Treherne bent over the voicepipe. “First lieutenant?”
“Ship in distress, sir. Signal from Admiralty.”
Treherne said, “Send it up.” To Finlay he added, “Ship in distress? That’s not exactly rare around here, surely?”
Finlay grinned. Treherne’s rough attitude to discipline and most things naval had driven some of his anxieties away. For the moment.
As he spoke on the telephone Treherne could picture the captain in his “hutch,” as he called it. Thinking of his girl, probably. Good luck to them both, whoever she was. He was pretty certain he knew her now. At the noisy party aboard Blackwall before the rest of the group had departed, he had seen a young third officer, one of her wrists in a bandage, who had been in the building next to where the other girls had been killed and injured.
He had seen Howard’s face as he had turned to listen to something she had said about another Wren’s dead husband, an RAF pilot who had gone down in a Russian convoy. It didn’t need detective work to calculate the rest.
The third officer had probably had too much to drink. At one point she had elaborated to say, “They were madly in love of course—”
Howard had said to him, “I have to get back to the ship, Number One.” He had gone without another word.
It had been just after that when Finlay had tried to apologise to him for his own behaviour in the wardroom. Treherne shook his head. Poor old Guns. It must have been like playing hopscotch in a minefield.
“Captain?”
“Number One here, sir. Signal from Admiralty. A ship in distress somewhere.” He was relieved to hear a wry chuckle. The magic was still working.
“I’ll come up. What’s it like?”
“Nor’easterly, but not too bad.” He replaced the receiver and nodded with satisfaction. He could not remember him ever asking that before. He had always known, been down there listening, fretting. Not today, anyway. Howard appeared in a new, clean duffle coat. Probably one of Joyce’s, Treherne thought.
The boatswain’s mate pulled the little brass tube up the pipe from the W/T office and handed the enclosed signal to him.
Howard glanced at the blue-chinned navigator. “Work this out on the chart, Pilot. It’s only an approximate position, I expect, but in this weather it might not make it too difficult.” He took Treherne to one side. “The ship was abandoned from the last eastbound convoy. After the other ships had left her astern a U-Boat surfaced and opened fire on the lifeboats.”
“Christ, what sort of people are they?”
Howard waited. He knew that Treherne was seeing himself out there, helpless in a lifeboat. A civilian at war. “It seems that one of the boats played dead and waited for the sub to make off after the convoy. Then the poor fellows boarded their old ship and managed to get off this signal. There’s been nothing further.”
Treherne clenched his fists. “You should never leave your ship, not ’til there’s no hope for her.”
Howard said quietly, “I’m not so certain of that. This one is an ammunition ship, loaded to the gills with every sort of explosive you can think of. She may have gone down, in which case …” He walked to the chart and studied it for a full minute. “Good work, Pilot, that was quick.”
Treherne saw a spark of pleasure in the navigator’s eyes. A pretty rare sight, he thought. But the skipper always found time, no matter how steamed-up he might be.
“Look.” Howard probed the chart with some dividers. “The next big convoy is expected to pass through that very area at night. No stars, remember?” He thought of that other time, her hand on his arm as she had whispered to him, “A bomber’s moon.”
Treherne rubbed his chin. “There’ll be bother enough for the convoy without having a giant bomb passing amongst them.”
“We shall get there first. Tell the Chief he can forget fuel economy for a bit. I want eighteen knots. That should do it. It will give the Gunner (T) something to do if we have to torpedo the wreck.”
Treherne strode to the other telephone, his mind clinging to those few men who had gone back to their ship despite the danger, rather than die like beasts under the U-Boat’s machine-guns.
“Asdic–Bridge?”
Howard lowered his mouth. “Captain speaking. Is that
Whitelaw?”
“Aye, sir.”
Howard pictured his face, younger than he looked because he had gone almost bald very early. Before 1940 he had been an ice-cream salesman at Worthing in the summers, and in the Odeon cinema for the winters. Now he was in charge of one of Gladiator’s most vital weapons.
