Shrug, rueful smile: similar reactions from those around him; expressions that said ‘Here we go, then’ or ‘Too good to last, weren’t it.’ Fraser amplifying his report with ‘On red eight-oh, sir, closing. Others is on red one-one-oh and red – one-five-five. Moving left to right –’
‘All right.’ At the chart, Danvers beside him, Wop transmissions still sporadically audible on the pressure-hull. When they missed a few squeaks it didn’t mean the operator had lost her, only that he was working it to and fro across her, some impulses pinging on to fade away in the depths, having encountered nothing to reflect them back. Ursa’s position by soft-pencilled DR roughly midway between Cape San Vito and the island of Ustica, three destroyers all to the east of her – between northeast and southeast, that sector generally. They’d concentrated their search initially – predictably – on the side you’d attacked from – assuming that having let fly you’d have gone about and legged it back eastward. Also predictably, only three of them at it – as duly confirmed by Fraser – the other one busying itself with survivors, manoeuvring and from time to time stopping engines, around the area of the sinking. That the tanker had sunk was as good as certain: for one thing, three hits, meaning three devastating explosions deep inside her; for another, only the one escort standing by her – no question of taking her in tow as there might otherwise have been – and as conclusive as anything else Fraser’s report of breaking-up noises – bulkheads splitting, etc. – which in fact had started shortly after the third hit – Ursa by then on due west and at eighty feet – as she still was now, but on 230 degrees – paddling away in the hope of not attracting anyone’s attention.
After a while the destroyer that would probably have had a few survivors on board had left at about thirty knots on a straight course for – he guessed – Trapani. Wouldn’t be all that many survivors.
‘Still in contact?’
A nod: creasing of anxiety around the eyes. ‘All three’s closing, sir.’
As one might have expected – once one of them had found you. He’d sketched it rapidly and roughly on a blank area of the plotting diagram: the three Italians, this one in contact and on a course converging with Ursa’s, in contact but not necessarily aware you knew it. Had to know you might be, but his primary concern would be to hold the contact while bringing his chums into it now by voice radio, light or flags – standard tactic then being for one or more of them to hold on to you while others took turns at running over and dropping bloody charges. It wasn’t possible to maintain asdic contact while actually attacking.
He pushed himself off from the chart table, nodded to McLeod. ‘Time to make a move, Jamie.’
‘Sure you’re right, sir.’
‘Here we go, then.’ Another couple of seconds’ thought: seeing it as it had suddenly become – and touch wood the solution. Quietly: ‘Stop starboard. Group up, full ahead both motors.’ And to Smithers: ‘Wheel hard a-starboard.’
Orders to the motor room by telephone, telegraphs being shut off as part of silent running. Smithers acknowledging the helm order: ‘Hard a-starboard, sir.’ Brass wheel spinning, spokes glinting in the compartment’s dimly yellowish light. ‘Thirty o’ starboard wheel on, sir.’ Ursa’s hull and frames trembling with the sudden onsurge of battery and propeller power – power from batteries already seriously depleted, but that was something else, to be coped with later; here and now the object was to kick up a barrier of turbulence to deflect the asdic probe, leave the Wop confused, with any luck assuming his target had turned sharply away – away from him – which it had – to dodge away westward behind this burst of speed.
Didn’t always work. Had done on occasion. Not in precisely similar circumstances, but the present ones lent themselves to it, Mike thought. Hoped. Close behind the helmsman’s stool, watching over Smithers’ shoulder the start and then increasing rate of turn, ship’s head by gyro threading through on the glowing metal ribbon – 240 – 270 – faster then through 290, 310, 340 – due north – and 010, 030 –
‘Midships.’
‘Midships, sir.’
Spinning the wheel back the other way while the turn continued, under cover of the confusion now surrounding her. Mike telling McLeod: ‘Stop both. Group down. Slow ahead port.’
Still on the swing and with way on but quiet now – quietening – emerging from the disturbance that would fizz there for some while. Had been motoring southwestward, caught on to their having established contact and winced away in this abrupt, fast turn to starboard – in their view running west now, surely.
‘Still transmitting, sir!’
‘In contact?’
