by David Black
Harry’s beer bottle bottom arrived, full to the brim.
‘You’ve not given us a chance to welcome you to the club,’ said Shrimp. And at that, Harry realised everyone around, draped over the ancient easy chairs, were skippers. ‘We all want to know how you’re coping with breathing the rarified air.’
‘Yes, young Gilmour,’ said one of the other figures in the gloom. ‘What’s the first thing you’ve learned? Go on. Tell us!’
Harry eased into his chair, grinning now, with his drink gripped firmly. ‘Well, it’s hard to say. I’d need to think …’
‘No time to think, man! You’re a submarine skipper. Decide! Act!’ Harry thought it was the one who’d said Flannel had been looking for him, who’d said that.
‘Okay. What’s the first thing I’ve learned. On patrol, I haven’t got anything to do,’ said Harry. ‘It’s as if I’m in the way …’
But Harry was drowned out by guffaws of protest and hilarity.
‘Jesus Christ! Someone shut him up!’
‘You can’t say that!’
‘For God’s sake man! Think of the service!’
‘Have you no decency … !’
‘Until of course, you sight a target.’ Harry recognised Shrimp’s saner voice. ‘Then you’re the man of the moment. Which is as it should be on a tight boat. It makes the crew uncomfortable if you’re always hanging about you know, like you’re correcting their homework. They need to be allowed to get on with the job.’
‘Well, indeed sir,’ said Harry, thinking maybe he should reconsider always hanging about on the bridge when he wasn’t needed – and also realising that the banter here was just him being welcomed, not mocked. He decided to join in. ‘I know that now, sir. But I suppose at first I thought maybe they just didn’t like me.’
Which, of course, brought forth another storm of hilarity.
‘Aw! Bless!’
‘As if … ! Harry Gilmour’d get a kiss in any stokers’ mess from Guzz to Wei Hai Wei!’
‘Enough!’ said Shrimp trying to stop laughing himself. When he had, and matters had quietened down, he said, ‘Tell us Harry, what are the best tactics for a submarine when engaging an enemy airfield?’
Later, once everyone had started drifting off, Shrimp had cornered Harry.
‘I know we did our debrief after you got in,’ he said. ‘But you should come along to our little club gatherings. I like to make sure my boys are doing all right.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Harry.
‘So how are Bertie’s boys shaping up?’
‘It’s a tight crew, sir, as I’m sure you know.’
‘Indeed. And you seem to be settling in. That was quite a haul you brought back on your Jolly Roger, for a first patrol.’
‘The crew seem to be getting used to my ways.’
At that, Shrimp gave Harry a sideways look, more smile than question. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Some thought Bertie had them wound too tight, you know. You might want to watch they don’t unwind too much … not that I’d dream in interfering in the day-to-day management of your command, Mr Gilmour,’ the latter said hurriedly as if Shrimp wanted to make sure he hadn’t gone too far. Then, as if to move on swiftly, ‘Anyway, you must have given them a pretty damn good “meet the new boss” speech.’
‘I didn’t do a speech, sir,’ said Harry.
‘Really … ?’
‘Didn’t do one when I took over as Mr Carey’s Jimmy. There wasn’t the time. Wasn’t really the time this time either, with us already heading out on billet. So I left number one in the control room and had the cox’n take me round. Showed my face in every compartment, let the crew know who was the captain now, and told them to carry on. There were a few things – procedures – I thought needed changing so I ordered them changed. I think everyone got the picture, sir.’
A pause.
‘You think I should have given them a pep talk?’
‘Good grief, no,’ said Shrimp, who then paused, himself, for a much longer moment before saying, ‘You’re a bit of an old head on young shoulders, Mr Gilmour, aren’t you.’
‘Sir?’
‘Nothing, Mr Gilmour. Carry on. Oh, and good night.’
Eleven
Harry creaked to his feet, and stretched the night chill out his bones. His backside felt permanently imprinted from the rope cats-cradle the second cox’n had rigged for him at the portside back corner of the conning tower. He’d been dozing; nothing more.
From the look of the intensifying glow away to starboard, instead of a firm light above the horizon line he could see it was going to be a hazy start to the day. Good.
