Alexander Fullerton: Surface!

“Well, he’s dead.”

There was a pause, while you looked into his impersonal eyes: you felt no emotion because it had come so quickly. He looked away, back at his hand, and he asked, still looking at it:

“I suppose you can carry on with your work?”

“Yes, sir,” your voice said, and your hand turned the knob on the door and your feet took you down the stairs, running, because otherwise you’d be late for the class, and there would be no excuse for that when you had said that you were able to carry on with your work.

Lots of other boys loved Dartmouth, and that made you feel very different, abnormal. If so many were happy, it must be you that were wrong. So you always said, when they asked you how you liked it, that you loved it, every minute of it, and they always believed you.

And you felt you ought to like it.

The big screen for the french window in the dining-room was just finished when your sister shouted from the drive that the broadcast was coming through, and you dropped the hammer and ran with her into the drawing-room, where your mother was sitting as stiffly as though she were sixty and not thirty-five. The Prime Minister spoke, said that a state of war existed between us and the Germans, and then they played the National Anthem and you stood to attention, which you had been taught people never did in their own homes. Your mother looked as if she was going to cry, so you left as quickly as you could to finish the job in the garage. You knew that what made her unhappy was the fact that you would soon go to sea and stand a chance of being killed, and this was something you couldn’t deal with because what made her so miserable was the very thing that made you happier than you could remember.

A few years ago, whatever you felt, you could have cheered her up, shown her that you loved her and made her believe that things would be all right. But now: well, you’d been to Dartmouth.

A thin trail of exhaust from the throbbing diesel curls over the submarine’s wake. The tense, watchful atmosphere of the night patrol hushed your voice so that you speak quietly into the voice-pipe, although if you shouted no enemy could possibly hear. A lookout pauses to wipe the sea dew from his binoculars with a wad of periscope paper. It is half-past one, and in half an hour the watch will be changed and you can go below to sleep until, just before the light comes, the submarine dives for the daylight patrol. For the three weeks of the patrol you follow the same routine of two hours on watch, four hours off, except for the times when your off-watch spell is broken by the alarm buzzer, or the klaxon, or the sudden shout of “Diving Stations” that means an attack. When it means an attack, you’re glad to be woken, however tired you are.

Sweep all round for the thousandth time, blink and start again at thirty degrees on the port bow, sweep slowly right, over the bow and down the starboard side, stop at about thirty degrees on the bow, sweep left again. Stop with a jerk at ten on the port bow: something darker than the night. No good staring straight at it or you’ll lose it, sweep to and fro just across it, don’t act until you know it’s real and not one of those things that are so easy to see in your imagination when you’re looking for them. This one is real. Note the bearing, keep your glasses on it while you order one of the two lookouts to get down below. Into the voice-pipe:

“Stop starboard, out engine-clutch, break the charge. Captain on the bridge. Stand by all tubes. Night Alarm.”

Down below your orders are shouted through the compartments and you hear the buzzer making long buzzes, an urgent, penetrating noise like a dentist’s drill in a sleeping sailor’s brain. The Captain’s on the bridge and you show him the target, but it’s a full minute before he gets it in his glasses.

It could be anything from a junk to a destroyer. Send down the other lookout: you may have to dive in a hurry. It’s not likely to be a destroyer, but from this angle it looks damn like it. Slow ahead on the motors, creep round the target at the same distance. Whatever it is, it’s under way, started on the port bow and has crossed to starboard, moving very slowly, but that’s no indication as to what it is because even a destroyer can go slowly when it wants to, when, for instance, it’s hoping that a submarine may be in the neighbourhood on the surface. Creep round, watch the target. Close in from astern, and suddenly, as clearly as though it was daylight, you can see that the tallness is not the superstructure of a destroyer but the sails of a big junk.

Voice-pipe again:

“Stand by Boarding Party.”

“Carry on below, sir?”

“Yes.” You fall through the hatch on to the ladder and drop into the Control Room, move aft quickly through the hurrying men. Over your bunk in the wardroom hangs the belt with a .38 revolver and a short Italian bayonet strung on it. Grab the belt and strap it on as you check up on the Boarding Party who are mustering in the Control Room. They’re all there with their gear: revolvers, heaving-lines, a wheel-spanner, and Shadwell the Torpedo-man has a bag containing two fitted charges, lighters and a pair of pliers. That’s all you need.

“Boarding Party ready in the Control Room, sir.”

“Very good. Come up, Sub.”

On the bridge again, you see the junk plainly, even without binoculars. She’s right ahead with her stern towards you.

“Up Vickers guns.” Two seamen appear out of the hatch and mount machine-guns on each side, slap on the pans of ammunition and stand ready.

“Boarding Party on the bridge.” They pour up through the hatch, five of them.

“Ready, sir.”

“All right, Sub. Down you go.” The Captain hasn’t taken his eyes off the target for one second since he first saw it. He stands hunched in the front of the bridge, a silent, familiar silhouette of a man as you swing a leg over the side of the bridge and climb down the cut-away footholds on to the catwalk, walk around the side of the bridge on to the fore casing. The men are behind you and you lead them for’ard, right up on to the sharp bow, between the anchors. Crouch down so that the Captain can see over your heads, and watch as the distance lessens between you and the stern of the junk. The submarine is propelled by her electric motors, and there is no sound except for the swish of the sea under the bows and over the tanks, and as you get closer you hear also the creak of the junk’s gear. The submarine’s bow swings off a foot or two to starboard and suddenly with the slightest of bumps you’re there, the high wooden poop towering over you, and you jump, your hands grabbing the top edge of the junk’s stern rail. Swing over, land quietly on the poop, your rubber-soled shoes make no sound. The men are behind you, swarming over.

“Sails down, Bird.” The Second Cox’n and two others run to the mainmast, back at the ancient cordage, and as you throw open the door of the shelter in the poop, the yard crashes down across the junk. A light line holds the submarine’s bow alongside.

There are three Chinese in the shelter, screaming and shouting, scrambling over each other, mad with fear and excitement.

“Shut up! Speak English?”

“Yes, master.”

“Good.” One of the Boarding Party is behind you. “Get these Chinks aboard.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The crew are hustled away. The junk’s papers are in an old box in the corner, and you stuff them into your pockets. Out of the shelter, you drop down into the after hold, Shadwell with you. Using the bayonet you prise up a board, and under it six inches of dirty water cover the bottom of the ship.

“Five-minute fuse.” Shadwell chops off the right length of fuse and you drop the charge into the water. The old junk creaks and groans as you work by torchlight, preparing to send her to the bottom. All set, you scramble up on deck, and shout: