‘Yes, well…’ Henderson had been getting to his feet. Murmuring reassurances, and thanking Mitcheson for having come to him with that information. ‘Any further developments – or worries – pick up a ’phone, don’t hesitate.’
* * *
It wasn’t a fast passage. Daylight hours of the 25th, 26th and 27th were spent dived, and the shorter periods of darkness surfaced but making good only about nine knots – because of the need of a running charge, replenishing battery-power.
On the third night, the 27th, Tigress signalled from something like 150 miles ahead that she’d attacked an Italian cruiser of the Garibaldi class between the islands of Parapola and Falkonera, and missed. The cruiser with an escort of four destroyers had left position 36 degrees 53’ North 23 degrees 40’ East at 1940, steering south at fifteen knots. Tigress had evaded a counter-attack by the escort and was continuing northward to her new billet.
Mitcheson leant over the chart, with Forbes at his elbow. Teasdale was on watch. Very little movement on the boat: a light wind from the northeast but only a small chop on the sea, none of the heavy swell they’d had during the first forty-eight hours out of Alex. 2220 now, three hours since Tigress’s failed attack. Spartan had surfaced two hours ago, fifteen miles south of Gaudhos Island; Tigress would have stayed down rather longer, Mitcheson guessed, made sure of getting well clear of the scene of action first. Mike Joliffe, her captain – and a friend of long-standing – would have had this message coded up ready to transmit as soon as he surfaced; the time-of-origin on it was 2204.
He had to decide now how to maximize his own chances of intercepting this Garibaldi. There were actually two ships in the class – the Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Luigi di Savoia Duca Degli Abruzzi. McKendrick had Jane’s Fighting Ships open on the wardroom table, had read out the pertinent detail: they were ships of about 8000 tons with a main armament of six-inch, had been completed in 1937 and had a designed speed of thirty-five knots. Whichever of them it was, the cruiser’s course had been south at the time of the attack, and the obvious assumption was that it had been steering for the Andikithira Strait. If it had held on southward at the reported speed of fifteen knots, it would be more than halfway there by now. But then again, it could pass either east or west of Andikithira; if the intention was either to continue southward or to round Crete eastbound, it would come through on this side of Andikithira, whereas routed west – to follow the Peloponnese coast back towards Italy – it would more likely pass between it and the larger island, Kithera.
That was the best guess, Mitcheson thought. Heading west. And if that was its route, it might pass smack through the centre of what was to be Spartan’s patrol line. But Spartan would be diving just before first light about thirty-five miles short of that point, whereas the Italian could be close to Kithira even at this moment. By 0400 he’d have passed through the gap, he’d be… Working it out, ‘walking’ dividers along the cruiser’s possible route – by first light, that cruiser could have left the strait fifty miles astern. One’s chances were not, therefore, all that rosy.
‘See – I’d say that’s his likely track. Wouldn’t be coming south, would he?’
‘Can’t see why he would.’
‘Wouldn’t be hanging around either. Unless he’s an idiot.’
He saw an alternative, then, and picked up the dividers to check that distance.
‘If he was aiming for Suda Bay…’
‘But that’d be southeast, not—’
‘Look. Tigress made her attack here – when he was between these two islands. And if he’d come down from the Piraeus, d’you see…’
‘God, yes. He’d get past that one – Falkonera – then come round – to about one-five-oh, or—’
‘Still sends him well out of our reach, unfortunately.’
And no point breaking into a muck sweat about it. One could have got on to the patrol line faster by breaking the charge and increasing to 400 revs – thirteen knots, roughly – but (a) there wasn’t as far as one could see anything positive to be achieved by doing so, and (b) you’d be starting the day’s dive with a battery that wasn’t fully charged.
He dropped the dividers on the chart. ‘We’ll carry on as we are. Dive at 0400, trust to luck.’
Luck such as the Italian making some detour on his way down to the strait, so you’d be there waiting for him. Or, if he’d passed through before you got there, turning round later and coming back up northward. If he was heading westward for instance to rendezvous with other units who might themselves have a change of heart when they heard that Cunningham’s heavy ships were at sea. It could happen.
