H. M. S. Ulysses Read online

  ‘There are times, sir, when I positively love the Germans.’

  ‘You and Johnson should get together sometime,’ Brooks advised. ‘Old Starr would have you both clapped in irons for spreading alarm and . . . Hallo, hallo!’ He straightened up in his chair and leaned forward. ‘Observe the old Duke there, Johnny! Yards of washing going up from the flagdeck and matelots running—actually running—up to the fo’c’sle head. Unmistakable signs of activity. By Gad, this is uncommon surprising! What d’ye make of it, boy?’

  ‘Probably learned that they’re going on leave,’ Nicholls growled. ‘Nothing else could possibly make that bunch move so fast. And who are we to grudge them the just rewards for their labours? After so long, so arduous, so dangerous a spell of duty in Northern waters . . . ’

  The first shrill blast of a bugle killed the rest of the sentence. Instinctively, their eyes swung round on the crackling, humming loudspeaker, then on each other in sheer, shocked disbelief. And then they were on their feet, tense, expectant: the heart-stopping urgency of the bugle-call to action stations never grows dim.

  ‘Oh, my God, no!’ Brooks moaned. ‘Oh, no, no! Not again! Not in Scapa Flow!’

  ‘Oh, God, no! Not again—not in Scapa Flow!’

  These were the words in the mouths, the minds, the hearts of 727 exhausted, sleep-haunted, bitter men that bleak winter evening in Scapa Flow. That they thought of, and that only could they think of as the scream of the bugle stopped dead all work on decks and below decks, in engine-rooms and boiler-rooms, on ammunition lighters and fuel tenders, in the galleys and in the offices. And that only could the watch below think of—and that with an even more poignant despair—as the strident blare seared through the bliss of oblivion and brought them back, sick at heart, dazed in mind and stumbling on their feet, to the iron harshness of reality.

  It was, in a strangely indefinite way, a moment of decision. It was the moment that could have broken the Ulysses, as a fighting ship, for ever. It was the moment that bitter, exhausted men, relaxed in the comparative safety of a landlocked anchorage, could have chosen to make the inevitable stand against authority, against that wordless, mindless compulsion and merciless insistence which was surely destroying them. If ever there was such a moment, this was it.

  The moment came—and passed. It was no more than a fleeting shadow, a shadow that flitted lightly across men’s minds and was gone, lost in the rush of feet pounding to action stations. Perhaps self-preservation was the reason. But that was unlikely—the Ulysses had long since ceased to care. Perhaps it was just naval discipline, or loyalty to the captain, or what the psychologists call conditioned reflex—you hear the scream of brakes and you immediately jump for your life. Or perhaps it was something else again.

  Whatever it was, the ship—all except the port watch anchor party—was closed up in two minutes. Unanimous in their disbelief that this could be happening to them in Scapa Flow, men went to their stations silently or vociferously, according to their nature. They went reluctantly, sullenly, resentfully, despairingly. But they went.

  Rear-Admiral Tyndall went also. He was not one of those who went silently. He climbed blasphemously up to the bridge, pushed his way through the port gate and clambered into his high-legged armchair in the for’ard port corner of the compass platform. He looked at Vallery.

  ‘What’s the flap, in heaven’s name, Captain?’ he demanded testily. ‘Everything seems singularly peaceful to me.’

  ‘Don’t know yet, sir.’ Vallery swept worried eyes over the anchorage. ‘Alarm signal from C-in-C, with orders to get under way immediately.’

  ‘Get under way! But why, man, why?’

  Vallery shook his head.

  Tyndall groaned. ‘It’s all a conspiracy, designed to rob old men like myself of their afternoon sleep,’ he declared.

  ‘More likely a brainwave of Starr’s to shake us up a bit,’ Turner grunted.

  ‘No.’ Tyndall was decisive. ‘He wouldn’t try that—wouldn’t dare. Besides, by his lights, he’s not a vindictive man.’

  Silence fell, a silence broken only by the patter of sleet and hail, and the weird haunting pinging of the Asdic. Vallery suddenly lifted his binoculars.

  ‘Good lord, sir, look at that! The Duke’s slipped her anchor!’

  There was no doubt about it. The shackle-pin had been knocked out and the bows of the great ship were swinging slowly round as it got under way.

  ‘What in the world—?’ Tyndall broke off and scanned the sky. ‘Not a plane, not a paratrooper in sight, no radar reports, no Asdic contacts, no sign of the German Grand Fleet steaming through the boom—’

  ‘She’s signalling us, sir!’ It was Bentley speaking, Bentley the Chief Yeoman of Signals. He paused and went on slowly: ‘Proceed to our anchorage at once. Make fast to north buoy.’

