The Destroyers Read online

  “I say, sir?” A youthful voice made him turn. “I was wondering if you could help?”

  It was a midshipman. Very young, out of breath, and, from the cut of his uniform, brand-new.

  “Well?”

  The midshipman gestured to an untidy cluster of sailors who were grouped round a large rain puddle, their hammocks and bags piled up on two ungainly trolleys. Most of them were smoking.

  Sheridan said, “Tell those men to douse their cigarettes. It’s close eight o’clock. ” He waited, seeing the growing uncertainty on the boy’s face. “Colours are about to be sounded.”

  Cigarettes vanished as if by magic, and Sheridan asked, “What is the problem?”

  “I-I was asked, er, told to accompany these hands to the Warlock.” He straightened his back and added firmly, “A destroyer, you know, sir. I’m joining her.”

  “Me, too.” Sheridan said dryly, “She’s in the next basin. Better get a move on.”

  A bugle blared out again and from staffs and masts in ships and encircling depots and barracks the White Ensigns rose sedately to mark the day’s official beginning.

  Sheridan ground his teeth. Bad enough being late on the first day. To arrive after colours was even worse. The midshipman fell in step beside him and added, “I’m Keyes, sir. Midshipman.”

  “I’m Sheridan.” He grinned. “First lieutenant.”

  “Oh! “

  Behind them the new men shuffled along with their piles of baggage, watching the ships, preparing themselves like new boys for a school.

  “Just starting?”

  “Yes, sir. From King Alfred. “

  Sheridan looked away. Another one. Nice enough youth, but knowing nothing, would have to be led by the hand.

  He said, “First ship then?”

  “Oh no, sir. Actually, I did nearly three months in a cruiser before going to the training depot. ” He added lamely, “Mostly at anchor though.”

  They reached the side of the basin and the midshipman exclaimed, “Is that the Warlock?”

  Sheridan studied him calmly. “Disappointed?”

  “Well, sir.” Keyes shifted under his stare. “A destroyer, I mean, it’s what everyone wants, isn’t it?”

  Sheridan smiled. Any minute now. He’ll be talking about the greyhounds of the ocean. They always did.

  But another voice spoke instead. A short, square chief petty officer with a coxswain’s badges on his lapels was standing on the brow, his arms folded and his face like a thundercloud. “And what are you lot then?” He had a Newcastle accent you could cut with a knife. “Bloody comedians?”

  The little party of men flowed towards him, already lost. The coxswain saw Sheridan and threw up a stiff salute. “Mangin, sir.” He ignored Keyes. “Glad to ‘ave you aboard.” He glanced at the men who were stumbling down the steep brow. “An’ don’t forget yer bloody bags an’ ‘ammicks then!” The roar brought them running back again. He added calmly, “Soon ‘ave ‘em into shape. Poor little sods.”

  The coxswain watched until a leading seaman had sorted the newcomers into some sort of order and then said, “Captain’s aft, sir. Expectin’ you.”

  Sheridan nodded. I can imagine.

  He answered, “Thanks, ‘Swain. The ship looks pretty good. Considering. “

  “Aye. ” Mangin watched him curiously. “Saw your last ship over yonder. Poor old girl. They’re takin’ the ‘eart outa ‘er.”

  Sheridan studied the coxswain. The mainstay of any destroyer. This one certainly had his wits about him. He already knew more about him than he did about them.

  “She was a happy one.”

  “This, too.” Mangin glanced aft where a crisp new ensign floated in a sluggish breeze. “An’ I’ve seen a few on ‘em. Old but dependable. ” He looked at Keyes for the first time. “Unlike some. “

  Together and in single file they walked down the brow where the quartermaster and gangway sentry watched them with neither interest nor surprise. A few dockyard men were still in evidence, but the ship was feeling alive, and there was some sort of machinery throbbing quietly below, a touch of warmth from one of the vents near the after funnel.

  Keyes ventured, “Where will my cabin be, er, ‘Swain?” Mangin smiled gently.

  “Cabin, sir? I believe they’re fittin’ you into a cupboard down aft.”

