Send a Gunboat (1960) (3 page)

Rolfe walked slowly to the edge of the dock and looked down at the little ship beneath him.

H.M. China River Gunboat
Wagtail
was typical of her class and type, of which she alone remained. Built of the best materials, at the height of Britain’s overseas power, she had been shipped across from Southampton in sections, and re-erected under the watchful supervision of the naval shipwrights. Her main duty had been to protect and watch over the vast winding trade routes on the Yangtse, helping to foster the growth of the mighty chain of commerce and wealth from China to the ports of the world.

To manœuvre and navigate her one hundred and fifty feet through and across the treacherous mud banks which lurked round every curve of the wide river, she had been so designed that her hull was flat bottomed, and all her accommodation was built up above the main deck, rather in the style of the old Mississippi River steamers. Ungainly in appearance, perhaps, but she only drew a foot and a half of water, and it was said that she could sail on wet grass. Her twin screws were carefully mounted in tunnels, so that they were constantly protected from the bumps and bangs of sandbanks and wreckage alike.

All this Rolfe already knew, yet as he stared down at the high,
box-like superstructure and spindly funnel, his first feeling of complete despair was eased slightly by the professional interest which was always at the back of his thoughts.

A few seamen moved about the well-worn teak decks, apparently loading stores, and an elderly Lieutenant was pacing back and forth across the seclusion of the top deck, known in these craft as the Battery Deck, because it was here that the only armament worth mentioning was mounted.

Rolfe climbed carefully down the steep rickety brow, and eventually found himself on the Main Deck, which after a frigate, or practically any other warship for that matter, seemed minute, and as he glanced round at the heavy burnished brass-work, and old-fashioned gratings, he decided that to describe it as antique, would not be unfair.

A smart seaman saluted, and then stood looking at him, somewhat at a loss. Of the Lieutenant there was no sign, yet he could not have failed to see him come aboard. A slight feeling of irritation made him snap, “Where’s the Duty Officer?”

A silence had fallen over the ship, and from the corner of his eye he saw various quick movements, as members of the crew took quick glances at their new Captain.

“I’ll get ’im, sir,” answered the seaman readily, “I think ’e’s on the Battery Deck.”

I know, I saw him, Rolfe wanted to say, this point suddenly becoming important in his aching mind. But he merely nodded to the seaman, and walked to the side, gripping the guard-rail until his knuckles gleamed white in the tanned flesh.

He stared unseeingly at the scum-coated water in the bottom of the dock, wondering what had happened to himself, why he let these small matters grow to ridiculous proportions in his thoughts. Perhaps it was the heat. If only he could trust himself to take a drink. Just one. He shook his head savagely, and turned to stare at the heavy brass bell hanging by the gangway. The inscription of the ship’s name had all but been polished away, but the commissioning date, 1924, was still apparent.

So we were both born in the same year. He traced the engraving with his finger, concentrating his whole will on the worn figures, which seemed to dance before his eyes.

Above his head, on the sweltering Battery Deck, Lieutenant
Albert Fallow received the Quartermaster’s news with outward calm. But as the man hurried away, he felt his usual twinge of uneasiness which pestered him on every occasion that he was required to make some decision, no matter how small.

He was a big man, his heavy body running to fat, a round protruding belly rucking up the front of his jacket, which was patchy with sweat from his lonely pacing on the unsheltered deck.

His thick, red face, with loose, pendulous lips, and a swollen, purple-tinted nose, was considered fearsome by the Chinese seamen, and their British counterparts, but the deepset, brown eyes which moved constantly and restlessly in his ugly face, belied the impression of ponderous power and calm dignity, and showed only nervousness and worry.

He had been in the Service all his remembered life, being forced into a boy’s training establishment by a heartless guardian, who thought that all orphans should be so punished for the inconvenience they brought to others.

He was a quiet, simple person, and soon shocked and frightened by the cruel heartlessness of life on the lower deck, his fear making him blind to the small acts of kindness which were usually hidden and blanketed by profanity and bullying.

