about it anyway.'
'Yes. Maybe he has the right idea at that.' Findhorn took off his cap and mopped his dark head with a handkerchief: only eight o'clock, but already the sun was beginning to burn. 'We've more to do than worry about them anyway. I just can't figure them out. They're a strange bunch ? each one I talk to seems queerer than the last.'
'Including Miss Drachmann?' Nicolson suggested.
'Good heavens, no! I'd trade the bunch of them for that girl.' Findhorn replaced his cap and shook his head slowly, his eyes distant. 'A shocking case, Johnny ? what a ghastly mess those diabolical little butchers made of her face.' His eyes came into focus again, and he looked sharply at Nicolson. 'How much of what you told her last night was true?'
'About what the surgeons could do for her, you mean?'
'Yes.'
'Not much. I don't know a great deal, but that scar will have stretched and set long before anyone can do anything about it. They can still do something, of course ? but they're not miracle workers: none of them claims to be.'
'Then damn it all, mister, you'd no right to give her the impression they are.' Findhorn was as near anger as his phlegmatic nature would allow. 'My God, think of the disillusionment!'
'Eat, drink and be merry,' Nicolson quoted softly. 'Do you think you'll ever see England again, sir?'
Findhorn looked at him for a long moment, craggy brows drawn deep over his eyes, then nodded in slow understanding and turned away. 'Funny how we keep thinking in terms of peace and normality,' he murmured. 'Sorry, boy, sorry. Yet I've been thinking about nothing else since the sun came up. Young Peter, the nurses, everyone ? mostly the child and that girl, I don't know why.' He was silent for a few moments, eyes quartering the cloudless horizon, then added with only apparent inconsequence: 'It's a lovely day, Johnny.'
'It's a lovely day to die,' Nicolson said sombrely. Then he caught the captain's eye and smiled, briefly. 'It's a long time waiting, but the Japanese are polite little gentlemen ? ask Miss Drachmann: they always have been polite little gentlemen: I don't think they'll keep us waiting much longer.'
But the.Japanese did keep' tltec? Waiting. They kept them waiting a long, long time. Not long, perhaps, as the world reckons seconds and minutes and hours, but when men, despairing men too long on the rack of suspense, momentarily await and expect the inevitable, then the seconds and the minutes and the hours lose any significance as absolute units of time and, instead, become relative only to the razor-edged expectancy of the passing moment, to the ever-present anticipation of what must inexorably come. And so the seconds crawled by and became minutes, and the minutes stretched themselves out interminably and lengthened into an hour, and then another hour, and still the skies were empty and the line of the shimmering horizon remained smooth and still and unbroken. Why the enemy ? and Findhorn knew hundreds of ships and planes must be scouring the seas for them ? held off so long was quite beyond his understanding: he could only hazard the guess that they must have swept that area the previous afternoon after they had turned back to the aid of the Kerry Dancer and were now searching the seas farther to the south. Or perhaps they thought the Viroma had been lost in the typhoon ? and even as that explanation crossed his mind Findhorn dismissed it as wishful thinking and knew that the Japanese would think nothing of the kind…. Whatever the reason, the Viroma was still alone, still rolling south-eastwards in a vast expanse of empty sea and sky. Another hour passed, and then another and it was high noon, a blazing, burning sun riding almost vertically overhead in the oven of the sky and for the first time Captain Findhorn was allowing himself the luxury of the first tentative stirrings of hope: the Cari-mata Straits and darkness and the Java Sea and they might dare begin to think of home again. The sun rolled over its zenith, noon passed, and the minutes crept on again, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, each minute dragging longer and longer as hope began to rise once more. And then, at twenty-four minutes past noon, hope had turned to dust and the long wait was over.
A gunner on the fo'c'sle saw it first ? a tiny black speck far to the south-west, materialising out of the heat haze, high above the horizon. For a few seconds it seemed to remain there, stationary in the sky, a black, meaningless dot suspended in the air, and then, almost all at once, it was no longer tiny but visibly swelling in size with every breath the watchers took, and no longer meaningless, but taking shape, hardening in definition through the shimmering haze until the outline of fuselage and wings could be clearly seen, so clearly as to be unmistakable. A Japanese Zero fighter, probably fitted with long-range tanks, and even as the watchers on the Viroma recognised it the muted thunder of the aero engine came at them across the stillness of the sea.
