I whistled quietly. “That’s a lot of phones. And all this equipment.” I waved my hand at more than a dozen receivers and transmitters. “What do we have here? Talk between ships, ship-to-shore, direction-finding equipment, transmitters, receivers, all on different frequencies, am I right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, Lieutenant, let’s talk about submarines. German submarines.”
“Sir, the North Atlantic is ringed with a network of radio direction-finding stations. Using Adcock direction-finding antennae-”
“Spare me the textbook tour. I’m talking about German subs in the immediate vicinity. What happens? How do all these toys function to keep us safe?”
“Operators listen in on assigned frequencies. These frequencies are listed in numbered sets called a ‘series.’ The U-boats tend not to change their frequencies very often. On hearing a U-boat transmission, the intercepting operator presses a foot pedal, which activates his microphone. He then shouts a coded warning to other ships in the convoy to tune in to the intercepted frequency. Bearings are then obtained, at which point the idea is to chase down the bearing and take countermeasures.”
I nodded. His succinct explanation had earned a nod at least. “Those countermeasures being depth charges and other assorted fireworks. I see. And did any of this take place last night?”
Lieutenant Cubitt’s swivel eyes swiveled like they were on gyroscopes.
“Um… up to a point.”
“Explain, please.”
“Sir, our destroyer escort ships picked up a transmission on a key. You know, Morse code. They started to get a bearing, but before a fix could be obtained the signal stopped. So they tried to get a handle on the U-boat’s own homing beacon, but nothing doing there, either. That’s not uncommon; the homing beacon diffuses quite rapidly.”
“Am I correct in thinking that had this RT room been manned, you would have been able to triangulate the bearing and get a fix on the U-boat?”
“Yes, sir. Only, the radio seaman on duty at the time, Radio Seaman Norton, had left his post without orders.”
“Why did he do that?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Let me put it another way. What was his explanation?”
“He claims that there was a telephone call from me, summoning him urgently to the radar room.”
“Strange, don’t you think, Lieutenant, that he should have been summoned away at that particular moment?”
“In point of fact, it was just before the first transmission was picked up on the key.”
“Exactly what bearings were obtained for the U-boat, before the signal stopped?”
Lieutenant Cubitt showed me a map. “Here are the two escort destroyers, the Iowa, and the bearings, sir,” he said.
“These bearings would seem to indicate that the U-boat was in the immediate vicinity of the Iowa. ”
“Yes, sir.”
“In which case I can quite understand why the captain wanted this kept quiet. On the face of it, we’ve had a lucky escape.”
Cubitt’s stammer kicked in again. So did the blinking eyelids and the swiveling eyeballs.
“Take your time, Lieutenant,” I told him gently.
“A U-boat would be ill-advised to attack three warships in close formation, sir. That would be to risk being destroyed. They’re after much easier prey. Merchant shipping, mostly. That doesn’t fight back.”
“Worth the risk, I’d have thought.”
“Sir?”
“A chance to kill the president and the Joint Chiefs. That is, if one of our own escort destroyers doesn’t do it first.”
One of the radio seamen thought that was pretty funny.
There was a knock at the door of the RT room and a small, slim, pale man with blond hair and a hunted, furtive look came in and saluted smartly. He wasn’t much older than twenty, but there were some worry lines on his forehead that looked like the grille on a Chevrolet. Someone had been giving the boy a hard time.
“This is Radio Seaman Norton, sir,” said Cubitt. “Norton, this is Major Mayer. From Intelligence. He has one or two questions for you.”
I lit a cigarette and offered one to Norton. He shook his head. “Don’t smoke,” he said.
“Last night at 0200 you were the only man on duty,” I said. “Is that standard practice? To have just one man on duty?”
“No, sir. Normally there would be two of us on the night watch. But just before we came on duty, Curtis went sick. Food poisoning, it looks like.”
“Tell me about the telephone call you claim you received.”
“The man on the phone said he was Lieutenant Cubitt, sir. Honest. I’m not making this up. Maybe one of the guys was winding me up, I don’t know, but it sounded just like him. What with the stammer and-” Norton stopped speaking and glanced at the lieutenant. “Sorry, sir.”
“Go on,” I told him.
“Whoever it was ordered me to report immediately to the radar room. So I did.”
“You left your post,” said Cubitt. “Contrary to orders. But for you we might have got a fix on that sub. Instead of which, it’s still out there.”
Norton grimaced with the pain of his guilt and nodded.
“Radio Seaman Norton,” I said. “I’d like you to take me to the radar room.”
“What- now, sir?”
“Yes, now.”
Norton glanced at Cubitt, who shrugged and then nodded.
“Follow me, please, sir,” Norton said and hurried to comply with my request.
It took us the best part of six minutes to get down to the main deck, walk aft of the second uptake, and then climb several stairs to the rear conning tower, where, underneath the main battery director, the radar room was located.
“And now, if you don’t mind,” I said, “I’d like you to lead me back to the radio transmitter room.”
Norton gave me a look.
“It’s important,” I added.
“Very well, sir.”
Arriving back at the RT room, I glanced at my watch.
“Was the radio room empty upon your return here?”
“Yes, sir. You do believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes, I believe you.” I opened the door and sat down opposite the transmitting key, which wasn’t much more than a piece of black Bakelite about the size of a small doorknob attached to a metal plate screwed to the operator’s desk. “Which transmitter does this use?” I asked Cubitt.
The lieutenant pointed to the largest piece of equipment in the room, a black box measuring almost six feet high and two and a half feet wide, and on which a small sign was attached that said PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH.
“This,” said Cubitt, “is the TBL. A low-frequency, high-frequency transmitter. It’s used exclusively to provide ship-to-ship communications.” He frowned. “That’s odd.”
“What is?”
“It’s switched on.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Yes. We’re supposed to be observing radio silence. If we wanted to contact the destroyer escort in an emergency we’d use the TBS. That’s Talk Between Ships.” He touched the TBL. “It’s warm, too. It must have been on all night.” Cubitt looked at the other three men in the room. “Anyone know why this is switched on?”
The three radio seamen, including Norton, shook their heads.
I stared closely at the Westinghouse-made TBL. “Lieutenant, what band is this on?”
Cubitt leaned in close to check the dial, and I caught the smell of something nice on his hair. It made a pleasant change from sweat and body odor.
“Six hundred meters, sir. That’s what it should be on. All our coastal defenses use the six-hundred-meter band.”
“How hard would it be to retune this to another waveband?” I asked no one in particular.
“All of this stuff is a bitch to retune,” said Radio Seaman Norton, who seemed to have woken up to the fact that I was on his side. “That’s why we got the sign.”
“Pity,” I said.
“How’s that?” asked Cubitt.
“Only that it makes my theory a little harder to sustain.”
“And what theory is that, sir?”
I grinned and looked around for an ashtray. Norton grabbed one and held it in front of me. It wasn’t so much of a theory as a strong possibility. Probably I should have kept this to myself, but I wanted to help the boy they’d accused of neglecting his duty.