Free The Cruel Sea (1951) by Nicholas Monsarrat Page B

basis, they had to be clean, efficient, and alert. In this, almost everything depended on their officers, and, judging by the last war, there were going to be some pretty odd officers before the thing was over. This ship, he noted, had an R.N.R. captain, which meant, at any rate, a seaman in command . . . The others, amateurs, might be worth anything or nothing.
    The Admiral frowned. He would soon find out what they were worth, and what the ship was worth too: that was his job. He might be too old to take one to sea, but he was still a firm judge of what a ship should look like and how she should behave; and however long the war lasted, and whatever the urgency, no ship would leave his command which did not meet this lifelong standard.
    There was a knock on the door, and a signalman entered.
    The Admiral looked up. ‘Well?’
    ‘Compass Rose entering harbour now, sir. Lieutenant Haines said to tell you.’
    ‘Has he signalled her a berth?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    The Admiral got up, and walked across to the window again. A ship was just entering the narrows, moving very slowly, edging sideways to offset the crosswind: as he watched her, she lowered a boat which began to make for one of the central mooring buoys. His eyes went back to the ship, and he appraised her carefully. She was small, smaller than he had expected: rather chunky, but not ungraceful if you discounted the clumsy-looking stern and the mast plumb in front of the bridge. She looked clean – and so she damned well ought to be, fresh from the builders – and the hands were properly fallen in fore and aft, in the rig-of-the-day. She was flying her pendant numbers, and a brand-new ensign. One gun on the fo’c’sle – a pom-pom aft – depth-charges – nothing much else . . . Something like an overgrown trawler. But she’d have to do more than trawler’s work.
    He watched her securing to the buoy, neatly enough, and then he turned to the signalman.
    ‘Send a signal. “ Compass Rose from Flag-Officer-in-Charge. Manoeuvre well executed”. Then tell Lieutenant Haines to call away my barge. I’m going aboard now.’

11

    For three weeks they worked very hard indeed. From the moment that the Admiral’s barge approached in a wide, treacherous sweep right under their stern and almost caught the Captain unawares, the ship’s company was in a continual state of tension. If they were not out exercising with the submarine, they were doing gun drill or running through Action Stations in harbour: if they were not fighting mock fires or raising the anchor by hand, an urgent signal would order them to lower a boat and put an armed landing party ashore on the nearest beach. In between times, relays of men attended drills and lectures ashore: sometimes, with half the crew thus absent and their normal organisation unworkable, a fearsome directive from the Admiral would set them to some manoeuvre which necessitated every available man tackling the nearest job, irrespective of his rating.
    Stokers would find themselves firing guns, seamen had to try their hand at hoisting flag signals: telegraphists and coders, gentlemanly types, would take on the crude job of connecting up filthy oil pipes from the oiler. ‘Blast the old bastard!’ said Bennett sourly, when some crisis or other found him hauling on a rope instead of watching other people do it: ‘I’ll be cleaning out the lavatories next.’ Lockhart wished it might be true . . . The three week’s ordeal was exhilarating, and profoundly good for the ship, as far as training was concerned; but there were occasions when they all felt due for a holiday, and none too sure that it would arrive in time.
    There were no holidays now: this was the time for winding up, for tuning to top pitch: they would have no other chance. Little by little the process advanced: the rough edges were smoothed off, the awkwardness of apprenticeship overcome and then forgotten. It was a progress they all acknowledged, and welcomed: their ship