All The Nice Girls (2 page)

Dagwood Jones, the Electrical Officer, had an altogether different personality. He was a small, dark-haired, ferret-faced young man whom a degree at Cambridge had left unusually erudite for a naval officer. He often gave Broody the impression that he was only present in
Seahorse
’s wardroom in order to raise it from the social level of an enclosed fish-and-chip shop. Dagwood was even more tactless with senior officers than was Ollie with their wives. Broody had even considered banning Dagwood from the wardroom when Admirals were present; his heart still bore the scar of the occasion when Dagwood had informed an audience of three Admirals, one of them the Director of Torpedo Research, that the best torpedo the Navy had was still the original Whitehead, designed at the turn of the century.

The Steward poured the Captain a large precautionary cup of hot black coffee while he unwrapped his wet clothes. Ollie and Dagwood could tell, by the expression of repressed volcanic activity on his face, that Broody was raising steam for an explosion.

‘Actually,’ he said mildly, at last, ‘this just illustrates something I was going to tell you about anyway. You’ve heard these stories about the British Workman. Here, you’re in one of his strongholds, the ship-building industry. The medieval ship-building industry. In the industrial relations sense, you’re now in the dark ages. I know, because I once joined a boat in this yard on commissioning. That was during the war but I’m told things haven’t changed very much. This place is run on feudal lines. A skilled man can work here for forty years and still get his cards on a Friday night just as if he was a casual hop-picker. And that goes for everybody. Unless you had the good fortune to be born a Harvey, a McNichol or a Drummond or had the good sense to marry a Harvey, a McNichol or a Drummond you’re about as secure in your job in this place as one of Haroun Al Raschid’s viziers. Once you come through the dockyard gate you’re back in the Middle Ages. You’ll see men doing extremely skilful work by Gothic lighting in dark caverns built before the Crimean War using tools designed when Leonardo da Vinci was a lad. By the way, guess who I saw waiting on the jetty just now? The Artful Bodger himself! ‘

‘The Bodger!’ cried Dagwood. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Come to visit the scene of his former triumphs, I expect,’ said Ollie.

‘Perhaps he’s taken over Harvey McNichol and Drummond’s?’

Broody laughed. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him. Anyway, we’ll get the whole story when the British Workman’s finished his tea and
condescends
to let us get alongside.’

At a quarter past nine the hooter blew again, the yard was repopulated, the man in the bowler hat resumed his whistle and his stance on the bridge, and
Seahorse
was warped in. On the dockside a race of stocky, gnome-like men, all dressed in buff fearnought jackets and shapeless cloth caps and all addressed as ‘Wack,’ sprang up as though they had been sown in the concrete and began to swarm around
Seahorse
’s wires, jabbering amongst themselves in their own private chattering dialect. ‘ . . . Ey Wack, gie’us a hand, Wack . . . Shove us that line, Wack . . . Ey
Wacker
, wheer d’ye want yer breasts, Wack?’

When Broody descended from the bridge for the second time that morning and for the last time that commission, the two civilians and The Bodger were already sitting in the wardroom, the former wearing expressions of slightly abashed shyness on finding themselves in unfamiliar surroundings and the latter looking about him with an air of close, proprietary interest.

‘The old place hasn’t changed a bit, Broody,’ said The Bodger.

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Broody. ‘I half expected you to shout out loud that I’d let the boat go to rack and ruin. But if you’ll pardon my curiosity, Bodger, what on earth are you doing here? Not that I’m not delighted to see you of course . . .’

The Bodger chuckled. ‘You’re now looking at the Admiralty Liaison Officer for the City of Oozemouth. How about that!’

‘Hell’s teeth,’ said Broody.

‘Quite so. Mind you I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. My wife and I thought we could just do with a quiet year or two ashore, so when I was offered the job I took it. I don’t know how long I’ll last in it, of course.’

Commander Robert Bollinger Badger, D.S.C., R.N., known universally as The Artful Bodger, was a man of some presence. He had a shock of black hair, now going grey at the sides, and a ruddy jovial face. The Bodger had had a varied service career, the vicissitudes of his life being largely caused by his knack of speaking honestly to the wrong person. Nevertheless, The Bodger had always been followed by miraculous luck, he had a large number of friends who came unexpectedly to his assistance, and an unsuspected (except by those who knew him) talent for turning circumstances to his own profit (a talent which the malicious might have called low cunning, but which he himself described as ‘kicking for touch when under pressure’). He was rightly called The Artful Bodger and he was indestructible. Whatever crises blew up in his life, whatever cataclysms shook his world, sooner or later The Bodger bobbed up again, hopefully, as though he expected at any minute to be offered a drink. He too was a submariner and had indeed been
Seahorse
’s first captain, taking her to sea for the first six months of her commission until he was (by an unlikely series of circumstances) promoted and relieved by Broody.

