A Twist of Sand

IV Utmost Priority

The tiny thing, as it lay on the beer-splashed table in front of the four Germans, was the avatar of death, destruction, shells, torpedoes, fire. It brought like a manifestation as fresh as yesterday into my memory after seventeen years the ghastly torment of war, death always at one's elbow as one lifted it — and drowned the thought in gin.

The tiny contortions of the object might have been the contours of Malta's beleaguered and embattled island itself. It symbolised, since it was our emblem, the hectic and wonderful days in H.M. Submarine Trout. The thin high scream of the drunken German as he stood transfixed, staring down at it, his three drinking-companions stunned into sober silence, called back from the past the death-whine of the Stukas as they plummeted down remorselessly on the convoys to the fortress at bay, or on the Dockyard itself.

As he screamed and screamed, a choking, sobbing gurgle: started to strangle his vocal chords. His eyes were wide and staring; they had the look not only of an imbecile, but of a maniac. The gurgle might have been the sinister chuckle the torpedo gives as it leaves the tube on its death-dealing mission, followed by the long, lover-replete sigh of compressed air from its intricate mechanism.

I was transported from the pleasant Swakopmund bar whose peace was now so torn to nerve-searing hysteria by the petrified German, back again seventeen years.

War. Mediterranean. 1941.

The graticules of the periscope cleared, fogged, and then cleared again, like consciousness trying to break through a curtain of sleep. Then the tip of the attack periscope was clear of the water, and the giant Littorio class battleship lay in my vision.

"Bearing now and range?" I asked, my eyes glued to the rubber eyepiece.

"Director angle green two-oh," came the calm reply.

"Range six thousand."

A longish shot, but a battleship like that was worth any risk, particularly as the firing angle was good.

I kept my eyes riveted. I could feel the rising tension in H.M. Submarine Trout, although all of us were battle-hardened. For this was war, and the shallow Mediterranean had been the grave of many a fine British submarine. My orders had been explicit — and difficult. After Taranto the Italians had patched up their battle fleet, badly damaged by the daring of the Fleet Air Arm in the famous night strike against the port, and Intelligence believed that one of the least damaged, the Littorio class now running into my sights, was to undergo trials. My orders were simple: sink her on her trials. No other targets, however inviting, which might come my way. I was to patrol off Naples, round the islands of Ischia and Capri, and sink the battleship when she came out.

I smiled grimly at the casual rider which had been added to my orders: "Air and surface cover will be heavy."

Across the calm sea it proved to be all too true. The battleship, her bow-wave creamy against the blue sea, was surrounded by destroyers. I counted eight or nine, but it seemed there might be even one or two more on the far side. Four Cant flying-boats hovered protectively. They meant business. So did H.M.S. Trout. I had had the torpedoes set at twenty feet, so that they would pass underneath the destroyers if they were in the line of fire. John Garland was at my elbow in the control room, calm, assured, as he always was under attack.

"Take a quick look," I told him.

He bent down and when he rose his eyes were eloquent, but he said nothing. No use working up the crew unnecessarily. The battleship creamed into my sights. I touched the firing push.

"Fire one!"

The boat jumped, and there was the tell-tale pressure on the ears as the compressed air escaped and the torpedo leapt on its deadly mission.

"Down periscope."

"Fire two!" — five seconds intervals only, for the battleship was making twenty-eight knots.

"Fire three! Fire four!"

"Four torpedoes running, sir."

"Course two-seven-five. Full ahead."

Trout dived. The next fifteen minutes would tell whether we would live or not. It would also tell whether my hunch regarding the shelf off Ischia was right. The dice were cast.

I went to the chart table and called John over. I pointed to the soundings.

"We are just here," I said, almost as if he didn't know as well as I did. "If you look along here, you'll see there is a rough line of equal soundings. Over towards Ischia the land intrudes and it makes, in fact, almost a shelf. Over the shelf is another deeper patch."

