See You at the Bar

by David Black

  The meeting with Pleydell had been perfunctory; the SNO had listened to Harry’s report on the near fiasco at Symi, drumming his fingers and turning corners on document stacks. ‘Well, there wasn’t enough time to train the troops before we had to go on this one,’ was how he’d dismissed Harry’s verbal report, as if he was anxious to get onto what new thing was happening. He had lots to tell and appeared pleased he’d someone to tell it to.

  He and his two destroyers had been transporting a ‘substantial force’ to Kos while Harry had been away – and, luckily, while Jerry’s flying lorries had been over, ‘Otherwise, they might have had something more substantial to aim at, what?’

  Something between a self-satisfied and a self-conscious bark of laughter had followed.

  Anyway, the thrust of Pleydell’s resume of events was that Kos was now occupied and they were looking at Leros next. But until the air support arrived, he was concerned lest Jerry start trying to infiltrate down the island chain and disrupt his and the brigadier’s plans. Which was where Scourge was to come in. Detailed orders and co-ordinates for a patrol box were passed to Harry and polite inquiries were made about when he’d be ready to put to sea.

  ‘Apparently, there’s intelligence Jerry might be preparing to act,’ Pleydell had said vaguely. ‘Nothing concrete, as far as I can judge. Probably just inter-island troop shuffling. We’ve got some of those armed caiques patrolling among islands to the west in case anything is coming out from Piraeus, but we want you to keep an eye on the Adriatic, where Jerry has all those divisions up there, busy containing that bloody communist Tito and his gang.’

  And that had been it. No mention of what exactly the intelligence was, or if there were any informed assessments – by anybody. No ‘well done, despite the problems’ for Symi, no ‘sorry about your torpedoes’.

  And then Harry had taken the launch over to Alconbury, and lunch.

  ‘I was on my back for weeks, or I should say my front, and when I was recovered and ready to come back to work… everybody got very sniffy,’ Grainger recounted, pouring another hefty belt of the local retsina, so chilled it was almost cloudy, to accompany a plate of truly sublime fried lampuki, freshly caught that morning, he was told, off the quarterdeck by the afterguard.

  ‘…as if I’d been skiving. You got all the glory for that one, Gilmour. Even if you did get your dickie shot off in the process… Ha! Ha!’

  That final patrol on Umbrage, after their skipper, Rais, had got washed off the bridge, and Grainger had fallen down the conning tower hatch, concussed himself and broken his shoulder blade. And all of it happening while an Italian cruiser squadron had been bearing down on them, two of which Harry, as the next senior officer with a damaged boat under him, had gone on to cripple.

  They’d given Harry a Distinguished Service Order for that – a DSO – that being the acronym for Grainger’s crude allusion. But Grainger hadn’t seemed jealous; in fact he’d looked really rather happy these days, even pleased with himself as Harry, in turn, had been pleased to note.

  ‘I was told there wasn’t even a Jimmy’s berth going for me,’ Grainger had said. ‘Well, sod that, I thought. It was like they didn’t want me back. So I cast my eye around, and guess what? Turned out the escort boys were panting for officers with actual sub experience… you know… poacher turned gamekeeper sort of thing. They practically bit my hand off. First lieutenant’s berth right off the bat, and mere months later there I was… with my own command. She’s not a fleet destroyer, but by God, she’s a beaut!’ And he’d raised his glass and toasted himself – which was very Kit Grainger, ‘To the master of all he surveys!’

  They’d had a long talk, that afternoon; one of those talks where the world doesn’t end up looking any better but you come away feeling better able to deal with it.

  Back on the bridge, Harry’s reverie was broken by another voice echoing up through the pipe. It was Darky Mularky from the radar cubby, reporting he had multiple contacts on the same bearing as the Asdic’s HE. Seven altogether but including one bigger than all the others. Which suggested not a fishing fleet. Range, just over five miles. The set must be performing well tonight, he thought, before he hit the general alarm and brought Scourge to diving stations.

  He watched as Hooper and his mob tumbled out onto the casing and had a shell up the spout ready to go and edged out the way as the two .303 gunners lugged their cumbersome weapon up through the conning tower hatch and mounted it. And there was McCready, grunting and cussing, bringing up the TBT just in case Harry wanted to try a surface shot with what torpedoes they had. It was almost like the good old days, he thought.

