Hargrave tried not to glance at the framed photograph, of a midshipman who looked so like Ransome. Just a boy. It made the war stamp right into the cabin like a monster.
Ransome looked up from the desk. ‘Just leave me a while, Number One. I’ve a couple of phone calls to make.’
As the door closed silently behind him the ship seemed to withdraw too.
He remembered his stupid jealousy when Tony had taken her to a dance, of his perpetual eagerness to get the most out of life. He picked up the telephone, and after a lot of clicks he was connected to the switchboard ashore.
What shall I say to them? They’ll expect me to come home, when I belong here, now more than ever…
I must speak to Eve. Tell her I can’t see her until…
He ran his fingers through his hair and stared at the signal until his eyes stung.
Aloud he said, ‘Oh dear God, help me!’
The operator coughed. ‘The number’s ringing for you, sir.’
It happened all the time, every day. Others had had to cope with it. If he could not contain his despair he was not fit to command. Men would die, and it could be his fault because —
He heard the familiar voice in his ear and steeled himself.
‘Hello, Dad, I’ve just heard about Tony…’
To the Deep
Ordinary Seaman Gerald Boyes gripped the ready-use chart-table for support and watched as the side of the upper bridge dipped steeply in the heavy swell. It was as if the great shark-blue procession of rollers was climbing over the ship before Rob Roy skittishly lifted her stern and pitched over on the opposite beam. It was all so new and breathtaking he could barely drag his eyes from it.
The bridge was filled with all the usual watchkeepers, but no one seemed to be paying him much attention. He had cleaned the chart-table, sharpened the nagivator’s pencils and checked the bulb in the tiny, hooded bracket which by night was concealed by a canvas screen. It was halfway through the forenoon watch, the little ship lifting and plunging, hanging motionless for seconds or so it appeared, before attempting a different position.
Boyes glanced at the captain’s chair in the forepart of the bridge behind the glass screens. It looked wrong to see it empty. Ransome was always there, had been for the long four days from Falmouth into the vastness of the Atlantic before joining up with an impressive convoy.
Boyes had sensed new excitement and tension as the ships had been rounded up like sheep, chased and harried by powerful fleet destroyers before forming into columns for the long haul to Gibraltar. Boyes, in his duty of acting-navigator’s yeoman, felt privileged to pick up the rumours which circulated every watch amongst the elite on the bridge.
It was a convoy to rouse anyone’s attention, he thought, but the escort had been equally exciting. A heavy cruiser as well as the destroyers, and bang in the middle, a carrier. Not one of the big fleet ones, like the famous Ark Royal or Illustrious, but a stubby escort-carrier. A merchant ship’s hull with a wooden flight-deck, a banana boat as some of the old hands called them. But the little escort-carriers had changed the whole face of every convoy lucky enough to enjoy their protection. No longer were there great areas of ocean where air-cover could not reach or be provided.
A Focke-Wulf Condor, one of the huge long-range maritime bombers, had found the convoy the second day out. But the sight of three Seafires being scrambled from the carrier had soon sent the enemy racing for home. Whereas before, these same aircraft would circle a convoy, day in, day out, just beyond the range of the guns, and all the while homing U-boats on to a helpless target.
They had not seen another enemy plane after that incident.
The ships in convoy were all big ones, including two troopers, ex-liners, and several fast freighters, their decks and hulls crammed with tanks, crated aircraft, and other vehicles. No wonder they had taken such precautions. Far out into the Atlantic, zigzagging ponderously in response to irate signals from the commodore, then around Biscay and south into warmer waters. Some of the sailors, especially those on the open bridge, were already sporting healthy-looking tans.
Boyes glanced at his companions. Lieutenant Sherwood was the O.O.W., with the new sub, Tritton, assisting him. Leading Signalman Mackay was studying the Ranger, which was steering a parallel course some four miles away, the rest of the minesweepers divided between them in two lines.
It was strange to see the ocean so deserted, Boyes thought. Just yesterday the convoy had increased speed and had gone on ahead. Each ship had been capable of much greater haste than the sweepers, but they had all kept together until the worst part of the passage was astern.
By glancing at the vibrating chart Boyes knew that neutral Portugal lay some two hundred miles across the port beam; they should be passing the invisible Lisbon about now. It was the furthest he had ever been in his life.
He looked at the empty chair again. Everyone knew about the captain’s brother. Occasionally Boyes had watched him, had found himself searching for some sign of grief or anxiety. He had discovered nothing but a remoteness, something respected by the other officers.
He thought about the radar plot beneath his feet in the wheelhouse. The chief quartermaster, Reeves, was on the wheel, while Beckett was down below somewhere dealing with some requestmen. It never seemed to stop. Midshipman Davenport always managed to avoid him. It was as if they belonged to a separate society. Difficult at any time in the two-hundred-and-thirty foot hull.
He found himself thinking back to his leave again. His mother saying how she had seen young Davenport in his officer’s uniform. So smart, so dashing. She could have had no conception just how much it had hurt.
And then, out of the blue, had come the great adventure. One evening when he had been having tea with his parents the telephone had rung.
Boyes’s mother had bustled away, and his father had murmured, if it’s another bridge-party I shall really do some extra fire-watching to get out of it!’
But she had returned, her eyes questioning, even suspicious, it’s for you, Gerry.’ It had sounded like an accusation. ‘A girl!’
Boyes had hurried to the door. Over his shoulder he had heard his father ask mildly, ‘Who was it, dear?’
‘Someone who met our son. Sounded rather common—’
Boyes had not even noticed.
The girl named Connie had sounded very easy and matter-of-fact over the phone. Boyes had had virtually no experience of girls apart from the school dance once a year. His arrival on the lower deck of a fighting ship had made him flush with embarrassment, even if half what the others said was true.
She had said, ‘You’re not doing anything then?’
‘N – no—’ he had imagined his mother listening through the closed door. ‘I’d been hoping, actually—’
She had laughed. ‘You naughty boy!’
He had felt himself flushing all over again.
‘What about the pictures? There’s a good one on at the Regal—’
When he had remained tongue-tied she had added, ‘But if you’ve something better—’
‘No. I’d love to.’
‘In an hour then.’ The adventure had begun.
The cinema had been packed, mostly with servicemen and their girls, so that when a cracked, much-used slide was thrust across the screen to announce that an air-raid warning had been sounded, there had been a great bellow of protest. ‘Get it off!’ Plus whistles and derisive laughter. She had leaned against him in the cinema, until halfway through the main film when he had put his arm around her shoulder.