He’d called the other two to within loud-hailer distance, one on each quarter, Chisholm’s 562 to port and Heddingly’s 564 starboard. All three still paddling northward—on an interception course to the convoy—on one engine apiece at revs for about six knots, consequently tossing around a bit. He’d have carried on at this low speed, creeping in to close quarters as inconspicuously and quietly as possible, but radar had just reported new arrivals coming—apparently—to join the convoy, from the west, and it seemed inadvisable to hang back until the escort had been thus strengthened.
On his seat in the bridge’s starboard forward corner, he switched on the fixed loudhailer system. He was listening-out on R/T but not using it himself at this stage; it could have amounted to telling the bastards you were coming. He’d heard Stack initiating the gunboats’ withdrawal northwards, anyway… Testing the hailer by tapping its microphone, then bawling into it ‘D’you hear there?’ and getting for answers a thump and then a booming, long-distance echo of his own voice across dark, jumpy sea… He told them, ‘Starter’s orders, chaps—and we have to look slippy. Radar just picked up a middleweight and two widgers coming east from vicinity of A A—could be the T-class and R-boats we had a while ago. Joint’s jumping, anyway—and radar shows the target now five thousand yards nor’-nor’-east—steering west, seventeen knots estimated. So—quarterline starboard, twenty knots for two miles, then slow to twelve. I’ll steer to leave the nearer M to starboard, passing ahead of him to get in on the target’s bow, and I’ll disengage to port. You two go the other way—detour to starboard, cross astern of the M, approach from the quarter and disengage to starboard. OK? Anything unclear, speak now.’
Cocking an ear to the wind, for a few seconds… But there was no interruption to the engines’ drowned rumbling, wind and sea and battering hulls. Nothing to wait for, therefore. Loudhailer again: ‘Right, chaps. Quarterline starboard—execute!’
Twenty knots wouldn’t be exactly sneaking in. But with the target’s escort about to be reinforced—the hell… Time now—2342. Mile and a half to go, roughly: at twenty knots, four and a half minutes. And they were in quarterline now. Telegraphs to half-ahead, therefore, throttles easing open: no need for signals. He’d flapped his seat up out of the way, was on his feet behind all the controls, with his coxswain’s burlier figure close on his left. Power building, 560 thrusting forward: stern-down and bow lifting, the start of the hammering impacts you felt all the way up your spinal column…
Hugh Lyon was returning from the after end of the bridge—the screened shelter behind it where the gunners waited—all but Vibart, gunlayer 3rd class, in the point-five turret, and Bellamy the Oerlikons’ number two and loader, who for the time being was still up here as a lookout. So was Woods, on this starboard side; and Perrot, Leading Signalman, propped in the after corner between the flag-locker and the signal-lamps’ stowage, keeping an eye open for signals from the other boats. Lyon paused there, between him and Woods, training his glasses too on the others—rather too highly visible, fast-moving explosions of brilliant white and widening, trailing wakes… Lyon wondering—aware of a familiar pre-action tautness of his own nerves, and a slight shortness of breath—whether Mike Furneaux had any fears on this first appearance as a flotilla SO. He’d certainly shown none. Which was what made one wonder: total lack of fear, or vast self-confidence?
Achieving command itself would be the big one, Lyon supposed. After that, maybe, having a few more boats tucked under one’s wing wouldn’t make so much difference?
Not to the Mike Furneaux’s of this world, anyway.
A species apart. That was probably the answer. Horses for courses. By the same yardstick he, Lyon, was probably in his right niche as a second-in-command. Talking to Betty once he’d said something like ‘When I get my command’, and she’d goggled at him: ‘Command?’ Then seen from his expression that he wasn’t exactly overjoyed at this reaction, and covered up with some unconvincing waffle…
Ourselves as others see us, he’d thought. Moving up now to the forefront, port side. Maybe how Furneaux saw him too. Might well be—and he could be right, at that. You didn’t all have to be bloody Errol Flynns.
John Flyte had gone down to the wheelhouse to try to prepare a radar plot, which would be made use of at later stages—from the time they slowed to twelve knots. Furneaux had told him to keep the picture up to the minute with everything that came from Davies but to pass on only what he, Furneaux, would want or need to know. Priority at the start would be the movements of the Torpedoboot and two Raumboote who’d been on their way back eastward—and might yet be there ahead of them.
