‘Right. Now, we have a target.’ He’s trained a bit this way and that, has stopped with his sights on – whatever… Training right again. Then into low power for a complete circle. Back on the target. Muttering, ‘Destroyer’s in the light. But never mind.’ Louder, then: ‘Blow up one and two tubes. Start the attack. Target is a minelayer. One thousand tons, say. We’ll need the Jane’s out, Pilot. Bearing is – that.’ Tremlett reads it off the bearing-ring over Mitcheson’s head, and McKendrick puts his first piece of data into the fruit machine. Teasdale has started a stopwatch and a plot – navigational picture – on a plotting-diagram, and the helmsman’s confirmed the course of 215 degrees. Mitcheson’s telling them, ‘On a masthead height of say – oh, seventy-five feet – range is that. Down periscope.’ He’s at the chart table, where Teasdale has Jane’s Fighting Ships open at the pages of Italian minelayers, and he recognizes one of the photographs at a glance. ‘Masthead height sixty- five feet, say.’ He’s back at the periscope. ‘Up…’
‘Enemy speed—’
‘Set ten knots, Sub.’
Rowntree looks as if he has information for him from the Asdics but Mitcheson doesn’t need it, or hasn’t time for it. Swinging round in low power, a sky search. He murmurs, pausing, ‘There. Savoias have moved north, they’re over the strait. Silly fuckers.’ He’s on the target again: ‘Bearing is – that.’
Tremlett reads it off: ‘Red three-two.’
‘Range – that.’ The range is 6000 yards. ‘I am – twenty on his port bow. Port ten, steer one-five-five. Stand by one and two tubes.’
Hart’s passing that order to C.P.O. Chanter in the Tube Space. Teasdale says, ‘Plot suggests enemy speed eleven knots, sir.’
‘Set eleven.’
‘Distance off track?’
McKendrick winds a dial around, snaps out the answer: ‘Seventeen hundred yards, sir.’
‘Down.’
Pushing the handles up as the ’scope slides down, a glistening streak of yellow. He’s motionless, consciously letting the seconds tick through his brain in close relationship to his own moving picture of whatever’s developing on the surface. McKendrick, from his position at the fruit machine, sees Rowntree react to some change in the situation as he’s getting it through his ears: the Asdic man is in profile as he looks round at Mitcheson, mouth opening in the round, boyish face, but in that same moment Mitcheson’s lifted his hands, told Halliday ‘Up…’, and snapped at Forbes, ‘Watch your depth, Christ’s sake!’ Because the gauges show twenty-nine feet at that moment and the ordered depth is thirty.
Rowntree has begun, ‘Sir – fast HE on Green—’
‘I know.’ He’s grabbed the handles: knees bent, his body rising with the ’scope so his eyes will as it were break surface as the upper lens does. If the boat’s a foot higher in the water than she should be, you need a foot less periscope – unless you want it spotted… Swinging to the right…
He’s jerked back.
‘Flood “Q”!’ Banging the handles up. ‘Fifty feet.’ A quick glance at the bubble – in the spirit-level in front of the coxswain – checking that she has a bow-down angle: ‘Group up, full ahead together!’
‘Q’ is the quick-diving tank: you flood it to drag the boat down in a hurry. As now: needles already beginning to move around the gauges – slowly at first, faster as she gathers downward impetus.
None too soon. The destroyer – coming over the top, propeller noise already loud. Men’s eyes drift instinctively to the deckhead, as if to see it. It’s coming from the starboard side – loud, close, prospects are that the Italian will at least clip the periscope standards – any second—
Screws scrunching over the top – now…
Gone over.
Faces unfreeze, here and there. Mitcheson tells Forbes, ‘Blow “Q”. Group down. Thirty feet.’ He’s slightly out of breath and trying not to let it show. Spartan had only dipped to about forty feet, there can’t have been more than a foot or two to spare… ‘Slow together, Number One.’ He mutters – moving back towards the periscope – ‘I’d as good as passed him. He must have zigged about ninety degrees, for no damn reason.’ He’s looking at Rowntree ‘You were on to it, eh?’
‘Yessir. Tried—’
‘I know you did. Sorry.’ A glance at Halliday, a gesture for the periscope. ‘Where is he now?’
‘Red one-three-oh, right to left, opening, sir.’
