The Restless Sea, page 32
Jack risks going further afield, making it to the docks to see if there’s any possibility of transport. Thin ice is beginning to form on the river. They will be stuck once it freezes over completely. He wanders among the men on the dock, avoiding the guards, hoping to pick up some familiar English. Someone calls his name. It’s the translator, Anya. She is also looking for work at the docks now that Dr Tasker has moved on.
‘Did you find your friend?’ she asks.
‘I did. Now I need to get him to your doctor’s hospital at Vaenga,’ says Jack. ‘Do you think you can help?’
Anya smiles her thin, gappy smile and says, ‘I can try. But what about you? Your other friends have gone …’
‘I’m not worried about me. But Carl needs to get home – or at least somewhere clean – before your winter comes.’
‘If you can get your friend here, I might be able to help. I have found work at the naval base at Polyarnoe. It is near Vaenga. They have much need of translators. I leave tomorrow.’
‘We’ll be here,’ says Jack.
They meet at the docks the next day, except this time Jack has Carl on his back. His friend’s good leg is missing its toes and he cannot hop. Jack is shocked by how light his friend is, but his laugh is like the old Carl, and his voice is strong. ‘You’ll never get me there,’ he says. ‘You could barely carry a plank at the docks.’
‘Watch me,’ says Jack. His friend clings to his back, and with each step he grows heavier, but Jack remembers how Carl carried Betsy from the river in the rain, and he grits his teeth and makes it without stopping. No one gives them a second look. It is not unusual for people to be carrying heavy loads.
Anya has found a Russian tug that will take them all to the mouth of the inlet. The Russian skipper is wrapped up against the cold wind, only his eyes showing. He nods curtly at the boys as they approach the boat, but Jack is struck by a sudden feeling that he can’t do this. He doesn’t want to be on the water. His palms grow clammy and there is a fluttering in his chest, but Anya is behind him and the skipper narrows his eyes and the guards on the dock are watching them. He has to do it. He cannot stay here. He takes a deep breath and lifts Carl down into the boat. It is black with coal dust. The sensation of moving water sets Jack’s blood racing.
Then Anya takes his arm and they steady themselves and he has Carl to concentrate on. They find a sheltered space in the stern and sit on the grimy deck, their collars turned up against the cold, watching the ships coming and going on the great river around them, all of them glad to be leaving Archangel behind.
The Russians cast off and soon they are clear of the docks and motoring up the river, through the thickening patches of ice, and back into the White Sea. The fresh air blows the mosquitoes away. As they approach the open water, Jack’s mouth is dry. Carl lays a hand on his arm. ‘A little more space on this boat,’ he says. Jack nods and swallows the fear. For Carl, for all of them.
A bitter wind is blowing into the mouth of the inlet from the heart of the Arctic. The tug hugs the bland coastline until they reach another little inlet and motor into a small dock. Anya talks to the Russians and they point and nod and gesticulate. One of the men jumps down into the boat and starts to pull at Carl, but Jack pushes him away. ‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘I’ve got it.’ He hoists Carl up on to his back again and together they clamber out on to dry land. The air smells fresh here, of the sea and faintly of pine needles.
Anya helps them find a British medical officer who takes them to the new hospital. Dr Tasker is there. He doesn’t seem surprised to see them. In this country, anything can happen. ‘Welcome, welcome!’ he says. ‘You’re my first patient. We’re all up and ready for the next influx. Should be here any day now. Poor bastards.’
They are ushered into a shiny, clean ward. The medical officer brings Carl a small mug of fruit juice and a plate of food. He chews it slowly, his eyes closed, a smile on his lips. ‘Macaroni cheese,’ he says. ‘My favourite.’
‘That’s right, my boy. Close your eyes and think of England,’ says the doctor.
Jack feels a great load lifted from his heart. ‘He’s going to be all right?’ It is more a statement than a question.
The doctor smiles. ‘The hard work’s been done already,’ he says. ‘We just need to fatten him up and get him on the next ship home.’
‘Do you think he’ll make the crossing?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘What happens at the other end?’
‘He’ll probably end up at the Dreadnought Hospital at Greenwich. Fine place. Run for the likes of you.’
