He heard the door open: then pulled shut again. He murmured into the dark, “Late Night Final …”
Today, as soon as he’d finished sprucing himself up, she’d made him go back upstairs. He’d wanted to hang around, even take a stroll outside; but she’d insisted, and it was as well she had because the boy had returned soon after. He wondered whether she’d tell the child about him, even send him straight out again with a message to the police. He wouldn’t have held it against her if she had: she’d been kind enough already, she was some sort of German, and she’d be in grave danger for harbouring him. If he’d seen the boy go out again—it would have been a complete break with their routine—he’d have assumed the worst and tried to make a break for it… But nothing had happened. And if she wasn’t letting on even to her own child, it could only be that she didn’t want the secret to get out—which would suggest she might be prepared to shelter him until he was fit to leave. He’d come to these conclusions, and then her behaviour later had seemed to confirm them—at the end of the afternoon, when she’d gone out for the evening egg-collection, she’d paused near the corner of the chicken house, stared straight at this window and fluttered one hand in a wave.
The back door opened again, and banged shut. He heard the bolt slide over. Then as usual her rather heavy footfalls through the kitchen and into the corridor on that side of the house. A moment later, and quite clear in the surrounding silence, her bedroom door clicked shut.
Beddiebyes …
I am out of humanity’s reach,
I must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech;
I start at the sound of my own.
He said aloud, “And balls to you, Cowper.”
Nodding, thinking, There’s sweet music for you …
He hated those verses. The triteness of the little jingling stanzas had annoyed him even at Dartmouth. He’d only picked on the wretched thing, he guessed, because with its short lines it had been an easy one to commit to memory.
He thought she would make him a meal tomorrow. She wasn’t likely to leave him to go hungry, having fed him once and provided the other comforts. Unless it did turn out to be a Sunday, and the kid stayed at home … Even then, she might sneak up with something: or send the little bastard out on some errand, so he could go down for a little while. He wasn’t too keen on the child: perhaps because of that shrilled “Heil Hitler!” Its mother was something else entirely: the way she’d waved to him had impressed him as much as anything she’d done for him earlier—suggesting complicity, mutual involvement.
A sound. From the stairs?
Lying quiet and tense, on his back, straining his ears into the dark void of the house …
It had its own sounds, but he knew them. That one had been different. Unless he’d imagined …
A board creaking on the landing.
The child. Prospecting. Suspecting: and having waited until its mother was asleep …
He heard the door-handle turn. Then the faint creak of the door opening, and a soft, slithering noise. The door shut again, very slowly and quietly.
He smelt woman. Powder, eau-de-Cologne, and—woman. He was up on his elbows when her hand came groping, touching his head and then his face, the fringe of beard. She whispered something that was totally incomprehensible to him: then she was getting down beside him on the mattress, under the smelly carpet. His hands encountered some kind of woollen garment, but it came loose in folds then flew away: an arm’s softness, a shoulder, a heavy breast … He’d turned in dressed for warmth, and his astonishment was mingled with embarrassment at having clothes on; but she was helping, while at the same time her mouth was on his and for a moment, still stunned, he had an impression that she was trying to inflate him. But it was a shushing, an instruction to be quiet. Hardly essential: even in the first seconds of alarm he hadn’t considered shouting for help, and although in one spasm of it he’d wondered whether he’d have the strength, after days of privation, something was telling him now very plainly indeed that he undoubtedly did have—although he was finding it difficult to breathe and thinking that if this was all she’d had in mind she might have obtained it much less dangerously from the soldiery who’d come visiting. But his mind was steadying, and evolving two much less offensive and probably truer theories: first, that this was in such secrecy and privacy that knowledge of it would be only her own and his, the outside world as shut out of it as if it had been a dream; second, that perhaps she, like him, was in some kind of danger—she was certainly lonely and lived in peculiar isolation—and empathy in their matching predicaments might in her woman’s heart foster a kind of love?
