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

by Alexander Fullerton

  “Hillcrest, sir.” He was first lieutenant of X-11’s passage crew, and known as “Bony” because of an alleged resemblance to Napoleon. “I’d imagine you were advising us not to attempt it.”

  “You’d imagine right. Except that it might, in some circumstances, be your only way out. You’d have the choice then, but obviously you have to know what you’d be taking on. The hope—as I said—is you’ll do your stuff, extricate your boat from the fjords and make the prearranged rendezvous with your towing ship, and Bob’s your uncle. But we have to accept that it may be easier said than done. An alternative, which has been discussed before, of course, is to surrender; scuttle your boat, first destroying anything inside it that could help enemy intelligence if they got at it later, and turn yourself in. This may simply happen to you, without any question of choice. But in case you can’t get out and you’re in a position to choose between the alternatives, we’re providing you with certain basic equipment that would allow you to try the overland route home … Point taken?”

  He went on, “Don’t imagine that because you’re in peak condition now, those physical difficulties won’t bother you. Try to imagine how you may be after a couple of weeks. Those conditions, iron rations, no certainty of survival, and starting right after a spell of action that’s liable to drain a lot of the stuffing out of you … But all right, you’ve been warned. Now I’ll tell you about the gear we’re giving you. First, the obvious things—protective clothing, boots suitable for climbing as well as walking, ropes for the climb, compasses and the silk maps. Plus the other things I mentioned—pack-rations, money, tobacco. But also first-aid kits, which include small surgical saws for amputating frozen toes or fingers. That item may help to underline some of the points I’ve been trying to make. And in addition—this is as important as anything, because you could have Hun patrols chasing you—you’ll have Luger pistols.”

  He moved over to the table.

  “Gather round, now. I’ll show you this stuff and how it works. I dare say you’ve been wondering where you’ll find room to stow it, but in fact it packs into a very small kit, as you see here …”

  Later in the afternoon, Paul and the other COs and flotilla staff conferred again over the alternative target plans. Whatever Tirpitz and Scharnhorst were doing now, they might well turn up in Narvik or Trondheim, where they’d spent certain periods before.

  “If there’s still no news by the day after tomorrow, all things being equal you’ll be sailed on schedule and you’ll get your orders later by W/T. As you know, moon and tides are right for 20 September and for a few days after, but if we’re forced to miss this chance—well, with short days, winter darkness and iced-up fjords coming shortly, there’d have to be another long postponement. To next spring, in fact.”

  Groans. They were ready to go now.

  “No word of attack on the PQ convoy, sir?”

  “None. No sighting, no sound.”

  By 1800, when X-12’s operational and passage crews went alone for drinks on board their towing ship Setter alongside Titania, a fresh RAF reconnaissance report had been signalled from the Admiralty. There’d been no change: Lützow was still in Altenfjord, and the other berths were still empty.

  There were seven X-craft guests. Passage crews consisted of only three men, since there was no job for a diver en route. About a dozen submariners packed the tiny wardroom, with some overflow to and from the artificers’ mess where Messrs Lanchberry and Towne were being entertained.

  MacGregor, Setter’s lieutenant-in-command, raised his glass.

  “Welcome. Glad to have you aboard.” He glanced at Louis Gimber. “Or as the case may be, on the string back there.”

  Paul said, “I’m afraid we’ll crowd you. But if I may, sir, I’d like to stand a watch.”

  Eaton said he’d like to, too. Brazier had no watchkeeping experience, and offered to stand watches as a lookout. Towing ships would be on the surface for the first few days of the passage.

  Brazier said at one stage, “Beats me how there can be a convoy on its way, and those battle-wagons out hunting for it, and not a sound out of anyone!”

  “It’s a big area. This time of year the ice barrier’s as far north as it ever gets.” MacGregor stubbed out a cigarette. “And visibility’s often zero. Plus the fact all parties will be maintaining wireless silence.”

