Эдвин Грей - Diving Stations

‘Passed directly overhead just before the explosion, sir. HE suggests she’s turned south towards Victoria….’ Murray paused, listened intently and carefully moved the knurled knob of his apparatus. ‘Still turning, sir. Now headed east towards Junk Bay.’

‘Periscope depth!’

‘Up-helm ’planes◦– level at thirty.’

The two coxswains eased the big diving wheels to the left and watched the red needles of the depth gauges swing upwards.

‘Thirty feet, sir!’

‘Reverse ’planes… keep her level, Cox’n.’

‘Up periscope!’

Hamilton grabbed the handles and pulled them down as the thin stalk of the ’scope poked above the waves. He circled quickly until the upper lens was bearing towards the stern. The water suddenly drained from the angled glass and he found himself staring into the soft darkness of the tropical night, with a canopy of stars twinkling against the black velvet vault of the sky above the horizon. He picked out the stern of the destroyer disappearing in the general direction of Lye Mum Point and then carried out a swift 360 degree search of the surface to make sure there were no other enemy warships in the vicinity.

He could just make out the shapes of the other two destroyers circling off the coast to the east◦– their searchlights sweeping the surface as if looking for something. He switched to the high magnification lens for a closer inspection of the scene and watched the third destroyer join its companions. Working in formation, the three warships quartered the area off Taikoo like restless hounds prowling outside the lair of a runaway fox. Then, as a signal lamp flashed from one of the destroyers, they formed up in line ahead. Gathering speed, they steered eastwards towards the open sea. Hamilton watched them vanish and then surveyed the empty waters of Quarry Bay once again.

‘Down periscope.’ He turned away as the column sank back into its womb under the deck. ‘Firefly’s gone,’ he announced unemotionally. ‘The Japs were searching for survivors but I doubt if they found any. Must have been a direct hit on the magazine. That would account for the explosion we heard.’

No one spoke for a few moments, but they all knew Firefly had deliberately sacrificed herself to ensure their escape. It was Mannon who finally broke the brooding silence with an epitaph that voiced the thoughts of every man in the submarine’s control room.

‘I reckon Harry Ottershaw deserves a bloody Victoria Cross.’

Hamilton leaned his elbows on the table while he studied the chart. Snark wanted him to patrol off Lam Tong Island during the hours of daylight and that meant a long sweep past Larama Island and then a run to the east keeping south of Victoria Island itself. It was tempting to cut through the channel via Deep Water, Repulse, and South Bays. But once the sun had risen, he had little doubt that Japanese air patrols would be scouring the inshore areas in search of any remaining British warships still afloat and he wanted to proceed on the surface to save Rapier’s batteries.

‘Urgent damage report, sir.’

Hamilton straightened up as O’Brien came through the bulkhead hatch into the control room.

‘What’s the trouble, Chief?’

‘Starboard bunker leaking, sir. Clayton’s been checking the oil level and it’s dropping steadily even though the engines aren’t running.’

Hamilton felt a cold finger trace slowly down his spine. O’Brien was worried about the loss of fuel and the consequent reduction in Rapier’s effective range. Hamilton’s fear was more immediate. With oil leaking from the damaged bunker, the submarine was leaving a trail on the surface which, once spotted, would bring every available enemy ship and aircraft zeroing in for the kill. If he came to the surface and radioed Rapier’s exact position to the Japanese flagship they’d be in no greater danger!

‘How much fuel in the other bunkers, Chief?’

‘About forty tons, sir.’

‘Well that’s sufficient for the moment. Pump all the remaining fuel in the damaged tank overboard immediately.’

O’Brien hesitated. It was not in his nature to question orders, but he wondered whether the skipper realized the consequences of what he had just said. ‘But if we do that, sir,’ he pointed out, ‘we won’t have enough fuel left to go anywhere. I can plug the leak inside an hour or so. It’s better than losing ten tons by opening the taps.’

‘And until you do, Chief,’ Hamilton said coldly, ‘Rapier is leaving a trail of oil on the surface that’ll bring the entire Japanese Navy upon us in about the same time! It’s sunrise in thirty minutes. If we’re not at least five miles clear of that slick by dawn we won’t live long enough to see another. Pump the bunker clear as ordered, Mister O’Brien.’

‘Aye aye, sir.’

Hamilton returned to the chart table, pulled open a small drawer, and took out a slip of paper on which was written the latitude and longitude of a rendezvous point. He passed it to Scott.

‘I want to be at that position by noon, pilot. You’ll have to deduct an hour while we heave-to so that O’Brien can plug the leak. Can you do it?’

Scott glanced at the position shown on the slip of paper, gauged the distance on the chart, and nodded.

‘I think so, sir. Although it will mean running at least half the distance on the surface at maximum speed.’ The navigator frowned down at the chart. ‘There’s only one thing, sir. That fix you gave me is in the middle of the China Sea◦– there’s no land within two hundred miles. What the hell are we going to find when we get there?’ Hamilton smiled enigmatically. ‘Wait and see, Pilot. Wait and see. Just lay on a course◦– I’ll produce the rabbit out of the hat.’

The big trading junk looked innocent enough to the casual observer. The large rush-matting sails rippled in the breeze like blinds fluttering behind an open window and she was making barely two knots. The Chinese characters daubed on her flat stern indicated she was from Macao, but she carried no other mark or figures of identification◦– a not unusual state of affairs with native sailing vessels. But there was something about her that puzzled Lieutenant Furutaka and, after a short period of indecisive hesitation, he took the bull by the horns and called the captain to the bridge.

Commander Aritsu’s expression boded trouble as he came up the companion way. He liked his junior officers to be self-reliant and made no attempt to conceal his annoyance as Furutaka pointed out the junk and explained his misgivings. Aritsu snarled impatiently, raised his binoculars, and examined the mysterious stranger for himself.

For the river people of China, their boat is their home. They have nowhere else to live and the larger sea-going junks often support two or three families extending, on occasions, to three generations, complete with all their worldly possessions and livestock. As the deeply laden vessels dip past with their leeside gunwales almost under water, it is often difficult to see what possible room could be left for commercial freight in the face of its superabundant human cargo. The men work the sails and steering, the women cook, wash clothes amidships, or idly gossip in the stern; chickens cluck importantly from bamboo coops strung from the rigging, and innumerable children of all ages play in whatever free deck space is left.

And, as Aritsu’s experienced eyes quickly detected, that was the oddity which had puzzled his officer-of-the-watch. The junk moving slowly across Suma’s bows only had three people on deck!

‘Lower away the sea boat, Lieutenant. And send over a boarding party to check her papers.’