Surface With Daring

by Douglas Reeman

  Seaton looked at him. ‘The Hansa has prisoners aboard, too?’

  Jens said, ‘Yes. Many good men. I know some of them myself. This is why your attack must succeed, if only to prove we are not beaten, and will never give way to such barbarity!’

  Seaton saw with surprise that there were tears in the man’s eyes.

  He asked, ‘Couldn’t we find a way of releasing them before the attack?’

  Jens shook his head. ‘It is not possible, my friend. The Germans would unleash such reprisals that the horror of the whole nation would prevent any further resistance against the Germans. We would lose our country forever. Also our pride.’

  ‘Even if we succceeded,’ Trevor was looking at the floor, ‘where would the escaping prisoners go? Two hundred miles to the Swedish frontier? Bringing more terror to those very people who might try to help them.’ He raised his eyes to Seaton’s. ‘They’d not wish that, not a man of them.’

  ‘That is true, David.’ Jens watched him sadly. ‘We thought it right to let you know. Not just what you were doing, but why you were doing it. Prisoners are soon forgotten, no matter what they have suffered.’ His eyes blazed suddenly. ‘But martyrs are never out of our memory!’

  It was so quiet inside the room that the silence seemed to press into the eardrums like a vice.

  Seaton said, ‘I must leave. The attack will begin at first light.’ He barely recognised his own voice. Flat and impersonal. A stranger’s.

  Jens nodded. ‘It is better. We all have a great deal to prepare tonight.’

  He thrust out his hand. ‘God protect you, my boy.’ He put his arm around Seaton and hugged him. ‘We will meet again some day.’

  Trevor said simply, ‘Good luck. I’m sorry it had to be like this.’

  They shook hands and Seaton replied, ‘Take care of yourself, while you’re at it.’

  They walked out into the gloom and Seaton stared at the double line of waiting, anonymous figures. Nobody spoke, but as they passed, here and there a hand would reach out and touch him. Seaton was glad when he had reached the ladder, but he was deeply moved.

  As he was about to step down on to the slippery rungs the last figure in the line moved towards him. Without looking he knew it was the girl.

  She said quietly, ‘Goodbye, David.’

  She did not flinch as he pulled the scarf down over her shoulders.

  He thought of Trevor’s words, that he had been ‘persuaded’ to reveal the presence of the prisoners in the ship. She and Jens must have done it. It was as clear as her eyes, which were all he could see as he murmured, ‘I shall turn up again. You don’t get rid of me that easily.’

  She leaned forward and kissed him quickly. Her mouth was soft but ice-cold. As if they were both dead.

  He watched her step away to join the others. Then he raised his hand to his cap. It was not how he felt, but how they would want to see him go.

  Drake called, ‘All set, Skipper?’

  Seaton turned and lowered himself down the ladder.

  ‘Piece of cake.’

  Their eyes met and they grinned. There was no other way.

  7

  Start the Attack

  SEATON LOOKED AT his watch and tried to ignore the rumble of the barge’s diesels alongside the pier. The disturbance would help to conceal XE 16 if she broke surface when she began to move. It was virtually impossible for Drake to trim the boat properly while she was idling on the shelf which had been their haven for three days. It seemed much longer, and the realisation made the hull’s vibrating motion all the more unnatural.

  The main motor was humming smoothly, and he could tell from the way that Drake and Jenkyn were sitting that they were well aware of the importance of the next minutes.

  The red second-hand of the control room clock passed the hour. Seven in the morning exactly.

  There was a loud clang overhead and they all flinched, even though they had been expecting the signal from the pier.

  ‘Two-five-oh revolutions. Periscope depth.’ He glanced at Jenkyn’s back. ‘Wheel amidships.’

  How loud the air sounded as it forced water from the tanks, and the vibration changed to a gentle pitch and roll as XE 16’s keel detached itself from the man-made shelf.

  Seaton watched the depth needle creeping round until it touched nine feet. He pressed the button and stooped to peer through the sticklike periscope.

  He had to be very careful or he might buckle it on a crossbeam, or fracture it enough to endanger the boat.

