Kleber's Convoy

by Antony Trew

  ‘I know.’ Redman’s voice was flat. ‘But I want some survivors.’

  How badly the captain was going to congratulate the ship’s company on sinking the U-boat. It had been a tremendous hunt – a splendid kill. Surely he was going to say something about it.

  Redman had never questioned his duty. He had to sink the U-boat. Of that he had no doubt and his actions had been quick and decisive. But now, worn out, nerves frayed, his belief that he’d hunted down Hans Kleber acquired an absurd, almost nightmarish quality.

  While he manœuvred Vengeful to windward so that the ship would drift down on the survivors, the fantasy became a fixation. Hans, he was sure, was one of those black dots struggling in the glare of the searchlight. The struggle wouldn’t last long. A matter of minutes. It wasn’t so much the icy water as the thirty degrees of frost in the atmosphere that killed a man quickly in Arctic waters.

  This was the compelling reason for the rescue attempt. If Vengeful didn’t pick up the U-boat’s captain, at least his name could be obtained from those she did.

  One way or another, decided Redman, there had to be an end to the dreadful uncertainty.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Redman heard the scrape and clatter of feet up the steel bridge-ladders. Only one man in the ship came up as fast as that. The first-lieutenant. He joined Redman at the bridge-screen.

  ‘How many, Number One?’

  ‘Three, sir. We had a fourth but couldn’t hold him. A sea …”

  Redman interrupted. ‘Any officers?’

  ‘Yes, sir. One.’

  Redman drew a deep breath. ‘Tall? Fair?’

  ‘No, sir. Small and dark.’

  So they hadn’t got him. He was somewhere back there in the crashed hull of the U-boat. On the bottom under that cold black water. Redman had feared that. Fought against the probability. Tried to convince himself it wouldn’t happen. But he’d known all along that Hans wouldn’t be among the survivors. He would be the last man to dive over the side, leaving the crew below once he knew his boat was sinking. He’d have gone down to help them. Done all he could to get them up through the hatches. He’d have stayed with those who couldn’t get away. It was wishful thinking to have supposed he’d been one of those black dots struggling in the water.

  His mind numbed. At last he forced a question. ‘How are they?’

  ‘Pretty bad, sir. The doctor’s in the sick-bay with them now.’

  ‘Can they speak?’

  ‘Not when I was there a moment ago. They’re badly frozen.’

  Redman was silent.

  ‘Anything you want me to do, sir?’ The first-lieutenant sensed that something was wrong. The captain hadn’t spoken to the ship’s company on the broadcast. No word of congratulations on sinking the U-boat. It was fantastic. Vengeful’s second U-boat in eight days and not a peep from the captain. Just that odd inexplicable silence. Okay. This kill wasn’t as exciting as the one outside Loch Ewe a week back. They hadn’t expected that one. They were fit and fresh then. The ship’s company was worn out now, short on sleep, nerves strained. But that was no excuse for failing to tell them that they’d put up a good show.

  It seemed a long time before the first-lieutenant’s question was answered. At last Redman said, ‘No. Nothing at the moment. We’ll get back on course for rejoining. I’ll let Bluebird know what’s happened.’ The first-lieutenant thought he could hear the captain’s laboured breathing above the sound of the wind.

  Vengeful sank U-0153 at 1815. Twelve minutes later, having picked up three survivors, Redman put her on a southwesterly course and set off at sixteen knots to rejoin the convoy.

  Pownall looked at the plot, did his chartwork, and reported the estimated time of rejoining as 2010. Vengeful should, he said, be within TBS range an hour before that.

  Wind and sea had continued to moderate but not the storms of snow and sleet The intervals between them were longer, but visibility remained bad. Conditions still did not permit the operation of aircraft.

  A W/T signal was made to Bluebird repeated to Fidelix, reporting the sinking of U-0153, the picking up of three survivors, and the estimated time of rejoining.

  These matters having been attended to, Redman handed over the bridge to the first-lieutenant and made for the sick-bay.

  This was the moment he’d been waiting for. There was something he had to know.

