‘I like those Dutchmen,’ he said to Lockhart next morning, when they were walking round the upper deck during Stand-Easy. ‘They take the whole thing seriously – everything’s related to war, or if it isn’t they don’t want to hear about it. Even when I said it was a pity Princess Juliana had had three daughters in a row, instead of a son, their captain got terribly red in the face and said: “If you think we don’t fight for daughters, I smash you. Come outside”. Of course,’ added Ericson reasonably, ‘we’d had a few glasses of Schnapps – but he was quite determined about it . . . That’s the kind of man I like to have minesweeping in front of a convoy: not these bloody Frogs, all yearning for home and missing the corners.’
For the Frenchmen were different: that was something which could not be denied. It happened that Lockhart went aboard the French ship on a good many occasions, to take advantage of the food (which was exquisite) and the chance of talking French; and he could not help being aware of a dubious quality, a fugitive relaxation which seemed to infect the whole ship. It was not that their basic allegiance was in question, but that they had been defeated by events and were not wholly convinced that France could now be rescued from her degrading situation. They talked of General de Gaulle with respect, but they seemed always to leave a margin for events to deteriorate: if de Gaulle failed, they were going to shrug it off – faut pas penser, faut accepter – and put their money on a different horse, even the one labelled Laval and running in the colours of collaboration . . . They were no longer proud, as the Dutch and the Norwegians were proud: they talked much more of their homes and their families, much less of the job they were doing: they longed openly for home, home on any terms, home by surrender if it could not be regained by victory: at times it seemed that their mainspring was not la patrie but l’amour – a four-letter urge which, by an odd coincidence, seemed to render them impotent . . . It was a pity; Lockhart, who had lived in Paris and admired all things French, found it profoundly sad; but it was a manifestation of the Gallic spirit in adversity which could not be disguised.
In the course of an argument the captain of the French ship, somewhat less than sober, said to Lockhart one night: ‘You don’t really trust us, do you?’ He used the tone of voice, the bitter inflection, which seemed to add: ‘We do not mind, because you are a barbarous nation anyway.’ But the stain was there, and was thus acknowledged; and the charge of Anglo-Saxon insensibility could not wipe it out, nor pretend that it was the product of a simple misunderstanding.
There were, as yet, no Americans officially upon the scene: their two years’ profitable neutrality had not yet been ended by the galvanic shot-in-the-arm of Pearl Harbour. But here and there they were to be met: flyers relaxing at Liverpool between trans-ocean trips, and sailors in the anonymous middle reaches of the Atlantic. For they were now escorting some of the convoys, from American ports to a point where they could be taken over by the British escort: strange-looking destroyers, with long names often beginning with ‘Jacob’ or ‘Ephraim’, would appear from the mist, and spell out Morse messages very slowly and gently, for the dull British to assimilate as best they could. ‘They must think we’re a lot of kids,’ said Leading-Signalman Wells disgustedly one day, when an exceptionally prudent American operator had tried his patience to the limit. ‘It’s like Lesson Number One back in barracks. And what a bloody ignorant way to spell “harbour” . . .’ But the main reaction was a pleasant sense of comradeship: it was good to have some more ships lending a hand, at this time of strain, and the fact that the transatlantic link was being completed in this natural way, Americans handing over to British, gave the latter a grateful and brotherly satisfaction. The Americans were still out of the war; but between Lend-Lease, and this unobtrusive naval effort, they were certainly doing their best round the edges.
Others were not. There are degrees of neutrality, just as there are degrees of unfaithfulness: one may forgive a woman an occasional cold spell, but not her continued and smiling repose in other men’s arms. Even in the grossest betrayal, however, whether of the marriage vow or the contract of humanity, there could be variations of guilt: for example, one could understand, though one could not condone, the point of view of such countries as Spain or the Argentine, which had political affinities with Germany and did not disguise their hatred of England and their hopes of her defeat. They had never been married to democracy in the first place . . . But it was difficult to withhold one’s contempt from a country such as Ireland, whose battle this was and whose chances of freedom and independence in the event of a German victory were nil. The fact that Ireland was standing aside from the conflict at this moment posed, from the naval angle, special problems which affected, sometimes mortally, all sailors engaged in the Atlantic, and earned their particular loathing.
