Stark Realities

by Stark Realities (retail) (epub)

  ‘Here, maybe. Torpedo Depot Ship St George. Near eight thousand tons, length three hundred feet – hundred metres. No picture of her, though.’ Thinking, Could be any old steamer up there, skipper calling her a depot ship because he’s been told to leave merchantmen alone, here’s a sitting duck and he wants to build up his score. Don’t blame him either, really… Skipper peering at the book more closely now: ‘What’s this?’

  In the dim lighting Hofbauer read her name as Hecla. And in smaller print, ‘Six thousand six hundred tons, length three-ninety feet, sir.’

  ‘Thirty metres. That’s her. Does it give her draught?’

  ‘Mean draught, twenty-three feet.’

  ‘Torpedo settings five metres, then.’ Beyer passed this over the telephone to the tube space, while also recording it in the log. Otto meanwhile checking the time – however many minutes he was giving it before going up for another look, by then obviously from much closer range.

  Touch wood, it would be. Unless in this interval the little convoy had turned away. Its present course would take it past the Eddystone lighthouse and eventually to Start Point; and from Start Point – well, on a little north of east to – maybe Portsmouth, their destination?

  Telling them mentally as he checked the time again, Won’t get as far as the Eddystone, boys, let alone your bloody Portsmouth.

  ‘Gasse – what now?’

  ‘Sir.’ The leading telegraphist, currently hydrophone operator, pulled one ’phone of the headset off that ear – although he’d have known what his skipper was asking – told him, ‘One of ’em’s gone out to starboard. Bearing now – 108. Revs for maybe ten, twelve knots… Oh – moving back again – 106 – 105—’

  ‘All right.’ Destroyer doing a little sweep, he thought. Bored stiff with that snail-like progress – and hoping his hydrophones might pick something up. Otto asked Gasse – giving him a moment to move the earphone off – ‘Hearing all three now?’

  ‘Closer ’n they was, sir. Confused like, but—’

  ‘All right.’ ‘All three’ meaning two destroyers and one towing ship, say, but it probably was a tug. Not that it mattered. All that did was getting into position to attack, then wasting no time in doing so. He had a comfortable feeling, meanwhile, that once he got up there with the range and firing angle right he couldn’t really miss, with a target so slow-moving and unmanoeuvrable.

  As long as the fish ran straight. They usually did, nowadays. Earlier on there’d been a lot of duds. Like the British mines you could just about have played football with. Unfortunately they’d improved a great deal in the past year or two.

  He looked from his watch to Claus Stahl.

  ‘Ten metres. Half ahead both.’

  Reducing revs in order to come up quietly, but also because high speed had been taking a lot out of the battery and he’d need power in reserve if after he’d sunk the target the destroyers gave him problems. Which you could bet they would. He’d reduce again from half to slow speed before he put the stick up. Asking Gasse, ‘Bearing now, and a guess at the range?’

  ‘Red two-oh to red two-five, sir. Range – I’d guess six to eight hundred metres. More than five hundred and less than a thousand, say.’

  So he’d need another period of high speed on the motors before he’d be in anything like certain hitting range. Poor old battery. You wouldn’t want a third expenditure of amps at that rate. Give up the bloody ghost, like as not. Best of reasons to make as sure as possible of coming up in the right place next time.

  ‘Ten metres, sir.’

  ‘Make it eight. And slow both.’

  He made certain that Stahl had the trim under control at eight metres, before nodding to Boese and gesturing for the periscope. Familiar thump then hiss as the glistening, yellowish tube slid up; he grabbed its handles, jerking them out and down. Eyes at the lenses then: daylight was strong, the sea a brighter greenish-blue, and—

  There. Twenty-plus degrees on the bow, a starboard-quarter view of a destroyer making heavy weather of it, scooping the stuff up and sending it flying back like snow. Leaving that, training left, stopping on the target, which (a) was the ship he’d found in Jane’s, (b) was down by the bows – had rammed something or hit a mine, stopped a torpedo. Her forepart or some of it had to be flooded, her screws probably too high in the water to be useable – in present conditions anyway. Even right out of water, in that great pile of foam.

