Читать книгу Landfall - Nevil Shute Norway - Страница 4
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ОглавлениеIn the Pavilion the lights swung and changed colour on the dancers. The floor was crowded. Most of the dancers were in uniform, sailors and officers mixed indiscriminately. There was a sprinkle of khaki and of Air Force blue, but most of the uniforms were naval.
Chambers swung the girl deftly in and out of the crowd of dancers on the floor. They were laughing together in the changing lights. She still wore the plain black frock that she had worn when serving in the bar; he had not allowed her time to go back home to change.
I like to dance and tap my feet
But they won’t keep in rhythm—
You see I washed them both today
And I can’t do nothin’ with them.
They turned and sidestepped merrily in an open space.
Ho hum, the tune is dumb
The words don’t mean a thing—
Isn’t this a silly song
For any one to sing?
He said, “Don’t sing that song. It sends an arrow right through my heart.”
She bubbled with laughter. “You do talk soft. What’s it this time?”
“I had a date with Snow White. I broke it to come here and dance with you.”
“You do tell stories. It was Ginger Rogers last time.”
“I know it was. They’re all after me, because I dance so well.”
“Do you tchassy in a reverse turn when you dance with Ginger Rogers?”
“We won’t go into that again,” he said with dignity. “I do it every time I dance with Snow White. And what’s more, Disney makes it look all right.”
She laughed again up into his face. “He must stretch out one of your legs to make it look all right, like Pluto’s tail.”
Presently the dance came to an end. He took her back to the table which they had left loaded with their overcoats to retain it, and bought strawberry ices for them both. Presently she said, “What do you do when you aren’t flying?”
He said, “I’m writing my autobiography. It’s the right thing to do that when you’re twenty-three.”
She looked at him uncertainly. “You don’t know how to write a book, I don’t believe.”
“Any one can write that sort of book. I’m going to call it Forty Years a Flying Officer.”
The dance hall was built out upon a pier on the sea front. Beneath their feet the tide crept in over the sand, menacing in the utter darkness. Outside no lights whatever showed upon the waste of waters. On the black, tumbling sea a very few ships moved unseen, unlit, and stealthily. Twenty miles out two little wooden vessels lay five miles apart, with engines stopped and drifting with the tide. In each of them a man sat in a little, dimly lit cabin. Before him was an electrical apparatus; he wore headphones on his head. From time to time he turned the knob of a condenser.
He sat there listening, listening, all the winter night.
Over her strawberry ice the girl said, “No, but seriously, what do you do when you aren’t flying?”
He said, “I build ships.”
She laughed again. “No—seriously.”
“Honestly, that’s what I do. I’m making a galleon.”
“Like what you buy in shops, in bits to put together?”
“That’s right.”
Her mind switched off at a tangent. “Wasn’t it terrible about them people in that ship today?”
His mind moved quickly. There had been no mention of the loss of the Lochentie in the evening paper. He said innocently, “What ship was that?”
She said, wide-eyed, “The one you was talking about in the bar. You know.”
He said, “I never talk of naval matters in a bar. It tells you not to, on the poster.”
She said, “Don’t talk so soft. You was talking to the officers off the trawlers all about it, the ones what picked the people up out of the water.”
He said, “I knew you were a spy, right from the first. The next thing is, I threaten to denounce you to the police unless you let me have my way with you.”
She said, “If you’re going to talk like that, I’m going home.”
He said penitently, “I’m sorry. I was only going by the books.”
“Well, don’t be so awful.”
“Did you hear all that we were saying?”
She said, “Not all of it, because of turning round to get the things from the shelves. But you’d be surprised if you knew what we get to know behind the bar.”
He nodded, serious for a moment. When old friends in the service meet for a short drink and a meal, not all the posters in the world will stop a few discreet exchanges on the subject of their work. Leaning upon the bar, they say these things in low tones to each other, so low that nobody can hear except the barmaid at their elbow.
He said, “Let’s go and dance again.”
