Strike from the Sea (1978)

by Reeman, Douglas

  He replied gently, ‘She’s French built. Something of a novelty.’

  He did not know what to say. He watched her as she sat down in a chair, her fingers gripping the arms as if she expected it to be dragged from under her. She needed rest, to be drugged if necessary to release her mind from what she had endured. But he had to know what was happening, and at once.

  Ainslie asked quietly, ‘Who put you in the boat?’

  ‘The officer in charge. A nice Australian. A captain, I think. But very young. And Shelly’s husband, Michael. He’s still there. With the others.’

  Ainslie tried to fit the pieces together. The Japs were in the hills, but those flares had been to port, not starboard. They must have been sealing off the last escape route from the village. The unknown Australian officer had crowded some of the wounded, the women and some Malayan children into the only available craft in the faint hope they would be able to by pass the enemy lines and find help.

  She was saying in the same dreamy tone, ‘They kept shooting all the time, and then at night they brought the people they had captured near enough for us to hear as they tortured them. The women they raped first.’ Her head drooped and her shoulders began to shake. ‘It was horrible. Horrible!’

  ‘How many did you see left behind? Please, I have to know.’

  She looked up, her eyes shining very brightly in the dimmed deckhead light.

  ‘About forty, I think. Mostly soldiers. The servants all ran away. I hope they escaped.’

  Ainslie unlocked his cabinet and took out a glass and some brandy. It must be happening all over Malaya, he thought. Settlements, plantations, tiny villages, secure in their isolation until a few days ago. The admiral’s strip of yellow tape meant nothing up here. It was a complete shambles.

  He handed her the glass, watching her as she looked at it in his hand. She was young, in her mid-twenties, and even her filthy clothing could not disguise that she was very attractive. Another part of the wild dream. A submarine, a beleaguered village, a stranded girl.

  She said, ‘You are very kind.’ One hand moved up to her hair. ‘I must look like nothing on earth.’ But she did not even try to smile. She must have known it would be like opening the gates to hysteria and worse.

  Ainslie turned as he heard voices in the passageway, and then saw the other girl framed in the doorway, her arms outstretched as she clung to the sides.

  She shouted, ‘You’re going to kill them, aren’t you, Captain?’ She was almost screaming, her body shaking with despair. ‘Wipe them out! And I want to watch you do it!’

  Behind her, Petty Officer Hunt’s white coat bobbed from side to side as he pleaded, ‘Please, miss, you must come back with me!’

  She did not even hear him. ‘Tell him, Natalie! Explain to him what happens to anyone that those yellow bastards get their hands on!’

  Her sister made to leave the chair but Ainslie stood firmly between them.

  ‘She’s told me. I understand.’

  The girl let her arms drop to her sides and she said in a low, muffled voice, ‘We’ve only been married a year. You’ll be able to save him, won’t you?’

  Ainslie looked away. ‘It was already too late when we got here. Everything’s confused. At HQ they still believe there’s a hope of getting the place relieved.’

  In the sudden silence he heard the girl behind him, her breathing, and saw her sister standing framed in the passage light, staring at him like a wild animal.

  A telephone buzzed and he took it from its hook. It seemed to weigh a ton.

  ‘Captain.’ He barely recognized his own voice. In his mind he was watching this girl’s husband being butchered.

  ‘First lieutenant, sir.’ Quinton sounded calm enough. ‘Assuming new course in three minutes.’ He cleared his throat. ‘W/T received a signal just prior to diving, sir. Most immediate. Japanese troopship and escort believed to be approaching Kota Baharu from Saigon. ETA tomorrow forenoon. Nothing nearer than that, I’m afraid.’ When Ainslie remained silent he dropped his voice, ‘You all right? Can I come and give some help?’

  ‘No, but thank you, John. Get Pilot working out a possible course and speed to intercept. We’ll surface tonight and see if we can pick up any details of the escort, right?’ He put down the telephone and said quietly, ‘We’ll not be going inshore again.’ He made himself meet her stare. ‘I’m sorry, I really am.’

