“Could be rising seven.” Kyle had a new cigarette waggling in his mouth; the grease on his hair gleamed in the faint light from the binnacle; his face was bony, hollow-cheeked, a nervy drinker’s face … “Bloody asdics. Got him by the knackers one minute, then—” he shook his head. Potts commiserated, “Fluke gettin’ anything at all, sea like this. Eh, skipper?’ Harris nodding, agreeing, but still searching, finding nothing, pings going out unanswered: Potts, who’d done an A/S course quite recently, suggested, “Could’ve turned towards us, run under us, run out of the beam and away astern?”
They stared at him: and he was right. The U-boat had been travelling to starboard, might easily have been circling: then, heading directly for its hunter, it would have passed out of the elliptical beam, vanished …
“Starboard twenty. Bring her round to oh-seven-oh.” Reciprocal course: if she could get round across this sea without actually bashing herself to pieces … Kyle checked the time: the escort commander’s orders had been to sit on top of this one for at least thirty minutes, but it was only 2314 now and this meant it had to be badgered for another twenty yet—and it could be a couple of miles away, or at least, half a mile …
“Depthcharges, sir. Northeast, long way off.” Listening, twiddling the knob, not pinging now, listening to the rest of the U-boat pack getting clobbered up there while the convoy slid away northwestward. Kyle told him to get on with it, never mind bloody depth bombs, this bastard here was the sod that mattered, he had to be kept deep and nervous. Opal fighting her way round … He shouted at Potts to go aft to the depth-charge party, have them stand by to drop single charges at one-minute intervals. That might entertain the Hun for half an hour … Then for an hour after that, plugging northward at her best speed, Opal would try to make herself look and sound like a whole convoy. She’d drop a depth-charge now and then and fire off some rockets. U-boats up ahead, already confused by the other escorts’ attack on them, might not be too difficult to fool, in this blinding weather. But finally, Kyle faced the task of getting his ship past them—through them or round them—and the long haul from there to rejoin the convoy—with a top speed of just over 10 knots, no bloody RDF, weather going from piss-poor to flaming awful and SL 320 already God only knew how far away, getting itself hidden in the night.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Prime Minister to General Alexander:
I send you my heartfelt congratulations on the splendid feat of arms achieved by the Eighth Army under the command of your brilliant lieutenant, Montgomery … “Torch” movements are proceeding with precision and so far amazing secrecy …
Ultra paddled slowly, quietly, in towards the beach near Termini where at 0200 she was due to meet and embark the Count. She was still a few miles offshore, with Cape Cefalu a dozen miles away to port. Ruck was taking her in at periscope depth: he was at the periscope himself, straining his eyes into the dark, and he had Newton—Ultra’s senior asdic rating—on the set. The submarine’s motors were running at slow speed, grouped down, meaning that the two sections of her battery were connected in series, as opposed to parallel which gave greater power. This way she was getting about one and a half knots and keeping propeller noise to a minimum. On operations of this clandestine kind you had always to be on guard against the possibility of ambush, which accounted for Ruck’s extreme circumspection.
The ambusher might be a U-boat, or E-boats, or destroyers. A U-boat lying dead quiet and listening through its hydrophones would be the most dangerous: the first you might know of it could be the sound—detected too late—of torpedoes racing at you. You could imagine it visually, here and now: a submarine’s black shape somewhere between this point and the shore: tubes ready, bowcaps open, captain motionless at the periscope and hydrophone operator nodding as he picks up the sound of approaching screws … It could be real. Happening at this moment—if, for instance, the Count had been caught and talked to save his life: or if there’d been a leak elsewhere … Ruck was on his toes and being very, very wary, more so than usual: he was entering the enemy’s back yard, and if the enemy had known he was coming they’d have had it staked out.
Bob McClure was at the chart table, watching points for Ruck, checking the boat’s slow progress on the automatic log. The log’s constant clicking was the loudest sound in this midships area of the submarine: otherwise there was only the soft hum of the motors and an occasional quiet movement from Ruck or one of the control room watchkeepers. A planesman putting on a few degrees of angle; the helmsman fractionally shifting his wheel; the messenger clearing his throat. It was very warm, to match the stillness: Ultra had spent the whole of the day motoring westward along the Sicilian coastline, and electric power made for central heating.
