by Nevil Shute
“Would you say that it was rusty?”
“Who can say? It was black, I think.”
The commander nodded.
“You didn’t alter course, to go and investigate?”
The Dutchman shook his head. “I have my course given to me in the Downs, to keep me clear of dangers. I cannot leave it. There may be mines.”
That was quite true. Rutherford said, “You didn’t report this to anybody?”
“Why should I do that? My country is a neutral, and your war is not our business. If I had been stopped and boarded by your navy, then I would have said what I had seen. But I passed through your control before that, in the Downs.”
Presently they were finished. “That’s all, I think, Captain,” said the submarine commander. “We won’t keep you any longer.” He glanced at the lieutenant commander of the Contraband Control.
“His papers are in order, sir.”
Captain Jorgen said, “You do not wish to keep me for examination?”
Rutherford said, “Not this time, Captain. We only stopped you so that I could have this talk with you about the submarine.”
The captain smiled. “So,” he said. “If my ship is not to be examined, we will drink Bols together.”
Twenty minutes later the officers climbed carefully down the ladder to their motor boat, not in the least assisted by the Bols. The boat sheered off and made towards the shore; on board Heloise men moved on the forepeak and the chain began to grind in at the hawse. Presently the engines rumbled out and regular, spasmodic puffs of fumes appeared from the exhaust pipe in the funnel; then the vessel turned away and headed eastwards up the Channel.
That afternoon, Mona crossed the ferry at the mouth of Portsmouth Harbour and walked up to Haslar Hospital. In the past week she had been twice before; the first time she had not seen Jerry at all. The second time she had seen him for two or three minutes only, a tired figure motionless in bed, that smiled at her with his eyes and said very little. The sister had been with them all the time; she had left her present of grapes and come away.
She passed the gate and walked across the garden quadrangle, bright with spring flowers. She entered the hospital block and went up to the sister’s room, carrying her bag of grapes. Sister MacKenzie looked up from the desk where she was writing up a temperature chart as the girl came in.
Mona said, “Could I see Flying Officer Chambers?”
“Ay, he’s expecting you. Ye can see him for ten minutes today, and not one minute longer than that.”
“How is he today?”
“He had a better night, the sister was telling me. He’ll get along all right, now, if he isn’t wearied with his visitors.”
Mona said, “I haven’t got a watch. Would you tell me when it’s time for me to go?”
The Scotswoman said, “Have nae fear of that. I’ll come and fetch ye oot of it.”
Mona walked along the passage, and entered the room. She said, “Hullo, Jerry.”
He smiled at her from the bed. “Hullo. You’re looking very nice today.”
She said, “Don’t talk so soft. I brought you some grapes.”
He was much better; there was no doubt of that. He lay in bed with both arms bandaged to the shoulder outside the bedclothes; his hair had been brushed and he had had a shave. He wore a vivid orange pyjama jacket, cut short at the sleeves.
“That’s awfully nice of you, Mona. The last lot were grand.”
“How are you feeling, Jerry? You’re looking better.”
“It hurts like hell when they do my arms.”
She drew a chair up and sat beside him. “It must do. Still, you’re looking better, Jerry.”
“So I ought to. I’ve had Sister MacKenzie titivating me up for you for the last half-hour. Do you like my taste in pyjamas?”
“It’s kind of cheerful,” she admitted.
He grinned at her. “That’s fine. You’re going to see a lot of them.”
“If you start talking like that I’ll go away.”
“I won’t talk like that, then. I’ll just think it.”
She laughed. “That’s worse.”
She sat with him for a few minutes, talking of little foolish things. Presently he said, “What do you think of my hyacinths?”
She turned her head. A large basket filled with moss and growing hyacinths, white and blue and pink, stood upon a table in the window. They gave a pleasant sense of comfort and habitation to the bare furnishings of the room.
“Who sent you those, Jerry?”
He turned his head upon the pillow to look at them, a puzzled frown appeared. “It’s a damn funny thing — I can’t make it out. The wife of the C. in C. sent them — Lady Blackett.”
