Quite a story.
There was the time that was the worst time of all, the time that seemed to synthesise the whole corpse-ridden ocean; the time of the Burning Tanker.
Aboard Compass Rose, as in every escort that crossed the Atlantic, there had developed an unstinting admiration of the men who sailed in oil tankers. They lived, for an entire voyage of three or four weeks, as a man living on top of a keg of gunpowder: the stuff they carried – the lifeblood of the whole war – was the most treacherous cargo of all; a single torpedo, a single small bomb, even a stray shot from a machine gun, could transform their ship into a torch. Many times this had happened, in Compass Rose’s convoys: many times they had had to watch these men die, or pick up the tiny remnants of a tanker’s crew – men who seemed to display not the slightest hesitation at the prospect of signing on again, for the same job, as soon as they reached harbour. It was these expendable seamen who were the real ‘petrol-coupons’ – the things one could wangle from the garage on the corner: and whenever sailors saw or read of petrol being wasted or stolen, they saw the cost in lives as well, peeping from behind the headline or the music hall joke, feeding their anger and disgust.
Appropriately, it was an oil tanker which gave the men in Compass Rose, as spectators, the most hideous hour of the whole war.
She was an oil tanker they had grown rather fond of: she was the only tanker in a homeward-bound convoy of fifty ships which had run into trouble, and they had been cherishing her, as they sometimes cherished ships they recognised from former convoys, or ships with queer funnels, or ships that told lies about their capacity to keep up with the rest of the fleet. On this occasion, she had won their affection by being obviously the number one target of the attacking U-boats: on three successive nights they had sunk the ship ahead of her, the ship astern, and the corresponding ship in the next column; and as the shelter of land approached it became of supreme importance to see her through to the end of the voyage. But her luck did not hold: on their last day of the open sea, with the Scottish hills only just over the horizon, the attackers found their mark, and she was mortally struck.
She was torpedoed in broad daylight on a lovely sunny afternoon: there had been the usual scare, the usual waiting, the usual noise of an underwater explosion, and then, from this ship they had been trying to guard, a colossal pillar of smoke and flame came billowing out, and in a minute the long shapely hull was on fire almost from end to end.
The ships on either side of her, and the ships astern, fanned outwards, like men stepping past a hole in the road: Compass Rose cut in towards her, intent on bringing help. But no help had yet been devised that could be any use to a ship so stricken. Already the oil that had been thrown skywards by the explosion had bathed the ship in flame: and now, as more and more oil came gushing out of the hull and spread over the water all round her, she became the centrepiece of a huge conflagration. There was still one gap in the solid wall of fire, near her bows, and above this, on the fo’c’sle, her crew began to collect – small figures, running and stumbling in furious haste towards the only chance they had for their lives. They could be seen waving, shouting, hesitating before they jumped; and Compass Rose crept in a little closer, as much as she dared, and called back to them to take the chance. It was dangerously, unbearably hot, even at this distance: and the shouting, and the men waving their arms, backed by the flaming roaring ship with her curtain of smoke and burning oil closing round her, completed an authentic picture of hell.
There were about twenty men on the fo’c’sle: if they were going to jump, they would have to jump soon . . . And then, in ones and twos, hesitating, changing their minds, they did begin to jump: successive splashes showed suddenly white against the dark grey of the hull, and soon all twenty of them were down, and on their way across. From the bridge of Compass Rose, and from the men thronging her rail, came encouraging shouts as the gap of water between them narrowed.
Then they noticed that the oil, spreading over the surface of the water and catching fire as it spread, was moving faster than any of the men could swim. They noticed it before the swimmers, but soon the swimmers noticed it too. They began to scream as they swam, and to look back over their shoulders, and thrash and claw their way through the water as if suddenly insane.
But one by one they were caught. The older ones went first, and then the men who couldn’t swim fast because of their life jackets, and then the strong swimmers, without life jackets, last of all. But perhaps it was better not to be a strong swimmer on that day, because none of them was strong enough: one by one they were overtaken, and licked by flame, and fried, and left behind.
Compass Rose could not lessen the gap, even for the last few who nearly made it. Black and filthy clouds of smoke were now coursing across the sky overhead, darkening the sun: the men on the upper deck were pouring with sweat. With their own load of fuel oil and their ammunition, they could go no closer, even for these frying men whose faces were inhumanly ugly with fear and who screamed at them for help; soon, indeed, they had to give ground to the stifling heat, and back away, and desert the few that were left, defeated by the mortal risk to themselves.
Waiting a little way off, they were entirely helpless: they stood on the bridge, and did nothing, and said nothing. One of the lookouts, a young seaman of not more than seventeen, was crying as he looked towards the fire: he made no sound, but the tears were streaming down his face. It was not easy to say what sort of tears they were – of rage, of pity, of the bitterness of watching the men dying so cruelly, and not being able to do a thing about it.
Compass Rose stayed till they were all gone, and the area of sea with the ship and the men inside it was burning steadily and remorselessly, and then she sailed on. Looking back, as they did quite often, they could see the pillar of smoke from nearly fifty miles away: at nightfall, there was still a glow and sometimes a flicker on the far horizon. But the men of course were not there any more: only the monstrous funeral pyre remained.
