The Gatecrashers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 6

by Alexander Fullerton

  “Steer one-one-five, Jazz.”

  It would be safer to stay deep the whole way over. If there’d been any alarm raised—one of the X-craft sighted, or submarines’ presence even suspected—there’d be a lot of sharp eyes busily looking for periscopes. He thought his estimates were safe enough to rely on.

  “Course one-one-five. Sir.”

  “What makes you so respectful all of a sudden, Jazz?”

  “Thought you’d like it.” Lanchberry glanced to his left, at Brazier. “Can’t please some people.”

  “Eighty feet, Louis.”

  “Eighty …”

  Battery power did not need to be conserved. It went against one’s natural submariner’s instincts to be profligate with it, but these were unusual circumstances. For X-12, they were terminal circumstances. They were going to abandon her with the side-cargo in place, there was absolutely no chance of getting her away to sea now, so it would make sense to get over there fast and have the extra time in hand.

  He explained this to Gimber. “So we might as well step on it.”

  “Skipper?”

  Brazier: his head was lowered, eyes showing their whites under matted brows—the attitude of a bull about to use its horns. “Yes, Bomber?”

  “Sorry to harp on about it. But I reckon I could shift it. I’d guess it’s gone like it has because with the weight of one buoyancy chamber flooded there’s been distortion on one or more of the links. If I just prised it away slightly—at the heavy end, whichever that may be—”

  “Depth eighty feet.”

  “Keep her grouped down for the moment, Louis.” Paul squatted against the slight warmth emanating from the Brown’s gyro. “Bomber, the snag as I see it is the time factor. If we dash over there flat-out, giving you the time you’d need for this, then we’d have a flat battery and we couldn’t get away anyhow. If we crossed at economical speed, I doubt you’d have nearly enough time.”

  “Might split the difference? Say group down full ahead? And I’d be all set and ready to go out the minute you got us under here. I could have the chamber flooded before you bottomed her. Half an hour at most— probably much less—and I’m back inside!”

  “Isn’t that somewhat optimistic? It might take you up to—well, seventhirty. And the firing-period begins at eight.”

  “But,” Brazier gestured towards the side-cargo, “it’s set for eight twenty-five.”

  “Come on … It’s not only ours, Bomber, is it. Hudspeth could be under Scharnhorst this very minute, leaving his two bombs set for eight sharp. We might bottom ourselves right on top of them. How’s that for larks?”

  Lanchberry chuckled. Brazier glanced at him, then back at Paul. One large hand passed around the wide, ginger-stubbled face. “Well, that’s all true, skipper, but …”

  “Even if Lützow’s there and we go for her, X-10’s charges under Scharnhorst would still blow us to Kingdom Come.”

  “But your time of seven-thirty, skipper—that would be the very latest, absolute limit of it. I’d hope to finish long before that. And once I’m back inside and have the hatch shut, you could be on the move right away. I mean, why should you wait for me to drain down?”

  He was talking sense. You wouldn’t need to wait. The wet-and-dry was flooded from, and drained down into, number two main ballast, which was right under it. The operation in either direction was an internal one, with no effect on the boat’s weight or trim.

  Paul reached for the chart, to check how far it was from Scharnhorst’s last-observed position to the exit at the island’s eastern end. The answer was a mile or a mile and a half, depending on exactly where she was berthed. That glimpse of her floodlit forepart last night, at a distance of three or four miles, hadn’t exactly pinpointed her. He doubted whether she could have moved since then, either to sea or back into her netted berth in Kafjord, without sight or sound: and the fact was that Brazier’s proposals weren’t all that crazy, after all. If the diving sortie went smoothly, a lot of problems might be removed.

  “You may be right, Bomber. It could work. After you’re back in and the side-cargo’s on the bottom—latest seven-thirty, and set to go up at eight twenty-five …” he was thinking aloud “… but we’d have to be clear away, and really legging it, at that.”

  “Group up, full ahead!” Brazier’s eyes were gleaming. “Run like a rigger for that gap!”

