No. Charge right at him. Flat out – might just make it under and out the other side while he still assumes I’m this side.
Rowntree’s eyes meet his. Head and face as wet and running as Josh Currie’s after an hour of squash. That forefinger’s moving to point upward again: but Mitcheson doesn’t have to be told, cuts in with: ‘Bearing of the other?’
‘Green one-one-oh, sir – in contact—’
Screws churning up from astern, the note rising with the closing of the range. Doppler-effect, they call it. Loud, too, louder every second. In the after ends where Bennett’s stokers are toiling to check the leak they’ll be hearing it coming like the day of judgement. Mitcheson meets Telegraphist Harris’s white-faced stare: ‘Tell the motor room, stand by…’
* * *
Matt Bennett’s on his hands and knees, soaked to the skin and smeared with oil, peering between Stoker Petty Officer Harrison and the two men – O’Dare, and Young who are working at the gland. They’re taking it in shifts, can’t all get at it at once. There’s very little elbow-room: this is the submarine’s rear end, her narrow tail. O’Dare muttering through clenched teeth, ‘Jasus God, wouldn’t ye think there’d be a better way?’
‘Fucking isn’t, Pat, that’s all. Here, gimme that—’
‘You’re winning, lads. Believe me.’ Harrison’s a short, paunchy man, balding, always cracking jokes. Well, not always – not now, for instance… Glancing sideways: ‘Comin’ over again, hear him?’
‘Won’t be like the last ones, Spo.’ Bennett points out, ‘We’ve gone deeper, so—’
‘Say that again.’ Young’s reference is to the pressure that’s behind this leak, making it virtually impossible to cope with. ‘Here. Pat – back me up here now. Two, six—’
On the huge spanner – all the weight they can muster: and damn little to show for it.
‘Once more, then…’
Harrison’s mutter: ‘Good lads. Good lads.’ Nannying them: he can see as well as they can that it’s spurting just as hard, the splash from it like a fine rain everywhere. Screws pounding closer: coming over… Not as loud as the last time: but then they wouldn’t be, when you were twice as deep. Twice as far for those things to sink, too, Matt Bennett thinks. Margin for error, too: touch wood… Visualizing them – metal canisters the size of small beer-barrels falling through blue water, darkening water, their pistols filling until the pressure inside them triggers the firing mechanism and the detonators. Pistols about the size of baked-bean cans; the holes through which they fill with water are adjustable, providing the depth-setting system – the smaller the holes, the slower the rate of filling, deeper they sink before they detonate.
Detonate like now…
Like a clap of thunder directly overhead – and the screws racing, vibration and noise in the shaft and the defective gland more frightening than the high-explosive that’s bursting and some still about to burst out there. Young growling over his shoulder, ‘Won’t bloody stand it, bastard’ll shake right out, she’ll—’
Two more thunderclaps. Maybe not as close as the first ones were, but – bad enough, frightening enough – and certainly too close as far as this gland’s concerned. Sea fairly hosing in – unstoppable and worsening – and another clanging, mind-bruising crash – worse, Bennett appreciates, because this one’s caught him off-guard, he’d thought the pattern had all exploded. Now its metallic echo is reverberating away through the surrounding, crushing weight of sea.
But the shaft’s slowing. (Ears back in action. Brain too.) Screws slowing, for sure. Vibration already far, far less.
Grouped down, obviously.
The worst over?
He warns himself: Until the next lot… Turning, as a hand closes on his arm: ‘Skipper’s on the line, sir, wants a word.’
‘Right.’ He twists himself around. Telling Harrison and the others, ‘Worst’s over, with any luck. Keep at it, eh?’ The ’phone’s in his hand, then. ‘Bennett here, sir.’
