Go In and Sink! (43 page)

‘Good. Close the fore hatch. Gun crew below.’

Marshall wiped his streaming face. His skin was sore, and his eyes aching with strain.

‘All secure, sir.’

‘Clear the bridge.’ He groped for the voicepipe. ‘Bring her round on to the new course.’

Somebody panted past him and clattered through the open hatch.

He heard Gerrard report, ‘Course now three-zero-zero, sir. Pilot estimates that the eastern side of the harbour is about ten miles off the starboard bow.’

He replied, ‘Good. Take her down. Ninety metres.’ He saw Blythe sitting on the lip of the hatch.

The yeoman said, ‘All below sir.’

Marshall snapped down the cock on the voicepipe,
wondering
, if, like himself, Blythe was remembering that other time. All those weeks, an eternity ago, when he had dragged his captain below to save him from following a dead stoker into the sea.

He pushed it from his thoughts and scrambled with Blythe down the ladder.

It was a relief to run in deeper water again. The motion steadied, and he felt his cheeks tingling from wind and sea.

Simeon was watching from the chart space, his eyes in shadow as he asked, ‘How long now?’

Marshall moved to his side and studied the chart. ‘It’ll take Lambert’s party all of three hours to get ashore. It will be up to him what he does then. But he knows the area, and he’ll not be looking for trouble.’

Simeon’s lip curled slightly. ‘
Yet
.’

Then he added, ‘Pity about the weather.’ He had raised his voice, as if he wanted to share his opinions with the watchkeepers. ‘One more day and we might have had better luck.’

‘I know.’ Marshall studied Devereaux’s neat calculations. ‘But Sunday is the best day for it. We decided it would be more likely-to work this way.’

Simeon shrugged. ‘I didn’t.’

Marshall ignored him and walked over to join Lieutenant Smith and the remaining marine sergeant.

He said, ‘I will get close to the boom and drop your party. You shouldn’t have too much bother.’

The little lieutenant grinned. ‘I’ve briefed ’em. sir. I know this part of the coast quite well from way back. When the good people of Nestore caught fish.’

Marshall smiled. ‘Good.’

He could barely stand still. It was beginning. He could
picture
the tiny cockles boobing over the waves. Lambert and his men peering through the darkness for a first glimpse of land. And then.…

He said, ‘Just remember the arrangements for pick-up, even if you forget everything else.’

The hands on the control room clock moved round more slowly than he could recall. One hour. Then two, with men moving automatically to relieve others on watch. A few snatches of conversation. An occasional joke. Quick. Brittle.

‘Getting close, sir.’ Devereaux’s fingers were twisting a pencil over and over in short nervous jerks.

‘Very well. Pass the word to the second party. Stand by.’ Marshall dabbed his face and throat. ‘We’ll go up and have a look when everyone’s in position.’

‘
Sir!
’ It was Speke, the senior Asdic operator. ‘I’m getting some strange back-echoes at Green four-five.’ He turned his dail very slowly. ‘There it is again!’

Marshall pushed Blythe aside and put a hydrophone headset to his ear. For a moment he caught only the usual mystifying chorus of squeaks, static and sea noises. Then he heard it. Like water tinkling in a fountain. Someone tapping a delicate glass at gentle, regular intervals.

He hurried to the table and snapped, ‘Position, Pilot? Exactly.’

The dividers settled on a pencilled cross. ‘That’s as accurate as I can make it, sir.’ He sounded defensive.

Marshall looked at Speke’s hunched shoulders. ‘Still there?’

‘Comes and goes, sir. But the bearing’s pretty constant.’

Marshall thrust his hands into his pockets to stop them shaking. ‘Bring her round to two-eight-zero. Slow ahead.’

He walked to the ladder and back again until Starkie had the boat on the new course.

Then he said quietly, ‘They must have laid some new detection gear on the sea-bed.’ He was thinking aloud, and heard someone gasp with alarm.

Warwick said, ‘The local patrol will be entering harbour in the morning. Couldn’t we follow her in through the boom?’