They went out for a waltz. He was not a bad dancer, and like most girls of her class she was very good. They were together well by this time, and went drifting round the floor weaving in and out of the crowd in a slow, graceful rhythm. A faint fragrance came up from her hair into his face; he was quite suddenly immensely moved.
He said, “You’ve done something to your hair.”
She laughed. “I had it washed.” She paused, and then said, “Do you like it?”
“Smells all right.”
“You do say horrid things. I never met a boy that said such horrid things as you.”
He squeezed her as they danced. “It’s the stern brake I have to keep upon myself. If I told you what I really thought about you you’d slap my face and go home.”
She laughed up at him. “I’ll slap it now, just for luck.”
“Then I’ll have you arrested. You can’t do that to an officer in war time. It’s high treason.”
Presently they went and sat down again for a time. He lit a cigarette for her, and said, “What else did you do today, besides getting your hair washed?”
“Did the shopping for Mother, before going to the snack bar. We open at twelve-thirty, you know. Then in the afternoon I had my hair done, and went home for tea.”
“And back to work again.”
“That’s right. What did you do?”
He considered. “Did a spot of flying. Just scraped clear of a blazing row.”
“What about?”
“Only something to do with the work. Then I worked on the galleon for a bit.”
“How big is it?”
He showed her with his hands. “About like that.”
“What are you going to call it when it’s done?”
“Mona.”
She was pleased. “You do talk soft—really you do. What else did you do after that?”
“After that? I—oh, by God, yes—I came into Southsea and bought a rabbit.”
She stared at him in amazement. “A rabbit? Whatever are you going to do with that?” And then she said, “You’re just kidding again.”
“You hurt me very much when you say that.” He turned and rummaged in the pocket of his long blue overcoat. “You don’t deserve to see it.”
He pulled out the carton. She bent across the table curiously, her head very close to his. He opened it and took out the lamp, clicked the switch, and the rabbit glowed with light.
She breathed, “Isn’t it lovely! Wherever did you get it from?”
He told her. “I went in there to get a lipstick, and saw it on the counter.”
“A lipstick?”
“I’ve got it on now.” He took the mirror from her bag and looked at himself. “I think it’s rather becoming.”
“You are the silliest thing ever. You don’t use lipstick.”
“That’s all you know. They told me it was kissproof in the shop. Do you mind if I try and see?”
“Yes, I do.”
They went and danced again. The dance was coming to an end; the quickstep accelerated to a wild gallop round the floor. Then the music stopped, the band stood up, the men drew stiffly to attention and the girls tried to imitate them as God Save the King was played. Then the gathering of coats and bags, and they were out in the car park by the chilly little roadster.
Chambers said, “I’m not quite sure how it’s going to go tonight. It’s been rather bad recently.”
The girl said, “It’ll go if you want it to.”
They got into it. “I expect you’re right,” the pilot said. “If it stops we’ll just have to sit and wish, and wait for it to start again.”
She said, “I don’t believe that it’d ever start that way. The only way to make it start would be to get out and walk home.”
He shook his head. “If it should stop—and mind you, I don’t suppose it will—we’d better try my way first.”
The girl said, “We’ll try yours for ten minutes. After that, we try mine.”
“All right.”
The engine stopped beneath the trees a quarter of a mile away.
Twenty miles out to sea, a tired sub-lieutenant shoved his way into the cramped, dimly lit listening cabin. The man with the headphones raised his head. “Nothing yet, sir,” he said in a low tone, half whispering. “Single-screw steamer bearing east north east—that’s all so far.”
The officer put on the headphones. “Give you a spell.”
They changed places and the listener went out; in the dim light the officer sat down before the instruments and turned the condenser slowly, searching round the dial. Outside in the utter darkness the waves lapped against the hull; a small tinkling came from a loose shovel in the engine-room each time the drifter rolled. These mingled with the hissing in the headphones, and a rhythmic beat at one position of the condenser knob that was the steamer, far away. There was no other sound.
In the imagination of the sub-lieutenant there came a vivid picture of a German listener in a similar dim cabin curved to the shape of the hull, slowly turning a similar condenser knob on a similar apparatus.
