Submariner (2008) (2 page)

It was a young man’s job, was all. A very fit young man’s, at that. And in Malta even harbour-time had had its acute anxieties.
In fact, that the blitzkrieg should have ended so suddenly wasn’t all that easy to believe, trust in entirely. Possibly not
all that wise to either, Mike told himself,
so let’s not
. He had three officers and twenty-eight ratings in this fairly minuscule, under-armed and frustratingly slow submarine, he’d
had her and them out here with him for well over a year – sixteen patrols in that time – or was it seventeen? – and touch
wood might not be many months before he took them home again. All of them – the boat intact and her men alive – also, in his
own view, bloody marvellous. Despite there having been times that had taken a bit of getting through. They’d stood up to it
and learnt from it, that was the thing, they knew their business and were proud of it, weren’t going to let either him or
each other down.
Ursa
could count herself as one of the flotilla’s veterans and top scorers now; there were new or newish boats and faces, and
yet newer ones on their way, replacements for those who’d come to grief or – the lucky ones – done their time and gone home
for refit, but of the really old guard, the
crème de la crème
– well, there’d been two grievous losses in very recent times. Not that any loss was anything less than grievous: but David
Wanklyn VC and
Upholder
had been lost at the end of April, on what was to have been his last patrol before going home, and his close friend, the
equally successful and well-liked ‘Tommo’ Tomkinson and his boat
Urge
, a fortnight later.

Flag Officer Submarines Max Horton was sending replacements all right, maintaining or even increasing the flotilla’s strength,
but neither of those two individuals or their crews could ever be thought of as replaceable.

The lookouts – Barnet, a torpedoman, and Brighouse, stoker – were on the job now at the after end of the bridge, searching the
sky bare-eyed, out of long habit and common sense dividing it between them, and Mike had passed the order down to completely
empty numbers two, three, four and five main ballast. Walburton meanwhile had the ensign flying from its staff, and was up
on the gleaming-wet periscope standard bending on the Roger. Jolly Roger,
Ursa
’s own record of her successes, a black flag with a somewhat crude white skull and crossbones central, bars in the fly for
ships sunk by torpedo, stars under crossed gun-barrels for enemies dispatched by gunfire. White bars for merchantmen, red for
warships, dagger symbols for special operations such as train-wrecking and landing /embarking agents or commandos.
Ursa
had plenty to her credit, and for this last patrol a new white bar that Walburton had painstakingly stitched on last night.
Making – Mike had forgotten how many torpedoings. A round dozen, roughly. Tonnage in any case was now over thirty thousand.
Thirty-two or -three, probably. It was tonnage you went by: the flotilla’s score was around the half-million mark at this
stage.

He lowered his glasses, stooping to the voice-pipe: ‘Come five degrees to starboard.’

‘Five to starboard, sir!’

Voice of Able Seaman Smithers, gunlayer. Glasses up again: the sweeper calling them up and Walburton, down from the
periscope standard, grabbing the Aldis and flashing a go-ahead. Mike read the incoming message for himself: ‘Looks like your
Jolly Roger flying. Good bag, I hope?’

‘Tell him, one fair-sized transport, laden.’

Fair-sized and
well
laden. Eight or nine thousand tons, at any rate. So how many
Soldaten
who wouldn’t be joining Rommel – five thousand? Twice that number? Germans, for preference – one dead German being worth
ten Italians. Destroyers had picked up quite a lot of them; and one of the destroyers would have gone too, complete with its
load of rescuees, if
Ursa
had had the right torpedoes, the Mark VIIIs she should have had. Torpedoes had always been in short supply, and the shortage
had become substantially worse when a U-boat had torpedoed the submarine depot ship
Medway
on her way from Alexandria to Haifa during the evacuation. She’d had ninety spares in crates on her upper deck; destroyers
out of Haifa and Port Said had recovered about forty floaters the next day, but it was still a serious loss. As had
Medway
herself, of course – actually a shocking loss.

The sweeper had replied, ‘Well done you.’ Maintaining her distance ahead –
Ursa
making about ten knots, which was her best surfaced speed. Malta dramatically aglow with the lowering sun behind it: Fort
Ricasoli off to port, then the entrance to Grand Harbour darkening in a haze that was not far short of purple, Fort St Elmo’s
façade and foreshore more rose-tinted. No red flag flying on the Castile: no enemy aircraft around, therefore. And from there,
now training his glasses right – past the St Elmo lighthouse, then Point Sant’Jiermu, less distinct from this bearing and
distance – inside Point Tigne was the entrance to Marsamxett Harbour and Sliema Creek. Those two waterways being separated
once you were inside by Manoel Island, with Fort Manoel at its eastern end and Lazaretto, the 10th Flotilla’s base, facing directly
on to Lazaretto Creek running northwestward out of Marsamxett.

