Landfall (28 page)

In the little cuddy of the trawler an elderly, grey-haired lieutenant-commander of the regular Navy bent over a chart with Commander Rutherford. “That’s the place where we put down the buoy,” he said. “There’s definitely something there—a wreck of some sort. We swept and caught it twice—once going east and west, and the other time north and south.”

Rutherford nodded. “So you buoyed it.”

“Yes. We put down a spar buoy.”

“Any idea if it was a submarine?”

The other shook his head. “There was grey paint on the sweep wire when we got it in. That’s the only thing. From that, I’d say she hadn’t been down very long.”

The commander nodded. The position that had been
buoyed was about half a mile to the west of the position he had got from the Dutchman, but in poor weather that sort of error might quite well occur.

The morning came up calm and sunny. The trawler passed the Gate and steamed away up Channel, over a calm sunlit sea. Two hours later Mitcheson said to Rutherford, standing beside him on the bridge:

“There’s the buoy.” It stood up, a thread-like spike, in the far distance ahead of them.

It was still an hour and a half before the time of slack water, too early yet for a diver to go down. The trawler drew up to the buoy slowly, manoeuvred for a few minutes, then dropped an anchor. Then for a time she slacked out chain, manoeuvring with her engines as she did so; presently she dropped a second anchor. In half an hour she was securely moored beside the buoy.

The diver’s crew appeared from below and began their preparations. A short ladder was made fast to the ship’s side, and the shot-rope was streamed beside it to the bottom. With the deliberate care born of long experience the diver got into his suit, the heavy boots were strapped to his feet. The collar was laid upon his shoulders as he sat upon the hatch, and the belt, furnished with the knife and the waterproof lantern, was strapped to his waist.

He was a fair-haired, serious man of about thirty, smoking a cigarette. He said to his mate, now polishing the windows of the helmet:

“If I’m down over dinner-time, tell cookie to keep a plateful hot for me. And I don’t want none of that fat.”

“Or-right.”

“What’s he got for afters?”

“Plummy duff.”

“I don’t want none of that. Tell ’im I’ll have a bit of bread and jam.”

“Or-right.”

“Partial to a bit of bread and jam, I’ve always been,” said the diver conversationally.

Commander Rutherford approached. “You’ve got it all clear, have you?” he enquired. “If it’s a submarine, we want the nationality to be established definitely.”

“Case it’s
Caranx
, sir?”

“That’s it. If you can get up to the conning-tower,
Caranx
had her name on it in raised letters, towards the aft end, about five feet from the deck. The letters were painted over, but you’d feel them with your hands.”

“I got that, sir.”

The commander glanced over the side. “Are you going now, or will you wait till the tide slacks a bit more?”

“All right if I go now, sir, I think.” He turned to his mate. “Come on, let’s have it.”

They lifted the dome on to his shoulders and screwed it home. Through the front window he said to his mate: “Mind, I don’t want none of that duff. Ask if he’s got any stewed fruit, or anything of that.”

“Or-right.”

Two men began to turn the handles of the pump: the air hissed through the hose. His mate screwed the front window home and slapped the top of the helmet with his hand. The diver sat for a minute adjusting the air-valve by his ear; then he got up with an effort and walked two steps to the bulwarks. A couple of men helped him over the side on to the ladder.

He went down until the water rose above his head. Then, with the bright copper dome of the helmet showing as a little disc upon the water, he paused and adjusted the air-valve, that bubbled with a little splutter of white foam. Then in slow motion he reached out and grasped the shot-rope, stepped off the ladder, and was gone. The hose and life-line paid out slowly into the water.

On the trawler the time passed slowly. The bubbles which showed where the diver was wandered away to port and played about there, minute after minute. In half an hour they did not move more than fifty yards from one position. Presently they came back to the shot-rope, and a series of twitches gave the signal for a line to be sent down. A rope was lowered with a hook upon the end of it: to the hook a canvas bag was lashed with marline.

For half an hour longer the watchers on the trawler studied the bubbles wandering to the surface, and the vagaries of the air-tube and the ropes. On the bridge and on the gun platform in the bow seamen were posted to keep a vigilant look-out for submarines.

