Convoy Homeward (John Mason Kemp Thriller Book 6) Read online

  He fumbled around for the bunk-side light, cursing as at first he couldn’t find it, then seized the cork life-jacket from the hook on the cabin door. The ship vibrated to more underwater explosions; and a moment later both the three-inch guns went into action overhead. Pumphrey-Hatton pulled on his khaki drill, felt around for his shoes, struggled into the life-jacket and left his cabin. In the alleyway outside, the recently embarked families, men, women and children, seemed largely to be in a state of panic. Boat drill had been held as required by Ministry of War Transport regulations as soon as the Aurelian Star had cleared away from Kilindini and all passengers, the military contingent included, had been fully instructed by the ship’s officers. But now there was a strong degree of uncertainty in the air. Pumphrey-Hatton compressed his lips, showing anger and frustration. He pushed at an elderly man who was shepherding an old woman, presumably his wife, towards the companion-way at the end of the alley.

  ‘Kindly get out of my way,’ he snapped.

  Colonel Holmes looked round. ‘Really, I —’

  ‘Kindly don’t argue with me. I happen to be Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton.’ He pushed again and Holmes stumbled aside, protesting at a lack of manners. Pumphrey-Hatton continued to thrust his way through, calling out loudly that he was trying to reach the bridge. When he reached the companion-way and climbed it to the deck above he was virtually submerged by the press of native troops. He began shouting for a sergeant, but there was no NCO to be seen. There were more sharp cracks as the three-inch guns continued firing; and as Pumphrey-Hatton struggled in a sea of black men sweating with terror of the unknown, there was a whistling sound followed by a rush of air close overhead as a shell from a U-boat scored a near miss on the Aurelian Star.

  *

  ‘Commodore, sir — Flag reports more contacts on the starboard beam.’

  Kemp nodded and ran across to the starboard wing of the bridge. To port, the original contact had come to the surface, forced up by the depth charges. One up to the convoy; but the German was not quite finished yet. Her fo’c’sle-mounted gun was in action, as was the machine-gun mounted on her conning-tower, and her fire seemed to be directed towards the Commodore’s ship. Kemp was relieved when Maconochie, from the port wing, called out that two of the destroyers were closing the U-boat and, a moment later, reported that a direct hit had been scored on her conning-tower, and she was already beginning to settle low in the water.

  As more depth charges exploded to starboard Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton, his uniform awry, was seen coming up the starboard ladder to the bridge. Eyes blazing, he approached the Commodore.

  ‘Now look here, Kemp —’

  ‘Not now, Brigadier. Please leave the bridge. Unless,’ Kemp added, just in case, ‘you have something relevant to report?’

  ‘You’re damn right I have! Those native troops, blasted well indisciplined, never seen such a shower. I was almost trampled under foot. And there’s another thing. My bedside light. Very badly positioned. You have to grope for it. In an emergency —’

  ‘The point is noted, Brigadier. Now leave the bridge, if you please —’

  ‘I don’t please,’ Pumphrey-Hatton interrupted in a shrill tone. ‘I have come to state a complaint and I shall not leave until —’

  ‘The ship, the convoy, is in action, Brigadier Pumphrey-Hatton. I am ordering you to leave the bridge. If you don’t do so immediately I shall have you placed in arrest and then confined to your cabin once the attack’s over. I trust you understand.’

  Pumphrey-Hatton gaped. Kemp’s face was set, icy. He would carry out his threat. Pumphrey-Hatton waved a fist in his face. He said hoarsely, ‘I intend to break you for this, Kemp. Be very sure of that. My God, you’ll be sorry for what you’ve just said.’ He turned away and went down the ladder, every inch of him bristling.

  Kemp was joined by Maconochie. ‘I heard that, Commodore. Does he carry any weight?’

  ‘If he does,’ Kemp answered evenly, ‘I can take the strain.’ A moment later there was a loud explosion on the starboard bow, followed by a brilliant sheet of flame from one of the cruisers of the escort. The first explosion was followed by others, smaller ones, and the cruiser’s quarterdeck was seen to be on fire. Her after turrets stood out in the flames, one of them wrenched from its position, the guns twisted and broken.

  ‘Bodmin, sir,’ Lambert reported.

