Sub-Zero: Has an infamous Nazi war criminal escaped death...? (The Submariner Sinclair Naval Thriller Series Book 5) by John Wingate

Author:John Wingate [Wingate, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2021-03-06T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Desperate Gamble

The periscope slid upwards. Peter Sinclair’s thoughts raced as he wrenched at the handles, glanced at the gauges: fifty feet and coming up fast.

Rugged was still intact. He thought their world was disintegrating when the torpedoes struck: must have been immediately above them. He glanced at the clock: eleven fifty in the forenoon. It couldn’t be as late as that.

San Marco had a five-hour start then — about a hundred miles. He swore beneath his breath. They may still be alive, but Hank Jefferson was a dead duck. Then his mind began to think rationally again. If he was quick Rugged could catch the noon Admiralty shipping broadcast. He’d get the P.O. Tel. himself to set watch. He swung round on the stick, waiting for the lens to break surface. How uncanny the silence was: no H.E. now, no transmissions, nothing after those first terrifying moments when their world was being split asunder.

Then came the unreality of their miraculous deliverance. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and peered into the lenses as Rugged slid to periscope depth.

The light from the surface streamed suddenly into his eyes. He waited that split second while the smear evaporated across the glass; then, with the stick in low power, he spun round on his heel.

Ah! Something there…

He flicked the handles; the lens clicked to high power. Looked like wreckage, the pathetic remains of a stricken ship. He’d grown used to this sight in more brutal days, but it still came as a shock. He slammed shut the handles. The helicopter might pick him up.

The periscope slid down again. He’d wait a half minute before another look. That helicopter certainly had a problem if the destroyer was sunk. Had the aircraft enough fuel to reach Fayal? Did he know his position? Well, that was his worry.

“Up periscope.”

He carried out a swift aircraft sweep: nothing. He could inspect the wreckage carefully now. There could be few survivors.

“Stand by to surface, Number One. Tell the Chief I want a hull inspection when we get up top.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“There seems to be no one—”

He checked his words as the periscope swung right ahead. Something had moved amongst that wreckage, he was sure of it. Looked like a human arm. Yes, it was moving. Unlike the other grim flotsam that floated past the periscope, there must be a human life here… There it was again! The arm was waving frantically now, gesticulating towards the periscope. There was the head … a black, sodden head of hair emerging from behind a bank of bobbing wooden lockers.

“As you were, Number One. There’s a survivor. Poor devil…”

“Ready to surface, sir.”

“Surface.”

The air screamed along the high pressure lines; the bows tilted beneath Peter’s feet as he began scrambling up the conning tower ladder.

“Twenty-eight feet, sir…” from somewhere below him. Number One’s voice it was, calm and permanent in this nightmare world. Yet Peter’s numbed mind still worked, a machine drilled by hard discipline. A mind trained to operate after the will to survive had died.

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