The Cruel Sea

  Out on the upper deck, where at last he gasped the free air, the scene now was like a scene from hell. One of the escorts had fired a snowflake rocket – a big flare which could illuminate a two-mile circle and was meant to limelight any submarine that might be on the surface: its yellow brilliance now hung over the wild water, showing him the convoy straining against the storm, and Sorrel racing off to starboard, hunting and guessing, and then, quite close to them, a ship, badly listed, already on her way down. Even as he watched her, there was a sudden gush of flame from her funnel, and she seemed to fall apart: a filthy waft of burnt oil and paint and steam came towards them, the very smell of death, and she was gone, quenched by the sea. Ferraby leant against a stanchion, physically sick: that ship might have been Compass Rose, and the men now trapped and drowned might have been their own crew, and the place where the torpedo had struck, his own cabin. For many nights after that, he could not bear to go below after he came off watch: he would wander about the upper deck, or curl up in a corner at the back of the bridge, or in the alleyway by the wheelhouse: wakeful till dawn, fingering his safety light and his blown-up life jacket, waiting in taut apprehension for their turn to come. He had seen other men like this, rescued survivors who would not go below again even to snatch a meal, and he had wondered at their fear and their obsession. Now he wondered no more.

  But this was something he could share with no one – and especially not with Mavis, who must now never know the extent of his terror and his danger. They had taken a small house outside Liverpool, and he saw her every time Compass Rose was in harbour: the recurrent meeting and separation and goodbye were sweet and harassing at the same time, not helping him at all . . . More and more, the war was making demands on him beyond his capacity, presenting a bill which his bankrupt spirit could not meet.

  3

  Lockhart had come to rely on Ericson, and to admire him unstintingly in the process. He was everything a Captain should be: the centre of calm on the bridge, whatever was happening, a fine seaman who could handle Compass Rose with absolute assurance, a tireless personality who took infinite pains over every part of his job, whether it was rounding up stragglers, or fixing their position at sea, or cherishing their paintwork when they came alongside the oiler. He seemed irreplaceable: it was therefore something of a shock when he was suddenly put out of action, and Lockhart had to take the ship himself for the last five days of a convoy. Ericson was thrown out of his bunk one night when Compass Rose, at her most captious, achieved a forty-five degree roll, and he broke a rib: the slightest movement gave him intense pain, and it was out of the question for him to appear up on the bridge. Lockhart signalled the casualty to Viperous, and with a good deal of misgiving took over command for the rest of the trip.

  He had of course no choice in the matter, though that did not make it any easier. But once the initial challenge was met, the preliminary awe overcome, he found that he was enjoying himself: he was playing a new role, and it seemed to be within his range . . . Of course it was ludicrous, really: the idea of a freelance journalist called Lockhart roaming the Atlantic in entire charge of a 1,000-ton ship and a crew of 88 men would have raised a laugh in any pre-war Fleet Street bar. But this was no longer pre-war, and the mould was different: he had had eighteen months of training for this moment, eighteen months of watching Ericson and imbibing, unconsciously, the function of command, and when the moment came it seemed not much more than an easy step upwards, with an extra tension to mark the occasion and a certain humorous surprise to spice it. That was one of the best things about the Navy – in wartime at least: it taught you quickly, it taught you well, it taught you all the time: suddenly you woke up with a direct responsibility for a valuable ship and a section of a convoy and a lot of men, some of them your friends, and it seemed as if you were simply turning another page of a book you knew by heart already.

  When Ericson, grumbling between the bouts of pain, took to his bunk, Compass Rose was nine hundred miles west of the Irish Channel, butting along as stern escort to a slow convoy which had already had its fill of head winds and U-boat scares. But then the luck changed: the wind dropped, and they made their five-day approach to land without any further warnings and not a single genuine alarm. Lockhart reorganised the watches so as to leave himself free of any set hours: being new to the job, and not having Ericson’s developed confidence, he stayed awake far longer than he need have done and spent, up on the bridge, an average of two-thirds of every day. He had to be ready for surprises, and the safest way to do that was to be on the spot at all the likely times . . . Now and again he went down to report to the Captain, who would repeat, on each occasion, the same insistent questions: was the convoy closed up, was Compass Rose in her proper station, were there any U-boat warnings, had Lockhart taken his sights carefully and worked out their position, what did the weather look like? The only question he never asked directly was: ‘Are you worried about what you’re doing?’ and Lockhart was grateful for the implied confidence. The nearest Ericson got to such a query was when he remarked, going off at a tangent: ‘I don’t suppose you thought this could ever happen, a couple of years ago.’

