Lindsay held out his glass against the grey light from a scuttle. ‘You’ll be going home as soon as we’ve docked, I suppose.’
Fraser nodded. ‘Aye. I’ll have a good row and get this damn ship out of my system.’ He grimaced. ‘Still, I’ll be there for Hogmanay. The wife’ll have forgiven me by then.’
‘Do you always have an argument when you go on leave?’
Jupp said, ‘I think the chief engineer ‘as dropped off, sir.’ He removed the glass from Fraser’s limp hand and added, ‘I’ll bring ‘im some black coffee.’
Lindsay stood up. ‘No. Let him sleep. He’s done enough for ten men. His second can take over when we shift berth.’
‘And when will that be, sir?’
‘Tomorrow. Forenoon.’
Lindsay listened to the mournful bleat from some outgoing tug. It reminded him of the sinking ship. The siren going on and on as the shells blasted her apart.
He could hear muffled laughter from the wardroom.and imagined them making plans for their unexpected leave. Wives and parents, girl friends and mistresses. Dancy’s iceberg, as it had come to be known, had done them all a bit of good. Well, most of them. There were some, like Ritchie, who had nowhere to go. Wanted nothing which might remind them of what they had lost. And there was Goss. He had nothing but the ship, or so it appeared.
He said, ‘I’m going ashore.’ He had spoken almost before the idea had come to him. He had to get away, just for a few hours. Go where he knew.no one and could find a moment of peace. If there was such a thing.
Jupp regarded him sadly. ‘Aye, aye, sir. I’ll run a bath for you.’
He hurried away to lay out Lindsay’s best uniform and to make him some sandwiches, knowing the captain would not wait for a proper, meal.
Lindsay walked to a scuttle on the outboard side and watched a rusty freighter being edged by tugs into the mainstream. But he was thinking of the signal and of the two ships lost on the other side of the world. Especially
the Prince of Wales. He could see her clearly in his mind as she had been at Scapa Flow.
The memory of that windswept anchorage brought it all back again in an instant. The staff car. The girl with her duffel coat and jaunty cap.
He was still thinking about her as he left the ship and walked slowly along the littered jetty, his greatcoat collar turned up against the drizzle.
By a crouching gantry he paused and looked back. Benbecula seemed very tall and gaunt, rising like a wet grey wall above the winches and coiled mooring wires, the nameless piles of crates and the clutter of a seaport at war. From this angle her list to starboard was all the more apparent, so that she appeared to be leaning against the wet stonework, resting from the ordeal which men had thrust so brutally upon her.
How was it that Lieutenant de Chair had described her? Long funnelled and rather elderly. It suited the old ship very well, he thought wearily.
Right aft an oilskinned seaman readjusted the halliards on the staff so that the new ensign flapped out with sudden vigour against the grey ships and sky beyond. But it took more than a flag to change a ship into a fighting machine. Just as it needed something extra to transform men into one company. Like Aikman, he thought. You could not expect a man to catch the same train to work day after regular day and then change into a dedicated, professional fighter. He strode on towards the gates. And when it was all over, would Aikman and Dancy, Hunter and Boase, and those like them, ever be able to break free from all this and return to that other, almost forgotten existence?
Then he stopped and took another look at his ship. It was up to him and the Benbecula to try and make sure they got the chance, he thought.
He showed his identity card to the dockyard policemen and then stepped outside the gates, suddenly confused and uncertain. Perhaps he was wrong. Maybe he was the one to be pitied and who needed help.
Some sailors disentangled themselves from their girl friends and saluted him as he passed, and he tried to read their faces in that small moment of contact.
Respect, envy, disinterest. He saw all and none of it. They were home from the Atlantic and were making the best of it. In a way, that answered his question, and he quickened his pace to look for a taxi.
11
Memories
During the forenoon of the second day in January 1942, His Majesty’s Armed Merchant Cruiser Benbecula was warped from dry dock and made fast to her original jetty. In Western Approaches Command her appearance excited little comment, and if there was any reaction at all it was one of impatience. Impatience to be rid of her so that the dock, jetty and harbour services could be used again for the procession of damaged ships which came with every incoming convoy.
All leave for the ship’s company was due to expire at noon, and as officers and ratings returned to Liverpool, with varying degrees of reluctance and according to the success or otherwise of their unexpected freedom, they could only stare at their floating home with a mixture of surprise and apprehension. For in their absence the old ship had shed her drab grey, and now rested at her moorings with an air of almost self-conscious embarrassment. From stem to stern, from the top of her single funnel to the waterline she was newly covered with dazzle paint. Green and ice-blue, strange angular patches of black and brown made it difficult to recognise her as the same ship. Only her list remained to prove her true identity, and as one amazed stoker remarked, ‘She looks like some old Devonport tart in her daughter’s summer dress!’ There were other comments even less complimentary.
Lindsay had returned from leave several days earlier, and as he sat in his cabin studying the piles of stores folios, signals and the latest Admiralty Fleet Orders he heard some of the raised voices and remarks, and could appreciate their concern.
As usual, nobody knew what role was being cast Benbecula’s way. It was someone else’s department. The dockyard people had made good the damage below the waterline and had added some of the extra refinements he had been asking for since taking command. There was an additional pair of Oerlikons on the boat deck, which he had not requested, so it rather looked as if the ship would be working within reach of enemy aircraft, at least for some of the time. Fresh armour had appeared abaft the bridge and wheelhouse, previously regarded as a very tender spot should an attacker be fortunate enough to approach from astern. Several new.liferafts, an additional generator in the engine room and a generous repainting job in the lower messdecks showed the dockyard manager had not been idle, even allowing for Christmas.
For Lindsay the leave had been a strange and frustrating experience. Far from seeking seclusion in some hotel as he had first considered, he had instead gone south to London. After several attempts he had managed to obtain an interview at the Admiralty with a fairly senior intelligence officer. As he had expected, the department had heard nothing from the suave young lieutenant in Liverpool, nor did they know anything of Lindsay’s report and suggestions about the German raider. Looking back, the intelligence officer had been extremely courteous but vaguely unhelpful. He had known very little about the raider, other than she was the Nassau which had sunk Loch Glendhu as well as the recent losses. She had not returned to Norway, and even now, as Lindsay sat staring at the littered desk, nobody had heard or seen anythingof her at all.
But when Lindsay had persisted with his theme, that the Germans were planning another series of widespread attacks on Allied commerce to thin the resources of escort vessels and air patrols as well as to aid their new Japanese
ally, the officer had been more definite. He was being hard-pressed to the limits of his department. There was no evidence to suggest that Lindsay was right. And anyway, the war was quite difficult enough without adding to it with ifs and maybes.