‘Chief, listen – I must have absolute quiet now. No spanners slipping, nothing…’
4
That evening – 17 September – an Italian civil aircraft under military command landed at Cadiz. It had taken off from Genoa – eighty kilometres from La Spezia, where the underwater section of the Light Flotilla had its base – and refuelled at Madrid, where Emilio Caracciolo and the other seven members of the team had a chance to stretch their legs, also to enjoy a meal at which their host was a Second Secretary from the Italian embassy. This individual had also seen to their immigration clearance, so that on arrival at Cadiz the only requirement was to surrender their entry-permits for yet another rubber-stamping. They were all carrying seamen’s papers identifying them as replacement crewmen for the Italian tanker Fulgor, which had been interned at Cadiz since Italy’s entry to the war in June of last year. Rather conveniently, really. Interned or not, the ship’s crew were surely entitled to leave – on humanitarian grounds, and as agreed between friendly nations – so occasional replacement of personnel was obviously necessary.
At the Cadiz airport the assistant consul collected the eight men’s permits and took them to be stamped, bringing them back after only a few minutes and redistributing them, murmuring: ‘If you’d kindly follow me, Signore? I have transport outside. My name is Ferioli, by the way. Pietro Ferioli.’ Then in a lower tone: ‘It is an honour, I may say…’
Emilio, with Armando Grazzi his P.O. diver, followed the others out through the big air-terminal shed. None of them uttering a single word. A motley crew: in blue-serge or flannel trousers with frayed turnups, and sweaters, windcheaters, a few in badgeless peaked caps. Emilio himself wore a donkey-jacket that was much too tight for his muscular torso, and he hadn’t shaved for a day or two; like all the others he carried a seaman’s kitbag over one shoulder. No casual observer – or even moderately expert one – would have doubted that this shambling bunch of toughs were merchant seamen; although in point of fact they were Lieutenants Catalano, Vesco and Visintini and Sub-Lieutenant Caracciolo, and Petty Officers Giannoni, Zozzoli, Magro and Grazzi. Decio Catalano was the team leader. He, also Vesco and Visintini and two of the P.O. divers, had taken part in the last human-torpedo attack on Gibraltar, back in May.
Emilio was the fledgeling. And wouldn’t have been here at all except that after the Malta fiasco he’d appealed to the flotilla’s new C.O., Commander Valerio Borghese, to be allowed to take part in whatever the next human-torpedo operation might be, whether it was to be the long-awaited attack on Alexandria or any other; and Borghese, being a no-nonsense, non-political submarine captain – young for his new appointment, which they’d given him purely on his record and proven abilities – had been pleased to grant the young officer’s perfectly legitimate request.
Borghese would be meeting them on board the Fulgor presently. According to the plan, he should have berthed his pig-carrying submarine Sciré alongside her a few hours ago. He’d sailed from La Spezia on the 10th and had been due to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar on the 16th; Sciré should have spent the whole of this past day lying on the bottom just outside Cadiz, and surfaced to enter the roadstead and berth alongside the tanker after dark. This was the way they’d done it in May, too, but the time before that – in October 1940, when Borghese had commanded Sciré but not of course the whole outfit as he did now – that first time he’d brought the team of pilots and divers all the way from La Spezia to the launching point in Algeciras Bay; what with lousy weather and navigational problems in the Straits they’d been cooped up in the submarine for ten long days. Hence this Cadiz alternative, aimed at sending them against the enemy in much better shape. Alexandria, which was still in the planning stage, would be something else again; the start was likely to be from Leros in the eastern Aegean – the base from which the flotilla’s explosive motorboats had scored their big success in Suda bay, Crete – and would involve a passage of about four days.
This trip, touch wood, they’d be on board only two days. Th
e transport which Ferioli had brought to the airport for them was a Mercedes shooting-brake. Not until they were all inside it and he had it rolling did he glance sideways at Catalano and tell them all, ‘Everything’s in order and looks good, gentlemen. The Sciré is here and waiting for you, and in Gibraltar this afternoon were two battleships, four cruisers, five or six destroyers and some tankers. There are also a number of merchantmen in Algeciras Bay.’
‘Take our pick, eh?’
A growl of laughter…
‘This time we’ll show ’em – huh?’
‘Please God!’
Because the previous attacks, Emilio reflected, had been total failures.
‘As I said before, Signore—’ Ferioli swung the big car south towards the docks – ‘I am deeply conscious of the honour of assisting in your – your heroic enterprise.’
