For Valour Page 4

  She had long hair which hung down across bare shoulders. Calm, level eyes, unsmiling, as if she had just said something.

  He had mentioned the book to Fairfax after he had discovered it pressed between two official volumes.

  “He wasn’t married, sir. Like me, he thought it was too dicey in wartime, being separated for so long . . .” He had attempted to cover his embarassment. “I—I’m sorry, sir. I only meant . . .” It had made it worse. So they knew about Alison. Probably the whole ship by now. Good or bad, what did you expect in destroyers?

  He studied the picture again and wondered who she was. The ship was quivering around and beneath him. Machinery, perhaps one of the Chief’s generators.

  He thought of the unknown people who were now under his command. Some writing last-minute letters home. Yes, the new Skipper came aboard today. But nothing that might irritate the censor.

  He heard footsteps outside and replaced the book in the drawer.

  Fairfax came into the cabin and glanced around, as if making sure there were no loose ends, and that nothing had been overlooked.

  “Drink, Number One?”

  He saw the momentary hesitation, as if he were suspecting some sort of test. Then he grinned.

  “Horse’s Neck, if that’s all right, sir. I’ll ring for the steward.”

  “No.” Martineau unbuttoned his jacket and threw it on to a chair. “Allow me.” He could feel the other man watching him, probably wondering how they were going to get along. He said over his shoulder, “You should have a command of your own, you know.”

  He put the glasses down side by side. “You’ve earned it.”

  Fairfax bit his lip and said, “Never given it much thought, sir.”

  Martineau smiled. “I did, all the time, when I was a first lieutenant.” He raised his glass. “Selfishly, I’m glad you stayed with the ship. To us, then.” He thought of the photograph again. Perhaps Fairfax had known her. “Unless there is a last-minute change of orders we will leave harbour at noon tomorrow. Are you all buttoned up?”

  Fairfax nodded, his eyes distant, as if he were seeing through each bulkhead and into every department.

  “Yes, sir. Those two ratings are still adrift, and no news at all about Ordinary Seaman Abbott. He was fairly new, so I’m not that well clued-up as to his background.”

  “That I can understand.” Sailing at noon. He had seen it in their faces when he had told them in the wardroom. Liverpool, Western Approaches. To join the new group. The Atlantic.

  Hakka had seen most of her service in the Mediterranean, a war of survival protecting and supplying the embattled army in North Africa. Six of the Tribals had gone down there alone, to gun, torpedo, mine. Others had ended their days elsewhere, and one, the Punjabi, had been sunk in a collision with the battleship King George V, the flagship of the Home Fleet. Hakka was a lucky ship, they said. Until that day when she had been raked by an undetected aircraft while men were watching their own kind being picked up, rescued from an earlier attack. It was human enough. And it only needed a few seconds to die.

  A lot of the old hands were realistic about it. You don’t ask when, but how. So you can be ready . . .

  But Hakka ’s Captain should have known better, and men had died because of that lapse, act of humanity or not.

  There were more voices and Fairfax half-rose to his feet as one of the stewards opened the other door a few inches. Beyond him Fairfax saw the pointed face of Rooke, the Petty Officer Telegraphist.

  The P.O. said, “Sorry to trouble you, sir.” He looked at the new Captain, in his shirtsleeves, the jacket with its crimson ribbon tossed over a chair. “Just been sent over by the S.D.O., sir. Thought I should bring it meself.”

  “Thank you.” Martineau took the folded signal and read Rooke’s round handwriting beneath a desk light.

  Rooke was backing away, the steward frowning with disapproval. Fairfax asked quietly, “Bad news, sir?”

  Martineau looked at him, surprised that he could share it. With anyone.

  “Lieutenant Mike Loring died in hospital. This afternoon.” So he had lost after all. We all did.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I read about him, of course . . .”

  Martineau’s shadow moved over him as he walked to the drinks cabinet. He would write to Alison. In the same breath, he knew he would not.

  So often, over and over again, he had tried to relive the last hours before he had flung his ship against a vastly superior force. It was all destroyer men knew. Seek out and destroy the enemy. Seal your mind against everything else. Once an objective was realized there was no room for choice. Or had something else decided him on that terrible day?

