Kleber's Convoy (4 page)

But Redman had to get
Violent
ahead of the submarine to allow time for her depth-charges to reach the U-boat's depth. Then the German would steer directly into the pattern Jackie Dixon was about to release.

At last
Violent
was ahead of the U-boat. ‘Fifteen yards … twenty yards …' On Redman's hands, clenched on the bridge rail, the knuckles showed white. He repeated the ranges to Jackie Dixon: ‘Thirty yards … forty …' The moment had come. ‘Fire!' he ordered, and hoped his voice didn't sound to others as much of a croak as it did to him.

In the rain and mist ahead he could see the shadowy outline of
Violent,
and the wind brought down the dull
rumph
of her depth-charge throwers as the twenty-six charges, fired in calculated sequence, left the throwers and chutes.

The tension on
Vengeful
's bridge was like that before a free-kick in the penalty area at a cup final. It was released with sudden violence as sea, ships and air shook and trembled, great columns of water mushrooming skywards with a
thunderous
roar. It was as if the ocean-bed had erupted in a series of primeval explosions.

Showers of sparks came from
Violent
's
funnel as she was shaken by the waterhammer of her own charges. Seconds ticked away. Groves's voice sounded on the loudspeaker; calm, matter of fact. ‘We're picking up sounds of the U-boat breaking up, sir.'

The guns' crews were disappointed. Not for them the high excitement of a U-boat surfacing in the turbulent water of the depth-charge explosions.
Violent
's pattern must have torn the submarine open, to flood and sink it like a stone, its
crew bewildered in their death agony.

For the next ten minutes
Violent
and
Vengeful
pinged
away at the wreck of the U-boat until they had a good
navigational
fix. A slick of diesel oil had formed on the surface and was spreading downwind. There was little debris. Splinters of wood, some papers and dead fish. Before they left to rejoin, Jackie Dixon reported the picking up of flesh which his doctor had identified as human lung tissue. Redman felt faintly sick. Now that the excitement of the hunt was over he was no longer elated but tired and worried, thinking of the problems of the oncoming night. But there were things to be done. First he congratulated
Violent
, then over
Venge
ful
's
broadcast he spoke to his own ship's company. ‘It was a first-class attack and reflects great credit on every man in the ship. Thanks to
Vengeful
and
Violent
the Fifty-Seventh Escort Group has chalked up the first U-boat kill for convoy JW 137. Well done.'

Next he went to the asdic cabinet and congratulated Groves and his operators – ‘If there's a better A/S team in the Western Approaches, I'd like to meet it,' he said. After that he gave a pat on the back to Petty Officer Blandy who'd manned the radar throughout the attack.

Redman wrote out a signal to C-in-C Western Approaches, repeated to Captain (D) Greenock and the senior officer of escorts in
Bluebird,
reporting the sinking. He gave it to the yeoman. ‘Tell the W/T office to get that off as soon as possible.'

Later, when
Vengeful
and
Violent
were rejoining the group at twenty-three knots and were once more within TBS range of
Bluebird,
Mountsey's voice sounded on the bridge-speaker. ‘Well done,
Vengeful
and
Violent.
Neat but not gaudy.'

The
gaudy
sounded like
gory
and Redman shivered as he pictured the lung tissue floating in a bucket or sea water. With remarkable speed, signals of congratulation came in from the Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches, from the Vice-Admiral in
Fidelix,
and from Captain (D) Greenock.

Later, when the first-lieutenant congratulated him,
Red
-
man
said, ‘Funny how warmly one's congratulated for killing people.'

‘For killing
Germans,
sir,' corrected Strong with his broken-nosed smile. Mistaking the captain's irony for humour, he
did not know how much his remark had distressed Redman. But the ship's company had no inhibitions. They were jubilant, excited. It was the ship's first success in a ‘creeping attack' and its third U-boat ever. It had been a quick, clean kill. A great start to what lay ahead. Completely unexpected. Like a goal immediately after the kick-off.

Daylight came shortly before nine o'clock, pale and hesitant under fast-moving clouds, drenching rain and poor visibility. Big seas, white-crested, rolled in from the west, and life on board
Vengeful
resumed its norm of discomfort.

