by Edwyn Gray
Not that he blamed Mannon personally. Roger was keen enough. But it somehow seemed totally wrong to share the wardroom with a chartered accountant, who knew more about balance sheets and company law than buoyancy tanks and the King’s regulations. Admittedly he was learning. But that wasn’t enough when the life of every man in the boat depended on the skill and experience of his shipmates; and Hamilton felt himself duty bound to check and recheck everything Mannon did - an additional chore that became an onerous burden in the tropical heat.
He nodded his head towards the slumbering men sunbathing on the foredeck. ‘Get the sleeping beauties below, Cox’n. I want a tiddley ship when we enter harbor.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘And then muster the fo’c’sle party in number six rig. I’ll show the China Station that we haven’t forgotten how to do things Bristol fashion, even if we have been fighting their bloody war for them over the past two years.’
Blood leaned over the conning tower coaming and hurried the off-duty watch below, in a voice that reflected his years of service as a gunnery instructor at Whale Island. Then, having checked that the foredeck casing was clear and the gun hatch closed, he made his way back to the bowels of the submarine to gather up the fo’c’sle party. Hamilton moved to the voice pipe.
‘All hands to harbor stations!’ He glanced at Mannon as he closed the cover of the speaking tube. ‘Ever been through the peacetime drill for harbor stations before Number One?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, keep your eyes skinned and you’ll learn something. It’s a bit different from the sort of lash-up you’ve been used to with the Malta flotillas.’
‘But not so exciting, sir.’
‘It’s exciting enough if something goes wrong,’ Hamilton corrected him crisply. ‘You’ve obviously never served in a ship that’s been ordered back to sea and told to return and berth in a seamanlike manner. I once saw it happen to a Rear Admiral before the war. It took him a long time to live it down.’
Blood emerged from the conning tower hatch, his face gleaming with perspiration after a few brief minutes inside the steaming-hot submarine. ‘Fo’c’sle party fallen in, sir,’ he reported punctiliously.
‘Thank you, Cox’n. Take over the helm.’
Blood relieved Finnegan at the wheel. It was customary for the coxswain, the senior petty officer, to take the helm on entering or leaving the harbor, and Blood enjoyed the responsibility of conning Rapier to her berth. When the boat was closed up at diving stations, his place was at the controls of the aft hydroplanes, where he was responsible for maintaining the submarine’s depth - a critical duty during a torpedo attack. But although a dedicated submariner, Ernie Blood always preferred to be at the helm. It made him the most important man on the boat next to the skipper and he took a quiet pride in the fact.
‘Steering zero-two-zero, sir,’ he repeated as Finnegan passed over the course.
Hamilton glanced down at the chart. There were no landmarks in sight yet, but he felt confident of their position.
‘Ease her to zero-one-eight, Cox’n. Full ahead both.’ ‘Zero-one-eight, sir. Full ahead both.’
‘Aircraft approaching on port bow! Height 5000!’
Only a few weeks earlier, the look-out’s warning would have cleared the bridge in seconds and Rapier would have quickly thrust her bows beneath the surface, like a fox going to ground. However, Hamilton showed little concern, despite the instinctive tensions of the other men on the bridge. Walking casually to the port side, he raised his glasses and scanned the blue sky to the north-west.
Three small black dots flying in arrowhead formation were approaching from the direction of the Chinese mainland; but they were still too far away to identify with any degree of certainty. He lowered his glasses.
‘Probably our welcoming committee from Hong Kong. Maintain course and speed.’
Mannon continued studying the aircraft intently through his binoculars. The planes had appeared too far to the west to have come from the Colony, and there seemed something vaguely threatening in their purposeful approach.
‘Do we have any two-engine machines on the China Station, sir?’ he asked.
Hamilton shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea, Number One,’ he admitted. ‘I suppose we might have some Blenheims or a few Marylands serving with the RAF. Why?’
Mannon didn’t answer the question. ‘They’re changing course, sir. Heading towards us by the look of it.’
