by Edwyn Gray
‘Engine room, aye aye, sir.’
Having replaced the plug of the speaking-tube, Hamilton joined Mannon as Rapier heeled over sharply and swung onto her new course.
The leading warship had closed to 2,500 yards and not even the darkness could disguise the knuckled bow and cranked funnels of a typical Japanese destroyer. Yellow flame stabbed from her for’ard gun turret and, as the fierce crack of cordite echoed across the sea, two uncomfortably well-placed shells exploded close under the stern, throwing up towering geysers of dirty brown water.
Hamilton seemed unconcerned by the unexpected accuracy of the enemy fire. With calm professional detachment, he noted the color of the water thrown up by the bursting shells and turned to Mannon. ‘They’ve stirred up the mud, Number One,’ he observed casually. ‘And that means we haven’t enough depth of water for diving.’
The next salvo brought four shells whining down on the fleeing submarine, but Blood’s expert handling of the helm kept Rapier out of immediate danger and Hamilton could feel the vessel jinking and twisting as the coxwain tried to throw off the enemy’s aim. He leaned over the for’ard bridge screen. ‘Secure from Action Stations, Mister Gunner. Get below!’ Two more explosions rocked Rapier to starboard arid the crumbling fountain of water thrown up by the bursting shells fell on the exposed bridge like a shower of heavy summer rain. ’Stand by Diving Stations! First Officer and Coxwain to remain on the bridge. All hands below!’ Hamilton moved to the voice pipe. ‘Stand by to take over lower steering. What’s the depth of water, Pilot?’
Scott checked the echo sounder on the starboard bulkhead. ‘Thirty-five feet, sir.’
‘Thank you, Pilot,’ Hamilton turned to Mannon. ‘No chance of diving yet, Number One. I’m not going to risk sticking the old girl’s nose in the mud.’ Crouching down on his knees, he opened the signal locker and fumbled inside. ‘Are they gaining on us?
‘Yes, sir - range down to two thousand.’ Mannon sounded a little puzzled. ‘The rear ship seems to be firing at something to the south.’
‘Perhaps it’s bombarding Taikoo,’ Hamilton suggested as he continued his search of the locker.
‘I don’t think so - the shells are falling too short. Hang on... I can see another ship. Looks like a gunboat.’ Hamilton found what he wanted and straightened up holding a couple of large cylindrical canisters. Tucking them under his arm, he raised his binoculars to find out the cause of Mannon’s excitement.
The jaunty outline of a China gunboat, its light grey paintwork merging into the misty background of Victoria Island, was barely distinguishable in the bad light. But the large battle flag fluttering from the pole mast and the black smoke belching from her tandem funnels abaft the wheel- house made it impossible to mistake her purpose. Flame flashed from the muzzle of the for’ard gun as she challenged the destroyers.
‘It looks like Firefly, sir!’
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised, Number One,’ Hamilton agreed calmly. ‘Only an idiot like Harry Ottershaw would take on three destroyers. They’ll blow him out of the water with a couple of salvos.’
‘Do we go about and give him support, sir?’ Mannon asked.
Hamilton shook his head. ‘No - and Ottershaw wouldn’t thank us for it if we did. He’s only shown himself in order to draw the Japs away and give us time to find deep water. If Rapier turns back, we’ll both be done for.’ He flipped open the cover of the voice pipe. ‘Control Room-take over lower steering. Stand by to dive.’ He snapped the lid shut and turned to Blood. ‘Diving stations, Cox’n. Get below.’ Ernie Blood moved to the upper hatch. He was sorry to miss the fun. But on the other hand, he preferred to be a live hero rather than a dead one and he wholeheartedly endorsed the skipper’s unpalatable decision.
‘One of the destroyers is resuming chase, sir.’ Mannon warned from his vantage point at the rear of the conning tower. ‘The other two are closing on Firefly.'
As Hamilton glanced astern to check the situation, he saw flame suddenly leap mast-high from the gunboat’s superstructure as a salvo of enemy shells crashed down and exploded behind the wheelhouse. The little ship shuddered under the impact of two more direct hits but, seemingly undeterred by the punishment she was taking, Firefly defiantly maintained course towards her two powerful antagonists and a well-aimed shell from the for’ard gun forced one of the destroyers to turn away.
