大象传媒

Chapter 4.

Landfall.

Immediately after breakfast on Saturday 7th June, I once more resumed my perch on the forepeak. All the signallers were there; in fact, they had monopolised the place ever since the voyage began.
The last hazy headland had slowly disappeared beyond the southern horizon the previous day, and now there was nothing but a vast watery waste stretching away to the horizon on all sides. An undercurrent of excitement prevailed. Somebody had said he had heard someone tell somebody else that he had heard a rumour that the destroyers might practise dropping depth charges that morning and that it should be kept quiet in case it should cause unnecessary alarm. Practice dropping depth charges? Pull the other one. In no time at all it became common knowledge that there were two U-Boats somewhere behind us and that they had been shadowing us for the last fifty miles.
Signals began flying from ship to ship and then the destroyer on our port side swung away from us in a wide arc and headed at full speed southwards. A thin wedge of foam curled back from its sharp bows as it sped towards the suspected enemy, and we watched with interest and anticipation. More signals were exchanged and some of us were able to read them and translate them for the benefit of the others. One was an order for the ships to alter course, and the other troopships accordingly swung to port with the other destroyer fussing about them like a collie rounding up sheep. The hunting destroyer manoeuvred continuously in search of its suspected prey, and we kept our eyes fixed on it expecting every second to see the black blob of depth charges arcing through the air, but nothing happened and the destroyer eventually resumed its position with the convoy,- The U-boats had either gone away or were lying quiet in the depths. Most of us were disappointed at not seeing one of them brought to the surface but no doubt there would be another opportunity.
Later that evening there was another scare. A faint droning sound somewhere in the distance ahead of us grew gradually louder, then a dark green and brown shape with an underbelly of palest green dived suddenly out of the low-lying cloud layer and swooped low over us. The black crosses on its wings and the swastika on its tail were plainly visible as the ME 109 roared over us and disappeared into the clouds as quickly as it had appeared. It was gone, its drone fading away in the distance before anyone realised it.
As the sound of it faded away completely Ron turned to me and said,
"Blimey, that was a bloody jerry, wasn't it, Doug?"
"Yes, it was."
"I wonder why he didn鈥檛 attack us?"
"I don鈥檛 know, it's possible he didn't even see us. He was out of he clouds and back again before he could get a good look at us. And he was right over the top of us."
鈥淚 suppose you鈥檙e right. I wonder where he was from? He's a long way from home."
"Norway, most likely.鈥� I had a sudden thought. "If he saw us he鈥檚 probably gone back to fetch his mates.鈥�
Ron's' reply was unprintable, his face a picture as he digested the information, and he dug his hands deeper into his greatcoat pockets. Then a knowing grin spread over his face and he emitted a short laugh.
鈥淚 was just thinking. Maybe he鈥檚 come from Iceland. It'll be a bit of all right if Jerry's captured the island and we've got to fight to get it back.鈥�
The next day the destroyers again swept around in searching circles as the U-Boats were thought to be still following us, and little black blobs were lobbed up from the stern as depth charges were launched. The charges splashed into the sea and we awaited the result. The surface of the sea heaved slightly as though pushed up from underneath, appeared to subside for a brief moment, then heaved again as huge columns of water burst suddenly upward. They seemed to pause, motionless, for a fraction of a second as they reached their apex, then they collapsed and fell back into the sea like finely disintegrating icebergs. The destroyers continued searching for several more minutes without dropping any more depth charges, then they resumed their positions in the convoy., Their asdic contact had been a false alarm.
Through long hours of fair weather we voyaged up the North Atlantic, over moving floors that changed in tint almost every hour. The green of the coastal waters had been left far behind and the sea took on the marvellous tones of a placid ocean. The morning freshness became warmer under the noon sun and the evening sunset painted the sky' with chromatic splendours. The quiet swishing of the water as it gently stroked the vessel's sides seemed synonymous with the tranquillity of the moment.
The arrival of Ron put an end to my meditations and I bade him a cheery good evening and suggested a walk along the deck. We strolled slowly along the starboard side, me puffing at my pipe and Ron drawing on his Woodbine.
"Isn't it lovely?鈥� I remarked, as I remove my pipe and inhaled a lungful of the cool evening air.
"Isn't what lovely?" he demanded to know.
