No Banners, No Bugles

by Edward Ellsberg

  “Of course not, Commander,” I answered. “I’ll have a shot myself; I’m as wet and cold as anybody. But it’s your ship anyway; why should I object?”

  “Oh,” he explained, “I thought you understood where the rum’s stowed. That’s the whole point. The rum locker’s in the lazarette in the fantail. With the wardroom half-flooded, the only way we can get to the rum now is down the after deck hatch into the compartment just abaft the wardroom. That space is free of water; the watertight door between it and the wardroom’s holding fine. Once we’re in that after space, we open a manhole cover in the lower deck there to get into the rum locker below. Seeing how she’s flooded aft, I didn’t want to open that lower manhole into the lazarette without your knowing it.”

  It was now my turn to exclaim,

  “Oh!” For but too well I knew that the only real buoyancy aft which was keeping the stern afloat, lay wholly in that unflooded after compartment, in the lower deck of which was the manhole he wished to open to get to the rum. I had already battened down hard the main deck hatch to that after compartment, lest a wave sweeping higher than usual across the awash stern, go down that hatch and sink us. And worse yet, if the lazarette below in which the rum was stowed should be open to the sea and flooded under pressure, either from the shaft alleys or otherwise, and if the manhole cover to the lazarette should get away from them, a geyser of water would shoot upward, promptly flooding the compartment above. The stern would sink like a chunk of lead, and either in one piece or in two the Porcupine would swiftly disappear beneath our feet.

  I shook my head.

  “No, Commander; don’t do it. It’s taking too much of a chance. I’m sorry, but I must object.”

  Stewart looked keenly disappointed, but said nothing and went aft. I turned back to watching the ship work. The longer I watched, the surer I felt she would never stand it for the three hours longer it would take us to get in. That strain would have to be eased or we should have saved the Porcupine from sinking only to have her break in two on us instead.

  I looked around. Ahead of us, slowly pitching to the oncoming waves, was our sister destroyer at the far end of both of the Porcupine’s chain cables, shackled together to give the longest possible towline with the greatest possible shock-absorbing qualities, to ease the towing strain. That towline, sagging into the water, was already 240 fathoms long and fairly heavy—nothing further could be done to improve it.

  I glanced at the sea. The white-capped waves there weren’t any worse than when I had boarded the Porcupine two hours before, but they weren’t any better either. And the waterlogged Porcupine’s condition, always bad, had unfortunately grown even worse till we had that electric pump running aft and stopped further sinking. But more than that was required if the ship, having escaped one fate, was not certainly to fall victim to another. Harsh as the cure might seem to the survivors on the Porcupine, already near the breaking point from long-continued exposure to the imminent danger in the fiery blast of another torpedo of joining the ghastly figures of their shipmates in the engine room before me, still that cure would have to be undertaken. We must slow down—there was no other way out—and not only lengthen out the period of exposure to torpedoing again but, worse even, by the delay in reaching Arzeu, stretch that period of exposure into the oncoming night when our patrolling planes overhead would be useless and the U-boat would have far better opportunity of attacking again with impunity.

  Commander Stewart, having had a quick look-see aft, came back abreast me. I stopped him.

  “I’m sorry, Commander, to have to advise this, but I must. You’re making three knots; it’s too much for your ship. Signal the destroyer ahead to slow down immediately to two knots.”

  Commander Stewart, already haggard and heartsick, winced as if I had struck him. As well as I, he saw instantly all the implications. But he made no complaint.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” he gulped out, and went forward to his bridge to semaphore the signal. Hand flags started to wigwag from the port wing of his listed bridge; from far ahead of us, other flags waggled back. In a minute or two, the sagging chain between the two destroyers took a deeper sag—the tow had slowed down by a third. Anxiously over the next few minutes I watched the bow and the stern of the Porcupine rising and falling against the line of the far horizon. It seemed to me the motion had eased as compared to formerly; certainly the corrugations before me on the deck were hinging less than before. There was no certainty even so that they would last through, but at least the chances were better.

  And thus, to the eye hardly making any headway at all toward the dimly visible shore still some ten miles off, we moved slowly onward towards Arzeu, our haven of safety if we could ever make it.