If only as a means of escape, he had started to study for promotion, no small effort for one so slow moving, and despite the jeers of his messmates, and the open scorn of his Petty Officers, he had struggled painfully upwards. Leading Seaman brought him some measure of relief, but the small responsibility almost pushed him from his set course, and so eager was he to make a success of the position, he was mistakenly labelled a “crawler” and an “officer’s pet”. The real fact was, that the officers hardly knew he existed.

And then Mary had come into his lonely life. He had met her at the Southsea cigarette shop where she worked. Little, pale, trusting Mary, or so he had imagined. But behind her weakness, was a grim determination, a driving force which he was soon to appreciate. They were married, and as her letters followed him around the world, he no longer felt alone. The letters advised, guided, cajoled, and bullied, but always for the better, and as he passed his Petty Officer’s examination, Mary’s watchful eye hovered from the examination-room wall.

Chief Petty Officer had been their goal. He reached it and was content. But when certain reliable men were selected for Warrant rank, and later for Senior Commissioned Bosuns, Albert Fallow had found himself dragged unwillingly upwards. This was another life, and he had to start learning all over again.

It had been fine at the start, with Mary patting his uniform with its two gleaming stripes, and showing him off to the neighbours, and it had been exciting to receive letters addressed “Lieutenant”, but then it ended, and he had suddenly found that the security of the messdecks which he had fought and beaten, was no longer his, and the new, devastating responsibility was twisting his insides into a hopeless funk.

He peered blindly round the deck, opening and closing his meaty hands. This should have been a proud moment. First Lieutenant of a ship, and it had certainly been better than his experiences in his first wardrooms, where the regular officers, with their snooty behaviour, and ill-disguised contempt for a lower deck man, had made him hide within a flushing silence; here at least he was practically alone, and he lavished all his old love and attention on the little
Wagtail
.

Since the gunboat had been suffering the indignities of a prolonged overhaul in the dockyard, he had become more of a caretaker than the acting Officer-in-Charge. The previous captain had been promoted, and had been flown home, and the only other officer, Lieutenant Vincent, the Boarding Officer and Interpreter, spent most of his time attending parties at Government House.

Fallow hated Vincent. To him he was the personification of all the “stuck-up, toffee-nosed” so-called officers he had ever served with, or under.

But he was prepared to put up, even with him, if he could just end the last three months of his naval service in comparative comfort, secure from the doings and goings of the real navy.

Now this had happened. Since receiving the signal about the new Captain, he had always thought of it as “this”. Gone was the comfort of the pleasant, dull routine of cleaning ship, polishing brass, and sitting alone at nights in the little wardroom writing to Mary, or studying the gardening catalogues which she sent him every month, ready for their new bungalow at Southsea.

The new Captain meant that the tired old gunboat was to be
dragged out for service again, to do God knows what. A Captain who had been court-martialled too. It would mean that he would be twice as finicky and particular about everything, in order to clear his yard-arm with the Admiralty.

Fallow groaned inwardly, and dragged himself towards the ladder.

As his shadow flitted down ahead of him, Rolfe turned and waited while the big man saluted and cleared his throat.

“Lieutenant Fallow, sir,” he announced huskily. “Welcome aboard.”

They shook hands, and Rolfe started issuing instructions pertaining to the speeded repairs and overhaul. As he spoke, he was thinking, you poor ugly bastard, I expect you’re wondering what sort of a useless article has been foisted on you for a Captain!

He heard Fallow saying something in reply, and tried to appear attentive, when his whole body was crying out to be left alone in peace.

“I’ve ’ad your cabin all done out, sir. You’ve got a good Chink boy as steward, an’ I think you’ll be very comfortable.”

Rolfe nodded, forcing himself to answer. “I’d like you to show me round the ship first.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” For a moment, a brief gleam of pleasure showed in the dog-like eyes. “She’s a grand old ship, sir,” he added defensively.

They started off, their caps brushing against the taut awnings. Each time they passed under a gap in the white canvas, the sun smote them on the shoulders like the bars of a furnace.

The flat, broad hull was so shallow, that it only contained the engine spaces, now cool and silent, and the various storerooms and magazine, except for one dark space right aft, with barely four and a half feet of headroom, littered with narrow bunks and scrubbed tables, and labelled “Natives Quarters.”

Rolfe raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“Er, they’re the Chinese crews’ messes,” explained Fallow, mopping his streaming face. “Bit small for us, sir, but they’re mostly little chaps you see.”

