The room was high-ceilinged like an old-fashioned church hall, with rows of cheap chairs (whose single coat of varnish was wearing off) facing a small table which had three more chairs behind it, as though waiting for the vicar and his wife and the guest speaker.
A naval rating at the main door carefully pointed out the chairs to the motley crowd of men now beginning to come into the room. They could have been prosperous farmers attending a branch meeting of the local National Farmers’ Union, Yorke realized: most had a suntan, the resulting colour depending on the type of skin. One auburn-haired master, plump and blue-eyed, had a face so red that he might have been verging on apoplexy, and the man he was talking to was a leathery brown, as though he had spent a lifetime following the plough, tanned by sun and wind. Few of them, with the exception of Hobson and one or two others, looked comfortable in civilian clothes. Obviously they were so used to the shape and relative tightness of uniform that the easy fit of civilian clothes made them seem like men wearing suits a size too large. All, he noticed, carried small attaché cases or leather dispatch cases and several had bowler hats. All looked shrewd men.
The Swedish captain was in every way an exception. He was one of the youngest of the masters; his blond hair, brilliantined and combed back flat on his head without a parting, looked like a skull cap made of omelette; his face just missed being thin and had high cheekbones; his nose seemed fleshless but too large to match the rest, and his ears stuck out. But his tailor was a craftsman and the material of his suit could not be bought in wartime Britain, despite the black marketeers: it was a loosely-woven blue, almost like linen, which kept its shape perfectly. The overcoat over his arm was a charcoal grey; the hat he carried in the other hand was a light tan with a wider brim than was fashionable in England. The briefcase under his arm had the rich mahogany brown of good leather; a young barrister starting out for his first day in chambers would have been glad if his wealthy Aunt Jessica had given it to him as a present. Despite the blue suit, Yorke noticed, the man’s shoes were brown.
With the Swedish captain was one of his officers of a type at the other end of the obviously Nordic scale: his hair was so blond it seemed almost white, skin so pink and dead he might have been an albino, no eyebrows noticeable at ten yards, hair cut en brosse – the American forces, Yorke remembered, called it a ‘crew cut’ – and he had an unfortunate tendency to what gunnery instructors at Whale Island called ‘bleedin’ camel marchin’ ’–swinging an arm in time with the leg on the same side. The officer’s face was crude and cruel; his captain’s face was – bland? Yes, bland to the point of seeming smug. And smug almost to the point of sneering, as though he and his ship were above all this lowly crowd; that convoys – well, he was taking part under protest. The two Scandinavians marched to chairs, sitting on two near the back.
‘Choose seats a couple of rows behind our Swedish friends,’ Yorke murmured to Hobson.
Hobson glanced round. ‘The Swedes interest you, eh? They stick out like sore thumbs, don’t they? Making a rare profit out of the war and they know it. Treat us all like poor relations.’
Five minutes later, with all the masters seated, three men came through the door and went to the table. The door was shut, with the naval rating obviously standing on guard outside. One of the two naval officers, a lieutenant commander wearing the ribbon of a DSC, took the middle chair with a distinguished-looking white-haired man in civilian clothes (a well-cut but obviously comfortable old tweed suit) on his right and a Royal Navy lieutenant on his left.
The masters stopped talking but several continued puffing their pipes while others opened their cases and took out notebooks and pencils. The lieutenant commander stood up, a slim, almost angular young man whom Ned had known for years and who probably had more experience as an escort commander than anyone else afloat. His name was before the Honours and Awards Committee for a DSO and his wife had just left him because – so gossip had it – she could not stand the strain of knowing that he was at sea month after month and dreading a telegram. She was said to be living with a squadron leader in the RAF Regiment, a man responsible for defending airfields and who spent every night in bed – her bed.
If the Swede was bland, then Jonathan Gower was blithe; he had the self-assured but friendly manner usually associated with the better Harley Street specialists. Gower whispered something to the old man on his right and then stood up.
‘Good morning, gentlemen. I am Lieutenant Commander Gower and will be the senior officer of your escort. I shall be in the Echo frigate. The Commodore…’ he turned slightly to his right to indicate the old man, ‘is already known to several of you, Vice-Admiral Sir Sydney Shaw, who came out of a well-earned retirement to get back to sea.’ He turned to the other officer. ‘Lieutenant Knight commands the second frigate, the Argo, and is therefore my deputy in the case of any mishap.
‘You should all have received your sealed orders,’ he looked round for any wave of dissent, ‘which give your positions in the convoy. There are thirty-five ships and we’ll be in the usual seven-column formation. We’ll probably have an ocean-going tug with us, and she’ll act as rescue ship. I must repeat the order, gentlemen, that no ship, except the tug, is to stop for survivors. Most of you know that in a pack attack it is standard procedure for a U-boat to stand by a ship she has just torpedoed and wait for someone else to stop for survivors, presenting a perfect target, so that then we have two sinking ships…
‘We shan’t know exactly what escort we have until tomorrow because two corvettes are being cleaned up and refuelled and reammunitioned, and it is not certain they’ll be ready in time.’