  Hour after hour the grotesque procession crawled imperceptibly along over the heaving Mediterranean, with the Porcupine, sickeningly listed, stern awash, stem almost out of water, dragging along far astern of her towing sister, hard put to it to hold down to two knots. Overhead roared the two patrol planes in lazy circles, as slowly as they dared go, depth charges ready to release, sometimes near, sometimes a few miles off, with their pilots and bombardiers scanning the white-capped waves below for any sign of an ominous feather of spray which would denote the U-boat periscope moving in for the kill. And moving irregularly all around, at a speed which made us look as if we were stock still, zigzagged our other sister destroyer, constantly feeling with her high-pitched Asdic beneath the waves, now near the surface, now deeper down, for the hull of that unseen U-boat.

  Somewhere behind the heavy overcast, the sun, invisible to us, sank at last below the horizon. Twilight came, then darkness. The protecting planes, useless now, for the last time circled low to roar over us waggling their wings in farewell, and vanished into the night. With their passing, silence came as well as darkness to add to our sad state; the roar of those engines in the sky, whether a real protection or not, had been an unutterable comfort to the souls of the worn seamen on the Porcupine below. Now in solitude, in eerie silence, in complete darkness (for no one on deck dared even for an instant press a flashlight button), abandoned by our best protectors, we were left on the slippery deck of the Porcupine, groping blindly each time we took a step on that treacherous slope for something to clutch to keep from sliding overboard. Somewhere, we knew, off in the darkness, completely blacked out herself and invisible to us, our solitary remaining guard still circled, feeling endlessly beneath the sea with her Asdic for the enemy. But that was slight comfort to any man aboard the Porcupine. The Asdic had not saved her from that first devastating torpedo; what hope then that it would do any better now?

  Before in the daylight, the hours had seemed endless to us as we dragged along; now in the silence and in the darkness, the minutes seemed like hours. But there was no help for it. Stolidly we clung to whatever was nearest, straining our eyes through the night for some sign of the coast.

  A shadowy form came from aft, stopped alongside where, shivering in my wet khaki, I clung to the torpedo tube mount, as close as I could get to the hinging deck which I could no longer see. A voice, which I recognized as that of one of the British petty officers who had been tending the pump aft, sounded in my ear,

  “’Ere, Cap’n, ’ave a drink o’ this. It’ll warm ye up a mite.”

  Gratefully I fumbled for the proffered cup. Somehow the ship’s cook must have made hot coffee; it would be welcome. But the cup didn’t feel hot when I gripped it; as I brought it to my lips I smelled not hot coffee but, of all things—rum! I was so startled I nearly dropped it.

  So the skipper had gambled after all on undogging the rum locker! And since there was the rum, he had won the gamble—the lazarette must have been empty of water. I could only conclude that faced by the added terrors of the coming night, he had decided his crew must have a bracer to stand up to it. And there was my share. I thanked the seaman who had brought it, gulped it down, practically a whole cupful. Almost immediately the night seemed less dark and I certainly felt warmer and much bet
ter. Perhaps the skipper had been right and I had been too cautious; at any rate, there was no gain in my ever mentioning the subject to him again.

  Off to starboard, a vague shadow loomed up against the dark horizon; we were abeam Cape Carbon and soon were in its lee. Only three more miles to go! And best of all, with some shelter now from that cape not far off, the sea calmed almost magically, our heaving to it eased perceptibly, and I was able to send word to the skipper on the bridge that he could safely speed the tow up to three knots again. Our second danger was passed; the Porcupine was no longer likely to break in two. I breathed a sigh of deep relief. Now we had left only the U-boat to be concerned over.

  We started to move appreciably faster through the sea. I had little doubt but that the skipper of the towing destroyer, as much concerned and still as much exposed as we to the sole remaining danger, was construing that three knots very liberally. I didn’t blame him.

