Impasse (The Red Gambit Series) (8 page)

“
Maybe you’ve a point, Arsey. Best we keep quiet then, eh?”

Another voice resonated through the intercom.

“Contact, Skipper. Starboard 30. One thousand yards. Possible wreckage.”

Flight Sergeant Peter Viljoen
’s crisp and concise report interrupted the great Goose discussion, as Cox wiped his hands clean on his life preserver and took back command of the aircraft, releasing Crozier to crane his neck in the direction of the sighting.

Viljoen’s voice came again.

“Contact confirmed Skipper, Starboard 35, One thousand yards. Wreckage, and lots of it too.”

Cox spoke t
o the crew.

“
Pilot to crew. OK fellahs, close up now, and keep your eyes peeled. Turning for a low level run over the site now. Sparks, get off a report to base right now. Magic, pass Sparks the position please.”

Both radio operator and navigator keyed their mikes with an acknowledgement
, as the port wing dipped to bring the lumbering seaplane around in a circle for a west-east run across the wreckage.

Whilst some of the crew
used binoculars to probe the floating evidence of recent combat, others remained with eyes firmly glued elsewhere, seeking out the tell-tale plume of a periscope, or the reflection of sun from the wing of an aircraft.

Nose-gunner Viljoen was first up again, professionally and matter-of-factly
, at least at first, then rising in pitch and excitement as his eyes worked out the details of what he was seeing.

“
Contact dead ahead, 500 yards. Dinghy in the water. Men onboard, Skipper, there’s men onboard! They’re waving!”

“
Roger, Dagga. How many?”

“
Hard to say, Skipper. Five, maybe more. Looks like a standard issue navy dinghy, and I’ll bet a pound to a pinch of pig shit that they’re navy uniforms, Skipper.”

The reason behind Viljoen
’s nickname was lost in time, but he was Dagga to everyone, including 201’s Commanding Officer, although, in fairness, that may have been because they were brothers.

Sparks came back with a message
, confirming the passing on of the location report, leaving Cox free to concentrate on his fly past.

His first sweep had been at full speed but, with the absence of any adverse reports
, Cox turned his aircraft round for a second pass and throttled back to permit closer examination.

He saw the waving men in the dinghy himself, and believed he saw others in the water
, whose only motion was caused by the shifting of the sea.

‘
Poor bastards.’

“
What’s the latest on Dusty, please?”

A slight delay
, and the metallic voice of Rawson, one of the gunners, responded with negative news.

The pilot did not welcome being
single-handed for the entire flight.

“
Bollocks with an egg on top.”

His favourite
expletive and one that always puzzled those who heard it.

“
Arsey, I need a hand up here. Pass your guns onto someone will you.”

“
Roger, Skipper.”

Crozier looked away from his waist guns
, and saw Rawson moving forward.

“
All yours, Tiger,” and Crozier slapped the gunner on the shoulder as he headed towards the steps that rose up to the flight deck.

Rawson had been nicknamed
‘Sid’ at a young age, for reasons best known to God and his friends in Mrs Oosterhuis’ class. That label survived until the first time that 246 Squadron’s Operations officer had placed his initials up on the crew roster.

By the time those present had
stopped laughing at G.R.R.R., ‘Sid’ was history and ‘Tiger’ was born.

“
Radar Contact, bearing 010, range approximately 95 miles, heading unknown, possibly south-south-west, Skipper.”

Magic Malan
’s report was delivered in his normal impersonal style. The type VIc Radar set was supposed to be capable up to 100 miles in the right circumstances, and Flight Sergeant Malan always seemed to coax the best out of the equipment.

Cox thumbed his mike.

“Witty, fit in with you at all?”

After the slightest
delay, the Navigator replied.

“
Position could tie in with the Stord, Skipper.”

“
Roger.”

Stord was a destroyer of the Royal Norwegian Navy, one of the array of vessels converging on the area.

Crozier slipped into the second seat, a place he often occupied. He had failed his pilot’s training, not on his ability behind the controls, but more on his inability with the required mathematics.

Lining up on the wreckage, Cox throttled back as much as he dared.

“Ok crew, slow pass. Keep your eyes skinned.”

As the
big flying boat did a leisurely flyover, Dagga and rear-gunner Van der Blumme confirmed the presence of naval personnel amongst the survivors, as well as many bodies floating on the surface.

“
Skipper, radar target has changed course, now confirmed at 90 miles, heading 190. She changed course after Sparks lit up the airwaves.”

“
Roger, Magic.”

Standing orders no longer permitted the Flying Boat to touch down and recover the Canadians
, but as the Norwegian Navy was coming to the rescue, it just meant a few more hours on the water for the survivors.

“
Dagga, use the Aldis. Let them know we can’t stop, but help is on its way. Witty, how long?”

Navigator Jason Witt was already prepared for the question
, so his answer was immediate.

“
Thanks, Witty. Four hours, Dagga. And wish them good luck. Sparks, send confirmed survivors at this location.”

The Sunderland circled slowly
, as the signal lamp blinked out the message to the men below.

“
Skipper, message sent.”

“
Roger Dagga. Right, now let’s find the bastards who did this.”

Generally speaking, o
ne bit of ocean looks much like another, but the piece of the Atlantic they had just flown over and now drew them back displayed something special.

