He went back into the pilot-house forcing himself to be calm; it was helpful to be greeted by the talker’s monotonous voice.
“Sonar reports contacts confused.”
Sonar down below was doing its job in an orderly fashion, whether ignorant or not of all the things that were going on topside.
“Meet her! Steady as you go!“
He was judging Dodge’s course by eye, and trying to anticipate the sub’s next move.
“Dicky to George! Dicky to George!”
“George to Dicky. Go ahead.”
“We’ve no contact, sir. Must be too close.”
Yesterday that situation would have called instantly for a full pattern of depth-charges; today there was no question of wasting all Dodge’s remaining offensive power on the ten-to-one chance that the sub was near enough within the possible three-hundred-yard circle to receive damage.
“Hold your present course. I’ll cross your stem.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Left standard rudder! Meet her! Steady as you go!“
“Steady on course - - “ said the helmsman; Krause had no ears for the figures; he was planning to pass across Dodge’s wake sufficiently far from her to give his sonar a chance to pick up an echo from the sub; Dodge would be going twice as fast as the sub, so that was the area to search. With a jammed plane the sub could with care manage to keep submerged by trimming her ballast tanks; even below the surface she might manage to clear . . .
“George! George! Here he is!”
Krause looked forward over the starboard bow at Dodge. There was nothing to see except the little ship steaming along apparently peacefully.
“Too close!” said the T.B.S., and at the same time through the ear-phones came the sound of gunfire, echoed a second later over the air. Dodge was turning rapidly to port. Guns were firing; over the water came the sound of small-calibre machine-guns. Round came Dodge. Grey against her grey side was something else, the surfaced U-boat, bow to stern with her, circling as she circled, each ship chasing the other’s tail. As Dodge came broadside on to Krause’s view a great red eye opened in Dodge’s side and winked once at Krause. A pillar of water rose in the sea half-way between them; something black shot out of the base of the pillar, turning end-over-end with incredible rapidity, rising out of Krause’s sight and roaring overhead with a sound like the fastest underground train ever heard. Dodge had banged off her four-inch at extreme depression and the shell had ricochetted from the surface, luckily bouncing high enough to pass over Keeling. Hard to blame the gunners; with Dodge turning so rapidly and Keeling crossing her stern the situation was changing so rapidly they could not have guessed that Keeling would come into the line of fire.
Other bangs, other rattles, as the ships wheeled. The U-boat captain must have despaired of effecting a repair and come to the surface to fight it out. Close alongside Dodge, his men must have run to their guns over the streaming decks as she emerged. And, closer to the surface than Dodge’s gun, her gun would bear on Dodge’s loftier side while Dodge’s gun would not depress sufficiently. And what would that four-inch do to that fragile little ship?
In a moment, it seemed, they had turned the half-circle and Dodge’s bow and the U-boat’s stern were presented to Krause’s view; already the U-boat was disappearing behind Dodge on the other side.
“Right full rudder!” said Krause. He had been so fascinated by the sight that he was allowing Keeling to steam straight on away from the fight. “Meet her! Steady as you go! “
“Steady on course - - “
“Very well Captain to gunnery control. ‘Stand by until you have a chance at a clear shot.’ “
A sudden flare-up forward in Dodge; smoke pouring from her below her bridge. The U-boat had scored one hit at least. The embattled ships were coming round again, and he was going in the opposite direction, hovering on the outskirts like a distracted old lady whose pet dog had engaged in a fight with another dog.
“Gunnery control answers ‘Aye aye, sir.’ “
He must get clear, turn, and come in again. With cool judgment and accurate timing he could break into the battle. He would have to ram, picking the U-boat off Dodge’s side as he might pick off a tick. It would be a tricky thing to do. And he might easily tear the bottom out of Keeling, but it was worth trying, even in the face of that probability. They were turning counter-clockwise; best if he came in counter-clockwise too. That would give him more chance.