  Mangin added to Sheridan, “Not much for you to bother about yet, sir. The bulk of the ‘ands’ll be comin’ aboard this afternoon. There’s only the duty part o’ the watch ‘ere at present. ” He glared at the waiting men with their hammocks. “An’ this shower o’ course.”

  `Wardroom?”

  “Some replacements, sir.” Mangin tugged his hat over his eyes. His head barely came up to Sheridan’s shoulder. “Gunnery officer an’ navigatin’ officer ‘ave been with us for some while, as ‘ave the engineer an’ gunner (T). But the subbies, the doc, this young gentleman, an’ o’ course yourself, are new arrivals, so to speak.”

  They walked aft in silence. Sheridan thought how spacious she now appeared. But once filled with her new complement there would be barely enough room to think.

  Excellent sea boats, easy to handle, the old V and W’s had once been the pride of the Service. Now, overloaded with modern equipment and weapons to fight a different sort of war from the one against the Kaiser’s navy, their companies had swollen accordingly. From about one hundred to nearly one hundred and forty, and with less space than ever.

  Mangin said, “I’ll be off then, sir. I’ll see your gear is stowed when it comes aboard, an’. will take you round the ship after `Up Spirits.’ “

  “I think I’d better snatch a quick shave.”

  Mangin grimaced. “I’d go to the captain now, sir, if I was you. “

  Keyes asked, “What will I do?”

  Mangin beamed. “Follow me.” The merest pause. “Sir.”

  Sheridan ducked through a screen door and sighed. Here we go again.

  Drummond sat at the desk in his day cabin and put his name to yet one more document. He was conscious of the ship murmuring around and above him, the busy clatter of feet along the iron deck, the squeak of tackles as more stores were cradled aboard to be sorted and checked.

  He was also aware of Leading Writer Pickerell’s heavy breathing by his elbow as he folded or prepared another paper for his captain’s attention. Pickerell was a good writer, usually overworked, and very conscious of his small confidences. He was more like a confidential clerk than a schoolmaster, which was what he had been just two years ago.

  More feet on deck, and the coxswain’s harsh voice, muffled but easily recognisable. Good old Tommy Mangin. Hard as nails, quick with tongue and fists, but strangely popular with nearly everyone.

  “That’s about it, sir.” Pickerell gathered up the signal log and some of the other files. “The dockyard manager will be coming to clear things with you about lunchtime. “

  “Thank you.”

  Drummond stood up and walked into his sleeping cabin. His quarters were almost as large as the whole wardroom. A sign of less democratic days. When a captain was expected to entertain, to be seen for what he was. He crossed to the mirror above his handbasin and studied himself critically. He would make the most of his quarters while he could. He always did in harbour. Once clear of the last marker buoy he would be on the bridge. Either in his chair by the screen, or snatching cat-naps in this tiny sea cabin abaft the wheelhouse. These old ships had all their officers’ accommodation right aft. Separated from the overcrowded forecastle not merely by rank but by the boiler- and engine-room bulkheads. On more than one occasion he had been marooned on the bridge by savage storms in the Atlantic, standing watch by watch with the luckless O.O.W. while the rest of the officers were battened down in their wardroom, unable to make the dash along the narrow iron deck for fear of being swept overboard.

  He touched his face, feeling the lines around his eyes. Some of the strain had gone, he decided doubtfully. He had brown hair, which was unruly within minutes
of combing it. Level eyes, dark brown, giving him an almost wistful appearance. He grimaced. He would be twenty-nine next month. He felt about eighty.

  He thought of his new company. It would not take long for the personalities to emerge. The willing ones, the jolly-jacks, those who would stay cool in action. Those who would break. He wondered about his first lieutenant. Frank had been a regular, not that that meant much any more. The efficient survived. The careless soon bought it.

  Most of the officers would be temporary ones when Warlock dipped her stem into open sea again. The gunnery officer, Lieutenant Giles Rankin, had been a car salesman, the sublieutenants were too young to have been anything before the war. The doctor was apparently a newcomer to any sort of ship, and had hardly qualified before entering the Navy. The navigating officer, Lieutenant Richard Wingate, was an unusual bird. He had joined the Navy as a boy, and had obtained his commission just prior to the outbreak of war. A scholarship boy, a very unusual achievement in times of peace. Young, cheerful and outwardly unruffled by almost everything, he was a godsend.

