Читать книгу When the Allies Swept the Seas - Percy Francis Westerman - Страница 3

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Possibly that single-minded young patriot Brian Cardyke was lucky in his own estimation. Now that there was a war on, his chief desire, to see service afloat, was on the eve of fulfilment—thanks largely to a blunder on the part of the naval authorities.

Brian knew Portsmouth fairly well. Not once, but many times had his little yacht Gannet—now stripped of her gear and laid up in a mud berth “for the duration”—dropped anchor within that spacious harbour. And with local knowledge he booked to Portsmouth Harbour Station, which is within a couple of hundred yards or so of the main gate of the dockyard.

As he made his way along the asphalted approach to the historic Hard, the lad stopped more than once to look at the harbour—or as much of it as was visible from his view-points. The chief thing that struck him was the desolate appearance of the usually crowded berths. Except for the old Victory, her t’gallants towering above the flat-roofed storehouses as she lay permanently in dry dock, the harbour appeared deserted—at least by large craft. Even the South Railway jetty, where rarely a day passed without either a battleship or a battle-cruiser being moored alongside, was a clear space.

The naval recruiting office, Brian knew, was on the Hard, and close to the dockyard gate. As he approached, he noticed a crowd, composed mainly of women, gathered round a varnished notice-board by the side of the smaller gateway of the dockyard. It was a sight familiar enough already to the townsfolk of Britain’s principal naval ports, and one that would be still more tragically familiar long before the War was over—that of relatives of our fighting seamen reading the ever-increasing list of names of those who had laid down their lives, often without even a chance to strike a blow against an unseen foe.

Brian Cardyke’s ambitions were to serve at sea. He had weighed the pros and cons and decided not to apply for a commission. He wasn’t sure of himself; he shirked the responsibility of having to give orders to others, to be answerable for their lives. Hence, clad in a blue jersey, pilot coat and cloth trousers, he offered himself at the naval recruiting office.

A bluff but genial lieutenant—a retired officer “dug out” for recruiting duties—questioned Brian when his turn came out of a number of other applicants.

“And what are you?” he asked, after Brian had given his name.

“Yacht hand,” replied young Cardyke with perfect sincerity, for had he not been one of the crew of the staunch little Gannet?

“That’s good!” exclaimed his inquisitor, his steel-blue eyes roaming appreciatively over the recruit’s sturdy, well-knit figure. “Not in the Reserve? No; make out his papers, Saunders.”

A naval writer took Brian in hand, wrote down particulars, read out a declaration to the effect that “I, Brian Cardyke, swear by Almighty God, that I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to His Majesty King George the Sixth, His Heirs and Successors and ... will observe and obey all orders of ... Officers set over me.”

The attestation was over. Brian, now vaguely conscious that he was an insignificant unit of the armed forces of the Crown, was bidden to take his place with about a dozen others who had that morning pledged themselves to defend their King and Country.

They were a mixed crowd. Most of them bore the unmistakable stamp of men who earned their livelihood upon the waters—fishermen, trawler hands, yacht hands from pleasure craft now laid up on the mud in the Haslar Creek or hauled up at Camper and Nicholson’s across the harbour. One man looked as if he had come straight from a boxing-booth. His flattened nose, square jaw and cauliflower ears gave him that appearance, to say nothing of a livid bruise under his left eye. His answer to a fellow-recruit’s questions gave his reason for electing to fight for the freedom of the seas: “I’m a stoker down at the gasworks, I am. The missus an’ me don’t hit it off, so I’m on this lay for a little peace and quietness. She didn’t ’arf dot me one, she didn’t,” and his hand went up to the bruise on his heavy features.

“I’ve always wanted to join the navy,” confided a tall, sallow-faced youth to Brian. “But my people wouldn’t hear of it. It’s different now. Wonder where we’ll be sent? I’ve never been abroad. I’m in an auctioneer’s office, or was. Isn’t this the beginning of an adventure?”

Before Brian could reply, a petty-officer appeared.

“Fall in, you men!” he ordered.

The recruits filed out, were shepherded into double rank on the pavement and in the shadow of a White Ensign that floated over the recruiting station.

