The Cruel Sea (1951) Read online

  The rating who answered the Captain’s bell and presently stood before him was Leading-Signalman Wells, the senior of the three signalmen who made up Compass Rose’s communications complement. He was rather older than his rank suggested; and Ericson, looking over his Conduct Sheet a few days previously, had discovered why. Wells had been a full yeoman of signals up to two months previously: then he had been disrated, and sentenced to eighteen days detention, for (in the bleak words of King’s Regulations & Admiralty Instructions) ‘conduct prejudicial to good order and naval discipline in that he (a) was absent over leave 76 hours and 35 minutes, (b) did return on board drunk, (c) did resist the duty petty officer detailed to supervise him, and (d) did destroy by fire nine signal flags, value 27s.’ Reading between the lines, it must have been a lively occasion. But the implications were not encouraging, however much allowance one made for extenuating circumstances which could only be guessed at – a birthday party that got out of hand, a woman too acquiescent, a wife unfaithful: the odd part was that Wells looked the least likely candidate for this sort of escapade.

  He was small, with a quick decisive manner and an air of competence: he kept a firm hand on his department, and Ericson had already found him helpful with suggestions, as well as absolutely dependable. Now, as he stood waiting in the cabin, cap neatly tucked under his arm, signal pad ready, pencil poised, he was a heartening picture of a highly-trained, wide-awake signalman – the sort of man worth his weight in gold to any ship. Ericson hoped that this picture would prove to be the true one: the other story – the one in the Conduct Sheet – would mean, in a ship the size of Compass Rose, endless trouble and endless waste of energy before it was brought under control.

  ‘I want to send a signal about our leaving,’ Ericson began. ‘Take this down, and send it off by telephone from the dock office.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Wells. He prepared to write.

  ‘”To Flag-Officer-in-Charge, Glasgow”,’ the Captain dictated, ‘”from Compass Rose. Sailed in accordance with your 0945 stroke twenty-three stroke twelve. Estimated time of arrival at Greenock, sixteen hundred hours”.’

  Wells read the signal back when he had written it down, and then said: ‘Should we repeat it to Flag-Officer, Greenock, sir? They’ll have to give us an anchor berth as soon as we arrive.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Ericson, conscious, as happened quite often nowadays, that his memory of naval procedure was rusty and needed constant prodding. ‘You’d better do that . . . We’ll fly our pendant numbers going downriver, of course.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Wells. ‘Pendant numbers, pilot flag, and Under Tow signal. I’ll see to all that, sir.’

  When the Leading-Signalman withdrew, Ericson sat on in his cabin, waiting for the First Lieutenant. By the normal routine, Bennett should report the ship ‘Ready to proceed’, just as the Chief E.R.A. had reported that his engines were ready to move; but though it was already past their sailing time, Ericson did not want to issue a reminder until it was absolutely necessary. He was by now aware that in Bennett he had got a bad bargain, a lazy and largely ignorant young man who should never have been given his present appointment; but he had not yet made up his mind whether to ask for a replacement, or whether Bennett could be trained to do his job properly, and he wished to give him every chance. The added complication – that Bennett bullied Ferraby constantly, and was in a state of imminent collision with Lockhart – was another thing that time might or might not solve. He did not want to step in unless the efficiency and well-being of the ship were seriously threatened; and it had not got to that point yet.

  At ten minutes past their appointed sailing time, he pressed the bridge bell, and was answered by the signalman of the watch.

  ‘Bridge, sir!’

  ‘Is the First Lieutenant there?’

  ‘He’s on the fo’c’sle, sir, talking to Mr Lockhart.’

  ‘Ask him to come to my cabin.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Presently Bennett knocked on the door, and came in. He was wearing a bridge coat, with the collar turned up in a vaguely dramatic manner.

  ‘You wanted me, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ericson. ‘Are we ready to move, Number One?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Bennett cheerfully. ‘Any time you like.’

  ‘You should come and tell me. I can’t guess at it, you know.’

  ‘Oh . . . Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Are all the hands on board?’

  ‘Er—I reckon so, sir.’

