As long as the bloody rope held…
Gimber prayed with his eyes shifting between the depthgauge and the bubble, Please don’t let it part?
Setter was on the point of diving, so as to be down and out of sight before daylight exposed her to any wandering German aircraft. She’d dived for the first time yesterday, but come up again last evening to spend the night on the surface; this was necessary both to maintain the scheduled progress northward and to charge her batteries. So for X-12 there’d been another seven hours of acute physical discomfort exacerbated by the tension of knowing the two-rope could snap at any moment.
Yesterday the hours with Setter dived had been marvellous. Hour after hour of smooth running. Gimber had slept for two hours, then taken over from Towne, who’d been unconscious for nearly four.
Towne muttered now, ‘Get on with it, get bloody under!’
Longing for a resumption of that peace and quiet. Also to get the act of diving over – and for MacGregor to handle it carefully, take his ship down gently, in slow time… X-12’s bow jerking upwards and to port: then the strain was off the rope and she was hanging, drifting with her bow falling quite slowly. The two could have gone already, could have been broken by that last tug. But it hadn’t – there was a yank to starboard, just as he’d been beginning to think she might be on her own… She still carried the slight list to port, oddly enough. Gimber looked at the transverse spirit-level, the one on the deckhead that showed angles over to port or starboard. She was in her gliding state again – the tow slack, no pull on her nose, but the bubble still showing the two-degree list to port.
There was no obvious reason for it. Towne was in his seat – which was on the starboard side – and Steep was flat-out, asleep, in the fore end. The battery and its wooden cover which served as the off-watch sleeping berth was also, as it happened, on the starboard side. Nothing had been moved from one side to the other, so far as Gimber could see or recall, and an X-craft had no port and starboard trimming tanks. Most of the food and drink was stored on the port side of the bow compartment, so as the cans were emptied the tendency would be for her to be lightened on that side – the opposite to what seemed to be happening.
The telephone buzzed; Towne stretched out a long left arm to pick it up.
‘Yeah?’ He listened for a few moments. Then: ‘Roger.’ He was half-turned on his seat, looking like a first cousin to Rasputin – gaunt, bearded, with those deepset, gleaming eyes. He told Gimber as he hung up the ’phone, ‘She’s diving now. Brazier, that was.’
Everard would have his head down, no doubt. Setter diving quietly on the watch. Gimber would have preferred to have known Paul was awake and looking after X-12’s interests at a time like this. At this moment she was on an upward swoop with the needle in the gauge swinging past the sixty-five-feet mark. But no jerk: there’d been a long, steady pull angling to starboard, and now it had ceased. She felt loose again, drifting, bow slowly sinking as the forward motion slowed.
Adrift again?
About once every two minutes, that was how it felt. Imagination, of course, yet another of the coward’s thousand deaths. But there’d been no jar, no sudden wrench. And in point of fact the imagining part wasn’t so much fear as the need to anticipate, to have a mental picture of what was happening outside the hull so you could be ready to cope with an emergency when it struck. Like having worked out in advance that if this new tow did part they’d replace it with the two-and-a-half-inch steel wire rope which Setter was carrying lashed inside her casing. He’d discussed this again with Everard; the wire’s weight would make it a hell of a thing to handle, from this end, but at least it existed – another accident wouldn’t necessarily remove X-12 from the operation.
‘I’m taking her to one hundred, Trigger.’
‘Aye aye…’
Setter would go to sixty. Gimber’s intention was to be well below her, out of the wash from her screws. These were all new techniques, history in the making; despite the facts that his mouth tasted like the bottom of an old dustbin and that he’d rather have been in Wimbledon.
Autumn – first signs of it, the trees beginning to change colour… Except it would be pitch dark there at 02.00…
Going quiet now. The pull was steady, all in one direction. She’d already be under, he guessed, below the surface turbulence. The time being 0200 and the date – 18 September. Concentrating harder still, Gimber concluded that it had to be a Saturday. With seventeen hours of tranquillity ahead, and his own turn to take a rest.
Except Eaton probably needed that sleep.
He had her levelled at a hundred feet when the telephone buzzed again. Brazier informed Towne that Setter was now in trim at sixty feet.
‘How is it with you now?’
‘Better ’n it was, chum, I’ll say that… Might even get some shut-eye later.’ Towne was frowning, looking around like an animal suspecting danger while he listened to whatever Brazier was saying. He’d craned outward to see the depthgauge and the hydroplane indicator. Nodding: rasping into the telephone, ‘That soon?’
Brazier said something else. Towne nodded. ‘Yeah. Right’, and hung up. Gimber said, ‘You’ve noticed it, have you.’
