Winged Escort

by Douglas Reeman

  He said, ‘Going down!’

  He put Jonah Too into a power dive, knowing the others were peeling off after him. He blinked away the moisture behind his goggles, concentrating on the approach. Gun button to ‘Fire’. He watched the tracer spluttering from the U-boat’s bandstand.

  Straighten up. Three hundred yards. The conning tower was across the sights, growing out of the blue backcloth like a solid rock.

  He pressed the button, feeling the plane jerk and quiver as the tracers pounded down in long, smoky lines, knitting and bursting across the submarine in a whirl of flames and splinters.

  He felt the pressure in his spine as he pulled out of the dive, throwing the fighter over and around as Rolston’s shadow tore across the water like a black cross. He could hear his cannon and machine guns quite clearly. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr! Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

  ‘Hello, Jonah!’ Nick sounded out of breath. The bugger’s stopped shooting!’

  Rowan did not reply, he was watching Nichols as he pulled away, his guns still unfired.

  He said, ‘We’ll keep circling. At the first sign of a rubber dinghy we’ll have another go. They might try to bale out if they think a rescue is on the cards.’

  Lazily, keeping well apart, the three Seafires flew round and round the slow-moving U-boat. Maybe they had already had enough. Some other battle, or too many of them. Rowan could see the German sailors crowding in the bows, peering up at the aircraft. Most of them were dressed only in shorts, their skins dull like their boat. They must have been at sea for weeks, and how long before that? Now they were making their gesture, keeping up in the bows and away from the guns.

  ‘Stringbag coming up like the Flying Scot!’ Rolston gave a rare chuckle.

  Rowan smiled tightly. He could see the Swordfish now, cruising at about five hundred feet, and miles away astern he could make out two other shapes hardening in a heat haze. Destroyers bustling from the convoy to complete the capture.

  The Swordfish was already flashing its signal lamp towards the submarine. Telling the German commander not to abandon. To await boarding.

  Rowan heard Nichols yell. ‘Somebody’s manning the bridge gun!’ Nichols’ Seafire was the nearest one to the U-boat at that moment, and before Rowan could reply he added wildly, ‘Tallyho!’ and put his plane into a sweeping dive.

  A light flickered from the U-boat’s bridge, and Rowan realised that one of the Germans was acknowledging the signal, and certainly not attempting to use a gun.

  Then everything seemed to happen at once. Nichols levelled out and flew straight in across the U-boat’s port beam, his guns hammering against and over the midships section and hurling up a pattern of white feathers some twenty yards on either side of the ballast tanks.

  ‘Break off, you fool!’

  Rowan pulled round in a tight arc, seeing the Swordfish, the U-boat and Nichols all pivoting before him as if on rails.

  Rolston was flying parallel with the U-boat, barely thirty feet above the surface, his wings tilting as he tried to see what was happening. A bright cone of tracer spurted from the U-boat’s multi-barrelled A.A. gun and seemed to pass right through the fighter without harming it.

  Then the Seafire seemed to fall awkwardly and roll right over on to its back, ploughing up a great furrow of bursting spray as it hit the sea.

  Rowan circled the U-boat, ignoring the sailors who were dragging one man away from the motionless guns, and just staring at the Seafire’s pale, upended belly as it grew fainter and mistier in the clear water, until it was gone altogether.

  Confused, caught off guard, or enraged by what they had seen, the Swordfish crew released their depth charges. They were so close to the hull when they exploded that the boat appeared to rise right up in the sea like a wounded dolphin.

  The crew, those who had avoided Nichols’ torrent of bullets and were still on their feet after the charges had exploded, were already abandoning. Life-jackets bobbed around the hull, and spray was bursting up from the saddle-tanks like steam as the U-boat started to settle down.

  Rowan said, ‘This is Jonah. Return to base.’ He did not recognise his own voice.

  He saw the two destroyers charging towards the sinking U-boat with its widening circle of froth and oil.

  He heard Nichols say thickly. ‘They were going to fire!’

  ‘Get off the air!’

  Rowan turned to see where Rolston had gone down. There was always a chance that a man could fight his way out of the cockpit after it was under water. But the sea’s face was smooth again, as he had known it would be.

