All The Nice Girls (5 page)

Dagwood turned his attention to the boardroom. It was a long gloomy chamber, a mausoleum in honour of the men who had ruled Harvey McNichol & Drummond’s and of the ships they had built; the room was lined with portraits, all very large, very dark and, at the time they were painted, very expensive. Each picture was fitted with a tiny light above it but none of the lights were switched on and Dagwood could not make out more than the pale blurs of the faces in the sombre backgrounds. By straining his eyes he could just read the small gilt plaques on two of the nearest pictures: ‘Harvey McNichol 1813-1865’ and ‘George Drummond, 1841-1902.’ Glass cabinets were placed on tables along the room containing examples of the ships the firm had built. Dagwood could see a clipper, an early paddle steamer with a tall brass funnel, a dreadnought, a First World War monitor, a destroyer of the ‘30s, a ‘River Class’ submarine, and a range of passenger ships. Dagwood felt a sudden sympathy with the firm; they had a long and famous tradition of ship-building. They had a right to be proud of themselves. It was just that the faces Dagwood could see representing the firm now seemed somehow unworthy; Dagwood had the suspicion that none of them would have satisfied ‘Harvey McNichol, 1813-1865’ nor ‘George Drummond, 1841-1902.’

Dagwood came to as Sir Rollo was winding up his address. ‘ . . . every endeavour therefore must, and will, be made to make this job an undertaking worthy of Harvey McNichol and Drummond’s craftsmen! ‘

There was a simultaneous expulsion of breath, all round the conference room. The Bodger, Dagwood and Ollie were the only people oblivious of the atmosphere. Harvey McNichol & Drummond men sat back in their chairs; they had been given their instructions. Mr Tybalt and his team braced themselves. They too, had received the signal. Mr Tybalt compressed his lips and thrust out his jaw.

There followed a weary discussion on contracts, penalty clauses, delivery dates, costing, overtime bans, and union negotiations. It was all double Dutch to The Bodger. He attempted to follow the arguments but they were mostly beyond him. He could see that Mr Tybalt was obviously battling strenuously on their behalf but felt powerless to help him; it was like watching a man fight a lion behind a sheet of thick glass. It was not until the conference passed to the lists of defects to be made good that the ship’s officers sat up in their chairs and felt that at last they could begin to make a real contribution.

But even here they were superfluous. The refit was to cost what sounded to The Bodger a fantastic sum of money but the defect lists covering the work were dealt with in about forty minutes. Mr Day read out the defect numbers and Harvey McNichol & Drummond men nodded or shook their heads to signify whether or not they would undertake the work. The Bodger was reminded of a high-speed auction, where the proceedings were unintelligible to all save the cognoscenti. Whenever the Harvey McNichol & Drummond men shook their heads, Mr Day and Mr Tybalt exchanged glances of complicity. The reading of the defect list was obviously only a formality; like the marriage ceremony, it authorised in public form an agreement which had been consummated in private some time before. When the conference reached the last and least important list of defects, an exasperated Bodger decided to take a firmer stand.

The list of less important defects, known as the White Defect List, was a list of requests for shelves to be rearranged, for an extra drawer to be fitted, for an awkward step to be removed, or for a cover to be made for a piece of equipment which was always being drenched with sea water. They were almost all small items, designed to make living in the submarine more comfortable for the ship’s company and they were always very dear to a submarine captain’s heart. It was a very pusillanimous submarine captain who did not put up a fight for his White Defect List. The Bodger was sure that on his deathbed Broody would have whispered: ‘Let not my poor White Defect List starve.’

When he discovered that most of the White List was not going to be undertaken, The Bodger let out a roar of indignation which made the whole conference start and look sideways at the end of the table. To tell the truth, they had quite forgotten that the ship’s officers were present.

‘Am I to understand,’ The Bodger demanded, ‘that almost the
whole
of this list is not approved? Without any discussion whatsoever?’

‘Commander,’ Mr Day began, ‘it’s a question of . . .’

‘Might I remind you gentlemen,’ The Bodger breathed heavily down his nose, while Dagwood, remembering the danger signals, grasped firmly the seat of his chair, ‘that this refit has two purposes? The first is the repair and maintenance of the hull and machinery. I don’t profess to know all the technical ramifications of that. There are too many people here who know much more about it than I do. But the second purpose of the refit is to make this ship a better fighting unit and that means making.it more convenient for people who’ve got to fight in it, bearing in mind the experiences of the first commission. And this is something I
do
know about! I was the first Captain to take this very submarine to sea so I know what I’m talking about. Take the first item on the list. Item number one. To fit a screen over the forrard bunk in the sailors’ mess. Now I happen to know who sleeps in that bunk. It’s one of the asdic watch-keepers. You’re going to put a simply splendid asdic set in the boat during this refit. I’ve just heard you say so. But that asdic set has got to be worked by a sailor and what sort of watchkeeper is that sailor going to be if every time he goes off watch he finds his bunk soaked in condensation? The ship’s company were sometimes at sea in that submarine for six weeks at a stretch. How many of you know exactly what that means?’

