Diving Stations

by Edwyn Gray

  Villiers, Rapier’s fourth hand, was waiting to make his report as the skipper entered the control room.

  ‘Asdic contact, sir.’

  ‘Why the hell haven’t we submerged?’ Hamilton demanded.

  ‘Not reported to the bridge yet, sir,’ Villiers explained. ‘I was waiting for further information from the Asdic operator. Contact not yet positive.’

  ‘Good God, man! Don’t you realize you’ve put the entire boat at risk?’ He almost pushed the young sub-lieutenant aside as he reached for the intercom.

  ‘Diving stations! All hands to diving stations! Stand by to dive.’ As he pulled the cover from the bridge voice pipe, the dimly lit control room was suddenly filled with silent men moving to their positions. ‘Clear the bridge, Number One. Emergency dive!’ Reaching down he pressed the klaxon button. He had given Mannon and the look-outs the routine warning. It was up to them to get below before Rapier vanished beneath the waves.

  AHOOA... AHOOA... AHOOA.

  O’Brien arrived in the engine room as the first squawk of the klaxon blasted through the hull. He had been peacefully dozing in the wardroom when the skipper was called to the control room, but he was wide awake and at his post before the third and last raucous squawk of the alarm had faded.

  ‘Shut off for diving! Out clutches - switches on. Group up. Full ahead both motors.’ The Irishman peered across the narrow compartment to check that Miller had closed down from the diesels. ‘Shut exhaust valve!’ He reached for the intercom. ‘Shut off for diving, sir. Motors grouped up. Standing by.’

  Hamilton acknowledged the report and made a mental note to commend O’Brien for the efficiency of his instantaneous reaction.

  ‘Take her down, Cox’n. Level at thirty feet.’

  ‘Open main vents. ’Planes hard a’dive!’

  ‘Stand by to close lower hatch.’

  Rapier was diving fast - faster than even her usual emergency routine. If Mannon and the look-outs did not move quickly enough, the conning tower would be under the surface before the upper hatch was secured. And that would mean closing the lower hatch and marooning them on deck.

  The first of the look-outs slid down the ladder and landed at the bottom with a thud. Mannon’s voice echoed hollowly from inside the empty cavern of the conning tower.

  ‘Upper hatch shut and clipped!’

  The second look-out came down the ladder followed, moments later, by Mannon himself. He had made it with only seconds to spare and his face bore an expression of faint surprise tinged with excitement as if, bearing in mind his civilian profession- he had just found a significant error in a company’s balance sheet.

  ‘What’s up, sir?’

  ‘Asdic contact,’ Hamilton told him briefly. In fact, at that precise moment, he knew no more himself. ‘Villiers didn’t pass on the message to the bridge. I’ll deal with him later.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on him, sir. He’s not in the Trade like the rest of us. Don’t forget, we only shipped him as a passenger.’

  Hamilton had difficulty in repressing a smile. Mannon seemed to have forgotten that less than eighteen months ago he was working as an accountant in a City office under the shadow of St Paul’s and had never seen the inside of a submarine, except on the cinema screen. And yet now he regarded himself as a fully-fledged professional.

  Like most regular officers, Hamilton took a conceited pride in his skill and knowledge. It needed years of training and dedication to produce a naval officer - and even more to produce a submariner. Yet in a few brief months, as Mannon had so correctly implied, the young lieutenant was already on equal terms with the regulars. Perhaps it was in the blood. Perhaps that’s what made the true submariner. Not years of training, although that was important, nor hours of dedicated study, although that, too, had its place, but the primitive instinct of the hunter - of a man who was prepared to gamble his personal survival against the overwhelming odds against him in the deadly arts of underwater warfare.

  ‘Positive contact, sir,’ Glover reported from the Asdic scanner. ‘Range three miles, bearing three-zero-zero, course south-west, speed 20 knots.’

  ‘Attack team stand by. See what you can make of the HE, Glover.’

  Although the Asdic echoes gave a more accurate range and bearing than the primitive mechanical ears of the hydro-phones, the electronic gadgetry could not analyze the nature of the contact it indicated. And Hamilton needed more than mere range and direction at this stage of the game. No point in hunting a freighter.