‘What is it – three degrees?’ Towne got out of his seat and moved a few feet aft, to check on the position of the bubble in the transverse spirit-level. ‘Just under.’
‘So what’s doing it?’
‘I’ll look around.’
‘Checked the bilges lately?’
‘Yeah, course. But I will again. Mind you, I’ve a feeling…’
‘Well?’
‘Tell you in a mo’…’ Rasputin jerked a stained thumb in the direction of their towing ship. ‘Tomorrow night’, he said. ‘Crews change over. Big eats and all night in – what about that, then?’
‘I’ll believe it when I’m inboard… Trigger, see if you can trace this list.’
‘Butterflies, Sub?’
Massingbird, stroking his red beard, grinned at Dick Eaton across the table. Eaton was refusing breakfast: he’d drunk some tea, but declined all offers of food. His voice was thin as he told the engineer, ‘If a sharp pain in the guts can be caused by butterflies – yes.’
Massingbird’s implication had been that Eaton’s digestive problem might be connected with the imminence of action. Which wasn’t either far-fetched or insulting. Paul was aware of the flutter of those abdominal insects, at times, and Jazz Lanchberry had admitted to it readily. Brazier muttered now, ‘You’re lucky if it’s only butterflies. I’ve got bloody great pterodactyls in my gut.’
‘Well,’ Crawshaw smiled, ‘you’ve got room for them, in there.’
‘Is it really bad, Dick?’
Eaton told Paul tightly, ‘Bad enough to hope it’ll stop soon.’
‘When did it start?’
‘In the night. I was OK on watch, so it must have started after I turned in.’
MacGregor suggested, ‘Perhaps the cox’n had better take a squint at you.’
Submarine coxswains did some kind of medical course as part of their training. Setter’s CPO Bird would have a kit of drugs, and some implements, and a handbook of symptoms and treatments, but apart from first-aid it was likely to be rough-and-ready medicine. Eaton’s glance at MacGregor made it plain he was well aware of this.
‘I’ll be all right, sir. I’ll turn in, wait for it to wear off.’
‘Anyone else got stomach trouble?’
Nobody had, so you could say it hadn’t been last night’s canned pilchards. Whatever it was, Paul thought, it had certainly chosen its moment, with the changeover of crews scheduled for tomorrow evening.
MacGregor commented, ‘Your first lieutenants seem to be out of luck. First Steep, now Eaton.’
‘Steep’s back on the job, Louis says.’
‘So will I be, skipper, by tomorrow.’
‘Well, let’s hope.’
‘I’m sure of it. It’s just a belly-ache, nothing serious.’
But he was barely able to haul himself up into the bunk – the upper one, against the curve of the pressure-hull – which Crawshaw had recently vacated. The pain was probably worse than he’d admitted, Paul guessed. In fact if it hadn’t been pretty bad, he wouldn’t have mentioned it at all. One had now to face the fact that he might not get over it, whatever ‘it’ was, in time to move over to X-12: there’d be no question of taking him along in this state.
Over the telephone at 08.00, Gimber reported that the midget had a list of six degrees to port.
‘It’s the side-cargo, a slow leak on one of its buoyancy chambers. That’s Trigger’s assessment, and I agree with him. There’s nothing else it could be.’
The side-cargoes had buoyancy chambers so that their weight wouldn’t throw the X-craft out of trim. All the banging around they’d be subjected to must have damaged this one.
‘Is the list increasing?’
‘Well, it was, but I’m not certain, it could have got to where we are now and stopped.’
One thing after another… He said – thinking aloud – ‘We may have to ditch that one.’
She’d still have one two-ton egg to lay underneath the Lützow. Gimber hadn’t commented. He had enough on his plate with the passage job; what happened afterwards would be Paul’s headache. Paul asked him, ‘How’s Ozzie now?’
‘Oh – he’s OK. Sleeping it off.’ Gimber dropped his voice somewhat. ‘To be honest, he isn’t really a hundred per cent yet. Be a bit much to expect he would be, after several days of all that.’ He’d paused… ‘Anyway, it’s hard to judge, we all look like rats and feel like—’ He checked the splurge of words. ‘Well. Every two hours from now on, right?’
‘Yup. And you’ll surface to ventilate at midday – so take the noon call first, will you? Tell Ozzie I’m glad he’s better.’
Because he might need him as a replacement for Dick Eaton. It wasn’t a happy idea, to start with one member of the team already played-out; but maybe a dose or two of Benzedrine… There’d be no option, if Eaton didn’t make a quick recovery: and it wouldn’t be enough to have him claim to be all right, then maybe collapse at some crucial moment. The first lieutenant’s job was a very complicated one, requiring a lot of experience and skill: you couldn’t put just anyone on that seat. You couldn’t do without him, either. Jazz Lanchberry would have his hands full, Brazier’s task as diver was something else altogether, while Paul’s business was at the periscope, conning the midget and her high-explosive cargo through whatever obstacles lay between her and the target. Under, over, or through the nets, and the man who did the trimming had to be one hundred percent sure and right in every move he made.