Hamilton raised his binoculars again. Mannon was too jumpy. And he didn’t want the rest of the crew to be affected. Nerves could be highly contagious in a submarine. That was the worst of the Wavy Navy - good chaps in their own way, but no experience. He located the formation and brought his lenses into critical focus.
Rapier’s skipper was the first to admit that he was no expert on aircraft recognition, but there was certainly something strangely familiar about these three. The silvered wings glinting in the sunlight seemed oddly unreal after the drab colors of European combat aircraft, and he wondered momentarily whether they were carrier planes from the US Pacific Fleet. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it entered his head. Despite the enormous size of their vessels, even the Yanks still had to find a way of operating twin-engined machines from carrier decks. He held the aircraft steadily in his binoculars and, as one suddenly peeled away from the formation, he saw the red blob of the Rising Sun on the underside of its starboard wing.
‘Japanese,’ he informed Mannon curtly. ‘Nothing to worry about. Probably having a quick look-see to check we’re not a Chinese boat.’
‘But the Chinese don’t have any submarines, sir,’ Mannon objected.
‘Perhaps they haven’t, Number One. But a submarine running at speed on the surface is difficult to identify from the air. When you’re looking down from five thousand feet it could be anything from a motor torpedo boat to a destroyer. Once they realize their mistake, they’ll leave us alone.’
Mannon did not share his skipper’s optimism. He had a strange feeling of foreboding about the approaching aircraft and raised his glasses to study them again. Selecting the leading plane, he examined it closely in search of evidence to substantiate his unease. What he saw was enough. ‘They’re opening the bomb doors, sir!’
‘Are they, by God?’ Hamilton did not seem over-concerned by the news. ‘Yeoman! break out the Union Jack and spread it over the after deck.’
He glanced up at the conning tower jack and felt vaguely reassured by the white ensign streaming in the breeze. ‘Coxswain! Stop engines.’
‘Stop engines, aye aye, sir.’
The acknowledging bell of the telegraph repeater tinkled faintly from deep inside the hull, and Rapier almost immediately started losing speed.
‘Is that wise, sir?’ Mannon asked.
‘In the circumstances and in my judgement - yes,’ Hamilton told him. He disliked having his orders called into question, but he had enough sense to realize that the first officer meant well in his inexperience. Nevertheless, he made a mental note to speak to him later in the privacy of the wardroom. He did not believe in admonishing junior officers in front of the men. ‘If this was a hostile boat, the last thing we’d do is to turn ourselves into a sitting target by stopping,’ he explained. ‘It’s the most effective method I know of making sure the enemy will investigate before he starts shooting. And it’ll give us time to rig up some sort of identification.’
The threatening roar of the aircraft engines was now clearly audible, but Hamilton remained outwardly unconcerned. Walking to the after end of the conning tower, he peered towards the stern. Drury and three hands were carefully spreading the flag across the deck and lashing the ends to the mooring cleats along the sides.
‘It doesn’t seem to be having much effect on the Japs,’ Mannon observed doubtfully, as the bombers formed up in line-ahead formation.
‘Perhaps they’re color blind,’ Hamilton grunted. He watched the three Mitsubishis carefully. ‘Hard a’starboard, Cox’n!’
‘Everyone down!’
The first Mitsubishi swept over the top of the conning tower with the shattering roar of an express train screaming through a wayside station. The shriek of the falling bombs passed directly overhead, and the ear-splitting explosion as they struck the sea well clear of the starboard bow threw a fine spray of water over the submarine.
‘Not even a near miss,’ Blood commented scornfully. ‘And on a sitting target at that. Bloody Japs must be cross-eyed.’
By the time Hamilton had scrambled to his feet, the three aircraft were already climbing for height and banking over for a second attack. He released a string of obscenities to relieve his feelings. Mistaken identity was an ever present hazard at sea. But not even a half-blind idiot could have missed the enormous Union Jack spread out across Rapier's stern. For reasons best known to themselves, the Japanese pilots were making a deliberate and cold-blooded attack on a neutral warship. Well, if that was the way they wanted to play it...