In the back of the Mercedes, Emilio flinched at that word ‘heroic’. It triggered a recollection of Teseo Tesei and his futile so-called heroism: and of Uncle Cesare, who’d have been frothing at the mouth if he’d known where his nephew was at this moment but who had, more or less as Emilio had anticipated, referred to the Malta débâcle as a ‘sad but none the less golden page in the annals of our Italian naval heritage’.
Sad but golden fuck-up, Emilio had thought, nodding religiously. He’d been visiting Rome on this short leave ostensibly to pay his respects to Uncle Cesare, but actually grabbing the chance of spending some time with Renata. From lunch with the vice-admiral he’d hurried straight to her apartment – and that had been some golden page, for sure.
(He still didn’t know exactly why Uncle Cesare was so keen on his taking part in the sortie against Alexandria. Except one could assume there was a connection with the fact his niece and former sister-in-law were living there. Emilio didn’t question his uncle’s motives in any greater depth, because for him too the concept had a strong appeal. The feeling that he’d be really showing them…)
The Fulgor’s boat was waiting alongside stone steps at the quay to which Ferioli brought them. Lights shimmered on still harbour water, and there was a starry sky over the blackness of the cargo sheds. Although one realized that the fine weather might not last; September did tend to be a month of change. Ferioli insisted on shaking each man’s hand, fervently repeating his good wishes – for luck, success, safe return, etcetera. The boat had a crew of two Italians and the trip out to the tanker took about ten minutes; Emilio caught an end-on glimpse of the submarine moored on the port side before they ran under the ship’s stern to a dimly illuminated gangway. Commander Borghese himself was waiting at the top of it to welcome them, and this time the greetings were warm, heartfelt.
Fulgor could almost have been purpose-built for her present function. In fact there might have been a certain amount of adaptation, at some stage. To prepare her for her internment, one might guess? There was a surprising sufficiency of shower-baths and multi-berth cabins, and the catering facilities surpassed anything you’d expect to find in a small ship of this kind. Not that this team would be spending long on board her, as it happened; they all enjoyed hot showers, then changed from fancy-dress into seagoing uniform and were given an excellent meal – including brandy and cigars – but then on Borghese’s orders they embarked in Sciré and turned in. She’d be sailing before dawn, slipping out under cover of darkness while they slept – could sleep on in the morning too, as long as they wished.
Borghese had brought with him eight extra hands who’d shortly leave Spain as Fulgor crewmen, using the same papers that these eight had brought in with them. Individuals’ particulars wouldn’t be studied by any airport officials, apparently. It seemed the authorities needed only to have the outward appearances more or less right, more to lull the suspicions of nosy foreigners than to hoodwink Spaniards.
Sciré left Cadiz roads in the early hours of the 18th and after passing through the Gibraltar Strait on the 19th entered Algeciras Bay that evening. Borghese had of course made this passage before, was familiar with the tidal problem – the eastward set from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean of about one and a half knots, half the submarine’s own submerged speed and therefore a factor very much to be reckoned with when you turned across it. He hugged the bay’s western shore, at this stage; with Sciré in silent running, all auxiliary machinery switched off and silence enforced throughout her compartments as she passed within a few thousand yards of the heavily defended British base, and no more than a mile off Algeciras, the Spanish town and port which directly faces the Rock across the bay.
The submarine’s hydrophones were manned, but you hardly needed equipment of that sensitivity to hear the explosions of underwater charges from the direction of Gibraltar harbour. Emilio timed them, on the second-hand of his waterproof diver’s watch. The pig operators were in their rubber suits by this time, lounging in the two messes assigned to them. He murmured, watching the hand flick round: ‘One every half-minute, near enough.’
‘Not quite that regular.’ He thought it was Visintini who’d said this – low-voiced over the faint hum of the motors. One of the others whispered, ‘Expecting us though, huh?’
‘No more than they’d have been expecting us last night. Or last week. No – we’ve got ’em scared, that’s what it is. They’ve heard of the Light Flotilla!’
‘Those aren’t big charges, anyway.’
‘Might think they were if you were close enough.’
