I pulled the emergency torch that the guards always carried from my pocket and switched it on. The place was an absolute ruin. The whole of the end of the dock was just a pile of split and broken rock. Most of it was limestone, and it was then that I consciously realized why I had wanted the grenades. I had the limestone and there on the dock, behind me, was the oil storage tank and the smaller petrol tank. There was no chance of any one attacking us from this end for some time. I knew we had nothing to fear from the direction of No. 3 dock. Probably in all there were not more than twenty or thirty men working on docks 1, 2 and 3, including those in the munitions and fuel stores. They were trapped there, and the only means they had of rejoining the main body of the base was by swimming across the open ends of the docks. The danger would come from the direction of No. 5 dock. If only I had been able to block the ramp leading from the upper galleries! But I hadn’t, and the whole personnel of the base would now be streaming into docks 5, 6 and 7. I listened. Between the intermittent sound of crumbling rock I could hear shouts and the murmur of voices coming from the open end of the dock. I clambered over the debris of rock and examined the fall between our own and No. 5 dock in the light of my torch. Where the gallery had been was solid rock from floor to ceiling. I reckoned that it would take them several hours to clear it sufficiently to attack us from this side, even using mobile drills to break down the large pieces of rock.
Having satisfied myself that we could not be taken in the rear, I scrambled back over the debris and rejoined the big miner. In an endeavour to wipe the blood from his eyes he had smeared his whole face with it. ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘We’ve got to move the machine-gun up to the stern of the submarine.’ My orders were entirely automatic. I had been over the whole thing so many times in my own mind that I knew exactly what to do. But I had lost all sense of reality. I had involuntarily slipped into the war mentality. When I had thrown the grenade at the stores officer he had been just a target, not a human being. It was the first time I had killed a man.
We ran back to the gangway and rejoined Davies and the other miner. They were both standing by the gun. Davies I told to remain with the gun. Briefly I explained the necessity of its being fired before we were overwhelmed. Then I and the big miner, whose name was Kevan, picked up the light machine-gun and carried it aft. The third miner, Trevors, followed with the magazines, a rifle and several grenades.
We rigged the gun up in the stern of the U-boat and stacked round it several cases of canned goods to act as a barricade. Then Trevors, who had been a machine-gunner in the last war, got down and fired a burst to make certain that the gun was in working order. It was. The clatter of it seemed to fill the cave. What is more, he hit his mark, which had been the top of the haulage gear buoy floating in the main cave. The bullets made a hollow sound as they struck the huge round cylinder and then ricochetted off to finish with a dull thwack against the sides of the cave.
As soon as I was certain that he could handle the gun satisfactorily, I took Kevan and ran back along the submarine to the conning tower. My aim was to get sufficient arms to ensure that we should be able to hold the end of the dock long enough for me to carry out my plan. It was the only chance—flimsy though it was—of our re-establishing contact with Logan and Maureen and of getting out of the base. There was no chance now of slipping out on the high tide and attempting to run the submarine through the undersea exit on her engines. As soon as we were out in the main cave we should be under the fire of the other submarines in the base and, before we had a chance to submerge, we should be sunk. True, that would probably achieve our object of blocking the undersea exit. But the plan I had in mind would achieve that and at the same time give us all a chance of escape.
Altogether we made four trips to the magazine of the submar-ine. The first thing we brought up was another light machine-gun, four magazines and some more hand-grenades. These we carried aft. Before going back for further arms, I made Trevors experiment with the changing of the magazines. It didn’t take him long to find out how they worked and after seeing him fire a test burst from this gun, we returned to the submarine. Thereafter we brought up another light machine-gun, which we placed beside Davies at his post by the gun, four automatic rifles together with the necessary magazines and a further supply of grenades.
As we came up with the last load the soft chug-chug of the little diesel-engined tug could be heard. We raced aft, and at the same moment Trevors opened fire with his machine-gun. We had covered about half the distance when I saw a small dark object hurtle through the air. It dropped into the water just abaft the stern of U 21, and almost immediately a big column of water was thrown up and was followed by a muffled roar.
