HMS Marlborough Will Enter Harbour (1947) by Nicholas Monsarrat Read Free Book Online Page B

next to it – that’s the drying room and the small bosun’s store – must still be watertight.’
    The Captain nodded without saying anything. He was beginning to feel immensely and unreasonably cheerful, but to communicate that feeling to anyone else seemed frivolous in the extreme. There was so little to go on: it might all be a product of what he felt about the ship herself, and unfit to be shared with anyone.
    The engine room was very much alive. Two men – the Chief ERA and a young telegraphist – were working on the main switchboard: the telegraphist, lying flat on his back behind it, was pulling through a length of thick insulated cable and connecting it up. Two more hands were busy on one of the main steam valves. There was an air of purpose here, of men who knew clearly what the next job was to be, and how to set about it.
    The Chief ERA, an old pensioner with a smooth bald head in odd contrast with the craggy wrinkles of his face, smiled when he saw the Captain. They came from the same Kentish village, and the Chief ERA’s appointment to Marlborough had been the biggest wangle the Captain had ever undertaken. But it had been justified a score of times in the last two years, and obviously it was in the process of being justified again now.
    ‘Well, Chief?’
    ‘Going on all right, sir. It won’t be much to look at, but I reckon it’ll serve.’
    ‘That’s all we want.’ The Captain turned to the engineer officer. ‘Any other troubles down here?’
    ‘I’m a bit worried about the port engine, sir. That torpedo was a big shock. It may have knocked the shaft out.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter if we only have one screw. We couldn’t go more than a few knots anyway, with that bulkhead.’
    ‘That’s what I thought, sir.’
    The Chief ERA, presuming on their peacetime friendship in a way which the Captain had anticipated, and did not mind, said: ‘Do you think we’ll be able to steam, sir?’
    Everyone in the engine room stopped work to listen to the answer. The Captain hesitated a moment, and then said: ‘If the weather stays like it is now, and we can correct the trim a bit, I think we ought to make a start.’
    ‘How far to go, sir?’
    ‘About five hundred miles.’ That was as much as he wanted to talk about it and he nodded and turned to go. With his foot on the ladder he said: ‘I expect we’ll be able to count every one of them.’
    The laughter as he began to climb was a tonic for himself as well. It hadn’t been a very good joke, but it was the first one for a long time.
    The sick bay next. The doctor was asleep in an armchair when he came in, his young sensitive face turned away from the light, his hands splayed out on the arms of the chair as if each individual finger were resting after an exhaustive effort. The sick-berth attendant was bending over one of the lower cots, where a bandaged figure lay with closed, deeply circled eyes. There were eight men altogether: after the night’s turmoil the room was surprisingly tidy, save for a pile of bloodstained swabs and dressings which had overflowed from the wastebasket. The tidiness and the sharp aseptic smell were reassuring.
    He put his hand out, and touched the sleeping figure.
    ‘Good morning, Doctor.’
    Soundlessly the doctor woke, opened his eyes, and sat up. Even this movement seemed part of some controlled competent routine.
    ‘Hallo, sir.’
    ‘Busy night?’
    ‘Very, sir. All right, though.’
    ‘Just what you were waiting for?’ The Captain smiled.
    The doctor looked at the Captain, and smiled back, and said: ‘I haven’t felt so well for years.’
    It must be odd to feel like that, about what must have been the goriest night of his life. But it was natural, if you were proud and confident of your professional skill, and for three years you felt you had been utterly wasted. This young man, who had barely been qualified when war broke out, must now feel, with justice, that the initials after his name had at last come to