Sunset (3 page)

They had been invited to the destroyer depot ship at Rosyth for some celebration or anniversary dinner, and Kerr had had to force himself not to watch while Barlow had hung back to observe the uses of various knives and forks as practised by other officers.

A year in
Serpent
had given him confidence, and his rugged seamanlike comments about almost everything had made even the hard men chuckle.

Kerr said, ‘We'll have to accept it. With the way this war is going we must hope we get time to train the new entries.'

Cusack looked across. ‘At least you've kept your torpedoes, Podger. Most of our old sister-ships have been turned into minelayers and patrol vessels.' He glared around the wardroom with something like defiance. ‘
Serpent
's a destroyer, not a bloody relic!'

The curtain across the door swirled back and Sub-Lieutenant Nigel Barrington-Purvis swept into the wardroom. He was tall and fair-skinned, with perfectly cut hair, the very picture of a naval officer.

Kerr watched him calmly. He was the first lieutenant and could not allow himself to have favourites in so small a company. Or the opposite, he thought. But try as he might, he had never been able to like Barrington-Purvis. What made it more irritating was
that he
was
good, and more than competent for one so junior. Usually, as now, he wore an expression of keen disapproval, and nothing anyone ever did seemed to come up to his own standards. The son of an admiral, he would make life hell for his men when eventually promotion came his way. As it certainly would.

Barrington-Purvis said, ‘Just checked the iron-deck, Number One. It'll need another going-over before stand-easy.' He glared at the messman. ‘Fresh coffee, Kellock.' He never said
please.

Kerr said, ‘It's all finished. Time to get things moving anyway. The new commanding officer will want to see everyone, I expect.'

The sub-lieutenant scowled. ‘I certainly want to see
him
!'

Cusack stood up and groped for his cap. ‘I'm sure that'll put the shits up the poor fellow!' He went out, grinning.

Barrington-Purvis sniffed. ‘What can you expect?' He followed Kerr to the door. ‘I mean, Number One, I didn't
want
to get lumbered with the gunnery department when Rowley left the ship.'

Kerr regarded him evenly. ‘Not too difficult, I'd have thought? Three four-inch guns and a few short-range weapons. It's not exactly the
Warspite
.'

Barrington-Purvis clenched his fists but saw the danger just in time. ‘It's not that, Number One. I have to think of my career, my future. I don't want to get stuck in an old ship and sent out to some station where the war's just a rumour.'

Kerr's mind clicked into place. The subbie's father was an admiral. Maybe he had told his son what lay in store for them. The dockyard had put in new fans and the old Atlantic dazzle paint had been covered by a coat of pale grey. Maybe it meant the Gulf, or some backwater like Ceylon. Barrington-Purvis would certainly care about that. He seemed to think more of advanced promotion and appointments where he would be noticed than anything else. Perhaps that was why he had shown no emotion during the air and sea attacks while he had been aboard
Serpent.
The war was to be
used,
not feared. That was for lesser people.

‘Well, let's get the bloody war over first, eh?'

The duty quartermaster thrust his face around the curtain. He ignored Barrington-Purvis, who was officer-of-the-day, and
looked at Kerr instead. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but the NAAFI boat is headin' our way.' He grimaced. ‘Won't do the new paint-job much good if he barges alongside.'

Kerr sighed. ‘Deal with it, Sub. The NAAFI boat isn't due today anyway.'

Barrington-Purvis pushed past the quartermaster and ran up the ladder to the quarterdeck lobby.

Kerr nodded to the messman. ‘You can clear away, Kellock.' He was angry with himself for being so curt with the subbie. That he had shown his irritation so openly, although he knew he had felt the same way about the last captain's promotion and appointment.

The tannoy squeaked and the quartermaster's voice filtered through the ship.

‘D'you hear there! Out pipes, duty part of the watch fall in!'

Kerr glanced around the freshly painted wardroom. Without effort he could see it after that last convoy from St John's, covered with used dressings and every space filled with injured men, merchant sailors from some of the vessels they had lost on that terrible convoy. Forty ships had set out from the harsh coastline of Newfoundland. Less than twenty had reached Liverpool. Some of the men who had lain here had already been rescued from other ships, only to have their rescuers blasted from beneath them.

