HMS Saracen

by Douglas Reeman

  And so it went on. Victory after victory, until France was contained and the Stukas were sent further afield in search of prey.

  Eucken rarely thought of his comrades in the other services. He disliked the Navy for its hidebound and arrogant ways. The U-boat Service was the only real attack weapon

  they had. The rest of the Navy seemed badly organised and not used to its fullest advantage. Neither did the Army appeal to him. Their sort of warfare conjured up pictures of a bygone age, as told to him by his father. Squalor, lice, ignorance and stagnation.

  No, the air was the thing. And of all the planes which flew for Germany, the Stuka had struck the greatest blow. He could almost sense the great armour-piercing bomb which was slung a few feet beneath him. Soon he would be rid of it, and another ship would be on the bottom of that glistening water.

  He had been lounging in the mess-tent beside the desert airstrip when the news had been received. Army Intelligence had reported a sudden and devastating bombard znent from the sea off Tobruk. The enemy ship had escaped it seemed, and now there were cries for recriminations.

  How like the Army ! he thought with contempt. Always wanted the Luftwaffe to do its dirty work. And then, of course, there was this Italian minelayer. That, too, was somehow typical. How much better it would have been if the British had been Germany’s allies. Together they could have stamped on all these sub-standard nations. But as the l^ uhrer had already explained, the British had been misled by Jews and Communists. They would just have to pay for their mistakes.

  His handsome features crinkled in a small frown as Bredt’s sharp voice cut into his ears. `There it is ! Dead ahead!’ Eucken gave himself a small rebuke for allowing his mind to wander and so allow another to make the first sighting report. He leaned forward, his clear eyes reaching out ahead of his formation.

  At first he thought the ship was stationary, and then almost in the same second he imagined that the strangelooking vessel had already been attacked. She looked unc;ainly, her superstructure unevenly spaced, so that at first glance he thought she had lost part of her stern. But as he drew nearer, and the vessel’s outline hardened through the haze, he realised that this was indeed the one they were looking for. From the approach angle the monitor’s shape was not unlike a tailor’s steam iron, and from her small wash he guessed that she was doing less than eight knots.

  It would be a copybook attack. The one they had executed so of ten in these waters.

  He felt quite happy at the prospect. Perhaps it was because this was to be another new experience. The monitor was quite big, although he had no way of gauging its actual potential and value in over-all strategy.

  Calmly he gave his orders and settled himself more comfortably in his harness. It would soon be over. There would probably be more decorations after this. Personally he did not care very much, but he knew that his parents would be pleased. It would make up in some way for his two brothers who had already died for the Fatherland. One in France, on the flank of the Maginot Line, the other in Holland, when his scoutcar had run over a mine. Strangely enough, he could hardly remember what they looked like.

  The Stuka wagged its wings as the air suddenly blossosned with brown shell-bursts. The Tommies were evidently awake. Eucken smiled gently. Let them make the most of it. It would be a long swim for the survivors. About forty miles, at a guess.

  The joke amused him, and he was still smiling as the port wing of bombers, led by Lieutenant Bredt, curved away and plummeted down towards the toylike ship. More shellbursts, but the three Stukas flashed through them unscathed.

  The other three Stukas were climbing to the right for a cross-attack, while Eucken idled along the same course, his keen eyes on the drama below.

  Another voice shouted, `I can see the minelayer!’

  Sure enough, the limping Italian ship was also appearing on the scene. Eucken grinned. The more, the merrier.

  A nerve jumped in his cheek as the first Stuka exploded in direct line with the monitor. Impassively he watched as the remnants of Bredt’s aircraft were scattered across the calm sea in little white feathers of spray. The second Stuka was diving. Tracers lifted to greet it. The plane quivered then dropped into a full dive. All at once smoke poured from its wings and it continued to dive straight for the

  water. Eucken imagined he could hear the thunderous explosion as the Stuka’s bomb exploded on impact. Bomb,

  aircraft and crew vanished in a bright orange flash well clear of the defiant monitor.

