Diving Stations

FIVE

‘Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Hamilton.’

Rapier’s captain looked up sharply as he recognized the voice and was surprised to see Aritsu leaning over the rails of the upper deck waiting to receive him. He might have guessed the dapper Little Commander was mixed up in the affair◦– he seemed to make a specialty of finding new ways to humiliate the Royal Navy. Perhaps that was the only way to obtain promotion in the Japanese Fleet. Firefly’s motor sampan nudged her bows gently against the lower platform of the gangway, and the lieutenant jumped across the narrow strip of water separating the two vessels with the confident aplomb of long experience.

‘Return to Firefly, Chief.’ He pitched his voice so that it was loud enough for Aritsu to hear the instructions. ‘I’ll call you up when I’m ready to be taken off.’

The sampan went astern, swung its nose to starboard, and circled away from the destroyer. Hamilton watched it run clear and then started up the accommodation ladder to the deck. He saluted the Rising Sun ensign dangling lifelessly from its jack staff with punctilious regard to etiquette, as he came over the side and turned to Aritsu.

‘Lieutenant Hamilton, Commanding Officer of His Majesty’s submarine Rapier.’ He saluted again. ‘May I present my compliments to the Captain.’

Not to be outdone in the politeness of the occasion, Aritsu bowed and made a strange clicking sound with his mouth. ‘It is an honor to have you aboard, Lieutenant Hamilton,’ he acknowledged affably. ‘May I offer you a drink in the wardroom?’

‘Thank you, Commander. But I wish to see Lieutenant Commander Ottershaw first. After that I am sure we will both be pleased to enjoy your hospitality.’

Aritsu bowed. ‘Lieutenant Commander Ottershaw is already waiting for you in the wardroom.’ He smiled with satisfaction at scoring the first point. ‘You seem to be under an unfortunate misapprehension. He is not a prisoner. Like yourself, he is an honored and welcome guest.’

Hamilton wasn’t too sure how to take the commander’s statement. There was an underlying sharpness in the words that suggested that he was also now a prisoner, and he began to rue his bravado in sending Firefly’s sampan back to the gunboat. Swallowing his doubts, however, he smiled appreciatively and followed the Japanese officer down the narrow steel corridor to Suma’s tiny wardroom. The armed sentry guarding the entrance gave the lie to Aritsu’s assurance, but Hamilton ignored his presence and passed straight through the door without invitation.

‘Good God, Nick! Where the hell did you spring from?’ Harry Ottershaw certainly looked comfortable enough. The furnishings of the wardroom were sparse and austere, but he was ensconced in the only armchair with a large glass of Scotch standing on the table at his elbow.

‘You must forgive me for being an inattentive host, gentlemen,’ Aritsu smiled politely. ‘But if you will excuse me, I must have a few words with the Officer-of-the-Watch. I will rejoin you in a few moments. In the meantime, Lieutenant, please help yourself to what you want.’

The door closed and Hamilton restrained an impulse to check the handle to see if they had been locked inside. He knew he must maintain his outward show of self-confidence and it would be fatal to give any hint of nervousness. Moving to the sideboard he picked up a likely looking bottle and poured himself a large glass of malt whisky.

‘I managed to sneak Rapier into the bay without being spotted,’ he explained to the gunboat captain. He glanced through the open scuttle and beckoned Ottershaw over.

Firefly was lying broad-side on the destroyer, just over a mile away on the western side of the bay and the bows of the submarine were just visible abaft her stern. Ottershaw nodded.

‘Very neat,’ he conceded. ‘But I don’t see what good it’s going to do. You can’t torpedo a Japanese destroyer in broad daylight and get away with it.’

Hamilton shrugged. ‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that. But I most certainly intend to if the worse comes to the worse. And Aritsu knows I will.’

‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ Ottershaw retorted sharply. ‘I happen to be the Senior Naval Officer present. You therefore take your orders from me. And I have no intention of allowing you to cause a major diplomatic incident merely for the sake of maintaining appearances. We’ll sort this matter out by negotiation. And if that fails we’ll have to rely on the authorities in Hong Kong getting us off the hook.’

Hamilton said nothing. Ottershaw might be SNO but if Rapier fired her torpedoes neither of them were likely to survive the resulting explosion. In which case seniority wouldn’t matter a damn!

