Submariner (2008)

by Fullerton, Alexander

  This was a wake, though. Expressions mostly sombre, tones subdued. As it tended to be, until the worst of it wore off.

  ‘Evening, sir.’

  Jamie McLeod – and Jarvis with him. Mike asked them whether they’d had mail, and the answer was yes, they had, Danvers had cleared the box as usual, soon after Ursa had secured. McLeod added, ‘Pretty miserable, sir. I mean Ultra.’

  ‘More than that.’ He noticed their near-empty glasses. ‘Ready for another?’

  ‘Well, thank you, sir –’

  ‘Steward!’

  ‘I was just saying, sir – lucky old Paul Everard, getting promoted out of her just before this patrol.’ Jarvis, offering cigarettes. ‘There but for the grace of – well, of Ruck, recommending him for that Number One’s job –’

  Mike was telling the Maltese steward, ‘Three, please.’Then happening to see Danvers on his way to join them, called ‘No – make that four.’ If you didn’t specify an alternative, that meant four gins. Back to Jarvis. ‘Everard – yes. Went to be Number One of Tomahawk, right?’

  Paul Everard had been Ruck’s third hand, torpedo officer; RNVR sub-lieutenant when he’d joined him, then lieutenant, and very recently transferred to the 1st Flotilla formerly based in Alexandria but now Beirut, replacing that boat’s first lieutenant who was being sent home for his Perisher, the command course. Jarvis adding, ‘Paul always thought Ruck was tops. As of course he was.’

  ‘Must be weird.’ Danvers. ‘All your mates gone, and you – you know, still around. Must wonder Christ, why me …’ Looking at their glasses and Mike’s lack of one: ‘This supposed to be my round, or –’

  ‘It’s on order.’ Jarvis added reprovingly, ‘Generosity of your Commanding Officer.’ Adding, ‘The next round’s yours.’

  Mike left them before that time came, to join the group now comprising only Mottram, Jack Brodie and Dan Gerahty of Swordsman. Brodie, tallish, angular and balding, greeted him with ‘Mowing ’em down in droves, we hear.’

  ‘Oh, by the dozen, Jack …’

  ‘Seriously, though – a couple of whoppers?’

  He shrugged – tired of questions to which the questioners already knew the answers, word having gone round as it always did within minutes of one’s return. But he noticed that Brodie was leaning on a stick, and stared at it: ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Got stung on the knee – some awful bug. Clearing up now, but crikey –’

  ‘So – Unslaked –’

  ‘Hugo Short has the loan of her. Benghazi, or thereabouts. He’d better bring her back intact, that’s all.’A hand on Mike’s arm: ‘Appalling loss, poor old Ultra.’

  ‘Yes. Here’s to them.’

  ‘Been a lot of that going on. Oh, here’s the boss …’

  Shrimp grey-faced, joining Hutch and a lieutenant-commander by name of – oh, lost it – who was taking over as Staff Officer Operations. Gerahty and Guy Mottram were there too. Mike meanwhile accepting Brodie’s offer of a refill, Giddings rambling on about two litters of piglets having been born in the course of this last weekend, and the SOO switching to subjects of wider interest such as Generals Alexander and Montgomery having assumed command in the desert, where Rommel was still being held on the Alamein line; Brodie agreeing with Mike’s ‘Holding the bugger’s not much use’, although Mike had immediately wished he hadn’t said it – good men were being killed and maimed, just holding him – but before he could take it back Shrimp intervened with ‘Give me a minute, Michael?’

  ‘Sir.’

  Out past the scoreboard, into the gallery: no boats along-side now, five including Ursa out at buoys – which meant about another half-dozen currently on patrol. Strains of Forces’ Favourites from open fore-hatches out there in the creek. Shrimp said quietly, ‘I mentioned that we had more than one thing to discuss. One being this projected Special Op – and I’ll tell you about that in the morning – Lascaris at 1100 – right?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘It’s not exactly imminent, I’d guess we may have a couple of weeks. On the other hand it could come at short notice, we need to be on the top line for it and I want you in on the planning right from the start. The other thing, Michael –’ a glance around – ‘is that you are now a lieutenant-commander.’

