Kleber's Convoy (21 page)

The propeller noises of the destroyer passing overhead began to fade and from the bearings reported by Ausfeld it was evident she was making for the convoy. In the control-room of U-0117 men looked at each other with a mixture of fear and relief. Though they did not know it, the destroyer was
Mainwaring.
They had thought at first that she had detected them and was running in for an attack. Beads of perspiration stood out on wet foreheads, face muscles were taut, eyes bright with danger. The atmosphere in the control-room was hot and foetid. Water dripped everywhere, there was the green of verdigris on all the metal surfaces, the air was foul with diesel and chlorine fumes; and the smell of decaying food, of vomit and urine, sodden clothing and unwashed bodies hung in the air like an invisible pall.

Rigged for silent running, the only sounds in U-0117 now were the faint hum of electric motors at low speed, the subdued voices of men giving and acknowledging orders, and the click and whirr of instruments. The submarine had reversed her course and was steering for the convoy, approaching its starboard bow, making just enough headway for the planesmen to hold her trim.

As he moved to the periscope well Kleber nodded to Rathfelder. ‘Soon now,' he said.

Ausfeld reported from the sound-room. ‘Numerous propeller noises. Slow-running piston engines. Freighters. Range six thousand metres.'

Kleber consulted his watch, ‘Bring her to periscope depth, chief.'

Heuser repeated the order,

‘Stand by all tubes.' Kleber looked at Rathfelder as the conductor of an orchestra looks at his first violin. The executive officer repeated the order, passing it to the fore-and after-ends.

The bows of the submarine began to lift as she made for the surface, the needles in the gauges clicking off the depths … 140 metres … 120 … 100 … 80 … compressed air hissing into the ballast tanks, forcing the water out through the open vents. Another sound intruded – familiar but chilling: the
pings
of asdic transmissions. U-0117 had come clear of the temperature layer.

‘Asdic transmissions green zero-three-zero. High volume. Closing.' There was sudden urgency in Ausfeld's voice as he added, ‘Destroyer propeller noises.'

Rathfelder reported, ‘All tubes ready,
Herr
Kapitän
.'

The submarine's movements became lively as she neared the surface, and to Heuser, trying to hold her trim, it was like controlling the antics of a giant cork.

Kleber ordered, ‘Up periscope!' An electric motor hummed and the periscope came up from its well like a smoothly functioning lift. He knelt to meet it, snapped down the handles, rose with it, eyes pressed to the lens apertures, his body swivelling as he trained the instrument on to the bearing given by Ausfeld.

‘
Unterwasserangriff
… submerged attack.' Kleber's orders were sharp, like the crack of a whip. ‘
Klar
zum
Gefecht
… stand by for immediate action.'

He settled the periscope on the bearing, searching along it with eyes not yet adjusted to night vision. The snow had stopped. That helped, but the sudden, unpredictable antics of U-0117 as Heuser tried to hold her trim didn't. At times the U-boat would lift suddenly, the conning-tower almost awash in the troughs of the seas. Kleber moved the periscope left and right of the bearing and with a sudden tightening of nerves focused on a white splash on the starboard bow; one which grew and faded but always returned. Realising that it was made by the plunging forefoot of a fast-moving ship, he probed the darkness until the Zeiss lenses revealed the shadowy outline behind the bow wave. The crests and troughs of passing seas masked the target at times, but Kleber decided it was a fast escort. Probably a destroyer. He wondered if it was the warship they'd heard speeding towards the convoy. Had she got a contact and turned? Her course was roughly parallel to the U-boat's, but in the reverse direction. The relative bearings were changing rapidly. Kleber judged there was just time for an attack. The destroyer
was evidently unaware of the submarine's presence. The opportunity was unlikely to recur. His estimate of the range at six hundred metres, closing, was confirmed by Ausfeld's reports from the sound-room. In terse, incisive sentences Kleber passed the attack information to Dieter Leuner in the conning-tower: target's range and bearing, course and speed; submarine's course and speed. Leuner fed the data into the attack-computer where an electronic system computed instantly the gyro-firing angle, setting it automatically on the torpedoes in their tubes.

The destroyer's
pings
and propeller noises could now be heard clearly in the control-room, but they were strangely woolly. Once again U-0117's crew waited in a sweat of tension.

