Buck was standing above the open hatch, one foot on either side, his hair dragged across his forehead as the diesels sucked hungrily at the sea air.
He asked, `Time, sir?’
‘Yes. Tell your hands to prepare a full salvo. One to six. There’ll not be time for a reload.’
Buck vanished down the hatch.
Marshall looked up at the swaying periscope standards. They were blacker than the sky now, and he could see the jumping-wire and even the thin antennae whipping to the motion.
Gerrard would be taking a look through the periscope at regular intervals. Waiting to alter course once they had sighted the boom vessel. But what would he be seeing right now? His wife? His unborn child? Death?
He snapped, `Run up the German ensign, Yeoman.’
Simeon was crouched almost double, fumbling with a machine-pistol. He said irritably, `I hope this thing works!’
The scarlet flag flapped and then blew stiffly in the wind above their heads. Marshall glanced at it. Hating it. Depending on it.
`Have the other one ready’
Blythe nodded. `Aye, sir.’ Under his breath he added, `I’m not getting chopped under that bloody flag!’
‘Asdic reports echoes from dead ahead, sir.’ Marshall sucked in a long breath. Contact.’
`Tell your deck gunners to prepare, Sub. One up the spout, but keep the ready-use ammunition hidden.’
A seaman ran along the casing, his helmet bobbing up and down like a pot.
`And tell him to take that damned lid off. Only the A.A. gunners would be at a state of readiness.’
He tried to clear his mind. Would be. Are. Ought to be. It was like some crazy puzzle.
`Echoes getting stronger, sir.’
`Very well.’
A complete patch of water glowed suddenly along the port beam. He saw the fore casing catching the fresh light, even a crude tattoo on the gunlayer’s forearm as he checked the ammunition.
`Your cap, sir.’
Marshall took it and pulled it over his unruly hair, He wanted to go below. Walk through the full length of his command. Make sure. One more check. It was stupid even to torture himself.
He said, `Any second now, I should think.’
The light seemed to grow and spread with each turn of the screws. It was like two equal curtains being dragged away on either beam, laying them bare and vulnerable. Across the sharp stem he saw the first blunt outline of land, and crouched over the compass to compare the bearing with what it should be. Right on. The darker wedge to port was the western side of the harbour. In half an hour there would be no room to manoeuvre if the plan misfired. Even now some battery commander might be passing his range orders, gauging the moment to blastthem to fragments.
A piercing blue eyeblinked over the undulating water, its reflection touching the offshore swell like the tail of a comet.
`The challenge, sir.’ Blythe licked his lips. `I’d better get ready.’ He held up his lamp, but seemed unable to hold it firmly.
Marshall turned deliberately, his back to the land.
`Now listen. All of you. Don’t get jumpy. We’ve just had a bad time of it and we’re trying to get into the first available friendly port, right?’
All but Simeon nodded in time to his quiet voice. Like puppets.
He touched Warwick’s hand. It was like ice. `You’ve got the signal ready. Read it to the yeoman.’ He looked at Blythe. `All right?’
He forced a grin. `As I’ll ever be, sir.’ Then he became serious and trained his lamp over the screen.
Marshall turned to watch the land as it grew and gained new life from the receding shadows. Deep clefts, marked here and there by a moving necklace of white spray as the wind drove the sea against the beach. He heard the lamp clattering beside him, and hoped Warwick had made a proper translation.
The signal read, We require assistance. Nothing more.
What any submarine commander rattled by some running battle or depth-charge attack might send if he was at last within sight of safety.
The blue light blinked out again.
There was pause and Warwick said, ‘They require our number, sir.’
Then make it. U-178.’
This was the first vital moment. Or the last ‘Asdic reports that echoes have faded, sir’ `Thank you.’
He watched a brief stab of light from the shadows. `Acknowledgement, sir.’
He bit his lip. Someone out there was trying to make a decision. To rouse higher authority for advice. On a Sunday morning, and at this hour, it would take a very brave man, he thought grimly.
