The Darkening Sea by Richard Woodman

Author:Richard Woodman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sheridan House
Published: 2000-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chief Yeoman of Signals Burton found he rather approved of his captain. Scuttlebutt revealed Lieutenant Commander Martin had trained as a regular officer before being chopped out of the Navy by the Geddes’ axe. While the captains of Fleet Tenders A, B and C were retired regulars, running their ships from their cabins, it was more usual to find Lieutenant Commander Martin wearing a boiler suit and hanging over the side on a bosun’s stage painting the ‘eyebrows’ round a scuttle, or improving the shading below a housed anti-torpedo net boom, so that from only five yards away you could not tell that the thing was false.

‘D’you ever do amateur theatricals, sir?’ he asked once.

‘Me, Chief? No, why?’

‘I just thought you must have painted scenery some time.’

Chief Yeoman Burton was impressed by the trouble his commanding officer took, and as he got to know him grew to like him. As the senior signalman, Burton was the confidential recipient of all official communications and was thus in close contact with James.

‘The skipper’s all right,’ he would announce to the Chief and Petty Officers’ mess.

‘Never mind about the skipper, what about the ship? What’s she for, for Gawd’s sake?’

‘I’m not absolutely sure about our role,’ James said as he addressed the wardroom on the first evening of their commission. ‘This morning we hoisted the white ensign and are officially a unit of His Majesty’s Fleet. It is clear we are to be sent to Rosyth and there, or elsewhere for all I know at the moment, we pretend to be Royal Oak.’

He looked round at the officers lounging in what had once been the quondam Königsburg’s officers’ dining saloon. His First Lieutenant was an elderly RNR officer who, by the state of his nose, had a liking for spirituous liquors. Clearly Fleet Tender Delta was a convenient backwater for a man who looked a potential danger to his own side, rather than to the enemy. There were two additional sublieutenants RNVR, both inexperienced but both supplied as watch-keepers, and an engineering lieutenant from the Reserve who had, like James himself, merchant ship expertise.

‘Our main purpose is not to take the offensive, or even the defensive for that matter, but to confuse intelligence. Our presence anywhere might, just conceivably, alter enemy planning; and even when it becomes known that we exist, doubt as to whether we or Royal Oak is the phantom might also deter the enemy.’

He looked round, hoping he sounded convincing. He resumed, speculating.

‘The old R-class battleships are being deployed with ocean convoys as protection against surface raiders, and if times get really hard I suppose it is possible we might be asked to do our bit there. I really don’t know, but it gives us something to aim for.’

He went on, outlining his extravagant plans for deceit, raising a laugh and a smile and being asked to stay on in the wardroom afterwards for a drink.

‘Got to get our priorities right, sir,’ growled the First Lieutenant.

‘Quite right, Number One,’ said James looking at the heavy jowls of his subordinate.

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