Douglas Reeman

  DIVE IN THE SUN

  1961

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  1

  THE NIGHT was moonless and very dark, anti the black heaving water of the Adriatic moved uneasily in an oily, sullen swell. Occasionally the ebony water reflected a tiny pin-prick of light from one of the small stars, which seemed very high and aloof from the sea beneath, while from the invisible Italian coastline a small, hot breeze clawed weakly across the dull surface.

  A watcher, had there been one, would have caught the briefest glimpse of a slender, stick-like object which rose rapidly out of the depths, throwing up a tiny feather of white spray as it cut through the water, like the antennae of a forgotten sea-monster.

  The periscope vanished, as suddenly as it appeared, and for a short while the sea was again empty and desolate, then, with a surge of foam and spray, the sea was churned into a frightened torment, and the hard, streaming shape of the submarine rose gracelessly into view, the pressurised air hissing in a subdued roar, as water was forced from the ballast tanks, and the disturbed waves cascaded across the canting steel hull.

  Within seconds, the confined space of the bridge above the conning-tower was filled with silent, purposeful figures, as the lookouts carefully scanned every inch of the surrounding area with their night-glasses, while on the casing below, the gun’s crew stood huddled around their weapon, their hands reaching for the prepared shells, and smoothing away the dampness from the controls.

  The Officer-of-the-Watch relaxed slightly, as each man reported his horizon clear, and concentrated instead on adjusting the towel around his neck as a protection against the spray which drifted lazily over the squat bridge each time that the stem cut deep into the resisting waves. The electric motors died away, and were replaced instantly by the muffled thud, thud, thud of the powerful diesels, and he felt the air being sucked down into the open hatch behind him; air to feed the engines, which, in turn, would feed the starved batteries. In his mind’s eye he could picture the too-familiar scene beneath his feet. The relaxing grins of the seamen, as they prepared to enjoy that first cigarette after surfacing. The watchful eye of the First Lieutenant, as he studied the compass, and passed his curt orders to the coxswain. The metallic clatter of countless pieces of intricate machinery, and the gleam of subdued lighting reflecting against the brass dials and greased periscopes. He stiffened automatically as another figure clambered over the hatch coaming and took his place beside him.

  The captain glanced perfunctorily through his glasses, and checked the lookouts, before he squinted at the luminous dial of his watch.

  `Just about time, Pilot,’ he said at length. `She’ll be popping up any second, now!’

  They trained their glasses over the rear of the bridge, their eyes straining against the darkness, and trying to peer beyond the green and blue phosphorescence which danced crazily around the submarine’s wake.

  There was a strange air of tension on the bridge, and as the seconds ticked past, each man felt a rising edge of alarm.

  Then, as they waited, the dark water took on a more definite shape, and slowly and painfully, the blurred outline of another craft rose quietly above the white track of their wake.

  Occasionally the tow-line tautened and whipped angrily above the wave-crests, and the other craft would veer round unhappily before being brought under control by its hidden helmsman.

  The captain chuckled quietly. `Well, there she is! Our midget submarine is still with us!’

  He spoke lightly, but the other officer had watched him closely during the last six days and had seen all too clearly the immense strain on his captain’s thin face. Six days of bitter anxiety as they had towed the tiny submarine and its deadly cargo across the war-torn Mediterranean, from Malta

  around the “heel” of Italy, and steadily northwards up the hostile waters of the narrow Adriatic.

  And now, nearly four hundred miles along the Italian coastline, his responsibility was practically over. It would soon be time to drop the tow and leave the little, fifty-foot miniature of his own boat to carry on with its dangerous mission.

  He paused at the top of the hatch. `Call me the second you sight anything,’ he said unnecessarily, `and watch the tow-line. We don’t want anything to go wrong now!’

  He clattered down the shiny ladder to the control-room, brushing past the next group of lookouts, who stood, their eyes covered with dark glasses, and smoking beneath the hatch, like a collection of blind men, and walked tiredly across to his First Lieutenant.

