The Man who Missed the War (6 page)

Three days later, he obtained a day off from his job to go to London, and by making use of his father’s name secured an interview with a pink-faced, youngish Naval Commander in the Plans Division of the Admiralty.

The Commander listened politely to what Philip had to say, scrutinised the drawings, then looked up with a cheerful smile.

‘Well, Mr. Vaudell, I must say your idea is most ingenious, but I’m afraid I can’t possibly express an opinion as to whether it would work or not. It’s a bit Jules Verne-ish if you don’t mind my saying so; but, then, so was his book
Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea
—before we had submarines! My difficulty is that you’ve really come to the wrong shop. It may sound rather silly to you, but in the Plans Division we don’t deal with this sort of thing at all. We’re only Plans in the operational sense. However, I’ll pass your stuff on to the right department for an opinion.’

‘Thanks,’ said Philip. ‘I’d be grateful if you would. But, just as a matter of interest, do you think it looks like a practical proposition?’

The sailor fingered his smooth chin. ‘The strain on those cables would be terrific, and I’m afraid the whole thing would break up if it ran into an even moderately heavy sea; but, of course, only an expert could say definitely. One small point I would suggest is that each of the cargo containers should have a square hole in its middle: a sort of well, you know, about six feet by six. It wouldn’t mean sacrificing very much of your cargo space, and it might prove useful as a refuge for your servicing crew should they be caught in a sudden squall. However, that’s a detail. Anyhow, we’re very grateful indeed to you for bringing us your idea.’

Philip thought the suggestion of the refuge-well a good one, and said that he would incorporate it in his final plan.

Three days later, he received a letter bearing the embossed anchor crest of the Admiralty. He tore it open with trembling fingers, only to find that it contained nothing but a formal acknowledgment of his papers.

The time of waiting that followed seemed interminable. Philip
now felt certain that war was impending as the Air Ministry sent a high official to the works to address the senior staff, draughtsmen and shop stewards. The short talk was mainly about Security and the necessity for concealing, even from their families, details of forthcoming increased Government orders; and, after hinting at the gravity of the European situation, the speaker urged the workers to do all in their power to increase output.

Captain Vaudell was also now putting in longer hours at his office in Portsmouth and making more frequent trips to the other Naval Dockyards which he visited from time to time. Occasionally he still had one or two of his brother officers to dinner, and from their conversation one evening Philip learnt to his fury that yet more millions of the all too small Naval Estimates were being devoted to the laying-down of two more huge battleships, which Service rumour had it were to be named
Anson
and
Howe
.

‘How soon are they likely to be ready, sir?’ he asked one of the guests, a dark hatchet-faced Post Captain.

‘They’re scheduled for commissioning in 1943,’ was the prompt reply.

‘But surely,’ protested Philip, ‘if there is going to be a war it will break out long before that, and with luck might even be all over by then. Wouldn’t it be sounder to concentrate on smaller stuff for quick delivery which would be of some use to us if we have to fight this year or next?’

The Captain shrugged. ‘Oh, war or no war, we must keep up our long-term building programme, you know.’

Quite unreasonably, the episode left a bitter taste in Philip’s mouth. Alone in his bedroom later that night, he raged silently against such stupidity.

‘Fools! Blockheads! With their Big Ships which in future could be no more than a target for bombs. When would they learn sense? When they found themselves struggling in the oily sea, going down for the third time, after a direct hit had exploded a magazine, perhaps! But, in the meantime, the old diehards at the Admiralty were squandering Britain’s last chance to prepare for a modern Naval war. Yet there must be some men with brains and vision at the Admiralty—people who realised that within a few months we might be at war and the fate of the whole free
world depend on our ability to keep Britain open and supplied as a base for operating against the tyranny which was gradually engulfing Europe. One of them would see his plan and the raft convoy would be adopted. It simply must be.’

