Turning her back on all that anyway as three men converged from various directions – no, two converging, greeting Sam and Jack Ray, the other staying put, only glancing back over his shoulder. These two were a lieutenant with the wavy stripes of the Volunteer Reserve on the sleeves of his reefer jacket, and a warrant officer – slightly wizened – with a single narrow stripe on each sleeve. The lieutenant had small, rather crafty eyes – like a goat’s, she thought – and had told them his name but she hadn’t caught it; while the warrant officer, whom the lieutenant had introduced as Mr Showell, was a little stick of a man, jockey-sized with yellowish skin and thin, greying hair. Also a smell of whisky, she noticed, as they shook hands. The third member of the team, the one keeping his distance, was a leading seaman whom the lieutenant named as Derrymore. On one arm he wore a badge of crossed torpedoes with a star above them, on the other an anchor with a twist of rope around it. Except for him, they were all milling around, shaking hands and being affable, but he – Derrymore – was watching an assembly of clock-face gauges on the opposite wall. She wondered – studying them more closely – galvanometers?
There’d been a suggestion of making tea, but neither she nor Sue wanted any – there’d been rather a lot of it on offer at Mrs McGregor’s and they’d felt it might be considered ill-mannered to refuse. Here in the shack the Americans weren’t keen either, and Showell asserted that he already had tea practically running out of his ears. Special, high-proof tea, Anne thought, wandering over towards the leading seaman and asking him, ‘Is that a galvanometer, by any chance?’ He’d nodded. ‘Six of ’em, Miss. There’s six loops, see. Submarine triggers any one of’ em, tells us where it is, like. Then the chart-outlines on that work-top have the corresponding sections marked, mines an’ all.’
A hand on her elbow then, as Sue joined her. Sam, Ray and Wroughton, the RNVR man, were on kitchen-type chairs around a desk that had telephones and what looked like instructional manuals on it – at the door end, but set more or less centrally. The hand on Anne’s elbow was Warrant Officer Showell’s, who was offering, ‘Show you the scheme of it if you like, ladies. Derrymore ’ere needs to keep his eyes on them gauges.’ He’d winked. ‘Hard luck, lad.’
‘Mines, did he say?’
‘Bless you, Miss, bloody ’undreds of ’em!’
Nine thirty-five…
* * *
‘Time now?’
Winter, hunched at the search periscope. Otto told him – from the chart, but referring to his own old silver watch, which for some reason he’d always thought brought him luck – ‘Nine forty-two.’
‘So we’ll only have lost – what, hour-and-a-half, by the time we’re through. No real setback, eh?’
Except that you’d lost rather more than an hour-and-a-half, and that both motors were at half ahead instead of slow ahead, using twice the amperage you’d been consuming an hour earlier. Could begin to look like a very real setback, if you got into any trouble inside. Or on the way through, for that matter.
Evading the trawler, they’d back-tracked for only about two miles, but on turning again, taking a chance on it having left the area by this time, had found the tidal stream working against them instead of for them, consequently were needing twice the power now to make the same headway as before. Now, Switha’s North Traing (or right-hand edge) was still only about eighty on the port bow, Herston Head seventy to starboard. Hoxa Head when one picked it up would be about thirty degrees to starboard – and you wouldn’t see it at least until you had Herston abaft the beam. Had lost about an hour-and-three-quarters, therefore – as well as a lot of amps.
Which you were still losing, of course.
Winter said, ‘When I find Hoxa, I’ll alter to due north. Cut the corner until it’s abeam, then go round to 020.’
Virtually shaving Hoxa Head, this would mean. But that second alteration wouldn’t do. Otto, pencilling-in a revised track, suggested that 040 degrees, after Hoxa, would be better than 020.
‘Otherwise you’d come too close to Nevi Skerry – that’s off Roan Head on Flotta – and this other hazard northeast of it called the Grinds. Once past them – fine, you could come back to due north.’
