‘I see that bugger Hamilton just managed to get away in the nick of time, sir,’ Forsyth said suddenly. ‘A good thing for his reputation probably,’ he added bitterly. ‘Those bloody submariners are all the same◦– all wind and bluff. I don’t see anything brave in sneaking along under the sea and torpedoing some poor bloody ship that doesn’t even know you’re there. They ought to try standing on the surface in broad daylight and fighting the enemy face to face.’
‘You don’t seem to like our friend Hamilton, Number One,’ Ottershaw observed mildly.
‘Damned newspaper hero, sir,’ Forsyth said firmly. ‘He wouldn’t have got that DSO without the help of his pals in Fleet Street. And, thanks to him, poor old Gerry Cavendish was booted out of the service.’1 Ottershaw made no comment. He did not share his executive officer’s views and he had no intention of getting involved in an argument. He had little doubt that antipathy to the submarine commander dated back to the former’s lack of initiative when Ottershaw was being held as an unwilling guest on Suma.
‘I’m bloody hungry,’ he announced without making any attempt to reply to Forsyth’s statement. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m going down to the wardroom for a quick bite. Find young Peters and tell him to take over the Watch.’ Ottershaw stopped and turned as he reached the head of the companionway. He looked at Forsyth with a cold eye. ‘And change that damned shirt before you come down for dinner, Number One. It’s filthy.’
Rapier was running submerged at half-speed steering north-east with Lantau Island to the starboard, when Hamilton came to periscope depth to obtain a fix. The very survival of the submarine could depend on accurate navigation over the next few hours and he was anxious to pinpoint their exact position while things were still quiet.
Searching along the ridged hills of the island, he found a suitable landmark and called off the bearing to Scott. ‘Ching Fort bearing zero-six-zero.’ The upper lens swiveled questioningly to the left in search of another prominent feature. ‘Castle Peak◦– zero-zero-five. Down periscope!’
Stepping back from the column, he joined Scott at the table and waited while Rapier’s navigator ruled the lines of the cross bearings onto the chart and neatly calculated the fix.
‘I’ll check Castle Peak Bay as far as Brother’s Point first,’ Hamilton explained. ‘If there’s no sign of enemy activity we’ll double back around Lantau and run up the eastern side of the island so that we can approach Hong Kong from the south-west.’
‘What then?’ Mannon asked.
Hamilton shrugged. ‘I don’t know until I’ve established the situation, Number One. If I can contact one of the gunboats and get a report, well and good. If not, we’ll have to fight our own private war. Tell Morgan and his cut throats to close up in the gun-tower. I doubt if we’ll find any targets worth wasting a torpedo on.’ He snapped his fingers at Bushby and waited for the periscope to slide upwards.
Patches of early morning mist were still rolling gently over the surface of the sea as Hamilton peered through the eye-piece, but the sun was already glinting on the rock outcrops of Castle Peak as it rose clear of the shimmering haze covering the New Territories to the east. Everything looked deceptively peaceful and, as far as he could judge, the invaders had failed to penetrate the western sector of the mainland during the night. Glimpsing something moving in the direction of Lung Kwu Chan he switched to the high magnification lens.
Circala, her white hull gleaming in the morning sun, was steaming slowly south-east in the direction of Castle Peak. Her battle flags were flying and a plume of spray whispered like silver from her bows. Hamilton could see the urgent flash of the signal lamp on her bridge and swung his lens to starboard in search of her companion. He found Firefly close inshore two miles to the eastward. Ottershaw’s ship was moving fast and the anti-aircraft gun in front of the bridge was firing at an invisible target high up in the sky. Moments later, two enormous geysers of water erupted astern of the little white gunboat and he glimpsed a Japanese dive-bomber as it flashed across Firefly’s quarterdeck and climbed for height at the end of its attack run.
Hamilton knew there was nothing he could do to help. Submarines did not usually engage aircraft unless they happened to be caught unawares on the surface and, with a fine sense of personal preservation, he decided to remain discreetly out of sight beneath the waves. The Japanese pilots would be too intent on the gunboat to spot the periscope of a submerged submarine.
‘I’ve found Firefly and Circala,’ he told Mannon. ‘Both ships bearing one point off the starboard bows at a range of four miles. They’re under attack from enemy bombers, but so far they seem to be getting the best of it.’
‘Can’t we do anything to help, sir?’
‘I’m afraid not, Number One. We wouldn’t last five minutes on the surface. We’ll just have to sit it out and see what happens. If you want to do something you could always try praying!’
It was almost an hour before the last of the Japanese bombers swung away from their targets and vanished northwards towards their airfields inside the Chinese border. During that time, Hamilton had seen them drop no fewer than fifty bombs and yet, by a miracle, neither gunboat had been hit. He could not help wondering whether Mannon had taken him at his word. Perhaps that’s what came from having a father who was a clergyman.
He waited for five minutes to make sure the attack would not be renewed and having assured himself that there was no immediate danger, he told Mannon to take Rapier up….
Firefly’s guns swung to port as the look-out reported a submarine surfacing to seaward and Ottershaw raised his binoculars anxiously in anticipation of a fresh hazard.
‘Range 1000— bearing Green-two-five! Hold your fire.’ He turned to Forsyth. ‘Any idea what a Jap submarine looks like, Number One?’
‘They all look the same to me, sir. I suggest we open fire before he has a chance to hit back.’
Ottershaw shook his head and kept his glasses focused on the patch of white foam bubbling on the surface half a mile off the gunboat’s port bow. He knew he was taking a dangerous risk, but something warned him not to be too hasty. No enemy submarine commander would be fool enough to surface under the guns of two warships and yet, so far as he knew, there was no possibility of there being any British boats in the area. Rover was dry-docked and refitting in Singapore and Rapier was by now several hundred miles to the south en route to Malaya. It might just be an American boat, or a Dutchman. And while the doubt lingered in his mind he was not prepared to take chances.
The bows of the submarine thrust from the cauldron of foam, followed, moments later, by the periscope standards and conning tower. Ottershaw thought that there was something vaguely familiar about the shape of the surfacing boat and he was still trying to identify it when the bosun shouted excitedly, ‘It’s the Rapier, sir! It’s bloody Rapier come back to give us a hand!’
‘Check the guns, Number One. Two points to port, helmsman. Half-ahead together.’
Hamilton scrambled out of the upper hatch and leaned over the conning tower rails as Firefly drew alongside. The look-outs followed him out on deck and quickly stationed themselves on either side of the bridge◦– their eyes already scanning the empty blue skies as they raised their binoculars. Hamilton had warned them to get below at the first sign of aircraft. It was no time to take risks and he knew he could rely on Rapier’s highly trained crew to get the submarine safely beneath the surface within thirty seconds of the diving alarm.