‘Why is not the sailing postponed for the whole convoy?’ a precise voice demanded, and Yorke saw that the Swedish captain was speaking without bothering to stand up. ‘An extra two corvettes is important.’
‘This isn’t the only convoy sailing or arriving,’ Gower said evenly.
‘It seems to me – but I am only a neutral, of course – that sailing without a proper escort is asking for trouble.’
Yorke and Gower, in a last-minute conference at the Admiralty before leaving for Liverpool, when allocating the positions for the ships, had anticipated this line of questioning, just as they had invented the delay for the corvettes and the fictitious reason that Gower was now going to give.
‘One must expect trouble in wartime, Captain Ohlson, but I think the corvettes were delayed getting here because they went to the rescue of a neutral ship – Swedish, I’m told. A nasty air attack, I believe, with many casualties.’
Yorke watched Captain Ohlson glance round sharply at the other Swede with him. Ohlson had gone white and was now whispering to the other man. Gower was waiting politely, and Ohlson said abruptly: ‘What is the name of this ship? What was her position?’
Gower shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve no idea; my only concern was for the corvettes.’
‘But this is a Swedish ship; I must…’
‘Captain Ohlson, many British and American ships are being lost every day. I regret every sinking. But this conference is about our particular convoy; no doubt your government will take up the matter with Berlin direct…’
Ohlson flushed at the implication of Gower’s words and resumed whispering to his companion, who seemed to Yorke either to be hard of hearing or not very bright. Gower continued giving details for the forthcoming voyage, with the masters taking notes. Finally he handed over to the commodore.
The old admiral spoke crisply. ‘Position-keeping, gentlemen: please do your best. I know what it’s like having to ask an engineer for only one more revolution or one less, but if he grumbles point out the alternative might be a torpedo bursting right where he’s standing. One revolution of a ship’s screw a minute can make all the difference between a straggling convoy and one in good formation. You’ve all seen what happens when it is necessary to alter course with a straggling convoy…there’s usually a U-boat waiting to pick off the odd ship.
‘Now for signals. You all have copies of Mersigs, and remember the only way I can communicate with you is by signal lamp, flag hoists, or, in an emergency, blasts on the siren. I trust the siren will stay quiet, so flags and lamp mean it is essential you always keep an eye on the commodore. Noon positions will be hoisted at 1215 – and hoist ’em dead on time; don’t wait to see what the commodore is hoisting so you can copy him. We can all make mistakes, and I’m no exception. I see Captain Hobson sitting over there. He probably remembers sailing in a convoy with me. Forty or more ships. I hoisted my position at the same moment he did. They didn’t coincide. All the other ships had the same position as me. Thirty-nine to one. Some odds. I had him called up by lamp and asked to check his figures. He answered at once that he did not need to. Seemed a bit saucy at the time but I checked mine. I (and every other ship in the convoy but the Marynal) was wrong and Captain Hobson right. Obviously all the others hadn’t made the same mistake; they had just waited until I hoisted my position and hoisted the same – except for Captain Hobson. So remember – hoisting positions isn’t a game of housey-housey.
‘Lights. Watch your blackouts. I must ask you to punish severely any man caught smoking a cigarette on deck. A glowing cigarette can be seen a considerable distance. No Aldis lamps to be used after sunset – if you use one to call me, remember there might be a U-boat in the distance beyond me who can see a pinpoint of light when he might have missed the low silhouettes of the ships, and thus find the convoy. You have the low-powered blue signal lamps, so use them, even if it means passing a message to me via another ship. And those ships using cadets as signalmen – please make them polish their Morse… That’s all, gentlemen; I wish you luck and let’s hope we have an uneventful trip.’
By the time Yorke arrived back on board with Captain Hobson, the Marynal was beginning to look more like a ship than a rubbish dump. Odd pieces of timber, dunnage, used to secure cargo in the holds by wedging or separating, were being thrown down on to the quayside; seamen with hoses were washing down the decks; the welding gear had been put away and the welds were dark patches surrounded by bubbled paint. The boatswain was talking with the chief officer at number two hatch, where the thick hatchboards were already across and the canvas hatchcover stretched over, and men with mallets and large wooden wedges were preparing to secure them. Number one hatch had already been battened down, number three was still being loaded, and the two hatches aft were also battened down.
Captain Hobson grunted contentedly. ‘The lads get a move on when there’s a need…’
Yorke realized the remark was both a boast and an apology; for various reasons a Merchant Navy seaman was not subjected to the same rigid discipline as a man in the Royal Navy, and as this was his first experience of the Merchant Navy system, Yorke was prepared to wait before he passed judgement. So far he could see that a dozen Merchant Navy men worked quite happily without any petty officers keeping an eye on them. Whether or not it was necessary, a similar number of Royal Navy men would have had at least one petty officer standing there.