John leaned over and grinned wryly: "Only 110 feet."

"It's enough," I said curtly. "If we can get Trout into this little hollow, those Itie destroyers will have to come mighty close to get at us. The shelf will break the force of the depth-charges, and over here " — I stabbed the chart — "there'll be such an echo back from the land that their Asdic won't pick us up. Same thing with the hydrophones… "

There was a thump from outside Trout. Another. And another.

"Three hits, sir!" exclaimed young Peters. The tension broke. Everyone was all smiles.

"Well done, sir! "John was jubilant.

"Going up to have a look?" he inquired tentatively.

"No," I said briefly. "Unless you want us to get scuppered on the turn. I give it five minutes before the ashcans come."

Trout drove on towards her one slim chance of safety. Waiting for a depth-charge attack is probably as bad as the attack itself.

"H.E bearing dead astern sir," came the report.

We waited for it. The destroyer was on our tail all right. I wanted those extra minutes of the submarine's speed, however. I would wait till the last minute. The crash shook us all over. Pieces of cork fell down, but the lights remained on.

"One hundred feet. Slow ahead together. Silent routine."

Now I could hear, as everyone else in the boat could, the crash of propellers overhead. The destroyer was overshooting us, but soon the rest would be round us like flies.

I tore my thoughts away from the attack.

"No evasive action," I ordered.

That shelf and the shallow depression beyond were really my only hope. The water all round was too shallow to stave off an attack by eight or more destroyers, even given the luck. Three-quarters of a mile to relative safety. Three knots only. Only a whisper from the men. Overhead the crash of more propellers.

"Discontinue asdic bearings," I whispered.

The rating looked amazed. But my course was dead ahead. I wasn't going to try and outwit the destroyers — yet. With a little luck, they might plump for the evasive routine.

Crump!!!

A pattern of five reverberated, slightly on the port bow. The destroyers, now between us and the hole in the seabed, had believed I would turn away after the first attack.

He had chosen port, but he might as easily have made it starboard. It was anyone's guess. More thrashing of propellers slightly astern, followed almost at once by a pattern of five depth charges. This one would call up his fellows to make short work of us.

Haifa mile to go. I held Trout due east. Soon I would have to rise to eighty feet so as not to stick my nose into the shelf. Twenty precious feet — it could mean life or death.

They, were really on to us now. Three patterns broke all the lights, and the deadly cold little emergency lights came on. Dust seemed to come from everywhere.

"Eighty feet," I ordered in an undertone; John passed it on.

Young Peters blinked in astonishment. I could see what was in his mind — "no use going to meet it; why not stay down here?"

I had to risk the noise of the ballast tanks blowing. As they blew a deep pattern exploded next to Trout but, as luck would have it, the moment we rose. At our previous depth it would have been fatal. Trout glided over the hummock in the sea-bed.

"Hard-a-starboard!" I said tersely. "One hundred and ten feet."

Trout settled on the sea-bed. Three more patterns of depth-charges followed, but mercifully farther away to starboard. Trout would have to do better than just lie in a deep declivity. I pumped more water into the starboard ballast tank and she leaned over. Ten, fifteen degrees. As close as I could judge, I laid her against the shelf in the sea-bed, tilted against it like a man cowering for dear life behind a small bank. From the ragged and distant patterns it was clear the destroyers were out of touch with us. All that remained was to stick it out and hope for the best.

For nine hours the destroyers came close, over and beyond, but they never located us. For nine interminable hours came the crash and thump of heavy depth-charges. I think the Italians must have blown up everything between Trout and Capri.

Seldom were there fewer than five hunting, and often I think there must have been more.

Everything became strangely quiet. It was after midnight. I decided to give it an hour more in case the searchers were "playing possum." At one-thirty, tired, red-eyed, our ears still tingling in the unaccustomed quiet, I brought Trout to the surface. The night was dark, and if the destroyers were there, at least I couldn't see them, nor could they see me. I intended to beat it out of the Tyrrhenian Sea as quickly as I could.

