Strike from the Sea (1978) (35 page)

‘Surface!’

The unchanging pattern. Grim faces, water sluicing out of the bridge, the scrabble of fingers and feet to reach the right place in a minimum of seconds.

Strange how you expected the air to be cool. It was like an oven.

The binoculars swung over the water, ignoring the distant boat, searching for danger.

‘Open the hangar. Stand by to fly off aircraft.’

Surfaced, hangar wide open. This was the most vulnerable moment.

He heard the hiss of compressed air, the squeak of metal, and knew the catapult was being guided from the hangar.

He had thought it before. A million times.
Now or never
.

‘Affirmative.’

He wished he had said good luck to Christie.
For us
.

With a snarling roar the little seaplane hurtled along the catapult, and after a hesitant dip towards the clear water lifted steeply and headed for the sun.

‘Secure hangar.’ Quick look at his watch. ‘Dive when ready, Number One.’

As the seamen, followed by the yeoman of signals, scurried from the bridge, Ainslie took another slow look at the drifting boat. Like silent spectators. With all the time in the world.

‘Dive, dive, dive!’

He slammed the hatch over his head.

Christie peered through his goggles at the altimeter and then thumped it with his fist. It was jammed. But what the hell anyway? That was the trouble with this aircraft. Sealed in a damp hangar, thrown about diving and surfacing, shaken by depth-charges. The men who built it had known a thing or two.

At least the compass was working. He settled more comfortably in his cockpit and pointed the propeller boss towards the nearest island.

He had known that the others had thought him mad. Never volunteer for anything. That’s what they always said. But to get out, free of the constricting steel, had seemed like a reward.

Christie twisted round to look at his observer. He was the same, he thought, glad to be in the air.

He switched on his intercom. ‘More like it, eh Jonesy?’

Jones bobbed his head and swung the stripped Lewis from side to side, like something from the Royal Flying Corps patrolling above the trenches.

The island seemed to rise to meet them, and Christie saw the seaplane’s shadow flitting above the green scrub like a crucifix. He thought of the drifting boat, all the other dead and half-demented souls between here and Singapore.

Jones said, ‘Two more islands up front, Jack. After them we might see something.’

Christie nodded and groped for his binoculars. There were a few canoes, or prahus, lying on one tiny beach, and he wondered if they were being used by escaping troops, or natives too frightened to show themselves. He turned round in his cockpit, searching for the
Soufrière
, but she had dived, and was probably heading towards the channel between the islands.

He smiled to himself, hearing Jones singing softly into the intercom. He always sang the same one, to the tune of
Tipperary
. ‘That’s the wrong way to tickle Mary, that’s the wrong way I know. . . .’

He eased back the stick and pulled the nose up over a ridge-backed hill, the propeller blades making a silver circle in the glare.

Jonesy was probably right. Over the next island and we’ll see for bloody miles. After that, we’ll be spectators. Nothing worse.

The little seaplane growled through a patch of haze, and there below the wing was the sea again.

Christie gasped as Jones punched his shoulder and yelled, ‘Bloody hell! Look at them!’

It had all happened so suddenly. Nothing was ever as you expected it.

Christie tilted the aircraft over, kicking the rudder hard round as he stared at the ships directly beneath him. He tried to keep his mind clear, to control the plane and to count those grey shapes.

He swore to himself, twisting the seaplane from side to side.
Here comes the bloody flak
.

Puff-balls of brown smoke drifted past, lazily, harmlessly, but the plane rocked and plunged, and Christie saw two jagged holes appear in the port wing.

‘I’m going down, Jonesy!’

He put the plane into a steep dive, shutting his mind to bursting flak and the jarring slam of splinters. He had to get a closer look. So that
Soufrière
would know. Be ready.

He heard Jones whooping like a lunatic, then the sharp stutter from his Lewis gun as he poured a burst towards the nearest warship, a destroyer, with her guns already tracking round to follow them.

‘That’s the stuff, Jonesy!’ He had caught the madness, too.

A shoulder of hillside jutted out to shield him from the ships. As if they had never been. Christie thought frantically. Remembering, putting the pieces together.

A big cruiser, and least three destroyers. And what looked like two camouflaged troopers, too. They must have paused to put men ashore to search the islands. He thought of the drifting boat and all the others he had seen.