Kleber aimed the periscope cross-wires at a point abaft the destroyer's bow-wave which he judged to be under the bridge. When the target was almost abeam he called, Tire one!' then – after the briefest pause – ‘Fire two!' The torpedoes left their tubes and the submarine shuddered.

Rathfelder started the stop-watch and called aloud the seconds lapsed as the red hand swept the dial. Twenty seconds should pass before they covered the four hundred metres to the target.

‘… eight … nine … ten …' Rathfelder incanted.

Kleber saw the shape of the white bow-wave alter, the rate of change of bearing slacken. The destroyer was turning to starboard, towards U-0117. Her hydrophone operators must have picked up the sound of torpedoes. She was trying to turn bows on to them.

‘Eleven … twelve …'

Kleber ordered, ‘Fire five!' and then with sudden urgency, ‘Down periscope … emergency dive … take her down fast, chief … destroyer's heading for us.'
Five
was the sterntube loaded with
gnats.
Kleber was taking no chances with a destroyer.

Heuser barked his orders at the men on the hydrophones and flooding valves. The submarine took on a bow-down angle. There was the familiar hiss of air escaping as water flooded the ballast tanks.

‘… fifteen … sixteen … seventeen …' called Rathfelder, eyes never moving from the stop-watch. His report was interrupted by the deep rumble of an explosion It
shook the submarine. ‘A hit,' shouted Rathfelder exultantly. ‘On seventeen.'

‘Luck,' said Kleber. “She would soon have been bows on to us.'

The submarine took on a steeper diving angle. ‘Destroyer's asdic and propeller noises have ceased,' reported Ausfeld. Kleber said, ‘That's a
gnat
wasted.' He looked round the control-room, his glance embracing them all. ‘Well done,' he said. ‘Not many U-boat crews could have done better.' The silence was broken suddenly by laughter and excited chatter. The tension had gone.

‘Halt
die
Klappe
… shut up!' snapped Kleber. ‘Keep calm. We've still got the convoy to attack. That's going to need all you can give. Listen!'

There was silence again, each man concentrating on his task, hearing the distant beat of many propellers, the volume of sound growing steadily.

‘Hear them?' prodded Kleber.

The men nodded, serious, tense, ashamed of their lapse‚ aware once again of impending danger.

Not long afterwards they heard their
gnat
exploding at the end of its run. After
Vengeful
's engines had stopped it had homed on
Mainwaring
's propellers but its range was exhausted well short of the fleet destroyer and the torpedo's self-destruct mechanism took over.

‘Level off at eighty metres, chief. Stand by to surface soon after that.'

‘Surface?' There was surprise in Heuser's tone.

Kleber nodded. ‘We have the up-wind position. We are close to the leading ships of the convoy. We shall make another surface attack.'

The set of the strong chin, the unwavering blue eyes, the steady voice, reassured the men in the control-room. Kleber did not tell them that his intention to surface so soon after sinking the destroyer was a calculated risk of a high order. Nor did they know of the apprehension he himself felt. It was outweighed only by his belief that he must do more to justify the faith the Flag Officer, U-Boats, Group North had reposed in his brain-child – Plan X. But the element of surprise had gone. Already escorts would be closing the area to hunt him. Now he pinned his faith in doing the unexpected, in tactical aggression. He would surface shortly
and in the first confusion following the destroyer's sinking, U-0117, trimmed well down, would head for the approaching convoy at maximum speed. Once between its columns he'd make a swift attack and dive to the comparative safety of water disturbed by the wakes of many ships. It should not take long after that to find a temperature layer beneath which the U-boat could hide.

He looked at the second-hand sweeping the dial of the clock over the chart-table. In another twenty seconds he would give the order to surface.

The signal ordering
Mainwaring
to resume station inside the close-screen had concluded with the words
proceed
with
dispatch.

Upon its receipt her captain, Lieutenant-Commander Brad-shaw, turned his ship towards the convoy and increased speed to twenty-five knots. At 2008 he exchanged recognition signals with
Vengeful
coming up to take the billet on the outer screen which he had just vacated. As
Vengeful
passed up the fleet destroyer's side the latter altered course to starboard to pass astern of her. Lieutenant-Commander Brad-shaw had no means of knowing that he had passed close to U-0117 a few minutes earlier, for
Mainwaring'
s
asdic dome had been housed to avoid weather damage.

Thus, unwittingly,
Mainwaring'
s
course had taken her between those of the U-boat and
Vengeful
which were approaching each other on roughly parallel courses. This was to have the most dramatic consequences.

