Submariner (2008) (19 page)

Diving stations now – nine forty-five. Half an hour ago he’d brought her up to periscope depth for a look-round and a couple
of shore bearings, which as it happened had put her within a mile or two of her DR eighteen miles north of Cape San Vito.
A light overcast had developed in the previous few hours, and the wind had come up to about force 4 – still from the northwest.
In these conditions it would be dark enough to surface by ten, so – considering alternatives, over the chart – he’d decided
to stay on this course,080, throughout the dark hours. Best part of seven hours’ charging, and making about five knots, say –
dive somewhere off the Gallo here at 0500 or thereabouts, daylight patrol then closer inshore and westward. Unless of course
one got any better ideas between now and then. But later in the day, a snoop down past the Egades maybe.

At diving stations now anyway – a nod to McLeod, and ‘Stand by to surface’– usual checks and reports then following, Walburton
opening the lower lid and shinning down again,
leaving the ladder clear for Mike; McLeod’s ‘Ready to surface, sir’, Mike giving the order and starting up. It was good and
dark up top by this time – final periscope check having revealed nothing but slightly jumpy seascape, even with the help of
the two-day-old scraping of moon which had risen in mid-afternoon and would set in four or five hours’ time, meanwhile had
thickening cloud to contend with. McLeod intoning, ‘Twenty-five feet – twenty – fifteen –’, Mike right under the top hatch
– first clip off, pin out of the second, one hand up grasping the handle in the hatch’s centre – not that that would hold
it, steadying himself was all – but Walburton now hugging him around the knees, adding his own twelve or thirteen stone to
Mike’s. McLeod’s voice echoey in the tower below them – ‘Twelve feet – eight …’ and the second clip swinging free, hatch crashing
up and back, the pressure built up from having fired torpedoes virtually exploding up around them but
not
taking Mike with it like the cork out of a bottle of fizz, which without having taken those precautions it might have done.
He’d yelled ‘Right!’, Walburton had let go and he was clambering out into the dark, salt-streaming bridge.

He’d put a note in his night-order book to be given a shake at 0400, and when Barnaby as messenger in Danvers’ watch woke
him he felt as if he’d had a full night’s sleep. In fact he hadn’t got his head down until some time after midnight – mainly
on account of his own aversion to moonlight, and cloud-cover being unreliable until about then. Same old contradictory thinking
– his officers being entirely capable and reliable,
Ursa
safe in their hands moon or no moon: only one’s sensitivity to the fact that just a moment’s inattention or misconception,
combined maybe with a dozy lookout …

Anyway, had had the best part of four hours’ sleep, and wouldn’t have wanted more.

‘Morning, sir.’

McLeod – pulling the chair out and thumping down into it, reaching for a mug, telling him, ‘The box has come up quite well.
Another hour’ll see it about right. Smoke, sir?’

‘No – thanks.’ Remembering that soon after surfacing last night he’d agreed to cut speed-through-the-water to nearer three
knots than five, to get a larger proportion of the generators’ output into the battery. After all, one wasn’t going anywhere
in any hurry, and
had
drained it somewhat, with those high-speed bursts. Hence the amount of movement now – with little more than steerage-way
on her, it didn’t take much to make her roll. He said – about the battery – ‘That’s fine, then.’

‘There’s kye for you on the table here, sir.’

‘Initiative of Barnaby’s, or yours?’

‘Oh, Barnaby’s …’

Barnaby would have shaken McLeod just before the hour, since he had to get himself ready to take over on the bridge by a quarter-past, while
he, Barnaby, would have been relieved by his Red watch counterpart
at
the hour. In fact, come to think of it, one had heard the watch changing, presumably while still comatose. And McLeod must
have gone aft right away to check with the LTOs on the battery-state – pausing only to light that cigarette. He was, actually,
an extremely competent first lieutenant, Mike thought: never lost his sense of the priorities, definitely
should
be recommended for his Perisher when they got back. In the gangway now pulling on Ursula-suit trousers – which he’d need,
she
was
throwing herself around a bit. Up to about force 5, he guessed. On 080 still, of course, wind and sea by the feel of it still
northwest, a little abaft the beam.

Very hot kye. In the semi-darkness, sucking noises from McLeod braced against the table – audible even through the boat’s
gyrations, thump and rush of sea through the casing above
their heads, pounding around the gun and tower. Jarvis’s snores, surprisingly,
in
audible. Mike at the table now – transference being an easy feet-first slide from bunk to bench – with a hand to his mug ensuring
it was still there. McLeod stubbing out his cigarette: ‘Dive on the watch, sir, or –’

‘I’ll join you up there about half-past. Meanwhile might run the blower on one and six, eh?’

