HMS Ulysses

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN SUNDAY MORNING

THE Stirling died at dawn. She died while still under way, still plungjng through the heavy seas, her mangled, twisted bridge and superstructure glowing red, glowing white-hot as the wind and sundered oil tanks lashed the flames into an incandescent holocaust. A strange and terrible sight, but not unique: thus the Bismarck had looked, whitely incandescent, just before the Shropshire's torpedoes had sent her to the bottom.

The Stirling would have died anyway-but the Stukas made siccar. The Northern Lights had long since gone: now, too, the clear skies were going, and dark cloud was banking heavily to the north. Men hoped and prayed that the cloud would spread over FR77, and cover it with blanketing snow. But the Stukas got there first.

The Stukas, the dreaded gull-winged Junkers 87 dive-bombers, came from the south, flew high over the convoy, turned, flew south again. Level with, and due west of the Ulysses, rear ship in the convoy, they started to turn once more: then, abruptly, in the classic Stuka attack pattern, they peeled off in sequence, port wings dipping sharply as they half-rolled, turned and fell out of the sky, plummetting arrow-true for their targets.

Any plane that hurtles down in undeviating dive on waiting gun emplacements has never a chance. Thus spoke the pundits, the instructors in the gunnery school of Whale Island, and proceeded to prove to their own satisfaction the evident truth of their statement, using A.A. guns and duplicating the situation which would arise insofar as it lay within their power. Unfortunately, they couldn't duplicate the Stuka.

"Unfortunately," because in actual battle, the Stuka was' the only factor in the situation that really mattered. One had only to crouch behind a gun, to listen to the ear-piercing, screaming whistle of the Stuka in its near-vertical dive, to flinch from its hail of bullets as it loomed larger and larger in the sights, to know that nothing could now arrest the flight of that underslung bomb, to appreciate the truth of that. Hundreds of men alive today-the lucky ones who endured and survived a Stuka attack-will readily confirm that the war produced nothing quite so nerve-rending, quite so demoralising as the sight and sound of those Junkers with the strange dihedral of the wings in the last seconds before they pulled out of their dive.

But one time in a hundred, maybe one time in a thousand, when the human factor of the man behind the gun ceased to operate, the pundits could be right. This was the thousandth time, for fear was a phantom that had vanished in the night: ranged against the dive-bombers were only one multiple pom-pom and half a dozen Oerlikons-the for'ard turrets could not be brought to bear-but these were enough, and more, in the hands of men inhumanly calm, ice-cool as the Polar wind itself, and filled with an almost dreadful singleness of purpose. Three Stukas in almost as many seconds were clawed out of the sky, two to crash harmlessly in the sea, a third to bury itself with tremendous impact in the already shattered day cabin of the Admiral.

The chances against the petrol tanks not erupting in searing flame or of the bomb not exploding were so remote as not to exist: but neither happened. It hardly seemed to call for comment-in extremity, courage becomes routine-when the bearded Doyle abandoned his pom-pom, scrambled up to the fo'c'sle deck, and flung himself on top of the armed bomb rolling heavily in scuppers awash with 100 per cent octane petrol. One tiny spark from Doyle's boot or from the twisted, broken steel of the Stuka rubbing and grinding against the superstructure would have been trigger enough: the contact fuse in the bomb was still undamaged, and as it slipped and skidded over the ice-bound deck, with "Doyle hanging desperately on, it seemed animistically determined to smash its delicate percussion nose against a bulkhead or stanchion.

If Doyle thought of these things, he did not care. Coolly, almost carelessly, he kicked off the only retaining clip left on a broken section of the guard-rail, slid the bomb, fins first, over the edge, tipped the nose sharply to clear the detonator. The bomb fell harmlessly into the sea.

It fell into the sea just as the first bomb sliced contemptuously through the useless one-inch deck armour of the Stirling and crashed into the engine-room. Three, four, five, six other bombs buried themselves in the dying heart of the cruiser, the lightened Stukas lifting away sharply to port and starboard. From the bridge of the Ulysses, there seemed to be a weird, unearthly absence of noise as the bombs went home. They just vanished into the smoke and flame, engulfed by the inferno.