2345. A minute and a half to go, roughly. Flyte would call up to the skipper when you’d run the distance, anyway.
‘Perrot.’ Furneaux, still with his glasses up, and not turning. ‘Stand by with the blue lamp and “George twelve”.’
‘George twelve—aye aye, sir.’
Meaning ‘speed twelve knots’. But—loudhailer, and now the blue lamp. Once the shooting started, he’d be back on R/T, no doubt.
‘Light showing green five-oh, could be a ship on fire, sir!’
‘All right, Woods…’
Focusing on it, Lyon saw that that was exactly what it was. Some of the gunboats’ handiwork, no doubt. An escort stopped and burning and left behind by the rest of the convoy as they steamed on westward. Furneaux had taken a quick look at it before resuming his sweeping across the bow.
‘Bridge!’
Lyon ducked to the port-side branch of the voicepipe. ‘Bridge.’
‘Four and a half minutes coming up, sir.’ Flyte paused for about two seconds. ‘Time’s up—now.’
‘Pass “George twelve”, signalman.’ Furneaux eased the throttles back. The bumping-around was immediately worse again, as the revs came off and she slumped deeper in the waves, slamming through them.
‘Bridge!’
Lyon answered again. Grabbing for stability at the correcting sphere on the port side of the binnacle: she’d dug her bow in and the sledgehammers were getting busy. Flyte told him, ‘Only radar contact port side is on red two-zero, sir, Davies reckons the T-class, range about 024.’
‘No R-boats?’
There should have been another ‘T’ as well. One on fire, one that had been standing by it.
‘Not unless they’re blanked-off behind that one. But there’s another a degree or two to starboard—right ahead, almost—range 900 yards—’
‘All right, Sub.’ Furneaux, unruffled at hearing of an enemy right ahead at less than half a mile. It would be the one he’d known was there, of course, the M-class sweeper on this inshore side. Engine-noise was down to a murmur, comparatively speaking—revs for only twelve knots, and Dumbflows engaged. Noisy, battering sea… Furneaux called down to Flyte, ‘Tell Davies watch that T-class and sweep for the R’s and another T we seem to’ve lost track of.’ He took a quick look out to starboard, saw the other two—that they’d cut their revs and were still in quarterline—and swung back, glasses up to look for this closer enemy, the M-class minesweeper.
‘Port wheel, Cox’n. Steer north twenty-five west.’
‘Port wheel. North twenty-five west, sir…’
Closing throttles a bit more. Revs for about ten knots. Not having been spotted yet, despite a somewhat noisy arrival. Operative word, yet.
White water helped, of course. Searching ahead, from five or ten degrees on one bow to the other. The enemy units were all a great deal bigger than an MTB, you’d be ashamed of yourself—and as likely as not pay for it too—if you didn’t see them before they came anywhere near seeing you. The burning ship was only a distant flickering, way out there to starboard, had no relevance to this picture. The night’s second burning ship, in fact: the earlier one—unidentified, unexplained—had disappeared. Sunk, maybe. One’s mind shrank from the thought of that one having been Mark Newbolt’s 563. Possibly—with a lot of wishful thinking—it might have been something he’d run into… The one now in sight, though, was just as well out of it—seeing that you had in any case to cope with two T-class—or three—as well as two ‘M’s and—somewhere, they couldn’t have vanished into thin air—two Raumboote as well?
‘There.’ On the bow to starboard. ‘Ship’s head, Cox’n?’
‘North twelve west, sir. Fifteen. Twenty…’
On green two-zero, one M-class sweeper. Furneaux pointed it out to Lyon. ‘That’s the M. Target’s got to be somewhere the other side of her.’
‘Course north twenty-five west, sir.’
Rolling hard. In the past half-hour the wind had come up quite a bit. Chisholm and Heddingly would be on their own now, acting independently; they’d have seen his own alteration to port in order to pass ahead of the ‘M’.
‘Bridge!’
Lyon leant to the voicepipe, reaching at the same time to hang up the gunnery telephone—having ordered Markwick, Wiltshire and Garfold to close up at their weapons…
‘Bridge.’
‘The T-class is about right ahead, sir, range two thousand yards. Still no R’s.’
