Submariner (2008) (16 page)

Damn-all, though. Empty sea, empty day drawing towards its close.

He’d finished
The Moon is Down
. McLeod, having galloped through his Edgar Wallace, had asked to borrow it. Mike now squaring up to the Scott Fitzgerald
that Jennie had sent him and he had to tackle now so that in his next letter he could tell her how much he’d enjoyed it. In
fact she’d lent him an earlier book by Fitzgerald, and he hadn’t got on with it all that well although she’d expected him
to; and this one, he saw, was an
unfinished
novel, Fitzgerald having died in the course of writing it.

Give it a go, anyway.

At about seven, when they were still within a few miles of Cape San Vito, Jarvis picked up a pair of A/S trawlers on the bow
to port, steaming north; they’d come into sight around the bulge of coastline above Trapani. They could have come out of Trapani
or from further south; as they were heading now they’d be crossing
Ursa
’s track well beyond the point at which Mike intended turning north at about eight or eight-thirty.

Unless they were an advance guard of something else. Or might shortly alter to starboard to cut around San Vito – in which
case he’d go deep, let them pass over. He told Jarvis, ‘Watch ’em. Any change, call me.’ In fact they passed ahead, their
reciprocating engines audible on asdics and continuing north for some while before fading.
Might
acquire nuisance value later in the night, he suspected.

At eight-thirty he had Danvers bring her round to north, pretty well in the trawlers’ wakes. Bright, lively evening, more
spindrift flying than there had been earlier, and the wind had backed to westerly. The box was still reasonably well up, after
this slow, quiet day, and he put her up to slow speed on both motors so that when he surfaced her at nine-fifty she was ten
miles northwest of Cape San Vito. Patrol routine then, rolling slightly with the wind abeam, diesels pumping generator power
into her batteries for the next day’s exertions. Next day being Sunday – a more productive day than this had been, please
God.

He was tucking into cold pork – Cottenham had gone so far as to make apple sauce to go with it – when Lazenby came with the
decode of a signal that had been repeated to
Ursa
for information, Shrimp telling
Swordsman
to shift to a new billet somewhere on ten degrees east. Mike gave it to Danvers to put on the chart – knowing it had to be
somewhere in the region of Cagliari, and having noted that Gerahty was being routed north of Ustica, well clear of
Ursa
– of
Unsung
too, Melhuish if on schedule likely to be getting his box up in the QBB 255 approaches during the night. Mike had told Danvers
to allow
Swordsman
twelve and a half knots surfaced and six dived, and the answers were that her new billet was between Capes Carbonara and
Spartivento – pretty well where Melhuish had sunk his cruiser – and that she’d probably be there first light Monday.

Gib convoy on its way?

Swordsman
having six bow tubes instead of four – maybe not having got in an attack on the Garibaldi, therefore six in the tubes plus
six reloads – thus well prepared for the Wop surface deployments that were anticipated. While in leaving
Ursa
where she was, was Shrimp reckoning on her having her eight fish still – guessing that if Mike had got in an attack on the
cruiser he’d have hit her and he, Shrimp, would have known about it? Actually plain common sense, Mike thought – what one
might call Shrimp’s speciality. Crossing fingers – while requesting Jarvis to shove over the apple sauce – guessing the convoy
most likely
was
on its way, and
Ursa
exactly where Shrimp wanted her – i.e. where she’d have a decent chance of worthwhile targets. He’d be shifting Ruck and
Mottram, as like as not, while of the boats he’d had in the Bizerta–Cape Bon–Pantellaria–Hammamet southern periphery of the
convoy’s route some at least would have been recalled, rearmed and revictualled and sent out again in the course of the past
few days.

Or that might be happening now. If the convoy was only now entering the Med, say – escort including a battleship and a carrier
or two joining it out of Gib, as Shrimp had indicated. Not that such heavyweights were likely to stay with the convoy even
as far as this central basin. Destroyers and maybe a cruiser or two would quite likely come through to Malta, but air-cover
would by that stage be from the island itself – from Luqua, Ta’ Qali, Hal Far.

‘Sir?’

Breaking out of his thoughts: focusing on Jarvis across the littered table. ‘Yes, Sub?’

‘Think shifting
Swordsman
to Cagliari might mean a convoy fnally?’

