The Cruel Sea (1951) (27 page)

From a narrow legal angle, Ireland was within her rights: she had opted for neutrality, and the rest of the story flowed from this decision. She was in fact at liberty to stand aside from the struggle, whatever harm this did to the Allied cause. But sailors, watching the ships go down and counting the number of their friends who might have been alive instead of dead, saw the thing in simpler terms. They saw Ireland safe under the British umbrella, fed by her convoys and protected by her air force, her very neutrality guaranteed by the British armed forces: they saw no return for this protection save a condoned sabotage of the Allied war effort; and they were angry – permanently angry. As they sailed past this smug coastline, past people who did not give a damn how the war went as long as they could live on in their fairy-tale world, they had time to ponder a new aspect of indecency. In the list of people you were prepared to like when the war was over, the man who stood by and watched while you were getting your throat cut could not figure very high.

Liverpool was a sailors’ town, and she went out of her way to make this generously plain. From the merchant ships lining the quays and docks, from the escorts cramming Gladstone Dock, hundreds of men poured ashore every night, intent on enjoying their short hours of liberty: they got drunk, made disturbances, thronged the streets and the public houses, monopolised the prostitutes, seduced the young girls, and accommodated the married women – and Liverpool forgave them all, and still offered her hospitality unstintingly. It was difficult to estimate the contribution to morale which Liverpool made, during this wartime invasion; but the happy background, the sure welcome, which continued for year after year, was a memorable help to sailors, giving them something to look forward to after weeks at sea, something which could take the sting out of loneliness as well as exhaustion.

Compass Rose,
of course, came in for her share of this generosity; after being based there for eighteen months, most people on board had contacts ashore, and could be sure of the home cooking and the blessed normality of family life, which was itself the best tonic of all. Some of
Compass Rose’s
crew had married Liverpool girls, or had brought their wives up to live there: the ship now seemed to belong to Liverpool, and as long as their luck held and she was not transferred to the Clyde or Londonderry, the two other big Western Approaches bases, they were very happy in the situation – the best compromise between war and peace which was possible.

Ericson also was glad of this permanent tie with the shore, which made for a contented crew and less likelihood of serious leave-breaking; he was even reconciled, on his own account, to the consolidation of his domestic life, with Grace as the placid background and the little house in Birkenhead as his resting place between convoys. He did not concentrate any the less on
Compass Rose;
and the fact that Grace’s mother was now living with them, and was installed in a permanent position on the left side of the fireplace, meant that he need not feel guilty about sleeping on board if the need arose. The other Birkenhead resident, Tallow (now a Chief Petty Officer), was growing positively sleek on his sister Gladys’ cooking; and he was deriving a certain amount of amusement from the situation between Gladys and Chief E.R.A. Watts, who had been a persistent and welcome visitor ever since
Compass Rose
was first stationed at Liverpool. Watts was a widower with grown-up children, Gladys was a widow comfortably past the age of romantic ardour; it was a quiet affair, a placid understanding that, come the end of the war, they would settle down together and, between his pension and her modest savings, make a go of it . . . When Watts had first broached the subject to Tallow, it was in such a roundabout way that the latter could hardly grasp what he was driving at: but when Watts finally muttered something about ‘getting fixed up after the war’, light broke through.

‘Why, that’s fine, Jim!’ exclaimed Tallow. The two men were alone in the petty officers’ mess, and on an impulse, Tallow leant forward and held out his hand. They shook hands awkwardly, not looking at each other, but there was warmth in Tallow’s voice as he went on: ‘Best thing that could happen for her. And for you, too. You’ve asked her, eh?’

‘Sort of . . .’ Watts was still embarrassed by the display of feeling. ‘We’ve got a—an understanding, like. The only thing is—’ He paused.

‘What’s the trouble?’

‘She was a bit worried about you. I mean, she’s been housekeeping for you for a long time, hasn’t she? She didn’t want you to be disappointed.’

‘Oh, forget about it!’ Tallow smiled. ‘Might get married myself one of these days – you never know. You go ahead, Jim, and I’ll give the bride away, any time you like.’

