The Skipper's Dog's Called Stalin

by David Black

  Cantor was perched at the radio set, earphones scrunched on his head, scribbling furiously as more Morse code was coming in. Harry pulled up one of the little wooden stools. On the table in front of Cantor was a growing pile of torn-off signals from his pad, all awaiting identification and decoding.

  ‘A lot of this stuff is Jerry,’ said Lucie, tapping the pile.

  Harry frowned at him; what was he supposed to do with piles of Jerry signals? Better minds than his were off somewhere, buried in deep bunkers and even deeper secrecy, trying to break those Jerry codes, and if they were struggling, what did bloody Lucie and Cantor think he was going to do with them?

  But Lucie was old in the ways of the navy, and well used to bloody officers jumping to wrong conclusions.

  ‘Sir, when I say lots of Jerry stuff, I mean lots. And Lionel here thinks the sending stations are close, and more than one fist, Sir. And there’s stuff from Western Approaches. And from Kernevel too, by the bearing and signal strength.’

  ‘Fist’ was a wireless operator’s signature; the distinct beat in the way he tapped out his signals. Unique to every operator, if you had the experience and the ear to hear it. And Lucie was saying Cantor did.

  Also, at the mention of Kernevel, Lucie now had Harry’s full attention.

  ‘I’ve jotted down the exact times and bearings to the Jerry stuff, Sir,’ said Cantor, taking a break from scribbling his Morse, and pushing a pile of signal slips to Harry, ‘for you to compare with our position. The stuff from Western Approaches is there.’ He prodded the pile of signals Lucie had his hand on. ‘And the Jerry stuff from France, from Kernevel. But there’s more than one station transmitting the Jerry stuff out here,’ he added, nodding in the general direction of north. ‘Four, I reckon, Sir. At least. And these,’ he added, spreading several slips from the rest, ‘these are from the same station.’

  ‘You’re certain?’ said Harry.

  ‘You can bank on it, Sir,’ interrupted Lucie, with what sounded like paternal pride. ‘He’s good with his fists, Sir, is young Lionel.’

  So, considered Harry, we have traffic from Western Approaches Command, the new joint Royal Navy, RAF Coastal Command HQ set up back in February in Liverpool to run all the convoys to and from home waters. And from Kernevel – how did the likes of Lucie and Cantor ever hear of Kernevel? How does anyone ever hear anything in wartime?

  Kernevel was the French villa in Lorient from which Karl Donitz, the German Admiral in command of the Kriegsmarine’s U-boat arm, ran his show. Funny how word gets out, thought Harry, as he scooped up all the slips, turning his mind now to the four other possible transmitting stations, out here somewhere, in mid-Atlantic.

  ‘I’m going below,’ he said, slipping out of the conning tower and down into the control room. ‘Keep listening in, Cantor . . . and good work.’

  When Harry got to the wardroom, that bloody French Marines officer – or le Fusiliers Marins, as they would have it – Enseigne de Vaisseau Thierry was sitting there, hogging the banquette and sharpening a bayonet. What an arse, thought Harry, who did he think he was going to be stabbing any time in the near future? Harry, on the bridge in the sunshine, had forgotten all about him and his platoon. In fact, since the day they’d stepped on board back in Plymouth, he had tried to forget about them as often as he could. He especially wanted to forget about them right now as he wanted to get at his code books and work out what was in the signals from Western Approaches. He’d had an idea, but the books were in the little cubby behind the banquette, and Thierry was in the way.

  The French youth looked up at him. He could only have been about Harry’s age. His hair was buzz-cut to a dark shadow, and his chin was another that had yet to feel the need of a razor, but it was the rest of his face that was truly arresting; not for any particularly distinguishing feature, but for its blandness. It was flat, characterless and if you stared long enough, chillingly lacking any human quality you might appeal to. He was certainly a bumptious little bastard, full of outrage at le Boche, and all who were collaborating with them. And no one was permitted to have more contempt for the Vichy government than he. The self-righteousness would gush forth as if you’d turned on a tap. If there was any fighting to be done against Jerry and his lackeys, Thierry was first in the queue to do it, and everybody had better understand that, especially any jumped-up, stuffed-shirt, little English shopkeeper. Which was why Harry had cottoned-on early to the fact that Thierry didn’t like him.

