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Authors: Steven Wilson

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Kadow posed his own question. “Will the British have closed it off to us?”

“Possibly,” Mahlberg said, “but with nothing more than cruisers and destroyers. North of the Faeroes?” He could tell by the look on his officers' faces that they considered this unlikely. He smiled. “Yes, gentlemen. I feel the same way about mines. I won't consider the Faeroe-to-Shetland passage, so you needn't offer an opinion about that. There is France.”

“The Bay of Biscay?” Kadow said. “St. Nazaire or Brest?”

“A greater distance to travel but we'll have air cover. I'll give it some thought. Trenkmann?” Leutnant Trenkmann was the
Rollenoffizier
, the detailing officer who assisted Kadow with administrative duties.

“Yes, sir?” Trenkmann said.

“Contact Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine. Find out if they will detail a U-boat escort for us in the Bay of Biscay.”

“Sir, if the enemy has broken our code . . .” Trenkmann said.

“Then they will be faced with a dilemma. Is the message a ruse? Would I dare radio my intentions knowing that they will most certainly intercept and decode my message? Would I be foolish enough to put this fine ship right under the guns of the English navy or within sight of their air force? Or, if
Sea Lion
is at England's doorstep can she dash out at any time and destroy her convoys? So many questions, gentlemen, and he who answers the most, wins. Send the message, Trenkmann, and let the British sort out its veracity.”

Derby House, Headquarters, Western Approaches,
Wireless/Telegrapher Center

Chief Petty Officer Wireless Telegrapher Watkins was a strange sort, a little man with a shock of gray hair and large, helpless eyes hidden behind thick glasses. When he spoke, which was not often, his Cockney accent distorted anything he said, so he chose to say very little. He had come into the Royal Navy during the last war when even men with eyesight such as his were welcome. He was not educated; no one in his family was educated, but the Royal Navy by sheer chance or the intuition of some enlistment officer decided that Watkins was just the sort of chap that they needed in W.T. It was in this small and little-understood division of the Royal Navy that Watkins came to know, in his very undemonstrative way, that he was quite brilliant. He heard, through the bulky earphones clamped over his ear, and he felt, through his fingertips from the clumsy black knobs on the monstrous wireless cabinets, the unseen world of radio signals. From the first year of the last war on, Watkins was content to sit in the shadow of the W.T. cabinet with its glowing dials, warm face, and gentle hum from the large glass tubes that throbbed like a hundred hearts within its body, and listen. Over the years he came to know, to understand, to appreciate, the complexity of the electronic language, and the only time that anyone saw Watkins excited was when he spoke with other supplicates of the wondrous machines and their ability.

Now it was his second war and as was the case with all wars, all things became much more complicated and required even more devotion of the warriors; those who fought with guns, and those who listened. And Watkins had been listening. For U-boats. And the U-boats had been talking; a great many U-boats chattering away as if their only purpose at sea was to gossip. This was a mystery to Watkins, who prided himself on understanding things. He had been told by his superiors, and had confirmed by listening, that Mr. Doenitz's boats were expected to communicate regularly through Goliathâthe giant U-boat radio network. Watkins expected, as one in his line of work would expect, that the U-boats would do exactly that: send regular W.T. transmissions to inform Mr. Doenitz where they were and what they were doing.

But one night Watkins, his uniform disheveled, his half-empty stained mug of tea perched dangerously close to his elbow, a company of dead cigarette butts lying in and around a cheap tin ashtray, leaned slowly into his W.T. cabinet and pressed the Bakelite earphones tightly against his ears. He had found somethingâsomething strange, something that at first did not make any sense and was so unusual that he thought, perhaps, he was mistaken. So he listened. For seven hours, his hunched shoulders burning, his tobacco-stained fingers curled around the earphones, he listened. After seven hours he reached without looking and found the pad and pencil that he always kept on the narrow shelf next to his desk, and he began to write.