“Bloody thing must know we’re here,” the tired officer muttered to himself. “He’ll probably stay where he is until tomorrow night....”
In the dark privacy of the little car parked snugly underneath the trees, Chambers said softly, “The girl told me it was kissproof in the shop. Shall I strike a match and see?”
The girl nestled closer into his arms. “No. You do talk silly.”
A thought struck the pilot. “What about yours?”
“My what?”
“Your lipstick. I’ve got to go back to the mess before I can wash my face.”
She rippled with laughter, against his heavy overcoat. “Mine comes off like anything. You’ll look a perfect sight. All the other officers will know what you’ve been doing.”
“I’ll get cashiered.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sacked.”
She said, “I’ll wipe it off for you in a minute, when you take me home.”
“In half an hour.”
“In a minute,” she said firmly.
“Then we’ve not got much time to waste.”
Presently she said, “It’s been a lovely evening, Mr. Chambers. I have enjoyed it, ever so.”
The pilot said, “My friends all call me Jerry.”
“I can’t call you that.”
“Jerry.”
“All right then. Now go on and take me home.”
“Jerry?”
She laughed softly. “Go on and take me home, Jerry.”
“When are you coming out with me again?”
“You haven’t asked me yet.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I can’t tomorrow. Uncle Ernest, in the Iron Duke—he’s coming to see us tomorrow night, and I said I’d be home early. His ship came in yesterday. He’s Daddy’s brother.”
“What about Thursday?”
“All right.” She wriggled erect in the seat beside him. “Let me clean your face.”
“Better do that when I get you home. It might get dirty again.”
The worn engine of the little car came noisily to life and they drove through the black, windy streets to the furniture shop that was her home. There the engine came to rest, and the little car stood against the kerb, motionless and silent. Five minutes later the girl got out onto the pavement, stuffing a soiled handkerchief into the pocket of her coat.
She turned back to the car, and stooped to the low entrance. “Good night,” she said softly. “It’s been lovely.”
“Good night, Mona,” he said. “Thursday.”
“Thursday,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
She stood for a moment fumbling in her bag for her latchkey; then the door opened, and she vanished inside. Chambers sat watching her till she was out of sight, then started up the engine and drove off.
The girl ran quietly upstairs to her room and shut the door behind her. It was not the first time that she had been kissed in a dark motor car on the way back from a dance, but she had never been much moved by it before. It had never produced in her such a mixture of feelings. She felt safe with him, queerly safe, though with her reason she reflected that his motor car was hardly a safe place for her. She understood him better than she had ever understood the others; there was no guile about him. His irresponsible talk sometimes puzzled her because she wasn’t used to it, but in this his mood was very like her own. She felt that she could fall into his ways very easily. He never worried her at all.
She got into bed and pulled the clothes around her, happy and a little thoughtful. She was not quite in love with him, but she knew that she could be very deeply in love with him if she were to let herself go. She did not quite know if she wanted to do that. She was a sensible girl, and older than her twenty-one years in experience. She knew very little of him, or his background. He had been to Cranwell, the cadet college; she knew that. That meant he was an officer of regular Air Force, in it for a career, not just a temporary officer for the war. She knew that she was not quite of his social class, and she did not resent it. Her father had risen from the lower deck and kept a little furniture shop in a back street. They were different; you couldn’t get away from that. She knew that her father and mother would disapprove of her going about with an officer, especially a regular officer. They’d say that no good would come of it. Probably it wouldn’t. But she was going to meet him Thursday, all the same.
She drifted into sleep, happy and smiling to herself.
Chambers drove back to the aerodrome, still tingling with the warmth of the girl’s presence. He reflected semi-humorously as he went that he was probably making a fool of himself. He had no sisters, and he had not had a great deal to do with girls. His family comprised a widowed mother, who lived in a suburb of Bristol, and an older brother.
