Geoffrey Jenkins - A bridge of Magpies

'Jump!'

I jumped. Jutta stayed behind in Gaok as we'd arranged previously.

'All set there?

'Aye,' I called back to Denny. 'Let's smack it about.' He broke the joint plan of action before we started, though. Before I'd time to fire Ichabo's engine he was off alone in the direction of the U-boat. He threw a spotlight on her when he got close. Then Ichabo's engine started banging away. Where was Sang A?

I headed for U-160.

When I came alongside Gaok I saw by her spotlight what the object was that was bobbing and swinging from the jumping-wire like a jack-rabbit pendulum every time a wave lifted the sub.

I cut Ichabo's engine and leapt aboard Gaok. Denny and Jutta were together in the wheelhouse staring at the U-boat. '

Mine! That's a mine!'

I could almost reach out and touch it but nothing would have made me do so. It hung by a whisker. A U-boat's jumping-wire is a single thick cable for about half its length, then divides into two-V-shaped, somewhere above the level of the gun. The V is secured to either side of the conningtower by sets of double shackles. One leg of the V had snapped. The other was carrying the mine's full weight. The mine's own mooring cable had snarled about the jumpingwire. The main obstacle which prevented its crashing to the deck was a flanged bit of rusty metal,(probably in its own sea-bed anchor) which was wedged in one of the shackles.

'I saw it there the first time,' replied Kaptein Denny coolly.

'She tangled with one. of her own mines which she'd laid in the channel. But one of the wires has snapped since I saw it last time.'

For all the concern he showed, he might have been quietly discussing some rigging technicalily instead of half a ton of explosive liable lo go off at the drop of a hat. Of a wire, rather.

And the other's going to part at any moment! Especially now it hasn't the sea's lift to take the strain off it! Come on, man! Help me do something about it – quick!'

He made no move.

`Take a look at the way that thing's hanging-see?' I went on. 'It's upside down. Those spikes sticking out below are detonating horns. They're pointing downwards. If that cable snaps the mine will drop slap on the deck – Christ!'

I'd been so carried away, my eyes fixed on the swinging mine, that I hadn't paid any attention to the deck. Now I forgot even the mine.

'If we're looking for a spectacular when the next big sea shakes that mine loose, we've got it,' I said slowly. I couldn't say it fast because my mouth was too dry. `Do you see what I see?'

'Schlebusch was an ace,' replied Kaptein Denny. 'He needed plenty of torpedoes'

'Nine!' J managed to say. 'Nine extra torpedoes lashed on deck! She's a bloody floating hardware store!'

The spare torpedoes, which Schlebusch would have reloaded through special hatches on the casing, were stowed directly beneath the suspended mine with their firing heads pointing forward to give good streamlining underwater.

'I know that nowadays amatol is considered an old-fashioned explosive,' I said. 'A kilo or two of a modern type is enough to blow up a building. But, by God, there's enough here to sink the Queen Elizabeth, Ark Royal and Enterprise all rolled into one!'

A swell washed against the waterlogged hull and a ripple of phosphorescent fire spread along it.

`Put me aboard,' I said. 'This is a one-man operation. I' ll fix it. Then get clear, in case J fluff things.'

'No!' exclaimed Jutta. 'No, Struan! No!'

'Do as I say. Every second's vital. want some spare cable to reinforce what's left up there and then make the mine fast..

'There's some below-' replied Kaptein Denny quickly. ' Goals staying. You'll want her spotlight to see what you're doing. We're all in this together.'

'Stay if you like: amatol's easy. It doesn't matter whether you're five or five hundred feet from the explosion centre of a load like this.'

Jutta's face was a mask of misery. 'Please-no old hulk is worth it!''

There wasn't time to listen to her side of the story. J'd set myself in motion to do a job and I'd narrowed down my thinking to that, to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps tlmebomb defusers work that way. My muscles hadn't got over their initial shock-though; it seemed as if they were being operated by remote control.

I ducked below for some cable-lengths of securing line and wire-cutters. When I got back on deck Kaptein Denny was easing Gaok alongside the U-boat-millimetre by milli- metre. There was a steel-clad reason, hanging by a thread, why he should.

Then I was climbing ova: the side.

Jutta caJled, 'I'll hold your things. I'll pass them to you while you work.'

If the mine slipped I wouldn't be able to reach her in the last few seconds; without her there my hands would be steadier.

'No.'

She didn't argue but I could feel her eyes on my back as I dropped down on to the barnacled casing. There was an unmistakable musty, wet, deep-sea smell coming off the conning-tower and I found a steel ladder up to it. It was clamped on the starboard side (where Gaok was) and led first to a light anti-aircraft gun platform, drilled full of holes for draining, abaft the bridge. This was surrounded by a rusty melal 'pulpit rail'. It could well have been one of Gousblom's turrets which had fallen on her, because the structure was wrecked and the stanchions and rails were all crushed. The rear entrance to the conning-tower bridge-a U-shaped enclosure with the open end of the U facing astern-was blocked with twisted metal and also the remains of the peri197 scope housing. It was just possible to edge in.

I did so, and started in on the mine. The jumping-wire to starboard was gone but the one to port was intact. I got -a light line round the top of the mine and stopped it swinging: one of the detonating horns was arcing within eighteen inches of the bridge.

Easy now, easy does it, I told myself. Up to now Pd been ' working largely by reflex, but with the slight change of the odds in my favour I began to react consciously. You can't do anything about the main jumping-wire for'ard of the gun before it divides for the 'W, because it's out of reach, but it doesn't look too bad. Keep that infernal spotlight out of my eyes! I'd brace and lash tight my new strop on the broken section by running a loop through the nearest shackle, then secure it to something firm on the bridge. The steel pipe of the captain's jump-stool would serve. It was strong enough to take the strain.

I was sweating heavily and bracing myself against the bridge coaming and leaning forward to slip one end of the wire through the shackle to make the repair. Easy now, easy! I hope to God Sang A doesn't come and catch us with our pants down and a fart weighing half a ton in the pipeline waiting to hit the deck. Not the deck. At twelve feet it didn't need a computer to work out the exact spot where the mine would land. On those nine torpedoes. Would they still explode after all this time? It didn't matter reaJly; the mine would. You're always reading about old war-time mines going up. Over a hundred thousand of them still unswept up around Britain… Pull yourself together. You're shaking like a soak with the ritte! The whole bloody Sperrgebiet will shake too if this little lot goes up. I couldn't manage to complete the loop of my emergency strop. I was about six inches too far away from the shackle. I could do so, however, if I hung on the jumping wire. Add my two hundred pounds' weight to that already dicey cable. So near and yet so far. Shit on all of them who'd put me in this spot. Shit on you, you bastard Denny, Denzo, or whatever you caJl yourself. Stuff all the Denzos. All the long line of them in eight hundred years. And Tsushima. And Yamamoto. There's Jutta to think of now. I'm damned if this iron udder is going to bang its tits on any deck full of torpedoes,