  The lights of unblacked-out Arzeu started to twinkle through the darkness ahead of us. Safety was almost within our grasp; involuntarily we began to hold our breaths lest that torpedo should come along now after all our struggles, to knock it from our very fingertips. The minutes started to slip by faster, the lights of Arzeu became brighter. In no very great interval, compared to the way the hours before had dragged along, we were only a mile away. Just one more mile and our torture would be ended. The last mile!

  And then we stopped. I knew we were going to have to stop; so did every other man jack aboard. For it was clear to everyone that such a long tow could not possibly be taken into Arzeu, after all only a small harbor with slight room for maneuver inside. The stop had been prepared for. A trawler was waiting one mile outside Arzeu to pass us a short towline and haul us in on that. Meanwhile we would cast loose that 240 fathoms of anchor chain forming the sea towline, which the destroyer ahead of us was to heave in, recover, and at some later day, deliver again to us. For the Porcupine herself had no power to winch her irreplaceable anchor cables back aboard. Every fathom of them, port and starboard, was paid out in that towline.

  We stopped. Now came the crucial moment. We were still in deep water a mile offshore, plenty deep enough for U-boat operation. We had hoped before to make that stop in daylight, with both planes and our destroyer circling us to keep off the enemy. But now it had to be made in darkness, the planes were gone altogether, and our protecting destroyer could only weave back and forth well astern of us. In such close waters zigzagging on either beam or ahead of us was out of question.

  It must, we felt, have been as evident to the U-boat captain as to any of us, that a stop would have to be made to reform the tow before it could enter Arzeu. And that stop would give him his golden opportunity—two destroyers tied together dead in the water as his targets, darkness to work in, and water shallow enough closer inshore to bottom his sub safely after his attack and play ’possum a while to avoid depth charges should the search for him afterwards grow too hot. Perhaps exactly that situation was what he had been waiting for, delaying his attack, playing with us as a cat does with a mouse which darts frantically here and there in its futile efforts.

  We knew all this. We felt the U-boat captain knew it too. The only thing we could do was to make the stop as brief as possible. All had been prepared. The trawler sidled up in the darkness along our high port bow, caught a heaving line from our forecastle. Stewart’s seamen there, revived by the rum, animated by the nearness of escape, spurred by the danger, smartly heaved aboard the trawler’s towline, made it fast. The trawler sheered away, taking a slight strain on the towline, ready to tow instantly we were free of the other towline out ahead.

  A shielded signal lantern, visible only dead ahead to the destroyer there, flashed out in dots and dashes from the Porcupine’s bridge, signaling our sister to stand by to heave in the cables; we were about to let go. We got an answering flash in acknowledgment.

  “Let go!” sang out Stewart to his forecastle gang.

  Back amidships, still at my now useless post over the broken engine room, I caught the order, waited painfully each second following for the rattling of the chain out the hawsepipe which would show we were free, end our torment of being a dead duck, let the trawler (in smooth water now) drag us that last mile through the deep sea into the harbor as fast as God and her engines would let her take us.

  Not a rattle. The seconds dragged out into minutes, still nothing happened. We lay there, motionless in the darkness. I could stand it no longer. I sloshed through the water to starboard lapping over the submerged gunwale onto the deck, felt my way forward past the smokestack, fumbled in the night for the listing ladder to the bridge, climbed it as hurriedly as I dared. Once on the bridge, I made out several shadowy figures leaning forward, all apparently staring down through the darkness at the forecastle. I looked forward myself; it was, however, next to impossible to make out anything save a few dim forms clustered there, all evidently huddling low just ahead of the anchor windlass. But I could hear plenty-occasional hammer blows and a steady stream of heartfelt British oaths and seagoing curses floated aft to the bridge.

  Nobody on the bridge had paid the slightest attention to my arrival—it was too dark to see much and besides they were all otherwise engrossed. I picked out the largest shadow in sight—that would be Commander Stewart.

  “What’s wrong, Commander?” I asked anxiously, shuffling up to him. Stewart turned, looked down, made out who it was.

  “It’s that bloody shackle!” he cursed. “It won’t come apart! The cable’s out to the bitter end, and it’s our port cable we rarely use that’s on this end of the towline. The last shackle there on deck is rusted and frozen solid! The bosun can’t get it free! He’s sloshed it with oil, soaked it in paraffin, smacked it with the biggest sledge on the ship, but still that God-damned locking pin won’t drive out!” He paused for breath.