  Aim to hit her abaft the foremast, second one no further aft than her bridge. With depth-settings as ordered, five metres. And keep to the big periscope. With the sea as lively as it is, he thought, safe as houses…

  It was a tug, lugging her along. But as before, the second destroyer wasn’t in sight at this moment. Up ahead somewhere: fine on the bow, he guessed, at about 1,000 metres, probably. Target range still too great, anyway, and the angle wasn’t acceptable. Ideally you wanted your torpedoes to approach on a ninety-degree track, which meant firing from anything between say forty and seventy on her bow: and to overhaul her by that much meant a return to – well, say, twelve metres this time, for another longish spell of full power.

  Nothing else for it. Sink the swine, then worry about evasion. He was about to snap the handles up and step back, telling Stahl to take her down, when he got his first indication of an impending alteration of course: a flag-hoist dropping from the target’s mainmast yardarm, and the destroyer on this side cracking on speed. Must have increased a minute or two ago, although the flag signal would still have been flying: it was already far enough ahead soon to be crossing the target’s bows.

  Target about to alter to port therefore, he guessed. Training the scope left a bit now – and the other escort was in sight, pushing out northward…

  He grunted, told Stahl and/or Hofbauer, ‘May be in luck. They’re going round to port.’

  He’d guessed right: the depot ship was stern-on to him now. Still under helm, making a slow, wide turn, tug dragging her round, the cripple’s raised stern acting like a sail with the northwester pretty well on her beam at this stage. Starboard-side escort somewhere out of sight, beyond her, and the other – he shifted the periscope back to the left – there. Steering something like northeast or north by east.

  ‘Course of northeast, where’d it take ’em?’

  Glancing towards Hofbauer, who came back promptly enough with, ‘Steering to pass west of Eddystone, probably on course for Plymouth, sir.’

  Confirming what had been his own guess without looking at the chart. He nodded. ‘Down. Twelve metres, full ahead both. Steer 060.’

  Would check that on the plotting diagram and adjust if necessary, but it had to be about right. Target and escorts on 045, UB81 cutting the corner. Own speed five-and-a-half-knots, target speed three – or maybe less now, with the weather on her beam – rate of overhauling therefore three knots or a little less.

  ‘Both motors full ahead, sir, depth twelve metres, course 060.’

  Whine of the motors speeding, boat angling downward. He’d been lucky to have had the periscope on them at just that moment, to have seen that change of course. At the plotting diagram now, juggling figures – bearings, distances, speeds, firing angles – in his head. Hofbauer suggesting, ‘Should we give it sixteen minutes, sir?’ He had his stopwatch running. Otto told him, ‘Twelve.’ And over his shoulder, ‘Bring her to 065.’ A better course on which to intercept – cutting the high-speed period to a minimum, for the battery’s sake – and he’d run in and fire torpedoes from abaft the target’s beam, to hit him on as much as a one-twenty track. At close enough range you’d hit all right, saving several minutes of full battery power and then starting your withdrawal about half a sea-mile further from where the destroyers were likely to be at the time of firing than you would be if you held on for a ninety-degree shot. Getting in as close as 350 or even 300 metres would compensate for the obtuse firing angle.

  Waiting while the minutes crawled. Motors at full ahead, swallowing amps by the bucketful.

  Close on
ten minutes gone. Thinking, as a way of making himself relax, Back with you in just a few days, my little darling…

  Kramer’s had been great, an exciting evening, and at the end of it, when they’d been kissing goodbye and taking their time about it, she’d agreed breathlessly, ‘All right, next time, Otto’ – sending his spirits soaring. It was the Snake Pit she’d been agreeing to – although as things were then, or as he’d thought they were, there was no telling whether ‘next time’ would be in two months or three or – hell, six, since at the end of this patrol and the one after – this one – he’d expected to return to the base at Bruges, not Wilhelmshaven. Driving himself back from Oldenburg in the motor he’d borrowed from old Graischer, he’d warned himself, If there does happen to be a next time…

  Would be now. In only four or five days, at that. Any fool can stay alive four or five bloody days!

  Touch wood…

  ‘Twelve minutes gone, sir.’

