Submariner (2008) (34 page)

‘Half ahead both. Start engines. Take her out, Cox’n.’

‘Aye aye, sir.’ Diesel-generators racketing into explosive,
instant life, Swathely winding on the starboard wheel to pass between two other buoys:
Ursa
on her way, last of the ‘Backlash’ trio.

Time now, just after nine. Fully dark; trim-dive completed satisfactorily, the boat at patrol routine and steadied on course
006 degrees, trimmed down to half-buoyancy, only numbers one and six main ballast holding her up. The other four filled and
ready to drag her down in seconds, assisted by ‘Q’ quick-diving tank. Press the tit, she’d be under as fast as a sounding
whale. Meanwhile her 400hp generators rumbling steadily into the night pumping enough amps into her batteries for the motors
to push her along at about eight knots, but in prevailing conditions – being trimmed deep, with that weight of sea to barrel
through, as well as having a long, low swell rolling in under her stern – she was making only about six.

Which was OK – if you’d wanted more, you could have had it. With about twenty-five miles to cover before diverting Pozzallo-wards
and another twenty-five thereafter. Danvers had this watch – Blue watch, Farquhar and Knox up there as lookouts, Tubby Hart
in charge of the watch below, Mike on his way down through the rush of air into the brightly-lit control room.

‘Happy to be going home, Hart?’

‘Will be when we
are
, sir.’

‘Won’t be long. A week say for this job, then a couple gearing up for the long haul.’ He stopped at the chart table to check
the log and slightly revise the entry in his night-order book; asked Leading Torpedoman Brooks, who was on the wheel, whether
he’d heard from his fiancée since their return from the last one, and received an affirmative reply – she wrote ‘regular every
week no matter what’, Brooks told him – and moved on into the wardroom, where McLeod was writing a letter and Ormrod reading
P. G. Wodehouse.
He’d brought that and another Blandings saga with him, Mike had noticed. Whereas for his own reading he’d borrowed two books
from Abigail, novels by Robert Graves, both tales of ancient Rome which
had
belonged to Nico Cornish, the erstwhile Information Officer.

Think some more about that later, maybe. They
had
talked about it – at
her
instigation – and he half-believed her, didn’t think it mattered all that much.

McLeod was reading, and Jarvis flat-out on his bunk; any snoring inaudible on account of the engines’ racket. Ormrod put a
marker in his book and asked, ‘Trim-dive gave no problems, I gather?’

‘None at all. I have an extremely competent first lieutenant. Have you been offered supper yet?’

‘We have, actually. Thought we’d wait for your distinguished company, though.’

‘You needn’t have.’ He called in the direction of the galley, ‘Barnaby, we’re hungry.’

‘Coming up, sir!’

He asked McLeod, ‘
What
’s coming up?’

Shake of the head. ‘You won’t believe it, sir.’

‘Oh. Corned Dog, as ever.’

‘Actually, tongue, sir. Canned ox-tongue. And – no. It’s the truth – tongue followed by tinned fruit salad, with which Cottenham
is offering
custard
.’

‘I’d very much like to believe you, Jamie, but I can’t.’ Watching Barnaby begin dealing out plates and tools. McLeod had shut
his book, which was
No Orchids for Miss Blandish
by James Hadley Chase; Mike asked him, ‘Eleanor again?’ and he nodded, looking slightly embarrassed; adding, ‘And we owe the
tongue to our guests, Cox’n tells me. They get the best that’s going, apparently.’

‘I’ve always been given to understand that
we
did.’

‘Well, same here, but perhaps only by Malta standards?’

Mike asked Ormrod, ‘Is he pulling my leg?’

‘No, as it happens –’

‘Let’s keep ’em with us?
Not
float ’em off?’ Jarvis, wide awake and pink-faced, sliding off his bunk.‘
Grande Luxe
here on in?’

‘They flew in some crates of food with the rest of our gear.’ Ormrod sounded almost apologetic. ‘More or less standard practice
– so we don’t scoff up all
your
rations and make you hate us is the idea.’

Mike watched the sliced tongue arriving, along with fresh bread, margarine, pickle, etcetera. He said, ‘There’s also the fact
that in a day or two you’ll be on distinctly
hard
rations, huh?’

‘
Might
be a consideration, but I doubt it.’

‘Well.’ Mike pushed the tongue over. ‘You first. Fill your boots.’

