by John Winton
There were also three signals. Two concerned a gauge for the distiller and The Bodger threw them away without letting the details register on his mind.
“Here am I,” he said, “trying to put one over the best anti-submarine captain in the service and they send me signals about distillers.”
The third signal, however, caused The Bodger’s eyebrows to shoot up. The suddenness and brilliance of The Bodger’s attack on Little Richard had thrown the planning staff ashore into some understandable confusion (mixed with resentment that The Bodger had presumed to create an incident while they were still setting up the counters on the plotting floor). The third signal was from Com-SubPink and read: “Proceed at best speed”.
The Bodger thought for a moment, replied: “Where?” and set Seahorse snorting at maximum speed to the eastwards.
In two hours the answer returned from ComSubPink: “Exercise Area Banana.”
The Bodger stroked his chin and came back with a shrewd thrust: “Am in Exercise Area Banana.”
“I can almost hear the wheels turning,” The Bodger said, as he turned into his bunk.
At midnight, the Petty Officer Telegraphist decoded the top secret priority signal: “Remain on patrol in Exercise Area Banana.”
“Ah . . . splendid exercise,” said The Bodger.
At one o’clock in the morning a Coastal Command aircraft returning off task over the Bay of Biscay picked up a small intermittent radar contact. The contact was at extreme range and the aircraft did not have sufficient fuel to make a proper investigation. It was hardly enough
evidence on which to begin a submarine hunt. But it was more than enough for Black Sebastian.
7
At half-past two Black Sebastian was shaken by the bridge messenger.
“From the Officer of the Watch, we’re at the position now, sir.”
“Very good.”
Still fully dressed, Black Sebastian swung out of his bunk and went out on to the bridge.
“We’re at the aircraft datum position, sir,” said the Navigating Officer.
“I know,” said Black Sebastian brusquely. He crossed to the wing of the bridge. It was a very dark close night. The stars were obscured by a low ceiling of cloud. Below him Black Sebastian could just make out great white lines of foam racing out to Voluminous who was keeping station three cables away on the starboard beam. All ships were darkened. Or supposed to be darkened.
“Make to Voluminous: You have a bright light showing from your sea cabin.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Black Sebastian came back into the compass platform.
“He’s not here,” he said. “If I was him I would be going like a bat out of hell. We won’t find him just yet. How many look-outs have you got, Officer of the Watch?”
“Two, sir.”
“Double them. How long has the radar watchkeeper been on watch?”
“An hour and three-quarters, sir.”
“Have him relieved. And relieve the sonar watchkeeper as well. I want everyone fresh. We can expect him any time from now on and I expect he’s pretty tired by now.”
Black Sebastian knew from his own experience the effect on a submarine ship’s company of snorting at top speed for most of the night. If there was any time for catching a submarine napping, it was between two and three o’clock in the morning.
“I bet there’s not a man on watch in that submarine who hasn’t got his eye firmly fixed on the clock. Make to Voluminous and Octopus: Cease operating radar. Switch on navigation lights. Keep radio and sonar silence.”
The three ships were already steaming too fast for their asdic sets to be of much use but Black Sebastian had a poor idea of the mental capabilities of his fellow captains.
“I wouldn’t put it past them to go spoiling everything with their eager beaver transmissions. They’ve been reading too many text-books and listening to too many lectures. Come down to twelve knots. I want to have a listen.”
The escort group had barely eased to twelve knots and the fresh asdic operator had hardly taken his seat when Black Sebastian’s heart was made glad within him.
“Steady H.E., one-one-zero, sir.”
Black Sebastian steadied his voice.
“Classify.”
“Possible submarine diesel, sir. Too fast for a rev. count, sir.”
“Let me hear.”
Black Sebastian listened to the steady, unmistakable rumbling and let out a sigh.
“That’s him. . .
“From Voluminous and Octopus sir, Have contact, classified snorting submarine.”
