A Bridge of Magpies

C H A P T E R F I F T E E N

Trip that brake pawl! Let fly the anchor! Get rid of it man, get rid of it!'

I couldn't make out Denny's face in the dark of the wheelhouse above, but I could feel his scowl.

'Now! Now! Now!'

We'd teamed the two cutters together beforehand for a snap start but we didn't anticipate that the starting chocks would have to be whipped away like this. Slipping cables is tearaway tactics. We had both boats' anchors out, from Gaok in the lead and Ichabo, streamed astern on a light hawser. You don't expect in this time and age that a U-boat will surface only a few cables' lengths away and bear down as if it meant business.

Kaptein Denny came racing down the bridge ladder. '

She'll foul Ichabo.

There was no sign in his face that he'd registered what I was saying.

'Cut her loose!' he roared. 'Cut her loose!'

He went on past me to the engine-room. I smacked the pawl free. The rattle of cables going override cut through the night like a small-arms fusillade. It was nothing, though, compared with the bark of the diesel starting up. Hushkits are for jets but I'd have given a thousand pounds at that moment for a special model for fishing cutters. It sounded as if it could be heard aJl the way to Possession.

'You know the plan-move, man-move!'

Kaptein Denny was on his way back to the wheel. In a moment I felt Gaok's screw bite and hold her against the current.

'She's-beautiful!' In the hurry I'd forgotten Jutta. The unreal light from the luminescent fire showed the deadly, low-silhouette, black shape frozen in her last agony. Marine growths were strung from hat jumping-wire-the thick cable designed to slice through undersea objects like mine moorings =which which runs from bow to stern via the conning-tower. The water sparkled as it fell back into the sea. 194

There were rough lumps of barnacles everywhere. The casing was barely awash. Something-round like a buoy-hung from the jumping-wire immediately for'ard of the bridge.

'Maybe she is beautiful-' I answered. It wasn't time to gawp. 'But what we have to give that hulk now is the kiss of life-or whatever you do for drowned subs.'

'Come on! This is the time! Go! Get going!' Kaptein Denny shouted again.

I got into position to cast Ichabo loose. Denny allowed Gaok to fall back to meet her so that J could jump before the current carried her away. Whatever the sight of U-160 had done to him it hadn't affected his seamanship.

'Jump!'

I jumped. Jutta stayed behind in Gaok as we'd arranged previously.

'All set there?

'Aye,' I called back to Denny. 'Let's smack it about.' He broke the joint plan of action before we started, though. Before I'd time to fire Ichabo's engine he was off alone in the direction of the U-boat. He threw a spotlight on her when he got close. Then Ichabo's engine started banging away. Where was Sang A?

I headed for U-160.

When I came alongside Gaok I saw by her spotlight what the object was that was bobbing and swinging from the jumping-wire like a jack-rabbit pendulum every time a wave lifted the sub.

I cut Ichabo's engine and leapt aboard Gaok. Denny and Jutta were together in the wheelhouse staring at the U-boat. '

Mine! That's a mine!'

I could almost reach out and touch it but nothing would have made me do so. It hung by a whisker. A U-boat's jumping-wire is a single thick cable for about half its length, then divides into two-V-shaped, somewhere above the level of the gun. The V is secured to either side of the conningtower by sets of double shackles. One leg of the V had snapped. The other was carrying the mine's full weight. The mine's own mooring cable had snarled about the jumpingwire. The main obstacle which prevented its crashing to the deck was a flanged bit of rusty metal,(probably in its own sea-bed anchor) which was wedged in one of the shackles.

'I saw it there the first time,' replied Kaptein Denny coolly.

'She tangled with one. of her own mines which she'd laid in the channel. But one of the wires has snapped since I saw it last time.'

For all the concern he showed, he might have been quietly discussing some rigging technicalily instead of half a ton of explosive liable lo go off at the drop of a hat. Of a wire, rather.

And the other's going to part at any moment! Especially now it hasn't the sea's lift to take the strain off it! Come on, man! Help me do something about it – quick!'

He made no move.

`Take a look at the way that thing's hanging-see?' I went on. 'It's upside down. Those spikes sticking out below are detonating horns. They're pointing downwards. If that cable snaps the mine will drop slap on the deck – Christ!'

I'd been so carried away, my eyes fixed on the swinging mine, that I hadn't paid any attention to the deck. Now I forgot even the mine.

