The thought made Clark’s blood run cold.
* * *
From 1600 that afternoon Clark doubled the watches. Owing to the slight friction between Frobisher and Pearson, he took the younger man under his own wing and left Storheill on watch with the first lieutenant. To give Storheill a break, he therefore brought Pearson’s watch forward four hours, delaying Frobisher’s so that he and the Norwegian came on duty at 2000. Pearson and Clark therefore took over at 1600.
At the same time Sheba turned back to the west and, at slow speed, with lookouts on either bridge wing and in her crow’s nest, began to methodically comb the ice as she headed for grid square E5. Far to the south the masthead lookout could see open water.
‘Keep an eye on the funnel, Derek,’ Clark warned his young watch-mate. ‘I’ve spoken to Olsen about not making smoke and he’s too experienced a campaigner to take the matter lightly, but a slight sulphurous haze can be seen for miles if there’s no wind.’
Pearson went out on to the bridge wing and looked aft. ‘There’s the shimmer of hot gases, sir, but I think there’s enough breeze, with the ship’s movement, to be all right.’
‘Excellent,’ Clark said. He had got over the enormity of his task now that he was engaged in keeping a lookout. He left Pearson to con the ship, preferring the more important role. In the Asdic compartment Baker was closed up, listening intently. As he scanned the horizon ahead, Clark did a few elementary sums. Say the Admiralty signal was its maximum of six hours out of date, with an assumed speed of fifteen knots Orca would be six times fifteen miles closer than the 140 miles he had at first estimated. But, until 1600, Sheba had been steaming south-east, and that would reduce the speed of closing range a little, altering their relative bearing a touch, but not much. Clark guessed Orca would now be heading east, as Sheba steamed west; nevertheless, as a worst case, the German submarine could be no more than fifty miles away!
And at the moment, Clark estimated, staring out through the crisp, clear air, the visibility would be about thirty miles. He levelled his glasses. On the horizon refraction cast distant bergs into slightly elevated shapes so that, within a few moments, he saw ten, twenty Orcas!
‘Put her on slow ahead, Sub,’ he ordered, keeping his glasses level. There was no point in rushing on to the spearhead of the enemy, he thought poetically.
The watch passed slowly. The ship wove through the ice field, shuddering from time to time as a slowly rotating floe nudged them. Forward the duty gun’s crew hunkered down round the gun mounting, keeping warm in their scarves, mitts, balaclava helmets and their ugly fawn duffel coats. He could see them chaffing each other, the occasional piece of short-lived horseplay and visits to the deck to relieve themselves over the side. The gun layer sat reading a book, which he laid down from time to time, to routinely traverse and elevate the gun. Elsewhere, out of sight of Clark, other men stood to their posts, similarly bored and diverting themselves, similarly cold and similarly dreaming of home, a girl, a wife, or just a pint of beer in their favourite local.
The duty watch officers ate on the bridge and smoked their postprandial cigarettes in silence. The air in the wheelhouse was one of relaxed concentration, a taut and heightened awareness which passed the time speedily. It was when men relaxed from this vigilance that boredom set in and, Clark knew only too well, they would be able to maintain it at this peak of efficiency for no more than a couple of watches.
Still, fifty miles was no distance at all…
Nevertheless, they had seen nothing unusual when Frobisher and Storheill took over at 2000. Having passed over the relevant details of their course, speed and his estimate of the enemy’s distance, Clark said, ‘We could well see her in your watch.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Frobisher replied curtly. ‘We don’t want too much of this. Too much strain.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing.’ Clark paused, then added, ‘I’ll go and put my feet up. You know what to do.’
‘Yes.’
But Clark did not go below immediately. Instead he went out on to the port bridge wing and lit a cigarette. The distant horizon to the south seemed clear of ice. Open water, he thought, rubbing his forehead and squinting to relieve his eyes as he leaned back against the steel side of the wheelhouse. Close by the new port lookout had just assumed his duties, which, with the close proximity of the commanding officer, he was performing with impressive assiduity.
