The Gatecrashers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 6

by Alexander Fullerton

  Particularly when one saw—as Nick did now, startled by the simplicity of it and annoyed with himself for not having seen it before—that they didn’t need to!

  Because if they knew the convoy’s position, course and speed they’d also know it could only be making for North Russia. So by steaming north from Altenfjord at economical revs they’d only have to cover about half the distance in order to intercept it east of Bear Island, inside the Barents Sea, a day later. Saving fuel, and staying much closer to their base. It was so obvious—and as good as certain they wouldn’t have come steaming out northwestward. So there was no need to break W/T silence, or slow the convoy’s progress by diverting it. Not at this stage, anyway. In the longer term, by the time the surface threat could be close at hand, Admiral Kidd and his cruisers could be close, too.

  Nick straightened from the chart.

  “Revs for twenty-eight knots, pilot. Go up and see to it. It should bring us up to the convoy at about 1700. Before that we’ll shift to line-abreast and …” he shrugged … “trust to luck.”

  Slight frown on Christie’s hawkish face. Navigators didn’t believe in trusting to luck—or at least, to admitting they sometimes had to. In point of fact there’d be a considerable element of chance in making this rendezvous, however well he’d done his sums. There’d been a spell of foul weather further south, and no opportunities for sextant fixes, starsights or sunsights. Nor had there been any position reports exchanged, because of the need for strict W/T silence and the hope of slipping through undetected. On top of these factors was the overriding one that navigation in these northern reaches was never as accurate as you’d have liked it to be.

  The door slid shut behind Christie. Nick looked at Treseder.

  “Something bothering you?”

  “Well, sir,” a snort of humour, “Tirpitz’s fifteen-inch guns do bother me, a little. And Scharnhorst’s—what, eleven-inch?”

  Nick thought, looking at him, that Treseder knew damn well what calibre of gun the Scharnhorst sported. The commander added, “And ten destroyers, with five point nines? Even they out-gun us!”

  He was right. The Narvik-class destroyers were more like light cruisers in terms of armament. Calliope’s guns were 5.25s.

  “So what’s your conclusion?”

  “Well, sir,” Treseder looked uncomfortable, “if they’re out looking for us, and we hold on as we are …”

  Nick sighed, turned away. He said quietly, “Tirpitz isn’t within 300 miles of us, Jim.”

  “H’m …”

  Puzzled; and hoping for an explanation. Nick let it ride. He believed totally in his assessment, and Treseder hadn’t bothered to work it out. So—leave it at that, be proved right, and next time one might hope for this man’s trust.

  Trickery? Perhaps it was. But expertise in any field might be described as an amalgam of tricks, and leadership didn’t have to be any exception. Nick was aware of his newness to this job, and that it was in the ship’s best interests as much as his own that her officers and men should have confidence in him.

  “But incidentally … You’re right—if those destroyers are Narvik-class, they out-gun us. And compared to Scharnhorst, let alone Tirpitz, we’re a sprat … But off Sirte in March last year—just bear this in mind, as a point of reference—Philip Vian had three ships of the same class as this one to defend a Malta convoy, and he drove off the battleship Littorio, three heavy cruisers and eight destroyers!”

  “Yes.” Treseder nodded. “Italians, though.”

  He had a point. But Germans, too, tended not to put their big ships at risk if it was possible to avoid doing so. And half the value of actions like that one of Admiral Vian’s was that it demonstrated to others what could be achieved by the resolute handling of a small force against less resolute larger ones.

  Whistling in the dark?

  On his way back to the forebridge, a new thought kindled. It was a question: if his analysis of enemy movements was correct, why should they have sailed from Altenfjord thirty hours earlier than they need have? When (a) they were safer in those heavily-protected anchorages, (b) all the time they were at sea they were burning oil, and (c) by putting out so early they were giving advance notice of intention to attack?

  It didn’t make sense.

  Able Seaman Tomblin, Nick’s servant, asked him, “Be taking your dinner up ’ere, sir, will you?”

