Go In and Sink! (7 page)

A light stabbed from the depot ship’s bridge and a few cheers echoed above the pounding diesels and insistent wind.

Lieutenant Buck climbed up through the hatch and groped his way to the gratings, his pointed features very pale against the dull metal.

‘All ready, sir.’ He had a faint South London accent. ‘I’ve checked the list you gave me. I don’t think we’ve missed a thing.’

Marshall waved his hand. ‘Let go forrard!’ To Buck he added, ‘Too late now if we have.’

He felt the deck lift slightly as the wind edged the submarine’s bows easily away from the other boat. A wire splashed alongside and grated on steel as Cain’s men hauled it hastily inboard.

‘Let go aft!’

More scampering feet, a man slipping and cursing in the wet gloom.

‘All clear aft, sir!’

Marshall said sharply, ‘Make certain of that!’

He saw Buck leaning over the rear of the bridge, knowing it would be all right. But to wrap a wire round one of the screws would put paid to their sailing on time. A bad start. Unlucky, some said.

Buck reported, ‘All clear, sir.’

Marshall nodded and turned to watch as the strip of trapped water between the two hulls widened still further. Faces on the other boat were already blurred, and on the depot ship it was impossible to distinguish men from fittings.

‘Slow ahead together.’

He listened to the immediate response from the engines. Throaty, deeper than before, the screws lashing the water into bright froth astern before settling into a steadier pattern.

‘Steer two-nine-zero.’ He waited until the order was passed down the voicepipe and added, ‘Tell Number One to train the periscope on
Lima
. She’ll show her stern light in a moment. He can con the boat on that.’

How quickly it had all happened. The boat was sliding away from the moorings. her sharp stem throwing up feathers of spray, while the bow wave sluiced aft along the fat saddle tanks.

He heard one of the lookouts whispering excitedly to his companion and said, ‘Keep silent! Watch your prescribed areas and save the chat for later!’

Buck called, ‘First lieutenant reports all well in the control room, sir.’

‘Good.’

A cluster of gulls floated abeam, clucking irritably, trying to decide if it was safe to remain on the surface. In the fading light they looked like a discarded wreath.

He shivered. The engines sounded very good indeed. He watched the armed-yacht turning steeply to lead them clear. She was beautiful. A millionaire’s plaything in happier times. Probably kept in the Med in those times. Warm nights. Tanned bodies and soft wine.

He stooped over the voicepipe. ‘Watch her head, ’Swain. There’ll be a stiff cross-current in about fifteen minutes.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Starkie, the coxswain, sounded miles away.

He was unusually small. Like a leathery ferret. What was he thinking, Marshall wondered? Starkie’s previous boat had been sunk by a dive bomber off the Hook of Holland. He had somehow survived with three others until picked up by an M.T.B. more dead than alive. Now he was back. Perhaps his wiriness had saved him. It was a fallacy that fat men survived better in the water.

‘Launch to starboard, sir.’

Marshall trained his powerful glasses and watched it for several moments. One of Browning’s security boats. Making sure.

‘Well done. Disregard it now and carry on with your sweep.’

‘Yessir.’ It was the lookout he had previously choked off for gossiping. But his voice sounded slightly mollified by the brief praise.

On down the loch, with the swell growing more noticeable as they ploughed towards the sea.

Gerrard seemed to have no difficulty in holding the yacht’s sternlight in his periscope. It would be good practice for him. Start with something simple.

Warwick’s round face appeared above the bridge screen, shining with spray.

‘All wires secured and stowed, sir!’ He sounded breathless.

‘Very well.’ And there they will stay until we tie up again in a home port. ‘Unless’ … He said, ‘Fall out your people and send them below.’ He hesitated. ‘Then check the fore hatch again, Sub.’

The boy vanished and Buck said, ‘I think he’s enjoying all this.’

Marshall glanced at him. ‘Probably. What about you? You’ve been eighteen months in submarines, I understand.’

Buck sifted through his answers and settled on, ‘Makes a change, sir.’

Feet scraped on the ladder and a man tried to struggle on to the bridge even as the first of Warwick’s casing party crowded over the rear of the conning-tower.

Marshall snapped, ‘What the
hell
are you doing?’

Buck said, ‘He wants to be sick, sir.’

