I ducked below for some cable-lengths of securing line and wire-cutters. When I got back on deck Kaptein Denny was easing Gaok alongside the U-boat-millimetre by milli- metre. There was a steel-clad reason, hanging by a thread, why he should.
Then I was climbing ova: the side.
Jutta caJled, 'I'll hold your things. I'll pass them to you while you work.'
If the mine slipped I wouldn't be able to reach her in the last few seconds; without her there my hands would be steadier.
'No.'
She didn't argue but I could feel her eyes on my back as I dropped down on to the barnacled casing. There was an unmistakable musty, wet, deep-sea smell coming off the conning-tower and I found a steel ladder up to it. It was clamped on the starboard side (where Gaok was) and led first to a light anti-aircraft gun platform, drilled full of holes for draining, abaft the bridge. This was surrounded by a rusty melal 'pulpit rail'. It could well have been one of Gousblom's turrets which had fallen on her, because the structure was wrecked and the stanchions and rails were all crushed. The rear entrance to the conning-tower bridge-a U-shaped enclosure with the open end of the U facing astern-was blocked with twisted metal and also the remains of the peri197 scope housing. It was just possible to edge in.
I did so, and started in on the mine. The jumping-wire to starboard was gone but the one to port was intact. I got -a light line round the top of the mine and stopped it swinging: one of the detonating horns was arcing within eighteen inches of the bridge.
Easy now, easy does it, I told myself. Up to now Pd been ' working largely by reflex, but with the slight change of the odds in my favour I began to react consciously. You can't do anything about the main jumping-wire for'ard of the gun before it divides for the 'W, because it's out of reach, but it doesn't look too bad. Keep that infernal spotlight out of my eyes! I'd brace and lash tight my new strop on the broken section by running a loop through the nearest shackle, then secure it to something firm on the bridge. The steel pipe of the captain's jump-stool would serve. It was strong enough to take the strain.
I was sweating heavily and bracing myself against the bridge coaming and leaning forward to slip one end of the wire through the shackle to make the repair. Easy now, easy! I hope to God Sang A doesn't come and catch us with our pants down and a fart weighing half a ton in the pipeline waiting to hit the deck. Not the deck. At twelve feet it didn't need a computer to work out the exact spot where the mine would land. On those nine torpedoes. Would they still explode after all this time? It didn't matter reaJly; the mine would. You're always reading about old war-time mines going up. Over a hundred thousand of them still unswept up around Britain… Pull yourself together. You're shaking like a soak with the ritte! The whole bloody Sperrgebiet will shake too if this little lot goes up. I couldn't manage to complete the loop of my emergency strop. I was about six inches too far away from the shackle. I could do so, however, if I hung on the jumping wire. Add my two hundred pounds' weight to that already dicey cable. So near and yet so far. Shit on all of them who'd put me in this spot. Shit on you, you bastard Denny, Denzo, or whatever you caJl yourself. Stuff all the Denzos. All the long line of them in eight hundred years. And Tsushima. And Yamamoto. There's Jutta to think of now. I'm damned if this iron udder is going to bang its tits on any deck full of torpedoes,
I grabbed the jumping-wire on sudden impulse, heaved forward with my weight on it, twisted the loop tight, and then dropped back into the conning-tower and made the cable fast.
I'd flayed the skin off my fingers and palms: I descended the conning-tower ladder like a man in a dream and crunched back across the shells and marine growths to Gaok. The world started to come slowly back into focus and I became conscious of the gaJe again. Out there on the exposed casing it felt as if the whole world would disappear in one great blowing cloud. The U-boat's buoyancy had a curious dead feel and walking across her deck like that made one want to grope uncertalnly with one's feet, like an astronaut on a spacewalk.
`Safe-conduct's fixed? I told Denny when I got aboard Gaok.
`Struan. darling… 1' The rest of Jutta's welcome was blocked in her throat.
`Now's our time!' replied Kaptein Denny. Not a mention of the thing which hung there-safe now.
I was still suffering from a carry-over of tension but I brushed it aside. 'Right!' I said. 'Let's get on with the job. But look how she's down at the head.'
You didn't need good night vision, in the almost moonlight conditions-to make an assessment that U-160 would never be classed Al at Lloyd's. The seas surged across the deck, which was half awash most of its length and fully awash in the bows. Even the railings and stanchions for'ard of the main torpedo loading hatch were half under water. If it hadn't been for what she carrled inside I would have dismissed her as a load of old iron only fit to cover with a blanket-and caJl the padre. The luminescence made a bright border about a foot wide amidships round the casing, where it rode clear of the water; but in the bows-where the seas were shredded, it was like flame rippling on a burning log.
Kaptein Denny said, `Tonight's the night. It's been this way too many times before. This is the last attempt. Now let's get that rope cradled under her.'
That had been the plan. It was simple-as a plan. It called for a double length of four-inch manila hawser attached to both cutters' bow and stern winches, and looped under U-160's hull. We'd first let go enough slack to let the hawsers sink 199 deeper than the U-boat-then dose on her from both flanks, astern; stop when we came abreast the conning-tower, and then winch the cradle in tight. The cutters would act as lifting pontoons while we got busy on the main hatch with the cutting torch.
The theory was fine, the practice different. It was as if we were cowpunchers riding herd and trying to rope the most bloody-minded maverick that ever cut loose on the plains of Texas. The Ancient Mariner's undersea spirit couldn't have jinked, yawed and shoved that sodden hull in more random, chaotic and unpredictable directions than the upwell cell current did. Perhaps that was why she'd escaped being piled up on the reefs in all the years before.
The, operation was also continually hamstrung by Denny's refusal to move more than a few hundred feet from the Uboat, for fear of losing her from under his spotlight. This meant I was at the perimeter in Ichabo, dragging two heavy lopsided cables whlle Gaok and U-160 remained close to the operations centre. This made it almost impossible for the cables to reach deep enough to encircle the hull. Once when we nearly succeeded it was spoilt by the cradle snagging on something-possibly a propeller or hydroplane belonging to the U-boat-and before we could do anything about it she gave one of her sudden yaws and we had to go hard astern to prevent the boats being crushed. We lost her and started all over again.
This went on for about an hour. And it seemed like sending out a new invitation to Sang A to join the party, every time we gunned our engines full ahead or full astern-on average once every five minutes-and swung the spotlight to every point of the compass to keep it homed on the conning-tower. When I heard through the murk the heavy crash of breakers coming from close at hand, I'd had enough. We were in the middle of yet another manoeuvre-which meant I was doing the manoeuvring while Gaok hugged U-160. I didn't cast off my end of the cradle, but cut my engine and set the winches going. This had the effect of dragging Ichabo bodily broadside across the gap separating the two boats. U-160 got in the way like an unwanted third at a fete-a-tate, but I couldn't help that: This time Gaok did the manoeuvring, I jumped aboard her and told Kaptein Denny. 'This is for the birds. Every one of the hundred million birds in the islands?