  Harry asked to be allowed in to get at the cubby. Thierry theatrically continued to sharpen the bayonet for a few more strokes, then wordlessly moved aside, just enough for Harry to retrieve the code books, and no more. It would have been handy for Harry to spread his stuff over the wardroom table and get to work, but he didn’t have the energy or the time to get into one of these little gavottes Thierry seemed to revel in, over who had the biggest dick. So Harry went into Captain Syvret’s cabin – something he was allowed to do, and Thierry wasn’t, which, needless to say, infuriated Thierry even more.

  Enseigne Thierry and his platoon were Radegonde’s cargo, and her reason for heading to Martinique; they were on their way to enforce the writ of the new Free French government on France’s Caribbean colonies.

  It had all started with the black Humber staff car waiting for Captain Syvret when they’d come alongside after their last patrol. Nobody aboard had thought much about it at the time. If anything they probably assumed someone in the flotilla offices had had a sudden attack of concern for Captain Syvret’s wellbeing and had sent a car for him so as he could make his patrol report and get off on leave faster. Then Captain Syvret had turned up again days later, looking very grim, and all leave was cancelled, the crew recalled, and they headed off, amid great secrecy, for a destination unknown.

  Three days later, the secret destination had turned out to be Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth, where Radegonde was taken in hand, and fitted with four welded watertight tubes designed to fit in her mine chambers. The tubes were capable of carrying all the kit and weaponry required for the landing of a Fusiliers Marins platoon, fully equipped and ready to carry out operations on a foreign shore.

  Then Thierry and his platoon had come aboard, its twenty men instantly transforming what Harry had felt had been quite a roomy boat into an ocean-going Black Hole of Calcutta; and equally speedily managing to annoy and then render downright hostile the entire crew.

  Captain Syvret had been absent for most of that interlude, along with the First Lieutenant, Poulenc; both of them closeted in a secret conclave ashore with senior Free French officers and men in dark suits and homburg hats. It was rumoured even de Gaulle had attended some of their meetings.

  By the time Captain Syvret and Poulenc returned, the discipline aboard had deteriorated to the point where confrontations between the crew and their guests were regular, and on two occasions they had already come to blows. Throughout all this Harry, Cantor and Lucie, with no responsibilities aboard, had hidden in a dockyard hut. Afterwards, Harry had heard that Thierry had buttonholed Captain Syvret the minute he had stepped off the ladder into his own control room, to inform him that while he, Thierry, was aboard, he alone was in charge of his Fusiliers Marins, and that it was Captain Syvret’s job to get his unruly crew back in line and get Thierry and his detachment to their objective without any further ado.

  Captain Syvret had politely invited the Enseigne into his cabin and pulled the curtain. Nobody had actually heard what was said, but when Thierry had emerged, his bland face was ashen, and all discipline was quickly restored. Then they had put to sea, and on the second day out Captain Syvret had briefed everyone on their mission. They were going to spend the summer in the Caribbean. Harry thought that should have made Radegonde a happy boat, but resentments between the crew and the Fusiliers had continued to simmer.

  But Harry didn’t have time to brood on any of that. He went straight to the signals from Western Approaches and opened his code books. There were four messages. The first was addre
ssed to a convoy escort Commander, copy to convoy Commodore, for a convoy designated SC, indicating it was an east-bound slow convoy, originating in Sydney, Cape Breton, on Nova Scotia. It also gave its number. ‘Be aware: 3, repeat 3 U-boats, now believed operating in your area.’ That was message one. Message two was a weather report which indicated the weather in this area would continue fine for the next twenty-four hours. Message three raised the number of U-boats to five, and message four, to six. Harry looked at the timings: ten hours since the first U-boat warning.

  There was nothing from the convoy, but then there wouldn’t be – it would be observing strict radio silence. No point in helping Jerry to find you.

  Then he looked at the Jerry traffic. Each signal was made up of random blocks of four letters each; Cantor had marked the bearing of each one. The ones that came from points to the north of Radegonde’s course, Cantor had designated targets 1, 2, 3 and 4. Target 2 had transmitted more than once. Then there was the other set of signals; their bearing was constant and from the east, and Cantor had pencilled a ‘K’ on them. For Kernevel, presumably. Harry scooped the signals up and headed for the control room and its chart table.

