Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

The fireman was tugging at his arm: ‘We’ll have to go this way.’ They set off down a side street at something close to a trot, their boots crunching across a carpet of broken glass and slate.

It was only a short distance to the river. Strand Street was a shambles. The front of a large warehouse had collapsed, spewing masonry across the road and exposing the blasted shell behind. A clanging ambulance was weaving uncertainly towards the quay where a thick pillar of acrid black smoke was rising from within the great brick walls of the outer dock. A short distance away, half a dozen exhausted firemen were standing round their engine waiting for instructions. Lindsay’s companion roused them with an angry stream of four-letter words. High-explosive detonations flashed and rumbled down the river; people and history were being wrenched from the streets of the city.

Lindsay jumped up alongside the fire crew and the engine began to bump across the quayside cobbles. The inner dock was dark and strangely still but for orange light shimmering across the water. Then they passed between two towering warehouses and a world of noise and smoke and fire opened before them. It was as if they were being painted into some grisly medieval Day of Judgement. Firemen and sailors in smoke hoods were scurrying about with stirrup pumps and cutting tools, and pulling at the coils of hose that snaked around the dock. An auxiliary ship was listing badly, straining at its mooring ropes, its deck shrouded in a filthy choking cloud. Through the smoke Lindsay caught a ghostly glimpse of a second ship, an old-looking destroyer, its bows blackened and twisted.

‘Get that fucking thing round the other side double quick.’

A Chief Petty Officer, his face and uniform black with oily smoke, was gesturing wildly across the dock. As the fire engine growled past, he jumped up beside Lindsay. ‘Sorry, sir, didn’t see you there. Brown, sir.’

‘Is that your ship, Chief?’ Lindsay pointed into the smoke.

‘The old destroyer, sir, she’s a mess, a fucking mess.’ Brown’s voice was trembling with emotion.

‘Explosion’s wrecked the whole for’ard part of the ship. The mess deck’s a fucking shambles. We can’t get on to it.’ He paused, struggling to compose himself. ‘There’re lads trapped. Can’t this fucking thing go any faster?’

‘Is the Captain there?’

‘No, sir, everyone was celebrating.’

There was no need to ask but Lindsay did: ‘Your ship, she’s the White ?’

‘Just back from Gibraltar. We sank one of their submarines. Funny, isn’t it? We won’t be sinking any more.’

The fire engine pulled up some thirty yards short of the White and the firemen were soon busy laying hoses and struggling into breathing hoods. Brown led Lindsay towards the stern of the ship. A dozen or so wounded sailors with haggard, sooty faces were limping back along the quay, hands on shoulders like something from the trenches of the Great War. By the warehouse wall there was another line: four or five pairs of highly polished run-ashore shoes protruding from a mound of blankets.

‘I’ve got a bomb in this bucket, Chief.’ A gangly-looking seaman, his face and uniform streaked with blood, was standing in front of them, his bucket at arm’s length. An incendiary was fizzing like a firework in the bottom of it, a small bottle of white-hot metal.

‘Bloody cover it in sand,’ said Brown with exasperation.

They forced their way through the press of sailors at the bottom of the ship’s gangway and up on to the deck. The swirling smoke tasted of fuel oil. Figures were drifting through it in ghostly motion, appearing and just as suddenly disappearing. Brown led Lindsay like a blind man across the ship to the starboard side where the smoke was a little thinner. A small party of sailors was gathered about a very young sub-lieutenant. He was clearly relieved to see Brown:

‘Thank God. We need a whaler over the side, Chief.’

And he explained that half a dozen men had managed to slip down a rope into the dock but there were still more trapped below.

‘The first lieutenant has given me this…’ He coughed hard in an effort to disguise the emotion in his voice. ‘Morphine. All right? You’re to pass it through the scuttles.’

He thrust the box at a puzzled-looking Brown.

‘Anything else, sir, you know, dressings and stuff?’

‘No, Chief, that’s not important now. Make sure they get the morphine. And get going, for God’s sake.’

Brown and his party set off along the deck and were soon busy swinging one of the ship’s boats over the side. Lindsay caught hold of the sub-lieutenant just as he was disappearing into the smoke. ‘Can I help, Sub…’

‘I don’t know, sir. God, it’s a mess. She was to have been fitted with a forward escape hatch — bit bloody late, isn’t it?’

He stalked off without waiting for a reply. Lindsay stood at the rail, unsure what he should do. Smoky rain from the hoses on the quayside was pattering in heavy drops on to his uniform. He could hear Brown issuing orders to the boat crew aft. Then there was a blinding white flash and the sharp smell of cordite. He felt a hot rush of air like a desert wind and was thrown sideways as the ship shuddered. There had been another explosion for’ard. Pulling himself to his feet, he turned and staggered along the deck towards the stern.

The whaler was in the water but still alongside. It took just a moment for Lindsay to slip down the falls into her bow. An arc of water from the ship’s hoses was cascading pink on to the burning deck and pouring smoky black down her side. The hull was hot to touch and the heat had shattered some of the starboard ports. They edged into the billowing smoke, the sailors resting at their oars, one hand for the boat, the other held firmly to nose and mouth. Lindsay’s eyes were streaming so badly he could barely see the length of the whaler. Then he heard someone shouting, screaming with fear, and through the smoke frantic hands were waving from two of the mess-deck ports. One of the young sailors in the whaler began to whimper. The heat and smoke were almost unbearable. As they pulled closer to the open scuttles, they were showered with small fiery pieces of matting stripped from the deck above. There was another deep rumble inside the ship and for just a second the shouting, the pleading, stopped. By standing on one of the thwarts Lindsay was able to reach up with his hand to the porthole. An unseen, unknown man grasped it and held it tightly as if his life depended upon it.

‘Morphine, we have some morphine for you,’ Lindsay shouted, but he found it difficult to make himself understood. The whaler began to rock as more hands reached up.

‘John, is that you, mate…?’

‘Hang on in there, Taff, we’re on our way…’

These were bonds forged over many months at sea, dangers, mess tables and hammocks shared. They were family. And as Lindsay stood there holding an unknown sailor’s hand he thought of another crew, another ship, and of the desperate helplessness he had felt as she slipped into the darkness. Sleeping, waking, the memory was there, the same cold seconds, whistling sickly through his mind, the white faces contorted in a scream that would last for eternity.

‘Sir, look…’

Through the smoke he could see shadowy figures on the quay, jumping, waving, and although it was impossible to hear what they were saying the panic in their voices was unmistakable.

‘Get this morphine up…’ he shouted.

They began to press small boxes of the drug into outstretched hands. At his side, Brown was shouting, ‘For the wounded, mate…’ and, ‘Just in case.’ Should he explain ‘Just in case’? But it would be obvious soon enough, and he cursed the staff, cursed them for not fitting that escape hatch.