“Put those fags out!” rapped out the P.O.

It was a stern reminder that Brian and his companions were no longer free agents. They were under discipline, and naval discipline at that. Quickly the delinquents disposed of their cigarettes. Some of the men looked resentful. They were not used to “being up against it”.

“Now, you men,” continued the petty-officer; “keep your ’eads up whilst you’re marchin’ through the street. Don’t look like a losing team comin’ out of Fratton Park! And mind! In step if you bloomin’ well can; and when I orders ‘eyes right’ or ‘eyes front’ as the case may be, see you keeps yer optics on the bearin’ indicated. Party—’shun! ... As you were! As you were! (wearily) Can’t you put some ginger into it? Now, ’shun!”

More by good luck than good management the men were got moving. To them it was a somewhat bewildering experience, being directed by the burly petty-officer who marched alongside the rear men of the party.

Down the crowded Queen Street they went, doing their best to keep in step and answering with varying degrees of celerity to the commands “Eyes left or right; eyes front” whenever they passed an officer. They passed many in the length of Queen Street, and by the time they arrived at the gate of the naval barracks they had acquired a working knowledge of one of the first principles of discipline.

A stringent medical inspection followed; then the recruits were hurriedly yet efficiently “kitted out”, told off to various messes and piped for supper.

The meal—a plain but satisfying one—over, most of the hands were allowed out of barracks; but not so the recruits. Mobilization of auxiliary cruisers, mostly with recruits and pensioners recalled for service, was proceeding at high pressure. The drafting office staff were working day and night; consequently it was not to be wondered that mistakes were made.

There was one in Brian Cardyke’s case. He was entered as an Ordinary Seaman, R.N.R.

That meant he would be drafted to a ship at a very early date without much preliminary training, which was what he wanted, notwithstanding the fact that his inexperience would probably cause him to run up against snags.

At six-thirty on the following morning, Brian fell in with the rest on parade. Various physical drills followed and then the men were dismissed “at the double” for breakfast.

Then came another parade and inspection by the commodore; after that Brian found himself told off with a party for gunnery drill at Whale Island, or “Whaley” as it is invariably spoken of in the navy.

His instructor was a petty-officer with a “blistering tongue”, whose job it was to see that his pupils got through their course speedily and efficiently. Most of the men of that particular 4.7-inch gun’s crew knew something about their respective duties. Brian Cardyke knew nothing, except, perhaps, that one end of the weapon was the muzzle and the other the breech.

“Now then, No. 5!” shouted the P.O. “Smartly there! Get her movin’, my hearties! Slap it about!”

The gun in question was a dummy, although with actual breech mechanism. Brian soon found out that what was required was to feed the weapon by hand with projectiles weighing fifty pounds, to close the breech, go through the dumb action of pressing the firing key, remove the presumably discharged cartridge case and so on until the instructor called a halt.

“Stand easy! Not so dusty, you men!” he exclaimed, after consulting his watch. “Take a breather. You’ve got to do better next time.”

The men, breathless with their exertions, stood by until again called to attention.

“Change over numbers!” ordered the P.O. “No. 2 goes up to No. 1 an’ so on. Close up round your gun, me lads. Ready? Commence!”

Breech block clanged, interrupted thread locking gear was thrust home, opened; out came the dummy projectile, its place to be immediately taken by a fresh charge.

“Keep behind the shield, dash you!” shouted the instructor to one of the “numbers”. “You wouldn’t feel happy with a bloomin’ shell splinter through yer stern! Slap it about, men! You’ll have to do smarter’n that when you’re up against a perishin’ German tawpeda-boat!”

Then, in the afternoon, a step forward.

Again the weapon was a 4.7-inch, complete on mountings, but instead of a full-sized projectile, a small cartridge was fired in a sort of Morris tube parallel to and moving with the gun. The target consisted of miniature models of warships moving to and fro by mechanical means. Range and elevation were given by the instructor and each of the gun’s crew had to take turns at various numbers.

Presently it came to Brian’s turn to be the gun-layer. He had watched the operation carefully.