  Hofbauer. Otto pushed himself off the panel of blows and vent levers where he’d been leaning, told them, ‘Both motors half speed. Bring her to ten metres.’ Then when she was in trim at ten – another minute gone – ‘Slow both motors.’ And to Stahl, ‘Bring her to eight.’ Relief at the slowing down smoothing out some of the furrows in Stahl’s dark-stubbled face as he acknowledged, ‘Eight metres.’ Otto glancing at Boese and lifting his hands – for the thump, then the long hiss, seconds later the light of day like an explosion in his eyes.

  Sort this out now…

  New bearings and ranges. ‘I am – ninety-five degrees on his bow. Target’s course 045, speed three knots. Starboard fifteen, steer one hundred degrees. Stand by both tubes.’ He stepped back: ‘Down periscope.’

  At the chart table then, scanning Hofbauer’s plot, Hofbauer setting figures on the calculator and muttering, ‘Director angle at three hundred metres – fourteen degrees, sir.’

  He nodded, moving back to the centre. ‘Up.’ Grabbing the ’scope and making one fast preliminary circuit, checking all round. No change, no problem. Setting the ’scope therefore on green fourteen – there was a bearing-ring on the deckhead where the periscope pierced it, the starboard half of it green, port-side bearings red. When the target’s bow crossed the hairline in the lenses he’d have a fourteen-degree aim-off and could send away the first torpedo, although his point of aim for the first one would be under the foremast, second under the leading edge of the bridge. The scope was set and he had his eyes at the lenses, waiting, seconds ticking by and range closing all the time: he’d told Beyer – the telephone link to the torpedo room and tube space – ‘Stand by tubes’, and the answer from Stroebel came back instantly as ‘Tubes ready, sir.’

  Target’s sea-swamped bow crossing the hairline now. The length of the Hecla’s pitching, half-drowned foc’sl-head was the distance to the foremast-step. Slow intake of breath and – ‘Number one tube, fire!’

  You felt it, heard it, felt a rise of pressure in your ears from air venting back. Gulping to clear it, then, ‘Number two – fire!’

  Gasse reported a second later, ‘Both torpedoes running, sir.’

  ‘Down. Thirty metres. Starboard fifteen, steer 180.’

  All of that happening – UB81 corkscrewing downward and the torpedoes running, in echelon and five metres below the waves. Run straight, please… Gasse was removing the headphones, to avoid having his eardrums damaged. As they might be before much longer anyway; depthcharges tended to be more damaging, if they were close enough, and the English had become rather better at it in the course of the past year or so. Hofbauer was frowning at the stopwatch, Otto seemingly studying him. UB81 angling down, depthgauge needle circling past the fifteen-metre mark, and the motors quiet, conserving amps. Up top, that old depot ship’s crew still doing whatever they’d been doing before – eating, sleeping, playing cards or—

  Explosion. One hit: the sound of it distinctive enough to be clearly recognisable. Faces lighting up, mouths opening to whoop or cheer, Stahl and CPO Honeck snarling for silence. Then – same again, second hit. Unquestionably a kill – and no stopping them now: all through the boat men were cheering, hitting each other on the back, laughing. What they were here for, and they’d done it – again. Well – their skipper had, but he couldn’t have managed it on his own. UB81 had done it. Still on her way down – passing twenty-four metres, and with thirty degrees to go to get herself on the ordered course, due south. Chief Hintenberger was applauding clownishly from the entrance to his engine-room, ostentatiously clapping his hands above his head – big hands, arms as skinny and hairy as spiders’ legs – while Claus Stahl turned briefly to offer congratulations to his skipper. Hofbauer the same. There was a smile even on Boese’s long, usually gloomy face; Wassmann was beaming and chuckling; Gasse was putting his headset back on – knowing that a lot was going to depend on him and his hydrophone in the course of the next half-hour, hours, rest of the day, maybe through the night as well. You hoped for the best, prepared yourselves for the worst – at least for a bollocking. Otto telling Beyer at the telephone, ‘My congratulations to Chief Stroebel.’ The torpedo chief, whose fish had run straight. Otto heard that message passed, then called for silence: ‘Pass the word for’ard and aft – settle down, sit, lie – no-one even fart, let alone drop a spanner.’

