Ship of Force

by Alan Evans

  Smith used his glasses. There was something. Wreckage? And a man? He saw the movement that might have been one more shadow from the flare but it was an arm, he was certain, and there was a head. It was lost as it sank into the greater darkness of a trough then seen again as it lifted on a wave. A shape square-cut that would be wreckage, a pale splash above it that was the face.

  Smith lowered the glasses. “It’s a man. Skipper Byers must have seen him because the drifter’s turned towards him.”

  The flare was burning low but it had served its purpose. Smith wished it was out, and swore softly. He could guess the cause of the skipper’s rashness. Geordie Byers must have found some flotsam from the RE8 and known that a man might be close by. Smith saw Dunbar’s head turning like his own, sharing his uneasiness. They were both aware that Sparrow made a prime target as she ran down on the drifter. The flare did not light Sparrow yet but to any craft or U-boat astern of her she would be silhouetted against its glare. A second was too long to be that kind of target. Geordie Byers and the other men aboard Judy had been lucky. But they would have to learn not to rely on luck if they were to survive in the Channel war.

  Smith said, “We’ll have a word with Skipper Byers.”

  Dunbar grunted acknowledgment, a hand to his head. Smith saw him wince.

  The flare was dying, but still painfully bright…

  The spurt of flame came fine on the port bow, beyond and to seaward of the drifter, a flash that burned itself on the eye and then was gone, but before that instant was past the shell burst on Judy and that flash was bigger, lighting her up again as they saw the wheelhouse blown away and breaking apart as it flew. Darkness closed in briefly and then flames flickered on the drifter.

  Smith set the glasses to his eyes. “Full ahead, Mr Dunbar! Load!”

  “Full ahead both!” The bosun’s mate yanked over the handles of the engine-room telegraphs and Dunbar ordered, “All guns load!”

  Sanders repeated the order in a high yell, “All guns load!”

  The killick, the leading-seaman gunner on the twelve-pounder echoed “- load!” The breech was thrown open, the shell rammed and the charge in its case inserted.

  Dunbar swore. “Bluidy wars!” He shouted at Sanders, “Any word of Jerry having destroyers at sea?”

  “No, sir!”

  “It could still be a destroyer. If it’s one o’ those big boats…”

  Dunbar did not finish but Smith knew what he was thinking. If that shell had come from one of the big, new German destroyers with four-inch guns then God help Sparrow. The enemy would not have seen Sparrow beyond the lake of light cast by the drifter’s flare, the thirty-knotter being hidden in the outer darkness. So far. But Sparrow was racing down on that lake of light. A turn to starboard or port and she could run for her life. Nobody would ask her to take on one of those big, modern boats. It was ridiculous. But neither could she leave the drifter to her fate.

  Another gun flash. A second between the flash and the flaming, thumping crash! as the shell exploded in Judy, and hurled blazing timbers into the sky in a shower of sparks and set new fires burning and rolling down smoke across the sea. Aboard Sparrow they heard the popping of the drifter’s three-pounder. Judy was a wooden boat. She burned and in the light of her burning they could see the men working the gun.

  Time of flight of the shell about one second, Smith thought, so range between one and two thousand yards and closing. About twenty seconds between rounds so only one gun firing. Why? It could be a destroyer bows-on to the drifter so that only the one gun on the foredeck would bear but he didn’t believe it. Why didn’t she turn to fire broadsides? But if it was a destroyer then Sparrow was roaring up to shove her head in the lion’s mouth and it wouldn’t come out again. Smith could lose half his flotilla right now. And he was commanding Sparrow, in the excitement he’d almost forgotten that. He gulped and somehow managed to drawl out. “Stand by to depth-charge.”

  Dunbar glanced at him but Sanders shouted into the voice pipe that led to the torpedo-gunner aft, “Stand by to depthcharge!”

  Smith said to Dunbar, “I think it’s a U-boat on the surface.” It had to be. “If it is then he will see us before we see him.”

  Sparrow stood high out of the sea while the U-boat would be almost awash except for the conning-tower. And Sparrow was working up to fifteen knots now, throwing up a big white bowwave, and in seconds she would be running into the light from the burning drifter. Smith went on, “So try the searchlight. Dead ahead.” To Sanders he said, “Range about one thousand I think.”

