Submariner Sinclair: A thrilling WW2 military adventure story (The Submariner Sinclair Naval Thriller Series Book 1)

by John Wingate

  Bill emerged from the nets on the bottom boards.

  The small black dot slowly enlarged and grew into the recognisable silhouette of a ponderous Cant 52, the reconnaissance aircraft of the Italian Navy.

  “Get the nets out, pronto!” ordered Harry, drawing his revolver from his pocket and waving it at the Italian fisherman. Remorselessly the droning aircraft lumbered on towards them, dived, and pulled out immediately above the fishing boat, its flaps shuddering only fifty feet over them.

  Four lazy fishermen were tending their nets which dragged out astern. The skipper of the fishing boat slowly got to his feet in the stern, turned and waved a greeting to the pilot who, grinning, returned the welcome. The roar of its engines passed overhead. The aircraft banked, turned landwards and resumed its lumbering patrol until it disappeared from view.

  “Phew!” whistled Peter.

  “That was a near one,” Bill grinned at the Italian who shrugged his shoulders and spat over the side. But the aircraft’s suspicions had not been lulled and half an hour later they saw the white crosstrees of an Italian destroyer’s mast showing above the shimmering horizon line. The shape grew and enlarged into a bridge as the white bow wave of the destroyer came fully into view and charged down upon them. The Italian fisherman’s face was creased into a triumphant grin, as Bill moved up alongside him.

  Harry clicked the hammer of his revolver and laid the gun on the thwart behind him, tapping it for the attention of their prisoner. The destroyer swung round beam-on to them showing her gleaming side as she came foaming to a stop, her propellers thrashing up a boiling wake as she went astern. Sailors lounged about the deck, grinning and waving as they leaned against the guard rails. Bill looked at their prisoner and fixed him with a determined gaze. Then Harry waved to the destroyer, while the prisoner sat rigidly upon his thwart.

  “Wave, you rotten Wop!” Bill dug his elbow into the Italian’s stomach.

  “Pronto!” hissed Harry, slowly edging towards the gun. “Pronto!”

  Slowly the Italian lifted his hand and waved it. The swell from the destroyer’s wash hit them and tossed the little boat almost on its beam-ends. An Italian curse instinctively leaped from the fisherman’s lips, as he clung bitterly to the rigging for support. The oath rang across the water.

  The white-clad officer on the bridge peered at them through his binoculars, Harry and Peter idly pulling at the ropes of the net. The suspense was unbearable. Peter felt his nerves reaching breaking point and it was all that he could do not to shout out a stream of abuse. Harry shrugged his shoulders and spread his arms wide, slowly shaking his head and indicating that they had no fish.

  For a moment there was silence across the water. A shrill voice crackled from a loudhailer which was trained directly upon them from the bridge.

  Silence from the fishing boat.

  Harry stiffened and glared fixedly at their prisoner who had edged towards the concealed revolver. Impatiently, the loudhailer crackled again. The sailors along the rail broke into good-natured laughter.

  It was now or never. As Peter pulled listlessly at the ropes, he noticed that his fingers were trembling.

  “Speak, Wop! Speak, pronto! Speak or I’ll drill you dead and take you with us!” hissed Harry. There was no mistaking his intentions, as the Italian sat mesmerised by his captor’s glaring eyes. With all his might, Peter willed the fisherman to save them, to save all four of them, for they would take the Italian with them once the shooting started.

  The man stood up, transfixed in fear, his face twitching, a deathly white. Harry sat down, his hand sliding towards the revolver. The Italian watched from the corners of his petrified eyes, his mind considering his chances.

  Bill loosened the knife in its scabbard.

  And then the Italian’s mouth jerked open. It worked spasmodically, hanging loosely, while saliva dribbled from the twitching corners. The officers on the bridge seemed suspicious. They stiffened in concentration, and picked up their binoculars once more.

  “Pronto! Pronto!” hissed Harry, a dangerous gleam now smouldering in his bloodshot eyes.

  A high-pitched gabble spat from the fisherman’s mouth, quite unintelligible to them and the destroyer alike.

  “Marsala, Marsala. Say we come from Marsala!”