Carl interrupts them: ‘Stop talking about me as if I’m not here,’ he says. ‘I’ve lost my leg and some toes, not my mind.’
‘You wouldn’t be alone if you had,’ says the doctor. ‘Half the men I see have been driven around the bend. Stark raving mad.’
‘Well I’m fine,’ says Carl. ‘But what about you, Jack?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Are you really?’ Carl tries to hold his gaze, but Jack looks away. ‘Can you find him a berth going back, doctor?’
Dr Tasker shakes his head. ‘I’m afraid you’ll need to be processed back in Archangel. With the other men from your ship.’
‘They’ve gone already,’ says Jack.
‘You can’t stay here. We won’t have the room when the next chaps arrive. But they might be able to help at Polyarnoe.’
‘I’ll work something out.’
Anya clears her throat. ‘If you are not staying here, you must come now or the boat will leave without us.’
‘Can you help him?’ says Carl, addressing Anya.
‘I will do what I can.’
‘Thank you,’ says Carl. ‘And thank you for helping get me here.’
She smiles her sad, gappy smile. ‘Anything for a friend of the Fatherland.’
Jack feels the anxiety rise in his chest as he realises he is about to leave his friend again. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ he asks.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.’
‘I’m not worried about you,’ says Jack, his vision blurring and his voice coming out thick and deep. ‘Who’s going to keep an eye on me?’
Carl laughs and Jack hugs his oldest friend, feeling the heat of the solid body through his shirt, ignoring the empty space where his leg should be. ‘Don’t disappear,’ says Carl. ‘Remember there are people waiting for you. Olivia, Betsy …’
But those are names of people from another life, another world. Jack squeezes his friend one last time and hurries after Anya into the unrelenting cold.
When they are out of earshot, Jack says, ‘I can’t go back to Archangel.’
‘We will ask in Polyarnoe.’
‘I don’t want to ask yet. I don’t think I can go back for a while.’
‘The crossing?’
He nods because he does not want to give voice to his fear. The hundreds of miles of open sea between Russia and Britain are an abyss he cannot cross until he is feeling stronger. The idea of setting foot on a large ship makes his stomach churn. He needs time.
Anya nods. ‘It is possible that I know some people in the hills behind Polyarnoe who might be able to help you,’ she says.
CHAPTER 21
Charlie
Charlie is pleased to be back with the squadron, where life follows a set pattern and there is no confusion over romance and pregnant friends. He has a crazy notion that perhaps he and Olivia could raise Jack’s child together, and then feels guilty, for he has promised to discover what happened to the man. Perhaps he has survived. Perhaps he hasn’t. But whatever the answer, Charlie will be as good as his word and try to find out. It is ironic that if the man is dead, then the child will have a war hero for a father, just as Charlie did. The thought of his father inevitably leads to thoughts of his mother, and what they might have thought of his recent behaviour. Charlie flushes with shame at the memory of Betsy and that night. She may have battered down his defences, but he wasn’t entirely innocent: he had wanted her; had wanted to feel what it was like to be with someone who really wanted him. And was it really so wrong when everyone else is at it, when every bar and alley seems full of sexual tension and attraction?
Thankfully he doesn’t have much time to dwell on the matter. The Admiralty are ready to start the runs to Russia again after the fiasco of the last one, and Charlie’s squadron is going to form part of the first escort carrier to accompany them, defending the merchant ships and their cargo of planes, tanks, food, clothes, and whatever else will keep the Russians going. Charlie pushes all memories from his mind: here, on his ship, he is Lieutenant FitzHerbert, one of a team of courageous pilots tasked with keeping the Bosch at bay. It is all so very straightforward.
They have a new captain, Captain Underhill, another veteran of the First World War, and a leader who knows how important it is to inspire his men. As they set sail, he briefs them: ‘We’ve got our work cut out, men. We are not just fighting the enemy; we are fighting low morale: many of these merchant sailors have already been on convoys to Russia – many have been attacked, many have been shipwrecked. They have lost friends and ships. They have little faith in us after that last bloody hash-up. So let’s try and restore some of it. Let’s show them that we can still rule the waves together. You’re the first Navy pilots they’ve had to protect them: let’s show them what that means.’
