Down The Hatch (6 page)

A ripple of agreement ran down the table.

“. . . Hear hear, Jeb. . .”

“. . . Took the words out of my mouth. . . .”

“... Pure weapons of destruction, that’s what they are . . . “

“. . . Should be banned. . . .”

“Nasty underhand things,” said the Undertaker’s wife.

Wilfred, sitting next to her, thought it time to change the subject.

“That was a jolly good show in the F.A. Cup last year,” he said, brightly, “I mean, getting as far as the semifinals. . .”

Wilfred’s voice trailed away into silence when the Undertaker’s wife looked at him.

The Bodger had been taken off guard by the unexpected and spiritually well-documented attack. He felt his way cautiously towards an answer.

“I don’t know that it’s up to me to say whether we should have submarines or not,” he said. “The fact is, we’ve got them, everybody else who can afford them has got them, and lots of people who can’t afford them would very much like to have them. As to why people go into submarines, that’s very hard to answer. You might just as well ask why do people become missionaries or shoplifters. I suppose the extra money has something to do with it but I’m sure that basically it all comes down to the question of which would you rather do, run your own firm, however small, or help to run someone else’s, however big. Would you rather be a small cog in a big machine or a big cog in a small machine. Most of our ship’s company are big cogs in a small machine. They’re nearly all specialists. They have clearly defined jobs and in most cases they’re the only man for that job, although all of them can do the basic things in a submarine which everybody should be able to do. Take the chef as an example. His actual rate is Leading Cook. In a cruiser or an aircraft carrier he would probably be in charge of a watch of cooks, one cook in over a dozen. But in
Seahorse
he’s not just any chef, he’s the chef. He’s one of the ship’s personalities by reason of his job, if nothing else. Everyone in a submarine has a much greater
identity
, if you see what I mean, than his counterpart in general service. Everybody in a submarine has a much better idea of what’s happening. In an aircraft carrier I don’t suppose more than ten per cent of the men on board know what’s going on at any given time. But in a submarine news goes round in a matter of minutes. The chart is on the chart-table in the control room most of the time. Anyone passing by can see where we are and where we’re going.”

“Yes,” said the Mayor. “Yes, I see what you mean, Commander. But I’m still of the opinion that it’s a pity we have to make use of such things. I’ve never trusted all these new-fangled inventions. . . .”

“Oh, but the idea of a submarine is not new at all, Your Worship,” said Dagwood, manfully stepping into the breach (while The Bodger thankfully resumed his meal; he had noticed that everyone else had already finished). “It’s true that the first really practicable submarine in the modern sense, the Holland boat, only went to sea at the beginning of this century. But Robert Fulton built a perfectly workable one during the Napoleonic Wars. And even earlier than that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a Dutchman called Cornelius van Drebbel made one which was propelled by oars. He even took King James the First down for a dive in it!” Dagwood warmed to his subject; he had done a deal of research into the history of submarines. “Leonardo da Vinci had a design for a submarine. . . .”

“Ah!” cried the Undertaker triumphantly. “But he kept it a secret, didn’t he? He was afraid of the use evil men would put it to! “

“Yes, that’s true,” Dagwood admitted, wishing he had never mentioned Leonardo da Vinci.

“And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. Luke, eight, thirty-one.”

“When are the Oozemouth Festival playing again?” Wilfred enquired of the alderman sitting opposite him.

“Which league do they play in, lad?”

While his seniors wrangled, the most junior member of
Seahorse
’s wardroom was being very well entertained. Having dined very successfully
en famille
with Miss Elizabeth Warbeck and Sarah, the Midshipman had ventured to ask Sarah back to the submarine for a drink. To the surprise of them both, Miss Elizabeth Warbeck agreed.

Derek was very glad to see them. The public had gone, except for some odd pockets of sea cadets who were being mopped up by the duty watch. He was bored with his book (the hero’s submarine was plunging, out of control, towards the bottom of the Timor Sea, the hero being baffled) and he was bored with being by himself while the rest were ashore.

