J. E. MacDonnell - 025

by The Blind Eye(lit)

  It was less than five minutes later that Bentley's fears were justified. The seaman had climbed into the crow's nest and was sweeping the iridescent sea with his binoculars, warned by Randall what to look for. But it was the next destroyer ahead which made the first sighting.

  Once again Bentley had looked back at the Fleet The sight of the huge battleships surging on through the calm sea fascinated him- they bulged widely sideways, and their armoured stems forced up a toppling pile of white from the blue.

  His ears heard it first. His head jerked back, in time to see the white scarf of steam streaming from the next destroyer's siren. Whooo, whooo, whooo-urgent, strident siren, urgent meaning: submarine contact!

  Then the signal came, general to all ships, and Ferris read it aloud:

  "Periscope bearing oh-oh-five, range oh-four-oh."

  On their port hand, to the north, distant two miles. Now a red pendant was hauling swiftly to the destroyer's yardarm, a supplementary warning to the siren.

  "Flag signalling!" called Ferris, and Bentley stepped quietly to the wheelhouse voice-pipe.

  "Cox'n on the wheel," be ordered. Then be looked again at the sun.

  The admiral was taking no chances. Four destroyers, Wind Rode among them, heeled out of line and dug their tails down for the north. Bentley, because of his position in the rear, now found himself the closest ship to the battle-line.

  This was a crucial post. The submarine would know he was sighted. There was still time for him, at that range, to bear towards the battleships and loose everything be carried in his tubes.

  Granville had thought of that too, Bentley realised. Three destroyers from the right-hand leg of the screen were belting back, their object to place themselves on the battle-line's port beam, between the big ships and the submarine.

  Always analytical, even when his ship was building up to 30 knots on the hunt, Bentley thought for a brief moment on what the sighting of that single black stick had done to the ordered array of ships. But, as their movements had been when under air attack, the disorganisation was controlled, precise. Shortly the protecting three boats would be in position, and the Fleet would steam on as before, zig-zagging to upset the Japanese commander's torpedo-firing calculations.

  An automatic calculation, remembering that the four hunters had to build up to 30 knots, told him that it would take some six minutes before they could hope to be above the enemy submarine, in position to depth-charge him. And in six minutes, if the Jap decided to run instead of attacking, he could be anything up to a mile from the sighting position.

  Even so, it looked as if the four ships should have little difficulty in pin-pointing him. On paper. Bentley, his recent experience fresh in his mind, was under no illusions. At the moment their asdic was useless-they had to accept that disability in order to get on to him in the shortest possible time. But even if they did quarter the area in which he was hiding there were other factors which might negative asdic's efficiency. The Jap had hundreds of fathoms to play in-and asdic sets, mostly efficient as they were, were still operated by men. There was also to be considered that bane of sub-hunters, the thermal barrier protecting a submerged object. The water near the surface of this Indian Ocean was warm, its molecular composition not dense, allowing free passage to sound pulses. But lower down, where the Jap could be, there might exist layers of much colder liquid. Submarines were capable of taking measurements concerning temperature and density-a clever commander could hide himself beneath a cold layer, against which an asdic pulse would bounce off; protected by a liquid but impenetrable umbrella.

  They would see.

  A signal hauled up the halliards of the senior ship in the group and in obedience the four destroyers fanned out, their object to cover as wide a path as possible in their approach.

  On either side of Wind Rode's bridge the lookouts were tensely alert, but no reports of periscopes came. Bentley was not surprised-unless he were a candidate for hari kari; the Jap commander would have got his glass eye down just as fast as the hoisting wires would bring it.

  The really important thing, Bentley was thinking as he flicked his glance sideways towards his immediate consort, was not so much to kill the submarine as to keep it down and prevent the warning signal from being despatched. And that, considering what he had just seen, would be the main desire exercising the Jap's mind-avoid them till dark, then surface, and transmit the vital information.

  "Twenty knots," Ferris called, and Bentley gave the order.

  Two thousand tons of steel loses speed quickly, and it was only a moment before the familiar pinging started again on the bridge.

  The four ships moved on across the sea, stalking now, and behind them the mass of the Fleet pressed on towards the darkening east. While he listened, and waited for the returning peep, Bentley reflected on the concern which must be exercising the admiral's mind. If this submarine escaped, then the British ships would be met at dawn by a smothering weight of vengeful aircraft; they would have no time to spare for firing 15-inch guns, and in any case the winged targets of those guns would be directly above them, instead of sitting on Sabang's airfield.

  The future career of Admiral Sir Sidney Granville, as well as the lives of thousands of British sailors, depended squarely on the efficiency of these four hunting destroyers.

