A figure clumped from the lobby below X-gun. It was Leading Seaman Rumsey, the chief quartermaster, a great bear of a man, always cheerful, with a sleepy grin which could overcome even the roughest reprimand. Drummond was glad he at least was still aboard.
Rumsey said thickly, ” ‘Mornin,’ sir. Wasn’t expectin’ you just yet. ” He banged his gloved fists together. “I was just goin’ to call the ‘ands. ” He grinned. “Start another day like.”
Strangely sad on the damp air, a bugle echoed amongst the sheds and sleeping ships, to be joined instantly by others from the barracks nearby and the heavier ships of war which carried such luxuries.
Wakey, wakey, lash up an’ stow! Rise an’ shine, the sun’s scorching your bleeding eyeballs out! The age-old joke at half past five of a spring morning.
Drummond stepped into the lobby and glanced at the board by the quartermaster’s little desk. All the officers were ashore except the engineer and the torpedo gunner.
He swung round, suddenly and without warning on edge.
“Where’s the new first lieutenant?”
Rumsey paused with one finger. at the tannoy switch, his silver call resting on his lower lip.
He said carefully, “Ain’t ‘ere yet, sir. We got a call to say ‘e was detained. Train ‘eld up by a derailment outside London. ” He hesitated. “Or somethin’.”
Drummond clattered down the ladder and heard Rumsey bellow into the microphone, “Wakey, wakey! Rise an’ shine!” In a moment he would rouse the duty petty officer and go to the messdecks and haul any malingerer out of his hammock, bedding and all. There was little pity from those who had the night watches.
Drummond groped his way into the deserted wardroom. He knew every step blindfolded. Even the patch on the worn carpet was familiar as he stepped into the wardroom and switched on some lights. New paint everywhere, but the furniture was the same. Dark red leather which would be carefully covered when the ship was at sea again. When officers, chilled from an open bridge and dog-weary from watchkeeping, would slump down and probably fall asleep until they were needed. Like that last time. The clamour of alarm bells the sudden crash and shriek of cannon shells. Frank falling against the side of the bridge, unable to cry out or even draw breath in his terrible agony.
One side of the wardroom contained the dining space. The well-polished table, the sideboard, and a pantry hatch through which the stewards listened to all the gossip before, trading it forward to the messdecks.
Drummond let his eyes move to the other side. The battered armchairs, a picture of the King, the letter-rack and the cabinet which held a set of revolvers. The ship’s crest above the oldfashioned fire, the staring warlock, and the motto which when translated read, Who touches me dies.
He walked out of the wardroom and past the pantry door. It opened slightly, and he saw Petty Officer Owles, the senior steward, watching him with surprise.
” ‘Morning, Owles. Any coffee going?”
He bobbed his head.
“I’ll open your cabin, sir.” He tugged a great bunch of keys from his pocket. “Got to lock everything or screw it down in this place, sir. ” He continued brightly, “Have a nice leaf, sir?”
Owles always asked the same question. Just as he always called it “leaf” and never expected or listened to an answer.
Drummond did not reply, and Owles said cheerfully, “That’s the ticket, sir. Glad to know that.”
He unlocked the last door in the passageway, the one marked Captain, and switched on the lights.
“Coffee in a jiff, sir.”
Drummond closed the door behind him and leaned against it. He was back.
Lieutenant David Sheridan, R.N. V.R., returned the salute from a party of seamen who were marching through the dockyard on some mission or other and then continued on his way. He was tall and broad-shouldered like an athlete, and below the rim of his cap his hair was dark, almost black, as it curled rebelliously above his ears. As he turned to watch some dockyard workers meandering along the littered deck of a refitting cruiser he felt his chin rasp against his greatcoat collar. That bloody train, he thought savagely. Sitting in a cramped, unheated compartment with some moaning civilians and an army subaltern who had looked as if he were just recovering from a terrible binge. He grinned, despite his irritation, the change pushing the lines from his mouth. Making him look his age, which was twenty-six. He had done a fair bit of moaning himself during the long, unexplained wait in that cheerless train. A bad air-raid, a derailment, nobody really knew. Or cared, it seemed.
His uncomfortable night made the air seem colder, and the sky was clouding over already. More rain. Funny how it always seemed to be raining whenever he was in Chatham.
He strode past another basin. This time there was a destroyer, and he hesitated to look down at her. She was old, a veteran from World War One, one of a design of nearly seventy ships known as V and W class destroyers. Like the one he was about to join as first lieutenant. The difference was that this one, already partly gutted by flaming torches and screaming saws, was part of his life, or had been. Now she was being cut down to receive larger fuel tanks, to become something else. A longrange escort. Not a real destroyer any more. He watched the growing pile of jagged metal on the docksides. Pipes and strips of newly cut steel. Wire and gun-mountings, a whole tangle which had once been part of a living ship. Part of him, too. But in time the wires and cables which now snaked ashore in every direction would grow fewer, the poor, hard-worked hull would get a coat of paint. A fresh company would arrive. A captain to command and carry ship and men from one call to the next. Convoy escort. Dreary and vital. Wearing and deadly. He felt the same old bitterness welling up inside him. He had been ht-t-, first lieutenant for nearly a year. Learning the job and then teaching others. Drawing their confined, dangerous world together, handing it to his captain as a going concern.
The captain had called him to his day cabin to explain. It had sounded more like an apology.
“I had hoped to get a command of my own, sir.” Sheridan could almost hear himself saying it. Pleading. It was so damned unfair. A slap in the face. Several of his opposite numbers in other ships had already got commands, temporary officers or not. He, it seemed, was to be givenn another run at the same old job, under some other captain. Lieutenant-Commander Keith Drummond, Distinguished Service Cross, Royal Navy. Sheridan had seen him once at a convoy conference and had remembered him despite all that had happened since. He recalled his grave, calm manner of speaking, the way he could hold a mixed gathering of merchant service captains, most of whom had been old enough to be his father.
Drummond was about twenty-eight or nine, but had the experience of a veteran, which indeed he was. When Sheridan had mentioned his name to some of the others, one of them had remarked, “Drummond, you say? He’s a bit of a goer, I believe. Runs a good ship, but he’s a regular, David, so watch yourself.” They still spoke like that, after nearly four years of war, when the hostilities-only and ex-merchant navy men outnumbered the regulars by an overwhelming degree.
Sheridan had seen it in his own ship. The regulars had been sent to other vessels, promoted ahead of their proper time in a desperate effort to train the inflow of newcomers. To make a navy out of amateurs while day by day the losses to bomb and torpedo mounted and the convoys faced the ravages of sea and enemy alike.