by John Wingate
“Yes, sorr; how did you guess, sorr?” replied the black-haired Irishman, grinning all over his open face, “But there’s veg with it tonight, sorr; fresh veg!” and he disappeared into the galley. A few seconds later, in he came, bearing some limp lettuce leaves which looked like brown paper.
“There ye are, sorr! The red lights don’t ’arf make it look nice, don’t it, sorr?” asked O’Riley with an expressionless face, eyes glued to the revolting lettuce leaves. “Shall I bring in the soup, sorr?”
“No, hold on a minute.”
“Very good, sorr. Would ye like…?”
His conversation remained unfinished, as the deafening hootings of the klaxons rent the air.
O’Riley dived into the Control Room. The First Lieutenant, pulling the tablecloth with him, hurtled past Peter. Peter heaved himself up and rushed to man the Fruit Machine. Past him, men moved swiftly fore and aft to their diving stations. The planesmen yanked at their wheels, the main vents flooded open above their heads as the rumble of the diesels died away.
The clanging of the brass telegraphs still rang in the air. The hands of the Outside E.R.A. snaked over the ‘panel’ like lightning, as he tugged at the levers. Thunk! Thunk! went the main vents, opening overhead and allowing the water to rush in.
With a lurch, the boat took up a steep bow-down angle, causing Peter to hold on to the Fruit Machine, while two overall-clad lookouts tumbled out from the canvas hood and made their way silently for’d. A faint clang in the conning tower echoed from above.
“First clip on!” hailed the Captain’s incisive voice from the darkness — “eighty feet!”
The competent figure of Number One faced the depth gauges, one hand on his left hip, whilst, with the other, he flipped the knurled knob of the pump order instrument: 25 … 28 … 30 … 35 … 45 feet.
“Blow ‘Q’,” snapped the First Lieutenant. A hiss and a roar followed as the high-pressure air blew out ten tons of water, the tank venting its foul air directly into the compartment.
At sixty-five feet two distant jolts were felt by all on board.
“That’s that!” said the Captain. “Junkers 88, wasn’t it, Pilot?” he asked Hickey who had preceded him down the conning tower ladder.
“I thinks so, sir.”
“We’ll give him the routine fifteen minutes, Number One, and then I’ll surface. It looks as if they will be ready for us off Benghazi, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Number One.
“Rommel wants every gallon of petrol and every round of ammunition he can get at the moment,” the Captain continued, “but I wonder which way the square heads will be driving this time?”
They were to know at dawn.
The battle that was to be one of the turning points of the Second World War was as yet unfought. General Alexander had not yet come to grips with Rommel and both sides were sparring for the final death grapple at Alamein.
Rommel’s Afrika Korps, the crack corps of the German Army, nominally supported by Mussolini’s hordes, was building up its strength to fight its way through to Alexandria. From thence their objectives were Suez and India, where the Japanese were knocking at the gates. One more shove and Rommel would be through.
But before he struck, he had to have more petrol, more guns and ammunition. Shipped in convoys which sailed from Naples and Palermo, the only way in which these essentials could be delivered was by sea. Heavily escorted, the shipping would steam at full speed down the narrow funnel to Tunis, a channel heavily mined on either side.
The convoys would then be reorganised, the smaller coasters and tankers being sent round Cape Bon and along the North African coast to Tripoli and Benghazi, coast-hugging all the way.
And that is where ‘The Fighting Tenth’ appeared on the scene — they struck along the whole route from Naples to Benghazi.
At dawn, a small, blue submarine slithered beneath the shallow waters off the low-lying coast of Tripolitania. Her intended landfall was a small port named Burat-el-Sun which was being used to full capacity by the Hun to unload his precious petrol supplies. Submarines, small tankers, and anything capable of floating were ferrying the precious liquid to the Afrika Korps.
Just before diving, the Captain had taken a star sight with his sextant. The low-lying coast was still invisible to the bridge personnel, the bridge being only some twelve feet above the waterline, and so their position was doubtful.
On diving, it was the navigator’s duty to work out the calculation of the sight and, thereby, to determine the boat’s position. It was a task that took some twenty minutes of careful working. Crouched over the minute chart table in the Control Room, Hickey was still labouring away after twenty-five minutes had elapsed.
