Strike from the Sea (1978)

by Reeman, Douglas

  ‘Ship’s head is three-zero-zero, sir.’ Gosling sounded totally absorbed, his thick fingers moving the brass wheel very slightly this way and that.

  Ainslie looked at the bulkhead clock by the Soufrière’s crest with the builder’s plate above it. Built in Cherbourg 1934. She had sailed many miles since then, but none as hazardous as these last few would be.

  ‘Well, Pilot, what about daylight?’

  Forster tapped his lower lip with his pencil. ‘Early dusk, sir. Visibility still fairly good.’

  Ainslie crossed to the chart. Two miles to go. The bows were pointing straight for the entrance to the bay. There was no turning back now. It was amazing that he could feel so cool, so remote. Like a spectator.

  Through the open watertight door he saw some of Farrant’s gun crews bustling about, like members of some strange order of monks in their hoods and anti-flash gear.

  While they had idled back and forth in a narrow rectangle of open sea during the day, Ainslie had spoken with Quinton alone. If the bridge received a direct hit during the run in, it would be the first lieutenant’s job to complete the attack, worthless or not.

  Quinton had not said much, but each of them had been very conscious of the past, the strong links which had always held them together.

  What lay inside the bay presented the real problem. The enemy were apparently content to boom off the narrows further inside the bay, that being the most valuable anchorage for naval vessels. For the carrier there would be other arrangements but, with luck, no mines like there were said to be outside Saigon.

  The mood in the boat seemed different, he thought. The men near him had shaved during the day and were dressed in clean clothing. They had managed to enjoy a good meal, too, the best which Noake, the cook, could produce from his array of tins and packets.

  Perhaps they all expected to die? Clean and tidy, as the men aboard Nelson’s ships had been at Trafalgar while they had waited for the fleets to reach one another.

  He jerked round as Walker called suddenly, ‘HE on green one-seven-oh, sir.’

  Quinton was already there, peering over Walker’s shoulder as he manipulated the pointer around the dial of his set with patient concentration.

  ‘HE increasing. Moving slightly left.’

  Quinton looked at Ainslie. ‘Some bastard’s following us in!’

  Ainslie nodded. ‘Inform the gunnery officer. He’ll need to know.’

  A communications rating connected the gunnery officer’s speaker to the Asdic compartment as Quinton said, ‘If he overhauls us he’ll pick us up.’

  To confirm his words Walker said, ‘Fast HE, sir. Patrol vessel, most likely.’

  Ainslie took a few paces from side to side. Of all the bad luck. Perhaps he had been too eager to get it started. Had he left it a few minutes longer he might have been able to turn away and then follow the other vessel straight up to the entrance.

  He said, ‘Check that the machine-gunners are briefed on our new companion.’ He made his lips smile and saw the messenger by the rack of telephones wink quickly at one of the stokers. He could almost hear the man’s mind working. The skipper’s not bothered, so why should we be?

  ‘Increase revolutions for eight knots.’

  Ainslie folded his arms, they seemed to be in the way whatever he did. He must risk the increase of speed, weigh the chances of detection from the bay against the very real risk of being attacked from astern.

  He looked at the two periscopes, glistening dully in the dimmed action lights. At times like these, all you wanted to do was see, to know what was going on above the surface.

  Walker said, ‘No increase in HE, sir.’

  Ainslie pictured the other vessel as best he could. A visitor, or one of the local patrols returning to base for the night? God, they would soon get a shock when they discovered they were right behind a submarine.

  Forster was looking at the pad by his elbow. ‘Time to alter course, sir. Three-zero-five.’

  ‘Very good. Bring her round, Cox’n.’

  Ainslie was watching the gently ticking gyro repeater. Like a merciless clock, marking off their remaining time.

  Then Forster said, ‘Five minutes, sir.’

  Ainslie stood beside him and examined the neat lines and calculations. The nearest headland would be on the port bow now, reaching out to embrace them as they headed inshore. Maybe those same sailing craft were directly above; if so, they would lose their nets or lines at any second.

