Like most regular officers, Hamilton took a conceited pride in his skill and knowledge. It needed years of training and dedication to produce a naval officer◦– and even more to produce a submariner. Yet in a few brief months, as Mannon had so correctly implied, the young lieutenant was already on equal terms with the regulars. Perhaps it was in the blood. Perhaps that’s what made the true submariner. Not years of training, although that was important, nor hours of dedicated study, although that, too, had its place, but the primitive instinct of the hunter◦– of a man who was prepared to gamble his personal survival against the overwhelming odds against him in the deadly arts of underwater warfare.
‘Positive contact, sir,’ Glover reported from the Asdic scanner. ‘Range three miles, bearing three-zero-zero, course south-west, speed 20 knots.’
‘Attack team stand by. See what you can make of the HE, Glover.’
Although the Asdic echoes gave a more accurate range and bearing than the primitive mechanical ears of the hydro-phones, the electronic gadgetry could not analyze the nature of the contact it indicated. And Hamilton needed more than mere range and direction at this stage of the game. No point in hunting a freighter.
Glover moved the sensitive microphone onto the bearing of the Asdic echoes and turned the amplification up to maximum power. Three miles was stretching his equipment to the limit of its range and he had to strain his ears to interpret the vague sounds in his headphones.
‘I’m getting turbines, sir. I’d say a cruiser and perhaps a couple of destroyers. That’s the best I can do until they get closer.’
‘Up periscope!’
It was a routine Hamilton had carried out many times before and yet, despite his achievements on special missions, success had always eluded him when operating under ordinary patrol conditions. Perhaps this time his luck would turn.
The periscope lens was already set to the Asdic bearing. As it emerged above the surface Hamilton’s trained eyes found the fleeting dark shadows of the ships almost immediately◦– three black masses moving at speed against the night horizon, with bow waves that glistened in the moonlight. By sheer chance Rapier was on the perfect interception course and the range was decreasing to his advantage with every passing minute.
‘Down periscope! Attack Team close up. Bow ends stand by!’ The men who made up the attack team moved obediently to their stations◦– Mannon to the diving panel where he could watch the trim and keep an eye on the two planes men, Alistair Scott at the torpedo director, and O’Brien, hurrying in from the engine room to the chart table to enter up the plot. It was a skilled and experienced team and Hamilton knew they would not let him down. If the attack failed, the only person to blame would be himself.
‘Up periscope.’
He guided the lens a fraction to the left to allow for the movement of the target and brought the leading ship into sharp focus. ‘Start the attack! Range – that Bearing – that Blake, the senior electrical artificer, read the figures from the scale engraved into the brass ring encircling the periscope column and passed them back to Sutton who was standing behind him with a slide rule.
‘Green◦– one◦– zero, sir. Range thirty-five hundred.’
‘Course three-two-five, sir. Speed four knots.’
Scott’s torpedo director◦– the fruit machine as it was irreverently known to submariners◦– clicked busily as he fed in the data.
‘Down periscope! Group up main motors. Steer three-zero-zero.’ Hamilton picked up the intercom. ‘Bow ends◦– blow up one, two, three, and four tubes.’
‘Bow ends, aye aye, sir.’
‘Up periscope!’ Despite the quiet calm of the control room Hamilton could feel his heart pounding with excitement as the cruiser came into his sights. Take it easy◦– no hurry. Remember, they don’t know you’re there. Plenty of time for a double check. No point in making silly mistakes. He carefully centered on the cruiser’s pagoda-like bridge structure and moved the handle-bar grip so that the two images of the rangefinder element came together. ‘Range that!’ Blake noted the angle and relayed it to Sutton. ‘Bearing that Hamilton paused for the electrical artificer to read the scale. ‘Down periscope!’ He stepped back as the periscope slid down into its well. ‘Looks like a Mogami class heavy cruiser plus a couple of destroyers. The moon’s out and visibility is good.’ He didn’t add that all they needed was a modicum of luck, but the men in the control room knew his unspoken thoughts. ‘What’s the DA, Alistair?’ he enquired with the casualness of a man asking the bus fare to Aldgate.
‘Twenty-seven Red, sir.’
Hamilton rubbed his nose thoughtfully. No problems there. His slight alteration of course at the beginning of the attack had shown sound judgement.
‘Up periscope.’
Hamilton’s knuckles suddenly whitened as the lens mockingly reflected an empty sea. He scanned to the left but the dark shadows had vanished. Swearing softly to himself he swung the ’scope to the right. Shit!
‘Target moving to starboard◦– away from us. Speed increasing.’ He peered intently through the lens. ‘Now twenty degrees to starboard of old course. What does that make it, Alistair?’
‘Two-nine-five, sir.’
Of all the bloody luck! The enemy ships were now steering an almost identical course to Rapier and, with their superior speed, the range was rapidly lengthening.
‘Director angle for three-degree track angle?’
‘One degree Red, sir.’
‘Down periscope. Open bow caps.’ Hamilton realized the hopelessness of the situation, but he was loath to pass up even an outside chance of sinking a Japanese cruiser. He moved to the monocular attack ’scope at the rear of the control room.
‘Up periscope◦– put me on director angle.’ Blake placed his hands on top of the skipper’s and guided the column onto the critical bearing.
‘On director angle, sir.*
The targets were now moving steadily towards the horizon. Only the cruiser was still in range◦– and then only just. ‘Stand by 1-2-3-4. Prepare to fire….’
He waited until the stern of the cruiser centered in the graticule sights of the attack scope. ‘Fire One… Two… Three… Four! Down periscope. Flood Q. Eighty feet!’
Rapier nosed deeper. Now they could only wait. Perhaps the skipper would be lucky this time, although the expression on his face did not encourage optimism.
‘Torpedoes running, sir,’ Glover reported from the hydro-phones.
No one spoke a word and all eyes went to the sweeping second hand of the control room clock and a dozen brains wrestled with the same arithmetical problem◦– two miles at forty-five knots equals three minutes. If there was no explosion in the next one hundred and. eighty seconds they knew the torpedoes had missed. And sitting quietly at their stations, leaning against the bulkheads, or standing motionless in the center of the tiny claustrophobic compartment, they waited….
It was Hamilton who finally broke the tension. ‘Secure from diving stations.’
‘I suppose we ought to look on the bright side, sir,’ Mannon forced a smile. ‘At least we haven’t had to put up with a depth charge attack. They didn’t even know we were there.’
‘That’s what makes it all the more damnable, Number One,’ Hamilton retorted bitterly. ‘Perfect conditions, a sitting target, and everything in our favor. They say the devil looks after his own and I’m beginning to believe it.’ He straightened up. The attack may have been abortive but it wasn’t the end of the world. ‘Maintain depth and course. Reduce to half speed.’