On Desperate Seas Read online

  ON DESPERATE SEAS

  James Pattinson

  © James Pattinson 1961

  James Pattinson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1961 by .

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One – THE ‘ROSA DARTLE’

  Chapter Two – THE HIGH SEAS

  Chapter Three – THE WESTERN OCEAN

  Chapter Four – NORTHWARD

  Chapter Five – FIRST BLOOD

  Chapter Six – ICARUS

  Chapter Seven – GRAVEYARD WATCH

  Chapter Eight – GALE FORCE

  Chapter Nine – BRIEF CANDLE

  Chapter Ten – THE DAY

  Chapter Eleven – THE NIGHT

  Chapter Twelve – THE BOAT

  Chapter Thirteen – THE HUT

  Chapter Fourteen – THE JOURNEY

  Chapter Fifteen – END OF THE TRAIL

  Chapter One – THE ‘ROSA DARTLE’

  It was early January, the fourth year of war, and a cold day in Philadelphia: freezing, overcast, with a threat of snow. Mr Thouless, chief mate of the British tanker Rosa Dartle, was on deck when the six American seamen who were taking passage to Archangel arrived. He watched them coming up the gangplank, and his thin lips tightened.

  ‘Passengers!’ he muttered. ‘To hell with them!’

  Mr Thouless, a tall, gaunt, bearded man of thirty-one, did not like passengers, least of all ones who were American seamen. But Mr Thouless had had no say in the matter; the authorities had decided that these men must be transported to Archangel. The Rosa Dartle was going there; therefore the men must travel in the Rosa Dartle. It was all very logical and all very displeasing to the mate, but it could not be avoided.

  In Thouless’s opinion it was an imposition, something that never should have been allowed. He had said as much to Captain Henderson, but Henderson, a thickset, heavy-shouldered man, twice as old as the mate, had taken the matter more philosophically. Henderson was philosophical about most things – about convoy regulations, about the dangers of being torpedoed with a cargo of several thousand tons of volatile spirit, about shortage of leave, about the undoubted shortcomings of his crew, and about an artificial right leg that was the creaking substitute for one that had been sliced off thirty-five years ago in a ridiculous road accident.

  ‘We may be able to use them, Tom. We could maybe put them on gun watches.’

  The tanker had six guns in all: a four-inch breech-loader on the poop; a twelve-pounder protected by a circular wall of plastic armour just forward of the squat, thick funnel, twenty-millimetre Oerlikons on either side of the afterdeck, and similar guns on each wing of the navigating bridge.

  Thouless accepted Henderson’s suggestion with a growl. ‘They’re Americans. They’ll probably expect to be waited on like millionaires.’

  He watched them gloomily now as they came up the gang-plank, weighted down with their kit and, to judge by the expressions on their faces, no happier about the embarkation than he.

  They formed a mixed collection, and varied in size, in age, probably in upbringing. But they all looked tough – all except the last one, and he seemed out of place in the group; a small, plump man with a smooth, babyish face, china-blue eyes, and gold-rimmed spectacles. He looked like a studious schoolboy who had dressed himself in seaman’s clothing and slipped past the dock police.

  Thouless went to meet the men. Amidships the last of the big flexible pipes, through which the cargo of alcohol had flowed into the ship from the distillery tanks, was being disconnected. The Rosa Dartle’s deck had sunk closer to the waterline under the dead weight of this cargo; she was a steel skin separating the precious and deadly liquid within from the common but no less deadly liquid outside. Thouless sincerely hoped there would not come a time when the two would mix. He hoped that the skin would remain unpunctured.

  The Americans had gathered in the waist near the head of the gangplank, a little huddle of men gazing around them with interest, perhaps with misgiving. Thouless came up to them.

  ‘You’re the draft for embarkation, I take it.’ He addressed them as a group, not knowing which was the senior rating. A man with a face that might have been carved out of teak answered him.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, we’re the draft. My name’s Carson. Bosun.’ He let his gaze move round the ship, and his mouth twitched at the corners in the hint of a smile. ‘Not aboard this packet, though.’

