In Danger's Hour Read online

  Boyes had volunteered for the navy as soon as he was seventeen. His mother, having seen his determination, had been tearfully proud. 'You'll soon be an officer, you see, Gerry.' He hated being called Gerry. 'With your background and education, they'll be crying out for your sort.'

  The training to begin with had been hard, but always Boyes had seen his guiding light beyond the discipline and the foul language which at first made him blush to the roots of his hair. Until he realised that it was his innocence which was really the target. He watched the occasional appearance of the officers. Some seemed positively elderly, brought back from retirement, and others with the single wavy stripe on their sleeves seemed like young lords of creation.

  His mother had been right about one thing. He had been officially listed as a C.W. Candidate, a potential officer, and sent to sea for three months in a sleek, brand-new destroyer. Another world again, working alongside tough, experienced seamen who for the most part had left him in peace with his so-called posh accent, even tolerated his efforts to fit in. At the end of three months, spent mostly in and around Scapa Flow in readiness to escort and protect the huge battleships there, he had been sent to Hove in Sussex, where he would begin his officer's training after a brief series of interviews. He had been wildly excited, and had even met some of the boys who had joined up with him, several from his own district at home. It had all ended there. It was still almost impossible to grasp. It was so brutal, so unfair.

  The senior officer had merely said, 'You may get another opportunity later on.' He had looked genuinely sorry for the pale-faced youth with the feverishly bright eyes. 'We need volunteers in this war. We can't all be officers, you know.'

  Back home for a few days before returning to the barracks for drafting to another ship. His mother had been upset. Or had she been humiliated, shamed because of his failure? His father had muttered sternly, 'Their mistake, son, not yours.' None of it was much help. Boyes had returned to R.N.B. Chatham and almost immediately had heard about the growing demand for men in the mineswecping service.

  As a petty officer at the drafting office had cheerfully remarked, 'Good for you, lad, join the navy and see the world. Volunteer for minesweepers and see the next!'

  With unbelievable dedication Boyes had entered the mine-sweeping course at the shore establishment, HMS Lochinvar. The need to prove himself, or to lose himself in danger, he neither knew nor cared.

  He examined his feelings as he stood on the harbour wall, the light drizzle bouncing off his cap and oilskin, his kitbag leaning beside him in a puddle.

  How did he feel? Not afraid, nor even elated. Just glad to be moving again, doing something which would wipe the shame away. He had heard the old hands talking about minesweepers. True guts, they said. 'You wouldn't get me in that bloody regiment —'

  Boyes turned, but the leading patrolman had gone. He gathered ftp his kitbag, little suitcase, gas mask and the joining chit which he had produced several times on his way here to prove what he was doing and why. The train had been delayed for several hours because an air-raid had caused a derailment somewhere. He had been crammed in the overloaded train with sleeping soldiers and sailors, the air thick with tobacco smoke and crude jokes.

  Boyes made his way across the brow to the inboard ship. It was high-water, and the crossing was reasonably safe.

  The gangway sentry pulled his bag aboard for him and grinned as Boyes explained that he was the new replacement.

  He said, 'Never 'ave guessed, would we, Bert?'

  The quartermaster pointed to Rob Roy. 'Shouldn't join 'er, matey, they're killing 'em all off!'

  They both laughed as if it was a huge joke.

  Boyes eventually arrived on the other ship's wet deck and saw a chief petty officer watching him from beside the quartermaster's little folding desk.

  'Well, nah, my son? What are all we then?'

  He had a Cockney accent you could sharpen a knife on, although Boyes did not understand that. But he did recognise the crossed torpedoes and wheel on the man's lapels, his air of jovial authority. He was the coxswain, a kind of god in every small ship-of-war.

  'Ordinary Seaman Boyes, sir.'

  The coxswain's heavy brows came together to make a dark bridge across his battered nose.

  'Not sir, my son. Call me Cox'n. I run this ship.' He grinned. 'Me an' the Old Man, that is.'

  He became businesslike. 'You're in Three Mess.' He gestured to a seaman by the guardrail. 'Take 'im down. Then bring 'im back to me to get 'is part of ship, an' that.'

  Boyes eyed him thankfully. There was something reassuring about the coxswain. His face looked as if it had been in many brawls, but his eyes were steady and not unfriendly.

