Turn Left for Gibraltar

by David Black

  The gun crew were already tumbling up through the conning tower hatch, and down on to the casing. The first one there yanked the tompion out of the barrel, another undid the clips on the watertight ready-use magazine in the fore end of the conning tower, and pulled out a three-inch shell, arming it and ramming it home into the breech. The gun layer unsecuring the gun was preparing to traverse it, and Rais preparing to direct the fire himself: a task which would require his entire concentration, when as CO he should be concentrating on commanding the boat.

  Harry took his eyes from seaward, but not before he made sure his lookouts were attending to their duty even if he wasn’t, and he watched the silhouette of the train take shape. Even with his poor vision, the bulk of the loco and of the seemingly never-ending line of freight wagons loomed up, its progress marked by each tiny little red and green trackside signal light it masked as it lumbered onwards at what seemed an ever-increasing speed.

  ‘Range, one thousand yards,’ called Rais to the gun layer. ‘Make your deflection five right. Commence firing when the target crosses the datum line. Then independent firing. Make every shot count down there, do you hear me?’

  Harry sighed. What else was the gun layer going to do?

  And then the whole length of the train could be made out, and it was as if the huge loco was beam on to them. Harry could see the little green glow from the driver’s cab and even just make out the lattice of its pantograph sucking the power down . . .

  BUMMMM! The three-inch had fired.

  Almost instantly there was an explosion right in the middle of the locomotive’s body. It seemed to arch slightly into the air and then there was a spectacular eruption of blue flashes and sparks along its roof, and on to the top of the first freight wagon; the overhead line coming down, Harry realised. It was like a mini-electrical storm, the sharp cracks of it piercing through the burble of Umbrage’s diesels. And then came the grinding of metal. The loco must have jumped the tracks and then landed, and although it was still upright, you could see it was derailed. Yet with the momentum of the God knows how many tons of freight behind it – two thousand tons, maybe even more – it was being driven headlong, its bogies gouging up sleepers, twisting rails. The weight of the wagons rolling onwards, broke against the wagons grinding to a halt, and the whole long snake of it began to concertina, grinding the heavy loco further into the ground.

  BUMMMM! BUMMMM! BUMMMM! The gun was firing steadily now, its twelve-pound projectiles hitting the freight wagons, ripping shreds of canvas and wood, and boxes of stuff into the night air. And finally, the whole ragged mess ground to a halt. Fires had started in some of the wagons, and suddenly the night air was rent by gunfire: endless, entirely ragged, uncoordinated rattling fire; intense bursts of it, then single and double shots, then the volleys rose again.

  Everyone on the bridge had instinctively ducked, except Rais, who sneered down at them. ‘Boxes of rifle ammunition, cooking off. No need to hide, girls.’

  BUMMMM! BUMMMM! The gun crew were still firing, and more shells were being passed up through the conning tower hatch. When Harry looked again, he could see a tiny figure disentangle itself from the cab of the train’s engine, climb down and run away up the track. The driver. Harry smiled to himself, Poor bastard, you probably didn’t expect this when you got up this morning for your bowl of coffee and your bombalone, with the wife and bambini screaming in the background. Harry, happy that the driver was getting away: an ordinary working bloke, trying to earn a living, and now he was running for his life. Good luck to him.

  The gun layer must have seen the driver too, because he ceased firing momentarily and traversed the gun back up the length of train and trained it on the loco again, whereupon he began to systematically blow it to pieces. Harry, still grinning, found himself wondering if the gun layer had been blasting away at the freight wagons until now just to make sure the driver did get away. It would’ve been a typical Jack thing to do – giving a bloke a break, one working man to another.

  Anyway, Eyetie railways wouldn’t be using that locomotive again, he thought, not any more. Its wreckage had, however, managed to shield the brick switching station, so Rais’s plan to blow a hole in the line’s power grid had been scuppered.

  ‘Check fire!’ called Rais. ‘Clear the casing’, and then into the voice-pipe, ‘Half astern, together.’ Then he turned to Harry, his face split with a grin, and he performed what could only be described as a little jig, right there on the bridge. ‘Now that was bloody good fun, wasn’t it, Gilmour!’

