by John Wingate
“I want you to tell me exactly what happened, Sub, when you thought that you saw the U-boat.”
“Yes, sir.”
Peter sickened. Thought I saw? But I did see it. What is he getting at?
Peter jerkily warmed to his story, recounting exactly what he remembered, while Joe nodded and grunted in assent when Peter paused for confirmation. As Peter talked, Captain ‘S’ gazed out of the window, a distant look in his wise eyes. He said nothing, and, when Peter had finished with “… that’s all, sir”, there was a long pause.
Joe met Peter’s eyes and seemed to be sending him a message of sympathy and understanding, which was unusual for such a man. Captain ‘S’ turned slowly from the window and motioned Peter to a chair. He sat down. From the breast pocket of his tropical white shirt, the elder man took a few sheaves of paper and handed them to Peter.
“Read that, Sub,” he said quietly. “I am not blaming you in the least…”
Looking upwards at the kindly face above him, Peter could see the wealth of compassion in the shrewd eyes and his hand was trembling as he took the paper and read:
Extract from the Italian Monitoring Service, relayed from Rome and broadcast at 1600 hours on the Italian Radio Band:
News flash! Brave Italians! Today our victorious airmen, with naval assistance, captured the crew of a British submarine, some miles north-west of our base at Trapani.
This enemy submarine was bombed the night before by our gallant airmen and was crippled so that she could not dive. Returning on the surface at dawn to her base at Malta, a mysterious explosion occurred at her stern. This, miraculously, caused no casualties, but the enemy submarine filled with water and sank immediately. The explosion was seen by our alert observers ashore and a Cant 52 reconnaissance aircraft was sent to investigate. The intrepid pilot, Leonarda Guzzi, of Palermo, reported survivors swimming in the water. Fifteen minutes later, our E-boats picked up the whole crew, including their Captain, one Lieutenant Harold Arkwright, Royal Navy, holder of the enemy’s Distinguished Service Order, who comes from Bridport, England. The crew are safe and are now prisoners at our camp in Marsala. The men seemed dazed and mystified by their experience.
Once again, our victorious airmen and sailors have struck another blow for their Duce and Motherland. Long live Il Duce, saviour of Italy, Benito Mussolini!… Message ends.
Peter could no longer read. Hot tears blinded him as he got up and stared through the window and minutes passed before he recovered his self-control. The tears had splashed like globules to the windowsill. His taut nerves felt like snapping under the strain. Surreptitiously, he groped for his handkerchief, feigned a cough and blew his nose violently. When he turned to face his superiors, there was little trace of his agony, except for the bright glitter in the eyes.
“I don’t know what to say, sir.” From far away he heard his voice croaking, a queer, strangled sound.
‘S’ came over and put his hand gently on Peter’s shoulder. Coughing and clearing his throat, he shook him by the hand.
“I’m to blame, Sub, not you. They are all alive to fight another day. That’s the miracle, that’s what matters, isn’t it, Joe?”
From far away, Joe’s voice grunted in agreement, and went on, “Would you show him the other one too, sir?”
Captain ‘S’ gave Peter another signal. It was short and timed eighteen hundred hours:
Countrymen! The Captain and crew of the British submarine, which was captured earlier today, are from the submarine Restless, as announced in our last bulletin. Churchill should learn a lesson from this episode. The Royal Navy is being swept from Mare Nostrum!
The prisoners are now enjoying our hospitality in the dungeons of Castellare Poliano, near Marsala. Long live Il Duce!
Peter handed the message back to Captain ‘S’, whose kindly mouth twitched into the beginnings of a smile, and in whose eyes there was once again a mischievous sparkle. He turned to Joe.
“Joe, I have an idea.”
“Sir?”
“It’s good of the Wops to vaunt their success. They have told us exactly where Harold Arkwright and his boys are. What say you to going and getting them back?”
Joe took a pace backwards and whistled.
“Strike while the iron is hot, you mean, sir?”
“That’s it. Have another drink?”
