When he came up to the bridge, knuckling his eyes and rubbing his stiff face, Ericson was not in the best of tempers. He had had a bare four hours’ sleep, interrupted by the first convoy report; and to have it broken into again, just because (as he phrased it to himself) there was a bloody seagull perched on the radar aerial and the First Lieutenant hadn’t got the sense to shoo it away, did not seem to him the best way of greeting the happy dawn. He grunted as Lockhart pointed out the echo and explained how it had developed: then he looked up from the radar screen, and said briefly: ‘Probably a straggler.’
‘It’s a lot smaller than the other ships, sir,’ said Lockhart tentatively. He recognised the Captain’s right to be short-tempered at this godforsaken hour of the morning, but he had taken that into account when he woke him up, and he wanted to justify the alarm. He pointed to the screen. ‘That’s the stern escort, I should say. This thing is at least ten miles behind that.’
‘M’m,’ grunted Ericson again. Then: ‘Who’s the radar operator?’ he asked, following Lockhart’s own train of thought.
‘Sellars, sir.’
Ericson bent to the voice-pipe, and cleared his throat with a growl. ‘Radar!’
‘Radar – bridge!’ answered Sellars.
‘What about this echo?’
‘Still there, sir.’ He gave the range and the bearing. ‘That makes it about ten miles astern of the last ship of the convoy.’
‘Nothing wrong with the set, is there?’
‘No, sir,’ said Sellars, with the brisk air of a man who, at ten minutes to eight on a cold morning, was disinclined for this sort of slur, even coming from a bad-tempered Captain. ‘The set’s on the top line.’
‘Have you had an echo like this before?’
There was a pause below. Then: ‘Not exactly, sir. It’s about the size we’d get from a buoy or a small boat.’
‘A trawler? A drifter?’
‘Smaller than that, sir. Ship’s boat, more like.’
‘H’m . . .’ Ericson looked at the radar screen again, while Lockhart, watching him, smiled to himself. It was clear that his bad temper was fighting a losing battle with his acknowledgement of Sellars’ competence. Behind them, the rest of the bridge personnel, and Baker, who had just come up to take over the watch, were also eyeing the Captain speculatively, alert for any decision. But when it came, it was still a surprise.
‘Sound “Action Stations”,’ said Ericson, straightening up suddenly. And to the wheelhouse, in the same sharp voice: ‘Full ahead! Steer ten degrees to starboard.’
Lockhart opened his mouth to speak, and then snapped it shut again. Taken by surprise, he had been about to say something phenomenally silly, like: ‘Do you really think it’s a submarine, sir?’ The loud, endless shrilling of the alarm bells all over the ship, and the thud of heavy boots along the decks and up the ladder, gave the best answer of all to this foolish speculation . . . He stood by the battery of voice-pipes, conscious of more than the usual excitement as the various positions were reported to him, and he acknowledged the reports: the pattern and the sequence of this were yawningly familiar, it was all old stuff, they had been doing it, in fun or in earnest, for two whole years: but this time, this time it really might have some point to it . . .
One by one the voices pricked his eagerness.
Ferraby from aft: ‘Depth-charge crews closed up!’
Morell from the fo’c’sle: ‘Gun’s crew closed up!’
Baker from amidships: ‘Two-pounder gun closed up!’
Chief E.R.A. Watts from far below: ‘Action steaming stations!’
Tallow from the wheelhouse: ‘Coxswain on the wheel, sir!’
Lockhart gave a swift glance round him, and fore and aft, a final check for his own satisfaction. The bridge lookouts were at their places on the Hotchkiss guns: Leading-Signalman Wells was ready by the big signal lamp. Grouped round the four-inch gun just below the bridge, the steel-helmeted crew stood alert, with Morell staring ahead through his binoculars and then turning back to direct the loading: far aft, Ferraby was the centre of another group of men, clearing away the safety lashings from the depth-charges and preparing them for firing. Satisfied, Lockhart turned to the Captain, presenting the completed pattern for whatever use he chose to make of it.
