I asked Tommy Trench, ‘How was it QP 16 set out from Russia before the X-craft boys had done their stuff? Wasn’t the idea that Tirpitz and Co. would be knocked out before you sailed?’
He nodded. ‘That had been the intention. Not that I knew it at the time. We were supposed to wait for some damn thing – that’s all – but not even Nick Everard had been told about X-craft. He didn’t even know his own son was in it.’
Now in his seventies, Trench was a stooped, gaunt man, with more bone to him than flesh. He still did a full day’s work though – seven days a week, he’d told me – and his grey hair was thick, a lot bushier than he’d have worn it in his service days. This was Captain Thomas Trench, DSO and Bar, DSC, RN (Retd) – in corduroys and a patched tweed jacket, the left sleeve of it empty, pinned into a pocket. I’d run him to earth on his mink farm in Norfolk. It was the second time we’d met; the first had been in London about eight years before, when he’d helped me with detail of Nick Everard’s adventures on the Norwegian coast in 1940. And I do have reason for going behind the scenes, as it were, at this stage. First because, approaching the end of a story in nine episodes covering more than a quarter of a century, I think a change of perspective may give a more realistic view of the climax and its aftermath; and more particularly because when I’d last consulted him, and we’d touched briefly on these later events, he’d offered, ‘When the time comes, look me up. I may be inclined by then to give you the real facts of it.’
Over the years he’d kept his mouth shut whenever he’d been invited to comment on his action in defence of convoy QP 16. I doubt if anyone else had ever suspected there might be ‘real’ facts behind the known ones, and I only knew of such a possibility myself because of that half-promise he’d made.
He’d been lighting a pipe – managing the job one-handed with a dexterity that had to be seen to be appreciated – but he had it going now, and he continued with his answer to my question about the convoy’s departure from North Russia.
‘At the time, all I knew was they were keeping us waiting – which I didn’t go much on, mostly because I wanted to get Nick Everard into a proper hospital as soon as possible – and then suddenly came this order to sail. “With all dispatch” – meaning “Get a bloody move on” – after what seemed to me a quite unnecessary delay. This was a signal from Admiralty, of course. Later it transpired that the reason behind it had been a Norwegian report of Tirpitz having her gun-barrels changed, and some other incapacitating thing. London assumed this meant she wouldn’t leave Altenfjord whatever temptation might be offered. The change of gunbarrels, incidentally, was because she’d worn them out bombarding Spitzbergen a week or so before – the only time she ever used them in anger, as it happened. Net result was our lords and masters decided it behoved us to scram out of the Barents Sea while the going was good.’
‘Which in the event it was not.’
I added that the report from the Norwegian resistance group, about Tirpitz, had been signalled to the X-craft force as well, as an indication to them that at least their major target would be there when they arrived.
Trench stared out of the window, puffing smoke. He mused, ‘I’ve often wondered who actually drafted those signals. I mean the ones with “From Admiralty” in the address heading. I’ve asked myself how long such characters would have been left gibbering around that august building before people in white coats came for them.’
I laughed, but he didn’t crack a smile. He said, ‘Those Norwegians were extraordinary, you know.’ He glanced at me, and nodded. ‘Well, of course, you do know… The really sad thing about it is one of ’em was caught, some weeks after the X-craft attack, by the Gestapo. Did you know that?’
I let him tell me, anyway.
‘They tortured him, in Gestapo headquarters in Tromso. He jumped out of an upstairs window and killed himself, having told them bugger-all despite having had all his fingernails pulled out. I’d say chaps like that were the bravest of the brave, wouldn’t you?’
I admitted I agreed entirely.
‘Rasmussen, his name was. Karl Rasmussen.’ Trench shook his grey head. ‘If they haven’t put up a statue to him by now, they ought to have their nails pulled out… What else d’you want to know about my convoy?’
The truth was that I knew most of it; I had the facts from the official history and from papers in the Naval Historical Branch of the Ministry of Defence and in the Public Record Office. But there was some new angle he’d hinted at.
I prompted, ‘When you joined up with the convoy off Cape Kanin, QP 16 consisted of twenty-six empty ships plus the AA ship you’d brought up with you, and the escort comprised your five fleets, plus Foremost and the trawler, whose name for the moment…’
‘Northern Glow?’
‘Yes. And two sweepers. Barra, and – Duncansby.’
‘You’ve done your homework.’
‘And the commodore was Insole again.’
Trench nodded. ‘He flew from Vaenga to Archangel in a Catalina and installed himself and his staff in a ship called the Lord Charles. She was one of the two we lost to U-boats, and he went down with her, poor old bugger. U-boats were my main concern, when we were heading north. I was worried for the Bayleaf, the oiler Nick Everard had salted away for us up in the ice. She was coming down to meet us in the vicinity of Bear Island, and we were getting reports of U-boats mustering to form a patrol-line there. She had only the trawler Arctic Prince to look after her, and her oil was extremely important to us. A lot of eggs in that one basket, you see.’ He frowned. ‘But the most delicate egg of all was the one in Foremost. I stationed her at the rear of the convoy, after we’d made the rendezvous and fuelled and settled down. She and the trawler, Northern Glow. I had my five destroyers spread across the van, one sweeper each side, and the merchantmen in seven columns, four to a column – with one empty billet after the Soviet oiler left us. Centre column was led by the commodore and tailed by the Berkeley. We had good, solid cloud at low level, and although we had aircraft on the radar screens often enough and quite a few times heard them overhead, they didn’t find us. Well – there were a couple of half-hearted attacks by eighty-eights on the second or third day, which did us no harm – just happened to stumble on us by accident, lost us again at dusk, and by morning the cloud was thick again… I suppose we were lucky. But I knew we had U-boats waiting for us.’