I set course for Malta at full speed.

Malta gave Trout a heroes' welcome. We surfaced inside the deep minefield, made our recognition signal, and cruised slowly across the blue Mediterranean water towards the beleaguered island, looking strangely tranquil in the morning light. The crew, grinning hugely and thinking more of a run ashore in the rum shops than glory, were snodded up in their best; on the port side of the conning-tower, young Peters, overalls over his shore-going rig, was busy with a paint brush and pot adding to Trout's score. The main feature of this rather curious design was a hand, rather a strange-looking hand, which half cocked a snook at our tally of merchantmen and destroyers, and now the battleship.

Peters got the idea from the mascot I always carried with me — one of those things one sees in southern Germany, a rootfern, I think it was, contorted by nature into a replica of a human hand. I had seen it in a little village called Loffingen, near the Black — Forest, in the summer before the war. Loffingen is one of those tiny, quaint little places where an iron-work German eagle hangs on an iron lattice-work above a fountain in the market-place where a bronze boy, on some indefinable errand, clutches a spear. I went for a drink at the inn and, dodging the cluster of bicycles at the entrance, saw the "little lucky hand "(the German notice said) in a tiny shop window adjoining. I carried the little hand in action, and Peters had reproduced it (with liberties) on the conning-tower. Trout was even affectionately known as "The Hand "at the Lazaretto base.

I felt unutterably weary as I brought Trout alongside. The cheers, the sirens, and even the presence of the commander of the base and Dockyard failed to cheer me. Battle fatigue, I thought tiredly. It's when you feel like this that they get you. Even the thought of a long bath and a long gin did not lift the depression which had settled on my spirits.

"Wonderful work, Geoffrey!" exclaimed the C.O. as he came aboard, his quick ebullience spreading round him like an aura. "Come and tell me all about it — no hell man, don't worry about a written report yet. This is just for my private ear."

He looked at me keenly, noting probably the tight lines round the mouth, the stubble and the typical submariner's pallor.

"I've also got some news for your private ear."

He hustled me away, leaving John to do the donkey work

In his cabin he poured me a stiff gin. I sank into the so: cushions of his own favourite chair, the softness wrapping me round like a cloak.

He jerked out: "When I detailed you for the job, thought you might get her. But I didn't think you'd make it back."

I looked at the tonic fizzling slowly up in the glass. Like breaking surface on a dull morning, I thought. I wondered how many shells, or even how many lives, this one bottle of tonic had cost to bring to Malta.

"I didn't think you'd make it back," he repeated, flashing a quick glance at me. I could see what he was thinking; I was powerless to cover up: "He's done too many patrols punch-drunk; he doesn't hear the ashcans any more until they're close — too close. Once more — then it will be too late."

"Look," I snapped suddenly, so suddenly that my subconscious told me how jangled my nerves really were. I meant to tell him about the shelf on the sea-bed, the long weary hell of depth-charging and waiting, but something inside me balked.

"It was a bit tough, but the Ities didn't get too close. Broke some of the fittings. I'll send you a report of the damage," I said offhandedly.

The commander gazed at me steadily. "Trout's seaworthy, then?"

"Good God, yes!" I exclaimed impatiently. "This gin tastes wonderful."

"Yes, I suppose it does." His probing, assessing gaze irritated me.

"Look sir," I burst out, "I'll give the low-down, charts, position, damage and all the rest of it after I've had a bath. A night's good rest and I'll be ready for sea again."

He got up and stood by the porthole, swilling his drink round and round. Then he faced about suddenly.

"You're not going to sea again."

The shock of his words penetrated only dully. Punch-drunk.

"Not going to sea again?"

"No, Geoffrey."

I laughed grimly: "Battle fatigue — and all that. No reaction. Shaky hands." I drank down the gin at a gulp.

He burst out laughing. "So that's what is eating you! No, it's not that." He waved a signal slip. "Read it for yourself."

