by Alan Evans
The supply dump was ranked piles of crates and sacks and tin containers, all in among the trees and under the sagging roofs of camouflage nets. He moved in a narrow lane that ran through the dump, stumbling over the bodies of men, other panting, running men on either side of him. There was firing all around the dump, a continuous harsh rattle of musketry and now and again the thump of a grenade and the smell of it caught at the throat. Inside the confines of the wood, in the narrow lanes was bedlam. The battalion was not shouting now —there was a different accent to the yelling all about him. The Germans were fighting as always. They had been surprised in the night, finding their attackers upon them and not knowing who those attackers were nor whence they came, but still they fought. The flares burnt, the bayonets flickered. Smith, feeling remote, an onlooker, saw more than most and he only retained a memory of charging, clashing figures, of men fighting hand to hand, even wrestling on the earth. Of a man charging huge out of the darkness, bayonet uplifted like a sword and Buckley stepping in to beat him down with the butt of the rifle. Taggart turning to face Smith, lifting his rifle and firing, it seemed, directly at him but in fact at the Unter-offizier coming up behind him. He fell on Smith and Taggart and Buckley dragged him out from under the German’s deadweight.
Running on under the spectral light of the flares. A blank-eyed private of the battalion crouching in the way, long bayonet pointed at Smith, who croaked, “Dauntless!” The bayonet swung away and ahead were trees with barbed wire dangling. This was the far perimeter of the dump and he had passed through to it. He stood in the wreckage of the guards’ bivouac, the canvas of the tents trampled underfoot.
He realised it was over. The firing had ceased and voices called all about him but the accents were Cockney or Yorkshire, Welsh or Glasgow Scots. Taggart showed at Smith’s side and said huskily, “Well, we’ve done it.”
They had taken the dump and were astride the railway line to Gaza and Beersheba.
9 — Dawn Patrols
The changed Pearce had demanded and got from Admiral Braddock two hundred Egyptian labourers to shift the coal and stores in Blackbird from starboard to port, listing the ship so that the shell-hole in the hull was clear of the water. Blacksmiths and engineers from the army worked with Blackbird’s crew, ripping a plate from her deck and fitting it as another unsightly but more seaworthy patch on her side. They took aboard fuel for the Shorts and bombs that Pearce begged from the Royal Flying Corps. They wondered what drove him. He kept them all hard at it because Smith had said, “I’ll need you.” The flying personnel he sent ashore with orders to sleep and they too obeyed him. Even little Maitland’s excitement surrendered to the accumulated fatigue of weeks and he slept like the dead in the tent the army gave him.
Pearce brought them off an hour before dawn and Blackbird sailed in the night, heading north at full speed. She only slowed to bring the three remaining Shorts out of the hangar and launch them. At first light their wings were spread and they were hoisted out. Kirby was the first pilot away with Burns of the Rajputs as his observer. Then Rogers and Maitland in Delilah and last was Beckett with one of the riggers called Phillips, chosen from a dozen volunteers, in the rear cockpit as his observer. With barely a minute between them and heavy with bombs they laboured across the sea and lifted slowly, climbing and heading north. Pearce had told them: “Reconnoitre the railway and the dump at Lydda and note any damage. Then look for Dauntless off the mouth of the Auja river.”
*
Lieutenant Harry Petersen was in the little wheelhouse of the submarine-chaser, sleeping in the old deckchair wedged into one corner, with his feet propped up on the screen and his cap tipped forward over his eyes. When the hand gently shook his shoulder he came awake, tipped back the cap and squinted up into the round young face of Ensign Cleeve, who said softly, “Starting to get light, sir.”
Petersen pushed up out of the deckchair, stretching and yawning as he stepped up beside the quartermaster at the wheel to peer at the compass. He saw their course was north-west by north, looked up and narrowed his eyes to penetrate the darkness. There was just a hint of grey in that darkness now. Cleeve said, “Maroc three cables on the starboard bow, sir.”
