Down The Hatch

by John Winton

  “What’s that?” the Midshipman asked, soberly conscious that he was being initiated into one of the world’s obscurest sciences, a mystery understood only by a tiny number of people.

  “Go to a hundred feet if you can, where it’s relatively calm and peaceful. Slow down. Put the wheel amidships. Put the planes amidships. Then watch the depth gauge. If you’re light, the boat will rise. If you’re heavy, the boat will sink. So you pump or flood, using the ballast pump. Always get the bodily weight right first. Then watch the bubble on the inclinometer. If it runs forward you know you’re light forrard and heavy aft. If it runs aft, you know you’re heavy forrard and light aft. So you pump water whichever way you need with the trim pump. It’s useful to remember, always pump towards the bubble. Eventually you should get to the state where the boat stays at the right depth and the bubble stays amidships, without using the planes. You see, you may have been keeping depth before but the planesmen may have been sweating blood to keep you there. What you’re trying to do is to achieve a state of neutral buoyancy so that the boat has no tendency to go up or down.”

  “Where does ‘Q’ tank come in then?”

  “ ‘Q’ has got nothing to do with the trim. It’s either empty or full. It’s an emergency tank which you flood when you want to go down in a hurry. Then you blow it out when you reach depth. The things that have an effect on the trim are the weight of fuel, water and stores, the number of people on board, the density of the sea water, and whether the boat is speeding up or turning under wheel or firing torpedoes. Even the weather up top has an effect down to a certain depth. Mind you, once you’ve got a good trim that doesn’t mean it’ll last for ever. You might run into a patch of denser sea water, people move about, the weather might get a bit rougher. You’ve got to keep at it the whole time.”

  “As well as looking through the periscope,” said The Bodger, who had been listening unobtrusively from the passageway. “I’d rather you had a bloody awful trim and kept a good look-out.” The Bodger had been struck by a curious common factor in the reports of dived submarines which had collided with surface ships. In many cases the First Lieutenant, the Trimming Officer, had been on watch at the time of the collision and had been obsessed with the trim, taking a couple of gallons from one tank and putting a couple of gallons into another, while all the time the Queen Mary and the entire Home Fleet bore down on him at thirty knots.

  The Midshipman took The Bodger’s remarks to heart. He was indeed a little too zealous. The following afternoon the Midshipman was at the periscope by himself. It was the dead time of the afternoon. The planesmen yawned in their seats. Everyone except the watch was asleep. The Bodger himself was in his cabin, lightly dreaming of fat aircraft carriers steaming towards him on steady courses, when he was awakened by the sound of water flushing into “Q” tank. The deck was tilting and the depth gauge already showed seventy feet.

  “Six helicopters, sir!” cried the Midshipman.

  The Bodger’s eyebrows rose.

  “Six choppers!”

  Seahorse was three hundred miles from land and had met nothing but merchant shipping for three days.

  “Have you blown ‘Q’ yet?”

  “Oh, no sir, I’m afraid.”

  The depth gauge was showing a hundred and twenty feet and the needle was still swinging rapidly. The Outside Wrecker, on the blowing panel, had the look of a man about to explode into a thousand pieces.

  “Blow ‘Q’. Sixty feet.”

  At periscope depth again, The Bodger searched sea and sky meticulously.

  “Damned if I can see any bloody choppers,” he growled.

  The Bodger shook his head.

  “Either you’ve got stereoscopic eyes or I’m going blind in my old age, Mid.”

  “I’m very sorry, sir.”

  “That’s all right. You did the right thing. Always go deep for six choppers. Especially in the middle of the bloody Atlantic,” The Bodger added, to himself.

  The Bodger left the periscope, climbed back into his bunk and composed himself for sleep. Just as he felt the warm comfortable recession of his senses, the deck tilted once more.

  “They’re back, sir.”

  The Bodger gave the shame-faced Midshipman a curious look. Again he searched the sky. Again, he could see nothing but a wheeling seagull and the eternal grey waves rolling towards him at eye level.

