Decoy (38 page)

Ned found that, providing he forgot about the cash register and the cookery book, he enjoyed his watches. The low conning tower, the feeling of being perched astride an enormous log being driven along by some unseen force, was exhilarating. For the first ten minutes of the watch, anyway… Then, if it was not raining, a rogue wave would slap the side of the conning tower, dodge up and over the spray deflectors, and deposit a few gallons of water on the heads of the five men. Never an honest bucketful hurled at a man’s back or sides, where it would just run down the oilskin coat and trousers and boots tucked inside the trouser legs. No, it always hit the face, at the side or front, so that it squirted down to soak the towel carefully wound round the neck to seal the openings that no oilskin designer had yet managed to close successfully, and after a couple of minutes of has-it-or-hasn’t-it, the first of the drips would start their chilly decent along the spine, inside woollen underclothes and jerseys.

It was, Ned thought wryly, like sailing before the war: though thrashing to windward in a yacht was more uncomfortable than pounding into a head sea in a submarine because the submariner, at the end of his watch, could go below, hang up his wet clothes to dry, rub down with a towel and turn into a dry bunk, and the cook would provide hot food and drink. That never seemed to happen in any yacht he sailed in.

Clare – it was now about two o’clock in the morning in London. Was she on night duty? Was she asleep in the nurses’ quarters? Was she having a couple of days’ leave and staying in Palace Street? One thing was certain – she would not be writing to him. Although she had no idea exactly what he was doing, she knew there was no way of him getting mail.

He turned and called to the lookouts over his left shoulder.

‘You fellows asleep? Haven’t heard any reports!’

‘Not exactly a busy shipping lane, sir,’ one of them said.

The two to starboard merely cursed the spray settling on the lenses of their binoculars. It took a lot of rubbing and polishing to get rid of the smears.

Down below, lights dimmed, Jemmy, the Croupier and Yon would be sleeping, the green curtains drawn across the front of their bunks. Hazell, who never seemed to sleep, would be in the wireless cabin, listening on the U-boat wavelength, faithfully copying down anything he heard and calling the Croupier if he picked up a signal from
B der U
for this boat. The big Blohm and Voss diesels at this distance were a comforting burble of exhaust. An ERA at the forward end of the engine room could watch the dials and gauges of both engines. Exhaust manifold temperature, cylinder head temperature (eighteen of them)… The electric motors would be spinning, making electricity instead of using it, and feeding it into the great banks of batteries. The air compressors would have refilled all the big tanks with compressed air, used for starting the diesels and blowing the water out of the ballast tanks when surfacing.

He turned up the faint light on the dim bridge gyrocompass: the quartermaster was steering well. He hauled back the sleeve of his oilskin enough to look at his wristwatch. An hour and a quarter left of the watch.

He should marry Clare when they got back. It would change nothing, except it would all be legal. She would have a husband and a mother-in-law. And get a widow’s pension if he was knocked off. Curiously enough they had never really talked of marriage in terms of a date and a ceremony. He almost laughed aloud at the thought that lovers in bed together rarely discussed wedding rings.

Suddenly the bridge, the whole boat and the sea turned a brilliant white: a Leigh light! This was it! Would it work? He crouched over the hatch and yelled: ‘Hard a’port, quartermaster…slow ahead port, full ahead starboard…’ To the nearest lookout he snapped: ‘Grab that signal lamp, call up the bloody thing!’

The great white eye was diving steeply: any moment the bombs or depth-charges would be bursting round them. He slammed down the hatch and clamped it shut: a near-miss could send tons of water below. The sharp turn and change in speed will have told Jemmy all he needed to know.

Come on! He looked aft and the enormous light was diving steeply but not quite directly at them: the U-boat was just beginning to turn under rudders and engines.

Would it work? When Ted dive-bombers kept up their attacks on the destroyer
Aztec
, when he found himself senior surviving officer, he had tried to guess whether each attacking pilot was left- or right-handed, assuming a right-handed man turned more easily to the right. And that was the reason why he and Jemmy had planned this sharp turn to port the moment they were caught in a Leigh light: they hoped that by the time the boat was turning the bomber would be too low and too committed to swing round to conform.

Christ! A stick of bombs erupted along the starboard side like half a dozen fire crackers: fifty yards away and at least three of them sending up water spouts in what would have been the U-boat’s length had she not turned. They sound like sharp cracks up here; down below they must seem almost like direct hits.