He’d let his pipe go out. He paused now, putting a match to it. The sleight-of-hand was as impressive as before. I remembered him telling me, at our previous meeting, that to inquisitive strangers his story was that he’d had that arm bitten off by a giant mink. He glanced at me as he flicked the matchstick towards the fire.
‘I had a very strong ambition indeed to get that convoy home intact. One always did hope and try to, of course, you could say this was one’s raison d’être; but in practical terms one knew how the odds lay – certainly with the Murmansk runs. Down in the Atlantic, in quieter periods and then later when we’d broken the back of the U-boat threat, we did bring a very high proportion of convoys through unscathed. But we were at the climactic point of that Atlantic battle, just at the time we’re talking about. In fact we were about to turn the tables very decisively, but for those few weeks it was – a close-run thing. And – here’s what I was going to say – since it’s states of mind and so on that interest you, my determination to get QP16 through without loss was all the stronger for the notion that it was Nick Everard’s convoy, that I had it as you might say on trust from him. And by that time he was talking all sorts of gobbledegook, didn’t know where he was or why, or recognise anyone, or remember anything he was told for more than a few seconds – so Cramphorn told me, over TBS.’
‘He’d come out of his coma, then.’
‘Yes, he had, but he was ga-ga. I mean his mind was wandering. Cramphorn said this was to be expected, and he hoped memory and mental processes generally would return to normal quite rapidly. But it could take months; and the worst possibility of all was permanent brain damage. The very idea of this – for Nick Everard of all people…’
‘He’d sooner have been dead.’
Trench looked at me. Silent, for a moment. Then: ‘I was also concerned for his wife. There was a certain horror in the idea of bringing home a man who mightn’t recognise her, or make sense… I was – I suppose the word’s involved. I was a devotee of his, you see. I still am.’ He fell silent, staring into the fire so absorbedly that he might have been reading the answer to his own question in it. I was assuming that such a question would be in his mind, just as it was in mine.
‘Where was I?’
‘Heading north towards Bear Island.’
‘Yes. Thanking my lucky stars for the cloud-cover and praying for it to last. Rather counting on it lasting, in fact, at any rate until we ran into foul weather, which was enough to ground the Luftwaffe anyway. The one threat to us, as I saw it then, was the U-boat line ahead of us.’
‘You never suspected there might be a surface threat.’
‘Well, I’d been given reason not to!’
Paul asked Ozzie Steep, ‘If he’s still unconscious, how can anyone know he’s OK?’
‘Cox’n says things like pulse-rate and temperature are all right by the book. He followed the instructions precisely – despite some nasty moments, one frightful panic-stations – and – well, he cut it out, and it all looked like the book said it should. He’s keeping him drugged now because otherwise he’d be in pain, he says.’
‘When he comes round, tell him we’re all delighted. And give CPO Bird our thanks and congratulations, would you?’
‘Right.’ Steep asked, ‘How’s your first lieutenant?’
‘He’s fine. Going off watch, about to crash his swede.’ Gimber was staring back at him, from a range of about three feet. Lank, blue-black beard, complexion greyish white. Jazz Lanchberry was in the first lieutenant’s seat, and he was due for relief as well – by Brazier, who at this moment was making tea. Paul intended to spend the next hour checking insulations, but tea would be the first thing. They’d had corned beef hash for lunch, broken up in the glue-pot and mushed with beans in it, but it had been very salty and everyone had a thirst although Gimber, who’d been duty cook, denied having added any. Paul told Steep, ‘Nice easy ride now. Even up top. Low swell, is all.’
‘Yes, the improvement’s well timed.’ Steep sounded perfectly normal now, Paul thought. ‘Will you guff-through at six?’
‘If we decide to, I’ll let you know. Otherwise we’ll stay down until dark.’
Until it was time to surface, release the umbilical cord and set off to cross the minefield. Setter had made her landfall accurately during the night and was now paddling in towards the slipping position.
‘That list still at five degrees?’
‘Yes. It needn’t worry us, I hope,’ Ditching some stores and shifting some engineroom gear had reduced the angle by one degree. A lot of work for very small results, but if it made her any easier to handle they might be glad of it later. Paul said, ‘All right, Ozzie. Give us a call at sunset.’
‘Right.’ But he seemed disposed to chat. ‘That panic-stations in the middle of Dick’s operation – Christ almighty, he started coming-to, right in the middle of it, when the cox’n had both hands inside his gut! So Colbey here – you know Colbey, telegraphist?’
The grey-headed one. ‘Yes. What?’
‘Cox’n had Number One as his theatre sister, as you might say, and Colbey as anaesthetist. Chloroform, on a pad. He moved like lightning, sloshed a lot more on, nearly asphyxiated himself and Bird as well!’
‘I’d sooner have this job than that one.’
‘Who wouldn’t!’
Hanging up, it occurred to him that if Eaton died now, MacGregor wouldn’t let the news out. He’d veto bad news, just as Paul himself had kept from Gimber the news about X-11 and X-9. Gimber had been told now: he’d taken it in silence, abstractedly – Paul had guessed that he’d been seeing it, guessing at those last few minutes, the shape of the catastrophe you’d always known was on the cards. He’d told him about X-8 too, of course, so that only five boats would be crossing the mines tonight, out of the original eight. And without X-11, X-12 would be the only one using Rognsund, the narrower of the two approach fjords.
‘Here, skipper.’ Brazier handed Paul a mug of the tea he’d been brewing. He put another within reach of Gimber, and leant over to pass one to Lanchberry.
Gimber swallowed some tea. His eyes, fastening on Brazier, looked like mud-holes. ‘What did you put in this? French letters?’
