Non-Combatants

by Non-Combatants (retail) (epub)

  Gospel according to Harve. Dixon murmuring, ‘Nice thought, sir…’

  ‘Couple of points worth bearing in mind, Dixon, in case they haven’t occurred to you. One, a convoy can be attacked without any but a few ships getting clobbered; two, not by any means all of those actually go for a Burton; three, a heck of a lot of guys – well, ditto, end up in boats and then on survivors’ leave, everything hunky-dory.’

  ‘I’ll try to memorise that, sir.’

  ‘Another thing, you cheeky sod, is that whether you know it or not, Quilla’s a lucky ship.’ He moved into the forefront, nodding to Selby and telling Waller, ‘OK, I’ve got her.’ Glasses up, checking their distance astern of the Mount Ararat – which seemed about right – that the Sir George was nicely on the beam, and a mile and a half to starboard, the Aurelia. A very orderly convoy – and making very little smoke, he noted. A lot of them, like Quilla, would be oil-fired, and some of the coal-burners would still be on the Welsh or Newcastle variety; Canadian coal was something else, could make problems for engineers and provoke rude signals from commodores.

  With good reason. This armada – three and a half miles wide and one and a half deep – could pass unseen within a few miles of a patrolling U-boat, but a leak or two of smoke could really blow its chances. Recalling a warning given by the Chief of Staff in Halifax in a speech he’d made – that while 20 degrees west was about the crucial longitude, you could run into trouble – ‘stir up the hornet’s nest’ was the expression he’d used – more or less anywhere. It had become known, for instance, from radio intelligence, that following a wolfpack action a month or so back, one boat that had expended all its torpedoes was ordered to proceed westward to the limit of its oil-fuel endurance in order to send back a mid-Atlantic weather report, and in the event had by pure chance run into a follow-up HX, radioed therefore not only the weather state but that convoy’s size, course and speed, guaranteeing it a warm welcome in the region of 25 west.

  Waller came up after about half an hour to give Andy his lunch-break – corned beef and mashed Canadian spuds – and on his return he found the Old Man there too, sucking at a post-luncheon pipe.

  ‘Afternoon, sir.’

  ‘Holt.’ A nod, then putting his glasses back up – to starboard, examining the empty, dancing sea between themselves and the Aurelia and no doubt beyond her. Trickle of funnel smoke from the ship ahead of her, at that moment. Blackheddon Hills, that was. But from this position in the convoy’s rear, the sector to watch was the huge expanse astern – for which purpose there was a lookout in each bridge-wing and another on the gun-deck.

  Routine: day after day very much the same. Watch-keeping, station-keeping, sunsights and starsights and steam-ejection, and when the light went, ditching gash. You did that at dusk to give it time to disperse or sink during the dark hours, rather than mark the convoy’s broad trail for any shadower to find and follow. Forty-six ships dumped a hell of a lot every twenty-four hours: as long as the passage lasted – long as you lasted and they hadn’t found you – day after day and night after night the same.

  * * *

  Ploughing on: sky virtually clear, wind still west-northwest, cooler than it had been of late, on account of the approach of autumn. Thinking of home – leaves turning gold, etc. – Helensburgh initially, all the changing colours and the beauty of that estuary and its hinterland, especially Loch Long and Arrochar, Loch Lomond… Which reminded him of a girl named Liza. Liza Sharp. Best not thought about too much, perhaps, at this juncture. In particular, though, remembering an outing he’d made with her to Arrochar. In mid-summer, that had been – summer of ’39, before departure eastward as third mate in the PollyAnna. They’d climbed the Cobbler, on a blazingly hot day, picnicked on it.

  Sort of picnicked. Some girl, old Liza.

  At 1345 Selby surrendered the wheel to Samways; and shortly after that McGrath, down on the main deck for’ard, was putting half a dozen hands to work applying red lead to areas they’d chipped and scraped bare of paint the day before. Wanting to get it covered, but taking a bit of a chance, Andy thought. Could have been on the bosun’s own judgement or on Harve’s, but if the wind came up at all – well, salt spray had never mixed well with red lead, as McGrath would know very well. You could be left with a real mess that wouldn’t dry for a long time but would need to be left until it did, so it could then be scraped off and the job started all over again.

