Approach of the storm Chapter 23

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Roger Marsh of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Thomas Arthur Russell, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Approach of the storm Chapter 23
By
Thomas Arthur Russell

Soon we sailed again and now we were left in no doubt that the ship was returning to the UK and leave would be given. As we drew nearer the Azores, we ran into longer periods of choppy weather. The idyllic of the tropics and the flying fish gave way to greyer waters, cooler weather and greyer skies.

Now on the mess deck was a feeling of excitement. Souvenirs purchased abroad were scrutinised, photo’s were looked at, names of girl friends at home were mentioned and what they were due to receive.

I envisaged a rise in the population if everything turned out the way much of the conversation went. Good natured banter was the order of the day and there was anew mood in the choices and the clatter of sea booted feet down the metal hatchways as the old faithful duffel coats were donned once more in the cold and heavy weather of the northern Atlantic.

We were coming home and it wasn’t long before we were being eased alongside the wall at Devonport. This last lap of our voyage had given us some streaks of rust and the old ship looked ready for a rest and a touch up and her crew were as ready as she.

No throbbing engines now, only the smell of the dockyard carried on the air and the steady murmur and flow of air through the ventilation trunking. We were home.

Then the pipe we had all been waiting for: “All liberty men going on leave, fall in for inspection on the quarter deck.” Most of the ship’s company had been granted leave while she was given over to the dockyard hands to dusk and down action stations, no alarm rattlers calling us to close up to damage control parties after a watch below the hope of an hour or two of sleep.

Inspection over with the usual warnings of the dire consequences if we were “adrift off leave”, and the best wishes for a good leave from the officer of the day. We all trooped down the gangway, a mass of blue serge and cases.

Swiftly, we walked in a column of threes through the dockyard, illuminated briefly by the flickering blue metallic light of welders repairing some item. Here and there were the grey outlines of great ships, cruisers and destroyers mostly, all in to have boilers cleaned or defects put right, refits and some replacements for crews, many who would be going through the school at Naval College and completing advancement courses. Also it was naval policy to share crews out from big ships routine to smaller ships to gain all round experience, and thus promoting a greater understanding of the problems in different aspects of the service.

Now we were at the gates. The dockyard police on duty gave me an uncomfortable feeling as they scanned the column, picking out here and there a man and inspecting his case for contraband. I had a pound of plug tobacco and a tin of ready rubbed pipe tobacco over the allowance, also several packets of duty free cigarettes besides my allowance for my month’s leave, therefore imagine my relief after passing through and gaining a position in the bus queue at the other side of the road.

It wasn’t long before we “Northerners” were lugging our cases along the station ready for our train to Bristol where I would change for Sheffield.

Time for reflection now as we waited. So much had happened since I’d first alighted at Plymouth’s North Road Station in 1939. I’d sailed in the Ramillies in the North and South Atlantic, the Mediterranean, been in the Battle of Cape Spartivento, bombarded Italian positions in North Africa, just missed action against the Bonvoyed in the Indian Ocean and covered the Madagascar landings, getting tin fished by the Japs and that wonderful leave in Ballengeih where I’d met Mary Bayne, I also thought of Eunice P, Barbara D. and now I was going home and hoped to get married. When I came back again to rejoin the ship I’d be a married man.

A 12-hour train journey was shared with soldiers, airmen and sailors and I arrived home. I was glad I wasn’t encumbered, as were many of the soldiers. They always seemed weighed down with rifle, kitbag and pack, like a human packhorse.

My case seemed heavy enough as I lugged it home in the early hours of the morning, for the buses from the station had long since ceased their daily run. How silent the blacked out streets were, I was the only thing moving. It was strange after the urgent bustle of the station. Occasionally I had to pause to wipe away a bead of sweat. It was warm work humping my case wearing the long navy overcoat with my gasmask slung over my shoulder with its waist-belt holding my coat to my body.

I had arranged to visit my fiancé’s house first, and on arriving, I wondered how I would be received. My first tentative knocks seemed to be ignored. Then suddenly a light appeared in a chink of the blackout curtain on the stairway, then a voice. The voice I’d longed to hear over the long months, Magdelina’s voice. “Whose there?” When I replied, “Just me love,” there was a sudden murmur of voices and an excited scurry of feet down the stairs.

The door opened and then the hugging and kissing. I was back indeed. Soon she had the table laid and a pleasant meal ready, all the time between mouthfuls I tried to tell her of the things that had happened since I last saw her.

I felt a pride in myself, I told her of friends I’d made and of future hopes, many never to be realised. Of tropical seas and flying fish, of the scents and sounds of Africa, the strange aromatic sensual smell of the jungle where it lined the anchorages we had visited. So strange to the ex-miner, a far different smell from the smell of the coal mine. I told her of swimming the clear blue water of the Indian Ocean as warm as my bath often was.

She prepared my bed as I washed, gave me a goodnight kiss, a promise of what was to come and soon I was asleep in the luxury of a large double bed. I loved my hammock but this was bliss.

Not a thing disturbed my sleep. I’d tried hard enough on the swaying train but all I’d done was to catnap and induce a slight headache. A marvellous time now ensued; we walked in the early Autumn woods, leaves beginning to turn to their russet and gold colours. I had faced the dangers of war while these very leaves had reached a peak of freshness, then had faded to a fast approaching fall. So much had passed in such a short time. Later years and records showed we had been luckier than we knew, for if the Japanese task force had headed a bit closer and one of their reconnaissance planes had headed South West, we could have ended up in action against a superior well equipped and well trained force. We would have needed all the luck in the world to survive such a fleet action in our ageing battleships.

