Strike from the Sea (1978)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Menzies, the yeoman, shook his head. ‘Silly old sod. You? Never in a thousand bloody years, man!’

  Ainslie was at the chart table, his mind clearing reluctantly as he tried to forget what he had witnessed. His own words had been totally inadequate, trite. He had wanted to say so much. To tell them what their trust and courage meant to him, and all those people who would never know about their sacrifice.

  The enemy was beyond those islands. Probably steering towards Sumatra as reported. They had no carrier, but more to the point, had no catapult aircraft either. Otherwise someone would have chased after the little seaplane. To shoot it down before it could signal the danger, to discover where it had come from. So there could be no battleships in the Japanese force. They always carried aircraft.

  He made up his mind. ‘Revolutions for eight knots. Course zero-one-zero.’

  He walked three paces back and forth and rested his hand on the vibrating plot table. Unless the enemy sent a ship through the channel to search for the wrecked seaplane, there was little immediate danger. He pictured the islands in his mind, overlapping, the deep water between them made treacherous by sudden twists and a swift undertow.

  ‘Ship’s head zero-one-zero, sir.’

  Yet another look at the chart. He could feel Forster beside him, sense his despair and, strangely, a sort of elation.

  ‘All right, Pilot?’ Ainslie glanced at him gravely. ‘You’re very quiet.’

  Forster licked his lips. ‘I’ll manage, sir.’ He forced a grin. ‘Thanks.’

  For what? He said, ‘Just here, Pilot. See this outcrop of rock on the chart.’ He jabbed it with his brass dividers. ‘That’s a hell of a place to alter course in a hurry.’ He watched the understanding on Forster’s strained features. ‘For them, not us.’

  Ainslie reached over for a stop-watch and pressed it to begin, the red needle seeming to symbolize their remaining time better than any sand-glass.

  ‘Up periscope.’ It had better be right, or else it would all end now.

  Ainslie swung the periscope in a slow arc. There was no longer any point in looking astern.

  He checked his irregular breathing as he found the island he had just studied on the chart.

  There was the high ridge and hill where Christie had appeared bracketed by shellbursts. Then the island sloped gently towards the sea, to a vague white ripple of surf which appeared to reach the shore of another island. But it was deceptive. The channel turned there to port. Wide, and if the survey was correct, deep enough for a submarine. Even the beast.

  He could sense Ridgway watching him, his yeoman poised to begin feeding ranges and bearings into his precious machine.

  ‘Bring tubes One to Eight to the ready.’ Ainslie raised the lens slightly, but the sky was empty, the stains gone.

  He watched the horizon’s edge between the islands until his eye ached with strain.

  ‘Port ten.’

  He listened to the wheel, Gosling’s deep breathing, and saw the opposite headland move slightly into the left side of his sights.

  ‘Steady. Meet her, Swain.’

  ‘Steady, sir. Course three-four-zero.’

  Forster said quietly, ‘Adjust to three-four-six degrees.’ His voice was hushed, as if he was afraid to intrude between the submarine and her commander.

  ‘Tubes standing by, sir, bow doors open.’

  Another minute, maybe less. He could not recall keeping a periscope raised for so long. In any other ocean it would be suicide.

  He tried not to think of Forster’s little crosses on the chart where he had plotted the convoy’s approximate position. If they could not delay the enemy, the convoy was finished. The Japanese admiral would be in too much of a hurry to complete his part of the overall operation to waste time. He would shell the brittle convoy to pieces, holding the agony and slaughter at arm’s length.

  Ainslie thought, too, of her face. Happy, wistful, loving. Their brief time together, and what it had meant, could have become, given the chance.

  He said, ‘Reduce to six knots.’

  The motors’ purr faded again as like a whale the Soufrière continued slowly through the channel.

  The last vessel to fire on the seaplane had been close inshore, the tracer going almost straight up into the sky. That meant she was small, probably an anti-submarine escort or the like. No sense in giving her hydrophone operators a free gift.

  He jammed his forehead hard against the rubber pad, his eye widening as if to consume every section of the picture.

