The Cruel Sea

  Bennett, without looking at him, said: ‘I don’t want any lectures on how to treat Ferraby.’

  Ericson glanced from one to the other – from Lockhart’s serious, determined face, pale under the electric light, to Bennett’s flushed self-confidence. Privately he thought: there’s no solution really – they’re just two unmixable people. Then he caught sight of his own face between them in the mirror: it was tough, square, a competent barrier between two opposing forces. He looked, in fact, a lot more convincing than he felt; he knew he was not handling this thing well, and it had to be handled perfectly, to dispose of it without a hangover. The trouble was that he was dog-tired. The cabin, with its portholes closed since ‘darken ship’ was piped five hours ago, was now stuffy and airless: they had had a long day at sea, and there was another one tomorrow. The Admiral’s habit of slipping aboard ‘to see how things were getting along’, without any more notice than the sight of his barge leaving the quay, was proving a constant source of irritation. Tonight, Ericson had not a great deal of energy left, and none at all for this sort of domestic upheaval.

  But he made another effort, seeking to deal with the thing in black-and-white terms, without subtlety, disregarding the gross cleavage that lay in the background.

  ‘Now look here,’ he began, ‘this has gone far enough, and it’s not going to go any further. It’s bad for you, and it’s bad for the ship.’ He looked at Lockhart. ‘I’m not going to have you interfering like this in things that don’t concern you. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Lockhart. On this basis, he was now ready to let it go: he had not won, but neither had Bennett – unless there was something more to come.

  Apparently there was nothing more. ‘Remember that, then,’ said the Captain. ‘I don’t want to hear any more complaints about you, or I shall have to take some action – action you won’t like. Now just forget about the whole thing. There’s plenty to do, without this sort of scrapping.’

  He stopped, and turned away: it seemed to be their dismissal. Bennett opened his mouth to speak, unable to believe that the matter was thus disposed of: what about the insolence, what about Lockhart’s cracks, what about the denial of authority? He could not leave it like this. But he did not want to start things up again with Lockhart listening: it needed a less formal approach. He said: ‘May I have a word with you, sir?’

  Ericson, who had been expecting it, said: ‘All right, Number One.’ He nodded to Lockhart, who turned and left the cabin. ‘Well,’ said Ericson, a shade less cordially, ‘what’s the trouble?’

  ‘Sir,’ said Bennett, ‘I think Lockhart got away with it.’

  Ericson, disregarding the temptation to answer: ‘I quite agree with you,’ which would have been nearer the truth, said: ‘You’ve got to make allowances, Number One. He’s a very new officer, and I think we’ve all been working pretty hard. It was a bit rough, I know, but I don’t think it will happen again.’

  ‘I’ve had a lot of trouble with Lockhart,’ said Bennett aggrievedly. ‘I hoped you’d pull him up, sir. He needs stamping on, good and hard.’

  Ericson looked at him, tense and sweating in the close cabin, and thought: one of these days someone is going to hit you, and that means a court martial, all because you’re a tough character and have to show it all the time. He remembered a first mate rather like Bennett, back in the old days in the Far East Line: foul-mouthed, ready with his fists, never giving an inch of ground or a word of praise. He’d ended by killing his man – a Chinese seaman foolish enough to argue about some bad food. He’d got off with manslaughter, but that had been the end of him. On a less dramatic plane, Bennett might go the same way – or push someone else to it. There were people like that, doomed by their own intransigence, damned by their crudity: it was bad luck that one of them had landed up in Compass Rose.

  He said, shortly: ‘I want to avoid having to stamp on people as far as possible, Number One. There are other ways of getting them to work properly.’ He felt like adding something about Ferraby, and the need to treat him less roughly, but perhaps Bennett had had enough hints for one evening. Instead he said: ‘Give Lockhart a fresh start, and see what he makes of it,’ and then he turned away with a finality which even Bennett’s thick skin could not resist. This was a scene which might go on for ever: he had had enough of it.