He flung open the hatch and Jemmy came up like a jack-in-the-box.

‘She’s all yours, Jemmy,’ Ned said quickly. ‘Give me the Aldis,’ he snapped at the lookout, who had been so impressed by the bomb bursts he had stopped signalling.

That was her still turning, Leigh light blazing away: Ned guessed that as the plane climbed away the pilot had seen the U-boat on the surface and had reckoned the bombs had so damaged her that she could not dive. Or could not dive because of some other attack…

Dot-dash…dot-dash…dot-dash…

The Morse letter A, and used for calling up. Ned kept fingering the second smaller trigger and felt rather than heard the mirror clicking as it aimed the narrow beam. Dot-dash…dot-dash…dot-dash…

The plane was not answering – a signal lamp was unlikely to be as close at hand as a packet of sandwiches – but she now shut off her Leigh light: instead she was starting a slow circle round the U-boat, like an enormous owl inspecting its prey.

There – a long dash: acknowledging the signal: but the pilot was staying well out of range.

Ned aimed the Aldis carefully: dash-dot-dot-dot…dot-dash-dot…dot-dot…dash… Quickly he spelled out ‘British’, by which time the plane was well astern, in a perfect position to make another bombing run.

But Jemmy must have the boat back on a straight course again, both engines full ahead.

Ah, there was a dash in reply.

Damnation! The suddenness of the Leigh light going out had left him almost blinded. Where the hell was the plane now? Oh yes, she had put on navigation lights. Wary…they knew all about those twin 20 mm cannons and, although curious about the signalling, were not going to get themselves shot down.

Ned aimed again: dot-dash-dash-dot…dot-dash-dot… Slowly he spelled out ‘prize’, received an answering ‘T’ and, with the plane turning ahead, saw her signal lamp flickering urgently. He read the letters aloud. ‘Stop…no…more…men…on…deck.’

‘Fair enough,’ Jemmy said. ‘Now tell ’em all about it, Ned!’

Ned’s index finger was already aching, but, pausing after each word for the acknowledging ‘T’, and having to dodge round the periscopes as the plane circled, with one of the lookouts keeping the flex clear, he continued the message.

‘Signal… Admiralty…attention… ASIU… York…’ He had to repeat his name twice before getting a ‘T’.‘ …Spree…successful… need…air…cover…stop… Yorke…to…pilot…highly…secret… do…not…radio…and…use…scrambler…phone…stop… Report…our…transmitter…busted…report…our…position.’

After the series of ‘T’s a brief signal winked back.

‘What…about… Whitstable…’

Ned laughed: the pilot had a sense of humour in the way he was checking up whether they were really British.

‘Don’t…eat…natives…when… R…in…month.’

The plane, on the port beam, suddenly switched on its Leigh light and came low so that it had the U-boat in profile.

‘Wave, you buggers,’ Jemmy snarled at the lookouts. ‘Smile…look happy, just in case he hasn’t believed a word of it and is going to straddle us with another stick.’

But the plane roared over, shut off the Leigh light, and continued circling with its navigation lights on. Its signal lamp winked again.

‘Remain…surfaced…give…course…speed.’

Ned replied: ‘Wilco…zero…eight…zero…sixteen knots.’

Jemmy laughed. ‘“Wilco” – masterly. That’ll get ’em. No Ted would know that.’

‘Wilco’ had become RAF wireless slang for ‘will comply’, but as with all slang it sounded wrong the moment it was used even slightly out of context.

Again the plane’s signal lamp winked. ‘Is…that… ASIU…?’ Ned spelled out: ‘Anti… Submarine… Investigation… Unit… that’s…our…mob…tell… Captain… Watts.’

The plane then asked: ‘What…phone…number?’

‘Jesus,’ Jemmy said, ‘They’re
really
checking up on us.’

Ned answered: ‘Whitehall…9000…tell… Joan… Jemmy… sends…love.’

The plane sent one last signal before flying off: ‘Have…good …trip…please…report…my…eggs…landed…closer.’

The navigation lights went out and Ned handed the signal lamp to the lookout.

‘Put it back in its box, very carefully. It’s worth a hundred times its weight in gold!’

The Croupier’s plaintive voice came up the hatch. ‘Permission to come on the bridge and share the fun?’

‘Granted. The show is over,’ Jemmy said. ‘Ned won the box of chocolates.’

‘From what I heard from the conning tower, we ain’t home yet,’ the Croupier said. ‘Those Brylcreem boys will balls up the message and kidnap Joan, too.’

