Denys A. Rayner
ENEMY BELOW
Producer's Note
Rayner, Denys Arthur (1908-1967)
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Text from Reader's digest condensed books :
volume two, 1957, spring selections
About the Author
Commander D. A. Rayner, D.S.C, V.R.D., R.N.V.R., has had a consuming passion for the sea ever since, as an eight-year-old London schoolboy in World War I, he was punished for drawing exploding U-boats in the margin of his geometry book. Rejected by the Navy for medical reasons, he managed, against stiff competition, to get into the Volunteer Reserve in 1925. By the time World War II broke out, he was so knowledgeable that he became the first Volunteer Reserve officer in British Naval history to command destroyers, working up from a trawler to a corvette and, finally, to command of a destroyer group.
Commander Rayner now lives with his wife and three children on a large, working farm in Berkshire, marketing thousands of turkeys, chickens and pigs a year. He has published an account of his wartime experiences, Escort, and is at work on a novel about a classic naval battle during the Napoleonic Wars.
ENEMY BELOW
Radar Sparring
2021 Zone lime, Tuesday, 7 September 1943
HIS Majesty's destroyer Hecate climbed the side of each wave as it swept down upon her starboard beam, hung poised on the crest and then slithered down the far side.
Once the dizzy motion became familiar it was no longer unpleasant, and the two officers wedged into positions of purposeful repose in the Captain's sea cabin considered themselves to be quite at ease. Between them on the bunk was a chessboard. The Captain and the Doctor played together each evening — provided the enemy was not expected.
Leaning forward, the Captain took a white bishop with his queen. The Doctor, after due thought, lifted a knight and waved it vaguely over a square whence it would threaten the black queen.
A telephone buzzed above the Captain's head. He reached for it without taking his eyes from the chessboard. "Captain's cabin."
Both officers could hear the voice of the officer of the watch: "Radar Office reports a small surface contact green seven-oh; range ten thousand."
"Get the plot onto it, Mackeson, and let me know its course and speed." He hung up and turned again to the game. "Go on. Your move, man."
The Doctor, desperately anxious to see the ship in action, moved the piece he held without thinking.
The Captain's hand flicked across the board. "Checkmate."
"But, sir, if that is a U-boat — "
"Whether it is or isn't, you shouldn't let your mind wander. That radar contact was five miles away." The Captain was busily setting the chessmen back in their correct lines at each side of the board. "I wouldn't like you to whip my appendix out if you can't keep your mind on the immediate problem."
The phone buzzed and the Captain picked up the receiver again.
"Plot reports target's course approximately one-eight-oh; speed fourteen knots. Radar says the blip is quite definite, sir."
"Thank you, Mackeson. I'll be up soon. Negative zigzag." He hung up. "The plot will have more chance if our course is steady."
"If it is a Ube — what in the world is it doing out here?"
The Doctor had voiced the Captain's own thoughts.
"Dunno," he said as he rose and took his oilskin and sou'wester from their hook. "Let's go and ask it, shall we?"
The tropical Atlantic wind, warm, moist and friendly, caressed the Captain's face as he came through the blackout flap onto the forebridge. Mackeson and the signalman on duty were grouped round the standard compass. The dim blue light under the swinging card revealed nothing at all of their oilskin-clad figures, so that their faces, like masks etched with deep shadows, hung bodiless in the windy night. Almost invisible above and behind them, the high foremast swept the starless night; below, the sea erupted with livid flashes of phosphorescent light.
"Where is it now?" the Captain asked.
"Green oh-eight-five; range steady, sir," Mackeson answered.
"Bearing?" the Captain asked.
"Two-one-oh, sir."
"Bring her round to two-one-oh."
"Aye aye, sir."
He heard the orders given as he moved to the voice pipe that led to the plot, and felt the ship heave as her bow was brought around to head into the waves.
He bent to the voice pipe. "Forebridge — Plot." A pause. "Captain here — what's the target doing?"
"Course about two-one-oh, sir. Speed about fourteen knots. Range has been steady."
"Who's the plotter?"
"Andrews, sir. Sick-berth attendant."
"Very well, Andrews — sure you can handle it? I don't want to go to action stations until we know more."
"Yes, sir, sure."
"Good lad." He dropped the flap cover of the voice pipe and turned to the Doctor, who was close behind him. "Doc, after the navigator, that Andrews of yours is the best plotter in the ship."
"I'm glad he's better at that than his master is at chess."
"Does it still rankle?" The Captain laughed.
The Doctor was twenty-nine, and that made him, with the exception of the thirty-two-year-old Captain and the elderly engineer, four years older than any other officer in the ship. He was closer to his commanding officer than any of the others, and a certain lack of formality existed between them. "Sure, it rankles," he said.
The Captain crossed to the compass platform, whence a voice pipe led direct to the Radar Office. "Captain here. Who's on the set?"
"Petty Officer Lewis, sir."
Lewis should not have been on watch until action stations had been sounded. Already the Captain guessed that the whole ship knew they had a suspicious radar contact.
"What's it look like, Lewis?"
"Small, sharp blip, sir. Just about right for a U-boat."
"Thank you, Lewis." He raised his face from the pipe. "Mr. Mackeson, increase to two hundred revolutions."
"Aye aye, sir."
As the Captain went to rejoin the Doctor he felt the deck beneath his feet begin to throb with ever faster pulsations. The Hecate heaved her body half out of the water — a body in which were crowded over a hundred and forty human beings. Now the ship was plunging downward, the powerful drive of her propellers forcing her into the next sea. She shuddered, paused as a horse will to gather its haunches beneath it, and then shot skyward once more, while clouds of water were flung over the bridge. Then she was down again, into the next sea's flank — cutting it, shivering with the strain.
"It's too much," the Captain shouted to the Doctor. "I'll have to ease her down." And to the officer of the watch, whose water-glistening oilskins caught the wild light from the phosphorescent waves: "Ease her down to one-five-oh, Mr. Mackeson."