Torpedo Run (1981) Page 7

  The interpreter had stared at the closed door and then at Devane. He had said unhappily, ‘He says that you are not to be afraid, Commander. That his men have done it many times before.’

  Red Mackay had exploded. ‘God damn his bloody eyes! Let the bastards go alone, I say!’

  Even Willy Walker, usually reserved, even mild, had said, ‘We’ll get it over with and go home. Bloody cheek!’

  Devane said, ‘We must try not to lose them, unfriendly or not.’ He saw Lieutenant Seymour’s head and shoulders rising above the rear of the bridge. ‘Call me instantly if you see anything.’

  Devane wondered briefly what Seymour thought about Parthian. By rights, with his experience and record, Seymour should at least be a first lieutenant and in line for a command of his own. But it was surprising how much easier it was with one extra officer. Especially the chore of watchkeeping.

  Dundas peered through the darkness. ‘Going to turn in, sir?’

  Devane nodded. ‘It should be secure enough tonight. All tomorrow we’ll be staying well away from patrol areas and out of sight of land. This time tomorrow might be livelier, however.’

  He glanced up at the sky. Broken cloud, no moon. Should be all right. So what was nagging at him?

  Devane groped his way forward and down into the chartroom. It would be quicker from here to the bridge than from the wardroom. Even two or three extra steps could make all the difference.

  He heard a gentle snore rise to greet him, and switched on the small blue light beside the chart table to get his bearings. There were at least three sleeping figures already here. Devane smiled to himself. Good old jack. He would find a private nest even in a Carley float.

  He sat down on a pile of kapok life-jackets and leaned against the pulsating bulkhead.

  In his mind he could see the coast, even an imaginary convoy threading its way through the minefield, eager to unload and creep off just as quietly.

  Orel was in charge, and Sorokin trusted him. Sorokin’s head would be on the block if anything went badly wrong.

  What had Beresford said when the German prisoners had been marched up the road? They had been testing him. Was this another trial he must undergo?

  With a sigh he snapped off the light and laid down with his cap over his face.

  The German convoys had to be stopped if the Crimea was to be recaptured before the Allied invasion in the west.

  Best not to think about it. His head lolled, and he heard a man whimpering in his sleep like a child.

  Think about tomorrow and the day after. That was far enough.

  When the watch changed and the gun crews were relieved to go below, Devane eventually fell asleep.

  ‘More coffee, sir?’

  Devane turned and rubbed his eyes. Where had the day gone?

  The coffee tasted good. Scalding hot and as black as a boot. It tasted unfamiliar, and he guessed that the acting cook, an AB named, very appropriately, Duff, had wangled a supply on his way through the Gulf.

  That was the best thing about coastal forces, the MTBs and MGBs, he thought. It brought out a man’s real worth, it was inevitable with each company being so small. The badges they wore on their shore-going tiddley suits were often at odds with what they really did afloat. A stoker or torpedoman was often a crack shot with a machine-gun. A telegraphist might be better at repairing fuel pipes than any artificer.

  He pushed the seaman called Duff from his thoughts and searched abeam for the blurred shapes of the Russian vessels. All ten still there, and the average speed now a miserable ten knots.

  It would be dark soon. It seemed to come down like a curtain hereabouts. Maybe that was why it was named the Black Sea.

  He shook himself. Must be more tired than I thought, to make a stupid joke like that.

  It had been a very strange day. They had seen and heard nothing, although the W/T cabin had kept up its usual listening watch of static and garbled signals in a dozen codes and languages. But for them it was a limbo, a nothing of choppy water and no horizon, low cloud and a strange hazy light. But for the breeze it could be humid, he thought.

  Dundas joined him on the bridge and followed his gaze astern. The next boat back there was Willy Walker’s, code name Harrier. The others were already merging into shadow, losing their rakish identity.

  Devane glanced at his watch. Soon now. The Russian vessels would be curving away northwards to close the land. God, he hoped Orel knew what he was doing and was not relying too much on the German obsession for punctuality.

  He thought about his own command. Five of the best MTBs available. Between them they could muster ten torpedoes and the firepower of a warship a dozen times their size.

