Go In and Sink! (11 page)

‘
Sir!
’ The lookout’s voice made him freeze. ‘Smoke! On the starboard quarter!’

He dare not turn and look at it. The other boats had
not
seen it, and it was probably masked by his own conning-tower.

‘Control room! This is the captain. Smoke on the starboard quarter. Check it with the main periscope.’

An agonising pause and then a voice called, ‘One ship, sir. On the horizon.’

He could not place the voice. Probably a spare seaman. But they had had so little time.…

He barked, ‘Start the attack!’

The voicepipe went dead, as if everyone below had been struck down by some invisible force. Then he heard Buck’s orders being passed unhurriedly across the intercom. No panic, no emotion. It could have been a mock attack on another neutral.

‘Fire One!’

Marshall felt the steel screen kick gently against his chest, pictured the first torpedo as it shot from its tube.

‘Fire Two!’

On the fore casing one of the seamen was whirling a heaving line round his head like a film cowboy, one eye towards the bridge as he played out the long, dragging seconds.

‘Fire Three!’

Again the little kick. Like a conspiratorial nudge.

Marshall shuddered and snapped, ‘Get
ready
!’

‘Fire Four!’ A pause, ‘All torpedoes running, sir!’ The last two in the bow tubes were to have been for the damaged boat. But she was near enough now to hit with a brick.

The lookout called, ‘Ship on the starboard quarter is closing sir. One funnel. Probably destroyer.’

Marshall nodded jerkily, unable to drag his eyes from the murky outline of his target. On, on, on. He pictured
the
four torpedoes streaking through the water, working up to some forty-five knots as they fanned out in a deadly salvo.

Blythe muttered, ‘Christ we’ve missed the bugger!’

The first explosion when it came was like a thunderclap. In that split-second Marshall saw the forward portion of the enemy’s hull burst open and upward in one great searing orange ball of fire. Ringed with black smoke and whirling fragments of metal it seemed to spread in size and brilliance so that the next torpedo’s detonation was all but lost in the devastation.

Despite the terrible power of the noise and fire Marshall saw several tiny details, as if all of them were happening consecutively instead of in the twinkling of an eye.

A seaman on the casing running aft and staggering as the shockwave swept over the hull in a scorching wind. Cain, the Casing King, kicking the spare wire over the side and yelling soundlessly to his deck party to take cover. The gun’s crew moving jerkily like robots around their breech with Warwick’s head and shoulders glowing bronze in the reflected inferno.

More terrible explosions, and Marshall felt the hull jerk and buck as if it had been hit by a submerged wreck.

On the damaged U-boat the first stricken horror had changed to a wild scramble of running figures, some of whom had already reached the deck gun where an officer was dragging out his pistol and firing blindly across the narrow strip of water.

Marshall ducked as something clanged into the tower and shrieked away over the sea. A bullet or some fragment from the supply boat, he did not know or care.

He punched the nearest machine-gunner on the arm. ‘Open fire! Clear those men from the casing!’

The gun stammered into life, the thin line of tracer licking up and over the German’s periscopes before steadying and ripping sparks from the grey steel.

When he looked again Marshall could see nothing of the
milch-cow
. Just a huge pall of drifting smoke against the sky, a spreading pattern of oil and bobbing flotsam to mark where she had made her last dive.

He yelled, ‘Full ahead together! Port ten!’

He watched as Warwick’s crew brought the gun’s long muzzle round across the rail, following the other boat as it appeared to career drunkenly on their mounting bow wave.

‘
Shoot!
’ The gun bucked on its springs, the shell exploding far beyond the target in a cloud of vapour and bursting spray.

‘Down one hundred!’ The breech clicked shut. ‘Shoot!’

The conning-tower shook violently and a tall waterspout rocketed skywards some half-cable from the side. Marshall swung round, knowing the answer even as the lookout yelled, ‘Destroyer has opened fire, sir!’

The voicepipe called, ‘Other boat is trying to transmit!’ A gasp as another shell whined overhead and exploded abeam.