  ‘Close all watertight doors. Shut off for depth-charging.’ Ainslie glanced meaningly at Ridgway and his yeoman. ‘Ready?’

  The lieutenant licked his lips. ‘Aye, sir. We’ve just got to open the bow doors, then –’

  Walker’s voice cut him off. ‘HE increasing, sir. Bearing green one-seven-five.’

  Damn. Aloud Ainslie said, ‘Bridge party take stations.’ He tightened the strap of his binoculars around his neck, his eyes on the control room clock and its red second hand. Tick . . . tick . . . tick.

  He said, ‘Open the lower hatch.’ Some droplets of water left from the last dive spattered across the seamen below like pellets.

  ‘HE closing rapidly, sir.’

  Ainslie tried to keep his mind clear and under control. He could hear the other vessel now, the beat of her screws scraping at his brain like a scalpel.

  ‘Stand by to surface.’ He did not need to look at Halliday or Quinton now. They were professionals, dedicated to this one, desperate moment.

  Ainslie looked up the dark shaft of the conning tower and then started to climb, the lookouts and machine-gunners crowding up under his buttocks, fitting themselves into a tight wad of arms and legs, wasting no space, cutting down the seconds it took to reach the bridge. They did not have to be told either.

  He tested the locking wheel and then began to turn it to ease the stiffness.

  ‘Surface!’

  He heard the roar of compressed air, the immediate change of pressure in his ears as the big submarine started to glide towards the surface.

  He heard Quinton blow his whistle and threw his weight and shoulder against the hatch.

  A man cursed as someone stamped on his fingers in the frantic eagerness to get through the oval hatch, the clang and clatter of metal as the guns were hauled up to the sides, the seamen slipping and gasping in spray.

  Ainslie ran to the fore-gratings, shutting out the confusion as he sought out the bay, the anchored ship, all suddenly so close and stark.

  The top of Farrant’s turret glistening with salt and spray changed colour as bright balls of tracer floated above the periscope standards. The patrol vessel was dead astern now, a dark grey wedge above a creaming bow wave as she charged in pursuit.

  ‘Open fire!’

  The heavy machine-guns on the bridge started their insane clatter, the long ammunition belts writhing through the hatch, the red tracer flashing astern in twin arcs, knitting with the enemy’s before plunging down towards the target.

  Through the turret speaker Ainslie heard Farrant’s crisp voice, saw the two guns begin to swing to port; the seaman who had darted through the tiny hatch in the turret to remove the watertight tampions and drop them in their rack was halfway down to safety again when bullets hammered the thick steel, beat across the curved top and tore him almost in half. The man was dead instantly, cut to ribbons, his blood pouring down the turret and mingling with the spray on either side.

  Hands plucked the corpse out of sight and the hatch clanged shut. Over the speaker Farrant was heard to say, ‘Get that thing out of the way, man! Don’t just stand there like a mindless idiot!’

  Ainslie groped for the handset. ‘Guns. Open fire.’

  The right gun fired first, then the left one seconds later. Ainslie trained his glasses, keeping his head down as much as he could as metal cracked against the conning tower and ricocheted over the sea.

  The two star-shells burst beyond the headland, changing the dull light to blinding, arctic brightness.

  And it wa
s all there, to the left side of the bay, the great carrier, some moored boats and platforms around her stern, and a hard black line reaching across the glittering water towards the anchored merchantman. A boom, just as Ainslie had expected.

  He ignored the activity behind him and snapped down the voice-pipe. ‘All tubes ready!’ He heard the periscope squeaking round above his head, pictured the tense figures right forward in the bows, the eight loaded tubes, their doors open, Ridgway’s men waiting to reload. If they got the chance.

  A shell exploded between the Soufriére’s port side and the land, hurling a waterspout high in the air. In the searing light from the flares it looked like solid ice.

  More metal against the hull and turret, but so far no one on the bridge had been hurt.

  Ainslie pressed his forehead against the bridge sights, watching the carrier in the wires. God, she was big all right. Like a great ugly flat-iron. She had no visible funnels, they were built like long trunks half the length of the ship, tailing off outboard at the after end. The bridge too was cut as low as the flight deck. In the fading glare he could see some assembled aircraft, glistening in the eerie light like brightly painted toys.