McLeod took over the watch shortly after ten, by which time there was less movement on the boat, which was encouraging, although
with a whole night and day to go some further worsening and consequent abandonment of the operation couldn’t yet be ruled
out. Danvers came down for his supper, which of course he’d heard about. He’d be due back on watch at 0215, moonrise would
be shortly after that, with
Ursa
then about halfway to Cape Scalambri – or rather Pozzallo. Ormrod asked him, crossing fingers, ‘Swell not what it was, eh?’
then commented to Mike, ‘Touch wood, we’ll be going through with it.’

‘Please God. Awful let-down otherwise.’

‘
Right
.’ The soldier did touch wood. ‘Little matter of a convoy to think about too.’

‘Oh,
is
there?’ Jarvis, speaking from his bunk. ‘Did rather think there might be. Otherwise – well, in any case, it’s hardly a
patrol
at all, is it.’ Danvers cocked an eyebrow at him: ‘
What
was that?’ and Ormrod enquired rather more politely, ‘Can’t say I’m entirely with you …’

‘More of a
mission
than a patrol. Land you, pick you up again, bring you back. Single objective, I’d call it a
mission
.’

‘While we’re ashore, won’t you be patrolling?’

‘Of course we will.’ Mike told them, ‘A submarine in enemy waters with torpedoes in her tubes is most certainly on patrol.’

‘Well – just sort of waiting, sir? I was thinking we’d be lying low.’

‘Not if we run into anything worth sinking.’ He added, to Ormrod, ‘After all, if we sink something a few miles offshore, doesn’t
tell the Wops there are commandos a dozen miles inland, does it?’

Ormrod’s dry smile. ‘I
hope
it doesn’t. Also that while you’re at it you
do
sink something.’ Jarvis explaining, ‘My thought, actually, was that if we weren’t on patrol we couldn’t be on our
last
one – all that carry-on.’

‘You mean all that bollocks, Sub.’

Mike saw Ormrod looking lost again, and explained, ‘Superstition about submarines’ last patrols. One or two happen to have
come to grief in the course of them, and – well, a particularly wretched loss was
Upholder
– David Wanklyn VC – end of April, early May. Circumstances unknown, but in fact it was very much a “last patrol”, David’s
twenty-fifth.’

‘This one now is your eighteenth, you said?’

He’d nodded. ‘Which means we’ve done about enough. But David was a special sort of chap, highly successful and extremely modest,
universally liked and admired, and – well, it stirred up all this cock-and-bull. Just superstition – and that phrase of course,
last patrol
…’

‘I suppose if you’d had a terrific run of luck right up to that last one –’

Jarvis nodded to Ormrod: ‘That’d cover us, all right.
Is
complete bollocks, I agree –’

Danvers put in, ‘Someone was suggesting it might be better not to talk about “last patrols”, which can have that implication,
but “last patrol before going home” – which doesn’t. My God, fruit salad now!’

‘And custard …’

‘Not for me, thanks. Think there’s anything in that, sir?’

‘No, Pilot, I don’t. Eat your bloody custard.’

He woke with the feeling that he’d been reading Robert Graves’ novel
I Claudius
fairly solidly since supper-time, while the night had been wearing on,
Ursa
grumbling northward with forty men in her and more than thirty of them flat out – including Ormrod on the bunk that was normally
Danvers’. Jarvis having the watch at this time and McLeod making use of
his
bunk. In fact, Mike realised, must have conked out quite some while ago. He had the book still open in his hands, resting
on his chest, had
begun
to read it after that meal, but in confused though recent memory there’d been a dream of Ann – which was startling, in its
way. Although he
had
of course had her in mind from time to time since Ormrod’s reminiscing. Reflecting briefly on that now while turning out,
dressing for the bridge. Would have been getting a shake in about half an hour for the 0230 alteration eastward, and there’d
have been no point just waiting for it. Being now awake, just as well go up for a breath of air and a check on the weather,
then maybe a mug of kye and a cigarette.

Cigarette, to start with.

He felt sorry for Ann. Understood her – he
thought
– a lot better than he had until Ormrod had told him all that. The stuffy, money-conscious parents accepting Charles Melhuish
as a husband for her because he had an abundance
of it – as well as a certain status, of course – not a CO then, but a submarine officer with a medal or two – to
her
, maybe, a certain glamour, but along with that this other ingredient, the appeal of having what it took to get her away from
home. Which Ormrod hadn’t stood a chance of doing – and Mike Nicholson wouldn’t have either, even if he’d felt so inclined,
which he hadn’t,
wouldn’t
have … But Charles being noticeably keener on himself than on anyone else, for that and/or other reasons maybe not coming
up to scratch – and she being the knockout she was as well as having her own predilections, being more than a little susceptible
to expressions of interest and/or actual ‘passes’ such as were bound to come her way – and had from himself, he supposed,
perhaps more blatantly than he’d realised … Well – nothing sensational or even original in any of that, but Ormrod’s revelations
had provided the answer to a question which from the start had baffled him – Charles having on the face of it much the same
talents and/or qualities one aspired to oneself, and not being actually ugly, noticeably vicious or mentally deficient, on
the other hand having the considerable advantage of being rich – how come she’d have put all that at risk?