Clark smiled, the restorative properties of nicotine allowing him to unwind. In a moment he would go below, peel off the outer layer of clothing, kick off his boots and relax. A gin would be wonderful, but just for the time being he embargoed alcohol. He took a last drag on the cigarette, then pitched it overboard with a practised flick. Staring at the horizon abeam he exhaled slowly, the smoke a faint blue cloud as the wind caught it…
But there was a grubby yellow smudge dancing before his eyes…
‘Number One!’ he called, then held out his hand. ‘Lookout, give me your glasses!’
Clark was staring out on the port beam, frantically adjusting the lookout’s binoculars as Frobisher filled the port wheelhouse doorway.
‘Sir?’
‘Clap your eyes on the port beam! Can I see a diesel exhaust?’ There was a tense moment of silence as the deprived lookout strove to see what his commander was staring at through his commandeered glasses. He thought he could see something himself now…
‘By Christ…’ breathed Frobisher.
‘Action stations, full ahead… Asdic! Can you hear anything?’
‘Not a thing, sir. Oh, shit, yessir – er, red one hundred, moving left fast.’
‘Too damn right it is!’
Frobisher swung the telegraph and slammed it down hard on the stops. After a slight pause, the engine room responded, then Frobisher repeated the order, the double ring of imperative command. The helm was already over and Clark could hear the tannoy calling the men out. Those on deck were already aware of the change of course, of the surge of the ship as she no longer gently nudged aside the obstructing ice, but crashed into it, her bow lifting as she forced her way through. Clark was vaguely aware of men in a flurry of activity forward, clustered about the open torpedo tubes, and of Frobisher leaning over the starboard bridge wing shouting orders at them.
Clark handed the glasses back to the port lookout and picked up his own from the box in the wheelhouse.
‘Midships,’ he ordered. ‘Steadeee. He peered into the gyrocompass repeater. ‘Steer one five zero.’
‘Steady on one five zero… Steering one five zero, sir.’
‘Very well.’ Clark levelled the glasses and picked out the submarine easily now: the feather of smoke from her diesel exhaust betrayed her. She was long, very long, with a huge, extended conning tower, stepped down at its after end and bearing a bristling armament far exceeding the usual U-boat’s light weapons. He could see too that this lower, after part of the conning tower was large enough to house an aircraft, while forward she bore a gun house. He could see the flat steel flank of the thing, though it was, he had to admit, well camouflaged with diagonal slashes of blue and grey breaking up the shape so that, unless one anticipated a submarine of such size and configuration, the eye would be entirely deceived. As it was, he could not determine how many guns that turret contained, but it was a sure-fire bet that it bore a minimum of two, and they would be heavy-calibre weapons, eight-inch at the very least, entirely outclassing their own four-inch toy.
He watched the foreshortening of the submarine as she too dodged ice floes, but she was in much looser pack than the pursuing Sheba.
Above the tall section of the conning tower Clark could see an irregular array of aerials and vertical pipework. Below them, he assumed, stood her deck watch. God grant they did not look too closely out over their port quarter. Frobisher straightened up from the azimuth ring.
‘Bearing’s still opening, sir. She’s going at quite a lick.’
‘Sixteen or seventeen knots at a guess. The water’s
more open where he is. Ring the engine room… Shit!’
The jar as they stemmed a floe threw them all off their feet as Sheba’s bow rose and then bore down on the rotten ice. Ahead of them a jagged split shot away from their bow and then, screw thrashing, they broke through.
‘Ring the engine room and see if we can have more revs. I’m going to get astern before trying to catch up, hide our racket in her wake and use it to pursue.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Frobisher ought not to be on the bridge as they went into action, Clark realised. His station was forward with the torpedo tubes. The first lieutenant put the phone down.