  ‘Tell the gunnery officer to continue firing with semi-armour-piercing!’

  He dared not take his eyes from the sighting bar now. A seaman ran to the gunnery handset, but was hurled against the side as something punched through the steel plating and flung him down. Another took his place, retching and gasping through his message as the wounded seaman thrashed around on the gratings, the life draining out of him.

  It should have been me. Ainslie swallowed hard. Another second and I would be lying there.

  He felt the hull shake as the thin boom parted across the Soufrière’s bows, heard the nets scraping along the saddle tanks as they sank rapidly out of sight.

  He blinked rapidly to clear his vision. Now. ‘Fire One!’ He felt the small jerk as the torpedo flashed from its tube. ‘Carry on firing by stop-watch!’

  Ainslie ducked as more tracer licked from the boom vessel. ‘Guns! Shift target!’

  The twin barrels purred round smoothly, settled and fired, the shells both hitting the elderly vessel amidships, throwing up a wall of sparks and flames. The range was so short that pieces of the ship splashed down alongside the submarine.

  Satisfied with their work, the guns swivelled back towards the carrier, with only the hoarse cries of the layers and trainers to betray the control of humans.

  But before Farrant could fire the first torpedo struck home, the column of water shooting up the carrier’s side, blasting the air apart with the crash of its explosion. And another, then another, seven in all along the great hull, the eighth, which passed across her bows, burst eventually amongst some rocks.

  A searchlight licked out from further along the bay, swung over the submarine in a long pale arm and then came back again, holding the conning tower, blinding them with its sudden intensity.

  The guns recoiled, and two more explosions made vivid flashes on the carrier’s side. There was an internal one, too, and some of the aircraft bounced into the air before falling drunkenly amongst the rest.

  Two waterspouts shot up close abeam, the spray cascading across the bridge in a choking flood, tinged with smoke and cordite.

  One of the escorts had risen to the occasion. Too late for the Sudsuya, but not for her attacker.

  Tracers ripped above the bridge and more shells exploded in the water. The smoke was growing and spreading low over the water, and then it rippled with a dull red glow as fires probed through the carrier’s hull and reflected on the bobbing craft around her.

  ‘Hard astarboard!’ Ainslie did not have to be told of Halliday’s efforts. Every rivet seemed to be shaking loose as the big diesels mounted to their maximum revolutions.

  ‘Midships.’

  Ainslie made to wipe the spray from the gyro compass and felt the bile rise in his throat. In the flashing lights his hand looked black, but he knew it was the dying seaman’s blood.

  ‘Steer one-three-zero!’

  He heard Quinton call, ‘I’ve got her, sir!’

  Ainslie wiped his face with his wrist, seeing the land swinging across the bows and the way the guns pivoted on their mounting, still tracking their target.

  Then he saw the patrol vessel properly for the first time, swinging away, her role changing from hunter to hunted as the surfaced submarine turned to meet her.

  ‘Shift target! Patrol vessel at red one-five!’

  An enemy shell exploded just beyond Soufrière’s stem, like a giant hammer blow, deluging the casing and turret with water and smoke. What it had done to the fore-ends and the torpedomen there was impossible to tell.

  Ainslie’s head throbbed as the guns recoiled again, straddling the patrol vessel in white columns, making her turn more violently, revealing her full length when the fire gong rang once more. One over, the next a hit, the creaming bow wave dropping away as her engineroom exploded in lethal steam and splinters.

  Ainslie ran to the rear of the bridge, realizing that another man had fallen to his knees, clasping his stomach and gasping in agony as Menzies tried to pull him to the hatch.

  The whole bay seemed to be filled with fire and smoke, and when he managed to jam the binoculars to his eyes he realized that the Sudsuya was beginning to turn turtle, her aircraft spilling over the side, one catching fire like a moth in the flames as it fell.

  He shouted wildly into the smoke and din, ‘We did it!’

