by Dudley Pope
The Marynal seemed to be a floating arsenal. ‘Very well, but don’t cock it until you want to use it. And remember the safety catch.’
‘Yes, sir. No papers identifying the Marynal. Lifejacket. Deck knife. Torch and extra batteries.’
Slowly Yorke worked his way through the remaining men, less because there was any particular need to check their equipment than because he needed a brief chat with each of them. He wanted to hear each man speak and equally important he wanted the seamen to hear him when he was talking quietly. Once on board the Penta, much might turn on a whispered order or response.
Finally Jenkins came up to him, and handed him two grenades. ‘Pity we can’t take that projector with us, sir, and drop it over the side,’ he murmured.
‘Don’t be nasty to the projector; without it we’d never have these grenades.’
‘I’m a bit doubtful about them, to tell you the truth, sir. These Maritime Regiment chaps are all right, considering they’re pongoes, but they’re mortal clumsy with their hands. We finished the last trip without a china mug left in the mess, all because they was cack-handed washing up.’
‘Don’t worry, we’re not throwing mugs this time. Now I want you and those other DEMS gunners to forget I’m RN and think of me as the second officer of whatever ship we choose.’
‘Fact is we don’t pay much attention to second officers, sir,’ Jenkins admitted frankly. ‘Chief officers is what we have more to do with. The mate in this ship’s an ’oly terror.’
‘Any chief officer in a ship with DEMS gunners needs to be a terror, holy or otherwise,’ Yorke said unsympathetically. ‘Now, where’s Watkins?’
The signalman was up in the lifeboat, cursing with an unimaginative monotony as he lashed down the large and heavy suitcase that represented the lifeboat transmitter.
Yorke looked over the thwart. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Oh, just lashing this set down again, sir. That bloody third sparks secured it right against the compass, sir. The south end’d point north if we switched on to listen to Vera Lynn on the distress frequency. Never heard of deviation, that bloody third sparks.’
Yorke realized that as far as Watkins was concerned, the man’s name for evermore would be ‘that bloody third sparks’, and no doubt when he was with the other signalmen he would refer to ‘your mate that bloody third sparks’. Mind you, Yorke admitted to himself, any third sparks lashing a radio transmitter within a few inches of a compass had only himself to blame if he lacked friends… That kind of thing could have a boat heading for the north pole when the compass showed it was steering for the south and the worshipful company of penguins.
Now for the long wait. Would the insider attack tonight? It should, if the Swede was part of the plan. Would the Marynal be hit? If she was, then there was going to be a squeeze in the ship’s three other lifeboats because Hobson had already offered to let the present plan stand should the ship be hit.
It was now seven o’clock. If the insider stuck to his regular routine he would torpedo his first ship at eight o’clock. It was all becoming very Teutonic. It may have worked well the first time – attacking at eight o’clock (or twelve or four) meant catching every ship as the watch was changing. In theory there might be a certain amount of confusion, but if the Marynal was anything to go by there was very little: the cadet on watch left the bridge fifteen minutes earlier to rouse the cadet who would relieve him, the mate who would take over from the one on watch, the radio officer and the new quartermaster. The DEMS gunners arranged for their own relief. With the new watch roused the cadet returned to the bridge and waited.
The new mate would come up (by tradition five minutes early) and be told the course and speed (course really, the speed was usually the same), and anything else of importance (like ‘The old man’s turned in’). The new cadet would arrive and be told nothing, and the quartermaster be given the course by the man he was relieving. And that was all. In a warship it was more complex because there were more men doing more jobs, but anyway, when the insider had hit the first ship on the first night he had no doubt visualized vast confusion and panic, so he had repeated it the second night. Being German he would probably do it again tonight.
Yorke could just see the time by the polished brass clock in the wheelhouse which was screwed to the bulkhead just behind the quartermaster at the wheel in a position where the dim light from the compass binnacle was just sufficient to light up the hands. It also showed the thin black metallic circle outside the numbers on which electrical contacts could be adjusted so that a buzzer sounded at predetermined times – the times set out for the zigzag diagram and warning of the precise moment when the wheel had to be put over on to a new course. He held his wristwatch against the binnacle light. A few seconds’ difference from the clock, which was checked daily against the chronometer. Two minutes to eight o’clock. Was that Oberleutnant at this very moment lining up the dark shadow of a ship in the graticules marked on the lens of his periscope?
