H.M.S Saracen (1965) Read online

  Chesnaye saluted and turned to follow the fast disappearing shape of the Bosun’s Mate.

  Hogarth added sharply, ‘Do you play bridge, by the way?’

  Chesnaye could not hide his grin this time, but Hogarth was fortunately staring through the telescope at a passing sloop. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Hmmm, just as I thought. The very bottom of the barrel!’

  As he strode uncertainly along the maindeck beneath the slim barrels of the secondary armament Chesnaye almost collided with the returning Pickles. The latter skidded to a halt, his face glistening with sweat.

  ‘Did you meet him?’

  Chesnaye nodded. There was something both endearing and pathetic about this small midshipman. ‘Yes. I did. I didn’t know how I was expected to react!’

  Pickles grinned nervously. ‘Mad. Quite mad. But then they’re all getting like that here!’

  ‘He was saying something about his gunnery——’

  Pickles waved his grubby hands. ‘Hopeless! Apart from trials and a quick shot at the Belgian coast we’ve not done a thing yet. Even then we missed the target! The Captain’s been giving Hogarth hell!’

  ‘I’ve got to report to the Commander next.’

  Pickles shrugged. ‘He’s all right. But the Captain’s straight out of Dickens! Hates everybody, especially midshipmen!’

  Hogarth’s voice screeched along the deck with the wind. ‘Mister Pickles! At the double, I said!’

  Chesnaye found himself two decks down, breathless and completely lost, and standing in semi-darkness beside an open steel door.

  The Bosun’s Mate gestured indifferently. ‘Gunroom. All the young gentlemen mess in there.’

  It was a small space with only one scuttle, which seemed so close to the tumbling water that it must be barely above the torpedo bulge. There was a long table with a soiled cloth, upon which two messmen were laying cutlery for the Sunday meal. Five other midshipmen’s chests were stacked along one bulkhead, and there was a single piece of massive furniture which could be mistaken for either a sideboard or a bar. Apart from a few chairs and a large print of the King, the place was bare.

  A messman showed his teeth. ‘You’ll be the new one, then, sir?’ He pushed back a strand of hair from his narrow head. ‘I’m Lukey, an’ this ’ere is Betts. We looks after you all. Six young gentlemen, an’ ’im!’ He jerked his thumb towards a canvas partition which seemed to form one large tent-like cabin across the end of the mess. ‘Yes, sir. Sub-Lieutenant bloody Pringle. ’E’s in charge of all of you, and ’e enjoys it very much.’

  Chesnaye kept his face blank. He knew it was wrong to stand and listen to a seaman openly criticising a senior officer, but he had already learned the hard way that a loyal messman was an ally indeed. So he coughed and said quickly, ‘I am to report to the Commander.’

  Lukey bobbed his head. ‘Ah yes, sir. A real gennelman if ever there was. Commander Godden is a toff. You can’t ask for ‘igher than that, eh?’

  ‘Er, quite. Where is the wardroom?’

  ‘Right aft. All the other officers’ accommodation is there. ‘Cept for the warrant officers. They mess next to you.’

  Chesnaye committed all these facts to memory. In a strange ship and once off the spartan lines of the upper deck it was not uncommon to get completely lost, knowing neither bows from stern, nor even which deck you were on.

  Lukey rubbed his hands. ‘Well, ‘urry back, sir. Pork chops and roast spuds today! Nothing like Sundays on board. Bit of God, an’ then a good tuck in!’ He frowned unexpectedly. ‘I’ll bet those bloody Huns aren’t gettin’ grub like this!’

  Chesnaye started with surprise. In the strangeness of the ship, surrounded by the unfamiliar grey paint, the whirr of fans and the gentle creak of the ship’s six-thousand-odd tons of steel and machinery, he had all but forgotten the war. There just did not seem to be room for it. Pork chops, boats which ran by the clock and an Officer of the Day who looked more like a clergyman, it was all too remote for war and reality.

  He turned towards the door where the seaman lounged with bored indifference. But Lukey crossed the mess in two quick steps.

  ‘Oh, just a few things, sir.’ He gave a conspiratorial wink. ‘I ’ope you won’t take any offence, but it’s better to get off on the right foot, y’see?’

  Chesnaye did not, but waited mystified as Lukey continued in his peculiar rasping voice.

  ‘Firstly, sir, you never wears a greatcoat aboard without express orders. The Captain does not believe in ’em. Says they pamper the young gentlemen, like. Next, your tin box is an officer’s pattern. The Sub won’t like that. Must ’ave regulation midshipman’s chest.’

