Killing Ground Read online

While Tirpitz remained in her Norwegian lair the battleships and cruisers of the Home Fleet were tied down at Scapa Flow, just in case she came out.

  Would the German Navy risk such an important battle-group on one convoy? Even as he asked himself the question Howard knew the answer. They would want to destroy any convoy that might help the Russians recover when the ice and snow released their ruthless grip on the Eastern Front. When the thaw came to those hundreds of miles of contested ground, Hitler would order his armies to attempt that which Napoleon had failed to do.

  With Russia beaten into submission and slavery, the enemy would double its efforts elsewhere. North Africa, and then—he thought of his father’s little house in Hampshire, the pleasant garden from which you could see the old windmill on the top of Portsdown Hill on a clear summer’s day. No amount of courage and sacrifice would stop them coming there too.

  He realised that the RAF Met officer was droning on about wind and snow flurries, about the fact that the ice-edge was still holding firm, later than usual, so that the convoy would have to sail closer to the German bases than had been hoped. Even around the approaches to the Kola Inlet and Murmansk there would be similar hazards although the port was selected in the first place because it was ice-free all the year round. It was also chosen because of the direct railway connection with Leningrad and the Baltic.

  The Ops Officer was last, his hands in his reefer pockets, thumbs hooked over the sides.

  He ended by saying, “The convoy will not disperse, gentlemen.” He looked at their intent faces. “It goes through. No matter what.”

  To Howard as he turned up his coat collar and stepped over the dirty snow to find the Jeep that had carried him here, those final words sounded like a covenant, a perfect epitaph.

  3 | From a View to a Kill

  “FORENOON watch closed up at defence stations, sir!”

  Lieutenant Neil Finlay nodded and trained his glasses on the nearest merchantman again. “Very well.”

  Finlay was a Scot and proud of the fact, and also of the knowledge that he was the first RNVR officer to be put in charge of gunnery in this hard-worked destroyer. Because his captain was a regular he was all the more determined to make no mistakes. If anyone else made any in the gunnery department, Finlay had left no doubts as to what he would do about it.

  It had taken three days to marshal the convoy into their allotted positions and move out of Reykjavik, then north and into the Denmark Strait. Apart from a few minor collisions with drifting patches of ice they had managed without incident. Now, with the sea rising and falling in a deep swell, they were in open water: the Arctic Ocean. There were thirty merchant ships in the convoy, arranged in five columns, with the commodore’s vessel, a fine-looking cargo liner named Lord Martineau, leading the centre column. To protect them on the long haul to North Russia were six destroyers, eight corvettes, two Asdic trawlers and a tug. In the centre of the convoy was a converted Dutch ferry named Tromp II, described in the orders as an anti-aircraft ship. She was manned by naval ratings and her deck appeared to be crammed with short-range weapons, pom-poms and Oerlikons, while right aft by her stylish bridge she mounted two twelve-pounders. Lieutenant Finlay moved his glasses towards the other odd-looking vessel at the rear of the centre column, one he had heard Ayres asking about as soon as the convoy had got underway.

  Another converted merchantman, her upperworks had been cut away but for her bridge and spindly funnel, while the upper deck was dominated by a long catapult. A Hurricane fighter stood all alone on the catapult, like some huge seabird which had landed there for a brief respite from its flight.

  The first lieutenant’s comment had been typically curt and scathing. “Fighter catapult ship. If the convoy is sighted by a German recce plane they fire off the catapult and our gallant pilot shoots the German down before he can home the U-Boats on to our position.”

  Marrack had met Ayres’s unspoken questions with, “After that he bales out, and we pick him up.”

  Finlay smiled grimly. They were well north of the Arctic Circle. If the flier had to ditch he wouldn’t last much longer than twelve seconds.

  Tucker, the yeoman of signals, raised his telescope, his lips moving soundlessly. “Signal from commodore, sir. Mersey Belle is losing way. Investigate.”

  Howard stood up and gripped his chair while the signal lamp clattered an acknowledgement.

  The ship in question was at the rear of the port column. She had already been told off by the escort commander for making too much smoke. Now what?

