by Dudley Pope
‘No trouble,’ Mills said. ‘You use the engine-room telegraph. You know they need a double pull, so when you’re ready just tweak one and then the other so they ring and I’ll go full astern on the port engine, full ahead on starboard and pray. If you bung the wheel hard over at the same time we’ll go bolting down a side road like a lame pickpocket.’
‘Listen, Mills,’ Yorke said, ‘if anyone makes a mistake, you’re going to get blown to pieces…’
‘Yes, you said that just now. But some bugger’s got to stay down here and spin the wheels and it has to be me. I recognize ’em, but all the dials are labelled in Swedish. I need one man to help me.’
‘Ask for a volunteer.’
‘You look after your end and I’ll look after mine. We’ve got a good volunteer poker game going down here. I’m five quid ahead at the moment.’
‘I’ll try and give you three or four minutes’ warning on the phone,’ Yorke said.
‘That’ll be a help; it’ll give us time to gather up the winnings. Don’t forget the “left hand down a bit” with the helm – she’ll take a minute or two to start turning with the screws: Much longer than you destroyer folk realize.’
Then Yorke remembered with a shiver that he had not warned Mills about reducing revolutions, and he passed on Pahlen’s description of the signal to the U-boat.
‘Aye, it’s damned lucky I didn’t just juggle about with one engine and then the other. Still, he’ll only have a few seconds warning down there when we do our fancy two-step; not enough time for him to say Donner und whatsit.’
When Yorke put down the receiver he turned to the seaman at the wheel. ‘Did you hear what I just said to Mr Mills?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So when I give the word, you put the wheel hard aport. Watch that telemotor indicator. There, the red pointer. That shows how much rudder you have on. Get it right over so the rudder is helping to stop us, as well as turning us.’
Out on the wing of the bridge, Reynolds pointed over on the quarter and Yorke saw a pinpoint of blue light. It did not wink and seemed to be moving. There was a greyish blur just forward of it and Yorke realized that the Echo was using it as a fighting light. She had slowed down and was abreast the fourth ship in the next column, obviously waiting for the lights to appear on the Penta’s bow.
Yorke looked round the convoy. Ahead of the Penta was one ship, the leader of the column. Astern, just visible as a bow wave, was the Marynal, with the old Flintshire the last in the column. The next column to starboard still had five ships, with the Echo on the far side. A sensible position, Yorke noted, because it meant that all those merchant ships’ engines masked the sound of the frigate’s approach until the last possible minute.
A night like this showed what the devil of a job the U-boat had. The Teds must rely on sound to an almost incredible degree, because even standing up here high on the Penta’s bridge, fifty feet or so above the waterline, it was hard to see more than three or four of the nearest ships in the convoy. Imagine trying to spot one through a periscope which stuck up briefly only a few feet above the water, frequently covered by the odd wave. About like trying to drive a car at night through heavy rain without headlights or windscreen wipers.
There was no putting off answering the next question: those Swedes in the saloon. Did he allow them up on to the boat deck, in case something went wrong? He had forgotten to ask Jenkins how many there were, but he had only three or four sailors to guard them. A determined rush by the Swedes and they would recapture the ship and the whole operation so far would have been a waste of time.
The answer was that the Swedes had to stay where they were. There was time to send a messenger down to tell the guard to let one of the Swedes out to collect all the lifejackets needed for however many prisoners were there. Yorke turned and gave instructions to Jenkins.
There was a flicker of harsh white light on the fo’c’sle, then suddenly a powerful lamp lit up the foredeck. Yorke looked down over the rail and saw the forward part of the ship, with its hatches and stowed derricks, was a complex maze of shadows. A second arc lamp came on and he saw three men on the fo’c’sle, two adjusting the lights and one standing back watching them, close enough to shoot them with a revolver, too far off to be suddenly dazzled. Harris was wide awake and wary.
‘Mr Reynolds, call up the Echo. Make “Tally-ho”. Just one word; don’t bother with a hyphen.’