  He laughed, out of excitement at the prospect of having his own job to do—and more than a routine net-cutting operation, at that. Paul nodded slowly. “Yes … But then we’d have to wait there—in the gap, until 0900. Otherwise—well, if we were out in the middle, the blast even from the one we’ve just planted …”

  He was thinking aloud again. Gimber broke in, “Must say, I don’t go much on the prospect of barbed wire for the rest of the duration. I mean, if there is a chance we could skin out of it.”

  Paul saw Lanchberry nod. And obviously he felt the same way himself. Glancing round, out of habit checking depth, angle of the planes, ship’s head … He said, “It all hinges on whether you can get the side-cargo off, Bomber. And how long it takes. If it didn’t work we’d be in a hell of a spot—you realise that?”

  A nod. But then a grin. “I could do it with my bare hands, skipper. There’s no other way that thing could be stuck to us.”

  “Jazz. You know more than the rest of us how the side-cargoes are fixed. D’you agree with him?”

  “I’d say I do. I’d say it’s a good chance, any road.” He glanced sideways at Brazier. “I’d be dead sure of it if it was me doing the job. Instead of a cack-handed bloody ape.”

  Brazier murmured amiably, “Remind me to put you on a charge, you sod.”

  “Louis.” Paul had made his mind up. “Put main motor to full ahead grouped down.” He looked back at Brazier. “Bomber, how d’you like the thought of breakfast?”

  “Oh, just the job!”

  “Your job, then. Tinned fruit, coffee, biscuits and jam. OK?”

  Lanchberry muttered, “Bugger coffee, I’ll have tea.”

  “You can bugger the jam too, while you’re at it.” Vibration increased as Gimber wound her up to full ahead. He added, “Marmite, I’ll have.”

  Spirits shooting up. Having been rather thoroughly depressed, the upturn was all the sharper.

  Off Langnesholm he brought her up to nine feet for a look around. The periscope was fogged internally but he could see enough through it to take rough bearings of Korsnes, Klubbeneset and Aaroy’s left and right-hand edges. He sent the periscope down again and told Gimber, “Eighty feet.” There’d been some fishing-boats rounding Klubbeneset, and what looked like a tug chugging north from the lower end of the fjord, but he couldn’t see anything of Scharnhorst: she’d be hidden, just, by the island’s western bulge. The intersection of his position lines from the bearings he’d taken wasn’t all that neat—he’d known it wouldn’t be, because of the twelve-degree angle on her and also the fogged-up prisms—but he chose the most dangerous position in the spread of the “cocked hat,” one from which the present course would just about have scraped her past the one-fathom patch, and played extra safe by altering two degrees to starboard, to 117.

  Time now: 0439. Estimated time of arrival at Aaroy’s southwest corner: about 0600. But the tidal set out in the middle might be slacker than it had been up here where it channelled into the two sunds. When he was off that corner of the island he’d come up for another check, he decided—navigational, and also because from there he’d have a clear view of Scharnhorst, possibly of Lützow too. He’d have steered farther out from the Aaroy coast—particularly because of the danger of showing periscope so close to land in these millpond conditions—if he’d had more time in hand; but as things were, a shortcut was essential.

  Gimber reported, “Eighty feet.” He looked round over his shoulder. “How long, to get over there?”

  “Hour and twenty minutes.”

  “And on the fuse-clock?”

  “It’s set for eight twenty
-five. Should make—three hours and forty minutes to go.” He checked it, and found the delay left on it was exactly that. “Keeping good time. That’s something.”

  Gimber had another question. “Supposing we make it—out through that gap—how far to the rendezvous with Setter?”

  “Well. Eight miles to get into Stjernsund.” He had the distances in his head. “Then twelve through the sund, and another thirty to get out and across the minefield.”

  “Total around fifty. Say forty-eight hours’ passage.”

  Paul nodded. He’d have to time the exit to coincide with high water, to carry them over the moored mines. He said, “You’ll be stir-crazy by then, Louis. If you aren’t already.”

  “Pain in the arse is the only problem at the moment. This bloody chair.”

  “Well, come out of it. I’ll take over for an hour.”

  Brazier, aided by advice from Lanchberry, was selecting the tools he’d take out with him, but he took over the steering now so Jazz could ease his chair-cramped muscles too. As well as tools he was going to take a heavingline, which he’d use for slinging himself down over the midget’s side. At a quarter to six they all changed round again; Lanchberry had made more tea. Then at five minutes to the hour Paul told Gimber, “Twenty feet. Slow ahead.”

