by Antony Trew
Redman said, ‘Yeoman. No need for you to stay up here. Get your head down while you can.’
‘Aye, aye, sir. Thank you, sir.’ The yeoman took off the TBS headset, hung it up, spoke to the signalman-of-the-watch, and left the bridge.
Redman had a high opinion of the yeoman. If any man in the ship was indispensable it was Burrows. He knew the signal manual backwards, not only the purport of the signals but the manœuvres associated with their execution. If a forming or disposing signal were received the yeoman knew precisely the action required on Vengeful’s bridge. With considered tact he would convey this to the officer-of-the-watch, or even to the captain.
‘I think that’ll mean altering to port and increasing to twenty knots, won’t it, sir?’ he’d say, putting the facts he knew in the form of a question, inferring that he was seeking not giving information.
Burrows was important to Redman for quite another reason. The captain thought he saw in Burrows his last yeoman, Patterson. It was as if the dead man had been reincarnated. They were so much alike in looks and character. Dark friendly eyes, calm and collected, men who could always be depended upon. Redman was conscious of a debt to Patterson which he could never repay, and for this he tried to make amends in his relations with Burrows.
When he got back on to his bunk and closed his eyes he knew he would not sleep. His mind was now too full of Patterson. What had long since become an obsession had been triggered off by the yeoman’s ‘thank you, sir.’ It was an unnecessary remark. If anything a little un-Servicelike, but it was in Burrows’s nature to express gratitude for the consideration the captain showed him.
Redman took a deep breath, turned on his side and the pictures began to form. ‘Thank you, sir’ had been Patterson’s last words before he died.
That night, two years earlier, Redman had been in his sea-cabin, somewhere between sleep and consciousness, when the explosion came. The torpedo had struck the frigate beneath the bridge, wrecking among other things the bridge superstructure and the sea-cabin. It was a winter’s night with headwind and sea, some five hundred miles west of Rockall. The ship sank quickly, before any alarm signal could be given. Redman had heard and felt the violence of the explosion but he must have lost consciousness almost immediately for the next thing he knew he was in the water. It was a night of intense darkness and his one instinct had been to get away from the sinking frigate before the depth-charge pattern in the stern, set shallow and primed ready for dropping, exploded. He was vaguely conscious of other men in the water, and at times, from the tops of seas, he could see the dim flicker of red survivor lights. They seemed far away, but he decided to make for them. First he found the mouthpiece of his Mae West and blew into it until the life-saving belt was inflated. It was then, when he tried to swim, that he found he could not use his legs. Why, he did not know, but he was conscious of numbing pain when he tried.
Though he could see nothing he could taste and smell the oil fuel in the water and wondered if, when the depth-charges exploded, the oil would burn. But no explosion came and he knew then that the gunner (T) and depth-charge party must have withdrawn the primers immediately after the torpedo struck. The oil fuel had flattened the wave crests, leaving only the swell. He was slimy with fuel and knew he must get away from it. But he couldn’t move. He came over the top of a sea, slid down the slope and something in the water bumped into him. It was a wooden grating from the frigate’s compass platform. He grabbed it and found he could get his head and shoulders clear of the water with its aid. This increased his chances of survival. He didn’t rate them high because he was not wearing a survivor’s light and he was weak. The damage to his legs, or perhaps his spine, was sapping his strength. A voice called somewhere in the darkness, upwind, not far away.
‘Captain here,’ Redman shouted back against the wind. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Patterson, sir.’ The broken voice was weak.
‘You all right, yeoman?’ Redman knew he couldn’t be, but the question had to be asked.
‘Can’t move, sir …’ There was a gurgling sound. ‘Can’t keep … head … out water.’ More sound, spitting and retching. ‘You … all right … sir?’