“Oh . . .”
He said, “I’ve never met the woman.”
Mona said weakly, “I expect she sends flowers and stuff to every officer that gets hurt.”
“I’m damn sure she does nothing of the sort. What’s more, she’s coming to see me tomorrow.”
“Coming to see you?” This was terrible. She had given herself away so utterly to Lady Blackett.
“Yes. She rang up Sister about an hour ago. She’s coming tomorrow morning.”
There was a short silence. Mona said at last, “They’re very pleased about what you done to have this accident, Jerry. That’s one thing I do know.”
“Are they? How did you hear that?”
She said cautiously, “There was a Commander Sutton talking about you. He got to know that we was friends.”
“Do they think it was a good show, then?”
“They do, Jerry — honest. They think you did terribly well.”
He said, “Well, that’s something to set off against Caranx.”
She ventured, “They’re wondering about Caranx, now. Commander Sutton was saying that there was another submarine sunk in the Channel that same day.”
He stared at her. “Do you mean they think that there’s a chance that the one I sank wasn’t Caranx?”
She nodded. “Something of that. I know they’re looking into it again.”
“Damn it,” he said, “I always knew that bloody thing was German.” There was a pause, and then he said, “I bet this Lady Blackett knows all about it. Wife of the C. in C. — she’s sure to know what’s going on. I’ll have to try and get a line on it from her.”
Sister MacKenzie came into the room. “Time ye were gaeing along now,” she said. “Ye’ve had more than the ten minutes.”
Panic seized Mona as she rose to go. “Jerry,” she said, “whatever Lady Blackett says, you’re Mr. Smith to me. You won’t forget that?”
He stared at her. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “But you’ve got that all wrong. I’m Lord Jerry and you’re the Lady Chambers. Or you’re going to be.”
The Scotswoman glowered at them in uncomprehending disapproval. It was impossible to speak freely with her in the room, nor did Mona want to. “You can call me what you like, Jerry,” she said. “But you’ll remember what I wanted, just to be Mrs. Smith. That’s all I ever wanted to be.” She bent and kissed him; then very quickly she made her escape from the room.
Two days later, in the cold light of dawn, a trawler left the North Wall and proceeded down the harbour. Lieutenant Mitcheson stood on the bridge; as they passed Victory drawn up in her dry-dock he called his crew to attention, as was fitting. One day in the future there would come Peace, a terrible day when they would take his ship away from him, and he would have to go back to selling haberdashery, or else to the motor trade. He put the thought away. There was, as yet, no sign of that bad time on the horizon. For months, perhaps years to come, he would have his three meals a day, his uniform, and his ship. He wished for nothing more.
On the well deck forward of the bridge a squat box with two wheeled handles was lashed down upon the hatch; by it the diver was smearing vaseline upon the screw threads of his helmet with loving care. The rubber suit was spread out on the hatch beside him with the long coi
ls of hose and line.
In the little cuddy of the trawler an elderly, grey-haired lieutenant commander of the regular navy bent over a chart with Commander Rutherford. “That’s the place where we put down the buoy,” he said. “There’s definitely something there — a wreck of some sort. We swept and caught it twice — once going east and west, and the other time north and south.”
Rutherford nodded. “So you buoyed it.”
“Yes. We put down a spar buoy.”
“Any idea if it was a submarine?”
The other shook his head. “There was grey paint on the sweep wire when we got it in. That’s the only thing. From that, I’d say she hadn’t been down very long.”
The commander nodded. The position that had been buoyed was about half a mile to the west of the position he had got from the Dutchman, but in poor weather that sort of error might quite well occur.
The morning came up calm and sunny. The trawler passed the Gate and steamed away up Channel, over a calm, sunlit sea. Two hours later Mitcheson said to Rutherford, standing beside him on the bridge, “There’s the buoy.” It stood up, a threadlike spike, in the far distance ahead of them.