  Glover moved the sensitive microphone onto the bearing of the Asdic echoes and turned the amplification up to maximum power. Three miles was stretching his equipment to the limit of its range and he had to strain his ears to interpret the vague sounds in his headphones.

  ‘I’m getting turbines, sir. I’d say a cruiser and perhaps a couple of destroyers. That’s the best I can do until they get closer.’

  ‘Up periscope!’

  It was a routine Hamilton had carried out many times before and yet, despite his achievements on special missions, success had always eluded him when operating under ordinary patrol conditions. Perhaps this time his luck would turn.

  The periscope lens was already set to the Asdic bearing. As it emerged above the surface Hamilton’s trained eyes found the fleeting dark shadows of the ships almost immediately - three black masses moving at speed against the night horizon, with bow waves that glistened in the moonlight. By sheer chance Rapier was on the perfect interception course and the range was decreasing to his advantage with every passing minute.

  ‘Down periscope! Attack Team close up. Bow ends stand by!’ The men who made up the attack team moved obediently to their stations - Mannon to the diving panel where he could watch the trim and keep an eye on the two planes men, Alistair Scott at the torpedo director, and O’Brien, hurrying in from the engine room to the chart table to enter up the plot. It was a skilled and experienced team and Hamilton knew they would not let him down. If the attack failed, the only person to blame would be himself.

  ‘Up periscope.’

  He guided the lens a fraction to the left to allow for the movement of the target and brought the leading ship into sharp focus. ‘Start the attack! Range- that Bearing- that Blake, the senior electrical artificer, read the figures from the scale engraved into the brass ring encircling the periscope column and passed them back to Sutton who was standing behind him with a slide rule.

  ‘Green - one - zero, sir. Range thirty-five hundred.’

  ‘Course three-two-five, sir. Speed four knots.’

  Scott’s torpedo director - the fruit machine as it was irreverently known to submariners - clicked busily as he fed in the data.

  ‘Down periscope! Group up main motors. Steer three- zero-zero.’ Hamilton picked up the intercom. ‘Bow ends - blow up one, two, three, and four tubes.’

  ‘Bow ends, aye aye, sir.’

  ‘Up periscope!’ Despite the quiet calm of the control room Hamilton could feel his heart pounding with excitement as the cruiser came into his sights. Take it easy - no hurry. Remember, they don’t know you’re there. Plenty of time for a double check. No point in making silly mistakes. He carefully centered on the cruiser’s pagoda-like bridge structure and moved the handle-bar grip so that the two images of the rangefinder element came together. ‘Range that!’ Blake noted the angle and relayed it to Sutton. ‘Bearing that Hamilton paused for the electrical artificer to read the scale. ‘Down periscope!’ He stepped back as the periscope slid down into its well. ‘Looks like a Mogami class heavy cruiser plus a couple of destroyers. The moon’s out and visibility is good.’ He didn’t add that all they needed was a modicum of luck, but the men in the control room knew his unspoken thoughts. ‘What’s the DA, Alistair?’ he enquired with the casualness of a man asking the bus fare to Aldgate.

  ‘Twenty-seven Red, sir.’

  Hamilton rubbed his nose thoughtfully. No problems there. His slight alteration of course at the beginning of the attack had shown soun
d judgement.

  ‘Up periscope.’

  Hamilton’s knuckles suddenly whitened as the lens mockingly reflected an empty sea. He scanned to the left but the dark shadows had vanished. Swearing softly to himself he swung the ’scope to the right. Shit!

  ‘Target moving to starboard - away from us. Speed increasing.’ He peered intently through the lens. ‘Now twenty degrees to starboard of old course. What does that make it, Alistair?’

  ‘Two-nine-five, sir.’

  Of all the bloody luck! The enemy ships were now steering an almost identical course to Rapier and, with their superior speed, the range was rapidly lengthening.

  ‘Director angle for three-degree track angle?’

  ‘One degree Red, sir.’

  ‘Down periscope. Open bow caps.’ Hamilton realized the hopelessness of the situation, but he was loath to pass up even an outside chance of sinking a Japanese cruiser. He moved to the monocular attack ’scope at the rear of the control room.

  ‘Up periscope - put me on director angle.’ Blake placed his hands on top of the skipper’s and guided the column onto the critical bearing.

