He’d barely slung his hammock before he was issued with his flying kit, helmet and survival gear. Numbed by the shock of the Devonport outrage, he was still acting like a zombie. ‘You’ll be flying in the morning,’ they told him before he went below to join 4N8.
He would never forget last night when he had entered the mess for the first time — but what the hell did the incident matter, relative to his agonizing about Gwen’s safety? Did it matter a fish’s tit whether that bastard Foulgis was in the same mess? There were some good blokes too: Rupee Crump had been in the same mess at Culdrose — he was an ex-Merchant Navy man who had rejoined the Navy in 1980. But even Rupee’s presence failed to compensate for yesterday’s unpleasant memory, an incident which still left a bad taste, in spite of his anxiety for Gwen.
Seahawk had despatched the Furious draft by bus to Penzance, and they were all shipped off by ferry to the carrier in Mount’s Bay. As the boat bumped alongside the for’d gangway, he saw for the first time the immensity of this ship. The discharges were spouting through the ship’s sides; the flight deck blanked out the sky as he clambered upwards with the others to the top of the gangway. The loudspeakers were braying through the compartments as he trudged for’d along the endless passageways to the regulating office, somewhere on the other side of the ship.
He was still not orientated and it would be weeks before he would be able to find his way about this huge carrier, designed during World War II to survive the hazards which aircraft carriers of that epoch might expect. The result was a warren of over twelve decks of sub-divided compartments, if you counted the island. In this 28,000-ton steel hive toiled nearly a thousand men. In this complex society it was not surprising that the aviators tended to regard themselves as apart from the rest-and vice versa: ‘fishheads’ or ‘deck apes’ were seamen; ‘WAFUS’ (wet and flaming useless) were airmen. Troublemakers could make a feast of the division if they wanted.
After the initial briefing, he had eventually found his way down to 4N8 — down on the fourth deck, tucked away abaft the port lift and the washplaces. He had shoved aside the torn curtain and stepped silently into the mess.
Still in his anorak, he put down his grip and took off his cap. The mess was musty and reeked of stale cigarette smoke. The huddle of men at the far end of the mess looked up from the table at which they were playing cards. One of them, red faced and freckled, climbed to his feet and shoved his neighbour from the settee:
‘Osgood?’ He stretched out his hand. ‘Glad you’re in our mess, mate. I heard you were coming.’
‘Rupee! I thought I’d never find this place.’ ‘Got a bunk for you,’ Rupee said.
‘Up on the port side.’ There was a growl from the end of the table: ‘You’re flaming lucky, Mister Creep Osgood. Some lesser mortals have to doss down on the deck — like flaming pigs in their own flaming — ‘
‘Rot it, Mick,’ one of the others said, the voice feeble.
‘Give the bugger a chance he hasn’t been ‘ere five flaming seconds.’
‘That’s Toastie Cole,’ Rupee said quietly, ‘looks after the mess when the duty bod’s on watch. He lost his hook, but he still lives here: they’re too crowded in the stewards’ mess.’
Oz had taken off his anorak and pushed between the bunks where the off-watchmen were sleeping. He held out his hand towards Foulgis: ‘I’ve no hard feelings, Mick,’ he said. ‘S’pose we forget Icarus days?’ and he felt the frozen grin on his face as he tried to force a smile.
The dark, pinched face of the Irishman twisted unpleasantly. He looked up, blew a cloud of smoke into Oz’ face. Then he crushed out his fag-end.
‘Got me hook back,’ he said. ‘I’m the senior handler in this ship, Osgood. Don’t yer forget it.’ He looked away, jerked his head towards Toastie. ‘Watch out, Toastie. This lot’s a flaming creep. He’s off to the pigs, if we gets too much up his nostril,’ he jeered.
‘Lay off it, Foulgis,’ Rupee said, grabbing at Oz. ‘No need for me to tell you, Oz, what we call him. An ‘appy mess, what with Mick the Moaner; and with Toastie kicking up hell because they’ve cancelled his notice to quit, now there’s a war on.’
‘Lower deck will be cleared in five minutes time,’ the loudspeaker announced from the deck head. ‘Hands muster in the hangar.’
Osgood jolted from his brooding. He scrambled from his bunk and threw on his number eights. He slicked back his fair hair, stuck the comb in his hip pocket and, jamming on his cap, hurried down the passageway towards the hangar.
After the sombre lighting of the messdeck, the brightly-lit hangar hoisted Osgood into the world of the immediate. Four Sea Harriers stood at one end and five Sea Kings were lined down the starboard side of the hangar, all in various degrees of servicing-829 was having one of its Gnome engines replaced. They resembled stranded water-beetles, down here in the hangar, with their blades folded back. The tang of paraffin fuel pervaded the place. On the balcony overhead, running down the port side, he could see the fire watchkeeper who was always on duty. At his command, the two fire curtains could come swinging down at each end, to divide the hangar into sections.
‘Close up towards the after end,’ the fleet chief master-alarms shouted, ‘Get a hustle on, you lot.’
They fell in, as far as possible by divisions, but in the restricted space order was difficult: Osgood, being one of the last into the hangar, found himself near the front.
‘Properly at ease!’ the master-at-arms barked.
The officers were assembling at the for’d inboard corner when the commander, John Beclairs, called the company to attention. Osgood saw the figure of Captain Trevellion swinging in through the screen door by the engineering offices and workshops. A packing case had been set in the middle and Trevellion climbed on to it.
‘Gather round.’
Osgood felt the pressure behind him; he found himself standing in the front row, barely ten feet from the captain. Trevellion was looking much the same as when he had commanded Icarus, but there was something indefinable that had altered him since the loss of his frigate. The crows’ feet were deeper at the corners of his eyes, but Trevellion now possessed a steely determination about him which had not been there before. He towered above Bellairs, a squat, thick-set man, standing at ease behind the captain.
‘Stand them at ease, Commander.’
Trevellion had no need to raise his voice. In the silence, Osgood heard the wind battering outside and the whirr from the exhaust fans somewhere behind him. He caught sight of a group of squadron engineers caught trying to extricate torpedoes from the magazines. They had halted to control their trollies, up at the for’d end of the hangar.
‘It’s difficult,’ Trevellion began, ‘to talk to all of you now that we’re at sea, but I’ve asked the commander to relay what I’ve got to say to those on watch throughout the ship. I’m sorry I can’t meet you all personally, but we are under conditions which none of us have ever experienced before. We’ve been caretaking for over three decades since the North Atlantic Treaty was signed — and now our stewardship is about to be tested.’ He looked around again at the sea effaces and fleetingly caught Osgood’s eye.
‘I spoke to you when I first took over the ship, at the start of our operational readiness inspection, but I want the new men who have joined, both the normal service entries and the new hostilities-only ratings, to get straight on to the same wave length. The devastation caused by the attack on Guz is something to be shared by all of us.
‘I’ll define our purpose first,’ he said. ‘I believe we can’t build up a team spirit unless we all know what is our object and for what standards we must aim and work. After twenty-seven years in the Royal Navy, I have come to the belief that there are three supreme things that matter.’ He paused: Old Chough certainly had the lads’ attention. ‘First, belief in our religion-even if some of us have no God, war has a strange habit of changing our attitudes. Second,’