by David Black
Scourge ran on for a good quarter of an hour, then Harry ordered her planed up to periscope depth for an all-round look. Nothing. So he surfaced the boat and ordered her onto 070 degrees at 12 knots, with the rest of her power topping up the charge. This whole part of the coast was well and truly woken now, so he was going to use the night to take them further up the coast to Cap Ferrat, and hopefully better hunting.
There’d be a cost however, he knew that. His Captain (S) had laid on a target for him, and he’d missed it. Except with this Captain (S), the words he’d probably use would be ‘bungled it’, or even that Harry, ‘hadn’t had enough aggressive spirit’ to wait and press home his attack. But Harry couldn’t conduct his patrol trying to second-guess what further slander the Bonny Boy might choose to throw at him; that was another sure fire way to get them sunk. It was a matter now of just saying to himself, ‘Fuck him’, and pressing on.
The following afternoon, Scourge was atwatch diving, down at 60 feet, running nor’-nor’east at a stately two knots – barely steerage way. Harry was in his bunk, lying on his back staring at the deckhead and pretending to sleep, and trying not to think. In his mind’s eye he could see the chart, and their little patrol line running southeast from Cap Ferrat, never more than a dozen miles out, then back again, waiting for something, anything, maybe even their fabled two-ship convoy to pass. He had ordered that all trade not worth a torpedo should be ignored for the time being. He wanted something substantial to blow a hole in to announce his presence, and not just set the coast alight for the sake of a schooner or glorified row-boat dispatched by Hooper’s gun. Powell had the watch. There wasn’t much conversation going on in the control room. On his other side he could hear Windass in the galley preparing dinner. Absently, he was wondering whether some Jerry hydrophone oppo was out there somewhere, listening to the clashing the pans, and speculating on some new Allied secret weapon. Windass was preparing a huge vat of stew – with fresh lamb – garnished with fresh mint and other local herbs that Ainsworth and the new wrecker had brought aboard, and he was going to serve it up with some kind of local cereal that looked like a cross between some mini version of rice and semolina that Braithwaite had assured him was called cous-cous. And to go with it, fresh asparagus, followed by a good old fashioned plum duff and custard. The smell was out of this world, and so aromatic it even drowned out the bilge reek and the pong of 30-odd young men’s armpits, and worse.
Next door, in the wardroom, all he could hear was the rustle of paper; McCready, he knew, would be de-coding routine signals and Harding be immersed in Good Morning, the separate newssheet the Daily Mirror had just started sending out to all the submarine flotillas, pre-numbered and packaged for distribution to all crews while on patrol. Harry reckoned he could tell blindfold when a reader got to the “Jane” cartoon – she of push-up bra and frilly knickers fame – by the length of time between the tell-tale page-turning rustle.
All this nonsense kept his mind off thinking about other stuff.
Quietly, and suddenly, he was aware of a twitching on his bunk curtain. He spun round, remembering in time not to sit up and brain himself again.
‘Sir?’ It was the control room messanger. ‘Asdic says he’s got faint contacts on red seven five.’
Harry slid out the bunk, and was at the Asdic cubby in two bounds. He slapped the spare headphones on. The rating on Asdic watch was a young leading telegraphist he didn’t recognise. ‘It’s a long way off, sir, but it’s a definite contact. So I let you know,’ said the lad.
‘You did exactly the right thing, young man,’ said Harry. ‘And yes … there it is … give it a twiddle … firm it up …’ And he peered at the bearing on the direction finder. It was more like red 73 degrees, coming along the coast from the direction of Cap d’Antibes. He leaned out and told Powell, ‘Diving stations. Bring us up to periscope depth … Where’s Mr Farrar?’
‘Aft, sir?’ said Powell, giving the general alarm a single hit to get the crew running, and directing Braithwaite, who was alone on the dive board, to bring Scourge up to 28 feet. ‘He’s with Mr Petrie. Doing spares’ inventory, I think.’
Harry was already squeezing past him to the search periscope.
Harry could feel Scourge was rising, but a glance at the depth gauge looked like it was passing through treacle. ‘Quick as you like, Mr Braithwaite,’ he said, extending the periscope to its full height, ready to break surface. But they still hadn’t gone through 30 feet yet.