  When Bennett had gone, his face registering the protest which had scarcely been allowed to come to life, much less to develop properly, Ericson walked out of his cabin, parted the thick blackout screens at the entrance to the companionway, and stepped on to the upper deck. The fresh air, though bitterly cold, came as a welcome relief: the night was clear, the little harbour easily seen, the small waves slapping against the ship’s side an endless accompaniment to their vigil. He looked up at the sky: wispy clouds round the moon promised some wind later, but tomorrow’s weather seemed as secure as their anchorage. Round him the familiar shipboard sounds were reassuring: the hum of the dynamos, the noise of a gramophone from the fo’c’sle, the clumping of the quartermaster’s seaboots as he made his rounds farther aft – all these were part of a life and a moment he savoured to the full. Night in harbour, after a hard day’s work: there should be nothing to beat that.

  But he was not quite satisfied: the recent scene with Bennett and Lockhart had left a bad taste. There had been too many loose ends, though if he had tried to deal with them in detail it would have been far more serious for Lockhart. And then there was Ferraby, adrift in circumstances he scarcely comprehended, as vulnerable as a baby that never grew any bigger or any cleverer . . . He shrugged, and turned back to his cabin, glad to leave it all till tomorrow. There was only one real cure, anyway: they had to stop fighting each other, and fight the enemy instead.

  Soon it was their last week at Ardnacraish, the end of their apprenticeship: the tuning-up process came to its full flower, and with it an access of confidence which reached all but the most unimpressionable elements.

  Professionally, they were sure of themselves: they knew their ship, they knew their jobs in her. Now, no matter what they were asked to do, no matter how the Admiral or his staff stalked them, no matter what odd signals made Leading-Signalman Wells suck his teeth and Bennett start swearing and shouting, they felt they could cope with it. There were occasional mistakes, lacerating to the dignity – as when one of the fo’c’sle party broke the wrong shackle on the cable and dropped the anchor and six feet of chain neatly over the bows and into thirty feet of water; but these were odd setbacks in a continuous process, small pebbles in the stream. All in all, they had made a success of Ardnacraish; even Ferraby, now that Bennett seemed to be holding his hand and moderating his voice, was beginning to improve; unexpectedly buoyant, he took a fresh lease and tried once more to fit himself in . . . Compass Rose, eight weeks from the day she was commissioned, was now a working proposition.

  During the final week they had been joined by another corvette, the next off the assembly line. Her name was Sorrel, and her captain, Ramsay, was an old friend of Ericson’s; her arrival was a cheerful occasion, adding to the amenities of what was, in essentials, a bleak corner of the world. When they went out on trials with the submarine, Sorrel and Compass Rose hunted as a team, and this was another advantage, adding interest to exercises which were beginning to pall: they took it in turns to attack the submarine, while the spare ship stood off and passed cross bearings, advice, and, occasionally, the ribald comments of the more successful performer. It was a useful foretaste of what could happen in convoy, when any number of escorts might join in a hunt, and would have to learn to do this, and make an effective contribution, without getting in each other’s way.

  Compass Rose’s final exercise before she left was, appropriately, a practice shoot at night.

  At dusk they said goodbye to Sorrel, who was returning to harbour, and then for an hour they cruised about off the south end of the island, waiting first for the tug which was to tow their target for them, and then for the coming of night. It w
as one of those evenings that show the Scottish Highlands at their superb best: by luck, their envoi from the peaceful world had a loveliness which they carried with them for many months afterwards. Sunset gave them a gold-and-red-streaked sky: dusk gave them a subtle-coloured backcloth for the islands surrounding them – Mull and Iona and Colonsay: darkness itself came down from the hills in deep purple shadows which, reflected on the water round the ship, turned it to a sombre, royal hue. Then, in the deepening night, the hills were shut out altogether: the single light which marked the harbour entrance still stood guard for them, ten miles and more away, but that was the only element that bound them to the land. Alone on a dark noiseless sea, under a sky already pricked by the first stars, Compass Rose circled and lifted to the swell and waited for her rendezvous.

  Up on the bridge, the waiting was focused down to a few alert men: the Captain at the front of the bridge, Lockhart, who was Officer-of-the-Watch, beside him, Leading-Signalman Wells leaning against his lamp and staring through his binoculars, the two lookouts on the two wings completing the pattern. It was very cold: they felt it on their faces, they felt it on their stiff hands, they felt it in their legs and thighs as they stamped their feet. The canvas screens round the bridge were no protection: on their high platform, the waiting figures were simply part of the ship, bare to the weather, open to the sky.