3
The time for their long leave came round again.
Each leave was different from the last one, a development or a stultification of what had gone before. In war, nothing stood still, in any part of the field; in this war, the years were passing, eating up not only men and treasure but bearing swiftly onwards the normal tide of life as well. Nothing stood still: nothing waited for peacetime before moving on to the next chapter. The men grew older: the women loved them more, or less, or fell in love again; babies were born, cooking deteriorated, mortgages fell due, uncle died and left that funny will, mother came to live, the paint flaked off the bathroom ceiling. And sometimes, with distance and separation, it was difficult to do anything about the paint or the baby or the loving more or less: the men just had to hope, and trust, and be reassured or betrayed, and take whatever they found when they got back. Distances were too great, and the thread sometimes too tenuous, for them to play an effective part at home as well as at sea; and the sea had the priority, whether they liked it or not.
Able-Seaman Gregg’s baby was not a success. He had been prepared to shut his mind to its suspect parentage: this might have been possible if the child had been attractive, or cheerful, or just plain healthy, but as it was none of these things he could not help seeing, behind the sickly and squalling infant, the image of a large man called Walter Something who had got away with murder. He had been looking forward to this spell of leave, and the chance of being with Edith and getting to know the child; but now he knew the child too well – a pale, underdeveloped, and undeniably dirty child which filled the house with its crying and the larger part of the kitchen with its soiled napkins. And Edith – he was now not sure whether he really knew anything about Edith at all.
He had been brought face to face with this doubt one evening when, returning to the house after a shopping expedition, he had passed a stranger on the way out – a middle-aged woman in W.V.S. uniform who had given him, first a questioning glance, and then a grudging smile as he stood
aside to let her go by. He had watched her doubtfully as she went off down the street, and then gone through to the kitchen. The scene was as usual – the hearth and the clothes rack were strung with drying baby clothes, the child whimpered in its cot; amid a smell compounded of food, urine, and scorched napkins, Edith sat by the fireside reading a film magazine.
He threw his cap on the table. ‘Who was that?’ he asked.
Edith looked up. ‘Who?’
‘The woman.’
‘Oh, her . . .’ Edith shrugged elaborately. ‘Some old nosy parker from the Welfare.’
‘What welfare?’
‘The Borough Council. They send them round. Nothing better to do, I suppose.’
Gregg found himself, for once, wanting to sort the matter out. He sat down opposite her. ‘But how did she come here, in the first place?’
Edith yawned, not looking at him. ‘She started coming. To see the baby. Kind of welfare work.’
‘But what did she say?’
‘She said to look after it.’
‘Feed it, you mean?’
‘Yes. And stay with it all the time.’
‘But you do stay with it, don’t you?’
‘Course I do. Don’t go on so, Tom. I tell you she’s just poking her nose. All that about a summons . . . Cheeky old bitch – I bet no one ever tried to give her a baby.’
‘A summons . . .’ Gregg stood up again, frowning. ‘Here, what’s it all about?’
‘There was a report,’ said Edith sulkily, after a pause. ‘The baby was crying one night.’
‘Well, what about it?’
‘They thought I’d left it alone in the house. But I was asleep, Tom, honest I was. I just didn’t hear it, that’s all. And someone reported it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked.
‘What’s there to worry about?’ she said jauntily. ‘They can’t do anything to you. It’s a lot of sauce.’
‘But you don’t want that sort of thing . . .’ He wondered, as many times before, how much to believe; he could only guess and grope at what went on while he was away, he could only go by the probabilities . . . He walked over and looked down at the baby, which was sucking a wooden spoon. Its face was small and pinched: there were sores round its mouth: its legs were like small pale sticks on the soiled and tumbled bedclothes. I wish it could talk, he thought, not for the first time. He turned back to his wife.
‘You don’t leave it by itself, Edith, do you? Or go out nights?’
‘Course not.’
‘Wonder why you didn’t hear it crying.’
‘You know me when I’m asleep.’
Lockhart, also in London, did four things, and then seemed to come to a dead stop. He went to a concert: he called on an editor for whom he had written before the war, and sold him an article on corvettes – subject to Admiralty approval: he had a Turkish bath: and he ordered a new uniform, adorned with the small oak leaf emblem which signified that he had been mentioned in despatches. That was a two-day programme: when it was completed, he was aware that he was looking round for more, and that nothing was in prospect. It was not that he was bored – no Londoner could be bored in London; it was simply that, when he was on leave, his life seemed to lack human significance altogether. His living world was Compass Rose, and nothing else; away from her, he felt as if he were held in suspension, waiting for the time when he could leave the trivial shadow life and return to hard fact.
It was all wrong, of course: he ought to have been able to profit from his holiday. But there was something missing, ashore: something to make sense of the necessary interlude. It would have been nice, for example, to have someone to say goodbye to, at the end . . .
