Killing Ground Read online

  “Radar … bridge!”

  Petty Officer Tommy Tucker, the yeoman, pushed one of his young signalmen to one side and exclaimed, “Shit!”

  Howard stooped over the voicepipe. “Bridge. This is the Captain.”

  The man hesitated, probably wondering if he were doing the right thing. “I’m getting an echo. Very faint, dead ahead—about two miles.” When Howard said nothing he continued, “May be a throwback from the shore. I—”

  Howard was thinking rapidly, his eyes on the red button by his hand. “McNiven, isn’t it?” A face took shape in his mind. “Keep watching. I’m looking at my radar-repeater now.” He winced as water ran off the canvas hood above the repeater and explored his neck like ice. “I’m just getting a confused picture.” It was hardly surprising in this heavy sea, with the land mass of Iceland comparatively close.

  McNiven said, “Echo is stationary, sir. Very small.” He was a good operator, second only to his leading hand.

  Treherne asked, “Shall I call up the corvettes, sir?”

  Howard shook his head, still thinking. McNiven could see it, therefore it was not just a throwback. It was on the surface. Afloat but unmoving.

  He bent over the voicepipe again. “Any change?” McNiven came back instantly, “None, sir.”

  Howard said, “Not a U-Boat. Too close to land to surface to charge batteries.” He saw them listening and realised he had spoken aloud. “They’ve got seven hundred fathoms to play with around here.”

  Another voice intruded from the wheelhouse. “Cox’n on the helm, sir.”

  “Very good.” Howard looked at Treherne and smiled. How did the old hands like Bob Sweeney the coxswain always know? Like the yeoman of signals, they never seemed to need the alarm bells.

  Treherne asked, “Fishing boat?”

  “Not sure. But this is the time to be certain, eh?” Howard knew Treherne understood. How many ships had been sunk when lookouts had been thinking only of getting into a safe harbour, dry clothes, food which was not flung off the plate in a force nine gale? Out of nowhere.

  He pressed the red button and heard the alarm shrill through the hull, the staccato reports on voicepipes and handsets as the men dashed to their action stations.

  The first lieutenant joined Howard. “Ship at action stations, sir. Trouble?”

  “I’m not certain. Radar has reported a faint echo at three-three-zero. Unmoving, so not a conning-tower.”

  Marrack squinted his eyes at the wet haze. “Can’t see a damned thing.”

  “Radar-bridge!”

  “Bridge.”

  “I think it’s a boat, sir. It just turned round. Drifting.” He sounded almost apologetic.

  “You did well, McNiven.” He looked at the others. “There’s a northerly current just there, right, Pilot?”

  “Yes, sir.” His bearded face was expressionless.

  “Fall out action stations, resume defence stations.” Howard heard the feet thudding gratefully down ladders and along the deck. “We’d better take a look. Maintain course and speed, Pilot. I don’t want to shake the guts out of her in this sea.”

  By the time Ayres had reached the bridge again from his action station which was by Y-gun right aft, the sea had brightened still further, and although the waves were too high to allow an horizon you could feel the depth and latent power. To starboard there was the hint of land, a purple shadow which looked like a fallen cloud.

  “Object in the water, sir! Dead ahead!”

  “Slow ahead together.” Howard climbed on to the forward gratings and levelled his glasses. He felt his stomach contract. “‘Dead’ was right. Warn the chief bosun’s mate!”

  “He’s already there, sir.”

  “He would be.” Knocker White, another one who was always ready.

  He turned and saw Ayres standing by a signal locker, the hood fallen from his head as he stared at the boat drifting down the ship’s side until it was snared by the chief boatswain’s mate’s grapnel. How far had they been journeying? What ship, and how long had it taken? Scarecrows. Torn, tattered faces, some eyeless, others fallen across the motionless oars. In the stern-sheets a hunched figure with a cap down over his face, two faded stripes on the sodden jacket.

  Howard called, “Stop, together.” He saw the new doctor hurry to the guardrail, then pause as if he had been paralyzed by what he saw.

  Marrack snapped, “There should be an officer down there, sir.”

