Convoy (40 page)

Yorke and his men had nine wristwatches between them and they differed by a maximum of eleven minutes. Yorke was fairly certain of his own which gained about twenty- five seconds a day so they all set their time by his. Now it wanted five minutes to eight o’clock or, as Yorke wrote in his notebook, 1955, and beside it: ‘Team waiting for usual night attack to start.’ He had talked with all the men in the hope that one of them had seen something or had an idea which would provide a clue to what the Swedes might be doing. None of them had seen anything and all, like Yorke, felt a cold but blind fury that they might be able to stop the night’s attack – if only, as Mills said bitterly, they ‘had the second sight’.

Either Yorke’s watch was a minute fast or the
Oberleutnant
commanding the U-boat was late, but the first torpedo hit was noted as 2001, and in the
Penta
, where their cabin was below sea level, it seemed as though they were inside a big drum which had been struck lightly: a reverberation rather than an explosion, the shock waves coming through the water and reminding Yorke of the ripples of heat rising from a road on a hot day. A minute later he was not sure whether or not he had heard the waxed-paper crackle sound of a ship breaking up.

Three minutes after that there was a similiar reverberation, followed a few moments later by a tremendous explosion which they heard through the plating of the hull above them as well as through the water. Yorke found all the men looking questioningly at him.

‘The
Hidalgo
,’ he said. ‘At least, I think so. She was the only one carrying that much ammunition. Torpedo warheads, bombs, shells…’

‘Where was she?’ Mills asked.

‘Third ship in the third column.’

‘That’s the column which must have moved over to take the place of the commodore’s column,’ Reynolds said. ‘The old fourth column.’

Would there be a third torpedo hit? The men were still watching him, not because they expected him to say anything but because they too must be waiting for the third hit…and the minutes dragged. Finally it was nine o’clock.

‘That’ll be it for the night,’ he said.

‘Only two hits,’ Mills said.

‘Perhaps he fired three and missed with one.’

‘More likely the blast from the
Hidalgo
cracked the lenses in his periscope,’ Watkins said bitterly. ‘I hope the bloody thing drips all over him.’

The men began to stretch out on their mattresses. Four of them squatted round on one mattress and began a game of cards, Mills went off to the head and Reynolds dozed in a chair, his head sagging on to the table.

Eleven hits meant eleven torpedoes and perhaps twelve. Perhaps more because there was no way of telling how many had missed. The U-boat carried fourteen, so probably had two or three left. Watkins’ explanation was likely to be close to the real reason why the U-boat had broken off tonight’s attack: the sheer enormity of the
Hidalgo
’s explosion could have started rivets or damaged gear in the U-boat. And a U-boat commander, seeing such an explosion through his periscope, might well decide that that was enough for the night. Don’t push your luck, Jack: the German Navy must have a similar expression.

Yorke took off his jacket and put it down on the deck beside his mattress before stretching out flat, staring up at the deckhead with its network of automatic sprinklers sticking out like metal sea anemones growing downwards. Perhaps three torpedoes left: that could – almost certainly did – mean another attack tomorrow night.

So, with eleven ships torpedoed by an insider, what did he know for certain, having watched most of it? What would be acceptable evidence in a court of law? Well, the
Penta
dropped back every day before an attack and rejoined just before nightfall. How significant was that? Possibly very, because she had not dropped back once before the attacks started. So that was one thing.

The other was that this insider always attacked ships in the next column to port of the
Penta
’s column. How significant was that? Not very: probably just a quirk of this particular
Oberleutnant
. Perhaps he was left-handed, or his periscope would not train to starboard, or his port propeller had a chipped blade so that he tried not to turn to starboard… a dozen different explanations. It could be just a coincidence that the column usually attacked was the one next to the
Penta
.

In fact, if he was honest Yorke knew that so far coincidence could explain everything. Coincidence that dirty fuel (the explanation given to Johnny Gower) kept plaguing the
Penta
so that her daytime stops were genuine and a night’s running was long enough to block them again; coincidence that this convoy was being attacked by a U-boat commander who liked attacking the fourth column. It was a safe one anyway because he could see the escort dare not start depth-charging inside the convoy itself.