Later, however, when he caught his train at Euston, and watched the leave-takers on No. 13 Platform, he was not so sure. There was something in the universal goodbye atmosphere that seemed likely to spoil both the past and the future: the kisses, the tears, the hungry mouths groping for each other for the last time – all these must surely mean that the leave period had been sad, with this parting in view all the time, and that the future was going to be lonely and unhappy on both sides, for the same reason. It was not difficult to see what this sadness did to a man, in terms of his contentment and his efficiency: it was a necessary part of war, but it impeded it at the same time. For sailors, there should be no ties with the land at all, if they were to produce their best when the need came to show it: the recurrent dream-of-home could only stand in the way, getting in a man’s heart and eyes when both of these had to be purposeful and clear.
If I were in love with someone, like that, thought Lockhart, watching out of the corner of his eye one of Compass Rose’s leading-stokers, whose dejection at saying goodbye to his wife was matched by the unselfconscious misery written in her face: if I felt like that, every time I came back to the ship, what sort of job would I do in the morning . . . ? But even as the thought struck him, he became aware of its inherent smugness; and presently, as the train drew out of Euston and headed for the north, he began to wonder if any rule of this sort could be applied in general terms. One man might need the tenderness of a love affair or a happy married life to dilute the ordeal of war: it might, indeed, be the only thing which would keep him going and make his wartime life endurable. Another might only be devitalised or distracted by any break in the hard routine, and would be compelled to sign on for a sort of monastic dedication, if he were to be any use in war at all.
He himself – but even there he was not entirely sure. He had grown used to the company of women, before the war: he certainly appeared to have ‘given them up’ for the duration. Until now, it seemed to have been working out admirably. But just lately he had found himself wondering if some concession to humanity might not pay a dividend.
For instance, he thought, as he settled himself for the uncomfortable night journey, there was a fair-haired W.A.A.F. sitting opposite to him, whose entrancing legs no dull grey stockings could spoil: whose shoulders would feel very square under his hand: and whose eyes, agreeably ready to flicker in his direction even under these unpromising circumstances, might well have widened and softened, to a really heartbreaking extent, on a pillow.
The sensual daydream merged gradually into a drowsy night version, which lasted a long way north.
For Ericson, there were no daydreams, and few night ones: he had found himself very tired by the time his leave came round, and he wanted to do nothing except sleep, and relax, and potter about the house until he had to return to the ship. It was a programme which Grace understood, and could adapt herself to; but the third member of the household, her mother, seemed unable to take it at its face value. It was clear that she interpreted his laziness, in some odd way, as a reflection on Grace, or on herself, or even on the quality of the housekeeping. The old woman had aged, becoming querulous in the process: from her permanent stronghold by the fireside, (used to be my chair, thought Ericson), she issued comment, criticism, and an undertone of discord which cut right across his need for a quiet life.
‘He ought to take you out more,’ was one theme which was always good for a triangular half-hour of discomfort when the three of them were together. ‘Is he ashamed of you, or what?’
It always annoyed Ericson that she spoke as if he were a small boy allowed, on sufferance, to listen-in to the grown-ups.
‘I don’t want to go out, Mother,’ Grace would say. ‘It’s quite comfortable here, thank you.’
‘Of course you want to go out! You’re still a young woman. What’s the good of him winning all these medals if he never stirs outside the house?’
Ericson, on whose chest the blue-and-white ribbon of the D.S.C. stood out in solitary splendour, lowered his newspaper.
‘You’ve got it mixed up,’ he said tolerantly. ‘They gave me a medal for the U-boat, not for parading up and down Lord Street with Grace.’
The old woman sniffed. ‘It’s not natural . . . He ought to take you down to the ship, too. He’s the Captain, isn??
?t he?’
‘Mother!’ said Grace warningly.
‘She’s refitting,’ put in Ericson shortly.
‘They can still give you a nice dinner, I shouldn’t wonder. It’d make a change for Grace.’
‘I don’t want a change,’ said Grace.
‘If I’m going to eat corned beef,’ said Ericson, ‘I’d rather eat it here than in a stone-cold wardroom.’
‘What’s the matter with corned beef, I’d like to know?’ asked the old woman pregnantly. ‘I’m sure Grace does her best to make things nice for you. Slaving away in the kitchen all day, with never a chance to go anywhere . . . When your father was alive,’ she said to Grace, ‘he used to take me out twice a week.’
Poor old bastard, thought Ericson, raising his newspaper again: that’s probably what killed him off so quickly . . . It had, as usual, been a mistake to join in the conversation: it never got them anywhere, and the old woman could twist and turn and shift her ground like something in the zoo. But later, when he was alone with Grace, he returned to a point which had worried him momentarily, and he asked: ‘Do you want to go out in the evenings, instead of staying at home?’
She smiled comfortably. ‘I want to do what you want. And I know you’re tired when you come back.’
He squeezed her arm, with a rare gesture of affection. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Grace . . . But your mother makes me angry sometimes, always complaining, whatever we do or don’t do.’
‘She’s getting old, George.’
‘We’re all getting old,’ he said irritably. ‘I’m getting damned old myself. It doesn’t mean I have to keep nagging away all the time, just to show I’m still alive.’
‘You’re different.’
‘So are you.’
She smiled again. ‘They say that daughters always grow up to be like their mothers, in the end.’