Rendezvous-South Atlantic Read online

  The coxswain listened to the squeal of pipes from the top of the ladder and said unfeelingly, `Looks that way, so grab them bags and jump about.'

  The other man muttered, `Roll on my bleedin' twelve, and bugger all cox'ns!'

  The coxswain tried to recall if there was a film on in the fleet canteen tonight. Probably full before he got ashore anyway. He glared at the dull sky and the rain. Bloody Scapa, he thought.

  Lindsay looked at the assembled side party, anonymous in their glistening oilskins. After the jetty and the boat, it seemed strangely sheltered here. The entry port was situated beneath the promenade and boat decks, and with the wind blowing across the opposite bow it was suddenly quiet.

  `Welcome aboard, sir.' A tall, heavily built officer stepped forward and saluted. `I'm Goss.'

  Lindsay knew that Goss was forty-five, but he looked fifteen years older. He.had a heavy fowled, unsmiling face, and in his oilskin he seemed to tower head and shoulders over everyone else.

  Lindsay held out his hand. `Thank you, Number One.'

  Goss had not blinked or dropped his eyes. `I've got one watch and the second part of port watch ashore on store parties, sir. We ammunitioned at Leith before we came here.' He moved his eyes for the first time and said almost fiercely, `You'll not need to worry about this ship, sir.'

  Something in his tone, the hint of challenge or aggressiveness, made Lindsay reply coldly, `We shall have to see, eh?'

  Goss turned away, his mouth hardening slightly. .'This is Lieutenant Barker, sir. Paymaster and supply officer. He's got the books ready for your inspection.'

  Lindsay got a brief impression of a toothy smile, pale eyes behind hornrimmed glasses, and nodded. `Good.'

  Goss seemed very ill at ease. Angry, resentful, evenn hostile

  It had been a bad beginning. What the hell was the matter? Lindsay blamed himself. They were all probably more worried about their new captain than he had properly realised.

  He tried again. `Sailing orders will be coming aboard in the first dog watch.' He paused. `So there'll be no-libertymen, I'm afraid, until I know what's happening.'

  Surprisingly, Goss smiled. It was more like a grimace. He said harshly, `Good. Most of the hands are more intent on looking like sailors than doing anything useful. Bloody shower of civvies and layabouts!'

  Lindsay glanced at his watch. It had stopped, and he remembered angrily that he had been looking at the clock on St. Magnus cathedral in Kirkwall to set the correct time when the Wren had arrived with her car. .

  Goss saw the quick frown. `I'm afraid lunch has been cleared away, sir.' He hesitated. `Of course I could call the cook and.....'

  Lindsay looked away. `No. A sandwich will do.'

  He could not even recall when he had last eaten properly.. He had to break this contact. Find some privacy to reassemble himself and his mind.

  `Then if you'll follow me, sir.' Goss gestured towards a ladder. `The captain's quarters are below the bridge deck. Nothing's changed there yet.'

  jLindsay followed him in silence. Changed? What did he mean? He saw several seamen working about the decks but avoided their eyes. It was too soon for quick udgements. Unlike Goss, who apparently despised men because they were `civvies'. The Navy would be in a damn poor way without them. What did he expect for a worn old ship like this?

  Aloud he asked, `What about this list to starboard?'

  Goss was already climbing the ladder. He did not turn round. `Always had it' - pause - `Sir,' was all he said.

  The captain's quarters were certainly spacious and ran the whole breadth of the bridge. There was a ladder which led directly above to the chart room and W/T office, the navigation bridge and compass platform, and from it the occupant could see most of the boat deck and forward to the bows as well.

  Goss opened the door, his eyes watchful as Lindsay walked into the day cabin.

  After the Vengeur it was another world. A green fitted carpet and wood panelling. Good furniture, and some chintz curtains at each brightly polished scuttle. Above an oak sideboard was a coloured photograph of the Benbecula as she had once been. Shining green hull and pale buff funnel. Her old line, the Aberdeen and Pacific Steam Navigation Company, was also present in the shape of the company's crest and a small glass box containing the launching mallet used at her birth.

