The Fulmar was belly-landing into the sea, within fifty yards of one of the Hunts.
The Castleventry had blown up. Like the Montgovern, she’d had her quota of aviation spirit stowed in her bridge deck, which was where the bomb had struck and burst. It must have blown out through the for’ard part of the bridge as well—or sprayed burning petrol right through the superstructure—because she’d gone out of control immediately, swinging off-course and under the stern of the Empire Dance, and by that time the whole of her afterpart had been wrapped in flame. You’d been looking at a fire, not at a ship. When she’d exploded, burning wreckage had landed on a Hunt who’d been close to her; the same Hunt was now abeam to port and had signalled the commodore via the Montgovern that she’d picked up two survivors.
The Kinloch Castle, leading column three, had been hit for’ard. Some of her deck cargo of landing-craft had been blown overboard and there’d been internal damage, in her foc’sl and ’tween-deck spaces for’ard, but she was still in station and her master had said he was all right. The Clan ship that had been number two in column four had been less fortunate: she’d dropped out, with engine defects following a near-miss. And a couple of miles astern a destroyer who’d been badly hit was being abandoned and would then be sunk.
“Emergency turn starboard, sir!”
To give a wider berth to the submarine which they were still hunting out there on the bow. Turns like this were the commodore’s decision. The escort commander told him what was happening ahead, and the commodore took such action as he personally considered necessary. The flag-hoist dropped, and the siren hooted. Humphrey Straight nodded to his chief officer, and moved away to the side of the bridge; Devenish told the quartermaster, “Starboard fifteen degrees.”
More depth charges exploded as the convoy swung away. In this column there were still only two ships, the Montgovern and the Empire Dance, but there were three in each of the three others. A rearrangement since the end of the last bombing attack had involved moving one ship, the Miramar, from column three to column four, where the Clan ship had fallen out and the Neotsfield—her fire was out now, and the smoke was greatly reduced—had moved up into second place astern of the Blair Atholl.
Mackeson counted on his fingers: out of sixteen starters, five had gone, either sunk or dropped astern. Droppers-out very often ended up by being sunk anyway. But near enough one-third of the convoy had been lost. And the worst, admittedly, was still to come, as they moved in close to the Luftwaffe bases in Sicily and the submarine and E-boat ambush territory, the narrow waters south of the Skerki Bank. But if one-third of the original convoy could be brought into Malta, he thought, it would be a triumph. One-third would mean half the number of ships surviving now.
A triumph: and perhaps a pipe-dream too. Decodings of some Malta RAF reports indicated that a strong Italian cruiser force had assembled at sea and was steering south. The two cruisers from Cagliari and the Third Cruiser Squadron out of Messina and the heavy cruiser Trento had been mentioned. Mackeson had decided not to think about it: and he’d told Thornton to keep the information to himself.
“By ’eck, look there!”
On the beam, a submarine had shot to the surface. The long finger of the fore-casing was sticking up out of the sea, and the stubby conning-tower was awash like a half-tide rock.
“Ease to five degrees of wheel.” Devenish had given the U-boat one quick glance, and turned back to his job. The Hunt to port of the Montgovern had opened fire: she was under helm, bow-wave rising as she picked up speed. Mackeson hurried out into the bridge wing. Looking aft, he saw the Army gunners with their four-inch on the ship’s stern. They’d got the gun trained round but they couldn’t fire because the Hunt was in the way. The Hunt’s own for’ard four-inch were firing as she tore straight in towards the submarine. She’d fired again: and splashes had gone up, over by a hundred yards. There were men visible in the conning-tower, which could only have been a couple of feet above sea-level. He’d certainly seen one man, and now the Hunt was in the way … The Montgovern and all the rest of the merchantmen were steadying on the new course, the Hunt and the submarine abaft the beam now. The Hunt seemed to jump in the water as she rammed, her stem smashing into the enemy craft’s hull, opening it to the sea and riding over it, thrashing over and now moving slowly, wallowing, down by the bows in a welter of churned foam. The submarine had gone.