  Looking at Carson, Thouless had the idea that it might have been no bad thing if this man were to change places with Jaggers, bosun of the Rosa Dartle. Jaggers was no asset, a slack-bodied man with a head like a turnip, a sagging belly, and a genius for moaning. If it came to the point not one of the deck crew was worth two pins, with the single exception of Gabriel Toresen, the carpenter. But this fellow Carson looked a real man, no doubt about that, even if he was an American and a passenger. He was no boy; about forty, perhaps, with shoulders like the ridge of a house, deepset eyes, and a beak of a nose. Thouless wondered whether he had any North-American Indian blood in him; he looked that type. One of the other men took out a packet of cigarettes, shook one into his hand, and put it in his mouth.

  Thouless said sharply: ‘Put that away. This is a tanker.’

  ‘Well, for God’s sake!’ the man said. He had a flattened, battered face, the face of an ex-prize-fighter, the nose squeezed out sideways, bent-ridged, the nostrils still, so it seemed, half blocked with clotted blood, so that you could hear the sound of the breath forcing its way through. Above his eyes was the discoloured lumpiness of scar tissue. He had taken some punishment in his time.

  ‘You never learnt to read, Kline?’ Carson said. Carson’s voice was like a bear’s growl. He jerked his head at a big painted notice hung up for all to see: ‘No Smoking.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Kline said again, but he put the cigarettes away.

  ‘Some guys,’ Carson said, ‘you need to make a hole in the skull and knock it in with a hammer.’

  Kline scowled. He looked as if he wanted to spit, but Thouless’s eye was on him. ‘Tankers! I never reckoned on no hell ship.’

  ‘Experience for you,’ Carson said. He stared bleakly at Kline. ‘What’s up with you, fella? Got cold feet or something? Wanna go home?’

  ‘Cold feet, nothing. I don’t take to being pushed around. That’s all.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind. Mr Kline don’t like being pushed around.’

  Kline shifted his feet and muttered: ‘Wise guy.’

  Mr Thouless spoke to Carson. ‘I understand you’re our passengers for this trip.’

  ‘Yes, sir. That appears to be the set-up.’

  It was not a set-up that particularly endeared itself to Carson, putting your life into the hands of a crew of Limeys. But the situation had to be accepted; no use kicking, no sense shooting your mouth off like that Kline. There was a man who would bear watching. The others he could handle easily enough; the one with glasses looked soft, but willing.

  ‘No first-class cabins,’ Thouless said. ‘This isn’t a pleasure cruise.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Carson gave a grin; it was like a ray of sunlight glancing through a cloud; one moment it was there, the next it had gone, leaving the face teak-hard again, the dark skin creased only by the permanent lines that the years, the wind, the rain, the salt spray, and the sun had engraved upon it. ‘We don’t look for luxury.’ Then he added, giving a sardonic twist to the cliché, as though ridiculing it even as he used it: ‘There’s a war on.’

  ‘So I have heard,’ Thouless said.

  A steward, grumbling in a constant monotone, showed th
em their quarters – bunks squeezed into odd little cabins that might have been designed originally as store-cupboards. Two of the men were to sleep amidships, the rest aft in the crew’s accommodation. Muller, the small man with the gold-rimmed spectacles, found himself sharing the amidships cabin with Kline, not a partner he would have taken from choice, but that was how it turned out. Kline seemed to be for ever smouldering with a sense of injustice, a man burnt up with the fires of distrust and envy and resentment.

  ‘I don’t know that it’s legal. We could maybe dig our toes in.’

  ‘You mean refuse to sail?’

  ‘What else?’

  Muller could not see himself doing that. In spite of Kline’s contention, he did not suppose there was anything illegal about it. The Government had all sorts of emergency powers. In any case, Muller was not of the stuff of which rebels are made; he was the kind of man who obeyed orders and did not answer back, the sort of man who would certainly give Stephen Carson no trouble.

  ‘Sons-a-bitching tankers,’ Kline said viciously. ‘You’d think they could’ve found some other ship for us. I steered clear of tankers all this time, and now they send me to one. I’m letting out a howl about this, see if I ain’t.’