Brazier nodded. ‘Been saving ’em for you.’
Lanchberry growled, ‘You’re a dirty bastard, you are.’
Brazier was shifting his bulk into a less cramped position. ‘Discipline’s gone to pot already, skipper, did you notice?’
He was chattier than usual. He’d actually spoken several times without being spoken to; for the Bomber, this was the equivalent of anyone else having hysterics. There was a tension in them all, which they were trying to hide, or ignore. Nobody was looking more than they had to at Louis Gimber, either. Despite the rest he’d had in the last day or so, he seemed like a creature from some other world: you could sense his own awareness of the gulf between himself and them, and his resentment of it.
‘You ready, Bomber?’
‘Why not, indeed.’
It was a gymnastic feat, Jazz edging out and Brazier having to make room for him but still be close enough to get into the seat quickly as soon as it was empty. There were trimming adjustments to be made as the weights shifted, and the hydroplanes couldn’t be left untended. Brazier’s size and strength were fine for his own specialised job of diver, but less so for acrobatics in confined spaces. Lanchberry made the change-round possible, doubling himself around the back of the seat: Brazier told him, ‘Quite handy, being a herring-gutted greaser, sometimes.’
Gimber offered, from five or six feet for’ard, ‘Want to toss for the battery cover, Jazz?’
Lanchberry shook his head. He’d persuaded an amateur barber in Setter’s crew to tidy him up, before they’d made the change-over, and the sides and back of it had literally been shaved. He said, ‘I’m not bothered. Better off aft, in fact.’ On top of the fuel tank in the engine space, he meant, with his feet protruding through the opening in the after bulkhead. Gimber repeated, ‘I’m quite prepared to toss for it.’
‘Too bleedin’ late, old son.’ Lanchberry was crawling aft. ‘I’m ’ere.’
Paul had put them into two watches – himself and Brazier, and Gimber with Lanchberry – each pair on watch for two hours at a time, and the two on watch could take turns at the controls and on maintenance chores. For the next two hours it would be himself and the Bomber working while Lanchberry and Gimber rested.
Brazier had the trim-pump lever pushed forward, shifting ballast to the for’ard tank to compensate for his own move and for the ERA having moved further aft.
Paul glanced for’ard. ‘While you’re there, Louis, pass me the bucket and a swab?’
Gimber grunted, as he turned himself around. The bucket clattered. He complained, ‘Some lazy sod didn’t wring this thing out. Here…’
‘Thanks.’ On his knees, reaching for it. ‘You could have four hours off now, instead of two – if you like, Louis. I’m not tired at all.’
‘Nor am I. Thanks all the same.’
‘OK. Change your mind if you want to.’
‘Look.’ Gimber stared at him. ‘Let’s get this straight. I don’t need – don’t want – any bloody privileges. I’m perfectly all right.’
‘If you say so, Louis.’
‘You wanted a first lieutenant, you’ve got one. Huh?’
Paul returned the angry stare. ‘Absolutely.’ He pointed. ‘And first lieutenants don’t argue with their skippers. So get your head down. I’m not offering privileges, anyway, I simply want you fit and rested.’
‘All right.’ Gimber nodded: framed in the doorway of the W and D. ‘One thing, though. With only five boats going in now, couldn’t we all go in through Stjernsund?’
Stjernsund, the passage between Stjernoy and the mainland, was the most direct approach to Altenfjord, and it averaged about three miles in width. Rognsund, which was to be X-12’s route, was no more than two miles wide at any point, and had a much narrower bottleneck about halfway through. The reason this back-door approach had been allocated to X-11 and X-12 – in fact to whichever boats were ordered to attack Lützow, and they’d turned out to be Paul’s and Vicary’s – was that with eight midgets all entering at more or less the same time, sending the whole lot through one channel might have increased the chances of detection. And in fact Stjernsund, being the main entrance and the one normally used by the German battle group, might be more closely guarded and patrolled. This might outweigh the hazards of the narrower passage.
‘It’s a toss-up.’ He told Gimber, ‘We may be better off than the others, for all anyone can tell. Besides, there’s the timing factor.’
Gimber hadn’t taken that in. But he was on the defensive, unwilling to admit it. Paul remembered that he hadn’t been briefed as operational crew, only for the passage… Behind him he heard Brazier mumble, ‘About right… Let’s hope.’ Stopping the pump, he added, ‘Give or take a cupful.’ He was talking to himself about the trim; and he’d need to make another small adjustment to it shortly, when Gimber went through to the sleeping pallet. Paul explained to him, ‘Our target’s closer than the others. But we have to start off together because we all need this same tide and moon. High tide soon after sunset for instance, so that we’ll float over the top of the mines.’
It was a longer route, through Rognsund. Lützow was in Langfjord, which led off from the top end of Altenfjord, whereas Tirpitz and Scharnhorst were right at the bottom, in Kafjord. The difference was about fifteen miles, and the plan was geared to the ideal of a synchronised attack, all three targets being hit at about the same time.
Gimber nodded. ‘I remember now.’ He turned again, to crawl through into the for’ard compartment. Paul squeezed out the swab, and stood up, only slightly stooped because at this point the dome gave added head-room, to dry the deckhead around the hatch and periscopes.
Gimber’s state of mind worried him. So – slightly – did the fact that Rognsund was much shallower than Stjernsund. If you were caught in Rognsund you’d have a lot less water to hide in.
Brazier said quietly, ‘They were shut up in this for more than a week. And in rotten weather, plus sickness, must’ve been bloody awful. Have to make allowances, I’d think.’
‘You’re right, Bomber.’
Lanchberry muttered from somewhere near the after bulkhead, ‘He’ll settle down. Give ’im time, you’ll see.’
