Go In and Sink! (22 page)

Buck shrugged. It was not his concern. ‘Bridge to control room. Steady at two-seven-eight degrees. Both motors slow ahead.’

Marshall heard the slender attack periscope stir in its sleeve and knew Gerrard was watching the approaching vessels, too. Sizing them up, comparing his own calculations with those of the attack team.

The armed-yacht was less than a thousand yards away now, and he could see someone tipping gash over her side where some attendant gulls circled and dipped expectantly.

Blythe said, ‘Damn! They’ve got some lighters tied to the side of the dock, sir.’ He lowered his glasses and swore. ‘Bloody mist has come down again. Lost ’em!’

Marshall looked at him gravely. The yeoman was not one to imagine things. It now seemed likely that the enemy had lashed the lighters to the dock’s side as some extra protection. It was a good idea for catching any long-ranged shot. A single torpedo, even a pair, might explode against the lighters without allowing the real damage to penetrate further.

‘Keep watching.’ He leaned over the bridge screen.
‘Sub!
Get ready to do your stuff if they draw closer! Answer them in German. But if it gets difficult come up here with me.’

He saw Warwick turn and wave, and wondered if the Italians would notice how pallid the submariners’ skins were, or that they were not wearing white uniforms like themselves. It was unlikely. Submariners were a law to themselves in most navies.

Beside him Buck kept up a steady stream of orders to his men below. Bearings and ranges, courses and estimated speeds. It was a pity they could not fire a fanned salvo. But if this was going to work they had to hit with most, if not all, of their torpedoes.

He looked up, shading his eyes against the fierce glare. There were no aircraft about, just two gulls gliding level with the periscopes, probably in hopes of better fare than that offered by the Italians.

‘Yacht’s signalling, sir.’ Blythe wiped his face. ‘Eye-tie this time.’

‘Make,
not understood
.’ A German U-boat commander would doubtless be very correct, if not openly contemptuous towards his Latin ally.

The flag lifted and curled lazily in a freak breeze, and when he looked again Marshall saw the dock fully for the first time. In the powerful lenses it rode above its reflection like a pale cliff, its outline etched against the sky by a spidery upperworks of derricks and gantrys. He saw the lighters, long low craft, four of them. So there were probably the same number on the other side. The towing tug was a great brute of a thing, no doubt an ocean-going salvage job in happier times. The second one was still hidden astern, her presence marked by a thin plume of smoke.

Buck muttered, ‘Big. That’s the sort of dock you’d use for heavy cruisers. Maybe even a battlewagon.’ He nodded. ‘Very useful.’

Marshall did not reply. The armed-yacht should soon pass clear of her charge to lead the slow procession across the submarine’s starboard quarter. The range of the target would be just right. With nothing but a clear, bright horizon behind it, it should be perfect.

‘Get ready.’

He stepped on to Buck’s grating and lowered his eyes to the sights. He saw the yacht’s jaunty green and red ensign rippling across the wires, and then as he adjusted the bar he held his breath as first the tug and then the over-lapping mass of dock moved ponderously into the sights.

‘Stand by One to Six.’

He stood up slowly and removed his cap. It would be stupid to invite trouble by crouching over the bridge sights for the whole time.

He heard Buck exclaim angrily, ‘Christ! The bloody yacht’s going about!’

What the hell was it doing? She was turning in a sharp arc, and would cross the submarine’s bows if she maintained the same course. Curiosity, bloodymindedness, it made little difference now.

He snapped, ‘Tell Warwick to get ready.’

He glanced aft to make sure that the other gun crews were also watching the yacht. The Vierling pointed stiffly at the sky, but he saw the gunlayer’s fingers on the grip like a claw, his small team lying hidden by his feet below the steel coaming.

Blythe said fiercely, ‘Sir, there’s a Jerry aboard the yacht!’

Marshall made himself turn casually towards the other
vessel
, the effort of appearing calm almost painful. As he moved his glasses over the yacht’s bridge he saw a solitary whiteclad figure framed in the wheelhouse door. He should have guessed. Expected it. Many Italian vessels carried German personnel. To inspire confidence, as insurance. Either way it was all too obvious that this particular German was showing great interest in the submarine.

‘Control room to bridge.’ It was Gerrard. ‘Coming on
now
.’