  A singularly cold blue eye regarded him. ‘Well, are they or aren’t they? Didn’t you have it reported to you?’

  ‘There was only the postman, sir. I know he’s aboard.’

  ‘What about the mess caterers? What about the Leading-Steward? – he went shopping for me. What about the berthing party?’

  Bennett looked as nearly crestfallen as Ericson had yet seen him. It was a cheering sight. ‘I’ll check up, sir.’

  Ericson rose, and reached for his cap and binoculars. ‘Find out, and come and tell me on the bridge. And next time, remember that you report to me that the ship’s ready to sail, with all the crew on board, at the proper time. That’s part of your job.’

  Bennett recovered swiftly. ‘I’d better detail Ferraby to—’

  ‘You won’t detail anybody,’ said Ericson, as brusquely as he had ever spoken so far, ‘unless you want to change jobs with them.’

  He left the cabin without another word, leaving Bennett to make what he liked of this substantial warning for the future. It might be what was needed to pull him up short; in any case, it was a move in the right direction. Then, as Ericson mounted the ladder towards the bridge, the small annoying scene faded from his mind and was swiftly replaced: he was aware only of an intense personal satisfaction that all the months of waiting, all the worry of fitting-out and commissioning, and all the loose ends of departure, had now been disposed of, and that Compass Rose – his own responsibility, almost his own invention – was ready at last for her maiden trip.

  It was not particularly impressive, that first tow downriver to the oiler, save for one odd accompaniment to it which Ericson, like many other people on board, found moving. As Compass Rose edged outwards from the quay and gathered way, with a tug at either end, Petty Officer Tallow at the wheel, and Lockhart with his fo’c’sle party neatly fallen in by the windlass, a small cheer broke out from the knot of dockyard workers lining the quayside. It was ragged, it was uncoordinated and unrehearsed: it was all the more impressive for this rough spontaneity. Other men from other yards left their work to wave to Compass Rose as she passed downriver – men who had built ships, were building them now, and would build countless others, pausing in their jobs to speed on her way the latest product of the Clyde. The moment of farewell was not prolonged: it was too cold to stand about, and the dusting of snow that overlay the quays and docks and berthing slips lining the river was a sharp reminder of the wintry day. But the gesture, repeated many times on their way towards the open sea, remained in the memory: the last message from the fraternity of men who built the ship, to the sailors who would live and work and fight aboard her.

  Five hours later, Compass Rose, under her own power, left the last narrow section of the river and nosed her way down stream towards the Tail-of-the-Bank, the naval anchorage off Greenock. The early winter dusk was beginning to close in, hiding the far reaches of one of the loveliest harbours in Britain: the line of hills surrounding it turned from purple to black shadow, the lit buoys and the shore lights came up blinking to challenge the twilight. It was now very cold, though the wind had died earlier that afternoon. Their berth had been signalled to them, and identified on the chart; they still had a few hundred yards to go before they dropped anchor, and the Captain, with leisure to look about him, was studying the other ships which crowded the broad sweep of the Clyde Estuary.

  There were many of them – a battleship, a smart new cruiser, half a dozen destroyers, an aircraft carrier, scores of minesweepers
; beyond them, in the merchant ship anchorage, was line upon line of ships collecting for a convoy, dominated by two huge liners in the grey wartime dress of troopships. At the back of the bridge, Ericson could hear Leading-Signalman Wells giving a running commentary on the ships in company – a commentary which revealed, as could nothing else, the sense of family which informs the Royal Navy. (‘The battleship’s the Royal Sovereign – we were at Gib. with her, last spring cruise – there’s the old Argus, one of the first carriers ever built – that must be the Sixth Destroyer Flotilla – wonder what they’re doing here – that’s one of the new Town Class cruisers – didn’t know they were in commission yet . . .’) The pilot, a bluff Clydesider, said suddenly: ‘Just coming on the bearing now, Captain!’ and Ericson returned to the business of anchoring. The telegraph clanged for ‘Stop engines’, and then for ‘Slow astern’: he called out ‘Stand by!’ to Lockhart on the fo’c’sle; and a minute later, as the ship gathered gentle sternway, his shout of ‘Let go!’ was answered by the thunderous roar of the cable running out. Compass Rose lay at anchor, her first journey accomplished. The time, he was pleased to note, was three minutes past four: the dividing dusk was now upon them, and the air had a bitter edge to it, but the ring of shore lights and the scores of craft in company seemed to be bidding him and his ship welcome.