  ‘Ask them to confirm,’ Vallery snapped. He took the fo’c’sle phone from the communication rating.

  ‘Captain here, Number One. How is she? Up and down? Good.’

  He turned to the officer of the watch. ‘Slow ahead both: Starboard 10.’ He looked over at Tyndall’s corner, brows wrinkled in question.

  ‘Search me,’ Tyndall growled. ‘Could be the latest in parlour games—a sort of nautical musical chairs, you know . . . Wait a minute, though! Look! The Cumberland—all her 5.25’s are at maximum depression!’

  Vallery’s eyes met his.

  ‘No, it can’t be! Good God, do you think—?’

  The blare of the Asdic loudspeaker, from the cabinet immediately abaft of the bridge, gave him his answer. The voice of Leading Asdic Operation Chrysler was clear, unhurried.

  ‘Asdic—bridge. Asdic—bridge. Echo, Red 30. Repeat, Red 30. Strengthening. Closing.’

  The captain’s incredulity leapt and died in the same second.

  ‘Alert Director Control! Red 30. All AA guns maximum depression. Underwater target. Torps’—this to Lieutenant Marshall, the Canadian Torpedo Officer—“depth charge stations”.’

  He turned back to Tyndall.

  ‘It can’t be, sir—it just can’t! A U-boat—I presume it is—in Scapa Flow. Impossible!’

  ‘Prien didn’t think so,’ Tyndall grunted.

  ‘Prien?’

  ‘Kapitan-Leutnant Prien—gent who scuppered the Royal Oak.’

  ‘It couldn’t happen again. The new boom defences—’

  ‘Would keep out any normal submarines,’ Tyndall finished. His voice dropped to a murmur. ‘Remember what we were told last month about our midget two-man subs—the chariots? The ones to be taken over to Norway by Norwegian fishing-boats operating from the Shetlands. Could be that the Germans have hit on the same idea.’

  ‘Could be,’ Vallery agreed. He nodded sardonically. ‘Just look at the Cumberland go—straight for the boom.’ He paused for a few seconds, his eyes speculative, then looked back at Tyndall. ‘How do you like it, sir?’

  ‘Like what, Captain?’

  ‘Playing Aunt Sally at the fair.’ Vallery grinned crookedly. ‘Can’t afford to lose umpteen million pounds worth of capital ship. So the old Duke hares out to sea and safety, while we moor near her anchor berth. You can bet German Naval Intelligence has the bearing of her anchorage down to a couple of inches. These midget subs carry detachable warheads and if there’s going to be any fitted, they’re going to be fitted to us.’

  Tyndall looked at him. His face was expressionless. Asdic reports were continuous, reporting steady bearing to port and closing distances.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ the Admiral murmured. ‘We’re the whipping boy. Gad, it makes me feel bad!’ His mouth twisted and he laughed mirthlessly. ‘Me? This is the final straw for the crew. That hellish last trip, the mutiny, the marine boarding party from the Cumberland, action stations in harbour—and now this! Risking our necks for that—that . . . ’ He broke off, spluttering, swore in anger, then resumed quietly:

  ‘What are you going to tell the men, Captain? Good God, it’s fantastic! I feel like mutiny myself . .
. ’ He stopped short, looked inquiringly past Vallery’s shoulder.

  The Captain turned round.

  ‘Yes, Marshall?’

  ‘Excuse me, sir. This—er—echo.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘A sub, sir—possibly a pretty small one?’ The transatlantic accent was very heavy.

  ‘Likely enough, Marshall. Why?’

  ‘Just how Ralston and I figured it, sir.’ He grinned. ‘We have an idea for dealing with it.’

  Vallery looked out through the driving sleet, gave helm and engine orders, then turned back to the Torpedo Officer. He was coughing heavily, painfully, as he pointed to the glassed-in anchorage chart.

  ‘If you’re thinking of depth-charging our stern off in these shallow waters—’

  ‘No, sir. Doubt whether we could get a shallow enough setting anyway. My idea—Ralston’s to be correct—is that we take out the motor-boat and a few 25-lb. scuttling charges, 18-second fuses and chemical igniters. Not much of a kick from these, I know, but a miniature sub ain’t likely to have helluva—er—very thick hulls. And if the crews are sitting on top of the ruddy things instead of inside— well, it’s curtains for sure. It’ll kipper ‘em.’

  Vallery smiled.

  ‘Not bad at all, Marshall. I think you’ve got the answer there. What do you think, sir?’