Silence for a moment, except for the bison’s hard breathing as he continued searching. Sound of the motors louder than it had been earlier, of course; before they’d had to speed up it had been a murmur, was now a thrum. The log’s continual clicking unchanged – as long as there was way on her, unending. Winter’s gruff answer then: ‘Yes. Forgotten that skerry. Although…’
Although what?
He’d thought better of it, or was keeping it to himself. Nine-fifty. It would be ten-thirty before he altered to scrape past Hoxa Head, Otto reckoned. Then you’d be where you had been when the trawler had put in its appearance. An hour and forty-five minutes could seem like a bloody week, he was realising. Actually, recalling, more than discovering – one had experienced this kind of phenomenon often enough before; what made it more noticeable now was being on the sidelines, more or less a passenger. Frustrating – having run one’s own show, made one’s own decisions for quite some time. In UB81, as a prime example, only eight or nine days ago, for God’s sake… And what did particularly irk one was not having tried to influence Winter in the really basic mistake he’d made, the decision to press ahead immediately instead of accepting a delay of twenty-four hours and starting with the battery fully charged. Should have tackled him head-on, made an issue of it.
Trawler coming back now, for instance, you’d damn soon be in serious trouble. And not having argued the point made it at least partly one’s own error. That was mostly what stuck in the gullet.
Too late for tears now, anyway. And – face it – so far was so good. No point giving oneself the bloody villies…
The English girl’s expression, to give oneself the ‘villies’. In Berlin, in the place where they’d tango’d, when he’d made some reference to Kaiser Willi having banned German officers from dancing anything so decadent, she’d joked, ‘If he could see us, might give himself the villies, mightn’t he?’ And he’d said, ‘A heart-attack, no less! The way you dance it, might blow an imperial fuse!’ Then he’d taken a bit of a grip on himself: the tango was one thing, subversive talk that might be overheard was quite another. ‘The villies’, though – she’d hit on pronouncing it with the ‘v’ sound, and found this screamingly amusing, had gone practically hysterical. Well, there’d been a strong element of that. Part of it – other than the fizz, as he recalled it – was that with his connivance she’d been passing herself off as German; there’d been a lot of anti-British feeling in Germany at that time, and an ingredient in her enjoyment of the evening had been the discovery that she could pass for a native – thanks to the Berlitz experience.
Despite her Spanish colouring, and all that blue-black hair…
But why think about her again, for God’s sake?
Past ten o’clock. Winter growling, ‘Herston Head’s coming up abeam. Eighty-five on the bow, say.’ Head back, blinking up at the bearing-ring. ‘Eighty-six.’ Back at the eyepieces. ‘Where you spotted the trawler – almost.’ Swinging left, then pausing to search again for Hoxa. Without success, evidently. Moving on, over to port to look for Stanger Head, which – assessing the position, from the log reading and the bearings he’d noted down – should be thirty-five or forty on the bow now, distance – oh, two miles, near enough…
* * *
‘Not coming, is he?’
The warrant officer had muttered it. Showell – old whisky-breath. Anne sighed: ‘D’you think not?’
She heard Sam comment to the lieutenant – Wroughton, who had green cloth between his wavy stripes, labelling him as a specialist in some technical sphere – ‘Surprising that he’d give up. Come this far, then be scared off by a trawler that hasn’t even said “boo” to him?’
‘It’s us as says “boo”.’ Showell again: quietly to Anne, who was beside him. Adding, ‘Fritz is a funny beggar, ain’t he, thoug
h. Speaking the lingo as you do, you’d agree with me there, I dare say?’
She smiled vaguely – enjoying the little man with his lined, parchment-coloured face and his attempts to entertain the visitors. They were at the work-table that had enlarged diagramatic chart-sections painted on three-ply and switch-gear and so forth all over it. Ten-thirty having passed, they’d had tea after all, she and Sue perching on stools and finding empty spaces for their Admiralty-issue mugs amongst all that. Sue had settled on Anne’s left; she’d been chatting with Derrymore for a while, the torpedoman then retiring to the far end of the shack to smoke a cigarette while drinking his tea, Showell at that time shifting round to face the display of dials on the other wall, the galvanometers. There was another device, here where Sue was sitting, a box-shaped thing with a circle of brass studs and a pointer that could be twisted around, clicking over each stud in turn and – according to Showell, ‘linking audial reception to this or that area of the sea approaches’. He’d added, nodding towards the loud-speaker on the wall between the curtained windows, ‘Hydrophones we’re talking about, of course.’
