Patrol to the Golden Horn

by Patrol to the Golden Horn (epub)

  * * *

  Lewis had produced more tea. Hobday had the watch, and was sipping his with an eye on the depth-gauge and the trim. Wishart and Jake had theirs up on the bunks, while Robins, Everard and Burtenshaw sat at the pullout table. Leading Telegraphist Weatherspoon was in the silent cabinet, keeping a listening watch on the hydrophones. Two patrol boats – small, high-speed launches of some kind, Weatherspoon had guessed – had gone down-straits half an hour ago; they’d passed close and then the sound of their screws had faded southwestward. A hopeful sign, possibly. If they’d come down as a result of E.57’s fracas on the surface, the fact they’d continued in that direction suggested that the Turks thought they’d been shooting at a submarine on her way out of the straits … It was wishful thinking, perhaps; but the way those boats were going was the way they would have gone if that had been the enemy’s belief. They’d have gone to sit over the minefield off Kum Kale — to wait for the bang and for bodies to float up.

  Robins said, ‘Midnight… And if my memory is accurate, we started under the minefield at seven-thirty. Four-and-a-half hours ago?’

  Jake blinked at the gleaming paintwork on the pipes overhead.

  ‘Right.’ And they’d dived three hours before that.

  ‘It was supposed to be an eight-hour passage from one end of the straits to the other, and we’ve used up four and a half. Are we anything like halfway through yet?’

  ‘No.’ Wishart had his eyes shut, but he was only resting. ‘Nothing like.’

  ‘So it will take considerably longer than eight hours?’

  ‘Reasonable conjecture.’ He turned his head, and asked Robins mildly, ‘Want to get out and walk?’

  Hobday reported from the chart table, where he’d just checked the log reading, ‘That’s three-quarters of a mile, sir.’

  ‘Good. Come round to oh-four-oh, please.’

  Robins sipped his tea, made a face, put the mug down. He went on with his nagging.

  ‘And we have now to start all over again, make a new attempt at getting through that net?’

  Wishart shrugged. ‘At getting past it, yes.’

  ‘Might it not have been simpler, having torn a hole in it, to carry on through the hole?’

  ‘Not with the torn-off section of it dangling from our ’planes, no.’

  Nick, looking across the table at Robins’s ratty little face, was surprised at Wishart’s patience with him. But Robins wasn’t letting go quite yet.

  ‘Have we any reason to imagine it will be any easier this time than it was before?’

  ‘Some.’ Wishart nodded at the deckhead. ‘Mind you, it’s all a toss-up. One backs one’s hunches, that’s about the size of it.’

  The helmsman reported quietly, ‘Course oh-four-oh, sir,’ Hobday came over and put his cup down on the table. ‘Stay at this depth, sir?’

  ‘Yes. I think we said one-and-a-half miles, pilot – that right?’

  Jake Cameron, with his face buried in a pillow, mumbled yes, it was … They’d headed north, to get over towards the European shore. Wishart had reckoned that since the greater concentration of searchlights seemed to be on that coast, it was likely that any clear channel would be on that side too. So he’d decided to move over to that side and to take her down to a hundred and fifty feet when they came opposite Kephez. When they’d hit the net they’d been in the middle of the straits and at a hundred feet; if the thing extended right across and went down as deep as a hundred and fifty it would have to be fairly gargantuan. Perhaps it was. But the northern shore was steep-to, with thirty fathoms or more right up close to the beach, and that was an advantage for the submarine.

  They needed an unimpeded passage from here on. The battery had already taken a beating, in the efforts to break out of the net; and as Robins had just been so kind as to point out, they weren’t even halfway through yet.

  Nick saw Robins returning from a visit to the chart table; his lips were pursed.

  ‘It seems extraordinary that as the crow flies Imbros is no more than fifteen miles from our present unenviable position.’

  He sat down. Burtenshaw looked embarrassed. In Robins’s presence he usually did. Nick thought Wishart was going to ignore the comment; but Robins was beginning, perhaps, to get under even his skin. Apart from the irritation-value of the carping, it happened that Wishart’s eyes had been shut, and for all Robins knew he might have been asleep; if he had been, the crime of waking him with another of his silly criticisms would have been fairly unforgivable. But the eyes opened, and the head turned slowly.

