Dive in the Sun (7 page)

At that moment the submarine cleared the overhanging end of the dock and moved awkwardly towards the centre of the harbour.

Duncan licked his lips. ‘Looks as if the Eye-ties didn’t get a tip that we were comin’ after all,’ he said slowly. ‘I guess we’re all born lucky.’

Curtis ran his palm along the periscope, heedless of the thick grease which clung to his skin. You finally did it, he told himself. You finally cracked. It was almost a relief. He was dimly aware of Jervis’s quiet voice behind him, talking to Taylor.

‘Steer one-five-five. We should be clear of the main jetties in about ten minutes.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Taylor’s answer was automatic and subdued. All the life seemed to have gone from him.

Curtis eyed them moodily. They already think I’m redundant, something to be tolerated until we get back. He watched Jervis moving uncomfortably by the chart table, his shining diver’s suit hanging on him like an obscene skin.

‘I’ll give the necessary orders, thank you.’ His flat voice made Jervis start and move clumsily towards the diving compartment. ‘When I’ve got the boat back to the rendezvous you can all do what you like. Until then,’ he paused wearily, ‘you’ll obey orders. All of you!’

The boat slid silently through the water, and no roar of engines overhead, or the sudden crashing detonation of depth charges, pursued their slow and cautious passage. It had been a perfect attack. Curtis almost groaned aloud at the mockery of his thoughts.

As if reading his mind, Duncan stirred his cramped body. ‘Pretty smooth, Ralph. I’d say there’s not much wrong with
your
touch that a good rest won’t cure. We’ve all been over-doin’ things a bit.’

‘Periscope depth!’ Curtis fiddled impatiently with the switch and ignored Duncan’s words. He felt strangely calm and resigned; it was a feeling which his self-made loneliness only helped to strengthen as he glared bleakly at the crouched figures grouped about him. Each man was wrapped in his own private thoughts.

The periscope hissed slowly upwards.

He searched the harbour eagerly, a feeling of crazy recklessness making his head swim. He saw a small motor boat moving like a shadow towards the top of the anchorage. With childish defiance he kept the periscope raised and looked back at the fading shape of the dock.

But for you everything might have been different. But the lie died in his brain as his eye turned back across the black water and fastened on a small bobbing float. He stared at it blankly, forcing himself to concentrate once more and aware of some rising sense of warning.

A thin grey streak probed faintly across the sky, and the outlines of the distant ships became harsher. Soon a new day would dawn in Vigoria, and with it would come disaster when the charges exploded. He watched the float bobbing towards him. We’re on the right course for a quick exit. We should be up to the nets soon, but not as quickly as this. Then he saw another group of floats. He chilled. It must be another net.

‘Thirty feet! Another net!’

The deck tilted obediently, but at the same instant they heard the clatter of wire across the hull. He realized he was still holding the periscope switch in his hand and he pressed it frantically. Even as the tube hissed down he heard the sharp groan of metal, and a thin trickle of water ran across his wrist. He stared at it for some moments before he could bring himself to realize that the periscope had been caught in the net. The scraping of the wire ceased and the boat skimmed under the net.

‘Only an anti-torpedo net,’ said Taylor quietly. ‘Luck’s still with us!’

Curtis wrenched desperately at the hoist. The periscope was jammed solid, and the water still seeped threateningly down the greased tube.

‘Take her up. Surface!’ He stood upright under the dome, his hair pressed against the rough metal.

Duncan eyed him strangely.

‘Surface,’ he repeated heavily. ‘We’re blind. We’ll have to run out on the surface!’

He opened the hatch, gasping as the salt air struck him in the face and a stream of spray broke over the coaming. Heavily he climbed up on to the casing, leaving the others behind in the darkened control-room. Wearily he strapped himself to the twisted periscope standard and braced his feet on the slippery deck. He bent his head until his lips brushed against the speaking tube, his eyes on the white tower of the harbour entrance.

Why not just step over the edge? Finish the whole damned business once and for all? What was the point of trying to escape now? As soon as the dock blew up, every destroyer and aircraft for miles around would be looking for them.