‘No.’ It was an effort to reply. ‘The patrol boat is
fast
. We’d have to use full revs to keep up. Even then.…’

Frenzel said gently, ‘No go, Sub. Even allowing for the patrol’s screws drowning the usual sounds, with our damaged prop going at full-belt we’d be picked up by this new gear on the sea-bottom. They’d have us pinned down in minutes.’ He looked at Marshall. ‘You weren’t to know, sir. It’s just bad bloody luck.’

Smith said doggedly, ‘I still think my party should go. We might be able to do some damage.’

Simeon spoke for the first time. ‘But not enough damage, eh,
Commander?
’

Marshall looked at him. ‘No.’

‘Well then.’ His tone was gentle. Like silk. ‘You’ve made your gesture. You can call the whole thing off. With honour. I can see now why you insisted on complete local control of the mission.’

The others turned to watch.

Marshall said, ‘Is that what you think?’ He looked at Gerrard. ‘You’re not alone, it seems.’

He turned his back on them and walked to the table. He tried to discover his true feelings. It was like awakening from a dream, only to find it was real and stark.

Devereaux said, ‘It looks as if they’ve laid a complete
detection
grid.’ He tapped the chart with his pencil. ‘As much as two miles out, if Speke is right.’

Marshall looked at him. If Devereaux felt any satisfaction at seeing his dismay he was not showing it.

‘I agree.’

It got them precisely nowhere. To reach any sort of position for attacking the harbour installations in accordance with his plan they would have to be right up to the boom. He felt the anger and despair in his brain like a vice.

For nothing. It had all been for nothing.

Simeon examined one hand with apparent interest and remarked, ‘If I could have got my party to the right place on time,’ his shoulders gave a slight shrug, ‘who
knows
what we might have achieved. As it is, it would appear that we have missed the boat, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

Marshall looked at the clock. ‘What time is first light?’

Devereaux said dully, ‘Couple of hours’ time sir. Provided the wind has blown itself out.’

Simeon smiled. ‘I’m sure Captain Lambert will be glad to know he’s got a fine day ahead of him!

Marshall eyed him calmly. Inwardly he felt close to breaking. He wanted to take Simeon by the throat and smash his head against the dripping steel until his smile was gone forever. Like that night at the house when he had found him with Gail.

He replied, ‘We will go in
on the surface
.’ He looked at the clock. ‘We will retain the landing party until we are inside the harbour.’

It seemed an age before anyone spoke. Then it was several voices at once.

Devereaux said, ‘But they’ll never open the boom for
us
, sir! Even if we were a genuine Jerry U-boat they’d check our identity first!’

Frenzel added thickly, ‘If the boom stays shut, we’re helpless.’

‘Yes.’ Marshall watched them impassively. ‘But it will give us time to get nearer.’

‘And then you’ll talk you way inside, eh?’ Simeon could no longer hide his amusement. ‘I think you’re deluding yourself!’

‘Perhaps. But that is how we will do it, so pass the word to all sections immediately.’ He looked at Gerrard. ‘The enemy will most likely keep the boom shut while they send a boat to investigate.’

In his mind he could see it. As if it had already happened. An irritated guardboat, the submarine lying surfaced and naked under the eyes of a coastal battery. The boom vessel’s skipper being called to his bridge. It would all take time. Not very much of it, but it was all they had left.

He heard himself say in the same expressionless tone, ‘We have to succeed. It’s too late to execute another raid, even if we had the means. You have to balance the value of this boat and our lives against what is at stake in
ten days time
.’ He paused, watching their faces, seeing the realisation touching them, some perhaps for the first time.

‘In a moment I will speak to the whole company. But it’s my decision.’

Starkie nodded in slow agreement, but kept his eyes on the gyro. He saw Blythe look at his signalman and give a grim smile.

The little lieutenant named Smith said quietly, ‘Right up to the front door.’ He whistled. ‘It’s worth a try.’

Simeon thrust himself away from the side and stood almost touching Marshall, his face tense and pale.