"This air. Makes you feel good to be alive, doesn't it? It's so fresh and bracing and free from pollution. You can't beat it."
"Doug, when you talk like this," he said, slowly and with great deliberation, "you remind me of the sea."
"How? Do I sound deep, restless and romantic?" (I couldn't resist that old chestnut".)
"No; you make me sick.鈥� (Neither could he apparently.)
鈥� So fresh and bracing and free from pollution? So is the air at home and I'd rather be there than here any time. Besides, what is there out here to be so yampy about? No fields, no trees, no flowers, no hedges, no . . ."
鈥淩ed Lion?" I finished it for him.
"Especially the Red Lion, " he answered, with a grin and we strolled towards the stern, where an accordionist was entertaining large group of men. How that man could play. It was marvellous to watch his stubby, spatulate fingers flick over the keys with such ease and accuracy. He finished Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody" and went straight into "Spanish Serenade鈥�. We stayed to hear "Tales Of The Vienna Woods", "Roses Of The South", Schubert's "Marche Militaire" and "Poet and Peasant" before continuing our stroll. We could have listened to him all night; it was so pleasant to hear some real
music for a change.
We spent some time watching the evolution of the many sea birds. Slightly bigger than swallows, they had the swallow's forked tail and pert little heads, and they were snow-white. They dived, climbed turned and twisted with amazing speed and agility and at times we thought they must surely get a ducking, so closely did they skim the waves. They would swoop down and snatch bits of food from the water and then climb again with a wild fluttering of wings with the prize gripped firmly in their beaks. Occasionally one would drop the food and dive for something more palatable. Having been in the presence of troopships before it knew what army biscuits were like. A large flock of birds bobbed about in the middle of a floating mass of jettisoned food that lay directly in the path of the ship and seemed completely unaware of the monster bearing down upon them. The bows sliced into the food and scattered it to port and starboard, sending the birds fluttering into the air with a frantic beating of wings and shrill cries of alarm. The birds then settled down again and continued feeding as though nothing had happened.
We leaned against the rail conversing on various topics, mainly home and the lovely countryside around it. Like me, Ron was country born and bred, but whereas he had never left the country life for life in a town, I had left it years before to seek work. After four years in Aylesbury I had gone to Birmingham to take a more interesting job and during the two years I had lived in Brum I had met and married my wife.
It was quite by accident that I had chummed up with Ron. Both of us were in the Signals Platoon at Norton Barracks but were billeted in different huts, so that we saw one another only in the course of our training and conversed mainly about signalling on the few occasions we were brought together. Then one day, when we were billeted in a large country house at Callow End, near Worcester where we were doing practical training on the subjects we had been tutored on. I heard someone mention Ilmington, a village near Shipston-on-Stour, in the Cotswolds, which I had visited with the cycling club only six weeks before I was called up. It was Ron, and as a result of our conversation we had become firm friends.
A Lockheed Hudson of Coastal Command appeared and flew arpond us, having a good look to ascertain who we were before disappearing into the distance on its appointed patrol. Our position then
would be approximately the same area where, in 1963, the North Atlantic was to regurgitate the new island of Surtsey.
We were on the look out for land, which we bad been told we should soon be sighting, when our attention was distracted by a large iceberg about a mile to starboard. It was a most majestic sight, a pure white rock on a placid, blue-green sea, with a ragged valance of creamy-white foam decorating its base. Those who had never seen one before crowded the rails and stared in wonder at its awesome beauty. It was difficult to reaIise that a thing so beautiful could wreak havoc on any ship unfortunate enough to hit it.
Away on the western horizon, still radiant and opalescent, a long jagged line of cloud stretched like a range of serrated hills, with summits that seemed to drift with the changing light. A breach appeared in the long low ridge, a breach marked with the fiery rays of the northern sun. The gap widened, and wisps of cloud drifted into the air, floating rather like valkyr shapes of flaming rose; but still in the opening, seeming to rest on the surface of the sea, one little black speck remained.
The black speck did not move. Clouds shaped and re-shaped about it, but it hung motionless, a tiny, distant blot on the sun-glinted western horizon and we realised that it was the first glimpse of our destination, Iceland.

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