First Command Page 3

  ‘If you say so. All sounds a bit slack to me.’

  ‘By Navy standards, yes sir. But these aren’t Navy men. They’re stubborn men, masters in their own domain. No one tells them what to do, war or no war.’

  ‘Lucky for them we’re not like that.’

  ‘Here she comes now, sir. Twenty-eight seconds to spare!’

  The Moira passed Defiant close enough for Edward Goodridge to look Gardiner in the eye. Gardiner gave a shrug and a half smile of resigned acceptance of the master’s wilful individualism. The two men had only met at the pre-convoy briefings but over the months Gardiner had come to admire the solid fortitude and long-suffering nature of masters such as Goodridge. They had a horrendous existence as they commanded worn out ships, badly maintained and lacking any modern equipment – many did not even have revolution counters or any means for the master to communicate with the engine room. They were badly paid and their onboard accommodation was not much better than a slum. For Gardiner, they were the forgotten heroes of the war at sea.

  Midnight came and the convoy was still forming. Steadfast listened to the sound of the megaphoned voices as masters called to each other in search of their stations. ‘Christ, can’t they even take position?’ he cried. Gardiner chose to ignore the impatience of his captain.

  Finally the commodore signalled the convoy’s departure, two hours late. Beside him on the bridge of the 2000 ton collier Doncaster Races, her master called, ‘Half ahead,’ and led off into the darkness. She passed to starboard of the first channel marker buoy – the last light in the dark sea until the next buoy five miles down the convoy route.

  Slowly the thirty-five ships fell into line in their two columns a quarter of a mile apart, each vessel supposedly 400 yards behind the one in front, gradually gaining speed to reach the scheduled 7-knots. On the port side of the convoy lay Defiant, to starboard was Tremendous. At the rear was the corvette HMS Keswick, whose job was to hassle stragglers and pick up shipwrecked men from the murderous sea.

  ***

  ‘How strange all this feels,’ remarked Steadfast.

  ‘What, sir?’ responded Gardiner.

  ‘Being trapped in a sea lane a few hundred yards wide in the dark. Out there to port is the northbound lane; out there to starboard are shoals and rocks. It was all so different on the Atlantic route – nothing to either side for thousands of miles.’

  ‘Yes, that’s why the commodore’s so keen on station-keeping. Hardly a day passes without a collision, and groundings are common enough.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say I like it. Those masters don’t know a thing about navigation – they just follow their noses. Gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Not to worry, sir. Most of them have been up and down this coast for more years than you or I have been at sea. They’re trained in the school of hard experience. They’ve as good a chance of getting through this trip as we have.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said a sceptical and contemptuous Steadfast.

  For all his experience on the Atlantic route, Steadfast had never really got to know or respect the life of a master. He had missed the convoy briefing meeting that evening, so his experience of the merchant fleet was limited to the view from the bridge of the South Riding. Coming from a family with naval connections going back to before Trafalgar, he had a near religious respect for the ways of the Senior Service and nothing but condescension for the merchantmen, who did not know one end of a sextant from the other. As to the RNVR… He began to muse on how to ease Gardiner off into another ship.

  ***

  Back on the bridge, staring into the darkness, Steadfast felt a sudden gust of wind and rain. Underneath him he sensed the ship’s more lively movement. He knew from the strength and precipitousness of the blast that this was the first intimation of the forecast squall. But not even his year on the Atlantic had prepared him for the battle with the elements that was now to commence.

  Down below, the ship was settling into the seemingly endless routines of convoy life. It was an endurance test for both the ship and the men. In a storm – and one was on the way that night – everything was wet. The bulkheads were wet, the deckheads dripped, the decks were often under water. Water came pouring down the ladders, settled in lockers and swilled around the men’s feet. In the unheated messes all was cold and the only dry place was a man’s hammock – but they were useless in a rough sea. At least, though, there were always the hot pipes in the boiler room for drying out soaking clothes and sodden sea boots.

  Phillips came down the ladder into the petty officers’ mess, his oilskins dripping into the puddles on the deck. As he eased off his sea boots he tipped them out and a fresh stream of salty water ran down the steeply sloping deck.