  Like Kline, Muller had never sailed in a tanker before. It had been a shock to him to discover what kind of a ship the Rosa Dartle was. Nobody in his right senses would have picked one of those jokers if he had been given the choice. But in this case there had been no choice. All the same, he could not see himself refusing to sail. He was scared, he admitted that to himself; but even if he had been given the chance to walk ashore now he did not believe that he would have taken it. You had to go through with these things to the end.

  ‘Tankers,’ Kline said. ‘One torpedo. Whoof-boom! Up she goes. No missing. Helluva fine chance for us.’

  ‘With gasoline,’ Muller said. ‘But this is alcohol. That’s different, isn’t it?’

  ‘How different?’ Kline’s nostrils widened, drawing in air noisily. ‘It’ll burn, won’t it? We’ll burn too. You ever smell burnt flesh? Not nice.’ Kline’s lip curled, and the words seemed to tumble out of the side of his mouth. He took a cigarette and struck a match with his thumb-nail.

  ‘It’s all right to smoke in here, I suppose,’ Muller said. He liked to be certain about the regulations.

  Kline sucked smoke into his lungs as if they had been gasping for it. ‘Sure, sure. Them no-smoking rules only apply on deck.’ He sat down on the lower bunk and looked round the cabin. ‘Don’t give you room to throw your chest out, do they? Just what you’d expect in a Limey ship. No idea of decent living. Still in the last century.’

  ‘You don’t like the English?’

  ‘I’ll say not. Lot of pantywaists. Go get themselves a war, and then come crawling to Uncle Sam for help. We did it for ’em last time. Looks like we gotta do it again.’

  Muller began to unpack his kit. He had no wish to get into an argument with Kline. He did not agree with Kline’s views, but he did not feel like arguing. If Kline went around the ship talking like that he was likely to get himself a bloody nose before many days had passed. But that was his concern. Muller had already seen enough of him to look at the bloody-nose prospect with equanimity.

  All he said was: ‘You’d better watch your step.’

  ‘Watch my step! What d’you mean?’

  ‘It’s all right in here,’ Muller said, ‘but if you go around talking about pantywaists and Limeys you’re going to get yourself disliked.’

  Kline laughed harshly. ‘That should worry me. I ain’t the guy to be pushed around, see? I say what I like, where I like. If other guys take offence, let ’em.’

  He had stripped off his coat, and under the blue jersey he was wearing Muller could see the solid, muscular torso of the man, beginning to bulge a little at the waist, but still tough even there. Kline was not tall, but he was extremely thick, with wide, sloping shoulders and long arms. He was not young either; the dark hair was going grey and thinning.

  He lifted a clenched fist. It looked hard enough to hammer nails. ‘I used to make a living with these, years back. I can still use ’em.’

  ‘Boxing?’

  ‘Sure, sure. Middle-weight. I had fights at the Garden. In line for a title one time. Things didn’t pan out.’

  He sucked at the cigarette, breath snuffling through his nose. ‘That was the good time. I had dough then. I knocked around the smart joints; had fifty suits, yeah, fifty; handmade shoes. What’s the use? The sharks get it from you in the end, and then you’re back on your heels again.’

  He pounded the bunk with his fist, thinking about that good time and resenting the loss of it. ‘Now I’m on this goddamn Limey tanker. They better watch it though. There ain’t a Limey living that I couldn’t take apart with my two bare hands and make into hamburger meat. No, sir.’

  *

  In the gunners’ mess-room at the after end of the ship a discussion concerning the explosive qualities of industrial alcohol was also taking place. It was a subject that had a certain gruesome fascination.

  A small, wizened, Army gunner named Bowie, with a sharp, ferret-like face, maintained that alcohol was as bad as petrol. He stabbed his forefinger at the blue-jerseyed chest of an Irish seaman-gunner, a black-haired man with a pleasant, boyish face.

  ‘If you think this stuff is safe, Mr Michael Brennan, you want your brains testing. It’ll go up like a bomb if we get a torpedo in the guts. You ask old Cookie.’