The first-lieutenant shut the door of the captain's sea-cabin and went through the wheelhouse up the port ladder to the bridge. He had just arrived there when three
S
s sounded in rapid succession on the asdic bridge-speaker.

‘Hard-a-starboard, full ahead together‚ he shouted,' and leapt for the compass platform. Three
S
s was the emergency signal for ‘Torpedo approaching on the starboard side'. O'Brien repeated the order by voice-pipe to the quarter
master in the wheelhouse below. The midshipman had already pressed the alarm buzzer for anti-submarine action stations. The signalman-of-the-watch was broadcasting the general alarm by TBS.

As the first-lieutenant reached the compass platform he was dazzled by a brilliant flash of light. The muffled roar of an underwater explosion seemed to come from under the bridge. Its force shook the ship‚ lifting it from the water and dropping it.

The first-lieutenant picked himself up. He was dazed but managed to yell, ‘Stop both engines.' The midshipman repeated the order by voice-pipe. No reply came from the wheelhouse. Soon afterwards the siren, triggered by the explosion, drowned his voice. Above the siren's piercing wail little could be heard but the roar of escaping steam, the screams of trapped and wounded men, and the screeching of torn metal as the sea surged into a gaping hole on the starboard side and water pressure, built up by the ship's forward movement, broke away the plating.

The first-lieutenant grabbed the torch from the charttable and shone it to starboard. The wing of the bridge had gone, jagged teeth of metal forced upwards by the blast showed where the break had occurred. The sprawling body of the starboard lookout lay across the debris. His anorak, caught on a broken rail, had stopped him going overboard.

A hand touched the first-lieutenant in the darkness. Someone shouted in his ear. ‘The engines are stopped, sir.' It was Rogers the midshipman.

Redman heard the three
S
s and ran into the wheelhouse. A blinding flash of light was followed by an explosion which hurled him against the port side. The ship lifted and shook as if in the grip of enormous forces. Lights went out and broken glass, splintered wood and metal crashed about him. The ship settled back in the water, listing over to starboard. He heard a muffled scream beside him, ‘My chest! Christ, my chest!' The body which lay half across him jumped convulsively. It was the quartermaster. The roar of escaping steam, the shriek of the siren, the shouts and screams of the trapped and wounded, masked all other sounds.

He dragged himself to his feet and rang down
stop
on the engine-room telegraphs. Then he groped his way to the
bridge. The ship continued to lay over to starboard, headed into wind and sea. He called at the top of his voice, ‘Officer-of-the-watch.' The muffled reply was drowned by the noise of the siren. A figure loomed up alongside him in the darkness. ‘It's me, sir.' It was the first-lieutenant. ‘She's going fast. Hit beneath the bridge and in the boiler-room.' He shouted his report into Redman's ear. ‘The ring main's had it, sir. O'Brien‘s gone down to see if anything can be done,'

‘Did we get an A/S contact?'

‘No, sir. O'Brien says we were getting wake effect from
Mainwaring.
Next thing heard was the torpedo approaching.'

The spray of a breaking sea swept over them, freezing where it fell Snow began to fall. A thin patter, carried away by the wind shrilling in the rigging unheard against the siren's continuous wail.

The yeoman came from the after-end of the bridge with a battery-powered Aldis lamp. He directed the beam forward. Redman saw that the fo‘c'sle was awash, seas surging over it, foaming up above the ‘hedgehog' and the flash-shield to B gun. The first-lieutenant was right. She was going fast.

‘Train that light aft, yeoman,' he shouted. The long beam swung aft and came to rest on a jagged hole in the iron deck. It ran from under the bridge to abreast the boiler-room. Sea poured in as steam gushed out in billowing clouds which were snatched away by the wind.

Redman took the Aldis lamp and shone it round the bridge. He saw the scared white faces of Rogers the midshipman and the signalman-of-the-watch; the torn metal of the bridge superstructure and the sprawling bodies of the bridge-messenger and a lookout. He took the first-lieutenant's arm. ‘Clear away boats and rafts.' He yelled. ‘Get everything that'll float over the side. Use the signalman and messenger to pass the word. Take charge yourself. Wounded men first. At the double now.'

The first-lieutenant disappeared into the darkness. Redman called, ‘Yeoman!' From close at hand came an answering ‘Sir?'