  The asdic sent out its pulse and the speaker returned no echo and the situation became grimmer and more desperate. An hour passed, and the Fleet had vanished from sight in the encompassing velvet of the night. That was their one consolation-no sounds or reports had come back from the battle-line, therefore it seemed safe to assume that the submarine was alone. And he had not surfaced, for a quadruple radar watch was being rigidly maintained on a 360-degree arc over the sea.

  Randall's last-dog watch came to an end. He was relieved by Pilot, who had not left the binnacle:

  "Either we're right out of luck or this boy's as clever as the other mongrel."

  Bentley did not answer for some seconds. He was staring out ahead into blackness. Then he said, in the same subdued tone:

  "We should be split up, ranged further apart. "We're too close, the area is not nearly large enough."

  Randall nodded invisibly in the dark. "What d'you think?"

  "I think he's scooted to the north. Eastward would keep him in danger from the Fleet, westward would be just as dangerous."

  "What makes you think that? Surely to the west he'd be running clear?"

  "He would-but he doesn't know that. For all he knows there might be a secondary group approaching from the west. He might decide a carrier-group is also in on this, escorted by destroyers. But to the north he can be almost certain the way is clear."

  Randall made no answer, impressed as be was again by his captain's lucid and unanswerable arguments. All this time the leader of the search had been working to the westward, after he had convinced himself that the target was nowhere in the vicinity of the Fleet's course.

  Randall went to speak, and his eyes were attracted to something flickering to starb'd.

  "Ferris!" he called sharply, "senior ship's signalling."

  "I'm reading it, sir," came back the yeoman's calm voice, and Randall pulled at his nose.

  The message was short-unfriendly eyes might be watching that shaded light-and Ferris came stepping quickly across the bridge. He spoke to Bentley and the captain said:

  "At last! Up dome, increase to 300 revolutions! Steer north-east."

  Wind Rode shuddered, and her slim bow slid round to the ordered course.

  They had been at high speed an hour, alone, when Randall ventured:

  "Do you think he might have surfaced already?"

  "No," Bentley answered decisively. "He knows we have radar, and he knows he's got all night to get his message off. It's just as dangerous for him to break wireless-silence now as it is for us. I think he'll wait till well after midnight before he risks it Remember, it will take him only a few minutes to transmit, and not much longer than that for the aircraft
to get airborne." He nodded, defiantly. "He won't have surfaced yet."

  Bentley stepped down from the grating and crossed to the chart-table. On the map he had plotted his estimate of the submarine's course and submerged speed. Taking into account the time they had wasted to the westward, and the time necessary to get to the ship's present position, he judged that the estimated position of the target would be to the north still, but in asdic range.

  He dropped the pencil and came back to the binnacle.

  "Ease to 15 knots," he ordered, "lower the dome."

  Anti-submarine warfare was like that, Bentley was to reflect later-hours of search in one area, a shift to another, and then the fish bites at once.

  The set had been operating only a few minutes when the report came up:

  "Contact bearing 010, range one mile, classified submarine."

  It really was not quite as easy as that-an expert fisherman has to judge where the fish might be... There was a difference here-this one, with the sound pulses nibbling at it, must not be allowed to get away.

  Wind Rode's tracking and firing routine went into action smoothly. Every man concerned was aware of the danger the Fleet was in if they failed, but they were too experienced to allow this to upset their concentration on the instruments.

  She ran in, the pings and peeps sounded close together, and her charges went over. The sea heaved, she shook with the blasts, and the asdic speaker gave forth its telltale news-she was still in contact, and the submarine was still alive.

  Bentley hauled her round on a fast turn, his eyes on the swinging compass card and his ears attuned to the speaker. Lieutenant Peacock himself was operating the set, but Bentley knew that of all her men, he, the captain, had to subdue the desperation mounting in his mind and maintain a calm dispassionateness of thought and action.

  At least, he thought as he straightened her up for the run in, I'm still in contact. Randall said:

  "This bird's more than a bit tricky. I wonder if he's the same one?"

  Bentley had wondered that, hours before. It was quite possible, considering the few weeks which had passed since their abortive attack on the merchantman's destroyer, that the same submarine could still be on patrol. But it was an irrelevant, academic question. The only thing that concerned him now was the hard fact of what he had to do.

  And he had to do it alone. With the Fleet somewhere to the east he did not dare break wireless silence to bring up assistance-no captain could assume that his ship was alone beyond the 20-mile range of his surface radar.

  "Stand by," Bentley warned, and a minute later the quarterdeck spawned its canisters.

  The charges dropped down, exploded, and the sea gave forth its flung white and the asdic speaker its message.

  "Starb'd thirty," Bentley ordered, and kept the worry out of his voice.

