Dive in the Sun (3 page)

Roberts, the diver, had given them a shaky grin and slithered into the Wet and Dry compartment and out through the hastily flooded hatch, and within seconds he was hard at work with the cutters, sawing his way through the slime-covered mesh of the net. Curtis watched him through the periscope, and saw his dim shape, with the pale blob for a face, twisting and turning, back and forth across the hull, barely visible in the dark gloom of forty feet of water. The patrol boat had found them just as the last strand was cut, and they heard the sharp ping of the submarine-detector echo against the hull as the invisible boat moved into the attack.

They had done this thing many times before, in many parts of the enemy’s waters, but this time the diver was practically exhausted and had hardly the strength to pull himself back to the safety of the hatch.

Nearer and nearer thundered the racing engine of the attacking boat, and his scalp had tingled with the agony of suspense as he imagined the depth charges waiting to plummet down on to a trapped, unmoving target.

It was then that his last reserve had snapped and he gave Duncan the order to go ahead.

The midget submarine moved reluctantly from the pile of severed mesh, the ragged, knife-like ends clawing scratchily along the hull, screeching and moaning. Or perhaps it was Roberts crying out as the strands of wire ripped open his suit and carried his writhing body down to the bottom of the harbour.

The submarine had escaped, the supply ship blew up, and Curtis and the others were commended.

But somewhere at the bottom of that far-off-harbour, between the twisted metal of the sunken supply ship and the tattered diving suit, Curtis’s courage and confidence lay as surely as dead men.

There was a dull, metallic thud overhead, as the deck party prepared to lever the rubber dinghy out of the opened hatch, and Curtis heard the muffled bark of orders, and knew that at
any
second he would be required to show himself to the others.

As if in answer to his racing thoughts the curtain twitched to one side, and Jervis, his pink face gleaming with excitement, looked over the side of the bunk.

‘All ready to go, sir,’ his voice shook breathlessly. ‘The captain says he’s ready to put us across to our midget!’

Curtis swallowed hard and pressed his lips into a thin line in an effort to remove the loose feeling from his mouth. He tried not to stare at the boy’s eager face, and instead began to fumble with his clothing and boots.

‘Very good. I … I’ll come at once.’

He watched Jervis’s retreating back, and heavily lowered his body on to the deck. His legs shook, and he put his hand on the littered table to steady himself.

Fool, fool! He cursed desperately and silently, the hidden words welling up within him like a bursting flood. Go ahead and tell them you can’t go! You’re washed up—finished!

He looked round wildly and unseeing at the deserted wardroom with its abandoned belongings, garish pin-ups, and dirty crockery. Even that place seemed like a sanctuary.

The towing submarine’s commander peered round the door, his eyes watching Curtis bleakly.

‘All set? Anything I can do to help?’ His tired voice was friendly, and Curtis pulled himself together with a tremendous effort.

‘Thank you, I’m ready,’ he heard himself answer. ‘I’ll leave now.’

As he followed the other officer across the gleaming control-room, he caught vague and disjointed glimpses of the silent seamen at their stations, the First Lieutenant beside the coxswain, and friendly, unspoken messages which were passed by their sleep-starved eyes.

He glanced round blankly. ‘Where’s my Number One and the others?’

‘Already on deck by the dinghy.’ The submarine commander’s answer was short, and Curtis detected the urgency in his tone.

Wants to get rid of us, he thought bitterly. It was no joke
for
the other man to have his ship lying on the surface, with its main hatch open and unable to dive. He wanted to get down again, and sneak away from the coast.

Curtis lifted one foot to the bottom rung of the long brass ladder, which snaked straight up the tunnel of the dark conning-tower. His legs felt like lead, and the knuckles of his hands gleamed pale as he gripped the ladder with sudden desperation.

He lifted his head and stared up at the tiny oval sky and the few stars which swam back and forth across the gently rolling conning-tower. He wanted to cry out, to die—anything; but instead he just stared at the faint stars, realizing at that instant that everything had suddenly become hopeless.

‘Are you all right, old man?’ The voice was practically in his ear.

Curtis didn’t turn his head. He dare not meet the other man’s eyes. He nodded dumbly and began to climb.