  Back home even, that might be, if the wind did get up. They were taking an awful chance, he thought.

  ‘Captain, sir…’

  Foster, the CRO. Old Man staring at him with something like defiance; Andy glancing round too, having in mind that a CRO’s unscheduled appearance on the bridge wasn’t always good news.

  Same thought in the Old Man’s mind, judging by his expression.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Been picking up Hun transmissions, sir. Same call repeated several times now. I’d say from somewhere astern – and no great distance.’

  12

  The Old Man had drafted a signal to the Commodore reporting enemy radio transmissions astern which might have been sighting reports of this convoy. Andy had passed it by light and had it acknowledged, then after a few minutes took in an answer reading:

  Thank you, we have been listening to him too, will probably take evasive action later this evening. Meanwhile a sharp lookout astern is essential, please.

  Most of the ships would have read both signals, would therefore be on their toes and expecting a deviation to be ordered, probably at dusk. It was getting on for three p.m. now. Andy concluding an exchange with the Old Man with: ‘Was just thinking, sir – situation as described at the conference, just about?’

  The Old Man had nodded. ‘Not so different, maybe.’ Situation as described by the Chief of Staff, could be a carbon copy of that. U-boat astern calling others further east who’d be gathering across the convoy’s track – or what they’d have been told would be the convoy’s track. Happened more than once before, maybe? Or had happened that once, from their point of view fortuitously, and they or their U-boat command ashore had latched on to it now as a rewarding tactic?

  Except that a long-range scouting U-boat could hardly count on finding itself so surely on an HX track. There was no obvious or prescribed transatlantic route. This lot had started by steaming on what might have seemed a direct route, then after four days turned northeast, but it could as easily have turned north after rounding Cape Race, steamed most of the way to Greenland before turning east: there’d be hundreds of such alternatives.

  Chance, was all.

  And you plodded on, trying to guess at what might be happening around you.

  Harve said, when he was taking over at four p.m., ‘Suppose he’ll turn us after dark, give the bugger the slip that way.’ Reaching surreptitiously to touch wood. ‘Wouldn’t you say, sir?’

  ‘Wouldn’t think he’d have us in sight. Got a look at us, some stage, but I’d say he’s dived. Could come up now an’ then – periscope stuck right up, say.’

  Andy thinking it was a pity they didn’t have an escort that could nip back there and make things difficult for the bastard, at least induce him to keep his head down. But they hadn’t seen that destroyer for a couple of days now; general opinion was that it wouldn’t have had the range to stay with them. Harve was saying, ‘He’d need to have been on the surface when he was using his radio, surely.’

  A shrug from the Old Man. ‘Been quiet the last hour or more, no matter what. CRO’ll sing out if he pipes up again.’

  ‘I see.’ Harve nodding. ‘I see.’

  ‘Another thing, Mister – when he’s dived, he can hear us, hear our screws. Can’t say at what range, but listening on hydrophones – the heck, damn near fifty of us…’

  How Andy envisaged it was that the German would have had to have been on the surface when transmitting, calling to his friends. That had been about two hours ago, and as the Old Man had said, nothing since. Then again, he’d made the sam
e call several times, would have been surfaced throughout that period and would then need to catch up, in order to continue shadowing; and while on the surface a U-boat could run rings around an eleven-knot convoy – having diesels that gave him seventeen knots, by all accounts – he certainly couldn’t when submerged, dived speed being no more than five or six knots, according to the pundits. So logically, the bloody thing would be tailing them on the surface. Needing to stop from time to time and maybe put his ’scope up? Would need to stop its engines before doing that, he guessed, rather than risk damage to the periscope through vibration. One would imagine… Especially having magnification in the periscope lenses: you wouldn’t waste a facility of that kind. Getting what kind of a view, though? Smoke-haze, and under it this rear rank’s masts and funnel-tops?