  Dundas handed his mug to the boatswain’s mate and said, ‘This motion is making me dizzy.’

  Devane glanced at him. ‘But you were in the merchant service?’

  Dundas grinned. ‘Yes. A million years ago. I’d just got my ticket. Never thought I’d end up in a little wooden box like this!’

  ‘What about Seymour?’

  Dundas replied, ‘He’s going to publish the great novel one day. Used to write for a living. Damn useful to have around. I’m hopeless at writing reports.’

  A brilliant light stabbed across the water, and Leading Signalman Carroll said, ‘The signal, sir! They’re up and away!’

  Devane nodded. ‘Thanks.’

  A second earlier and Carroll would not have been on the bridge, nor was he required just yet. But he had already proved his worth and would make a fine yeoman of signals one day. He had already mentioned that if he survived the war he would try to sign on in the Navy. Dundas had shared the confidence on the passage to Tuapse.

  When Devane had asked what the signalman had been before the war, Dundas had replied, ‘A baker’s roundsman, sir.’

  To see him now, glasses trained on the departing Russian flotilla, one of any warship’s key ratings, it was difficult to visualize Carroll with a horse and cart, a basket of bread on his arm.

  Dundas said, ‘Shall I keep the guns covered, sir?’ He flinched as Devane looked at him. ‘I mean, there’s not much chance of us being pounced on.’

  Devane smiled. ‘Probably not. But we’ll go to action stations as planned. Never mind the grumbles. Go round yourself and check that there are extra magazines for the Oerlikons and plenty of spare belts for the MGs.’ He peered over the screen and saw the crouching shape of Leading Torpedoman Kirby groping down the length of the starboard tube. ‘Another early bird, I see.’ He clapped Dundas on the shoulder. ‘You’ve done a fine job. I’m just going below to look at the chart again. Tell the journalist to take over the con, will you?’

  He went down to the chartroom, now empty of sleeping bodies, and stooped over the table with its notebooks and pencilled calculations.

  Dundas found that he was still staring at the chartroom ladder when Seymour arrived to relieve him.

  It was not merely that Devane had congratulated him for the boat’s efficiency, Dundas had become good at his job and knew it better than most. But it had suddenly occurred to him that Richie had never praised anyone as far as he could remember.

  Seymour asked politely, ‘Something bothering you. Number One?’

  Dundas grinned. ‘Only my wasted youth, David. Nothing important.’

  An hour later, as the five MTBs closed up at action stations, Devane said, ‘We will alter course now. Steer north by east. Revolutions for twenty knots. Warn the engine room.’ He could feel them staring at him through the darkness. ‘Tell the W/T cabin to inform the flotilla, separate acknowledgements too. After this we’ll keep absolute silence.’

  Dundas spoke first. ‘But isn’t that against what the Russians want us to do, sir?’

  Devane climbed on to the gratings and gripped the screen with his gloved hands.

  ‘Pass the word through the boat. Prepare for immediate action.’

  He heard Dundas’s feet clattering down the short ladder from the bridge, a voice yelling orders from rig
ht aft.

  As the throttles were opened and the bows rose in response to the sudden surge of power, Tom Pellegrine, the coxswain, gripped the wheel and rocked back on his heels as if he were riding and not steering the boat.

  Almost to himself he muttered, ‘Knew it. Knew somethin’ was bloody wrong!’

  5

  The Glory Boys

  Devane glanced up at the sky and saw the glimmer of stars through some fast-moving cloud. It was colder. He shivered as spray dashed over the bridge screen and pricked his skin. Or was it? Maybe his nerves were playing up.

  He turned, angry with himself. ‘Stop engines. Do your stuff, Bunts.’

  As Carroll blinked his shaded light astern, and the signal was briefly repeated down the hidden line of boats, Devane felt the pressure of the voicepipes pushing against his ribs as the motors faded into silence and the MTB rolled forward for a moment longer on her own thrust.

  The motors’ silence seemed deafening, while the inboard noises of creaks and groans rising to meet the sluice of water against the hull sounded loud enough to wake the dead.

  Devane gripped the rail and held his watch to his eyes. The times he had done this in the past. He could even remember his first commanding officer ordering a shutdown of motors in the North Sea. The oppressive silence. The ridiculous feeling of vulnerability, when to stop and listen nearly always gave you an advantage.

  The boat lifted and rolled in protest, the signal halliards and bridge fittings joining in with their own particular chorus.

  Here and there a man shifted restlessly at his station, while from aft came the unmistakable murmur as the twin Oerlikons swung from quarter to quarter.

  Devane heard the chartroom door open and close, and then Dundas loomed up beside him. Even he dropped his voice, as if he expected somebody to be listening beyond the pitching hull.

  ‘I’ve checked our position again. Even allowing for dead reckoning, I think we’re just about where you wanted to be.’ He sounded uneasy, doubtful perhaps of Devane’s decision. ‘The coast is approximately eight miles to the north of us. The Russians should be nearer and to the north-east. Maybe the convoy didn’t come? Or that bloody Orel has lost it?’ He sounded as if hoped it was the latter.

  Devane did not reply immediately. He was seeing it in his mind, a triangle on a chart. The blacked-out convoy, Orel’s ten antiquated vessels, and Parthian, stopped and drifting while every man in the flotilla probably thought he was raving mad to hang about rather than obey orders and hold to seaward of the Russians.

  There was a chorus of gasps as the sky lit up to a brilliant white glare, followed instantly by faster, more deadly red flashes.

  Seymour said, ‘They’ve found ’em.’ Even he sounded disappointed. ‘God, they’ve caught Jerry with his pants down by the look of it!’

  The sounds seemed to take a long time to reach the drifting boats, and then Devane heard the dull boom of explosions, the vague, scratchy rattle of machine-guns. More star shells drifted eerily beneath the clouds, so that the sky appeared brighter than the sea below.

  Devane gripped the screen to contain his nerves. That too was an illusion. Somewhere out there Orel’s boats were darting amongst the convoy like wolves, and to them the sea and the careering ships would be like a stark moonscape.

  Orel was not having it all his own way, and Devane heard the occasional bang of a heavier gun as the transports’ armament fired back. The hollow, lifeless thuds which came against the MTB’s wooden hull like padded fists were exploding depth charges. Orel was using them like mines, hurling them beneath the slower moving supply vessels as he surged past.

  Dundas raised his mouth from a voicepipe. ‘Nothing from W/T. Orel doesn’t need us anyway.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘And won’t he crow about that!’

  Pellegrine turned on his heels, his hands still gripping the wheel’s spokes as if the boat was sweeping through the water.

  ‘Sir!’ His voice sounded hoarse and urgent.

  Devane moved to his side and touched the coxswain’s arm. Another veteran. Pellegrine had understood.

  ‘I know, Swain!’ Devane felt the icy fingers playing on his spine, the sudden rawness in his throat.

  There it was. The unmistakable thrum . . . thrum . . . thrum of heavy diesels. E-boats, a whole bloody bunch of them, coming up fast astern of their convoy, judging to the minute what they thought the most dangerous part of the journey had to be.

  They had probably fuelled at Sevastapol or Nikolayev to give them plenty of scope for manoeuvre.

  Orel and his mixed collection of gunboats were making such a din they would hear nothing, until it was too late.

  Devane saw faces lifting from gun mountings and hatchways, pale blobs as they came to listen to the distant, threatening roar of engines.

  All down the line of MTBs they would be listening, searching their feelings, preparing themselves. Unlike most flotillas, there were more veterans here than new volunteers. Even a single year in coastal forces made you a professional.

  But sometimes the new hands were the lucky ones, Devane thought. They did not know what to expect. If you had lived through one action after another you could know too much, find too many options.

  Pellegrine said in a whisper, ‘They’re crossin’ our bows now, sir. I reckon ‘bout two miles. No more.’

  Devane nodded. ‘Good lad. I agree.’

  He spoke over his shoulder, hoping that Seymour was listening. ‘Pass the word, David. We shall be attacking in line abreast. Gun action.’

