Читать книгу Alistair MacLean Sea Thrillers 4-Book Collection: San Andreas, The Golden Rendezvous, Seawitch, Santorini - Alistair MacLean, Alistair MacLean, John Denis - Страница 16

It was little more than half-light when the U-boat, in broken camouflage paint of various shades of grey and at a distance of less than half a mile, suddenly appeared from behind a passing snow-squall. It was running fully on the surface with three figures clearly distinguishable on the conning-tower and another three manning the deck gun just for’ard of that. The submarine was on a course exactly parallelling that of the San Andreas and could well have been for many hours. The U-boat was on their starboard hand so that the San Andreas lay between it and the gradually lightening sky to the south. Both bridge wing doors were latched back in the fully open position. McKinnon reached for the phone, called the engine-room for full power, nudged the wheel to starboard and began to edge imperceptibly closer to the U-boat.

He and Naseby were alone on the bridge. They were, in fact, the only two people left in the superstructure because McKinnon had ordered everyone, including a bitterly protesting Lieutenant Ulbricht, to go below to the hospital only ten minutes previously. Naseby he required and for two reasons. Naseby, unlike himself, was an adept Morse signaller and had a signalling lamp ready at hand: more importantly, McKinnon was more than reasonably certain that the bridge would be coming under attack in a very short space of time indeed and he wanted a competent helmsman to hand in case he himself were incapacitated.

‘Keep out of sight, George,’ McKinnon said. ‘But try to keep an eye on them. They’re bound to start sending any minute now.’

‘They can see you,’ Naseby said.

‘Maybe they can see my head and shoulders over the wing of the bridge. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. The point is that they will believe I can’t see them. Don’t forget that they’re in the dark quadrant of the sea and have no reason to think that we’re expecting trouble. Besides, a helmsman’s job is to keep an eye on the compass and look ahead – no reason on earth why I should be scanning the seas around.’ He felt the superstructure begin to shudder as Patterson increased the engine revolutions, gave the wheel another nudge to starboard, picked up a tin mug from the shattered binnacle and pretended to drink from it. ‘It’s like a law of nature, George. Nothing more reassuring than the sight of an unsuspecting innocent enjoying a morning cup of tea.’

For a full minute, which seemed like a large number of full minutes, nothing happened. The superstructure was beginning to vibrate quite strongly now and McKinnon knew that the San Andreas was under maximum power. They were now at least a hundred yards closer to the U-boat than they had been when it had first been sighted but the U-boat captain gave no indication that he was aware of this. Had McKinnon maintained his earlier speed his acute angling in towards the U-boat would have caused him to drop slightly astern of the submarine, but the increase in speed had enabled him to maintain his relative position. The U-boat captain had no cause to be suspicious – and no one in his right mind was going to harbour suspicions about a harmless and defenceless hospital ship.

‘He’s sending, George,’ McKinnon said.

‘I see him. “Stop,” he says. “Stop engines or I will sink you.” What do I send, Archie?’

‘Nothing.’ McKinnon edged the San Andreas another three degrees to starboard, reached again for his tin mug and pretended to drink from it. ‘Ignore him.’

‘Ignore him!’ Naseby sounded aggrieved. ‘You heard what the man said. He’s going to sink us.’

‘He’s lying. He hasn’t stalked us all this way just to send us to the bottom. He wants us alive. Not only is he not going to torpedo us, he can’t, not unless they’ve invented torpedoes that can turn corners. So how else is he going to stop us? With that little itsy-bitsy gun he’s got on the foredeck? It’s not all that much bigger than a pom-pom.’

‘I have to warn you, Archie, the man’s going to get very annoyed.’

‘He’s got nothing to be annoyed about. We haven’t seen his signal.’

Naseby lowered his binoculars. ‘I also have to warn you that he’s about to use that little itsybitsy gun.’

‘Sure he is. The classic warning shot over the bows to attract our attention. If he really wants to attract our attention, it may be into the bows for all I know.’

The two shells, when they came, entered the sea just yards ahead of the San Andreas, one disappearing silently below the waves, the other exploding on impact. The sound of the explosion and the sharp flat crack of the U-boat’s gun made it impossible any longer to ignore the submarine’s existence.