There were cheers from the gunners, Army and DEMS men. Mackeson thought the ramming had been unnecessary and rather stupid. The U-boat had already been in bad trouble, presumably from the depth-charging, and a few well-aimed shells would have finished her. Alternatively, she might have been boarded. The glimpse he’d had of at least one man in the tower had given him the impression that her crew had been about to abandon ship. It hadn’t been necessary at all, he thought. A perfectly good escort destroyer had been put out of action. She might limp back to Gibraltar and eventually be repaired, but in the meantime this convoy, which needed all the protection it could get, had lost one escort. Thinking about it as he turned to go back into the bridge, Bongo Mackeson was angry. Part of it lay in the fact that while he would gladly have seen every living German and Italian burn in hell if it saved Allied lives or helped to beat them in the war they’d started, a completely unnecessary taking of lives seemed incompatible with his own ideas of why the war had to be fought anyway: and he was face to face with Humphrey Straight, who must have been standing right behind him. Scowling: reflecting Mackeson’s own scowl …
“That were a daft bloody thing to do.” Straight stared at him challengingly, his head lowered like a bull’s. “I’d courtmartial that bugger!”
Mackeson heard himself responding to the challenge, defending his own Service.
“The submarine might have slipped under again. He just made certain of it, that’s all.”
“I thought destroyers were along to look after us, not play silly buggers like—”
“That’s what he was doing, captain. If that thing had got down again it might still have got some torpedoes off—or even just got away, fished you on your way home to Gib next week, or—”
“Bloody ’ell—”
Siren: for the turn back to port …
There’d been submarine alarms and emergency turns all through the afternoon, and now with dusk approaching it was time for the air assault to start up again. The convoy had re-formed, into two columns instead of four. The reason for it was that when they turned down into the Skerki Channel destroyers ahead would be streaming their TSDS minesweeping gear, and the merchantmen had to be in a narrower formation to keep inside the strip of cleared water.
This pair of ships, the Montgovern and the Empire Dance, had dropped back and tagged on to what had been column two. But the C-class cruiser had inserted herself in the line as well, so there were three merchantmen, then the cruiser, then the Montgovern and the Empire Dance. The starboard column consisted of the three ships who’d comprised column four—the Blair Atholl, the damaged Neotsfield and the Miramar—with the Kinloch Castle, the tanker Caracas Moon and the American freighter Santa Eulalia completing the line of six ships.
So the Montgovern now had a cruiser ahead of her and the tanker abeam to starboard. Two other heavy cruisers led the columns, and a third, who’d been with the battleships earlier on, was centrally placed astern with a Hunt-class escort on each side of her. The minesweeping destroyers were in the lead and there were three others down each side, all inside the area of swept water.
New air attacks were coming, and in strength. Mackeson’s W/T operators had been listening to the chitchat between Fleet Air Arm pilots and the fighter-directing cruisers, and the Sea Hurricanes had already run into some opposition. They’d reported big formations of Italian and German bombers already up and circling in waiting areas. The Hurricanes had scored some successes and they’d suffered losses too, and among the formations they’d encountered had been some of Ju87s, Stuka dive-bombers.
Beale spat down-wind. “St
ukas is all we bloody need.”
“I heard they’re sitting ducks to fighters.”
“Won’t be no fighters, will there? Not when the flat-tops turn back.”
The carriers and their own cruisers, and the battleships, would be reversing course in about an hour’s time. The light was already weakening, and by then it would be dark. The hope, Mackeson had explained, was that the enemy might not realize the forces had split until tomorrow’s daylight.
Paul was hungry. Lunch, in mid-afternoon, had been corned beef and pickles, and there’d been sardines for tea. Devenish, who presided over the saloon and the messing arrangements, had said the evening meal would probably be soup and corned beef sandwiches. He’d added, “What we’re missing, thanks to you lot, is a decent breakfast.” Thanks to having passengers on board, he meant. When they had the saloon to themselves, apparently the ship’s officers breakfasted on steak and onions, which rations didn’t allow for now.
Withinshaw said, “Can’t abide fookin’ Stukas.”
Paul told him, “Your turn to knock one down, this time.”
