A Twist Of Sand

Trout settled on the sea-bed. Three more patterns of depth-charges followed, but mercifully farther away to starboard. Trout would have to do better than just lie in a deep declivity. I pumped more water into the starboard ballast tank and she leaned over. Ten, fifteen degrees. As close as I could judge, I laid her against the shelf in the sea-bed, tilted against it like a man cowering for dear life behind a small bank. From the ragged and distant patterns it was clear the destroyers were out of touch with us. All that remained was to stick it out and hope for the best.

For nine hours the destroyers came close, over and beyond, but they never located us. For nine interminable hours came the crash and thump of heavy depth-charges. I think the Italians must have blown up everything between Trout and Capri.

Seldom were there fewer than five hunting, and often I think there must have been more.

Everything became strangely quiet. It was after midnight. I decided to give it an hour more in case the searchers were "playing possum." At one-thirty, tired, red-eyed, our ears still tingling in the unaccustomed quiet, I brought Trout to the surface. The night was dark, and if the destroyers were there, at least I couldn't see them, nor could they see me. I intended to beat it out of the Tyrrhenian Sea as quickly as I could.

I set course for Malta at full speed.

Malta gave Trout a heroes' welcome. We surfaced inside the deep minefield, made our recognition signal, and cruised slowly across the blue Mediterranean water towards the beleaguered island, looking strangely tranquil in the morning light. The crew, grinning hugely and thinking more of a run ashore in the rum shops than glory, were snodded up in their best; on the port side of the conning-tower, young Peters, overalls over his shore-going rig, was busy with a paint brush and pot adding to Trout's score. The main feature of this rather curious design was a hand, rather a strange-looking hand, which half cocked a snook at our tally of merchantmen and destroyers, and now the battleship.

Peters got the idea from the mascot I always carried with me — one of those things one sees in southern Germany, a rootfern, I think it was, contorted by nature into a replica of a human hand. I had seen it in a little village called Loffingen, near the Black — Forest, in the summer before the war. Loffingen is one of those tiny, quaint little places where an iron-work German eagle hangs on an iron lattice-work above a fountain in the market-place where a bronze boy, on some indefinable errand, clutches a spear. I went for a drink at the inn and, dodging the cluster of bicycles at the entrance, saw the "little lucky hand "(the German notice said) in a tiny shop window adjoining. I carried the little hand in action, and Peters had reproduced it (with liberties) on the conning-tower. Trout was even affectionately known as "The Hand "at the Lazaretto base.

I felt unutterably weary as I brought Trout alongside. The cheers, the sirens, and even the presence of the commander of the base and Dockyard failed to cheer me. Battle fatigue, I thought tiredly. It's when you feel like this that they get you. Even the thought of a long bath and a long gin did not lift the depression which had settled on my spirits.

"Wonderful work, Geoffrey!" exclaimed the C.O. as he came aboard, his quick ebullience spreading round him like an aura. "Come and tell me all about it — no hell man, don't worry about a written report yet. This is just for my private ear."

He looked at me keenly, noting probably the tight lines round the mouth, the stubble and the typical submariner's pallor.

"I've also got some news for your private ear."

He hustled me away, leaving John to do the donkey work

In his cabin he poured me a stiff gin. I sank into the so: cushions of his own favourite chair, the softness wrapping me round like a cloak.

He jerked out: "When I detailed you for the job, thought you might get her. But I didn't think you'd make it back."

I looked at the tonic fizzling slowly up in the glass. Like breaking surface on a dull morning, I thought. I wondered how many shells, or even how many lives, this one bottle of tonic had cost to bring to Malta.

"I didn't think you'd make it back," he repeated, flashing a quick glance at me. I could see what he was thinking; I was powerless to cover up: "He's done too many patrols punch-drunk; he doesn't hear the ashcans any more until they're close — too close. Once more — then it will be too late."

"Look," I snapped suddenly, so suddenly that my subconscious told me how jangled my nerves really were. I meant to tell him about the shelf on the sea-bed, the long weary hell of depth-charging and waiting, but something inside me balked.

"It was a bit tough, but the Ities didn't get too close. Broke some of the fittings. I'll send you a report of the damage," I said offhandedly.

The commander gazed at me steadily. "Trout's seaworthy, then?"