Wasn’t all that close either. It was the flashing one had seen, not the ship or ships. But still—like a long sigh in the depths of your brain—the feeling of Here we go…
‘Hard a-starboard, Cox’n.’
Turning her stern to it. Time—2247.
‘Signalman—stand by to give ’em a Z.’
‘Flashing astern, sir!’
Carter: but everyone seeing it then—as she swung, answering her helm, and over the top of 866 as Moncrieff began to follow round—an answering lamp, brighter and closer than the one who’d challenged. The letter ‘C’—long short long short.
‘Steer west, Cox’n. Miller, belay that order.’
‘Steer west, sir.’
Bewildering, for a moment: Ben with his glasses up, searching over the starboard quarter for the ship or ships who’d have been coming south astern of this unit—actually on its port quarter, when they’d answered the challenge from somewhere on their port bow. Would be passing astern now—or shortly. If they didn’t spot the gunboats—and at that range there was reasonable hope they might not… MGB 875 steadying on west, 866 curving in astern of her, 874 still halfway through the turn. The challenger, coming from the Barfleur direction, would be the wing ship of the Heilbronne’s screen, he guessed: hadn’t of course been challenging this unit at all. Hadn’t bloody well seen it. The ship or ships who had been challenged—who’d been so quick with their reply—had obviously been on their toes for it—had to be some unit heading south to rendezvous with this lot. He saw them now. So did Wheeler—their shouts conflicting: ‘Ships crossing astern, sir!’ and ‘Enemy astern, sir!’
‘Yeah. I’m on ’em.’
‘Course west, sir…’
Barclay: ‘Look like R-boats.’
Stack’s voice then—out of a loudspeaker—‘Mike One from Topdog. Are you receiving me? Over.’ R/T, for God’s sake. Not until we see the whites of their eyes, he’d said. Well—maybe. Figuratively speaking… He’d clicked off the microphone, was agreeing with Barclay: ‘Definitely R-boats… Pilot—what’s our position relative to YY? Number One, warn the guns—enemy ships around, not repeat not to open fire without orders… Ben—’
‘Sir?’
‘When you’ve got that position—enemy report. Send it.’
‘Aye aye, sir!’
He landed on his feet in the wheelhouse, grabbed the ruler and dividers. Time, 2249. Position by QH wouldn’t have changed by more than a thousand yards, but he updated it as a preliminary. At the voicepipe then, hearing Mike Furneaux’s voice through atmospherics: ‘Topdog—Mike One receiving you. Over.’
‘Skipper, sir?’
‘Yes, Pilot!’
‘Reference position YY one-oh-three degrees two-point-one miles, sir.’
Stack repeated the figures to himself. Then—on the air again—‘Mike One and all units. Topdog. My position YY one-oh-three degrees two-point-one miles. Course west. Two R-boats crossing astern of me, steering south to join another unit, probably starboard wing of the screen, halfway between me and Barfleur now. My intention’s to follow, stick to ’em until we see the target. Now note this: enemy challenge tonight is V for Victor, reply C for Charlie. Out.’
He’d clicked off. There were R/T loudspeakers in the bridge and here in the wheelhouse and below in the W/T office—where the telegraphists would be logging all messages in and out.
Ben heard, ‘Starboard wheel, Cox’n.’ Then, ‘Where are they now?’
‘Port quarter, sir.’ Barclay. ‘Altered away slightly, I think.’
‘Wheeler, you on ’em?’
‘Yessir.’
‘Stay on ’em, as we go round. If you lose ’em, sing out.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Circling to starboard—the gunboat shouldering her way round, her forepart battering across wind and sea at this moment—Stack would be aiming to keep a safe distance from them and at the conclusion of the turn to finish up almost directly astern of them. They might well serve as cover—as far as being spotted from the Heilbronne’s screen was concerned. Touch wood. The Krauts in those small but well-armed escorts had sharp eyes and magnificent Zeiss binoculars. Ben was drafting the enemy report: addressed to C-in-C Portsmouth, it would go out on 2000 kc/s, on which the Hunt-class destroyers of Plymouth Command would also be listening. He checked it, called the W/T office and sent it down to them through the tube.