The Zero droned in steadily, losing height by the second and heading straight for them. It seemed at first as if the pilot intended flying straight across the Viroma, but, less than a mile away, he banked sharply to starboard and started to circle the ship at a height of about five hundred feet. He made no move to attack, and not a gun fired aboard the Viroma. Captain Findhorn's orders to his gunners had been explicit ? u no firing except in self-defence: their ammunition was limited and they had to conserve it for the inevitable bombers. Besides, there was always the chance that the pilot might be deceived by the newly-painted name of Siyushu Mam and the large flag of the Rising Sun which had taken the place of Resistencia and the flag of the Argentine Republic a couple of days previously ? about one chance in ten thousand, Findhorn thought grimly. The brazen effrontery and the sheer unexpectedness that had carried the Viroma thus far had outlived their usefulness.
For almost ten minutes the Zero continued to circle the Viroma, never much more than half a mile away, banking steeply most of the time. Then two more 'planes ? Zero fighters also ? droned up from the south-west and joined the first. Twice all three of them circled the ship, then the first pilot broke formation and made two fore-and-aft runs, less than a hundred yards away, the canopy of his cockpit pushed right back so that the watchers on the bridge could see his face ? or what little of it was visible behind helmet, goggles on forehead and transmitter mouthpiece ? as the pilot took in every detail of the ship. Then he banked away sharply and rejoined the others: within seconds they were in line ahead formation, dipping their wings in mocking salute and heading north-west, climbing steadily all the time.
Nicolson let go his breath in a long, soundless sigh and turned to Findhorn. 'That bloke will never know how lucky he is.' He jerked his thumb upwards towards the Hotchkiss emplacements. 'Even our pop-gun merchants up top could have chewed him into little bits.'
'I know, I know.' His back against the dodger screen, Findhorn stared bleakly after the disappearing fighters. 'And what good would it have done? Just wasted valuable ammunition, that's all. He wasn't doing us any harm ? all the harm he could do he'd done long before he came anywhere near us. Our description, right down to the last rivet, our position, course and speed ? his command H.Q. got that over the radio long before he came anywhere near us.' Findhorn lowered his glasses and turned round heavily. 'We can't do anything about our description and position, but we can about our course. 200, Mr. Nicolson, if you please. We'll try for the Macclesfield Channel.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Nicolson hesitated. 'Think it'll make any difference, sir?'
'None whatsoever.' Findhorn's voice was just a little weary. 'Somewhere within two hundred and fifty miles from here laden bombers ? altitude bombers, dive-bombers, torpedo bombers ? are already taking off from Japanese airfields. Scores of them. Prestige is vital. If we escaped, Japan would be the laughing-stock of their precious Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and they can't afford to lose anybody's confidence.' Findhorn looked directly at Nicolson, his eyes quiet and sad and remote. 'I'm sorry, Johnny, sorry for little Peter and the girl and all the rest of them. They'll get us all right. They got the Prince of Wales and the Repulse: they'll massacre us. They'll be here in just over an hour.'
'So why alter course, sir?'
'So why do anything. Give us another ten minutes, perhaps, before they locate us. A gesture, my boy ? empty, I know, but still a gesture. Even the lamb turns and runs before the wolf-pack tears him to pieces.' Findhorn paused a moment, then smiled. 'And speaking of lambs, Johnny, you might go below and drive our little flock into the fold.'
Ten minutes later Nicolson was back on the bridge. Findhorn.looked at him expectantly.
'All safely corralled, Mr. Nicolson?'
'Afraid not, sir.' Nicolson touched the three golden bars on his epaulets. 'The soldiers of today are singularly unimpressed by authority. Hear anything, sir?'
Findhorn looked at him in puzzlement, listened, then nodded his head. 'Footsteps, Sounds like a regiment up above.'
Nicolson nodded. 'Corporal Fraser and his two merry men. When I told them to get into the pantry and stay there the corporal asked me to raffle myself. His feelings were hurt, I think. They can muster three rifles and a