The conference considered. It was not an aspect of the refit which had ever occurred to them before.

The Bodger glowered down the table. ‘Stand up the man here who’s spent six weeks at sea in a submarine? Any of you?’

The conference sat small in their chairs and looked straight in front of them.

‘Mr Day, have you got a price quoted for this screen?’

‘Why yes, Commander, thirty pounds.’

‘Thirty pounds hissed The Bodger contemptuously, as though Mr Day had quoted thirty pieces of silver. ‘And how much is the new asdic set going to cost?’

‘Well Commander,’ Mr Day glanced uncomfortably at Sir Rollo, ‘this is really a matter for the Admiralty to decide . . . they tell us what they want done ... In any case the exact cost is not final. . .’

‘But it will be several thousands of pounds?’

‘Well, that isn’t. . .’

‘Won’t it?’

‘Yes, Commander.’

Sir Rollo frowned. ‘Somebody show me,’ he said.

Mr Day pointed out the item.

‘Do it.’

‘Sir Rollo, this isn’t included in the price we’ve quoted . . .’

‘Then do it for nothing man!’

The Bodger saw that he had scored a major forensic triumph. He hastened to follow it up. ‘Now take the next item. To fit a cover over the junction box at the end of the Captain’s bunk. Do you know why the last captain put that in? It’s not because he doesn’t like looking at junction boxes. This again is something I know from personal experience. When I slept in that bunk I found that every time I turned over, my big toe caught in the junction box, there was a blinding great blue flash and the gyro compass stopped! Now how about that one! ‘

‘But this is ridiculous,’ said Mr Swales, the Principal Electrical Overseer, peevishly. ‘This defect list is a standard one for all ships of the class. We can’t make exceptions for one ship . . .’

‘I like the way you talk about “all ships of the class”,’ The Bodger said grimly. ‘We’ve only got one of the class at the moment. We’re still waiting for the others.’

Dagwood had not noticed Mr Swales before he drew attention to himself, but once he had looked at him closely Dagwood knew that he had seen Mr Swales many many times before. Mr Swales, pale-faced, spectacled, bald-headed, sat behind a thousand Admiralty office desks, insisting on the correct forms in quintyplicate. Mr Swales’s voice, querulous and dogmatic, spoke over a thousand Admiralty telephones complaining that at least three months’ notice was required before any action could be taken. Mr Swales’s spidery signature endorsed a hundred thousand demand notes returned to their despairing senders because the item was not held in stock. In fact, Dagwood knew Mr Swales very well indeed.

‘It may be true that we’re using a standard list for all ships of the class,’ said Dagwood. ‘But we’re not refitting
all
ships of the class. We’re refitting
this
one. If we don’t make allowances for the individual case of this ship, then most of what’s been said has about as much bearing on H.M.S.
Seahorse
as the eleven thousand monographs written on General Wallenstein since the Thirty Years’ War.’

Mr Swales had opened his mouth to answer when he saw the note Mr Tybalt had pushed in front of him.

‘Whose side are you on?’ the note asked.

Mr Swales sat back, flushed and biting his lips, and said no more. Had Dagwood studied Mr Swales’s face a second time he would have realised that General Wallenstein had made him an enemy.

Mr Swales was not alone in his dislike of General Wallenstein. Sir Rollo regarded Dagwood’s speech as an impertinent intrusion. In spite of Sir Rollo’s hostility, The Bodger’s rhetoric might have won the battle for Broody’s White Defect List. But after General Wallenstein, the day was irretrievably lost.

‘These remaining items will have to be discussed later,’ said Sir Rollo curtly.

After that there was no more to be done except for Sir Rollo to close the meeting, which he did with another speech, a short one, which ended, ‘I repeat, gentlemen, every endeavour therefore must, and will, be made to make this job an undertaking worthy of Harvey McNichol and Drummond craftsmen.’

Mr Tybalt came out of the refit conference wearing the determined look of a man confronted by a soaring mountain which, no matter what the cost, had to be climbed.’