Coincidence. Diplomatic incident. Melodrama. Lack of detachment. Dreaming up a theory and then trying to find the facts to prove it. They all seemed to fit. But, he told himself angrily, they did not help. So…after the
Hidalgo
blew up, that bloody U-boat would have dived deep and stopped all machinery, lying at two or three hundred feet like a sleeping whale until her hydrophone operator could report that the convoy had long since passed and there was no sign of an escort. Then what? By tomorrow night she will have to catch up with the convoy again. Will she do that by following in the
Penta
’s wake?

Yorke sat up on one elbow and found he knew what he had to do. Or, rather, what he was
going
to do. Tomorrow afternoon, about two o’clock, just as soon as the
Penta
increased speed: that would be the time for Jenkins to work on the lock with his new screwdriver, so that the door could be opened just enough to let Yorke look astern, along the
Penta
’s wake. It was fortunate that the after side of the
Penta
’s poop was curved so that opening the door a fraction gave a good view over the stern. Yorke yawned and looked at his watch. More than sixteen hours to wait. One glance through the partly open door should answer all his questions one way or the other.

At seven o’clock next morning the Swedish cooks and a steward opened the door and brought down a stainless-steel pail full of steaming coffee and several containers of sliced bread, marmalade, jam, butter and sugar, plus a flat baking tin piled with fried bacon and many fried eggs.

Watkins, helping to place the containers on the table, looked at the bacon and sniffed disparagingly. ‘Very fat. In fact it’s all bleedin’ fat. Don’t you have no lean up there?’

Neither of the cooks spoke English but the steward translated and gave the answer: ‘We Swedes like fat bacon. You English like the lean. In Denmark they breed special lean pigs to make lean for the English – in peace, of course.’

‘Yes,’ Watkins growled, ‘that’s what makes me cross, the idea that those bloody Jerries are eating up all those nice lean rashers. Here mate,’ he added, having been briefed by Yorke, ‘who was hit last night? Torpedoed,’ he said; when he saw the steward did not understand ‘hit’.

‘Ah yes, the name of the first one I do not know. The second ship in the next column to the left exploded. The
Hidalgo
. No survivors, I think. The ship vanished in the flash.’

‘What about the
Penta
’s engines? Are they still giving trouble?’

The steward paused as he was taking the lid off a container of sugar and looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know what the engineers do. It seems dangerous to me.’ With that he said something in Swedish to the two cooks and together they left the cabin, the steward tapping his watch. ‘Next meal at noon,’ he said. ‘You have containers washed ready for us. The box,’ he pointed to a small cardboard box at the end of the table, ‘has the soap powder. You wash good, eh?’

The door slammed shut at the top of the ladder and Jenkins went up to check it, coming back to report to Yorke that it was locked. Reynolds and Mills were serving out the eggs and bacon as the seamen stood in line with their plates.

Mills handed a plate to Yorke. ‘Two eggs each. We can’t complain that the Swedes are starving us!’

Yorke remembered pre-war visits to Scandinavia. ‘By Swedish standards, they are. Most Scandinavians are trenchermen.’ He saw the puzzled expression on Mills’ face. He probably thought the word meant homosexual. ‘Most Scandinavians are great eaters.’

‘Aye, and drinkers too,’ Mills said. ‘I’ve seen a couple of Scandies full of booze pull out knives and clear a bar in ten seconds. Must remember to ask that steward to get us some fags. Wonder how we pay for them.’

‘Sign chits, I suppose,’ Yorke said, sitting down and reaching for a knife and fork. The bacon was very salty. He preferred breakfast on board the
Marynal
.

The morning had dragged. Just before eleven o’clock they had noticed a slight reduction in the engine revolutions followed an hour later by another drop, with the
Penta
resuming the previous day’s slow pitch and slight roll. Mills was certain the propellers were turning at just enough revolutions to keep the ship heading into the wind and sea.

When the Swedes brought the midday meal, Watkins had teased the steward. ‘Good job you cooks and stewards don’t have breakdowns in the galley, otherwise we’d all starve,’ he said. The steward took a few moments to absorb the complex sentence and then said sourly; ‘The engineers like to sit comfortable and play the cards.’

The seamen had drawn lots to take it in turns to wash the plates and cutlery, and it was all clean and stacked away, with the men sitting round playing cards or gossiping, by two o’clock. Yorke and Mills sat at the table, both listening to the whine of the shafts and the steady, low rumble of the engines. Five minutes past two, quarter past, twenty past…

‘Perhaps that steward misunderstood Watkins,’ Mills said. ‘Maybe we haven’t left the convoy. The vice-commodore may have reduced speed.’

