Submariner Sinclair: A thrilling WW2 military adventure story (The Submariner Sinclair Naval Thriller Series Book 1)

by John Wingate

  Once again, Peter felt his numb hand slipping from the slimy log. Imperceptibly, the timber turned towards the land. Bill now worked his way round to Peter, half supporting him on the log, while at the same time kicking with his legs.

  “Well done, sir! Keep it up — nearly there, nearly there, sir,” Bill pleaded, a note of despairing urgency on his chattering lips. He looked to his left and saw the rocks slowly moving by them; and then faster — were they really moving faster? Surely not! Yes, they were! An inshore current was sweeping them towards the beach, swirling and spinning past the white-foamed rocks which, with their jagged pinnacles, formed a terrifying sight.

  “Hold on, Peter! Hold on for all you’re worth!” Harold shouted above the foaming tumult and as Peter dimly heard the distant voice his blue hands closed desperately on the timber.

  A smother of whiteness engulfed them. Down, down, spinning and spiralling, down, down and down they went. A roaring blackness swept chokingly around Peter. In a frenzy of instinctive self-preservation, a sudden flash of consciousness pierced his deadened brain.

  He lashed out with his legs, kicking and thrashing. Groping, struggling, tearing his way upwards, the light of day burst once more into his listless eyes, to be smothered instantly by a white flurry of foam.

  Down, down, down… He dimly realised that this had been his last glimpse of life, when he felt his knees buckling under him. His feet were no longer descending. A sharp pain shot through his left foot. He had touched bottom. A roaring, smothering greenness hurled him forwards, throwing him headlong. Instinctively, he stretched his hands before him, softening the blow as he was crushed beneath the wall of water. Then a horrible whiteness enveloped him, a thunderous din drummed in his ears, and he knew no more.

  CHAPTER 13

  The First Eleven

  The silence in the lurking submarine seemed uncanny after the pandemonium of the night. The crash of the gun’s recoil overhead and the clatter of the shell cases as they bounced off the pressure hull, still rang in the ears of everyone in the boat.

  To the shaken men, this strange contrast was unnerving. They had nothing to do but to wait for the inevitable retaliation that must surely soon crash around them.

  Ordinary Seaman Smith lay on the oily corticene floor in the fore-ends, his arms folded beneath his greasy head. Around him sprawled the exhausted figures of Jock, Graves and Jarvis, too tired to make even whispered conversation. They had unbuttoned their tunics, and their revolvers and weapons lay in an untidy heap beneath the torpedo racks. Over them all hung the musty and pervading smell of Torpoil, the vapour drifting in a blue haze about the compartment.

  “What wouldn’t I give for a fag, just now?” croaked Graves as the whites of his eyes rolled in his blackened forehead, his face streaky from the night’s escapades.

  “Och! When will we be allowed to smoke, Smithy?” asked Jock plaintively, as he leaned upon one elbow to loosen his belt in a fruitless effort at comfort.

  “You ’eard what the Old Man said, didn’t yer?” Smith replied, a grin on his grey face. “This hunt may go on for a blinkin’ long time. We ain’t up against no beginners, chum! We’ll be needing all the air we can get before this lark’s over. I reckon old Bill Hawkins is well out of this. I hope he’s all right.”

  Smith scratched his head, and added with a touch of pride, “This Trapani lot, the First Eleven, as the Captain told yer, is all right. They’re good. They’re blinkin’ good. Why, I remember once, two patrols ago, when we were … ’ullo! ’ere we go!”

  The slight ‘burr’ of the telephone on the bulkhead interrupted his soliloquising, much to the relief of the seasoned Commandos who did not relish or appreciate the finer points of this game of cat and mouse.

  “… Yes, sir? Dead quiet, sir? Aye, aye, sir,” repeated Smith in a low voice down the telephone.

  Deliberately, he carefully replaced the receiver on the bulkhead, and then turned to the T.I., Petty Officer Slater, who sprawled between the doors of the tube space. He was the Petty Officer in charge of this compartment, and of his precious torpedoes.