‘Broody, let me introduce Mr Tybalt, one of the overseers here.’

Mr Tybalt rose and shook Broody’s hand. He was a dark man with a decisive lantern jaw, hollow but sun-tanned cheeks, and shrewd blue eyes with tiny crows’ feet at their corners. He was wearing an excellently-made dark grey suit, a Bengal-stripe shirt and an R.N.V.R. tie. He looked like a consumptive but successful wild fowler. ‘I’m what’s laughingly called the Admiralty Constructor Overseer here,’ he said. ‘This is Mr Day, Ship Manager for
Seahorse
on the firm’s side of the fence. Known as Happy.’

Happy Day wrung Broody’s hand warmly. He was a fat, round, red-cheeked man with white hair cropped close’ to his head. ‘Very pleased to meet you, Commander,’ he said.

‘
Well
,’ said Broody. ‘That was a fine welcome you gave us this morning! ‘

Mr Tybalt showed the mettle of his pasture at once. ‘What did you expect,’ he replied, sharply, ‘cherubim and seraphim?’

‘Well no, not exactly,’ said Broody, a little taken aback. ‘It was just a little humiliating to be left out there in the middle of the basin while everyone else pushed off. It gave us the feeling nobody loved us.’

Happy Day hastened to reassure Broody on behalf of his firm. ‘You’re very welcome here, Commander, you can be sure of that. We only had three weeks’ warning that you were coming here for refit.’

‘I wish you’d given
us
the tip,’ said Gavin, the Navigating Officer. ‘We didn’t know we were coming here until we got our sailing signal. We thought we were going to Chatham.’

‘The Chief Stoker’s brought all his tropical uniform with him, sir,’ said Dagwood. ‘He heard a buzz we were going to Singapore.’

‘Now that you are here,’ said Mr Tybalt, ‘Mr Day and I have worked out a very rough skeleton programme for your refit. I’ve brought some copies with me for you to look at.’ Mr Tybalt distributed some sheets of typed paper. ‘You must understand that this was all rather sprung on us and we are a bit inexperienced at it. This will be the first submarine refit we’ve done in this yard for a very long time. Mr Day can explain this better than I can.’

Happy Day was only too glad to have a chance to justify his firm. ‘This won’t be the first submarine we’ve handled, not by a long chalk,’ he said, eagerly. ‘We used to build them here, as you know. We built twenty or thirty during the war. But we got no more orders at all once the war ended. So we broke up our submarine working gangs, got rid of our drawings and generally finished with our submarine facilities. We use the submarine dock for tugs and dredgers now. But we’re glad to have one back again, Commander. A lot of my staff have volunteered to go back to the submarine section . . .’

‘They get more money for working in submarines, don’t they, Happy?’ Mr Tybalt enquired innocently.

‘Now Frank, you know it’s not that! Though I’ll not deny we’re glad of the work. The job’s come up suddenly, that’s true, but it’ll not make a ha’porth of difference to your refit in the long run, Commander, I can assure you of that.’

‘I’m sure it won’t,’ said Broody.

‘When you think of it,’ said The Bodger, ‘it does seem a little strange them sending you here out of the blue like this. I suppose Their Lordships don’t want to have all their eggs in a few baskets. It’s too easy to let a few yards have all the business. They get better at it, they can train up their staff, buy special machinery and so on. But what if anything happens to those firms or you have to double your output suddenly in wartime, where are you? Besides, it’s a good thing to spread it around a bit. Keeps them all on their toes.’

‘Very probably,’ said Mr Tybalt. ‘To get back to the programme, the firm accept responsibility for the custody of the submarine from this afternoon. I imagine most of your ship’s company won’t be staying long?’

Wilfred, the First Lieutenant, nodded. ‘Most of them are catching the seven o’clock train south tonight, sir.’

‘And that will leave you with a hard core, to finish de-storing, stand by during the refit, and make up the nucleus of the next commission?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

Broody and The Bodger began to look at Mr Tybalt with a good deal more respect. The man seemed to have a much better grip of the situation than they had expected. For someone who had never refitted a submarine before and who had suddenly had one thrust upon him, Mr Tybalt was doing very well.

