H. M. S. Ulysses (13 page)

‘My word!' he murmured thoughtfully. ‘That
is
unusual.'

Another such wave, another such shattering impact, and it would have been the end for the
Defender
. The finest ships, the stoutest, most powerful vessels, are made only of thin, incredibly thin, sheets of metal, and metal, twisted and tortured as was the
Defender
's, could never have withstood another such impact.

But there were no more such waves, no more such impacts. It had been a freak wave, one of these massive, inexplicable contortions of the sea which have occurred, with blessed infrequency, from time immemorial, in all the great seas of the world whenever Nature wanted to show mankind, an irreverent, over-venturesome mankind, just how puny and pitifully helpless a thing mankind really is . . . There were no more such waves and, by five o'clock, although land was still some eight to ten miles away, the squadron had moved into comparative shelter behind the tip of the Langanes peninsula.

From time to time, the captain of the
Defender
, who seemed to be enjoying himself hugely, sent reassuring messages to the Admiral. He was making a good deal of water, but he was managing nicely, thank you. He thought the latest shape in flight-decks very fashionable, and a vast improvement on the old type; straight flight-decks lacked imagination, he thought, and didn't the Admiral think so too. The vertical type, he stated, provided excellent protection against wind and weather, and would make a splendid sail with the wind in the right quarter. With his last message, to the effect that he thought that it would be rather difficult to fly off planes, a badly-worried Tyndall lost his temper and sent back such a blistering signal that all communications abruptly ceased.

Shortly before six o'clock, the squadron hove-to under the shelter of Langanes, less than two miles offshore. Langanes is low-lying, and the wind, still climbing the scale, swept over it and into the bay beyond, without a break; but the sea, compared to an hour ago, was mercifully calm, although the ships still rolled heavily. At once the cruisers and the screen vessels—except the
Portpatrick
and the
Gannet
—moved alongside the carriers, took oil hoses aboard. Tyndall relucantly and after much heart-searching, had decided that the
Portpatrick
and
Gannet
were suspect, a potential liability: they were to escort the crippled carrier back to Scapa.

Exhaustion, an exhaustion almost physical, almost tangible, lay heavily over the mess-decks and the wardroom of the
Ulysses
. Behind lay another sleepless night, another twenty-four hours with peace unknown and rest impossible. With dull, tired minds, men heard the broadcast that the
Defender
, the
Portpatrick
and the
Gannet
were to return to Scapa when the weather moderated. Six gone now, only eight left—half the carrier force gone. Little wonder that men felt sick at heart, felt as if they were being deserted, as if, in Riley's phrase, they were being thrown to the wolves.

But there was remarkably little bitterness, a puzzling lack of resentment which, perhaps, sprung only from the sheer passive acceptance. Brooks was aware of it, this inaction of feeling, this unnatural extinction of response, and was lost for a reason to account for it. Perhaps, he thought, this was the nadir, the last extremity when sick men and sick minds cease altogether to function, the last slow-down of all vital processes, both human and animal. Perhaps this was just the final apathy. His intellect told him that was reasonable, more, it was inevitable . . . And all the time some fugitive intuition, some evanescent insight, was thrusting upon him an awareness, a dim shadowy awareness of something altogether different; but his mind was too tired to grasp it.

Whatever it was, it wasn't apathy. For a brief moment that evening, a white-hot anger ran through the ship like a flame, then resentment of the injustice which had provoked it. That there had been cause for anger even Vallery admitted; but his hand had been forced.

It had all happened simply enough. During routine evening tests, it had been discovered that the fighting lights on the lower yardarm were not working. Ice was at once suspected as being the cause.

