“Slow ahead, main motor.”
Repetition of the order from inside was like an echo in a tin drum. The gap was narrowing fast, and his intention was to stop with a few yards between them, not so close as to risk the two ships being washed against each other, but near enough to make the evolution easy and quick. To lie stopped on the surface this close to an enemy-occupied coast was an uncomfortable experience; MacGregor would want to get under way as soon as possible.
“Stop the motor!”
Echo floating up: “Stop …” Vibration ceased. Only sea-noise now, the rush of it along her sides and the swells breaking around her, sluicing away in foam. He had a feeling almost of disbelief in what was happening: to be here, on the targets’ doorstep, after all the months of preparation …
“Slow astern.”
To stop her, keep her where she was. He had to leave this command position and go for’ard now, and he wanted to keep the gap as it was. When stern-power had taken all the way off her, he stopped the motor, waited to make sure it had stopped, then let go of the induction pipe and began crawling for’ard, through rushes of water that looked and sounded like fizzy milk and felt like ice. He crouched, right up on her snout—which was arcing through about eight or ten feet several times a minute—and let them see he was ready for the line to be tossed over. Coming now: the man nearest Setter’s stern leant back, and an arm scythed forward in a slightly round-arm swing: the heaving-line came soaring—well over, but falling across the midget’s bow and over Paul’s outstretched arm. When he’d gathered enough slack to double-up about a fathom of it, he leant over her beak and threw a rolling hitch of the doubled line around the much thicker Manilla rope. He could let go of the line now, and unplug the telephone connection. Hands near-frozen, but still functioning. Finally, with a wheel-spanner which he’d had on a lanyard at his waist, he banged twice on the pressure-hull, a signal to Jazz Lanchberry in the fore-end to release the tow.
He heard it go, and waved to the group on Setter’s casing.
“All gone!”
A yell of acknowledgement: then a shout of “Good luck!” over the crash of sea. Another yell had the words “bloody Tirpitz” in it. They were hauling in the tow itself and also the line bent to its end, getting the whole lot out of the water fast, while Paul cautiously reversed his position in order to return to the induction pipe. X-12 rolling like a drunken whale, the sea alternately thumping and sucking at her sides: but it was done now—the tow completed, communication severed, decisions taken and risks accepted. He called down the pipe, “In engine clutch!” Half a minute later she was turning clear of Setter’s stern, the Gardner diesel pounding throatily as it drove her across the swells on course for the inshore minefield.
An hour later she was among the mines. Or rather, over them. He’d picked up the island of Loppen half a mile to starboard, and turned her due east. The other four X-craft would be ahead and to the north, aiming for the gap on southeasterly tracks, across X-12’s bows; some of them might already have cleared the minefield.
It was bitterly cold. He’d dressed for the weather, with an extra sweater on, but having his legs and arms soaked through had turned those into vulnerable areas. Frozen areas: he had no feeling in his feet at all. You had to ignore such things, and it was better not to think about the mines either. The fact there’d been no explosions up ahead was comforting: and thank God the swell was much lower, lower all the time as she closed in towards the fjords. It was more than just a matter of getting a smooth passage; it concerned the mines, the fact that heavy pitching such as she’d indulged in earlier could have nullified the safety-margin of the few feet of water between her keel and the horned mines swaying on their mooring-wires like long-stemmed flowers. She could have been dropped right on top of one, in one of those long bow-down swoops.
If she had been—he’d told himself earlier—you wouldn’t have had time to feel sorry for yourself. You wouldn’t have had time to feel anything at all. Just boom: four men in the explosion of four tons of Torpex.
He’d set a running charge, so that the Gardner was simultaneously driving her along and charging the battery, so as to have a full quota of stored amperes before they dived. Gimber and Lanchberry would be attending to other things as well—running the compressor, for instance, to top up high-pressure air in the bottles, and making final checks on all sorts of equipment. Brazier would be busying himself mainly with the W and D and his own diving gear and tools.
A dark mass forming now to starboard was Silden, an island shaped like a teardrop and running north to south, its sharp northern end adorned with a light-structure, black and skeletal, looming above a rocky headland which at sea-level was fringed white by the east-running tide. He’d memorised this approach—the distances, timings and landfalls—and had a chart of it in his mind; he knew for instance that when Silden had fallen back on the starboard quarter he’d have the southwestern extremity of a bigger island, Söröy, to port. There was a hill 1600 feet high on that point, and he was expecting to see it soon. There was also a lightening in the sky suggestive of moon-rise: he had this impression, without stopping to think about it very hard, and he was surprised—slightly confused, in fact—because he hadn’t expected any sign of a moon for another ninety minutes or so. It bothered him, but he let it go—there were other things to think about and he was keeping a careful all-round lookout for ships. Fishing trawlers being the most likely: but there might be patrols as well, with those valuable ships in there. He’d thought he’d seen steaming lights once, about twenty minutes ago, but they’d vanished—a trawler passing behind land, or into some fjordlet, he’d guessed. But when the hill on Söröy’s southwest point was abeam, which would be a ten-mile run from the point when Silden’s light-structure was abeam to starboard, he’d turn her to a gyro course of 103 degrees, and then after another twelve and a half miles she’d be close to the northern entrance of Rognsund. She’d have dived before she got that far, to be out of sight before the sun rose a few minutes after 0200.
The wind was down to almost nothing; inside the barrier of islands, he guessed, the water would be like the surface of a lake. Not too good from the periscope point of view: a ruffled surface would have been infinitely safer. He was thinking about that—about running deep whenever possible, and coming up when necessary for quick and cautious peeps, when he realised that he’d been stupid, that that brilliance had nothing to do with any moon. It was Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, flickering above the Arctic icecap. The first time he’d ever seen it. Not that there was time now to enjoy the spectacle—any enemy to starboard would have this little craft in silhouette against those rising, shivering streams of gold. Please God, there’d be no enemy to starboard or anywhere else close enough to see them, and no observer with high-powered optics on the Silden clifftop where the light-structure stood unlit and as unwelcoming and secret as the blank windows of an empty house … It was, however, abeam; he called down the pipe to Gimber to check the log reading and make a note of it, so he’d know when they’d run the next ten miles. Straightening from the pipe—using it for communication was hard work, as you were competing with the noise of the diesel and the rush of air it was sucking in—he saw the hilltop he’d been looking for, in silhouette against the polar fireworks. Which was fine. Especially so since he knew, from having it on that bearing with the Silden headland just abaft the beam, that he had now left the mines astern.
He passed this news down to the others: among all the racket, he thought he heard a cheer. He felt good about things generally at this point: about progress so far, chances of success, and Gimber having adjusted—so it seemed—to new conditions. In which, incidentally, there was a lesson learnt—understanding of the doctors’ preoccupation with individual psychology. Even that super-irritant Claverhouse … He shouted into the pipe again: “Louis! Like to take over up here for an hour?”
“Right!”
He warned, “It’s bloody cold …”
It was no less
cold when he took over again an hour later, but hot soup inside him acted as anti-freeze, and he’d restored circulation to his feet by pressing their soles against the warm casing of the gyro compass. By midnight he’d turned her on to the course for Rognsund, crossing the wide lower part of Söröysund; and soon after making this alteration a glimmer of brightness on mainland mountains confirmed that the moon was rising. Those heights were snowbound—even now, at the end of the months of summer. Remembering that briefing they’d had about the overland route to Sweden, the sight was daunting as well as beautiful.