  Ayres tore his eyes from the horrific lifeboat, and knew Marrack meant him.

  “I—I’ll go, sir!”

  Howard looked at him. “Stay with the Buffer and his men. If you feel faint or sick, keep out of sight.” He added gently, “But Number One is right. You’ve got to show them.”

  Ayres almost fell as he lowered himself down the first ladders, past a grim-faced Oerlikon gunner and then to the main deck itself. A few off watch onlookers stood at the break of the fo’c’sle; others leaned out from their defence stations, sharing the moment.

  Petty Officer Knocker White climbed from the boat and saw Ayres staring at him. Good lad, he thought, surprised that he should be there. He heard someone retching helplessly. It was the new doctor. God help us if we runs into the fucking Tirpitz, he thought savagely.

  “I got the details, sir.” He pulled something leather from his oilskin; it was covered in mildew. He held it out for Ayres to see and said quietly, “Poor bugger was ’anging on to the picture of ’is girl, sir. Probably the last thing ’e ever saw.” He waved up to the bridge and barked, “Cast ’er off, Jim!”

  The deck began to tremble again and white froth surged away from the great propellers. The boat seemed to hesitate against the side, as if reluctant to leave now that they had reached help.

  Ayres asked huskily, “What will become—”

  The Buffer eyed him for a few moments while he watched the forlorn boat rocking as it passed over the destroyer’s churning wake.

  “The skipper’ll signal for an RML as it’s so close inshore. They can deal with them things better than us.”

  Ayres stared until his eyes were raw, oblivious to the biting air, everything but the lifeboat and its ragged occupants. It was as if he still expected to see the officer at the helm wake up and stare after them, to curse them, maybe, for leaving them.

  He said aloud, “I’ll never forget.” He shook his head so that his schoolboy haircut ruffled in the wind. “Never!”

  White, “the buffer” as he was known in all ships, said, “At the end o’ the forenoon, sir, drop into our mess. ’Ave a tot with some of the real sailors.” He strode away to muster his men again, unable to watch Ayres’s gratitude.

  When he reached the bridge again to continue his watch Ayres saw the navigating officer studying him.

  “All right, Sub?”

  Howard turned in his chair. “You did well, Sub. It gets easier in time. It has to, you see?”

  Ayres moved to a corner of the bridge and tried to make himself small. He kept seeing them. Who had been the last one left alive? The girl in the photograph; did she know, did anybody at home realise just what it was like?

  By the time the watch had run its course they were turning around the last headland with the bay opening up; beyond that lay a great fjord with snow and high ground beyond it.

  “Hands to stations for entering harbour. Starboard watch fall in, first part forrard, second part aft!” The orders seemed endless. Lights winked and flashed from all directions and the yeoman was kept busy replying with his hand-lamp.

  “Signal from ACIC, sir. Anchor off Videy Island.”

  Howard looked at Treherne and saw him grimace. That meant that the other anchorage was already filled. The convoy. “Bring her round, Pilot.” He looked down at the forecastle and saw Marrack at the head of his men, the chief stoker groping around the starboard capstan, his breath like steam in the cold air. In England they would be hoping for a good spring in a matter of a few weeks, to give an illusion that the war was not too bad. Howard
glanced aft and at the men around him. Spring would be a long time coming up here, with plenty of ice at the end of the journey. He saw Ayres’s pale face, a youthful determination which had been lacking before. Thinking of that lifeboat still, probably the closest he had been to the war so far. He lowered his eye to the compass and took a quick fix on the brightly painted marker. “Dead slow, together.”

  “Coming on now, sir.” Treherne sounded calm, completely absorbed as usual.

  “Stop engines! Slow astern together!”

  Ayres trained some glasses on the nearest anchored warship. A big Tribal Class destroyer. He read her name on the plate by her quartermaster’s lobby: Beothuck. Canadian, then. He felt himself shiver like that morning in Rosyth. Just days ago. It was not possible.

  He turned, startled, as the anchor splashed down and the cable started to rumble out across the bottom.