We flung ourselves down behind the packing cases and Kevan took over the spare machine-gun. I picked up an automatic rifle. The deck was very wet and Trevors was soaked. It was clear what they had tried to do. If they could cause a heavy fall of rock at the entrance to the dock they could trap us completely. Their difficulty was that they could not hit the entrance to the dock without exposing themselves to our fire. Nevertheless, the underwater explosion of the grenade they had thrown had apparently damaged the flood gates of the dock, for I could hear the water gurgling below us as it entered the dock. As far as I could tell the tide was about an hour beyond the high.
The engine of the tug sounded very close now. The boat was in fact just off the entrance to No. 5 dock and was only protected by the buttress of rock that separated the two docks. The tug’s engines seemed suddenly to rev up. Trevors reached for a grenade. He had the pin out the instant the boat’s nose showed beyond the buttress. I knelt on one knee and raised my automatic rifle, sighting it over the top of our protecting pile of packing cases. The boat, with its propeller threshing the water into a foam at its stern, seemed to shoot out from the cover of the buttress.
I sighted my rifle and pulled the trigger. It was like holding a pneumatic drill to one’s shoulder as it pumped out a steady stream of bullets. I heard the clatter of Kevan’s machine-gun at my side and sensed rather than saw Trevor’s arm swing as he threw the grenade. The man at the wheel of the boat collapsed under our fire and another in the bows stopped dead in the act of throwing a grenade and crumpled up in the bottom of the boat. Almost immediately there was a terrific explosion and the boat seemed to split in half. It sank instantly, leaving a mass of wreckage, oil and three dead bodies floating on the surface of the water.
It was not a pleasant sight. Kevan said: ‘Good for you, Steve.’ But Trevors shook his head. ‘Mine fell short,’ he said. ‘It was one of you two shooting that fellow in the bows that done it. He had the pin out when you hit him and the grenade exploded right in the bottom of the boat.’
At that moment we came under machine-gun fire from dock No. 7. But the shooting was wild, the reason being that the last explosion had put the remaining lights in our dock out. Shortly afterwards, however, they rigged up a searchlight. We then moved farther back into the dock. It was the only thing to do. They might risk casualties, but we daren’t. We built a second barricade of packing cases, this time in a complete semi-circle across the deck, for we were being worried by the ricochet of bullets from the side of the cave. The trouble was that because the seven docks branched off fan-shape from the main cave, it was possible for the Germans operating from No. 7 to cover the mouth of our own dock.
I called up Davies to the shelter of our new barricade and we held a council of war. Then I explained my plan. ‘It may work or it may not,’ I said. ‘We’ll just have to risk it. Unless any of you have any other ideas?’ But none of them had. We were trapped and it was only a matter of time before we would be overwhelmed. We were four against at least six hundred, and if we surrendered we should be shot. ‘We can’t hold this dock a minute if they float a submarine out before the tide falls,’ I said. ‘One shot from a six-inch gun at the mouth of this dock will trap us if it doesn’t kill us. If they miss the tide, however, we may be able to hold out for as long as ten hours.’
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‘Whatever happens,’ I went on, ‘we’ve got to block the entrance to this base.’ I then told them of the plan to attack a squadron of British capital ships which it was known would be for a time insufficiently screened by destroyers. I said: ‘I suggest we proceed straight away with the demolition of the underwater entrance.’
To this they agreed. Even if they missed the tide I was afraid that under cover of fire from No. 7 dock they might try to block the entrance of our dock with grenades thrown from the collapsible rubber boats that the U-boats carried. I explained this and Trevors volunteered to go aft again and extinguish the light of the searchlight with machine-gun fire. But I said: ‘Wait until we’ve fired this gun.’