  He said, ‘Ship, small destroyer, moving from right to left, bearing that. Range four thousand yards.’ He wanted to swallow, to lick his lips, to shut out the flat tones of Ridgway’s yeoman, the click of the machine. ‘Here comes the next. Fleet destroyer.’ He watched the second ship, further to seaward, on the smaller destroyer’s quarter, making them look like one long silhouette.

  ‘Tubes One to Four, stand by!’

  The deck quivered very slightly under his feet. Probably the undertow, but it felt as if Soufrière was yearning for the killing to begin.

  ‘Fire One!’ He felt the sensitive jerk run through his fingers. ‘Fire Two! Carry on by stop-watch!’

  He was already turning the periscope to starboard as, like an armoured giant, the cruiser moved slowly into his lens. Bridge upon bridge, it was hard to tear his eyes away and seek out the rest of the force. Two destroyers, standing well out from the land, and then a pair of tall-sided merchantmen, their hulls garish with dazzle paint, troop transports for the invasion of Sumatra.

  He swung the periscope back again and fastened on to the cruiser.

  ‘Heavy cruiser, bearing that.’

  The hull gave a great lurch as if they had hit a wreck, and Ridgway said tightly, ‘One hit.’ Another violent explosion echoed through the water, made more persistent by the confines of the channel.

  Ainslie saw the small destroyer erupting smoke and flames, while beyond her the larger one was slowing down as if to offer assistance. But she, too, was wreathed in smoke and falling spray, and as another explosion threw a sheet of flame high above her mast Ainslie realized that a torpedo had ignited her quarterdeck depth-charges.

  ‘One to Four, reload!’

  Ridgway said, ‘That will be the last, sir.’

  Ainslie watched the cruiser, scarcely able to believe it. Quinton had been right. The Jap admiral, Ozawa, had sent part of his force to share the honour of Singapore’s humiliation and capture.

  He saw the other destroyers shortening and heeling over in the fierceness of their turns, tearing back towards the islands from whence danger had suddenly emerged.

  The cruiser was partly hidden now by the next island, increasing speed until her powerful escorts could reach her.

  ‘Tubes Five to Eight, stand by!’

  The men glanced at the deckhead as the sounds of a vessel breaking up grated against the hull. Dull explosions meant ammunition, fuel, heavy machinery tearing adrift. A ship dying.

  Ainslie concentrated on the destroyers. ‘Increase to eight knots again.’

  Shellbursts made livid marks on the sea. The ships were firing at some wreckage, imagining it to be a periscope.

  Forster said hoarsely, ‘Time to alter course, sir. Steer three-zero-zero.’

  ‘Down periscope.’ Ainslie stood up and looked at Quinton. ‘We’ll give them two minutes.’ He watched the gyro repeater ticking round on to the new course. ‘Those destroyers will be on to us soon! We’ve got to cripple the big chap before then.’ After that it would end. He knew it. They all knew it.

  Ridgway reported, ‘All tubes loaded, sir.’ He almost smiled. ‘Half their usual time, too.’

  ‘Good.’

  Ainslie clutched an overhead valve for support as something shuddered against the hull, rebounded away and then scraped along the port saddle tank like a giant saw.

  ‘What the hell!’

  Voysey, the second coxswain, shouted, ‘Forrard hydroplane is jammed, sir!’

  Ai
nslie looked at Quinton, knowing he was staring wildly, but unable to contain his disappointment, his anxiety.

  It must have been part of the first destroyer, blasted clean away from the main hull to float barely buoyant across their path.

  ‘Emergency! Stand by to surface! Stand by . . . gun action!’

  Halliday looked away from his sweating assistants and muttered to Lucas, ‘The bloody hydroplane was fractured when we repaired it! That last thump won’t have done any good either!’

  Ainslie felt strangely calm, removed from the hurrying figures, the bark of orders around him.

  In spite of everything, he had failed. His men and the convoy. Natalie most of all.

  ‘Blow all main ballast!’

  Awkwardly, clumsily, Soufrière broke to the surface, and as the water parted across her streaming bows Ainslie saw the hydroplane buckled and snared by a piece of twisted metal. Part of the wreck, the destroyed striking back at her killer.

  The first shell fell near the submarine even as the main engines roared into full throttle and Farrant’s big turret purred smoothly towards the onrushing ships.

