Go In and Sink! (25 page)

Gerrard leaned back, his hands behind his head. C.O. of his own boat. Something Marshall had mentioned often enough. How could he tell him now? That he hated even the thought of it. That each time the depth needles crept round their dials he felt the nausea rising in him like fear.

He stood up and stretched, his head touching the deck-head as it always did.

Valerie had said nothing about it. She didn’t have to. After this commission was completed it would be the end of submarines for him.

Starkie peered through the door, his wizened face made older by the grey bristles on his chin.

‘First lieutenant, sir? Got a moment to check stowage?’

Gerrard smiled. ‘Fair enough, ’Swain. We must remember the
trim
, eh?’

Together they walked forward through the boat. As men struggled to their feet and went through the motions of preparing for sea it was like an awakening. A rebirth of something stronger than mere flesh and blood. Gerrard recalled Marshall’s last words.
Best yet
. He smiled despite
his
own anxieties. With men like these they could do anything.

He thought too of Simeon. And for him, they might have to do just that.

‘Captain in the control room!’

Marshall threw his legs over the side of the bunk and hurried from his cabin. He could not recall if he had been asleep or if he had merely been suspended between active thought and exhaustion. One second he was lying on his blankets, the next he was here, at Gerrard’s elbow.

Gerrard grimaced. ‘Sorry. Thought it best to call you, sir. Just picked up some fast moving H.E. at two-six-zero. Might mean we’re getting near trouble.’

Marshall nodded and walked to the chart. It had been three days since they had left their makeshift harbour. Three days of unnatural quiet, as if the whole Mediterranean was taking a brief rest after the months of battle. The strain had been all the greater because of it, he thought. Impossible to relax. Just lying there staring at the deckhead. Eating and watchkeeping automatically. Without any sensation but apprehension.

On the surface dawn would be lending colour to the sea again. Down here it was as usual. Dank and clammy, with all unnecessary fans switched off to conserve power and minimise noise. For they were now heading towards the well-known bottleneck between Sicily and Cape Bon on the Tunisian shore. Eighty odd miles over which the struggle for mastery had swayed back and forth without let-up. Air attacks on British convoys as they ran the gauntlet in their attempts to carry supplies to Malta.
Submarines
of both sides which hunted ceaselessly and tried to cut Rommel’s lifeline to the desert or smash the British convoys with equal determination. Well known to Marshall and those like him, if not to the newer hands at the game.

‘We’ll take a look. Periscope depth.’

Marshall left the chart table and stood by the well, ignoring the carefully controlled inrush of compressed air, the gentle tilt of the deck as Gerrard took the boat towards the surface.

They did not want any trouble now. Not from either side. It would take another two days to reach the pickup point on Italy’s west coast, more valuable time to get into position, sift the facts before committing all of them to a plan of action.

He thought of the three passengers in the wardroom. No doubt sleeping while they still had the time. What self-control they must have. And a capacity for sleep. They were a mixed trio, yet in some ways very like all the others Marshall had met who fought that remote, secret war.

The senior one was a Major Mark Cowan. Slightly built, with a clipped, matter of fact manner, he looked anything but a regular soldier. From the little he had said, he did not seem too hopeful at the success of the mission.

A radio message had been sent to the agents to tell them about the pickup times and exact rendezvous point. But no acknowledgement had been received and none expected. Cowan had said that the Germans had discovered the agents’ hiding place, and any sort of radio message from them would most certainly kill their last chance of rescue. More that that, the major had left unsaid. He was probably waiting until they got closer to their objective. Preserving secrecy unless required to share further details.

Marshall lifted his hand slowly and crouched down beside the well, his fingers on the twin handles and locking the periscope on to the last bearing.

Here was the sunlight, pale green, strengthening to blue as the lens cut through the gentle swell. He shivered. How inviting it looked. So clean.

He gripped the handles tightly and said, ‘Full extent.’

His back ached as he straightened it. He saw a vague purple hump far away on the horizon, still holding the shadows, merging with the dawn sky. That would be the island of Pantellaria. They were right on course.
Naturally
, as Devereaux would have said.