  The Italian became intelligible. He shouted once again, the word “Marsala” sounding like music in Peter’s ears.

  Harry waved and went on with his fishing. The Italian sat down trembling across the thwart, hands hanging limply at his sides. Bill spat delightedly over the side, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth in the best Italian fashion, meanwhile glaring defiantly at the hostile destroyer.

  “This is it!” Harry whispered to Peter.

  The figures on the bridge waved towards Sicily and shouted instructions to the fishing boat, obviously giving them orders to return nearer to the island, and Harry stood up and waved in assent, at the same time starting to draw in his nets. As soon as the watching officers saw this, they seemed satisfied.

  Slowly, lethargically, the white figures on the bridge straightened, turned their backs, and sauntered towards the centre of the compass-platform. The distant tinkling of Engine Room telegraphs rang across the water. The screws turned the glistering sea, the sleek white enemy gathered way and slowly slid past them, a last perfunctory wave flickering from the bridge.

  “A-a-ah,” sighed Harry, and, turning to the weeping Italian, he patted him on the back. “Grazias, Señor,” he continued, not beyond mixing Spanish with his limited Italian vocabulary.

  Soon the destroyer was hull-down, her creaming stem disappearing below the hazy horizon.

  “Surely nothing more can happen now?” Peter asked anxiously, as he sprawled across the sternsheets alongside Harry, while they sat drawing at the last of the black tobacco.

  “Please God, no!” Harry replied, as he stripped off his evil-smelling jersey to allow his sweating body the joy of the beating sun.

  “Proper skylark, ain’t it, sir?” Bill exclaimed.

  Even the Italian joined in the laughter.

  CHAPTER 17

  “… Next of Kin have been informed”

  The only sound in the dimly-lit Control Room of His Majesty’s Submarine Rugged was the laboured breathing of men struggling for life in the foul air.

  But Joe was not yet beaten.

  “Cheer up, for Pete’s sake, we’re not through yet,” he muttered, his haggard face gleaming again with defiance. “They may not be as good as our gunnery school, Number One: a short and an over may not necessarily mean a straddle. The Wops’ depth-charge pattern drill-book may be different!”

  “Hope so, sir,” gasped Number One, forcing a grimace of a smile even at this eleventh hour, for Rugged was now cornered, with one destroyer right astern of her and one on either bow.

  “Destroyer attacking, sir!” Elliott’s voice repeated wearily. “Green eight-oh.”

  “Well, chaps, pray to God, if you’ve never done so before,” Joe said quietly, and then suddenly his head jerked upwards.

  “Stop starboard, starboard fifteen, half-ahead port,” he snapped, a fierce gleam of battle once more on his gaunt face.

  Slowly the boat started to swing.

  Tick-tick … tick-tick … tick-tick-tick… from all around whispered the spine-chilling accompaniment.

  “They’re in contact all right.”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Elliott, as he slowly removed his headphones. “Five hundred yards, sir!”

  But there was no need to make further reports. The evil cacophony was all about them, over them, around them, above and below them.

  The attacker was overhead in a thunderous whirlpool of noise. At this very moment, her knife-like stem must be cutting the water above the fore-ends; her stem, well down in the foaming wake, must now be just short of the conning tower. Now, now, now was the moment she would be loosing her depth charges…

  Throughout the boat, time stood still. Men peered upwards, waiting for the
end. Ears strained to hear Death’s final salutation: the smack! — smack-smack! of the charges slapping the surface, then the click! — click-click! of the springing detonators.

  The tumult now swamped everything. The inferno of sound was loud, too loud… Joe closed his eyes. He was tired and could do no more.

  Men had slipped to their knees, praying, waiting, waiting for oblivion, some with their eyes tightly shut, some looking upwards…

  The thunder above them was interminable, but no one noticed that the inferno of sound was decreasing. Now, surely now, devastation must split them apart, down here in the depths?

  A whispering sigh passed through the Control Room, like an evening breeze caressing silver poplar leaves on a summer’s evening.

  Joe slowly raised his head. “Well, I’ll be…” he whispered, but then he galvanised into action.

  “They’ve made a bloomer somewhere, Number One! Come on, let’s not give them another chance! Slow ahead together, steer one-four-oh!”