'If we're looking for a spectacular when the next big sea shakes that mine loose, we've got it,' I said slowly. I couldn't say it fast because my mouth was too dry. `Do you see what I see?'

'Schlebusch was an ace,' replied Kaptein Denny. 'He needed plenty of torpedoes'

'Nine!' J managed to say. 'Nine extra torpedoes lashed on deck! She's a bloody floating hardware store!'

The spare torpedoes, which Schlebusch would have reloaded through special hatches on the casing, were stowed directly beneath the suspended mine with their firing heads pointing forward to give good streamlining underwater.

'I know that nowadays amatol is considered an old-fashioned explosive,' I said. 'A kilo or two of a modern type is enough to blow up a building. But, by God, there's enough here to sink the Queen Elizabeth, Ark Royal and Enterprise all rolled into one!'

A swell washed against the waterlogged hull and a ripple of phosphorescent fire spread along it.

`Put me aboard,' I said. 'This is a one-man operation. I' ll fix it. Then get clear, in case J fluff things.'

'No!' exclaimed Jutta. 'No, Struan! No!'

'Do as I say. Every second's vital. want some spare cable to reinforce what's left up there and then make the mine fast..

'There's some below-' replied Kaptein Denny quickly. ' Goals staying. You'll want her spotlight to see what you're doing. We're all in this together.'

'Stay if you like: amatol's easy. It doesn't matter whether you're five or five hundred feet from the explosion centre of a load like this.'

Jutta's face was a mask of misery. 'Please-no old hulk is worth it!''

There wasn't time to listen to her side of the story. J'd set myself in motion to do a job and I'd narrowed down my thinking to that, to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps tlmebomb defusers work that way. My muscles hadn't got over their initial shock-though; it seemed as if they were being operated by remote control.

I ducked below for some cable-lengths of securing line and wire-cutters. When I got back on deck Kaptein Denny was easing Gaok alongside the U-boat-millimetre by milli- metre. There was a steel-clad reason, hanging by a thread, why he should.

Then I was climbing ova: the side.

Jutta caJled, 'I'll hold your things. I'll pass them to you while you work.'

If the mine slipped I wouldn't be able to reach her in the last few seconds; without her there my hands would be steadier.

'No.'

She didn't argue but I could feel her eyes on my back as I dropped down on to the barnacled casing. There was an unmistakable musty, wet, deep-sea smell coming off the conning-tower and I found a steel ladder up to it. It was clamped on the starboard side (where Gaok was) and led first to a light anti-aircraft gun platform, drilled full of holes for draining, abaft the bridge. This was surrounded by a rusty melal 'pulpit rail'. It could well have been one of Gousblom's turrets which had fallen on her, because the structure was wrecked and the stanchions and rails were all crushed. The rear entrance to the conning-tower bridge-a U-shaped enclosure with the open end of the U facing astern-was blocked with twisted metal and also the remains of the peri197 scope housing. It was just possible to edge in.

I did so, and started in on the mine. The jumping-wire to starboard was gone but the one to port was intact. I got -a light line round the top of the mine and stopped it swinging: one of the detonating horns was arcing within eighteen inches of the bridge.

Easy now, easy does it, I told myself. Up to now Pd been ' working largely by reflex, but with the slight change of the odds in my favour I began to react consciously. You can't do anything about the main jumping-wire for'ard of the gun before it divides for the 'W, because it's out of reach, but it doesn't look too bad. Keep that infernal spotlight out of my eyes! I'd brace and lash tight my new strop on the broken section by running a loop through the nearest shackle, then secure it to something firm on the bridge. The steel pipe of the captain's jump-stool would serve. It was strong enough to take the strain.

I was sweating heavily and bracing myself against the bridge coaming and leaning forward to slip one end of the wire through the shackle to make the repair. Easy now, easy! I hope to God Sang A doesn't come and catch us with our pants down and a fart weighing half a ton in the pipeline waiting to hit the deck. Not the deck. At twelve feet it didn't need a computer to work out the exact spot where the mine would land. On those nine torpedoes. Would they still explode after all this time? It didn't matter reaJly; the mine would. You're always reading about old war-time mines going up. Over a hundred thousand of them still unswept up around Britain… Pull yourself together. You're shaking like a soak with the ritte! The whole bloody Sperrgebiet will shake too if this little lot goes up. I couldn't manage to complete the loop of my emergency strop. I was about six inches too far away from the shackle. I could do so, however, if I hung on the jumping wire. Add my two hundred pounds' weight to that already dicey cable. So near and yet so far. Shit on all of them who'd put me in this spot. Shit on you, you bastard Denny, Denzo, or whatever you caJl yourself. Stuff all the Denzos. All the long line of them in eight hundred years. And Tsushima. And Yamamoto. There's Jutta to think of now. I'm damned if this iron udder is going to bang its tits on any deck full of torpedoes,