‘Show yourself, George,’ McKinnon said. ‘Tell him to stop firing and ask him what he wants.’

Naseby moved out on the starboard wing and transmitted the message: the reply came immediately.

‘He has a one-track mind,’ Naseby said. ‘Message reads: “Stop or be sunk”.’

‘One of those laconic characters. Tell him we’re a hospital ship.’

‘You think he’s blind, perhaps?’

‘It’s still only half-light and the starboard side is our dark side. Maybe he’ll think that we think he can’t see. Tell him we’re a neutral, mention the Geneva Convention. Maybe he’s got a better side to his nature.’

Naseby clacked out his message, waited for the reply, then turned gloomily to McKinnon. ‘He hasn’t got a better side to his nature.’

‘Not many U-boat captains have. What does he say?’

‘Geneva Conventions do not apply in the Norwegian Sea.’

‘There’s little decency left on the high seas these days. Let’s try for his sense of patriotism. Tell him we have German survivors aboard.’

While Naseby sent the message McKinnon rang down for slow ahead. Naseby turned in the doorway and shook his head sadly.

‘His patriotism is on a par with his decency. He says: “Will check nationals when we board. We commence firing in twenty seconds”.’

‘Send: “No need to fire. We are stopping. Check wake”.’

Naseby sent the message, then said: ‘Well, he got that all right. He’s already got his glasses trained on our stern. You know, I do believe he’s angling in towards us. Very little, mind you, but it’s there.’

‘I do believe you’re right.’ McKinnon gave the wheel another slight nudge to starboard. ‘If he notices anything he’ll probably think it’s because he’s closing in on us and not vice versa. Is he still examining our wake?’

‘Yes.’

‘Turbulence aft must have died away quite a lot by this time. That should make him happy.’

‘He’s lowered his glasses,’ Naseby said. ‘Message coming.’

The message didn’t say whether the U-boat captain was happy or not but it did hold a certain degree of satisfaction. ‘Man says we are very wise,’ Naseby said. ‘Also orders us to lower our gangway immediately.’

‘Acknowledge. Tell Ferguson to start lowering the gangway immediately but to stop it about, say, eight feet above the water. Then tell Curran and Trent to swing out the lifeboat and lower it to the same height.’

Naseby relayed both messages, then said: ‘You think we’re going to need the lifeboat?’

‘I quite honestly have no idea. But if we do, we’re going to need it in a hurry.’ He called the engine-room and asked for Patterson.

‘Chief? Bo’sun here. We’re slowing a bit, as you know, but that’s only for the moment. The U-boat is closing in on us. We’re lowering both the gangway and the lifeboat, the gangway on the U-boat’s instructions, the lifeboat on mine … No, they can’t see the lifeboat – it’s on our port side, their blind side. As soon as they are in position I’m going to ask for full power. A request, sir. If I do have to use the boat I’d appreciate it if you’d permit Mr Jamieson to come with me. With your gun.’ He listened for a few moments while the receiver crackled in his ear, then said: ‘Two things, sir. I want Mr Jamieson because apart from yourself and Naseby he’s the only member of the crew I can trust. Show him where the safety-catch is. And no, sir, you know damn well you can’t come along instead of Mr Jamieson. You’re the officer commanding and you can’t leave the San Andreas.’ McKinnon replaced the receiver and Naseby said, plaintive reproach in his voice: ‘You might have asked me.’

McKinnon looked at him coldly. ‘And who’s going to steer this damned ship when I’m gone?’

Naseby sighed. ‘There’s that, of course, there’s that. They seem to be preparing some kind of boarding party across there, Archie. Three more men on the conning-tower now. They’re armed with sub-machine-guns or machine-pistols or whatever you call those things. Something nasty, anyway.’

‘We didn’t expect roses. How’s Ferguson coming along? If that gangway doesn’t start moving soon the U-boat captain is going to start getting suspicious. Worse, he’s going to start getting impatient.’

‘I don’t think so. At least, not yet awhile. I can see Ferguson so I’m certain the U-boat captain can too. Ferguson’s having difficulty of some kind, he’s banging away at the lowering drum with a hammer. Icing trouble for a certainty.’