Paul wondered whether he could possibly take the boat in with a heavy list – accepting some clumsiness in the boat’s handling as the price of taking her in fully armed.
Gimber asked him, ‘What time tomorrow do we change round?’
‘Soon as it’s dark. Which would mean about nineteen-thirty… Is it nice and quiet for you now?’
‘It’s quiet. I wouldn’t call it nice.’
‘What, because of the condensation?’
‘Mostly.’
Like water trickling down your face and neck as you hung up the telephone. They were too busy keeping the inside of the boat and her essential equipment dry to bother much about themselves. Human bodies, fortunately, didn’t rust or get insulation problems. But clothing clung damply to cold skin: and Gimber’s beard felt like a wet cloth around his jaw.
With Setter dived, it was almost too peaceful. Sitting and gazing at the depthgauge – which did have to be watched – it would have been easy to doze off, now one had less Benzedrine in the nerve system. The yellowish gleam from that circle of glass was mesmeric: and the constant thrum of water-noise was only background, the basic structure of the silence.
There was this list to watch, as well. Still six degrees. Just one buoyancy chamber flooded, he guessed, and the flooding now complete, so that this was as far over as she would lean, unless it began to affect another chamber too. If it did get worse, the boat might become awkward to handle, and it was going to be tricky enough inside those fjords without having a craft that wouldn’t do what she was told. It would be for Everard to decide, anyway.
Gimber was humming – running through it for (he thought) about the second time, ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’. It was the Marine bandsmen’s signature time, but it was on his mind because that lunatic Brazier had been bawling it out when they’d been passing the new tow. But he was also humming to keep himself awake. Trigger Towne meanwhile checking hull-valves: one of his routines, crawling through the boat from stern to stem, stopping wherever his mental check-list told him to. In the control room now, he suggested mildly, ‘Mind changing the record, skips?’
Gimber looked round at him. Two long-term prisoners in a deep, damp dungeon, staring at each other like men about to come to blows.
‘Have I regaled you with that ditty more than once?’
‘You been bloody torturing me with it ever since we dived.’
‘I hadn’t realised. Sorry. If it starts again, tell me.’
‘Yeah.’ Towne said, ‘Why not give us a renderin’ of ‘Eskimo Nell’?’
‘Oh, I doubt I’d remember it well enough to—’
‘Garn! I heard you do it, word perfect!’
Months ago. Some jaunt ashore when they’d been at Port Bannatyne. He remembered now: they’d been stuck in Gouroch and had to spend a night at the Bay Hotel. He began to run the verses through his mind, checking whether he could still manage it. Silence, meanwhile – except for Towne’s heavy, dog-like panting as he crawled towards the W and D.
Ozzie Steep screamed in his sleep.
Gimber jumped, his gut tightening with the shock of it. Towne froze – like a pointer. The scream echoed in the steel enclosing them. As it died away, an echo only in your mind now, Ozzie began to snore. Regular, pig-like honks.
Towne said to Gimber, ‘Some lucky lass’ll have that for life… Shake him, shall I?’
Steep choked: then yelled stridently, ‘Get her up! Christ’s sake, up!’ He screamed again. Gimber shouted – while the noise still reverberated and Towne was already crawling forward, furious-looking, virtually trotting on all fours – ‘Wake him up!’
Setter surfaced at seven-twenty that evening, by which time it was pretty well dark.
Eaton had only toyed with supper, sipped at a mug of soup and then turned in. He’d been dozing in his bunk. MacGregor had heard him groan, and sent for the coxswain.
Chief Petty Officer Bird seemed to be embarrassed at having to play the part of doctor. Theoretically he’d been taught how to deal with any more or less ordinary kind of injury or illness, but there was very rarely any opportunity to practise his art, beyond handing out a few aspirins or bandaging a cut.
‘Where’s it ’urt, sir?’
‘There.’
Setter pitching, slamming through the waves, diesels hammering away and the boat full of cold Arctic air.
‘I’ll ’ave to – er – exert a slight pressure on that spot, sir. If you don’t mind…’
‘Oh, bloody hell!’
He’d twisted away, in agony.
‘Sorry, sir.’ Bird glanced at MacGregor. ‘We won’t do that again.’ His chuckle was entirely forced, as he edged out around the table; there was hardly space between it and the bunks for a solidly-built CPO like Bird to slide through sideways. He shook his head, unhappily. ‘Well, I dunno. Proper turn-up, this is. Strike a light…’
MacGregor asked him, ‘Are you trying to tell us something, cox’n?’
