Snip and the HMS
Hesperides
heard about VE-Day when they docked at Trincomalee; the crew were desperate for fresh air, fresh food and showers after a long sea patrol and apart from the relief they felt over the safety of loved ones, they took little notice of the news. Japan was fighting on and their orders were to remain in tropical seas until that country, too, had surrendered.
‘Three days ashore at least, probably longer,’ the skipper said. ‘But see about the prickly heat before you start painting the town red. There must be something which at least will ease it.’
‘I want to see someone about some spares,’ Snip said. He was now engine officer on the
Hesperides
and was fanatical over the maintenance of his engines. ‘The piston rings are worn; it means we’re not steerin’ accurately, and we’ve smelt exhaust gases a couple of times when we was submerged for too long. Can’t go to sea again till that’s put right.’
‘She needs a refit,’ agreed Lieutenant Collis. ‘They’ll do what they can here, but I’ve no idea how they’re fixed for spares.’
‘I’ll see to it,’ Snip said. ‘But not until after I’ve had a beer and a shower; where are we staying?’
Collis was a good sort, and Snip had served under several commanding officers by now. Some of them didn’t give a damn what happened to their men in port as long as they were comfortable themselves, but the lieutenant wasn’t like that. He had them billeted in a decent hotel where the staff looked after them, awed by the state of their skin and the stories of weeks with a minimum ration of drinking water and no washing allowance at all. Snip, who was used to being dirty on the gaff when the weather was bad and heavy machinery had to be shifted through thick mud, had never known anything like it. You cleaned down an engine, then you cleaned down yourself. But not in HMS
Hesperides
. You remained filthy for six weeks, sometimes more, until you docked. No other ship had this problem, and the German U-boats and American subs all had reasonable facilities so their submariners did not suffer from skin disease, near-starvation when food and water ran short, extreme frustration when they had to surface every twenty-four hours to recharge their batteries – and near-death when they had to stay under because the hunting pack were out and it would have been certain death to surface.
Still, submariners’ pay was good – if you lived long enough to spend it – and the war in Europe was over, so he would no longer have quite the same worry over Nell. Nell was Snip’s girl and, not only that, she was his reason for going on – he would have said his reason for living, except that it sounded so silly. The crew’s quarters were very cramped but on the bulkhead above his bunk he had a wobbly photograph of her in a faded print dress with her hair pulled back and a rifle in one hand. She had been in charge of the shooting gallery at the time, he remembered. There was another photograph, a better one, but somehow he didn’t look at that quite so often, or with quite such nostalgia. The second photograph showed Nell in her landgirl uniform, complete with the squashed
cowboy hat which they wore occasionally. It was a nice photograph, Nell was smiling lovingly at the camera, but Snip had a bad feeling about the picture; he felt that Nell had had it taken for someone else.
Still, she wrote long, loving letters to him; she had let him take her to the flicks just before his ship sailed for the tropics, and although she had never allowed him any liberties – an arm around her shoulders in the one and nines and a kiss on parting was about as far as she was prepared to go – he comforted himself with the thought that Nell would be the same with everyone; kisses would be strictly rationed.
There had been no letter from her since, but he had spent too long waiting for letters, only to find six or eight awaiting him at the next port. He did not worry now; after all, the big worry should be over. Those blasted doodlebugs; now they
had
worried him. The awful feeling of wanting them to drone on, praying they would fall elsewhere, had worried him deeply: it had overtones of banging tin trays to drive the locusts on to the next village. But Nell was so precious to him! He did not need the photographs to conjure up her image – the dark blue eyes which could express such warmth, such love, the gentle line of rose-pink lips, the trick she had of dimpling and then smoothing the dimple out with one finger. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he did not intend to let her slip through his fingers as so many other things had eluded him. Family love, brotherly love, any parental warmth had all disappeared, unregretted, when he had finally made up his mind to get out of the Morris set-up; when the war had come and his father had taken his shows on the road with just the family, Snip had decided to quit.