  Like Bruce Gaibraith, the commissioned engineer. Although he wore only a single stripe on his usually grubby reefer, he was almost the oldest man aboard. They got on well together.

  Another old-timer was Mr. Noakes, the gunner (T). He was the oldest man aboard. He had been retired and had been recalled when it was at last realised that Hitler had meant all that he had said. Noakes had joined the Navy as a boy in 1911, before even the Kaiser had been seen as a real enemy. But unlike the navigating officer he had worked his way up to warrant rank step by painful step. A bitter man. Usually so full of resentment against “young bloody amateurs” who had been promoted over his head that he could barely conceal it. It never seemed to occur to him that they might be more intelligent. But he ran his part of the ship like a piece of oiled machinery. And that was something.

  Drummond tugged the comb through his hair and touched the blue and white ribbon on his left breast. An average wartime ship’s company. He grinned, the effort pushing the strain from his face, revealing him as the man underneath. Youthful, reckless, and with little to hope beyond tomorrow.

  ‘He heard the other door open and Pickerell leaving, speaking to someone.

  Drummond walked through to the cabin and said abruptly, “You must be Sheridan?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry about being adrift. I’ll see it doesn’t happen again. “

  Drummond gestured to a chair. “Good.”

  He watched him as he sat down. He had the look of experience. Well balanced, but a man who gave little away. A lean, hawkish face. One which would interest women.

  He said, “You were Number One in the Venture, I see.”

  Sheridan had an easy voice. No accent. Difficult to place. “Yes, sir.”

  He added briskly, “You were aboard during the Russian convoy affair.”

  The reply was equally sharp. “And a lot of others, sir!”

  Drummond relaxed slightly. That was Sheridan’s problem.

  Venture had been part of the escort on one of those convoys to Russia. He had done two himself and needed little reminding. A living, tormenting hell of ice and blinding snow, screaming gales and cold which got right inside the marrow of every bone. And whenever there was a lull the long-range bombers came. Or the U-boats, or, like Venture’s convoy, there was the threat of the big German battleships sneaking out from Norwegian lairs to decimate overloaded merchant ships with their mighty armament.

  That particular convoy had been beset with troubles after mustering near Iceland. The weather had been worse than usual, and the only escort carrier had had to return to harbour with half her flight deck stove in by tremendous seas.

  One battleship had been sent as covering force, just in case. She had been the Conqueror, a familiar sight in peacetime at reviews and on world cruises. Built just after the Great War, she had been something of an oddity, and had never fired her eight fifteen-inch guns in anger.

  In wartime, signals sometimes got confused, like the men who made or received them. It was reported that a German battleship, escorted by the Navy’s old enemy, the battlecruiser Scharnhorst, and powerful destroyers were out of their fjords in Norway and already dashing to attack the slow-moving convoy. The order to scatter had been given, although it was now being said that the man on the spot should have waited a bit longer. It was easy to say that from a safe fireside or a barracks wardroom.

  The convoy scattered to the winds, the escort spread its thin resources and then followed suit. Only the Conqueror remained. Without air cover, and too slow to escape as the German warship loomed through a snow squall, its great guns already homed on to the elderly British ship by radar,.which Conqueror’s builders had not even dreamed about. It was not even a battle. It was a massacre. Of the Conqueror’s thirteen hundred officers and men, three were recovered by a terrified neutral Swedish freighter, the only witness.

  The convoy survived, or most of it, but the escorting destroyers bore the brunt of Conqueror’s fate like a personal disgrace.

  Sheridan said harshly, “I still think about it.”

  Drummond walked to a scuttle and watched a Wren riding a bicycle along the side of the dock. Most of the seamen nearby stopped work to admire her.

  He said, “Conqueror’s fate was decided long before she crossed swords with that German battleship.” He was thinking aloud. “Built in peacetime, with little thought for real protection. One shell through those thinly armoured decks and … ” He turned and added quietly, “Well, that’s what happened.”

