Not Thinking of Death

by Not Thinking of Death (retail) (epub)

  Not as light as it had been up top. He blinked, adjusting to it.

  ‘All right, Number One?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Mr Hughes?’ The Principle Ship Overseer nodded his bald head, and Pargeter glanced interrogatively at Joe Fairley.

  Fairley had smiled: ‘Nothing we’d be waiting for, sir.’

  ‘Here we go, then.’ He told the Outside ERA – the artificer on the diving panel – ‘Open one, three and five main vents.’

  You heard a succession of thuds as the vents crashed open. On the tug, a thousand yards away, Ozzard would be hearing the rush of escaping air. Pargeter’s soft brown eyes were on the nearer depthgauge – there was one in front of each ’planesman – watching for the beginnings of the dive. Then, moving towards the forward periscope, a gesture of the hands: ‘Up…’

  * * *

  Fairley looked surprised at Dymock’s question about those tubes.

  ‘Five and six… Reckon they would be?’

  ‘Should be.’ Dymock’s expression and tone reflected his irritation. As if he thought the Barlows’ man should have known: even that by not knowing he might be in some way responsible for this absurd situation. It was several minutes since Pargeter had ordered, ‘Open two, four and six main vents’ and the ERA had pulled out those three steel levers on the panel. He’d pushed home the levers on one, three and six, then. Those tanks being full, it was standard procedure to shut the vents so that when you needed to you could blow the water out again.

  Dymock told Fairley in a clipped, slightly hostile tone, ‘They’re shown as full, on the trimming plan.’

  ‘They’ll be full, then.’ Hughes, the man ultimately responsible for the trim, intervened. ‘But even if they weren’t—’

  ‘Exactly.’ Pargeter pulled his head back from the eyepieces of the periscope. ‘With every other damn tank filled, for heaven’s sake…’

  ‘But—’ Dymock switched the trimming order telegraph to STOP FLOODING and then SHUT ‘A’ SUCTION AND INBOARD VENT, and lowered his arm from it. His other hand was gripping the ladder for support. Roll and pitch were perhaps less noticeable than they had been, but there was a buffeting element in it as she slammed through the swells. Dymock suggested, ‘Might as well check the tubes, sir?’

  Pargeter’s brown eyes rested on him for a long moment. Hesitating while he struggled with the inexplicable. In the background McAllister, Captain (S) of the Portland flotilla, muttered, ‘I’m inclined to agree.’

  ‘Get Searle in here.’

  Glancing at the depthgauges again: then he was back at the periscope. The man beside the helmsman cranking his telephone… ‘Torpedo officer in the Control Room, please.’

  Buchanan touched Chalk’s arm: ‘A wild suggestion – out of total ignorance… Suppose after the basin dive our people made her far too light. As I was suggesting – another cock-up. So now with all these tanks filled she’s still not getting down. Wouldn’t a bit more weight in the torpedo tubes make all the difference?’

  ‘It would make a difference.’

  He hadn’t really grasped whatever Buchanan was driving at. In any case he wanted to keep listening to what was going on, not waste time theorizing. And the concept of the basic trim – keel-weight – being wrong seemed highly improbable. Barlows’ had built submarines before, they weren’t novices: and her trim had been near enough right in the basin dive, no major changes had been contemplated. He remembered at the Buchanans’ party asking Pargeter how the dive had gone, and his answer, ‘They’ve got the ballast about right.’ Meaning, the weight of pig-iron in her keel. Then again, the Admiralty Principle Ship Overseer – probably in collaboration with the Admiralty Constructor, another of the specialists in that team – had worked out their own trim either last night or this morning, and only shortly before Trumpeter had cast off a Barlows’ man had checked the draught-marks.

  That was the clincher, really. She’d have been slightly light – as was customary, deliberately erring on the safe side – but not drastically so.

  ‘Searle. Numbers five and six tubes – full or empty?’

  ‘According to the trimming diagram, sir, full.’

  ‘We know about the diagram. What I’m asking is, Were they filled?’