  Kemp lifted his binoculars. He could see bodies draped across mushroom ventilators and lying below the turrets as the flames spread. There was a signal being flashed to the Flag from the cruiser’s bridge. Lambert was able to read it off. He reported to Kemp. ‘Am able to steer and maintain way.’

  ‘Maybe he is,’ Kemp said grimly. ‘But if that fire reaches the magazines …’ He had no need to say more; imagination completed the thought. The shell-handling rooms, deep down in the ship, were approached by way of steel-lined shafts topped by heavy hatches which, when the clamps were put on, were fully watertight. In action, the shell-handling parties were sent down these shafts and the hatches were clamped down after them, leaving no escape. There might come a moment when the cruiser’s captain would see the urgent need, if the fires encroached, to flood the magazines and shell-handling rooms. When such an emergency struck there was seldom time to open up the hatches and bring out the seamen of the shell-handling parties. The valves would be opened by remote control and the men would drown, forced up on the deepening water until they met the unyielding steel of the clamped-down hatches, openable only from above.

  As Kemp faced these thoughts, there were more explosions and the cruiser seemed to glow throughout her length as her plates grew red-hot from the fires that had now made their way below. Then the inevitable final explosion came, a great blast of noise and flame, and the ship disintegrated, became nothing more than flying chunks of metal outlined in the blaze, metal and bodies together, raining down on the Indian Ocean. As the Bodmin died, the destroyers continued their attack. Two more U-boats were forced by the depth charges to the surface and were then despatched by gunfire. An eerie peace, a calm, descended. Fifteen minutes later a laconic report came from the Resolution: lost contact. The convoy, minus the Bodmin, steamed on for the Cape. Fifteen more minutes and the order came from the Flag to secure from action stations. At the after three-inch Petty Officer Ramm removed his steel helmet and wiped at his forehead. The hard rubber band of the tin hat always gave him a nasty headache when worn for what he considered too long.

  He spoke to Featherstonehaugh. ‘First taste of action, lad? Didn’t do so badly, I’ll say that. Bet you was shit scared, though, eh?’

  ‘No, PO, I —’

  ‘Don’t tell bloody lies! I was. Reckon you never get really used to it, wondering if your name’s going to be on the next projy. Though sometimes you think to yourself, maybe that’d be the best bloody way out of it.’ He gave a guffaw.

  Featherstonehaugh asked, ‘Out of what, PO?’

  ‘Never mind that, you’re too young and bloody innocent to appreciate it.’ The barmaid at the Golden Fleece was still much on Ramm’s mind. If she made an approach to Ramm’s old woman, well, the old woman in action was a sight worse than anything Adolf Hitler could chuck at a matelot. He’d sooner face the enemy any day of the week.

  *

  As ever when a ship went down in wartime, there was, afterwards, a man’s conscience to plague him. It was in fact very unlikely that many of the Bodmin’s company would have survived that final explosion that had ripped the cruiser apart. But there might have been a handful. This was the Indian Ocean, not — for instance — the Denmark Strait where the mighty Hood had gone down, leaving only three survivors out of a ship’s company of some sixteen hundred men. There had in fact been some who had been thrown clear but all except for those three had perished quickly in the icy waters. The three had been picked up by the destroyer escort in the nick of time before death came. Here, south of Kilindini, that would not have happened. On the other hand, there would be the sharks, scenting blood. But in a
ny case you didn’t hazard a vital convoy by stopping to pick up possible survivors — not in a situation where other U-boats could be closing in, as yet beyond the range of the asdics, or a surface raider might be lurking. You didn’t turn a convoy into a sitting duck, a perfect target for attack. This was true; but it was a facet of the war that all hands detested, however inevitable it might be. This was far from the first time Kemp had been faced with such a situation; but he had never grown inured to it. He suffered each time. With two sons at sea, there was a personal angle to it in addition to his own sense of inadequacy to help: would another ship one day steam away from a sinking and leave one or other of the boys to drown?

  He became aware of Finnegan at his side as he stood there on the bridge, not going below again to resume his sleep. Already dawn was not far off; soon the brilliance of the stars would start to fade as the eastern sky lightened, and the guns’ crews would be at routine dawn Action Stations. He said, ‘It’s a rotten business, sub.’

  ‘Yes, sir, Commodore. Nothing you can do about it, though. What it comes to is … it’s up to the Flag.’

