“Slower, for Christ’s sake!” you think to yourself as the junk looms closer too fast, but the Captain can’t see very well in the moonless night, and there’s a hell of a crash as you touch. Before the crash you jumped, and now you’re there on the junk, thuds behind you as the Boarding Party follow. You jump to the door of the cabin, but the Chinese crew are in the way, yelling blue murder and getting knocked over in the rush. You’ve missed the Jap guard, who has come round the other side of the shelter and moves towards Shadwell, tugging at the automatic on his belt. Shadwell is quicker than the Jap and shoots him dead before the gun is more than half-way up. You rush out to do something useful when you hear the shots, but you see at once that there’s nothing to be done. Shadwell says, “It’s all right, sir,” and you go back to collect the papers. If Shadwell says it’s all right, it is all right.
Only routine from then on, only drill as you place the charge, but there’s a slip in the drill when you find that there’s nothing movable to put on top of the charge before you leave it. It’s necessary to tamp it down, to make sure that the blast of the explosion goes downwards through the bottom of the junk and not upwards where it’s wasted. Shadwell is with you, tries to shift one of the big crates, but it’s too heavy.
“’Alf a mo, sir,” he mutters, and climbs quickly up out of the hold, drops back again with the body of the dead Jap.
“This’ll do, sir.”
“Clear the junk!” you yell, and they go, Bird just ahead of Shadwell. You jump back into the dark hold, set fire to the fuse and lug the body over on top of the charge. Shadwell had picked up that corpse like a baby, but you find it as much as you can lift.
Back on deck, you jump for the casing, flash the torch as a signal to the Captain and hurry aft in the dark as the submarine backs away from the junk which hasn’t long to float.
As usual it seems a long time before the bang, and before it comes the Captain looks irritably round at you as though you’ve bungled the job. But you haven’t, not this time or any other. The junk lifts with the blast and drops back smack in the water as you lean quickly over the side of the bridge and bring up your supper. It was a picture in your mind that did that, a picture of the Jap with his stomach blown out of his back: you know what guts look like, because you saw what happened to Wilkins, and so you’ve been sick down the side of the bridge, on to the swelling curve of the saddle-tanks. The mess won’t matter: when the submarine dives before dawn, it’ll be washed off in the same way that Wilkins’ blood was. The sea is clever at cleaning things up. What matters is that you needed to be sick: after all, you’ve come of age, you’re twenty-one.
* * *
In the for’ard Mess, at breakfast next morning, Rogers looked reprovingly at Shadwell.
“Shaddy,” he said, shaking his head, “I ’as to mention that wot ‘as come to my ears about your flippin’ bloodthirsty carry-on last night causes me no end of displeasure.”
“Ar, eat y’ flippin’ bangers, an’ shut up. Flippin’ windbag, that’s all you are.”
“Last night, Shaddy, you done a thing as you may well regret. ’Ow’d you like to think in a few months as ’ow you’d shot a poor little co-belligerent, eh?”
“Co-belligerer be flipped. It was a flippin’ Jap, and ’e’d ’a conked me if I ’adn’t ’a swiped ’im first.”
“Remember when we was in the Med. together, Shaddy, the go we ‘ad with them Eye-Ties off Spartivento? When they near finished us?”
“What of it?”
“Six months after that they was dear little co-belligerents, see? Now these Japs: you’ll ’ave ’eard the buzz as they’re goin’ t’ jag in soon?”
“I ’eard a buzz, but I dunno where it come from.”
“Never mind where it flippin’ well come from, Shaddy. You mark my words: come six months, they’ll be flippin’ co-belligerents.”
Shadwell looked contemptuously at his shipmate.
“Don’t be soft. There ain’t nobody left to belligerate against.”
“‘Ow about the Ruskies?”
“Wot, Uncle Joe? You’re daft. You’re flippin’ well barmy, d’ye hear?”
