Strike from the Sea (1978) (12 page)

In a quieter tone he said, ‘See that line, gentlemen?’

Ainslie leaned forward, appalled. There was an undulating strip of yellow tape which showed the extent of the enemy advances inland. It was incredible.

He tried to think back, to recall the length of time since that brief W/T signal about the air raid and then the news of Pearl Harbour. A grand total of ten days. In that small span the Japanese Army had penetrated every coastal defence on the north-east coast of Malaya. From the look of the admiral’s yellow tape, which must already be out of date, it appeared there was nothing to stop the enemy from cutting the peninsula in half from the South China Sea to the Malacca Strait. Ten days from now where would they be?

The admiral said, ‘So we’ve not a lot of time. It’s not a shortage of troops which is the main problem, but lack of experienced combat soldiers. There are the Indian brigades. Australians, Malay Volunteers, and of course the British regiments.’ He dropped his eyes and played with the pipe, making up his mind. Then he said bluntly, ‘We probably outnumber the Japanese, and I think you should know that, too.’

Ainslie looked at him, understanding him, and feeling the burden he was carrying. He was the first outspoken and frank senior officer he had met in Singapore since his arrival. Granger had apparently been in charge of coastal patrols and operational training, and had been appointed to this HQ at very short notice. A better mind than his predecessor – or a scapegoat if the worst happened; it was too early to judge.

Critchley turned towards him, his chair creaking. ‘The admiral says that civilian morale is important. If it starts to disintegrate, our troops will lose heart. At present the forces in the north are regrouping after making a series of strategic withdrawals.’

Ainslie looked for a hint of bitterness. Retreats had been called withdrawals for long enough. At home, news readers often spoke casually of patrol activity or slight casualties. It made them acceptable.

But Critchley was alert again. Involved. Seeking a way out.

Granger said, ‘Reports are bad. The enemy is using terror as a weapon. We’ve had several accounts of torture, beheading, rape and God knows what else. If we don’t hold the buggers
back, the retreat will turn into a rout, right down here as far as the Causeway and the Johore Strait.’

Critchley put in, ‘And on to the island. They’ll not stop at the strait. Anyway, it’s only four feet deep at low water, they tell me.’

Granger frowned worriedly. ‘Then someone’s talking too much. It’s true, of course; But you know the British, a strip of water is the English Channel to them. Safety. Separation.’

Ainslie stood up and crossed to the wall map. It was hard to imagine the bitter fighting up there in the jungle, or even the patrol vessel’s bows sliding under water, the landing craft flying apart under Farrant’s gunfire.

Outside this long, cool room he could hear some shrill bird cries, the sound of a young woman singing in the kitchen, a native policeman’s measured tread on the gravel path below the window. Relaxed and secure.

The admiral was filling his pipe with quick stabbing motions. ‘Fact is, we can’t operate surface units up there to support the army. We’ve neither the aircraft nor the fields to fly them from. We’ve lost a few inshore patrols already. I can’t risk any heavier units in case’ – he looked Ainslie straight in the eyes – ‘we have to evacuate.’

Ainslie nodded. Not again, surely? Dunkirk, Norway, Holland, Greece and Crete. Anyway, it was different here. No cliffs of Dover, no narrow seas for the Navy to lift off an exhausted army. What had once been Singapore’s true strength had suddenly loomed in his mind as complete vulnerability. And all the while those great guns which were here to protect the island pointed impotently in the wrong direction.

Aloud he asked, ‘You want me to go north again, sir?’

‘Yes.’ The admiral’s portly shadow joined his own by the map. ‘There is a pocket of resistance on that coast which in a day or so might be reinforced if Army HQ can fathom out how to do it.’ He laid his pipe stem on the map. ‘Just there. If things go wrong, and the Japs put on more pressure,’ the pipe stem moved like a trap door, ‘then all those people will be trapped with their backs to the sea.’

Critchley said quietly, ‘Could you give artillery support. Bob?’

The admiral watched Ainslie’s profile. ‘
Could
you?’

Farrant’s face seemed to appear on the map. How he had enjoyed using the guns. Perhaps he had even found some sort
of pleasure in watching the death and destruction through his powerful sights, too.

‘I can try, sir.’

