They did that, making it south to Rimel Beach at a little spit of land that jutted out to allow Worthy to keep the Chariot from going aground. He figured he still had two hours of battery power left, which would be enough to make a run for the harbor, and then get back here to recover his mate. Keeping as quiet as he could, he struggled to get the Chariot turned around again and pointed out to sea.
It was after midnight now, and a heavier swell started to work its way through the channel. Worthy got the Chariot out to sea again, intending to move north before turning left to make his approach to the southern harbor entrance. As he went, it became more and more difficult to manage the Chariot, which had really been designed to be operated by two men to keep it stable in the water.
Without Cook in the saddle behind him, his backside was too light, and the swell kept batting the tail about, which would force him to strain to correct it. He soon found himself veering off in one direction, then laboring to turn his craft, only to see it veer off again. He was too long at sea, and near exhausted before he realized he could simply not maneuver the damn thing against the swell. The only thing to do would be to try and get back to Cook and see if he might have recovered enough to lend a hand. So he turned about, this time the swell working in his favor to help carry him along, but when he reached the coast where they had been, he could find no sign of his mate there at all.
Cursing his bad luck, he now knew he had to get back out to sea to ditch his Chariot in deeper water so it would not be taken by the enemy. He managed that, and then had no choice other than to swim for the shore again, hoping he might find Cook this time and that the two of them could find some place to hide and work up a plan to reach one of the submarines. It was not to be. When he finally reached the shore again, it wasn’t ten minutes before an enemy patrol found him, and he would soon discover that they already had a very miserable and unhappy Lieutenant Cook as well.
Thankfully, Trooper’s Chariots would have better luck. Lt. Richard Greenland and Leading Signalman Alex Ferrier took in Chariot #22 to reach the netting protecting the north harbor entrance, and found a way through after the application of a good pair of bolt cutters. Once they got into the dark harbor, they could see there were very slim pickings. A single cargo vessel was tied off on the long central jetty, but there was also a good sized warship at hand, and that got their attention immediately.
“Not much in the cupboard,” said the Lieutenant. “But it looks like we’re here first, so we’ll have a go at that cruiser over there. Let’s dive and make our approach.”
The warhead was 600 pounds of Torpex, and they spent some minutes under water, slowly and carefully working it off the nose of the Chariot. They were down near the bottom of the ship’s hull, completely undetected, and elated to have a real warship at hand to attack. It was a very new ship, and one that seemed fated to make their acquaintance.
Built at Palermo, the light cruiser Ulpio Traiano had been named after the Emperor Trajan, and was only commissioned in November of 1942. She was in the Capitani Romani Class, about 5,500 tons full load, a sleek, beautiful ship that was faster than a gale force wind at 41 knots. At trials, this ship had even bettered that, and made all of 43 knots, which made her a very useful ship in a tight spot, with eight 5.3-inch deck guns, another 16 small AA caliber guns, and eight 533mm torpedoes. She could race in to deliver those lances with that dashing speed, or leave a trail of up to 70 mines bobbing in the water behind her.
That was the very same ship these two men had attacked at Palermo on the old Prime Meridian, but the cruiser had moved here to Bizerte on a supply run, planning to leave a few hours before dawn for the run back to Palermo. Fate seemed a dogged shadow that night, and Greenland and Ferrier would get that ship no matter where it was berthed. At sea, with a full head of steam up, the cruiser would have been invulnerable to such a cumbersome attack, but there, tied off quietly at the jetty, she was a proverbial sitting duck.
Now another torpedo of sorts was hugging her hull in the depths of the shadowy harbor, while the two men struggled to get that warhead attached, and then make as stealthy a withdrawal as possible. Even as they worked, neither man knew that Chariot #16 off the Trooper had also made it through a gap in the netting, and they were going after the same ship until they spied the other team and Chariot in the murky water and turned about. Instead they would have to try their luck on the Capo Pino, an old French Merchant cargo liner that had been commandeered by the Italians.
Lt. Rodney Dove and Leading Seaman James Freel piloted Chariot #16, fixing their charge and then finding that they could not get the motor restarted on the Chariot to maneuver out of the harbor. Knowing they could not hitch a ride with their comrades on the other side of the harbor, they resolved to try and slip ashore and lose themselves in the city. That plan did not work out, and they were captured by an alert guardsman patrolling the quays.
“Just what do you think you’re doing here,” he managed in reasonable English. “Spies, are you?”
“Spies?” said Lieutenant Dove. “Not at all. Just doing a bit of sightseeing, but there isn’t much here. Take that ship there,” he pointed. “You won’t even have that to look at soon.” He looked down at his watch. “Another minute, I should think.”
That minute passed, and the British frogmen started to think their charge had failed when there was a sudden explosion across the harbor, and they saw the Italian cruiser literally lifted out of the water, the 600 pound charge breaking her back with perfect placement. A few seconds later their own charge went off, and after shirking with the explosion, Lieutenant Dove just gave the guard a sheepish look, seeing the man had leveled his rifle at them.
“Come now,” he said. “War is war. We’ve done our job here, fair and square, and we’re your prisoner. I can assure you, if the situation were reversed, you would get fair treatment from us.”
“Move along!” the man said gruffly.
As for the crew of Chariot #22, they were just approaching the netting when their charge went off with that rollicking explosion. Realizing that the alarm would be up all around the harbor in seconds, they simply poured on the power and rammed the netting, the weight and force of the Chariot pushing right on through. Now all they had to do was get back north to look for one of the submarines.
They found one, seeing a light winking at them in the dark swells of the channel. So they made for it with renewed determination, elated to have taken out that warship, and glad their comrades had also scored a hit that night. As they eased up to the sub, Lieutenant Greenland shouted up. “Never more glad to see you! A tin of Bully Beef is going to go down quite nicely after this romp.”
Men were out on the deck of the sub, a rope thrown over for the two divers to grasp, but as they climbed, Greenland looked up to see a man holding a submachinegun on him. It was the number two Warrant Officer off U-73, and minutes later they were hauled up and led below, soon eye to eye with Oberleutnant Deckert. He was quite pleased at the little fish he had caught with his due diligence, and eager to interrogate these men.
“You see, Bentzein,” he said to his Number One. “Now we have one of their underwater torpedoes, and we’ll just tow it into the harbor and drop these two off. Let’s hope the Luftwaffe can get out after that enemy submarine we tailed at first light.” He looked at the two bedraggled divers, and he spoke in the King’s English.
“We knew you were up to something,” he said. “I spotted you yesterday off Algiers, and there was something very odd about the silhouette of your sub. How many are you?”