  He noted the time: 2108 hours. Moonrise in less than ten minutes. The moon was just past full, so it would be practically daylight when it rose. Perfect for a night gunnery action, especially as Scourge would be down moon and not silhouetted and plain for the enemy to see. Mularky and Biddle, back at his diving station on the Asdic set, were agreeing on the targets’ estimated speed: nine knots, which was even better. He leaned to the voicepipe and asked Harding – down in the control room, leaning over the chart table and starting his plot – for a course and speed for interception.

  Back it came, and engine telegraphs were rung and a heading passed to Leading Seaman Cross on the helm.

  HMS Scourge began standing in to engage the enemy more closely.

  The moon, when it came up, was a huge opalescent ball with a slice out of its lower starboard flank and its splash unfurling across the obsidian smooth sea like a carpet of light. Almost immediately, the port lookout was calling, ‘Enemy in sight, bearing…’

  And there they were. All Harry could make out were a series of blobs dancing on the moon’s splash just below the horizon line. But McCready was counting them.

  ‘I’ve can see five… definitely caiques, sir,’ he said. ‘Quite big ones… lots of deck clutter… cargo? And this other bugger, sir. Like a big box lying on its side… with a hut at the arse end… and guns… gun barrels… yes… that’s what they are. But too many…’

  ‘Artillery… carried as deck cargo?’ offered Harry, peering through his own night glasses.

  ‘Of course, sir! That’s what they are… and I reckon it’s another one of those bloody F-lighters.’

  An F-lighter was bad news. Scourge had come across them before. They were Jerry’s equivalent of a tank landing craft, except bigger, about a hundred and sixty feet long and could carry up to a hundred and fifty tons of any cargo you cared to mention, including – if what McCready was seeing was true – field guns. These wouldn’t be of any use to Jerry in a fight here and now, but the other thing about F-lighters was, they tended to be armed to the teeth, usually with a 75mm cannon of their own and a scatter of those damned 3.7cm flak guns. They were also of very shallow draught, even when loaded, and so almost impossible to torpedo, as any torpedo fired at them usually just carried on underneath.

  This changed everything.

  Harry ordered the engine room telegraphs rung again; it was time to slow down and think about this.

  ‘So, troops on the caiques and a bloody great F-lighter riding shotgun, as they say in the Westerns,’ said Harry aloud, for all the lookouts and the .303 crew to hear. It was the captain’s running commentary again. Everybody had a quiet smile. Mr Gilmour was back in harness. ‘Mr McCready,’ he said. ‘Yell… immediately… if anything changes,’ and with that, Harry disappeared down the hatch and into the Hades-red gloom of the control room. He put his elbows beside Harding’s on the chart table and squinted at the chart and then the plot.

  The Jerry convoy was obviously heading to navigate to the right of the Fournoi archipelago of small islets that lay between Samos and the next biggish island to the west, Ikaria. They must be bound for the next big, Jerry-held islands to the south: Leros or Kalimnos. Both were only a few miles from Kos. And those were quite a few troops on those boats out there, and artillery.

  Tangling on the surface with that bloody F-lighter, however, was going to g
et them sunk.

  Unless…

  Harry stepped through the control room for’ard door and went up the gun tower. He took Hooper completely by surprise when he stepped onto the casing behind him.

  ‘Hooper,’ he asked. ‘What’s your best rate of fire? And how fast can you get down that hatch if I have to dive in a hurry?’

  *

  ‘Steer green two zero,’ Harry leaned to speak into the voicepipe and then straightened again, watching as the stern of the F-lighter, now a mere six hundred yards or so away, slid round towards Scourge’s bows. Any minute now.

  ‘Down you go, Hooper,’ he said. ‘Give me a thumbs up when you’re ready to commence firing.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Hooper, and he and his loader disappeared over the bridge wing and down onto the casing and their three-inch gun. It was just Harry and two lookouts left on the bridge now. He said to them, ‘When I shout go, I want you down that hatch.’