3
Surprise
I LEFT DAVIES to operate the gun and climbed up to the bridge of U 21. I switched on the U-boat’s searchlight and swung it round, so that its brilliant beam was shining straight aft and illuminating the whole of the main cave. Towards the seaward end the roof sloped down until it disappeared below the level of the water, which showed black and oily in the bright light.
‘Is it sighted correctly?’ I asked.
‘All correct,’ replied Davies.
I braced myself against the rail of the bridge. ‘Fire!’ I said.
I saw Davies pull the trigger lanyard. Instantly there was a terrific explosion. I was practically thrown off my feet and I heard the hull plates of the U-boat grate most horribly on the rock of the empty dock. Almost simultaneously there was a blinding flash in the roof of the main cave, just where it disappeared below the water, and an explosion that seemed, in that confined space, to numb my whole body. A great wind of hot air struck my face and, in the light of the searchlight, I saw the whole far end of the cave collapse in a deep rumbling roar.
As a sight it was terrific. I had not fully realized the explosive power of a six-inch shell. The dock in which the U 21 lay was at least a hundred and fifty yards from the spot where the shell struck. Yet I could feel the whole of the rock round me tremble and vibrate, and quite large pieces of rock fell from the roof of our dock, making a hollow sound as they struck the submarine’s deck. At least thirty yards of the main cave had collapsed. Huge masses of rock fell into the water, and as they fell a great wave rose in the basin. I yelled out to the others to hold tight. I don’t think they heard, but they saw it coming—a great wall of water that surged down the main cave and swept up into the dock. It must have been a good ten feet high, for it swept into the empty dock almost at deck height. The submarine reared up on it like a horse as it suddenly floated. I had fallen flat on the bridge of the conning tower, and as the submarine lifted, I heard the rail strike the roof just above my head and the searchlight went out. Then the bows jarred violently against the end of the dock.
At any moment I expected to be crushed to death. But after bucking up and down for a moment, grating sickeningly against the sides of the dock, the submarine settled down again, this time afloat. Through my singing ears I heard the water running out through the damaged flood gates of the dock. I scrambled to my feet. The place was as dark as pitch and I could hear shouts and cries. ‘Are you all right, Mr Craig?’ someone called out from the direction of the gun.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Are you?’ And without waiting for his reply I hurried down the conning tower ladder. I paused at the bottom in order to accustom my eyes to the dark. There was a faint luminosity at the end of the dock. Presumably not all the lights of the base had been extinguished by the explosion. Around me everything was black with darkness, but where the dock ran out into the main cave there was a half-circle of indefinite light. Against this I could just make out the dark bulk of the gun and figures moving about it.
I suddenly remembered my torch. I pulled it out of my pocket and switched it on. The faces of the three miners looked white as they faced the light. But they seemed all right. Fortunately the water had not swept over the deck, so that, though they were all soaked with the water that had slopped up between the submarine and the dock walls, the machine-gun, rifles and ammunition were still beside the gun.
Armed with automatic rifles we went aft. The forge was still in position over the after hatch, but the water had swept right over the stern of the submarine and our barricades of packing cases had been swept away. The deck seemed strewn with tins and lumps of rock, and the dockside, which was still awash, was dotted with packing cases.
One of the machine-guns had fetched up against the deck stanchions. We retrieved this. The other was missing. The magazines were where we had left them and we were able to retrieve one of the automatic rifles from the dockside. Hastily we rebuilt our barricade of packing cases. This was not an easy task as both gangways had been smashed to pieces and most of the cases had to be passed up from the dockside and dragged up the sloping sides of the submarine by rope.
However, ten minutes’ work saw our barricade complete again. All the grenades appeared to have rolled overboard, so I paid another visit to the magazine of the submarine. It was whilst I was getting the grenades from their racks that I noticed the crew’s escape apparatus. It was much the same as the Davis equipment used in British submarines and they were stacked in a large rack of their own. I picked up one of them. It had a face mask and a large air bag which strapped round the waist. A small cylinder of oxygen completed the equipment. It was in fact just what I required.
