The Enemy Below

by D. A. Rayner

  Von Stolberg’s eyes rose to meet those of his Executive Officer. He looked utterly dazed. “Surface,” he gasped.

  The engineer officer stumbled into the control room. He was coughing terribly. “Chlorine. Sea water leaking into number two battery.”

  Von Stolberg nodded. “We’re going up. Be ready to start the diesels, Herr Engineer.”

  “You will never start them—never. I have withdrawn my men from the engine room and clipped the door shut—otherwise you would never reach the surface alive.”

  “It is as bad as that?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kapitän. Perhaps you may go for a little longer on the motors when you reach the surface. I do not know, for it is impossible to assess the damage. Already some of the cells are boiling.”

  Von Stolberg took this further blow with stoical calm. “We shall go back to Germany in the Cecilie.” And to von Holem: “You are the gunnery officer. Have your gun crew ready to man the gun. I will fight him and sink him yet. He is a much bigger target than we. There is no reason why we should not have more prisoners for the Cecilie. You understand?”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”

  With the thought of seeing the light of day again, the morale of the men entombed in U-121 was reviving. Anticipation was driving away the heaviness engendered by lack of sleep and the foul air. Some would undoubtedly be sick as soon as the clean air entered their lungs, but the gun crew would probably find their excitement able to overcome this common disability.

  “Twenty meters,” Schwachofer reported. The gun crew were already clustered at the foot of the ladder.

  “Ten meters.”

  The gunlayer sprang up the iron rungs. His weight was thrown desperately on the wheel that retained the heavy hatch. The air pressure inside the boat was such that even if the hatch was opened a few feet below water, the air rushing out would prevent any material amount from entering.

  The hatch, worked by its big spring, was raised. The dog that held it in place clicked into position. The gun crew poured out as fresh air rushed in.

  “Open fire as soon as you can,” the Kapitän had told von Holem. “Keep on firing, and try to give me the enemy’s course so that I can keep the gun bearing.”

  THE Hecate’s wake lay curled in a great circle as she turned after her attack. On the outside of the circle the wash fanned out in broad fleches, but on the inside of the turn the waves met and jostled each other. The inquisitive sun was just peeping over the misty horizon as the ship’s head turned to the eastward.

  “Forebridge,” the cry came from the asdic cabinet.

  “Forebridge,” the Captain answered.

  “I think the U-boat’s blowing her tanks, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hopkins, keep passing me the range and bearing.” Then to the First Lieutenant: “Action stations, Number One. We must have a reception committee for him.”

  The sound of the alarms rattled through the ship. Her crew was almost instantly ready: to all intents and purposes she had had her hand on the hilt of the sword for twenty-four hours. She had only to draw it.

  The asdic was speaking again.

  “Bearing oh-three-oh. Very woolly echo. He’s blowing, sir. Range nine hundred.”

  The bearing was broad on the starboard bow.

  “Pass the bearings in ‘relative bearings.’ It will be easier for the guns.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Bearing green six-oh.”

  “Guns,” the Captain spoke to the Gunnery Officer, “bring your guns to the ready. Submarine expected to surface about green six-oh.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  From the asdic: “Lost contact, sir.”

  The Yeoman appeared at the Captain’s elbow. “Message passed, sir.”

  “Thank you, Yeoman.”

  Anxiously the men of the destroyer waited for the second sight of their quarry. Many had not seen her on the first occasion—and all expected an early termination to their vigil. It was to be supposed that she would surface, either so damaged that her men would at once begin to abandon ship or that the enemy would be induced to do so as the result of a short gun engagement. After four years of war the normal course of events was well known to all. Only the Captain himself had any idea of the exceptional circumstances in which the Hecate found herself; and even he was perhaps not yet fully alive to the difference between forcing a U-boat to the surface on the edge of a convoy where help was available, and doing the same in the middle of the ocean where he was all alone.

  “U-boat surfacing,” the cry went up from many throats.

  “Permission to open fire, sir?” the Gunnery Officer asked.

