“Are there others like Head?”
“Not that I know of, sir. It’s possible they fell over the side or down a hatch, of course. I won’t be asking directly, sir, but might pick up on the odd conversation over time. There is something going on, sir. I can feel the hands are keeping something back, and I don’t know what, no idea. It might be lower deck justice, sir.”
Canning hoped not but passed the word to Simon.
“A lynching, in other words, Number One.”
“Westerman has that feeling, sir. I have heard of it, never been in a ship that experienced it in extreme form. I know that one occasionally sees a hand wearing bruises with no explanation for them, and I know not to ask how or why.”
“There was one on St Vincent when I was a mid, Number One. Not so many years back, in fact! One of the older hands who molested a boy seaman. He was given a kicking that broke him. Left him bruised and battered and with his face cut about and teeth lost – they tell me that Marines’ boots when they are new have almost a razor edge to their leather soles. Whatever, he was a handsome, strutting sort of fellow and recovered from his beating ugly and with his mouth fallen in where so many teeth had gone. He went absent in Cape Town – never heard what happened to him.”
“Might be how a man was lost over the rail, sir…”
“Possible. We shall never be told if that was so.”
“Bad for discipline. Even worse if the officers heard nothing in a small ship.”
“Damned right! Has McCracken said anything at all?”
“Nothing, sir. Mind you, I have hardly had time to talk to him, despite him being next senior to me. I shall make the effort, possibly in the depot ship of an evening, have a drink together, that sort of thing, breaking the ice, you know.”
“Do that, Mr Canning. Sooner rather than later, if you would. I am not happy about the atmosphere in the ship. Take that mudbank Lancelot grounded on – yes, it was in the night, but what’s the odds that none of lookouts spotted a flash of white seas breaking on it or picked up on a change in the feel of the waves? None of them made a report. Either they didn’t care or they wanted to drop the captain into trouble. Whatever, it’s no attitude for a ship at war.”
Canning frowned, inclined to agree with his captain in the nature of things, also feeling that he did not like lookouts who turned a blind eye.
“I’ll have a drink with McCracken tonight, sir.”
Sublieutenant McCracken was still young and had yet to develop a head for alcohol. Being within reason sensible for his age, he normally drank little and cautiously; as well, he had seen Captain Hayes and come to his own conclusions there. Canning was better able to handle his gins, encouraged the boy to two too many and remained sober when McCracken showed tipsy; he found it easy to get the boy talking.
“Captain Hayes, he would do nothing out of routine, sir. He was told that Robbins and Jenkin and Birtles were a little gang and preying on the younger seamen and refused to take action. He shouted at the First when he tried to press him to bring them to court. I told him of what I had heard and he threatened to have me put ashore and broken as no use on destroyers. Then he drank some more, sir. He would do nothing! You know what it’s like on a destroyer, sir – nothing is a secret. The men knew the captain would do nothing, so I am sure they dealt with the problem themselves, sir. Robbins disappeared in the night and Jenkin was found with his neck broken under the forward ammunition supply hatch two days afterwards. A week later and Birtles was carried ashore for ‘falling down’ in the night – both arms broken and his face unrecognisable. Captain Hayes said it was accidents. The old coxswain said he knew nothing and turned his back on the Captain in front of the men.”
Canning bought another gin.
“I asked the First what to do and he told me to keep my mouth shut. It was over and would not happen again. It was wrong, though, sir.”
“So it was, youngster! Forget about it. We have a new captain and will be seeing action soon enough. That should pull the men together. I’ll pass the word to Mr Westerman.”
The new coxswain shook his head when he was told the tale.
“Bad one, sir. Better we do not investigate. If we passed it across to the Provost Department they would go through the men and in the end one of them would talk under the pressure. Then it would be murder charges for I don’t know how many hands and the ship finished for morale. Wisest course is for me to quietly let it be known that I know what happened and I will raise Heaven and Earth if it happens again. New officers, new ways of doing things. The past is gone, finished, almost forgotten and will remain that way, while it can be. For now it’s all pull together and there’s a war to fight and us to the front of it. Be an idea to have a word with the captain, sir. The sooner we see some action to pull the hands together, the better.”
Chapter Twelve
Christopher stirred in bed in the hotel room in Alexandria. He stretched and yawned, right arm touching obviously female flesh, left leg nudging another young lady as he rolled towards the first to greet the morning.
He did not remember bringing two girls back to the hotel; there was no particular reason he should not have, however. Alexandria was an easy-going, high-living town for the Navy, especially when one was not concerned about reputation or promotion. He wondered what the date was.
Later, getting his breath back, he enquired of the nearer girl if she knew what day of the week it might be.
She grinned and shook her head, speaking no English. The second sat up and announced it was Tuesday.
“Bugger! The trawlers come out of the yard today. Duty calls!”
He stood and sniffed an armpit and chose to run a bath before putting on his uniform and pulling out his wallet. Rather to his surprise, his note case was still full of Egyptian pounds with a pair of English fivers in the back. He pulled out half of its contents and split the banknotes into two piles, put them on the sideboard while he stuffed his shore-going clothes into his suitcase.
“Ladies! My thanks! I must go back to sea. Farewell!”
They laughed and waved and dived for the money, quickly counting and thanking his generosity.
He left without a backward glance.
The hotel found him a carriage to the dockyard and he arrived with five minutes to spare before the set time.
The five trawlers all had steam up and he ran aboard Hans Heine and down to his cabin, changed quickly into sea-going uniform and trotted up to the little bridge space.
“Where next, sir?”
Skipper Murchison, senior of the flotilla, shook his head in mock despair at his subordinate’s debauchery; he was more than a little envious.
“Red Sea, Adams. There is a possibility of small craft – dhows and such – carrying Turkish troops with the intention of making landings along the Arabian coast north of Jeddah and possibly advancing towards Suez. We are to patrol south, stopping and searching as we go. An eye out for slaves, as always. Check for gold bullion as well – apparently the price of gold is higher in India than in Egypt and there may be an outflow of bullion, which is undesirable, or so it seems. Damned if I know what or why, but that’s what the orders say.”
It all seemed fairly pointless to Christopher. Most things did.