Donald Cameron 4.An Act of War by Philip McCutchan

Author:Philip McCutchan [Philip McCutchan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2014-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

8

The seas, having quietened, remained flat. The sky cleared and the problems became different: now there was sun, scorching sun that blazed down from a sky that seemed to be a pure metal reflector. Men baked and blistered, unable to find any shelter except beneath the canopies of the motor-cutter itself. Those in the floats and the whaler and the pulling cutters suffered torment. Arms and legs and necks, in many cases chests and backs as well, burned. The salt air made it worse. When anything touched against the exposed flesh it was murder.

The prayers now were for a return to the bad weather. In one of the floats the Chief Gunner’s Mate swore in a low monotone and did what most of the others had done: he dived into the sea and laid hold of the lifeline along the side of the float and to hell with any cruising sharks. He wasn’t certain whether or not there were sharks in the South Atlantic, but there might be. Make enough kerfuffle and they didn’t bother you anyway, so they ought to be in the clear. He waved across to another float, where the Master-at-Arms was sitting like God in a surplice, or that was what it looked like. In fact it was a warrant officers’ mess tablecloth that the WOs’ steward had brought off with him when the ship went down: it was strange what people snatched up at the last moment. It was still stained with blood: the WOs’ mess had been used as one of the emergency dressing stations in action.

‘All right, Master?’ the Chief Gunner’s Mate called.

‘No, I’m bloody not.’

‘Do the sensible thing. Dive in.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Why not?’

There was a pause, then the MAA said briefly, ‘Can’t bloody swim.’

‘Can’t swim? Jesus Christ.’ That was a funny thing, too: the things you didn’t know about a shipmate till something brought them to the fore. It was true a lot of the old-timers couldn’t swim, made a point of never learning how, on the principle that if you couldn’t swim you’d go down quick and not suffer a long torment if your ship was sunk with all its boats aboard. But he wouldn’t have thought the MAA was of that generation. The last few years, of course, new entries had had to pass a swimming test, part of it being to float for three minutes wearing a heavy white duck uniform, for what use three minutes would be in the middle of the hogwash.

Meanwhile the sea was comforting against the sun and was just right in temperature. If you made a big mental effort, and shut your eyes, you could imagine you were in Pompey, swimming off Southsea beach, between the Castle and the South Parade Pier, with the missus and the kids. The Chief Gunner’s Mate’s wife liked swimming and lying around in the sun on the Southsea pebbles; she had a good figure and liked to show it off. He wondered what she was doing now. Would the sun be shining over Pompey? His thoughts roved over Pompey and the dockyard.

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