In Danger's Hour Read online

  The lieutenant explained in the same soft voice, 'Yonder is Mr Alfred Bone, our Gunner (T).' He smiled gently. 'Aptly named, don't you think?' When Hargrave remained silent, he said, 'He and the Chief are the ancient mariners — the rest of us just feel that way.' He smiled as the sleeping warrant officer groaned noisily. 'Means well, but as ignorant as shit.'

  'Do you always discuss your fellow officers in this vein?'

  Sherwood replied abruptly, 'Usually.'

  The petty officer entered with a tray of tea cups and the Gunner (T) jerked into life as if responding to some silent signal. In two deft movements he downed the flat gin and replaced his dentures.

  He saw Hargrave and muttered thickly, 'Welcome aboard.' He looked even older awake.

  The curtain moved aside and a figure in a white overall peered in at them. 'I'm John Campbell, the Chief.' He made to offer his hand but saw it was smudged with grease so withdrew it. 'You'll be the new first lieutenant?'

  Hargrave moved to the club fender and studied the ship's crest above the empty grate. It was very suitable for a ship of her name. A lion's head wearing an antique crown with the MacGregO'r's motto, 'Royal is my race', beneath.

  Hargrave knew he had made a bad start without understanding why. He recalled something he had read as a boy, how the Campbells had seized the lands of the MacGregors and driven them out.

  He faced the others and said, 'You must feel out of place here, Chief?'

  Campbell sipped his tea. 'I manage.'

  The petty officer fussed around as if he sensed the coolness amongst his charges.

  'I'll take your coat, sir.'

  Hargrave slipped off the raincoat and reached out for a cup. The others stared at the straight stripes on his sleeve.

  Sherwood gave a soft whistle. 'God, a bloody regular!'

  Hargrave swung round and noticed for the first time that Sherwood wore a medal ribbon he did not recognise. He recalled how he had described himself, the R.M.S.O. They were the ones who defused mines when they fell ashore or in harbours.

  He decided to ignore Sherwood's comment. 'Weren't you ever scared doing that job?'

  Sherwood picked up his book. 'You only feel fear when there's an alternative.' The pale lashes closed off his eyes.

  The Chief, a commissioned engineer with a lifetime's experience and skill symbolised by a solitary gold stripe, said awkwardly, 'There are two subbies in the mess, er, Number One.' He seemed to falter over the title, and Hargrave felt that Sherwood was watching him again.

  The Chief continued, 'Bob, or should I say Bunny Fallows is the gunnery officer, and Tudor Morgan assists with navigation.

  There is of course our Mid, Allan Davenport.' He gave a tired smile. 'Green as grass.'

  Sherwood spoke from behind his book. 'And all bloody hostilities-only, except for the two ancient mariners here. I don't know what the Andrew's coming to.'

  Seven officers who would eat, write their letters, laugh or weep in this small confined space. There could not be many secrets here.

  The petty officer named Kellett said, 'Beg pardon, sir, but the Captain would like to see you right away.'

  Hargrave picked up his cap and smoothed his hair, still bleached by the sun.

  As he left the wardroom he heard Campbell exclaim, 'One of these days, Philip, you'll say something you'll be made to regret.'

  'Until that day -' Hargrave did not hear the rest.

  The petty officer steward said, 'This way, sir. Don't worry about your cabin. I'll get anything extra you need.'

  He pointed to a door labelled Captain, a few yards from the wardroom. Further along past a watertight door Hargrave heard the clatter of crockery. Petty Officers' Mess most likely. Little steel boxes welded together into one hull.

  Kellett brushed a crumb off his white jacket and said quietly, 'This ship's been through a lot just lately, sir. Some of 'em 'ave got a bit on edge.' He dropped his eyes as Hargrave looked at him. He repeated, 'Been through a lot, all of us.'

  The tannoy squeaked and then a boatswain's call shattered the stillness.

  'D'you hear there? Duty part of the watch to muster! Men under punishment fall in! Fire parties to exercise action in fifteen minutes!'

  Hargrave nodded to Kellett. At least that was the same everywhere. He rapped on the door. Perhaps when he had done a tour of the ship he might feel differently.

