Strike from the Sea (1978) by Douglas Reeman

It’s like being blind in a minefield!’
    Ainslie thought of the brief, blurred picture he had just seen. A high bow, a stubby, raked funnel, and quite a lot of shadows below her bridge, probably guns. At two miles it was not easy to see everything, even with the lens at full power. If the sea had been anything but flat calm he would have discovered nothing at all. This early sighting had given him the edge, a very necessary one if he was to prevent the patrol vessel from pinning
Soufrière
between her and the shore until help could be brought from elsewhere.
    Even submerged, a pre-warned aircraft might soon see her whale shape below the surface.
    ‘Start the attack. Tubes one to four.’
    He watched Ridgway as he turned the switches on his ‘fruit machine’ as it was nicknamed, while he waited to feed into it all the bearings, ranges and running depths required for his torpedoes.
    ‘Up periscope.’
    He moved it very carefully. There she was, almost end-on now, leaning slightly as she executed a slight alteration of course. He could sense the rating who was Ridgway’s assistant peering at the brass ring around the periscope which was marked with the bearings, the degrees of success or failure.
    Ainslie concentrated every fibre on the small silhouette. ‘The bearing is
that.
The range is – damn!’ He stood back. ‘Down periscope.’ He looked at Quinton. ‘The range is less than four thousand yards. But there’s another vessel astern of her. On tow. I think. Landing craft most likely.’
    ‘Tubes one to four ready, sir.’
    ‘Up periscope.’
    Again the quick search of sea and sky, then round to the target. She was sharper now. More real. So she was not altering course, but swinging to the pull of her unwieldy tow.
    ‘Bow doors open.’
    That was Ridgway. Wrestling with his own particular problem.
Soufrière
was years ahead of her time, like some of the most recent U-boats. She could fire a fanlike salvo at her target even though she was turning away. In
Tigress
you had to point the hull at the enemy like a weapon so that you were still heading into danger even as you fired.
    Back to the chart table again even before the periscope was down in its well.
    Forster’s dividers rested on the coastline. ‘There’s an anchorage here, sir. To the south of Pattani. Could be heading for it.’
    Ainslie stared at the chart. If the Japs were that confident and were able to approach the coast without a heavier escort or air support, their advance must be going well. Too well.
    He said, ‘I’ll take another look.’ He waited, trying to relax his neck and back mucles as the tube rose from the well.
    He watched the high bow edge darkly into the right-hand side of his lens, pushing into the crosswires as if to cut through them.
    ‘Stand by.’
    He heard Ridgway’s voice, a fierce whisper almost covered by the snick, snick of the ‘fruit machine’. ‘Ready, sir.’
    ‘Fire One!’
    The hull gave a slight jerk, as if it had touched a floating tree, but nothing to betray the menace of the torpedo as it streaked from its tube.
    Ainslie slammed the handles against the periscope. ‘Down periscope! Carry on firing by stop-watch! Thirty metres, shut off for depth-charging!’
    One by one the little red lights glittered on Ridgway’s panel, until he said, ‘All torpedoes running, sir!’
    ‘Thirty metres, sir.’
    ‘Alter course, Pilot. Steer three-one-zero. Stand by stern tubes, in case we miss him and he comes after us.’
    Ainslie gripped a voice-pipe as the hull tilted to the change of course. He could see the four torpedoes as if he were outside in the depths. Fanning out in a lethal salvo while they worked up towards fifty knots.
    Ridgway looked at his stop-watch, his face set in a frown. Forster was watching him, and Quinton’s fingers were drumming on the back of a planesman’s seat as he stared at the curved side.
    The explosion, followed by two more at regular intervals, was more like a sharp crack than a