See You at the Bar Page 11

  ‘Mr Gooch, Captain here. On my order, you fire the first torpedo and then all remaining torpedoes on the stopwatch at five-second intervals. Stand by.’ He checked his watch and ordered the ’scope up once more. He called the bearing, range and speed, then, ‘What’s my DA?’

  And McCready called it back.

  Harry’s face remained glued to the attack periscope’s eyepiece. One second passed, two, then… ‘Fire One!’

  They all felt it go.

  Harding started his stopwatch. He looked at the range to the targets. ‘Just onthree thousand yards. It should be about two minutes to run,’ he said. They all felt the next torpedo go, and one by one, all the others. Harry ordered the periscope down, then, ‘Starboard thirty! Keep ninety feet, full ahead together.’

  They waited until there could be no mistake, until the last torpedo must have finished its run. They’d all missed. Right after, it was pretty certain the attack had failed, Biddle reported more HE from the MAS-boats – they were really going crazy now – then they had heard the first depth charges in the water. But they were a long way astern. Harry secured the boat from diving stations. All he said was, ‘Good effort, lads. My eye just wasn’t in today,’ then he asked for a cup of coffee. Harding and Farrar exchanged looks, and McCready saw them, thinking so it wasn’t just him who’d noticed. Scourge withdrew further offshore to load her four remaining torpedoes. For the next few days, she cruised the shallow coastal waters at periscope depth down as far as Bar, where Harry conned her on the surface one night, right in behind the port’s long, extended breakwater to look for targets. But there was nothing there but fishing boats.

  Outside, along the coast, they made several sightings: lone steamers with shagbats overhead for cover, but the sea was too calm and shallow – less than a hundred feet in places – for Scourge to even get remotely close before the eye in the sky would spot them prowling through the clear, pellucid water.

  The night after their excursion into Bar, Harry had been lying on his bunk, behind his curtain, ostensibly feeding his sleep bank. The whispers in the wardroom were so low he wasn’t even certain who was there. And even then, the words were only clear in snatches, ‘…everybody knows, if it’s over two thousand yards, it’s pure luck if…’ That was all he really heard, the rest was just muttering. But he knew what they were talking about. Three targets at two thousand yards, and him firing a full salvo and missing. With every torpedo. And now, he was eavesdropping on someone making an excuse for him. Harry didn’t like that – people thinking they had to make excuses for him. What captain would? But it was true, nonetheless. Yes, he had hit things at much longer ranges. But he wasn’t silly enough to believe that was just down to his super-human powers, there had had to be an element of luck. He knew that, just like he knew that luck had been looking the other way when he missed this time. But he couldn’t stop picking at it. Then there was the other matter nagging at him. Captain Bonalleck, the old Bonny Boy himself, the man who hated him, who appeared to have a pathological, probably even murderous enmity for him, who thought he, ‘lacked aggressive spirit’, and the thought that he might just be right.

  Even though he knew he was harming himself by doing so, he couldn’t stop listening to that voice, undermining his own confidence, putting his crew at risk through his own self-doubts, doing the bloody enemy’s job for him.

  Was he losing it?

  It wasn’t that he was scared, that he was a coward. Christ, he was usually too busy in action for the thought to even occur to him. Maybe it was simply that he was just too tired now to be any good anymore? He rolled over, determined to let the fatigue he was feeling engulf him at last and finally shut down that bloody whining in his head. He’d made up his mind, how all this was going to get resolved.

  The first thing he was going to do when they docked again in Malta was to go and see Shrimp, and tell him. Everything.

  Captain Simpson, the flotilla CO, would be the final arbiter of Harry’s fitness. That was how it had always worked in the Royal Navy, and Harry could think of no good reason why it should change now. The next day, Scourge’s time on the billet ran out. Harry pointed her at the Straits of Otranto, and they headed back to Malta, freshwater showers, clean sheets, long lies and long cool gins on the balcony at the Lazaretto.

  Seven

  Captain Simpson had travelled by London underground to Swiss Cottage and then walked the rest of the way to the serviced apartment block on College Crescent that now served as the headquarters for Flag Officer, Submarines. Northways was a golden brick edifice that curled around a fountained forecourt and must’ve been a nice place to live after it first opened its rather grand entrance hall in the 1930s. Now, it had been requisitioned by the Admiralty, its forecourt garlanded with sandbags and its tiers of steel-framed windows starred with blast tape. He’d been shown up to an anteroom with a petty officer, writer at a desk who’d offered him a cup of tea. He had declined.