Another vessel swam across his vision, a smaller one, but firing without pause as the seaplane rose above the land again. Shells, tracer, the whole bloody shooting match this time.

Christie continued to weave from side to side. A torpedo bomber, even an old ‘Stringbag’, would be better than this. Just to lob a tin-fish into that bastard. He heard Jones cursing as the gun jammed, then the click as he slammed on another magazine and opened fire once more.

The submarine was probably in mid-channel now, and the Japanese ships would be right there, waiting for her, or anything else which had been set to delay them.

He saw a pale crescent of beach on the next island, two hills
he could fly between and then . . . The plane gave a tremendous jerk, and he felt a pain stab through his flying boot like a white-hot iron.

‘Christ, Jonesy! That was a bit close!’

He looked round and saw the observer hanging half out of the cockpit, his arms spread and bouncing in the wind. He had been hit in the head and his goggles were filled with blood.

Christie turned back towards the enemy, gasping as the pain lanced through him.

‘I’m sorry, Jonesy! I really am!’

What was he saying? He felt a sort of terror and peered down at his leg. There was blood everywhere, and he saw the sea speeding beneath him through the splinter holes, and realized that the starboard float had also been blasted away.

He laughed weakly. ‘A plane with one bloody leg!’

More bangs, and a smoke cloud which seemed to cling to the cockpit like gas.

Christie croaked, ‘No good, Jonesy. We’re going into the drink. The skipper will never know in time. Not now, chum.’

As if in agreement, the dead observer bobbed and swayed across his useless machine-gun.

‘Oh, God, the pain!’ The agony seemed to clear his mind like a scalpel. If he got through the hills and did a sharp turn to starboard to gain height, he might still be able to let Ainslie know. He opened the throttle wide. ‘Come on, old girl. I bloody taught you to understand English, didn’t I?’

Shells exploded above and below him, for as the seaplane regained height and headed for the next island, it presented itself to every ship like a pheasant at a shoot.

Pieces flew from the fuselage, and Christie gave a great cry as a splinter smashed into his side like an axe, numbing him, driving away his breath.

Oh, dear God, help me
. The words unspoken or yelled aloud went unheard as Christie nursed the controls and headed past the nearest hill. Up, come on, bit more.
Oh, God, help me
.

More flak, bright balls of tracer, ripping at the battered aircraft, closing in like fiery claws.

There was the sea again. Bright and clear-green.

Christie leaned forward to look at it, his head touching the perspex shield. He saw oil spurting around the cowling, the first tails of smoke from the engine.

The sea looked beautiful. Decent.

A few shells pursued the seaplane, but most of the ships were once more hidden by the islands.

‘Just like Tahiti, Jonesy! You an’ I’ll set up there after this bloody lot’s over. I’ll teach you to fly . . . you see . . .
Jonesy
!’

He tried to turn but the pain gripped him like a vice.

The seaplane hit the sea and exploded, burning debris splashing down in a wide circle. Eventually there was nothing.

17

A Symbol

EVERYONE HEARD THE
roar as Christie’s seaplane exploded in the channel. It was more of a sensation than a sound, and it murmured around in the
Soufrière
’s hull long after the remains had been scattered across the bottom.

Ainslie stood back from the periscope as it hissed into its well. He did not see it or the pale-faced stoker with his switch, only that last lingering picture, made more terrible by the lens’s impartial silence.

He had watched the seaplane lift desperately above the island, weaving and falling away like a stricken bird. Pursued all the while by shellbursts and tracer, its own smoke trail marking each painful yard of the way.

When it had dived into the water and burst apart in one vivid flash, the sudden sound against the hull had seemed far worse. Like an intrusion.

Even with their backs turned, the men in the control room were looking at him.

Quinton asked, ‘Did he manage to make any signal, sir?’

Ainslie nodded, hardly daring to speak. ‘Yes. The bravest signal I ever saw.’

Almost to himself he added, ‘He could, have flown off, hidden, saved himself and Jones. He might have done anything. But he didn’t. We don’t know how many of the enemy there are, but by God, we know
where
they are now!’

He picked up the microphone of the submarine’s intercom.