‘No, sir – no …’
Asdics would get echoes from that turbulence. Not very sharp or clear ones maybe, but still echoes. Which would fade, of course – leading to a report of ‘Lost contact’. Ursa meanwhile running under the bastards, more or less. Effectively, running under them. Steel no longer thrumming, that one screw scarcely audible. Ten to one and please God they’d be frantically trying to regain contact in a westerly direction.
Quietly to Smithers, ‘Steer oh-eight-oh.’
‘Oh-eight-oh, sir –’
Fingers crossed …
Twenty miles on this course would put one somewhere between Gallo and San Vito, maybe a dozen miles offshore. If the sods gave up the search now. Time, 1840. Making only a knot and a half, but that was perfectly all right, when it was taking you east and the opposition were heading west or southwest at – what, ten or fifteen? Rate of progress – from Ursa’s point of view, rate of separation, hard to guess if they were still conducting an A/S search – wide spread, co-ordinated alterations of course, etc. The important thing was that the range was opening and continued to do so. Even if as one suspected these weren’t exactly top-notchers, they’d hardly turn back in this direction – purposeless or at least systemless, in their desperation poking around like men with white sticks.
Give it another hour in any case. Up for a look then, and while the light held get bearings of Gallo Head and San Vito. Night patrol then, restful or otherwise but getting the box up as the number-one priority. Northward or northwestward, where the targets seemed to come from.
Immediately though, might be more sense in making real use of this next hour or two. In other words stay deep, or go a bit deeper, and reload tubes.
Having empty tubes wasn’t a good feeling. Could meet a battle squadron in the dawn and not be able to do more than keep out of its way. While the argument against reloading tubes right away and in a hurry – well, if the Wops did realise they’d made a bollocks of it and reversed the direction of their search, catching you with your pants down – torpedoes and gear all over the place, tubes’ rear doors open, trim all to hell …
Wasn’t likely they’d be back. Could happen, but –
Reload now, finish by eight-thirty or latest nine, surface at about ten – clean air, and battery – all tonight’s dark hours for that, after the day’s extravagance. Not enough hours, in fact, but could manage on it. Diving then at first light somewhere off Gallo Head, and follow one’s nose northwestward again – feeling a lot better for having fish already in the tubes.
He shifted around, elbows on the edge of the chart table behind him, asked Fraser, ‘Anything at all?’
Headshake and slow blink. ‘Nothing, sir.’
Checking the time again: six-fifty, almost. McLeod leaning with a shoulder against the ladder, glancing round, waiting for – whatever … Mike nodded. ‘Slow ahead both, Jamie. Hundred feet and reload tubes.’
From Sub-Lieutenant Tom Jarvis’s illicit diary notes that evening:
Approx 1900 opened up from d/charging, went to 100 feet and cleared fore ends for reloading of tubes. Clearing all the junk out of the compartment an awful bloody sweat, as always. Skipper sent for the T.I., Coltart, while preparations were in progress, and congratulated him on this afternoon’s fish having run straight – ‘As always, T.I.’ The two of them in the wardroom gangway at this stage
, standing just about eye to eye – neither of them exactly midgets – and Coltart who usually doesn’t have much to say but I suppose wanted to return the compliment about torpedo-maintenance with one of his own, said ‘Left that shower looking bloody gormless, didn’t we?’
Reloading the four tubes – with Mark IVs, unfortunately – was finished by eight-thirty: which took an hour and a half out of what would have been Jarvis’s watch, McLeod consequently standing in for him in the control room – with plenty to do, at that, trimming problems caused by the shifting to and fro of heavy weights – not only torpedoes weighing two tons apiece but the special loading gear that had to be set up, and before that the TSC’s entire contents cleared out and stacked in the gangway opposite the for’ard messes. In fact transferring four torpedoes from the racks into the tubes in less than an hour wasn’t bad going: the TI and his gang knew their business all right, Jarvis’s contribution being mainly to spot blunders before they were committed – like a steel-wire rope led the wrong side of a stanchion, which could set the whole operation back half an hour if it wasn’t spotted in time – or even a propeller-clamp left on a torpedo’s twin concentric screws before that tube’s rear door was shut and the inevitable disaster lost to sight. That as an outright cock-up being about the worst imaginable. Wasting time was one thing, ensuring that a torpedo couldn’t run when it was fired very much another. Plain fact being however that with a dozen hands working flat-out in close confines, such things could occur.
