The Lion at Sea (26 page)

‘Diving stations,’ he called.

As they tumbled below, he reached for the periscope. ‘Take her down to fifty feet, Number One. There’s a battleship beyond those fishing boats.
Barbarossa
or
Turgut Reiss.
Let’s have a go. Hard a starboard, coxswain. Flood bow tubes. Charge firing tanks.’

‘Both tubes ready, sir.’

‘Let’s hope they work this time. We’ve got
AE2
’s disease and we’re running short.’

They held their breath as Lyster moved slowly round the periscope in the crowded control room. Every minute seemed an hour as he gave his orders. Unable to see what was happening, they could only use their imagination and construct the scene from Lyster’s orders.

‘Stand by!’

The tension in the control room could have been cut with a knife.

‘Fire both tubes!’

The clatter of the torpedoes leaving broke the tension at once. Lyster slapped up the handles of the periscope and stood by it, waiting. There was a long silence, then Lyster frowned and bent to the eyepiece.

‘Up periscope!’ He straightened as the periscope rose. ‘Damnation!’ he said savagely. ‘The bloody things have just risen to the surface and stopped. I can see the compressed air puffing out of the stern. Take her down, Number One. There’s a torpedo gunboat out there –
Berki-Satvet
class – and a couple of trawlers trailing a wire rope that looks as though it supports a net.’

They lay on the bottom for an hour while propellers passed overhead. Standing by the chart table, Kelly unashamedly confessed to himself a feeling of quivering funk. If the sweep caught them it would be only a short time before they were destroyed. But no one else showed any sign of anxiety and no one looked at him, so he could only assume his fear didn’t show and that they, too, were feeling the same as he did. When Lyster put the periscope up, all the searching ships had disappeared and the sea was empty.

As the conning tower broke surface, Lyster climbed through the hatch to the little bridge, Kelly close behind him.

‘See ’em?’

‘See what, sir?’

‘The torpedoes, man! We need ’em and this looks like a good opportunity to make a search for ’em. I want to sink something before we return.’

They moved slowly on the surface in a large circle, looking for the torpedoes, and Lyster brought up Rumbelo and another man who was reputed to have the best eyes in the ship.

‘I see one of ’em,’ Rumbelo said and then they all saw the long shape bobbing up and down some distance away.

‘Stop motors,’ Lyster ordered. ‘We’ve got to do this quickly before it’s too dark. We’ll hold the boat here. Then if the damn thing goes up it won’t harm us.’

As he began to drag at his sweater, Kelly pushed forward. ‘Not you, sir. You’re needed on board in case anything turns up. I’m a good swimmer and, with respect, it’s my job.’

Lyster studied him for a moment then he nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said.

Tying a spanner round his neck with a length of line, Kelly stripped off his clothes and dived in. The torpedo’s head was undamaged and it had clearly run beneath the target but the safe period of the first part of its run had passed and the propeller blades in the nose had charged it so that the firing pin was barely a sixteenth of an inch from the detonator. The slightest jar could set off the fulminate of mercury and blow him to bloody fragments. As he realised the danger, he edged away instinctively then, realising that having accepted the task, he could hardly back away from it and hand it to someone else, unwillingly he moved closer and, swimming round the torpedo, he eyed it warily. Beyond it he could see
E19
, with Lyster waiting anxiously on the bridge with Bennett. There were several other men on the superstructure, among them the burly figure of Rumbelo, his face concerned.

Taking the spanner from his neck and twisting the line round his wrist so that he couldn’t drop it, he started with infinite care to unscrew the firing pistol. Slowly, treading water, he drew it from the nose of the torpedo and set it to safe. Then, moving along the side of the missile, he pushed the starting lever forward in case there was enough compressed air still inside to start the propeller again.

‘Rig the derrick,’ he heard Lyster call as he swam back to the submarine to take the end of a line. ‘And look slippy. The light’s going.’

After a lot of careful manoeuvring, the seventeen-foot torpedo lay alongside
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, harmless now, and a sling was passed under it at the point of balance and a shackle attached, with a tail line to stop it swinging.

‘Keep a sharp look out, Number One,’ Lyster said. ‘And let’s have extra men up with glasses. Keep the hands to diving stations just in case.’

As the torpedo was hoisted inboard and lowered to the deck, the warhead was removed, then Lyster, after a careful study of the horizon, ordered the forward hatch to be opened.

