The Torch Bearers: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 5

by Alexander Fullerton

  The door clicked shut. Time, eleven-twenty. Course, 145 degrees—southeast, the starboard leg of the zigzag. He needed a pee and a shave, but the shave would have to wait. As he arrived in the bridge, Scarr pointed: “There it is, sir.”

  A familiar and thoroughly unwelcome sight. Like a limping, damaged moth, out of range and close to the horizon, circling. But if only there was some way to damage it … There would be, if one new idea that had been mentioned recently became reality. It was a scheme to fit merchant ships with launching gear for a single Hurricane. If this convoy had one with it now, the fighter could be fired off to drive away or shoot down the Focke-Wulf, after which it would ditch near one of the escorts and its pilot would be picked up, to fly another Hurricane another day. He’d need to be tolerant of cold water, of course. But it was a very good idea, because there’d never be enough escort carriers to go round: and here and now all you could do was watch the thing circling the convoy, its crew as safe as houses while they sent out a stream of information: position, course and speed, size of the convoy, number and disposition of its escorts …

  “Frustrating, sir, isn’t it.”

  Mike Scarr, his navigator, scowling at it. He was a tall, bony young man with a shy manner and apparently an unfailing supply of attractive girlfriends. Graves had expressed the view—standing with Nick in a corner of Harbinger’s wardroom during a drinks party they’d given in Liverpool, watching young Scarr effortlessly monopolising the best-looking of several pretty Wrens—that he thought the navigator aroused maternal instincts in them. But there’d been nothing in the least motherly about that girl … Graves was jealous, of course. Nick had met Mrs Graves, and he wasn’t at all surprised. He took the signal log from Wolstenholm, and leafed through a few routine messages that had been added to it during the forenoon. There was only one that was of interest, another from the Admiralty tracking room, with time-of-origin 1025/A, reading, Bearings on 4995 KCs at 0950/A indicate U-boats gathering eastward of you.

  The Focke-Wulf was passing round astern now. Distant and inaudible, giving the impression it had nothing to do with the plodding convoy. But its radio man’s morse key would be tapping, tapping …

  “Why wasn’t I shown this one?”

  Scarr moved over to peer at the sheet of signal pad with that message in a telegraphist’s blue-pencil scrawl.

  “We did consider it, sir. That was in Chubb’s watch. But you’d only just turned in again, and he didn’t think you’d want to be shaken for it. He asked me—the first lieutenant had his head down too—and I agreed with him. I’m sorry, if—”

  “No. You were right, I suppose.”

  Because if he’d been shown it, he still wouldn’t have done anything about it. It was rather a borderline case though, and it was very important that they shouldn’t hesitate to rout him out if there was the slightest chance he’d need to know and act on such a signal. Scarr added diffidently, “It seemed to me that as it gave no distance, also that ‘eastward’ might be quite vague, and our mean course now being nearer southeast than east anyway—”

  “You were right.” He handed the log back to the signalman, lifted his binoculars again and focused them on the Focke-Wulf now dawdling up the starboard side—safely out of gun-range … “Do we know where we are?”

  “There’s a reasonably good fix on the chart, sir, by D/F, and I’ve run on from it for the noon position.” He glanced up at heavy, lowering cloud. “No hope of anything much better, I’m afraid.”

  No chance of using his sextant, he meant, no sight of sun, stars or moon in prospect. Rain still held off, but plainly threatened. The sea was lower, smoother, and conditions tonight would be easier for the U-boats than they had been lately. They’d have preferred some moonlight, though: for the surface ships, who were fitted with RDF, there was more advantage in darkness.

  Nick checked the time: because at noon every ship in convoy hoisted flags giving that ship’s own estimate of the position in latitude and longitude. The signals were supposed to be hoisted simultaneously, like a sudden showing of cards face-up, and there was an element of rivalry in it … Scarr had seen him glance at his watch; he confirmed, thought-reading, “Signal’s already bent on, sir.”

  And the Focke-Wulf seemed to be departing. Having seen all there was to see, and relayed the information to its clients.

  “Captain, sir?”