  “You feeling O.K., Mid?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re there, sir.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they are.” The Bodger looked again. “Ah. . . . Wait, I see them. Is that them?” The Midshipman looked through the periscope and nodded. Flying steadily eastwards, looking neither to right nor left, were six large geese in line ahead.

  The Bodger conceded that they did resemble helicopters to an untrained eye but the control room watch had not heard a better joke since the Coxswain got food poisoning. The helmsman tittered. The Outside Wrecker smirked. Ripper, on the foreplanes, grinned at his depth gauge. Even the Radio Electrician, a naturally sombre individual, sitting at the after planes, permitted himself a faint enigmatic smile.

  “Never mind, Mid,” The Bodger said. “Always go deep first and ask questions afterwards.”

  Nevertheless, The Bodger could not avoid a feeling of disquiet. The affair of the Six Geese smacked suspiciously of bird-watching and bird-watching through the periscope was the submariners’ traditional symptom of impending insanity. In The Bodger’s experience, the feathered friends were normally followed closely by the men in white coats. The Bodger had once served with a captain who was actually murmuring: “Strange to see black-backed gulls so far south” while a Japanese destroyer threshed past two hundred yards away. The Bodger resolved to keep a sharp eye on the Midshipman.

  But when he had thought more deeply about the matter, The Bodger was not very surprised that the Midshipman should make mistakes on the periscope. The periscope was much more than a complicated optical instrument and to use it successfully required much more than mere good eyesight. A periscope demanded the ability to deduce facts from limited data, the ability to see a whole room through the keyhole, in short it demanded “the periscope eye”. The task was hard enough in daylight. At night it was trebly difficult. Here again, the Midshipman provided the control room watch with some much appreciated entertainment.

  The night following the affair of the Six Geese the Midshipman came on watch with Wilfred while the submarine was snorkelling to recharge the batteries. The Midshipman had no sooner taken over the periscope for the first time when he rang the “Stop Snorting” Alarm and ordered “Q” flooded. Once again, The Bodger tumbled out of his bunk. “What’s up, Mid? Luminous shite-hawks?”

  “Aircraft dead ahead sir, coming straight towards!”

  “Golly.” The Bodger scratched his head. “Funny we didn’t get any indication of it before. Was it lighted?”

  “Very bright red light like a port wing light, sir.”

  “Did you see anything, Number One?”

  “No, sir.” Wilfred, too, was perplexed, it was a clear night with a sharply defined horizon and excellent periscope visibility. Surely he could not have missed a brightly-lighted aircraft?

  “Well, we’ll stay down for half an hour or so and see what happens.”

  After half an hour The Bodger brought Seahorse back to periscope depth. As the periscope broke surface The Bodger swivelled round in a quick sweep.

  “There’s your aircraft, Mid,” he said, at once. “It’s Mars.”

  The Midshipman blushed; what with flying geese and hostile planets, The Bodger must be beginning to think him a little touched in the head. But The Bodger seemed quite unconcerned about it.

  “It’s quite understandable,” he said. “It’s by far the brightest star in the sky and it could well be an aircraft light. Don’t worry Mid, there’s many a good submariner stopped snorting and gone deep for Mars or Venus, let me tell you. As I said before, I’d much rather you went deep unnecessarily a thousand times than stayed up once too
often and got us clobbered by an aircraft. Go deep first, ask questions afterwards.”

  The ship’s company were grateful to the Midshipman. He provided them with almost their only source of innocent amusement as the days of the patrol crept by. They had already settled to the strange twilight existence of a submarine on patrol. They slept through the day and came awake at nightfall for the one hot meal of the day which was normally cooked and eaten while the main engines were running to charge the batteries. Twice a day they went to maximum depth to take bathythermograph readings of the sea layers. The rest of the time was spent patrolling at periscope depth.

  The passage of time was marked by the changing of the watches. Beards grew longer and more unkempt until the control room took on the appearance of a depression bread-line. The bread itself was harder and the slices grew smaller--as the crusts went mouldy and were cut off. The submarine ticked over in a somnolent state similar to a mass hibernation.

