Patrol to the Golden Horn

by Patrol to the Golden Horn (epub)

  Robins lay like a dead man, flat on his back with his eyes shut. What did a man like Robins think about, Jake wondered, when he wanted to turn his mind elsewhere? Bob Burtenshaw had climbed up on to Wishart’s bunk, after first offering it to Nick Everard. Everard was sitting with his shoulder against the drawers underneath the bunks, and still fiddling with those cards. Not looking at them: just fiddling with them, shuffling, cutting, shuffling again.

  ‘Half ahead together.’

  The boat trembled as her motors, with 220 volts on them, sent her surging forward. The depth-gauge needles swung sharply – but not far: one to thirty-four feet and the other to just under thirty-five. She’d only made that lunge, and been brought up hard, stopped dead.

  ‘Stop together.’

  ‘Stop together, sir.’ Agnew’s voice was higher, thinner than it had been.

  ‘Half astern together!’

  For a second, or two it felt as if she was going to pull clear. Then the rush astern stopped just as the other had. As if rubber bands of vast dimensions had been stretched to their limit and finally held instead of breaking.

  ‘Full astern together!’

  The note of the motors rose to a high, pulsating whine. From overhead they heard that same creaking noise. Straining metal. Wishart called, ‘Stop both!’

  If he’d let the motors go on racing he’d have burnt them out, as well as draining the batteries. Now all sounds died away again, gave place to new ones – the odd ticking of relaxing steel, easing of strain from rivets. Jake was thinking about rivets because of that creaking, which had sounded like metal bending, and because Wishart, moving as if for no special purpose, had just come to this end of the control room and stopped, quite casually, to examine the deckhead. He said to Hobday, still staring up at the lines of rivets, ‘Better pump out those internals.’

  ‘Shut “A”, “B” and “Z” kingstons!’

  Wishart was on his way back to his usual position by the for’ard periscope, midway between the steering pedestal and the ’planesmen. Jake asked himself, Now what? Around the stuffy, hot compartment he could see much the same question in other faces. Facial expressions, movements of the facial muscles, could very largely be controlled; but eyes, after a certain period of strain, tended to give the game away.

  As navigator, of course, he was lucky in that respect. He could turn his back on the others while he studied the chart, and he could fiddle with the instruments while he rested his powers of resilience, recovered his mental breath. But there was only one answer he could find to the question he’d just asked himself, that now what? Simply that if you couldn’t get out of a net when you were dived, you’d have to surface and cut it free as they’d done earlier in the night. But then two other questions came up at once. One: would it be possible for the boat to surface, with the enormous weight of the net on her? Two: if the answer to that question was ‘yes’ – which he rather doubted – could the job be done soon enough and quickly enough to take advantage of whatever period of darkness or semi-darkness was still left? Depending on how thoroughly enmeshed they might be, how long might they have to lie up there exposed to coastal batteries at point-blank range and illuminated by what would almost certainly, in these exotic parts, be a sensationally beautiful sunrise?

  ‘Stop the port ballast pump. Shut “A” suction.’ Hobday had already pumped out ‘B’ and shut it off, but the other pump was still sucking on ‘Z’. He looked better now: during the burst of full-ahead grouped up his face had been stiff with agony – because his battery had been having its guts torn out and they might as well have been his own for the way he’d felt it. He told McVeigh now, ‘Stop the starboard pump. Shut “Z” suction.’ Shutting the inboard vents as well as the suctions would be automatic. Ellery was passing that last part of the order aft; Wishart looked across at Jake.

  ‘Ready for another bathe, pilot?’

  Oh, Christ… He nodded. ‘Sir.’

  ‘Second cox’n, you fit?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Get ready then.’ Hobday told Morton, ‘Ask the TI to come and look after the fore ’planes for you.’

  ‘Signalman.’ Wishart nodded towards the lower hatch. ‘Open up.’ He told Hobday. ‘Might get a preview through the ports. See how we’re snagged.’