Recognizing the situation at a glance (Derek had been entertaining ladies in submarines while the Midshipman was still at his preparatory school), Derek knew exactly what was required of him. He opened a panel in the woodwork by his bunk and made a cunning two-way switch, installed by the builders at his personal request, which simultaneously extinguished the white lighting and replaced it with two dim red lights in opposite corners of the wardroom. He switched on Dagwood’s tape recorder which began to play soft dreamy music of the kind defined by Dagwood himself as “Eine Kleine Smooch Musik”. Lastly, he opened the wine cupboard, took out some bottles and clinked them invitingly.

“Chez
Seahorse
, we never closed,” he said to Sarah. He was vastly taken with her. He admired the Midshipman’s taste.

“What’ll you have?”

The Midshipman and Sarah were both a little taken aback by the speed and facility with which Derek had converted the wardroom into a very fair facsimile of a sordid night-club.

“Well, I don’t know what to have,” Sarah said. “What have you got?”

“Anything you like.”

“Except beer,” said the Midshipman.

“How about some Contreau, Sarah?”

“Yes, that would be nice. But only a small one.”

“We don’t have small ones here.”

Conversation came reluctantly at first, so reluctantly that Derek had to work hard to keep it going; he began to wonder indignantly why the Midshipman had bothered to invite Sarah down to the boat at all. But after a time the conversation started to flow freely, so freely that Derek began to feel superfluous. When the Midshipman took Sarah’s hand and the conversation lapsed altogether Derek wished that he could tactfully retire to bed. But there was nowhere for him to go. Sarah was sitting on his bunk.

Derek’s dilemma was solved by the arrival of Gavin and Rusty. They had succeeded in penetrating back-stage at the Intimate Theatre and had carried off two members of the cast, Gavin a brunette called Rita and Rusty a large blonde called Moira.

Rita was one of the occupants of the revolving pedestals. She was twenty-eight and had been occupying pedestals, wings and window ledges in the nude since she came to London from her native Birmingham at the age of twenty. She had never been very intelligent academically but she had already sized up Gavin. His technique, which had laid waste so many hearts, rebounded from her as though from bloom steel. She had already made the decision not to make any decision about the evening’s outcome but to wait and see.

Moira was a female xylophonist and a minor celebrity in the show, her name actually appearing on the bill, in the bottom right-hand corner. She might have been beautiful but for her size. She was like a good-looking girl seen through a magnifying glass. She was wearing a black satin skirt, a white nylon blouse through which a pink brassiere was just visible, gipsy-dangle ear-rings, a jewelled Juliet cap and chunky wedge-soled sandals. She carried a red plastic handbag and exuded a musky scent which reminded Derek of magnolias and a heavy head-cold. She made herself at home at once.

“Oooh, this is nice! This is cosy.
Womb
-like, ain’t it, Rita?”

“Yes,” said Rita shortly.

“Are you the captain?”

“No,” said Derek. “I’m the engineer officer.”

“Oooh, I bet you’re a clever chap. I’ll have a drop of the Pope’s telephone number, if you don’t mind. With splash.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Vat 69, dear. You mustn’t mind me, it’s listening to Jimmy and Harry every night, you start to talk like them. Two shows a night, six nights a week, it’s enough to send you screaming up the wall. It took my old man like that. He’s in a home now, you know. What’s the captain like?”

“He’s a very nice fellow,” said Derek.

“Where’s he now?”

“Having dinner with the Mayor.”

“Ooooh,
posh
”

Derek and Moira were left to carry on the conversation by themselves. The Midshipman and Sarah gazed at each other. Rusty said nothing. Gavin kept Rita under a steady predatory stare. Rita ignored everybody.

“I don’t know how you find your way about one of these things, really I don’t.”

“It’s all quite logical when you know what to look for.”

“You clever thing! “ Moira gave Derek a playful tap on the wrist which left him numb to the elbow.

“What do you do in the show, Rita?” said Sarah, suddenly.

“I pose in the nude,” said Rita, coldy.

“Oh.”

“Don’t you mind her, dear.” Moira bent to whisper confidentially to Sarah. “It’s the
draughts'
.”

When the taxi stopped outside her lodgings, Rita jumped out quickly.

“Thank you very much, Gavin,” she said. “I’ve had a lovely time.”

“Will I see you again?”

Rita shrugged. “Possibly,” she said distantly. “Good night.”

Gavin watched her run up the steps, open the front door, and disappear.

