The Torch Bearers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 5

by Alexander Fullerton

  And then the one thing you dreaded … A deep, hard crash, from way back on the quarter, the convoy’s starboard wing. The sound had all its usual, sickening implications. No flash, only the sound of the torpedo striking, exploding. Then—ten or fifteen seconds later, a second one. Fleetingly in the back of Nick’s mind there was recognition that there were more than two attackers; also that Gleam, the trawler on that side, and perhaps also the Leona, the rescue ship with the red-headed, argumentative skipper, would look after the victims. Although Gleam’s priority would be to counter-attack first—if he had any idea where the torpedoes had come from … “Target’s dived, sir!”

  Meaning it had vanished from the 271 screen. “Last range and bearing?” He told Chubb, “Shallow pattern, stand by.” He wasn’t going to start hunting this one with asdics; by the time he got there and then slowed Harbinger enough for the set to be operable the German could be a mile away in any direction he chose. So—one wild swipe …

  “Diving position now bears one-one-six, three thousand four hundred yards, sir!”

  “Steer one-one-six.” He straightened from the voice-pipe: that distant rumble was from depthcharges—Paeony’s … “Sub—I want to know when we’ve run three thousand yards.”

  Blind chance, but some rough method in it. Three thousand yards was one and a half nautical miles: at that point he’d order port helm, count on the turning-circle carrying her to the U-boat’s track, and steady on 340 degrees, the course it had been steering until it dived and might (or might not) still be steering now. He’d run up what he’d assume to be its continuing track, and drop one full pattern.

  Then search. For long enough to keep the bastard down while the convoy made its turn. Which he guessed would be in just minutes now.

  He’d ordered shallow settings on the charges, but second thoughts prevailed now … “Set charges to one-five-oh feet, Sub!” Fifty metres, that would be in the German reckoning. His gamble was that the U-boat’s captain would want to go deep enough to hide but might be hoping to surface again and press home his attack when this danger had passed, so would not—probably—have gone very deep. Chubb had passed the new order aft to Mr Timberlake, who would undoubtedly be turning the air blue with curses while his team worked fast to change the settings on the pistols. You did it with a special spanner, but in the dark and on a bouncing, canting deck it wasn’t all that easy.

  “One thousand five hundred yards, sir!” Three-quarters of a mile …

  Astern, light sparked, grew, flooded its whiteness across the seascape. You didn’t have to blind yourself by looking to see what it was. Snow-flake, the merchant ship’s equivalent of starshell, an illuminatory rocket they fired to light up attacking enemies. And if there was another U-boat that close to the convoy, the turn to starboard wasn’t going to help, because the damn thing would be there to see it and report it. There was a call on TBS, at the same time as Carlish passed on a warning from Scarr that there were one thousand yards to go: this was Astilbe, Tony Graves reporting he had an RDF contact six thousand yards ahead—attacking …

  “Five hundred yards!”

  One quarter of a mile. At thirty knots, they’d cover it in thirty seconds. No great accuracy was involved in this: in fact it was so hit-or-miss that an apparent error like turning too soon or too late might happen to be lucky; and if anything came of it other than keeping the U-boat down and preoccupied—which was the main object—it would be pure luck. He put his face down near the voice-pipe: the plot, echoed by Carlish, called “Now, sir!” and he told Elphick, “Port fifteen.” As the wheel came on Harbinger leant hard to starboard, pitching and slamming through the turn as her rudder hauled her round, lying on her ear and slicing the sea into sheets of flying white: and the commodore’s siren wailed like a distant banshee—so SL 320 was in position A, altering course to northeast, the herd of ships swinging their stems to point at the gap between the Canaries and the Azores … “Midships!”

  Those two torpedo hits had been widely enough separated in time to have been hits on two different ships. First blood, anyway, and much too soon … “Meet her!”

  “Meet her, sir …”

  Elphick, down in the wheelhouse, would be spinning his wheel to put on reverse rudder and check the swing. Nick told him as the rate of turn slowed, “Steer three-four-oh.” At this speed it was just a hope that Harbinger could be over the top of the U-boat and depthcharges floating down around it before its captain caught on to what was happening and dodged away.