The seaman from the casing, already cold and sodden with spray, stared at the wretched man unfeelingly. One said, ‘Shove over, Ginger, and let the real men get below!’

Marshall added, ‘Send him down. If he wants to be sick he’ll use a bucket.’

He heard the man retching and bubbling as he dropped from view. He bit his lip. He had been harsh with the luckless seaman. But once at sea, with just the officer of
the
watch and his lookouts on the bridge at any given time, one such incident could cause disaster. A sudden attack, the need to crash dive, and men could be struggling in an open hatch even as the boat plunged under. Gerrard, who was in charge of the control room, should have known better.

Warwick came on to the bridge and shook himself like a puppy emerging from the rain.

‘All secure sir.’ He grinned. ‘Really.’

Marshall smiled. Perhaps he had been like Warwick once. He must have been. It hardly seemed possible.

‘Right. You can go below.’

Warwick asked shyly, ‘Can I stay here, sir?’

‘Of course.’ Marshall raised his glasses and watched the yacht lift and stagger across the first of the inshore swells. ‘But hold tight.’

He tried to picture the land which was sliding into the darkness abeam. Nobody would see them pass. Somewhere above the clouds an aircraft droned faintly until it was lost in the noise of diesels. Marshall thought suddenly of Frenzel as he had been that lunchtime. Cheerful, confident that his department was ready to move. Above the engineer’s bunk Marshall had seen a picture of his wife and small son. That had been a bad moment.

‘Captain, sir!’ It was Gerrard on the voicepipe.

‘What is it?’

‘Coming on to new course now. Two-seven-zero, that is if the
Lima
has checked her own compass properly.’

‘Very good.’ He waited knowing, there would be more.

‘Sorry about that seaman, sir. Stupid of me.’

‘That’s all right Bob. I expect you’ve got your hands full.’

A chuckle. Relieved, ‘Enough, sir. But the lads seem to
be
able to manage her. She handles very smoothly. Touch wood.’

Marshall stood upright again. Gerrard’s personal worries could be almost anything. War or not, mortgages had to be paid, bills met, even if there was precious little to buy. His wife, Valerie, would be alone once more. He wondered if she was wearing the shawl Gerrard had bought her in Malta.

Warwick asked, ‘Do you think we’ll get really close to them, sir?’

Them
. ‘The Jerries, you mean?’ He shrugged. ‘Could be. You’ll have to be all about if that happens.’

Warwick murmured, ‘I’ll try, sir.’

Buck said dourly, ‘He’ll look a right little
kraut
when he gets his gear on!’

Marshall nodded. They had a selection of German uniforms on board. If they got close enough to need them, Warwick would have to be good indeed.

Buck added suddenly, ‘You’ll be okay. David, don’t you sweat!’

Marshall said nothing. Buck’s change of attitude had told him plenty. He was not quite the unfeeling man-of the-world he often seemed to portray.

Warwick relaxed slightly. ‘It’s all right for you. Bloody great torpedoes. They don’t need
any
language.’

The bridge lurched steeply and brought a curtain of spray dousing over the periscope standards. It was getting wilder, and on either bow there was no longer even a shadow of land.

The blue sternlight was pitching in all directions, and he guessed that aboard the yacht things must be getting very uncomfortable. Her skipper was probably praying that the next two hours would pass without incident so
that
they could watch over the U-boat’s test dive and then scurry back to shelter.

Marshall considered the prospect of diving. It would be an unhurried affair. The last time they would get to test their ability. After that.…

He pushed it from his mind and said, ‘Change the lookouts. And tell the steward to send me something hot to drink.’

Throughout his command he could imagine his men sitting or standing at their stations. Watching their gauges and levers, listening to the engines’ pitch and the steady beat of screws. Others, as yet unemployed, would have more time to think, to examine their own feelings as each minute took them further and further from home. In a few days everything would be as familiar as any other boat. Well, almost. But he must not let it become too familiar. That could be equally dangerous. Fatal.

‘Able Seaman Churchill requests permission to come to the bridge, sir.’ The lookout could not restrain a grin.

Churchill was a torpedoman, but also acted as wardroom steward. It was a difficult name to have in wartime.

‘Very well.’

The man squeezed through the hatch carrying a jug and mugs against his chest.

‘Kye, sir.’ He poured some of the thick cocoa into a mug and squinted outboard at the tossing whitecaps. ‘Strewth!’