Redman had spent most of the night on the bridge helping the convoy form, ushering laggards into their appointed places, closing ships showing lights or badly out of station, encouraging, coaxing and threatening by loud-hailer. Twice he'd gone to the sea-cabin to snatch a rest only to be called back to the bridge by false alarms: once when the
officer-of-the-watch
called him for a contact which turned out to be a shoal of fish, and the other when Pownall blundered.

It was not until the early hours of morning that
Vengeful
settled down in station on the port bow of the convoy.

The light grew stronger and the rain lifted momentarily. For the first time the convoy could be seen from
Vengeful
's bridge. An armada covering ten square miles, its hard core the eight columns of merchant ships, around them the escorts: frigates and corvettes in close station, destroyers and sloops farther out; the commodore's pennant flying from the leading ship in the third column; the fleet oiler boxed in the centre, the rescue ship astern.

Redman lay on the bunk in the sea-cabin adjoining the wheelhouse one deck below the bridge. He wore his clothes but for the duffel coat and cap. The cabin door led into the wheelhouse and was latched open, a drawn curtain giving scant privacy. Grey daylight showed through the small porthole above the bunk, the only other illumination was a dim red lamp in the light socket. During the hours of
darkness 
it protected his night vision. It was not enough to read by for any length of time and he found it depressing. Above his pillow the bridge voice-pipe loomed like the mouth of a trumpet.

Real sleep was seldom possible. There was a steady flow of sound from the bridge above: the insistent
ping
of the asdic, the orders given by the officer-of-the-watch, reports by look-outs, the asdic and radar operators, the plot and
signalmen
. In the wheelhouse the quartermaster and
telegraph-man
were within eight feet of him. He heard the wheel and engine orders they repeated and their muttered conversation. They were not supposed to talk while on duty but this was asking too much of young men. Only if they raised their voices would he shout, ‘pipe down'. A period of silence would follow and then, believing he'd gone off to sleep, they'd begin whispering and muttering again. They did not realize that the captain's faculties were attuned to his responsibility. He never did really sleep. His sub-conscious missed little.

There was a folding wash-basin in the cabin, two drawers under the bunk, a diminutive cupboard and a stool. All that an area of eight by four-and-a-half feet could take. It was known in the wardroom as the ‘dog-box'. It was here when he was not on the bridge that he lived, ate and rested while at sea. The nearest lavatory was three decks down. Since the time taken to cover that distance and to remove and replace Arctic clothing was unacceptable to a captain whose ship was engaged in an operation where alarms were frequent, he cultivated constipation as assiduously as a monk did abstinence. For lesser requirements there was a communal bucket at the back of the bridge. Here again there were problems. To be slow when temperatures were well below freezing was to invite frostbite on a delicate organ.

Since real sleep was almost impossible he regarded his bunk as a place of rest. Sometimes, tired and exhausted, he would fall into fitful broken sleep, but an undisturbed hour was rare.

While he was resting he was thinking, which was about all he could do. Not like sleeping, when a man dreamt and somehow recharged his reserves of nervous energy. Mostly his thoughts were about the U-boat they'd sunk the afternoon before. It had been a good attack. Both ships and their
specialist teams had done their jobs with remarkable efficiency. Nothing had gone wrong on an occasion when much could. But Redman had a vivid imagination and before long thoughts of the U-boat crew dying began to worry him. The sudden, inexplicable, devastating explosions from that lethal pattern; the pressure hull collapsing; the lights going out; the horrific sound of sea flooding in; the screams of dying men, the agony of bursting lungs. All this made a dreadful picture and soured the sense of achievement he might
otherwise
have felt. He imagined that no one else in
Vengeful
was troubled by these thoughts and he felt somehow diminished. When he'd congratulated the ship's company on the
broadcast
, and afterwards Groves and Blandy, he knew he was playing a part. Saying what had to be said, giving praise where it had to be given, aware that behind the façade lay reservations and scruples which his officers and men would not understand because there hadn't been a Marianne and a Hans in their lives. When at last his thoughts broke away from the sunken U-boat he thought of Pownall's mistake.

