Читать книгу When the Allies Swept the Seas - Percy Francis Westerman - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Up to and for some time after the Galloway’s departure from Liverpool, the Irish Sea had not become a great scene of activity on the part of German U-boats.

Nevertheless, the skipper of the Galloway left nothing undone to safeguard his ship. Before the Barr Lightship bore abeam, the guns’ crews were at their stations, and extra look-outs posted; but these precautions, though necessary, were not justified by events. So far the U-boat had not shown herself between the North Channel and the Scillies.

Out on the broad Atlantic, the captain opened his sealed orders and with that uncanny swiftness with which a “buzz” spreads round a ship, the men learned that the Galloway’s rôle was to be that of patrolling the North Atlantic, stopping and examining any suspicious or neutral craft.

That, in the early stages of the war, was a comparatively simple matter. Later on, when the Germans fitted out cleverly disguised commerce-destroyers, armed with powerful guns behind collapsible sides and fitted with submerged torpedo tubes, the “Examination Patrol Service” became anything but a “cushy” job.

Full of youthful enthusiasm, Brian Cardyke soon began to find this form of national service irksome. Constant gun drill, when apparently there seemed no likelihood of the weapons being used in real earnest, was no longer a novelty but a mere matter of routine. So it was with the boarding duties, when again and again he formed one of the boat’s crews that had to make a long and heavy row to a suspicious craft, only to find that she was a genuine neutral. The fact that her cargo might consist of cotton or iron ore consigned to a German port did affect the case, for these commodities, essential in the making of munitions, had been deemed to be contraband of war.

Yet in spite of those seemingly futile operations, Brian Cardyke had to confess that he was glad he was in the Galloway. From the moment she hoisted the White Ensign she was what was known in the navy as a “happy ship”. The officers studied the comfort of the men, while the latter did their utmost to bring the ship to a state of high efficiency. The food was not only good but on a generous scale; while it was not long before a theatrical and concert party was organized for the entertainment of the ship’s company.

But as far as Brian was concerned, it was the human element that most appealed to him. For the first time in his short life he had to eat, drink and sleep in the company of his messmates, men, young and mature, coming within the category of military age; men of all conditions of social life gathered in under the White Ensign for the duration of the War. In the “watch below”, Brian heard tales of deeds of naval daring from the lips of men who had actually participated. There were yarns of the icy Arctic, of the sweltering Tropics, from each of the Seven Seas, tales of tragedy, pathos and humour told in the British bluejacket’s inimitable style.

There were men of the Galloway’s peace-time crew, who were now serving under the White instead of the Blue Ensign. Some of them could tell of a gallant fight with German ships against those allied foes, fire and tempest. One veteran remembered the British steamship Volturno, that, with more than six hundred foreign emigrants on board, was bound from Rotterdam to New York when she caught fire far out in the North Atlantic. A gale was raging at the time, and an attempt to lower the Volturno’s boats only resulted in great loss of life. Before noon the fire was gaining rapidly. In reply to an SOS the Galloway tore to the rescue, re-transmitting the distress signal to all vessels in the vicinity. Before very long ten vessels, including the German Grosser Kurfürst and Seydlitz had surrounded the doomed Volturno, yet owing to the violence of the waves, the would-be rescuers could do little. It was not until the tanker Narragansett appeared and discharged quantities of oil upon the surging water that the Galloway and the German and other vessels succeeded in lowering their boats and rescuing about five hundred passengers.

“And now we’re at war with those German chaps,” concluded the narrator. “Seems rummy, don’t it, all ’cause that muddle-headed chump of a Hitler don’t know when he’s well off!”

At length the Galloway by devious courses arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, coaled and took in provisions. Before she set out on her apparently aimless wanderings, her ship’s company had been increased by a draft of twenty Canadians. At least, officially they were from the Land of the Maple Leaf, although at least three were undoubtedly citizens of the Greatest Republic on Earth. Had they been challenged, they would, with their tongues in their cheeks, have denied that they were anybody but patriotic Canadians. For the sake of having a cut at Adolf they were prepared to deny an impeachment that they were Americans—using the word in its limited form—though only for the duration of hostilities.

Commander Jasper Burley, who had to inspect the new arrivals after they had been “run over” by the regulating officer—the modern counterpart of the master-at-arms in Victorian and Edwardian times—might have had his suspicions concerning the nationality of three of the newly-joined ratings. Since they were stout-hearted fellows and spoke English—though with an accent that differed but slightly from that of the genuine sons of the Dominion of Canada—he kept his thoughts to himself.

There could be no doubt, however, of Stan Lorne. He had been christened Stanley but no one ever called him that. He’d been Stan ever since he could remember.

He was a tall, pale-faced, rather rugged-featured youth of eighteen, with a soft-spoken drawl. Two months previously he had been at college in Victoria, British Columbia, where he was preparing for an examination for a Government forestry post.