Radar would be handy now, he thought, returning to the chart. He could start a plot without it, obviously, but lacking ranges other than wild guesses… He flapped the seat down: the way she was rolling now, beam-on to the sea as she turned, ship’s head about north, you needed a firm base. But the guesswork needn’t be all that wild, come to think of it. To start with, the R-boats passing astern couldn’t have been as much as a mile away—1,500 yards would be more like it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have seen them, not that easily. And their officers and lookouts should be ashamed of themselves. Concentrating on forward bearings, no doubt, searching for the convoy they’d known would be rounding the point at about this time. Not that that excused them… Anyway—base the R-boats’ track on their having passed 1,500 yards astern, course south, speed say—call it ten knots. And the other, the target’s leading escort—with Pointe de Barfleur on his quarter and the target itself plus other escorts all in that gap of navigable water inside him—if he was on the starboard wing of the screen they’d have to be…
2,500 yards, say?
Allow him sixteen knots. But that was no distance—given the fact that all parties were on the move and would be more or less converging. He leant to the voicepipe—reminding himself that although Stack was taking it for granted Furneaux’s unit was still inshore of the convoy route, this was at present only an assumption.
Barclay answered his call: ‘Bridge.’
‘Skipper?’
‘Hang on.’
She had to be nearly all the way round, by now.
You could feel it. Hear it then too—Stack asking Charlie Sewell, ‘Ship’s head?’
‘South—close to due south, sir.’
‘Steer that… Wheeler—well done, all-round lookout again now.’ Into the pipe then: ‘Yes, pilot?’
‘Enemy report’s gone out, sir. Also, plot suggests the starboard wing of the screen’s about two thousand yards south, sir.’
‘Yeah.’ He sounded unsurprised. ‘At most…’ Ben mentally riposting, So it’s time you bloody well saw the bugger… Stack’s voice again, then, more distantly: ‘What’s that, Alan?’
‘The R-boats altering to starboard, sir.’
‘Are they…’
‘Ship to the left of them—looks like—’
‘Miller—blue lamp astern, tell ’em stopping one engine.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘—T-class torpedo-boat I think, sir—’
The telegraph clinked. ‘Pilot—stopping starboard outer. Starboard wheel, Cox’n, steer south twenty west. What’s beyond or astern of that bugger, Alan?’
‘Nothing—as yet, sir…’
Ben made a note of the time and reduction of speed, then went back up to the bridge. Doing no good down there: Bob seemingly having a plot in his great Outback brain, what did he need a navigator for anyway? Whereas another pair of eyes up here—plus virtual disbelief in there not being other Heilbronne escorts within binocular range by now… He asked Barclay, ‘Where are the R-boats now?’
‘I’m on ’em.’
Right ahead, then. ‘And the Torpedoboot?’
‘They’re sitting on his quarter, and we’re on theirs.’
Training left. There had to be others of the escort following. Not to mention the Heilbronne herself…
‘Bugger-all.’ Stack’s voice from the other corner, sounding angry. ‘We’re stalking one T-class and two R’s. Where the bloody hell…’
‘Course south twenty west, sir.’
The searchlight wasn’t burning now: wasn’t visible anyway. Nothing back there, except a slight glimmer on the sea beyond the spread
of the unit’s wake, a hint of phosphorescence along the edge of it.
Moonglow, for Christ’s sake.
‘Time, Ben?’
Two minds with but a single thought—except he’d called the question into the voicepipe. Ben shouted across the wind, ‘2302, sir.’ It was a half-moon, waning, had managed to slip some of its dying light under the trailing edges of the cloud-cap—which was itself disintegrating…
Barclay had muttered, ‘Clear-cut view of that T-class now.’
You had to hope the German didn’t get any kind of view of you. Or of Furneaux’s MTBs. Who—touch wood—should only have to lie low for a few more minutes. Extremely fortunate near-miss timing, from that point of view. From here the R-boats were barely visible, despite the moon: you wouldn’t have seen them if you hadn’t known they were there to look for. Making twelve or fifteen knots, Ben guessed.
Keep going, boys. Out of the way, let the dogs see the bloody rabbit…
He’d whispered it aloud, caught himself doing so. This was a somewhat nerve-tightening situation. Point being—if there was a bloody rabbit. Possibilities—the unpleasant kind—were that it might have got by before the MTBs’ arrival—so this would be the rearguard, not the van—or that it was taking a more northerly route, was up there—somewhere—now, this little lot serving as a decoy to keep any British Coastal Forces busy and their radar blinded?
If they’d taken the corner wide, as it were, it might in some way or other connect with that otherwise unexplainable flare-up of action an hour ago. Hour and a quarter, roughly… Wouldn’t make all that much sense, but—really, you wouldn’t want it to, either. The alternative you wanted to believe in was that for some reason best known to themselves they’d sent one front-runner well ahead of the main body.