U 702 lay trimmed down so low that the Brits’ RDF would have a target not much bigger than a bathtub to pick up. Looff was using his motors, not the diesels, with revs for about two knots, only about enough to give her steerage-way. He was letting the convoy come to him, sitting waiting for it, but if by ill-chance an escort stumbled on him he could dive her so fast they wouldn’t believe he’d been here. Down—then up again—and whumpf …
Drachens Three, Eight, Nine and Ten had attacked an hour ago—with some successes, of which Looff had no detail yet—and at the height of it, soon after he’d heard several hits, the convoy had made an emergency turn to port. Looff had been eight miles from it then, with Drachens Two, Eleven and Twelve in company, and he’d shifted at high speed to get into position for stage two of the assault. Just as, at this moment, those first four—Messrs Becker, Greissler, Meusel and Ziegner—would be surfaced and travelling north, reloading tubes as necessary en route, at full revs and ignoring any temptations to take further nibbles at the convoy. Their object would be to gain bearing on it, putting themselves into an optimum position for stage three, which Looff hoped might be a full pack attack, still well before sunrise. It was a fairly loose plan of action: it had to be, to allow for emergency course alterations by the convoy—this was the main reason for splitting the pack, to cover all eventualities as far as was possible. But if it came off more or less on these lines, he’d be taking advantage of the whole period of darkness and of the weakness of the opposition, making maximum use of his own resources and stretching their very limited ones to breaking point—if they hadn’t reached such a point already. It would certainly keep them on the hop all night.
Ulrich Weddigen, Drachen Eleven, would be close by, perhaps no more than two thousand metres west of Drachen One, using this same tactic, lying doggo. The other two, three or four miles southwest, would be attacking more conventionally on the convoy’s flank—and with luck they might draw all the escorts’ attention.
Which would be lovely …
“Destroyer, sir!”
Looff glanced quickly at the quartermaster, to see what bearing he had his glasses trained on. About twenty on the bow … Then he saw it, too, and it was the destroyer all right … You could see her length—from the white splash at her forefoot and the upward slope by way of a gundeck to the bridge superstructure … You caught it in a single glance, though, like recognising a familiar face. She was steering from left to right: and she’d be passing close to Weddigen.
He was tempted to take a shot at her. Spread a salvo of four across her. But it would leave his tubes empty, and it was the convoy he’d been ordered to destroy. Ordered … Also, he’d have to move fast, really snap those fish off, and as one couldn’t count on the destroyer holding a steady course there’d have been a chance of missing. Which in the circumstances one could not have afforded.
The convoy would be—well, say five thousand metres behind that escort?
“Come ten degrees to starboard.”
He’d reminded the others: their torpedoes were to be used not wasted. And if he was robbed of a good chance in this phase, he’d save them for the next.
One might assume, also, that the destroyer, as escort commander’s ship, would be somewhere near the centre—where he, Looff, also wanted to be. So if he crept in there now, inserted himself
between that Brit and the convoy …
One of the beauties of this kind of attack was it gave you time to think and observe. When you were charging in at full tilt there was always too much going on for anything but snap judgements … He guessed Weddigen would have dived by now. He’d have spotted the destroyer coming directly towards him and he’d have just quietly slid under. Then he’d surface again when it had gone over him; and that would put both U-boats in a very favourable situation. Ideally they’d attack from the convoy’s front as soon as they heard action from the flank.
Kernéval—Flag Officer U-boats—had repeated an earlier demand for complete elimination of this convoy. The signal had been unequivocal: Your confirmation that not one ship remains afloat is to be received here for onward transmission to the Führer within the next 24 hours. Looff had passed the telegraphist’s scrawl across the table to Franz Walther. Keeping his own expression blank, watching the engineer’s reaction. Walther’s lips had moved: soundlessly forming one short, lavatorial word.
