Hargrave brushed down his sleeves. ‘Been right over her, stem to stern.’
The midshipman drew closer. ‘I could show you the radar, sir?’
Beckett tried not to look at him. A real little prick.
He said, ‘Watch out fer wet paint, sir.’
Hargrave frowned at a smear of grey on his trousers.’ Thanks.’
Beckett added, ‘New ratin’ ’as just joined the ship, sir. I’ve put ’im in Mr Morgan’s division.’
Their eyes met. ‘I’d like to be told first, Swain.’
‘You wasn’t ’ere, sir.’ Beckett met his gaze coldly. ‘We was one short, so to speak.’
The tannoy snapped the tension.
‘D’you hear there! D’you hear there! Up spirits/’
Beckett tucked his clipboard beneath his arm and watched Hargrave walk briskly towards the bridge, the midshipman falling into step to keep up.
‘Stand fast the ’oly Ghost!’ he muttered. ‘By Christ I’ve never needed a bloody tot more!’
The Chief and Petty Officers’ Mess was about the same size as the wardroom, although less conventional. There was a small bar at one end where a seaman in a white jacket was acting as messman, and ranged behind it were souvenirs from various pubs scattered from Leith to Gibraltar. Beer mugs, ashtrays stamped with pub or brewery names, photographs of various groups at darts matches, regattas or just a good booze-up. There were a few dazzling pin-ups too, one even signed by a well-known madam in Gosport.
Beckett sat at the mess table which had been cleared of their supper, a meal of baked beans, tinned sausages, and great wads of toast made with fresh bread from the town – a real luxury.
He glanced at his companions. He and Dai Owen the C.E.R.A. were in fact the only members rated as chief petty officers. The rest were petty officers, heads of various departments, the backbone in any class of warship. Masefield, the P.O. sickberth attendant, known as Pansy, the closest thing to a doctor carried in Rob Roy, was bent over a letter from his mother, one delicate hand shading it from the others, like a schoolboy in an exam. Topsy Turnham, a dark-chinned, stocky figure with twinkling blue eyes, was the chief boatswain’s mate, the Buffer, a direct link between the seamen and the first lieutenant. He was poring over some photographs of a full-breasted girl he had found somewhere. Beckett smiled grimly. He did not know how the Buffer managed it. He was married and had a home in Chatham, but always seemed to have his feet under the table with some bit of crumpet wherever he was based. A stoker P.O. lay snoring gently in his bunki>ehind a half-drawn curtain; otherwise the mess was empty. Kellett was doubtless fussing around his wardroom, and the others were ashore until midnight.
Beckett gazed at a mug of beer on the table. The lull before the night’s storm. He would be almost glad to be at sea again. You felt so bloody helpless stuck in harbour, and the Jerries only twenty miles away. About the same distance as Margate. It didn’t do to look at it like that.
It was a good mess, he thought. They had their bad moments, but that happened in any small ship where you lived in each other’s pockets. But in bigger ships you found all the brains, whereas in Rob Roy the other key jobs were carried out by leading hands, just kids, some of them.
Beckett looked up sharply. ‘Turn up that radio.’
The messman obliged so that the cool, precise tones of the BBC announcer intruded into their small, private world.
‘And yesterday our forces advanced still further westwards along the Libyan coast, supported by units of the Mediterranean Fleet. Some pockets of resistance were dealt with on the outskirts of Tripoli, but the advance continues.’ The announcer’s voice reminded Beckett of Hargrave. He could have been describing a cricket match. In his mind’s eye Beckett could see it clearly. He had taken part in the evacuation of the army from Greece and Crete in the bad days. Ships sunk on every hand, exhausted soldiers, no air cover. A real foul-up. He had seen the battleship Barham explode and turn turtle after a U-boat had penetrated the destroyer screen and fired a salvo of torpedoes. Barham had been Beckett’s first ship before the war. When he had been an O.D. like Boyes. He gave a sad smile. Well, not really like him.
His friend the C.E.R.A. glanced at him across the table. ‘Remembering, Joe?’
‘Yeh.’ He downed the beer and signalled the messman. ‘Turn that stuff off, or find some bloody music!’ He faced his friend. He liked Owen, a man with a dark intelligent face, the engine-room’s centre-pin. A bloody good chap. He smiled again. For a Welshman.
He said, ‘I’m almost scared to think about it, Dai. These advances in North Africa. After all the setbacks and losses. Can we really be on the move this time?’
Owen shrugged and glanced at the bulkhead clock. Soon time for engine-room rounds. It would never do to let the Chief get there before him.
He said, ‘Well, at this rate, Joe, we’ll have Rommel’s bloody Afrika Korps with their backs to the sea before the month’s out. There’s nowhere else for the buggers to go, see?’
Topsy Turnham folded his photographs and placed them in his wallet.
Beckett said, ‘You should keep a bloody filing-cabinet for all your bits of skirt!’
Turnham beamed. He was quite ugly when he smiled.
‘Jealous, Swain? I can’t ’elp it if they finds me irresistible now, can I?’ He was a Londoner too, from Stoke Newington, not that far from Beckett’s manor.
Masefield glanced up from his mother’s letter. ‘What’s the new Jimmy like?’
Beckett shrugged. ‘Not your type, Pansy. Real old school tie.’
Owen grinned. ‘Might be just his type then, see?’
Beckett conceded, ‘’E knows ’is stuff all right. You couldn’t catch ’im out on the nuts and bolts of the ship. But I dunno, Taffs, ’e’s no warmth. A proper cold bastard.’
Owen changed the subject. ‘The Old Man’s at the funeral today then?’
‘Yeh. I ’ate burials.’ He reflected. ‘’Cept at sea o’ course. That’s different. A bit of spit an’ polish, a few words and splash, old chummy’s gone for a last swim. A good tot and a tuck-in afterwards, well, you can see the point o’ that!’
The tannoy intruded. ‘D’you hear there! Air-raid warning Red. Short-range weapons crews close up. Duty part of the watch to muster.’
‘Sods!’ Beckett groped for his cap and a full packet of duty-free cigarettes. ‘’Ere we go a-bloody-gain!’
The mess emptied except for the P.O. sickberth attendant and the sleeping stoker.
A few minutes later the sky above Dover and beyond was lit up by bursting flak like hundreds of bright stars which touched the clouds and made them glow from every angle. The crump-crump of anti-aircraft guns from the batteries on the cliffs and inland, and then the sharper clatter of cannon-fire as some of the ships joined in the barrage. Whenever there was a lull they could hear the familiar drone of bombers, passing over, perhaps for London again.
Beckett disdained a steel helmet, a battle-bowler, and tugged his cap more tightly across his forehead.
The Jerries might be nearly thrown out of Africa, he thought savagely, but maybe they hadn’t heard that at this end of the war.
Ordinary Seaman Gerald Boyes sat at the mess table and looked around his new home. Number Three Mess was a grand name for one scrubbed table with a bench on one side of it, and the cushioned lockers opposite which fitted against the ship’s forecastle plating. There were the usual shelves packed with attache cases, cap boxes, and life-jackets in easy reach, and two sealed scuttles, tightly closed against the darkness outside.