“Now hear this. Now hear this.”
“This is the captain.”
Long training and long-practised self-control kept his voice even; no one could guess from that flat voice the excitement which boiled inside him, which could master him if he relaxed that self-control for an instant.
“We’re running down a U-boat. Every man must be ready for instant action.”
It might almost be thought that Keeling quivered afresh with excitement at the message. In the crowded pilot-house as Krause turned back from the receiver every eye was upon him. There was tenseness in the air, there was ferocity. These men were on their way to kill; they might be on their way to be killed, although for most of those present neither consideration weighed beside the mere fact that Keeling was heading for action, towards success or failure.
Something obtruded itself upon Krause’s attention; it was the sheepskin coat he had sent for, offered him by the young messenger. Krause was about to take it.
“Captain!”
Krause was at the voice-tube in a flash.
“Target bearing zero-nine-two. Range fifteen miles.”
Charlie Cole’s voice was genuinely calm. He was speaking with the unhurried care of a thoughtful parent addressing an excitable child, not that he thought of Krause as an excitable child.
“Right smartly to course zero-nine-two,” said Krause.
At the wheel now was Quartermaster First Class McAlister, a short, skinny Texan; Krause had been his division officer in the old days in the Gamble. McAlister would have been made Chief by now had it not been for a couple of deplorable incidents in San Pedro in the early ‘thirties. As he dryly repeated the order no one would imagine the fighting madman he had been with liquor in him.
“Steady on course zero-nine-two,” said McAlister, his eyes not moving from the compass repeater.
“Very well.”
Krause turned back to the voice-tube.
“What do you make of the target?”
“Dead ahead, sir. Not too clear,” said Charlie.
This Sugar Charlie radar was a poor job. Krause had heard of Sugar George, the new radar; he had never seen one, but he wished passionately that Keeling had been equipped with one.
“Small,” said Charlie Cole. “Low in the water.”
A U-boat for certain, and Keeling was rushing down upon her at twenty-two knots. We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement. Comconvoy’s radio operator must be wonderfully good to have estimated the distance so accurately by the strength of the signals.
“Bearing’s changing a little,” said Charlie. “Bearing zero-nine-three. No, zero-nine-three and a half. Range fourteen miles. She must be on a nearly reciprocal course.”
The range had decreased by a mile in one minute and sixteen seconds. As Charlie said, she must be heading nearly straight towards Keeling, coming to meet her. Hell from beneath is moved for Thee to meet Thee at Thy coming. In five more miles, in seven minutes--less than seven minutes now--she would be within range of the five-inch. But Keeling had only two guns that could bear dead ahead. It would be better not to open fire at extreme range. With a high sea running, the range rapidly changing, and a radar that might or might not be accurately lined up, instant hits with a two-shell salvo were unlikely. Better to wait; better to hold on in the hope that Keeling might come rushing out of the murk to find her adversary in plain sight at easier range.
“Range thirteen miles,” said Charlie. “Bearing zero-nine-four.”
“Right smartly,” said Krause, “to course zero-nine-eight.”
The U-boat was apparently holding a steady course. This turn to starboard would intercept her, and if the target were to reveal itself it would be fine on the port bow instead of right ahead; only a small additional turn would then be necessary to bring the after guns to bear as well.
“Steady on course zero-nine-eight,” said McAlister.
“Very well.”
“Stop that noise,” barked Watson, his voice suddenly cutting through the tension. He was glowering at a telephone-talker, a nineteen-year-old apprentice seaman, who had been whistling through his teeth into the receiver before his mouth. From the telephone-talker’s guilty start it was obvious that he had been quite unconscious of what he was doing. But Watson’s sharp order had been as startling as a pistol shot in the tense atmosphere of the crowded pilot-house.
“Range twelve miles,” said Charlie. “Bearing zero-nine-four.”
Krause turned to the telephone-talker.
“Captain to gunnery officer. ‘Do not open fire without orders from me unless enemy is in sight.’ “
The talker pressed the button of his mouthpiece and repeated the words, with Krause listening carefully. That was not a good order, but it was the only one that would meet the present situation, and he could rely upon Fippler to understand it.
“Gunnery officer replies ‘aye aye, sir,’ “ said the talker.
“Very well.”
That boy was one of the new draft, fresh out of boot-camp, and yet it was his duty to pass messages upon which the fate of a battle might depend. But in a destroyer there were few stations which carried no responsibility, and the ship had to fight even with seventy-five recruits on board. With two years of high school to his credit the boy had at least the educational requirements for his station. And only experience would tell if he had the others; if he would stand at his post amid dead and wounded, amid fire and destruction, and still pass on orders without tripping over a word.
“Range twenty thousand,” said the talker. “Bearing zero-nine-four.”