Ottershaw closed the glass scuttle and returned to his armchair. ‘We’ve got to play for time. It looks as though there’s a nasty storm brewing and Aritsu’s bloody twitchy. Don’t ask me why, but that’s how it seems to me. In my opinion he’ll bluff it out as long as he dares, but I’m certain he intends to up-anchor and steam clear of the bay before the storm hits us.’

The steel door behind Hamilton’s back opened and before he could reply Aritsu returned to the wardroom. He looked completely at ease and was smiling to himself as if enjoying a secret joke.

‘I meant to congratulate you on the way you handled the submarine, Lieutenant,’ he said ingratiatingly. ‘My lookouts had no idea you had passed under the boom until you surfaced behind the gunboat. They will be suitably punished, of course, for their inefficiency.’

‘I hope they were not too inefficient to note the position in which Rapier has been moored,’ Hamilton stressed pointedly.

Aritsu looked at him impassively. He was quite willing to acknowledge the lieutenant’s skill in seamanship, but he was not prepared to accept that he had been outsmarted.

‘A little unfriendly, I thought, Lieutenant. After all Suma has her guns trained fore and aft and is in no way menacing the gunboat.’ He spread his hands. Firefly is free to leave whenever she wishes.’

‘Without her Captain?’

‘I see no reason why not, Lieutenant. He is, as you can see for yourself, an honored guest. He will come to no harm.’ Aritsu smiled expansively to reveal his over-large teeth. ‘We were in fact, just considering the terms of a suitable apology when you arrived. The matter would have been concluded within a few more minutes.’

‘Is this correct, sir?’ Hamilton asked Ottershaw.

‘Well, more or less, I suppose,’ Firefly’s captain agreed. ‘Of course I don’t accept that an apology is called for, but if Commander Aritsu insists and provided Hong Kong agrees, it would seem the simplest solution.’

‘You will be pleased to know that Hong Kong has already authorized an apology,’ Aritsu said smoothly. He took the folded signal clip from his pocket and handed it to Ottershaw. ‘The signal was apparently received about fifteen minutes ago◦– my wireless operator passed it to me when I went up to the bridge.’ He smiled. ‘So there now seems no impediment to clearing the matter up.’

Hamilton who had been listening to the exchange, walked back to the scuttle, pulled it open, and sniffed the air.

‘Except for the typhoon,’ he said casually.

‘What typhoon?’ Aritsu asked with unexpected sharpness.

‘It’s probably nothing worth worrying about,’ Hamilton shrugged. ‘Our Met officer is always getting his facts mixed up. Everyone knows it’s not the season for typhoons.’ Aritsu was not so easily put off. He suddenly seemed ill at ease. Walking to the barometer hanging on the bulkhead he tapped it with his finger. The mercury dropped a full inch and Hamilton could see tiny beads of sweat glistening on the Commander’s forehead. The expression on his face, however, remained as impassive as ever as he turned away from the glass.

‘A bad storm perhaps, Lieutenant,’ he agreed. ‘But surely not a typhoon? I have received no weather warnings from Combined Fleet HQ.’

‘There was a freak wireless blackout a couple of hours ago,’ Hamilton told him with seeming innocence. ‘An electrical storm or something. My radio operator picked up a Japanese Navy transmission, but it was practically unreadable. Perhaps that is why you have heard nothing.’ Aritsu strode to the opened scuttle and stared out at the glowering mauve-grey sky. He made no comment, but Hamilton could see him gnawing at the knuckle of his right hand with his splayed front teeth. So Ottershaw had been right. It was a situation that might prove to be worth exploiting and he decided to play on his fears.

‘I’ve never been caught in a typhoon myself,’ he continued conversationally. ‘But I hear they can be damned frightening. Didn’t your people lose a destroyer in one a few years ago, Commander?’

Aritsu was too busy with his own private problems to pay much attention to the question and he nodded absently. ‘That is correct, Lieutenant. The Tomodzuru capsized off Sasebo in a typhoon during exercises in 1934. I was serving in the same flotilla when it happened.’

‘Must have been an unpleasant experience,’ Hamilton said sympathetically. ‘Isn’t this boat◦– Suma◦– one of the Tomodzuru class?’