I grabbed the jumping-wire on sudden impulse, heaved forward with my weight on it, twisted the loop tight, and then dropped back into the conning-tower and made the cable fast.

I'd flayed the skin off my fingers and palms: I descended the conning-tower ladder like a man in a dream and crunched back across the shells and marine growths to Gaok. The world started to come slowly back into focus and I became conscious of the gaJe again. Out there on the exposed casing it felt as if the whole world would disappear in one great blowing cloud. The U-boat's buoyancy had a curious dead feel and walking across her deck like that made one want to grope uncertalnly with one's feet, like an astronaut on a spacewalk.

`Safe-conduct's fixed? I told Denny when I got aboard Gaok.

`Struan. darling… 1' The rest of Jutta's welcome was blocked in her throat.

`Now's our time!' replied Kaptein Denny. Not a mention of the thing which hung there-safe now.

I was still suffering from a carry-over of tension but I brushed it aside. 'Right!' I said. 'Let's get on with the job. But look how she's down at the head.'

You didn't need good night vision, in the almost moonlight conditions-to make an assessment that U-160 would never be classed Al at Lloyd's. The seas surged across the deck, which was half awash most of its length and fully awash in the bows. Even the railings and stanchions for'ard of the main torpedo loading hatch were half under water. If it hadn't been for what she carrled inside I would have dismissed her as a load of old iron only fit to cover with a blanket-and caJl the padre. The luminescence made a bright border about a foot wide amidships round the casing, where it rode clear of the water; but in the bows-where the seas were shredded, it was like flame rippling on a burning log.

Kaptein Denny said, `Tonight's the night. It's been this way too many times before. This is the last attempt. Now let's get that rope cradled under her.'

That had been the plan. It was simple-as a plan. It called for a double length of four-inch manila hawser attached to both cutters' bow and stern winches, and looped under U-160's hull. We'd first let go enough slack to let the hawsers sink 199 deeper than the U-boat-then dose on her from both flanks, astern; stop when we came abreast the conning-tower, and then winch the cradle in tight. The cutters would act as lifting pontoons while we got busy on the main hatch with the cutting torch.

The theory was fine, the practice different. It was as if we were cowpunchers riding herd and trying to rope the most bloody-minded maverick that ever cut loose on the plains of Texas. The Ancient Mariner's undersea spirit couldn't have jinked, yawed and shoved that sodden hull in more random, chaotic and unpredictable directions than the upwell cell current did. Perhaps that was why she'd escaped being piled up on the reefs in all the years before.

The, operation was also continually hamstrung by Denny's refusal to move more than a few hundred feet from the Uboat, for fear of losing her from under his spotlight. This meant I was at the perimeter in Ichabo, dragging two heavy lopsided cables whlle Gaok and U-160 remained close to the operations centre. This made it almost impossible for the cables to reach deep enough to encircle the hull. Once when we nearly succeeded it was spoilt by the cradle snagging on something-possibly a propeller or hydroplane belonging to the U-boat-and before we could do anything about it she gave one of her sudden yaws and we had to go hard astern to prevent the boats being crushed. We lost her and started all over again.

This went on for about an hour. And it seemed like sending out a new invitation to Sang A to join the party, every time we gunned our engines full ahead or full astern-on average once every five minutes-and swung the spotlight to every point of the compass to keep it homed on the conning-tower. When I heard through the murk the heavy crash of breakers coming from close at hand, I'd had enough. We were in the middle of yet another manoeuvre-which meant I was doing the manoeuvring while Gaok hugged U-160. I didn't cast off my end of the cradle, but cut my engine and set the winches going. This had the effect of dragging Ichabo bodily broadside across the gap separating the two boats. U-160 got in the way like an unwanted third at a fete-a-tate, but I couldn't help that: This time Gaok did the manoeuvring, I jumped aboard her and told Kaptein Denny. 'This is for the birds. Every one of the hundred million birds in the islands?