  Sheridan was watching him, as if gauging the right moment.

  “I suppose it’s why I’ve not been offered a command, sir?” He could not hide the bitterness any longer. “My ship was there, as were a good many others. Does it mean we’re all branded?”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. My captain at the time was the senior officer of the escort. He was obeying orders. You know he killed himself after the enquiry, don’t you?”

  “Yes. He was stupid to do so, in my opinion.”

  Sheridan stared at him as if he had struck him in the face.

  “He was a damned good captain, sir!”

  Drummond strode to the desk and leaned on it, both hands gripping the edge until the pain steadied him.

  “We are not here to discuss either Conqueror or your last ship! Warlock is my command, and what she does, how well she does it, is my concern! And I hope it will now be yours, too!” He was talking loudly but could not help it. “You have been appointed as Number One because I need a first lieutenant, not because this ship is only good enough for you. She’s a fine destroyer and her record will stand beside those more modern creations which swing round their buoys in Scapa waiting for the enemy to come out of hiding!”

  Sheridan’s eyes followed him as he strode restlessly to the opposite side.

  “Don’t show any contempt for this or any other old destroyer in front of me. In February last year, when Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the cruiser Prinz Eugen broke through the English Channel and made a laughing stock of our intelligence system, it was a bloody handful of these old V and W’s which were sent to stop them! The new ones were up at Scapa, like they were when Conqueror went down. So don’t lecture me about anything so petty as your chances of a command!”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Sheridan stood up. “I really am.”

  “Sit down, Number One.” Drummond looked away. “My fault entirely. Rank has its privileges, but insulting your opinions is not one of them. Not in my book. “

  They studied each other for several seconds.

  Then Drummond said, “I came aboard early. If I’d been sensible I’d have stayed in that draughty hotel until now. Then you’d have been aboard first.” He smiled gravely. “And you would not think, as you do now, that your new captain is halfway round the bend.”

  Sheridan grinned.

  “Like the rest of us, sir.”

  Drummo
nd pressed a button and waited for Owles to peer through the door.

  “Drinks, sir? Right away, sir. ” He saw Sheridan. “New first lieutenant, sir? Hope you had a nice trip down, sir?”

  He was gone before Sheridan could reply.

  Drummond smiled. “Don’t bother. His is a different world.” He looked at the bulkhead clock. It was nine o’clock. He said, “Early for drinks, but after yesterday I think I need one. ” He studied Sheridan’s stubbled chin. “And I’m certain you do.”

  Later, after Owles had brought glasses and a decanter, Drummond added, “Our orders have arrived. We will proceed to Harwich, day after tomorrow. There’s to be some sort of conference on the flotilla’s future.”

  Sheridan watched as he poured the drinks.

  “Harwich. I’ve been there several times. I expect your flotilla has got a new Captain (D) since I was last visiting the place?”

  Drummond held out the glass very carefully.

  “Actually, Number One, there has been a new Captain (D) appointed more recently than that. Last week, to be exact. “

  Sheridan hesitated, knowing there was more.

  “Thought you should know. He is Captain Dudley Beaumont.” He saw uncertainty giving way to dismay as he added, “The only officer to survive from the Conqueror. “He raised his glass. “Cheers. “

  2

  Scrapyard Flotilla

  DRUMMOND leaned back in the desk chair and carefully filled his favourite pipe before slipping it into his reefer pocket. Only one scuttle was still uncovered by its deadlight, for, like the rest of the ship, all unnecessary openings were sealed, watertight doors clipped home in readiness for leaving harbour. It was doubly necessary to be careful with a company partly made up of men who had never been to sea before.

  The deck trembled to the engines’ steady beat as Galbraith carried out his usual tests. No need to worry there. A scraping thud announced that the brow had been swayed ashore, that the very last man, the postman, was safely gathered into the hull. He glanced again at Sheridan’s neat message pad. Only two men adrift, both of whom he knew. One had been granted immediate compassionate leave, his home having been bombed three nights ago. The other had merely failed to arrive. Probably drunk somewhere, or fast asleep on the wrong train. It would all be sorted out later.