* * *
Early morning: the Sub lay on his bunk, knowing that in half-an-hour he would be called to take over the watch. The submarine was south of the minefields, nosing in at periscope depth towards the port of Malacca. From the remarks and orders that he could hear from the Control Room, where the Navigator had the watch and the Captain was keeping an eye on the approach, Sub gathered that the morning fog was still thick: he could picture the woolly blanket encircling the upper lens of the periscope, the water shining as though it had been wiped with an oily rag. He heard the Captain’s breathing as he leant over the chart-table, heard him softly curse the low visibility.
There ought to be something worth sinking, down here. No submarine had been here for a long time: it was as though they had been given the first licence to shoot in what had been a game preserve. The Captain was keyed up, anticipating a target: Sub thought, I ought to be, too. He felt as Chief always professed to feel: what in hell did it matter if there was a target or if there was nothing? It was the low mood, one of the times when you looked round and noticed how squalid the surroundings really were: you thought of other men fighting in the open air, living more normally, not creeping about, eating and sleeping and peering through a blasted tube at the empty sea. The jokes were stale, the news was old, breakfast was always the same, hurried at that when it had to be gulped down quickly in order to take over a dreary watch.
Dreary? This was virgin territory, from a submariner’s point of view: it should be anything but dreary. Well, all right, perhaps there’d be something to sink. When it had been sunk they’d go back through the minefield, hang around looking for junks until the recall came. Two hours on and four hours off: sausages for breakfast, corned beef for lunch, sardines for tea and some revolting thing for supper. He rolled over, knowing that when he’d been on watch for half-an-hour this depression would be gone: so would the fog, lifting to reveal the entrance to the port. Perhaps also to reveal a target.
He thought, I might as well turn out now, clean my teeth: there was a horrible taste in his mouth. Probably, he thought, I have halitosis: must be rather unpleasant for everyone else. He swung his legs off the bunk, groped for his shoes under the wardroom table. He was trying to force his left foot into the right shoe, when he heard Saunders report Hydrophone Effect. He heard the Captain drop the dividers on the chart table, heard his voice saying for the millionth time, urgently:
“Up periscope.”
Silence now, while he tied the laces on his shoes, tightened the belt of his shorts. He stood up, shook Jimmy’s elbow: the First Lieutenant opened his eyes, stared unrecognisingly at him.
“Something happening, Number One. Probably Diving Stations in a minute.” Number One began to climb off his bunk, muttering.
They heard the Captain’s voice again:
“Can’t see anything. Are you sure it’s H.E.?”
“Yes, sir.” Saunders’ voice. “Green three-oh, sir, moving left to right.”
The Captain grunted, continued his search. Number One said:
“If this turns out to be bugger-all, Sub, I’ll fix you. I’ll—”
“Diving Stations! Stand by Gun Action!” Sub felt the old shiver in his stomach as he flung himself out of the wardroom.
“Down periscope.” The Captain grinned, rubbed the side of his jaw. “It’s that Tank Landing Ship again, Sub.”
The one they had missed last time they met it. The one with a big gun on the stern. The one that had an air escort, last time.
“Up periscope. Range… that! I’m on his starboard quarter. Enemy speed nine. Group up, starboard ten.”
Sub worked the handles on the calculating machine, lining up the dials. He got the deflection, passed it to the Sightsetter. The Gun’s Crew were ready, sleep still in their eyes, but that made no odds because they’d done this before in their sleep
.
Sub remembered the first Gun Action of them all, the one against the trawler of Port Blair: he had felt scared stiff, himself, and seeing the apprehensive looks on the faces of the Gun’s Crew he had told them not to worry: only a trawler, he had said, this’d be easy. They’d never done it before, except on a practice shoot, and on a practice shoot there were never any shore batteries to shoot back. “Gun’s Crew closed up, sir.”
“Very good. Group down. Up periscope.”
They waited tensely while the Captain took a final check. He jerked up the handles of the periscope, stepped back, and the long, brass tube hissed down into its well.
“Fifty feet. Group up, full ahead together.” The deck angled under their feet and the hum of the motors rose under the full power of the batteries.
“Fifty feet, sir.”
“Stand by to surface.” Orders, reports.
“Ready to surface, sir.”
“Surface!” Sub sprang on to the ladder behind the Captain, heard the air smack into the tanks. Number One stood under the hatch, his hands on the side of the ladder.