  The sick-bay was two decks below the bridge. In it four canvas cots were stacked in tiers of two. Men wrapped in blankets lay in them. The pervasive smell of iodoform and diesel oil, of steam from radiators, filled the stuffy compartment. At one cot, Jackson, the leading sick-berth attendant, was bathing a scalp wound. At another Elliot, the surgeon-lieutenant, was massaging a man’s heart. The ERA who’d been struck by a fire extinguisher was in the fourth cot, his head swathed in bandages. He stared vacantly at the deckhead. Redman went over to him. ‘How are you getting on, Rogers?’

  The ERA blinked but didn’t turn his head.

  ‘He’s still concussed, sir,’ said Elliot. ‘Can’t understand what you say.’

  Redman looked at the doctor without seeing him, ‘How are the Chaffinch survivors?’

  ‘Nine left of the fifteen we picked up, sir. Seven are all right. They’re up in the forward messdecks. The other two are badly injured. Outlook for one’s pretty hopeless.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘In the midshipmen’s cabin, sir. SBA Wyllie’s with them.’

  ‘Where are the midshipmen living?’

  ‘In the wardroom, sir.’

  ‘H’m.’ Redman looked from Elliot to the three Germans. Now he could get on with what he’d come for. ‘How are these people?’

  Elliot gestured towards an upper cot. ‘He’s dead, sir. Moving him in a moment. These two are still unconscious. Badly frozen. We’re doing what we can. Afraid they’ve been in the water too long.’

  Redman shook his head, said nothing. He went to an upper bunk and turned back the blanket. The face was blue-white, the skin puckered, sightless grey eyes staring, lips drawn back in a macabre smile.

  It wasn’t Hans,

  Redman went to the next cot. The man with the scalp wound. That wasn’t Hans either.

  ‘Which of them is the officer?’

  ‘This chap, sir. I’m massaging his heart. Trying to get a kick out of it.’

  Redman looked down on the dark skeletal face. There was no sign of life. ‘Poor devil,’ he said hoarsely.

  The sound of the captain’s breathing worried Elliot. He could help. Ephedrine would do it. But what was the point? He’d only invite a snub. There were more urgent priorities.

  ‘Where’s the clothing? The gear they were wearing?’

  ‘Over there, sir.’ Elliot pointed to a corner.

  Redman saw the heap, a pool of water round it, damp streaks running across the corticene deck as the ship rolled. ‘Been through it?’

  ‘No, sir. Haven’t had time.’

  ‘Of course.’ Redman knelt and sorted through the soggy mass. In the inner pocket of a leather jacket with rank badges he found a wallet. He held it under the light. One by one he took out its sodden contents. A paybook in the name of Kapitänleutnant W. Schluss; a letter addressed to Schluss; some German banknotes; a folded slip of paper, in it a lock of hair, two snapshots; a plain bespectacled young woman holding a child with curly hair. But it was the other snapshot which froze Redman. A group of three officers on the bridge of a U-boat. On the left, easily recognised, the small dark man with the skeletal face whose heart Elliot was massaging. Obviously Schluss, the owner of the wallet.

  The man on the right of the group, broad faced and smiling, was not among the survivors. Nor was the man in the centre – the tall fair man with the beaky nose, strong chin and smiling eyes.

  That was Hans Kleber.

  With shaking hands Redman turned over the snapshot. The water-smudged inscription read, U-0153 … Trondheim Fjord … 18.10.44.

  So Kleber was the captain of U-0153. H
e’d killed him after all. It had been a hunch – at first no more than a frightening possibility – for all those long hours. Now it was a fact. As if from far away he heard Elliot’s voice. Redman said, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m afraid we’ve lost this one, sir. Can’t get his heart going.’

  Redman stared at the doctor in silent misery, shook his head and left the sick-bay. He went up the ladders to the wheelhouse, through it to his sea-cabin. ‘Captain – fore- bridge,’ he spoke into the voice-pipe.

  ‘Forebridge – captain, sir.’

  ‘Let Topcutt know I want him. Make it sharp.’

  Pownall said, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’

  While he waited Redman stood wedged between the bunk and the wash-basin, staring at the ruby ice lump on the porthole. But all he saw was the ice in the glacier above Crans-sur-Sierre. The blood and the broken skis and the tall fair stranger smiling down at him. ‘Don’t worry. It’s all right. I’ll get you out of here.’