Again Redman tried to use his legs, this time to paddle in Patterson’s direction. But they wouldn’t respond and the pain was considerable. ‘My legs have gone, yeoman. Can’t move.’ It was a laboured sentence because the wind, the oily sea splashing over him, and his weakness made communication difficult. He wondered if he could hold the grating with one hand and paddle towards the yeoman with the other. ‘I’ve a grating here, yeoman,’ he called. ‘I’ll try to reach you.’ It took a long time to say that and much effort. Some of it had to be repeated because the yeoman didn’t answer and Redman needed to hear his voice again to check direction. The yeoman, like Redman, had no survivor’s light. He sounded as if he were fifty yards away.
‘Can’t you answer, yeoman?’ he shouted. ‘For God’s sake man, try. I don’t know where you are.’ That, too, took a lot of saying.
There was a longish pause. After it Patterson’s voice came downwind, hoarser, weaker, more broken. ‘Thank you … sir.’
Redman spat out a mouthful of sea and oil, inhaled deeply, changed his grip on the grating and pushed it round so that it was facing in Patterson’s direction. He struck out with his free hand, paddling in icy water which he could feel but not see. But it was a hopeless floundering, a meaningless thrashing of the sea, and he could not tell in the darkness if he was making headway. His calls to Patterson were no longer answered.
Quite suddenly Redman gave up. He didn’t know for how long he’d tried or how hard he’d tried, but he remembered deciding he’d made an effort and could do no more. Afterwards, as the obsession grew, he believed he could have done more, shown greater resolution. His legs had been weak, not his arms and shoulders.
Afterwards, lying in hospital through drab timeless days, and in the months that followed, the conviction grew that he’d given in too easily. He might have saved Patterson. He did not think he’d tried really hard. Perhaps he’d not wanted to reach the yeoman for fear the grating could not support them both. He remembered thinking about that at the time. Had it influenced him? How much was real, how much fantasy? He didn’t know. He compared his feeble efforts with those of Hans on the glacier above Crans-sur-Sierre. Hans, a stranger, had struggled for hours in a blizzard, alone, just as Redman had been alone after the sinking. But Hans had refused to give up and in the end he’d succeeded. That was why Redman was alive.
To him those last words of Patterson’s were a reproach: ‘Thank you-sir.’ Thank you for what?
Redman turned over and re-wedged himself between bunk-board and bulkhead.
He felt wretched and miserable and prayed that sleep would come to deaden his thoughts.
It was the best part of an hour before the first-lieutenant’s voice woke him once more from fitful sleep.
‘Forebridge – captain, sir.’
‘What is it, Number One?’
‘Fidelix reports bandits one, bearing two-three-oh, thirty miles, fifteen hundred feet. She’s turning into wind now to fly off aircraft to intercept.’
‘Sound the alarm. I’m coming up.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
As Redman made for the bridge the alarm bells sounded a series of shorts and longs and sleepy men stumbled and groped through the darkness to their anti-aircraft stations. The first lieutenant standing at the bridge screen was silhouetted against the distant glow of the northern lights. Redman moved up alongside him. Not long afterwards the yeoman arrived, then Pownall. The midshipman-of-the-watch, Bowrie, was standing by the radar phone.
Redman said, ‘Our two-nine-one on to that aircraft yet, Number Qne?’ The 291 radar was used for the detection and tracking of aircraft.
‘Not yet, sir. Just outside maximum range, I think.’
‘Jerry’ll be shadowing by radar. Not likely to close the range while he can keep contact.’ Redman cleared his throat. �
��Better weather was bound to attract our chums. Expect Jerry’s using the cloud base for cover.’
Pownall’s voice came out of the darkness. He was passing instructions to the pilot. The buzzer from the radar nut sounded. The midshipman reported that 291 radar had picked up the enemy aircraft. He passed the bearing, range and height to gun positions. The TBS bridge-speaker crackled with voice messages between Fidelix, her attendant destroyers, the senior officers of the escort groups, and the commodore of the convoy.
‘Fidelix reports two Wildcat fighters and four Avengers airborne, sir,’ said the yeoman.
Redman said, ‘Good,’ and looked astern into the black sky knowing he would see nothing, but imagining them there.