‘Gun crew close up to action stations! Full ahead both engines, Cox’n. Maintain course, but stand by to go a’port when I give the shout.’
‘Helm, aye aye, sir. Standing by.’
Mannon watched the three Mitsubishi Otori bombers level off at two thousand feet at the end of their steep climbing turn. It was his first taste of an air attack, and he felt his stomach churning as the aircraft angled down into a shallow dive for the next bombing run. Hamilton’s incisive command broke the spell.
‘Hold fire until you’re quite sure they intend attacking, Number One. I’ll leave you to give the order.’
The sudden responsibility chased the fear from Mannon’s blood. Hurrying to the for’ard section of the bridge, he checked the gun crew were at their battle stations, ordered the layer to follow the leading aircraft in his sights, and warned Morgan, Rapier’s gunner’s mate, to wait for the order. Then, seemingly unconscious of the fact that he was standing in the middle of the target area, he joined Hamilton and watched the formation coming in again, with the concentration of a spectator at a football match.
This time the bombers approached out of the sun directly over the submarine’s bows. Two were flying in line-ahead, while the third hung slightly astern of its companions on their starboard flank.
‘Watch the first two, Number One,’ Hamilton snapped. ‘And open fire as soon as they show themselves to be hostile. I’ll keep an eye on the other bastard. I don’t know what he’s doing, but he’s up to no good.’
Hamilton’s instinct, born from long combat experience against the German Luftwaffe proved uncannily accurate. The third aircraft suddenly swooped to wave top height and swung towards the submarine. Bright yellow flames flickered from the nose, followed moments later by the tak-tak- tak of machine gun fire.
‘Hard a’port, Cox’n! Stand by – fire’
The shrill whistle of the falling bombs merged with the staccato chatter of the machine gun and Rapier threw back a wall of spray as the bows slammed sideways. The sudden alteration in course caught the Japanese bomb aimers off balance and their bombs exploded harmlessly clear of the submarine, although the concussion kicked the boat sharply to starboard.
‘Keep after them, Number One!’ Hamilton shouted to Mannon.
Rapier's gunners needed no encouragement and blobs of black cordite smoke trailed across the sky in pursuit of the bombers as they veered back into the sun.
‘They don’t seem too keen now we’ve started hitting back, sir,’ Mannon grinned cheerfully.
‘Don’t get too bloody cocky, Number One,’ Hamilton told him discouragingly. He put his mouth to the voice pipe. ‘Control Room, send up the Lewis guns. Any internal damage?’
‘Control Room, sir. Lewis guns on their way. No reports of damage. Did we get any of the bastards?’
‘Not yet, Scotty - but we will.’
Taking advantage of the momentary lull, Hamilton carried out a rapid visual inspection of the hull for external damage. Several bullets had struck the side of the conning tower, but had done little more than chip the paintwork. Glancing up, however, he saw the white ensign had been ripped to ribbons by the Japanese machine guns.
‘They’re coming in again, sir,’ Mannon reported anxiously.
‘Stand by. Open fire as soon as they get within range, Number One.’ He looked across at Ernie Blood. ‘Everything under control Cox’n?’
‘Fair to middlin’, sir. It ain’t exactly the first time, you know.’ He stared up at the sky to check the position of the aircraft relative to the submarine, and then nodded his head to starboard. ‘I’ve been watchin’ that there boat, sir. Seems to be in a hell of a bloody hurry.’
Hamilton swung his glasses in the direction Blood had indicated, and saw a large launch some two miles away from the submarine’s starboard quarter. It was one of the big TSD Chris Craft designs- the sort of vessel millionaires use for shark fishing off Florida - and, judging by the glistening white wave curling from its bows, it was running at a good twenty knots. He shrugged. It posed no threat to Rapier. Probably an innocent fishing party getting the hell out of it when they saw the shooting start. And who could blame them? It wasn’t their war.
‘Nothing to worry about, Chief. Just a fishing boat making for Macao.’
