‘No sweat, Gold. You’ll soon settle in, though as you can see with yer own mincers, this ain’t no bloody cruiser!’
Boyes walked past and Beckett seized him like a straw. ‘’Ere, Boyes, take this lad to Number Three Mess and get ’im fixed up.’ He winked. ‘Veteran like you should know wot to do, eh?’
Boyes helped the new hand gather his kit. The deck was begining to tremble, and there was a stronger trail of smoke from Rob Roy’s single funnel.
Getting ready to slip from the buoy. Boyes shivered and glanced up at the bridge as if expecting to see the captain. But there was only a solitary signalman who was flashing his Aldis towards the shore.
‘This way.’ He picked up the hammock and led Gold towards the forecastle.
The Buffer shook his head. ‘No experience. None. Wot do they expect us to do?’
Beckett made a few notes in his book about Gold’s future. The machinery had already taken over.
He said abruptly, ‘Try an’ keep the poor little sods alive, that’s wot!’
Boyes recalled his own despair when he had entered the lower messdeck. Now, with almost everyone aboard and standing up in the small, confined space, it was a picture of utter chaos.
Men were changing into the rig-of-the-day as all the ships would have to look right and pusser when they left harbour, not merely for the F.O.I.C.’s sake but also the ever-watchful Spaniards. Some were trying to cram a last souvenir into lockers or kitbags.
Leading Seaman Ted Hoggan appeared to be the only one seated, at his usual place at the head of the table, apparently undisturbed by the packed bodies all around him, a rock in a tideway.
Boyes said, ‘I’ll show you where to put your gear. You’ll not have a place to sling your hammock, of course. There aren’t enough hooks in this mess.’
Gold nodded, then flinched as the tannoy squeaked and the boatswain’s call shattered the air. ‘D’you hear there! Special sea dutymen to your stations! Away motor boat’s crew!’
Able Seaman Suggit, his mouth spurting crumbs, pushed up the ladder, cursing through his food. ‘Bloody officers! Always want something!’
Boyes got to the table and waited for Hoggan to look up.
‘New one for the mess, Hookey.’
Hoggan eyed the newcomer without any change of expression. ‘You’ve put ’im in the picture, Gerry?’
Boyes nodded, i think so.’ He turned to Gold. ‘First sound from that bell, and you drop everything, run like hell for your action station, right?’
He did not see Able Seaman Jardine, the one who wore a wicked-looking knife in his hand-made sheath, give a broad wink, nor Hoggan’s acknowledgement.
Jardine said, ‘Take the advice of an old sweat, my son.’ He clapped Boyes round the shoulder as he had beside the burial party. ‘He’ll see you right—’
He might have burst out laughing but the tannoy made them all look up.
‘All hands! Hands to stations for leaving harbour! Stand by wires an’ fenders!’
Hoggan thrust a partly darned sock into his locker and grabbed his cap.
He watched Boyes leading the new seaman up the ladder and smiled sadly.
‘Here we go again—’ But he was alone; the messes on either side of the deck were empty.
One of Their Own
Sub-Lieutenant Tudor Morgan lifted his face from the wheelhouse voicepipe and squinted into the fierce glare. ‘Steady on zero-four-five, sir!’
Ransome crossed to the opposite side of the bridge and grimaced as his bare arm touched the steel plating. It felt like an oven door.
He levelle^ his glasses above the screen and watched the flotilla taking station again for the next sweep, the hoisted black balls showing they were trailing their wires to port.
Their formation keeping was so good now that they could all have been connected by a cable, he thought. He moved the glasses along the echelon of dazzle-painted hulls, the occasional flash of colour from the little flags on their scurrying Oropesa floats. Then Ransome trained his glasses directly astern. How unreal it all looked. More like an ocean than the approaches to Malta. They had begun sweeping at dawn as they had the previous day; now it was halfway through the forenoon watch. There was no horizon, and the great expanse of water was like pale blue milk, rising only slowly in a shallow swell. The sky had no colour at all, and the sun, although covered by haze, shone brilliant white like a furnace bar.
The men working aft with the sweep wire or employed about the upper deck were almost naked, their bodies either brown or uncomfortably reddened in these unfamiliar surroundings. So different from the North Sea and the English Channel, Ransome thought.
It was almost impossible to believe that the purple blur barely visible astern was actually Malta, that these very waters had been fought over continuously since the retreat from Greece and the start of the real desert war against Rommel. The seabed was littered with wrecks, ships of every size, from carriers to tiny sloops, even China River gunboats which had been sent to bolster up the embattled fleet and had soon paid the price for it. Ships of Rudyard Kipling’s navy against Stuka dive-bombers, E-boats, and crack Italian cruisers.
And now it was as if the war had never been. In the first dawn light they had headed past a vast fleet of minesweeping trawlers, of the kind which had kept the channels open around Britain since the beginning; many of them were veterans of that war, of Dunkirk and the ill-fated Norwegian campaign.
Ransome had been standing on the bridge, his first cup of tea in his hands as they had pounded through the scattered fleet of trawlers. It had reminded him of a picture his mother still treasured, of a Japanese fishing flotilla with Fujiyama in the background. The same unlikely sea and mist, the ships like models above their own seemingly unmoving images.
Rob Roy was steering north-east; the coast of Sicily lay about forty miles away. Just months ago this area had been dominated by the Luftwaffe, the killing-ground for any vessel which had dared to make for Malta with food and supplies. Overnight, or so it seemed now, all that had changed. Malta was relieved, new airstrips had been hastily laid there by the Americans so that daily fighter patrols could be maintained.
He heard Sherwood speaking with Morgan as they pored over the chart-table together. A good team now that they were at sea again.
Sherwood had apologised for his behaviour on the night of the party. Ransome had left it at that. Whatever had happened to throw Sherwood off balance seemed to be under control once more. That was part of his trouble. He held himself stretched out like a wire. He only appeared to be content when he was working.
Ransome looked aft to the quarterdeck and saw Richard Wakely with his cameraman speaking with Hargrave beside the new winch. He saw him smile as he put on a steel helmet, then point, squinting at the sky, while his cameraman recorded the moment. Even without using his binoculars Ransome could sense the first lieutenant’s embarrassment as the little act continued. Necessary probably, but somehow cheap against those sailors who were watching, who had seen the real thing far too often. Was that the real reason for Vice-Admiral Hargrave’s insistence that Wakely should be in Rob Roy ? So that his own son could get some of the limelight, if any was ever left over by Wakely?
Ransome crossed to the forepart of the bridge and trained his glasses ahead. The sea was empty, rising and falling so slowly, as if it was breathing. Nothing. Not even a gull or a leaping fish.
But there were mines here, or had been until this massive sweep had been mounted. British, Italian, German, it was a veritable deathtrap for any ship too large to avoid them. Yet many had braved the minefields; submarines had crept through that silent forest of rusty wires with their obscene iron globes, to carry aid to Malta. They had had to lie submerged in the harbour throughout the day to avoid air attacks which could be mounted in minutes from both Sicily and the Italian mainland. Then at night they would unload their precious cargoes of fuel and ammunition, tinned food, and anything else they could cram into their hulls. Even their torpedo tubes had been used to carry vital supplies although it left the submarines without teeth for the hazardous journey back to base. Many did not make it.