‘This is the captain. That explosion was our seaplane.’ He swallowed hard. ‘They’ve given us a chance to get one in first. Let me just say this. When things hot up, remember all those helpless people in the convoy. When the tubes are empty I want them reloaded and set quicker than ever before. And if it falls to a gun action, I shall expect the best.’ He felt his eyes sting like needles. ‘The best you can give. That’s all.’

A murmur of approval ran around the control room, and Halliday said quietly to Lucas, ‘Quite a man, eh? I’m glad it’s him and not me.’

Forster gripped the chart table to control his emotions. All the worries he had created and tried to disperse meant nothing now. He was going to be killed, but it didn’t seem to matter.

The fat coxswain adjusted his buttocks on his steel seat and said gruffly, ‘I reckon we’ll stand a good chance, sir.’ He chuckled. ‘I’m all set for a shore job, y’see.’

Menzies, the yeoman, shook his head. ‘Silly old sod. You? Never in a thousand bloody years, man!’

Ainslie was at the chart table, his mind clearing reluctantly as he tried to forget what he had witnessed. His own words had been totally inadequate, trite. He had wanted to say so much. To tell them what their trust and courage meant to him, and all those people who would never know about their sacrifice.

The enemy was beyond those islands. Probably steering towards Sumatra as reported. They had no carrier, but more to the point, had no catapult aircraft either. Otherwise someone would have chased after the little seaplane. To shoot it down before it could signal the danger, to discover where it had come from. So there could be no battleships in the Japanese force. They always carried aircraft.

He made up his mind. ‘Revolutions for eight knots. Course zero-one-zero.’

He walked three paces back and forth and rested his hand on the vibrating plot table. Unless the enemy sent a ship through the channel to search for the wrecked seaplane, there was little immediate danger. He pictured the islands in his mind, overlapping, the deep water between them made treacherous by sudden twists and a swift undertow.

‘Ship’s head zero-one-zero, sir.’

Yet another look at the chart. He could feel Forster beside him, sense his despair and, strangely, a sort of elation.

‘All right, Pilot?’ Ainslie glanced at him gravely. ‘You’re very quiet.’

Forster licked his lips. ‘I’ll manage, sir.’ He forced a grin. ‘Thanks.’

For what? He said, ‘Just here, Pilot. See this outcrop of rock
on the chart.’ He jabbed it with his brass dividers. ‘That’s a hell of a place to alter course in a hurry.’ He watched the understanding on Forster’s strained features. ‘For them, not us.’

Ainslie reached over for a stop-watch and pressed it to begin, the red needle seeming to symbolize their remaining time better than any sand-glass.

‘Up periscope.’ It had better be right, or else it would all end now.

Ainslie swung the periscope in a slow arc. There was no longer any point in looking astern.

He checked his irregular breathing as he found the island he had just studied on the chart.

There was the high ridge and hill where Christie had appeared bracketed by shellbursts. Then the island sloped gently towards the sea, to a vague white ripple of surf which appeared to reach the shore of another island. But it was deceptive. The channel turned there to port. Wide, and if the survey was correct, deep enough for a submarine. Even the beast.

He could sense Ridgway watching him, his yeoman poised to begin feeding ranges and bearings into his precious machine.

‘Bring tubes One to Eight to the ready.’ Ainslie raised the lens slightly, but the sky was empty, the stains gone.

He watched the horizon’s edge between the islands until his eye ached with strain.

‘Port ten.’

He listened to the wheel, Gosling’s deep breathing, and saw the opposite headland move slightly into the left side of his sights.

‘Steady. Meet her, Swain.’

‘Steady, sir. Course three-four-zero.’

Forster said quietly, ‘Adjust to three-four-six degrees.’ His voice was hushed, as if he was afraid to intrude between the submarine and her commander.

‘Tubes standing by, sir, bow doors open.’

Another minute, maybe less. He could not recall keeping a periscope raised for so long. In any other ocean it would be suicide.

He tried not to think of Forster’s little crosses on the chart where he had plotted the convoy’s approximate position. If they could not delay the enemy, the convoy was finished. The Japanese admiral would be in too much of a hurry to complete his part of
the overall operation to waste time. He would shell the brittle convoy to pieces, holding the agony and slaughter at arm’s length.