He shouted, “Forty feet! … Thirty! … twenty-five! … twenty!” and then his whistle shrieked: Sub, craning his neck to look up, saw the Captain fling the hatch back. Behind the Captain, Sub scrambled up into the light, the dripping bridge. He took his weight on his hands on the cab at the front of the bridge, jumped up, swung his legs over: below him, the gun was swinging round towards the enemy, the breech was open and a shell was coming out of the hatch in the hands of the leading member of the Ammunition Supply Party. The Loader grabbed it, slammed it into the breech, the sights were on and the Gunlayer pressed his trigger. Watch for the fall of shot: Sub strained his eyes at the sea around the enemy.
Splash, left. “Right eight, shoot!” Another round crashed away, and a flash from the enemy’s stern was the sign of her first shot in reply. At least this was better than the last time, from the point of View of weather conditions: Seahound’s second shot fell short, in line.
“Up eight hundred, shoot!” Sub ignored the sound of the enemy shell passing overhead.
“Down four hundred, shoot!” That last shot of the enemy’s had fallen in their wake: the Captain bent to the voice-pipe, shouted for an increase in speed and put the wheel over to starboard. The Trainer slowly turned his wheel, keeping the gun trained on the enemy as the submarine altered course.
“That’s the stuff, Sub!” Yes, a hit, a lovely sight, only it’ll take a lot more than just one hit to finish the business: the Tank Landing Ship is all of thirteen hundred tons.
“No correction, shoot!” Another shell from the enemy fell on the submarine’s starboard quarter: Seahound was firing three shells for every two of the enemy’s.
A cheer from the bridge: a third hit. The Captain believed in giving encouragement when it was deserved: if that one had missed, thought the Sub, he’d have wondered what the hell I was doing.
“No correction, shoot!” The empty, scorched cylinder clanged out of the breech on to the gun-deck: already the breech was closed behind another shell.
That was the right sort of hit! A hit on the enemy’s gun: that gun had fired its last shell.
“Point of aim, the waterline!” The Sub could never hear his own voice after a few rounds had been fired, and he was constantly surprised to find that his orders were heard and obeyed at the gun. Up here, on the front edge of the bridge, the blast from each shell fired had a blinding, deafening effect.
The Gunlayer fired a moment sooner than he had intended: the sights were half-way up the enemy stern instead of on the waterline. The shell crashed in through the high stern, right the way through, exploded in a stern compartment which the Japs had recently converted to hold a cargo of mines. There were a dozen mines in the compartment, and as one they exploded with the shell, not an explosion, an eruption: the enemy ship was split open, her bowels flung into the sky. Seahound’s Gun’s Crew stood back from their gun shielding their eyes and staring in stunned amazement at the havoc of flying debris, the huge billowing cloud of smoke and the shooting tongue of orange flame.
“Cor stone the crows!” muttered the Gunlayer. “Did we do that?”
As the Gun’s Crew secured the gun and cleared the gun-deck of shell-cases, Seahound swung round and headed northwards up the Straits. The sky was still full of dirt: Sub looked up at the lighthouse on the tall headland, and thought that they’d given someone a good morning’s entertainment. It must have been quite a spectacle, from up there. He saw the hatch shut over the Gunlayer’s head, and at the same time he thought he heard the Captain shout into the voice-pipe:
“Stand by Boarding Party!”
There wasn’t anything left of the Tank Landing Ship. He must have heard wrong: his ears were still ringing from the noise of the battle.
The Captain spoke to him. “Go down and get your gear, Sub.” He pointed at a big junk, creeping into sight round the headland.
The Sub thought, as he obeyed the order, that the Captain was showing signs of over-confidence: a boarding in daylight, in these waters! But when the time came, it was dead easy, no opposition, no Jap guard, and the sky stayed empty. The Chinese crew even helped Sub and his men to climb on board, welcome guests. The cargo was rice, sugar and matches; Sub sent a crate of matches across to the submarine.
He had fired the charge and was about to abandon the junk when he heard the Captain shouting something, pointing at the bow of the junk. Sub hurried for’ard, looking around: a small, ginger kitten ran towards him, mewing. He scooped it up, ran aft and swung himself down to the submarine.