Marshall tore his eyes from the motionless figure and lowered his forehead to the sights. Now or never.

‘Get ready.’ He felt the sweat running from beneath his cap, stinging his eyes. ‘Easy now.’ He was thinking aloud but could feel the tension around him like part of himself. In the wires the dock appeared quite motionless. Docile.

‘Fire One!’

He felt the hull buck as the compressed air was vented back into the boat.

‘Torpedo running, sir!’

Buck held his stop-watch as if he intended to crush it, his sharp features consorted against the glare.

‘Fire Two!’

‘Blythe said hoarsely, ‘Yacht’s calling us up again!’

‘Fire Three!’

Marshall heard the sudden shriek of a siren and knew they had been discovered.

‘
Open fire!
’

The Vierling swung its four muzzles downward and then settled on the careering yacht. One of the bridge machine-gunners was already taking aim, the trailing ammunition belt glittering in the sunlight as he took the first pressure on his trigger.

Marshall shut them all from his mind and vision as he concentrated on the patch of water beyond the bows. But nothing happened. No telltale froth to mark where the third torpedo had left the tube.

He groped towards the voicepipe and then felt himself hurled backwards as a deafening explosion shook the bridge, followed instantly by a blinding blue flash directly below the bows. Water cascaded all round them and he saw a machine-gunner falling and kicking, his weapon swinging impotently towards the sea.

Buck was yelling, ‘Bloody fish must have nose-dived an’ hit the bottom!’ He ducked wildly as a stream of red tracer ripped over the bridge and hammered against the steel.

Marshall dragged himself to the voicepipe. ‘Carry on with the attack!’

He waited, expecting to hear frantic cries, to know the boat was mortally damaged. He heard instead the sounds of breaking glass and someone yelling for emergency lighting.

Then, ‘Ready, sir!’

‘Fire Four!’

When he looked for the yacht it was swinging across their line of advance, with two machine-guns firing from the bridge while the deck gun groped steadily towards him.

A dull boom echoed across the water, echoing and then expanding into a louder explosion. He swung his glasses on the dock and saw smoke drifting above the lighters, or where two of them had been. Another explosion slammed over the calm water, and more smoke, this time filled with darting orange flames, marked the arrival of their second torpedo.

Warwick had at last got his own gun to fire, but the first shot screamed over the yacht to plummet into the sea a mile beyond. The Vierling had better luck. Like converging tongues the four narrow lines of tracer lanced across the yacht’s bridge, steadied, and then ripped down across the hull with the sound of a band-saw. Pieces of wood and steel, fabric and rigging were hurled in all directions, but above it all Marshall heard the siren still wailing, with probably a dead man clinging to its lanyard.

‘All torpedoes fired, sir!’ Buck’s strained face lit up as another one struck the dock and erupted against the side in a violent explosion. The lighters had vanished, and from the big tug’s angle it seemed as if she had either cast her tow adrift or was endeavouring to swing it towards the shore.

‘Report damage below!’

Marshall felt himself cowering against the steel plates as more bullets whined viciously nearby, striking sparks from the metal, ricocheting over the water and into the drifting smoke.

‘God, we’re not hurting the bastard!’ Buck wiped his eyes and peered at the dock’s smoky silhouette. ‘Bloody hell!’

Blythe called, ‘Two men wounded on the casing, sir!’ Without waiting he bellowed, ‘Stretcher party to the bridge!’

The yacht was in a bad way, the Vierling’s cannon shells had battered her slender hull into a pitted shambles, with smoke and darting flames showing from scores of holes. One of the machine-guns had been brought to bear, and that too had cut down the yacht’s main armament, hurling the crew out of sight like so many tattered bundles.

An internal explosion flung a complete length of the
deck
into the air, and before it had fallen the yacht started to roll over, her bilge displaying another gaping hole where Warwick’s crew had scored one fatal hit.

‘Aircraft, sir!’ The lookout was yelling like a madman. ‘Port beam!’

Marshall tried to control his reeling mind. The aircraft was far away, probably over the land which was now completely hidden by a rolling wall of smoke. Very tiny. Remote.

Buck yelled, ‘Another hit!’ He was waving his cap in the air. ‘Look at it!’