  “Yes, please. But I only want a snack. Tell Parker, will you.”

  “Corned dog an’ beans, sir?”

  Parker was his PO steward, and Tomblin was a three-badger, a seaman with three chevrons on his arm indicating that he’d completed at least twelve years’ service. He was a man of about Nick’s own height, with a seamed, weathered face and slitted grey eyes. One of a particular species, quite distinct from the type who rose to Petty Officer and then Chief PO and eventually Warrant Officer. The Tomblins of the Royal Navy were unpromotable because they’d have regarded any suggestion of promotion as insulting.

  “I’ll have coffee with it, please.”

  The watch had changed. It was Ferrimore at the binnacle now instead of Halcrow. Ferrimore was an RN sub-lieutenant: tall, fair and in the process of growing a beard. Crossing the bridge towards his high chair, Nick thought it must be about ten days since the boy had requested “permission to grow.” If the fuzz didn’t shape up pretty soon, he’d be told to shave it off. He got up on the seat and put the strap of the binoculars over his head. There was one logical answer to that question of the premature sailing of the enemy battle group: that they’d put to sea for some purpose that had nothing at all to do with this convoy operation. Only one such purpose came to mind—a break-out into the Atlantic.

  “Captain, sir. Another signal.”

  Bliss seemed to have control of his excitement this time.

  “Let’s have a look.”

  Again the prefix was SECRET IMMEDIATE. But it was from CS 39, to the same addressees as the previous one. CS 39 meant 39th Cruiser Squadron, which consisted of Nottingham—flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Kidd—Rhodesia and Minotaur. Kidd was informing all concerned that his squadron had cleared Akureyri and was steering 055 degrees at thirty-two knots.

  “Cavalry to the rescue, Schooly.”

  “Sir?”

  Bliss was a rather humourless young man, Nick thought. He reread the signal. It had been originated only twenty-eight minutes earlier, and he guessed it would have been transmitted from the shore W/T station at Akureyri after the cruisers had sailed. Kidd wouldn’t have broken radio silence from sea. In present circumstances none of the participants in this game of hide-and-seek would let out a single peep unless an enemy was already in contact—air, surface or subsurface—in which case there’d be nothing to lose, with the cat out of the bag already. When it happened, you’d transmit all the signals you’d been holding back.

  “Pilot.” Christie approached, and Nick gave him the signal. “CS thirtynine’s cutting the corner to the south of us. Put it on the chart, will you.”

  He could visualise it—courses, relative bearings and distances—roughly, but well enough. If the cruiser admiral stuck to his present course and speed he’d most likely be something like a hundred miles south of the convoy by breakfast time tomorrow. A “close-support” cruiser force, in this kind of set-up, wasn’t supposed to stay in sight of the convoy it was protecting; convoys attracted air and submarine attack, and the cruisers’ function was to ward off surface interference, not to get themselves bombed or torpedoed. Kidd’s aim would be to put himself between the convoy and the attackers, but with nothing yet to tell him which direction an attack might come from he’d be keeping his options open. And meanwhile—this new truth struck suddenly—if he held on as he was steering now he’d be taking his ships well into the range of bomber-strikes from the enemy airfields in north Norway.

  So, he wouldn’t. He’d make as much distance east as he could by dusk tonight, then turn up northwards to put himself nearer the convoy. Astern of it or on the q
uarter, perhaps thirty or forty miles away, to shadow until the enemy showed their hand.

  You could bet on it. But would the German admiral have the nous to bet on it too? One guess you could hope he might make was that the British battle squadron would not be far behind the cruisers.