  Eucken could feel his hands shaking with sudden rage. It was his fault. He had been over-confident.

  His voice grated over the stuttering intercom. `Keep clear ! This is Red Leader ! I am attacking!’

  He heard the engine swell into a ferocious roar as he gunned the Stuka into a sidestepping dive. He saw the third attacker falter and pull away, a thin smoke trail streaming behind it. Down, down, faster and faster; until it seemed as if the wings would tear themselves free. Aloud he said, `Don’t forget to give them a long burst as I pull out, Steuer !’ Behind him he heard the gunner grunt assent. Steuer never saw anything until the aircraft was out of its dive. It was a lonely job.

  Eucken forgot Steuer, the Squadron and everything else as he used every ounce of skill and cunning on his approach. Behind his goggles his eyes were slitted with concentration as he hurled the bomber towards the strange ship. Already it had grown in size. It filled the windshield, and he could see the white caps on its upper bridge like tiny flowers on a grey rock.

  Steady now ! Ach … here come the tracers. Deceptively lazy the red lines climbed to criss-cross over the bomber’s path. He watched his sighting mark, his breath almost stopped. Now ! The Stuka fell into its final dive, the unearthly scream enclosing Eucken’s mind like a drug.

  Faster and faster! The aircraft was rocking madly from side to side, and he felt the thud and rip of metal against the fuselage. Above in the clear sky his comrades would be watching and waiting their turn.

  Everything seemed enclosed in those tiny final seconds of attack. Eucken could see himself in his mind’s eye, the black aircraft almost vertical as it plunged down. Its proud yellow stripes and squadron badge below the cockpit, a wolf with a ship between its jaws.

  Almost time. The moment ! He pressed the release button and pulled the Stuka out of its headlong plunge even as the monitor’s tapering topmast swept to meet him. The plane jumped as the bomb left its rack, and Eucken wished that he could watch it strike home, as he knew it would.

  There was one abbreviated explosion, and the Stuka fell over on to its side. All at once the tense but orderly world of the cockpit had exploded about him.

  There was fire all around him, and he could hear someone screaming like a tortured animal. Automatically he flexed his arms to adjust the controls, but dumbly realised that only his brain was working, his limbs were frozen and useless.

  The bright sun-which should have been at his backwas suddenly below him. First there was the sky and then the sea. The aircraft was revolving with gathering force as it plunged towards the blue water.

  The pain came simultaneously with the realisation. But it was all too late. With glazed eyes Max Eucken, aged twenty-two, watched the sea tearing upwards to meet him. He could see the windshield being sprayed with his own blood, just as he could hear himself screaming. But he felt completely detached, and was still staring when the black Stuka hit the water.

  To drop the bomb which struck the Saracen the Stuka pilot had planned his approach with great care. With a slight curve he had dived across the ship’s port quarter, almost brushing the main topmast, so that the few who saw him imagined for a moment that the screaming aircraft was going to plunge into the mouth of the funnel itself. While the bomber banked and began to haul itself out of its steep dive, the single, gleaming bomb detached itself and plummeted straight for the crowded bridge.

  Then several things happened simultaneously. As the Stuka displayed its striped underbelly the monitor’s Oerlikon gunners, who
had been keeping up a steady fire since the first enemy attack, saw their opportunity. Even as the aircraft began to regain height the fuselage sparkled in a long, unbroken line of small shell-bursts. The Stuka staggered, picked up again, and then began to spin out of control while the Oerlikons still hammered home their deadly blows. No one saw the German actually hit the water, for in that tiny instant the ship seemed to jump bodily as the bomb exploded.