  `All clear, Number One,’ he nodded. `The midget has surfaced quite well, and I’ll be taking off the passage-crew any minute now. I’ll just have a word with her operational crew before they take over, and go over the details again with her skipper.’

  `I’d rather them than me, sir! People think this job is bad enough, but at least there’s room enough to stand up!’

  The captain yawned and stretched his cramped shoulders, his eyes resting momentarily on the pale, tired faces of his men, and his nose taking in the sour odour of oil and sweat, of damp clothing and stale food.

  `It’s a long war,’ he remarked indifferently, `and I’ll never forgive Their Lordships for passing this towing job on to me. I’ve had to pass up several good targets because of it!’ He frowned as he thought of his silent torpedoes lying peacefully in their tubes, and of the merchant ships which had crossed his sights during the last few days. But his orders had left him in no doubt. He was to tow the midget submarine, XE.51, to a point thirty miles east of Rimini, and do nothing to arouse the enemy’s suspicion, or give them cause to suspect any hostile activity in what was practically “untried ground”.

  ‘D’you think they’ll have any luck, sir?’

  The captain paused in his stride by the chart table and leaned the faded elbows of his stained jacket on the chart.

  He checked the wavering pencilled line of their course and the small cross which marked the end of the journey.

  `They must!’ It was a flat statement. `In twenty-four hours’ time Italy will be invaded from the south and south-west by our chaps and the Yanks, and all hell will be let loose.’ He tapped the chart with a pair of brass dividers. `Here, the port of Vigoria-not much to look at, is it? But Intelligence and R.A.F. Recce have reported that the Jerries have got their biggest floating dock moored there. If the Allied invasion gets started all right in the south it’ll be their only floating dock which is big enough to handle their big stuff-cruisers and the like. If they got one whiff of what we’re up to they’d tow the blessed thing across the Adriatic to Split, and could do all their repairs there. It could make a big difference to their surface forces.’ He shrugged again. `So, Number One, our little friend is going to take care of it!’

  They stood looking at the chart in silence, visualizing the harbour defences, patrol boats, mines, and the inevitable uncertainty of Intelligence reports.

  `We’ll rendezvous with them afterwards, as arranged, and tow ‘em back. Simple, eh, Number One?’

  A shadow darkened the chart table, and they turned to face the giant of a man who stood loosely beside them. All of six feet tall, he was powerfully built to the extent of clumsiness, but there was- nothing awkward or slow in his square, unshaven face and cool, grey eyes, nor in the hard set of his jaw which jutted forward in a half-humorous,. half-mocking grin. On the shoulder of his battledress blouse he carried the word “Australia”.

  Lieutenant “Steve” Duncan, R.A.N.V.R., First Lieutenant of XE.51, eyed the two officers calmly, his big, square hands resting on his hips. He was most people’s idea of the typical Australian, outspoken, tough, and seemingly larger than life. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly low and wellmodulated, and his hard, Queensland drawl made an incongruous note in the humid control-room.

  `I’ve just been listening to you chaps,’ he remarked slowly, `and I’d like to point out that you’re talking the sort of omplete drivel which I’m beginning to believe is typical of everything in this war that I hate most!’ He smiled gently, as if amused at the cold hostility in the submarine commander’s eyes or by the look of alarm shown by the other officer, as he darted a quick glance at his captain’s faded gold lace, which proclaimed him not only a regular officer, but two ranks senior to the Australian lieutenant.

  The captain smiled thinly and pressed the palms of his hands against the edge of the chart table.

  `What is ailing our Colonial friend now?’ He had got used to his imperturbable passenger during the slow passage, and had somehow avoided any definite argument, but on several occasions it had been a near thing. The trip was almost over. He felt he could now afford the luxury of tearing the man’s arguments to shreds.