Bert Ainsworth, already at his diving station on the forward planes, looked across at the second cox’n; their eyes met and raised in a quiet smile. Both he and Petty Officer Puttick remembered times with Captain Bayliss, and how he’d already be in a screaming tantrum at whoever was the luckless sod on the board, yelling at him to ‘get this fuckin’ boat up, right now!’
Out the corner of his eye, Bert could see Harry hanging on the periscope handles, humming to himself – unflappable, no drama here. Braithwaite called, in a nervous pipe, ‘… twenty nine feet, sir …’ and Harry put his eyes to the lenses, holding one finger up, and then he shouted, ‘Clear! Hold her here, Mr Braithwaite. Well done.’
And Braithwaite, new to Scourge and her ways, began to feverishly to adjust the trim, desperately trying not to make another cod of it. His back was to the control room, so Ainsworth couldn’t see the grateful relief on the ERA’s face.
Harry, meanwhile, had performed a quick all-round look, sky and horizon.
‘Nothing about,’ he announced to the control room as he stood back, and Farrar came bursting in through the aft door. ‘Apart from that.’ And he waved number one to the periscope. ‘Care to take a look?’
Farrar stuck his head to the eye piece. ‘A barrage balloon … apparently tethered to the horizon … in the middle of the watery wastes,’ he said. ‘I wonder what’s dangling on the end of it?’
Harding was already in the control room, wedged in beside the chart table. Harry took over the periscope.
‘Mr Harding, start the plot,’ he said. ‘Place the target five miles south of Cap du Dramont. I estimate speed at fifteen … no, too fast … twelve knots. Course roughly zero three five true. Give me a course to close.’
Harry then took her down to 60 feet, and ordered group up, full ahead together. Harding called the course and Harry told the helmsman, ‘Make it so’, then he told Harding, ‘I want to run out on this course for five minutes. Let me know when we’re there then we’ll go up for another look.’
Silence in the control room as Scourge raced towards her quarry.
‘Five minutes,’ said Harding, and Harry ordered Scourge up for another look.
‘I have two merchant ships … coming on a-beam,’ said Harry. ‘Both cargo-passenger … substantial central superstructures … three thousand-tonners, easily. And escorts … Start the attack. Bearing is that … Make it the centre bearing for the convoy.’ McCready dialled it in. ‘They’re all hull down though …’ continued Harry, ‘… can’t fix an accurate range … must be three miles away at least … oops! And aircraft! Down periscope, sixty feet!’
Harry closed the handles and the ’scope slid down. ‘An Arado seaplane,’ he said to no-one in particular, as usual, ‘batting about on the other side of the convoy. And at least three, probably four, escorts. Converted jobs. Old fishing trawlers with guns, and probably depth charges. I read something about the Jerries kitting dozens of them out in the flotilla’s travel section.’ It was what they called the compartment on the depot ship where they kept all the patrol reports, notes from all the skippers – interesting titbits and handy observations from the ones who’d got away, usually life-saving. ‘Sub-hunters. Jerry calls them UJ boats apparently …’ Harry continued, his rambling covering the fact that his brain was going at a 100mph. ‘… for unterseebootjaeger … try saying that when you’re in a hurry. And lot of little rubbish scooting about on the horizon line … little mast heads … E-boats likely.’ Harry looked grim.
They went deep again, and p
ut on another spurt of speed, still running down Harding’s interception course. Harry gave it another four minutes, then up they went again. Harry looked for the Arado first. There was a little chop on the water, so the chances of the Jerry spotting their shadow was less, but Harry didn’t intend to push his luck.
Hardly two steps round on his sweep and he yelled, ‘Keep sixty feet! Down periscope!’ He stood back from the descending ’scope. ‘Bugger was coming straight at me, like it was personal,’ he said.
Everybody waited. Had the Arado spotted them?
Scourge just hung there with barely way on her for several endless minutes. Nothing. Harry ordered her up to periscope depth again. This time when he looked, the seaplane was back on the other side of the convoy. He turned back to his targets, and called the bearing and the range: 5000 yards. Harding marked up the plot and used his parallel rulers to pencil in the enemy’s course – 043 degrees true – and measuring distance travelled against the speed scale on the side of the chart, he confirmed his estimated speed of 12 knots.