The bottle gurgled before he continued: “Before telling you my plans, I think that you and your Sub, Sinclair, have, by miraculous good fortune, saved the lives of all aboard Restless. Harry had been bombed the night before” — ‘S’ sipped his drink and slowly turned the glass, holding it to the light and squinting at it with one eye — “Harry had been bombed and couldn’t dive and may have been unable to steam at more than a few knots. He was forced to attempt the impossible. He had to pass Trapani in daylight and get back past Marittimo on the surface. He hadn’t a chance! The first aircraft would have whistled up the whole Wop Air Force, and the Trapani First Eleven as well!”
He paused as they raised their glasses.
“They would have made mincemeat of Harry and his boys. Harry would have fought back with his Vickers against hopeless odds. Any survivors would have been butchered in the water,” continued ‘S’. Then, with a twinkle glinting in his eyes he went on:
“And then you and your Sub, Joe, kindly sent Restless to the bottom without scratching one of them, thus saving Harry the indignity of scuttling. The Wops obligingly picked them out of the drink! Yes, it’s a miracle!” ‘S’ sighed and laughed.
“Now, Sub, before taking you into my confidence, I imagine that you would like to put things straight. Am I right?”
Peter felt his face muscles relaxing slowly. When he answered, his voice sounded normal again.
“Of course, sir, if it’s possible.”
“I’m asking you to lead a pretty tricky jaunt ashore to rescue Lieutenant Arkwright. Before putting you on your oath to secrecy, do you volunteer? It may mean that you won’t come back.”
Peter nodded.
“I’ll go, sir.”
An imperceptible glance passed between ‘S’ and Joe, who leaned broodingly across the table, unrolling a chart.
Swiftly and brilliantly, for ‘S’ was not the Captain of this crack flotilla for nothing, he unfolded his plan. After intensive night training in Lazaretto harbour, and with the aid of an Army Commando unit, two folboat canoes would reconnoitre off the cliff at Castellare Poliano. Peter’s party would try and force their way into the castle to bring back Arkwright.
“Harry Arkwright is all ready for you,” he continued. “I’ve already got in touch with him on the bush telegraph, and he will be waiting for you on the nights of next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. He’s billeted with his officers, apart from his troops, in the second tower to the westward of the main gate of this castle” — and ‘S’ unrolled another chart which was a plan of Castellare Poliano. How he got it, Peter never found out, but the skill with which ‘S’ amassed information was legendary.
Captain ‘S’ continued, “Harry relies upon you to get inside and contact him in any way you like. I know no more, except that Huns are their gaolers.”
“I know Lieutenant Arkwright well, sir; we were almost brought up together and were at the same school,” Peter said.
“All the better, Sub,” nodded ‘S’. “Joe! Remember that you’ve only got six days. That means that you must leave harbour the day after tomorrow, having stored and reloaded with torpedoes. You must get your folboats aboard, train your Commandos who are ready and waiting for you. Your ship’s company will be tired, but you may tell them briefly what’s up because I know that they will respond. Sub-Lieutenant Benson, just in from the U.K., will relieve Sinclair temporarily as Third Hand of the boat. It will do him good to have a crack at rescuing Arkwright. This is secret. I am admitting that we are risking Rugged. But I think that we owe it to Restless and that we all feel better, don’t we, gentlemen?” ‘S’ continued, reaching for his cap, “I am going to t
ell the ships’ companies what’s happened to Restless as soon as they get back from the Iron Ring, so that there can be no recriminations.”
Joe followed ‘S’ out of the doorway.
“Thank you, sir, for giving us the chance to get him back,” he said.
“That’s all right. Good luck to both of you” — and ‘S’ started to walk off.
But Peter, against all Service regulations and etiquette, shyly held out his hand.
Captain ‘S’ grasped it, shaking it in a vice-like grip. He did not speak, but held Peter’s eyes momentarily. For an instant, Service barriers were down, and wisdom looked to youth, and youth responded.
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Peter whispered.
“I know, I know. Carry on, both of you!” Captain ‘S’ replied testily, and nodding, he turned away, looking across the water at the yellow battlements of the ancient fortress.
Joe and Peter had gone.
Am I right? ‘S’ asked himself. Am I right? I may be sending him to his certain death. May God bless him! — and his distressed eyes followed the English youth who was disappearing down the flagged balcony.