  Lockhart smiled. He was standing in the middle of the Captain’s cabin, still muffled against the cold outside, his seaboots and duffle coat making an odd contrast with Ericson’s elegant dressing gown.

  ‘A couple of years ago, sir,’ he answered, ‘my only command was a five-ton yawl, rather pretty, mucking about in the Solent.’

  ‘How big a crew?’

  ‘She was rather pretty, too.’

  ‘Get back on the bridge,’ said Ericson, ‘before my temperature goes up.’

  Thank God for a good Captain, thought Lockhart as he made his way up the ladder again: for a good man, too, a man to respect and to like, whatever the circumstances. During the last few months, their relationship had developed a great deal, on welcome lines of friendship: close to each other all the time, and liking the success of the arrangement, they had come to ration their formality, confining it to the necessary public occasions and leaving the rest on an easier plane. Lockhart still called the Captain ‘sir’, in public or private, because that was the way he felt about it; but the two of them, trusting each other’s competence and viewing the whole thing as an effective partnership, had come a long way since Lockhart first stepped into the Clydeside dock office, a year and a half previously.

  The easy voyage drew to its close, with no more disturbing incident than when an Iceland trawler, southbound, tried to cut at right angles through the convoy in semi-darkness, and had to be headed off from so daring a project. In the narrows between Scotland and the north of Ireland, the convoy split, some ships making for the Clyde, others southwards to Cardiff and Barry Roads, and the main portion to Liverpool Bay. Going down the Irish Sea and closing the Liverpool coastline meant, for Lockhart, a sharpening of the tension, like the last part of a training course which concludes with a formidable test paper. In these confined waters, much could happen if anything went wrong with their navigation or if they failed to stay alert: there was a treacherous coastline to be watched, and a great deal of shipping moving up and down it, as well as the usual sprinkling of offshore fishing boats, some with lights, some without, and all of them trailing nets of unknown length and complexity. Fishing boats, indeed, were a hazard of a special character. The Admiralty had for centuries been receiving claims from imaginative fishermen who, as soon as they saw a ship-of-war within five miles of them, immediately shook their fists at heaven and swore blind that their nets had been overrun and torn to ribbons. Their Lordships had even introduced a ‘Fishing Boat Log’ as a countermeasure: whenever fishing boats were sighted at sea, their exact position was to be noted down and an estimate given of their distance away. It did not always do the trick, but at least it sorted the brazen claims from the merely frivolous.

  Lockhart was on the bridge for the whole of the last night, checking their course, making sure of the various buoys and lights as they were si
ghted, leaving nothing to chance: he understood now how immensely tiring Ericson must have found it at the beginning of their commission, with untried, inexperienced officers as his sole help, and a ship whose performance and handling were, even for a professional seaman, largely a matter of guesswork. When dawn came round again, and found the convoy safely past the Isle of Man and heading east for Liverpool and home, Lockhart was conscious of an immense relief, and wearily thankful that, except for the business of docking Compass Rose (which he was still nervous about), the hardest part of the trip was over. The sun drying out the decks and the seagulls playing triumphantly round the bows seemed a reflection of this holiday mood. He had had nothing spectacular to cope with; but it had all been new, and if anything had gone wrong there could have been no more public demonstration of his shortcoming.

  The holiday, however, had been declared too soon. He was just thinking of going below to shave and change, leaving the easy final watch to Baker, when he saw Viperous heading for the stern of the convoy, moving with the high speed, enormous wash and unnecessary air of drama which were the things he most envied in destroyers . . . She cut between the last two ships of the wing column, turned in a flurry of foam, and edged up alongside Compass Rose.