‘Get some zizz now, Jazz.’
‘Aye aye.’
Brazier muttered, ‘Sounds quite hopeful for old Dick.’
Drops of deckhead moisture dislodged by the swab, spattered down on Paul. The condensation had a sickly smell and taste, like sweat.
‘Well, that’s terrific!’
X-12 was at sixty feet, but Setter was up at thirty, her periscope depth. It was now just after sunset, and MacGregor was taking a look around. Or had been – he was on the other end of the telephone now, and he’d just told Paul that Dick Eaton was conscious and quite comfortable – except for pain when he moved, which according to the coxswain’s medical handbook was par for the course.
Paul put his hand over the ’phone, and told the others. They’d all had some sleep, and they were at their diving stations, waiting for the sunset surfacing. MacGregor said, ‘Bird did a good job on him, it seems.’
Paul thought this was the truth. He didn’t think MacGregor could have lied so convincingly, not even for the sake of this crew’s peace of mind. MacGregor was telling him now, ‘We’ll stay down until nineteen-thirty. I want it good and dark. All right?’
He agreed. There was plenty of time in hand. He told them as he hung up, ‘Seven-thirty now. MacGregor reckons it won’t be dark enough until then.’
The only comment came from Gimber. ‘Don’t know about anyone else, but personally I’ll be glad to get on with it.’
You wanted not only the next stage over, but to have the whole thing done. You wanted to have it finished – targets destroyed, and the X-craft out of the fjords, making their separate rendezvous with the parent submarines. And when you’d got to that point, you’d still be looking ahead – to getting home to Loch Cairnbawn: then London, and Jane…
Daydreams. But the thought of Jane took his eyes back to Gimber – who looked about ten years older than he had a week ago. A shave and a hot bath would have made a difference, certainly, but the change was deeper than that. You could see it looking at you out of those dark holes in his head. Paul had decided, thinking about it during the afternoon, that most of the trouble might be Gimber’s self-consciousness – being on guard against inadequacies in his own performance, and sensitivity to others’ view of him. As Brazier had pointed out, you were dealing with a man who’d virtually been in solitary confinement.
He said casually, ‘It’s astonishing how well you’ve come through it, Louis.’
‘Huh?’
Head twisting sideways: muddy eyes narrowed, suspicious. The blue-black beard gleamed with the moisture in it.
‘Well, my God, you’ve been shut up in this tub for a week, and apart from growing that repulsive face-fungus you don’t seem to have been affected by it. To be honest, I was worried whether you’d be in good enough shape.’
Gimber blinked at him. Determined not to be fooled. Which sent the mind off at a tangent – the question of whether in another area he had been… Jazz Lanchberry helped, then, with a beautifully timed mutter of, ‘’Ear, ’ear.’ And Brazier boomed from the W and D, ‘He’s not just a pretty face, is old Louis!’ They were all laughing then; Paul felt as if the sky had lifted by about a mile.
Setter rose into the dark off shore night at exactly seven-thirty. A few minutes later Paul was on X-12’s casing with the induction pipe up and opened: he called down, ‘Main motor half ahead.’ Setter was lying stopped, sternto, rolling sluggishly to the swell, and men were already climbing down the sides of her bridge and mustering on the after casing. Four of them – one would be the second coxswain. He called down the pipe, ‘Steer three degrees to port.’ Aiming her at Setter’s stern. The midget was moving ahead now, driven by her electric motor, plunging and soaring as the long swells ran under her. He called down again, ‘Steady as you go!’ On Setter’s casing they were already taking in the slack of the heavy Manilla tow; it was much easier to get it in yard by yard as the gap closed than to have a big, heavy bight of it to drag in later. There was no question of just letting it go, having it dangle, 200 yards of tough rope on the loose so MacGregor couldn’t move his screws for fear of having them fouled.
‘Slow ahead, main motor.’
Repetition of the order from inside was like an echo in a tin drum. The gap was narrowing fast, and his intention was to stop with a few yards between them, not so close as to risk the two ships being washed against each other, but near enough to make the evolution easy and quick. To lie stopped on the surface this close to an enemy-occupied coast was an uncomfortable experience; MacGregor would want to get under way as soon as possible.
‘Stop the motor!’
Echo floating up: ‘Stop…’ Vibration ceased. Only sea-noise now, the rush of it along her sides and the swells breaking around her, sluicing away in foam. He had a feeling almost of disbelief in what was happening: to be here, on the targets’ doorstep, after all the months of preparation…
‘Slow astern.’
To stop her, keep her where she was. He had to leave this command position and go for’ard now, and he wanted to keep the gap as it was. When stern-power had taken all the way off her, he stopped the motor, waited to make sure it had stopped, then let go of the induction pipe and began crawling for’ard, through rushes of water that looked and sounded like fizzy milk and felt like ice. He crouched, right up on her snout – which was arcing through about eight or ten feet several times a minute – and let them see he was ready for the line to be tossed over. Coming now: the man nearest Setter’s stern leant back, and an arm scythed forward in a slightly round-arm swing: the heaving-line came soaring – well over, but falling across the midget’s bow and over Paul’s outstretched arm. When he’d gathered enough slack to double-up about a fathom of it, he leant over her beak and threw a rolling hitch of the doubled line around the much thicker Manilla rope. He could let go of the line now, and unplug the telephone connection. Hands near-frozen, but still functioning. Finally, with a wheel-spanner which he’d had on a lanyard at his waist, he banged twice on the pressure-hull, a signal to Jazz Lanchberry in the fore-end to release the tow.
He heard it go, and waved to the group on Setter’s casing.
‘All gone!’