  She would have fallen at his feet but for Hunt and Torpedoman Sawle. She was shrieking as they half dragged, half carried her back to the sick-bay, her cries echoing around the steel hull like a trapped spirit.

  ‘You bastard! You bloody, cowardly bastard! You’re like all the rest! Run, run, run!’

  Then there was silence, worse in some ways, as Hunt jabbed one of his needles into her arm.

  Ainslie looked down as the other girl reached out and gripped his hand.

  ‘You mustn’t take any notice. She will understand. One day she will know you can’t always do what you want to.’

  Ainslie looked at her, at the two pale lines on her cheeks where tears had cut through the grime.

  ‘She’ll never understand. I wouldn’t in her place.’ He saw the brandy bottle quivering gently on the desk. That was what he needed. Oblivion.

  She followed his glance and said, ‘I watched your face just now. When you were speaking to one of your men on the telephone. I think I know what you were going through.’

  Ainslie ran his fingers through his unruly hair. ‘Maybe I did you more harm than good by picking you up. I’m not sure any more. In the boat you might have run ashore a few miles further south and been safe.’ He waved vaguely around the cabin. ‘Here, you might be killed with the rest of us.’

  He tried to stop the words but they kept coming. He had never been this way before. Had always been able to control it.

  He said bitterly, ‘I’ve been in a war for two years. We’ve been fighting it with ships and weapons which should have been scrapped ages ago! Now, when the very people who sneered at our efforts are in danger themselves, they expect bloody miracles!’ He turned and looked at her steadily. ‘But unfortunately we have only ordinary men and women, no miracles at all.’

  She watched him as he moved to the door, poised on the edge of the chair.

  He turned towards her and added softly, ‘Sorry about that. Make yourself as comfortable as you can. I’ll not be back until it’s over.’ He almost said, one way or the other.

  For a long while after he had left the cabin the girl, Natalie Torrance, sat watching the closed door and the vibrating curtain across it. Suddenly she stood up, walked very erectly to the bunk and then collapsed.

  In the control room Ainslie crossed to the chart space and studied Forster’s calculations. They must all have heard the girl’s screams and accusations. They were looking at him now, he could feel it. Pity, contempt, even surprise that he could turn away and leave men to die.

  He was ashamed of himself even as he thought it. These were not ordinary men at all. They had shared a lot together, or with others in different vessels. They knew. Everyone ought to know about such things after the loss of the Repulse and Prince of Wales. You did not throw away lives to no purpose, and to take Soufrière close inshore again, and in broad daylight, would be like committing mass suicide.

  But in Singapore they might see it differently. The lure of the big target, and never mind the risks they would yet have to take. The yearning for glory and medals all round. Just as it had shown on the chief of staff’s face on that first day.

  Quinton asked, ‘What d’you think, sir?’

  Ainslie looked at him. Quinton’s eyes were asking about something quite different. He smiled gravely. ‘I think we’d better get into some deeper water as soon as we can. But for now, Number One, would you go forrard and see to the wounded. Most of them are Australians. It might help.’ He gave a quick shake of the head. ‘Some won’t make it, I’m afraid.’

  Quinton nodded. ‘Right away.’

  Ai
nslie turned to study the chart. ‘Send for Lieutenant Christie.’

  When the flyer arrived Ainslie said calmly, ‘They say you’re a good pilot?’

  Christie met his gaze and replied, ‘The best, sir, in all modesty.’

  Ainslie smiled, trying to shut out the girl’s stricken face, her grief.

  ‘Good. Provided you can get that plane airborne, I want you to go and look for some ships.’

  Christie grinned. ‘Piece of cake, sir.’

  That night, when Soufrière cautiously surfaced to charge her batteries and listen to the radio waves from all parts of the world, three of their passengers were quietly dropped over the side.

  One of the dead soldiers came from Melbourne, Quinton’s home town. It was fitting and moving to hear Quinton read the burial service over the intercom while Ainslie and the bridge lookouts did the rest.

  Later on, as Ainslie stood by the starboard side, an unlit pipe between his teeth, Quinton reported another signal from the W/T office. All resistance had ceased in the little fishing village, and no further news was expected.