Instinctively he knew that he was dangerously close to a real love affair. Never before in his life had he thought much about marriage, but he was thinking of it now. His reason told him that marriage was absurd. He was far too hard up on his pay as a flying officer even to think of it; moreover, from all he had heard, you didn’t marry barmaids—you seduced them. He shied away from that; he had a poor opinion of it as a hobby, and he wouldn’t have known how to set about it. It disturbed him that he should feel rested when he was with her. He could say whatever came into his head without fear of misunderstanding. She was young, and she was healthy, and to him she was very beautiful.
He drove into the car park of the mess, moodily cursing his lot as an officer. He didn’t think that it would be a very good thing to marry a barmaid if he wanted to get on in the Royal Air Force. He felt resentful; the world should have been organized upon some different basis.
He parked the car, draped the rug over its bonnet, and lit the rabbit lamp to find his way through the bicycles. It glowed lambent in the darkness of the blackout, a luminous ghost rabbit. Its red eyes led him to the back door of the mess.
In the anteroom he paused and looked at the operations board. Cloud, it appeared, was to be nine-tenths at two thousand feet during the morning. That was better, but the wind with it was thirty miles an hour from the south-west—not quite so good. Instinctively he visualized the conditions; a wintry, gusty day with fleeting glimpses of the sun. He ran his eye over the other notices; there was nothing new but one:
No submarine is to be attacked tomorrow, December 3rd, in Area SL between 1200 hours and 1500 hours, in Area SM between 1400 hours and 1530 hours, and in Area TM between 1430 hours and nightfall.
A. S. Dickens, Wing Cdr.
Chambers stared at this for a moment; he would copy it into his notebook in the morning. It affected his own zone. He wondered sleepily what lay behind it; it was like the wing commander to keep his own counsel. Damn silly, Chambers thought, but discipline was frequently like that. There was nothing else upon the board to interest him, and he turned away.
Then he remembered the Lochentie, and a gust of irritation at official stupidity swept over him. “Let the bloody thing get away,” he muttered to himself. “Old Hitler just makes rings round us....”
He went up irritated to his room, his nerves on edge, suffering a little from reaction after an emotional evening. At school he had read a little poetry of the more conventional sort, and a familiar stanza came into his head as he undressed:
Ah love, could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire—
Would we not shatter it to bits, and then
Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.
He smiled a little as he put on his pyjamas. “Like hell we would,” he muttered to himself. He got into his bed, still smiling at the thought. Very soon he was asleep.
Next day was the change-over in patrol. The flight, under Hooper, were to take the afternoon patrol for the next month, the variation being designed to break the monotony of the routine. Chambers was able to sleep relatively late. He woke punctually at six o’clock, according to the habit of weeks, and dozed in bed till eight; then he got up and had a bath. He had finished breakfast by nine, and walked over to the pilots’ room in the hangar.
Hooper met him there. “Sergeant Hutchinson’s gone to hospital,” he said. “What about it, Jerry?”
Chambers grunted. “Good job, too,” he said. “He’s been breathing influenza germs all over me for the last two days. Who can I have instead?”
The flight lieutenant said, “Nobody.”
“Well, that’s a bloody fine show. Am I supposed to go without a second pilot?”
“I don’t know who there is to send with you. Do you?”
There was a momentary silence. There had been a spate of transfers from the station to the Bombing Command in the past week, to fill vacancies that had resulted from an injudicious raid on Heligoland Bight. The reinforcements from the flying training schools were due to reach them in a day or two, but in the meantime there was a shortage of second pilots.
Chambers said discontentedly, “I suppose that means I’ll have to take the thing alone.”
“Send Corporal Sutton with you, if you like?”
The flying officer shook his head. “I’ve got Corporal Lambert for the back gun, and the wireless operator. He can pass me up the charts.”
The flight lieutenant understood this well enough. The presence of a fourth man in the aeroplane who was not a pilot or a navigator was a hindrance rather than a help; he tended to get in the way of the quick movements of a pilot who was flying the machine and navigating at the same time. It was better to make the radio operator hop around a bit.
Hooper said, “O.K. If you go alone today I’ll let you have Sergeant Abel for tomorrow.” The offer meant that he himself would fly alone on the next day.