  Bruce Hawkey, Harbinger’s engineer officer, was at his elbow. Hawkey was a lieutenant (E) RN, a graduate of the naval engineering college at Keyham. He was in white overalls, and offering Nick a sheet of signal pad with figures pencilled on it.

  “Fuel state, sir.”

  It was routine, a report of oil-fuel remaining at midday. Similar reports would be flashed from all the other escorts.

  “All well down there, Chief?”

  “Except for the usual problems, sir. Nothing a month in dock wouldn’t solve.”

  “In about a month’s time, we might get ten days. If we’re very lucky.”

  There were still not nearly enough ships for the work. Even when there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, every destroyer, sloop and corvette that was three-quarters fit was needed at sea. When something big was happening—like a Murmansk convoy, that deadly delivery-run that was keeping the Russians in the war—Atlantic resources were invariably stretched beyond the limits of effective coverage. Hence the difficulties of getting a group like this one together and keeping it together. The looming danger was that the U-boats might get the upper hand before this situation could be improved: U-boats were being churned out like sausages from the German shipyards, and they were getting new weapons too—new types of torpedo, for instance, and new evasive devices, and there were even new, deeper-diving types of U-boat. Some recent Intelligence summaries didn’t make cheerful reading.

  Hawkey, leaning against the side of the bridge, lit a cigarette. A hooked nose matched his surname: strangers tended to assume it was a nickname. He murmured, gazing skyward, “Rain about, would you say?”

  Scarr grunted as he checked a bearing. Hawkey asked him, “Did I hear we had a visitor?”

  The Focke-Wulf, he meant. It had left them now. And at this stage the convoy wasn’t in a position where any evasive change of course could be large enough to be useful. For one thing, nobody knew exactly where the threat was—as Scarr had pointed out, “eastward” could be a vague indication—and for another, even if the convoy did alter course now, the odds were that in a few hours they’d be found by another airborne snooper who’d update its predecessor’s reports.

  The engineer muttered, “I suppose that means we’re in for another night of it.”

  Matt Warrimer, with young Carlish as his assistant OOW, came up while the position flags were still flying and took over from Scarr for the afternoon watch. Warrimer towering over the shrimp-sized sub-lieutenant. Carlish had only recently been promoted from midshipman, and would need a lot more experience before he’d qualify for a watchkeeping certificate and be entitled to stand watches on his own. Then there was a visit from Mackenzie, the doctor, reporting on the condition of two German prisoners who’d been hit and wounded in that brief flurry of gunfire. And presently Tony Graves came up, accompanied by Mr Timberlake, the torpedo gunner, who had an account of depthcharges expended and remaining. Timberlake was twitchy with anxiety.

  Nick studied the figures. “Looks all right to me.”

  The gunner’s eyes bulged. “Sir—you say all right, but—”

  “Guns, it’s one of your idiosyncracies, whether or not you’re aware of it, that as soon as we’ve fired one pattern you start worrying about not having enough left.”

  Warrimer muttered from the binnacle, “Like an old blackbird counting its bloody eggs.”

  Carlish sniggered, and CPO Bearcroft turned away to hide his grin. Timberlake did look like some kind of bird. Graves growled, “Enough from you, Matt.”

  “Sorry.” Stooping to the voice-pipe. “Midships.” Nick told the Warrant officer, �
�We’ll get by with what we have, Guns, don’t worry. Tonight ought to be the last busy one, for this trip.”

  An Admiralty signal during the afternoon told them: Aircraft was reporting and homing U-boats towards convoy at 1245/A. It wasn’t news, but it might have been if the Focke-Wulf hadn’t been so plainly visible. In fact, visibility now had begun to deteriorate; a light, cold drizzle was falling, blurring the horizon and making binocular work more difficult. Drizzle had thickened into rain by the time the next warning arrived, in the first dog watch: D/F bearings on 4995 KCs indicate U-boats establishing patrol line approximately 40 miles ahead of you.

  Scarr murmured as he plotted it on the chart, “Have to admit they’re hot stuff, sir, those characters in the tracking room.”