  A huge, slime-covered pile edged across his sight and he breathed out slowly.

  ‘Starboard a little, Alec.’

  ‘Aye, Skipper.’

  ‘Steady.’

  Bump, bump, bump. The hull tested a line of smaller supports with her port flank and continued at less than a knot against swirling undertow.

  It was almost pitch-dark in the lens, and Seaton had to concentrate on the picture in his mind and take immediate obstacles for granted.

  The shelf which supported the heavier piles was one hundred feet long, and the cement barge which lay alongside the full length of the pier was two hundred feet. But she was lying well back, and below her ugly stem was a fifteen foot gap before the rest of the pier’s supports merged into criss-cross of beams and frames which would snare the midget’s hull like a web.

  He saw the water reflected in the barge’s side and knew exactly where he was. Below the derrick and the little room. Cold now, its stove black and empty.

  He heard Drake say, ‘Seems a good trim.’ He was speaking to himself.

  Seaton swung the periscope towards the bow. Paler still, not long to go. The deck lifted and swayed under him, and he heard something metallic rasping along the side. He wondered if Jens and some of the others were peering down at the surging water, trying to see him.

  ‘Stand by!’

  He bit his lip, almost ducking as a long, rusty chain swung across his vision like a bridge.

  He pictured the fjord. Once outside the pier and the barge the bottom plunged downwards to a depth of eighty fathoms. A great axe-cleft in the coast. He imagined the boat lying in the pitch-black ravine. Soundless, motionless. Dead.

  Sweat trickled down his neck and he blinked to clear his vision. There it was. More rust, some lines of rivets and then the edge of the barge’s stem. It looked as if it and not the submarine was moving. A massive iron gate swinging back.

  He said, ‘Port fifteen. Increase to four hundred revs.’

  He pressed the button and crouched down, remembering the way he had planned it. How it had looked from his little rooftop spyhole.

  Seaton watched the gyro ticking remorselessly round.

  ‘Steady.’

  The hull rocked heavily, and for a few moments the depth gauge seemed to defy Drake’s efforts to hold the boat down.

  ‘Steady. Steer zero-two-zero.’

  They were out, without even clipping the barge or pier. Seaton wiped his face with his glove.

  When he glanced forward he saw Niven sitting on the heads, his hands gripped together. He looked like a diver on display in an open tank.

  ‘Ready, Dave.’ Drake looked at him.

  ‘Dive …dive …dive. Thirty feet. Eight-five-oh revs.’

  No matter what each man was thinking, the checks must be made. So they were ready to attack.

  Seaton pictured the little hull creeping along through the dark water. Up diagonally from the pier, then a slow turn round towards the target.

  ‘Trimmed for diving.’ Drake sounded almost cheerful.

  ‘Good.’

  He scrambled to the chart and his pad of printed bearings and distances which he had plotted so carefully. Depth, current, time. His mind tackled each item and linked them into a pattern. He glanced at the clock. There should be some daylight by now on the side of the fjord which mattered.

  ‘Alter course. Steer three-zero-zero degrees.’

  He let Jenkyn get on with it. He made it look easy. Like driving an Austin S
even.

  The deck tilted and levelled off in response to hydroplanes and rudder.

  ‘Ship’s ’ead three-zero-zero.’

  It was so quiet that even the motor seemed subdued.

  Seaton glanced at the basket-wheels and wondered why he never thought of the two massive charges as dangerous to his command. But if a depth-charge burst against the hull, or one of the side-cargoes exploded prematurely as it left the boat, it would be a quick and terrible death.

  He said, ‘Reduce to four hundred revs. Less and we’ll lose steerage-way.’ He waited for the hum to fade even more. ‘Periscope depth, Geoff. Let’s take a peep.’

  If he thought anything in the next seconds it was about himself. How was he able to play this role? To pretend that everything was just like the other times. What would his three silent companions think if they knew about the hostages? The sacrifice.

  He pressed the hoist button and tried to steady his nerves. As the lens broke surface he forgot the others and Trevor, even the German’s eyes as they had pleaded with him for mercy.