‘Can’t see it happening soon,’ answered Watts. ‘Not with the war going the way it is. Longest bloody job I ever saw.’

‘You’re right about that . . . Don’t worry over me, anyway: just name the day, and I’ll dance at your wedding.’

But that was not to be. For Liverpool, the sailors’ town, was soon to pay for that label in the most brutal way imaginable; and a tiny part of that payment bore away with it Watts’ modest hopes of happiness.

Even far downriver, at the Crosby Light Vessel, they knew that something was wrong; and as they made their way upstream at the tail of the convoy many of the crew clustered on the upper deck, shading their eyes against the strong May sunlight and looking towards the city they had come to know as home. Morell, who was standing on the fo’c’sle with the men getting out the mooring wires, trained his glasses up the river towards the Liver Buildings: there seemed to be a lot of smoke about, and here and there a jagged edge to the skyline which he had never noticed before . . . At his side he suddenly heard Leading-Seaman Phillips exclaim: ‘Christ! It’s copped a packet!’ and then he smelt – they all smelt – the acrid tang of the smoke blowing downriver, and his eyes, focusing suddenly on a big warehouse just above Gladstone Dock, discovered that it was split from top to bottom, that one half of it was a gigantic heap of rubble, that the rest was blackened and smouldering. His binoculars, traversing steadily across the city and over to the Birkenhead side, showed him many such buildings, and scores of small houses lying ruined in the centre of a great scorched circle: there were fires still burning, there was a heavy pall of smoke lying over the northern part of the city, there were gaps, whole streets missing, rows of houses misshapen and torn. He dropped his glasses, shocked by the scale of the destruction, the naked ruin of a city which they had left prosperous and unharmed; and then he caught the eye of one of his fo’c’sle party, a young seaman whose wife, he knew, had recently come to live in Liverpool.

‘What—what’s it like, sir?’ asked the man hesitantly.

‘Not too good, I’m afraid,’ answered Morell. ‘It looks as if they’ve been raided several times.’

‘Bastards!’ said Phillips, to no one in particular. ‘Look at those houses—’

The smoke and the dirty air, the smell of destruction, blew thick and strong across the river towards them; and such was their homecoming.

From the signal station they were ordered to go straight into Gladstone Dock. ‘I hope they didn’t get the oiler,’ said Ericson, as Wells read out the message to him. ‘She’d go up like a Roman candle . . .’ He had been looking through his glasses at the Birkenhead side of the river, where his own house was: the damage there was on a special scale of fury, as if the bombers, trying for the docks, had mistaken the neat rows of houses for the nearby quayside, and had triumphantly unloaded. Or perhaps they had not minded what they hit . . .
Compass Rose
veered suddenly across the river, and Ericson called out, in sharp tones: ‘Watch her head, coxswain!’ and up the voice-pipe came Tallow’s answering voice: ‘Sorry, sir!’ and Ericson remembered that he was not the only one who had a personal interest in what had happened at Birkenhead. Thankfully he decreased speed, and set a course for the squat stone entrance to Gladstone Dock. At least they would know soon, at least they had not to wait for the uncertain mail or the chance flight of rumour, to learn the worst.

As they came alongside the southern quay of the dock basin, a berthing party of half a dozen men from the nearest destroyer ran along to meet them and to take their mooring wires. The first heaving line whipped across from ship to shore, establishing contact once more after a fortnight at sea, and Leading-Seaman Phillips, standing high on the fo’c’sle head, called out: ‘What’s been going on?’

One of the berthing party, a tough three-badge able-seaman, looked up and grimaced. ‘You’ve missed something, mate!’ he shouted back. ‘Eight nights on end – that’s all we’ve had: bombers coming over every night as thick as bloody sparrows. They’ve made a right mess of this town, I can tell you.’

‘Go on,’ said Phillips. ‘What’s got it worst?’

