Go In and Sink! (14 page)

Their tipsy laughter reached Petty Officer Blythe, the yeoman of signals, who was lying on the other side of the bulkhead. He had been trying to read a thriller but was going to give it up because of P.O. Cain’s snores from the upper bunk. Good old Starkie. Stoned again. He thought suddenly of the blazing guns, the scream and rattle of cannon fire. Warwick’s face as he had come running aft when the order to dive had sounded. Starkie had survived one sinking, though God alone knew how. Just skin and bone. But with him at your elbow and a skipper like Marshall you should stand a good chance.

He switched off the reading lamp. By Christ, we need all the chances we can get, he thought fervently. Then he too fell into a heavy sleep.

WITHIN TWO DAYS
of her return to Loch Cairnbawn things started to move rapidly so far as U-192 was concerned. Either Browning or Commander Simeon, or both, seemed to have made certain that whatever operation or mission she might be required to execute, her company, from captain to junior seaman, would be able to handle it. Almost hourly, or so it appeared to Marshall, mysterious experts arrived to divide the submariners into small groups, whisking them away in motor boats, or ferrying them ashore where they were met by army trucks and carried swiftly to some new instruction.

Marshall’s duties kept him concerned mainly with the progress of work aboard his own command. Paperwork and intelligence files, plus the normal round of seeing men for advancement or punishment held him apart from the others so that he was able to build a mental picture of what was happening. It seemed that the whole countryside was dotted with bleak camps and well-guarded sites where men could learn to shoot with pistols and automatic weapons of almost every nationality. Gullies and steep, crumbling cliffs where sailors more used to the cramped life of a submarine had to master the business of hauling each other up and down in complete darkness while a leather-lunged instructor yelled insults and threats or fired the occasional bullet as close as was prudent to add a touch of danger.

Even the experts themselves lent an air of unreality to the whole affair. Army officers wearing Pay Corps badges and flashes proved to be coldly efficient with portable signalling equipment or in the use of small but deadly explosive pencils. A major purporting to be from the Medical Corps took Buck and his torpedomen on a forced march through torrential rain and thick mud to carry out an attack on a forewarned army gunsite. Some of the kicks and blows were less restrained than had been expected, but as the umpire had dryly explained to Marshall, the Navy seemed to have come off rather better, despite the odds.

The depot ship’s engineers had created, rather than constructed, a light folding cover for the U-boat’s conning-tower, so that from a reasonable distance she took on the appearance of a British submarine. Once ready for sea it could be dismantled and clipped on to the casing like some weird umbrella.

After the first grumbles and loud-voiced complaints the submariners settled down to their hurried training with enthusiasm. It was different, and as their bodies became hardened to the exercises and the Scottish weather they discovered they had drawn together as a unit, far more so than when they had gone to seek out the
milch-cow
on the other side of the Atlantic. Partly because of all those others who had come to offer aid and instruction. Most of all because they felt that at last they belonged, if only to be recognised by this small élite of experts.

At the end of ten days the pressure eased. As if everyone had exhausted both ideas and energy. In the limited time available they had taught the submariners all they knew. What happened from now on was up to them. And, of course, the enemy.

Browning was rarely far away from the various training activities. Bellowing encouragement to panting and puffing seamen, or squatting on his shooting-stick like a great bear trying not to miss a moment of it. He was sharing it as best he could, and Marshall often wondered what would happen if he got transfered to some desk job. Worse, if Simeon took over the whole organisation from him.

Browning had come to him on the last full day of training. He had found him working in a borrowed office in the depot ship, coat off and surrounded by clips of signals, returns of stores and fuel, spare parts and almost anything else which could be gathered into one place.

He had said. ‘Thought you ought to know, Marshall. The Germans will know today that the crew of U-192 are in our hands. Prisoners of war. We couldn’t keep it secret forever. It’s not humane. Not right.’

Marshall had considered the news with mixed feelings. In many towns in Germany there would be lighter hearts because of the announcement. Wives and parents, children and girlfriends. Even the people who had merely known the U-boat’s last crew as neighbours and workmates in that other world of peace. Browning had been right about one thing. It was the only humane course to take. The Geneva Convention laid down rules, but in war it was about the only one not so far broken by either German or Briton alike.

