by D. A. Rayner
The Hecate was turning now, parallel to the U-boat’s new course.
“High-speed hydrophone effect,” Hopkins’ voice reached him. The officer might just as well have said torpedoes. After their experience of the morning there was no forgetting the sound that was once more coming from the bridge loudspeaker. A clattering roar that grew louder each second.
So that was what the fellow was doing at a shallow depth—firing angled torpedoes by instruments! There was only one course open: turn bows toward the U-boat in order to make the target as small as possible.
“Starboard thirty. Half-astern starboard engine. Full ahead, port.”
But with a running time of only a fraction over a minute, the torpedoes would probably arrive before his ship had begun to answer his command.
The First Lieutenant had jumped onto the platform of the starboard signal lamp. The Captain had leapt to the platform on the opposite side—only the second officer of the watch was left on the deserted compass platform. The ship vibrated wildly as her starboard engine began to run astern and her port one full ahead. Her bows were swinging rapidly over the sea, hauled around by thirty thousand horsepower.
“Torpedo passing clear on the starboard bow,” the First Lieutenant’s shout reached the Captain’s ears. A moment later he saw the second as it appeared across the bows going away to port. The long white trail of its wake undulated over the waves. Fascinated, he watched it disappear into the blue.
Between the two that they had seen, there should have been two more—and they would have torn out the vitals of his ship. Fortunately it was these two that were missing.
“Half-ahead both—one-five-oh revolutions. Asdic hut, range and bearing of target please.”
The Hecate swept into attack once more, but her charges, set to kill a U-boat at torpedo-firing depth, did little more than annoy the boat that was already plunging downward.
“So he tried to kipper us?” It was the Doctor speaking.
“He did indeed,” the Captain answered. “And we were very lucky to get away with it. The Herr is a very determined man, and besides having us on his tail, I’m pretty sure that he’s got a load of mischief on his mind.”
“How long will it take him to reload? I suppose he does carry spares?”
“Oh yes, he carries spares all right—but it’s not quite as easy as that. They need a good hour and a half to do it in, and they must have absolute quiet while they are working. Imagine trying to handle over a ton of slippery metal in a U-boat. No fun at all. I very much doubt if he’ll reload while we are still in contact. Of course he may have two more—but I doubt it. Those torpedoes were angled so far apart that they’d have missed even if we had not begun to turn. My bet is that he fired his four bow tubes and that the two center ones failed to run because of a mechanical breakdown due to the hammering that we’ve given him.”
“What do you make of his character, sir?”
“You think the same way as I do. I’ve already invested him with a character—arrogant, a bigot, and a strict disciplinarian with no trace of humanity—a real Junker. I can almost imagine his face. He’ll yield obedience to the letter of his superior’s law as determinedly as he’ll extract it from those junior to him. He’s been told to carry out an operation, and he’s damn well going to do it unless the Hecate can stop him. He’s a plodder but dangerous just because he will never give up. He’s not brilliant. He had a chance this morning to sneak off, but he didn’t take it. A man less hidebound would have done so, and trusted to good fortune to turn the tide in his favor again once he was rid of us. Possibly the discipline has been so severely beaten in to him that he feared that a breakaway to the southeast this morning would appear to the U-Boat Command as a lack of decision and determination on his part. In my opinion he’s hagridden by the discipline of his own thought.”
“If you’re right it makes him quite a case.”
“Well, aren’t they all? I bet you, Doc, that if Germany were to crack tomorrow and we were to walk in, we wouldn’t find one damn Nazi in the whole of Germany. Overnight they’d all have changed to the ‘good kind.’ You know how we say that there are good and bad ones. I don’t believe it. They’re all the same at heart. Oh, I suppose that’s not quite fair—there may be the odd one that’s presentable. But they’re not fixed characters. They’re malleable, and can be squeezed by Hitlers and Kaisers into any chosen mold.”
“When are you going to attack again, sir?”
“Unless anything fresh happens, at seven-thirty and eleven-thirty tonight, and at three-thirty and dawn tomorrow. I’ve only four patterns left. I had intended to stir him up in the first dog at five-thirty, but I’ll have to drop that one from the list. I spent two patterns instead of one at noon today.”
“He’ll begin to hate you.”
“I expect he does that already.”
VON STOLBERG did indeed hate the Captain of the destroyer that was persecuting him. Particularly because he had just noticed that both the attack at midday and the last one had been made half an hour before the watch would normally have been changed.
The thought that the Britisher was reducing his attacks to occur at regular intervals drove the German frantic. It made the time that would otherwise have appeared to be a respite into nothing but an agonizingly long and drawn-out prelude to the next attack. It was an insult to the power of his own craft.
Did this give him time to reload? If the hypothesis was correct, then he would have the necessary quiet period. But he could not be certain. He could never be quite certain. What ill fate had put this bloody man on his trail? Driven deep, the sting of his torpedoes drawn, the air getting fouler every hour, and his batteries running low, von Stolberg knew himself to be in his tightest corner yet.