A yell of acknowledgement: then a shout of ‘Good luck!’ over the crash of sea. Another yell had the words ‘bloody Tirpitz’ in it. They were hauling in the tow itself and also the line bent to its end, getting the whole lot out of the water fast, while Paul cautiously reversed his position in order to return to the induction pipe. X-12 rolling like a drunken whale, the sea alternately thumping and sucking at her sides: but it was done now – the tow completed, communication severed, decisions taken and risks accepted. He called down the pipe, ‘In engine clutch!’ Half a minute later she was turning clear of Setter’s stern, the Gardner diesel pounding throatily as it drove her across the swells on course for the inshore minefield.
An hour later she was among the mines. Or rather, over them. He’d picked up the island of Loppen half a mile to starboard, and turned her due east. The other four X-craft would be ahead and to the north, aiming for the gap on southeasterly tracks, across X-12’s bows; some of them might already have cleared the minefield.
It was bitterly cold. He’d dressed for the weather, with an extra sweater on, but having his legs and arms soaked through had turned those into vulnerable areas. Frozen areas: he had no feeling in his feet at all. You had to ignore such things, and it was better not to think about the mines either. The fact there’d been no explosions up ahead was comforting: and thank God the swell was much lower, lower all the time as she closed in towards the fjords. It was more than just a matter of getting a smooth passage; it concerned the mines, the fact that heavy pitching such as she’d indulged in earlier could have nullified the safety-margin of the few feet of water between her keel and the horned mines swaying on their mooring-wires like long-stemmed flowers. She could have been dropped right on top of one, in one of those long bow-down swoops.
If she had been – he’d told himself earlier – you wouldn’t have had time to feel sorry for yourself. You wouldn’t have had time to feel anything at all. Just boom: four men in the explosion of four tons of Torpex.
He’d set a running charge, so that the Gardner was simultaneously driving her along and charging the battery, so as to have a full quota of stored ampères before they dived. Gimber and Lanchberry would be attending to other things as well – running the compressor, for instance, to top up high-pressure air in the bottles, and making final checks on all sorts of equipment. Brazier would be busying himself mainly with the W and D and his own diving gear and tools.
A dark mass forming now to starboard was Silden, an island shaped like a teardrop and running north to south, its sharp northern end adorned with a light-structure, black and skeletal, looming above a rocky headland which at sea-level was fringed white by the east-running tide. He’d memorised this approach – the distances, timings and landfalls – and had a chart of it in his mind; he knew for instance that when Silden had fallen back on the starboard quarter he’d have the southwestern extremity of a bigger island, Soroy, to port. There was a hill 1600 feet high on that point, and he was expecting to see it soon. There was also a lightening in the sky suggestive of moonrise: he had this impression, without stopping to think about it very hard, and he was surprised – slightly confused, in fact – because he hadn’t expected any sign of a moon for another ninety minutes or so. It bothered him, but he let it go – there were other things to think about and he was keeping a careful all-round lookout for ships. Fishing trawlers being the most likely: but there might be patrols as well, with those valuable ships in there. He’d thought he’d seen steaming lights once, about twenty minutes ago, but they’d vanished – a trawler passing behind land, or into some fjordlet, he’d guessed. But when the hill on Soroy’s southwest point was abeam, which would be a ten-mile run from the point when Silden’s light-structure was abeam to starboard, he’d turn her to a gyro course of 103 degrees, and then after another twelve and a half miles she’d be close to the northern entrance of Rognsund. She’d have dived before she got that far, to be out of sight before the sun rose a few minutes after 02.00.
The wind was down to almost nothing; inside the barrier of islands, he guessed, the water would be like the surface of a lake. Not too good from the periscope point of view: a ruffled surface would have been infinitely safer. He was thinking about that – about running deep whenever possible, and coming up when necessary for quick and cautious peeps, when he realised that he’d been stupid, that that brilliance had nothing to do with any moon. It was Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, flickering above the Arctic icecap. The first time he’d ever seen it. Not that there was time now to enjoy the spectacle – any enemy to starboard would have this little craft in silhouette against those rising, shivering streams of gold. Please God, there’d be no enemy to starboard or anywhere else close enough to see them, and no observer with high-powered optics on the Silden clifftop where the light-structure stood unlit and as unwelcoming and secret as the blank windows of an empty house… It was, however, abeam; he called down the pipe to Gimber to check the log reading and make a note of it, so he’d know when they’d run the next ten miles. Straightening from the pipe – using it for communication was hard work, as you were competing with the noise of the diesel and the rush of air it was sucking in – he saw the hilltop he’d been looking for, in silhouette against the polar fireworks. Which was fine. Especially so since he knew, from having it on that bearing with the Silden headland just abaft the beam, that he had now left the mines astern.
He passed this news down to the others: among all the racket, he thought he heard a cheer. He felt good about things generally at this point: about progress so far, chances of success, and Gimber having adjusted – so it seemed – to new conditions. In which, incidentally, there was a lesson learnt – understanding of the doctors’ preoccupation with individual psychology. Even that super-irritant Claverhouse… He shouted into the pipe again: ‘Louis! Like to take over up here for an hour?’
‘Right!’
He warned, ‘It’s bloody cold…’
It was no less cold when he took over again an hour later, but hot soup inside him acted as anti-freeze, and he’d restored circulation to his feet by pressing their soles against the warm casing of the gyro compass. By midnight he’d turned her on to the course for Rognsund, crossing the wide lower part of Söröysund; and soon after making this alteration a glimmer of brightness on mainland mountains confirmed that the moon was rising. Those heights were snowbound – even now, at the end of the months of summer. Remembering that briefing they’d had about the overland route to Sweden, the sight was daunting as well as beautiful.
