The Cruel Sea (1951) (21 page)

But certainly the trouble was there when they got back home. Absence without leave was sufficiently serious: to miss one’s ship completely was in a higher scale of crime altogether, since if one did so, and the ship was involved in any kind of action, one was liable to a charge of desertion in the face of the enemy as well. Ericson, surveying Able-Seaman Gregg when he was brought up at Captain’s Defaulters, on the morning after their return to harbour, waited with some interest to hear what he had to say. He might conceivably have some legitimate excuse which would disentangle him altogether – though it was hard to see what this could be. Alternatively, there might be something which would lessen the seriousness of the charge. Ericson hoped for this extenuation, since Gregg was a decent kid who had not been in trouble before: otherwise the thing might involve sending him to detention, and he would probably be permanently spoilt.

The crisis broke when Gregg refused to say anything at all.

The evidence on one side was simple: he had left the ship one afternoon, he had missed her when she sailed, he had reported back on board the morning she returned to harbour: the absence without leave for seventeen days was not disputable. But when Ericson asked for an explanation, he was met by a shake of the head, and a muttered ‘Nothing to say, sir,’ which brought him up short.

‘You must have something to say,’ said Ericson sharply. He looked at the small sandy-haired figure in front of him, and tried to analyse the man’s expression. It was not quite apologetic, it was not quite shy, it was certainly not rebellious; it had a sort of submissive determination which was, in the circumstances, rather brave . . . ‘I want to know why you left the ship,’ Ericson went on, ‘and what you’ve been doing while we’ve been at sea. You’ve got to account for yourself – otherwise you’ll be in serious trouble.’

They all stared at Gregg: the Captain, Lockhart, Morell, and Tallow who had marched him up to the table. The expressions on the ring of faces varied: the Captain, as judge, was non-committal, Morell looked puzzled, Lockhart wore his First Lieutenant’s disciplinary frown, and Tallow exhibited the professional disgust of a man who had no patience with defaulters and not the smallest belief in their excuses. In the middle of it all, braving the storm, Able-Seaman Gregg preserved his unblinking air of reserve. ‘When did you last see your father?’ thought Lockhart inconsequently, and frowned yet more determinedly still. This sort of thing was no longer allowed to be funny.

‘Well,’ said Ericson after a pause. ‘I’m waiting.’

‘Nothing to say, sir,’ repeated Gregg in the same flat tone. Tallow drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, and Ericson, hearing it, was somehow reminded of the whole weight of tradition, the machinery of Naval justice, that lay behind this moment. Soon he would have to apply that tradition, balancing the see-saw of crime and punishment, and the idea seemed wasteful and futile, when all it boiled down to was himself and a forlorn able-seaman who would not try to save his own skin.

He wanted to find the real reason that lay behind it, and he wanted to rescue Gregg from a situation which, with the best will in the world, must always be weighted against him. He tried again.

‘That’s just silly,’ he said reasonably. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to cover up, but I shouldn’t think it’s worth it. You know that I can send you to detention for this?’

‘Yes, sir,’ mumbled Gregg.

‘I don’t want to do that, because you haven’t been in trouble before and your divisional officer tells me you’re a good worker. But unless you give me an explanation I haven’t any alternative.’ He paused. ‘How did you come to miss the ship and what have you been doing the last seventeen days?’

There was still no answer. Gregg looked stolidly out in front of him, his eyes just below the level of Ericson’s chin, maintaining the foolish contest of wills which could only have one end. The noises of the ship and the dockside seemed suspended, waiting for the scene to resolve itself. To Lockhart it seemed, fancifully, that this might never happen, that Gregg need never answer, that they might wait there for ever, till they all grew old and the war was over and no one cared any more . . . Perhaps Ericson had something of the same feeling, for he straightened up suddenly and said: ‘Stand over.’

‘Stand over,’ repeated Tallow, with the tiniest edge of doubt in his voice. And then, with more force: ‘On caps!’ he continued automatically. ‘About turn! Quick march!’

When Gregg was out of earshot, Ericson turned to Morell.

‘I’ll see him again tomorrow,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, you’d better have a talk with him and try and find out what it’s all about. I don’t want to send him up without knowing what’s behind it.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Morell.

‘Is he married?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Ask him if there’s anything wrong there . . . Coxswain!’

‘Sir?’

‘Stand Gregg over till tomorrow morning.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

‘Next case.’

But when Morell saw Gregg later that day, down in his cabin, he took a different line. There was less need for formality here, and less occasion for care in what one said: he could treat Gregg as he would have treated a witness in court, a witness who knew something but might have to be wheedled or bullied or tricked into revealing it. With no one listening, and no record to keep, the relationship of officer to rating could be stretched a long way outside the normal pattern.

‘The Captain’s doing his best for you,’ Morell said shortly, when Gregg once more repeated his stubborn, ‘nothing-to-say’ formula. ‘Probably a damned sight more than you deserve, but that’s nothing to do with me. What he’s trying to get at is, what made you suddenly walk ashore and miss the ship. Why won’t you tell him?’

‘I don’t want to say, sir,’ said Gregg, with the same finality as before.

‘You’d rather have a month’s detention?’

Gregg’s expression changed to a sulky frown, but he said nothing.

‘That’s what it would mean, you know,’ Morell went on. ‘It’ll be a black mark against you for the rest of your time in the Navy, it’ll always be there, on your Conduct Sheet.’

‘I’m only in for the war, sir.’

‘Well, how long do you think that’s going to last? You want to get on, don’t you? You don’t want to stay an able-seaman for two or three years more? How can you be recommended for leading-seaman if you do this sort of thing, and then refuse to say anything about it?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘You’d better talk, Gregg.’ Morell changed his tone. ‘What’s it all about? Where did you go to? Did you go home?’