  Dixon had gone down, and the Old Man looked like doing so. Harve before coming up here had seen to the davits being turned out: boats still secured against the griping spars, of course, but only two slips to knock off to release a boat for lowering, a couple of seconds’ instead of several minutes’ work. Now he was sending Merriman up to see how it was on monkey island, looking out astern. Not from the point of view of Merriman’s personal comfort, but the extent to which the funnel’s bulk and haze immediately down-wind of it might obscure his binocular view of the horizon. Merriman had gone out into the leeward bridge-wing. Andy asked Harve, ‘All right, then?’

  A nod. ‘Away you go. Be getting your head down, I suppose.’

  ‘Yep. Mug of tea first, then crash.’ Thinking, but not saying, that bunk-time might be somewhat limited, henceforth; and Harve adding, ‘Swimming waistcoats from here on, remember.’

  * * *

  The dream he woke from had featured Julia and his parents in the house at Helensburgh, his mother’s smile freezing as his father snarled, ‘Left it a bit late, ask me, why bloody bother?’ Julia looking about eight and a half months gone – little face as pretty and appealing as ever, but hurt, and scared.

  Rolling more briskly than she had been. Quilla, not Julia. Still sickened by the dream, his father’s oafish behaviour and his mother’s uselessness, both of them completely out of character but acting their parts so convincingly, and the shock in Julia’s eyes as she turned to him for help, which for some reason he was incapable of giving. Wrenching himself out of that lingering, humiliating sense of paralysis to the reality that by the bunk-head light it was seven-twenty – 1920, in fact – and either the weather had changed dramatically or the convoy had altered course.

  Remembering the Commodore’s expressed intention of doing so, then. Hadn’t waited for dark either. It was dark in here because it always was, in this little box of a cabin with the deadlight screwed down over its porthole. Maybe the old boy had decided to get them round while daylight lasted and he could be reasonably sure of their remaining more or less in station. Andy off the bunk, putting on shoes, sweater and reefer jacket, then draping his brand-new swimming waistcoat over one shoulder; reflecting that the Commodore’s decision re evasive action would have been influenced not only by those transmissions astern, but by whatever coded information he may have been getting from home.

  Presence of U-boats ahead being the obvious thing. Transmissions which Quilla’s fairly primitive radio equipment had not been able to pick up; answers or reactions to those repeated calls. Well – reactions: the answers would only have been brief acknowledgements – or an acknowledgement, singular; reactions would be a pack leader whistling-up his gang, individuals then reporting their positions and estimated times of arrival on some new patrol-line.

  Seven-thirty now. He looked into the saloon, saw Waller who was waiting to be served a ‘seven-bells’ supper in order then to relieve Harve Brown at 2000. He’d had his head down too, he said, didn’t know which way they’d turned. Newton, RO/2, called from the far end of the table where he was playing a game of patience, that they’d made a fairly large follow-my-leader turn to port, but what course they were on now he’d no idea; adding to Waller, ‘Interesting that our navigating officer hasn’t either.’

  In fact the turn had been of fifty degrees, from 050 to due north, and Harve had made a note that it had been ordered at 1800 and completed by 1812; he’d also noted the log reading at that time. Andy entered all this in the deck-log and laid off the new course on the chart, deciding then that while he was up here he might as well get a set of stars; being into nautical twilight now, and with a clear sky, able to take one’s pick. As it was, dead reckoning told one that at the point of turning Quilla had been on latitude 53 and a half north, and so close to 30 west that with wind and sea on her beam now she’d be on that longitude or a couple of miles over it by first light.

  On the edge of wolfpack territory, therefore. Wolves somewhere inside it but – please God – expecting you still to be steering 050.

  * * *

  In the wheelhouse again at midnight to take over his middle watch, and as a preliminary checking over earlier chartwork, he wondered about the ‘close escort’ of sloops or corvettes which the Commodore had said would be transferring to them somewhere around 20 west, where an outbound convoy would be dispersing. Wondering how that rendezvous would be made. Because the Commodore would not have broken radio silence to tell the Admiralty or own forces at sea where he was or that he thought he was being shadowed and therefore about to turn north. That was the very last thing he’d have done – risk having U-boats as well as distant shore-stations intercept, decode and home-in on his transmissions.

