Free Sunset by Douglas Reeman Page B

instead.
    Calvert raised his face again to the sunshine and Kerr thought he could see a cluster of scars through his beard; then he slipped out of his duffle coat. Beneath it he wore a blue battledress blouse, what the navy called ‘working rig’. His pilot’s wings were above the left pocket, but as it was working dress no decorations were ever worn with it. Was that why he clung to this old uniform? So that the V.C. would remain something private?
    Since Calvert’s arrival at Scapa, Kerr had made a point of checking up on the award and the act of valour for which he had received it in the records at naval H.Q., and when he considered his findings he understood the expression he had seen on Calvert’s face when the solitary Swordfish had flown slowly across the swirling currents of the Flow. The two battle-cruisers
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
had already made a name for themselves throughout the Norwegian and North Atlantic campaigns. Fast and powerful, they had been the cream of the
Kriegs-Flotten
.
    Kerr had wondered what it must have been like for Calvert and his two-man crew, first sighting the two great ships and then being able to communicate their discovery to their carrier only with an Aldis lamp. But it had already been too late, and the carrier along with the
Courageous
and the
Royal Oak
had become the first heavy casualties of the war.
    â€˜If you two can’t stop nattering I might as well go down to my hutch and grab a wash!’ Brooke slid off the chair and stretched.
    The bridge messenger bent over a voicepipe and then said, ‘From W/T, sir.
Mayday
from one of the ships in that eastbound convoy.’
    Calvert flung himself across the chart table, seizing his brass dividers and parallel rulers, a pad already to hand.
    Kerr peered over his arm. ‘The convoy must have scattered. We might be able to help if we crack on speed.’
    They both turned as Brooke said, ‘Disregard. Carry on with the sweep. You know our orders. It is not my intention to disobey them.’
    He saw Kerr’s eyes spark with something like anger. He added quietly, ‘A gesture, Number One? That’s not what it’s all about, you know.’
    Then he was gone, and they heard the stammer of Morse as he paused by the W/T office on his way to the sea-cabin, the hutch, as he called it.
    Kerr said harshly, ‘There may be men out there, waiting for their ship to go down under them, or already treading water without hope of rescue. Is that of no importance?’
    Calvert watched him.
So that was why he fell out with the previous captain
.
    He said, ‘U-boats hang about near stragglers, don’t they? Just in case some ship comes looking for survivors.’
    Kerr did not seem to hear him. He exclaimed, ‘Anyway, what’s wrong with making a gesture?
You
bloody well did!’
    Calvert gave a brief smile. ‘I have the watch, Number One.’
    Kerr opened his mouth but closed it again.
What would I have done?
He saw Pike the coxswain waiting by the forward funnel with a clipboard in his hand, waiting to waylay him, but all he could think about was the finality in Brooke’s voice and Calvert’sincisive little comments.
The untimely interruption of war
. . . He reached the iron-deck and asked crisply, ‘Something for me, Swain?’
    He was the first lieutenant again.
    Number Seven mess was situated on the starboard side of the lower deck. There were three other messes in this cramped space, each consisting of a scrubbed table with bench seats on the inboard side. Other members of a mess would sit on the lockers that lined the forecastle’s curving side. Shelves were crammed with ditty boxes in which the older men kept their treasures, metal hat-boxes, and inflatable life-jackets, which were either worn or kept very close to hand. In the centre forepart of the mess were the nettings where sailors stored their hammocks. These were not supposed to be slung at sea in