  But try as he might he could not dispel the picture of the cruiser's impressive wake as she ploughed beneath the stars of the Indian Ocean.

  'Enter!'

  Now for the next step. He thrust open the door.

  After his first meeting with Ransome on that sunny April afternoon, Hargrave often asked himself what he had expected. Perhaps all, or maybe none of the things he saw as he stepped into the small cabin with his cap jammed beneath one arm.

  Hargrave did, of course, know something about his new captain and had told himself that he did not care about serving under an officer whom Sherwood might sarcastically describe as hostilities-only.

  Ransome had spent most of his war sweeping mines and had won a D.S.C. somewhere along the way. The vessel he had commanded prior to Rob Roy, a veteran of the Great War, had hit a mine one night in the North Sea. She had lost most of her forecastle and should have gone to the bottom there and then. But with a last bulkhead shored up and weeping at every rivet, Ransome had somehow got her back to port. In six months that ship had been repaired and with a new company had carried on with her sweeping. Three months ago she had hit another mine and had blown up with a terrible loss of life. Bad luck? Or was it that Ransome no longer stood on her bridge?

  As Ransome cleared some files from the spare chair Hargrave studied him guardedly, and took time to glance around the cabin to glean any extra information about the man upon whom he might depend for his next step to a better appointment.

  Ransome was younger than he had expected — an alive, interesting face, tired perhaps, but it did not conceal the man's alertness, a sudden warmth as he smiled and gestured to the chair.

  'Take a pew. Sorry about the mess. All a bit of a rush.' He looked at the deckhead as feet thudded somewhere. The fire parties getting ready for another night in harbour with a good chance of an air-raid or two. There would be a moon tonight. The bombers' favourite. Ransome continued, 'You've been thrown in at the deep end, I'm afraid. I've seen your report from the minesweeping course — you did well, I think. Bit of a change after a cruiser, I suppose.' He did not anticipate an answer. 'You'll soon settle down. I think you may have met some of the wardroom?' His eyes came up, level and unmoving, like a marksman adjusting his sights. 'Good bunch for the most part.'

  'The RNVR lieutenant, Sherwood —' Hargrave tried not to blink as the eyes studied him without emotion. 'I just wondered -?'

  'Not what you've been used to, I expect.' The eyes dipped and Ransome began to refill the pipe he had been holding as Hargrave had entered. 'Sherwood is extra to complement, but he's an experiment of sorts. The Germans are using more delicate ways of making our job nasty. We need an expert who can strip down a mine or a fuse and perhaps save time as well as lives.' He watched Hargrave through the smoke as he held a match over the bowl. 'He's a brave man, but there are limits to what anyone can stand. He needed to get back to sea, and for that I'm grateful.'

  'That medal, sir.'

  'George Cross.' Ransome sat back and watched the smoke drift towards the open scuttle. 'Sat on a bloody great magnetic mine and defused it.'

  Hargrave remembered Sherwood's hostility. 'I suppose a lot of his sort -'

  'His sort?' The grey eyes levelled again. 'I should have mentioned. The mine was alongside some fuel tanks.' He leaned forward suddenly. 'And if you're bothered about serving with temporary officers you'd better tell me right now. I need a first lieutenant badly.' His eyes hardened, like the sea's colour before a storm. 'But not that badly. This is a crack flotilla, and 1 intend to keep it that way!'

  Hargrave looked away. 'I only meant -'

  Ransome
pushed his fingers through his unruly hair. 'Forget it. It must be harder for you. Rank hath its privileges. Using it on you is not my style.' He grinned, 'Normally, that is —'

  He turned sharply as someone tapped at the door. Hargrave could not see who it was but Ransome stood up and said, 'Excuse me. One of the hands. I'm packing him off home.' He stared at his pipe, which had gone out. 'His family was killed last night in a raid on London. I had the job of telling the poor kid this morning.' He walked past the chair and as he opened the door, Hargrave caught a glimpse of a very young seaman, dressed in his best uniform with a gunnery badge in gold wire on his arm. He was very pale, like a frightened child.

  He heard Ransome say, 'Well, off you go, Tinker, the coxswain's fixed it up for you.'

