“How do you make that out, Charlie?” asked Krause. In the nick of time he had repressed an exclamation of surprise.
“We’re on G.C.T. now, sir,” replied Cole. “Sunrise this morning here will be zero-six-thirty-five. It’s zero-five-twenty now. You can see it’s getting light already, sir.”
So it was. Undoubtedly it was. Cole’s and Dawson’s figures were not black shadows; a hint of their white faces was perceptible. Two hours! It was fantastically unbelievable.
“We’re well on schedule,” said Krause.
“Ahead of where they’ll expect us to be, sir,” supplemented Cole.
The Admiralty could have no certainty about the position of the convoy. In view of their recommendation of two days ago---two days? It seemed more like two weeks --of a radical change of course, and in view of the numerous D.F. bearings on U-boats that they must have had, they might guess that the convoy was far behind schedule. But it had ploughed steadily on with almost no delay.
“Dodge and James have to know about this,” said Krause, tapping the clip-board with his gloved hand. “I’ll tell ‘em. I couldn’t raise them last night. They were too far.”
“I’d better stand by, sir,” volunteered Dawson, with a queer hint of apology in his voice. “Perhaps - - “
What Dawson was saying trailed off into significant incoherence as Krause went to the T.B.S. Dawson knew something about the ways of communications officers, and about the ways of commanding officers, too; and so did Krause. The Admiralty message was addressed to Comescort, but Dodge and James were likely to have taken it in. And they were likely to have decoded it as well, even though to do so would be a mild infraction of orders. It would be hard for discipline to withstand the assaults of curiosity at this moment and in these circumstances.
When Krause began speaking to the two ships the replies he received echoed Dawson’s apologetic tone comically, despite the way that the T.B.S. took most of the expression out of the voices.
“Yes, sir,” said Dicky; and after a moment’s hesitation. “We took that signal in too.”
“I guessed so,” said Krause. “You have the challenge and reply?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you unscramble those numerals?”
“It wasn’t a numeral, sir,” answered Dicky. “It was ‘point T.’ We made that bit out to be ‘Anticipate point of contact point T.’ “
“We’re nearly up to point T now,” said Krause.
“Yes, sir.”
Help, then, was very close at hand. And he had not appealed for it.
“And we got another bit, sir,” said Harry. “ ‘Report position if north of fifty-seven.’ “
They were well to the south of fifty-seven degrees North Latitude.
“Thank you,” said Krause. He would not take official notice of the venial sin. And in any case if he had been killed in the night action they would have had to have decoded that message. They could not be sure. That started another train of thought. It was hard to keep everything in mind, even the unpleasant thing he was thinking about.
“Did you know,” he asked, “that Viktor was lost last night?”
“No! “ said a shocked voice over the T.B.S.
“Yes,” said Krause. “She was hit just at dusk and went down at midnight.”
“Anyone saved, sir?” asked the T.B.S., subdued.
“Everyone, I think, except those killed in the explosion.”
“Is old Tubby all right, sir?”
“The British liaison officer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think so.”
“I’m glad, sir,” said one voice, and the other said, “It would take more than that to drown old Tubby.”
Krause had imagined the owner of that lackadaisical voice to be tall and lean; apparently he was nothing of the sort.
“Well, you fellows,” said Krause; the tired mind had to pick its words carefully again, for a formal moment was approaching and he was dealing with allies. “It won’t be long now.”
“No, sir.”
“I won’t be in command much longer.” He had to say that steadily and with every appearance of indifference. The T.B.S. waited in sympathetic silence, and he went on, “I have to thank you both for everything you’ve done.”
“Thank you, sir,” said one voice.
“Yes,” said the other, “it’s us that have to thank you, sir.”
“You’re very welcome,” said Krause, banally and idiotically. “But that’s all I have to say. Except good-bye for now.”
“Good-bye, sir. Good-bye.”
He came away from the T.B.S. feeling sad.
“Now about you, sir,” said Cole. “When did you eat last?”
Krause was taken completely by surprise by the question. At some time or other he had eaten cold cuts and salad, but to pin-point the time in his memory was absolutely beyond him. Watch had succeeded watch with, in retrospect, a rapidity that left him bewildered.
“I had some coffee,” he said, lamely.
“Nothing else since I ordered dinner for you, sir?”
“No,” said Krause. And he had no intention whatever of allowing his private life to be supervised by his executive officer, even though that officer was his lifetime friend. “I’m not hungry.”
“Fourteen hours since you ate last, sir,” said Cole.
“What I want to do,” said Krause asserting his independence, “is to get down to the head. I don’t want to eat.”
He formed an irritating mental picture of himself as a fretful child and Charlie Cole as an imperturbable nurse. He had used a child’s excuse.
“That’s fine, sir. I’ll get breakfast ordered for you while you’re gone. I suppose there’s no chance of your taking a rest until that plane shows up, sir?”
“Of course not,” said Krause.
This was Krause’s first campaign; at least it would teach him the necessity of snatching every available minute later on in the war. But his indignant negative had salved his dignity.