  “Not yet, Guns. Let’s see if they start abandoning ship. Yeoman, try and call them up with the light. I don’t like firing on survivors. Make ‘abandon’ to them very slowly.”

  Willis sprang to the ten-inch signal lamp and began to flap the shutter, clack—clack. It was the only sound that the tense watchers on the bridge could hear.

  “There they come, sir,” the First Lieutenant cried excitedly.

  Little figures could be seen pouring out of the conning tower. The U-boat was lying at an angle to the destroyer. The sun, now fully above the horizon, was dazzling the men in the surface ship, and the U-boat was moving slowly and steadily into the path of scintillating brilliance that the new day laid across the ocean.

  “Damn this sun,” the Captain said.

  “Target—a submarine. Bearing green five-five. All guns load, semi-armor-piercing shell.” The Gunnery Officer was carrying out the routine drill.

  “Someone’s crawling aft,” the First Lieutenant reported.

  “Clack—clack—clack—” The signal projector started the word “abandon.”

  “Clack-ety—clack-ety-ety—”

  “B Gun ready.”

  “There’s a hell of a lot of smoke from her.” The Captain spoke. It was true. A vaporous cloud of yellow-green smoke was pouring out of the U-boat’s stern.

  “It’s not diesel smoke either,” the First Lieutenant answered.

  “Looks as if she’s on fire.”

  “X Gun ready.”

  “Salvoes. Range nine hundred,” the Gunnery Officer said.

  The sun, and the haze that billowed from the stern of their target, momentarily hid the U-boat from definite view.

  A flash of orange in the haze, and before the destroyer’s bow a plume of water rose where the shell had fallen close alongside.

  “Fire,” the Captain snapped.

  “Shoot,” the Gunnery Officer repeated into the curved mouthpiece that hung on his chest.

  The Hecate shook to the dual crash as both the 4.7 guns fired within a split second of each other. Watching through steady binoculars, the group of officers waited to see the result of their first shots.

  Only the Gunnery Officer, more single-minded in his own trade, saw the shells land just over the target. “Down one hundred, shoot,” he ordered.

  The other officers were leaning over the starboard side of the bridge looking down at their own vessel’s side. The ship-shaking explosion that had sent them there had come from below them. Somewhere under the curve of the bow an enemy shell had hit. Clouds of acrid smoke were already eddying from the open ammunition hatch of B Gun.

  The Hecate’s guns fired again. In the Gunnery Officer’s glasses he could see two columns of water on either side of the smoke that was the U-boat.

  “Down one hundred. Rapid salvoes.”

  “Quick, Number One! Get down below and see what the damage is. I’ll take her,” the Captain said.

  The First Lieutenant hurried from the bridge.

  The guns fired again. A flash of orange that was not the U-boat’s gun flared momentarily in the smoke.

  “Nice shooting, Guns.”

  Again the guns fired. The Hecate at a steady speed was overhauling the U-boat.

  “Down one hundred,” the Gunnery Officer said.

  The next moment an ear-splitting racket broke from the starboard side between t
he funnels where the twin-barrel Oerlikon could just be brought to bear. Essentially a close-range antiaircraft weapon, it was now firing at extreme range. The little red dots of its tracer bullets disappeared into the U-boat’s unintentional smoke screen. The shells when they arrived could not in any way hurt the enemy, but they could kill men.

  The Hecate’s guns fired again. Then once more she shuddered as an enemy shell tore into her delicate superstructure. Entering above the level of the upper deck, it passed through the Bosun’s locker and the Coxswain’s cabin before it exploded against the strong trunk of B Gun.

  The shock threw most of the gun crew to the deck. X Gun, aft, fired the salvo alone. B Gun reported “training jammed.”

  The First Lieutenant, his cap missing and his face bathed in sweat, climbed onto the bridge. “I’ve had to flood the forward magazine,” he said. “The deck above was red hot.”

  “Christ!” the Captain answered, “half our ammunition gone.”

  “Couldn’t be helped, sir. It was touch and go.”

  X Gun fired again.

  “Much damage?”

