On the Edge of Darkness (Special Force Orca Book 1) (35 page)

He bawled,
“Come to port two points!” and then above the roar of salvo crashing by, “Torpedomen… Ready torpedoes... Standby… Standby…The bow steadied like a training gun. “Launch!…Launch!…Launch!” Immediately there was a flash of liquid silver light and two ghostly shapes shot forward into the soaring bow wave.

“
We’re going round her stern…Stand by depth charges. Set shallow.”

The swerving, leaping
, vulnerable M.T.B. shot down the destroyer’s port side. Close in, too fast for the main armament to follow. The cannon on the destroyer’s bridge opened up, rounds of deadly 20 mil bullets, kicking water, chased the sprinting grey form. The destroyer was swinging now, under full helm, towards the torpedo’s glittering moonlit tracks; swinging to present the smallest target possible to the thousand pounds of high explosive hurtling towards her.

Abruptly the bridge began to
shake to a well remembered, inescapable beat. The destroyer’s cannon had found the range, punching quick holes through the wooden structure, they drilled their way forward, scattering splinters and men as they went. They penetrated the flimsy bridge screen as if it were paper, lifting Crosswall-Brown off his feet with consummate ease. The impact threw him the width of his bridge. His hurtling body crashed through the thick glass, smacked into the starboard machine gun’s smoking barrel and dropped at the feet of the young and horrified gunner.

On what was left of the bridge,
an appalled midshipman, now in sole command of thirty knots of careering metal stood in catatonic shock. The enemy’s stern reared to port and he screamed, “Hard aport… launch depth charge!”

The careering
battered M.T.B. took the corner like a greyhound on a racetrack bend. A wall of foaming water enveloped her as she bounced across the destroyer’s foaming wake.

The depth charge
was sucked into the foam-mountain, as if it had never been. The men on the destroyer’s bridge knew nothing of the deadly drum as it disappeared quickly into their wake. A second later the sea astern inflated, ballooned into a green hill by the high explosive, it burst, detonated, lifting the destroyer’s stern, high, into the evening sky.

Trembling from the huge blast, she lost way, staggering to a halt like a wounded deer, instantly she began to settle
by the stern; her head rising slowly in the air, rearing in one last graceful, dying gesture. Frantic men were jumping into the sea, spewing from her bowels in an endless stream, her warm lifeblood chilled in the icy cold of the sea.

The
M.T.B. sped on into the dawn, steady on a course to intercept her consort, the blood of her young commanding officer washing crimson from her scuppers.

*     *     *

Dawn 27
th
May 1940

Bushel heard the German’s dawn attack going in on the left flank and waited to receive his own. He had called the Norwegians in from the right and sent them below; at least they would be safe… Here they come … white figures, moving from tree to tree, criss-crossing his front. Well trained all right… but his training was better…white overalls too clean against the pine needle covered snow, for instance; big mistake.

He was sure they knew roughly
where he was, no point in trying to conceal that now. He fired a long sweeping burst and saw at least four fall backwards… not forwards. The rest had gone, disappeared. He ducked away from the firing slit, just in time, the return fire chipped viciously at the thick logs, sending splinters of pine flying about him. He waited patiently while they crawled for the tree cover… about now… he gripped the handle… pushed down hard, the explosion echoed back from the mountain, it acted like a switch, the firing stopped and he snatched a quick look. A haze of smoke obscuring the site wafted gently away… two men hung from the lower branches of one pine, swinging like string puppets. He thought he saw three others in piles of dirty snow. He gave a quick burst at a running figure and saw him topple, bow- backed and screaming.

A lull then he heard
shouted commands...they would be orders to go back rather than forward, in either case…time to duck. The expected covering fire was heavy… that MG42 again.

*     *     *

Oberjager Hofmann had no idea where this third firing position was, they had moved to out-flank the first two only to be attacked from a third that had remained quiet. The English only played by the rules when it suited them.

Sieg had his hands full judging by the explosions on the left flank. Where were the reinforcements? He raised his head quickly above
the cover and took a quick look round. A ditch to his right seemed to run forward, if he sent a section down there they would at least get a different angle on things and maybe spot this arschloch wherever he was. They might even outflank him.