  ‘One: we are not crows. At least, I’m not… Two: our “unenviable” position is in the waterway through which we are bound to pass before we can deposit you, Robins, in the Marmara – and this I am as impatient to accomplish as you are yourself.’

  Nick laughed. Robins shot him a glance of contempt. Then he muttered waspishly, ‘The French seem to have found it easy enough.’

  ‘Have we any way of knowing that?’

  Robins shrugged. Wishart added, ‘I hope you’re right. Up till now the French haven’t had much luck in these waters.’ Nick could tell from his tone of voice that he was trying to keep things on an even keel. Because you couldn’t afford quarrels in a submarine, because there wasn’t room for them? On that basis, he realised he shouldn’t have laughed just now. He was going to have to work with Robins, when the time came for the landing. Wishart said, ‘Talking of Louve, though – the two civilians in her are politicals, aren’t they. Wouldn’t it have been simpler for the three of you to have formed one party?’

  ‘Had the French proposed it – yes.’ Robins shook his head. ‘In fact it’s on account of their ambitions that I have to – to go about things in my own way. Counteract – no, to balance—’

  ‘Aren’t we and the French on the same side any more?’

  ‘A somewhat naive question, Wishart. The Eastern Mediterranean is – politically – a French sphere of influence. But we can hardly neglect our own—’

  ‘Hydrophone effect, sir!’

  ‘Diving Stations!’ Robins had to move fast or Wishart would have flattened him. Jake, in a sort of flying-trapeze act, brought up hard against the chart table as Hobday repeated the order and the short, sharp rush swept through the compartments. Wishart was asking Weatherspoon about that HE – propeller noise.

  ‘Astern an’ like before, sir.’

  ‘Two of ’em again?’

  ‘Could be. Bit confused, sir.’

  Ears like soup-plates, clamped against his skull by the head-set. His eyes were open but not focusing or seeing anything; his operative sensors were those great ears of his. ‘Seems about steady, sir. Go over the top of us, I reckon.’

  Wishart glanced round. The hands were closed up now, at their stations.

  ‘Hundred and fifty feet.’

  ‘Hundred and fifty, sir.’ Brass wheels spun, reflecting yellow light. Wishart gestured upwards and told Hobday, ‘When he’s gone over I’ll have a shot at following him. We’ll stay deep to get the tide’s help, but it’ll take both motors half ahead.’

  Hobday met his captain’s stare. It was a kind of challenge, inviting him to comment on the state of the battery. But if you could trail an enemy through his own defences it might save a lot more amps, in the long run, than it consumed.

  CPO Crabb grated, ‘Hundred an’ fifty feet, sir.’

  ‘Very good.’ Hobday busied himself with adjustments to the trim. Wishart crossed over to the cabinet; Weatherspoon pointed a finger upwards, nodded. He was saying, Here it comes… And suddenly everyone could hear the rhythmic churning of the Turk’s propellers: faint at first, rapidly growing louder … Weatherspoon said, ‘’nother astern of ’im, sir. Same pair as before.’

  The pair that had gone down-straits earlier. Drawn blank, coming back up here to hunt? Wishart didn’t question the leading telegraphist’s judgement; different ships’ propellers made their own individual sound- patterns, and an experienced operator could usually recognise screws he�
��d heard before.

  ‘Half ahead together.’

  Agnew repeated the order as he reached up to the telegraphs. In the motor-room Dixon and Rowbottom would be winding down on the rheostats, taking resistance out of the armature fields to allow the motors to speed up. Weatherspoon scowled, shook his head. ‘Lost ’em, sir.’

  ‘Stop together.’

  If you made much row yourself, you couldn’t hear the enemy’s noise. Hobday told McVeigh, ‘Stop the pump.’ Weatherspoon’s eyes blinked at Wishart as the hum of machinery died away. ‘Close to the bow, starboard. P’haps green five, sir.’ He jerked his chin upwards towards the deckhead. ‘Other lad’s comin’ over now.’

  ‘Steer oh-four-five. Slow ahead together.’ Wishart went to the chart table. They could all hear the second Turk boat now. Jake pointed at the latest DR position. If it was accurate they were already in the narrow section created by a bulge of coastline that had Kephez Point as its northern tip. Wishart muttered, more to himself than to Jake, ‘Even if we stick close to him we could still run into deep ones.’