Once the old lieutenant-commander said fretfully: “How long is he to be down for?”

Rutherford said: “I left that to him.”

The other was silent. He would have preferred to hurry the diver; it was asking for it to stay anchored off the coast like this. A submarine could come and take a pot-shot at them from far off, and they would be powerless to escape the torpedo. It was asking for trouble.

In the end there came a series of twitches at the hook-rope. At the bulwarks men began to pull it up. Rutherford and the lieutenant-commander went down to the deck: only Mitcheson stayed on the bridge to guard the ship.

The rope came up slowly, fairly heavily laden. A metallic rod, eight feet or more in length, broke surface with the hook. This rod was furnished at one end with a handle and a broken plate, through which it passed; the other end was twisted and broken. From the hook the bag was suspended, bulging with small articles.

These were all hoisted in and laid upon the deck. The diver’s crew set to work to take in the life-line and
the hose as the man came up the shot-rope. Rutherford and the other officer bent to examine what had been brought up.

The long rod passed through a broken plate close by the handle. This plate was engraved with the words STARBOARD CENTRE.

The officers looked at it rather sadly. It was no more than they had expected, but it revived the tragedy within their minds.

“What part is that?” said the lieutenant-commander.

Rutherford shrugged his shoulders. “Looks like one of the ballast cocks,” he said. “We’ll have to wait till we get back to Blockhouse to identify it positively.”

They turned to the bag, unlashed it from the hook, and spread its contents out upon the hatch. Behind them the trawler crew came round in curiosity.

There were a pair of Ross binoculars with the broad arrow engraved on them, considerably damaged by sea water. There was a brass hand-wheel, the steel shaft of which was snapped off short; the brass rim was engraved with a double arrow and the words INCREASE and REDUCE. There was a double-ended spanner marked at one end 1″ and at the other 1¼″. There was a pewter coffee-pot of British naval pattern, and there were three table knives of the sort supplied for officers.

Rutherford said heavily: “Well, there’s not much doubt about that, I’m afraid.”

The other officer shook his head. “No doubt at all.”

The diver came up the ladder presently, and paused with his head above the bulwarks. Two men assisted him over on to the deck; he sat down on the hatch. His mate unscrewed the front window and removed the helmet.

The diver rubbed a hand over his face, and brushed the hair back from his forehead. Then he saw Rutherford beside him. “It’s a submarine, all right,” he said.
“One of ours, too. See them words on the hand-wheel?”

The commander said: “Yes—I saw that. Is she very much damaged?”

“She’s in two parts, sir—right in two separate pieces. You never saw anything like it. The stern is upright, more or less, and the bow over on the port side. I dunno where the conning-tower’s got to. I didn’t see nothing of that at all.”

“You didn’t see the name, then?”

“No, sir.” He paused and then he said, “I reckon that’s
Caranx
, all right. I reckon she got torpedoed, too.”

“Why do you think that? It might have been a mine.”

“It didn’t look like any mine
I
ever saw, sir.” The commander was silent; this man had seen many damaged ships. “It was more local, if you take me—more like a torpedo does. As a matter of fact, I did think I saw the tail of a torpedo crushed up underneath the aft part, at the break. But I wouldn’t swear to that. I didn’t go too near to all that broken stuff with the tide running round it.”

“Where did you get these things from, then?”

“Out of the fore part, at the break. That bit was in the lee of the tide, if you get me, sir. I picked up everything loose I could lay me hands on.”

Rutherford questioned him for a few minutes. Then he said: “All right. You can pack up your gear; I don’t see anything to gain by going down again.”

“Very good, sir.”

The commander turned aside. His friends were very near him, Billy Parkinson, and Stone, and Sandy Anderson. Not very many fathoms from him they lay resting in the sea, the sea that in their lives had brought them so much pleasure and so much anxiety, so much joy and pain. His mind drifted to a surf-riding party at Hong Kong with Billy and Jo Parkinson and a dark girl that he might have married, but didn’t. To a cottage on the
salt marshes near Bosham, where he had had a meal or two with Stone and his wife, to a week-end with Sandy Anderson upon a five-ton yacht in the Solent. In their lives they had taken pleasure from the sea; that it now wrapped them close could not be altogether ill.

