The Skipper's Dog's Called Stalin by David Black

Author:David Black [Black, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612184517
Published: 2016-05-02T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Harry was in his favourite spot at the back of the conning tower, behind the periscope, sunning himself and sharing a smoke with Thierry. They weren’t exactly friends, not after the punch on the nose incident, but profuse apologies and the intervention of the Captain had brought about a truce. That, and the impression Harry had made on the young firebrand Frenchman with his efforts in the forward torpedo room, wrestling a hot-running, 1,400kg, live torpedo, and helping to get it out of the boat before it exploded and blew them all to kingdom come. Thierry had also rather admired Harry’s self-deprecation when the Captain had complimented him on always seeming to be on hand when it came to saving the boat from being blown up.

Harry had blushed, thanked the Captain, and hurriedly denied any heroic intent behind his actions.

‘It’s down to being a Liaison Officer. It’s not a proper job,’ Harry had explained to the wardroom. ‘Which has its advantages. Don’t get me wrong, Sir. I’m not complaining. You do get a lot of time to lie about, picking your nose and scratching yourself. On the other hand, when emergencies crop up, as they do from time to time, well, everybody else, having proper jobs to do, tends to be very busy; so there’s only you left to do the stepping in. Can be a bit of a bugger, really, but it’s the price one has to pay for all that picking and scratching, I suppose.’

Thierry could still see Harry, as he sat there, plonked on a stool in the passageway, with only a corner of the wardroom table to call his own, and that stupid grin he had, spread all over his face, as he self-deprecated away, furiously. It was the way these rosbifs didn’t seem to mind people laughing at them; he’d never understand such lack of pride. God only knew how they were going to win the war.

Thierry took another drag on the Lucky Strike Harry had proffered him from his duty free stash. The morning sun was warm on their backs as they leaned on the rail and looked towards the distant, sandy smudge that was the Delaware coast, and discussed all the ways they had hated cold, drab, joyless Halifax, Nova Scotia – and that was just the women.

They were back at sea with all the drudge and entanglements of the shore left behind, and a clean run south under clear June skies, with the air warm and the soporific lullaby of the long, placid oceanic swell beneath their keel. A steady twelve knots on the surface, with the eastern seaboard of a still-at-peace United States never more than fifteen miles on their starboard beam, and a huge Tricolour streaming from the top of their aft periscope stand to a cleat at the very back of the conning tower rail; just in case any nosy US Navy warship patrolling on the fringes of international waters was in any doubt as to who they were dealing with.

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