“Sonar answers ‘No,’ sir.”
“Very well.”
“Sonar reports contact dead ahead. Range fifteen hundred yards.”
Suspicions grew in Krause’s mind--unless the U-boat, crippled, was lying stationary. That was too good to hope for, and the next report strengthened Krause’s suspicions.
“Sonar reports contact dead ahead. Range thirteen hundred yards. Sonar reports it sounds like a pill, sir.”
That was it, then. It was some time since this U-boat had used that device. But which way had she turned after dropping the thing? Had she dropped it before Viktor made her attack or after? It seemed to be a matter of pure chance, but he made himself analyse the situation, looking over at Viktor’s position, judging the distance ahead, trying to think of what the U-boat captain would do when he heard Viktor moving straight in on him, and quite ignorant of whether Keeling had turned to starboard or port. It was the first time in a long while that Keeling had turned to port. The U-boat captain would guess she would turn to starboard, and would himself turn to port. Then he must make a further turn to starboard.
“Right smartly to course zero-eight-nine.”
While the helmsman was repeating the order the next report came in.
“Contact dead ahead. Range eleven hundred yards. Still sounds like a pill, sir.”
“George to Eagle. He’s dropped a pill. I am moving out to starboard. Move in on my port beam and search.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The sub had won itself a respite of two or three, or four or five minutes.
“Sonar reports contact with pill, bearing zero-nine-nine, range nine hundred yards.”
If he knew what the endurance of those things was it would help him with his estimates, but--he searched back through his memory of all he had heard and read--no data on that point had been supplied to him. “Sonar reports no contact, sir.”
The bubbles had ended, then; the pillenwerfer had ceased to bob precariously in the limbo of the deep, hauled up by its bubbles and drawn down by gravity. Gravity had won and the mysterious thing was now sinking down and down in the darkness to the sea bed.
“Sonar reports no contact, sir.”
The ripples were widening in the pond; with the passage of every second the circle marking “possible position of U-boat” was growing larger and larger.
“George to Eagle. I’ve had no contact.”
“Neither have we, sir.”
Maybe that last attack of Viktor’s had hit home, maybe the moment after dropping the pillenwerfer the U-boat had been crushed in by a depth-charge close alongside; maybe she had gone down without trace. No; that was unlikely enough to be quite disregarded. The U-boat was still somewhere near, malignant, dangerous. But at twelve knots Keeling was very near the circumference of the circle outside which the U-boat could not possibly be as yet. Viktor was well advanced beyond the centre of that circle.
“Left standard rudder. Quatermaster, call out your heading. George to Eagle. I am circling to port. Turn to port, too.”
“Aye aye, sir. Asdic’s getting echoes from cold layers, sir.”
Very likely. Perhaps the U-boat captain, with a sharp eye on the thermometer readings recording the outside water temperature, had noted a steep rise in the temperature gradient, had sought the cold layer which that indicated, and was now lying deep, deep down, trimmed to a milligram, deathly silent, balanced miraculously upon the invisible and fragile support of a stratum of denser water. The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him--that was a blasphemous thought.
“Passing zero-four-zero. Passing zero-three-zero. Passing zero-two-zero.”
Keeling was coming round; seconds were passing rapidly, and every second precious. Over the port quarter Viktor was turning less sharply, searching in a quarter so far unexplored.
“Passing three-four-zero. Passing three-three-zero. Passing three-two-zero.”
Now Viktor was on her port bow; now she was right ahead.
“Sonar reports no contact, sir.”
“Very well.”
“Passing two-eight-zero. Passing two-seven-zero. Passing two-six-zero.”
“Sonar reports echoes, sir. No contact.”
“Very well.”
The same kind of echoes as Viktor had reported from a little farther away. Many cold streaks of water here, deflecting away the sonar beam if the U-boat was indeed lying stationary here. But she might have slipped away unobserved; she might be two miles, three miles distant by now, her crew laughing derisively at the spectacle of two destroyers circling round and round and round, seeking where they could not possibly find.