“Well, have I got to guess?” If it was an echo it was both early and unexpected.
“The set’s on the blink, sir.” He sounded despairing, angry. “It’s worse than it was before they fixed it in dock!”
Howard covered the voicepipe with his hand. “Go and see, Number One. We’re losing the Asdic.”
Treherne and the others stared at him. Then Finlay said flatly, “We’ll have to make a signal, give our ETA for returning to Liverpool.”
Howard thought of the old Gunner (T), the unloved Arthur Pym, when he had once said so scathingly, In my day we didn’t ’ave no bloody Asdic nor radar neither.
Marrack had answered with his usual cool brevity, “Unfortunately, bows and arrows have now been banned by the Geneva Convention.”
Surprisingly, that one tiny incident among so many helped to steady him, when seconds earlier he had been stunned into disbelief.
The man in the bowler hat had said, “The union will have a moan about it.” More than a moan apparently.
The new midshipman, Ross, had appeared on the bridge and was waiting to see if Rooke needed any new charts. He must have heard everything, and was staring out at the great, endless expanse of ocean as if he could see his own fate.
Howard watched him. In war, casualties came in all disguises.
He said, “We’re not going back. It should be obvious why.”
It seemed an eternity before Treherne returned to the upper bridge; in fact it was seven minutes.
He said, “I’ve had a good look, and the Chief sent a couple of tiffies to give a hand.” He shook his head. “It’s gone completely now. Not even a white walking stick.” Nobody laughed, and the midshipman was gripping a stanchion as if the ship was already heeling over.
Howard heard her voice again. I’m all right now. Really! Was anyone?
“Very well.” He glanced at his watch. “Eighteen knots, remember? Pilot, course to steer, chop-chop!” He looked at Treherne’s grim features. “Go round the ship again. Damage control especially. Take the Buffer and the Gunner (T)—he’s a good seaman, I’m told.”
Treherne nodded. Boats, bulkheads, watertight doors, the lot. He knew the drill.
Howard glanced away. “Have W/T code up a signal and pass them our estimated position every half-hour. So if the balloon goes up, we shall at least be able to tell the boss where we are.”
Treherne lowered his voice. “If anything happens to me …” He shook his head stubbornly. “No, let me finish, sir. There’s somebody in Birkenhead. I’ve left a package for her at the base. But if you make it and I don’t, I’d take it as a real favour …” He did not go on.
Howard thought of the woman’s voice when he had telephoned about Marrack. He was moved. Was that still possible, after all they had seen and done?
He said, “You can do the same for me, except she’ll likely know before anybody.” He shook himself. “We’ll get through.”
Treherne hesitated. “I think you’re doing the right thing anyway, if that matters, sir.”
Howard stared after his broad departing form and said, partly to himself, “You’ll never know how much.”
Then he turned to look for the midshipman. “Now let’s have a look at the chart, shall we? I think we could manage a clean one. Help Pilot as much as you can, eh?”
He saw Rooke about to protest that he could manage on his own and added, “It’s good experience.�
��
Rooke nodded, understanding. “Come on, Toby lad. Lesson one, sharpen all the pencils!”
A moment later, her bow-wave rising and tearing apart like a huge moustache, HM Destroyer Gladiator altered course and increased speed towards Rooke’s little cross on the clean, new chart.
Howard could almost hear the music: “D’you Ken John Peel?”
He saw a small figure, covered in an oilskin with a woolly hat pulled down over his ears, dragging a large fanny of tea through the bridge gate. He thought of the silent house in Mayfair. He was just a young boy. So were we all. Once. When he looked again the figure had gone. Perhaps it was a ghost after all.
When Treherne returned, the watch had changed and Bizley stood on the opposite side of the bridge to Howard’s chair.
Howard said, “We will stand-to at dusk. The hands will have to be fed at action stations. Speak to the PO chef about it.”
Treherne glanced at Bizley’s profile. Still smouldering. At least Finlay had got over it. A bottle was a bottle. You took it and let it ride. Grudges were unwanted passengers in any warship.
