Convoy (36 page)

The boatswain and a dozen seamen were ready to lower the boat once the team had scrambled on board. Usually the boat was lowered with only two or three men in it, and it was held alongside while the rest scrambled down a rope ladder, but that took time and Yorke had decided to lower the boat with all his men in it. There was a considerable risk that she would be so heavy that the boatswain’s men would not be able to hold her, the ropes of the falls racing through their hands. In that case the lifeboat would drop with a crash, probably upending because one fall would probably run faster than the other, tipping all the men out and then landing on top of them. The alternative was to raise the Swede’s suspicions – quite apart from leaving the
Marynal
stopped for many minutes, during which time the U-boat might spot her and line up for a shot at a sitting bird.

‘Ready, bosun?’

‘When you are, sir.’

‘Right men into the boat with you. Mr Mills, I hope you’re all ready to start the engine!’

Yorke counted the men as they scrambled out into the boat and followed the last one, sitting at the aftermost thwart, ready to take the tiller.

He glanced down over the side. He was just noting
Marynal
still had some way on when he felt rather than heard a sudden spurt of vibration. Hobson was giving the propeller a final touch astern to stop the ship. Then he heard the boatswain calling that the ship was stopped and a moment later heard the shrill note of a whistle sounding from the bridge: a police whistle, the type the Merchant Navy were given to lash to their lifejackets. It was Hobson’s signal that the way was off the ship.

‘Lower away, bosun! Handsomely now! And don’t let her run!’

And slowly the boat deck seemed to rise and the lifeboat was lowered. Now the main deck was passing, and a couple of seamen standing there waved. They were holding heavy motor tyres, and Yorke realized Hobson had remembered that if the ship was rolling violently the lifeboat might slam into the side and be damaged. The motor tyres would help absorb the shock. The Yorkshireman was a natural seaman.

Now the main deck was disappearing into the darkness above and a shower of spray whipped across the boat. The bow seemed to dip for a moment, then the stern lifted, and a moment later they were afloat, the huge double blocks of the falls tilting over as the boat began its wild yo-yo movement.

‘Cast off aft and hold on for’ard,’ Yorke shouted. ‘Now Mills, get that damn thing started! Oars! Fend off!’ Fortunately the
Marynal
in fact still had a knot of way so the lifeboat was being dragged through the water by the remaining forward fall. This in turn meant that the boat had steerage way, so instinctively Yorke pulled the tiller towards him and the boat began to sheer away from the ship. Yorke bellowed: ‘Cast off forward!’ and saw the big double block with the hook beneath disappear into the darkness.

Simultaneously the lifeboat began leaping up and down like a runaway horse and the great bulk of the
Marynal
, a darker patch in the night, disappeared as the boat dropped into troughs.

Yorke was just going to give the order for the men to start rowing when he felt rather than heard the ‘Whhuupp… whup…whup’ of the
Marynal
’s great propeller starting to revolve. Then a clatter and a roar from near his feet showed that Mills had managed to get the little engine started. The triumphant engineer shouted above the noise: ‘Say when I should put her in gear!’

A total of fourteen men, a standard Board of Trade lifeboat, and a few revolvers and automatics, a couple of dozen hand grenades, a lifeboat radio transmitter…the Admiralty was going to war against the insider…

It all seemed a long way from the Citadel, Yorke thought as he crouched over the lifeboat compass, lit by a tiny paraffin lamp. Now they had to head for a precise position astern of the convoy from where they could follow along in its wake so that even if they lost sight of it – as they almost certainly would – they could be sure of sighting the Swede later. He shivered and remembered the loneliness after the
Aztec
sank, a feeling that was worse in daylight than darkness.

At ten thirty-five next morning Cadet Reynolds suddenly stood up, holding on to the shoulder of the seaman seated in front of him to keep his balance, and said quite casually: ‘There she is, heading away from us!’

The Swedish ship was far enough away that she could only be seen as the lifeboat rose on the crest of a wave. Yorke envied the matter-of-fact way the cadet had reported: for himself he was scared because, in the fifteen minutes around dawn when the black of night turned into the grey wash of the start of a new day, he realized he had forgotten something that could get them all killed: if the lifeboat accidentally surprised the Swede actually with the U-boat, either vessel would simply ram the lifeboat, destroying all evidence that could incriminate them or interrupt the insider attacks on the convoy.

