Stannard said shortly, ‘I’m going to the chart room, Sub. Take over.’
Dancy stood beside the chair and rested his hands below the screen. Lindsay glanced at him curiously. Like the others, he knew little about him. Young, serious looking, but little else to give a clue. Without his cap and duffel coat he might even be described as nondescript.
He asked, ‘What were you before you joined, Sub?’
Dancy said vaguely, ‘I–I wrote things.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, I was a writer, sir.’
Lindsay watched his profile. His own information described Dancy’s previous calling as bank clerk. But if he wanted to see himself as something else, what did it matter? Nothing which had happened before the Germans marched into Poland made any sense now. All the same….
‘Tell me about it.’
Dancy frowned. ‘Well, I’ve always;had this. terrific feeling about the sea, sir. My parents didn’t really want me to go into the Navy, and-after school I tried my hand at writing.’
‘Books?’
Dancy sounded uncomfortable. ‘Not books, sir.’ ‘What then?’
‘Things, sir’. Dancy looked at him desperately. ‘About the sea.’
Stannard came back suddenly. ‘Sir? Sickbay has just called. The doc wants,’ he hesitated, ‘he asked if you could change course for about twenty minutes. A seaman’s
fallen down a ladder and broken his hip. Doc says he can’t fix it with all this motion.’
Lindsay-looked at him. He could see the man’s resentment building up. Waiting for him to refuse the doctor’s request. He must think me a right bastard.
‘Very well, Pilot. But work out the additional revs we will need to make up time, and inform the chief.’
Stannard blinked. ‘Yes, sir. Right away.’
As he vanished, Dancy said seriously, ‘Of course, I had to do other jobs as well. For a time, that is.’
Lindsay slid from the chair, wincing as the stiffness brought pain to his legs.
‘Well, there’s a job for you now.’ He waved around the bridge. ‘Take over. I’m going to my cabin for a shave.’ He saw Dancy’s face paling. ‘Just call pilot if you can’t cope.’ He tapped the brass telephone by his chair. ‘Call me if you like.’ He grinned at Dancy’s alarm. ‘Good experience later on for your writing, eh?’
With a glance at the gyro he walked stiffly to the ladder abaft the.wheelhouse and did not look back.
Dancy remained staring fixedly at his own dim reflection in the spray-dappled glass. He felt riveted to the deck, unable to move. Even his breathing had become difficult.
Very cautiously he looked over his shoulder. The quartermaster’s eyes glittered like stones in the dim compass light, the rest of the bridge party swayed with the ship, like silent drunks.
Nothing had changed, and the realisation almost unnerved him. He was in sole command of this ship and some two hundred and fifty human beings.
The quartermaster, for instance. How did he see him? he wondered. Authority, an officer in whose hands he was quite willing to entrust his life?
He asked suddenly, ‘How is she handling, Quartermaster?’
The seaman, McNiven, stiffened. He had been watching the ticking gyro, holding the staggering ship dead on course, so what the hell was wrong with Dancy? His eyes flickered momentarily from the compass, sensinga trap of some sort. -
‘All right.’ He waited. ‘Sir.’
He had been thinking about his last leave in Chatham. The girl had seemed fair enough. But after a few pints under your belt you could get careless. He stirred uneasily, just as he had when the bloody Aussie navigator had spoken to the skipper about the sickbay. Suppose that bloody girl had given him a dose? What the hell should he do?
Dancy said, ‘Oh, in that case,’ he smiled through the gloom, ‘carry on.’
McNiven glared at Dancy’s back. Stupid sod, he thought. Carry on. That’s all they can say.
Unaware of the quartermaster’s unhappy dilemma, Dancy continued to stare straight ahead. It was true what he had told the captain. Partly. He had always loved the sea and ships, but his parents’ means and openopposition had prevented his chances of trying for Dartmouth. At the bank he had often met a real naval officer. He used to come there when he was on leave to draw money, and Dancy had always tried to be the one to serve him. He had listened mesmerised to the man’s casual comments about his ship, and the exotic places like Singapore and Bombay, Gibraltar and Mombasa. And later he had let his craving, his desperate imagination run riot.
He sometimes told himself that but for the war he would have gone raving mad at the bank. Mad, or turned to crime, robbing the vault, and making old Durnsford, the manager, beg on his knees for his life. He knew too that if the war had not come to save him he would have stayed on at the bank. No madness or crime, just the miserable day to day existence, made endurable only by his imagination.
At King Alfred when he had been training for his temporary commission he had met another cadet of about his
own age. An Etonian, someone seemingly from another planet, he had transformed so much in Dancy’s caution and suburban reserve. And ‘it had been catching.. When Dancy had gained the coveted gold stripe and had been sent to the little armed yacht at Bristol, the first lieutenant had asked him about his earlier profession. Profession. He could still remember that moment. Not job or work. Or business, as his mother would have described it. It had seemed quite natural to lie. ‘I’m a writer,’ he’d said. It had been easy. The officer had been impressed, just as Commander Lindsay had been. Writers were beyond the reach of Service minds. They were-different and could not be challenged.
Stannard slammed back through the door and stared at him.
‘Where’s the cap’n, for Chrissake?’
‘He left me in charge.’ Dancy’s eyes wavered under the Australian’s incredulous gaze.
Stannard muttered, ‘Must be off his bloody head!’ He looked at McNiven. ‘I’m going to alter course to zero-twozero in half a sec. I’ll just inform the sickbay.’ He glanced at Dancy. ‘In charge. Jesus!’
Lindsay completed the shave and studied his face critically in the mirror. There were shadows beneath his eyes and his neck looked sore from wearing the towel under his duffel coat. But the shave, the hot water refreshed him, and he wondered how the surgery was going on the seaman’s hip.
He glanced towards his other cabin and pictured the bunk beyond the door. The warm, enclosed world below the reading lamp. Perhaps later he might snatch’some proper sleep.
Jupp padded into the cabin and, laid a silver coffee pot carefully between the fiddles on a small table.
He said, ‘The old girl’s takin’ it quite well, sir. Not too bad at all.’
Lindsay sat in a chair and stretched out his legs gratefully.
‘At least the decks aren’t:, awash all the time. That’s something.’
The telephone rattled tinnily, and when he clapped it to his ear he heard Stannard say, ‘The doc’s reported that he’s finished, sir. I’m about to alter course, if that’s all right by you?’
‘Good. Carry on, Pilot.’
He felt the deck tremble, a sudden tilt as the helm went over, and saw the curtains on the sealed scuttles standing out from the side as if on invisible wires. The sea boomed along the hull, angry and threatening, and then subsided with a slow hissing roar to prepare another attack.
The telephone buzzed again…
‘Captain.’ He raised the cup to his lips, watching Jupp as he stooped to pick a crumb from the carpet.
Stannard sounded terse. ‘W/T office has picked up an S.O.S., Sir. Plain language. It reads, Am under attack by German raider.” He paused, clearing his throat. ‘Seems to be a Swedish ship, sir, probably a mistake on the Jerry’s part.’
Lindsay snapped, ‘Keep on to it!’ He dropped the cup unheeded on the tray. ‘I’m coming.’