Convoy by Dudley Pope

Author:Dudley Pope
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-04-26T23:00:00+00:00

emphasize the liner, a ship carrying cargo or passengers on a regular route or line and thus not a tramp (which went from port to port touting for cargoes), with a top speed of sixteen knots.

'Mind you, the owners never let us make passages at sixteen; our economical speed is just under twelve. But I remember the day we did our speed trials with all the builder's men on board. Aye, that was a great experience, watching the revolutions creeping up and up, until we were making sixteen ... But now it's six-knot convoys for us. The engines are barely turning. Injectors sooting up, too. Suddenly the bridge 'phones down on a dark night complaining that the funnel is spouting sparks. Of course it is! Soot from weeks of slow speeds. Now I try to -blast it out in the daytime. I did it once with a following wind and the mate had just had the fo'c'sle painted - you should have heard his language; he thought I'd done it a' purpose. The fore part of the ship looked as though it had black measles.'

Yorke made sure he was in the saloon promptly at noon for lunch, hoping that the wives would make their husbands late as they primped their hair and tidied up their lipstick: there had been signs that one or two of them had learned from their husband that the naval officer on board had been serving in destroyers and if he was not careful meals for the rest of the day would be prying sessions.

He was lucky; again the only man there was the chief engineer. 'You'll go far, young man,' the chief said. 'You watch points. That's what you've got to do to get on, watch points.'

Yorke was puzzled by the phrase but the chief added: 'Them bloody women - you've got to get in quick when we're in port: it's the only time those wives get waited on and they love humbugging around, sending the stewards off for more glasses of water and complaining the toast is overdone. Overdone! Well, that tells you the kind of women they are. Anyway, watch points; nip in quick a'fore those female vultures descend on the feast table. Still, we'll be rid of them by this evening. The Old Man says we move out into the river early tomorrow; the tug's booked for seven o'clock. That means my little sewing machine will start warming up at six. And with a bit of luck she won't stop for another six weeks or so.'

Yorke, finding the easy chair in his cabin grew hard lumps in odd places after half an hour, was just about to get up when there was a knock on the door and Watkins appeared with letters, two in official buff envelopes, one in the particular blue that Clare used, and another addressed in his mother's handwriting.

'Oh, by the way, Watkins, I was thinking of having a look round the DEMS quarters later this afternoon. Will you

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