They’d have hold of the wire by now. Might even be at the canisters. Anyway they knew very well he wouldn’t be hanging around up here. He slid himself down on to the ladder, pulled the hatch down over his head and forced a clip on, shouting down to Ursano: ‘Dive!’
Second clip. He heard the vents open – the pair on the midships tank – and the rush of air. Sciré was returning to the seabed now. He climbed down into the control room’s dim lighting. Ursano at the trim behind the ’planesmen, and the hydrophone operator narrow-eyed as he concentrated on whatever he was getting through his headphones: no-one else with anything much to do, at this stage, except listen to the sounds from outside the hull. Those vents had been shut: Ravera, chief mechanic, was leaning with a shoulder against the bank of valves and blows, listening with one hand over his eyes. An aid to concentration, maybe… The four pilots and divers, with the two spare men lending a hand, would be dragging their pigs out of the cylinders, checking their controls and trim, starting the motors in neutral gear while listening anxiously for any sounds indicative of trouble – damage incurred for instance during that spell of bad weather.
‘First one’s leaving, sir.’
He nodded to the hydrophone operator. That one would be de la Penne. They’d be leaving in company, in a pack, de la Penne leading and keeping them together. Second one on its way. Third…
‘Number four leaving, sir.’
No serious defects, then – all four away. Good luck, he thought; God be with them. The spare crew would be shutting the containers’ doors now and clamping them, then they’d signal by banging on the hull with a wheelspanner, three lots of two taps so Borghese wouldn’t be misled by something like a spanner dropping, bouncing its way over the side.
Checking the time… Knowing it was bound to take those two a few minutes. Having canisters at both ends to see to, working in impenetrably dark water and not having such a hell of a lot of foothold, let alone hand-hold…
There. Three double clangs. It had taken longer than he’d expected. He nodded to Ursano. ‘Surface. Same as last time.’
‘One puff in number three main ballast.’
‘Puff in three, sir…’
‘Stop blowing!’
Lifting…
* * *
Emilio’s pig was running perfectly, and he had Martellotta – actually Marino, Martellotta’s diver – in clear sight ahead of him. None of them was using breathing gear. It was a point they’d discussed between them, agreeing that if the weather was reasonably calm they’d do without it for as long as possible. Advantages being better visibility and personal comfort, and endurance, not only in terms of oxygen reserves but also the strain and fatigue which using the masks for any length of time imposed.
They’d left Sciré at 2105. The distance to the harbour entrance was five miles. Three hours, say. Which was fine – as things seemed to be at present, no problems at all. With Ras el-Tin lighthouse as a leading mark – if they’d needed it, which in fact they didn’t. They were steering 220, so Ras el-Tin was almost dead ahead and the Pharos peninsula – Fort Qait Bey – broader on the bow to port. In half an hour or so they’d be passing within a stone’s throw of Qait Bey.
He’d thought – a minute ago – no problems, but he did already have a small one. Cold. The left leg. Foot to start with, now the ankle too. He hadn’t noticed it at first, only vaguely observed to himself that it was colder – generally speaking, the night air was – than he’d expected. He hadn’t thought of it in greater detail than that, but he was unpleasantly certain now that his suit was leaking. His left foot had begun to freeze, and like an infection the ice was creeping up the leg.
Apply a tourniquet?
Wouldn’t stop it. Not unless it was tight enough to stop the blood-flow as well. The only practical answer was to put it out of mind, not think about it. Every other aspect of the operation was exceptionally good, up to now. The weather, and the pig’s performance – no malfunction at all. And this approach was so easy. De la Penne doing all the navigating – dead simple navigation, for sure, with the land so close and numerous identifiable points on it, but even simpler for oneself, having only to tag along.
Fools’ paradise, maybe. At this moment, British eyes might be riveted on some radar screen. Four blips on it: in line ahead, course 220, straight into a controlled minefield. Eyes on the screen – that cold English blue – waiting for the moment to press the tit and blow the intruders to kingdom come.