‘Make by TBS – “
Vengeful
kippered starboard side” – Quick as you can.'

Tried TBS already, sir. No main power so I switched to battery. No good, sir. Explosion must have damaged the TBS transmitter. Main W/T transmitter's also unserviceable.
But we've passed it by emergency W/T.
Mainwaring'
s been ordered to stand by us, sir.'

Redman patted the yeoman's shoulder in the darkness.
Mainwaring,
the nearest escort, a fleet destroyer, had passed
Vengeful
only a few minutes before.

Another sea broke over the bridge.

Someone bumped Redman in the darkness. ‘Who's that?' he demanded.

‘Chief ERA, sir,' was the shouted reply. ‘We can't get the bridge on the phone or voice-pipe. I've come to report …' His voice trailed away. He took a deep breath and began again. ‘To report, sir. Boiler-room's flooded. We're evacuating the engine-room. Some men trapped in the boiler-room and PO's mess.'

Redman said, ‘Where's the engineer-officer?'

‘Gone, sir. Doing his rounds in the boiler-room when it happened. After the watch changed. Trapped there with the others. Couldn't have known much about it, sir. All that steam and flooding …'

‘Thank you, Robbins. Carry on now. But try to stop that bloody siren. See what else you can do …'

There was nothing else Robbins
could
do. Redman knew that. Nothing anybody could do.
Vengeful
had been torpedoed and was sinking fast in the fading stages of an Arctic gale.
Mainwaring
might be in time to pick up a few survivors. In those waters the difference between death and survival was a matter of minutes. She couldn't remain stopped for long anyway. Why hazard a second ship and her company? The rescue vessel was busy miles astern of the convoy trying to pick up survivors from the Liberty ship.

The list became more pronounced. The ship was lying across the seas now. They were breaking against the starboard side, their crests reaching up to the wheelhouse.
Vengeful'
s liveliness had gone. She was waterlogged, a hulk, lurching heavily as the waves struck her.

The siren's strident note grew suddenly weaker, hesitated, then cut off altogether. New sounds took over. The crash and roar of breaking seas, the shrill note of the wind in the rigging, the shouts and cries of men, the hiss of air venting from flooding compartments, the screech and groan of tearing metal, the bang and crash of loose gear in the compartments under the bridge.

Redman called out, ‘Yeoman!'

‘Sir‚' came from somewhere near him.

‘Pass the word to abandon ship. Make it sharp. There's little time. First check that radar, A/S and W/T offices are cleared. Use any men still there to help pass the word. After that every available man to get down to the waist and lend a hand with the wounded.' It was a forlorn injunction. What on earth could they do for themselves, let alone the wounded? But it had to be said.

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

‘And yeoman. Go over on the port side when you do. Away from the list. If the oil's thick try to swim under it. Long as you can.' Redman knew that was another pretty hopeless injunction.

The yeoman handed him the Aldis lamp. ‘May come in handy, sir.'

Burrows went and Redman was alone. The list and the bridge slippery with frozen spray made it difficult to stand. He trained the beam of the lamp along the starboard side. The iron deck was awash but the gush of fuel oil had formed a slick which broke the crests of the seas. With difficulty he moved up the high side of the bridge, felt his way round the compass platform, past the asdic cabinet to the flag-lockers, and looked aft along the port side.

Carley floats, Denton rafts and float-nets rose and fell in the big swells, straining and jerking at the painters which secured them, their calcium flares reflecting ghost-like light on the scene of disaster. Knots of men were gathered in the waist, others on the oerlikon mountings abaft the funnel. The list had lifted the port side high out of the water but seas coming in from starboard surged across, swirling and sucking at the men, sheets of spray sweeping over them. An oil slick was spreading down-wind, smoothing the water in the lee of the ship.

The first-lieutenant had done predictably well, decided Redman. But it was hopeless. There was little chance of lowering wounded men into rafts under those conditions.

The ship's company just hadn't a chance. There was no electric power. Nothing worked. With the ship's broadcast out of action he was cut off from his crew. He switched off the Aldis lamp. It couldn't help.

Redman knew only too well that the first-lieutenant sup
ported by those officers and petty officers who'd not been killed or wounded would be doing everything possible. They'd been trained for this. Every man knew his station and duty. But in the chaos of disaster pathetically little was possible.