Hadn’t this time, anyway. And the men who lived, ate and slept in there weren’t averse to having some extra space now. Jarvis returned to the wardroom looking pleased with himself, after waiting for the gangway to be partially unplugged, then crawling over the rest of it and coming on aft to report ‘Four tubes reloaded, sir.’ Mike glancing at the clock, nodding approval; Danvers by this time had taken over from McLeod, who’d got his head down. Jarvis adding, somewhat diffidently, ‘Lovely job, that tanker, sir.’
‘Could’ve done worse, couldn’t we. Oh, here – Lazenby’ll be bunging this out, soon as we’re up.’
Pushing a signal-log across the table and flipping it open: Top item in the clip being the plain-language version of a signal addressed to S.10, repeated to Vice-Admiral, Malta, C-in-C Mediterranean and Admiralty, reporting the sinking with torpedoes of a southbound tanker believed to be the Alessandria, 14,000 tons, in position 38 degrees 31 North, 12 degrees 34 East, at 1630 – zone time and date – destroyer escort last heard searching west of Cape San Vito. The concluding words, Continuing patrol, were an assurance to Shrimp that one was still on the billet and had torpedoes remaining.
‘Already ciphered, sir?’
‘Yes. Get your head down, if I were you.’
Mike liked that signal. Liked his vision of Shrimp scanning it, the gleam of approval in those grey eyes reflecting one’s own satisfaction at the thought of such an immense quantity of oil and/or petrol not reaching bloody Rommel.
Diving stations now – nine forty-five. Half an hour ago he’d brought her up to periscope depth for a look-round and a couple of shore bearings, which as it happened had put her within a mile or two of her DR eighteen miles north of Cape San Vito. A light overcast had developed in the previous few hours, and the wind had come up to about force 4 – still from the northwest. In these conditions it would be dark enough to surface by ten, so – considering alternatives, over the chart – he’d decided to stay on this course,080, throughout the dark hours. Best part of seven hours’ charging, and making about five knots, say – dive somewhere off the Gallo here at 0500 or thereabouts, daylight patrol then closer inshore and westward. Unless of course one got any better ideas between now and then. But later in the day, a snoop down past the Egades maybe.
At diving stations now anyway – a nod to McLeod, and ‘Stand by to surface’– usual checks and reports then following, Walburton opening the lower lid and shinning down again, leaving the ladder clear for Mike; McLeod’s ‘Ready to surface, sir’, Mike giving the order and starting up. It was good and dark up top by this time – final periscope check having revealed nothing but slightly jumpy seascape, even with the help of the two-day-old scraping of moon which had risen in mid-afternoon and would set in four or five hours’ time, meanwhile had thickening cloud to contend with. McLeod intoning, ‘Twenty-five feet – twenty – fifteen –’, Mike right under the top hatch – first clip off, pin out of the second, one hand up grasping the handle in the hatch’s centre – not that that would hold it, steadying himself was all – but Walburton now hugging him around the knees, adding his own twelve or thirteen stone to Mike’s. McLeod’s voice echoey in the tower below them – ‘Twelve feet – eight …’ and the second clip swinging free, hatch crashing up and back, the pressure built up from having fired torpedoes virtually exploding up around them but not taking Mike with it like the cork out of a bottle of fizz, which without having taken those precautions it might have done. He’d yelled ‘Right!’, Walburton had let go and he was clambering out into the dark, salt-streaming bridge.
He’d put a note in his night-order book to be given a shake at 0400, and when Barnaby as messenger in Danvers’ watch woke him he felt as if he’d had a full night’s sleep. In fact he hadn’t got his head down until some time after midnight – mainly on account of his own aversion to moonlight, and cloud-cover being unreliable until about then. Same old contradictory thinking – his officers being entirely capable and reliable, Ursa safe in their hands moon or no moon: only one’s sensitivity to the fact that just a moment’s inattention or misconception, combined maybe with a dozy lookout …
Anyway, had had the best part of four hours’ sleep, and wouldn’t have wanted more.