Up above them the sun would be settling in the west. In an hour it would be dark. Perhaps then the destroyer would lose contact—for her men must be as weary as his own. The British Captain and his team of trained ratings would have been at their instruments for over twelve hours. The human frame was not indestructible—even the Germanic frame was not—so it would more readily crack in an inferior race. When the destroyer next attacked at seven-thirty—“Bloder Kerl,” the Kapitän said to himself. “I fall into the very trap that he has set for me.”
When next the destroyer attacked he would use his last two remaining pillenwerfer and see if they could slip away before the tired men in the destroyer were aware of his escape.
Schwachofer moved from the corner, where he had been resting tired legs by leaning against the bulkhead.
“Herr Kapitän, shall I warn Braun?”
“Of what?” Von Stolberg spun round.
Schwachofer looked down at the watch on his wrist.
“That the enemy may attack, Herr Kapitän.”
The knowledge that others had detected a pattern to the action of his enemy only added fire to his own anger. The whole boat would have the jitters if he were not careful.
He drew himself up to his full slim height and looked his burly junior coldly in the eye. “I see no reason to suspect any particular time of attack. Such a supposition would be highly dangerous and, Herr Oberleutnant, very bad for morale.”
“Herr Kapitän,” the voice pipe from the hydrophone cabinet called. “The destroyer is increasing speed.” Braun sounded desperately weary.
“Muller, stand by pillenwerfer.”
Schwachofer turned away. In looking into those cold blue eyes he had detected both the anger and the lie. He smiled a little ruefully to himself. But his face was toward the big depth-recording dial. None but he knew about the smile, and there was no glass in which it could be reflected.
The U-121 turned to port as the destroyer passed above her. And to port again as she ran in a second time.
“Release two pillenwerfer.”
They were gone—his last attempt to muddle and defeat the enemy. The two bubbling cones hung in his wake.
Braun was calling from the hydrophone room.
“Destroyer reducing speed, Herr Kapitän.”
Were they going to creep away? The whisper of the asdic lash on the hull seemed less. But that could be just their own imagining—or possibly the blanketing effect of their own pillenwerfer.
Swish—swish—the lash never left them. It grew stronger again as the destroyer followed them through the disturbed water—followed them into the clear sea beyond.
There was not a man in the boat whose face was not set and grim.
“Destroyer attacking,” Braun announced.
ALL THROUGH the night the Hecate hung on to her adversary. Cups of steaming cocoa were carried around to her men, who were lying down, huddled in duffle coats or oilskins, alongside the weapons they served. Three times during the night they had attacked. Now only one last pattern of depth charges remained.
The first hint of dawn showed in the east. Stiffly her Captain stirred from the trancelike state in which he had been leaning against the corner of the bridge.
“Number One—of your charity—cocoa for all on the bridge. As soon as it’s fully light, we’ll give him our last pattern. He’s a real desperate character, this one, but he’s only got the standard batteries and a limited amount of air. I don’t think he can stand much more than another hour or two, and then the guns can deal with him.”
The navigator climbed the ladder to the bridge carrying his sextant.
“Morning stars?” the Captain asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I wonder if we ought to push out another signal?” The Captain was thinking aloud. “It may help to let people know what’s happening to us. We’re almost a hundred miles from our position at dawn yesterday, and two hundred and forty from where we picked up our German bear-leader.”
Yeoman Willis appeared as if by magic at the Captain’s elbow. He had a nose for a signal that was as sensitive as that of any retriever for a fallen bird.
“You wish to make a signal, sir?”
In spite of the tiredness that almost overwhelmed him, the Captain laughed. “Willis, I was considering the possibility—only considering. Don’t look so disappointed. I probably shall do so. In fact I think I will. Make to Admiralty, repeated C-in-C, South Atlantic: “Still in contact. Enemy course unaltered. Depth charges expended and get the position from the navigator.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The Captain watched navigator and yeoman go down the ladder—the one to the charthouse on the deck below, and the other to the wireless office. He called after the navigator:
“Pilot, let me know as soon as you’ve got a position—I’ll want you on the plot when I attack.” He turned to receive the hot cocoa from the bosun’s mate.
“Gosh—this is good.” He stood beside his First Lieutenant. “Feeling tired, Number One?”
“Not so bad as I might be, sir.” The officer was holding his chilled hands around his warm cup.
“Neither am I. I was worst off about three hours ago. Now I seem to have got my second wind. Just a tight feeling round my head as if my cap was too small, and a terrific heat under my eyelids when I shut them.”
“How much longer will it go on, sir?”
“No one can tell. He may not even fight his gun, although I never see why so many of them don’t. But then again, there are generally two or more escorts. I’ve always thought that if I were a German U-boat commander I’d try and do something with my cannon. After all, he’s a terribly small target for us. Only about three hundred square feet and very little of that area is vulnerable. Our semi-armor-piercing shells will just bounce off. We’d spoil its looks but we wouldn’t damage its pressure hull. They’ve got a target that is ten times as big to aim at, and the whole area is to some extent vulnerable—a destroyer is so packed with stuff that she can hardly take any damage without losing some important part of her fighting efficiency.”