‘See how the boat’s getting on, will you?’

Naseby crossed the bridge, moved out on to the port wing and was back in seconds. ‘It’s down. About eight feet above the water, as you asked.’ He crossed to the starboard wing, examining the U-boat through his binoculars, lowered them and turned back to McKinnon.

‘That’s bloody funny. All those characters seem to be wearing some kind of gas-masks.’

‘Gas-masks? Are you all right?’

‘Certainly I’m all right. They’re all wearing a horseshoe-shaped kind of life-jacket around their necks with a corrugated hose attached to the top. They’re not wearing it at the moment, it’s dangling down in front, but there’s a mouthpiece and goggles attached to the end of the tube. When did German submariners start using gas?’

‘They don’t. What good on earth would gas be to a U-boat?’ He took Naseby’s binoculars, examined the U-boat briefly and handed the glasses back. ‘Tauchretter, George, Tauchretter. Otherwise known as the Dräger Lung. It’s fitted with an oxygen cylinder and a carbon dioxide canister and its sole purpose is to help people escape from a sunken submarine.’

‘No gas?’ Naseby sounded vaguely disappointed.

‘No gas.’

‘That doesn’t look like a sunken submarine to me.’

‘Some U-boat commanders make their crews wear them all the time they’re submerged. Bit pointless in these waters, I would have thought. At least six hundred feet deep here, maybe a thousand. There’s no way you can escape from those depths, Dräger set or not. How’s Ferguson coming along?’

‘As far as I can tell, he’s not. Still hammering away. No, wait a minute, wait a minute. He’s put the hammer down and is trying the release lever. It’s moving, Archie. It’s coming down.’

‘Ah!’ McKinnon rang for full power.

Some seconds passed, then Naseby said: ‘Half way.’ A similar length of time elapsed, then Naseby said in the same matter-of-fact voice: ‘It’s down, Archie. Eight feet, give or take. Ferguson’s secured it.’

McKinnon nodded and spun the wheel to starboard until he had maximum rudder on. Slowly, ponderously at first, then with increasing speed, the San Andreas began to come round.

‘Do you want to get your head blown off, George?’

‘Well, no.’ Naseby stepped inside, closed the wing door behind him and peered out through the little window in the door. The San Andreas, no longer riding with the sea, was beginning to corkscrew, although only gently so: but the entire superstructure was beginning to vibrate in a rather alarming fashion as the engines built up to maximum power.

‘And don’t you think you ought to lie down?’

‘In a minute, Archie, in a minute. Do you think they’ve gone to sleep aboard that U-boat?’

‘Some trouble with their eyes, that’s for sure. I think they’re rubbing them and not believing what they’re seeing.’

Except that there was no actual eye-rubbing going on aboard the U-boat, McKinnon’s guess was very close to the mark. The reactions of both the submarine commander and his crew were extraordinarily slow. Extraordinarily, but in the circumstances, understandably. The U-boat’s crew had made both the forgivable and unforgivable mistake of relaxing, of lowering their guard at the precise moment when their alertness and sense of danger should have been honed to its keenest edge. But the sight of the gangway being lowered in strict compliance with their orders must have convinced them that there was no thought or possibility of any resistance being offered and that the taking over of the San Andreas was no more than a token formality. Besides, no one in the history of warfare had ever heard of a hospital ship being used as an offensive weapon. It was unthinkable. It takes time to rethink the unthinkable.

The San Andreas was so far round now that the U-boat was no more than 45° off the starboard bow. Naseby moved from the starboard wing door to the nearest small window let into the front of the bridge.

‘They’re lining up what it pleases you to call that little itsy-bitsy gun, Archie.’

‘Then maybe we’d both better be getting down.’

‘No. They’re not lining up on the bridge, they’re lining up on the hull aft. I don’t know what they intend to –’ He broke off and shouted: ‘No! No! Get down, get down!’ and flung himself at McKinnon, bringing both men crashing heavily to the deck of the bridge. Even as they landed, hundreds of bullets, to the accompaniment of the staccato chattering of several machine-guns, smashed into the fore end and starboard side of the bridge. None of the bullets succeeded in penetrating the metal but all four windows were smashed. The fusillade lasted no more than three seconds and had no sooner ceased when the U-boat’s deck gun fired three times in rapid succession, on each occasion causing the San Andreas to shudder as the shells exploded somewhere in the after hull.

