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He faced Goss’s heavy outline and said, ‘Morning, Number One.’

Goss grunted and waited until Stannard had made his formal report. Then he moved to Lindsay’s chair, and after a small hesitation climbed into it.

Stannard walked to the ladder. Goss’s action was almost symbolic, he thought.

Throughout the ship the watch had changed, and in bunks and hammocks men slept or lay staring at the deckhead reliving the fight. Drowsy cooks tumbled cursing from their snug blankets and made their way to the waiting galley with its congealed grease and dirty cups left by the watchkeepers. Barker sprawled on his back snoring, a copy of Lilliput, and not a ledger, open on his chest to display a voluptuous nude. In the sickbay an attendant sat sleeping beside the man who had lost his foot, and in another white cot a wounded stoker was crying quietly on his pillow, even though he was asleep. In his cabin, Midshipman Kemp was wide awake, looking up into the darkness and thinking about his father. Further aft, in the chief and petty officers’ mess, only a blue police light glowed across the tiered bunks. Ritchie slept soundlessly, while on a shelf beside his bunk the pictures of his dead family watched over him. Jolliffe, the coxswain, was having a bad dream, his mouth like a black hole in his heavy face. His teeth, like his slippers, were within easy reach should the alarm bells start again. In the stokers’ messdeck, Stripey, the ship’s cat, lay curled into a tight ball inside someone’s metal cap box, his body trembling gently to the steady beat of the screws.

Indifferent to all of them, the Benbecula pushed slowly across a steep beam sea, her shape as black as the waters which were hers alone.

6

Officers and men

If the Icelandic patrol known as Uncle Item Victor had been created solely to test man’s endurance it was hard to imagine a better choice. By the middle of October, a month after their clash with the German raider, Benbecula’s ship’s company had reached what most of them imagined was the limit. To the men at the lookout and gun positions it appeared as if the ship was steaming on one endless voyage to eternity, doomed to end her time heading into worse and worse conditions. Only the bridge watchkeepers really saw the constant changes of course and speed as the old ship ploughed around her desolate piece of ocean.

During the whole of that time they had sighted just one ship, a battered little corvette which had been ordered to rendezvous with them to remove the wounded and the handful of survivors from Loch Glendhu. For two whole days the ships had stayed in company, hoping and praying for some easing of the weather so that the transfer could be made. Even some of Benbecula’s most dedicated grumblers had fallen silent as hour by hour they had watched the little corvette lifting her bows towards the low clouds, lurching and then reeling into troughs with all but her bridge and squat funnel submerged.

Then, during a brief respite, and with Benbecula providing some shelter from the wind, the transfer had taken place.

Even then, and in spite of Fraser’s men pumping out gallons of oil to settle the waves, it had nearly ended the lives of some of them. Lindsay had ordered the remaining whaler to be lowered, as a breeches buoy or any sort of tackle was out of the question. The boat had made three trips, rising and vanishing into the troughs like a child’s toy, reappearing again with oars flashing like silver in the hard light as they battled towards the corvette.

Then with a defiant toot on her siren the corvette had turned away, her signal lamp fading as she pushed into yet another squall which must have been waiting in the wings for the right moment.

Alone once more they settled down to their patrol, or tried to. But it was a bitter world, an existence and nothing more. The weather was getting much colder as winter tightened its grip, and each dawn found the superstructure and gun barrels gleaming with ice, the signal halliards thick and glittering like a frozen waterfall. If watchkeeping was bad, below decks was little better. Nothing ever seemed to get dry, and in spite of the steam pipes the men endured damp clothes and-bedding while they waited their turn to go on deck again and face the sea.

Once they rode out a Force Eleven storm, their greatest threat so far. Winds of almost a hundred knots screamed down from Greenland, building the waves into towering, jagged crests, some of which sweptas high as the promenade deck, buckling the guardrails before thundering back over the side. Patches of distorted foam flew above the bridge and froze instantly on guns ‘and rigging, so’ that the watch below were called slipping and cursing to clear it before the weight of ice could become an additional hazard.

The ship seemed to have shrunk in size, and it was hard to find escape. Tempers became frayed, fights erupted without warning or real cause, and Lindsay saw several resentful faces across the defaulters’ table to show the measure of their misery.

Much of the hatred was, of course, directed at him. He had tried to keep them busy, if only to prevent the despair from spreading over the whole ship.

Fraser had been a tower of strength. Like scavengers, he and some of his artificers had explored the bowels of the ship, even the lower orlop, and with blow torches had cut away plates from unused store rooms. They had skilfully reshaped them before welding them in the flats and spaces damaged by the enemy shells. He had even created his own ‘blacksmith’s shop’ as he liked to call it, where his men were able to cut and repair much of the damaged plating and frames which otherwise would have waited for the dockyard’s attention. For to Fraser the enforced isolation seemed to act as a test of his personal, resources and ability, but when Lindsay thanked him he had said offhandedly, ‘Hell, sir, I’m only trying to hold the old cow in one piece until I get a transfer!’

The outbreaks of anger and conflict were not confined to the lower deck. In the wardroom Maxwell had a standing shouting-match with Goss, while Fraser never lost a chance to goad Barker whenever he began to recount stories of his cruising days.

There had been one incident which lingered on long after it had happened. Like the rest of the ship, the wardroom was feeling particularly glum about the latest news of their relief. Another A.M.C. should have relieved them on the sixteenth of the month. Due to unforeseen circumstances, later discovered to be the ship had run into a pier, the relief was to be delayed a further week. Another seven days after what they had’ already endured was not much to those who arranged such details. To most of the ship’s company, however, it felt like the final blow. Some had been counting the days, ticking off the hours, willing the time to pass. As a stoker had said, ‘After this, even bleedin’ Scapa’ll suit me!’

In the wardroom it had been much the same. At dinner, as the table tilted sickeningly from side to side, the crockery rattling in the fiddles, the little spark had touched off a major and disturbing incident.

One of the sub-lieutenants, a pleasant faced youngster called Cordeaux, had been talking quietly to Dancy about gunnery. He was quarters officer of Number Two gun, which had still to be fired in anger, and because of the icy conditions had had little opportunity to watch its crew at drill. Dancy had turned to de Chair who was sitting beside him moodily staring at some greasy tinned sausages on his rattling plate.

‘You’re better at gunnery, Mark.’ Dancy had nudged Cordeaux. ‘The marines always are!’

De Chair had emerged from his brooding thoughts, and in his lazy drawl had begun to outline the very points which had baffled Cordeaux.

Maxwell had been sitting at the head of the table and had said sharply, ‘By God, I’m just about sick of hearing how bloody marvellous the marines are at gunnery!’ He had jabbed his fork towards the startled Cordeaux. ‘And you, Mister, can shut up talking shop at the table! I know you’re green, but I’d have thought good manners not too hard to imitate!’