When he raised his glasses again he saw the full breadth of the harbour mouth like a blacker line between the headlands, and poised just to the starboard side of their approach, the boom vessel, her bridge windows already glinting faintly in the watery light. He moved the glasses slowly, noting the lines of dots, the buoys which held the anti-submarine boom in position. Against the sky he could just make out a thin wisp of smoke from the boom vessel’s funnel. She had steam up already. Probably to open the boom for the first returning patrol boat. He looked at his watch. In about two hours’ time. He felt a droplet of sweat fall across his wrist, and made a fresh effort to steady himself.
`Tell Lieutenant Buck to stand by. Tubes One to Six. Minimum settings.’
He was studying the boom vessel when Gerrard’s voice came up the pipe by his elbow.
`Bridge? There’s a ship moored in the harbour, sir! I just saw it on the main scope!’ He was almost shouting. `We won’t be able to hit the installations!’
Blythe said, Jesus!’
Simeon crossed the bridge in three strides. `Sunday, eh? A quiet day, you said!’ He spoke in a savage whisper, his face inches away. `Well, you can’t damn well fire now, can you? That ship will take the salvo, and the Jerries will have the wreck moved within a week!’ He shook his head. `You’ve really made a cock of it this time!’
`Signal, sir.’ Warwick was listening to Blythe’s slow voice. `They want us to heave-to. They’re sending someone out.’
`Slow ahead both engines. But retain course.’
He had to force the words out. Simeon was right, he had misjudged it. He should have thought of this last detail. That a ship might be resting in port. Sunday. It seemed to rise up and taunt him.
`Boat’s crossing the boom, sir. Small affair. Harbour launch.’
Simeon said fiercely, `Well? Are you just going to stand here and be killed? For God’s sake, man, let’s get out while we still can!’
Warwick said, `Captain Lambert’s party will be coming back by now, sir, if they’ve not been caught.’ He held up his wrist. `The charges on the railway are set for one hour’s time. We can’t leave them…
`Hold your bloody tongue!’ Simeon waved his arm towards the land. `Are you going to explain to this boat what we’re doing here?’
Marshall said, `He’s right, all the same.’ He looked at Warwick and added, `Thanks, Sub.’
He turned away before Warwick could reply.
`Tell Smith I want him on the fore casing. He’ll know what for.’
Blythe had some glasses trained on the boat as it swung fussily towards the slow-moving U-boat. He said, ‘Eye-tie launch, sir. But there’s a Jerry officer in charge!’
Simeon snapped, `What did you expect, a priest?
Marshall felt strangely calm. As if he had been suddenly injected with a drug. He watched the launch, his foot tapping slowly on the gratings as he studied her frothing wake. If the German came directly to the starboard side they were done for. But if he was naturally curious he would go right round the U-boat’s first. And they had to get between him and the watching boom vessel, and God alone knew how many others.
Some of the seamen on the casing were waving at the launch, and he saw an unfamiliar sailor just below the bridge. It was Smith. He had no time to get a proper uniform, but had stripped to his shorts and wore a German forage cap rakishly over one ear. He too was waving, and as the boat turned to cross the
submarine’s stem he shouted something in German.
Blythe murmured, `He’s coming round t’other side, sir!’
Marshall watched the boat’s bow wave fall away, and saw a white-clad lieutenant clinging to the small wheelhouse, a megaphone in one hand. Now for it.
`Was ist los, .Herr Kapitan?’
Marshall took Warwick’s arm. `Tell him we’ve got engine trouble. That we were bound for Taranto.’ He licked his lips as Smith climbed down to the saddle tank. `And ask him aboard for a drink. He’ll like that.’
Simeon muttered, `It’ll never work.’
But it did.
As willing hands took the launch’s lines, and the German lieutenant clambered up the slippery bulge of the tank, he was met by Smith. For those few seconds as they were hidden below the conning-tower Smith wrapped his arms around the surprised German and seized the safety rail at the foot of the tower. He pressed him against the steel, still talking to him soothingly until with a sudden wrench he jerked a knife from his waistband and drove it upwards into the German’s stomach, holding him there like an impaled animal.
Other figures were already scrambling down into the launch, and in minutes it was over.