No one blow finished the Stirling, but a mounting accumulation of blows. She had taken too much and she could take no more. She was like a reeling boxer, a boxer overmatched against an unskilled but murderous opponent, sinking under an avalanche of blows.

Stony-faced, bitter beyond words at his powerlessness, Turner watched her die. Funny, he thought tiredly, she's like all the rest. Cruisers, he mused in a queerly detached abstraction, must be the toughest ships in the world. He'd seen many go, but none easily, cleanly, spectacularly. No sudden knock-out, no coup de grace for them-always, always, they had to be battered to death... Like the Stirling. Turner's grip on the shattered windscreen tightened till his forearms ached. To him, to all good sailors, a well-loved ship was a well-loved friend: for fifteen months, now, the old and valiant Stirling had been their faithful shadow, had shared the burden of the Ulysses in the worst convoys of the war: she was the last of the old guard, for only the Ulysses had been longer on the blackout run. It was not good to watch a friend die: Turner looked away, stared down at the ice-covered duckboards between his feet, his head sunk between hunched shoulders.

He could close his eyes, but he could not close his ears. He winced, hearing the monstrous, roaring hiss of boiling water and steam as the white-hot superstructure of the Stirling plunged deeply into the ice-chilled Artie. For fifteen, twenty seconds that dreadful, agonised sibilation continued, then stopped in an dnstant, the sound sheared off as by a guillotine. When Turner looked up, slowly, there was only the rolling, empty sea ahead, the big oil-slicked bubbles rising to the top, bubbles rising only to be punctured as they broke the surface by the fine rain falling back into the sea from the great clouds of steam already condensing in that bitter cold.

The Stirling was gone, and the battered remnants of FR77 pitched and plunged steadily onwards to the north. There were seven ships left now-the four merchantmen, including the Commodore's ship, the tanker, the Sirrus and the Ulysses. None of them was whole: all were damaged, heavily damaged, but none so desperately hurt as the Ulysses.

Seven ships, only seven: thirty-six had set out for Russia.

At 0800 Turner signalled the Sirrus: "W.T. gone. Signal C.-in-C. course, speed, position. Confirm 0930 as rendezvous. Code."

The reply came exactly an hour later. "Delayed heavy seas. Rendezvous approx 1030. Impossible fly off air cover. Keep coming. C.-in-C."

"Keep coming!" Turner repeated savagely. "Would you listen to him! 'Keep coming,' he says! What the hell does he expect us to do-scuttle ourselves?" He shook his head in angry despair. "I hate to repeat myself," he said bitterly. "But I must. Too bloody late as usual!"[5]

Heavy grey clouds, formless and menacing, blotted out the sky from horizon to horizon. They were snow clouds, and, please God, the snow would soon fall: that could save them now, that and that alone.

But the snow did not come-not then. Once more, there came instead the Stukas, the roar of their engines rising and falling as they methodically quartered the empty sea in search of the convoy-Charlie had left at dawn. But it was only a matter of time before the dive-bomber squadron found ffie tiny convoy; ten minutes from the time of the first warning of their approach, the leading Junkers 87 tipped over its wing and dropped out of the sky.

Ten minutes, but time for a council and plan of desperation. When the Stukas came, they found the convoy stretched out in line abreast, the tanker Varella in the middle, two merchantmen in close line ahead on either side of it, the Sirrus and the Ulysses guarding the flanks. A suicidal formation in submarine waters-a torpedo from port or starboard could hardly miss them all. But weather conditions were heavily against submarines, and the formation offered at least a fighting chance against the Stukas. If they approached from astern-their favourite attack technique-they would run into the simultaneous massed fire of seven ships ; if they approached from the sides, they must first attack the escorts, for no Stuka would present its unprotected underbelly to the guns of a warship... They elected to attack from either side, five from the east, four from the west. This time, Turner noted, they were carrying long-range fuel tanks.