“I ’ad one last time!” The fat man was indignant. “I was all over the sod an’ some bastard blew it in fookin’ ’alf before I could shittin’ finish!”
“Yeah.” Beale laughed. “I bet. Just because I got one an’ you didn’t come inside ’alf a mile—”
“He did, though.” Paul confirmed it. “I saw it. He was hitting, and a shell burst right under it.”
“’Ear that?”
Withinshaw was delighted. Beale said, “Bein’ kind to you, ain’t he? On account o’ you’re so cultural … What’s time now?”
Paul checked. “Just on six.”
“Light’s going. If they’re coming, they’ll come now.”
“Fookers’ll come, don’t you worry!”
Paul wondered where his father was. BBC news of events east of Suez wasn’t encouraging, particularly if you listened to what they didn’t say. He hoped Defiant had not been sent east … But whether she was there or still here in the Mediterranean he wondered how his father would like it, commanding a cruiser when he was so very much a destroyer man. Funny, really: Nick Everard, destroyer man, driving a cruiser, and Paul Everard, submariner, a passenger in a freighter … He put a hand up and touched his forehead—an old schoolboy habit, “touching wood,” for luck. He shut his eyes: Please let me get to Malta.
Double-think, he knew it: prayer or wish? He doubted whether either was likely to change the course of events. Destroyers opened fire, out to starboard in light that was turning milky. The scattering of gunfire thickened into a steady barrage. Torpedo-bombers were probably the target: there were no shell-bursts in the colour-washed sky, so it was a low-level barrage which almost certainly meant torpedo-carrying aircraft. This in turn was likely to mean Italians.
Sirens were wailing for an emergency turn, and he guessed torpedoes might have been dropped. Waiting again, wondering what was happening, trying to put the clues together. He’d learnt one thing: that after you’d waited a while, things did happen … Like the whistle which he heard now above the sound of the guns to starboard. Gosling was in the bridge wing, pointing upwards, and Beale, watching the sky ahead and to port, shouted, “Stukas, Art!”
The destroyers ahead—cruisers too now—were engaging them. Two formations, Paul saw, at about ten thousand feet. Or eight, or maybe seven … If they attacked from that direction they’d be diving with the setting sun right in their eyes. Gold and pink and violet, too pretty by half, and there was a watered-down reflection of it in the sky behind the Stukas. They were on the port bow as the convoy altered course. Withinshaw was muttering at them resentfully as he settled at his gun. Paul was glad, in one way, to be seeing them. His father and Jack had written and talked about the dreaded Ju87s in connection with the Crete evacuation last year, and now he’d experience them for himself. He didn’t want too much of them, just enough so that when someone started shooting a line about Stukas next time he could cut in with his recollections of this convoy.
To have any, though, you had to stay alive. To get to Malta or see your father or write a letter you didn’t know how to write, you had to get through this. The first Stukas were in their dives: there were three of them, with two more behind, in this group. Flipping over sideways, rolling over and shoving their noses down …
No screamers: they were supposed to have sirens on their wings, and these hadn’t. Gone out of fashion, he guessed, thinking of how he’d put it in a letter to his father: Stuka sirens are now old hat … The noise was the racket of their engines and the surrounding roar of gunfire. Tracer added to the overhead colour, lacing and criss-crossing its brilliant streaks, garish against the subtler colouring of the sunset through a sky that was being spoilt and dirtied by the shell-bursts. For seconds at a time bombers would be hidden in them, then reappear intact, still diving, coming … Beale had opened fire, now Withinshaw. Both guns snarling, shaking, jetting fire: and bombs away … It was exactly as it had been described to him and as he’d seen it in his mind, except for the absence of the siren-shriek that was intended to affect morale. A merchantman in the other column was firing some kind of rocket that soared vertically to meet the dive-bombers and then exploded, smoke and fragments bursting outwards. He saw there were several of these things in use, now. An anti-Stuka device he hadn’t heard of before. From the merchantmen alone there must have been fifty or sixty Oerlikons and a couple of dozen Bofors in action, plus a lot of lighter weapons, and when you added all the warships’ four-inch AA guns and close-range weapons to that you had a sky so full it was surprising the Stukas could get through it without being torn apart. Bombs