  It was exact. The big cargo liner lay diagonally across his cross wires, the bows slightly towards him. Despite the dull light and the undulating water he could see it all, even a big mooring buoy below the bows, a twin of the other which the Germans had painstakingly laid astern of her.

  She looked close enough to touch. Seaton held the periscope for a few more seconds, checking what he already knew was a fact or conclusion.

  The Hansa was five hundred and fifty feet long, and beneath her great keel the bottom of the fjord flattened off more comfortably than the opposite side. Which was why the place had been chosen by the survey team before they laid their mooring buoys. Both of XE 16’s charges would lie there with equal comfort.

  Seaton pressed the button. ‘Set the fuses.’ He looked at Drake. ‘Start the attack.’

  He brushed his lips with the back of his glove. It had become a habit when he was under stress, but he had not noticed it until today. It reminded him of the brief contact. Her lips against his, barely touching, and yet ...

  ‘Engines, Skipper!’

  ‘Damn.’

  Seaton pressed the button and dropped right down to control the periscope as it broke surface.

  ‘It’s the German tug. Bearing red four-five. Hauling some lighters.’

  He watched the blurred outline thoughtfully. She was moving slowly. Coming up from the boom gate just as Trevor had predicted. He was probably sitting on the hillside somewhere, watching through his binoculars. If he stayed there he would get his head blown from his shoulders.

  Hansa carried enough explosives, rocket fuel and God knows what else to reduce the ship and anything nearby to small pieces.

  The periscope hissed down again. ‘Steady as you go. The tug will probably go alongside the Hansa while those lighters are unloaded.’

  Drake nodded, his lips pursed in a silent whistle.

  Seaton rubbed his chin. It was all too easy. The silent approach was making him jumpy. No anti-submarine devices or thrashing patrol boats, nothing.

  He kept thinking about the girl. How her hair had felt when he had uncovered it. Fine and soft. Who was she? Where did she fit?

  Niven was climbing back into the W & D and said, ‘Both charges set and live, sir. Two hours from now.’

  He sounded so clipped and formal, Seaton wondered if he was still worried about the German or Jenkyn’s sudden outburst.

  What on earth would make a man at the very start of a naval career get married and immediately volunteer for this sort of madness? His father was a very senior officer, and there had been a Niven at Trafalgar.

  Seaton raised the periscope again and looked at the target. He swung it round still further and exclaimed, ‘The tug’s at work, for God’s sake!’

  Gouts of smoke puffed from abaft her superstructure, and a buoy seemed to pop up almost alongside one of the lighters. He saw men moving purposefully, then another buoy glinting astern of the slow-moving group.

  He lowered the periscope and said quietly, ‘They’re laying a net.’ He squinted to get a better picture in his mind. ‘Not a kind I’ve seen before. Take her down to forty feet. We’ll just have to chance it.’

  Seaton listened to the air being forced out of the tanks, and thought of the scene he had just witnessed. A new sort of net, perhaps temporary, but no less dangerous. Very light, with a small mesh. XE 16 would have to get out before the net held her between it and target. To explode in one great detonation.

  When Seaton raised the stick again he dropped it just as swiftly and held his breath. Two figures had appeared on the forward mooring buoy, and seemed to be working on a ship-to-shore telephone wire. Like men walking on the water. One had been looking directly at him.

  He dabbed his lips with his glove. The man would have seen nothing. It was crazy to start getting the jumps.

  ‘We’ll cross beneath her from the starboard bow to the port quarter.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘Steer two-nine-zero.’

  It was lucky they were in the fjord. The water was murky from its winding travels down hills and rocks on its way to the sea. In the Med they would have been seen. Like fish in a barrel.

  Seaton couldn’t wait any more. The periscope crept out of its well. This time the ship was right above him, like a steel cliff. He could see the flaking dazzle-paint, a man in a chef’s hat looking from one of the scuttles. High above that, the boat deck and two mounted machine-guns. And he had seen one of the steel deckhouses, too.