The U-boat W.T. transmissions were certainly in code, but Watkins was not concerned with that because he simply copied down the message as it was transmitted and he sent the whole thing up to the chaps in Crypto. He knew what was padding, that segment of the message before and after the true transmission that was supposed to throw off anyone listening. He knew that. And he knew the call signs of the various U-boats; he judged fifteen in all, because he had heard thousands of call signs over the years and that was the first thing that he had picked up.

That wasn't what troubled him and for an instant caused him to doubt his ears, and his experience. So on his pad he wrote down fifteen names; good, strong English names like William, John, Paul, and Robert. And then for the next ten hours, as Mr. Doenitz's U-boats cluttered the airwaves with W.T. transmissions, he placed a checkmark beside the name of each enemy W.T. he identified. Not beside each call sign, but beside the English name of every U-boat W.T. operator, the flesh-and-blood human being that tapped out the message. After Watkins had heard enough, after he was satisfied that he had solved a mystery, and a very curious one at that, he lit a cigarette and, looking over his shoulder, called to the young duty officer: “Sir? If you don't mind, sir, I've run across something that I think you should have a listen to.”

Chapter 22

Scapa Flow

Captain Harland had tried for the better part of an hour to ring through to Sir Joshua, but for one reason or another, he was unsuccessful. Radio was out of the question; there was a violent storm raging just outside the squat brick administrative building of the Home Fleet and every signal transmitted or received was garbled beyond comprehension. Drops of cold rain peppered the windows accompanied by the low, mournful howl of the wind as Harland agonized over his inability to speak with his superiors. The message that he had for Sir Joshua was critical: the Home Fleet was going out.

Admiral Townes and his staff had gone over the reports from
Harrogate
when she got to the last reported position of
Nottingham
. There was nothing,
Harrogate
had reported, some bodies, Carley rafts, and the few pitiful things that had once made up the life of one of His Majesty's ships.

“Send
Birmingham
to join
Harrogate
,” Townes had said. “In case the bastard turns round and comes back out the Strait.” Then he turned to Harland and said: “You may inform Sir Joshua that the Home Fleet is lighting off boilers in preparation to sail.
Rodney
,
King George V
, the cruisers
Hermione, Kenya
, and
Neptune
will accompany them.”

“
Neptune
has had to stand down, Admiral,” one of the officers had reminded him.

“
Norfolk
can go in her stead,” Townes said.

“When can you sail, sir?” Harland had asked.

Townes glanced at an aide for the answer.

“Four to six hours, sir,” the aide said crisply.

“I can see from the look of disappointment on your face, Captain Harland, that you are not satisfied with the answer. Nor am I, but we simply can't turn the key on these ships and drive them into the North Atlantic. There is preparation after all. You can help and make no mistake about that. Find the German ship for us. If I know where it is I will go and destroy it. Put everything that flies into the air and find that bastard for me. I shall feel much better once I avenge
Nottingham
.”

Harland had been trying to reach Sir Joshua to inform him of Admiral Townes's intentions. He slammed the telephone down in disgust. Millions of pounds invested in the finest naval base in the realm and he could not even make a trunk call to London.

He lit a cigarette to calm himself and walked to the window overlooking the bay. Even in the gloom he could see them, huge black machines, their mute forms punctuated by signal lights, turrets, funnels, superstructures, and guns. The might of the Royal Navy, the great ships that had destroyed
Bismarck
and would now venture out to destroy another German vessel. He felt pride at what he sawâhe was staff and not line and there was an unspoken agreement that one seldom acknowledged the contribution of the other. Still, there was the real Royal Navy and in just a few hours they would go in harm's way.

Harland dropped the cigarette on the rough-board floor, ground it out, and reached for the telephone. How he hated Scotland.

Cole stood uncertainly in the tight confines of
N-for-Nancy
, trying to force the stiffness out of his legs. The constant vibration of the twin engines and the cramped quarters had combined to numb his legs so that they felt as if they were blocks of wood. When he rose, hunched over because he was too tall to stand upright in the Hudson, he walked on two rubbery limbs with the ponderous weight of the flying suit bearing down on him. The others in the aircraft, Bunny, Peter, Johnny, and Prentice, might have felt as numb as he did but they didn't show it. He made his way awkwardly to Prentice and held on to the W.T.'s shoulders for support.