You shouldn't have joined if you can't take a joke
. The navy's way of overcoming even the most horrific disaster. But the old black humour didn't seem to work any more.

He frowned as he heard Barrington-Purvis's aristocratic tones from the upper deck.

‘Stand away, there! We don't need you here!'

Kerr swore silently and jammed on his cap. If they stayed in Scapa much longer they would certainly need the NAAFI boat.

He reached the quarterdeck and the hard sunshine even as the boat came expertly alongside the accommodation ladder, while Barrington-Purvis screamed, ‘Not
here
, damn you!'

Kerr strode to the guard-rail. In one glance he saw the luggage in the cockpit, the officer in the plain raincoat, and the way the boatmen were watching with unconcealed delight.

He snapped to the startled quartermaster,
‘Pipe!'

He strode in front of the sub-lieutenant and raised his hand to his cap. The newcomer ran lightly up the ladder and returned his salute, while a solitary boatswain's call made every face peer aft.

‘Welcome aboard, sir.'

Brooke looked at him gravely, sensing the tension. ‘My fault. Couldn't wait any longer.' He glanced at the sub-lieutenant and added in the same calm tone, ‘Barrington-Purvis, I presume?'

It was the first time Kerr had seen the subbie wilt, as if the new captain had shouted some terrible obscenity at him.

Brooke walked a few paces and saw the duty part of the watch falling into two ranks. His mind was crammed with details about this ship, her state of readiness and her immediate past record, like a history of the war itself. Narvik, Dunkirk, the Atlantic, one disaster after another. The men he would have to discover for himself. If he was to know them, they too must know him.

One square figure was facing aft, his hand to his cap in salute. It was the coxswain, next to the first lieutenant the most vital man in the ship. This one was shorter than he appeared but built like a tank. The familiar crossed torpedoes on his lapels, the chief petty officer's cap badge: he was someone you would not forget. The coxswain was the man who took the helm for all the difficult tasks, entering and leaving harbour, anchoring or picking up a mooring-buoy in a force eight gale. Above all, in action, he was the core of the ship. He was also father-confessor, guardian of the company's welfare, policeman at the defaulters' table, feared if necessary, but above all respected.

Kerr saw the exchange of glances, and was surprised. George Pike, the coxswain, rarely showed emotion. He always seemed to be above it.

He said, ‘This is the Cox'n, sir.'

Pike shambled towards them. ‘I'm sorry about this, sir.' A deep throaty voice, once from London, Brooke thought, but not for many years. ‘I wasn't sure till you come aboard, sir, otherwise I'd have bin there.'

Kerr watched them. The sudden resolution on Pike's reddened features, the wariness on the new captain's face.

‘You know me, then?'

Pike said, ‘This was my first ship, sir. I was a rookie torpedoman when she first commissioned.' His eyes clouded. ‘When your father took command. I saw him just now when you come over the side.'

Brooke smiled. It was hard to regard himself as the image of the man he had last seen a few days ago. Broken in health . . . He tried to accept it.
Dying
.

Kerr said awkwardly, ‘I – I didn't realise, sir.'

Brooke turned and gave a casual wave to the NAAFI boat as it moved astern, pouring out even more diesel fumes.

Kerr said, ‘I'll show you your quarters, and lay on some breakfast, if you like.' He watched his profile. Good, even features but deep lines at the mouth, and shadows beneath the steady, tawny eyes. A man with a past. And only George Pike had known and understood.

Brooke said, ‘I'd like that.' He followed Kerr through the quartermaster's lobby with its little desk and the officers' name board with its slides labelled
Ashore
or
Aboard.
He turned to glance at a rack of cutlasses and a stand of rifles. Last resort, perhaps.