  ‘Worth trying anyway,’ Tyndall agreed. ‘Better than waiting around like a sitting duck.’

  ‘Go ahead then, Torps.’ Vallery looked at him quizzically. ‘Who are your explosives experts?’

  ‘I figured on taking Ralston—’

  ‘Just what I thought. You’re taking nobody, laddie,’ said Vallery firmly. ‘Can’t afford to lose my torpedo officer.’

  Marshall looked pained, then shrugged resignedly.

  ‘The chief TGM and Ralston—he’s the senior LTO. Good men both.’

  ‘Right. Bentley—detail a man to accompany them in the boat. We’ll signal Asdic bearings from here. Have him take a portable Aldis with him.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Marshall?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Ralston’s young brother died in hospital this afternoon.’ He looked across at the Leading Torpedo Operator, a tall, blond, unsmiling figure dressed in faded blue overalls beneath his duffel. ‘Does he know yet?’

  The Torpedo Officer stared at Vallery, then looked round slowly at the LTO. He swore, softly, bitterly, fluently.

  ‘Marshall!’ Vallery’s voice was sharp, imperative, but Marshall ignored him, his face a mask, oblivious alike to the reprimand in the Captain’s voice and the lashing bite of the sleet.

  ‘No, sir,’ he stated at length, ‘he doesn’t know. But he did receive some news this morning. Croydon was pasted last week. His mother and three sisters live there—lived there. It was a land-mine, sir— there was nothing left.’ He turned abruptly and left the bridge.

  Fifteen minutes later it was all over. The starboard whaler and the motor-boat on the port side hit the water with the Ulysses still moving up to the mooring. The whaler, buoy-jumper aboard, made for the buoy, while the motor-boat slid off at a tangent.

  Four hundred yards away from the ship, in obedience to the flickering instructions from the bridge, Ralston fished out a pair of pliers from his overalls and crimped the chemical fuse. The Gunner’s Mate stared fixedly at his stop-watch. On the count of twelve the scuttling charge went over the side.

  Three more, at different settings, followed it in close succession, while the motor-boat cruised in a tight circle. The first three explosions lifted the stern and jarred the entire length of the boat, viciously—and that was all. But with the fourth, a great gout of air came gushing to the surface, followed by a long stream of viscous bubbles. As the turbulence subsided, a thin slick of oil spread over a hundred square yards of sea . . .

  Men, fallen out from Action Stations, watched with expressionless faces as the motor-boat made it back to the Ulysses and hooked on to the falls just in time: the Hotchkiss steering-gear was badly twisted and she was taking in water fast under the counter.

  The Duke of Cumberland was a smudge of smoke over a far headland.

  Cap in hand, Ralston sat down opposite the Captain. Vallery looked at him for a long time in silence. He wondered what to say, how best to say it. He hated to have to do this.

  Richard Vallery also hated war. He always had hated it and he cursed the day it had dragged him out of his comfortable retirement. At least, ‘dragged’ was how he put it; only Tyndall knew that he had volunteered his services to the Admiralty on 1st September, 1939, and had had them gladly accepted.

  But he hated war. Not because it interfered with his lifelong passion for music and literature, on both of which he was a considerable authority, not even because it was a perpetual affront to his aestheticism, to his sense of rightness and fitness. He hated it because he was a deeply religious man, because it grieved him to see in mankind the wild beasts of the primeval jungle, because he thought the cross of life was already burden enough without the gratuitous infliction of the mental and physical agony of war, and, above all, because he saw war all too clearly as the wild and insensate folly it was, as a madness of the mind that settled nothing, proved nothing—except the old, old truth that God was on the side of the big battalions.

  But some things he had to do, and Vallery had clearly seen that this war had to be his also. And so he had come back to the service, and had grown older as the bitter years passed, older and frailer, and more kindly and tolerant and understanding. Among Naval Captains, indeed among men, he was unique. In his charity, in his humility, Captain Richard Vallery walked alone. It was a measure of the man’s greatness that this thought never occurred to him.

  He sighed. All that troubled him just now was what he ought to say to Ralston. But it was Ralston who spoke first.

  ‘It’s all right, sir.’ The voice was a level monotone, the face very still. ‘I know. The Torpedo Officer told me.’

  Vallery cleared his throat.

  ‘Words are useless, Ralston, quite useless. Your young brother— and your family at home. All gone. I’m sorry, my boy, terribly sorry about it all.’ He looked up into the expressionless face and smiled wryly. ‘Or maybe you think that these are all words—you know, something formal, just a meaningless formula.’

