Smythe, Tom Atlantic Tramp
Dedicated simply “To the Merchant Navy,” Smythe’s Atlantic Tramp should be on the must read list of anyone interested in contemporary wartime British attitudes towards their merchant services during the early years of the Second World War. At times almost mawkishly sentimental, sometimes reeking of official propaganda (“British chivalry on the high seas is sharply contrasted to the cruel and cowardly methods of the enemy” — dust jacket blurb), yet at other times profoundly moving, Smythe’s novel looks at one British freighter, the fictitious RAMBLER, during the period August 1940 through May 1941 as the ship endures a succession of North Atlantic voyages, sometimes in convoy, other times sailing solo but with her crew always keenly aware of the importance of their mission to keep Britain’s sea lanes open. Smythe’s opening paragraph describes the tired old RAMBLER and sets the stage for his tale:
“Her scarred and battered hull, and the slatternly air she carried with her, told their own tale. Typhoons in the China seas, monsoons in the Indian Ocean, blizzards in the North Atlantic, hurricanes in the Southern Pacific — she bore the marks of them all; but, having borne and ridden through them triumphantly, you could almost hear her say on her safe return: ‘Here we are a again, not so trim, but as jaunty as on the day we first went into commission.’”
While the RAMBLER sees plenty of action on the North Atlantic, it’s Smythe’s quieter moments of crew shipboard and portside life that stay with the reader. Of particular interest is one chapter detailing a nighttime air raid on the ship’s homeport (Liverpool?). For the record, the RAMBLER is attacked on various voyages by Nazi bombers and endures many submarine alerts. The novel climaxes with the crew of the RAMBLER taking on and besting a German U-boat somewhere close to Britain on a homebound voyage. As for the Nazi foe, Smythe, in the voice of one mariner aboard the RAMBLER, couldn’t be more clear: “Germans — they’re not men, they’re swine.” Another remarks, “German seamen should stink in the nostrils of everybody decent when this lot is over.” Clearly a commonly held sentiment during the war years.