Scourge had slipped her pontoon off the Lazaretto at dusk last night, and after she had parted from her escorting minesweeper, had barrelled northwest as fast as her twin diesels would drive her – minus the diverted power to top up her batteries. She’d steered 045 degrees true for the first part of her dash, then after making the dog-leg off Cape Passero in the middle of the night, had been running on 010. Doing the sums in his head to wake him up, Harry reckoned they couldn’t be much more than 20 miles south of Cape Spartivento – directly astride the track an Italian battlefleet would take if it were on its way to the Straits of Messina. Doing other sums in his head – the less than 300 miles from Taranto to here; the Italians’ likely speed; exactly when they’d slipped from Taranto – he was certain they’d passed.
Bugger.
Still, it made his next decision easier. He acknowledged the two lookouts and the officer of the watch, Lt Miles Harding RN. ‘Morning gentlemen,’ he said, sounding hearty, letting them know he was awake now. ‘Thank you for arranging a quiet night for me. Much appreciated.’
‘Sir!’ ‘Mornin’, sir!’ from the lookouts, who neither nodded nor turned to look at him. Lookouts weren’t meant to take their eyes off the horizon or the sky. Harding found himself smiling in spite of himself, ‘Morning, sir. I trust you slept well.’
Even before he’d met his new CO, Harding had been quite prepared to be nothing more than professional with Lt Gilmour, RNVR when on duty, and indifferent when not, in the time-honoured fashion of an RN officer working his commission under a pain-in-the-arse skipper. Except that Harding had found himself really rather approving of him.
Harry was at the voice pipe, ‘Control room, bridge. Send the first lieutenant up please.’ Then turning to Harding, he said, ‘A not-bright new day, I think. What d’you say, Mr Harding?’
Harding looked at what was shaping up to be a shitty haze. ‘Indeed, sir,’ he said. And Farrar, who must’ve already been out his bunk, propelled himself on to the bridge. ‘Sir?’ He said, just as hearty as his skipper.
‘Let’s go to diving stations in ten minutes, Number One,’ said Harry, still scowling at the insipid dawn. ‘But I’m not going to dive the boat. Look at this sunrise. I think I’m going to risk it on the surface, for a while anyway. And double up on the lookouts.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’
‘Breakfast is going to have to be late, I’m afraid, but see if Able Seaman Windass can excel himself once again and get a brew going for everyone before they have to stand to,’ he added, ‘Carry on.’
AB Windass, the nominated galley man, was from Hull, and as put-upon and vocal about it as every other son of that northern port.
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ said Farrar again, this time with a smile, before he dipped back down through the hatch.
Eighteen hours ago Harry had been sitting with Katty outside Joseph’s café on the Sliema front, overlooking the sea, watching him try to tidy up the wreckage enough to open. That was when he had spotted the two ratings in Shore Patrol rig, running down the prom, and he knew right away they were looking for him. He’d stood up and waved, and had heard the deep sigh from behind him and knew the scowl that would already be on her face.
Harry and two other skippers, the only ones in from patrol, had then found themselves sitting in Shrimp’s office. Every other boat was at sea, said Shrimp, out to the west, forming pa
trol lines to intercept any forays by a collection of Italian heavy cruisers that were, according to RAF reconnaissance, currently gathering in Palermo and Cagliari. The enemy ships were heading to these ports for a reason, Shrimp had told them; a huge allied operation was taking place all along the western end of the Mediterranean. Everybody had heard rumours about something big; now it was happening.
‘It’s called “Operation Torch” gentlemen,’ said Shrimp. ‘Commonwealth and US troops are being landed at Oran and Algiers, and on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. It’s big, it’s amphibious and we can’t let those Italian cruisers get in amongst it. Unfortunately, as of earlier today, it is not just the cruisers we have to worry about. The battleships Vittorio Veneto, Littorio and Roma along with two light cruisers and six destroyers have sailed from Taranto, heading west for the Straits of Messina. In short, gentlemen, the Italian battlefleet is at sea, and your three boats are our first, and at the moment, only line of defence.’
And with that, they’d been off.