I managed to pluck up courage to ask my fiancé’s parents for their permission to our marriage. I felt a bit apprehensive, but I needn’t have bothered, their permission was given, I knew that it must have entered their thoughts that a wartime marriage was a bit of a gamble. So we got married by special licence in the little Parish Church at Ardsley where my wife had worshipped and taught Sunday School.

Our celebrations were held at home and it was amazing the spread which was put on. We pooled ration coupons and were allowed a bit extra, if my memory serves me correctly, in the event of a wedding, I never knew we had so many relatives.

By now the leave had swiftly passed. The visiting, the shopping trips to Barnsley, the walks, all the happiness of a pair of newly weds would soon be at an end, then what? The news wasn’t so good on the war front, but it didn’t pay to ponder on what could happen. That last week was lived to the full, no real honeymoon away but we couldn’t have been happier and I made my mind up, no tears, no goodbyes as such, just a hug and kiss, a brief “so long love”. I didn’t like some of the goodbyes I saw. Too many ears, too much hanging on seemed to me a prolonging of the agony and was doing no one any good. We parted as if we were only going away for a day or two and I think we kept our feelings well bottled up.

As the old “push and pull” left Barnsley Court House Station, we waved to each other. Soon the curve of the track and we were both out of sight. She was on her way to get the bus home alone, and I to a future full of uncertainty, back to the ship with its routines, duty watches, shore leaves and no wife by my side.

What I did not know was that I would soon be back in Barracks, the Barracks I hated so much with its discipline and boring duties. It was the easiest thing in the world to get put in the “rattle” for forgetting a salute, cap tilted back and not work as “per pusser”. Little things like that which seemed so trivial, yet could earn a bout of “10A” which meant no shore leave, only extra duty when others were going ashore.

And the daftest thing seemed the compulsory salute of the guardhouse at the Barrack gate. We had to treat it as a king of quarterdeck and the guards on duty with their white gaiters and belts were always keenly watching for any infringement of the rules. I often wondered if these men ever went to sea. Anyway I arrived back on the old familiar mess deck, feeling a little weary and a trifle “chokka”, the good natured banter of friends did little to alleviate the anticlimax, the sudden tearing away from that brief visit into the heaven of newly married life back to the harshness of the service. The lads were all kidding me about the bed work I must have done. Some called ma a “jammy b******”, and they all wished me luck. Many of my more immediate friends offered me sippers from their totsi.

Soon I was to leave many of these friends, for I was drafted into Devonport Barracks. Most of them I never saw again, they were to be scattered through the service among other ships while the Ramillies took on replacements. I suspect many died on active service, I recall a few names. “Dusty Miller”, Ray Jarvis, John Gresham, Alex Rimmington, “Daisy Turner” and many more faces but not the names, a few Barnsley lads were among her crew. Freddie Holland, A. Seaman, Bill Taylor, Bob Lake, Dick Marsh and Tommy Farrar and our Padre the Rev. Stubbs, who I believe has relatives in Barnsley to the present day and whose death was a bit of a mystery. I recall him as a pleasant man, forever interested in the crew’s well-being and a comfort to men who had domestic and compassionate problems, a real gentleman.

Barracks seemed just as dull, grey and boring as always. Report here there and everywhere, the usual routine of bullshit that appeared so necessary to Naval discipline. I also found it at first surprisingly lonely after the comradeship of the mess deck with no new faces about that I knew.

You can be lonely in a crowd. My HMS Ramillies cap ribbon must have stood out among the ribbons with the indefinable H.M.S. on them. God, how I longed for a ship again, preferably in destroyers. The “boats” as they were called held a certain glamour, only shadowed by the submarine service, although sweepers MTB’s, MGB’s and ML’s were always eagerly looked to for drafts, especially as they were often involved in channel and North Sea patrols, often involving shoot-ups with 'E' and 'R' boats and enemy coastal escorts.

Gradually I struck up acquaintances with one or two men in barracks and fell into the patient routine of working parties, Sunday Divisions with the odd church parade and shore leave in Guz and Plymouth, and every day dashing up to the mess at lunch time for my tot and to scan the draft chits laid out on the table, hoping one lay there for me.

Then one day, it must have been towards the end of November, the draft chit I longed for arrived. My service sheet carries the date as 30th November 1942 that I received my draft to H.M.S. Quail. I reported promptly to the D.F.D.O. “Detailed For Draft Officer” along with a few more. We were an advance party and I found one of my new found chums Jack McOrmick was in the party. We had to muster sharp at 8a.m. the morning after with all our gear outside the D.F.D.O. and the senior rating in charge, Chief E.R.A. Waugh was given a railway warrant covering us all for the journey to Tyneside.

We were all happy to be leaving Barracks, especially as we were to be billeted out in private houses. With great relief we loaded our gear on the lorry and with hardly a backward glance trundled off to a few calls of “jammy b*******” and “you’ll be sorry”. Little did we know of the great events we were to take part in and little did we know that in the short space of less than a year, some were fated to die.

Pr-BR

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