Submariner (2008) (37 page)

Then, what one could think of as three days not entirely wasted. They’d snooped along this stretch for instance for fishing-boats,and
found none where it would matter. Between Pozzallo and Passero had been the greatest regular concentration, day
and
night. But that first night he’d got a signal off to Shrimp confirming that the Comiso team had landed, and Sunday forenoon
in the control room as well as offering up the customary naval prayers he’d asked God to protect the commandos, further their
endeavours and bring them safe home again. The ‘Amens’ had been fiercely insistent, and every man not on watch had been present,
creating trimming problems for McLeod – whose watch it had been anyway – and Mike was asked several times during the rest
of the day whether
he
reckoned the commandos stood any real chance of making it back. He couldn’t say more than that Ormrod had been quietly confident,
and that they were
highly trained and experienced in the work they were doing; they truly had given the impression that for them it was nothing
out of the ordinary. In the boat generally though, there’d still been a lot of speculation and anxiety; most exchanges were
on that subject, and
still
were. Just about everyone was on tenterhooks. Which was unusual. Submariners had never been worriers by nature. They were
saddened when another boat was lost, often desperately so, but they didn’t anticipate calamity, shorten the odds before they
had to. If you’d been inclined to you’d have been scared on your own account, consequently not much use. Which was not to
say that being depth-charged for instance didn’t scare you. It did – anyone half normal. When it was really close and sustained
it scared you rigid, and you knew better than to show it because – well, you
didn’t
. Which was infectious, no one did, you could say it ‘wasn’t done’. You made jokes, if you could. He felt sure Ormrod would
have made jokes.

McLeod, who’d been on a visit to the heads, sat down at the table across from him and reached for his kye. ‘Not going to be
easy getting ’em on board, sir.’

‘
Them
, we’ll manage. Not the canoes.’

‘Not going to try?’

‘No. One, bloody difficult if not impossible; two, time-wasting; and on that score the sooner we get off this coast the better.’
He thought of adding, ‘Besides which it’s our last patrol, remember?’ Didn’t, because everyone knew he didn’t believe in any
of that stuff.

Coming up for 0300. In the bridge,he and Walburton concentrating on forward bearings, the smeary-dark vagueness of land from
which at any moment one might –

Might?

They’d both seen it, fast blue pin-pricks from two miles
away in the scrambled grey-and-whitishness of the shoreline; a commando would have scythed the seascape with his lamp,
his
horizontal mark or guide the wave-tops. Mike had called out ‘
There we go!
’, heard Walburton’s simultaneous reaction as a squawk of ‘Blue light-flashes – something or other’ and was surprised at the
levelness of what had been his own tone, considering the importance of the moment. They’d had a shot at stirring things up
about a minute and a half ago, the signalman pivoting his own blue-lensed lamp in a sweep of the surf-line, not exactly counting
on the lads being there ahead of time and keeping their heads down until given some such encouragement, but
hoping
for it – and lo and behold, even if they’d taken their time about it … Mike telling Walburton to switch on again and hold
it on that bearing – poor sod already doing so, hadn’t needed telling – and stopping both motors, putting the starboard one
astern, to help her round then hold her more or less
in situ
; and now displacing Danvers at the voice-pipe, telling McLeod ‘Casing party stand by in the control room. Bare feet, Mae
Wests and heaving lines. Cox’n stand by for casualties. Blankets, food, tea – in half an hour, twenty minutes.’

Guesswork – distance two sea-miles, canoes surely with nothing like the amount of weight they’d had in them three days ago.
Most likely only the weight of the men themselves – and these were skilled swimmer-canoeists, incidentally with the wind behind
them. And the double flash again now, Ormrod telling him
Here we come
– meaning they’d be carrying their canoes down over beach, rocks and surf into clearish water where they’d saddle-up and
start paddling … Mike mentally acknowledging
Quick as you like, and eight of you, please, preferably all in good shape
. And to Danvers, loudly, ‘Stop starboard, slow ahead port, starboard ten’ and then ‘Midships’, and the course to steer … Once
in the canoes and paddling the commandos had this light to steer on, so by holding her
as she lay now, counting on the one motor being enough to hold her against the wind, and the lamp high enough to be visible
at that distance – but not much further, and strictly on target, so as not to attract enemy attention from any wider area
– this light twenty-five feet above sea-level reaching canoeists’ eyes at a height of about eighteen inches …