He had got a job in a garage, mending cars, and then he had joined the Navy, being put almost straight into submarines, though only as a stoker at first. From there
had begun the slow climb to his present lofty position as engine officer, which he enjoyed as much as anyone can enjoy anything in a submarine. But he was saving his money; not for him the relief at being alive which caused the rest of the crew to blue every penny they earned on wine, women and song – or more accurately, booze, bed and cheapjackery. He was saving for afterwards, when he would be able to stand before Nell with his head held high and tell her about the future they would share.
A little farm up in the hills somewhere, he dreamed mostly, with airy rooms; never again the airless prickling heat of a submarine in tropical waters or the frowsty, cheesy atmosphere of a living wagon full of too many possessions, too many kids. There would be a stream, willow trees along the bank, the hills purple and gold with heather and gorse and a clean wind lifting his hair from his forehead. The farmhouse would have its windows open to let in the air and he and Nell would lie, naked, on the big, soft feather bed and …
His mind broke off, shocked. How could he think such things, as though Nell were a sixpenny whore on the docks. Nell was a little lady, far above that sort of thing; she would welcome him home on the doorstep, smiling at him, wearing a clean pink dress and with her hair shining from vigorous brushing. He would pick her up and carry her up the creaking wooden stairs to the bedroom under the eaves and …
I’ll marry her first, he told his outraged conscience defensively. I mean to do right by her because I’ve loved her all my life and I love her still. Ah, we’ll be so happy, Nell and me!
They were in port two days before Snip felt properly clean and decent again. He had spent most of the first day in the bath in the little hotel, getting every inch of filth and grime out of his pores. Then he and one of the other
chaps went to a Turkish bath and sweated out anything that was left, enjoying the sensation of being truly clean once more.
Then he went to visit
Hesperides
in her dock and make sure she was getting the treatment he wanted for her. He and the engineer in charge talked long and intently about the intricacies of a submarine’s engine, and the engineer produced the gleaming new piston rings which had begun to seem the be-all and end-all of existence to Snip and promised that they would be in place before
Hesperides
sailed.
Only then did Snip begin to relax. He bought a gaudy postcard and sent it to Nell, a rude one went to Ugly Jack and a pretty, scenic one to Hester. He had hoped for post to arrive while the sub underwent its refit but there was none, so he settled down and wrote Nell a long letter. With the war in Europe over, he hoped she might receive it within the next three or four weeks, but you never knew. Things were probably still pretty tough at home, though his only means of finding out were newspapers several weeks old and what the Air Force told them.
The refit was completed at last, Snip did some sea-trials with the rest of the crew, then it was their last night ashore. Everyone had a few drinks, but not too many. Snip wrote to Nell again, and sent her another card. Then at dawn the following day the submarine
Hesperides
nosed out from Trincomalee Harbour into the Bay of Bengal. Sealed orders might mean a battle or an attack on an enemy harbour, but from the way they were headed Snip guessed they were making for the South China Sea. What mischief had been planned for them there they had no way, as yet, of knowing.
So they proceeded on the surface at night, dived during the day, and waited for what would come next.
*
By great good fortune, Nell was on leave from Withies Farm when VE-Day was announced, so the family abandoned the fair and went off to enjoy the celebrations. Nell, Ugly Jack, Hester and Fleur went into Norwich to see the firework display in the market place. Fleur had joined up with the Gullivers again the previous autumn and Nell and Fleur had already regained some of their old intimacy.
The age-gap between sixteen and nineteen seemed less than the gulf between seven and ten, and the two girls found they had a good deal in common as well as from the vanished ‘sisterhood’ which had once meant so much to Nell. Fleur worked on the fair now, so whenever Nell came home there she was, ready to take her old place in her friend’s affections. At sixteen Fleur was beginning to revel in her newly discovered charms, Nell thought. She was short and inclined to be stocky, with sultry bedroom eyes and full lips; boys clustered around her like bees around a honeypot. It did not seem to matter that Fleur bleached her hair an unlikely shade of yellow, nor that she wore skirts so tight she could only hobble and heels so high she looked like Clown Joey on stilts. The young men who chased after her were indifferent to her apparel, what they liked was the promise they read in her sultry glances and the way she used her body to say she was a good-time girl searching for a good time.
