“Dicky to George! I am attacking.”
The Canadian voice had broken in.
“Very well.”
This was like a juggler keeping three balls in the air at once.
“Sonar reports contact bearing zero eight seven. Range one mile. No Doppler.”
“Who’s on the sonar?”
“Ellis, sir,” replied the talker.
That was good; there was less chance of being deceived by a pillenwerfer.
“Eagle to George. It looks as if she’s turning back again.”
“Very well. I’ll go on holding my course.”
“Sonar reports distant explosions, sir.”
“Very well.”
That would be Dicky’s depth charges going off.
“Sonar reports contact dead ahead. Strong up Doppler. Range fifteen hundred yards.”
“Very well. George to Eagle. He’s coming right at me again. Keep clear.”
“Eagle to George. Aye aye, sir.”
That English voice was cold and steady, bearing no hint of the excitement of the hunt.
“Eagle to George. We are on course oh one oh.”
Viktor was squarely astern of the U-boat, and heading to intercept her if she turned to starboard.
“Sonar reports contact dead ahead. Strong up Doppler. Range twelve hundred yards.”
Apparently the U-boat had not detected Keeling’s presence as yet. All her attention had been directed to evading Viktor, possibly; or her listening devices had been confused by Viktor’s nearness, or the fact that the U-boat and Keeling were exactly bow to bow might be rendering them ineffective.
“Sonar reports contact confused, sir. Approximately dead ahead. No Doppler. Range approximately eleven hundred.”
“Very well.”
The U-boat must by now have become aware of Keeling’s presence, and was doing something about it.
“Sonar reports contact dead ahead. It’s a pill, sir. Range one thousand.”
She had let loose a pillenwerfer; Ellis had detected that, but the bubbling thing had prevented him from ascertaining what new course the U-boat had taken.
“Sonar reports possible contact. Bearing zero nine two. Range eleven hundred yards. Pill still dead ahead.”
So the U-boat had altered course to port most likely; that was its best chance. And thanks to the pillenwerfer she had increased her distance—she had stolen a march on Keeling.
“Right standard rudder. Steer course one zero zero. George to Eagle. Contact seems to have altered course to port and dropped a pill. I am altering course to starboard. One zero zero.”
“One double oh. Aye aye, sir.”
“Sonar reports confused contact, sir, on port bow.”
With Keeling turning, the contact would be likely to be indefinite.
“Eagle to George. We’ve only got the pill, sir. No other contact.”
“Very well.”
Keeling and Viktor had the sub between them, and although on their present courses they would be rapidly separating it was the best arrangement until the situation cleared up.
“Sonar reports confused contact bearing zero eight five. Range twelve hundred yards. Sounds like the pill.”
Undoubtedly it was the pill; but it was hard to imagine what the sub was doing. A sudden sharp alteration of depth might have added to the confusion. Better to hold on as he was doing even though both he and Viktor were diverging from the last known position of the sub.
“Sonar reports contact bearing zero eight zero. Range thirteen hundred yards. Contact weak.”
Getting too far away altogether.
“Left smartly to zero nine zero. George to Eagle. I am turning to port. Course zero nine zero.”
“Course oh nine oh. Aye aye, sir.”
“Steady on course zero nine zero.”
“Very well.”
“Sonar reports faint additional contact, range indefinite, bearing three five zero.”
Three five zero? Right abaft his beam despite his turn?
“George to Eagle. Do you get anything bearing three five zero from me? Range indefinite.”
“We’ll try, sir. Three five oh.”
There was something strange about this. But there was always likely to be something strange about a blindfold hunt for an enemy below water.
“Eagle to George! Eagle to George! We’ve got something. Very faint. Bearing two two oh from us.”
“Get after it, then, quick.”
Abaft Viktor’s beam, too. Much nearer the safety of the convoy with its propeller noises. Almost out of the danger circles drawn by the wheeling destroyer. The sub had fooled them both completely. Hard to imagine what she had done. Perhaps she had dropped two pillenwerfers and circled sharply between them and got away at a very different depth. Viktor had less of a turn to make than he had. Better to send her after the contact while he turned away out of her wake and came down on the outside.
“Right standard rudder. Steer course two six zero.”
Keeling came round, wallowing in the trough, corkscrewing on the quartering sea, and the hunt went on again. Round and round went the destroyers, chasing the faint contacts, dodging each other as they passed in the darkness. Viktor just headed off the U-boat from the convoy; Keeling missed her as she circled, and Viktor missed her as she doubled back. Then closer contacts. Depth charges from Viktor. Depth charges from Keeling, rumbling in the windy night, momentarily illuminating the fathomless depths below, and deafening the sonar so that there were long anxious waits before the search could be resumed. Bearings and courses called back and forth between the ships. Circle and turn. This U-boat captain was a foxy fellow. Seas coming in over the low freeboard as Keeling turned her defenseless quarter into them; seas crashing against the forecastle as she wheeled towards them. Hunting and hunting, with every small indication of vital importance; straining to keep the mind alert to draw rapid deductions from vague data. Sudden reports coming in from James and Dodge, out on the flanks, fighting their own battles, but with their situation having to be borne in mind as well. “Left rudder.” “Right rudder.” Orders repeated. Orders countermanded as Viktor turned unexpectedly. A tiring game with death, but never tedious, with every moment tense.