“Got a position line, yet?” crackled the voice of the Captain.
“Not yet, sir.”
“Then buck up! I want to go straight in. This is the one time we might see a U-boat.”
The Captain was impatiently waiting in the Ward Room, while the First Lieutenant kept a periscope watch. Number One kept quiet, for he sensed the impending storm.
Another three minutes elapsed.
With a grunt, Joe sprang from his seat. He could stand it no longer.
“Get out of my way!” he blurted explosively into Hickey’s ear. “Learn to do your job properly, so that others don’t have to do it for you.”
He barged against Hickey, pushing him from the chart table and sending the dividers clattering on to the corticene deck.
“Don’t make such a blasted noise!” he snapped.
Hickey stooped down to pick up the dividers, his face flushing while the Captain’s eye quickly ran up and down the rows of figures, stopping after half a minute’s perusal, his eye stabbing at a blurred figure.
“Pencil?” he rapped out, not looking round.
“Here you are, sir.”
“More haste, less speed, is my advice to you, Pilot. Slow but sure is a much better way of going about things. Look here!” — and he almost drove the pencil point through the paper as he indicated a careless subtraction.
Peter was forced to look away from Hickey’s discomfiture. Both Peter and Number One seemed strangely preoccupied with the job in hand, Peter twiddling the knobs on his Fruit Machine, whilst Number One seemed to be concentrating on pumping.
Within a few minutes, the Captain had produced a position-line.
“Now get it on the chart, and for Heaven’s sake get a move on.”
Changing places, Hickey drew in the position-lines, the Captain scowling over his shoulder, flicking his fingers and thumbs impatiently.
“That’s it, sir!” announced Hickey, a nervous smile of achievement creasing his pale face, as he stepped back to allow the Captain a sight of the chart.
“Humph! Five miles to the eastward,” Joe grunted as he snapped shut the dividers. Then, carefully running the parallel ruler across the chart, he drew a pencil line which led to the shallow entrance of the little port of Burat-el-Sun.
“Port ten, steer two-two-five,” the Captain ordered.
“Port ten, steer two-two-five, sir,” repeated the First Lieutenant who was still on watch.
Already the helmsman, crouched by his wheel in the port for’d corner of the Control Room, had flicked the brass wheel over towards the ship’s side, the spokes glinting in the glare of the bright electric light.
“Keep a good lookout for aircraft, Number One. Land should show up in about twenty minutes. I’m going to have my breakfast” — and the Captain strode three yards from the Control Room and into the Ward Room, Hickey following sheepishly behind him. Joe was a hard taskmaster but, once he delivered his reprimand, that was the end of it and life went on as before. This incident drove home to Peter the importance of knowing his job backwards and he intended never to cross Joe’s path if he could possibly avoid it.
Half an hour elapsed before Number One called, “Captain in the Control Room!” — a cry which, later on, always secretly brought men’s hearts into
their mouths. Joe quietly rose from his seat, strode into the Control Room and took over the periscope which had been fixed on a set bearing by the First Lieutenant.
“Thank you, Number One. Bearing THAT,” he rapped out, squinting through the eyepieces.
“Red five,” reported the Outside E.R.A., as he read off the bearing from the brass sleeve which surrounded the periscope at the deckhead. Hickey scuttled to the chart.
“That’s the entrance to Burat-el-Sun. Course for the entrance, please?”
“One-seven-oh, sir.”
“Steer one-seven-oh.”
Ten minutes later, they were on their patrol line, off the entrance to this vital little port, and three miles from the narrow approach channel.
“Be careful with that periscope, Number One. There are two aircraft to seaward of us,” and, swinging round the periscope, the Captain steadied it on two black specks circling like buzzards, two miles away.
“See them?” he asked his First Lieutenant, handing the periscope over to him.
“Yes, sir,” Number One answered, as he peered through the eyepieces.
“Down periscope,” ordered the Captain, and from now on, for fear of detection, the periscope was only to be used for a few seconds at a time. The Captain then returned to the Ward Room, and, five minutes later, the watches changed.