Turner had no time to see how the Sirrus was faring. Indeed, he could hardly see how his own ship was faring, for thick acrid smoke was 'blowing back across the bridge from the barrels of 'A' and 'B' turrets. In the gaps of sound between the crash of the 5.25s, he could hear the quick-fire of Doyle's midship pom-pom, the vicious thudding of the Oeklikons.

Suddenly, startling in its breath-taking unexpectedness, two great beams of dazzling white stabbed out through the mirk and gloom. Turner stared, then bared his teeth in fierce delight. The 44-inch searchlights I Of course! The great Scharnhorst and not the Tirpitz. It never caught the great ship. She was destroyed at her anchorage in Alta Fjord by Lancaster bombers of the Royal Air Force.

Searchlights, still on the official secret list, capable of lighting up an enemy six miles away! What a fool he had been to forget them, Vallery had used them often, in daylight and in dark, against attacking aircraft. No man could look into those terrible eyes, those flaming arcs across the electrodes and not be blinded.

Blinking against the eye-watering smoke, Turner peered aft to see who was manning the control position. But he knew who it was before he saw him. It could only be Ralston, searchlight control, Turner remembered, was his day action station: besides, he could think of no one other than the big, blond torpedoman with the gumption, the quick intelligence to burn the lamps on his own initiative.

Jammed in the corner of the bridge by the gate, Turner watched him. He forgot his ship, forgot even the bombers, he personally could do nothing about them anyway, as he stared in fascination at the man behind the controls.

His eyes were glued to the sights, his face expressionless, absolutely; but for the gradual stiffening of back and neck as the sight dipped in docile response to the delicate caress of his fingers on the wheel, he might have been carved from marble: the immobility of the face, the utter concentration was almost frightening.

There was not a flicker of feeling or emotion: never a flicker as the first Stuka weaved and twisted in maddened torment, seeking to escape that eye-staring flame, not even a flicker as it swerved violently in its dive, pulled out too late and crashed into the sea a hundred yards short of the Ulysses.

What was the boy thinking of? Turner wondered. His mother, his sisters, entombed under the ruins of a Croydon bungalow: of his brother, innocent victim of that mutiny, how impossible that mutiny seemed now!-in Scapa Flow: of his father, dead by his son's own hand? Turner did not know, could not even begin to guess: clairvoyantiy, almost, he knew that it was too late, that no one would ever know now.

The face was inhumanly still. There wasn't a shadow of feeling as the second Stuka overshot the Ulysses, dropped its bomb into the open sea: not a shadow as a third blew up in mid-air: not a trace of emotion when the guns of the next Stuka smashed one of the lights... not even when the cannon shells of the last smashed the searchlight control, tore half his chest away. He died instantaneously, stood there a moment as if unwilling to abandon his post, then slumped back quietly on to the deck. Turner bent over the dead boy, looked at the face, the eyes upturned to the first feathery flakes of falling snow. The eyes, the face, were still the same, mask-like, expressionless. Turner shivered and looked away.

One bomb, and one only, had struck the Ulysses. It had struck the fo'c'sle deck just for'ard of 'A' turret. There had been no casualties, but some freak of vibration and shock had fractured the turret's hydaulic lines. Temporarily, at least, 'B' was the only effective remaining turret in the ship.

The Sirrus hadn't been quite so lucky. She had destroyed one Stuka-the merchantmen had claimed another-and had been hit twice, both bombs exploding in the after mess-deck. The Sirrus, overloaded with survivors, was carrying double her normal complement of men, and usually that mess-deck would have been crowded: during action stations it was empty. Not a man had lost his life-not a man was to lose his life on the destroyer Sirrus: she was never damaged again on the Russian convoys.

Hope was rising, rising fast. Less than an hour to go, now, and the battle squadron would be there. It was dark, dark with the gloom of an Arctic storm, and heavy snow was falling, hissing gently into the dark and rolling sea. No plane could find them in this-and they were almost beyond the reach of shore-based aircraft, except, of course, for the Condors. And it was almost impossible weather for submarines.

"It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles." Carrington quoted softly.

"What?" Turner looked up, baffled. "What did you say. Number One?"

"Tennyson." Carrington was apologetic, "The Captain was always quoting him... Maybe we'll make it yet."