The torpedo had struck the dock some two thirds along its tall side. A column of smoke flushed upwards and then froze against the sky as if turned into something solid, whilst below the dock’s side Marshall could see tiny white feathers to mark where parts of the superstructure and machinery had fallen into the sea.

A figure blundered through the bridge, carrying a bag with a red cross on it. Through the crouching gunners and drifting smoke Marshall saw it was the young stoker, Willard, the one whose mother was ‘on the game’. The boy looked at him for just a split second and then grinned before leaping over the side and down the ladder to the casing. Others followed him, faces puckered up as they came in contact with the sunlight and the closeness of death.

Marshall cupped his hands. ‘Cease firing! Shift target to the tug!’

The yacht had nearly disappeared, and yet the gunners seemed unable to stop, pouring round after round into the splintered, burning hulk, ripping the sea into a maelstrom of spray.

The sixth torpedo hit the dock within yards of the
previous
one. Another tall column of smoke, but no flames. Marshall stared at the dock’s square outline, unable to believe that anything could survive such a battering. He felt his nerves jump as the deck gun reopened fire on the big tug, the first shell slamming down hard under her high stem.

‘Aircraft’s turning, sir!’

Marshall swung the glasses abeam, seeing the small bright chip in the sky, how it seemed to hang motionless as it altered course towards the silent battle far below.

Buck was shouting, ‘Shall I clear the bridge?’

Marshall gripped his arm. ‘No! We must make sure of the dock! We’ll get alongside the bloody thing and engage with gunfire!’ He shook him savagely. ‘Tell the Vierling gunners to stand by to repel aircraft! There’s only one so far!’

Blythe looked up from a voicepipe. ‘No damage to hull, sir.’

Marshall nodded, unable to speak. If the hull had been holed by their own torpedo they might just as well go ashore and surrender right now.

‘Aircraft closing, sir!’

Buck yelled, ‘Shall I use the two stern tubes, sir?’ He sounded wild with shock or anger. It was hard to tell.

‘No. If five won’t do the job then——’

He pivoted round as a low, sullen rumble came across the water. It did not stop, but went on and on like some piece of massive undersea machinery.

Buck gasped, ‘Got her!’ He seemed unable to grasp it. ‘She’s done for!’

The dock was tilting towards them, very slowly, as if it was all part of a set plan. Only the surge of froth along the waterline betrayed the sudden inrush, the final collapse of
one
or more of the great ballast tanks. A tall derrick fell outboard and then hung downwards above the sea like a dead stork, and other fragments could be seen splashing along the full length of the side. The towing tug was burning fiercely, the hull outlined with sudden clarity by the falling waterspout of Warwick’s last shell.

Marshall snapped, ‘That’s it! Clear the casing first! Prepare to dive!’

He looked for the plane but it had dipped out of sight into the smoke. It could be anywhere. He heard the klaxon screaming, suddenly loud through the hatch as the guns fell silent. Men clambered over the bridge, some dragging the wounded with them, others limping and cursing as they felt their way to safety.

The aircraft’s engines roared through the smoke, cutting a bright path as it burst into view just two cables abeam. Marshall saw the bright stabbing flashes from its guns, the creeping pattern of splashes as the hail of bullets ploughed across the water, over the casing and away to the opposite beam. The Vierling followed round, the sharp cracking explosions and darting tracers making some of the running seamen falter and crowd over the hatch, too stricken to move.

Buck shouted, ‘Get below! Move your bloody selves!’

More bangs, and the attendant clang of steel on steel, before the plane had streaked out of range to begin another turn.

Marshall seized a man’s arm and pulled him into the bridge. The aircraft did not carry depth-charges, but one more attack like that and they might be crippled. Unable to dive.

He thrust his mouth against the voicepipe. ‘Hard a starboard! Full ahead, group up!’

Buck was hanging over the screen calling, ‘Here’s the last of ’em!’

It was the stoker, Willard, his round face as white as a sheet, but apparently unmoved by the rattle of cannon fire, the oncoming roar of engines.

A lookout pointed wildly. ‘Hold on! There’s a bloke down there by the gun!’

Willard gasped, ‘Dead! Couldn’t help. Dead.’

But the lookout shouted even louder, his features twisted into a mask of despair. ‘Saw him move, for Christ’s sake!’

Marshall snapped, ‘Take over the con, Number One.’