Hobson said quietly: ‘I know it’s not your job, but I think the DEMS gunners would like you to make an inspection this afternoon. Just have a look at their quarters and walk round the guns with that leading seaman, and the Army lance corporal. Lance bombardier, rather. The chief officer tells me that this morning early they were after him for a couple of new mops, another bucket, a gallon of O-Cedar and a dozen tins of Brasso, and I saw one of them coming out of the engine room with enough cotton waste to make a nest for a family of albatrosses.’
‘When is your regular inspection?’ Yorke asked.
‘Ten o’clock on Sundays. That’s what I mean: today is only Wednesday!’
‘Maybe they think it’s Christmas Day tomorrow,’ Yorke said with a grin, but he could guess what was happening: as they were leaving for the convoy conference, Leading Seaman Jenkins had been very casual in asking if Yorke would be on board this afternoon.
In his cabin sprawled in an easy chair, dark hair uncombed, eyes still bloodshot from the night journey in the train, nerves tautening as he thought of the forthcoming voyage – he always had this tension, like Nelson and his seasickness – Yorke felt curiously out of place. He had a sense of not belonging to the Marynal, and he tried to work out why. She had a fine old name, the ancient word for a mariner. She was a modern ship, launched almost exactly a year before the war began and built for a reasonably prosperous firm, so there were no signs of penny-pinching. Perhaps it was the cabin – he was not used to large portholes, through which he could see the quays of a bustling port which, although pitted with bomb craters, was still obviously in business. A warship alongside in naval dockyards would hear none of the sounds that now welled up round the Marynal, with dockers and stevedores alternately cursing and joking, taxis hooting and weaving among lorries and ropes to deposit officers and seamen at their ships after well-deserved leave. Half a mile of quayside surrounding rectangles of oily water, and not a Royal Navy uniform to be seen; just cloth-capped dockers and stevedores, an occasional Merchant Navy man, and piles of crates and rubbish… This was the land of ‘Use No Hooks’ – and where a fight could flare up in a moment between a couple of dockers, who would not hesitate to attack each other with the hooks which, like extensions of their hands, were used to haul sacks and crates. The most noticeable similarity with the naval dockyard was that all fire hydrants were marked in bright red and yellow paint, while here and there sandbagged positions gave shelter for air raid wardens.
The Marynal herself, of course, bore no resemblance to a warship: this cabin was palatial and there was not the jumble of background noises he was accustomed to in a destroyer. Probably fewer generators running, because a destroyer used a vast amount of electricity even when at anchor or alongside. Many fewer men and therefore much less shouting and pounding feet. And no Tannoy…the public address system in a warship attracted men to its microphone like wasps to a picnic, as though nothing could be true unless bellowed over the Tannoy. And of course a merchant ship was so damned big, even a single-screw motor ship like the Marynal. Comparing her to a frigate (let alone a destroyer) was like putting a charabanc alongside a racing car.
The wardroom – the saloon, he corrected himself, finding it hard to get used to the different usages in a merchant ship – was considerably more luxurious than anything a warship had to offer. Two long tables, dark mahogany and highly polished, ran along each side; there were curtains at the large portholes which could be pulled back to allow the heavy deadlights to swing over the glass ports and screw down tight; paintings – landscapes and seascapes – in narrow, black frames were screwed to the bulkheads (and they were good oils, not cheap prints). A recent addition just outside each door – the saloon could be entered from a passage on either side –was wire racks to hold the lifejackets that officers were required to carry at sea when going on watch. With the watches changing at eight, twelve and four o’clock, they could eat before going up to the bridge or just as they came off – breakfast, for example, was served for an hour.
A discreet question to Captain Hobson had revealed that the engineer officers had their meals in the saloon only when the ship was in port, and even then often preferred eating in their own mess room. ‘It’s a company rule – and one I enforce very strictly – that anyone eating in the saloon must be in uniform. If an officer can’t be bothered to change, then he’s free to miss a meal. It’s different for the four cadets – they’re not allowed to miss a meal. The engineers, though – well,’ Hobson explained, ‘the company lets them have their own mess, and the chief engineer can make his own rules. If they are doing some very dirty job, for example, he might let them sit down to a meal wearing flannel bags and a jersey. I don’t know; the mess room is the chief engineer’s responsibility, and in a merchant ship he’s second in command, as you probably know.’
At dinner the previous evening Yorke had been introduced to an almost bewildering number of officers, ranging from the chief radio officer to the senior second engineer, from the electrical officer (always known as ‘Lecky’) to the chief steward. Several of the officers had their wives staying on board – they were all going on shore today, in anticipation of the ship going out into the River Mersey tomorrow. They were an odd collection of women, ranging from the perky yet homely wife of the chief radio officer, who called everyone ‘luv’ and genuinely seemed to mean it, to Lecky’s wife, a sulky young woman whose features seemed too small for her face, her mouth puckered up in a perpetual discontented sneer at her husband, and whose hair had the startling red that could only come from a bottle. The women, Yorke decided, ranged from the girl next door who had waited for years for her man to ‘get his ticket’ and with the necessary Board of Trade Certificates to obtain a steady job, to a trollop who suddenly found herself pregnant and needed a husband.