The Wildcats would be climbing to intercept the shadower while the Avengers carried out anti-submarine patrols over thousands of square miles around the convoy. Since the convoy had been sighted, it was vital to put down surfaced U-boats anywhere in the vicinity. The Avengers would search in the dark with airborne radar, ready to attack with depth-charges and rockets. Surfaced U-boats would be listening for radar transmissions with search-receivers, so it would be a cat-and-dog hunt in the icy darkness of an Arctic winter.
On Vengeful’s bridge they could hear the fighter-direction officer in Fidelix vectoring the Wildcats on to the German shadower. The cloud ceiling was fifteen hundred feet and the shadower had disappeared into it, moving from west to east across the convoy’s port quarter, putting himself between the Norwegian coast and the convoy, keeping to the darkest quarter of the sky, one eye firmly on his escape route. His chances of getting away now would depend on how long it took the Wildcats to find him.
Bowrie’s voice broke into Redman’s thoughts. ‘Radar 291 reports f-fighters closing bandit f-fast. Distance apart t-twelve miles.’
‘Good.’ Redman cheered up. ‘Hope they get him quick.’ Soon afterwards the yeoman said, ‘Fidelix has intercepted bandits’ sighting report to base.’
Redman was silent. There was nothing to say. They all knew it would happen and what it meant. The position, course and speed of convoy JW 137 was now known to the German High Command. Action would follow. Quickly, while the break in the weather lasted. Torpedo-bombers would soon be rolling down runways on German airbases along the Norwegian coast, some of them less than three hundred miles away. U-boat patrol lines between Bear Island and the North Cape-one hundred and ninety miles ahead -and off the Kola Inlet would be alerted.
Redman said, ‘It won’t be long now, Number One.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The first-lieutenant sounded pleased. ‘Nice to have a go at them again.’
‘Time, Pownall?’ Redman asked.
‘0613, sir.’
Redman stood at the bridge-screen steadying himself against the movement of the ship, looking into the darkness astern, wondering what the next twenty-four hours would bring. Not sleep, that was certain.
The sound of the fighter-direction officer’s voice was becoming familiar. He had a North-American accent. Canadian, thought Redman. The FDO was guiding the Wildcats on to their targets. His directions were clear and explicit, no trace of excitement, no sense of urgency, a man absorbed in the technicalities of what he was doing, the instruments he was watching. It was evident that the Germans were now aware of the fighters. It had become a stern chase but the reconnaissance plane was no match for the Wildcats. They were overhauling rapidly.
Redman wondered what was going on in the minds of the German aircrew. Were they still thinking ‘it can’t happen to us’, or had they realised that it was about to and resigned themselves to entering their particular Valhalla?
Not long afterwards they heard the Wildcat pilots reporting contact. Seconds dragged by on Vengeful’s bridge, the men there straining their attention for the next report. Broken disembodied chatter came from the fighter pilots. ‘He’s on bloody fire … starboard engine,’ said one voice. There was a pause. ‘I’m following him down …’ said another. ‘Jesus! We’ve really got the bastards …’
Then the fighter-direction officer was telling them to cool it and giving them a ‘well done’ all in the same breath. Redman thought again of the German aircrew. How long did it take to fall two thousand feet? Could they bale out? What was the point? They knew they couldn’t last in Arctic water and there was no hope of rescue. Better stay in the thing until it hit the sea and broke up. But it was on fire. Was the urge to jump irresistible? What sort of things went on in a man’s mind? Could he rationalise such a situation or did it resolve itself in unadulterated terror? The yeoman’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Fidelix reports enemy aircraft shot down, sir.’
‘Well done.’ Redman said it with humility. He was thinking of the Fleet Air Arm sub-lieutenants in the billiard-room in Greenock.
The first-lieutenant was saying something. ‘… or shall we remain closed up, sir?’
Redman said, ‘No. Let them carry on now. Get what rest they can. The party’ll begin in earnest soon.’
