Submariner (2008)

by Fullerton, Alexander

They had it – Danvers on his plotting diagram and Jarvis on the Fruit Machine – over and above which, Mike realised in a sudden clearing of memory, he knew this bugger! German tank-transporter Sassnitz, sister-ship to the once much-targeted Ankara – which Ursa as well as several other 10th Flotilla boats had in their time gone after and failed to get. She’d become known as ‘the unsinkable’ Ankara, until eventually sunk by mines laid from Rorqual – then under the command of – oh, old Lennox Napier. While this one, Sassnitz –

  It was going to be a ninety-degree shot at a range of about 1,100 yards. Blocky, square-built and obviously in ballast, that high in the water. One of the T-class from the 8th Flotilla had claimed her, seven or eight months ago, but she’d then been spotted in Castellammare docks by a Maryland recce flight from Malta and reportedly destroyed next day in a raid by Blenheims. After the sinking of the Ankara she’d been the only Tiger tank transporter the Germans had had, so her alleged removal from the scene had been something to celebrate.

  Repaired now, after all that, en route maybe to Naples for a load of Tigers – which please God Rommel wasn’t going to get?

  ‘Stand by one, two and three tubes.’ By the telephone to Coltart in his tube space. McIver here doing his stuff, holding one on the DA – periscope angled out to port by that number of degrees providing aim-off. Heavyweight thrusting forepart of the Sassnitz steadily approaching the vertical hairline. Close shot on a ninety track, almost unpremeditated and mostly those stupid bloody escorts’ own damn fault.

  So don’t waste it. Chance in a bleeding million – coming up now …

  ‘Fire One!’

  McIver must have been sucking Fisherman’s Friends – or something worse. Target’s stem-post passing the crosswire, Ursa reacting to the thump of discharge, jump of pressure in one’s ears, and from Fraser, ‘Torpedo running, sir!’ Crosswire by this time on the target’s midships section: ‘Fire Two!’

  ‘Both running, sir.’

  And not far to run. Hence the short intervals between shots. Stay up, in the Navigatores’ continuing absence, see this before going deep. Hairline passing over the ship’s raised after-part, and ‘Fire Three!’ Third jolt and pressure-rise, Fraser confirming, ‘Three running, sir.’

  Gift from the gods, it felt like. Twelve-twenty: less than an hour since McLeod had told him, ‘Some kind of activity ashore, sir’ and he’d responded with a laconic ‘Well, best have a dekko …’

  Hit. The hard-knocking thud, metallic clang in it, and a second later the eruption in her forepart, fountain of debris and smoke, gush of flame. That one hit would probably have been enough, with the sea rushing to fill those empty tank-decks. He stepped aside, told McIver, ‘Quick shufti, Chief’ – Ellery considerately lowering the ’scope by about a foot for him – and a second hit – amidships. Cheers, or the start of a few, here and there, Mike displacing the engineer in order to check on the Navigatores’ reactions – the nearer under full helm, by the look of it reversing course, practically submerged in doing so, the other one much the same but beam-on to it, steering to cross the stricken Sassnitz’s bows – the Sassnitz stopped, shattered, unquestionably on her way down. McIver staggering clear had gasped, ‘Fuckin’ gonner,she is!’but with Fraser’s howl of ‘Fast HE port quarter!’ mostly drowning that. You heard it too – heard them, Mas-boats, E-boats – close and closing, crescendo of racing screws over Mike’s shout of ‘Flood “Q” full ahead, sixty feet!’ Periscope rushing down too – those things at forty or fifty knots being perfectly capable of wiping it off, if not smashing into the standards or the tower itself – whether or not the bastards had known they’d been right on top of you, they bloody had been. And might have been charges coming. Weren’t – if there had been they’d have been set shallow and you’d have known it by now. Ursa in her plunge passing fifty feet but with the ’planes now hard a-rise to check it, Mike telling McLeod, ‘Blow “Q” – group down – slow both when you can’ and Smithers, ‘Hard a-starboard, steer oh-four-oh.’Then into the Tannoy, ‘Shut off for depth-charging. Silent running …’

  9

  ‘Other’s in contact, sir.’

