Эдвин Грей - Diving Stations

‘Maintain course, Cox’n. But stay about a thousand yards offshore – I don’t want to run aground on the shoals.’ As Blood acknowledged the order, Hamilton leaned forward over the bridge screen. ‘Good shooting, lads. I’ll see if I can find you some more targets.’

‘Looks as though the Japs were planning a landing for tonight, sir,’ Mannon observed as the skipper rejoined him on the port-wing of the bridge.

Hamilton shrugged. ‘Possibly. More likely tomorrow◦– they’ve no artillery in position. And they’ll need gun support if they attempt a crossing.’

‘Landing craft ahead!’

Morgan’s warning shout put a stop to further speculation and both officers peered anxiously into the darkness. This time it was Mannon who found the target first. ‘Eleven o’clock off port bow, sir! Eight-hundred yards. Boats moored to a small landing stage.’ His glasses swung to the left. ‘And a number of trucks parked behind the trees.’ Guided by the first officer’s directions, Hamilton picked up the new target without difficulty. The enemy concentration was considerably larger than the previous one and most of the pontoons were already in the water loaded to the gunwales with fully equipped combat troops. Mannon was right. The Japs did intend to cross the Straits tonight!

‘Gun action! Target red-two-zero… range eight-hundred. Fire! Fire! Fire!’

It was impossible to miss, and every salvo found its mark as Rapier’s gunners poured shell after shell into the crowded target area. To an impartial observer it was little more than sheer bloody carnage. But to Hamilton and his men, already sickened by Japanese atrocities in China and Malaya, it was a just and rewarding vengeance on an enemy that asked, and gave, no quarter.

A fully laden pontoon reared like a startled horse and threw its cargo of soldiers into the sea as a near miss exploded close under its stern. Another vanished in a sheet of blinding flame as Morgan’s men scored a direct hit on a box of ammunition. A third swung violently to starboard and collided with its companion. Within two minutes, the sea was strewn with wreckage, equipment, floating bodies, and struggling men. MacIntyre sighted his machine gun into the confusion and took deliberate aim at a group of soldiers staggering waist-deep towards the beach, bringing them down with a long sustained burst that ripped the night air with the sound of tearing calico. The water turned bright red as it lapped gently over the shingle and then fell back to leave the huddled remains of the dead soldiers on the wet stones; like grotesque black starfish thrown up and abandoned by the sea.

A concealed machine gun opened up from behind the trees and heavy caliber bullets thudded against the thin steel plating of the conning tower. MacIntyre swung his Lewis gun towards the source of the firing and answered with a quick burst that quickly silenced the opposition.

‘Hard a’starboard!’

Mannon had to grab for the bridge rail as Blood gave the submarine full right rudder. He looked towards the bows. Hamilton must have eyes in the back of his bloody head!

In a wild bid to escape the holocaust on the beach, three motorized pontoons had started their outboards and were heading away from the shore towards the center of the Strait, in the hope that sea-room would bring safety. A bubbling white wash curled from their square sterns as they increased speed. Mannon could see the soldiers hanging on for grim death as the flat-bottomed landing craft bounced and jolted across, the smooth water.

‘Steer at them, Cox’n!’ Hamilton shouted to Blood. ‘Ram the bastards!’

Rapier’s sharp steel bows cut the leading landing craft in half and it vanished beneath the black water within seconds. The broad sweep of the starboard ballast tank struck the second pontoon a glancing blow that splintered the frail wooden hull like matchwood. It tilted on to its beam-ends, hung precariously for a few moments, and then turned over. MacIntyre’s Lewis gun raked the sea as the survivors bobbed to the surface and his trigger finger did not relax its pressure until every man was dead.

The last pontoon in the line swerved sharply to starboard to avoid a similar fate and then swung purposefully towards the avenging submarine while the soldiers tried to bring their machine gun to bear. But with less than twenty yards to go, the clumsy flat-bottomed craft caught the full force of Rapier’s bow wave and it reared up as a wall of cresting water swept under its blunt snout. Lacking the stability of a properly designed boat, it capsized in an instant and flung its occupants into the sea.

Most of the soldiers were dragged under by their heavy combat equipment and drowned within seconds, but three threw themselves forward with fanatical determination and tried to gain a grip on Rapier’s slippery hull plating. The officer leading them was quickly swept away by the wash and his screams rent the night air as the propellers caught him.

‘No prisoners!’

The submariners reacted to Hamilton’s grim order without hesitation. Morgan grabbed an iron stanchion, ran along the fore-deck, and smashed it down on the hands of the first Japanese as he tried to haul himself to safety. Ryuji Kamisaka screamed but, ignoring the agony of his broken fingers, he continued to cling on with his left hand. Morgan struck again and the army corporal fell back into the sea with an anguished cry, drifted helplessly astern for a few brief moments, and then raised his arm and vanished beneath the surface.

The second soldier had already pulled himself up onto the fore-deck casing by the time Walker arrived in the bows and he received the seaman’s boot in his face for his efforts. Losing his grip, he fell backwards into the water with a loud splash and disappeared.

The excitement was over before Rapier’s men had had time to consider what they were doing. The skipper had given an order and responding to discipline they had carried it out. No one questioned whether it was lawful. And no one mentioned the Geneva Convention. It had been a matter of kill or be killed. In the heat of combat, personal survival could be the only consideration….

‘Destroyers to starboard!’

‘Check fire! New target three thousand yards on starboard bow◦– stand by!’

In the confusion of a night battle it is easy to make a mistake and Hamilton wanted positive identification before he ordered Rapier’s deck gun to open fire. The approaching ships were unlikely to be British◦– but, he readily admitted it was an outside chance, they could be American.

‘Three ships in line ahead◦– estimated speed twenty-five knots,’ Mannon reported as he watched the approaching destroyers through his glasses. ‘No lights.’

The crashing roar of an exploding shell astern rocked the submarine violently and Hamilton glanced back quickly at the shore. In the flickering glow of the burning trucks he could see a Japanese field gun on the shingle beach with another being manhandled alongside it. The heady self-confidence created by their two easy successes quickly disappeared in the face of this new danger. Suddenly everything had gone sour. And, if the approaching warships proved to be Japanese, the enemy had the submarine trapped between two fires!

‘Reverse course, Cox’n. Steer west and make for mid-channel. I’m going to need diving room.’ Hamilton leaned over the engine room voice pipe. ‘Maximum revs, O’Brien! Pull out all the bloody stops!’

‘Engine room, aye aye, sir.’

Having replaced the plug of the speaking-tube, Hamilton joined Mannon as Rapier heeled over sharply and swung onto her new course.

The leading warship had closed to 2,500 yards and not even the darkness could disguise the knuckled bow and cranked funnels of a typical Japanese destroyer. Yellow flame stabbed from her for’ard gun turret and, as the fierce crack of cordite echoed across the sea, two uncomfortably well-placed shells exploded close under the stern, throwing up towering geysers of dirty brown water.