Marshall said harshly, `Quickly now. Second landing party in the launch. Take cover until we’re through the boom. Make the Italian seaman understand that they’ll live only if they do as we say.’
He heard men hurrying along the casing, the occasional clatter of weapons.
Simeon stared at him and then said, `I will take the launch. We’ll move that ship and get clear as best we can.’
Their eyes held.
`I’ll pick you up when the job’s done.’ Without conscious thought he thrust out his hand. `Good luck.’
Simeon stared at his hand but made no effort to take it.
Instead he said, `Go to he1U’
Marshall watched hint leave. Just minutes. It was incredible. He felt like cheering. Or screaming.
`Cast off the launch.’
As it idled he had to shake himself to accept it had happened. The boom vessel lay unmoving in the strengthening light just as before. The launch, with two or three Italian seamen. on deck, was steering towards the harbour. Only when he looked over the screen and saw something pale sinking deeper and deeper in the water did it become real.
Blythe explained thickly, `Mr. Smith weighted the Jerry with some mooring wire, sir. Quick as a bloody ferret he was!’
Marshall gripped the cool metal with both hands.
`Half ahead together. Follow the guardboat.’
He waited, hardly daring to blink as slowly, and then with more haste, the boom vessel began to winch openthe net.
Nearer and nearer, until all at once the boom vessel was gliding abeam, an officer coming out on to the bridge wing to salute as U-192 entered harbour.
`He’s closing the boom behind us, sir.’
But Marshall was watching the little launch as it increased speed and dashed towards the top of the sleeping harbour and the moored freighter.
`haunch is alongside the freighter, sir.’ `Slow ahead together.’
Marshall watched the nearest jetty and tried not to think about the pillboxes on the hillside. He watched Cain and the casing party making a great show of preparing lines for mooring, and on the little jetty he saw a handful of yawning Italians, probably sailors from the freighter at the top of the harbour.
Warwick was saying hoarsely, `Come on! Come on!’ Marshall snapped, `Watch the freighter. As soon as Simeon’s party have cast off we’ve got to move fast.’
He looked at his watch. Not long now. It seemed too bright, too peaceful. Surely something would break soon?
Warwick gripped his arm. `She’s moving, sir! Look, her main-mast is level with the pier!’
Marshall sprang to the voicepipe. `Full ahead! Port ten!’
He felt the hull lurch forward, the bow wave mounting powerfully and sluicing towards the nearby jetty and the mesmerised Italians.
`Steady!’
He pounded the screen with his fist.
`Get Pilot on deck to lend a hand! We’ve got to take the freighter’s tow-rope and warp her clear!’
As the harbour widened out he conned the submarine round in one huge arc, while high in the freighter’s bows he saw the marines lowering a wire hawser, while others held their machine-pistols trained on the shore.
A rattle of machine-gunfire pattered impersonally across the sheltered water, and Marshall saw the bullets cutting feathers of spray around the abandoned guardboat.
Somewhere in the distance a klaxon blared, and within seconds tracer ripped above the harbour, although it was obvious the garrison had been caught completely unprepared.
`Hard aport! Stop the port engine!’
He gritted his teeth as the freighter loomed over the conning-tower.
`Stand by on deck!’
There was no time to rig fenders. No more time for anything. A bullet smashed into the tower and whimpered away over the water.
More machine-gunfire probed into the harbour, and Warwick yelled, `Open fire, sir?’
‘Yes.’ He yelled, `Stop starboard!’
The submarine’s starboard bow shuddered and lurched below the freighter’s great anchor, the metal screaming in protest as both hulls ground together.
Hands grabbed and hauled on lines, and he saw Devereaux, hatless and wild-eyed, yelling at them to drag the hawser down on to the casing and the forward mooring bollards.
The air seemed to split apart as Warwick’s gun crews fired long bursts of cannon shells and tracer bullets towards the nearest pillboxes. From one came an answering volley, and someone on the casing fell thrashing wildly in a pattern of blood. Against the dull steel it looked like black paint.
`Secured, sir!’
`Right! Tell the boarding party to get back here on the double!’
He winced, his mind cringing as the deck gun crashed out for the first time, the shell ripping past the conningtower.