‘And the target?’
‘Bears one-five-two, sir—’
‘Depth now?’
‘Thirty-two feet, sir. Thirty-one. Thirty feet…’
The coxwain’s ’planes have taken the angle off her, and Lockwood’s are at a few degrees of dive to hold her at thirty. Easing the angle off…
‘Bearing is – that.’ Red 08: true bearing 147. ‘Range – that.’ It’s 4500 yards. ‘I’m thirty on his port bow. Port ten, steer one-three-five. Distance off track?’
‘Two thousand yards, sir.’
‘Down.’ Figures and angles jostling through his mind. Looking round at Halliday, still lost in thought: then a gesture of the hands, the ’scope’s rushing up into them… He starts with a sky-search – pausing on northerly bearings as he picks up the Savoias. High power then, a check on the destroyer before he settles back on the target.
Bearing, range, angle on the bow, distance off track… down. A few seconds’ pause, then up again for another set of figures while Teasdale’s picture develops on the plot, making consistent sense. Down, again. Furious with himself for the mistake he made: assuming he’d got past the destroyer when he hadn’t. No room for it in his mind now, though. Up… Spartan’s course is 085 by this time and she’s eighty degrees on her target’s bow. Plot – Teasdale – suggesting a re-estimation of target speed to ten and a half knots. He accepts this, McKendrick changes it on the fruit machine and reports the Director Angle as eight degrees. The torpedoes are set to run at six feet: according to Jane’s this class of minelayer draws eight and a half – and she’s deep-loaded.
‘Stand by…’
He’s using the small, unifocal, ‘attack’ periscope: Tremlett’s set the eight-degree aim-off on it. The minelayer with her Italian ensign fluttering and a feather of bow-wave brilliant-white under her stern is approaching the hairline sight; stubby bow crossing it now: another second, and—
‘Fire one!’
Thud of the discharge, hiss of inboard-venting air. He’s aimed that one halfway between her stern and the bridge. Second one now, between her mainmast and stern: ‘Fire two!’
‘Torpedoes running, sir.’
‘Down periscope.’
He’d have kept it up to look for the destroyer, but if anyone had spotted it from the Italian’s bridge they might still have had time to take avoiding action. The final distance-off-track was 800 yards; so running-time would be about forty-five seconds. He has the chart-table stopwatch in his hand. Asking Rowntree, ‘Destroyer now?’
‘Bearing 040, sir. Moving right to left – opening.’
He thinks about it: tells Mackay: ‘Steer three-four-oh.’
‘Three-four-oh, sir.’
Twenty seconds to go. He glances at Halliday, lifting his hands, and the periscope’s shooting up. Passing the stopwatch to Forbes. You wouldn’t get much of a counter-attack out of one destroyer on its own: and if there are any swimmers or boats it’ll be busy with them anyway. Meanwhile Spartan’s line of retreat will be northwards towards the strait: the Italians would most likely guess you’d go the other way, into more open water. The seaplanes didn’t count for anything now: aircraft are only a menace before you get your attack in, when you have to be near the surface and they have some chance of spotting either the submarine herself or her periscope, or at the last minute the actual discharge of torpedoes.
He has his eyes at the lenses. Feeling a twinge of sympathy for those people. But also, a prayer for the fish to run straight and hit. After that near-fatal blunder with the destroyer, a miss now is all he’d need. He mutters: �
��Be a biggish bang if we hit. I think she’s full of mines.’
‘Five seconds, sir.’ Forbes, counting. ‘Four. Three. Two—’
The solid clump of a torpedo-hit. Mitcheson sees the leap of spray and smoke with a streak of flame in it abreast the minelayer’s old-fashioned-looking bridge. Smoke spreading back then, obscuring most of her afterpart: and a second hit – amidships – same sound, same vertical shoot of water, flame and debris, and a second or two later a blossoming of fire pushing up as if her guts are bursting out of her. Sound coming in waves, like a roll of thunder. Mines or sections of mines detonating each other, would account for this. He’s seeing nothing but smoke, then. Thinking: There, but for the grace of God… The smoke’s thinning fast, disintegrating southward on the wind, and in the interim the ship’s stern half has gone. What’s left is about to go – the broken-off stub of her forepart, near-vertical in the water. Going, going…
He pushes the handles up. ‘Hundred feet.’