Lights on shipping to the north, when he was out in the middle at about 01.00, worried him for a while. If they’d been overtaking, as at first he thought they were, he’d have had to have dived her until they’d passed. But they began to draw left, and eventually disappeared. He realised that they’d first appeared just outside Kipperfjord, which was one of several wide inlets on that south coast of Söröy, and they could well have been fishing craft who’d spent the night in there at anchor and were now making an early start. From this point Rognsund would be roughly six miles ahead; he reckoned to cover two thirds of that distance before diving. Then he’d have the day’s first light by which to steer her into that narrow gap, and the whole day in which to conn her through. He’d creep through, dead slow on the motor, to make no visible disturbance and as little sound as possible for hydrophones to pick up.
At 01.40 he called down, ‘Diving in five minutes!’
Still thinking about Rognsund – its shallow areas which he’d steer around, and the headland which jutted from the right-hand shore to form a bottleneck, just the sort of place they’d have installed acoustic gear. You’d need to be very very careful, all the way. You’d have to show some periscope now and then, because of the twists and turns and tidal complications which could make for navigational problems. The tide was ebbing now, flowing seaward, but low tide would come at about 05.00, and you’d have a slack-water period before it started again in the opposite direction. Even in Stjernsund the tidal flow would be something to be reckoned with, but in a shallower and narrower passage you might get something like a mill-race, at some times and places.
Stjernsund… Cameron, Place, Henty-Creer and Hudspeth would all be on their way through, by this time.
The entrance to the sund was a black hole about two miles ahead. Diffused moonlight washed the higher slopes of both Stjernoy and Seiland, but the gulf between them lay in deep shadow.
‘Stop the engine. Out engine-clutch.’
The Gardner’s pounding ceased.
Silence was dramatic. There was only the swish of sea along her sides. A faint breeze from the west was barely enough to stir the surface. To the east, the high ground on Seiland was a black frieze against sky lightening with the first intimation of a new day coming.
From the direction of Stjernoy, a dog howled.
‘Engine-clutch out!’
They’d disconnected the diesel, so as to change over to electric propulsion. Paul ordered, ‘Main motor half ahead.’ With the Gardner’s racket silenced, the induction pipe was a reasonably efficient voicepipe. His watch’s luminous face showed 01.47. The motor started: he could feel its vibration and the renewed forward impulse. He called down, ‘Shut the induction.’ Shutting the valve on the pipe not only made it safe to dive, it also cut off his communications with the men inside her. He stooped, pulled the hatch up, slid in feet-first, dropped through; reaching up to slam it above his head and then swing the securing wheel round to dog it, he ordered ‘Open main vents. Thirty feet.’
Ten minutes later, after Gimber had caught a trim and they’d put her through her paces – down to sixty, up to twenty, trim re-adjusted and no problems found – he ordered periscope depth.
‘Take it easy, Louis.’
Gimber grunted assent as he put angle on the hydroplanes, to ease her upward. The gauge showed seventeen feet when he shifted the trim-pump lever over to port, to flood water into the midships tank, ballasting her as she rose. Paul had the periscope-switch bag in his hand – thick rubber for insulation, and you had to feel for the right button to press: he watched the slow, carefully controlled ascent. The caution was vital – would be at any rate once it was light up there, and this was a matter of starting as you meant to go on. In that channel, you’d only need to make one slip, break surface once…
Twelve feet. Eleven. Ten. His thumb pressed the ‘up’ button in the bag on its wandering lead, and the periscope rose silently, stopping with a jerk at its upper limit as Gimber reported ‘Nine feet.’
‘When we’re inside, Louis, we’ll try nine-foot six. I’ll make do with about an inch of glass.’
The gap between the two mounds of land was right ahead. He circled, checking all round, knowing there couldn’t be anything very close but still doing it out of long habit, standard safety-drill. When they were in the fjord he’d put this ’scope up for just seconds at a time, despite the fact its top was no thicker than a walking stick. In that flat calm, anything that showed above the surface – particularly anything that left a wake behind it – would catch even the most casual eye.
Gimber had stopped the pump again.
A worrying thing was a slight misting in the lenses. There wasn’t enough light yet to be sure, but the edges of the land seemed blurry. You’d tell better in half an hour or so, by which time the sun would have risen. Meanwhile she was on course and it would be an hour before she reached the entrance. He felt for the ‘down’ button, and pressed it, sent the tube gliding down into its well, below the deck-boards.
‘Sixty feet.’
The hydroplanes tilted. Gimber’s left hand on the pump lever, ready to make new trim adjustments as she nosed deeper. Brazier squatting in the W and D, watching Paul who was crouching over the folded chart, studying the detail of that entrance. You had to use the chart folded to the area you wanted, because there wasn’t room to spread it out – no chart-table either, since there’d have been nowhere to put one.
Lanchberry yawning, eyes on the gyro reading, fingering the wheel. He yawned again. Brazier murmured, ‘Bastard’s either snoring or yawning. Born tired…’ He had his net-cutter beside him, and some tools he’d been using to service it. It was powered by water-pressure, so as not to send up bubbles.
At 03.45 she was at ten feet again, and in the entrance. He’d have brought her up sooner but they’d heard propellers chugging and waited until a trawler had passed overhead, coming out of Rognsund. It was in periscope-sight now – well astern, and about to disappear westward behind Varneset, the headland on Stjernoy. The periscope was slightly foggy, not as bad as he’d feared it might be but certainly requiring attention when there was time and opportunity – tonight, perhaps, when they’d be holed-up for a few hours. He took some bearings, to establish their exact position, and set a course of 155 degrees, which would be good for three miles.
