Chapter 7
L izzie climbed through the conning tower hatch, a circular opening so narrow her shoulders brushed against the sides as she dropped into the interior of the vessel via a ladder.
She followed her guide through the cramped steel tube, her eyes gradually adjusting to the bright cabin lights. Members of the crew milled about as she moved gingerly through the submarine. Lizzie felt a shudder run through the vessel, and the engine croaked and rumbled.
‘How long until we leave?’ she asked the amiable sailor just in front of her.
‘Only a few minutes now. I’m afraid there’s not much space for luxuries in here. Come through to the officers’ mess. Perhaps we can find you a spot to sit down.’
The officers’ mess sounded far grander than it was. The small table was covered with charts, and there was nowhere to sit, so she stood to one side. She watched submariners dart into the nearby control room, checking their stations.
‘How many are on board?’ Lizzie asked.
‘We’re forty-four plus you, so it’s tight. Here, let me get you a folding stool. You can move it about when you need to get out of the way.’
Lizzie hadn’t known what to expect, but she hadn’t imagined the submarine would be as compact as this. It looked like the predicted six-to-eight-hour journey would seem much longer.
‘Try to rest a bit,’ the kind sailor said, excusing himself to continue his duties.
Lizzie scanned the area from her stool, which was wedged against the curved wall of the hull. The smell of diesel fuel and sweat assailed her nostrils in the humid air. The engine coughed and spluttered as it grew louder, and everything around Lizzie vibrated.
A voice echoed overhead. ‘Stand by to cast off.’
Lizzie listened to the sound of boots pounding on the metal deck, fascinated by the preparations.
Now she understood why the allocation of a submarine needed to be approved by the War Cabinet.
It was altogether a more complex operation than flying into France perched in the cabin of a tiny Lysander aircraft and flinging herself into the sky with a parachute.
A short time later, a commanding voice shouted, ‘All hands to their stations.’
A pipe poked into Lizzie’s back, and she shifted to a different position, but it was impossible to get comfortable. Every surface of the interior was put to use, and she sat there in awe, never having seen anything like it.
As the vessel submerged, Lizzie felt intense pressure in her ears and nose, and a crew member took pity on her and signalled for her to do as he did, yawning and swallowing. It was unpleasant but soon passed, and the journey towards enemy-occupied territory was underway.
Time dragged by in Lizzie’s eerily lit new world, and she tried not to think about the fact that they were below sea.
A sailor sat on an ammunition box nearby, and Lizzie struck up a conversation with him. ‘How on earth do you sleep on here?’
The stout blond fellow in navy uniform grinned. ‘We hot bunk, miss.’
Lizzie raised one eyebrow to show her confusion, and he continued. ‘We don’t have enough bunks for every crew member, so we take it in turns. There’s rarely a cold bunk on board a submarine!’
Lizzie smiled at the pleasant man, grateful to have her mind taken off her impending night swim, which inched closer with every mile of sea the submarine covered.
‘Miss, miss,’ called a voice, shaking Lizzie’s shoulder.
Adrenaline surged through her body the instant she opened her eyes. The duty watch officer had organised a hot bunk for her so she could snatch an hour’s sleep after eating a dish of warm stew and a hunk of bread. Now he was back to wake her as promised.
Lizzie squinted in the dim light at her special waterproof watch supplied by the SOE wardrobe department.
It was midnight on the dot, and she calculated the submarine must be approaching the Brittany coast. She was due to disembark around 2 a.m. under the crew’s calculations of St. Malo’s extreme tidal range.
She sat on a box in the tiny officers’ mess and began methodically double-checking her waterproof pouches and equipment. Soon she would be on her own, and this was her last chance to make sure she had everything organised so she could transport it safely to shore as she swam.
The precious new radio crystals, her identity documents and her pile of francs were all stashed away in her satchel for now until it was time to wear the pouches.
Lizzie watched crew members carry out their procedures, and she guessed they had done the same drill hundreds of times before.