It was still an hour and a half before the time of slack water, too early yet for the diver to go down. The trawler drew up to the buoy, slowed and manœuvred for a few minutes, then dropped an anchor. Then for a time she slacked out chain, manœuvring with her engines as she did so; presently she dropped a second anchor. In half an hour she was securely moored beside the buoy.
The diver’s crew appeared from below, and began their preparations. A short ladder was made fast to the ship’s side, and the shot rope was streamed beside it to the bottom. With the deliberate care born of long experience the diver got into his suit, the heavy boots were strapped to his feet. The collar was laid upon his shoulders as he sat upon the hatch, and the belt, furnished with the knife and the waterproof lantern, was strapped to his waist.
He was a fair-haired, serious man of about thirty, smoking a cigarette. He said to his mate, now polishing the windows of the helmet, “If I’m down over dinner-time, tell cookie to keep a plateful hot for me. And I don’t want none of that fat.”
“Or-right.”
“What’s he got for afters?”
“Plummy duff.”
“I don’t want none of that. Tell ’im I’ll have a bit of bread and jam.”
“Or-right.”
“Partial to a bit of bread and jam, I’ve always been,” said the diver conversationally.
Commander Rutherford approached. “You’ve got it all clear, have you?” he enquired. “If it’s a submarine, we want the nationality to be established definitely.”
“Case it’s Caranx, sir?”
“That’s it. If you can get up to the conning tower, Caranx had her name on it in raised letter, towards the aft end, about five feet from the deck. The letters were painted over, but you’d feel them with your hands.”
“I got that, sir.”
The commander glanced over the side. “Are you going now, or will you wait till the tide slacks a bit more?”
“All right if I go now, sir, I think.” He turned to his mate. “Come on, let’s have it.”
They lifted the dome onto his shoulders and screwed it home. Through the front window he said to his mate, “Mind, I don’t want none of that duff. Ask if he’s got any stewed fruit, or anything of that.”
“Or-right.”
Two men began to turn the handles of the pump; the air hissed through the hose. His mate screwed the front window home and slapped the top of the helmet with his hand. The diver sat for a minute adjusting the air valve by his ear; then he got up with an effort and walked two steps to the bulwarks. A couple of men helped him over the side onto the ladder.
He went down until the water rose above his head. Then, with the bright copper dome of the helmet showing as a little disc upon the water, he paused and adjusted the air valve that bubbled with a little sputter of white foam. Then in slow motion he reached out and grasped the shot rope, stepped off the ladder, and was gone. The hose and life-line payed out slowly into the water.
On the trawler, the time dragged. The bubbles which showed where the diver was wandered away to port and played about there, minute after minute. In half an hour they did not move more than fifty yards from one position. Presently they came back to the shot rope, and a series of twitches gave the signal for a line to be sent down. A rope was lowered with a hook upon the end of it; to the hook a canvas bag was lashed with marline.
For half an hour longer the watchers on the trawler studied the bubbles wandering to the surface, and the vagaries of the air tube and the ropes. On the bridge and on the gun platform in the bow seamen were posted to keep a vigilant lookout for submarines.
Once the old lieutenant commander said fretfully, “How long is he to be down for?”
Rutherford said, “I left that to him.”
The other was silent. He would have preferred to hurry the diver; it was asking for it to stay anchored off the coast like this. A submarine could come and take a pot shot at them from far off, and they would be powerless to escape the torpedo. It was asking for trouble.
In the end there came a series of twitches at the hook rope. At the bulwarks men began to pull it up. Rutherford and the lieutenant commander went down to the deck; only Mitcheson stayed on the bridge to guard the ship.
The rope came up slowly, fairly heavily laden. A metallic rod, eight feet or more in length, broke surface with the hook. This rod was furnished at one end with a handle and a broken plate through which it passed; the other end was twisted and broken. From the hook the bag was suspended, bulging with small articles.
