Strike from the Sea (1978) (10 page)

Ainslie replied, ‘At least we’ll not be on our own any more.’ He forced himself to straighten up, to push the sudden despair away. ‘We’re going alongside in about ten minutes, port side to. I want the hands fallen in fore and aft. The rest will have to wait.’

He straightened his cap and saw a khaki-coloured car moving along the coast road in a trail of yellow dust. Somebody was up and about.

Lieutenant Farrant bustled through the hatch and paused as Ainslie said, ‘A smart turnout, Guns. They’ll be feeling a bit worried ashore. So let’s give them something to stare at, eh?’

‘Yessir.’ The hand jerked up and down like a piston. ‘If I could have them on the parade ground for just one hour I’d show them a thing or two!’ Then, and only then, did it seem to hit him. Singapore, the landings in Malaya, and now Pearl Harbour. He ended lamely, ‘I suppose that seems a bit stupid to you, sir.’

Ainslie smiled gravely as he bent over the voice-pipe. ‘Port fifteen. Midships. Steady. Steer two-seven-zero.’ Then he looked at Farrant’s stiff face and said, ‘You concentrate on your two big guns. I have a feeling they’re going to be needed very shortly.’

Farrant considered it. ‘They will be ready, sir.’ He clattered down the ladder to the deck and then reappeared on the forecasing, his voice sharp and metallic as he urged the seamen into lines for entering harbour.

Only then, as silence settled over the submarine for her last half mile to the depot ship, did Ainslie turn aside and allow himself to doubt. Suppose the new enemy could not be held? How could they stop them here, on the island?

He thought of the notice boards.
Out of Bounds. Off Limits
. The smugness and arrogance of people who should have learned from Europe what might happen again here.

As he had half expected, Critchley was waiting to see their return. He climbed down to the submarine as the last line was made fast and lost no time in confronting Ainslie on the bridge.

‘How did it go, Bob?’ He looked dog-tired.

‘She’s fine. Everything working as it should.’ He touched his friend’s arm. ‘I’ve heard most of the news.’

Critchley was looking vaguely at the hurrying seamen with their wires and rope fenders. ‘Fine, is she? Good.’ He sounded as if he thought the opposite. Almost to himself he added, ‘The air raid was made very easy for the Japs. The city authorities neglected to keep the ARP headquarters manned during the night, so nobody was able to switch off the power supply from the street lighting! Can you imagine?’ He sounded near to collapse. ‘It was a nightmare!’ In a brisker tone he said, ‘They’re sending you out as soon as you’ve topped up your fuel, I was half hoping . . .’ He looked away.

‘You were hoping that
Soufrière
would be unable to go, was that it?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. She’s too big for these waters. Too bloody vulnerable.’ He controlled himself with obvious effort. ‘The Japs are thrusting inland, Bob. I’ve been reading the reports. They even landed tanks in the jungle. We’ve Indian troops up there who’ve never even seen a bloody tank, let alone had to fight them. God, what an unholy cock-up!’

Ridgway called, ‘Boat approaching, sir. Senior officer.’

Critchley said hoarsely, ‘May I go to the wardroom, Bob? I can’t take much more of it.’

Ainslie watched him go through the hatch. Critchley could always take other people’s disbelief or contempt. But being proved right under these circumstances had almost broken him.

Ridgway said, ‘Was he right, sir, about these waters being too shallow?’

Ainslie looked at him calmly. ‘Tell the Chief to make arrangements for fuelling right away, will you?’ He watched the launch slewing round to make for the depot ship’s accommodation ladder. ‘We’ll have to see for ourselves.’

Three hours later, a sheaf of hastily written orders locked in
his safe, Ainslie was again on the move, conning
Soufrière
back along the course she had just completed.

The chief of staff had come in person. He had tried to bluster and to maintain his old optimism but, like Singapore’s impressive defences, he no longer seemed to count.

5

Found Wanting

THE THIRTY-SIX HOURS
following
Soufrière
’s departure from Singapore Island were a test for everyone’s nerves. Not because of the prospect of action or immediate danger, but for the lack of it, and the complete sense of isolation. It was even more evident in
Soufrière
than you might have expected in a smaller craft. In the latter, just to move about the hull you usually had to squeeze past someone or duck to cram yourself through a hatch or watertight door. You were in everybody else’s pocket, part of the vessel herself.

