'Go on.'
'I hear breakers. Lots of breakers. I'd say it was Penguins Turning.'
'It is Penguins Turning.'
'I'm glad someone knows where we are because J don't. And if it's the skietrots, we've come less than a mile in a straight line since we began. Straight being the operative word.'
'So what? Distance isn't important. What is important.?
'Distance is time and time is Sang A,' I retorted. 'Any time is Sang A time and I don't fancy going on with this caper round Penguins Turning. Especially in the whirlpool behind it. 'Are you saying you intend to throw in the towel?'
°The only towel I want is one to dry myself with when I come up on the other side of U-160.'
'Meaning?' asked Kaptein Denny. From his tone-I was glad for my own sake that I was still thinking positively about U-160.
I started to pull off my shirt. 'I'm diving and taking a light line down under the U-boat's hull. Bring Gaok round on her starboard beam but stop her screw, for God's sake-as soon as you can. I don't want my head cut in half by my own side as I surface.'
'If she jinks while you're diving?'
I'd got down to my underpants. 'I'll take my chance. We've lost an hour already. It's a lot of time when a gale, a salinity level and a bunch of kamikazes are treading on your heels.'
Jutta's face was closed and strained. I couldn't find the right words to say to her. I felt she would gladly have traded in U-160 for anything else on the seven seas. I returned to Ichabo and awaited my moment. Both cutters were lying slightly astern of the U-boat on her port quarter, and I was accordingly awkwardly placed for a dive. But we judged, both Denny and I-that her next swing would be in. my direction; so he'd broken away in anticipation of it, with his damned spotlight full on the connlng-tower while Ichabo lay dead in the water. I'd been sweating in my clothes but 201 now as I stood poised I noticed that the fiery breath of the gale which I'd got used lo wasn't fiery any more. Maybe it was because I was nearer the cold water. Maybe it was because I was down to my skin
… maybe.
The U-boat veered. This was the moment I'd been waiting for. I went up on my toes and took the deepest breath I could. There wasn't time to realize that there was less dust in the air than before. I repeated the lung-filled exercise as the casing came sluggishly my way. Two. Three.
I dived.
The shock of the icy water nearly caused me to burp out all my nicely accumulated oxygen. It was cold, cold, cold. I went down, down, down. How deep was a U-boat's keep-about sixteen feet. Then I knew I was under her because the phosphorescence dimmed when her black shadow came between me and the surface. I turned on my back: I wished I hadn't. The hulk was trailing weed, rust and underwater filth. I was too deep, so I bubbled out a little air, turned right side up and stroked strongly forward. Either J misjudged, or the U-boat didn't complete the turn she'd started, because when I kicked myself surfacewards my back scraped painfully against the rough barnacles and at the same lime my head cracked against a projection. I ducked automatically and threw out my hands to fend it off. I'd emptied my lungs as I gave that final kick.' My fingers encountered something smooth and round-with an object (it felt like a small propeller) sticking out of its snub nose. It wasn't a deadly sting ray but I let go quicker than if it had been, kicked as hard as I could-bumped my back again-and shot to the surface. I grabbed hold of the U-boat's half-awash rail and gasped in lungfuls of air. They were as much from fear as from need.
– Gaok wasn't quite in position yet hut was coming up towards me, searching the water with her spotlight. I yanked myself up on to the streaming deck.
'Full astern!' I yelled. 'Back! Keep away! Don't come here! There's a half-fired lorpedo sticking out of a tube!'
Gaok went astern but it wasn't a panic manoeuvre. In a couple of minutes Kaptein Denny had the cutter fast in her proper position. I threw round a stanchion a hitch of the line which had been tied to my waist, and stumbled and sloshed my way to her. The plaling was wet and cold and 202 slippery under my feet. It wasn't only the cold which made me shake when I jumped aboard Gaok.
'What next? The whole bloody sub's loaded-above and under water! It could be one of the old contact-type torpedoes, driven by compressed air, which the U-boat aces liked for night attacks.'
Jutta said in a small voice, as if trying to quiet her own fears, It's more likely to be an electric or acoustic torpedo. Its batteries must be stoned dead. It's probably harmless.'
'I'm not particularly sold on the idea of making a practical test to see what sort of torpedo it is-' I replied. 'Just keep Gaok from bumping it, will you, Kaptein Denny?'
'You're going back then, Struan?' asked Jutla.
'Of course. There's a job to finish.
'I'll get you some brandy.'
It tasted good and I went and stood knee-deep in the sea-getting the hawsers fixed. Most of the time I worked by feel in the cold water. Several times big waves came and then I hung on waist-deep to the rail. If the waves were doing this to me, what were they doing against the fangs of Penguins Turning? That thought made me finish the job about as quickly as if all the hardware lying around was primed and ready to go off. I could hear the skietrots coming closer all the time. What worded me too was the easier give of the sea under the U-boat. It meant the upwell cell was changing. My aching arms were quivering so with the strain that I slopped the brandy when I got back to Gaok's wheelhouse. Fine!' Denny exclaimed. 'Nice work.'
'Let's keep the medals in deep freeze until we get clear of Penguins Turning. I haven't a clue which way we're heading?
'We're making a northing with some east in it.'
'I'll take your word for it; but meanwhile a couple of things won't have escaped your notice. The sea's easier; the wind's going.' I pointed to the towel I'd been rubbing my shoulders with. 'See all this dirt? It's from the fog. The fog brings down the dirt and the dirt brings down the fog. Not to put too fine a point on it, it's starting to clear. Our protective curtain's disintegrating.'
'That means Sang A,' said Jutta.
'Plus radar. Plus twenty pairs of kamikaze eyes itching for a glimpse of two fishing cutters.'
'Depends where she is,' replied Kaptein Denny.
'Maybe she's searching for us out to sea. Maybe not. You'd also have noted, if you'd been down under the hull, that the silver fire is going – fast. That means the salinity will change. Less dense; less lift. Less for U-160. Less U-boat above water?
'You're overstating the dangers. We've got half the night still ahead of us..
'Look!'
It was the skietrots. Its white chest with the breakers creaming over it was the giveaway because the main black part of it blended with the night. But you could hear it all right.
'That rope cradle okay?'
'Aye,' I told him.
'Watch your moment. We'll put both boats full ahead on 11-160's next swing. That plus the current should take her clear.'
'If this wreck picks up her skirts and flies it'll be the only time a skirt won't mean sex to me.'
I hurried across U-160's deck to lchabo, opened her diesel to full bore and waited to throw in the clutch. U-160 was pushing the dying wind, but not the current. Her underwater surface-all eleven hundred tons of it-was solidly in its grip and being swept along.
The three vessels-tied together, came round in a wide, lazy, swinging circle. When U-160's nose pointed off-centre from the white target of Penguins Turning, Kaptein Denny shouted, 'Full ahead! Well manage it! Give her everything!'
I thought so, too – at first. Another point in our favour was that Penguins Turning was slightly farther away than I'd calculated, because the visibility was lengthening all the time and I'd judged the distance by previous cut-off standards. The cables took the strain of the thrusting boats and U-160 began to forge ahead the way we wanted. Two knots. Three. Four. I thought we'd make it. Then it was like steering a lead coffin with a poltergeist inside. The current took charge and dragged the U-boat and the two cutters round as if there weren't diesel-powered sheepdogs hanging on to both Its flanks. She span -slowly, deliberately, menacingly-in her own way and in her own time. J gave Ichabo full starboard helm 204 and I was sure Kaptein Denny was doing the same. But it was impossible to apply a correction factor.