* * *
Supper was dished up at about eight-thirty, half an hour after they’d surfaced and P.O. Telegraphist Dawson had tapped out a cipher to Alexandria reporting the sinking of a minelayer of the Azio class, complete with mines. Spartan was near the southern end of her patrol line by this time, making about five knots on one screw while the other engine pumped life into her near-dead battery. It was a dark night and there’d be no moon until about 0400, when with any luck there might be cloud-cover in any case; but this still wasn’t the safest of places to be hanging around on the surface. Mitcheson’s night orders to officers of the watch were to keep her under constant helm.
He wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight himself, even if they were left alone. He’d either be down here awake, or actually on the bridge with the O.O.W. At the moment it was McKendrick up there. There’d been a switch on the roster; during what would have been McKendrick’s watch earlier on he’d been in the T.S.C. supervising the reloading of those two tubes.
Two fish, two hits. Not bad. Even though it had been an easy target, steering a straight course and with its escort out of the way by the time of firing. Not bad, but nothing like good enough to weigh against having so damn nearly let himself be rammed. He’d assumed the destroyer would be holding its course as he’d seen it only a minute earlier – that to all intents and purposes he’d got past it. It was in fact a principle that when attacking an escorted target you (a) did whatever was necessary to put yourself out of the escorts’ way, (b) thereafter put them out of mind, concentrated totally on the target. His mistake had been that he’d put that one out of mind half a minute too soon.
Only luck, those few seconds’ grace, had saved him. Saved the boat and her crew – whose lives were in his hands alone, and a hell of a lot more important than the sinking of one minelayer.
Even if its destruction – and that of the mines themselves – might have saved a few other lives, in the longer term. Which was a question Forbes raised as he was finishing his corned-beef hash.
‘Be interesting to know where those things would’ve finished up. Approaches to the Piraeus, maybe. When you think about it, could’ve had our name on one of ’em – next patrol, say, or—’
‘They’d have brought ’em through the Corinth canal then, wouldn’t they?’
Forbes looked at Teasdale. ‘Not sure it’s open. Wouldn’t we or the Greeks have blocked it?’ He pointed upwards with his fork: ‘There she goes again.’
Vera Lynn. It was the loudspeaker he’d pointed at – ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ … Spartan rolling – beam-on to the sea, under helm – and Matt Bennett reaching to his enamel mug to stop it sliding. Muttering, ‘Keep the bloody thing still, can’t you.’ He asked Mitcheson, ‘Might get some bother here tomorrow – wouldn’t you say, sir?’
‘Might. Might tonight, for that matter. Between Tigress and ourselves we’ve probably stirred things up a bit.’
Wilf Sparrow, the wardroom ‘flunkey’, elbowed in through the curtains. Bony elbows, tattered singlet, tattoo of a Chinese dragon on one arm. ‘More tea, gents? Sir?’ Mitcheson shook his head; Forbes accepted a top-up. Sparrow chanted in a monotone as he tilted the metal pot: ‘All the old familiar places…’ Pulling back then, eyeing the loudspeaker: ‘Lovely song that. Lovely.’
‘It’s not bad the way she sings it, Sparrow.’
He looked down at Teasdale. ‘There’s some up for’ard says me and Bing’s hard to tell one from t’other.’
‘They must have cloth ears, up for’ard. Here, I’ll have some.’
Klaxon…
Mitcheson had been lighting a cigarette. Cigarette and match went into his tea-mug: he was in the Control Room, lookouts thumping down, vents open and ’planes hard a-dive, engine-clutches out and the diesels’ racket dying, motors at half ahead, the top hatch slamming shut and McKendrick’s shout, ‘Aircraft dropping flares, sir!’ Then: ‘Hatch shut – one clip on—’
‘Half ahead.’
Amps being precious. With the charge broken and the prospect of a whole night of this kind of thing McKendrick came clambering down; Mitcheson glanced at the gauges, told Halliday, ‘Shut main vents.’
From the navigator’s notebook, 28/29 September:
2054 Dived for flare-dropping aircraft, in DR position 35 42’ N, 23 00’ E.
2107 Surfaced. Standing charge port, 300 revs stbd, constant helm.
2132 Dived. Aircraft, flares.
2143 Surfaced. Resumed standing charge.
2145 Signal from S.(1.): ‘The Garibaldi-class cruiser reported in Tigress’s 2204/27 is reported to be in Suda Bay landing troops and stores. Shift billet tonight to patrol in vicinity of position 35 50’ N, 24 10’ E.