  Kemp sighed. ‘Admirals have a hell of a lot of gold braid. They also have a hell of a responsibility. They earn their privileges.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I guess they do.’ Finnegan had, very briefly, met the Commander-in-Chief at a reception held in Colombo before the convoy had left. Kemp and his assistant had been invited along with Captain Maconochie whose ship would wear the Commodore’s broad pennant, and the commanding officers of the escort. Admiral Layton had taken pains to talk to Finnegan, to congratulate him on being almost the first citizen of the USA to join the war. The Admiral had seemed immensely human, with a kindly twinkle in his eye, although he had a reputation for being a strict disciplinarian. Sir Geoffrey Layton had altered Finnegan’s view of British admirals, whom he’d imagined would be a remarkably stuffy bunch of self-important shellbacks who wouldn’t dream of speaking on friendly terms with a mere sub-lieutenant of the RCNVR. There was nothing stuffy about Admiral Layton. He had asked a lot about America; he had great admiration for President Roosevelt, and was appreciative of the immensity of America’s war effort which was largely due to Roosevelt himself. And he had seen to it that Finnegan’s glass was topped up with gin while they had been talking.

  Finnegan knew that the Admiral would be feeling as bad as Kemp about steaming away from the Bodmin.

  *

  The Commodore did not attend meals in the saloon: the Captain’s table remained the Captain’s table. Kemp had had enough of that during his years as Master with the Mediterranean-Australia Lines, where he had had to suffer many bores along with more congenial voyagers. But he did not forget the recommendation of NOIC Kilindini that he should spare some of his time for old Colonel Holmes and his lady wife. During the forenoon of the day after the U-boat attack he sent Finnegan down with an invitation to the Holmeses. He would be delighted if they would come to his cabin for a pre-luncheon drink.

  They would indeed be delighted; but only the Colonel would come. He asked for his wife to be excused; she was feeling a little off-colour.

  At eight bells in the forenoon watch Kemp left the bridge and waited in his cabin for Colonel Holmes. He arrived very formally dressed in a white sharkskin suit with a stiff white collar and his regimental tie, the Berkshires, to which parent regiment he had mentally reverted on retirement. To Kemp, who quite failed to recognize him, he looked thin and papery. He apologized again for his wife’s absence. ‘The racket, you know, Captain. The gunfire and all that. Not used to it. We’ve lived a pretty quiet life since I retired.’ He gave a somewhat croaky laugh. ‘Quiet! Certainly no heavy gunfire. Or depth charges.’

  Kemp smiled. ‘I imagine not, Colonel. It would have been upsetting, naturally.’

  ‘Yes.’ Holmes, who had not yet made any reference to their previous, peacetime meeting, took a glass of gin-and-bitters from a salver held out by Kemp’s steward. ‘Thank you, steward,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a pleasure, sir.’ The steward handed his salver to Kemp: Kemp’s glass contained only orange squash, something he more or less detested but he seldom drank alcohol at sea in wartime and never in company with passengers. When the steward had returned to his pantry Holmes said, ‘As a matter of fact … there was something else that upset my wife. Not that I’m making any formal complaint, nothing of that sort. It’s not really important. But it was upsetting.’ Holmes took a sip of his gin and swallowed. A large adam’s-apple rippled in a scrawny throat. Then he asked, ‘Who is this Brigadier Pumphrey something?’

  ‘Pumphrey-Hatton. He —’

  ‘Ah, yes, that sounds like what the feller said. I remembered the Pumphrey part. By association, really. When we were serving with the Berkshires in Colchester … my wife had a cat named Pumphrey. Tabby.’

  ‘Really?’ Kemp sat forward in what he hoped was an attitude of interest.

  ‘Yes. Now, who is this officer? Do I take it he’s OC Troops?’

  Kemp felt he had to go carefully, act with due caution when speaking of Pumphrey-Hatton. He said, ‘Not OC Troops, Colonel. He’s a passenger, the same as you.’

  ‘That’s odd. He appeared to be wearing a uniform. And he doesn’t strike one as retired. What’s up with him, Commodore?’

  ‘In what respect do you mean?’

  ‘Feller’s a boor,’ Holmes said briefly. ‘Damned rude to me and my wife.’ He explained about the shove in the back from Pumphrey-Hatton and the way in which the brigadier had spoken and had forced his way through the passengers. ‘Quite unnecessary,’ he said. ‘Is he going to the Cape?’