  Chief Petty Officer Joe Beckett, the Rob Roy's coxswain, asked offhandedly, 'Age?'

  'Eighteen, si — I mean Cox'n.'

  'Gawd. Another wot's too young to draw 'is tot. Makes yer sick.'

  Beckett watched the slight figure being led to the forecastle. Already lost. He frowned. Not for long. Not in this ship. There was no room for passengers.

  He saw the new first lieutenant approaching and toyed with the idea of avoiding him around the funnel, but sighed and stood his ground. Between them they had to manage the ship. He thought of the new lad, Boyes, sent to replace a seaman who had gained promotion and been drafted to an advanced course ashore.

  The navy was like that. All comings and goings. He glanced aft towards the shining new paint where the previous Jimmy-the-One had been cut down. All goings for some.

  Joe Beckett often considered his own entry into the navy. A London Eastender from Hackney, he was one of seven children. It was a bloody wonder his mum and dad had found the time, he thought. His dad was more in prison than out of it, and two of his brothers had begun thieving at Marks and Spencer's and Woolworths almost as soon as they had got their first pair of boots. They were likely as well known at the Hackney nick as his father by now.

  So Joe Beckett had joined the navy at the age of sixteen. He had done well, despite several demotions and bottles at the defaulters' table in one ship or another. He was now thirty-six, one of the old bastards as they called him behind his back. It was a joke when you thought about it. His upbringing had been hard and without too much love. But it had taught him to take care of himself, as his face and scarred knuckles showed if anyone was stupid enough to challenge his authority. Now, as coxswain, he was as high as he would rise. Here in the fleet minesweeper he ran just about everything. A word in the right ear could shift a man from a miserable look-out position to a snug station elsewhere. Over half the ship's company were too young to draw their rum. That was a bit difficult. Rum and tobacco, 'ticklers', were the currency of the lower deck. He almost smiled. Not far different from the nick after all. And as coxswain he was also responsible for discipline, a sort of judge and policeman in one. How his old dad would havfc liked that!

  At action stations, entering or leaving harbour, and at any other occasion when his seamanship and hard-won knowledge were required, Beckett was on the wheel, thick and thin. He had been sunk once, wounded once, and three times recommended for a decoration. Like Christmas, it was always still coming.

  He watched the new first lieutenant as he paused to speak with Mr Midshipman Davenport. Unlike some of the regulars, Beckett admired the Wavy Navy reservists for most of the time. Many of them, like the RNR ex-trawler skippers, were professional seamen, and others, like the Old Man now, had done something before they joined up. Were not too proud to chat about that other world which had probably gone forever.

  He was not happy about the new Jimmy. Strait-laced, and from a bloody cruiser at that. Beckett had been an A.B. in a heavy cruiser, had been weighted off for punishment for pitching a petty officer over the rail. Fortunately it had been in Grand Harbour, Malta, where you were more likely to be poisoned than drowned. Cruisers, like the carriers and battlewaggons, were floating barracks. Not for Joe Beckett. He scowled as he saw the white flash of Davenport's winning smile. Bec
kett had decided within a week of the midshipman's joining the ship that he could well be the reason for himself being disrated, busted as low as was possible.

  Even when he considered it calmly over his tot, Beckett had reached the conclusion that if Davenport had sailed with Bligh in the Bounty the mutiny would have happened a bloody sight earlier.

  He touched his cap in salute as Hargrave approached him.

  ' 'Ad a good tour, sir?'

  Hargrave brushed down his sleeves. 'Been right over her, stem to stern.'

  The midshipman drew closer. 'I could show you the radar, sir?'

  Beckett tried not to look at him. A real little prick.

  He said, 'Watch out fer wet paint, sir.'

  Hargrave frowned at a smear of grey on his trousers.' Thanks.'

  Beckett added, 'New ratin' 'as just joined the ship, sir. I've put 'im in Mr Morgan's division.'

  Their eyes met. 'I'd like to be told first, Swain.'

  'You wasn't 'ere, sir.' Beckett met his gaze coldly. 'We was one short, so to speak.'

  The tannoy snapped the tension.

  'D'you hear there! D'you hear there! Up spirits/'

  Beckett tucked his clipboard beneath his arm and watched Hargrave walk briskly towards the bridge, the midshipman falling into step to keep up.