  Howard shaded his eyes to study the great array of ships. Five columns of vital equipment, every hold packed with weapons, medical supplies and vehicles. Most of them carried deck cargo as well, crates and crates of aircraft destined to fill the critical gaps in Stalin’s air force. The other five destroyers were out of sight, steaming in a widespread arrowhead formation ahead of the convoy. The corvettes were divided on either beam, their sturdy little silhouettes lifting and diving in the huge swell like lively whales.

  Gladiator was two miles astern of the convoy, “Tail-end Charlie,” ready to do anything required by the commodore, or go for any U-Boat which might try to catch up with the ships on the surface. It was unlikely in daylight, for no submarine could outpace the convoy submerged.

  “Half ahead together.”

  In the wheelhouse Treherne was checking something with his yeoman, which was why Finlay had relieved him for a few moments. Finlay had lost no time in summoning their other sublieutenant and Esmonde the midshipman to the bridge to press home the main points of his fire-control system.

  As the revolutions mounted, Howard glanced at the trio of young officers below the compass platform. The two subbies, side by side but somehow totally apart, and Esmonde swaying jerkily with the uncompromising rolls and swoops, his features the colour of parchment.

  “One-one-seven revs replied, sir!”

  Howard raised his glasses again. The sky was very cloudy, with small patches of shark-blue here and there. No sign of snow as promised. No sign of anything for that matter. Even the far-off Admiralty had refrained from making signals. A covering force from the Home Fleet was somewhere to the northwest; there was supposed to be an escort carrier with it. Howard looked at the fighter catapult ship. At the moment that was all the air cover they could expect once they had reached the limit of shore-based aircraft to the northeast of Jan Mayen Island, that lonely outpost at the very extremes of the ice-edge.

  It was too calm. Bad weather was the best ally so close to enemy airfields and the deep fjords where the big surface ships were said to be hiding. Maybe the Met officer would still be proved right. If not …

  “Slow ahead.” Howard walked to the side of the bridge and switched on the loud-hailer.

  “Mersey Belle! Make more revs! You’re falling astern!” He waited, tapping his leather sea-boot impatiently until two heads appeared on the freighter’s high bridge. It was shining like glass, he thought. So, probably, was Gladiator as the freezing spray drifted over her. Marrack would have to get his people to work on the forecastle. A destroyer was not built to take a build-up of ice on the upper deck; too much top-hamper had been known to capsize an escort in heavy seas.

  “Hello, Gladiator!” He had a Geordie accent you could cut with scissors. “It’s a spot o’ shaft trouble. I’ll have to slow down some more while my chief is working on it!”

  Howard said, “Signal the commodore, Guns.” He moved his glasses along the freighter’s hull. The sea was lifting right up to her wash-ports one moment, then falling away to reveal her waterline. Deep-laden, like the rest. She had armoured cars on the upper deck; there were even crates of aircraft lashed across her hold covers. Not much chance if the cargo shifted, he thought. He often marvelled at how they stood it. They were, after all, civilians, but they bore the full fury of the enemy’s attacks by sea and air. Howard had known merchant ships to pick up survivors only to be torpedoed themselves, then sometimes a second roar of destruction with the survivor
s crowding into other ships. And yet they always seemed to go back. This convoy’s commodore, for instance, had been sunk twice already, and he was here again in the thick of it.

  Finlay called, “From commodore, sir. The convoy will reduce speed to ten knots.”

  The yeoman lowered his lamp and said, “Fast convoy, did someone say? A bloody snail could do better!”

  Howard heard him. It was unusual for Tommy Tucker to show his feelings. Edgy. We’re all getting like that.

  He said over his shoulder, “Take her round and resume position. Warn the messdecks first. She’ll show her keel when we turn in this sea!”

  A boatswain’s mate switched on the speaker and touched his lower lip gingerly with his frozen silver call.

  “D’you hear there! Stand by for a ninety degree turn to starboard!”

  Ayres could picture it as he remembered the old Sanderling. Men seizing cups and food, others putting half-written letters away to prevent them from getting lost underfoot. It was strange, he thought. When he was in the little patrol vessel he had been desperate to leave her and go to the training establishment. Now, he could not get her out of his mind.