*     *     *

They had found the ditch; Blake had seen the heads bobbing, like targets at a fairground stall. They were still way out, along the far sector, still in the tree line. Bushel knew his stuff all right…he’d predicted their every move so far. Blake waited for a count of twenty, took another quick look and pushed down hard on the hand generator, a ripple of explosions shot along the ditch. He bobbed up …huge amounts of soil was erupting from the drainage ditch, spraying into the air… earth fountains… and three bodies… two landed clear of the ditch the other toppled on its edge, gave up the ghost and slowly slid back in. Nine-ish down seven-ish to go.

*     *     *

Jager Leutnant Sieg knew the whole thing was falling apart, no reinforcements, massive explosions to his front and on his right flank. He reached behind for his binoculars, his elbow touched something soft…It moved, he swung round expecting to see one of his men. Nothing, his eyes dropped to the level of his waist Crouched on the floor at his side was a figure, green face hideously striped in black, yellow teeth, mad eyes. He recoiled in horror, uttering a strangled cry. The figure uncoiled in a sinewy leap, reaching up, grabbing for his throat. In a reflex, born of repulsion, he hit out with the binoculars and made contact. The figure fell back; Sieg threw a kick, a swinging pile driver, with all of his fourteen stone behind it. Abruptly a knife flickered up in front of the swinging leg stabbing deep between his legs. Sieg’s kick never made contact; his leg snapped back in another reflex jerk, he lost balance falling back. He looked down, from between his legs blood was gushing from the severed artery. He felt cold…everything was cold, only the blood was warm. The figure had gone… slipped away into the darker recesses of the room. He could hear quiet laughter coming in short bursts, like the hissing of a snake. He was floating, drifting in a sea of numbing pain; he rose…floated, drifted and rose into the blackness and that one distant light beckoning…

*     *     *

Chapter 19

A
Seed of Doubt

Morning Watch, 27
th
May, 1940.

Every rivet on the ‘Nishga’ seemed to be vibrating with the strain as she fought to keep up with her swifter consorts.

Barr had retired to his sea
cabin; he laid fully clothed, except for his salt stained duffel coat and dog-eared sea boots. He had dozed off for a few minutes when he heard the lid lifting on the bridge voice pipe; after eight months of war that was all it took.

“
Yes?” he asked quickly before the bridge could say a word or worse, sound the hated bell.

“
Captain, sir?” It was Grey, his voice echoing eerily in the confines of the metal pipe, “Signal from Flag, I’m afraid.”

Barr breathed in
resignedly, “Read it, please.”

“
Time 0435. ‘Nishga’ repeated Admiral Ramsey. Message reads ‘Enemy cruiser sighted. Position four degrees two minutes east, fifty two degrees ten minutes north … course south twenty east… speed twenty-five knots. Intercept and delay until re-enforced’…Message ends.

In the dark of his cabin Barr pulled a face,
“I’ll be right up.”

He
thundered up the bridge ladder, his heavy boots rattling the metal treads. The fresh damp air blew the cobwebs of sleep away.

The destroyer was lifting to the long swell rolling rhythmically in from astern. He made for the chart table
and the muffled figure of Grey bent over the wind-rippled chart.

“
Morning, sir…She’s here, west of Amsterdam, steaming south, out to interfere with the evacuation?”

“
I should say almost certainly, and we’re here?” Barr pointed.

“
Yes, sir and that’s an interception course,” he pointed to pencilled calculations on the chart margin.

“
Very good, Number One… Acknowledge the signal and come round onto the new course.” He tapped a gloved finger on the chart margin, his mind racing. “We’ll go to Action Stations in one hour, inform Hogg and Kendel.” He looked back down at the chart while Grey moved to the array of voice pipes on the bridge screen “Bridge, Wheelhouse.”

“
Wheelhouse.” replied the helmsman.

“
Port twenty… steer south thirty east”. He lifted another lid while he listened to the wheel order being repeated. He pressed the bell, a signalman below answered. “This is the bridge, “Make to Flag, Proceeding in accordance with your 0435 stroke 28 stroke 5.”

*     *     *

The Action Station Alarm brought the watch below stumbling bleary-eyed to join their mates already closed up. Grey stood by the voice pipes acknowledging each of the closing up reports as they came in. A quarter sea corkscrewed the racing warship.