  It was well aimed, and in the seconds which passed to the sounds of blast and destruction it should have sent the ship on its way to the bottom to join the remains of the shattered aircraft. With the speed of light the bomb struck the front of the bridge superstructure with the sound of a giant hammer and ricocheted forward and down until it sliced into the rear of the tall barbette upon which the ship’s great gun-turret was mounted. That first change of direction saved the Saracen from the mortal blow. I; guided the bomb clear of the small area of thinly armoured deck between the turret and the bridge, and instead sent it smashing its way at a forty-five-degree angle towards the empty lower messdeck where it exploded. Had the bomb struck the area intended, it would have cleaved straight down through two decks and on to the keel itself. Fuel and ammunition would have made an inferno to cover the inrush of water, and would have made escape impossible for many of the ship’s company. As it was, the bomb was turned aside, to spend itself like a crazed beast before exploding in the monitor’s steel bowels.

  But in those agonising seconds, and in the long minutes which followed, there were few who really knew what had happened. Each man wondered and feared for his own safety, and many verged on the edge of panic.

  Tending to the army wounded in the forward messdeck, Surgeon Lieutenant Wickersley felt the bomb strike the ship, and sat frozen on the deck as he listened to the thing tearing its way through the toughened steel with the noise of a bandsaw. The explosion lifted him from his trance, and as the long space filled with dust and drifting smoke he found with sudden surprise that he was able to ignore the unknown danger and turn, instead, to the bandaged figures which lay trapped and helpless around him. His assistants, made up of cooks, stewards and writers, and many others of the men who were not actually employed in fighting the ship, were staring at him, suddenly dependent and waiting.

  Wickersley stood up and brushed some flaked paintwork from his hair. He gave his orders in a calm voice, inwardly grateful that now the moment had arrived he had beaten his fear and was ready to cope with the work for which he had been trained.

  High above the bridge in the encased world of the control tower Lieutenant Norris had been sitting hunched and fascinated beside McGowan, the Control Officer. The small armoured nerve-centre of the ship’s gunpower had suddenly vibrated to the scream of the diving Stuka, so that even the stammer of Oerlikons and the deeper bark of pompoms seemed muted by comparison. Still Norris had been unable to accept that the moment had arrived. Not until the shadow of the screaming aircraft had enveloped the open bridge below him, and a dark streak had flashed down across his vision towards the figure of the Captain himself, did Norris fully realise his very real danger. He wanted to turn away, or bury his face in the back of the rating at the training mechanism, but he was quite unable to close his eyes to the impossible sight of the bomb grinding across the front of the bridge in a shower of sparks to disappear somewhere at the foot of the massive turret. The explosion came after what seemed an age of waiting, and then it was as if it had come from another bomb altogether. Far away, muffled and sullen, it seemed to be in the very bowels of the ship. The air was filled with black smoke which fanned by the breeze billowed back over the bridge until the lonely control tower was lost and isolated in an impenetrable cloud. McGowan’s face looked grey, but his voice was toneless as he spoke quickly to his handset. The four ratings glanced quickly at their officers and then settled back again on their stools. If they were near terror they gave no sign as far as Norris could see, even though their small refuge and

  the tripod mast beneath still thrummed like some maniac instrument.

  Until the bombers were sighted Norris had been watching the slow approach of the enemy minelayer. As Spotting Officer he had been mentally rehearsing his duties, even looking forward to the moment when the guns would begin to pound the injured enemy to fragments. His task would be to guide the groping guns directly on to their target, a feeling which at a safe range gave him the satisfac

  tion of immeasurable power.

  McGowan was saying sharply : `Exploded in lower messdeck ! The damage control party is on its way!’

  For something to say, Norris asked weakly, `Is the turret safe?’

  McGowan shrugged and looked at Norris for the first time. `Quarters Officer reports several injuries. Concussion mostly !’ He laughed harshly, as if unable to understand that he was alive. `The other bombers have buggered off !’

  Erskine was already making his way below to the roaring inferno of fire and black smoke. Around him men fought with hoses and extinguishers to control the feelers of flame, while others dealt with the menace beyond the glowing watertight doors. Messengers came and went, while Erskine passed his orders almost in a daze. He still did not know the full extent of the damage, but what he had seen was bad enough.