  His silent companion, Bizley, gripped a safety rail and braced himself. He wanted to shut it all out. Be anywhere but surrounded by others he did not know, nor want to.

  He was finding it harder instead of easier to sleep whenever he was off watch. It was always there, the vivid flashes of cannon fire across the black water, sparks flying as the balls of red tracer had cracked over the hull. Men had fallen, some blinded by wood splinters from the deck, or hammered down by the E-Boat’s rapid and deadly accuracy.

  His commanding officer, a young lieutenant like Finlay, had fallen in the bridge, bleeding badly, one of his hands missing. In the dreams there was no fire, but he had known that the forward messdeck was ablaze when he had … He tried to accept it, to deal with it without lying to himself. There was nothing he could have done. The skipper would have died anyway. He chilled as he saw him again, reaching out with his remaining hand. Pleading with him without speaking. Two others had been trapped below when a machine-gun mounting had fallen across the hatch. They had been screaming still when Bizley had inflated his life-jacket and hurled himself outboard where two of the surviving seamen had been struggling with the Carley float. They had stared at him, their eyes white in the darkness, but they had shoved off without protest when he had yelled at them.

  The motor gunboat had been carrying a full rack of depth-charges, and someone had failed to set them to safe when the hull had eventually raised its stern and dived from view. At fifty feet the charges had ignited and the sinking hull with dead and wounded still trapped inside had been blown into a thousand pieces.

  That was last year. It seemed like yesterday. They had transferred him to general duties before sending him here, to Gladiator.

  It was over. Finished with. Who could know now? The only other survivors barely remembered what had happened; they had been too busy trying to launch the float and escape.

  “Stand-by!”

  Howard gripped the chair again. “Starboard fifteen!”

  “Fifteen of starboard wheel on, sir!”

  Round and further still until they were dangling from any handhold they could find, skidding on steel and cursing, while the starboard Oerlikon gunner was heard to sing out, “Any more for the Skylark?”

  Gladiator asserted herself like the thoroughbred she was, lifting her sharp stem towards the clouds like the short sword on her crest. Water spurted from her hawsepipes as she plunged down again, surging around A-gun and bursting over the bridge in a miniature tidal wave.

  They headed back to their allotted position before repeating the turn all over again.

  Howard climbed on to his chair and watched the spread of ships as they appeared to slide back and forth across the salt-streaked screen.

  Finlay said, “You can cut along, Sub—you too, Snotty.” He turned to Ayres. “Bring her back on course, Sub.” He saw the genuine pleasure on Ayres’s face. That one couldn’t hide anything if he tried. He heard the others clattering down the bridge ladder. The midshipman was no better or worse than he had once been himself in his first ship. But Bizley—he was something else. He wondered if the Old Man had noticed. While Ayres was like a kid let loose in a toyshop, Bizley seemed to resent any sort of advice or instruction. As a sub-lieutenant he had probably been a big noise in his MGB, maybe even the Number One. Here, he was just another green subbie.

  He was surprised that Marrack had not already come down on him like a ton of bricks. They shared the same watch after all. Perhaps he was sorry for him after losing his boat in the North Sea. Finlay smiled wryly. It was hard to imagine the first lieutenant being sorry for anyone.

  Treherne appeared on the bridge and grinned. There was ice rime on his beard.

  “Thanks, Guns. I’ll take over again.” He glanced across to the voicepipes as Ayres acknowledged the helmsman’s report. “Been a good boy, has he?”

  Finlay nodded. “He’s got the makings, Pilot. Not too sure about—”

  “Aircraft, sir! Dead astern! Angle of sight three-five! Moving right to left!”

  Howard swung his glasses over the screen even as he slid from the chair. The signalman who had called out lowered his own glasses and exclaimed, “It was there, sir!”

  Howard continued with a slow sweep, rising and settling again with the ship. Only low cloud, with a sparse break where the aircraft had supposedly been. He looked at the signalman; just a boy, but he had already proved there was nothing wrong with his vision.

