H. M. S. Ulysses

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘All guns! Green 110! Aircraft! Independent fire, independent targets! Independent fire, independent targets!’ He heard Vallery ordering starboard helm, knew he was going to bring the for’ard turrets to bear.

  They were too late. Even as the Ulysses began to answer her helm, the enemy planes were pulling out of their approach dives. Great, clumsy shapes, these planes, forlorn and insubstantial in the murky gloom, but identifiable in a sickening flash by the clamour of suddenly racing engines. Condors, without a shadow of doubt. Condors that had outguessed them again, that gliding approach, throttles cut right back, muted roar of the engines drifting downwind, away from the convoy. Their timing, their judgement of distance, had been superb.

  The freighter was bracketed twice, directly hit by at least seven bombs: in the near-darkness, it was impossible to see the bombs going home, but the explosions were unmistakable. And as each plane passed over, the decks were raked by savage bursts of machine-gun fire. Every gun position on the freighter was wide open, lacking all but the most elementary frontal protection: the Dems, Naval Ratings on the LA guns, Royal Marine Artillery-men on the HA weapons, were under no illusions as to their life expectancy when they joined the merchant ships on the Russian run . . . For such few gunners as survived the bombing, the vicious stuttering of these machine-guns was almost certainly their last sound on earth.

  As the bombs plummeted down on the next ship in line, the first freighter was already a brokenbacked mass of licking, twisting flames. Almost certainly, too, her bottom had been torn out: she had listed heavily, and now slowly and smoothly broke apart just aft of the bridge as if both parts were hinged below the water-line, and was gone before the clamour of the last aero engine had died away in the distance.

  Tactical surprise had been complete. One ship gone, a second slewing wildly to an uncontrolled stop, deep in the water by the head, and strangely disquieting and ominous in the entire absence of smoke, flame or any movement at all, a third heavily damaged but still under command. Not one Condor had been lost.

  Turner ordered the cease-fire—some of the gunners were still firing blindly into the darkness: trigger-happy, perhaps, or just that the imagination plays weird tricks on woolly minds and sunken blood-red eyes that had known no rest for more hours and days than Turner could remember. And then, as the last Oerlikon fell silent, he heard it again—the drone of the heavy aero engines, the sound welling then ebbing again like breakers on a distant shore, as the wind gusted and died.

  There was nothing anyone could do about it. The Focke-Wulf, although lost in the low cloud, was making no attempt to conceal its presence: the ominous drone was never lost for long. Clearly, it was circling almost directly above.

  ‘What do you make of it, sir?’ Turner asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Vallery said slowly. ‘I just don’t know at all. No more visits from the Condors, I’m sure of that. It’s just that little bit too dark—and they know they won’t catch us again. Tailing us, like as not.’

  ‘Tailing us! It’ll be black as tar in half an hour!’ Turner disagreed. ‘Psychological warfare, if you ask me.’

  ‘God knows,’ Vallery sighed wearily. ‘All I know is that I’d give all my chances, here and to come, for a couple of Corsairs, or radar, or fog, or another such night as we had in the Denmark Straits.’ He laughed shortly, broke down in a fit of coughing. ‘Did you hear me?’ he whispered. ‘I never thought I’d ask for that again . . . How long since we left Scapa, Commander?’

  Turner thought briefly. ‘Five—six days, sir.’

  ‘Six days!’ He shook his head unbelievingly. ‘Six days. And—and thirteen ships—we have thirteen ships now.’

  ‘Twelve,’ Turner corrected quietly. ‘Another’s almost gone. Seven freighters, the tanker and ourselves. Twelve . . . I wish they’d have a go at the old Stirling once in a while,’ he added morosely.

  Vallery shivered in a sudden flurry of snow. He bent forward, head bent against the bitter wind and slanting snow, sunk in unmoving thought. Presently he stirred.

  ‘We will be off the North Cape at dawn,’ he said absently. ‘Things may be a little difficult, Commander. They’ll throw in everything they’ve got.’

  ‘We’ve been round there before,’ Turner conceded.

  ‘Fifty-fifty on our chances.’ Vallery did not seem to have heard him, seemed to be talking to himself ‘Ulysses and the Sirens—“it may be that the gulfs will wash us down.” . . . I wish you luck, Commander.’

  Turner stared at him. ‘What do you mean—?’

  ‘Oh, myself too.’ Vallery smiled, his head lifting up. ‘I’ll need all the luck, too.’ His voice was very soft.