  “Course three-four-oh, sir!”

  Hammering into the sea, meeting it more or less head-on now: “Stand by!” He glanced round, saw the white of Chubb’s face turned towards him, Chubb crouched against the depth-charge panel with one hand grasping the telephone and the other on the firing buzzer. Back aft, Timberlake’s men in their streaming oilskins would be waiting to send the first high-explosive cannisters splashing down from the stern chutes. And now was as good a time as any: he shouted, “Fire!” Then, turning to look ahead again, saw a lick of flame from where the convoy would still be making its wheel to starboard. A very small spurt of yellow fire and then a glow that brightened, blossomed; the sound came afterwards, muffled by distance but clearly another torpedo crashing home.

  One of the oilers?

  The blaze astonished Looff. He’d thought when the flames first gushed out of her, My God, I’ve hit a tanker! But he hadn’t: it was the freighter he’d aimed at, a snap shot with two torpedoes when suddenly and surprisingly he’d found the easy target in his master sight perfectly set up and at ideal range; he’d loosed off two fish and struck this blazing gold with one!

  He guessed the other would have missed astern. U 702 swinging fast now, under maximum wheel. “Full ahead both engines!”

  The convoy had altered course, he realised: that was how the target had suddenly presented itself to him as it had. Not just an emergency alteration with all ships turning simultaneously, but a wheel, a real change of course with the convoy’s formation maintained by inner ships slowing down, outer ones increasing by a knot or so … But that freighter must have had some highly inflammable cargo in her. She was alone, stopped, burning from end to end, and U 702 was turning her tail to the inferno, skidding out of the dangerous light of it … “Steady as you go!”

  Trimmed down low, lancing through the waves, as low as a surfboard and about as wet. Diesels pounding: the air-intake was only a few feet behind him, virtually under the lookouts’ feet, and the roar of it was loud at this full speed. Sea was coming over green, half a ton a minute. And those were depthcharges, somewhere far astern of the convoy, he thought. Werner Knappe getting it in the neck? He shouted, “Ship’s head?”

  Oelricher told him, “Zero-zero-seven, sir!”

  To all intents and purposes, north. So the convoy’s wheel must have been to about northeast. It would make sense, too: he’d check it later on the chart, but he guessed it would be normal enough for a convoy on this route. In fact he might have anticipated it: should have …

  There was an escort of some kind, he saw, moving in close to the burning ship. Small, its profile etched black against the flames. It looked like a tug … Nosing in there … He wiped the front lenses of his glasses, put them up again quickly. Trawler? If that was what they were trying to guard this convoy with … “Reduce to half speed!”

  He’d bring her round to starboard in a minute, to a course parallel to the convoy, out on its bow. For the moment his main concern was to get clear of that burning ship, which was lighting up a square mile or more of sea. An escort destroyer in the wrong place now would have U 702 silhouetted against her own kill: and there could be one out there, too, if the ship he’d run into earlier had turned back. They certainly weren’t all trawlers. He called over his shoulder, “Keep your eyes peeled, you lookouts!”

  There were only two of them. He’d have four on the bridge in normal routine, but when you might have to dive in a hurry that was too much of a crowd. Four men in all—himself, tho
se two, and Oelricher—were more than enough. He’d brought the quartermaster—and Franz Walther his chief engineer too—with him from U 122 to this new command.

  “Come to zero-four-zero!”

  Oelricher passed the order down into the tower. Heusinger was there, as well as the helmsman and two others. Willi Heusinger’s job as first lieutenant was to operate the torpedo-fitting calculator, the machine that told you about such things as deflection, aim-off, based on the courses, ranges and speeds you fed into it. He also triggered the firing of the torpedoes from there. It had been very smartly and quickly done, this shot at the target that was now ablaze: and right after a distinctly nerve-jarring encounter with that escort out in the deep field. It had materialised out of nowhere, belting straight at them: Looff had crash-dived and made use of his boat’s deep-diving capability, taking her right down fast and steeply to two hundred metres while depthcharges were pooping off right up near the surface. He’d kept the batteries grouped-up and pushed on at full speed for a while—hearing more charges burst astern, and laughing at them—the sort of thing a crew of youngsters, brittly nervous, admired and responded to with enthusiasm … Then he’d brought her up again, at slow speed and with great caution, while the escort was still hunting them three or four miles away.