Nothing like a frozen leg to turn the imagination morbid. The ice was gripping it above the knee, now. Forget it, he told himself. If this was the worst that happened to you, you’d be damn lucky. Conditions in all other respects being so easy that you could – for instance – use your knees to steer with. He was trying it – partly to reassure himself that he was still capable of moving that leg. Which he could – thank God… Steering with the knees or feet was a standard practice, in sheltered or calm water, freeing your hands so you could feed yourself on the move, during a long approach like this one. There were iron-ration tins in the locker behind Maso. Emilio didn’t want to eat now, but it was good to exercise one’s arms, encourage the circulation. That was the Pharos abeam to port now – a couple of hundred yards away, no more. Nucleus of the town as founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC: just that island with a mole connecting it to the shore. Not only that small piece of island, but the land the Ras el-Tin light and buildings stood on too. They’d built an immensely tall lighthouse – on this site that was abeam now – ‘the Pharos’, which had been the architectural, engineering and scientific wonder of that age. Much more than a lighthouse – a vast palace with a lighthouse as its upper storeys. Couple of hundred years or more before Christ – Alexander had been in his tomb by then. Only a few bits of shattered granite and marble were left of it now, amongst the ruins of later fortifications – Qait Bey’s, to be precise, Marmeluke Sultan Qait Bey, who built them to fight off the Turks, in about AD 1500. No, before that – 1480, thereabouts. Three hundred and something years later Mohammed Ali modernized the fortress, but in 1882 the bloody English bombarded the town – accounting for the fact that there was nothing there now but rubble. Not many other ancient monuments left standing either.
Emilio had not forgotten all he’d learnt here in Alexandria. In respect of the Pharos and its immediate surroundings, in fact, he had good reason to remember a great deal of it. In particular the ancient harbour which would be coming up ahead to port soon; they’d be passing closer to it than to Qait Bey, as the pigs’ course converged with the coastline. Nothing visible, it was all under water, but as a youth he’d been all over it, diving on it – holding his breath, having no mask or any other equipment in those days. He’d seen – sat on, under water – ancient quays and jetties, and the harbour walls. There were relics of a main harbour and of an outer one; the structure of the outer part, its breakwater and so on, was a lot more fragmented than the inshore remnants, which lay off the western end of the Ras el-Tin peninsula and off the breakwater that ran southwest from it. Fascinating enough, when you realized that Julius Caesar and then Mark Antony would have landed on those quays, and Cleopatra embarked there in her gold- and jewel-encrusted barge – with or without attendant lovers.
Lucia had explored the area with him too. By boat: she’d done the rowing while he’d dived. About the last stirrings of any common interest, probably. He’d forgotten that too, until this moment. He remembered teasing her, asking her if she thought she was Cleopatra. She’d had no lovers in those days, of course, but boyfriends galore, clustering round her like flies.
Ras el-Tin light had stopped flashing. Lost in thought – although that reminiscence had passed through his mind in seconds while the purely physical effort was concentrated on following Martellotta – he wasn’t sure whether it had just stopped or whether it might have some time ago and he hadn’t noticed. It would have been operating for a definite purpose, he guessed. Ship or ships arriving, probably. From way out, making their firs
t landfall. A vestige of thought about Lucia had lingered, and surfaced now: the recollection that there had been moments of closeness, even later than that. Games with the ducks on Lake Mareotis, he remembered: and when he’d been leaving for Italy and she’d pleaded with him not to go ‘Not just for Maman – or for me – for your own sake, Emilio! Please – Emilio dear, I beg you!’
He’d told her – because he’d had no argument, only his determination – ‘You don’t understand.’
He thought now that it was a fact, she hadn’t understood at all. That had been her problem – or his. Different wavelengths. But he’d see to it that she was all right, in Italy. Forget this disgrace about the Englishman, wipe it off the slate. Vittorio Longanesi was still interested in her, he’d have a part to play. Make Uncle Cesare keep his word too.
Bloody cold. Gritting his teeth, in a fit of shivering. He swung round – needing diversion – to see how Maso was doing. Maso just staring at him: just damn staring… Emilio shouted: ‘You all right?’