  Turner did what he had never done before, never dreamed he would do. In the near-darkness he bent over the Captain, pulled his face round gently and searched it with troubled eyes. Vallery made no protest, and after a few seconds Turner straightened up.

  ‘Do me a favour, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘Go below. I can take care of things—and Carrington will be up before long. They’re gaining control aft.’

  ‘No, not tonight.’ Vallery was smiling, but there was a curious finality about the voice. ‘And it’s no good dispatching one of your minions to summon old Socrates to the bridge. Please, Commander. I want to stay here—I want to see things tonight.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Suddenly, strangely, Turner no longer wished to argue. He turned away. ‘Chrysler! I’ll give you just ten minutes to have a gallon of boiling coffee in the Captain’s shelter . . . And you’re going to go in there for half an hour,’ he said firmly, turning to Vallery, ‘and drink the damned stuff, or—or—’

  ‘Delighted!’ Vallery murmured. ‘Laced with your incomparable rum, of course?’

  ‘Of course! Eh—oh, yes, damn that Williamson!’ Turner growled irritably. He paused, went on slowly: ‘Shouldn’t have said that . . . Poor bastards, they’ll have had it by this time . . . ’ He fell silent, then cocked his head listening. ‘I wonder how long old Charlie means to keep stooging around up there,’ he murmured.

  Vallery cleared his throat, coughed, and before he could speak the WT broadcaster clicked on.

  ‘WT—bridge. WT—bridge. Two messages.’

  ‘One from the dashing Orr, for a fiver,’ Turner grunted.

  ‘First from the Sirrus. “Request permission to go alongside, take off survivors. As well hung for a sheep as a lamb.”’

  Vallery stared through the thinly falling snow, through the darkness of the night and over the rolling sea.

  ‘In this sea?’ he murmured. ‘And as near dark as makes no difference. He’ll kill himself!’

  ‘That’s nothing to what old Starr’s going to do to him when he lays hands on him!’ Turner said cheerfully.

  ‘He hasn’t a chance. I—I could never ask a man to do that. There’s no justification for such a risk. Besides, the merchantman’s been badly hit. There can’t be many left alive aboard.’

  Turner said nothing.

  ‘Make a signal,’ Vallery said clearly. ‘“Thank you. Permission granted. Good luck.” And tell WT to go ahead.’

  There was a short silence, then the speaker crackled again.

  ‘Second signal from London to Captain. Decoding. Messenger leaving for bridge immediately.’

  ‘To Officer Commanding, 14 ACS, FR77,’ the speaker boomed after a few seconds. ‘“Deeply distressed at news. Imperative maintain 090. Battle squadron steaming SSE at full speed on interception course. Rendezvous approx 1400 tomorrow. Their Lordships expressly command best wishes Rear-Admiral, repeat Rear-Admiral Vallery. DNO, London.”’

  The speaker clicked off and there was only the lost pinging of the Asdic, the throbbing monotony of the prowling Condor’s engines, the lingering memory of the gladness in the broadcaster’s voice.

  ‘Uncommon civil of their Lordships,’ murmured the Kapok Kid, rising to the occasion as usual. ‘Downright decent, one might almost say.’

  ‘Bloody long overdue,’ Turner growled. ‘Congr
atulations, sir,’ he added warmly. ‘Signs of grace at last along the banks of the Thames.’ A murmur of pleasure ran round the bridge: discipline or not, no one made any attempt to hide his satisfaction.

  ‘Thank you, thank you.’ Vallery was touched, deeply touched. Promise of help at long, long last, a promise which might hold— almost certainly held—for each and every member of his crew the difference between life and death—and they could only think to rejoice in his promotion! Dead men’s shoes, he thought, and thought of saying it, but dismissed the idea immediately: a rebuff, a graceless affront to such genuine pleasure.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ he repeated. ‘But gentlemen, you appear to have missed the only item of news of any real significance—’

  ‘Oh, no, we haven’t,’ Turner growled. ‘Battle squadron—ha! Too—late as usual. Oh, to be sure, they’ll be in at the death—or shortly afterwards, anyway. Perhaps in time for a few survivors. I suppose the Illustrious and the Furious will be with them?’

  ‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’ Vallery shook his head, smiling. ‘Despite my recent—ah—elevation, I am not yet in their Lordships’ confidence. But there’ll be some carriers, and they could fly off a few hours away, give us air cover from dawn.’

  ‘Oh, no, they won’t,’ said Turner prophetically. ‘The weather will break down, make flying off impossible. See if I’m not right.’