“
Coxswain on the wheel!”… “Depth Charge Crews closed up”…”Short range weapons closed up”…he checked them off one by one until satisfied he turned to Barr and saluted, “Ship at Action Stations, sir.”

“
Very good, Number One,” Barr handed him a sheet of paper, “These are my intentions when we flush out the enemy cruiser… have it sent to the ‘Ethel’ and the ‘Dirty Five’ by lamp. Keep the copy for yourself, in case.You’ll see Hogg’s E-boat is to go ahead of us, so as to be in a position to attack the cruiser from landward. With luck, the enemy’s attention will be on us and the M.T.B. and Hogg’s ‘Ethel’ will go undetected, especially against the mass of the land. I intend to hold that attention long enough for him to get into a good firing position. We will be attacking from seaward. Should Jerry sight Hogg there’s a good chance he’ll be fooled into believing her to be on his side and coming to his aid. It may give us an edge…it may not.”

*     *     *

The faint pall of smoke smudging the horizon to the south-east was reported at 0732 by the crow’s nest lookout from his position high above the bridge on the tripod mast. It was duly noted in the ship’s log.

At 0735 the massive cruiser turned towards and opened fire at extreme range. The lookout reported the smoke and flash long before they heard the distant rumble of the guns; time 0738.

Barr fancied he could see the shells as they flew through the air towards his ‘Nishga’. He tensed as the scream of shot filled the air, but the giant shells passed over. The cruiser was closing rapidly, an awesome sight, towering above the horizon, terrace upon terrace of grey metal and dazzle paint, brisling with guns.

The Yeoman of Signals
looked up from his copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships. “She’s the ‘Nienburg’, sir… heavy cruiser, six eight inch guns… twelve four inch, double mounted torpedo tubes and the usual Ack-Ack stuff.” He ducked involuntarily as the ‘Nisgha’s’ bridge was suddenly drenched by the second salvo.

“
Nice to know exactly what is trying to kill you.” remarked a voice from the back of the bridge.

Barr was watching the enemy through his binoculars.
Why wasn’t she keeping her distance those big guns had a range of over twenty miles, why risk closing. She was now heading due south, hull up on the horizon. Through the powerful glasses he could make out the ‘bone in her teeth’, the white bow wave thrown up in front of her as she surged forward. Every few seconds she became shrouded in the smoke from her own massive guns, emerging from it like a grey ghost through cemetery mist. She must be averaging four salvoes a minute, two hundred and sixty pound shells and four of the buggers in each salvo. Travelling at close to two thousand miles an hour, sending the sea around them into dancing spouts of water higher than the ‘Nishga’s’ mainmast.

The next salvo landed to their front; s
he’d managed to straddle them, time for a course alteration, if ever there was one.

*     *     *

Sub Lieutenant Hogg watched, gripping the windscreen, as the third salvo roared in towards the ‘Nishga’. She was now way over to port, her low silhouette almost hull down and turning away from the anticipated fall of shot. As yet he had no sighting of the enemy and was reacting purely to the ‘Nishga’s’ ‘Enemy in sight to the south east’. He had immediately turned to starboard. Altering towards where there was a chance that they might go undetected against the rocky coastline, but at their top speed they would need fifteen perhaps twenty minutes to circle round onto the enemy’s flank; would the ‘Nishga’ survive that long?

*     *     *

The ‘Nishga’s’ two Battle Ensigns, cracked like whips in her own thirty knot slipstream as she raced in towards the ‘Nienburg’. Barr anxious to close the range so his own four-point sevens, hopelessly out-gunned, as they were, could at least return fire.

Way out to starboard, Kendel
’s M.T.B. flew her own tiny ensigns, like her bigger consort she flew two, in case one was shot away. Barr saw the irony of it, if her flimsy wooden hull took just one ‘brick’ there would be no need to worry about ensigns still flying. She was steering south east, her high-octane aero-engines opening the gap between them at a terrific rate.

The fourth salvo screamed overhead as Barr scribbled in the chart table note book. He turned to a white-faced young signalman.
“Get this off to the ‘Ethel’… Pilot! Tell ‘Torps’ Ready both tubes. I will be attacking at very close range. The cruiser will turn towards the torpedoes, she’ll be expecting them, I will keep pace with her turn, and make smoke. Then, I will attack with…” Another salvo straddled the speeding ‘Nishga’ as their own four point sevens came into range…but the Pilot had heard alright, he nodded and turned away.