  Hargrave heard the youth give a sob, and then Ransome went out and closed the door behind him.

  Hargrave looked around the cabin, and tried to picture the cruiser's captain dealing with a situation like this. He could not. Instead he examined the cabin piece by piece, while his ears recorded sounds and directions beyond the steel plating which would soon be familiar to him.

  There were several pipes on the desk, and a handwritten letter from somebody. His glance moved to the bulkhead where a smaller version of the ship's crest was displayed. In a frame nearby was a pencilled drawing. An oilskin bag of the kind sailors used for money and documents in case their ship was sunk lay beneath it, and Hargrave somehow knew it was for the picture.

  He studied it more closely. It portrayed a young man in sweater and slacks sitting with his back to a partly built hull. There was another craft in the background. A boatyard somewhere. The young man held a pipe in his hand. As he had just seen him do. It was little more than a sketch, but it told him a lot. A framed photograph of a young midshipman was on the opposite side. It looked exactly like Ransome as he must have been, but it was not him.

  The door swung open and then slammed shut.

  Ransome sat down heavily and stared at his pipe. 'Jesus Christ, how much more can we take of this?'

  He glanced at the photograph. 'My kid brother. That was taken at King Alfred.' He smiled suddenly; the mood changed again. 'A million years ago. He's a full-blown subbie now!'

  For those few seconds Hargrave saw them both. The boy and the sketch, like one person.

  He said, 'I was looking at the drawing, sir.'

  'Oh, that.' Ransome dragged some papers across the desk. 'I'm going to be away all day tomorrow. Lieutenant Commander Gregory,' he gestured with the unlit pipe, 'he drives Ranger, will take over as senior officer in my absence. I've left all the notes on the rest of them, two smaller fleet minesweepers and the trawler.

  They're at sea with a group from Portsmouth. A joint exercise. But we shall remain here to complete a few repairs. Unless the country is invaded, or a new delivery of Scotch is announced, in which case we shall slip and proceed to search for it!'

  He became serious. 'I'd also like you to go over the charts. We don't carry a navigator as such, it's mostly up to you and me.'

  Hargrave felt on safer ground. 'I was assistant pilot before —'

  Ransome eyed him for a few seconds. 'Thousands of miles of ocean, right? If you were a mile out at the end of it, you'd soon correct it, I expect?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  Ransome nodded slowly. 'On this job thirty yards is all you'll get.' He let his words sink in. 'Further than that,' he slapped out the loose tobacco into his palm, 'you're bloody dead.'

  He changed tack again. 'Your old man is a rear-admiral, I believe?'

  Hargrave nodded. 'I went to see him.'

  Ransome looked at his pipe and decided to change it for another. I'll bet you did, he thought. Hargrave was much as he had expected, although he had been surprised that a regular officer should have been sent to replace David. Unless — Hargrave had been found unsuitable for submarines. That was hardly surprising, in that elite service within a service. Did someone high up, his father for instance, see the minesweeper as a chance of a quick promotion?

  'I suppose you wanted a destroyer?'

  The shot made Hargrave flush but Ransome grinned. 'I know I did. The last thing I wanted was the chance of getting my arse blown off minesweeping.' He gestured vaguely. 'But it's important. I expect you've had that rammed down your throat at the training base until you're sick of it. But it's true. Without us, nobody sails. If we fail, the country will be squeezed into defeat. It's that simple. The swept channel runs right around these islands, an unbroken track, into which the enemy throws every device he can dream up. Tyne, Humber, Thames, from Liverpool Bay to the Dover Straits, we sweep each and every day, no matter what. There's no death-or-glory here, no line-of-battle with flags and bands playing.' His eyes fell on his brother's picture and he felt his muscles contract. In his last letter Tony had been full of it. Appointed to the Light Coastal Forces. A motor torpedo boat. God, his mother would love that.

  He added, 'We sweep mines. It's a battle which started after Dunkirk and will never stop until —' he shrugged. 'God alone knows.' He made up his mind and wrenched open the little cupboard, and placed the whisky bottle and two glasses on the desk.

  Hargrave watched as lie broke the seal. His stomach was empty, he had been on a train for hours, but something made him understand that the drink was more than a gesture. It was important to Ransome.

