2439 The reality of the Cruel Sea II

I commenced to read the second part of reading the Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat on my train journey from Newcastle to London King Cross a week ago, dividing the three hours between the books and reading the material for P L A C E visits. It is now Thursday 28^th March 2013 and I am at Newcastle station once more on a train to Kings Cross although I will be alighting this time at Newark Northgate spending Easter in the Midlands and staying at the Mansfield.

 

In the first part of the book the reader is introduced to the officers and some of the crew of Compass Rose, a British Royal Navy Corvette, hurriedly designed and built for convoy escort work in the north Atlantic. We are taken through the process of commissioning and sea trials and the escort journey as the crew discovers the difficulty of accommodating eighty men in the cramped ship, no more than a large trawler, as she rolled in the ocean rough with water splashing in everywhere or condensation from the close quartering of men and supplies for war and for body.

 

The only experienced officer is Ericson, the captain, with experience of the Royal Navy and of Merchant shipping making him the ideal individual to attempt to shepherd convoys from the prowling sea serpents in the form of the German submarine. His home is Liverpool but he had mixed reactions on learning that their ship was to base in the port such was his appreciation of the demands of command in war. During the year covered by part 2 although his sea going son was also based in the city port they were never to meet.

 

The bane of everyone’s life was Bennett the number 1, second in command, just as inexperienced as the rest but gaining seniority because of his age and the ability to project himself through the confidence of being a former salesman. He loved tinned sausages which he selected for breakfast, lunch or tea at least once a day. There were two subs, Lockhart who had sailed a boat on the Solent, a free lance journalist writer who had mixed in what he describes as a bohemian world and who had experience of relationships with women but now knew it was wrong to engage in a new relationship until the war ended. His views as those of the husbands and wives who remained loyal to their partners during the long years of separation were much more common than more recent generations.

 

The second sub Ferraby was a very different man inexperienced of the sea and of life although newly married. He had jumped at the opportunity to train as an officer but quickly found the process of giving orders to experienced seamen as well as other novices, a challenge which he repeatedly failed to meet to his own and the satisfaction of his colleague. As in life outside the Services the weak have a tendency to attract the attention of the bully and in the close confines of small ship the bullying and the exploitation can become relentless. He had wanted to move his wife up to Liverpool but Bennett refused to pass his request to the captain.

 

As in the film and radio play a fourth officer was to appear before the departure of Bennett for a suspected duodenal ulcer. Morrell also married, to an independently minded minor actress, Morell had the measure of Bennett and new how to put him down without being insubordinate. It was Lockhart who expressed concern at way Bennett treated Ferraby arguing that instead of constantly picking on the young man words of encouragement would help to bring confidence. Such was the expression of dissent that Bennett insisted on putting him on report to the Captain who tried to defuse and then side step confrontation, supporting his deputy as the service code dictated but refusing to go beyond a reprimand as Bennett requested.

 

Bennett had spent his leave picking up a woman of the night at the hotel in which they stayed although I cannot remember if this is the same woman who he brought to the Christmas Party before their first convoy venture. She had his measure too.  It was also Bennett who when they returned from leave made the infamous remark about Morell and Ferraby having left a bun in the oven which provoked gasps in the cinemas given era when it was  first released..

 

But the initial focus of the second part of the story was not any of the officers but Tallow who lived with his sister Gladys at 29 Dock Road and who the first leave when half the ships company were granted six days he brought with him his friend Chief Watts from the engine room. Gladys had been widowed four years previously and quickly struck a friendship with the chief a mild mannered man who went off for a drink with her brother while she prepared them some tea. It was a year later when the two returned from one of many convoys that they were given shore leave along with those who had family or loved ones after the news that Liverpool and the surrounding Merseyside had been blitzed for more than a week and they feared the worst when the phone to warn of their arrival was not answered. The street was badly damaged with so many died that the Mayor and Corporation had attended the mass grave burial. She would have known and felt nothing was the attempt to soften the horror of what had happened.

 

There was irony for these men had by then become accustomed to the prospect of being sunk once the fall of France had occurred and the German Navy was able to use French Dutch and Belgium ports for its submarines and its fighter escorts were also based along coastal airfields. There had been no meeting the enemy on those first convoys and no convoy ships sunk only finding that the corvette rolled its innards out when the water was rough and they were more often than not. Then the first ships was lost and less than a third of its crew survived and by the time of the second year they were losing up to a third of a convoy as the submarines commenced to hunt in packs. They became sued to sending out a boat to pick up the survivors while they went in vain search of the submarine before returning for the boat and then to bury those who did not survive and were recovered. Sometimes a ship would just exploded or split in two before sinking within seconds and as the author comments men learned quickly how to die without making a fuss.  This will have been true for some, but only some I suspect a comfort for families and loved ones left behind, as with Gladys someone on hand to declare she did not know anything, she did not therefore suffer

 

They all learned how to cope with the four hours on and then off, barely sleeping but knowing that when on duty they were required to function at their best, especially in storms when the convoy was dispersed on fogs when there was risk of collision so the normal zig zag pattern had to be abandoned. It was Bennett who was found out, eventually, and who got himself out of the service. He managed to  spend most of his Watch hiding from wind and the cold checking on the asdic or using some other excuse and delegation to others as a means of escaping the elements

 

His departure had a bonus for Lockhart who was made up to Number 1 as they had to depart before a replacement could be found. He had already been promoted to Lieutenant on Ericson’s recommendation so after assuring the captain he could cope and doing well on the first convoy in the new role, the appointment was confirmed.