  Suddenly Leading-Signalman Wells, intent on something which had caught his eyes on their beam, straightened up.

  ‘There she is, sir. Red eight-oh.’

  The vague blur to port resolved itself: under the growing moon, the tug emerged as a hard shape on the horizon, and the towed target as a black blob astern of her.

  Wells spoke again. ‘Calling us up, sir!’ He turned swiftly to the signalman of the watch, Rose, at the back of the bridge. ‘Take it down . . . “Compass Rose from Basher”.’’

  ‘What a singular name for a tug,’ said Lockhart.

  ‘Gives you fair warning,’ said the Captain. Lockhart smiled to himself. Now and again the Captain came out with a remark like that, disproving his professional inhumanity. It was the more refreshing for being so unexpected.

  The dimmed signal lights winked to each other across a mile of still water.

  ‘Signal, sir!’ said Wells presently. ‘From the tug: “My course and speed, two-seven-oh, four knots. Length of tow, three hundred feet. Ready for you”.’

  ‘Right,’ said the Captain. ‘Make to them: “On our first run we will close from four thousand yards and fire three rounds. Please signal hits”.’

  The lamps winked again, flickering across the darkness as if glad to find each other.

  ‘Reply, sir. “If any”,’ said Wells, without expression.

  ‘Humorist,’ said the Captain briefly. He bent to the voice-pipe. ‘Starboard twenty. Steer north.’ And then, to Lockhart: ‘Sound off Action Stations. We’ll start this from the beginning.’

  The alarm bells, faintly and shrilly heard from below, set in motion a stirring, the length and breadth of the ship, which quickly filtered up to the bridge. Figures appeared on the gun platform, crowding round the gun: Petty Officer Tallow confirmed his presence at the wheel: the voice-pipe from the quarterdeck reported that Sub-Lieutenant Ferraby had the depth-charge party closed up. As on so many occasions during the past three weeks, Compass Rose quickly came to life, filling in the gaps in her readiness, crowding the upper deck with men who no longer blundered about or impeded one another as they moved, but who made swiftly for their stations as if they had been walking about in full daylight. The hours of drilling and practice were paying a dividend already: if the future were to call upon it at a crucial moment, it was there, ready and available.

  Lockhart’s position at Action Stations was on the fo’c’sle, in charge of the gun: he had no sooner got there, clattering up the ladder in the darkness, and Leading-Seaman Phillips had reported that the gun’s crew was closed up, than he felt Compass Rose tremble as she increased speed: the wind of their advance struck cold on his face, prompting him to action. They loaded and stood ready, while the ship ran on over the dark water and the range shortened: then from the bridge came the shouted order: ‘Target bearing red four-five – range three thousand – open fire!’ and from that moment the responsibility was his. Compass Rose had no refinements in the way of gunnery: in action, as now, it was to be a matter of shouting, and then local control from the gun platform itself. Lockhart set the range, and waited until the gun layer, straining his eyes against the darkness, reported that he had found the target: then he gave the order: ‘Shoot!’

  He had never seen the gun fired at night: close to, the effect was almost stupefying – a violent crash, and then a great burst of flame and smoke which momentarily blinded him and made him gasp. Through his binoculars he watched for the fall of shot, and presently it came: a tall spout of water, a plume of spray phosphorescent in the moonlight, in line with the target but well short of it.

  ‘Up four hundred – shoot!’

  Again the crash of the explosion, again the burst of flame, and the waiting for the shot to fall. This second time, accustomed to the noise, Lockhart could hear the shell whistling and whining away into the darkness after the first report. Now they were over the target: the range must be closing quicker than he had thought, or else the first shot had been a bad one, fired as they rolled.

  ‘Down two hundred – shoot!’