Arriving in the saloon early for breakfast, Yorke found his guess had been right, the married men with their wives on board would be eating as late as possible. The only person there was the chief engineer, a stocky and bald man nearing sixty who was a self-proclaimed bachelor. He had a noisy habit of eating crisp, dry toast with his mouth open but was a cheerful man who had been with the ship, he told Yorke, ‘from the day the builders took delivery of the engine’. For a whole year before the war the Marynal had acted as a cargo liner – the chief engineer was careful to emphasize the liner, a ship carrying cargo or passengers on a regular route or line and thus not a tramp (which went from port to port touting for cargoes), with a top speed of sixteen knots.
‘Mind you, the owners never let us make passages at sixteen; our economical speed is just under twelve. But I remember the day we did our speed trials with all the builder’s men on board. Aye, that was a great experience, watching the revolutions creeping up and up, until we were making sixteen… But now it’s six-knot convoys for us. The engines are barely turning. Injectors sooting up, too. Suddenly the bridge phones down on a dark night complaining that the funnel is spouting sparks. Of course it is! Soot from weeks of slow speeds. Now I try to blast it out in the daytime. I did it once with a following wind and the mate had just had the fo’c’sle painted – you should have heard his language; he thought I’d done it a’ purpose. The fore part of the ship looked as though it had black measles.’
Yorke made sure he was in the saloon promptly at noon for lunch, hoping that the wives would make their husbands late as they primped their hair and tidied up their lipstick: there had been signs that one or two of them had learned from their husband that the naval officer on board had been serving in destroyers and if he was not careful meals for the rest of the day would be prying sessions.
He was lucky; again the only man there was the chief engineer. ‘You’ll go far, young man,’ the chief said. ‘You watch points. That’s what you’ve got to do to get on, watch points.’
Yorke was puzzled by the phrase but the chief added: ‘Them bloody women – you’ve got to get in quick when we’re in port: it’s the only time those wives get waited on and they love humbugging around, sending the stewards off for more glasses of water and complaining the toast is overdone. Overdone! Well, that tells you the kind of women they are. Anyway, watch points; nip in quick a’fore those female vultures descend on the feast table. Still, we’ll be rid of them by this evening. The Old Man says we move out into the river early tomorrow; the tug’s booked for seven o’clock. That means my little sewing machine will start warming up at six. And with a bit of luck she won’t stop for another six weeks or so.’
Yorke, finding the easy chair in his cabin grew hard lumps in odd places after half an hour, was just about to get up when there was a knock on the door and Watkins appeared with letters, two in official buff envelopes, one in the particular blue that Clare used, and another addressed in his mother’s handwriting.
‘Oh, by the way, Watkins, I was thinking of having a look round the DEMS quarters later this afternoon. Will you send Jenkins along to see me?’
An hour later Yorke found himself climbing down the vertical ladder to the DEMS gunners’ accommodation under the poop deck. What had once been a storage area had been divided into some medium-sized cabins, with one large cabin used as a mess. Tall, grey-painted lockers lined a bulkhead, showing where the men kept their clothing. There were four circular Players cigarette tins on the table which had been burnished on the outside so that they seemed to be made of stainless steel. Yorke picked one up and saw that instead of the usual fifty cigarettes, it was half full of sand. A safe kind of ashtray, but…
‘Where do you get the sand – firebuckets?’ he asked Jenkins.
‘No sir, there’s a tub of sand up in the forepeak to use in the firebuckets, and we can use it. The Mate’s scared stiff we’ll brew up a fire down here, with all those ready-use shells in the rack round the 4-inch just above us, so we can have all the sand we want. We usually bring him back a couple of sandbags full when we can get a swim on a nice beach in the tropics.’ He gave a shiver. ‘Times like this, sir, I don’t believe the tropics exist.’
Jenkins led him to the various cabins, where the men had their uniforms, blankets and cleaning gear laid out neatly, the soldiers sticking to the Army way and the seamen to the system they had been taught in the Royal Navy. The most impressive equipment, Yorke thought, was the Army topee, looking just like a light tan version of the London bobby’s helmet and about as unwieldy. He remembered seeing old coloured prints of British troops in India and in the South African war wearing such hats. Obviously the War Office had not changed the design for a century, although the troops in the Eighth Army went bareheaded whenever possible, something which even a year before the war would have been reckoned an invitation to the sun to send them mad, or at least start the process of frying their brains. Army-issue shirts still had buttons for spine pads of felt, though no one used them now.