This marked an important moment. Calling the range in thousands of yards instead of in miles was the proof that the enemy was almost within range; eighteen thousand yards was the maximum for the five-inch. Krause could see the guns training round ready to open fire on the instant. Charlie was speaking on the circuit to gunnery control and captain. And the bearing had not been altered either; Keeling was on a collision course with the U-boat. The climax was approaching. What was the visibility? Seven miles? Twelve thousand yards? Apparently about that. But that estimate was not to be relied upon; there might be a clear patch, there might be a thick patch. At any moment the U-boat might come into sight over there, where the guns were pointing. Then the shells would be sent winging to the target. It must be hit, shattered, before the U-boat crew could get below at the sight of the destroyer rushing down upon them, before they could dive, before they could armour themselves with a yard of water as impenetrable to Keeling’s shells as a yard of steel, and armour themselves with invisibility as well. Hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
“Range one-nine-oh-double oh. Bearing steady on zero-nine-four,” said the talker.
A constant bearing. U-boat and destroyer were nearing each other as fast as was possible. Krause could look round the crowded pilot-house, at the tense faces shadowed by the helmets. The silence and the immobility showed that discipline was good. Forward of the bridge he could see the crew of one of the starboard 40-mm. guns, staring out in the direction the five-inch were pointing. The tremendous spray that Keeling was flinging aft from her bows must be driving against them but they were not taking shelter. They certainly were keen.
“Range one-eight-five-double oh. Bearing steady on zero-nine-four.”
The silence was, of course, even more impressive, because the pinging of the sonar had ceased, for the first time for thirty-six hours. Sound ranging was quite ineffective with the ship making twenty-two knots.
“Range one-eight-oh-double oh. Bearing steady on zero-nine-four.”
He could open fire now. The five-inch were straining upwards, their muzzles pointing far above the grey horizon. A word and they would hurl their shells, upwards and outwards, there was the chance that one of them might crash into the U-boat’s hull. One shell would be enough. The opportunity was his. So was the responsibility for refusing to take advantage of it.
“R
ange one-seven-five-double oh. Bearing steady on zero-nine-four.”
On the U-boat’s bridge would be an officer and one or two men. The shell would come through the murk instantaneously for them; one moment they would be alive and the next moment they would be dead, ignorant of what had happened. In the control-room below the Germans would be stunned, wounded, flung dying against the bulkheads; in the other compartments the crew would hear the crash, would feel the shock, would stagger as the boat staggered, would see with horrified eyes the water rushing in upon them, in those few seconds before death overtook them as their boat went down, spouting great bubbles of air forced out by the inrushing water.
“Range one-seven-oh-double oh. Bearing steady on zero-nine-four.”
On the other hand, the salvo might plunge into the sea half a mile from the U-boat. The columns of water thrown up would be clear warning. Before another salvo could be fired the U-boat would be gliding down below the surface, invisible, unattainable, deadly. Better to make sure of it. This was only a Sugar Charlie radar.
“Range one-six-five-double oh. Bearing steady on zero-nine-four.”
Any moment now. Any moment. Were the look-outs doing their duty?
“Target disappeared,” said the talker.
Krause stared at him; for a couple of seconds he was uncomprehending. But the boy met his gaze without flinching. He was clearly aware of what he had said, and showed no disposition to amend it. Krause sprang to the voice-tube.
“What’s this, Charlie?”
“Afraid he’s dived, sir. It looked like it the way the pip faded out.”
“Radar’s not on the blink?”
“No, sir. Never known it so good before.”
“Very well.”
Krause turned back from the voice-tube. The crowd in the pilot-house were looking at each other under their helmet brims. By their attitudes, heavily clothed though they were, their disappointment was clearly conveyed. They seemed to sag in their bundled clothing. Now every eye was on him. For two and a half minutes it had been in his power to open fire on a U-boat on the surface; every officer in the United States Navy craved for an opportunity like that, and he had made no use of it. But this was no time for regret; this was not the moment to be self-conscious under the gaze of eyes that might or might not be accusing. There was too much to be done. More decisions had to be taken.
He looked up at the clock. Keeling must be about seven miles ahead of her station in the convoy screen. Viktor would be there by now, with her own sonar trying to search five miles of front. The convoy might now be in order, with Dodge on the starboard flank free to pay all her attention to anti-submarine duty; James would be fast coming up on the other flank. Meanwhile Keeling was still hurtling forward, away from them, at twenty-two knots. And the enemy? What was the enemy doing? Why had he dived? Watson, the ranking officer on the bridge, ventured to voice his opinion.
“He couldn’t have seen us, sir. Not if we couldn’t see him.”
“Maybe not,” said Krause.
Keeling’s look-outs were perched high up; if the U-boat had been visible to them only Keeling’s upper works would have been visible to the U-boat. But visibility was a chancy phenomenon. It was possible, barely possible, that in the one direction visibility had been better than in the other, that the U-boat had sighted them without being sighted herself. She would have dived promptly enough in that case.