Every seaman – merchant and Royal Navy – is aware that the Germans will come at them with whatever they have. Before the ships have even formed up, the repel aircraft station rings in their ears and a Condor rains its bombs from between the clouds. The dark pellets twist and turn in the leaden sky before falling ineffectively into the sea. The carrier ploughs on. The Swordfish pilots are sent up to hunt for U-boats whenever conditions allow. From above, Charlie can marvel at the whole operation. The ships with their Arctic camouflage are scattered across the ocean like the toys that used to lie across his bedroom floor: sloops and corvettes, destroyers and Asdic minesweepers, and, below the waves, the Allied submarines. British, American, Panamanian, Russian – even a French and a Norwegian submarine – surge onwards together.
It is just Charlie and Ned in the plane: there is no room for a gunner now that the cockpit is half taken up by the new radar. Charlie wonders what Mole would have chosen to sing on a day like today: dense, low cloud and pockets of fog. He can’t help smiling as he remembers his promise to Alis, and attempts a rendition of ‘Cwm Rhondda’. He can almost hear Mole shouting at him to stop, and he’s sure that Ned thinks he’s finally lost the plot, but it feels good.
While the Swordfish hunt for U-boats, the Hurricanes intercept the flying boats that buzz around the convoy, trying to stop the German planes returning to report their position. The Luftwaffe shadow them until they are within range of the Norwegian airfields, and then the attacks begin in earnest. The clouds have lifted a little, but the sky darkens with Junkers and Heinkels as the Germans launch a mass torpedo attack. The ack-ack fire and the enemy planes and the Navy retaliations are so loud that the men can’t hear the siren to alter course. A merchant ship goes up. And then another: two columns of smoke and dead souls billowing into the air. And still another – until there are six ships missing. Fifteen enemy planes down. Charlie itches to get up there to help, but it is impossible for the Swordfish to take off: the carrier would be a sitting duck as she turned into wind.
They forge on. The flight deck is a continual stream of take-offs and landings. A tanker is torpedoed by a U-boat; Charlie is flying, and goes in for the attack. The U-boat dives, but a destroyer picks it up and the depth charge sinks it, leaving debris slick on the surface. The torpedo bombers return, but again the Navy planes are ready for them. Charlie suffers cramp in his legs from his squashed position in the pilot’s seat, but rather that than be like those gunners on the warships, who never move from their turrets – eating, sleeping and dying in them.
Morale is running high. They know they will make it through; the Germans will not stop this convoy, and the Navy will never abandon their merchant men again. The Russian escort arrives to assist. In the mess room, the men laugh and joke. A Hurricane pilot who was shot down by friendly fire has been safely rescued from the sea. ‘You needed a bath anyway,’ says Ned.
‘We could all do with one,’ says Charlie, because everything is beginning to smell – of mould and damp. There is no escape: water drips down the bulkheads on every deck as condensation trickles into their cabins. Even the food is beginning to have a distinctly earthy flavour.
The day before they reach the White Sea they are fogbound. ‘We’re not even going to be able to see bloody Russia,’ says Charlie. As they approach the mainland, the fog clears to reveal seventy Luftwaffe bombers. An American freighter is hit. The Hurricanes are immediately up and then a cheer rings out across the flight deck as more planes appear in the sky.
‘It’s the RAF!’ says Ned.
‘What are they doing here?’
‘Someone’s got to teach those Soviets how to fly our planes.’
Captain Underhill’s weary voice addresses them from the bridge. ‘Well done, men. The most successful convoy so far. Twenty-eight ships of cargo delivered. No escorts lost.’
But no one cheers: thirteen vessels and countless men never made it.
Charlie and the squadron watch as the convoy is delivered safely to the Russian icebreaker that will take it on through the White Sea to Archangel. Charlie is surprised to hear that the return convoy his carrier will be escorting part of the way back to Britain is carrying a few survivors from the last, doomed convoy. ‘Any idea how many?’ he asks Captain Underhill.
