Alexander Fullerton: Surface!

“It’s likely that we’ll shift our billet after a few days, because it’ll soon be obvious whether or not there’s going to be an evacuation, and if there isn’t we’ll be sent elsewhere. If there is, it ought to be short and sharp. Two other submarines, Setter and Slayer , are already there, a bit higher up than we’ll be.

“That’s all. Carry on.”

“Go to Patrol Routine when you’re ready, Number One.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The Captain walked forward to the Chart table, where the Navigator was already busy.

That evening the wind rose suddenly, as the barometer had promised, and for the first time in three patrols the submarine was rolling and pitching. Chief looked paler than usual as he pretended to eat his supper.

“I hope to God,” he muttered, “that it’s not going to be like this for three bloody weeks.”

“Not feeling so good, Chief?”

“You shut up.”

“This, no doubt,” murmured Number One, “is the good-humoured, cheerful, comradely spirit which the books say is essential in the close confines of a submarine.”

“Not of a submarine. It’s something in the close confines of Chiefy’s tum-tum.”

“What time, Sub, do you go on watch?” Chief eyed the Sub-Lieutenant malevolently as he asked the question.

“In ten minutes.”

“And next after that?”

“Two o’clock. Why?”

“When I hear you shaken, I’ll lean out of my bunk and scream with laughter.”

“O.K. I’ll hold a basin for you.” Sub wasn’t feeling any too good himself, but he knew that all would be well as soon as he got up in the fresh air. There were only two places to be, in bad weather: either on the bridge, or flat on your bunk. When it was really bad, even the bunk was inclined to be unsatisfactory, but there was one position, on your side with your knees up and your feet jammed against the bulkhead, that was better than any. You gradually found out these little things that took the strain off life, or at any rate off your stomach.

He looked at the chart and noted the run that would be covered in his watch, while the others slept down here and he was alone with the wind and the flying sea, along on the front of the bridge which was really only a platform sixteen feet above the level of the sea, when it was calm. When the sea was rough it was often much less than sixteen feet away, and the platform had brass-bound holes in it as well, to let the water out when the submarine surfaced, so that a watch in bad weather was inclined to be a wet two hours. The sea came over the front, sometimes just spray but sometimes solid green water, hard and heavy, and it was as much like riding a surf-board as keeping a watch in a ship of war.

More than a ship of war, though: a weapon, as deadly as any in use, designed for the one purpose of destruction. Standing on the bridge and looking down on the gleaming black hull as it thrashes through the leaping waves you see it as it is, so lethal and sinister that to you it looks as beautiful as anything afloat. The sharp shark’s bow leads out from where the casing looks broader, where the hydroplane guards stand dripping, like the head of a snake, venomous and lovely, most certainly alive.

A straight course, no lights from which to fix the ship’s position, very little likelihood of anything like an enemy being anywhere near. Only the wind and the sea, the routine of look-outs being relieved, the helmsmen changing over.

“Bridge!”

“Bridge,” you answer, into the voice-pipe.

“Helmsman relieved, sir. Course oh-eight-eight, three-eight-oh revolutions, running charge port.”

“Very good.”

The sea sweeps past, over and under.

“Bridge!”

“Bridge.”

“Relieve lookout, sir?”

“Yes, please.” A moment later a dark figure emerges from the hatch behind you, looks round for a moment and takes over from the man at the back of the bridge. Two minutes pass, and the relieved lookout stands at your shoulder.

“Lookout relieved, sir. Nothing in sight.”

“Right, Rivers.”

“G’night, sir.”

“Good-night.”

In the bottom of the main ballast tanks are open holes. The water stays out because it is met by an equal pressure of air from the inside. The air is kept in because the vents at the top of the tanks are shut, only opened when it is necessary to flood the tanks to dive the submarine. In rough weather, however, some of the air escapes, and to keep the submarine as high up in the water as possible it is necessary from time to time to build up the pressure of air in the tanks.

“Control Room!”

“Control Room.”

“Open all L.P. master blows.”

“Open all L.P. master blows, sir.”

Half a minute later, “Bridge!”

“Bridge.”

“One, two, three, four and five L.P. master blows open, sir.”

“Start the blower.”

“Start the blower, sir.”

The stokers dislike this procedure. The blower is situated in the after compartment, where they sleep, and it makes a noise.

“Control Room. Tell me when five minutes are up.”

“Aye aye, sir, five minutes.”

The time passes slowly in the great empty circle of the horizon.

“Bridge! – five minutes, sir.”

“Stop the blower, shut all L.P. master blows.”

“Stop the blower, sir. Shut all L.P. master blows.”

Down below they carry out the order.

“Bridge!”

“Bridge.”

“Blower stopped, sir, all L.P. master blows shut.”

“Very good. Shake the First Lieutenant.”

In ten minutes’ time Jimmy will be up to take over, and you can get down that ladder, take your wet clothes off, and sleep for four hours. There should be no interruptions, tonight or tomorrow night.

Jimmy, the First Lieutenant, looks down on the straight, strong bow, and sees the life in the man-made steel as the hard, stinging spray lashes his face. Ships not only live, he thinks, but talk. Ships are the seamen, while we do our best to live up to their standards.

“How does it feel, down there in the warm sea?”

“Fine.”

“Are you handled well?”

“Well enough. Some of you are seamen.”

“What do you know of seamen?”

“Little. They are few, the great ones.”

“Name some.”

“There was Drake, and a queer little man called Nelson. One called Smith, of whom few men have ever heard, was the greatest of them all. Some of the finest, nearest to the greatest, are not long dead.”

“Name them.”

“They are not long dead. Their names are still a hurt in human minds. They will never live in history, like the old ones. The battles are too frequent, and the names too many.”

“So many?”

“You could count them on the fingers of two hands.”

The bow crashes into a cleft in the sea, wiggles, and rises fast, towering higher than the bridge before it falls again.

“Could I ever be numbered amongst them?”

“You?”

“Could I?”

“You would be perhaps, in time.”

“What do you mean by ‘would be’? Will I, or not? Damn you for an old cow!”

“Would be.”

“Would be, if what?”

The roar of the sea is the only answer, the roar of the sea and the way it laughs while it dances.

It is two days later and the Navigator is on watch, on the surface still, the time five-thirty, in the morning watch. In the Night Order Book the Captain has ordered, “Call me at five-thirty.”

Tommy bends down to the voice-pipe.

“Control Room!”

“Control Room.”

“Shake the Captain.”

“Shake the Captain, sir.”

A few minutes later he appears out of the hatch and stares out over the port bow, where as soon as light comes they expect to see the Andaman Islands. These islands, once a leper colony, are now the limit of Japanese expansion in the Indian Ocean. The steep green shores rise sharply from the blue water: the earth, where trees have been felled to make roads, is reddish in colour.