Hamilton moved to the engaged side of the bridge, jerked the fuse of the smoke candle, and threw the spluttering canister into the water. It was a device issued to submarines for service as a distress signal - the smoke from the canister floating on the surface indicated the location of the sunken vessel to rescue craft hurrying to its assistance. At that precise moment Rapier was certainly in distress and, in the circumstances, Hamilton felt justified in putting the emergency canisters to a more immediate and practical use. Ripping the paper from the second cylinder he tossed it into the water to join its companion.
‘Depth of water, Mister Mannon?’
The first officer moved to the voice pipe to transmit the question to the control room below and waited while Scott checked the echo sounder.
‘Forty feet and shelving, sir.’
‘Very good, Number One. Get below. Diving in one minute.’
Baffled by the improvised smoke screen, the pursuing destroyer reduced speed and stopped firing.
There was a brief respite and then an unlucky gust of wind suddenly cleared a gap through the smoke to reveal the fleeing Rapier barely a mile away. Hamilton heard a salvo of shells screaming towards the defenseless submarine. A near miss kicked Rapier to port and, before the submarine had fully recovered, Hamilton was hurled across the bridge by the blast of a second shell bursting close under the starboard ballast tank. The brilliant white flash of the explosion dazzled his eyes and he fumbled blindly for a handhold.
Then, just as suddenly, the unpredictable breeze changed direction again and closed the gap in the smoke screen, bringing another short but vital reprieve from the enemy guns. Seizing his opportunity, Hamilton clambered down into the upper hatch and pressed the diving klaxon.
AHOOA...AHOOA...AHOOA.
Rapier was already sliding beneath the surface by the time he reached the control room and a quick glance at the dials showed that Mannon had used his intelligence and put the submarine into a shallow dive so that if, by ill-luck, they struck the muddy bottom of the Straits, it would only a glancing blow.
‘Propeller noises approaching, sir,’ Murray reported from the hydro-phones.
‘Slow ahead both motors - level at forty feet.’
Hamilton made no attempt to stop engines and shut down for depth charges - the water was probably too shallow for the destroyer to use underwater weapons without placing herself in equal danger. It was a gamble worth taking. Every single minute counted and, once Rapier could reach the area covered by the shore batteries, she would be safe from further attack. Not even the most foolhardy enemy captain would put his ship at risk against shore guns....
The submarine suddenly jolted sideways as if struck by a giant hammer, light bulbs shattered, gauge glasses cracked, and cork insulation wafted down from the deck head seams like fine brown snow. Ten seconds later, as the men were picking themselves up off the deck, the angry rumble of a violent explosion echoed like distant thunder against the hull plates.
‘Either that was bloody close,’ someone murmured ‘or the Japs are using fucking big depth charges!’
The force of the concussion had blown the main fuses and there was a general sigh of relief as the emergency lamps glowed to life. Hamilton cast an anxious eye at the dials and felt reassured by what he saw. He rubbed a large bruise on his left buttock, where he had been thrown against a valve wheel.
‘I don’t think it was a depth charge,’ he said quietly. ‘It sounded more like a ship blowing up.’ He turned to Murray crouched over his hydro-phone equipment. ‘Where’s the destroyer now?’
‘Passed directly overhead just before the explosion, sir.
HE suggests she’s turned south towards Victoria....’ Murray paused, listened intently and carefully moved the knurled knob of his apparatus. ‘Still turning, sir. Now headed east towards Junk Bay.’
‘Periscope depth!’
‘Up-helm ’planes - level at thirty.’
The two coxswains eased the big diving wheels to the left and watched the red needles of the depth gauges swing upwards.
‘Thirty feet, sir!’
‘Reverse ’planes... keep her level, Cox’n.’
‘Up periscope!’
Hamilton grabbed the handles and pulled them down as the thin stalk of the ’scope poked above the waves. He circled quickly until the upper lens was bearing towards the stern. The water suddenly drained from the angled glass and he found himself staring into the soft darkness of the tropical night, with a canopy of stars twinkling against the black velvet vault of the sky above the horizon. He picked out the stern of the destroyer disappearing in the general direction of Lye Mum Point and then carried out a swift 360 degree search of the surface to make sure there were no other enemy warships in the vicinity.