  Looff felt good again. His old self. Only exhaustion had led him to confuse that drained, hopeless mood with loss of nerve. And he’d recovered quickly from the deep shock and despondency at being deprived of his Berlin leave. Trudi’s admirably stoic reaction had helped a lot: Trudi was a lot more than just a pretty face and a sensational body, she was her father’s daughter too!

  “Escort vessel red one-zero, sir!”

  Oelricher’s sharp eyes and strident voice … Looff swung like a gun-fighter—except it was binoculars he was aiming. Focusing—on a corvette in profile, white turmoil around her hull making her easy to see. She was travelling from left to right at about twelve knots.

  “Port twenty!”

  The corvette hadn’t spotted them: and he was turning stern-on to it, to reduce the chances … Turning the long way round, actually, because this suited his plans and also because he guessed the corvette would be heading for the convoy’s van. If this was the one who’d charged him earlier on, and had since been wasting a lot of depthcharges, it would almost certainly have come from the front of the convoy and would therefore be returning to that station now, with a longer distance to cover because of the change of course. Alternatively it might be the ship he’d heard hunting Drachen Three earlier on. Drachen Three—U 208, Gustaf Becker—hadn’t put in an attack yet, so far as Looff had heard.

  “Midships.”

  Depthcharges. A long way off. You felt them, more than heard them. The helmsman span his wheel, down in the tower. Looff asked Oelricher, “Where is it now?”

  “Just about astern, sir.”

  “Steady as you go!”

  According to the shadowing Drachen Four’s reports—that was Knappe in U 580—the convoy consisted of about forty ships with six escorts. Knappe had been riding herd on the convoy for several days, having found it and stuck with it since before Looff and U 702 had got down here. But there’d been nothing about trawlers. Tomorrow when they all compared notes it should be possible to make a more accurate assessment. Meanwhile two of the convoy had been accounted for: he’d heard two hits some time ago—they’d been on the convoy’s starboard side, so that must have been Drachen Two, Hans Köning’s U 54—and now he’d polished off this incendiary. It was a start, anyway.

  “That Brit’s out of sight, sir.”

  “Good. Port twenty.”

  “Port twenty, sir!”

  “I’ll take her round in a circle, settle on about northeast and close in again. Give tubes three and four a chance, maybe.”

  The flames in the southwest had been extinguished, and he guessed his target had sunk. U 702 might have been alone now in an empty sea. Darkness and wind and the sting of salt water, rumbling growl of diesels and the hoarse sucking of the intakes … Wondering what had happened to Becker and Knappe, and whether they’d realise the convoy had altered course. During these night rough-and-tumbles you couldn’t keep track of everything: you had a certain picture in your brain and you could touch it up with a certain amount of guesswork, but things rarely went just as they’d been planned and boats that hadn’t shown up in the sectors allotted to them could be just about anywhere until torpedo hits or depthcharging provided clues. He’d have them all concentrated and organised again tomorrow, and there’d be some others joining too. Four were on their way. The original intention had been for them all to be here before U 702 arrived, but there’d been some hitch connected with the redeployment of one whole group into the Mediterranean. Anyway, with eight boats altogether and escorts few and far between, there’d be easy pickings to come.

  The thing was, undoubtedly, to play it by the book—Flag Officer U-boats’ book. Use the pack as a pack, go for the hammer blow. At this stage, before he had them all together, reconnaissance was more important than sinking a ship here or there; as leader, it was one’s primary task now to organise and concert the action. While naturally, if opportunities like the last one did present themselves one would take advantage of them.

  “Convoy’s in sight to starboard, sir!”

  “Ship’s head?”

  “Zero four five, sir …”

  “Steer zero-five-zero. Open three and four bowcaps. Revs for five knots.”