'Go on.'

'I hear breakers. Lots of breakers. I'd say it was Penguins Turning.'

'It is Penguins Turning.'

'I'm glad someone knows where we are because J don't. And if it's the skietrots, we've come less than a mile in a straight line since we began. Straight being the operative word.'

'So what? Distance isn't important. What is important.?

'Distance is time and time is Sang A,' I retorted. 'Any time is Sang A time and I don't fancy going on with this caper round Penguins Turning. Especially in the whirlpool behind it. 'Are you saying you intend to throw in the towel?'

°The only towel I want is one to dry myself with when I come up on the other side of U-160.'

'Meaning?' asked Kaptein Denny. From his tone-I was glad for my own sake that I was still thinking positively about U-160.

I started to pull off my shirt. 'I'm diving and taking a light line down under the U-boat's hull. Bring Gaok round on her starboard beam but stop her screw, for God's sake-as soon as you can. I don't want my head cut in half by my own side as I surface.'

'If she jinks while you're diving?'

I'd got down to my underpants. 'I'll take my chance. We've lost an hour already. It's a lot of time when a gale, a salinity level and a bunch of kamikazes are treading on your heels.'

Jutta's face was closed and strained. I couldn't find the right words to say to her. I felt she would gladly have traded in U-160 for anything else on the seven seas. I returned to Ichabo and awaited my moment. Both cutters were lying slightly astern of the U-boat on her port quarter, and I was accordingly awkwardly placed for a dive. But we judged, both Denny and I-that her next swing would be in. my direction; so he'd broken away in anticipation of it, with his damned spotlight full on the connlng-tower while Ichabo lay dead in the water. I'd been sweating in my clothes but 201 now as I stood poised I noticed that the fiery breath of the gale which I'd got used lo wasn't fiery any more. Maybe it was because I was nearer the cold water. Maybe it was because I was down to my skin

… maybe.

The U-boat veered. This was the moment I'd been waiting for. I went up on my toes and took the deepest breath I could. There wasn't time to realize that there was less dust in the air than before. I repeated the lung-filled exercise as the casing came sluggishly my way. Two. Three.

I dived.

The shock of the icy water nearly caused me to burp out all my nicely accumulated oxygen. It was cold, cold, cold. I went down, down, down. How deep was a U-boat's keep-about sixteen feet. Then I knew I was under her because the phosphorescence dimmed when her black shadow came between me and the surface. I turned on my back: I wished I hadn't. The hulk was trailing weed, rust and underwater filth. I was too deep, so I bubbled out a little air, turned right side up and stroked strongly forward. Either J misjudged, or the U-boat didn't complete the turn she'd started, because when I kicked myself surfacewards my back scraped painfully against the rough barnacles and at the same lime my head cracked against a projection. I ducked automatically and threw out my hands to fend it off. I'd emptied my lungs as I gave that final kick.' My fingers encountered something smooth and round-with an object (it felt like a small propeller) sticking out of its snub nose. It wasn't a deadly sting ray but I let go quicker than if it had been, kicked as hard as I could-bumped my back again-and shot to the surface. I grabbed hold of the U-boat's half-awash rail and gasped in lungfuls of air. They were as much from fear as from need.

– Gaok wasn't quite in position yet hut was coming up towards me, searching the water with her spotlight. I yanked myself up on to the streaming deck.

'Full astern!' I yelled. 'Back! Keep away! Don't come here! There's a half-fired lorpedo sticking out of a tube!'

Gaok went astern but it wasn't a panic manoeuvre. In a couple of minutes Kaptein Denny had the cutter fast in her proper position. I threw round a stanchion a hitch of the line which had been tied to my waist, and stumbled and sloshed my way to her. The plaling was wet and cold and 202 slippery under my feet. It wasn't only the cold which made me shake when I jumped aboard Gaok.

'What next? The whole bloody sub's loaded-above and under water! It could be one of the old contact-type torpedoes, driven by compressed air, which the U-boat aces liked for night attacks.'

Jutta said in a small voice, as if trying to quiet her own fears, It's more likely to be an electric or acoustic torpedo. Its batteries must be stoned dead. It's probably harmless.'

'I'm not particularly sold on the idea of making a practical test to see what sort of torpedo it is-' I replied. 'Just keep Gaok from bumping it, will you, Kaptein Denny?'