A minute later, Seahound was speeding away into the deep water: then the vents dropped open, the spray plumed up and she dived to periscope depth. Someone was likely to resent the intrusion and the damage, and if she stayed in these waters there would very likely be some trouble: the Captain turned her north, up towards the gap in the minefields. This would be the fourth time that she had passed through them: when you’ve done it once, it’s easy.
Every ship and submarine on the Station had a secret chart, now, with a track marked on it, the track through the minefield that Seahound found.
* * *
Sometimes, when you lay on your bunk and there was nothing very much to think about, it was pleasant to think about going home. Perhaps it wouldn’t be long, now: it was not, thought the Captain, that he felt any great urge to be back in England, it was the actual journey home that he looked forward to. A sort of holiday cruise, visits to places on the way: Aden, Port Said, perhaps Alexandria: Malta and Gibraltar. Yes, it’d be a lot of fun.
Strange, he thought, that he should like a place like Aden: hot and sandy, nothing much to do except swim and drink, yet the place had a certain atmosphere that made a short visit attractive. Port Said: a dance at the Eastern Exchange, just for the hell of it. Alexandria: the Auberge Bleu, slumming at the Monseigneur. He wondered if Louise still lived in Alexandria and if she still had the fat and aged Egyptian for a husband.
Malta: the centre of many submariners’ memories. It was in Malta that he had struck that policeman, it was the Malta flotilla that had sunk over a million tons of Rommel’s supplies: the memories swam together, the wild days ashore and the wilder weeks at sea.
Gibraltar: the flat on Scud Hill. The night they rolled up the carpet and launched it out of the window so that it fell on a policeman who was standing in the road protesting against the noise. Another carpet had been their ticket to a free evening in the best hotel: the Captain had been a Sub, then. He and two others had taken the carpet and carried it out of the hotel foyer. Then they telephoned the Manager, told him that they had recognised his new red carpet, the pride of his heart, that they had taken it by force from two men who had it on a cart and were trying to sell it. The Manager had been most grateful, had given them a dinner on the house, and after the dinner and cigars they had walked out of the hotel carrying a champagne bucket.
The Captain wondered whether that champagne buck
et was still among the other trophies in the flat on Scud Hill. He couldn’t do that sort of thing nowadays, of course, not even if he wanted to: but it would be good to see the old places again, recognise the barmen’s faces, a final night or two with Louise before he settled down to marriage and life-long fidelity.
The Captain fell asleep, while Seahound’s motors drove her gently up the Straits, towards the mines.
* * *
Two days later, the Depot Ship in Trincomali was in a state of wild excitement. It was one little point in a vast area of elation, victory. The Japanese High Command had signalled its unconditional surrender. The yellow horde that had blazed a path of murder and brutality across the East, at first almost unopposed, had been beaten to its knees. An atom bomb had given them the excuse to admit defeat, to save something from the wreckage by kneeling to an adversary whose own ideas of human and military conduct they had scorned when the power was in their animal hands.
In the Staff Office, during the afternoon, the Staff Officer, Operations, drafted signals ordering all submarines on patrol to return forthwith, reporting their positions and estimated times-of-arrival at Trincomali. Seahound was the only submarine in the Malacca Straits, and in the signal to her was included the information that on her way back up the Straits she would meet surface forces which were at that moment on their way into the Straits, on their way to accept the surrender of Singapore.
The submarines would be dived all day, knowing nothing of the surrender which had come so suddenly, and the signals would reach them that night, when they surfaced for the night patrol.
The Staff Officer, Operations, leant back in his chair and shut his eyes. In his mind he heard a speech, a speech that told of defeat. He had been a passenger in a troopship rounding the Cape, bound for Suez: it was early in 1942. One evening they were all assembled in the dark, blacked-out recreation space, to hear a special broadcast from London. In grave, simple words the Prime Minister told them of the fall of Singapore. The Staff Officer, Operations, remembered the shock that the news had given them, but he remembered also the hard determination to win in spite of this and any other loss, a determination with which the strength and personal courage of the speaker had inspired them.
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