At dusk two nights later, one of the flotilla, so recently returned from blockading the enemy’s bases, slipped from her moorings and proceeded silently out of the harbour and into the night.
Down below, the submarine looked like the left-luggage department of some great London terminus. A full outfit of torpedoes was in the racks, but in addition, two lean, light folboats filled the fore-ends. These flimsily built canoes were made of canvas, stretched across wooden frames. A collapsible canvas Army boat, known as a dory, lay propped against the stanchions. Bren guns, their magazines and boxes of ammunition, hand grenades and red-painted boxes of ‘sticky bombs’ cluttered every square inch of deck space. Amongst this shambles lived the burly figures of the Commandos in their green camouflaged battledress. There was, however, one sailor in the beach party, Able Seaman Hawkins. Peter had asked Easton for him, and Number One had reluctantly consented to let Hawkins go.
“I must have one seaman amongst all these Pongos, hang it, Number One!” Peter had said, using his trump card.
That settled it, and Hawkins joined in with the training. He was good with the folboats, and his general handiness was soon appreciated by the remainder of the Commando party.
“If we must have a matelot, you’ll do,” one of them had graciously said, and it was not long before Hawkins was rigged in Commando battledress.
During the passage to the area, Peter spent his time checking and rechecking his plans with the Commando Army Captain, already renowned for many successful and daring exploits. Such a one had been a dawn raid on a German-held lighthouse off the Channel Isles, where he had disturbed the enemy at breakfast by kicking open the door and lobbing hand grenades on to their frankfurters.
Of necessity, the plan had to be simple, daring and swift. Only by boldness could it succeed. The first landing would be a reconnaissance to determine the lie of the land. Their presence must never be suspected, or the rescue attempt on the following night would be compromised.
The hours dragged by. Peter looked at his watch. Only seven-thirty. In two hours they would be landing.
He looked across at his comrade-in-arms. Jan Widdecombe, the Commando Army Captain, was dressed in the field-grey uniform of a German trooper, an iron cross pinned on the left breast of his tunic. He had borrowed Peter’s razor to shave his fair head, which made him look every inch a Teuton. His eyes wrinkled at the corners as his weather-beaten face, old for its twenty-eight years, creased into a friendly grin of appreciation. He was strapping a large Luger pistol into his belt and filling his pockets with spare magazines. Four Mills bombs on sticks slung from a bandolier, and the thin Commando knife, shining blue-black in the bright lights of the Ward Room, clove neatly to his left hip. He placed the German helmet squarely on his head, the two ventilation holes on either side giving him a grotesque appearance. Peter laughed and rolled feebly across the table.
“You don’t look so British yourself, Sub!” retorted Jan, scowling at Peter.
Then Peter remembered that, in his Italian garb, he must have looked just as incongruous. The black gabardine of his trousers and jacket gave him the sinister air, down to the last detail, of an officer in the crack Guarda Fascista. By mixing their uniforms, it was hoped that confusion might be added to distract the German sentries.
In the fore-ends the three Commandos were having their legs pulled unmercifully by seamen who were volunteering unfamiliar phrases in the broadest cockney-German so that the soldiers might be able to make themselves at home ashore.
“Ein grosse bier, bitte, mein liebeling Fräulein!” grinned Smith, the Seaman Torpedoman. “That ought to get you somewhere!”
“Nark it!” returned Graves, the largest of the three Commandos. “I can’t breathe with this perishin’ titfer on!”
The Canadian, Jarvis, who was the smallest of the party, looked like a walking armoury.
“Got my silencer, anyway,” he grinned, holding up the brass cheese wire, toggle-fitted at each end. “They croak quiet!” he concluded wickedly.
He caused a sensation while he demonstrated the efficiency of his primitive weapon by a horribly realistic demonstration of a potential victim’s fate. Even the sailors were shocked to silence when he rolled his eyeballs upwards and drew the wire slowly across his throat.
The third Commando was a burly, red-headed young man who hailed from Fife.
“Och! Ye bloodthirsty Canuc!” he growled to his confederate. “Can ye no’ leave it alone for a wee while?”
