Patrol to the Golden Horn

by Patrol to the Golden Horn (epub)

  In July there had been the second Marne battle. Ludendorf’s great offensive, aimed at snatching victory before the American armies could be trained and brought in to tip the scales, had been stopped, the initiative seized from him. Then in August an offensive by British, Canadian and Australian troops had been launched east of Amiens, in such secrecy that not even the War Cabinet had known it was being planned. Secrecy had paid off in the shape of 16,000 prisoners on the first day. And in September the Americans had been blooded when Pershing’s 1st Army had struck at Mihiel and scored a knock-out; the momentum of victory was increasing now with American weight behind it.

  Robins had just interrupted again.

  ‘There are other very good reasons, of far-reaching political consequence, which suggest we should reach the Bosphorus with as little delay as possible.’

  This time Reaper looked at him. His tone was mild enough, to start with.

  ‘I’ve always found it easier to make one point at a time. Would you bear with me, meanwhile?’

  The small mouth had compressed itself like that of an offended governess. He began thinly, ‘As a representative of HM Foreign Office I should rather think it was my—’

  ‘Foreign Office be damned!’

  The lieutenant-commander looked shocked: as if he hadn’t expected Reaper to be capable of anger. Reaper told him, speaking quietly again now, ‘The only Whitehall authority identifiable to us here as your employer, Robins, is the Board of Admiralty. The Board’s authority is vested in the Commander-in-Chief, who has seen fit to place you under my orders. I must ask you not to interrupt again.’

  Lieutenant Burtenshaw, RMLI, was plainly embarrassed. He’d turned sideways, pink-faced, fiddling with a pencil, blinking into sunshine that streamed in through a scuttle.

  Reaper cleared his throat.

  ‘There are several reasons why it is necessary to eliminate Goeben as a fighting unit. The most obvious one to us here is the possibility of her breaking out of the straits again, as she did recently. The Hun might well try it. He’s losing the war, he knows he is, and he might well prefer offensive action to simply waiting for the end … Last time Goeben came out, remember, was just after the Turks had lost Jerusalem, and it’s considered that Admiral von Rebeur-Paschwitz was trying something dramatic to bolster the Turk morale. So far as we know, Paschwitz is still flying his flag in her — and Turk morale’s right down the drain! Megiddo … Damascus … and very soon Aleppo …’ He nodded. ‘She may well come out again. If she did, what might be her objectives? We see three probables. One: break through into the Adriatic and link up with the Austrians. Two: inflict as much damage as she can on our supply routes and then dodge back into the Dardanelles or to Smyrna. Three: attack our bases at Mudros and Salonika – through which of course we’re supplying the push against Bulgaria – or even Port Said and Alexandria.’

  He was silent for a moment. Then he looked up again. ‘I ought to mention that they’ve had time to get her back into fighting trim. You probably know she hit some mines during her last outing. Air reconnaissance suggests she’s repaired and fit for sea.’

  Truman asked, in his fruity voice, ‘Is she definitely inside the Golden Horn, sir?’

  ‘Yes. As recently as yesterday she was moored above the Galata bridge.’

  Lieutenant de vaisseau Lemarie had a silver pocket-watch in his palm; he was staring down at it and making tut-tutting noises. He muttered in French now to Robins. Robins told Reaper, in a tone that suggested he’d rather have nothing at all to do with him, ‘The lieutenant has to leave us now. He has matters to attend to before he sails.’

  ‘Of course.’ Reaper stood up, and the others followed suit. ‘I wish you – we all do – a very successful voyage and a safe return … Naturally, we’ll be on deck to see you off.’

  Jake Cameron wondered how the Frenchman might be feeling about this jaunt. Everyone in the cabin knew roughly what sort of odds were to be expected – and they certainly weren’t good ones. But a French submariner should be even more acutely aware of them. Since Dardanelles operations had begun, back in ’14, there’d been dozens of successful British patrols in the Marmara, at a price of four E-class boats lost; but in the same period five French submarines had entered the straits and not one of them had come out again. Jake had been discussing it during luncheon, with Hobday and Wishart, and the names of the French boats ran through his mind now as he saw his new CO go round the end of the table to shake Lemarie’s hand. Saphir… Marietta … Joule … Turquoise…

  The fifth: he was stumped for it. And suddenly it seemed like the blackest omen that he couldn’t name her … As if by not doing so he was putting Louve in that fifth place?

  When the door closed behind the Frenchman, Reaper waved them back to their chairs.

