“Spot on.” They’d dived her on the watch, without disturbing the first lieutenant’s slumbers. “If you don’t believe me, come and find a fault in it.”
“In a minute.” With dividers, he was checking the boat’s projected advance into the straits. Allowing for three knots, it would be four hours— this watch and the next—before dell’Armi was abeam, and Ultra would then still be as much as five miles offshore. So for the duration of his watch there’d be a lot of space in all directions. He mumbled as he turned into the control room, “Only feels like about ten minutes since we were last here.”
It sounded as if he wasn’t all that happy to be back. He’d brighten up, though, quite soon. He checked the trim, then had a look round through the periscope. Pushing the handles up, he nodded.
“All right, I’ve got it … Morning, cox’n.” CPO Logan glanced round from the after planes. “Morning, sir.” He looked grumpy, too. Paul grinned as he left them, heading for some sleep before breakfast. All the new watch had the same bug-eyed look: you felt superior to them, being wide awake and with the prospect of getting your own head down—then breakfast and some more bunk time …
For all the roughness up top, twenty-eight feet underneath the surface it was rock-steady, warm and comfortable. And quiet, except for some fairly raucous snoring in the wardroom. Not sure who was doing it, Paul glanced first towards Ruck’s bunk—but Ruck was awake, open-eyed, looking straight back at him. He murmured, “Not me, Sub. Must be our tame West Highlander.”
“Ah.” Closer observation confirmed it. Paul said, “What they mean by the skirl of the pipes, perhaps.” He sat down to pull his shoes off. Ruck asked quietly, “Am I right in thinking he’s getting over it?”
The RAF brother, Ruck meant. And there were times when McClure did seem to be getting back to his little old happy self. Paul nodded. “He’s not over it exactly, sir, but he’s getting to live with it.”
He climbed on to his bunk. Six-thirty. Hour and a half’s snooze now …
He wondered what might have happened to Unslaked. Where Hewson might be at this moment. It wasn’t a good subject on which to allow the imagination much rope. But he and Hewson had been on the submarine training class together, up at Blyth in Northumberland, and they’d met again in the depot ship Forth in Holy Loch when both submariners had been doing their work-up and trials before sailing for the Mediterranean. Unslaked had come out a month before Ultra to join the Malta flotilla, and the Palermo patrol would have been about her seventh.
He didn’t want to go on thinking about it. But there was a sense almost of obligation to, of wrongness in just cutting friends out of mind— OK, they’ve had it, forget them …
Breakfast was soya links—canned, skinless sausages—with canned tomatoes. Paul had acquired a taste for them, and he had a double helping because McClure ate only bread and jam before sloping away to take over the watch. Wykeham told Ruck when he came through, “That seaplane hasn’t been back in the last half-hour or so.”
“Good.”
Paul asked, “Seaplane?”
“A Cant, as usual. Frigging around for most of my watch, while you were in dreamland … Who ate Bob’s links?”
“I did.”
“Greedy bastard.”
“Anything on the surface?”
“Only the usual small fry. Nowhere near us, anyway … Pass the sugar, would you?”
McClure appeared, when Shaw was clearing the plates away in his strange juggler’s fashion, to tell Ruck that two A/S schooners were coming south through the straits. “Right ahead, sir, and coming towards.”
“No transmissions, I suppose?”
“No, sir.”
The schooners didn’t seem to possess asdics, only hydrophones. They’d drift along virtually in silence, listening. But there could always be an exception to the rule. Ruck followed McClure into the control room, and from the wardroom they heard the periscope go up. Then a long silence. You heard the log ticking, and the hum of one motor at its slowest speed, and occasional movements of the watchkeepers. Finally—”Down … Port ten.”
“Port ten, sir.” Periscope hissing down. “Ten of port wheel on, sir.”
Ruck told McClure, “Steady her on 270, pilot.” He came back and sat down. “We’ll let ‘em go by, then turn north again.”
Paul turned in. Dozing, he half woke when McClure came to announce that the schooners had passed astern, and Ruck told him to bring her back to the course of 350 degrees. Then—he didn’t know how long afterwards—McClure was reporting that the seaplane had returned; it was patrolling to and fro across the straits ahead of them.