Further still. The periscope moved soundlessly as he edged round. Hold it. There it was. He saw the first sunlight reaching out to touch the glass screen on her bridge, a white moustache of foam beneath her bows. But even at full power the shape was indistinct for exact recognition. He tensed. Probably a second ship on the other one’s port quarter. Destroyers.

‘Down periscope.’ He looked at Gerrard. ‘We’ll alter course ten degrees to starboard. Steer three-two-zero. Take her down to thirty metres.’ He walked to the chart again. ‘But watch the depths. We’re running across the Adventure Bank. No more than thirty fathoms hereabouts.’

Gerrard licked his lips. ‘Very good, sir.’ He turned away, his hands gripping the helmsman’s chair as if for support.

Marshall watched him thoughtfully. ‘At least it might take the weed off the keel.’

He turned and saw Major Cowan by the bulkhead door, a cup in one hand.

‘Bother?’

‘No. Two destroyers on patrol. Well away from us.’

Cowan studied him and then replied, ‘Not what I imagined. Thought there’d be bells ringing, men dashing about. That sort of thing. This is like damned church!’

Marshall smiled.
Stick around a bit longer, my friend
. Aloud he said, ‘I’m just going to have some coffee. How about joining me?’ He followed him into the wardroom and then said quietly, ‘Now, suppose you fill me in on some more details?’ He pushed the coffee pot across the table. ‘I don’t like going in blind.’

Cowan smiled. ‘Quite so.’ He glanced round at the bunk curtains. A few snores showed they were occupied. ‘I get the point. No harm now, I suppose. What exactly do you want to know?’ He was offering nothing in advance.

‘Mrs. Travis. What is her part in all this?’

Cowan sighed. ‘I was against her getting involved. Again.’

Marshall waited, remembering her words when he had asked her if she had done this sort of thing before.

Cowan added, ‘She worked in Paris the last time. Being French, her services were invaluable. But her cover broke and the
Milice
caught her. They may be French police, but they work for their new masters, and they’re worse than the Germans in some ways. I suppose they see the Resistance as a threat to their own power. And their lives.’

‘Caught her?’

He nodded. ‘Held her for two days outside Paris. Waiting for the Gestapo to pick her up. They’d been after her for some time, although of course they did not actually know who they were chasing.’

Marshall thought of the way she moved and listened. Like a hunted animal.

‘Anyway, our people managed to get her out of it just in time. A close thing.’ He shrugged. ‘But when she was
asked
to do this job, she agreed without hesitation. Her husband’s in Italy. Just inland from Naples.’

‘I see. So he’s working for you, too?’

Cowan watched him sadly. ‘Actually, no. He’s an engineer. A collaborator. Doing the same sort of work as he was doing in France. A construction job. Top priority.’

Marshall felt dazed. ‘And she agreed to see him? Just like that?’

The major refilled his cup. ‘Did she mention her parents? Well, her father works for the Resistance. He’s with the French railways. Very useful contact. I don’t have to spell it out to you. We heard that Travis is getting cold feet. Wants to change sides again. Come home and be forgiven. She is the only one he might listen to. He’ll know she despises him, but he trusts her. Know it’s no Gestapo trap.’

Marshall looked at his cup, suddenly sick. ‘And your people let her go back to him. Knowing the Germans might suspect her. Might even have been told this by Travis, or whatever his real name is!’

Cowan shook his head. ‘Unlikely. There’s not much contact between the German occupation forces in France and those in Italy. It is a risk of course, and in any other circumstances I think we’d not have taken it. But on the face of it, this was worth taking. She is his wife, and was coming to join him at his new location. She had the right papers, and she knows her job.’ He added quietly, ‘Travis knows about the bombs. If we can get him out alive we might save countless of our own people later on.’

‘And if she’s failed?’

‘Then we’ll just have to get what we can from the agents. If you can lift them off.’

Marshall stood up, his mind racing. ‘But the Germans know about her
now
!’