“They’d have to be!” observed Rolfe dryly.

He was glad to get to the Main Deck again, away from the
musty smell of those cramped quarters. The main bulk of the vessel’s accommodation was built in one long, white-painted box, which ran along most of the deck, starting with the two officers’ quarters, right forward under the wheelhouse, and then the wardroom, Petty Officers’ Mess, sick bay, pantry and other little, cupboard-like spaces. Wide scuttles and windows opened out each side onto the side decks, and he saw that most of the cabins contained large, slow-spinning fans.

He paused, staring at a long, elaborately carved teak rack, containing a stand of gleaming pikes.

“Boardin’ pikes, sir. They’ve always been in the ship, I suppose they were useful at one time!”

Rolfe shook his head wonderingly. This wasn’t the navy any more, it was a museum, a relic of a bygone age. Somebody at the Admiralty must have smiled when he wrote out this appointment for him.

They climbed wearily up the ladder to the top deck, and Rolfe felt the heat coursing up through the soles of his shoes.

One lump of superstructure dominated the front of the deck, it included a roomy wheelhouse and W/T office, but the whole of the rear was divided up into the Captain’s quarters. Port side for a sleeping cabin, and starboard for a day cabin. Rolfe refused to allow himself even a glance inside. He knew it would be fatal.

“Er, lead on,” he muttered.

He followed Fallow up the last ladder to the open space above the wheelhouse. Although Fallow referred to it as the Upper Bridge, and it did in fact contain a compass and two voice pipes, it was dominated by a long muzzled six-pounder gun.

Fallow leaned on it, panting. “The main armament, sir,” he gasped.

Rolfe stood for a moment, sheltering under the strip of canvas, and looking aft over his new command from this strange, lofty perch. The tall, thin funnel shimmered in a fine haze, and he stared with narrowed eyes at another small gun at the after end of the Battery Deck.

“That’s an Oerlikon gun, sir. They put it there to replace the old 3.7 Howitzer that these boats used to carry for peppering the banks of the Yangtse, when things got a bit hot-like!” He watched Rolfe’s face anxiously.

“Is this the only armament we’ve got?” He already knew the answer.

“Yes, sir. ‘Cept for rifles, and a couple of Vickers guns!”

Rolfe ran his eye up to the ship’s blunt bow. Ugly she was, but she was as clean as any yacht. What sort of people lived and worked aboard her? he wondered.

“What’s the state of the ship’s company?” he asked at length.

“We got three Chief Petty Officers,” he ticked them off on his thick fingers. “That’s the Chief Gunner’s Mate, the Chief Engineer, and the Buffer, er, I mean the Chief Bosun’s Mate, sir. Then we’ve got six British ratings, which includes the Signalman, W/T operator, Quartermasters, and Gunlayer. They all live in a little mess abaft the sick bay, sir, not with the Chinks.”

“And how many, er, Chinks have we?”

“Twenty, sir. Mostly seamen, if you can call ’em that, and stokers. But we ’ave got three good stewards too!” he added, as if that exonerated the others.

“Thirty-two of us jammed into this.” Rolfe spoke half to himself. “Well, I suppose we’ll live!”

“It’s not so bad under way, sir, when we get away from all this,” Fallow waved his arm vaguely. “It seems cooler then,” he added inconsequently.

“You’re very fond of the ship, aren’t you, Number One?” It seemed strange to address him as that, he’d look more at home in a C.P.O.’s uniform, he thought.

Fallow grinned nervously. “She’s been good to me, sir.”

Rolfe stared at him for a moment, then started for the ladder. “I think I’ll go to my quarters, and freshen up.” He raised his hand quickly, “No, don’t bother to show me, I know the way now. By the way, what time will Lieutenant Vincent be coming aboard?”

“S’evenin’, sir.” Fallow’s eyes were watchful again. “Would you like to come down to the wardroom for a drink now, sir?”

Rolfe tensed. “No thank you,” he snapped, but at the sight of the hurt look in the other man’s eyes, he added hastily, “I’ll come down later. We’ve a lot to go over together.”

He was practically down the ladder, when Fallow plucked up enough courage to ask the question which had troubled him severely since “this” had happened.