The Cruel Sea (1951) by Nicholas Monsarrat Read Free Book Online

and they had been waiting for replacements.
    ‘Seems all right now, sir.’ Watts scratched his bald head, leaving a smear of grease like a painted quiff on his forehead. ‘There’s a lot of loose stuff in the steering compartment – wires and dry provisions and such – it’ll have to be secured when we’re properly at sea. But I’ve tried the engine out a dozen times, hard a-port to hard a-starboard, and she’s smooth as you could wish. And if we want to steer by hand, it’s simple enough – too simple, mebbe.’ He sniffed. He had no very high opinion of the machinery in his charge, which had few refinements of any sort and was scarcely more complicated than the stationary steam engine, run on methylated spirits, which had been his first real toy. Corvettes, it was clear, were going to be turned out simply and economically, like pins or plastic ashtrays: as such, they hardly deserved a Chief E.R.A. to look after them.
    ‘All right. Chief,’ said Ericson. ‘We’ll leave it at that. You know the programme: we’ll be towed down to the oiler and then steam the rest of the way. I’ve allowed two hours for oiling: the tide’s flooding all the afternoon so there’s no hurry.’
    ‘Two hours should do us, sir. What about the revs, then?’
    ‘That’s something we can only settle finally when we’ve been running for some time.’ Ericson looked at one of the many slips of paper on his desk. ‘I see the builders’ recommendations are: Slow Ahead, 35 revs: Half Ahead, 100 revs. We’d better try that, to start with. If it’s too fast, or too slow, I’ll give you the alterations on the voice-pipe.’
    ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Watts, preparing to leave, summoned the vague and rare outlines of a smile. ‘Funny sort of Christmas morning,’ he commented. ‘Makes you think a bit.’
    ‘It won’t be the last, Chief.’
    ‘D’you think it’ll be as long as the other war, sir?’
    ‘Longer, probably.’ Ericson stretched out his hand, and rang the bell to the bridge. ‘That’s what we’ve got to be ready for, anyway.’
    Watts, leaving the cabin, shook his head in doubt. His favourite Sunday paper had said that the war would be over in a year, and, on this Christmas morning, he wanted very much to believe it.
    The rating who answered the Captain’s bell and presently stood before him was Leading-Signalman Wells, the senior of the three signalmen who made up Compass Rose’s communications complement. He was rather older than his rank suggested; and Ericson, looking over his Conduct Sheet a few days previously, had discovered why. Wells had been a full yeoman of signals up to two months previously: then he had been disrated, and sentenced to eighteen days detention, for (in the bleak words of King’s Regulations & Admiralty Instructions) ‘conduct prejudicial to good order and naval discipline in that he (a) was absent over leave 76 hours and 35 minutes, (b) did return on board drunk, (c) did resist the duty petty officer detailed to supervise him, and (d) did destroy by fire nine signal flags, value 27s.’ Reading between the lines, it must have been a lively occasion. But the implications were not encouraging, however much allowance one made for extenuating circumstances which could only be guessed at – a birthday party that got out of hand, a woman too acquiescent, a wife unfaithful: the odd part was that Wells looked the least likely candidate for this sort of escapade.
    He was small, with a quick decisive manner and an air of competence: he kept a firm hand on his department, and Ericson had already found him helpful with suggestions, as well as absolutely dependable. Now, as he stood waiting in the cabin, cap neatly tucked under his arm, signal pad ready, pencil poised, he was a heartening picture of a highly-trained, wide-awake signalman – the sort of man worth his weight in gold to any ship. Ericson hoped that this picture would prove to be the true one: the other story – the one in the