“Right standard rudder. Steer course zero four zero.”
“Right standard rudder to—”
“Sonar reports torpedoes fired, sir.”
The talker broke in on the quartermaster’s repetition of Krause’s order, and tension acutely rose in the pilothouse, where it had seemed as if tension could not possibly be screwed up any tighter.
“George to Eagle. Torpedoes fired.”
“We heard ’em, sir.”
“Steady on course zero four zero,” said the quartermaster. There was discipline in the pilothouse.
Torpedoes; the quarry had poison fangs and was slashing back with them at its tormentors.
“Sonar reports torpedoes’ sound fading out,” said the talker.
They were not aimed at Keeling, therefore. That had seemed likely to Krause already, bearing in mind her changing course and distance from the contact.
“Eagle to George. We are turning away.” The English liaison officer’s voice was positively more languid than usual. “Course oh seven oh. Oh eight oh.”
Krause stared out into the darkness where the torpedoes were speeding at fifty knots towards Viktor. There might be a sheet of flame and a detonating explosion out there in five more seconds. Subs did not fire torpedoes at escorting vessels as often as one might have expected. They were too small and too elusive targets, and of too shallow a draft. And probably Doenitz’s orders were strict that each U-boat should do her best to expend all her twenty-two torpedoes on bulging cargo vessels.
“Sonar reports—”
“Eagle to George. Those torpedoes have
missed, sir.”
“Very well.” He could be as nonchalant as any Englishman. No; better not to pose; better to try to establish a warm relationship. “Thank God for that. I was worried about you.”
“Oh, we can look after ourselves, sir. Thank you all the same.”
But those were precious seconds to waste on amenities. No time to spare, not with a U-boat trying to break out of the circle. Krause snapped an order over his shoulder at the helmsman before speaking into the T.B.S. again.
“We’re coming in on course zero eight zero.”
“Oh eight oh. Aye aye, sir. We’ll keep away to starboard.”
Viktor’s compulsory turn away had stretched the circle almost to breaking point—it was to gain herself that relief that the sub had fired the torpedoes, perhaps; only with a faint hope of making a hit. It was necessary to narrow the circle again, to press the pursuit, to continue the contest, as always with one destroyer trying to close in, one steering to intercept, each ready to exchange roles in the intricate figures of the movements in the stormy dark—desperate maneuvers like nothing ever contemplated by admirals a few years ago planning peacetime exercises under “simulated wartime conditions.” Left rudder. Right rudder. Deep pattern. Thunder and storm and strain. And James firing star shells out on the left flank, while lookouts reported gunfire in that direction, and sonar reported distant explosions as Dodge fought off attackers on the right, and the convoy lumbered along in the darkness, heading eastward, steadily eastward, towards infinitely distant safety.
THURSDAY. MORNING WATCH: 0400–0800
Then Nystrom addressing him while Keeling steadied herself on yet one more new course.
“Report having been relieved, sir—”
The midwatch was over; thirty more miles gained. Four hours had passed half in misery and half in desperate concentration.
“Very well, Mr. Nystrom. Get some rest while you can.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Rest? That called his attention to the fact that his legs were aching frantically. His muscles, unconsciously taut with the mental tension, protested as violently as did his joints the moment he thought about it. He moved stiffly to the captain’s stool in the starboard corner of the pilothouse. He never sat on that stool while at sea; he had a theory that captains should never sit down—it was allied to the theory that all self-indulgence was suspect—but theories were liable to be discarded under practical test. He could have groaned both with pain and relief as he sat down, but instead it was “Right standard rudder. Steer course zero eight seven.”
And now that he had sat down he knew it was pressingly necessary to get down to the head again; and with the self-indulgence of sitting also came the overwhelmingly tempting thought of pots and pots of fiery hot coffee to pour down his throat. But they were closing fast on a contact. Count the seconds. Force the weary brain to think clearly, to try to guess the U-boat captain’s next move, as the closing range broke off the contact.
“Mr. Pond!”
“Fire one. Fire two. K guns fire.”
Once more the underwater thunder and lightning, once more the rapid thinking, the sharp helm orders.
“Sonar reports indications confused, sir.”
“Very well. Mr. Harbutt, take the conn.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
His barely rested legs would hardly carry him down the tossing ladder as he went down to the head with the red spectacles over his eyes; on his way back he had to pull with his hands to take some of his body weight as his hesitant feet felt their way from rung to rung.
The brief interval away from the bridge gave him time to think about other problems besides the present and instant one of catching the submarine with which he was in contact. He gave the orders as he was at the top of the ladder, and he heard the result over the ship’s loudspeaker as he came back into the pilothouse.