  McAllister’s voice from the background again: ‘The lightness is for’ard, isn’t it. As indicated by the fact you can’t get the bubble aft. I’d say you’re barking up the right tree, now.’

  The bubble he was talking about was the one in the spirit-level in front of the hydroplane operators on the port side. Normally the coxswain would use his after ’planes to keep it half a degree aft of the centreline mark, thus ensuring that the boat had a slight bow-down angle on her. Captain McAllister seemed to have been stating the obvious – that if this couldn’t be achieved, she was unquestionably light for’ard.

  Searle, meanwhile, faced with that question about the two lower tubes, had glanced round in search of Fairley’s assistant, Alec Rose. The trim had been worked out by the Admiralty man, but the trim diagram or ‘statement’ would then have been passed to Rose for implementation. He – Rose – wouldn’t have gone round personally operating the flooding and pumping gear, he’d have detailed one of the Barlows’ fitters.

  ‘Alec.’ Fairley had located Rose in the wardroom, where he and others were keeping out of the way. ‘Was there two tubes filled – five and six?’

  A mumble… To Chalk’s ears – the full length of Control Room away, with its hushed but still accumulative sound as well as the hum of the motors still at half ahead – Rose’s answer had sounded like ‘I’d say they might not have been.’

  ‘Christ.’ Pargeter shook his head. ‘Go for’ard, Searle, check those tubes.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir…’

  Chalk was thinking again about Captain McAllister’s assertion that she had a small bow-up angle – so small that you wouldn’t have known it except from the position of the bubble. And this being the first of the new class one knew nothing in practice about her hull-configuration’s effect on performance in differing circumstances. Her designers would claim to know, but this now was the proof of the pudding, and he thought it was conceivable that although she’d now be heavy overall the combination of a small bow-up angle and the motors driving her at half-ahead was enough to stop her getting her snout in. She’d be acting like a surfboard – despite hydroplanes at hard a-dive – her hull at this angle in the water holding her up simply by virtue of her forward motion.

  In which case, if you stopped the motors she might sink on an even keel?

  Or, if you took enough additional weight in, right up in the bow, she’d go down like a plummeting whale?

  It seemed far-fetched. He wouldn’t even have considered it, if the situation hadn’t been so extraordinary. The constructors clearly should know all about her hull-shape and behaviour under way, and you could hardly think of it as speed through the water: half ahead grouped down, still virtually on the surface as she was, might be giving her three knots. Not much more. If you couldn’t get her under at that sort of speed – except by having her trimmed so heavy for’ard that she’d be bloody dangerous…

  ‘Right, TI.’ The log-keeper beside the helmsman put his ’phone down. ‘Torpedo Officer reports numbers five and six tubes empty, sir.’

  ‘Hear that, Number One?’

  ‘Certainly did, sir.’ Dymock glanced round at Joe Fairley again. ‘Wouldn’t you know…’

  Meaning something like You bloody Barlows’ people…

  ‘Captain.’ Hughes, the Admiralty emissary, moved closer. ‘Before you have those tubes filled, Captain – as no doubt you will, now—’

  ‘Better late than never, eh?’

  A nod of the bald, inadequately camouflaged head. ‘Wouldn’t you agree that one possible explanation of the error might be that two other tubes were filled?’

  Pargeter thought about it. Lifting his hands from the periscope’s handles, as if in surrender. ‘Then we would not have the answer.’


  McAllister – Captain (S) 6 – growled, ‘Not unlikely some bloody fool filled the wrong tubes, I’d say.’

  Ballantyne, the pilot, chuckled. Catching Buchanan’s eye, then, he muttered, ‘Rum do – uh?’

  Buchanan agreed politely, ‘Very rum.’

  ‘But they’re gettin’ somewhere, uh?’

  ‘Seem to be – yes.’

  ‘Aye.’ The happy smile creased his face again. ‘Aye – we’ll be home to our tea after all!’