  ‘But – no, I –’ beginning to laugh, but seriously baffled – ‘can’t be, I’ve –’

  ‘You’ve five months to go, I know that. But you’ll have heard of accelerated promotion? They’re giving you six months – in lieu of another gong. Great deal more use, as I’m sure you’ll agree. But this is hardly an evening for celebrating, is it.’

  ‘Certainly is not.’

  ‘Why I kept quiet about it earlier, you see. And for the moment let’s do that. Give Ultra forty-eight hours. Wednesday evening we’ll wet the half-stripe. Meanwhile, Michael – warmest congratulations.’

  He had supper early, to leave time for writing to the Old Man – who’d be tickled pink. And to Ann? Maybe not: think about it. It was worth a bit though – in the long run would be. The system being that you acquired a certain degree of seniority from the results of your sub-lieutenant’s courses, and this set the date of your promotion to lieutenant roughly two years later; normally you did eight years as a lieutenant (two stripes, and equivalent to an army captain) before becoming a lieutenant-commander (two and a half, matching the rank of major), after which there was a further set period before you became eligible – subject to performance, nothing automatic about it – for a brass hat, commander’s rank, three stripes on your sleeves and/or epaulettes, oak-leaves on the peak of your cap. With the award he was getting now he could aspire to that eminence six months sooner than he would have otherwise.

  If one (a) stayed alive, and (b) kept one’s nose clean. The first being in the lap of the gods and the second depending on how one handled things from now on.

  He decided on the way up to his cabin that he would not send Ann this news. If he did, she might well comment on it to Charles, and there was only one way she could have got to know about it. Better to let Charles tell her – as he would, having no reason not to. Write just to the Old Man: Something jokey like Please note when replying to this that the correct form of address is now Lieutenant-Commander M. J. Nicholson R. N. No idea why – wasn’t due until some time next year. Probably just a cock-up – but there it is, there’s no arguing with their Lordships. Actually I’m having an early night, as I’ve been away a while …

  After a bath and leisurely breakfast, then a visit to Ursa, half of whose crew had already been bussed to the rest-camp at Mellieha – where in the blitz period sailors bathing in St Paul’s Bay had often enough been individually targeted by Me 109s’ cannon and machine-guns. The Messerschmitts had patrolled Marsamxett as well as Grand Harbour and Sliema Creek at two hundred feet or less in perfect safety because the shortage of ammunition had led to our gunners being barred from shooting at anything but bombers. Those men had had to grin and bear it, all right. Recalling those times and – admit it, privately – that degree of taken-for-granted courage – he crossed to the Valetta side by dghaisa and climbed Ferry Steps into the old town’s narrow stone streets and alleys. Eventually – strolling, killing time, through to Palace Square – the Palace, governor’s residence, Governor being Field Marshal Lord Gort VC now in place of the long-serving and generally revered Sir William Dobbie. It was all a lot tidier than it had been a couple of months ago.

  He’d been nosing around, taking his time and enjoying it, but still had the best part of half an hour before his assignation with Shrimp; found himself eventually on the Upper Barracca with its superb views over Grand Harbour and Valetta’s ancient fortifications. Directly across the water for instance to the Three Cities – Vittoriosa, Conspicua, Senglea, Fort St Angelo a massive foreground centrepiece;and, training right, Dockyard and French creeks with Senglea’s docks and the suburb behind them all bombed flat, no more than stone ruins separating the two waterways. A minesweeper at anchor in the approaches
to French Creek, sailors moving like white ants on her decks; dghaisas like black beetles clawing across blue water, a tug with a string of lighters, and in mid-harbour, off Floriana, the bottomed remains of a burnt-out steamer. That was to his right from here: back this way and right across from him the sun was already high and blinding over St Angelo and more distantly San Rocco and the group of W/T masts at – Rinella, was it? Fort Ricasoli just in one’s arc of sight – harbour entrance, eastern side – although the other headland, Fort Elmo, was hidden by the bulge of Valetta’s massively-bastioned coastline. Inside the Ricasoli promontory though – seaward side of St Angelo – what he guessed might be the largely submerged wreck of the Ohio lay alongside that stretch of breakwater. Something to have seen, he thought – when the tales come to be told. But then before St Angelo, Bighi, the RN hospital, which in the months of round-the-clock blitzkrieg had suffered badly from the Luftwaffe’s attentions. They’d gone for all the hospitals – Bighi, St Andrew’s, St George’s at Floriana – all marked with huge red crosses which had served to make them natural targets for those bastards. Would be like that again too, all of it – if it started again, which in the mess last evening some had guessed it might, others preferring not to take the question seriously.