‘So you’d hear it, as well as see the needles jumping.’
‘One leads to the other, like.’
‘Does it always work?’
‘Course. No point ’aving it, else. Run exercises, don’t we. With our own subs, when there’s one ’andy.’
Needles all static now, though, and the speaker silent, except that on some circuits when they turned that thing around – which they did every ten minutes or so, checking each area in turn – there was the kind of sound you got when as a child you held a sea-shell to your ear. Sue had done it this last time – the instrument being more easily in her reach than in his, when she’d seen his intention and offered, ‘Give it a twirl, shall I?’ Showell then complaining over his shoulder to the others, ‘Being done out o’ me job ‘ere, sir.’
Ten forty-three. She’d heard Sam asking Wroughton whether that trawler’s primary concern would have been possible U-boat intrusions, and Wroughton’s reply, ‘Any kind of intrusion. Lots of back ways around these islands. U-boat might land saboteurs on the east coast of South Ronaldsay, for instance. Trek over with canoes, say.’
‘Oh, surely—’
‘If they had explosives with them? Any intrusion, though. Fast torpedo launches like CMBs, for instance. Hasn’t ever happened, but – can’t leave back doors to a major fleet anchorage wide open, can you?’
Showell asked her, ‘What made you learn German then, Miss?’
He kept calling her ‘Miss’, hadn’t noticed the ring she wore. She’d wondered whether he was married, but didn’t like to ask. She told him, ‘Wanted to make myself more employable, and I already spoke French, so—’
‘Get along well enough in English too, I notice.’
‘Eh?’ Glancing at him: realising it was another joke. His straight face and steady gaze told her nothing. She laughed – liking him, for some reason she couldn’t have explained – and he added quietly, ‘Lovely voice you have, if I may say so. Treat to listen to. Ever know a Fritz you took to, then?’
She nodded. ‘A girl in the language school I attended. We were good friends.’
A nod: it occurred to her that when he smiled he looked like a tortoise. ‘Dare say some of the girls is—’
‘Loop B active, sir!’
Derrymore. The needle in the second of the line of galvanometers had flicked up from its dormant position and was quivering. Wroughton was on his feet with a telephone and its receiver in his hands, Showell muttering, ‘Excuse us’ as he lunged past Anne and Sue to the control-box of the hydrophone equipment: getting sea-shell echoes on the first click, then a sound of – undoubtedly, engine sound on the second. He tried the third as well, got nothing, clicked back to the other. Definitely engine sound: and suddenly tremendously exciting. Wroughton was saying into the telephone, ‘Section B, yes. Propeller noise too, but muted – as yet. Passing Herston is my guess. Yes. Yes. Searchlights then but no sooner – don’t want him scared off again. But alert the Hoxa battery? Oh, and the Yanks.’
Showell muttered to Anne, ‘Gun battery. Six-inch guns.’ Forefinger stabbing at the chart-outline. ‘There.’
‘So where d’you think—’
‘There.’
Sam’s voice asked from the vicinity of the desk, ‘Alerting guns on the assumption he might surface?’
‘Less assuming than guarding against such contingency. If he’s going for your ships, decided to come up and go hell for leather—’
‘Hence’ – Jack Ray’s voice – ‘Alerting the Yanks.’
‘Exactly. Screws getting louder – notice?’
* * *
‘Starboard five.’
Muller echoed, ‘Starboard five, sir.’ Eyes on the gyro repeater, long arms moving to spin the wheel and put that much angle on the rudder. ‘Five of starboard wheel on, sir.’
