On the bridge, Lieutenant Weddy read the signaclass="underline" "For exercise repeat exercise order emergency dive Stop Execute."
It took Weddy two seconds to reach the chart table and another two to check that the charted depths of water ahead were in the thirty- and forty-fathom range. With one hand he grabbed the chart and with the other slammed the chart table shut into the recess on the side of the bridge. He yelled, "Clear the bridge!" then down the voice pipe, "Dive! Dive! Dive!" At the same moment he pressed the alarm button, and instantly the harsh "ah-uu-uu-gah" sounded throughout the submarine. As the lookouts and the signalman bundled down the conning-tower ladder, Weddy took a last look around the bridge and then followed them, shutting off the voice pipe, closing the upper hatch behind him with a slam and ramming home the clips. Then he was through the lower hatch, and the signalman slammed it shut and fastened the clips.
As the crew hurried to diving stations, a signalman collided with a seaman who fell against the coxswain at the diving planes. The coxswain growled, "Watch your step and stop that skylarking."
The seaman grinned. "Sorry, 'Swain. Accident."
"That's right," confirmed the signalman.
Shadde's angry voice froze them. "Stop that bloody chatter." Then: "Forty feet! Up periscope! For exercise, bring all tubes to the ready." And a few seconds later: "Down periscope!"
The submarine took on a bow-down angle and the short, pitching movement ceased as she left the turbulent surface water. Symington was at the plotting table. Allistair, the Third Hand, was on the attack computer, where instruments were feeding in course, speed and other data. Cavan stood behind the seated planesmen, concentrating on the telltales and depth gauges, and giving pumping and flooding orders to get the trim right.
Now Shadde's compelling voice: "Up periscope!" He made a rapid sweep of the horizon, bringing the periscope to rest on a cargo steamer a couple of miles away on the starboard bow.
"Down periscope! Start the attack!" He snapped the handles shut and stood back. "Starboard fifteen. Steer two-three-zero. Six knots." The helmsman and telegraphist repeated the orders and the hum of the main turbines took on a lower note as speed dropped. A few minutes later Shadde snapped, "Up periscope! Bearing is that! Range two thousand seven hundred! Down periscope! I'm fifteen degrees on his starboard bow. Port twenty. Give me a course for a thirty track."
Behind Shadde a petty officer read off the bearings to the Third Hand, who fed them into the attack computer. Within seconds Allistair reported, "Course one-eight-five, sir."
"Steer one-eight-five," from Shadde. The helmsman repeated the course. Then Shadde's voice again, cold, incisive. "For exercise-stand by all tubes."
At that moment there was a call on the engine-room telephone. An able seaman jumped forward to answer it, tripped and fell heavily. Somewhere in the after end of the control room there was a titter of laughter, cut off by Shadde's furious, "Break off the attack! Flood 'Q'! Hundred feet!" His face was contorted with anger as he looked quickly around the control room. But there was no sign of the titterer. Every man was absorbed in his duty as if nothing had happened.
The first lieutenant checked the submarine's dive at one hundred feet; on the plot Symington noted the time—0750.
Shadde, trembling with rage, increased speed to fifteen knots and asked Symington for a course to pass south between Bornholm and the mainland. "Give me a least depth of twenty-five fathoms," he said through clenched teeth. Then he turned to the first lieutenant. "Remain closed up at diving stations. Plot inertial-nav fixes every five minutes and run a continuous line of soundings. Report at once if the water shoals to less than twenty-five fathoms." With a final glare he strode out of the control room.
Cavan knew now that the captain intended to make life difficult. They would continue the passage submerged, close inshore and in water of no great depth; thus there was good reason for the navigational precautions. But this meant more work for more people, and no one realized that better than Shadde.
When the captain had gone, Symington plotted the position on the chart and laid off the new courses as ordered. That done, he went to the W/T office. He looked cautiously around to see if Shadde was back. Then he smiled at Gracie, faintly apologetic. "Something rather unpleasant I must tell you, Gracie." He paused. "The captain thinks we're too friendly." Gracie looked up. "Too friendly? What's he mean, sir?" Symington told him of Shadde's outburst at Skansen. "But where's the harm in you talking to me and Springer?" "Probably it's not that. I was tactless. Leaving his table when he was holding forth, not going straight back."
Gracie frowned. "Captain's always been good to me, sir. I think a lot of him. But he has carried on a bit strange these last few weeks. Like keeping us closed up at diving stations just because somebody laughed. I suppose he's a lot on his mind." He thought for a moment. "But surely it's not a crime to be friendly?"
Symington's embarrassment showed. "It's a bit more than that." He laughed dryly. "The captain thinks our getting together now and then on photography is something else." Grade's eyes widened. "Something else? I don't follow." Then Symington repeated what the captain had said to Cavan.
When he got to his cabin Shadde sent for the first lieutenant. "Fine bloody performance," he snapped, when Cavan came in.
Cavan thought, I'll say nothing. Keep my yardarm clear. Ever since he'd gone to Naval College at Dartmouth he'd followed his father's advice religiously. "Always keep your yardarm clear, my boy, if you want to get on in the service." As the years went on, while he'd gone forging ahead, he'd seen what had happened to others who hadn't kept their yardarms clear. If he didn't end up as Admiral Sir Benjamin Cavan it wouldn't be for want of trying.
Shadde's words tumbled out angrily. "So now I'm not permitted to carry out an exercise without its being treated as a turn by the Marx Brothers. Able seamen falling flat on their faces. Titters from the audience. The very idea that the captain should want to exercise a torpedo attack is so damned funny."
Cavan's silence angered him. "Told you yesterday what I thought of the discipline in this boat," he said thickly. "Now you know. Well, you're the first lieutenant. What have you to say?"
He's trying to bait me, Cavan thought. Wants me to argue. Seen him in these moods, but never one quite like this. Look at those veins! And all because somebody laughed. God, what a man!
Shadde was pacing now like something in a cage. "Forty-nine seconds to make an emergency dive," he barked. "Whoever heard of a submarine taking that long? And all that noise and chatter when we were closing up. But that's not all. Oh, no! Asinine laughter in the middle of the attack." His voice rose. "In the middle of an attack! Ye gods! In my boat."
The first lieutenant knew this was wild exaggeration. The dive hadn't taken anything like forty-nine seconds, and there had been nothing wrong with the exercise except for the snigger of laughter. He said quietly, "I'll try and find out who laughed, sir."
"You bloody well will find out, you mean," snorted Shadde. "If that sort of thing ever—" He stopped as if he'd forgotten something. "Order patrol routine, except for those in the control room. They can remain closed up until I give the word. This submarine's not the huge bloody joke they think it is."