The Grandmothers (26 page)

And to stand here at the dark rail, on a dark deck, looking into blackness - no, better downstairs, better below deck, and up and down the tiers of that enormous edifice men were making that decision: below deck was the illusion of safety, with the walls of the ship around them.

So they were thinking, that first night.

To sleep in a hammock takes practice. It was not a comfortable night. On the table where they would have their meals stood basins where, having tumbled out of their hammocks again, some were being sick; they scrambled back into hammocks, falling, cursing, bruising themselves.

The morning was grey and cold; they were in the Bay of Biscay. Corporal Clark, fussy with worry and indecision, and because he-was feeling sick, told them to have breakfast. He did not know if this was the right thing: the sergeants were on the deck above, with some of the lieutenants, and he knew, having gone up to see, that many were m their bunks.

James and the farmer’s son ate some porridge and wished they hadn’t.

Orders came for attendance on deck, for inspection, but Corporal Clark went up again to the sergeants. Most were ill, but Sergeant Perkins, feeling fine, came down, and saw that the men were not up to it.

The Bay of Biscay was doing its worst. From top to bottom of the great ship, the men were ill, and the smell anywhere below decks, or in the cabins, was foul.

In their hammocks the constant swaying, so bad that the hammock of one man knocking another could set off the five in that row, was unendurable. Out of their hammocks, trying to sit at the table, there was no relief. Up on deck, surrounded by a grey tumult of water, was as bad. By the evening of the second day it was evident this was a ship of the sick, except for a minority who were apparently immune, and who volunteered for mess duty, where they could eat as much as they liked, hut were ordered for cleaning duty, which meant swabbing fouled cabins and fouler decks.

Below the layer where B Platoon was, which they had felt must be the ultimate hell-hole, was a deeper layer of crammed humanity. When the ship had been fitted to take troops, attempts had been made at ventilating these depths, but in those commodious spaces, which had once housed the luggage of the rich, or foodstuffs designed for peacetime menus, the air was bad, and everyone was sick down there. On the third night, men on E Deck heard screaming from below them: this was how they became aware they were not the lowest depths of suffering. Claustrophobia, they knew at once; for they themselves were in danger of breaking and screaming. It was not only the press of the ship’s walls about them, but knowing how the great dark outside went on to a horizon they knew must be there, but could not see: no moon, no stars, thick cloud, dark above and dark below.

On the fourth night, ignoring the corporal, who followed them, not even expostulating, they were on deck, where at least the air blew cold. They lay along the walls of a deck, keeping their eyes shut, and endured. Rupert Fitch, the farmer’s son, was better off than most. He sat with his back against a wall, his head on his knees, and hummed dance tunes and hymns. The great ship ploughed on into the dark, with a deep steady swaying motion. In the morning nothing had changed, but the deck was crowded with men, some from the lower depths. Corporal Clark, the shepherd of B Platoon, was lying like them, rolling a little as the ship did, face down, head on his arms.

There came tripping down the companionway Sergeant ‘Ginger’ Perkins, a short compact-bodied man, with bristly carroty hair, and a belligerent stance cultivated for his role. He might have intended to impose order on a shocking scene, but while he did not suffer himself, he had spent days now surrounded by the suffering. His nature was such that his impulse had to he a bellow of ‘Pull yourselves together!’ but he was silent. Some of the men were in pools of vomit, and diarrhoea had made its appearance.

‘Corporal Clark!’ he shouted, and the corporal tried to sit up, but the change of position made him retch. This sergeant was famed for his strictness. ‘Hard but just’, was what he aimed at, but the formula did not apply today. He went down into B Platoon’s sleeping quarters - the nearest. Crockery from the cupboard was lying smashed in the vomit on the floor. The smell was horrible. He stood hesitating: his responsibilities were on E Deck, were here; he had no charges in the ship’s depths. But up on D Deck, where the sergeants had their being, reports had arrived about what was going on in the ship’s dark bowels. The corporals, those who were still functioning, had come up to say something should be done. Sergeant Perkins decided to take a look for himself. Down several ladders he tripped, and stood in a large space, so dimly lit he couldn’t see the further walls, and heard moans coming from some hammocks, though most were empty: the sufferers had taken themselves up to D Deck. Against orders! Against anything permissible! This was pure anarchy, and he felt licensed to make a decision. He himself would go up to C Deck and tell any officer on his feet and responsible that if anarchy was to end, then orders should go forth that the wretches still down there in that stinking dark must go up into the air.

