The Cruel Sea (Penguin World War II Collection)

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BENNETT, disliking the experience they were all sharing, said so with honest persistence. He was now the most vocal of the wardroom, complaining with an ill-temper colored by a real uneasiness: the rotten ship, the lousy convoy, the bloody awful weather - these were the sinews of an unending dirge that was really grounded in fear. Like the others, he had never seen weather like this, or imagined it possible: he knew enough about ships to see that Compass Rose was going through a desperate ordeal, but not enough to realize that she was built to survive it, and would do so. He doubted their safety, and doubt was translated by a natural process into anger. He had made a fool of himself over working out their position, too — so much so that the Captain, taking the sextant from him, had said: “ Leave it, Number One — I’d rat her do it myself"; it had not helped matters. They both had to shout: the wind caught the words on their very lips and whipped them away into the night.

The Cruel Sea". The Australian Women's Weekly. 20 May 1953. p.37. Archived from the original on 29 March 2021 . Retrieved 22 July 2012– via National Library of Australia. Bridge!” he said, and listened for a moment. Then he straightened up, and called to the Captain across the gray width of the bridge. “Answer from Viperous, sir. . . . ‘Do not leave convoy until daylight.’” The other man sighed. “How strange to meet Scylla and Charybdis in Atlantic waters. . . . Perhaps I should explain the allusion. There were—”By the time they were past the Straits, and had smelled the burnt smell of Africa blowing across from Ceuta, and had shaped a course for Gibraltar harbor, they were all far off balance. Daylight,” said Morell suddenly, breaking the oppressive silence on the bridge. “Two more hours to wait.” Halliwell's Film Guide described the film as a "competent transcription of a bestselling book, cleanly produced and acted". [19] See also [ edit ] He loved the sea, though not blindly: it was the cynical, self-contemptuous love of a man for a mistress whom he distrusts profoundly but cannot do without.

Ericson ripped open the envelope, and read slowly and carefully. It was what he had been waiting for. THE Captain carried them all. For him, there was no fixed watch, no time set aside when he was free to relax and, if he could, to sleep. He had to control everything, to drive the whole ship himself: he had to act on signals, to fix their position, to keep his section of the convoy together, to use his seamanship to ease Compass Rose’s ordeal as much as possible. He was a tower of strength, holding everything together by sheer unrelenting guts. The sight of the tall tough figure hunched in one corner of the bridge now seemed essential to them all: they needed the tremendous reassurance of his presence, and so he gave it unstintingly, even though the hours without sleep mounted to a fantastic total.

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We were discussing the best way of dismantling the firing-bar on the asdic set.” He paused. “That’s not too technical for you?” As soon as they got in at the end of their first trip. Ericson applied for another officer to be appointed to the ship; it was clear that there was far too much work for a First Lieutenant and two subs to handle, leaving out of account the chance that accident or illness might make them more shorthanded still. He presented a good case, arguing the matter first with a faintly supercilious staff officer who seemed to think that corvettes were some kind of local defense vessel, and then incorporating his arguments in a formal submission to the Admiralty: it must have been an effective document, since their Lordships acted on it within three weeks. Sub-Lieutenant Morell, they said, was appointed to Compass Rose, “additional for watchkeeping duties”; SubLieutenant Morell would join them forthwith.

The novel, based on the author's experience of serving in corvettes and frigates in the North Atlantic in the Second World War, gives a matter-of-fact but moving portrayal of ordinary men learning to fight and survive in a violent, exhausting battle against the elements and a ruthless enemy. There is also a moment when the Compass Rose discovers a lifeboat floating alone on the sea, a single dead man inside, sitting at the rudder: He should have done something about getting the mess cleared up in the fo’c’s’le, but he couldn’t be bothered. He should somehow have organized at least one hot meal a day, even if it were only warmed-up tinned beans; the galley fire was unusable, but with a little ingenuity it could have been done in the engine room. This, again, was more trouble than he was prepared to take. Instead, he sulked, and shirked, and secretly longed to be out of it. They did four more convoys, of the rough, nervous character that marked most convoys nowadays; and then, at high summer, they were given what they had been looking forward to for many months — a refit, with the long leave that went with it; the first long leave since Compass Rose was commissioned. They had all wanted that leave: many of them needed it badly: life on Atlantic convoys was a matter of slowly increasing strain, strain still mounting toward a crucial point that could not yet be foreseen, and it took its toll of men’s nerves and patience, as surely as of ships.

It’s impossible to choose the best. The Cruel Sea, however, deserves to stand among the best. It deserves an audience. The bell of the wireless office rang sharply, breaking the silence, and Leading Signalman Wells, who was standing by the voice-pipe, bent down to it. The Cruel Sea_1953 | Britmovie | Home of British Films". Archived from the original on 7 September 2010 . Retrieved 30 October 2010. I suppose you were slipping ashore the whole time.” He took an enormous gulp of whisky, coughed, and only just held on to it. His eyes moved unsteadily round to Morell and Ferraby. “And as for you married men—married — ” He lost the thread of what he was going to say, but unfortunately started again. “You had a wonderful time. Don’t tell me.” Born on Rodney Street in Liverpool, Monsarrat was educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge. He intended to practise law. The law failed to inspire him, however, and he turned instead to writing, moving to London and supporting himself as a freelance writer for newspapers while writing four novels and a play in the space of five years (1934–1939). He later commented in his autobiography that the 1931 Invergordon Naval Mutiny influenced his interest in politics and social and economic issues after college.