  He heard Sanders repeat it to the killick, and yell it to the six-pounders below the bridge as Dunbar shouted up at the rating on the searchlight platform at the back of and above the bridge. The carbons in the searchlight glowed and crackled as they struck arc and then the beam cut a path through the night ahead of Sparrow. It wavered, swept, then settled.

  The U-boat lay in the beam, almost still, cruising but so slowly there was barely a ripple at her bow. No sign that she was preparing to submerge. There were men in the conning-tower and the four-inch gun forward was manned…

  The twelve-pounder slammed and recoiled and its smoke whipped past Smith’s face on the wind. Smith saw the shell burst in the sea and Sanders shouted, “Short!” He did not add a correction; Sparrow was closing the range at fifteen knots. The gun’s crew jumped in on the twelve-pounder as the killick yelled and the breech-worker yanked at the handle. The breech opened and the fumes spilled out, the stink of cordite swirled across the bridge.

  Dunbar shouted, “Must ha’ been running on the surface to sneak past the barrage in the night. Bound for the Atlantic. Then came on Judy.”

  Smith nodded. U-boats from the German bases often went north-about around Scotland but those from the Flanders ports of Zeebrugge and Ostende could reach their Atlantic killing ground quicker by running on the surface at night and slipping over the mine-net barrage that was meant to bar their exit through the Channel.

  He saw the wink of flame from the barrel of the gun on the U-boat and as he blinked the rip! became a roar! The blast threw him back into Buckley and both of them hard against the searchlight platform. Lights wheeled about Smith’s head but then he was aware and clawing to his feet, Buckley thrusting him up. Gow still stood at the wheel. Sanders was pulling himself up by the screen and the crew of the twelve-pounder were on hands and knees but the killick was yelling at them, hauling them on to their feet. The searchlight still blazed, lighting them all. There was no sign of Dunbar.

  Smith wavered forward and fetched up against the screen. He could see a tangle of twisted rails and a dent or a scar on the portside of the turtle-back below him. The shell must have exploded on impact, not penetrating. There were ragged holes in the splinter mattresses around the bridge. If there had been only a canvas screen those splinters would have scythed through the bridge staff and left a bloody shambles.

  He looked up.

  Sparrow was tearing through the circle of light shed by the fire that was Judy and now the drifter lay on the starboard beam. But right ahead lay the U-boat, the range was down to a bare five hundred yards and her gun was not manned. He fumbled at the glasses, set them to his eyes. There was no one in the conning-tower…He swung on Sanders. “She’s diving! Tell the gunner!”

  Sanders croaked down the voice pipe “Gunner! Yes, we’re all OK up here except the skipper took a knock. Listen, Gunner! The sub’s diving. We’re going to depth-charge.”

  Smith called, “Where’s Dunbar, Sub?”

  Sanders turned to him a face painted yellow and black by light and shadow, excited. “On the deck at the foot of the ladder, sir. Blast must have blown him over. Brodie’s down there with him though, and he gave me a ‘thumb’s up!’” Sanders stayed by the voice pipe.

  Sparrow ran down on the U-boat that now was only a plunging conning-tower. Then that was gone and the searchlight’s beam showed only the churned circle of water where the submarine had dived. Smith’s eyes were fixed on
that circle, watched it slip up to Sparrow’s stem, under it. He shouted, “Let go One!”

  “Let go One!” repeated Sanders into the voice pipe.

  The canister fat with three-hundred pounds of explosive rolled down the chute and plumped into the sea off Sparrow’s stern.

  “Hard aport,” ordered Smith. Sparrow swung into the turn and as Gow held it there came the thump! of the depth charge exploding and a tall column of water was hurled up from the boiling sea. The sweeping searchlight settled on it, the beam fidgeting like a blind man’s searching fingers, looking for oil or the U-boat surfacing. Sparrow still turned. Smith said, “Ease to five! Steady! Steer that!”

  Sparrow was heading back towards the blazing drifter but Smith did not see her, his eyes on the sea on the spot where he thought the U-boat might be if she had maintained her course. Sparrow plunged towards it. That was all Smith could do: try to anticipate the U-boat. New-fangled hydrophones were fitted in some ships but not in Sparrow. In any event they would only pick up the sound of a U-boat when the ship itself was stopped and there were no other engine noises about. They were useless for this kind of hunt.