  'Stand fast the 'oly Ghost!' he muttered. 'By Christ I've never needed a bloody tot more!'

  The Chief and Petty Officers' Mess was about the same size as the wardroom, although less conventional. There was a small bar at one end where a seaman in a white jacket was acting as messman, and ranged behind it were souvenirs from various pubs scattered from Leith to Gibraltar. Beer mugs, ashtrays stamped with pub or brewery names, photographs of various groups at darts matches, regattas or just a good booze-up. There were a few dazzling pin-ups too, one even signed by a well-known madam in Gosport.

  Beckett sat at the mess table which had been cleared of their supper, a meal of baked beans, tinned sausages, and great wads of toast made with fresh bread from the town — a real luxury.

  He glanced at his companions. He and Dai Owen the C.E.R.A. were in fact the only members rated as chief petty officers. The rest were petty officers, heads of various departments, the backbone in any class of warship. Masefield, the P.O. sickberth attendant, known as Pansy, the closest thing to a doctor carried in Rob Roy, was bent over a letter from his mother, one delicate hand shading it from the others, like a schoolboy in an exam. Topsy Turnham, a dark-chinned, stocky figure with twinkling blue eyes, was the chief boatswain's mate, the Buffer, a direct link between the seamen and the first lieutenant. He was poring over some photographs of a full-breasted girl he had found somewhere. Beckett smiled grimly. He did not know how the Buffer managed it. He was married and had a home in Chatham, but always seemed to have his feet under the table with some bit of crumpet wherever he was based. A stoker P.O. lay snoring gently in his bunki>ehind a half-drawn curtain; otherwise the mess was empty. Kellett was doubtless fussing around his wardroom, and the others were ashore until midnight.

  Beckett gazed at a mug of beer on the table. The lull before the night's storm. He would be almost glad to be at sea again. You felt so bloody helpless stuck in harbour, and the Jerries only twenty miles away. About the same distance as Margate. It didn't do to look at it like that.

  It was a good mess, he thought. They had their bad moments, but that happened in any small ship where you lived in each other's pockets. But in bigger ships you found all the brains, whereas in Rob Roy the other key jobs were carried out by leading hands, just kids, some of them.

  Beckett looked up sharply. 'Turn up that radio.'

  The messman obliged so that the cool, precise tones of the BBC announcer intruded into their small, private world.

  'And yesterday our forces advanced still further westwards along the Libyan coast, supported by units of the Mediterranean Fleet. Some pockets of resistance were dealt with on the outskirts of Tripoli, but the advance continues.' The announcer's voice reminded Beckett of Hargrave. He could have been describing a cricket match. In his mind's eye Beckett could see it clearly. He had taken part in the evacuation of the army from Greece and Crete in the bad days. Ships sunk on every hand, exhausted soldiers, no air cover. A real foul-up. He had seen the battleship Barham explode and turn turtle after a U-boat had penetrated the destroyer screen and fired a salvo of torpedoes. Barham had been Beckett's first ship before the war. When he had been an O.D. like Boyes. He gave a sad smile. Well, not really like him.

  His friend the C.E.R.A. glanced at him across the table. 'Remembering, Joe?'

  'Yeh.' He downed the beer and signalled the messman. 'Turn that stuff off, or find some bloody music!' He faced his friend. He liked Owen, a man with a dark intelligent face, the engine-room's centre-pin. A bloody good chap. He smiled again. For a Welshman.

  He said, 'I'm almost scared to think about it, Dai. These advances in North Africa. After all the setbacks and losses. Can we really be on the move this time?'

  Owen shrugged and glanced at the bulkhead clock. Soon time for engine-room rounds. It would never do to let the Chief get there before him.

  He said, 'Well, at this rate, Joe, we'll have Rommel's bloody Afrika Korps with their backs to the sea before the month's out. There's nowhere else for the buggers to go, see?'

  Topsy Turnham folded his photographs and placed them in his wallet.

  Beckett said, 'You should keep a bloody filing-cabinet for all your bits of skirt!'

  Turnham beamed. He was quite ugly when he smiled.

  'Jealous, Swain? I can't 'elp it if they finds me irresistible now, can I?' He was a Londoner too, from Stoke Newington, not that far from Beckett's manor.