  8

  Now came a further pause in their progress, easier to endure with patience because it was more directly geared to their seagoing preparation. They were fourteen days at Greenock, some of them spent at anchor, ammunitioning and storing and doing harbour exercises, others devoted to their sea trials and the preliminary gunnery and depth-charge tests designed to prove their weapons. They could hardly have had lovelier surroundings in which to try out their ship: in the grip of a hard winter which whitened even the foothills with snow and gave to the higher peaks a serene, unassailable purity, the Firth of Clyde, especially when approached from seaward, had a breathtaking beauty.

  But they had not a great deal of leisure for looking about them, nor inclination either, however attractive were their surroundings: their eyes were now turning inwards, towards the ship and their task in her. It was astonishing how, isolated at her anchorage or slipping in and out on her various trials, Compass Rose was already coming alive as a ship, a separate unit with a developing personality. The process of eighty-odd men shaking down together was well advanced, and now it was moving towards the next stage – the welding together of these men into a working crew, the tuning-up for action. This was true not only of the wardroom, though here it was strongest since the wardroom supplied the directive influence: it was true of all of them – they were beginning to concentrate, beginning to feel that they and the ship had work to do, and that it was worth doing.

  Wishful thinking might exaggerate this process, and fo’c’sle backchat, designed to show that Compass Rose was the worst abortion of a ship that ever put to sea, might seem to deny it; but it was there all the same – a strong and subtle feeling of dedication. It was being helped, from outside, by the first convoy reports and rumours – some true, some exaggerated – and by the landing of Merchant Navy survivors at nearby Gourock, from which it was clear that there must have been a number of U-boats already at sea, in full operational trim, on the day that war was declared. This, then, was going to be Compass Rose’s battle: it really existed, it was worth taking on, it had to be won, and the sooner they were ready for it the better.

  Lockhart was specially conscious of the beginning of this feeling when they went out on their gun trials, at the end of their first week at Greenock. The trials were simple enough: they fired a few rounds from the four-inch gun on the fo’c’sle, and tested the two-pounder aft, and the light machine guns on the bridge, which completed an armament modest enough by any standard. ‘God help us if we run into the Scharnhorst,’ said an imaginative seaman. ‘We’ll just have to creep up behind and — her’ – But among the guns’ crews which he had been working up in harbour, and especially in a leading-seaman called Phillips who was the gunner’s mate – the rating responsible for the cleanliness of the guns and the stowage of ammunition – Lockhart was aware of an encouraging interest. Most of these guns’ crews were amateurs, of course – the ‘hostilities-only’ ratings who survived the derision of the regulars to become a huge majority in the Navy: but they learned fast, and here and there an obvious instance of intelligence and enthusiasm marked one of them down for a higher rating, as soon as the necessary training had been completed. Phillips, who was also in charge of the fo’c’sle party, was big and slow-moving, a two-badge leading-seaman with considerable influence in the mess decks: and it was he who, during the gun testing, had made a remark which caught Lockhart’s attention.

  The loading number, the man responsible for ramming the shell home, had missed his swing and left the shell half in and half out of the breech: the whole rhythm of firing was lost, and it was thirty seconds or so before the shell could be extracted and put in again properly. Phillips, who was No. 1 on the gun, turned round from his sights and said ironically: ‘If you do that in action, my lad, and they land a couple of fourteen-inch bricks while we’re fiddling about, clearing the gun, I’ll never forgive you.’

  Lockhart enjoyed the studied understatement. Obviously Phillips was beginning to think ahead, to the time when Compass Rose would be fighting instead of practising: he had seen, behind a piece of carelessness which was merely annoying, a mistake which might be fatal, and it was an encouraging symptom of a kind of interest which would pay a rich dividend in terms of efficiency and effectiveness later on.