  The air threat was a very real one, as previous Arctic convoy experience had proved. Passing around that high shoulder of the world and entering the Barents Sea—where PQ 17 had been torn to shreds—convoys and escorts had to run the gauntlet of all those airfields. Nick wished, sadly, that he’d been given an escort carrier on this jaunt; some fighter cover would have made all the difference in the world. One carrier had in fact been allocated, but then turned out to be not available; there’d been no replacement. There was a make-or-break battle raging at this moment on the Atlantic convoy routes, to which the U-boats had returned in strength after their heavy defeat in May and a few months of licking their wounds and some redeployment; also there were large-scale operations in progress in the Mediterranean, in support of the battle for Italy. Against that background of high employment for all available ships, this operation had been mounted at short notice and provided with only as much as could be spared.

  Rear-Admiral Kidd had told Nick, on board the cruiser-flagship in Akureyri: “There’s a steaming row between Winston and Stalin. Mostly because Winston’s very properly reading him the riot act over the bloody awful way they treat us up at Murmansk and Archangel, all their damned restrictions and red tape—and lack of any decent medical facilities. He’s proposed sending a hospital unit of our own up to Vaenga—as opposed to a couple of doctors in a wooden hut—and the buggers won’t allow it! So we’re to fetch these empty ships back now, but Winston’s not promising any more convoys until his points are satisfied.”

  The Russians certainly were inhospitable. Particularly so to men who risked their lives to bring them the material they needed. Perhaps the convoys weren’t quite as vital to them now as they had been earlier, but late in 1941 when the Germans had got to within thirty miles of Moscow, this flow of war supplies had almost certainly tipped the scales and saved Russia from defeat. Which admittedly had been in the British interest too, but might still have inspired some gratitude—especially in a country which, until it had itself been attacked, had been quite happy to see Britain and all Europe ravaged by the Nazis.

  Tomblin, with a covered lunch-tray and an odour of rum—natural enough at this time of day … He whipped the covering napkin off, revealing corned beef, baked beans, beetroot, a slice of buttered bread and a cup of coffee.

  “Splendid. Thank you, Tomblin.”

  “We in for a dust-up, sir?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  But one of the perks of Tomblin’s job as Captain’s Servant was to acquire snippets of information. To be in the know enhanced his status vis à vis the rest of the ship’s company. Respecting this, Nick added, “My guess is that if we run into them it’ll be by chance. We know they’re at sea, but I don’t believe they know we are. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Any ‘elp near if we do fetch up with ‘em?”

  “Yes. Thirty-ninth Cruiser Squadron’s chasing up astern now at thirtytwo knots. They’ll be in shouting distance by first light tomorrow.”

  Tomblin nodded approvingly.

  “It’s all in ‘and then, sir.”

  Alone again, forking corned beef into his mouth, he marvelled at Percy Tomblin’s bland acceptance of cruisers as a shield against two of the most powerful warships afloat. Tomblin’s confidence contrasted with his own selfdoubt, the disturbing question, What if I’ve got it wrong?

  Chewing, glancing round and noticing Jim Treseder’s preoccupied expression as he listened with contrived patience to a monologue from Fountain, the diminutive Captain of Marines; Treseder plainly did have doubts. He could be right, too. If—a new theory now—if enemy Intelligence had learnt that PQ 19 was on the way, and Admiral Dönitz—Hitler had sacked his former Commander-in-Chief and appointed the U-boat admiral in his place—had been really well informed, suppose Dönitz had decided to strike at the convoy before the fighting escort joined it?

  At 1400 he ordered the destroyers into line abreast at 6000-yard intervals. The move had been prearranged, a minor item in Nick’s briefing of Trench and the other destroyer captains back in Iceland. As the flag-hoist dropped from Calliope’s yardarm all the destroyers’ helms went over; his own destroyer-man’s heart warmed to the sight of them fanning out at high speed to their new stations. Trench was putting three of them on Calliope’s starboard beam and two to port, he himself in Moloch taking the centre starboard billet. The total spread of ships as they advanced, zigzagging, in search of the convoy which should now have been about fifty miles ahead but might easily be closer, was fifteen miles—plus the range of the wing ships’ radar.