A fo’c’sle of blazing light played hell with night vision but made it easier on the bridge: he could see the engine-room telegraph clearly now, a tall brass pillar waist high with what at first glance looked like two clock faces on top, a dial to the left and another to the right, with a lever on top of each one. One dial was for the port engine, one for the starboard, each with various orders – stop, slow, half and full ahead, and the same for astern, plus finished with engines… And each lever, or pointer, showed the order the bridge was transmitting to the engine room.
Yorke stood behind the telegraph and experimentally held the levers. It would not matter a damn where the pointers stopped as long as he did the quick back and forth movement that made sure the telegraph bell rang in the engine room to attract attention. Not that Mills would need waking up.
And there was the Echo increasing speed, the grey blur of her bow wave becoming more pronounced in the black of the night and from the look of it she was crossing the bow of the fourth ship in the next column.
Yorke snatched the binoculars from Reynolds. Johnny was taking that merchant ship damned close, just shaving her stem. Now the Echo was turning back to starboard and slicing across the ship’s bow a second time. Then she was hidden by the ship again – Johnny must be slowing down almost alongside her. Here he comes now, first the bow wave, then the blue light – and a great swirl of water just ahead of the merchant ship as her bow wave hit the frigate’s.
Johnny was making dummy runs at various speeds across that poor beggar’s bow. Must be scaring the wits out of the officer of the watch of the merchantman. Johnny would probably have called him on the loud hailer to give him a friendly warning.
Now he was turning again, now dropping back out of sight, hidden by the merchantman. Now appearing in yet another wild dash across the bow, the Echo seeming tiny against the bulk of the merchant ship.
Yorke hurried into the wheelhouse, pressed the button on the telephone to the engine room. ‘Three or four minutes to go,’ he told Mills. ‘Pack up your playing cards, pay your debts, and tighten your brassiere straps. And once you hear the telegraphs and have spun all the wheels and valves, get out of that engine room fast!’
‘We’re really waiting halfway up the ladder already,’ Mills said: ‘Me and my volunteers.’
Yorke chuckled, buoyed by Mills’ cheery manner. Going out on the bridge again he bumped into Captain Ohlson being brought back by Harris, whose features, now lit by the reflection of the arc lamps, looked quite diabolical. ‘I put that ’lectrical chap back in the saloon with his mates, sir,’ Harris reported. ‘The sentry said to tell you they all had lifejackets now.’
Yorke nodded and turned away to see a blue light flashing a series of dot-dash, the letter A, from the commodore (the former vice-commodore who had taken over when the old Admiral’s ship was sunk) who must be wondering what the devil was going on – Johnny was probably too busy to report, or was keeping radio silence.
Then a signal lamp began blinking from the Echo, calling the Penta. Reynolds was acknowledging almost before Yorke had time to speak. ‘One five knots end message,’ he said. So the Echo would be doing fifteen knots when she made her run… Johnny hadn’t hit the practice ship – but he hadn’t been juggling with a lot of high explosive, either.
He must warn the Marynal! Blast, he seemed to be forgetting half the things that mattered. ‘Reynolds – call up the Marynal and tell her to disregard my movements. Hurry now!’
Reynolds moved quickly to the after side of the bridge and while Yorke watched for the Echo he heard the brisk clacking of the signal lamp trigger and mirror. He was a sensible lad, Yorke noted; by going as far aft as possible he kept that flashing blue light out of Yorke’s eyes.
This was all unreal, like a half-remembered nightmare: here he was standing on the bridge of a merchant ship in the middle of a convoy with navigation lights on and the bow and forward part of the ship lit up like a peacetime cruise liner. All the ship’s company were under guard, and there was a U-boat underneath blissfully unaware of what was going on a few feet above him… He still had grenades in his pocket and a revolver stuck in the front of his jacket. None of his men seemed to have any lifejackets… Too late to worry now: Johnny was on his way!
