Then came the shattering news: the Commodore of the OB convoy had broken wireless silence, since his position was now known to the enemy, to report the U-boat attack and the condition of HMS Carmarthen. Severely damaged and with casualties, the destroyer was limping home, alone and untended. Mary Anstey’s fingers shook as she worked at her place on the plot. The hours dragged; no more news came. SO(O) was non-committal: he’d seen all this many times before, and presumably he had no close ties aboard the Carmarthen. At last news of a sort, not directly about Carmarthen, did come through: the eastbound convoy, the HX out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, had come under U-boat attack some four hundred miles west of the Bloody Foreland in County Donegal. Two ships, both crammed with munitions, had blown sky-high; the escort was counter-attacking but with no known success so far.
SO(O) said, ‘They’ll be attacked all the way in, for my money.’ He scanned the plot, his face worried, desperately anxious. ‘The HX is bearing down on where Carmarthen should be by now. Near enough, anyway.’
Mary Anstey didn’t need to be told what that meant: the battered destroyer would come into the dead centre of a heavy attack if the inward-bound convoy should overtake her, and she wouldn’t have a hope. She felt cold and dead inside. Those evenings in Portsmouth came back to hit hard. She stared at the impersonal, impassive plot, at the counters that indicated the ships at sea. The one that represented Carmarthen took on, in her eyes, the outline of the ship itself, and she tried to pray.
*
By now the word had reached Seymour: his W/T office had intercepted the signal from the eastbound Commodore and the Petty Officer Telegraphist had brought it personally to the compass platform; the Surgeon-Lieutenant had been sent for to perform his deciphering duties, such as normally fell to the lot of the doctor in a small ship. The great heavily-laden convoy was, as estimated, some twelve hours’ steaming westward; it was almost due west of Carmarthen, and Seymour reckoned it was likely to come up dead on his drifting track.
He called down the voice-pipe to the wheelhouse. ‘Chief Boatswain’s Mate to the bridge, immediately. And the Engineer Officer.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Petty Officer Thomas was the first to report. ‘You sent for me, sir?’
‘Yes, Thomas.’ Seymour paused, running a hand across his chin’s stubble. Shaving often enough went by the board at sea. ‘The HX is due to pass us within, I’d say, twelve hours.’
‘Yessir. That makes it the dark hours, sir.’
‘Right. Now, she’s come under attack already. That makes me believe the weather’s moderated westerly. If so, then we may come into flatter seas ourselves before long.’ Seymour’s breath hissed out. ‘You know what that means, Thomas.’
‘I do, sir. Continuing attack, sir.’
‘Exactly. Warn all hands, if you please… full alertness and be ready to abandon if we have to. I don’t suppose we’re likely to have trouble over lifejackets, but just in case, warn them that any man found not wearing one will be in cells ashore the moment we reach Belfast. That’s a promise,’ Seymour turned as the Lieutenant (E) reported: Matthews, ex-lower deck, was a prickly character but as dependable an engineer as Seymour had ever met. ‘Chief, we’ve been into this before, but I’m coming back to it again: I’ve half a mind to flood some after compartments and get those screws down.’
‘There’s only the after magazines available —’
‘Yes. But I’ve a feeling that to be able to move might be more profitable than an availability of gunfire — our arc’s pretty well non-existent anyway. In the meantime, we’re a sitting duck, and soon we’re going to be slap in the middle of a concentrated hunting pack.’
Matthews eased his cap on his forehead and said, ‘Well, the engines are ready whenever you want them. But if we flood aft there’ll be bloody little freeboard left.’
‘You still don’t like the idea, Chief?’
‘On balance,’ Matthews answered in a sour tone, ‘no. But it’s your decision.’
Seymour stared bleakly out across the angry seas: every-thing, always, was the Captain’s decision, and he had come suddenly and without warning to command and the sobering knowledge that it was his decisions, along with those of God and chance, that would bring the Carmarthen back to base or send her to the bottom of the North Atlantic. He had a feeling that Matthews had sensed some indecision in him; the Engineer Officer went on, ‘We could overdo it and lose buoyancy. Touch and go… it might work out but I don’t believe it would.’
‘All right, Chief, we’ll carry on as we are for the time being. And I’m glad of your advice,’ Seymour added.