Petersen grunted, made out the shadowy bulk of the old French battleship as she plodded steadily across the mouth of the Gulf six hundred yards to starboard and ahead of the chaser, saw her against the lighter sky of the eastern horizon. Somewhere beyond that horizon the sun was lifting behind the Amanus mountains and soon its rays would be sweeping over the Gulf and out across the sea. It would be lighter already far up the Gulf where Walküre and the freighter lay. The R.E.8 sent out from Cyprus on patrol the previous evening had flown low over Maroc and the chaser as it came out from the Gulf, signal lamp flickering as it reported that Walküre showed no sign of getting up steam, no sign of fires at all, and the freighter still had the staging hung over her stern, there were still divers working. The R.E.8 had finished, “See you tomorrow. Good night!” And buzzed away home to the westward.
Cleeve asked, “Do you think we’ll see some action today, sir?”
Petersen thought about it. That new French battleship, Ocean, coming up from Malta might be here by noon, and the cruiser Attack would certainly arrive before the day was out but they would be just another bolt on the door. Really they were all waiting for the transport to turn up with the M.A.S. boats that were able to slip into the Gulf and over the minefields with their electric motors. Walküre would defend herself of course, but even if she was successful she’d know her time was limited. Then she might come out and make a fight of it.
He said slowly, “Not today. And when she does come out we’ll only be looking on.” He explained with weary patience to the puzzled and disappointed Cleeve, “Because this bucket hasn’t even got a torpedo. She’s anti-submarine, remember? Besides, Walküre is flying Turkish colours and is technically a Turkish warship and the U.S. isn’t at war with Turkey. So we’ll have to sit back and watch because that’ll be somebody else’s ball-game.” He finished, “But anyhow, you’ll have a grandstand seat when that comes off in a day or two.” Then he asked, “Anything from Maroc?”
“No, sir.”
Petersen growled. “I don’t like getting all my information second-hand and in some Frenchman’s American.” The chaser’s wireless was only a tactical set for manoeuvring; its range barely five miles.
The light was growing now and Petersen could make out details of Maroc’s rigging, see her as a three-dimensional ship and not a shadow cut out of the greater darkness of the night. The sea was calm and quiet now, there was no wind and hardly a ripple on the surface of the black water except for those from Maroc’s bow and the white water at her stern ...
“Torpedo running across the bow to starboard!” The port look-out yelled, pointing out into the dark.
Petersen lunged forward to glare out over the bow, eyes frantically searching the sea as he shouted, “Action stations! Submarine!” and hit the button of the hooter that blared through the little ship. That was when he saw the line of foam drawn across the sea ahead of the chaser and running towards Maroc. He bawled at the crew of the 3-inch gun on the fore-deck. “Fire!” He pointed out to port. “At any damn thing!”
They’d have hell’s own job to hit a U-boat even if they saw it out there, but that wasn’t the point. The gun would draw the eyes of Maroc’s look-outs so they might see the torpedo’s track. But Petersen had a sick feeling that even if they did it would be too late now for Maroc to do anything about it. He snapped at the quartermaster, “Hard over left rudder!” And to the rating at the telegraph: “Full ahead!” As the chaser’s head came around he swung out of the wheelhouse to hang from one hand clamped on the doorframe as his eyes searched back along the torpedo’s track, seeking its point of origin.
He ordered, “Meet her! Steer that!” He could see no periscope, no U-boat, just a point on the black sea where the line of bubbles had begun and somewhere there lay the submarine that fired the torpedo. He
saw young Cleeve dashing aft to the Y-gun, so called because it was shaped like a Y, its arms able to throw a depth-charge out on either side of the chaser.
They were coming to the beginning of the torpedo track and he turned to bawl at Cleeve, “Fire!” The depth-charges shot up and out over the side to plummet into the sea as another slid over the stern. The crew of the Y-gun were re-loading as Petersen told the quartermaster, “Hard right rudder!” The chaser’s head started to swing, he was watching for the explosion of the depth-charges saw the sea erupt.
The flash came to starboard of them, from Maroc, a leaping, soaring flame that lit the sea and reached high into the sky, that seared the eye. Blast snatched the cap from Petersen’s head and punched him in the chest, almost tore him from his hold on the doorframe.