"Maybe, maybe." Turner was non-committal. "Preston!"

"Yes, sir, I see it." Preston was staring to the north where the signal lamp of the Sirrus was flickering rapidly.

"A ship, sir!" he reported excitedly. "Sirrus says naval vessel approaching from the north!"

"From the north! Thank God! Thank God!" Turner shouted exultantly. "From the north! It must be them! They're ahead of time.... I take it all back. Can you see anything, Number One?"

"Not a thing, sir. Too thick-but it's clearing a bit, I think...

There's the Sirrus again."

"What does she say, Preston?" Turner asked anxiously.

"Contact. Sub. contact. Green 30. Closing."

"Contact! At this late hour!" Turner groaned, then smashed his fist down on the binnacle. He swore fiercely.

"By God, she's not going to stop us now! Preston, signal the Sirrus to stay..."

He broke off, looked incredulously to the north. Up there in the snow and gloom, stilettos of white flame had lanced out briefly, vanished again. Carrington by his side now, he stared unwinkingly north, saw shells splashing whitely in the water under the bows of the Commodore's ship, the Cape Hatteras: then he saw the flashes again, stronger, brighter this time, flashes that lit up for a fleeting second the bows and superstructure of the ship that was firing.

He turned slowly, to find that Carrington, too, had turned, was gazing at him with set face and bitter eyes. Turner, grey and haggard with exhaustion and the sour foretaste of ultimate defeat, looked in turn at his First Lieutenant in a long moment of silence.

"The answer to many questions," he said softly. "That's why they've been softening up the Stirling and ourselves for the past couple of days. The fox is in among the chickens. It's our old pal the Hipper cruiser come to pay us a social call."

"It is."

"So near and yet..." Turner shrugged. "We deserved better than this..." He grinned crookedly. "How would you like to die a hero's death?"

"The very idea appals me!" boomed a voice behind him. Brooks had just arrived on the bridge.

"Me, too," Turner admitted. He smiled: he was almost happy again. "Have we any option, gentlemen?"

"Alas, no," Brooks said sadly.

"Full ahead both!" Carrington called down the speaking-tube: it was by way of his answer.

"No, no," Turner chided gently. "Full power, Number One. Tell them we're in a hurry: remind them of the boasts they used to make about the Abdiel and the Manxman... Preston! General emergency signal: 'Scatter: proceed independently to Russian ports.'"

The upper deck was thick with freshly fallen snow, and the snow was still falling. The wind was rising again and, after the warmth of the canteen where he had been operating, it struck at Johnny Nicholls's lungs with sudden, searing pain: the temperature, he guessed, must be about zero. He buried his face in his duffel coat, climbed laboriously, haltingly up the ladders to the bridge. He was tired, deadly weary, and he winced in agony every time his foot touched the deck: his splinted left leg was shattered just above the ankle-shrapnel from the bomb in the after mess-deck.

Peter Orr, commander of the Sirrus, was waiting for him at the gate of the tiny bridge.

"I thought you might like to see this, Doc." The voice was strangely high-pitched for so big a man. "Rather I thought you would want to see this," he corrected himself. "Look at her go!" he breathed. "Just look at her go!"

Nicholls looked out over the port side. Half a mile away on the beam, the Cape Hatteras was blazing furiously, slowing to a stop. Some miles to the north, through the falling snow, he could barely distinguish the vague shape of the German cruiser, a shape pinpointed by the flaming guns still mercilessly pumping shells into the sinking ship. Every shot went home: the accuracy of their gunnery was fantastic.

Half a mile astern on the port quarter, the Ulysses was coming up. She was sheeted in foam and spray, the bows leaping almost clear of the water, then crashing down with a pistol-shot impact easily heard, even against the wind, on the bridge of the Sirrus, as the great engines thrust her through the water, faster, faster, with the passing of every second.