As hour followed hour, and the big submarine made her way northwards, parallel with the Malayan coast, the tension grew to become something real and personal. Tempers flared, and there were more threats from officers and senior ratings than Ainslie could remember aboard other boats.

At night, when they surfaced to run on the main engines and charge batteries, they listened anxiously for news from the W/T office. There was very little about the enemy in Malaya, other than reports of skirmishes in the jungles, patrol clashes and other meaningless statements. There was more news of Pearl Harbour, however. Five battleships had been sunk, and many other vessels and installations put out of the war for a long while.

An American announcer, his voice almost drowned in static, had been heard to say, ‘We will stand by our allies to the end.’ That had brought an ironic cheer from the listening submariners.

Ainslie rarely left the control room. He was very aware of the tension in his command, the bitterness at the way they had been treated in Singapore. But a real spark of resentment inside the hull would do far more damage.
Soufrière
might be too large for these coastal waters, but she was the only available submarine. The intelligence department in Whitehall could never have guessed how close their plan to seize the
Soufrière
had
been to failure. At this precise moment, under Japanese or German control, she might be stalking the supply routes from the Cape of Good Hope to South America. If there was any justice in the world, Critchley should be returned to Britain and promoted to a position where he could use his talents to real advantage.

On the occasion that Ainslie decided to steal an hour’s sleep in his cabin, he had barely laid his head on the pillow when the call came. ‘
Captain in the control room!
’

It was automatic, done without thinking. One minute he was shutting his eyes and ears to the vibrations of his command, the next he was running along the gleaming passageway and ducking through the watertight door at the forward end of the control room.

Ridgway, the torpedo officer, was in charge of the watch. He was a very withdrawn man, with the impassive features of a thinker, someone who might be lost without a problem to solve.

‘Well?’

Ainslie made himself pause by the periscopes, controlling his breathing as he had trained himself to do over the years. It might be anything. Mechanical damage, a leak, a man with some terrible illness with which he would have to deal.
Anything
.

Ridgway said, ‘Asdic reports faint hydrophone effect at zero-four-zero, sir. Diesel.’

Ainslie nodded, trying not to bite his lip as he strode to the chart table and leaned over it, snapping on the overhead light. He studied Forster’s neat calculations and pencilled fixes.
Soufrière
was steering north-west by north, approximately fifty miles from the Malayan coast. The depth was about average. Thirty to forty fathoms.

He moved across the steel deck and stood behind the leading seaman who was adjusting and readjusting the hydrophone dial, using one hand to press his headset closer to one ear in case he missed something. Ainslie remembered the man’s name: Walker. A good and experienced operator. No point in speaking until Walker was ready. Let him decide, not insert ideas into his mind for him.

Walker said slowly, ‘Twin diesels, sir. Bearing steady on zero-four-zero. Closing.’

Ridgway rubbed his chin. ‘One of ours.’

‘Unlikely.’

But Ainslie’s thoughts were already working out a pattern. The stranger was probably an enemy support ship. He pressed a spare earphone to his head and listened. That was diesel all right. Regular, confident. Like a heart-beat coming through the sea towards him.

He turned towards the helmsman and saw the gyro repeater ticking slightly this way and that, the depth gauge steady at ninety-six feet. He almost smiled. He was seeing French metres but still thinking in feet and fathoms. Some of Lucas’s sticky labels had started to peel from dials and operating controls, but nobody seemed to need them any more. Sailors were very adaptable.

Anyway, it was better than steering into nothing.

He said, ‘Klaxon, please.’ And as the banshee squawk sounded throughout the pressure hull, and men came running to their stations, he returned to the chart. He felt Forster beside him at the plot and said, ‘Alter course. Steer zero-zero-five. We’ll take a look at him.’

Quinton was by the coxswain and planesmen, his jaw working on the remains of a sandwich.

‘Boat closed up at actions stations, sir.’

‘Very well.’ He smiled across at him. ‘Probably a false alarm, Number One.’

Forster said, ‘Starboard ten. Steer zero-zero-five.’

Gosling rumbled, ‘Zero-zero-five, sir.’