* * *
At 0320 Forbes dived on the klaxon. Mitcheson had been in a deep sleep but within about two seconds was in the Control Room staring up through the open lower hatch: the two lookouts came crashing down, and now peering up into the glow of yellow light in the damp cavern of the tower he heard Forbes shout: ‘One clip on – MAS-boat closing from right ahead, sir!’
‘Hundred feet.’
‘Hundred feet, sir.’ The coxswain slid on to his seat at the after ’planes: glancing at Lockwood’s ’plane indicator – Lockwood had made it to the fore ’planes a couple of seconds earlier – and spinning his brass wheel to increase the bow-down angle. Forbes coming down the ladder like an ape scared out of a tree: ‘Hatch shut and clipped, sir. Thing seemed damn close, bow-wave like—’
‘Shut main vents.’ Halliday, Outside E.R.A., slammed the steel levers back: ripple of quiet thuds as the vents shut over their heads. Tremlett had shut the lower hatch and was up on the ladder jamming on its clips. Mitcheson glanced at the telegraphs, saw both motors were at half ahead. The klaxon’s harsh roar still echoed in his skull: he’d been woken by that sound several hundred times, but it was still a hell of a noise, guaranteed to have men running to their diving stations even before they’d woken. He was hearing the MAS-boat now. They all were. A rushing chum of propellers on a rising note that peaked as it scrunched over the top: needles in the gauges at that moment swinging past fifty feet.
Fading, then, astern.
Forbes said, ‘Was a MAS-boat. Thought at first sight it might have been a destroyer. Coming damn fast.’
Mitcheson nodded. ‘Slow together.’
‘Slow together, sir.’
MAS-boats were similar to German E-boats. Fast, well-armed torpedo-boats, but the Italians used them extensively for anti-submarine work and they also carried depthcharges.
‘Ship’s head?’
‘Three-three-five, sir.’
‘Starboard ten. Steer three-five-oh.’
‘Steer three-five-oh. Ten of starboard wheel on, sir.’
Forbes was using his trim-pump telegraph, pumping ballast out as increasing depth made the boat heavier. McKendrick was beside the fruit machine, toying with its dials. At the chart-table Teasdale was doodling on a signal-pad, pencilling in capitals the Italian for MAS-boat:
MOTOSCAFIANTI-SOMMERGIBLI.
No charges, anyway. If they’d dropped any, by this time you’d have known it.
‘Another one coming, sir. Identical.’ Rowntree fiddled his Asdic dial around. Tone of surprise, then: ‘Two more. Red one-oh and – red one-five, sir.’
‘Course three-five-oh, sir.’
‘Very good.’ He was thinking that three MAS-boats wouldn’t be out just for the night air, ought surely to be escorting something.
Not the Garibaldi. That had an escort of four destroyers. Had earlier, anyway.
‘One hundred feet, sir.’
Forbes had switched his telegraph to ‘Stop pumping’ and ‘Shut W port and starboard’. Rowntree reported, ‘Bearings are drawing right, sir. Both – drawing right fast, same fast revs.’
In other words, they’d altered course to starboard. It suggested they might be conducting a sweep, searching. In advance of the Garibaldi showing up?
Wishful thinking: and really not at all likely. Unless the bloody thing had been going backwards…
‘Still drawing right, sir.’
‘Search abaft the beam.’
Slow blinking, a puzzled look on the round, schoolboyish face as he twisted the dial around. Listening for sounds of the first one that had passed. If the three of them were conducting a sweep, that one should have altered course as well.
‘Red one-seven-five, sir. Faint, drawing left to right.’
‘All right – what are the others doing?’
It took a few moments… Then: ‘Red six-five – left to right, fading. And – red seven-oh – similar, sir.’
So the three of them were sweeping westward now, across the southern approaches to this strait. This must have been the eastern limit of their sweep. He told Rowntree: ‘Listen all round, just keep tabs on them.’ With luck, he thought, crossing to the chart table, one had seen – or rather, heard – the last of them. At any rate, for a while. Teasdale made room for him, pointed with a pencil-tip: ‘Three-thirty D.R. here, sir.’