‘Sixty feet, Louis.’ He told them, as the periscope slid down, ‘Nice and peaceful up there. Smoke drifting from cottage chimneys, some chaps mending a boat on a slipway, one horse-and-cart going somewhere very slowly, no signs of anything military.’
Lanchberry said, ‘I never did like the military.’
Paul decided that he’d come up for a check after two and three-quarter miles, measuring it by the electric log. At this low speed it would take about two hours. Slow movement not only made less disturbance, it also extended the life of the battery, and there was no certainty when it would be possible to run a change. He’d get one in if he could, because you had not only the attack to think about, but also the withdrawal to sea afterwards. Or the hope of it. Maintaining slow speed like this would stretch the battery life to one hundred miles, but the snag was that in any kind of emergency it mightn’t be possible to maintain low speed.
He cranked open the shutters that had been covering the viewing ports, port and starboard. They’d been shut because of the foul weather, mostly. There wasn’t anything to be seen here, at the moment, but there would be later. Things like the underwater hull of a pocket battleship.
‘Sixty feet, sir.’
‘Well done, Louis.’ He was acknowledging that ‘sir’ as much as the report. It was right and proper – not Louis Gimber speaking, but X-12’s first lieutenant – but not strictly necessary; Gimber’s use of it had been intended to tell him something. Paul said, ‘We don’t need four on watch. One man at a time could get his head down. Excluding me, that is … Louis, old horse, this looks like being the easiest stretch ahead of us, and I’d want you to be on the job after the next change of course, so how about taking your stand-off now?’
He kept a log – detail on which to build the report he’d have to submit later – in a small notebook. Entries showed that when the tide was turning, around 5.00 a.m., he brought her up twice to take shore bearings and ensure safety from navigational hazards. Subsequent entries included:
06.10. A/co to 123, having passed Stoergrd, shallow patch. Rock awash ¾ mile stbd with iron marker.
06.14. Small vessel ahead. Dived to 60ft. (Minesweeper?)
06.22. Ship passed overhead. Turbines, 180 revs.
Gimber asked him, ‘How far on this course?’
‘One point eight miles. We’ll take a shufti after one and a half, though. We’ll have the headland coming up then.’
Jazz Lanchberry was off watch now, Brazier at the helm. They heard a ship’s screws again just after seven – a reciprocating engine, this time – and after a while it overhauled them on the port side. It was probably a fishing boat. Then shortly afterwards:
07.17. Fast H.E. stbd bow. More than one vessel, prob. E-boats.
07.18. Dived to 100ft.
07.29. H.E. drawing right. Two fast turbine craft, believe E-boats. Returned to 60ft then 40.
In the direction from which those enemies had come initially the chart showed a good anchorage in an inlet called Kvalfjord; he guessed it might be a base for patrol-boats, and made a note of this in the book. Then:
07.46. Periscope depth. A/co 151 to clear Mjaanes Pt.
07.48. 60ft.
This course would have taken her clear of the headland and right through, all the way. But he was wary of tidal sets in the bottleneck, and at 08.20 when he estimated that Mjaanes Point should be abeam he ordered periscope depth to check on it. She was at twelve feet, rising very slowly under Gimber’s cautious control, and Paul had pressed the ‘up’ button for the ’scope, when they were all startled by the sudden thunder of propellers – from around the point of land, but loud, close and fast, closer and louder every second: and X-12 in its path, still slightly bow-up, lifting with her periscope rising too.
‘Hundred feet!’ Agony of waiting – only seconds, but seemingly an age, while Gimber got bow-down angle on her. Paul snapped, ‘Full ahead, group up!’ Expecting the end at any moment: the crash, hull splitting open, finis… Then the wash hit her as she wallowed down: powerful as the blast of a depthcharge, enemy screws racing over and that huge thrust hitting her as she fought for depth, bow-down with twenty-four feet on the gauge but her stern higher than that, catching the major part of it. That sound – a destroyer’s screws so close it had been touch-and-go whether you’d be ploughed open like a can ripped by the opener – he’d heard once before, in Ultra in the Mediterranean when an Italian had very nearly made it. X-12 flinging over, rolling right over on to her beam-ends, rammed not by the German’s forefoot but by his wash: Paul had been thrown off his feet, the others almost out of their chairs: the ringing of the gyro alarm bell was subdued under a fresh crescendo of propeller noise, a second ship rushing over the top.
They’d come from behind the headland. That was why the noise had burst on them so suddenly, without warning. X-12 was at forty feet and rolling back. Loose gear had been sent flying – including the gluepot and the kettle, utensils, tools and buckets. Paul got to the gyro alarm switch and shut it off – remembering that the Brown’s gyro would tolerate a twenty-five degree angle but no more. He told Brazier, as the second lot of screws receded, ‘Set the course indicator to ship’s head one-five-oh.’ Near enough: their course had been 151. The course-indicator was aircraft-type equipment; it would be better than nothing for a while, until they could get the gyro working again. The magnetic compass would be useless in this fjord – or in Stjernsund, for that matter – because of local magnetic anomalies creating wild variations. The chart, and the Pilot for the district, emphasized it.
‘Fifty feet, Louis.’
‘Fifty: aye aye.’ Swinging the ’planes to get her bow up. Paul was still thinking about – or rather, reacting to – the extraordinary power of that first ship’s wash. Admitting that this was a very small submarine indeed and that she’d been right at the crucial depth for it to hit her, and at extremely close range – even then… He told Gimber, ‘Group down, slow ahead.’ He’d needed full power to get her down, but in the last minute he’d been wasting amps. He heard Brazier comment: ‘Like going over Niagara in a barrel.’ Lanchberry was taking over the helm from him, having set the course indicator.
But – still rolling?
