Surface!

by Surface! (retail) (epub)

  “Look. Same hands as for Poker, you see…” The Army gathered round…

  * * *

  Sub was on watch at night, the silence of the empty sky and sea far more noticeable than the noise of both diesels turning over at three hundred and eighty revolutions to the minute. The sky was a velvet cushion, studded with stars, the sea a mirror of black glass. The sharp bow cut into it, spoiling the unbroken trackless water as a pair of skis can lacerate the smooth side of a mountain.

  “Relieve lookout, sir?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He was thinking about his job in this landing business. Being the officer responsible for everything that happened on the casing, the steel deck on top of the submarine’s hull, it was his job to handle and launch the canoes. It had to be done quickly and quietly, in the dark, with the submarine trimmed down low so that the for’ard hatch was only just clear of the water. This put the submarine in a position to dive quickly if an emergency arose, reduced her silhouette and made the canoe-launching easier.

  Luckily the sea was certain to be dead flat, down there where the Straits were narrower than some rivers. The for’ard hatch had to be open for the least possible time, for while it was open she could not dive. The canoes had to be hauled out one by one and launched over the side, steadied while their crews climbed into them, pushed off. Four canoes: it would take about five minutes, in the dark, within pistol shot of an enemy beach.

  Sub only had that little part of the business to worry about. The Captain, down below in the wardroom, had very much more. If the enemy had the slightest clue that they were down there, he could just as well write his ship off. Within an hour of some little slip giving away their position, an Escort Group would be steaming out of Singapore. In the narrow waters there could be no question of escape. Anything could give them away. Six inches too much periscope, seen from the shore. A slight noise when they were dived, picked up on a Japanese hydrophone. A chance meeting with a patrol boat… and in any case, they had first to get through the minefield, a minefield that had not been passed since the day it was laid.

  The Captain was having a conference with the Major. The wardroom table was covered by the chart of the area, military maps and aerial photographs taken by reconnaissance planes within the last few weeks.

  The object of the operation on shore was as much a mystery to the Captain as it was to everyone else, except of course to the Army men, and of them only the Major knew the full details. Until the time came when they had to know, just before they landed, he told them nothing. The fewer that knew anything, the less chance there was of the Japs knowing. The submarine could be sunk, and the survivors taken prisoner, and the Japanese had many ways of extracting information from prisoners. Even the bravest had been known to talk, at about the time that they went out of their minds.

  * * *

  “Y’ know,” observed the Major, “we’re all going to find life damned monotonous, when this war ends.”

  “I should think you probably will,” agreed the Captain.

  “No, damn it, you as well: won’t you?”

  “Perhaps, at first. But even in peace-time the Navy offers a certain amount of excitement.”

  “I suppose it depends on the way you look at it,” mused the soldier.

  “I was regular, you know: chucked it up. Couldn’t stand all the social nonsense. All the wives saying Yes sir, No sir, to each other, according to their husband’s ranks. Damn it, if I marry a girl, it doesn’t make her a Major!”

  “It could be pretty frightful,” murmured Number One, thoughtfully. The Major turned to him.

  “I was stationed in Malta, at one time. My Colonel’s wife went to have her hair done in a place that had little sort of booths, all partitioned off. On each side of her, behind the partitions, was a Naval officer’s wife. They must have thought the place between them was empty, because one of them suddenly said across to the other, ‘My deah, have you chosen your soldiah for the summah?’”

  “Good Lord! That can’t be normal, can it?”

  “Well, you see, in the summer the fleet used to leave Malta on a summer cruise. Chaps had a whale of a time on the Riviera, and all that sort of thing.”

  Number One was very thoughtful, still. The Captain grinned at him.

  “Worried, Number One?”

  “No, sir, I’m not worried. But I’ve thought about it quite a bit, and I don’t think I’ll stay in the Navy after the war, not if they’ll let me out.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Yes, I am. I’m enjoying this war, and I like my job, and all that sort of thing. But in peace-time I’d be bored stiff. I’m sure of it.”