  Masefield glanced up from his mother's letter. 'What's the new Jimmy like?'

  Beckett shrugged. 'Not your type, Pansy. Real old school tie.'

  Owen grinned. 'Might be just his type then, see?'

  Beckett conceded, ' 'E knows 'is stuff all right. You couldn't catch 'im out on the nuts and bolts of the ship. But I dunno, Taffs, 'e's no warmth. A proper cold bastard.'

  Owen changed the subject. 'The Old Man's at the funeral today then?'

  'Yeh. I 'ate burials.' He reflected.' 'Cept at sea o' course. That's different. A bit of spit an' polish, a few words and splash, old chummy's gone for a last swim. A good tot and a tuck-in afterwards, well, you can see the point o' that!'

  The tannoy intruded. 'D'you hear there! Air-raid warning Red. Short-range weapons crews close up. Duty part of the watch to muster.'

  'Sods!' Beckett groped for his cap and a full packet of duty-free cigarettes. ' 'Ere we go a-bloody-gain!'

  The mess emptied except for the P.O. sickberth attendant and the sleeping stoker.

  A few minutes later the sky above Dover and beyond was lit up by bursting flak like hundreds of bright stars which touched the clouds and made them glow from every angle. The crump-crump of anti-aircraft guns from the batteries on the cliffs and inland, and then the sharper clatter of cannon-fire as some of the ships joined in the barrage. Whenever there was a lull they could hear the familiar drone of bombers, passing over, perhaps for London again.

  Beckett disdained a steel helmet, a battle-bowler, and tugged his cap more tightly across his forehead.

  The Jerries might be nearly thrown out of Africa, he thought savagely, but maybe they hadn't heard that at this end of the war.

  Ordinary Seaman Gerald Boyes sat at the mess table and looked around his new home. Number Three Mess was a grand name for one scrubbed table with a bench on one side of it, and the cushioned lockers opposite which fitted against the ship's forecastle plating. There were the usual shelves packed with attache cases, cap boxes, and life-jackets in easy reach, and two sealed scuttles, tightly closed against the darkness outside.

  At the head of the table, Leading Seaman Ted Hoggan, the acting gunner's mate and killick of the mess, was engrossed in darning a seaboot stocking, his eyes screwed up with concentration. Some hammocks were slung, their
owners, mostly watchkeepers, apparently able to sleep despite the blare of music from the tannoy and the noisy conversation from the mess opposite, where a game of uckers was in full swing.

  Hoggan eyed Boyes thoughtfully. 'You can sling yer 'ammock over there on them 'ooks, lad. Young Tinker is ashore for a spot o' leaf.' He gestured with the seaboot stocking to a small oval hatch in the deckhead where Boyes had struggled down with his bag and hammock. 'When Action Stations goes you fly up that ladder like a bat from 'ell, see?'

  Boyes nodded. He had changed into a sweater and overalls, apparently the rig except for those on watch in harbour. If anything it made him feel more of an intruder. The other seamen who lounged about writing letters, yarning, or watching the uckers game, wore overalls scrubbed and cleaned so often that they were pale blue, almost white in the harsh deckhead lights. Boyes's were still dark, regulation colour. He concentrated on the leading hand, a real-life seaman. Tough, with a wind-reddened face, and a snake tattooed around one thick wrist.

  Hoggan had returned to his darning. 'Just keep yer nose clean, an' do wot you're told. If you wants to know summat, ask me, got it? Don't 'ave no truck with the officers.'

  'Why is that, er, Leading -'

  'Call me 'ookey.' He tapped the killick on his sleeve. 'You're Gerry, right?' He did not see Boyes wince. 'Well, there are officers and officers, Gerry. Some are better than t'others, of course, but deep down they're all bastards.' He gave a slow grin, 'I should know. My boss is Mr bloody Bunny Fallows, the gunnery officer 'e calls hisself. Nice as pie one minute, the next, phew! Specially when he gets pissed.'

  A seaman who was stitching a new leather sheath which he had fashioned for a formidable-looking knife, said, 'Which is all the bleedin' time in 'arbour!' He glanced casually at Boyes. 'You a C.W. candidate?'

  Boyes flushed. 'Well, no, actually.'