by John Wingate
“Torches!” the Captain’s voice crackled through the din.
“Here we are, sir!” Number One shouted, an unusual occurrence for him. A pencil of light pierced the darkness.
There was utter confusion. The Coxswain had been thrown from his stool and was crawling on all fours, scrambling, struggling to get back to his vital after-planes. He dragged himself upwards and wrenched at the wheel.
“After-planes jammed at hard-a-dive, sir!” He raised his voice to Joe and an understanding look, an imperceptible glance, passed between them.
“All right, Coxswain,” Joe replied, and then continued quietly, “I’ll take her now, Number One.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Then Joe’s crisp orders sizzled through the confusion.
“Ring up the after-ends and go to after-planes in hand.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Keating’s ashen face mouthed the reply, his mouth working like a miniature bellows. He hauled himself to the telephone.
“All compartments make your reports,” Joe snapped.
The for’d telephone operator was hanging on for dear life, as the deck slipped from beneath his feet.
“I can’t hold her, sir!” Number One reported. “All pumps are sucking.”
By now the boat was completely out of control and plunging to her death … one hundred and fifty feet … one hundred and seventy feet … two hundred and ten feet, as the gauge pointers jumped round the dials.
Joe’s eyes flashed round the Control Room. Under the skilful fingers of Elliott, an emergency lamp had flicked on to cast a pale light on the scene.
“Check telemotor pressure,” Joe barked at the Outside E.R.A.
But Saunders, the Outside E.R.A., had folded up in a heap by the for’d bulkhead door. He was trying to climb uphill towards his panel, and was hauling himself along, heave by agonisingly slow heave. As he reached his panel, he glanced at the telemotor pressure-gauge.
“Pressure’s gone, sir,” he said, white-faced. A fracture in the pressure line would seal their fate at this moment.
“Hell!” Joe cursed. “Check the pump!”
“God, in Thy mercy, save us!” was the unsaid prayer on every man’s lips, for a hideous end was now inevitable.
CHAPTER 14
The Admiralty Regrets to Report …
“Have you been up there yet?” shouted Antonio to his olive-skinned companion bicycling slowly behind him. Luigi felt in no mood to pass idle chatter at this early hour of the morning. Already the sun was peeping around the hills, warming the grey dust on the roads. He had been fishing until two this morning and he did not agree with his younger companion: Antonio was too young and energetic, but he would soon learn! It was annoying to be forced out to sea again so early — there were no fish there anyway!
“No, I have not, Antonio. Why should I bicycle all that way uphill to look at those cocky Germans guarding a few Englishmen? Why can’t Italians guard them? Are we not good enough, hein?” And he spat derisively in the dust.
“The Germans are very efficient, my friend, and don’t they know it?” Antonio replied with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “We happy-go-lucky Italians cannot compete with them.”
“Bah! They have caused this war and spoilt my fishing. It’s all these so-called sailors in our so-called Marine who smother our so-called Mare Nostrum with their useless depth charges! They’ve driven away the fish — all the fish,” he continued, mumbling away to himself.
“But they got that Inglisi submarine, anyway,” retorted Antonio, a note of annoyance in his soft voice. “But let us not argue, my friend,” he went on, “we ought to have a good day’s fishing today — the mullet are out.”
His steady eye instinctively swept the blue horizon which stretched far below him to the southward and then, with a squeal and a rasping noise, his old bicycle grinded to a halt.
“Look, Luigi!” he shouted, pointing seawards, one foot outstretched on the ground to maintain his balance.
Luigi swerved to his left and halted ahead of Antonio in the centre of the dusty road. Carefully and methodically, he clambered from his ancient steed, leaned on the saddle with one bent arm and gazed out to sea.
“Curse them! Antonio, what did I tell you? There will be no fish today.”
He swore and his old eyes wrinkled at the corners as he half closed them to see the better.
Well out to sea and almost on the horizon, three light-grey destroyers slowly slid in a circling movement, high spouts of white water foaming from their stems as depth charges shattered the deeps. Even from the cliff road, they could hear the distant crack and rumble of the exploding patterns.
Antonio dreamily watched the spectacle; it had become almost a daily routine with the fishermen. The sun warmed his brown arms as he dismounted from his bicycle and slouched over the frame to see more comfortably. His dark, Latin eyes gazed distantly across the blue sea as his forebears had done throughout the centuries.
“You know, Luigi, I do not feel so good when I think of the men in those infernal submarines. It moves the pit of my stomach, making me feel ill. Even though they are Inglisi, I can’t help feeling sorry for them while they’re being hunted. Do you sometimes feel like that, Luigi?”
The older man paused and then once again he spat into the dust.
“No, Antonio, I do not. I do not love the Inglisi, but I do not hate them. I do not love the Germans, but I hate them. Both of them, curse them, spoil the fishing!” — and, spitting again, he continued, “Let us go, Antonio. The fishing will be no good again today.”
He checked the length of rope which was coiled around his left shoulder.
“Let us sit in the sun on the quay and mend our nets,” he went on, and deliberately mounted his bicycle without waiting for his companion to reply.
Antonio grunted and dragged his eyes from the sea.