  He heard Seymour move away, and added for the bridge’s benefit, ‘Jerry is stalking his kill, he’ll not expect a kick up the backside!’

  An unknown voice murmured, ‘We hope!’

  The deck lifted sluggishly, and Devane felt the force of water under the keel like a surfacing whale. The combined wakes of the enemy vessels had reached his flotilla, a miniature tidal wave. So they were well past now.

  He said, ‘We shall steer north-east. Maximum revs.’

  He craned forward, his head turned to catch the last of the sound from the enemy’s engines.

  Feet shuffled behind him, and on the power-operated six-pounder he heard the clink of steel as the gun-layer tested his sights yet again.

  ‘Right.’ Devane held out his hand and felt the leading signalman place the microphone firmly in his palm. Like a surgeon receiving the vital instruments, he thought vaguely.

  He glanced at Dundas. ‘Start up!’

  He snapped down the button and pictured the other four skippers listening for his command.

  ‘Parthian! Nuts ahead! Line abreast to starboard! Tally-ho!’

  The motors, already hot, roared into life, and as Pellegrine spun his wheel, his head bowed to peer at the dimly lit compass, Devane heard the responding thunder from the other boats as they surged forward, swinging steeply from line astern to form up abeam of their leader.

  Devane clutched the voicepipes for support, feeling the wind in his face as the torn spindrift came back from the bows like ragged arrows. Everything was shaking and rattling wildly, and he could sense the wildness around him like a rising madness.

  Faster, faster. The revolutions were still mounting, and Devane could not imagine how the engineering staff below decks, some bent double like old men, could put up with the din which would blot out any warning of danger.

  The clouds blinked in reflected flashes, and Devane saw a combined web of scarlet tracer arching from the E-boats before tearing down towards their quarry. Bright, livid explosions, more tracer going anywhere as the Russians realized what was happening. Fires leapt seemingly out of the sea itself as one, then two hidden vessels erupted into flames, spilling blazing fuel into the night like molten metal.

  Devane ignored the quick intakes of breath and Carroll’s ‘Christ Almighty!’

  Men were burning and dying, but his mind was concentrated on the dancing reflections, against which the E-boats stood out as starkly as if it were broad daylight.

  He shouted
, ‘Open fire!’

  Carroll yelled at him, ‘W/T have received a signal from the Ruskies, sir! Require assistance!’

  ‘Right on cue!’

  Devane watched the two boats to starboard as they opened up on the wedgelike shapes ahead. The Russians were asking for help, although if he had obeyed Orel’s orders they would all have been dead before the MTBs could reach them.

  The bridge shook violently as the six-pounder cracked out for the first time, joined immediately by the machine-guns on either side. It was enough to blind and deafen you. The spitting threads of tracer, the drifting fireballs of the cannon shells, all drawing together and tearing at the enemy hulls like saws.

  There were four large E-boats, and the one on Devane’s port bow was weaving from side to side as if already out of control. One of her consorts was faring even worse, her low bridge and after deck spurting sparks and smoke.

  Devane ducked as the weaving E-boat exploded with one tremendous flash. Pieces rained out of the sky, and feathers of spray shot up alongside as some of the fragments bracketed the MTB like gunfire.

  Dundas gasped, ‘She must have been carrying mines! Hell, what a shambles!’

  The two E-boats still unscathed were already coming about, firing blindly, their accuracy hampered by the drifting smoke.

  Devane watched a line of tracer balls rising very slowly until as they reached their final curve they swept down towards him like comets. He heard metal hit metal and a man cry out as something smashed into the hull below the port torpedo tube.

  To make his challenge the enemy captain had turned nearly one hundred and eighty degrees.

  The third MTB, Red Mackay’s, roared out of the smoke, every gun firing, as the German presented his undefended side for just two precious minutes. Fragments flew from the E-boat and tracer shells rippled along her hull and bridge, crossing with those from Devane’s boat in a tornado of steel and high explosive.

  ‘Stand by, depth charges!’ Devane clutched the screen to stay on his feet. ‘Hard a-port!’