  But this time the searching hunter did not regain contact. The last attacking destroyer had been perfectly poised for the final kill and as she ran over the stricken submarine her Captain gave the order to let go her last pattern of depth charges, but the seaman on the traps had bungled his drill. The depth charges never left their traps and by the time the man had corrected himself, it was too late.

  Instead, the destroyer thrashed ahead, amid furious recriminations from her two consorts, to circle for another try. Because of the mistake, they had allowed the trapped submarine precious minutes in which to make good her escape. Confusion reigned on the surface and Rugged seized her opportunity to slip through the net. The hunters did not realise that their quarry had escaped, however, for they continued hunting until they were relieved by a fresh team with more depth charges from Trapani.

  Slowly but surely, Rugged sidled out of danger, away from the deadly hunters, but, alas! also away from the Spella rocks rendezvous.

  “Issue an extra rum ration with supper, Number One.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The weary Rugged waited impatiently for the blessed mantle of darkness to fall, so that she could surface to recharge her batteries and replenish with fresh air.

  Some ten miles offshore, and only five miles from the scene of the hunt, she surfaced without incident and set course for Malta, but in the minute Ward Room it was a sad circle that gathered for supper. There was little conversation although there was much to say. Their survival was balanced by the loss of three good friends.

  “What a devilish thing is war, isn’t it?” Joe confided to Number One when they were left alone. Seldom did these moments occur, and Easton was always surprised when they did.

  “Yes, damnable! To save your own skin you sacrifice your friends.”

  “We tried, though!” Joe murmured, “but I wish I hadn’t failed them.”

  “You did your best.”

  “That’s not enough.”

  The moment was over.

  The rest of the passage was uneventful except for a passing destroyer that steamed hull-down in the afternoon of the next day. She was steering westwards and seemed to be in a hurry, because her white wake showed clearly. By dawn, Rugged was off Fifla, but, as no minesweeper met her, she proceeded round to Lazaretto without escort. On the Lazaretto balcony stood a small knot of figures. They waved, caps circling in the air.

  “Quite a reception committee!” Joe said quietly to Number One, as he conned Rugged through the boom and into the blue water of the harbour.

  “Yes, sir, but we seem to have returned from the dead! Signal for you, sir” — and he handed a slip of paper to his Captain. The Signalman had been reading a winking light from the square signal station, high up in sun-bleached Valetta.

  “From Captain, Tenth Submarine Flotilla,” it read. “Congratulations on returning from the dead. I had just signalled Admiralty that you were missing.”

  “All’s well that ends well, I suppose,” replied Joe bitterly, as he gazed down upon the figure of Benson, his new Sub-Lieutenant, on the fore-casing.

  The rust-blotched submarine circled inside the creek and came skilfully to her buoys abreast the Base.

  CHAPTER 18

  … To Fight Another Day

  The night breeze failed them not. At dusk, as night once more drew a merciful curtain upon the sweltering bay, the sails of the little fishing boat flapped and filled. She shook herself and again gathered way. Once more her bows steadied on her homeward course. They slept fitfully, for hunger and thirst were now beginning to gnaw at their empty bellies. Peter and Harry took tricks on the tiller, while Bill kept a lookout. The Italian slept on the bottom boards, for they had discarded the nets to reduce weight.

  With only an estimated forty miles between them and Malta and with the wind again conveniently on their starboard quarter, the small boat lifted her skirts and frolicked through the dark night.

  But tonight there seemed no wickedness in the seas, no vicious battle to fight, no spite in the elements. Bowling along, they were awake at two in the morning, when the roar of an aircraft overhead shook them into alertness. Not one aircraft, but four! Four familiar shapes flying across their bows and disappearing on a course of east-south-east.

  “Wimpeys! Dear old Wellingtons, back from a sortie!” shouted Harry hysterically.

  “Ain’t they lovely, sir?” Bill smiled in the darkness.

  Harry laughed. “And they’ve even given us a course, Bill! They must be returning to base. You know what their base is, my boyos?” he sang out, bringing the boat round to her new course and following up the noise of the Wellingtons’ fading engines.

  “Malta — Malta — Malta, here we come,” sang Peter, and even the Italian smiled, his teeth gleaming in the pale light of the stars.

