Marine L SBS

by Ian Blake

  The two men half climbed, half slid down the ladder and heard above them the clang of the bridge hatch being closed by Woods. They moved quickly across the control room, which was in darkness except for the lights on the depth gauges and the eerie red glow of the emergency lights.

  ‘Both engines full astern,’ the First Lieutenant ordered. ‘Eighty feet.’

  The engine-room telegraphs rang full astern and the planesmen spun their wheels.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Paddy calmly when they reached the wardroom. ‘That was close.’

  He took his tommy-gun off his shoulder, unclipped the magazine and worked the breech mechanism to make certain the weapon was unloaded. The General sat at the wardroom table, his eyes closed, his mouth moving, as he repeated some incantation to himself.

  ‘How is he?’ Ayton asked Dennis.

  ‘Scared as hell.’

  ‘He isn’t the only one.’

  When the submarine reached eighty feet Woods turned it round and headed out to sea. They ran for an hour, then surfaced to charge the battery and to signal Alexandria that the party, including its guest, had been picked up safely and with only one casualty. However, instead of being ordered back to base immediately, the submarine was instructed to move to a position off the southern tip of Greece.

  The First Lieutenant broke the news to the party, who had taken over the tiny wardroom to grab some sleep. ‘Sorry, chaps, but it must mean there’s an Eyetie convoy coming through.’

  At dawn, its battery fully charged, the submarine dived. The loud throb of the diesel engines was replaced by the quiet whirr of the electric ones, and all motion of the vessel moving through the water ceased. It was, thought Ayton, who was immediately awakened by the change, rather like leaving the hustle and bustle of city life for some remote country location.

  He dozed off again, only to be woken some hours later by a shake on his shoulder. It was the First Lieutenant. ‘We’ve reached our new billet. The Captain says you might like to come into the control room. We could be in for some fun.’

  Ayton rubbed his eyes, eased his way out of his narrow bunk and headed for the control room. The submarine was already at periscope depth, for Woods, his back bent, his legs slightly apart in the crouching position, had his eyes glued to the main periscope. As Ayton entered, the Captain snapped shut its handles and ordered the periscope to be lowered.

  Turning to Ayton, he said: ‘There’s a two-ship convoy approaching, escorted by what looks like a destroyer. You SBS characters have always used us as mere transports. Now you can see what our real task is.’

  While its members were unstinting in their hospitality and support, Ayton knew that the submarine service sometimes regarded SBS operations as an additional hazard it could well do without. It had always been firmly understood from the start that the safety of a submarine and its forty-man crew was never to be put in jeopardy for a handful of SBS men. But there was nothing in the rules, as far as Ayton could recall, to say that members of the SBS, even if they had a German General as a captive, should not be put at risk if there were two valuable Axis merchant ships to be sunk.

  For several minutes the submarine ran on towards the approaching convoy. The crew, ready to carry out their various tasks, sat in silence. The electric engines whirred and hummed. They had been submerged for only a few hours, but to Ayton the atmosphere was already stuffy. Woods glanced at his watch.

  ‘Any HE, Number One?’

  The First Lieutenant moved over to the asdic operator, who was bent over his dial with his headphones over his ears, and tapped his shoulder. The operator removed his headphones and said something, then replaced them.

  ‘Only faint HE dead ahead, sir,’ the First Lieutenant reported. ‘That’ll be the convoy.’

  ‘Up main periscope!’

  Woods swung the periscope through a complete circle before concentrating on a section straight ahead. After a few moments he stood up and gestured to Ayton that he could look. Ayton bent to the eyepieces.

  At first he could see nothing but the turmoil of broken water, but then, as the wave drained away, three indistinct black blobs came into view. He switched to high power and suddenly the trio of vessels leapt out at him. The two merchant ships, in line ahead, were moving diagonally towards the submarine at an angle that gave Ayton a good side-on view of them.

  The leading one looked modern, its low, slightly raked funnel indicating that it was almost certainly diesel-powered; the other, box-shaped and ugly in contrast to its companion’s sleek lines, was an ancient coal-burner, its straight, high funnel belching black smoke.

