HMS Saracen

by Douglas Reeman

  Over his shoulder he said, `If you want to do something useful, John, go and tell the Chief Telegraphist to play some records over the tannoy !’

  Erskine stared at him. `Now, sir? And our talk?’

  `That can wait. I want our people to be relaxed when the time comes.’

  So as the sun dipped towards the horizon haze, and the watchful escorts listened and watched for the hidden enemy, the Saracen ploughed steadily through the centre of the convoy, her speakers blaring music, the feet of her gunners tapping, as they were carried forward towards the prearranged settlement.

  8

  Don’t look back !

  In the comparative quiet of the Morning Watch the shockwave of the torpedo explosion was magnified beyond reason.

  Chesnaye slipped and fell from his bunk even as the dying echoes sighed against the monitor’s hull, and for a moment he imagined that he had been allowed to oversleep and that dawn was already upon the convoy. The seacabin door had been pushed open by the unseen hand of blast, and through it the upper bridge seemed to be shimmering in distorted sunlight.

  Even as a bosun’s mate crashed through the door, his voice calling for the Captain, Chesnaye realised with sudden chill that the light was that of a burning ship.

  Voice-pipes were clamouring for attention, and Chesnaye could hear Fox barking instructions to the helmsman.

  Erskine said hoarsely : `There, sir ! On the port quarter It was the old Greek!’

  Chesnaye shaded his eyes from the bright red glare and the tall curtain of spluttering sparks which mounted with every second above the ship’s black shape. Already she had fallen out of station and had lost her identity.

  A creaming white line cut across the dark water, above which Chesnaye could faintly see the rakish shape of a searching destroyer. There was a dull crack, followed in a few seconds by the snow-bright glare of a starshell.

  Several voices cried as one : `There it is !’

  Chesnaye tore his night-glasses from the leather case and peered at the pencil-slim silhouette outlined beneath the motionless flare. He bit his lip and took a quick look at the other ships. The U-boat must have been temporarily misled by the convoy’s alteration of course. To avoid losing a target altogether, its commander had chased after the convoy and made his attack on the surface. Even now the submarine was turning away, while the destroyer increased speed to engage.

  A lookout called, `Torpedo passing on the port beam !’

  A faint, ruler-straight line lengthened across the Saracen’s bow wave and vanished into open water. Chesnaye breathed again. The U-boat must have fired a full salvo, but had found only one target.

  `She’s diving, sir !’ Every eye watched as the shadowy hull hid itself in an upflung surge of foam and froth.

  Fox said thickly : `The Greek’s capsizing ! Poor bastards!’ In a smaller voice Bouverie asked, `Can’t we do something?’

  Harshly Chesnaye snapped : `Keep station ! Tell the lookouts to watch the other ships. If the convoy breaks now they’re done for!’

  Inwardly he felt a kind of agony as he watched the dying ship. The tug Goliath was clearly outlined against the searing flames, but was held at bay by the force of the blaze. Chesnaye could even see the Greek’s hull changing from black to glowing pink as the fire tore at her inside. Every ship in the convoy gleamed and shimmered in the reflected fires, like paintings come alive.

  Then the blazing ship dipped her bows and with startling suddenness began to dive. The hissing roar of exploding boilers merged with the triumphant inrush of water and the tearing crash of steel as the engine tore itself free from its bed and smashed through the white-hot bulkheads. Like a candle extinguished she was gone, and only the drooping starshell showed the end of the drama.

  Once more the Saracen’s hull boomed and reverberated to magnified explosions as the destroyer’s depth-charges thundered down. Tall pyramids of spray marked each charge, and as the destroyer finished her attack, one patch of torn white water showed clearly the shining hull of the U-boat as it was blown to the surface. Like a beast gone mad the destroyer stewed round, every rivet and plate groaning as her forty thousand horsepower and a full rudder threw her over.

  Above the crash of gunfire and hoarse bellow of orders they all heard the solid crunch of tearing steel as the destroyer’s knife-like stem bit into the wallowing hull. Then she was through and over, while the broken U-boat writhed in a great bubbling cascade of black oil.

  The victorious destroyer, her bows crumpled like cardboard, ploughed to a halt, her narrow shape rocking gently in the life blood of her victim.

