Not Thinking of Death

by Not Thinking of Death (retail) (epub)

  His way of apologizing for having put the periscope up, perhaps. He hadn’t mentioned it, but he must have realized since then that if he hadn’t done it Tracker might have been in the clear by now: on the surface, belting for home.

  Some thought, that. Really some thought.

  The noise had stopped again. Anchor close-up in the destroyer’s hawse, no doubt.

  Wootton’s voice: ‘HE on that bearing, sir. Slow.’

  ‘And the new one?’

  Chris heard a whimper from the German in Mottram’s cabin. Like a child’s, in nightmare. Wootton meanwhile telling the skipper, ‘Red one-six-nine, sir, drawing left. Slowing, too.’

  You’d hear that one anchoring, in a minute.

  Mottram came through – leaving French, the torpedo officer, in the Control Room – and Chris moved further round the table to let him in.

  ‘Listen, Number One. And you two. Decision time. Since we’ve got another of the bastards up there – and in due course no doubt he’ll be relieved.’ Meeting Chris’s stare: neither of them needing to voice the thought that by that time – if they did wait that long – they might not be paying much attention to whatever came or went. He went on, ‘Want to hear your views, see what you think of this. Point being that if they’re waiting for divers—’ he paused, getting it together, dragging a breath in too – ‘and the diving starts soon enough, could be our best moment.’

  ‘When they’ve got divers down – working—’

  ‘Exactly. Up—’ a forefinger pointing upward – ‘and put a fish in him. Panic, confusion – surface, run for it.’

  ‘Two things, sir—’

  ‘One other point first. However obvious… Either surfacing, or trying to put some distance behind us dived – hell of a long shot. Odds against getting away with it – Christ, we’ll need miracles.’ He looked at Chris. ‘Sorry. Go ahead.’

  ‘Two things.’ He spoke carefully, taking his time over it. ‘First is how long – to wait for that, I mean. Haven’t got long – as we all know. Divers might be coming from Kiel – Hamburg – anywhere. Could be days… Second – I doubt there’ll be only one ship then. Diving-gear in one – salvage-vessel, maybe – and Gestapo observers, perhaps. Rest of the flotilla too, wouldn’t be surprised. And if we hang on too long – well…’ He shrugged, left it at that.

  ‘So—’ Mottram was wiping his eyes, which seemed to be watering a lot – ‘– your vote’s to chance it – now?’

  ‘When this one’s alone again, I’d say. Give the other one time to get into Altfjorden and anchor. Or if it’s going to refuel – wherever… But look – sir – they aren’t expecting anything, won’t be keeping a sharp lookout. They think we’re dead.’

  ‘That’s a point. Good one.’ Mottram stared at him, thinking about it. ‘But—’ he paused, glancing up as Kjellegard joined them. ‘How is he?’

  A shrug: ‘Not good before. Need air, need—’

  ‘Christ, who doesn’t!’

  Kjellegard protested, ‘Captain ask, I only say—’

  ‘Quite right. You shut up, Chief… Number One – you’re right. But we’re also damn close to them, aren’t we? And – hydrophone watch, surely. Even if not, and we torpedo him – hell, the others’ll be on us before we get half a mile.’

  Caulfield said, ‘You told me to shut up, but if you want my view—’

  ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘I agree with Van Sommeren. Have a go now.’

  ‘Didn’t say that, Chief. I’m saying let the one that’s been relieved get well away – up to Namsos, or alongside a tanker, or wherever—’

  ‘All right. An hour, then move.’

  ‘Well.’ Mottram thought about it for a moment. ‘All right. All right… But – how to set about it… You see, if we could get off the bottom without—’ he paused, shook his head – ‘can’t hope to, really, can we. If we could, I was thinking we might do better not to attack him, just – creep away, or try to. If we don’t settle his hash, he’ll be on us damn quick, and if we do – well, he’s out of it but we’ve got four others after us. Can’t have it both ways – or move silently—’

  Chief muttered, ‘Spin a coin’, and Mottram frowned, repeated, ‘Or move all that silently. The minute you start that pump, Chris—’

  ‘Hey.’ He’d straightened, as a new thought hit him. ‘Hey…’

  Three pairs of eyes on him. Bellamy hadn’t joined in the discussion, but he’d been awake and listening, was up on an elbow now, Chris began – pointing upwards and astern – ‘This fellow ’ll be anchoring, any minute now – and he’ll be stone deaf while he’s doing it, won’t he. Cable roaring out, hydrophones useless? If we’re quick – now – and ready for it—’

  ‘Crikey.’ Chief muttered, staring at Chris, ‘Man’s a genius…’

  ‘Perhaps he is, at that.’ Mottram was staring at him too: Chris guessed, looking for reasons it wouldn’t work. He could see only one snag – the short time it took to drop an anchor. You’d need to be damn quick – starting now… He was halfway to his feet: ‘Go to diving stations, sir?’