‘It might well.’

‘Wop fleet movements on the cards, then?’

He shrugged. ‘Say your prayers.’

Sunday forenoon prayers, for those so inclined, as in fact requested by several members of the ship’s company – notably Stoker
PO Franklyn, who’d have liked a hymn or two as well as prayers, only no one else wanted to take it that far. Franklyn had
a bass voice which he’d exercised more than once at concert parties, his favourite renditions being ‘Yours’ and ‘Trees’. Attendance
in any case was voluntary, except for the men on watch in the control room, which was the obvious assembly point – after end
of the compartment, beside the wireless office, leaving the area around the search periscope uncluttered. The muster was at
eleven a. m., in McLeod’s watch, some watchkeepers joining in while still doing their jobs. Swathely on after ’planes for
one, Walburton, Smithers and ERA Ellery as well. For Jarvis and Danvers the question of whether or not attendance was voluntary
didn’t come into it, they were present simply as a matter of routine.

Mike finished, ‘– be with us all, evermore, Amen’ and asked McLeod, ‘Well?’

‘A/S schooners still bumbling around inshore, sir, and a Cant last seen flying north towards Ustica.’

Ursa
currently a dozen miles north of Cape San Vito and steering northwest, patrolling much the same area she had yesterday –
western half of the billet, approaches to the Isole Egadi. Course – unchanged in the past hour – 315 degrees, starboard motor
slow grouped down and the other stopped.
Prayers now finished, Mike paused at the chart, on which McLeod had put an 1100 fix. It was 1120 now. Mike told him, ‘Let’s
come round to north, Jamie.’

‘Aye, sir.’ To Smithers, ‘Starboard ten.’

‘Starboard ten, sir …’

McLeod’s hand up to switch off the trimline telegraph: churchgoers departing both for’ard and aft had affected the trim, and
he’d got it back in hand now. Needles on 28 feet exactly, bubble half a degree aft. The surface was choppy but down here it
was absolutely still, the single motor at slow speed barely audible. Mike followed Danvers and Jarvis into the wardroom, with
the words of the naval prayer he’d intoned a few minutes ago repeating themselves annoyingly in his consciousness – out of
what was virtually lifetime familiarity.
Be pleased to receive into thy almighty and most gracious protection the persons of us thy servants and the fleet in which
we serve. Preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of the enemy
…

Well, they did get violent – when they thought they could get away with it. Could hardly be met with anything but counter-violence.
When possible, with added interest. He heard Smithers reporting next-door, ‘Course north, sir’, and McLeod’s gruff acknowledgement.
Hiss of the periscope rising then. Jarvis was at the table leafing through the torpedo log and progress book, and Danvers
was turning in. Mike reached to the head of his own bunk for the Scott Fitzgerald. Couple of hours on this course, he thought,
then spin a coin.

After lunch he’d altered back to 315 degrees, chatted with McLeod for a while then got his head down. Long-range fixes on
San Vito and Gallo had put her well out, with plenty of elbow-room, and he thought he’d spend the night motoring due east across
the northern part of the billet, midway between San Vito/Gallo and Ustica.

He’d been dreaming of Ann, who’d surprised him with the question, ‘So what do we
do
about it?’ Inference being that Melhuish knew about them and she was putting the ball squarely in Mike’s court, although
the only way he could know would be if
she
’d told him. Then Danvers’ voice – not all that loud, but excited, raised in tone – ‘Captain in the control room!’ – with
the effect of a stick in a beehive, not just his own instant transference but general upheaval, the big periscope halfway
down and now checked, rising again, his hands crooked ready for it, swift assessment meanwhile being time 1550, depth 28 feet,
course as he knew anyway 315, starboard motor slow ahead grouped down; CERA McIver bringing the ’scope to a halt as Danvers
announced – controlled, level tone of voice – ‘Smoke on green three-oh, sir.’