The lower yardarm, on this evening dazzling white and heavily coated with snow and ice, paralleled the deck, sixty feet above it, eighty feet above the waterline. The fighting lights were suspended below the outer tip: to work on these, a man had either to sit on the yardarm—a most uncomfortable position as the heavy steel WT transmission aerial was bolted to its upper length—or in a bosun's chair suspended from the yardarm. It was a difficult enough task at any time: tonight, it had to be done with the maximum speed, because the repairs would interrupt radio transmission—the 3,000-volt steel ‘Safe-to-Transmit' boards (which broke the electrical circuits) had to be withdrawn and left in the keeping of the Officer of the Watch during the repair: it had to be done—very precise, finicky work had to be done—in that sub-zero temperature: it had to be done on that slippery, glasssmooth yardarm, with the
Ulysses
rolling regularly through a thirty-degree arc: the job was more than ordinarily difficult—it was highly dangerous.

Marshall did not feel justified in detailing the duty LTO for the job, especially as that rating was a middle-aged and very much overweight reservist, long past his climbing prime. He asked for volunteers. It was inevitable that he should have picked Ralston, for that was the kind of man Ralston was.

The task took half an hour—twenty minutes to climb the mast, edge out to the yardarm tip, fit the bosun's chair and lifeline, and ten minutes for the actual repair. Long before he was finished, a hundred, two hundred tired men, robbing themselves of sleep and supper, had come on deck and huddled there in the bitter wind, watching in fascination.

Ralston swung in a great arc across the darkening sky, the gale plucking viciously at his duffel and hood. Twice, wind and wave flung him out, still in his chair, parallel to the yardarm, forcing him to wrap both arms around the yardarm and hang on for his life. On the second occasion he seemed to strike his face against the aerial, for he held his head for a few seconds afterwards, as if he were dazed. It was then that he lost his gauntlets—he must have had them in his lap, while making some delicate adjustment: they dropped down together, disappeared over the side.

A few minutes later, while Vallery and Turner were standing amidships examining the damage the motorboat had suffered in Scapa Flow, a short, stocky figure came hurriedly out of the after screen door, made for the fo'c'sle at an awkward stumbling run. He pulled up abruptly at the sight of the Captain and the Commander: they saw it was Hastings, the Master-at-Arms.

‘What's the matter, Hastings?' Vallery asked curtly. He always found it difficult to conceal his dislike for the Master-at-Arms, his dislike for his harshness, his uncalled-for severity.

‘Trouble on the bridge, sir,' Hastings jerked out breathlessly. Vallery could have sworn to a gleam of satisfaction in his eye. ‘Don't know exactly what—could hardly hear a thing but the wind on the phone . . . I think you'd better come, sir.'

They found only three people on the bridge: Etherton, the Gunnery Officer, one hand still clutching a phone, worried, unhappy: Ralston, his hands hanging loosely by his sides, the palms raw and torn, the face ghastly, the chin with the dead pallor of frostbite, the forehead masked in furrowed, frozen blood: and, lying in a corner, Sub-Lieutenant Carslake, moaning in agony, only the whites of his eyes showing, stupidly fingering his smashed mouth, the torn, bleeding gaps in his prominent upper teeth.

‘Good God!' Vallery ejaculated. ‘Good God above!' He stood there, his hand on the gate, trying to grasp the significance of the scene before him. Then his mouth clamped shut and he swung round on the Gunnery Officer.

‘What the devil's happened here, Etherton?' he demanded harshly. ‘What
is
all this? Has Carslake—'

‘Ralston hit him, sir.' Etherton broke in.

‘Don't be so bloody silly, Guns!' Turner grunted.

‘Exactly!' Vallery's voice was impatient. ‘We can see that. Why?'

‘A WT messenger came up for the “Safe-to-Transmit” boards. Carslake gave them to him—about ten minutes ago, I—I think.'

‘You think! Where were you, Etherton, and why did you permit it? You know very well . . . ' Vallery broke off short, remembering the presence of Ralston and the MAA.

Etherton muttered something. His words were inaudible in the gale.

Vallery bent forward. ‘What did you say, Etherton?'

‘I was down below, sir.' Etherton was looking at the deck. ‘Just— just for a moment, sir.'

‘I see. You were down below.' Vallery's voice was controlled now, quiet and even; his eyes held an expression that promised ill for Etherton. He looked round at Turner. ‘Is he badly hurt, Commander?'