‘Might indeed, sir.’

One and six being the main ballast tanks that were supposedly empty, keeping her on the surface. With a certain amount of
tossing around, air tended to get spilled out of the free-flood holes in their bottoms, and to replace it, buoy her up, you
opened one-way valves in the low-pressure air-line and started a machine called the blower, effectively a high-powered fan,
ran it for a quarter of an hour or so every few hours. By forcing down any existing level of water in the tanks it made life
a bit drier for watchkeepers in the bridge, and reduced chances of the boat diving of her own accord.

He lit a cigarette. The kye was drinkable now. Reflecting that Charles Melhuish should have
Unsung
well on her way to Malta by this time. Having spent yesterday under the mines, surfaced off Cape San Marco last night – then
another day and night, to Lazaretto, and – he thought wryly,
See the conquering hero comes
… Snide as well as wry, admittedly; but with that cruiser under his belt he might well be a little above himself – having
started that way, for God’s sake … Day after tomorrow anyway, he’d be in: this now being Monday, one week since
Ursa
’s return to Malta from the fleshpots of the Levant. Sailed from there Tuesday evening: not even six days at sea yet, although
it felt like more. The business with the Garibaldi had seemed to drag things out a bit. But whether or not the convoy from
Gib was on its way, or had been – got through, or otherwise – at least some of them, please God? A few ships in Grand Harbour
now, maybe, discharging
by floodlights on to wharves or into lighters – please God,
some
at least?

0500 then, down into peace and quiet,
Ursa
steady as a rock even at thirty feet. It had been fairly brisk up there, with the overhead of thin, fast-moving cloud and
a lot of the white stuff flying, pinkish dawn spreading like a stain from over Messina and the Italian toe. It had been time
to get down out of it in any case, and was certainly a lot more comfortable. He’d dived her on the klaxon – the earsplitting
emergency dive signal, a large press-button just under the rim of the hatch – to remind all hands what it sounded like, since
in these five days and nights at sea oddly enough it hadn’t been used. It was a hell of a thing to wake up to, a lot more
startling than the alternative, a howl of ‘Dive, dive, dive!’

All still and quiet again now, anyway. From the rush to diving stations with near-busted eardrums, men drifting back to their
various berths and hammocks. Red watch, watch diving, was the broadcast order – and Cottenham had retired to his galley to
conjure up an early breakfast.
Ursa
by now steadied on 250 degrees, with Gallo Head on her beam to port, Cape San Vito thirty on that bow. Both motors slow,
grouped down. He told Danvers, who’d been cleaning the chart of yesterday’s position lines, ‘Might take a look into the Castellammare
Gulf later on.’

‘Closer in than we were last time, perhaps?’

‘Well. See how it goes.’ He looked up, sniffed: ‘Might it be the exquisite aroma of soya links I’m getting?’

A nod. ‘Links, fried bread, powdered egg.’

‘Marvellous …’

Meant that, too – happened to like both soya skinless sausages
and
the much-maligned powdered egg.

* * *

Having had a good sleep last night, after breakfast he got stuck into the Scott Fitzgerald novel for an hour or two. Hadn’t
been wildly enthusiastic about it to start with, in fact had more or less forced himself into it out of politeness to Aunt
Jennie, but in this last hour had begun to find himself caught up in it, especially in the relationship between Stahl and
Kathleen. Kathleen in particular appealing to him – he was beginning to think, a variety of Abigail? Not by Fitzgerald’s indications
physically resembling her, or for that matter really
sounding
like her, but still this sense of empathy.

‘Tea’s wet, sir, if you’d like some?’

‘D’you know, Barnaby, I would?’

‘Keep body an’ soul together, as they say.’

‘I’m sure they’re right …’

McLeod’s forenoon watch, this, Jarvis and Danvers both flat out in their bunks. From next door, familiar small sounds of the
periscope watch, backed by the motors’ low thrum, that went with the warmth and stillness.

Leave Kathleen to her own devices for a while, he thought, get some shut-eye.

‘Char, sir.’

‘Thanks.’ Dark-brown tea in the usual stained mug. ‘Can’t sleep, Barnaby?’

‘Crash it in a minute, sir, dare say.’