“Keep an eye on it, pilot, and don’t show too much stick.”
Wykeham commented, yawning from his bunk, “Could mean something’s coming through.”
“It could.” Ruck qualified the agreement: “And it could mean damn all.”
Paul drifted into sleep again, vaguely aware that it might not be very long before it would be interrupted by an invitation to turn out and stand a watch. It was the process of turning out that one disliked, the effort of throwing off the soporific influence of the dived submarine’s peace and quiet. The actual watchkeeping, deep inside enemy waters as Ultra was here, was rather fascinating. There were usually a few small craft about, and you were aware all the time that a target of importance could show up at any moment: every time you poked the periscope up into the daylight, there could be something there, and the element of uncertainty contributed to one’s enjoyment.
He came awake with that word and concept in his head. Enjoyment?
That session of depthcharging during the last patrol had been anything but enjoyable. And the probability that Unslaked had been sunk was hideous. Yet one did, still, enjoy …
He’d mentioned it in a letter which he’d written to his father, three days ago on the harbour bottom. I truly do find this job fascinating. It could be partly because the guys I’m with are such a terrific bunch—the whole crowd, I mean, all Shrimp S’s people, not just my own lot. Which reminds me, your old friend Shrimp told me to give you his warm regards, and he’s keen to get news of you …
“Shrimp’s people” being a paraphrase for “the 10th Flotilla,” a way of getting past the censors’ rules.
He thought of a line in the letter from his mother: I hope you’re not taking any silly risks—
“Captain in the control room! Diving stations!”
Lightning evacuation—led by Ruck, a short head in front of Wykeham. Paul made it too, to the other side of the fruit machine before the rush arrived from for’ard. McClure was telling Ruck excitedly, “U-boat, on green two-oh!”
The periscope slid up into his hands as he lifted them. He asked McClure, “Where’s the Cant?”
“Went out of sight northward, sir.”
Wykeham was fighting the trim as the shift of weights upset it. Ruck snarling, “Keep her up, for God’s sake!” Circling, checking all round, then finding and settling on the target … “Starboard fifteen. Stand by one, two and three tubes. Start the attack. Bearing is—that. Range—that. I am—forty-five on his starboard bow.”
Pool had read off the range and bearing and the periscope was shooting down. Paul had been expecting cruisers, or a battleship …
“Forty feet, group up, full ahead together.”
“Enemy course one-three-oh, sir!”
And the range was 4300 yards. More than two miles. Hence the turn to starboard and the extra speed, going deep so that speed wouldn’t show up as a flurry on the surface, in order to get in closer, close the range on the target’s track.
“Course for a 120 track, Sub?”
Paul cranked the dials round. Ultra nosing deeper and turning to starboard. He told Ruck, “Oh-seven-oh, sir.”
“Steer oh-seven-oh.”
“Turbine HE port bow, four hundred revs, sir …”
Ruck stared at Newton, thinking about that. He made his mind up. “Set enemy speed fifteen.”
“Fifteen�
��set—”
“Both motors full ahead grouped up, sir.”
Ruck motionless near the periscope, with his eyes on the stopwatch in his palm.
“Forty feet, sir.”
Three minutes passed, feeling more like ten.
“Group down, slow together. Twenty-eight feet.”
Flow of acknowledgements; the depthgauge needles began to circle again, and vibration faded as the power fell off. Ruck looked at Quinn: “Up.” He asked Newton, “Bearing now?”
“Red five-oh, sir.”
He had the periscope set on that bearing before he put his eyes to it. Then adjusting by a degree or two … The height of the waves would make target-spotting less easy, when the target was as low as a submarine. “Bearing—that. Range—that. I’m now sixty on his bow.”
Whipping round, looking for the seaplane; then he’d pushed the handles up, and stepped back.
“Forty feet, group up, full ahead.” Another burst to get in where he’d stand a chance of hitting. “No zigzag, anyway. He’s in too much of a hurry to get down to the convoy, I dare say.”
The range had been 3700 yards that time. Still not much less than two miles. McClure suggested, “Enemy speed looks like sixteen knots, sir.”
Ruck nodded. “Set sixteen. What’s my DA?”