  Massingbird, Setter’s red-bearded engineer lieutenant, reached for the gin bottle. “My guess is the bastards have sneaked down south, to some German port. Into the Baltic, very likely.”

  MacGregor said, “Rubbish, Chief.” Crawshaw, the first lieutenant, shook his head at the engineer. “Bloody old Jeremiah.”

  The beard jutted: “Want to bet?”

  “Certainly. Five bob that we’ll sail with X-12 in tow day after tomorrow.”

  11 September, that would be. Eight days on passage would lead to arrival off the fjords on the nineteenth. Attack, 20 September.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  . . .

  Before noon on the same day, the German battle squadron, having demonstrated their destructive power, had been turning their sterns on Isfjord, in Spitzbergen. Tirpitz increased to twenty-eight knots and Scharnhorst took station astern of the flagship, while the escort of ten powerful destroyers disposed themselves into an arrowhead screening formation across the big ships’ bows. Astern, smoke rose thickly and widely enough to fill half the sky, billowing from the shattered and still burning weather-station and wireless shack, accommodation huts, stores, other collapsed, smouldering structures. Nothing has been left standing or intact, and there were dead Norwegians sprawled among the ruins, as well as live prisoners in the ships. But no word of this had got out, yet. The squadron had made its approach at dawn, the ships growing like huge phantoms out of the mist and skirting the loose ice which, despite the Gulf Stream’s northerly flow along this west coast of the island, cluttered the offshore approach. At first sight of the enemy, the operator on duty in the W/T station above Barentsburg had begun tapping out an urgent message, but Tirpitz’s radiomen had been ready for it and they’d jammed the transmission. Then the monster’s guns had made that wireless station their first target, reducing it to a blazing wreck in one devastating salvo.

  The destruction and rounding-up of defenders had continued for five hours. Then the destroyers had re-embarked their landing parties and transferred Norwegian prisoners to the battleships. Well pleased by the easy triumph—although Scharnhorst’s captain, Hoffmeier, was critical of his own ship’s gunnery performance—the battle group under Admiral Kummetz was now on its 500-mile journey south, steering to pass about twenty miles west of Bear Island.

  “Green one hundred—angle of sight five!”

  Bruce Christie—as well as the lookout who was yelling his report of it—had picked up the approaching aircraft in his glasses. It had been on the 281 air-warning screen for several minutes, and several pairs of eyes and binoculars had been concentrating on that hazy southern horizon. It would almost certainly be a snooper, and Nick was hoping it might swing away before it sighted them, might decide it had come far enough north: against the murky northern background, it didn’t have to have seen the convoy, at this range … But—sadly—it would close in now, close enough to see all it wanted while still keeping outside gun-range; its crew would count the ships and note their shapes and sizes, the strength and dispositions of the escorts, and one of the airmen’s priorities would be to check whether there was an escort carrier here. The Luftwaffe commanders would be tickled pink to hear there wasn’t. The snooper’s report would of course start with the convoy’s position, course and speed; the zigzag wouldn’t fool him, because he’d hang around long enough to see the pattern of it. In fact, mean course was 065 degrees, speed twelve knots—making good about ten, since zigzagging reduced the actual rate of advance—and at this moment Bear Island was about 145 miles due east. Time—1820. The report which that snooper would send out would be the first intimation to Luftwaffe bases on the Norwegian coas
t that this very worthwhile target was now entering the radius of bomber strikes.

  “Send that signal, sir?”

  Calliope’s ready-coded signal to Admiralty, Christie meant. Among the recipients of it would be Admiral Kidd, whose cruisers couldn’t be far away. Kidd would be glad to know exactly where the convoy was—although it would be less good news that the enemy had the same information.

  “No. Not yet.”

