WW III

adrenaline level necessary for any kind of sustained battle.

William Spence had heard but seen little of R-1’s action against the trawlers. Apart from the bridge-wing lookouts, no one was permitted on ship’s decks, the 115-millimeter gun and the Australian IKARA SUBROCS going off along with the Limbo depth-charge mortar unloading its deadly ordnance off the stern of the seven-thousand-ton ship. The Bristol-class destroyer, her twin funnels astern behind the rotary bar radar her telltale markings, had fired her 115-millimeter at two of the trawlers, but her angle in the close pack of the convoy prevented her from launching torpedoes. After the sinking of the Russian-manned trawlers, the men who did not have their stations overlooking the well deck and so had not see the carnage of broken bodies adrift in the icy waters of the Atlantic were the only ones who were hungry. But the cook, a chief petty officer, assured William Spence that later that night, when the others’ shock of seeing their first “dead men” wore off, they would be ravenous— especially if the big fish came.

William Spence didn’t get the connection.

“Torpedo attack,” explained the cook. “Night’s still the worst time — fancy radar or no. And if that happens, it’ll be bloody mayhem, laddie. Ship darkened. CIC dimmed — so you make sure you’ve piles of boxed sandwiches, and keep those thermos cups bunched, ready to go in the elastic basket. We go into search or evasive pattern, this tub’ll be swinging from starboard to port, port to starboard so fast, it’ll make your head spin. And it’ll last hours. And no onions or garlic. Old man’ll go spare— can’t abide ‘em.”

“Hardly haute cuisine, Chief,” said Spence. The cook had seen many a recruit come and go, but there was something more likable about Spence than most — perhaps it was his unabashed naivete, an eagerness that assumed the best in everyone he met, and the cherubic face that was in stark contrast with the salt-leathered scowls he got at times in the mess. Not all of them, like Johnson, who was peeling spuds for the freezer, were volunteers like Spence.

“And that Yank bloke we have aboard,” said the cook. “NATO liaison fella. No Marmite for him. They don’t understand it.”

“Can’t say I’m mad about it myself,” smiled Spence.

“Ah,” said Johnson, “puts hair on your chest. Right, Chiefie? Iron in the old pecker,” said Johnson. “Cock stiffener.”

Spence blushed. The cook said nothing — they were sending him choirboys, they were, all keen and woefully inexperienced in the ways of the world — but unlike some of his ilk, the chief cook aboard HMS Peregrine took no delight in watching the transition from recruit to leading seaman.

“Never mind him,” said the cook, pushing the big thirty-two-once jar of black beef extract spread toward Spence. “Just don’t put it on till you’ve made all the other sandwiches. Most crew don’t like it when it’s been sitting around too—”

“Action stations!”

The cook’s voice was drowned out as the sound of the alarm and men running, grabbing life jackets, asbestos balaclavas, and gloves, thumped quickly through the guided missile destroyer. In an instant the high whine of abrupt start-stop electric motors could be heard bringing weapons into line with radar guidance. Peregrine heeled sharply to starboard at thirty knots, the flare of her bows lost in a gossamer of spray, phosphorescent with plankton. William Spence could hear the sudden dump! dump! dump! of the 155-millimeter — and then the hard-running-faucet sound of the IKARA torpedo-missile, Peregrine turning so violently to port that coffee spat out of the hot twin Silex pots that had been shoved hard against their metal guards.

“A sub,” said Johnson, either very brave or feigning indifference.

“Yes,” said the cook, “a sub, and you’d better get on with it. Soon as you’ve finished with that lot, you can put them in the freezer, give Spence here a hand with the sandwiches.” Johnson was getting mad as he was forced to hold hard on to the sink as the ship rose, bucked hard astarboard, and fell through a belly-wrenching slide into a deep trough. “Only the British bloody navy would have you peeling potatoes. On the Yank boats…”

“Ships,” corrected Spence good-naturedly, more in the way one might help a friend rather than criticize.

“Quite right, lad,” said the chef. “Ship.”

“Ship, shit, what’s the difference? We aren’t sailors. I didn’t join up to peel—”

The Peregrine now bashed its way through a wave, the heavy spray like fine rain above them, the second escort a lump against moon-tinted sea a quarter mile to port.

“ ‘S’-pattern,” said Spence.

But the chef was looking at Johnson, handing him back the scraper he’d dropped in the heavy, sharp roll. “That’s where you’re wrong, Johnson. We are sailors. Without food, lad, this ship can’t function.” He handed Johnson another potato. “All right then?”

Johnson grunted.

“Besides,” continued the cook, “if you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined.”

“I didn’t,” said Johnson, his tone turning surly. “It was either this or a year in the nick.”

“What for?” asked the cook. Spence was amazed; he’d never actually seen a real live criminal before, let alone worked next to one.

“I found some silver,” said Johnson defiantly.

“Where?” asked the cook.

“In a house. Where else?”

“What’s done is done,” said the cook, unscrewing a peanut butter jar, face going red. “Just so long as we don’t have any silver missing around here. Because—” continued the cook, handing the jar to Spence, “if we find anything missing, we’ll cut your bloody twinkie off. Like one of them ayatollahs. Right, Spence?”

Spence didn’t know what to say.

“Well it doesn’t matter anyway, does it?” Johnson continued, unrepentant, swinging the french fry cutter toward him. “I mean we’re all for Davy Jones.” He saw Spence’s alarm and smiled. “Yeah, that’s right, mate. Food for the fucking fishes, we are. What flamin’ chance ‘ave we got next to one of them Russian subs? You answer me that.” The ship was slowing down, the bell signaling end-of-action and standby stations.

“See?” said Johnson, waving his peeler in the general direction of the combat information center in the heart of the ship. “They don’t know what’s fucking going on.”

“Probably just a drill,” said the cook.

Johnson tossed another potato into the bucket. “You know how many miles we’ve got to go yet?” he asked them ominously.

“Next couple of days,” said William, “the Americans will take over. Midway point.”

“Oh,” said Johnson. “I see. Once the Yanks take over, we’ll be all right. Don’t you know we’ll be taking their convoy back?”

Spence didn’t reply — Johnson seemed so jaded about everything that no matter what you said, he’d pick fault with it.

“You married, Spence?” asked Johnson.

“No, I’m not actually.”

“Well, actually,” said Johnson, “it’s just as well. No widow.” The cook shifted off the safety sleeve on the automatic meat slicer, then swung it around, Johnson’s grooved face distorted in its shining surface.

“Stow it!” said the cook. He was the boss of the galley and preferred informal rules, despite the British navy’s long tradition of tar and feathers, but when yobbos like Johnson started upsetting people unnecessarily, then he was prepared to pull rank. For a second Johnson said nothing, and in the uneasy silence the cook thought of his wife and two children, teenagers, in Portsmouth — and ruminated on the fact of how things had changed. Oh, there’d always been the shipboard whiners like Johnson as long as he’d been in the navy, but he couldn’t have imagined a rating daring to speak with such a defeatist streak in him since the first day out. Fortunately, for every Johnson out there, he hoped — believed — there were two or three Spences, otherwise it was going to be a long, grumpy business in Peregrine’s crew’s mess.

It wasn’t only Johnson that he wondered about. With NATO there were foreigners you had to cater to — a Yank or two at the table — usually one would like his meat rare — and a sprinkling of Scandinavians, all blond and looking as if they had just been skiing. And there were Dutch hippies who smoked a lot—”not always tobacco, mate”—and had everybody wondering whether, when push came to shove, they’d be up to it. “Democratic disease,