Lindsay trained his glasses and saw one of the ammunition ship’s, officers dimly outlined against the outdated compass platform, his arms moving very slowly like a child’s puppet.
Ritchie raised his telescope and muttered, ‘Bleedin’ semaphore! ‘Ow the ‘ell does ‘e expect me to read that in this light?’
Lindsay steadied his feet on the gratings. There was a lazy swell and the breeze had dropped considerably. At such slow speed it was difficult to hold the glasses on the tiny dark figure.
Ritchie gasped and said, “E says there’s somethin’ astern, sir. Five miles or thereabouts.’ He looked quickly at Lindsay’s set features. ‘Could be a submarine.’
Lindsay lowered his glasses. The ammunition ship had become part of the scene. Familiar. Almost part of themselves. It seemed impossible that anything could happen now. Just like this.
He said, ‘That captain is a very clever man, Yeoman.’ He watched Ritchie’s telescope wavering in the motion like a small cannon. ‘Most men as tired and worried as he must be would have used a lamp, or even worse, the R/T.’
Goss came hurrying from the chart room. ‘What’s it doing?’
Lindsay said, ‘Go aft, Yeoman, and keep contact with the bridge by the poop telephone.’
To Goss he added, ‘Reduce to dead slow and close the gap. We must keep visual contact. Their lookouts may be able to see the U-boat, but if we try and turn they’ll know we’ve spotted them.’
Stannard asked, ‘Why doesn’t the bastard fire, sir?’
Goss nodded. ‘Christ knows we’re moving slow enough. He could catch us up in no time.’
A messenger called, ‘W/T office reports no signals, sir.’
Lindsay nodded slowly. It could just be possible the U-boat had been damaged in that last attack. Maybe she could not dive, or perhaps her torpedo tubes had been put out of action by depth-charges. But she was back there all the same. Limping along like a wounded wolf, and every bit as dangerous.
He glanced quickly at the masthead pendant. It was flicking out very gently towards the stern. The wind was still coming from the south-east.
He turned and stared unblinkingly at the dipping sun. It was too high. The slow-moving ships would stand out against the “horizon as perfect targets for another halfhour, maybe longer.
‘I think the U-boat is going to close and use his deck gun.’
Even as he spoke his thoughts aloud he knew he was committing himself. All of them.
Goss stared at him. ‘But if they get one shell into that bloody ship….’ He could not go on.
Stannard said tersely, ‘Shall I signal them to abandon, sir? We could drop’ all our boats and rafts and maybe come back for them later.’
Lindsay was still watching the ship astern. Big, solid and black. That U-boat commander would recognise her all right. Would probably know. her lethal cargo down to the last bullet. It would make up for the way his own command had been mauled. The terror of his men as the charges had rained down from the hunters on, the surface.
‘Leave her, you mean?’ He spoke very quietly. ‘Run away?’
Goss said, ‘It’s not that. We’ve the ship to consider. Our own people.’
A signalman called, ‘The yeoman says that the ammo ship can still see the U-boat, sir. On the surface. Full buoyancy.’
Lindsay thought briefly of the Demodocus’s master. A man he would dearly like to meet. Someone who, despite the hideous death which was so close to him and his men, could note the small but vital details. No U-boat would chase after its prey fully trimmed to the surface. It would be ballasted well down with just part of the casing and conning tower visible. It must be damaged. It was their only hope.
‘Tell the yeoman to use his Aldis. It should be masked from the U-boat by the other ship. I want the Demodocus to start another fire. It’ll be damn dangerous. But her captain will know the risks without my telling him. Oily rags, anything, but I want plenty of smoke.’
He pushed past the others and snatched up the engine room handset. ‘Chief? This is the captain.’
Fraser chuckled. ‘I thought you’d forgotten us.’
‘Listen. I want you to make smoke, everything you can do to produce the biggest fog inn creation! Just as soon as I give the word!’
Aye, sir.’ Lindsay heard him yelling to his assistant, Dyke, above the roar of fans. Then he asked calmly, ‘Might I be told the reason, sir?’ ‘Yes. We’re going to engage a surfaced U-boat.’ He dropped the handset as Stannard said, ‘They’ve got a fire going already. God, I’d have thought the worst if I’d not heard your order.’
Lindsay saw the pall rising rapidly astern. ‘Sound action stations.’ He grasped Goss’s arm. ‘I’m going to go hard astarboard in about ten minutes.’ He saw Goss’s anxious features and wondered if he was fearing for his life or that of the ship. ‘The fact that the U-boat’s made no W/T signals doesn’t mean she won’t very soon. Her radio may be damaged, but if they once get it going again we’re done for.’ He had to yell above the alarm bells. ‘So go to damage control, and pray!’
Dancy called, ‘Ship at action stations, sir.’
‘Very good. Tell control to stand by. Maxwell will have to engage with the starboard battery.’
He looked at Stannard. ‘Inform the chief. Make smoke now.’
He turned to watch the thick greasy cloud which started to gush over the funnel’s lip almost before Stannard had replaced the telephone.. He made himself wait a few more minutes, feeling, the ship heaving uneasily beneath him, trying to estimate her turning circle under such desperate circumstances.
‘Ready, Cox’n?’
Jolliffe nodded. ‘Ready, sir.’
‘Pilot?’
Stannard forced a grin. ‘As I’ll ever be, sir.’
Lindsay took out his pipe and thrust it between his teeth.
‘Stop starboard. Full ahead port.’ He counted more seconds, feeling the deck shuddering violently to the added thrust on one shaft. ‘Hard astarboard!’
He glanced through a stern scuttle at the dense smoke. Already the angle was changing. ‘Starboard engine full astern!’
He turned again to face the empty sea beyond the bows. Perhaps it could not be done. There was nothing in the book to say it should even be attempted. But there was little in any of those books about the war either, he thought.
‘Midships! Full ahead together!’
14
Hitting back
Heeling steeply to the violent thrust of screws arid rudder the Benbecula thrashed round until she was steering almost the reverse of her original course. Lindsay stood in the centre of the bridge, his glasses level with his chin as he waited for a first sight of the enemy. The fore deck was almost hidden in a thick, choking fog from the funnel, as caught by a sudden down-draught and aided by the change of direction the wind fanned Fraser’s screen over the ship in a solid wall. Lindsay knew they must be passing the Demodocus somewhere to starboard, although her improvised smokescreen was so thick she could have been a mile away or fifty yards. Even with the doors closed Lindsay could taste the acrid stench, just as he could hear the lookouts on the upper bridge retching and gasping above the din of racing engines. He lowered his eyes a few inches to the gyro.
‘Steer zero-one-zero!’
He heard Jolliffe’s quick reply but kept his eyes fixed on the thinning pall of smoke across Benbecula’s line of advance. Soon now and he would know if he had been right. Justified.
The U-boat commander may have seen the two ships as stragglers from the convoy, which indeed they were, and was so confident that he considered it wasteful to use his remaining torpedoes.
Lindsay dashed a trickle of sweat from his eyes. If that was the case, and the U-boat was undamaged, one salvo from her bow tubes would be enough. With Benbecula working up to her maximum revolutions the effect would be too terrible to contemplate.