  Chesnaye heard himself say, ‘It belonged to my father.’

  ‘Ah yes, sir. Very nice, I’m sure, but it won’t do. I’ll see if I can fix something.’ He looked directly into Chesnaye’s eyes. ‘In this ship everything is perfect. The Captain says that’s ‘ow it’s got to be, so that’s ‘ow it is. Take my tip, sir. Tread carefully, and don’t ask questions.’

  The Bosun’s Mate said: ‘The Commander’ll be waitin’, sir. ’E’s not used to that!’

  Lukey grinned. ‘Off you go, sir. An’ remember what I said!’

  * * * * *

  The Saracen’s wardroom was situated beneath the port side of the quarterdeck, and just prior to this Sunday lunch presented a scene of detached opulence mixed with one of noisy excitement. The long business of Divisions and church was over, the tense moments of inspections and cramped drills were behind for another week, and the ship’s officers stood around the small oak bar, first and second drinks consumed, glasses shining in the cheerful flames from the ornamental fireplace. Large brass scuttles lined one side of the wardroom, and as the ship swung easily at her buoy the distant grey scene of Portsmouth dockyard drifted back and forth from one scuttle to the next. From the top of the tall signal tower the scarecrow arms of the semaphore wagged impatiently across the anchored warships, but these officers at least were free to ignore them.

  Most of them stood in one group around the plump heavy figure of the Commander, while the remainder slumped in the well-fashioned red leather chairs, perhaps listening to the promising bustle of the stewards beyond the curtain which partly hid the long table, the shining silver and tall-backed teak chairs.

  Commander Godden tilted his glass, allowing his eye to stray across the semicircle of faces around him. It was strange how no officer ever seemed to get used to the serious business of ship’s ceremonial. The more senior the officer became, the more he seemed to take it to heart.

  Now they were relaxed, yet at the same time excited. In their heavy dress-coats and glittering epaulettes they seemed like strangers to one another, so that their voices became louder, their gestures more extravagant.

  Godden sniffed the faint aroma of roast beef and swallowed automatically. He nodded towards a hovering steward and said in his loud bass voice, ‘Same again, gentlemen?’ It was an invitation, and he allowed his wide mouth to lift in a grin as the glasses were raised and lowered as one.

  He glanced around the spacious wardroom and felt pleased. There was something about a new ship. The fitted plum-coloured carpet, the shining gloss paint, the proud crest above the fire depicting a fierce Arab warrior with a raised scimitar; everything was glossy and full of well-being. There were only twelve wardroom officers, as some had already been taken to supplement the growing might of the Fleet, and this added little to the amount of work and increased greatly to their individual comfort aboard.

  Lieutenant Travis, the Navigating Officer, watched the steward shaking angostura into some of the glasses and plucked thoughtfully at his neat black beard. ‘We’ll soon be away, I expect?’ It was a question directed at large, but meant for the Commander.

  Godden winked at the ramrod figure of Major De L’Isle, whose Royal Marine’s uniform fitted his massive body like a silk glove, so that some wondered how he managed to bend, let alone sit at table. ‘We shall see, gentlemen! I have invi
ted the Captain here for a drink this forenoon, so we might be told!’

  De L’Isle grunted and ran a finger around the top of his tight collar. ‘All this damned excitement!’ The marine glared at the opposite bulkhead, his small ginger moustache bright against his florid face, the whole of which was covered with a fine web of tiny broken veins, the mark of a heavy drinker. ‘One would think this was the first war the Service had been in! Lot of damned rubbish!’

  The Commander took his drink and initialled the steward’s chit. ‘Ah, but this might be a little different. Not like China, you know, Major. Germany’s damned powerful and itching for a fight!’

  Lieutenant Travis frowned. ‘I wonder what our next job will be?’

  ‘Always wondering, Pilot!’ Godden beamed. ‘Maybe we shall have another go at the Belgian coast, eh? Give poor old Hogarth another chance to prove his worth!’

  There was a quick response of laughter. Even the Chief Engineer, a grizzled and grey-haired little man called Innes, who had been standing silently on the outside of the group, seemed to come alive. ‘It’s no job for a ship of war!’

  They all looked at him with surprise. Godden watched him with silent amusement. ‘Go on, Chief. Tell us what is wrong with a monitor.’

