Nostalgia: The Faithful Cat of the Concord

The sea off Start Bay was strangely still that morning, a silvery calm spread like polished pewter beneath the December sky.

Skipper Tom Trevorrow stood on the deck of the Concord, a weathered smack hailing from Brixham, hands calloused, and eyes narrowed against the faint glare. It was the sort of day that gave you no warning—no shrieking gulls, no angry swells, just silence and mist. He lit his pipe and scanned the horizon as his crew busied themselves below.

Tom had known the sea all his life. His father before him and his father before that had trawled these waters, each generation carving its life from the deep. But this war had turned the sea into something else. No longer a provider—it had become a hunting ground.

Beneath his oilskin, tucked away in the warmth of his woollen coat, nestled a ball of white fur. It was “the Cat”—a creature without a name, for none was needed. The cat was known in every corner of Brixham Harbour, a legend of sorts. Faithful as the tide, the cat had sailed with Tom for thirteen years, sleeping in the galley, stalking the nets for errant sprats, and curling up by the stove during storm-tossed nights. He was no ordinary ship’s pet—he was family.

The day had started plainly enough. They had hauled in a modest catch and were heading slowly back toward the coast when the signal came.

A flash of grey steel rose off the starboard bow—200 yards out. The shadow of death had surfaced in the form of a German U-boat.

A sharp whistle split the air. Tom grabbed his spyglass. The hulking form of the submarine bobbed on the waves like a sea serpent, gun mounted, crew alert. One officer stood tall on deck, raising his hand with stern clarity—no mistaking the order. He gestured: 'Throw out your boat.'

Tom’s heart sank.

The men obeyed. One by one, they lowered the small boat and rowed toward the submarine, steady, slow, like condemned men heading to judgement. The officer barked, “Are you British?” Tom nodded, his throat dry. He was asked again, and again he said yes. The officer disappeared below and returned moments later.

The verdict had come. The captain of the U-boat had given orders: the smack must be sunk.

No negotiation, no appeal. War gave no quarter.

The German officer asked if two of his men could come aboard. They did, boots thudding against the wooden deck of the Concord. He offered Tom and his men the choice of going aboard the submarine—but Tom shook his head. “We prefer the small boat,” he said grimly.

They had what they needed—bread, water, meat in the icebox, a flare-up can, a gallon and a half of paraffin, a finished matz with a bit of twine, and even a tub of pouting. But it didn’t matter. The officer wanted more.

Drawers were ransacked. They took tools: cold chisels, a marlin spike, a hammer, even carpenter’s tools from below. The officer stooped into the cabin, lifting away the cook’s stash and a sack of groceries. He sniffed the stove but left the caddy of tea untouched. 'Odd,' thought Tom, 'how war made men selective.'

Still, the officer was not cruel—not demanding. Just thorough.

And then the moment came. As the officer stepped back toward the rail, preparing for the final destruction, the cat slipped from below deck and mewed. Bright white fur against the oil-slicked gloom. Curious eyes. Trusting paws.

Tom’s breath caught in his throat.

“That was the cat,” he said, his voice cracking.

The officer paused.

Tom lunged toward the boat. He tied a bit of twine around the cat’s neck and called to the cook. “Take ‘im—tie him proper. He’s sailed with me for 13 years. I’ll not lose him like this!”

The cook tried. Twice, three times he looped the line. But the sea was rising, nerves were fraying, and in the confusion of shoving off, the cat sprang.

He landed six, maybe eight, feet from the boat and clawed onto the deck. But the submarine had primed its final bomb. There would be no return.

Tom watched, helpless, as the Concord began to list. The U-boat slipped away like a ghost, its crew indifferent. The water hissed. The smell of cordite lifted into the air.

And then the Concord was gone.

One by one, her planks splintered. The Union Jack—moth-eaten, full of holes—vanished with her. A tarred line floated briefly, then sank. The sea closed in like a lid.

Tom sat in the small boat, arms slack, tears slipping down cheeks browned by decades of salt.

“But one did die like a true British hero,” he whispered.

“That was the cat.”

They rowed for hours, chilled to the bone, hands blistered from the oars. The little flare-up can sit unused. They needed it for light, but the night had not yet come.

None of them spoke much. The silence wasn’t from shock but reverence. You didn’t lose a vessel like the Concord and just chatter your grief away.

When they reached Brixham, the harbour lights glowed gold against the stone. Folks on the quay gathered to meet them—wives with worried eyes, boys with questions in their throats.

Tom stepped ashore, every inch of him older than he had been that morning. In his hands he carried nothing but the bit of twine he had tied for the cat.

“Gone”, was all he said.

In the coming days, the news spread. Word of the Concord’s loss wasn’t just another war story—it was personal. The cat had become a symbol of Brixham’s endurance. Children cried. Old men removed their caps. Fishermen carved a tiny plaque—For the White Cat of the Concord—and nailed it to the door of the Bell Inn.

The townspeople tried to make sense of it all. The newspapers spoke of two trawlers destroyed, another nearly gone. It was no longer the distant war—it had arrived at their doorstep, torpedoes tearing into their simple lives.

One of the lost was the famous Provident, whose gallant crew had once aided the torpedoed Formidable off Lyme Regis during a snowstorm. Those men had been heroes—real ones. Now they were ghosts.

People turned to the government. Start Bay, they said, was vulnerable. The privileges given to local trawlers must not be abused. There had been talk of rogue fishing, of authority defied, but now was not the time for politics.

The people of Brixham were grieving.

In the weeks that followed, Tom walked the quay alone. Every trip to the ship chandlers reminded him of the tools lost. Every creak of the nets reminded him of the Concord’s timbers.

But most of all, it was the silence that wounded.

At night, he would swear he heard a familiar paw padding along the floorboards of his cottage. Once, he dreamt he was at sea again, and the cat jumped into his lap, dry and warm.

He awoke with salt in his mouth and tears on his face.

Children still asked after the cat. They’d bring white kittens wrapped in scarves and say, “This one’s for you, Mr Trevorrow.” He’d smile, thank them, but gently shake his head.

“There’s only one.”

Tom wrote once in his journal before he stopped altogether.

December 6, 1916.

We lost more than wood and sail yesterday. We lost a friend, a keeper of time, and a memory of better days. The cat is gone. But he died a sailor’s death—loyal to the end. The sea has him now. May it be kinder to him than the war has been to us.

Years later, long after the war ended and the papers yellowed, a child walking the shore near Start Bay found a copper compass encrusted in salt. His father cleaned it and recognised it by its marks. It had belonged to the Concord.

The compass now rests in a glass case in a corner of Brixham Museum. Beneath it is a brass plate, freshly engraved: “One Did Die Like a True British Hero — That Was the Cat.”

The Concord. Lost, but never forgotten. December 5, 1916.