Kleber's Convoy Read Online Free Page A

sir.’ It was the first-lieutenant.
    After the first-lieutenant came the engineer-officer, EmlynLloyd. ‘Engines ready for sea, sir,’ he reported. Next it was the gunner (T). When he’d made his report Redman said, ‘That starboard depth-charge chute all right, Mr Baggot?’
    â€˜Yes, sir. We’ve got it fixed.’
    â€˜Good. We shall need it.’
    Then came Pownall, the navigating officer, to make his reports: radar tested and in order; master gyro running, repeaters checked and found correct. He was followed by Lofty Groves, the asdic control officer.
    â€˜A/S equipment tried, tested and in order, sir.’ 1
    â€˜Thank you, Groves. Dome housed?’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    Redman was referring to the asdic dome from which sound waves were transmitted and received when searching for a submerged submarine. It protruded from the bottom of the hull in the forepart of the ship and could be raised and lowered. In harbour it was normally raised – ‘housed’ – but lowered at sea.
    When steaming into head seas at speed the dome was housed to avoid weather damage. The asdic search equipment could not function with it in this position.
    Finally Sunley, a thin grey-faced young man, reported that the HF/DF equipment had been tested and found correct.
    â€˜Good,’ Redman looked up from the desk. ‘We couldn’t do without your Huff-Duff, Sunley.’
    â€˜Thank you, sir.’ Sunley blinked, then withdrew, closing the door in slow motion as if apologising for the intrusion.
    Five minutes to 1400. Redman went to the door of the cabin and took a last look round. At the back of his mind was the thought that he might not see it again. He shut the door and made for the bridge.
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    At 1400 the shroud of silence over Loch Ewe was broken by the sound of windlasses turning and the squeak and groan of anchor cables coming home. The ships in the loch had begun to weigh. The Fifty-Seventh Escort Group was first to leave, led out by the senior officer, Ginger Mountsey, in the sloop Bluebird. The sloop Chaffinch followed, then Venge ful , after her Violent and the remainder of the group. The south-westerly wind continued to gust and eddy, driving the rain before it under a lowering sky. Vengeful steamed out into the North Minch between Rubha nan Sasan and Ploc an Slagain, the two headlands looming through the rain, the monotony of their greyness relieved here and there by the russet of dried heather. As she left the shelter of the land the destroyer began to move about in the seaway.
    A group of men in oilskins were clustered together on the small bridge: Redman, Pownall, Burrows, the yeoman of signals, the first-lieutenant and the lookouts. On the forecastle other oilskins glistened wetly in the fading light as the cable party put the final touches to securing anchors and cables under the watchful eyes of O’Brien.
    Redman stood in the forefront of the bridge searching the sea with binoculars. Away to port he could see the lighthouse at Rubha Reidh, a thin grey pencil poking into the wet sky. Moving to starboard he looked astern to where Vectis , the last ship of the group, was clearing the headlands.
    The movement of the ship, the slap of water at the bows and along the sides, the whirr of the turbines, the ping of asdic transmissions relayed on the bridge-speaker, the steady sweep of the radar scanner on the tower – these things reassured him. The ship was alive, her equipment was at work in capable hands, for him the party had started and the worst of the tension had gone. And so, oddly enough, had the wheeziness which had troubled him.
    Behind Vectis the frigates and corvettes of the Eighty-Third Escort Group were emerging from the mist. Astern of them the freighters would be lining up to leave the loch. He turned to Pownall. ‘Time of sunset?’
    â€˜Fifteen sixteen, sir. Nautical twilight ends at sixteen fifty-seven .’
    â€˜It’ll be dark