  Round the gun, Jake thought, that’s where … He also guessed that the gun was being just about dragged off its mounting. During that surging to and fro it had felt as if the point of suspension was just about overhead, slightly for’ard of the conning tower – which was where the gun was, the twelve-pounder, on its gundeck a few feet higher than the casing. Wishart had climbed up into the tower and Ellery was at the bottom of the ladder, peering up through the open lower hatch. Jake tied the tapes of his swimming collar, and Burtenshaw, up on Wishart’s bunk, lifted a couple of fingers and muttered, ‘Once again, best of luck.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He liked Burtenshaw. It was pretty sporting of a Harrow boy, he thought, to join up in the ranks. But none of these people, once the war was over, would want to know anyone like Jake bloody Cameron. As for Everard – still clutching those cards, for God’s sake – Everard, a baronet’s son who’d eventually become a baronet himself, might as well have been a creature from some other world. He was, in fact. Jake thought, It doesn’t matter: when the war ends I’ll be too busy earning a living to worry about keeping up with baronets. But did he care, really? He didn’t know: and this was no time for considering one’s place in the class system. The war wasn’t a time for it: that was the whole point, surely, the way the question arose in the first place! The torpedo gunner’s mate – known as the TI, short for torpedo instructor – had come from his domain for’ard and was sliding on to the fore ’planesman’s seat. CPO Rinkpole’s bald head gleamed in its half-circle of greyish hair. Hobday murmured, ‘Morning, TI.’

  ‘Like old times, sir.’ Rinkpole grinned sideways at the coxswain. ‘All right there, Reggie?’ Morton came for’ard in his net-cutting outfit, carrying tools for both of them. Jake relieved him of one set and told Hobday, ‘We’re ready.’

  ‘Stand by to surface!’ The routine reports began to come in, and Wishart climbed back down the ladder; he looked cheerful.

  ‘We’ve got net – wire-rope mesh – all over the forepart of the boat, at right-angles to the fore-and-aft line. It’s draped over the jumping-wire and the starboard side of the hanging edge has meshed itself over the twelve-pounder. All we’ve got to do – you and Morton, pilot – is get that clear and over the side. You may not even have to cut it, once it’s slack all round – and I’m going to try to slip out of it as we surface.’ He turned to Hobday. ‘We need another trimmed-down surfacing, but it’ll be stern-first and we’ll have the weight of the net for’ard. We should be far enough up when there’s ten feet on the gauges – so stop blowing at, say, twelve.’

  Hobday nodded. He looked a bit doubtful, though. The big question was whether with the weight of the net on her she’d come up at all. It was quite possible, Jake thought, that even with all her tanks blown the thing would still hold her down. It was more than possible, it was likely, he thought. And in that case—

  In that case she’d be stuck, in this outsize fish-trap. ‘Now you two—’ Wishart was addressing him and Morton – ‘It’s not as dark as it might be, now. We won’t show more of ourselves than we have to, but we’re certain to be spotted at once, this time, and obviously we’ll be shot at. Consequently—’ he smiled suddenly – ‘don’t loaf about, what?’

  Morton had taken the point. ‘Faster ’n that, sir.’

  ‘Ready to surface, sir.’

  Hobday meant, to attempt to surface.

  ‘Number One – we’ll go astern, slow grouped down, enough power just to pull us back from—’ he jerked a thumb upwards and for’ard ‘—that damn thing, and get out from under at least some of its weight.’ Hobday nodded. Wishart told him, ‘Blow five, six, seven and eight to start with, then three and four if she isn’t coming up. If you can get her up
like that, leave one and two main ballast full. If the bow’s awash it’ll be easier to shove the net off or slide out from under it. Right?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’ Hobday looked happy enough with the programme. Wishart put one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder.

  ‘Group down. Slow astern together.’

  Jake and Morton, clanking with tools, moved up behind him. Agnew reported, ‘Grouper down, sir, both motors slow—’

  ‘Surface vessels closing from astern, sir!’

  Weatherspoon: from the cabinet. Changing everything …

  Ending everything?

  ‘Stop both.’ Wishart, wooden-faced, stepped off the ladder. Weatherspoon reported, ‘HE is confused, sir. There’s more than one. Might be the same pair comin’ back, sir.’