“Passing two-zero-zero. Passing one-nine-zero. Passing one-eight-zero.”
They were completing the circle. Was it any use going on with the search? Krause considered the question with the rigid and unrelenting analysis he applied to his nightly review of his actions during the day before his evening prayers. Would it be feeble, faint-hearted, irresolute, light-minded, to abandon the search? He was aware of his fatigue; was he allowing his fatigue to influence his judgment? He wanted to get down to the head; he wanted food and drink. Was he allowing these human weaknesses to deflect him from a determination which he ought to maintain? This was the only kind of self-analysis that Krause ever knew. With his mind’s eye he looked coldly at the wriggling worm, the weak and sinful creature which was Commander Krause, spineless in the presence of temptation and untrustworthy in the presence of an opportunity to err. Yet he came, reluctantly, to admit that perhaps in this case the feeble creature was right.
“Passing one-two-zero. Passing one-one-zero.”
“Steady on course zero-eight-zero,” he ordered, and then, into the T.B.S., “I am going east to the head of the convoy. My course zero-eight-zero.”
“Oh-eight-oh. Aye aye, sir.”
“Make one more sweep and then patrol round the stragglers.”
“Patrol round the stragglers. Aye aye, sir.” “Steady on course zero-eight-zero, sir.”
“Very well.”
He could not quite remember when he had begun this hunt, but it must be seven hours ago or so. Now he was giving it up. He felt a moment of regret, a moment of self-doubt. Submarine hunts had been called off before this, often enough; but that did not mitigate the feeling of failure even so. Over on Keeling’s port side, from just forward of the beam to the quarter, the convoy was just in sight over the horizon. It had certainly straggled during the night as a result of the torpedo attack; it was spread out like smoke trailing from a stack. Viktor would have her hands full covering all that vulnerable flank and herding the stragglers back into formation. He went wearily over to the stool and sank down on it. Thigh muscles and calf muscles, knee joints and hip joints, were all aching horribly, and in those first few seconds after he had sat down they ached even more sharply with the returning circulation. The physical exhaustion and discomfort were sufficient at the moment to distract his mind from his disappointment and feeling of mental lassitude. Hours and hours ago he had told James he would send Viktor over to help her; and he had told Dodge he would bring Keeling to her assistance. Light-heartedly he had made her promises, conditional ones-- “as soon as I can”; “after I’ve helped Eagle”--without a suspicion of how long and how fruitless his chase would be. He called up Dodge and James on the T.B.S. and listened to their reports, bracing himself to pay close attention. Dodge was seven miles away on his starboard bow--that was how far her operations during the night had drawn her--making her way back to her station having lost contact with the enemy. Looking in that direction through his binoculars, he could just see her, a more solid nucleus in the hazy horizon. James was over on the left flank beyond the convoy, out of sight but close up to station.
“One moment, please, sir,” said the T.B.S., the wording, so oddly like that of a long-distance operator, in quaint contrast with the precise English accent. A new voice made itself heard in Krause’s listening ear.
“This i
s Lieutenant-Commander Rode, commanding, sir.”
“Good morning, Captain,” said Krause. Formality always boded ill.
“As soon as we are in visual touch I shall make a report to you, sir. I am taking this opportunity of calling your particular attention to it.”
“You can’t tell me now?” asked Krause.
“No, sir. Jerry’s been in on this circuit more than once during the night. He has an English-speaking rating who chips in with rude remarks, and I wouldn’t like him to hear this.”
“Very well, Captain. I shall await your report.”
It could only be bad news, of course. Fuel problems almost for certain; depth-charge shortages very likely. But at this moment he had his own personal problem, the extreme necessity of getting down to the head. That was something that, having been postponed for hours, could not be postponed one minute more after thinking about it. Charlie Cole was entering the pilot-house.