  ‘On director angle, sir.*

  The targets were now moving steadily towards the horizon. Only the cruiser was still in range - and then only just. ‘Stand by 1-2-3-4. Prepare to fire....’

  He waited until the stern of the cruiser centered in the graticule sights of the attack scope. ‘Fire One... Two... Three... Four! Down periscope. Flood Q. Eighty feet!’

  Rapier nosed deeper. Now they could only wait. Perhaps the skipper would be lucky this time, although the expression on his face did not encourage optimism.

  ‘Torpedoes running, sir,’ Glover reported from the hydro-phones.

  No one spoke a word and all eyes went to the sweeping second hand of the control room clock and a dozen brains wrestled with the same arithmetical problem - two miles at forty-five knots equals three minutes. If there was no explosion in the next one hundred and. eighty seconds they knew the torpedoes had missed. And sitting quietly at their stations, leaning against the bulkheads, or standing motionless in the center of the tiny claustrophobic compartment, they waited....

  It was Hamilton who finally broke the tension. ‘Secure from diving stations.’

  ‘I suppose we ought to look on the bright side, sir,’ Mannon forced a smile. ‘At least we haven’t had to put up with a depth charge attack. They didn’t even know we were there.’

  ‘That’s what makes it all the more damnable, Number One,’ Hamilton retorted bitterly. ‘Perfect conditions, a sitting target, and everything in our favor. They say the devil looks after his own and I’m beginning to believe it.’ He straightened up. The attack may have been abortive but it wasn’t the end of the world. ‘Maintain depth and course. Reduce to half speed.’

  Mannon walked over to join Hamilton and the navigator at the plotting table. ‘Do you think we should hang about and see if they turn up again, sir?’ he asked.

  Hamilton shook his head. ‘No - we can’t even be sure they will come back. And we can’t afford to waste time. According to the last radio report the military situation is deteriorating in Hong Kong. We haven’t had much success against the Japanese Navy - let’s see if we have more luck with their bloody army!’ He looked up at Scott. ‘Well, what are you waiting for, Pilot? Lay off a course for Hong Kong.’

  Eight

  ‘Stand by for gun action!’

  Hamilton moved back as the periscope sank down into its well under the deck plating and waited while Morgan and the gun crew scrambled into the cramped tunnel of the gun tower.

  ‘Gun crew closed up and standing by, sir.’

  ‘Stand by to surface! Blow main ballast. Full ahead both motors.’ There was a hiss of compressed air as Venables opened the valves and, restored to positive buoyancy, Rapier lurched upwards like a cork. Only the skill of the two coxswains controlling the fore and aft hydroplanes kept her safely below the surface, and Hamilton could see the sweat beading Blood’s face as he jockeyed the big diving wheel with the delicate care of a chef de cuisine mixing a soufflé.

  ‘Main ballast clear, sir.’

  ‘Surface!’

  ‘Up helm ’planes... blow Q! Watch the trim... blow stern compensating tank.’

  ‘Ten feet, sir.’

  ‘Reverse ’planes. Open gun hatch.’

  Hamilton was already climbing into the empty steel vault of the conning tower. The damp salt air tasted good after the sour atmosphere inside the submarine and he drew it deep into his lungs as he pulled back the clips of the hatch. A blast of foul-smelling vapor, forced upwards by the pressure inside the boat belched through the open hatchway and, with the wisdom of experience, Hamilton held his breath until it had blown clear. Then, gripping the edges of the narrow hatchway, he heaved himself up on to the bridge.

  Butterfield and Swire’s shipyard at Taikoo lay to port and, so far as Hamilton could make out, it seemed to be deserted - no doubt the Chinese workforce had fled at the first sign of trouble. A heavy pall of smoke hung over the mainland and fierce fires were burning in Kwun Tong and amongst the shattered remains of the Kai Tak airfield. Further to the west, the glow of more fires reddened the sky above Kowloon and the stabbing flames of Japanese field guns ranged along the waterfront showed that the enemy was now in occupation of the entire mainland area of the New Territories.