  Two further shells burst near the submarine. One warship at least was in pursuit. To catch the carrier’s executioner or to pick up her company, which would her commander decide? Another pair of shells exploded slightly to starboard, an answer to his unspoken question.

  Ainslie yelled down the voice-pipe, ‘Stand by stern tubes! We might get this one as we clear the headland!’

  He did not hear any acknowledgement for at that moment something struck him violently in the shoulder. For an instant he thought that a piece of one of the periscopes had been cut down by gunfire and had fallen on him. Then as the searing pain exploded through his body he started to fall, his arm shining with blood in the drifting tracers.

  Menzies was kneeling beside him, cradling him away from the side where two holes had suddenly appeared.

  Ainslie gasped, ‘Tell Number One, Yeo! Tell him to –’

  Then the pain tightened its grip, and he found himself spiralling down into darkness.

  14

  Survival

  AINSLIE BECAME AWARE that someone was wiping his face and throat with something cool, but when he opened his eyes it felt as if the lids were glued together.

  Everything was blurred and indistinct, shapeless and somehow disconnected from his dulled mind.

  A face loomed in front of him, Petty Officer SBA Hunt, his eyes screwed up with concentration as he examined his patient.

  ‘You all right, sir?’

  Ainslie felt his mind cringing and knew something was about to happen. Then he heard it, the threatening roar of screws, the sudden shock of explosions against the hull. The deck swayed up and down, forward and back, and as some kind of realization came back to him he knew he was in a cot, a webbing strap over his chest to hold him secure. He felt numbed, his limbs like his mind, without proper function.

  He heard glass and other objects clattering across the deck, and when he craned his head over the edge of the cot he saw mess everywhere. Broken bottles and tubes, torn bandages and a bowl full of blood-stained dressings.

  The noise was coming back again, sawing away at his brain, then two more crashes as depth-charges burst overhead.

  So they had got out and were submerged. He groaned and tried to move, but Hunt seized him and forced him back. His hands were smooth and soft like a woman’s but his grip was like steel.

  He said, ‘You’ve been hurt, sir. My orders are to make you rest.’

  Ainslie stared at the cot above him. ‘How long?’

  Hunt
shrugged. ‘Two hours, sir. Maybe more.’ He winced as the submarine bucked wildly and swayed to one side for several seconds. ‘God, I’m scared to death.’

  Ainslie looked at him, seeing his terror and able to admire his determination not show it.

  Someone groaned, and when Ainslie peered over the other side of the cot he saw the seaman who had fallen at the rear of the bridge. He was propped in a sitting position, tied with bandages and straps, in one corner of the sick-bay.

  Hunt said wearily, ‘I’ve drugged him best I can, sir.’

  Ainslie watched the wounded seaman. His face was ashen, and there was a lot of blood on his dressings.

  Hunt added softly, ‘I can’t let him lie down and die in peace, sir. He’s hit in the lungs. Nothing more I can do for him. He’ll drown in his own blood if he lies down, you see?’

  Ainslie reached up and touched his injured shoulder, feeling the bandages, the way his arm tingled with the mere effort of movement.

  Hunt said, ‘Splinter, sir. Bad one, but nothing broken, as far as I can tell.’

  Crash . . . crash . . . crash! Triple charges exploded nearby, and more racing screws thundered overhead. A bottle rolled across the deck, and Ainslie knew the boat was turning and changing depth at the same time.

  And it had been going on for over two hours. The realization was like a spur, and he gasped, ‘Get me up. I’ve got to go.’

  Hunt tried to grin. ‘Well, sir, it’s more than my life’s worth.’

  Feet crunched on glass and Sub-Lieutenant Jones, the seaplane’s observer, staggered through the door.

  ‘Number One sent me, sir. To see how you are.’ He almost fell as the hull tilted right over again and every light flickered dangerously.

  ‘Fine.’ The pain was returning. Hunt’s drugs must be wearing off. ‘What’s happening?’

  Jones crouched by the cot and held on to it with both hands.

  ‘Three destroyers from the Jap base, sir. They’ve been after us all night. But we bagged another with the stern tubes just after we left the place. Like you were telling us when you were hit.’