He’d adjusted the speed setting. He lined the dials up, and reported, “Twenty-three degrees, sir.”
Wykeham murmured, “Forty feet, sir, both motors full ahead grouped up.”
“Very good.” Ruck was timing it with the stopwatch again. Ultra quivering as the speeding screws forced her through the water. One minute … One and a half … Ruck looked up: “Group down, slow together. Twenty-eight feet. Stand by one, two and three tubes. Target bearing, Newton?”
“Red three-two, sir!”
Nine degrees of travel by the U-boat, then, and Ruck’s firing-angle would be on. He gestured for the periscope, as the boat rose towards the surface. Nine degrees extended over that range still gave the target quite a distance to run. Thirty-five feet; thirty-two; thirty …
“Stand by.” He set the periscope on the aim-off angle of twenty-three degrees to port, and Chief ERA Pool leaned over to hold it on that bearing. You could think of the enemy submariners: feeling safe— smoking, chatting, sleeping, writing letters to their girlfriends … Ruck hunched at the periscope, waiting for the U-boat’s bow to touch the vertical hairline in the lens. It would still be a very long-range shot, at so small a target.
“Fire one!”
A lurch, and a jump in pressure.
“Fire two!”
The same again. Newton reported, “Both torpedoes running, sir.”
“Fire three!” He slammed the handles up. “Dip it.” A glance at Paul:
“What’s the running time for 3000 yards?”
“Two and a quarter minutes, sir.”
The dipped periscope returned like a yo-yo to Ruck’s waiting hands. His eyes at the lenses glowed greenish from the bright reflection of the sea—because of the dim lights here under it …Watching, Paul saw Ruck’s face change, heard the sudden intake of breath.
“Damn …”
Sharp concern in all the faces round him. Wykeham turning too, uncharacteristically diverting his attention from the trim. Ruck muttered, “Turned his bloody arse to us!” Then, scowling, switching to low power for an air search and swinging leftward: circling on rapidly. Muttering to himself, “And the flaming seaplane’s …” Slamming the handles up. “Down. Sixty feet. Starboard fifteen.” He shook his head, disbelieving the rotten luck. The periscope was whistling down, flashing yellow, seawater dribbles shiny in the grease on it.
Wykeham’s acknowledgement of Ruck’s order was quiet, clipped: “Sixty feet, sir.”
“HE astern, sir—reciprocating. It’s—transmitting, sir …”
“Heard it, have you?” Ruck glanced angrily at Newton. “I’ve seen it.” His glare shifted. “Stop starboard.”
“Sounds like”—Newton gulped, his Adam’s apple wobbling— “trawler, sir. Bearing drawing right—”
“It is a trawler.” Ruck told him, “And there’s another out beyond it.”
“Starboard motor stopped, sir.”
“Steer two hundred degrees.”
Southward—but also out into the middle, where they’d been before. Wykeham reported, “Sixty feet, sir.” Creagh took the rudder-angle off as the ship’s head swung through due south. Ruck asked Newton, “Trawler bearing now?”
Explosion. Distant, muffled-sounding. Probably one of the three torpedoes hitting the bottom or a rock. Newton paused before answering Ruck’s last question: and that crash would have put the enemy on his toes, all right … “Green seven-six, sir, transmitting and drawing right.” Blinking …”There’s another one, long way off, green six-four.” He licked his lips. “Sir, this set—”
“Course two-oh-oh, sir.”
Ruck told them, “The seaplane was diving right over us. It may have seen the torpedo tracks, or the actual firing. Must have come out of cloud. But if the U-boat was following around the coastline”—he was addressing Wykeham, now—”that’s about where it would have turned. My own fault for just assuming it had to be heading south.”
Torpedoes were precious. When each one had to be brought through to Malta at considerable risk and effort, wasting them really hurt. Most of them came by the “magic carpet,” larger types of submarine acting as supply runners, bringing also aviation spirit in their ballast tanks.
CPO Logan muttered, “Can’t win ‘em all, sir.”
Silence. Motor-hum, log clicking away, and the slighter clicks as Newton trained his asdics round. Ruck said, “You’re right, cox’n. Unfortunately.” He asked Newton, “Where are they?”