  Then he’d been shown in to meet the new FOS. The old FOS, Max Horton, had decamped to Western Approaches some time previously, and having been out in the Med all that time, Shrimp hadn’t had the opportunity yet to meet the new one in his current role. But Shrimp knew him of old.

  He was Rear Admiral Claud Barry, and Shrimp had been his first lieutenant in the submarine, HMS Thames, back in 1932. He had always remembered a warm man, with a certain quiet power to him, full-lipped and a bit jowly, but that always bespoke a certain presence. All that was still true, but Shrimp hadn’t expected the grey parchment look to his fleshy face. The rear admiral didn’t look quite well. But needless to say, Shrimp said nothing about that. The handshake was still firm.

  ‘Another few days and I’d have been coming out to meet you,’ Rear Adm Barry told him with a laugh. ‘Off to see old Harwood at Alex. Which means having to entrust my fragile, corporeal presence here on earth to the crabfats. Bloody flying boats! And you’re off to work for Max again. That’ll be fun. I’ve heard he went into the Liver Building like Christ come to cleanse the temple.’

  The Liver Building in Liverpool housed Western Approaches headquarters, and it was from there that Admiral Max Horton was now controlling the battle of the Atlantic.

  ‘I’m to be Commodore, Londonderry, so that should be far enough away,’ said Shrimp, with a laconic smile. He had worked under Admiral Horton for long enough to know what a terror he could be – but only to those who didn’t know what they were doing. If you did know what you were doing, Max Horton was your greatest ally.

  ‘Just make sure that if there are any decent golf courses near you, you get them turned over to vegetable growing instantly, otherwise, you’ll never see the back of him,’ said Rear Adm Barry, as he thrust a tumbler of gin into Shrimp’s hand. ‘So, tell me, was it really pretty bloody out there? Actually, you don’t have to answer that, George. I can tell by just looking at you. You know, you’re never going to pass for twenty-one anymore.’

  They talked about the Med, the war, about submarines, about the men, a bit about the future and a lot about the past and then Shrimp got onto a subject that he’d been holding back on because it was delicate; about the Captain S of Twelfth Flotilla, the Bonny Boy Bonalleck, and the bloody mess concerning Lt Harry Gilmour RNVR, the CO of HMS Scourge. Rear Adm Barry said, ‘I was wondering when we were going to get around to that,’ and then he listened.

  The rear admiral had seen the signals; all Bonalleck’s ranting about this young skipper, calling for disciplinary inquiries, reprimands, everything short of some official issuing of a white feather. But he hadn’t heard the background Chief Petty Officer Gault had supplied to Shrimp during their quiet chat in the Lazaretto. About the ramming of Pelorus and Bonalleck’s drunkenness. And what the boat’s only other surviving officer – the then Sub Lt Gilmour – had told Bonalleck to his face. Barry had laughed at that, no humour in it though, just a dry, sardonic bark. ‘I can think of quite a few far more senior officers who’d have jumped at the opportunity to tell him that, even today,’
he said. ‘What’s C-in-C Med’s response been?’

  ‘Nothing firm. To date,’ said Shrimp. ‘He’s just asked for clarification. I got the impression he knew nothing about this op to kill Kesselring. Also, I suppose to be charitable, he’s been a bit busy guarding Monty’s seaward flank.’

  Barry didn’t look impressed, ‘Ah, poor old Henry Harwood. Lovely chap, heart like a lion, but when it comes to mastering the complexities of a fleet command, no one would ever accuse him of being a titan. I’m sure he thinks the paperwork will go away if he stares at it long enough. I’ll raise it with him when I get out there. This has all the hallmarks of one of those stinks that can very easily get out of hand if it’s not pinched off right away. You were right to raise it, George. This young skipper of yours sounds quite a fellow. And we all know what most sensible folk think about the Bonny Boy.’

  ‘Most. Yes,’ said Shrimp with a sigh. ‘But the navy isn’t a democracy. And Captain Bonalleck has friends who outrank even you.’