He thought he’d nodded. Mask slung just below where most people had a chin. Not bothering even to raise a hand, give a thumb-up sign, anything at all. Cold fish indeed, this Maso. He might not have nodded, even, one might have imagined that. Emilio bawled again – furious, suddenly – ‘I said – are you all right?’
One hand lifted, stayed up for a moment, dropped back into the surge of fizzing sea.
Shouldn’t have made the choice of a partner simply on performance. Should have made sure of picking a man with whom one could have established some element of comradeship. Hadn’t known there’d be any such problem, of course, had assumed that was how it would be – comradeship growing from mutual dependence, shared dangers, the satisfaction of coming out of them knowing you could rely on each other. Although from that point of view – as he’d told de la Penne – as a diver, Maso was reliable.
Fuck him, anyway. Adjusting course slightly to stay in the centre of the ‘V’ of Martellotta’s wake. Martellotta who at this afternoon’s confirmation by Valerio Borghese of their respective targets had lodged a polite protest at having to go for a tanker. He’d obey the order, he’d said, obviously, but for the record he wished to state that he’d have preferred to be allowed to attack a warship. Borghese, perhaps only to humour him, had told him there was a possibility that an aircraft-carrier might have returned to Alexandria during the past twelve hours, and that it would be in order for Martellotta to reconnoitre its customary anchorage and if it was there make that his target. If not, he was to continue as previously ordered and attack the big tanker inside the coaling arm. Borghese had also reminded him that at the time of the last recce flight there’d been no fewer than twelve laden tankers in the harbour; with the spread of oil from Martellotta’s big one, and the distribution of floating incendiaries – Martellotta had six, for release around his target – the harbour might well become one huge inferno in which the other tankers would be great floating bombs. Alexandria as a working port and naval base might be wiped off the map.
‘If so, it’ll be your doing. Put your mind to that, if you think your target’s not important enough!’
At 2300, when they were abreast the obtuse-angled bend halfway along the breakwater, de la Penne led them round on to a course of 189 degrees. With at least an hour – hour and a half, maybe – still to go, to the entrance. Emilio had no feeling in the lower half of his body, by this time. His teeth chattered when he relaxed his jaw muscles, and he was shivering all over nearly all the time. Water-pressure, he guessed, had been enough to fill the suit as high as the crotch – from where it had poured over into the other leg as well – but no higher, being held down by air-pressure in the upper part.
How would it be when one submerged – and moved around, coping with nets or—
Explosion: a depth-bomb. Not very loud – not in the least discomforting – but the first he’d heard.
By 2330 there’d been several more. They were spaced at longer intervals than they’d been at Gib, and none had been close enough to feel yet. He realized that his legs were numb, de-sensitized, but if there’d been any real percussion he’d have felt it in his gut and diaphragm. Either they weren’t close enough yet to be felt, or the end of the sea-wall was between them and oneself. Visualizing it – the harbour plan, the way the extremity of this sea-wall as it were overlapped the other, when you came at it from this direction. That stone extremity, if the charges were being set off right in the entrance, would be blanking them off, from here. And – keeping the plan in mind – and the mind working, a conscious effort to ignore this fucking ice-bath – his own course from the entrance would be 035. Vital figure to remember, have in mind before the brain froze too. Having got in, of course, 035 would be the course. But one would. Some damn how, one would… De la Penne’s way of putting it: Emilio could just about hear that cheerful, confident tone of voice. No bravado about it, just quiet certainty.
The breakwater was very close on the port hand now. Fifty metres, maybe. He’d seen lights on it which he’d thought were moving – hand-held, by lookouts or sentries – and other lights visible over the top of it were presumably on ships inside there. Forcing his mind back to where it had been… From the entrance, course to steer 035. Right… And on that course he’d be passing first the battleship Valiant – to starboard – and then the interned Vichy-French cruisers to port. The coaling arm would then be on his starboard bow, and inside its curve were both the other targets, the tanker and the Queen Elizabeth. So the other three pigs would all be veering off to starboard of his own course. He’d carry on – leaving the coaling arm to starboard – and by the time he had it abaft the beam he’d expect to have the submarine depot-ship in sight ahead of him.
