A Twist Of Sand

"Bier," cried one gutturally. I took him for one of the post-war newcomers. The previous German residents of the territory seem to have soaked out some of their native arrogance in the desert heat. I went behind the bar to serve them. Mark had gone off earlier to the kitchen to cook one of his superb meals. All four of the Germans looked tough, and one had a slightly vacant stare. Perhaps he was half-drunk. The others were noisy enough. One of them slapped down the money on the bar counter and they sat round a table in the far corner. I couldn't get the drift of what they were saying, but they certainly seemed to be on the way to having a night out.

"Besatzung stillgestanden!" roared the vacant one. The others leapt to their feet and all four stood at attention for a moment and then collapsed with laughter. "Bier!" shouted another. I got four bottles down from the shelf and was about to open them when a word in the rowdy conversation caught my ear — "Der Pairskammer." Now "der Pairskammer" is as much part of the jargon of U-boat men as "uckers" is to British submariners. "The House of Lords "is the quarters of German seamen ratings in a U-boat. I looked at the four beery Germans with renewed interest. It was the vacant-looking one who had used the term. He seemed launched on a war-time reminiscence; while the other interjected, apparently pulling his leg. The vacant one, whom one of the others addressed as Johann, thumped the table and the others guffawed their disbelief. There was no one else in the bar, but the four of them were making enough noise for a whole room full. I went across with the beer.

"Hier is jou bier," I said in Afrikaans. As I set them down I noticed that I had forgotten to uncork one.

I pulled out an opener from my pocket. With it came something else that fell on the table in front of Johann.

He got to his feet, horror in his eyes, and started to scream — a ghastly, penetrating, maniacal scream.

Stein stood at the doorway, watching.

IV

Utmost Priority

The tiny thing, as it lay on the beer-splashed table in front of the four Germans, was the avatar of death, destruction, shells, torpedoes, fire. It brought like a manifestation as fresh as yesterday into my memory after seventeen years the ghastly torment of war, death always at one's elbow as one lifted it — and drowned the thought in gin.

The tiny contortions of the object might have been the contours of Malta's beleaguered and embattled island itself. It symbolised, since it was our emblem, the hectic and wonderful days in H.M. Submarine Trout. The thin high scream of the drunken German as he stood transfixed, staring down at it, his three drinking-companions stunned into sober silence, called back from the past the death-whine of the Stukas as they plummeted down remorselessly on the convoys to the fortress at bay, or on the Dockyard itself.

As he screamed and screamed, a choking, sobbing gurgle: started to strangle his vocal chords. His eyes were wide and staring; they had the look not only of an imbecile, but of a maniac. The gurgle might have been the sinister chuckle the torpedo gives as it leaves the tube on its death-dealing mission, followed by the long, lover-replete sigh of compressed air from its intricate mechanism.

I was transported from the pleasant Swakopmund bar whose peace was now so torn to nerve-searing hysteria by the petrified German, back again seventeen years.

War. Mediterranean. 1941.

The graticules of the periscope cleared, fogged, and then cleared again, like consciousness trying to break through a curtain of sleep. Then the tip of the attack periscope was clear of the water, and the giant Littorio class battleship lay in my vision.

"Bearing now and range?" I asked, my eyes glued to the rubber eyepiece.

"Director angle green two-oh," came the calm reply.

"Range six thousand."

A longish shot, but a battleship like that was worth any risk, particularly as the firing angle was good.

I kept my eyes riveted. I could feel the rising tension in H.M. Submarine Trout, although all of us were battle-hardened. For this was war, and the shallow Mediterranean had been the grave of many a fine British submarine. My orders had been explicit — and difficult. After Taranto the Italians had patched up their battle fleet, badly damaged by the daring of the Fleet Air Arm in the famous night strike against the port, and Intelligence believed that one of the least damaged, the Littorio class now running into my sights, was to undergo trials. My orders were simple: sink her on her trials. No other targets, however inviting, which might come my way. I was to patrol off Naples, round the islands of Ischia and Capri, and sink the battleship when she came out.

I smiled grimly at the casual rider which had been added to my orders: "Air and surface cover will be heavy."