Settling the ’scope’s annotated cross-bar sights on it. Darkish-grey smudge with a smear extending left to right on an horizon
barely crinkled although the foreground and mid-field had as much white in it as light blue. For which thank God. Swivelling
the right-hand grip upward into sky-search for a fast sweep overhead and all round, then an equally swift but thorough all-round
surface check. Back on the smoke – bare toes stubbing against the iron rim of the periscope’s well – bare feet under crumpled
khaki slacks, old checked shirt outside them. It was funnel-smoke, all right, but out of
what
… ? A movement of the fingers: ‘Up.’ McIver lifting the control-lever again, deckhead wire purring round its sheaves and the
greased yellowish barrel of the ’scope slithering higher, Mike extending with it from a knees-bent position to his full height
or near it. Stopped: at maximum extent, top glass something like three to four feet out of water. Focusing on and around the
smoke again – and picking up another less dense streamer clear of it to the left. Which confirmed what had seemed a good bet
right from the
moment of Danvers’ summons – either ships in company, convoy or squadron, or one or more ships valuable enough to be escorted.

He folded the handles up. ‘Half ahead together. Diving stations. Forty feet.’ And through the sudden, fast flux of movement,
to Smithers who as Red watch helmsman was staying put – same job at diving stations – ‘Starboard ten, steer three-four-oh.’
Ship’s head currently 315, the smoke had been on green 27, 340 would put her heading within a couple of degrees straight at
it, with any luck into periscope visibility-range by the time he poked it up again. Dog impatient to see rabbit now – and
expecting to – when you’d seen smoke and you and its source were closing each other, it tended not to be long before you had
a sight of mastheads, funnel-tops. Meanwhile the close, fast rush subsiding, familiar figures were where you’d have expected
them to be – including McLeod at work on the trim, in this first minute or two coping with changes of both weights and depth.
Needles in the gauges just settling on 40 feet – depth-change like the increase in speed being a precaution against losing
trim even to the extent of breaking surface, buggering the whole damn thing.

Had been known to happen – though not to
Ursa
. Please God never would.

‘Thirty feet, Number One.’

‘Thirty, sir …’

Mike told Danvers – the rest of them too of course, but Danvers who was at the chart table ready to start a plot which when
up and running would provide at least an approximation of target’s course and speed, ‘Still only smoke but another lot up
close.’And McLeod, ‘Slow both motors when you can, Number One.’ Moving Danvers’ plotting diagram sheet off the chart, giving
a moment’s thought to his own initial concept of the target’s likely course – whatever the
hell the target
was
. Steering to pass around the Marettimo corner was obvious enough, but whether to hug the turn tightly or take it wide – destination
Hammamet for instance as distinct from Bizerta – probably zigzagging, in any case, further to confuse the issue.

‘Thirty feet, sir.’

‘Make it twenty-eight. Slow both motors.’

‘Slow together. Twenty-eight feet.’

Jangle of the telegraph. Cox’n Swathely’s murmured echo of ‘Twenty-eight’; PO Tubby Hart, lips pursed, tilting his fore ’planes
very slightly upward, just momentarily.

‘Twenty-eight feet, sir. Both motors slow ahead grouped down.’

Mike glanced at Ellery, opening his hands: periscope rising to them like a well-trained animal. And on target: smoke no more
than a distant haze-effect, but masts and a single funnel-top that
was
leaking slightly: more of that funnel than he’d thought though, maybe even most of it – on her stern, growing out of a clutter
of deckhousing and he guessed ship’s boats shiny grey and low to the sea: and amidships or thereabouts what looked like a
fairly massive bridge and accommodation block – ‘island’ as they called such features. Masts with cross-trees above lengthy
well-deck spaces – tank-tops, of course; and a short, raised foc’sl with her foremast at its break, the after end.
Ursa
being say thirty degrees on the tanker’s port bow, which would make its course at this moment about 190 degrees. Training
right now, though, to get the rest of it – two destroyers or torpedo-boats on diverse courses screening the target on this
bow, and – slowly back across her – another … No, two others, one thirty to forty on that bow and the fourth much broader,
some distance out to starboard. In fact, from the present dispositions of that team he guessed the tanker might be on the
port leg of a zigzag: in which case its mean course might be more like
210 than 190 or 180. But then, there were zigzags
and
zigzags. While to identify the escorts – training back to the nearer ones for a clearer view – well, identical, each with
a single funnel set close up to the rear of the bridge superstructure: also a stubby-looking foc’sl giving a somewhat dated
look. Might be
Folgores
or
Dardos
, he thought. Speed – well, the bow-wave thrown up by one which happened to be in three-quarter profile at this moment suggested
something like eighteen or twenty knots.