  Seahorse’s patrol position lay across a main shipping route and The Bodger stood at the periscope and watched the big tankers come up over the horizon, their huge slab sides and superstructures as big as blocks of flats gleaming white in the sunlight. The Bodger practised attacks on them. They made perfect targets, steaming on steady unalarmed courses, the massive hydrophone effect of their propellers pounding over Seahorse’s sonar. They seemed quite unaware of a submarine’s presence. If any of them ever noticed a suspicious flash from the sea as the sun caught the revolving glass of the periscope they showed no sign of it. Some of them passed less than a quarter of a mile from Seahorse and The Bodger was often unable to see anyone on watch on the bridge at all.

  On the fifth day, The Bodger became concerned about the lack of contacts and moved to the extreme westward of Seahorse's area. The Bodger reasoned that the expected Task Force would assemble far out in the Atlantic to the westward and move eastward towards Ushant. A signal at midnight from ComSubPink confirmed The Bodger’s theory. By dawn on the sixth day The Bodger was waiting on the westward edge of his area. It was, appropriately, the Midshipman who made the first sighting.

  The Midshipman looked very closely before he mentioned it to Wilfred. He could not afford another mistake. If this turned out to be a fishing vessel or a floating spar of wood, he would never live it down.

  “Number One, would you come and have a look, please? I think I can see the mast of a destroyer! “

  Wilfred was at the periscope in one bound.

  “O.K. I’ve got it. Call the Captain! “

  The Bodger was delighted.

  “That’s well done, Mid. That’s a good sighting. It’s a destroyer all right, large as life. I can just see the tip of his funnel as well. We’re fine on his port bow. No, he’s just altered towards. But he’s still a long way away. Number One, pipe ‘Attack team will be required in ten minutes’ time’.”

  Leading Seaman Gorbles, the sonar watchkeeper, had been giving negative reports in a regular monotone voice. Suddenly, his voice went up a semitone.

  “Possible H.E., bearing two-seven-zero. Faint transmissions on the bearing.”

  The Bodger was jubilant. “That’s us! Blood for supper! Let’s have a butchers.”

  The Bodger took the second pair of earphones and listened as Leading Seaman Gorbles quartered the sea with sweeps of his set. The Bodger could hear the unmistakable throbbing of the destroyer’s hydrophone effect, known in sonar parlance as “H.E.”, and the eerie pinging transmissions of its asdic set. Leading Seaman Gorbles had already begun his long recital of new hydrophone effects and bearing changes, couched in the esoteric dialect of the sonar world, which would continue until all the sounds had faded and the sea was empty once more.

  “. . H.E. louder, two-seven-two, moving right. Revolutions one-two-zero, classified turbine. Transmissions on the bearing, transmission interval varying. Second H.E., two-seven-nine, transmissions varying. . . .”

  The destroyers were still searching without contact. While their transmissions remained random and disconnected, a submarine could assume that it had not yet been detected. The Bodger went back to the periscope.

  “It’s them all right. I can see them now. It’s two destroyers and there’s something else behind them. . . . Can’t see what it is, but it’s a lot of ship! And more of them. . . . My God a whole bloody forest of masts! It’s the Task Force, not a doubt about it.”

  It was indeed the vanguard of the Task Force, spread out over a front of more than thirty miles. The Task Force had been assembling for the past two days, the earliest arrivals killing time in refuelling, carrying out asdic sweeps and narrowly avoiding collisions.

  The main striking element of the Task Force was the two aircraft carriers H.M.S. Great Christopher and the U.S.S. Little Richard. Little Richard was almost three times as big as Great Christopher and was the largest warship the world had ever seen. Rumours of her fantastic size had even percolated as far as Seahorse and the messes were buzzing with sailors’ yarns about her, that she was so big that the Captain went round Sunday divisions in a Grand Prix Ferrari, that her hangars were so large that she carried two squadrons of B.52s, that she was so long that there was a bus service from one end of her to the other, and that her flag deck was so high that her signalmen wore oxygen masks. By any standards she was a formidable ship. The Bodger was anxious to make her acquaintance.