“What happened, sir?” said the taxi-driver. “Somebody bite her?”

When Moira’s taxi stopped outside her door, she leaned over and kissed Rusty on the cheek.

“You’re sweet. Are you married?”

“No.”

“Come up and have a cup of coffee.”

“Oh well, I don’t. . . .”

“Come
on
, I’m not going to bite you! “

Moira’s room was at the top of the house. As they crept up the stairs, Moira said: “Shush, don’t wake my landlady. I call her Exide. She keeps on after all the rest have stopped. Oh dear, there I go again.”

There was only one chair in the room and it was covered with clothes.

“You sit on the bed and I’ll go down and get some coffee.”

Rusty sat down on the bed. After a few minutes’ thought, he lay back and closed his eyes. It had been a long day. Rusty drew the counterpane up to his chin and fell asleep. When Moira came back, only the top of Rusty’s head was visible above the counterpane.

“Cor Blimey O’Reilly, wakey wakey!”

Rusty stirred.

“Come on, just because you’re a submariner you needn’t stay submerged all the time! “

The night before
Seahorse
sailed from Oozemouth the wardroom gave a cocktail party to return hospitality. The Steward marshalled rows of bottles and glasses on the chart-table and donned a white coat himself. The Chef resumed his tall hat and fried six pounds of chipolatas. The Petty Officer Electrician and his party rigged coloured lights along the casing. Miss Elizabeth Warbeck came during the afternoon and decorated the wardroom and the control room with flowers. The Mayor and Corporation attended with their wives and were followed after the last performance by the cast from the Intimate Theatre. The Midshipman and Sarah sat quietly in a corner of the wardroom. Jimmy and Harry pinned the Undertaker in a corner of the control room and told him jokes. Moira played “When the Saints Come Marching In” on a line of glasses. The Mayor was heard to remark that submarines were a fine invention.

“In fact I’ll go further, Commander,” he told The Bodger. “We’ll be damned sorry to see you go tomorrow.”

But when the morning came, it did not appear that
Seahorse
would go after all. A dense mist covered the harbour. Visibility was not more than a hundred yards. The mournful lowing of ships’ sirens sounded through the fog. The Bodger would not normally have considered going to sea but there was another consideration.

“When have we got to be in position for ‘Lucky Alphonse’, Pilot?”

“We’re supposed to be dived in our area by noon tomorrow, sir.”

“How far have we got to go?”

“Almost four hundred miles, sir.”

“Well, we’ll wait a little longer. When the sun gets up properly it may melt this lot away. I’ll have another look at nine o’clock.”

At nine o’clock it seemed that the mist was thinning. The sun could be seen as a bright spot in the grey fog. The Bodger could see almost as far as the other side of the river. He decided to go to sea.

With radar operating, siren blasting and extra look-outs posted,
Seahorse
crept down harbour. Opposite the main road, where the channel narrowed, the fog clamped down more thickly than ever. The Bodger was forced to stop. He could not see
Seahorse
’s casing from the bridge.

“What’s the sounding now?”

“Four fathoms, sir. . . . Three and a half fathoms. . . .”

“We must be getting damned close to that main road.”

“I think I can hear a car now, sir,” said Wilfred.

The Bodger listened intently. He was sure he could hear a car, too. His doubts were resolved a few moments later by the squealing of brakes, a tearing crash of metal and a loud splash.

The mist momentarily thinned and the men on
Seahorse
’s bridge looked down upon a small green van which was submerged in water up to the windscreen. The driver was climbing out when he noticed
Seahorse
materializing out of the fog. He shook his fist and bellowed at The Bodger.

“My dear chap,” said The Bodger mildly. “Hadn’t you better start sounding your horn?”

Exercise “Lucky Alphonse” was the biggest and most important fleet exercise of the year, being planned to last three weeks during which time one hundred and eighty ships of fourteen nations would steam over an area stretching from the Denmark Straits to the Canary Islands and four hundred and fifty aircraft would take off from airfields scattered between Dakar and Reykjavik. The villains, or attacking side, were Pink. The heroes, or defending side, were Blue.

“Just as I thought,” said The Bodger when he saw the Exercise Orders. “Nuclear Cowboys and Indians.”