  “You’ll get used to it, when it comes. And in any case, if it’s anything like the last one we’ll all be damn lucky if we aren’t thrown out when they start disarming… Let’s have the dice out: like a game, Major?” The soldier said he would.

  “Right. Ace up, King towards, spin for start… yours, Number One.”

  * * *

  The Navigator finished his tea and squeezed himself out of the wardroom, went into the Control Room and addressed the helmsman, “Relief O.O.W,” he said.

  The helmsman shouted up the voice-pipe, “Relieve Officer of the Watch, sir?”

  “Yes, please.” The answer came out of the brass tube in Number One’s voice. The Navigator climbed the ladder to the bridge, took over the watch.

  “O.K., Tommy. Course 100 degrees, three-eight-oh revs. There’s the land.” Number One pointed at the Northern end of Sumatra: they were approaching the top of the Straits, and next morning at dawn they would be diving.

  Number One slid down the ladder to his tea. Somehow they managed to make room for him round the table: it seemed that you could always get in one more, however many there were already. He had finished his tea and was just lighting a match, when the klaxon gave a preliminary cough and then roared twice. The soldiers sat in stunned surprise at the violent, lightning evacuation. The Major went on drinking his tea.

  “What’s all this in aid of?” asked Selby.

  “Don’t ask me. Perhaps they’re issuing rum, or something. Pass the sugar, would you, Montgomery?”

  As the Navigator fell into the Control Room on top of the Lookout, he said, “Aircraft, sir, coming towards from right ahead.”

  “Sixty feet,” ordered the Captain. Five minutes later, he changed the order.

  “Thirty feet, Number One.”

  “Thirty feet, sir.” The submarine rose gently to periscope depth, thirty feet, and the Captain signalled with his hands for the periscope to be raised. Slowly, carefully, he searched the sky.

  “Nothing there, now.” He stepped back, turned to Number One as the periscope hissed down.

  “We’ll stay dived until dark. Go Watch Diving when you’re ready.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Which Watch, Cox’n?”

  “White Watch, sir.” Number One lifted the microphone down from its hook.

  “White Watch, Watch Diving.”

  Silence settled heavily through the compartments as the routine ticked along like a clock and the submarine began to creep into the Straits.

  “Mean to say we’re going to stay under water for four hours, now?” asked the Major. “Sounds most unhealthy to me.”

  The Captain grinned. “While you’re disporting yourselves on the beach, or wherever you are going to disport yourselves, we’ll be lying under water for forty-eight hours.”

  Number One, who had just joined them in the wardroom, whistled.

  “D’you mean that, sir?”

  “Of course I mean it. We’ll lie on the bottom all the time. Won’t be able to run the air-conditioning plant: makes too much bloody noise. It’ll be a bit hot, I dare say.”

  “Hot! Good God, we’ll bloody well fry!” Chief moaned, and began to wipe the soles of his feet with a towel.

  * * *

  All around them was the thick, black curtain of the night, in their ears the low throb of the diesels. In the
front of the bridge stood the Captain and the First Lieutenant, their binoculars at their eyes, silently intent, watching to pick up the first glimpse of the light-house on the One Fathom Bank.

  “Should see it any minute, now,” muttered the Captain. The lighthouse had no light in it, of course: only a tall, lonely pillar rising out of the middle of the Straits, a sign that here was the Bank, and beyond it a channel that twisted through countless other banks. The channel that was mined.

  Minutes passed slowly as they strained their eyes ahead, occasionally taking the glasses from their eyes for long enough to blink before resuming the search.

  “There it is, sir.” Number One spoke quietly, as though not wishing to break the clinging silence. The time was five-thirty.

  “Good,” said the Captain, when he picked up the dark silhouette in his glasses. “We’re right on the dot, Number One. Hold this course until I shout up, then come round to one-two-oh and go slow together. I want to get a Radar fix, if I can.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” As the Captain’s dark form merged into the hatch, Number One spoke to the Lookout. “Keep your eyes skinned.”

  In twenty minutes’ time they would be diving, and by eight o’clock they would be among the mines. Number One was hungry: he wondered what was for breakfast.