  Howard gave him a quick smile. “You tell the wheelhouse, Sub. Ring off main engines.”

  The vibrations ceased instantly and he heard the coxswain’s surprised acknowledgement.

  Treherne touched his arm as the watchkeepers began to relax and step down from their stations.

  “Go and get that tot, Sub, the one that old rascal Knocker White offered you.” He saw the sudden embarrassment and added, “You earned it back there. It’s their way of telling you.”

  Howard unslung his binoculars and wondered about a bath before he was summoned to some senior officer.

  “I’ll need the motor boat, Pilot. About an hour.”

  The yeoman called, “Signal, sir. Captain to report to ACHQ when convenient.”

  “Acknowledge.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “About an hour,” he repeated. Then he clattered down the ladder and made his way aft. Another landfall. Soon, another departure.

  The tannoy came to life. “D’you hear there! Men under punishment to muster!”

  Howard paused at the entrance of the watertight door and looked along the destroyer’s deck. My ship. In just the time it took to walk from the last bridge ladder to here, men had died and were still dying. But routine and duty ruled their lives nonetheless.

  Other things stood out in his mind. Ayres had come through his first lesson, the new doctor had failed. The other sub-lieutenant, Bizley, was driving himself round the bend, or so Marrack had told him. That had to be dealt with promptly before it endangered some or all of them. Nobody else could handle it. Midshipman Esmonde had rushed on deck when the drifting lifeboat had bumped alongside, and had fainted. He might get over it. If there was only more time.

  His day cabin door opened even as he raised his hand and he saw Petty Officer Vallance beaming at him. A fire was already flickering in the grate.

  “Nice bath, sir, an’ a clean shirt ready, special for the admiral, like!” Vallance saw and recognised the fatigue which the others rarely shared. The Old Man had got them here. He would go on doing it. Till it was all bloody well over.

  Gladiator took the strain on her cable and swung to the swirling current. But Vallance knew it was their young captain who carried all of them.

  The place chosen for the operational briefing was within the perimeter fence of Area Combined HQ where the Navy had joined with the Royal Air Force to control the destiny of every Allied vessel. It was a grand name for a scattered collection of Nissen huts, all of which were dominated by a giant radio mast. Howard, with Treherne sitting beside him, looked around at the other naval officers who sat like pupils on rows of hard wooden chairs.

  Howard guessed that this hut, larger than all the others, was normally used as a cinema for the many servicemen who were incarcerated on this inhospitable island. But the screen was folded up to the roof, and had been replaced by a long trestle table which faced the audience.

  It had been four days since Gladiator had arrived at Reykjavik, and apart from moving alongside a fleet oiler to replenish the tanks, nothing much had happened. Ganymede, their sister-ship, had arrived to join them, delayed in Scotland only to collect and accompany two more corvettes. There were about twenty commanding officers and their navigators present, he thought, maybe more. It was to be that important.

  Ganymede’s captain, Lieutenant-Commander “Spike” Colvin, nudged him with his elbow. “Some of our chaps look as if they’ve just left school!”

  Howard nodded, but through and beneath the unmoving fog of pipe and cigarette smoke he saw a few of the more experienced faces, the interwoven gold lace of the RNR, like Treherne, and several regulars like himself and Colvin. The majority were Wavy Navy, hostilities only; the new blood.

  Howard wondered how they would all stand up to another run to Murmansk. Fifteen hundred miles as the crow flies, but far longer with all the detours thrown in. One of the worst sea areas in the world, even without the enemy.

  The door opened and the little procession trooped to the table while the assembled officers got to their feet with much scraping of chairs. Rear-Admiral Henry Giffard took his place in the centre, ranked on either hand by his team of “experts” and one naval commander whom Howard had already met. He was the captain of HMCS Beothuck, the big Tribal destroyer, who was to be the senior officer of the escort. A good choice it seemed, as he had done several of these trips before. He was a powerfully built man with impassive features. One who would have no time for fools.