‘If you wreck this one, my friend, I’ll see that you never even command a ferry-boat for the
rest of your life!
’

Marshall met his stare. ‘If
we
wreck this one, I don’t imagine anyone will be left, do you?

He swung on his heel and called, ‘Right, Pilot, I want a new course for a central approach.’ He looked at Warwick. ‘And
you
can brush up your German.’

Ten minutes later he picked up the intercom handset and tried to compose himself. Then he said, ‘This is the captain speaking.…’

As Marshall, with the lookouts pushing at his heels, burst through the hatch, he realised that the weather had eased. Most of the waves had smoothed away, and although the wind retained a blustery strength, the sea’s face beyond the bows dipped and rose in a succession of rounded troughs.

He heard reports stammering through the voicepipes, the clink of metal as the short-range weapons were freed and brought to the ready, but concentrated his full attention on the sea and sky.

Across the boat’s quarter he saw a small hint of paler light, but ahead it was still very dark, with no border line to betray the land or the horizon.

He snapped, ‘Alter course two points to starboard.’ He rubbed the slime and salt from the bridge gyro repeater and watched the card ticking round in slow obedience.

Starkie’s voice. ‘New course, sir. Steady on three-four-zero.’

Warwick climbed up beside him and adjusted his binoculars against the small patch of paling sky.

Blythe remarked, ‘Black as a boot up ahead, sir.’

Warwick seemed satisfied. ‘You know how it is, Yeo. Out here in the Med. Dark one second. Full brilliance the next.’

Marshall turned slightly and saw Blythe grinning at Warwick’s back. How Warwick had changed, he thought. He had just spoken like an old man of the sea.

‘Control room, sir.’ Blythe forgot the little joke. ‘Pilot estimates outer span of detection grid to be six thousand yards.’

‘Very good.’

He moved his glasses and waited until the stem had sliced noisily through a steep-sided trough. But as his eyes moved beyond the submarine’s slow approach his mind was elsewhere, working, calculating. Speed through the water. The nearness of that strange, tinkling detector. And the span beyond that before they were sighted. Or fired on.

He heard feet thumping on the after casing, a sharp scrape of steel and a splash. Moments later he saw Buck’s bare head over the rim of the tower. He was grinning.

‘Got rid of that bloody screen, sir. I hope the depot ship won’t mind us ditching their monstrosity.’

Warwick asked, ‘Don’t we need it any more?’

Marshall did not comment. There was no point in denting Warwick’s new reserve of strength.

Instead he said, ‘Ask Pilot if he’s found us a number yet. There’s not much time.’

‘Control room, sir. Commander Simeon wants to come up.’

‘Yes.’

He remembered Browning again. It was just as if he was with them. His reply,
denied
, seemed to hang in the air.

Blythe reported, ‘Pilot says that U-178 is the best he can do, sir.’

‘So be it.’ He looked at Warwick and the yeoman. ‘Remember. We have intelligence reports that U-178 is one of several U-boats working with the Italian Navy. She’s not supposed to be in this area, but we can’t be certain. However, when we’re challenged we’ll stick to it, and hope for the best.’

He watched their faces. Already they had gained sharper outlines, although the sea was just as dark.

Simeon’s voice came through the gloom. ‘It’s bloody cold.’

Marshall said, ‘Tell the Chief to be ready to switch to main engines when I give the word. No friendly boat would come sneaking inshore using valuable battery power.’

Simeon chuckled. ‘My, we are getting cunning.’

Marshall moved a few paces towards him. ‘Do you wish to remain here?’

‘Of course I bloody well do!’ Simeon glared at him.

‘Good. Then remember, one more crack like that and down you go.’

‘Five thousand yards, sir.’

A steep roller curved upright and broke into a gentle rim of foam. Marshall watched it. It was no longer dull grey, but yellow and when he glanced over the quarter he saw the muzzles of the Vierling were also shining in the first faint daylight.

He saw the machine-gunners standing by their weapons,
their
heads encased in captured coal-scuttle helmets. Warwick too was in his enemy uniform.