  Their escort, off the port quarter of the coal-burner, was moving from starboard to port, probably circling its two charges to maintain with its asdic a constant watch for underwater intruders. Its long, low outline, twin raked funnels, and gun turrets on its fore and after decks, identified it as a destroyer, or possibly a large corvette.

  As Ayton watched, it swung under the stern of the coal-burner and, with a white bone of foam at its bows, came hurtling towards them. Ayton stepped back hurriedly and Woods took his place. But instead of ordering the submarine to crash-dive, as Ayton had expected him to, Timber just chuckled and gave the control room a running commentary as he watched the Italian warship manoeuvring.

  ‘Pretty duff tactics,’ he said eventually. ‘With luck, he’s not going to cause us many problems. Group up. Both engines full ahead. I’m going to take out the diesel one first. Close up for the attack!’

  The First Lieutenant moved to the ‘fruit machine’, a device which calculated at what angle ahead of the target to aim the torpedoes. The device was connected electrically to the gyro compass, which gave it the heading of the submarine, and the First Lieutenant fed into it the target’s speed, course and range as estimated by the Captain and his attack team.

  The asdic operator lifted off his headphones. ‘Sorry, sir, can’t pick up her revolutions clearly enough.’ Sometimes an asdic operator could count the revolutions of a target’s engines and from this its speed could be calculated.

  ‘I’d say it’s about nine knots,’ said Woods after a moment, his eyes riveted to the periscope lens. He hesitated, then said: ‘Her course is one-two-zero degrees. Range two thousand yards and closing.’

  The navigator began to plot the attack on his chart.

  The target’s speed and course had to be calculated by eye, but, provided the Captain could estimate the height of the target’s mastheads, the range could be obtained by a device on the periscope which made two images of the target, one above the other. After balancing the water-line of one image on the mastheads of the other, the target’s range could be calculated with help from a scale on the lens.

  ‘Plot suggests target speed of nine knots, sir,’ said the navigator. ‘Course one-three-zero. Range one thousand five hundred yards.’

  It all seemed very unhurried to Ayton and he was not surprised when the gunnery control officer murmured in his ear that it often took an hour or more for a submarine to be manoeuvred into the right position to fire its torpedoes. Yet calculations from Woods flew thick and fast, and the SBS man could feel the tension in the control room increase as the minutes passed.

  ‘Course and speed constant. Range one thousand yards and closing. The target’s bearing is green ten. I want a course for a sixty track.’

  ‘Steer zero-eight-zero degrees, sir,’ the navigator said after a few minutes. ‘That will give you an angle of sixty degrees.’

  ‘Starboard thirty, then.’

  ‘Thirty of starboard wheel on, sir,’ the helmsman reported, swinging his wheel, then: ‘Steering zero-eight-zero degrees, sir.’

  ‘Course and speed constant. Range six hundred yards and constant.’

  Now the submarine was the right distance from the target, and in the right position, as the diesel merchant ship was now steaming across the submarine’s bows.

  ‘What’s the DA?’ Woods asked the First Lieutenant, straightening up from the periscope.


  ‘DA ten red, sir,’ the First Lieutenant replied, reading off the ‘director angle’ from the fruit machine.

  ‘Put me on ten red.’

  Once the Captain knew what angle to aim ahead of the target, he could put the submarine on the director angle, or correct course, to fire the torpedoes.

  There was a pause as the helmsman altered course to starboard. Then Woods set the periscope at the ‘aim off’ angle by using the bronze bearing ring around the periscope where it passed through the pressure hull.

  ‘Stand by, one and two tubes.’

  The hand of the engine-room artificer in charge of the torpedoes gripped the firing handle of the first tube on his panel. Woods waited until the merchant ship was in the middle of the vertical graticule on the periscope’s lens.

  ‘Fire one! Fire two!’

  Ayton felt an abrupt increase of pressure on his eardrums as the torpedoes, propelled initially by compressed air and then by their own electric power, left their tubes. The submarine gave a slight lurch backwards as if it had run into a large, soft pillow.

  ‘Torpedoes running, sir,’ the asdic operator called out.

  ‘Good. Down periscope. Starboard forty. Take her down to eighty feet.’