  He snapped, ‘Eighty feet. Stand by to release the starboard cargo.’

  Drake juggled with his controls as the boat tilted towards the bows. He was ready to compensate for the sudden loss of weight, and for anything else.

  Seaton watched him. He could feel the great ship rising above his head.

  ‘Let go!’

  The wheel squeaked once.

  ‘Cargo away.’

  They waited, trying not to think about it as it floated, leaflike, towards the bottom.

  ‘Stand by, port.’

  Seaton looked at the curved deckhead as an engine sound murmured faintly against the hull. One of the Hansa’s power boats most likely.

  Another glance at the second-hand, then, ‘Let go!’

  This time the deck did roll more steeply. As if glad to be free of its lethal cargo.

  ‘Alter course to port, Alec. Steer two-six-zero. Five minutes and we’ll come up to periscope depth again.’ They exchanged quick glances and he added, ‘Time to think about getting out of it.’

  ‘Ship’s ’ead two-six-zero.’

  When XE 16’s periscope probed above the surface again, Seaton thought for a moment the gyro compass had gone berserk. A quick look round told him otherwise. The Hansa lay as before, except that now she leaned away across the submarine’s starboard quarter. And on the opposite quarter, pale against the landmass beyond, he could see the cement barge, her foredeck almost hidden in a great haze of diesel fumes.

  He trained the periscope ahead once more. ‘Two-five-oh revs.’ It would make the boat difficult to handle in the strong undertow, but he dare not risk throwing up even a small feather of spray.

  The crosswires found and settled on the tug. But it was her stern, and she was forging along and well to port of XE 16’s track, the sailors on the lighters working as feverishy as before.

  From bow to bow he saw one glittering buoy after another. It was no use brooding about it, or wondering how the Germans had found such a quick method. All that mattered now was that an unbroken net barrier lay right across their retreat.

  He lowered the stick and said, ‘They’ve cut us off with their bloody net.’

  Drake stared at him. ‘Can’t we haul round ahead of the tug?’

  Seaton shook his head. ‘Too wide a detour. The cement barge is getting under way. By the time we doubled back, and that’s if we could outpace the tug, the boom will be shut, with the cement barge on the other side of it.’

  Drake murmured
softly, ‘Here’s a fine thing.’

  Seaton said, ‘Thirty feet. Four hundred revs. Dead silent routine.’

  If only it were dark, or pelting down with snow. Then he could surface, slip over the net between a pair of buoys and run deep again on the other side. But even in this murky light they would be sure to be sighted, and the patrol boats would be down on them like a ton of bricks. And the Germans would still have time to move the Hansa. The tug could tow her clear of her moorings whether the Hansa had steam up or not. It might damage the ex-liner, but she would be safe from the two charges.

  He said quietly, ‘We’ll have to cut the net.’

  Niven answered, ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘It’ll be damned cold, Richard.’ Drake turned from him to Seaton. ‘I’ll go, if you like. No problem.’

  ‘No.’ Niven was already adjusting his tight diving suit. ‘It’s what I’m here for.’

  Seaton looked at the clock. ‘Watch your step. We don’t know if they’ve got any detection gear above the net.’ He held Niven’s gaze and added, ‘It’s vital we get clear. But take your time. No heroics.’ He forced a smile. ‘I’ll not go without you.’

  Drake said, ‘Nearly there.’ His eyes moved swiftly from the clock to his gauges. ‘Here we go.’

  The hull gave a slow shudder, and Seaton felt the periscope press his arm as the little submarine’s snout probed against the net.

  ‘Dead slow.’

  He strained his ears, waiting for the warning grenade or something worse. He pressed the button. It was too dark to see much more than a grey blur. He tensed, seeing the net rising above him and stretching away on either hand, vague and indistinct, like a huge, eerie web.

  Drake and Jenkyn would have their work cut out to hold the boat bows-on while the diver got on with his work.

  He held a faint rustle of metal as the net dragged slightly on the stem.

  Niven was already squatting on the heads, fixing his noseclip and testing the oxygen supply.