“Which?”
“The ruddy Jap, sir. Sullen cove. They got ‘im peelin’ spuds, but I don’t know as it’s right lettin’ ‘im ‘ave a knife.”
“Make him use a short, blunt one. And have the fore-end watch-keeper keep an eye on him.”
“Aye aye, sir. Shadwell’s looking after him now.” Everyone smiles. Shadwell could look after an army of Japs and they still wouldn’t try anything.
The Cox’n turns and walks for’ard. You slide off your bunk, tighten the belt of your shorts and go barefoot into the Control room to take over the watch. The Captain’s buzzer buzzes and you nip back to the Wardroom.
“Red lighting at eight, Sub.”
“Aye aye, sir.” No dreams now, only trim, course, speed, position, and a careful periscope search as the light fades over the Straits. Keep an eye on the man with the headphones: what eyes can’t see, ears can hear. They are big, hairy ears, and even the frequent wearing of headphones for hours on end has failed to prevent them standing out at right-angles to the man’s head. He’s a nice lad, Saunders, a farmer from Dorset, and he’ll be glad to get home one day to a decent pint of bitter, if it’ll ever be decent again, and not just coloured water. That’s what the Germans have done, thought Saunders, watered the bloody beer, them and the Nips between them. Tortured old men and women too, killed little kids, and you couldn’t sit by and let ‘em do that, not without having a bash at them, the dirty bastards.
Eight o’clock on the Admiralty-pattern electric clock. White lights are out in the Control Room and in the Wardroom, red ones glowing in their place. Red light, say the scientists, accustoms the eyes to seeing in the dark; so do raw carrots, which are eaten whenever anyone remembers to eat them. The Captain wears dark goggles as he pulls on a waterproof jacket, then gropes behind the water-tight door for his binoculars. The First Lieutenant takes over the watch, and the Sub, who will have the first watch when they surface, gets dressed and studies the chart in the dim orange light.
Eight-fifteen. Number One, in the Control Room, reaches for the microphone that hangs from an air-pipe on the deckhead. He flicks the switch on with his thumb and says:
“Diving Stations… Diving Stations.” Within a minute each man is in his place, his station for diving, surfacing, attack. Again the microphone carries an order through all compartments:
“Stand by to surface.” Reports come in, vents shut, blows open.
“Ready to surface, sir.” The Captain is straining his eyes into the periscope. The man with the headphones, Saunders, reports all clear all round. The periscope hisses down into its well, and the Captain puts a foot on the ladder as the Signalman steps back from opening the lower hatch.
“Surface!” High-pressure air rips into the ballast tanks as the hydroplanes are swung to force the boat up. The needle in the depth-gauge rises, slowly at first, then faster, and the Captain and the Signalman climb up through the hatch into the conning-tower. As the submarine breaks surface the Captain opens the top hatch and heaves himself quickly up on to the bridge. The diesels roar into life and the submarine gathers way through the dark deserted sea: her sleek hull gleams shiny black while the water still drips from her sides. Down below in the warm, lighted compartments men are lighting the first cigarettes and pipes of the day. The comfort and sociability of smoking draw men together, and in this strange world of their own, remote from others of their kind and near only to their enemies, men from all walks of life and all parts of Britain are perfectly at home.
Stand alone on the front of the bridge while the submarine forges slowly ahead, one engine driving her at slow speed while the other pumps new life into the batteries. There are two seamen, lookouts, on the after end of the bridge, binoculars at their eyes, but you, the Officer of the Watch, must see anything before they see it. The Captain is asleep, or as near asleep as he ever is, down below, and in these narrow Straits which are enemy territory you alone are responsible for the safety of the ship and the lives of the men in her. For the two hours of your watch the binoculars are never lowered from your eyes, not for longer than it takes to pass an order or quietly to acknowledge a report through the voice-pipe: to and fro and all round the glasses sweep, minutely careful, missing nothing. You must see the enemy, if he is there, before he sees you, and if you fail in this you can call yourself a failure and there is no place for you in a submarine.
As you sweep, questions ask themselves and are answered automatically in your mind: What will I do if I see a dark shape there, a bow-wave there, coming towards at speed? If a strange recognition signal challenges from the darkness on the starboard bow, what action will I take? What will be my first order down the voice-pipe if I hear an aircraft which the Radar has failed to pick up? Watchful, straining eyes, a tense mind and a body taut and hard, only the regular swish of water sweeping over the saddle-tanks and the low throb of one diesel breaking the silence of pitch-black night. Over all, the constant hope: an enemy worth sinking, and you must sight him not one second later than it is physically possible to sight him. That is all you have to do, alone on the bridge, and to every detail you must do it, because you are part of something in which only the highest standards are acceptable.
This is Patrol Routine.
Remember how it started? In a garage, for you, on the same Sunday, of course, when it started for the rest of the world. You were making screens for blacking-out the windows, tacking thick cardboard on to frames of thin deal slats that you’d made to fit the windows. You were the son and the only male of one of thousands of households that were getting ready for a war. You knelt on the garage floor, that summer morning, and hammered in the nails while your mind was full of the war which, being very young, you had been looking forward to for some time.
You were on leave from the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. In a year or so you’d be at sea as a Midshipman, and you hoped the war would last that long so you could go to sea and fight and make up for having thoroughly disliked the time you spent at Dartmouth. Not that it was your fault, really. At the age of thirteen the brass buttons and a photograph in the Illustrated London News had been enough to give you nightmares of failing the entrance examination. Besides, there was an Admiral with your name, and there had always been your name in the Navy List, so they said, your aunts and your mother, that is. So when you were thirteen you went to Dartmouth, in a uniform, and you were told that you were a Naval Officer and that you were expected to behave as such, but when you arrived at Paddington on your way home after the first term and you strolled into the refreshment bar and asked for a sausage-roll and a pint of bitter the barmaid smiled and said, “Sorry, sonny, no beer, not under eighteen.” You were still a little boy, after all. Your House Officer didn’t think so, though, or else he had less idea than his job demanded of how to treat little boys. He sent for you one day, during Stand Easy, and you ran up the narrow stairs wondering what it was that you had done now.
“Shut the door,” he said, and you shut it, taking care not to let it slam, and you faced him squarely, ready for something.
“When did you last see your father?” he asked, abruptly, as though the question embarrassed him. It struck you as being a silly question, and you had a quick flashback to the picture of a little boy standing on a hassock in front of the Roundhead officer who was doing his job of hunting down Englishmen who had committed the crime of loyalty to their Sovereign. You gave him the obvious, the only answer.
“Last leave, sir.”
Your House Officer put his hand flat on the desk and stared at the back of it. Then he looked at you, and you felt as though he didn’t believe you. He said: