Read Strike from the Sea (1978) for Free Online

into the lagoon and anchor, that’s apparently the drill. Then we’ll take it from there. If we get no co-operation from the local people I shall try to explain the advantages of helping us.’ He hesitated. ‘At worst, we’ll have to blow up the submarine.’
    Quinton was watching him intently. ‘Suppose the Japs are there already?’
    ‘Unlikely, John. But if they are I’ll have to speak with them. After all, we’ve no quarrel with them. Yet.’
    A shaft of light spilled over the horizon like pale gold liquid. It was broken in one place by a shadow, a long hump of land.
    Forster said, ‘There it is, sir. Our little island. Right on the button.’
    ‘Fetch the gunnery officer.’ He thought he heard Quinton groan, and added, ‘His part is pretty important, John.’
    They fell silent, watching the land rising in the warm glow like a surfacing whale.
    Ainslie knew that Quinton did not like the gunnery officer very much, and that seemed to go for almost everyone else. Lieutenant Peter Farrant had been in submarines at the very start of his service but had transferred to general service at his own request. He was everyone’s conception of the stiff-backed, efficient gunnery officer, the product of Whale Island, but aboard a submarine he would stand out like a cactus in a rose garden.
    He did not need to be popular, Ainslie told himself; he just had to be good.
    Aboard even the largest submarine the gunnery officer’s work was limited. He was usually required to do several other jobs as well, from watchkeeping to taking boarding parties aboard suspicious-looking merchantmen.
Tigress’s
deck gun, for instance, had been a small four-inch weapon.
Soufrière
’s massive twin turret was little different from that of a heavy cruiser where Farrant would be much more at home.
    He came on to the bridge, a pistol at his hip, his cap tilted across his eyes as if it were already broad daylight. He was thin and tall, with a narrow face which rarely smiled.
    Farrant said, ‘You wanted me, sir?’
    ‘Yes, Guns. You’ve got your people ready?’
    Farrant looked at him, his eyes hidden. ‘Yes, sir.’ It sounded like ‘of course’. ‘Two Brens, the rest with sub machine-guns.’
    More light grew and spread across the dawn sky, with tiny, fleecy clouds here and there reflecting the greater darkness of the sea. It was a damn good spot to complete some makeshift repairs, Ainslie thought. In half an hour the old
Kalistra
’s slow approach would have been sighted and reported.
    He said, ‘It’s possible that the French skipper may have set scuttling charges.’
    He waited for some comment from Farrant, whose life, after all, would be at the greatest risk if that happened.
    When he said nothing Ainslie added, ‘Use your own judgement, but I want no unnecessary shooting.’
    ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Farrant’s mouth opened and closed with the precision of a rifle bolt. ‘Is that all, sir?’
    ‘Yes. Go and join your men.’
    He glanced past Quinton and Forster into the wheelhouse. It was strange to see British sailors where the native hands had been. Gosling, the coxswain, was at the wheel, his belly against the brass boss as if for support. Menzies, the yeoman, on the opposite wing, a telescope trained towards the island. On the untidy foredeck, dotted along the bulwarks and behind the windlass, other kneeling and crouching figures revealed themselves in the growing light.
    The ancient tramp steamer was not what they were used to, but even in the savagery of the Atlantic many British sailors were putting up with ships long due for the scrapyard.
    Forster said, ‘There’s a village on the southern side of the anchorage, sir. But there are two marks on the chart which could mean something.’
    ‘Thank you, Pilot.’
    Ainslie listened to the screw’s thrashing motion and tried to put himself in the submarine commander’s position. If Britain and not France had fallen, and he had found himself in a damaged sub on this tiny,