Hammond Innes - Dead and Alive

‘To us?’ His brows lifted humorously. ‘Maybe it looks to Whitehall, to the men who have dug themselves in behind their mahogany desks and will fight to the last white man overseas — not us.’

‘You’re bitter,’ I told him.

‘No, not bitter.’ He said it thoughtfully as he refilled our glasses. ‘It’s just that I understand things more clearly than I did. I can understand the Twenties now the period between the wars. They lost hope of a new world when they came back from the trenches and found all the back row boys well entrenched behind red tape entanglements. They felt there was nothing that they could do but try to forget.’

I didn’t make a reply. There was a lot in what he said.

‘In the words of the prophet — we’ve had it,’ he said. ‘The generations that fought won’t rule this country for another twenty years. But — ‘ and his eyes, grey flecked with green, looked straight into mine — ‘this country’s future isn’t going to be built here at home. We must go out and wrest our title to greatness from the world as the Elizabethans did. I saw enough in the Middle East and Southern Europe to realize that the great trading days are by no means over. Now you were a landing craft skipper in the Navy. Did you ever think of the possibilities of L.C.T.s on the trade routes on enclosed seas like the Mediterranean?’

He drained the remainder of his whisky at a gulp. ‘I came down here to adjust myself, the same as you. I started at Bude and set out with a rucksack to walk to Land’s End. This is as far as I got. I heard about this old tub in a bar at Boscastle. And when I saw it, it was the end of my walking.

‘She was full of water and sand — in a filthy state. And the locals, with true Cornish thoroughness for wrecking, had taken every movable fitting. There’s no compass, no ropes, no bunks, the wheel was gone and even the galley stove has been filched. But — and this is what the Navy people didn’t know — the skipper of this boat did a bloody good job with the engines. When I recce-ed the ship I found the engine-room full of sand and water. But under it all were great gobs of grease. The engines were thick with it. Now I’ve cleared the engine-room out and the old Paxmans look like new. I had them going a week ago and they ran perfectly. I’ve dug her out underneath with the help of a half-witted local boy and she’s O.K.’

‘Just a moment,’ I said. ‘Does this craft belong to you or are you just doing all this for the fun of it?’

‘No, she belongs to me. I bought her for a song off the Admiralty — they were selling her as scrap and part of the agreement is that I undertake to clear her from the beach. There’s nothing in the bill of sale to say that I can’t remove her intact and afloat — and that’s just what I intend to do. And there’s nothing to say I’ve got to break her up and sell her for scrap — which needless to say I don’t intend to do.

‘Now then,’ he said, ‘would you like to come in on this? I need somebody who understands these boats. I’ve done a good bit of bridging and suchlike commonsense engineering jobs. But I need somebody who knows more than I do to get her off these rocks without damaging her. And when she’s off, I need somebody to watch the refitting and to sail her. Have you got any money put by?’

‘A little,’ I said. His enthusiasm was infective.

‘Right — now here’s a proposition. Apart from what I paid for her I’ve got about £1,500. That in my opinion is not enough capital to start out on. Your help can get her off. Then when she’s afloat put up what you can and we’ll form a private company with the ship as its assets, and we’ll split profits on say a 70–30 or 60–40 basis according to how much you put up. We can’t lose on it. Afloat she’ll be worth quite a bit in a foreign country.’

I helped myself to another Scotch whilst I thought it out. The question was, could she be got off and floated without tearing the hull to shreds? And how much would it cost to float her — a lot of tackle would be required.

‘Let’s go out and have a look at her,’ I suggested.

I was quite excited. It was a proposition that had definite possibilities.

The tide had ebbed back from the rocks and we could stand on the sand and get a comprehensive view of the position of the ship.

‘I’ve thought of rigging hawsers to the rocks at each side of the entrance to the cove and winching,’ he said. ‘But there’s that jagged rock by the stern — it’s the one that did the only spot of damage to her hull, and she’s going to slide off her lodgment right on to it. I thought of trying to lift her off with hawsers slung to the cliff on either side, but they’d never stand the strain.’

‘You’d never do it that way,’ I told him. ‘You need a ramp and rollers if you’re going to have any chance of getting her off without damage.’

‘And that would cost a packet.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘if you had to build the ramps. It would be a big concreting job and it would cost a lot.’ My mind was suddenly made up. ‘How much were you reckoning to spend on floating her off?’

He shrugged his shoulders, his hands deep in his corduroys. ‘I reckoned it might cost all I had. So far, all I’ve put into her, except for the initial purchase, is my time and the cost of this boy who’s been working with me. But I’m prepared to take a chance on all I have. It’s a gamble, but I’ve thought it out and I figure it’s worth it. That’s why, apart from your knowledge and experience, I need somebody with a little extra to put into the refitting.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Now supposing I said I think I can get her off without damage — would you be willing to form a private company on a fifty-fifty share basis, a proviso being that I undertake to float her and pay the cost of doing so? That’s my experience and naval contacts to offset your original idea and expense in purchasing it.’

He looked at me for a moment. Then he said. ‘Okay. We’ll call that a deal. And that calls for another whisky — we may as well finish the bottle.’

Well, it was settled there and then and we drew up a preliminary agreement embodying the undertakings on either side. And next day I took the train to Plymouth.

I hadn’t told him that all I possessed in the world did not amount to more than just over £500. I hadn’t told him how I was going to get the craft off. I didn’t know. I had bluffed him into thinking that I could do it. But could I? Supposing the Dockyards hadn’t got any L.S.T. landing pontoons? I needed hawsers and a winch, too. Suppose they wouldn’t let me borrow them? And if I got them how was I to rig them?

There were so many problems to solve and I thought of nothing else as the train rolled its way across the Cornish moors and into Devon.

However, my luck was in. I discovered that a man I knew was connected with Admiralty stores. I entertained him to dinner that night. He was a lieutenant-commander now. When I’d known him in the Anzio days Slater had been one of the few regular skippers in the Combined Operations outfit. I told him the whole story.

But when I explained how I intended doing it, he shook his head. ‘Niente pontoons, chum,’ he said. ‘They’re all out in the Pacific still. Doubt whether you’d find any at Portsmouth even. What about derricks? I’ve got some of those and masses of steel hawsers and winches I can lend you.’

‘That’s going to be a hell of a job,’ I said. ‘She’d most likely break her back on the rocks. Now with a pair of those pontoons and log rollers I reckoned I could have her off in no time.’

‘Yes, chum, but I haven’t got any,’ he said. ‘If I’d got ‘em I’d let you have them — but I haven’t and that’s all there is to it.’