The signal from Fidelix announcing the shooting down of the German shadower was followed by one ordering an alteration of course – forty-five degrees to port. This diversion opened the distance between the Norwegian coast and the convoy and, if maintained, would take the ships north of Bear Island. How far north would depend upon what came from an Avenger aircraft, call-sign Red Three, sent to report on the ice-edge, usually to the north of the island in midwinter. When the weather closed in again, which was likely at any time, the Vice-Admiral could, at the moment of his choosing, order a ninety-degree-wheel to starboard. This would take JW 137 well south of the island.
In considering these tactics he had in mind that sooner or later enemy aircraft would report the convoy’s new course to the German High Command. There, he hoped, they would conclude that the convoy intended to pass north of Bear Island and move the bulk of the U-boat patrol line accordingly. In that case it would be less likely to intercept JW 137 if it passed to the southward. The success of this plan depended upon a number of imponderables, of which the weather was by no means the least.
But the Vice-Admiral’s options remained open. He could, according to circumstances, pass north or south of Bear Island. The decision need not be made for at least another twelve hours. If during that time the convoy was not again sighted by the enemy, it might well pay to take the northern route.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Soon after the shooting down of the reconnaissance plane, two more shadowers arrived on the scene. Having found the convoy the German High Command was determined not to lose it while the weather lasted.
This time, however, Fidelix had four fighters in the air covering the sector nearest the Norwegian coast and the new arrivals were shot down before they could make sighting reports. Thus the diversionary routing was still unknown to the enemy. It was a secret the Vice-Admiral was anxious to preserve. An attack by torpedo-bombers was imminent. Every minute the convoy spent on the diversionary course made the enemy’s task more difficult. Fidelix’s meteorological officer had warned that the lull in the weather would break at any moment. Red Three, sent to reconnoitre the ice-edge, had reported a gale moving south-west over Bear Island. The message had followed her report that the ice-edge was well to the north of the island.
This news confronted the Vice-Admiral with a difficult decision. Should Fidelix recover her aircraft now or keep them airborne in the hope of intercepting an enemy air attack well clear of the convoy? To delay recovery too long might entail the loss of aircraft and their crews. He took a calculated risk-waited twenty minutes then gave the order to recover. Fidelix set about her task.
On Vengeful’s bridge the TBS and VHF loud speakers relayed a series of laconic messages between returning aircraft, the escort carrier and her attendant destroyers, A running if cryptic commentary.
‘God knows how they find the carrier,’ said Redman, looking into the wintry darkness. ‘Let alone land on it.’
The first-lieutenant said, ‘Jolly good, aren’t they, sir?’
Redman smiled. The remark was typical of the first-lieutenant. It belonged more to rugger and cricket than the bridge of a destroyer. ‘Yes, they are,’ he said.
An urgent voice sounded on the bridge-speaker. ‘Alarm! Moonbeam. Alarm! Wildcat overboard port side.’
‘Roger,’ came the reply. ‘Proceeding.’
Moonbeam was the call-sign of one of the two destroyers stationed close astern of the escort carrier for rescue work while aircraft were being flown off or recovered. The exchanges which followed told of difficulties. The Wildcat pilot was apparently unable to move, the aircraft was sinking, and semi-darkness was complicating the rescue operation.
‘Aircraft now against my lee side,’ said a voice from Moonbeam. ‘Men on lifelines trying to get pilot out, but aircraft sinking fast.’
‘Roger.’
A long pause followed. Redman peered astern. Nothing could be seen, but somewhere in the gloom of Arctic morning a man was fighting for his life. Redman could picture the scene only too vividly. The frantic attempts of rescuers hampered by Arctic clothing, a rolling ship and twenty degrees of frost. Men with life-lines round their waists struggling in icy water to extricate the trapped, partially stunned, pilot.
A few minutes later Moonbeam called Fidelix. ‘Wildcat has sunk. Pilot lost. Regret rescue attempt unsuccessful.’
‘Resume your station, Moonbeam,’ replied the anonymous voice in the carrier.
There was no time for requiems, for messages of explanation and sympathy. The patrolling Avengers had still to be recovered, wind and sea were rising, and there were telltale flurries of snow.