Walker said, ‘HE still closing, sir. Same bearing. I estimate the range to be about four thousand yards.’

‘Very good.’ Ainslie glanced at his watch. ‘Group down. Take her up to periscope depth.’ As the stoker PO’s hand darted out to a lever he said sharply, ‘Nice and easy. Just to be sure.’

He heard Halliday mutter something to his over-eager assistant.

‘Fourteen metres, sir.’

‘Silence in the boat.’ Ainslie checked the bearing and looked at the man by the periscope hoist. ‘Very slowly, right?’

The man bobbed and grinned nervously. ‘Aye, sir.’

Ainslie bent down and waited as the periscope slid very gently from its well. He snapped down the handles and all but knelt on the deck as he peered through the eyepiece. In his mind he could see the long, greasy bronze tube sliding upwards towards the surface, the clean air. He tensed and jerked his hand to signal
the stoker to stop. He was stooping, moving the handles very carefully, watching the picture in the lens changing from distorted blue-green to clusters of tiny bubbles, and then as it broke surface, to an eye-searing glare.

He swung the periscope in a full circle, the motionless figures and ticking mechanism around him already forgotten. His world was out there, resting on the water. A quick look overhead, his wrist arching round the handle to move his ‘eye’ towards the blue sky. No brief glitter to betray an aircraft or, worse, the terrifying arc of a propeller as a plane dived towards its prey, the roaring engine completely silent in that other world.

But there was nothing.

He said, ‘Report target.’

From the Asdic compartment he heard Walker say confidently, ‘Bearing zero-five-zero, sir. It’s altered course slightly. Revolutions as before. No increase in speed.’

Ainslie nodded to the stoker. ‘Full extent.’ He trained the periscope on the bearing and rose with it until it stopped.

‘Down periscope.’ He walked to the chart table and said, ‘A small patrol vessel. She’s a Jap all right.’ He felt his words moving out like a breeze on dried leaves. ‘Probably an escort for one of the troopships somewhere.’

He turned away as Quinton said savagely, ‘If only we
knew
what was happening! It’s like being blind in a minefield!’

Ainslie thought of the brief, blurred picture he had just seen. A high bow, a stubby, raked funnel, and quite a lot of shadows below her bridge, probably guns. At two miles it was not easy to see everything, even with the lens at full power. If the sea had been anything but flat calm he would have discovered nothing at all. This early sighting had given him the edge, a very necessary one if he was to prevent the patrol vessel from pinning
Soufrière
between her and the shore until help could be brought from elsewhere.

Even submerged, a pre-warned aircraft might soon see her whale shape below the surface.

‘Start the attack. Tubes one to four.’

He watched Ridgway as he turned the switches on his ‘fruit machine’ as it was nicknamed, while he waited to feed into it all the bearings, ranges and running depths required for his torpedoes.

‘Up periscope.’

He moved it very carefully. There she was, almost end-on now, leaning slightly as she executed a slight alteration of course. He could sense the rating who was Ridgway’s assistant peering at the brass ring around the periscope which was marked with the bearings, the degrees of success or failure.

Ainslie concentrated every fibre on the small silhouette. ‘The bearing is
that.
The range is – damn!’ He stood back. ‘Down periscope.’ He looked at Quinton. ‘The range is less than four thousand yards. But there’s another vessel astern of her. On tow. I think. Landing craft most likely.’

‘Tubes one to four ready, sir.’

‘Up periscope.’

Again the quick search of sea and sky, then round to the target. She was sharper now. More real. So she was not altering course, but swinging to the pull of her unwieldy tow.

‘Bow doors open.’

That was Ridgway. Wrestling with his own particular problem.
Soufrière
was years ahead of her time, like some of the most recent U-boats. She could fire a fanlike salvo at her target even though she was turning away. In
Tigress
you had to point the hull at the enemy like a weapon so that you were still heading into danger even as you fired.

Back to the chart table again even before the periscope was down in its well.

Forster’s dividers rested on the coastline. ‘There’s an anchorage here, sir. To the south of Pattani. Could be heading for it.’

Ainslie stared at the chart. If the Japs were that confident and were able to approach the coast without a heavier escort or air support, their advance must be going well. Too well.