  The minesweeper was getting under way, he noticed. And a Sliema ferry – motor-launch with a tall, pipe-like funnel and canvas awning along her sides and afterdeck – was turning in towards the Customs House at the foot of this great stone barricade. Meaning of the word ‘Barracca’ perhaps? Hadn’t occurred to him, until now. There was a landing-place down there and near-vertical flights of steps; had been a passenger lift that brought one to the top here but hadn’t been working for a year or two. The ferry had passed out of sight, directly below him. These Barraccas, upper and lower, provided the vantage-points from which Maltese by the hundreds, even a thousand or more on occasion, had throughout the siege gathered to cheer the surviving ships of convoys into harbour. Convoy arrivals under attack even, cheers almost wild enough to rival the screams of diving Stukas.

  Lieutenant-Commander, for God’s sake … Come to think of it, would have to scrounge some gold lace from somewhere or other. Had thought of it last night but not since. Get epaulettes complete, ready-made – and preferably scrounge, not buy; but gold lace, half stripes to be sewn-on between the two thick ones on each sleeve of one’s two reefer jackets, in readiness for the Fleet’s autumnal change from whites to blues – that was something else. But – memory stirring again – there was a shop in Strada Reale – a lace shop that was run by a very smart grey-haired woman named –

  No. Lost it. If one had ever had it. Well, one had. Abigail French had introduced him to her: which in itself provoked another line of thought – drop in on Abigail, if Shrimp left one with time enough? Anyway, that woman might have gold lace in stock, in which case she might do the tailoring as well. Or know of someone who would. Strada Reale anyway – little shop on the right, going back down that way. In fact must have passed it earlier – if it was still standing, of course …

  Crikey – eight minutes to eleven. Go see Shrimp.

  Shrimp told him, ‘There’s nowhere else, if she can’t help you. I think she has nuns who do sewing for her. Carmella Cassar. She certainly does sell the lace they make. Pushing it a bit by this time, but she’s still a fine-looking woman. Head on her shoulders too.’

  ‘I’ll mention your name, if I may.’

  ‘Mention anything you like. But grab that chart, bring it over?’

  In this underground chamber – the Submarine Office, in the labyrinths of Combined Services HQ – there was a hum of some kind of ventilation machinery and when the door was open a rattle of distant typewriters. Mike had been checked in to the old building by a Royal Marine sergeant who’d passed him on to a paymaster midshipman whom Shrimp had recently taken on as his private secretary, and who’d brought him through an outer office to this larger one, announcing him as Lieutenant Nicholson, Shrimp correcting this with ‘Actually, Lieutenant-Commander Nicholson, lad.’ Adding, ‘You weren’t to know. One reason and another we’re keeping it quiet for a couple of days. But you’d also know of him as CO of Ursa.’

  ‘Of course, sir. Er – congratulations – I mean on your last patrol, sir –’

  ‘Thank you, Mid.’ They’d shaken hands; Shrimp telling Mike, ‘George was sunk in Medway and before that in Naiad. Michael, you’ll need to find yourself some half-stripes, won’t you?’Which was how the subject of the lace shop had come up;Carmella Cassar being one of Shrimp’s many local friends, apparently. Mike brought him the chart. Familiar enough: central Med, with Sicily and the toe of Italy in its eastern half – Malta about the size of a pea – or the Isle of Wight, say – and the QBB minefield outlined and shaded-in in Indian ink. Shrimp was lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Sit down, Michael. Smoke if you want to.’ Touching the chart. ‘Won’t bother with this for the moment, we’ll go over the strategic background, first. Starting with the imperative of feeding and maintaining this island and ourselves. “Pedestal” improved the situation by a total of 32,000 tons – saving our bacon but only for about a month, at most. Magic Carpet submarines from Gib and Alex are continuing to do their bit, of course, and Welshman and Manxman are hard at it, bless them.’ Welshman and Manxman being 40-knot minelayers who’d been making frequent solo runs from either end. Shrimp wobbled one hand: a gesture of uncertainty. ‘Invaluable, but as far as we’re concerned very much hand-to-mouth stuff – can’t realistically count on it for ever, and we need to be able to look a long way ahead – especially as our role here is pretty well bound to become more and more important. That’s primarily because Eighth Army under this man Montgomery mean business – you can count on it, won’t be long before we see things moving in the desert, and then the picture really changes – Libyan airfields in our hands, convoys with air-cover and a decent chance of getting through, so then – well, Sicily, perhaps. Why not? It’s the obvious way into Italy. Or – maybe slightly less obvious, Sardinia, Corsica, Gulf of Genoa – Spetsia or even Nice – huh?’