‘Olsen says he’ll give you what he can, but the valve’s fully open. I suppose he’ll reduce the safety…’
‘Yes, yes, that’s fine, Number One. Now I want you forward.’
‘I’m on my way,’ Frobisher responded and ducked out through the starboard door. Clark could hear him quoting something:
‘“The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold…”’ A moment later Frobisher’s lanky form strode forward to join the torpedo party under the break of the forecastle. The tubes were already loaded with an armed torpedo and on the platform above them, Sub-Lieutenant Pearson was staring ahead as the four-inch gun was laid on the target.
Ten long minutes later the Sheba broke out into more open water and Clark swung her into Orca’s wake. The German submarine had created a long lead fringed with small pieces of broken ice, into which the whaler turned. Free of the floes the Sheba’s speed increased, her lean hull almost leaping out of the water as she pressed after the long, low shape ahead of her. It was now only a matter of time before someone on that conning tower looked astern but, before she could hit her pursuer with her heavy-calibre weapons, the enemy would have to swing round, thereby exposing her side and presenting Clark with a perfect target.
Leaning over the bridge wing Clark called out to Pearson and Frobisher, ‘Stand by!’
Fire and Ice
July 1942
At that moment Clark remembered the Orca would have stern torpedo tubes, just like a conventional U-boat, and as quickly dismissed the thought. If the enemy commander did use stern torpedo tubes, the chances of them passing clean through the broken ice were slim, while he himself could probably comb their tracks. The imperative was for Clark to close the distance and hope that he could hit Orca before she swung and used her heavy guns on Sheba. If he could force her out of the ice into the clear water to the south, then his own torpedo tubes might be brought to bear faster than his enemy’s.
He had no idea what speed Sheba was now doing, but judging by the opening bearing of a medium-sized and oddly shaped berg that must have taken several years to migrate down from the far north, and by the broken the ice floes streaking past her, she must be topping sixteen or seventeen knots, far faster than she had managed on trials. He ducked out of the wheelhouse and stared up at the funnel cowling. Olsen was doing his job to perfection, the boilers were producing hardly any smoke, only the unavoidable, sulphurously yellow exhaust fumes that rose in a pall above and behind the racing Sheba. Sooner or later the enemy must see them…
‘She’s turning, sir!’
Clark swung round, almost bumping into Ordinary Seaman Oliphant, who, as starboard lookout, was watching the Orca through his binoculars. For a moment Clark could not see the white-painted conning tower amid the floes, but then, as Oliphant called out unnecessarily loudly in his excitement, ‘She’s going to starboard, sir!’ Clark saw the elongation of the huge submarine.
His heart was hammering as he scanned the ice to starboard. He had to get Sheba out of the ice as quickly as possible. As the Orca turned under what looked like full helm, she slowed down, so that with every passing second the range was closing. Then Clark spotted his opportunity, a narrow lead four points on the starboard bow.
‘Starboard easy!’ he ordered.
The measured response came from the man on the wheel. Clark headed the racing whaler for the slender polynya, steadied her and called out ‘Brace yourselves!’
‘Shall I phone the engine room?’ Oliphant asked.
‘Too late!’ Clark snapped as Sheba shuddered and the ice squealed on the steel hull as the little ship forced her passage. The Sheba faltered, her bow rose and she shook as the racing screw thrashed. She was buffeted as she slowly rotated the floes and then they gave way and she blundered through, the displaced ice grinding and rumbling in protest as the floes were thrust outwards, one or two riding up and over their neighbours, the rotten, half-melted edges giving way under the impact.
‘Lookouts, man your guns!’ Clark called as Oliphant dropped the glasses on their strap and moved behind the bridge-wing Hotchkiss.
‘I think I can hit her, sir!’ Pearson’s voice came from the four-inch gun platform forward and Clark spared a quick glance over the bridge dodger. He held up his hand.