  The rear-admiral was a complete contrast. Old for his rank, his chest brightened by a full rectangle of decorations most of which Howard did not recognise, he looked rather like a modern Pickwick. He was bald but for two white wings of hair, and he looked polished and scrubbed. When he put on a pair of small, gold-rimmed spectacles he was Pickwick.

  He looked at them over the glasses and said dryly, “Gentlemen, you may smoke.” He glanced pointedly at the drifting pall and added, “If you must.”

  Colvin grunted and immediately fished out a tin of duty-free cigarettes. Eventually everyone settled down and the navigating officers had their pads and pencils ready to hand.

  The rear-admiral cleared his throat. “Before I hand you over to the Met officers and my operations commander I should like to put you all in the picture. I shall of course be attending the convoy conference to address the ships’ masters, but there are certain things they need not be told, yet, anyway.” Again that slow search of their faces. “Our allies, the Russians, are having a very bad time of it. Too many retreats, terrible losses in men and materials, and more especially aircraft. The Luftwaffe dominates the whole front, and the Russians do not have the means to keep pace with the enemy.” He added with a certain irony, “It has rather a familiar ring about it, don’t you think?”

  Howard thought of the way Britain’s fortunes had suffered. Even in North Africa where there had been so many victories, the newsreels full of Italian soldiers surrendering to the Eighth Army, the situation was critical. One man ruled the Western Desert: Rommel, with his famous Afrika Korps. He was heading even now for Egypt, beyond which lay Suez, India, total victory. And nothing but the battered and demoralised Eighth Army could prevent it.

  He recalled his own harsh summary, which he had offered Ayres. But he was no different from all the others who had not experienced the odds of battle. They wanted to close their ears or listen to Vera Lynn.

  The admiral was saying, “This will be a fast convoy. Almost all the ships are new—each will be loaded with essential weapons and aircraft, and tanks.”

  Howard saw the Canadian escort commander look down at the table and sigh. He would know better than most what the admiral was hinting at. Their destination, Murmansk, as bleak as it was dangerous, had only one really functional crane, and that was capable of lifting just eleven tons at a time; far less than a tank. It meant more time lost and fretting over delays while they offloaded them on to any available slipway or jetty, using a solitary lifting vessel.

  It was never made any easier by the thinly disguised hostility and suspicion with which the Russians behaved. Even the anchorage was far too deep for the tired escorts, and thei
r allies persistently refused to allow any of them into the relative security of the Russian naval base at Polynaroe.

  The men who manned the ships were more than bitter about this treatment, after all the risks they had taken to get there. Even then they still had to reach home again along the same dangerous highway. The convoys were beyond Allied air cover for the worst part of the passage, and the Germans used their Norwegian bases to full and deadly advantage.

  Rear-Admiral Giffard dabbed his mouth with his handkerchief and Colvin whispered, “Just had a bloody good lunch, I’ll wager!”

  Giffard removed his glasses and said, “Unfortunately I have to tell you that intelligence reports suggest that the Germans may attempt a surface attack by cruisers which are said to be lying at Tromsø. There is a ring of steel around the place and even the Norwegian underground has stayed silent. There will be a covering force from the Home Fleet, a match for any such cruisers.”

  Howard waited. Why was he hesitating, drawing it out?

  Giffard replaced his glasses as if to afford protection. “It is also rumoured that Tirpitz may make a sortie this time.”

  If he had shouted some terrible obscenity the little admiral could not have had a greater effect.

  Colvin said quietly, “Jesus Christ, that battlewaggon could swallow this convoy and never notice it.”

  Around the room officers were glancing at one another, seeking out familiar faces, starkly aware, not of their numbers, but of their complete vulnerability.

  Howard felt Treherne stiffen beside him. Remembering Tirpitz’s giant sister-ship Bismarck which had escaped through these very same waters. Not before she had destroyed Hood, the darling of many a peacetime review and Britain’s greatest warship, and sent a brand-new battleship, Prince of Wales, in full retreat from her great guns. The ill-fated Prince of Wales had shared Hood’s fate at the hands of the Japanese just seven months later.

  They had sunk the German giant eventually, but it had taken most of the Home Fleet to find and destroy her.