Go In and Sink! (38 page)

Metal groaned along the casing as the pressure continued to mount, and he heard Devereaux clicking his brass dividers together in a small tattoo.

The first attack had been made by one vessel. The second one had no doubt stopped to watch results, keeping her Asdic unimpaired by her consort’s propeller noises.

‘H.E. closing from astern, sir.’

Marshall watched the needles. Waiting.

Gerrard turned to look at him, his face shining in the lights.

‘One hundred and eighty metres, sir.’

‘H.E. closing fast, sir.’

How different it sounded at this great depth.
Thrum-thrum-thrum
. He tightened his grip on the support, picturing the charges rolling off their little rails, falling slowly, ten feet a second.

He snapped, ‘Hard a-port. Group up. Full ahead.’

The boat responded immediately, and he saw Frenzel’s hands flashing across his levers like an organist’s.

‘Midships. Steady.’

‘Steady, sir. Course two-two-zero.’ Starkie sounded cool enough.

The charges exploded as one, the echoing detonation booming the hull like a collision. The boat rocked to one side, shook herself and came back again. Flakes of paint drifted through the lamplight, and a man began to cough.

Marshall listened to the subdued roar of engines as the attacking vessel tore away to prepare another sortie.

He looked at Devereaux and saw him staring at the deckhead as if waiting for something to cave in on him.

He said, ‘Keep a good plot. Don’t rely on the echo-sounder.’ He waited for each sentence to penetrate. ‘If we pile up ashore, I’ll not forgive you.’

Devereaux’s adam’s-apple bobbed above his sweater and he nodded.

Simeon asked harshly, ‘What are you doing?’ He waited, his eyes fixed on Marshall. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to lie low until they give up?’

Marshall cocked his head as the Asdic operator snapped, ‘Fast H.E. closing, port side, sir.’

He replied, ‘No, I think not, sir. These boats are most likely M.T.B.s or the like. Their job is to pin us down until dawn. By then they’ll have plenty of help.’ He looked at Simeon impassively. ‘I’m not waiting.’

Petty Officer Blythe took hold of the steel flag locker and murmured, ‘Here we go again.’

The engine noises grew louder, rattled high overhead and then faded again. The charges exploded much nearer, making the hull tilt and yaw from beam to beam while Gerrard fought to regain his trim.

Marshall said, ‘Take her up to ninety metres. Slow ahead.’

Gerrard swallowed hard. ‘Group down. Slow ahead both motors.’ He glanced at him quickly. ‘Take her
up
, sir?’

‘Yes. They’re getting us fixed.’ He waited, listening to the compressed air as it drowned out the enemy’s engines.

‘Ninety metres, sir.’

‘Hold her so.’

He crossed swiftly to the chart. He could feel Devereaux pressed against him. Smell his fear.

The deck rocked very gently as a single charge exploded. It seemed to be a long way off, and somebody gave a disbelieving whistle.

Marshall concentrated on the chart. ‘Starboard twenty. Steer three-zero-zero.’ He looked sideways at the navigator as the helm went over. ‘Must get more sea-room.’

He strode to the periscopes and waited, counting seconds. A double bang, closer, but still well clear. As the echoing detonations sighed against the hull he heard the vessel’s engines joined by another. He did not need the Asdic report to know the attackers were changing their methods.

He glanced at Gerrard. ‘What d’you think, Number One? How many charges will they carry?’

Gerrard stared at the curved side, his mouth in a tight line. It seemed an age before he replied. ‘About a dozen each, sir. They’ve not much room for more.’ He swung round as a new sound came into the boat. It was like a child scratching a fence with a piece of wire, casual, insistent.

Gerrard said, ‘Christ, they’ve made a firm contact!’

Marshall looked past him. ‘One hundred and eighty metres again!’

He turned towards Devereaux, seeing his sudden terror, bare on his face. ‘Easy, Pilot.’ He smiled. ‘And keep your plot going!’

The attacking vessels must have cut diagonally across the U-boat’s track, side by side like a pair of terriers after the hare.