‘Very good.’ Straightening, he called towards Furneaux, ‘That Torpedoboot, sir—’
‘I heard.’ With his glasses on the ‘M’ again. Bearing about forty on the bow, now. His problem being to pass ahead of it and then swing right-handed towards the target, at a distance from the ‘M’ that wouldn’t be actually suicidal but still getting round under starboard wheel before actually rubbing noses with that bloody ‘T’. He’d given the others the easier approach—at least, what should logically be the easier—passing astern of the sweeper with no other escort on this side to complicate matters for them. They could pass as far astern of the bastard as they liked.
Unless the ‘M’ astern of the target divined what was happening and moved up to intervene.
But that, now, was the Heilbronne.
First sight of her. Star of the show, reason for being here at all—a darker mass separating itself to the left of the ‘M’. Two funnels, and quite a lot of ship. 4,500 tons, allegedly. You’d have thought all of that, maybe more.
Anyway. Another ten degrees to port, maybe, to pass rather more safely ahead of this inshore ‘M’. Not that ‘safe’ was really a good word for it… But with a sixty-degree turn to starboard, say, immediately after crossing his bows, and you’d still be seven or eight hundred yards short of the ‘T’. In on the target’s bow—by that time probably—well, surely—being shot at—on a course obliquely towards the target, then hard a-port and fire maybe on the swing. At an ideal range—something like 400 yards.
Touch wood. Having still to watch which way any of these cats jumped. The other two MTBs might get in first; and whether the Heilbronne was hit or missed she’d surely be taking avoiding action.
‘Steer ten degrees to port, Cox’n.’
‘Ten degrees to port, sir.’
Starshell. Sixty on the bow and a mile to the north—mile and a half, maybe. Yellowish, British-type starshell for a change. Actually illuminating rockets, fired from a gunboat’s forward six-pounder mounting. Not bad, actually, neither the timing nor the placing—giving the devil his due.
Poor old devil. But he was still a darned good man at sea. At home, he bored the pants off her, she’d said. He’d commented, smiling at her across a table in the Savoy Grill—three weeks ago—‘One way of doing it, I suppose’, and she’d murmured, ‘On the whole, Mike, I prefer your way.’ Shaking his head, shaking all that out of it. Thompson reporting the course as north thirty-five west… The Heilbronne looked as big as a house, with the starshell-glow behind her. Course and speed—south seventy west, he estimated, and sixteen knots looked like a better bet than seventeen. He set the torpedo sight—optimistically—for a ninety on the bow shot. Glasses up again, then, seeing that the M-class sweeper was much clearer in outline too. One of the later, ’37-40 batch: the main differences being size and that she’d have two four-point-ones instead of only one. Training the glasses right: there was that other ‘M’—to the right of the near one but a lot further away, probably astern of the Heilbronne by four or five hundred yards. From that position it could crack on speed to come up on either side, when its CO saw an attack developing. Chisholm’s and Heddingly’s worry, though—for the moment, anyway. He left it, swung his glasses left, passing over this nearer ‘M’ and the Heilbronne to check again on the Torpedoboot.
There. Identifiable by the two widely-spaced funnels and unusually low freeboard aft. While another rocket fizzed up and bloomed. Good for old Bob… The ‘T’ was turning, though—away, to port. Furneaux swivelling back to the ‘M’—having to watch all the cats at once, knowing he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off any of them for more than a few seconds—muttering in his brain Some bugger’s got to spot us, damn it… And at that moment, too damn right, some bugger had—starshell, green starshell, burst almost slap overhead. 560 floodlit: men’s faces greenish too.
He’d pushed the throttles shut. Telegraphs to stop. To lie doggo, engines cut. Even under that green glow they didn’t have to see you.
‘Ready both tubes!’
Chisholm—562—had seen the green starshell out there to port, realized instantly what it meant—or roughly so—and cracked on speed. The time to attack being now—escorts distracted by Mike F. and lighting him up, poor bugger, while at the same time one had the benefit of Bob Stack’s illuminants hanging in the sky, a palely yellow backdrop throwing the ex-banana boat and her consorts into ebony relief. Chisholm peering ahead through binoculars, shouting to PO Dan Martin, ‘Five degrees to port, Cox’n!’
