Operation Armageddon Page 14

  Five minutes later: ‘Yeoman, again!’

  Still no response.

  Stokes looked at his watch as the minutes went by: 01.06 … 01.07 … 01.08 … He knew the commander’s orders. If there was no response after ten minutes he was to cease signalling and move out to sea. The ship might return in an hour or so. Meanwhile, their presence so near to the German base was perilous.

  ‘Ten minutes, yeoman. Last try.’

  Stokes heard the clatter of the light’s shutters. What was normally no more than a background rattle now echoed round the ship’s superstructure. As the last flash faded, an unnerving silence descended. Stokes tensed himself in expectation of a burst of enemy fire from the land. Or, worse, the roar of an E-boat despatched from Cap d’Enfer.

  ****

  While HMS Ideal had been steaming towards Cap d’Enfer, Marie and Bosanquet had left the copse to make their way across the fields to the beach two miles distant. Their walk was uneventful other than overcoming the hazards of rabbit holes, briars and ditches in the dark. They walked in silence. Even if the going had been easier, they would still have had little to say to each other. What had to be said had been said. Now their thoughts turned to what the next day would bring for each of them: Marie back in the base, a suspect under surveillance; Bosanquet on the destroyer, which was the Allies last chance of halting Armageddon.

  The beach was a small crescent-shaped cove with rough, rocky projections into the sea at each side, cutting it off from the rest of the coastline. The only access other than by sea was by a perilous scramble down the cliff face. Both adventurers were soaked from dripping trees, sodden hedgerows and muddy paths by the time they began to descend the cliff.

  ‘We’re late,’ said Marie.

  They hurried their pace. In her haste Marie lost her footing, let out a stifled scream, and slid down the last 20ft or so onto the beach. She rolled over until her fall was stopped by a low, rocky outcrop.

  ‘My torch! I’ve lost my torch!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Up there. When I fell.’

  Bosanquet bounded back up the path, bending low so that he could run his hands over the tussocks of coarse grass.

  ‘They’re signalling,’ whispered Marie. ‘Hurry!’

  It was now 01.10.

  ‘Raymond?’

  ‘Got it!’

  Bosanquet slid down with a thump onto the beach, sprung to his feet and rushed over to Marie. She grabbed the torch and pointed it seawards.

  ‘Hell! It’s broken!’

  ‘Here!’

  Bosanquet tore the torch from Marie’s hand and took it to pieces. Then he put it together again and tested it.

  ‘Okay now – just something loose.’

  It was now 01.12. Marie signalled again.

  By this time Stokes had given the orders to the helmsman and engine room to move out to sea. No one saw that last signal.

  Marie was still kneeling on the beach, hoping for a response from the sea, when Bosanquet stood up and walked towards the shoreline. He stopped, sniffed … sniffed again.

  ‘She’s there! I can smell her exhaust.’

  Marie, too, caught a whiff of diesel fumes. She frantically signalled once more. There was no response. But they both heard the low rumble of HMS Ideal’s engines picking up speed.

  ‘She’s gone,’ said Bosanquet.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ said Marie. ‘And I’ve run out of places to hide you in. We’ll have to shove you off to the Free Zone.’

  ‘Give them a chance. This often happens with pick-ups. They might try again. Come!’

  Bosanquet took Marie’s arm and led her back up the beach to the cliff face. They huddled together in search of warmth while awaiting their fate.

  Behind them, in the hinterland, personnel carriers were scouring the roads and farms for the two fugitives. The Germans had already picked up their trail.

  ****

  Commander Travers was not surprised at the news of the failed pick-up.

  ‘That’s what comes of last-minute operations. No planning. No double-checking. If I had my way—’

  ‘You wouldn’t have touched it, sir?’

  ‘Damn right, Number 1.’

  Travers did not ask the obvious question: ‘What would you have done, Number 1?’ He knew all too well. Stokes would have jumped at the chance of glory. He would have stood off-shore for another half an hour – perhaps even have sent in a dinghy without first getting a signal. Stokes was always trying to make amends for the hash he had made of his Dartmouth course – he passed out by just one mark. (Travers, naturally, had come out top of his intake.)