‘Any time,’ Matthews said with a grin, and went down the ladder to the iron-deck and below again to his engine-room.
Later, when the watch on deck was relieved, Cameron found Seymour in a gritty mood, snapping at the RNVR Midshipman and the Leading-Signalman, hunched in his corner of the compass platform, eyes salt-reddened and tired. So much of this was a waiting game, waiting for the unseen enemy to strike and then coping as best possible with the result of that strike. Cameron could begin to understand a captain’s anxieties: his own father had held command at sea, and he himself had sometimes seen the trawler skippers under stress in filthy weather. True, they had not had to face the human enemy, but the fight against the sea itself was universal to mariners and the sea at its worst could be as terrible as anything the human hand could do. And Seymour was considerably less experienced than any trawler skipper when it came to fighting the sea. Cameron began to feel a sense of unease; already the buzz had gone around the lower deck that Seymour wanted to put the ship still lower in the water to correct the trim, and that the Chief had said that was bloody daft. Argument, most of it singularly ill-informed, had blossomed: some were for Seymour, others for the Chief. Most in fact were for Seymour. As Stripey Tomkins had said, loudly and with embellishments of speech, they were currently going nowhere and they might just as well take a chance.
*
The dark came down thick and black; but with its coming the weight of wind began to slacken and the waves, though they would remain high for a while yet, no longer lost their crests in blown spume. The destroyer still lay sluggishly at the sea’s mercy but the water no longer broke across her or slammed into her as viciously as before though she continued wallowing in the troughs and then climbing the hillsides to slide away into the next rolling water-valley. Life was as uncomfortable as ever. The wind dropped more as midnight approached and the seas began to become oily, developing an uneasy ocean swell as the wind fell away. All the lookouts were alert to spot the eastbound convoy as the estimated time of sighting drew close. Once again, Cameron saw things that were not there and Seymour’s responses grew more snappish as he searched the reported bearings time and again through his binoculars and found nothing. Snappish but not quite reproving: you didn’t scare lookouts from their duty of reporting even what they thought they had seen. In the event it was not until just after a bleary dawn that the convoy out of Halifax was seen away to the north-west, and even then it was heard rather than seen in the first instance. It was heard as long-drawn thunder following the roar of an explosion, then seen as a vast sheet of flame, red and orange and white, and a great plume of black smoke rearing into the overcast sky.
Seymour said bleakly, ‘Must be an ammunition ship. Poor sods. Snotty!’
‘Yes, sir?’ The RNVR Midshipman saluted Seymour’s back.
‘Sound action stations.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ The alarm was pressed and the rattlers screamed out around the ship; men just fallen out from dawn action stations pulled themselves from sleep and hurried back to their positions, cursing. To the north-west debris was still falling from the sky and the smoke was pouring yet. No one in that ship could possibly have lived; and the British Army in the Middle East, the RAF fighter and bomber airfields in Britain, and the seabound ships of the Navy, would feel the loss of her cargo. One more feather sprouted in Adolf Hitler’s bloody cap; within t
he next ten minutes, as Carmarthen’s company watched in helpless horror, another vessel was hit and vanished in an individual holocaust. Seymour’s voice shook a little as he lowered his glasses.
‘That looked like a troopship,’ he said. ‘Canadians, I suppose… God knows how many.’
No one else spoke, but minds filled with images, images of upwards of a thousand men, probably a good deal more, either mangled when the ammunition-filled holds went up beneath them or cast into the sea to flounder and freeze to death within minutes. Soon the convoy, or what was left of it, was seen clearly, moving now from north-west to north and slowly closing nearer to the Carmarthen: Seymour counted twenty merchantmen, all biggish ships, four deep-laden tankers amongst them bringing desperately-needed oil from the United States. Around them the escorting naval ships could be seen, Carmarthen’s own group now returning with their charges to the Clyde, whence they would break off for Cape Wrath and the Scapa base. As Seymour watched, one of the tankers was hit by a torpedo. Again there was an almighty explosion and thick black smoke rose in a pall that seemed to blot out the entire sky to the north. Fire spread out over the sea, sizzled around any men who might have survived the initial explosion. Then came indications of a depth-charge attack by the escort: the Atlantic erupted in a pattern of waterspouts. In the prevailing swell it was not possible to see the result from Carmarthen, but a cheer went up spontaneously from the destroyer’s up-ended decks as her company watched the attack. If hopes could help, the Third Reich would now be missing at least one U-boat from Grand Admiral Raeder’s lethal packs…
Once again Seymour lowered his binoculars. He said, ‘Yeoman, call up the Senior Officer of the escort by lamp. Make: “am flooded forward and unable to use my engines currently but do not repeat not require assistance”.’