A pattern of six charges exploded in a long and ragged bombardment. The last pair burst with such a roar that the hull tilted its stern too steeply for Gerrard’s men to restrain the dive, and Marshall saw the needles flying round, while on every side the boat seemed to be jerking and groaning in physical agony. More paint flaked down, and when a signalman grasped the conning-tower ladder for support he shouted, ‘Christ, it’s
bending
!’

Gerrard appeared to be standing diagonally across the control room as he pushed a planesman’s shoulder and yelled, ‘Move, Kennan! Hold her!’

Gerrard turned as the tell-tales flickered into line. The depth guages stood at a full two hundred metres. Even the air felt different, as if it were being squeezed solid by the tremendous pressure around the hull.

Marshall smiled at him. ‘Makes our first deep dive seem a bit trivial, eh?’

It was all he could do to speak so lightly, and he felt a nerve jump in his neck as the hull gave a sharp, sickening squeal.

Devereaux cleared his throat, the sound making more than one man jump with alarm.

‘We are in six hundred fathoms, sir.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘As far as I can see, we’ve plenty of sea-room now.’

Marshall looked at Simeon, and was surprised to see him sitting on the deck, his back against the main bulkhead.
He
was staring at a space between his feet. Like a man under a spell.

‘H.E. closing from astern, sir.’

He said to Simeon, ‘I would suggest you stand up, sir. If this pattern comes too close, the shock could snap your spine.’

He turned away as Gerrard said, ‘This one’s coming in more slowly.’

They all looked at the deckhead, trying to see through the toughened steel, visualising the great depth of water above, the crushing darkness below.

But there was no scraping echo from the patrol boat’s Asdic. Just that monotonous
thrum-thrum-thrum
, it seemed endless.

‘H.E.’s speeding up, sir!’

Marshall glanced quickly round the control room, wondering how his men were coping in their various sealed compartments. They would all know why the engines were increasing speed. The charges were coming down …
now
. The enemy was haring away to avoid having his own tail blown off.

There were three, although to those who crouched and clung to the wildly buckling hull it sounded like an avalanche crashing about their ears. Lights shattered, glass flew in all directions, and pieces of loose equipment rained down on the sobbing, gasping men as if the hull had begun to break up.

‘Emergency lights!’

Marshall skidded on broken glass and heard someone calling for help. He saw the additional lamps flicker across the dials, and watched fascinated as the depth gauges took another slow turn. They were over seven hundred feet beneath the surface. It was incredible. Unbelievable that
they
had withstood the pressures of both sea and explosions.

He peered at the clock. After three in the morning. The attack had gone on for over two hours. It seemed like minutes, that was the strange thing about it.

Gerrard croaked, ‘She’s steady, sir.’ He sounded near to cracking.

‘Hold her.’ Marshall staggered through the chaos and touched his arm. ‘You can do it, Bob!’

Gerrard nodded dumbly, and turned back to his gauges as Marshall added, ‘Check all departments now.’

A man lurched to his feet and cranked at a telephone handset. Others came out of their stunned attitudes and moved to their stations, like old men, unsure of each and every step.

An artificer said, ‘No damage or casualties in engine or motor rooms, sir.’ He gave a thumbs up to his mate.

‘Lieutenant Buck reports no damage in the fore ends, sir. But one man’s broken his wrist.’

And so it went on.

Then they heard the distant revolutions again as the enemy began another slow sweep somewhere to starboard.

Simeon crossed to Marshall’s side, seemingly oblivious to the others nearby.

In a fierce whisper he said, ‘Get us out of this! Increase speed, do what you like, but get me out of it!’

Marshall regarded him coldly, half hearing the slow pattern of muffled engines.

‘You said
us
the first time, sir.’

‘H.E. still closing from starboard, sir.’

Marshall did not turn. ‘I’m going to increase speed very soon now. When I surface, not before.’

‘H.E.’s stopped, sir.’