Fuel oil.

On one of the southbound legs of their search pattern, Dagga’s sharp eyes had seen the long, thin, glistening streak on the surface below.

Cox gave the matter some thought.

“Pilot. Witty. Pop across to the palace will you.”

Within
seconds, Flight Sergeant Witt arrived from his navigating station behind the flight deck, or palace as it was known.

“
Witty, get a bearing on that slick and plot it in relative to the Canadian sinking will you. I’m going to deviate off our pattern and I want a bearing down which to fly ok?”

The Navigator understood immediately and, with a modest acknowledgement, disappeared.

NS-X was flying south-south-west on a course of 192 in search of whatever it was that was littering the ocean with fuel oil. Three more distinct glistening marks had been found, all on a heading of 192, vindicating Cox’s hunch.

Whatever they were tracking was hurt.

B-31 had been rushed to sea and that sort of haste never paid with submarines. However, the former Type XXI had easily manouevred into a killing position on the Canadian Corvette, without the surface vessel having the slightest idea that it was about to die. The XXI’s quality sonar systems had identified the approach of the warship, whereas the Canadian system was built for submarines less advanced than the XXI.

As the
computer-guided torpedoes had approached, the corvette’s captain got his men moving to action stations and fired off a hasty contact report before two warheads ripped the heart from the small craft.

Forty men died in the twin explosions and the RCN London Pride was doomed, listing immediately.

Off the starboard beam, the B-31 raised its periscope for a fleeting look at the sinking vessel.

A single shot, hastily aimed, left the barrel of London Pride
’s 4” main gun, thumping into the sea forty yards over target.

The corvette turned turtle before a second shot could be fired, holding on the surface for a few seconds before surrendering herself to the inevitable and disappearing from view.

B-31 dropped her periscope and proceeded at fifteen knots, moving swiftly away from the sinking, south-south-west on a heading of 192.

The 4
” shell had missed but there was sufficient water hammer from the explosion to seek out two items of faulty workmanship. The first effect was to shake loose an electrical coupling in the ‘Bali’ radar detector apparatus. The FuMB Ant3 Bali was used to detect incoming radar signals, and the B-31 had now lost the capability.

The shockwave also slightly unseated one of the fuel intake valves, which intake also lacked a properly functioning non-return valve. All of which meant that the B-31 occasionally vented modest quantities of fuel oil into the ocean as she sought to evacuate the area.

It was not until two hours had passed that the Engineering Officer noticed the fuel discrepancy and reported it to the submarine’s commander.

The excellent sonar system showed no threat
’s nearby, the Bali was clear, and so it was decided to quickly ascend to assess what was happening.

B-31 blew her tanks and rose to the surface of the
Eastern Atlantic at precisely 1303hrs.

Dagga fired off an excited report.

“Fuck a rat! Submarine dead ahead, Two thousand yards, just surfacing!”

“Pilot to crew. Action stations. Action stations. Surfaced Submarine ahead.”

Controlled pandemonium ensued as all the crew, except Miller, prepared for combat.

“Identify it someone!”

The pilot
accompanied his request with a controlled turn, in order to not overfly the submarine.

“
Not seen one like that before, Skipper. Not on my list.”

Dagga was referring to an illustrated list of submarine outlines that the crew used to identify types. It was not unheard of for aircraft to send friendly vessels to the bottom for lack of correct identification.

RAF Coastal Command’s printing and distribution service had decided to send the full Northern Ireland allocation of the latest intelligence manuals to RAF Belfast, from where they could be easily distributed. That flawed decision, as it was not made clear to those who received them they should be sent on, was about to bear terrible fruit.

NS-X passed on the submarine
’s port side at eight hundred yards distance, a few figures now obvious on the submarine’s wet hull and in the conning tower.

Magic Malan piped up.

“That could be the latest German type XXI they never got to deploy, Skipper. Very streamlined, no gun mounts. It fits.”

“
Anyone else?”

Rolf Pienaar, the mid-upper gunner chipped in.

“I think Magic’s right, Skipper.”

The intercom went silent as Cox considered his options.

“I am identifying that as an enemy submarine. It’s not an Amphion Class, which we were told was in the area. Agree?”

All those who had examined the sleek vessel agreed.

“Skipper, definitely,
definitely,
not Amphion Class. Conning tower all wrong... no gun mount forward. Bow section’s wrong too.”

Magic had put his book alongside that of Erasmus the Flight Engineer for comparison.

“Roger, Sparks, get a message off. Attacking confirmed Soviet submarine. Get the location and send it.”

“
Best you stay here, Arsey. Just in case.”

The Sunderland swept around and took up a stern approach position. Cox upped the throttles and adjusted the aircraft
’s height.

“
Pilot. Crew. Attacking. Good luck fellahs.”

Onboard S-31, the appearance of the large amphibian caused a near-panic. The Soviet Captain called his men to order, knowing that he could not dive without letting the Sunderland attack unmolested.

So he did all he could, which was fight back.

The Sunderland crew
’s knowledge of the Type XXI was incomplete. German U-Boats had traditionally sprouted AA guns all over the conning tower, the more as the war went on and German submarine losses to aircraft climbed.