‘Not, sir?’
‘Not.’ God knew, the assistance of a tow was desperately required; but it could be neither asked nor given unless the vital convoy was to be held up or deprived of a part of its escort. ‘This is war, Yeoman, not a bloody peace-time exercise!’
‘Sorry, sir.’ The Leading-Signalman, acting now as Yeoman, moved across to the signalling projector in the starboard wing of the compass platform and clacked out the leader’s call-sign. The acknowledgement came, the message was passed, and Seymour waited for the response. It was more or less what he had expected; the Leading-Signalman reported: ‘Answer, sir: “God be with you”.’
*
‘God,’ Stripey Tomkins said bitterly, ‘is all very well but he’s not a flippin’ tow. Them bastards, they could’ve taken us right out of this lot!’ The convoy and its escort had passed on by now, hauling away to the east together with the U-boats that would in all likelihood harry it until it came beneath the umbrella of the Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches — or met attack by the FW 200s. Once again, there was a naked feeling. The sight of the escorts had provided, very briefly, a kind of companionship. Now they were alone again. It was good that they had come under no further attack themselves, but many of them tended to share Stripey Tomkins’ view even though they knew in their hearts that there was nothing else that could have been done. Lavington seemed closer now to going to pieces. He sat in a corner of the galley flat, hugging his knees, his face dead white and his eyes shining curiously. Suddenly he blurted out, ‘We’re all going to die. You know that. We can’t possibly get home. We —’
‘Shut up,’ Tomkins said threateningly. ‘Bloody spreadin’ alarm and despondency! Course we’ll get ‘ome, we’re bloody British. Stands to reason. Senior Officer, ‘e’ll report our position and they’ll send out an ocean-going rescue tug.’
‘Why didn’t he say so, then?’
Tomkins raised his eyebrows. ‘Wot, an’ let the muckin’ ‘Uns read ‘is lamp and then wait for the tug and put a fish in her? Bloody likely!’
Lavington swallowed almost convulsively and went back to his theme. ‘We’re done for, whatever you say. We can’t —’ He broke off as Tomkins swiped a fist at him, catching him a hefty blow on the ear. He began sobbing. Cameron watched in pity mixed with disgust: Stripey Tomkins had probably done the right and proper thing. Lavington said no more, but went on crying and shaking. Fear and stress were building up inside him and before long would have to come out. Cameron felt a kind of responsibility for him as a fellow CW rating, and would be watching out for trouble, trouble of a particularly nasty sort if Lavington should crack. The start of panic was something that could not be tolerated in the circumstances. There were a number of hostilities-only ratings aboard who might well be affected; mostly they hadn’t the phlegmatic, philosophic steadiness of the experienced RN hands who had been trained from boyhood for war and its dangers. A firm word in Lavington’s ear might not come amiss: Lavington might consider reporting sick — in fact it was a wonder, really, that he hadn’t already done so since it might get him out of work and discomfort. For the future safety of the ship, he might be much better in the doctor’s hands, though of course a lot depended on the doctor himself; Lavington might well be considered as lead-swinging, but Cameron fancied the doctor might take note of his mental condition and come to his own conclusion about ship safety. Cameron was about to have a quiet word when the order was piped:
‘Clear lower deck… all hands fall-in along the iron-deck!’
Chapter Five
The reports had been received by now in the operations room in Rosyth: HMS Carmarthen had been contacted, still afloat but without the use of her engines. It had been Mary Anstey who had taken the report and passed it to SO(O). The Commander had nodded non-committally and in a dismissive manner, but Mary wanted to know more and, her heart beating fast, she had stood her ground and asked questions.
‘Sir, I was wondering…’
‘Yes? Well, go on, out with it, I won’t eat you!’
