A Ship's Tale (33 page)

“No, well, I usually do it up myself,” he replied. Evidently he wanted to keep his personal formula from her, but she knew better. He looked out the porthole and commented on how lovely the sea looked, but Katherine had responded she'd take his word for it, as she was too busy to go up on deck for a stroll and there was dough that wanted rolling out.

Harris next asked, “Am I in your way?”

“Constantly,” she'd told him, no doubt with that mischievous gleam in her eye, “but that's never stopped you.”

This took Harris completely by surprise. “Really?” he asked.

“Just now, really,” Katherine retorted, and fetching her bowl of already-kneaded dough, she began to roll it out in large strips on the table.

“I'll have to learn how to do that one day,” said Harris, watching her.

Katherine saw her opportunity. “Here, I can teach you now. Grab hold of the rolling pin.”

Harris then held up his hand, looking horrified, and protested, “Oh, no, not on your life,” then went on to point out how many more things he had waiting for him up on deck.

“If you have so very many things to do, perhaps you should see to them,” she spoke up, pounding the rolling pin on the table for emphasis.

He'd seized upon this immediately. “Perhaps I should,” he said hastily. After he scratched his beard in a puzzled way, Katherine asked in a louder voice, “Have you not left yet?” Harris jumped up and retreated up the ladder, holding his cup of coffee very carefully.

Katherine chuckled at her own cleverness. “That's one way to get rid of a man, tell him you'll put him to work in the kitchen. Works nearly every time.” She seemed very pleased with herself as she went on about her chores.

I had a sudden thought. “Here, have you been getting round me that way?” I said suspiciously.

“Ooh, wouldn't dream of it, dearie,” she protested in an impish tone.

After some time had passed, Robert came in. “Missed a right good watch, you did,” he said cheerfully.

“Oh, I don't know. I did get some sleep,” I said smiling at Katherine.

She held up a finger as if to scold me for telling tales out of school, although I never would have considered it.

“I envy your sleep,” snorted Robert, “especially since I know your bunk's no softer than mine. Drat! I keep waking up in that hard damned thing. I must have pounded it with my fist a hundred times to soften it, and quite unsuccessfully. They always called those bunks the rack in the Navy—and for damn good reason! Well, when a man's tired enough, such things go unnoticed—at least by some of us.”

Katherine gave me several choices of what was on the menu, even if a menu was only her telling me what was ready at the time. I still wasn't quite awake, and could barely stop myself yawning. Finally, she said, “Well, what'll it be?”

“One of each,” I decided.

“Oh, so you're hungry, eh?”

“Yes,” I said. “Somehow I managed to work up an appetite, even with all that sleep.”

She just turned and smiled and started to heap bread and stew onto a plate, which she then set before me. Bowman and Harris now staggered back down, looking well-worn.

“So, you gents having a good day thus far?” I asked in the midst of chewing a succulent mouthful.

“Lovely,” answered Bowman, collapsing in the first chair available.

“Just grand!” groaned Harris. “I'd like to know when they started to get so young and I got so old. A bloody shame, it is. I must have missed something in passing.” He sat down with a monstrous sigh and propped up his feet on the table. Bowman followed suit.

“Missed anything? Oh Harris, I doubt that. If there's anything missed, you've missed hardly any,” said Katherine tartly. As she turned to face them, her eyes widened at the two pairs of boots on her scrubbed table.

“You two! Get your great filthy boots off the table!” she snapped.

“Right,” Harris said sheepishly, putting his feet down with one great thunk and then another. Bowman followed. She took a cloth and wiped down the defiled section of table-top with some asperity.

“Have pity on an old man,” quavered Bowman, putting his head down on the table.

“Old man?” sniffed Katherine. “If I'd called you an old man before we were at sea, you'd probably have me flung overboard.”

“No, no,” Bowman cried, and raised his hands in surrender. “Harris is the one who takes on that task. He's good at throwing people over side. Why, just a few days ago—”

“Shut up, Uncle Billy,” Harris interrupted.

“Oh dear,” exclaimed Katherine, “how disrespectful to address your captain in that manner!”

“Aye, that's right. Listen to her,” said Bowman with obvious satisfaction.

Harris put his hands on his hips. “A few days ago you would never have said that, nor listened to anyone in a dress either.”

“Times change, but you don't,” Bowman shot back. He then peered anxiously from my nearly empty plate to the stove. “Still some food out there?”

“Come and get it, and try not to wear it in the bargain. We've had a time keeping it upright,” she answered.

They shuffled forward and picked up plates. There was delicious beef stew with potatoes and vegetables, new bread, and, of course, Katherine's legendary pies.