  Redman’s teeth were chattering. He couldn’t stop shivering. Something inside him was near to breaking-point. A sense of desperation, of approaching calamity, overcame him. He’d read somewhere that hysteria was cured by slapping the victim’s cheeks. He slapped his own, hard, and the noise was heard in the wheelhouse. Only once before in his life had he felt like this. When he’d seen the limp figure lying inside the knot of people on the Boulevard St Ger-main-des-Prés and known she was dead.

  He was younger then. He’d broken down. But this was different He was older, tougher. He’d seen a lot of death. He wasn’t going to break down now. Not on his bloody life. Where the hell was Topcutt?

  He went to the voice-pipe. ‘Where the bloody hell is Topcutt?’

  ‘Messenger’s gone for him, sir.’ Pownall’s tone was chilly. He was administering a rebuke.

  Redman stood glowering, shaking, wanting to tell Pownall what a supercilious little bastard he was. There was a knock and the curtain was pulled aside.

  ‘You sent for me, sir?’ Topcutt saw the dark shadows under the captain’s red-rimmed eyes, the tired face. He grieved privately. The captain needed sleep. He was killing himself. But Topcutt couldn’t tell him that. He was only his servant.

  The captain stared at him. ‘Topcutt?’ he said, frowning as if in doubt. ‘Topcutt?’

  ‘Yes, sir. You sent for me.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did. You’ve taken a long time.’

  Topcutt knew that he hadn’t, but he said, ‘Sorry, sir.’

  Redman opened the cupboard at the far end of the sea-cabin, took out a clean handkerchief. His back was to Topcutt. Why had he sent for him? Why? He remembered. ‘Get me a bottle of whisky from the wardroom, Topcutt.’

  ‘Whisky, sir?’ Topcutt’s eyes widened. The captain never drank at sea. Captains didn’t in wartime.

  ‘Yes. Whisky.’ Redman turned and glared at him, ‘And shake it up. I can’t wait all night.’

  Topcutt let out a startled, ‘Very good, sir,’ before disappearing at the double.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Rathfelder came into the control-room. ‘The reloading is complete, Herr Kapitän, All tubes are ready.’

  ‘Good,’ said Kleber. ‘We shall need them.’ He grinned, ‘Don’t expect round two to be as easy as round one.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Rathfelder.

  The buzzer from the sound-room beep-beeped.

  ‘Propeller noises fading. Difficult to hold,’ reported Aus-feld. ‘Bearing moving from right to left. Convoy has altered from a southerly to a south-easterly course.’

  ‘Good. We’ll alter to port. But not too much. I want to open the distance before surfacing.’ Kleber went across to the chart-table, looked over the navigating officer’s shoulder. ‘How far do you put us now, Dieter?’

  ‘About eleven thousand metres astern of the convoy, Herr Kapitän. I estimate its speed at six knots. We make four, submerged.’

  ‘Right. Alter course to one-five-zero. When we’ve surfaced we’ll work round the enemy’s starboard flank. Get well up-wind and wait.’

  Dieter Leuner passed the new course to the quartermaster. When he was satisfied that the submarine was steady on it, he went back to the chart-table. ‘How long before we surface, Herr Kapitän?’

  ‘About fifteen minutes, Dieter. Then we’ll have a look round. See what Ausfeld can find.’

  U-0117 surfaced at 1810.

  Almost immediately Ausfeld reported low-volume radar transmissions from the port ahead sector. Distance estimated at 14,000 metres.

  Kleber ordered speed to be increased to fourteen knots. With the submarine trimmed well down he drove to the south-east. Washed and doused by breaking seas and freezing spray, U-0117 overhauled the convoy steadily.

  By 1900 the U-boat was drawing ahead, passing up JW 137’s starboard flank. The distance of the nearest escorts was estimated to be 15,000 metres. The multiplicity of radar transmissions told of a substantial escort force concentrated on this the up-wind flank. The enemy was evidently not going to be taken by surprise again.

  At 2000 speed was reduced, the submarine then being some seven miles ahead and to starboard of the convoy. Kleber knew it was there, though he could not see it. Vast and purposeful, plunging on through the south-westerly storm, sheltered by darkness, snow, sleet and its powerful escort, JW 137 was within 100 miles of its destination, the Kola Inlet. Time was running out.

  Kleber said, ‘When Ausfeld reports the advanced escorts to be twelve thousand metres distant, we’ll dive. Find a thermal. Sit under it until they’ve passed over.’

  ‘The mixture as before,’ said Rathfelder.