  The seconds ticked by. Everyone in the control room was motionless, almost as if they were holding their breath. Woods glanced at his watch. To Ayton time was suspended. The suspense lasted so long he was sure the torpedoes must have missed, when two sharp explosions, one coming rapidly after the other, hammered against the submarine’s pressure hull.

  Immediately the atmosphere in the control room changed from anticipation to relief. If the relief was muted it was because all knew the attack would draw retaliation.

  After a couple of minutes Woods ordered the submarine to be taken to thirty feet and the attack periscope to be raised.

  ‘We got her all right,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘And now for the coal-burner.’

  ‘Diesel HE dead astern, sir,’ the asdic operator announced.

  ‘Is it on a steady bearing?’

  ‘Coming straight at us, sir.’

  ‘It’s the destroyer,’ the gunnery control officer said quietly to Ayton.

  ‘Down periscope! Hard-a-starboard. Take her to one hundred feet. Group down. Shut off for depth-charging.’

  One by one the watertight doors were clamped shut.

  ‘Stop the fans. Steer one-five-zero.’

  A blanket of thick, heavy, hot silence descended. Any careless, noisy movement, such as dropping a spanner, could be picked up on the destroyer’s asdic as it began scouring the area for the submarine. Ayton felt the sweat beginning to form on his forehead.

  ‘HE bearing green four-five, sir,’ the asdic operator said quietly.

  ‘Hard-a-port. Steer three-five-zero.’

  ‘HE astern and increasing, sir.’

  ‘He’s on to us,’ said the gunnery control officer.

  ‘Stop one engine.’

  The submarine hung suspended. Its single propeller turned just enough to move it forward without emitting enough sound to be detected by the enemy’s asdic. Now all they could do was wait. And hope.

  ‘HE constant, sir. Bearing green one-seven-five.’

  ‘She’s starting a hunting pattern, sir,’ the navigator said to Woods, looking up from his plot.

  ‘I know what she’s doing, Pilot,’ Woods said irritably.

  ‘HE constant, sir. Bearing green one hundred.’

  The wireless operator at the rear of the control room smothered a cough.

  ‘HE fading slightly, sir. Bearing green eight-zero.’

  ‘He’s drawing ahead of us,’ Woods said quietly. ‘Hard-a-starboard. Take her down to a hundred and twenty feet.’

  ‘Clever move,’ the gunnery control officer whispered to Ayton. ‘The Wops usually search in an anticlockwise pattern.’

  ‘Steer zero-nine-zero.’

  ‘Zero-nine-zero it is, sir,’ said the helmsman.

  ‘HE still fading, sir. Bearing red one hundred.’

  The tension in the control room seemed to ease.

  The one electric motor hummed and whirred as the minutes ticked by.

  ‘HE still fading, sir. Bearing red one hundred.’

  No one moved, then Ayton saw the asdic operator’s back stiffen slightly.

  ‘HE constant, sir. Bearing red zero-nine-zero.’

  ‘Shit,’ said the navigator. ‘She’s turning clockwise.

  ‘Hard-a-port,’ ordered Woods calmly. ‘Group up. Both engines full ahead.’

  The telegraph engines clanged.

  ‘She can’t hear us increase speed at that distance,’ the navigator said. ‘We’ll cut back across her path before she gets too near us.’

  ‘Steer two-seven-zero.’

  ‘Two-seven-zero it is, sir.’

  ‘HE fading slightly, sir. Bearing green one hundred.’

  ‘We’re now moving roughly parallel with one another, but in opposite directions,’ the gunnery control officer explained to Ayton.

  ‘HE continuing to fade, sir. Bearing green one-one-zero.’

  Ayton, who was beginning to grasp the intricacies of underwater hide-and-seek, said: ‘That must be good.’ But the gunnery control officer shook his head and told him: ‘She’s just completing part of the search box. She won’t give up yet.’

  Sure enough, the asdic operator said: ‘HE increasing, sir. Bearing green one-two-zero.’ Then: ‘HE increasing, sir. Bearing green one-two-five.’

  ‘She’s turning out of her pattern,’ said the navigator. ‘She must have heard us.’

  ‘Hard-a-port,’ said Woods. ‘Steer one-eight-zero. Group down. One engine only.’