It also drained the battery. In normal patrol routine they’d have been on the surface now, running a diesel charge to top it up.
It was 1 am, 5 November. One hour to go to the rendezvous. Paul was flat on his bunk, sleepless, listening to the small sounds from the control room, trying to figure out an answer to a problem that was bothering him, and hearing pages turn—Hugo Wykeham, at the table, reading Edgar Wallace … Wykeham had been into the control room a short time ago, offering to look after the trim for Ruck, but the skipper had told him not to bother, McClure could handle it.
Paul wished he could see the Count now, this minute, wherever he might be. On the beach, perhaps, already there and waiting for Ultra’s blue light to show. Or in some farmhouse with a bunch of cut-throat partisans … He might have a good yarn to tell when he came back on board: and he’d be in a better frame of mind, one might hope, better than the blue funk he’d been in when he left.
The puzzling aspect of this situation was what the routine was going to be for the re-embarkation. Paul had asked Ruck about it: for instance, space would have to be cleared for the canoe in the torpedo stowage compartment before they surfaced, and it should have been happening now—with only an hour to go, and the TSC resembling the Black Hole of Calcutta, crammed with all sorts of gear that would have overflowed into the rack-space formerly occupied by the folboat. Moving stuff around wasn’t easy, because the compartment was so full of it: to reorganise it you’d have to pile a mountain of stuff out in the gangway first. But Paul had also wanted to get a decision on the drill with the fore hatch: for instance, whether he’d go up that way himself, or use the bridge hatch so as to be available on the casing before they got that for’ard one open.
Ruck’s answer to all of it had been, “I’ll let you know.”
“But all that clobber for’ard, sir—”
“Plenty of time. Don’t worry.”
He could hear Ruck circling with the periscope, the shuffle of his tennis shoes as he moved round the raised sill of the periscope well. Then his voice asking his navigator, “How far to go now?”
To the rendezvous position, he’d mean. Wykeham had stopped reading, and was waiting to hear the answer. McClure provided it from the chart table, which was just across the gangway from this space: “Two point four miles, sir.”
Ruck grunted acknowledgement. Still circling. Faint clicking from asdics as Newton trained around with his ears turned to any whisper from the black surrounding water. Paul looked over the edge of his bunk, down at Wykeham, the slightly balding top of that Old Etonian head. “D’you understand the form with the canoe? What the hell I’m supposed to do with it?”
Wykeham glanced up. “I wouldn’t dream of making a suggestion,
Sub.”
Ruck’s voice: “How much water under us, pilot?”
“Hundred and ninety feet, sir. Not shelving much yet.”
Paul said quietly, “I told the Count we’d have a tot of rum for him, when he gets back.”
“And where will that come from?”
He hadn’t given it much thought. He said, “I’ll ask the coxswain.”
“Easier to give him a slug of Scotch.” Nobody drank at sea, in the wardroom, but there were some bottles in the wine locker. Wykeham pushed his nove
l aside, and reached for the poker dice in their leather cup. “If we get him back … Want a game, Sub?”
“D’you think there’s some doubt?”
“I’ve no idea at all … Come on, turn out, let’s roll ’em.”
He slid down on to the bench. “Are you thinking he might not make it?”
“Agents have gone adrift before, haven’t they.” He passed him one of the dice, to spin for starters. “Ace up, king towards …”
“At this rate we won’t be anything like in position by oh-two-double-oh.”
“Doesn’t look like it, does it.” Wykeham murmured, “Skipper knows what he’s doing, Sub … That’s a queen to your miserable ten, so I start. Here come five aces.” He threw a low straight, in one, the rattle of the dice startlingly loud in the surrounding quiet. “I’ll leave it at that, this time. But let’s have that cloth on the table.”
“Hope to God we do get the old twister back.”