  “Don’t talk so loud, any of you,” he snapped curtly, “or else…” And he jerked his head upwards expressively. “As Smithy said, these boys are good. They can find you in the dark. I don’t know how they do it” — and he shook his head resignedly.

  These five men were now boxed up in their steel compartment, isolated from the rest of the boat. Joe had ordered “Shut off from depth-charging” when shutting the upper lid above him, and the bulkhead doors had been slammed shut, with all clips on. Each compartment was now an isolated world on its own.

  “If possible, no talking to save oxygen. No eating, to save oxygen. Get your sleep and don’t move about. That saves oxygen too,” Joe had said, and each compartment obeyed his instructions. Their survival depended upon it.

  In the Control Room, as in the rest of the boat, all unnecessary lights were extinguished to save the precious batteries and to keep down the temperature, which was already too high. A dim glow from the luminous dials and gauges and from the solitary bulb over the helmsman and the Fruit Machine bathed the Control Room in a peculiar light. The pointers on the depth gauges were steady at eighty feet. With the solid figures of the Coxswain on the after-planes and the Second Coxswain on the fore-planes, both spasmodically turning their shining brass wheels, a feeling almost of security pervaded the enclosed space.

  The Outside E.R.A., Joe Saunders, an imperturbable Cornishman, sat on his toolbox by the panel. He was making a leather belt across his knees and was waiting. Sub-Lieutenant Benson, Peter’s young relief, was engrossed at the chart table and was plotting the boat’s course, but he, too, like everyone else, was waiting anxiously for the terror to come.

  Number One, with one hand on a rung of the lower conning tower ladder, was waiting also. Joe leaned nonchalantly against the Fruit Machine, one hand in his pocket. He, too, was waiting… His eye turned to the clock above the dimly lit chart table. Eight-fifteen.

  “They’re in no hurry, Number One. Seem to be taking their time over this.”

  “Yes, sir, the mark of the professional!”

  Joe smiled. “Any luck on the Asdic?” he asked Elliott.

  The operator’s black mop of hair bent low over the luminous dial as he twiddled the ebonite knob.

  “There may be something on red eight-oh, sir. Sounds like slow-turning turbine propellers. Destroyer’s propellers.”

  “Thank you. Carry on with all-round sweep.”

  So they weren’t far away! It was only eight o’clock, with the whole day before them.

  “I won’t start evasive tactics yet, Number One, as we’ve got to close the Spella rocks to make our rendezvous with Sinclair and Arkwright — if we can”, and, in an undertone, he added, “The First Eleven are slipping. They aren’t in contact, yet, anyway!”

  But, as if to refute him, very, very faintly from all quarters around the circular sphere in the Control Room, a faint ‘tick-ticking’ had crept in upon their consciousness. It was like the sound that is made between finger and thumb when they are flicked gently together.

  Elliott looked up at the Captain, a faint smile twitching at the corners of his thin mouth. “Destroyer in contact, bearing green six-oh, sir.”

  “I spoke too soon!” replied Joe. “Starboard ten.”

  “Starboard ten, sir,” the burly helmsman repeated, as his tattooed arms slowly turned the brass wheel.

  The submarine was now keeping end-on to the hunting destroyer which was in contact on her starboard bow.

  Slowly, very slowly, the sound of the ‘tick-ticking’ of the destroyer’s Asdic impulses decreased, as Rugged turned end-on.

  “Can you pick up the third blighter, Elliott?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “We’ll soon know where she is, anyway,” Joe retorted.

  “Course one-two-oh, sir,” reported the helmsman, as the submarine steadied on her new course.

  This game of cat and mouse
was becoming more and more unbearable as the months wore on. Now, no one in Rugged bragged about ‘the heat’ in jocular terms as they had once done — long ago it seemed. Elliott’s voice cut into the brooding silence like a knife.

  “Destroyer’s H.E. increasing, red one-two-oh, sir.”

  “Confound them, they’re in contact all right! I wonder how they do it?” Joe murmured to himself, as one professional grudgingly acknowledges another’s skill. “Here we go!”

  “Bearing steady on one-two-oh, sir. H.E. loud and increasing.”

  Now all ears in the boat could hear the increasing ‘thrum-thrum’ of beating propellers above them.