'You're going back then, Struan?' asked Jutla.

'Of course. There's a job to finish.

'I'll get you some brandy.'

It tasted good and I went and stood knee-deep in the sea-getting the hawsers fixed. Most of the time I worked by feel in the cold water. Several times big waves came and then I hung on waist-deep to the rail. If the waves were doing this to me, what were they doing against the fangs of Penguins Turning? That thought made me finish the job about as quickly as if all the hardware lying around was primed and ready to go off. I could hear the skietrots coming closer all the time. What worded me too was the easier give of the sea under the U-boat. It meant the upwell cell was changing. My aching arms were quivering so with the strain that I slopped the brandy when I got back to Gaok's wheelhouse. Fine!' Denny exclaimed. 'Nice work.'

'Let's keep the medals in deep freeze until we get clear of Penguins Turning. I haven't a clue which way we're heading?

'We're making a northing with some east in it.'

'I'll take your word for it; but meanwhile a couple of things won't have escaped your notice. The sea's easier; the wind's going.' I pointed to the towel I'd been rubbing my shoulders with. 'See all this dirt? It's from the fog. The fog brings down the dirt and the dirt brings down the fog. Not to put too fine a point on it, it's starting to clear. Our protective curtain's disintegrating.'

'That means Sang A,' said Jutta.

'Plus radar. Plus twenty pairs of kamikaze eyes itching for a glimpse of two fishing cutters.'

'Depends where she is,' replied Kaptein Denny.

'Maybe she's searching for us out to sea. Maybe not. You'd also have noted, if you'd been down under the hull, that the silver fire is going – fast. That means the salinity will change. Less dense; less lift. Less for U-160. Less U-boat above water?

'You're overstating the dangers. We've got half the night still ahead of us..

'Look!'

It was the skietrots. Its white chest with the breakers creaming over it was the giveaway because the main black part of it blended with the night. But you could hear it all right.

'That rope cradle okay?'

'Aye,' I told him.

'Watch your moment. We'll put both boats full ahead on 11-160's next swing. That plus the current should take her clear.'

'If this wreck picks up her skirts and flies it'll be the only time a skirt won't mean sex to me.'

I hurried across U-160's deck to lchabo, opened her diesel to full bore and waited to throw in the clutch. U-160 was pushing the dying wind, but not the current. Her underwater surface-all eleven hundred tons of it-was solidly in its grip and being swept along.

The three vessels-tied together, came round in a wide, lazy, swinging circle. When U-160's nose pointed off-centre from the white target of Penguins Turning, Kaptein Denny shouted, 'Full ahead! Well manage it! Give her everything!'

I thought so, too – at first. Another point in our favour was that Penguins Turning was slightly farther away than I'd calculated, because the visibility was lengthening all the time and I'd judged the distance by previous cut-off standards. The cables took the strain of the thrusting boats and U-160 began to forge ahead the way we wanted. Two knots. Three. Four. I thought we'd make it. Then it was like steering a lead coffin with a poltergeist inside. The current took charge and dragged the U-boat and the two cutters round as if there weren't diesel-powered sheepdogs hanging on to both Its flanks. She span -slowly, deliberately, menacingly-in her own way and in her own time. J gave Ichabo full starboard helm 204 and I was sure Kaptein Denny was doing the same. But it was impossible to apply a correction factor.

With an extra long aim I could have touched Penguin Turning.

`Let her have her head, for the love of God!' I shouted. '

Let her go! Let her go!'

U-160 had managed it so many times on her own in the past, maybe she'd manage it this time without our fouling up whatever delicate underwater forces were in play. U-160 managed it. Just.

At her nearest point, I wasn't sure which was the end of her bow with the white water breaking, or which was Penguins Turning with white water breaking. An eddy seemed to take over at the last moment. Then suddenly we were past and swirling, churning, spinning in the whirlpool in the lee of the skietrots, among the races and overfalls and blinders and spray.

We left U-160 to make her own way. There wasn't anything else we could do. She-and we-went on swinging and turning like that: on and on-round and round. After the first few turns I began to get accustomed to the movement and pulled myself together enough to make an estimate whether we were making progress over the ground or staying in one place while we swung. We were progressing. But the drift was so imperceptible that it took fully half an hour to win clear of the merry-go-round and begin to follow roughly the northward line of the coast towards Possession.