He could just make out the shapes of the other two destroyers circling off the coast to the east - their searchlights sweeping the surface as if looking for something. He switched to the high magnification lens for a closer inspection of the scene and watched the third destroyer join its companions. Working in formation, the three warships quartered the area off Taikoo like restless hounds prowling outside the lair of a runaway fox. Then, as a signal lamp flashed from one of the destroyers, they formed up in line ahead. Gathering speed, they steered eastwards towards the open sea. Hamilton watched them vanish and then surveyed the empty waters of Quarry Bay once again.
‘Down periscope.’ He turned away as the column sank back into its womb under the deck. ‘Firefly's gone,’ he announced unemotionally. ‘The Japs were searching for survivors but I doubt if they found any. Must have been a direct hit on the magazine. That would account for the explosion we heard.’
No one spoke for a few moments, but they all knew Firefly had deliberately sacrificed herself to ensure their escape. It was Mannon who finally broke the brooding silence with an epitaph that voiced the thoughts of every man in the submarine’s control room.
‘I reckon Harry Ottershaw deserves a bloody Victoria Cross.’
Hamilton leaned his elbows on the table while he studied the chart. Snark wanted him to patrol off Lam Tong Island during the hours of daylight and that meant a long sweep past Larama Island and then a run to the east keeping south of Victoria Island itself. It was tempting to cut through the channel via Deep Water, Repulse, and South Bays. But once the sun had risen, he had little doubt that Japanese air patrols would be scouring the inshore areas in search of any remaining British warships still afloat and he wanted to proceed on the surface to save Rapier’s batteries.
‘Urgent damage report, sir.’
Hamilton straightened up as O’Brien came through the bulkhead hatch into the control room.
‘What’s the trouble, Chief?’
‘Starboard bunker leaking, sir. Clayton’s been checking the oil level and it’s dropping steadily even though the engines aren’t running.’
Hamilton felt a cold finger trace slowly down his spine. O’Brien was worried about the loss of fuel and the consequent reduction in Rapier’s effective range. Hamilton’s fear was more immediate. With oil leaking from the damaged bunker, the submarine was leaving a trail on the surface which, once spotted, would bring every available enemy ship and aircraft zeroing in for the kill. If he came to the surface and radioed Rapier’s exact position to the Japanese flagship they’d be in no greater danger!
‘How much fuel in the other bunkers, Chief?’
‘About forty tons, sir.’
‘Well that’s sufficient for the moment. Pump all the remaining fuel in the damaged tank overboard immediately.’
O’Brien hesitated. It was not in his nature to question orders, but he wondered whether the skipper realized the consequences of what he had just said. ‘But if we do that, sir,’ he pointed out, ‘we won’t have enough fuel left to go anywhere. I can plug the leak inside an hour or so. It’s better than losing ten tons by opening the taps.’
‘And until you do, Chief,’ Hamilton said coldly, ‘Rapier is leaving a trail of oil on the surface that’ll bring the entire Japanese Navy upon us in about the same time! It’s sunrise in thirty minutes. If we’re not at least five miles clear of that slick by dawn we won’t live long enough to see another. Pump the bunker clear as ordered, Mister O’Brien.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Hamilton returned to the chart table, pulled open a small drawer, and took out a slip of paper on which was written the latitude and longitude of a rendezvous point. He passed it to Scott.
‘I want to be at that position by noon, pilot. You’ll have to deduct an hour while we heave-to so that O’Brien can plug the leak. Can you do it?’
Scott glanced at the position shown on the slip of paper, gauged the distance on the chart, and nodded.
‘I think so, sir. Although it will mean running at least half the distance on the surface at maximum speed.’ The navigator frowned down at the chart. ‘There’s only one thing, sir. That fix you gave me is in the middle of the China Sea - there’s no land within two hundred miles. What the hell are we going to find when we get there?’ Hamilton smiled enigmatically. ‘Wait and see, Pilot. Wait and see. Just lay on a course - I’ll produce the rabbit out of the hat.’