Yorke’s days as first lieutenant of a destroyer were only a few weeks behind him, and he could remember all too well the quick inspection which preceded the captain’s inspection on Sundays. Well, Jenkins and his men had been working hard, polishing with O-Cedar whatever wood took a shine, rubbing away at metal with the Brasso. Handrails had Turk’s heads in white line at top and bottom, with canvas wrapped round in between and the seam carefully sewn in a sailmaker’s stitch, or for shorter lengths there was some good fancy work which had been scrubbed clean – probably with a couple of mugs of Parozone bleach in the water.
It all pointed to the men taking a pride in their quarters. In turn that meant they were proud of their ship and happy in her. All of which was a credit to Jenkins and the lance bombardier, the chief officer, and finally the captain. Keeping DEMS gunners happy must be the devil of a job because their normal duties were dull – in port it meant cleaning quarters, oiling and greasing guns, and scrubbing and restitching canvas covers. At sea there were long waits and occasional brief action stations…watches spent huddled in what little cover there was around the 4-inch gun when sailing alone. Off watch meant sleeping, playing uckers or cards, smoking, reading Wild West stories, looking once again through tattered copies of Razzle and Men Only…
Inspection of the guns took half an hour. The Vickers 4-inch mounted on the poop was indeed an ancient piece but Jenkins obviously loved it, and so did the lance bombardier, with the affection young men had for a peppery grandfather. The shells sticking up like a row of stubby thumbs in a circular rack going right round the poop were well painted and then lightly greased. The 4-inch, Yorke could tell, represented a ‘proper gun’ to the men; something that might do some damage to the enemy. When he reached the monkey island above the bridge and found the canvas covers off the two Oerlikon 20 mm cannons he sensed these too were guns the men liked; weapons that could be trusted not to jam or play tricks. And they were, of course, very effective against low-flying aircraft; a well-aimed burst could bring down a four-engined Focke-Wulfe Condor or Kurier. There were twelve Hotchkiss to inspect in twin mountings, and it was clear that they found no favour in the heart of Jenkins or the lance bombardier. But they were well cared for; each small armour-plate shield, shaped like the window of a Gothic church, was well painted; the guns were lightly oiled; the canvas covers, neatly rolled and stowed at the rear of each mounting, were scrubbed and the stitching was firm.
For a moment Yorke thought of asking to see the grenade projector, and the PACs, which were obviously Heath Robinson devices, but he had glimpsed the rectangular green boxes (in which PAC cables were probably stored) on either side of the forward end of the monkey island, each with a rocket canted up beside it, and decided that DEMS gunners’ pay ought to be doubled if they were expected to handle such ludicrous but dangerous toys. He tried to picture the secret committee which had thought of, made, run trials and persuaded someone in authority to approve production of such devices for merchant ships.
Finally, back in his cabin, Yorke took off his jacket, loosened his tie – the laundry in London had put too much starch in the shirt collar and it made his neck sore – and started to read his letters. It was a game, a test of willpower, but he liked to see how long he could wait to read a letter. The two buff OHMS letters he could keep for a week without much trouble; but – he looked at his watch – an hour was long enough to wait to read what Clare had to say. He decided to leave hers until last. The first buff envelope told him that he had been overpaid 9d a week for nineteen weeks and would he take immediate steps to refund the money; the other told him when he was to go to Buckingham Palace to receive his decoration. On that date, he noted, the Marynal would be in mid-Atlantic and, with the rest of the convoy, starting the swing southwards towards the tropics.
The letter from his mother was short, humorous and newsy. Clare came to see her when she was off duty, and they went to various places that they had wanted to see for ages but had never managed to fit in before. They had heard two debates in the House of Commons and, she commented, several young Members were trying to score runs by attacking the way the war was conducted when any other Member with any guts would have asked them why they were not helping fight it, leaving the older folk to do the grumbling. ‘We shall no doubt hear a lot from these young gentlemen after the war,’ she wrote sarcastically, ‘because they are very glib. And, if the casualties increase, they’ll be the only young survivors.’
Clare began by giving news of patients he knew at St Stephen’s. Two surgical cases had recovered enough to be sent down to Willesborough and Sister Scotland, on the telephone last night making arrangements for them, wished to be remembered to him. The man now in his bed on the night the bomb dropped – as he read the words he could feel her body pressing on his – was a paymaster with a hernia and who had a terror of getting haemorrhoids. The rest of the letter, written the night he had left for Liverpool on the early train, was of the kind that made a man fold it carefully and put it in his wallet, and take it out in the lonely days before the next delivery of mail, and read it again and again.
A knock on the door startled him. It was one of the Marynal’s four cadets. The Navy and a few shipping companies called them midshipmen; most called them cadets; some referred to them as apprentices, which was the most accurate if not the most prestigious phrase: they were apprentice officers, even though all too frequently a third-rate company and a ruthless chief officer used them as cheap labour and made sure they never received a minute’s instruction in mathematics, navigation, cargo work or ship construction. From what he had heard, Yorke knew that such youngsters had to pick up what they could in their off-watch time, poring over the standard text books.
‘Blackout, sir,’ the cadet explained. ‘I’m supposed to shut the deadlights.’
