The Cruel Sea (1951) Read Online Free PDF

– with which he greeted them, sounded the knell of appetite. Then he would sit down, rub his hands, help himself liberally to Worcester sauce, and go to with a will. In fishing circles he would have been described as a coarse feeder.
    The leading-steward, a morose man named Carslake, watched this performance with a sardonic eye. Clearly he had been used to better things. He was not alone in that.
    If Bennett talked at all, it was in a bombastic, contradictory whine which disposed of a subject almost before it had been introduced. One mealtime encounter which he had with Lockhart had an unusual sequel. The latter, talking about the ship’s lifesaving equipment, had remarked that in very cold weather one might have a better chance of survival swimming in the water, supported by a life jacket, than sitting wet through in an open boat exposed to the wind. Bennett, his mouth full, interrupted roughly: ‘Rot! Wait till the first time you’re fished. You’ll change your mind bloody quickly.’
    ‘But,’ said Lockhart mildly, ‘how do you know that? You can hardly have been torpedoed yet.’
    Bennett glared, but did not answer. Later, when the Captain had left the wardroom, he said to Lockhart: ‘You talk to me like that again, and I’ll crown you.’
    After a pause Lockhart said levelly: ‘That would get you into a great deal of trouble.’
    ‘Just watch it, that’s all!’ Baulked of an easy surrender, Bennett’s tone changed. He rubbed his hands together. ‘Now – who’s going to stand me a drink? Ferrabee!’
    ‘Yes,’ said Ferraby. ‘Of course. Er—please help yourself.’
    ‘Do we have to stand him drinks?’ asked Ferraby later, when Bennett had gone to his cabin. ‘He never stands them to us.’
    ‘We don’t have to stand him anything,’ answered Lockhart with decision. ‘It’s just a racket. Next time, pour him a drink and give him the chit book to sign at the same time. That’ll hold him.’
    Ferraby shook his head. ‘He’ll make it up somehow. You know what he’s like.’
    Ferraby spoke with some bitterness: he had indeed found out what Bennett was like, to his cost. A few days earlier, since it seemed likely that Compass Rose would not be sailing for at least a fortnight, he had asked permission to send for his wife: she could stay at a hotel in Glasgow and he could see her on alternate evenings, when he was not Officer-of-the-Day. It would involve no sort of complication and he would not be dodging his fair share of the work. Bennett, however, had turned the request down, in a particularly offensive exchange.
    ‘Wife?’ he said, when Ferraby approached him in his cabin. ‘Didn’t know you had one. How long have you been married?’
    ‘Six weeks,’ said Ferraby.
    Bennett smirked. ‘Time you gave it a rest, then.’
    Ferraby said nothing. Bennett affected to consider the matter, frowning down at his desk. Then he shook his head. ‘No, sub,’ he said, ‘I don’t like the idea. There’s too much work to do.’
    ‘But when the work’s over—’ began Ferraby.
    ‘You’ve got to concentrate,’ said Bennett crisply. ‘What’s the good of you slipping off for a honeymoon every time the bell strikes? It’ll take your mind off the ship.’
    Ferraby swallowed. He hated the conversation, but he persisted bravely. ‘All I want to do—’ he began again.
    ‘I know bloody well what you want to do.’ The crude leer on Bennett’s face was sufficient commentary, but he clinched it more crudely still. ‘You’ve quite enough to do without sleeping ashore every other night, and coming back clapped out. You’d better forget it.’
    It was something which Ferraby did not forget . . . When he told Lockhart about it he was pitifully distressed.
    ‘I don’t mind so much having it turned down,’ he said. ‘But to talk like that about it . . . It’s—it’s beastly!’
    Lockhart shook his head. ‘You might have guessed it. He’s that sort of man.’
    ‘I hate him!’
    Lockhart