Strike from the Sea (1978) by Douglas Reeman Page B

myself
.
    Forster looked up desperately. ‘God Almighty.’ He had read the letter over and over again. It got worse, not better.
    Farrant looked over his magazine. ‘Trouble?’
    Across the other side of the wardroom Lieutenant Christie, the RNVR pilot, glanced at the two men with interest. He could smell the tension, like an animal scenting blood.
    ‘It’s nothing.’
    Forster dropped his eyes. Angry with himself. He had started to hate Farrant. His smugness, his cock-sure arrogance.
    Like their first patrol which had ended this morning. After the attack on the Jap patrol vessel and her tow, which had since been identified as a landing craft filled with men and stores, they had not seen very much. A few fishing vessels, driven to sea out of necessity, one rusty freighter which the skipper had sunk after ordering her crew to abandon, and the big landing craft.
    Forster had all but forgotten his personal troubles as he had joined Ainslie and the others in the attack. He had watched Ainslie’s face, judged every expression each time the periscope had shot down into its well, listened to the descriptions and reports, checked his plot and marked their progress on his chart. A really big landing craft, Ainslie had said. A fruitless look through a somewhat out-of-date copy of
Jane’s Fighting Ships
and a more recent collection of silhouettes suggested it might be a tank landing vessel of considerable value.
    She had been moving very slowly, well loaded with vehicles, zigzagging painfully like a giant shoe box on the placid water.
    Forster had seen none of it, but looking back, Ainslie had described every detail with his routine reports, so that now it was like remembering a film or a picture.
    Ainslie had decided to use the submarine’s guns. For one thing it was possible that a full salvo of torpedoes might be necessary, and there was still no certainty of replacing them, the French ones being a different size from the British pattern. Also, the landing craft was very shallow draft, and the salvo might have passed harmlessly beneath her.
    Forster looked quickly at Farrant. He was looking at his magazine again. The fact that his eyes were unmoving and fixed made him think he was studying a picture of a nude.
    It had been Farrant’s perfect opportunity, and to do him justice he had done very well, especially as it was the first shots they had fired from the big turret. With the hull barely trimmed above the surface, the guns had been trained on the landing craft. Inside the hull everybody had been poised, like athletes waiting for the starting pistol. Especially the first lieutenant and the chief engineer. A sharp change of buoyancy, some unknown factor which might throw the submarine out of control, it all had to be watched and prevented. When the guns had fired, one at a time, it had been like nothing Forster had experienced. The crash had been long drawn out, like a great peal of thunder, and the shock of each gun hurling itself back on its springs and cylinders had shaken the hull like some gigantic earth tremor. What it could have been like for the men on the landing craft he could only guess at.
    First the sight of the turret and conning tower rising slowly through the clear water, and then the twin guns swinging towards them like a pair of black, pitiless eyes.
    They had heard the sounds of the enemy vessel breaking up as it sank to the bottom, its cargo of armoured vehicles adding to the destruction and speeding its end. It was just as well. She must have been carrying high octane fuel, and the agony of her crew and passengers was only saved by the sea.
    Dived once more, Ainslie had sent for Farrant. Forster could see him now. Prim, and so pleased with himself it was causing him pain to hide it.
    He thought too of the skipper. Ainslie was a good one to have in command. Rarely raised his voice, and was never sarcastic. But Forster felt he did not really know him. Ainslie had asked the gunnery officer to pass his