  ‘You know what? Tonight I wouldn’t mind a posting to a big ship.’

  ‘You? You’re not a big ship man. Officers everywhere. Routines like an Army parade ground,’ responded Quartermaster Henry Cole.

  ‘Aye, but we’d have a mess that didn’t look and smell like a stinking canal.’

  ‘So you would, but who’d give up this life for one of those floating hotels? This ship’s a machine and you’re part of it. We’re all guns, depth charges and torpedoes and we’re in the action night and day. You’d miss that.’

  ‘Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t, but some days I think I’ve had enough. Look at it. Nine months on this tin can with no more than a day or two of home leave. Month after month of twenty-four hour turnarounds. You get in, shattered, tired and fed up to your back teeth with the non-stop sailing, patrolling, docking, sailing…’

  ‘Yes, yes. I get the message. But I bet you don’t put in for a transfer when we dock next week.’

  ‘If we dock. You’re forgetting the new captain.’

  But a man like Cole was not going to forget the new captain. Cole was another Great War veteran and knew how to size up both men and officers. Just as one ‘dong’ was enough to reveal the crack in a bell, so his first encounter with Steadfast had set Cole on edge. There was something not right; something most definitely not right for Defiant. There were officers that became part of the ship and officers who never belonged. Somehow he did not see Steadfast falling into the first category. Yet he and Steadfast would have to get along. He would be at the wheel whenever the going got tough and he and Steadfast needed to anticipate each other’s thoughts when the bombs started dropping or the deadly torpedoes were streaking over the sea. But no man on the ship was less inhibited by Steadfast’s arrival than Cole. An amateur boxer when young, his tough countenance, battered and reshaped by far too many punches and years of harsh exposure to sun, sea and wind, did not belie the interior man. He stood his ground, looked men and officers defiantly in the eye and knew his own mind. Rough in looks and rough in manners, he could handle the ship like a baby in a cradle, easing her into crowded docks, neatly placing her alongside an oiler or dodging 500 pound bombs plummeting from a hostile sky. Steadfast needed him more than he needed Steadfast.

  ***

  Despite the signs of a rough night to come, Steadfast relaxed a little, now that the hazardous exit from port had been safely accomplished. He hadn’t properly got to know his new ship and did not yet know which men he could most depend on. When the call to go to sea had come he was enjoying his first decent bit of leave of the war, staying at a friendly small hotel at Keswick. He had just met Virginia and after a few days of getting to know each other they had had a wonderful dinner and dance together. Next morning at 8.00 am a loud thumping on the bedroom door and the shout of ‘Telegram, commander!’ brought his idyll to an end. ‘You are ordered to report with all despatch to…’. A frantic packing, a kiss, and he was gone.

  Steadfast was actually rather disturbed by the emotions that Virginia had aroused in him. Until a week or two ago he had disparaged those officers who took up entanglements in times of conflict. There should be no distractions from the relentless waging of war at sea, no baggage left at home that could undermine the unremitting need to watch the s
ea, attend to the ship and drive the men on. Nor should his officers or his men see in him the least sign of any slackening in his work and his commitment. He despised himself for having succumbed to Virginia’s spell – she was no one-night stand. Somehow he felt less in control of himself, which meant less in control of his ship and his wartime career.

  He recalled his conversation of less than twenty four hours ago with Vice Admiral C G Ramsay of the Coast of Scotland Command, Rosyth:

  ‘I hardly need to remind you, Commander, that being on an escort ship is like a marriage: she and the convoy are with you night and day, for better or worse… and there’s a good deal of the ‘worse’. Any family?’

  ‘Not near enough to visit, sir.’

  ‘Good. Better that way.’

  Had he misled the admiral, or should he count Virginia as family? The truth was that she was near enough to visit – she worked at an Admiralty outpost in London.

  ‘Pfft.’ Steadfast mentally kicked himself for his reverie. It was time to get a grip on himself and the ship.

  The bridge was familiar enough. He’d done two years on an old W-class destroyer, but this first command was a great step up. With the aid of the dim light of the chart table he surveyed his new home. There was the voice pipe to his sea cabin that would bring calls to him night and day – there would be no chance of any proper sleep until the convoy was safely home. There were the telephones for the engine room and the guns. The binnacles contained the magnetic compass and the gyrocompass repeater.