The Echo, a dark blob beneath the blue fighting light with a smudge of grey showing where her bow wave was curling up, was cutting across the next column halfway between the fourth ship, which he had been using for practice, and her next ahead, and heading diagonally across the gap between the columns towards the Penta, second in the next column.
‘Quartermaster, stand by!’
He walked over to the engine-room telegraph and put a hand on the handle of each indicator. The metal was cold. The throbbing was his heart beating, not the Penta’s diesels. A few seconds too late or too early and he would wreck everything: perhaps hit and sink the Echo and she would go down with all those depth charges set to explode shallow.
The forward side of the bridge helped hide the glare from the arc lamps, but although the Penta must look an extraordinary sight, Johnny would see the stem black and sharp like the edge of a cliff, the Penta herself towering over the frigate. He looked over his right shoulder – time was slowing down and the black blob with a grey smudge under the blue light was now recognizably a frigate racing along in the darkness, slicing wavetops into sheets of spray. Johnny would be under that blue light, standing on the bridge, peering up at the Penta which was now broad on his bow. It was, Yorke thought inconsequentially, as if the Penta was an express train thundering down towards a converging level crossing with Johnny driving a small sports car along the road and trying to cross the track before the engine could hit him.
The Echo now seemed almost bows on, with the glare from the arc lights sending out flecks of reflection from her bow wave and making it seem she was chasing a swarm of fireflies.
Men were grouped round her forward gun and the reflection of the lamps began catching the front of her bridge; Yorke imagined he could see a row of heads, Johnny Gower in the middle. More men were crouched aft, by the depth-charge throwers. Johnny had a hell of a responsibility. If he got it right he blew up a German U-boat; if he got it wrong he blew up a Swedish ship and killed everyone on board.
And, for God’s sake, blew up all the evidence! If Johnny got it wrong they would crucify him at the Admiralty for suddenly going mad and sinking a neutral. The Echo’s signal log recording the brief messages from the late Lieutenant Yorke would not help; they were too brief, and gave no proof that the late Lieutenant Yorke himself had had any proof – or even that he had sent the signals…
Here she comes, like the sports car at the level crossing, her bow abreast the Penta’s stern, overtaking at nine knots.
‘Quartermaster!’ he shouted, ‘hard a-port!’ and as he shouted he gave the double jerk on the two telegraphs, one forward, one back: he heard the ring –and the ring in reply. Now the Penta’s bow would turn to port and her stern would swing out to starboard – would Johnny allow enough distance for the swing?
Suddenly the Penta began vibrating; a heavy shuddering as though a blade had come off a propeller: what the hell was going on down there in the engine room? Jenkins was shouting ‘What ho, she bumps!’ with Reynolds screaming with excitement, ‘Just look at that!’
Yorke looked back hurriedly at the Echo but she was not there – she had vanished. No, the Penta had turned sharply so the frigate would be…
A great booming thunderclap seemed to come up from the depth of the ocean, followed by a greater double boom and then a single one: the Echo had dropped a diamond pattern of depth charges where the Penta would have been had she not suddenly swung to port. On where the unsuspecting U-boat should be, unaware until the last few seconds that anything untoward was happening overhead.
Over on the starboard beam Yorke saw a great flat, boiling mass of water at each of the four points of a diamond and, even as he watched, each spurted up a great column like wet volcanoes.
Suddenly he thought of the Penta heading for the ships in the next column to port.
‘Quartermaster! – hard a-starboard,’ he yelled as he felt Mills bring the revolutions back to normal and looked back on the quarter where the Echo’s searchlight was now lighting up the area of boiling water as she desperately tried to turn back to get over it.
The searchlight caught the Marynal, lumbering along; still in her correct position in the column and about to pass through the mass of disturbed water.
Then Yorke saw it, just ahead of the Marynal: like a black log in a millstream to begin with, then surfacing like a whale, and a few moments later high enough in the water so that he could see it, was the U-boat.