  Indeed, it had been fun. Jack had thought so too. Harry could see it on the expressions of the gun crew and the spare lookouts as they tumbled down into the hatch. There were few things in life that didn’t involve drink or women that Jack could be said to truly enjoy, but a good go at making loud bangs and blowing stuff up, watching the big bits fly off and the wreckage burst into flames – now what wasn’t to like about that? And it was all legal too. You could even get a gong for it! It could even put a smile on the face of a twisted little arsehole CO like Rais.

  The rest of the night Umbrage spent heading west-south-west for the northern coast of Sicily, and two nights later they did it all over again, against the Messina to Palermo line, just where it came out to hug the beach before Santo Stefano di Camastra. They still had eight torpedoes aboard so Rais then headed north again to look for something to fire them at. He’d been in tearing high spirits.

  Several days later they encountered a small, escorted convoy coming out of the Golfo di Cagliari at the southern tip of Sardinia. It was straight after first light and they had just dived and were in a perfect position to begin an attack. Three small freighters, each on or under two thousand tons, and a bigger tanker: maybe three thousand or more tons. Tuke, on the ASDIC, had heard them coming first. Unfortunately, they were being escorted by at least three MAS-boats and what Harry identified as an Achille Papa-class torpedo boat – basically the equivalent of an RN frigate. Rais didn’t put a foot wrong: manoeuvred Umbrage on to a 110-degree track angle, and managed to position her so that three of the merchant ships were overlapping in his periscope sights, offering a continuous target almost nine hundred feet long. He couldn’t miss, so he ordered a full salvo: all four torpedoes in the forward tubes. But he did miss.

  The little convoy had been emerging from the middle of the Golfo into proper open water as the last torpedo left its tube at just over 1,300 yards’ range. And that had been when the convoy had executed a very neat 25-degree turn to starboard and began defensive zigzagging.

  The first two torpedoes, and the fourth one, went combing down the port side of the convoy, and probably weren’t even seen by the merchant ships or their escort. The third torpedo, however, went rogue, its gyro probably failing, and it began circling back. By that time, Umbrage was already heading deep – even so, the entire crew were treated to the extremely disconcerting whine of one of their own armed and live torpedoes running over their heads, out of control, twice, before it ran out of fuel and sank to the seabed.

  The Italian escorts did spot the rogue torpedo however, and Tuke heard one of the MAS-boats speeding out to where it must’ve thought the torpedo had been fired. It had begun dropping depth charges. But Umbrage had been a long way away by then, and the sound of them was just a distant rumble. Yet it was enough to cause a couple of anxious glances among the younger crew – the ones Harry could see from his position by the plot – crew who had obviously never been on the end of a proper depth charge attack. What a treat they had in store, he thought.

  The following day, back off the Golfo di Cagliari, they encountered another small freighter sailing singly: two torpedoes fired, one hit. They didn’t hang about very long, watching her sink, because Rais wanted to head back for the Calabrian coast. He’d had an idea.

  ‘You remember that blockhouse thing we saw on the railway line just south of Diamante?’ said Rais to Harry and Grainger. They were sitting around the wardroom table, each of them stuffing their faces on
huge, freshly caught lampuki, with chips that Musgrave had fried up in a pot full of solid lard he’d managed to hoard. They were running on the surface towards the coast, cramming amps into the batteries as they went, with Wykham on watch on the bridge. It was the early hours of the morning and this was dinner. The little deckhead lights, with their chintz shades, reflected off the grease smeared around their mouths and cheeks, in among their ten days’ growth. Musgrave had coffee on the go, so that smell all but masked the diesel reek and what was coming from bodies that hadn’t been washed over those ten days either.

  ‘The electricity substations?’ said Harry. ‘The ones with all the switching gear?’

  ‘Wires, cables, those long concertina things . . .’ said Rais.

  ‘Insulators,’ said Harry.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Rais. ‘Shut up. Electric gizmos for the electric train wires . . . Now, that bloody train outside Diamante, when it came off the tracks it masked that one right in front of us. So we didn’t get a shot. But they’re important, right? So, what if we go right inshore, anywhere from the instep bit of the toe, up to south of Acquafredda where the railway’s practically on the beach, and slowly cruise up and down, looking for every one we can find, and blowing it to buggery? That’d hurt ’em, wouldn’t it? Take a bugger of a long time to fix up a row or more of them, eh? Do that at night, withdraw in daylight, to see if we can find a home for our last two kippers, and then Bob’s your uncle. Home, James!’