When Dagwood went down to look at
Seahorse
the next morning, he was astonished by the work which had already been done on her. Someone had obviously risen very early that morning and wrenched half her casing away. Long bald patches of the pressure hull were now showing and pipes normally decently covered were exposed to the light, giving the submarine an extraordinarily naked, helpless appearance. A travelling crane was preparing to lift yet another section. Ollie was arguing with a watchman sitting in a little hut by the gangway.

‘I never thought I’d see the day,’ Ollie said to Dagwood. ‘They won’t let me down my own submarine.’ Ollie turned back to the watchman. ‘Look here, this gentleman is the Electrical Officer of this submarine.
He’ll
vouch for me.’

‘Can’t help it, sir. You got to have a pass.’

‘But this is our submarine! We live here!’

‘Got to have a pass, sir.’

‘Oh all right.’

The section of casing was ready to be lifted off. When it was gone, most of the pressure hull aft of the fin would be exposed.

Dagwood was impressed. ‘They’re certainly getting on with it,’ he said. ‘At this rate we shouldn’t have any difficulty in getting out of here on time.’

But Ollie was not so impressionable. ‘It’s easy enough to rip things out. Anybody can do that. It’s putting them back, that’s what counts. That’s the bitter bit. Let’s go back to the office and see if we can get some passes to satisfy old Interpol here.’

‘Not my fault, sir,’ said the watchman doggedly. ‘Got to have a pass.’

‘All right, all right.’

The Chief Stoker was waiting in the office. He had a list of names and several forms.

‘Landlady money, sir,’ he said to Ollie.

‘Have you all got digs?’

‘We’ve got the digs all right, sir. No trouble at all. Now we need some money to pay the landladies. Suspicious lot round these parts, sir.’

The ship’s company had indeed had no trouble at all in getting digs.
Seahorse
’s sailors settled in Oozemouth as though they had been born there. The Chief E.R.A. went to live with a married cousin living in the city. The Chief Stoker was a Murphy and there was a thriving, spawning clan of Murphys in Oozemouth. The Electrical Artificer and the Petty Officer Electrician made the acquaintance of two widows in the lounge bar of the Hotel Metropole and were offered, and accepted, permanent accommodation. Leading Seaman Miles, the senior torpedoman, and Leading Seaman Gorbles, the senior asdic rating, investigated an advertisement in a tobacconist’s shop and found themselves under the care of two unmarried but well-preserved sisters. Able Seaman Quickly and Stoker Gotobed pulled off the most spectacular feat of all, being found digs by the policeman who took them in charge at closing time (that perspicacious officer, who would clearly go far in the Force, tempered justice with financial appreciation by taking the two sailors to his mother-in-law, who was looking for lodgers). For those who could not find lodgings on their own account, there was always the Landlady Book.

‘The Landlady Book!’ Dagwood was charmed with the idea. A book of landladies was as delightful a notion as a medieval book of beasts.

The Landlady Book combined the functions of medieval bestiary, Michelin guide, Citizens’ Advice Bureau and agony column. During the years Harvey McNichol & Drummond had been building ships for the Navy, many thousands of sailors had come to Oozemouth, stayed while their ships were completed, and left again. But they had bequeathed a record of their experiences to their successors. They had very quickly found out which landladies favoured sailors, which were the best cooks, served the largest helpings, were most generous over the rent, and had the prettiest daughters. The Landlady Book held within its covers a Landlady Lore, a legend of landladies, which had been added to, kept up to date over the years, and passed on from ship to ship. Dagwood could see by the earliest dates in the book that the original landladies must have been dead for many years and that the daughters ascribed to them must by now be grandmothers, and probably landladies, themselves. Some of the prices and terms of hiring had an oddly archaic flavour. ‘Mrs Davies,’ Dagwood read, ‘7 days board and lodging with meat sandwiches at mid-day, 17/6d.’ Also Mrs Thoroughgood who ‘would polish shoes and tender to other small needs for no increment of the weekly charge of One Sovereign.’ Amongst the more modern entries Dagwood noted ‘Mrs Hawkins. Grub good, Telly, but no sandwiches. House haunted. Would suit Chief Stoker interested in spirits.’ Dagwood wondered what incredible psychic phenomenon had manifested itself at Mrs Hawkins’. Then there was Mrs Bragg: ‘Husband away, no telly, record player,’ Mrs Stott: ‘Blonde daughter, would like to go steady with respectable sailor with good intentions. Good grub,’ and Miss Emblem-Smith: ‘Prayers after meals, would suit Padre.’