He thought of what Howard had just said. It did not need spelling out. Howard wanted everyone possible on deck, with all watertight doors shut and secured in case the worst happened. They still had the radar but he thought of that last time, when a U-Boat had been stalking them instead of the other way round.
On his way to the galley Treherne met the chief boatswain’s mate, Knocker White, who was supervising the laying-out of an extra scrambling net near the midships pom-pom mounting.
“We’re not goin’ back in then, sir?”
“Did you think we would, Buffer?”
The little petty officer showed his uneven teeth. “Nah, not really, sir.” He stared reflectively abeam. “When I was an AB in the old Revenge, a right pusser ship she was, we ’ad a Jimmy-th’-One in ’er ’oo could make yer ’air curl with ’is language—but a real toff of course, in them days.”
Treherne smiled. “Of course.”
“Old Jimmy-th’-One used to say, no matter ’ow bad things get, they can’t put you in th’ family way in this ’ere mob, so that was a bit of a comfort!” He was still chuckling as Treherne walked away.
The momentary despair had released its hold. Treherne could even smile now. With men like the Buffer, how could they fail?
3 | Something Worthwhile
THE U-Boat was making good at barely three knots as it pushed through the powerful undulating swell of mid-ocean. Steam rose from her casing-deck and conning-tower as the sun, which was directly overhead, gave an illusion of warmth.
All lookouts were in position, and the officer-of-the-watch heard the search periscope move its standard; more eyes were busy from beneath his feet.
It was safe enough out here, but you never took unnecessary risks anywhere. Occasionally the lieutenant leaned over the side of the conning-tower to see how one of the seamen was getting on with his quick-dry paint and stencil as he adorned the grey steel with another kill, an American ship which must have been loaded with heavy metal. It had broken its back and gone down after just one torpedo amidships. An American escort had carried out several attacks, but the Yanks lacked the experience of the Tommies, and they had been able to run deep and slip away undamaged. Five other crewmen were lounging on the deck, their bodies naked to the sun, a luxury for their pallid skins and shadowed eyes. The captain allowed five at a time, to smoke, to stare at the sea instead of the curved interior of their boat when they waited to attack or endure a depth-charge bombardment.
One of the men below the conning-tower was playing a sentimental tune on his harmonica while the others listened in silence, or gazed at the vastness of the Atlantic, thinking of home, of that other impossible world.
The lieutenant sighed and straightened his back as the captain climbed swiftly to the bridge. The lieutenant admired and respected his captain; they all did. They depended on his skill and cunning for their very lives. But even in the confines of the boat it seemed impossible to know him, really know him. It was like having someone constantly present and yet separated by a thick plate of glass. And he was quite tireless. Each attack was fought as if it was the first one, nothing left to chance, no cutting corners because of all the other encounters, the strain and the anxiety.
Kleiber knew what the other officer was thinking but it did not bother him.
He was tired but would never show it, and his skin felt clammy with sweat beneath his sea-going clothing.
At least today, if things worked properly, some of their discomfort would be eased. One of the big supply submarines was due to rendezvous, part of the chain of milchküh boats as they were called, which met the U-Boats at special points, like one giant grid; if you missed one, there was another chance later on. The plan had trebled the sea-time of almost every ocean-going submarine. No longer did they have to abandon a patrol in order to return to base or lose time when making for their allotted area. It meant more strain on every crew, but it kept the boats at sea to attack and destroy as Donitz had planned.
This milchküh was new, and their boat was the first on its list. They might get a better choice from this huge travelling victualler’s yard and machine shop rolled into one. Fuel, fresh water, food supplies, letters from home, newspapers; even the luxury of proper soap instead of the stuff which felt like slate after a few frugal washes.
Ammunition too, and perhaps they might replace the torpedo which had disgraced itself after one of their attacks on a small convoy. It had started to lose compressed air so that bubbles had surged from a bow-cap, a real gift to any keen-eyed observer in a reconnaissance bomber.