Sergeant Perkins returned to E Deck and his level of duty: a hundred men, but who could say which of these poor wretches lying everywhere on deck, most face down, heads in their arms, were his? He turned his back on the scene and stood at the rails, and regarded the heaving grey sea. Sergeant Perkins had paddled in rock pools as a child, taken a crab in his pail to the boarding house, been told by his father to go and put it back. That had been his sea. As a child he had not taken in the desolation of the ocean’s vastness, not seen much more than a pool in rocks, a beach where waves ran in over his feet while he jumped and screamed with laughter. Now he looked out, hardly seeing where the sea ended and the sky began, and he thought of the submarines somewhere down there, and he was afraid. A peacetime sergeant, he had not before this voyage had occasion to feel fear.

He turned, slowly, giving thanks for sound stomach muscles -under strain, today - and announced to anyone capable of listening that the weather would improve. He had heard that it would from an officer descending to D Deck from C Deck. ‘It can’t go on like this,’ he mused, in his private voice, which was an all-purpose cockney, modified or strengthened according to the person he was speaking to. In his sergeant’s voice he said, ‘Corporal, when you’re feeling better, report to me.’ No reply. Along the deck one of the bodies in a knot of them - A Platoon, he believed - was moaning, ‘God, God, God.’

‘God is about it,’ thought Sergeant Perkins, smartly ascending the ladder to D Deck, and then up again to C Deck where, having asked permission to speak, he said that what was going on in the bottom of the ship was a crying shame. ‘We’d be prosecuted if we kept animals in those conditions, sir.’

When badly seasick, as most of us may remember, death seems preferable to even another ten minutes of this misery - death even by U-boat, some of these men might have agreed. And then, just as Sergeant Perkins had promised, the sea was calm, and men were slowly coming to themselves, sitting up, trying to stand, staggering to the rails and seeing the sea properly, possibly for the first time since they embarked. It was now a quiet grey-silk sea, flecked occasionally with white, and under a blue sky frilled with white cloud.

Corporal Clark sat up. Sergeant Perkins appeared; a squad detailed to restore order was hosing down the decks, and if soldiers’ legs were in the way, that was too bad.

Water was certainly what they needed. They and their uniforms were filthy. Off with their clothes, and lines of naked men moved up to where they were issued with soap that would lather in sea water, were told to put on their hot weather uniforms, and deposit their dirty ones in a heap to be washed. Soon piles, each many yards high, rose on the deck, and another squad was bearing them off, to be washed.

On every deck lines of barbers - which is what they had been in civvy street - stood behind chairs where the men came to be shaved and have their hair trimmed.

On decks newly scrubbed men who a few hours ago could hardly sit up, were put through their drills by sergeants who, most of them, had been as sick. Well, almost: their ventilation was better. Then, back to their quarters which had been hosed, swabbed, and now smelled of soap. There was food. Tender stomachs sulked at the hunks of bread, margarine-smeared, the stew, the rice pudding. James ate a little; the farmer’s son more; no one did well. They were all tired.

Up on the higher decks similar ablutions and tidyings went on. The highest deck had a swimming pool, and there the officers - so they knew, Sergeant Perkins had told them - in relays of twenty were in the water - salt - and then out at once to let in the next twenty.

The Captain and the senior officers went to bed every night fully dressed, with their boots ready beside them.

The sergeants and some lieutenants were m cabins designed for two but fitted for eight, four bunks on each side.

Some senior officers were four or six in cabins meant for two. But of course the cabins up there were bigger.

‘And before you say it I’ll say it for you,’ said Sergeant Perkins.

‘Life’s a bugger. Hut no one on this ship is on a luxury cruise. Right? Right. Now, form fours.’

Well out of the Bay of Biscay, they were on their way to Freetown, that ancient si ave-trading port, now prospering out of the ships that went to refuel, restock. But Rupert Fitch told James they were not heading south, but west. ‘Look at the sun.’ Other farmers’ boys were telling town boys ‘Look at the sun.’ This spread unease throughout the ship. Were they not going to Cape Town, then? Or Freetown?

