H. M. S. Ulysses (22 page)

As the big, grey hull of the
Baddeley
slid swiftly by them, they struck out with insane strength that made nothing of their heavy Arctic-clothing. At such times, reason vanishes: the thought that if, by some God-given miracle, they were to escape the guillotine of the
Baddeley
's single great screw, they would do so only to die minutes later in the glacial cold of the Arctic, never occurred to them. But, as it happened, death came by neither metal nor cold. They were still struggling, almost abreast the poop, vainly trying to clear the rushing, sucking vortex of water, when the torpedoes struck the
Baddeley
, close together and simultaneously, just for'ard of the rudder.

For swimming men who have been in the close vicinity of an underwater high explosion there can be no shadow of hope: the effect is inhuman, revolting, shocking beyond conception: in such cases, experienced doctors, pathologists even, can with difficulty bring themselves to look upon what were once human beings . . . But for these men, as so often in the Arctic, death was kind, for they died unknowing.

The
Walter A. Baddeley
's stern had been almost completely blown off. Hundreds of tons of water were already rushing in the gaping hole below the counter, racing through cross-bulkheads fractured by the explosion, smashing open engine-boiler room watertight doors buckled by the blast, pulling her down by the stern, steadily, relentlessly, till her taffrail dipped salute to the waiting Arctic. For a moment, she hung there. Then, in quick succession from deep inside the hull, came a muffled explosion, the ear-shattering, frightening roar of escaping high-pressure steam and the thunderous crash of massive boilers rending away from their stools as the ship upended. Almost immediately the shattered stern lurched heavily, sank lower and lower till the poop was completely gone, till the dripping forefoot was tilted high above the sea. Foot by foot the angle of tilt increased, the stern plunged a hundred, two hundred feet under the surface of the sea, the bows rearing almost as high against the blue of the sky, buoyed up by half a million cubic feet of trapped air.

The ship was exactly four degrees off the vertical when the end came. It was possible to establish this angle precisely, for it was just at that second, half a mile away aboard the
Ulysses
, that the shutter clicked, the shutter of the camera in Lieutenant Nicholls's gauntleted hands.

A camera that captured an unforgettable picture—a stark, simple picture of a sinking ship almost vertically upright against a pale-blue sky. A picture with a strange lack of detail, with the exception only of two squat shapes, improbably suspended in mid-air: these were 30-ton tanks, broken loose from their foredeck lashings, caught in midflight as they smashed down on the bridge structure, awash in the sea. In the background was the stern of the
Bell Isle
, the screw out of the water, the Red Duster trailing idly in the peaceful sea.

Bare seconds after the camera had clicked, the camera was blown from Nicholls's hands, the case crumpling against a bulkhead, the lens shattering but the film still intact. Panic-stricken the seamen in the lifeboat may have been, but it wasn't unreasoning panic: in No 2 hold, just for'ard of the fire, the
Belle Isle
had been carrying over 1,000 tons of tank ammunition . . . Broken cleanly in two, she was gone inside a minute: the
Baddeley
's bows, riddled by the explosion, slide gently down behind her.

The echoes of the explosion were still rolling out over the sea in ululating diminuendo when they were caught up and flung back by a series of muffled reports from the South. Less than two miles away, the
Sirrus, Vectra
and
Viking
, dazzling white in the morning sun, were weaving a crazily intricate pattern over the sea, depth-charges cascading from either side of their poop-decks. From time to time, one or other almost disappeared behind towering mush- rooms of erupting water and spray, reappearing magically as the white columns fell back into the sea.

To join in the hunt, to satisfy the flaming, primitive lust for revenge—that was Tyndall's first impulse. The Kapok Kid looked at him furtively and wondered, wondered at the hunched rigidity, the compressed lipless mouth, the face contorted in white and bitter rage—a bitterness directed not least against himself. Tyndall twisted suddenly in his seat.

‘Bentley! Signal the
Sterling
—ascertain damage.' The
Stirling
was more than a mile astern now, but coming round fast, her speed at least twenty knots.

‘Making water after engine-room,' Bentley read eventually. ‘Store-rooms flooded, but hull damage slight. Under control. Steering gear jammed. On emergency steering. Am all right.'