  “Starboard fifteen,” snapped Joe.

  “Starboard fifteen, sir,” repeated the helmsman eagerly, but, even at this moment, his training ensured that his movements were unhurried. Haste meant water noise, and noise spelled disaster. Elliott did not alter the pitch of his voice.

  “Destroyer decreasing transmission interval, sir.”

  “That means five hundred yards, then, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hold on, everyone,” Joe murmured.

  Men’s bodies stiffened for the shock that was remorselessly showering down upon them, perhaps to burst their steel coffin wide open. The knuckles of Number One’s hand showed white on the ladder rungs. The Outside E.R.A. looked up from his belt. Then he slowly put down the unfinished leather and stood up quietly. He remained poised by his panel, wheel-spanner in hand, waiting…

  All about them was the swish! swish! swish! of rapidly beating propellers. Then the clatter, whirl and whistling of water noises, as the hunter rumbled overhead.

  Click-click…! Click-click…!

  The precise noise was heard distinctly in the midst of the din.

  Depth-charge detonators springing home, thought Number One. They are always close when you can hear that.

  As depth charges tumble from the destroyers’ racks or are hurled from the throwers, they smack down on the surface of the water and this sound can also be heard by the hunted submarine. When these sounds are audible, the enemy may be said to be close.

  The rumble and clatter of the destroyer overhead had started to work across the submarine’s starboard quarter when a devastating shock exploded all round them. Pandemonium shattered the eerie stillness in the Control Room, as charge after charge exploded alongside the little submarine.

  Air was knocked out of human lungs by the shock, so that the gasps of men catching their breath mingled with the inferno of sound. The curved, steel sides of the boat seemed to jump inwards, and, as suddenly, spring back again like a concertina. Fragments of insulating cork from the deckhead spattered downwards and speckled men’s hair and the corticene deck. Silently they stood there, each man reacting in his own different way. The Outside E.R.A. picked his teeth. Elliott had removed his headphones. The crack of the explosions would have split his eardrums, but he was quick to replace the headset to continue with his listening watch.

  Number One was quite expressionless, hands on hips, legs astride to feel sensitively the slant of the submarine’s deck beneath him. His eyes were glued on the ‘bubbles’ of the planesmen. Slowly he stretched up his left hand and removed the clapper of the ship’s bell that hung just above his head. “Just in case,” he murmured, and a chuckle of relief passed through the Control Room.

  Joe remained in his usual position, stooped and slouching, his head jutting forward, his arms hanging down. His piercing eyes were everywhere. He watched Number One, the planes, the helmsman, the panel and the Fruit Machine. He watched everything that could give him information and a large grin creased his leathery face as the hubbub subsided.

  “You’ll have to do better than that!” he taunted the enemy.

  Tension relaxed as the others watched this imperturbable man. The duel was becoming personal — the wits of the Captain of the submarine against the Senior Officer of the skilful destroyers who were weaving above.

  “Port fifteen, half ahead starboard,” Joe ordered as he peered at the telegraphsman.

  “Half ahead starboard, sir,” and the telegraphsman’s hand moved upwards to swing the brass handle.

  “No! Use the telephone, Keating! D’you want to shout our position away from the rooftops?” Joe snapped.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  Keating’s eyes, old eyes in a young face, did not meet those of his Captain. If he had rung the telegraph, the clang of the bell in the Motor Room and Engine Room would have betrayed their position to the lurking destroyers only eighty feet above them. Now the destroyers lay stopped and listening … listening … listening for the faintest clue.

  “That’s all right, Keating, but don’t forget again,” Joe said, surprisingly kindly.

  All knew that Keating was young and inexperienced and they appreciated Joe’s leniency on this occasion. They also realised that his alertness had prolonged their existence.

  Keating passed the orders aft by phone.

  “Course oh-three-oh, sir,” the helmsman reported.

  “Very good. Steer oh-three-oh. Slow ahead together” — and once again Joe watched Keating pass the order.

  “It’s funny, isn’t it?” drawled Joe to Number One. “It’s odd how the Wops always think that we’re deeper than we really are. Eighty feet is a good depth. The Wops wouldn’t believe it if we told them, because, after all, they’ve only got just over the length of a cricket pitch above us! They think we’re deep. They always do.”