“Smells wonderful,” said Harris ecstatically.

“And tastes even better,” said Bowman, tucking right into his. Katherine took off her apron and smoothed her hair, giving a sigh.

“This is the last I'll be doing for now,” she announced. “I'll start it up again later. If you'll look in those two barrels, one of them has apples and the other pears. You'll want to eat the pears first as they don't keep—and some kind of fruit I've never seen before.”

“Oh?” enquired Harris. “I'll have a look at that.”

“Here's one,” Katherine said. She held up a leathery-skinned red ball the size of an apple. “What on earth do you call that?” I looked, but it was quite foreign to me.

“Well, I'll be. I haven't seen one of these in quite some time,” said Harris, taking it from her. “This is called a pomegranate.”

“I've had those,” nodded Bowman.

Robert's eyes lit. “There are pomegranates in the
Song of Solomon
. You know, in the Bible. Let's see…was it her
brows
that were like pomegranates?” Then he held his two hands cupped one on each side of his chest, “Or was it her—” Robert suddenly broke off in embarrassment, finding Katherine's steely gaze bent upon him. His hands snapped back down. “Yes, of course, brows it was,” he put in hastily, trying to change the subject. “How's it eaten?”

Harris cut the biblical fruit in half, showing its curious interior. “You pull back the peel and eat these red seeds inside. If one ever had the runs, you boil the rind and drink it down. Works like magic, it does.”

Robert looked dubious. “Oh, I see. Maybe another time.”

“Actually, they're quite good,” said Harris, taking a bite of the ruby-juiced seed. “Hmm, hmm, not as ripe as it should be, but very nice.”

I sampled one of the jewel-like morsels myself and found it tart but pleasant.

Harris looked perplexed. “Where did these come from?”

Katherine shrugged. “They were part of the food stores you lot brought on board.”

“I don't remember a thing about it,” said Harris, setting the pomegranate halves on the edge of his plate. He took his bread and got down to some serious shovelling of stew.

Robert and I got to talking about some of our adventures during the War. Harris and Bowman were a tired but attentive audience.

We talked about sailors we'd known and our adventures, not to mention pranks, which had abounded. Among them being Robert's great achievement of rolling a cannonball down the stairs of the barracks. This was actually a time-honoured tradition.

He'd managed to dislodge one from a pyramid stack that stood next to an antique cannon. They weren't explosive cannonballs, but rather large iron ones. Freeing one from its weld, he took it to the fourth floor of his barracks. He rigged it so it could be triggered by a long piece of string that ran out the window, over a tree limb, across the park, and near the front of the pub where we were sitting.

On Robert's signal, a young boy walked across the park, pulled the string, and then ran by the window. Robert gave him half a crown and he merely disappeared with his mates.

Meanwhile, on the fourth floor, the cannonball began rolling down the iron stairs, crashing into the walls at each turn, and hitting doors at random. It caused a considerable commotion within the building, but the cannonball didn't come to its rest until it reached the lower level where the residing officer lived. Hearing all the racket, he opened the door just in time to have the cannonball roll over his bare toes.

“Oh my God!” Harris roared, pounding his fist on the table, “I'd give anything to see the look on that man's face!”

I continued. “We did see the look on his face a few hours later, but there was nothing to tie us to the incident, since, of course, we were having a pint with friends. The officer suspected we had a hand in it, but couldn't prove it. He put everyone else in the barracks on restriction, hoping the perpetrator would fess up. We were cleared to come and go as we liked because we had witnesses that we were clearly a street away,” I chuckled.

Robert interjected, “You don't know what real pain is until you've had to carry a cannonball in a satchel up four flights of stairs without any expression on your face.” At this Harris laughed again.

“Ah, well, it was little things like this to keep from being bored to death between assignments.” Robert went on, “Escorting the convoys had its dangers, but I never saw a U-Boat the entire time. Flynn and I did see a freighter hit and she sank fast. All the patrol destroyers never found the U-Boat to our knowledge, but we blew up quite a bit of ocean trying. I had my ears near frozen by the winds in that brass-monkey weather. God, I hated that duty.”

Harris turned round and looked at him. “Do you have any idea where that term came from?” he asked. Robert's face went blank and he shook his head.

Harris began, “In the days of sailing warships they carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired iron cannonballs. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. To prevent the balls from rolling about the deck, the best storage method devised was a square-based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of thirty cannonballs could be stacked in a small area next to the cannon. There was only one problem: how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding around. The solution was a metal plate called a
monkey
, with sixteen round indentations. To prevent balls from rusting, the monkey was made of brass. Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts more often and faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature drops too far, the brass indentations shrink and the iron cannonballs come right off the monkey.” Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey! And all this time you probably thought it was an improper expression,
didn't you
?” he said, pointing a finger at Robert.

