‘Come three degrees to starboard, Cox’n.’
‘Three degrees to starboard, sir…’
Gilchrist hunched over his wheel, eyes fixed on the magnetic compass. Aiming the boat aimed the torpedoes; to that extent—if the settings on the torpedo-sight were correct and the torpedoes ran correctly, it was his aim that decided whether you hit or missed. Newbolt stooping with his hands on the triggers, stooped so as to sight along the firing bar with its backsight and foresight, watching for the target’s stem—the flurry of white bow-wave—to cross that line of sight. In the moment of firing he’d shout ‘Fire both!’, and if this remote-control gear failed—through a failure of hydraulic pressure for instance—the men down there would use their mallets instead to hit the firing-pins; either way, detonating cordite impulse-charges to blast the fish out.
Dispensing with the glasses now. Six hundred yards’ range, he guessed.
‘Two degrees to port, Cox’n.’
He hoped his voice wasn’t as shaky as his hands were.
‘Two degrees to port, sir…’
Steering with that degree of accuracy wasn’t easy, with a flat-bottomed boat propelled by one wing engine in a moderately jumpy sea.
‘Starshell, sir!’
‘Yes—all right…’
Didn’t want to know. Wasn’t from these ships anyway: and—could wait… These moments called for intense concentration: second by second, with the white flare of bow-wave approaching from the right—which was the direction of that threatening spread of greenish light to be ignored for a few more seconds but on its own a bloody menace… seconds to go, and now every prospect of being spotted.
‘Damn…’
Turning away!
The leader foreshortening as he turned. His helm had to be hard over: and the other was following him round… A squawk from Kingsmill ended in a querying ‘—seen us?’
No they bloody well hadn’t—thank God…
‘Starboard wheel, Cox’n!’
Not with any idea of using torpedoes now, only to stay end-on, a smaller target. If they’d seen her they’d hardly have turned away: not even to comb torpedo-tracks, the short way would have been to turn towards. They’d also have opened fire—which he’d been half expecting, only praying to get the fish on their way before it happened… Gilchrist pushing the wheel over, looking up from the compass card now, a greenish pallor on his broad forehead and a glitter of it in his eyes—focusing on the spreading curve of the trawlers’ wakes and the diminishing grey shapes beyond it.
The starshell drawing them?
They’d turned that way—towards the action…
But still turning—not settling on any southward course. Nothing like.
‘Goin’ about, sir, ain’t they?’
Reversing course, that meant, heading back the way they’d come from. So—patrolling here, on an east-west beat, covering interception routes from the north? That probably was the answer. And too bloody late, chums. Late as well as blind.
Another shell sparked like a cigarette lighter in the sky, expanding to fill that sector with its weird light as the last one faded.
‘Midships.’
‘Midships, sir…’
These fish would do for the Heilbronne after all. Touch wood. If one hadn’t exhausted all one’s luck now: which one might well have… He told Kingsmill, ‘Secure the tubes, Tony.’ And the coxswain, ‘Steer to the right of the starshell.’ He still had his glasses on the trawlers—the smudgy vagueness of them that wouldn’t have been half as easy to spot if it hadn’t been for the green glow distantly beyond them. Most likely were patrolling: they’d steadied on about north seventy or seventy-five west, reciprocal of the course they’d been on before. Covering approach routes from anywhere on the south coast—Portsmouth, Portland… Towards Cap Levi, he guessed: anticipating westward movement by the Heilbronne and company.
‘Tony—get a position on and give me a course for halfway between Barfleur and Cap Levi.’ Picking that as a mark to aim for because one might assume the starshell would be roughly marking the location of the convoy now, and by the time he could get down there it would either be all over or several miles further west. Another factor was that after being shoved around by wind and sea for an hour or more one’s idea of present position wasn’t all that reliable; tidal stream would have changed too, setting westward instead of east.
‘Ship’s head now, Cox’n?’
‘South five degrees west, sir.’
‘Steer that.’ For the time being… Easing the throttle further open. ‘Mid?’
‘Sir?’
‘Ask Petty Officer Talbot whether there’s any prospect of getting another engine or two back—eventually. And if so, how long. Where’s Shaw?’
‘Wheelhouse, sir, fixing the R/T.’
‘All right.’ All he’d wanted to know—that the telegraphist was still working on it. Time now—2316.
* * *
From Stack’s gunboat they saw another green starshell break open up there—westward, ahead. There’d also been one or two inshore, on that bow. Radar had no contacts out that way as yet—had nothing that wasn’t in sight—and wouldn’t have picked up the MTBs at anything but close range anyway. Stack told Charlie Sewell’s stolid, mostly silent presence, ‘Come five degrees to port, Cox’n.’ He put his glasses up again—to port, the hazy, barely detectable smudge of an M-class minesweeper on this seaward side of the convoy. At present they had only this one and the two torpedo-boats in sight—sporadic sight, maximum visibility distance had it not been for the starshell, all of which was being put up by one of the T-class. The inshore one—Ben had seen a couple of the flashes as it had pooped them off. Now he, Stack, Barclay and probably the port-side lookout as well had binoculars probing the darkness around the sweeper, searching primarily for the Heilbronne but for other escorts too.