  Some of the Saracen’s men cheered. It was a cruel, desperate sound, and Chesnaye said sharply : `Keep those men quiet ! Tell them. to watch their front!’

  Someone else on the bridge started to say excitedly, `That’s one less of the bastards !’

  But Fox added dourly : `One less escort, too ! She’ll be no more use for a month or so!’

  The escorts increased speed and dashed around the merchant ships like watchful dogs. As ii for greater protection the two leading freighters had turned slightly inwards, and the milling vessels astern of these followed suit. It took over an hour to restore order and establish discipline. By that time the dawn had found the convoy once more, and when the sun climbed free of the brightening water it showed clearly the shortened line of ships, and of the destroyer there was no sign. She was already limping back to Alexandria. Beaushears could not spare another ship to accompany her, so she must make the lonely voyage unaided.

  Chesnaye slumped in his chair, his mind still filled with the reddened picture of the burning ship. There were no survivors. But the other ships still headed westward and no one looked back. Close the ranks. Do not stop for anyone or anything. When it’s your turn you must accept it.

  Chesnaye swore aloud, and Fox looked across at him. ‘Sir?’

  `Nothing, Pilot!’ Chesnaye watched the Cape Cod’s crew washing down the boatdeck with hoses. `Not a damn thing!,

  Just before noon the first bombers appeared high in the clear sky. This time they were not Stukas but twin-engined Italian aircraft which cruised in six neat arrowheads with such calm indifference that it almost seemed as if they would pass over and ignore the convoy completely.

  The Saracen stirred into readiness, the gunners almost glad that the tension of waiting was over at last.

  Chesnaye wiped his streaming eyes with the back of his hand and ran his gaze briefly over the monitor’s defences. The four-inch guns were already tracking the tiny silver specks, and he could hear the clatter of the breech blocks as the first shells were slammed home.

  `They’re splitting up, sir!’

  Chesnaye lifted his glasses again. Yes, the small flights of bombers were separating, and half of them seemed to be diving in a shallow sweep towards the escorts on the starboard wing of the slow-moving merchantmen. Chesnaye wondered briefly what would happen if the ammunition ship received the first salvo. Surely no one in the near vicinity could escape the blast? Her crew too must be thinking just that.

  `Signal from Flag, sir ! Retain station. Stand by for alteration of course.’

  Fox said to Bouverie, `Fat lot of good that’ll do!’

  `Three aircraft Green four-five ! Angle of sight two-oh !’

  Chesnaye kept his ear tuned to the flat, dispassionate voices from the voice-pipes, and watched the approaching aircraft with narrowed eyes. In spite of being prepared, he tensed automatically as two of the destroyers opened fire. The small brown shell-bursts mushroomed across the bright sky and seemed to drift past the purposeful intruders.

  `Aircraft closing ! Two hundred and fifty knots!’

  A sudden burst of gunfire from astern of the convoy told Chesnaye that the other bombers were trying to draw the escort’s firepower from the approaching trio. It was a good attack, he thought coldly. They would cross the convoy’s line of advance at forty-five degrees, and would gain a bit of protection from the Aureus’s firepower by diving above the
ammunition ship.

  A gong jangled below the bridge, and in the momentary silence which followed Chesnaye heard McGowan’s voice distorted by his microphone. `Commence, commence, commence!’

  The four-inch guns spat out orange flame and hurled themselves back on their mountings. Their ear-piercing cracks seemed to penetrate the innermost membranes of the men’s ears, and more than one seaman cried out with pain. The guns swung like oiled rods and fired again. The barrage was thickening, and the air was already pock-marked with their mingled shell-bursts. Even some of the merchantmen had joined in with their ancient twelve-pounders.

  Still the bombers came on, their cockpit covers glinting in the sunlight, their engines lost in the barrage.

  Chesnaye watched the range falling away. Half a mile, and the three planes swept over the first zig-zagging escort. At last they were in range of the short-range weapons, and before the jangle of bells had died away the pompoms and Oerlikons clattered into life. Darker shell-bursts, long pale j lines of tracer, it seemed impossible for anything to live in it.