“‘Twister’ is about right …”
At 0140 Ruck ordered Diving Stations, and when the hands had settled down at their posts and Wykeham had adjusted the trim he had one motor stopped. Making the boat’s propulsion even quieter. He’d already decreed “silent running,” so the order was passed to the motor room by word of mouth instead of by the noisy telegraph, which was loud enough to be heard miles away, under water.
McClure told him, “At oh-two-double-oh we’ll be two and a half-thousand yards short of the R/V position, sir.”
Ruck took his eyes off the periscope lenses, looked at McClure, and nodded. Then he resumed his slow, concentrated search. Newton, on asdics, had his eyes half-shut as he trained all round, listening intently, his entire concentration out there in the cold blackness with the fishes.
“Signalman.”
Jannaway started … “Sir?”
“When we surface I want you behind me on the ladder, carrying the Aldis with the blue shade on it. But you’re to stay on the ladder, right in the hatch. I’ll take the lamp from you when I’m ready, and I’ll do the flashing: all you have to do is plug it in and pass it to me, and stay where you are. Clear?”
“Aye, sir.”
“If we have to dive, I may throw you the lamp. Just get the hell out of the way and make sure the lamp’s lead is clear of the hatch rim. Shout down any ‘dive’ order that I give, as you drop down. I do mean drop. It’ll need to be the fastest dive anyone ever saw.” He pulled his head back from the periscope again, to address Wykeham now. “Point is, Number One, I don’t intend opening the voice-pipe. Nor do I want her fully surfaced. I want the top lid a few feet out of water, that’s all. Get the idea?”
Wykeham nodded. “Eight feet on the gauges?”
“That’ll do. We’ll stay on the motors. On the order ‘dive,’ full ahead grouped up, and flood Q. You can expect that order, so be ready for it.” He’d put his eyes back to the lenses again. Nobody understanding much yet. The orders were clear but the reasoning behind them wasn’t. To be surfacing at least a mile short of the position, and expecting to stay up for no more than seconds, and yet needing the blue lamp as if the Count would be there to see it, in range to see it …
Perhaps Ruck was hoping to get the Count started on his canoe trip, then to run in dived and surface again in the right place, not having had to hang around and wait after the first showing of the light? But the Count had been told to steer for it: and if after one lot of flashing it didn’t appear again he’d have no mark to guide him.
“Depth?”
“Twenty-nine feet, sir—”
“Keep her up, for Christ’s—”
“Sorry, sir.”Wykeham was fiddling with the trim. With so little way on her, it needed to be a very accurate one. Also the closer you came to land the more uneven the salinity and therefore density might be, if there was any mix of river water.
“Twenty-eight feet, sir.”
“Hear anything, Newton?”
“No, sir.”
McClure prompted, “Five minutes to oh-two-double-oh, sir.”
“Port twenty.”
“Port twenty, sir.” The helmsman span his wheel. Wykeham told the second coxswain, “Put some dive on the fore planes, Lovesay.” Under helm, the bow tended to rise. The helmsman reported, “Twenty of port wheel on, sir.”
Paul was thinking that as a canoeist, the Count was very much an amateur, and without the light to steer by he’d panic, go any way except the right one. He’d miss the rendezvous, and he’d be invisible in the dark. And Ruck wouldn’t risk his ship by hanging around.
“Steer north.”
“Steer north, sir …”
Swivelling her right around, turning her stern to the beach. So he wasn’t intending to go any closer in, wasn’t taking her even within a mile of the pick-up position?
“Stand by to surface.”
Wykeham ordered, “Check main vents.” And a minute later, when the reports were complete, “Ready to surface, sir.” Paul decided that this must be intended as a test surfacing, to make sure the bay was empty. When he was sure of it, he’d go on in and find the Count. Well, he had to: it was what he’d brought Ultra in here for, the only reason for being here at all!
Questioning Newton again: the asdic man shaking his head in that goofy way of his, repeating, “Nothing, sir …” Ruck looked across at Wykeham, and nodded. “Half ahead together. Surface!” “Blow one, three and five main ballast!”