I hurried on deck with the grenades to find the main cave brilliantly lit. The submarine in No. 6 dock had switched on its searchlight. Then I understood the reason for the cries and shouts. On the black oily surface of the water that was still slopping about in the main cave bobbed three collapsible rubber boats, two of them floating upside down.
‘They were just going to launch an attack when we fired that gun,’ I said, nodding in the direction of the boats, as I put the grenades down on the deck behind the packing cases.
Kevan said: ‘Ar, we’ll be able to hawld this place faw sawm tame naw.’
‘How do you mean?’ I asked.
‘They’ll nawt be able to get the bawts awt naw. Dawn’t ye feel us grainding on the bottom of the dawck?’
He was right. I had been too busy to notice it. Though the water had flooded the dock, the tide had receded sufficiently for the hull of the submarine to be just touching the bottom.
‘Thank God for that!’ I said. They had lost their chance. Our worst danger had been postponed. We had ten hours’ grace so far as attack from another submarine went. Then and there I decided that, if the worst came to the worst and my own scheme failed, we would try to get our own boat out before the others and go down fighting rather than face a firing squad. It seemed easy to face death now that we were in action. I wondered what had happened to Logan.
Having completed our barricade, I left Davies and Trevors to hold the end of the dock and took Kevan down on to the dockside. The water had receded now. By the wall we found picks and shovels that had been used the previous day for erecting the derrick. We took these to the end of the dock, where the gallery had been blocked, and set to work to clear a space in the midst of the debris. We kept our automatic rifles handy in case the open end of the dock should be attacked.
Mostly we did the work with our hands, advancing steadily into the debris and piling the rocks behind us. It was a gigantic task and I was thankful that the work I had had to do in the fortnight I had been at the base had hardened my muscles. Even so, I found that Kevan, despite the fact that he had been unemployed for a considerable time, worked just about twice as fast as I was able to.
Half an hour passed and the basin I was trying to hollow out in the debris was beginning to take shape. We worked in silence and without pause. The constant stooping to throw out great lumps of limestone soon made my back ache abominably. We had climbed high on to the pile of fallen rock and were tossing the broken lumps out behind us so that the rim of the basin behind gradually rose. It was slow and hard work. Not only did my back and arms ache, but we were both constantly coughing with
the rock dust.
At the end of half an hour, as though by common consent, we straightened our backs, and took a breather. I looked at my watch. It was just past three. I was standing now behind a huge circular rampart of rock. The roof, all jagged and looking very unsafe, was about ten feet above my head. On three sides of us the broken limestone was piled right to the roof. Only in the direction of the docks did the rock fall away, and here we were piling it up in order to make a kind of rock tank. This rampart had grown by now practically as tall as ourselves. I looked over it and along to the open end of the dock. The searchlight was still flooding the main cave and the light from it glistened on the wet walls of the dock and threw the conning tower of the submarine into black silhouette. The great dark shape of the boat seemed to fill the whole cave, and at the far end I could see our barricade of packing cases. I could see no sign of Davies and Trevors, however, for they lay in the shadow cast by the cases.
As I bent to resume my work, I saw Kevan standing tense at my side, listening. There was the sound of slipping rock, and then voices. It came from behind the fall that blocked the gallery between ourselves and No. 5 dock. Then came the unmistakable ring of metal on stone. ‘They’re trying to clear the fall,’ said Kevan.
‘How long will it take?’ I asked.
He looked at the fall. The whole gallery had been blocked. ‘Depends on the depth,’ he said. ‘I reckon it’ll take them all of a good hour.’
‘Good!’ I said. ‘By then we’ll have finished this. Then we’ll wait for them to come through. The draught will help.’
We resumed our work. But about ten minutes later the whole place suddenly resounded to the clatter of machine-gun fire. It came from the open end of the dock. In an instant we were over the rampart of stone we had been piling up, had collected our automatic rifles and were running as hard as we could along the dockside.
Wreckers Must Breathe Page 18