Kerr was saying, ‘I'm afraid Petty Officer Kingsmill, our wardroom steward, is still ashore, sir. But I'll . . .' He broke off and did not know if the other man had heard him or not. He watched him throw his raincoat and cap on to the neat bunk and saw the DSC on his left breast and another darker ribbon on the right side, which he guessed had been awarded by the Humane Society. Brooke was looking up at a small skylight in the centre of the deckhead, the glass reflecting the water and the gulls, the steel shutters raised like a sign of peace or welcome.

A voice whispered at the door and Kerr explained, ‘Time for Colours, sir.'

Brooke heard him hurry away up the ladder again, no doubt wondering what sort of a nut he had been lumbered with. An experienced officer, a man who might resent that he was being kept aboard to hold the new captain's hand. But he knew there was more to Kerr's uneasiness than that. He moved about the cabin and saw the other one through an adjoining door. The day
cabin. He smiled, and some of the tension seemed to drain away. What luxury!

There was another crest here too, the ship's battle honours displayed underneath. A part of history, another war. His father's.

Dover Patrol. Belgian Coast. Zeebrugge
.

Feet shuffled overhead and the tannoy squeaked again.

‘Attention on the upper deck! Face aft and salute!'

Then another voice, almost directly overhead it seemed.

‘
Colours
, sir!'

And Kerr's acknowledgement, crisp and formal.
‘Make it so!'

The calls trilled, as they would aboard every ship in the Flow. Brooke could picture the Ensign rising to the staff. Routine, even necessary perhaps, despite the war, despite everything.

‘Carry
on
!'

As the call died away the ship seemed to come alive again. He imagined the men discussing him, wondering how the new captain might affect their lives. In battle, or across the defaulters' table. Men he would come to know: the good, the bad, the brave and those who would crack if badly led.

He tried to think of his father standing in this cabin, not as the broken man he had last seen in hospital.

Tell me how she looks, eh
?

Brooke opened his small case and took out the framed photograph which his father had insisted he should take to the ship. He must have known they would not meet again.

Aloud he said, ‘She looks fine, Dad. She'll do me.'

It was a new beginning.

The officer in the crumpled naval raincoat sitting by a window in the first-class compartment stirred, and was immediately still again. Tensed and listening like an awakening animal. He groaned and peered at his luminous watch. Dawn soon. It could be anything beyond the covered window with its glued protective netting, which was supposed to shield you against flying glass. He grimaced. Not much fear of an air attack up here, he thought.

He seemed to have been on one train or another for ever.
Dank R.T.O.'s offices at various stations, crowded compartments, and noise, always noise.

He stretched his legs and remembered just in time that there was a young woman seated opposite him, who had boarded the train at Edinburgh.

He gathered his wits. The other two passengers, army artillery officers, were asleep, one with his mouth open. They could have been dead.

It was so dark in the compartment, with only tiny screened lights above each of the seats, that he could not tell if the woman was awake or not. He had felt her watching him, no doubt curious about his destination.

He must have slept without making any noise. Calling out. Fighting the madness which was always with him.

Perhaps when he joined his next appointment, the destroyer H.M.S.
Serpent,
he could lose himself again. Forget . . . He had looked up the ship several times. Small and old. Very old. He felt his stomach contract violently. She would seem tiny after a carrier.

He felt the woman's shoe touch his leg and heard her instant apology.

‘I – I'm so sorry. I must have fallen asleep after all!' She peered at the window uncertainly. ‘Where are we, do you know?'

‘Inverness in an hour at this rate.' He did not want to talk. He was not ready.

She said, ‘It's been a long ride, ah. . . .'

‘Toby Calvert, Lieutenant.'

She seemed to gain confidence now that he had acquired personality. ‘I'm hoping to meet . . .' She hesitated again. ‘My husband quite soon.'

Calvert had already seen the diamond brooch on her coat, like a miniature cap badge. Naval officers often bought them for their girlfriends or their wives. He had also noticed the self-conscious way she had twisted the wedding ring around her finger. That was new, too.

‘Shore job?' He sensed her sudden caution and added, ‘Sorry, careless talk costs lives. I know all about that.'

He saw her teeth in the gloom as she smiled. ‘I'm not used to
it yet.' She lifted her chin with obvious pride and said, ‘He's serving in the
Hood.
'