  “Long may they continue to do so!” Number One said with a grim smile.

  “’ere, ’ere!” Saunders murmured by the panel.

  Joe smiled. He had a good team.

  Benson looked at the clock and whistled beneath his breath. Twelve-thirty? It couldn’t be!

  But he looked again.

  I’ll be old before I know it, at this rate! he thought.

  Elliott was carrying out his usual sweep and shaking his black head. “Nothing to report, sir. All quiet.”

  “Good! Perhaps we’ve given them the—”

  But Joe’s words were cut short by a dull clang which rang from the after-ends. Joe’s eyes blazed. “Who did that?” he crackled. “Ring up the Engine Room and find out.” Almost as if the telephone would bite him, Keating gingerly picked up the instrument. “Who did that?” he asked hesitatingly.

  The earpiece crackled.

  “Chief speaking. Give the Captain my compliments and apologies. Leading Seaman Flint dropped a wheel spanner on to the plating.”

  But before Keating could hang up the receiver Joe had wrenched it from his hands.

  “Chief, I’ll have your intestines for a necktie if you allow that to happen again! Sorry? It’s too late to be sorry. We’re not up against a third-rate team. This is the First Eleven!” and Joe savagely hung up.

  But it was too late, the damage had been done … Tick-tick … tick-tick … tick-tick … the impulses were already swamping them again.

  “Green one-one-oh, sir, destroyers in contact! Another destroyer right ahead, and another, red nine-oh. Running in to attack!”

  “Thank you, Elliott.”

  Once again Joe’s anger passed, and he bent his full concentration to the immediate battle about to be joined.

  “Port ten, stop port!”

  This time he would run to meet the attacker and stop engines just before the final run-in.

  “Number One, I reckon that the charges were ‘Over’ on that first counter-attack, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, certain of it.”

  “Good. We’ll throw him off if we can. I may go astern at the last moment.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Number One nodded.

  As the submarine twisted to port, the destroyer, which was astern, handed her target on to the ship that had been ahead of the submarine.

  “New destroyer now in contact, sir. Green nine-oh.”

  “Blast! But I suppose it can’t be helped! Steady on three-three-oh.”

  “Ste
ady on three-three-oh, sir.”

  There was little time now to brace oneself for the shock for already the destroyer which lay ahead was speeding up for her run-in.

  “Destroyer attacking right ahead!” Elliott reported in a steady voice.

  “Very good.”

  “Changing transmission intervals, sir! All round H.E.! Range five hundred yards!”

  Elliott removed his headphones because the roar and clatter was now all about them.

  “Stop both, port ten,” Joe ordered crisply. “Half astern together!”

  A split second out in his timing now might mean disaster and this was a trick that he used rarely. It was not easy to trim a stopped submarine.

  Smack! … smack! Smack! … Click! … click-click-click!

  “Stand by!” Joe yelled.

  “I wish I had no imagination,” the new Sub-Lieutenant, Benson, whispered to himself. Already he knew that depth-charge after depth-charge was tumbling down to meet them. Each man’s imagination played hell, and each man tried to force the awful picture from his mind.

  Then, in an instantaneous moment of time, the little submarine seemed to burst asunder in an ear-splitting cataclysm, a very holocaust of hell itself.

  Joe staggered as the deck shivered beneath his feet. Number One reeled against the steel ladder and clutched at a rung. Lights flickered and went out. Broken glass shivered and splattered to the deck.

  Again the boat jerked. Again she was squeezed in a giant’s hand, so that her puny sides leapt inwards before springing outwards once more. But this time, the emergency lights did not flick on. The boat was in pitch darkness, except for the luminosity of the gauges.

  Men’s bodies crashed to the deck, and at the same instant the boat heaved and started to tilt with a terrifying bow-down angle that sickened human stomachs. Steeper and steeper the angle became. Keating slithered across the deck and his hand shot out instinctively. He felt a sharp pain as his fingers grasped the lip of the after periscope well. Then his fingers closed and his body swung round across the greasy deck.