  Mike had lit a cigarette. ‘Wow.’ Eyes on Shrimp’s. ‘Dependent on an absolutely sweeping success by the Eighth Army – you say count on it, sir –’

  ‘Tell you this in strict confidence, Michael. The Canal’s being closed to shipping off and on for periods of half a day or more while mountains of stuff are lifted over to be deployed south of Alexandria and El Alamein. Guns, tanks, troops, everything. And when he’s ready –’

  ‘Montgomery?’

  A nod. ‘With Alexander behind him commanding the whole theatre. I’m told he has a reputation amongst fellow-pongos for not moving until he is good and ready, won’t be pushed into going off at half-cock – under pressure from Winston, for instance. But in regard to all that speculation – Sicily, Sardinia, whatever – prior to any of that, Pantellaria, perhaps. Or North Africa somewhere. And all or any of this depending on us staying put here – and of course continuing to make Rommel’s life difficult or better still impossible for him. Which in turn depends, returning to my starting-point –’

  ‘Convoys.’

  ‘And the job being thrust upon us now is aimed at getting one through very soon and if possible intact. Well, anything that could contribute to that has to be worth trying. My own first reaction was less than enthusiastic. We’ve tried some, haven’t we. But if these chaps could pull it off, you see –’

  ‘Not another airfield?’

  ‘Three fields simultaneously. Fields selected incidentally by Air Intelligence. Basic idea being to incapacitate all three in the convoy’s final stages – small, fast convoy – from the east, this time –’

  ‘Three boats?’

  ‘Yes. Ursa as one of them because you’re here, due for a week’s rest at least and a second one wouldn’t hurt you – or a third, for that matter. And of course you’ve experience of such operations.’

  ‘Not all brilliantly successful, sir.’

  ‘That last
one wasn’t, but not through any fault of yours. No more than the failure of Una’s the other day was any fault of Pat Norman’s. If a landing party fails to make the rendezvous – well, rotten luck, but as long as you’re in the right place at the right time you’ve done your job. Anyway – airfields to be targeted are Gela, Comiso and Catania. Yes, Catania again. Still home to three Mas-boats, as far as is known – also German E-boats at Augusta. Gela’s an open-beach landing with no patrols we know of, although Mas-boats do frequent Licata – what, a dozen miles away?’

  ‘But – in any of those places, sir, what makes them think they can do better than they did at Catania?’

  ‘The commandos are sure they have the answer or answers, and the Staff – well, as I said, anything that’ll do the trick, or help to … Another thing is that so soon after Una’s effort it’s the last thing they’ll be expecting.’

  ‘Well, there’s that.’Mike looked up from the chart. ‘Comiso, I must say, I don’t know at all.’

  ‘Here.’ Stab of a blunt forefinger. ‘Not marked, but close to Ragusa, which is. Bit of a hike for our pongos – landing here, say – open-beach – then all of ten miles inland.’

  ‘Pongos’ being a friendly but slightly derogatory naval term for soldiers.

  ‘So that team will need to be landed several hours earlier than the other two – if the assaults are to be simultaneous.’

  Yes, simultaneous attacks. Assaults to go in when the convoy’s about thirty, thirty-six hours short of Grand Harbour. The commandos’ll have their own schemes of course, but as far as landing or launching and pick-up points are concerned we obviously have the final say, nothing’s finalised until we’ve agreed it with them.’