Before they saw you.
‘Bloody radar…’
Stack, growling to himself… Wheeler had reported that at any range beyond a couple of miles he was getting nothing but interference, and suspected there might be jamming.
Time—2319. Another enemy report, longer and more detailed had gone out to C-in-C Portsmouth. MGB 875 now running on both outers, with revs on to give her fifteen knots, and with the other two gunboats still in line astern of her. After the sighting of the two Torpedoboote he’d immediately hauled away to port, circling northward and right around, switching on radar at the same time and ending up at a distance where they weren’t visible all the time but on a course slightly convergent with theirs. Needing to know all he could about their disposition, as well as where the target was: and aware that he had only a few minutes in which to assess all this and then make his move—that he couldn’t hang around for ever, leaving Furneaux down there not knowing whether or when to make his move.
A click in the bridge loudspeaker, as he switched on the TCS voice-radio. Having made his mind up, Ben guessed.
‘Dogs Two and Three. Stand by. Quarterline starboard, execute. Over.’
Monkey’s Canadian rasp, then: ‘Dog Two, Roger. Out.’
‘Dog Three, Roger. Out.’ Ted Bland’s quiet, flat tone never varied. If he ever did get excited—or anxious—nobody would ever know it. His people were farmers, in Somerset. Ben remembered his own answer to a question of Rosie’s last night: ‘You get tense before it starts. Tight gut, all that…’ Feeling it now too, and remembering the feeling from way back, but recalling also that once the shooting started you did forget your gut or dry mouth or whatever else… Stack beginning again meanwhile, ‘Dogs Two and Three. I’ll challenge and then go for the nearer T-class. Give me a head-start, Monkey, then you and Ted cross astern of me and hit the sweeper. Then through the middle, do what you can and R/V a quarter-mile astern. Over.’
‘Roger, Topdog. Out.’
Ted Bland acknowledged too. Neither of them having to be reminded that they needed to get in there, do their stuff and then vamoose, fast, so as not to get in the way of the MT
Bs and restrict their ability to (a) manoeuvre, (b) fire torpedoes. Or that Stack’s order to ‘hit the sweeper’ implied any assurance of the enemy’s destruction or of one’s own survival. ‘Sweeper’ had a fairly harmless sound to it, but an ‘M’ had a four-point-one, one or two 37-mms and at least eight 20-mms. Could do a hell of a lot of harm… Ben could see the other gunboats already on their way out on to the quarter. From there, a turn to port and increase to full ahead should with luck take them across this boat’s wake and into hitting range before that sweeper knew much about it—especially with a good chance of 875 attracting most of the attention herself as she raced in towards the Torpedoboot, challenging at the same time.
There was no reason the deception shouldn’t work. Having the correct German challenge, and there being other enemy units at sea to confuse the issue. Those R-boats, for example.
Another starshell cracked open. Green candelabra to replace the short-lived moon. Not so good for Furneaux. The sooner Stack made his move, Ben thought, the better—to distract the escorts and disrupt that starshell activity, and with luck to start some fires to light up the MTBs’ target for them.
Moncrieff and Bland were in position. Stack turned from checking on them, lowering his glasses.
‘All engines half ahead. Revs for twenty-two knots. Ben—’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ He was on the spot to do it. ‘Telegraphs at half ahead.’ Barclay was at the sound-powered telephone talking to the gunners. To Harrison and Prout on the six-pounder for’ard, Tomkins backed up by Merriman on the port point-fives and ‘Banjo’ Bennet with ‘Soapy’ Leathers starboard, Michelson with Foster as loader on the Oerlikons and ‘Tiny’ Harper supported by Fenner on the six-pounder aft. All sweating a bit in their goon-suits, Ben guessed. Freezing cold down there, with spray as well as wind, but that didn’t have much to do with it. A T-class torpedo-boat wasn’t easy meat.
Revs building, all four engines. Dumbflows disconnected, obviously. Screws biting, 875’s forepart lifting. If you’d had lances they’d have been levelled, sabres drawn… Impacts through and over the waves like thumping heartbeats in her double-diagonal mahogany-planked hull. Stack shouted in his good ear, ‘Warn Bluett—shortly be ordering full ahead!’
The engineroom telephone, and thumbing the buzzer to draw attention to it: Bluett, PO Motor Mechanic, down there in bright light between the close-packed oil-gleaming masses of machinery, acknowledging the warning by passing it to his minions in a high, noise-piercing scream. While up here in the ice-cold blast of wind Stack bawled at the signalman, ‘If he challenges it’ll be a V, Victor, and the answer’s C, Charlie. If he doesn’t, we’ll challenge him with V Victor—when I say.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Clear-glass Aldis ready in his hands: eyes in the gap in his balaclava switching between the sweeper—which was abaft the beam now—and the much narrower, stern-on shape of the torpedo-boat.
