Alexander Fullerton: Surface!

Dreary? This was virgin territory, from a submariner’s point of view: it should be anything but dreary. Well, all right, perhaps there’d be something to sink. When it had been sunk they’d go back through the minefield, hang around looking for junks until the recall came. Two hours on and four hours off: sausages for breakfast, corned beef for lunch, sardines for tea and some revolting thing for supper. He rolled over, knowing that when he’d been on watch for half-an-hour this depression would be gone: so would the fog, lifting to reveal the entrance to the port. Perhaps also to reveal a target.

He thought, I might as well turn out now, clean my teeth: there was a horrible taste in his mouth. Probably, he thought, I have halitosis: must be rather unpleasant for everyone else. He swung his legs off the bunk, groped for his shoes under the wardroom table. He was trying to force his left foot into the right shoe, when he heard Saunders report Hydrophone Effect. He heard the Captain drop the dividers on the chart table, heard his voice saying for the millionth time, urgently:

“Up periscope.”

Silence now, while he tied the laces on his shoes, tightened the belt of his shorts. He stood up, shook Jimmy’s elbow: the First Lieutenant opened his eyes, stared unrecognisingly at him.

“Something happening, Number One. Probably Diving Stations in a minute.” Number One began to climb off his bunk, muttering.

They heard the Captain’s voice again:

“Can’t see anything. Are you sure it’s H.E.?”

“Yes, sir.” Saunders’ voice. “Green three-oh, sir, moving left to right.”

The Captain grunted, continued his search. Number One said:

“If this turns out to be bugger-all, Sub, I’ll fix you. I’ll—”

“Diving Stations! Stand by Gun Action!” Sub felt the old shiver in his stomach as he flung himself out of the wardroom.

“Down periscope.” The Captain grinned, rubbed the side of his jaw. “It’s that Tank Landing Ship again, Sub.”

The one they had missed last time they met it. The one with a big gun on the stern. The one that had an air escort, last time.

“Up periscope. Range… that! I’m on his starboard quarter. Enemy speed nine. Group up, starboard ten.”

Sub worked the handles on the calculating machine, lining up the dials. He got the deflection, passed it to the Sightsetter. The Gun’s Crew were ready, sleep still in their eyes, but that made no odds because they’d done this before in their sleep.

Sub remembered the first Gun Action of them all, the one against the trawler of Port Blair: he had felt scared stiff, himself, and seeing the apprehensive looks on the faces of the Gun’s Crew he had told them not to worry: only a trawler, he had said, this’d be easy. They’d never done it before, except on a practice shoot, and on a practice shoot there were never any shore batteries to shoot back. “Gun’s Crew closed up, sir.”

“Very good. Group down. Up periscope.”

They waited tensely while the Captain took a final check. He jerked up the handles of the periscope, stepped back, and the long, brass tube hissed down into its well.

“Fifty feet. Group up, full ahead together.” The deck angled under their feet and the hum of the motors rose under the full power of the batteries.

“Fifty feet, sir.”

“Stand by to surface.” Orders, reports.

“Ready to surface, sir.”

“Surface!” Sub sprang on to the ladder behind the Captain, heard the air smack into the tanks. Number One stood under the hatch, his hands on the side of the ladder.

He shouted, “Forty feet! … Thirty! … twenty-five! … twenty!” and then his whistle shrieked: Sub, craning his neck to look up, saw the Captain fling the hatch back. Behind the Captain, Sub scrambled up into the light, the dripping bridge. He took his weight on his hands on the cab at the front of the bridge, jumped up, swung his legs over: below him, the gun was swinging round towards the enemy, the breech was open and a shell was coming out of the hatch in the hands of the leading member of the Ammunition Supply Party. The Loader grabbed it, slammed it into the breech, the sights were on and the Gunlayer pressed his trigger. Watch for the fall of shot: Sub strained his eyes at the sea around the enemy.

Splash, left. “Right eight, shoot!” Another round crashed away, and a flash from the enemy’s stern was the sign of her first shot in reply. At least this was better than the last time, from the point of View of weather conditions: Seahound ’s second shot fell short, in line.

“Up eight hundred, shoot!” Sub ignored the sound of the enemy shell passing overhead.

“Down four hundred, shoot!” That last shot of the enemy’s had fallen in their wake: the Captain bent to the voice-pipe, shouted for an increase in speed and put the wheel over to starboard. The Trainer slowly turned his wheel, keeping the gun trained on the enemy as the submarine altered course.

“That’s the stuff, Sub!” Yes, a hit, a lovely sight, only it’ll take a lot more than just one hit to finish the business: the Tank Landing Ship is all of thirteen hundred tons.

“No correction, shoot!” Another shell from the enemy fell on the submarine’s starboard quarter: Seahound was firing three shells for every two of the enemy’s.

A cheer from the bridge: a third hit. The Captain believed in giving encouragement when it was deserved: if that one had missed, thought the Sub, he’d have wondered what the hell I was doing.

“No correction, shoot!” The empty, scorched cylinder clanged out of the breech on to the gun-deck: already the breech was closed behind another shell.

That was the right sort of hit! A hit on the enemy’s gun: that gun had fired its last shell.

“Point of aim, the waterline!” The Sub could never hear his own voice after a few rounds had been fired, and he was constantly surprised to find that his orders were heard and obeyed at the gun. Up here, on the front edge of the bridge, the blast from each shell fired had a blinding, deafening effect.

The Gunlayer fired a moment sooner than he had intended: the sights were half-way up the enemy stern instead of on the waterline. The shell crashed in through the high stern, right the way through, exploded in a stern compartment which the Japs had recently converted to hold a cargo of mines. There were a dozen mines in the compartment, and as one they exploded with the shell, not an explosion, an eruption: the enemy ship was split open, her bowels flung into the sky. Seahound ’s Gun’s Crew stood back from their gun shielding their eyes and staring in stunned amazement at the havoc of flying debris, the huge billowing cloud of smoke and the shooting tongue of orange flame.

“Cor stone the crows!” muttered the Gunlayer. “Did we do that?”

As the Gun’s Crew secured the gun and cleared the gun-deck of shell-cases, Seahound swung round and headed northwards up the Straits. The sky was still full of dirt: Sub looked up at the lighthouse on the tall headland, and thought that they’d given someone a good morning’s entertainment. It must have been quite a spectacle, from up there. He saw the hatch shut over the Gunlayer’s head, and at the same time he thought he heard the Captain shout into the voice-pipe:

“Stand by Boarding Party!”

There wasn’t anything left of the Tank Landing Ship. He must have heard wrong: his ears were still ringing from the noise of the battle.

The Captain spoke to him. “Go down and get your gear, Sub.” He pointed at a big junk, creeping into sight round the headland.

The Sub thought, as he obeyed the order, that the Captain was showing signs of over-confidence: a boarding in daylight, in these waters! But when the time came, it was dead easy, no opposition, no Jap guard, and the sky stayed empty. The Chinese crew even helped Sub and his men to climb on board, welcome guests. The cargo was rice, sugar and matches; Sub sent a crate of matches across to the submarine.