the cabin – this was obviously the captain’s day cabin, large enough to hold twenty gossiping people should he care to have a party, with plenty of light from six portholes and two square windows facing aft, a floral pattern cloth sewn on to the inside of the heavy blackout curtains.
No admiral in his flagship, even a battleship, had so much room and light. Nor were there the yards of steam pipes, electrical conduits and the like masquerading as thick macaroni that always ran along at least two of every four bulkheads in a warship cabin. Hobson’s day cabin was as tastefully furnished as a country-house sitting room; instead of the derricks of ships astern, one might have expected to see trees through the two windows. There was even a fake fireplace, complete with a mantelpiece around the edge of which ran low fiddles to prevent things sliding off when the ship rolled. In one corner Yorke was intrigued by a small deal table – a work bench, in fact – over which a blanket had been thrown, obscuring several bulky items. Wires ran from the table to an electric socket in the bulkhead.
Hobson saw him looking and said, ‘That’s my hobby corner. Come and see.’ He pulled back the blanket and revealed a small jeweller’s lathe, tray of small tools, vice on a turntable, drill press removed from its stand and, clamped down in the middle of one side of the table, a beautifully made brass model of a locomotive, the famous Flying Scot, perhaps a foot long. Most of the wheels had been fitted; four more, small and presumably for the bogie in front, were in another tray.
‘I should have been a train driver,’ Hobson said wryly, ‘but making a model like this is a good way of passing the time on some of these convoys. Six weeks at sea…a man can brood, or turn to drink. I prefer modelling.’ He replaced the blanket carefully and motioned Yorke to sit down again.
‘A merchant ship isn’t like a warship – that sounds obvious, I know. What I mean is, the main job is to keep your position in the convoy. I like to be on the bridge just before dawn, but I’ve no need to be there again until I take my noon sight. I do that only for practice; the second mate’s the navigator, of course, and I like a couple of the cadets to take sights and work them out. And I’m up there at dusk too, just in case. So apart from being there for a turn if we’re zigzagging, I’m the spare man at the wedding; the chap who gets the blame if anything happens.
‘It’s a good job – I work for a fine firm, have comfortable quarters, and can look forward to a good pension. The job’s a sight more interesting in peacetime, of course; now the worst crisis – apart from being bombed or torpedoed – is to have the chief steward reporting a week out that half the crew have the clap, or everyone’s got crabs. Or the potatoes are going rotten – last trip we had to buy yams in Freetown, and that’s where I discovered the lads don’t like sweet potatoes. Anyway, I’m prattlin’ on. What do you want me to do?’
‘Well, I hope you’ll be able to forget I’m on board: I’ll try and keep out of your way. Once or twice a day one of my signalmen might need to send a message by lamp to the commodore or the senior officer of the escort, but he can use the monkey island to keep off the bridge.’
Hobson held up his hand. ‘Use the bridge as much as you need. Don’t forget that merchant ships aren’t like warships. There’ll be a quartermaster in the wheelhouse, a mate on the port side of the bridge and a cadet on the starboard, and that’s it. In foggy weather there’ll be a lookout up in the bow, and at action stations the DEMS gunners are all over the place. So the mate on watch and the cadet will be glad to see you. Four hours is a long watch, and we don’t use dog watches; a straight four on and eight off…and too bad if there’s a five-hour action stations during your eight off. The third mate has the eight to twelve, the second the twelve to four, and the chief officer – the Mate – the four to eight.’
‘The wireless operators…?’ Yorke prompted.
‘Three, all employed by the Marconi Company, as I expect you know. Chief, second and third. Only the chief has any real sea time; the other two are pretty new. The third sparks was a monk this time last year. He thought he ought to do his bit but didn’t want to kill anyone, so he joined the Marconi Company. Plucky sort of thing to do – the lads tease him a bit.’
‘My two signalmen…’
‘Oh, they’re already fixed up. They arrived a couple of days ago and worked with the chief sparks to fit their sets. They’re berthed aft with the DEMS gunners, as you probably know. I gave ’em the opportunity of berthing near the wireless cabin, but they preferred to be aft. Probably like a game of uckers with the other lads.’
‘What radio watches do your operators normally stand, captain?’
‘Just listening watches. They could just as well be doing embroidery because every ship keeps a watch on the call and distress frequency and there’s usually nothing to listen to, but the convoy instructions say listen, so we listen. Four on and eight off, just reading thrillers in the warm…’
‘My two lads will have to keep a continuous listening watch,’ Yorke said, ‘so–’
‘What, you mean two on and two off, or four on and four off? Bit hard on them, isn’t it?’
‘We didn’t think you’d welcome too many extra men,’ Yorke said.
‘Well, unless it’s all very secret, I know what I’d do: put a mattress down in the radio room for one of your lads, and have a word with the chief sparks: there’s no reason why my chaps can’t listen to two receivers at once, and if your set starts playing music or whatever it is, he can rouse your man.’
‘You think the chief will–’
‘He’ll be only too glad; those poor buggers get bored stiff just listening to static. Why, their big day is when the BAMS receiver breaks down!’
‘BAMS? What’s that?’
‘Oh, that’s our own Merchant Navy radio station. “Broadcasts to Allied Merchant Ships”, a fixed frequency thing – apparently the Germans can detect someone twiddling a receiver through the frequencies. Anyway, these BAMS sets just receive the one station. The programmes aren’t much. The news, Monday Night at Eight, and Vera Lynn on Forces Favourites is about all I ever hear. That Tommy Handley, I like him.’
‘The convoy conference tomorrow,’ Yorke said. ‘I’ll be coming with you. Do you wear uniform?’
‘Not bloody likely! Leastways, one or two captains do, and some of the foreigners, but most of us wear civvies. Why?’
‘I should have thought of that, I don’t want to draw attention to myself, but…’
Hobson looked him up and down. ‘I’ve got just the thing for you. A lightweight, single-breasted I had run up in Rosario on this last trip: never worn it, except for a couple of fittings. Want to borrow it? And a mac. Not very formal, these convoy conferences – except for your chaps.’