Aritsu was slowly pacing up and down the wardroom. He nodded curtly but ignored the question and Ottershaw wondered what Rapier’s skipper was leading up to. He was more than a little surprised at the depth of technical knowledge shown by Hamilton’s next remark. Nick had obviously been doing his homework.

‘That’s odd then,’ Hamilton continued. ‘I thought they’d cut down top-weight and added bilges to increase stability. I don’t recall seeing any additional bilges on Suma. And, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, she looked bloody top-heavy when I came alongside in the sampan.’

Aritsu stopped pacing and turned to face the two British officers. ‘You are very observant, Lieutenant. And, unfortunately you are quite correct. They modified Chidori and the other ships of the class, but for some reason, Suma was never taken in hand. Believe me, gentlemen, this boat is a death trap in bad weather. We have less than a two to one chance of surviving a-typhoon on the open sea. If we are trapped inside this bay we might just as well commit suicide here and now.’

Ottershaw suddenly grabbed the drift of Hamilton’s carefully guided conversation and, taking his cue, he stood up. ‘In that case, Commander, perhaps we should not detain you any further. You will obviously wish to get to sea as soon as possible.’

Aritsu gestured in agreement. ‘Of course, Lieutenant Commander. I will have my motorboat take you and the Lieutenant back to your ships. As professional sailors, we are all aware that our greatest enemy is the sea itself. I am sure you will be equally anxious to get back to your own ships before the typhoon strikes. I suggest we tell our respective governments that the whole incident was due to a misunderstanding and that no apologies are called for.’ Ottershaw picked up his cap from the table and started towards the door, but Hamilton reached out his hand and stopped him.

‘Hold hard, Harry,’ he whispered, ‘we’ve got the bastard on the run. Let’s rub his bloody face in it while we’ve got the chance.’ He turned to Aritsu before the gunboat captain could object. ‘It’s too late to get out of the bay, now, Commander.’ The cutting edge of authority in Hamilton’s voice caused the Japanese officer to look up sharply. ‘I reckon the typhoon will hit us inside the next thirty minutes◦– and that won’t even give you time to flash up your second boiler. I suppose you could lay out extra anchors, but if you can’t hold your bows into the wind I don’t give much for your chances.’

Aritsu nodded with stoic resignation. ‘I have no doubt you are right,’ he agreed quietly. ‘I would like to have a few minutes alone while I consider what to do. In the circumstances, gentlemen, I must ask you to return to your ships without delay.’

Hamilton could feel the deck of the destroyer moving beneath his feet as the sea took on the long swell that normally preceded the approach of a typhoon. Ottershaw fidgeted impatiently at the delay. What the hell was the fool playing at? Aritsu undoubtedly had problems, but Firefly’s predicament was no less worrying. And even Hamilton would have more than his fair share of trouble when he tried to steer the submarine out of the storm-lashed bay. And yet, for some unaccountable reason, Rapier’s skipper seemed in no great hurry.

The three men made their way along the narrow steel corridor leading out to the well deck just abaft the bridge companionway. Suma’s officer-of-the-watch greeted the Commander with a copybook salute and acknowledged Aritsu’s clipped instructions before scurrying away to carry them out. Taking advantage of the hiatus, Hamilton walked to the rails and surveyed the worsening weather conditions.

The sea was already rising and small white wave crests scattered the bay as the wind grew in strength and intensity. The entrance of the bay, flanked by tree-clad cliffs, seemed sealed by an impenetrable black curtain as the front moved towards the coast.

‘What’s your maximum speed with one boiler?’ he asked Aritsu.

‘Fifteen knots if we’re lucky.’

Hamilton did not answer immediately. He stared at the ominously dark storm clouds gathering over the sea beyond the entrance to the bay. ‘I suppose that’s not much if you’ve got to fight your way out in the teeth of an eighty knots gale,’ he commented. He turned away from the rail and glanced up at Suma’s single funnel in time to see a billowing mass of black smoke spluttering from the stack, as the engineer switched on the sprays and flashed up the cold Number Two boiler. Then his eyes moved down to the heavy bridge hamper and he shook his head sadly.