  The engineer shrugged. ‘Ships are for fighting ships. Get mixed up with the damned Army and anything might happen!’

  De L’Isle nodded aggressively. ‘Quite right! My marines can handle any of that nonsense!’

  The Navigator swirled the gin round his glass and frowned. He was a quiet, deep-thinking man and unmoved by the casual ease with which his betters were dismissing the efforts of another service. ‘I think it may be a mistake to think that.’ He kept his dark eyes lowered. ‘Jerry can fight well enough, and our sea supremacy may have to take on a completely new challenge.’

  Godden grinned. ‘Of what, for instance?’

  Travis shrugged. ‘U-boats. Even their surface ships have done well so far.’

  The marine major choked. ‘Bloody rubbish, Pilot! We’ve beaten the Jerry in every combat so far! Whipped the hides off ’em!’

  ‘What about Coronel?’ Travis met his stare angrily.

  ‘Well, what about Coronel?’ De L’Isle seemed to bristle. ‘And what about the Falklands last December, and the Dogger Bank battle a couple of months ago?’ He turned to the group at large, his glowing face triumphant. ‘We showed them well enough!’

  Travis persisted doggedly. ‘What I’m saying is that it will not be an easy victory!’

  Godden licked his lips. The heat of the fire, the gin and the liveliness of the conversation were having their usual effects. ‘I agree with the Chief. I don’t much hold with inshore fighting. Shooting at some damned target ten miles or so inland, while some fool of a soldier signals his interpretation of what you are doing!’ He groped for the words. ‘It’s not clean, not naval somehow!’

  A steward glided closer. ‘The Captain’s coming, sir.’

  Godden pulled down the front of his coat and turned to face the door.

  Captain Lionel Royston-Jones was slight, and at first glance even frail. Yet his small body was trim and wiry against Godden’s portliness, and the bright blue eyes which darted briefly around the waiting officers were completely steady and entirely lacking in warmth.

  Godden cleared his throat. ‘I am glad you could accept the invitation, sir.’

  The customary remark seemed to fall short and left no impression on the Captain’s neat, weather-browned features. Everyone knew that a captain only entered a wardroom by invitation. Yet one look at Royston-Jones’ face shattered the illusion of a favour. Who, after all, would deny a man like the Captain entrance anywhere! Royston-Jones inclined his head slightly towards the Chaplain, whose dark garb, plus the outlandish habit of parting his hair dead in the centre, gave him the appearance of an anxious crow. ‘Good sermon, Padre.’

  The Chaplain, whose name was Nutting, rubbed his thin hands with agitation. ‘Thank you, sir. Most gratifying!’

  But Royston-Jones was already looking again at the Commander. ‘Well, are you going to offer me a drink?’ His voice was never raised, but it had a kind of crispness which made even a simple remark sound like a reprimand.

  They all watched him sip his customary sherry, his pale eyes fixed on the nearest scuttle. His small figure seemed weighed down by the heavy frock-coat and gleaming epaulettes and gave him the added appearance of an officer from some bygone age. Even his hair was cut unfashionably long, with the sideburns reaching below his ears. On either cheek, too, there was a small tuft of brown hair, and these were said to have earned him the nick-name of ‘Monkey’ on the lower deck.

  At length he said calmly: ‘I have just received my orders. We sail tomorrow. Seven bells of the Morning Watch. After lunch, Commander, perhaps you will be good enough to see me about final arrangements.’

  Only the Chaplain dared to ask the urgent question. ‘And may I be bold enough to enquire our destination, sir?’ He peered at the Captain as if to see the words emerge from his mouth.

  ‘You may, Padre.’ The cold eyes moved relentlessly over the tense faces. ‘And, since no more shore leave will be granted, I can be sure of some sort of security!’

  There was an uneasy ripple of laughter. It was never simple to determine the Captain’s humour.

  ‘The destination will be the Mediterranean. The orders specify Gibraltar, and thence to the Eastern Mediterranean for operations against the Turks.’

  Godden whistled. ‘Gallipoli, by God!’

  Royston-Jones pursed his lips. ‘As you put it, Commander. Gallipoli.’

  Immediately everyone was speaking at once, while the Captain stood like a small rock, unmoved and unmoving.

  Innes ran his fingers through his grey hair. ‘Well, the engine room is ready, sir.’ He grinned wryly. ‘No more coal to worry about!’

  Royston-Jones touched one of the little hair tufts with a fore-finger. ‘Fuel is the least of our problems.’

