For Valour (11 page)

“Very well. Retain contact with
Jester.
” He turned away, sickened that he could close his mind to what he had just witnessed.
Jester
had reported a find on her Asdic. A submarine, a submerged wreck, a back-echo from some freak formation on the seabed.
No chances.
It seemed very unlikely that a U-boat had been standing off all this time, when a fanned salvo of torpedoes would have despatched the tanker without difficulty. There had only been the corvette, and she was toothless as far as U-boats were concerned. A straggler, then?

Arliss called, “Tow's secured, sir.
Goliath
is getting under way.”

It might be too much. The tow could easily part under the strain. The sky was darker, and he had scarcely noticed it. They would have to stand by all night.

“From
Jester,
sir. Still in faint contact.”

Kidd said, “Shall I signal the corvette to close with
Goliath,
sir?”

Martineau stared at him. “So that we can join
Jester
and do a box search?”

Kidd looked at the sky. “Might save time, sir.”

“No.” He heard the sound of a shot, probably another line being fired. It did not seem important, or real. “Those shallows, Pilot. Show me again.”

He leaned over the chart table, watching Kidd's brass dividers trace the area to the north-east of their position.

He could sense Kidd watching him, feel his heavy breathing through his duffle coat. Was not this the very mistake they had always been taught to recognize and avoid? He felt unable to move, unwilling to believe it.

Then he said, “Then
that's
the route he'll use.” He pushed the dividers down on the chart. “And I nearly missed it.”

And still he felt nothing, neither emotion nor doubt.

He said, “Close up depth charge crews, and pipe Action Stations.” He caught his sleeve. “No alarms, Pilot. No noise. Just have it piped around the ship.”

Kidd was staring at him, hanging on to every word, although he probably thought his Captain had cracked at last.

“Sir?”

He straightened his back. “Then we will begin the attack.”

It was only a few seconds before anyone moved, but it felt like an eternity. Martineau climbed into his chair, his mind only half aware of the sudden stammer of voicepipes, the terse acknowledgements from the bridge team.

Suppose I am wrong?

“Ship at action stations, sir.” Even Kidd's voice sounded different. Or was it that he had become so used to Fairfax?

“Tell Asdic to belay transmissions.” He sat forward in the chair and studied the flickering phosphorescence on the radar repeater. “Tell Lovatt to take nothing for granted.” He thought he heard Kidd's intake of breath. Surprised that they would be without their Asdic sweep, or that he had managed to remember the senior operator's name. It was always like that. It started on the bridge, with the team, then it felt its way out through voicepipes and along wires to every section of the ship, eventually to all the various departments. The cooks and stewards, the supply assistants and stokers, the sickbay, and the nerve centre, the transmitting station and fire control systems. He was astonished that he could smile. And finally, to the faces across the table as requestmen or defaulters.

He gripped the arm of the chair, feeling the engines pulsing through it. And he had been determined not to allow himself to get so close to a command again. Different faces, dialects from Glasgow to Penzance, all held together by a ship, and by their trust.

How must it have been for those other men when they had heard his last command?
Stand by to ram!

He said, “Get me the gunnery officer.” He did not recognize his own voice.

Driscoll sounded clipped and formal, as usual. It was easy to picture him at his fire control position, headphones over his cap, and probably wearing the white silk scarf Martineau had heard about.

Driscoll listened without interruption, then he said, “Starshell, sir. Another if necessary. I've told B Gun. Then, rapid fire.”

No questions. No doubts. It was better to be a Driscoll in this sort of warfare, he thought.

Kidd said, “
Jester
's just dropped a couple of depth charges, sir.”

The explosions had been muffled by the fans and the creak of metal.

“Depth?”

“Thirty fathoms, sir. For a while yet.”

Martineau nodded. Like a complex puzzle. A falling tide and a treacherous current, but the wind dropping as if to compensate. No word from
Goliath,
so the tow was holding. They would be on their way.

Unless.
Suppose
Jester
had found a firm contact? A U-boat which was even now making a final strike at the tanker.

It was taking too long. “Check, Pilot?”

“Five miles, sir.”