  “The blasted shell exploded in the naval stores. Coils of burning ropes. Small fires from the emergency lighting all over the place. Under control soon, sir.”

  “Any injured?”

  “Three bad burn cases—no casualties.”

  “What about the second hit?”

  “Blown the Coxswain’s cabin to hell, sir. But no fires—everything was blown clean over the side.”

  X Gun fired again. The Oerlikons were firing in steady bursts.

  The Captain stroked his unshaven chin.

  “This damn fellow is even more of a problem up above than he was down below.”

  AS THE last of the gun crew tumbled up the conning-tower ladder, Otto Kritz, the engineer, approached the Kapitän, who stood staring up the open hatch at the circle of blue sky above.

  “Permission to open the after escape hatch, Herr Kapitän. The fumes from the burning battery will make a good smoke screen.”

  “Excellent, Herr Engineer. At once.”

  The engineer climbed the ladder. For a moment his body blocked the hatch, then it was clear again. Von Stolberg turned to Schwachofer. “Run up the attack periscope so that I can see.”

  The periscope rose smoothly. The Kapitän trained the instrument. “Ha! We are up-sun of the enemy. Without the gyro we must have turned one hundred and eighty degrees as we surfaced. We are a very difficult target for him. Schwachofer, raise the small periscope and conn the quartermaster so that he steers to keep us between the Britisher and the sun. The fool is signaling. I suppose he hopes that we will surrender. The gun will be my answer to that.”

  At that moment the gun fired. The crash of its exploding charge shook the U-boat.

  Kritz scrambled down the ladder. “The fumes are perfect, Herr Kapitän. Our own crew can see through them, but they will make it very hard for the destroyer.”

  The gun fired—and again.

  “A hit,” von Stolberg exclaimed delightedly.

  “Where?” Schwachofer asked.

  “Beneath the bridge somewhere. I saw the flash, and the smoke is pouring out of her forward superstructure. She is on fire. Perhaps she will blow up.”

  The U-boat shuddered with an explosion that was not made by its own gun.

  The engineer ran up the ladder. He paused with his head and shoulders above the hatch.

  “Only part of the after casing blown away. It is nothing, Herr Kapitän.”

  “Kritz, can I open the forward escape hatch?” von Stolberg asked.

  “Jawohl, Herr Kapitän. There is only a very little sea, and that from astern. On this course it would be quite safe, and we can only go very slowly, for there is very little left in the battery.”

  “Then open it, Herr Engineer. If one of the gun crew is wounded it will be more easy to replace a casualty, and we shall be in better touch with von Holem. Ha!—another hit. The destroyer’s forward gun has not fired. Oh, von Holem, von Holem, that is good shooting indeed. Kunz, tell Herr Oberleutnant von Holem that the destroyer’s forward gun is out of action. Tell him to aim no longer at the bridge, but to aim between the funnels.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Kapitän.”

  Another shuddering crash came from just outside the hatch. Quick as a flash the engineer was up the ladder and a moment later down again.

  “Well?” von Stolberg asked.

  “The after end of the conning tower. There is much mess but no damage.”

  “What is the charge in number one battery?”

  “Very low, Herr Kapitän. I do not think we can run the motors for much longer. Submerged, we would not make two knots. It is possible that on the surface we are making three. Barely steerageway.”

  Von Stolberg, who had removed his eyes from the periscope, trained the instrument again on the destroyer. It was obvious to him that, at the relative speed of the ships, the destroyer would soon overtake the U-boat. In any case he had not the speed necessary to allow him to keep up-sun of his antagonist. With one of her guns out of action, the destroyer’s speed was now her only superiority. Every other advantage lay with the U-boat. He would, he thought, begin a slow turn to starboard, for the destroyer was coming up on his port side. By so doing he would give her the much larger outside circle to steam, while he would continually present the smallest possible target consistent with keeping his own gun bearing on the enemy.

  The shelter of the conning tower had already saved the gun’s crew once. Had the gun not been firing on an after bearing, the shell that had hit the after end of the tower would undoubtedly have wiped out the crew, even if it had not hit the gun itself.