  At dawn, the diminutive island of Gozo, yellow and grey in the freshness of a new day, showed plainly to starboard.

  “We’ll sail right into Lazaretto with this leading wind, Peter,” Harry yelled exultantly.

  At two in the afternoon, a dirty little Sicilian fishing boat drifted listlessly off St. Paul’s Bay, becalmed once again on the shimmering sea. The minesweeper which was sweeping the channel hove down upon it to investigate the lunatic occupants. Dark-skinned were the figures which waved, yelling and laughing as they danced ecstatically upon the thwarts.

  “Madmen! These crazy lunatics seem to want us,” observed the minesweeper’s Captain as he peered through his binoculars. “Send the whaler’s crew across, Number One, please.”

  The Ward Room of the Tenth Submarine Flotilla was in the centre of a large sandstone building on Lazaretto Island. It was a large, open hall with no doors, sparsely furnished with tables at the far end, and a primitive bar at the other. There were no carpets on the floor, and there were no chairs, but in the centre stood a battered billiard table, scene of many a ‘bowls’ game. Opposite the door was a huge, now empty, pigeon-holed letter-rack. When officers returned from patrol, this was their first port of call.

  It was lunch-time and two small groups were chatting in separate corners of the mess. One group consisted of junior officers, Rugged’s new Sub-Lieutenant being the centre of the circle. The other was composed of the rotund figure of Captain ‘S’, Joe and two other Commanding Officers, just in from patrol.

  Normally the hall was full of laughter and loud conversation, but today it was strangely quiet. Those who knew the ropes had only to glance at the letter-rack to know why. The pigeonholes now bore two empty nameplates.

  “Tell me about it, Joe,” Captain ‘S’ said kindly, when all the glasses had been filled.

  There was a slight pause.

  “Let’s go outside, sir, if you don’t mind. I’d rather tell you about it out there” — and his hand swept across the hall in a gesture of despair.

  So the little group took itself outside to the veranda which bordered the creek and, when they had all seated themselves on the warm sandstone, Joe began his story. He talked quietly,
with an occasional kind word from Captain ‘S’. It was not easy and Joe’s tired eyes focused themselves on the small minesweeper that was sliding through the boom. It was some time before he realised that the sweeper had not turned away to starboard to anchor in Sliema creek. Instead, she glided gently on towards Lazaretto.

  “… and so, sir,” he was saying, “I tried to close Spella rocks, but the heat was so intense—”

  “Just a minute, Joe,” ‘S’ interrupted, “what on earth is the sweeper doing so close? She doesn’t come up here usually” — and he pointed to the grey minesweeper that now lay stopped in the aquamarine water, barely one hundred yards distant, and midway between Lazaretto Island and the Valetta battlements.

  The khaki figure of the sweeper’s Captain leaned over the bridge and his voice bellowed through a bell-shaped megaphone.

  “Hullo, Lazaretto. I’ve got a surprise for you, and I’m doing you the honour of delivering the goods myself. I picked them up off St. Paul’s Bay.”

  The little circle ashore had grown, and some twenty officers and men now crowded the balcony.

  With pounding heart, Joe peered long at the sweeper. Then he heard a quiet cough behind him. It was Easton, his trusted First Lieutenant. There was complete silence from the little group, for no one dared to express an impossible hope.

  As the whaler was lowered to the guard rails, the sheaves in the blocks on the falls sent their music squealing across the gap of water. Two wild and dishevelled figures then clambered over the rails, followed by another of slightly smaller build. They looked like grubby, Italian prisoners of war.

  “More blasted Wops!” grumbled a disgusted voice from amongst the watching group ashore.

  Joe was the first to recognize the three dirty ‘Italians’ who lifted their arms and began to shout hysterically, while the boat was being lowered to the water.

  Joe’s hand rose slowly for an instant, and then pandemonium broke loose. All the available sailors in the sweeper were crowding the guard rails and peering down at the whaler, as she shoved off from the ship’s side. The sailors’ voices broke into a bellow and they cheered until the reverberations echoed from the castle walls of Valetta, to be taken up again by the crowd now assembled on Lazaretto Island.