Visualising it, of course, not seeing it yet – not for about twenty or thirty minutes yet. Actually, looking forward to the
sight of it: not home
sweet
home, exactly, but having been forced out, and returning now – there was a pleasure in
that
– and anyway with all the memories good and bad, a
kind
of home – even though last time one had seen it, had been largely rubble.

Clear sky, still. Darkening, colours deepening, still no hostiles in it. There’d be Spit and/or Hurricane patrols in northern
offshore sectors, he supposed. Although the RAF wouldn’t be burning up aviation spirit any faster than they had to. Petrol
did come in by submarine – the larger boats, such as the minelayers and the River-class – and even T-class visiting with loads
of it in their ballast tanks – but in relation to actual requirements it could only be a trickle, nothing like enough to satisfy
the Spitfires’ thirst. The so-called ‘Magic Carpet’ boats brought other stuff as well, of course – medical stores, for instance,
or special foods for invalids and babies – whatever was most urgently required and they had room for.

A convoy operation would be the priority now, Mike thought. Shrimp had in fact said as much, when they’d been in Haifa; he’d
been desperate to get his submarines back where they belonged.

The sweeper was flashing:
Can you find your own way from here to Lazaretto?

‘Make to him,“Might just stumble on it. Thanks for your company.”’

Walburton muttering the words to himself as he aimed the lamp and started sending. Mike stooped to the pipe: ‘Starboard ten
…’

Entering harbour, finally. McLeod with him in the bridge, also the coxswain, CPO Jacko Swathely – steering from the wheel
up here in the bridge now – and casing party down
on the casing, five men for’ard and three aft, under the supervision of Sub-Lieutenant Tommy Jarvis RNVR and the second coxswain
Petty Officer Hart, known to his friends as Tubby. You could see why they called him that, but he was a big man, could manage
his avoirdupois all right. Also in the bridge was
Ursa
’s fourth hand and navigating officer, Sub-Lieutenant Pete Danvers RNR, who’d come into the RN, and after a year or two into
submarines, out of a Merchant Navy cadetship.
Ursa
motoring into Marsamxett now with Fort Manoel to starboard and Valetta to port, and a
dghaisa
ferryman in his gondola-shaped craft waving his hat and screeching with joy, one scrawny sun-blackened arm pointing at the
Jolly Roger flapping from the after standard. Mike and others gave him a wave. It did feel like a homecoming now: in water
in which, in the final month or more before pulling out, submarines in harbour between patrols had had to spend their days
lying on the bottom in fifty or sixty feet of water, surfacing at dusk to resume necessary maintenance work and other preparations
for patrol.

Lazaretto in clear sight to starboard, finally. Two U-class lying between buoys, with floating brows connecting them to shore,
and what was known as the wardroom berth, right alongside the old building, vacant, reserved for the new arrival. Mike said, ‘Group
down, slow both’, and while McLeod was passing that order down told CPO Swathely, who was about shoulder-height to him, ‘Put
her alongside, Cox’n. And stand by to pipe.’

‘Aye, sir …’

Swathely with a look of satisfaction on his well-weathered features: bosun’s call ready in his palm, ready to sound the ‘Still’
and bring all hands to attention in salute to the boss, old Shrimp.

Shrimp shook his hand. ‘Nice work, Michael. And good to be back where we belong, eh?’

‘Is indeed, sir. Good to see you too.’ Mike in khaki, Shrimp in white shirt and shorts and the four stripes of a captain on
his shoulder-boards. Not all that tall – hence the nickname – but stocky, solid, with a broad face and strong jaw: a fighter’s
face, although the truth was that he was a kind man, thoughtful and easy-going, as well as highly resilient and innovative in
his approach to the problems of command in exceptionally haphazard circumstances. Tailor-made for the job, in fact. They were
old friends, Mike having served under him in the Harwich flotilla in 1940, Mike then with his first command, one of the old
H-class, on anti-invasion patrol on the Dutch coast mainly, and Shrimp with only three stripes but commanding
that
flotilla – which like this one had been scrambled together in a hurry and with few facilities beyond those of Shrimp’s own
devising. Anyway –
had
known each other quite a while: and meeting now on the arcade on the Lazaretto waterfront, outside the wardroom,
Ursa
secured alongside right there on the harbour side of the low, yellowish
limestone wall and series of arches; Shrimp glancing up at
Ursa
’s Jolly Roger, becalmed and drooping over her blue-painted hull in the lee of the fine old building.