To aim initially at that M-class sweeper’s stem, not to detour to starboard and then turn in astern of her as Mike had proposed, because (a) there’d be very little room for manoeuvre there inside her, (b) the ‘M’ was overhauling the target—obviously to fend off Mike’s attack. If one had been there now—instead of in about fifty or sixty seconds, which was roughly the time it was going to take to get there—you’d have been as near as damnit ninety on the bow.
Might still be—touch wood. Might. Things could change within seconds, though—relative velocities being entirely relative…
‘Tubes ready, sir.’
David Eden, sub-lieutenant. No relation to Anthony. Chisholm caught his arm. ‘Tell the guns, no shooting without orders, not even returning fire.’
‘Aye aye, sir. Close season, I’ll tell ’em.’
Fine time for smart-arse jokes. He’d taken the latches off the torpedo firing-levers. Left hand on PO Martin’s shoulder, right arm pointing ahead. ‘See him?’
Leaning forward over the wheel, peering…
‘Yeah, blimey—’
‘The target—with an escort overlapping her forepart on this side. Steer for the escort’s bow—see?’
Five hundred yards, say, to that sweeper—which was plainer to see now as another of Stack’s rockets broke open up there—and then maybe another four hundred to the target. If one fired just short of the ‘M’, therefore—which admittedly was begging a few questions, but if one did—torpedo running distance might be say five hundred. He let his glasses hang while he set the torpedo sight. Enemy speed—seventeen. And—eighty on the bow, say… He swung the sight-bar over so that it clicked up against the stop at the seventeen-knot mark. A glance to starboard then at 564: abaft this boat’s beam, distance about 150 yards. Heddingly sticking close: but he could take a wide swing at it, if he wanted.
When the moments came, though—one’s own, then Heddingly’s—you’d be playing it off the cuff. Heilbronne might be either stopped and sinking, or taking violent avoiding-action, or—whatever…
There were also one or two other escorts as yet unaccounted for, remember.
‘Escort astern of the target’s moving up, sir.’
Swinging his glasses right: just as the tracer came—blinding—from that other ‘M’, forging up from right to left—to come up between oneself and the target, probably… Couldn’t be certain—darkness, distance, and the blinding effect of that tracer to the left: guesswork had to be part of it, but—
‘Oh, damn!’
Green floodlighting, from overhead. Lit up, and blinded, and tracer thickening, homing-in from more than one direction now…
‘Hard a-starboard, Cox’n!’
To break off, get out of it, then try again.
Furneaux warned Lyon, ‘Gunners hold their fire.’ So as not to give the enemy an aiming-point before he had to: or before they spotted him anyway. He was closing in again: had been lying cut, feeling like something on a brightly-lit stage, but in fact they hadn’t spotted him under their bloody starshell: there’d been a second one, and that had fizzled out now. The Torpedoboot which had fired the things hadn’t in any case been turning towards—as he’d feared, for a tense half-minute or so; it was completing a full turn, reversing course to lead this pack back westward—having assumed the position of centre-forward, so to speak, and probably thinking in the course of the turn that he might have seen something, put up a couple of starshells on the off-chance, and drawn blank.
His taking up that station in the lead rather suggested that the R-boats whose presence one had been suspecting didn’t have to be any part of this assembly, might only have happened to have been in company with the ‘T’ at that time—could by now be anywhere. But where in hell were the other Torpedoboote, for Pete’s sake?
Tracer off to the right. A lot of it. 560 rolling more than pitching on this course and at low revs with wind and sea on the beam. Another rocket-starshell—only a mile or so to the north. Stack and his boys still at it. Ears flapping for the sounds of torpedo-hits, no doubt…
Thinking—about the missing T’s—that one should bear in mind their existence—as wild cards, so to speak—but not waste time worrying about them meanwhile. Them or the R-boats. Also, that it might be only a matter of time before the M-class which was preoccupied at the moment with either Chisholm or Heddingly, or both, woke up to this other alien presence: especially as in the next half-minute 560 would be crossing its bow. Not really a very healthy prospect. In fact one began to wonder—suddenly, a new angle on the situation—whether if the odds were weighed against one rather too heavily here—the closest threat being that Torpedoboot, but the ‘M’ as well—he might hold on, cross ahead of the Heilbronne and attack from seaward before either she or the escorts on that side knew he was there. Might be a good alternative. There wasn’t going to be a hell of a lot of elbow-room whatever happened, and if the ‘M’ moved up, for instance, between him and the target, he’d be shut out—and stuck between these two, with no option then but to get out of it double-quick with nothing achieved. He’d dropped his glasses on their strap, had his hands on the telegraphs. Thinking about Chisholm and Heddingly: deciding that far from fouling things up for them, it might do them a good turn—taking enemy attention from that sector. They’d been told to disengage to starboard, nobody’d be getting in anyone else’s way.
