To Risks Unknown (2 page)

The admiral said distantly, ‘I arranged that appointment, Hallum.'

He let his eyes move slowly across the dockyard and rest on the towering outline of Nelson's flagship
Victory.
Against the dullness and the grey steel the old three-decker's black and buff hull made a fine patch of colour, her tall side shining in the rain like polished glass. Nelson, he thought. There was a man. But even he had fools like Hallum to contend with.

‘Lieutenant-Commander Crespin has an excellent record. Up to the time of his last command being sunk he was on constant active duty. Most of that service was in the Mediterranean, with an independent command. He is a man who can think for himself, Hallum.' He did not hide the contempt in his tone. ‘I know his record. I feel almost as if I had met him. The man who commands the
Thistle
for me has to be one like Crespin, and they are not easy to come by.'

Hallum saw Second Officer Frost's brief smile and said angrily, ‘Well, I suppose both the ship and her captain
will
be expendable, sir!'

The admiral ignored him. ‘I don't want some complacent career officer, nor do I require a hare-brained amateur strategist. I need a man who cares. One who gets things done.' He frowned, irritated with himself for rising to Hallum's anger.

‘Ring for my car. It is time to go aboard.'

Lieutenant-Commander John Crespin stood quite still on the edge of the dock and stared down at the ship below him. He did not remember how long he had been there, nor did he recall getting out of the car which had carried him from the harbour station. Behind him on the puddled road his abandoned suitcase marked where he had left the car and walked the last few yards to the dock.

No ship looked at her best when suffering the indignities of a dry dock, and the
Thistle
was even worse than he had expected. Resting on chocks at the bottom of the high-sided basin, supported on either beam by massive spars, she looked the picture of dejection. A few dockyard workers were sloshing through the remaining inches of oily water below her rounded hull, and others were slapping on paint from various precarious perches, indifferent both to their accuracy and the rain which pelted into the dock with increasing vigour.

Although Crespin was used to small ships the corvette
Thistle
seemed minute against the wet concrete and towering gantries around her, and he was conscious of a growing despair which even the prospect of getting away from the land could not dispel. She was two hundred feet long from her chunky bows to her rounded, businesslike stern which would not have looked out of place on a deep-sea whaler. The upper deck was a tangle of welding gear, nameless pipes and abandoned packing cases, and power lines snaked ashore from every hatch to add to the general confusion of a hasty refit. There was not much in the way of superstructure. Just a square, boxlike bridge, a squat funnel and one stumpy mast, the latter forward of the bridge which was most unusual practice in naval vessels. On the forecastle the
Thistle
's main armament, a four-inch gun, was trained haphazardly to starboard with somebody's boiler suit hanging from the muzzle, and from amidships Crespin saw a sudden flare of welding torches where some workmen were putting finishing touches to the additional gunpower.

This was in the shape of two sets of twin Oerlikons, one on either beam. There was already a two-pounder pom-pom above the small quarterdeck and the ship's original Oerlikon just abaft the funnel.

Crespin bit his lip and then started to walk towards the steep brow, at the inboard end of which he could see an oilskinned sentry watching his approach with neither emotion nor interest.

He reached the top of the brow and faltered, feeling slightly sick. After everything which had happened, because of, or in spite of it, he had arrived here. This was to be his new command. Perhaps the last thing left for him to do.

He forced the growing despair to the back of his mind and rested his hands on the wooden rails of the brow. It was nearly six months since he had set foot in a ship. Six months of waiting and hoping. Of rising hope and overwhelming uncertainty. As if to jar his thoughts alive he felt the pain in his right leg. At first he had believed that once the wound had healed he would be the same as before. He had been wrong. He was not the same, nor could he remember what sort of a person he had been up to the time his last command had been shot from under him. The memory of the sleek motor torpedo boat, the creaming bow wave, the very excitement of even the most normal manoeuvre made him starkly conscious of the comparison made by the ship at the foot of the brow. Like a racehorse and a bedraggled mule, he thought vaguely.

The gangway sentry waited until Crespin reached the deck and then levered himself away from the guardrail to salute. It was a tired gesture.