  Hamilton put his mouth to the voice pipe. ‘Obey telegraphs. Transfer helm to upper steering position.’ A small nagging doubt made him wonder whether he was being wise. A fast dive would be impossible with so many men on deck. However, on the other hand, Rapier would be three times more effective as a surface warship in the event of the enemy attempting to launch an attack across the waters of the Strait. Torpedoes would have little value against small landing craft. ‘Stop motors. Engage both engine clutches. Half-ahead together.’

  There was a momentary pause. Then the diesels rumbled into life and a blast of oil smoke erupted from the exhaust trunks.

  ‘Send both Lewis guns to the bridge.’

  Hamilton raised his glasses and searched the darkness ahead of the bows. He wondered how many ships of the original Hong Kong defense force were still left. He had passed Circala patrolling to the south of the island during the final approach past Cape El’Aguilar, so at least one of the gunboats was still afloat. The destroyer Thracian had not been so lucky. Mannon had reported her as aground and beached on the eastern side of the island an hour or so earlier. Hopefully Tern and Firefly were still in the fight although, so far, he had seen no sign of them.

  As the two machine gunners emerged onto the bridge and clamped their weapons to the support brackets on the port and starboard wings, Hamilton lowered his binoculars and bent over the voice pipe again.

  ‘Hand over to Alistair, Number One, and then come topside. Things are likely to get nasty if the Japs try and attempt a landing. I’ll need a back-up on the bridge in case something happens.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Hamilton raised his glasses and continued his careful search of the darkened shoreline as Rapier circled northwards and then eastwards around Quarry Bay. In the far distance, he could just make out the dockyard with Moth canted over and abandoned in dry-dock after being scuttled by her crew. And he could see a series of fires raging in the city itself where enemy shells had found vulnerable targets. How long could the poor bastards hold out? Lt General Sakai, the Japanese field commander, had already sent his peace envoys across the Straits under a flag of truce to demand the Colony’s surrender, but the Governor, Sir Mark Young, had sent the emissaries packing in no uncertain manner. But as a realist, Hamilton could not help wondering what sort of defense the troops could put up in the face of such overwhelming enemy numbers. Brave words were no substitute for bullets.

  Mannon joined him on the bridge and together they surveyed the grim scene in silence. There were still no signs of any other British warships waiting to challenge an enemy attempt to cross the narrow Straits
which separated Hong Kong from the mainland New Territories. It was becoming increasingly clear that only Rapier stood between the Colony and Japanese occupation.

  ‘Harbor launch five hundred yards on port bow, sir.’

  Hamilton was the first to pick out the small tender patrolling along the southern side of Quarry Bay. It was flying a White Ensign from its stern and he could just distinguish the skeletal outline of a two pounder in the bows. The stranger was moving purposefully across the black water with a crisp wave curling from its sharp stem.

  ‘Searchlight!’

  The duty signalman swung Rapier's reflector towards the picket-boat and switched on the power. The silvered beam danced quickly across the water and then trapped the mysterious patrol craft in its stark glare like a moth caught in the light of an electric torch. Hamilton focused his glasses and Mannon heard him suddenly laugh.

  ‘Okay, Jenkinson, you can switch off. Stop engines. Bring me alongside, Cox’n.’

  So the prophetic joke had come true. Admittedly Snark wasn’t sitting in a rowing boat with a service rifle across his knees and snarling in defiance at the invaders. But Hamilton’s fight hearted appraisal of the post-captain’s character hadn’t been that far from the mark. With most of the Navy’s remaining surface ships cruising to the south of the island in anticipation of a seaborne attack, Snark had rapidly improvised an inshore defense force to cover the Straits. The tender, an old steam-driven pinnace dating back to the Victorian era, had been hastily daubed with grey paint and fitted with an equally ancient gun. And, with a scratch crew of Royal Naval personnel drawn from shore-duty ratings working in the dockyard offices and administration officers, Snark was imposing his own private blockade in defiance of the overwhelming odds facing him from across the mainland side of the narrow moat.

  Hamilton climbed down the iron rungs on the outside of the conning tower and made his way onto the fore-deck casing as the wooden picket-boat bumped against Rapier's exposed ballast tanks. Snark was standing on the gunwale and, as the two vessels came together, one of the submariners reached across the help him over the slippery plating to the deck.