It was vital, therefore, that Johnny Gower and the convoy knew what was happening, and the best way he could think of for doing that was for the lifeboat to start calling up the
Penta
by name, using the lifeboat transmitter on the distress frequency. This would mean that the Swedes would not then dare do anything but pick them up. The Swedes would know that other ships in the convoy listening on the call and distress frequency would hear the transmission, and the fact that the survivors broke the rules by mentioning the ship’s name…as far as Yorke was concerned, it was a justifiable form of blackmail, and the thing that desperate men might do if they were a bit panicky.

He looked round the boat. His men were on the verge of looking like pirates: those with beards looked unkempt; those normally clean-shaven had bristly faces. All were wearing woollen caps or balaclava helmets and they seemed shapeless in duffel coats which were becoming sodden from the almost constant spray sweeping the boat as it butted into the waves, pushed on by the little engine. Mills occasionally lifted the wooden casing and looked inside, then turned aft and winked at Yorke as he lowered it again and secured the clips. At this distance it was unlikely the Swede had yet spotted the lifeboat.

‘Finish up the cocoa in those vacuum flasks,’ Yorke said, ‘then puncture them and toss ’em over the side so that they sink. Take what concentrated chocolate and Horlicks tablets any of you want, then screw up the food locker.’ The men were shivering with cold; their hands had the dead white skin of a woman who had spent the morning scrubbing the laundry.

He watched the compass carefully as he steered the lifeboat and after three or four minutes was fairly certain that the Swede was in fact lying stopped. She was still heading on the convoy course, but this was probably because it reduced the rolling.

Soon the ship was in sight most of the time, not just on the top of the crests. Now was the time to announce the presence of the
Somers Island
’s lifeboat.

‘Watkins, are you ready with that transmitter?’

‘Aye, aye, sir: just want a couple o’ chaps to hold my duffel over the set to keep the spray off.’

‘Very well. When I give the word, just transmit this: “SOS SOS SOS to
Penta
from lifeboat 25 degrees on your starboard quarter distance three miles.” Keep on repeating it even if she answers until I tell you to stop.’

Watkins repeated the message twice, to make sure he had it correct, and began to hoist the kite aerial. Then Yorke turned to Jenkins. ‘Are you ready, Guy Fawkes?’

The seaman grinned and tapped the bundle of flares and rockets he was holding across his knee, wrapped up in an old black oilskin coat, and then pointed at the two seamen who, with duffel coat hoods up to protect their faces, would hold a length of piping that Jenkins intended to use as a rocket launcher.

‘Fine. I want Watkins to get his message off at least twice before we start our display.’ Then, because many of the men must be wondering why he had not sent up rockets the moment the Swede was sighted, he decided to explain.

‘Transmitting an SOS and calling up that Swede by name isn’t because we want to talk to the Swede: he’ll see us anyway because of the rockets and flares. I want the Senior Officer of the escort in the
Echo –
and everyone else in the convoy listening on the call and distress frequency – to know we’ve sighted the Swede. That’s an insurance policy against him running us down. If he doesn’t pick us up he’ll have a lot of explaining to do. So as soon as we’ve used the SOS to tell the
Echo
that we’re in contact, we should have roused the Swedes anyway: they’ll be keeping a radio watch. The radio officer will warn the bridge and they should just then sight one of Jenkins’ rockets popping out five red stars.’

‘Do you want me to keep the engine running?’ Mills bellowed, deafened more than the others because he was sitting on the casing, which kept him warm at the cost of his hearing.

‘No,’ Yorke bawled, ‘not when we start transmitting – it’ll cause interference.’

Yorke looked once more at the
Penta
. She was definitely stopped. As the lifeboat seesawed over the crest of a wave he stood up and looked carefully. There was no sign of a surfaced U-boat.

He signalled to Mills to stop the engine, and as it gave a final gasp said: ‘Right, Watkins, start transmitting!’

The seaman disappeared into the tent of the duffel coat, and very faintly Yorke could hear the muzzled squeaking of Morse. He looked across at the
Penta
and beyond. If the lifeboat had been making three knots then the convoy would be about thirty miles away. Certainly no more because it would not have been making more than six knots during the last twelve hours and the lifeboat was probably making more than three.