The range was closing at sixty knots. Thi
s German captain was playing it safe; bow on he was showing only fifty feet of target to his enemy he could have sacrificed that in order to use his after turrets; he had chosen otherwise.

Hogg
’s E-boat, must be somewhere out there, broad on ‘Nishga’s’ starboard bow, and hopefully already turning to run parallel to the coastline.

*     *     *

“What’s she saying signalman?” Hogg’s eyes were riveted on the cruiser, she was on their port bow hidden in smoke from her last broadside, but they could still see the giant searchlight they were using as a signal lamp “ ‘Heave to.’” reported the signalman, “And now…she wants us to clear our decks of all crew.”

The captured E Boats had
never operated this far south, but this chap wasn’t relying on history, wasn’t taking any risks, doubtless he’d heard of the rogue E-Boats’ exploits further north. It was a clever move, if the E-Boat was a rogue, with no men on deck, she’d be incapable of aggressive action, and if they disobeyed the order her skipper would know they were the enemy.

“
Make, ‘Repeat your last.’ and send it slowly.” He had to play for time, anything to gain precious minutes. That’s all it would take for him to get in position for an attack, an attack that, at the very least, should draw some attention away from the embattled ‘Nishga’.

As
Barr was fond of saying, ‘Doubt was a powerful weapon, everyone had it, make sure that the enemy has more than you’ He was right, if he could make this German Captain hesitate for just thirty seconds, they would be five hundred yards closer to target. His life, the lives of his crew and probably the lives of the entire flotilla depended on sowing that seed of doubt.

*     *     *

Through his glasses, Barr saw the cruiser’s close range guns open up on Kendel’s M.T.B., a withering fire, throwing the sea around the tiny craft into turmoil of leaping spray. Kendel had turned onto his attack course only seconds before. He was racing in, with a bow wave that reached twice the height of his main deck. A magnificent sight, David and Goliath, armour against wood, raw courage against impossible odds. Suddenly a huge flash lit the sea, Barr gasped. The M.T.B. had gone, vanished in a ball of fire that spewed burning fuel along her boiling wake. The flaming ball tore on towards the enemy cruiser as if the ghosts of her incinerated crew were set on a fiery revenge, but she dropped lower and lower, slowed and finally stopped. It burned on, Kendel his boat and his crew wrapped in a flaming shroud of their own fuel.

Barr tore his gaze from the flames, forced himself to concentrate on the enemy cruiser. Her for
’ard turrets erupted fire, the after turrets were silent, then he realised why, they were training round onto the remaining patrol boat; Hogg’s ‘Ethel’. The eight inch guns spit fire and venom. The German Captain had not been fooled for long, was it long enough? Beyond the enemy’s bow Barr could see the ‘Ethel’ dancing in towards her towering target, the first fall of shot from the cruiser’s guns were over ranged…the second under. Bracketed; the third could well destroy the speeding E-boat…Hogg’s boat began a broad weave, presenting each of her sides to the smoking barrels of the enemy cruiser in turn. The third salvo was way to one side, Hogg was handling his tiny boat beautifully managing to upset the enemy’s gun aimers… but for how long … he would need to get in close, close enough for the small boat to even the odds in her favour.

On her
next weave she kept going to starboard… kept going while the cruiser’s guns wrongly, anticipated a turn back to port. The tactic worked, Barr saw the terrible eight-inch shells bouncing across the sea, way out to port of the leaping, swerving E-boat.

*     *     *

‘Ethel’

The German gunnery control team had realised their mistake the huge after turrets of the enemy cruiser were already swinging laboriously back towards them. They shuddered to a halt, pointing directly at him, smoke drifted lazily from the blackened end of the barrels. It was as if five hundred tons of turret was trying to anticipate his next move.

He kept the starboard helm on. Kept it on until
he saw the guns traversed left to follow him and then he turned the ‘Ethel’ rapidly in a tight turn the other way, until the broad, fat, port side of the cruiser filled the horizon like a giant block of flats.