Even the operator turned in his seat as Simeon exclaimed, ‘
Surface?
Are you bloody mad? You’ll kill the lot of us! Is that what you want?’

Marshall replied quietly, ‘The enemy’s stopped. That means they’re sitting up there on the surface like a couple of ducks. Probably using searchlights and looking for flotsam and oil slicks, or bodies maybe.’ He stepped away from him. ‘So we’ll stay down here. Silent routine until they go away.’

Simeon was shouting, his eyes wild. ‘And if they don’t go?’

‘Then we’ll have to stick it out till tomorrow night.’

Simeon gaped at the deck. ‘Tomorrow night. Another day of this?’

Frenzel said flatly, ‘By then they’ll have whistled up the heavy mob.’ He was watching Simeon with something like disgust. ‘We’ll have plenty of company.’

Marshall looked at him and shook his head. Then he said to Simeon, ‘I suggest you get a grip on yourself and I’ll.…’

Gerrard shouted, ‘They’ve started up their engines!’

They all looked at each other as the even thrumming beat grew and then began to fade until it was lost completely.

Marshall breathed out very slowly, ‘Ten minutes and then we’ll go up for a look.’

He leaned against the conning-tower ladder and found that his legs were shaking badly. He glanced up the ladder. The signalman was right. It was bending under the tremendous hull pressure.

The ten minutes seemed twenty times as long as the attack. Nobody spoke, and apart from the motor’s purring
hum
and the occasional creak of protesting steel, they stuck it out in silence.

Marshall looked at his watch. His vision was blurred with strain, and he knew there would be worse to come when he had got them to safety. Right now, it was all that counted. He thought suddenly of Browning’s face above the screen as he had made to go aboard the launch.
Thanks, my boy. You know what for
. What did he really mean? For replacing his dead son perhaps. Marshall hoped it was that.

He said, ‘Stand by to take her up, Number One. Periscope depth. But first warn all departments. In case we’re jumped as we pop up.’

But when they eventually rose to periscope depth Marshall found the sea devoid of movement.

He told Buck to take over the periscope and then walked to the intercom beside the wheel. He paused, his thumb on the button, not knowing what to say, or why he was trying to say it.

‘This is the captain. You all know about the attack. It’s been a noisy night.’ That would make someone smile. ‘Some of you still don’t know about Captain Browning.’ He bit his lip and added, ‘“Buster” to most of you. Well, he died back there. Doing something he thought was worthwhile, as I did, and still do.’ He turned to hide his face from the others. ‘If he was still aboard, I’m sure he’d be the first to compliment you on the way you’ve behaved. I’m trying to do it for him. Thank you all.’ He tried again. ‘Very much.’

He released the button and said quietly, ‘Open the lower hatch. We’ll switch over to the diesels and begin charging as soon as I’ve had another look around.’

He saw Frenzel blocking his way to the ladder.

‘What’s wrong, Chief?’

Frenzel faced him gravely. ‘I just wanted to say thanks to you, sir. From us.’ He tried to grin. ‘The lads.’

Marshall walked slowly to the ladder and paused with his boot on the bottom rung. When he looked up at the smooth sides of the tower he wondered if he had really expected to make that climb ever again.

The room looked just the same yet, without Browning behind his big desk it was totally different.

Marshall tried to relax in a cane chair, surprised that he felt no sort of tiredness anymore. He had berthed his submarine alongside the same depot ship in the early hours of the morning. Now, it was evening. It had been a very long day.

There were four others in the room. The Chief of Staff, two studious lieutenants and a most important visitor. He was Rear-Admiral Dundas, the top liaison officer with British and American Intelligence. In a neat, lightweight grey suit he looked rather like a retired schoolmaster.

Marshall had made his preliminary report soon after leaving the boat in the hands of the depot ship. Now he was back again for another session.

The rear-admiral pressed his fingertips together and regarded him through heavy-framed glasses.

‘It might well have come off, you know.’ He shook his head. ‘Captain Browning was a resourceful officer. Always was, even as a young man.’