‘They’ll know about us then, sir.’

Browning had shaken his head doubtfully. ‘Not so far as I can discover. The German crewman were taken away by their escort before our people got to the fjord. So far as they know, their boat is lying on the bottom where they left her. We’ve made certain that the rumour is
well
circulated. But when you go on your next mission you’ll be without your ‘cover’. U-192 has ceased to exist. Your guise for each operation will be as you think fit. Visual, rather than having false papers, so to speak.’

‘I think I prefer it, sir.’ Marshall had felt some sort of relief without being able to put a finger on it. ‘I don’t mind using our skills against the enemy, our experience and bloodymindedness. But the other sort of war leaves you feeling dirty inside.’ He had thought then of Warwick. ‘You wave to someone, a man you only recognise as an enemy, yet one who is for those last moments your friend in his own eyes. Then you cut him down.’

Browning had watched him gravely. ‘Commander Simeon might not agree with you. He would say you were deluding yourself. That a war seen only through a bombsight or periscope is as unrealistic as allowing the enemy to know about our captured Germans. To him the war is everything and anything which can be used.’

And people too, Marshall had thought. But he had had to admit there was substance in Simeon’s reasoning. The pilots who carried bombs over cities and returned to their bases after each massive raid saw nothing of the pain and horror they left behind. Through the periscope lens you could hear no sound as the scalding steam exploded in the engine-room of a torpedoed freighter or tanker, the screams of those trapped between decks, driven mad with horror, praying for death.

Maybe that had been what Simeon had meant when he had spoken with something like scorn of the contest between torpedo and unarmed merchantman. There was a lot more to it than that of course. There were enough submarines lying on the bottom as proof of the balance. But the other evidence was also there in plenty.

Then, on the last day, some leave had been granted. Local liberty for the bulk of the company. Forty-eight hours home leave for a handful of others. Gerrard had gone south to see his wife. Barely time to kiss her and pay the bills before hitching a ride back again. Knowing Gerrard it was likely he would find a friendly pilot to fly him to that windswept airstrip. Marshall hoped so for Gerrard’s peace of mind.

Two seamen had been allowed home because of the air raids, One had lost his mother in a hit-and-run raid near London. The seaman was nineteen, but had become the man of the house when his father had been killed at Dunkirk. The other had lost his wife. She had been caught when the bus carrying her home from an aircraft factory had jolted over an unexploded bomb.

Buck had gone off on a lone fishing trip, leaving a telephone number where he could be reached. One of the depot ship’s officers had remarked that the inn to which the number belonged was most attractive. As was the landlord’s wife. More to the point, the landlord was in Ceylon with the R.A.F.

But as is the way with sailors, most of them remained close by the ship. After craving for leave and cursing all and sundry because of the lack of it, they restricted their runs ashore to the naval canteen, two pubs and the some-what primitive hospitality of a nearby farm, where it was rumoured the owner manufactured his own ‘juice’.

A twenty-year-old stoker named John Willard went ashore on local leave with no intention of returning at all. His desertion cast a pall of gloom over the rest of the company, spoiling their well-justified pride in what they had achieved together.

Simeon had said of the deserter, ‘He must be caught
and
brought back. I don’t care how they do it. I don’t give a bloody damn if some redcap blows his stupid brains out!’

The young stoker’s home was in Newcastle, but he was picked up by two officers of the S.I.B., who had been warned to watch out for him, within fifty miles of the loch.

It was never healthy to keep a man aboard a submarine who tried to desert. There was too much scope for wilful damage or careless inattention when a man hung under a cloud like that. But again, he had to agree with Simeon. It was equally unsafe to let the man pass through the usual channels of court-martial and punishment. In a detention barracks, and afterwards in any ship or harbour where he was sent, the aggrieved stoker might blurt out the secret, or even part of it, which would then filter through to other, hostile ears.

