Surface With Daring

by Douglas Reeman

  He turned and looked at the twelve waiting figures and said tersely, ‘I am Major Lees. I know that all of you are experts in your own field of operations. Please accept my word that I am the same in mine. I am here to tell you in the short time available how, if it becomes necessary, you can kill the enemy.’ He held up a gloved hand. ‘I know, I have read most of the details of your work. Hear me out. But I do not mean killing at long range. I mean face-to-face, where an enemy is flesh and bone like yourselves. When you can feel his breath, see him for what he is. If I and my people can instruct you in certain matters, your own lives will be saved, and thereby those of many others who daily risk their sanity and families to help you.’ His tone sharpened. ‘This sort of war is real and deadly. You do not put up your hands and surrender when you’ve tried everything you’ve been taught by the good book. Because if you do the enemy will be unkind to you.’ His clipped moustache lifted slightly above a brief smile. ‘Very.’

  Doors squeaked and feet shuffled, and then two of the outbuildings were opened to the wind. Inside Seaton saw tables of weapons, machine pistols, commando daggers and grenades, a veritable marketplace of death.

  ‘Walk around, if you please.’ Major Lees remained in the centre of the yard. ‘In a moment I’ll be introducing you to the little team who will explain things more fully.’

  Drake said quietly, ‘God, they’ve certainly laid on a show for us.’

  ‘It’s no’ just a show, sir.’

  They turned and saw a giant figure with the beret badge and shoulder flash of the Scots Guards.

  ‘The weapons are for use, d’you see?’ He grinned. ‘Sergeant McPeake, at your service. I am to show you the benefits of close combat, and the uses of hands, feet and knife.’ He looked down at Jenkyn and beamed. ‘Och, it’s a grand affair. It gives you a chance to knock your officers about, and me the opportunity of jumping on top of an Englishman without being charged for it!’

  There were others, too. Quiet, dedicated men from all three services. They would explain about the different sorts of explosives, about codes, enemy uniforms and weapons. It was like starting all over again.

  As Lees explained, ‘It is not so that you may do any of these things, but so that you will understand what others are doing. Not so that you can be heroes, but in order that you will not become a hindrance.’

  After three hours of it they took a break.

  Drake asked, ‘What do you think, David? Is it a bluff, or are we really hopping out of the pan into the fire?’

  Seaton thought about it. ‘I believe it’s real. Lees and his men are too busy to waste their time here, and Venables doesn’t have the imagination for it.’ He nodded slowly. ‘In some strange way it makes sense, too. There we are, right in the middle of some enemy harbour or base, and what do we do, apart from drop our charges and try to stay alive? Maybe we could add a few tricks to our bag, eh?’

  The door banged open and Sergeant McPeake marched in rubbing his big hands.

  ‘Now, gentlemen, outside if you please, it’s dark enough.’

  Vanneck eyed him coldly. ‘Enough for what?’

  The sergeant was unmoved. ‘We’ll be down the hill to the loch in a few minutes. The major says you’re to steal a boat and get out to the depot ship.’ He became very serious. ‘Three separate parties. And I’ll not be wanting to hear you’ve been spotted by the sentries.’

  Vanneck exclaimed, ‘For God’s sake. Sergeant, we’re not bloody pongoes!’

  ‘True, sir.’ McPeake regarded him bleakly. ‘If you were, I’d not be troubling myself.’

  Gordon Lennox, Vanneck’s first lieutenant, said quickly, ‘It might do us good, Rupert. Show Gervaise and his scruffs just how much better we are.’

  McPeake said softly, ‘Well spoken, sir.’ He opened the door and glared at the black sky. ‘Let’s be about it.’

  And that was how it was to continue. For most of the night and into the following day they were chased, instructed and harried by Major Lees and his ‘professionals’. Even throughout the day after, which was the first of 1944, and a Saturday at that, the three submarine crews could be seen bustling about the foreshore or stripping and reassembling weapons as if their lives depended on it.

  Captain Trenoweth tried to stay out of the way, although every fibre within him demanded he should keep his crews company. He was usually on a hillside, perched on a shooting stick, binoculars to his eyes, watching their efforts until rain or sleet drove him back to his H.Q.