Bird was in the gangway, with a hand on the latched-back water-tight door for support.
‘Rather not ’ave to say it, sir. Let alone bloody do it.’
‘Come on, let’s hear.’
‘Captain, sir.’ This was Garner, the PO telegraphist, pushing past Bird. ‘Cypher, sir.’
‘Thank you, PO tel.’ MacGregor looked back at Bird. ‘Go on.’
‘I better check in the manual before I – er – confirm the diagnosis, sir.’
‘Appendix?’
Bird winced. ‘I’ll just ’ave a little read, sir.’
‘All right. But make it quick.’ He passed the cypher to Massingbird. ‘Sort this one out in your book, Chief… Ellis, let’s have some coffee in here!’
The wardroom flunky’s head appeared round the bulkhead from the galley.
‘Tea do, sir? I just wet some.’
‘All right.’
Massingbird growled, ‘Can’t tell the difference anyway.’ Brazier helped him with the decoding of the signal: they’d discovered, by the time the coxswain came back, that it was from Seanymph to Flag Officer Submarines, repeated to forces and authorities concerned in Operation Source. Decoding work ceased now: Bird was staring gloomily at Eaton, who was on his back with his eyes shut. Bird looked at MacGregor and raised his eyebrows, gesturing towards the control room. MacGregor got up, and they went aft together.
Seanymph’s signal was to the effect that X-8 had been forced to jettison her side-cargoes, and had been badly damaged by the explosion of one of them at a range of several miles. She had now been abandoned and scuttled.
Brazier muttered, ‘Leaves us on our todd.’
X-8 was to have been X-12’s partner in the attack, each with a half-share in Lützow. Now X-12 would have that target to herself; just as X-10 would be the only boat attacking Scharnhorst. Tirpitz would still be honoured by the attentions of three boats – Cameron’s X-6, Place’s X-7 and Henty-Creer’s X-5.
The messenger of the watch appeared in the gangway and asked Paul, ‘Step aft just a minute, sir?’
MacGregor and Bird were waiting for him, near the diving panel. MacGregor told him, ‘Bad news, Everard. Cox’n says there’s no doubt at all, it’s his appendix. Which of course means he must be operated on.’
‘When?’
CPO Bird suggested, ‘Sooner the better, sir. Playin’ safe, like. Not that safe’s the word for it.’
‘Don’t under-estimate your own abilities, cox’n. Even more important, don’t let Sub-Lieutenant Eaton think you’re anything less than confident. But as to the timing – it can wait twenty-four hours, can’t it?’
‘Depends, sir. But I’d sooner…’
‘After the crews change, we’ll have one less body in the wardroom. We’ll also have time on our hands. Will you do the job in the wardroom?’
‘Well – if that’s all right, sir.’
‘He’ll be laid up for the rest of the patrol, won’t he.’
Bird nodded. ‘Best if he could be in your bunk, sir.’
‘Why the hell?’
‘On its own, sir, no bunk above nor below it, so there’s access like, and a light right over it. I could stand on the bench – that way I’d be right on top of the job, like.’
MacGregor nodded. ‘All right. When the time comes, I’ll take over the first lieutenant’s bunk… But we’ll do it tomorrow night, cox’n, after the transfer. I’ll go deep, so it’ll be quiet and steady for you.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Paul was wishing it could have been done immediately: Bird was obviously worried. But this surface passage tonight was necessary, in order to keep up to schedule, and as long as Setter had the X-craft in tow, with the possibility of some emergency at any minute, you couldn’t guarantee there’d be no interruptions… MacGregor asked Bird, ‘He isn’t going to die on us before tomorrow, is he?’
‘Well – if it turned what they call acute, sir, I reckon he’d let us know. I mean he’d sing out, like. Then we’d need to look lively, no matter what.’
‘All right. You’d better read-up your manual carefully, cox’n. I’ll break the news to him, and I’ll tell him you’ve taken out an appendix before and you say there’s really nothing to it. Purely for morale.’ He turned to Paul. ‘What are you going to do about this?’
‘I’ll take Ozzie Steep, sir. There’s really no option.’
A highly unsatisfactory solution, none the less. Everything seemed to be going wrong, at this point. Three boats out of the running, X-12 with a duff side-cargo, and now she’d have a first lieutenant who’d be decidedly below par right from the start.
‘Better warn your friend Gimber. Perhaps he could make sure Steep gets a lot of rest between now and change-over time… Make sense of that cypher, did they?’