The first line of net buoys loomed ahead, and he conned the boat round until the shape of the boom-vessel was lost in the gloom. The boat moved smoothly between the first two nodding buoys, while Curtis gritted his teeth and waited for the net to grip them. They passed cleanly over the top of the sagging net and he breathed again. It was a race now. The next net must be reached before it became any lighter. Already the sky had brightened alarmingly, and somewhere across the harbour he heard the scream of a train whistle.

He spoke carefully down the pipe. ‘Give me full revs!’ He was amazed at the calmness in his voice. ‘Once over the next net we should be O.K.’

‘We over a net already then?’ Taylor’s voice rattled tinnily up the tube. ‘Cor, fancy that!’

He heard Taylor pass the information to the others, and without warning he began to tremble violently. He knew then
that
he couldn’t desert them whatever he had done, or whatever they thought of him.

They passed over the last net, within two hundred yards of a sleeping destroyer, and turned for the open sea.

CURTIS LOCKED HIS
fingers tightly behind his head and lay back uncomfortably on the small bunk across the chart table. He tried to relax his body and concentrate on the steady, monotonous pulse-beat of the motor.

The shaded light in the control-room seemed to have lost some of its brilliance and shed a yellow, sickly glow across the instruments and dials, and twisted Duncan’s intent face into a mass of shadows, from which his cold eyes stared fixedly at the depth gauge and the clock.

Taylor was still at the wheel, while Jervis was trying to find sleep in the forward battery compartment.

Curtis again resisted the temptation to look at the brass clock. It must be nearly six, he thought. Soon the charges would explode and turn the peaceful harbour into a raging hell. He swallowed hard, tasting the bitter coating of oil and grime in his throat.

The submarine had dived as soon as it had cleared the harbour approaches, and as the sun rose above the horizon like a solid gold ball they had groped their way down to a depth of thirty feet and steered purposefully across the open bay.

He pressed his eyes shut and tried to calculate the situation more clearly. They would have to lie on the bottom soon and rest. As soon as the charges exploded he knew from past experience that every craft and plane would be alerted, and their slightest movement in the shallow coastal waters would invite attention and attack. He heard the wheel creak, and he was reminded of his new worry. The gyro compass had started to play up. Both he and Duncan had carried out the usual
check
, but the rapid alteration and sudden deviation pointed to one thing. The severe grinding which the boat had received beneath the floating dock had caused more damage than any of them was prepared to admit. He bit his lip hard. The boat was blind, and with a faulty compass as well, the possibility of making a rendezvous with the towing submarine in the middle of the night seemed hopeless. Apart from that, he knew that by taking his time over his approach to the rendezvous, and by keeping the other, larger craft helpless on the surface, he was doubling the risk to their lives, as well as those of his own crew.

His aching mind shied away from the obvious solution, from which there was no real alternative. We shall have to ditch the boat, he told himself, and try to make it overland. He had heard of other crews doing the selfsame thing in the past. But that was in Norway, an occupied country, not in Italy. He shuddered.

‘Damn!’ Taylor spun the spokes again, and craned forward over the compass. ‘She’s not answerin’, Steve!’

Duncan waited a moment before replying. ‘Bring the cow round to due east again. Then ease ’er off to your course slowly. We’ve got to keep goin’ for a bit, just to put a few miles between us an’ the big bang.’

The wheel creaked, and Curtis felt his heart beginning to thud painfully against his ribs. Duncan knows, he thought. He knows we’re going to ditch.

‘Course steady on oh-nine-oh.’ There was a pause. ‘Oh, sod it! She’s payin’ off again!’

Curtis forced his eyes open and slowly eased his legs down to the deck.

‘Keep trying,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m going to set her down on the bottom shortly. But keep trying for a bit longer.’

Duncan looked up, his eyes searching. ‘Feelin’ better, Ralph?’

Curtis nodded vaguely.

‘Good. I reckon I was right about this bein’ a crook deal.’

Curtis stiffened, but the other man shook his head briefly, a small smile breaking through his dirty, stubbled face.

‘
We
were all right, Ralph. It was the job which was stupid! I reckon you did real well to get us out like that, and on the surface, too!’ His grin broadened. ‘I thought we was all goin’ at each other’s throats for a bit, eh?’

Curtis felt a tremor of emotion coursing behind his eyes, and he looked away.