  Eight

  Harry had put on his only white dress shirt and a pair of uniform blue trousers for Scourge’s return to Malta, and he’d told the rest of the crew to smarten up too.

  It was a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky, and the sun was starting to get hot. The island languished long and low along the horizon ahead, like a bleached stone crust on the blue, blue sea. He was on the bridge with Harding and McCready and four lookouts, one of them being the yeoman, Dickie Bird, to whom fell the honour of tending to the boat’s now much-cluttered Jolly Roger. There was a new dagger for all the work with the partisans, quite a few white chevrons for all the small trading craft Hooper had dispatched with his three-incher and a scatter of dynamite sticks with fuses for the ones they’d sunk by demolition charge. But no flat white or red bars for freighters or warships torpedoed.

  Everybody had heeded the skipper’s instructions, and Harry was quietly pleased with the way they’d all brushed up. Even the stick of five ratings manning the forward casing had managed to scrounge enough sets of whites to fit out all of them. Standing in a perfect row, at ease with hands clasped behind their backs, they actually managed to look proper naval.

  Some change from the days of the siege when you had to slink back in between air raids.

  There were other changes from the days of the siege.

  For a start, the press of shipping arriving and departing Valetta.

  The approaches to both the Grand Harbour and Marsamxett, where Harry was conning Scourge, had a queue of them: two arriving transports, each of them ten thousand-tonners; a small flotilla of minesweepers coming out and curving round to sortie north, a gaggle of motor gunboats that looked like they might be on permanent guard and the motor gunboat that had been sent out to escort Scourge in. Harry had already remarked how far out had been set their rendezvous point, but when he scanned the sky over the island, he began to understand. There were a lot of aircraft around. At least two transports in a holding pattern out over what must be Takali airfield, and when he looked up, two loose-deuces of Spitfires making their standing patrols in long, lazy circles at about ten thousand feet, one almost overhead and the other away to the north. You’d have thought with the war in its third year, the RAF would have got over its fixation for attacking their own submarines, but they hadn’t. Which was why the gunboat was here to swat away any over-curious flyboys with itchy trigger fingers.

  Even though they couldn’t quite see into Valetta harbour proper, you could tell the place was chock-a-block with shipping. Harry could see that everybody on the bridge and on the casing was goofing off at this grandstand view their long approach on the surface was granting them, gawping at the sheer size of the military monster that had dumped itself on their little island, of the build-up now taking place. And it had only been three weeks since they’d sailed. Harry had the sense they were returning to the real war now, from what had just been a sideshow, a playground scrap. It made him feel very small, and all their recent triumphs and disasters up there in the Adriatic seem insignificant footnotes to the big show. Still, it was nice to be back, and he could tell from the tangible frisson running through the boat that everybody else felt the same way.

  None of this had changed his resolve to speak to Shrimp.

  *

  ‘Call me Hutch. Everybody else does,’ said this long, slim, schoolmasterly figure in his immaculate whites, including socks and blanco-ed shoes, lowering himself into the floral armchair next to Harry.

  He raised his glass. ‘Ice for the gin, eh! We didn’t have that last time you were in.’

  Harry didn’t know him from Adam, but here he was, Cdr Christopher Hutchinson, Tenth Flotilla’s Commander S, its second-in-command.

  They were on the gallery, which had long served as the Lazaretto’s wardroom, and it was jam-packed with bodies. And not just naval officers, there were a lot of khaki bodies distributed about, and it was standing room only. Hutch had had to pull rank to get the chairs, and even though Harry was just in from patrol, he caught a few sniffy looks from out the corner of his eye. Bloody ignorant set of bastards! Who the hell did they think they were? Harry certainly hadn’t a clue. He hadn’t recognised a single face in the whole throng. And some of the army chaps had looked decidedly dodgy characters. ‘Oh they’re just special forces bods,’ Hutch had explained when he saw Harry looking askance. ‘They’re billeted just across the yard in the old fort, so they’ve been given squatters’ rights here for the time being.’