Crespin said quietly, ‘Where is the first lieutenant?'

The seaman ran his eyes over the newcomer before replying. Crespin was wearing his raincoat and displayed no badges or rank. Only his rain-soaked cap proclaimed him to be an officer, and in the dockyard they were two a penny.

He said at length, ‘'E's in the wardroom, sir. 'Oo shall I say' as called?'

Crespin eyed him coldly. ‘Just fetch my case from the dockside. I'll find him myself.'

The mention of a suitcase and the coldness in Crespin's tone seemed to transmit a small warning. There was a ring of permanence about it, and with one more quick salute the man scampered up the brow and vanished.

Crespin found an open hatch and lowered himself down a steel ladder to the deck below. He almost collided with a cheerful-looking man in a blue suit and bowler hat. He was carrying a sheaf of papers in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. He eyed Crespin and grinned.

‘If you're one of the new officers you'd better get yer gear stowed.' He winked. ‘I hear the Old Man's coming aboard shortly, so you'd better get cracking!'

He was still chuckling as Crespin groped his way down a small passageway past a cabin labelled ‘Captain' and towards another marked ‘Wardroom'.

Old Man was right, he thought. Crespin was twenty-seven years of age, but he certainly
felt
old.

He pushed open the door and met the gaze of another officer who was standing on the far side of the wardroom by an open scuttle. He was a veritable giant of a man. Tall and broad, with his thick dark hair almost brushing one of the motionless deckhead fans. He had a heavy but competent face, and Crespin saw that on the sleeves of his unbuttoned jacket he wore the interwoven gold lace of a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve.

Crespin said, ‘You must be Lieutenant Wemyss. I'm Crespin.'

The first lieutenant showed a flash of surprise and then annoyance. ‘I'm very sorry, sir. I was not expecting you until this evening.' He spread a pair of massive hands. ‘It's just that it's been like hell here. Dockyard maties all over the show, and half the incoming signals bogged down in some office or other.'

Crespin smiled. ‘No bother. I didn't want any unnecessary fuss.'

He threw his raincoat across one of the battered-looking armchairs and removed his cap. He could feel Wemyss' eyes following each movement but he did not care. Then he caught sight of himself in a bulkhead mirror above the small sideboard. No wonder Wemyss seemed wary, he decided.

There were deep lines around his mouth, and his grey eyes were just that bit too steady, so that he seemed to be glaring at his own reflection as if he hated it.

He turned his back on the mirror and saw Wemyss' glance fall to the single ribbon on his jacket. The Distinguished Service Cross.

Wemyss relaxed slightly. ‘Well anyway, sir, welcome aboard. It's good to have a commanding officer again. Our last one, Lieutenant-Commander Saunders, had to leave immediately we reached Portsmouth. He's taken command of a brand-new destroyer at Rosyth.'

Crespin watched him guardedly, but there was no hint of a question in Wemyss' remark. Yet he might well wonder why a regular officer, a man with a coveted decoration at that, should be given this command. A reservist would have been good enough. Wemyss himself could have had it.

He asked flatly, ‘Have you been aboard long?'

Wemyss shrugged. ‘Since she was built. I started as the junior sub-lieutenant and dogsbody and I've been with the old girl all the time in Western Approaches. When we were told of this new stunt, about the ship being taken over for special service and so forth, I thought to myself I'd like to stay with her. She's become a habit, I guess.'

Crespin sat down in a chair and rubbed his eyes. He was suddenly conscious of the bulky envelope in his pocket, the orders he had read and re-read a dozen times. Special service. He still did not really understand what it meant. To him and this ship.

He said, ‘Well, what is the state at the moment?'

Wemyss seemed to welcome the sudden crispness in his tone and replied with equal formality.

‘As soon as we handed over to the dockyard a fortnight ago most of the hands were returned to Western Approaches, sir. We have twenty of the original company, consisting of most of the key men, the coxswain, signals and W/T, and, of course, the chief. The coxswain is over at the barracks mustering the new men, about sixty all told.' He smiled gravely. ‘I shudder to think what we'll get. Whenever you ask for volunteers for anything a bit vague you're liable to get some strange birds, sir. Chaps trying to dodge bastardly orders, or avoid getting sent to some ship they
know
is bad.' He looked around the wardroom. ‘The two new subs will be joining ship in the dog watches. I don't know them either!'

