Sunset by Douglas Reeman

case they jammed a door or an escape-hatch if the worst happened, and unless one watch was ashore as libertymen there was never enough space to sling all the hammocks anyway. But although the men moaned about the discomfort and overcrowding it was unlikely that any true destroyer-hand would exchange it for a battleship or cruiser, where the bugle and spit-and-polish ruled as in a barracks.
    Seven Mess was no different. The rolled oilcloth was unfolded on the table, and mess-traps were handed around while the cook of the mess clambered down from the galley with trays of greasy bangers and pans of steaming baked beans. A fanny of tea, some last remaining stocks of stale bread which had survived all the way from Scapa Flow, and maybe a biscuit or two: it was not much of a banquet, but it lined the stomach and drove the ache of watchkeeping away until the next time.
    The leading hand of the mess was the captain of the forecastle, Bill Doggett. He was a great block of a man, with wrists as thick as most men’s arms. A true seaman, his waist was hung about with handmade leather holsters in which he carried the tools of his trade, a wicked-looking knife as well as the regulation one or ‘pusser’s dirk’, a marlin-spike for splicing wire, even a pouch of lead pellets for the buoy-jumper to hammer into the big mooring shackle so that it did not unscrew itself as the ship tugged on the cable.
    Doggett was a formidable character who could be foul-mouthed, even violent when required, and he ruled his mess with a rod of iron. Ashore he was often fighting mad and appeared regularly as a defaulter for some misdemeanour or other. That was why he had never moved up to the petty officers’ mess: not that Bill Doggett cared, but he ran the forecastle deck with all its complications of anchors and cables, slips and stoppers, wires and fenders like a magician.
    As he had been heard to remark, ‘Even Mister toffee-nose Barrington-Purvis can’t find nothin’ to drip about!’
    He was rolling a cigarette now, his thick fingers like sausages but the movements deft and supple. His features were set in concentration.
    One seaman, called ‘Ticky’ Singleton because of a nervous twitch in one eye, said, ‘After Gib, Hookey? What d’you think?’
    â€˜Far East. Obvious, innit?’ Doggett gave him a pitying glance. ‘I done a commission out there once. Hong Kong – now there’s a place. Suit me, it would. All them little girls at Wanchai . . . make yer ‘air curl, they do!’
    The table was cleared, the oilcloth rerolled. It would soon be time to muster for work.
    Singleton persisted, ‘The new skipper don’t say much, do he?’
    â€˜To
you
? Got more mouse than that!’ Doggett gave a huge grin. ‘The old
Serpent
’s in good ‘ands. One officer short, a bomb-’appy navigator, a pisshead of a subbie, and now a Skipper who’s probably a real death-or-glory bloke.
Our
death, ‘
is
sodding glory!’
    â€˜There’s always Jimmy the One.’
    Another voice called, ‘Hookey only sees him across the table!’
    Doggett was rolling another cigarette from his duty-free tin. It would be ready in time for stand-easy.
    â€˜He an’ I ’ave an understandin’ . . .’ The cigarette stayed motionless in his hand as the tannoy rasped, ‘
Away
sea-boat’s crew! Lowering party to muster!’
    Doggett punched a man who had fallen asleep at the table.
    â€˜Shift yerself, Bobby! One ‘and for the King, remember?’
    Only one narrow ladder to the deck above, and yet in seconds the lower messdeck was empty, leaving sea-boot stockings dryingon a deckhead pipe, a half-finished letter, somebody’s local newspaper, sent perhaps to remind him of that which he could scarcely remember. For
this
was their home, and for all their banter it was what really mattered to them. That, and survival.
    Up on the open bridge,