The captain shakes his head. ‘All I know is it’s the worst injured. Amputees and the like. The walking wounded have mainly been shoved into compounds, poor bastards. They’ve gone through all that – injury, shipwreck, survival – to be treated like prisoners-of-war. Shitty Russian food and hygiene. I’ve no doubt a lot of them won’t survive. Ironic after all they’ve already been through.’
‘Are there lists of the men that did make it, do you think?’
‘Possibly onshore at our base in Polyarnoe, but I fear it’s very chaotic. Did you know someone?’
Charlie nods.
‘Soon as there’s a chance, I’ll try and get you there.’
But the carrier is kept busy patrolling the sea as the temperature drops. The fresh water pipes start to freeze. The ice builds up: six inches, eight inches. All day and all night the ship echoes with the sound of men chipping and hacking and whacking where the ice thickens on the flight deck and on the guns, on the island and the rails. If they don’t, the ship could easily capsize, pulled over by the sheer weight. Sometimes it looks as though she has been frozen in time: a great castle of ice rising from the water.
Then the sea starts to freeze. Charlie can actually see it thickening as he sits once again waiting for take-off in the chilly cockpit: the heavy snow cools the surface of the water, and an eerie mist starts to rise around the ship. The sea turns grey and cold, congealing to slush, and then into a patchwork quilt of ice across the water. Across the fleet, men shiver on lookout: more than an hour on deck and they freeze to death. If they forget their gloves, they lose their skin as it burns off on the frozen metal rails. Spray turns to ice that lacerates their cheeks. Their ears go numb and black with frostbite.
Charlie starts to worry that he’ll never get a chance to find out what happened to Jack. If he was sent to one of the compounds, he could just as easily have died in Russia as well as when his ship went down. Or he could have been terribly injured and repatriated. He could be a war hero or a cripple. Charlie thinks of his shoulder, and shudders. He cannot imagine what he would have done if he’d lost his arm, whether it turned him into a war hero or not. He thinks of his own father, so proud of his part in the previous war, the medals, polished metal beneath bold strips of colour, bright against the navy-blue uniform.
The planes are carrier-bound much of the time, but if it’s possible to fly, the Swordfish will take to the stormy skies – they can stay airborne longer than the Hurricanes. But even the Swordfish are suffering. The pitching deck has sent more than one plane toppling into the sea. Another misses the arrester wires and smashes into the barrier, leaking fuel fizzling to life as it catches fire. Charlie almost misses a landing when the carrier suddenly slams away from him as he’s about to touch down. But he manages to circle around again, watching as the blue landing lights come closer and then recede as the carrier rises and falls; his fellow sailors specks of black against the great pale piles of snow.
And still the temperature drops. Drips freeze in Charlie’s nostrils. Eyebrows and eyelashes are covered in white frost. Water freezes on eyeballs. Inside the ship, the condensation freezes. The men layer up their clothes, winding scarves around and around their faces until only their eyes are visible, but still the cold bites into their bones. Charlie wears his pyjamas under his clothes, only ever removing his boots to sleep. He wonders whether Jack could have been on that return convoy, could have been reunited with Olivia. Whether he knows that he has a child, a future, a dream to cling on to.
It is weeks before an opportunity to go ashore presents itself. ‘The Russians have invited us to some celebration for another successfully delivered convoy,’ says Captain Underhill. ‘Can’t say no. I’m taking you with me.’
‘Great,’ says Charlie. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘We’ll transfer on to the Russian icebreaker that takes the ships on to Archangel. Then they’ll bring us back to Polyarnoe. Should be a bit of an eye-opener.’
The two men are first transferred to a British destroyer. As they come alongside the battered Russian icebreaker, a British man on the Russian ship yells, ‘Jump!’ and Charlie and the captain leap through the air. The Russian crew reach out with strong, large hands wrapped in thick fur gloves and yank them on to the deck.
The British man introduces himself: ‘Jarvis,’ he says. ‘I’m the translator. Welcome aboard.’ He is an animated young man, fresh out of university and a six-month course in Russian. His job is to translate between the icebreaker and the merchant ships that will follow them for the last leg of their trip.