"… to report immediately to the Admiralty in London. Special air transport to be arranged for this officer." I gazed in wonderment at him. "What have I done?"

The. other man laughed again. "Search me. But," he added, "the Admiralty certainly saved me a tricky decision. I have lost one of my best fighting men."

"You might have anyway," I rejoined.

"When do I start?" I asked.

"You're still under my orders, and you're spending a couple of days catching up on sleep. The Admiralty will slap on another gong for that little business you've just done, but they can't give you sleep. I can. Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Peace, D.S.O. and two Bars, etc., etc. Cheer up man! Meet me in the bar later."

I did. After the utter heaven of a bath and a shave and a complete change of clothes, I felt more like a human being again, although the odd feeling of looking at the normal world through the wrong end of a telescope persisted.

"Utmost priority!" The Royal Air Force officer, suitably moustached, threw back his head and roared with laughter. "Christ!" He turned angrily to me. "What do any of these bloody brass hats know about utmost priority? Have you seen the airfield? As full of craters as a whore's face! And I have to give you top priority to fly out of here! I couldn't fly out a flippin' boy's kite, let alone a naval officer." He snorted and drained his glass.

"Do you know what's going on here?" he went on. '' We're so bombed to hell that the Ities and Jerries only need to really come over in force and we've had it. Why, one parachute regiment would write off the airfield."

He signalled frantically for more beer.

' You naval types just don't know what's going on around here. A few bombs at sea, but you can always dodge them. And then — home with top priority — out of Malta! Hell!"

The C.O. leaned across to him and I saw the flicker in his eyes. He said quietly: "You're talking to the man who sank the Littorio battleship. Confirmed by air reconnaissance. Your crew rather jumped the gun with that emblem on the conning-tower."

"My God!" he roared. "So you're the… who sank that load of old iron! Torpedoes right up her arse!" He thumped me on the back and the others in the bar turned and grinned at the little comedy being enacted."… me! And I start a penny lecture about bombs! Barman! Line 'em up for the Admiral!"

At any other time I might have enjoyed his discomfiture and friendly amends, but tonight I wished him as deep down as my victim. Above all, I was aware of my curious sense of separation from the events going on, almost as if I had been a spectator to my own half-tentative efforts to reciprocate. I'd better get drunk, I thought, and when I wake up with a monumental hangover I'll really feel I've done something to justify my double vision.

We drank to my success.

"I'll get you out of here top priority even if I have to fly the bloody thing myself," roared the R.A.F. man. I saw a rating standing nervously in the door and, more nervously still, he made his way through the officers to our group.

"Signal, sir."'

"What the hell" burst out the C.O. "Can't a man have a drink in peace — ' His voice tailed off as he saw the look on the man's face. He jabbed his finger more nervously than ever at the superscription on the signal — "most secret."

The C.O. ripped it open and his right eyebrow rose a little. It was the only form of surprise he ever allowed himself. Otherwise his face, if not his eyes, remained inscrutable.

"Here, Blacklock, this concerns you too."

The R.A.F. man glanced at the signal form. He gave a long whistle. His eyes riveted on me and he made a little sideways gesture of the shoulder to the C.O.

"He might as well know about it, seeing it concerns him most of all."

Blacklock threw down the signal in front of me. "Admiralty to Flag Officer (S) Malta. Lancaster bomber S for Sugar leaving Maddocksford 0400 G.M.T. for Malta to transport Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Peace to London. Utmost priority. The expeditious return of this officer to London must be treated as overriding consideration…"

Blacklock was a sound enough man to keep his mouth shut in the bar, but I could see he was thunderstruck.

"Have to make arrangements to get that damn great plane in here without wrecking itself in the bomb-holes. More joy for the pick-and-shovel brigade." He. looked at me with respect.

"You must be quite a boy in your own way," he said. Fancy sending a special plane out to fetch you. Personal service in war-time —- me!"