‘The Commander’s right, Harry,’ he said loudly enough for Aritsu to hear. ‘The sooner we get off this floating bloody coffin the better. She’ll be over in a couple of seconds if she breaches and the wind catches her.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Ottershaw said fervently. ‘I don’t know why you’re hanging about.’ He made his way across to where Suma’s motorboat was waiting to take them off. Hamilton’s gloomy comments were beginning to send cold shivers down his spine. And what they were going to do to Aritsu was anyone’s guess!

But Hamilton continued to survey the situation with all the leisure of a man intent on solving an abstract technical problem from the quiet depth of a comfortable armchair. ‘Of course,’ he observed to Aritsu, ‘it’s unfortunate you chose to anchor with your stern facing the entrance. It means you’ll have to swing completely round to get your bows to the wind. We do things differently in the Royal Navy. We always make sure we’re pointing in the right direction to begin with.’ He nodded towards Firefly and Rapier and swallowing his pride, the Japanese was forced to concede his point. Hamilton’s cruelly objective analysis of the situation only served to increase his own unease over the impossibility of his position.

Even assuming he could perform the herculean task of turning the destroyer through a complete half circle of one hundred and eighty degrees without breaching, Aritsu was doubtful whether Suma’s engine would produce enough power to make headway against the ferocious strength of the hurricane-force winds.

‘Not much use laying out extra anchors either,’ Hamilton continued as if he could read Aritsu’s mind. ‘Bad holding ground◦– shifting sands according to our charts. You’ll be hurled back onto the reefs.’

‘Are you quite…’ Ottershaw began, but Hamilton cut him off brusquely in mid-sentence.

‘If you’re willing to take part in a spot of unorthodox seamanship, however. I reckon I might be able to help,’ he told Suma’s skipper with a sudden and totally unexpected smile.

‘I am quite prepared to consider anything you suggest, Lieutenant.’ Aritsu successfully hid the eagerness in his voice, but Hamilton knew the reaction was that of a drowning man clutching at a straw. And, in the circumstances, it was an apt analogy. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as if considering his plan.

‘I reckon we could use Rapier as a sort of sea anchor. If we pass a couple of six-inch hawsers around the conning tower and I submerge to say, thirty feet, I could drag your bows around in half the time it would take you using your engines and rudder. Then, having got you pointing into the wind, Rapier could act as an anchor. What’s your weight?’

‘535 tons standard◦– probably less at the moment as our bunkers are half-empty.’

‘Excellent! Rapier displaces just under a thousand tons in diving trim. If I poke my motors up to full power, I reckon I could just about hold you until the typhoon blows itself out.’

‘It’ll never work,’ Ottershaw interjected before Aritsu could answer. He had learned his seamanship at Dartmouth and he did not believe in unorthodox solutions. Hamilton’s ideas were all very well in theory, but practice would be another matter. It was just the sort of foolhardy scheme he would have expected from this crazy submariner.

‘Perhaps it won’t,’ Aritsu agreed. ‘But it’s worth trying. And I can see no alternative.’

Hamilton grinned, patted the Commander on the shoulder reassuringly, and swung himself over the rail. Ottershaw followed and moments later they were huddled in the sternsheets of the open motorboat, as it throttled to full power and eased away from the destroyer’s beam.

The epicenter of the storm was still some thirty minutes away, but the waters of the bay were already being whipped to a frenzy of flying spray by the rising wind. The two British officers were quickly soaked to the skin as the coxswain of the motorboat swung the bows towards the distant Rapier. Once out of the protective lee of the Suma, the mounting strength of the sea swept the cockleshell boat to starboard and it pitched violently as Shinikani fought the controls to maintain course.

‘You must be bloody mad, Nick,’ Ottershaw grumbled as a wave broke against the side of the boat and threw several gallons of unpleasantly cold water into his lap. ‘After all the things you’ve said about the Japanese, I’m surprised you’re prepared to help them. If I had my way they could bloody well drown.’

Hamilton ducked as another wave struck the motor boat squarely on the beam and kicked it to port. He wiped the water from his face and grinned. ‘You’ve got to admit one thing, Harry. I succeeded in getting you away from Aritsu. And saved you from making that apology.’