“Wait, old friend! Let us not quarrel; there’s only a mile to go and you can share my litre of vino,” he said pleasantly, drawing abreast of the old man.
Luigi’s eyes twinkled as he looked at his young friend.
“Thank you, Antonio, I should be very happy.”
Then Antonio nearly fell off his bicycle as a wild figure stepped out from the group of grey olive trees which flanked the side of the road, ten yards ahead. The wild man was pointing the glistening blue barrel of a revolver at them, waving it from one to the other, and there was relentless determination in his white face.
“Santa Maria!” whispered Antonio, crossing himself as he jumped from the wobbling machine which fell skidding and clattering into the dust.
Three yards farther on, old Luigi brought his bicycle to a jerky halt and slowly dismounted, fear stopping his very speech as the gun flickered from side to side, signalling them to move into the olive grove. The wild man flicked his finger in a spiralling gesture, silently ordering them to turn round with their backs to him. He forced them quickly into the grove and they heard the click of the trigger as the gun was cocked. Both fishermen held their hands high above their heads. They dared not look back and Luigi sobbed quietly to himself, eyes closed, lips moving noiselessly as he recited his prayers.
They heard the clatter of ironwork and then the madman was beside them, shoving the bicycles into their hands. Black hair hung in matted strands around his face, and his fierce eyes burned fanatically. The fishermen crossed themselves again.
“The devil himself,” Luigi whispered.
The gun jabbed Antonio’s ribs.
“Avanti!”
The madman pointed towards the cliff which was now only thirty yards distant. The two men halted, rooted by fear to the ground on which they stood.
“Avanti, avanti! Pronto, pronto!”
The gun ground into Antonio’s back, galvanising him into a trot, while Luigi followed close on his heels. Within two yards of the cliff, the pressure of the gun decreased and before they knew what was happening, the mad figure snatched their bicycles from them and hurled them over the edge.
“Come on, sir, c’mon! Everything’s all right, sir,” a familiar voice spoke hoarsely, a voice he had known somewhere, sometime, eternities ago. He looked round him, his head moving slowly from side to side.
“Bill,” Peter whispered.
“Yes, sir. It’s me, sir.”
To his left Peter faintly heard another quiet voice.
“Don’t talk, Peter boy. Can you hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying, Peter?” Harry’s voice spoke slowly.
Barely moving, the weary head nodded.
“Stay where you are, Peter. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Stay where you are. Stay where you are, Peter, Bill will look after you. Do you understand, Peter?”
Peter’s dry and cracked lips whispered inaudibly, hardly moving.
“Well done, Bill! I won’t be away long,” Harry’s gentle voice said and then he was gone.
Peter sighed as he felt the comforting presence of Bill sitting beside him and soon the soft soughing of the breeze gently, caressingly drew his resilient spirit back to life, until into his consciousness there floated the homely mewing of sea terns wheeling above his head. The pervading warmth of the hot sun, reflecting off the flat rocks, flowed into his flesh to find every fold of his naked body.
I might be on Cornborough cliffs, he thought, and then suddenly remembered where he was.
He dragged himself upright, taking his weight on his outstretched arms, and looked around him. In front of him stretched the beach, the surge of the breaking surf, white on the dark, volcanic pebbles. A screen of black rocks shielded him from the wind on both sides to complete the three walls of his box-like world.
The sturdy figure of Bill Hawkins was by him.
“Thanks, Bill.”
Bill’s open face looked down at him and smiled and a rough hand grasped his shoulder.
Peter sighed in deep contentment, relishing the lifegiving warmth. On a flat rock behind him, he saw his sodden trousers stretched out to dry, steaming in the hot sun, and then he heard a warning clatter. He looked round to his left and saw two figures come stumbling across the pebbles towards him, prodded in the back by Harry who drove them before him like frightened sheep.
“The ’eavenly twins, sir!” Bill grinned, springing to his feet.
“Hullo, Peter! Feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you, Harry. Whom have we here?”
“Two uninvited guests!” His friend smiled as he motioned the two terrified fishermen to sit down beside Bill.
“Welcome to our ancestral hall, my boyos!” Bill bowed low, while Peter, quickly regaining his stubborn vitality, added “Allies of the Master Race!”
Harry stood above them and, uncocking the .45 he had taken from Peter, replaced it in the pocket of the sodden trousers that clung to his legs like clammy sheets.
“Best get changed, Bill; off with their clothes!”
In a brace of shakes, the protesting Italians stood in their primitive underclothes.
“Rope ’em up while I change, Bill.”
Deftly, Bill uncoiled the Italians’ rope and tied up the protesting men with their wrists firmly secured behind their backs and, in a minute, Harry stood before them, the image of an unshaven Italian fisherman, the dark blue woollen cord sweater enveloping him like a rugger jersey. Peter and Bill shared the remaining clothes.
“You have the jersey, sir. My vest’s nearly dry,” said Bill as he picked up his thick vest from the flat rock.
“Thank you, Bill.”
When they had dressed, they turned out the Italians’ pockets, and Harry announced the contents: “Cigarettes, sandwiches, matches, knives, a ball of string — any more in yours, Peter?” he asked as he slapped the last item down upon a flat stone.