  One of the bombers swung out of line and dived whining over the flagship, a straight black smoke-trail marking its passing. The Aureus’s gunners pounced on the unexpected prize and followed it down, the savage tracers cutting away the fusilage like skin from bones, even as two small parachute blossomed in the smoke-stained sky.

  `Bombs falling, sir!’

  Not a single one this time. As the leading aircraft swept over the convoy’s centre Chesnaye saw the glittering stick fall with apparent carelessness from her belly.

  The sound of the barrage changed, like thunder deflected by a sudden wind, as half of Saracen’s armament swung astern to cover the oiler from another attack from aft. Three bombers had side-stepped the screening barrage and were already large and stark in the madly vibrating gunsights.

  Chesnaye felt his mouth go dry as the falling bombs gathered momentum and shrieked towards the ammunition ship. He felt his chest jar against the screen as the bombs exploded. The ammunition ship still steamed ahead, her stained hull neatly bracketed by the hundred-foot columns of water. But the remaining bomber was overhead and the next salvo was already falling.

  `Alter course, sir!’

  Chesnaye shook himself as the air split apart to the screeching roar of bombs. They had missed again, but he could hear the whiplash crack of splinters as they slashed at the passing ships. Too damn’ near.

  Laidlaw reported calmly, `Signal close up, sir!’

  Chesnaye watched the ammunition ship ahead of the monitor’s bows, and waited.

  `Down, sir!’ The small flag hoist disappeared from the flagship’s yard, and obediently the convoy plodded round after her curving wake.

  `Christ, a hit!’ The words were torn from Bouverie’s throat, and Chesnaye stared past him at the sternmost ship on the starboard column. In the middle of her turn the bomb had caught her right behind the bridge. Boats, mainmast and half of her superstructure flew skywards, and from the smoking crater Chesnaye could see the first licking tongues of flame. The freighter staggered like a wounded animal and began to swing inwards, her bows almost pointing at the oiler. A collision now would be fatal.

  Chesnaye snapped, `Signal her to keep station!’

  Laidlow nodded, and seconds later the big projector be4 gan to clatter.,

  Three more aircraft were attacking from port, but Chesnaye ignored the fanatical clatter of automatic weapons and continued to watch the freighter. Her upper deck was well ablaze, and some of the crated deck cargo was also alight. But through the swirling smoke came an answering signal.

  Laidlaw said in an awed tone, `She says, “Mind your own bloody business”, sir !’

  Chesnaye smiled tightly as he saw the freighter’s battered stem feel its way back on course. `If they can talk like that they’re all right !’

  Fox said, `That was close !’ A long line of bomb-bursts churned the sea skywards in tall white waterspouts, and once more the air echoed to the whining splinters.

  The four-inch gun immediately below the starboard wing of the bridge fell silent, and a voice yelled stridently ‘Still! Misfire!’ A few moments later the voice came again, harsh with relief, `Carry on!’

  The whole convoy was now covered with drifting smoke, and all around men were coughing in the acrid fumes of burned paint and cordite.

  Bouverie pointed over the screen as something surged sluggishly in the monitor’s bow wave and grated along her fat reinforced bulge. ‘Who bagged that?’ It was a halfsubmerged bomber, its fire-blackened body already sinking out of sight. Pinned like some sort of insect, the pilot was still moving his arms and staring up at them as the hull thrust him down and back into the racing screws.

  `The freighter’s got the fire under control, sir!’

  Chesnaye nodded and looked carefully down the line of ships. In the thick smoke it was hard to see anything, let alone the circling bombers.

  There was a sullen roar from far astern, and moments later Fox said thickly : `One of the escorts, sir. The sloop Gorgon has turned turtle. Direct hit.’

  Another warship gone, and two hundred miles to go. Chesnaye mopped his face. His cheek muscles felt numb and his head ached from the constant gunfire.

  The bombers had had a sharp reception. Four were shot down in twenty minutes, and the final flight of aircraft were apparently unwilling to press home their attack. Instead they climbed rapidly towards the sun and released their bombs at random.