Telegraphs to full ahead. They’d see you now—any bloody second, anyway… Throttles…
Hadn’t been a bad guess, that, either—a stream of tracer was coming lobbing from the ‘T’—which was on the port bow by this time, and travelling from right to left—and yet another green starshell had lit up, somewhere up behind his shoulder. Everyone wanting light… ‘Oerlikon return fire to port, point-fives starboard!’ Lyon’s shout of acknowledgement: 560 tucking her stern down and tilting her bow up, dark sea splitting and that sickly green tinting the spread of white. Explaining in a shout to Lyon as she gathered speed, ‘Going through there.' An arm flung out, pointing. ‘Shift the point-fives to this one when the time’s right—if they’re coming anywhere near us—OK?’ Gunflash from the sweeper’s foc’sl—a four-point-one, that would be, quite possibly not the first: an opening burst of tracer too, either 20-mm or 37-mm.
‘Port wheel, Cox’n—’ He’d grabbed his arm, to get his attention, shouting close to his ear—‘then constant helm, weave twenty degrees each side.’ Four-point-one shells were definitely to be avoided. Acknowledgement was inaudible but the tone would have been calm and level and all the way from Huddersfield. Gun-flashes at regular intervals now from the M’s foc’sl—whoever it had been persecuting before must have high-tailed it, he guessed, leaving 560 as the sole object of its attentions now. Criss-crossing tracer was thickening from both directions: but it wouldn’t be like this for long—forty knots wasn’t a bad speed at which to run a gauntlet. And weaving as well… Well up on the plane, a steady-enough platform for her own gunners—whose function was primarily to discourage the opposition, encourage their gunners to keep their heads down. Main purpose in life now being to get by and into a position to use torpedoes. Nothing else. The point-fives were shifting target, joining the Oerlikon firing in bursts at the Torpedoboot’s stern—roughly abeam at this moment, range about 500 yards and—he saw this now, having half-expected it—under helm, turning to port: to bring its guns other than the stern ones into action. Had expected him to have gone to starboard: turning this way he was stern-to again, so that to gain the advantage he’d been after he’d have to continue right around—which would take him dangerously close to the bows of the sweeper and/or the Heilbronne as they ploughed on westward. Would also take him out of station in the convoy’s van. Incomprehensible, but all and any such misjudgements were entirely welcome. The end-on shape on the other beam now was the Heilbronne, and she was herself in action, tracer streaming out in all directions. The other two attacking, obviously: hadn’t attacked yet, he hoped—there’d been no torpedo hits. Any moment now… 560 had effectively outdistanced the sweeper—in any case it would have been impeded by having the ‘T’ in its line of fire in the last minute or so—and it was probably tied-up in that other fracas now, around the Heilbronne. Effectively, therefore—worst over, through the gauntlet? Heilbronne was abaft the beam to starboard—tracer and gunflashes in that sector still blinding when you looked back at it—the last starshell from the gunboats had faded and had not been replaced—and the Torpedoboot, still turning, was roughly beam-on. Still shooting, and 560 still weaving: there’d been a pause in the action but it had opened up again as the ‘T’ came on round in that tight turn. 37-mm with red tracer in it, four-point-one flashes too.
Hopes of having made it had been a little premature, in fact…
Hits then. He’d felt them, a rapid succession of what must have been 37-mm shells blasting up the port side from aft to for’ard as she’d swung that way: two seconds earlier he’d seen that stream of tracer arcing in closer, the gunner steadily correcting his aim before the turn just seconds ago.
The Oerlikon was out of it now. Only point-fives shooting back.
‘Hard a-starboard!’