And then, it was hot. Men who had known only English summers, with their rare really hot days, were sweating and ill with heat. Not enough shade on E Deck for the hundreds of men, lying, sitting, or even standing, and there were already cases of sunstroke. Sergeant ‘Ginger’ Perkins, with his fair skin, was scarlet when he addressed them, his neck and arms mottled with heat rash, ‘Too hot to drill, lads. Just take it easy. And don’t get carried away with your water ration - it’s running short.’

Fresh water, short; but all that sea water lapping and rippling down there. A few men, ignorant, tempted, let down their mess tins and brought up sea water, and while admonished by Corporal Clark, drank. They were sick. The staterooms set aside for sick rooms were filling. It was known that some of the officers on the second level of the ship, U Deck, had had to double up again.

When the men changed their uniforms for those washed in sea water, they found that their sweat, enhanced by the salt in the cloth, stung, and the stuff of their shorts and shirts chafed them.

The ship was still going west, Rupert Fitch stood at the rail. He watched how the sun moved, as he had done all his life, how its path on the glittering sea changed, and said that now they were headed south-west.

It was too hot to eat. They wanted only to drink, but a second warning came from above, about using restraint until they reached port.

‘Cheer up, lads,’ said Sergeant Perkins. ‘There’ll be water a-plenty in Freetown. And fruit. There’ll be fruit. We could do with a bit of that, we’ll be eating like kings. What do you say?’

They were saying very little.

Awnings were fitted up all along E Deck and there was a thin hot shade, where men with sun-reddened skins sat or lay dreaming of water gushing from taps, of pools, ponds, streams, rivers; looking, when the dazzle allowed, with eyes used to gentler light, on to the ocean that was calm and seemed to oil and slide, beaten flat by the sun. Shoals of porpoises and dolphins could have entertained them were they not so hot and thinking of U-boats. Flying fishes leaped, and hit the sides of the ship and slid back down into the sea, dead or not, or a high-flier assisted by a breeze landed on the deck among the men, who threw it back.

Harold Murray, the cut-price clothes salesman, rose from the deck, and stalked unsteadily to the ladder going up. He climbed, while Corporal Clark, shouting at him, clambered after bun; then another ladder, while the stout man (not quite so stout now) puffed and strained to keep up. Harold Murray reached B Deck, where he saluted a surprised Commander Birch, and said politely. ‘l’m fed up, I am. I’ve ‘ad it up to ‘ere. I’m going ‘ome’ He was taken to join the madmen.

Every day the men lined up for their salt-water douches, which now fell stinging on reddened skins, some of which were breaking into blisters. Newly shaved faces burned.

The heavy food, bowls of stew, reconstituted soup, scrambled eggs from dried egg powder, the milk puddings, was hardly touched, at mealtime after mealtime.

James sat with his back to the wall of the ship, Rupert Fitch beside him, looked at the sea and believed that each porpoise or dolphin was a U-boat. Every man on the ship well enough stared at the sea and saw U-boats. In those days, submarines had to come up into the air: now they may circle the globe with their load of weapons and never surface. Then … ‘Look,’ a man would shout, ‘look there - a periscope, sir. “No, that’s a fish.’ Fish there were, the ship was moving through a sea of fish. The ship spewed out its rubbish and the unconsumed food, and the waters behind rioted with competing fish of all sizes, while above seabirds screamed and squawked and mewed, diving to snatch booty from the leaping and mouthing fish. A spectacle. All the decks at the stern were crowded with men well enough to enjoy it, mostly the ship’s officers, whose apparent immunity to the sufferings by sun and sea was to the men an affront.

The destroyers that were protecting them seemed to be everywhere, in a different position every time they looked, in front, behind, alongside, their guns slanting down, their searchlights ready to switch on if a submarine were spotted. On their own ship there were guns on the top deck, and anti-submarine guns and waiting searchlights.

Rupert Fitch said they were going east now; they were back on course for Freetown. And for danger, for subs lurked at the entrances to Freetown harbour. James sat with his eyes closed, imagining how the U-boats were moving about down there. He was thinking, If they get us now, if we sink, if I die, then I’ll not have found my girl, the one meant for me. I’ll never have known real love. He remembered the farmer’s daughter in Northumberland and tried to persuade himself that had been love, and that she was dreaming of him. But, if the U-boat got them, it was love that would be extinguished. I lis love. ‘Do you have a girl?’ he asked Rupert Fitch, who replied, yes, he was engaged to marry, and showed photographs of his girl: he knew she would wait for him.