  There he would find his dog asleep by the fire, and Second Officer Dennison ready to scold him for being out in such bitter weather. It only reminded him of his age and his missing leg, but she was putting his health before his displeasure, and usually got her way.

  Two weeks later, as quietly as they had arrived, Major Lees and his men departed for the mainland. Another day passed, and then orders arrived on Trenoweth’s desk.

  XE 16 was to proceed with towing submarine and escorts to Scapa Flow. Upon arrival there would be a final check on the midget and her crew. An exercise or two would be carried out against anchored warships and boom defences. And then? But the target remained shrouded in secrecy.

  Soon after dawn on the prescribed day, Seaton watched his three companions climb through the after hatch and into their own private world. They had been seen off on Cephalus’s deck by Vanneck and the others. Just handshakes, and a few jokes which only they understood.

  It was still very dark, and the waters of the loch seemed unusually restless. A paler shape idled beyond the moored depot ship, the towing submarine standing by, shrouded in a haze of diesel as she continued to charge her batteries while she had the opportunity.

  It was too dark to see the shore but Seaton knew there would be others there, too. Waiting. Remembering.

  Seaton watched the line-handling parties bustling around the pontoons and heard the lower, but no less confident mutter of his own diesel engine.

  He touched his cap to the duty officer. ‘Be seeing you.’ Just like the song.

  ‘Stand by to cast off.’ The man’s voice through a megaphone sounded unreal. A spirit of the loch. Seaton shook himself, and then with a final glance around, flashed his torch towards the depot ship’s high bridge.

  Muffled in greatcoat and scarf, Captain Trenoweth saw the brief flicker of light. It seemed to come from the water itself.

  He thought of the motto. Out of the deep we are here.

  It was freezing on the hillside, and his eyes were streaming with the cold. But he would not have missed it. Beside him, a thermos of coffee in her gloved hands, Second Officer Dennison watched him anxiously as he slowly straightened his back and balanced himself on his game leg against the wind. He could see nothing, but his ears had picked up the familiar beat of diesels. Slowly the captain raised his hand in salute.

  She whispered, ‘They’ll be all right, sir. You see.’

  He turned and looked at her fondly. ‘I hope so. But it’s not that.’ He took her arm and they started back up the hill. ‘I was just wishing it was me.’

  3

  A Very Long Way

  ‘WAKEY, WAKEY, SIR.’ The hand on Seaton’s shoulder gave another shake. ‘Time to start.’

  Seaton rolled over on the bunk, squinting his eyes against the torchlight. Reluctantly, and then with gathering speed, his mind came out of the deep sleep, and he asked, ‘What’s it like?’

  The seaman placed a steaming mug of tea beside the bunk and answered, ‘Blowin’ a bit, sir, and as cold as charity.’

  ‘Switch on the lights.’

  Seaton yawned, lowered his feet to the deck and glanced at his watch. Five-thirty in the morning. He looked around the unfamiliar cabin, his ears collecting sounds above and below him.

  It never seemed to improve. You thought you could take it in your stride, get used to it. But the actual moment still seemed to come as a shock. It must be like that for a condemned prisoner, he thought, as he sipped the hot tea. At some agonising time of the last night on
earth he might nevertheless fall asleep. And then the hand on the shoulder, sad but final. ‘Come on, son. Put a brave face on it.’

  Seaton listened to the creak of metal, the thuds of booted feet overhead. Christ. He was starting to sweat.

  To steady his mind he thought back over the past ten days. Exercising XE 16 in Scapa Flow, using the moored battleships and carriers as innocent targets. Nosing at anti-submarine nets and defensive booms, as much to test the Flow’s protection as for their own benefit. It was only a rumour, but someone had suggested that the enemy might have captured one of the X-craft which had attacked the Tirpitz. Communications and weather had been so bad in Norway that nobody really knew who had survived or who had been lost in the attack.