Chambers said, “We’d better have a round of Santiago for it after dinner.” They were great hands with the poker dice.
He set to work to copy out the orders for the day into the notebook that he would strap onto his thigh in the machine, including the order prohibiting the bombing of submarines. “Thank God it’s better visibility today,” he said when he had finished.
The flight lieutenant nodded. “Don’t want any more Lochenties.”
Jerry said sourly, “The whole sea might be stiff with Lochenties and submarines for all it matters to us. We’re not allowed to bomb the bloody things if we do see them.”
He left the hangar and went back to the mess, irritated and a little depressed. The mention of the Lochentie had brought back to his mind the memory of the conversation of the night before in the Royal Clarence bar. He heard again the voices of the trawler officers describing what they had seen. In his mind’s eye again he pictured what had been described. Old women in lifebelts washed and battered in a rough, grey, breaking sea, dying of cold and choked with fuel oil.... And then on top of that, this order about not attacking submarines!
He had a cup of Bovril and a few biscuits in the mess at eleven o’clock, since he would miss his lunch. Then he went back to the hangar. The aircraft were out upon the tarmac with the engines running to warm up; the crews were moving about them. In the pilots’ room the six pilots were putting on their flying clothing, two for each of the other three machines. He joined them, put on his flying suit, boots, helmet, and muffler, and strapped his notebook to his thigh. Then he went out to meet his crew.
They took off at eleven forty-five; the strong wind helped them off the ground. From a thousand feet the visibility was about five miles, uneven and much influenced by streaks of sunlight that came down occasionally through the patchy clouds. The flight kept a loose formation till they reached the coast, passing the morning patrol on its way back to the aerodrome. At the coast they split up, each proceeding independently to his own area.
Behind him, Chambers heard the clatter of the gun as Corporal Lambert fired his usual burst into the sea to test the gun. He turned in his seat and motioned to the radio operator; the lad left his seat and handed him the chart that he required. The pilot spread it awkwardly upon the folding seat beside him and picked off his course for the French coast. He set it on the verge ring of the compass and climbed up to fifteen hundred feet, the lower limit of the clouds.
All afternoon they swept backwards and forwards above the cold grey sea, coming down near the surface to inspect each ship they saw, noting her name and nationality, her course and speed. Once in each half hour they approached the coast, the French coast to the south of them, and the English coast to the north. They did not cross the land; they came near enough to establish their position accurately upon the chart, then turned to a reverse and parallel course. After three or four of these flights Chambers had gauged the wind correctly, and each succeeding flight took place exactly down the plotted line upon the chart.
The machine swept backwards and forwards over the grey sea all afternoon. The crew grew gradually colder; they sucked peppermint bull’s-eyes, suffered the cold, and watched the clock. At this time of year, in December, darkness would release them before their allotted time; that was a compensation for the cold. Sunset that day was at 3.53. They would land at about 4.15.
As evening drew on the brief patches of sunlight disappeared and the sky became wholly overcast. The light began to fade. They reached the English coast at about 3.25 and turned seaward once more; they would not have time to do a full trip over to the French side but it was too early to go home. They droned out over the darkening sea flying at about sixteen hundred feet very close below the cloud ceiling. From time to time they swept through a thin wisp of cloud.
Ten minutes later, Chambers saw a submarine.
He blinked quickly, and looked again. It was a submarine all right. It seemed to be about two miles ahead of him, going slowly in a north westerly direction, a short line upon the sea with a lump in the middle. Something turned over in the pilot’s chest as he looked at it, and the thought flashed through his mind that he was within thirty miles of where the Lochentie had been destroyed. God had been kind to him. He was to be the instrument of retribution.
He pulled heavily upon the wheel and shot the monoplane up into the cloud base immediately above him. He throttled his engines in the dark fog of the cloud and slowed the machine as much as he dared; they must not hear him if it could be helped, or they would dive beyond his power to harm them.
The sudden changes startled the crew from their semi-coma. Corporal Lambert slid down from the gun turret into the cabin and stared forward; the radio operator woke up with a jerk. The pilot turned in his seat, his young face crimson with excitement.