  It was a relief to see her upward movement on the depthgauge. For half an hour he’d been visualising her approach to that rocky coast, and particularly the shallow patch. Having made your calculations you had to trust to them, but flying blind in unfamiliar territory required a certain control of nerves.

  “Main motor’s slow ahead.”

  And still nosing up …

  “Are you fit, Bomber?”

  Brazier lifted one rubber-gloved hand, from his position in the W and D. He’d got into his diving gear—rubber tunic, weighted boots on wadertype leggings, oxygen equipment harnessed to his back with the distributor in front and the face-mask dangling. The tools were on his belt, which also had lead weights in it for ballast. X-12 rising past the thirty-foot mark, leaning clumsily to port.

  “Depth twenty feet.”

  “Make it fifteen.”

  Then ten. And when it was clear he had her in good control, nine and a half. Paul felt for the button in the rubber bag, and pressed it.

  Greenish water swirling, with diamonds flashing in it. Then surface flurry and a liquid glare of daylight.

  “Depth?”

  “Nine feet—”

  “Christ’s sake!”

  “Nine and a half. Sorry … “

  Aaroy’s rocks loomed alarmingly close to port. He could see them as if he was looking through a glass of water, but one small section of the lens was clearer than the rest. Circling slowly to the right …

  “Wow.”

  Scharnhorst. Bow-on, enormous, about a mile away. Maybe more— maybe 3000 yards. She was lying parallel to the shoreline and—as far as he could tell—on a single anchor. If that was the case, one might guess she wasn’t planning to stay here very long. A second thought was far from cheering: when the tide turned, she’d swing with it—away from any ground-mines laid under her.

  Wait for the turn of tide? But it wouldn’t be until—seven, seven-thirty.

  Bloody impossible, then …

  Panic flared. He told himself, Hold on, now. Think it out.

  No Lützow. Over against the far shore—the other side of Leir Botn—a minesweeper lay at moorings. And Scharnhorst, of course, might have her stern secured to a buoy, or a stream anchor out. It was wishful thinking, from here you couldn’t see at all, but it was none the less quite possible. Other moorings over on that side were empty. Some small stuff right inshore—motor launches, he thought. There was certainly no target other than Scharnhorst, anyway. He wondered where X-10 might be: Hudspeth could be making his approach at any moment, and Scharnhorst was his target. X-12 was a poacher in his territory.

  But they were all poachers. And so far the gamekeepers seemed to be asleep. Scharnhorst’s bearing down here was—082 degrees.

  “Take down some bearings, Jazz.”

  Lanchberry had a pad and pencil beside him. Paul gave him bearings of Aaroy’s edges, of Langnesholm back on the quarter and the mainland point directly south. Four bearings instead of three, to make up for the fact they’d all be distorted anyway.

  “Port ten. Steer oh-nine-oh.” He squeezed the rubber bag to send the periscope down, and told Gimber, “Sixty feet.”

  “Sixty …”

  “Full ahead group down.” He took a log reading, and told them while he was putting that fix on the chart, “Scharnhorst’s at anchor, no nets I can see, about a mile, mile and a half away. We’ll call it two thousand five hundred yards.” It wasn’t really a fix, in the true sense of the term, more a good indication of their position, and it was as much as he needed, anyway.

  “Bomber, you can relax for a while.”

  He glanced at the depthgauge: she was passing fifty feet, and Gimber had the trim-pump working on the midship’s tank. Reporting now, “Main motor full ahead, grouped down.” Paul told them, “I’m going to run in one thousand yards by log, then sneak up for another look from broader on her bow. It’s getting towards low water and she may swing with the tide, unless she’s moored aft, which I can’t tell yet. You’ll still have plenty of time, Bomber.”

  The last half-mile would have to be covered at slow speed, though, to avoid visible disturbance of the water or sound-levels audible on asdics.