  So how could those escorts have any better notion of the convoy’s position, course and speed than the U-boats had?

  Couldn’t, surely. So it was difficult to see how you’d have any escort until after you were attacked. Then you’d break radio silence, because once the bastards found you – well, they’d found you, there’d be no reason not to tell them back home where you were and what you were up against, so that whatever escort units were available could be directed to you.

  Maybe from some distance. From the convoy’s present position, for instance, the shortest distance to or from longitude 20 west would be approximately 350 nautical miles. For a sloop making, say, fifteen knots, about twenty-four hours’ steaming. Depending on where they were starting from therefore, could be only a couple of hours, but might take a whole day and night.

  With a wolfpack around you and no escort, you could lose enough ships and lives in a couple of hours, let alone twenty-four.

  New idea dawning now, though. If the convoy’s initial route as planned in Halifax had been known to Admiralty – as surely it would have been – and the alteration to due north ordered by them, in consequence of their own knowledge of present U-boat dispositions? Such signal passed to the Commodore in unbreakable code, presumably. Unbreakable not only by U-boats at sea but by U-boat command in western France – and the Commodore not having to emit a single peep.

  Touch wood…

  Could be the answer, though. Even if those escorts might still have the outbound convoy on their hands. That might complicate things a little.

  Anyway – taking over the watch now. Course due north, revs for eleven knots – unchanged since leaving Halifax and miraculously maintained by all ships, including the old crocks, this far… Wind west force four, sea moderate, visibility good. The Mount Ararat’s blue stern light visible (to binoculars) right ahead, and on the port and starboard bows respectively, the Faraday James’s and the Baron Delamore’s from time to time; and the Sir George a smeary-white disturbance alternately flaring and subsiding as she kept her thousand-yard distance on the beam to port. The Old Man was in his cabin, Waller had mentioned, snatching forty winks and having left the usual instructions – to be shaken without hesitation at the first sign of any trouble.

  Andy patted Waller on the shoulder. ‘Sweet dreams, Gus. Give her my love.’

  Waller had said he dreamed of Sam quite often.

  * * *

  The Old Man came back up at about 0130, hung around the chart for a while,
at the same time getting his pipe going, then moved to his usual corner and told Andy, ‘Might’ve lost him.’

  Lost him, singular. Assumption being that they’d had this shadower at least until the turn nearly eight hours earlier. Andy said with his glasses up and searching to starboard, ‘Hope so, sir.’ Though why one should assume that such a turn by a whole mass of ships in broad daylight would have ‘lost’ anyone or anything…

  He began: ‘If he was still out there shadowing—’

  ‘Wouldn’t be far out.’

  ‘You mean – not to lose us—’

  ‘Makin’ use of the dark, when we can’t see him – him on the surface, got the legs of us, sneak around seeing what’s what – like how many of us, and no destroyers, and where the tankers might be hid – all that.’ Coughing to clear pipe-smoke from his throat. Then: ‘My guess is the turn would’a lost him.’

  Why he’d felt he could safely leave the bridge for a couple of hours, Andy supposed. Fair enough as far as that went – even when it had meant leaving young Waller on his own. Well, Gus Waller was competent enough, and in emergency the alarm buzzer’d get the Old Man up here in just seconds anyway.

  Next question – taking advantage of the Old Man being in a conversational mood, which usually he was not – ‘If a Hun was shadowing, on his own, sir – waiting for chums to join him – think he’d wait indefinitely, mightn’t be tempted to have a go?’

  ‘Depending on his orders, I’d say. Square-heads do what they’re bloody told. Might be in for a bollocking if he didn’t.’

  What it came down to was – again – that guesswork was all one had to go on. That and experimentation, like this business with rescue ships. And it would all change, maybe when there were enough escorts to go round and tactics became more fluid. Searching the half-mile gap between the Baron Delamore and the Mount Ararat, and thinking that in the case of a ship in convoy there were no such things as tactics, only the essential of holding on. Quilla creaking as she rolled; pitching too – accounting for the thumps as her stem smashed through waves four or five feet high – but more roll than pitch. A lot of the creaking would be cargo-creak, he thought. Pit-prop creak.