The loud hailer on Ranger’s bridge gave a shrill squeak, then Ransome heard the unmistakable tones of her captain, Lieutenant Commander Gregory. A good friend over the months they had been sweeping together, but one you would never really know in a hundred years.
‘Did you have a party last night?’
Ransome glanced at Hargrave as he spoke to Morgan while they stooped over the hooded chart-table. It was taking Hargrave far too long. Rob Roy should have been through the gate by now. Even to mention it would throw him off balance, and might discourage him from asking advice when it could prove to be vital. For all of them.
The magnified voice added, ‘I suppose your ship is aground on gin bottles? I can give you a wee push if you like!’
Some of Ranger’s seamen grinned broadly.
Lieutenant Sherwood muttered, ‘Stupid bugger!’
Hargrave crossed the bridge. ‘Ready to single up, sir.’ He seemed oblivious to the banter alongside.
‘Carry on, Number One.’ He tried to settle down in the chair. It was a strange, uncomfortable feeling he had never experienced before. It was like having an unknown driver take the wheel of your new car.
‘Single up to backspring and stern rope!’
The dark figures came to life on the forecastle, and Ransome heard the scrape of wires along the steel decks, the throaty bark of the Gunner (T), Mr Bone, from the quarterdeck, his personal domain when the ship moored or got under way.
‘Stand by wires and fenders!’ Hargrave looked even taller on the starboard gratings as he watched the activity on both ships. He was going to pivot the ship round, using Ranger’s hull like a hinge. There was not enough room ahead to make a simple turn. Men scampered aft with extra fenders, and Topsy Turnham, the Buffer, could be heard threatening death to anyone who scored the new paint. ‘Stand by!’ Hargrave gestured to Morgan. ‘Warn the wheelhouse!’
Ransome leaned forward to watch the ship’s forecastle deck, like a pale spearhead in the feeble light.
Bunny Fallows cupped his hands. ‘All clear forrard!’
Hargrave glanced briefly across the bridge at Ransome, but he did not turn. Hargrave waited for his breathing to steady. ‘Slow astern port.’
The deck responded instantly and a steady froth of disturbed water surged away from the stern. The remaining spring took the strain, the Buffer and a leading seaman watching the wire tightening as the ship put all her weight against it. Turnham growled, ‘Slack off there!’ Or, ‘Watch that bloody fender, man!’ The bows began to swing outwards away from the other ship, from which came a muffled, ironic cheer.
Wider and wider until the two ships angled away from each other at about forty-five degrees.
Ransome cleared his throat, and knew that he was gripping his unlit pipe so tightly that it might snap unless Hargrave stopped the ship.
Hargrave called, ‘Stop engines! Let go aft!’
‘All clear aft, sir!’ The boatswain’s mate holding the bridge handset licked his lips. He must have been sharing Ransome’s anxiety.
Hargrave nodded. ‘Slow ahead together. Port twenty.’
Ransome did not raise his voice. ‘Back the port engine, Number One.’
Their e^es met and Ransome smiled. ‘I know from near misses that this corner is tighter than it looks.’
Hargrave lowered his mouth to the voicepipe but kept his eyes on Ransome. As if he wanted to see what he really meant, or if it was a criticism.
‘Slow astern port!’
Back came Beckett’s reply. ‘Port engine slow astern, sir. Twenty of port wheel on!’
The ship moved very slowly beneath the shadow of the wall, whilst in the shadows astern the other minesweeper was already casting off her lines, her screws churning the water brilliant white against the weathered stone.
Ransome nodded. ‘I’ve got her, Number One.’ He moved to the voicepipe. ‘Slow ahead together. Follow the markers, Swain.’
He looked at Hargrave. ‘Best to leave it to the man on the wheel. Joe Beckett is the best there is. You can lose precious minutes by passing and repeating orders.’ He touched his sleeve. Hargrave’s jacket felt like ice. ‘That was well done.’
Hargrave stared at him. ‘Thank you, sir.’
The tannoy intoned, ‘Hands fall in for leaving harbour! Attention on the upper deck, face to starboard!’
When Ransome looked again, Ranger was in line directly astern, her hull beginning to shine as the light grew stronger. The seagoing ensign, patched, tattered and grubby from funnel smoke, flapped stiffly from the gaff, and already most of the wires and heavy rope fenders had vanished, stowed away until the next time.
Ransome raised his powerful glasses and studied the undulating silhouette of the land. South-east England, which had had just about everything thrown at it. Blitzed, bombed, shelled, and nearly starved on more than one occasion when the convoys had been cut to ribbons in the Atlantic long before they had been close enough to face the lurking hazards of enemy mines.
‘But not invaded.’
’Sir?’ Hargrave looked at him.
Ransome glanced away. He had not realised he’d spoken aloud.
He said, ‘It’s never stopped. We sweep every day, whether there’s anything to sweep or not.’ He smiled sadly as he remembered the ladies in black at the funeral, the schoolgirl in her blazer with a cardboard gas-mask container hanging from her shoulder. ‘For as the King once said, how else do you know there’s nothing there?’
The bows lifted and made the uneven lines of men on forecastle and quarterdeck sway like drunken sailors waiting for the liberty boat. It was as if the sea was already groping into the harbour to find them. To take them back where they belonged.
Ransome moved the gyro compass repeater and found he no longer wanted to talk. But he said, ‘Fall out harbour stations. We’ll exercise action stations and test guns in fifteen minutes.’
He heard Morgan whispering behind him. When to make the first turn. The course to steer. The latest wrecks to be checked against the chart. Above their heads the radar kept its silent vigil, and once into deeper waters the Asdic would begin to sweep the darkness beneath Rob Roy’s pitted keel.
Ransome had seen it so many times, and yet it was always new. He smelt cocoa, ‘kye’ as the Jacks called it, and felt his stomach contract. He had slept like the dead, and was regretting the whisky it had taken to do that for him.
As he stepped down from the compass platform his hand brushed against the picture in his duffle-coat pocket. If anything went wrong this trip, he would still have that.
He tried not to think of the funeral, and of the boy called Tinker he had sent on compassionate leave.
A young seaman appeared on the top of the ladder, and was speaking with the boatswain’s mate. A new face.
Behind him he heard Hargrave ask, ‘Are the hands always dressed like that when we leave harbour?’
Morgan made to reply but Sherwood’s voice was sharp and incisive.
‘What, no swords and medals, Number One?’ His voice was quieter as he swung away. ‘It’s not a cruiser. There’s no safe way in this job!’
Ransome frowned. There was bad friction there. He would have to do something about it. But first he crossed to the young seaman, who had apparently carried a message to the bridge.