  He explained, “I can’t afford to wait for the tide to turn. Earliest she’d start swinging is half-seven. Bomber wouldn’t be able to get inboard again by eight, so it’s out of the question. If she’s only anchored for’ard I’ll have to guess at how she’ll lie by eight-thirty, and hope for the best.”

  Hudspeth would be facing the same problem, of course. He might already have done so. X-10’s side-cargoes might already be lying on the bottom. Wiser, perhaps, not to speculate on that, when you were going to have to bottom there yourself by and by.

  But almost certainly—he saw this suddenly—Scharnhorst did have a stream anchor out, holding her stern. Because she was lying the same way she’d lain last night—and last night when they’d seen her the tide had been flooding, whereas right now it was ebbing!

  Except she might not have been at anchor, at that moment. Might have been in the process of anchoring—hence the illuminations?

  Brazier asked, “What’s the depth there, skipper?”

  “About nine fathoms.”

  “Scharnhorst draws—what, twenty-five feet?”

  “That’s her mean draft. Call it twenty-seven, to be safe. And nine fathoms. We’ll have a clear twenty-five feet of water under her.”

  The tidal problem, the single anchor complication, was a snag he hadn’t foreseen when he’d accepted Brazier’s arguments. He studied the chart now, trying to see any others that might arise, now or later. And there was one. The withdrawal—distance, time, air supply—particularly as so much of the bottled oxygen had been used … After the explosions there’d be an enormous hue and cry, charges dropped, and so on; the crossing to Stjernsund would have to be made deep and at slow speed, sparing the battery as much as possible, and it wouldn’t be dark enough to surface until about 0800 … It would mean a hell of a long time shut down. In fact, impossibly long!

  He got the answer. Or an answer. Right in that gap between Aaroy and the mainland—or just close to the north of it, near the island’s tapering eastern end—he’d bring her to the surface for a very quick guff-through. Then down again very smartly, with a full load of fresh air. There’d be some cover there, and with luck the Germans would be chasing their tails, at that stage, coping with their destroyed or damaged ships.

  But all you could establish in advance was a general intention, a delineation of what was feasible and what wasn’t. When the moment came—each moment, one on each other’s heels—you’d adapt to circumstances. As he’d been realising during the recent hours, nothing was cut and dried.r />
  “All right.” He’d checked the log. “Twenty feet. Slow ahead.”

  He asked Gimber when she was at ten feet, “Can you manage a stoptrim, while I take a fast shufti?”

  “Well.” Gimber’s mud-coloured eyes didn’t leave the controls in front of him. A stop-trim was a state of accurately neutral buoyancy, a trim so good that you could stop the motor and just hang there. “Might manage a few seconds’ worth.”

  “That’s all I’ll need. When you’re ready, nine and a half feet, and stop.”

  She’d have no way on, or almost none, so the periscope would poke up with no feather, no rippling wake to it even. This close to the target, in broad daylight and with barely a wrinkle on the surface, it was about the only way you’d get away with it. Gimber had made his adjustments to the trim: his right hand moved to the control-wheel and wound it anti-clockwise to its stop, then pulled out the field switch. Paul had the periscope sliding up, trained on the bearing where he expected to locate his target. Snatching the handles down, pressing his right eye against the rubber.

  “Bearing—oh-six-four. I’m thirty on her port bow, and—she has a wire out to a buoy astern!”

  He’d squeezed the bag, and the tube was rushing down. Lanchberry muttered, “Good oh …” Brazier clapped gloved hands together. Gimber said, “Can’t hold her, she’s so bloody skew-whiff—”

  “Slow ahead. Fifty feet. Come to port to oh-six-four, Jazz.”

  Seeing that wire out to the buoy under her counter had felt like one of the best moments of his life. X-12 was already slanting down, trembling very slightly under the slow-speed thrust of her screw. As if she, too, were a little excited now.

  Too slow-speed, though. He wanted to be there, now, getting on with it. Then, best of all, getting out.

  “We’ll hang on until we’re really close, Bomber. Five minutes short of bottoming. Otherwise by the time we get there you’d be frozen solid.”

  Brazier nodded. It wasn’t going to be any fun in the wet-and-dry chamber, and he knew it better than any of them.

  “Course—oh-six-four.”

  Gimber reported, “Fifty feet.”