“Only a wristwatch, but it’s all very welcome,” Peter grinned.
The Wops eyed them with murderous glances.
“I’m as hungry as a wolf, let’s eat the food,” spluttered Harry, already munching voraciously at the thick, black bread. “And give them a cigarette, Bill, they deserve it!”
Soon the comic figures of the semi-nude Italians, puffing away at their rancid black cigarettes, made them roar with laughter and joining in the joke, the Italians’ eyes twinkled.
The food gave new life to the three friends and then, threatening their prisoners with everlasting hellfire if they tried to escape, they withdrew out of earshot, and, squatting down on the warm pebbles, puffed at the sour cigarettes while they laid their plans.
In the afternoon Harry reconnoitred towards the little white fishing village which trickled down to the water’s edge like a cascade of pearls. The village lay half a mile away, behind a bluff headland which cut it off from Peter and Bill’s restricted world on the isolated beach.
Meanwhile, these two, with the joy of being alive again, tugged contentedly at the foul tobacco and leaned against the cliff, while the two fishermen lay on the sun-kissed pebbles, clad only in their underclothes.
The sun was already reaching up to its zenith, while from seaward the distant ‘crumps’ of sporadic depth-charging still thumped in their ears, when Peter, handing Bill his revolver, said, “Take care of them, Bill.”
Brandishing his Commando’s knife before the eyes of his two prisoners, Peter, whose strength had welled back with the vigour of youth, clambered up the cliff and, with his back to the rocky face, spread-eagled himself to watch the grim battle being played out to seaward.
The glassy calmness stretched before him like a mirror. Five miles distant, the three enemy destroyers, like cats playing with a mouse, slowly closed in upon their tortured prey. Either they were driving Rugged in towards the beach, or Joe was deliberately trying to close the rendezvous position, so that he could be ready to take them off that night. Two destroyers lay stopped, their pale-grey outlines reflecting the dazzling sunlight which shimmered like a mirage upon the wavering horizon. A flurry of whiteness would kick up and foam from the stern of the third ship, and she would race in to the kill, directed by the other two. As she increased speed, the creaming wake built up astern of her and then, suddenly, fountains of white spray would leap skywards, splitting the depths. Quickly the wake would vanish, as the attacker turned to replace one of her consorts, who, in her turn, would dart in and deliver her load of destruction.
So the grim game went on, now bearing to seawards, now turning towards the land, but always, always drawing closer to the rendezvous. As each depth-charge exploded, Peter felt as if a knife were tearing at his vitals. Poor old Rugged was getting the ‘heat’ all right! The Trapani Team were not to be ignored. Fortunately the calm day favoured Joe, whose wits were pitched against the adversaries above him and Peter realised that he would have found a ‘layer’ in these conditions, and would, quite probably, be out of contact with the searching destroyers. He knew, too, that someone had only to allow a spanner to drop, and the clanging noise would as quickly be picked up by the prowling enemy.
Weaving, spiralling, turning, still the remorseless hunt continued. To Peter, a helpless onlooker, the dreadful phrase, “Hunt to exhaustion”, recurred continuously in his harassed mind. Our own destroyers were extremely skilled at this horrible game of patient hunting — hunting, wearing down the enemy until he exhausted his air or battery power, or until his nerve broke, whichever was the earlier. Peter turned away. He could watch no longer.
Then he realised that the explosions had ceased, and that the destroyers were merely moving slowly, too slowly across the placid sea.
They’ve run out of depth charges, he thought and looked again to see the blinking of a signalling lantern, flashing to the north-westwards. He slowly turned to see three more grey shapes, white foam at their stems, with bow waves cleaving the blue stillness of the sea, come belting across his field of vision.
“Their reliefs, curse them,” he murmured. “It’s no use now, Joe — leave us, Joe, leave us, please.”
Tears welled into Peter’s eyes as he tried to peer at the cheap Italian wristwatch which showed two-thirty.
“She cannot live in this,” he whispered.
He slowly clambered down the cliff to find Bill sitting cross-legged, the revolver across his knees. His eyes were worried as he looked up at Peter.
“How’s it going, sir?” Bill asked anxiously.
“They’re giving her all they’ve got, Bill.”
“Gawd help them, then.”
Bill peered seawards, then his blazing eyes returned to the two Italians and his fingers itched on the trigger of the revolver. Peter put a hand on his shoulder.
“Better give me the gun, Bill.”
It was past four when Harry rejoined them with a large pannier of fish which he slopped down at their feet.
“Fish for tea, let’s get a fire going, Bill,” he grunted. Peter dragged his eyes away from the distant battle.
“They’re still at it, Harry. Look! They’ve driven her well out now,” he said hopelessly, as his arm swept towards the hazy horizon line.
“Yes, but Joe’s no fool, Peter. He obviously knows what he is doing, and realises that he can’t rendezvous with us now. Apart from the fact that he will be hunted most of the night, he’s got to get in a charge on main engines and that means surfacing. He can’t come in here for us, as they are bound to send out inshore patrols tonight. It would be suicide for Rugged.”