The A.B. gestured vaguely. ‘All over, I reckon – Bootle, Birkenhead, Wallasey. And down in the town too: there isn’t any Lord Street left – they got the lot, both sides. Worst bombing of the war, the papers said. I don’t want any worse myself . . . There was an ammunition ship just alongside here, blazing all over, but they towed her out into the middle of the river before she went up.’ He gestured again, more vividly. ‘Best dose of salts I’ve ever had . . . Give us your head rope.’

From the bridge above them a remarkably cold voice said: ‘Stop talking and get on with those wires.’ Phillips winked at the man standing on the quay below him, and got an answering jerk of the head. They both knew, to within very fine limits, just how long such a conversation could go on.

Presently, when they were secure and Ericson, up on the bridge, had rung off the engines, he turned to Lockhart.

‘Number One.’

‘Sir?’

‘There’ll be a lot of requests for special leave, probably. You’d better cancel ordinary leave, and give it to ratings who have homes or relatives ashore.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

‘See that these wires are squared off. I’m going ashore to telephone.’

There were a lot of other candidates for the telephone: a small procession of men, anxious to establish contact, queueing up outside the single dockside callbox, waiting patiently, not talking to each other. Ericson got through, and spoke for a moment to his wife: she sounded subdued, but at least she was there . . . Ferraby, whose small house was on the outskirts of the city, had the same comforting luck: but Tallow, when it came to his turn, could not get his number at all, simply the high continuous note which meant ‘line out of order’. When he was back on board, and making a hurried toilet in the petty officers’ mess before going ashore again, Watts said tentatively: ‘I’d like to come with you, Bob.’

Tallow, who was shaving, nodded his head. ‘Yes, Jim. You come along.’

‘They might just have damaged the telephone wires,’ said Watts after a pause.

Tallow nodded again. ‘It might be that.’

But the nearer they got to the house, after crossing the river by ferryboat, the more they knew that it was
not
that. From the landing stage they walked uphill towards Dock Road, slowly because of the blocked roads and the rubble and glass and smashed woodwork which was strewn over the streets; the trail of wrecked houses and the smell of newly-extinguished fires was a terrible accompaniment to their journey. They did not talk to each other, because the cruel destruction was saying it all for them: there was no need to speculate on what they were going to find, when the odds mounted with every pace they took, with every shop and little house which had been blasted to ruins. Presently, walking in step side by side, smart and seamanlike in their square cut uniforms, they turned the last corner, or the place where the last corner should have been, and looked down Dock Road.

There wasn’t a great deal left of Dock Road: the two corner houses just beside them had gone, and three more farther down, and then there was a great hole in the centre of the roadway, and then, farther down still, a ragged heap of rubble where another house had sprawled into the street. It must have been a stick of bombs, as neatly placed as the buttonholes in a dress . . . Tallow looked at the farthest point of destruction, sick and hurt: he said, somewhere between surprise and a fatalistic calm: ‘That’s the one, Jim, I know it is,’ and he started foolishly to run. Watts, possessed by the same urgency, kept pace with him, and they went at a steady jog-trot down the street: past the first lot of wrecked houses, past the second, past the crater in the roadway, and up to the last shattered corner. Number 27 was half-ruined by blast: so was Number 31. Number 29 had taken the full force of a direct hit.

Number 29 Dock Road . . . Under the bright afternoon sunshine the wreck of the little houses seemed mean and tawdry; there was flayed wallpaper flapping in the wind, and half a staircase set at a drunken angle, and a kitchen sink rising like some crude domestic altar from a heap of brickwork. The house had collapsed upon itself, and then overflowed into the garden and the roadway: the broken glass and the rubble slurred under their feet as they came to a halt before it. It was not a house any more, this place where, between voyages, Tallow had been so comfortable and content, and Watts had stumbled out a halting proposal of marriage, and Gladys had made a warm cheerful haven for them all; it was simply a shapeless mass slopping over from its own foundation, a heap of dirt and rubbish over which drifted, like a final curse, the smell of burnt-out fire.

Some men – a rescue squad in dusty blue overalls – were picking over the ruins like scavengers who did not know what they were seeking.