Free Down The Hatch by John Winton

light, sir.”
    “Did you see anything, Number One?”
    “No, sir.” Wilfred, too, was perplexed, it was a clear night with a sharply defined horizon and excellent periscope visibility. Surely he could not have missed a brightly-lighted aircraft?
    “Well, we’ll stay down for half an hour or so and see what happens.”
    After half an hour The Bodger brought Seahorse back to periscope depth. As the periscope broke surface The Bodger swivelled round in a quick sweep.
    “There’s your aircraft, Mid,” he said, at once. “It’s Mars.”
    The Midshipman blushed; what with flying geese and hostile planets, The Bodger must be beginning to think him a little touched in the head. But The Bodger seemed quite unconcerned about it.
    “It’s quite understandable,” he said. “It’s by far the brightest star in the sky and it could well be an aircraft light. Don’t worry Mid, there’s many a good submariner stopped snorting and gone deep for Mars or Venus, let me tell you. As I said before, I’d much rather you went deep unnecessarily a thousand times than stayed up once too often and got us clobbered by an aircraft. Go deep first, ask questions afterwards.”
    The ship’s company were grateful to the Midshipman. He provided them with almost their only source of innocent amusement as the days of the patrol crept by. They had already settled to the strange twilight existence of a submarine on patrol. They slept through the day and came awake at nightfall for the one hot meal of the day which was normally cooked and eaten while the main engines were running to charge the batteries. Twice a day they went to maximum depth to take bathythermograph readings of the sea layers. The rest of the time was spent patrolling at periscope depth.
    The passage of time was marked by the changing of the watches. Beards grew longer and more unkempt until the control room took on the appearance of a depression bread-line. The bread itself was harder and the slices grew smaller--as the crusts went mouldy and were cut off. The submarine ticked over in a somnolent state similar to a mass hibernation.
    Seahorse ’s patrol position lay across a main shipping route and The Bodger stood at the periscope and watched the big tankers come up over the horizon, their huge slab sides and superstructures as big as blocks of flats gleaming white in the sunlight. The Bodger practised attacks on them. They made perfect targets, steaming on steady unalarmed courses, the massive hydrophone effect of their propellers pounding over Seahorse ’s sonar. They seemed quite unaware of a submarine’s presence. If any of them ever noticed a suspicious flash from the sea as the sun caught the revolving glass of the periscope they showed no sign of it. Some of them passed less than a quarter of a mile from Seahorse and The Bodger was often unable to see anyone on watch on the bridge at all.
    On the fifth day, The Bodger became concerned about the lack of contacts and moved to the extreme westward of Seahorse 's area. The Bodger reasoned that the expected Task Force would assemble far out in the Atlantic to the westward and move eastward towards Ushant. A signal at midnight from ComSubPink confirmed The Bodger’s theory. By dawn on the sixth day The Bodger was waiting on the westward edge of his area. It was, appropriately, the Midshipman who made the first sighting.
    The Midshipman looked very closely before he mentioned it to Wilfred. He could not afford another mistake. If this turned out to be a fishing vessel or a floating spar of wood, he would never live it down.
    “Number One, would you come and have a look, please? I think I can see the mast of a destroyer! “
    Wilfred was at the periscope in one bound.
    “O.K. I’ve got it. Call the Captain! “
    The Bodger was delighted.
    “That’s well done, Mid. That’s a good sighting. It’s a destroyer all right, large as life. I can just see the tip of his funnel as well. We’re fine on his port bow. No, he’s