  `Well.’ Duncan rubbed his bristled chin pensively, his clear eyes staring hard at the dripping side of the hull, as if penetrating the metal, and already staring at his nearing objective. `I think this is a duff trip! I reckon it won’t matter a tinker’s damn if we go after the dock or let it stay where it is!’ He returned his steady gaze to each of the others in turn. ‘Furthermore, I guess that if the Allied invasion of Italy depended on the sinking of a blessed dock, it’d be a pretty crook effort! No,’ he shook his head slowly, `it’s just another small, crackpot scheme that some joker has had in London or someplace, and it’s snowballed into a “must”, something that everyone now thinks is essential.’ He guffawed deeply. `Only thing is, they forgot it’s going to be damn dangerous for some poor suckers to carry out!’

  `You mea

n, you don’t think you’re capable?’ The tone was cutting.

  `Capable? Well, isn’t that typical again? Just because some poor, ignorant Aussie has the effrontery to question the realism of his orders, you immediately take it as a personal insult!’ He shook his head sadly, but the deep crowsfeet at the sides of his eyes revealed the hidden humour he was finding so enjoyable. `We can do it all right! I’ve been in tougher spots than this before.’ He waved his hands vaguely. `All over the joint! Norway, up the Channel, and even down at Taranto. But those efforts were almost worth the sweat! No, we can do it all right, but I’m sick to death of being told to be a good boy, an’ die for my country. Whose country, for Chrissake?’

  ‘Now, look here-‘ began the other officer angrily, but the captain stopped him with a jerk of his head.

  `All right, so you’re capable. What does your skipper think about it? Does he think it’s a waste of time, too?’

  ‘Ralph Curtis? He’s different.’ A faraway look crept into his eyes. `He’s a natural, a born skipper. He can take a midget sub through the saloon bar of the “Royal George” an’ no one would spot him. I’ve been on every operation with him right from the start. I’d not go with another. In fact, we’ve always been a team, up to the last job, when we lost our diver. But me an’ the skipper, an’ old George Taylor, the E.R.A., we’ve hung together like dung on a blanket!’ He grinned broadly. `Still, we’ve got a new diver for this job.’ He looked at the captain cheerfully. `A brand new sub-lieutenant, and the only regular officer in the crew. Still, he doesn’t seem a bad cove for all that!’

  There was a pregnant silence, and the shipboard noises seemed to move in on them. The clatter of a pump and the crackle of morse from the radio room, and in the far distance the sound of a plaintive mouth-organ.

  A short, wiry petty officer, his body tightly encased in padded buoyant trousers and battledress blouse, with a pistol hanging from his hip, padded quietly down the control-room. He tried to side-step the three officers, but Duncan pulled him into the group with as little effort as a man picking up a dog.

  `Say, George,’ he said casually, ‘the captain here says we’re on to a real good thing! Isn’t he just a smart one?’

  Petty Officer George Taylor sighed deeply. He had been through all this before, in a dozen ports, with a dozen different kinds of results. Always Duncan had dragged him into one argument after another, seemingly for the pleasure of seeing the displeasure on the other officers’ faces at having a ranker drawn into an intimate conversation.

  Taylor was a Londoner, born and reared in Hackney, and until the war had called him had served happily, if not ambitiously, in a large garage and service station in Mare Street. Nothing had mattered much in those days, and the outside world had been something either to avoid or to ignore. He had contented himself with “nights out” with the boys, beer and chips at the old Hackney Empire, and a good scrap at the Fascist meetings over in Dalston on a Saturday night. If anyone had told him that one day he’d be sweating in an engine-room of a midget submarine, a space with less room to move about than the back of an Austin Seven, while it slid silently under a watchful German warship, or played tag among the minefields, he would have told him to “‘ave ‘is ‘ead tested!” He was a quiet, unimaginative man, but like so many of his breed, completely fearless and difficult to shock.

  `I just bin with the blokes in the P.O’s Mess ‘ere,’ he commented, as if he hadn’t heard Duncan’s remarks. `Real nice little place it is, too, when there ain’t so many blokes in it.’ He cocked his head on one side. `You called the skipper yet?’

  ‘Nope. I aim to let him get all the sleep he can.’ He turned to the submarine’s captain. `You ready to get rid of us yet?’