  Ferraby, isolated aft among his depth-charges, was having less success in working up to the necessary standard of competence. His key ratings were all right – Wainwright, the torpedoman, who saw to the settings and actually dropped the charges, and Leading-Seaman Tonbridge, who was in general charge of the depth-charge crews, were both energetic and dependable; but most of the rest of his men fell far below this standard. Much of the work aft consisted of reloading the depth-charge throwers at high speed – a heavy job involving skilful teamwork; and for it he had a motley collection of off-watch stokers and telegraphists, who did not take kindly to working on a windswept upper deck, like any common seaman, when their natural lair was a warm boiler room or a cosy W/T office . . . Many of them, too, were undeniably stupid, of the calibre of that Stoker Grey who had been the ship’s first and (so far) most unconventional defaulter; and Ferraby, none too sure of himself at the best of times, was hardly the person either to drill them into efficiency or to take a tough line when they were wilfully slack.

  The result was what might have been expected. There were mistakes, delays, failures: there was surprise when things went right, and a disgruntled indifference when they went wrong. Left to himself, Ferraby might have gained confidence and gradually worked his department into a going concern; but Bennett, sensing the weak point and welcoming an easier target than Lockhart, was continually wandering aft and, leaning over the rail above the quarterdeck, destroying whatever self-sufficiency Ferraby might have built up by a stream of comment and counter-orders. Ferraby grew to dread the daily depth-charge practices which were the rule when they were in harbour; it seemed hardly worth while giving preliminary instruction, and then setting the drill in motion, when at any moment the hated red face would top the rail above him, and the raucous voice call out: ‘Ferrabee! The settings should be put on before the lashings are taken off!’ Or, more simply: ‘Ferrabee! That’s no bloody good at all – start it again!’ He had no one to complain to, nor, in the last analysis, any solid ground for complaint: he did make mistakes, and the depth-charge crews were slack and inefficient, and so, it seemed, it was going to continue, until he himself was superseded or Compass Rose was sunk.

  For all his zest for supervision, Bennett was not enjoying himself nearly as much as he had expected. Riding a dumb kid like Ferraby was all very fine, he found, but it was about the only compensation in a job which was steadily pro
ving a bit too serious altogether . . . He had managed to farm out nearly every piece of work which should normally fall to the First Lieutenant, but still the inescapable oddments remained, and he found them irksome – particularly things like keeping up to date the Watch Bill, as various ratings changed their jobs or acquired fresh experience. Added to his failure to make any sort of impression on Lockhart (though he hadn’t finished there yet, by a long way), and a suspicion that the Captain was a good deal less impressionable than he had seemed at the beginning, these awkward factors were in process of spoiling what had looked like an agreeable billet. Bennett couldn’t make up his mind whether to chuck it now, and get something better – there were scores of soft jobs going begging, and snug niches to be filled, at this formative stage of the war – or to hang on a little longer and see if things improved. That would be one way of qualifying for a command, and a command was clearly the only thing to have, if you wanted to enjoy yourself at sea; but sweating out a year or so as First Lieutenant might be too high a price to pay for it. Soon he would have to make his choice: in the meantime, there was Lockhart to be kept in view as a long-range target, and Ferraby to supply the essential comic relief.

  Of them all, the Captain, with most to worry or distract him, was the least unsure of himself and of the future. He was beginning to like the ship, simply for her ‘feel’ and her performance, quite apart from the proprietary pride which was always in the background: she had shown herself easy to handle, and though she was ludicrously slow in comparison with a destroyer – or indeed with any other warship he had ever heard of – she was highly manoeuvrable and could turn the corners adroitly. That speed of hers, of course, might rank as much more of a handicap in the future: the bare fifteen knots which was the most the Chief E.R.A. could coax out of her was slower than a good many merchant ships, and only a knot or so above the general speed in convoy – when, supposedly, she ought to be whistling round performing the prodigies of valour and skill set out in the Fleet Signal Book. At fifteen knots, she was liable to qualify as a Pekingese of the ocean rather than as a greyhound.