‘Action Stations closed up, sir!’ he called out. Then he dropped back to his own charge, the asdic set: the killing instrument itself, if one were needed . . . Underneath them, as if conscious of her weight of tensed and ready men, Compass Rose began to tremble.
Ericson was watching the radar screen. His call for Action Stations had been not much more than an impulse: he could even admit that it might have been prompted by irritation, by the feeling that, if he himself had to be awake, then no one else on board was going to go on sleeping. But certainly they had picked up an odd-looking echo, one of the most promising so far: it was possible that this time they were really on to something, and in that case the full readiness of Compass Rose was a solid comfort. Momentarily he raised his binoculars, and peered ahead, but the morning mist lay all round the horizon and there was nothing to be seen. He looked down at the radar screen again, and then bent to the voice-pipe.
‘Report your target.’
Sellars gave the range and the bearing of the contact. Whatever it was, it was still moving at the slow convoy speed, and they were overhauling it rapidly.
‘It’s gaining strength a bit, sir,’ he concluded. ‘Same size, but a firmer echo. Must be something pretty solid.’
That was what the picture on the radar screen showed. The whole convoy had emerged now: a compact square of ships, with the outlying escorts showing clearly, and the small stranger swimming along behind . . . Ericson had begun to believe in it; for the first time, he felt he was watching a U-boat behaving according to the book – trailing a convoy just out of sight, perhaps after an abortive night attack, and waiting for dusk to come again, before moving up for another attempt. But what this U-boat didn’t know about was the straggling escort left behind, the ship outside the picture which was hurrying in to spoil it. If they could just get within range before they were spotted . . .
Compass Rose ran on; the whole ship was expectant, pointing towards her target, racing to find out what it was, hoping for the legal quarry. If it were a U-boat, then they were building up towards the best chance of the war so far: it was the thing they had been waiting for, the point of all their endurance; the next hour could make sense of everything. All over the upper deck, the men standing-to were cheerful in their hope: the word had gone round that they were chasing something definite, and a steady leakage of information from the radar room kept them up to date and fed their expectation. And on the bridge, every man who had a pair of glasses – the Captain, Wells, the two lookouts – strained towards the horizon, and the promise that might break from it at any moment.
Compass Rose ran on: the bow wave creamed under her forefoot, the boiling wake spread behind her, whipping against the wind with rough impatience as she drove towards her prey. The sun was over the horizon now, a pale sun which melted the mist and set the waves sparkling for ten and fifteen miles ahead: a pale sun, a strengthening sun, a cheerful sun which was on their side and had come up to help them. The rigging began to whine: the trembling of the bow plating as it thrust and divided the water could be felt all over the upper deck: by the depth-charge rails, the pulse of the screw against the racing sea made the whole after part vibrate, on a broad monotone singing note like a statement of intention in some formidable work of music. Chief must be giving it stick, thought Ericson with a grin of satisfaction: that’ll wake up those loafing stokers, that’ll shake a bit of soot down the funnel . . . After last night’s protracted helplessness, it was good to reverse the roles and to be launched on this swift stalking hunt.
Compass Rose ran on. ‘Report your target!’ said Ericson, for the fifth or sixth time: from below, Sellars’ voice, excited and jubilant, confirmed the dwindling range, the certainty of a lively
rendezvous. For Ericson, it was as if the whole ship were gathering itself together under his hand, getting wound up taut for the spring: it was a fanciful thought, such as he sometimes had when he was very tired or very tense: he felt the ship under him like the rider feels the horse, and he felt glad and proud of her ready response. It was for this that they had waited so long and sweated so hard . . . He crossed to the compass platform, took an exact bearing from the last radar report, raised his glasses, and stared along the line.
Almost immediately he saw it.
It was a square speck of black on the horizon: it was the conning tower of a U-boat. Even as he looked at it, it lifted to the long swell, and he saw at its base a plume of white – the wash thrown off by the submerged hull. Far ahead of it, to complete the picture, there were some stray wisps of smoke, the telltale marks of the convoy which was betraying itself from over twenty miles away. Two targets, two hunters – he straightened up with a jerk, and whipped to the front of the bridge.