Time now eleven-fifteen. The tea was hot enough to wait while he paid a visit to the control room. Nods or friendly glances
from watchkeepers McLeod, Swathely, Fraser, Ellery, Smithers, Barnet. Pausing at the chart – checking the pencilled course
with an 1100 position on it. Familiar territory, of course – early Saturday, one had been here. Passing pretty well through
the centre of the billet – slightly south of centre today, only just off the thirty-mile-wide opening of the Castellammare
Golfo. On Saturday they’d dived with Gallo Head on roughly the same bearing as it had been a few
hours ago, only further offshore: the other difference being that with a livelier wind and sea up top, and using both motors
to make depth-keeping easier, you were achieving the dizzy speed of two knots instead of slightly less than one and a half.
Pass San Vito around four p.m., he thought; might alter to due west for the last few hours of daylight – Marettimo on the
bow then, at about twenty-five miles’ range.

He asked McLeod, ‘Visibility still good?’

‘Clear as a bell, sir.’

‘No schooners in there today.’

‘A few little widgers right inshore is all, sir.’

So – tea, then kip. And while at the tea, maybe another page of the Fitzgerald story. He’d stopped at a point where there’s
some mix-up over a letter Kathleen’s left in Stahl’s car: she’s been out on a date with him that evening, he doesn’t know
whether she’d intended him to find it or forgotten about it, maybe had second thoughts on whatever she’d put on paper earlier
in the day. So whether or not he should open it –

‘Captain, sir.’

McLeod – in the gangway, a shoulder against the bulkhead dividing wardroom and control room. Mike recalled having heard him
sending the periscope down a few seconds ago.

‘Uh?’

‘Some sort of activity inshore of us, sir. There’s a Cant circling over the gulf and with the stick right up I
thought
I saw a Mas-boat in there. Can’t now, and asdics haven’t, but –’

‘Let’s have a dekko.’

Time, 1125. Reminding himself on his way through that Castellammare would be about eighty on the bow, distance say seven and
a half miles, i.e. 15,000 yards, in this sea-state rather long range for spotting Mas-boats. A nod to Ellery, ’scope purring
up; needles on 28 feet. Handles down, and
starting with an air-search. If Cants anywhere overhead, see the bastards before they see you – they or
it
. Not that you’d expect them to, with this broken, wind-whipped surface. He was on to it quickly in any case – small black
excrescence against the clean blue between streaks and whorls of fast-travelling cloud. Well clear anyway, no immediate threat.
A mutter to McLeod: ‘Your shagbat’s there, all right.’ Sky-search completed, following it with a medium- to long-range examination
of the lively, dazzling-bright seascape. ’Scope well up, as McLeod had had it, on the bearing of Castellammare itself now.

No Mas-boats discernible. ‘Little widgers’, yes – fishing-boats …

Fraser blurted, upright suddenly on his stool, ‘HE, sir, red two-oh! Fast turbine. Destroyer, could be. True bearing –’ adjusting
the knob on his gyro-linked bearing-ring, Mike swivelling fast, instantly aware that with the boat’s head on 250 anything
twenty degrees on her port bow had to be roughly on the bearing of Cape San Vito – an area of sea which as it happened he’d
just searched. Well – half a minute ago, he had. Getting back there quickly, and – ‘
Christ
…’ Destroyer, all right. He was about thirty on its port bow. Forty maybe. Destroyer under helm and naturally enough with
a lot of movement on her, couple of miles ahead – no, three, could be – toy warship in sight and sound maybe within less than
a minute of having rounded that point – helm over again now, pretty well on her ear in a morass of flying sea, making he guessed
twenty-five, thirty knots.

Which wouldn’t be too comfortable. Had to be some justification – urgency …

‘Port fifteen. Steer one-seven-oh.’

‘– one-seven-oh, sir. Fifteen of port wheel on –’

Mike told McLeod, ‘Destroyer entering the gulf. Stop port.’ ‘Stop port, sir –’

‘Christ –’

‘I think – two of ’em, sir –’

‘Damn right, Fraser!’

Precursors of
what
?

‘Two hundred revs, sir. Two-one-oh.’

Shoving the handles up, periscope starting down. Fraser muttering to himself, shaking his head, beady eyes on the asdics’
bearing-ring. Smithers reporting, ‘Course one-seven-oh, sir.’ Mike with the two destroyers in clear sight but otherwise empty
seascape all around, nothing else, thinking in answer to his own question
Precursors of bugger-all
, and in search of an explanation deciding to check on what if anything might be happening off Castellammare, where a second
or two before Fraser had come up with this he’d
thought
he’d seen smoke. Meaning damn-all, maybe: dockyard, emission of smoke, so what? The more cogent questions being whether these
destroyers might be escorting some other vessel so far astern of them it hadn’t yet rounded San Vito – which was improbable
– or simply arriving on their own, Cant up there to ensure
safe
arrival, McLeod’s Mas-boat or Mas-boats real or imagined, but if real also in some way connected with this arrival?
Or
, destroyers here to collect /provide escort for some major unit that might shortly poke its nose out.