‘Perhaps. We can’t know for sure until——’

The rest of his words were lost as the deck gave a sudden lurch and from the control room came a cry of alarm.

Marshall staggered and almost fell as the hull jerked violently, and he heard a new sound, like a saw on metal, screeching along the submarine’s casing until it seemed to fill the wardroom with its intensity.

He ran towards the control room, cannoning into awakened seamen and startled watchkeepers. He saw Gerrard clinging to the periscopes, his face like chalk as he yelled, ‘Blow all main ballast!
Surface!
’

Marshall gripped his arm. ‘Belay that order!’ He glanced quickly at the gauges, at the helmsman’s back as he struggled with the wheel. ‘Klaxon!’ He could hardly think because of the screeching which seemed all around him. ‘What happened?’ He had to shake Gerrard’s wrist to make him react. ‘What was it?’

Gerrard stared at him. ‘The hull plunged. Then that noise!’ He looked round as the sound suddenly stopped. ‘I thought we’d hit a wreck. That we were going to take a dive.’

Men scurried past to their stations, and Marshall said, ‘Check the trim.’ To Frenzel, who had just appeared at his panel, he added, ‘Report damage to hull.’

One of the planesmen said hoarsely, ‘Can’t hold her, sir!’ He twisted round on his stool his eyes wild. ‘She’s going mad!’

Marshall stood motionless in the centre of the control room. ‘Anything on the Asdic?’ He looked at Frenzel. ‘The after planes are jamming. We must have picked up something.’

‘Asdic reports no H.E., sir.’

Marshall nodded, seeing Cowan and his two companions in the bulkhead doorway, yet not seeing them. They were
all
here now. At their proper stations. Waiting for him to act. To perform a miracle if so needed.

Frenzel’s E.R.A. reported, ‘No hull damage, sir.’ He was gripping his telephone like a club.

Marshall made himself wait for several more agonising seconds. When he spoke he expected to hear a break in his voice. He glanced at Gerrard. Like his had sounded.

‘Take her up slowly, Number One. Periscope depth. If she starts to dive, blow everything.’ He forced a smile. ‘Just like old times.’

‘Group up. Slow ahead together.’ Gerrard gripped the coxswain’s chair.

Starkie cursed quietly. ‘She’s weavin’ about a bit, sir.’ He eased the spokes and then brought them back again. ‘Bloody cow!’

The sound came suddenly as before, like a jarring whine, ending just as abruptly with a violent clang across the casing.

‘Fourteen metres, sir.’ Gerrard sounded very tense.

‘Up periscope.’ Marshall snapped down the handles. No time for caution now. A quick glance to either bow and into the sky overhead. How pale the sky was. Almost silver in the sun’s early glare.

He brought the lens towards the stern and depressed it slightly. There was no sign of the wire or cable, but there, bobbing close astern, was a mine.

It was covered in green slime, and could have been in the water for months. Years. It had probably broken adrift from a field elsewhere until its severed cable had caught something. An old wreck. Anything. All this time it had waited. He saw the pointed horns twisting slightly against the U-boat’s headway. It was as deadly as the day it had left Germany. Or England.

‘Down periscope.’

Starkie said, ‘She’s steerin’ a bit better now, sir.’

‘She would, ’Swain.’ To the control room at large he said, ‘It’s a mine. We are towing it about fifty feet astern of us.’ He saw their stunned expressions, the way some of them looked at the after bulkhead door as if expecting to see something different.

Major Cowan was the first to speak. ‘Can you handle it, Captain?’

Marshall looked at him, suddenly very calm. ‘What I’m paid for.’

He crossed to the chart. ‘How about it, Pilot?’

Devereaux wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘It’s a bad place to surface, sir.’

‘I didn’t choose it.’ He leaned over the table. Shutting them all outside his thoughts. ‘Smack in the middle of the Strait. Alter course and steer due north.’ He restrained their movements with a sharp warning. ‘Slowly! Take your time. The cable is caught under the bandstand and then down and around the after planes. I don’t want that mine veering into the screws!’