  Once again she came round. This Jap captain was not tricky-he was an expert, his evasive handling of his craft amounting close to genius. But at the same time as this assessment of his enemy worried him, it offered Bentley some solace. He was absolutely certain that such a brilliant commander would of necessity be also cautious and experienced, that he would not have risked giving his position away unnecessarily by surfacing earlier than he had to. Therefore Bentley could assume that the warning message had not been despatched.

  Randall said, his voice frankly worried:

  "Look, Peter, we're not doing any good. And we're rapidly depleting our ammunition. Why not try that thing of McQueen's?"

  "Don't you think I've thought about it?" Bentley answered him. He shook his head. "I can't do it. We have no knowledge at all of what it will do. It should blow the Jap to pieces. It could also belt our screws or rudder. What happens then, with us helpless and the submarine still possibly alive?"

  "I concede all that. But we've got to get this bloke!"

  "I wouldn't know about that!" Bentley returned, an edge to his voice.

  "Sorry," Randall said instantly.

  Bentley breathed in.

  "No, Bob. If I had no charges left I might risk it But not now. Stand by."

  The run-in was faultless, the tracking of Peacock's meticulously accurate, the firing went without a hitch. And at the last moment, while the charges were dropping, the target altered course violently. He did not escape by much, but then all he had to do was place himself outside the lethal area of the bursting charges. There was no doubt that he was shaken by that last pattern, just as there was no doubt that he was still operational.

  This time as Wind Rode slid her bow round Bentley touched Randall on the arm. The big lieutenant followed him to the chart-table. There, beneath the tiny shaded light, Bentley stared at the plotted courses of his enemy.

  "I thought so," he said, his voice even and hard. "Every time we attack he swings to starb'd. Never to port, though he could escape just as easily that way. Why?"

  Randall stared at the chart, his forehead furrowed.

  "Damned if I know!" he said in exasperation. "But there's something that's obvious. No matter what he does-see it there?- he's maintaining a definite mean course. A few degrees east of north."

  Bentley was silent for the space of one long breath. Then his fist thumped slowly and with emphasis down on the chart.

  "My God, yes! You're right!" His forefinger whispered up across the white parchment. It stopped at a small black mark. "I wonder..."

  "Eh? What've you got on to?"

  Bentley answered with one word:

  "Naos!"

  Randall was not equipped with his captain's flashing perception of intelligence: but neither was he a fool, and in professional matters, such as navigation, he was very much on the ball. His eyes followed the projection of the submarine's northward course, and then ran on to the island Bentley had pointed out. It lay directly ahead of the pencilled track.

  "Naos?" he repeated thoughtfully. His voice firmed. "But you told me there's nothing there."

  "I said the admiral said there's nothing there. No wharves, piers. There weren't any on the Louisiades either, remember? That's what I was going to say when the old boy stopped me with his hand-that, and the fact that a submarine's periscope could not possibly detect anything that might be hidden behind palm trees and bushes in the middle of the island."

  "If you're right," Randall said slowly, "this bloke could be leading us right on to his friends. Aircraft."

  "Exactly! We're sixty miles off Naos by dead-reckoning. Another hour of this and our depth-charges will be clearly heard on the island."

  "Lord..." Randall breathed. His worried stare stabbed at Bentley. "If this bloke gets away, and we cop the lot, the Fleet's caught with aircraft behind it! You've got to use that new weapon!"

  "Not yet." Bentley withdrew from the table. The asdic contact still pitched clearly across the bridge. "We know he always turns to starb'd, and we think we know why. He's got to get in range of his friends before we get him. All right, then. I've got two patterns left. On this run-in, we'll drop one pattern as usual, then I'll alter hard-astarb'd and let him have the other. He should run right into it."

  "Fire two patterns? The lot?"

  "The lot," Bentley answered grimly. He stepped up on the crating. "Stand by depth-charge attack."

  Bentley gave his orders and she ran in on the asdic bearing and he tried not to think of the magnitude of his gamble. He had two patterns left, eight charges. She might be damaged; two patterns, fired separately, might finish her, even if they were not even close to direct hits. But he was about to let her have the lot in one attack...

  He thought about this as he conned the ship in, but it was characteristic of the man that his intention did not waver. He had made his decision, it was based on an assessment of his own skill and experience, and having made it, he would adhere to it.

  If he failed... He still had McQueen's weapon. If that failed... His mind was too taut to allow him to forecast his course of action in that event-whether he would break wireless silence and warn the admiral of his surmise; risk hav
ing Granville accept his advice and turn the whole Fleet back from its objective.

  The ship moved on. He had warned Peacock of his intention, and had told the quarterdeck crews. There would be no time to reload the throwers-the last four charges were now in the stern-rails, and from there they could be quickly dropped down over her tail. The spread of the pattern would be reduced, but if he were right in his judgment of the enemy's tactics, then that compactness would help, not hinder, in her destruction.