Submariner (2008) (38 page)

Mike went back aft, looking forward to getting his own down before long. After breakfast, yes – go deep, sleep like a dog,
with any luck dream of Abbie … In the wardroom, McLeod had fallen asleep over his thriller and Jarvis was flat out, snarling
rhythmically. Mike sat down with a signal-pad and pencil to note down items to be conveyed to Shrimp by W/T.
Ursa
’s diving position at five,and her ETA Malta – before sunset anyway. Comiso airfield reported wrecked, fuel store and numerous
Ju 87s and 88s destroyed. Major Ormrod and Marine Denneker killed,remainder on board including Marine Newton unconscious with
head wound,hospitalisation urgent on arrival.

That would about do it, he thought. Abbie would be happy too – he’d promised her no longer than a week, and it would have
been five days. In fact he’d told her a week thinking that with luck they’d do it in five days, but in the knowledge that
if Ormrod and his team didn’t make the first RV there’d have been another in the same place twenty-four hours later; and the
seven-day forecast would have covered that.

It was pretty good, in fact, to be on the way back to her, having concluded this business that had had to be seen to first,
and which incidentally
had
been his last patrol – he was clear of all that now – that was it, clear of just about everything except Abbie and the way
he and she felt about each other.

Goofing at his notes, realising it wasn’t a feeling he’d had before.

‘Uh?’

‘Sorry, sir – clumsy – woke you –’

‘Wasn’t actually asleep. Putting this together for Shrimp. Our ETA plus glad tidings of Comiso.’

‘The buzz was right then, sir, they made a job of it?’

‘Did indeed. Except for losing Ormrod. Successful action attributed incidentally by Colour-Sergeant Gant entirely to his –
Ormrod’s – planning and leadership.’

‘Decent of him.’

‘Yes. Epitaph, might say.’

Abbie was still in his head, though. Get back to her in a minute, with luck. He’d heard McLeod say he only hoped it had gone
well for the convoy, adding after a moment, ‘Might get in half an hour’s bunk-time before my watch.’

‘Good idea. Shake me before you go up.’

He’d been sound asleep but the dream had been of Ann. He didn’t remember much about it except that she’d been making plans
for his return, which he’d found exciting, and now of course embarrassing. Well –
dreams
… He turned out immediately for fear of dropping off again: time now 0415, moonrise 0435 – whether or not cloud-cover let
any of it through – and anyway he was going to dive on the watch at 0500. On the watch again in preference to sending the
hands to diving stations or breaking eardrums with the klaxon when those poor bastards were getting their first sleep in four
days. Which sounded impossible – he guessed they’d surely have cat-napped in their hide. Also they’d had Benzedrine. Although
actually, he thought, it was
astonishing
what they’d achieved and come out of – most of them …

Three-quarters dark in the wardroom now, with the gangway curtain drawn and no white lights, only one red bulb in the lamp
above the table, for the sake of one’s night vision. Which admittedly he’d be setting back now by visiting
the wireless office – where Telegraphist Martin, the younger of Lazenby’s two operators, confirmed that the signal to S.10
had been acknowledged. Less good was that nothing had come in. He’d hoped Shrimp might have had news to give him of the convoy,
and that Melhuish, to whom he’d repeated his own signal (as well as to Vice-Admiral Malta,Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean,
and Admiralty) might have come up with something. Such as where he was,
his
damned ETA – even how Flood’s commandos had done at Gela. But with not a peep out of her, one could only assume that he was
where he was supposed to be – twelve-plus miles west or west-northwest, and like
Ursa
diving before first light.

Sooner, maybe. Might not stay up and risk the moon. The battery was lower than one would have liked it to be at the start
of a day’s dive; but then, another half-hour’s charging wouldn’t make much difference. With the urgency of getting Marine
Newton into hospital and surgeons’ hands he’d have
liked
to have been able to go deep and crack on at something like full speed – which of course was out of the question; even four
or five knots might bleed her dry.

Danvers, down from the bridge, said there was no hint of moon yet. Fair amount of cloud. He thought at a pinch it might be
OK to stay up until five-fifteen or even the half-hour.

