THE COVENANTER
back and forth.
When we were approaching Cape Wrath
The poor old rifle looked as though it had things started to get very active about the
just been picked up from a beach where it boat particularly in the fore-end. We were
had be lying since D Day. The bolt took a lot about to fire a live torpedo in the bombing
of effort just to pull it back and it took ages to and firing range which lies on the coast up
get it to disengage from the breech because there. This was all exciting stuff to me . First
the rotating part at the firing pin end was the torpedo had to be loaded into the tube.
just not about to rotate. The brass butt I had assumed the tubes were always loaded
plate was green and the state of the barrel but not so on a jolly such as we were on at
would have given the RSM a heart attack. the moment. I hadn’t seen the tubes because
Nobody knew when or if this thing had they were behind a massive bulkhead with a
ever been used, but it was part of the boats hatch in either side and it had always been
inventory and it just lay down in the store kept sealed. I wasn’t going to see them
in a rack on the wall. This store had walls now either because loading was deemed a
constantly running with condensation, high dangerous business and only the torpedo
humidity and no air circulation. No wonder men were to be in the fore-end whilst it was
the rifle was in the state it was in. done. Even the fore-end hatch was sealed.
Slinger had only brought it up as a matter Once it was all done I was allowed back
of curiosity more than anything but when in and the right side hatch was open with
they realised the state of it they got a bit three large tubes one above the other but
concerned since it would be regarded as only a few feet ahead of the bulkhead. with
their responsibility. all the pipes ,tubing ,dials ,gauges, wheel
valves and things making it very tight for
I got the butt trap open but there was no anyone working in there. I guessed that the
pull through and oil bottle in there. This bulkhead separating all this from the fore-
was a challenge I couldn’t refuse. I took end must be some kind of safety wall.
it along to the engine room, there was a
small engineering workshop behind it with By this time the Captain was manouvering
all the tools I might need. The person in the boat in the range and acquiring a target,
charge there let me use the vice and bench, Killick and Slinger motioned to me to join
produced thin oil, wire wool and fine emery them at the tubes and I climbed over the
paper and watched with interest while I set hatchway ( the deck in there was lower
about the thing from magazine to muzzle. than anywhere else on the boat). A plank
He got interested enough to find a long thin of wood about four feet wide was produced
steel rod which would fit the barrel; fixed and positioned on brackets on the bulkhead
a small piece of cotton soaked in metal level with the top tubes. Killick climbed
polish to it and had the barrel clean and up onto this seat and nodded to me to join
shiny after ten minutes of rodding. It him,Slinger was still at the tubes. They had
took about an hours hard work, broken been through all the drill of ensuring the
nails and sore fingers but finally we had a tube doors were closed and tubes purged
respectable looking weapon, rust free and before loading. Now it was the drill of
with a smoothly operating bolt, safety catch, flooding the tube and opening the door, all
magazine and trigger. of this ordered and confirmed in sequence
I was rather pleased with it but the by the warfare officer in the control room.
Engineering CPO or whatever he was called
was so delighted that he insisted on taking Slinger climbed up and squeezed onto the
it up to the control room and showing it to seat beside us and they went through a lot
the Officer of the Watch, the Petty Officers of visual checks on pressures and things
Mess and anybody else who was around. and waited for the order to fire. I sat there
Finally we slathered it in oil, wrapped it from between them and thought how strange
the forestock to behind the trigger in two a soldiers life can be... A couple of days
long strips of cotton (cut from one of my ago I was hanging about the MT garage at
vests) also soaked in oil and with a couple Winston Bks and here I was in the North
of condoms (obtained from the medic) fixed Sea at the top of Scotland (or rather slightly
over the muzzle it was interred back in the under it), a fully armed torpedo in its tube
storeroom. I got a lot of brownie points a few feet from my right knee waiting the
from that little job. order to be unleashed and, the firing button
67
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