Quinn, the bearded artificer on the blowing panel, wrenched the valves open. Jannaway had opened the lower hatch, and he had the Aldis ready with its rubber-covered lead coiled over his shoulder. Ruck started up the ladder as air blasted into the tanks: Jannaway followed close behind him. Hydroplanes were at hard a-rise and the boat was lifting, depth-gauge needles circling slowly and then faster round their dials and Wykeham intoning, for Ruck’s information up there under the hatch, “Twenty-two …Twenty feet, sir … Eighteen … Sixteen …” At twelve, one clip swung off, clanking as Ruck released it: at ten feet, second clip, and the hatch flung back, water cascading down and Wykeham yelling at Quinn over the racket of HP air coursing through the pipes, “Stop blowing!” Cold night air wafted down. A lot of sea had come down too, ladder and hatch-rims still dripping into a pool of it on the corticene-covered deck. Ultra wallowed, rolling sluggishly in low waves, really only partly surfaced and in just a little better than neutral buoyancy; there’d be very little of her in sight above water. Enough to show up on direction-finding apparatus, of course: and any enemy with hydrophones would have heard her surfacing, which was a very noisy process … Ruck would be displaying the blue lamp now; a second ago he’d shouted for it, to Jannaway, he’d be pointing it in the direction of the beach and giving three blue flashes—pause—three more—pause—three more … Wykeham ordered, “Stop together. Group up.”To be ready for the “dive” order if it came.
Newton instigated it—wide-eyed, bawling: “HE right astern, fast turbine, closing!”
“HE” stood for hydrophone effect. Propeller noise. He’d howled it like a dog affected by the moon and Jannaway had heard it up there in the top hatch and repeated it, a booming, echoing cry of alarm in the steel drum of the tower. Ruck’s shout followed instantaneously: “Dive, dive, dive!”
“Open main vents, flood Q, full ahead together!”
Paul thinking, in the rush of movement as the vents banged open all along her length, He was right …
The signalman dropped like a ton of deadweight with the lamp clutched against his chest. He was crashing through the lower hatch when the top lid slammed shut and Ruck called “Hatch shut, one clip on!” An OK that it was safe to continue to dive. By this time, two seconds later, the top hatch would be under water anyway: and as it would have been distinctly unsafe not to take her down, the alternative would have been to shut the lower hatch, trapping the skipper in the tower. Fortunately that had not been necessary. Jannaway was on his back in that pool of water, then scrambling aside, getting out of the way of Ruck’s equally fast but less un
controlled descent.
“Sixty feet. Well done, signalman.” Ruck was soaking wet, and panting. He asked Newton, “How close? I saw some damn—”
“Here.” Newton’s eyes were wide, his body upright, rigid on the stool, and the long forefinger of his left hand was pointing directly upward. “Coming over—now …”
Enemy screws raced over, fast and loud, a singing churn that had barely passed before it was repeated—a second one close astern of it. Passing very fast, though, and already fading seaward. Newton said, his torso seeming to shorten as he relaxed, folding down into his customarily slumped pose again, “E-boats, sir.”
“Group down, slow ahead together. Port twenty. Blow Q.”
There had been a welcoming party.
But no depthcharges. Not yet, anyway. They might not be carrying any: they might have been expecting a clean kill on the surface with torpedoes, or their guns.
“Going round to starboard, sir. Circling, I’d say.”
“Midships.” Ruck told Creagh, the helmsman, “Steer three-three-oh.”
The Germans had known exactly where to find them, Paul realised. Except for the fact that Ultra had been a mile to seaward of where she should have been, and Ruck handling her as if he’d known beyond doubt they’d be here. If he had not been so extremely cautious, Ultra would almost surely have been blown apart by this time.
“Course three-three-oh, sir.”
“Very good. Stop starboard.”
One motor only: to take her softly, softly out to sea northwestward. Newton reported, “Enemies bearing green seven-oh, moving left to right, sir.”
Heading back inshore, then. Ruck murmured, mostly to himself, “Thought they had us on toast, I’ll bet.” He looked at Wykeham and told him flatly, “They’ve got the Count. That’s the only way they could have known precisely where to jump us.”
The Torch Bearers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 5 Page 29