‘Morell!’ he snapped.
Morell looked up. ‘Sir?’
‘There’s a U-boat on the surface, dead ahead. Far out of range at the moment. But be ready. We want to get a couple of shots in before she dives – if we can get near enough.’ Ericson half-turned towards Lockhart: as he did so, Wells, who was standing by his side and staring through his binoculars, called out: ‘I can see it, sir – dead ahead!’ His voice was high with excitement, but almost immediately his professional sense pulled him back to normal again. ‘Shall we send a sighting report, sir?’
‘Yes. W/T signal. Warn the office.’ He gathered his thoughts together. ‘Take this down . . . “Admiralty, repeated to Viperous. Submarine on surface ten miles astern of Convoy T.G.104. Course 345, speed five knots. Am engaging”.’ He turned round again, towards Lockhart in the asdic cabinet. ‘Number One! There’s a—’
Lockhart put his head out of the small window, smiling widely. ‘I kind of overheard, sir,’ he answered. ‘Too far away for me, at the moment.’
Ericson smiled in answer. ‘We’ll need that damned box of tricks before very long. You can stand by for the quickest crash dive in history, as soon as they see us.’
‘Sir,’ said Lockhart, ‘let’s make the most of it while their trousers are down.’
All over the ship, the next five minutes were intense and crowded. The warning of immediate action was passed to Ferraby on the depth-charges aft, and then to the engine room. ‘Crack it on, Chief!’ said Ericson crisply, down the voice-pipe: ‘we’ve only got a certain amount of time to play with.’ Compass Rose began to romp across the sea towards her target: under pressure from the last few pounds of steam, she seemed to be spurning the water in a desperate attempt to close the range before she was discovered. Through Ericson’s glasses, the square speck of the conning tower was bigger now: it had gained in detail, it had a variety of light and shade, it even had the head and shoulders of a man – a man silhouetted against the hard horizon, a man gazing stolidly ahead, ludicrously intent on his arc of duty. ‘All unconscious of their fate, the little victims play,’ thought Lockhart, who could now see the U-boat with his naked eye, without effort: it was still too far away for an asdic contact, but at this rate, by God, they could do a straightforward ramming job, without calling on the blessings of science . . . The distance shortened: Sellars’ voice rose steadily up the scale as he reported the closing range: presently a totally unfamiliar bell rang on the bridge – the bell from the four-inch gun – and Morell, with the air of a man presenting his compliments on some purely speculative occasion, said: ‘I think I could reach him now, sir.’
The range was four sea miles: eight thousand yards. It was a long shot for a small gun, it might spoil the whole thing; but surely, thought Ericson, that stolid man in the conning tower must turn round, and see them, and say either ‘Donnerwetter!’ or ‘Gott in Himmel!’ and take the U-boat in a steep dive down to safety . . . He delayed for a moment longer, weighing the chances of discovery against the limitation of the valiant popgun which was their main armament; then he leant over the front of the bridge, and nodded permission to Morell.
The roar of the gun could hardly have followed more swiftly: Morell’s finger must have been hovering very near the trigger . . .
It was a good shot, even with the help of radar to do the range finding, but it was not good enough for their crucial circumstances; the spout of grey-white water which leapt skywards was thirty yards ahead of the U-boat – the best alarm signal she could ever have had. The man in the conning tower turned as if he could hardly credit his senses, like a lover who has been given positive guarantees that the husband is overseas and now hears his voice in the hall; then he ducked down, as if plucked from below, and the conning tower was empty. In the expectant silence, their gun roared again: Ericson swore aloud as this time the shot fell short, and the tall column of water unsighted them. When it fell back into the sea, and their vision cleared, the U-boat was already going down, at a steep angle, in a fluster of disturbed water.
Whatever the state of her lookouts, she must have had her crash-diving routine worked out to perfection. In a matter of seconds, the hull and most of the conning tower were submerged: Morell got in a third shot before the surface of the sea was blank, but in the flurry of her dive it was difficult to spot its exact fall. It seemed to land close alongside: it might have hit her. She was moving to the right as she disappeared.