  They started inshore the following night. By the time they withdrew at first light, five switching stations and booster transformer buildings had been reduced to piles of smashed brick and tangled metal, each one dispatched in a magical display of sparks and blue flashes. The next night they did it again. And the next night. Until the atmosphere on board was like a school trip at Guy Fawkes. There was a queue of ratings volunteering to get on the shell line, passing up the twelve-pound projectiles – especially for the positions on the bridge and the for’ard casing. Just so as they could see all the bangs and flashes.

  On the fourth day, having failed to sight a single ship, Umbrage was dived and heading back inshore at a stately three knots on her motors. Wykham had the watch, and Grainger was up in the forward torpedo room with the gunner, checking the remaining shells in the main magazine: getting ready for the night’s work.

  Harry and the CO were sitting at the wardroom table drinking coffee, with Harry coding the signals they’d be sending back to Lazaretto reporting on progress. His mind wasn’t entirely on the job: he was thinking about Rais and his behaviour as his CO was scribbling down what he wanted to send, changing his mind and scribbling again – sitting there, absorbed, like an innocent schoolboy. At first Harry had simply believed he behaved like a martinet because he enjoyed it. But then everything had changed. Whatever Shrimp had said to him back in Malta after their last patrol, Rais had tried to become a different character. He hadn’t always managed it, but there had been times on this patrol when Harry had thought his CO was becoming almost human. The changed atmosphere in the boat was testimony to that. That was when he decided to ask.

  Nobody knew anything about Rais or where he had come from. It certainly didn’t feel as though he were Trade through and through. So what other branch of the service had he arrived from, and why? Now seemed as good a time as any to try and find out.

  ‘How did you end up in this lot, Sir? If you don’t mind me asking?’

  Rais carried on scribbling, little furrows on his brow, as though he were concentrating and hadn’t heard. Then, without looking up, he began speaking as if from a long way away. ‘I’m a career officer, Gilmour. I’m doing this because I have to. I doubt you’d understand.’

  ‘Try me, Sir.’

  Rais looked up, and his expression had changed. He looked shifty, guilty almost. ‘When this is all over, I don’t have the luxury of influence. There’s no one to intercede on my behalf, to make sure I don’t end up with just a cheap suit and a thank you like your kind will. Nor do I have the option of walking back into a cushy number on civvy street. So I intend that my record is going to show the Navy can’t afford to let me go. Doing my duty is not enough. I intend to prove to my country that it cannot do without me.’ He stopped and looked at Harry, a long appraising gaze, as if trying to work out whether he’d said too much already. And then, almost as a parting shot, he said, ‘We’re not all handed shortcuts to distinction by virtue of our birth, like your friend Peter Dumaresq.’ He pushed the signal pad over to Harry’s side of the table. ‘Here. The final drafts.’

  Harry’s probe had been rebuffed. Except that in those final throwaway words, Harry couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been given a clue: a pass to a whole new way of looking at Rais, seeing not just a martinet for the sake of it, but a man driven, and frightened that he might not be equal to his ambition.

  It was dark now, and they were on the surface. They could see the lights of Acquafredda a few miles up to the north, as they were entering into one of the long shallow bays that scalloped this rocky part of the coastline. Harry was down below, on the plot this time, and Wykham on the bridge with Rais as they ran inshore. Again, Rais had chosen a remote part of the coast, this time with the railway running along the top of cliffs. Nothing spectacular, forty to fifty feet was the highest escarpment at most, but the line ran in and out of tunnels, and Rais had been daydreaming all day of catching a train just entering or leaving one of them.

  ‘Block a tunnel too!’ he’d been ranting. ‘That would really bugger them up!’

  Also, deep water ran quite close inshore. Less distance to run if they needed to dive in a hurry. Harry had already traced out on the chart the contours of the band beyond which Umbrage would be unable to dive, the S/O zone, surface only, because there the water was too shallow. He had drawn Grainger’s attention to it, and he’d merely nodded. Nobody thought much about it after that on the way in, not even Rais, who’d merely given Harry an irritated scowl when he mentioned it to him.