“Acknowledge. Now we’ll just follow.” Black Sebastian rubbed his hands. “Until the water gets nice and shallow. . .
Black Sebastian had described the position in Seahorse exactly. Rusty and Dagwood were on watch and heartily tired of it. Rusty was on the periscope and Dagwood was marking the plot and both were longing for the next forty minutes to pass when they would be relieved by Wilfred and the Midshipman.
“Any sign of that light-house yet, Rusty?”
“Not a thing. Nothing but those three merchantmen. Wait a minute, that might have been the loom of a light just now. Trouble is that it’s so bloody dark that half the time I don’t know whether I’m looking at the horizon or not. I have to keep coming back to those merchantmen to fix myself. We’ll have to tell the Boss about them soon, Dagwood. They’re getting quite close. Yes. . . . There it is again! “
Rusty stared at the loom of the light. It was less of a loom than a slight lifting of the darkness on the horizon.
“Yes, that’s it definitely. Half a minute while I try and get the time. Group flashing four every fifteen, or thereabouts. How about that?”
“Sounds like it. I’ll tell the Boss.”
The Bodger came awake as the first footstep touched the sill of his cabin door. The long days with little sleep had fined down his perceptions; he awoke now to the sound of an eyelash fluttering.
“What bearing is it?”
“Zero-seven-six, sir.”
“Good. We must have made better time than I thought. The tide must be with us. Anything else in sight?”
“Only three merchantmen, sir.”
“What three merchantmen?”
“About five miles astern, sir. . .
The Bodger sprang from his bunk as though galvanized by a sudden tremendous current. He thrust Rusty away from the periscope, looked in it for a moment, and then raced to the sonar room. The watchkeeper, a somnolent rating named Perkins, snapped rigid in his seat at the sight of the Captain and began to operate his set industriously. The Bodger seized a pair of earphones and listened intently.
“Stop snorting! Action stations! Attack team close up!” The Bodger turned on Rusty and Dagwood. “Do you know what you’ve done, you cloth-eared clowns? You’ve delivered us up into the hands of the Anti-Christ! “
“H.E. faded, sir.”
Black Sebastian’s face creased in an executioner’s smile.
“Hah, they’ve woken up at last. Action stations. We’ll get him now, once and for all.”
Rubbing the sleep from their eyes, Seahorse’s ship’s company dragged themselves to their action stations. The Bodger stood at the periscope scourging them into their places with his tongue. Leading Seaman Gorbles’ voice took over on the sonar broadcast; there was no need to tell him where the greatest danger lay.
“Black Sebastian two-eight-three moving right transmissions ... on the bearing. . . .”
Leading Seaman Gorbles’ sleep-drugged brain translated the information passed to him by the sonar automatically. His training had been so drilled into him that he could have passed sonar bearing changes while in a hypnotic trance.
It was almost too late for The Bodger to evade Black Sebastian, but not quite.
“Black Sebastian moving right two-eight-seven. . .
The Bodger had one last manoeuvre up his sleeve. “Port thirty. Steer two-nine-zero.”
. Transmissions constant, attackin
g, sir.”
“Full ahead together!”
“. . . Two-eight-eight. . . .”
“What’s Windfall’s keel depth, somebody?”
“Seventeen feet, sir,” said Wilfred.
The Bodger made a rapid addition of Windfall’s keel depth and the height of his own fin.
“Keep eighty feet.”
As Windfall closed on her final attacking course, Seahorse darted towards her at full speed, passed directly underneath her, swayed in her wake while the noise of her passage clamoured against the pressure hull, and slid astern of her.
. . Black Sebastian all round H.E. very loud. . . .”
The Bodger guessed that Black Sebastian would probably turn to port and turned to port also. He could not go deep. They were now less than fifteen miles from land and the water was already beginning to shallow.
“Unless we’re bloody careful,” The Bodger announced to the control room at large, “Black Sebastian’s going to land us high and dry. What’s the tide doing, Pilot?”
“Setting round the point, sir,” said Gavin. “Quite strongly too, sir.”