  Reginald Tarbat, the cook, was a fat hill of a man with a stomach that hung over his belt like the inner tube of a lorry tyre. He was leaning back in a chair while his feet were attended to by a corn doctor. Tarbat had a lot of trouble with his feet. He made use of the gunners’ mess-room because he hated the crew. They hated him too, so that made it even.

  Tarbat gave the question his full consideration, then pronounced judgement.

  ‘Not as bad as high octane; worse than crude oil. Best thing is to drink the lot. Be safer then.’

  ‘Is it good to drink?’ Brennan asked.

  Tarbat winked ponderously. ‘You ask the Russkies. You don’t need to be a clairvoyant to guess what they’ll do with it. Vodka, every last pint of it.’

  There were three other men in the mess-room – Sergeant Grant, of the Maritime Royal Artillery, who was in charge of the ship’s armament, Robert Rankin, a young petty officer, and another Army gunner, named Sime, who was stolidly eating his way through a corned-beef sandwich two inches thick. Grant had come on board only the previous day as a replacement for another sergeant who had got himself drunk, fallen down an open tank hatch, and smashed his head to pulp. He was still in the process of sizing up his men. Rankin, who had been on board the ship for a year, was able to give him some tips.

  ‘You’d better watch Bowie. He’s a twister.’

  ‘I’ll twist him if he tries any tricks,’ Grant said. ‘What about Sime? He looks dead from the neck up.’

  ‘Another problem boy,’ Rankin admitted. ‘Seems to have only two objects in life – eating and sleeping. Women, too, of course. The lads call him Sharkgut. Fits him. Brennan’s a good one; you won’t have any trouble with him.’

  In fact, Rankin did not think Grant would have much trouble with any of them; he looked hard enough to deal with any troublemakers. Rankin, none too sure of his own authority, was glad of the presence of a man who would know how to enforce discipline.

  *

  Outside, the afternoon light was fading. The Rosa Dartle lay motionless under a steel-grey sky, surrounded by a fringe of oil and scum, empty bottles, orange peel, bits of wood, corks, a half-saturated lifejacket, a loaf of bread, half a dozen beer cans. Now and then a ripple would pass, as though something were moving below the surface of the water, and the carpet of garbage would heave sluggishly, climbing a little higher up the grey side of the ship and then subsiding again. A few flakes of snow began to fall, appearing from the murk overhead and drifting silently down towards the deck.

>   Jaggers, the bosun, waddling across the after catwalk, looked up at the sky and fancied there was more to come.

  ‘All right then, send it down. All right.’

  He put his hands under his belly and turned his gaze downward, down to the deck whose surface erupted into valves and tank hatches and pipes, all painted with that dull grey paint that had become the livery of merchant ships at war.

  ‘To-morrow,’ Jaggers muttered, lifting his belly and lowering it again like a cook kneading dough.

  To-morrow the Rosa Dartle would be out of this dock and there would be nothing to mark the spot where she had been. Tomorrow would begin the long, long haul, the bitter days and the nights of terror, the waiting, waiting, waiting, and the cold worm of fear writhing inside you. Jaggers hated it; God, how he hated it! ‘Them that started all this, why don’t they come and do the dirty work?’ Resentment burned in Jaggers. Why should he be made to endure it? Some day somebody was going to be made to pay for all that he had had to endure. Some day.

  Jaggers shivered. He looked back towards the midcastle, half expecting to see Mr Thouless on his tail again. You never knew when the mate was going to spring out on you with his ‘Why isn’t this done? Why isn’t that job finished?’ To hell with Mr Thouless and all his works. There was enough trouble without having him for ever bawling you out.

  But it was not Thouless he saw; it was Carson, the American bosun, one of the six taking passage to Archangel. Carson had his hands on the rail and was looking aft, perhaps sizing up the ship, seeing if there was any fault to be found. Even as he lounged there, Jaggers could see how tall the man was; he looked strong and lithe, the ridge of the nose prominent, a check cap on his head, with ear-flaps tied across the crown and a long peak.

  ‘Damn Yankee,’ Jaggers muttered. ‘Passengers! You’d think there was enough without that. If they go poking their big snouts in my business there’ll be trouble.’

  He moved away aft. The snow began to gather in the angles of the ironwork like a white plague.