The throaty roar of the Nakajima Kotobuki radial engines climbed to a high-pitched scream, as the bombers hurtled down to renew their attack. Rapier’s unexpected swing to starboard threw Hamilton off balance, and he clung to the rails as the deck tilted under his feet. A wall of water swept over the bows drenching the gun crew on the exposed foredeck with spray, but the sharp rhythmic bark of the quick-firer never wavered for a second. Often knee-deep in swirling foam, the gunners continued serving their weapon as if engaged on peaceful summer afternoon target practice in the Solent.
Rapier twisted like a demented eel, as Blood’s violent evasive action threw the submarine from starboard to port and back again in quick succession. The angry chatter of Burton’s Lewis gun compounded the noisy confusion of bellowing aero-engines and gunfire. It was almost impossible to think and Mannon could not help envying the cool detachment of the skipper and his coxswain, as they fought to keep the submarine out of danger. Now that the deck gun was in action there was nothing left for him to do, and to keep his brain busy, he concentrated on observing the movements of the attacking bombers.
Davidson, Rapier's gun layer and a veteran of the Norwegian campaign - where he had fought a squadron of Stukas almost singlehanded, until his armed trawler had been sunk under his feet - followed the Mitsubishi in his sights. A line of ragged smoke puffs punctured the sky - each closer to the target aircraft than the last.
The leading bomber wobbled unsteadily as shell splinters pumped into the fuselage and a thin wisp of glycol spumed from beneath the port engine.
‘They’re breaking off the attack, sir,’ Mannon yelled excitedly as the three aircraft sheared away, swooped to wave height, and roared astern of the submarine with their throttles wide open.
Hamilton said nothing. The action of the Japanese pilots had only served to prove his point. He was sorry that Admiral Herbert was not present to witness the flight of the bombers when faced by determined opposition.
‘Stop firing, Number One.’
‘Check, check, check! Cease fire, Chief!’ Mannon had a wide grin on his face as he turned away from the for’ard lip of the conning tower screen. ‘We certainly made the bastards run, sir!’
It was his first taste of surface action. Now that the nervous tension had gone, the acrid smell of burned cordite was like nectar and the excitement left a feeling of intoxication.
Hamil
ton grunted disinterestedly. Keeping the binoculars firmly pressed to his eyes, he watched the departing bombers clawing for height before turning and regaining formation. Mannon would soon learn to curb his enthusiasm. There was no place for emotion in battle. Killing had to be a question of reflex. With the senses stunned by the noise and paralyzed by the sights and sounds of death and destruction, the professional must continue to function like a finely balanced piece of machinery. Too much adrenalin upset a man’s judgement and led to mistakes. And even the smallest error could spell instant disaster to something as vulnerable as a submarine. Hamilton himself felt neither excitement nor elation at their apparent success. And his senses were still tautly alert, as he watched the aircraft fleeing towards the mainland lurking beneath the northwestern horizon.
‘Shall I tell the gun crew to stand down, sir?’ Mannon asked.
‘Negative, Number One.’ Hamilton lowered his glasses. ‘I want to make quite sure our friends have finished their fun and games first. Tell Morgan to bring up some more ready-use ammo.’
‘Aye aye sir.’
The sharp crackle of cannon fire echoed across the sea and Hamilton moved to the port side. The big Chris Craft launch was zig-zagging wildly as it came under attack, and he could see the Mitsubishis circling over the fishing boat like hornets gathering over their nest.
‘You murdering bloody swine,’ Hamilton swore angrily. He turned to Blood. ‘Bring her round to port, Chief. Steer for the launch. I’m going to sort these bastards out once and for all.’
Mannon hurried to join the skipper on the engaged side of the bridge. Now that the initial excitement of the bombing attack had subsided, the first lieutenant’s old caution reasserted itself. Rapier was making fifteen knots and the launch, swinging in a wide arc to escape the Japanese bombers, was speeding towards the submarine as if seeking the protection of its guns. Picking up his glasses, Mannon carefully examined the twin-screw diesel cruiser.