  “I am going to alter course,” the Kapitän told Schwachofer, and to the quartermaster: “Starboard five.”

  Kunz returned to the control room. His eyes were elated and he spoke excitedly. “Von Holem has made two hits. I gave him your message. He says that he will sink the destroyer.”

  “Stand to attention when you address your commanding officer,” von Stolberg snapped, taking his eyes for one moment from the periscope. “And do not forget that none of this would have been necessary if you had not been such a fool.”

  The gun fired again.

  Greatly deflated, Kunz slunk back to his action position beside the now useless attack table. The Kapitän favored him with a baleful glance and so failed to observe the arrival of the shell that had just been fired.

  THE CAPTAIN of the Hecate was now faced with a problem of some magnitude. His ship had already received serious damage, and his effective gunpower had been reduced by half, with the result that it was now no greater than that of his opponent. To withdraw out of the enemy’s fire, while still remaining within the range of his more powerful gun, would be to so reduce the size of his target as to make the chances of a hit quite outside practical politics. To do this he would have to open the distance between the ships to somewhere between six and eight miles.

  With his forward gun out of action, he could fire his after gun only if he kept his ship at quite a considerable angle to the enemy. On a course that would do this, the target that he offered to his adversary was large and highly vulnerable. To turn away, and so reduce the target he made for the German, while still keeping his after gun in action, was not only against his nature but would set his gunnery officer the very difficult problem of hitting while the range was continually opening. To achieve regular hits from such an unsteady platform as that provided by a small ship in the Atlantic, it was essential to keep the range as steady as possible.

  The Yeoman was at his side. “Message for us, sir.”

  “What is it, Yeoman?”

  “Signal from Admiralty, sir. Message reads: Acheron, Marabout, Mastiff diverted to your support oh-nine-oh-two yesterday. Anticipate arrive your position noon today. My oh-eight-five-eight of the eighteenth to Force M refers”

  Dragging his tired brain back from the immediate gunnery problem, the Hecate’s Captain conside
red this information and all it implied. So the Admiralty, too, thought that something was afoot in this neglected quarter of the great ocean. The very make-up of the ships sent to join him was sufficient indication of that. One six-inch-gun cruiser, the Acheron, and two fleet destroyers—it was a force quite out of proportion to deal with one U-boat.

  “I suppose we haven’t decoded Admiralty’s oh-eight-five-eight. Pity they didn’t put our call signs in the heading. I expect Johnson will have read it—but of course among thousands of other signals it will take time to find and decode.”

  “I could ask for a repeat, sir, if you thought it justified breaking wireless silence.”

  “I don’t, Willis. Certainly not that. In any case Acheron will have our present position relayed to her. Tell Johnson to try and find Admiralty’s oh-eight-five-eight of yesterday.”

  The conversation with his Yeoman had taken but a few minutes. But they were vital minutes indeed. Steering a steady course and moving much faster than the U-boat, the destroyer had almost drawn level with the enemy and, although she had opened the range, her whole silhouette was available as a target.

  “Starboard ten,” the Captain ordered as soon as he appreciated the position. He had, of course, no knowledge of conditions aboard the U-boat. It seemed that for some reason, probably connected with the smoke that was rising from her, she was temporarily unable to use her diesels. There was, however, absolutely no knowing whether she would be able to effect repairs, and if so, when these would be completed. At the moment it could be assumed that she was still running on the electric motors—but for how much longer she would have enough electricity in the batteries to keep these alive was the guess of anybody aboard the destroyer. Her uncharacteristic fierceness, after being forced to the surface, could only be due to confidence—confidence that she could repair herself sufficiently if given time, or that, if she could hold out for long enough, help would come to her from some quarter about which the Hecate’s Captain knew nothing.

  The Captain noted that the bows of his ship were already swinging round to follow the turn that the U-boat had started. Now, thank heaven, the wretched boat was no longer up-sun of him. In fact, if the submarine were to continue its turn, the time would soon come when the relative positions would be reversed, and it would be the gunlayer of the submarine who would then have the sun in his eyes.