Marshall held the hot mug against his face. ‘How are things, er … Churchill?’

The steward eyed him curiously. ‘Great, sir.’ He was a Cockney, with an accent you could cut with a knife. ‘Cookie’s got a smashin’ ’otpot for later on.’

Marshall watched him slither into the open hatchway.

One of the lookouts whispered, ‘Give our love to the War Cabinet!’

Churchill’s head quivered in the hatchway. ‘Get knotted!’

Buck said, ‘I hope the torpedoes won’t let us down. I’ve checked them over until I know each one by name. All the same, I hear Jerry has a fair share of duds.’ He shook his mug on the deck and added, ‘I’ll go forrard now, with your permission, sir.’

‘Yes.’ Buck’s arrival in the fore-ends would shake up his torpedomen. Keep them from pondering too much.

When he had gone below Warwick asked, ‘Was that right, sir?’

Marshall lowered his glasses. ‘We have our share of duds, too. Nothing you can explain. It just happens sometimes.’ He craned over the voicepipe. ‘Watch your revolutions. The yacht is making hard going of it. We’ll overtake her if we’re not careful.’

He heard Starkie’s terse acknowledgement and pictured Gerrard and Frenzel translating his advice into action. Devereaux would be leaning on his chart table. Very little for him to do at present. Just watch everyone else, his handsome face set in a cynical smile.

Warwick said, ‘There’s a lot to know, isn’t there, sir?’

Marshall looked at him. ‘I suppose there is. I hadn’t thought of it like that It sort of grows on you.’

Warwick was still watching him, eyes filling the pale shape of his face. This would not do at all. It sounded like some sort of awe. The birth of hero-worship. But Warwick had to be independent. Stand on his own two feet.

He changed the subject. ‘Did you have any outside interests at university, Sub?’

‘I was a pacifist, sir.’

Marshall grinned at his confusion. ‘No comment!’

As the submarine pushed further and further from the land the motion became worse, the noise of wind and sea louder even than the engines. In uncomfortable, swaying silence the four men on the open bridge withdrew into their own resources, gripping the wet steel, bracing their aching legs against the steep, dizzy plunges.

Marshall watched the blurred sternlight across the bows until his eyes watered with strain. It would be better once they could clap on more speed. A U-boat was designed principally to run on the surface. To chase her quarry and overreach it. Then dive and await the kill. He could feel his stomach tightening to the boat’s antics and guessed that many of the new hands would be in real torment.

At long last they arrived at the arranged position, and as the
Lima
rolled drunkenly in the steep troughs Marshall said, ‘This is it.’ He spoke into the voicepipe; ‘Everything ready below?’

Starkie called back, ‘Standing by, sir. Control room clock reads 1900.’

Marshall straightened his back. ‘Signal the
Lima
.’ He waited until Warwick had picked up the small lamp. ‘Am about to carry out trim dive.’ To the lookouts he added, ‘Clear the bridge.’ He felt strangely calm. Detached.

A light stabbed across the water, and he thought he heard the yacht’s siren give a quick squawk.

Warwick hurried to the hatch and Marshall was alone. Slowly and deliberately he snapped shut the cocks on the two voicepipes and took a last glance around him and at the faint outline of the yacht. Then he lowered himself through the hatch and spun the locking wheel into place. Unhurriedly down the polished ladder where a seaman waited to slam shut the lower hatch. It made a
dull
thud, like someone banging an oil-drum under water.

After the stinging wind and spray his cheeks felt flushed in the ordered world of the control room. He handed his dripping oilskin to a messenger and ran his gaze over the men around him. Starkie, small and intent at his wheel. The two planesmen, heads tilted to watch their dials. Gerrard, arms folded, standing just behind the coxswain, a slide-rule projecting from one pocket. Devereaux by the chart table as he expected. Frenzel leaning on his control panel, face alight in the reflected coloured bulbs.

‘All set, Number One?’

Gerrard turned towards him, pale despite his tan.

‘Ready, sir.’

Marshall crossed to the forward periscope and swung it gently until he had found the
Lima
’s vague outline about a cable clear.

‘Turn out the foreplanes.’

He depressed the periscope lens and watched the forward hydroplanes opening outwards from the hull like two pleading hands. The after pair were submerged. But everything must be checked, if only this once.