  ‘HE constant, sir. Bearing red one-six-zero.’

  The air, heavy and stale, seemed to be getting more difficult to breathe. Ayton could see the strain on the faces of the First Lieutenant and the navigator, but Woods remained outwardly unconcerned.

  ‘HE constant, sir. Dead astern,’ said the asdic operator. Then: ‘HE fading slightly, sir. Bearing green one-seven-zero.’

  ‘She’s maintaining her course,’ said the navigator in wonderment. ‘She’s lost us.’

  Woods glanced across at him. ‘You always were an optimist, Pilot. I like that.’

  The First Lieutenant grinned at the navigator. ‘Like to put a ten-shilling note on that, David?’

  ‘HE increasing slightly, sir,’ said the operator. ‘Still bearing green one-seven-zero.’

  ‘No,’ replied the navigator.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Ayton asked the gunnery control officer.

  ‘She’s turning towards us.’

  ‘HE definitely increasing, sir. Bearing green one-seven-five.’

  ‘Now we’re for it,’ said the gunnery control officer.

  ‘Hard-a-port. Absolute silence in the ship. Steer zero-nine-zero.’

  ‘Zero-nine-zero it is, sir.’

  ‘HE still increasing, sir. Bearing red zero-eight-zero.’

  Ayton recalled Pountney’s orders on how to behave when under a depth-charge attack. ‘When you are privileged to be on one of HM submarines during an enemy depth-charge attack,’ the orders had stated, ‘be calm, hide yourself away in a corner of the control room, or anywhere else, out of everybody’s way. Be seated, say nothing, hold an open book and look at it. It does not matter if it is upside down – they will not notice it.’

  Ayton liked that ‘privileged’, and tried to remember where exactly he had put the book he had been reading. It was in the wardroom somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where.

  The first pattern of depth-charges exploded with four cracks in quick succession. The submarine bounced and shuddered as if some giant unseen hand was shaking it to and fro. A slab of cork insulation fell from a bulkhead on to the floor of the control room. For an instant the lights flickered.

  ‘Not very close,’ said Woods. The navigator raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.

  The explosions died away and were foll
owed by a series of rumbling echoes like some distant but violent thunderstorm.

  ‘He can’t hear us when he’s dropping his depth-charges,’ the gunnery control officer said to Ayton. ‘With any luck he’s started his attack too early.’

  They waited for the next pattern to fall. Faintly at first, then more distinctly, Ayton heard the destroyer’s propellers as it approached.

  Schoo . . . schoo . . . schoo . . .

  He held his breath.

  Schoo . . . schoo . . . schoo . . .

  The sound swelled and faded as the destroyer passed over and then ahead of them.

  Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

  It was like being inside an empty oil drum with someone hitting the sides with an iron bar. The noise was deafening. Ayton found himself being hurled across the control room, then the lights went out and the submarine staggered as if it had been hit by a giant fist.

  Ayton grabbed the after periscope standard and hung on to it for a few seconds before levering himself up.

  The submarine seemed to be tilting. Compressed air hissed out of a broken pipe.

  At the other end of the control room he heard Woods say sharply: ‘Get those emergency lights on. Now.’

  ‘HE fading, sir,’ intoned the asdic operator.

  There were more sharp explosions as the destroyer laid down a third pattern of depth-charges, and their rumbling aftermath filled the submarine and drummed on its hull. But the explosions were much farther away and hardly shook the submarine at all.

  ‘Is she turning?’ Ayton heard Woods say to the asdic operator.

  ‘HE continuing to recede, sir,’ the operator replied after a moment. ‘Bearing green zero-nine-zero.’

  The emergency lights flickered on, casting a dim glow through the control room.

  ‘Everyone all right?’

  No one said they weren’t.

  ‘Check the engine-room, Number One.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘Pilot, see that everything’s all right for’ ard.’

  The navigator nodded and knocked aside the levers that held closed a watertight door. This divided the control room from the forward part of the submarine containing the seamen’s and petty officers’ messes as well as the torpedo stowage department and the torpedo tubes. The tubes were not enclosed by the submarine’s pressure hull, which made them the most vulnerable part of the vessel when it was submerged.