It had happened soon after the watchers changed at four in the morning. Redman had been in his sea-cabin for less than thirty minutes when he was woken from sleep, his first for eighteen hours. It was Pownall's voice booming in his ear.

‘Forebridge – captain, sir,' came down the voice-pipe. ‘
Contact
green oh-four-oh. Range twelve hundred. Altering to bearing for pounce attack.'

‘Coming up,' was Redman's instant reply. As he went through the wheelhouse he heard the alarm bells and the quartermaster repeating Pownall's orders. ‘Starboard twenty, one-eight-oh revolutions, sir.'

Racing up the ladder to the bridge he felt the build-up of vibration as
Vengeful
's speed increased. He couldn't see properly because his eyes were not yet attuned to the dark, but on getting to the bridge he at once compared the range and bearing of the asdic contact with the visual presentation on the PPL ‘Get radar to check along that asdic bearing,' he snapped.

Pownail did. The radar operator replied, ‘Bearing
oh-five-two
, range seven hundred, surface ship, closing rapidly.' The asdic cabinet's report at that moment was much the same, the operator adding. ‘Target drawing left. Extent and HE
look like a surface ship, sir.' It was Collins, the best HSD in
Vengeful.

Redman ordered, ‘Hard-a-port,' and told the asdic cabinet to disregard the contact and resume normal sweep. Later, when he'd steadied
Vengeful
on a safe course, tense and angry, he turned on Pownall. ‘That was a careless mistake,' he said. ‘You were attacking one of the merchant ships in convoy.'

Pownall was silent, trying to work out how the mistake had occurred. Visibility was down to a few hundred yards and he'd lost concentration at a critical moment. Why? There wasn't time to think out the answer to that one. The Old Man was obviously bloody angry and he had to say something. ‘She was badly out of station, sir.'

‘I know she was,' replied Redman. ‘But that was no reason to attack her. You were within a mile of the port wing column. You knew you had a line of ships to starboard. If you'd been watching the PPI you'd have seen what was
happening
.' He paused, waiting for Pownall to answer. But the navigating officer was silent.

Though he couldn't see his face, Redman glared at him. ‘Why didn't you check the A/S contact with radar at once?'

In the dark Pownall, who had a quick temper, shook off his feelings by kicking the compass pedestal. ‘I'm sorry, sir,' he said. ‘It was careless of me. But she sheered out of line and I …' He gave up. There just wasn't a workable excuse.

Redman, frustrated by broken sleep and the knowledge that they'd been close to disaster, wasn't prepared to let go. ‘It was a damned
stupid
mistake, Pownall. We'd have looked bloody silly if we'd rammed her.'

Between the evidence of his own failure and Redman's nagging, Pownall was working himself into a silent rage. He knew it was no good arguing but he objected to being ticked off in front of the yeoman, the signalman, the
lookouts – and
no doubt the men in the wheelhouse, and the radar and asdic operators who'd probably heard it all through their voice-pipes.

Redman, on the other hand, quickly cooled down. He regretted his display of temper. Anger was something a captain shouldn't give way to. Unfair to the subordinate who couldn't answer back. Nor should he have admonished Pownall within hearing of the men on the bridge. That could
have waited for another occasion. Pownall was a competent officer. His attention had wandered momentarily. These things happened quickly. It had been a long day for him too. No point in destroying his self-confidence. Redman forced a note of friendliness in his voice. ‘Right, Pilot. Take over. Get her back into station.'

When he was annoyed with the navigating officer he called him ‘Pownall' – on other occasions ‘Pilot'. Pownall knew this and normally it amused him. But not at that moment. When Redman had left the bridge, Pownall,
confused
and humiliated, had once more kicked the compass pedestal before taking steps to get
Vengeful
back into station. That done he returned to the problem of how be'd made such an ass of himself. At last he remembered.