‘No, sir. The Carmarthen… will anything be done for her, do you think?’
‘You’ll have to ask the Admiral that.’ The Commander gave her a shrewd, searching look. ‘Have you a special interest, or something?’
She said, biting her lip, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Yes, I see.’ The Commander smiled in a friendly way, and put a hand on her shoulder. She was a good-looking girl and he understood well enough. He said, ‘Now look, do try not to worry. It’s no good to anyone. Have confidence in the ship and her company — there’s plenty of experience there. If you want to know what I think, it’s this: the Admiral will send out an ocean-going rescue tug to have Carmarthen brought in under tow. She’s around three hundred and fifty miles out… say, twelve hours’ fast steaming for the tug. Okay?’
‘Yes, thank you, sir,’ she said, and went back to her work. The work needed her full concentration and she tried her best to give it, but didn’t succeed too well. The Carmarthen was with her all the time. It might be silly, but she couldn’t help it. They hadn’t even an understanding, and it might all be in her own mind alone for all she knew, but she desperately wanted Donald back safe and sound… and damn and blast the war! It was terrible to think of all the young men, so many of them only just out of school, who were suffering and dying already. More than a year of war now, and Hitler looked very much like winning, and if he did, what then? The Gestapo in English streets, and sudden midnight arrests, and concentration camps and all that went with that?
It didn’t bear thinking about. They just had to win this war.
*
‘I’m going to flood the after magazines,’ Seymour said, addressing his ship’s company from the searchlight platform amidships. ‘That holds dangers and I won’t disguise them. We’ll lose the use of our main armament once the backed-up ready-use ammo has been fired, but the 4.7s are largely useless already.’ The Gunner’s Mate had already had hands below, bringing up ammunition for the close-range weapons, plus a box of hand-grenades, and all this would be stowed by the guns handy for use as required. Seymour went on, ‘The principal danger is that we’ll settle too far. I consider that a danger worth risking. We can�
��t stay here indefinitely, that’s certain.’ He looked at his wrist-watch. ‘I shall flood in five minutes from now. All hands not required will remain on the upper deck and stand by to move fast if things go adrift and I have to abandon. Petty Officer Thomas?’
‘Sir?’
‘Have the Carley floats made ready for immediate release, and swing out the whalers port and starboard. We’ll have one hell of a job lowering them in this swell, but we’ll do it, and we’ll need to do it fast if and when the moment comes. All right?’
‘All right, sir.’
‘Good. Well, I think that’s all. Carry on, please.’
Thomas saluted and turned about and began mustering the boats’ crews and lowerers of the whalers, and detailing hands to stand by the Carley floats that in the event of abandoning ship would be slid down into the sea while men dived in and then swam to grasp the lifelines looped along the sides of the floats, and clamber in. Seymour went to the compass platform, outwardly calm but, inside, a bag of nervous reactions and doubts, largely due to something of a scene with Matthews. Because the exchanges had been in public, the scene had been subdued but the antagonism to Seymour’s order could be felt. Lieutenant (E) Matthews was a forthright man and had been at sea a good deal longer than Seymour: all the way from apprentice and Engine-Room Artificer Fifth Class to Chief Engine-Room Artificer and Warrant Engineer until he had made the wardroom with his two gold stripes and purple distinguishing cloth in between. He knew, he had said, all about buoyancy and ship stability and to flood aft was bloody dangerous. He would take no responsibility, he declared flatly, and Seymour answered in cold tones that he didn’t expect him to. Go ahead then, Matthews had said, and see what happens. Was it not better to remain afloat and wait for rescue which was sure to come when the Senior Officer reported their position?
Of course, he had a point.
Nevertheless, Seymour had made his decision and it stood. It would be implemented. Taking a deep breath, Seymour, after a final look around the sea’s surface, passed the order down for the flooding to begin. It was a simple enough operation, quickly carried out by the opening of a valve. From the quarterdeck lobby, word came back that the compartments were now flooding. Seymour held his breath: the effect seemed little enough so far, barely noticeable in fact from the compass platform. But reports from the quarterdeck, where the RNR Sub was in charge, indicated that the ship was coming down a little in the water although taking into account the sea that was running it was impossible to be precise…
In the Line of Fire (A Donald Cameron Naval Thriller) Page 5