It was a dream, or the start of a nightmare. Nobody wanted the
Soufrière
or him. Now there seemed to be no other vessel available, and everyone expected a miracle. Yet he had said,
I can try.
There was no other way.

He asked, ‘When?’

Critchley spoke for the admiral. ‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘You’ll get full support from the base, Commander.’ The admiral sat down and stared into space. ‘Commander Critchley will be coming with you.’

Ainslie looked at his friend. ‘Why, for God’s sake?’

Critchley smiled. ‘Experience. As an extension of higher authority. Or maybe to assist.’

Granger looked at the clock. ‘Sun’s well over the yard-arm. We’ll have a gin, eh?’ He pressed a bell switch and then said, ‘Commander Critchley may be of greater use than either of us realize, Ainslie.’ He smiled. ‘Service politics are over my head.’

Ainslie walked to the window and looked across the lush green foliage of a garden.

Critchley was going with him because he felt responsible. It had been his idea to seize the
Soufrière,
just as he had suspected. Now, if things went badly wrong in those shallow waters he had just seen on the map, he wanted to share that, too.

He turned and looked steadily at his friend. ‘I’ll find a job for you. No passengers in my boat.’

The admiral watched them and felt strangely moved. Perhaps there was still a chance after all.

6

No Second Chance

COMMANDER GREGORY CRITCHLEY
stepped gingerly into the control room’s orange glow and studied each intent figure in turn. It was very quiet, with just the muted hum of motors and fans and the regular ping of the echo sounder to break the stillness. He could not even hear any of the control room team breathing. In the strange light they looked unreal, like waxworks, not on display but stored for some later exhibition.

In the two days it had taken
Soufrière
to work her way northwards again, keeping well to seaward to avoid enemy ships and aircraft, he had had plenty of time to watch his companions. Critchley had refused Ainslie’s offer of the captain’s cabin, knowing that Ainslie needed the seclusion, when he could get it, more than anyone. He had enjoyed sharing the wardroom, studying the mixed bunch who lived, slept and worried there.

Quinton, the first lieutenant, was peering over to check the hydroplane tell-tales, one hand on each planesman’s back. A good, outspoken and intelligent man. He had a quick temper, too, which when required was a useful foil to Ainslie’s calmer approach.

Critchley looked across to the chart space, seeing Ainslie leaning over the vibrating plot table, his face reflecting the light beneath the glass. He may look calm, but Critchley knew what was going on. He had interviewed many submariners, some of whom, like Ainslie, had taken part in hair-raising cloak-and-dagger raids on enemy coasts, fighting at close quarters.

It took guts, and a whole lot of other things to keep going.

Then there was the navigating officer at his side, Forster. A nice young chap with a load on his mind. Probably a woman somewhere.

Halliday, at the diving panel, who looked like the ship’s engineer in a dozen sea stories, and the slight French lieutenant close by, Lucas, another man with a well-concealed secret.

Lieutenant Ridgway was lounging by his ‘fruit machine’, face in shadow. But it usually appeared so even in bright daylight. Like Halliday, he kept to himself.

The others were out of sight, swallowed up within the hull. Sub-Lieutenant Deacon, the assistant engineer. Young Southby, the second gunnery officer, and, of course, the impressive Farrant, who would be somewhere near the turret with his crews, in case he was needed.

The ratings, from the fat coxswain to the messenger by the telephones, were as mixed as their officers. Individuals, who at moments like these became one living body.

Ainslie saw him and smiled. ‘Good morning. Sleep well?’

Critchley walked to the chart space. Some of the men nodded to him, then forgot his presence as a light flashed or a dial gave an unexpected quiver to demand their constant attention.

‘Sawle got me some tea. He’d make a good butler.’

Ainslie looked at the clock. ‘It will be dawn soon. I shall take a look in a minute or two. Number One’s checking the trim. It’s got to be perfect.’ He gestured to the chart. ‘We’re in fifteen fathoms, no more. Practically crawling along the sea-bed!’ He grimaced. ‘But Pilot here assures me all will be well.’ He looked at Quinton. ‘Time to alter course. Steer two-four-zero. Revolutions for six knots.’ He turned his head. ‘Bosun’s mate, pass the word again. Absolute silence throughout the boat.’

‘Steady on two-four-zero, sir.’

Critchley asked, ‘What will you see?’ He smiled at himself. He was whispering.