  Ainslie had his glasses jammed against his eyes as he watched the nearest destroyer. But the cruiser was the real target. Neither the troopships nor the destroyers could harm the convoy, even though they were more than enough for a damaged submarine, unable to dive.

  At his back he heard a lookout gasp incredulously, ‘What the hell, Yeo? Why are you hoistin’ the flag now, for Christ’s sake? There’s nobody to see!’

  The halliards creaked, and Ainslie knew Menzies had hoisted the ensign to the periscope standards.

  Menzies replied calmly, ‘They will, laddie. And so will we.’

  Ainslie swallowed hard. ‘All tubes to the ready. Full salvo. Cruiser at green one-five, one thousand yards!’ He adjusted the sighting bar, his fingers slippery with falling spray from the last shell. ‘Commence firing!’

  Sitting rigidly on his steel chair at the rear of the turret, Lieutenant Farrant felt the torpedoes leaving their tubes, each one making the hull give a small shudder as it sped away towards the target.

  Farrant thought no more about them than that. Through his powerful sights he could watch the oncoming destroyer with something like detachment, more concerned with the complete silence below him where the two gun crews stood staring at the sealed breeches.

  To his left, Sub-Lieutenant Southby was on a similiar seat, eyes pressed to his sights as he waited to report the fall of shot, to compensate for it, to do whatever Farrant dictated.

  Just over two thousand yards across the submarine’s starboard bow. Farrant tightened his grip on the brass trigger, hardly daring to breathe as he gauged the exact moment.

  ‘Right gun . . . shoot!’

  The gun hurled itself inboard, an empty shell case clattering away into a net even as the crew dashed forward to reload.

  ‘Left gun . . . shoot!’

  Farrant licked his lips, seeing the two white columns burst skywards just beyond the nearest ship.

  ‘Down two hundred!’

  The hull shivered violently as shells exploded nearby, and then gave a sudden convulsion which Farrant knew was at least one torpedo striking a target.

  The crews were moving like robots, the breech workers and loaders thrusting in the gleaming projectiles, then stepping aside as the guns lifted for the next shoot.

  They fired again, and Farrant saw the destroyer reel away from the exploding shells. Neither had scored a direct hit, but they burst so close to the vessel’s bows they must have riddled her like a pepper-pot.

  He grinned, tasting the acrid cordite, the grease and oil of his own trade.

  It was almost worth being here just to imagine the enemy’s surprise. To be mauled by a surface submarine would be hard to take. Loss of face.

  Southby tore his eyes from the smoke-wreathed destroyer with the flashing guns to peer momentarily at Farrant. He was grinning, loving it, devoid of fear, of anything.

  ‘Both guns ready, sir!’

  ‘Shoot!’

  A gunlayer was hurled from his seat, his head smashing against the steel turret like an egg, as a shell exploded right alongside. Splinters scraped and rattled against the steel, and Southby retched helplessly as the gunlayer continued to slide down below the mounting, his skull leaving a red smear on the paintwork.

  ‘Turret refuses to train, sir! Mechanism is jammed!’

  ‘Check, check, check!’ Farrant yelled into the drifting smoke. ‘Will they elevate? Answer, you dolt!’

  The leading seaman nodded, his face ashen.

  Farrant said almost offhandedly, ‘That last shell must have sheared off one of the rollers.’ He picked up his red handset. ‘Captain, sir? We cannot train. Will you take over?’

  Another tremendous explosion rocked the hull, and Farrant heard water cascading over the turret like a tidal wave.

  High on the conning tower, Ainslie seized the handset and replied, ‘Yes, Guns. Do what you can.’ He crouched over the voice-pipe and yelled, ‘Take over the con, Number One. The turret is trained on green four-five. Use the attack periscope to hold the boat on the same bearing.’

  It was sheer lunacy, a wild instinct to hit back, which held all of them helpless.

  On one side, the cruiser was still moving away, running before further torpedoes were sent after her. Her captain was not to know that the submarine which had probed between his ship and the escorts was without any more torpedoes, and now that the turret had jammed Soufrière herself had become the target.