He walked out of the wheelhouse, feeling his way round the armour-plating and on to the wings of the bridge. The cadet and the DEMS gunner were dark figures, impressions rather than people, as his night vision slowly returned.
The now-familiar opening of the furnace door and the hollow boom of it slamming shut lit up the whole convoy for a long moment and Yorke saw that the commodore’s ship had been hit. A few moments later he heard Captain Hobson, who had been standing out of sight outboard of the two Hotchkiss guns at the end of the bridge, say, ‘I hope the old Admiral’s all right.’
Yorke pictured the U-boat waiting submerged, the Oberleutnant now watching through his periscope, his men holding the firing levers of the other three torpedo tubes, and waiting to see which way the second ship in the column would go: whether she would pass to port of the commodore’s ship – using her as a shield, because the torpedo burst on the starboard quarter – or blunder along the starboard, giving the U-boat another target. Yorke realized the U-boat might have fired at the commodore’s ship just after she had passed, so that a slight alteration of the U-boat’s heading would bring the second ship into the sights before she started to pass one side or another.
Now a second red flash, this time on the bow of the second ship and showing the commodore stopped and sinking fast fifty yards ahead, revealed that that was what the Ted had done. Would he now turn even farther and get the third ship?
The captain of that merchantman had a few moments only to make one of three choices – turn to starboard (trying to increase speed and head straight for the U-boat, gaining the advantage of surprise and presenting only his beam instead of his length as a target), turn hard a’port to steer the reciprocal directly away from the U-boat (and risk hitting the third ship in the third column), again having the advantage of surprise, or keep his position, just altering course enough to port to avoid the two sinking ships ahead of him.
A third flash from abreast of the Marynal lit up the two sinking ships and showed the insider had hit his third victim of the night and the ninth in three days.
‘He’s not using his stern tube,’ Yorke told Hobson, who had scrambled out of the gun position to stand beside him.
‘How d’you know?’
‘We’d have been hit a minute or so ago: he must have been right between us and that last one. The Somers Island, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes. Bad payers, the owners. Always having crew trouble.’
‘Somers Island was the old name for Bermuda, wasn’t it?’
‘Believe so,’ Hobson said, and both men knew they were whistling in the dark because it was still not too late for the U-boat to fire its stern tube. ‘At least the rescue tug is in the right column,’ he added. ‘In fact…’ he broke off.
‘Yes,’ Yorke said, ‘the tug’s the only vessel left afloat in the fourth column now. The vice-commodore will have to close up the gap as soon as it’s da
ylight: we’re a six-column convoy, now, not seven.’
‘Bert James is a steady enough fellow,’ Hobson said. ‘He’s the vice-commodore. Leading the second column, isn’t he? He was rear-commodore in a convoy we were in last summer. Comes from Aberdeen. Teetotaller, too. Signed the pledge and all.’
‘We’re out of range of that stern tube now,’ Yorke said. ‘I think it helps us being close to that Swede.’
Hobson sniffed doubtfully. ‘The ship ahead of her was hit the first night, don’t forget.’
‘Maybe we’re in a lucky spot, astern of her.’
‘We’ll see,’ Hobson said. ‘By the way, where are you from?’
Yorke almost answered ‘Kent’ without thinking, then realized the reason for Hobson’s question. ‘The Somers Island, I think: the rescue tug should pick up everyone so there’s no chance of a mix up. It was Sir George Somers, by the way: I’ve just remembered. He was on his way to Virginia sometime around 1605 and ran into a hurricane which wrecked him on Bermuda. That was how it was settled.’
‘Hurricane, eh? Well, it blew him off course all right. Hope you have better luck. Say when you’re ready.’
