We Saw The Sea (11 page)

“Roll on my --- twelve,” said the crane-driver fervently.

“Just as I thought,” said the Commander. “A guinea a minute.”

Apart from his duties as First Lieutenant The Bodger was also Defence Officer and responsible for the ship’s damage control. He had organized a few minor exercises but he had discovered that the only ratings taking part were one watch of stokers and E.R.A.s, and the shipwrights; the rest of the ship’s company were unaffected and uninterested. The Bodger resolved to remedy that and, with the Captain’s permission, organized a full-scale exercise while the ship was at sea.

Michael’s action station was on the Gun Direction Position, but when the Captain saw him there with the rest of the G.D.P. crew he objected to the crowd.

“Too many bloody people up here,” the Captain said. “Hobbes, go down to one of the section bases and see what’s going on. It won’t do you any harm to see how the other half lives.”

Michael made his way down the ladders to the Canteen Flat where Bongo Lewis was in charge of Number One Damage Control Section.

A motley rabble of stokers, electrician’s mates, shipwrights, E.R.A.s, stewards and sick berth attendants choked the flat outside the Base. A Chief Stoker was standing on a hatch cover calling out names and ticking them off on a board. Michael could see no order or rote in the roll-call but one by one men crept furtively away to unknown destinations and for unnamed reasons.

Inside the Base itself were Bongo Lewis, a stoker on the switchboard, an E.R.A. wearing a pair of headphones, and a miscellaneous rating, who might have been a cook or a steward, crouched in a corner smoking a cigarette.

Bongo was speaking on the telephone and grimacing at the bulkhead.

“I don’t think that’s possible, sir. ... If you remember, we tried it last time, sir. . . . No, we couldn’t get it out for days. . . . But sir. . . . Aye aye, sir.”

Bongo replaced the telephone and looked despondently at Michael.

“Christ Almighty,” he said. “Commander (E) wants to exercise taking a pump down the Naval Store and pumping it out. Last time we did it, it broke somebody’s foot and got jammed down there. We had to burn away a stanchion to get it out.”

The loudspeaker on the bulkhead hummed, and spoke.

“All sections, this is H.Q. One, report when your sections are closed up and in Damage Control State One.”

The stoker on the switchboard, who had the name “Yorky” in white paint across his shirt pocket, came to life. He picked up a telephone and made two switches.

“This is D.C. Base One section closed up and in Damage Control State One,” he said, without consulting Bongo Lewis or even asking any other person for information.

“All sections, this is H.Q. One, test communications.”

Yorky began to test communications. He settled down to the job in comfort, as though he understood it perfectly and knew that it would take him at least an hour.

“ ‘C’ Fire and Repair Party,” he said, “this is D.C. Base One, testing communications, how do you hear me?” He paused and looked up at the deckhead. “ ‘C’ Fire and Repair Party this is D.C. Base One, how do you hear me?” He paused again.
“ ‘C’ Fire and Repair Party, this is D.C. Base One, how do you hear.
. . . Hello, that you Jumper? Yorky here. How’s yourself? Loud and clear? Loud and clear also. Cheers, oppo.” Yorky reset the switches and made two more. “ ‘A’ Magazine Flood, this is D.C. Base One. . .

“It’s pointless testing communications really,” Bongo said to Michael. “There’s never anything wrong with the telephones. The trouble is getting somebody to speak on them the other end. This section is so big once people get away from the base you can never find them again. They just disappear like water in the sands of the Nile. It’s all right for people like Paul. His base is next door to his cabin and he’s got everything all round him. I have to keep half a dozen hands outside the door here so I’ve always got someone I can send right away. Who are you?”

The crouching figure in the corner stood up.

“I’m a . . .”

“Take that cigarette out of your mouth! “

“I’m a steward, sir.”

“Yes, but what are you?”

“I’m the runner, sir,” the steward said shamefacedly, as though he were confessing to some loathsome disability.

“The runner! Didn’t know we had one. Well, run round to the Chief Stoker in the Capstan Flat and tell him to start getting his pump down into the Naval Store. We’ll be needing it.”

Bongo sat down and put his feet up on the table.

“It always takes them a quarter of an hour to get themselves sorted out in H.Q. One,” he explained to Michael.