The blow was all the heavier when a few days later he received a communication from the Admiralty. The printed slip read: ‘We thank you for giving us the opportunity of examining your … but regret that we cannot at present recommend that an offer should be made with a view to acquiring rights in it.’ The blank had been filled in with the words ‘Raft Convoy’, and below appeared a meaningless scrawl, which was, apparently, the signature of the Secretary of a ‘Committee for the Examination of Devices’, together with a typed postscript to the effect that his plans were being returned under separate cover.

Philip at once rang up the Canon who, detecting the crushing disappointment in his voice, did his best to console him and asked him to dinner the following night.

When Philip arrived at the Rectory he was still seething with indignation that the examiners had not even considered his idea worthy of a personal letter and a few words as to why they had turned it down. The Canon let him rant for a bit, then turned the conversation to other things over dinner, only reverting to the subject of the Raft Convoy much later that evening.

‘Do you consider,’ he asked quite suddenly, ‘that your great scheme, if adapted solely to commercial ends, would prove a paying proposition?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Philip slowly; then, after a pause, he added more quickly: ‘But, of course, it would! In peacetime there would be no need for a mother-ship. The spare sails and cables could be carried in the tugs. Twelve men apiece would be ample for their crews, and that’s many less than the average freighter carries. The fuel consumption of the tugs would be negligible, and with each convoy one could bring over the best part of a hundred and twenty-five thousand tons of cargo. If a company took it up they would earn terrific dividends.’

‘That’s more or less the conclusion to which I came when I was thinking over your setback last night,’ smiled the Canon. ‘Of course, you must remember that you could use your rafts only one way, so you’d have to build new ones for each trip, and new
cargo containers, too, unless you shipped the old ones back; but there should still be a very handsome profit. Have you any idea what the building of a hundred-raft convoy would cost?’

‘Not the vaguest, but I suppose I could find out by making a series of calculations about the wood and cable and so on that would be needed, and writing to the various firms for quotations.’

‘Then, why not do that? When you’ve got your figures you could draft a prospectus with a view to floating a company. You see, if you could only get the thing going as a commercial concern our purpose would be served, as the Government would take it over immediately war broke out.’

‘Gosh, yes!’ Philip whistled, then jumped to his feet and began pacing up and down the room. ‘That’s a marvellous idea of yours—absolutely smashing! But the trouble is that it takes money to float companies, and I haven’t any!’

‘Do you know what today is?’ the Canon asked.

‘It’s the twenty-first of October, isn’t it?’ Philip looked slightly surprised.

‘Yes—Trafalgar Day. I’ve always believed that as long as we remember the dead they remember and help us. As you know, I’m not a rich man, but I have a certain amount of private money; and on this day, in memory of our greatest sailor—Nelson—I’m willing to give you a thousand pounds, Philip, to pay the expenses of forming a Company, the ultimate aim of which will be to defeat once more the enemies of Britain at sea.’

For a moment Philip was speechless, then he stammered: ‘It’s—it’s too good of you …’

The Canon held up his hand. ‘Nonsense! At the worst I stand to lose my money; at best, I shall come in for some of those handsome dividends on my founder’s shares. That’s a gamble that any man should be willing to take for the sake of his country. You’ll be risking much more, if you accept my proposition, because you realise, of course, that if you succeed in forming this company you’ll have to give up your present job to become its managing director?’

‘Yes, I suppose so—’ Philip laughed suddenly. ‘But what an opening for a young man you’re offering me instead. I can hardly wait to get down to making those calculations.’

Night after night, for the next two months, he worked like a
demon at it, and typed scores of letters to engineering and shipping firms in both Britain and America. He had long ago decided that the cheapest and most practical way of securing the large quantities of wood required to make the rafts would be to purchase a number of the big log rafts that are floated down the Saint Lawrence each summer from the great Canadian lumber camps. They would have to be towed south to the States, as they could not otherwise be launched into the Gulf Stream, but this kind of timber had the advantage that, however waterlogged it might be on reaching Britain, it could still be pulped for papermaking—an additional asset in a war which might well bring about an acute paper shortage. Wood, however, was but one of his problems: he had to get estimates for making of the cargo containers, cables, sails, launches, and the charter of the seagoing tugs. Then there would be the questions of anchorage for assembling the convoy, of labour, of crews and of offices or agents for the company in both London and New York.