  That was a good bracket – the spout of water was just short of the target. But that was the last round allowed to them . . . The ceasefire gong sounded, and he called out: ‘Check, check, check!’ to confirm it. Then he stood back as the gun was cleared, and smelt the reek of cordite, and heard Phillips mutter: ‘The next one would have sunk ‘em,’ and felt suddenly excited and pleased with himself. The noise and the flames and the sense of crisis were wildly novel to him: he had never done anything like it before, but it did seem – it really seemed – as if he had done quite well . . . As if to confirm this, the Captain leant over the edge of the bridge above him and said: ‘Not bad, Lockhart. Get ready for the next run.’ The sound of Bennett disagreeably clearing his throat in the background need not, he felt, be given any weight as a comment.

  The second run was, by contrast, a resounding failure: it would not have frightened a rowing boat. Their first shot fell short – so short, indeed, that Lockhart knew that the gun layer had lost his head and fired on the forward roll, with the gun pointing downwards. The second was for some reason right out of line: he could, at a stretch, blame that on the quartermaster, who swung the ship off her steady course at the critical moment. The third fall, which was to make amends, Lockhart did not even see: they might never have fired it at all, for all the evidence they had, though probably it had gone far over and been obscured by the target. And that was the end of that run . . . The noise and activity now seemed a great deal less dramatic, and the reflective silence from the bridge a positive insult. He said under his breath to Phillips: ‘We’ll have to do better than this,’ and Phillips answered determinedly: ‘We’ll do that, sir,’ and started a blasphemous harangue of the gun’s crew, man by man. Lockhart, applying the principle of limited liability, walked casually out of earshot. He had delegated his authority, and it seemed to be in effective hands.

  The harangue must have been a good one, for their last run was by far the best. One sighting shot, a little short, and then ‘Up two hundred – shoot!’ and two hits plumb at the base of the target. The tug, impressed, flickered a message to them, and this time the Captain said: ‘Good shooting, Lockhart,’ and there was no repressive cough from Bennett. ‘”Sink me the ship, Master Gunner”,’ Lockhart quoted aloud, slightly over-elated: ‘”Sink her, split her in twain: Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain”.’

  ‘Sir?’ said Phillips interestedly.

  ‘Poetry,’ said Lockhart. ‘Sponge out, secure the gun, and then ask the leading-steward to give you seven bottles of beer.’ He had never felt better in his life: at that mo
ment, standing on the gun platform while the crew worked and chattered in the darkness, he would have shaken hands with Bennett or joined the Navy for a twelve-year stretch.

  It was past midnight when they entered harbour: since it was the last exercise in their programme, and the morrow was a genuine holiday, the late hour did not matter. Compass Rose, moving very slowly through the harbour entrance, was like a grey ghost slipping back to its lair, at some dead hour before the cock crew and ghosts must walk no more. The defence boom had been kept open for them, but nothing stirred as they slid by it and went gently up towards their buoy. The moon was still high, and every outline was clear: the bay had a silvery rim to it, marking the limits of their refuge, giving it a containing margin. They moved past the oiler, past the sleeping Sorrel with her shaded stern light, and then, foot by foot, up to their mooring.

  Standing in the eyes of the ship, torch in hand, Lockhart called out directions to the bridge, while the beam of the torch sent odd wavering reflections of the water along their hull. Compass Rose inched her way forward and came to a stop, her bows overhanging the buoy: Lockhart bent his shaft of light downwards, picking out the white face of the rating perched on the buoy, and the wire, with the spring clip at the end, snaking its way down to him. Then he turned and called out: ‘Hooked on, sir!’ to the bridge: and they were at rest, and his part in the day was over.

  A few minutes later the moorings were properly secured: the telegraph bell, faintly heard, which meant ‘Main engine finished with’, set the seal on their arrival. The slack of the cable ran out noisily, starting up a hollow echo from the cliffs, and Leading-Seaman Phillips, speaking out of the darkness to no one in particular, said: ‘I bet that wakes the Admiral.’ There was a small ripple of laughter from the fo’c’sle men: Lockhart wondered if Phillips had already drunk his beer. Then he took a last look at the moorings, and said: ‘All right – that’ll do,’ and followed his party across the dark fo’c’sle and down the ladder. He was stiff and tired; but the last day had been the best, and Compass Rose, swinging to her buoy and peaceful under the moon, was something he unaccountably loved.