‘Don’t worry; I’ll do them.’
The boy did not move; instead he looked embarrassed. He was, perhaps, just past his seventeenth birthday. From the nicks in his cheeks had to shave once a week and today was the big day. But he was smartly dressed even though his nails showed he had spent the day hard at work, probably in overalls; doing a seaman’s job. ‘I’ll do them if you don’t mind, sir. You see, I have to report to the Mate that I’ve seen them all secured, and you won’t want me standing here watching you.’
Yorke grinned and said amiably, ‘All right, you do that one and I’ll do this.’
He swung the deadlight – in effect a second port, only made of solid metal – across the glass one and screwed down the clips. The cadet had done the other one and said: ‘Thank you, sir. Are – are you coming with us this trip?’
Yorke nodded, and the boy took a deep breath. ‘Is it true you won a DSO in destroyers, sir? And was wounded?’
Yorke nodded again, and then said: ‘There are hundreds like me, you know!’
‘Yes, sir, but you’ve come on board with a lot of secret equipment and two wireless operators. If you’re doing a special job and need someone to help, well, sir, I’d be only too glad to do it when I’m not on watch.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Reynolds, sir. You see, I’m hoping to transfer to the RNR soon as a sub-lieutenant. I can when I’ve got two years’ sea time. Well, providing I pass the Admiralty selection board. I’ve got all the papers because I wrote to the Admiralty and they gave me all the details.’
‘How much sea time have you put in up to now?’
‘Just over a year, sir. And a year at nautical school. You can take your second mate’s ticket after only four years now – it used to be five. Then you can serve as a third mate. You’re always one behind your certificate you see, sir, until you get your Master’s ticket. Then you serve as Chief Officer for a few years, and get a command if you’re lucky. And it’s a good idea to take an Extra Master’s ticket, too.’
Yorke was interested in the youngster’s keenness. ‘Why transfer to the RNR then? Surely you’ll lose sea time as far as the Merchant Navy is concerned? Then when the war ends you won’t have a ticket and I’m sure no one will want to employ ancient ex-cadets!’
‘You think the war will last another year, sir?’
What a question… Another year of war and the boy could apply for a selection board to be appointed a sub-lieutenant, RNR. If the war was over in a year it would mean Britain had lost; if she could hold on more than a year she would probably win, but the war would then last – well, how long? Two, three, four years?
‘At least another couple of years, I should think.’
The boy looked at Yorke, sensed the reply was an honest one, and grinned. ‘Well, that’s all right then, sir. In a year I can transfer. Two years in merchant ships and there’ll be no sitting for a second mate’s ticket because I’ll be dead: ships are being sunk so fast. The old Marynal is running out of time, you mark my words, sir. She had five sister ships. Only one of ’em is still afloat.’
‘Is that why you want to transfer to the RNR?’
‘Oh no, sir, you stand more chance of getting killed in the Navy. No, I’m just sick of being attacked by these U-boats and bombers without being able to shoot back with anything that can do any good. Harm, rather. My mum and dad, you see; they lived in Croydon, right beside the old aerodrome; and the house got a direct hit, so I’m an orphan – well, my dad’s sister, Aunty Lily, she’s still alive, but she’s getting old and is always tipsy. She didn’t recognize me when I last went there.’
‘Where do you go for your leaves?’
‘Well, if one of the other cadets asks me home I go with him; but often as not I stay in the ship.’
‘Very well,’ Yorke said, ‘if I need an assistant I’ll ask the Captain for you.’
Now that the cabin was lit by electric light, the cork insulation covering the bulkheads and deckhead was emphasized; the whole cabin had the effect of a house cement-washed with tiny pebbles or gravel and then painted white. The cork chips stopped condensation in cold weather and were supposed to help keep it cool in the tropics. The hell of being in a cabin like this at night was that you couldn’t have fresh air and light; opening the door tripped an on-off switch and put the lights out – a blackout precaution, when the ship was at sea, against someone suddenly opening a door before the lights were switched out.
He looked at his watch again. Two hours before dinner, and probably about the same amount of time before the raids started. The Germans would have to be asleep not to notice that the Gladstone and Queen’s Docks in Liverpool were packed with fully-laden ships. The Luftwaffe was probably alerted to stage a big raid, U-boats were no doubt soon to be warned once the convoy had sailed – they would not attack within 500 miles of the coast because of Coastal Command. He suddenly felt tired and decided to go to bed.
It had taken two hours for the Marynal to get clear of the Queen’s Dock and out into the River Mersey, a process which at times seemed like trying to lead a willing but large elephant out of a small but sharply-angled maze. The tug had pushed and pulled; Captain Hobson had used the propeller skilfully and mercifully there was very little wind, just the grey of a chilly drizzle, mixing with smoke from fires still burning after the night’s bombing. The Mersey seemed to suck down the grey from the clouds and blend it with its own muddy brown water which contained more dead cats and dogs, contraceptives, soggy cardboard boxes and cabbage leaves than Yorke had previously seen in a waterway.