McKinnon hauled himself to his feet and took the wheel. ‘If I’d been standing there I’d have been very much the late Archie McKinnon. I’ll thank you tomorrow.’ He looked at the central window before him. It was holed, cracked, starred, abraded and completely opaque. ‘George?’

But Naseby needed no telling. Fire-extinguisher in hand, he smashed away the entire window in just two blows. He hitched a cautious eye over the bottom of where the window had been, saw that the San Andreas was arrowing in on the bows of the U-boat, then abruptly straightened in the instinctive reaction of a man who realizes that all danger is past.

‘Conning-tower’s empty, Archie. They’ve all gone. Bloody funny, isn’t it?’

‘Nothing funny about it.’ The Bo’sun’s tone was dry; if he was in any way moved or shaken by the narrowness of his recent escape he showed no signs of it. ‘It’s customary, George, to go below and pull down the hatch after you when you’re going to dive. In this case, crash dive.’

‘Crash dive?’

‘Captain has no option. He knows he hasn’t the firepower to stop us and he can’t possibly bring his torpedoes to bear. Right now he’s blowing all main ballast. See those bubbles? That’s water being blown from the ballast tanks by high pressure air – something like three thousand pounds per square inch.’

‘But – but he’s left his gun crew on deck.’

‘Indeed he has. Again, no option. A U-boat is much more valuable than the lives of three men. See those valves they’re twisting on the right-hand side of their suits? Oxygen valves. They’re turning their Dräger lungs into life jackets. Much good it will do them if they run into a propeller. Will you go out on the wings, George, and see if there’s any flame or smoke aft.’

‘You could phone.’

McKinnon pointed to the phone in front of the wheel, a phone that had been shattered by a machine gun bullet. Naseby nodded and went out on both wings in turn.

‘Nothing. Nothing you can see from the outside.’ He looked ahead towards the U-boat, not much more than a hundred yards distant. ‘She’s going down, Archie. Fore and aft decks are awash.’

‘I can see that.’

‘And she’s turning away to her starboard.’

‘I can see that, too. Counsel of desperation. He’s hoping that if he can turn his sub at an acute enough angle to us he’ll be struck only a glancing blow. A glancing blow he could survive. I think.’

‘Hull’s submerged now. Is he going to make it?’

‘He’s left it too late.’ McKinnon rang down for full astern and eased the wheel slightly to port. Five seconds later, with the top of the conning tower barely awash, the forefoot of the San Andreas tore into the hull of the U-boat some thirty feet for’ard of the conning tower. The San Andreas juddered throughout its length but the overall effect of the impact was curiously small. For a period of not more than three seconds they felt rather than heard the sensation of steel grinding over steel, then all contact was abruptly lost.

‘Well,’ Naseby said, ‘so that’s how it’s done, is it?’ He paused. ‘There’s going to be a lot of jagged metal on that U-boat. If a prop hits that –’

‘No chance. The U-boat’s been driven down, deep down – and they’ll still be blowing main ballast. Let’s just hope we haven’t damaged ourselves too badly.’

‘You said the U-boat captain had no option. We didn’t either. You think there’ll be any survivors?’

‘I don’t know. If there are any, we’ll find out soon enough. I question very much whether they would even have had time to close watertight doors. If they didn’t, then that U-boat is on its way to the bottom. If anyone is going to escape, they’re going to have to do it before it reaches the two-hundred-and-fifty-foot mark – I’ve never heard of anyone escaping from a submarine at a depth greater than that.’

‘They’d have to use the conning-tower?’

‘I suppose. There is a for’ard escape hatch – it’s really an access hatch to the deck gun. But the chances are high that the fore part of the U-boat is completely flooded, so that’s useless. There may be an after escape hatch, I don’t know. The conning-tower is probably their best bet, or would have been if we hadn’t rammed their vessel.’

‘We didn’t hit anywhere near the conning-tower.’