  ‘Perhaps, Cassandra, perhaps,’ Vallery smiled. ‘We’ll see . . . What was that, Pilot? I didn’t quite . . . ’

  The Kapok Kid grinned.

  ‘It’s just occurred to me that tomorrow’s going to be a big day for our junior doctor—he’s convinced that no battleship ever puts out to sea except for a Spithead review in peacetime.’

  ‘That reminds me,’ Vallery said thoughtfully. ‘Didn’t we promise the Sirrus—?’

  ‘Young Nicholls is up to his neck in work,’ Turner cut in. ‘Doesn’t love us—the Navy rather—overmuch, but he sure loves his job. Borrowed a fire-fighting suit, and Carrington says he’s already . . . ’ He broke off, looked up sharply into the thin, driving snow. ‘Hallo! Charlie’s getting damned nosy, don’t you think?’

  The roar of the Condor’s engines was increasing every second: the sound rose to a clamouring crescendo as the bomber roared directly overhead, barely a couple of hundred feet above the broken masts, died away to a steady drone as the plane circled round the convoy.

  ‘WT to escorts!’ Vallery called quickly. ‘Let him go—don’t touch him! No starshells—nothing. he’s trying to draw us out, to have us give away our position . . . It’s not likely that the merchant ships . . . Oh, God! The fools, the fools! Too late, too late!’

  A merchantman in the port line had opened up—Oerlikons or Bofors, it was difficult to say. They were firing blind, completely blind: and in a high wind, snow and darkness, the chance of locating a plane by sound alone was impossibly remote.

  The firing did not last long—ten, fifteen seconds at the outside. But long enough—and the damage was done. Charlie had pulled off, and straining apprehensive ears caught the sudden deepening of the note of the engines as the boosters were cut in for maximum climb.

  ‘What do you make of it, sir?’ Turner asked abruptly.

  ‘Trouble.’ Vallery was quiet but certain. ‘This has never happened before—and it’s not psychological warfare, as you call it, Commander: he doesn’t even rob us of our sleep—not when we’re this close to the North Cape. And he can’t hope to trail us long: a couple of quick course alterations and—ah!’ He breathed softly. ‘What did I tell you, Commander?’

  With a suddenness that blocked thought, with a dazzling glare that struck whitely, cruelly at singeing eyeballs, night was transformed into day. High above the Ulysses a flare had burst into intense life, a flare which tore apart the falling snow like filmy, transparent gauze. Swinging wildly under its parachute with the gusting of the wind, the flare was drifting slowly seawards, towards a sea no longer invisible but suddenly black as night, towards a sea where every ship, in its glistening sheath of ice and snow, was silhouetted in dazzling whiteness against the inky backdrop of sea and sky.

  ‘Get that flare!’ Turner was barking into the transmitter. ‘All Oerlikons, all pom-poms, get that flare!’ He replaced the transmitter. ‘Might as well throw empty beer bottles at it with the old girl rolling like this,’ he muttered. ‘Lord, gives you a funny feeling this!’

  ‘I know,’ the Kapok Kid supplied. ‘Like one of these dreams where you’re walking down a busy street and you suddenly realize that all you’re wearing is a wrist-watch. “Naked and defenceless,” is the accepted term, I believe. For the non-literary, “caught with the pants down”.’ Absently he brushed the snow off the quilted kapok, exposing the embroidered ‘J’ on the breast pocket, while his apprehensive eyes probed into the circle of darkness outside the pool of light. ‘I don’t like this at all,’ he complained.

  ‘Neither do I.’ Vallery was unhappy. ‘And I don’t like Charlie’s sudden disappearance either.’

  ‘He hasn’t disappeared,’ Turner said grimly. ‘Listen!’ They listened, ears straining intently, caught the intermittent, distant thunder of the heavy engines. ‘He’s way astern of us, closing.’

  Less than a minute later the Condor roared overhead again, higher this time, lost in the clouds. Again he released a flare, higher, much higher than the last, and this time squarely over the heart of the convoy.

  Again the roar of the engines died to a distant murmur, again the desynchronized clamour strengthened as the Condor overtook the convoy a second time. Glimpsed only momentarily in the inverted valleys between the scudding clouds, it flew wide, this time, far out on the port hand, riding clear above the pitiless glare of the sinking flares. And, as it thundered by, flares exploded into blazing life— four of them, just below cloud level, at four-second intervals. The northern horizon was alive with light, glowing and pulsating with a fierce flame that threw every tiny detail into the starkest relief. And to the south there was only the blackness: the rim of the pool of light stopped abruptly just beyond the starboard line of ships.