  The cunning and bravery of the other pilots were unrewarded but for the sinking of one poorly protected sloop. The bombs which fell from five thousand feet, with their bomb-aimers not even bothering to take note of the results,

  straddled the port column and cut deep into the heart of the leading freighter. Like some hideous steel flower the whole ship heaved and opened outwards, the sea and sky

  suddenly filled with flying wreckage. Chesnaye felt the hot breath of the explosions across his streaming face, and stared in horror as the big freighter began to career across the tightly bunched ships.

  More inner explosions began to tear the ship apart, and derricks and bridge sagged together into the burning crater which had once been the foredeck.

  `She’s out of control, sir !’ Fox sounded taut. `She’ll be up to us in a moment !’

  Chesnaye watched, holding his breath as the burning ship floundered pathetically towards the ammunition ship.

  The gap narrowed, until it was almost hidden by the eagerly licking tongues of flame,

  `Missed her !’ Fox changed his tone. `Now it’s our turn!’

  Chesnaye watched the ship, feeling the sweat pouring down his neck and chest. The smoke stung his eyes, and he could no longer see the other leading ships.

  `Starboard fifteen!’ He tried to see some movement against the freighter’s waterline, but smoke and fire hid it from view. It was not possible even to gauge her speed through the churned water. `Midships !’ Steady now, let her get nearer God, she’s almost on top of us!’

  Behind him he could hear someone whimpering like a child. Too much swing on her. `Port ten!’ The monitor’s hull quivered and swung very slightly towards the other ship, to allow her room to brush past.

  Faintly through the fog of smoke he could hear Erskine’s strident voice, `Stand by, fire parties!’

  The men on the upper bridge fell back as the wall of fire drifted down the monitor’s side, and there was a hurried clatter of metal while the Oerlikon gunners ripped off their loaded magazines and pulled them clear of the searing heat.

  The freighter was an old three-island type with high poop and fo’c’sle. Her rusted bows and heavy anchors almost brushed the Saracen’s bridge as she moved past, but Chesnaye’s eyes were fixed on the tiny group of figures which was poised directly on the fo’c’sle head. Four men, one already crumpled in the heat but held out of reach of the flames by his comrades, men without hope on a burning island. Already the ship was beginning to fall away, and Chesnaye could see the sea explorin
g the buckled remains of her afterdeck.

  One of the stranded seamen reached out as if to touch the monitor’s bulk, his face suddenly clear and stark to every watching man.

  Bouverie cried : `Can’t we help, sir? Lower a boat?’

  But Chesnaye did not answer. What was the use of words?

  There was a tiny cry, and when Chesnaye looked again there were only three figures on the fo’c’sle head. One must have jumped. Chesnaye willed the others to follow suit. The Goliath might find them, even in this.

  The two who were still standing seemed about to jump when one of them looked down at the man who lay helpless on the deck. As the Saracen pulled clear they were still standing like statues outlined against the advancing fire, and then they were lost, and mercifully hidden in the smoke.

  Bouverie was biting his knuckles. `Oh my God ! Did you see that?’

  `No damage, sir!’ Erskine was on the bridge again, his eyes white in his smoke-blackened face. He seemed to notice Bouverie’s attitude of misery and despair as a man will recognise some sort of enemy. `Get a grip on yourself, Sub!’

  Chesnaye watched Fox bringing the ship back on course.: `He’s been doing well, Number One!’ he said quietly.

  `But it’s bad for the men, sir,’ Erskine persisted, as if repeating an old lesson. `Some of these reservists are sent to sea with nothing more than a brief idea of what’s happening.’

  Chesnaye dabbed his eyes and stared at him coldly. `You must learn not to measure a man’s worth by the amount of lace on his sleeve!’

  The cease-fire gongs sounded cheerfully through the smoke, and he added, `Go round the guns and tell them “Well done”.’

  He forgot Erskine as a stronger breeze pushed the smoke bank back across the convoy. Two merchantmen gone, and the escort depleted by an equal number. The enemy’s wounds were unimportant. You could only gauge your loss against their successes.

  When the smoke had rolled far astern the sky was again empty. There was even a slight breeze to fan the sweating faces of the men throughout the convoy. But the prowling Focke-Wulf was still nearby, and Chesnaye wondered what fresh hell lay in store across the deceptive horizon.