Sea Leopard

eleven seconds, nothing, nothing at all.'

'Christ.'

The sub-lieutenant, Lloyd now perceived, was removing the front panel of the main container housing the 'Leopard' equipment, a metal box little bigger or taller than a large filing cabinet.

'We're going to have to do a manual, if the computer can't tell us.'

'How long?'

'No idea.'

'Could it have happened when we were attacked — the damage to the prop and hydroplanes?'

'Possible. The sensors and dampers at the stern could have been damaged. If they have been — and the fault's outside — then we can't do a bloody thing down here without divers.'

'Complete failure?' Hayter nodded. 'What about the back-up system?'

Hayter's face became more lugubrious than ever; not a painted clown's downturned mouth but a human expression of concern and fear. His fingers played over the keyboard beneath the display screen, and the message vanished. Then he typed in a new set of instructions, and the response from the computer was almost instantaneous.

MALFUNCTIONAL.

Hayter opened his palms in a gesture of helplessness.

'The back-up system won't cut in.'

'It doesn't work at all?'

'At the last check, it worked. Now, it doesn't. I don't understand it. Immediately after the attack, we checked everything through on the computer. It registered no malfunction in either the main or back-up systems. Then we start winking at the Russians, and the computer doesn't know why. At the same moment, the back-up system is u/s. We'll do our best — that's all I can tell you.'

The message vanished from the screen before Lloyd had finished reading it. More words came spilling across the screen, line after line in block letters.

MALFUNCTION IN

MAIN SYSTEM UNIDENTIFIED

'Is it —?'

Hayter nodded. 'It's gone again. “Leopard” isn't working. Anyone who cares to look in our direction can see a British submarine lying on her belly.'

Lloyd looked at his watch. The second hand crept across the face like a red spider's leg, ugly, jerking, uncoordinated. Eight, nine, ten, eleven —

'Longer this time,' Hayter murmured.

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen —

'Come on, come on, — ' Lloyd heard himself saying a long way below his mind. 'Come on — '

Sixteen, seventeen —

There were four submarines within a radius of six miles of the Proteus. He had been studying the sonars just before he was summoned by Hayter.

Twenty-one, two, three, twenty-four, almost half a minute —

'I think she's gone,' Hayter whispered, flicking switches on the console in an almost demented fashion. The movements of his hands appeared all the more frenzied because of the expressionless lines and planes in which his face seemed to have coalesced. The message on the screen blinked out, then returned with a status report on the backup system.

MALFUNCTION.

Thirty-two, three, four —

Lloyd could not remove his gaze from the second hand of his watch. Hayter's hands still played across the banks of switches as he attempted to coax life back into 'Leopard' or to rouse its back-up system. Complete failure.

MALFUNCTION.

The word seemed to wink on and off the screen at a touch of a key or switch; as if the whole system had failed in each of its thousands of parts and circuits and microprocessors and transistors and coils.

Forty-two. Lloyd knew he ought to be in the control room, knew that they would be picking up changes of course and bearing, changes of speed. Forty-four.

The word vanished from the screen. A status report replaced it. Hayter sighed, perspiration standing out on his forehead, which he wiped with the back of his hand. He grinned shakily.

'We're back in business — for the time being,' he said.

'Everything's working?'

'As normal. The main system. Back-up's still dead.'

'Get working on the back-up system.' Then Lloyd almost ran from the room, down the companion-way to the control room, anticipating what he would see on the sonar screens.

* * *

'Skipper, I'm getting a reading from one of our sonar buoys — it's Proteus.“

'What? Bob, are you certain?'

'Skipper — I picked up a trace. It disappeared after about ten seconds, so I assumed it was a shoal of fish or something of the sort, or a false reading. Then a couple of minutes later, the same reading on the same bearing, for almost a minute. Now it's gone again.'

'What's happening?'

'Could be a malfunction in their equipment?'

'I don't know. Have you got a fix on her position?'

'Not the first time. The second time she came in on two of the buoys. Yes, I' ve got her.'

'Well done. Where is she?'

'What looks like a ledge. Shall I bring the chart through?'

'No. Not until I' ve decided what message to send to MoD. Have the Russians picked her up?'

'I don't know. Perhaps not —'

'You hope. Keep looking. The moment anything moves closer to Proteus's position, let me know. You're sure it's her?'

'What else could it be? I don't understand “Leopard”, even after the briefing, but I know what it's supposed to do. We couldn't see her, now we can. Correction, we did see her.'

'Okay, Okay, I believe you. Pass her position to John and tell him to stand by to transmit a Flash signal to Aubrey.'

'I'm already standing by, skipper.'

'Good. We'll take her down for a look-see first.'

Eastoe turned to his co-pilot, and nodded. The cloud cover beneath the nose and the wings of the Nimrod gleamed with sunlight, innocent; yet it extended downwards almost to sea level and it was moved by gale-force winds. Their calm was illusory, achieved only by altitude.

'Give me a bearing on the carrier,' Eastoe requested into his microphone. Almost immediately, the navigator supplied the coordinates and the course change that would take them over the Kiev.

Eastoe dipped the Nimrod's nose towards the clouds. Sunlight, the dense, smoothed roof of the cloud-forest, then a creeping greyness, the first rags and twigs of mist, the darkening of the flightdeck, then the cloud rushing past, swallowing them as they moved into it. The co-pilot switched on the wipers, and water streamed away from their furious beat. Eastoe felt the tremor of the winds through the control column as he watched the altimeter