He pressed his spine against the unyielding chair and tried to clear his thoughts. Too long . . . too long. He had fallen into the oldest trap of all, and had left the door wide open.
Jester
too far away to offer assistance, the corvette unable to attack.

It was like hearing Alison, that first evening when he had taken a few days' leave.

“The ship! The ship! Is that all you can think about, Graham? They can manage without you, you're not God!”
And much more. Maybe that was when it had all started to fall apart.

He did not look at his watch. There was no point.

“Course to steer to rejoin
Goliath,
Pilot?”

Maybe that was why Lucky Bradshaw had sent
Hakka.
To test him out, so as not to damage his own reputation by leaving it until he had joined the new group.

“Radar—Bridge!”

He bent over the tube. “Bridge.”

It was Lovatt, concerned but definite. “Strong echo, sir, dead ahead of us, zero-three-zero.”

Martineau peered at the repeater, holding his breath in case he missed something.

There it was, like a tiny winking eye.

Lovatt was saying, “About eight thousand yards, sir.”

Martineau heard the click of metal and knew that Driscoll was already setting his sights on the estimated bearing. He crouched over the compass.

“Starboard ten . . . Ease to five . . . Midships . . . Steady.” He heard Spicer's acknowledgement as he added, “Steer zero-three-zero.”

He stared at the repeater. A lot of interference, and for a moment he could not see the elusive blip on the small screen. Maybe the U-boat was fitted with a radar reflector and had already seen through their silent approach. He wanted to clear his throat. It was bone dry. Maybe there was no submarine at all.

Then he saw the blip again, clear and bright, as the interference pulled away like weed. Too small for anything else. And on the surface, trimmed down to offer the smallest contact.

Any second now and the U-boat commander would realize what was happening. He might turn away and run for it on the surface; he might even risk diving in these dangerous waters. Either way they would lose him.

“Steady as you go, Cox'n!” Unconsciously, he had dropped his voice, but Spicer heard him well enough.

Without taking his eyes from the radar repeater he reached out for the red handset.

“Chief? This is the Captain. When I ring for it, give me everything.”

He could picture Trevor Morgan down there in his white boiler suit, listening intently, his eyes alive in the reflected lights and dials. Like Malt, the Gunner (T), he had risen from the lower deck, to become a senior engineer in one of the navy's finest ships. He was owed an explanation.

“Sub on the surface, Chief.”

He heard Lovatt report, “Target's altering course, sir!”

Martineau slammed down the handset and called, “Full ahead both engines! Fire, starshell!”

Not an echo any longer. A target.

He felt the bridge jerk violently as one of the guns recoiled and the crash of the shot ripped into the darkness.

The second gun in that mounting would be ready and waiting.

Martineau lifted his glasses, then winced as the starshell exploded against the low clouds and lit up the sea like some eerie glacier landscape. The waves, their crests unbroken now, looked solid, like molten glass, and the glare held the scene until it seared his vision.

And there, no more than a darker shadow against the vivid backdrop, lay the submarine.

“Open fire!”

“Port ten! Midships! Steady!”
Hakka
turned only slightly, but the after guns were able to open fire immediately.

“
Straddle,
sir!”

Martineau lowered his glasses; he did not need them now. “
Steady,
Cox'n.
Easy.
”

Kidd turned to stare at him, his face quite clear in the hard light.

It was as if the Captain was speaking to the ship.

The U-boat was diving, the sinister shape lengthening as she continued to turn away.

Martineau clenched his fist. There were still the stern tubes.

“Stand by, depth charges!”

He watched the distance falling away, the submarine's deck alive with foam as she vented her tanks for a crash dive. Two shells burst almost alongside. In that sealed hull they would sound like hammers from hell.

“Tell Asdic to begin a sweep, Pilot!”

He strode to the opposite side. The submarine had disappeared. They would be down there trying to plug leaks, restore order, and all the while they would be hearing
Hakka
's screws roaring towards them,
like an express train,
one submariner had described it.

“Continuous echo! Fire!”

Hakka
surged into the returning darkness, dropping her charges and firing two more as she passed over the U-boat's estimated position.