“Forebridge.” The voice came from the plot.
“Yes, Pilot?” the Captain answered.
“Ready now, sir.”
“What was the position?”
“Five north, thirty-two west.”
“Exactly?”
“As near as dammit, sir.”
“Sounds just the sort of staff office choice for a rendezvous—I wonder if we have arrived. Dear, oh dear, the Herr Hun will be cross if we’ve tagged along to his trysting place. Let’s attack him now. The sun’s nearly up. He’s been deep the last three times. I’m not going to carry out a dummy run this time. I’m just going straight in to attack with four hundred and fifty feet on the charges. We may catch him napping, particularly as we are out of the routine that we’ve been training him to expect. We attacked only three hours ago. He won’t be expecting us for another hour. Tally ho, chaps. Range and bearing, Mr. Hopkins, please?”
NIGHT IN U-121 had appeared interminable, for each of the destroyer’s attacks had seemed like gigantic minute guns that spoke of doom. At midnight the order had been given for her crew to put on their anticarbon-monoxide masks, but the discomfort of wearing these for such a long period had proved almost as trying to their tempers as the deadly gas would have been to their bodies. Caffeine and pervitin tablets had kept her crew awake, but constant recourse to such stimulants was having a deplorable effect on their nerves.
Von Stolberg, by exercise of his own fierce self-control, still held his fraying crew together. At three o’clock had occurred an incident that had threatened to shake morale badly.
Muller had staggered into the control room. “Herr Kapitän! It is young Edelmann—he has gone mad. It takes four men to hold him.”
Von Stolberg turned his head to look at the petty officer. Muller was shocked to see how his commanding officer appeared to have aged in the last few hours. The skin on either side of the rubber mouthpiece had a parchment-like quality.
The unshaven beard made it appear like the face of one already dead.
Without answering directly the Kapitän crossed to the cabinet where the revolvers hung, and took one down. With only a partial turn of their heads the men in the control room watched him go. Their eyeballs gleamed in the dim light.
There was a sudden, small, unmistakable explosion, and burnt cordite joined the other smells in the boat. The white eyeballs glanced nervously at each other and then returned to their instruments.
The scuffling and muted swearing that had preceded the Kapitän’s visit to the forward torpedo room had ceased.
“Achtung.” Von Stolberg’s voice cut the thick atmosphere. “That is the only medicine for those.”
Even if the prompt treatment that the Kapitän had applied had resulted in a partial obliteration of thought, rather than a rebuttal of the weakness to which human beings are prone, the Kapitän’s action had achieved its immediate object—that of preventing the further spread of hysteria.
Hour by hour little crosses had been penciled on the chart—each one nearer than the one before to the circle that denoted the rendezvous. The last, at six o’clock, had actually lain within the prescribed area. Whatever damage the destroyer had done, she had failed to prevent U-121 from arriving at her rendezvous with six hours to spare.
“Achtung.” Von Stolberg spoke again. “We have made our rendezvous. At noon the German cruiser Cecilie will join us and drive off the accursed destroyer. We have been successful in this. We shall be successful in the rest.”
“Destroyer increasing speed.” Braun made the report.
Perhaps Braun had been a little slow in detecting the increase in the beat of the destroyer’s propellers. Perhaps the Kapitän had become so used to the feint run that the destroyer had made as a prelude to each of her six last attacks, that he delayed giving the order to turn. Perhaps it was just the exhaustion of her crew that made each piece of her thought process just that little bit slower. Whatever the cause, it is certain that she had barely started to turn when the destroyer passed overhead.
Von Stolberg realized at once that somewhere their corporate reflex had been slow, and he determined that next time, when th
e real attack came, they must do better.
The bursting of the first two charges astern of the U-boat took them all, and not least the Kapitän, entirely by surprise. He realized, perhaps better than any of them, the dangerous implication, and steeled both his body and brain against the impending shock. Four charges went off almost simultaneously; two on either side, above and below him. U-121 was shaken as a rat by a terrier. In the toils of the enormous pressure waves, the boat was, at the same time, both pitched and rolled, first one way and then the other. Turning and twisting like a maddened fish, with her men again plunged into the near darkness of the emergency lighting, she would have hurtled to the bottom except that Schwachofer’s skill prevented it. His art, and the fantastic luck that put her so exactly in the middle of the destroyer’s pattern had, by a miracle, saved her hull from being utterly crushed.
Inside, the boat was a shambles. Fittings and pipes had been wrenched from their clips, and men lay in heaps where they had fallen. Only in the control room was there any semblance of order.
And then, to those orderly ones controlling her, there appeared in the semidarkness a thing that hopped and screamed. About the size of a small dog, it ran into a corner where it began to leap up and down, emitting a high-pitched wail.
Horrified, the clustered men stared at this apparition. Even von Stolberg felt his reason clamoring to be allowed to go. He clung to the periscope standard and looked at the thing.
“It’s the gyrocompass, broken adrift.” Schwachofer, the imperturbable, had guessed correctly. The gyro ring had been broken, and the gyro wheel, revolving at ten thousand revolutions, had gone careering through the boat.