‘Hard a-starboard, sir…’
To circle in—actually putting the wheel over sooner than he’d intended—and close in on the Heilbronne’s starboard bow. Well aware that she might be taking avoiding-action by the time one got there, but reckoning to get into torpedo-firing range anyway—and with any luck lose this bastard in the course of the turn. He yelled at Lyon to cease fire—to reduce the boat’s obviously excessive visibility—but Lyon had gone down to check on and/or deal with the port-side damage, and it was Perrot, who’d told him this, who jumped to the forefront on the coxswain’s left and jammed a thumb on the cease-fire button.
‘Midships!’
Thompson acknowledging, taking the rudder off her: Furneaux easing the throttles back: again, to reduce one’s conspicuousness. Spotting another Torpedoboot out there—out on the Heilbronne’s beam, roughly. One of the wild cards located… She was no immediate threat, that far out. Might have been out there to ward off the gunboats, the starshell firers. Starshell incidentally having ceased now… That one did seem to be returning towards the centre—he thought. Not easy to make out. In fact very difficult, confusing… But—he swung his glasses back to the nearer ‘T’, which had just opened fire again: and was turning inside 560’s own wider turning-circle, putting himself right in there—precisely where one didn’t want the bastard…
Tracer was again blinding. He’d thought to have been out of it by now.
The German was only chancing his arm, though. Browning, more or less. None of it was any cause for anxiety, at this stage.
‘Port wheel, Cox’n.’
And still less throttle. An approach from the quarter would be a more practical proposition now. First step being to get in as close as possible unseen… ‘Ship’s head?’
‘South fifteen west, sir!’
‘Steer due south.’
Explosion—back in the mêlée around the Heilbronne, a percussion you felt through the sea and the boat’s hull. A flash—vertical streak of flame. Where the target had been, anyway—and a torpedo hit, for sure. There was a whole mass of tracer and gun-flashes in that area now. If the Heilbronne had been polished off—as she might have been, to sink a ship her size didn’t necessarily take more than one hit—well, Torpedoboote were well worth torpedoing, when nothing larger offered. Or ‘M’s—there were two of those…
2355, the time of that hit.
Chisholm and Heddingly, if they hadn’t disengaged already, surely would have by the time one got in there. So press on in—now.
‘Steer for that tracer, Cox’n!’
Telegraphs to full ahead, throttles open. The thought in mind that Lyon was taking his time over it down there, that there had to be some problem. But this was the moment, you couldn’t pussyfoot around all bloody night–
Starshell—for God’s sake…
One’s own—yellowish, and right over the top. One had assumed the starshell exercise was over. If Stack had tried, he couldn’t have done better—or worse… And the tracer was finding her now—multi-coloured, blinding in the start of its trajectory, thinning somewhat as it lifted seemingly slowly then cracked overhead in brilliant streaks. Not all of it so far overhead either—definitely finding her now, in this brilliance.
‘Hard a-port—’
‘Captain, sir—’ Lyon fetching up hard between him and the coxswain—‘Port tube support’s smashed, Garfold’s dead and—’
A shell-spout lifted close to starboard. And another hit, then. Right aft—a flash, and a heavy jar right through her. Revs decreasing sharply, engines stopping.
Chisholm was at 562’s torpedo-sight, sighting over it with his binoculars.
‘Come five degrees to port, Cox’n.’
On his way back in. He’d circled away at high speed, gaining enough bearing in the process; was moving in now at lowish revs—circumspectly enough to stand at least a chance of eluding that sweeper.
Heddingly was somewhere astern or on his quarter: having disengaged at roughly the same time—however many minutes ago that had been—and come back in more or less in company for his second shot at outwitting the defence… Bob Stack’s last starshell was dimming up there: had now flickered out. Until only a minute or two ago the gunboats had kept them overlapping—one fading, another replacing it before it died. Not this time, though. Not when you bloody needed it… Action had all died away on the bow too—had apparently transferred itself to the convoy’s other side. Mike F. looking for an easier way in, obviously.
Stooped at the torpedo-sight: having his work cut out to separate A from B and Y from Z: especially without the backing of Stack’s starshell. 562 rolling hard, meanwhile.
‘He’s woke up again, sir!’