Kleiber would have to fill in a report when he eventually returned to their French lair. But nobody would dare to reprimand him now. There had been too many inexplicable losses amongst the U-Boat fleet of late. Good experienced commanders for the most part, not ones just out of tactical school.
There was also a leak in the forward periscope gland, which they might or might not be able to fix. But they could manage if it got no worse.
He ticked off the points in his mind like a written list.
Engines and motors, good. Results poor, but they had been homed on to a convoy which had been heavily defended for its small size, and they had managed to obtain just one hit.
He glanced at his watch. Soon now. He nodded to the lieutenant who spoke rapidly into the voicepipe. There was no risk of hostile aircraft out here, and the weather was fair for the Atlantic. They would have to open the big forehatch to take on stores, something which no commander wanted to do.
Kleiber had done it often enough to know the risks. He would wait until the actual rendezvous. The lieutenant had merely warned the deck party to be ready.
He tried not to let his mind dwell on the news from North Africa. It had to be faced. It was a reverse, but it would benefit the land-based forces in Europe and on the Russian front. Perhaps there would be a letter from his parents about Willi. The thaw would have come to Russia; the icy holes where the Army had fought and held the line would become slush and mud again. Poor Willi; his ideals had cost him dear. Kleiber glanced over the screen at the men on deck. Willi would be better off here, with him. He studied each man carefully. They looked undernourished, starved of fresh air and clean clothing. Worn, bearded faces, and yet there were few older than the mid-twenties down in the boat itself.
What would the Tommies and their allies do next? Attack through Greece, even after their disastrous lesson at Crete? France perhaps? He dismissed it instantly. He had seen some of the impregnable defences of the Führer’s Western Wall for himself. Italy then?
His thoughts returned to Willi. Suppose the high command were already negotiating peace with the allies, to join together and smash into Russia, finish Ivan once and for all.
The lieutenant saw his mouth lift in a small smile and imagined Kleiber was thinking of home; a girl maybe.
Kleiber was picturing the high command on one side and Winst
on Churchill on the other. He could see no unity there.
A man shouted and he heard the offending periscope squeak in its standard. In the far distance there was a huge disturbance as slowly at first, and then more violently, the big supply-boat heaved itself to the surface, small figures spilling over the conning-tower like a team of athletes. One of Kleiber’s men flashed off the recognition signal in response to the usual challenge. The supply-boat was already turning to make a lee for them to move closer alongside.
The supply-boat had surfaced too soon, and too far, he thought, and would waste valuable time with this manoeuvre. Which was why they had not detected its approach. A new milchküh; so maybe an inexperienced commander?
The man with the pot of paint grasped a safety rail and leaned back to study his work. There were over sixty such trophies painted there. Each one a blow for the Fatherland. He grinned at the solemnity of his thought and turned to shade his eyes to look at the other submarine. They might even have some special sausage, like that he had known as a boy in Minden.
He could not see the supply-boat because of the conning-tower. But he saw the captain’s white cap, heard him speaking to the control room; one of the lookouts was waving, looking the wrong way.
The man turned and stared out to sea. The reflection was so hard it seemed to drain the sky of colour, but it deepened the grey-blue of the ocean. He blinked. It was impossible. He had been staring too long. Like pieces of glass against the horizon, a ship’s bridge caught the sunlight. No; there was more than one, moving across the water faster than any ship. He heard himself cry out, the sudden scuffle on the bridge, and then the scream of a klaxon.
The seaman made to climb up the ladder but he had forgotten the lifeline, always insisted upon when working near the saddle-tanks. From the other side he heard men gasping as they ran frantically for the ladder, and then for the first time, the far-off drone of aircraft engines. It was impossible. He struggled, but the line had caught fast. There was a brief shadow and he looked up to see the captain watching him. A glance, nothing more, but the man knew what was happening. He heard the thud of the hatch, the sudden roar of vents as the sea thundered into the tanks to force the U-Boat down into a crash dive. The man was still screaming as the first depth-charges exploded around the surfaced supply-boat, which with the forward hatch wide open was already doomed.
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