  The big hope, as always, to sneak away, not to be detected at all, have no hunt even start. It was a possibility, had been known, although recently had become more rare. Stahl, glancing round to confirm that the boat was now at thirty metres and catching his skipper with closed eyes just at that moment, wondered as he turned back to watch and adjust the trim, Long blink or quick prayer?

  2

  Gasse, with his eyes shut, informed his skipper, ‘Breaking up noises astern, sir. Tug’s stopped engines.’ Eyes open, on the dial: ‘One destroyer on green 180 – moving right to left. Other’s on red 165 – same. Both cut revs now.’

  Searching, listening on their hydrophones. The tug would be picking up survivors – or looking for them. Breaking up noises – from the ship they’d torpedoed – bulkheads collapsing as she sank, gear smashing loose and so forth. In something like thirty fathoms, wouldn’t be long before she was in the sand. While the destroyers – well, the one that had been on the target’s port bow would have reversed course and cracked-on speed southward or southwestward, the sector from which torpedoes must have been fired and in which the submarine might still be. Having attacked from that quarter they’d guess you’d have turned back towards open water, deeper water – meaning any direction between southeast and southwest. And the other skipper would have figured it out in much the same way but would probably stay out of his colleague’s way – colleague having got there first – and search to the east or southeast, where for all any of them knew he might strike lucky.

  As soon as one of them detected you, of course, that would all change; they’d join up, work in tandem.

  Might not detect you. Otto crossing fingers, thinking it might be possible to remain unheard until dark. Eight hours, say. With very good luck, it might. Another imponderable was that one didn’t know how far this lot had come, how long the destroyers might already have been at sea, how soon they might need re-fuelling. But Plymouth being so close, if they needed to they could go in one at a time, or wait for others to be sent out to take over the hunt from them. Proximity to a major naval base being a considerable advantage to them; another was that since the Americans had joined in, their antisubmarine forces weren’t stretched as thinly as they had been.

  That was the picture, in rough outline. UB81 paddling south on only one motor now, starboard motor at dead slow – (a) to stay as near mouse-quiet as possible, (b) to take as little as possible out of the battery from now on – battery having been well and truly caned already.

  Have Freimann take density reading some time. Not yet. Better to guess the worst than know it, when there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it anyway.

  Gasse murmured quietly over the motor’s p
urr, ‘Second destroyer’s crossed astern of us. On green 175 now, still moving left. No more’n a hundred revs.’

  Five, six knots maybe. Prime listening-out-on-hydrophones speed, maybe. And moving right to left suggested a course roughly parallel to the other’s. Otto visualising the scene up there: one of them say 1,000 metres away, the other maybe 1,500 or 2,000. If they were both concentrating on that southwestern sector – well, go right ahead, boys…

  Not that you could count on it. On anything. Thinking about it, though: on the control-room deck with his back against the end of the chart table, arms folded on raised knees, looking patient, even slightly bored. He raised his head, said quietly, ‘Port five, Riesterer.’

  ‘Port five, sir.’ Putting five degrees of rudder on her; Beyer recording the order and the time of it in his log, and Riesterer glancing Otto’s way: ‘Five of port wheel on, sir.’

  ‘Steer 135.’

  ‘One-three-five, sir.’

  Southeast. Leaving the destroyers to hunt southwestward. On the new course he’d have his stern to them. He’d ordered this gentle turn – normally you’d use ten or fifteen degrees of wheel – in order to make only minimal disturbance, minimal movement of the rudder in its pintles, iron on iron.

  ‘Course 135, sir.’

  Bye-bye, Englanders…

  Gasse cleared his throat: it was all he had to do to win everyone’s attention. ‘Nearer destroyer’s altered to port, sir. Bearing red 150.’

  As he’d recognised a minute ago; at this stage it made no odds to them which way they went. It only just seemed now that that one was following them around. Small shake of the head, thinking about this. Bastard might have decided that holding on in that direction was taking him too close to his chum. Or had been told to clear off, search down this way. At thirty metres you didn’t see winking signal lamps.

  Any case, no immediate problem. Stay as we are, as we’re going, let him think again.

  ‘Gasse…’

  The telegraphist held one earphone off, gazed across at him enquiringly. Otto asked him, ‘Bearing now, the nearer one?’