Hobson was a cool chap, Yorke noted thankfully, but the U-boat had just made the Yorkshireman’s job easier: apart from the tug, which must be stopped and picking up survivors from the Somers Island, the whole of the next column had been wiped out, so the Marynal’s turn to port to lower the boat would be much easier.
‘I’m just going down to tell my chaps where we’re from, but you can start having steering problems whenever you’re ready. I think that U-boat’s finished his work for the night.’ He shook Hobson by the hand. ‘Thanks. Keep my cabin reserved for me!’
Yorke felt the ship heeling as he scrambled down the companionway to the boat deck, and he could picture Hobson’s quiet helm orders called through the doorway to the quartermaster as he watched to make sure he didn’t ram a wreck in turning to port out of the column: the commodore’s ship might still be quite close.
The lifeboat team was squatting down between the two drums round which the ropes of the falls of the lifeboat were wound. ‘Cup o’ cocoa, sir?’ Watkins asked, standing up with a big jug in his hand. Yorke did not want his bladder bothering him for the next half an hour so refused and said to the men briskly: ‘That third ship to be hit, the one abeam of us, was the Somers Island. We’re from her. You can remember her various positions. Somers Island, although it’s pronounced “summer’s”, is spelled s-o-m-e-r-s. I’m told the owners have a bad reputation for pay and conditions. The owners are the Hunter Shipping and Trading Company, known to some of you as the “Hungry Hunters”. Somers Island, by the way…’ he felt the ship begin to heel and the rumble of the engine eased slightly as Hobson reduced the revolutions, ‘is another name for Bermuda. And Bermuda is a tiny island standing by itself five hundred miles or so north of the Caribbean. The Somers Island is or was, rather, 6800 tons and carrying a mixed cargo. Under charter to Elder Dempster and the United Africa Company. Engines for fighters and bombers in crates, tents in bales, boots for the Army in wooden crates, a good deal of webbing, tropical uniforms, rifles and Bren guns also all in crates…no explosives, you’ll be glad to hear,’ he concluded and was glad to hear the men laugh.
Now the Marynal was rolling heavily: for the past few days she had been pitching, with only a slight roll, the seas hitting her fine on the port bow. Now Hobson had turned her to port she was lying with the wind and sea on her starboard side, her port side making a lee. Or a comparative lee, Yorke thought as he looked down into the inky-black water. The waves were rising and falling some fifteen feet; once it was lowered and before the falls were cast off, the lifeboat would be like a run-amok lift.
The boatswain and a dozen seamen were ready to lower the boat once the team had scrambled on board. Usually the boat was lowered with only two or three men in it, and it was held alongside while the rest scrambled down a rope ladder, but that took time and Yorke had decided to lower the boat with all his men in it. There was a considerable risk that she would be so heavy that the boatswain’s men would not be able to hold her, the ropes of the falls racing through their hands. In that case the lifeboat would drop with a crash, probably upending because one fall would probably run faster than the other, tipping all the men out and then landing on top of them. The alternative was to raise the Swede’s suspicions – quite apart from leaving the Marynal stopped for many minutes, during which time the U-boat might spot her and line up for a shot at a sitting bird.
‘Ready, bosun?’
‘When you are, sir.’
‘Right men into the boat with you. Mr Mills, I hope you’re all ready to start the engine!’
Yorke counted the men as they scrambled out into the boat and followed the last one, sitting at the aftermost thwart, ready to take the tiller.
He glanced down over the side. He was just noting Marynal still had some way on when he felt rather than heard a sudden spurt of vibration. Hobson was giving the propeller a final touch astern to stop the ship. Then he heard the boatswain calling that the ship was stopped and a moment later heard the shrill note of a whistle sounding from the bridge: a police whistle, the type the Merchant Navy were given to lash to their lifejackets. It was Hobson’s signal that the way was off the ship.
‘Lower away, bosun! Handsomely now! And don’t let her run!’
And slowly the boat deck seemed to rise and the lifeboat was lowered. Now the main deck was passing, and a couple of seamen standing there waved. They were holding heavy motor tyres, and Yorke realized Hobson had remembered that if the ship was rolling violently the lifeboat might slam into the side and be damaged. The motor tyres would help absorb the shock. The Yorkshireman was a natural seaman.