Bennett and Teasdale had deciphered it. Mitcheson took it to the chart, put the new patrol position on and checked the course and distance. The course would be 080, he saw if one accepted passing only five or six miles north of Cape Spahi. Well – why not, in darkness. This area was getting a trifle warm in any case. The distance was fifty-five miles. Seven hours, say, from now to first light – if one dived at 0500 – so you’d need to make a good eight knots. Running charge, therefore: and say 320 revs – eight and a half knots, to allow for interruptions. He went on into the Control Room, to the voicepipe. ‘Bridge!’
‘Bridge.’
‘Captain here, Sub. Come round to 080. Belay the constant-helm order, straight course 080.’
‘Aye aye, sir. Helmsman—’
‘Wait. I’m breaking the standing charge, increasing to 320 revs, running charge both sides.’
‘Aye aye, sir. Helmsman port fifteen.’
The watch would shortly be changing, and Teasdale would be taking over from McKendrick. He was at the chart table, bringing his notebook up to date, Chief and Forbes on their way aft to see to the breaking of the charge. Mitcheson warned Teasdale – lighting another cigarette, with a shoulder against the bulkhead for support, Spartan rolling with the sea on her beam again as McKendrick brought her round – ‘Might be a tricky watch ahead of you, Pilot, if the flare-droppers keep at it.’.
Teasdale shut his notebook and returned the pencil to its rack. ‘Yes. I suppose…’
The main problem was the battery charge, if they forced one to keep ducking up and down. You needed continuous charging, not constant stop-and-start. Mitcheson drew deeply on his cigarette: thinking that as well as aircraft, it was a fair bet there’d be MAS-boats in the strait or its approaches. If there weren’t, what was the point of dropping flares?
9
Lucia muttered something in her sleep. He was about to ask her what she’d said before he realized she was still asleep – and that whatever she’d said had sounded like Italian. But he’d been dozing too, woken with an echo in his mind of her sharpish reaction to his question about Ettore Angelucci; had he been around, or in touch with her: she’d looked as if she’d thought she was being accused of something, had snapped: ‘No, of course not: forget Ettore! You did what you had to, Ned, let’s forget it!’ So the Italian sleep
-talk he’d thought he heard could have been part of a confusion of dream and half-sleeping memory. But she was half Italian: it only mattered to him, he reminded himself, because he wanted her to be French, not Italian – which happened to be her own inclination too. So what the hell…
Fully awake now, knowing that in fact he wanted her exactly as she was. Exactly, incredibly… Recalling the pinnacles of very recent pleasure, luxuriating in their aftermath, this depth of relaxation, satisfaction but already – again – anticipation… In the white, shadowed room, evening drawing in, her body sprawled darkly across his – limp as a cat’s, but with a young cat’s quick instinct to defend itself, claws sheathed but there, all right. One window was partly open, but the air was still heavy with scent he’d bought this afternoon, on his way here, from a very pretty Greek girl in the Rue Fouad. It was called Je Reviens. Lucia had told him with her arms locked round his neck and her mouth against his: ‘You’d better, you. Damn well better – hear? Always…’ Better come back to her, she’d meant: je reviens… She’d known this scent, worn it before, had deftly unstoppered the bottle and was about to dab some behind her ears then thought better of it – waited until she was naked, then allowed him to scent her – all over, everywhere except behind her ears.
Her breath fanned his chest. He knew that however things turned out he’d never smell this scent without thinking of her. The evening air was turning cool, with the window open, but he didn’t want to wake her. Watching the light fade and imagining some time in the remote future when he’d be – perhaps – Admiral Sir Ned Mitcheson, and Elizabeth – Lady Mitcheson – might elect to wear Je Reviens: her grey-headed husband smelling it and muttering something like: ‘Very nice, dear’, but in his memory seeing this dark, sprawled body, or the wide, gold-brown eyes as they’d been a short while ago when she’d murmured – an hour ago, after they’d made love the second time, but by then in this imagined future it would be twenty or thirty years ago – ‘It was a long, long absence, this one, Ned.’
Love For An Enemy Page 21