Surprised, Jarvis stopped his act. “Sorry, Jock!” he said quietly, in the silence that followed.
“Then let’s check up on these folboats and see that they’re all right,” said Bill Hawkins and they turned to see that the canoes and paddles were rigged and ready to shift outboard when the moment came. The larger collapsible dory would not be assembled until they surfaced, for, after heaving it through the fore-hatch, it would be put together on the casing and then taken in by one of them and used to bring off any rescued men.
“Shift to night lighting!” The sudden order, with its foreboding message of the impending operation, made Peter’s stomach sink. The eerie red glow slowly flooded the boat and instinctively, men’s voices hushed.
The landing party was privileged. A bowl of hot soup and a large tot of rum made their blood course warmly.
“Ah, that’s better!” Jan said, smacking his lips and rubbing his stomach with a circular motion. “After looking through a periscope all day, it’s a pleasure to have something to do. I hate creeping about below the surface. I’m looking forward to getting ashore!”
He echoed the sentiments of all the beach party for the day had been spent peering furtively through the periscope and making sketches of the cliff below the towering castle. They had chosen a reddish gash which seemed to be a steep slide in the two-hundred-foot cliff.
Dressed in a dark blue polo-necked sweater, Number One came into the Control Room. As he had to open the fore-hatch and take the boats through it on to the casing, he could not risk light-coloured clothes which might be seen from ashore.
“Ready to surface, sir,” he reported to the Captain.
“Thank you, Number One. Stand by to surface.”
Jan and Peter stood by the trunking, the latter feeling sad not to be taking part in the routine of his submarine. His thoughts were interrupted by Joe.
“Remember this, both of you: I will surface and wait for you for half an hour at one-thirty a.m., half an hour before moonrise, if the Pilot’s got his times right! It should be very dark. We will flash our infra-red lamp towards the shore. Have you both got your infra-red receivers with you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Peter, patting his breast pocket.
Joe nodded and continued, “Look through that glass and you will see us flashing. When I surface, I can’t dive with my fore-hatch open and as we are at our most vulnerabl
e then, make your return snappy. If I am detected, I shall be forced to leave the area, but I will pick you up five miles farther down the coast, by the large rock upon which we agreed yesterday. I will be there for two nights running, but daren’t risk any longer. If you want me to surface in emergency, throw two hand grenades into the water. Is everything clear and are we all agreed?”
“Yes, sir, thank you,” Jan answered.
“All right, let’s get on with it and…” Joe coughed and an embarrassing pause followed. He mumbled something about “… good luck!” and held out his hand which Jan took firmly.
Rugged broke surface a quarter of an hour later. Trimmed right down, with very little of her casing awash, she crept on her electric motors to within half a mile of the shore, the massive cliffs looming menacingly above her. It was a perfect night for the operation — dark as pitch, the blackness clinging about them and almost tangible.
“Not a sound from anyone now,” the Captain reminded them all on the bridge. “Open the fore-hatch.”
A few moments elapsed and then the bridge saw the dull red glow appear from a hole in the fore-casing, through which swiftly slid the dark figure of Number One. He drew the boat through the void, his gym-shoed feet moving silently on the steel plating. When the third boat was through, the aperture faded as the hatch slowly shut, clipped from the inside by unseen hands.
Joe breathed again.
“Over you go,” he whispered to Peter.
Peter, followed by Jan and his men, slid silently over the bridge, pattering along the slippery casing in their noiseless, rubber-soled boots.
Already Number One and the Second Coxswain had juggled the first folboat into the water and, as it bumped against the pressure hull, Peter and Hawkins nimbly slid down into it, sitting down quickly to prevent a capsize. As Peter fended off from the side, he heard Number One whisper, “Good luck, Sub.”
Peter gave a few strong strokes with his paddle, and lay off to await the others who joined him three minutes later. He waved his hand which was acknowledged by Jan in the other canoe, and by Graves in the Army dory. With a flick of their paddles, Peter and Hawkins turned their folboat towards the cliffs and disappeared into the darkness, the other two following at fifty-yard intervals.