‘We’ve had bigger in training, and survived ’em.’
‘Well.’ Vesco acknowledged grudgingly: ‘Maybe we have…’
A head through the gap in the curtains: Sciré’s first lieutenant. ‘Best keep the sound down, fellows.’
‘Sorry—’
Boom…
Inside his skull, Emilio had flinched. It hadn’t shown in his eyes, he hoped. But he’d visualized that underwater detonation, imagining how it would feel if you were close. The bombs would be no bigger than say small Chianti flasks; and they’d be tossing them over the stern of a patrol boat – or sterns of patrol boats – somewhere in or near the harbour entrance. The patrol boats themselves would have to be avoided, of course. But there again – in training exercises you’d done it often enough, got past your own Italian harbour patrols dozens of times.
Decio Catalano was watching him across the table, his eyes smiling. ‘All right, Sub?’
Emilio realized that it had showed. That one should remember to keep a tight hold on the imagination: shut out the pictures, not invite them… He shrugged. ‘Be glad to get going, that’s all.’
‘Of course.’ Catalano nodded. ‘Gets better once you’re on the move. I’ve always found the waiting period’s the worst of it.’
He thought, Who hasn’t…
With any damn thing at all. A swimming race, for instance, even something as un-frightening as that. He’d been a Balilla champion, in his schooldays. Crawl, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly – you name it. And weightlifting and javelin, for that matter, but swimming was what had got him into this human torpedo business. A call had gone out to ships, barracks and training establishments for strong swimmers to volunteer for special duties, and his Balilla championships had been on record, so – there it was, you might say his natural destiny. Balilla being the Fascist youth organization – involving pre-military and physical training, spiritual and cultural instruction, uniforms and ceremonies. And of course sport. He’d been in it from the age of eight, until at fourteen he’d graduated into the Avanguardisti Corps. While sister Lucia had been enrolled in the girls’ departments, Piccole Italiane – until she was twelve, when she’d moved on into the Giovane Italiane. Like Hitler Youth, really. They’d both wanted to be in it, because all their friends were; and anyway if a child didn’t join – well, he or she would have a rotten time of it and so would his or her parents. Not that opprobrium had been avoided, exactly, in the light of their father’s activities. And Papa of course had strongly disapproved of their joining the youth movement, too, would probably have kept t
hem out of it all if it hadn’t been for Uncle Cesare’s influence – Mama’s too, oddly enough. Mama had pleaded that while he might choose to follow his own conscience, he had no right to turn his children into outcasts. If the family were condemned to remain in Italy – which she hadn’t wanted, for years she’d urged her husband to move out and settle in France – he could set up a newspaper there, couldn’t he, preach his sermons from safe ground?
Felice Caracciolo had seen it as his moral duty to stay in his own country and speak out. So maybe Uncle Cesare was right in what he’d said recently. Maybe… But in the early years Papa had been less strident in his protests – or anyway less noticed, possibly because there’d been so much protest at that time. It was primarily the hardening of anti-Semitism – late ’36 and ’37, when the Italian Fascist movement was drawing ever-closer to the Nazis, and by which time the opposition had been very much thinned out – that had forced him – as he himself had put it – to ‘stand up and be counted’.
Mama too had hated everything that was happening around them. But as a family they’d got by. Largely – like so many others – by keeping their heads down. What Papa got up to at the office, so to speak, wasn’t their business. But it became more and more difficult, of course, and then Papa was arrested – by which time even having Cesare for a close relative and Emilio being a Balilla athletic champion had begun to count for less. The Balilla motto was Believe, Obey, Fight, and they had a father who did not believe, refused to obey and was interested only in fighting Fascism; and a mother who agreed with him in her heart but whose priority was to protect her children.
Felice would have taken a different view now, his brother Cesare maintained. If only he’d survived that damn camp. They wouldn’t have kept him in there for long. He’d made huge mistakes, but once he’d learnt his lesson – and when the chips were on the table, his country at war – he was an Italian, for God’s sake, and a Caracciolo at that; he was no damn coward!
Love For An Enemy Page 10
