The wind had eased, and the sky had been clearer than for many days. It had almost been time to rendezvous with the American patroll vessels, an arrangement which made a lie to their neutrality, but one which was more than welcome to merchantmen and escorts alike.
There were three torpedoes, all of which missed the tanker by a narrow margin. But one hit the’ elderly Vengeur on the port side of her forecastle, shearing off her bows like a giant axe.
The ship’s company had mercifully been at action stations at the time of the explosion, otherwise the watch below would have died or been drowned later when the forepart tore adrift.
As it was, the ship went down in fifteen minutes, with dignity. Or as the coxswain had said later, ‘Like the bleedin’ lady she was.’
Only five men had been lost, and all the remainder had been picked up from the boats and rafts by a Swedish freighter which had been an unwilling spectator to the sinking.
Lindsay dug his hands into his greatcoat pockets and clenched them, into fists. Just one more sinking. It happened all the time, and the powers that be would be glad the Vengeur and not the big tanker had caught the torpedo.
It was later. Later. He gritted his teeth together to stop himself from speaking aloud.
The girl asked, ‘Are you all right, sir?’
He turned on her. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ She looked away. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No.’ He removed his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. It felt damp with sweat. Fear. ‘No, I’m the one toapologise.
She looked at him again, her eyes searching. ‘Was it bad, sir?’
He shrugged. ‘Enough.’ Abruptly he asked, ‘Are you engaged to be married or anything?’
She eyed him steadily. ‘No, sir. I was. He bought it over Hamburg last year.’
‘I see.’ Bought it. So coolly said. The resilience of youth at war. ‘Well, I’d better get out now. Otherwise the boat will go away without me.’
‘Here, sir. I’ll give you a hand with your bags.’ She ignored his protests and climbed out of the car on to the wet stones of the jetty.
The wind slammed the door back against the car, and Lindsay felt the wind lashing his face like wire. Below the steps he could see the tossing motor boat, the oilskinned figures of coxswain and bowman.
He said, ‘Maybe I’ll see you again.’ He tried to smile but his face felt like a mask.
She squinted up at him, the, rain making her forehead and jaunty cap shine in the grey light. ‘Maybe.’ ‘What name is it?’
She tugged down the sodden scarf from her mouth and smiled. ‘Collins, sir.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Eve Collins. Daft, isn’t it?’
She had a nice mouth. Lindsay realised one of the seamen was picking up his bags, his eyes on the girl’s legs. He said, ‘Take care then.’
He walked to the steps and hurried down into the waiting boat.
The girl returned to the car and slid behind the wheel, her wet duffel coat making a smear across the worn
leather. As she backed the car away from the jetty’s edge she saw the boat turning fussily. towards the anchorage. Nice bloke, she thought. She frowned, letting in the gear with a violent jerk, nice, but scared of something. Why did I give him my name? He’ll not be back. She looked at herself in the mirror. Poor bastard. Like all the rest of us in this bloody place.
Lindsay remained standing as the boat dipped and curtsied across the wind-ruffled water, gripping the canopy with both hands. as he watched the anchored ships. Battleships and heavy cruisers, fleet destroyers and supply vessels, the grey metal gleamed dully. as the little boat surged past. The only colour was made by the ships’ streaming ensigns or an occasional splash of dazzle paint on some sheltering Atlantic escort. His experienced eye told him about most of °the ships. Their names and classes, where they had met before. Faces and voices, the Navy was like a family. A religion. And all these ships, perhaps the best in the fleet, were tied here at Scapa, swinging round their buoys and anchors, waiting. Just in case the German heavy units broke out again to try and destroy the convoys, scatter the defences and shorten the odds against England even more.
Bismarck had been caught and sunk after destroying the Hood. But it had been a close run thing and had taken damn near the whole Home Fleet to do it. Graf Spee had been destroyed by her own people in Montevideo. rather than accept defeat by a victorious but inferior British force. But again, she had done well to get that far, had sunk many valuable ships before she was run to earth. And even now the mighty Tirpitz and several other powerful modern capital ships were said to be lurking in Norwegian fjords or in captured French ports along the Bay of Biscay. Just gauging the right moment. And until that moment, these ships had to lie here, fretting, cursing and wasting.
He glanced at the boat’s coxswain. Probably wondering what sort of a skipper they were getting. Was he any good? Could he keep them all in one piece?
The seaman said gruffly, ‘There she is, sir. Fine on the starboard bow.’
Lindsay held his breath. For a moment she was just one more shadow in the steady downpour, and then she was right there, looming above him1ike a dripping steel cliff. Lindsay knew her history, had studied her picture and layout more than once, but after a low-lying destroyer, or any other warship for that matter, a merchantman always appeared huge And vulnerable. It took more than drab grey paint, a naval ensign and a few guns to change that.
Five hundred feet long from _her unfashionable straight stem to her overhanging stern, and twelve-anda-half thousand tons, she had steamed many thousands of miles since she had first slid into the Clyde in 1919. Born at a time of dashed hopes and unemployment, of world depression and post-war apathy, she had represented jobs to the shipyard workers rather than some source of a new hope. But she had done well for herself and her owners. Described in the old shipping lists as an intermediate liner, she had been almost constantly on the London to Brisbane run. Port Said, Aden, Colombo, Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Her ports of call were like a record of the merchant navy itself, which in spite of everything had been the envy of the world.
Cargo, mail and passengers, she had pounded her way over the years, earning money, giving pleasure, making jobs.
After Dunkirk, when Britain had at last realised the war was not going to be won by stalemate, if at all, she had waited for a new role. The stately ocean liners had become hospital ships and troopers, and every other freighter, tanker or aged tramp steamer was thrown into the battle for survival on the convoy routes. Benbecula had done some trooping, but she was of an awkward size. Not suitable for big cargoes, too small for large numbers of servicemen on passage, she had been moved likela clumsy pawn from one war theatre to the next.
With the Navy stretched beyond safety limits she had been earmarked at last as an armed merchant cruiser. She could endure the heaviest weather and stay away from base far longer than the average warship. To patrol the great wastes of the North Atlantic off Iceland, or the barren sea areas of the Denmark Strait. Watch for blockade runners, report anything suspicious, but stay out of reaclass="underline" danger. Any heavy naval unit could make scrap of an unarmoured hull like hers. Rawalpindi had found that out. And only some nine months ago the Jervis Bay had been sunk defending a fully loaded convoy a thousand miles outward bound from the American coast. The convoy had scattered in safety while the Jervis Bay, outgunned and ablaze, had matched shot for shot with a German battleship. Her destruction, her sacrifice, had brought pride as well as shame to those who had left the country so weak and so blind to its danger.
The motor boat cut across the tall bows and Lindsay saw the overhanging bridge wing, the solitary funnel and the alien muzzle of a six-inch gun below her foremast.