  Chalk heard Buchanan murmuring softly to the old Glaswegian – if that was what he was – that he didn’t think there’d ever been any doubt of that. Except that with this continuing delay they’d be an hour late for it, at least. Tea, or supper. Pargeter, breaking off his exchange of views with Hughes, told the man at the telephone, ‘Call the Fore Ends, tell the Torpedo Officer check all six tubes.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’ He’d stuck his log-entry pencil behind his ear and was winding the handle on the box. ‘TI?’

  The letters stood for Torpedo Instructor. In fact he – a Chief Petty Officer and the senior torpedo rating, responsible to Searle for that department and all its works – would more correctly have been referred to as the TGM, standing for Torpedo Gunner’s Mate. But the old designation had stuck, for some reason. What seemed odd to Chalk was that a man of his seniority and experience should have been manning the Fore Ends’ telephone. Unless he’d just happened to be the nearest to it when it jangled…

  At this end, the ’phone clicked down. ‘Message passed, sir.’

  Buchanan murmured more or less into Chalk’s left ear, ‘Couldn’t be anything to do with the faulty positioning of those indicators – could it?’

  ‘No. Nobody’s talking about bow-caps.’

  When Pargeter discovered that all six tubes were empty, Chalk was thinking, he wouldn’t simply have that pair flooded, he’d start by having some ballast pumped out of the midships compensating tank. Might take a few gallons out of ‘A’ auxiliary, too. Lighten her bodily, anyway, before adding that weight right for’ard… He was looking round for some wood to touch, hoping the tubes would prove to be empty. Otherwise, as Pargeter had said a minute ago, you’d be back to square one, to the problem with no solution.

  * * *

  ‘All right, TI. You hang on there, I’ll see to it.’

  Leaving him – CPO Frank Osborne – to guard the telephone. You did need a responsible character there to field and pass messages correctly, in a situation that was already somewhat confusing, and you did not need his expertise and experience just to check a few tubes. As it was, Searle had Leading Torpedoman Eddington with him on the platform in the Tube Space, and another torpedoman – Clark – right for’ard between the two tiers of tubes. Clark was there to open and/or shut the vents and suctions on certain tanks, in compliance with orders which came mainly from the Control Room.

  Eddington offered, ‘Sight bowcap indicators again, sir, shall I?’

  ‘Better do that myself.’ A grin at the killick torpedoman. ‘Not that I wouldn’t trust you a hundred and fifty percent, Eddington.’

  Eddington made way for him. ‘What’s called having a dog and doing your own barking, sir.’

  ‘Actually it’s called doing it according to the book.’ He climbed for’ard between the gleamingly white-enamelled tubes, and Clark shifted sideways so that after a few physical contortions Searle would have a view of the indicators. It was hellishly cramped, up here in the submarine’s narrowing snout. It would have been the narrowness which had caused the bowcap indicator dials to be arranged vertically number one at the top, number five below, number six at the bottom – although the tubes themselves were numbered one, three and five to starboard, two, four and six to port. It was the invariable naval system, with anything at all – cabins, guns, whatever – to have odd numbers to starboard and evens to port.

  By practically standing on his head, he’d sighted the bottom ones.

  ‘All right…’

  ‘Should be, sir.’ Clark was growing a beard, but this far it only looked as if he hadn’t bothered to shave for a day or two. He added, making way again for Searle to get by, ‘Untouched by ’uman ’and since you last checked ’em.’

  ‘Got a few damn monkeys around here though, haven’t we?’

  Laughter came loud and echoey, as in a tin drum. Which this was… Back on the platform behind the tubes Searle moved over to starboard, changing places with Eddington, to get to the test-cock on number one tube.

  ‘Here we go, then…’

  CPO Osborne had asked him something. The telephone was the other side of the watertight bulkhead, in the Fore Ends, and the TI was in that open port-side doorway. Searle had paused, looking round at him. ‘Say again, TI?’

  Louder: ‘Only asked will you use the drains, sir?’