  Suddenly, surprisingly, Ralston smiled briefly.

  ‘No, sir, I don’t. I can appreciate how you feel, sir. You see, my father—well, he’s a captain too. He tells me he feels the same way.’

  Vallery looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘Your father, Ralston? Did you say—’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Vallery could have sworn to a flicker of amusement in the blue eyes, so quiet, so selfpossessed, across the table. ‘In the Merchant Navy, sir—a tanker captain—16,000 tons.’

  Vallery said nothing. Ralston went on quietly:

  ‘And about Billy, sir—my young brother. It’s—it’s just one of these things. It’s nobody’s fault but mine—I asked to have him aboard here. I’m to blame, sir—only me.’ His lean brown hands were round the brim of his hat, twisting it, crushing it. How much worse will it be when the shattering impact of the double blow wears off, Vallery wondered, when the poor kid begins to think straight again?

  ‘Look, my boy, I think you need a few days’ rest, time to think things over.’ God, Vallery thought, what an inadequate, what a futile thing to say. ‘PRO is making out your travelling warrant just now. You will start fourteen days’ leave as from tonight.’

  ‘Where is the warrant made out for, sir?’ The hat was crushed now, crumpled between the hands. ‘Croydon?’

  ‘Of course. Where else—’ Vallery stopped dead; the enormity of the blunder had just hit him.

  ‘Forgive me, my boy. What a damnably stupid thing to say!’

  ‘Don’t send me away, sir,’ Ralston pleaded quietly. ‘I know it sounds—well, it sounds corny, selfpitying, but the truth is I’ve nowhere to go I belong here—on the Ulysses. I can do things all the time—I’m busy—working, slee
ping—I don’t have to talk about things—I can do things . . . ’ The self-possession was only the thinnest veneer, taut and frangible, with the quiet desperation immediately below.

  ‘I can get a chance to help pay ‘em back,’ Ralston hurried on. ‘Like crimping these fuses today—it—well, it was a privilege. It was more than that—it was—oh, I don’t know. I can’t find the words, sir.’

  Vallery knew. He felt sad, tired, defenceless. What could he offer this boy in place of this hate, this very human, consuming flame of revenge? Nothing, he knew, nothing that Ralston wouldn’t despise, wouldn’t laugh at. This was not the time for pious platitudes. He sighed again, more heavily this time.

  ‘Of course you shall remain, Ralston. Go down to the Police Office and tell them to tear up your warrant. If I can be of any help to you at any time—’

  ‘I understand, sir. Thank you very much. Good night, sir.’

  ‘Good night, my boy.’

  The door closed softly behind him.

  TWO

  Monday Morning

  ‘Close all water-tight doors and scuttles. Hands to stations for leaving harbour.’ Impersonally, inexorably, the metallic voice of the broadcast system reached into every farthest corner of the ship.

  And from every corner of the ship men came in answer to the call. They were cold men, shivering involuntarily in the icy north wind, sweating pungently as the heavy falling snow drifted under collars and cuffs, as numbed hands stuck to frozen ropes and metal. They were tired men, for fuelling, provisioning and ammunitioning had gone on far into the middle watch: few had had more than three hours’ sleep.

  And they were still angry, hostile men. Orders were obeyed, to be sure, with the mechanical efficiency of a highly-trained ship’s company; but obedience was surly, acquiescence resentful, and insolence lay ever close beneath the surface. But Divisional officers and NCOs handled the men with velvet gloves: Vallery had been emphatic about that.

  Illogically enough, the highest pitch of resentment had not been caused by the Cumberland’s prudent withdrawal. It had been produced the previous evening by the routine broadcast. ‘Mail will close at 2000 tonight.’ Mail! Those who weren’t working non-stop round the clock were sleeping like the dead with neither the heart nor the will even to think of writing. Leading Seaman Doyle, the doyen of ‘B’ mess-deck and a venerable three-badger (thirteen years’ undiscovered crime, as he modestly explained his good-conduct stripes) had summed up the matter succinctly: ‘If my old Missus was Helen of Troy and Jane Russell rolled into one—and all you blokes wot have seen the old dear’s photo know that the very idea’s a shocking libel on either of them ladies—I still wouldn’t send her even a bleedin’ postcard. You gotta draw a line somewhere. Me, for my scratcher.’ Whereupon he had dragged his hammock from the rack, slung it with millimetric accuracy beneath a hot-air louvre— seniority carries its privileges—and was asleep in two minutes. To a man, the port watch did likewise: the mail bag had gone ashore almost empty . . .