The stench of diesel fumes faded, and the salt air bit across his face as he hauled himself on to the bridge.

He began to climb down the side of the salt-caked conning-tower on to the casing, where a huddled group of figures wrestled with the rubber dinghy.

‘See you at the rendezvous! Good hunting!’ The submarine commander’s voice was distant and already belonged to another world.

Duncan’s teeth gleamed in the darkness. ‘Well, here we go again, Ralph! Four against the flamin’ world!’

‘Our gear has been sent across in the dinghy, Skipper.’ Jervis was already slithering into the little rubber boat. ‘I’m really bucked to be going back to our little midget again!’ He laughed and jumped down into the boat.

Taylor followed him silently and with casual ease, his feet hardly touching the lapping water.

Duncan gripped Curtis’s sleeve in the darkness. ‘I’ll tell you now, Ralph, I think this deal is crook! But as it’s you I’m goin’ with, well …’ he shrugged expressively, ‘I’m not too worried!’

Curtis followed him over the side, his body hunched and
loose
in the bottom of the dinghy. He hardly noticed their short journey, hand over hand along the tow-rope, and when he stared up at the small, slime-covered hull of his command, he shuddered, his mind still unwilling to accept the fact that he was beaten.

They scrambled up on to the tiny casing, pausing only for brief handshakes with the three members of the passage-crew who had steered the little boat behind its big sister during the crossing, and then squeezed themselves through the circular hatch into their familiar surroundings.

Curtis remained on deck, and waited until the dinghy had been hauled aboard the other boat, and then slipped the towing wire. He heard the hatch shut, and then the thud of feet as the gun’s crew ran below. With a roar like a sounding whale, the air hissed out of the big submarine’s tanks as the hungry water surged in.

Curtis strained his eyes through the gloom, trying to capture the picture of the diving, black hull. A gleam of phosphorescence danced along her jumping wire and played briefly around the dripping gun muzzle, and then she was gone. Not one ripple or tremor remained to mark her passage, not even the probing periscope showed itself to ease the ache of his loneliness and fear.

He staggered as a roller lifted the little boat under his feet, and he groped his way towards the after hatch. As he lowered himself down he allowed his gaze to fasten on the forward hatch. The diver’s entrance and exit. In his mind’s eye he saw again the twisting figure and the distorted face which he had watched through his periscope. It was the same hatch, and this is the same boat, he told himself. Only I am different.

The hatch thudded over his head. They had started.

DUNCAN WHISTLED SOFTLY
to himself as he groped his way with practised caution through the maze of equipment of the midget submarine’s tiny control-room and ducked his head
tightly
into his shoulders to avoid the low, curving deckhead, which was already streaming with condensation, the rough paintwork glistening with a thousand tiny rivers. Once aboard, some of his gnawing irritation and pessimism had dropped away, and for a few moments he busied himself checking the pumping system and hydroplane controls, his movements and observations automatic and thorough. He eased his powerful frame into his seat at the rear of the control-room, and allowed his eyes to wander for a while over the small boat’s nerve-centre, pondering on the fates and the perversity of his own nature which had made him take such bitter discomfort in exchange for the rolling freedom of his father’s farm.

Taylor was already seated forward, his hands resting lightly on the shining wheel, apparently studying the smooth dial of the gyro compass. Heaven alone knew what he was thinking about. Duncan could only see the back of his small head, but he could well imagine the man’s quiet, secret smile and dark eyes, as he sat waiting to steer the submarine on its mission.

Jervis was grim-faced, his unformed features set in a determined stamp as he leaned uncomfortably across the chart table, dealing with his additional duty of navigator.

Behind his back, Duncan sensed, rather than heard, the soft purr of the main motor as it sent little pulse-beats throbbing through the toughened plating.

Forward of the control-room, and separated by a watertight door, was the tiny, cramped compartment known as the “Wet and Dry”, in which and from where, the diver left and entered the hull.

Duncan watched Jervis’s tight lips musingly, and wondered how he would measure up to the job under actual working conditions. It would be a bit different from the training depot.