  It was Turner who first appreciated the significance, the implications of this. Realization struck at him with the galvanic effect of sheer physical shock. He gave a hoarse cry, fairly flung himself at the broadcast transmitter: there was no time to await permission.

  ‘“B” turret!’ he roared. ‘Starshells to the south. Green 90, green 90. Urgent! Urgent! Starshells, green 90. Maximum elevation 10. Close settings. Fire when you are ready!’ He looked quickly over his shoulder. ‘Pilot! Can you see—?’

  ‘“B” turret training, sir.’

  ‘Good, good!’ He lifted the transmitter again. ‘All guns! All guns! Stand by to repel air attack from starboard. Probable bearing green 90. Hostiles probably torpedo-bombers.’ Even as he spoke, he caught sight of the intermittent flashing of the fighting lights on the lower yardarm: Vallery was sending out an emergency signal to the convoy.

  ‘You’re right, Commander,’ Vallery whispered. In the gaunt pallor, in the skin taut stretched across the sharp and fleshless bones, his face, in that blinding glare, was a ghastly travesty of humanity; it was a death’s-head, redeemed only by the glow of the deep-sunken eyes, the sudden flicker of bloodless lids as the whip-lash crash of ‘B’ turret shattered the silence. ‘You must be,’ he went on slowly. ‘Every ship silhouetted from the north—and a maximum run-in from the south under cover of darkness.’ He broke off suddenly as the shells exploded in great overlapping globules of light, two miles to the south. ‘You are right,’ he said gently. ‘Here they come.’

  They came from the south, wing-tip to wing-tip, flying in three waves with four or five planes in each wave. They were coming in at about 500 feet, and even as the shells burst their noses were already dipping into the plane of the shallow attack dive of the torpedo-bomber. And as they dived, the bombers fanned out, as if in search of individual targets—or what seemed, at first sight, to be individual targets. But wi
thin seconds it became obvious that they were concenrating on two ships and two ships alone—the Stirling and the Ulysses. Even the ideal double target of the crippled merchantman and the destroyer Sirrus, almost stopped alongside her, was strictly ignored. They were flying under orders.

  ‘B’ turret pumped out two more starshells at minimum settings, reloaded with HE. By this time, every gun in the convoy had opened up, the barrage was intense: the torpedo-bombers—curiously difficult to identify, but looking like Heinkels—had to fly through a concentrated lethal curtain of steel and high explosive. The element of surprise was gone: the starshells of the Ulysses had gained a priceless twenty seconds.

  Five bombers were coming at the Ulysses now, fanned out to disperse fire, but arrowing in on a central point. They were levelling off, running in on firing tracks almost at wave-top height, when one of them straightened up a fraction too late, brushed lightly against a cresting wave-top, glanced harmlessly off, then catapulted crazily from wave-top to wave-top—they were flying at right angles to the set of the sea—before disappearing in a trough. Misjudgment of distance or the pilot’s windscreen suddenly obscured by a flurry of snow—it was impossible to say.

  A second later the leading plane in the middle disintegrated in a searing burst of flame—a direct hit on its torpedo warhead. A third plane, behind and to the west, sheered off violently to the left to avoid the hurtling debris, and the subsequent dropping of its torpedo was no more than an empty gesture. It ran half a cable length behind the Ulysses, spent itelf in the empty sea beyond.

  Two bombers left now, pressing home their attack with suicidal courage, weaving violently from side to side to avoid destruction. Two seconds passed, three, four—and still they came on, through the falling snow and intensely heavy fire, miraculous in their immunity. Theoretically, there is no target so easy to hit as a plane approaching directly head on: in practice, it never worked out that way. In the Arctic, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, the relative immunity of the torpedo-bombers, the high percentage of successful attacks carried out in the face of almost saturation fire, never failed to confound the experts. Tension, over-anxiety, fear— these were part of the trouble, at least: there are no half measures about a torpedo-bomber—you get him or he gets you. And there is nothing more nerve-racking—always, of course, with the outstanding exception of the screaming, near-vertical power-dive of the gull-winged Stuka dive-bomber—than to see a torpedo-bomber looming hugely, terrifyingly over the open sights of your gun and know that you have just five inexorable seconds to live . . . And with the Ulysses, of course, the continuous rolling of the cruiser in the heavy cross-sea made accuracy impossible.