Paul nodded. ‘X-8 abandoned and scuttled. Had to ditch her side-cargoes, and the explosion wrecked her, apparently. Leaves only five of us in it now.’
On his way to the wireless office, he was wondering whether X-8 had had to ditch her charges for the same reason that his own boat might have to get rid of one of hers. But he’d hang on to it if he could – as long as the list didn’t get completely out of hand. It was Ozzie Steep who’d be coping with whatever trimming problems might arise… In the W/T office, he called through to Gimber.
‘How’s that list now, Louis?’
‘No worse than it was. Hard to tell, though, when you’re being thrown all over the bloody shop!’
‘Yes, I dare say. Second question – is Ozzie completely fit now?’
‘Well,’ Gimber was shouting, over the noise surrounding him down there, ‘up to a point, yes.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Look – Trigger’s got his head down – he and I have stopped taking pills – and Ozzie’s on watch with me.’
‘So you can’t talk about it.’
‘My God, you’re quick, Paul!’
‘Is he really on top of the job, is what I want to know.’
‘Well – I’m on top of it, so—’
‘You mean you wouldn’t trust it to him alone?’
‘Right. I may be wrong, but…’
‘Listen. Dick Eaton’s out of it. Appendix. As soon as we’ve swapped over tomorrow evening Setter’s going deep while her cox’n operates. See? I need Ozzie. And you say you could be wrong, so…’
‘Not that wrong. Not for the action job. Just making out until tomorrow evening’s one thing, but…’ There was a pause. Gimber finished, ‘No. Out of the question, Paul.’
There was a longer silence. You couldn’t argue with that degree of certainty. Paul asked him, ‘Is he still sick, or—’
‘Washed-out. It was very bad for several days, you know. You can’t imagine. It leaves a man – well, drained.’
Paul said, ‘And that leaves you, Louis.’
‘I thought it might. About ten seconds ago, I thought—’
‘There’s no alternative.’
Roar of the sea drumming around hollow steel… Then Gimber’s voice grating through his teeth and over two hundred yards of wire, ‘Jesus Christ Almighty…’
He’d been dreaming – re-dreaming, that old one about being crushed under rocks. Every detail was the same, and no less frightening for being familiar. He’d woken, struggled to shake it out of his mind, and he’d succeeded, but only to have it replaced by nightmarish reality – Eaton’s appendicitis, for a start. Remembering it, Paul got out of his bunk and took a look at him. Eaton was asleep, but twitching and murmuring to himself, the actual words indistinguishable under the hammering racket of the diesels and the noise of seas crashing against the casing and guntower overhead. Setter was inside the Arctic Circle now, and the air inside her had a bite to it; it would be knife-like on the bridge, but none of the X-craft men was standing a watch tonight.
Eaton had been appalled by the decision to put Gimber in his place. Disappointment had seemed as bad as the pain in his stomach. He drew plenty of sympathy: the others knew how they’d have felt – even without the prospect of being operated on by CPO Bird. As Jazz Lanchberry observed, out of Eaton’s hearing, Bird would be deft enough with a marline-spike, but splicing rope and wire didn’t make for a surgeon’s hands. And Bird himself looked about ready to jump overboard.
Paul turned in again. The object was to get in a sound night’s sleep, since once you’d embarked in X-12 there wouldn’t be much, if any. Tomorrow, there might be some restful periods, of course… Thinking about the procedure for the change-over, the rubber boat and who’d go first in it, and so on, he dropped off to sleep. His father, glad to see him after so long a break, asked him, ‘What are you up to now, old chap? You’re not going on this crazy attempt to nobble the Tirpitz, are you?’
Paul told him yes, he was. His father was wearing rear-admiral’s stripes on his sleeves, he noticed. But Operation Source was supposed to be highly secret. He made this point – a little stiffly, considering it was his father he was talking to – and Jane burst out laughing.
‘Secret, my foot!’
Tossing her hair back – a warmly familiar gesture…
But Jane – with Nick Everard? She was Paul’s girl or Louis Gimber’s, or both, but – his father’s? She could see how shocked he was, and she was amused, enjoying it. He wondered where Kate was, and whether she knew about Jane. Jane telling him, with a hand squeezing his father’s arm, ‘Even the Germans know all about it. They’ll have the welcome mat down for you!’
He woke again, feeling as if it was her laughter that had woken him. It was an enormous relief, this time, to be awake, to know it hadn’t been anything but a dream. He could see how Jane had got into it: he’d had Gimber in his mind a lot, naturally, and if you thought about him long enough you were bound to get round to Jane. As to his father, and the question he’d asked – well, he’d been thinking about him too, wishing he’d told him about this X-craft business.