Irish neutrality, on which she placed a generous interpretation, permitted the Germans to maintain in Dublin an espionage centre, a window into Britain, which operated throughout the war and did incalculable harm to the Allied cause. But from the naval point of view there was an even more deadly factor: this was the loss of the naval bases in southern and western Ireland, which had been available to the Royal Navy during the First World War but were now forbidden them. To compute how many men and how many ships this denial was costing, month after month, was hardly possible; but the total was substantial and tragic. From these bases escorts could have sailed farther out into the Atlantic, and provided additional cover for the hard-pressed convoys: from these bases, destroyers and corvettes could have been refuelled quickly, and tugs sent out to ships in distress: from these bases, the Battle of the Atlantic might have been fought on something like equal terms. As it was, the bases were denied: escorts had to go ‘the long way round’ to get to the battlefield, and return to harbour at least two days earlier than would have been necessary: the cost, in men and ships, added months to the struggle, and ran up a score which Irish eyes a-smiling on the day of Allied victory were not going to cancel.
From a narrow legal angle, Ireland was within her rights: she had opted for neutrality, and the rest of the story flowed from this decision. She was in fact at liberty to stand aside from the struggle, whatever harm this did to the Allied cause. But sailors, watching the ships go down and counting the number of their friends who might have been alive instead of dead, saw the thing in simpler terms. They saw Ireland safe under the British umbrella, fed by her convoys and protected by her air force, her very neutrality guaranteed by the British armed forces: they saw no return for this protection save a condoned sabotage of the Allied war effort; and they were angry – permanently angry. As they sailed past this smug coastline, past people who did not give a damn how the war went as long as they could live on in their fairy-tale world, they had time to ponder a new aspect of indecency. In the list of people you were prepared to like when the war was over, the man who stood by and watched while you were getting your throat cut could not figure very high.
Liverpool was a sailors’ town, and she went out of her way to make this generously plain. From the merchant ships lining the quays and docks, from the escorts cramming Gladstone Dock, hundreds of men poured ashore every night, intent on enjoying their short hours of liberty: they got drunk, made disturbances, thronged the streets and the public houses, monopolised the prostitutes, seduced the young girls, and accommodated the married women – and Liverpool forgave them all, and still offered her hospitality unstintingly. It was difficult to estimate the contribution to morale which Liverpool made, during this wartime invasion; but the happy background, the sure welcome, which continued for year after year, was a memorable help to sailors, giving them something to look forward to after weeks at sea, something which could take the sting out of loneliness as well as exhaustion.
Compass Rose, of course, came in for her share of this generosity; after being based there for eighteen months, most people on board had contacts ashore, and could be sure of the home cooking and the blessed normality of family life, which was itself the best tonic of
all. Some of Compass Rose’s crew had married Liverpool girls, or had brought their wives up to live there: the ship now seemed to belong to Liverpool, and as long as their luck held and she was not transferred to the Clyde or Londonderry, the two other big Western Approaches bases, they were very happy in the situation – the best compromise between war and peace which was possible.