  A petty officer and two seamen who had been pulped to a purple mess by the force of the explosion. An Oerlikon gun complete with gunner and magazine which had been torn from its mounting and hurled over the port rail with the ease of a child’s toy. A nameless rating, stripped naked by blast, who had dashed past him screaming, his body flayed by foot-long wood splinters from the deck at the base of the turret.

  The Chief Bosun’s Mate said in his ear : `We’ll soon ‘ave the fire in ‘and, sir ! Must get some of the wounded moved a bit sharpish afore they get roasted!’

  Erskine shook himself. `Yes. Very well, Buffer, you get your men on to it.’ He broke off, coughing as more smoke funnelled its way through the avenue of shattered mess tables, shredded clothing and smashed crockery.

  The Chief Bosun’s Mate wiped his sweating face and gestured towards a pin-up which still remained seductively in position above a smouldering locker. `I couldn’t even manage’er at the moment, sir!’

  Erskine tried to smile, but his jaws felt fixed and taut. With a groan he began to retrace his steps as another messenger ran towards him through the smoke. I must report to the bridge. His brain rebelled, but he forced himself to concentrate, the effort making him sway.

  There was so much to do. And there was still the minelayer to be pinned down and sunk.

  `Here, sir ! Let me help you !’

  Chesnaye felt Fox’s hand beneath his elbow and staggered to his feet. His head felt as if it was splitting in half, and as the smoke billowed over the lip of the bridge he knew he was near to collapse. It was as if the bomb had been aimed at him. He had actually seen it, a dark smudge against the bright sky, before it struck the steel behind him and hurled him to the deck with its searing shock-wave. Everyone seemed to be shouting, and each voice-pipe and telephone was demanding attention.

  `Bombers making off, sir!’ Fox was still holding his arm, his dark face tight with concern. `Damage reports coming in now.’

  Chesnaye nodded vaguely and limped to the forward screen. Broken glass crunched beneath his shoes, and he felt a cold hand on his heart as he looked down at the deck below. The teak planking had been jack-knifed by the explosion, and from the jagged tear in the foot of the barbette he saw the unbroken spiral of black smoke. There were mixed cries and shouted orders, and he could see the stretcher bearers already groping their way towards the ship’s wound.

  He must not think of it. The others would do their job. He had to control the ship. To find the enemy.

  He blinked his streaming eyes. `Alter course two points to starboard.’ Must get this damned smoke clear of the bridge.

  He stared for several seconds at the raw scar on the edge of the steel left by the bomb. It must have missed me by inches, he thought. A few feet this way an
d the wheelhouse would have been knocked out. A bit further forward and the turret might have been wrecked.

  Fox said, `Eight of our people killed, sir. One missing.’ `Thank you.’ Missing? That must have been the Oerlikon gunner.

  Fox was holding a handset. `The Gunnery Officer, sir.’

  Chesnaye took the handset, his eyes still on the clouds of smoke. With the slight alteration of course the ship was being kept clear. `Give me the target range, Guns.’ He felt . some of the tension draining from him. They had survived again. They had been attacked, but had hit back in spite of the enemy’s determination.

  `Range is ten thousand yards, ‘sir.’ McGowan sounded strained. `I should like to clear the turret, sir.’

  Chesnaye’s mind snapped back to the immediate problems. `Clear the turret? The Quarters Officer has reported no serious damage !’

  McGowan said flatly : `He has just reported to me, sir. The bomb passed through the working chamber below the turntable compartment and has sheared off a section of the lower roller path.’

  Chesnaye tried to drive the sense of unreality from his brain. ‘D’you mean the turret won’t train?’

  `That’s right, sir. The guns are quite intact and fully operational. But the turret cannot be moved.’

  Chesnaye felt as if the bridge was closing in on him. A strong eddy of wind cleared the smoke from the fo’c’sle, and for a few moments he was able to see the black silhouette of the Italian ship fine on the port bow. The minelayer’s shape was already lengthening. She was sheering away.