Alexander Fullerton: Surface!

“Ready, sir!”

“Carry on!” the Captain’s voice hails back out of the darkness.

“Clear the junk.” The Boarding Party jump down on to the submarine’s casing: you retire alone into the hold with Shadwell’s pliers to fire the tube on the fuse and finish the job. Shining your torch down through the bottom boards you kneel there to check that the charge is in the best spot. There’s a grunt in the dark over your head and you spring back, your torch lighting up a Jap face with a snarl on it, a yellow hand with a knife in it. The Jap has been hiding on top of the cargo, dragging himself laboriously forward through the narrow space between the top of the stack of cases and the deckhead. Another foot, and he’d have had you with that knife. The .38 jerks in your hand as you fire twice, and one bullet gets him just above the left eye. He slumps forward, dropping the knife, which is big and heavy: it falls on the boards where you were kneeling a moment ago. You hardly notice that blood is dripping from him as you dive down to the boards again, grab the pliers and fire the fuse: see it begin to splutter then get away fast, jump down on to the submarine’s bow and flash your torch at the bridge. The submarine backs away from the deserted junk that hasn’t long to live.

A minute passes and the Captain mutters, “Should have gone off by now.” You’ve been thinking the same thing. Another minute passes and there’s a whumph and the junk’s stern lifts a clear foot in the water, then drops back and she begins to settle. Just after two o’clock there is no junk left, and the Captain asks whose watch it is.

“Number One’s, sir.”

“All right, Sub. Tell him to come up when he’s squared things off.”

“Aye aye, sir.” You would also like to square something off, with a Chinaman who talks English but can’t tell you when there’s a guard on board. You ask him. He says that he was frightened and forgot, and that when the Jap wasn’t taken away with them he thought that he’d been disposed of and he hadn’t liked to ask questions. The Chink looks hurt when you tell him that he’s a bloody fool.

You drink a cup of the Cox’n’s cocoa before turning in, and while you drink it you look through the junk’s papers, spread out on the wardroom table. Her cargo was rice and small-arms ammunition, and had been meant for Burma. By the light of the single red bulb in the wardroom you parcel the papers together in a big envelope and stow them away in the correspondence locker. The Captain will need them to put in with the Patrol Report. You open your drawer and take out the Torpedo Log and Progress Book, on a spare page at the back of which is a record of torpedo stores expended: you write in neatly the date, “one 1 ¼ lb charge, fitted,” and in the last column, “one junk, about eighty tons.” Blot it and close the book, and you realise that you’re still wearing your belt: you slip it off, take the four unused cartridges out of the revolver and stick your head round the bulkhead into the Control Room. The Gunlayer is on watch, sitting on one of the planesmen’s seats, waiting to go up and relieve a lookout.

“Clean this for me, will you, Smith.”

“Aye aye, sir.” He flicks it open and squints through the barrel at a light.

“Used this tonight, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Kill the flipper, sir?”

“Yes, just before he killed me.”

“Blimey. Would they’ve made me Gunnery Officer, sir, if you’d copped it?”

“Flippin’ likely,” mutters the Cox’n. “Ninety days is all I’d give you, you bastard.”

“Speakin’ of parentage,” replies the Layer, gazing into the barrel of the revolver again, “I ‘ave always made an ’abit of being very polite to Cox’ns, but recently I ‘ave to admit it’s been flippin’ ’ard to keep it up.”

“What I’ve been wondering,” muses the Cox’n, jerking his thumb up towards the deckhead, “is what the ‘ell we carry a gun up there for when there ain’t nobody in the ship’s company with the slightest flippin’ idea of ‘ow to work it.”

“If I was the Gunnery Officer,” answers Smith, “I’d take exception to that remark.” But the Gunnery Officer has gone, and is climbing into his bunk when the Captain stumps in, discarding a wind-jacket.

“Did I hear some shots, Sub, when you were down below?” You turn and look at him.

“Yes, sir. Two. A Jap was creeping up on me while I was fixing the charge.”

“You fired both the shots?”

“Yes, sir. He had a butcher’s knife.”

“You’d better type a statement, and I’ll put it in with the report.”

“Aye aye, sir. Diving at five?”

“About then.”

That had been another good twenty-four hours for the Seahound . She was a lucky ship: some submarines had the damnedest luck, patrol after patrol without a glimpse of the enemy. Seahound had never yet had a blank patrol: each time, when she returned to her base, she had been able to fly the Jolly Roger, and always the flag bore some symbol of a new success: a bar for a ship torpedoed, a star for one sunk by gunfire. Even the very first time, the “working-up” patrol in the North Sea, when Seahound had been sent to patrol a quiet area where there was little likelihood of any excitement. The object was to give her men a chance to settle down to each other and to their new ship, to get used to the routine of patrol. They weren’t expected to sink anything. But from that patrol they returned in triumph with a red bar sewn on the virgin Jolly Roger, red for a warship, a big U-boat which they blew in half with a torpedo, on a dismal rainy morning with the visibility so low that from the time of sighting the U-boat to the time of firing the salvo the hands of the Control Room clock covered only six minutes. The U-boat sank in two separate parts, and Seahound ’s Captain jumped up and down like a little boy at the periscope, shouting, “We’ve got her, by Christ, we’ve got her!”

There was a warm welcome from the Depot Ship when a week later they slid into the Loch, and there had been frank surprise in many faces. The Seahounds were due for leave, a last leave in England before they sailed for the Far East: the officers were all going south, to London, and they left together in the Depot Ship’s motor-boat, passed close to their submarine which lay alongside and on whose casing Number One stood to wave farewell: he had had his leave, before the last patrol, and now he regretted having taken it. The boat jumped and bounced through the choppy grey waters to the landing-place near the Bay Hotel, and the Seahounds had time for a drink in the American bar before they caught their train for Glasgow.

Of course, none of them got sleepers at Glasgow. It was the usual routine: the man in the office said they were all reserved, for Generals and Very Important Persons, but that when the train started the attendant might be able to help them. In other words, any sleepers that remained would go to the highest bidders.

The Captain said, “Not worth enriching the attendant. May get a compartment to ourselves, if we’re quick.” They found an empty first at the front of the train, and while the Captain and Sub were stowing their cases in the racks, Chief opened his and drew out a small T-shaped metal object. He inserted it in the keyhole of the door and turned it.

“I’ve had this since I was a midshipman,” he told them. “Pinched it from a guard. I used to have some stickers with ‘Reserved’ printed on them, but I’ve used them up.” The train lurched and gathered way, southward bound: they had a corner each, plenty to read, a set of dice and a bottle of whisky.

The train stopped at York. Just before it was due to leave, the Captain ordered Sub to go and buy some sandwiches. There was a fighting crowd round the refreshment barrow, and he had just got his food and his change when the train shrieked and began to move. He ran, clutching the paper bag, wrenched at the door of the last carriage, but it was locked or jammed. He threw the parcel into the dark window and followed it, head first, landing heavily on a sailor and a girl. It was Able Seaman Young, of the Seahound . Young cursed, and the girl screamed.