‘A great big white flag,’ Ned said. ‘Lash it to the periscope. Get some chaps to work on it,’ he told the Croupier. ‘Four sheets sewn together, if there’s nothing else.’

He turned to Jemmy. ‘Joan’s going to have to take her chance, and I’ve got to go down and play with the charts to see what time that plane will get back to England, and the soonest another one will come out. What brand was it?’

‘A Liberator, as far as I could see. Certainly not a Sunderland or Catalina: neither can make sharp turns like that thing did.’

Ned went below and sat at the chart table, measuring distances with dividers. The Liberator probably had hundreds of miles to fly back to its base in the UK. Certainly with that news it would fly direct. At say two hundred knots. Four or five hours. A couple of hours to get the word to Admiralty, an hour for ASIU to react and get approval for whatever it proposed, and another five hours for a plane to get back here and find them. The position the Liberator reported would not be very precise. Thirteen hours before anything could happen that would affect them. He glanced at his watch. That would mean noon tomorrow.

The day began as though winter had stepped aside to let autumn return for a day or two. The air was cold but the wind had dropped to ten knots from the north-west, pulling broken cumulus clouds with it so that from time to time a weak sun played on the sea like a cinema usherette using a torch with weak batteries.

Jemmy was on watch but Ned stood on the tiny bridge beside him, and both men were wearing thick jackets, the German equivalent of short bridge coats, instead of the usual oilskins. The lookouts were cheerful, the heavy binoculars coming up to sweep the four quadrants with something approaching eagerness.

‘You know what could mess everything up, don’t you?’ Jemmy said lugubriously.

‘Many things,’ Ned said. ‘The most likely being us sighting another blasted frigate and having to dive just before our plane comes back.’

‘That’s what I was thinking. We’d need to get down fast before the frigate got a sight of our laundry.’

The ‘laundry’ was the huge white flag sewn out of four sheets, and now streaming out from the periscope standard and slatting from time to time.

‘Aircraft red four five!’ a lookout called. ‘Sunderland.’

Ned and Jemmy lifted their binoculars, and simultaneously saw the flying boat just beneath the cloud layer. ‘Flying boat,’ commented Jemmy. ‘Appropriate name. Just a boat hull with wings.’

Ned’s finger hovered over the alarm button warning of air attack, but the warning was to prepare to dive.

‘Plug in the signal lamp and test it,’ Jemmy ordered. ‘And make sure there are no kinks in the flex.’

He lifted his binoculars and looked at the flying boat again.

‘She’s seen us all right. Ah! She’s calling us up!’ he exclaimed as a white eye started winking.

‘I’ll take the call,’ Ned said, mimicking the pompous tones of a self-important businessman addressing his secretary.

One of the lookouts passed him the signal lamp. He lined up the aircraft in the cross-wire sight, and squeezed the large trigger which switched on the light and then the smaller trigger in front of it which aimed the mirror. Dash: the Morse for ‘T’, the answering or acknowledging signal.

‘Who…is…Clare?’ the plane flashed, and Jemmy began chuckling.

‘That’s Captain Watts being cautious!’

‘What the hell do I answer?’

‘She’s your bird,’ Jemmy said unsympathetically.

Ned aimed the lamp. ‘Future… Mrs…Yorke.’

‘She…sends…love,’ the plane signalled as it began a long, slow turn astern over the U-boat’s wake. Then, having made what was in effect a challenge, and been satisfied with the reply, began signalling again: ‘Will…drop…parachute…and…canister…one …mile…ahead…of…you…for…marker…dye.’

‘Box of chocolates from Captain Watts,’ Jemmy said, and then yelled down the hatch for the Croupier to come up and watch the fun.

The Croupier arrived sleepy and surly, thinking he was being called on watch, and sprang completely awake when the Sunderland was pointed out.

The plane’s signal lamp began again. ‘What…is…sea…state …wind…direction…and…strength?’

‘Wind…northwest…under…ten…knots…sea…strength… two,’ Ned signalled back.

‘Hard to distinguish sea conditions from a plane,’ Jemmy said. ‘Always looks smoother. Right, you men,’ he said to the lookouts, ‘you’ll find boathooks stowed under those gratings. Off oilskins and stand by on the foredeck.’

He shouted down the hatch: ‘Steady as you go, quartermaster… Half ahead both… I want four seamen on deck sharpish, no oilskins!’