Boom…
Like old times. Except that the last ones he’d heard – and felt, at Gib – had been a damn sight closer. They were dropping them inside the harbour too, though. He hadn’t been certain of it before but he was now. They were such muffled, distant sounds from out here that they could have been part of the pig’s steady thumping through the water, the small disturbance left by the three ahead of him. When you got inside there’d be nothing muffled about them, he reminded himself. Taking another quick look back at Maso. A dark cut-out against the pig’s faintly phosphorescent wake. No greeting, no movement of any kind. Emilio turned back. This would be Maso’s first experience of depthbombs that were actually intended to kill him. On exercises they’d exploded literally hundreds of charges in one’s general vicinity, for the sake of ‘realism’, but they’d been concerned not to damage anyone, let alone kill them. Maso would be settling his mind to it, no doubt, preparing himself. Frightened? It could be. That deadpan look of his could mask fear. Fear itself, or fear of showing fear. Hadn’t thought of this before, but it could be.
Martellotta was a black smudge with a touch of lightness under it. Not white like a full-blown wake but slightly lighter than the night and the sea’s surface around it. Except by chance, you wouldn’t have seen it if you hadn’t known where to look: unless from up there on the breakwater—
Figures up there, moving around. One coming from the direction of the boom-gate with the beam of a torch flickering around. There was a sort of fuzz of light behind him too: lights on the end, presumably the entrance.
Boom… He’d felt that one – just… Keeping his eyes down now. Imagining de la Penne with those British up there in the corner of his eye, and the whole responsibility not only for himself but for the team: the doubt would be whether to submerge – losing visibility and to a large extent control, the concept of staying together, getting in together – or to stay up, hope for the best…
Midnight, roughly.
This time last night, he thought, he’d been sound asleep. And this time ten days ago he’d been in an ancient taxi, with Renata, on their way up to the village. They’d got out of the train at about eleven and the drive had taken an hour and three-quarters. She’d slept all the way up from the valley with her head on his shoul
der while he’d thought on and on about the orders he’d had earlier in the day from his uncle – telling himself over and over not to let it ruin this short leave to which they’d both been so much looking forward. And it had turned out all right: he’d lost himself and his horrors in Renata, only lain awake and sweated – not that first night, he’d been exhausted, but most of the second and the third while she’d slept soundly – beautifully – in his arms.
Boom…
He’d definitely felt that one – in his gut, and slightly on his left leg too, a wave of pressure flattening the suit against it. Driving the internal water higher? But maybe that water in freezing his legs would have warmed itself a little – being enclosed, and static. It was a relief – of sorts – that his legs still had some feeling in them.
Altering course: Martellotta’s dark image moving left – towards the breakwater.
Into its shadow – out of the fallout from those lights. A risk, all right – if anyone up there shone a torch down. At this range, let alone any closer… Putting on port rudder, steering the pig round in Martellotta’s wake.
Invisible to them up there, now?
De la Penne must reckon so. Altering back again now, anyway. Having closed in by about fifteen or twenty metres. They were in shadow: and off to the right where they had been the sea’s smooth but shifting surface did seem to have a gloss on it.
Method, therefore, in de la Penne’s risk-taking. Steadying now – back on 189. But – edging back again. 187. 185… To converge gradually with the line of the breakwater: aiming – Emilio guessed – for the rather confusing amalgam of light at its end. He could see red flashes: and a beam, searchlight – and others. Be damn close to the wall by the time one got there, though. Boom… If they didn’t get any worse than that, you’d have few worries. While inside the harbour the smaller, muffled explosions seemed to come at haphazard intervals. No pattern to it at all. He guessed – seeing it in his mind’s eye, the great spread of harbour, inner and outer and its various basins – at boats all over, operating independently.
Love For An Enemy Page 33