“Where the hell are we?” Cole asked and then realized that the question was as ridiculous as the answer was useless to him. They were in the middle of the ocean and the only location of any importance would be where they found the Germans' ship. He noticed Prentice glancing at him quizzically. He was holding Cole's intercom plug.

Cole nodded his understanding, too tired to curse himself for being stupid, and slipped the plug into the intercom system. “Sorry,” he said, his own voice coming to him with a distant metallic ring. “My butt's numb and that goes right to my brain. Where are we anyway?”

Prentice pulled out a small chart. “Just here, sir, about five hundred miles out. Of course Peter is our navigator, so by rights his is the chart we follow. I just keep mine as a bit of a hobby, you understand. If I'm right we fly on for a bit more and then turn south-southwest on a course of two-two-oh. I think I'm close enough to Peter's reckoning.”

“Okay,” Cole said, mildly disgusted that he still had no idea where they were. “Let me get back to my window.”

“Bit of a strain on the eyes, isn't it, sir?” They had all been staring through the marred Plexiglas windows for any sign of the enemy. The only thing in sight was the unending ocean.

“A bit.”

Prentice handed Cole a canteen. “Dash some of this on your face. It'll bring you around.”

Cole nodded, unscrewed the lid on the canteen, poured a handful of water into his palm, and rubbed it into his face. It was ice cold and it almost took his breath away. He handed the canteen back to Prentice with a smile and struggled aft to his position. He lowered himself carefully into place, grimacing as the muscles of his thighs and lower legs burned when he tried to fold them into position. He heard the Boulton-Paul dorsal turret swing rhythmically back and forth as Johnny swept the sky, looking for enemy aircraft. There wouldn't be any German fighters out this far, but there was always the possibility of a graceful German Condor or squat flying boats making an appearance. Either one would be an unwelcome, and most dangerous, intruder.

Something hit him on the leg; it was a coin. He looked up to see Prentice pointing to his intercom plug.

“Shit,” Cole said to himself. He slipped it into the receptacle and heard Bunny's voice crackle in his ears.

“. . . just received word that
Prince of Wales
has released some of her escorts. We're to be on the lookout for them. We ought to pass close by, although I have no exact location. We're to turn south in approximately ten minutes. King, old chum. If you don't remember to keep your intercom plugged in, I shall be forced to shove it up your bum. Now come up here like a good chap so we can talk.”

Cole rose again, struggled forward, and sat down in the entrance to the tunnel that led to the bomb-aimer/navigator's compartment in the nose. He showed Bunny the plug-in and slid it into the receptacle.

“You don't have to tell me something more than twelve to fifteen times before I get it.”

“That's heartening, King,” Bunny said. “I thought you'd like a bit of a break. Constant searching can deaden a man's eyes and brain.”

“Thanks. It was hell on my ass as well.”

“Is your ship as big as all that? Larger than
Bismarck
?”

“Yeah. From what we know of her. Big and fast. I'd hate to think what would happen if she ran into a convoy.” He noticed Bunny had lost interest in what he was saying. “What's the matter?”

Bunny was tapping one of the dials on the instrument panel. “This bloody thing is dancing up and down. I thought my erks fixed it.”

“What is it?”

Bunny twisted to look out the window. “My oil pressure. Left engine. She's not leaking oil unless it's coming out underneath.” He turned back to the instrument panel. “Now the bastard's running just fine.” He tapped the dial again. “Prentice? Radio back to base, will you? Tell them that we're having a spot of trouble out here and we're turning around. Give them our location. King? You'd better go back to your station.”

As he started to rise, Cole heard a bang. Not loud enough to create concerns; more like the sound someone makes when they slam their fist on a desk. It was the explosion that followed that was loud.

