Convoy (24 page)

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.’