Nine
The big trading junk looked innocent enough to the casual observer. The large rush-matting sails rippled in the breeze like blinds fluttering behind an open window and she was making barely two knots. The Chinese characters daubed on her flat stern indicated she was from Macao, but she carried no other mark or figures of identification - a not unusual state of affairs with native sailing vessels. But there was something about her that puzzled Lieutenant Furutaka and, after a short period of indecisive hesitation, he took the bull by the horns and called the captain to the bridge.
Commander Aritsu’s expression boded trouble as he came up the companion way. He liked his junior officers to be self-reliant and made no attempt to conceal his annoyance as Furutaka pointed out the junk and explained his misgivings. Aritsu snarled impatiently, raised his binoculars, and examined the mysterious stranger for himself.
For the river people of China, their boat is their home. They have nowhere else to live and the larger sea-going junks often support two or three families extending, on occasions, to three generations, complete with all their worldly possessions and livestock. As the deeply laden vessels dip past with their leeside gunwales almost under water, it is often difficult to see what possible room could be left for commercial freight in the face of its superabundant human cargo. The men work the sails and steering, the women cook, wash clothes amidships, or idly gossip in the stern; chickens cluck importantly from bamboo coops strung from the rigging, and innumerable children of all ages play in whatever free deck space is left.
And, as Aritsu’s experienced eyes quickly detected, that was the oddity which had puzzled his officer-of-the-watch. The junk moving slowly across Suma’s bows only had three people on deck!
‘Lower away the sea boat, Lieutenant. And send over a boarding party to check her papers.’
Suma's cutter was already swung out and ready - a normal precaution when a warship is operating under combat conditions in a designated war zone - and the boarding party of six armed seamen under the command of a young Korean sub-lieutenant climbed down into it, as the deckhands lowered it into the water and released the falls.
Responding to the signal flag fluttering from the destroyer’s halyards - the square of yellow and blue bunting -indicating the letter K - the junk had come to an untidy stop and was waiting dead in the water as the cutter approached. The flag letter K in the International Code meant Stop Immediately and Aritsu showed little surprise at the junk’s prompt obedie
nce. The native seamen plying their trade along the Chinese coast knew nothing of such matters as signal codes and international conventions, but experience had taught them that any warship flying the yellow and blue flag intended them to stop. And failure to obey could mean a shot across the bows or a brutal shelling, depending on the mood of the naval commander - and his nationality.
The crew of the junk made no attempt to resist as the cutter came alongside and disgorged the boarding party. They stood in the stern neither helping nor hindering, seemingly unconcerned by the unceremonious visitation. Aritsu watched through his binoculars for signs of hostility, but the three Chinese seamen accepted the invasion with disinterested docility.
Sub-Lieutenant Mihoro looked quickly to right and left as he swung over the low side of the junk, but he could detect no obvious signs of concealed weapons and, raising his arms imperiously, he sent the boarding party for’ard to search the bows, while he and the petty officer went aft to question the crew.
The junk’s cargo, carefully protected from the weather under heavy tarpaulins, covered every available inch of the deck space and Petty Officer Kino swore sharply as he stubbed his bare toe against something hard. Lifting the edge of the tarpaulin, he bent down to examined what was underneath and let out a soft but expressive hiss of surprise.
‘Over here, sir!’ he called to Mihoro.
Ordering the two armed guards to come aft and cover the Chinese crew, the sub-lieutenant joined Kino amidships. The petty officer’s bayonet sawed through the securing ropes and, throwing back the tarpaulin, he showed the officer the cargo of black steel barrels hidden beneath the covers.
Oil!
Mihoro thought quickly. Unlike the petty officer he could understand English, and his eyes narrowed as he read the stenciled white letters on the side of each barrel - Diesel Oil. De Gama Oil & Wharfage Company, Macao. Well, the junk was outward bound from Macao right enough. But where to? Chinese sailors were notoriously wary of deep-sea voyages and were normally only happy when hugging the coast. Yet this particular junk was steering a course that was taking it out to the middle of an empty sea, the nearest land to the south, Borneo, was over a thousand miles away.