The outbreak of war changed all that. Young Lorne wanted to be in it. If he’d been asked why this haste he wouldn’t have been able to give a spoken answer. In his heart he knew that he must, even as his father had served in France in ’14.

Stan did not wait until, as was everywhere expected, a Dominion expeditionary force should be raised. Keen to serve in any capacity, he had a strong wish to go into the navy. There was the old strain reasserting itself, for Lorne’s great-grandfather had been in the Royal Navy in a wooden corvette, the Clio. That was away back in the Eighteen-sixties, when the ship was in the Pacific Squadron, and when British Columbia was just beginning its existence.

Young Lorne could remember his great-grandfather Angus, who used to tell him of the times when it was possible to receive a bear’s skin from the Indians of Queen Charlotte’s Sound in exchange for a gilt button from a naval uniform.

He did not know the circumstances under which Old Angus ended his career in the Royal Navy at Esquimalt instead of receiving his discharge in England in the ordinary course of events. Perhaps the canny Scot preferred to draw a veil over that chapter in his career.

At any rate Angus Lorne settled on Vancouver Island where he became what is known on the North American continent as a “realtor” or dealer in property. He flourished, as did his lineal descendants.

Stan had sea experience. During his vacations he’d made several trips along the Pacific seaboard in coasting schooners: but when he applied for service at the naval base at Esquimalt he was told that there was no immediate possibility of being accepted.

Nothing daunted, young Lorne packed his traps and booked a reservation on an eastward-bound C.P.R. train. Eventually he arrived at Halifax, when he contemplated working his passage on a cargo-boat to Liverpool, with the intention of joining the Royal Navy.

He was still waiting when the armed liner Galloway arrived. Quite by chance he heard that she was taking Canadians on board to complete complement; and although hardy Nova Scotian fishermen were most wanted, Stan managed to find himself included in the draft.

“Well, my man!” exclaimed the commander, stopping in front of the tall, lean recruit: “what experience have you had?”

Stan began to explain, but the Bloke—as commanders R.N. and R.N.R. are termed—cut him short.

“I can’t hear you!” he interrupted. “Speak up, can’t you?”

Lorne was certainly soft-spoken; but the commander was slightly deaf, although he wouldn’t admit it. After all, gunnery practice is apt to be hard on one’s ear-drums.

“Sure!” replied Stan, adding as an afterthought, “Sir!”

“Good!” continued the commander. “Now let me see how you can speak loudly. I want you to shout at the top of your voice—let me see!—Yes: shout ‘fall in the starboard watch!’ ”

It wasn’t a happy choice on Commander Jasper Burley’s part, but he was essentially a man of action and lacking in imagination.

“Fall in the starboard watch!” shouted Stan in stentorian tones.

The results of his effort completely satisfied the commander concerning the new recruit’s lung-power. It went further, and completely though figuratively took the wind out of the Bloke’s sails.

He jumped back, hit by the tremendous volume of the sound. Lorne’s messmates afterwards declared that the commander’s oak-leaved cap rose a couple of inches above his head; but that might have been an exaggeration.

Certain it was that the order was literally interpreted. The bos’n’s mates at the hatchways responded by shrill trills on their pipes. The hands of the watch below—those of the starboard watch—disturbed as they were sitting down to dinner, rose as one man, dropped what they were doing, and poured up the steel ladders to the upper deck!

Fortunately the commander was equal to the unexpected occasion.

“Sound the ‘still’!” he ordered the bugler in attendance.

Such was the discipline that on the note of the bugle every man stopped and stood silent and rigid. It wanted only the “carry on!” to send them below to their interrupted meal.

The regulating officer, note-book in hand, sucked the point of his pencil. He was anticipating having to write down the name of another “defaulter”. They were happily few and far between in the Galloway. He didn’t know what the charge would be; whether the Bloke would log the recruit for something that certainly wasn’t “dumb insolence”. All the same, it wasn’t “navy” to shout at an officer second only in rank to the captain. Something ought to be done about it.

Commander Burley, although a strict disciplinarian, had a strong sense of humour. Ordinary Seaman Lorne had obeyed orders literally, but not in the way his superior officer had expected.

“Good effort, my man!” he exclaimed. “Very good effort!”

With that he passed on to question the next “number” of the draft.

In due course, which did not take very long, Ordinary Seaman Stan Lorne was placed in No. 11 mess, which was the same as Brian Cardyke’s.

Quickly they discovered that they had much in common even though thousands of miles separated their homes. They were much of the same age. They shared a love of the sea—the sea that had been befouled by the brutal lawlessness of Nazi U-boats. It was part of their job and that of their shipmates to do a little mopping up before the ships of all peace-loving nations could proceed unmolested upon their lawful occasions.