He'd been thinking of Elizabeth. Elizabeth at the dance at the Wrennery the night before they'd sailed from the Clyde. He'd had a good deal to drink and it had seemed the moment to let her know what was on his mind so he'd proposed. She'd laughed as if it were very funny. Then, when she saw she'd hurt him, she was contrite. ‘I'm terribly sorry, James, I thought you knew.'

‘Knew what?'

‘There's someone else. Surely I told you.'

‘You didn't as it happens. Who is he?'

‘It'd just be a name to you. He's in the Army. Eleventh Hussars. Somewhere in Europe.'

‘Interesting,' he said. ‘Are you going to marry him?'

She laughed. ‘Yes. I'm afraid you must think I'm a wicked woman. But life has to go on. Hasn't it?'

He did, and it did. In the six months on and off that he'd known her – most of that time he'd been at sea – this was the first he'd heard of the Army. He took her hand. ‘Let's have a drink … to celebrate your … what is the word?'

‘Betrothal,' she suggested, looking at him sideways to see how he was taking it.

Yes. That was it. Thinking about Elizabeth. He hadn't looked at the PPI for minutes on end. Bloody fool.

So it was her fault. He'd tell her that next time in harbour. Kiss her forgiveness – she was a nice girl – and take her down to Rothesay for a weekend. Then there'd be real news for the Eleventh Hussar to whom she no doubt wrote despondent letters about the dullness of life on the Clyde and how she
couldn't wait until he got back. Which was all too true. And she probably couldn't wait until
Vengeful
got back either. So there might be someone else. Who? wondered Pownall, with a dismal sense of being irrational. Jealousy, after all, was the Eleventh Hussar's prerogative.

The difference between
Vengeful
's wardroom at sea and in harbour was considerable. At sea pictures, books and other things which could move were taken down and stowed away, fiddles were put on the dining table, and the cloth was dampened to stop crockery sliding. The Charlie Noble was not lit, and from the leaking joints of heaters the smell of steam competed with odours from the pantry. All in all it was a cheerless place in rough weather, sparsely populated, its few inhabitants unusually quiet. Well back in the stern over the propellers, it was far from comfortable.

Shortly before one o'clock on the second day out from Loch Ewe only Wilson, Sutton the doctor, and the two
midshipmen
were present, the others being on watch or asleep. The Maltese messmen moved between the pantry and the table they were preparing for lunch. A midshipman was asleep, wedged in a corner of the settee. Another was reading a magazine.

The doctor, who had never been on a Russian convoy, was questioning Wilson. Finding the answers discouraging, he changed the subject.

‘Tell me about the captain,' he said.

‘How d'you mean?'

‘What's he like?'

‘All right. I suppose we're lucky to have him. Some can be bastards.'

‘He's a dug-out, isn't he?' The doctor pulled at his ear.

‘Yes. He left the service in '38. Went into the family business. Wine importers or something like that. When this brawl began he was called up.'

‘Has he spent much time at sea?'

‘All of it, I think, except for courses. Corvettes and frigates first. He lost the last one. Torpedoed in the Western Approaches. After that he had a spell in hospital being put together again. Then he came here.'

The destroyer rolled heavily, the doctor paused, his eyes on the porthole where the top of a sea slapped and splattered
into foam, ‘He's a bachelor, isn't he?'

Wilson looked at his watch then at the pantry hatch. ‘Roll on lunch time. Sorry,' he said, turning back to the doctor. ‘You were saying?'

‘Is the captain married?'

Wilson shook his head. ‘No little woman waiting at home for the Old Man.'

‘The girl in the silver frame. On his desk?'

‘We don't know. Big mystery. She's never been seen near the ship. Number One once asked the Old Man. After several drinks. All he got was a dirty look, so he reckoned he'd boobed. We've inquired tactfully of Topcutt who's been with him for years. Old Toppy looks mournful and says, “The captain's private life is no business of mine. Nor'n of yours, sir.” So we've given up.'

‘Girl-friend, I expect,' said the doctor. ‘Not my business anyway. But when I go to his cabin I don't like looking him straight in the face. Weak of me, I know. He frightens me.' The doctor's pale eyes were apologetic, ‘So I look at her. Easy on the eye, isn't she?'