  ‘Okay to stand off at two miles, sir?’ asked Stokes.

  ‘Go ahead, Number 1.’

  Once in their new position Stokes doubled the lookouts and sent Sub Lieutenant Ralph Quigley round to check that every last chink of light was stopped and to ensure absolute silence on the ship.

  ‘No one is to go into the galley. And tell the engine room not to touch a single tool.’

  The minutes dragged. The only sound in the ship was the low humming of the generator. And breathing. Sometimes fast from nervousness. Sometimes long, slow sighs as tensed-up lungs were relieved.

  ‘Engine! Fine on port bow!’ called a lookout.

  Stokes had heard it. It was not the racing roar of an E-boat. Even so, it was still an engine.

  ‘Patrol,’ he whispered. ‘No action.’

  Down below, the news of an enemy presence sent a shudder of fear through the ship. The men were jumpy now. At any minute the siren for action stations might jangle through the vessel. They tensed their muscles in readiness for the headlong rush that followed that terrifying alarm.

  They waited … they waited …

  Stokes went below, leaving Quigley on the bridge.

  ‘Number 1,’ said Travers, ‘I think we ought to drop the idea of going back in.’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘We’re a sitting duck for an E-boat attack. There’s something out there already and if—’

  ‘There’s a man out there as well … one of ours—’

  ‘One man! I’ve got nearly 150 men on board. Which matters most?’

  ‘With respect, sir, we were sent to do a job. If we leave now, we will cover this ship in shame. You ask the men, sir. They’d vote to go in.’

  ‘Ask the men? Vote? What kind of talk is that? I make the decisions here.’

  ‘Of course you do, sir, but—’

  A metallic clank announced the opening of a voice pipe.

  ‘Bridge here, sir. There’s a signal from the beach.’

  ‘Sir?’ said Stokes.

  ‘Take her in, Number 1.’

  ****

  Marie and Bosanquet saw the answering signal.

  ‘It’s a long way out,’ said Bosanquet.

  They had little to say to each other as they contemplated their last half-hour or so together. They were wet, cold and disheartened by their failed efforts to prevent the U-boat’s departure.

  ‘What will you do now?’ asked Bosanquet.

  ‘Hide in a corner … and think. I’ve a lot of thinking to do. And you?’

  ‘If I have a choice, you mean? Remember, I’m a man who has to follow orders.’

  ‘Yes. If you had a choice.’

  ‘Get back into the field of course.’

  ‘Despite men like Beck?’

  ‘Because of men like Beck. They remind you what we are fighting against – what the world will be like if we don’t win.’

  They were once more sitting silently side by side when Bosanquet heard the sound of muffled oars.

  ‘They’re here.’

  He stood up.

  The dinghy bow scrunched into the gravelly beach.

  ‘Sir?’ came a seaman’s voice.

  Bosanquet did not answer. He turned towards Marie.

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Simone … I … I mean … Well, don’t give up. France needs you.’

  Marie stretched
out an arm, as if to restrain him from leaving.

  ‘Raymond …’

  ‘Sir!’

  He turned and began to walk down the beach.

  A fearful bra-ta-ta filled the air. Bullets spattered across the beach from behind Bosanquet. He hesitated. He turned. He began to run back to Marie.

  ‘Sir! We can’t wait. You must come now!’

  The bullets were still zinging around the beach – the firing seemed to be random – as he neared Marie once more. He could see her eyes filling with tears.

  ‘Go! Go! Save yourself!’ she cried.

  He hesitated. The sounds poured in on him.

  ‘Go!’ … Bra-ta-ta … ‘Sir!’ … Bra-ta-ta … ‘Go! Go!’ … Bra-ta-ta … ‘Sir!’

  He turned for one last time, and ran down the beach, bullets missing him by inches. At the shore line an arm reached out and dragged him into the dinghy. He fell in a heap in the well of the boat. The arm went limp. A scream. And the seaman was dead beside him.

  More bullets hammered around the beach. He turned to wave a last goodbye to Marie. She was standing. He waved. She did not wave back. She crumpled as a bullet got her. Bosanquet’s last image of France was Simone sprawled on a beach.

