Dive in the Sun Read Free Page B

which his father had called “your future with the company”. The good school, mixing with boys whose only right to any future had been their birth, while he had had his bought in hard-earned money. Boys like Jervis, he thought suddenly, quiet, confident, decent chaps, who never spoke of money or business.
    The war had been a blessing for Curtis, and he had fled from the factory and the board meetings, and the hard, probing tongue of his father, with something like relief.
    It was that compelling urge to escape from his past of frustration and lack of purpose which had made him volunteer for midget submarines, and which had led him eventually to his own command.
    He had looked then to his father for some small sign of faith, if not actual pride, but he had only written to complain of the time Curtis was wasting in the Service, time which the factory could not forgive or overlook.
    When he had been awarded the D.S.C. after the Norwegian operations his father merely observed, ‘Well, it might look all right on the company’s notepaper, I suppose!’
    That had been the last straw. Curtis had driven himself unmercifully, taking each operation with cold, calculated calm, and drawing closer to Duncan and the others for the comfort which had been denied him elsewhere.
    Then it had happened, without warning, and like a stab in the heart. At Taranto, whilst attempting to lay the deadly charges beneath an Italian supply ship, they had become entangled in an anti-submarine net of a new, unknown pattern, which wrapped itself around the little submarine like a shroud.
    Roberts, the diver, had given them a shaky grin and slithered into the Wet and Dry compartment and out through the hastily flooded hatch, and within seconds he was hard at work with the cutters, sawing his way through the slime-covered mesh of the net. Curtis watched him through the periscope, and saw his dim shape, with the pale blob for a face, twisting and turning, back and forth across the hull, barely visible in the dark gloom of forty feet of water. The patrol boat had found them just as the last strand was cut, and they heard the sharp ping of the submarine-detector echo against the hull as the invisible boat moved into the attack.
    They had done this thing many times before, in many parts of the enemy’s waters, but this time the diver was practically exhausted and had hardly the strength to pull himself back to the safety of the hatch.
    Nearer and nearer thundered the racing engine of the attacking boat, and his scalp had tingled with the agony of suspense as he imagined the depth charges waiting to plummet down on to a trapped, unmoving target.
    It was then that his last reserve had snapped and he gave Duncan the order to go ahead.
    The midget submarine moved reluctantly from the pile of severed mesh, the ragged, knife-like ends clawing scratchily along the hull, screeching and moaning. Or perhaps it was Roberts crying out as the strands of wire ripped open his suit and carried his writhing body down to the bottom of the harbour.
    The submarine had escaped, the supply ship blew up, and Curtis and the others were commended.
    But somewhere at the bottom of that far-off-harbour, between the twisted metal of the sunken supply ship and the tattered diving suit, Curtis’s courage and confidence lay as surely as dead men.
    There was a dull, metallic thud overhead, as the deck party prepared to lever the rubber dinghy out of the opened hatch, and Curtis heard the muffled bark of orders, and knew that at any second he would be required to show himself to the others.
    As if in answer to his racing thoughts the curtain twitched to one side, and Jervis, his pink face gleaming with excitement, looked over the side of the bunk.
    ‘All ready to go, sir,’ his voice shook breathlessly. ‘The captain says he’s ready to put us across to our midget!’
    Curtis swallowed hard and pressed his lips into a thin line in an effort to remove the loose feeling from his mouth. He