I saw Robert blink as though someone had switched on a torch. I often thought Harris could spin a great tale, so I said nothing. Bowman only smiled. Actually, ready service shot was kept on the gun or spar decks in shot garlands which consisted of longitudinal wooden planks with holes bored into them, into which round shot (cannonballs) were inserted for ready use by the gun crew, but I enjoyed Harris's yarn so much I never did tell Robert.

Just then, one of the lads knocked on the inside bulkhead. “Captain Bowman?” he asked.

Bowman looked up. “Yes?”

“Can we see Mr. Harris for a moment? Mr. Boris has something to ask.”

“Be right there,” Harris answered, putting down his coffee mug. “Come along, Flynn.”

What there was in the way of sunshine greeted us as we came on deck, along with blasts of cold wind. The sails were filled and we were making good time.

Edward was already on deck. “Do you believe it, we're perhaps four-and-a-half-hours ahead of schedule. That's amazing!”

“Well, I suppose it is then, if you say so,” remarked Harris. “You're the only one that keeps a schedule nobody knows or understands.”

“Oh, never mind,” Edward snorted, waving his hands in front of Harris's face.

As we headed to the stern, I walked to midships. As I looked up at the mainmast, descending like a spider in a bo'sun's chair, was Boris. He freed himself from the chair, unclipped it from the halyards, and set it down on the hatchway.

“I trust everything's well in hand?” I said.

Boris looked at me rather peculiarly, then opened his left hand and stared at it blankly. He repeated the gesture with his right, and shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, everything well in hand,” he replied at last.

Harris said, “One of the lads said you needed to talk to me.”

Boris spoke up, “That was before, now I fixed what I was needing you for. Now I don't need to ask. I'm finished with the thinking of this.” He then led the boys off to help him with trimming the sails.

Harris laughed at that. Me, well, let's say I was never terribly certain when Boris understood and when he didn't, but I found it amusing.

Chapter 19

THE PURSUIT BEGINS

I awoke, for once naturally, quite early the next morning. This was an achievement in itself, as the ship was ploughing along hitting solid seas. It managed to stay on an even keel, with an occasional pitch to add to the steady roll. I tried to calculate how far we'd gone and how many more days we'd need to get to the Firth of Clyde. My mind was also filled with thoughts of what our lives would be like after delivering the
Bonnie
Clyde
.

I spruced myself up, hoping that Katherine would appreciate the beginnings of a beard, and went to get a mug of tea to start the day. Katherine was already there, looking lovable in the sweater and slacks she'd been wearing since she came aboard. She'd confessed to me that she wasn't happy about the same clothes every day but that at least she was changing her long woolly underwear. I told her that she was very conscientious, and that I heartily wished the men would follow her good example.

She was busy with baking and could only give a quick wave, so I took my mug to the deck.

Boris was just finishing his turn at the night watch and was sagging a bit over the wheel. The ship was nearly steering herself in these quiet hours and he was bored. He brightened when he saw me. “Maybe you come fishing today? Sea not rough.”

I told him what Edward predicted regarding the weather. He thought about that for a moment and said, “Forget fishing, still some from yesterday. Now we make sure everything tied down.” With the weather being mild for now, Edward came out and took over the wheel. Boris sounded his bo'sun's pipe to bring all the boys on deck and prepare for a change of course.

We senior officers made the decision to swing more north-west and stay farther away from France after much ado with Edward. We were sure that the pursuit would be looking for us in this area after finding we'd not gone east because that would have been the easier channel crossing. We also wanted to gain a bit of protection from the storm Edward said was coming. So far, we had no backing of the winds to the west. The change in course was very simple in the end because the boys now had enough experience to know which lines to haul on and which to let go. Those on the braces had found the rhythm to make the turning of the heavy yardarms smooth and quick, while Boris brought the ship slowly round maintaining the full belly in the sails as we bore up on the new course. Boris then had both watches working to secure the
Bonnie
against the storm.

I'd only been in a big storm in steel-hulled Navy ships with internal passageways for getting from post to post. Now of course we had to get out into the middle of the weather to take care of our motive power, the sails.

Safety lines were rigged along all the exposed decks where lines needed hauling or braces turned. Belaying pins had to be fixed firmly in their rails, spare coils of rope taken below, and the battening of the hatch covers closely checked. Losing a hatch cover with tons of water pouring into the holds didn't bear thinking of.