After a pause: ‘Yes, sir,’ said Gregg, swallowing. ‘I went to London.’

‘Well, that’s something . . . Is there anything wrong there?’

‘Not now, sir.’

‘Was there?’

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

The obstinate, blank look returned. ‘I don’t want to say.’

‘You know I won’t repeat it to anyone.’

‘You’ll repeat it to the Captain,’ said Gregg shrewdly.

‘I don’t have to. And that’s only two people, anyway: it won’t go any further.’

Gregg shook his head. He was wavering, but he still could not face whatever it was that filled his mind. ‘It will, if I say it up at the table. It’ll be all over the ship then.’

Morell frowned. ‘What you say at Defaulters
doesn’t
go all over the ship. You know that perfectly well . . . Now let’s get this straight. There was some trouble at home?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘With your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

Gregg gestured, rather pathetically. ‘The usual.’

‘How did you hear about it?’

‘Someone wrote – a pal at home.’

‘And you went off home to try to fix it up?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

No answer.

‘You see what it’s got you into,’ said Morell hardly. ‘What the hell do you think your officers are for, if not to help you when this sort of thing happens?’

‘I didn’t know, sir . . . I wanted it kept a secret.’

‘How can it be a secret, when you’re absent without leave for seventeen days?’

‘But no one knows about it still, sir – only you.’

‘But you’re going to tell the Captain,’ said Morell.

‘I don’t want to do that. I’d rather go to cells, and have done with it.’

‘Don’t be a bloody fool,’ said Morell. ‘I don’t say you’ll get off, but it might make a lot of difference. He’s a human being, you know.’

‘But I can’t tell it all up at the table,’ said Gregg desperately. ‘Not with all of you listening.’

‘We don’t have to be listening. You know you can see the Captain privately, if it’s a family matter, don’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well?’

Gregg came to a sudden decision. ‘I’d like to do that, sir.’

‘Why didn’t you say so this morning?’

‘I didn’t think of it.’

‘You’d have saved yourself a lot of trouble. And been a lot more popular.’ Morell stood up. ‘All right – I’ll arrange for you to see him this afternoon.’

Gregg looked scared. ‘What do I say, sir?’

‘You tell him exactly why you went home, and what happened when you got there.’

‘And it won’t go any further?’

‘No.’

‘And I’ll maybe get off?’

‘I don’t know. Probably not altogether. But it’ll give you a better chance than simply refusing to speak. That can only have one end, can’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Gregg smiled suddenly. ‘Thanks a lot, sir.’

‘There’s nothing to thank me for.’ It was time to return to normal, time to drop the curtain again. ‘You’re not clear yet, not by a long chalk. Now get back to work. I’ll send for you when the Captain wants to see you. And this time, tell him the truth – everything – and don’t waste any more time.’

It was doubtful if Gregg could have brought himself to tell his story, even now, if he had not been coaxed and persuaded up to the very last moment. But Ericson, forewarned by Morell of what was at the heart of the trouble, was at special pains to make it easy for him. With Gregg in his cabin he gave ostentatious orders that he was not to be disturbed: he made him sit down, he gave him a cigarette, and he led off his questions as if taking it for granted that Gregg would have no embarrassment about telling him everything. And when the man still hesitated, sitting on the edge of his chair, stiff and sweating in his number one suit with the gold badges, Ericson suddenly leant forward and said: ‘You’re married, Gregg, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Did you go home to see your wife?’

Gregg’s eyes flickered upwards once, and then down again. His voice was not much above a whisper. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’d better tell me about it,’ said Ericson. ‘You want to tell somebody, don’t you? – apart from the trouble you’re in over it?’

He looked away as the other man struggled to answer. But the lead was enough, the balance was tipped: now at last, up in the quiet cabin, with the sun filtering through the porthole and the muted sound of water running against the hull, Gregg told his appalling story.

It had begun with a letter, waiting for him when
Compass Rose
got back from her last trip; a letter from a pal:

Dear Tom
[it said],
Of course it’s none of my business, but I’ve been up and down the old street once or twice, thinking of calling on Edith and asking how you’re getting along, and then I haven’t liked to go in because she’s got company already. Dear Tom, there’s a lot of talk about it, a car outside the house at all hours, they say he’s a traveller for one of the big firms. I seen him once saying goodbye, they were laughing. I didn’t like it, Tom, I thought I’d write and tell you. If I done wrong I’m sorry, you know me, always putting my foot in it. Keep cheerful, you better ask for a bit of leave and straighten it up, it all comes of these chaps being in a reserved bloody occupation, shooting’s too good for some, yours till the cows come home.

‘I had to go, sir,’ said Gregg, twisting his hands together. At that moment there was more than certainty in his voice: something like defiance. ‘I had to go, straight away. When you get a letter like that . . . I wasn’t due for leave even next time it came round, and that was three weeks ahead. I had to see what was going on. We’ve only been married six months.’

And so he had gone, without a word to anyone, that same afternoon: slipping ashore with the liberty men, catching the last London train from Lime Street station, arriving about eleven at night, getting the bus out to Highgate.

‘What happened then?’ asked Ericson, when the pause had stretched to unbearable limits.

‘It’s a little house, sir,’ said Gregg, ‘a nice little house. It used to be my mother’s – she left it to me. When I walked up from the bus stop, it was just like the letter said.’ The defiance was gone now, swallowed up in misery: he was reliving the horrible moment. ‘When I got to the house, the car was outside the door, and – and there was a light on upstairs.’

Gregg paused, and frowned: the imprint of emotion on the smooth round face was very moving. ‘See what I mean, sir? Downstairs, it was dark.’