MacGregor had said he’d be diving Setter on the watch, so the X-craft team’s sleep wouldn’t be interrupted. But Paul didn’t feel like sleeping any more. He was lying there thinking about the attack plan, and the trimming of the boat with that list on her, when a new signal came in.
He checked the time while the control room messenger was shaking Massingbird, and saw it was just after 1.30 am. So they’d be diving in not much more than half an hour. Massingbird was cursing softly as he climbed out and went to fetch the code book; when he came back and slumped down at the table, under the dim red light that was supposed to be good for bridge watchkeepers’ eyesight, Paul slid out and joined him.
‘I’ll give you a hand.’
Massingbird stared at him. ‘Thought you chaps were supposed to be getting your beauty sleep?’
‘Ah, but I’m lovely enough already… You read out, I’ll look up?’
The signal was from Admiralty, to practically everyone under the sun, and it conveyed an intelligence report to the effect that Tirpitz’s crew would be changing her gun-barrels and also dismantling her A/S detection gear for overhaul between 21 and 23 September.
Massingbird read the message over, combing his beard with his fingers. He asked Paul, ‘How in hell would we get to know a thing like that?’
‘Haven’t a clue. Unless we have spies in Norway. Which we do, of course.’ But the information could have been obtained from intercepted signals, too. ‘Doesn’t really matter, long as it’s reliable. If it is, it’s good news – guarantees she’ll be there and won’t stir during those three days.’
They decided not to wake MacGregor, as there was nothing urgent about it and in any case he was due for a shake at 02.00. Massingbird put the signal in the clip and turned in again; he seemed to have an unlimited capacity for sleep. Paul went to the wireless office and buzzed X-12; he’d intended to give this news to Gimber, but Ozzie Steep answered and said the skipper had his head down.
‘Resting up for stage two, sir. I wish you’d let me take Dick’s place.’
‘You’ve been under the weather, Ozzie. That’s the only reason. It’s bad enough having to take Louis, after a week cooped up already, but what you’ve been through’s something else again. I just can’t take chances – not ones I don’t have to take.’
Steep said yes, Gimber had explained all that… ‘But the fact is, I’m now as good as new. I mean, really.’
‘I know how you feel, Ozzie. Dick’s fed up too. But the decision’s been taken, so let’s leave it… How’s the list, still the same?’
‘Yes. Six degrees exactly, still. I’ve got used to it, now.’
‘No trimming problems?’
‘Not since we lightened her to compensate for the flooded buoyancy chamber.’
There was a copper strip between each side-cargo and the X-craft’s hull. When you dropped them – by turning a wheel on each side – the strip was detached and this flooded the side-cargo’s buoyancy chambers so that it lost its neutral buoyancy and sank to the bottom. This one must have lost some of its buoyancy already, and this was giving X-12 her list.
‘D’you think she’ll handle all right, in the fjords?’
‘No indication that she won’t. Apart from the problems you’ll have there anyway.’
The problems would be from variations in salinity and therefore water density, arising from fresh-water patches where streams or mountain ice entered the salt-water fjords.
‘What other defects d’you have?’
‘Defects?’
Paul frowned at the telephone. ‘Yes, Ozzie. Defects.’
‘Oh. Sorry…’ As if he was waking up. Gimber had been right, Paul thought. Steep said, ‘We had that leak on the periscope again, but Trigger fixed it. Twice. He had some trouble with the heads hull-valve too – didn’t you, Trigger, when I was…’
‘Ozzie, put Trigger on now, would you?’
‘Right.’
‘Setter’ll be diving at about a quarter past. You’ll get some comfort then.’
‘We’ll be ready for it. Here’s the mechanical genius.’
‘Hi, skipper!’
Defects, it turned out, had been only minor. The periscope-gland leak was a nuisance and would be likely to recur, and the list was something that one would have to cope with, one way or another. The head’s outlet valve had been only a temporary problem, which had been cleared by a lot of blowing. Towne and Steep were now hard at work to get on top of the problems of condensation.
‘We’ll have her on the top line for you, don’t worry.’
‘That’s fine, Trigger. See you this evening.’
Back in Setter’s wardroom he found MacGregor at the table drinking kye. He asked, pointing at the signal log, ‘This makes no odds to you, of course.’
‘None, sir. Doesn’t tell us anything about Lützow or Scharnhorst. Very nice for the three who’ve been given Tirpitz, of course.’
It was quite a coincidence the main target of the operation was to have her teeth drawn, so to speak, right in the period chosen for the attack. Almost too much of a coincidence, that the enemy should have picked on that stage of moon and tide – and let the news out?
The dream – Jane, and her red carpet?