“Submarine!” he yelled. “Up on the surface, about two miles dead ahead of us!”
The corporal nodded, and slid back into his turret; he had the gun to tend. The pilot turned feverishly to the chart. In spite of the excitement, he must mind his orders. Area SM, up to 1530.... He shot a glance at the clock on the panel in front of him; it was 1539. They had turned at 1527—twelve minutes on the new course since they turned. Say twenty-six sea miles. He slapped a ruler down upon the pencilled line that he had drawn upon the chart. They were in Area SM still. Area TM was a good two miles over to the west.
It was all right to attack.
In spite of having throttled back the engines the machine had climbed to nearly two thousand feet, thickly enveloped in the cloud. The speed was down to less than a hundred knots. The pilot pressed the stick a little, and swung round for a quick glance up and down the cabin. In the gun turret the corporal stooped down to look forward at him, and held one thumb up cheerfully. Chambers turned forward, settled into his seat, and pressed the machine into a dive.
She gained speed quickly. She broke from the clouds diving forty degrees from the horizontal. The pilot looked round frenziedly to find the submarine.
He saw her still upon the surface, well over to his left, a thin pencil on the dark grey, corrugated sea.
The rush of air along the windscreen rose to a shrill whine. He could not drop his bombs upon a turn and hope to hit; it was essential to come down on her in a straight dive. He muttered, “Damn and blast!” and swung the monoplane in its dive over to the right. He leaned forward, and tripped two switches on the bomb release control, selecting a stick of four of his small bombs and making the firing switch alive.
He shot a glance at the air speed indicator. Beneath the notice which said, SPEED MUST NOT EXCEED 200 KNOTS IN DIVE, the needle flickered between 230 and 240 upon the dial. He glanced again at the submarine and judged his moment, then swung the monoplane towards her in a turn to port, easing the wheel towards him very slowly as he did so.
The submarine loomed up ahead of him. She was nearly bow on to him, a good position for attack but one which hid the sides of the conning tower from his view. He concentrated desperately upon identification marks. He dared not bomb unless he could see something to distinguish enemy from friend. He could see no one in the conning tower; already she was lower in the water, and she was moving ahead. She was going down.
British submarines carried identification marks upon the hydrovanes. He could see the hydrovanes ploughing in a smother of foam as she moved ahead in the rough sea; they were turned to press her down. In the split seconds of the final stages of his dive he watched in an agony for the colour of the metal in the foam. Then the trough of a wave came, deeper than the rest. For an instant the port forward hydrovane was bare of foam, streaming with water that showed grey paint underneath.
He cleared his mind of that, and for less than a second concentrated all his being upon levelling the machine off. Then, as the bow of the submarine passed out of view beneath the bottom of his windscreen, the gloved hand on the throttles moved to the firing switch and jabbed it firmly. The first stick of four bombs fell away as the monoplane swept forty feet above the low grey hull.
The machine rocketed up to three or four hundred feet, and the pilot threw her round in a steep turn. Behind him he heard the rattling clatter of the gun as Corporal Lambert blazed away at the steel hull. Then the submarine swung round into the pilot’s view again as the monoplane banked steeply round her.
One of the bombs had landed near the foot of the conning tower, or on it; the superstructure was all wreathed in smoke. A stick-like object, mast or periscope, had fallen and was poking sideways from the conning tower; the pilot got an impression that the submarine had stopped her engines. The deck was awash by this time; she was quickly going down.
There was no time to be lost. He had not hurt her seriously, and she could still submerge beyond his reach. He swung his body brutally on the controls and forced the monoplane towards her in a dive again. He leaned forward quickly to the switchbox and selected four more of his little bombs and one of his two big ones.
Again she loomed up very quickly in the windscreen. He pulled out of his dive just short of her and jabbed the bomb switch viciously. There was an instant’s pause, followed by the clatter of the gun again, and the detonation of the bursting bombs behind him. Then came a thunderous explosion as the big bomb with delayed action burst under water.