  He meant Fort Manoel, which was no longer a pile of bomb debris. All part of the renovations. Just like the Lazaretto, which he’d noticed in the short time he’d been here before getting packed off to the Adriatic. The old building had acquired all sorts of luxuries like electric lighting, more tables and chairs, like the ones they were sitting on, doors and proper walls and cabins again. Nothing was like the old days. Not even the faces. None of these new Tenth Flotilla officers could he put a name to, so not surprising really, that there had been no row of familiar faces lining the gallery to hurl the usual friendly abuse as he’d come ashore across the pontoons. There was one of them there apparently, who was even younger than he was now. Or so Hutch had told him as they’d shoved their way from the bar – the new bar – to claim their seats. ‘Johnny Roxburgh, he’s got United. You’re no longer the new kid on the block, as the Yanks say.’

  And there had been no Shrimp.

  The man who had received him in the flotilla’s offices had been a tall, stern figure, with luxuriant black hair and a crisp way about him, in his equally crisp whites. Captain George Philips DSO, Tenth Flotilla’s new Captain S. Harry had never met him before but knew about him. He’d won his DSO for sinking the Jerry light cruiser Liepzig in 1940, but he was even more famous for being the ‘inventor’ of the Ursula suit, which took its name from his then command, the U-class boat HMS Ursula. Well, fancy that, he was Harry’s hero. Oh, how Harry had loved his Ursula suit. However, he stopped himself from saying as much, thinking, correctly, I bet he’s heard that before.

  Harry had delivered his report and handed over Warrant Engineer Bert Petrie’s maintenance log which he knew did not make reassuring reading. That Harry had barely been troubled by any technical problems on the patrol had all been down to Petrie’s expertise in the good old fashioned Royal Navy lash-up. Scourge had been out here a long time without a refit. She was, as they say, knackered. But Bert Petrie was old in the ways of making engines work even if they’d decided they didn’t want to anymore.

  Capt Philips had taken Harry through his report methodically, asked several pertinent questions and concurred with most of his operational decisions. Including giving him a ringing endorsement of his co-operation with Major Drobnjac. ‘It is my understanding that relations with Tito’s forces are about to get ratcheted up,’ he’d explained. ‘When it comes to killing Germans, Marshal Tito appears to be the one killing more of them. So he is going to be our man. Your handling of what could have turned out to be a sticky situation I a
m sure will have gone a long way to easing that process, Mr Gilmour, and I shall certainly be saying so in my report.’

  Which was nice. And a lot better than Harry had had served up to him by the Bonny Boy. But Harry’s antenna had not been on receive to appreciate it. He’d come ashore wanting to talk to Shrimp, and he’d got this bloke. Someone he did not know and who did not know him.

  They moved on to Harry’s list of citation recommendations, topped by a DSM – Distinguished Service Medal – for Hooper, and not a few Mentions in Dispatches. ‘I’ll pass them up,’ the Captain S had said.

  Harry had by then been only half-listening. His plan to unburden himself was no longer an option. He felt stumped as to what to do next.

  ‘Now, as to Scourge’s status with the Tenth,’ said Capt Philips, shuffling some notes on Shrimp’s old desk. ‘There doesn’t appear to be any official order here, rescinding your temporary transfer to the Twelfth Flotilla.’ He’d looked up, smiling, ‘But then Captain Simpson and I missed each other by three days, so we had no time to do a handover. However, from glancing through this,’ he said, gesturing to Petrie’s log, ‘I’d say it was high time you booked your boat in for a spot of dry-docking. By the time you’re ready to come out again, I’m sure we’ll have worked out whether Scourge is back here to stay, or you’re back off to Algiers.’

  Then Capt Philips had had some things to say about the six torpedoes Harry had fired at that convoy. He had commented on the range: ‘Three thousand yards? That was a long shot. You couldn’t get any closer?’ And he had listened to Harry’s description of the MAS-boats handling. ‘Given that there was a lot of trade up and down the coast, was it worth it to have gone ahead with the attack?’ Capt Philips had asked, then he’d given his hands a little wiggle, ‘A fine judgement that, best left to the man on the spot, I suppose. But good for you, you made the decision to go for it. If you’d got lucky, it would’ve been doubles all round, eh? Now, those lengths of painted bamboo,’ said Captain Philips, a fiendish glint creeping into his eyes. ‘How did you get on with them? Anybody actually fooled?’