Shout from PO Martin—one hand up from the wheel, pointing towards tracer lifting, soaring this way—from the Heilbronne, then from the ‘M’ too—which one was passing astern of—had passed astern of, and closer than one should have risked, maybe—although in fact there’d been very little option, with the other one as well—the one still pushing up from the quarter. He’d had to steer to pass about halfway between them: no option, really… Distance to the target now—six hundred, six-fifty? Explosive 37-mm shells thwacking over—the sounds of their passage as regular as heartbeats—while he opened the throttles to revs for about fifteen knots. The concentration of tracer was blinding but thank God the shooting wasn’t all that accurate.
As yet, it wasn’t.
Known as flying half-blind. Jolting, rolling, sea flying white and the tracer coming closer, now. Some closer than that, even—in that moment he’d felt at least one hit. Head down, grin and bear it. Grins, in fact, were optional… He yelled at Eden, ‘Stand by!’
‘Stand by!’
Raikes on the port side—Henry Raikes, sub-lieutenant, spare officer—yelled the same thing down to the torpedoman on that side. Chisholm shouting urgently, his eyes squeezed half-shut against the continual, flashing brilliance of the tracer, ‘Three degrees starboard, Cox’n!’
Almost on…
Knees bent, eyes on a level with the sight, hands on the firing-levers. Running-distance for the fish would be about five hundred yards. Fucking tracer… Blue flash for’ard, the scream of a ricochet; then, as the stream of red and yellow dazzle lifted, a section of the windscreen and deflectors on the port side virtually exploded—disintegrated, flew away.
Crouched at the sight, ignoring it…
‘Fire both!’
Eden’s shout repeated it, impulse cartridges fired—simultaneous muffled explosions on both sides: you heard the whoosh of the torpedoes’ launching then: would have seen by the light of surrounding tracer—if you’d been so daft as to stick your head up high enough—the great fish plunging out ahead, streaks of silver and blue shellac in the constant flicker.
‘Hard a-starboard!’
Jangling the telegraphs, and leaving them at full ahead: leaning on his throttles…
‘Wheel’s hard a-starboard, sir—’
‘Steer north thirty east.’
Twenty seconds’ running time, say. About eight seconds gone already. Glasses on 564, who was passing astern as 562 swung away to starboard—gathering speed, hammering her way up towards the plane. He’d changed his mind: ‘North ten east, make it!’ Martin acknowledging, easing the rudder off her.
Motive being to steer her closer in on the convoy’s quarter so as to keep at least some of the enemy’s attention, give John Heddingly a better chance… Glasses up: on Heilbronne who was turning to port—an attempt at combing the tracks. Still watching her when the torpedo struck: deep hard knock of the explosion, upward shoot of flame—but not on her, on that sweeper—which had also turned, had been on her way round while still pouring out the flak.
Invisible in smoke, now. Hiding the Heilbronne too.
‘Course north ten east, sir!’
Starshell. Gunboat starshell. First for some time… And the smoke had blown away—like the whisking off of a magician’s magic cloth under which the audience knew for sure there’d been some object although now there wasn’t… Telegraphs back to half-ahead, revs for twelve knots. Aware of one fish having missed, of Heilbronne untouched, steaming on. Aware of having cocked it up, in fact. All right, an M-class sweeper hit and sunk, but what the hell, you’d come here for the Heilbronne, not for—
Time—2355.
Glasses up, swinging round and seeing 564 at about thirty knots scooting across close astern, leaping across 562’s wake.
‘Port wheel, Cox’n.’
‘Port wheel, sir…’
An MTB that had fired its torpedoes might as well disengage and head for home, except that in some circumstances—such as now—it could assist by distracting attention from a boat that had not yet fired… He put a hand on PO Martin’s shoulder, and pointed: ‘Steer for that bugger!’
‘Aye, sir!’
Full ahead. Aiming at the M-class which until a few minutes ago had been astern of the Heilbronne, had since moved up, was more or less on her beam now.
‘Ship’s head?’
‘North fifteen west, sir!’
Tracer starting up again—at this boat, not 564. Heddingly was detouring to port, they either hadn’t noticed him or didn’t yet regard him as a threat. Wouldn’t know which was which anyway, which had fired or which hadn’t. Tracer everywhere again now, and gun-flashes, most of it coming this way.
‘Cox’n—weave between north fifteen west and north fifteen east. Constant helm.’