  Ainslie remained on the bridge for most of the night, following the stars while the watches changed and the lookouts came and went.

  Suppose the signal had not been received about the troopship? Perhaps the girl was right after all and he was using duty as an excuse, an escape.

  Could he have done something to rescue the last defenders in the village?

  Critchley joined him on the bridge after asking permission from the control room.

  He said simply, ‘I’ve not bothered you before, you had enough on your plate. But I’ve kept my eyes on you most of the time. I know what you’re thinking.’

  Ainslie shook his head. ‘Leave it, for God’s sake.’

  ‘No. You did the right thing. What you would have expected any captain to do. You would have despised anyone who risked his men for a hopeless gesture.’

  Ainslie turned towards him, his hair rippling in the night breeze across the screen.

  ‘But was it hopeless?’

  ‘I’m certain of it. The troopship, on the other hand, might be essential to the enemy at this present moment. If they get reinforcements now, we’ll never stop them.’

  ‘I know all that.’ Ainslie stared up at the stars. ‘So why did this matter so much?’

  Critchley groped his way to the hatch. ‘It’s never been easy to let men die. Most of us never have to decide on such things, thank God. But I hope that if I was in that position, I’d have had the sort of courage I saw here yesterday.’

  Ainslie smiled wearily as Critchley’s head disappeared through the hatch.

  ‘Go to hell!’

  7

  ‘It Will Get Harder’

  AINSLIE MOVED HIS powerful binoculars slowly from bow to bow. It was very dark, although the apparent smallness of the stars showed that dawn was not far off.

  The submarine below his feet was moving at a steady eight knots, the occasional rise and fall of her blunt bows revealed by trailing patterns of white foam, but little enough to show where the hull ended and the sea began.

  Down in the control room Quinton had completed his final checks, readjusting the trimming tanks against the findings on his slide-rule. The trim, always the first lieutenant’s responsibility, was a boring but vital necessity. As the submarine lived off her own fat, consuming fuel and fresh water, losing the weight of torpedoes, stores, food and all the rest, her balance and buoyancy had to be continually watched and altered.

  ‘Control room reports all clear, sir.’ Sub-Lieutenant Southby, temporarily released from his duties in the gun turret, spoke carefully, as if aware of his new importance.

  ‘Good.’

  Ainslie strained his eyes through the glasses. The Soufrière was steering north-east, some seventy miles from the Malayan coast. The sea was empty, but it was always well to check everything. W/T for other vessels’ signals, the Asdic and hydrophone equipment for listening through every layer of water. Soufrière was a big target, and any undetected patrol vessel would soon pick her up on her radio direction finder.

  How crowded the bridge seemed. Extra lookouts, Menzies, the yeoman of signals, Lieutenant Cottier, the Free French electrical officer, and a couple of messengers at voice-pipes and telephones made the prospect of a crash-dive hair-raising, Ainslie thought. Not that it would matter anyway, once they had the hangar open. An early British submarine had once been fitted with a seaplane, but when the boat had dived a fault in the hangar doors had flooded the whole compartment, the sudden weight of top-hamper taking the submarine and all her company to the bottom.

  He said, ‘Open the hangar.’ He heard Cottier on his handset, the sudden grate of metal abaft the conning tower as the doors slid apart. Like imploring arms, the ends of the small catapult made a darker shadow across the casing and, with a whirring sound, like Farrant’s turret, the aircraft perched on its release gear swung into view.

  Menzies muttered, ‘Rather him than me, sir.’

  Ainslie craned over the screen to watch the bustling activity below him. If the seaplane failed to get airborne they would have to ditch it. But if Soufrière had to dive because of some unforeseen emergency Christie would have no choice but to head for the nearest land and pray it was still in friendly hands.

  He had watched the pilot’s features as he had outlined his plan. But he had seen little change in Christie’s expression, other than relief to be away on his own again. Alone, except for his gangling observer, Sub-Lieutenant Jones. They made a strange pair. Christie, the tough, experienced flyer, and Jones, who had been a bank clerk when the war had started.