Then the sound of the explosion came, not so much a sound as a blow to the ears. As the flame had blinded them so the explosion deafened. But vision returned so that Petersen could see Maroc burning in half-a-dozen places along her hull — but there were two hulls now. The middle had been blasted out of the battleship as her magazines blew up and now her bow and stern stuck up separately and ever more steeply from the sea as they burned and sank. The stern went down with a rush even as Petersen watched, horrified.
He ran his hand through his hair and ordered hoarsely, “Midships!” Because the chaser had turned and was tearing down to pass over the place where the U-boat was, or must have been. Water still boiled where the three depth-charges had exploded but there was no debris, nothing. He turned to see Cleeve at the Y-gun on the fantail, his mouth gaping as he stared at the destruction of Maroc. Petersen yelled at him, “Fire! Damn you, Mr. Cleeve! Fire!”
The Y-gun lobbed the depth charges wide over the stern of the chaser. They exploded, hurling water at the sky and Petersen looked for a trace of oil, of the U-boat but there was nothing. He swung back to stare again at Maroc and this time the blast from her plucked him loose from his hold on the doorframe and sent him sprawling across the deck. The four men crewing the 3-inch gun forward joined him in a heap, one of them with his nose bleeding from that blast. The flash had been even brighter than before, their ears rang. The chaser swerved as the pressure thrust at her and the quartermaster was thrown across the wheelhouse, then clawed his way back to the wheel. The bow, all that was left of Maroc had blown up, disintegrated and disappeared in that one monstrous, flaming explosion. The sea was empty and dark again now and the chaser the only ship on it.
But not alone.
Petersen was well aware of that as he climbed to the wheelhouse again. Somewhere below the surface lay the submarine that had sunk Maroc without leaving a solitary survivor — he knew no man could have survived those terrible explosions. He had dropped six depth-charges without result. He was on a cold trail now, with the U-boat creeping further away with every second. He had an ever-increasing and already huge area of sea to search and no matter how many depth-charges he dropped now, his chances of a hit were tiny and shrinking steadily.
Only one tactic remained. He ordered quietly, “Hard left rudder!”
The chaser’s head came around until she was headed out to sea and her stern to the growing light over the waters of the Gulf and he looked at the compass and said, “Steer due west.” So they ran away from the Gulf and the light until, at Petersen’s order, speed was reduced to a near walking pace of five knots when they were a mile to the westward of the sunken Maroc, and then turned again to steer due east. He was speaking very quietly now and all of the boat was hushed as the look-outs stood silent with the glasses to their eyes and the chaser crept back across the sea towards the Gulf with her engines barely ticking over and only a ripple at her bow.
Petersen said, “Keep a good look-out all around.” He thought this was a long shot and a manoeuvre that could only work, if it worked at all, just the once. The light was growing fast and flooding out across the sea from the Gulf of Alexandretta. In minutes it would be all around them, but it was not around them yet. The chaser crept in over a still-dark sea: the night was behind her and she was showing no blaze of white at bow or stern. And she was not a big boat, hardly better than a motor-launch and low in the water, surely hidden by the darkness.
He sensed someone beside him and turned to see Cleeve standing by the wheelhouse steps. Cleeve asked softly, almost whispering as the hush aboard subdued his voice as it subdued all of them. “D’ye think the bastard’s still there, sir?”
Petersen said, “Maybe.” It was no better a chance than that. He went on, “He knows he hit the bull’s-eye because he felt those explosions but without looking he doesn’t know whether he’s sunk her or not. He hasn’t heard a depth-charge for better than ten minutes so maybe he’ll think we’ve gone home, or gone to assist if the battleship is still afloat or to look for survivors. So it might be worth coming up for just one quick look. There might be another sinking in it if we’ve stopped to pick men out of the sea.”
Cleeve said, “I see.” He licked his lips and started, “Sir —”
Petersen continued, “Of course, he might have worked all this out and then gone a stage further and be out there to port or starboard now, lying stopped and waiting for us to come on to a bearing so he can fire his fish.”
