That was the right sort of hit! A hit on the enemy’s gun: that gun had fired its last shell.
“Point of aim, the waterline!” The Sub could never hear his own voice after a few rounds had been fired, and he was constantly surprised to find that his orders were heard and obeyed at the gun. Up here, on the front edge of the bridge, the blast from each shell fired had a blinding, deafening effect.
The Gunlayer fired a moment sooner than he had intended: the sights were half-way up the enemy stern instead of on the waterline. The shell crashed in through the high stern, right the way through, exploded in a stern compartment which the Japs had recently converted to hold a cargo of mines. There were a dozen mines in the compartment, and as one they exploded with the shell, not an explosion, an eruption: the enemy ship was split open, her bowels flung into the sky. Seahound’s Gun’s Crew stood back from their gun shielding their eyes and staring in stunned amazement at the havoc of flying debris, the huge billowing cloud of smoke and the shooting tongue of orange flame.
“Cor stone the crows!” muttered the Gunlayer. “Did we do that?”
As the Gun’s Crew secured the gun and cleared the gun-deck of shell-cases, Seahound swung round and headed northwards up the Straits. The sky was still full of dirt: Sub looked up at the lighthouse on the tall headland, and thought that they’d given someone a good morning’s entertainment. It must have been quite a spectacle, from up there. He saw the hatch shut over the Gunlayer’s head, and at the same time he thought he heard the Captain shout into the voice-pipe:
“Stand by Boarding Party!”
There wasn’t anything left of the Tank Landing Ship. He must have heard wrong: his ears were still ringing from the noise of the battle.
The Captain spoke to him. “Go down and get your gear, Sub.” He pointed at a big junk, creeping into sight round the headland.
The Sub thought, as he obeyed the order, that the Captain was showing signs of over-confidence: a boarding in daylight, in these waters! But when the time came, it was dead easy, no opposition, no Jap guard, and the sky stayed empty. The Chinese crew even helped Sub and his men to climb on board, welcome guests. The cargo was rice, sugar and matches; Sub sent a crate of matches across to the submarine.
He had fired the charge and was about to abandon the junk when he heard the Captain shouting something, pointing at the bow of the junk. Sub hurried for’ard, looking around: a small, ginger kitten ran towards him, mewing. He scooped it up, ran aft and swung himself down to the submarine.
A minute later, Seahound was speeding away into the deep water: then the vents dropped open, the spray plumed up and she dived to periscope depth. Someone was likely to resent the intrusion and the damage, and if she stayed in these waters there would very likely be some trouble: the Captain turned her north, up towards the gap in the minefields. This would be the fourth time that she had passed through them: when you’ve done it once, it’s easy.
Every ship and submarine on the Station had a secret chart, now, with a track marked on it, the track through the minefield that Seahound found.
Sometimes, when you lay on your bunk and there was nothing very much to think about, it was pleasant to think about going home. Perhaps it wouldn’t be long, now: it was not, thought the Captain, that he felt any great urge to be back in England, it was the actual journey home that he looked forward to. A sort of holiday cruise, visits to places on the way: Aden, Port Said, perhaps Alexandria: Malta and Gibraltar. Yes, it’d be a lot of fun.
Strange, he thought, that he should like a place like Aden: hot and sandy, nothing much to do except swim and drink, yet the place had a certain atmosphere that made a short visit attractive. Port Said: a dance at the Eastern Exchange, just for the hell of it. Alexandria: the Auberge Bleu, slumming at the Monseigneur. He wondered if Louise still lived in Alexandria and if she still had the fat and aged Egyptian for a husband.
Malta: the centre of many submariners’ memories. It was in Malta that he had struck that policeman, it was the Malta flotilla that had sunk over a million tons of Rommel’s supplies: the memories swam together, the wild days ashore and the wilder weeks at sea.
Gibraltar: the flat on Scud Hill. The night they rolled up the carpet and launched it out of the window so that it fell on a policeman who was standing in the road protesting against the noise. Another carpet had been their ticket to a free evening in the best hoteclass="underline" the Captain had been a Sub, then. He and two others had taken the carpet and carried it out of the hotel foyer. Then they telephoned the Manager, told him that they had recognised his new red carpet, the pride of his heart, that they had taken it by force from two men who had it on a cart and were trying to sell it. The Manager had been most grateful, had given them a dinner on the house, and after the dinner and cigars they had walked out of the hotel carrying a champagne bucket.
The Captain wondered whether that champagne bucket was still among the other trophies in the flat on Scud Hill. He couldn’t do that sort of thing nowadays, of course, not even if he wanted to: but it would be good to see the old places again, recognise the barmen’s faces, a final night or two with Louise before he settled down to marriage and life-long fidelity.
The Captain fell asleep, while Seahound’s motors drove her gently up the Straits, towards the mines.
Two days later, the Depot Ship in Trincomali was in a state of wild excitement. It was one little point in a vast area of elation, victory. The Japanese High Command had signalled its unconditional surrender. The yellow horde that had blazed a path of murder and brutality across the East, at first almost unopposed, had been beaten to its knees. An atom bomb had given them the excuse to admit defeat, to save something from the wreckage by kneeling to an adversary whose own ideas of human and military conduct they had scorned when the power was in their animal hands.
In the Staff Office, during the afternoon, the Staff Officer, Operations, drafted signals ordering all submarines on patrol to return forthwith, reporting their positions and estimated times-of-arrival at Trincomali. Seahound was the only submarine in the Malacca Straits, and in the signal to her was included the information that on her way back up the Straits she would meet surface forces which were at that moment on their way into the Straits, on their way to accept the surrender of Singapore.
The submarines would be dived all day, knowing nothing of the surrender which had come so suddenly, and the signals would reach them that night, when they surfaced for the night patrol.
The Staff Officer, Operations, leant back in his chair and shut his eyes. In his mind he heard a speech, a speech that told of defeat. He had been a passenger in a troopship rounding the Cape, bound for Suez: it was early in 1942. One evening they were all assembled in the dark, blacked-out recreation space, to hear a special broadcast from London. In grave, simple words the Prime Minister told them of the fall of Singapore. The Staff Officer, Operations, remembered the shock that the news had given them, but he remembered also the hard determination to win in spite of this and any other loss, a determination with which the strength and personal courage of the speaker had inspired them.
Now, the ships were going back. It had taken a long time, but they were going back.
“Have you passed the last signals yet?”
It was half-past nine in the evening, and he was speaking over the telephone from the Staff Office.
“All but one, sir. We haven’t got hold of Seahound yet.”