  ‘I’ve referred already to the fact that we know Turkey wants peace-talks. Now I’ll tell you — in confidence – what puts it quite beyond doubt.’ He glanced round at their faces. ‘In the Mesopotamian campaign that came to grief at Kut – after one of the bravest defences, I may say, in the history of British arms – General Townsend and a Colonel Newcombe were among the thousands taken prisoner. Two-thirds of the other-rank prisoners have died since in Turkish hands – but that’s digressing … What I’m telling you is that the Turks have let General Townsend and Newcombe out – shipped them out so they can help with armistice negotiations outside Turkey.’

  Robins raised his head, stared contemptuously at Burtenshaw. Reaper went on, ‘Fact is, Turkey’s still at war with us only because of the German presence – General Liman von Sanders’s troops, and Goeben. The troops are in poor shape and bad heart; ninety per cent of the Hun strength lies in Goeben’s guns. They call her Yavuz – in full Yavus Sultan Selim, meaning “Sultan Selim the Terrible”. And her crew wear fezes, and she flies the Turkish ensign. So far as we’re concerned they can wear top-hats and fly last week’s washing – she’s still Goeben, and she’s manned by Huns … And she’s more than just a symbol of German power – the Turks know perfectly well her guns could knock Constantinople flat, so she’s effective power too. And you’re beginning to understand, I hope, why we rather badly need to sink her…’ He shook his head. ‘That’s not all, though. You’re aware, of course, that the Russian Black Sea Fleet mutinied in February. Also that the Germans and the Bolsheviks signed what they call the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March – since when the Bolshies have started calling themselves ‘communists’ and murdered their royal family, and we’ve occupied Archangel to keep the Germans from getting there through Finland, and so forth … As far as the Black Sea’s concerned, though, it’s thought in London that there’s some danger of the Huns taking over those Russian ships and using them against us. Quite a powerful fleet, it might be – and led, no doubt, by our friend von Paschwitz in Goeben… And we can eliminate this threat in two stages. First by action against Goeben as we now intend; and in the longer term by establishing ourselves at the Horn and controlling the – well, for the time being let’s just say the Bosphorus. This we cannot do until we have a Turkish surrender, so that we can move the Fleet through the Dardanelles – and before we can do that, we have to deal with Goeben.’

  He sat back, and his eyes flickered from face to face.

  ‘I’ve explained all this in order that you should understand and accept one simple conclusion. That to destroy Goeben is worth any effort, hazard or cost. Quite literally – any.’

  Chapter 2

  On the cruiser’s upper deck her ship’s company were being fallen out from evening Quarters and mustered along her starboard side, ready to cheer E.57 off to patrol. This time yesterday they’d given a similar send-off to Louve.

  Hobday shook Commander Gillman’s hand. He’d only come up from the submarine to say goodbye to him: just as Aubrey Wishart would at this moment be saying goodbye to Captain Usherwood, down in the cuddy.

  ‘Most grateful for your hospitality and help, sir.’

  ‘Not a bit of it.’ The small, rotu
nd commander beamed. ‘Just knock that damned Hun for six, now!’

  From E.57’s fore casing, Jake Cameron watched Hobday come down the sloping plank. He’d given Jake until sailing-time – now – to know the name of every man on board. Twenty-four hours he’d had, to memorise nearly thirty names, as well as attending to all the small preparations, checking of chart-corrections, and so on. He’d been up most of the night, sorting out the charts and CBs.

  The coxswain, Chief Petty Officer Crabb, was waiting for Hobday by the open fore hatch. Crabb was a grizzled, veteran submariner. Roman nose, cleft chin, voice like a dog’s growl.

  ‘Hydroplanes, diving rudders and steering gear tested in ’and and in electric, sir. Diving gauges open. All ’ands on board, all gear below secured for sea, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, cox’n.’ That had been the first of a long litany of reports which the first lieutenant had now to receive. ‘Stations for leaving harbour, please.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’ Crabb yelled the order down into the hatch as Morton, the big, soft-faced second coxswain, came ambling aft with a meaty hand resting on the jumping-wire.

  ‘Casing secured for sea, sir.’