  * * *

  The Spitfire’s oil pressure was falling slowly but surely. In fact not all that slowly now, either. The gauge showed fifty pounds to the square inch: a few minutes ago the pressure had been fifty-five and she’d been thinking she might make Cosford. Certainly would not have got anything like as far as Brize Norton. Cosford had been a possibility though, and attractive by virtue of number 22 ATA ferry pool being based there.

  It was no longer a possibility, however. The pressure had dropped below fifty, and she knew she was in trouble. The nearest fields would be Temhill, Shawbury or High Ercall. A complicating problem, though, was that she didn’t know precisely where she was. Cloud at this point was continuous. Hadn’t been, only minutes ago, but was now, was here. Just a few minutes ago she’d left Shrewsbury to starboard – it had been clear to see – and then she’d had the Severn Gorge right under her; since then, she realized, she’d been preoccupied with the damned oil-pressure.

  Forty-five pounds to the inch. ‘Emergency Minimum’, that was called. Engine temperature and oil temperature were already high, and rising fast.

  Next thing, the engine either seizes up or explodes. Or both.

  Get down, find Temhill or Shawbury. If possible, rather quickly. She was in cloud now, coming down through it, airspeed down to one-ninety. Thinking Now I really have done it. Oil pressure forty-two. Another fleeting thought: When they’re out to get you they don’t damn well let up, do they? The Hurricane yesterday, now this. Out of cloud, but not a damn thing she recognized. On a route which she knew so well she could have listed landmark after landmark with her eyes shut… Must have gone off course: been over cloud and off-course, mesmerized by the bloody oil-gauge.

  Nothing like that’s going to happen to me, Jane…

  The hell it wasn’t. Pressure was down to forty: it’d go at any moment…

  To the left, ahead, a big, recently-cut hay field. Might make that. Hay-stooks dotted here and there, but—

  Glycol – hydraulic fluid – bursting out of the ’plane’s nose lashed the perspex in front of her – painting it a dirty white – and streamed over her head. Visibility now zero except over the side of the cockpit. She’d switched off the engine – averting that explosion anyway – and trimmed the Spit to gliding speed – 110 mph. Petrol cock – off. Now the hood: released, it flew away. Undercarriage – no, no hydraulics, darn it. So no wheels. Check the harness: OK, locked. The glycol had mostly gone, but there was still a residue plastering her goggles. A hedge flashed under: she held off as well as she could, with her feet jammed against the rudder-bars – as ready for the impact as she’d ever be: she thought in that final second Oh, Chris, I’m such a fool…

  * * *

  Waiting – still – at diving stations. The faces around the Control Room were quite familiar to him now: sick and exhausted, but not the strangers’ faces they’d been only a couple of days ago. All breathing op
en-mouthed: eyes dim in dirty whites and sockets like dark holes in skulls. Most of them were leaning on things, or squatting… The German should have anchored fifteen or twenty minutes ago: it had seemed like touch-and-go, to get the ship’s company closed up in time, ready to open the main-line suctions on ‘O’ port and starboard – and open up from depthcharging, so the depth gauges were functioning again – and a stoker in the machinery-space ready to start the ballast pump. Chris would have also to blow ‘Q’, the quick-diving tank: he’d flooded it after they’d bottomed, to hold her virtually anchored with its five-ton flooded weight. An advantage being that it could be blown – instantly, more or less.

  Noisily too, unfortunately. The destroyer had to be anchoring, when he blew it. Which was what they’d been waiting for, for about twenty minutes now.

  ‘Red five-oh, sir. Turning again.’

  PO Wootton – white as linen, eyes bright pink – knew the German was turning because the bearing had been shifting from left to right and had now become steady. When he’d made his turn the bearing would start moving the other way, right to left.