  ‘Is everything all right, Cottier?’ He knew little of the Frenchman, who was quite unlike Lucas in every way. He laughed a lot, but never with his eyes, and in some odd way Ainslie felt he did not really like the other French lieutenant.

  ‘They are prepared, Capitaine.’ Cottier showed his teeth in the gloom. ‘Shall I make the signal?’

  Ainslie nodded. ‘Warn the control room.’

  He thought suddenly of the passengers. The dark-eyed Malay women and the children clinging to them like ragged pods. The soldiers, those not drugged to ease their pain, seemed to spend their time staring into space, completely separated from their comrades around them. Reliving some of it. Letting parts of the horror ease back into their minds, as a man will feel a wound.

  With a coughing roar the seaplane’s engine snarled into life, filling the bridge with blue vapour and a chorus of protests and curses from the lookouts.

  Cottier waved a white flag over the screen, and like a missile fired from a spring gun the twin-winged plane shot along the short catapult and climbed sky ward.

  Ainslie felt the shock wave ripping over the submarine, and felt the excitement around him as they all watched the little seaplane climbing and climbing, dashing across the pale stars like a shadow.

  The tannoy droned. ‘Secure catapult and hangar. Clear the casing.’

  If and when the plane returned, it would land on its floats as near as possible and taxi alongside where it would be winched aboard by its own special derrick.

  Ainslie glanced at Southby. ‘Well, Sub, what did you think of that?’

  ‘Jolly good, sir.’ He sounded as if he had doubted Christie’s ability until this moment.

  Ainslie forgot about Southby and concentrated on the one short signal they had added to their sparse information about the troopship. She was large, an ex-cargo liner of some twelve thousand tons. There was still no news about the strength of her escort, but two destroyers had been reported leaving Saigon at about the same time. But Ainslie had operated before with far less intelligence at his disposal. Usually his first knowledge of the target had been when it had appeared in his cross-wires.

  He was almost certain that the enemy had no idea the Soufrière was at sea and operational. They probably imagined she was still in Singapore, or on her way to Britain for safety’s sake.

  Menzies said, ‘Mr Christi
e’s out of sight, sir.’ He lowered his glasses. ‘I just hope the Japs haven’t got a carrier with them.’

  Ainslie glanced at him grimly. ‘You make Job seem like an optimist, Yeo.’

  Menzies turned away grumbling, ‘Airmen in submarines. I don’t reckon it.’

  Ainslie moved to the voice-pipes. ‘Depth, please?’

  ‘Thirty-five fathoms, sir.’

  ‘Very well.’

  He pictured how it would look. The ship would be zigzagging, leaving the escorts well spread out around her. The Japs did not take chances. They went by the book. Usually.

  Torpedoman Sawle asked permission to come to the bridge and appeared carrying a great fanny of cocoa. It was amazing how they could enjoy the thick, glutinous mixture in the humid air. Perhaps because it was familiar. Part of the world they understood.

  Ainslie sipped the cocoa slowly, feeling the sweat running down his spine as if to compensate for its penetration.

  ‘All quiet below, Sawle?’

  ‘Few of the kids are playin’ up, sir. Lost their mums and dads apparently, poor little bleeders.’

  Sawle was a Londoner, and his rough appreciation was some how more moving because of it.

  He added as an afterthought, ‘Still, the lads ’ad a whip round for nutty an’ tins of milk. Things could be worse.’

  Ainslie watched him go below, whistling to himself. How the hell would we manage without the Sawles of this world?

  ‘Captain, sir! Aircraft, starboard bow!’

  The machine-guns creaked towards the sound, a faint, throbbing drone, like a tired wasp.

  Menzies said, ‘It’s our flyer, sir.’ He peered at his watch. ‘Dead on time.’

  Ainslie searched the sky, wondering what Christie would say. But he had done well and had arrived back almost to the minute.

  ‘Warn the hangar party.’

  The tannoy droned again. ‘Stand by to receive aircraft.’

  The seaplane passed the starboard side, flashing a brief signal in response to the shaded hand lamp from the conning tower.