‘Steer north.’ Bison’s head pulling back from the lenses, Muller acknowledging, bison growling, ‘I’d like Neureuther to see this. Would you mind, von Mettendorff?’
‘Of course not. Good idea.’
COs would often give their second in command or other senior men a chance to see the results of their joint efforts. A sinking, for instance: Otto had several times offered Claus Stahl a quick sight of an enemy going down, had on occasion given 81’s coxswain, Honeck, and her torpedo chief, Stroebel, the same treat. (The late Karl Stroebel, poor devil.) When there was time, and you didn’t have an enemy right at your throat, why not? And this break-in to the Grand Fleet’s hitherto inviolate lair was certainly an event worth witnessing. Fie put his watch in his pocket, heard Muller intone, ‘Course three-six-zero, sir’ as he started down the ladder.
Neureuther, also Leading Seaman Lehner and the Boy Telegraphist Rehkliger, all looked surprised to see him. At the hydroplane controls, Schnets and Napflein: Schnets prematurely bald, Napflein noticeably gap-toothed. Getting most of their names into his head had come easily enough: a physical feature or some characteristic or mannerism, to which you taught yourself to tie a name. In the hydrophone operator’s seat, for instance, Telegraphist Siebertz, as usual chewing gum. Otto told Neureuther, ‘Skipper wants you to take a look. Shortly passing through the narrows – spitting distance of Hoxa Head.’
‘We’re as good as in, then?’
He held up crossed fingers, but didn’t answer. Aware of some considerable degree of unreality. Glancing around at this and that and the faces watching him, thinking, Because we aren’t in – not even ‘almost’, not until we’re clear of that Hoxa peninsula and of Flotta’s east coast. He’d been about to ask Neureuther whether he was happy with the trim, refrained because Neureuther was already on the ladder – anyway, he could take it in for himself pretty well at a glance…
Looked good. Depth exactly ten metres, ’planes more or less amidships most of the time, bubble half a degree aft. Telegraphs showing half ahead, and over the chart table the small winking light that matched the ticking of the log indicating steady progress.
Progress towards what?
In the wardroom he told Emil Hohler, ‘Be as well to keep an eye on the trim. Neureuther’s taking a look at the scenery up top.’
‘Jawohl…’
Pleasant lad – open-faced and always cheerful. Otto sat down where he’d been sitting, telling himself, Take a grip, man, you’ve been in tighter holes than this. He nodded to Hintenberger, ‘All right?’
A grunt. He’d been killing time with that novel of Neureuther’s which Otto hadn’t found all that absorbing; turning it open on its face now. ‘How we doing?’
‘Approaching Hoxa Head. Show you on the chart here?’
Shake of the head. Head like a bird’s nest and face like that of an ape that had recently crawled through a hedge backwards. You could barely see the eyes – or expression under the matted beard. He asked him, ‘Will you shave off some of the undergrowth before attending my wedding?’
A shrug. ‘Might trim i
t. Long as I get to kiss the bride.’
‘One chaste kiss might be permissible. That is, if she permits it.’
* * *
In the shack, Derrymore had called sharply ‘“D” loop’s active, sir!’
Hydrophone effect much louder suddenly: you could recognise it as twin screws thrashing. Wroughton was using the telephone again: on his feet with a view over Showell’s and the girls’ heads to the windows from which a few minutes ago Showell had removed the blankets and muttered apologetically to Anne, ‘’Fraid you might find it a touch draughty now.’ Wroughton had said into the ’phone, ‘Searchlights on D dog, please. He’s on the line, entering from B baker. I’ll give it one minute.’
In response to which, fights blazed in the southeast now, probing out from several points on what might have been half a mile of coastline, fighting a wide area of crinkly seascape, silver beams sweeping, searching. Hydrophone noise suddenly much louder, Wroughton having to shout to be heard, ordering Showell to ‘Prime section D dog south’ – which he’d done, apparently, was now back on his stool, telling her – as she took her eyes off that now lit-up area of sea – ‘That’s the beggar as’ll finish ’em.’
Stark Realities Page 26