He told himself, Ridiculous…
Eaton groaned as he rolled over on the bunk. MacGregor, about to go up to the bridge for a look round before he dived her, stopped, staring at the blanket-wrapped figure. Paul could sense his anxiety. In the interests of Operation Source the decision to get the crew-change done with before anything else was surely right; but if the delay cost Eaton his life…
It wasn’t a good day for CPO Bird, either.
Setter was in trim at sixty feet by 02.30. And X-12 surfaced for her routine ventilation at six. The midget simply planed up against the pull of the tow, spent a quarter of an hour bouncing about on the surface, while the upward tugging at her stern affected Setter’s trim making it hard work for the control room watchkeepers, and then planed down again.
At eleven in the forenoon, since this was Sunday, MacGregor conducted a short religious service in the control room. He included a special prayer for X-craft crews, for the success of the operation and a safe return; Paul, head bowed and eyes on the toes of his own plimsol shoes, with Brazier’s on one side and Lanchberry’s on the other, couldn’t remember ever knowingly being prayed for before. He wondered how God would see it. After all, they were preparing to take four tons of high-explosive and plant it under a crowd of people who had no idea what was coming to them, and not all of whom could be entirely villainous. The strategic requirement was obvious, the Germans were not in Norway to help old ladies cross the streets, and equally plain was the inevitability of fighting this entirely defensive war; but if the Almighty was primarily concerned with the souls of men, might he take a different view? This occupied Paul’s thoughts for the next minute or two; when he surfaced he was hearing the end of another special prayer, for Dick Eaton’s recovery. In MacGregor’s place, he thought, he’d have said one for the coxswain, too. But praying was done with: they were singing Eternal Father Strong to Save.
It was a restless day, more than restful.
Louis Gimber took X-12 up for another breather at noon. He told Paul after he’d dived her again that the weather was improving, wind and sea moderating; if this trend continued, tonight’s change-over should present no problems.
X-12 was still carrying her list of six degrees to port.
‘Will you guff-through again at six, Louis? Or stretch it for the extra hour or so?’ Because they’d be surfacing for the crew-change soon after seven.
‘Might as well stay down. The air’s perfectly OK after six hours, now nobody’s being sick. Condensation gets heavier, but what’s one hour?’
‘All right. When the time comes we’ll do it in two boat-trips. Jazz and I in the first one, and the boat brings Ozzie and Trigger back here, then the Bomber can be wafted over on his own. You getting plenty of rest, I hope?’
‘Hell, yes. It’s bloody luxury, down here.’
Old Louis was feeling sorry for himself… But the words and tone must have jarred in his own ears too. He added, ‘I’ve had as much sleep as I can take. Tell you the truth, quite looking forward to seeing your repulsive faces this evening… How’s Eaton?’
Setter broke surface at 19.20 and X-12 materialised 200 yards astern of her a few minutes later. It was about half to three-quarters dark. The rolling as Setter wallowed up had seemed to give the lie to Gimber’s theory of improving sea conditions, but as she rose to full buoyancy one realised that wind and sea had eased. MacGregor manoeuvred his submarine to put her to wind-ward of the midget, both to provide a lee and so that the rubber boat could be floated down by wind-power.
Leading Seaman Hallet, second coxswain, and two sailors came up with the boat and a coil of hemp line, and climbed down on to the fore casing, to the gundeck where there’d be room to inflate the boat. MacGregor called down the voicepipe, ‘Ask Lieutenant Everard and his crew to come up.’
Without binoculars, X-12 was only a black smudge in a patch of white: she wasn’t in sight all the time, and as one’s eyes adapted to the darkness the figure of Louis Gimber on her casing could be made out, apparently riding the waves.
Hallet called, ‘Boat’s ready, sir!’
‘Very good.’ MacGregor turned to Paul and the others. ‘It’s been a pleasure having you on board. Good luck now, all of you.’
‘Thanks for your hospitality, sir.’ They shook hands. This wasn’t quite a final farewell, as there’d be telephone contacts between now and slipping time tomorrow night. Paul and Lanchberry climbed down the rungs and cutaway footholds to the cat-walk, and around it to the gundeck. Hallet saw them coming: he and his assistants had already launched the boat and were holding it alongside.
‘Trip round the ’arbour, sir, ’alf a tanner?’
‘Worth every penny… Go on, Jazz.’