‘And make it quick,’ he snapped.

There was intense activity on the foredeck, because with the hatch open they were helpless to dive, but the torpedo was hoisted up and lowered into the submarine just as the light finally disappeared.

‘Right,’ Lyster said. ‘Get the hatch on and the derrick unshipped. At least we’re no longer shy of weapons and we might have better luck next time.’

Throughout the whole of the next day, still nothing was seen of the cloud of Turkish transports they had expected, and it wasn’t until almost evening that Lyster ordered diving stations.

‘Ships off the port beam,’ he said as he tumbled below. ‘And one’s a troopship by the look of her. Take a peep, Number One.’

One after the other they put their faces to the rubber eyepiece of the periscope. Crossing their bows was a big ship crammed with soldiers and equipment that were clearly being rushed as reinforcements for the fighting on the peninsula.

Lyster bent again to the eyepiece. ‘They’re not even keeping a look-out,’ he said. ‘There are two elderly gentlemen on the bridge, both stout and wearing fezzes, smoking and leaning on the compass. I think we’ll stir ’em up a bit. Hard a starboard. Forty feet. Slow ahead port.’

As they increased speed, the familiar thud of propellers came down on them.

‘Up periscope!’

‘We have to be careful here, sir,’ Kelly warned, one eye on the chart. ‘We need to give Nagara a wide berth. There’s a treacherous shoal and a strong set across it and probably fresh water currents.’

‘We’ll be all right.’ Lyster seemed indifferent. ‘Bring her up, Number One.’

As the air rumbled into the tanks, the boat tilted, and then steadied.

‘Hold her there! Stand by starboard tube.’ Lyster suddenly grinned. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘the old gentlemen have seen us. One of ’em’s jumped about three feet in the air. He knocked the other chap’s fez off when he swung his arm round to point. There are what you might call hurryings and scurryings and wavings of arms going on. Chaps rushing in all directions and the two stout gents looking as if they’ll fall off the bridge at any minute. All vastly entertaining. Pity we have to spoil it all. I think they’re going to try and ram us. Hold her there. Stand by starboard tube. We’ve plenty of time before she turns.’

There was a long silence and Kelly realised he was holding his breath. Bennett was breathing through his nose and it was making a faint snoring sound in the silence.

‘Fire!’

The familiar lurch came as the torpedo clattered from the tube, and the diving hands spun their wheels to stop the boat rising. The seconds ticked by, then there was a heavy thud and Lyster’s face broke into a grin. He reached for the periscope.

‘We’ve got her!’ His voice was high with excitement. ‘Come and take a look at this!’

The troopship had stopped. There was a fierce fire burning, and the deck had filled with a heaving mass of figures which seemed to cover the whole ship, running from the flames and scurrying across the hatch covers. They were on every ladder, fighting to pass each other, and the whole ship seemed to be one pulsating mass of humanity. The panic was obvious and in the confusion some of the men were jumping into the sea, making small splashes round the ship’s side as they hit the water.

‘She’s going, sir!’ Kelly could see the ship keeling to starboard and he was reminded vividly
of
Hogue
as she had leaned over him in the pinnace. Then he saw another shape beyond the trooper, hidden by its bulk. It was coming up fast, a white bone of foam at its bow.

‘Sir, there’s a gunboat! They’re on to us!’

Lyster shouldered him aside and grabbed for the eyepiece.

‘Hard a starboard! Take her down, Number One! Let’s get away from here!’

But as Bennett flooded the tanks, the submarine lurched violently and, as he tried to correct, the bow dipped.

Lyster’s voice came sharply. ‘Hold her, Number One!’

But the tilt grew steeper and they had to grab for handholds as they began to slide forward. The parallel rules fell off the chart table with a clatter and Kelly stumbled as he stooped to pick them up.

‘Blow One and Two!’

Staring across the control room past the gleaming column of the periscope to the port bulkhead where the dial of the depth gauge gaped into the compartment like the eye of a sea monster, Kelly held his breath. The men at the diving and blowing panel were watching their spirit levels intently, their hands on the complex of levers and wheels. From aft the hum from the motors sank to a lower pitch and he caught a strong smell of hot diesel, oil, sweat, unwashed bodies and fear. At the helm, the coxswain was wearing a nagged look, and Bennett’s eyes were narrow in a taut face. The cramped atmosphere of the control room seemed to enfold them. They hadn’t shaved or washed for days and, as he studied the tense hairy faces, Kelly felt his chest muscles tighten.