‘We’d have got away in any case,’ Ottershaw objected. He clung to the gunwales as the motor boat pitched and yawed. It was worse than riding on a giant roller-coaster, and, for once in his life, he felt the insidious pangs of seasickness. Exposed to the full blast of the gale now roaring through the entrance to the bay, the motorboat wallowed unsteadily and then dug its bows into the foam-flecked seas. The well-deck was several inches deep in water, and Heichiro started operating the manual bailer as the mechanical pumps failed to cope with the inrush. ‘If you’d have left when Aritsu first suggested it we might have had a more comfortable ride home. But no◦– you have to hang around until the weather conditions made things virtually impossible.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And why the hell did you say this was bad holding ground?’

Shinikani spun the wheel sharply to avoid being pooped by a towering wall of water coming up from astern, threw the motorboat into the trough that followed and then allowed it to climb the next wave. There was a loud crash and a shuddering jolt as the little boat fell into the trough beyond but, apparently undeterred by the punishment he was inflicting on the vessel, the Japanese coxswain kept the throttles wide open and continued steering towards the submarine.

‘I’m quite friendly with a Portuguese merchant in Macao,’ Hamilton explained as the boat corkscrewed from wave top to wave top. ‘He’s taught me a lot of things about the East that I didn’t know before. The worst thing that can happen to an Oriental is to lose “face”, and that’s precisely what I’m planning for our friend Aritsu. I had to hold on to the last moment in order to convince him that nothing could save his ship. And by then he was so shit-scared he never thought of checking the facts on his own charts. As it is, I reckon we can save him. And, if I do, the Japanese Navy is going to lose “face” to us in a big way-enough, probably, to make up for all those damned apologies we’ve been forced to make recently.’

By some unexplained miracle, Shinikani brought the motorboat alongside Rapier without mishap although, for one horrifying moment, Hamilton thought the wind would sweep them hard against the submarine’s sharp steel bows. But, with a deft touch of the helm, the Japanese coxswain swung the motorboat under the sheltering lee of the hull. The deck party quickly threw a line to Heichiro, who grabbed it and wound it tightly around the fo’c’sle mooring cleat. Hamilton and Ottershaw struggled up the sloping, wave-swept ballast tank like mountaineers scaling the Matterhorn in a blizzard. The smooth steel plating offered no footholds and their leather shoes slipped and slithered on the weed covered surface. Morgan and one of the deckhands came to the rescue and moments later both officers had been hauled up to the foredeck.

Having delivered his passengers, Shinikani ordered Heichiro to let go of the rope, opened the throttle and circled away from the submarine. The strength of the wind had rapidly increased in the past few minutes and spray spuming from the tumultuous waves cut visibility to little more than a hundred yards. If the motorboat was not equipped with a compass, Hamilton did not give much for its chances of completing its return trip. He turned away. There was no time to worry about Shinikani and his companion◦– they were expendable. He was after bigger fish!

‘You’ve no chance of getting back to Firefly,’ he shouted to Ottershaw. ‘Best if you stay aboard Rapier until the typhoon’s blown itself out.’

Hamilton was clearly in no mood to be trifled with and, despite his senior rank, the gunboat’s skipper acquiesced without argument.

‘Morgan! Cut the anchor cable! Jackson! Go for’ard and release the bow lines. Then all of you get below at the double!’ Hamilton cupped his hands as he shouted up to Mannon on the bridge. ‘Full ahead both engines, Number One! Steer towards the destroyer.’

Mannon’s acknowledgement was lost in the shriek of the wind, but Hamilton felt the deck plating vibrating under his feet as the diesels roared into life. Giving Ottershaw a helping hand to climb the rungs of the conning tower, he checked that Morgan and the deck party were safely below and then followed the lieutenant commander to the bridge.

‘There’s a small cove on the north-west side of the bay,’ he told him as he swung himself over the screen. ‘The wind has veered to the south-east and the promontory will act as a wind-shield. If Firefly can get to the cove and under the lee of the hills she should be able to ride out the storm fairly comfortably.’

‘Sounds OK to me, Nick. The old girl certainly hasn’t got enough power to head into the wind and reach open sea. Can you pass a signal to my Number One?’

Hamilton nodded and called the yeoman of signals over, dictated a brief message and, a few seconds later, the submarine’s Aldis lamp was flashing instructions to the gunboat.