‘Morning, sir.’
McLeod – pulling the chair out and thumping down into it, reaching for a mug, telling him, ‘The box has come up quite well. Another hour’ll see it about right. Smoke, sir?’
‘No – thanks.’ Remembering that soon after surfacing last night he’d agreed to cut speed-through-the-water to nearer three knots than five, to get a larger proportion of the generators’ output into the battery. After all, one wasn’t going anywhere in any hurry, and had drained it somewhat, with those high-speed bursts. Hence the amount of movement now – with little more than steerage-way on her, it didn’t take much to make her roll. He said – about the battery – ‘That’s fine, then.’
‘There’s kye for you on the table here, sir.’
‘Initiative of Barnaby’s, or yours?’
‘Oh, Barnaby’s …’
Barnaby would have shaken McLeod just before the hour, since he had to get himself ready to take over on the bridge by a quarter-past, while he, Barnaby, would have been relieved by his Red watch counterpart at the hour. In fact, come to think of it, one had heard the watch changing, presumably while still comatose. And McLeod must have gone aft right away to check with the LTOs on the battery-state – pausing only to light that cigarette. He was, actually, an extremely competent first lieutenant, Mike thought: never lost his sense of the priorities, definitely should be recommended for his Perisher when they got back. In the gangway now pulling on Ursula-suit trousers – which he’d need, she was throwing herself around a bit. Up to about force 5, he guessed. On 080 still, of course, wind and sea by the feel of it still northwest, a little abaft the beam.
Very hot kye. In the semi-darkness, sucking noises from McLeod braced against the table – audible even through the boat’s gyrations, thump and rush of sea through the casing above their heads, pounding around the gun and tower. Jarvis’s snores, surprisingly, inaudible. Mike at the table now – transference being an easy feet-first slide from bunk to bench – with a hand to his mug ensuring it was still there. McLeod stubbing out his cigarette: ‘Dive on the watch, sir, or –’
‘I’ll join you up there about half-past. Meanwhile might run the blower on one and six, eh?’
‘Might indeed, sir.’
One and six being the main ballast tanks that were suppo
sedly empty, keeping her on the surface. With a certain amount of tossing around, air tended to get spilled out of the free-flood holes in their bottoms, and to replace it, buoy her up, you opened one-way valves in the low-pressure air-line and started a machine called the blower, effectively a high-powered fan, ran it for a quarter of an hour or so every few hours. By forcing down any existing level of water in the tanks it made life a bit drier for watchkeepers in the bridge, and reduced chances of the boat diving of her own accord.
He lit a cigarette. The kye was drinkable now. Reflecting that Charles Melhuish should have Unsung well on her way to Malta by this time. Having spent yesterday under the mines, surfaced off Cape San Marco last night – then another day and night, to Lazaretto, and – he thought wryly, See the conquering hero comes … Snide as well as wry, admittedly; but with that cruiser under his belt he might well be a little above himself – having started that way, for God’s sake … Day after tomorrow anyway, he’d be in: this now being Monday, one week since Ursa’s return to Malta from the fleshpots of the Levant. Sailed from there Tuesday evening: not even six days at sea yet, although it felt like more. The business with the Garibaldi had seemed to drag things out a bit. But whether or not the convoy from Gib was on its way, or had been – got through, or otherwise – at least some of them, please God? A few ships in Grand Harbour now, maybe, discharging by floodlights on to wharves or into lighters – please God, some at least?
0500 then, down into peace and quiet, Ursa steady as a rock even at thirty feet. It had been fairly brisk up there, with the overhead of thin, fast-moving cloud and a lot of the white stuff flying, pinkish dawn spreading like a stain from over Messina and the Italian toe. It had been time to get down out of it in any case, and was certainly a lot more comfortable. He’d dived her on the klaxon – the earsplitting emergency dive signal, a large press-button just under the rim of the hatch – to remind all hands what it sounded like, since in these five days and nights at sea oddly enough it hadn’t been used. It was a hell of a thing to wake up to, a lot more startling than the alternative, a howl of ‘Dive, dive, dive!’
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