‘‘We’ll stay doggo and let the tide carry us quietly away.”
“But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,” said Dagwood to himself, “if your Snark be a Boojum. For then you will softly . . . and silently . . . vanish away.”
Dagwood sighed. It was not nearly so funny at three o’clock in the morning.
“Lost contact, sir.”
“Yes, I thought you had,” Black Sebastian said bitterly.
Once again, he pondered on the nature of his enemy. These bursts of speed could only be done by a handful of boats in the exercise. That narrowed the field. But the last burst, right under the attacking frigate, narrowed the field still more; it could only have been done by a certain type of captain. Black Sebastian had felt the submarine pass underneath him, through the very soles of his feet, and he had to admit himself taken aback. It had been such a flamboyant, theatrical gesture; one might have expected it from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but not from a modern submarine captain. Black Sebastian studied the bridge card again. Once more, Seahorse caught his eye.
“Badger.” Black Sebastian pursed his lips. “Badger. Never heard of him.”
Black Sebastian’s memory could not recall a young sub-lieutenant who had joined Black Sebastian's submarine straight from his training class and who had refused to be crushed by his captain’s personality.
“What's the tide doing, Pilot?”
“Setting strongly to the north, sir.”
“He’s bound to be carried by the tide whether he likes it or not. So we’ll drive him. Between the tide and the land and the three of us, we should get him eventually. Operate radar.”
“We should be getting up to the twenty fathom line any time now, sir,” Gavin said.
“That’s all right,” said The Bodger. “We’re allowed to go over it in this exercise. We’re supposed to act as in war. And with Black Sebastian breathing down your neck, it is. Keep sixty feet.”
Seahorse planed upwards.
“What time does it get light?”
“Just before six o’clock, sir,” said Wilfred.
“Another two and a half hours of darkness. I hope that will be enough. Up periscope. What’s this? Looks like a fishing fleet. How’s your French, Dagwood?”
“Not too bad, sir.”
“We’ll be needing it. Right, Number One, I want to do an old-fashioned gun action surface. I want to get up there, but quick. I want a single white light to go on top of the fin. And a whistle. Have you got a whistle?”
“I can get one, sir,” said Wilfred.
“Get it. Rusty, you’ll surface the boat. Have you ever done a gun action surface?”
“No, sir.”
“All you’ve got to do is let go the upper lid when I blow the whistle. Now let’s have a pressure in the boat. Open ‘Q’ inboard vent and blow ‘Q’.”
“Open ‘Q’ inboard vent and blow ‘Q’, sir,” said the Outside Wrecker, who knew exactly what to do. This was quite like old times.
Air poured into “Q” tank and out through the open vent into the submarine until the barometers showed an excess pressure of more than two inches.
“That’s enough. Let’s have a sailor with the light following up the Torpedo Officer.”
“Here’s the whistle, sir. It belongs to the ship’s football team.”
“Splendid! Ready?”
“Yes, sir. Ready to surface.”
“Stand by to surface, full ahead together, planes hard a dive! Dive man,” said The Bodger to the Coxswain, who was looking round incredulously.
Seahorse began to sink.
“Blow all main ballast! “
Air pressing into the tanks slowly counteracted the effect of the hydroplanes. Seahorse stopped sinking and began to rise.
“Planes hard a rise! Switch on navigation lights.”
Under the combined effect of hydroplanes and the main ballast tanks, Seahorse rose like a cork. While the upper hatch was still under water, The Bodger blew the whistle. Rusty let go the hatch and rose up with the rush of escaping air. A spectator would have thought that Seahorse had surfaced with Rusty already on deck.
“Chop chop with that light! “
The single light was rigged and switched on. The bow lights were already burning. From a distance, Seahorse quickly became indistinguishable from the mass of fishing vessels pressing all around her.
“Still no contact, sir.”
“I don’t believe it! She must be there! There’s nowhere else she could have gone! “
“She might be among all those fishing vessels, sir,” ventured the Navigating Officer.