‘Hold your fire, Sub, just a little longer.’ He hoped his voice sounded cool. His heart pounded in his chest with such violence that he thought it could not stand its own action, while the adrenaline poured into his bloodstream. Clark had to force Sheba out of the loose pack, into clearer water. He raised his glasses and studied the enemy. The Orca had almost completed her turn, but her guns remained trained fore and aft! Clark could scarcely believe their luck, for it was clear the Germans had not yet seen them. A quick look astern showed why, for they were almost in transit with the fantastically castellated berg they had rushed past a moment or two before, and now ran down the line of bearing between it and the enemy. Against the berg they would be difficult to see unless that treacherous pall of rising exhaust gasses…
‘They’ve seen us, sir!’
Even without glasses Clark could see what Oliphant had spotted. The heavy gun turret was foreshortening as Orca completed her turn. She was clear of the ice field, though a few loose floes lay around her. The Sheba had yet to break out of the mass of ice into the relatively clear water to the south.
‘Open fire!’ Clark bellowed. As the four-inch barked, Clark went back into the wheelhouse and bent over the azimuth ring. The gun smoke whipped back over the wheelhouse windows and then the target came in sight again.
‘Steer one four three!’ he snapped.
‘Steer one four three, sir!’
They headed directly for the Orca and, as Clark saw the orange flashes of her heavy-calibre guns, he straightened up, leant over the dodger and shouted at Frobisher: ‘All yours, Number One!’
Pearson’s gun barked again but the noise of the discharge was somehow lost in the enormous splash and detonation of the enemy shell close to the starboard quarter. At least Clark thought it had detonated, for the whole ship shook as though in the furious grasp of a gigantic hand and the cold splash of water cascaded down on the afterdeck. Clark had no idea what had happened to its twin, though afterwards someone said they had been straddled on the port quarter.
Clark never heard Frobisher’s call that the torpedoes were running, though he caught a glimpse of the sunlight upon one of them as it left the starboard tube. Immediately, he called for full port helm to confuse Orca’s gunnery and to tuck themselves inside her turning circle to avoid a counter-attacking torpedo, for the big German submarine was swinging again, her image foreshortening.
A weird zinging sound filled the air and he saw the streak of tracers: the Orca’s light-calibre armament was now strafing them. Clark steadied on their course again and Pearson’s gun fired another shell.
‘We’ve got a hit, sir!’ Oliphant shouted and a thin cheer seemed to come up from the foredeck, but Clark did not share their triumphalism. Hit or not, the German guns would destroy the little Sheba in a matter of seconds, for the range was under two miles. He could press on and risk utter destruction before getting in close enough for the kill, or he could withdraw. He had to destroy Orca, not wound her.
He grabbed the engine-room telephone and, as soon as he heard Olsen’s voice, ordered: ‘Make smoke!’ Then, turning to
the helmsman he said, ‘Hard a-port!’
As the ship heeled under the influence of her spade rudder, the Orca’s second salvo plunged into the sea alongside her. Had Clark not put the helm over, his ship would have been destroyed. As Sheba swung round, the barrel of the four-inch traversed fast, then struck the stop with a thud. Behind the wheelhouse the Oerlikon burst briefly into life and fell silent as the thick black cloud of smoke settled astern of them.
Back in the wheelhouse, clinging to the gyro-repeater, Clark knew immediately that he had done the wrong thing. He had thrown away the advantage of surprise and, now his presence was known to his adversary, he might never get another opportunity. He felt a sudden clammy sweat pour out of him, physical evidence of the enormity of his tactical error. A sudden terror, not of the enemy but of ignominy, overwhelmed him and at that moment the man at the wheel called out, ‘Helm’s still hard a-port, sir!’
The reminder was fortuitous. Under Clark’s nose the gyrocompass card ticked round as the lubber’s line moved to the west. For a moment he stared at it and then he had his moment of inspiration. If only…
Dead Man Talking Page 25