The battery-powered loud-hailer? Why hadn't he thought of it? With sudden urgency he searched the slithery tilting bridge, using the Aldis lamp, At last he found it, wedged under the compass platform. Bracing himself against the steeply sloping side of the asdic office, he trained the loud-hailer aft and pressed the switch. It was dead. ‘Oh, God,' he muttered, throwing it down in despair. ‘Won't anything work.'

Somebody was coming up the bridge ladder, slowly, noisily. In the beam of the Aldis he saw Cupido staggering towards him.

‘Get down into the waist,' Redman shouted. ‘Chance of a raft there.'

The Maltese shook his head. There was a jagged, bloodstained tear in the side of his watch-coat. He said, ‘The meal carrier's gone, sir.' He faltered, eyes blinking in the bright light. ‘With the dinner … I was on the bridge-ladder … starboard side …' His face contorted with pain.… everything exploded.'

‘For Christ's sake, man. What does it matter? Inflate your life-belt and get moving.'

Cupido shook his head again. ‘No good, sir. It's torn.'

The blood-stained tear in the watch-coat was on the steward's hip, below the Mae West. Redman saw the jagged indentation in the life-belt. The slither of metal that had wounded the Maltese had done that. ‘You poor little bastard,' he said, taking off his duffel coat. He undid his own life-belt and tied it round the steward's waist. ‘Where's your pick-up harness?' Cupido looked at him dumbly, frightened. He couldn't tell the captain he never wore it. It was too uncomfortable.

Redman said, ‘You bloody little fool.' He took off his own, slipped it over the steward's shoulders and made it fast, plugging in the survivor's light and clipping it on to the harness. ‘You're all right now, Cupido. Get down to the waist quickly. They'll help you there.'

The steward looked at him doubtfully. I'm sorry, sir …
about the dinner,'

Redman focused the beam of the Aldis on the port ladder. ‘There's the ladder. Move, man. Don't waste time.'

When Cupido was half-way down, Redman switched off the lamp. While he'd been helping the Maltese the ship had settled deeper in the water. The broken tops of seas were reaching up to the starboard wing of the bridge.

Once again he looked down along the port side. Men were going over into the sea. Some were already on the floats and rafts. The wounded, thought Redman. Poor devils. Better to have been killed. A deck below he saw Cupido slumped in a heap at the foot of the ladder and went down to him, picked him up and half-carried, half-dragged him to the waist. In the darkness he found a group of men waiting to go over the side. Somebody shone a torch. ‘Captain, sir?'

He recognised the voice of a leading-seaman. ‘That you, Farrel?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Help Cupido,' he said. ‘He's wounded. I must get back to the bridge.'

The leading-seaman said, ‘Aye, aye, sir,' and took Cupido's arm.

Redman worked his way up to the bridge again. At its after-end, near the signal lockers, he found a halyard and lashed himself to the rail. The tops of seas were slopping over the bridge now, spilling in to where he sheltered in the lee of the asdic cabinet. His mind was confused but he knew he was about to die. There was a long and honourable tradition for what he was doing. Not that it made it any easier. Death was the ultimate terror. He was grateful that he was alone, his fear hidden from others. Now that he'd got rid of the Mae West and pick-up harness there couldn't be a repetition of the Yeoman Patterson incident. That was something to be grateful for.

A douche of spray spattered the bridge, freezing as it settled. It was bitterly cold. He bit into his lips to stop his teeth chattering.
Vengeful
shuddered as a big sea struck her and she settled deeper in the water. She's like a half-tide rock, he thought. He wondered about the depth-charges. Would the primers have been withdrawn or would the charges explode when she sank? No. That wouldn't happen.

Baggot, the gunner (T)‚ would have seen to that long ago. Or, if Baggot had been killed, the torpedo coxswain, failing him a leading torpedoman. It would have been done. Long and thorough training ensured that.

Inevitably a question nagged at him: why had the asdic team failed to detect the U-boat before hearing the sound of its torpedoes? He was not to know that
Mainwaring
's stern wake, laid between
Vengeful
and U-0117 just before the attack, had effectively masked his ship's transmissions in the brief but critical time which it had taken the U-boat to climb from the shelter of the temperature layer to periscope depth. Nor could he have known that even if
Vengeful'
s
asdic watchkeepers had not been very tired men – which they were – it was doubtful if they would have had time to sort out the U-boat's echoes from those of the turbulent wake which masked them.