The destroyer was just visible now, and at that only by the flicker of white from the mound of foam under her counter. The weather was much easier tonight, and with less broken water on the surface ships travelling at speed were easier to spot. A good reason for trying this “sleeping dog” trick … But that signal from U-boat headquarters had put Looff in a straitjacket. Mention of the all-highest, even: you could sneer at it, but you couldn’t ignore it. Incidentally, it suggested that Dönitz too might be under pressure. The Führer doing a bit of his celebrated carpet-eating act, frothing at the mouth for good news? In contrast to the announcement last night that he’d authorised Field Marshal Rommel’s strategic withdrawal for purposes of regrouping?
What that meant was a bloody rout. The Afrika Korps with its tail right up its arse. Hence everyone else getting the heat turned on them.
“There, now …”
The convoy. One—two ships—then a gap and a third and fourth … Puzzling formation though: you might say more jumble than “formation”… Well—he saw that—in their emergency turn, all ships would have turned simultaneously, so that the rectangle became a sort of lopsided diamond. And there’d have been some holes blown in the pattern when the other four had taken their stab at it.
Before the night was over, given reasonable good fortune, whatever ships remained would be scattered, in no kind of formation at all, so that the final mopping-up would be of individual ships here and there. An easy and enjoyable finale, and its culmination would be his own signal to FO U-boats: Convoy destroyed …
“Destroyer’s turned towards us!”
“Where?”
Oelricher’s glasses were trained on the beam: one arm extended, pointing. Looff swung his own glasses that way, caught one brief sight of the destroyer coming bow-on at high speed …
“Dive, dive!”
A spark—like one from a cigarette-lighter with no fuel in it—somewhere behind those merchantmen: then the sound, torpedo … Vents crashing open, a ripple of thuds down her length, spray in a cold, salt rain, and Oelricher in the hatch, his leather-wrapped bulk blocking out the faint glow of light from the tower’s interior. Looff heard a second hit as he dropped into the hatch himself, reaching to drag the lid down over his head, shouting as he fumbled with the clips “Fifty metres! Hard a-starboard!” A penetrating, knocking crash: that would be hit number three. He rattled down the ladder. Frustration at not being up there at precisely this moment to add his torpedoes to that slaughter tightened his brain and nerves: he told himself, as if addressing some other creature inside his own skin and skull, that Drachen One’s fish would get their share, before much longer … He’d get up there soon: with luck the attack on the convoy’s flank would divert this destroyer, but meanwhile his aim was to pass under it while it was still only about half way to where its captain would imagine him to be: the Brit would be aiming-off to starboard, imagining he’d have held on towards the convoy … When he was reasonably well clear he’d come up—surface if possible, otherwise attack from periscope depth by sound, spread a salvo across the convoy’s mass.
Or, save it for later. Transfer eastward for phase three. It depended very much on the convoy’s own movements, how it reacted to the attack that was in progress now.
“Fifty metres, sir.”
“Destroyer passing over—port side …”
Looff told Walther, “He may not have seen us. Could have been on that course by chance.”
Depthcharges blasted, close on the port quarter. Lights flickered, went out, came on again, and the gyro alarm bell broke into its strident racket. Heusinger had seemed stunned, Looff noticed, but Walther had got to the panel almost before it had started, and shut it off. An electrician was going to the gyro itself, which presumably had toppled.
Get rid of Heusinger, before the next patrol …
“Two hundred metres.”
Playing safe—although there’d only been two charges dropped, and he guessed they were economising. Walther was busy with the trim as the needles swung round the gauges. Within seconds U 702 would be below the reach of any more charges that might be coming: but he’d only stay deep for a little while. Just long enough to shake the bloody destroyer off …
“Slow both.”
“Slow both motors, sir!”