Several streams of tracers suddenly tore across from the Echo, but Yorke saw that she dare not fire her bigger guns in case she hit the Marynal. Now red lines of tracer were darting from the Marynal as her machine-guns and twin 20mm cannons opened up on the U-boat. The Echo’s searchlight lost the U-boat as her bridge section masked the beam in her desperate turn to get into position for another attack on the submarine, which had obviously been forced to the surface and could not dive because of damage.
Yorke noticed a thin trail of sparks rising diagonally into the sky from above the Marynal’s bridge and then curving over, bursting a moment later into a brilliant ‘Snowflake’ parachute flare, perfectly placed right above the U-boat, its harsh light dramatically white against the dull red of the streams of tracer below which were bouncing off the U-boat’s hull and then richocheting at crazy angles from the waves in a cobweb of childlike squiggles.
Yorke sighted the Penta’s next ahead in the column and shouted a course correction, then looked over the quarter again at the U-boat, black and evil in the magnesium white of the flare, and which now seemed to be moving slowly ahead out of the great pond of white froth. The Echo had her helm hard over to avoid a merchant ship; Johnny Gower would now have to do a figure of eight before he could get back to the U-boat. And that bloody fool Hobson was getting well off course with the Marynal – he would block the way if and when Johnny ever got the Echo round again.
What was Reynolds shouting about? Yorke checked that the Penta was more or less back in the column and not likely to hit the ship ahead and then ran to the after side of the bridge, where Reynolds was dancing up and down with excitement and yelling ‘He’s going to ram the bugger! Oh do look, sir, he’s going to ram the bastard! Oh, do look…’ while Jenkins was cheering like a drunken football fan.
The Marynal was increasing speed: the light from the Snowflake flare showed her bow wave getting bigger, the dark water at her stern now curling up and over into a white moustache – a hundred yards to go, probably less. And there’s a trail of sparks from another flare going up from the Marynal – Hobson had seen that the U-boat’s one hope of escape was to get out of the circle of light from the first one into the safety of darkness.
‘Those bloody Snowflakes,’ Jenkins snarled angrily, ‘we’ve carted ’em halfway round the world and now the first time we use ’em I ain’t even on board!’
‘You’re getting a better view from here,’ Yorke said unsympathetically, looking forward again and just managing to spot his next ahead’s stern as the second Snowflake flare exploded in an almost blinding white glow beneath its parachute.
‘We don’t need those arc lights now,’ Yorke told J
enkins. ‘Get them doused.’
The seaman walked to the forward side of the bridge, rested his revolver on the rail, and started firing. It took three shots to put out the first one but he missed with the rest.
‘Send someone down to pull out the plug,’ Yorke said impatiently, his ears ringing. ‘Look sharp, there’s a war on!’
He turned back to watch the Marynal. The Snowflake lit up the whole merchant ship, the portholes on the forward side of the accommodation looking like the reflection on rows of buttons. There were two or three black figures on the bridge. Spurts of flames were coming from the Hotchkiss machine-guns at each end of the bridge and from the twin Oerlikons on the monkey island and turning into tiny red darts of tracer. It was curious how tracer seemed to start off slowly and then speed up as it approached the target. That burst from a twin Hotchkiss ricocheted off the conning tower, the tracers scattering like sparks from a blacksmith’s anvil. They may not be doing any damage but the Teds would hardly dare put their heads up for a look around.
The Marynal ploughed on, a great lumbering elephant determined to crush a wounded black serpent.
Would Hobson remember he did not have to go for the conning tower; that a U-boat was like an iceberg, most of it beneath the water?
Hell, the old Marynal must be making twelve knots already and still increasing speed. The chief engineer must – then Yorke saw that the chief engineer most certainly would not be pleased: the Marynal’s funnel was squirting sparks like a Roman candle as the sudden increase in speed blasted out all the loose carbon accumulated in the past few days of six knots…
Forty yards to go, perhaps less. The Marynal’s stem was now very close to the submerged after section of the U-boat. The Echo’s searchlight suddenly came on but Yorke saw that it was blinding old Hobson on the Marynal’s bridge. Just as suddenly as it came on it went out: Johnny Gower had spotted that too.