“Green one-two-five, sir. Second one’s on the same bearing but more distant. Both drawing right still.”
He thought about it for a moment. Then: “One hundred feet.”
“Hundred feet, sir …”
“And we’ll go to watch diving. Don’t use the Tannoy—pass the word I want dead quiet … Sub, don’t drop any spanners while you’re reloading those tubes, but do it like greased lightning. All right?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“And I want to know as each tube’s loaded.”
In case the process of reloading had to be interrupted, if a target appeared. Putting that U-boat out of mind, remembering they were here to intercept surface forces … Paul said, “We’ll load number three first, sir. It’ll be the quickest, and you’ll have three and four available.”
Number four tube hadn’t been fired. Number three was the starboard lower one, and it was quicker to reload because for the upper pair you had to rig heavy horizontal bars across the compartment so the fish could be slid out sideways from the racks and then hauled across them into the tubes. The bars had to be set up at deck level for the lower pair as well, but it was a simpler, quicker job. CPO Gaffney had the bow-caps shut and the tubes drained down while the compartment was being cleared of hammocks and kitbags; then the bars—T-sectioned girders—were fixed in place and the hauling tackle laid out, from the rear end of the tube to the tail-end of the torpedo, and number three reload was manoeuvred out and lined up with the tube—which was empty by this time, with its rear door open, ready to receive it. Six torpedomen’s weight on the block and tackle had the two-ton missile sliding forward, pausing at one stage for Gaffney to remove the safety-chock from behind its firing-lever. When the fish was fired, that lever in the top of its body would be knocked back by a projection in the top of the tube, sending twin hammers down on charges like shotgun cartridges that fired the engine: so the torpedo’s two concentric propellers would be racing at the same time as a charge of high-pressure air punched it out into the sea.
Ready again: Gaffney as cheer-leader intoned, “Two-six, heave!”The torpedo slid home into the tube, and before the rear door was shut Gaffney removed the clamp from its propellers. Paul reported to Ruck by messenger that three and fo
ur tubes were loaded. The bars were being shifted meanwhile to shoulder height, the level of the upper racks and tubes, and the tackle swiftly overhauled, ready for number one tube’s reload.
The whole job took thirty-five minutes. It was probably a record. Paul climbed aft over the mountain of gear piled in the gangway, and reported to Ruck that all tubes were loaded. Ruck glanced at the clock, and raised an eyebrow. “Not bad, Sub.” He was in the control room, and Wykeham was at the trim. It was eleven-twenty, halfway through what should have been Paul’s watch.
“Take over, shall I?”
Wykeham glanced enquiringly at Ruck. Ruck ordered, “Twenty-eight feet.” He told Paul, “We’ve got what sound like four trawlers up there at the moment. Just wait a minute.”
Paul wondered what Newton had been about to say about the asdic set, an hour or so ago. Presumably it hadn’t been anything important. He went into the wardroom, and sat down. McClure grumbled, “Bastards are all over the place. And they know we’re around.”
They’d at least suspect a submarine was present, after that explosion. And if the Cant had been right overhead when Ultra had fired those torpedoes, they’d have an idea where she was. Or anyway, where she had been … He heard Ruck’s voice from the control room: “Up periscope.” And Wykeham’s reporting,”Twenty-eight feet, sir.” He’d be using the small after periscope, with so many hunters up there on the surface. Paul heard the slither as it rose, then the soft thump of it stopping. That was the one with the leaky gland that had been fixed in Malta. A minute ticked by in silence while he visualized the periscope’s top end, not much thicker than a walking-stick, cutting through tumbling, whitened sea.
“Down.”Then: “Starboard fifteen.” More periscope activity: he must have shifted to the big one. Another minute passed before that one was hissing down.
“Fifteen of starboard wheel on, sir.”
“Steer oh-two-oh … Forty feet, Number One.”
The course of 020 degrees, twenty degrees east of north, would take them up towards the straits again. Ruck’s voice was audible as he told
Wykeham, “One pair of trawlers is to the east of us, and the other’s southwest. Bags of room up north of them.” He came through to the wardroom. “All right, Sub, you can take over now.”
A Share of Honour: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 4 Page 22