“TAKING WATER! BOTTOM plates and floor plates buckled.”

The distress call went out, seeking the ears of the commodore
in command of the sixty-ship convoy bound for Murmansk.
Hundreds of tons of war materials en route for the
hungry war machines of the beleaguered Soviets were in the
holds of that convoy. All available escort ships would be
needed to bring them safely through the blockade that would
be thrown up by the Nazi U-boats and aircraft determined
to interrupt the convoy’s passage north of Norway.And now
the distress call went out from one of those escort vessels,
the frigate HMCS Loch Lyon.

This was the worst weather the Loch Lyon had met in her
brief career. The seas were mountainous, rushing before a
fierce wind that had ice on its breath. The waves pounded
the ship ceaselessly, they rolled over her, lifting her, then
rushed on to drop her into black, frothing caverns, with a
crash that jarred the teeth of her watchmen.

Water was ankle deep in the mess deck, and anything that
was not properly stowed was sloshing about. This was not
caused by the buckled plates. They were down below. The
very bottom plates had given way first, then the floor plates
in the magazine. Pumps were working on that. But in spite
of battened hatches the raging seas were not to be denied
and salt water was everywhere.

Able Seaman Glen Cassley had left the mess deck, dogging
the hatch behind him, to take his turn as look-out. He
staggered across the heaving deck that dropped away from
his reaching foot to throw him against the bulkhead, then
came up and knocked him to his knees. He crawled to the
ladder that led to the upper deck. Once he was outside, the
wind hit him like the blow from a heavyweight boxing glove.
He grasped the lifeline stretched across and above the deck,
shielding his face as best he could from the stinging spray,
and worked his way aft. His lookout station was on the
quarterdeck, but that was continuously under water.No one
could stay there.

Instead, he made his way to the gun deck. Here was the
Pom-Pom, a four-barrel gun that took its fanciful name from
the steady pom pom pom as she hurled two-pounder shells
against the foe. But it was neither U-boats nor aircraft that
was the enemy now. It was the weather, and no weapon could
protect the frigate from that.

Glen couldn’t even protect his face from the stinging spray
and biting wind. It found its way into and under his oilskin
coat and hood. He gave up trying to shield his face as he
searched the heaving wastes for some sign of the convoy. It
would be scattered now, over hundreds of miles of ocean,
every ship for itself in its fight against the elements. The
Loch Lyon wouldn’t be the only casualty. Some ancient tramp
steamers, dragged out of retirement in the desperate battle
of the Atlantic, would succumb to the merciless pounding
and head, hopefully, for the nearest shelter, hoping to live
and fight another day.

When the weather eventually cleared, the escort ships’
first task would be to round up the scattered ships and form
them into defendable convoy again. But it looked as if the
Loch Lyon would not be a part of that . . .

The merchant ships might be lost in the murk where
heavy clouds dragged ragged hemlines across the towering
waves, but the nearest escort ship, HMCS Annan, should be
out there, not too far away. She had been there a few minutes
ago, her signal lamp blinking, a pitching, heaving grey
shape barely distinguishable in a grey world. He searched for
some sign of her. But she was gone. Disappeared. He caught
his breath, his numb hands clutching his binoculars . . .

There she was! Like a whale surfacing, climbing out of a
cavern deeper than a grave, throwing a cloud of spume
higher than her masthead, rolling far over, then righting
herself, slowly, fighting the screaming elements, just as was
the Loch Lyon . . .

But the Loch Lyon had lost the fight. Bruised and battered,
her pumps fighting to control the invading sea, she had to
abandon the convoy and head for shelter.