Lights on shipping to the north, when he was out in the middle at about 0100, worried him for a while. If they’d been overtaking, as at first he thought they were, he’d have had to have dived her until they’d passed. But they began to draw left, and eventually disappeared. He realised that they’d first appeared just outside Kipperfjord, which was one of several wide inlets on that south coast of Söröy, and they could well have been fishing craft who’d spent the night in there at anchor and were now making an early start. From this point Rognsund would be roughly six miles ahead; he reckoned to cover two thirds of that distance before diving. Then he’d have the day’s first light by which to steer her into that narrow gap, and the whole day in which to conn her through. He’d creep through, dead slow on the motor, to make no visible disturbance and as little sound as possible for hydrophones to pick up.
At 0140 he called down, “Diving in five minutes!”
Still thinking about Rognsund—its shallow areas which he’d steer around, and the headland which jutted from the right-hand shore to form a bottleneck, just the sort of place they’d have installed acoustic gear. You’d need to be very very careful, all the way. You’d have to show some periscope now and then, because of the twists and turns and tidal complications which could make for navigational problems. The tide was ebbing now, flowing seaward, but low tide would come at about 0500, and you’d have a slack-water period before it started again in the opposite direction. Even in Stjernsund the tidal flow would be something to be reckoned with, but in a shallower and narrower passage you might get something like a millrace, at some times and places.
Stjernsund … Cameron, Place, Henty-Creer and Hudspeth would all be on their way through, by this time.
The entrance to the sund was a black hole about two miles ahead. Diffused moonlight washed the higher slopes of both Stjernoy and Seiland, but the gulf between them lay in deep shadow.
“Stop the engine. Out engine-clutch.”
The Gardner’s pounding ceased.
Silence was dramatic. There was only the swish of sea along her sides. A faint breeze from the west was barely enough to stir the surface. To the east, the high ground on Seiland was a black frieze against sky lightening with the first intimation of a new day coming.
From the direction of Stjernoy, a dog howled.
“Engine-clutch out!”
They’d disconnected the diesel, so as to change over to electric propulsion. Paul ordered, “Main motor half ahead.” With the Gardner’s racket silenced, the induction pipe was a reasonably efficient voicepipe. His watch’s luminous face showed 0147. The motor started: he could feel its vibration and the renewed forward impulse. He called down, “Shut the induction.” Shutting the valve on the pipe not only made it safe to dive, it also cut off his communications with the men inside her. He stooped, pulled the hatch up, slid in feet-first, dropped through; reaching up to slam it above his head and then swing the securing wheel round to dog it, he ordered “Open main vents. Thirty feet.”
Ten minutes later, after Gimber had caught a trim and they’d put her through her paces—down to sixty, up to twenty, trim re-adjusted and no problems found—he ordered periscope depth.
“Take it easy, Louis.”
Gimber grunted assent as he put angle on the hydroplanes, to ease her upward. The gauge showed seventeen feet when he shifted the trim-pump lever over to port, to flood water into the midships tank, ballasting her as she rose. Paul had the periscope-switch bag in his hand—thick rubber for insulation, and you had to feel for the right button to press: he watched the slow, carefully controlled ascent. The caution was vital—would be at any rate once it was light up there, and this was a matter of starting as you meant to go on. In that channel, you’d only need to make one slip, break surface once …
Twelve feet. Eleven. Ten. His thumb pressed the “up” button in the bag on its wandering lead, and the periscope rose silently, stopping with a jerk at its upper limit as Gimber reported “Nine feet.”
“When we’re inside, Louis, we’ll try nine-foot six. I’ll make do with about an inch of glass.”
The gap between the two mounds of land was right ahead. He circled, checking all round, knowing there couldn’t be anything very close but still doing it out of long habit, standard safety-drill. When they were in the fjord he’d put this scope up for just seconds at a time, despite the fact its top was no thicker than a walking stick. In that flat calm, anything that showed above the surface—particularly anything that left a wake behind it—would catch even the most casual eye.
Gimber had stopped the pump again.