Again the pilot forced his machine round in a violent turn. As soon as the submarine came in view he saw a change. She was higher in the water than when he had last seen her over the greater portion of her length, but the stern was down. Beside the stern there was a great subsiding column of water from the explosion of his big bomb; a great mass of foam and bubbles was showing all around her.
He thrust the monoplane into a dive at her again. She was now end on to him, badly damaged; he was attacking from the stern. He selected the last of his big bombs and four more little ones, and came at her once again. As the stern passed below his windscreen he pushed hard against the button on the throttle box.
He rocketed up from her, and turned. His heart leaped as she came in view. There was a great column of water close beside her, rather forward of the conning tower; the bow was rising from the water. As he watched, fascinated, the bow rose clean out of the water, grey and dripping, like the nose of a monstrous, evil reptile. It was wholly repulsive, a foul, living thing.
He stared at it for a moment, circling round. Suddenly a jet of brown liquid gushed out from the nose, falling into the sea and completing the illusion of a reptile. Chambers stared down with disgust and loathing. It had ceased to signify a ship to him, ceased to have any human meaning. It was something horrible, to be destroyed.
His upper lip wrinkled as he forced his machine round. From the look of the thing he guessed that it was holed; he leaned forward and pressed down all the remaining switches on the selector box. As he swept over it again he pressed his bomb switch for the last time, and the whole of his remaining bombs left the machine.
He swung the monoplane around more gently this time; he could do no more. When the target came in sight again the bow was practically vertical; the conning tower was well submerged. The sea was boiling all around her, in part from the explosion of his bombs and in part from the air that now was blowing from the hull. Slowly the bow slid down into the sea. The light was fading; it was too dark to make out much detail. Now there were only six feet left above the water.
Now there were three feet only. Now just the tip.
Now it was gone.
There was nothing left except a great circle of white, oily water on the grey, rough sea.
He relaxed for a moment. The wireless operator was by his side, looking over his shoulder through the windscreen. Chambers said, “That’s finished him.”
Above the roaring of the engines the boy yelled, “Good show, sir. First in the squadron!”
The pilot nodded. “It’s probably the one that got the Lochentie!” he shouted.
He turned and looked behind him. The corporal was leaning down from the gun ring, crimson with pleasure, beaming all over his face, and holding up both thumbs. The pilot grinned and held a thumb up in response, then turned back to his work again.
At some time in the incident he felt that there had been a ship. He circled round for a minute, peering into the gathering night. At last he saw her. She was a trawler painted grey, in naval service. She was about three miles to the south of him, headed towards the scene at her full speed.
He swept low over her and circled round; from the little bridge above the chart-house an officer was waving at him. He waved back in reply and flew ahead of her, to dive onto the scene to show her where it was. There was nothing there to see by now except a circle of oily water with a great mass of white bubbles coming up. The trawler would buoy the place, and pick up any wreckage that there was.
He flew back to the trawler, and stayed with her for ten minutes till she reached the spot. Then, in the dusk, he set a course for home.
The corporal left the gun turret and made his way along the cabin to the pilot. He was bursting with pride. “Poor old Sergeant, he won’t half be mad when he hears about this,” he shouted. “Fair kicking himself, he’ll be.”
Jerry broke into a smile. “Too bad he wasn’t with us,” he shouted in reply. “After all this time.”
“Serve him right. Shouldn’t go catching colds.”
He squatted down behind the pilot, staring ahead through the windscreen. Presently they crossed the land; ten minutes later they approached the aerodrome. The corporal wound the undercarriage down as the machine swept low over the hangars; as they crossed the tarmac they saw men stop and stare at them.
The corporal laughed. “They seen our bomb racks empty,” he said gleefully. “That’s what they’re all looking up at!”
The pilot brought the machine round to land; the flaps went down. The hedge slid below them and the ground came up; Chambers pulled heavily upon the wheel and the machine touched and ran along. It slowed and came to rest; Chambers looked round behind, and turned into the hangar.