  “Large or small?”

  The youth, his cheeks and throat rubbed almost raw by his cold wet clothing, stared back at him, very aware that he was speaking to his captain.

  “Large, sir. I’m certain it was.”

  Treherne suggested, “Could have been one of the big Yank planes from Iceland.” The signalman nodded, heartened that they actually believed him. “Four engines. Flying just there through the clouds.”

  The yeoman of signals said dourly, “You’d better be right, my son!”

  Howard walked to the chart table. “Inform the commodore. Aircraft sighted, possible course and bearing.” A small voice seemed to ask, theirs or ours? It was the margin of life or death up here.

  The yeoman reported, “From commodore, sir. Convoy will alter course in succession to zero-three-zero. Follow father.”

  Treherne chuckled, “He sounds a lively old bugger!”

  Howard saw fresh tea coming to the bridge and was glad of the interruption. The commodore was right about one thing. It was pointless to fly off their one and only Hurricane. It would never find the other aircraft in this cloud, and what if it turned out to be a Yank, or an RAF long-range anti-submarine patrol? It would mean a plane wasted with possibly a dead pilot as well. But the alteration of course was not good. It would add to the overall distance, and the destroyers, which used more fuel than any other ships in the convoy, would have to take on oil from the fleet tanker Black Watch earlier rather than later while the weather held.

  Howard took the steaming mug and said, “Warn all the lookouts. Double vigilance. It will do no harm anyway.”

  He wiped the compass repeater with his sleeve and felt the ice cling to it. The convoy will not disperse. It was as if the man had spoken to him from Iceland. But if they had to fight, how long would it take the heavy ships of the Home Fleet to reach them?

  He sipped the scalding tea and watched the ant-like figures through the glasses balanced easily in his right hand. They were working around the Hurricane. Making sure it would still fly if required.

  He recalled the tough humour in the desperate days of the Battle of Britain. Join the Navy and see the world. Join the Air Force and see the next.

  The watches changed, the bitter air was tinged with the smell of the galley. On the darkening sea the ships sailed on until in the deepening shadows the columns appeared to join like some gigantic Roman phalanx on the ma
rch.

  A guessing game, so that Howard could picture the markers and flags on the operation boards in Iceland and the Admiralty, and presumably in Kiel, too.

  When darkness had finally closed over the sea, Howard left the bridge and climbed stiffly down to his sea cabin. It had become a sort of ritual. A quick wash with warm soapy water, and a clean dry towel to wrap round his neck. PO Vallance thought of everything. He tried not to look at the untidy bunk. If he even just sat on it he would be finished. He looked at himself in a mirror and tried to comb the salt out of his unruly hair.

  The telephone on the bulkhead scattered his thoughts.

  “Captain?” He wondered if the petty officer telegraphist, “Pots” Hyslop, could hear his heart beating down the line.

  “From Admiralty, sir. Immediate. There are said to be five U-Boats to the east of your position.”

  Howard nodded. “I’m going up.”

  The others were waiting for him and he was glad they could not see his face.

  “Well, now we know, Number One. It was not one of ours!”

  In the private, enclosed world of the chart table Howard and Treherne were leaning side by side while they stared at countless calculations, bearings and the pencilled line of their course. Behind them on the open bridge Howard could hear the other watchkeepers moving occasionally to restore circulation or to break the tension.

  He picked up the brass dividers and moved them along the chart while he listened with half an ear to the ship, to the pattern of sound and movements. The dreary, repetitive ping of the Asdic, the squeak of B-gun as it was trained from bow to bow. Although every weapon was supposed to be safe from freezing, the special oil they used had been known to fail on rare occasions. Howard made a quick calculation on the pad and glanced at the misty, revolving picture in the radar-repeater. Like a faint beam of light as it passed across the invisible convoy, the unwavering shapes of the columns, the fainter blips of the corvettes’ close escort on either beam.

  It was unnerving, he thought. Another day with nothing untoward to report. Maybe the U-Boat warning had been misunderstood by the coding staff at the Admiralty, or perhaps they were off after some other convoy.