  ‘No,’ Kemp said. ‘All the way to the Clyde.’

  ‘Home? Do you know why?’

  Kemp shook his head: it was not his business to reveal anything about Pumphrey-Hatton’s recent past. ‘I really can’t say, Colonel —’

  ‘Or won’t? As the Commodore of the convoy, you’re surely … well, I won’t press. It’s not my pigeon, of course. But the feller didn’t strike me as normal somehow.’

  Kemp thought it time to alter the course of the conversation. He said, ‘I understand we’ve sailed together before, Colonel. I have to confess I didn’t remember you at first.’

  ‘Yes, I was coming to that — our previous voyage together.’ Holmes waved a thin hand. ‘It’s natural enough not to recall … so many faces, don’t you know, in between. And I dare say I’ve grown older.’

  Kemp murmured some polite disclaimer of age. After that the old man did most of the talking. Did Kemp remember … various names from that long forgotten Staff Captain’s table were trotted out and remarked upon. When that was exhausted Holmes turned to other aspects of his life, mainly military. Many names were mentioned, people whom Kemp was not remotely likely to have met. Good old Bill Palmer of the gunners: when stationed in Victoria Barracks in Southsea, good old Bill, who was a real character apparently, had by some subterfuge managed to switch off all the lights at a Kimbell’s dinner dance and had then hurled rolls of toilet paper across the dark dance floor, with hilarious results when he switched the lights on again. Did Kemp know Kimbell’s? No. It was the fashionable place to go to, in Osborne Road. Good old Bill was followed by Arse-end Portlock of the KOSB, so called because he was always late on parade and had to be covered for by his company sergeant-major. General Montgomery, whom Holmes remembered as a subaltern in the Warwicks, right back in the First World War … Holmes couldn’t recall just where he’d met Monty, and he cudgelled his brains for a while before deciding that it didn’t really matter. He mentioned a few other names and then went back to good old Bill and Arse-end Portlock, both of whom had retired some years before the war and had been recalled to the colours to act as Railway Transport Officers, good old Bill at Crewe and Arse-end Portlock at Paddington, where he had been killed by a bomb in an air raid. Late again: Holmes said he’d been slow to reach the air-raid shelter. He’d been, after all, pretty elderly, though younger than Holmes himself.

  Somehow, Kemp wa
s unable to tie up the old man with people such as good old Bill with his toilet-paper japes, and Arse-end Portlock. But he reflected that everyone had been different in their salad days, himself included.

  Colonel Holmes’ visit was terminated by the luncheon bugle: war or no war, the Aurelian Star maintained at least some of the niceties of a first-class peacetime liner.

  In the saloon, Holmes was joined by his wife. ‘Charming feller, Kemp,’ he said as he sat down in the chair withdrawn for him by the saloon waiter. ‘Just as I remember him. Sad to say, he didn’t remember me, but that’s understandable, as I told him. Pity you couldn’t have come along, my dear. Anyway — it’s nice to see you better.’

  ‘I’m afraid I shan’t eat anything, Stephen.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ He looked at her with concern. ‘Think you ought to see the ship’s doctor? Or perhaps Kennedy would stretch a point.’ Major Kennedy was the MO of the native battalion. ‘I can have a word, Mildred, if —’

  ‘No, no.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘I really don’t want to bother anyone, Stephen.’ She changed the tack of the conversation somewhat quickly. ‘What did you and Commodore Kemp talk about?’

  ‘Oh, this and that.’ Holmes waved a hand. ‘Reminiscences, don’t you know.’

  ‘Yours?’ There was an affectionate amusement in her eyes.

  ‘Well — yes. Largely. Kemp was never a particularly talkative man as I remember. Not a man for small talk.’

  ‘You told him about Captain Portlock I dare say.’

  ‘Oh, yes. He was very amused. Or was it the story about good old Bill …’

  *

  There were no further attacks; a sense of peacetime began to descend on the liner as with the accompanying ships she continued on her way south for the Cape. The zig-zag was being maintained despite the absence of any submarine contact: no chances were being taken. Kemp kept his personal staff and his guns’-crews at a high pitch of efficiency. Ramm was constantly, as it seemed to the gunnery ratings, exercising the three-inch crews, largely under the surveillance of Sub-Lieutenant Finnegan which Ramm didn’t go much on and said so to Leading Seaman Purkiss.