that separated the bridge from what had been the wireless office and exploded just beyond. The sliding wooden door, now hi a hundred jagged fragments, blew forward into the bridge and the concussive blast of the explosion sent both men staggering, McKinnon against the wheel, Naseby against a small chart table: but the razor-sharp shards of the shell casing had flown in the other direction and both men were unhurt. Naseby recovered some of the air that had been driven from his lungs. They're improving, Arch
'Fluke.' The San Andreas^ its superstructure beginning to vibrate quite badly as engine revolutions built up, was now bearing down directly on the conning-tower of the U-boat which, however, was still considerably more than a mile distant. 'Next one will miss the bridge by a mile.'
The next one, in fact, missed the ship completely and went into the sea a hundred yards astern of the San Andreas. It did not detonate on impact.
The following shell struck somewhere in the vicinity of the bows. Where it had exploded was impossible to tell from the bridge, for there was no visible uplifting or buckling of the fo'c's'le deck, but that it had done its damage was beyond doubt: the furious rattling of chain as one of the fore anchors plunged down to the floor of the Norwegian Sea could be heard a mile away. The rattling ceased as abruptly as it had begun, the fastening doubtless torn from the floor of the chain locker.
'No loss,' Naseby said. 'Who's ever anchored in a thousand feet or whatever?'
'Who cares about the anchor? Point is, are we open to the sea?'
Yet another shell buried itself in the bows and this time, there was no doubt where it had landed for a small area of the fo'c's'le deck, port side, lifted upwards almost a foot.
'Open to the sea or not,' Naseby said, 'this hardly seems to be the time to investigate. Not as long as they are zeroing in on the bows, which is what they appear to be doing. We're all that closer now so they're getting all the more accurate. They seem to be going for the waterline. It can't be that they want to sink us. And don't they know the gold is there?'
'I don't know what they know. Probably know there's gold aboard: no reason why they should know where. Not that a little shrapnel lowers the value of gold. Anyway, I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies: at this angle of approach it's impossible that they can hit the hospital area.'
A third shell struck and exploded in the bows in almost the same position as the previous one — the already uplifted section of the fo'c's'le had heaved up almost another foot.
'That's where the paint and carpenter's shops are,' Naseby said absently.
'That's what I've been thinking.'
'Were Ferguson and Curran in the mess-deck when you left?'
'That's why I've been thinking. Can't remember seeing them, although that's not to say they weren't there. They're such an idle couple they might well have passed up lunch for an hour's kip. I should have warned them.'
'There wasn't time for you to warn anyone.'
'I could have sent someone. I did think they'd concentrate their fire on the bridge but I should still have sent someone. My fault. Slipping, as I told Jamieson.' He paused, narrowed his eyes in concentration and said: 'I think they're turning away, George.'
Naseby had the glasses to his eyes. 'They are. And there's someone on the bridge, captain or whoever, using a loud-hailer. Ah! The gun crew are working on their gun and — yes — they're aligning it fore and-aft. This mean what I think it means, Archie?'
'Well, the conning-tower's empty and the gun crew are going down the hatch so it must mean what you think. See any bubbles coming up?'
'No. Wait a minute. Yes. Yes, lots.'
'Blowing main ballast.'
'But we're still a mile away from them.'
'Captain's taking no chances and I don't blame him. He's not a clown like Klaussen.'
They watched for some moments in silence. The U-boat was now at a 45s angle, the decks barely awash and vanishing quickly.
'Take the wheel, George. Give the Chief Engineer a ring, will you, tell him what's happened and ask him to drop down to normal speed. Then back on the course we were on. I'm going to check on any flooding for'ard.'
Naseby watched him go and knew that flooding was secondary in the Bo'sun's mind. He was going to find out whether, indeed, Curran and Ferguson had elected to miss lunch.
McKinnon was back in about ten minutes. He had a bottle of Scotch in his hand and two glasses and no smile on his face.
Naseby said: 'Their luck run out?'
'Abandoned by fortune, George. Abandoned by McKinnon.'
'Archie, you must stop it. Please stop blaming yourself. What's done is done.' Janet had intercepted him as he had entered the mess-deck — he had come down with Naseby and left Trent on the wheel with Jones and McGuigan as lookouts — and pulled him into a corner. 'Oh, I know that's trite, meaningless, if you want. And if you want another trite and meaningless remark, you can't bring back the dead.'
'True, true.' The Bo'sun smiled without humour. 'And speaking of the dead — and one should speak no ill of the dead — they were a couple of moderately useless characters. But both were married, both had two daughters. What would they think if they knew that the gallant bo'sun, in his anxiety to get at a U-boat, completely forgot them?'
'The best thing would be if^ow forgot them. Sounds cruel, I know, but let the dead bury their dead. We are alive: when I say 'we' I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about every other person aboard, including myself. Your duty is to the living. Don't you know that every single person this ship, from the Captain and Mr Patterson down, depends on you? We're depending on you to take us home.'
'Do be quiet, woman.'
'You'll take me home, Archie?'
'Scalloway? Hop, skip and jump. Of course I will.'
She stood back at arm's length, hands on his shoulders, searched his eyes, then smiled.
'You know, Archie, I really believe you will.'
He smiled in return. 'I'm glad of that.' He didn't for a moment believe it himself but there was no point in spreading undue gloom and despondency.
They joined Patterson, Jamieson and Ulbricht at the table. Patterson pushed a glass in front of him. T would say that you have earned that, Bo'sun. A splendid job.'
'Not so splendid, sir. I had no option but to do what I did. Can't say I feel sorry for a U-boat captain but he's really up against a nearly impossible problem, faced with a hiding to nothing. He's under orders not to sink us so the best he can do is to try to incapacitate us as much as possible. We run at him and he hides. Simple as that.'
'The way you put it, yes. I hear you had a very narrow escape on the bridge.'
'If the shell had passed through metal and exploded in the bridge, that would have been it. But it passed through the glass instead. Luck.'
'And up front?'
'Three holes. All above the waterline. What with those and the damage that the U-boat did to us — rather, the damage we inflicted on ourselves — there's going to be a fair old job for the ship repairers when we get into dry dock. The watertight bulkheads seem sound enough. That's the good part. The bad part — and I'm afraid this is all my fault — is that — '
'Archie!' Janet's voice was sharp.
'Oh, all right. You'll have heard — Ferguson and Curran are dead.'
'I know and I'm sorry. Damnable. That makes twenty now.' Patterson thought for a few moments. 'You reckon this situation will continue for some time?'
'What situation, sir?'
'That they keep on trying to stop us instead of sinking us.'
McKinnon shrugged. 'It is much more important to the Germans that they discredit the Russians with our Government than that they get the gold. As things stand at the moment they want both to have their cake and eat it. Factor of greed, really.'
'So as long as they remain greedy we're relatively safe?'