‘Mr Harding, lay me a course for a fifty degree track angle,’ said Harry, ‘I’m going for an over-lapping target on their starboard bows.’
Down they went again, everything dialled into the fruit machine and Harding working with his parallel rulers on the track angle, motors grouped up for another bound closer. The question was, how close could Harry push it before the hydrophone-johnny on one of those Jerry UJs picked up the racket from his propellers going full ahead together? Scourge’s torpedoes could close the convoy much quicker than he could; the only thing was, the greater the range, the wider the gap for error.
‘Bring all six tubes to readiness,’ ordered Harry, slouched in his classic pose, hands deep in pockets, leaning against the search periscope. ‘Both targets are deep-laden, so set the depths at fifteen feet. I’m going to fire a full salvo, and I’m going to aim each shot, so helmsman, do your finger exercises while you can. I want you to be deft every time I tell you to touch the wheel, and when I say deft, I mean I want you to imagine you’re doing something dirty to one of those belly-dancers in the casbah.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’ said Leading Seaman ‘Red’ Cross, on the helm, smirking to himself as he imagined just such a thing. For effect he held his hands up from the wheel momentarily for everyone to see, and flexed his fingers. It got him a laugh as Harry had intended.
Harding called the course and time to run to get Scourge on the track angle. Silence in the control room. The seconds dripped. Just before time out, Harry ordered group down, slow ahead together, periscope depth. He took another look. And there they were, where he wanted them to be.
‘Bearing to first target is that!’ he called. ‘Range that! Mr McCready, DA please as soon as you like!’
The range now was over 4000 yards.
‘Green ten!’ called McCready.
‘Lay me on the bearing,’ said Harry and the control room messenger stepped forward and steered him round. Barely five seconds passed, then, ‘Fire one!’ Scourge bumped, the kick of the compressed air blasting out the first torpedo. Harry knew it must have knocked her head off course, and off target. ‘Port five, helm!’ he ordered, bringing her back, then, ‘Fire two!’
And on he went, correcting Scourge’s heading every time he fired, spreading the torpedoes as if from a slow-moving hosepipe.
Biddle called from Asdic, ‘All torpedoes running normally.’
‘Five minutes for the first torpedo, sir,’ said Harding.
Harry had never so much wanted to leave the periscope up and watch, but he wanted Scourge to make it back to Algiers more.
‘Keep one hundred feet,’ he told Farrar on the dive board. ‘Port thirty, group up and pile it on.’
From the air, the Arado had to spot the six running, frothing torpedo tracks soon, and even if not, surely there was one Jerry lookout on a bridge wing with his binoculars up. And then the UJ boats would be coming down those tracks at them, dispensing depth charge patterns as they went. So he had to get Scourge down and away from the tell-tale mess in the water where she’d just fired her salvo, for the bubbles from the torpedo motors as they burst to life took ages to subside.
‘Rig for depth charging, Everybody find something to hold onto.’
‘Targets under helm,’ said Biddle, so matter-of-fact that Harry and everyone else in the control room, in their nervous excitement, didn’t take it in at first.
‘Two minutes to run,’ said Harding.
‘Targets turning towards, increasing revolutions,’ said Biddle in his best incantation monotone. Harry’s head went up, and he turned to the Asdic cubby.
‘One minute—’ said Harding, but he was cut off by a thundering detonation that echoed through the boat.
‘Got one!’ yelled someone.
‘Silence in the control room!’ said Harry. It was too soon. Far too soon.
‘Biddle. What’re the targets doing?’ asked Harry.
‘They’re coming right down our throats, sir,’ said Biddle. ‘They’ve just done a hard turn to starboard, but now they’ve steadied on course … zero eight five … We’ve definitely hit one, sir. One of the escorts I think … I’m getting breaking up noises … the two big engines … the transports … they’re almost line astern to us now and closing … going like the clappers … the escorts are fanning out though … our torpedoes are still running …’
‘Take us down another fifty feet, Number One,’ said Harry, stepping to the plot. ‘Starboard thirty. Group down, slow ahead together.’
He studied Harding’s latest marks. ‘Somebody saw our torpedoes, Mr Harding,’ he muttered to a peeved looking navigator. ‘And they’re combing them.’