About fifteen miles off the west coast of Crete, a bit to the north of Cape Elafonisos. The MAS-boats’ sweep was therefore covering the southwestern approaches to the Andikithira Strait: or – thinking of that cruiser southbound – one might say the southwest-bound exit from it. Alternatively, their presence might be unconnected with anything passing through in either direction; they could simply be hunting, guessing there might be a submarine or two in the area. They’d have been told of one – Tigress – who’d been eighty miles north of here last night – and with fleets on the move elsewhere in the eastern basin this strait was an obvious place for another.
The present course – 350 degrees – was about right, pointing Spartan at the eastern end of what was supposed to be the patrol line. Its centre was thirty miles west of Andikithira Island, and Mitcheson’s orders were to patrol ten miles each side of that point in a NW-SE direction. Distance to the eastern end from here was twenty-seven miles – nine hours at three knots. Not that one was likely to get nine uninterrupted hours now, he thought. It might have been the MAS-boats’ appearance that had triggered it, but he had a presentiment that this was not going to be a quiet patrol.
The cruiser, of course. Anticipating that.
This depth was all right. Spartan had at least 500 fathoms under her, and there was no point in being any closer to the surface when it was still dark up there. No point in surfacing either, for only about one hour’s faster progress, when chances were you’d have to dive again for bloody MAS-boats. Moving back to his customary position between the periscopes, he cocked an eye at Rowntree: ‘Our chums still with us?’
‘Very faint on the beam, sir – port beam. Can’t separate ’em now. Getting fainter.’
‘Good. Number One, we’ll relax to Watch Diving, and stay deep until about five. Go up for a shufti then.’
* * *
At 0500, from periscope depth he saw the sky ablaze above distant Cretan mountains; seaward, reflections of that sunrise were blinding from the sea’s blue ridges. Half an hour later the sun had hidden itself behind cloud, the mountains were no longer visible and the sea had turned dull green. It was also still empty, both visually and acoustically. No MAS-boats, and nothing to suggest that any cruiser might be coming. It had been an exciting idea, while it lasted. A modern 8000-ton cruiser: and what was more – in sporting terms – the notion of wiping Mike Joliffe’s eye. Joliffe didn’t often miss, had in fact a considerable reputation.
They were at breakfast when Forbes, who’d had his earlier so as to take over the watch at eight, spotted a seaplane in the northeast, flying from left to right at a height of only about a thousand feet above the sea. Forbes’ voice had been a murmur in there, part of the quiet, restful background of breakfast-time under water: but it sharpened now, shattering that peace: ‘Captain in the Control Room! Down…’
Mitcheson made it in about two jumps. Still chewing bacon.
‘Seaplane bearing about Green four-oh, sir. Flying east.’ He’d dipped the periscope: now it slithered up, shiny with grease and droplets of water from the gland. Mitcheson’s jaws still working as he put his eyes to the lenses.
Swinging right…
He grunted. ‘All same last trip.’ Same type of aircraft, same time of day. He switched into low power, span around fairly rapidly, found the Savoia again and clicked up the magnification. ‘Confucius he say, swinging chain mean warm seat.’
Meaning: There has to be something coming…
‘Down.’
Wires hissing round the sheaves. ‘Keep an eye on it while I finish my coffee, Number One.’ He glanced at the Asdic operator – it was Piltmore, whose request for advancement to Leading Seaman and an H.S.D.’s course Mitcheson had approved and forwarded, a few days ago. In spite of this, Piltmore still looked miserable. ‘Nothing?’
A sad, slow shake of the head. ‘Nothing, sir.’
He went back into the wardroom. Teasdale said, ‘It meant a tanker, last time.’
McKendrick added, ‘Ex-tanker, now.’
Bennett put down his mug. ‘Meant getting shit scared and soaking wet followed by four days’ bloody hard grind, as I remember it.’
Mitcheson smiled. ‘Could be a cruiser this time, Chief.’
‘Thought you said there wasn’t a chance?’
‘Well.’ He nodded. ‘There isn’t much.’
Forbes called, ‘Seaplane’s gone out of sight, sir.’
