But first, FR 77 to Murmansk, come hell or high water!' His voice broke on the last word and lifted into stridency, the anger burring through the thin veneer of suavity. 'The Ulysses must be made to realise that the Navy will never tolerate disobedience of orders, dereliction of duty, organised revolt and sedition!'
'Rubbish!'
Starr jerked back in his chair, knuckles whitening on the arm-rest. His glance whipped round and settled on Surgeon-Commander Brooks, on the unusually vivid blue eyes so strangely hostile now under that magnificent silver mane. Tyndall, too, saw the angry eyes. He saw, also, the deepening colour in Brooks's face, and moaned softly to himself. He knew the signs too well, old Socrates was about to blow his Irish top. Tyndall made to speak, then slumped back at a sharp gesture from Starr.
'What did you say, Commander?' The Admiral's voice was very soft and quite toneless.
''Rubbish,' repeated Brooks distinctly. 'Rubbish.' That's what I said. 'Let's be perfectly frank,' you say. Well, sir, I'm being frank. 'Dereliction of duty, organised revolt and sedition' my foot! But I suppose you have to call it something, preferably something well within your own field of experience. But God only knows by what strange association and sleight-of-hand mental transfer, you equate yesterday's trouble aboard the Ulysses with the only clearly, cut code of behaviour thoroughly familiar to yourself.' Brooks paused for a second: in the silence they heard the thin, high wail of a bosun's pipe, a passing ship, perhaps. 'Tell me, Admiral Starr,' he went on quietly, 'are we to drive out the devils of madness by whipping, a quaint old medieval custom, or maybe, sir, by drowning, remember the Gadarene swine? Or perhaps a month or two in cells, you think, is the best cure for tuberculosis?'
'What in heaven's name are you talking about, Brooks?' Starr demanded angrily. 'Gadarene swine, tuberculosis, what are you getting at, man? Go on, explain.' He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table, eyebrows arched high into his furrowed brow. 'I hope, Brooks,' he went on silkily, 'that you can justify this-ah- insolence of yours.'
'I'm quite sure that Commander Brooks intended no insolence, sir.' It was Captain Vallery speaking for the first time. 'He's only expressing-----'
'Please, Captain Vallery,' Starr interrupted. 'I am quite capable of judging these things for myself, I think.' His smile was very tight.
'Well, go on, Brooks.'
Commander Brooks looked at him soberly, speculatively.
'Justify myself?' He smiled wearily. 'No, sir, I don't think I can.' The slight inflection of tone, the implications, were not lost on Starr, and he flushed slightly. 'But I'll try to explain,' continued Brooks. 'It may do some good.'
He sat in silence for a few seconds, elbow on the table, his hand running through the heavy silver hair, a favourite mannerism of his. Then he looked up abruptly.
'When were you last at sea, Admiral Starr?' he inquired.
'Last at sea?' Starr frowned heavily. 'What the devil has that got to do with you, Brooks, or with the subject under discussion?' he asked harshly.
'A very great deal,' Brooks retorted. 'Would you please answer my question, Admiral?'
'I think you know quite well, Brooks,' Starr replied evenly, 'that I've been at Naval Operations H.Q. in London since the outbreak of war. What are you implying, sir?'
'Nothing. Your personal integrity and courage are not open to question.
We all know that. I was merely establishing a fact.' Brooks hitched himself forward in his chair.
'I'm a naval doctor, Admiral Starr, I've been a doctor for over thirty years now.' He smiled faintly. 'Maybe I'm not a very good doctor, perhaps I don't keep quite so abreast of the latest medical developments as I might, but I believe I can claim to know a great deal about human nature, this is no time for modesty, about how the mind works, about the wonderfully intricate Interaction of mind and body. ''Isolation distorts perspective', these were your words, Admiral Starr. 'Isolation' implies a cutting off, a detachment from the world, and your implication was partly true. But, and this, sir, is the point, there are more worlds than one. The Northern Seas, the Arctic, the black-out route to Russia, these are another world, a world utterly distinct from yours. It is a world, sir, of which you cannot possibly have any conception. In effect, you are completely isolated from our world.'