‘We didn’t have to. The compressive power of something like ten thousand tons dead weight has to be pretty fierce. The conning-tower hatch may have been jammed solid. Whether it would be possible to ease it or not I wouldn’t know. Worse still, it may have sprung open and with a hundred gallons of water a second pouring down into the control room there is no way anyone is going to get out, they’d probably be battered unconscious in the first few seconds. I’m going down on deck now. Keep going round to starboard and keep her astern till you stop, then heave to. I’ll take the motorboat out as soon as you’ve lost enough way.’

‘What’s the point in taking the boat out if there are going to be no survivors?’

McKinnon led him out on to the port wing and astern to where three men were floundering about in the water. ‘Those three characters. The gun crew. As far as I could tell they were only wearing overalls and oilskins. Maybe the odd jersey or two, but that would make no difference. Leave them out there another ten, fifteen minutes and they’ll just freeze to death.’

‘Let them. Those three bastards hit us aft three times. For all we can tell, some of those shells may have exploded inside the hospital.’

‘I know, George, I know. But I dare say there’s something in the Geneva Convention about it.’ McKinnon clapped him lightly on the shoulder and went below.

Just outside the deck entrance to the hospital McKinnon found half a dozen people waiting for him – Patterson, Jamieson, Curran, Trent, McCrimmon and Stephen. Patterson said: ‘I believe we’ve been in some sort of collision, Bo’sun.’

‘Yes, sir. U-boat.’

‘And?’

McKinnon pointed downwards. ‘I just hope we don’t go the same way. For’ard watertight bulkheads, sir?’

‘Of course. At once.’ He looked at McCrimmon and Stephen, who left without a word. ‘And next, Bo’sun?’

‘We were hit three times aft, sir. Any damage in the hospital?’

‘Some. All three hit the hospital area. One appears to have exploded when it passed through the bulkhead between A and B wards. Some injuries, no fatalities. Dr Sinclair is attending to them.’

‘Not Dr Singh?’

‘He was in the recovery room with the two injured seamen from the Argos. Door’s jammed and we can’t get inside.’

‘Shell explode in there?’

‘Nobody seems to know.’

‘Nobody seems – but that’s the next compartment to A ward. Are they all deaf in there?’

‘They were. It was the first shell that exploded between the two wards. That deafened them all right.’

‘Ah. Well, the recovery room will just have to wait. What happened to the third shell?’

‘Didn’t explode.’

‘Where is it?’

‘In the dining area. Rolling about quite a bit.’

‘Rolling about quite a bit,’ McKinnon repeated slowly. ‘That’s handy. Just because it didn’t go off on impact –’ He broke off and said to Curran: ‘A couple of heaving lines in the motorboat. Don’t forget your knives.’ He went inside and reappeared within twenty seconds, carrying a very small, very innocuous-looking shell, threw it over the side and said to Jamieson: ‘You have your gun, sir?’

‘I have my gun. What do you want the heaving lines for, Bo’sun?’

‘Same reason as your gun, sir. To discourage people. Tie them up if we have to. If there are any survivors, they’re not going to feel very kindly disposed because of what we’ve done to their boat and their shipmates.’

‘But those people aren’t armed. They’re submariners.’

‘Don’t you believe it, sir. Many officers carry hand guns. Petty officers, too, for all I know.’

‘Even if they had guns, what could they do?’

‘Take us hostage, that’s what they could do. And if they could take us hostage they could still take over the ship.’

Jamieson said, almost admiringly: ‘You don’t trust many people, do you?’

‘Some. I just don’t believe in taking chances.’

The motorboat was less than fifty yards away from the spot where the U-boat’s gun crew were still floundering about in the water when Jamieson touched McKinnon on the arm and pointed out over the starboard side.

‘Bubbles. Lots of little bubbles.’

‘I see them. Could be there’s someone coming up.’

‘I thought they always came up in a great big air bubble.’

‘Never. Big air bubble when they leave the submarine, perhaps. But that collapses at once.’ McKinnon eased back on the throttle as he approached the group in the water.

‘Someone’s just broken the surface,’ Jamieson said. ‘No, by God, two of them.’