But appearances are deceptive. Fleur was searching for a good time all right, but not the sort the eager boys imagined. She wanted someone to pay for her seat in the cinema, for a meal afterwards, for games on the slot machines and a trip to the seaside or to London to see the sights. In return she would give them, Nell knew, sweet smiles, her enchanting gurgle of laughter, a quick kiss on the chin – and nothing else. ‘I’m not into heavy petting,’ Fleur would say dismissively at the first sign of a boy wanting to put his arm around her. ‘If you want
that sort of thing you’d best go with Daffy Elgin or Sue Anstruther.’
‘A bit of a hug in the back row isn’t heavy petting,’ Nell said on one occasion, a trifle worried by Fleur’s naiveté or puritanism, she wasn’t sure which. ‘Even I let boys hug me in the back row, Fleur, and I’ve got a steady.’
Fleur shot her a sparkling look. ‘When I meet someone I really like he’ll be welcome to hug me in the back row or anywhere else for that matter,’ she said. ‘But right now, all I want from them is a bit of fun, Nellie love.’
Hester said that Fleur’s come hither glances were nothing but a tease, a come-on-go-back, but she laughed as she said it and told Nell and Ugly Jack privately that the kid was on to a winner and who could blame her if she rode her winner the full distance.
‘Ye-es, but she could land in trouble,’ Ugly Jack said, giving Hester a doubtful glance. They were having tea the day following VE-Day, boiled eggs and bread and margarine with a few stewed apples to follow. ‘Some men can get real nasty if they think a gal’s goin’ to give ’em what they want and then she don’t. I’d rather see Fleur behave like our Nell does; like a little lady.’
Nell took the top off her egg and ate it slowly, savouring every mouthful. One egg a month was the ration … well, she was luckier than that and so was Mum, because the farm kept bantams and very delicious their little eggs were when they were laying well.
‘I shouldn’t worry, Jack,’ Hester said, through her mouthful. ‘Fleur can’t help looking as though she’s easy; she really doesn’t act it – well, not on purpose, anyway.’ She turned to Nell. ‘Does this mean that Snip will be coming home, darling? I suppose it must, they surely won’t keep him any longer? It’s such a dreadful, dangerous life in a submarine.’
‘Oh, he’s way off on the other side of the world,’
Nell said rather uneasily. ‘Anyway, Snip isn’t exactly … I mean we’re good friends, but …’
‘But you told Fleur you had a steady; I was sure you meant Snip,’ Hester said reproachfully. ‘Who else could you have meant?’
‘Well, there is someone else, in a way,’ Nell muttered. She had never mentioned Dan to her mother because it seemed pointless, besides bringing back their time at Pengarth which Hester so patently wanted to forget. ‘Look, I’m going to start the washing up, then I can give you a hand this evening. Do you want me to shout for Phillips or help on the dodgems or the galloper?’
A brisk discussion ensued and Nell clattered plates at the basin, relieved to have got out of that questioning session so lightly. Dan was continually in her thoughts. Indeed, beside his well-remembered crooked grin and the look in those dark blue eyes, other men faded into insignificance. With her hands in the greasy hot water, Nell let her mind wander to the last time she had seen him.
After the fiasco of her visit to Lincoln the previous August, she had gone glumly back to Withies Farm, convinced that she had seen Dan with the love of his life and that her hopes in that direction were dashed. For forty-eight hours she had nursed a mixture of sorrow and resentment – sorrow for her loss, resentment that she had been supplanted. And then, on the Wednesday evening after her return, when they had been rained off the harvest fields early and were trying to dry themselves out before an unseasonally large fire, someone had knocked at the kitchen door.
Visitors who knocked at the back door were few and far between; most people just walked in. Mrs Earnshaw put down her knitting and looked at Dot and Nell over the top of her glasses.
‘Either one of you expecting a visitor?’ she asked. ‘Where’s Patty?’
Patty was the Earnshaw’s thirty-year-old daughter. She had lived in the city with her two small sons – her husband was in Aden – but the family had been staying at Withies Farm ever since a bomb had destroyed their neat little semi on Ipswich Road earlier in the year.