  Mines, he meant. It would be safe enough to follow an enemy on or near the surface, but at this depth it was anybody’s guess. But they needed the depth so as to get the benefit of the deep tidal stream. The flatter the battery got, the more important that current was.

  There could easily be a deep minefield on this side. It would make sense – Turk-type sense – to have one here. A net – the one E.57 had hit – on the other side where the inshore stretch was shallower, and deep layers of mines over here. So if the patrol boats were worth following at all, it would be better to do so at periscope depth.

  It was a gamble, though. You had to stake thirty lives on it. Possibly much, much more than thirty, when you thought of the operation and the likely results of its success or failure. And the difference between that success or failure you could reckon, in a situation such as this, in inches.

  ‘Come up to fifty feet, Number One.’

  ‘Fifty feet, sir.’

  ‘After that, twenty. But easy does it.’

  Up by stages, so as not to risk the loss of control that could send her floundering to the surface. It was in this section that the straits had been known to go mad, turn upside down. Another point worth bearing in mind was that on each side here the shore guns would be less than a mile away.

  At fifty feet, Hobday had the trim adjusted, and Wishart stopped the motors. Weatherspoon could still hear the second of the two patrol boats, and it was still right ahead.

  ‘Slow ahead together. Twenty feet.’

  Half a mile to starboard was where they’d tangled in the net. And three miles ahead was Chanak, the Narrows, the real bottleneck.

  * * *

  ‘Down periscope.’

  The small after periscope hissed down, and McVeigh eased the lever over gently to avoid the thud that always came with a more sudden check. Wishart had taken a few quick bearings; now he joined his navigator at the chart table to see what sense could be made of them.

  If any. It was pitch dark up there, and with the coast inside spitting-distance he’d had to work quickly for risk of the feather being spotted.

  Jake suggested, ‘If the left-hand edge was this: and the tower could be this fort or whatever it is at Kilid Bahr?’ Wishart agreed. ‘Well, the last one would’ve been Kephez Point, and that fits well enough. Puts us here.’

  Right in the Narrows. Between the points of Chanak and Kilid Bahr.

  ‘Did it look like that, sir?’

  Wishart shrugged. ‘Looked like the inside of a pig’s bladder, old lad.’ Jake suggested, ‘If we take this as our position, we ought to come round to about—’ he moved his parallel-ruler across to the compass rose – ‘three-five-oh?’

  Wishart glanced round at Hobday. ‘Alter course to three-five-oh, Number One.’ He added, ‘Gently. Five degrees of wheel.’

  The less helm you used, the less effect it would have on the trim. There was land with Turkish gun batteries on it less than a thousand yards on one side and as little as five hundred on the other. It wasn’t a place for mucking about in. Wishart glanced round to see what his passengers were doing. Robins seemed to be asleep, in Hobday’s bunk, and Burtenshaw was on Wishart’s, reading that book of his. Everard was sitting on a chair pushed back against the bunks. Wishart asked him, ‘Like to see where we are?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Nick got up. He’d been wishing he could have had a look at the chart, but he hadn’t liked to move, for fear of getting in the submariners’ way.

  ‘Cameron’ll show you.’

  Weatherspoon called sharply, ‘Surface vessel closin’ on us from astern, sir!’

  Nick hesitated: then he sat down again. Jake Cameron smiled, spread his hands in a that’s-the-way-it-goes gesture. Wishart was at the doorway of the cabinet and Weatherspoon told him, ‘Comin’ fast, sir, very—’

  ‘Sixty feet!’

  Now you could hear the screws: high revs, much faster than the others had been. Like being on a railway line with an express train rushing at you. Morton reported from the fore ’planes, ‘She don’t answer, sir!’

  ‘Open “A” kingston, half ahead together!’

  Lewis dived like a goalkeeper for the bulkhead doorway, to get at the kingston’s handwheel in the next compartment, but Anderson was there ahead of him. The submarine’s bow dipped sharply, and the speeding motors bit, drove her down. The propeller-noise rose to a crescendo, right on top of them.

  ‘Shut “A” kingston!’