Ericson also was glad of this permanent tie with the shore, which made for a contented crew and less likelihood of serious leave-breaking; he was even reconciled, on his own account, to the consolidation of his domestic life, with Grace as the placid background and the little house in Birkenhead as his resting place between convoys. He did not concentrate any the less on Compass Rose; and the fact that Grace’s mother was now living with them, and was installed in a permanent position on the left side of the fireplace, meant that he need not feel guilty about sleeping on board if the need arose. The other Birkenhead resident, Tallow (now a Chief Petty Officer), was growing positively sleek on his sister Gladys’ cooking; and he was deriving a certain amount of amusement from the situation between Gladys and Chief E.R.A. Watts, who had been a persistent and welcome visitor ever since Compass Rose was first stationed at Liverpool. Watts was a widower with grown-up children, Gladys was a widow comfortably past the age of romantic ardour; it was a quiet affair, a placid understanding that, come the end of the war, they would settle down together and, between his pension and her modest savings, make a go of it . . . When Watts had first broached the subject to Tallow, it was in such a roundabout way that the latter could hardly grasp what he was driving at: but when Watts finally muttered something about ‘getting fixed up after the war’, light broke through.
‘Why, that’s fine, Jim!’ exclaimed Tallow. The two men were alone in the petty officers’ mess, and on an impulse, Tallow leant forward and held out his hand. They shook hands awkwardly, not looking at each other, but there was warmth in Tallow’s voice as he went on: ‘Best thing that could happen for her. And for you, too. You’ve asked her, eh?’
‘Sort of . . .’ Watts was still embarrassed by the display of feeling. ‘We’ve got a—an understanding, like. The only thing is—’ He paused.
‘What’s the trouble?’
‘She was a bit worried about you. I mean, she’s been housekeeping for you for a long time, hasn’t she? She didn’t want you to be disappointed.’
‘Oh, forget about it!’ Tallow smiled. ‘Might get married myself one of these days – you never know. You go ahead, Jim, and I’ll give the bride away, any time you like.’
‘Can’t see it happening soon,’ answered Watts. ‘Not with the war going the way it is. Longest bloody job I ever saw.’
‘You’re right about that . . . Don’t worry over me, anyway: just name the day, and I’ll dance at your wedding.’
But that was not to be. For Liverpool, the sailors’ town, was soon to pay for that label in the most brutal way imaginable; and a tiny part of that payment bore away with it Watts’ modest hopes of happiness.
5
Even far downriver, at the Crosby Light Vessel, they knew that something was wrong; and as they made their way upstream at the tail of the convoy many of the crew clustered on the upper deck, shading their eyes against the strong May sunlight and looking towards the city they had come to know as home. Morell, who was standing on the fo’c’sle with the men getting out the mooring wires, trained his glasses up the river towards the Liver Buildings: there seemed to be a lot of smoke about, and here and there a jagged edge to the skyline which he had never noticed before . . . At his side he suddenly heard Leading-Seaman Phillips exclaim: ‘Christ! It’s copped a packet!’ and then he smelt – they all smelt – the acrid tang of the smoke blowing downriver, and his eyes, focusing suddenly on a big warehouse just above Gladstone Dock, discovered that it was split from top to bottom, that one half of it was a gigantic heap of rubble, that the rest was blackened and smouldering. His binoculars, traversing steadily across the city and over to the Birkenhead side, showed him many such buildings, and scores of small houses lying ruined in the centre of a great scorched circle: there were fires still burning, there was a heavy pall of smoke lying over the northern part of the city, there were gaps, whole streets missing, rows of houses misshapen and torn. He dropped his glasses, shocked by the scale of the destruction, the naked ruin of a city which they had left prosperous and unharmed; and then he caught the eye of one of his fo’c’sle party, a young seaman whose wife, he knew, had recently come to live in Liverpool.
‘What—what’s it like, sir?’ asked the man hesitantly.
‘Not too good, I’m afraid,’ answered Morell. ‘It looks as if they’ve been raided several times.’
‘Bastards!’ said Phillips, to no one in particular. ‘Look at those houses—’
The smoke and the dirty air, the smell of destruction, blew thick and strong across the river towards them; and such was their homecoming.