‘Won’t be pinching anything, Pilot. These chaps have wrecked an airfield, Wops must know they’ll have come in by submarine
and survivors picked up by now. Whatever anti-submarine forces they have handy they’d have been daft
not
to have deployed in this direction.’

‘Take your point, sir. Just fold the old tent and silently creep away.’

‘That’s the obvious thing. Accent on “silently”.’ He’d been on his way up to the bridge, but didn’t stay up there long; the
darkness didn’t look or feel long-lasting, after five.
He made a last binocular-sweep all round, said to McLeod ‘Let’s get out of this’, and came on down, leaving him to dive her.
Time then 0509. Breakfast followed, consisting of Manoel Island ham and powdered egg on toast, with double rations for passengers;
Ursa
steady as a rock at forty feet with both motors at half-ahead grouped down, the log recording speed-through-the-water of
four and a half knots – which he decided he’d now increase to five, and if the battery looked like giving up the ghost he’d
surface with all due precautions wherever they happened to be, go over to generator power – nine knots, or near it – and radio
for air and/or surface escort. With the island’s air-defence situation pretty much in hand these days, they’d surely spare
a sweeper and maybe a couple of Spits to get a man into hospital who might die if they didn’t, might
not
if they did. He’d called McLeod through from the control room to explain this to him, and they were discussing it when the
first depth-charge erupted.

First of a pattern of five. Some distance off, but not all
that
far. Starboard bow, somewhere. Mike had said with his mouth full, ‘Those weren’t intended for us’, and McLeod said on his
way back into the control room, ‘
Unsung
getting it in the neck, no doubt.’

All it could be; but it would mean she was a good few miles off-station. Mike was on his feet,following more slowly,entering
the control room as the last of the batch exploded – standard pattern from Wop destroyers being either five or nine, and that
had been the fifth, all right: one waited for more but for the time being that seemed to be it. Fraser the HSD having come
to the same conclusion sliding the asdic headset back over his ears and yellowish head, and after a minute or so searching
around telling Mike, ‘HE between two hundred and two-three-oh degrees, sir. Destroyer HE, fair way off …’

Still at watch diving and for the moment staying there, despite an instinct to go to diving stations. With, after all, some
Wop A/S vessel or vessels sowing the waters with bloody dynamite. Maybe a fair way off but going by the sound of it close
enough to one’s route as planned – if one stuck to that route, staying deep or deepish and – OK, diverting around the problem
area but then getting back on to the southerly track, and for obvious reasons making no larger a diversion than was essential
– reasons including the state of the box.

Fraser said, ‘HE moving right to left, sir, bearing one-nine-seven, one-nine-six, range 3250 yards. Second lot – geared turbines
too but lower revs and bearing nearer two-one-oh, sir …’

Picture filling out, but not usefully. In general terms, bearings around 200 degrees and distance one and a half miles. Confusing,
though, no clear pattern to their movements. And no transmissions. Just listening, presumably; start again when they picked
up
Unsung
’s HE. He told McLeod, ‘Slow both motors.’ Giving the order time to reach the motor room and be acted on, begin to take effect.
Thinking about
Unsung
being bloody miles from where she should have been and that however much trouble she might be in, his own primary responsibility
was to keep
Ursa
clear of her and it. Despite having some natural interest in
what
one would be steering clear of.

‘Thirty feet, Number One. Easy does it.’

Meaning for Christ’s sake let’s not rush it, risk any loss of control – breaking surface, showing periscope or standards a
Cant might happen to spot, maybe lose sight of in the next second but still
have
spotted, know a second submarine was in the offing. If it
was
Melhuish who was being hunted, not a ‘non-sub’ contact – wreck, rock, school of fish, whatever.

Unlikely. But even if their target was
not Unsung
, no reason there shouldn’t be a Cant or two up there – Wop having
thought
they’d made contact in the first light of day, and lost no time in whistling-up support.

If Melhuish had hung on for too long before diving – been spotted in
that
time?

‘Port ten. Steer one-five-five.’