It was Christmas before he had his data completed, and he had reached the conclusion that such a company could not safely begin to operate with a capital of less than £150,000. The hundred rafts would cost over £1,000 each to build and equip; and there were besides the launches, charter of tugs and innumerable other expenses.

By working over the Christmas holiday, he managed to take three days off early in January, and, armed with a draft prospectus and his original drawings, went up to London to visit several financial houses whose names had been given to him by the Managing Director at the aircraft works.

They all proved keenly interested, but at the same time refused to commit themselves. In almost identical words, they pointed out that, while abundant finance would be forthcoming once a single Raft Convoy had made the crossing safely, it might be no easy matter to find investors who were prepared to gamble on so revolutionary a form of sea transport proving successful; and they must consult their partners … etc.

Philip was not unduly depressed, as he had realised from the first that he must rely for his capital on born gamblers; but it did not seem to him that it should be very difficult to find such people to put up the relatively small sum of £150,000 in a great
money market like London where many millions were hazarded each day.

Yet, as January passed into February, he became more and more anxious and impatient. Time was slipping by and nothing could be done until the company was floated and the capital subscribed. Now and then, he received temporising letters from the firms he had consulted. The investment, they said, seemed to strike people as a particularly risky one, but there were still certain big backers whom they hoped to interest. Finally, as February drew to a close, one by one they intimated politely that they could hold out no further hope and must drop the project. Philip had kept the Canon informed, and when the last of these letters arrived they spent a gloomy evening together. It seemed that there was nothing more that they could do.

A few weeks later Hitler repudiated the Munich agreement, and the German legions marched on Prague. The following day the Canon rang Philip up at the works and asked him to come in to see him that evening.

Philip could not get away until after dinner, and when he arrived he found the Canon impatiently awaiting him. He had hardly sat down when the little man burst out:

‘You know what’s happening? As we sit here those brutish Huns are seizing and murdering every honest, independent, free-speaking Czech they can lay their hands on! I could scarcely sleep for thinking of it last night. It’s horrible—horrible! Britain can’t remain indifferent to this sort of thing indefinitely!’

Philip nodded. ‘No, the people won’t stand for it. You should hear what the chaps at the works say about Chamberlain and appeasement now. Either he’ll have to stand up to Hitler or the Government will be thrown out before we’re very much older. In either case I wouldn’t mind betting that we’ll be at war within a year, but, of course, we’re still hopelessly unprepared.’

‘That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about. By hook or by crook, we’ve got to get your raft convoy tried out!’

‘Oh God!’ groaned Philip. ‘If only we could! Should it prove no good, well, that would be just too bad. But it may be that in it we’ve got a thing which will save Britain from starvation—save the world perhaps from becoming one vast slave camp ruled by the Prussian jackboot and the Nazi rubber-truncheon. Yet
we’re powerless even to test it. I’d give everything I possess—or, since that’s not much, ten years of my life—if only I could persuade someone to take it up and give it a fair trial.’

‘I know you would. But listen! Do you consider it essential that the trial should be made with a hundred rafts? Wouldn’t twenty-five or even a dozen do? And couldn’t the size of the rafts be reduced as well?’

‘Certainly,’ Philip agreed at once. ‘The size of the rafts and their number don’t matter. It’s the principle of the thing that we want to prove. But what’s the idea?’

‘Simply to reduce the initial outlay to the absolute minimum. What do you feel would be the smallest set-up which, if it crossed the Atlantic successfully, would induce the Admiralty to accept your idea as a practical proposition?’

Philip considered for a moment. ‘One raft wouldn’t be any good. It’s the strain on the cables connecting a number that has got to be tested. One string of ten would do, then we should only require one tug and one launch. Wait a minute, though! If we reduced the rafts from a hundred to fifty feet square they’d only be a quarter of the size originally planned, so a sea-going launch would be able to give the single string direction as well as service it, and we could cut out the tugs altogether.’