  No-one could have denied it: the Admiralty’s tracking room had been supplying accurate and useful information to the convoys for a long time now. The fly in the ointment was a suspicion that the enemy might be intercepting and decoding at least some of the signals, possibly all of them. Three years ago the Germans had had all the British naval codes and cyphers—until the Admiralty had woken up to it, and changed them—and there were signs they might have made a fresh breakthrough.

  Leaving the chartroom, Nick thought about this new assembly of U-boats. Forty miles ahead meant just under six hours’ steaming for the convoy. The signal had originated at 1650 ship’s time, so taking the information at its face value you might expect to be in U-boat territory at about 2230. On the other hand there was no reason to suppose the reported patrol-line would be static: it would more likely be advancing towards the convoy. And suppose some German staff officer in U-boat headquarters had a transcription of this Admiralty message on his desk right at this moment: wouldn’t he order his pack to start moving west?

  It was a distinct possibility. So, cut the interval by a couple of hours—and sunset might be the time. As the light went, it could start.

  In the bridge again, Nick climbed into his tall seat, thumbed tobacco into a pipe Kate had given him, pondering meanwhile on the changed conditions that would apply tonight. This low, smooth swell, for instance, and rain that was not only heavy now but looked to be set in for the night. Who’d profit most from lousy visibility? Well, whoever foresaw it, laid plans to take advantage of it …

  And there was a thought!

  In the act of lighting his pipe, crouching for shelter from the rain while the match flared in wet, cupped hands, he’d stopped, forgetting what he was doing, the match fizzling out while cold dampness seeped down below his neck-towel and one thought triggered another and what had started as a vague idea began to harden into a line of action, into orders he’d have to transmit between now and sunset.

  Dusk wasn’t far away. There’d been no signals or new developments since he’d re-deployed his destroyers, explained his ideas to the commodore and alerted the corvettes to the action he required of them. The convoy was now steering a mean course of 100 degrees.

  Harbinger was three miles ahead of the central columns. Another three miles ahead was Goshawk, with Bruce four thousand yards to port of her and Watchful the same distance to starboard. Daylight was fading: there was no horizon to be seen now, only the surrounding curtain of rain.

  HF/DF had been silent. If the U-boats were out there—and you could bet on it—they weren’t talking to each other. They’d probably done whatever chatting was necessary earlier in the day, when the Admiralty had heard them; they’d be dived now, Nick guessed, listening for the sounds of approaching ships. If they heard what they were expecting to hear, just as the light went altogether and gave them the cover they’d need for surface action, they’d imagine they had it cut-and-dried.

  All this was guesswork, of course. And in a new kind of war, or at any rate a kind of warfare in which weapons and systems were constantly evolving, new tactics had to be tried before you could assess their worth. This ploy tonight, for instance, was full of risks. For example—if the U-boats were not all out there ahead: if there were some converging from the beams, while he had three of his four destroyers deployed six miles ahead …

  Asdics weren’t all that reliable, either. Dived U-boats could slip under, dipping deeper to pass under a destroyer screen, rising again astern of it with the slow-moving, bulky merchantmen at their mercy.

  Chubb was conning the ship, Graves loitering in the doorway of the asdic cabinet. Graves wasn’t happy with this plan: he’d argued, quietly and sensibly, and when Nick had countered his arguments he’d surrendered, though still (Nick thought) unconvinced. Scarr, on the other hand, had been very much in favour of it. Nick would have been happier if it had been the other way about: young Scarr was an efficient navigator and a good destroyer officer, but his comparative immaturity would tend to make his judgements less sound than Graves’.

  Not that it made the slightest difference. It was your own judgement you had to go by. He’d only opened the idea to general discussion to see if any of them might come up with some point he hadn’t thought of. It was good for them, anyway, to know what was being done and why.

  He thought, with his glasses up and sweeping slowly, carefully across the bow, passing over the very small stern-on shapes of the other three destroyers—they were already as indistinct as thumbprints on a dirty window—It probably wouldn’t work a second time … The question was, would it work this time?

