The Restless Sea. Vanessa de Haan
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‘They were stuck in the gangways. We could hear them. They couldn’t get out …’
For a moment Charlie hears again the voices of those boys and men who cried out as they sank and the icy water filled the corridors and they scrabbled to get past each other. It was too crowded and dark and they were half asleep or in a nightmare, and they gulped great mouthfuls of air, and then water, until they were silenced for ever.
They give the survivors whatever clothes and rum they can find. No one knows what caused the explosion, although there are rumours that the impossible has happened and a U-boat has sneaked like a wolf into the lambing shed. More than eight hundred men have drowned within yards of them. Many were only boys, asleep in their hammocks. It is impossible to comprehend. They were supposed to be safe. Charlie sits in the yellow light of the wardroom in silence. Tonight he has stared death in the face and he will never forget it. It doesn’t matter how old or experienced you are. In the eyes of death, all men are equal.
That a German U-boat managed not only to infiltrate the impregnable Scapa Flow but also sink an iconic battleship is a devastating blow not just to the Navy, but to a nation that believed it ruled the waves. The men fret about the families and friends they have left behind in the towns and cities, the villages and hamlets of home. The odds of war are stacking up against them. The Germans have pushed relentlessly on, into France, the Netherlands, Belgium. Sometimes it feels as though the Navy is all that stands between the enemy and Britain.
Charlie’s aircraft carrier is assigned a new captain as Captain Turnbull is promoted to commodore, his expertise needed elsewhere. Captain Pearce is a mean little man, cross that he’s been called back from retirement; already fed up with the constant demands of life at sea, particularly on his weary old bones. He had imagined his life would end differently, preferably in the garden with his prize dahlias, but another war has put paid to that. He has no experience of flying, and the pilots cannot stand him. Worse, he believes the Fairey Swordfish to be outdated relics of the past: he cannot see their advantages. He makes them fly in the most terrible conditions, unaware of the finely-tuned capabilities of individual pilots and planes. He sometimes makes them fly without their accompanying plane guard, which means a downed crew would be left to fend for themselves in the water. The carrier is deployed to the African coast to search for a German commerce raider that has been causing havoc. Captain Pearce sweats and grumbles about the heat. Then they escort a damaged cruiser back to Britain, ending up a few months later – and after the turn of the new year – back at a windswept Scapa Flow. The captain shivers and moans about the cold. They say goodbye to the Blackburn Skua squadron, who are left – to their delight and everyone else’s envy – to add to the defences in northern Scotland.
The only joy at this joyless time is another letter from Olivia. Charlie thinks longingly of a visit to Loch Ewe, but there is not time to get there overland for a day’s leave, and Captain Pearce won’t allow them longer: they have been assigned to the Mediterranean fleet for exercises. He consoles himself over the weeks by savouring every word that she has written. It sounds as if she is settling in, as he knew she would. His mouth waters when she talks about how rationing doesn’t affect her because she has milk and butter and fresh eggs in exchange for helping on the Macs’ farm, and later there will be honey from Mrs Ross’s bees. She has been preparing the ground for vegetables in the walled garden under Greer’s beady eye, and the housemaid, Clarkson, has been teaching her to forage for young shoots of nettles and wild garlic. There is even talk of trapping rabbits.
Charlie’s aircraft carrier is called back from exercises soon enough, and near to Scotland: it is to make up part of the large British fleet trying to prevent the Nazis from taking Norway. The Germans are pushing into Scandinavia, creeping closer to Britain every day. The first British civilian is killed: a young man the victim of an air raid on Scapa Flow. Charlie shudders: his anxiety about Olivia’s safety rises. He has received another two letters from her, and they are fast becoming the only things he has to look forward to, apart from the hours spent flying. He rereads the letters daily. They warm him up and pour a little colour back into the grey and white world of snow and ice that is life on the Norwegian Sea. She is expert at painting a picture of the landscape. When Charlie closes his eyes, he can see the liquid gold of autumn bracken, the spring riot of red and orange and white magnolia, rhododendron and azalea, the gnarled silver alder trees all hung with pale green lichen and the changing colours of the loch.
Conversation on board often turns to home, and now Charlie feels he can join in. Mole talks about his young son and wife. Billy wants to get back to his childhood sweetheart. They gently tease each other. Mole and Billy quiz Charlie about Olivia, and he smiles and tells them to mind their own business, but that she has hair the colour of the rising sun and eyes the colour of the morning sky, and they laugh and say he hasn’t got a hope in hell: he’s fallen hook, line and sinker.
The Norwegian campaign is fought furiously on land and at sea. The Norwegian ports, tucked inside the folds of their magnificent fjords, are taken and lost, and taken again. Navy warships engage in constant battle with Nazi destroyers. The snow-covered hills are either obscured by smoke or lit by flashes of gunfire. The sound of heavy artillery booms across the sea. The icy waters are full of the wrecks of ships from both sides. The British, the French, the Polish, struggle to halt the enemy. The men on the ground fight viciously. They are hampered by heavy snow.
Olivia’s letters turn yellow, and the ink begins to fade. It doesn’t matter: Charlie knows them off by heart. He keeps them close. They will protect him from harm. The squadron’s morale is low, not least because of Captain Pearce. The captain briefed them earlier in the ready room, his face devoid of emotion. ‘If Hitler gets control of the Norwegian coast, he’ll be able to reach our supplies coming through the north Atlantic. And he’ll be able to reach Britain more easily. This is an important moment, men: the first airborne torpedo attack from a carrier of the war. You are history in the making. Let’s not make a hash of it.’
Their target is a German battlecruiser in Trondheim Fjord. Taking her out would be a substantial blow to German morale, and give the Allies a valuable boost. But they all know it is too early to fly – they will not be able to see the target until there is at least a little daylight. They should wait for another hour. But there is no telling Captain Pearce.
The Swordfish take to the skies. The sun has not yet risen. Below them is darkness; above the stars glitter like thousands of candles. It is confusing, disconcerting. Usually it is lights that twinkle below them, and darkness above. For a second Charlie’s brain is muddled. It feels as if he is flying upside down. He is tempted to right the plane. He checks the faintly glowing instruments in the cockpit again. He has to trust them. Night flying is all about trust: for the engineers who keep the instruments working, to the pilots who keep the planes flying, and the observers who find their way home. Charlie has heard of pilots getting confused, spinning upside down and losing control in similar conditions.
‘Did you see that?’ Mole asks.
Charlie shakes his head. He was too busy concentrating on the needles and dials and numbers around him.
‘Starboard,’ says Mole.
Charlie senses the Kid move, and picks up the shift in tension too. Could it be the German ship? Could something that large manage to slip so silently across the sea? Easily. But he can’t see anything. The wind rushes in his ears. Is that the faint pale mark of waves breaking behind a ship? Or a trick of the light? Captain Pearce’s words ring in his ears. They must not fail. There’s nothing for it. Mole unpacks a flare. Charlie gives him the thumbs-up. The safety and hum of the darkness is theirs for a moment longer, and then phshshshsh, Mole drops the flare and it falls downward, a spiralling comet of light heading into nothing, nothing, and then suddenly streaks of light explode into the air around them, followed by a barrage of gunfire.
‘Bloody hell, Mole!’ Charlie dips the plane sideways and lower, swinging through the hail of ammunition.
It is not the battlecruiser. It is a German destroyer. It will have to do – they have blown their cover now. Charlie steadies the plane through the flak and lines himself up for a torpedo run. The cockpit is lit by flashes of tracer fire. It gives him some sense of direction, but as he looses the missile, he has no idea whether it has