  Bassano had been marking their course. He was leaning against the table, sipping from a mug of coffee.

  ‘Been chatting to Joan of Arc’s love child, have we?’ he said, grinning. ‘Is he enjoying his cruise?’

  ‘Help me with this,’ said Harry as he slapped down the signals. Bassano glanced down at the paper slips and saw the bearings, and his expression changed. Down went the cup, and out came the parallel rulers, dividers and a pencil. He began tracing back Radegonde’s course, and from the slips he marked the timings of the Jerry transmissions, then from each transmission time, he drew a line in pencil from Radegonde’s progress out along the bearing, and way off up the chart. Somewhere along that line there had been Jerries doing the transmitting. Exactly how far along the lines however, they would not be able to tell without a cross bearing, unless . . .

  ‘These slips marked Target 2, we know they were sent from the same station?’ said Bassano, holding several of Cantor’s annotated intercepts.

  ‘Cantor says he’s confident they came from the same fist,’ said Harry. Bassano nodded intently. He started scribbling Cantor’s target IDs on the pencil lines, then looked at the chart again.

  ‘He’s transmitting here,’ said Bassano, stabbing at the chart with his pencil, ‘and then here, and here. He’s moving. East.’ Bassano then began adjusting his dividers. ‘If our heading is westerly . . . at twelve knots . . .’ Bassano took up a slide rule and started to work it, then readjusted the dividers and drew them down between two of the pencilled lines until the tings spanned the gap. ‘Target 2 is less than thirty miles nor’-nor’-west of us, and doing . . . eight knots.’

  Bassano looked up at Harry’s sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Eight knots,’ said Harry. ‘The speed of a slow convoy. That’s a wolf pack assembling.’

  ‘What?’ said Bassano, studying the chart more closely.

  ‘Target 2 is a U-boat that has spotted one of our convoys and is trailing it,’ said Harry, excited now. ‘Instead of attacking right away, he’s held off and started yelling. Those other transmissions are other U-boats telling him and Kernevel, they’re coming to the party. My God! And Western Approaches knows. They must be doing D/F on them . . . direction finding . . . they’ve got stations that can triangulate the signals . . . and they’re flashing warnings . . . there are U-boats in your area. It’s a wolf pack all right. I knew it. I’ve got to tell the Captain.’

  Less than a minute later, Harry and Captain Syvret were leaning over the chart table.

  ‘Surely the escort will double back and engage them,’ said Syvret, pushing his cap back and squinting at the starburst of bearings pencilled on his good chart.

  ‘They can’t leave the convoy,’ replied Harry, staring at Syvret intently. ‘Standing orders. They don’t know how many U-boats might be out there, so they have to stick close to the merchant ships.’

  ‘So?’ said Syvret, turning now to stare back.

  ‘Jerry doesn’t know we’re here,’ said Harry, staring back too.

  ‘And long may that continue,’ said Syvret. ‘Radegonde has her own mission.’ He paused, before adding, ‘I do hope you’re not suggesting we add our voice to the warnings and radio the convoy there are Jerries sneaking up behind them.’

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘Then Jerry would know we were here.’

  ‘Oh God!’ said Syvret, his face doing his hangdog expression. ‘You are going to suggest that we engage these U-boats, aren’t you? Like we’re the US Cavalry, and I’m John Wayne.’ Syvret stopped in mid-flow the minute he’d said that, and smiled a little as if he were considering the point; then he went grim again. ‘Look at you. There’s practically bloodlust in your eyes. Down, Fido!’

  Harry didn’t say anything.

  ‘And now you’re going to tell me about the lives that’ll be lost if we don’t,’ Syvret added. ‘And ships that can be saved, and that this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get back at the Boche. Orders, Sub-Lieutenant Gilmour. Don’t you understand orders? I have my orders.’

  Bassano, who was leaning back against the table watching the two of them, shrugged, and then said, ‘If you did go after them, Sir, you’d be delaying little Miss Thierry back there from getting to grips with all those accursed Vichy collaborators sitting about on Martinique, oblivious to his immanent descent, and you know how much that’ll piss him off.’