These were all hoisted in and laid upon the deck. The diver’s crew set to work to take in the life-line and the hose as the man came up the shot rope. Rutherford and the other officer bent to examine what had been brought up.
The long rod passed through a broken plate close by the handle. This plate was engraved with the words STARBOARD CENTRE.
The officers looked at it rather sadly. It was no more than they had expected, but it revived the tragedy within their minds.
“What part is that?” said the lieutenant commander.
Rutherford shrugged his shoulders. “Looks like one of the ballast cocks,” he said. “We’ll have to wait till we get to Blockhouse to identify it positively.”
They turned to the bag, unlashed it from the hook, and spread its contents out upon the hatch. Behind them the trawler crew came round in curiosity.
There were a pair of Ross binoculars with the broad arrow engraved on them, considerably damaged by sea water. There was a brass handwheel the steel shaft of which was snapped off short; the brass rim was engraved with a double arrow and the words INCREASE and REDUCE. There was a double-ended spanner marked at one end 1″ and at the other 1¼″. There was a pewter coffeepot of British naval pattern, and there were three table knives of the sort supplied for officers.
Rutherford said heavily, “Well, there’s not much doubt about that, I’m afraid.”
The officer shook his head. “No doubt at all.”
The diver came up the ladder presently, and paused with his head above the bulwarks. Two men assisted him over onto the deck; he sat down on the hatch. His mate unscrewed the front window, and removed the helmet.
The diver rubbed a hand over his face, and brushed the hair back from his forehead. Then he saw Rutherford beside him. “It’s a submarine, all right,” he said. “One of ours, too. See them words on the handwheel?”
The commander said, “Yes — I saw that. Is she very much damaged?”
“She’s in two parts, sir — right in two separate pieces. You never saw anything like it. The stern is upright, more or less, and the bow over on the port side. I dunno where the conning tower’s got to. I didn’t see nothing of that at all.”
“You didn’t see the name, then?”
“No, sir.” He paused and then he said, “I rec
kon that’s Caranx, all right. I reckon she got torpedoed, too.”
“Why do you think that? It might have been a mine.”
“It didn’t look like any mine I ever saw, sir.” The commander was silent; this man had seen many damaged ships. “It was more local, if you take me — more like a torpedo does. As a matter of fact, I did think I saw the tail of a torpedo crushed up underneath the aft part, at the break. But I wouldn’t swear to that. I didn’t go too near to all that broken stuff with the tide running round it.”
“Where did you get these things from, then?”
“Out of the fore part, at the break. That bit was in the lee of the tide, if you get me, sir. I picked up everything loose I could lay me hands on.”
Rutherford questioned him for a few minutes. Then he said, “All right. You can pack up your gear; I don’t see anything to gain by going down again.”
“Very good, sir.”
The commander turned aside. His friends were very near him, Billy Parkinson, and Stone, and Sandy Anderson. Not very many fathoms from him they lay resting in the sea, the sea that in their lives had brought them so much pleasure and so much anxiety, so much joy and pain. His mind drifted to a surf-riding party at Hong Kong with Billy and Jo Parkinson and a dark girl that he might have married, but didn’t. To a cottage on the salt marshes near Bosham where he had had a meal or two with Stone and his wife, to a week-end with Sandy Anderson on a five-ton yacht in the Solent. In their lives they had taken pleasure from the sea; that it now wrapped them close could not be altogether ill.
He turned to the old lieutenant commander. “Anybody got a prayer book on board, do you think?” he said. “We’d better read the service before getting under way.”
The older man, his junior in rank, said, “I’ll ask the captain. But do you think it’s wise to hang about here any longer?”
They had been anchored there for more than two hours, a sitting shot for any submarine. Rutherford hesitated. “Tell the captain to get under way,” he said at last. “I’ll read the service while he circles round the buoy.”
Presently the anchor winch began to grind in chain. The diver, clambering out of the stiff rubber suit, said to his mate in a low tone, “Nip down and tell cookie to keep my dinner a bit longer. He’s going to read the bloody service.”