“I was afraid not, sir,” said Cole. “Messenger!“
Cole applied himself to giving orders for finding a mess attendant and having bacon and eggs prepared for the captain. And Krause found himself in the position of a man whose casual remark turns out to be true. Now that he had announced that he wanted to go to the head he was in a state of overwhelming anxiety to do so. It was shockingly urgent. He could not wait another minute. He found it was very difficult, nevertheless, to drag himself over to the ladder and start the descent. With his foot on the rung he remembered the red spectacles, and with relief decided they would not be necessary now that the light was increasing topside. He went on painfully down the ladder, into the cold light and bleak silence of the ship. His head was swimming and his whole body ached. There was a dull but distressing pain in the back of his head, and it was agony to transfer his weight from one foot to the other. He shambled into the head; he had no eyes for anything about him, and he shambled out again. The bridge seemed unbearably far away, until his tired mind recalled that before long touch would be gained with the mainland. The thought of it brought a little life back into his body. He actually mounted the ladder with a certain amount of verve. Cole saluted him as he came into the pilot-house.
“I’m going to take a look at the gun crews and lookouts, sir,” he said.
“Very well, Charlie. Thank you.”
He had to sit down. He simply had to sit. He made his way over to his stool and sank down on it. The relief, what with sitting and what with having been to the head, was considerable. All but his feet. They seemed to be red-hot with agony. A wicked thought came rising up into his mind; he had discarded it once, long before, but now it returned, repulsive and yet insistent, like an insufficiently weighted corpse rising with corruption from the depths. He could take off his shoes. He could defy convention. He could be bold. Important it might be for his crew always to see their captain correctly dressed, but it could not be at this moment more important than
the misery of his feet. Nothing could be more important. He was being tortured like an Indian captive. He had to--he simply must. It might be the first step down the slippery path of complete moral disintegration, yet even so he could not hold back. He reached painfully down and undid a shoe-string. He loosened it in its eyelets. He took the mental plunge, and, hand on heel, tried to thrust off the shoe. It resisted stubbornly for a moment and then--and then--the blend of agony and paradise as it came off was something indescribable; only just for a moment did it remind him of Evelyn with whom he had experienced something similar. He forgot Evelyn at once as he worked his toes about, stretched out his foot, felt the returning life creeping back within the thick arctic sock. The necessary seconds to take off the other shoe were hardly bearable. Both feet were free now; all ten toes were squirming with joy. To put the freed soles down on the icy steel deck and feel the chill penetrate the thick socks was a sensuous pleasure so intense that Krause actually forgot to be suspicious of it. He stretched his legs and felt the relieved circulation welling through his muscles. He stretched luxuriously, and caught himself at that moment--or several moments later; he did not know how many--falling forward from the waist sound asleep. He would have been on his nose on the deck in another second.
It was the end of bliss. He was back in a world of war, a world of steel, swaying on a slate-grey sea; and this steel ship of his might at any moment be torn open in thunder and flame with that grey sea flooding in through the holes, exploding boilers and drowning the dazed survivors. There was the pinging of the sonar to remind him of the sleepless watch that was being maintained against the enemies deep below the surface. Far ahead of him he could see a row of dim shapes on the horizon which were the helpless ships he had to guard; he had only to turn on his stool to see behind him the three others he was trying to lead to safety.
“T.B.S., sir,” said Harbutt. “Harry.”
He had already forgotten about taking his shoes off; it was a surprise to find himself walking in his stockinged feet. But there was nothing he could do about that at present.
“George to Harry. Go ahead.”
The careful precise tones of Lieutenant-Commander Rode spoke into his ear.
“We have an aircraft approaching on our screen, sir. Range sixty miles, bearing oh-nine-oh.”
“Thank you, Captain. It may be the plane we have to look out for.”
“It may be, sir.” The tone suggested that Rode had been bombed so often from the air that he took nothing for granted, and the next words went on to confirm the impression. “I’ve seen Condors as far out as here, sir. But we’ll know soon enough.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I’ll report again as soon as I’m sure, sir.”
“Very well, Captain, thank you.”
Krause’s heart was beating perceptibly faster as he put down the hand-set. Friend or enemy, the report meant that he had achieved touch with the far side of the ocean.
“Cap’n, sir, yo’ breffus.”
There was the tray with its white napkin cover raised into peaks by what lay under it. He eyed it without interest. If the plane were sixty miles from James it would be seventy-five miles from Keeling. In a quarter of an hour it would be in sight; in half an hour it might be overhead. Commonsense dictated that he should eat while he had time, and while the food was hot. But between fatigue and excitement he had no appetite.
“Oh, very well. Put it on the chart-table.”
He had forgotten again about being in his stockinged feet. And there were his shoes, lying disgracefully on the deck. He paid ten times over in that minute for the ecstasy he had felt when he had taken them off.
“Messenger! Take those shoes of mine to my cabin and bring me the slippers you’ll find there.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The messenger evinced no concern at being ordered on such a menial duty; it was Krause who felt the concern. He tasted all the bitterness of the pill he had to swallow; he was sensitive about the dignity of the men who served under him; and was quite unnecessarily worried about the messenger’s feelings. He could order the messenger into mortal danger more easily than he could order him to pick up his shoes. Already, forgetting the agony that had forced him into taking off his shoes, he was taking a mental vow never to indulge himself in that fashion again. It lessened his appetite for food even farther. But he plodded over to the desk and lifted the covers indifferently. Fried eggs, golden and white, looked up at him; from strips of bacon a pleasant odour rose to his nostrils. And coffee! Coffee! The scent of that as he poured it was utterly enticing. He drank; he began to eat.