The C.O. looked thoughtful. "When do you think the Lancaster will arrive?"

Blacklock laughed. "He'll have time for a night's sleep. I'll give you the E.T.A when Gib. signals it. I don't know which will be worse, trying to bring her in at night, or during the day when the Jerries are sure to pick her up. We could get her away better at night, though," he mused, "but, Christ! can I get her off that piddling little runway? I hope they have the good sense to fill her up at Gib." He turned to me with a grin. "You'd remember it all your life if Malta fell because we used up all our petrol to fly out one of the Admiralty's favourite torpedo-boys."

Blacklock excused himself and shot off, with characteristic energy, to cope with the physical problem of handling the big machine. The C.O. was silent for a long time.

"Why do they want me in London?" I asked. After all, the Admiralty doesn't send a special plane for a submarine officer just because he sinks a battleship. Other submariners had done every bit as well and there were other men just as able, if not more so, than myself. My tired brain, a little muzzy now with the gin, simply balked at the mental jump and would not go over it.

So I said to the C.O.: "Tell me if you can, why should the Admiralty want me in such a hurry? They don't just want to pat me on the back for being a good boy."

"Geoffrey, I don't know any more than you do. I could think of some reasons, but they're obscure and I'm sure they don't fit. But you can take it from me, if the Admiralty can take the trouble to arrange and send out a bomber — and if the R.A.F. is willing to let it go at this particular juncture of the war — then you're a damn important personage, make no mistake. Just think of the paper work alone to get the R.A.F. to lend one of its precious bombers to the Navy! It looks like a decision which couldn't have been made except at the very highest level — maybe even the chiefs of staff. I could imagine the hell any service head would kick up at being told to send one of his fighting units for the purpose of picking up just one man. You're in cottonwool from now on, Geoffrey. No risks. No courageous wanderings when there's a raid on. You'll take orders from me to keep yourself as safe as a new-born prince."

I grimaced: "Yesterday I was simply a submarine commander who felt he'd done a job of work. I hadn't had a bath for three weeks. Now I feel unclean with all this limelight focused on me. I felt better on the bridge of the Trout. In the light of all this," I burst out, "it's a pity the Ities didn't get Trout — to hell with ' utmost priority! '

The C.O. said harshly: "You can keep that sort of maudlin talk for somewhere else. Those boys of yours are a damn fine bunch, and I wouldn't like to think of them at the bottom of the sea just because you're facing something you don't know." He stood up and eyed me unrelentingly. "You'd better get a good night's rest. We'll try and get you out of here sometime to-morrow if the raids are not too heavy."

I suppose that at that time there were fewer drearier places than the huts grouped round Malta's much-bombed airfield. For the hundredth time I changed my position on the scuffed, hard chair and pulled up my greatcoat collar, not only to keep out the chill, but the unrelieved glare of the unshaded lights. The place looked stark, kicked about; indeed it was. It was no fitting portal of glory for the men who, day after day, set their faces against the impossible odds of the great bombing squadrons which sought to destroy not only the airfield, but Malta itself. Blacklock had been hovering around, but his main concern was chivvying the weary workers filling in bomb craters from the last raid of the day, and trying to get a few precious extra yards of runway to help the heavy Lancaster bomber off the field. I could see he was inwardly dubious. Gibraltar had given us a short signal about five hours ago that the plane had left there; we weren't likely to have any more news until she arrived after the long 1,000-mile haul from the Rock.

The pulsing of heavy engines cut the thick silence of the early hours.

Blacklock joined me. "I hope to God they don't pile that monster up on my runways," he said. "It's bad enough having to give them our precious petrol, but it would be hell if they chewed up what's left of the airfield. Besides," he added, "after these top priority signals, I've got to swaddle you in cottonwool. If they don't get that bloody great thing off the deck again, I feel they'll court martial me. You'll probably be beyond the powers of court martial if she doesn't lift." He grinned, but he was nervous.

The flarepath came on.