  ‘Don’t think I will. If there’s any leakage in some of ’em I’d sooner it stayed where it is.’

  Rather than drain down to the WRT, the water-round-torpedo tank. When torpedoes were in the tubes dry, if you needed to prepare to fire them you’d open a few valves to send high-pressure air into the WRT, blowing water from it up into the tube to fill the space all round the fish. The same effect could of course be achieved much more quickly by opening bowcaps, but this would affect the trim, making her suddenly bow-heavy, whereas transferring ballast into the tubes from a tank immediately below them wouldn’t change it at all. (Then you’d open bowcaps – with the tubes already filled.) But similarly, the tubes could be drained-down into the WRT, when you wanted to empty them prior to unloading a torpedo; and here and now the drains could be used to check whether tubes were full or empty. When you opened the valve below each one you’d hear either nothing – tube empty – or water gushing down the pipe – tube full – or – a remote possibility – hear it blasting down, under sea pressure plus that of the boat’s forward motion, if a bowcap happened to be open. In that case you’d wrench the valve shut double-quick.

  Searle wasn’t bothering with the drains, though. It would have been the TI’s way of doing things, but as Searle saw it the test-cocks were fitted for precisely this purpose and were perfectly reliable.

  He reached to the cock on number one tube. It was a brass lever about three inches long, could be turned from its normal position – lying flat to the tube’s rear door – to stand out at right-angles to it. In this position the holes were aligned: water would have spurted out, if there’d been any.

  There wasn’t. He fingered it shut again and called to CPO Osborne, ‘Number one tube checked and empty.’

  Moving over to port, to number two. ‘May as well stick to numerical order. Gets the buggers confused, otherwise.’ Eddington laughed, shifting to let him get over to that side. Through the open port-side bulkhead door meanwhile they heard Osborne laconically passing that information to the Control Room.

  * * *

  Harry Calshot had joined them outside the W/T office. He’d sneaked into the Control Room from the wardroom, he said, to get a better notion of what was happening – this business about the tubes – and then having spotted Chalk he’d filtered through behind McAllister, Barlows’ bigwigs and the Blockhouse three-striper, Random.

  Chalk asked him, ‘What’s Random’s job? What’s he here for?’

  ‘Haven’t you met him?’

  ‘Shook hands, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh. Well, he’s running the perisher course. As from the one that starts next month. Wants to give his candidates a few tips on the T-class, I suppose. A man you and I should cultivate, Rufus, wouldn’t you say?’

  The ‘perisher’ was slang for the periscope course, more properly known as the COQC, Commanding Officers’ Qualifying Course. Senior submarine first lieutenants, selected as candidates for command, were put through an intensive course of instruction primarily in the arts of submerged torpedo attack.

  Chalk said, ‘Be a few years before I’m in line for that, I fear.’

  ‘If there’s a war, Rufus, you and I – a
nd Toby Dymock, and—’

  ‘If – or when…’

  Buchanan agreed. ‘All the yards’ll be turning out submarines like sausages, once the balloon goes up. They’ll need skippers, won’t they?’

  ‘There’ll be a lot of new building, all right. And recruiting – training…’ Calshot cocked an ear towards the Control Room. ‘Number one tube checked empty. Five to go. Bet your boots, this will prove to be the answer. Flood those two tubes, and down she’ll go… Rufus, old horse, you didn’t tell me – I only just heard it from your engineer – Eason, is it? – that you’re engaged?’

  ‘Am indeed.’ He heard the report of number two tube having been checked empty, and wondered what was taking Searle so long. He murmured, ‘Making a meal of it, isn’t he?’, and continued – ‘Harry, I didn’t mention it because we were discussing Service matters mostly, weren’t we? Anyway shan’t be getting spliced for quite a while yet. Halfstripe first, I think. Better still, half-stripe and a command.’

  ‘Expensive girl, is she?’

  ‘Rich girl.’

  ‘Why, you old bastard—’

  ‘Terrific girl, actually. Flies her own ’plane – a Fox Moth—’