Heads turned uneasily. Bennett’s eyes were wide now, uncertain and angry. Trying to relax and force himself to breathe more slowly, Kelly was only aware of the tinny clicking sound of the gyro compass, loud in the silence, that seemed to beat like a metronome in his brain. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, the dormant lunacy that had always controlled
E19
started to work its evil again.

‘She’s rising, sir!’

‘Hold her!’

‘Eighty feet! Seventy feet! Sixty! Fifty!’

‘What’s wrong with this bloody boat?’ Lyster snapped. ‘Hold her, Number One, for God’s sake!’

His voice cracked with tension. ‘Bring her down, Number One! Bring her down! The conning tower’s out of the water! Hard a starboard, helmsman! Flood One, Two and Three!’

Immediately every mind had gone back to the tense half-hour when
E19
had run away with them in the Channel before they’d left England. This was infinitely worse because above on the surface now there were enemy craft intent not on saving them but on destroying them.

As Bennett struggled, there were two enormous clangs like hammer blows on the pressure hull so that they knew shells were exploding in the water alongside. As he flooded the tanks, the bow dipped once more and for a moment
E19
steadied, then started to plunge terrifyingly downwards again. At ninety feet, Lyster called out.

‘Half ahead port engine! Perhaps that’ll help.’

The boat steadied once more but they had only just drawn deep relieved breaths when she lurched and began to dive again, bucking like a wild horse as she settled towards the bottom.

‘She’s heavy, sir,’ the man at the hydroplanes yelled.

‘How’s the bubble?’

‘Horizontal now, sir.’

‘Start the pump on the auxiliary! What’s causing the negative buoyancy, Number One?’

‘Can’t find a thing, sir, unless we’ve sprung a leak.’

‘Must be fresh water here with a different density,’ Kelly said. ‘It’s affecting the trim.’

Even as he spoke,
E19
began to rise again and Lyster cursed. ‘One of those bloody shells must have damaged the forward planes,’ he decided. ‘If we can make it round Nagara Point, we’ll be all right. Those damn’ destroyers spot us every time the periscope breaks surface. The water’s like a millpond.’

By the light in the eyepiece of the periscope, Kelly saw they had broken surface again and Lyster tried a quick glance round. Immediately, he slammed the handles up. The ‘clack’ was loud in the silence of the control room. ‘Down periscope!’

He swung round as the periscope hissed into its well, his voice breaking the tension. ‘For God’s sake, Number One, get us down! There’s a torpedo boat heading straight for us! Crack the outboard vent.’

As the planesmen leaned on their wheels, the bow went down once more and they heard the thud-thud-thud of propellers as the destroyer roared over them, then suddenly
E19
took a steep inclination by the bows and started to rise yet again. All efforts at regaining control were useless and the diving planes made not the slightest effect.

‘Down, man,’ Lyster yelled. ‘Flood One, Two and Three! Flood Four! Flood Auxiliary!’

Again the submarine dipped under and, closing off the forward tank and stopping the movement of water ballast from aft to forward, Bennett endeavoured to catch her at fifty feet, but now the planes seemed unable to hold her at all and she went on down – eighty feet, ninety, one hundred. This was the limit of their guages and what happened after that God alone knew.

The strained plates creaked and a light bulb suddenly popped, and the man on the forward diving plane started to mutter a prayer, his words loud in the silence.

‘Full astern!’ Lyster snapped. ‘Blow the auxiliary!’

‘She’s coming up, sir!’

The needle jerked itself reluctantly from the hundred feet mark and began to rise rapidly. The submarine leapt to the surface with increasing speed. While Bennett struggled with the trim, Lyster kept his eyes glued to the periscope.

‘That bloody torpedo boat’s circling us and there’s another coming up from the south!’

As Bennett poured in the ballast again, his face haggard with the strain, the bows went down once more and immediately he had to start to expel it again in a desperate attempt to regain control. But down and down
E19
went, faster even than before, the inclination becoming more pronounced until the boat seemed to be trying to stand on its nose. Eggs, bread, food of all sorts, knives, forks, plates, came showering forward from the petty officers’ mess, and everything that could fall over fell over. The men, slipping and struggling, grasped hold of valves, gauges, rods, anything to hold them at their posts.