One of the corvettes had dropped quite a tonnage of depth bombs on poor old Drachen Six last night. Not for the first time, Ernst Pöhl had been very lucky to get away with it—if indeed he had, in the longer run … The vibration from his screws transmitted by the damaged casing had been making that frightful noise: he’d been in the dilemma of having to use his screws to get away, yet not being able to throw the corvette off his trail as long as he did use them. He’d already suffered damage from the depthcharging, had leaks here and there and a cracked battery and other defects. What he’d done—he’d wirelessed a full report of it this morning—was he’d brought his boat up to about thirty metres, then stopped everything, held her in a stop-trim as long as possible and then in a slow descent with no machinery at all running, even his gyro stopped: he’d let her glide down as far as 160 metres, which was 60 below his tested depth and must have taken an iron self-control to stick at, with his boat already badly hurt, liable to split open at any time, and depthcharges still bursting round him. But the corvette captain had evidently decided he’d sunk him—which was what Pöhl had wanted him to think—and pushed off … So Ernst was now on surface passage to St Nazaire. He wasn’t in a state to dive again—not without staying down for evermore—so he had no option but to take a longshot chance on the Biscay air patrols. Maybe his luck would hold; if no-one heard of him again, you’d know it hadn’t.
Looff asked his hydrophone operator, “Where is it now?”
“Red one-five-oh, sir, moving left to right, about—two hundred revs … Not in contact.”
“Two hundred metres, sir.”
He looked round at Walther. “Right. But let’s get back up there, now. Fifty metres.”
The Lossiemouth, the Archie Dukes and the Coriolanus had been hit in the first assault. The Lossiemouth was still holding on, down by the bows but maintaining station. The other two had sunk. Now Paeony had just been through on TBS to say the Omeo had been torpedoed, and—Guyatt thought—the Cimba too.
Slaughter. Snowflakes showering a distant brilliance as if to celebrate it. And quite a few hours to get through yet. So far they’d only nibbled at the edges of the convoy; but once they’d chewed those away …
“No contact, sir!”
“Keep trying.”
The deep-diver? There might be more than one of them in this crowd, of course. From the beam as Harbinger slowed—he’d cut the revs to give asdics a chance—Nick heard the commodore’s siren ordering an emergency turn to starboard. Asdics pinging mournfully, Chubb leaning into the cabinet behind leading Seaman Garment: but there were no echoes coming back. The emergency turn might have been more useful ten minutes ago, Nick realised; if he’d thought of it
when the 271 had picked up the first contact, and signalled to the commodore …
Well, he hadn’t. So now he had a convoy of—what, twelve ships … And you couldn’t make an emergency turn every time RDF got something on the screen. He couldn’t paddle around here much longer either, probing for a German who most likely had gone down to some fantastic depth.
“Port twenty. Three hundred revolutions.”
“Port twenty, sir …”
You couldn’t afford to potter along at a speed suitable for asdic work either, when you had so few escorts and so much territory to cover. He was taking her along the line of the convoy’s van now. There were two of the bastards here somewhere: he’d had one on the screen and it had dived before he’d got near enough to see it, and then a second—this one he thought had gone deep. They’d both been coming in towards the convoy: the fact they’d dived didn’t mean they’d have changed their plans.
Eagle—this is Gannet … Omeo has sunk, the Cimba’s straggling. Making about three knots. Stella’s standing by her.
Siren again. Sandover had swung his ships to the mean course, and now he was turning them another forty degrees to starboard of it. It was a good move: experience had shown that the only emergency turns that helped when enemies were close or in contact were the drastic kind.
Starshell: over what was now the convoy’s quarter, and either from Paeony or Stella. He called down, “Midships.”
In that first attack a lot more torpedoes had been fired than had hit. And in the last ten days some of the U-boats might have used most of what they had. Just as Harbinger and the others had done with depthcharges. And in the recent foul weather there couldn’t have been any re-stocking from “milch cow” U-boats.
A small hope: but any hope was better than none. Elphick had acknowledged the helm order: Nick told him now, “Steer two-four-oh.” To close in towards the convoy. What had been its front was now its port side, and the two who’d been put down out here would be pressing in again, he guessed. They’d aim to surface at close quarters to their targets, having got inside the sparse defence. They’d surface, because there wouldn’t be enough light for a dived attack. With luck, though, he’d stop them simply by being there, close to the huddle of ships as they ran eastward. If you could call five knots “running” … He hoped to God they’d be keeping close together, ships moving up into gaps left by casualties. Because if they straggled, if the formation opened up—
The Torch Bearers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 5 Page 35