“Your slippers, sir,” said the messenger, putting them on the deck beside him.
“Thank you,” replied Krause with his mouth full.
Charlie Cole was just entering the pilot-house when he was called again to the T.B.S.
“Catalina in sight, sir,” said Harry.
“Good,” answered Krause. It was only then that he knew he had been worrying in case it had been a Condor. “Is her challenge correct?”
“Yes, sir. And I have made reply.”
“Plane in sight! Plane dead ahead! “
Keeling’s look-outs were shouting wildly.
“Very well, thank you, Captain,” said Krause.
“PBY, sir,” said Cole, his binoculars to his eyes, looking at the bright eastern horizon, and then, loudly, “Very well, you men. It’s one of ours.”
The 20 mm. gun crews had already started training their weapons forward and upward. It was a black dot over the convoy, approaching fast. It was winking at him feverishly. Dot dot dash dot dash dash.
“Plane signals ‘UW,’ sir,” from the signal-bridge.
“Very well. Reply ‘BD.’ “
UW UW--that pilot had been shot at by so many friendly ships he wanted to make quite sure he was recognized. Now the plane was visible in detail, with all the clumsy comforting elephantine outlines of a PBY.
“One of ours, not British, sir,” commented Cole.
The stars were plain on the wings. It roared on overhead; at the 40 mm. guns the men raised a cheer and waved their arms. It passed on astern; Krause and Cole turned to watch it as it went nearly out of sight. Then they saw it swing leftwards, to the south.
“Checking up on how far we’re scattered,” said Krause.
“I guess so, sir. It looks like that. And he’ll scare down any sub within thirty miles, too, sir.”
So he would. In this clear daylight no sub would venture to remain on the surface with a plane circling overhead. And below the surface a sub would be half-blind and slow, no danger to the convoy unless fortunately right in the convoy’s path. The PBY swung on round, and settled on an easterly course back past the right flank of the convoy. They watched it steadily dwindling in size.
“Isn’t he going to cover us, sir?” asked Cole.
“I know what he’s doing,” said Krause. “He’s homing the escort group on us.”
A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter. The Earl of Banff and his escort group were already far out at sea, and the PBY was going to inform them of the bearing of the convoy.
“His course is not much south of east, sir,” said Cole, binoculars to his eyes. “They must be nearly dead ahead of us.”
Nearly dead ahead, and probably making fourteen knots. Relief and convoy were heading towards each other at a combined speed of twenty-three knots at least. In an hour or two they would be in sight of each other. Less than that, perhaps. Krause looked forward; the rear line of the convoy was now hull-up; Keeling had brought the lost sheep back to the flock.
“Out of sight, sir,” said Cole taking the glasses from his eyes.
Now there was no knowing how much farther the PBY would be going.
“What about your breakfast, sir?” asked Cole.
Krause would not admit that he could not remember in what condition he had left his tray. He walked over to it. The large plate bore a
cold egg and strips of congealed bacon.
“I’ll send for some more, sir,” said Cole.
“No, thank you,” replied Krause. “I’ve had all I want.”
“Surely you could use some coffee, sir. This is cold.”
“Well - - “
“Messenger! Bring the captain another pot of coffee.”
“Thank you,” said Krause.
“Watch is just going to change, sir. I’ll get down to the plot.”
“Very well, Charlie.”
When Cole had gone Krause looked down again at the tray. Automatically his hand went out and he picked up a piece of toast and started to eat it. It was cold and leathery, but it disappeared with remarkable rapidity. Krause spread the other piece thick with butter and jelly and ate that. Then he found himself picking up the strips of cold bacon and eating them too.
Friday. Forenoon Watch--0800-1200
Harbutt saluted and reported his relief. “Very well, Mr Harbutt. Mr Carling! I want a fuel report from the engine-room.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Krause looked again at the convoy and back at the three ships aft. Was it sentimental to want to be at the head of his command when the reinforcements arrived?
“Pardon me, sir,” said the messenger, putting hot coffee on the tray in front of him.
“Get me a signal-pad and pencil,” said Krause.
He wrote out the message.
COMESCORT TO SHIPS ASTERN. RESUME STATIONS IN CONVOY.
“Signal bridge,” he ordered. “And tell them to send slowly.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“The T.B.S., sir,” said Carling.
It was James.
“The Catalina’s crossing our course at thirty-five miles, sir. Looks as if the escort group isn’t far ahead. Thought you’d like to know, sir.”
“I sure would. Thanks a lot,” said Krause.
He was on the way back to his coffee when the messenger saluted him.
“Ships astern acknowledge message, sir.”
“Very well.”
Lieutenant-Commander Ipsen up from the engine-room with his written fuel report. Enough for fifty-seven hours’ steaming at economical speeds. Enough.