  Smith pointed a finger at Sanders. “Let go Two!”

  “Let go Two!”

  “Hard astarboard!” Sparrow turned, all of them on the bridge bracing themselves against the heel of her. And Smith wondered: What if the U-boat had not held that course, had immediately turned? Which way? The depth-charge exploded and he stared like all of them at another churned circle of water and saw — nothing.

  “Ease to five!…Meet her! Steady!” Smith rubbed at his face.

  Sparrow tore down past the drifter, passing her to port and a thousand yards away. She burned all along her length and Smith saw that she had a boat in the water now. Sparrow ran on, left the drifter astern. Smith ordered, “Douse that light!” The searchlight snapped off. It was serving no useful purpose for the moment and they were dangerously close to the shore batteries on the enemy-held coast and closing it with every second. The searchlight would make Sparrow an easy target.

  “Port ten…Midships.”

  Sparrow turned to run north-east and parallel to the unseen coast. Sanders still stood crouched by the voice pipe but his eyes searched the sea. The towering flames on the burning drifter sent faint yellow light trembling over them on the bridge. The little wooden ship off the port bow was just a huge torch now. It lit the sea between –

  “Periscope!” the lookout’s voice was a shriek of excitement. Glasses held to his eyes with one hand, he pointed with the other.

  “Hard aport!” Smith used his own glasses, seeking. Was it? So many reports of periscopes proved to be the result of excited imaginations. He saw it, held the glasses on it as Sparrow’s head came around, banging on to the screen as the deck tilted.

  It was a periscope. Between Sparrow and Judy and inshore of the drifter. Five hundred yards from Sparrow’s stem — “Meet her! Steady! Steer that!”

  He let the glasses fall and stared unblinking at the tiny sticklike thing poked up from the sea as Sparrow gobbled up the intervening distance. Almost on her. A hundred yards. The periscope dipped but too late this time. The U-boat commander had turned when he submerged, slipped inshore of the drifter and then come up to look for Sparrow — hoping to launch a torpedo? That was more than likely. Sparrow’s stem knifed into the swirl that marked where the periscope had showed a second before and Smith shouted, “Let go One!”

  “Let go One!” Sanders repeated.

  Smith counted flying seconds, then: “Let go Two!” The second depth-charge rumbled down the chute as the first hurled water at the sky. “Hard aport!” Again that tight, heeling turn. Smith clung on and shouted, “Searchlight!”

  It crackled into life once more as the second depth-charge exploded, throwing green sea and foam higher than Sparrow’s masthead. The cone of light swept the foam-flecked, yeasty sea between and around the areas of the two explosions.

  Sanders croaked excitedly, “She’s coming up!” And then all of them were shouting it.

  Smith bellowed above them, “All guns commence!” And then to Gow, “Midships!…Steady!”

  The U-boat surfaced, at first just the conning-tower showing like a shark’s fin but then she came up with a rush until all the shiny, slimy black back of her was clear of the water. The searchlight lit her up and Smith saw she was down by the stern. The twelve-pounder slammed and the shell burst on the bull just aft of the conning-tower. Then the six-pounders opened up. All the guns were firing at virtually point-blank range, well under a thousand yards and Smith could see them hitting. Figures showed in the conning-tower, spilled over on to the deck and into the sea. The twelve-pounder scored a hit on the conning-tower and an instant later there came an explosion from somewhere forward in the U-boat that drowned the guns’ hammering and the bow lifted, dropped. As it did so the U-boat rolled over. She lay there bottom-up for only seconds then slipped down by the stern and out of sight, leaving a stain of oil. The guns ceased firing.

  Some men had got out, but — survivors? Smith remembered the hail of fire that had burst on and around the U-boat and thought it was unlikely anyone had survived. All the same he ordered, “Slow ahead both. Port ten. Mr. Sanders! Nets over the side in case of survivors!”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” Sanders was grinning. The crew of the twelvepounder were cheering. As Sanders went to the ladder the killick slapped his back and Sanders laughed. Smith thought that was good. This one action had made Sanders accepted.