“Wait for me a minute, Charlie,” said Krause. “Take the conn, Mr. Carling.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
As he lowered himself heavily down the ladders there was some comfort in the thought that Cole was on the bridge, even though the conn was officially handed over to Carling. He climbed heavily back again. This ship of his, with which he was so utterly familiar, seemed foreign to him in his present condition. The sights and sounds and smells which he knew so well seemed to threaten him, like jagged reefs surrounding a ship creeping into narrow, uncharted waters. He had been so long on the bridge, and in a state of such intense concentration, that the real world seemed unreal; furthermore, he had to keep that real world out of his mind, so as not to break the chain of his thinking.
It was a major physical effort to climb the last ladder to the bridge where Cole was awaiting him, and when he had achieved it he sank unashamedly on the stool.
“I’ve ordered something for you to eat, sir,” said Cole. “I suppose there’s no chance of your taking it in the wardroom.”
“No,” said Krause.
His mind was still at work assembling the details of keeping his command as efficient as possible. He fixed his eyes on Cole; the tanned, fleshy face was somewhat drawn with fatigue. Over the cheeks sprouted a thick growth of beard, something most unusual, for Lieutenant-Commander Cole was careful about his appearance.
“You spent the night in the plot,” said Krause, accusingly.
“Most of it, sir.”
“Have you eaten anything yourself?”
“Not much, sir. I’m just going to.”
“You’d better. I want you to have a good breakfast, Charlie.”
“Aye aye, sir. I’ll just go aft first and see - -“
“No. I don’t want you to, Commander. A good breakfast, and then I want you to turn in for at least two hours. That’s an order, Commander.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“At least two hours. Very well, Charlie.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
There was no more than half a second’s hesitation about Charlie Cole’s salute. He did not want to leave his captain there on the bridge, with his white face and his hollow cheeks and his staring eyes. But there was no chance of argument when an order had been given. That was naval discipline, which had them all in a rigid grip, which the exigencies of war did no more than tighten slightly. Keeling was in the presence of the enemy and Krause on the bridge was at his post of duty and it was inconceivable that he should leave it. Navy Regs and the Articles for the Government of the Navy were quite definite about that. Consideration of any other course led into flights of fancy wilder than the thoughts of a lunatic. Krause could have summoned the medical officer to the bridge, he could have had himself certified as unfit for duty, and then he could have left his post and taken a rest. Only a lunatic could think of an officer going voluntarily through such a humiliation, and it would be beyond any lunatic’s imagination to conceive of a man with Krause’s rigid pride and overwhelming sense of duty submitting to it. Certainly the possibility never developed even in embryo in Krause’s thoughts. It was as far from his mind as a dereliction from duty would be, which meant that it never came into existence at all.
Here was a messenger with a tray.
“Exec, told me to bring this first without waiting for the rest, sir,” he said.
It was coffee; the inevitable set-up with the cream and sugar that he never used, but he viewed it as Galahad would have viewed the Holy Grail. Krause tugged off his gloves and snatched at it. His hands were numb and trembled a little as he poured. He swigged off the cup and refilled and drank again. The warmth as the coffee went down called his attention to the fact that he was cold; not acutely, perishingly cold but chilled through and through as if nothing would ever quite warm him again.
“Get me another pot,” he said, replacing the cup on the tray.
“Aye aye, sir.”
But as the messenger turned away the Filipino mess-boy took his place, also with a tray in his hands; a white cloth covered it, and the humps and valleys of the cloth hinted at much beneath. When he lifted the cloth he saw marvels. Bacon and eggs--no, ham and eggs with hashed brown potatoes! Toast, jelly, and more coffee! Charlie Cole was a wonderful man. Yet it was a proof of the weariness of Krause’s legs that he sat on the stool contemplating these wonders for a short space wondering what to do next. The stool was just too high for him to hold the tray on his knees; the alternative was to put the tray on the chart-table and eat standing up, and Krause experienced a brief hesitation before he decided upon it.
“On the table,” he said, and hobbled after the mess-boy.