  Little Richard was only the hub of a vast armada made up of Great Christopher and four smaller carriers, five guided-missile cruisers, three orthodox cruisers, seven escort and radar picket groups, and a fleet train of four tankers and a supply ship.

  Occupying last place in the Task Force was the motor yacht Istagfurallah, the property of an oil-bearing Sheikh. She was present quite by chance, her owner only hearing of “Lucky Alphonse” through his sailing master who was given complete details of the exercise in a Naples bar. The Sheikh had arrived at the assembly point first and had courteously greeted each fresh arrival by dipping his ensign, the house flag of San Remo casino, and by a display of fireworks. Istagfurallah had passed unchallenged because each new captain who saw her had decided that she must have been included in an Amendment he had not yet received. Her presence was in fact appreciated, if only for the firework display she provided every night. Her only other quirk was her habit of hoisting inexplicable signals according to the passing whim of the Sheikh. At the present moment she was flying “Am preparing to repel boarders” and a small white pennant inscribed in gold with a verse of the Koran.

  By breakfast time, the major units had completed fuelling, the escort groups were in position, and the Task Force moved off on an easterly course. Istagfurallah flying the International signal “You are standing into danger”.

  Ten miles ahead, and directly in the path of the Task Force lay S.555, Exercise Callsign: Eskimo Napoleon, H.M.S. Seahorse (Lieutenant-Commander R. B. Badger, D.S.C., R.N.).

  Watching the Task Force’s advance, The Bodger felt like a bandit waiting to ambush a ponderous wagon train.

  “. . Four, five, six escorts. And behind them two carriers. Name of a name. . . . That’s the biggest carrier I’ve ever seen! It’s. . . . It’s indecent! They’re not even zig-zagging. Nearest escort is . . . let’s see . . . four miles away. God, talk about Johnny-Head-In-Air! You’d thing they were out for a Sunday afternoon jolly. It’s always the same with these frigates. Give them a fine afternoon off Portland with the First Eleven up in the Asdic Office and they’re good kids. But you wait until they’ve been at sea a few days and they’ve had a bit of rough weather and there’s any old Joe Bloggs on the set and then you see a difference! They wouldn’t know a submarine if it came up and asked them for a light. . .”

  “Periscope’s been up fifteen seconds, sir,” said Wilfred.

  “Right. Let’s have another listen.” The Bodger donned the earphones.

  By now the attack team had closed up and were waiting for the attack to begin. The control room was crowded with men standing by instruments, plots and counters to help Th
e Bodger with his attack.

  “That’s a funny H.E.” The Bodger said.

  “I think he’s got a chipped propeller, sir,” said Leading Seaman Gorbles. “I can’t get a rev. count on him. He’s staggering his revs.”

  “Dead crafty,” said The Bodger.

  The Bodger took the periscope again.

  “Now here’s a character who looks as though he knows what he’s doing. I do believe it’s our friend with the chipped prop. Yes, it must be. Well, here goes. Bring all tubes to the action state. Stand by for the first range and bearing of the target. The target is Little Richard. There can’t be anyone else that size. . .”

  With the first range and bearing of Little Richard, the stop watches were starting, the first situation put on the fire control plot and the first entry made in the attack narrative. The attack was under way. Meanwhile, The Bodger returned to the ship with the intriguing propellers.

  “I don’t like the look of this man. He’s got the attack flag at the dip. He’s got a sniff of us. Ah, he’s turned away. His pennant number is F.787. Somebody get out the exercise bridge card and see who that is.”

  “It’s H.M.S. Windfall, sir,” said Wilfred. “Frigate converted from a destroyer, sir.”

  “Who’s her captain?”

  “Captain J. A. S. Persimmons, D.S.O. and Bar, D.S.C. and Bar, R.N., sir.”

  “Black Sebastian!”

  The Bodger put up the periscope handles with a snap.