He hadn’t needed to mutter; everyone in the control room had guessed. It didn’t matter whether it had been the Arado, or a bridge wing lookout, but the tell-tale wakes of Scourge’s salvo had been seen. The enemy hadn’t been expecting any trouble – they hadn’t been zig-zagging – but when they’d encountered it they’d been bloody fast to react. This was no amateur hour going on upstairs. The instant they’d spotted the torpedoes, they’d turned towards, and run between them. Apart from one unlucky UJ apparently, which must’ve been clipped and paid the price.
And there went their two-ship convoy – two heavily laden, significant merchantmen with an even more significant escort. God knew what war material they must be stuffed with, but it must’ve been bloody important for the Bonny Boy to gift it to Scourge so she could show him what she could do.
Going after them first time round, he’d fluffed it by hanging around on the surface, inshore, thinking the darkness would hide Scourge, but it hadn’t. So he’d backed off in time to give himself another shot, and what a shot it should have been – a new dawn and a completely new stretch of coast. He’d set them up so they were sitters. And he’d now he’d fluffed it again.
Just your Donald Duck, Harry, he said to himself. He couldn’t say anything else. Mustn’t say anything else. No time for wallowing in personal recrimination; that much he was yelling into his inner ear, while his mind raced on to what he had to do next. Right now, Jerry would be expecting him to be racing for the open sea; and right now that escort commander upstairs, would yelling blue murder for more aircraft, E-Boats, the fucking Tirpitz – anything he could get to help him – and he be opening his throttles, running to head Scourge off and catch her. So Harry decided he wasn’t running for the open sea. He was going inshore. Even though it meant they’d all be buggered if Jerry guessed his plan, and he’d be cornered and killed.
But if Jerry didn’t …
Scourge echoed to a series of loud, reverberating explosions in the water, but in the control room they felt nothing.
‘Those were at least a quarter of a mile away,’ said Farrar. Everyone listened as the rumbles faded.
‘The merchant ships are under helm again, sir,’ said Biddle. ‘Turning … the escort screen is still drawing aft of us. Pinging, now.’
‘So not passive lis
tening. Not that they’d hear much with all that noise they’re making,’ said Harry, who was interrupted by another depth charge pattern that sounded if anything, further away.
‘Bring me onto zero three five,’ said Harry, again studying the chart, especially the depth contours between Cap d’Antibes and Cap Ferrat. ‘Group up, full ahead together. We’ll make best use of the racket Jerry’s making.’
Biddle called the bearings for the two merchantmen; they were more or less back on their original course before Scourge had so rudely interrupted them. Harding marked it all up on the chart, smiling to himself. Only he could see the shape of the various lines he was pencilling in, and what he saw was Harry was still chasing the convoy. And from what all the vectors showed, the convoy was heading to clear Cap Ferrat.
At first light the next day, Harry brought Scourge to periscope depth. When he’d raised the attack periscope – he wanted the smaller of the two periscope heads because he was so close inshore – he was looking straight into the entrance to Monte Carlo Harbour. The entrance, at the harbour’s eastern end, was formed by a jetty jutting out at 90 degrees from the headland below the Opéra de Monte Carlo and a breakwater that ran out at an angle for about 250 yards from below Fort Antoine. The two almost overlapped, but not quite, which let Harry look right down to the Quai de Plaisance, at the western end.
It had been something of a restless night aboard Scourge. Harry had eventually withdrawn to seaward beyond Cap Martin, to creep slowly on the surface, trimmed down so only the conning tower was showing, charging batteries.
The crew had looked back on the end of their day. How they’d listened as the two merchantmen had opened the range from them, running away unescorted and much faster than Scourge, dived, could ever hope to follow, until almost at the limit of her Asdic range the two ships had finally slowed down and threw their helms hard to port.
‘Their either going into Monte Carlo or they’ve decided to pile themselves up on the rocks,’ Harry had observed. But no-one had been smiling at his commentaries; the disappointment aboard had been palpable, all the more so because no-one could quite credit that Mr Gilmour had missed. As they stood off the tiny port sometime after nightfall, the duty Asdic operator had reported weak HE to seaward. Biddle had taken over and pronounced it the escorts creeping back. Biddle counted five ships, all with the distinctive engine noises of a typical UJ. They must have given up the search in the darkness, Harry had said. And he’d listened on the spare headphones as they too, entered Monte Carlo Harbour.