  30

  Vogel always enjoyed those first few hours on the bridge once his U-boat was clear of the hassle of the tugs and patrol vessels and had not yet entered enemy-infested waters. It was one of the few times when he could relax and delight in his boat thrusting through the boundless ocean. Overhead, thick low cloud swept eastwards. A spatter of rain was in the air. The boat’s bow cut effortlessly through the mild swell in the dark grey sea. Its gentle rise and fall was mesmeric. Yet, in this lulled state, something was nagging at the back of Vogel’s mind. Something was wrong.

  An icy spasm of terror ran through him when he realised what that something was. That voice. Suddenly, he was back a couple of years in Berlin. He was in the dining room of his sister’s house. They had just finished dinner. The maid had cleared the table except for the wine glasses and a half-empty bottle in the sparkling silver stand. The candles in the wall candelabra, along with those on the table, lit up the dark panelled room. His brother in-law, Manfred Holzer, was just finishing an amusing anecdote about one of his customers at his furniture shop.

  ‘So, I said to him—’

  His story was cut short by a peremptory thundering knock at the front door. The maid, busy in the kitchen, was slow in answering. The knock came again, now even more insistent: rat-tat-tat … rat-tat-tat … rat-tat-tat. There were shouts outside. Vogel would never forget what happened next.

  The maid went to open the door. As she tentatively turned the latch, the door was torn from her hands by the force of the blows from outside. The diners heard the crash as it slammed against the wall. The maid ran to the kitchen, screaming ‘Mercy! Mercy!’ Once in the kitchen, she shut the door and sank to the floor, her back against the door. Her sobbing and muted screams of terror could still be heard in the dining room. Then Vogel heard heavy boots on the stone flags of the hallway. There were muffled shouts: ‘Komm!’ … ‘Jetz!’ … ‘Schnell!’ The diners sat in frozen silence. The candles guttered in the draught from the hallway. Vogel moved to rise from the table. His sister stayed him: ‘No, Klaus, I’ll go,’ said Elke.

  He saw his sister’s hands trembling. Her face betrayed the dread that was overwhelming her. She dropped her wine glass. Its blood-red contents spread in a portentous splat as it rolled across the white cloth. It shattered on the polished boards below. She stumbled to her feet. Vogel saw the red splash on the hem of her long white evening dress. Then Elke disappeared into the hall. More voices. Shouts. ‘Ja!’ … ‘Komm!’ She returned. Her face was white and drawn with trepidation. In a faltering voice, she stuttered:

  ‘Manfred … come …’

  Manfred left the room. Vogel never saw his sister or brother-in-law again. And all because, in 1934, she had married a Jew.

  And yes. The voice in the hall had been none other than that of Hauptsturmführer Karl Zweig. The man who had sent Vogel’s sister to a concentration camp and her death was now on his boat. Worse, he was also the man who had the second half of the code to the safe. Neither could read the boat’s orders without the other’s cooperation.

  While Vogel froze in horror on the U-boat bridge, the cause of his anguish stalked below. Hauptsturmführer Karl Zweig was inspecting the boat from stem to stern. He knew nothing about U-boats and was as yet unaware of the purpose of its explosive cargo. He did, though, know about men and had a sharp nose for laxity. And an even sharper nose for treachery. His tour below did nothing to assuage his suspicion that the state of the men matched the corroded condition of the boat.

  When he first descended into the boat he had almost slipped off the bent rung on the conning tower ladder. This time he had been more careful when he went below for his inspection tour. Vogel had offered to take him round but he had declined. He wanted to see the men off-guard, rather than on display for their captain. In fact, his lone tour had the opposite effect. At the sight of the black uniform, the men froze. For all the fame of the SS as the strength behind the Reich, to the crew they were more terrifying than the enemy destroyers and warplanes. The latter fought honourably. The SS were more despicable than the cowardly politicians who had signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

  The men in the control room were the first to see the approaching menace as Zweig’s shimmering black boots appeared out of the bottom of the coning tower. He dropped sharply onto the metal floor-grating and clicked his heels as he smoothed down his uniform. The first signs of the grubby life of a submariner could be seen in the smears of grease that had already tarnished Zweig’s parade-ground image.