Starr grunted, whether in anger or derision it was difficult to say, and cleared his throat to speak, but Brooks went on swiftly.
'Conditions obtain there without either precedent or parallel in the history of war. The Russian Convoys, sir, are something entirely new and quite unique in the experience of mankind.'
He broke off suddenly, and gazed out through the thick glass of the scuttle at the sleet slanting heavily across the grey waters and dun hills of the Scapa anchorage. No one spoke. The Surgeon-Commander was not finished yet: a tired man takes time to marshal his thoughts.
'Mankind, of course, can and does adapt itself to new conditions.'
Brooks spoke quietly, almost to himself. 'Biologically and physically, they have had to do so down the ages, in order to survive. But it takes time, gentlemen, a great deal of time. You can't compress the natural changes of twenty centuries into a couple of years: neither mind nor body can stand it. You can try, of course, and such is the fantastic resilience and toughness of man that he can tolerate it, for extremely short periods. But the limit, the saturation capacity for adaption is soon reached. Push men beyond that limit and anything can happen. I say 'anything' advisedly, because we don't yet know the precise form the crack-up will take, but crack-up there always is. It may be physical, mental, spiritual, I don't know. But this I do know, Admiral Starr, the crew of the Ulysses has been pushed to the limit, and clear beyond.'
'Very interesting, Commander.' Starr's voice was dry, sceptical. 'Very interesting indeed, and most instructive. Unfortunately, your theory, and it's only that, of course, is quite untenable.'
Brooks eyed him steadily.
'That sir, is not even a matter of opinion.'
'Nonsense, man, nonsense!' Starr's face was hard in anger. 'It's a matter of fact. Your premises are completely false.' Starr leaned forward, his forefinger punctuating every word. 'This vast gulf you claim to lie between the convoys to Russia and normal operational work at sea, it just doesn't exist. Can you point out any one factor or condition present in these Northern waters which is not to be found somewhere else in the world? Can you, Commander Brooks?'
'No, sir.' Brooks was quite unruffled. 'But I can point out a frequently overlooked fact, that differences of degree and association can be much greater and have far more far-reaching effects than differences in kind. Let me explain what I mean.
'Fear can destroy a man. Let's admit it, fear is a natural thing. You get it in every theatre of war, but nowhere, I suggest, so intense, so continual as in the Arctic convoys.
'Suspense, tension can break a man, any man. I've seen it happen too often, far, far too often. And when you're keyed up to snapping point, sometimes for seventeen days on end, when you have constant daily reminders of what may happen to you in the shape of broken, sinking ships and broken, drowning bodies, well, we're men, not machines.
Something has to go, and does. The Admiral will not be unaware that after the last two trips we shipped nineteen officers and men to sanatoria, mental sanatoria?'
Brooks was on his feet now, his broad, strong fingers splayed over the polished table surface, his eyes boring into Starr's.
'Hunger burns out a man's vitality, Admiral Starr. It saps his strength, slows his reactions, destroys the will to fight, even the will to survive. You are surprised, Admiral Starr? Hunger, you think, surely that's impossible in the well, provided ships of today? But it's not impossible, Admiral Starr.
It's inevitable. You keep on sending us out when the Russian season's over, when the nights are barely longer than the days, when twenty hours out of the twenty-four are spent on watch or at action stations, and you expect us to feed well!' He smashed the flat of his hand on the table.
'How the hell can we, when the cooks spend nearly all their time in the magazines, serving the turrets, or in damage control parties? Only the baker and butcher are excused, and so we live on corned-beef sandwiches.
For weeks on end! Corned-beef sandwiches!' Surgeon-Commander Brooks almost spat in disgust.
Good old Socrates, thought Turner happily, give him hell. Tyndall, too, was nodding his ponderous approval. Only Vallery was uncomfortable, not because of what Brooks was saying, but because Brooks was saying it. He,