  Fairfax was staring at the Captain’s table. He had eaten several meals there. Now it looked stark, alien.

  When they had nursed the ship back to Gibraltar and then brought her all the way home to the Tyne, he had been ready, tested and prepared. Now, as he watched Martineau, and in some small way had shared the anguish with him, he knew in his heart that he was not ready for command. And he was shocked by his discovery.

  He turned, afraid for a moment that he had said it aloud. But the Captain was looking past him, as if remembering something.

  “She was a fine ship, Number One. You could not ask for better.”

  Then he walked into the adjoining cabin and closed the door.

  Fairfax picked up his cap and left the Captain’s quarters.

  Even though darkness had fallen over the crowded anchorage he could recognize the navigating officer’s familiar outline. They fell into step, their feet avoiding ringbolts and other hazards without conscious effort.

  Kidd asked, “How was it, Jamie?”

  Fairfax heard one of the local boats chugging abeam, libertymen going ashore to forget their troubles if only for an hour or two. He was almost surprised by his own answer.

  “He’ll do me, Roger.” He touched the ice-cold guardrail. “Just what she needs!”

  Lieutenant Roger Kidd climbed on to the gratings in the forepart of Hakka ’s open bridge and peered over the glass screen. Behind his broad back and below his feet the bridge was going through the usual orderly preparations for leaving harbour. He had been up here since the pipe, “Special sea dutymen to your stations!” Slow and methodical, leaving nothing to chance. He felt the keen breeze through his beard and patted his pockets, as usual. Several pencils, an extra notebook for unofficial calculations; he had already checked the chart table.

  It was cold up here, but nobody would dream of wearing a duffle coat on a day like this one. He was even wearing a collar and tie. All eyes would be watching Hakka today. The Commodore, Captain (D), everybody. He glanced at his watch and wondered what clown had decided to get under way at noon. He had a large appetite, and his well-worn seagoing reefer confirmed it. It was much tighter than he had recalled it in the Med. The refit and repair work, and all those runs ashore. A little too much of everything.

  The new yeoman of signals was watching some passing supply vessel through his big telescope. The ship had come alive again, and here on her bridge were the experts. Below him in the wheelhouse, Spicer the coxswain would have been at his station from the first pipe too. A big man, with hands like hams, and yet he seemed to handle the wheel delicately, as if to detect every reaction before it happened. His quartermasters manning the telegraphs, boatswain’s mates at the ranks of voicepipes, and deep down in his world of machinery and heat the Chief would be waiting.

  Kidd had been at sea almost all his life, beginning as a cadet and working his way up the ladder, step by step, ship by ship. His last ship, the Port Stanley of the Roberts Line, had worked out of Liverpool; it would be strange going back there in a crack destroyer. He had been first officer in the Port Stanley, and a naval reservist, as required by the company’s owners. They had carried general cargo and a few passengers, and it had always been interesting. Suez, Port Said, the West African ports, or across to Montreal and New Orleans. Hard work, the Captain had never been k
nown to turn his back on a few extra pennies, and often enjoyable too; a few of the women passengers had found his rough humour irresistible.

  Six months after Kidd had changed uniforms, the Port Stanley had been torpedoed in mid-Atlantic. She had been carrying ammunition and there were no survivors. He was still unable to accept that he would never see the old ship again.

  A boatswain’s mate said, “Over there, lad!”

  Kidd climbed down and faced him. The new assistant navigator’s yeoman was slightly built and shivering in his Number Threes, and he looked nervous, unsure of the muttering voice-pipes and the occasional shouted orders from the forecastle where the hands were removing unwanted wires.

  Kidd asked, “Know what to do, Whitehart?”

  The youth nodded, and said, “ Wishart, sir. To . . . to assist here and on the plot.” As if he had rehearsed it.

  Kidd hid a grin. As green as grass. But willing enough, and he had come with a good report.

  “Where are you from, er, Wishart?”

  “St Vincent, sir.”