  ‘Switch on the loudhailer,’ said Lockhart quickly. He had no idea what was coming, but there was likely to be a conversation involved. From the destroyer’s bridge he saw binoculars raised and turned his way: at a lower level, the two crews leant over their respective rails, and, recognising their friends here and there, exchanged the repartee appropriate to a homecoming.

  From Viperous, the loudhailer boomed out suddenly, carrying a pleasant, deep voice with the brisk inflection of authority.

  ‘How’s your Captain?’ it asked.

  Lockhart raised his microphone. ‘About the same,’ he answered. ‘It hurts a good deal – he’s still turned in.’

  ‘Give him my best wishes . . .’ There was a short pause. ‘We’re due for leave today, and I want to get in early to see about our pay. Do you think you can lead the convoy in? The Bar Light Vessel’s about nine miles ahead.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lockhart. It wasn’t a moment for hesitation, though he had very little idea of what was required of him. ‘Yes, I can do that.’

  ‘The Commodore’s just signalled them to form single file,’ the voice went on. ‘Take station ahead of him as soon as they’ve done that. When you get up to Gladstone Dock, make the usual arrival signal – thirty-eight ships, convoy B.K. 108. I’ll explain about us.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Lockhart, recalling the need for formality. Viperous’ captain, the senior officer of the escort group, was a young commander with a forceful reputation.

  For a moment longer the two ships kept level pace. ‘All right,’ came the voice from Viperous. ‘I’ll leave you to it. But don’t let them go too fast – the harbour master doesn’t like it.’ Somewhere deep within the destroyer the engine room telegraph clanged, and she suddenly jumped forward, throwing out a bow wave like the slicing of a huge cream cake. ‘We will now,’ said the disappearing voice, authoritative to the last, ‘give you our impersonation of a greyhound of the ocean.’ And Viperous drew swiftly away, leaving Compass Rose as if standing still, and Lockhart pondering the superiority of destroyers over all other ships. If only one could press a button like that aboard Compass Rose, and leave the fleet behind . . .

  But he had more to do than yearn for better things. The convoy was forming into single line, ready for the narrow passage upriver, and he had at least six miles to make up before he was in station at the head of the column. Compass Rose could not rival Viperous’ swift getaway, but she did her best: the hull throbbed as the revolutions crept upwards, and presently they were passing ship after ship on their way to the front of the convoy. Lockhart noticed, without paying much attention to it, that the sun had gone in and that it had turned suddenly colder; but he was not prepared for what followed after. They were just drawing level with the fourth ship of the convoy, and he had sighted the Bar Light Vessel, marking the entrance to the river itself, about two miles ahead of them, when the Bar Light Vessel disappeared; and as he stared round him, unwilling to believe that visibility could have deteriorated so swiftly, the convoy disappeared also, sponged out like chalk from a slate. It was fog, fog coming down from the north, fog blowing across their path as thick as a blanket and blotting out everything on the instant.

  Lockhart leaned over the front of the bridge, momentarily appalled. The fog enveloped them in great thick wafts of vapour, cold and acrid; he could see the tip of their gun barrel, twenty feet in front of him, and nothing more at all – no sea, no ships, not even Compass Rose’s own stern. It was like moving inside a colourless sack, isolated and sightless – and then suddenly he heard the other occupants of the sack, a wild chorus of sirens as the convoy plunged into the fogbank. It had taken them by surprise, when they had just crowded into a single compact line: many ships were less than their own length from the next one ahead of them, and the convoy was telescoping like a goods train when the brakes are applied. Now, unsighted, moving blindly in the raw and luminous air, they were doing the only thing left to them – making as much noise as possible, and praying for the fog to lift.

  Lockhart’s moment of panic did not last. Compass Rose had been in fog before, and he had admired Ericson’s calmness and sure control of the situation: now he simply had to follow that example. There was a temptation to sheer away from the convoy, and take an independent line altogether, but that had to be resisted: in a fog, one had to trust other ships to hold their course, and do the same oneself, otherwise it was impossible to retain a clear picture of what was going on. One single ship, losing its nerve and trying to get out of trouble in a hurry, could destroy that picture, and with it the whole tenuous fabric of their safety, and bring about disaster.