Lanchberry enquired, glancing back over his shoulder, that slanted, typically sardonic look as he slid into the seat in Brazier’s place, ‘Anyone notice anything?’
Paul was checking the transverse spirit-level. His impression of a moment ago had been wrong: she hadn’t been rolling, she’d been taking up a much more pronounced list to port than she’d had before.
He told Lanchberry, ‘Guess.’
‘Ten degrees?’
‘Twelve.’
It was giving Gimber problems with the trim. With this much slant on her, the hydroplanes could hardly be expected to function normally, since one was now lower than the other – therefore, in denser water, having more effect than the higher one – and also the slant giving an element of rudder-action to them, because they were so far off the horizontal. It needed only a few comments to establish this, for everyone to recognise the problem and the difficulties it presented. You could also understand how it had come about: the side-cargo, already loosened on its sealing copper strip to the extent that one of its buoyancy-chambers had been flooded, had been jolted looser still by the impact of the destroyer’s wash. In fact Paul was wondering at this stage whether it had been a destroyer; the second one certainly had, and in retrospect a comparison between the two suggested that the first had been enormously more powerful. Lanchberry still staring at him over his shoulder: he suggested, ‘Have to ditch the port side-cargo, skipper. D’you reckon?’
The idea didn’t appeal to him. He told Lanchberry, ‘Watch your steering, for God’s sake.’
Both those ships must have been destroyers, he decided. Recalling the sound of their screws – even though the leading one had seemed so extraordinarily powerful…
Gimber reported grimly, ‘Fifty feet.’
‘Make it thirty.’
After that, he’d take her up to periscope depth, get a fix and line up the course indicator more accurately. Then – well, just south of this headland there was an inlet three-quarters of a mile deep, called Lille Kvalfjord. Lille meaning ‘little’. The chart showed that it shelved to as little as ten fathoms in there, and if it was empty or at least not crowded it might be a good spot in which to lie on the bottom and set the gyro to rights, square off whatever other defects might show up when one had time to look around.
Gimber muttered, working hard at the trim, ‘This is damn near impossible.’
‘You’re doing well, Louis.’
Not all that well, though. And nearer the surface, controlling her was going to be even trickier. Also, there’d be a slant on the periscope and you’d get distorted bearings. It was quite probable that the periscope would have flooded again, after that rough handling; he guessed the leak would be either around the frame of the top glass, or in the metal casing itself.
It might be wise – although it went against the grain – to ditch the flooded side-cargo. Set it to ‘safe’ and release it. At least you’d be in shape to carry out a successful attack with the other one – which on the present showing certainly couldn’t be guaranteed.
It seemed such a waste. Having brought the thing all this way…
Gimber reported, ‘Thirty feet.’
‘Nice work.’
‘I can’t promise to keep her within a yard of any ordered depth, though.’
‘Have to find a way to, Louis. Somehow. Try twenty, now.’
‘Christ.’ Gimber raised his voice to acknowledge more formally, ‘Twenty feet.’ Shaking his head, as he tilted the hydroplanes… Paul still thinking about it – and realising that with trimming as it was now he wouldn’t have dared to bring her up any higher than twenty. If they bungled it now, alerted the Germans to the threat of attack – giving them time to move their ships out, mount a hunt in the fjords, plaster the whole area with depthcharges…
And if it happened, it wouldn’t have been Gimber’s fault. She was at twenty-two feet now and going down again: he’d been nervous of letting her overshoot upwards.
‘All right. Twenty-five feet. I’ll have to ditch the bloody thing.’
Lanchberry’s head inclined in a nod of approval. Gimber said, ‘Yes. I’m sorry, but it’s just—’
‘Can’t be helped.’
It still irked him to have to do it. Fifty per cent of her offensive potential down the drain. Facing facts, however, it could not be helped. And with six hundred feet of water here, it was as good a place as any to do it. He crouched at the port side fuse-mechanism. The pointer on the clock had to be turned through two stops to the left, to the one marked SAFE. Until it had been set there – or activated, set going with a delay-setting on it – the release gear couldn’t be operated. He gripped the knob between forefinger and thumb, and twisted.
It wouldn’t turn the whole way. It clicked to the intermediate stop, but no further. He returned it to the starting point, and tried again.
‘The pointer won’t go to “safe”.’
She was at twenty-eight feet, and Gimber was still having to fight the controls. Paul beginning to appreciate that the problems were real and cumulative. He told them – Lanchberry, who was staring round at him, and Brazier’s wide, ginger-stubbled face framed in the circular opening of the W and D – ‘It’ll travel right, but not left. Not far enough.’
So – next alternative…
You could turn the knob to the right to the full extent of its travel, putting the maximum delay of six hours on the fuse, and then ditch it. The fuse would have to be activated, and after six hours it would explode.
Gimber had had the same thought. ‘Set a long fuse, and dump it?’
‘Can’t do that.’ He’d seen the answer. ‘Suppose we did it now. The bang would go off at three this afternoon. What chance would we – or any of the others – have of getting any attacks in tomorrow morning, d’you think? The Bosch wouldn’t just say “Oh, something’s exploded in the Rognsund”, and do nothing about it, would they.’
Gimber admitted, ‘No. You’re right.’
‘So we’re stuck with it, until tomorrow. Preferably until we find our target… Louis – let’s try a bow-heavy trim, holding her on the ’planes?’
He thought that might answer the trimming problem. Instinct, the ‘feel’ of her, suggested it. But even if it worked, you’d still have a periscope on the blink, a heavy list and a side-cargo malfunctioning… He was behind Gimber’s left shoulder, studying the effects of the change of trim as it began to take effect. Thinking about that side-cargo – whether if it was defective in one respect it could be trusted in any other.