“Hard a-port!” He recrossed the bridge and looked at the gyro. “We'll make another sweep.”

But it was not necessary. It was more of a feeling than a sound, with the sea suddenly boiling and flinging up a great column of water like something solid which would never disperse. Perhaps the U-boat had been carrying mines.

Asdic again, quiet, very contained. “No further echoes, sir. Sounds of hull breaking up.”

Kidd shouted, “We did it, by God!” He almost clapped Martineau on the shoulder but restrained himself. “You knew, sir! I'll never know how,
but you knew!
”

The column of water had subsided, and the sea's face was unbroken once more.

Martineau climbed into his chair. “Course and speed, Pilot. Pass the word,
well done.
”

He watched the huge bow waves dying away as
Hakka
reduced speed and pointed her raked stem towards the other ships.

Men had just died. Choking, crushed, obliterated. Men who would have shown no mercy if their cards had been played in the right order.

Aloud he said, “He was a brave man.”

Kidd shook his head. He had been in the war from the beginning, but like most sailors he had never seen a U-boat before, had known only the shadow, and the sudden roar of a torpedo in the middle of a convoy. Something to fear. And out of that fear had grown the hate and the skill to hit back, and destroy the enemy.

It made Martineau's quiet tribute to the German all the more moving.

6 | High Standards

The journey to Liverpool took far longer than she had expected, and it was almost a day and a half after leaving Plymouth before the train shuddered to a final halt. There had been one delay after another; they had been kept waiting in a siding while more important traffic went thundering past, and somewhere else a goods wagon had become derailed in a tunnel. That took even more time to put right.

The train had been packed for the last leg of the journey, but she had managed to get a window seat and was able to find some pretence of seclusion, interrupted only by an earnest young artillery Captain who had just got married and wanted to show her photographs of the event.

Much to her surprise her progress had been monitored, and she was astonished to find a car waiting for her, with a tough-looking Royal Marine driver who obviously knew the city well.

Anna Roche had heard a lot about the headquarters of Western Approaches Command, but nonetheless it was not what she had expected. Derby House, in the city itself, had been taken over shortly after the outbreak of war, and following a lengthy conversion into a bomb- and gas-proof citadel had proved its worth many times over. The choice had been due to the foresight of Winston Churchill himself, when he had been First Lord of the Admiralty, and one of only a few who had recognized the true menace of an all-out battle for supremacy waged on the Atlantic lifelines.

She glanced at the passing scene, blacked-out windows and throngs of servicemen, most of them sailors. The driver kept up a steady patter about the places she should know. Gladstone Dock,
where our lads tie up.
The signals station. The cathedral. It was so dark that she could have been anywhere.

And she felt like death.

A hot bath, even the one they had shared at Plymouth, a clean shirt, time to gather her thoughts. It was not to be.

The driver opened the door for her. “I'll keep an eye on your gear, miss, er, ma'am. They'll be waitin' for you, I expect.”

Security checks, a murmured telephone call. She was to go straight to one of the offices. Even this part of the citadel must be underground; the air felt tired, lifeless. She thought of the other places she had been stationed after her application had been accepted for Operations. Larne in Northern Ireland, Portland Bill; even poor, battered old Plymouth with its air raids was preferable to this.

There were a lot of Wrens in Western Approaches Command, and it was her decision. She made another effort, and rapped on the door.

“Come!” A woman's voice. Anna took a deep breath and pushed it open.

The only occupant was sitting at a desk on the far side of the room beneath a huge map of the British Isles. The desk was quite empty, and the Wren officer who occupied it, her fingers interlaced, gave the impression that she had been sitting here just waiting for this first encounter. She did not rise, nor did she smile.

“Take a pew,” she said. “We don't stand on ceremony here.”

Anna sat on a hard-backed chair, which also looked as if it had been prepared for her. Like being at school, she thought.

She studied the other woman as she opened the envelope which had travelled all the way from Plymouth. She could have been any age, in her thirties or possibly older. Everything about her was severe, as if she had done all she could to dampen any familiarity at the outset. The hair was pulled so tightly to the nape of her neck that it looked as if it might be painful, and her features, which were certainly striking, even attractive if they had been given the chance, seemed detached, aloof.