  With his eyes on the gleaming, dripping deckhead, Weatherspoon frowned – as if, Jake thought, watching him – as if something most unpleasant had just been whispered to him through the earphones. He’d closed his eyes now, concentrating. Opening them, blinking, he eased the headset backwards, freeing his ears; he told Wishart, ‘Two littl’uns coming from right ahead, sir, and this new ’un, bigger ’n slower, closing astern.’

  Wishart nodded slowly, digesting that, putting the scene together in his mind. For just a moment as he turned away, Jake glimpsed a flash of anger – despair? – in his captain’s eyes. Then there was nothing but the habitual calm appraising of a new situation. That would have been anger, Jake told himself, not despair: he’d be sick by now of being messed about. Who wasn’t, for God’s sake? Wishart announced quietly, ‘Unlikely we’ll be surfacing. But you two hang on—’ he’d glanced at Jake and the second coxswain – ‘in case they’re just passing.’

  You didn’t need earphones now to hear the Turks’ propellors. Like the first sound of a distant oncoming train: once you heard it, it got louder quickly. Weatherspoon, in the doorway of his cabinet where he could see and be seen, said, ‘This pair’s launches, sir. Other’s more like a gunboat, trawler, somethin’.’

  Wishart folded his arms on a rung of the ladder and rested his chin on his forearms.

  ‘One of ’em’s stoppin’, sir.’ The leading tel added, ‘One o’ the launches. Big one still closin’.’

  That one was stopping was enough to confirm what it was about. The Turks knew they had a submarine in this net.

  ‘Shut watertight doors, sir?’

  ‘Not yet, Number One … But you two—’ he meant Jake and Morton – ‘get dressed. No outing this time. Number One – pass the word for all hands to keep quiet and not move about.’

  Hobday sent Ellery aft and Lewis for’ard with that order. The propeller noise rose to a peak as it passed overhead; it drew away, lessening, on the other side. The net, evidently, could be crossed by surface craft. Weatherspoon reported, ‘Slowin’, sir. Stoppin’, shouldn’t wonder.’

  You could hear the decreasing revolutions – slowing and fading. But through that disappearing sound a deeper, stronger rhythm was developing: the newcomer from the south. This would be the gunboat. Out of Chanak, probably. Burtenshaw whispered from his bunk, ‘What’s happening now?’

  He wasn’t deaf: he must have known. Jake guessed he wanted to be told it wasn’t as bad as he thought it was.

  ‘Patrol boats. They may start dropping charges, presently.’ Everard had said it. Jake nodded. ‘It’s possible.’ He went to the chart table before the Marine could ask a question that he’d have to try to answer and might find difficult. Something like How can we possibly get out of this? He pulled his serge trousers up and began tucking shirt-tails into them while he listened to the rising note of the approaching screw. Much heavier-sounding and slower than the first pair. A trawler of some sort, and it would carry depth-charges as well as at least one gun, and with E.57 immobilised in this trap they wouldn’t have to waste any charges either. In the days of the first Dardanelles patrols, one had heard, when they caught submarines in this kind of situation they lowered small charges on wires from boats and detonated them electrically. In those days there’d been no such things as depth-charges. Just little ones on wires. They wouldn’t be little ones today. The drumbeat of the trawler’s screw was slowing.

  Stopping.

  Robins had his eyes open. He was lying on his back still and he didn’t appear to have moved a centimetre, but his eyes were open and staring at the deckhead, the rivulets of condensation – or trying to see through it… Jake told him in his mind, You won’t see them floating down, chummy. You ’ll hear them, when they arrive. Burtenshaw was looking at him: Jake winked. Everard was leaning forward in his chair and watching Wishart, who’d just told Hobday that he was going up into the tower to take another gander out through the ports.

  Jake thought suddenly, Surface, man the gun, chance our luck?