A mad scramble to assemble the crew from whatever billet or dive they were lurking in, and a quick inventory of what was aboard – the full load of 12 torpedoes and topped off fuel tanks meant she was sailing whatever. As she slipped, Harry noted with satisfaction that Scourge was the first off the dock, and that she was sailing with a full complement. None of her crew was adrift, especially after the rumour mill had got the word out. Everybody wanted to be a part of it. The Trade had inflicted a lot of damage on the Italian Navy so far in this war, and was proud of it. But so far, only the effing wafus had ever sunk any of their battleships. It was high time the Fleet Air Arm was put in its place.
He’d told the boat where they were headed in the middle of the night, having summoned all Scourge’s crew not on duty to the control room, and in the packed, red-lit squeeze of men he had felt the excitement to be palpable.
Now it was the cold, diffused light of day. Scourge was at diving stations and the bridge was a little crowded with the extra lookouts. All the batter-on urgency had gone out of their headlong dash from Malta. Harry had cut their speed to lessen their wake and have all the more amps to cram on lest when they dived they had to stay down for a long time. They scanned the skies and what passed for a horizon.
Suddenly Harry was out his little rope seat and down the hatch. When his feet hit the control room deck he startled everybody there, including Farrar and Harding, peering over the plot table at the chart of the waters off toe of Calabria.
‘I’m convinced they’ve already passed us,’ said Harry, without any preamble, shoving his way to the table. ‘There’s bugger all happening up there. No aircraft, no anti-submarine sweeps, nothing.’
‘Mr Farrar was just saying the same thing, sir,’ said Harding, looking over Harry’s shoulder as Harry scrutinised his plot, Harding wondering if Harry was looking for mistakes. He wasn’t; he’d already decided Harding wasn’t the sort to make mistakes. Farrar was nodding, ‘So what’s your thoughts, sir? Do we still stick around, just in case. Wait until the others catch us up and form a patrol line as ordered?’
‘… or use our initiative,’ said Harry peering at the point on the chart that was Scourge. Then he leant back up again and grinned at Farrar, ‘What d’you think Captain Simpson would prefer, eh?’
It wasn’t really a rebuke, just a bit of joshing, and Farrar knew it. ‘I think he’d prefer whatever you decide, sir,’ he replied, grinning back.
‘Correct, Number One! Well done, sir! By Jove, have you ever thought of taking this submarine business up professionally?!’ said Harry, leaning back to the plot, chortling to himself. ‘Now, Mr Harding, how far do you think we could get up this spout before we really have to dive?’ and he waved his hand over the narrowing neck of the Straits of Messina.
Going flat out at well over 13 knots again, Scourge swept on into the maw of the straits, and saw nothing. Above was a clear blue sky, but when you looked down all you saw was a murk – not even a fog. Harry was on the bridge with just the two lookouts now, because when it was time to dive he wanted under fast and waiting for a daisy chain of bodies to cram themselves down the hatch meant delay.
Below, he had Farrar on the search periscope, fully extended now, way above and behind him, scanning for any sight of land. Harding was on the plot, with his stopwatch and dividers, dead reckoning their way into the narrowing neck of enemy water.
Harry remembered the words he had spoken to Louis, about never feeling more alive.
The ridiculousness of his situation hit him, so that he wanted to laugh out loud. Not quite 209 feet long, 24 feet in the beam, and weighing in at just under 670 tons, that was the boat he was conning now, in pursuit of big ships, not boats. Ships of almost 46,000 tons each, with nine 15-inch guns; almost 800 feet in length, capable of 30 knots – and their consorts.
University drop-out Harry Gilmour and a motley collection of called-up former journeymen plumbers and electricians, a butcher’s apprentice, grocery clerks, bank tellers, commercial travellers, even an ex-assistant cinema manager, in their tiny tin can, were chasing the Italian battlefleet.
He was still laughing to himself as he hit the front of the bridge with the palm of his hand – couldn’t help himself. ‘Come on Scourge! Come on girl!’ he said, trying to do it under his breath and failing. And the two lookouts, not taking their eyes off the horizon, grinning to themselves privately about the story they would have to tell.
A voice echoed up the voice pipe. Harry stepped forward and opened it. ‘Bridge!’ he said.