The two and a half blue stripes on her sleeves showed her to be a first officer, and her name was Crawford. Naomi Fitzherbert had heard of her, but then she knew just about everybody.
All for the service, my girl, and no time for anyone who thinks differently. A battle-axe on the outside, but a bit of a love when she feels like it.

That part was harder to believe.

“I've seen your dossier, of course. You come to us highly recommended. But . . .” The
but
hung in the air as she turned over the letter. “A Canadian, too.” A pause. “We have a lot of your countrymen in and out of here.” She looked up suddenly, her eyes very still. “I'll take you into the main Operations Room shortly. After that, the Boss will want to see you. Commodore Raikes has very high standards, so be warned.” She picked up her hat. “Come with me.”

Anna Roche stood up and followed her to the outer door. They knew enough about her to send a car to collect her, and the R.T.O. would have explained about the delays on the line. But so far nobody had thought it necessary to offer her a cup of tea, or show her a place where she could make herself presentable.

Surprisingly, it calmed her. She had met with this kind of thing before.

If they can be tough, so can I!

First Officer Crawford walked with her down a long, narrow tunnel, confining and painted white, and lighted at intervals by shatterproof lamps. Her voice echoed around them.

“Western Approaches is a vast concern now, with repair facilities large and small to keep the ships at sea. Londonderry, Greenock, Belfast, even St John's in Newfoundland. And it's all beginning to work. When I came here, we were losing an average of four hundred thousand tons of shipping a month. Crippling. Not enough escorts, no long-range air cover, and the enemy building more submarines than we could hope to destroy.”

They strode past a man sitting in a small telephone box, who was writing something on a signal pad. He did not look up. Anna could hear the other woman's heels clicking in the stark tunnel, and quickened her pace to keep up.

“But it's changing now.” She opened another door. “And we are in the centre of it. The hub!”

Anna glanced at her. No boast. It was pride, personal.
As if I don't exist.

She walked through and stopped by a safety rail. The Operations Room seemed to engulf her. The walls were giant charts, each one covered with coloured markers and numbers. Long ladders glided soundlessly back and forth, as Wrens added fresh information, and removed others.

Crawford said, “Everyone is represented here.” She gestured to one of the big tables which faced the main wall. “R.A.F. Coastal Command, the signal traffic officer—you'll be helping her, by the way. The one with the beard is the submarine tracking officer, and the chap next to him is the Met expert.
He
thinks so, anyway.”

Anna glanced at her pale profile, but there was no hint of humour.

“See that convoy they've just moved? From Canada, coming here . . . Thursday, all being well. That one further over is on passage to Gibraltar. You can see the disposition of the escort group clearly from here.”

She frowned as a burst of clapping erupted from the lower floor. A seaman messenger, hurrying past with a tray of signals, said breathlessly, “Got a U-boat! It's just been confirmed!”

Like the marine driver, as proud as if he had been there himself.

Somebody was moving another marker, and a voice said, “That was
Hakka
's kill. Confirmed. Bloody good show!” There was utter silence again.

“We'd better move along.” Crawford looked at her searchingly. “What is it?”

“It's all right. I saw
Hakka
in Plymouth just after I'd returned there from Portland.” But all she could see was the concern in his eyes when he had offered to help her at the naval club. And he had been out there. It looked like the Scilly Isles on the giant chart.

Hakka
's kill.

Crawford was saying, “She'll be here in Liverpool in a day or so.” She waited, as if testing something.

“Is it always like this?”

“Hmm. Usually. And now we've got a new C-in-C, Admiral Sir Max Horton, took over last month. He's a real ball of fire.” She hesitated, and then added quietly, “Commodore Raikes admires him very much.” They paused by yet another door and faced one another. “I thought you should know.”

So Naomi, the Hon Fitz, was right about that too.

She smiled. “I'm ready.”

The hot bath could wait.