Boris wouldn't allow any of the boys to stand down until he'd been over the ship completely aloft and below. “Only one loose pin can kill,” he warned darkly. At last he was satisfied and released the watch off duty.

We officers had no idea exactly when to expect the pursuit, but we knew that now the MTB would be miles away on a completely false scent. We hoped we could put enough sea miles between us to keep a jump ahead; rather like the tortoise and the hare. If we could meet up with people who were sympathetic to our cause in the Irish Sea, we hoped their presence would give the Navy pause at trying to stop us.

We'd a good crew, with many responsibilities put on them, and they answered readily every time whether it was climbing the mast and hauling in sheets, making repairs, or coiling down lines. I hadn't heard a complaint yet. When I mentioned this to Harris, he pointed out that this was the most exciting thing the boys had ever done—or perhaps would ever do—in their lives.

Robert had also come into his own. His training had been the same as mine, only his was on a schooner. He was up and down the mast nearly as much as Boris. Robert was university educated, while Boris had trained in the universal school of hard knocks. Communication was difficult, but they were becoming thick as thieves. The two of them were often laughing over some joke or other, sometimes at our expense. Harris said he couldn't understand the bond between them. Half the day they had fishing poles over the side of the ship and actually made some pretty fair catches. Fresh fish was an intended item on our menu, although I didn't notice it in the galley.

Robert had just come down from the rigging and I went to have a chat. We always seemed to be going in opposite directions, so I suggested that we spell Edward on the wheel for a while.

“How's it all going?” I asked.

“Well, it certainly beats being a chambermaid on this ship, as I was before we sailed, or working at the bloody circus.”

“I can well imagine,” I laughed.

“I wouldn't be too sure of that,” Robert said, sniffing.

“Oh, why is that?” I asked.

“I hadn't noticed you doing a lot of the same type of tasks I did before our sailing.”

“That's true,” I responded,” but there were many more things I've had to do than you'd know.”

“Someday you must tell me about them,” he said sarcastically. Grabbing a great bundle of rope, he left me at the wheel while he worked with one of the boys uncoiling the mass, taking out the knots and twists. When he returned, he seemed more cheerful and began telling me that he was really very pleased to have been included on this journey, even if it meant stealing the circus tents.

“I think being at sea is what I was meant to do—here, what was that?”

We were standing one on each side of the wheel, concentrating on our heading, but we both felt a distinct tremour. Looking up, we saw all the sails start to shiver ever so slightly, and at first couldn't work out what it was. Suddenly, Boris came hurtling across, pipe blasting.

“The wind!” he shouted. The wind was backing sharply from its nor'nor'east bearing, and was already past north. “Must tack now or big trouble. I take wheel, you help boys!”

Boris blew on his pipe again and all the boys came and stood lined up in front of him. “Now boys,” he said, “very important change of course. This time change tack. You do once already, remember? Turning yards and taking slack on sails together—other team let out sails and yards, ready to belay time, I whistle. To positions now!”

The boys moved and took up their posts on the ropes, stay ends, and on the braces. It was a little easier because the royals and topgallants hadn't been reset, but it was still a hard haul. I fitted myself into a brace team and followed round putting every ounce of strength into it. It felt as though we were trying to move several tons rather than turning a yard on its mast, but I'd forgotten that the sails were also heavy and were being beaten by the wind as we turned.

I could see Robert on one of the lines and it was plain he was having the same problem as I—lack of stamina. There was no doubt about it, the right age for anything to do with sails is eighteen to twenty; at that age I'd almost enjoyed myself aloft or on the braces and seldom noticed the energy I was expending.

Finally, Boris was satisfied with the position of the yards. He still needed the boys on the lines to fine tune the close-haul needed to maintain our course. The wind was now out of the north-west instead of the north-east, as it had been so short a time ago. I knew that this sort of wind change was possible in the eye of a hurricane, but I supposed that other weather systems can sometimes get the same sort of eyes. Such close-hauling now brought the ship heeled hard over to starboard, and it was only then that I remembered Katherine and winced guiltily. Once again she'd not been warned. Well, there was no help for it now.

When I got to the chart room, I found Harris and Bowman there with Edward looking over the charts and making calculations. After a while we heard the radio speaker give out the familiar whine and howl of someone trying to contact us, then a voice broke out, “
Calling the
Bonnie Clyde
. Calling the
Bonnie Clyde
. Are you receiving us
?”

I picked up the handset and answered: “
Bonnie Clyde
here. Receiving you loud and clear, over.” There were several minutes of static before they tried again.

“
Hello there, Flynn, Richard here. How are you today? I was worried about the storm
.”