  The second coxswain, under Jake as casing officer, was responsible for ropes and wires and for the casing itself, this steel deck that was full of holes so that when the boat dived all spaces outside the pressure-hull filled with water. It was just staging, something to walk on. The bridge superstructure was the same; in the centre of it the conning tower was a vertical tube with a ladder through it connecting from the control-room hatch to an upper hatch in the bridge deck, but the surrounding framework supporting that deck was free-flood, like a colander … Hobday told the leading seaman, ‘Single up, and stand by the brow.’ He looked past Morton at Jake. ‘I want you to come through the boat with me, Cameron.’

  He slid down the ladder into the torpedo stowage compartment; Jake and CPO Crabb rattled down behind him.

  ‘Shut fore ’atch!’

  ‘Anderson!’

  CPO Rinkpole, the torpedo gunner’s mate, had snapped the name over his shoulder, and Anderson, a dark-haired, very tall torpedoman, came aft from the tube space. Rinkpole jerked his bald head towards the hatch; Anderson reported to Hobday as he moved towards it, ‘WRT’s full, bow shutters open, sir.’ From a few rungs up the ladder he reached up and dragged the hatch shut over his head. It wasn’t only a matter of shutting and clipping it; there was a strongback to be bolted on inside it. Rinkpole told Hobday, ‘Torpedo circuits tested, spare torpedoes lashed, sir.’

  Forty-ish: not entirely bald … Rinkpole had been at sea for a quarter of a century and in submarines since the Navy had first recognised their existence. His torpedoes, Hobday had said, were his babies; if they hadn’t been seventeen feet long he might have taken them to bed with him. Cole, the second LTO – electrical rating – was waiting to make his report: ‘Bells, ’ooters an’ Aldis tested an’ workin’, sir.’ Cole’s nickname was ‘Blackie’; but it was uncertain whether it derived from his surname or from the thick mass of beard out of which his eyes seemed to glint like some animal’s from a bush.

  ‘Thank you, Cole.’ It was already twice as cluttered in here as it had been yesterday. While they’d been alongside the cruiser the offwatch crewmen had been accommodated in her messdecks, but now hammocks and kitbags as well as extra stores, sacks of fresh vegetables, and so on, had been embarked. By the time the torpedomen’s hammocks were slung in this compartment the only way to reach the tube space would be on all-fours.

  Following Hobday aft, Jake saw Burtenshaw, the German-speaking explosives expert, perched on a chair in the control room; he had an open book on his knees and he was stooped over it, oblivious of the activity around him. No sign of his lord and master, Robins. But Everard was standing in the middle of the control room, staring up through the hatch at the bright circle of sky. As if, Jake thought, he was storing up a memory of it against the time when he wouldn’t be seeing it much. Everard asked Hobday, ‘Shall I be in anyone’s way if I go up into the bridge?’

  ‘Skipper’d like you to, I’m sure.’ Hobday saw the gunlayer waiting to report. He cocked an eyebrow at Jake, who murmured, ‘Roost’. A short, strong-looking man, with a broad face and wide-spaced eyes; according to Hobday, Roost had been a blacksmith’s apprentice until 1914.

  ‘Gun greased over, bore clear, gun secured, sir. Grenades, rifles, pistols and Lewis gun ready, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Layer.’

  ‘Stowed ’is gear in the magazine too, sir.’ Roost had nodded towards Burtenshaw. The Marine’s gear was a large rucksack packed with demolition charges. Hobday nodded, moving aft through the control room. The signalman – Jake named him, sotto voce – reported, ‘Challenges ready, sir.’ Hobday nodded. ‘Thank you, Ellery.’ But they wouldn’t be needing recognition signals. The destroyer patrol between this island and the straits would have been warned that they’d be passing; just as they’d have been warned yesterday to expect the Frenchman. And Louve should have got through by now, she’d be in the Marmara. If she wasn’t, Jake thought, she’d – well, she had to be … He focused on the leading telegraphist, ‘Professor’ Weatherspoon, who behind his thick glasses and diffident manner looked fed up.

  ‘Wireless and hydrophones correct, sir. But …’ He shook his close-cropped, narrow head; the size of his ears and the high dome of skull made it look even narrower than it was. ‘Well, I dunno, sir-I mean, there’s me gear to be got at, maintenance an’—’

  Hobday had caught on to the reason for his gloom.

  ‘Only be for a day or two. And if we find it doesn’t work, we’ll change it. Meanwhile, when you have to get in there, he’ll have to make way for you.’

  ‘He’ was the other passenger – Robins. They’d given him the little ‘silent cabinet’, the wireless office, to doss down in. It wouldn’t give him room to stretch his legs out fully, but it would keep him out of the way and at the same time pander to his ego by making him think he’d been given a sort of minuscule cabin.