‘Aye, sir!’
Conspicuous—as well as safer—weaving at high speed. Heddingly was getting a share of the flak now, but nothing like the amount he’d have had to cope with on his own. Another escort was engaging him, a Torpedoboot coming over across the Heilbronne’s bows. Had to be a ‘T’ because the ‘M’s were all accounted for—one destroyed by the gunboats, one just torpedoed by 562, and one surviving—there. Blinded again. He’d lost sight of 564 too.
‘Stand by!’
John Heddingly—MTB 564… Down to about twenty knots, with Heilbronne massive-looking on the bow to starboard, range about five hundred yards and squirting tracer out on her port quarter for some reason—as well as this way—while seemingly holding a steady course, since turning back to about south eighty west. Heddingly with eyes only for her, and his hands on the torpedo firing-levers. ‘Two degrees to port, Cox’n!’ Easing the throttles to bring her down to about fifteen knots. The escort broader on the bow had been giving him some unpleasantly close attention in the last half-minute, but hadn’t been able to keep it up without hitting this other one—the Torpedoboot, to port—which unfortunately was showing less restraint.
‘Steady as you go, Cox’n. Lovely—spot-on… Stand by, Farrow!’
Hits on the port side, somewhere. 20-mm, probably. Port side aft. Fuck ’em…
‘Fire both!’
Echoes in other voices, port and starboard—and both fish gone. He’d heard it, felt it too, and 564 was suddenly three tons lighter. Needing speed now, you’d get it—she’d be almost airborne. Telegraphs at full ahead: throttles wide open: ‘Hard a-starboard!’
‘Hard a-starboard, sir…’
Heilbronne was beginning a turn to port, damn her.
But—she’d left it a bit late—he thought. Please God… And on the plus side, 564’s own turn between her and the ‘M’ was silencing them both—for some brief but blessed interval while they couldn’t shoot without potting each other.
Over his shoulder: ‘Open fire!’
On the ‘M’—at close range, a blast or two in passing. With only about fifteen seconds’ running time left for the fish to get there, though. Surely by now…
‘Steer due east, Cox’n!’
Hit!
Solid underwater thump: column of muck soaring twice the height of her own masts. Right for’ard—even right on her stem—as it looked from here. Another yard to the left—or if she’d started her turn a second earlier—that hit-by-a-whisker would have been a miss. With his glasses still up—tracer still lacing the sky, back there—looking back over the beam and then the quarter—564 getting up towards the plane, leaning hard into her disengaging turn-away—he knew he’d missed with the other fish, damn near missed with both. Because they’d (a) seen him coming (b) timed that turn almost to perfection. The one hit didn’t seem to have done her all that much harm, either: the muck had cleared and he could see her—down by the bow, maybe, but not by much, and still under way, making at least a few knots through the water.
Mike Furneaux had heard that torpedo hit. Second one—making one each for Chisholm and Heddingly; a fair assumption therefore was that the Heilbronne would have been done for. Closer to home, though, had been the near-certainty that MTB 560 had come to the end of her road—so he’d thought half a minute ago.
A very long half-minute, at that. Long and by no means happy. But then—now—pushing the engineroom telephone back on to its hook, PO Motor Mechanic Coates having astonished him with the news that the centre engine could be used, it was like waking from nightmare.
Centre engine ahead. Easing the throttle open… ‘Steady as you go, Cox’n!’
‘North fifty east, sir…’
Keeping the wind astern, and keeping her close to the smoke. Not right in it where you couldn’t breathe, but close enough not to want to breathe too deeply. Working up to about fifteen knots. That engine’s fuel supply from the after tank compartment had been severed, Coates and his staff had connected it to the midship’s section of tanks within—well, within thirty seconds, for God’s sake… At the time of the hits which had stopped all three engines, though—hits which must have come from the Torpedoboot which had then been astern, having been in the deep field earlier—Furneaux had turned her to port, relying on the residual way she’d had on her to get her round—and sent young Flyte aft to start making smoke—which without the engine wouldn’t have been any long-term solution, only an instant reaction—in preference to being blown to matchwood in those next few seconds.
Now, to sneak away. Then, establish communication with the rest of the unit and with Bob Stack. Get Lyon’s report on damage and casualties first, though…