  Grainger was leaning against the chart table beside Harry, but they weren’t chatting. The control room was in red light, and the gun crew were clustered around its forward bulkhead door waiting for the word.

  Rais’s voice came down the pipe. ‘Give me revs for four knots.’

  Grainger leaned over and rang the engine room telegraph. ‘Aye aye, Sir. Four knots.’

  Harry felt Umbrage slow, then Rais was back again. ‘Starboard, fifteen. Gun crew close up.’

  They were turning parallel with the coast: Rais must have spotted a target. Grainger called back the order, and the gunners filed past and went up the conning tower ladder. The conga line for passing the shells took the gunners’ place around the bulkhead door combing; they wouldn’t be needed until the ready-use magazine had been exhausted.

  Tuke was at his diving station in the ASDIC cubby; the echo sounder was in there too.

  ‘Tuke,’ said Grainger, ‘what’s the depth under our keel now?’

  ‘Shoaling now, Sir,’ Tuke replied. ‘We had two hundred feet up until ten minutes ago, but we’re down to just forty-five feet now.’

  BUUMMM!

  Harry felt the hull tremble as Umbrage’s deck gun commenced firing.

  BUUMMM! BUUMMM!

  But no sooner had the third round gone off than there were two new sharp bangs, different from the report of their own gun. Explosions, really loud in rapid succession, and close. That you could hear the cascading rush of water falling through the silence that followed told you how close: shells hitting the water beside them. There was a brief silence, then that too was rent by the sound of two blasts from Umbrage’s klaxon. And Rais yelling, loud enough to be heard down through the conning tower, ‘Clear the casing! Clear the bridge!’ The klaxon was the order to dive the boat.

  Harry’s mouth opened to call out, but no sound came; he saw Grainger’s eyes flick to the plot, to where Harry had just marked Umbrage’s position, well inside the S/O, and he heard the Number One instantly bellow, ‘Sh
ut main vents! Starboard, thirty!’ . . . orders that effectively countermanded Rais’s order to dive. Grainger reached for the engine room telegraph and rang for full ahead, together. He was making a dash for deeper water.

  The Wrecker immediately called back, ‘All main vents indicating shut!’

  And only then did Grainger stick his mouth to the voice-pipe and yell back, ‘Unable to dive, Sir! We’re too shallow!’

  But bodies were already tumbling down the tower ladder and clearing forward, and Tuke was shouting, ‘High-speed HE! Bearing three-two-zero! Closing fast! MAS-boats, Sir! For sure!’

  Harry felt Umbrage heel into her turn beneath him, and felt her bite into the water as her motors pushed her. The diesels had been immediately shut down on the first klaxon blast, and it would take some minutes to start them up again. Meanwhile, the electric motors weren’t going to be able to deliver much more than nine knots, even with the rheostats open to the gate, and MAS-boats were capable of up to forty knots when they got going. These elegant, fast little craft, more motor yacht than warship, could be armed with automatic Breda cannon and sometimes two torpedoes, sometimes as many as six depth charges. Which made them deadly to a submarine, and that was why they had to get to deep water and get down. Submarines weren’t designed for gun duels on the surface against gun-armed, high-speed patrol boats. One hit on the pressure hull, and you couldn’t dive. And if you couldn’t dive, you were sunk.

  Two more bangs, close aboard too. Harry felt the concussions through the boat, and water cascaded down the conning tower hatch. Those ones had been close. But somewhere in a back recess of his brain, Harry heard the bangs with relief: they were firing popgun cannons – old-fashioned single-shot jobs like the one on Umbrage’s casing. You load a shell, fire the gun, open the breech, eject the spent casing, load another shell, fire the gun. Time. It all took time: to fire and load and fire again, but time too for Umbrage to use – precious seconds that might, just might, let them get away. Because if the Eyeties had been firing a 20mm Breda, or even worse, 40mm Bofors – bang, bang, bang, bang, bang – like that: fast, automatic. They’d have been riddled like a sieve by now, and sinking, not diving.