Boots, Ursula jacket and hood, binoculars … A moment or two at the chart then before telling the helmsman – Nathaniel Sharp,
SD – ‘Going up’, then on the ladder, climbing, hearing Sharp’s call through the voice-pipe of ‘Captain coming up, sir’ and
Jarvis’s acknowledgement. Rush and roar of engine-air intake, yellowish glow below, brass rim of the hatch, night sky and
stars.

‘What’s new, Sub?’

‘Swell’s quite nicely down, sir, and moon just starting.’

Moonglow like a thumb-smear on the horizon broad on the bow to port: prime danger-sector therefore abaft the starboard beam
– which Jarvis and the lookouts would naturally
be aware of. Mike propped himself in the starboard for’ard corner, put his glasses up and began sweeping from right ahead
and down the side. The lookout on this side was Parker; on the port side Newcomb, who was mostly obscured from here by the
bulk of the after periscope standard. Standards swaying like twin black pillars against sky and stars, and four pairs of high-powered
glasses slowly and steadily sweeping, searching. Or say three and a half, Mike’s eyes still adapting to the darkness, over
sea with a silvery polish on it from the area of the moon’s emergence,
Ursa
’s sword-like bow cleaving the dark ahead of her, the whiteness seething aft along her sides and through the casing, bursting
and booming inside there, smashing against enclosing steel and the tower’s base, churned into foam that spread out on the
quarters and lost itself astern. Scent of diesel in the cool night air;
sense
of solitariness and purpose.

Menace, too.

Sweeping back again. Thinking, explain to Abbie what it’s like – how it feels – or felt. Qualifying that with
Given the chance?

He left the bridge before the change of watch, conferred briefly over the chart with Danvers and told him to alter course
at half-past to 038 degrees, reducing at the same time, since one was slightly ahead of schedule, to revs for five knots instead
of six. And to watch out like a hawk down-moon. Passero was, after all, likely to be a busy corner.

Over kye then he chatted with Chief McIver, finding even that generally dour character in high spirits at the prospect of
early return to UK. This operation in his view was no more than a chore that had to be undertaken before they could make tracks
for home.

‘Old bus’ll get us there all right, will she?’

‘D’ye have reason to doubt it, sir?’

‘Commander MacGregor reckons we’re overdue for major refit. That’s part of the reason they’re getting shot of us.’

‘Aye, well, I’d no’ contest it. But if he said we was to put in another six months ye wouldn’a hear me scream blue murder
neither.’

‘That’s a great comfort, Chief.’

He’d asked McLeod to wake him at 0400 when he was shaken for his watch, and confirmed that all things remaining equal he intended
diving on the watch at about 0500. ‘On the watch’ because there was no point waking all their passengers, better to let the
poor buggers sleep while they had the chance. Oh, and before diving there’d be a weather report going out to S.10. Lazenby
had already enciphered the brief ‘conditions OK’ message that Mike had given him. Chancing one’s arm on it certainly at this
early stage, but what the hell. It would have to be revoked if conditions changed dramatically between now and float-off time, and
the decision would in that event be his own, applying both to
Ursa
and
Unsung
. With the convoy on its way by now, as it had to be, it was certainly not a decision to be taken lightly. But then again,
as regards this dive, if one had a completely clear sky – there’d still be a moon in it – one
might
opt to get under a little sooner. Didn’t intend bothering with morning stars for a dawn fix;any inaccuracy in the 0500 estimated
position would soon sort itself out, and there’d be fixes from periscope bearings of Capes Scalambri and Passero and with
luck Pozzallo (if there was enough of it to be visible from sea-level) throughout the day, which barring surprises such as
the appearance of anti-submarine vessels and/or snooping aircraft would be spent at approximately thirty feet and slow speed
on one motor, surfacing well after dark in position Cape Scalambri 140 degrees 10 miles. At about eight-thirty or nine, that
would be, followed by a period of very cautious,
trimmed-down approach to the float-off position, during which time the commandos would be getting their canoes up through
the fore-hatch – as fast as it could be done, because to be at sea with that hatch open anywhere at all, let alone within
spitting distance of an enemy coast and the shallows that fringed it, had elements in common with bloody nightmare.