“When I want your advice I’ll ask for it!” Black Sebastian crossed to the radar screen. “Radar, did you count the echoes of that fishing fleet?”
“No, sir?”
“Well, why the devil not?”
“But sir, there’s dozens of them, sir! I’d be all night counting them, sir! “
The radar operator’s voice faltered when he discovered the Captain was actually looking over his shoulder. The Captain’s voice sent chilly shivers up and down the radar operator’s backbone.
“Now look here. When I tell you to count radar echoes, you count radar echoes. I want to know if an extra one appears or one of them disappears.”
“Ay-aye aye, sir.”
“We seem to be attracting quite a bit of attention, sir,” said Dagwood.
Voluble Gallic cries of alarm were coming out of the night.
“So we are” said The Bodger. “What're they saying?”
“They want to know who we are, sir.”
“Quite right, too. Tell them we’re the Mademoiselle de Paris, two days out of Montmartre.”
Dagwood translated to the nearest fishing vessel. More vehement shouts sailed out of the dark.
“I don’t think that was the right thing to say, sir.”
“Why not?”
“They seem to think we’re a Russian submarine, sir.”
“Good God, that’s the unkindest cut of all! You’d better tell them who we really are. And tell them those ships out there are really the Russians. Who’s the Officer of the Watch now?”
“I am, sir,” said Wilfred.
“I want to stay up here as long as it’s dark. Keep in the middle of this fishing fleet but try not to hit any nets or anything. You’d better try and smell of garlic and fish, too. Have you got a beret?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Pity. You’ll just have to hum a few snatches of the ‘Marseillaise’ now and then. Let me know if Black Sebastian comes too close or if he looks as though he’s got us. Dagwood, have you got your tape-recorder handy?”
“It’s in the wardroom, sir.”
“You’d better get it warmed up. I want to use it.”
Seahorse remained inside the fishing fleet (contrary to Admiralty Instructions, but The Bodger was a desperate man) un
til dawn and then dived. Black Sebastian and his two henchmen probed cautiously along the fringes of the fishing fleet but their radar was defeated by the multitude of echoes and their sonar listening was confused by the water disturbances under the fishing fleet. The two henchmen moved out to seaward, pinging disconsolately as they went. Black Sebastian stayed with the fishing fleet, like a terrier refusing to leave a rat-hole. Just after dawn he was rewarded by a contact.
“Underwater telephone, sir.”
Black Sebastian lifted a weary head. “Put it over the bridge broadcast.”
There came a hollow roaring, as though Neptune himself were clearing his throat, and then unmistakably the throbbing of drums, the wailing of a clarinet and the cheeky metallic voice of a calypso steel band singer.
“Where did the naughty little flea go? Nobody know, nobody know! “
Black Sebastian glanced round his bridge team. They were all poised, ready to start the attack again.
“Where did the naughty little flea go? Nobody know, nobody know! “
The bridge action team tensed.
“Where did the naughty little flea go? Nobody know, nobody know! “
“Switch that thing off,” said Black Sebastian. “Pilot, give me a course to rejoin the Task Force.”
At breakfast time, The Bodger sat down to as fine a grilled sole as he had ever set eyes on. Two bottles of whisky had procured fish for breakfast, lobster for supper, and three bottles of a violent purple vin ordinaire.
“I’m very grateful to Black Sebastian,” The Bodger said. “If it hadn’t been for him we’d be sitting down to the same old bangers and train smash. It’s almost worthwhile meeting him again.”
But they did not meet Black Sebastian again. They did not in fact meet anyone again. One day they saw an aircraft pass low on the horizon and on another day they investigated a target which proved to be a whale factory ship, but the main battle had passed them by. From time to time they intercepted signals which plotted the path of the Task Force eastwards and northwards as the submarines, one by one, rose to attack it like dogs leaping at a bear. The rest of the time they spent waiting for the signal which would release them.