  He was reducing speed in order to make less wash, show less bow-wave, and keep peace with the slow-moving convoy. Sliding quietly and very nearly invisibly along, gradually closing the range while taking the opportunity to make a detailed inspection. Sweeping round with his binoculars now as his boat edged in closer, converging by a few degrees on the enemy’s course, he could see no escorts at all.

  None. It was quite extraordinary.

  “Seems it’s open day here!”

  Oelricher grunted. He was searching too. The masts and upperworks of the nearer column of merchantmen growing taller and clearer as distance slowly lessened. U 702 was trimmed down so low she’d get almost alongside those ships before they’d see her: and with her tanks already half-full of water she could crash-dive like a ton of bricks if she needed to … The quartermaster suggested, “Might be the little widger that was standing by that ship we hit, when it was burning, should’ve been this side?”

  “Right. And when the cat’s away …” Looff chuckled. “Even if it’s only a little, toothless one!”

  But—one trawler, to guard the whole flank of a convoy this size? “Three and four bowcaps open, sir!”

  It felt like being in a zoo with a game-rifle. The whole bag of tricks was in his lap! It made him feel slightly drunk—such fantastic luck! And there was a lot more of it than his immediate situation … He asked Oelricher, “Did you ever hear of anyone destroying an entire convoy?”

  “Not yet sir.” The quartermaster grinned. “But there’s always a first time … Big fellow in there, sir. Two wide funnels on heavy-looking upperworks: looks like a liner, passenger ship!”

  “I don’t see—”

  “Just abaft our beam—there’s a vacant space in this line, no ship astern of the one abeam now?” “Check.”

  “But in the next column there is. And if you look past that one’s stern—at what must be column three?” “Ah. Yes …”

  It would be a tricky shot from here. And there were so many easy ones. There was also a week or so in hand, and four boats joining the pack tomorrow.

  “I’ll take this near one.” He thought, just one torpedo. Why waste more, when a blind halfwit couldn’t miss, and when you were going to need all the torpedoes you had? To knock a target down with a single fish was also rather stylish, and would look well in the patrol report … “Target speed six knots, range nine hundred metres. Stand by number three tube. I’ll fire from ninety degrees on his port bow, and his course is—zero-four-zero. Starboard five!”

 
Oelricher set the night-sight, as she began to swing towards the firing course. In the tower, Heusinger had worked out the director angle, aim-off: he called up to her skipper, giving him the course to steer, and at the same time removed the safety clip from the trigger of number three tube. Oelricher was reporting he had the sight set when both men heard the soft whoosh of a rocket, then another, and a snowflake burst: the entire surroundings were suddenly as bright as day. Looff shouted, “Increase to ten degrees of wheel!” In order to come on aim and fire more quickly: but then he saw his target beginning to swing, turn towards him, the freighter’s length shortening, bow-wave lifting against the steel walls of her massive stem. She’d seen him, fired those snowflakes, turned to ram …

  “Hard a-starboard, full ahead both, shut bowcaps!”

  Running: but what the hell else? You couldn’t hit a ship bow-on; and lit up like this he wasn’t in command of the situation any more, he was vulnerable, with a vision printed on his imagination as U 702 swung away—picking up speed, diesel and intake noise rising, roaring: the vision was of that towering black stem looming over, shutting out the sky as it bore down on him, explosively destructive as it hit, ploughed in, crushing and ripping through steel …

  It was all right. She’d outrun that old hooker, easily …

  Another whoosh, another light flooding from the sky … “Midships!”

  “Midships, sir. Wheel’s—”

  “Destroyer starboard! Green one-zero-zero, bow on!”

  He had it in his glasses. Corvette, not destroyer. But close. A gun on its foc’sl fired: a yellow flash, and a noise like ripping canvas as the shell passed overhead. Looff wrenched himself out of the paralysis of shock—screamed at the lookouts, “Down!” He’d shoved Oelricher towards the hatch. Then: “Dive, dive!” Where the hell that thing had come from: out of the convoy? It had just fired again. They were piling into the hatch before he realised he’d blundered. The corvette was too close, there wasn’t going to be time …