“Left standard rudder! Meet her! Steady as you go! “
Endless seconds as Keeling drew away from the fight. He had to allow himself sufficient distance to time his run-in. Krause watched the increasing distance. He had his glasses to his eyes; as they came round again he could see the figures on the U-boat’s deck; he saw two of them drop suddenly, inert, as bullets hit them.
“Left full rudder!” Long, long seconds as Keeling turned with exasperating slowness.
“Meet her!”
As Krause braced himself to make the run-in the situation changed in a flash. Keyed up and eager, watching through his glasses to time his movement exactly, he saw Dodge’s bow seemingly waver in the smoke that surrounded it. It was ceasing to turn to port. Compton-Clowes was putting his wheel over. The deduction exploded a further series of reactions on Krause’s part.
“Right standard rudder! Captain to gunnery control. ‘Stand by for target on port beam.’ Meet her! Steady as you go! Steady!”
Keeling’s turn to starboard presented her whole port side to Dodge and the sub All five five-inch guns came training round as she turned, and at the same instant the sub with her wheel hard over and taken momentarily by surprise by Dodge’s abrupt alteration of rudder diverged from her. Ten yards--twenty yards--fifty yards of clear water divided the two ships, and before the U-boat could turn back into the sheltering embrace of her enemy the five-inch opened, like a peal of thunder in the next room, shaking Keeling’s hull as a fit of coughing will shake a man’s body. The sea seemed suddenly to pile up around the grey U-boat, the splashes were so close and so continuous around her; it was as if there was a hillock of water there, with the square grey bridge only dimly to be seen in the heart of it like an object in a glass paper-weight --and, in the heart of it, too, over and over again, a momentary orange glare as a shell burst. Also in the heart of it showed momentarily a vivid red disc, just once. Through the noise of the gunfire and the vibration of the recoil Krause heard a rending crash and felt Keeling undergo a violent shock which made everyone on the bridge stagger; a shock wave like a sudden breath passed into and out of the pilot-house. And before they had steadied themselves the guns fell silent, ending their fire abruptly, so that Krause was conscious of a moment’s unnatural silence, just long enough for him to feel fear lest the main armament had somehow been put out of action. But a glance reassured him. The U-boat was gone. There was nothing in the foaming water over there. The eye-pieces of the binoculars which he raised again to his eyes beat against his eyelashes until he forced his hands to quiet themselves. Nothing? Surely there were some things floating there. And something came and went, came and went again; not strange-shaped wave-tops but two huge bubbles bursting in succession on the surface.
In that moment the unnatural silence was ended and Krause became conscious of sounds close beside him, snap-pings and hangings, and voices. From the wing of the bridge he looked down aft, and what he saw first was a bird’s nest of twisted iron seen dimly through smoke. It was an effort to recall what he should have seen there. The port-side 20-mm. gun tub just abaft the stack was gone, gone. Below it the deck was riven and twisted, with smoke eddying from it, and at the root of the smoke a glimmer of flame visible in the pale daylight, and, just beyond, the torpedoes in their quadruple mount with their brassy warheads. There shot up in Krause’s mind the recollection of the Dahlgren experiment just before the war when it was proved--to the satisfaction of all except those who died-- that TNT. detonated after a few minutes’ steady cooking.
Petty, the
damage-control officer, hatless and excited, was running to the spot with a team following him. He should not have left his central post. They were dragging hoses. Krause remembered suddenly what there was stored there.
“Belay those hoses!“ he bellowed. “That’s gasoline! Use foam!”
One hundred gallons of gasoline in two fifty-gallon drums, for the motor whale-boat which Keeling carried. Krause swore a bitter vow that in future he would have a Diesel boat, or else no boat at all; at any rate no gasoline.
Those drums must have burst and the fiery stuff was spreading. The flames were reaching eagerly for the torpedoes.
“Jettison those fish!“ hailed Krause.
“Aye aye, sir,” answered Petty, looking up at him, but Krause doubted if he had understood what had been said. The flames were roaring up. Flint, the ageing Chief recalled from Fleet Reserve, was there and looked more sensible.