Beyond the “W and D” compartment there was one further space, where the batteries were housed, and where one man could sleep in comparative comfort. Not much of a ship, he thought, but with two-ton amatol charges which were slung on either side of the hull, like saddlebags on a mule, she was a match for the biggest units of any navy, as the
Tirpitz
had discovered to her cost.

The hatch clanged shut as Curtis slithered down on to the deck and rammed home the clips.

Duncan watched him through narrowed eyes as he leafed quickly through the rough log left behind by the passage crew.

Thank God old Ralph’s aboard anyway, he mused. He smiled inwardly as Curtis ducked under the small periscope dome in the deckhead, the only place in the boat where a man could stand practically upright. The familiar, automatic motions took some of the edge from his mind, and made even the present risk seem almost commonplace.

Curtis caught his eye and smiled quickly, the corners of his mouth flicking upwards in a tight grimace. He’s edgy, too, then. Or was that other business still worrying him? Duncan eyed his captain coolly.

‘Here we go again,’ he drawled. ‘Another flamin’ lesson in tactics!’

‘Everything checked?’ Curtis stared at him for several seconds as if weighing up his First Lieutenant’s words to find some hidden meaning.

‘Sure, Ralph, everything’s all set. Let’s go an’ hunt for that little floating dock!’

Jervis twisted round at the chart table. ‘Do
you
think it’s all a waste of time, Skipper? I mean about our going after the dock and everything. Steve says it’s too late in the campaign to matter!’

Curtis spun round suddenly, his eyes blazing. ‘For God’s sake keep your crazy ideas to yourself, Number One! There’ll be enough for all of us to do as it is, without you preaching about how the damned war should be won!’

The sudden flare of rage seemed to drag the energy from his taut body, and he staggered slightly to the boat’s uneasy roll.

Duncan shrugged and stared woodenly at the deckhead. ‘Sorry, Ralph. I didn’t know you felt so strongly about it. Forget it!’ He grinned, but inwardly the nagging feeling that Curtis had changed came back more strongly than before. So he
was
jittery. I’ll have to keep an eye on him for a bit, he thought.

Curtis nodded vaguely, already thinking of something else. ‘Right, let’s get started!’ His voice was dull.

He stared round the control-room, as if seeing it for the first time, and for a moment Duncan thought he was going to falter. When their eyes met again he saw that some of the old light had returned and the gaze was steady and resolved.

‘Dive, dive, dive. Thirty feet. Eight-five-oh revolutions.’ The orders rolled off his tongue as he stood in the centre of their little private world. They all depended on him from that moment until they reached safety again—or died.

‘Check the trim, Steve. Let me know when you’re quite satisfied.’

Duncan relaxed in his chair, his grin wider. ‘Aye, aye, sir!’

He wrestled with the hydroplane control as Taylor eased open the main vent valves and allowed the water to surge into the tanks, forcing out the air with a subdued roar.

Jervis started, and then crouched down again across his chart, and as Curtis looked across at Duncan he nodded silently.

Duncan winked back. ‘He’ll do, Skipper,’ he said cheerfully.

The Australian’s big hands grappled again with the pumping controls until at length he was satisfied that the boat was perfectly trimmed and the tell-tale bubble of the inclinometer rested quiet and motionless. Until that operation was complete nothing could be attempted or carried out in safety by any of them.

‘Craft trimmed for diving,’ he said at length.

‘Right. Take her back to periscope depth, Number One.’ The boat rose easily and unhurriedly, and Curtis raised the slim periscope and tested it in every direction.

As he pressed his forehead against the cool pad, his eye projected over and across the black, silent wave-tops, he wondered how he had managed to get through the last few minutes. Minutes? It was like a lifetime.

It had been a near thing when Duncan had started to needle him, and what at any other time would have seemed the normal pre-operational banter had suddenly developed
into
something terribly important and infuriating. Supposing Jervis had been panicked by Duncan’s words? Suppose it started to prey on his mind, as it was on his own? He felt a rivulet of sweat trickle down his neck, and he gripped the periscope-guide with sudden fear. The boy must be scared enough anyway, he thought, without being sparked into doing something foolish at the wrong moment.