‘Thank God for that! Signal, “Take over: proceed east.” Come on, Captain, let's give Orr a hand to deal with these murdering hounds!'

The Kapok Kid looked at him in sudden dismay.

‘Sir!'

‘Yes, yes, Pilot! What is it?' Tyndall was curt, impatient.

‘How about that first U-boat?' Carpenter ventured. ‘Can't be much more than a mile to the south, sir. Shouldn't we—?'

‘God Almighty!' Tyndall swore. His face was suffused with anger. ‘Are you trying to tell me . . . ?' He broke off abruptly, stared at Carpenter for a long moment. ‘What did you say, Pilot?'

‘The boat that sunk the tanker, sir,' the Kapok Kid said carefully. ‘She could have reloaded by now and she's in a perfect position—'

‘Of course, of course,' Tyndall muttered. He passed a hand across his eyes, flickered a glance at Vallery. The Captain had his head averted. Again the hand passed across the tired eyes. ‘You're quite right, Pilot, quite right.' He paused, then smiled. ‘As usual, damn you!'

The
Ulysses
found nothing to the north. The U-boat that had sunk the
Cochella
and sprung the trap had wisely decamped. While they were quartering the area, they heard the sound of gun-fire, saw the smoke erupting from the
Sirrus
's 4.7s.

‘Ask him what all the bloody fuss is about,' Tyndall demanded irritably. The Kapok Kid smiled secretly: the old man had life in him yet.

‘
Vectra
and
Viking
damaged, probably destroyed U-boat,' the message read. ‘
Vectra
and self sunk surfaced boat. How about you?'

‘How about you!' Tyndall exploded. ‘Damn his confounded insolence! How about you? He'll have the oldest, bloody minesweeper in Scapa for his next command . . . This is all your fault, Pilot!'

‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Maybe he's only asking in a spirit of—ah— anxious concern.'

‘How would you like to be his Navigator in his next command?' said Tyndall dangerously. The Kapok Kid retired to his charthouse.

‘Carrington!'

‘Sir?' The First Lieutenant was his invariable self, clear-eyed, freshly shaven, competent, alert. The sallow skin—hall-mark of all men who have spent too many years under tropical suns—was unshadowed by fatigue. He hadn't slept for three days.

‘What do you make of that?' He pointed to the northwest. Curiously woolly grey clouds were blotting out the horizon; before them the sea dusked to indigo under wandering catspaws from the north.

‘Hard to say, sir,' Carrington said slowly. ‘Not heavy weather, that's certain . . . I've seen this before, sir—low, twisting cloud blowing up on a fine morning with a temperature rise. Very common in the Aleutians and the Bering Sea, sir—and there it means fog, heavy mist.'

‘And you, Captain?'

‘No idea, sir.' Vallery shook his head decisively. The plasma transfusion seemed to have helped him. ‘New to me—never seen it before.'

‘Thought not,' Tyndall grunted. ‘Neither have I—that's why I asked Number One first . . . If you think it's fog that's coming up, Number One, let me know, will you? Can't afford to have convoy and escorts scattered over half the Arctic if the weather closes down. Although, mind you,' he added bitterly, ‘I think they'd be a damned sight safer without us!'

‘I can tell you now, sir.' Carrington had that rare gift—the ability to make a confident, quietly unarguable assertion without giving the slightest offence. ‘It's fog.'

‘Fair enough.' Tyndall never doubted him. ‘Let's get the hell out of it. Bentley—signal the destroyers: “Break off engagement. Rejoin convoy.” And Bentley—add the word “Immediate”.' He turned to Vallery. ‘For Commander Orr's benefit.'

Within the hour, merchant ships and escorts were on station again, on a north-east course at first to clear any further packs on latitude 70. To the south-east, the sun was still bright: but the first thick, writhing tendrils of the mist, chill and dank, were already swirling round the convoy. Speed had been reduced to six knots: all ships were streaming fog-buoys.

Tyndall shivered, climbed stiffly from his chair as the stand-down sounded. He passed through the gate, stopped in the passage outside. He laid a glove on Chrysler's shoulder, kept it there as the boy turned round in surprise.