were splashing in ahead and between the columns, and he saw another go in to port, beyond the AA cruiser’s bow. The action was shifting back, though, nearer the tail-end of the convoy: the second rush of Stukas seemed to be going for the cruiser. Withinshaw’s gun jammed, and Beale’s was temporarily silent too as Short changed its magazine. It didn’t matter, the barrage was slackening, the next batch of attackers still high. And now Beale had the new magazine on and the gun cocked, ready. Paul moved over to watch the fat man and McNaught clearing their snag. They were busy at it, and on the other side Beale was staring upwards, watching for Stukas, when gunfire flared suddenly to starboard and an aircraft came lurching over the other column at only about masthead height. It was a Savoia, one of the Italian torpedo planes. It passed over the tanker, the Caracas Moon, with its nose coming up as its pilot fought to gain height, and all the tracer was curving away astern of it—gunners taken by surprise, shooting at it instead of ahead of it. Withinshaw was screaming obscenities as he wrestled with his Oerlikon. The Savoia roared over ahead of the Montgovern and Beale was shooting behind it, but the AA cruiser’s guns were ready and right on it, blasting it as it rose across her. More Stukas had started down by this time, and Beale had shifted target to them. But the Italian was in flames, and out of the side of his eye as he turned back to pay attention to the dive-bombers Paul saw it belly-flop, burning, into the sea. That one had clearly been the cruiser’s bird. But Stukas were the threat again now, four or five of them coming down together, and again every gun—including Withinshaw’s, at last—blazing up at them. One was pulling out high, and looked as if it had been hit, but the others came on in near-vertical dives, and like the last few they were going for the convoy’s rear. But there were others suddenly—a pair he hadn’t seen until this second, although Withinshaw had been on to them, aiming at the centre: they were greenish-khaki coloured and they carried the green-white-red Italian markings. He hadn’t taken it in before, but all these Stukas were Italian. Pulling out, bombs on their way, black eggs tumbling slowly at first, then accelerating, and you didn’t see them after that until they splashed in or hit. More Stukas were diving now behind that pair: others swarming over high … The diving bombers and the stammering guns merged into one enclosing, deafening and blinding blur of action: it was more mind-dulling than frightening, it swamped
your consciousness, identity, sense of time. His own problem, he knew, was mostly inaction, and he envied the two men at the Oerlikons. If you had a weapon in your hands the whole thing became much easier—your mind as well as your hands had that weapon to hang on to, to become a part of. The weapon became an anchor holding you to reality. The Oerlikons had ceased fire, though, McNaught and Short changing ammo drums while the gunners stood back and flexed their fingers and hands, loosening taut muscles.
There was a freighter on fire, Paul saw suddenly, at the rear of the other column.
Beale was telling the two younger men to take some of the empty magazines below and bring up full ones … But that ship had been hit, just a few hundred yards across the water, without him having seen it happen. He wouldn’t have thought that was possible. It was the ship astern of the Caracas Moon, who was abeam of the Montgovern. Straining his eyes through the rapidly fading light he saw that her flag was the Stars and Stripes: and there was only one American in the convoy, so that was who she was, the Santa Eulalia. The fire was in her for’ard well deck, and a Hunt had ranged up alongside with a hose jetting water over it. With night coming on—it would be dark within minutes—and enemies of various kinds lying in wait ahead, prospects for a ship with a fire to light her up wouldn’t be too marvellous. They wouldn’t be all that good for the other ships with her, either.
There was a new outbreak of firing ahead. High-angle gunnery from the cruisers leading the two columns and from the destroyers ahead of them. Shell-bursts thickening up there: a fresh assault arriving, evidently, with the last of the evening light. A hand grasped his arm: Mick McCall asked, “All right, are we?”
Paul said, “That American isn’t all right.”
“You’re telling me. She’s got ammo down for’ard … I was coming to spread the news that it’s the intention to remain closed up at action stations.” He jerked a thumb upwards. “Now we have more visitors anyway … See that Savoia getting chopped?” “What’s this lot, then?”
All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3 Page 17