Hardy sipped tea and watched the activity on the gray waters of Scapa Flow. The black flag had just been run up and a gun fired to recall Firedancer’s liberty party to the ship from Kirkwall and Stromness. As Land reported this to Hardy, Hardy just nodded.
“Number One,” he said as Land was about to make his way to the wardroom to shake off this hateful Scottish cold. “Do you think a man’s life is defined by a single incident?”
Hardy felt Land behind him, and sensed that his number one was taken aback by the question and was struggling with an answer.
“Never mind,” Hardy said, feeling stupid and vulnerable for asking such an outlandish question. “Go about your business.”
Torps Baird stood on deck near the number-one torpedo mount and drew easily on a Churchman’s. There were two PR MK II mounts aboard Firedancer, each bearing four tubes, with a funnel and searchlight platform between them. They could be fired from the bridge or from the mounts themselves, but they had to be swung into position by a hand crank. They carried the MK IX twenty-one-inch torpedoes with a maximum range of nearly fifteen thousand yards. In their blunt noses rested over seven hundred pounds of TNT. They were propelled from their tubes by compressed air pressurized to 3,100 pounds per square inch.
Seaman Blessing joined him.
“Got your fill then?” Baird said. “Straight Rush is a seaman’s treat, but after we’ve been out awhile it’ll be bully beef soaked in Alley Sloper’s Sauce.”
“I’m still hungry,” Blessing said apologetically.
“Lord love a duck!” Baird said. “Where do you put it all, you little scupper? I’d be ashamed of myself, I would, if I ate like you and then complained I hadn’t had enough to eat. Many’s a time I’ve had nothing but a packet of Woodbines and kippers. Do you see across the way?”
“What ship is that?” Blessing said.
“Prince of Wales, Seaman. Isn’t she the lady? Bismarck or not, she keeps a trim line.”
“Who’s that behind her? A cruiser?”
Baird looked at Blessing in disgust. “‘Behind’! And I suppose that we’re standing on the floor? That’s Prometheus astern of Prince of Wales. She’s a Diddo-class cruiser. Sir Whittlesey Martin commanding. He and our very own Captain Hardy have a history.”
“A history?”
“Fire and ice. If they ever got along that well. It’s been like that since they came out of Dartmouth together.”
“Why?”
Baird flipped the spent cigarette over the side. “It’s a mystery. But I’m the man to ask about everything and anything, aren’t I?”
“About the captain, you mean?” Blessing said.
“Him and his chum over there. Martin has family and position and poor Georgie had nobody to vouch for him. Opposites in every way except one.” He let the comment hang in anticipation of Blessing’s question.
“What was that?”
“Ambition, Boy Seaman,” Baird said, satisfied that Blessing had sense enough to pick up the cue. “Blind ambition. They were at each other’s throats in Dartmouth, so people say, and they didn’t stop once they got out. Our captain and Sir Whittlesey have been at it tooth and claw, and Georgie always one step behind.”
“I didn’t know,” Blessing said, amazed.
“It’s the Lord’s truth,” Baird said. “Ambition fuels their fires, blind ambition. There’s them that let themselves be consumed by ambition, Boy Seaman, worshiping the rewards that such brings them like them false idols that you read about in the Bible.”
“What false idols?”
“Them that you read about,” Baird said cryptically, “in the Bible.”
“Oh.”
“Now, blokes like you and me, we keep ambition safely tucked away. We go about life one day at a time, taking what it gives us. And happy we are with what we receive. We don’t get greedy about it, you see. That’s what ambition really is — greed. It just sounds better when a chap says that he has ambition.”
“I suppose so.”
“You suppose right, Boy Seaman. The problem with captains and ambition is this: sometimes they see only what they want, not what they’re meant to have, you see. So off they go, driving their ship and crew, ambition dangling fame or fortune in front of their nose like that donkey and his carrot. Greedier they get and faster they go until common sense and propriety are forgotten. Sir Whittlesey and Captain George Hardy, Royal Navy, are the same sort when it comes to ambition. But there’s always a piper to pay, isn’t there?”
“There is?” Blessing said.
“There is, and it’s the poor sailors who pay it. Out goes Prometheus and Firedancer into the North Atlantic, with their captains afire with ambition. Mark my words, at some time or another, disaster will befall one of them — someone will have to pay the piper.” Baird waited while Blessing digested the words and placed his own value on them before continuing. “They don’t give a hang about us, do they? Let ten or twelve of us buy it, make it a hundred for conversation’s sake, and they hardly notice. Impervious they are, hard-boiled and soaked in bile. I’ve seen it, lad. When Jack catches one, the high and mighty on the bridge don’t feel a thing.”
“How do you know so much?”
“Twenty-eight years in the Royal Navy, lad. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open and you’ll do the same. Officers talk as if we seamen weren’t about to hear them — bloody insolent beasts. Stripes on a man’s sleeve don’t give him the right to command a ship or to command the respect of those that serve. I know as much as some and more than others. ‘It is upon the navy under the providence of God that the safety, honor, and welfare of this realm do chiefly depend.’”
“Who said that?”
“King Charles’s preambles to the Articles of War, lad. Carved in letters as tall as a man over the arch that leads to Dartmouth. Truer words were never spoken, but half the bastards on any bridge of His Majesty’s ships probably don’t know it.” Baird noticed a troubled look cross Blessing’s face. “What is it, lad? Need the blue water cure?”
“When we were out with the convoy,” Blessing said reluctantly, “I was so frightened I hardly knew what to do.”
“Is that what’s troubling you? Never give it a thought. That’s what training is for, so that a man doesn’t have to think.”
“Were you frightened?”
“Me? Not a bit of it. But you see, lad, I’ve been at this awhile. Give yourself another ride or two on the trolley and it’ll become second nature to you. I give you my word. Just follow Old Sandy.”
“Will we ever get to use these things?” Blessing said, nodding toward the torpedoes slumbering in their tubes.
“Use them? Use them? Why, Boy Seaman, guns is good enough for some, but for me I’d rather get close enough to look the enemy in the face before I send them to hell. Here. When Andrews was all wooden ships and sails you had to draw alongside your enemy to kill him. Man to man. Understand? Along comes the big guns and now all of the humanity’s gone out of the killing. Stand off twenty miles and let some bloke buried deep in the ship’s guts tell you where to aim and when to fire. No humanity, like I said. Get me close enough and I can thread the eye of a needle with these Mark IXs. Whoosh! Off they go like the very devil himself is after them, and when they hit… Oh! When they hit, many a Jerry’s tour is extended.”
“But guns—”
“Guns! You mean those 4.5s scattered about Firedancer? Decoration, boy, just decoration. All they do is irritate the enemy. Keep them off balance until we can get close enough to slip one of these up their bunghole. Neatly done too. Listen, lad, Firedancer’s fast and nimble and even in the hands of those salt horses on the bridge she’ll give a good account of herself.” Baird was relieved to see Blessing smile. “That’s it, lad. Keep the spirits up. Do your duty and one day you’ll be torps just like me.”