“Blue watch, watch diving,” ordered Number One.
The order was passed verbally throughout the little boat, men strolling from for’d to relieve their weary shipmates. This was always a difficult moment, because, in a boat of this small size, the sudden shift of weight from for’d to aft tended to tilt the bows upwards, which risked a disastrous ‘break surface’.
“All right, Sinclair?” asked Number One after handing his watch over to Peter.
“Yes, thank you, Number One.” With a thumping in his heart, Peter was taking his first diving watch alone, on war patrol, only some three miles distant from the enemy shore. It was a tremendous moment for him.
One false move, or one moment of carelessness, thought Peter to himself, and I can send all of us, and this half a million pounds’ worth of submarine, to Davy Jones’s locker.
“Up periscope,” he ordered aloud, trying to appear unconcerned.
Swish! The steel tube streaked upwards.
Peter clamped himself on to the handles, swinging quickly round with the low-power lens to look for aircraft. Suddenly he stopped his sweep, his gaze riveted upon a small black dot which moved imperceptibly across his small circle of vision.
“Down periscope,” Peter ordered, snapping the handles shut.
Pausing a moment, he strolled up to the depth gauges, conscious that all eyes in the Control Room were furtively watching their new Sub-Lieutenant. Hickey was still lounging on the chart table and Peter was very conscious of him.
“Up periscope,” Peter ordered and then swung the lens farther round to the yellow shore. He was amazed that he could see German lorries, packed full of helmeted troops, driving eastwards along the brown coast road.
Is this really me, looking at the enemy at such close range? Peter asked himself incredulously. The lorries were driving wheel to wheel and sending great whorls of dust streaming across the desert.
“Down periscope.” Peter was fascinated by the new excitement, hardly able to contain his astonishment before the next look.
“Up periscope.”
To the right lay the harbour, if it could be so called. Guarded by two shallow sandbanks, the dirty brown water opened into an anchorage. He could just see a large pier which must have been where the petrol was discharged, because a small tanker lay alongside. In the harbour the topmasts of at least a dozen small ships were visible.
He swung the periscope across the coast and over the sea again. Slowly the lens swept the horizon, little wavelets drenching the periscope glass.
Peter stiffened. Into his circle of vision a black object, looking like a matchbox, grew larger at every second. A surging white crest of a bow wave gleamed intermittently, as the shape pushed its way through the still waters.
“Captain in the Control Room!” yelled Peter excitedly.
The Captain streaked into the Control Room and snatched the periscope from Peter’s hands.
“Diving stations! Bearing THAT! Down periscope!” The periscope handles snapped shut. Swish! The flashing steel tube streaked down into the periscope well.
“Target — U-boat! Stand by all tubes!” the Captain snapped out his orders. “Starboard twenty, up periscope.”
Swish! The periscope snaked upwards.
Swiftly, silently, men rushed to their diving stations to relieve those on watch, who, in their turn, disappeared to lonely stations in the more remote corners of the boat.
Number One, his watchful eyes lynx-like on the trim, flicked the knob of the pump order instrument.
“For Heaven’s sake, watch your trim, Number One! It’s very shallow,” murmured the Captain, for he could feel the boat taking on a bow-up angle.
Peter had dashed to his box of tricks, the Fruit Machine, on which he was putting all the settings from the information that now streamed from the Captain’s lips. By Peter’s right hand were the ‘tube ready’ lamps and each mauve light flicked on in turn: Number two ready — Number three ready — Number four ready — Number one ready!
“All tubes ready, sir,” reported Peter.
“Down periscope. Anything from the Asdics?” asked the Captain.
In his dark corner in the port after-end of the Control Room, Elliott, the Asdic operator, earphones clamped over his head, listened intently, while his right hand slowly moved a black ebony dial.
“H.E. increasing, sir: diesel, estimated speed, fifteen knots.”
“Very good,” acknowledged the Captain; “course for a one-two-oh track?”
“One-two-five, sir,” replied Peter.
“Steady on one-two-five, up periscope.”
The helmsman spun his wheel, checking her swing.
“Course one-two-five, sir.”