  As it had now. The sickening fact was that the destroyer was patrolling up and down, not anchoring, conceivably wasn’t going to. A snag he had not foreseen.

  Mottram muttered, ‘Someone ought to tell him he’s wasting fuel.’ He looked at Wootton again: ‘Sure he’s not transmitting?’

  ‘Sure, sir.’

  Because they wouldn’t be expecting any submarines to be around, other than the one they thought they’d sunk.

  ‘He’ll be listening out, though.’ Mottram looked over at Bellamy, at the chart-table. ‘How far would he be from us on that bearing, pilot?’

  ‘Five hundred yards, sir, roughly.’

  ‘Christ. Spitting distance.’

  ‘Red one-one-oh, sir.’

  Anchor? Please – anchor?

  Mottram had gone over to the chart-table. Murmuring to Bellamy, ‘Twenty-five fathoms… Due west, patch here’s only six. So – we’ll steer a course of two-nine-oh.’

  ‘Two-seven-five should clear it, sir.’

  ‘Not worth the risk. Two-nine-oh for half a mile, let’s say. No – we won’t. We’ll steer three double-oh – and stay on it. Priority’s to put distance between us and this coast. Course for home after we surface.’

  ‘But – could be what they’d expect, sir?’

  ‘We don’t have to consider that, do we?’

  He left him to work it out for himself. Bellamy wasn’t in any better shape than the rest of them – a few minutes ago he’d seemed to be asleep, half-lying across his chart-table – and the point his oxygen-starved brain was missing now was that this whole gambit depended on the Germans not having even a suspicion that there could be a live submarine within a hundred miles.

  Wootton reported, ‘Moving again, sir. Right to left, very low revs.’

  ‘Bearing?’

  ‘Red – one-two-four, sir.’

  ‘The other one was right astern when he anchored, wasn’t he?’

  Bellamy told him from the chart-table – alert now, proving he wasn’t all that slow-witted – ‘He was on red one-seven-six, sir.’

  Near enough right astern. So if this one was heading for the same spot he’d have maybe a thousand yards to go yet. A few hundred anyway. The fact he’d cut his revs justified the hope that he might be nosing in to anchor.

  Condensation wasn’t only gathering on the deckhead now, it was beginning to fall – here and there, sporadically – like spots of warmish rain. Leaning on the slanting steel ladder with his forehead resting on one of its higher rungs, Chris wondered whether the deckhead had dripped like this when it had been Trumpeter’s – and if it had, whether anyone had been alive to see it. Probably not: they’d all been dead long before this stage… He focused on Mottram: ‘Might be as well to change the Protosorb, sir.’

  ‘All right.’ Looking up, seeing the sweat on the white paint. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Where is it, cox’n?’

  ‘’Fore ends, sir. Want me to—’

  ‘No. Harper.’ The rat-faced messenger: pink-eyed, more like a ferret… ‘Ask the TI for the Protosorb, then replace all the stuff that’s on the trays.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  It might help, a little. Had damn-all to do with condensation: the dripping had only reminded him about it – that the stuff already spread around might have absorbed as much CO~2~ as it could take.

  Mottram muttered, ‘Wonder what this bugger’s at.’

  There’d be a variety of explanations to choose from. A trainee helmsman on the wheel, for instance. Or giving a midshipman a lesson in pilotage, or the engineer wanting to run the engines at low revs for a while, for some reason…

  Chris could see the damn thing up there. Sliding through the dark-blue water, a small bow-wave rolling away to wash around the nearer islets: the men in its bridge breathing fresh air, taking that blessed luxury for granted…

  ‘Red one-seven-oh, sir. Still moving right to left.’

  ‘Revs?’

  ‘Dead slow, sir. Manoeuvring speed.’

  And very nearly in the right spot, Chris thought, still picturing the scene up there. He felt dizzy, now and then – now, for instance – and slightly sick. He rested his forehead against that double steel rung again: thinking – incongruously – Wedding day – tomorrow?

  Ought to send Suzie a telegram:

  Sorry, can’t make it, all my love, darling—

  ‘Stopped his engines, sir.’