 

 

We also learned of the problems which Morell was to encounter when he returned home to find that his wife had carried on leading the same social life as hen he had been with her before enlistment. He wanted to spend time with her quietly recovering at home but she wanted to be out eating, and partying on every night. She seemed to know people mainly men everywhere they went and one telephoned to enquire if she would soon bring her great body to wherever he was. An instead of showing any interest in what his experience was like she only commented that he had only one stripe and not three.

 

Worse was to come for Morell during the long leave while the ship underwent a major refit but before then we learned another lesson of war. This concerns another crew member, Able Seaman Gregg, who failed to report for duty having gone ashore during a period of leave before their first convoy of 1941. There was surprise at his failure because he was considered a dependable crew member and that he had missed his ship entirely when on active duty was a very serious charge. That he offered no explanation but was prepared to take whatever punishment the captain ordered was something that neither the Captain or Lockhart was prepared to accept without making some effort to establish the cause.

 

His story and that of Morell was to become one familiar during the war, of those who when parted from their loved ones for any length of time find it difficult to resist the opportunity of a relationship should such a circumstance arise, and there have and are likely to always remain men willing to approach a woman even though she wears a wedding ring who he fancies. Admittedly there are also some women, more now than then who do not need much persuasion whether their partner is long away or not should opportunity come their way, but in general it is some men, not all who are on the constant look out for an opportunity.

 

In this first instance Gregg returned home early to discover a vehicle outside his home and the lights on upstairs. There was an attempt on the part of the couple to bluff their way out of the situation and then remorse and promises which might have been sufficient for the man to have returned to sea, but before he was due his wife disappeared and he went in search only to eventually find her abandoned once a pregnancy was established, and so being dependable he had agreed to take the woman back and make the child his. His reason for silence had been the wish that nothing of the circumstances would get the other ratings which would normally have proved the situation if recounted during the official hearing before the captain. Because the captain arranged for Lockhart to question in private it was possible to conduct the official hearing in such away that these details were not exposed and for the captain to order a punishment which void custody. This was not to prove a blessing in disguise.

 

But as I say he was not alone among the ship’s company as I have already hinted that the actress wife of Morell did not restrict her active social life while he was away or when he returned. But it was only on the long period ashore during the full refit and she had gained a part in along running production in the Westend, and she made excuses why she had to go off for some evening meal or to some party without him as a means of securing her acting future and the ardour of her passion disappeared that the dark thoughts arose and lingered.

 

And then the reality, the horror, the full nature of the war hit them. The hunting packs of submarines grew larger and the number of sinking increased despite the gaining greater Navy support for the convoys they now went to meet off Gibraltar.  First their sister Corvette, which had travelled with them from the beginning, The Sorrel had gone with only a handful of survivors including the Captain fund on the raft nestling a dead rating who he had attempt to help survive the night before the rescue party arrived.

 

And then there was what was to become their second or third darkest moment of the war although when it happened for the captain in particular and also for Lockhart who as number 1 became responsible for the Asdic and advising on the nature of object thrown up on the screen. It was when they were going to rescue men from sunk cargo vessel that Lockhart was certain there was a submarine below and Lockhart the Captain made the decision to drop the depth charges only for their to be no sign of the enemy afterwards, only the dead of their own. Afterwards two of the previously rescued captains, tried to bring comfort but for Ericson the war had changed and that Lockhart said his was the greater responsibility failed to help. They had done what had to be done and for them there was not even the knowledge that they had saved countless others by getting the submarine.

 

But worse was to come when the ship with a party of wrens some 20 who they had seen taking air on deck was sunk but worse still was when those rescued were also killed when their second ship went down.

 

Then their engine had to be repaired to avoid a complete breakdown and they sat motionless and alone listening to hammering as they felt sure would any submarine coming their way. Then as they strove to catch up the convoy they spotted something on the radar and as they approached the coning tower of an enemy submarine could be seen trailing the convoy and waiting for the night to attack. They had manage to fire couple of shots before the sub dived but they were quickly upon it with depth charges as the pinging grew louder and quicker.  They watched as the U boat rose to the surface and there was an element of surprise when someone fire back at them from the machine gun so their two pounder was then even quicker in its response. They watched as the U boat crew swam towards them, their craft doomed.

 

The German captain was held separate in Erickson’s cabin and was none to please by the greeting of Heil Hitler saying he had been taken by surprise and by implication that Ericson’s tactics had been somehow unfair. Ericson warned the guard that the prisoner was dangerous and that if he made any move to shoot him. After burying the one man of their crew killed by the machine gun and one of the German who had also not survived Erickson commented of he enemy that they looked a scruffy lot and said to Lockhart, I think we ought to win the war, don’t you?”