‘Not much. Two hills.’ Ainslie stooped over the chart again. ‘See? Like a cocked hat from seaward. The Japs are all around there, and our troops are pinned down in a fishing village. There was a mission there, too, but I expect it was evacuated when the panic started.’

The messenger called softly, ‘Gunnery officer, sir.’

Ainslie took a telephone. ‘Captain.’

Farrant sounded impatient. ‘Permission to man the turret, sir?’

‘After I’ve had a look, Guns.’ He met Quinton’s eyes across the control room. ‘And don’t forget to take the tampions out before you fire the things!’

‘Yes, sir.’ No hint of a chuckle.

‘I don’t know why I bother.’ To Quinton he said, ‘All ready?’

The Australian glanced at Halliday who gave a curt nod. ‘Ready, sir.’

‘Very well. Periscope depth, please.’ He looked at Critchley. ‘Say a prayer.’

Critchley moved clear to watch every last detail. The petty officer stoker at the vent controls, the planesmen as they watched for any sign that the boat might rise too abruptly and burst to the surface like a giant dolphin.

‘Fourteen metres, sir.’ Even Quinton sounded unusually hushed.

Ainslie nodded to the rating with the hoist switch and ducked down to receive the periscope as it hissed smoothly through the deck.

He found he was holding his breath, blinking rapidly as if he could already see above the surface. He watched the lens lightening reluctantly. It was very early in the morning, with a slight swell to sway the hull like an unseen cradle.

‘Stop.’

He moved the periscope in a slow circle, his feet and legs moving crablike round the well as he looked for any sign of life. Astern it was pale grey, delicate and giving no hint of the heat and colour to come. He swung the periscope towards the bows. The land was directly across his vision, from side to side like an undulating black reef. In less than an hour there would be green and brown and blue and, if the chart was right, a crescent of silver sand by the village.

He switched to full power and studied the rise of land to the right of his lens. The twin hills.

‘Village and hills in sight. Pilot. Dead ahead. Range about three miles.’

He tensed and moved the periscope swiftly to port, just in time to see a bright green light drifting above the land like a drip of molten emerald.

‘Flare of some sort. Miles inland.’

He could feel the silence around him, oppressive, concentrated. They were thinking of his brief reports, each man measuring them against a past experience. Somewhere out there, beyond the impartial periscope, were men, probably stalking each other in thick jungle, or lying wounded and alone, waiting to be captured or killed.

Ainslie shivered in spite of his reserve which he kept for such
moments. Not for me. Here, we are together. We live or die as one.

‘Down periscope.’ He straightened his back and looked at Critchley. ‘It’s like a grave. Everything will depend on the first signal we get from base. After that it’s up to us.’

Critchley smiled wryly.
To you, you mean.
Rear-Admiral Granger had allowed for almost everything. If
Soufrière
was unable to reach this point on the chart in time he would make another signal tomorrow at the same time, and so on. Except, of course, his strip of yellow tape had probably moved another few inches by now.

He said, ‘If you sight aircraft, what then?’

‘I’ll head out to sea at a rate of knots.’ Ainslie smiled. ‘I think we’ll have some benefit of surprise though. After their successful attack on Force Z, I should imagine the Japs will be preoccupied with their land advances. They think that the C in C is rushing a million reinforcements to drive ’em into the sea.’

Quinton said softly, ‘No fear of that.’

Ainslie wiped his palms on his trousers. ‘Tell the gunnery officer to man his turret. When the klaxon sounds he can load with HE. Not before. I don’t want the ready-use racks crammed with shells in the middle of a depth-charge attack.’

Gosling gave a throaty chuckle, and the second coxswain remarked, ‘Expensive coffin, sir!’

Ainslie heard all and none of it as he checked his mental calculations, whittling and honing, setting his ideas against that unbroken shadow of land. Have to be careful. The sun would be up soon and right astern.

He said, ‘Periscope.’ He wiped his hands again. They were wet with sweat. ‘Stop.’

He peered in every direction, blinking as the shallow swell rose above the periscope, blinding him.

Still quiet. He smiled, thinking of a patriotic film he had seen in London. The officer in a dugout, his voice clipped as he said,
‘It’s quiet. Too damn quiet.’
They always said that. He blinked as another flare exploded on almost the same bearing. Patrol activity, or an enemy signal for a dawn attack.