  Jake, after a couple of gins and five minutes of Robins’s conversation in the cruiser’s wardroom last night, had said privately to Wishart, ‘I’d put bloody bars on it if I were you.’ On the silent cabinet, he’d meant… Hobday asked Weatherspoon, ‘Is Lieutenant-Commander Robins on board?’

  ‘No, sir. But ’is gear’s all over the—’

  ‘He’s with your captain.’ Burtenshaw took his nose out of his book. ‘At least, he was.’ He’d resumed his reading; Jake, peering over his shoulder, saw that the book was a rather battered copy of Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God and Other Essays. Strange reading, he thought, for an explosives expert. He followed Hobday aft. Finn, the man who’d joked about feeding spud-peelings to Frenchmen, was waiting near the control room’s after bulkhead.

  ‘Beam WRTs are full, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Finn.’

  WRT stood for water-round-torpedoes. Each tube had to be filled with water around the fish inside it before it could be fired, and water was blown up by air pressure from the tube’s own tank.

  Chief Engineroom Artificer Grumman came lumbering for’ard to meet Hobday in the beam torpedo compartment. This was exactly amidships, halfway along the submarine’s 180-foot length. Grumman was built like a prize-fighter; but he was an easygoing, kindly man. ‘Engines ready, sir. No bothers.’

  ‘Good. We’ll be on our way pretty soon now, Chief.’ Hobday squeezed past Grumman and went on aft, over the platform that bridged the pair of tubes. It was less easy for Jake and Grumman to pass each other. At the doorway ERA McVeigh, the ‘outside’ artificer – his responsibility was all the primary machinery outside the engine-room – glanced at Jake cautiously, as at a stranger whom he, McVeigh, would view with distrust until he had reason to change his attitude. McVeigh had a wild, uncouth appearance: his ginger beard was ragged, as if rats fed on it.

  ‘Telegraphs tested, sir. Steering gear and Janney lubricated. Air on the whistle, sir.’

  �
��Very good.’

  Moving into the engine-room, they were met by the stoker PO. He had a wad of oily cotton-waste in his hand, and he was wiping his chin with it. A Yorkshireman, short-legged and thickset, with a way of talking without any noticeable movement of the lips. Jake tried to adopt a similar technique as he murmured, ‘PO Leech.’

  ‘Comp tanks as per your orders, sir. Engine-room gear secured. External kingstons open.’

  The amount of water in each compensation tank was decided after elaborate calculations concerning the boat’s trim. Stores, fuel, fresh water, lubricating oil, extra personnel or gear – each change affecting the boat’s weight in the water and balance fore-and-aft had to be taken into account. If you got the sums wrong and left her too heavy, when Wishart dived her she’d go down like a stone; if she was too light, she wouldn’t get under at all. It would be just as bad too heavy or light at one end. Trim was one of Hobday’s responsibilities.

  In the motor-room Leading Seaman Dixon, the senior electrical rating, made his report. Dixon was short and fat: he was reputed – Hobday’s story – to have been seen with seventeen boiled potatoes on one plate of mutton stew. He reported now, with the copper switchgear of the main switchboard shining like dull gold behind his overalled, egg-like shape, ‘Main motors ready, sir. Motor bilges dry. Ventilator caps on, sluices ’alf closed.’

  Hobday nodded. ‘And the box is nicely up, eh.’

  By ‘box’ he meant the battery – in fact four of them, each of fifty-five cells, each cell half the height of a man. The battery tanks were under the deck of the control room, and the cells stood in them on wooden gratings. They’d be getting a top-up charge this evening before the submarine dived for her run-in towards the straits and the Turkish minefield.

  The first Turk minefield. Pretty well the whole way through there’d be mines.

  Lindsay, one of the boat’s two leading stokers, reported that the bilges were pumped out and dry and that the capstan had been tested. They went on aft, passing the humped casings over the actual motors and moving between banks of auxiliary machinery into the next compartment. Compressors, circulating pumps, pump motors. On each side, large handwheels to the kingstons of main ballast tanks — number 7 to starboard here, number 8 on the other side. Kingstons were large valves for opening or shutting flood-holes in the bottoms of the tanks; they were open now, as PO Leech had just reported, but the water stayed out because air pressure in the tanks kept it out. When the vents in the tops of the tanks were opened, though, the air would be released and the sea would rush up to fill the tanks and dive the submarine.