The convoy was perilously near. He did not dare launch live torpedoes. Krause had been a destroyer officer most of his professional life; for years he had lived with torpedoes in consequence, visualizing their use in every possible situation--save perhaps this one. The old dreams of charging in upon a column of battleships for a torpedo attack had no place here. But at least he was familiar with every detail of the handling of torpedoes.
“Flint!” he yelled, and Flint looked up at him. “Jettison those fish! Get rid of ‘em! Launch ‘em dead! Lift the tripping latches first!“
Flint understood him. He had not been able to think for himself, but he could act when someone thought for him. He sprang through the edge of the flames on to the mount, and went steadily from tube to tube carrying out his instructions. The lifted tripping latches would not engage the torpedo starting lever when the tubes were fired. Tonk! A dull noise, a puff of smoke, and the first torpedo plunged over the side like a swimmer starting a race, but only to dive straight down to the bottom. Tonk! That was the second. Then the third. Then the fourth. They were all gone now. Fifty thousand dollars’ worth of torpedoes tossed deliberately to the bottom of the Atlantic.
“Well done!“ said Krause.
The flames were bursting up through the holes in the deck, but one young seaman--in his cold-weather clothes Krause could not determine his rate, but he could recognize him and would remember him --had a foam nozzle in each hand and was playing on the flames from the very edge of the blaze. Other nozzles were appearing now and he could be sure the fire would be smothered. He weighed in his mind the proximity of number three gun-mount’s handling-room. No. That was safe. He had many other things to think about. It was only three and a half minutes since the gunfire had ceased, but he had been improperly employed luring that time doing his damage control officer’s work. He looked round at Dodge and at the convoy and plunged into the pilot-house.
“Dicky on the T.B.S., sir,” said Nystrom,
There was long enough to note that Nystrom was steady, pop-eyes and all. His manner still had the faintly apologetic flavour that characterized it at other times and might excite prejudice against him.
“George to Dicky. Go ahead.”
“Submit we turn in to look for survivors, sir,” said the T.B.S.
“Very well. Permission granted. What is your damage?”
“We’ve lost our gun, sir. Our four-inch. Seven dead and some wounded. He hit us right on the mount.”
“What other damage ?’’
“Nothing serious, sir. Most of his shells went right through without exploding.”
At twenty yards’ range those German four-inch would be travelling at practically muzzle velocity. They would be liable to go right through unless they hit something solid like a gun-mount.
“We have our fires under control, sir,” went on the T.B.S. “I think I can report definitely that they are extinguished.”
“Are you seaworthy?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Seaworthy enough with the weather moderating. And we’ll have the holes patched in a brace of shakes.”
“Seaworthy but not battleworthy,” said Krause.
Those words would have had a dramatic, heroic ring if it had not been Krause who said them in his flat voice.
“Oh, we’ve still got our Bofors, sir, and we’ve two depth-charges left.”
“Very well.”
“We’re going into the oil, sir. Enormous pool of it--it’ll reach you soon I should think, sir.”
“Yes, I can see it.” So he could, a circular sleek area where no wave-top was white.
“Any wreckage.”
“There’s a swimmer, sir. We’ll get him in a minute. Yes, sir, and there are some fragments. Can’t see what they are from here, sir, but we’ll pick them up. It’ll all be evidence, sir. We got him all right.”
“We sure did.”
“Any orders, sir?”
Orders. With one battle finished he had to make arrangements for the next. He might be plunged into another action during the next ten seconds.
“I’d like to send you home,” said Krause.
“Sir!“ said the T.B.S. reproachfully.
Compton-Clowes knew as much about escorting convoys as he did, probably more even despite his recent intensive experiences. Nothing could be spared, not even a battered little ship armed with Bofors and two depth-charges.
“Well, take up your screening station as soon as you’ve picked up the evidence.”
“Aye aye, sir. We’re getting a line to the swimmer now, sir.”
