Alexander Fullerton: Surface!

“Perfectly, sir.”

“Very well. I’ll see the Captain in the morning, before you do. Carry on, please.” John Ferris wheeled about, returned to his quarters. At ten-thirty next morning he was given the dressing-down of his life: he was also given three months’ drink stopped and three months’ leave stopped. The offence and the punishment were to be recorded in the ship’s logbook.

After that incident, the Sub became a model of good behaviour: sooner than leave Seahound , he’d have shot himself. Score One, thought the Captain, as he leaned on the rail and thought of the early days of the commission.

During the “work-up” period, the months which they spent practising every possible evolution, the weather was no help: off the Scottish coast the gales were as they are reported every year, the worst for forty years. Arthur Hallet remembered bringing his ship up alongside a destroyer in Larne, the little Irish port, the rain lashing horizontally, the wind a tearing force that could easily have blown the whole casing party off the casing if they hadn’t the sense to hang on with one hand while they worked with the other at the ropes and wires: heave in, surge, check, keep it out of the water – Number One shouted himself hoarse through a brass megaphone at the men who toiled with frozen fingers on the wave-lashed casing. Seeing that help was needed aft, Number One climbed down and joined them. He’d seen his C.O. do a first-class job in bringing Seahound alongside, and there had been several months of the same sort of impressions. When he rejoined the Captain on the bridge, there was confidence and respect in place of suspicion and distrust. The Captain thought, Score Two.

He heard, while they were in Larne, that the Engineer was giving a birthday party ashore. That evening he found that Sub was Duty Officer.

“Evening, Sub. Sorry you’re missing Chief’s party.”

“I’m not worried, sir.” Next day, the Sub went into the engine-room to hang up some wet clothes to dry. They’d been at sea all day, under the usual conditions.

The Leading Stoker asked, “Why wasn’t you with us ashore, sir, last night? Proper do, we ‘ad.”

“I was Duty, Williams, or I’d have been there.”

“No you wouldn’t ’ve, m’lad. It was my birthday party, see, and I don’t ask young Dartmouth twirps when I have a party!” It was the Engineer. The group of Stokers looked embarrassed. So was the Engineer, when he turned and saw the Captain on the steel step. Later, the Captain called the Engineer aside.

“Brown,” he said, “that was the first time in my life that I have heard one officer deliberately insult another in the presence of ratings. Is that sort of thing a habit of yours?”

“I don’t see that kid as an officer. He’s hardly weaned, and he thinks he’s some sort of bloody Admiral.”

“That’s neither here nor there. This is one of His Majesty’s Ships, and I’ll not have an Engineer Officer in her who behaves like a hard case in the stokehold of a Panamanian tramp. What are you going to do about it, Brown?”

“I do my job, sir.”

“About half of it. I’m taking a happy ship away when we leave, Brown. I don’t think you fit in.”

“Suits me, sir.”

“Very good. I’ll ask for a relief for you when we get in.” Score Three. And that was the hardest part over and done with. Now he could get on with the job in a better atmosphere. But other troubles came along, too. There was a theft, and a man charged, punishment by Warrant. There was a call at a small Scottish port where a bunch of seamen got themselves mixed up in a dance-hall fight: someone was hurt, a knife wound, and the dance-hall people blamed one of the Seahounds. The Sub was Duty Officer when a Lieutenant from the shore base rang through on the telephone, told him to send a patrol to the dance-hall.

“Sorry,” replied the Sub. “I have only the Duty Watch on board, and I can’t let any of them go.”

“I’m giving you an order.”

“I am acting under the orders of my Commanding Officer.”

“Do you realise that men from your ship are tearing the place apart, you young fool?”

The Sub didn’t like being called names by strange, shore-based officers. “I think that’s extremely unlikely,” he answered.

The Captain, returning later, backed him up. But as a result they were forbidden to enter the port: on subsequent exercises, they anchored outside. Arthur Hallet smiled when he heard the Signalman remark, “Thank God f’ that. ’Oo’d want to spend a night in that ’orrible little ’ole?” Where they lay at anchor, it was blowing a gale. That same night, over a bottle of whisky, the Captain told Number One the story of how he had lost a year’s seniority once, by striking a policeman in Malta. It was the sort of story he had not been able to tell before, when he was regarded as a pusher, as a man who had got on by always being a good boy.

The gale increased, and Seahound dragged anchor: while they were moving her to a more sheltered berth, the freezing wind was warmed by the language thrown against it. There was a healthy spirit among the smells of shale oil and wet clothes, the talk of leave and the eagerness to sail and join their flotilla.

The Captain remembered the relief that he had felt at that time: now, looking down on his submarine from the Depot Ship’s rail, he knew that he commanded a ship as happy and as efficient as any that floated.

He lit a cigarette, turned and headed towards the Wardroom. As he appeared, the Captain of another submarine hailed him.

“Be with you in a moment, Barney.” Arthur Hallet crossed the room, joined his First Lieutenant who had a drink already poured for him.

The Sub and the Navigator lived not in the Depot Ship itself but in another large ship, an old passenger liner which lay at anchor close by and was used as an accommodation ship for some of the crews and for junior officers. As far as the junior officers were concerned this was a very satisfactory arrangement, since with only junior officers using the Mess, life was considerably less formal than in the Wardroom of the Depot Ship. Certainly there is nothing formal about the game called Bok-Bok. This game had been introduced to the flotilla by a group of South African officers, and since the first introduction it had remained a firm favourite amongst after-dinner recreations. Two teams are drawn, the leaders choosing them with an eye to weight and stamina. A toss decides which team goes first to the wall, where they form a line, crouching one behind the other, each man’s head between the legs of the man in front of him. Hang on with your arms, bind tight like a rugger scrum, and wait for Jannie van Rensburg to come down like a ton of bricks on top of you. They come rapidly, the other team, one after the other, leaping high in the air in order to land as heavily as possible on the enemy line. If you’ve been the man under Jannie van Rensburg, you will not be expected to take part in the following bout.

At about midnight everyone stripped and dived over the side to cool off, another thing that was not allowed in the Depot Ship, where senior officers were present to enforce the regulations. It felt good, to get some exhausting exercise after three weeks patrol.

It was funny to think that people used to pay a lot of money to travel from one place to another in this old ship. If anything there was less room in the cabins than there was in the Wardroom of the submarine, and the place was alive with cockroaches. Cockroaches have a musty smell all of their own, and their breeding capacity would fill rabbits with envy: getting rid of them had always been a problem. Lying there in his bunk and listening to them nibbling something in the ventilation trunk over his head, the Sub remembered how they had tried to get rid of the pests in the wardroom of a destroyer. They put a full-sized smoke-float in the pantry and the Torpedo Gunner set it off, then rushed on deck and battened down. An hour later he went down to see how things were, vanished into the heavy white smoke and failed to return, so the First Lieutenant, wearing a breathing apparatus, went down and dragged the Gunner out half dead. Eventually the fans cleared the smoke out and there were more cockroaches than ever, big, happy cockroaches in the best of health and with enormous appetites.