  With the gathering storm not yet a serious problem Steadfast decided that it was safe to leave Ross alone on the bridge.

  ‘Carry on, Sub Lieutenant. I’ll be in my sea cabin,’ said Steadfast.

  Chapter 5 – A Storm To Remember

  For some time both the officers and the men had been noticing the worsening weather. The ship seemed to rise and fall more. The easy motion of the first hour or two had given way to more sudden blasts of sea-soaked wind and the ship seemed heavier as she had to fight her way through the mounting waves. The occasional slamming gust of wind felt like a herald of worse to come.

  ‘Weather report, sir.’ Steadfast took the message sheet from Sparks.

  ‘Doesn’t look good. Force 10 westerly winds. Heavy rain. Will the convoy hold?’ he asked Ross.

  ‘Hope so, sir. They may not be Navy, but they’ve all seen the worst,’ replied Ross.

  ‘Even if they haven’t, they will now. Prepare the ship for rough weather,’ ordered Steadfast.

  Men were piped to all corners of the ship as they scrambled to secure once more the Defiant against the coming onslaught. The wind was already sweeping across the ship from starboard to port. Men clung to stanchions, grabbed ropes and leant against the superstructure as they tried to stay upright on the slippery deck. Kneeling over hatches, they furiously screwed them down ever tighter. Others turned to the boats, checking all the lashings and adding extra gripes. Down in the galley, men were stowing away all stores and utensils except those needed for the all-essential hot cocoa. In the messes personal belongings were stuffed into lockers and floors were cleared. Back on deck, men were setting lifelines across the flats and by the torpedo and depth charge stations.

  ‘Look at the men,’ yelled Steadfast against wind ‘they can barely move for fear of being blown overboard.’ His remarks were seconded by the slam of a wall of water on the side of the bridge.

  ‘Yes. Looks like we’re in for it. At least the storm will keep Jerry away,’ said Gardner, appearing on the bridge.

  ‘There you go again. We want Jerry right here to give him the beating he deserves. That’s the point of a convoy: to draw the enemy to our guns,’ retorted Steadfast.

  ‘Try telling that to the poor sods on those merchantmen. They never signed up for war. A good few are violently opposed to being forced into convoys. They hate the Admiralty and they’re none too keen on us. We see ourselves as their saviours. Most of them see us as those bastards that force them to steam at the speed of the slowest. Have you ever talked with the masters, sir?’

  ‘Can’t say that I have.’

  ‘Just try it, but not with your back to the wall. They’ll rant about how you can’t sail a merchant man at an arbitrary speed. The right speed depends on the cargo, the sea, the wind, and heaven knows what. Too fast and the sea will slam over the bows and smash the deck cargo to pieces. The wrong speed and the engine will vibrate like a cake-walk and shake itself to bits.’

  ‘So, what’s all this about?’ quizzed a discomforted Steadfast.

  ‘It’s about remembering that the masters in the coastal convoys don’t love us – they put up with us, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn for their opinions. We’re here to fight a war and the sooner we can find Jerry, the sooner we can send him to the bottom.’

  ***

  Within an hour the sea and wind had risen to an infernal crescendo. The ship no longer steamed through the water but was tossed like a scrap of paper scudding along a windy pavement. Out there in the blackness lay the convoy – by now scattered in every direction and probably making no headway at all. But the sea closed around Defiant, trapping her in a cauldron of swirling water. The winds roared, howled and screamed around the bridge. Ross battled to stay upright by shoving himself into the corners of the bridge. His face was stinging with the water smashing over him. To protect his eyes from the weight of water thundering down on him he held up a megaphone the wrong way round. It wasn’t ideal, but at least he could see something that way.