Lanchberry climbed down. When the boat had steadied again, Paul followed, with a heaving-line coiled over his shoulder. The casing party wished them luck and began paying out the hemp securing line. All that was necessary was for the boat to drift along the lie of the tow-rope – which was where the wind would take it anyway. Within a few minutes the X-craft loomed up ahead – narrow, bow-on, sawing up and down on its tether. Gimber was standing, holding on to the induction pipe and now ready for Paul’s line; he’d also have an infra-red torch tied to his belt for signalling to MacGregor – for instance, to tell them to stop paying out any more hemp. Paul waited until only a few yards separated them before he tossed his line, lobbing its weighted Turk’s Head high over that plunging, end-on black shape. He saw Gimber’s arm reaching for it: then Lanchberry bawled, ‘Owzat?’ A minute later Gimber was hauling them alongside – bumping, the boat tilting dangerously, Paul finally scrambling up and crouching in cold wave-tops to hold it alongside – Jazz out too, and steading the boat’s other end. Gimber had the hatch open and figures emerging – Towne first, slithering down into the boat with shouts of ‘Wotcher, Jazz!’ and ‘Best of British, mates!’ Ozzie, close behind him, contrastingly silent.
‘All set?’
‘Let her go!’
Gimber flashed his torch at Setter’s bridge, signalling for the boat to be hauled back. Lanchberry meanwhile sliding feet-first into the hatch, Paul close on top of him. A glimpse of Gimber’s pale face and black beard, face screwed up against the weather, a face like a Halloween mask lit by the glow thrown up through the hatch. Inside now, in the small, yellowish-lit cavern that was X-12’s belly. He’d forgotten how small: Jonah might have had more elbow-room. But at first sight it didn’t look bad – considering this tub had been dragged through a thousand miles of rough sea, inhabited by three men for – however long it was… Jazz was on his helmsman’s seat, checking over the controls surrounding it. Paul called up the pipe, ‘Louis, I’ll look after the trim until you’ve dived her, OK?’
It seemed tactful, as well as practical. Gimber shouted down, ‘Make yourselves at home!’
Lanchberry got off his seat, crawled for’ard into the W and D. Looking around, checking the gear, inspecting this and that. Examining the hatch for seepage. X-12 was hurling herself around like an unbroken colt on a lunging-rein. Paul making his own inspection at this stage by eye; he needed to stay close under the hatch in case Gimber wanted help. He tried – since it was one of the things within reach – the starboardside viewing port. There was one each side, a thick glass window set in the pressure-hull at head-height, with external steel shutters that could be opened or closed from inside. He slid this one open as a first step in a preliminary check on moving parts; during the next twenty-four hours, before finally parting from Setter, he meant to test every single fitting and piece of equipment. Through the uncovered port there was nothing to be seen except breaking sea, white explosions and the rush of foam along her flank: he cranked the shutter closed again, and he was checking on the starboard-side one when Gimber yelled down, ‘Boat’s alongside Setter. I can see the Bomber getting in.’
There’d be about five or ten minutes to wait, then. Despite the roll, the list to port was easily discernible: the transverse bubble centred itself on six degrees right of centre instead of on the centre mark. Paul decided that another job for tomorrow, the last day in tow, would be to work out what stores might now be superfluous and ditch them to lighten her. Most of the consumable stores, cans of food and drink, were carried on the port side, and every pound of weight removed from there would help.
‘Boat’s on its way. Looks like there’s an elephant in it!’
Lanchberry smiling his sardonic smile as he passed, crouching double, on his way aft. Using the interval for a very quick inspection. Paul stayed where he was: the boat with Brazier in it had to be getting fairly close now, to explain that shout from Gimber, a wolf-cry into the wind. If there’d been an answer it wasn’t audible. He had to squeeze aside to let Jazz get past again, the ERA returning to his helmsman’s seat just as the dinghy thumped alongside and Brazier hauled his bulk aboard.
Colossal legs in wet trousers descended through the hatch, in a pattering shower of spray. ‘Hi, skipper. OK, are we?’
‘No problems yet.’ Gimber dropped inside and pulled the hatch shut, reached up to wrench the handwheel round and secure it. Paul was moving to the first lieutenant’s seat, to let him dive her before he himself assumed command, but Gimber grabbed his arm, pulling him back.
‘That’s my job. Thanks all the same.’
X-12’s bow soared, crashed down… Paul checking that Lanchberry had shut the valve on the induction pipe. Gimber confirmed, as he slid into what had been Ozzie’s seat, ‘She’s shut off for diving.’
‘Thank you.’ He had to wait for about two minutes, until the tow had got under way again, on course and battering through the waves. Looking round, seeing Gimber’s back view – shaggy and spray-soaked but relaxed, waiting for the order to dive – and Jazz Lanchberry’s crewcut head and square shoulders over the back of the helmsman’s seat, Bomber Brazier peering from the W and D like some great St Bernard in a kennel… The telephone buzzed, and he answered it.
‘Yes. Diving now.’ He hung it up. ‘Open main vents. Sixty feet.’