Commander Graham Martineau stepped over the coaming of a watertight door and paused to accustom himself to the stillness. He looked down at his damply crumpled duffle coat, stained from various encounters on
Hakka
's bridge, and came to terms with it. This was the first time he had left that bridge since the ship had departed so hurriedly from Plymouth, and he was feeling it, even though he had spent far more time at sea on almost every other occasion. Maybe he was still deluding himself and he was not ready; maybe his enforced stay ashore had left him lacking something he had previously taken for granted.

He pushed open the door and was taken off guard by the white, shining interior of the ship's sickbay. With the deadlights lifted from the scuttles it seemed almost blinding, especially after their arrival in Liverpool in the grey half-light of morning.

After the strain of the last few miles, nursing the damaged tanker into safer waters and the swept approaches to Swansea Bay, their entry here had been unnerving. It seemed that every person on the base had turned out to greet them and give them a cheer as they had manoeuvred carefully towards Gladstone Dock. At one point there had been crowds of Wrens, hundreds of them, joining in the welcome, and even the normally imperturbable coxswain had exclaimed, “All that crumpet! Turned out just for us!”

And now the ship was still. Alongside. He peered through the nearest scuttle and saw a giant gantry, its huge crane towering above the masts, moving soundlessly on invisible rails, as if
Hakka
was still under way.

The sickbay was situated in the after superstructure, almost next door to his own pristine and empty quarters, and the bunk he had hardly used since taking command. But now there would be formalities to undergo. Captain (D) to be entertained, reports to be made, signals to be authorized. And there were other matters, no less important. The rest could wait.

The inner door opened, gleaming in the deckhead lights like polished marble.

The sick berth attendant, Petty Officer Pryor, known in his own mess as “Plonker” Pryor, was good at his job, and Fairfax had spoken highly of him. The last doctor had applied for a transfer after the savage air attack and it had, surprisingly, been granted. A new doctor would be appointed very soon, although Martineau suspected that if Pryor was like most of his breed he would deeply resent it.

He was watching him now, obviously surprised by a visit from his commanding officer but doing his best to conceal it.

“How's the patient?”

Pryor gave up trying to hide his astonishment. “Doing well, sir. A couple of stitches here.” He touched his own skull with one fat finger. “A few grazes.” He nodded. “He was lucky, that one.”

Martineau walked into the other part of the sick quarters. White-painted, folding cots, racks of bottles and jars which were still rattling despite the ship being alongside, disturbed by some piece of Morgan's machinery buried deep in the hull.

Ordinary Seaman Wishart, one of the first lieutenant's volunteers, was indeed lucky to be alive. He had lost his balance when he had tried to secure a line as the tug
Goliath
was about to take the tanker in tow. Fairfax had told him that the tanker's crew had been close to exhaustion from their long ordeal after being left by the convoy, and Wishart had been helping one of them when he had gone over the side, hitting his head in the process.

Martineau moved to the one occupied cot and stared down at the face on the pillow. It was very pale, the bandages making it look even younger, defenceless.

Fairfax had been hard put to describe what had happened next. The seaman named Forward had dived over the side without hesitation. He had been wearing a pusser's life jacket, but it would not have saved him in that sea.

“I saw him reach Wishart and take hold of him. The current was running fast—they didn't stand a chance.” He had stared at his own hands as if he had somehow expected to see the Schermuly line-shooting pistol still there. It was the only chance, and he had fired the whole line. Somehow they had managed to haul both of them aboard the tanker, and the vessel's master had produced a bottle of Scotch to help revive them.

Martineau recalled the surprise and the genuine pleasure when he had told Fairfax that he would be putting him up for a decoration, Forward too.

“You did well, Number One! You all did!”

He realized that the youth had opened his eyes and was gazing up at him.

“Just wanted to make certain you're not still full of sea water. We'll get something done about the injuries.”

He saw Wishart's hand move out to touch his sleeve, then it stopped, as if he suddenly realized what he was doing, and where he was.

“I—I want to stay, sir. I'll be all right now.”

Martineau glanced at the S.B.A.

“What do you think?”

Pryor pouted sternly. “
If
the new doctor comes aboard soon, sir, he could deal with it right here, on board.”