Michael looked outside. He was repelled by the hostile stares of six stokers who were squatting on the deck. They all wore blue overalls with their names painted across the pocket. Michael noticed that the names fell into clearly defined groups. There were names of purely geographical significance, such as Scouse, Geordie and Jan; alliterative or traditional names, such as Bomber and Dusty; and names referring to their owner’s physical properties, such as Lofty. Michael was intimidated by the stares and withdrew his head. But he had been noticed.

“Who’s that --- , Scouse?”

“Some --- from the upper deck.”

“What’s he --- doing here?”

“ --- goofing.”

“Cor --- “

“The ship will shortly be listed to an angle of ten degrees. This is being done to give damage control parties experience in working under action conditions.”
snarled the broadcast.

The stokers outside sucked their teeth.

“First they list the ship so we can all learn to walk --- sideways,” said Scouse, “then I suppose they’ll go astern so we can all walk --- backwards.”

Michael watched the heel indicator. It was already beginning to swing. Yorky was still testing communications.

“Paint Store this is D.C. Base One. Testing communications, how do you hear me? Paint Store how do you hear me? Eh? Can you hear me that’s all I want to know. Well, pull your finger out lad, I haven’t got all day. Loud and clear, Roger.”

“The ship has just received a torpedo hit starboard side forrard. All sections report damage”

Without a break in his voice, Yorky put himself through to H.Q. One.

“ . . This is D.C. Base One. Torpedo hit starboard side forrard. Free flooding between eighteen and sixty-eight frames, up to five deck, starboard side. Flooding boundary being established from seventy-two frame forrard. Free surface in Communications Branch messdeck, cofferdams now being rigged. Complete electrical failure forrard of ninety-seven bulkhead. Two small fires in the Acetylene and Dope Store and one in the Forward Cold Room now under control. Firemain break both sides at eighty-four bulkhead being isolated at a hundred and three bulkhead. Casualties unknown. More assistance required with medical aid, pumps and fire-fighting equipment. Got that? Well, why the bloody hell don’t you listen? What’s the use of me spieling away here? I say again. Torpedo hit starboard side. . .”

“He’s done these exercises before,” Bongo said to Michael apologetically.

“Yes, I can see that,” Michael said admiringly. He looked at Yorky w'ith newly-awakened eyes; he realized, for the first time, that he was in the presence of greatness.

The E.R.A. wearing the headphones was covering a large board with hieroglyphics in coloured pencil. He seemed absorbed in his task, dwelling on each symbol with loving significance. Bongo poked him.

“What are you doing, Bodily?”

Bodily removed his headphones.

“Incident Board, sir,” he said.

“I
know
that. What’s that thing there?”

“Electrical fire in the Forward Compressor Room, sir.”

“Did you report an electrical fire in the compressor room, Higgins?”

“No, sir,” said Yorky.

“Scrub that out. You must keep the Incident Board accurate, Bodily.”

“Yes, sir.”

“For exercise, for exercise, fire in the Forward Compressor Room”

E.R.A. Bodily looked reproachfully at Bongo Lewis.

“I should have known better,” Bongo said to Michael. “Bodily’s done these exercises before, too.”

“D.C. Base One, this is H.Q. One, rig portable pump in G Naval Store.”

Yorky twirled a handle.

“Rig portable pump in the Naval Store.”

“What’s that?” shouted the voice at the other end of the line. Michael could hear the tinny sound from where he stood.

“Rig portable pump. . . .”

“Who’s a chump?”

“Now don’t be funny, Wings, rig portable pump. . . .”

“What pump?”

“The message is ‘Rig portable pump. . . .’ “

“I know, I
know
!” yelled the voice excitedly. “I know what the bloody message is and my message to you is ‘Get knotted! ’ “

Yorky held the dead telephone for a moment. Then he looked round and Michael was surprised to see him blushing.

“I’m sorry, sir. I got the Chapel by mistake.”

“Never mind, they’re doing it anyway.”

“D.C. Base One, this is H.Q. One, for exercise, for exercise, flood ‘A’ Magazine.”

“Now get this one right, Higgins,” said Bongo. “We don’t want any more trouble with Mr Broad.”

Yorky repeated the message.

“You may think this all a bit of chaos, Mike. . . .”

“Oh, not at all.”

“But it’s surprising, if you have enough of them the troops do get the idea eventually. But you’ve got to keep on at it, just like everything else. It’s no good having an exercise once in a blue moon, everyone’s forgotten where everything is. You’ve got to have lots of exercises. Trouble is that it’s usually the engine-room department who get clobbered for them. They close up while every other bastard in the ship goes to standeasy. . . .”