  Goss said quietly, `There are, were five ships in the company, sir.' He took off his oilskin and folded it carefully on his arm. He had the interwoven gold lace of a lieutenant-commander in the Royal Naval Reserve on his reefer. `Good ships, and I've served in all but one of them.'

  Lindsay looked at him gravely. `Always with the one company?'

  `Aye. Since I was fourteen. Would have been Master by now, but for the war.'

  'I see.'

  Lindsay walked to the nearest scuttle and looked at the swirling water far below. Goss's comment was part of the reason for his attitude, he thought. Would have been Master. Of this ship perhaps?

  He turned and saw the books lined along a polished desk awaiting his scrutiny and signature. Neat and tidy like the oilskin on Goss's beefy arm.

  He asked, `Was this your last ship, Number One?'

  Goss nodded curtly. `I was Chief Officer. But when we stopped trooping and the Admiralty took over I stayed on with her. Being a reservist, they couldn't very well object.'

  `Why should they object?'

  Goss flushed. `Not happy unless. they're moving everyone about.'

  `You may be right.' He turned away. `Now if you'll arrange a sandwich I'll settle in while I'm reading these books.'

  Goss hesitated. `I hear you were in hospital, sir.' His eyes flickered. `Lost your ship, I believe.'

  `Yes.'

  Goss seemed satisfied. `I'll leave you then. Anything you want you can ring on those handsets or press the steward's bell, sir.'

  The door closed silently and Lindsay sat down behind the desk. Not good, but it might have been a worse beginning. A whole lot worse. He leafed through the neat pages. Apart from Goss and himself there were seventeen officers aboard, including a doctor, and for some obscure reason, a lieutenant of marines. Most of the officers were hostilities-only. He smiled in spite of his taut nerves. Civvies, as Goss would have described them. A few, like Goss, including the engineer officers, Lieutenant Barker whom he had briefly met, and a Mr. Tobey, the boatswain, were Royal Naval Reserve. Professional seamen and well used to ships like Benbecula. That was something. The only regulars appeared to be the gunnery officer, a Lieutenant Maxwell, and two pensioners called back from retirement; Baldock, the gunner, and Emerson, a warrant-engineer. He paused at the foot of the page. And one solitary midshipman named Kemp. What an appointment for a midshipman, he thought bitterly. He saw himself in the bulkhead mirror and shuddered. Or Commander Andrew Lindsay for that matter.

  The wind sighed against the bridge, and he was conscious of the :lack of movement. A destroyer would be pitching to her moorings even here in Scapa Flow. He would have to meet his officers, explore the hull from bridge to keel. Get the feel of her.

  He lowered his face into his hands. Must do it soon. Waste no time in remembering or trying not to remember. But he had got over the Vengeur, as much as anyone could who had seen a ship, his ship, die. But the rest. He hesitated, remembering the doctor's calm voice' at the hospital. That might take longer. Avoid it, 'the doctor had said.

  Lindsay stood up violently. Avoid it. How the hell could you? The man was a bloody fool even to suggest it. He stared at a tall, mournful looking man in a white

  jacket and carrying a silver tray covered in a crisp napkin. The man said, `I'm Jupp, sir. Chief steward.'

  Lindsay swallowed hard. The steward must think him mad. `Put the tray down there, and thank you, er, Jupp.'

  The steward laid the tray down and said dolefully, `I made 'em meself, sir. Bit of tinned salmon I'd been savin'. Some spam, and a few olives which I obtained from a Greek freighter in Freetown.' He looked at Lindsay, adding, `Nice to have you aboard, if I may make so bold
.'

  Lindsay studied him. `I take it you were with the company, too?'

  Jupp smiled gently. `Twenty-three years, sir. We've 'ad some very nice people to deal with.' The smile became' doleful again. `You'll soon settle in, sir, so don't fret about it so.'

  Lindsay felt the anger rising uncontrollably like a flood.

  `I'm really glad you've come to us, sir.' Jupp made towards the door.

  `Yes, thank you.'

  Lindsay stared at the closed door, his anger gone and leaving him empty. Jupp seemed to think he was joining the company rather than assuming command. Yet in spite of his jarring nerves and earlier despair he took a sandwich from the plate. It was thin and beautifully cut.