  Thanks to the first, whose transmissions had found her ten minutes ago and hadn’t been thrown off by a simultaneous ninety-degree alteration of course, change of depth from sixty to a hundred-and-fifty feet and reduction to slow on one grouped-down motor. Before that, for thirty or forty minutes the search had been random, the Navigatores apparently failing to grasp the obvious, that one’s natural escape route would be northward into more open water; and the Mas-boats one might guess busy looking for and picking up survivors. That was how it had sounded. But now – both destroyers in contact, one maintaining its range and bearing on Ursa’s quarter and the other closing on her beam. Not so good.

  If there’d been a third, as there had been yesterday, would have been slightly less good; and yesterday one had shaken them off all right. These might be better at their job than yesterday’s had been, of course. Anyway – sit tight for a while, let them think they had it made while you weren’t quite on the ball, pick the right moment to make a break for it and this time do it better.

  On the deck meanwhile, a position he quite frequently adopted, had yesterday for instance – knees up, arms around them, thinking about how he’d do it and the timing of it, which would have to match their moves. Familiar scene meanwhile as the background to such thought – McLeod for instance with his back against the ladder’s slope, watching depth and trim, Danvers with his back to the chart table, elbows on its edge, eyes somewhat dreamily on the pipe-lined curve of deckhead. Visualising the Italian hulls up there, or at home in Bristol telling his nearest and dearest not to worry, soon be out of this? Jarvis of course was up for’ard with Coltart and company – had taken with him Mike’s observations on the Sassnitz’s history and the benefits to the Eighth Army of her demise; same with McIver who’d gone aft to preside over the engine-room, motor room and after ends. All hands therefore cognisant of what they’d achieved and might be paying for in the next hour or hours.

  Meanwhile, the depth-gauges in front of Swathely and Tubby Hart had been shut off. They were more vulnerable to pressure-damage from exploding charges than was the smaller, ‘deep’ gauge set midway between them – eighteen-inch diameter instead of about twice that, and less sensitive to small variations in depth. Needle currently static on 150 feet, in that small one. Swathely as always bolt-upright on his stool – muscular, square-jawed – Hart’s greater bulk typically relaxed; and behind them and McLeod, ERA Ellery drooping slightly at his panel of vents and blows. All of them damp-shirted, faces sweat-sheened in the warmth and airlessness – as well as in some cases perhaps psychological reaction to this kind of situation.

  Which they’d been in often enough before, of course. Been in and got out of, had no reason to doubt they’d get out of this time too. Knowing there might be some periods of discomfort and/or anxiety before they were out of it, but – hell, that this was simply what you were, what you did.

  Mike on the move finally, getting to his feet: less by the look of it purposefully than as if deciding he’d rested long enough. Asking Fraser, ‘Bearings now?’

  A nod, as if glad to be asked. ‘Red one-seven-oh, sir, and – green seven-five.’

  Thin-voiced, and a pinched look around the eyes. Anxiety probably not unconnected to recent memory of Mas-boats having come blasting out of nowhere as they had – with no warning from him, who was supposed to be this boat’s ears. Sheer luck it hadn’t turned out a lot worse than it had – and maybe worse for Mike not having said a word about it – yet. All his concern in fact being concentrated on the present and immediate future: assuming here and now for instance that it would be the Italian astern who’d run over and drop the first pattern of charges on them, his colleague on the beam who’d hold the contact while that was happening. Or try to hold it, be responsible for holding it. Exploding depth-charges drowned-out asdic contact – as did fast-churning screws. Either, if used to best
advantage, could provide the cover under which to make one’s move.

  He told Fraser, ‘I want to know when the one astern cracks on revs. Or for that matter –’

  ‘Now, sir – now he’s –’

  ‘Jamie, be ready for full ahead grouped up.’

  ‘Aye, sir …’

  Tones of voice flat: both conscious of the last attempt having failed but the previous one paying off very well – his manoeuvre after the sinking of the Alessandria – and that whatever he tried now could only be a variation of some such tactic – might work, might not, in which case you’d try again – and if necessary again – until eventually –

  Lap of the gods: and faith in oneself, even when privately sweating blood. Supported meanwhile by the satisfaction of having put that tank-transport on the seabed under about two thousand feet of water.