  At the moment all the ships were comfortably to starboard, and he set to work to plot, inside his head, the varying notes of their sirens. The nearest one, with the deep note, was a big tanker they had been passing when the fog came down: the ship ahead of her made a curious wheezing sound, as if some water had got into her siren. The Commodore’s ship, at the head of the column, had another distinguishable note; and above them all the authoritative voice of the foghorn on the Bar Light Vessel, two miles ahead, supplied as it were the forward edge of the pattern. Beyond that foghorn they could hardly go in safety, for there the channel narrowed to a bare fifty yards: if the fog did not lift, and the convoy had to anchor, it must be done within a time limit of not more than twenty minutes.

  Lockhart had the picture in his head, for what it was worth: and beside him in the raw air of the bridge the others – Morell, Baker, Leading-Signalman Wells, the two lookouts – tried to contribute their own quota of watchfulness and interpretation. For the sounds were deceptive – they all knew that well: it was possible that a siren which seemed to be coming clearly from one side was being reflected off the fogbank, and came in fact from some unknown area of danger. Compass Rose ran on, over the oily water, with the ghostly company beside her keeping a distance and a formation which could only be guessed at: the rest of the convoy seemed to recede, while the four sounds Lockhart was especially on the alert for – the big tanker, the ship ahead of her, the commodore, and the Bar Light Vessel – succeeded in even rotation, with Compass Rose as the fifth element in the pattern. As long as that pattern held, and the fog blew over or dispersed, they were safe.

  Suddenly he raised his head, and was conscious of Wells jerking to attention at the same time. A new siren had sounded, an intruder in the pattern, and it seemed to be coming from their port bow – the side away from the convoy, the side that had been clear. ‘Ship to port, sir?’ said Wells tentatively, and they waited in silence for the sound to come again. One – that was the tanker: two – the ship ahead of her: three – the commodore: four – a prolonged wail from the Bar Light Vessel. Then five – a wavering blast, nearer now, coming from that safe space to port w
hich had suddenly assumed an imminent danger. Lockhart felt his scalp lifting and prickling as he heard it. It might be anything – a ship coming out, a stray from the convoy, an independent ship creeping along their own path: but it was there, somewhere in the fog, somewhere ahead of them and to port, steaming along on God-knows-what course and getting nearer with every second that passed.

  He gripped the front of the bridge rail and stared ahead of him. He knew without turning round that the others were watching him: he was the focus now, Compass Rose was in his grip, and her safety and perhaps all their lives depended on what he did next. Their own siren sounded, tremendously near and loud, and then the safe four in succession, and then the damned fifth – nearer still, dead ahead or a little to port. He said: ‘Slow ahead!’ surprised at the calmness of his voice: the telegraph clanged, the revolutions purred downwards to a dull throbbing, the slop and thresh of their bow wave died to a gentle forward rustling. But the tension did not die: he felt himself taut and sweating as Compass Rose ran on, nearing the edge of the known pattern and nearing also the fifth ship, the doubtful element that could wreck them all. If the commodore did not give the signal for anchoring he must do something – either stop dead, or take a wide sheer to port, away from the crowd and the danger: they could not simply run on, swallowing up the safety margin, surrendering foot by foot their only security. He heard Morell by his side cough: the damp air mingled with the sticky sweat under his hair, so that drops ran down his forehead: their own siren boomed out suddenly, just above their heads: he had a quick vision of what might lie a few seconds ahead – the crash, the grinding of wood and metal, the wrecked bows, the cries of men trapped or hurt in the mess decks: he felt all the others watching him, trusting and yet not trusting, hoping that he could meet this inexorable crisis – and then suddenly the port lookout called out: ‘Ship to port, sir!’ and forty yards away, in the fog that suddenly cleared and the sunshine that suddenly broke through, a small coaster slid past them and down the side of the convoy. He felt a great surge of relief as the last wisps of fog blew away, showing him the lines of ships still intact and the Bar Light Vessel riding clear on the smooth water. As suddenly as the danger had come, it had been taken away again. It was a full reprieve: he had done his best, and the best had been good enough, and now Compass Rose steamed on with the rest of them, towards the familiar landmarks of home.