Uncurling himself from the deck as the periscope flashed past him, the Captain snapped open the handles, a thin pencil of light stabbing the pupils of his eyes, as the glass broke surface.
“Bearing THAT!”
“Green-one-five.”
Snap! The periscope handles banged shut. Down swept the gleaming tube.
“Don’t dip me for Heaven’s sake, Number One! Up periscope.”
The Captain swung himself up with the periscope.
“Stand by!… Fire one!… Fire two!… Down periscope. Fire by Time Interval.”
Swish! The periscope streaked downwards.
“Fire three … Fire four!” Peter passed over the telephone to the tube space.
Phumph! … phumph! … phumph! … phumph! … The jolt of the compressed air, as the torpedoes left the boat, jarred the whole atmosphere.
“Torpedoes running, sir,” reported the Asdic operator.
“Starboard twenty,” the Captain ordered quietly.
The helmsman’s monotonous repetition of the order was the only sound to break the tense silence. No sound except the background hum and whine of the main motors. Strained faces watching dials and skilled hands spinning the brass hydroplane wheels, waiting — waiting for the shattering explosion which would mean a torpedo tearing into the vitals of an enemy U-boat.
CHAPTER 5
Gun Action!
Capitano di Corvetta Roberto Puzzi felt extraordinarily pleased with himself. He was a pompous little man, and had reason to feel deserving of Il Duce’s commendation. Leaning on the bridge of his large submarine which was loaded to capacity with petrol for the victorious armies of Rommel and Graziani, he puffed at a rancid cigar. Three days previously, before the submarine left on her storing run, the Italian Admiral in Palermo had come to see him personally.
“I and Rommel,” he had declared, “rely upon you, Puzzi. Viva Il Duce!” and they had exchanged their fascist salutes — rather smartly he thought.<
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Here he was, almost at his destination, a hellhole of a place called Burat-el-Sun, boasting the name of a port, the existence of which he had never even heard before the war. He was hot, sticky and dirty, and for two hours now he had been coast-crawling along this yellow strip of Tripolitania. He kept well inshore and in the shadows to avoid the arrogant British submarines which lurked so frequently in this area.
Ah! There was Burat-el-Sun! Five miles on his starboard bow, the masts of the shipping dancing in the mirage, for it was confoundedly hot, sapristi! In the wings of the bridge, the lookouts were singing their popular peasant songs. Although unshaven and sallow, they felt happy, for this cursed war, which nobody wanted, would soon be over. Did not Il Duce say so? Graziani and Rommel would soon be in Alexandria, and the Capitano flicked his thumb and forefinger together in a gesture of finality, and, smiling and singing to himself, he lightly tapped out the rhythm of the song with his sandalled foot.
There was the buoy, fine on the starboard bow! Crouching over the voicepipe, he gave the order, “Starboard fifteen, steer one-three-oh.” The boat quickly answered to her helm and swung to her new course.
The voice of the port lookout stopped in the middle of his song. He stood transfixed, with his arm outstretched towards the port quarter, screaming at the top of his voice, his eyes bulging.
“Guarda! Guarda! Torpedini, torpedini!” he screamed and glanced round at the blanched face of Capitano di Corvetta Roberto Puzzi, who had spun round on the alarm, his cigar hanging limply from his lips.
“Santa Maria!” he shrieked, as his eyes fastened on the four parallel tracks of bubbling water, now only three hundred yards away and growing nearer every second.
“Hard-a-starboard,” he whispered hoarsely down the voicepipe. Then he gripped the pipe with both hands, shaking it with frantic urgency and screaming down it at the top of his voice as the boat started to swing away to starboard.
“Midships! Steady!” the trembling voice of the Capitano mumbled down the brass voicepipe, as the stern of his boat steadied on a parallel course to the torpedoes which were now lunging upon them. Time stood still on the bridge. Not a sound, except for the faint coughing of the diesel exhausts in the hot, muggy air. The four lines of bubbles seemed to creep slowly, so slowly up their stern. And then suddenly, the first tracks streaked down their port side twenty feet clear, so close that the bubbles hissed as they broke surface. Mesmerised, the Capitano could not tear his eyes away as the bubbles effervesced abreast the bridge.