But there could be other theories almost without limit. The U-boat might be newly fitted with radar--that was a development that must be expected sooner or later, and this might be the time. Naval Intelligence could debate that point when the reports came in. Or she might have been informed of the course and position of the convoy and have merely gone down to periscope depth as soon as she was squarely in its path--her course up to the moment of disappearing had been apparently laid to intercept the convoy. That was a good tactical possibility, perhaps the likeliest. There were others, though. It might be merely a routine dive. She might merely be exercising her crew at diving stations. Or more trivial yet. It might be the U-boat crew’s dinner time and the cook may have reported that he could not prepare a hot meal with the boat tossed on the sea that was running, and that might have decided the captain to take her down into the calm below the surface. Any explanation was possible; it would be best to retain an open mind on the subject, to remember that about eight miles ahead there was a U-boat under the surface, and to come to a prompt decision regarding what should be done next.
First and foremost it was necessary to get Keeling as close to the U-boat, within sonar range. So flank speed should be maintained at present. The point where the U-boat had dived was known; she could be proceeding outwards from that point at two knots, four knots, eight knots. In the plot down below circles would be drawn spreading out from that point like ripples round the spot where a stone drops into a pond. The U-boat would be known to be within the largest circle. In ten minutes she could travel a mile easily, and a circle within a radius of a mile would be over three square miles in area. To search three square miles thoroughly would take an hour, and in an hour the maximum circle would expand to enclose a hundred square miles.
It was most unlikely that the U-boat would linger near the point where she dived. She would head somewhere, in some direction, along one of the three hundred and sixty degrees radiating out from her centre. Yet it seemed the most reasonable assumption that below the surface she would continue the course she had been following on the surface. Even a German submarine, cruising in the North Atlantic in search of prey, did not wander about entirely aimlessly. She would make a wide sweep in one direction and then a wide sweep in another. If she had dived for some trivial reason she would probably maintain her course; if she had dived to attack the convoy she would probably maintain her course, too, seeing that was the course that would bring her square into its path. If she was on any other course it would be hopeless to seek her with a single ship; hopeless, that was the right word, not difficult, or arduous, or formidable, or nearly impossible.
Then was it worthwhile to make the attempt to regain contact? It would be something over ten minutes before Keeling would cross the U-boat’s path if both ships maintained course, but as the convoy was almost following them Keeling could conduct a search and regain station in the screen without being away much more than that time. The alternative was to head straight back and in the regular position in the screen to hope that the U-boat came into contact as she crept into ambush. Defence or offence? Move or counter-move? It was the eternal military problem. The attack was worth trying; it was worth making a search; so Krause coldly decided, standing there in the crowded pilot-house with every eye on him. He that seeketh findeth.
“Give me a course to intercept if the target maintains course at six knots,” he said into the voice-tube.
“Aye aye, sir.”
It would hardly be different from the present course; on the surface the U-boat must have been making about twelve. He could have produced a close approximation in his head. The tube called him.
“Course zero-nine-six,” it said.
A trifling variation, but would make a difference of a full mile in ten minutes at this speed. He turned and gave the order to the quartermaster, and then turned back to the tube.
“Warn me when we are within two miles,” he said. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“Steady on course zero-nine-six,” said McAlister.
“Very well.”
About nine minutes to go; it would be best if the ship’s company were told of the situation. He addressed himself to the loudspeaker again.
“The U-boat has dived,” he said into the unresponsive instrument. “He appears to have dived, at least. We are going on looking for him.”
A more sensitive man that Krause, a man with the telepathic perception of the orator, might have been aware of the atmosphere of disappointment that pervaded the ship as he stepped away from the instrument. He looked at the clock again and strode out on to the wing of the
bridge. The wind there was tremendous, what with Keeling’s twenty-two knots practically added to the northeasterly wind. There was dense spray flying, too, freezing cold. As he looked aft he could see the unfortunate men stationed at the depth-charge racks cowering for shelter; it was well that the routine even of battle stations allowed them regular relief. He raised his glasses. He could just make out in the murk, very vaguely, Viktor’s peculiar foremast, a speck of more solid grey in the general greyness. With Keeling leaping and rolling as she was, and with the spray flying, it was impossible to make out more detail than that, and although he swept the rest of the horizon astern with the glasses he could see nothing else at all. Radar would tell him instantly where the convoy was, but that was not what he wanted. He wanted to see with his own eyes what would be the condition of the battlefield if battle there should be, if miraculous good fortune should lead to a U-boat being located between Keeling and Viktor. He turned and swept the horizon ahead; the same grey murk, the same vague junction of sky and water. But should a U-boat surface within range of the 40-mm. guns her bridge would be visible enough to look-outs and gun crews and gunnery officer.
He came back into the pilot-house with his eyes on the clock. The messenger sprang forward, still holding out the sheepskin coat he had sent for long before. Long before? Not so long, measured in minutes. He put his arms into it and the weight of the coat pressed his clothes against his body. His body was cold but the clothes were colder still, chilled down to freezing-point by the forty-knot wind that had blown between its fibres. He shuddered uncontrollably at the contact. He could hardly bear it. Hands, limbs, and body were frozen; he found his teeth chattering. It had been folly to go out on the open bridge without being fully bundled up; he had not even put on his sweater under his uniform coat. If he had caught young Ensign Hart doing anything as foolish he would have bawled him out. Even now he was not properly clad; sweater, gloves, and scarf were all missing.
The Good Shepherd Page 4