As Rapier came out from under the lee of Firefly’s high superstructure the typhoon struck her with savage fury. The sea, lashed by the rising wind, had steepened into ugly, white-crested waves that rolled across the bay like serried ranks of soldier ants, destroying everything that lay in their path. A spume of spray hung like a mist over the angry waves and, peering ahead, Hamilton was relieved to find that Aritsu had switched on Suma’s riding lights.

A gigantic wave struck the submarine’s bows and burst with the roar of an exploding shell. Rapier’s stem lifted under the initial impact and then fell back with a sickening jolt. The following crest, meeting with no resistance, swept across the foredeck, crashed against the base of the conning tower and threw a solid wall of cold, black water over the men on the bridge.

Hamilton clung to the rails. The salt water stung his eyes and, half-blinded, he reached out his hands to make sure Ottershaw was still there. A third wave tossed the submarine to starboard with contemptuous ease and he suddenly found himself sliding helplessly across the flooded deck, until the steel bridge screen brought him to a bruising stop. Something cannoned against him with a force that knocked the breath from his body and, disentangling himself, he found Ottershaw sprawled like a drowned rat at his side. Hauling himself upwards, he leaned forward and helped the gunboat skipper to his feet.

Hamilton wiped the water from his eyes and searched into the darkness ahead for the destroyer. Rapier’s bows lifted to meet another breaker and, as the deck tilted at a crazy angle, a large black object slid towards the rear of the bridge with the ungainly grace of an elephant seal slithering over the rocks towards the sea.

‘It’s the Yeoman, Harry!’ he shouted to Ottershaw. ‘Grab hold of him. I’ll give you a hand as soon as I can.’

Rapier executed a weird war dance, as the combined ferocity of the wind and waves hurled her from side to side like a pea in a rattle. Even the thrusting power of her Admiralty Standard Range diesel engines seemed pitifully inadequate when matched against the terrifying strength of the typhoon. She wallowed drunkenly, pushed her bows upwards with sluggish reluctance and then wearily buried her nose beneath the surface like an exhausted and drowning swimmer. Hamilton peered through the murk and managed to pick out the green navigation light from Suma’s bridge. Grasping the rail with one hand, he flipped open the watertight cover of the control room voice pipe.

‘Steer one point to port!’

‘One point to port, sir,’ Mannon acknowledged. ‘How are we doing?’

‘Fine,’ Hamilton told him laconically, as another cascade of freezing water swept over the bridge. ‘How are things below?’

‘Mustn’t grumble, sir. At least we’re not getting wet.’

Hamilton knew that the first officer was lying. Submarines were not designed to ride on the surface in severe storms and he knew only too well what conditions would be like below deck. The interior of a submarine was no place for a queasy stomach, with the hatches secured and the cramped atmosphere reeking of diesel oil, human sweat and stale vegetables. And, in bad weather, the sour smell of vomit added a new dimension of horror to the already revolting stench.

Hamilton’s hands were bleeding, his face was raw from salt burns and he was drenched to the skin. But the hardships that he was enduring on the exposed bridge was nothing when compared to the misery of the men cooped up in the Rapier’s iron hull. They were the real heroes of the submarine service.

‘Can you lend a hand, Nick?’ Ottershaw yelled from the other end of the bridge.

Fighting against the motion of the boat, Hamilton half slid, half-stumbled, across the flooded deck and knelt down, beside the gunboat skipper. Jack Drury, Rapier’s signal’s yeoman, was barely conscious and blood was trickling from an ugly gash in his forehead, where he had struck the compass binnacle.

‘We’ll have to get him below,’ Ottershaw shouted above the shriek of the wind. ‘His leg’s broken.’

Hamilton felt Drury jerk with pain as he reached forward to confirm Ottershaw’s diagnosis. He glanced up and shook his head.

‘He’ll have to stay here, Harry,’ he said flatly. ‘I’m not opening the top hatch until I have to. An agile man could be through the hatchway in ten seconds and we could probably get it open and shut again before the next sea broke over the bridge. But Drury’s a dead weight. And he’s a big man into the bargain. It would take all of thirty seconds, perhaps even a minute, to get him inside. And I can’t afford to take the risk of flooding the Control Room. Try to make the poor sod comfortable and then lash him on to the periscope standard. We don’t want him washed overboard.’

