Alexander Fullerton: Surface!

“Yessir!”

“Turn some hands to up top, on the brasswork. Gun’s Crew off watch on the gun.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The Cox’n went shambling for’ard, roaring names as he passed from compartment to compartment.

On patrol the going is rough. It is not considered necessary to shave, and it is not possible to have a bath: moreover, fresh water is precious and must be conserved in order that the patrol can last several weeks and there may still be something to drink. Excessive washing is not encouraged. At the end of a patrol, however, the submarine and her men have to look smart when they enter harbour, as smart as any other ship which may have been swinging round a buoy in that harbour for weeks. So the bright-work is polished, jowls are shaved, and there is a queue for the use of the washbasins. Each man has a spotless set of white uniform, carefully stowed out of the way of dirt all through the patrol, kept inside-out for greater safety, so that when the time comes to enter harbour with the eyes of the fleet upon them every man will look what he is, a seaman, and what is more, a seaman in the Royal Navy. It is a form of pride, a pride well nurtured and now a tradition. And proud Seahound looked as she swept through the gap in the boom, her Ensign fluttering wildly and the heavier black flag flapping more lazily from a slightly raised periscope. The casing was lined fore-and-aft by seamen standing properly at ease as they would on a parade ground: the brass in the bridge, the brass rail round it and the bright-work of the gun gleamed golden in the evening sun as the submarine reduced speed and approached the Depot Ship whose decks were crowded with her own men and with the crews of the submarines in harbour.

Passing the Depot Ship’s stern, Number One ordered “Pipe!” and the Signalman, standing at the after end of the bridge, sounded the “Still”, a high, clear note on a Bosun’s Call: at the same time the men on the casing were called to attention as the Captain faced the Depot Ship and saluted. Loud and clear over the harbour, a bugle-call from the big ship’s quarter-deck answered the salute.

His Majesty’s Submarine Seahound was home from another patrol.

Arthur Hallet, the C.O., came out of his cabin in the Depot Ship, tightening the cummerbund that served two purposes. First, it kept his trousers up: second, it served as an essential part of Red Sea Rig, the compulsory dress for officers at dinner. White open-necked shirt with epaulettes, black trousers, black cummerbund. It was a smart rig, cool and comfortable as well.

He turned out of the cabin flat, stopped to look down over the side, a bird’s-eye view of the submarine alongside. Seahound , just returned, was outside the two other submarines on this side: in the morning there would be a reshuffle, the two inside would lie off to let Seahound re-berth alongside the Depot Ship, so that the cranes and derricks could plumb her hatches, haul out the torpedoes due for overhaul in the big ship’s workshops.

There was pride in his eyes as he looked down at his ship. Another patrol finished, some more of the enemy destroyed, his ship and his men brought safely back. It wasn’t chance that turned a lot of apparatus and a bunch of widely-assorted men into an efficient submarine. He remembered his first impressions of this new command. A cold, autumn morning in Scotland, a dirty submarine in a grey dock: he had met his officers in the base, ashore, and the meeting had hardly been reassuring. He found he had a First Lieutenant who regarded him with suspicion and distrust. He found a Navigator who could probably be relied upon to do his job but who was too quiet and colourless to lend much influence on the character of the ship itself. The Engineer Officer’s attitude was decidedly hostile, and the Torpedo Officer was a young Dartmouth Sub-Lieutenant who happened, at the time of their meeting, to be under arrest.

Hallet saw that the Engineer was the worst of the lot, and he decided, within a minute of shaking the man’s hand, that this particular Engineer would not sail East in Seahound . Not if he could help it. The combination of familiarity and subservience was vaguely sickening. This was an officer who would try to be popular with the men at the expense of the officers, popular with the officers at the expense of the men. Privately, Arthur would have described him as a tyke.

He knew the reason for his First Lieutenant’s distrust. He knew how young Commanding Officers were regarded by experienced yet less successful submariners. They called them “Boy C.O.’s”. They were assumed to have got where they were by pushing, by always saying the right thing to the right people. Arthur had an idea that in any walk of life young men who went rapidly to the top would be regarded in much the same way. He understood: he’d feel the same way himself if he were still a First Lieutenant and one of his immediate contemporaries were his C.O. He had no worries about this First Lieutenant, though: he knew the man’s record, and he knew that by the time they left for the East the distrust would be gone. If he had been what the term “Boy C.O.” suggested, perhaps he would have returned the distrust with dislike: as it was, he left it for the next few months to dissolve.

The Sub was rather a problem. The youngster had done a few patrols, and his record from those patrols was good. The other part of his record was not so striking: as a Midshipman in surface ships he had been regarded as insubordinate and lazy. On his Sub-Lieutenant’s courses, young Ferris didn’t bear thinking about. Now, he was under arrest. He’d have to see the Captain of the Submarine Flotilla in the morning. The story, as Arthur had heard it, was that Ferris and two other young officers had drunk too much on the evening before, that Ferris had produced a .38 revolver of which he was illegally in possession, and that they had hung fire-buckets from the garden railings of the Junior Officers’ Hostel and blown holes in the buckets from a distance of twenty yards. The bullets that missed had fallen in the dockyard around a destroyer’s gangway, and sailors returning from shore-leave had been forced to take cover. The Officer-of-the-day had sent his messenger down to put a stop to the shooting, and the messenger had been sent back with a message to the effect that the officers were only having target-practice. It was after midnight, and the officers had then been placed under arrest.

After dinner in the Mess, Arthur Hallet sent for Ferris. The youngster stood to attention, just inside the door of his C.O.’s cabin.

“Well, sir, that’s the whole story. I didn’t think we were doing any harm: that was why I sent that message back, sir. But I’m sorry about the street lights.”

“Street lights?”

“Didn’t you know about them, sir?” There was only honesty in the boy’s face.

“Oh, yes, the street lights. But don’t mention them tomorrow morning.” So the young idiots hadn’t been satisfied with fire-buckets. “Look, Ferris. I think you’ve been drinking too much lately.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, the least you can expect is to have your wine-bill and your leave stopped. Will you give me your word in any case to stop drinking for three months?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your record at sea, Ferris, is passable. Your record ashore is disgraceful. In my ship I won’t have my officers behaving like hooligans. The war’s nearly over now, Ferris: there aren’t many operational flotillas left. There are hundreds of young officers who’d fall over themselves to take your place in Seahound . When Seahound leaves for the Far East, she’ll have only good officers in her. Do you understand?”