  If the trawler was really close to E.57, the coastal batteries would have their fire masked. Perhaps the submarine could pop up suddenly – if the net allowed her to – and loose off a few rounds from the twelve- pounder at point-blank range while he and Morton cut the net free: and the Lewis gun would come in handy too, spraying the Turks’ decks to keep them away from their gun … A few seconds ago the idea had seemed crazy, a daydream – but wasn’t it something more than that, when you thought about it? At least, a chance? Better than lying here like a salmon in a net, waiting to be gaffed? This way there was no chance, none at all. That was what he’d been anxious not to have to admit to Burtenshaw. He looked round now, a first move in what would be a hesitant, diffident approach to the skipper. Third hands weren’t expected to advise their captains or propose tactics … One might also argue that if one had been anything other than a third hand one might not have allowed oneself to start thinking on such suicidal lines. And then again, which was suicide: trying that, or waiting to be blasted to the surface?

  Wishart, returning from the tower, stopped halfway down the ladder.

  ‘We might wangle ourselves out of it, if we’re clever. Come up here, Number One. Pilot, take over the trim.’

  Jake moved into Hobday’s place behind the ’planesmen. ‘All right, cox’n?’

  ‘Never better, sir.’ Jake thought, Hell of a lad, old Crabb! He added in that nut-cracking voice of his, ‘Skipper’ll soon ’ave us out o’ this little lot, sir.’

  ‘Of course he will!’

  As if he’d never doubted it … And he could see more hopeful expressions all around the compartment. A swift and total change of mood. Ten minutes ago there hadn’t seemed to be much anyone could do except wait for the bangs to start; now Wishart had his tail up again, and if whatever he was planning didn’t work, Jake thought, he’d put forward his own scheme for a shooting-match.

  Hobday came down the ladder. ‘Cameron – you’re wanted up there.’

  He went up. No sound from the enemy over their heads. What might the Turks be so busy with – fitting detonators to the charges?

  ‘Here, pilot. Take a look.’

  He climbed a few rungs and joined Wishart in the tower. One would hear the trawler’s screws again, of course, before any charges came, there’d be that much notice. ‘Here.’ Wishart moved aside, giving him access to the little conning-tower port with its thick glass window. Between Jake and Wishart, there wasn’t much room to spare.

  Greenish-black water: but the shape of the submarine’s forepart was clear to see. He saw the net too, a web overhanging everything. Only the half-light of very early morning made it hazy; the water itself was totally transparent. Wishart said, ‘Look at the gun and the way it’s caught up.’

  Wiping the glass made it much clearer; condensation gathered quickly. The gun was a dozen feet for’ard and below the level of this observation port; its barrel pointed upwards at twenty degrees to the horizontal and was trained fore-and-aft, so that looking down from this angle you saw its whole length, breech-block to muzzle. The net was a pattern of loops and distorted rectangles shimmering in what looked like greenish jelly. He wiped the glass again, concentrated on the entanglemen
t round the gun. Wishart said, ‘The bights under the barrel can’t be difficult to get rid of, once we dislodge the other bunch. We’re double-hooked – that’s why we couldn’t clear it either ahead or astern. But I think if we lighten her and move ahead, with the angle right, that lot under the breech will swing clear – once the weight’s off it, d’you see? Then I’ll angle her the other way and come out stern-first. But the timing’s got to be just right. What I can’t have is any degree of time-lag between my orders and the motors doing what I tell ’em – and that’s what you’re for – there, in the hatch. Go on.’

  He slid down the ladder and took up a position with his head in the rim of the hatch. He heard Weatherspoon report to Hobday, ‘One launch on the move, sir – one o’ the first lot.’ Wishart called down, ‘Blow three and four main ballast!’

  No need to repeat it: those valves were already open on the tank inlets, and McVeigh had heard the order and wrenched open the high-pressure valve; there was a roar of expanding air as it ripped into the LP line and through it into the pair of midships saddle-tanks. Jake looked up, saw Wishart’s face close to the glass port; he waited for the next order. With the noise of blowing, that roar of air, he’d be needed this next time.

  ‘Stop blowing three and four!’

  He yelled it almost instantaneously, and the noise cut off abruptly as McVeigh shut the blow.

  ‘Slow ahead both!’

  ‘Slow ahead—’

  Ellery shouted the order aft. Quicker than using telegraphs.

  ‘Stop together!’

  Jake saved his breath: the signalman’s shout had overlapped Wishart’s order. But now a new sound was building up: fast screws closing, coming over. They were too fast-revving to be the gunboat’s … Wishart shouted, ‘Blow five and six!’