The shell exploded beside a pillbox and the firing stopped instantly.
There was a short, abbreviated whistle and a violent explosion. For an instant he thought the enemy had brought up a mobile gun, but Devereaux was shouting, `Mortar! Above the bunker!’
Blythe yelled, `Chief reports he’s ready to tow, sir!’ The diesels had fallen still, yet in the firing Marshall had not even noticed it.
He thanked God that Frenzel, blind to danger and ignorant of what was happening above his head, had managed to remember his part.
The electric motors were purring smoothly, and Marshall shouted, `Slow astern together!’ He saw the hawser tauten, felt the towering hull along side shudder violently as another mortar bomb exploded somewhere on the upper deck.
But she was answering. Slowly and painfully, as the U-boat pulled astern, the freighter began to swing away from her original moorings. Another bomb shrieked down and burst on the ship, hurling splinters and fragments of steel in all directions.
`She’s started to sink!’ Warwick was waving his cap like a madman. ‘Simeon has opened her cocks!’
It was true, and with the additional damage caused by the mortar, it would not take long before she settled on the bottom of the harbour. A rope ladder had been thrown over the bulwark, and Marshall saw some of the marines clambering down and being dragged bodily on to the casing.
Further round, and still further, with gunfire blasting from every side, although there was so much smoke it was hard to tell friend from enemy.
A savage burst from the land, and Marshall ducked as bullets flayed the bridge like a steel whip. When he looked again he saw several of his men sprawled on the deck and others dragging themselves towards the conningtower. Devereaux was clinging to the guardrail and yelling at a marine who was still dangling from the ladder. Another sharp burst cut the marine down, so that he dropped into the churned water, his weapons carrying him straight to the bottom.
A dull boom echoed and re-echoed around the hills, and Bly
the yelled, `Captain Lambert’s charges have blown sir!’
`That’ll get ‘em out of bed!’
The lookout who had spoken clutched his chest, and with an amazed gasp toppled against the machine-gunner at his side. He was dead before he hit the deck.
Marshall snapped, `Prepare to cast off. Stop both motors.’ He could not wait another second.
Firing was heavier along the shore, and Blythe shouted, Here comes Lambert’s mob!’
The returning raiding party were scampering behind the pillboxes, and the air shook and crashed to their grenades. It must have been worse than a nightmare for the Germans in the pillboxes. The sudden awakening, and then the sight of what appeared to be reinforcements running from inland. Then the terrible realisation. The grenades, the lethal clatter of machine-pistols. Oblivion.
Cain cupped his hands and shouted at the bridge, `Two more to come, sir?’ He ducked as more tracer slashed overhead.
Marshall shaded his eyes and peered at the listing freighter. He knew one of them was Simeon. It had to be.
Then he saw them. Smith clambering down the ladder, with Simeon clutching his body like a drowning man.
Warwick gasped, ‘Simeon’s bought it, sir.’
Marshall looked desperately at the dead and wounded on the casing. `Open the fore hatch.’ To Cain he shouted, `Help those two across!’
He saw Buck and some more hands emerging through the fore hatch and dragging the wounded below, their faces frozen to the clatter of gunfire, the screams of their companions.
A groan went up as Smith lost his hold and fell. As he broke surface a machine-gunner found him, and lashed the water into foam all around. He threw up his arms and vanished, the foam turning crimson before spreading between the two hulls.
He saw Simeon being dragged towards the hatch and shouted, `Cast off!’
When he looked again the fore casing was almost empty but for a pathetic cluster of dead sailors. Devereaux was struggling with the heavy eye of the hawser, while Cain tried to help him, one arm hanging at his side, bloody and useless.
Simeon was halfway through the hatch, his shoulder shining in the frail glare where a splinter had cut him down on the freighter’s deck. He pushed someone away who was trying to help him through the hatch and lurched back on to the casing. He was shouting and cursing like a madman, most of the words lost in the metallic clatter of machine-guns. As he reached the bollard Devereaux turned and saw him, then he too was down, rolling and kicking, his screams cut short as his life splashed across the buckled plating.
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