“No damage here,” I replied. I suggested he carry on talking with Harris. “You know, that huge man on the tug? He and Bowman are really the leading spirits in this enterprise. He can tell you a lot more than I, and how we got to our present position which seems to be up the proverbial creek—with bells on! Anyway, here's Harris.”

As he picked up the handset, Harris shot me a glance. “You're a bloody comedian, you are.” He put the handset to his mouth. “Hello there, Richard, don't listen to a virtual landlubber like Flynn here. Yesterday's was just a little blow and today's doesn't look much stronger. You can never trust storms to behave. We may be in for a three-day blow, but let's get down to cases.” Harris leaned forward in his chair. “Your summary of Whitehall and the tug was interesting. I consider planting the magnet and taking the handset the only remotely dangerous or illegal thing we've done so far. Still, it was my fault that you all spent the night hove to.”

Richard cut in, “
Nice to talk with you at last, Harris. I wasn't at all worried about being stuck on the tug, just wishing I could get off the bloody thing. Being seasick wasn't my idea of a good time!

“
Now before I go on, let me tell you the latest I've heard from the nerve centre—OpHQ shall we call it? Your no-storm must have been very local, for the weather was good in London and in the Home Counties. The MTB left Chatham Naval yard at dawn and returned eight hours later, empty-handed. According to their report, they headed east to look for the ship the spotter plane thought was a more likely bet. They actually found her to be a four-masted barque. At first they thought it was you because they could see a lot of boys and young men in the rigging. They were able to talk through a loud hailer and found she was an old grain ship now used for training by the Swedish Navy based in Gothenburg. The MTB turned back to a refuelling depot near Clacton before going out again, heading north. They went as far as they could, but found nothing. However, they did have a stroke of luck in Harwich while they were refuelling
.”

My heart dropped, for Bob would have told us of anything from his side if it had happened
.

“
The commander of the MTB was attracted by the sight of tall masts on the other side of the harbour and sent one of his crew to ask a few innocent questions
.
The seaman came back with the information that the ship had been heading north following a shoal of herring and had returned to port late the night before with a full hold
.

“
OpHQ were now in a quandary. Having relied on one of those two vessels being the right one, they hadn't made any other plans and apparently told the admiral they were back to square one. You'd got a two-day head start and there were some mutterings about letting it be dropped, but the head, on hearing this, issued a note that every effort must be made to find and apprehend these criminals.
” Richard added, as an aside, “
I'll try to get hold of one of those notes for you, in case of need. Very incautious use of words by a head of department, publishing a libel like that! So the committee-of-two looked at the situation again, just as I've been cogitating over where you could have got to. I'm a little ahead of OpHQ there because of an incautious word that fell in my presence yesterday, something about Gretna Green
.”

Harris shot me a glance. He surely knew how to express himself silently, and I felt like crawling off into a corner, only to brighten at Richard's next words. “
But any surmise by me as to what that meant is just for my own information. The general consensus was that you hadn't gone east because of the information now held by OpHQ, so you must have gone south. However, there have been no more sightings, in particular by any Dover ferry. If you were already through there, you probably went through at night
.”

Richard continued, “
Finally it was decided they'd use another MTB, this time out of Dover. They would make a zig-zag search, north-south, so they could refuel at various depots along the South Coast on each return leg. A small blow on the east side of the Channel yesterday prevented a search until today. That's about it. I've got to be careful what I say, when reporting your side of the story. I'm too old to have MI5 or someone breathing down my neck. I purposely didn't file a follow-up piece last night because I wanted a balanced story, and without more detail from you about your reasons for doing this, I simply couldn't write it
.”

We'd all been following Richard's words with great attention. Harris's ruse with the
Grouse
had worked, but it left only the southerly direction open as an option after the eastern ship proved incorrect. It was bad news that there was a pursuit boat based so close, but he still had to find us and even if he couldn't operate in a storm, we could. Now we hoped, really hoped, for a three-day blow. We would gradually move towards the Irish Sea, and any further increase in our lead was welcome. When the MTB moved out, it was going to make a zigzag search, careful not to leave any gaps. Once the storm stopped, we could hope that the wind would bring us back round so we could get on without tacking as often.

Harris was very happy at this report. “Richard, it's obvious to me that you're not only a real reporter, but also a man keen to put our masters in their places when they're unjust or just plain unreasonable. We were fortunate enough to find others who agreed with us. Bowman has been the principal player from the beginning. He's the captain of the ship, and a long-time friend of myself, Edward, and Boris.” Harris recounted the story I'd already outlined to Richard, this time with more detail about the offer and the refusal, and Bowman's attempts to get this reversed, and the preparations, including where some of the materials had come from.