Nicholls gazed, fascinated. This was the first time he'd seen the Ulysses since he'd left her and he was appalled. The entire upperworks, fore and aft, were a twisted, unbelievable shambles of broken steel: both masts were gone, the smokestacks broken and bent, the Director Tower shattered and grotesquely askew: smoke was still pluming up from the great holes in fo'c'sle and poop, the after turrets, wrenched from their mountings, pitched crazily on the deck. The skeleton of the Condor still lay athwart 'Y' turret, a Stuka was buried to the wings in the fo'c'sle deck, and she was, he knew, split right down to the water level abreast the torpedo tubes. The Ulysses was something out of a nightmare.

Steadying himself against the violent pitching of the destroyer, Nicholls stared and stared, numbed with horror and disbelief. Orr looked at him, looked away as a messenger came to the bridge.

"Rendezvous 1015," he read. "1015! Good lord, 25 minutes' time! Do you hear that, Doc? 25 minutes' time!"

"Yes, sir," Nicholls said absently: he hadn't heard him.

Orr looked at him, touched his arm, pointed to the Ulysses.

"Bloody well incredible, isn't it?" he murmured.

"I wish to God I was aboard her," Nicholls muttered miserably. "Why did they send me------? Look! What's that?"

A huge flag, a flag twenty feet in length, was streaming out below the yardarm of the Ulysses, stretched taut in the wind of its passing.

Nicholls had never seen anything remotely like it: the flag was enormous, red and blue and whiter than the driving snow.

"The battle ensign," Orr murmured. "Bill Turner's broken out the battle ensign." He shook his head in wonder. "To take time off to do that now-well, Doc., only Turner would do that. You know him well?"

Nicholls nodded silently.

"Me, too," Orr said simply. "We are both lucky men."

The Sirus was still doing fifteen knots, still headed for the enemy, when the Ulysses passed them by a cable-length away as if they were stopped in the water.

Long afterwards, Nicholls could never describe it all accurately. He had a hazy memory of the Ulysses no longer plunging and lifting, but battering through waves and troughs on a steady even keel, the deck angling back sharply from a rearing forefoot to the counter buried deep in the water, fifteen feet below the great boiling tortured sea of white that arched up in seething magnificence above the shattered poop-deck.

He could recall, too, that 'B' turret was firing continuously, shell after shell screaming away through the blinding snow, to burst in brilliant splendour over and on the German cruiser: for 'B' turret had only starshells left. He carried, too, a vague mental picture of Turner waving ironically from the bridge, of the great ensign streaming stiffly astern, already torn and tattered at the edges. But what he could never forget, what he would hear in his heart and mind as long as he lived, was the tremendous, frightening roar of the great boiler-room intake fans as they sucked in mighty draughts of air for the starving engines.

For the Ulysses was driving through the heavy seas under maximum power, at a speed that should have broken her shuddering back, should have burnt out the great engines. There was no doubt as to Turner's intentions: he was going to ram the enemy, to destroy him and take him with him, at a speed of just on or over forty incredible knots.

Nicholls gazed and gazed and did not know what to think: he felt sick at heart, for that ship was part of him now, his good friends, especially the Kapok Kid-for he did not know that the Kid was already dead-they, too, were part of him, and it is always terrible to see the end of a legend, to see it die, to see it going into the gulfs. But he felt, too, a strange exultation; she was dying but what a way to die! And if ships had hearts, had souls, as the old sailing men declared, surely the Ulysses would want it this way too.

She was still doing forty knots when, as if by magic, a great gaping hole appeared in her bows just above the water-line. Shell-fire, possibly, but unlikely at that angle. It must have been a torpedo from the U-boat, not yet located: a sudden dip of the bows could have coincided with the up-thrust of a heavy sea forcing a torpedo to the surface. Such things had happened before: rarely, but they happened... The Ulysses brushed aside the torpedo, ignored the grievous wound, ignored the heavy shells crashing into her and kept on going.

She was still doing forty knots, driving in under the guns of the enemy, guns at maximum depression, when "A" magazine blew up, blasted off the entire bows in one shattering detonation. For a second, the lightened fo'c'sle reared high into the air: then it plunged down, deep down, into the shoulder of a rolling sea. She plunged down and kept on going down, driving down to the black floor of the Arctic, driven down by the madly spinning screws, the still thundering engines her own executioner.