As though he had read their thoughts, Mr Tybalt said: ‘You’re probably wondering how I come to be so well up in all this, having just said the whole thing caught us by surprise. The answer is that I rang up a chum of mine who’s doing this same job at Birkenhead and he gave me all the dope.’

‘
Ah
,’ said The Bodger. ‘That’s better than cherubim and seraphim, anyway.’

‘Will you be at the refit conference tomorrow?’ Mr Tybalt asked The Bodger. He sounded as though he were anxious to meet The Bodger with the gloves off.

‘I don’t know,’ The Bodger said, doubtfully. ‘It’s nothing to do with me really. I . . .’

‘That’s a point, Bodger,’ said Broody. ‘I hope to get the midnight train tonight. Would you like to look out for me at the refit conference?’

‘I’d be delighted, Broody! Refit conferences are normally better than the Crazy Gang! I wouldn’t miss it for worlds! ‘

‘I hope we shan’t disappoint you,’ said Mr Tybalt. ‘Who will be standing by the refit?’

‘The Engineer Officer and the Electrical Officer.’

‘Either of you married?’

‘I am,’ said Ollie.

‘I’m not,’ said Dagwood. ‘And I hope to stay that way.’

‘I hope you succeed,’ said Mr Tybalt dryly. ‘Though I ought to warn you the local talent’s pretty thick on the ground in these parts.’

‘Oh,’ said Gavin. As the wardroom’s acknowledged lady- killer, he appeared to be disappointed that he was leaving so soon.

Mr Tybalt returned to his programme. ‘I’ve fixed two lighters to take away your surplus oil fuel this afternoon and there are a couple of railway trucks for your stores to go back to Portsmouth. When you’ve finished loading them, just put a padlock on them and give the keys to me. You’ve been allocated three offices for your refit crew and two stores for your spare gear. I’ve also arranged accommodation for three officers for tonight. Is that enough?’

‘More than enough, sir,’ said Wilfred. ‘Gavin and I are off tonight and so’s the Captain. That only leaves two.’

‘That’s all right then. I’ve got you rooms at the Northern Steam Hotel which is about two hundred yards from the main gate. It’s not what you’d call elegant but it’ll do until you find something more permanent. How about the sailors?’

‘Don’t worry about them,’ The Bodger said. ‘In my experience of sailors you can set them down anywhere and inside half an hour they’re fat and laughing with their feet under the table and their own front door keys! ‘

‘That’s fine then. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to go through the refit programme with you, in case Mr Day and I have forgotten anything.’

Although he had been given so little time to prepare, Mr Tybalt had already settled dates by which the main items of machinery would have been removed from the submarine and had obtained provisional estimates from the firm on when they would be ready to put them back. He had fixed dates for representatives to attend trials and had arranged for the carriage of torpedoes and the supply of fuel. He had even looked up tidal data on suitable days for sea trials. Mr Tybalt’s master plan contained a complete blue-print for the refit, from the initial stripping of portable fittings to the final coat of paint and clean. The Bodger, Broody and the other officers were deeply impressed.

‘I congratulate you,’ The Bodger said. ‘You ought to have been a staff officer.’

Mr Tybalt flushed. ‘I’d call that a left-handed compliment. This is how we’d
like
to do it. It’s a tight programme and there’s absolutely no leeway anywhere. One strike could put the whole thing out. But Mr Day will look after that, eh Happy?’

‘It’s not up to me, I can tell you,’ said Happy Day, bitterly. ‘It’s up to the bloody Unions.’

A workman pulled the wardroom curtain aside and seemed disconcerted to see the meeting inside.

‘What’s up, lad?’ Mr Day asked.

‘I were going to start stripping wardroom, Mr Day.’

‘You can do that. We’re on our way.’

The work of de-storing the ship was already well in hand. The submarine was being systematically gutted. Gangs of sailors carried piles of crockery, boxes of books, bedding, curtains, clocks, barometers and tools out of the submarine and loaded them into the railway trucks. The firm’s joiners had already begun to strip out the furnishings and fittings in the living spaces. The interior of the ship, which had reflected and shaped
Seahorse
’s personality for two years, was being dismantled piecemeal. It was as though the ship had taken a massive emetic before undergoing a major surgical operation.