  That last shell had buckled the casing and killed two seamen on the bridge. Below his feet Ainslie could picture the others working like fiends, running the engines, searching for and plugging leaks, waiting for death to blast in upon them. They had not even had the satisfaction of seeing two torpedoes hit the cruiser below her after turrets. Not enough to sink her, but sufficient to make her head for safety, the quarterdeck barely feet above the water.

  The turret shimmered in smoke as the two guns fired again, ripping the air apart as the shells screamed towards the destroyer. The second ship was heading away to port, to divide Farrant’s fire, like hounds after a stag. When the turret failed to respond they would guess what had happened and speed round to Soufrière’s disengaged side. There were probably other ships already racing to their assistance, with ample time for destroying the convoy after they had put Soufrière on the sea-bed.

  Figures bustled through the hatch and up over the side of the conning tower.

  Ainslie seized Halliday’s arm and yelled, ‘Where the hell are you going, Chief?’

  Halliday cringed down as another shell burst in the water within yards of the side. It made the hull boom like a drum and sent splinters cutting through the air above the bridge searching for victims.

  He shouted, ‘That forrard plane, Skipper! It’s our only chance!’ When Ainslie made to protest he added firmly, ‘You can say what you will, court-martial me later if you like, but I’m going down there!’

  He hauled himself after his small party of men, one of whom Ainslie saw was the Frenchman Cottier, an electric cutter over his shoulder like a broadsword.

  The deck bucked to the twin detonations from Farrant’s guns, and Ainslie had to duck as an enemy shell exploded almost simultaneously.

  Forster had come up to the bridge to help con the submarine in conjunction with helm and guns.

  He shouted wildly, ‘God, one of them’s down already!’

  A stoker had dropped to his knees, fingers interlaced across his stomach, staring intently at the racing water along the saddle tank until he pitched forward and was swept away and down into the screws.

  Deafened by gunfire, blinded by smoke and spray which burst over the bows as if they were diving, Halliday reached the hydroplane, his men searching for handholds while Cottier connected the cutter to the casing.

  Halliday winced as several explosions flung water over the deck in solid waves.

  ‘Be ready wi
th jacks, lads!’ He slapped Cottier’s arm. ‘Easy with that thing now!’

  He peered into the frothing water below him. One slip and you were done for. Halliday found time to remember Ainslie’s face as he had defied him on the bridge. After what he did for me, did he imagine I was going to let him lose his boat?

  A fluke shell exploded in the air high above the submarine, raking her with splinters and whipping the sea around her into bursting spray.

  Ainslie fell against the side, his ears ringing and every muscle tensed to withstand pain. In those few seconds he saw it all. Two tiny holes punched into a voice-pipe within inches of his mouth. A neat slit in his shirt and yet the splinter had not even bruised his skin. But just a few feet away a machine-gunner had been killed outright, hurled to the rear of the bridge by the savage impact.

  Then he saw Menzies, the yeoman, lying on his back, his eyes fixed on the flag he had hoisted as his own gesture of defiance. He, too, was dead.

  Forster limped through the drifting smoke, his face white with pain as he gripped his thigh, his trousers bunched into a red rag as he tried to stop the bleeding.

  Ainslie seized him and pulled him against the vibrating steel, supporting him while he groped for a dressing.

  Between his teeth Forster gasped, ‘Oh, Christ!’ He was trying to stay conscious, but the shock of his wound was sapping away his strength.

  The bridge shook to another tremendous explosion from somewhere forward of the turret. Splinters rained across the conning tower like metal hail, and Ainslie realized that but for Forster leaning back for him to dress his wound they would both have been killed.

  Forster was delirious, his head lolling from side to side as he murmured, ‘I wanted to marry her, you know. I really did.’

  Ainslie lowered him to the gratings and jammed his cap under his head as a pillow.

  He said quietly, ‘You will, Pilot. Believe me, you must.’ He did not know why he had said it, or how he could find time to care. But it mattered, and he did care.

  The last shell which had been fired by the other destroyer had exploded close to the turret. Splinters ripped through Southby’s observation slit, killing him before he could cry out or know what had happened. Three of the men at the port gun had also dropped dead or were badly wounded, and one of the loaders was crawling below the breech, blinded and whimpering for help.