  * * *

  Saunders, his ears held into his head by the headphones, sat in the corner of the Control Room and operated the machine that could detect the presence of mines. The submarine was just entering the area which was marked off on the chart in red ink, shaded with diagonal lines and marked, simply, MINEFIELD. Saunders’ long unshaven face was quite expressionless as he turned the handle in front of him, stared at the dial and lived through his ears. He would have worn exactly the same expression, or lack of one, if he had been operating a plough, intent on keeping the furrow straight and true.

  Every eye in the Control Room was, most of the time, on Saunders’ face. He seemed unconscious of the part he was playing. Nobody made a sound, nobody moved an inch. The sweat ran down: no hand was raised to wipe it off. The First Lieutenant stood with his back to the ladder, his eyes fixed on the depth-gauge in which the needle never moved. The Navigator leaned over the chart-table, a pencil poised four inches above the word MINEFIELD. It had been poised, in exactly that position, for seven and a half minutes. The Sub was in the for’ard compartment with Chief Petty Officer Rawlinson and the torpedomen: they sat in silence, looking at their feet. The submarine had been shut off for depth-charging, which meant amongst other things that all the watertight doors were shut. Each compartment was a world on its own, linked to the Control Room by telephone. In the Engine-room, Chief leant against the port diesel, his eyes fixed without expression on a wheel-spanner that hung from an overhead pipe.

  In the Control Room, nobody had moved. Saunders drew in his breath, sharply, and the Captain, looking at him, raised his eyebrows in a wordless question.

  “Mine, right ahead.”

  “Starboard ten.” The Captain’s voice was low, unhurried. The course was altered by fifteen degrees.

  “Mine, five degrees on the starboard bow.”

  “Port ten.” Seahound turned back again by five degrees, to pass between the mines.

  Featherstone raised his right hand from his side, stared at his fingernails. Everyone saw him do it. He seemed to find the thumb particularly interesting. The Signalman, irritated, looked at him angrily, and Featherstone dropped his hand to his side. The Signalman stared at his feet.

  The Captain said, “Report all objects.”

  Saunders nodded, turned his wheel. His ears, Featherstone saw for the first time, were much bigger than the headphones.

  “Contact, red three-one.” He turned the wheel a little more, and he added, “Contact, green two-eight.”

  “Very good.”

  The Signalman looked up at the deckhead, pursed his lips as though he was whistling. Featherstone glared at him: the Signalman’s lips relaxed and he stared at the hairs on the back of the First Lieutenant’s neck.

  “Mine, right ahead.”

  The Navigator dropped his pencil. It made a mark on the charted minefield as the Captain asked, “Where are the other two, now?”

  “Red four-eight, sir.” Pause. “Green three-seven.”

  “Very good.” The Captain relapsed into silence, rubbing his chin. The helmsman waited tensely for an alteration of course. None had been ordered. He had heard Saunders report a mine right ahead. The helmsman felt sweat running fast down his back.

  The Captain spoke to Saunders.

  “Tell me when the one to port bears red six-oh.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  They were all staring at the Captain, willing him to alter course. He looked at nobody except at Saunders.

  Each minute took an hour to pass. Saunders raised his head, opened his mouth. The Captain’s eyes brightened, and his face asked the question. Saunders closed his mouth again, twiddled his wheel a little bit this way and that. The Navigator looked at his pencil: the point was broken, so he put it down and picked up another one. That was broken, too. That seemed terribly funny: it took an effort not to laugh aloud.

  Featherstone, watching the Captain and Saunders, felt like giggling himself. He didn’t know why.

  Saunders said, “Red six-oh, sir. Second contact right ahead, still. And – green five-four.”

  The Captain jerked his eyes to the man at the wheel. He snapped:

  “Port ten.” He had coloured slightly, as though he was embarrassed. His were not the only eyes that watched the helmsman’s indicator as it showed the submarine’s swing from the old course. The relief was plain on many faces.