“Now hear this. Hear this. There won’t be any routine general quarters this watch. If general quarters goes it’ll be the real thing. The watch below can have a full four hours in unless there’s an emergency.”
Krause was glad he had thought of that and decided upon it. He had been in touch with the enemy all day long, and most of the time he had got along without calling all hands to battle stations. The routine of general quarters an hour before dawn would cut into his men’s rest and was not necessary with the whole ship keyed up and ready for action as she was. The strain of Condition Two was bad enough. Keeling had been supplied with new weapons and new instruments. The presence of the additional men to man them had strained her living accommodation to the utmost, and yet she did not have enough trained ratings available to supply three watches in Condition Two—and even if she did have them Krause had no idea where they would sleep or how they would be fed. The shortage of trained ratings had led him to divide his ship’s company into four sections and to institute a routine of watch-and-watch while in Condition Two. He wanted to impose no additional burden on his men, and he wanted to give them all the rest he could. He was more fortunate regarding his officers. Most of them were doing four on and eight off, but even so they might as well be spared an unnecessary call to general quarters.
It had taken Krause all the time he had spent going up and down the ladder to come to this decision; when he re-entered the pilothouse he was ready to take over the handling of the immediate problem. The removal of the red spectacles was a kind of symbolic act, transferring his attention from within the ship to outside it.
“Sonar reports uncertain contact, range indefinite, bearing approximately two three one.”
“Is that the first contact since I went below, Mr. Harbutt?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where’s Viktor?”
Harbutt told him. In the three minutes the situation had moved slowly along usual lines.
“I’ll take the conn, Mr. Harbutt.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Right full rudder. Steer course one six two.”
“Right full rudder. Steer course one six two, sir.”
He was back in the hunt again.
“Steady on course one six two, sir.”
“Eagle to George. I am closing in on course nine seven.”
“Very well.”
This particular chase had already lasted three long hours. Although they had not damaged the sub they had at least contrived to keep her from attacking the convoy; they had forced her away to the flank out of the convoy’s path. Three hours was not a long time for a U-boat hunt; the British Navy had a record of one that had lasted more than twenty-four hours. But at the same time the sub he had been chasing had been using her batteries extensively, going a full six knots much of the time instead of creeping along at three or hanging motionless. The U-boat captain, although he still must have plenty of air, must by now be experiencing a certain anxiety about his batteries, even assuming (as was most likely the case) that when the contact was first made he had only recently submerged and had begun the battle with full air banks and a full charge.
But the U-boat captain’s worries while dodging two destroyers, while being depth-charged, while exhausting his batteries, were not to be compared with Krause’s. He had herded his enemy away to the flank, but that had left the front of the convoy open to attack. Dodge and James had their hands full, judging by the reports they were making when they had time to spare. It could only be a question of time before the prowling enemy should find the weak spots for which he was probing. To guard the whole circuit round a large convoy with two destroyers and two escort vessels was not just difficult; it was impossible, against a determined enemy under good leadership. In his next moment of leisure, while the next pattern was being fired (so far had Keeling and Krause progressed toward being war-hardened during these twenty hours of battle that the firing of depth charges brought a moment of leisure), Krause conjured up a picture of the ideal escorting force—thr
ee more escort vessels to guard the front while he and Viktor acted as a pursuit force; two more to reinforce Dodge and James; one to cover the rear; yes, and another pursuit force as well. With eight escort vessels and four destroyers a good job could be done; and air cover; the thought of air cover shot up in Krause’s weary mind like a rocket. He had heard of the small carriers that were being built; with radar-equipped planes they would give a wolf pack a whole lot more to think about. Escort vessels and destroyers and baby flattops were coming off the ways as fast as America and England and Canada could build them—newspapers and classified pamphlets assured him of that; somehow they would be manned, he presumed, and in a year or so convoys would be well guarded. But meanwhile it was his duty to fight his way through as best he could with the means at his disposal. Every man’s work shall be made manifest.
“Right full rudder. Steer course zero seven two,” said Krause. “George to Eagle. I am heading to cross your wake after your next attack.”
He had forgotten about sitting down, but his legs had not forgotten. They reminded him about it with vicious aches as he stepped back from the T.B.S. He sank onto the stool and spread his legs. After all, this was in the darkness, and the people in the pilothouse were hardly able to see their captain lounging in such a slack fashion. He had compounded with his sense of what he could permit himself regarding sitting down, admitting that it was necessary, but he still had qualms about what would be the effect upon discipline and esprit de corps if the men upon whom he kept such a taut hand should see him slacking off with so little excuse.
“After lookout reports fire in the convoy, sir,” said a talker.
He was on his feet again, with hardly time to think of this as retribution for his self-indulgence. There it was; now the rockets were soaring into the night above the flames which he could see; now there was another sharp red glow lighting the upper works of one ship, silhouetting the upper works of another—a torpedo explosion as he watched; the length of the interval told him that this was not a “spread” bursting as it reached various targets. A U-boat had been deliberately marking down victims one after another.
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