Читать книгу Kerrell - Henry Taprell Dorling - Страница 5

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THE lieutenant-commander, his hands in the pockets of his thick duffle coat and an unlit pipe between his teeth, came towards him.

“What’s the sub been saying to you?” he asked suspiciously.

“Nothing, sir,” Kerrell replied, thankful it was too dark for the captain to see his face. “He merely turned over the watch.”

“He seemed to take a damned long time about it!” Hendry grunted. “By the way, what d’you make of him?”

“Who, sir? The sub?”

“Of course. Who else should I mean?”

Kerrell thought for a moment before answering. “He doesn’t seem to be shaping badly, sir. He’s not been long in the ship and he’s new to destroyers. But I’ve always found him keen and anxious to do his best.”

The captain snorted.

“That’s where you and I disagree,” he answered. “I’ve always found him a blithering young fool. If I have to tell him a thing once, I have to tell him a dozen times. Why the hell should they inflict such youths on destroyers, where every man’s job counts, I’m shot if I know!”

The first-lieutenant did not reply. There was no sense in doing so. Hendry was obviously in the worst of one of his bad tempers. The obvious thing was to let him blow off steam.

“He’s one of these chaps with influence,” the lieutenant-commander continued. “His father’s a baronet, and as Pardoe’s an only son, he’ll be a baronet some day. I hate people with influence, and why the devil should he wangle his way to this ship? Why can’t he stick to battleships—flagships, where he can curry favour with admirals, which is about all he’s fit for? I’ve no use for him. Why should we have to put up with his la-de-dah manners and general incompetence, hey?”

Kerrell hardly knew what to say, for Hendry was being monstrously unfair. It was true that the sub was rather exquisite and over-keen on his personal appearance, that he used highly scented hair oil, and that his manner was sometimes irritating. But he was young and would soon grow out of these foibles, and to say that he was incompetent was untrue. His heart was in the right place, and he certainly had the makings of a good officer. He merely lacked experience.

“Perhaps we might get him exchanged, sir,” Toby observed, suggesting one way out of the difficulty.

“Exchanged be blowed!” came the contemptuous reply. “If I apply to have him relieved I shall probably be superseded myself. Pardoe’s got influence, I tell you! And I,” he went on bitterly, “have none. No. I’ll lay for the blighter. I’m not going to jamb my promotion by inventing some frivolous excuse. I’ll wait till he really makes a bloomer, and then pounce.”

Kerrell had not the least doubt in his mind that Hendry meant what he said, for the latter, when once he conceived a dislike, was sometimes cruelly unjust and vindictive. Even Toby himself, who was the soul of loyalty and prepared to get on with anyone, had often thought of applying to leave the ship.

Hendry was so uncomradely and unforthcoming, so captious and so petty-minded in his actions, so utterly selfish and inconsiderate, that life with him was sometimes hardly worth living. Except for meals he rarely entered the wardroom, and when he did a subdued hush came over its occupants and conversation became strained and difficult.

The engineer-lieutenant-commander, easy-going old Mutters, who was Hendry’s senior by a year or two, was downright good at his job, and had a heart of pure gold, hardly dared to offer an opinion in his commanding officer’s presence. Pardoe was treated sarcastically like a naughty schoolboy, while Hartopp, the fat, merry little R.N.V.R. surgeon probationer, a medical student from Barts, became speechless with terror. As for Mr. Huxtable, the gunner (T), who had a boisterous way of speaking and a laugh like an asthmatic corncrake—he nervously drenched his food with Worcester sauce, bolted it without a word, and discreetly retired to his cabin. His entertaining reminiscences of life on the lower deck were forthcoming only in the captain’s absence.

Hendry was a good seaman and in a way zealous, but the Libyan was an unhappy ship. The atmosphere of strain and suspicion in the wardroom seemed to have transmitted itself to the petty-officers, and thence to the most junior members of the ship’s company. After all, it was not many commanding officers of destroyers who hadn’t a good word for anyone, and who never opened their mouths except to censure. And had not Hendry earned unending unpopularity by some pettifogging but irksome restriction as to the men’s canteen supplies, an order he had refused to cancel even when its obvious injustice had been pointed out to him? Then he had forbidden the playing of a mandoline, a concertina, a drum, and several mouth-organs with which the denizens of the stokers’ mess had formed a ‘band’ to amuse their ship-mates and to enliven the monotony of the dog-watches. Even the mess-deck gramophone was taboo if played in the skipper’s hearing. “A foul and beastly noise,” he called it.