Yorke shook his head. ‘No, the steward understood, and anyway we altered course slightly.’

‘A zigzag?’ Mills said hopefully.

‘Too small an alteration, only five or ten degrees. It was just…’

He broke off as the engines slowly increased speed, the propeller shafts beneath them increasing their hum and the ship beginning to vibrate. He looked at his watch and took out his notebook. ‘1425 – ship increased speed to estimated revolutions for 15 knots.’

Jenkins was sitting on his mattress, alert, the deck knife-screwdriver beside him.

Give them time out there to do whatever it was they were doing. Don’t rush, Yorke told himself: don’t be impatient. But he knew he was not fighting back impatience; on the contrary he was having to force himself to set a time for the signal to Jenkins.

How should he signal? Point upwards nonchalantly with his right index finger? Point up to the door with his hand? Just speak a few words? Stand up himself to lead the way, gesturing to Jenkins to follow?

He was deliberately wasting time, and he was prepared to admit it was nerves. The few moments following Jenkins unscrewing the lock would be the climax of his appointment to the ASIU, perhaps the climax (or end) of his career in the Navy. All those hours spent going over those bloody dockets had been steps on a path which ended here and now on a grating at the top of a steel ladder on board the
Penta
: one glance aft the moment Jenkins removed the lock, or loosened it, or whatever he needed to do to allow the door to be opened a fraction, that glance would be enough. If there was nothing, then he was wrong, very wrong, and wasting everyone’s time. He pointed upwards and led the way.

Jenkins worked to a system. First he slid a knife into the seam nearest the lock between the thick planks of mahogany which made up the door, and told Yorke to use it as a hook to keep the door pulled inwards, so that it did not swing open when the lock came free. Then he took out the deck knife and undid one of the screws, putting it away carefully in his pocket. Then he undid the second, and then the third.

‘Right sir, now really keep the door pulled in: one big roll and it might swing out, in spite of you, so be ready to reach round and grab the edge.’

With that he crouched down over the lock again and turned the knife. Yorke watched the screw turning, as though growing up out of the brass plate of the lock. Jenkins glanced round at Yorke to warn that the moment was approaching, slid the knife into his pocket and undid the screw the rest of the way with his fingers. After putting the screw away safely he gently slid the lock sideways less than half an inch, just enough to disengage the metal tongue from its slot on the door jamb. Quickly he seized the knob, then turned to Yorke. ‘It’s all right, sir, no chance of it swinging out so you can let go of the knife. Perhaps you’d like to have a look out!’

Yorke grasped the knob and gently pushed the door open a fraction. There was no one standing between the door and the taffrail. The
Penta
’s wake streamed astern, a white, swirling path of lace in the sea made up of whorls and eddies typical of a twin-screwed ship.

The U-boat was slicing along on the surface about two hundred yards astern, and for a moment it seemed the
Penta
was towing a slim but rusty iron cigar, a giant paravane. Three men were in the conning tower. The green slime of marine growth covering parts of the conning tower and deck seemed symptoms of some oceanic leprosy: dull, reddish rust streaks looking like dried blood. The U-boat was simply steaming along in the
Penta
’s wake, using her bulk to shield it from any radar beams ahead, and presumably relying on the men standing on her high bridge to act as lookouts – from their height of eye the Swedes could see several miles further over the horizon. One 88mm gun forward; two 20mm cannon in a mounting abaft it for use against aircraft.

His mattress was becoming the equivalent of a fakir’s bed of nails. It had all the discomfort but, he thought ruefully, it did not seem to help provide the answers even after much contemplation. The U-boat was surfacing during the day and proceeding on the surface (in the Navy no ship or person ever ‘went’; Their Lordships preferred the word ‘proceed’) in the shadow of the
Penta
. Fifteen or sixteen knots (from what he remembered of conversations with Jemmy) would give the best charge from the U-boat’s generators and top up the batteries as quickly as possible while economizing on diesel fuel. It was also by a convenient coincidence (perhaps not such a coincidence) the best speed for the
Penta
, so the two in tandem caught up with the convoy.