A savage glare lit up the bridge and he turned to see the other boat’s periscope standards and radio antennae reel apart as Warwick’s gunners found their mark. Smoke billowed from the broken bridge, and he saw some of the German gunners running aft towards the tower. It was futile, for without engine power the U-boat was helpless. It was training and instinct, the relentless code which even in the face of death the U-boat’s men could not break.

The Vierling crackled viciously, the four barrels cutting
down
these same running men with the ease of a reaper in a field. The officer, isolated and alone, was reloading his pistol when some of the shells smashed him into oblivion, leaving a bright smear to mark his brief passing.

Another shell slammmed into the exposed ballast tank, and above the din of engines and yelling gunners it was possible to hear the triumphant surge of inrushing water.

Marshall had to clench his jaw to speak steadily into the voicepipe. ‘Break the charge! Out both engine clutches!’ Before the sound of the diesels had died away he cupped his hands and shouted, ‘Secure the gun! Clear the bridge!’

Gerrard’s voice, suddenly loud in the stillness. ‘Bridge! Both engine clutches out! Main motors ready!’

Men tumbled past and into the hatch, dragging with them the machine-guns, one still smoking as it vanished below. Wild eyes and brief breathless voices, until only Marshall and the last lookout remained. The latter looked at the approaching destroyer, the hull of which was almost hidden behind her massive bow wave as she tore into the attack. Her skipper probably imagined he had caught two surfaced U-boats in the act of sinking some unidentified ship.

Either way, just one of his shells would make the score three instead of a pair.

Marshall nodded to the seaman, ‘Off you go.’

He crouched over the voicepipe as a shell screamed low overhead, the shockwave hitting his shoulders like a man’s forearm.

‘Dive! Dive! Dive! Ninety metres! Shut off for depth-charging!’

He closed the cock and paused momentarily to peer abeam. The stricken U-boat had almost gone, her stern
poking
out of the seething bubbles and escaping oil like a crude arrowhead.

Then he jumped into the hatch, feeling the hull falling steeply, hearing the sea surging along the casing and against the conning-tower as Gerrard took her into a crash dive.

He slammed the hatch and locked the wheel tight. Down the ladder and into the control room, the familiar smells, the enclosed world of their being.

The lower hatch banged shut and he heard Gerrard call, ‘Group up. Full ahead together.’ He turned from peering over the helmsman’s shoulder and met Marshall’s gaze.

‘Done it, sir.’

Marshall clung to the ladder, his chest heaving, his lungs feeling like raw flesh. He managed to nod. Then he replied, ‘Not too much time in hand.’ He could hardly get the words out.

‘Ninety metres, sir.’ The coxswain twisted round, his face set in a fierce grin.

‘Was there
ever
enough time, sir?’

Marshall looked at him and shook his head. He felt completely spent and sick.
In the twinkling of an eye
. Two submarines and some hundred and fifty men. Wiped out. Written off. Just like that.

Somewhere overhead he heard the thrumming beat of the destroyer’s racing screws. She would drop a few charges, but with luck they would be well clear before her captain got an echo on his Asdic. If there were any survivors from the second U-boat, which was unlikely, they would be gutted like herrings in the depth-charge explosions.

He swallowed hard, tasting the bile in his throat. He hoped that Browning would be satisfied. Mission accomplished.

A depth-charge exploded far away, like a muffled drum in a tunnel. The destroyer’s detection gear had probably homed on to the sinking submarine.

He glanced at the faces all around him. Lined and set as they listened and then understood.

They were safe and that was enough. It was all they had.

FOR SOME UNSTATED
reason U-192 was not required to seek out the second German supply submarine. Two days after their successful attack and their avoidance of the American destroyer, they had received a brief signal from the far off Admiralty in London. In their own, special top-secret code, which had probably been dictated by Browning himself.
Return to base forthwith
.

At the time the submarine had been on the surface steering south-east towards the Freetown rendezvous beneath a velvet sky where the stars had appeared to reach from horizon to horizon.

As Marshall had sat in his cabin with Gerrard reading the decoded signal he had been aware of his own confused feelings. The sudden recall might mean that their deception had been revealed to the enemy, so that they were needed for some different scheme without delay. Browning’s staff would have been following their progress by using a duplicate set of codes and rendezvous-boxes, and would have realised they had either been successful with their first attack or had been sent to the bottom.