Ericson shouted: ‘She’s down, Lockhart!’
Almost immediately, Lockhart’s tense voice answered: ‘In contact . . .’
The pinging echo of the asdic contact was loud and clear, audible all over the bridge: Lockhart watched in extreme nervous excitement as the operator settled down to hold on to it: they could not lose it now, when the U-boat had been right before their eyes a few seconds ago . . . Compass Rose was moving very fast, and he had to prompt the operator once as the U-boat seemed to be slipping out of the asdic beam; the man was sweating with excitement, pounding with his fist on one edge of his chair. ‘Moving quickly right, sir!’ Lockhart called out, and nodded to himself as Ericson laid a course to cut the corner and intercept. He rang the warning bell to the depth-charges aft: they were now very near, and the sound of the contact was getting blurred, merging with the noise of the transmission. This was the moment when luck could take a hand: if the U-boat chose her moment rightly, and made a violent alteration of her course, she might slip out of the lethal area of the coming explosion. There were a few more seconds of waiting, while they covered the last remaining yards of the attack; then Lockhart pressed the firing bell, and a moment later the depth-charges were down.
The whole surface of the sea jumped as the pattern exploded: Ferraby, busy over the reloading and harassed by the knowledge that there was a U-boat within a few yards of them, jumped with it, startled out of his wits by the noise so close to him. The columns of water shot high into the air: it seemed to all of them unfair – scarcely believable, in fact – that the shattered U-boat did not shoot up at the same time, so sure were they that they must have hit her . . . As Compass Rose ran on, and the shocked sea subsided, they were left staring, voiceless with expectation, at the great patch of discoloured water that marked the explosion area: they were waiting for the U-boat to break surface and surrender.
Nothing happened: the ripples began to subside, and with them their foolish hopes: in anger and amazement they realised that the attack had been a failure. ‘But God damn it!’ swore Lockhart, speaking for the whole ship. ‘We must have got her. The damned thing was there . . .’
‘Get back on that search,’ said Ericson shortly. ‘We haven’t finished yet.’ Lockhart flushed at the rebuke, which could not have been more public: he felt raw enough already, without the Captain giving the wound an extra scrape. He said: ‘Search sixty degrees across the stern,’ and bent to the asdic set again: almost immediately, they regained the contact, fifty yards from where they had dropped the pattern of depth-charges.
Compass Rose t
urned under full helm, and raced for her second attack. This time it was simpler: perhaps they had done some damage after all, because the U-boat did not seem to be moving or making any attempt to evasion. ‘Target stationary, sir!’ reported Lockhart as they completed their turn, and he repeated the words, at intervals, right down to the very end of their run-in. Once more the depth-charges went down, once more the enormous crack of the explosion shook the whole ship, once more they waited for success or failure to crown their efforts.
Someone on the bridge said: ‘Any minute now . . .’
The U-boat rose in their wake like a huge unwieldy fish, black and gleaming in the sunlight.
A great roar went up from the men on the upper deck, a howl of triumph. The U-boat came up bows first at an extraordinary angle, blown right out of her proper trim by the force of the explosion: clearly she was, for the moment, beyond control. The water sluiced and poured from her casings as she rose: great bubbles burst round her conning tower: gouts of oil spread outwards from the crushed plating amidships. ‘Open fire!’ shouted Ericson – and for a few moments it was Baker’s chance, and his alone: the two-pounder pom-pom, set just behind the funnel, was the only gun that could be brought to bear. The staccato force of its firing shook the still air, and with a noise and a chain of shock like the punch! punch! punch! of a trip hammer the red glowing tracer shells began to chase each other low across the water towards the U-boat. She had now fallen back on a level keel, and for the moment she rode at her proper trim: it was odd, and infinitely disgusting, suddenly to see this wicked object, the loathsome cause of a hundred nights of fear and disaster, so close to them, so innocently exposed. It was like seeing some criminal, who had outraged honour and society, and had long been shunned, taking his ease at one’s own fireside.
The Cruel Sea Page 29