“Eight thousand!” sung out the instructor.

The sight-setter altered the sights; Brian, shoulder against recoil pad, swung the weapon round on the objective—a model destroyer supposed to be eight thousand yards away.

The gun gave a short sharp bark. A whiff of cordite came from the miniature tube.

“Hit, by smoke!” ejaculated the petty-officer, as a seaman, paint-brush in hand, ran down the range to obliterate a mushroom-like smudge on the diminutive target. “That’s the stuff to give ’em!”

Brian’s face flushed with pride. He was the “Man behind the Gun!” Simple after all! He knew how to use a rook-rifle; the 4.7-inch, weighing a little over three tons, was as easy to “lay” as it was to aim with a rifle, so smoothly did the well-balanced weapon swing on its oiled bearings.

On the following day the party embarked in one of the destroyers attached to the gunnery school and, proceeding beyond Spithead, engaged in actual target practice with full service charges and projectiles.

It was intensive training with a vengeance, converting a medley of Royal Fleet Reserve, Royal Naval Reserve men and volunteers into a well-disciplined fighting force. Most of the “ratings” had had annual training afloat and that of a practical nature; for, thanks to the efficient organization of recent years, reservists were no longer sent to what were known as “gobby-ships”, there to spend most of their time afloat in such menial tasks as holystoning decks.

Soon it became known that the detachment, in which Brian Cardyke was an insignificant Ordinary Seaman, was to be detailed to commission the liner Galloway, and that speedily.

“A cushy job, mates!” declared Leading Seaman Tom Buddock who, although a long-service pensioner—he had served twenty-one years and 204 days in the navy, and was now in his fortieth year—had left a flourishing little general shop in Portsmouth to answer his country’s call. “I allus said them armed liners was the best lay. We’ll be moppin’ up enemy merchantmen an’ raking in a tidy bit o’ prize-money.”

“Don’t suppose we’ll smell powder, Tom,” rejoined his “raggie”, a burly black-bearded armourer’s mate, who in civil life was making a living as a motor engineer. “Your shop’ll carry on. Your missus’ll see to that, but I don’t see my old ’ooman tinkering with motor bikes an’ dishing out petrol. My business goes phut, I can see.”

“Mebbe, Tubby,” agreed Buddock. “But wi’ this prize-money lay wot you looses on the swings you makes up on the roundabouts. With a reasonable bit o’ luck—say we captures a dozen prizes—every rating’s out to make a matter o’ four ’unnard pounds as easy as winkin’.”

“Don’t you kid yourself,” said another. “Things are different in this war. There’s an Admiralty order—if you disbelieves me, go and ask the Chief Writer—that all prize-money is to be pooled and divided between every officer and man in the whole navy. Strikes me we’ll get precious little of either prize-money or glory.”

“You’re welcome to my share of the glory, Dick,” rejoined Tubby Allen. “Sooner this war’s over and I can get back to my shore billet, the better.”

At last—October was still young—the Galloway’s ship’s company mustered on the Whale Island parade ground for the last time. A fine body of men they looked in their full marching order, except that they were without rifles. Young men and middle-aged men, some bearded, others clean-shaven, bronzed-featured and with well-knit frames, they looked what they were—sons of the sea.

Seamen, marines, sick-bay men, writers and stewards were formed up for final inspection by the captain. On the right a naval band had fallen in, ready to march the men to the station.

“Why wasn’t I a bloomin’ bandsman?” whispered Buddock to his left-hand man during a brief period of stand-at-ease. “Soft job these blokes ’ave got, wind-jamming in officers’ mess and playin’ the likes of us to the blinkin’ war!”

“What are you gassin’ about?” rejoined the other in a stage whisper. “That’s the Intrepid’s band. They’re off afloat in a day or so themselves. I reckon——”

“Silence there!” ordered a sub-lieutenant R.N.R.

“Thank goodness I’ll have finished with ‘On the square’ to-day!” thought Brian, during the constant issuing of orders. Infantry drill as applied to naval landing parties was his weak point. With luck he had got through the initial mysteries of “forming fours” and “forming threes”, although he found himself asking such questions as: “Do odd numbers stand fast, or is it the other way about?”