‘Number One here, sir. I have land, bearing zero four zero, range eight thousand yards. Punto di Pellaro. Certain of it.’
Harry looked to starboard but could see nothing. Well, they had got pretty far in without so much as an air patrol sighted, or even another ship. If the pride of the Italian Navy had been on its way, this water would have been crawling with bad stuff. They must have gone through. Had to have. Now it was his turn. And if he wanted to get away with it properly, it was better the Eyeties didn’t know a Royal Navy submarine was in their back yard. He’d been lucky so far, time to stop pushing it – time to dive. He ordered a course change to port, heading Scourge towards the deeper water of the Sicily side of the strait, and looked at his watch. He wouldn’t wait until Farrar got a land sighting on the far side, he wouldn’t risk it. He’d do it by his watch and the picture of the chart in his head. The minutes ticked away. And then … he hit the klaxon twice.
‘Clear the bridge!’ he called, but the lookouts were already down the hatch. Harry followed, pausing only to pull the lid shut and shout, ‘One clip on! Two clips on!’ And he was in the control room, grinning. ‘Keep eighty feet, group down, three knots. Breakfast gentlemen! And bloody good show, Scourges. We’re already half way up their arse and they don’t even know we’re here!’
****
‘Captain to the control room!’
Harry was off his little perch, and down the conning tower hatch in a flash. He’d been sitting, head back, gazing at the Milky Way blazing away above his head as Scourge was charging east at 12 knots, using nearly all her diesel power for speed, and precious little for the batteries.
They had surfaced just after nightfall, and it was about half way through the first watch. The clear sky radiated a considerable amount of starshine, and the visibility was excellent, even for Harry to see. Also, there would be a half moon rising early in the morning watch. Harry knew they had no hope of catching the Italian battlefleet in a straight chase; even at their basic cruising speed the Italian battleships could outpace Scourge going flat out on the surface. So on the face of it, this was a fool’s errand. But the Eyeties had a habit of turning around and racing back the way they’d come. And in these conditions, any Eyeties would be a lot easier to spot. So he intended to keep buggering on – you never knew your luck.
Right now they were about 15 miles north west of Cefalù, a quaint beach resort on Sicily’s north coast, according to his trusty Capitano Massimo’s Una Guid
a per la Navigazione Costiera – the Italian yachtsman’s manual he’d found in Louis’ bookshop all those months ago. That was half way to Palermo, which was almost certainly the Italian battlefleet’s destination.
Farrar had been thinking Harry had been terribly cool in his demeanour over the past few hours, considering he was making it up as he went along. For a start, Scourge was now off the command grid; the Captain (S) had no clue where Scourge was right now, or what she was up to. Considering the Captain (S)’s basic operational tactics were entirely predicated on his knowing at any given time what billet each of his submarines at sea was patrolling, this was insubordinate to say the least. For a start, two boats on the same billet might mistake each other for a U-boat, and start trading torpedoes. Something, on a dark night, with a submarine’s low and indistinct profile, that could happen easily. And had.
Which was why Farrar had had a quiet conversation with the cox’n a couple of hours ago – about stuff.
They had just exited the straits, and the tension of their run through had worn off. Scourge was proceeding at watch diving out into the channel between the Aeolian Islands and the north Sicilian coast, when Farrar had button-holed Ainsworth and drew him into a private space behind the torpedo reloads.
Sneaking through the straits had been exciting, to start with; creeping along sock-footed, practically scraping the sea bed, Biddle in the Asdic cubby, ’phones clamped tight to his head listening for every burp and fart in the water. Except that he was picking up nothing but the usual grinding and clanking of the rail ferries and the odd wheezing tub of indeterminate genus. Not a hint of a naval marine powerplant or propeller sound in the water. Even when their new skipper had planed up to periscope depth and sneaked a look – the small attack periscope head was less than 20 seconds above the surface – the bend in the Sicily shore had been exactly where Harding’s dead reckoning had said it would be, any risk they might blindly run up a beach averted. The skipper had simply ordered the necessary turn to starboard, and within a half hour they’d been though, and breathing again. Not a single Eyetie anti-submarine unit had even bothered looking for them. Further proof that Captain Gilmour’s guess had been right, and the Italian big ships had been and gone.