  There was a small card under the plate which read, `On behalf of the Aberdeen and Pacific Steam Navigation Company may we welcome you aboard the S.S. Benbecula.' Jupp had crossed out the ship's title and inserted H.M.S. with a pencil.

  Lindsay sank back into a chair and stared around the silent cabin. Jupp was at least trying to help. He reached for another sandwich, suddenly conscious of a consuming hunger.

  So then, would he, he decided grimly, if only to hold on to his sanity.

  Jupp walked around the captain's day cabin, flicking a curtain into place here, examining an ashtray there, and generally checking that things were as they should be. It was early evening, but the pipe to ' darken ship had sounded long since as it seemed to get dark quickly in Scapa Flow. Not that it had been very light throughout Lindsay's first day aboard.

  He sat at his desk, his jacket open as he pushed the last file of papers to one side. He felt tired, even spent, and was surprised to see that he had been working steadily for a fullhour since his methodical tour around the ship.

  The dockyard people at Leith had been very ruthless with their surgery, he thought. For once below `A' Deck there appeared little left of the original internal hull. There was a well deck both forward and aft, but where the main holds' had once been were now shored up with massive steel frames to support the main armament on the upper decks. There were four six-inch guns on the foredeck, two on either beam, and the remaining two had been mounted aft, again one on either side. There was not much alternative in a ship constructed for peaceful purposes, but it was obvious that at no time could Benbecula use more than half her main armament to fire at one target. There was an elderly twelve-pounder situated right aft on the poop, a relic of the ship's short service as a trooper, and on the boat deck itself he had discovered four modern Oerlikons. Altogether they represented Benbecula's sole defence or means of attack.

  Most of the original lifeboats had gone, and had been replaced by naval whalers, two motor boats and a number of Carley floats and wooden rafts. The latter were the only things which really counted if a ship went down fast.

  She had a modern refrigeration space where he had found Paymaster-Lieutenant Barker and his assistants busily checking the last of the incoming stores. Barker had been a ship's purser before the war, some of that time in the Benbecula, and had spoken with obvious nostalgia of `better days', as he had described them.

  Many of the passenger cabins had been transferred into quarters for the ship's company, a rare luxury for naval ratings, even though the dockyard had seen fit to cram them in four or five to each space.

  Accompanied by Goss, Lindsay had tried to miss nothing, had kept his thoughts to himself until he had completed his inspection.

  Magazines for the six-inch guns had been constructed on the orlop deck below the waterline, with lifts to carry.

  the shells and charges the seemingly great distance to the mountings above. The guns were very old. First World War vintage, they were hand-operated and almost independent of any sort of central firecontrol.

  He had met Lieutenant Maxwell, the gunnery officer, although he had the vague impression the man had been waiting for him. Gauging the right moment to appear as if by accident.

  Maxwell was a regular officer, but about the same age as himself. Thin featured, bony, and very rigid in his carriage, he never seemed to relax throughout the meeting. His knuckles remained firmly. bunched at his sides, the thumbs in line with his trouser seams, as if on parade at Whale Island.

  While they were speaking, Goss was called away by. the duty quartermaster, and Maxwell said quickly, `Pretty rough lot, I'm afraid, sir. But still,.with aproper captain we'll soon whip 'em into shape.'

  Lindsay had discovered that, unlike Goss, the gunnery officer had been referring to the R.N.R. officers and ratings of the ship's company. He had also gathered that Goss and Maxwell rarely spoke to one another.

  Later, on the way to the boiler room, Goss had remarked sourly, `Did you know, sir, Maxwell was on the beach for five years until the war? Made some. bloody cockup, I expect. Damned unfair to have him put aboard us!'

  Lindsay leaned back in the chair and interlaced his fingers behind his head.. Goss probably thought the same about his new captain.

  Jupp paused by the desk, his eyes glinting in the lamplight. `I expect you'd like a drink, sir?'

  `Thank you. A whisky, if you have it.'

  Jupp regarded him gravely. `I always manage to keep some for my captains, sir.' He sounded surprised that Lindsay should have doubted his ability to obtain something which was such a rarity almost everywhere.

  Lindsay watched Jupp as he busied himself. at the sideboard. There is a man who is happy in his work, he thought wearily.

