sea was to the men an affront.
The destroyers that were protecting them seemed to be everywhere, in a different position every time they looked, in front, behind, alongside, their guns slanting down, their searchlights ready to switch on if a submarine were spotted. On their own ship there were guns on the top deck, and anti-submarine guns and waiting searchlights.
Rupert Fitch said they were going east now; they were back on course for Freetown. And for danger, for subs lurked at the entrances to Freetown harbour. James sat with his eyes closed, imagining how the U-boats were moving about down there. He was thinking, If they get us now, if we sink, if I die, then I’ll not have found my girl, the one meant for me. I’ll never have known real love. He remembered the farmer’s daughter in Northumberland and tried to persuade himself that had been love, and that she was dreaming of him. But, if the U-boat got them, it was love that would be extinguished. I lis love. ‘Do you have a girl?’ he asked Rupert Fitch, who replied, yes, he was engaged to marry, and showed photographs of his girl: he knew she would wait for him.
Then, at last, the ship that was blistering with heat, its camouflage paint fading, was sliding towards Freetown, and every soul on board listened for the thud of a torpedo. But they made it, they got safely in. The soldiers were not granted shore leave but they watched batches of officers going ashore, and then containers of food, and above all, of water, coming aboard, borne by bare-footed blacks in clothes not far off rags. Water. Inexhaustible water from the taps and in barrels standing on the deck. They drank, could not stop drinking, and some, trying not to be seen, poured this fresh water over their heads, or their sore and blistering bodies, and, particularly, hot and inflamed crotches that did not like sea water at all. Two days in Freetown. The food was at once lighter, better, with chicken and fish; and fruit arrived with every meal. They ate this fruit they had not heard of, many of them, let alone seen, as if they had been craving pawpaws and pineapples and melons and plantains, and not pears and apples. Some bad stomachs resulted.
And now they would run the gauntlet again: they were leaving Freetown and would be on their last leg, the thousands of miles still to go, to Cape Town.
The former Bristol Castle, in her coat of blights and blotches, slid out with a destroyer in front and one behind. Now the soldiers could see the crowds of white-clad men - ‘They’re navy types, they’re used to it,’- on the decks under the guns. Salutes back and forth, and melancholy hoots of greeting. Then the destroyers were on either side. Not to anyone’s surprise, the ship was going west again. This was to fool the U-boats who would expect them on a southerly route. ‘But,’ said the soldiers, ‘wouldn’t they expect a double bluff - us going south?’ ‘There are probably U-boats in both sea lanes.’ If you could call this tossing and tumbling grey-blue waste of water that was empty in front of them, all the way to South America, with rapidly-retreating Africa at their backs, something able to accommodate even the idea of sea ways, sea paths, sea lanes, routes.
So they jested, these soldiers, up and down the ship, in their many voices and accents, staring out, ready to spot a periscope, the emerging dark shape of a U-boat, the dark running shape of a torpedo coming towards them. They joked because the plenitudes and safety of Freetown were still in them, but it was hot, it was so very hot, and soon they were in the same state as before, filling the decks that were sun-lanced under awnings that went up everywhere, reed matting taken aboard at Freetown. And then it was night, their saviour. Through the long angry hot hours they thought of the night to come, moonlit or dark, it was the same to them, just the beneficent cool of it. Or rather, cooler, not the chill they longed for, but at least not the misery of the day. They still went west. The soldiers felt better going south, their proper direction, faster, they would get there sooner. Heading west it was into the unknown, to Rio de Janeiro, was it? Buenos Aires? They tried to joke, but then joking was over, because the sea rose up again, not heaving and rolling but rearing in explosions of foam, battering the ship’s sides. At once Rupert Fitch succumbed. His fair skin, well flecked with freckles, disappeared under blisters, and his temperature shot up. He was escorted up to the doctors. James was left lonely, as well as sick and hot. ‘That’s it, I won’t see him again, I suppose.’
No soldiers were left in hell-holds now. They were on deck. The sergeants, those who could stand. Sergeant Perkins among them, had made their way to the top of the ship, found their officers, made urgent requests. A couple of officers came down, saw the deck so crammed with hundreds of men that it was not possible to step between them; the order went forth that a suitable number - it would have to be hundreds, to make the difference - would go up to the deck above, which housed the sergeants and some junior officers. James was one who moved up, with his platoon. There they saw the sergeants’ cramped conditions, eight in the space for two, but they had bunks, at least they could He on something hard that wasn’t the deck: they didn’t have to fight with hammocks, and they had open portholes.
To preserve proper order, and niceties of the hierarchy, the starboard side was for the sergeants and young office re, port was for Other Ranks. In the mornings port got the sun, in the afternoons, starboard. Not that it made such difference. Still they sailed west, the destroyers moving around them, but hardly visible now because of the waves. And then there was a storm. The soldiers were informed this was a storm, but they could not have said there was a difference between the pounding roughness of before and now. Sergeant Perkins came down to tell them, ‘Cheer up, a ship this size has never been sunk by the weather.’ So that left U-boats.
Hundreds of men lay on the decks, burning up with heat, and heaved, and retched, needing to be sick, but they were not eating. In the mornings they were ordered to their feet, and crowded to the rails, holding on to them and to each other, while a unit of the lucky ones who were not sick hosed down the decks, and they shrank back from the stinging sea water. And at once they lay down or, rather, collapsed.
Water was short again. From this they deduced that it had not been planned that they should take such a long detour west. And that meant they were taking a detour to avoid something. So they were being dogged by a U-boat or by more than one. They were thirsty. Oddly, though it was so hot, some shivered, while they burned: heat stroke, and up they went to the sickbays.
To endure the unendurable, what that needs is to cling to time, which must pass: another hour, another, another, no I can’t, no I won’t, I simply cannot bear it, no one could, the pounding knocking headache, as if a load of dirty water were loose in your skull, the nausea, the aching bones, the stinging skin. Some men bled from raw skins and bursting blisters - up they went. Squads appeared twice a day, to locate the worst sufferers, but the ship was swinging so that they could hardly keep on their feet, but staggered among the men cramming the decks, or held to a rail, trying to see from there who was bad. Bruises and blisters were easy to see, but there were broken bones.
Day after day; night after night. And then they noticed - someone did, and the word went around - that they were going south-east. Long ago - so it seemed - the misery had been absorbed into the hopelessness of the long suffering. Why should this end? If it has gone on as long as this, then it may go on for ever. Going east, were they? Then what was to stop the boat turning again to go west? No, they didn’t trust good news.
It was becoming noticeable that the sun did not strike down so hard and direct. It was not so hot. The storm was past, so they were told, but they still swung and rolled. And then, while they could hardly stand, they were ordered on to their feet. Drilling was out of the question, but they were going to present themselves in Cape Town at least shaved and in clean clothes. The barbers again sat in rows on the lower decks, deep cans of fresh water sloshing between their knees, and they shaved whoever came forward. Some refused: their faces were too raw. There was no man who did not wince as the steel touched burned skin.
The order was that the rationing of fresh water for drinking was over. Clearly, a longer time of dodging about the Atlantic had been envisaged, and the water had been saved for that. Nothing that these men had heard for