  Ransome tilted the whisky around the glass. 'Well, Number One?'

  Hargrave smiled. 'I'll try and be a good one.'

  'You'll do better than that.' He frowned as the phone rang and he snatched it up even as voices and slamming doors vibrated through the hull.

  He said quietly, 'Signal from the tower. The bastards have just opened fire.'

  Hargrave found that he was on his feet, his hands clenched at his sides. It was like being naked, or left as a helpless decoy.

  Ransome said, 'They spot the flashes from Cap Gris Nez. It takes just over forty seconds for the shells to arrive.'

  Hargrave looked down at him and saw that the glass in Ransome's hand was empty.

  The roar when it came was like a shockwave, as if someone had beaten the side of the hull with a battering ram.

  Ransome waited; there were four explosions somewhere on the far side of the town.

  He said, 'The flashes are the only warning. At sea you can sometimes hear the fall of each shell, but after it's gone off.' He poured another glass of neat Scotch. 'Bastards.'

  There were no more explosions but when Hargrave looked through the scuttle he saw a far-off column of smoke rising across the clear sky. Like a filthy stain. There would be more grief now. Like the young sailor called Tinker.

  He picked up his glass. The whisky was like a blessed relief.

  'May I ask where you will be tomorrow, sir?'

  Ransome was staring at the photograph of his brother.

  'Your predecessor's funeral.'

  Hargrave looked at the door but sat down as Ransome said, 'Please stay. I'm celebrating. I've had this ship for a year today.'

  He held out his glass and waited for Hargrave to clink it with his.

  Ransome said quietly, 'I wish -'

  Hargrave saw the brief blur of despair in the grey eyes. Like something too private to share. He waited but Ransome said, 'Here's to David.' Hargrave guessed it was his predecessor.

  Ransome felt the neat whisky burning his throat but did not care. He never drank at sea, and only rarely in harbour. After tomorrow, David, like all those other faces which had been wiped away, would fade in memory.

  He thought of the youth called Tinker, his wretched tear-stained face as he had listened to him, needing him. A travel warrant, a ration card for his journey home. Except that there was no home any more. Like a beautiful ship as she hits a mine and starts to roll over. An end to everything.

  He looked hard at his glass. 'I -1 don't want to go. But I must. He was my friend, you see.'

  Later, as Hargrave unpacked his belongings in his new cabin, he thought about the interview.
>
  No, it was not what he had expected. Nor was Ransome like anyone he had ever met before.

  As darkness fell over Dover Castle the air-raid sirens wailed, and people everywhere went to the shelters or huddled beneath stairs with their loved ones and their pets.

  Aboard the fleet minesweeper Rob Roy, Ian Ransome sat at his desk with his face on his arms and slept for the first time in weeks.

  . . . and Men

  Lieutenant Hargrave was not the only replacement to be joining the fleet minesweeper Rob Roy before she was once again ordered to sea.

  On the following Monday afternoon with a fine drizzle making the moored ships gleam like glass, Ordinary Seaman Gerald Boyes stood on the wall and stared across at the ship he was about to board.

  The leading patrolman who had escorted him from the gate pointed with his stick and said importantly, 'Good record. Swept more mines than you've 'ad 'ot dinners, my lad.'

  Boyes nodded, but was too polite to suggest that the harbour wall was probably the closest the leading patrolman had been to the sea.

  Boyes was a slim, pale youth of eighteen. He had a kind of frailty which now, as he stared at his new home, was at odds with his set expression of determination.

  At school he had been something of a dreamer, and usually his thoughts had been on the sea and the mystique of the Royal Navy. His parents had smiled indulgently while his mother had set her hopes firmly on a local bank where Boyes's father had worked for most of his life. While many of the people he knew in the unassuming town of Surbiton on the outskirts of South London had been stunned by the swiftness of events, Boyes had seen the declaration of war as something like a salvation.

  Throughout his boyhood, at a respectable grammar school which his father occasionally mentioned had 'been worth all the money it cost' him, Boyes had found his escape in magazines, the Hotspur, the Rover or the Adventure. There was rarely a time when they were without a story or two about the navy, the officers of the dashing destroyers in particular.