Ian Slater - WW III

Then one day shortly after his eighteenth birthday, William announced he didn’t want to go to university — he wanted to be a cook.

“A chef!” corrected Richard in astonishment. Even then William could see his father was at once disappointed and relieved. Relieved because, erroneously, Richard Spence expected it would cost less money to train his son in the culinary arts, and disappointed because the Spences had always been of professional stock — solicitors, doctors, even the odd barrister. No criminal briefs, of course, mainly mercantile law. It was one of these relatives who, before the war broke out, had advised Richard of a “solicitous compromise” which he believed would satisfy both Richard’s desire to see his son in a respectable profession, rather than merely a trade, and William’s choice. Richard demurred, however, on the subject of a child of his being in, well — manual work.

“Being a chef’s not like being in a trade these days, Richard,” William’s great-uncle had advised in High Church tone. “More of a guild, I should think. Point is, if you want both, he’ll have to don uniform. Have to pass the entry exam, of course, but he’ll get his O levels.”

“Shortly,” Richard assured him. “What do you mean by uniform?”

“Not a bad arrangement at all,” the uncle had continued.

“And they’re desperate these days. No offense, Richard. But they do want volunteers if they can get them. William seems bright enough. I see no reason why after a while he couldn’t apply for officer training school. Rather rushing them through these days, I should think, with all this talk of trouble brewing in Europe.” The uncle had looked satisfiedly into his dry sherry. “Yes, I should think it would suit him admirably. End up with a commission and—” he sipped the sherry “—I shouldn’t be surprised if he was running a large hotel in years to come. Could do worse.”

“I suppose,” began Richard, “if he wanted—”

“Richard, old boy, once he gets his one stripe, he’s way ahead of other applicants for any hostelry business. Officer, cordon bleu, and all that. Doesn’t do any harm, Richard. I do think that given his rather limited aspirations, it would be best for him.”

Richard was coming around, slowly. “Any of the services will do, I expect?” asked Richard.

The uncle came as near as he ever had to swallowing sherry without savoring it first. “Certainly not. I strongly suggest the senior service.”

“The air force,” said Richard.

“Don’t be fey, Richard. The navy, of course.”

“I wasn’t trying to be fey.”

“Then your ignorance on these matters is lamentable.”

“But I’ve never thought of William as a sailor. Anne won’t go for it,” Richard had said. “I can tell you that now. All this business about the possibility of war breaking out…”

“War? Richard, old man, you’ve been watching too many of those dreadful ‘Insight’ programs. Either that or reading the Mirror. ” The uncle took his brolly and hat from the front stand, using the unfurled umbrella as a pointer. “You send him to the navy, mark my words.”

Richard was right — Anne didn’t like it — but he told her it was most likely that, unless the unthinkable happened, William would be posted to a shore establishment. In any case, if there was a flare-up, with modern weapons it would be like the Falklands so many years ago — over very quickly.

Eleven months to the day, William Spence was Leading Seaman Spence, cook’s helper, aboard the destroyer escort HMS Peregrine. After a very rushed, rather peremptory training drill ashore, he now found himself aboard one of the latest DD escorts, his job one of the least glamorous, most important jobs in war: to prepare food for convoy under attack, to guarantee, no matter what the conditions, that everyone in the ship’s company got his NATO-required three thousand calories a day.

For all the destroyer’s modern technology, hot meals were, as the cook quickly explained, ill-advised at most and “sheer bloody impossible” in the maelstrom of an engagement: hot stoves, soup tubs spilling despite their gimbals mountings, steaming coffee and tea that would burn, and ovens that unattended could cause a fire — as lethal as any missile. Yet if morale was to be kept up, food was fundamental, providing the high-sugar, high-adrenaline level necessary for any kind of sustained battle.

William Spence had heard but seen little of R-1’s action against the trawlers. Apart from the bridge-wing lookouts, no one was permitted on ship’s decks, the 115-millimeter gun and the Australian IKARA SUBROCS going off along with the Limbo depth-charge mortar unloading its deadly ordnance off the stern of the seven-thousand-ton ship. The Bristol-class destroyer, her twin funnels astern behind the rotary bar radar her telltale markings, had fired her 115-millimeter at two of the trawlers, but her angle in the close pack of the convoy prevented her from launching torpedoes. After the sinking of the Russian-manned trawlers, the men who did not have their stations overlooking the well deck and so had not see the carnage of broken bodies adrift in the icy waters of the Atlantic were the only ones who were hungry. But the cook, a chief petty officer, assured William Spence that later that night, when the others’ shock of seeing their first “dead men” wore off, they would be ravenous— especially if the big fish came.

William Spence didn’t get the connection.

“Torpedo attack,” explained the cook. “Night’s still the worst time — fancy radar or no. And if that happens, it’ll be bloody mayhem, laddie. Ship darkened. CIC dimmed — so you make sure you’ve piles of boxed sandwiches, and keep those thermos cups bunched, ready to go in the elastic basket. We go into search or evasive pattern, this tub’ll be swinging from starboard to port, port to starboard so fast, it’ll make your head spin. And it’ll last hours. And no onions or garlic. Old man’ll go spare— can’t abide ‘em.”

“Hardly haute cuisine, Chief,” said Spence. The cook had seen many a recruit come and go, but there was something more likable about Spence than most — perhaps it was his unabashed naïveté, an eagerness that assumed the best in everyone he met, and the cherubic face that was in stark contrast with the salt-leathered scowls he got at times in the mess. Not all of them, like Johnson, who was peeling spuds for the freezer, were volunteers like Spence.

“And that Yank bloke we have aboard,” said the cook. “NATO liaison fella. No Marmite for him. They don’t understand it.”

“Can’t say I’m mad about it myself,” smiled Spence.

“Ah,” said Johnson, “puts hair on your chest. Right, Chiefie? Iron in the old pecker,” said Johnson. “Cock stiffener.”

Spence blushed. The cook said nothing — they were sending him choirboys, they were, all keen and woefully inexperienced in the ways of the world — but unlike some of his ilk, the chief cook aboard HMS Peregrine took no delight in watching the transition from recruit to leading seaman.

“Never mind him,” said the cook, pushing the big thirty-two-once jar of black beef extract spread toward Spence. “Just don’t put it on till you’ve made all the other sandwiches. Most crew don’t like it when it’s been sitting around too—”

“Action stations!”

The cook’s voice was drowned out as the sound of the alarm and men running, grabbing life jackets, asbestos balaclavas, and gloves, thumped quickly through the guided missile destroyer. In an instant the high whine of abrupt start-stop electric motors could be heard bringing weapons into line with radar guidance. Peregrine heeled sharply to starboard at thirty knots, the flare of her bows lost in a gossamer of spray, phosphorescent with plankton. William Spence could hear the sudden dump! dump! dump! of the 155-millimeter — and then the hard-running-faucet sound of the IKARA torpedo-missile, Peregrine turning so violently to port that coffee spat out of the hot twin Silex pots that had been shoved hard against their metal guards.