Dive in the Sun by Douglas Reeman

glow which refused to be quelled.
    Somewhere in the darkness, beyond the destroyer and her consorts, the towing submarine’s commander watched the glow in his periscope. ‘There’ll be no rendezvous after all, I’m thinking,’ he said softly.
    The thick, damp air of the control-room was tense and expectant as the small boat moved slowly and carefully towards the surface. Each of the four men stooped across the controls was thinking the same thoughts, and wondering what was awaiting them in the world above their heads.
    The hands of the brass clock pointed at four o’clock, and even in the boat’s confined space Curtis seemed to feel the chill of the dawn mingling with the foul, fume-laden air. He stole a quick searching glance at the others, noting their bulging pockets and rumpled battledress blouses. They had all discarded their waterproof clothing to give them some semblance of uniform should they run straight into an enemy patrol. Curtis shivered, in spite of his taut muscles. He had heard that the Germans had a quick way with suspected saboteurs.
    We should be about a quarter of a mile offshore, he pondered; that’ll enable us to sink the boat in deep water and still make it possible to swim to the beach fairly easily. He pictured the details on the chart which seemed burned into his brain, and wondered if they could make the trip to the small hill at the side of the village without being seen.
    Duncan looked up from his controls, his face suddenly alert and strained.
    Curtis tensed automatically, and bent his head as if expecting to hear the sound of engines overhead, but Duncan frowned and shook his head briefly.
    ‘No, Ralph, it’s not that,’ he said slowly. ‘The motion—d’you feel it? We’re jerkin’ a bit too much!’
    Curtis bit his lip. Duncan was right; the boat was rolling far too much, and as the depth gauge crept backwards and the boat swam persistently upwards, the motion of the hull, normally steady and calm until the actual moment of surfacing, was extremely uneasy. That could only mean that the weather had deteriorated during the night, and one of the brief Adriatic gales had materialized to make their task even harder.
    Taylor spun the spokes carefully and shifted in his seat. ‘Bit of roughers!’ he muttered. ‘Just our bleedin’ luck!’
    ‘It’ll make us more difficult to spot, if there’s anyone watching.’ Curtis kept his voice even. ‘We shall have to make it quick though.’
    The boat lurched, and he put out his hand to stop himself falling. The heavy automatic against his hip reminded him again of the uncertainty, and for an instant a tremor of panic coursed through him. He cursed himself. No second thoughts now. This was another point of no return.
    ‘Ten feet, Skipper!’
    Curtis was grimly reminded that this would normally have been approaching periscope depth before he had blinded the boat with his stupidity. He wondered vaguely if Duncan was thinking the same.
    He slipped the clips on the main hatch and braced his shoulders beneath it. The motion was much worse and the whole control-room was swinging through a crazy arc, throwing pieces of loose gear from side to side, and making the hunched occupants cling on to the controls, or anything else, to prevent serious injury.
    ‘Surfaced!’ Curtis spat the word from between his clenched teeth, and heaved open the hatch. For a moment the blast of cold air which lashed him across the face made him gasp, but the sight of the high grey waves which seemed to dwarf the casing of the boat forced all other thoughts from his mind. Gasping painfully, he dragged himself over the coaming and crouched on the small, wave-swept deck. He had to cling to the broken periscope with all his strength to prevent himself from being tossed into the swirling, white-capped water, and with his eyes half-blinded by spray he peered anxiously towards the shore, or where it should have been. Overhead the scudding black clouds tried to disguise the