  Saunders spoke again,

  “Mine, right ahead…”

  * * *

  In the wardroom, in utter silence, the Major and his three officers were reading books. They must have been books of considerable interest, for each of them seemed completely absorbed. Elbows on the table, heads in their hands, they presented a picture of static concentration that would have been an easy target for a sculptor.

  The Major turned over a page too quickly, and they were all aware of the sound it made. They had grown used to the small sounds from the Control Room, the occasional report, the low orders. They could hear the tension.

  Suddenly they heard the Captain’s voice.

  “Number One. Go to Watch Diving. Open up from depth-charging.”

  Before the import of the order had broken through the taut minds all around him, the Captain was in the wardroom.

  “We’re through, Major,” he announced, quietly. “Just in time for lunch.”

  * * *

  For the rest of that day, Seahound kept steadily on down the Straits. Amongst the ship’s company, plain in every face and in the voices of the men as they went about their work or chatted during the off-watch spell, was a sense of elation, almost of victory. It came partly from relief, a reaction to the tense feelings of the morning, and partly from pride in having been the first ship to carry her flag so far down the dangerous passage. They had opened the door, and now, with their track clearly marked and inked on the chart, they knew that by following the same route exactly they or any other ship could do it again. The lock that had held for three years had been picked. There were other difficulties ahead, of course, but that only started tomorrow, and today, as Rogers put it, they had “flippin’ well done it.”

  “Fair took me back, it did,” he mused. “Back to the day me old man caught Ma with the chimney-sweep. Dead quiet, it was, all flippin’ day. Me Dad didn’t say nothin’, nobody did. Come six o’clock he flipped off dahn the flippin’ road to the local. Come back fair screechin’, ’e did, an’ laid into old Ma with a broom ’andle. She didn’t ’alf carry on.”

  Shadwell gazed at him, interest in his leathery face.

  “Well!” he murmured. “Never would ’a known you ’ad soot in y’ blood.”

  In the wardroom there was a similar tendency towards high spirits, but it w
as tempered with new purpose. The successful passage of the minefield galvanised the Major into violent activity: he knew now that there was no doubt about his operation taking place, and at once the charts, maps and photographs reappeared on the wardroom table. He and the Captain checked and rechecked distances and positions, drew up a timetable, tore it up and started on a new one. The Army officers went for’ard, and, with their sergeants, checked over their weapons and equipment. They were now the central figures in the operation: the submariners had played their part, or at any rate the hardest part of it; they had only to follow the thing through, keep their ship hidden, carry out the drill, land the soldiers and be in the right place to pick them up. That was all, but the Captain knew how easily everything could go wrong, and how suddenly.

  The Major and his men were to be landed on the Malayan coast, South of Malacca. The spot chosen was the nearest point to Singapore at which it was considered possible to make a landing and get away unseen. It seemed logical to suppose that the soldiers were going into Singapore: but nobody knew, except for the Major, and neither the Captain nor any of the men who manned Seahound would ever know.

  The Major sipped thoughtfully at his cup of dark brown tea. Once again his mind travelled over every detail, went back over each stage of the planning. No, he didn’t think there could have been any leakage of information. If there had been – but that sort of thinking didn’t get you anywhere. It only reminded him of a trip out of Haifa, a few years ago, a time when there had been a leakage. It reminded him of the cost that a leakage carried. Part of it had been his brother. The Major pulled himself together.

  He asked, “D’you think I could have another cup?” Sub reached up and pressed the buzzer.

  That evening they surfaced for the last night’s dash. So close to the enemy, the Captain spent most of the night on the bridge with the Officers of the Watch, not because he had any lack of faith in their ability but because the responsibility was heavy on his shoulders and he found himself physically incapable of sitting down below. The watches changed quietly, peacefully, no incident of any sort while the enemy coast was plain in sight to starboard and to port, and just before dawn the Captain sent the Lookout and the Officer of the Watch down into the Control Room. He took a final look round, and dropped into the hatch, and shouted “Dive, dive, dive!” so as not to make a noise by using the klaxon. He heard the roar of escaping air as the vents slammed down, and spray was falling on his head before he shut the hatch. He jammed on the clips, climbed down into the Control Room. They had arrived, on schedule.