Put off their stroke by flare-dropping aircraft earlier on, maybe?
But you could take that further: they could have been turned back by the flare-dropping. Back into Le Havre to await the promised worsening of the weather.
Bob was using the R/T again. ‘Mike One, from Topdog—you hearing me, Mike? Over.’
‘Loud and clear, Topdog. Over.’
‘No target or escorts in sight yet. Only those R-boats and the T-class aforementioned. They’ll be getting by you, about now. I’m reversing course, remaining in this vicinity. Out.’
Delighted to be reversing course, too—without having been spotted by the escorts. Which not only had sharp eyes but were more formidably armed and faster than D-class MGBs: were never therefore to be trifled with… Ben had his glasses up, sweeping across the port quarter—where the bastards ought to be… R/T again, then: ‘Topdog—Mike One. I have those three on radar, bearing 330 range one mile. Moon’s just down, so—bring on the dancing girls, huh? Bob—Mike Four lost contact about 2110, not a peep since, whereabouts unknown. My position is YY 136 two miles. Out.’
Stack’s growl: ‘What a happy fucking Christmas.’
The seepage of moonlight had dried up. That was the only good news. The sombre headline was Mark Newbolt and his crew—missing. Accounting for the outbreak of tracer: even—at the worst—for the lack of an enemy report. If he’d not been in a position to get one out. Those R-boats, maybe: or even the Heilbronne’s escort, as in one’s thinking only minutes ago—if they’d been taking the corner wide.
‘Starboard wheel, Cox’n.’
‘Starboard wheel, sir.’
Cavorting more erratically as she swung: at low revs on one engine the rudders dragging her round only sluggishly, even though turning to starboard was the easier way, with that outer stopped. Ben making a mental note of the time of this alteration—2312, near enough. Would have expected it to have been over and done with, by this time. Still hope, of course: getting a bit worried now—as Stack was—but still hope… He’d been looking-out mostly on the quarter, towards Barfleur—grasping the binoculars one-handed for a moment, needing the other hand to grab for support at the rail above the companionway as she rolled way over and hung there—longer than she should have before recovering, starting back up again. He’d got himself jammed into the corner, glasses sweeping across the beam—then stopping dead… Shifting—then back again—needing about a second and a half to be sure it was real—that they were—and real what…
Finding his voice then: ‘Red one hundred and red nine-oh—two more T-class!’
Chapter Seven
Mark Newbolt had enemies in sight too. He’d sighted them three minutes earlier and for a moment had been frozen in that same natural reaction of disbelief—only worse, because in accepting the reality it was difficult not to admit to oneself that it looked like curtains.
Still did. Worse every minute, in fact. Bastards closing in while you lay bloody helpless. Effectively helpless. You’d fight, obviously—once it started and for as long as it lasted—but it wasn’t going to get anyone anywhere, except dead.
A preliminary worsening of the situation had been the unexpected appearance of the moon. Low over the peninsula, a brilliance that was entirely unwelcome.
‘Skipper, sir—’ Sworder, the midshipman, arriving back in the bridge—‘PO MM says he hopes to have one wing going before much longer, sir.’
‘Very good.’
The hell it was. You needed it now…
They’d come into sight shortly after the moon had broken through. Huge-looking, looming blackly against that coastal glow, crossing rather slowly from right to left, steering to pass close. Antiques, possibly, but still big and powerful-looking. Tall funnels. They’d have 37-mms at least, maybe some 88s. On 563’s port beam now, but she was being thrown around so much that the relative bearing was changing all the time.
The only relevance—when the time came—would be which guns would or wouldn’t bear. The gunners had been alerted, warned not to open fire without orders.
‘Mid.’
‘Yessir?’
‘Get all SPs and papers together in the wheelhouse, ready for ditching. Get Shaw on the job, most of it’s in there.’ In the W/T office, he meant. ‘He’ll have a weighted sack for it.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Moonset how soon, Tony?’
‘Four minutes, sir. No—three, now.’
Three minutes too long. Preparing to ditch secret documents, codes, etcetera wasn’t defeatism, only realism.
The second in line was the bigger. Four or five hundred tons, perhaps. The leader was no tiddler, either, but not that big. Couple of hundred, say. Making five or six knots, no more. Another unit out of Cherbourg, almost certainly—in line with the earlier guess that they’d send out whatever they had, to help get the Heilbronne out into the Atlantic. These would be categorized as Vorpostenboote, meaning patrol craft—trawlers, steam drifters, former fishing craft or pilot vessels on which they stuck a load of weaponry and sent out with their coastal convoys or in defence of minesweeping or minelaying operations.