  Kidd sighed. “No, your home, lad.”

  “Surbiton, sir.” Almost a defiance there, and Kidd guessed he had been ribbed about it many times.

  “Well, your place for both action and defence stations is here or on the plot. Next, to make sure that when you bring me something hot to drink, you don’t make marks on the chart, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kidd knew that Wishart’s part of ship was the quarterdeck, where Malt, the Gunner (T), ruled. Malt was known to hate and despise would-be officer candidates, perhaps goaded by the constant thought that they would outrank him once they had gained that little wavy stripe.

  Somebody murmured, “Cap’n’s comin’ up, sir.”

  Kidd had never gone out of his way to seek popularity. He had seen too many others fall apart when it came to the test. But here in Hakka they seemed to like him, and, more importantly, they trusted him.

  He turned, saluting as the Captain walked through the gate and on to the gratings.

  “Good day for it, Pilot.”

  Kidd saw one of the subbies, Humphrey Cavaye, edging round so that the Captain might notice him. Conceited little prat. Maybe old Malt had a point after all.

  Martineau felt the stares, the curiosity. He glanced at the tall chair which was bolted to the deck on the port side of the bridge. His place, when he chose. Where his predecessor had been cut down by cannon shells.

  Fairfax had come to report to him just minutes ago. The ship was ready to proceed. Was he feeling it today? The first lieutenant checking everything for the last time before sailing. The slip-rope had been rigged through the ring of the forward buoy, the cable unshackled and rejoined to its anchor, the stern rope ready for letting go. He looked briefly at the compass and beyond it to the land, and the other ships.

  He had done it so many times. In harbours he could scarcely remember, in others he would never forget.

  He looked over the screen, the pattern already in position. Fairfax down there with a burly leading seaman, the Captain of the forecastle, and girded with a self-made belt of holsters, the tools of his trade. Hammer, marline spike, and a wicked-looking knife. Like the rest of the forecastle party he wore thick leather gloves. The slip-rope was not rope but wire, like all the other warps and springs, and one broken strand could carve a man’s hand to the bone when it was hauled through the fair-leads with the weight of all his mates on the end of it.

  He made to look at his watch, but instead readjusted the heavy binoculars around his neck. It was time.

  Right forward by the bull ring a young signalman stood smartly at the jackstaff, ready to haul down the flag the instant the ship parted from the buoy. He could see the Wren’s eyes in the driving mirror. Hear her voice. My brother. He was killed that day. That day . . .

  He looked into the wind, and saw an Oerlikon gunner turn to watch. The quay, the lines of moored vessels, the run of the tide.

  He lowered his head slightly to the bell-mouthed voicepipe.

  “Bridge.”

  “Wheelhouse, sir. Coxswain on the wheel.”

  Martineau looked towards the bows again. The buoy had been hauled so tightly beneath the flared stem that it was barely visible. Fairfax was right there, beside the young signal-man.

  The yeoman’s voice now, the clatter of a lamp. “Proceed when ready, sir.”

  Martineau nodded. “Affirmative.” To the voicepipe he said, “Stand by.”

  The response was instant, as if the Chief had been crouching over his controls like an Olympic sprinter.

  He felt the slow tremble moving through the bridge structure, heard the creak of steel, the rattle of a pencil falling from the ready-use chart table, saw an angry gesture from the bearded navigator.

  Down, and through the Channel, “E-boat Alley” as the press had christened it. The sailors referred to it as Shit Street. Where you could often see the occupied coast, and they could see you. Dive-bombers, mines, and certainly E-boats. Lying in that unfamiliar bunk he had heard the M.T.B.s returning to base in Felixstowe across the estuary. Maybe they had been on a successful sweep along the enemy coast. The Glory Boys, they were called.

  He rested one hand on the chair and felt it shivering. Alive.

  “Let go aft.”

  He heard the order repeated, the vague scrape from the quarterdeck, and saw a small cluster of houses beyond the water begin to swing as if they and not Hakka were moving.

  “All clear aft, sir!”

  She was swinging too fast. But he waited, measuring time and distance in his mind.

