crying shame. ‘We’d be prosecuted if we kept animals in those conditions, sir.’
When badly seasick, as most of us may remember, death seems preferable to even another ten minutes of this misery - death even by U-boat, some of these men might have agreed. And then, just as Sergeant Perkins had promised, the sea was calm, and men were slowly coming to themselves, sitting up, trying to stand, staggering to the rails and seeing the sea properly, possibly for the first time since they embarked. It was now a quiet grey-silk sea, flecked occasionally with white, and under a blue sky frilled with white cloud.
Corporal Clark sat up. Sergeant Perkins appeared; a squad detailed to restore order was hosing down the decks, and if soldiers’ legs were in the way, that was too bad.
Water was certainly what they needed. They and their uniforms were filthy. Off with their clothes, and lines of naked men moved up to where they were issued with soap that would lather in sea water, were told to put on their hot weather uniforms, and deposit their dirty ones in a heap to be washed. Soon piles, each many yards high, rose on the deck, and another squad was bearing them off, to be washed.
On every deck lines of barbers - which is what they had been in civvy street - stood behind chairs where the men came to be shaved and have their hair trimmed.
On decks newly scrubbed men who a few hours ago could hardly sit up, were put through their drills by sergeants who, most of them, had been as sick. Well, almost: their ventilation was better. Then, back to their quarters which had been hosed, swabbed, and now smelled of soap. There was food. Tender stomachs sulked at the hunks of bread, margarine-smeared, the stew, the rice pudding. James ate a little; the farmer’s son more; no one did well. They were all tired.
Up on the higher decks similar ablutions and tidyings went on. The highest deck had a swimming pool, and there the officers - so they knew, Sergeant Perkins had told them - in relays of twenty were in the water - salt - and then out at once to let in the next twenty.
The Captain and the senior officers went to bed every night fully dressed, with their boots ready beside them.
The sergeants and some lieutenants were m cabins designed for two but fitted for eight, four bunks on each side.
Some senior officers were four or six in cabins meant for two. But of course the cabins up there were bigger.
‘And before you say it I’ll say it for you,’ said Sergeant Perkins.
‘Life’s a bugger. Hut no one on this ship is on a luxury cruise. Right? Right. Now, form fours.’
Well out of the Bay of Biscay, they were on their way to Freetown, that ancient si ave-trading port, now prospering out of the ships that went to refuel, restock. But Rupert Fitch told James they were not heading south, but west. ‘Look at the sun.’ Other farmers’ boys were telling town boys ‘Look at the sun.’ This spread unease throughout the ship. Were they not going to Cape Town, then? Or Freetown?
And then, it was hot. Men who had known only English summers, with their rare really hot days, were sweating and ill with heat. Not enough shade on E Deck for the hundreds of men, lying, sitting, or even standing, and there were already cases of sunstroke. Sergeant ‘Ginger’ Perkins, with his fair skin, was scarlet when he addressed them, his neck and arms mottled with heat rash, ‘Too hot to drill, lads. Just take it easy. And don’t get carried away with your water ration - it’s running short.’
Fresh water, short; but all that sea water lapping and rippling down there. A few men, ignorant, tempted, let down their mess tins and brought up sea water, and while admonished by Corporal Clark, drank. They were sick. The staterooms set aside for sick rooms were filling. It was known that some of the officers on the second level of the ship, U Deck, had had to double up again.
When the men changed their uniforms for those washed in sea water, they found that their sweat, enhanced by the salt in the cloth, stung, and the stuff of their shorts and shirts chafed them.
The ship was still going west, Rupert Fitch stood at the rail. He watched how the sun moved, as he had done all his life, how its path on the glittering sea changed, and said that now they were headed south-west.
It was too hot to eat. They wanted only to drink, but a second warning came from above, about using restraint until they reached port.
‘Cheer up, lads,’ said Sergeant Perkins. ‘There’ll be water a-plenty in Freetown. And fruit. There’ll be fruit. We could do with a bit of that, we’ll be eating like kings. What do you say?’
They were saying very little.
Awnings were fitted up all along E Deck and there was a thin hot shade, where men with sun-reddened skins sat or lay dreaming of water gushing from taps, of pools, ponds, streams, rivers; looking, when the dazzle allowed, with eyes used to gentler light, on to the ocean that was calm and seemed to oil and slide, beaten flat by the sun. Shoals of porpoises and dolphins could have entertained them were they not so hot and thinking of U-boats. Flying fishes leaped, and hit the sides of the ship and slid back down into the sea, dead or not, or a high-flier assisted by a breeze landed on the deck among the men, who threw it back.
Harold Murray, the cut-price clothes salesman, rose from the deck, and stalked unsteadily to the ladder going up. He climbed, while Corporal Clark, shouting at him, clambered after bun; then another ladder, while the stout man (not quite so stout now) puffed and strained to keep up. Harold Murray reached B Deck, where he saluted a surprised Commander Birch, and said politely. ‘l’m fed up, I am. I’ve ‘ad it up to ‘ere. I’m going ‘ome’ He was taken to join the madmen.
Every day the men lined up for their salt-water douches, which now fell stinging on reddened skins, some of which were breaking into blisters. Newly shaved faces burned.
The heavy food, bowls of stew, reconstituted soup, scrambled eggs from dried egg powder, the milk puddings, was hardly touched, at mealtime after mealtime.
James sat with his back to the wall of the ship, Rupert Fitch beside him, looked at the sea and believed that each porpoise or dolphin was a U-boat. Every man on the ship well enough stared at the sea and saw U-boats. In those days, submarines had to come up into the air: now they may circle the globe with their load of weapons and never surface. Then … ‘Look,’ a man would shout, ‘look there - a periscope, sir. “No, that’s a fish.’ Fish there were, the ship was moving through a sea of fish. The ship spewed out its rubbish and the unconsumed food, and the waters behind rioted with competing fish of all sizes, while above seabirds screamed and squawked and mewed, diving to snatch booty from the leaping and mouthing fish. A spectacle. All the decks at the stern were crowded with men well enough to enjoy it, mostly the ship’s officers, whose apparent immunity to the sufferings by sun and