‘Yes. They’ve got inflatable life jackets on. They’ll keep.’ McKinnon stopped the engines and waited while Curran, Trent and Jamieson literally hauled the gun crew aboard – they seemed incapable of helping themselves. The trio were young, hardly more than boys, teeth chattering, shivering violently and trying hard not to look terrified.

‘We search this lot?’ Jamieson said. ‘Tie them up?’

‘Good lord, no. Look at their hands – they’re blue and frozen stiff. If they couldn’t even hang on to the gunwale, and they couldn’t, how could they press the trigger of a gun even if they could unbutton their oilskins, which they can’t?’

McKinnon opened the throttle and headed for the two men who had surfaced from the submarine. As he did, a third figure bobbed to the surface some two hundred yards beyond.

The two men they hauled aboard seemed well enough. One of them was a dark-haired, dark-eyed man in his late twenties: his face was lean, intelligent and watchful. The other was very young, very blond and very apprehensive. McKinnon addressed the older man in German.

‘What is your name and rank?’

‘Obersteuermann Doenitz.’

‘Doenitz? Very appropriate.’ Admiral Doenitz was the brilliant C-in-C of the German submarine fleet. ‘Do you have a gun, Doenitz? If you say you haven’t and I find one I shall have to shoot you because you are not to be trusted. Do you have a gun?’

Doenitz shrugged, reached under his blouse and produced a rubber-wrapped pistol.

‘Your friend here?’

‘Young Hans is an assistant cook.’ Doenitz spoke in fluent English. He sighed. ‘Hans is not to be trusted with a frying-pan, far less a gun.’

McKinnon believed him and headed for the third survivor. As they approached McKinnon could see that the man was at least unconscious for his neck was bent forward and he was face down in the water. The reason for this was not far to seek. His Dräger apparatus was only partially inflated and the excess oxygen had gone to the highest point of the bag at the back of the neck, forcing his head down. McKinnon drew alongside, caught the man by his life jacket, put his hand under his chin and lifted the head from the water.

He studied the face for only a second or two, then said to Doenitz: ‘You know him, of course.’

‘Heissmann, our First Lieutenant.’

McKinnon let the face fall back into the water. Doenitz looked at him with a mixture of astonishment and anger.

‘Aren’t you going to bring him aboard? He may just be unconscious, just half-drowned perhaps.’

‘Your First Lieutenant is dead.’ McKinnon’s voice carried total conviction. ‘His mouth is full of blood. Ruptured lungs. He forgot to breathe out oxygen on the way up.’

Doenitz nodded. ‘Perhaps he didn’t know that he had to do that. I didn’t know. I’m afraid we don’t have much time for escape training these days.’ He looked curiously at McKinnon. ‘How did you know? You’re not a submariner.’

‘I was. Twelve years.’

Curran called from the bows: ‘There’s one more, Bo’sun. Just surfaced. Dead ahead.’

McKinnon had the motorboat alongside the struggling man in less than a minute and had him brought aboard and laid on the thwarts. He lay there in a peculiar position, knees against his chest, his hands hugging both knees and trying to roll from side to side. He was obviously in considerable pain. McKinnon forced open the mouth, glanced briefly inside, then gently closed it again.

‘Well, this man knew enough to exhale oxygen on the way up.’ He looked at Doenitz. ‘You know this man, of course.’

‘Of course. Oberleutnant Klaussen.’

‘Your captain?’ Doenitz nodded. ‘Well, he’s obviously in considerable pain but I wouldn’t think he’s in any danger. You can see he’s been cut on the forehead – possibly banged his head on the escape hatch on the way out. But that’s not enough to account for his condition, for he must have been conscious all the way up or he wouldn’t have got rid of the oxygen in his lungs. Were you travelling underwater or on the surface during the night?’

‘On the surface. All the time.’

‘That rules out carbon dioxide, which can be poisonous; but you can’t build up carbon dioxide when the conning-tower is open. From the way he’s holding his chest and legs it would seem to be caisson disease; for that’s where the effects hurt most, but it can’t be that either.’

‘Caisson disease?’