  Both of them, in unison, replied with an, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  The F-lighter, like any good broody hen, was sweeping her charges along from behind, ushering them into the channel dead ahead. Harry could clearly see six caiques now. In McCready’s original sighting, one must have been masked by another.

  For this all to go wrong, all it would take would be a conscientious Jerry lookout deciding to look aft – well, one with sharp eyesight at least.

  But Harry wasn’t too worried. Scourge was trimmed well down – which was why Hooper and his loader had been standing on the bridge and his gun tower hatch safely shut, and why he and his loader had wet feet now as they sighted the gun.

  All that would be visible now from the deck of the Jerry was the narrow fin of their conning tower, one slim shadow, way beyond the carpet of moonlight, only to be seen against a sea of darkness. Also, it was amazing how lookouts never tended to look behind them. Enemy ones at least. In the Andrew, a lookout not looking behind would get his bum felt in no uncertain terms.

  Harry continued to study the target. There was no movement around the F-lighter’s flimsy wheelhouse, and he could see no figures manning the 3.7cm twin flak mount abaft it.

  ‘Stand by on the dive board,’ he almost whispered down the voicepipe. Yes, even conversations could be heard over silly distances at sea but not above the clatter of the F-lighters’ ex-truck engine. No matter, he wasn’t taking any chances.

  Harry had Scourge running silently on motors right now, for the quiet, and so there was no delay in de-clutching diesels when it came time to get down.

  The plan was to close the F-lighter astern to at least five hundred yards and then start firing into her steering and wheelhouse and engine room, catch the Jerry completely unawares and keep firing until it looked like someone might be about to start firing back – and then dive in a hurry. If they moved fast enough, they’d escape the torrent of heavy calibre fire an F-lighter was capable of throwing out: shells, any one of which could shatter Scourge’s pressure hull and end her career there and then. With a bit of luck, however, if Hooper could fire enough shells of his own into the damn thing, they might cripple her before she could bring any of her guns to bear. Especially that bloody 75mm.

  Well, now was as good a time to start as any.

  ‘Righty-ho, Hooper. Commence firing!’

  Barely were the words out his mouth when, BANG!… BANG!… BANG!… BANG!…

  The flashless powder meant there was no flash. Nobody aboard the Jerry would see where the firing was coming from. He’d forgotten about that. So sweet!

  The rounds were fairly pumping out. Christ! Any faster and it would be like a machine gun! A double tot for you, Hooper, Harry was thinking as he watched each three-inch projectile blow another lump out of Jerry’s arse end with unerring certainty.

  …and then silence!

  Harry leaned over the bridge front. It was a jam.

  For gun crews, standard procedure for a gun jam was you let the shell cool before you reopened the breech and tried to clear it, in case the un-ignited propellent ignited in your faces.

  Harry looked back at the F-lighter. Figures were emerging from cover… his hand went to the voicepipe… time to get under… he bent his head forward…

  He could make out a figure, and another – the ubiquitous coal-scuttle helmets, one sliding into the aimer’s seat on the 3.7cm, and then from right under his nose… BANG!… BANG!… so that the recoil concussions from Scourge’s own three-incher, right below him, practically rippled his eyeballs.

  As far as Hooper had been concerned, letting a jammed shell cool was standard peacetime procedure – in war, you did what you had to. And right now, what he’d had to do was get that flak mount. Harry was watching, face frowning, leaning on the voicepipe as Hooper’s next shell detonated right under the enemy gun. Its aimer went one way, like he’d just bounced off a trampoline, an elegant parabola over the side. Harry watched him splash into the sea. By the time he looked back, the entire twin mount was already slowly pirouetting the other way, with its barrels protruding at angles that definitely weren’t right.

  Behind where it had been, the wheelhouse was already a ruin, but when Harry looked at her hull, something else was happening; it was elongating. The F-lighter was slewing to port. Now it was time to get down.

  He hit the tit twice, and the klaxon blared.

  ‘Hooper! Now! Clear the casing!’ When Harry turned, the two lookouts had already vanished down the hatch. He followed, slamming it shut behind him.

  The Jerry might be damaged, badly , or even crippled, but she was still afloat, and she still had that bloody 75mm. Harry didn’t think it would be smart to hang about assessing the damage they’d done if there was a chance some disgruntled Jerry wanted to get one last shot off… from that bloody 75mm.