  Then he remembered Fraser, the chief engineer. Lieutenant-Commander (E) Donald Fraser' had taken him on a tour around the boiler and engine rooms. He was a small, almost delicate looking man with iron grey hair, a sardonic smile, and a very dry sense of humour: Lindsay had liked him immediately.

  Goss must be a good seaman, and Maxwell had sounded competent on matters of gunnery. Even Barker seemed shrewd and active in the affairs of his vital department. But Lindsay, even after much heart-searching, could not find much to like about any of them. Most ships' engineer officers were men apart, from his experience, defending their private worlds of roaring machinery from all comers, including captains, to the death. Fraser, on the other hand, was almost insulting about his trade and about the ships he had served. He had been at sea since he was seventeen. He was now fifty.

  He had only been chief in the Benbecula for eight months, but had served before that in her sister ship, the Eriskay.

  `Alike as two peas in a pod,' he had said without enthusiasm. `Sometimes when I'm doing my rounds I almost forget I've changed bloody ships!'

  When Lindsay had asked him about his previous service Fraser had said, `I was with,Cunard for ten years, y'know. Now there was a company!'

  'Why did you leave?'

  Fraser had run his wintry eye around the mass of glittering dials and throbbing generators before replying slowly, `Got fed up with the wife. Longer voyages in this crabby company was the only peace I could get!'

  As Lindsay had made to leave the engine room's humid air Fraser had said simply, `You and I'll not fight, sir. I can give you fifteen, maybe sixteen knots. But if you want more I'll do what I can.' He had grinned, showing his small, uneven teeth like a knowing fox. `If I have to blow the guts out of this old bucket!'

  The whisky glass was empty, and he licked his lips as Jupp refilled it soundlessly from a decanter. He had hardly noticed it ,going down, and that was a bad sign. The doctor had said . . . he shut his mind to the memory like a steel trap.

  Instead he turned over the rain-dampened envelope which the guardboat had dropped aboard during the first dog watch. Orders. But nothing fresh or even informative. The ship would remain at her present moorings and notice for steam until further notice.

  Muffled by the thick glass scuttles he heard the plaintive note of a bugle. Probably one of the battleships. He felt suddenly tired and strangely cut off. Lonely. In a small, ship you were always in each others' pockets. You knew everyone, whereas here.... He sipped the second drink, listening to the muted wind, the muffled footsteps of a signalman on the bridg
e above.

  Jupp asked discreetly, `Will you be dining aboard, sir?'

  He thought suddenly of the small Wren with the wind-reddened face. He could go ashore and give her a call. Take her somewhere for a drink. But where? Anyway, she would probably laugh at him.

  He replied, `Yes.' He thought Jupp seemed pleased by his answer.

  `I will try and arrange something special for you, sir.' Jupp glanced at the bulkhead clock as if troubled and then hurried purposefully away.

  Lindsay switched on the radio repeater above the sideboard, half listening to the smooth, tired voice of the announcer. Air raids, and another setback in the Western desert. Last night our light coastal forces engaged enemy E-boats in the Channel. Losses were inflicted. The Secretary of the Admiralty regrets to announce the loss of H.M. trawler Milford Queen. Next of kin have been informed. He switched it off angrily without knowing why. Words, words. What did they mean to those who were crouching in the cellars and shelters, listening to the drone of bombers, waiting for their world to cave in on them?

  There was a tap on the door. It was Fraser.

  `Yes, Chief?' He thrust his hands behind him, knowing they were shaking violently.

  The engineer officer held out a bottle of gin. `I thought you might care to take a dram with me, sir?' His eye fell on the decanter. `But of course if you were to offer something else, well now....'

  Lindsay smiled and waved Fraser to a chair, thankful he had come. Glad not to be alone on this first evening aboard. Knowing too why Jupp had been so concerned. Goss' was first lieutenant and senior officer in the wardroom. He should have invited the new captain down to meet the other officers. Break the ice. Jupp would have been expecting it.

  He looked at Fraser and realised he was studying him with fixed attention.

  `Your health, Chief.'

  Fraser held the glass to the light and said quietly, 'Ah well, we're both Scots, so there's some hope for this bloody ship!'

  Beyond the tall sides of the hull the wind eased slightly, but the rain mounted in intensity, beating the black water like bullets.