Anyway, and thank God, the canoes were in sight with the aid of binoculars after less than thirty minutes, and to the naked
eye not all that much later. Paddles had to be going like hell – driving them as he’d now realised slightly
across
the wind:
Ursa
of course bow-on – her shoulder to it as it were, and her 600 tons by no means static. Jarvis, Hart, Leading Torpedoman Brooks
and Torpedoman/wardroom flunkey Barnaby, in wet-weather gear and equipped with coiled hemp heaving-lines, crowded into the
centre of the bridge between Mike and Danvers in the curve of its forepart and the lookouts abaft them – and no point their
going down on the casing until the canoes were in reach of their lines or nearly so.

Three canoes. Two canoeists in each of them, all right, but –

Needing
only three?

‘Sir –’Walburton at close range in his ear: ‘Only six blokes, sir!’

Jarvis then: ‘Christ – three canoes, Second, not four.’ Addressing Hart as ‘Second’, normal abbreviation of ‘Second Coxswain’.
Hart responding with a growl of ‘Bloody hell …’

‘All right we go down, sir?’

‘Yes, go on.’

Barefooted, as the best way of
staying
on – of staying on
board
, in fact. More than enough men had drowned off casings in foul weather. The two front-running canoes weren’t far out of line-throwing
range now, even against the wind. Walburton perched up in the bridge’s forefront with his
Aldis, shifting its beam between the three wildly tossing boats, the beam’s silvery fallout also illuminating the scene as
a whole – at this moment a line arcing blackly through it to fall just short of the nearest – and Mike yelling through a megaphone, ‘Leave
the canoes adrift! Only yourselves! Not embarking canoes!’ One boat had already secured a line and was being hauled in, the
second just this moment catching its own, bowman snatching a turn on a towing-cleat. First one though – might have been the
leader, the one they’d missed with that first line – soaring bow-up almost to the vertical and turning on the swell, smashing
down then beam-on and bomb-like against
Ursa
’s side, its crew spilling out or
had
spilled out but still mixed up with it, crabbing and floundering at the casing’s edge then actually – miraculously – on board,
and moments later helping – Barnaby, it looked like – sending their own or another canoe’s wreckage on its way – over the
port side, gone. Elsewhere, casing party and canoeists fighting their way aft – not by a long chalk easy … One in particular
– canoeist – who’d collapsed on the casing after being hauled on board, but then by the look of it made this solo effort,
then slumped again, been saved from washing on over by Brooks and another hand lifting him like a corpse. By no means anything
like easy, with this much movement on her: for one man, would have been impossible, you’d have gone over with him. In fact
surprising he hadn’t: that
they
hadn’t. Out of sight now anyway, close below the forefront of the bridge. The gun would be a useful staging-point – for a
moment or two’s pause hanging on to it while grabbing a breath, and/or a wave crashed over, then a quick dash and scramble
to the tower with its iron rail around it.

Six were as many as you were getting. Two absentees – casualties – out of eight. Could have been worse maybe –
had
been, on previous occasions – but –

Hadn’t seen or heard Ormrod yet. And – he’d been aware of this for a minute or two – one
would
have, surely.

‘Cor strike a fuckin’ light!’

‘Who’s there?’

‘Beg pardon – sir. Marine Block, I –’

‘Better get below, Block. Hatch
there
– see?’

‘– across my shoulders, right? Brooks – here …’ Voice of Jarvis, at the base of the tower or on the rungs, talking not about
Block but that casualty. Others heaving into sight and sound – including Hart in his immensity looming amongst them, but
this
was –

‘Captain, sir?’

‘Yes, Sergeant –’

‘Colour-Sergeant Gant reporting with five men,sir. Major Ormrod’s dead. So’s Marine Denneker. Report later, sir, may I?’

‘Yes. Go on down. I’m
bloody
sorry, Sergeant.’ ‘Yessir.’ He’d saluted in the noisy dark, moved to help with the man or body Jarvis was getting in over
the side of the bridge, might have a job manoeuvring down through the tower. All extremely lively. Mike hadn’t asked how it
had gone at Comiso:
would
have asked Ormrod,but Gant’s ‘Report later’ would substitute for that. Meanwhile, for Christ’s sake, Ormrod
dead
. And one other. He told Danvers, ‘Start engines, half ahead together. Port twenty, steer – what was it, one-seven-five?’