  A minute or two wouldn’t make much difference, and it would be as well to make sure this was a snooper. There’d be another decision to make, too. If for the time being one stayed silent, and if the German flyer waited too, didn’t send his sighting report out while he was making his full assessment and meanwhile came into reasonable close range, it might be worth using this convoy’s one and only catapult-launched Hurricane, to shoot the intruder down, if by doing so you could be sure of gaining a few more hours’ privacy. It would be dark soon, so you’d be starting tomorrow still undetected, a hell of a lot better than having the bombers swarming over at first light …

  But with only one shot in your locker, you didn’t want to waste it. If you launched that fighter too soon, and the German was about to send out his report at just that moment—well, there’d be very small dividends from shooting him down after he’d sent it.

  Nick had the approaching aircraft centred in his own glasses now: like a very small mosquito stuck on a dirty window. It was the visibility, the surroundings, not the lenses … He still hesitated: not from indecision, but from a stirring of doubt.

  “It’s a seaplane, sir.”

  Exactly. He was sure of it now, as the image hardened. A float plane, and a small one: certainly no Focke-Wulf or Blohm and Voss long-range reconnaissance … Tirpitz carried four seaplanes, and so did Scharnhorst. But he didn’t think this was one of them. If he had thought so, that Hurricane would be belting off by now. The seaplane was flying directly towards the convoy, coming from the south; Calliope’s helm over at this moment as she, along with the solid block of ships surrounding her and the perimeter screen of escorts too, swung to a starboard leg of the zigzag—which put the unidentified aircraft on the bow instead of the beam. The convoy was in five columns of three ships, with Calliope in the centre of the front rank leading column three, and the anti-aircraft ship Berkeley astern of her. To port and starboard of the AA ship were the two oilers—Bayleaf as centre ship in column two, and the Russian Sovyetskaya Slava in column four. Tommy Trench’s five destroyers were spread across the convoy’s van with his own ship Moloch as its spearhead and the two older destroyers, Harpy and Foremost—who’d brought the merchantmen up from Loch Ewe—integrated with that screen. All destroyers had fuelled during the day, Trench’s ship from Bayleaf and the other pair from the Russian—which had taken much longer, because the Soviets were new to the refuelling drill, and clumsy at it … Then on each flank were two minesweepers—Redcar and Radstock port side, Rochdale and Rattray starboard—and astern the two trawlers, Arctic Prince and Northern Glow. It wasn’t too bad an escort for just ten freighters, two oilers and a rescue ship—except for that serious omission of an escort carrier—but the return convoy of empty ships would be a lot bigger.

  Examining that slowly-growing but still miniature aircraft image, Nick had become fairly sure he was recognising an almost domestically familiar shape.

  “Swanwick!”

  “Sir?” Swanwick, an RNVR lieutenant, was ADO, Air Defence Officer. Nick asked him, “Are we certain there’s no IFF?”

  “Operators say not, sir.”

  IFF was a radar device: “Identification Friend or Foe.”

  “Then this fellow’s isn’t working, or it isn’t switched on.” He was sure he was right. He looked round, for Christie, and found the commander, Treseder, beside him. “What d’you make of it?”

  “Beginning to look rather like a Walrus, sir.”

  “That’s exactly what it is!”

  At the same time a spark of light appeared on it, grew into needle-point focus and began to flash short-long, short-long …

  “Aircraft signalling!”

  And no doubt at all now—it was a Walrus from the cruiser squadron. From Kidd’s flagship, probably—which might not be far over that hazy southern horizon. The flying-boat—its shape was entirely clear now as it turned—was flying parallel to the convoy’s course, its rather slowly winking light drawing acknowledgement word by word from an Aldis clacking sporadically in Calliope’s bridge. Nick turned away to sweep all round, checking on the other side where visibility was worse; turning again, he saw the signing-off group, and PO Ironside, yeoman of the watch, scrawling a time-of-origin on his pad as he came for’ard.