  ‘That’s a Somerset Maugham title. Read him?’

  ‘No, Herr Kapitän.’

  ‘You should. He’s good.’

  ‘I haven’t had much opportunity to read English novelists in the last five years.’

  Kleber was silent, remembering where he’d read the book. In Surrey in the summer of 1938. He and Marianne had spent a week with Francis Redman in East Horsley. At the house of Jane Redman who seemed more like a mother than an aunt to the Englishman. Kleber thought of the walks in Ranmore Forest and along the downs above Dorking and Leatherhead. Beautiful country, marvellous June days, soft and warm. Wonderful afternoon teas on the lawn to the sounds of birds and bees and garden mowers. It had been a carefree happy time, dreamlike in retrospect.

  But Marianne was dead, there’d been five years of war. It was no use living in the past. Francis Redman? for Kleber the name conjured up a picture of broken skis, bloodstained snow, a broken leg, absurdly unsymmetrical, and frightened brown eyes. He wondered where the Englishman was. Somewhere at sea? Or in a staff job ashore? How could one know? It had been a long and bloody war. Maybe he was dead.

  Kleber shrugged his thoughts away. It was no good living in the past. It was the present that mattered. He pressed the buzzer to the sound-room. ‘What is the range of the nearest escorts, Ausfeld?’

  As Vengeful came within TBS range of the convoy the bridge-speaker relayed a steady flow of messages between escorts, their group commanders and the flagship. There was a lot going on. A further attack on the convoy had just broken off. Believed to be the work of two U-boats from the Skolpen Bank concentration, it had come from the downwind side. One U-boat had been attacked by Isis and Peaflower of the Eighty-Third Escort Group soon after torpedoing a Liberty ship. The hunt was still on. The rescue ship was busy picking up survivors, a frigate standing by.

  Vengeful reported her position to Bluebird and was ordered to take station five miles on the starboard bow of the leading ship of the starboard column, the billet presently occupied by Mainwaring, a fleet destroyer. It was on this flank that the next attack was expected to develop.

  The first-lieutenant reported the signal by voice-pipe to Redman who was in his sea-cabin.

  ‘Carry on, Number One.’ Redman’s voice was hoarse, subdued.

  The first-lieutenant hesitated. It was unlike the captain not to come up for the execution of a sta
tioning signal. But nothing more came from the voice-pipe so he said, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ and turned to Pownall who was on the compass platform. ‘Give me a course for that stationing signal, Geoffrey.’

  Pownall spoke to the plot, then said, We’ll have to cross from port to starboard astern of the convoy. Work up its starboard flank.’

  ‘Thanks for the lesson,’ said the first-lieutenant. ‘Give me a course to steer.’

  Pownall made a clicking noise. ‘I was trying to be helpful.’

  ‘Well. Let’s have the course. That’ll be helpful.’ The first- lieutenant was a tired man. It had been a long journey and the strain was telling.

  ‘Two-four-oh‚’ said Pownall. He, too, was a tired young man.

  The first-lieutenant passed the course to the quartermaster and ordered revolutions for eighteen knots,

  Pownall saw his chance. ‘Pushing her a bit, aren’t you? In this weather, I mean.’

  ‘Wind and sea are easing off. Anyway, it’s my decision.’

  ‘Yes.’ Pownall sounded doubtful. ‘I know. I’m surprised the Old Man hasn’t come up.’

  ‘He’ll be up soon.’ The first-lieutenant’s tone suggested that the subject was not one for discussion on the bridge. But he, too, was surprised. Perhaps the captain had succumbed to exhaustion. His responses to voice-pipe reports had been slow, his voice thick. Like a man woken from deep sleep.

  The night was dark, wet and bitterly cold.

  Nothing could be seen of the ships and escorts as Vengeful passed astern of the convoy, but the PPI continued to present its faithful display. Each sweep of the arm left a pattern of dots which glowed and faded, the eight columns of the convoy, around and ahead of them its escorts, the bulk of them on its starboard flank.

  Reports from the asdic cabinet and radar office flowed continuously to the bridge, the pings on the loudspeaker evoking frequent response as the destroyer cut across the sterns of merchant ships and escorts, the disturbed water in their wakes reflecting woolly echoes which the asdic team sorted out and classified before reporting, ‘Wake effect.’