175 degrees it was. Setting out on the one-night return trip with approximately twelve miles between oneself and
Unsung
, and she according to the orders steering 185: about twelve miles between them,plus the ten-degree rate of further separation.
Good enough if Melhuish had recovered his commandos and was pushing it along. The importance of
Unsung
completing her pickup on schedule was that if for
instance that team didn’t make it until say 0400, with moonrise about 0430 and sunrise half an hour after, there wouldn’t
be a lot of time to spare, and you could bet there
would
be A/S forces off this coast tonight. He left Danvers with the watch, and went on down. Blue watch on now,Tubby Hart again
in charge in the control room. Mike told him, ‘You and your party did a needle job up there, Second.’

‘Turned out all right, sir, didn’t it. An’ seems they done that airfield a fair treat!’

‘Is that so?’

‘What they’re saying, sir.’

‘Well,
is
it.’ He went on through to the wardroom, thinking about the signal he had to send Shrimp now, and wondering whether the convoy
had got through, or was getting through. According to Lazenby there’d been surprisingly little signal traffic. He asked McLeod,
‘What about the damaged one?’

‘Nasty-looking head-wound. Bullet or shrapnel, Cox’n isn’t sure, but he must have done himself further damage on the casing.
He was mobile, apparently, didn’t want them carrying him.’

‘But
paddling
?’

‘I know, sir. Amazing. Marine Newton. Cox’n’s got him in the POs’ mess. Gant’s there too, sir.’

‘Right.’ Looking at Jarvis, who was smoking on his bunk. ‘You all right, Sub?’

‘Right as rain, sir, except for a few bruises.’

‘You did a good job.’

‘Thank you, sir. Damn shame, the Major –’

‘Yes.’ He went for’ard, to the Leading Hands’ and POs’ mess, which had been evacuated by its usual inhabitants. Marine Newton
was unconscious on the after thwartships bunk with his head parcelled in bandages, not much face visible, and a blanket over
him; Cox’n in attendance, also Colour-Sergeant Gant and the two corporals.

‘Been able to do anything for him, Cox’n?’

There was a general shifting around, letting him in from the gangway. Swathely, who as cox’n was keeper of the boat’s medical
stores and had done a course of doctoring, was saying, ‘Did like for other wounds – cleaned it, then this new stuff. But I
don’t know … Be in about sunset, will we, sir?’

‘Better than that – afternoon or first dog, I hope. Battery’s low, unfortunately. I’ll ask for an ambulance to meet us. I’ve
a signal to make to S.10 before we dive – and that’s something else, Gant, they’ll be wanting to know how it went at Comiso
– short answer, success or failure?’

‘As near success as in your right mind you’d hope for, sir. Except for losing the Major.’

‘Was he shot, or –’

‘Yeah.’ A nod. ‘He –’

‘But hold on – aircraft destroyed – rough idea how many, what kind?’

‘Better ’n we ever done, sir. 88s, mostly – couple o’ dozen, could be – 87s too. Maybe a third of what there was – and a field
generator blown up – the Major done that right at the start, put the lights out for us. Then a fuel store – my aunt,
didn’t
it go up!’

‘Object of the operation achieved, might say?’

‘Could say we wrecked the field, sir.’

‘What I will say, then. Congratulations!’

Although no one seemed to be smiling much. On account of Ormrod, he supposed. Gant adding at that moment, ‘Fact is, sir, it
was Major Ormrod’s plan, start to finish, he’d worked it up to really something. It and
us
, to put it square and honest.’

‘Well – he’d have been proud of you, too. Tell me though – the disengagement, early hours Monday – did the RAF come up to
scratch?’

‘We had ’em dropping shit on us an hour or more.
Good old ruckus, and they timed it right. Yeah, took the pressure off of us, like he’d wanted.’

‘We didn’t hear any going over, but they were taking a roundabout route, weren’t they – so one didn’t know. He’d have been
glad that came off.’ To Swathely – change of subject – ‘Breakfast after we’ve dived, Cox’n – all right?’

‘Good and ready for it by then, sir, speaking personal.’ A glance down at his patient. ‘Be comfier for this lad once we’re
under.’ A nod to Gant: ‘Heads down until lunch then, eh?’