From the signal station they were ordered to go straight into Gladstone Dock. ‘I hope they didn’t get the oiler,’ said Ericson, as Wells read out the message to him. ‘She’d go up like a Roman candle . . .’ He had been looking through his glasses at the Birkenhead side of the river, where his own house was: the damage there was on a special scale of fury, as if the bombers, trying for the docks, had mistaken the neat rows of houses for the nearby quayside, and had triumphantly unloaded. Or perhaps they had not minded what they hit . . . Compass Rose veered suddenly across the river, and Ericson called out, in sharp tones: ‘Watch her head, coxswain!’ and up the voice-pipe came Tallow’s answering voice: ‘Sorry, sir!’ and Ericson remembered that he was not the only one who had a personal interest in what had happened at Birkenhead. Thankfully he decreased speed, and set a course for the squat stone entrance to Gladstone Dock. At least they would know soon, at least they had not to wait for the uncertain mail or the chance flight of rumour, to learn the worst.
As they came alongside the southern quay of the dock basin, a berthing party of half a dozen men from the nearest destroyer ran along to meet them and to take their mooring wires. The first heaving line whipped across from ship to shore, establishing contact once more after a fortnight at sea, and Leading-Seaman Phillips, standing high on the fo’c’sle head, called out: ‘What’s been going on?’
One of the berthing party, a tough three-badge able-seaman, looked up and grimaced. ‘You’ve missed something, mate!’ he shouted back. ‘Eight nights on end – that’s all we’ve had: bombers coming over every night as thick as bloody sparrows. They’ve made a right mess of this town, I can tell you.’
‘Go on,’ said Phillips. ‘What’s got it worst?’
The A.B. gestured vaguely. ‘All over, I reckon – Bootle, Birkenhead, Wallasey. And down in the town too: there isn’t any Lord Street left – they got the lot, both sides. Worst bombing of the war, the papers said. I don’t want any worse myself . . . There was an ammunition ship just alongside here, blazing all over, but they towed her out into the middle of the river before she went up.’ He gestured again, more vividly. ‘Best dose of salts I’ve ever had . . . Give us your head rope.’
From the bridge above them a remarkably cold voice said: ‘Stop talking and get on with those wires.’ Phillips winked at the man standing on the quay below him, and got an answering jerk of the head. They both knew, to within very fine limits, just how long such a conversation could go on.
Presently, when they were secure and Ericson, up on the bridge, had rung off the engines, he turned to Lockhart.
‘Number One.’
‘Sir?’
‘There’ll be a lot of requests for special leave, probably. You’d better cancel ordinary leave, and give it to ratings who have homes or relatives ashore.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘See that these wires are squared off. I’m going ashore to telephone.’
There were a lot of other candidates for the telephone: a small procession of men, anxious to establish contact, queueing up outside
the single dockside callbox, waiting patiently, not talking to each other. Ericson got through, and spoke for a moment to his wife: she sounded subdued, but at least she was there . . . Ferraby, whose small house was on the outskirts of the city, had the same comforting luck: but Tallow, when it came to his turn, could not get his number at all, simply the high continuous note which meant ‘line out of order’. When he was back on board, and making a hurried toilet in the petty officers’ mess before going ashore again, Watts said tentatively: ‘I’d like to come with you, Bob.’
Tallow, who was shaving, nodded his head. ‘Yes, Jim. You come along.’
‘They might just have damaged the telephone wires,’ said Watts after a pause.
Tallow nodded again. ‘It might be that.’
But the nearer they got to the house, after crossing the river by ferryboat, the more they knew that it was not that. From the landing stage they walked uphill towards Dock Road, slowly because of the blocked roads and the rubble and glass and smashed woodwork which was strewn over the streets; the trail of wrecked houses and the smell of newly-extinguished fires was a terrible accompaniment to their journey. They did not talk to each other, because the cruel destruction was saying it all for them: there was no need to speculate on what they were going to find, when the odds mounted with every pace they took, with every shop and little house which had been blasted to ruins. Presently, walking in step side by side, smart and seamanlike in their square cut uniforms, they turned the last corner, or the place where the last corner should have been, and looked down Dock Road.