  But if the Germans had captured an X-craft intact, it was more than likely that Captain Venables’ opposite number in the Kriegsflotten would be quick to use her against the big ships in Scapa Flow. Nobody had forgotten the sinking of the battleship Royal Oak by a conventional U-boat at the very beginning of the war. The sounds made by a midget submarine, or lack of them, on the underwater detection gear might do something to prevent a similar disaster.

  Within days of their arrival the final orders had been delivered. XE 16, with her towing submarine, escorts and salvage tug would quit the Flow and head still further north, to the last barren outpost in the Shetland Isles.

  Seaton put down the cup and methodically began to shave and dress himself.

  The waiting and suspense were over. They were here in the Shetlands, at Lunna Voe, and despite all his usual qualms and apprehensions, he could appreciate the great difficulties which Venables and his department had had to overcome. They had been well escorted for every inch of the way. The Navy had no intention of allowing another XE 18 collision. Before leaving the protection of the Flow, however, the boat had been hoisted bodily from the water and swung inboard of a submarine depot ship for final inspection, and more important, to have her lethal side-cargoes of explosive clamped in position on either beam.

  Seaton checked his pockets, wondering how any of them could have imagined this operation was going to be called off.

  He had spent the last few days aboard the big salvage tug, and outside the cabin flat he could hear someone whistling South of the Border Down Mexico Way. He smiled. Geoffrey Drake did not seem to care for any other tune.

  And they still knew nothing of the actual mission, except that they were going to Norway. He shivered, despite his thick submarine jersey. Some two hundred miles to the east of where he was standing.

  It was no use prolonging it. He picked up his cap and eyed himself in the mirror. From his pale face his eyes stared back at him, and were strangely sad, he thought. He glanced around the bare steel cabin. No trace of ownership, or who had gone before. The tug kept its secrets. Of frogmen and X-craft crews who had stayed here for a night or two. It did not do to display signs of life. It might give false hopes of survival to the latest occupants.

  He left the cabin and found Drake leaning against the side of the passageway. In spite of the hour and the job they were about to begin, he looked calm, even cheerful, his hair poking around the sides of his cap like yellow wings.

  ‘All set?’

  Seaton nodded. ‘Our gear will be aboard by now.’

  He listened to the rattle of equipment and tested the sluggish movement of the deck beneath him. Blowing a bit, the bosun’s mate had said. But this tug was a great pile of steel and lifting gear, and was snugly moored within the land’s protection. He hoped they would be able to get clear and find the most comfortable cruising depth without mishap.

  They walked along to the chart room. It was already full of pipe and cigarette smoke.

  Seaton saw Niven and Jenkyn standing side by side at the big chart table, yet somehow a mile apart. He would have to change that. With all the scurrying about under Major Lees’ instructors, the arduous haul to Scapa, and then here to this last stepping-off point, they had remained a team, but separate.

  He forgot them as he looked at the others. The bearded lieutenant commander with his first lieutenant. He was the captain of the towing submarine. His role was vital. The tug’s skipper, a met. officer and the depot ship’s gunnery and torpedo wizard were all standing around with a few faceless subordinates doing things in the background. The door opened and Seaton saw it was Captain Venables.

  He nodded to everyone and strode straight to the chart table.

  Seaton smiled. No nonsense about him. No sentiment or use for false platitudes. It was to be hoped there was something of value on the other side of the scale.

  Venables said, ‘Everything is prepared.’ He seemed to see Seaton for the first time. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ It sounded foolish. ‘I don’t think we’ve forgotten anything.’

  He watched Venables peering at the chart and comparing some notes on his pad. He wants me to ask him. Plead with him.

  Venables looked up sharply, and for an instant Seaton imagined he had spoken aloud.

  Venables said, ‘Now to the mission.’ Everybody crowded closer as the captain laid one finger on the chart. ‘Almost directly opposite to where we are, loosely speaking, is the small port of Askvoll, about seventy-five miles north of Bergen. There’s a little island nearby.’ He glanced at the bearded submarine commander. ‘One of your people landed an agent there recently to confer with the Resistance. They can watch the port from there. Askvoll has seen a lot of German activity, until, that is, the weather became impossible.’