  McLeod quietly to Newcomb – who’d taken over as communications number, Cottenham having been allowed through to the galley where he was quietly making corned-beef sandwiches – ‘Warn the motor room, stand by for full ahead grouped up.’

  A nod and a grunt from weasel-face. And Fraser’s head up quickly, his rather small mouth opening, a hand to his headset to remove it before depth-charges might burst his eardrums, Mike silencing him with ‘Bearing of the one to starboard?’

  ‘Green 78, sir, but –’

  ‘All right.’ Because that was all he needed. It was coming now, fast-rising Doppler of the Navigatore’s screws accelerating to overtake from astern, volume building and note rising, men’s eyes tending to drift up as if to see the menace coming. Reflecting – some, at least – that although the bastards could aim themselves right over the top of you and might get lucky, they also (a) lost you at a certain point, the A/S beam not functioning all that steeply downward, so they couldn’t know when they were anything like exactly over you, in fact might not be anywhere near it if you’d sidestepped, and (b) didn’t know, had no way of ascertaining, what depth you were keeping. Charges did have to be set for depth – to explode at 50 feet – or 100, 150, 200, 250, whatever – the adjustment being to the size of the flood-holes in their pistols – firing mechanisms – which were set off by internal pressure when the sea had filled them.

  Five barrel-sized depth-charges in each pattern was the norm. One that rolled from a rack on the ship’s stern, one from each ‘thrower’ lobbing them out port and starboard about the length of a cricket-pitch and carried forward by the ship’s momentum – then two more singles from the stern rack, one marking the diamond’s centre and the fifth its furthest point. Highly lethal diamond if you happened to be right in it, but odds significantly against that. The accepted theory was that a charge had to explode within ten feet of the pressure-hull actually to hole or crack it. On one or two occasions when a charge had been very close but just not quite that close, one had been privileged to hear the click of the flooded pistol setting itself to fire about a second before it went off. Tended to be a hell of a long second.

  Coming over now. Volume and note rising to a peak. Actually very much like a train passing close, which was how people tended to describe the sound of it. Mike telling Smithers, ‘Starboard twenty.’

  ‘Starboard twenty, sir!’ Flipping the wheel around.

  ‘Steer oh-eight-eight.’

  ‘– oh-eight-eight, sir …’

  Had been on course 010, would now be steering straight at the Italian on this starboard side although neither he nor his chum should know it, all hydrophone effect being eliminated for the moment. And of course worse to come – worse from their point of view, better from Ursa’s. Like the first charge exploding now –

  ‘Group up, full ahead both!’

  In the motor room they’d been waiting for it. Ursa ringing as from a clap of thunder – which still took you by surprise – then the second and third charges, overlapping blasts felt as well as heard, her steel ringing, quivering from them although it was all above and slightly on her quarter – port quarter and well above, set for nearer fifty feet than a hundred even, Mike guessed, no catastrophe therefore, not this time. Ursa meanwhile flat-out – nine knots, roughly – shaking slightly from that too – and three more explosions over her and to port, smothering however much racket she was making in this fast turn to starboard, eastward, to pass under the other Wop, get out the other side of him while still in his audially non-receptive area as the droning echoes faded.

  Please God. Otherwise they’d soon find you again.

  ‘Group down, slow both.’

  McLeod’s acknowledgement, and Smithers’ murmur of ‘Course oh-eight-eight, sir.’

  ‘Make that oh-nine-oh.’

  Due east. Still quiet up there. Here, even quieter. Nothing proved yet, nothing certain, hoping fit to bust but still ready for the worst. Which could occur – had, to others. You knew it – simply didn’t have to think about it. Motors back to their regular hum, echoes of explosions fading into background memory, no trace of any of it in any face. Mike said easily, ‘Stop starboard, Jamie.’ Had an urge to add, ‘Well done, all of you’ – out of the pride he felt in them, and had no need to explain – anyway knowing better than to speak too soon.

  She’d been well worth sinking, that Sassnitz. Better if she’d had a load of tanks in her and been going the other way, but even as it was –

  ‘Sir –’

  Fraser. Headset in place again. Mike raised an eyebrow – actually, but not letting this show, steeling himself for – well, disappointment, call it …

  ‘HE and transmissions astern and on the quarter – red one-six-oh and – both’s transmitting –’

  ‘Closing?’