‘You will.' Crespin wanted to go to his cabin. To find a small piece of privacy in this ship which would soon be alive and depending on him to keep it so. Eighty officers and men crammed inside this small hull. In the wild Atlantic it must have been a nightmare.

He asked suddenly, ‘How was it in Western Approaches?'

Wemyss seemed to consider it. ‘Grim. I know the papers tell us that the Battle of the Atlantic is turning in our favour. It looked bad enough when I left it, all the same. Forty ships started on our last convoy. Twenty-two reached the Bar Light Vessel at Liverpool!' His eyes were distant. ‘I was second mate of a collier running out of Cardiff before this lot started. I've never got used to watching merchant ships being massacred. It's such a waste. Such a bloody waste!'

Crespin nodded. The next few days would show what sort of a man Wemyss really was, but the first impression was a good one. He was about thirty-three at a guess, and gave an immediate sense of complete reliability. Above all, he was a professional seaman, and in today's Navy that was rare enough, God alone knew.

He said, ‘We'd better get started, Number One. I'll go through the confidential books and so forth later. Right now I want all the signals and the exact state of the dockyard alterations. After I've gone over that I'll want your check of stores and ammunition and a rough outline of the new watch bill if you've got it.'

Wemyss watched him gravely. ‘I've got it, sir.'

‘Good.' Crespin stood up and then winced as the pain lanced through his leg.

Wemyss said quietly, ‘I heard you'd been wounded, sir. Are you feeling all right now?'

Crespin swung on him, his mouth already framing the angry words. Instead he heard himself reply calmly, ‘I'm all right.' He hesitated. ‘Thank you.' Then he turned and left the ward-room.

Lieutenant Douglas Wemyss stared at the closed door for a full minute and then shrugged. He finished buttoning his jacket and then felt the pockets to make sure he had left nothing lying about. With dockyard men running wild all over the ship you could not be too careful.

He thought suddenly of Crespin's barely controlled resentment when he had asked about his wound. Embarrassment? He shook his head doubtfully. Crespin did not seem the kind of officer who had much time for personal feelings of that type. But it was quite obvious to Wemyss that the
Thistle
's new captain had some burden which was far heavier than taking a command. He had only smiled once during the whole interview, and in those brief moments Wemyss had seen a picture of what Crespin had once been. Youthful, even boyish, with a touch of recklessness which was appealing. Then the guard had dropped behind those grey eyes. It was as if Crespin intended to keep his secrets to himself.

Wemyss glanced quickly around the untidy wardroom and then patted the ship's crest at his side. He grinned. He knew from experience that in a ship this size it was hard to keep even a thought secret for more than a minute.

He heard some dockyard workmen laughing beyond the door and set his face in an impressive frown before leaving the wardroom to hurry them along again. One thing was sure. Crespin was not the sort of captain who would tolerate slackness. Not from anyone, he thought grimly.

Crespin pushed aside the bulky folio of stores and modifications and leaned back in his chair. The cabin was small and almost square with one scuttle through which he could see the rainslashed wall of the dock. There was a bunk along one bulkhead with a reading light and a well-worn telephone, so that even in harbour the captain could be contacted with minimum delay. At sea Crespin knew he would be lucky if he ever left the bridge, and then only for catnaps in the tiny sleeping compartment attached to the chartroom.

There was nothing in the cabin to give a clue to the previous occupant. But above the small bulkhead desk was a framed photograph of the
Thistle
in heavy weather, obviously taken from a larger and more stable ship in some convoy or other. Her bows were right out of the water and her after part was so deluged in breaking spray that she appeared to be sliding sternfirst towards the bottom.

He thought of Wemyss' one word in answer to his question. Grim. It was a bad understatement, he thought.

But whatever might lie ahead, the
Thistle
was his ship now. And his home. The last thought came to him so violently that he half rose to his feet and then slumped back again, unwilling to allow his tired mind to explore further than that.