  ‘One clip on, two clips on,’ said Harry as he secured the lower lid, and then he hit the sloping control room deck plates as Scourge continued down. ‘Periscope depth,’ he said. And Scourge started creeping gently back up again.

  Everybody in the control room was beaming. Harry ordered the periscope up and told McCready to take a look. Although the moon was bright, it really wasn’t daylight, and McCready was more likely to see more than Harry ever would. McCready gave a running commentary. The F-lighter was still underway, but she was having hell’s own job steering. There was a fire somewhere below, with odd flickers of flame coming up through a hatchway and billows of black smoke. A lot of Jerry sailors running about mad on her deck. And she was very low in the water, aft, said McCready.

  Harry jammed his hands in his pockets. He’d been intending to sneak off after the caiques, which were racing off south as fast as their lawnmower engines would shove them, catch them up, surface alongside each one and have Hooper lob shells into their hulls while the .303 boys raked their decks. But McCready was saying the F-lighter was low in the water. He decided to have a look himself; it bloody well was!

  He asked Farrar what he thought. Farrar only took a moment, peering through the scope, then he leaned back, ‘Yes, sir,’ he said simply, nodding.

  ‘Yes?’ said Harry. ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Yes, it’s worth risking a torpedo, sir.’

  Harry laughed at that and said, ‘Start the attack!’

  The F-lighter might not be moving fast, but she was erratic, and the fire had been quickly brought under control. McCready sat at the fruit machine, dialling in all the data that Harry called as he manoeuvred Scourge at dead slow ahead together back round to line up for a ninety-degree track angle – the range, the bearings, the speed, the target’s heading.

  The control room seemed preternaturally quiet for some reason. This wasn’t a big target and was really a sitting duck, but the tension was there . Harry ordered the rating on the sound-powered telephone, ‘Tell Mr Gooch, ready tubes one and four, shallowest setting. Firing on my orders.’

  Then, for McCready, ‘The bearing is… that!… Range, that!’

  The rating behind him read off the bezel, and the range: seven
hundred and fifty yards. The target couldn’t be making more than three knots now but looked to be falling off her course again.

  ‘Range opening,’ called Harry, ‘she’s veering away… what’s my DA, Mr McCready?’

  ‘Red zero eight, sir.’

  ‘Place me on,’ Harry said to the rating behind him, who then eased Harry a fraction to his left.

  ‘Torpedo room… sta… ahh… and… by… Fire one!’ And Harry, face still stuck to the ’scope’s eyepiece, counted to five in his head, then, ‘Fire two!’

  It would only be seconds to run. He could see the bubbles now of the first and then the second torpedo as Biddle called from Asdic cubby, ‘Torpedoes running.’

  And then the first one vanished. It had been dead on target, the bubbles showing it streaking towards the crippled Jerry, straight and true, aimed right at a point two-thirds of the way down its hull.

  Gone under, thought Harry to himself, and he’d just had time to say it out loud when there, in the eyepiece, a gout of water shot up right in front of where the wreck of the wheelhouse had been, and the aft part of the hull snapped up like the bar on a spring-loaded mousetrap, and at least twenty feet of the rest of the hull vanished. Torpedo two hadn’t gone under.

  Then they heard and felt the boom! in the control room. *

  The caiques, when a now-surfaced Scourge had them back in sight, had scattered into the Fournoi archipelago, two down one channel, three down another and obviously the fastest of them running pell-mell straight west for Agios Kyrikos, the small port town on Ikaria. Harry ordered full ahead together on the diesels and went after the fast one.

  Harry told Hooper to pick his moment to open fire, and he waited until they had closed to eight hundred yards before the first rounds were on the way. Some of these wooden inter-island craft were next to bloody impossible to sink, their stout timbers soaking up the shells. But this one was ablaze from stem to stern after only six hits. God knows what she’d been carrying apart from Jerry soldiers, but it burned well. She was never going to make the safety of Agios Kyrikos now. Figures were jumping into the sea, lots of them. Too many for Scourge to ‘rescue’. Harry ordered Scourge to turn away; he’d seen scenes like this before. Maybe boats might come out from the port once they were gone.