  I considered. Every second’s delay meant endangering not only ourselves but our undamaged sister, fatally tied to us and unable to get clear till we slipped that cable. I saw only one swift solution; dangerous, yes. If we tried it, we should as instantly expose our position as if we had lighted a flare. But the skipper had already taken one gamble and got away with it. The other dangers warranted his gambling again to get us quickly free.

  “Get out your acetylene torch, Commander, and burn that chain cable in half! We can’t wait!”

  “I’d thought of that too, Captain,” muttered Stewart sadly, “but we’ve nothing like a torch aboard. It’s no go; I’ve got to leave it to the bosun and his mates!”

  “O.K., skipper. But for God’s sake, get ’em to shake it up! This is dangerous!” I turned away, started down the ladder. Stewart said nothing, went silently back to peering down at his cursing men around that shackle. He needed no reminders as to how dangerous that totally unlooked-for delay could be.

  I went back amidships, to shuttle back and forth over the sloping oily deck from the electric pump alongside the after deckhouse, still smoothly and unconcernedly pushing overboard the sea as fast as it spurted in through our leaks, to the fractured deck over the engine room, where the corrugations, with the ship now stopped and in smooth water, were at last wholly quiescent. Nothing in either spot profited by my solicitude, but I just couldn’t take it any longer standing still.

  Apparently the destroyer ahead couldn’t either. Shortly a shielded signal lamp, sharply focused on the Porcupine’s bridge to be visible on that line only, started to flicker out through the night in staccato flashes. The Porcupine answered; for a few minutes an animated discussion ensued. I learned the destroyer skipper ahead suggested slipping his end of the cable, thus at least letting him go free to get out of danger. The Porcupine objected—that would leave her with 240 fathoms of her cable, all she had, dangling from her bow and dragging on the bottom, effectively preventing any movement by her at all unless and until she managed to cut it free. She had no power whatever to heave in any of it and thus free herself of the drag on the bottom so she could be towed. If
with the other end slipped, she then cut loose her end to free herself for towing, she would lose every shot of both her precious anchor cables. Stewart wouldn’t think of it.

  Evidently the other skipper saw his logic. Danger in wartime a British captain apparently accepted philosophically (or at least as philosophically as he could); but the loss of a couple of anchor cables was something obviously not to be thought of with things as scarce in England as they seemed to be. Stewart’s opposite number acquiesced, shut down his signal lamp, hung on.

  And that left us as before, with the bosun struggling fruitlessly to drive out the locking pin on the frozen shackle. My eyes wandered about in the darkness, from the lights of Arzeu dancing tantalizingly ahead of us to the black waters all about. Was there a U-boat out there somewhere, angling about beneath the surface for a fine shot, waiting only for a careless gleam of light to fix his target for him? We wouldn’t know till an exploding torpedo gave us the answer. There very probably was—the set-up for attack was perfect.

  Under far worse conditions earlier in the war, Lieutenant Prien had taken his U-boat in the darkness through the defenses of Britain’s main naval harbor, right into Scapa Flow itself. There nonchalantly taking his time, he had selected his target, the super-dreadnought Royal Oak lying in the middle of the whole fleet, and blasted her with a torpedo. Not satisfied with the results of that shot, which had hit forward and consequently might not be fatal, and in spite of the hubbub in the harbor caused by the explosion, he had calmly taken the next twenty minutes to get his U-boat into a position which suited him better. Then he let go with three more torpedoes together, all of which, hitting the already wounded Royal Oak amidships, promptly sank her. After that, Prien and his U-boat had escaped unscathed, leaving British faces as red as ours probably were after Pearl Harbor.

  It would take no second Lieutenant Prien to dispose of the Porcupine and of her sister, helplessly tied together outside Arzeu. Any run-of-the-mill U-boat captain could do it. And we certainly had somewhere in our vicinity an undetected U-boat captain who already, by daring to attack a flotilla of destroyers looking for him, had demonstrated he was better than run-of-the-mill.