  Half an hour later Nick increased the speed from twenty-eight to thirtytwo knots. It was a measure of his anxiety—unrecognised, he hoped, by others. It was extremely important to link up with the convoy before dusk. Even if he’d been only half-wrong—or half-right …

  He lit a pipe. Two of Calliope’s three radar sets were in operation: the 281 air warning set with its aerial at the foremasthead, and the Type 273 surface warning set on the leading edge of the gunnery director tower. Also, up on the tripod foremast, a seaman lookout in the barrel-shaped crow’s nest had binoculars constantly sweeping. Swaying in great arcs against grey sky as the cruiser rolled and pitched: to tolerate that motion demanded a cast-iron stomach.

  Visibility was still variable. Not bad in some sectors, worse in others.

  1440: Another Secret Immediate … This was from C-in-C Home Fleet, to the effect that the battle squadron had sailed from Akureyri and was steering 076 at twenty-eight knots. Bruce Christie took it down to the chartroom and came back to confirm what Nick had already guessed: that course would point straight across the Norwegian Sea at Altenfjord, and would be intended to make the enemy believe the battle squadron was aiming to cut them off from their base. But with only Hunts to screen them, the big ships wouldn’t cover even half that distance.

  1500 … Treseder, back on the bridge after lunching down below, was smoking a post-prandial cigarette and adding his binocular effort to the search. During the past hour the gap should have closed by eighteen miles. If all estimates were correct, there’d be at least an hour to go before you’d expect to make contact. Nick had shifted to the line-abreast formation early because the convoy was as likely to be astern of station as ahead of it. More so, in fact.

  Treseder moved over to Nick’s corner.

  “Too bad we don’t have an escort carrier with us, sir.”

  “Yes. The point was made, in Akureyri.”

  The carrier that had been included in the original orders had suffered either machinery breakdown or action damage. They’d said, in Iceland, “Forecast is you’ll slip through to Archangel without much trouble, anyway. The U-boats are concentrating in mid-Atlantic and between Gib and the Azores, and we hear a lot of the northern bomber strength has been sent south too. Italy, you see. Then southbound, your main worry would have been Tirpitz and co, but we’ve reason to believe they’ll be—well, taken care of.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s not entirely clear, actually … But—apparently—inshore mining of some sort, backed up by a strong picket of submarines. We have no details, but that’s the inference. You can take it that surface attack is—unlikely.”

  There’d been no U-boats piping up yet, either. But a patrol line somewhere in the area of Bear Island wouldn’t come as any surprise. Even if most of their strength was deployed in the mid-Atlantic air gap in a last gasp struggle for supremacy over the convoys. After the beating they’d taken earlier, if they lost this battle, you could reckon the U-boat threat was on the wane.

  Calliope rocked across the swell, dipping her graceful bow to toss white sea streaming on the wind. From this viewpoint Nick was looking down over the
tier of three forward turrets—three twins, two guns to each turret, and with two more aft she had an armament of ten 5.25-inch. They were dual-purpose guns, with a high elevation that suited them to anti-aircraft use—ideal for convoy protection when the main threat was expected to be from the air. Beyond the three turrets with their jutting barrels only a small triangle of foc’sl was visible from this angle—foam-washed, plunging …

  Air attack would come, for sure. Whatever else might happen, you could count on bombers and torpedo-bombers east and south of Bear Island.

  Treseder muttered as he moved away to the other corner, “Long as we find ‘em before dark.”

  At 4:00 p.m. when the watch changed for the First Dog there was still no sighting, and nothing on any radar screen. Not that this should have been surprising: after days at sea and the bad weather they’d been through you couldn’t expect pinpoint accuracy. Even if Christie the perfectionist did aim for it. He’d brought a chart up to the bridge table—it was at the back of this forebridge, close to the asdic cabinet and the entrance to Nick’s sea cabin—and he was fiddling around, checking one theory after another. Christie was a professional as well as a perfectionist, Nick appreciated; only the amateur believed in his own infallibility.