“Very well. You know your orders about him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Instructions regarding the treatment of survivors from U-boats were quite detailed; Naval Intelligence needed every scrap of information that could be gleaned from them. Possession had to be taken immediately of every scrap of paper in any survivor’s pocket before it could be destroyed. Any information volunteered was to be carefully noted.
“Over,” said Krause.
The spreading oil had reached Keeling now. The raw smell of it was apparent to everyone’s nostrils. There could be no doubt about the destruction of the U-boat. She was gone, and forty or fifty Germans with her. The Nazi captain had died like a man, even if--as was Iikely-- it was a mere mechanical failure for which as captain he was responsible, which had prevented him from diving. He had fought it out to the end, doing all the damage he could. Through Krause’s mind drifted the unsummoned hope that if he had to die he would die in a like fashion although in a better cause, but he would not allow his mind to dwell on such time-wasting aspirations. On the surface the U-boat had fought a good fight, handled superbly, far better than she had been handled under water. That might be a trifle of evidence for Naval Intelligence--the U-boat captain might be a surface ship officer given command of a submarine after insufficient underwater training and experience Discipline in the U-boat had endured to the end. That last shot she fired, the one that had hit Keeling, had been fired by someone with a cool head and iron nerve. Amid that hell of bursting shells, probably with the training mechanism jammed, he had caught Keeling in his sights while the U-boat turned and had pressed the firing pedal as his last act before his death The dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.
Those dead were in Keeling and he had stood here idle for several seconds when there was so much to be done. Out on to the wing of the bridge to look down on the scene of the damage. The fire was out; patches of foam were still to be seen drifting about the deck with the movement of the ship. Petty was still there.
“Go back to your post, Mr Petty, and let’s have your report.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The ship’s damage-control system had not stood the test of war; he would have to take some action about that. Two seamen were making their way past the shattered part of the deck carrying a stretcher between them; fastened into it was an inert shape. Storekeeper Third Class Meyer. Down to the loudspeaker.
“This is the Captain. We got that U-boat. The oil from her is all round us now. Dodge has picked up a surviv
or. We hit her a dozen times with the five-inch. And he hit us. We’ve lost some shipmates. Some have been hard hit.” The sentences were dragging. It was hard to make his mind think of suitable things to say. “It was in the line of their duty. And we’ll make the next U-boat pay for them. We’ve still a long way to go. Keep on your toes.”
It was not a good speech. Krause was no orator, and now once more he was, without realizing it, in the throes of reaction after the extreme tension of the battle, and his fatigue accentuated the reaction. Inside his clothes he was cold and yet sweating. He knew that if he relaxed for a second he would be shivering--trembling. On the bulkhead beside the loudspeaker hung a small mirror, a relic of peacetime days. He did not recognize the face in it--he gave it a second glance for that very reason.
The eyes were big and staring and rimmed with red. The unbuttoned hood hung down beside cheeks that were sprouting with bristles. He still did not think of it as his face until he observed at the base of one nostril a dab of filth--relics of the mayonnaise that had been smeared there so long ago. And there was yellow egg on his chin. He wiped at it with his gloved hand. All round his bristly lips he was filthy. He needed to wash, he needed a bath and a shave, he needed--there was no end to the list of what he needed, and it was no use thinking about it. He dragged himself back into the pilot-house and sank down on to his stool, once more commanding his tired body not to tremble. Next? He still had to go on. The sonar was still pinging; the Atlantic was still full of enemies.
“Mr Nystrom, take the conn.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Take station to patrol ahead of the convoy.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Petty giving his damage report. Watching Petty’s face as he spoke, concentrating his attention. This was the first time Petty had been tested in action, and it was not fair to judge him finally; and he must put in a word of admonition, but carefully phrased as it would be in the hearing of all in the pilot-house.
“Thank you, Mr Petty. Now that you’ve had the opportunity of seeing your arrangements in action you will know what steps to take to improve them.”