‘This one is a thoroughbred, Number One, not like my old tub. They just threw out the fish and pitched us in. Not like Dryaden at all. She was taken from the Icelanders when our patrols caught her smuggling diesel and stores to U-boats.’ He nodded again. ‘A fine piece of shipbuilding.’
Hargrave remembered the pencil drawing in Ransome’s cabin.
‘Was that your line, sir?’
‘My father owns the yard. I was beginning to get the hang of designing boats.’ He heard the girl’s voice as if she had called out on the wind. Show me what you do. Please.
He said, ‘Fix our position again, then make the turn, Number One.’ He waved towards the salt-smeared glass screen. ‘We lead, the others follow in echelon.’ Ransome forced a smile. ‘Just like you learned in training, eh?’
‘What about Dryaden, sir?’
His eyes hardened. ‘She drops the dan buoys to mark our progress. They call her the blood-boat. No need to stretch the imagination for that, is there?’
As Hargrave returned to the chart Ransome listened first to the radar reports, then to the starboard look-out as he called, ‘Fast-moving craft at Green four-five, sir!’
The short-range weapons moved their muzzles on to the bearing until the gunnery speaker barked, ‘Disregard! All angels!’
Ransome watched the low hulls as they flung up great wings of creaming spray. M.T.Bs, back from the other side, making for their base, probably Felixstowe. How many had they lost?
He tried not to think of Tony, always the one in a hurry. Falling from a horse, capsizing a sailing-dinghy, everything was a great game to him. He listened to the throaty, animal growl of engines. He would find this a very different kind of game.
He heard the leading signalman say contemptuously, ‘There they go, the Glory Boys!’
Ransome turned. ‘Maids-of-all-work maybe.’ His voice had an edge to it. ‘We’re just the charwomen, so let’s bloody well get on with it!’
He slithered from the chair, angry with himself and knowing why, angry too at the hurt on Mackay’s open features.
He leaned over the voicepipe. ‘Cox’n?’
’Sir?’ As usual, Beckett was ready.
‘Half ahead together!’
Beckett repeated the order, then. ‘Both engines half ahead, sir. Revolutions one-one-zero.’
Ransome moved to his gyro repeater and stared through the V-sight while he steadied the compass with the azimuth circle.
He said, ‘Starboard ten.’
He ignored Beckett’s voice in the pipe as he watched the bright flickering colour of the dan buoy’s flag creep across the sight.
‘Midships.’ He licked his lips. I must not get rattled. Bad memories meant death. ‘Steady!’
Beckett would be down there peering at his steering repeater as it ticked round in the sealed wheelhouse.
‘Steady, sir, course zero-two-zero.’
Ransome could just make out the next dan buoy’s flag beyond this one. The breathing-space.
‘Steer zero-two-two.’
He straightened his back. ‘Pipe the minesweeping party aft, Thomas!’ To Hargrave he said, ‘Ready?’
Hargrave tugged his cap over his forehead. At least he had discarded his collar and tie, and wore a white sweater instead.
‘When you are, sir.’
Ten minutes later Ransome hoisted the signal Out sweeps to starboard.
As the leading signalman and his mate watched the flags streaming out from the yard Ransome said simply, ‘Didn’t mean to bite your head off, Mack.’ He turned to watch the other ships acknowledge the signal and so did not see Mackay’s pleasure, or Midshipman Davenport’s disapproval.
Ransome searched the sky too. If it was fine for sweeping so was it for aircraft. Originally one of the minesweepers had hoisted a tethered barrage balloon in case they were pounced on by a single fighter or dive-bomber.
It had its drawbacks. For it had acted as an accurate marker for the German guns across the Channel.
He thought of Hargrave’s face when he had told him about the sunken destroyer Viper.
Feet clattered on the deck below, while heavy gear was dragged aft by the Buffer’s party. At the big winch the P.O. stoker and Mr Bone would be watching the sweep-wire, hoping or dreading as the mood took them. Hargrave was with experts. He should be all right.
He climbed on to his chair as Morgan took over the watch.
And why not? You shouldn’t have joined etc. etc.
The boatswain’s mate put down his handset.
‘Sweep’s out and runnin’, sir!’
Ransome dug out his pipe. Now the waiting game began.
Petty Officer ‘Topsy’ Turnham banged the palms of his thick leather gloves together and said cheerfully, ‘Sweet as a nut, sir!’
Hargrave watched the fat, torpedo-shaped float with its little flag cruising jauntily through the water. He had to admit that it had gone much more smoothly than he had dared to hope. He glanced round at the sweeping party as they secured their gear yet again without the need for any comment or order from anyone. And that was the real difference, he decided. On the mine-sweeping course they had all been novices. For every manoeuvre ashore and afloat they had constantly changed places with one another, taking, then giving orders, enduring confusion and caustic comments from their instructors.
In Rob Roy the business of putting out the sweep-wire had gone like clockwork. First the heavy Oropesa float, which had required manhandling clear of the side while it was lowered outboard. All available men were piped aft to assist, and Hargrave knew that any error of judgment could mean at best a crushed hand, or someone’s arm pulped between the float and the ship’s side. Next the otter-board, a clumsy device which looked something like a farm gate, with toothed and explosive wire-cutters, and finally, at the end of the Oropesa sweep and closest to the hull, was the kite, which like the otter would hold the sweep-wire beneath the surface at the required depth and veer it some forty-five degrees out and away from the ship’s quarter.
Now, as the black balls were hoisted to masthead and starboard yard to show any stranger which side the sweep was dragging, Rob Roy and her consorts were on station in an overlapping line, in echelon.
The ship felt heavier in the water, which was not surprising with five hundred yards of stout wire towing astern.
Hargrave said, ‘How is it in rough weather, Buffer?’
The petty officer rubbed his chin with the back of his glove. It made a rasping sound.
‘Dicey, sir. It’s when th’ wire snares somethin’ you gotta be all about. You can’t see nothin’ in a drop of roughers, and the bloody thing can be right under yer counter before you knows it!’
He winked at the petty officer stoker who was controlling the powerful winch.
‘Old Nobby ’ere was blown right off ’is last ship.’ He raised his voice above the din. ‘Blew the ruddy boat right out of yer ’and, didn’t it, Nobby?’
The other P.O. gave a grim smile. ‘Coulda been worse,’ was all he said.
Hargrave thought of the disciplined world of the cruiser. It was impossible to compare with this one, amongst men who never seemed to take death and disaster seriously. Not openly at least.
Hargrave returned his gaze to the Oropesa float as it appeared to bound across the water like a pursuing dolphin. He had seen the incoming M.T.Bs, just as he had watched a flight of Spitfires when they had lifted from the land like hawks, before taking formation and heading towards France and the enemy. They were fighting, hitting back.