Young Cleeve swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“Which is why I ordered a good look-out kept all round, though I shouldn’t have to, even with a bunch of half-assed soldiers like these.”
The quartermaster grinned faintly and Cleeve returned his grin behind Petersen’s back. “No, sir.”
Petersen said, glasses set to his eyes and still now, “Port five ... steady.” And: “She’s dead ahead an’ a half-mile away.” He heard Cleeve scampering aft to his post at the Y-gun, watched through the glasses the slender, stick-like periscope standing out of the sea with the smallest feather of white water at its base as the submarine moved slowly ahead, the chaser trailing it. He asked casually, “Got it?”
The voice of the layer on the 3-inch gun came back across the quiet deck: “Right.” He waited for the order to fire but Petersen did not give it. The chaser slipped on slowly, still at that creeping five knots, and the gunlayer with the periscope of the U-boat big and clear and steady in his sights was certain she must see them.
But Petersen knew differently. The periscope stood against the growing light while the chaser was still out in the darkness with the night behind her. So he waited as the look-outs stood rigidly with their glasses all trained on the periscope now, as Ensign Cleeve chewed at his lip and the gunlayer sweated and swore under his breath as he carefully inched around the wheel that laid the gun, bringing down the barrel as the range steadily shortened, keeping the sight laid on that white feather of water where the periscope cut the sea.
Then Petersen snapped, “Fire!” And: “Full ahead!”
The layer and the engineer were both ready. The gun slammed and the shell fell just short of the periscope or hit it, Petersen saw the water kicked up and hiding the periscope. When the water fell the sea was empty but the gun was loaded again, fired. The chaser was working up speed now and almost on top of the U-boat. Cleeve shrieked at his crew and once more the Y-gun hurled depth-charges over the side, another dropped over the stern and as they exploded Petersen set the chaser turning, lining her up to run in again.
That was when the U-boat came wallowing to the surface off the starboard beam, her bow down, stern high and listing over so her bottom nearly showed. The 3-inch fired before Petersen’s order, slamming a shell into the black hull. Petersen threw at the quartermaster, “Hard right rudder!” He wanted to circle around the U-boat in easy range of the chaser’s 3-inch gun and machine-guns. He told the men who manned them, “Lay on the conning-tower and fire as soon as anybody shows.” Because the U-boat carried forward of the conning-tower a bigger gun than the 3-inch and she could not be allowed to use it to make a gunfight of this.
The 3-inch was punching holes in the steel skin of the submarine and she listed further so he could see
into the conning-tower as it lay over towards him. A man crouched in the hatch with the cover held open above his head and Petersen was not the only one who saw that. The machine-guns chattered and the hatch-cover slammed down. Then the 3-inch took its cue from the machine-guns, shifted its point of aim to the conning-tower and shells burst on and around the hatch, penetrating the side of the tower, exploding in there.
The submarine was still listing, the hatch under water now and sinking further. The conning-tower disappeared as she capsized and lay there briefly, bottom up, as the 3-inch fired into her again and again, until she slid below the surface for the last time with the oil running from her like blood from a wound, a death wound. When she had gone and there was only the oilstain to show where she had been, only then did the gun cease firing. Its crew stood around grinning a little foolishly and a little uncertainly. They had not sunk a U-boat before, not many people had, so they did not have a precedent to guide them as to behaviour. And Petersen was no help because he was not smiling, not looking particularly pleased that his command had sunk a U-boat. Men had died. That they were Germans no longer seemed to matter.
He ordered, “Secure that gun. Steer east-north-east. We’ll look for any survivors from Maroc.”
They were as certain as he that it was a fruitless quest but it was undertaken for the record and in case of a miracle. So the crew of the gun turned to quietly and there was no celebration aboard the U.S. Submarine-chaser No. 101, which had just sunk her first submarine and so gloriously justified her existence. She ran down on the patch of flotsam that spread across the surface of the sea and marked the grave of Maroc.