  ‘No, sir –’

  ‘No problem, then. Next hour or so, Fraser, only give me bad news – right?’

  It brought chuckles. Swathely raising a hand with fingers crossed, Ellery going so far as to lower himself to sit with his back against the panel – long legs extended, slightly self-conscious look on his bony face. Mike deciding, Hear them coming up astern, port wheel and steer north again, try to work my way back westward. Allowing his thoughts to drift then: recalling Ann having asked him in their room in the Railway Hotel in Falkirk very shortly before he’d been due to sail from Holy Loch, ‘What’s it like being depth-charged, Mike?’

  He’d told her, ‘Nothing like as nice as this.’

  Smiling. Moving. Then still moving but not smiling. ‘Must be frightful. Isn’t it?’

  This when he’d been on a final ten-day leave at home in Buckinghamshire, brother Alan and sister Chloe having both wangled short leaves of their own. Mike to his shame had told his father he had only seven days; he’d felt bad about that, all the more so as the week had been a very good one, all of them including the Old Man on top form – and Chloe prettier than ever. While Ann had been visiting her parents in Edinburgh – a week or thereabouts, with some lie to them to justify a break in it of two nights and a day – duty visit to some boring relative elsewhere …

  He’d admitted, about the depth-charging, ‘Can be. Sometimes it’s just noisy.’

  ‘Charles says it’s not as bad as one imagines. In his experience, he says. D’you think he might have been just lucky?’

  ‘That could be it.’

  Never having been really put through it, and preferring not to admit that? Sooner allow it to be assumed that he’d known the worst of it, and – well, so what, a few bangs is all …

  Charles should have a CO’s view of it now, in any case. As a skipper, it was the boat and her crew you were primarily concerned for. OK, let them down, you went with them – maybe deserved to. Any case that was the way to think about it. Or better still – as before, the golden rule – not think about it. Change the subject, therefore: ‘You’re stupendous, Ann. Actually, astonishing. You’re –’

  ‘With you. If you find it so. But only you. Never like this with him. Not even at the start. Never dreamt it could be so – so – remember the first time – oh – you said blinding, and Mike that’s actually –’


  ‘Sir.’Fraser. In that split second, devastatingly. ‘Astern, closing on us, both’s transmitting –’

  ‘Not in contact?’

  ‘No, sir, not –’

  ‘Port ten, Smithers. Steer north.’

  ‘Port ten, steer north, sir.’

  Near enough bad news, he thought. A vision of Ursa’s painfully slow progress, under helm now to put her on a course more or less at right-angles to her enemies’ approach: with a chance of being far enough off their track before the range closed sufficiently for the sods to finger her. But if you pushed it along any faster – which was a temptation, all right – chances were they’d hear you. Smithers already easing rudder off her: otherwise, not a movement, barely a breath, facial expressions set in the strictly non-reactive mode.

  Five minutes past two. Thinking ahead to the maybe one-in-three chance of getting away with this, paddling away with a prayer in your mind while the sods probed on eastward. Alternatively if it went bad again, could only try another full-power, battery-weakening rush under them, followed by slow withdrawal westward. If the Wop calling the shots up there hadn’t by that time caught on to one’s thought-processes, instincts, tactics, so that he’d be anticipating exactly that.

  Might confuse him by starting the rush westward and going silent while turning south at the height of it?

  ‘Course north, sir.’

  Looking at Fraser though – Smithers’ report overlapping one from him about HE on the port quarter, movement right to left. Drawing a breath before putting the standard, vital question but saved the trouble of doing so by a shake of the HSD’s head: no, no contact. ‘Transmitting, but –’

  ‘All right.’ Eyes on the deckhead: focusing on sound, translating that into visual imagery – churn of screws still right to left, Wops intent on their asdic search, continuous probing when they’d have done better just to be listening, using their sets as hydrophones. Even at slow grouped down on one motor Ursa wasn’t entirely silent. Not silent enough by half: even with the sea-state more or less on her side. In the stillness and quiet down here one tended to overlook that factor.