‘He'll survive,' said Turner briefly. He had Carslake on his feet now, still moaning, his hand covering his smashed mouth.

For the first time, the Captain seemed to notice Ralston. He looked at him for a few seconds—an eternity on that bitter, storm-lashed bridge—then spoke, monosyllabic, ominous, thirty years of command behind the word.

‘Well?'

Ralston's face was frozen, expressionless. His eyes never left Carslake.

‘Yes, sir. I did it. I hit him—the treacherous, murdering bastard!'

‘Ralston!' The MAA's voice was a whiplash.

Suddenly Ralston's shoulders sagged. With an effort, he looked away from Carslake, looked wearily at Vallery.

‘I'm sorry. I forgot. He's got a stripe on his arm—only ratings are bastards.' Vallery winced at the bitterness. ‘But he—'

‘You've got frostbite.'

‘Rub your chin, man!' Turner interrupted sharply.

Slowly, mechanically, Ralston did as he was told. He used the back of his hand. Vallery winced again as he saw the palm of the hand, raw and mutilated, skin and flesh hanging in strips. The agony of that bare-handed descent from the yardarm . . .

‘He tried to murder me, sir. It was deliberate.' Ralston sounded tired.

‘Do you realize what you are saying?' Vallery's voice was as icy as the wind that swept over Langanes. But he felt the first, faint chill of fear.

‘He tried to murder me, sir,' Ralston repeated tonelessly. ‘He returned the boards five minutes before I left the yardarm. WT must have started transmitting just as soon as I reached the mast, coming down.'

‘Nonsense, Ralston. How dare you—'

‘He's right, sir.' It was Etherton speaking. He was replacing the receiver carefully, his voice unhappy. ‘I've just checked.'

The chill of fear settled deeper on Vallery's mind. Almost desperately he said, ‘Anyone can make a mistake. Ignorance may be culpable, but—'

‘Ignorance!' The weariness had vanished from Ralston as if it had never been. He took two quick steps forward. ‘Ignorance! I gave him these boards, sir, when I came to the bridge. I asked for the Officer of the Watch and he said
he
was—I didn't know the Gunnery Officer was on duty, sir. When I told him that the boards were to be returned only to me, he said: “I don't want any of your damned insolence, Ralston. I know my job—you stick to yours. Just you get up there and perform your heroics.” He
knew
, sir.'

Carslake burst from the Commander's supporting arm, turned and appealed wildly to the Captain. The eyes were white and staring, the whole face working.

‘That's a lie, sir! It's a damned, filthy lie!' He mouthed the words, slurred them through smashed lips. ‘I never said . . . '

The words crescendoed into a coughing, choking scream as Ralston's fist smashed viciously, terribly into the torn, bubbling mouth. He staggered drunkenly through the port gate, crashed into the chart house, slid down to lie on the deck, huddled and white and still. Both Turner and the MAA had at once leapt forward to pinion the LTO's arms, but he made no attempt to move.

Above and beyond the howl of the wind, the bridge seemed strangely silent. When Vallery spoke, his voice was quite expressionless.

‘Commander, you might phone for a couple of our marines. Have Carslake taken down to his cabin and ask Brooks to have a look at him. Master-at-Arms?'

‘Sir?'

‘Take this rating to the Sick Bay, let him have any necessary treatment. Then put him in cells. With an armed guard. Understand?'

‘I understand, sir.' There was no mistaking the satisfaction in Hastings's voice.

Vallery, Turner and the Gunnery Officer stood in silence as Ralston and the MAA left, in silence as two burly marines carried Carslake, still senseless, off the bridge and below. Vallery moved after them, broke step at Etherton's voice behind him.

‘Sir?'

Vallery did not even turn round. ‘I'll see you later, Etherton.'

‘No, sir. Please. This is important.'

Something in the Gunnery Officer's voice held Vallery. He turned back, impatiently.

‘I'm not concerned with excusing myself, sir. There's no excuse.' The eyes were fixed steadily on Vallery. ‘I was standing at the Asdic door when Ralston handed the boards to Carslake. I overheard them—every word they said.'