She had anchored for a tide and Yorke, used to the Royal Navy, where there were always plenty of seamen available (because many extra were needed when a warship went into battle), was startled by how few men were needed. The third officer had been on the bridge with Captain Hobson and a cadet. Then Yorke had seen the chief officer, strolling up to the fo’c’sle, where he was joined by a man he later discovered was the carpenter. The second officer had gone aft to the poop.
Captain Hobson had from time to time given orders to the cadet, who swung the indicator of the engine-room telegraph, and occasionally called a helm order to the quartermaster at the wheel. From inside the wheelhouse he could only see forward, and then through narrow horizontal slits in the blocks of armour-plated material which looked like grey-painted nut nougat and which were bolted on the front and sides of the wheelhouse, so he preferred to stand outside on one or other wing of the bridge, giving his orders quietly in his pleasant Yorkshire accent.
Finally he had the ship stemming the tide, which was just beginning to ebb. One order stopped the propeller turning; then he picked up the telephone which linked him to the chief officer on the fo’c’sle. ‘Just about here, Mr Metcalfe; we’re in eight fathoms…’
The chief officer waved to the carpenter, who turned the brake-wheel on the capstan and with a roar the chain started running out of the locker below as the anchor splashed into the river. The chief officer turned his head away from the cloud of rust and the carpenter spun the wheel again, so that the chain slowed down and eventually stopped.
Finally the ship was satisfactorily anchored, but even lying out in the river motor launches brought out men – Customs officials, port officials, company officials. The marine superintendent came on board to say goodbye to Captain Hobson and meet the naval lieutenant travelling in the Marynal and, more important, he confirmed that there would be no more passengers: the remaining passenger cabin would be empty for the voyage.
By late afternoon the Marynal was under way, surrounded by thirty-four other merchantmen. Each had her name board down – this, a large hinged plank usually fitted on either side of the bridge, was normally stowed folded up, hiding the name, but now, when the two frigates and three corvettes trying like sheepdogs to get the ships into convoy formation needed to be able to shout instructions (or threats) over the loudhailer, the name boards came in useful. Once the convoy was formed up the name boards would be folded again and each ship would be grey and anonymous, her name at bow and stern either removed or painted over.
Finally seven ships were steaming abreast of each other on the northern side of Liverpool Bay, the leaders of the columns, and the rest of the ships beginning to manoeuvre to get into the right column. ‘The fact is,’ Hobson said to Yorke, ‘every master has spent his whole working life keeping his ship as far away as possible from any other vessel: in peacetime another ship close by means the risk of a collision. Now, in wartime, we’re expected to back and fill quite cheerfully yards from someone else like a pregnant woman scurrying through the Christmas sales looking for a bargain. You chaps are trained right from the start to operate in squadrons, or flotillas, or whatever you call them, so you don’t have patience with us old fogies.’
‘True enough,’ Yorke agreed, ‘but Johnny Gower has only an hour’s daylight left to get all these ships in position and steaming on the convoy course… If a U-boat sneaks in to attack with them scattered all over Liverpool Bay, it’d be Johnny’s neck on the block because there’s no way his escorts could do anything about it.’
Hobson watched as the chief officer manoeuvred the Marynal to pass astern of a ship in the fourth column and begin the turn to get into the fifth column, the next astern of the Swedish ship. The Swede was the third in the column, the Marynal the fourth, and the fifth and last in the column was an ancient three-island coal-burner with a tall, thin funnel; now getting into position like an old dowager joining a funeral procession.
Captain Hobson saw Yorke looking at her. ‘One of the “Starving Stevens” – a tramp in peacetime. The owners have a dozen or so ships and a long history of underpaying crews and cheating them out of their grub…the kind of owners that give shipping a bad name and the reason why the lads sometimes need a strong union. And that particular one, the Flintshire – she’s a “smoker”. The commodore’ll be calling her up every day and telling her to make less smoke.’ At that moment, as if to confirm it, her funnel erupted a stream of oily, black smoke which then curved astern and flattened out as the ship moved forward from under it.
Yorke looked ahead at the commodore’s ship, leading the next column to port, but Hobson said: ‘They’ll leave her to smoke for today, just to give her stokers a chance to get their muscles back into trim. But you can bet her captain is on to his chief engineer already – the last time I was in convoy with her she smoked so badly the commodore ordered her to quit and she had to finish the trip on her own. Luckily we were bound for Freetown: if we’d been homeward bound she’d never have made it through the U-boats.’
By now the Marynal was beginning to pitch as she met the swell waves rolling in across Liverpool Bay from the north-west, and the bow of each of the ships occasionally spurted a white moustache. The Marynal vibrated because like all motor ships she had a critical speed, a narrow band at which she vibrated. Most captains and chief engineers hurried through it but occasionally, like now, they were forced to stay in it. Down in the galley stewards would be cursing as all the crockery and pans rattled. He pictured the table laid in the saloon for dinner and the glasses and cutlery vibrating their way to the edges, and the stewards wondering how long it would go on, trying to decide whether or not to fit the battens round the edges, the fiddles that stopped objects sliding off in heavy weather.