The stoker was brought back to the
Guernsey
, handcuffed to his escort and guarded by two plainclothes men from the S.I.B. Marshall watched the sorry little procession as it was assisted from the guardboat and wondered what he should say to the man. It was a strange feeling. For once he could do or say practically what he liked. Browning had told him so. Simeon had added his own signature to the report of the man’s arrest.

As he sat in the borrowed cabin Marshall considered his new situation. His role, his command, even his company were on the secret list, restricted to a mere two or three hundred people. In a war which involved many millions they were pretty good odds. To the enemy U-192 was written off, one more victim of the Atlantic battle. In the Navy’s official records she did not exist. Marshall and his men were listed merely Naval Party so-and-so
on
special duties. Top Secret. It could have meant anything.

But in reality he commanded a submarine and was responsible for real people. Stoker John Willard was one of them.

As he sat at the littered desk Simeon stepped into the cabin and slid the door behind him. As impeccable as usual, his face was set in an impatient frown.

‘You going to see this chap now?’ He threw his oak-leaved cap on to a chair and groped for a cigarette.

Marshall nodded. ‘Yes. My Number One’s still on leave. The navigator will deal with it.’

Devereaux would like that. The second time he had been called to act as first lieutenant because of Gerrard’s absence.

Simeon blew out a stream of smoke. ‘Devereaux seems a good type. Proper background. Makes a change these days.’

Marshall sighed. It was hard to stay calm, to remain uninvolved with Simeon’s likes and dislikes.

‘By the way,’ Simeon was peering through a salt-stained scuttle, his eyes reflecting the grey water below. ‘You’ll be shoving off in about two days time. Your orders will be arriving later this afternoon. Just the bare facts of course. I’ll fill you in on
details
.’

Marshall was about to answer when there was a tap at the door and Devereaux stepped over the coaming, his features urbane as he reported, ‘Prisoner and escort, sir.’ He glanced at Simeon without any change of expression.

Through the open door Marshall saw Starkie, a sheet of plywood under his arm, pinned to which were the details of the stoker’s crime. The coxswain looked slightly rumpled, as if he had just been called from his bunk.

‘Very well. Remember what I told you. This is not a trail, Pilot.’

Devereaux straightened his cap. ‘As you say, sir.’

The stoker was duly marched in and stood between his escort and the coxswain while the latter rattled off the date, time and place of the offence, where he was arrested. None of it seemed to have any effect on the prisoner, nor was it possible to picture him as a deserter.

Willard was small and round-faced, looking even younger than his years. Whenever he had noticed him in the past Marshall had seen him as one more of Frenzel’s scurrying, boiler-suited mechanics, usually covered in grease and oil. More part of the machinery than an individual person. Now, in his best uniform, a gold-wire propeller on one sleeve, he presented the perfect picture of innocence and vulnerability.

‘What do you want to tell me, Willard?’ Marshall kept his voice calm. Willard looked as if he might crack if anyone shouted at him.

‘Say, sir? What should I say?’ He shuffled his feet. ‘I mean, sir, what——’

Starkie who was holding, the prisoner’s cap, snarled, ‘Stand still! Answer the captain! ’Old yer ’ead up!’

By the scuttle Simeon breathed out noisily, the sound like an additional sign of their displeasure.

Devereaux said smoothly, ‘Just
tell
the captain why you tried to desert.’

They all waited.

Willard was staring at some point just above Marshall’s right shoulder, his face twisted into a mask of concentration.

‘I dunno what to say, sir. How to begin.’ His chin trembled slightly as he added, ‘It’s me mother, sir.’

Marshall dropped his gaze to the desk. ‘Your divisional officer, Lieutenant Frenzel, speaks well of you. You’ve not been in trouble before. If your mother is sick you should have come to one of your officers and——’

Willard was speaking very quietly, as if he had not heard a word. ‘Me dad’s a prisoner-of-war, sir. He was taken at Singapore. Only heard last year. We all thought he was dead. When I was on me last long leave before I was drafted here, sir, I went home.’ He swallowed hard. ‘She was——’ He tried again, ‘She was with this bloke.’