The blast threw him back against the wireless operator's table. Cole felt bits of aluminum, rubber, plastic, and flaming debris, all wrapped in an intense smoke, engulf him. He heard shouting and saw Bunny clawing at the yoke. But there was something wrongâit was like the pilot couldn't see.

Cole pulled himself forward until he was even with Bunny.

The pilot had no face. It was nothing more than a mass of bloody meat.

“Get out of the way, you fool!”

It was Peter, covered with blood, pushing his way through the bomb-aimer/navigator's tunnel.

Cole moved back as Peter saw Bunny.

“Jesus wept!” he said. “What happened?”

“The left engine exploded,” Cole said.

The plane started to descend and twist to the right.

“Get him out of there,” Peter ordered Cole. “I'll try to fly her from the second pilot's station.”

Cole nodded. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Prentice. His mask was gone and blood streamed from his nose.

“I'll help,” he shouted. “Let me get the quick release.” Prentice moved between Cole and Peter and reaching under Bunny's waving arms punched the quick-release switch for the pilot's harness.

“Will you two hurry, please!” Peter said. “I can't keep this rock in the air much longer.”

Prentice glanced at Cole in alarm. “His legs have gone all stiff. They're wrapped up in the rudder assembly.”

“Get him out!” Peter screamed. “He's going to kill us all.”

Cole looked around. “Give me that map case.”

Prentice handed it to him and Cole ripped off Bunny's flight cap.

The wireless operator grabbed his arm. “What are you going to do?”

“It's the only way.”

“You'll kill him!”

“For bloody sake, Prentice,” Peter said. “He's dead already. Do you want him to kill the rest of us?”

Prentice, tears rolling down his cheeks, released Cole's arm.

Cole brought the metal case down hard on Bunny's head and the pilot went limp. He tossed the map case to one side.

“All right,” he said to the stunned Prentice. “We pull him out on three. One, two, three.” They lifted the unconscious pilot over the back of the seat and let him drop on the floor next to the transmitter.

“Get Johnny,” Cole said to Prentice. The boy's haunted eyes were locked on the faceless form on the deck. “Prentice? Get Johnny out of the turret. Now.”

“King!” Peter shouted over his shoulder. “Under the pilot's seat are smoke floats. We'll need them when we go down. I think we're losing hydraulic fluid as well. She's becoming difficult to handle. Did Prentice send out a distress signal?”

“I'll find out.”

“Do it bloody quickly, Yank. We won't survive long in that water.”

“Right,” he said, reaching under the seat. He felt two canisters and their release mechanisms. He also felt hunks of flesh and warm sticky liquid. He focused on the mechanisms, found the latch, pictured its operation in his mind, and flipped it open.

Cole staggered back to the bulkhead just forward of the Boulton-Paul turret, carrying the canisters. It was becoming almost impossible to move in the gyrating aircraft and he was thrown from side to side. Prentice was helping Johnny slide out from under the dorsal cutout former and onto the step by the entry door.

Johnny was shaken but not hurt. “Bastard jammed on me. Thought I was going to have to squeeze out the aft flare tube.”

“Prentice told you?”

The gunner nodded.

“Did you get out an SOS?” Cole asked Prentice.

“Yes, sir. But no one answered, or if they did, it won't help. Wireless is out, sir.”

“See if you can get it going again,” Cole said. “You take these.” He handed the canisters to Johnny. “Where's the life raft?”

“You're standing on it, chum,” Johnny said. “The hand lever for the dinghy release cylinder is right behind you. We land, pop the door, and step in. Won't even get our feet wet.”

“Yeah,” Cole said, certain it was going to be a lot more difficult than that. “You say.”

N-for-Nancy
seemed to have settled into a more or less level flight when Cole passed Prentice on his way up front. He patted the wireless operator on the shoulder. “How's it going, Prentice?”

“Let you know in a bit, sir. I'm afraid everything's scrambled.”

“Okay,” Cole said, kneeling on the deck behind Peter.

“How's Bunny?” Peter said, his eyes on the glowing dials of the instrument panel.

BOOK: Between The Hunters And The Hunted

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