  Because this was no kind of game. The stakes were lives, ships and cargoes … Too late now to pull back. He’d set it up, the lives were at risk, the ships were targets, and if he’d been right the action might start at any minute. A change of mind now could be the worst thing of all: if you faltered, tried to re-deploy at this stage, you could get really caught … But if it failed? If tonight saw half the convoy lost? He lowered the glasses, to dry their front lenses yet again. Aware of Chubb’s quiet helm orders behind him, but not really hearing. Harbinger listing as she turned to a new leg of the zigzag. Asdics pinging, RDF aerial on the foremast turning steadily, the set’s narrow white beam sweeping around the poached egg down below, painting-on dark blips for the three ships ahead and for Gilliflower close to the convoy’s mass astern. Here in the bridge half a dozen pairs of binoculars probed the darkening, streaming surroundings for the dark loom of an enemy or the white feather of a periscope …

  The rain enclosed and quietened a stretch of ocean that seemed empty.

  Perhaps he’d tried to be too clever, and complicated what might really be a simple, straightforward situation. If he’d accepted that Admiralty signal without drawing further conclusions of his own, accepted that the encounter would take place at about 10:30 pm … Perhaps he should have: and perhaps he should pull those three ships back, put all four destroyers back in station around the convoy?

  He’d dried the glasses again, and he was pushing back a wet sleeve to check the time, when the TBS burst into sudden, loud excitement. Goshawk—reporting from her position three miles ahead, Surface contact bearing one-two-four, six and a half thousand yards, attacking …

  He hadn’t got as far as seeing what time it was. It didn’t matter a damn now either. He had his glasses up again: Goshawk would be cracking on speed, readying her guns and depthcharges. And thank God, the enemy was here, where he’d expected him!

  TBS again: Bruce, now—reporting urgently, Surface contact one-one-five, seven thousand yards, attacking!

  Those had been divergent bearings, clearly two separate targets. It looked very much like the real thing … He told Chubb, keeping his tone even and unexcited, allowing himself the deceit of letting them all think he’d had no doubts at all, “Come to one-two-oh degrees. Two hundred revolutions. All quarters alert.” Two hundred revs would give about nineteen knots. At any higher speed, asdics wouldn’t have been any use.

  Those U-boats had to be put down, and plastered with depthcharges: kept down, kept busy and deaf, confused. Ideally, of course, destroyed: but the priority was to get the convoy past them—intact, over this last hurdle …

  TBS
again, as Harbinger surged ahead: it was Watchful reporting, U-boat dived on bearing one-one-oh range seventeen hundred yards: attacking …

  Baxendale must have got that one on his RDF screen suddenly at close range: he’d have been in the process of turning to attack before he’d had time to think about reporting it. It might have just surfaced—then seen the spot it was in and pulled the plug again … But all destroyers up there had targets now, and Harbinger was moving up to support them. It wouldn’t matter if there were several more, so long as they were all forced down, blinded, deafened by racing screws and exploding charges. He had his glasses up, sweeping the milky-dark surface ahead: it wouldn’t be any surprise to find one surfacing, thinking it had passed under the screen and was inside now, with the convoy exposed to its torpedoes. Gunfire out on the starboard wing, Watchful’s bearing: everything was happening at once, and in a closely concentrated field of action—the U-boats had been taken by surprise, as the convoy might so easily have been.

  Almost time for the main event, now. Give it—oh, say five minutes, just to make certain—

  Asdic bell: and Garment’s high shout of “Contact, contact!”

  Graves called, “Red two-four, sir, range fifteen hundred!”

  “Port ten.” He slid off his seat. “I’ll take her, Sub.”

  “Confirmed submarine contact, sir. Moving left to right.”

  “Midships.” He was at the binnacle, displacing Chubb. “Depth-charge settings one hundred and fifty feet.” Because this German would have gone deepish, but probably not all that deep: he’d have been intending to come up again soon for a shot at the convoy … “Steady as you go.”

  “Bearing oh-eight-four, range thirteen hundred!”

  “Steer oh-eight-oh. One-sixty revolutions.”

  More gunfire eastward. Then a deeper rumble: depthcharges … There’d be no TBS chat from the corvettes, except in emergency: if there were U-boats on the surface in listening range, there’d be nothing for them to pick up, except the brief exchanges between the destroyers, and those wouldn’t lead them to the convoy. Besides which, any surfaced U-boats would be blinded too, before much longer.