* * *
Mid-forenoon, and there’d been no further sightings. Teasdale had this watch and the other three were asleep. Mitcheson was on his bunk but he’d been re-reading the letters he’d had from Elizabeth. Warm, cheerful letters which, however, told him very little: mainly that she was well and working hard and missing him, thinking of him a lot and having almost fainted with excitement when his name had been mentioned in some news bulletin recently about submarine successes in the Mediterranean. There’d been apples in the shops, at the time she’d written the second letter, priced at ninepence a pound – which was great news, apparently, but milk rationing was being introduced; this was not going to please her mother’s cat, Caspar, who’d been warned that he’d be on to milk-and-water, and who was already in the dumps because he hadn’t had a bite of fish for ages. There simply wasn’t any; and a tin of sardines – Caspar’s idea of bliss – took seven Points. But at least, she wrote, the Points system did make things fair, stopped the hoarders and spivs.
Then that question: did he have paralysis of the right hand – Or what?
He knew he ought to tell her about Lucia. At least, of Lucia’s existence. Not simply ought, it was in some ways his natural inclination. But there was also a strong disinclination to hurt her – and perhaps unnecessarily.
If for instance it didn’t last, with Lucia?
He’d found he couldn’t go into this in any depth. Hearing again Lucia’s voice over the telephone, that, I’d die… He felt the same. For that very reason, he shirked facing even the possibility of an end. His brain failed him again now: the thought was simply unfaceable. Although she – he thought – had recognized the existence of the possibility, once. They’d been dancing at the Auberge Bleue to a current hit-tune called ‘Just One of Those Things’, in which the lyrics referred to a love-affair being ‘too hot not to cool down’, and she’d murmured into his ear: ‘As hot as ours, could it have been?’
It hadn’t struck him at the time as speculation on any untimely end to their own affair; he’d taken it simply as a comment on the intensity of their feelings for each other. But he’d thought about it since and wondered whether some such question hadn’t been in Lucia’s mind. And all right – it could happen. It was a fact that it very frequently did. Hence that line in the song – reference to a syndrome that every Tom, Dick and Mary would recognize. External events could influence the outcome too. If or when he was sent elsewhere – taking Spartan home for refit, for instance – could one imagine Lucia sitting it out alone, waiting for him there in Alex as Elizabeth was doing in London?
But there was anoth
er reason, too, not to tell her. The banal fact that there was – to quote an overworked phrase – a war on. One couldn’t – anyway, didn’t – envisage one’s own sudden death – which would almost inevitably mean the same for the forty men of Spartan’s ship’s company – but one did have to recognize that one stood as good a chance as any of the others who’d already gone. If that did happen, and you’d written to her before it did – well, Christ, for what?
* * *
Early in the afternoon two more Savoias appeared. Spartan was on her patrol-line by this time – it was 1440 – steering 315, when Forbes spotted the seaplanes to the south of them and realized that they were acting like aircraft scouting ahead of ships.
Chief, McKendrick and Teasdale were in the wardroom, waiting and listening to the sounds and comments from next door. Teasdale was browsing in Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, Chief was writing a letter to his wife, and McKendrick was glancing through that day’s copy of Good Morning, which was a broadsheet produced gratis for submarines by the Daily Mirror. Copies were numbered instead of dated; on each patrol you took a batch to sea with you so a daily paper could be scanned over breakfast every morning. The most closely followed feature in it was the Jane cartoon strip. Nothing to do with Jane’s Fighting Ships: this Jane was a curvaceous blonde with a tendency to lose her clothes.
‘Ah.’ Mitcheson had just put the periscope up again. ‘Ah, there now.’
Chief capped his pen. ‘Here we go.’
‘Down periscope. Half ahead together. Port twenty. Diving stations.’
He’s seen a destroyer coming northward towards the strait, behind those aircraft. It’s a reasonable assumption that there’ll be something else behind that.
‘Twenty of port wheel on, sir.’
‘Steer – two-one-five. Up periscope.’
Halliday’s there – taking over from Chief E.R.A. Burns – in time to send the ’scope hissing up again. Mitcheson’s eyes at the lenses then with the light dancing in them – there’s some movement on the sea, now, white fringes to the chop – while the rest of the switching of jobs takes place around him in a swift but ordered rush. Forbes meanwhile adjusting the trim, pumping ballast from aft to for’ard to compensate for the redistribution of human weight.
Love For An Enemy Page 20