  The lieutenant commander nodded. ‘I was near there a year back, sir. It seemed quiet then. The enemy were relying on Bergen as the big base, with floating docks, submarine pens and all the rest of it.’

  ‘Quite so.’ Venables sounded disinterested. ‘You will tow XE 16 to within thirty-five miles of the coast.’

  Seaton listened intently. It was like hearing about somebody else. The towing part was normal enough. Thirty-five miles was fairly safe from both offshore patrols and R.D.F. while they slipped the tow.

  Venables added sharply, ‘An agent will make contact with XE 16 as laid down in the intelligence folio.’ He studied Seaton impassively and gave a slight smile. ‘Something to read on passage.’

  Seaton asked, ‘And then, sir?’

  The finger moved along the chart again. ‘If, and I stress if the signs are right, you will proceed into the deep fjord to the north of Askvoll. There you will be given shelter by the Resistance, fuel, additional stores, anything which is not too impracticable.’ Again the little smile.

  He’s actually enjoying all this, Seaton thought. Seeing his ‘baby’ take its first faltering steps.

  Venables continued, ‘It is as well not to know too much. You can leave the nuts and bolts of the matter to the men on the spot. But we have firm information that a ship, at present lying in Askvoll, is going to be moved into that fjord. You will be there when she arrives. When you leave, she will be on the bottom.’

  The met. officer, speaking with all the ease of one not actually involved, asked, ‘But won’t they have laid the defences already, sir? Like they did in Altenfjord?’

  Venables did not look at him. ‘This is different. The Germans have been clearing out the surrounding area for months, but had to diminish operations because of bad weather. They intend to boom off the fjord after the ship has gone inside, and apart from one small entrance, the place will be a fortress, a nut impossible to crack.’ He looked at Seaton again. ‘By the old methods, that is.’

  It was all suddenly crystal clear. Venables’ hints at Loch Striven, Major Lees’ quiet instruction. Get in before the target and you were halfway home and dry. If the reports and information were accurate …he twisted his mind away. They had to be accurate.

  Drake asked quietly, ‘This ship, sir? Why is she so special?’

  Venables took out his familiar silver case. ‘She is a floating laboratory. Fuel induction. That kind of thing.’ He was being very vague. ‘The less you know the better. Just lay
your charges under her.’ He examined each of them in turn. ‘Remember what I said when we first met. This is vital work. Not merely an exercise to boost newspaper circulation. The Germans have put a lot of work into their project. Askvoll is well guarded, and there are regular air patrols from Trondheim, and of course plenty of sea activity too. If the enemy succeed in carrying out their intentions, indeed, if they have moved the ship already, an attack will still have to be launched. But any success would be costly, the chances of survival minimal.’

  Seaton said, ‘This agent you spoke of, sir. Suppose I’m not entirely satisfied with what he says?’

  Venables shrugged. ‘You will find separate rendezvous times for meeting with the towing submarine. Use the first if you think there has been a serious hitch. Choose one of the other dates as you see fit.’ His eyes hardened. ‘But the Germans must not capture the boat, your secret orders or, if possible, yourselves. They have become increasingly embarrassed by our commando attacks, and are hinting that they will not be obliged to treat any captured raiders under the terms of the Geneva Convention. In other words, they are getting worried.’

  Drake grimaced. ‘Me too.’

  Venables ignored him. ‘Half an hour then.’ He glanced at the others. ‘Carry on, if you please.’

  The submarine commander hesitated, then held out his hand. ‘Good luck.’ He was probably thinking of previous operations with X-craft. But this time there would be no passage crew, no rest for Seaton and his companions for the two-and-a-half day crossing to Norway.

  They all shook hands with him, and Drake said, ‘Try not to let the tow snap, eh?’

  Then the chart room was empty but for XE 16’s crew and Venables.

  He said, ‘Do not forget, when you leave Lunna Voe you must be constantly alert and single-minded. The objective is all that can concern you.’ He took out another cigarette and added, ‘Off you go then.’

  Outside the chart room and on the tug’s high bridge deck Drake murmured between his teeth, ‘That bloke makes Jeremiah seem like a bloody optimist!’