Any second now… They’d put a starshell over first, most likely; then use her for target practice.
‘Turning towards, aren’t they?’
Kingsmill…
But the light played tricks. That, and your imagination.
563’s stern was towards them, at the moment. Range something like a thousand yards. Might take her for a drifting wreck, when eventually they spotted her. When, not if. Being down-moon had of course been helpful: and having no way on, not even steerage-way—and being small, half-buried in the sea, virtually part of it…
‘Moon’s down…’
It was indeed. Making those two—over the port quarter now—suddenly much less distinct. Ditto this boat to them—please God… They were steering to pass within—he reckoned—about five or six hundred yards, and to the point where they’d be closest—when they’d have this wreck abeam—they had about 500 yards to steam. Quarter of a mile at six knots—two and a half minutes. At which stage, incidentally, they’d be in ideal torpedo-firing range—and beam-on. But also infuriatingly and frustratingly safe, for the simple reason that not hav
ing a screw that worked you’d have no way of turning the boat to aim the bloody things.
Except by a total fluke. If wind and sea happened to point her the right way—and if you had the deflection set correctly, and fired at the right moment. The odds against such a miracle occurring were so long that it was a waste of time even to think about it: despite which he was setting the torpedo sight, allowing even more hopefully for a ninety-degree shot and estimating the enemy’s speed as six knots.
Out of desperation, not expectation.
Buzzer from the engineroom. Kingsmill snatched the ’phone off its hook. ‘Bridge!’
The rasp of a voice in the telephone, Kingsmill’s explosive ‘Right!’—Newbolt lowering his glasses—and then his first lieutenant’s dumbfounding report of ‘Starboard engine’s ready, sir!’
Timing so neat, it was almost funny. Right hand moving the Chadburn’s telegraph to slow ahead: and a glance to his left, seeing Gilchrist at the wheel and alert—as always, despite the long period of inaction… ‘Port wheel, Cox’n.’ Easing that throttle open. ‘Ready both tubes.’ Against the grain, in one way: these torpedoes had been intended for the Heilbronne, not to be wasted on some shabby Vorpostenboot. Beggars weren’t choosers, though; when you’d fucked-up as thoroughly as this, you had to take whatever chances might come your way—and thank God for them.
Still only a very slim hope. Any second, those things’ guns were going to open up—he knew it, even in the act of removing the latches from the torpedo-firing levers and hearing Kingsmill shouting over the side of the bridge first to Burrows, who was in Lloyd’s place, and then to Chandler who’d replaced Burrows on the port tube.
‘Tubes ready, sir!’
563 was coming to life. Vibration from the starboard engine, and a thrilling change in the feel of her as she took charge of her own destiny again.
‘Midships, Cox’n.’
‘Midships, sir!’
Coming round, slowly. The trawlers were grey tall-funnelled shapes expanding very slowly in the lenses of his binoculars which he’d lined-up with the torpedo-sight. Taking the rudder off because having started to swing she’d continue doing so, with only that starboard screw driving her, and he didn’t want to overshoot on the swing if he could help it. CPO Gilchrist had reported ‘Wheel amidships’: Newbolt moved the starboard telegraph to half-ahead and gave her more throttle. Optimum speed when firing torpedoes was twelve knots; 563 would be making less than that, probably more like eight. Or six, even. Please God, remaining unspotted until she’d sent the fish on their way. The lower speed would make her less conspicuous but would affect—to some extent, but in present circumstances unavoidably—the torpedoes’ initial dive, the depth they plunged to before their own depth-keeping mechanism brought them back up to the running depth—which had been pre-set at six feet for the Heilbronne, would be all right for these big trawlers too. The object being to strike well below the waterline but not to risk missing by ‘running under’. The rest of the art was to aim the fish ahead of their target by a precisely calculated angle of deflection so that they and the target would contrive to meet each other, the torpedoes striking the target’s side at an angle of as near as possible ninety degrees. Firing from eighty degrees on the target’s bow was fine, although the ideal was ninety. Torpedoes’ running speed being forty-five knots, angle on the bow and enemy speed as set on the sight… The tubes were angled seven and a half degrees outward from the MTB’s centreline, but the torpedoes’ own steering-gear would turn them inward, once they were in the water, by six and a half degrees, leaving an effective spread of two degrees. At a range of 500 yards this would put them sixty feet apart.
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