Watkins emerged from the coat. ‘
Penta
’s answering, sir. Came up after my first transmission.’

‘Send it twice more. Is she transmitting full power?’

‘Yes, sir. Bustin’ my eardrums.’

Again, molelike, he burrowed back to his set as Yorke looked warningly at Jenkins.

Finally, when Watkins emerged to say he had transmitted it twice more and the
Penta
was now answering for the second time, Yorke said: ‘Acknowledge and say you’re standing by. Now, Jenkins, let drive with one of your five-star reds!’

The seaman pulled one of the rockets from the encircling oilskin, slid the stick part into the tube the two seamen were holding and ripped off the base which formed an abrasive striker. He wiped it briskly across the base as though striking a match and turned away. The rocket hissed and crackled for a moment and then launched itself upwards with a whoosh and a trail of sparks which showed up well against the grey of the clouds. Just as it reached the top of its trajectory it dropped a red blob, followed a few moments by another, a third, fourth and then a fifth.

‘Now a red hand flare.’

Jenkins stood up holding a wooden handle which continued into a cardboard tube like a short broomhandle. He ripped off the abrasive striker, rubbed it across the end and as it began fizzing held it out at an angle over the side. A dull red glow gave off thick reddish smoke which drifted to leeward and quickly dispersed. Then, as suddenly as it started the flare sputtered out and Jenkins tossed the wooden handle and charred cardboard tube into the sea. ‘Useless bloody things,’ he said. ‘Board of Trade approved, no doubt. Used to have better ones on Fireworks Night when I was a kid.’

Watkins’ left hand was waving from under the duffel coat. A seaman leaned over to hear what he wanted to say and passed on the message to Yorke: ‘The
Penta
says she saw the rocket, sir and…’ he turned back, listened to Watkins and then added, ‘and the flare, sir.’

And, thought Yorke, thanks to the radio Johnny Gower would now know for certain: the lifeboat was in effect insured. Even if this lifeboat transmitter did not have the range to reach the
Echo
, certainly the
Penta
’s powerful transmitter would be heard on board the frigate. Johnny would have heard the
Penta
answering the SOS, and then he would have heard she had sighted the rocket and the flare. Hundreds of miles away Admiralty wireless operators at radio direction-finding sets would probably have picked up the
Penta
’s signals too and by now would be working out her position. They would be puzzled because they would not have heard the lifeboat’s message. They were always alert, but particularly for one of the new wartime prefixes which were used when appropriate instead of SOS. There was RRR, for example, warning of a ship being attacked by a surface raider, or SSS, which reported an attack by a submarine.

Again Watkins’ arm was waving from under the coat and a seaman bent down to listen, passing back the message word by word as Watkins read the Morse: ‘The
Penta
, sir …says…she’s…putting cargo net…over…portside…will… turn…to…port…to make a lee…we should…come…up to her…that’s all, sir.’

‘Very well, acknowledge and say our engine will prevent us using the wireless set any more.’

Mills, his hearing partly restored, looked inquiringly and as soon as Yorke saw Watkins emerge from the coat and start putting the lid on his suitcase transmitter, he gave the engineer the signal. Mills wound at the starting handle and the hot engine fired almost immediately. As Mills pushed forward the stubby gear lever Yorke felt the tiny propeller start to bite and the boat began responding to the tiller. The seamen stowed their oars along the thwarts with no sign of reluctance.

Yorke stood up, still holding the tiller, and shouted to his men. ‘Cargo net makes it much easier but you’ve got to be quick. The net will be hanging down the port side, probably amidships, and I’ll nose up to it and try to get alongside. Our
starboard
side. Once alongside you can just step off and grab the net and climb up. Remember to take your turn. Don’t all crowd to the starboard side or you’ll capsize the boat.

‘Now, make sure those revolvers and grenades are secure and out of sight. Don’t leave grenades in the duffel coat pockets and then hand the duffels over to the Swedes to take away and dry. Remember, we’re survivors from the
Somers Island
and the fellows in the
Penta
are our friends and rescuers. Be grateful. And watch out for the booze. They’ll probably want to pour schnapps into you. If any man gets drunk, he’ll answer to me. Booze loosens tongues.