They’d see this bow-wave and the hump of white water under her counter at any second. Should have already. Ben acknowledging to himself that what he’d said to Rosie about one’s gut feeling tight for a minute or two had been an understatement. Not a deliberate one—he’d forgotten, that was all. Looking back over the quarter, he saw that Monkey and Ted Bland were still holding their formation and had as yet no great display of white around them. Shifting to the sweeper, then—training right from there, in search of the elusive bloody Heilbronne. Still damn-all… But—at last—these had been much slower off the mark than they usually were—a white light was stuttering ‘V’ for Victor from the sweeper’s bridge.
‘Give him C, Charlie!’
They’d have been challenging—instead of the more usual procedure of putting up starshell and then letting rip—because they’d know there were other ships around. R-boats, for instance. Clack of the Aldis lamp… The challenge was being repeated: Miller following suit again. Stack was at the telegraphs wrenching them once back and forth for the engineroom’s attention, then jerking them to full ahead.
‘Alan, tell the guns—’
He broke off: the Torpedoboot was challenging now too. Miller on it at once: dash-dot, dash-dot. Stack resuming to Barclay, ‘Tell ’em we’ll engage bow-on, hit the guns on his stern, likely a 37-millimetre right aft and a four-point-one on the superstructure. Knock ’em both out. The other four-point-one’ll be on his foc’sl, he may turn to bring it to bear, which case that can be Michelson’s and Harper’s job. I’ll be turning to port, getting out of it damn quick before they get their eye in, so—quick on the draw, OK?’
To Sewell then, ‘Ten degrees to port, Cox’n. Let him think we’re steering to pass close.’
Astern, the others were making their move. Good timing, by Monkey. 875 up to about thirty knots now, Barclay shouting over the wire to the gunners. Jerries weren’t going to sit and watch this missile dashing in at them for long without smelling rats—recognition signal or no recognition signal. Fairly hurtling, wind in your face like flails. Everyone but him wearing tin hats, he realized, and shot down to get his own from the wheelhouse, eyes half-closed in the two seconds he was down there, to preserve night vision. Back up again: less than a minute had passed since the first challenge. Scrambling into the lunging, swaying bridge he heard gunfire, then Stack’s ‘Let ’em have it!’ and immediately the crash and flame of guns. Red and green tracer floating slowly up and then cracking over was what he’d heard for openers. He’d had the idea of taking over the starboard pair of Vickers here in the bridge, but with no more signalling to do Miller had got there first, had the guns unclamped and—this moment—cocked. They wouldn’t bear, anyway, until Stack turned her. Tracer was streaming over, quite a lot of it and blinding, although none seemed to be coming close. Yet. A theory was that the German gunners were given too much protection and tended to hide behind it. Also of course there was a lot to be said for having caught the bastards with their pants down. 875’s forward mountings were hard at it—the six-pounder and the two twin point-five turrets, one each side below the bridge’s forefront—at the corners of the wheelhouse, in fact; as he was seeing it from here their tracer seemed to be merging into one common point of impact. Highly effective, at that—if those were flames on the German’s stern… They were—he’d been blind for a moment but saw now that the after superstructure was on fire, those turrets continuing to pour their streams of high explosive, armour-piercing and incendiary into the blaze. Where the after four-point-one was and had either been silenced or deserted: blinding if you looked straight at it, and a mass of smoke rolling away down-wind, the guns’ individual sounds and rhythms drowned in one solid, continuous roar. Stink of cordite—and/or of that fire, you were down-wind of it—and the enemy was turning, as Stack had more or less predicted, coming round to starboard to bring that other gun to bear—as he plainly would, with the after one knocked out. Hits for’ard here now—37-mm probably, crashes down for’ard and something down there shattered, debris flying: Barclay was on his way down. Stack holding on, despite some evidence that they had got their eye in; the range was no more than about 300 yards, Ben reckoned. He’d seen what had looked like an explosion on the Torpedoboot’s forepart, starboard side, in these first seconds during which it had been exposed, Michelson was raking the German’s bridge with tracer and 20-mm explosive shells from his twin Oerlikons, and the after six-pounder was hard at it too, Harper hammering shell after shell into the midships superstructure from where a fair amount of 37-mm fire was coming. Or had been. There was a fire up for’ard where the explosion had occurred: and the German was turning back, starting a swing back to port. That had probably been a six-pounder hit amongst ammunition—on a ready-use locker maybe. Ben with even his bad ear ringing, but hearing Stack’s shout of ‘Hard a-port!’ To disengage—ninety seconds of it having been more than enough—and one didn’t know the worst yet. Disengaging mightn’t be so bad if Stack could hold her in dead astern—in effectively ‘dead ground’, with those stern guns knocked out. The gunboat heeling hard as she turned
, still under full rudder for as tight a turn as possible. Noise lessening significantly as the for’ard guns found themselves shut out of it; it was slackening aft too, as the range opened—astonishingly, with nothing shooting back at her now.
Bloody lucky. Ben was as much surprised as relieved at how well they’d got away with it—this far. Really, bloody lucky… With the range opening fast—and the Torpedoboot skipper doubtless with his hands full, fighting at least one fire, also probably with heavy casualties.
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