  Back to earth: to hope… Thinking that if the German was going to anchor he’d most likely put his screws astern shortly, to take the way off: and you’d hear it, get some warning… Mottram raised a hand, crossed two fingers. His face above the now untrimmed, straggly beard glistening with sweat, eyes red-rimmed, sore-looking. Well – most were – his own too, probably, one hadn’t been looking in any mirrors. He asked Mottram, ‘What depth, sir – when we get going?’

  ‘Make it forty feet.’

  ‘Forty. Aye aye, sir.’

  The question had been somewhat premature. But less counting chickens than keeping oneself awake, one’s mind on the job. Getting it back on the job. Reflecting, though, that if the destroyer turned and headed back westward again, it wouldn’t be easy or even rational to go on with this. If you didn’t surface reasonably soon, he knew – from his own rapidly worsening condition as well as from the appearance and obvious lassitude of most of the men around him – was pretty sure that even another hour might be too much… Leave it too long, he thought – coining an aphorism – might be leaving it for ever.

  But if you surfaced here, the Germans would have her at point-blank range.

  Answer: move now, chance it, don’t wait any longer for the bastard to drop his hook. Get her off the putty, blow ‘Q’ and start the motors, say your prayers…

  The noise of the destroyer’s cable rushing out took him by surprise. After all the waiting – he’d almost jumped out of his skin. Then: ‘Start the pump!’ – simultaneously switching the electric telegraph to ‘pump from for’ard’. Actually to suck ballast from the midships compensating tanks, but the pump was further aft. The word PUMPING appeared, lit up, and he glanced round at the ERA on the diving panel: ‘Blow “Q”.’

  ‘Blow “Q”, sir…’ He already had a wheel-spanner on the valve, had only to wrench it round: you heard the high-pressure air thump through the pipe, and its impact in the tank. ‘“Q” blowing, sir.’

  The German’s cable was still rattling out. When it stopped, you’d carry on: bloody have to. ‘Q’ tank had a light that switched off when it was empty, and it flickered out now: Berkley shut off the air and reported ‘“Q” blown, sir.’ His face was so white under the stubble that it almost glowed. But Tracker was moving. Even before ‘Q’ had been empty there’d been a slight lurch and the needles in the gauges had begun to inch around their dials. 124 feet: 122… Looking over the ’planesmen’s shoulders he saw that the bubble was near-enough ami
dships. So her whole length had to be off the bottom. 120 feet, rising on an even keel: he reached to the trimming telegraph, clicked it to ‘Stop pumping’, and told Mottram: ‘Clear of the bottom, sir.’

  ‘Group down, slow ahead port.’

  ‘Grouper down, slow ahead port, sir…’ The order was passed aft to the motor-room by telephone. In the same instant the cable’s noise ceased: it left a silence that seemed to double Tracker’s own output of sound.

  Chris told the ’planesmen, ‘Forty feet.’

  ‘Forty feet, sir.’ The coxswain glanced to his right, at Chisholm’s fore planes’ indicator, which showed that that pair were at hard a-rise. He put some more angle on his own – dive-angle, to pull the stern down, get the bow up. As she gathered way, the ’planes would begin to take affect.

  ‘Port motor running slow ahead, grouped down, sir.’

  ‘Very good.’ Mottram told the helmsman, ‘Steer three double oh.’

  ‘Three double oh, sir…’

  Cable noise again. As reassuring as the motor’s low hum. Laying out more cable, he guessed: wouldn’t take them long, but they wouldn’t have been doing it at all if they’d thought there was any reason to use their hydrophones. Needles in the gauges swinging past the 100-foot marks: he switched the trimming telegraph to ‘Flood for’ard’. She’d be getting lighter as she rose, so he had to put some weight back into those midships compensating tanks; otherwise the trim could become uncontrollable and she’d rocket to the surface.

  Which was not desirable.

  Silence again. Only Tracker’s port motor and screw disturbing the underwater stillness.

  ‘Course three double-oh, sir.’

  ‘Slow ahead starboard.’

  Hoarse whispers: nothing louder.

  Eighty feet. He moved the telegraph to ‘Stop flooding’, and ordered ‘Shut “O” suctions and inboard vents.’ She might be a bit light for’ard, he thought: in which case the ballast he’d let in as she rose to the ordered depth of forty feet could as well go into ‘H’ compensating tank, which was halfway towards the sharp end.