Hobson cursed and finally strode into the wheelhouse, picking up the telephone to the engine room. A minute or two later the Marynal’s speed dropped a knot or two and the vibration stopped. From now on all speed orders to the engine room would be given over the telephone; the big brass pillars of the engine room telegraphs on each wing of the bridge would not be used while she was in convoy. From now on it would be the ‘up two revolutions…down one…up four…’ about which the chief engineer had complained but which would keep the Marynal in position.
Night fell and the ships all round the Marynal merged into the darkness. Yorke was thankful there would be no zigzagging until they were out in the Atlantic: as they headed north-west they were in effect going towards the narrow neck of a funnel, leaving the Isle of Man to starboard and due to pass the channel between Northern Ireland to port and Scotland only twenty miles or so to starboard – Scotland seeming here to be a series of peninsulas dangling down like fingers reaching out for Ireland – the Mull of Kintyre, and then the Mull of Oa. Not far away to the west a country was at peace: in Eire there was no blackout, and no welcome, and the German Embassy was doing its normal business in Dublin. The bases in south-west Eire which could swing the balance in the Battle of the Atlantic were denied to the Royal Navy.
Yorke felt lost: being in a ship at sea with no duties was disturbing, giving him a vague feeling that he had forgotten something but was not quite sure what. Nor was it being at sea in normal circumstances: instead of the steady whining of steam turbines there was the drumming of diesels, more like a heavy lorry or a charabanc coasting down a hill.
He picked up a pair of binoculars and focused them on the Swedish ship, which was now just two hundred yards ahead. She had a good profile, a slight round in the bridge section giving a streamlined look, the funnel low and wide without seeming squat. All the accommodation was amidships, the fo’c’sle small and probably used only as storage for paint and rope. The poop was almost non-existent; being a neutral ship she carried no 4-inch gun there.
She was pitching, her cruiser stern lifting slightly in seesaw unison as her bow dipped. At this slow speed her propellers – he remembered that like most of the rest she had twin screws – left a distinctive wake of even whorls on the surface of the water. The smoke from the funnel was almost imperceptible; a series of tiny pulses.
Up to now a Swedish ship in an Allied convoy had been for him just a reference on a sheet of paper: the entry ‘(SW)’ after a ship’s name on a long list. There had been eleven such convoys and eleven such dockets, all locked up now in Uncle’s safe at the Citadel, along with a twelfth, a new one which Yorke had started, giving every detail he knew up to the time the Marynal sailed from the Queen’s Dock. If anything went wrong that docket would save his successor a lot of work.
But what had seemed a certainty back in the Citadel, in the curiously tense atmosphere of the ASIU room, seemed rather remote out here at sea. Looking at it on paper and noting that a Swedish ship had been the only common factor in each of the convoys, it had seemed not just suspicious but halfway towards solving the mystery of the insider U-boat. Such a fine clue, such a brilliant deduction, he jeered at himself, that he did all he could to persuade Uncle to let him get to sea in the next convoy that had a Swedish ship, leaving Clare, and for that matter a whole lot of remedial exercises for his hand and arm, which was now becoming very painful, to find out precisely what was happening and put a stop to it.
A sort of seagoing Sherlock Holmes, he sneered at himself, except that out here in the convoy, with a Swede just ahead, he was beginning to feel like the Toytown policeman on the BBC’s Children’s Hour. How could a Swedish ship sailing as number three in the fifth column possibly have anything to do with insider attacks by U-boats? If the ships were all sunk on the same bearings from the Swedish ships one could guess the Swedes were fitted with torpedo tubes. In fact all they had was the smug attitude of a neutral selling materials to both sides without even attempting any of the humanitarian work that Switzerland carried out. Yet one should be fair, he told himself; Sweden had the Russians on one side and the Germans on the other; she had seen two of the other nations in the original ‘Three Crowns’, Norway and Denmark, invaded by the Germans. Yet, yet…why was Sweden spared by the Germans? There could be no humanitarian reasons; having Sweden neutral gave Germany no advantage. She had to send her troops by the trainload through Sweden to occupy and garrison Northern Norway – indeed, the Free Norwegians regarded Sweden’s permission as the ultimate stab in the back. It could only be Sweden’s old and close friendship with Germany that saved her.
Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter a damn out here; the convoy was under way in the proper formation; the three corvettes had managed to refuel and reammunition and join in time; it was getting damned cold as night fell, and there was absolutely no reason why he should stay on the bridge, particularly with a warm cabin and a pile of books and magazines waiting for him. And by now, with the door left open for so long, the smell of the O-Cedar might have gone away, and the Brasso, too. If the price of freedom was eternal vigilance, the price of a polish was an eternal odour, or so it seemed.