  He checked his course and speed, and waited for the Swordfish to complete another circle before tagging on astern.

  There was the convoy trailing over the misty horizon. Larger humps here and there to denote the carriers and the troopships.

  ‘Hello, Foxtrot, this is Jonah.’ They would already have every glass trained on the returning aircraft. ‘Cancel the relief. U-boat destroyed.’

  There was a long pause, then, ‘Hello, Jonah. This is Foxtrot. Report casualties.’

  ‘One fighter down.’

  What was the point of broadcasting a name? That Lieutenant Nicholas Rolston, R.N.V.R., a gangling, hot-tempered pilot, had just died because of another’s blind stupidity. He felt the silver whale sticking to his chest and stared directly through the racing prop. And it might have been me. Just like that.

  ‘Permission to land-on.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  He flew round Growler’s square shape and landed on the flight deck with barely a shudder.

  He thrust himself out of the cockpit, feeling the sun pushing down through the breeze from the bows.

  Lord Algy was one of those who helped him away from the aircraft, his face very strained.

  ‘Nick?’

  Rowan pulled off his helmet and took a tankard of lemonade from a mechanic. He nodded and then tilted the tankard until it was empty.

  Nichols’ Seafire hit the deck with a screech, missed the first arrester wires and then came to rest on the last one, slewing awkwardly as the engine coughed and died. He came across the deck, half running, half staggering, oblivious to the men on the walkways and those who were already moving the aircraft to the parking area.

  ‘I thought they were going to open fire, sir!’

  Rowan handed the tankard back to the mechanic. He felt very tired. Crushed.

  ‘You didn’t wait. You didn’t think. Now we’ve lost the sub, and Nick’s dead. All because of you.’

  He turned away, sickened, as Lord Algy lashed out and hit the other pilot in the mouth.

  ‘That will do.’

  He walked past the handling party who were staring at Nichols and the blood which splashed unheeded down his chest and Mae West.

  Nichols pleaded, ‘It was an accident!’

  Lord Algy picked up his cap from the deck. ‘Fly across my bows and there’ll be another accident!’ Then he too walked away.

  Later, when dusk closed over the convoy and the last air patrol had landed safely, Rowan was requested to report to Buchan’s quarters. When he arrived he found Kitto and Commander Jolly already there.

  Buchan said, ‘I saw what happened on deck today. Lieutenant Cameron will be reprimanded for behaving as he did. And he’s damn lucky it didn’t go further. The fact that I’m leaving it right there is because Commander (Flying) explained the circumstances. But I’ll not have my officers acting like bar-room oafs in front of the ship’s company.’ He poured four glasses of sherry. ‘Nichols will not make that mistake again. And punching him in the face won’t help either him or Lieutenant Rolston now.’

  Rowan nodded. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I should have stopped it myself.’

  He looked at the sherry, vibrating gently in the glass as Growler took up night station in the convoy. A destroyer had returned to the screen with some three dozen survivors from the U-boat on board. He found himself wondering if one of them was the man so stunned by Nichols’ attack that he had run unaided to the A.A. gun
s and poured that deadly volley into Rolston’s plane as it flew past. It was more likely that he was far astern with the others.

  ‘And anyway,’ Buchan was looking at his glass, too, ‘there are other things to worry about. I’ve had a signal. At Trincomalee we will finish working-up and then head for the Pacific.’

  Rowan glanced at the others. It was obvious they already knew.

  Buchan added slowly, ‘Growler will be senior ship of the group. Under the flag of Rear Admiral Chadwick once more.’

  Rowan asked quietly, ‘Wasn’t the admiral going to a more important appointment, sir?’

  Buchan eyed him for several seconds, the sherry glass tiny in his fist.

  ‘So I understand. It would now appear differently.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I must get up to the bridge.’

  Kitto walked down with Rowan to the cabins in silence. Then he said, ‘Something odd about all this, Tim.’