  Without taking his eyes off Harry, Syvret sighed and said, ‘I know.’ Then, after the silence that followed, he said over his shoulder in a formal voice, ‘Helm. Starboard twenty. Make your course three four zero, full ahead together. Pass the word for the Torpedo officer. I want to see him in the control room, now.’

  It was still daylight by the time Radegonde had worked her way up behind where they had now estimated the wolf pack was gathering. They were still running on the surface, and were roughly west-north-west of the target area, their main periscope extended to its maximum elevation, with Bassano keeping a permanent watch between ninety and 150 degrees. It was a tactic that Syvret hoped would allow Radegonde to remain hidden under the U-boats’ horizon, but allow Radegonde, with her periscope extended above that horizon, to see them. Also, Syvret was hoping that since the U-boats were concentrating on the convoy, their lookouts may not be paying as much attention as they should be to what might be approaching from astern.

  Faujanet, on the bridge, called down that he could see a smoke smudge just topping the horizon on 135 degrees. Some dirty smokestack undoing all the secrecy. It must be the convoy. Advancing at this speed, it would be a slow one. Probably with the designation SC. Harry had no idea how many merchant ships it would number – three dozen at least, likely many more – all laden with vital war supplies. A slow convoy also meant they would probably be older ships; rust buckets many of them, with clanking, reciprocating engines, some maybe even coal-fired. Crewed by ordinary blokes, civilians, just doing it for a living, except the war meant they no longer had the option to chuck it in and look for work ashore. Their country needed them now, whether they liked it or not. The ships would be marshalled in rows, in a big oblong box, moving broadside on. If it were thirty-six ships, there would be nine ships abreast, four deep. The shape was easier for the convoy’s Commodore to control with his signal flags and Aldis lamps; more ships could see him when it came to wheel and manoeuvre. And the escorts; half a dozen if they were lucky. Flower Class corvettes, smaller than half the steamers that plied the Clyde in peacetime. A few dozen depth charges a piece, and a pop gun on the fo’c’sle. And maybe one V&W Class destroyer; a relic of the last lot, for the escort Commander.

  And somewhere between it and Radegonde there were likely six or more enemy submarines, following on the surface, waiting for night, when their low, black silhouettes would help them sneak inside the escort screen, into the big oblong box, where they could beg
in their work, sinking ships.

  And right now, all that stood between them and their prey was Radegonde; not the best type of warship for the job at hand.

  For Radegonde was first and foremost a minelayer. The mine was her principal weapon. Yes, she had torpedo tubes, six in fact, but hunting down her enemies and sinking them with torpedoes was not what she was designed for. Her torpedo tube layout told you that if nothing else did. Four 550mm tubes faced forward, two either side of her centre line, with each tube holding one torpedo, plus one reload stowed in the forward mess deck, which doubled as the main torpedo room, and which some of the crew slept in. Then over the stern, there was the most bizarre weapon he’d ever seen on a submarine: two 400mm torpedo tubes mounted on an external swivel device that sat above and abaft the two minelaying chutes. Those could be trained astern through 180 degrees, but there were no reloads for them. The first time Harry had set eyes on it, he began trying to imagine how you’d manage to accurately aim the damn things. He was still none the wiser.

  The 550mm torpedoes were of 1920s design and carried a 300kg warhead; they were alcohol-powered and had a range of 3,000 metres at forty-five knots. The 400mm torpedoes were slightly less impressive, dating from the same vintage, with a 140kg warhead and a range of just 2,000 metres at just thirty-five knots. Harry had first been introduced to Radegonde’s fire power by de Maligou way back when he first joined her. After Pelorus and Trebuchet, Harry hadn’t been much impressed. He certainly never imagined he would be going head-to-head with a clutch of German boats, armed with such puny weaponry.

  U-boats were proper hunting submarines, and their crews were almost certainly far more experienced in submarine warfare than the Radegondes. It would be fantasy to hope they could sink all the U-boats now ranged against that hapless convoy. For a start, they couldn’t be sure how many they might be up against. But it was certainly possible that Radegonde could disrupt their attack, spread confusion and maybe let the convoy break contact with the U-boats and get away. That was doable. And, anyway, regardless of whatever was going to happen, there was always the damage they could wreak to look forward to.