‘One-five-five, sir.’ Smithers, Red watch helmsman, acknowledging and winding the new course on – southeast instead of south.
Hart, Mike noticed, was on after ’planes, although he should have handed over to Swathely at the start of this watch. Swathely
no doubt attending to his patient. Walburton was on fore ’planes, what should have been Hart’s place. Gauges creeping towards
thirty-two feet,and hydroplane indicators more or less horizontal, Mike crouching to meet the ’scope’s head as it emerged
from its well, and get his eyes to it, adjusting the lenses’ width-apart as he straightened with it and started a swift preliminary
search in that sector referred to a minute ago by Fraser – and circling on round, before switching into air-search. Full daylight
now, brilliant in the east, pale sky cloud-littered, jumpy seascape patched with the clouds’ long shadows.

‘Dip …’

Brass tube slithering down a few feet and then back up again,
maybe
by its brief disappearance having weakened some imaginary Cant pilot’s belief in the periscope’s ‘feather’ he might have
thought he’d seen – if he existed, up there in the new day’s glitter and scattering of cloud. Might well do, sooner or later,
but as of that moment clear all round – sea and sky, no hint of any enemy activity at all even just seconds before the boom
and reverberation and this time
sight
of what was to develop into a second pattern of five.
Then
, an area of sea swelling, lifting into a white-capped mound of darkish then all-white foam, upper part scattering white but
the bulk already subsiding; he was training left for the explosions of charges numbers two, three and four (centre of the
diamond pattern) producing similar effects over that wider area in which
Unsung
might be, or have been, might now be reeling – or even – well, if so, whose extraordinary cock-up? But then,
he
should have been dipping this periscope again, wasn’t doing so only because his attention was held by those eruptions – charges
that must have been shallow-set, incidentally – this last one collapsing into itself, presenting him with a destroyer-shape
in miniature and on its beam-ends several cables’ lengths beyond it; heeling hard, wheel obviously hard over. He’d muttered
to himself ‘Thar she blows’, and seen the second, identical shape there – roughly bow-on – of which the one under helm had
just cleared his view. Another thing taking one by surprise was that the range had closed dramatically and unexpectedly –
he’d been heading more directly for them than he’d intended, on courses almost reciprocal to the outcome of their manoeuvrings.

Slowing, that one. Might even have stopped engines. Disappearance of white splodge under her forefoot indicative of this.
Small destroyer or torpedo-boat – in fact, a Partenope. Both of them Partenopes. That one stopping as
for instance one might on sighting evidence of a kill. Bubbles, or one large bubble, flotsam, bodies, oil. The next thing
might be a lowering of boats – if that
was
what was happening, what
had
happened. Might not be, only in the circumstances – Melhuish, etcetera – one was rather specially conscious of such a possibility.
He pushed the ’scope’s handles up, leant back from it, and Ellery sent it down.

‘Forty feet, Number One. Starboard ten, steer one-eight-oh. Half ahead both motors.’

‘Forty feet, sir …’

And so forth – acknowledgements of orders stemming from a notion hitherto unpremeditated but inspired by that little ship’s
suddenly losing way and stopping; linking that to the by no means rare experience of A/S vessels taking it in turns to hold
a contact while the other runs in to drop charges, purpose being to minimise the incidence of lost contact, a tactic last
seen as recently as two or three weeks ago on the Palermo billet, and obviously the game they were playing here with
Unsung
. Were, or
had been
playing. He thought it had to be. Get in there oneself, therefore, while they worked up towards their next attack, or maybe
the one after. If Melhuish’s luck held out that long – or had held out
this
long, even. Then, intervention of third party – a beam shot from a few hundred yards, one torpedo, ninety-degree track if
possible, one Partenope a sitting duck and
Unsung
consequently off the hook.

McLeod, never all that slow on the uptake, asked him quietly, ‘Diving stations, sir?’

Danvers had recorded in his navigator’s notebook,
0556 Diving Stations: Course due south, motors half ahead grouped down, depth 40 feet
. On Mike’s orders he’d passed the diving stations order quietly through the forward compartments while Cottenham as Spare
Hand had done the same from engine room to after
ends – the aim being to let sleeping commandos sleep on, as most of them were doing.