Five minutes dragged themselves interminably by, five minutes during which the sky grew steadily darker, during which reports from the poop showed that the firefighters were barely holding their own, five minutes during which Vallery recovered something of his normal composure. But he was now terribly weak.
A bell shrilled, cutting sharply through the silence and the gloom.
Chrysler answered it, turned to the bridge.
'Captain, sir. After engine-room would like to speak to you.'
Turner looked at the Captain, said quickly: 'Shall I take it, sir?'
'Thank you.' Vallery nodded his head gratefully. Turner nodded in turn, crossed to the phone.
'Commander speaking. Who is it?... Lieutenant Grier-son. What is it, Grierson? Couldn't be good news for a change?'
For almost a minute Turner remained silent. The others on the bridge could hear the faint crackling of the earpiece, sensed rather than saw the taut attention, the tightening of the mouth.
'Will it hold?' Turner asked abruptly. 'Yes, yes, of course... Tell him we'll do our best up here... Do that. Half-hourly, if you please.'
'It never rains, et cetera,' Turner growled, replacing the phone.
'Engine running rough, temperature hotting up. Distortion in inner starboard shaft. Dodson himself is in the shaft tunnel right now. Bent like a banana, he says.'
Vallery smiled faintly. 'Knowing Dodson, I suppose that means a couple of thou out of alignment.'
'Maybe.' Turner was serious. 'What does matter is that the main shaft bearing's damaged and the lubricating line fractured.'
'As bad as that?' Vallery asked softly.
'Dodson is pretty unhappy. Says the damage isn't recent, thinks it began the night we lost our depth- charges.' Turner shook his head. 'Lord knows what stresses that shaft's undergone since.... I suppose tonight's performance brought it to a head... The bearing will have to be lubricated by hand. Wants engine revs, at a minimum or engine shut off altogether. They'll keep us posted.'
'And no possibility of repair?' Vallery asked wryly.
'No, sir. None.'
'Very well, then. Convoy speed. And Commander?'
'Sir?'
'Hands to stations all night. You needn't tell 'em so-but, well, I think it would be wise. I have a feeling------'
'What's that!' Turner shouted. 'Look! What the hell's she doing?' His finger was stabbing towards the last freighter in the starboard line: her guns were blazing away at some unseen target, the tracers lancing whitely through the twilight sky. Even as he dived for the broadcaster, he caught sight of the Viking's main armament belching smoke and jagged flame.
'All guns! Green 1101 Aircraft! Independent fire, independent targets!
Independent fire, independent targets!' He heard Vallery ordering starboard helm, knew he was going to bring the for'ard turrets to bear.
They were too late. Even as the Ulysses began to answer her helm, the enemy planes were pulling out of their approach dives. Great, clumsy shapes, these planes, forlorn and insubstantial in the murky gloom, but identifiable in a sickening flash by the clamour of suddenly racing engines. Condors, without a shadow of doubt. Condors that had outguessed them again, that gliding approach, throttles cut right back, muted roar of the engines drifting downwind, away from the convoy. Their timing, their judgment of distance, had been superb.
The freighter was bracketed twice, directly hit by at least seven bombs: in the near-darkness, it was impossible to see the bombs going home, but the explosions were unmistakable. And as each plane passed over, the decks were raked by savage bursts of machine-gun fire. Every gun position on the freighter was wide open, lacking all but the most elementary frontal protection: the Dems, Naval Ratings on the L.A. guns, Royal Marine Artillerymen on the H.A. weapons, were under no illusions as to their life expectancy when they joined the merchant ships on the Russian run... For such few gunners as survived the bombing, the vicious stuttering of these machine-guns was almost certainly their last sound on earth.
As the bombs plummeted down on the next ship in line, the first freighter was already a broken-backed mass of licking, twisting flames.
Almost certainly, too, her bottom had been torn out: she had listed heavily, and now slowly and smoothly broke apart just aft of the bridge as if both parts were hinged below the water-line, and was gone before the clamour of the last aero engine had died away in the distance.
Tactical surprise had been complete. One ship gone, a second slewing wildly to an uncontrolled stop, deep in the water by the head, and strangely disquieting and ominous in the entire absence of smoke, flame or any movement at all, a third heavily damaged but still under command. Not one Condor had been lost.
Turner ordered the cease-fire-some of the gunners were still firing blindly into the darkness: trigger-happy, perhaps, or just that the imagination plays weird tricks on woolly minds and sunken blood-red eyes that had known no rest for more hours and days than Turner could remember. And then, as the last Oerlikon fell silent, he heard it again-the drone of the heavy aero engines, the sound welling then ebbing again like breakers on a distant shore, as the wind gusted and died.
There was nothing anyone could do about it. The Focke-Wulf, although lost in the low cloud, was making no attempt to conceal its presence: the ominous drone was never lost for long. Clearly, it was circling almost directly above.
'What do you make of it, sir?' Turner asked.
'I don't know,' Vallery said slowly. 'I just don't know at all. No more visits from the Condors, I'm sure of that. It's just that little bit too dark-and they know they won't catch us again. Tailing us, like as not.'
'Tailing us! It'll be black as tar in half an hour!' Turner disagreed.
'Psychological warfare, if you ask me.'
'God knows,' Vallery sighed wearily. 'All I know is that I'd give all my chances, here and to come, for a couple of Corsairs, or radar, or fog, or another such night as we had in the Denmark Straits.' He laughed shortly, broke down in a fit of coughing. 'Did you hear me?' he whispered. 'I never thought I'd ask for that again... How long since we left Scapa, Commander?'
Turner thought briefly. 'Five-six days, sir.'
'Six days!' He shook his head unbelievingly. 'Six days. And-and thirteen ships-we have thirteen ships now.'
'Twelve,' Turner corrected quietly. 'Another's almost gone. Seven freighters, the tanker and ourselves. Twelve... I wish they'd have a go at the old Stirling once in a while,' he added morosely.
Vallery shivered in a sudden flurry of snow. He bent forward, head bent against the bitter wind and slanting snow, sunk in unmoving thought.
Presently he stirred.
'We will be off the North Cape at dawn,' he said absently. 'Things may be a little difficult, Commander. They'll throw in everything they've got.'
'We've been round there before,' Turner conceded.
'Fifty-fifty on our chances.' Vallery did not seem to have heard him, seemed to be talking to himself. 'Ulysses and the Sirens-' it may be that the gulfs will wash us down.'... I wish you luck, Commander.'
Turner stared at him. 'What do you mean------?'
'Oh, myself too.' Vallery smiled, his head lifting up. 'I'll need all the luck, too.' His voice was very soft.
Turner did what he had never done before, never dreamed he would do. In the near-darkness he bent over the Captain, pulled his face round gently and searched it with troubled eyes. Vallery made no protest, and after a few seconds Turner straightened up.
'Do me a favour, sir,' he said quietly. 'Go below. I can take care of things-and Carrington will be up before long. They're gaining control aft.'
'No, not tonight.' Vallery was smiling, but there was a curious finality about the voice. 'And it's no good dispatching one of your minions to summon old Socrates to the bridge. Please, Commander. I want to stay here-I want to see things tonight.'
'Yes, yes, of course.' Suddenly, strangely, Turner no longer wished to argue. He turned away. 'Chrysler! I'll