‘Diver’s bends. When there’s too rapid a buildup of nitrogen bubbles in the blood when you’re making a very fast ascent.’ McKinnon, with the motor boat under full throttle, was heading directly for the San Andreas, which was stopped in the water at not much more than half a mile’s distance. ‘But for that you have to be breathing in a high pressure atmosphere for quite some time and your captain certainly wasn’t below long enough for that. Perhaps he escaped from a very great depth, perhaps a greater depth than anyone has ever escaped from a submarine and then I wouldn’t know what the effects might be. We have a doctor aboard. I don’t suppose he’ll know either – the average doctor can spend a lifetime and not come across a case like this. But at least he can stop the pain.’

The motor boat passed close by the bows of the San Andreas which, remarkably, appeared to be quite undamaged. But that damage had been done was unquestionable – the San Andreas was at least three feet down by the head, which was no more than was to be expected if the for’ard compartments had been flooded, as, inevitably, they must have been.

McKinnon secured alongside and half-helped, half-carried the semi-conscious U-boat captain to the head of the gangway. Patterson was waiting for him there, as was Dr Sinclair and three other members of the engine-room staff.

‘This is the U-boat captain,’ McKinnon said to Dr Sinclair. ‘He may be suffering from the bends – you know, nitrogen poisoning.’

‘Alas, Bo’sun, we have no decompression chamber aboard.’

‘I know, sir. He may just be suffering from the effects of having surfaced from a great depth. I don’t know, all I know is he’s suffering pretty badly. The rest are well enough, all they need is dry clothing.’ He turned to Jamieson who had just joined him on deck. ‘Perhaps, sir, you would be kind enough to supervise their change of clothing?’

‘You mean to make sure that they’re not carrying anything they shouldn’t be carrying?’

McKinnon smiled and turned to Patterson. ‘How are the for’ard watertight bulkheads, sir?’

‘Holding. I’ve had a look myself. Bent and buckled but holding.’

‘With your permission, sir, I’ll get a diving suit and have a look.’

‘Now? Couldn’t that wait a bit?’

‘I’m afraid waiting is the one thing we can’t afford. We can be reasonably certain that the U-boat was in contact with Trondheim right up to the moment that he signalled us to stop – I think it would be very silly of us to assume otherwise. Flannelfoot is still with us. The Germans know exactly where we are. Till now, for reasons best known to themselves, they have been treating us with kid gloves. Maybe now they’ll be feeling like taking those gloves off, I shouldn’t imagine that Admiral Doenitz will take too kindly to the idea of one of his U-boats having been sunk by a hospital ship. I think it behoves us, sir, to get out of here and with all speed. Trouble is, we’ve got to make up our minds whether to go full speed ahead or full speed astern.’

‘Ah. Yes. I see. You have a point.’

‘Yes, sir. If the hole in our bows is big enough, then if we make any speed at all I don’t see the watertight bulkheads standing up to the pressure for very long. In that case we’d have to go astern. I don’t much fancy that. It not only slows us down but it makes steering damn difficult. But it can be done. I knew of a tanker that hit a German U-boat about seven hundred miles from its port of destination. It made it – going astern all the way. But I don’t much care for the idea of going stern first all the way to Aberdeen, especially if the weather breaks up.’

‘You make me feel downright nervous, Bo’sun. With all speed, Bo’sun, as you say, with all speed. How long will this take?’

‘Just as long as it takes me to collect a rubber suit, mask and torch, then get there and back again. At the most, twenty minutes.’

McKinnon was back in fifteen minutes. Mask in one hand, torch in the other, he climbed up the gangway to where Patterson was awaiting him at the top.

‘We can go ahead, sir,’ McKinnon said. ‘Full ahead, I should think.’

‘Good, good, good. Damage relatively slight, I take it. How small is the hole?’

‘It’s not a small hole. It’s a bloody great hole, big as a barn door. There’s a ragged piece of that U-boat, about eight foot by six, embedded in our bows. Seems to be forming a pretty secure plug and I should imagine that the faster we go the more securely it will be lodged.’

‘And if we stop, or have to go astern, or run into heavy weather – I mean, what if the plug falls off?’

‘I’d be glad, sir, if you didn’t talk about such things.’