  The storm clawed and tugged at every element of the ship from the guardrails to the mast and rigging. Radio aerials were smashed from side to side. Lines crashed and whipped against metal and the boats rocked in their chocks as the wind sought to carry them away. When the great waves rose and rose to tower over the Defiant she seemed a mere pygmy. Then those same waves fell. Rivers of dark green water smashed into the superstructure with a noise like a dozen exploding shells. The ship staggered on, labouring to keep afloat. Now and again her stern would rise out of the water and her screws raced in the foaming wake. The chief’s experienced hand speedily closed the throttle before the driveshaft smashed itself to pieces. Fear ran through the ship as every man closed in on himself. Every new crash of a wave on the side of the ship set each man shuddering. Every brief moment of calm, when the ship was momentarily at the peak or trough of a wave, caused hearts to stop and stomachs to tighten. The strength and wits of one-hundred-and-seventy men and the power of the ship’s 19,000 shaft horse power engines were reduced to nothing by the infernal might of the sea. Men and ship were descending into a hell of unimagined proportions.

  ***

  As Ross looked down from the bridge he could see the momentous torrents of water slamming over the fo’c’sle, tearing off everything that was not a part of the ship. Before his eyes he saw the guardrails twisted like a piece of creative origami.

  The storm was now rising to its full power, driving the dark grey-green waves higher and higher. On the bridge Ross felt the Defiant rising up and up on a mounting wave. Then a moment of suspense. Thump. She plunged down from the heights before being swept up by the next mountain. He tottered, grabbed a railing and jammed himself into a corner. Less lucky was a leading seaman, who was washed off his feet and thrown against the side of the bridge. He struggled up, clearly in pain, clutching his side. More broken ribs, thought Ross. It was one of the great hazards of a storm. He sent the man below to see Kendrick. Ross was somewhat resentful that a man who barely knew one end of a ship from another should share his rank, but he knew that Kendrick was a first class doctor. His twenty years as a family physician in the Highlands had made him a perceptive diagnostician and a resourceful practitioner, who was used to working far from specialist facilities.

  Now and again Ross caught a glimpse of the collier ahead – almost certainly way off station. Indeed, not a single ship would have the least idea of her position after the night’s diabolical battering. Defiant
and the collier ahead kept up a violent rhythmic performance. They plunged down and disappeared beneath the high sea, only to be born up again by the next rising wave. Up and down, up and down the two ships went, nose-diving through the seething mass of water. Way off on the starboard bow low grey smudges told him that the convoy was still there. All of it? Who could tell. It was pointless to try to count the ships in this weather.

  Out on the deck not a man was in sight. The few at their stations huddled in the gun enclosures or in any corner that offered some protection from the torment.

  Ross was used to the pitching. That was normal. But the yawing was more worrying. In the wheelhouse the helmsman was struggling to hold the course. Then came another swelling up of the wind, gust upon gust, each larger than its predecessor. Wham! The wheel was torn from the helmsman’s hands as he was thrown across the wheelhouse. ‘Nothing broken,’ he yelled to the bridge – not that they could possibly have heard in the storm. He staggered back to the wheel.

  The loneliness and the horrors of the bridge were broken by a voice from the ladder.

  ‘Anyone for cocoa?’ It was Peters.

  ‘Yes. And lots of it,’ shouted back Ross.

  Peters, arms out to help him balance, teetered over to the ladder and disappeared. Down in the galley he found a cook desperately restraining pots and jugs on the galley stove as the ship rolled and pitched.

  ‘A jug for the bridge,’ he called.

  Bracing his heavy body in the angle between the stove and the doorway, the cook filled a jug from the cauldron and passed it to Peters. Peters tucked the jug under one arm, four cups dangling from his fingers. As he made his slithery, lurching way back to the ladder, the ship threw him from one wall of the corridor to the other. Each time that he was thrown, he turned to fall backwards onto the oncoming wall, holding the precious cocoa outwards. At the foot of the ladder he steadied himself. Feet well apart, he waited for the brief pause between the ship shooting upwards and the following plunge down. He grabbed the ladder rail with his left hand, put one foot on the bottom rung and pulled himself up. Two feet on. Pause. Back against the other rail. Another foot. Pull. Pause. Slowly he dragged himself up with the cocoa swaying at his side and the sea trying to wrench him from the ladder. But Peters was no novice. He reached the top of the ladder, took the deepest breath he could ever imagine and yelled over the roar of the wind, the thunder of the waves and the creaking of the ship, ‘Cocoa!’ A hand took the jug from him and he pulled himself up onto the bridge.