  “Let go forrard! Slow ahead together!”

  Then, “Slip!”

  He saw the buoy lean away, the wire, snaking inboard, writhing into a tangle until seamen ran to control it.

  He stooped over the compass and peered through the bearing prism.

  Spicer’s voice again. “Both engines slow ahead, sir. Wheel amidships.”

  “All clear forrard, sir!”

  Martineau watched the nearest buoy. “Starboard ten!” He waited, seeing a fast-moving launch tearing from bow to bow. “Midships. Steady. ”

  He made himself walk to the opposite side, and saw Hakka ’s starboard watch smartly fallen in for leaving harbour. First part, forrard. Second part, aft, as the tannoy directed. He wanted to lick his lips. They were like sand. How long ago was that?

  He returned to the chair, and rested his hand on its back again. As if he was sharing it.

  He saluted the flotilla leader as they passed abeam, while calls shrilled in mutual respect.

  Kidd said, “Coming on now, sir.”

  He swung the compass repeater prism from one bearing to the next. Landguard Point, with one of the M.T.B.s returning to her base, her side splintered by gunfire. The Glory Boys did not have it all their own way.

  He heard Spicer call, “Steady, sir. Course one-seven-zero.”

  Then Kidd again. Angry. “Signal that bloody boat to stand off!”

  Martineau raised his glasses and saw the cause of the navigator’s wrath. One of the Ganges’s cutters, the oars momentarily stilled, was drifting crabwise towards Hakka’s port bow.

  There was room enough. Some of the boys were waving, cheering, their voices lost in the whirr of fans and the murmur of machinery.

  He heard himself say, “Give them a wave, eh? They’ll know soon enough.”

  He saw the yeoman staring at him and was glad he had said it.

  Gratitude.

  “Half ahead both engines.”

  He saw the waves parting and rolling away from the raked stem as she gathered speed.

  The yeoman glanced astern at the cutter, the oars rising and falling like wings once more.

  Martineau turned away. Letting go, perhaps.

  Fairfax was here now, his eyes everywhere.

  “You can fall out the hands now, Number One. Port watch to defence stations.” He glanced abeam, but the land was already blurred. Or was it? “I never thought
I’d say it, but it’s good to be back at sea.”

  Fairfax studied his profile. Strong, calm, and yet, just then, he sensed a flicker of something like pain.

  He saw the new rating, Wishart, turn and give a small smile as the voicepipe reported, “Cox’n relieved, sir. Able Seaman Forward on the wheel. Course one-seven-zero, one-one-zero revolutions!”

  Martineau climbed into the chair and half-listened to the various reports and acknowledgements around him.

  She was his ship now. All else was left astern.

  3 | Welcome Back

  James Fairfax turned away from the voicepipes and reported, “Ship at action stations, sir.”

  Martineau eased himself forward in the tall chair, glad that he had taken the time to go down to his sea cabin and put on a thick sweater and duffle coat. The North Sea in winter was no place for a rig-of-the-day mentality.

  “Very well.” Fairfax had sounded terse, thinking, perhaps, that he might have been sitting in this chair, or expecting some criticism of the ship’s company’s performance when they had first exercised action stations on leaving Harwich. Or now, when it might be in earnest.

  Fairfax had, after all, virtually trained and welded the Hakka ’s people into a working machine. And they reacted well.

  It was still hard to believe how smooth leaving harbour had been. It was a busy place in every way, with many local craft on the move, and moored warships swinging to their buoys as an extra hazard. And yet it had gone without a hitch, as if the ship herself had been responding to his intermittent flow of helm and speed orders. He had never visited Harwich before in command of his own ship, and he doubted if the burly coxswain had had much experience of the place either. Following the marks and the buoys, taking a quick fix every so often with the gyro repeater to check some obvious landmark, St Nicholas Church, with its distinctive stone buttresses, and Landguard Point itself where they had made a wide sweep into open water. He had been momentarily surprised at the way she had handled, and had said as much to the navigating officer without realizing he had spoken aloud.

  The bearded lieutenant had grinned. “Like a London taxi, sir!”