Now the main deck was disappearing into the darkness above and a shower of spray whipped across the boat. The bow seemed to dip for a moment, then the stern lifted, and a moment later they were afloat, the huge double blocks of the falls tilting over as the boat began its wild yo-yo movement.
‘Cast off aft and hold on for’ard,’ Yorke shouted. ‘Now Mills, get that damn thing started! Oars! Fend off!’ Fortunately the Marynal in fact still had a knot of way so the lifeboat was being dragged through the water by the remaining forward fall. This in turn meant that the boat had steerage way, so instinctively Yorke pulled the tiller towards him and the boat began to sheer away from the ship. Yorke bellowed: ‘Cast off forward!’ and saw the big double block with the hook beneath disappear into the darkness.
Simultaneously the lifeboat began leaping up and down like a runaway horse and the great bulk of the Marynal, a darker patch in the night, disappeared as the boat dropped into troughs.
Yorke was just going to give the order for the men to start rowing when he felt rather than heard the ‘Whhuupp… whup…whup’ of the Marynal’s great propeller starting to revolve. Then a clatter and a roar from near his feet showed that Mills had managed to get the little engine started. The triumphant engineer shouted above the noise: ‘Say when I should put her in gear!’
A total of fourteen men, a standard Board of Trade lifeboat, and a few revolvers and automatics, a couple of dozen hand grenades, a lifeboat radio transmitter…the Admiralty was going to war against the insider…
It all seemed a long way from the Citadel, Yorke thought as he crouched over the lifeboat compass, lit by a tiny paraffin lamp. Now they had to head for a precise position astern of the convoy from where they could follow along in its wake so that even if they lost sight of it – as they almost certainly would – they could be sure of sighting the Swede later. He shivered and remembered the loneliness after the Aztec sank, a feeling that was worse in daylight than darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
At ten thirty-five next morning Cadet Reynolds suddenly stood up, holding on to the shoulder of the seaman seated in front of him to keep his balance, and said quit
e casually: ‘There she is, heading away from us!’
The Swedish ship was far enough away that she could only be seen as the lifeboat rose on the crest of a wave. Yorke envied the matter-of-fact way the cadet had reported: for himself he was scared because, in the fifteen minutes around dawn when the black of night turned into the grey wash of the start of a new day, he realized he had forgotten something that could get them all killed: if the lifeboat accidentally surprised the Swede actually with the U-boat, either vessel would simply ram the lifeboat, destroying all evidence that could incriminate them or interrupt the insider attacks on the convoy.
It was vital, therefore, that Johnny Gower and the convoy knew what was happening, and the best way he could think of for doing that was for the lifeboat to start calling up the Penta by name, using the lifeboat transmitter on the distress frequency. This would mean that the Swedes would not then dare do anything but pick them up. The Swedes would know that other ships in the convoy listening on the call and distress frequency would hear the transmission, and the fact that the survivors broke the rules by mentioning the ship’s name…as far as Yorke was concerned, it was a justifiable form of blackmail, and the thing that desperate men might do if they were a bit panicky.
He looked round the boat. His men were on the verge of looking like pirates: those with beards looked unkempt; those normally clean-shaven had bristly faces. All were wearing woollen caps or balaclava helmets and they seemed shapeless in duffel coats which were becoming sodden from the almost constant spray sweeping the boat as it butted into the waves, pushed on by the little engine. Mills occasionally lifted the wooden casing and looked inside, then turned aft and winked at Yorke as he lowered it again and secured the clips. At this distance it was unlikely the Swede had yet spotted the lifeboat.
‘Finish up the cocoa in those vacuum flasks,’ Yorke said, ‘then puncture them and toss ’em over the side so that they sink. Take what concentrated chocolate and Horlicks tablets any of you want, then screw up the food locker.’ The men were shivering with cold; their hands had the dead white skin of a woman who had spent the morning scrubbing the laundry.