  ‘But, sir, I thought the Gallipoli campaign was going to be allowed to fade out!’ Travis spoke loudly in spite of the warning in Godden’s eyes.

  ‘Did you, Travis?’ The blue eyes regarded him mildly. ‘Perhaps their lordships have not had the benefit of your insight?’

  Godden’s huge bulk moved forward as if to shield the young officer’s confusion. ‘I think I know what Pilot meant, sir. We’ve been told that the squadron sent to bombard the Turkish forts along the Dardanelles and to force an entrance to the Straits was not powerful enough. There was some story too that our minesweepers were repulsed by gunfire and the battleships have had to make do best they can against the enemy minefields. A sort of stalemate. A good idea gone wrong.’

  The Captain laid his glass very carefully on a table. ‘It is a campaign, Commander, not one Lilliputian skirmish.’ He spoke without emotion, yet two spots of bright colour appeared on Godden’s cheeks as if he had been faced with a stream of obscenities.

  ‘Futhermore, the object of these operations is to capture the Straits, and not merely to give some apparently much-needed exercise to our gunnery officers!’ He continued evenly: ‘With the Straits captured, Turkey is cut in two. Our ally, Russia, will have her southern ports open once more, and we will then be able to assist her in an all-out assault on Constantinople. All Turkey’s arms factories are situated there. Smash their capital and their production and they will soon collapse. Germany will be without an ally, and all neutrals tempted to throw in their lot with the Kaiser will think again. In addition, the back door to Europe will be open and in our hands.’

  The marine major breathed out noisily. ‘My God, what a scheme!’

  Royston-Jones glanced sharply at the glass in De L’Isle’s hand. ‘Quite so, Major. It will need all our attention. Also, it will mean a much greater campaign than first visualised by Mr. Churchill. Not just ships, but troops. Thousands of men and equipment must be landed and helped inland.’

  Godden said quietly: ‘But surely by now the
Turks will have recovered from the first assaults? Won’t they be dug in and ready for our troops?’

  Royston-Jones smiled gently. ‘I can see you have fully assessed the situation, Commander. That is where we come into the picture. A new weapon. A floating power of gunfire which can be brought almost to the beaches themselves. No more of this nonsense of battleships meandering back and forth under the muzzles of prepared shore-batteries. Ships too deep-hulled to get in close, or too puny to shoot more than a few miles. The Saracen will make history.’ He looked sharply towards the shore. ‘We will be well rid of the land. We will be able to concentrate on fulfilling our function before we become cluttered up with untrained men from the barracks or these wretched Reservists.’ He moved towards the door. ‘See that the ship is brought to security readiness immediately, Commander. You know the procedure.’

  Godden nodded. ‘Aye, aye, sir. We’ll make a show all right!’

  The slight figure stiffened. ‘I am afraid that a “show”, as you call it, would fall far short of what I have in mind!’

  The door slid to and there was an empty silence.

  Godden tried to grin at the others, but nothing happened. Viciously he slammed his glass on the bar and signalled for a steward.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he said.

  * * * * *

  Richard Chesnaye settled his shoulders more comfortably within the tight confines of his hammock and stared upwards at the pipes which criss-crossed the shadowed deckhead barely inches from his face. The darkness in the stuffy gunroom was broken only by the shaded gleam of a blue police light, so that the strangeness and unfamiliarity of the place seemed to close in on him and add to his feeling of loneliness.

  His first half-day in the Saracen had been a long one, yet so crowded with events, faces and situations that only now, in the security of his hammock, could he piece them together in his mind and go over his own impressions and reactions.

  He met the Commander as expected in the wardroom, or rather on the fringe of it. Listening to the babble of conversation and laughter beyond the curtain he had found it hard to picture himself as ever being one of them. He had stared at the table beside him, laden with caps, swordbelts, even swords, where they had been dropped by the officers as they had returned from Divisions. Caps exactly like his own, but for the Commander’s with its leaf-encrusted peak, yet in a way so different. In the training ship there had been only two partitions. Cadets and instructors. Here in this strange ship everybody seemed slotted and packaged into divided messes, so that a sense of complete isolation existed between each one. The lieutenants and above had the wardroom, the sub-lieutenants their own mess. While the warrant officers and midshipmen, too, were subdivided again. Below them, the chief and petty officers and then the bulk of the ship’s company were neatly stowed away in separate compartments, untouched by each other, yet constantly aware of status and authority.