A flying figure scattered the stokers by the door. It was Slim Broad, the Commissioned Gunner. Bongo’s welcoming smile faded when he saw Slim Broad’s face.

“That’s the second time I’ve caught that moron on the flooding cabinet swinging off on the valves,” Slim Broad said grimly. “You might get the buzz to your blokes that this is an
exercise
.”

“Message from ‘C’ Pump and Flood, sir! Will you send an S.B.A. down to the Naval Store quickly, sir, the Chief Stoker’s hurt himself with that pump.”

The ship will shortly be closed down to Action! State One to exercise attack by atomic warfare.”

“They’re always trying to make you do without --- food,” Scouse said bitterly. “Now they’re trying to make you do without --- air as well.”

Michael, Paul and Tim Castlewood, the Sports Officer, were walking the quarter-deck. The quarter-deck, after dinner, was the recognized time and place for officers to promenade and take the air.

“I wonder how they’re getting on down in the laundry?” said Tim Castlewood casually.

“What do you mean?” Michael demanded. As Laundry Officer, he was sensitive to the subject.

“I must pay a visit there some day. I want to see the machine that crushes the buttons on my shirts.”

Paul saw his cue joyfully. “And the machine what drills holes in my pants. . .”

“And the gadget that puts brown stains on my collars...”

“Now look. . . .”

“It’s all right, Mike. I’m only getting at you. Laundry officers are always got at.”

“I’m getting fed up with it.”

“It has been a little erratic in the past, Mike, you must admit.”

“Only once. That was that bloody feud.”

Michael had known nothing of laundries when he joined
Carousel
. His first visit had been a terrifying experience. He was met by the Laundry Manager, a Chinese known as Number One Boy, who led Michael through a succession of dark, steamy caverns containing small, weird machines which were like nothing Michael had ever seen before. Tiny pistons worked to and fro, spouting steam. A press like a giant hand descended with a vicious sizzling. Chinese faces, inscrutable, indistinct, peered at Michael through the gloom. After that first visit Michael left the running of the laundry to Number One Boy and confined himself to standing rounds once a week, and sending in his own laundry every day.

Michael heard of the laundry feud from The Bodger.

“Hobbes! One of your bloody Chinamen has disappeared! Get down there and find out what Number One Boy’s been up to! “

Number One Boy had been up to nothing. It was two of his nephews (all the laundry boys were Number One Boy’s nephews) who had been causing trouble, Number One Boy explained.

The Chinese on the collar-shaping machine had a long feud with the Chinese who worked the shirt-presser. Michael could not uncover the original cause of the dispute but Collar-Shaper Boy had confided to Spin-Dryer Boy, his particular friend, that it was his intention to murder Shirt-Presser Boy. The news travelled down the subterranean corridors of the laundry to Shirt-Presser Boy and made him wary. The rest of the laundry boys observed the feud dispassionately; sooner or later the laundry would need either a new Collar-Shaper Boy or a new Shirt-Presser Boy. Nor was Number One Boy himself concerned. He had a nephew in Hong Kong who could work either machine. (He would, however, have preferred the feud to smoulder until the ship reached Hong Kong so that the new nephew could take over with the minimum of delay.)

As the weeks of the feud passed, Collar-Shaper Boy gained a moral ascendancy; he seemed to exert a subtle, enervating influence upon Shirt-Presser Boy. Day by day, the laundry’s collars were more superbly turned out, the shirts more poorly finished. Shirt-Presser Boy was moody, listless and lackadaisical. The grin on Collar-Shaper Boy’s face grew broader and he flexed his fingers eagerly. Number One Boy wrote to his nephew in Hong Kong.

But one morning, a wonder came to light in the Laundry. Shirt-Presser Boy appeared for work. Collar-Shaper Boy did not. Michael could not penetrate further than the fact that one evening a Collar-Shaper Boy had been at work and the following morning none had appeared. Number One Boy pointed to the idle collar-shaper as proof.

“No piecee collar,” he said. “Boy gone no work.”

Down the gangway, Michael could see a Chinese loading towels into the spin-dryer and keeping his face turned towards the shirt-presser. The message had been passed that Shirt-Presser Boy intended to exact revenge on Spin-Dryer Boy for the part he had played in the feud with Collar-Shaper Boy. Number One Boy was not concerned; he had a nephew in Hong Kong who could work the spin-dryer.