Hull, casing and bridge blue-painted for camouflage when dived. Italian Cant seaplanes flying so slowly that they were almost
hovering could see you seventy feet down, when there was no lop on the surface.

Shrimp commented, ‘Roger getting a bit full, eh?’

‘Oh – still a
little
room, sir …’

Gear was being brought ashore over
Ursa
’s plank – sailors’ own gear, bags and hammocks, some cargo too, crates of stuff from Haifa – amongst it a few cases of gin
for the wardroom mess, as well as items that were perhaps more obviously essential – medical stores, so forth. There wasn’t
much room to spare in a U-class submarine: in fact there wasn’t
any
. Anyway McLeod and the coxswain would be supervising all that, McLeod assisted of course by young Jarvis, and with base staff
on hand to show them the layout of the place as now revamped during the flotilla’s absence. Mike had been greeted by the COs
of
Ultra
and
Unbowed
, and others too, a whole bunch of them, as he’d come over the plank, but they’d left him to Shrimp now, of course. Those
two, Jimmy Ruck and Guy Mottram, would be sailing for patrol before first light, he’d gathered in those first exchanges, and
as they could only have been here a day or so it seemed likely that Shrimp would be pushing
Ursa
out fairly smartly too. Which was fine, what one was here for, but her officers and crew would meanwhile be wanting to know
the form, how long a respite they’d be getting. Mike didn’t even have to look round to know that McLeod, for instance, would
be on the casing with an eye on him, waiting for the word – which Shrimp would come out with soon enough. Telling him meanwhile
that the care and maintenance team had done bloody wonders during the flotilla’s absence: ‘I’ll show you. Tunnelled-out new
sleeping quarters – and sickbay, ops room, staff office etcetera – new bathrooms right beside the mess-decks – well, blooming
luxury! The cabins up there are habitable again, incidentally.’

Above this arcade, which ran the full length of the building, was a first-floor gallery – balcony – with COs’ cabins leading
off it, under the building’s flat stone roof. Ten weeks ago, a lot of it had been open to the elements – stone blocks blown
out of the roof, all the glass and timber frames out of every window, COs and everyone else sleeping – living, more or less
– in rock tunnels in the limestone cliff that backed the building itself. It was a saving grace in fact that tunnelling was
so easy – not only here, but all over the island. Shrimp added, about the cabins, ‘As long as when the sirens go you leg it
down into cover right away – no hanging around, no excuses accepted, alternative’s to sleep in the tunnels as before – all
right?’

‘Aye, sir.’

A bit of a threat in that, too. The cavern used as officers’ sleeping quarters, at the height of the blitz here, had originally
been an underground oil storage tank – with oil sludge on its uneven flooring, planks put down on and in that as walkways,
and the most God-awful stench. But the maintenance people would have done something about it by now, he guessed.
Must
have … Asking Shrimp, ‘The bastards
are
still at it, then?’

‘Lord, yes. Couldn’t expect ’em to ignore us altogether. It’s roughly like it was in January – a raid or two most days, nights
too. But the RAF’s coping well now, and quite a bit of it’s not Luftwaffe but Regia Aeronautica.’

Italian air force. They were less like mad dogs than their German allies. Tended to stay high, and to beat it when powerfully
discouraged. The island’s gunners, Royal Artillery and Royal Malta Artillery, were pretty damn good by this time, despite
a high rate of casualties. They were a splendid
lot: a diving Stuka took a bit of standing up to. Shrimp had changed the subject: ‘There’s mail for you, I think. Might as
well pick it up while we’re here.’ Leading the way into the wardroom – which was unchanged. Spacious, cavernous, darkish by
virtue of the covered arcade outside it, its most striking feature was the big fireplace at its centre, with an open hearth
in each of its stone chimney’s four sides. But also, inside the archway entrance, on the right, the flotilla’s scoreboard,
a chart-sized square of board with submarines’ names and/or numbers down the left-hand edge, ruled columns allowing a small
rectangle for the results of each patrol, little thumbnail sketches in it of targets sunk or damaged. In some cases – far
too many – the ‘strip cartoons’ terminated in a space blanked-off with diagonals. Making it as much a memorial as a scoreboard.
Mike’s eyes moving from
Ursa
’s to
Urge
’s and
Upholder
’s – both of those blanked off. By very recent hand of one of Shrimp’s staff, probably;
Urge
had been lost during the general exodus, on her way to Alex, and Shrimp plus staff had flown in from Cairo only a few days
ago, ahead of all returning boats.