Leaving Ottershaw to cope with the injured yeoman, Hamilton groped his way towards the for’ard section of the bridge to check the bearing of the destroyer. Suma was now barely two hundred yards away and he could see her anchor chains straining against the mounting pressures of the wind and sea. He moved to the voice pipe.

‘Number One◦– send Morgan up with a deck party. And tell them to rig life lines. It’s sheer bloody murder up here and I don’t want any more accidents.’ He paused as Rapier plunged into a trough and rose clear. ‘We’ll be passing inside the lee of the destroyer in exactly one minute. When I give the shout, I want Morgan’s party topside at the double. Then stand by to receive Drury◦– his leg’s busted and he’s unconscious.’

‘Understood, sir. Deck party closed up. Ready when you are.’

‘Stand by to shut down engines. Stand by motors.’

Hamilton had waited as long as he dared before making the critical transfer of power and he knew that the decision could not be deferred any longer. The primitive gear-box of a submarine did not permit it to go astern on its diesel engines and Rapier would have to rely on her electric motors for the delicate maneuvering that lay ahead. It meant a heavy drain on the batteries, but in the circumstances, there was no alternative. The submarine steadied suddenly as she came under Suma’s lee.

‘Now.’

Hamilton saw the upper hatch swing open and, a moment later, Morgan’s head thrust into view. Grasping the lipped rim of the hatchway, the gunner’s mate heaved himself upwards, swung his legs onto the deck, and immediately turned to help the next man through the narrow opening. Within thirty seconds, all four members of the deck party were on the bridge and two of them hurried aft to help Ottershaw lift the unconscious yeoman into the hatchway.

‘Stop engines! Clutches out◦– switches on! Half astern both motors. Stop! Slow ahead together… stop!’

Rapier hung inside the protective lee of Suma’s starboard beam just long enough for Drury to be carried below.

‘Hatch shut, sir!’ Morgan shouted.

‘Full astern both motors… steady as she goes. Full starboard rudders.’ Hamilton reached for the loud hailer and watched the bows swing in a semi-circle to bring the submarine’s stern in line with Suma’s bows. Ottershaw, now freed from the burden of looking after the signaler, came for’ard to join him.

‘I must be imagining things, Nick. But I’d swear the wind is moderating◦– and veering to the south.’

‘You’re quite right, Harry. That’s why I was in such a bloody hurry to get across the bay. Let’s hope Aritsu is too damned scared to notice.’ He put the microphone of the loud hailer to his mouth and pushed down the thumb switch, ‘Ahoy, Suma I Do you hear me! Can you get a line to my stern?’

A fo’c’sle party, wearing black oilskins that flopped like gigantic bats in the wind, appeared in the destroyer’s bows and Hamilton stared astern through the driving rain and flying spray as he passed steering instructions to the helmsman in the control room below. Aritsu was standing on the starboard wing of the destroyer’s bridge with an old fashioned megaphone in his hand. He seemed too intent on the submarine’s careful approach to notice the almost imperceptible improvement in the weather conditions.

A line snaked down from Suma’s bows, struck the fantail of the submarine with a loud clatter, and slid back into the sea before Morgan’s men could grab it and haul it aboard.

‘Try again, Suma.’

This time, the line landed close to the deck party huddled in the stern of the submarine and two of the men seized it and began dragging it back towards the conning tower. Miller and Davidson came to their assistance, while Morgan encouraged them to haul away like a regatta tug-of-war team. The after deck was almost continuously under water as the sea pounded against the ballast tanks and threw white swirling foam over the hull. A heavy six-inch twin towing wire was attached to the line and Morgan’s men heaved and swore as they drew it around the front of the conning tower and then began dragging it back towards the small auxiliary capstan above the engine room hatch.

A large wave smashed against the windward beam of the submarine and Rapier rolled to starboard. Luckily, the deck party managed to hang on to their life lines as they vanished beneath a roaring wall of ice-cold water. And, as Rapier swung back again, they emerged from behind the conning tower and quickly shackled the hawser in position.

‘All secure, sir!’

Hamilton pushed the microphone to his mouth. ‘Ahoy, Sumal Stand by to take the strain. Make five knots when I tell you◦– and let go your anchors!’