  ‘Yes.’ He thought of her face. How she had looked whenever her husband had come back from one of his trips. Knowing he had been with other women. Now Chadwick was coming to Growler again. Why? Was it because of some old connection with Buchan? Turpin would certainly take it as a slight that his ship was not being given a chance of wearing the admiral’s flag. Or had something worse happened which bound all these people and events together? ‘But there’s nothing we can do about it. I’d better see to Rolston’s gear. Tell his steward to pack it up.’ Another box. A letter from the captain to Rolston’s family.

  Bill met them in the passageway, filling it like a great bear.

  Rowan said, ‘I’m putting Nichols in your flight, Bill. A change will be good for him.’

  Behind him Kitto nodded approvingly. A leader had emerged from the pilot and fighter whom he had known for far longer in Rowan.

  Bill said, ‘Fair enough. I’ll use him as a punch-bag if he argues with me!’

  Kitto walked away towards the showers, and Rowan added quietly. ‘Chadwick’s coming back.’

  Bill stared at him. ‘Phew! That could be nasty.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  Bill laid a large hand on his arm. ‘For God’s sake, Tim. I’m not bloody well blind! I just hope his lordship is, for your sake!’

  Rowan opened his mouth, and then let the denial drop.

  ‘Obvious, was it?’

  Bill grinned. ‘Just a bit.’ He followed him into the cabin, adding, ‘Lucky old James chose that moment to be sick!’ He turned his back to the door, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘You didn’t see her again after that, did you?’ He shook his head. ‘I see that you did.’

  He sat down on Rowan’s bunk and scratched himself noisily. ‘I think I’d rather take on the Jap Navy than Chadwick.’

  Rowan smiled. Glad he had told Bill, although it changed nothing.

  15

  Night before Sailing

  BUCHAN SAT WITH his arms folded watching Rear Admiral Chadwick as he read swiftly through a folder of recent signals.

  Despite the fans and the spacious size of Chadwick’s quarters, the air was humid and oppressive. Curtains were drawn across the scuttles, and outside the motionless carrier Buchan knew the sun was blinding and ten times as hot.

  Buchan had been to Ceylon several times in his naval career, but he knew that after convoy work and the grey hardships of the Atlantic most of his company were seeing their new surroundings as some sort of paradise.

  They had arrived in Colombo without losing a single ship or man, apart from Rolston that is. Buchan did not believe in relying on luck. It surely meant that at long last the combined Allied assaults on U-boats, the day and night bombing of enemy harbours and industrial targets were having visible effect.

  It had been a proud moment for Buchan, who like so many had become conditioned to expecting a convoy to arrive at its destination with many of its numbers missing.

  Three days in Colombo and then off again, to this thriving port and naval base of Trincomalee. And here, once more there was a sign of the ‘turning tide’, as Churchill had termed it, a change in their fortune.

  For the first time since the bitter defeats in Malaya and Singapore, the Japanese domination of so many islands in the East Indies and at the gates of Australia itself, the Navy was gathering its strength again. A new British Pacific Fleet was being planned, and ships of all kinds being brought from other areas where they were no longer needed.

  The Americans were used to the great expanse of the Pacific, and had been involved and hitting back since Pearl Harbour. The daily arrival of ships and men from around the world showed that the pace was quickening, and Chadwick’s appearance on board Growler this forenoon implied that their support group was to play a part.

  Chadwick had changed in some way. Buchan tried to remember him as he had last seen him in Scotland after the Russian convoy. Maybe the refit, the replenishment of new aircraft and men, and the long haul around the Cape and across the Bay of Bengal had blunted his proper image of the man.

  Now, dressed in impeccable white drill, Chadwick looked heavier. Older.

  ‘This business of the pilot who was killed?’ Chadwick looked up. ‘Seems a bit of a foul-up?’ When Buchan merely shrugged he added tartly, ‘Lost the damned U-boat too, eh?’

  The door opened and Chadwick’s new flag lieutenant padded into the cabin and laid a small envelope on the desk and withdrew just as silently.

  Lieutenant de Courcy was quite a different type from Godsal. When Buchan had mentioned the change, Chadwick had replied indifferently, ‘Marcus Godsal? Went home on leave and got blown up in an air-raid. He wasn’t much good anyway.’

  Chadwick sat back in the chair and stared absently at a bulkhead chart of the Pacific.