‘Sorry about that, Steve. It’s all been playing on my mind a bit.’ He groped for the right words. ‘I’ve never forgotten how young Roberts died. It was my fault. I killed him as surely as if I’d shot him.’ He found that the relief of confiding in someone was almost more than his mind could stand, and he slumped heavily against the useless periscope. ‘And now all this happening.’ He waved one hand around the boat. ‘I don’t mind telling you, we’re in a jam.’

‘You mean we’re goin’ to let the old boat go, is that it?’ Duncan eyed him calmly. ‘Reckon it’s all we can do under the circs!’

A great tidal wave of sound engulfed the hull, a sullen, angry roar, like the crumbling of a distant dam. Together they looked at the clock, while Jervis scrambled through the open door, his eyes wide and enquiring. It was two minutes past six.

Silently Duncan reached across and gripped Curtis’s hand. ‘Well done, Skipper. You blew the bastard’s bottom off! You got us in, and you got us out!’

They all shook hands, and Curtis wanted to cry out as each man looked him in the face and smiled. Jervis rubbed his hands across his pale face and looked from one to the other, as if amazed by the calmness of these experienced seamen, while Taylor turned back to the compass, a small secret smile of private satisfaction on his tight-lipped mouth.

‘Shall we be able to pick up the towing sub all right?’ Jervis seemed to suddenly come to life.

Duncan shot a quick glance at Curtis and rubbed his chin slowly. ‘We’ll be makin’ the trip on foot, that is unless we can whip a boat off some damned Eye-tie!’

Curtis hardly noticed the look of dismay on the boy’s face; he was already reaching for the chart. Of course, that was the answer. Steal a boat and move down the coast by night. They
should
be able to find some sort of hide-out during the daylight, and if the Allied invasion had got into full swing they ought to be able to contact their own people within a week, maybe less, if all went well. He ran his eyes across the chart, his mind picturing again that quiet fishing village he had seen through the periscope. His finger paused over the markings on the roughened chart. Was that only yesterday? He shook his head wonderingly.

The towing submarine would wait at the appointed place, and then return to base. Signals would be made, and in due course the dreaded telegrams would be received in four homes. Four homes, separated not only by distance, but by completely different ways of life.

A small moment of cruel pleasure flickered through his mind as he thought of his father. No doubt he would even make capital out of his bereavement, he thought bitterly.

Jervis looked even paler, and Duncan reached out with his foot to kick him chidingly in the ankle.

‘’Ere, snap out of it, Ian. It’ll do us good to stretch our legs.’

Jervis still stared straight at the side of the hull, his eyes dull. ‘What would they do to us if they caught us? Would we be treated as prisoners-of-war and everything?’

Curtis eyed him levelly. ‘They say they’re going to hang every midget submariner, frogman, commando, charioteer, and what-have-you that they can catch, Ian. The German High Command say we’re all saboteurs, and must be treated as such. So get it through your head—we’re not going to be caught!’

‘No, that’s right, sport!’ Duncan laughed only with his mouth. ‘We’re goin’ to see that you get home to your dad, the Admiral, just so that you can tell ’im what a lot of scruffy jokers we all are in this outfit!’

Duncan turned back to Curtis, a look of careless ease on his face. Curtis’s sharp words had somehow struck new life into him, and even Taylor looked more relaxed. ‘Where you settin’ us down, Ralph?’

‘I’ll go back to this deep underwater valley, you remember, “
il dietro del camello
”, and as soon as it’s dawn tomorrow, we’ll slip ashore. We can sink the boat in deep water then.’

‘What’ll we take with us, Ralph? I guess we won’t want to lug too much ashore, especially if we’ve got to swim for a bit!’

Curtis pulled the chart closer to the light.

‘The beaches are pretty shallow for a long way out. I think it’ll be more of a wade than a swim. We’ll need the emergency pack and a good water container.’ He rested his hand almost gingerly on the holster which hung on his hip. ‘We shall need these as well. Although I don’t aim to have to use them.’

‘I wouldn’t mind too much.’ Duncan eased his depth controls, his eyes distant. ‘You should see my old man. He can knock the eye out of a jack-rabbit at a hundred yards with a pistol.’ He shook his head, marvelling at his own memories. ‘He sure is quite a guy.’

‘What did he say when you came over and joined the Royal Navy?’ Curtis was suddenly curious about Duncan’s father, although he had heard so much about him he sometimes felt he knew him better than his own.