  She was diving fast now, accelerating away from those screws that must have passed perilously close to her up-angled stern. The Turk had gone over now. Jake thought, keeping his face expressionless, Near squeak … Wishart had slowed the motors and Hobday was getting a pump to work on ‘A’. There’d be pressure in that tank now, so the pump should have an easy job of it. Needles still belting round the gauges. Sixty – sixty-five feet: he’d looked away from the gauges for a moment, and glancing back again he saw she was approaching eighty.

  ‘Stop together – half astern together!’

  She hit the seabed with a jolting crash that sent everybody flying. The lights went out. Nick, sprawled on the deck, heard men and objects falling everywhere. The gyro alarm-bell was an ear-splitting shriek, almost drowning Wishart’s shouted order for the motors to be stopped. Jake Cameron was struggling across the compartment, aiming for the auxiliary switchboard, to shut that hideous noise off by breaking the main gyro switch. Bodies all over the place – men trying to sort themselves out, find out where they were. Wishart yelled, pitching his voice up to beat that hell, ‘Emergency lights!’ Jake reached the board and found the gyro switch and pulled it out. The racket stopped. Then by chance his hand touched another switch that was hanging loose and must have been thrown out by the impact. He wasn’t certain he was doing the right thing – electrics weren’t his strongest suit – but he took a chance and made the switch, and the lights immediately glowed up everywhere – not the emergency circuits but the main ones. A hand that had been groping close to his own turned out to be Hobday’s. As first lieutenant he did know all about the boat’s electrical systems, and he’d been trying to locate the switch that Jake had come across by chance.

  Wishart said, ‘Well done. Now give me a magnetic course, pilot.’ For the time being, the gyro would be out of action. Wishart was as calm as a vicar at a garden party. Calmer – than some vicars. Dixon, the leading electrician, had come for’ard from the motor-room. ‘Both motors stopped, sir.’ Small round eyes in his moon-face were checking items on the auxiliary board. McVeigh reported, ‘Still pumpin’ on “A” tank, sir.’ Everyone seemed to be back in their normal places. Hobday told Agnew, ‘Ask PO Leech to check the bilges. All compartments check for leaks and report.’ He looked at Dixon. ‘Better have a sight of the battery tanks.’

  If any cells had been cracked there’d be an acid spillage. Then any sea-water that might be in the tank already or that got into it later would create chlorine gas
.

  Reports were arriving to the effect that no leaks had been detected. The coxswain murmured, ‘She’s light enough, sir.’ He’d seen a faint stirring of the needle on his gauge. There was a depth-gauge in front of each of the two ’planesmen. Hobday told McVeigh, ‘Stop the pump.’

  ‘Check the bow shutters, Number One.’ Wishart, moving over to consult with his navigator at the chart table, asked Nick Everard, ‘Are you all right?’

  Nick was on his chair again. He indicated the bunk above him, where Burtenshaw was nursing bruises to various parts of his anatomy. ‘Soldier took a bit of a high-dive.’ Burtenshaw had been catapulted out of his bunk, and it was sheer luck he hadn’t landed on top of Nick. Robins had managed to hold on, somehow. Burtenshaw told Wishart, ‘I’m all right, sir, thank you.’

  ‘Good.’ Wishart leant on the table beside Jake. ‘Well?’

  ‘Our former course is north fourteen-and-a-half west, by magnetic, sir. But that last fix—’

  ‘We must be here.’ Wishart’s finger tapped the chart. ‘Somewhere near that nine-fathom sounding. So we’re through the narrowest part already. The last bearing of that bunch must have been the high ground behind Kephez, not the point itself.’

  Jake nodded. ‘So now we need to steer – well, north thirty-five west, or—’

  ‘That’ll do.’ Wishart turned away. ‘Your gear in order, Weatherspoon?’

  ‘Still ’earing ’im, sir. North-west – very faint now, an’—’

  Dixon told Hobday, ‘Dampish in the tank, but—’

  ‘Any smell?’

  The fat man wrinkled his nose. ‘Always a bit of a niff, sir. Can’t say it’s no worse ’n what—’

  ‘Tell Cole to wash through with soda. You’d better get back on the motors, yourself.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir … I – do think it’s all right, sir, in—’ Wishart cut in: ‘Dixon – I thought we were in forty fathoms …’ He asked Roost, ‘Ship’s head now?’