A Twist of Sand

His cherubic face, which I had once known to become as mischievous as a schoolboy's when arranging a secret drink before lunch at Admiralty House, was stern.

The five officers, divided by the rear-admiral in the middle, formed the proscenium, as it were, to the glorious backdrop of the Cape mountains behind Simonstown. Through the long windows behind them I could see a great wash of white arum lilies -- they grow as wild as hedge-flowers in England during the Cape spring -- for all the world like surf against the blue sea and the mountains, to which Drake paid immortal tribute when he rounded them four centuries ago.

Elton stood, faintly self-conscious but smirking at being in the limelight, at the improvised "witness box" which had been rigged for the court martial. I and my defending officer, Lieutenant Gander, sat behind a table facing the captains, the two lieutenants and the Rear-Admiral Commanding South Atlantic. Elton was enjoying telling them about my savage assault on him before Trout went in to sink NP I.

The court martial was, of course, inevitable. It followed my arrival as surely as the breakers of Curva dos Dunas snarl over the burnt-out remains of NP I at this moment. I suppose my return navigation of the tortuous channel-alone, utterly alone with nothing but my own thoughts-was one of the most automatic things I have ever done. Through the creaming welter of death I had conned the damaged Trout, past the invisible causeway to the shore, through the twisted whorls of the channel to the open sea. I have, to this day, no clear recollection of that night. Probably the reaction of seeing NP I come to such a ghastly end, followed by my own action in massacring a terror-stricken wretch with a machine-gun, had been too great. Vaguely the death-dealing breakers and sand-bars glided by and, my eyes aching from the whiteness of the surf under the whiteness of the moon, I stumbled down the conning-tower hatch and gave John a course for Simonstown.

"Full ahead," I had told him in a toneless voice.

I fell upon my bunk and slept like a dead man.

There is, however, no escaping the vigil of the Royal Navy. I had sinned -- or they thought I had -- and the court martial was the natural sequel. Half a day after Trout had tied up in Simonstown and the signals had flown between Simonstown and London, I was relieved of my command. The Commander-in-Chief had decided that there was certainly something very fishy about Trout and her skipper.

Elton was doing nothing to disillusion the court martial on that score.

"When," asked the bland voice of the prosecuting officer, "did you have doubts about Lieutenant-Commander Peace's er -- ah -- mental state?"

"The night we 'eard the whale. . . ." his voice trailed away uncertainly.

The Commander-in-Chief gazed at him questioningly.

Certainly the court martial  was  providing  its  quota of surprises.

"Heard a whale?" snapped the gold braid at the high table. "What d'ye mean -- heard a whale?"

"Well, sir," stumbled Elton, growing pink round the It came out with a rush. "I don't like to say in front of the lady, sir." He gestured towards the Wren who was taking the proceedings down in shorthand.

"You mean . . ." the rear-admiral snorted, incredulously. "Anything you have to say, say it, by God, and let us hear, even in front of a lady."

"Well, sir," said Elton. "The night we heard a whale farting over the hydrophones."

A slight tremor in her pencil was the only indication the Wren showed that the shock had not passed unnoticed.

"Heard a whale ... er ..." gasped the rear-admiral.

"There seem to have been some strange occurrences in H.M.S. Trout," said the senior captain, his voice like a file.

"Explain yourself, Elton," said the Commander-in-Chief.

"Well, sir, we was listening, Bissett and me, on the 'ydrophoncs and there comes this noise. Strike a light, I says, that bleedin' whale must be getting the same sort of grub as we get in Trout. 'E's got a guts-ache, all right."

The Wren's pencil faltered, but she carried on gamely, brown head bent over her notebook.

Elton paused while the drama sank in.

But the old seadog presiding wasn't going to let him away with it.

"And then ?" he asked in his quarter-deck voice.

"Lieutenant-Commander Peace come in and he seemed to think it was a U-boat." The contempt for my judgement was obvious.

"Could it not have been H.E muffled, or distorted?" asked the senior captain.

"Not a ... beg pardon, no sir," replied Elton. "I never 'eard H.E like that."

The junior captain on the other side chipped in.

"You're not the senior hydrophone operator in Trout are you?"

"No sir," said Elton, "but . . ."

"That's all," snapped the officer. Here at least, I thought wanly, was someone with a judicial turn of mind.

"Yes, and then?" asked the rear-admiral, usurping the prosecuting counsel's function.

"The skipper, I mean Lieutenant-Commander Peace, told Bissett to keep on to it. I 'eard 'im giving orders to follow it."