For the first time since quitting the secluded Scottish loch he made a signal, equally brief, but one to let Browning know they were at least alive. He had pictured the radio operators and coding experts, both Allied and German, who might have picked up their crisp acknowledgement. But whatever anyone might suspect, Browning would
know
for sure. One of his plans had been carried out, and his brain-child would be given due credit.

Throughout the boat the news had been received with surprise. Nobody in his right mind had been looking forward to a second clash with the U-boat
milch-cows
, but once the new course had been laid, the tubes reloaded and batteries charged, most of the company had made the best of it. With the announcement of a recall the reactions had been as mixed as Marshall’s.

The first part of the return passage had gathered something like a holiday atmosphere as the boat had headed north-east, avoiding shipping lanes and spending most of the time on the surface.

Whenever possible men were allowed to take turns on deck, sunning their bodies, laying naked on the casing as if on a pleasure cruise. Once, when Frenzel had requested him to stop the boat so that divers could inspect the port screw, Marshall had permitted swimming parties, although never more than a few yards from the hull. It was not usual, but then neither was their role.

When they had drawn nearer to the convoy routes and into the range of patrolling aircraft they had been made to realise that their brief freedom in sun and warm seas was likely to be their only reward for their achievements.

Few bothered about what the Germans might or might not do. As day followed day, the R.A.F. and the American land-based bombers were cursed with more feeling and anger than any enemy.

Twice they were faced with disaster. The first occasion had been while they were surfaced, charging batteries, making sure they were fully prepared for the final leg of the journey home. From nowhere, or so it had appeared,
a
fat Sunderland flying boat had plunged out of low cloud, machine-guns hammering, depth-charges dropping from either wing as the U-boat had dived frantically for safety. Off the coast of Ireland they had been caught again. This time it had been a twin-engined fighter, streaking out of the mist barely above the water. The bullets had clanged across casing and bridge, and one had passed through Devereaux’s oilskin between his arm and his side. He had drawled, ‘Some bastard must have it in for me!’ But he had been badly shaken, nevertheless.

For two whole days they had idled back and forth west of the Outer Hebrides, following their instructions awaiting the right moment to make their approach and meet their guide, the armed yacht
Lima
. To attempt to make an independent landfall would have invited disaster. What with minefields and hidden booms, the chance of being caught on the surface by some prowling aircraft or armed trawler, they had to wait their turn if they hoped to continue their work in secrecy.

During those last days Marshall had had plenty of time to watch his companions. Daily he had found it harder than he had believed possible to meet Frenzel’s eye, to join him in casual conversation, or worse, to be left alone with him. What would he say? How would he feel when Browning broke the news about his wife and child? And Gerrard seemed to grow more restless and less inclined to share his confidences as hour by hour they crawled back and forth, rising occasionally to periscope depth to make a fix, check a bearing, or merely to take a quick glance at some passing vessel. Because of his concern for the two officers who were perhaps closest to him, Marshall had spent less time than he would have liked with young Warwick. He had changed most of all. In the two months they had
been
at sea he had altered from a boy to a hollow-eyed stranger. Marshall was fully aware of the reason but knew that to interfere at this stage might push him over the edge. He had seen him in the control room when they had headed away at full speed from the destroyer’s depth-charges the sounds of the damaged submarine breaking up as she plunged to the sea-bed. Shaking uncontrollably, his face like chalk, he had been staring at the side of the hull as if he had expected it to cave in on all of them. But it was not fear of dying which had changed him. Marshall had heard Buck saying quietly to Gerrard one night, ‘What can you expect, Number One? He’s just a kid, seen nothing, knows nothing but what he’s got from books. Then it all became real and nasty and he’s made to kill. The gun crews were too busy yelling and pulling triggers. But
he
had to stand there like some bloody executioner making sure they cut down every last living Jerry, when seconds earlier they had been waving at each other like mates.’ There had been a pause and Buck had added harshly, ‘Me, I don’t give a sod for any of ’em. I’ve seen what those bastards have done. I’d gun down any Jerry given the chance. But young David’s not like us. Not yet anyway.’