  Zweig surveyed the control room. Two dirty-looking seaman were adjusting the trimming valves, each with an oily rag in one hand. They were clean-shaven, having only just removed the stubble of their recent patrol in a combat boat. This veneer of fitness for action was negated by the unhealthy ivory colour of their skin, their hollow eyes and their vacant staring manner. ‘Done in,’ thought Zweig, ‘and this is only day one.’

  He continued aft, passing the radio room, where an operator was listening to some dance music. The war diary was open in front of him. Zweig looked over his shoulder and read the entry: ‘23.00 Sailed. Nothing to report.’ So far, so innocuous. What horrors would it record in the coming days? Would it, he asked himself, be witness to his own interventions? Some might be ones that were best left unrecorded. He made a mental note to confiscate the diary before the boat returned to its base. Next came the hydrophone room – not yet in use since the boat was still in German-controlled waters.

  As Zweig passed further down the boat he noticed that some of the bunks were already occupied. The snores and damp warm smells of sleeping men reminded him of the battle he had had with Vogel over accommodation. ‘The dignity of an SS officer must be preserved,’ he had pompously declared when he had refused to share a bunk, even if his men were to be subjected to that humiliation. A disgruntled officer had been summarily ordered to surrender his berth to Zweig.

  Further aft in the boat was the kitchen, which looked as if it had not been cleaned for months. A greasy-looking cook was mechanically turning some sausages in a large frying pan. Beyond the galley came the boat’s machinery. The motor/dynamos in the motor room were purring away as they charged up the hundreds of cells below the floor. Two men were checking the meters which showed the current flowing into the boat’s underwater lifeline. Zweig passed on to the engine room, where several men were walking up and down the two parallel lines of diesel motors. Deafened by the clattering noise, they failed to notice Zweig until he squeezed past to the torpedo room. He had expected to see the huge tubes and spare torpedoes. Then he recalled that they had been removed to make room for the cargo. And there most of it was: box after box of tightly-packed explosives, leaving just enough space for the men’s bunks.

  He turned and wandered back to the cont
rol room to climb back up to the bridge. The uneasy eyes of every seaman followed him. His boots disappeared up the tower.

  The men, who had stood so stiffly at their posts during Zweig’s inspection, relaxed a little. They began to move their limbs more freely. Some audibly let out their breath. In every part of the boat, the chatter was the same:

  ‘What’s he want?’

  ‘What have we done to deserve him?’

  ‘Think the commander’s in trouble?’

  Some were more sure of their opinions:

  ‘Stuffed up old fart!’

  ‘He wouldn’t last a week on a patrol.’

  Some dared to air the questions that others had kept to themselves:

  ‘Where the hell are we going with all that explosive?’

  ‘Yer. And why the fuck do the SS have to come too?’

  ****

  As Zweig reappeared on the bridge, Vogel gripped the guard rail. All the ease of his last half-hour alone vanished the moment that he glanced the hated uniform.

  ‘Slack lot you’ve got below, Commander.’

  Vogel held his tongue, hoping that Zweig would take the hint and either go below or just enjoy the blustery night. But Zweig soon started up again.

  ‘And the boat looks a bit rickety.’

  These were the beginnings of a stream of pejorative remarks about the boat and the men. After a few minutes of Zweig’s denigration of his command, Vogel could take no more. His hatred flared up as he turned to his detractor.

  ‘You dare to criticise! What do you know about U-boats? About the sea?’

  ‘I can use my eyes.’

  ‘And do your eyes tell you of the weeks those men have spent at sea? Of the horror of sitting a few hundred feet down waiting for the boat to be rocked to pieces by the next depth charge? Of men near to passing out from the foul air when we daren’t surface?’

  ‘That’s just war.’

  ‘Of course it is. But men have their limits. Those men are past theirs. And did anyone listen when I protested about cancelling their leave?’

  The veins were standing out on Vogel’s forehead and neck. He was ready to burst as his anger rose. Meanwhile Zweig stood insolently close to Vogel and stared with a threatening gaze.