It was practically dark when he drew up upon the tarmac. One or two aircraftsmen came running with unwonted energy; the corporal hurried down the cabin and jumped out of the machine.
One of the men said, “What happened to the bombs, Corp?”
Corporal Lambert swelled with pride. “Fell on a bloody submarine, my lad,” he said. “Proper place for ’em too!”
The news ran from mouth to mouth. “Did you sink it, Corp?”
“Where did it happen?”
“Were there any ships about?”
“Did any other aircraft have a hand?”
“Did you get fired at?”
The crowd swelled quickly round the corporal “Officer sunk it, lads,” he said. “Mr. Chambers. I didn’t do nothin’ but fire the bloody gun, and that’s no flaming use against a sub.”
“Was it the one what sunk that ship what was torpedoed yesterday, Corp?”
“I can’t tell you that, lad. Officer thinks it was.”
Chambers got down from the machine, clutching his maps. There was a thin, spontaneous cheer from the crowding men. He was embarrassed, and stood there in his flying clothes blushing a little, taller than most of them.
“Thanks awfully,” he said awkwardly. “We had a bit of luck this afternoon. Pity Sergeant Hutchinson couldn’t have been with us.”
They cheered him again, more loudly this time. He pushed his way through them and went towards the pilots’ room; a dozen of them followed after him. It was practically dark. Hooper came running out to meet him. “Jerry—is this true?”
“True enough, old boy,” he said. “We plastered it good and proper.”
“Did you sink it?”
“Sunk it all right. It went right up on end; the bow was vertical.”
“Bloody good show! Did anybody else see it?”
“There was a trawler about three miles away. I showed her where it happened.”
They went together to the pilots’ room. There was a surge of pilots around Chambers as he got out of his flying clothes, with a volley of questions. He changed in a babel of voices and discussion; in the middle his squadron leader, Petersen, came in.
There was a momentary hush. The squadron leader said, “Is this true that you got a submarine?”
The young pilot straightened up. “Yes, sir. I don’t think there was any doubt about it.”
He told his tale again. The squadron leader said, “Well, that’s all right. I’ll just ring Dickens, and see if he wants to see you now, or after you’ve made out your report.”
He lifted the telephone, but the wing commander’s line was engaged.
Hooper said, “I vote we go and break open the bar.”
They surged over to the mess in a body, gathering other officers to them as they went. The news spread through the camp like a running flame. It was dark by this time, and work was over for the day. In the anteroom Chambers stood flushed, and embarrassed, in the middle of a crowd of officers, a pint pot of beer in his hand, besieged by questions.
In the babel of talk and congratulations the mess waiter pushed into the crowd. “Wing Commander Dickens on the telephone,” he said. “He wants Squadron Leader Petersen and Mr. Chambers over in his office.”
Chambers drained his can, and followed the squadron leader out of the room. They put on overcoats. Outside the night was very dark, with a thin drizzle of rain.
They groped their way over to the wing commander’s office with some difficulty; neither had thought to bring a torch. In the corridor they paused for a minute, and tapped on the door. Dickens said, “Come in.”
He was alone, seated at his desk. He got up slowly as they entered. He said gravely, “Good evening.”
He turned to Chambers. “I understand you sank a submarine this afternoon?”
The young man was a little daunted by the heavy manner of the wing commander. Surely there could be nothing wrong? He said, “I attacked one, sir. I think she sank all right.”
The wing commander took a paper from his desk and handed it to him. “This signal has just come in.”
Puzzled, the squadron leader looked over his shoulder and they read it together. It was despatched from trawler T. 383. It read:
Submarine destroyed by Anson aircraft 1541 hours area SM/TM. Recovered floating two British naval caps, one British naval jumper, two empty packets Players cigarettes. Returning to port immediately. Position buoyed.
There was dead silence in the office.
Dickens said heavily, “I’m afraid one of our own submarines is overdue. H.M.S. Caranx isn’t answering any signals.”
The telephone bell rang. The wing commander crossed to his desk and picked up the receiver.
The operator said, “Captain Burnaby upon the line, sir.”
