"MacDonnell, J E - 021 - The Coxswain" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonnell J E)

a few words of encouragement and understanding which could have
even more therapeutical value than medical attention in Sydney.
There was another man on whom the ship's present stats largely
depended, and he was standing beside and a little behind Bentley
now. Chief Petty-officer Herbert Smales, the coxswain; standing on
the bridge, waiting, respectful, his slight frame reaching not much
higher than his captain's broad shoulder, his leathery face composed,
his alert blue eyes flicking regularly to Bentley's face, waiting for
the word.
He had not the slightest conception of what his lord was thinking,
nor was he interested. His sole concern at this moment was time-
whether he would muster requestmen and defaulters at the normal
time of eleven o'clock, or whether-as he guessed-the captain would
wait till the ship was safely through Jomard Passage.
Chief Petty-officer Smales was, officially, the chief of police,
the keeper of discipline, the senior rating on the lower-deck. He was
also the man who took the wheel when the ship entered or left harbour,
or came within dangerous approach of land, as she shortly was to
do. And that was another reason why now he waited for the captain
to give him the time-for those few minutes of tricky steering and
navigation through the Passage Smales would hold Wind Rode's
safety literally in his small and practised hands.
But the coxswain was much more than these things. Officially he
was junior in ranking to a midshipman, who enjoyed officer status;
he was required by regulation to salute the greenest acting-
sublieutenant, and to address him as "Sir". Yet Smales, a most
experienced representative of his select branch, was Bentley's
confidant; in Wind Rode he was closer to the captain, knew more of
his trials and worries over the ship's working-up, than many a senior
lieutenant.
The asdic, radar, torpedo and gunnery officers were important to
the handling of the ship. But between Commander Bentley and the
200 men of his command, the main and incorruptible link, the
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 9 -



mouthpiece of their requests and troubles, the knowledge-packed
well of information and advice, was the small and weather-wizened
figure of Smales.
In a big ship like a cruiser or battleship or carrier his opposite-
number would be the Master-at-Arms, the only noncommissioned
officer in the Navy entitled to wear, at Sunday Divisions, a sword: in
the Army, he would correspond to a regimental sergeant-major, or
perhaps a provost-mar-shall. His authority might not be greater than
an R.S.M., and yet there was a subtle difference; here, aboard ship,
he was indefinably closer to his captain than the Army man to his
colonel.
A coxswain in a destroyer could make or mar a crew, his slackness
or indifference could negative the most assiduous efforts of the bridge