Andrew Wareham: End to Illusion

The new body was a man of at least thirty, well tattooed and tanned – he was an old hand and should have been far too valuable to have been sent to another ship. Eldridge was immediately suspicious, sniffing for rum or gin, expecting him to be a drunkard.

“Smith, sir. AB.”

Eldridge’s suspicions rose. Too many ‘Smiths’ had chosen the name on hurried enlistment, one step ahead of the shore police. Add to that, he was able-bodied – experienced as a seaman and valuable among the mass of wartime recruits. Zealandia must have some nefarious reason for getting rid of him.

“What’s your experience, Smith?”

“Sixteen years, sir, since a boy. Ten years in the boats, sir. Got drafted to Zealandia last year when she got sent to sea and needed useful hands to add to the Reserve mob what she got. Been wanting to get out since I got on, sir. No ship for a seaman, sir! Known the Buffer these ten years, sir. Put across for getting too old for the boats, he was, sir. Got the chance in a hurry and he volunteered me for Sheldrake, sir, and the First is ashore and so’s the Commander and there wasn’t nobody to say no, sir.”

Eldridge sighed in relief.

“Welcome aboard, Smith. You are here as a replacement for a new hand who injured himself falling over. Green as grass! You will not stay in his duties for longer than it takes me and the coxswain to rewrite the watch lists.”

Smith nodded and smiled and looked about at the ship, ventured a comment.

“Everything up together nice and taut, sir. Way it should be. Got a good name, Sheldrake. Glad to be here, sir.”

The comment verged on the impertinent, was the sort of thing an old, experienced and very competent hand could get away with.

“Good of you to say so, Smith. Report to the coxswain.”

Eldridge returned to the bridge.

“Could be a good man, sir. Boats for years and managed to fiddle his way off Zealandia in the absence of senior officers to overrule the Buffer, an old acquaintance. Able and looks as if he deserves the rating. Let him prove himself and then put him to work directly to the coxswain with an eye to petty officer soon, sir.”

“We could use another PO, Number One. Put him up quickly if he makes the grade. Set him to work with Higgins, if possible, teach the boy the basics of seamanship and boat handling.”

“Hard labour, sir?”

“We have to do all we can for the boy, Number One. No choice. What is he doing at the moment?”

“Off watch and getting his head down, I think, sir. He needs the sleep. He’s still not used to hard-lying. He’s back for Second Dog and then Middle Watch and Forenoon, but we will be at ‘All Hands’ for most of the night, sir, so he needs his sleep now.”

“You are right, Number One. I would like to work him more but he won’t be able to handle it. Is he competent with a rifle?”

“Unknown, sir.”

“He must have handled a three-o-three in his training, surely… Ask him when he surfaces. If he knows the basics, add him to Polly’s boarders for the experience.”

They shook their heads in unison – trying to find work for a less than wholly able mid was not an easy task on a small ship.

“Orders for tonight, Number One. Line astern on passage, as normal. Full blackout. When we make the turn to come back into the Belgian coast, we shift into line abreast at a thousand yards, watching primarily to port but keeping an eye out to starboard as well, as goes without saying!”

“Tell the lookouts we are submarine hunting, sir?”

“No. They are to keep their eyes peeled for anything and everything. Too big a risk, telling them to look for one thing in particular. They might not notice something that ain’t what they’re looking for. Make sure the sharpest-eyed are to port, searching inshore. All guns manned. Tubes ready but no need for a full crew waiting by them. A man to each Lewis.”

“Higgins?”

“I hoped you might not ask that question, Number One. Now I have to make a decision! It has to be yes. If I say he can’t be trusted at action stations then I had as well dismiss him from the ship. Hope, Number One!”

Simon did not say whether he hoped there would be no action or if he hoped that Higgins would show well.

Packer returned with his shopping bag.

“Gave us a full one of they kilograms of her fudge, so she did, sir, for the price of a half. Kept us on talking there for a good quarter hour… Told ‘er what we was all posted back to Harwich and expecting to be sent north to Scapa, sir, being as I had to say summat. Real interested, so she was, in all I was saying about the boat.”

“Too much interested, do you think, Packer?”

“Might be she’s just nosey, sir, one of they what wants to know everybody’s business. Could be.”

“And might not be. I spoke to the provosts yesterday, thinking she was asking too many questions.”

Packer showed satisfied.

“Thought as much, sir. Don’t set right, all she was asking about. Pity. Good fudge, sir – I bought some for meself.”

“As good an obituary as any, Packer.”

“What, do you reckon they’ll shoot ‘er, sir?”

“Might do. No way of telling. If they don’t, she’ll go inside for a good few years.”

“Serve ‘er right, daft old besom! Shouldn’t get involved, should she?”

“A refugee, no way of going home for years. Perhaps she needed money. Her bad luck. Not my business!”

They sailed and forgot all possible spies, concerned only to make a good offing before they turned north, well outside the range of any telescope on shore.

Simon slept till halfway through the Middle Watch, a full five hours, longer than he had achieved in a single stretch in the previous month. He did not know that he felt better for such indulgence when he came up to the bridge.

“Due to make our turn to course in thirty minutes, sir.”

“Very good, Mr Parrett. All hands for the Morning Watch. Give them another two hours, those who are off watch now.”

They came onto the course to bring them towards Zeebrugge from the northeast and set themselves into formation, one thousand yards apart at a steady, near silent, eight knots. The night was black, moonless and almost windless, the sea calm.

“Perfect firing conditions, Number One, except that we can’t see a damned thing. We are the inshore boat and should be about four cables distant from the inner shoals. Maybe!”

“I have doubled lookouts, sir.”

“Put hands to the searchlight, Number One, ready to strike an arc at my shout. Gun crews ready. Man the Lewises, Mr Higgins!”

The boy stumbled to the port twin Lewis and proceeded to load and cock the guns by feel alone, making good time.

“I had him working blindfold during the week, sir.”

“Well done, Number One.”

They waited in silence. Cocoa came round and they sipped thankfully, watchful and hoping.

“Bridge! Light at sea level, port bow, looks close, sir.”

It would be almost impossible to gauge range in the conditions.

The bridge party stared and picked up the faint glow, occasionally showing more strongly, thought it was moving, on more or less the same course.

“It’s a pipe, Number One. Helmsman in a small boat puffing away at a tobacco pipe.”

“Fisherman, sir?”

“Night fishing is banned along this coast. The Germans won’t permit it. Pilot boat, perhaps, acting as a guide for a ship of some sort, but they wouldn’t be able to see it…”

“Might be listening, sir. They say that submarines have hydrophones that can pick up the sound of ship’s engines.”

“I wouldn’t fancy that trick, Number One. Trying to follow a small boat by the sound of its engine and navigating through shoals, following its turns by noise alone.”