As she sat there quietly, she ran through the plans for when she reached St. Malo.
The plan hinged on at least her aunt still living in the same house, even if her uncle and cousins were scattered because of the war.
If the house no longer belonged to the family, she would have to change her plan, and it would be even more of a risk, but her father said that was unlikely.
In her mind, she ran through her imminent swim and moved her lips slightly as she repeated the instructions the trainer had drilled into her.
It was common to panic, so she internalised her orders so that no matter how terrified she became when swimming in the dark, she would function by rote.
Lizzie pulled out a large map of the medieval walled city and pored over it one last time, committing the finer details of the city’s layout to memory as she couldn’t take it with her.
The tension was building, and she checked her watch repeatedly, her heart feeling like it might burst out of her chest. She still couldn’t quite believe she would soon swim alone towards the shore of the occupied city she used to holiday in as a child.
The two years since the SOE recruited her seemed like another lifetime, and the carefree girl she had been when she last visited her family in St. Malo was a different person in a new, sinister world.
A tall, razor-thin man, whose peaked cap almost brushed the ceiling of the submarine, popped his head into the room. ‘Ten minutes, miss, and then we’re ready for you.’
She nodded and stood, knowing what she must do.
She carried the tin of lanolin into the tiny bathroom, the only private space on the vessel.
When she had needed the bathroom earlier, she was relieved to locate the private space because she must now change her clothes and coat her skin without causing a stir with the all-male crew.
Hastily, she changed into her dark-coloured, tight-fitting undergarments. The trainer had kitted her out and explained that wool insulates and retains some heat even when wet and that she would need every sliver of body warmth.
Then she smeared a thick coating of grease onto her exposed skin, and her hand shook as the panic reached a crescendo.
She covered her feet and toes to prevent frostbite in brutal water temperatures, followed by her arms and legs, face, ears and neck, hands and fingers, which was slippery work.
The smell was overpowering, and her stomach lurched with fear and repulsion.
Her trainer’s voice rang in her head again. ‘Apply it thoroughly and it could give you as much as an extra fifteen minutes of vital survival time and lower the chances of hypothermia.’
Lizzie tried not to think about the fact that he couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t succumb to hypothermia. What was the point? There were no guarantees when carrying out dangerous wartime missions. If that was the reassurance she sought, she was in the wrong line of work.
Lizzie exited the bathroom, and the razor-thin submariner awaited to escort her into position.
‘It’s 2 a.m.,’ he said, his face showing the ghost of a smile. ‘We’re surfacing now but can’t stay long. Every second endangers the life of the crew.’
Lizzie fitted her pouches onto her body as she had practiced in the training. She looked at the man once more, and he mouthed, ‘Good luck.’
The only sound was the whooshing of the sea against the steel of the vessel. Voices carried on water, and she’d been warned repeatedly not to say a word once they surfaced.
Lizzie climbed up through the narrow hatch opening and the cold night wind rushed into her face, invigorating her after the stale, still air of the submarine.
She stepped out onto the wet deck, almost losing her balance but managing to right herself.
Panic thudded in her ears, and she breathed through it to calm her nerves.
The deck was close to the waterline and her heart slammed as the moment arrived when she must enter the cold unforgiving sea and there would be no turning back.
For a second, she regretted not parachuting in like usual, for the black rolling body of water that surrounded her looked far more ominous than any moonlit sky.
The quarter moon cast only a faint glow on the deck, but it was enough for her to see her way to grip the steel edge and then gradually lower her body into the freezing water.
The shock spiralled through her limbs and seeped through her whole being, jolting her into action.
This was the moment she’d been building up to for weeks.
Lizzie took several deep breaths and then released her hold on the deck and slipped silently away from the submarine into the deep waters of the Channel.
As she swam, she heard rushing, bubbling sounds, and she caught the whiff of diesel again as the submarine prepared for its journey back to England. Then there was a gurgling noise, and she looked back to see the hull sinking swiftly beneath the water until it disappeared.
She was on her own.