  “From CS 39, sir. I intend holding my present position forty miles south of you until 0600/10. Thereafter I shall cover your approach to Archangel from the south and west, if enemy air permits. Walrus reconnaissance this afternoon drew blank between your present position and Bear Island.” Ironside looked up. “Message ends, sir.”

  “Make to him, ‘Many thanks. So far so good.’ “

  Really, very good. The signal he’d had cyphered-up and ready for transmission wouldn’t be sent, after all; wireless silence could be maintained. It meant at least another twelve hours’ immunity. To have reached eight degrees east longitude without being detected wasn’t a bad start at all: and it was very satisfactory to know where Kidd’s ships were and to know he knew where the convoy was.

  And still no U-boat reports …

  He glanced up at the sky. In about a quarter of an hour the hands would be called to action stations, the routine sunset precaution, and at the same time he’d take Calliope and Trench’s five destroyers out ahead, leaving the convoy in the hands of the other escorts. His own ships would then have freedom of movement and be in a position to engage any enemy encountered during the dark hours. For enemy, read Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, ten destroyers …

  Where the hell were they?

  The Walrus dwindled, vanished southward; after a few minutes it was off the radar screen as well. The convoy was turning back to its mean course, Calliope heeling to starboard, graceful as a dancer as she swung, her slim length dipping to the swell. On her beams as she steadied were the Tacora— the commodore’s ship, to starboard—and the Carrickmore, the CAM-ship, with its Hurricane perched on the catapult gear on her foc’sl. Beyond her, leading column one, was the Plainsman, whose American master was vicecommodore. Four of the ten freighters were Americans, and on the decks and in the holds of the ten were 1600 trucks or other military vehicles, 200 battle tanks, 50 fighter aircraft and 70 bombers, 18,500 tons of aviation spirit and about 75,000 tons of ammunition and other war material. This was probably the smallest convoy, Nick thought, that had ever been brought to North Russian ports, but the Soviets should still be glad enough to take delivery.

  As glad as the Germans would be to stop it.

  The commodore was signalling, How nice to know we have company.

  He’d have read that message from the Walrus, of course. He was a former Royal Navy captain by name of Insole; Nick had never met him or heard of him before this trip. Politeness demanded some kind of answer; he told the yeoman, “Reply, ‘We may yet have need of it.’”

  Kidd’s report of clear seas ahead at some time in the afternoon was no guarantee for the coming hours of darkness. Tirpitz and company might well have been lurking somewhere to the east of Bear Island—having sailed from Altenfjord much sooner than they’d needed, and decided to lie in wait?

  Night, now—and cold, as the convoy and its escort drew closer to the ice. Radar aerials circling, binoculars probing darkness that was thickened by the mist like flour in clear soup. Calliope, plunging rhythmically across the swell, was eight miles ahead of the convoy, with Moloch ahead of her and two others on each bow. All of them with asdics pinging, pinging … The convoy had ceased zigzagging at dusk, largely because for the merchantmen in close formation the dark made it too dangerous; a small error of judgement or a quartermaster
putting his wheel the wrong way near the end of a tiring, boring watch, could easily lead to collision. But the fighting escort still wove to and fro, with slightly increased revs to allow for the convoy’s greater speed of advance. Calliope’s 271 radar kept its eye on the ships astern—primarily on Foremost and Harpy in the van of the close escort.

  Calliope was at the second degree of readiness: all quarters closed up, but some gun, torpedo and director crews sleeping at their stations. The ship could be brought to instant readiness within seconds.

  Nick dozed under an oilskin in a deckchair behind his high seat. It would take only about one second for him to be up and on his toes, but meanwhile it was in the ship’s interest as well as his own that he should get some rest while things were quiet. You could hope they’d stay quiet, but certainly not count on it. The staff officer who’d said in Akureyri, “You’ll slip through without any trouble, if my guess is right,” had never himself been up here with a PQ convoy; he was the kind of theorist who’d read an intelligence summary stating that the enemy’s bomber squadrons had all been moved south, and believe it …