‘Aritsu won’t be very popular if he loses his anchors,’ Ottershaw grinned at Hamilton.

‘Probably not– but I daresay he’d rather lose his anchors than his ship.’

Holding the microphone against his chest to shield it from the rain, Hamilton moved to the voice pipe. ‘Slow ahead together, Number One.’

‘Slow ahead aye aye, sir.’

He watched the towing wire lift slowly out of the water as Rapier began to creep forward.

‘Suma.’

‘Standing by, Rapier.’

‘Make five knots. Let go anchors. Port your helm!’ Hamilton waited for the acknowledgements from the destroyer’s bridge and then bent over the voice pipe. ‘Steer six degrees to port, Number One. Increase to half-speed.’

Ottershaw’s mouth went dry as he watched the hawser strain taut. This was the critical moment of the entire exercise. Either the towline would part under the terrible stress to which it was being subjected◦– or Hamilton’s delicate equalization of speed would ease the strain sufficiently to balance the two opposing forces. Once the line was taut and both ships were moving at identical speeds the worst of the danger would have passed.

‘I think we’re going to make it, Nick.’

Hamilton said nothing. Leaning his arms on the after bridge screen he watched the towing hawser tighten with the concentration of a gambler playing his last chip.

‘Well done, Rapier.’

Aritsu’s voice sounded strangely hollow through the megaphone and it was only just audible above the shriek of the winds. But Hamilton heard it all right and he waved his arm in acknowledgement. The darkness and the driving rain hid the grin on his face.

The violent rolling action of the submarine suddenly eased, as Rapier’s bows came into wind. He bent over the voice pipe again. ‘Midship’s helm, Number One.’ He pressed the switch of the loudhailer. ‘Ahoy, Sumal Helm amidships!’

A faint glimmer of light on the south-eastern horizon drew Ottershaw’s attention and he pointed it out to Rapier’s skipper. Hamilton glanced at it and nodded disinterestedly.

‘We only just had time for the big rescue act,’ he commented enigmatically.

‘Odd sort of typhoon,’ Ottershaw said doubtfully. ‘If anyone asked me, I’d say the epicenter passed over a good ten minutes ago.’

‘What typhoon?’ Hamilton enquired innocently.

‘The one you warned Aritsu about.’

Hamilton turned away from the bridge screen, stared towards the growing patch of blue sky over the bows, and smiled.

‘I must have made a mistake, Harry,’ he admitted cheerfully. ‘Just a rather nasty tropical squall I’d reckon.’

‘But you told Aritsu there’d been a weather warning of a typhoon,’ Ottershaw persisted. ‘He would never have agreed to a tow if he’d known it was only a squall.’

‘Don’t blame me,’ Hamilton said with a shrug. ‘It was your damned sub, Peters, who told me it was a typhoon.’ He contrived to look innocent. ‘I’ve only just arrived in Hong Kong◦– how on earth was I supposed to know?’

Ottershaw was not so easily fooled. Although the sea was subsiding, the waves were still breaking angrily, and he could feel Suma pitching unpleasantly astern of the submarine.

‘You bloody well knew!’ he said accusingly.

‘I didn’t when young Peters first told me. But I was aware that the typhoon season was over. So when I went back to Rapier I put a radio call through to the FMO in Hong Kong to double check.’ Hamilton paused and smiled at the memory. ‘Hawkins confirmed the approach of a rather deep low, but he was a trifle sarcastic about typhoons in November. Nevertheless, it struck me as a good idea. All I had to do was to sell it to Aritsu. After that it was easy.’

‘So it was all a bloody great bluff,’ Ottershaw said bluntly.

‘I suppose you could say it was,’ Hamilton agreed equably. ‘But I had to persuade Aritsu to let me take Suma in tow. It was the only thing I could do to make him lose face◦– and the fact that he accepted the assistance of a British warship when his own vessel was in no real danger merely makes it all the worse. I don’t think Tokyo is going to be very pleased with him after this little affair.’ Ottershaw digested the explanation in silence for a few moments. Then he grinned.

‘Next time we meet in the club, Nick, just promise me one thing. Promise me you’ll never invite me to join you in a poker game.’