So the men went about sullen and discontented, while the Lord alone knew what they really thought and said to each other on the comparative privacy of the mess-deck. There had even been surreptitious indignation meetings in the wardroom during Kerrell’s absence, while old Mutters had had the father and mother of a row with Hendry in the latter’s cabin on the subject of leave for the men of the engine-room department during a period of boiler cleaning when the ship was laid up for a few days.

Kerrell, quite by chance, had overheard the tail-end of the discussion from his cabin opposite.

“Well, sir,” old Mutters had fumed, his voice trembling with suppressed indignation, “though you are my commanding officer, I’m your senior and an older man than you. I’ve also a good deal of experience so far as my own job is concerned. Your orders, of course, will be carried out to the letter, but I’ll thank you to repeat them in writing or in the presence of a witness. And I wish you to know that I refuse to accept any responsibility for what may happen. My men are only human.”

As Hendry hadn’t got a leg to stand upon, the result of that particular episode was that Mutters got his own way, since when he and the captain had hardly spoken to each other except on duty.

It was Toby’s job, as executive officer of the ship, to smooth things over, to do his utmost to keep officers and men happy, contented, and efficient. And a damnably uphill task it sometimes was, for Hendry was an injudicious slave-driver without a single friend. Without his first-lieutenant’s restraining influence, indeed, the smouldering fire of discontent and unhappiness throughout the ship might have been fanned into the flame of open mutiny—mutiny, the ugliest word in the Service, and a crime which in time of war and according to the terms of the Naval Discipline Act was punishable ‘by death or any such other punishment as hereinafter mentioned,’ which meant penal servitude at the very least. Moreover, and whatever the reason, a mutiny would effectively blast the career of every officer in the ship.

Time and time again, utterly discouraged and sick at heart, Toby had made up his mind to have it out with the captain, to ask to be superseded. As often, however, he had refrained from taking the irrevocable step, not because he was frightened, but because his departure at his own request seemed like leaving the others to their fate. With the exception of the captain, he loved his shipmates, and they loved him. To desert them savoured of pusillanimity. Nevertheless, he realized in his heart that things could not go on as they were. There was a limit to human endurance, and sooner or later something must happen, something serious which he would be unable to cope with. Hendry was impossible. Sometimes Toby had thought him mad, or perhaps it was more charitable to think that the strain of the war had told upon his mind. There was no doubt that there was a strain which made people nervous and irritable—not themselves.

For some moments, as they stood together on the bridge, there was silence between them. Then the first-lieutenant, summoning his courage and fully expecting to be snubbed, asked the question that, for the time being, was uppermost in his mind.

“Is there anything special on, sir?” he queried.

“Special?” Hendry grunted. “What d’you mean?”

“I mean, sir, why did we get those sudden orders to raise steam and leave harbour in such a hurry? And why are we booming along north at twenty-five? I thought ... ’er, that is, I thought you might have some orders saying what’s happening, sir.”

“And what if I have?”

“Well, sir. I ... well—the fact is, we’d be rather interested to hear what’s in the wind.”

“Who’s we?” Hendry demanded.

“Myself and the other officers,” the first-lieutenant incautiously replied.

“So you’ve been discussing things with them, have you?” the lieutenant-commander muttered, his voice menacing. “You’ve dared to criticize me to the other officers because you haven’t been told what’s happening. Is that it?”

“Certainly not, sir!” Kerrell exclaimed. “I haven’t discussed you at all. I merely thought you might like to satisfy our natural curiosity.”

“Your natural curiosity be damned!” Hendry retorted angrily. “I’m captain of this ship, and when I think fit to tell you and the other officers what’s in my sailing orders I shall do so, but not before! D’you understand me, or shall I give you orders in writing?”

“I understand perfectly, sir,” said Kerrell quietly, stifling his indignation. “I’m sorry, sir,” he went on to say after an awkward pause. “I didn’t mean you to take it like that.”

“Then you’d better be careful how you say things!” Hendry snapped.

“I’m sorry——” Toby began again.

“Meanwhile I’m going below to the chart-house,” the other broke in impatiently, turning to leave the bridge. “I don’t want your explanations. Have me called at ten to six, or if you sight anything. I want the hands closed up at action stations by six o’clock. What time’s daylight?”

“Between half-past six and seven, sir.”

“All right. Be careful not to get astern of station as the sub did, and for God’s sake see the quartermaster doesn’t use too much helm!” He disappeared down the steep ladder and went into the chart-house.

Kerrell sighed with relief.

The Libyan steamed on in the whitened wake of her next ahead.