A worrying thing was a slight misting in the lenses. There wasn’t enough light yet to be sure, but the edges of the land seemed blurry. You’d tell better in half an hour or so, by which time the sun would have risen. Meanwhile she was on course and it would be an hour before she reached the entrance. He felt for the “down” button, and pressed it, sent the tube gliding down into its well, below the deck-boards.
“Sixty feet.”
The hydroplanes tilted. Gimber’s left hand on the pump lever, ready to make new trim adjustments as she nosed deeper. Brazier squatting in the W and D, watching Paul who was crouching over the folded chart, studying the detail of that entrance. You had to use the chart folded to the area you wanted, because there wasn’t room to spread it out—no chart-table either, since there’d have been nowhere to put one.
Lanchberry yawning, eyes on the gyro reading, fingering the wheel. He yawned again. Brazier murmured, “Bastard’s either snoring or yawning. Born tired …” He had his net-cutter beside him, and some tools he’d been using to service it. It was powered by water-pressure, so as not to send up bubbles.
At 0345 she was at ten feet again, and in the entrance. He’d have brought her up sooner but they’d heard propellers chugging and waited until a trawler had passed overhead, coming out of Rognsund. It was in periscopesight now—well astern, and about to disappear westward behind Varneset, the headland on Stjernoy. The periscope was slightly foggy, not as bad as he’d feared it might be but certainly requiring attention when there was time and opportunity—tonight, perhaps, when they’d be holed-up for a few hours. He took some bearings, to establish their exact position, and set a course of 155 degrees, which would be good for three miles.
“Sixty feet, Louis.” He told them, as the periscope slid down, “Nice and peaceful up there. Smoke drifting from cottage chimneys, some chaps mending a boat on a slipway, one horse-and-cart going somewhere very slowly, no signs of anything military.”
Lanchberry said, “I never did like the military.”
Paul decided that he’d come up for a check after two and three-quarter miles, measuring it by the electric log. At this low speed it would take about two hours. Slow movement not only made less disturbance, it also extended the life of the battery, and there was no certainty when it would be possible to run a charge. He’d get one in if he could, because you had not only the attack to think about, but also the withdrawal to sea afterwards. Or the hope of it. Maintaining slow speed like this would stretch the battery life to one hundred miles, but the snag was that in any kind of emergency it mightn’t be possible to maintain low speed.
He cranked open the shutters that had been covering the viewing ports, port and starboard. They’d been shut because of the foul weather, mostly. There wasn’t anything to be seen here, at the moment, but there would be later. Things like the unde
rwater hull of a pocket battleship.
“Sixty feet, sir.”
“Well done, Louis.” He was acknowledging that “sir” as much as the report. It was right and proper—not Louis Gimber speaking, but X-12’s first lieutenant—but not strictly necessary; Gimber’s use of it had been intended to tell him something. Paul said, “We don’t need four on watch. One man at a time could get his head down. Excluding me, that is … Louis, old horse, this looks like being the easiest stretch ahead of us, and I’d want you to be on the job after the next change of course, so how about taking your stand-off now?”
He kept a log—detail on which to build the report he’d have to submit later—in a small notebook. Entries showed that when the tide was turning, around 5:00 a.m., he brought her up twice to take shore bearings and ensure safety from navigational hazards. Subsequent entries included:
0610. A/co to 123, having passed Stoergrd, shallow patch.
Rock awash 3/4 mile stbd with iron marker.
0614. Small vessel ahead. Dived to 60ft. (Minesweeper?)
0622. Ship passed overhead. Turbines, 180 revs.
Gimber asked him, “How far on this course?”
“One point eight miles. We’ll take a shufti after one and a half, though. We’ll have the headland coming up then.”
Jazz Lanchberry was off watch now. Brazier at the helm. They heard a ship’s screws again just after seven—a reciprocating engine, this time—and after a while it overhauled them on the port side. It was probably a fishing boat. Then shortly afterwards:
0717. Fast H.E. stbd bow. More than one vessel, prob.
The Gatecrashers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 6 Page 26