‘Just wanted a squint at these eyes of yours, laddie,' he smiled. ‘We owe them a lot. Thank you very much—we will not forget.' He looked a long time into the young face, forgot his own exhaustion and swore softly in sudden compassion as he saw the red-rimmed eyes, the white, maculated cheeks stained with embarrassed pleasure.

‘How old are you, Chrysler?' he asked abruptly.

‘Eighteen, sir . . . in two days' time.' The soft West Country voice was almost defiant.

‘He'll be eighteen—in two days' time!' Tyndall repeated slowly to himself. ‘Good God! Good God above!' He dropped his hand, walked wearily aft to the shelter, entered, closed the door behind him.

‘He'll be eighteen—in two days' time,' he repeated, like a man in a daze.

Vallery propped himself up on the settee. ‘Who? Young Chrysler?'

Tyndall nodded unhappily.

‘I know.' Vallery was very quiet. ‘I know how it is . . . He did a fine job today.'

Tyndall sagged down in a chair. His mouth twisted in bitterness.

‘The only one . . . Dear God, what a mess!' He drew heavily on a cigarette, stared down at the floor. ‘Ten green bottles, hanging on a wall,' he murmured absently.

‘I beg your pardon, sir?'

‘Fourteen ships left Scapa, eighteen St John—the two components of FR77,' Tyndall said softly. ‘Thirty-two ships in all. And now'—he paused—‘now there are seventeen—and three of these damaged. I'm counting the
Tennessee Adventurer
as a dead duck.' He swore savagely. ‘Hell's teeth, how I hate leaving ships like that, sitting targets for any murdering . . . ' He stopped short, drew on his cigarette again, deeply. ‘Doing wonderfully, ain't I?'

‘Ah, nonsense, sir!' Vallery interrupted, impatient, almost angry. ‘It wasn't any fault of yours that the carriers had to return.'

‘Meaning that the rest was my fault?' Tyndall smiled faintly, lifted a hand to silence the automatic protest. ‘Sorry, Dick, I know you didn't mean that—but it's true, it's true. Six merchant boys gone in ten minutes—six! And we shouldn't have lost one of them.' Head bent, elbows on knees, he screwed the heels of his palms into exhausted eyes. ‘Rear-Admiral Tyndall, master strategist,' he went on softly. ‘Alters convoy course to run smack into the biggest wolf-pack I've ever known—and just where the Admiralty said they would be . . . No matter what old Starr does to me when I get back, I've no kick coming. Not now, not after this.'

He rose heavily to his feet. The light of the single lamp caught his face. Vallery was shocked at the change.

‘Where to now, sir?' he asked.

‘The bridge. No, no, stay where you are, Dick.' He tried to smile, but the smile was a grimace that flickered only to die. ‘Leave me in peace while I ponder my next miscalculation.'

He opened the door; stopped dead as he heard the unmistakable whistling of shells close above, heard the EAS signal screaming urgently through the fog. Tyndall turned his head slowly, looked back into the shelter.

‘It looks,' he said bitterly, ‘as if I've already made it.'

NINE
Friday Morning

The fog, Tyndall saw, was all around them now. Since that last heavy snowfall during the night, the temperature had risen steadily, quickly. But it had beguiled only to deceive: the clammy, ice feathers of the swirling mist now struck doubly chill.

He hurried through the gate, Vallery close behind him. Turner, steel helmet trailing, was just leaving for the After Tower. Tyndall stretched out his hand, stopped him.

‘What is it, Commander?' he demanded. ‘Who fired? Where? Where did it come from?'

‘I don't know, sir. Shells came from astern, more or less. But I've a damned good idea who it is.' His eyes rested on the Admiral a long, speculative moment. ‘Our friend of last night is back again.' He turned abruptly, hurried off the bridge.

Tyndall looked after him, perplexed, uncomprehending. Then he swore, softly, savagely, and jumped for the radar handset.

‘Bridge. Admiral speaking. Lieutenant Bowden at once!' The loudspeaker crackled into immediate life.