  The man smiled. `More than I can tell you.’

  At that moment the loose green curtain across the tiny wardroom entrance jerked to one side and a slim, dark-haired figure yawned and stretched hugely in the opening. In his new battledress and spotless white sweater, Sub-Lieutenant Ian Jervis looked little more than a boy, and at nineteen his round, youthful face and smooth pink cheeks gave the impression that he was merely playing at some new game and was obviously enjoying every minute of it.

  ‘Aha, our wayward diver!’ grated Duncan. `An’ about time, too! All ready to leave this palatial scow, Ian?’

  Jervis smiled readily, although he always felt uneasy and slightly nervous with this great Australian. After his Dartmouth training, and coming from a family which had boasted several admirals, including his father, he had never quite been able to accept the atmosphere of unreality and casual indifference which seemed to pervade the men of the newest arm

  of the Service. He was, as Duncan had pointed out, the only regular in the crew, and he couldn’t help feeling that he didn’t quite belong. Whether it was as simple as that, or whether it was because he was only a new replacement for the other diver who had been killed, he couldn’t quite decide, but it was there all right. Then there was the skipper, Lieutenant Curtis. He remembered so vividly his first interview with him at Gibraltar when he had reported for duty.

  The skipper had been sitting in his cabin on the submarine depot ship, apparently staring into space. Before Jervis could introduce himself, Curtis had sprung to his feet, his face white, his eyes suddenly alive and bright. He had stared for seconds at the startled Jervis, and then shaken him briefly by the hand and muttered something about being “in a daze”, and had been quite friendly. But several times since then, and especially on the towing trip in the submarine, he had caught Curtis staring at him bleakly, his eyes dark.

  He had tried to tackle Duncan on the subject, but he had been unhelpful and had joked at his boyish fancies. Or had he just been evasive?

  He had wanted to ask Taylor, who seemed to be a pretty level-headed sort of chap. But there was always the question of rank, and his own unwillingness to start something he couldn’t finish.

  He wrote regularly to his mother, and occasionally to his father, who, much to his own annoyance, was in charge of a shore-establishment, and had tried to describe his job and his companions. Duncan was an easy character to put in a letter, with his peculiar sayings, which for the most part were quite above Jervis and seemed vaguely crude, and his rebellious attitude to the Service in general and regular officers in particular. But Curtis was different, and each time he tried to explain the man to his parents he realized that his words bordered on the most juvenile hero-worship that he would hardly have believed possible of himself.

  He had heard about him when he had been under training as a diver for midget submarines. About the escapades in Norway, when he had won the Distinguished Service Cross,

  and about his daring and cool courage in pressing home his attacks to lay his two-ton explosive charges beneath the unsuspecting enemy. But it was more than the hearsay; it was the man himself. Tall and slim, his shoulders slightly stooped from the constant cramping confinement of the tiny hulls, he had a strange dedicated hardness in his otherwise calm face, which made him older than his twenty-six years. He had a friendly smile, and had always shown willingness to overlook Jervis’s early discomfort, but in his eyes he seemed to hold a reserve, a strange barrier, as if he was watching, waiting for something to happen. It was obviously something new, because he had heard Duncan asking Taylor, the E.R.A., if he thought “the skipper was goin’ round the bend?”

  He ran his fingers through his short wavy hair and grinned. `I’m ready and willing!’

  Duncan jabbed him in the ribs and leered. `Don’t talk like that in front of these two jokers; you know what they say about submariners!’

  Jervis coloured and glanced anxiously at the captain. The latter had turned his back on them, however, and was staring at the chart.

  `Shall I call the skipper, Steve?’ Jervis asked hurriedly.

  The captain suddenly stood up from the table, ‘Yes, call him,’ he said curtly. `Tell him I’m going to put over the rubber dinghy to take off the passage crew.’

  `Poor chaps,’ chuckled Duncan. `The towing crew have had the job of looking after the midget all the way here, an’ now we take over for the best part!’