At length came the hoarse order:

“Move to the right in fours—Form fours, right! Quick march!”

“Boom, boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom!”

The big drum gave forth its opening notes. The brass instruments broke into a lively march. The men, heads held high and with arms swinging rhythmically, broke into a quick march. For the first time in his life, Brian Cardyke was marching to the strains of a band, and the sensation was a strange one. He could realize now the effect of martial music upon a body of disciplined men.

Off the parade ground, down the incline to the swing-bridge swung the column, gaitered boots crunching the gravel. At the guard-room, the naval guard was turned out and presented arms to do honour to the departing fighting-men.

Then through the streets the Galloways marched. Many of the men had to pass their homes. Relations cheered wildly. Mothers, wives, sisters and sweethearts, whatever their secret feelings were at the sight of their departing men, cheered and shouted encouragement.

It was late in the day when the special train disgorged its load of bluejackets at Liverpool. Alongside the landing stage was their floating home, the huge 20,000 ton Galloway.

It was not Brian’s first sight of the one-time passenger ship. When last he had seen her in the Mersey—it was on the occasion of Uncle Joe’s visit to the United States—the liner looked what she was, a palatial means of comfortable travel across the Herring Pond. Then her hull was black, her upper-works white and her two funnels red, with black tops. From her ensign-staff flew the Blue Ensign. Her luxurious cabins, white-enamelled, and her magnificent saloons, were the last word in internal decoration.

But now!

The Galloway had arrived in the Mersey on the morning of the seventh of September, 1939. Immediately she was boarded by an army of workmen. Day and night these enthusiastic sons of toil worked to get the ship ready as an armed merchant liner.

When Brian Cardyke saw her a little more than a month later, the task was not yet completed, but already the transformation was astounding. “Battleship grey” was the dingy yet serviceable hue from truck to waterline. Cabin fittings, especially all woodwork, were removed. In certain places the decks were strengthened and shored-up to bear the weight and strain of eight 4.7-inch guns. These were placed on the upper deck, four on each side; but both No. 2 port and starboard were placed sufficiently high to be able to train ahead over the Nos. 1, thus ensuring an end-on fire of four guns.

Naval pattern searchlight projectors were fitted in positions where they were most likely to be useful; on the upper bridge a range-finder was installed for the first time in the ship’s existence. Ammunition rooms with necessary lifts had been built in below the waterline. Protective armour she had none; but thanks to her designers her coalbunkers had been arranged so as to give some protection against gun-fire.

No warship, however well armed and protected, is of much use without a trained crew. Men might be drafted at short notice to join the guns’ crews, but it takes days for new ratings to “shake down” and weeks for a fresh engine-room staff to become thoroughly accustomed to the peculiarities of the huge, complicated machinery by which the ship is driven and lighted. Nor could a pukka naval officer expect to navigate and handle a 20,000 ton liner as if she were a battleship or a destroyer.

And that is where co-operation between the Admiralty and the steamship company proved to be of inestimable value. Captain Aubrey Nottingley, R.N., was appointed in command, while the Galloway’s pre-war skipper, Captain Jasper Burley, ranking as Commander, R.N.R., became navigating officer.

Every officer and man of the engine-room staff volunteered to remain in the ship, ready and eager to prove their faith in the Galloway in her new rôle. Engineers, firemen, greasers, trimmers—theirs was to be the unenviable task. “Signed on” under peace conditions, they had volunteered to remain deep in the bowels of a comparatively lightly-built ship, ignorant of what was transpiring above the waterline, while their new comrades did the actual fighting. On how the human elements fought their 4.7’s depended the lives of the “black squad”, as they fed the furnaces that provided steam for the turbines turning the triple screws that drove the ship at a good eighteen knots.

At nine-thirty on the morning of the 15th of October—less than six weeks from the momentous declaration of war—the Galloway left the Mersey under sealed orders. And in her, his Action Station being at No. 3 starboard gun, went Ordinary Seaman Brian Cardyke.