And when he addressed himself to the tray then he experienced another momentary hesitation. It was almost as if he were not hungry; he might almost have told the boy to take the tray away again. But with the first mouth-full that feeling disappeared. He ate rapidly, with the cold wind from the broken windows of the pilot-house blowing round him. Fried eggs may not have been the most convenient things to eat while standing up on a heaving deck, but he did not care, not even when yellow drips fell on his sheepskin coat. He shovelled the potatoes into his mouth with the spoon. He spread jelly on the toast with an egg-smeared knife. He wiped his plate with the last fragment of toast and ate that too. Then a third cup of coffee, not swigged down madly like the first two, but drunk more at leisure, savouring it like a true coffee-hound, with the added pleasure of knowing that there was a fourth cup yet to be drunk. The pleasure was not even spoiled when a sudden recollection came to him of a duty yet unfulfilled. He bowed his head for a moment.
“I thank Thee Oh Lord for all Thy mercies - - “
There had once been a kind and understanding father. Krause was fortunate in that memory; that father had been able to smile at the excusable naughtiness of a little boy even though he led the life of a saint himself. Krause was not harassed by the thought of sin at having forgotten to say his thanks until his meal was nearly completed. That would be understood and forgiven him. The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life. Krause’s severest and most unrelenting judge, of whom he went in fear, was Krause himself, but that judge had luckily never taken ritual sin under his jurisdiction.
He finished the third cup and poured the fourth, and turned to find the messenger beside him with yet another pot on a tray. He had given the order before he knew about the breakfast tray, and now he contemplated the results a little aback.
“Can’t drink that now,” he said, and looked round for help. “Mr Carling, would you have a cup of coffee?”
“I could use it, sir.”
Carling had been on the chilly bridge for two whole hours. He poured himself a cup and added cream and sugar to reveal himself as the sort of man he was.
“Thank you, sir,” said Carling, sipping.
In his present state of wellbeing Krause could exchange a grin with him. Wink-wink-wink; out of the tail of his eye he could see a signal flashing far down on the northern horizon. That would be James sending the message about whose coming he had
been warned, yet he could finish his fourth cup without any diminution of pleasure. He pulled on his gloves again over his chilly hands, told the mess-boy to remove the tray, and limped back to the stool again. The meal had eased some of his weariness; he was deliberately seating himself so as not to incur more fatigue than necessary. A whole day of battle had made a veteran of him. The message reached him from the signal-bridge as soon as he sat down.
“JAMES” TO COMESCORT. OWING TO PROLONGED ACTION DURING NIGHT . . .
It was exactly what he had expected. James was down to the danger point as regards oil fuel. She had no more than nine depth-charges left. One day’s hard steaming or half an hour’s action with the enemy would equally leave her helpless. The message only contained these bare facts; it made no submissions, and the only excuse it made was in its opening words. If he were to detach James now she would at economical speed fetch Londonderry safely. If he retained her it could be highly questionable. He could imagine that tiny little ship lying helpless off the northern coast of Ireland, a prey to any enemy--and there might be many--in the air or below the surface or even on it. Yet she still had value as part of the escort. With her guns she could out-fight--only just--a submarine on the surface. Her nine remaining depth-charges, dropped singly but at the right moments, might keep a submarine away from the convoy for a vital few hours. Her sonar might guide Keeling or Viktor in to a decisive attack; even its steady pinging, heard by a listening submarine, might have a deterrent effect.
If they lived through to-day and to-night he might expect some air cover to-morrow, and then it would not be wildly difficult to take her in tow--one of the merchant vessels could do it. He balanced possible loss against possible gain. The captain of the James had been perfectly correct in calling his commanding officer’s attention to the condition of his ship; it would have been negligence on his part not to do so. Now the responsibility was Krause’s. He took the pad and pencil and began to print out the reply. Despite the hot coffee he had drunk he was only just warm enough to control the pencil sufficiently to be legible.