"All in your honour," said Blacklock. "I wouldn't dare unless it were vital. As it is, it might bring the Stukas in post-haste." He glanced anxiously round, a man naked In his enemies.

The cumbersome shape teetered down on the extremity of the runway. It ran on and on. I thought it would never stop. Blacklock drew the breath between his teeth. The giant slowed, creaked, and turned towards the apron, the propellers cutting arcs of pale light.

"Bloody fine landing!" exclaimed Blacklock. "Bloody fine! Fine being the operative word. They've sent you a good pilot, laddie, if that landing means anything. Get those lights out," he shouted to someone in the darkness above in the control tower.

Before the great bomber had stopped rolling the airfield in total darkness. Blacklock and I went forward while he shone his torch on the crew's entrance. Four men emerged, walking with that stiff, uneasy gait a man has after a long flight.

Then fifth pair of legs emerged and an Australian voice "Malta he jewel of the sterling area! Holiday in suns Malta! See Malta and the worst bloody airfield I've ever seen! Push it over the Cliff!"

"That's what the jerries are trying to do. I Blacklock." He turned to the ground crew. "Get her fuelled up. Anything else needed?"

The Australian looked at him in astonishment.

"What do you mean fuel her up? I'm getting fuelled up myself before I take this cow back. I want a bath and a night's rest." With heavy sarcasm he wheeled on Blacklock. "We've been flying chum, remember? Fifteen hundred miles to Gibraltar way out to sea, and another thousand here. See?"

I admired Blacklock then, and saw what had got him to the top.

"You're taking that bloody great thing out of here just as soon as I can get her filled up. Two hours, maybe."

The Australian turned away truculently. "Bugger you," he said.

Blacklock didn't argue. "See here," he said evenly. "If you are not fit, or your crew is not fit, I'll put another crew aboard, but that Lancaster is going to be on its way back to Gibraltar before daylight. Out of the way of the Jerry bases on Sicily and the mainland. Make up your mind."

The Australian faced about, and in the stronger light I could see the lines of fatigue round his mouth. But he changed his tune in the face of Blacklock's stiff line.

"What's the hurry?" he demanded. "Who's this bastard we've got to get back without so much as an hour's rest? Churchill's younger brother? Why can't the bomber stay here for tomorrow at least?"

Blacklock was fast losing patience. "First, because I say so. Second, because that plane will be bombed to pieces in the first raid tomorrow morning. Third, I don't want more of a mess made of my runways than necessary. Fourth, because this is the man you're taking back. Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Peace. ' Utmost priority,' that's why they sent you in the first place."

The Australian looked round with his eyes narrowed with weariness. "OK." he said. "Fill her up. Call me when it's done. She's OK. otherwise. I suppose we have time for a cup of coffee?" Then his manner changed. "Don't let those bastards of a ground crew into the plane before we get stuff out of her."

"What stuff?" asked Blacklock suspiciously.

"There are three crates of whisky and three of gin in the bomb-bay," he grinned. "And about the same number of tinned food. I figured you miserable bastards would need something to cheer you up." 'Utmost priority' he mimicked.

Blacklock slapped him on the shoulder. "Sorry about this, Aussie. We could have had a party."

"Ah, well," sighed the Australian.

Two and a half-hours later the big bomber stood quivering at the end of the runway, brakes hard on with the great Rolls-Royce engines roaring defiantly. Spurts of blue flame flickered over the cowlings as the Australian revved them up to almost full boost against the brakes. Then the flarepath came on momentarily, the brakes were released, and we catapulted forward. Had it not been for my strap, I would have been thrown from the metal-backed seat on to the mattresses the crew had slept on on the floor. The great machine bucked and roared as the pilot fought to get her off I he tiny runway. The tail came up but it seemed an eternity. Then it slowly lifted and with the Rolls-Royce engines bellowing we lifted clear and swept out to sea. Even as I looked back, the flare path went out, and we were alone over the sea for all the long flight back to England.