  ‘God, there’s a hell of a lot of work to be done. While you were dragging your keels round the Cape of Good Hope, I was flying out to Australia. Had to see some of the American top brass.’ He sounded vague, which was not like him. ‘Get the feel of things.’

  ‘Will we be joining with the U.S. Navy soon, sir?’

  ‘Early days.’ Chadwick took a cigarette and lit it irritably. ‘I must decide where we can do the most good. Too much stagnant thinking out here. They’ve been out of the fighting, don’t know what it’s about.’

  Buchan had no idea who ‘they’ were, but when Chadwick had come aboard he had arrived direct from the F.O.I.C.’s office. A cold reception perhaps? A rap on the knuckles for taking so much on himself? He thought of the admiral who had come to question him about that convoy. His searching enquiries about the group’s part, and Chadwick’s behaviour.

  Chadwick continued, ‘I want plenty of flying instruction while we’re here. Keep ’em on their toes. Don’t much like what I’ve seen and read so far.’ He asked abruptly, ‘How’s Rowan getting along?’

  Buchan smiled. ‘Very well. He’s only young but –’

  Chadwick interrupted, ‘I was much younger when I had his responsibility.’ His own words seemed to unsettle him. ‘I’m glad to hear it anyway. Picked him myself. We’ll need as many skilled officers as we can beg and steal from every damned direction, I can tell you!’

  He picked up the small envelope and turned it over and over in his fingers. Buchan noticed it was pink and had a handwritten address on it. It looked like a woman’s writing.

  Chadwick said. ‘I’ll be living ashore, of course.’

  Of course. Buchan kept his face immobile. He had heard about Chadwick. It hadn’t taken him long to get organised in Ceylon. Or maybe he kept one handy in every port, like the sailor in the song.

  ‘It will give you a free hand, and I shall be able to keep a close eye on things where it counts.’

  But as days ran into weeks and nothing more spectacular than extra training came the way of the ships under Chadwick’s command, many who still cared about such matters began to wonder.

  Kitto had been across to visit a giant American carrier which was on her way to join the fleet in the Pacific. He had a friend aboard who he had known before the
war.

  One evening in Growler’s wardroom, after a particularly frustrating day at sea, when they had exercised taking on fuel from a naval tanker, and had flown several practice sorties with the Swordfish torpedo bombers, he said forcefully, The Yanks don’t want us out there.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Dexter watched him with his twisted smile. ‘They’re on our side, aren’t they?’

  ‘It’s not that.’ Kitto sounded vaguely disappointed. ‘You want to see their planes and equipment. We’re so used to the short-range, hard-punching war, we’ve not got the experience of their operations. Thousands and thousands of miles, and they’ve got the ships and the aircraft with the endurance for the job.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe Admiral Chadwick had been sent out to form a master-plan with the Americans. I think somebody at home wants him to get lost. Trouble is, what effects him may rub off on the rest of us.’

  Few present at the time really believed him, but as weeks dragged on and other ships arrived and then vanished to various theatres of war, Rowan for one had cause to remember his words.

  The training programme was maddeningly monotonous. The ships spent several days at a time steaming up and down the Palk Straight which separated Ceylon from India, until everyone from bridge staff to the lowliest stoker was heartily sick of it. Each programme was followed by a short stay in port, and for a while many said, ‘Ah, now we’re off at last.’ They were wrong.

  And with the arrival of June came the news of the great Allied invasion of Normandy. The vital step for which everyone had waited, and dreaded at the same time. The announcement only pushed the Air Support Group further to the fringe of things.

  Then at long last Chadwick came aboard, and shortly afterwards, with Hustler, her escorts and the loyal rescue tug Cornelian in company, Growler put out to sea.

  Chadwick issued a short but rousing bulletin to his ships’ companies. They were going to Sydney, and under new orders would then proceed to the real Pacific war. It was up to every officer and man in the group to use his extra training to best advantage.

  At the thriving Australian naval base in Sydney they were made very welcome. Ceylon had been a colourful change for most of the seamen who had not been far from home waters before. But Sydney, with people who looked and spoke as they did, free of bombing and dull, wartime food, was something really special.