  He rubbed at his face again but it seemed to have no feeling. He knew he was not grinning, that he was the only man aboard standing quite still, not elated, expressionless. As he had been throughout the action. He stayed apart and he could not help it.

  Sparrow crept down on the circle of oil with the searchlight’s beam shifting over it and Smith thought that was a luxury they must soon dispense with. If there were men in the sea then Sanders and his party in the waist would see them now or not at all.

  “Port bow, sir!” That was the look-out, pointing, but Smith had already seen him. Or them. At first he thought there was only one man but as his order to Gow edged Sparrow over he saw there was one swimmer supporting another.

  “Stop both.” The way came off Sparrow and she drifted down past the men in the sea. Smith made out two oil-smeared faces turned up to him, slipping past below him as he leaned out over the bridge screen. He saw Sanders’s party in the waist with the nets hanging down the side and two men already down on the nets, their legs in the sea, held on by lines in the hands of the men on the deck above them. So they could cling to the nets with one hand while reaching out to grab at the swimmer and the man he supported.

  Smith used the bridge megaphone to urge, “Quick as you can, Mr. Sanders!” He saw Sanders lift a hand in acknowledgment and turned to call up at the searchlight: “Douse!”

  The light went out. Smith took a restless pace across the bridge so he could see the drifter. She was no longer a pillar of flame, had burned down to her water-line. Between her and Sparrow was a boat pulling towards the thirty-knotter. His gaze went beyond it, looking worriedly for the airman who had been there, it seemed so long ago though it had been only minutes. Had Sparrow run him down in her twisting pursuit of the U-boat? It was possible. They would have to search for him though they had been too long in these waters already. Sparrow was a sitting duck for the shore batteries lying stopped like this and lit up by the last of the burning Judy, with her only movement the slow roll and recover as a beam sea thrust at her. Under his breath he urged, “Come on, Sanders! Come on!” But he kept his mouth shut. The men were as aware as he of the danger and working as fast as they could.

  With the engines stopped their voices came up to him, breathless as they laboured in the waist. In the light from the drifter he could see them and he glanced uneasily towards the unseen shore where the coastal batteries were mounted. He looked back to Sanders and his party and saw the survivors being manhandled up the nets, their f
aces pale and oil-stained — or was that blood? He could hear them coughing up the oil, rackingly. The men crowded the side and the cheering had stopped when the survivors drifted alongside. Now the hands were hauling them in, holding them up. “— ’right, Jock. Easy now.”…“’Old on to me. Come up, now.”…“Fetch us some blankets. This puir bastar’s frozen and shivering his teeth loose.”

  Smith thought he could hear the crackling of the drifter as she burned herself out. He could certainly smell her, tar- and wood-smoke over the reek of the cordite that still hung about the bridge.

  He turned up his face to the sky, wincing, hearing now the whistle that was faint but became piercing, grew to a shriek that ripped overhead. The shell burst in the sea a cable’s length to seaward of the drifter and the height of the water-spout it threw up showed it to be a biggish gun, six- or eight-inch. That would be from one of the batteries north of Nieuport.

  Now Smith bellowed, “Get ’em in, Mr. Sanders!”

  “All secure, sir!”

  “Full astern port! Slow ahead starboard!” And as the engineroom telegraphs clanged he threw at Gow, “Port five!” Sparrow’s screws churned, she turned tightly and Smith watched her head come around. “Stop port…Slow ahead port…Starboard five!”

  “Starboard five, sir!”

  “Meet her…Steady!”

  Sparrow headed for the Judy’s boat and Smith leaned out over the screen again to shout at Sanders in the waist, “Get ready to do your stuff, Sub! And this time really fast! Haul ’em in!”

  “Aye, aye, sir!”

  Smith snapped, “Stop both!” Again the way came off Sparrow as she ran down on the boat and again she lay and wallowed in the beam sea. Smith held his breath as another shell howled overhead and burst to seaward of the drifter. He swallowed. But the boat was hooked on to the netting and the crew of the drifter were scrambling up and tumbling inboard. One man was hauled up on a line; Smith saw them yank him up and in like a sack of potatoes, a dozen hands grabbing at him.