He turned to the old lieutenant-commander. “Anybody got a prayer-book on board, do you think?” he said. “We’d better read the service before getting under way.”

The older man, his junior in rank, said: “I’ll ask the captain. But do you think it’s wise to hang about here any longer?”

They had been anchored there for more than two hours, a sitting shot for any submarine. Rutherford hesitated. “Tell the captain to get under way,” he said at last. “I’ll read the service while he circles round the buoy.”

Presently the anchor winch began to grind in chain. The diver, clambering out of the stiff rubber suit, said to his mate in a low tone:

“Nip down and tell cookie to keep my dinner a bit longer. He’s going to read the bloody service.”

“Or-right.”

“Did you ask him about the stewed fruit?”

“He ain’t got none.” The diver made a gesture of annoyance.

The second anchor broke surface: Lieutenant Mitcheson rang for half-speed ahead, and the trawler began to move. She turned in a wide circle. Commander Rutherford went forward to the well deck and stood by the bulwarks facing to the buoy. Then, in a level voice, he began to read from Mitcheson’s prayer-book.

The men stood round him with bared heads, awkward and a little embarrassed. Rutherford read on steadily, conscientiously, and rather badly. He knew that he was bad at reading aloud. His friends had known that too: he thought they wouldn’t mind.

“I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit: for they rest from their labours.”

The trawler turned from the buoy and set a course for home.

•     •     •     •     •

In the study in Admiralty House, Commander Rutherford made his report to the Admiral. Captain Burnaby was there, and Commander Foster, jovial and red-faced.

Rutherford said: “I think there is no doubt that the one off Departure Point is
Caranx
, sir. The long handle was part of the ballast controls, and the hand-wheel was the field-control to one of the motors. We identified that definitely.”

Admiral Blackett said: “Was the other submarine really sunk? It’s been established that she didn’t get away?”

“We had a sweep made yesterday,” said Captain Burnaby. “Commander Rutherford suggested that. There’s definitely a ship there on the bottom, but it’s too deep to get a diver down to her, except under very good conditions.” He paused: “I think there can be very little doubt that she is the submarine that Flying-Officer Chambers sunk.”

“I see.”

The Admiral sat back in his chair. “As you would reconstruct the matter, then,” he said,
“Caranx
was proceeding towards Portsmouth at two-fifteen in the afternoon, in a squall of rain. Probably, she was running on the surface.”

Rutherford said: “Certainly on the surface, I should say. She sent a wireless signal at 1403.”

“Yes—on the surface. As the squall passed she was
sighted by a German, which unfortunately was in a position to torpedo her, and did so.”

The officers nodded their agreement.

The admiral thought for a minute. “The supposition is that, after that, the German took up the course that
Caranx
had been steering on, for Portsmouth. And that he ran upon the surface as
Caranx
had been doing.” He paused. “Why did he do that?”

Commander Foster beamed, leaned forward, and said keenly: “He was a clever chap. He would have seen from her course that
Caranx
was making for the Gate, and he would have realised that aircraft and trawlers would have been warned not to attack her. He may have hoped to get right up into Spithead.”

“So he proceeded on the surface, just as
Caranx
had been doing. He took a very bold course if he did that.”

Commander Foster said: “I think he was probably a very bold man, sir.”

Burnaby said: “That sounds like the truth of it to me. He was doing his best to behave exactly as
Caranx
would have done, in an attempt to get right close into the Gate.”

Commander Rutherford made a grimace. “He might have done a lot of damage if he’d pulled it off.”

The Commander-in-Chief nodded. “Yes, he might have done a lot of damage. Unfortunately for him, he took too long to make up his mind. He was late on his schedule.”

Foster said: “It’s a bit of luck that Air Force pilot got him.” He smiled broadly.

Admiral Blackett leaned forward to the table. “Well, gentlemen, that seems to be the truth of it. I’m glad we’ve been able to clear it up: it’s always very unsatisfactory when things are left unexplained. Now, is there any further business—any other points that anybody has to raise?”