H. M. S. Ulysses (31 page)

‘Nothing, sir.' Distress in his eyes, perhaps, but no fear. ‘I—I just don't want to, sir. I hate to do it—to send one of our own ships to the bottom!' The voice was pleading now, blurred with overtones of desperation: Turner was deaf to them. ‘Why does she have to go, sir!' he cried. ‘Why? Why? Why?'

‘None of your bloody business—but as it so happens she's endangering the entire convoy!' Turner's face was still within inches of Ralston's. ‘You've got a job to do, orders to obey. Just get up there and obey them! Go on!' he roared, as Ralston hesitated. ‘Get up there!' He fairly spat the words out.

Ralston didn't move.

‘There are other LTOs, sir!' His arms lifted high in appeal, something in the voice cut through Turner's blind anger: he realized, almost with shock, that this boy was desperate. ‘Couldn't
they
—?'

‘Let someone else do the dirty work, eh? That's what you mean, isn't it?' Turner was bitingly contemptuous. ‘Get them to do what you won't do yourself, you—you contemptible young bastard! Communications Number? Give me your set. I'll take over from the bridge.' He took the phone, watched Ralston climb slowly back up and sit hunched forward, head bent over the Dumaresq.

‘Number One? Commander speaking. All set here. Captain there?'

‘Yes, sir. I'll call him.' Carrington put down the phone, walked through the gate.

‘Captain, sir. Commander's on the—' ‘Just a moment!' The upraised hand, the tenseness of the voice stopped him. ‘Have a look, No. 1. What do you think?' Vallery pointed towards the
Vytura
, past the oil-skinned figure of the Admiral. Tyndall's head was sunk on his chest, and he was muttering incoherently to himself.

Carrington followed the pointing finger. The lifeboat, dimly visible through the thickening snow, had slipped her falls while the
Vytura
was still under way. Crammed with men, she was dropping quickly astern under the great twisting column of flame—dropping far too quickly astern as the First Lieutenant suddenly realized. He turned round, found Vallery's eyes, bleak and tired and old, on his own. Carrington nodded slowly.

‘She's picking up, sir. Under way, under comand . . . What are you going to do, sir?

‘God help me, I've no choice. Nothing from the
Viking
, nothing from the
Sirrus
, nothing from our Asdic—and that U-boat's still out there . . . Tell Turner what's happened. Bentley!'

‘Sir?'

‘Signal the
Vytura
.' The mouth, whitely compressed, belied the eyes—eyes dark and filled with pain. ‘“Abandon ship. Torpedoing you in three minutes. Last signal.” Port 20, Pilot!'

‘Port 20 it is, sir.'

The
Vytura
was breaking off tangentially, heading north. Slowly, the
Ulysses
came round, almost paralleling her course, now a little astern of her.

‘Half-ahead, Pilot!'

‘Half-ahead it is, sir.'

‘Pilot!'

‘Sir?'

‘What's Admiral Tyndall saying? Can you make it out?'

Carpenter bent forward, listened, shook his head. Little flurries of snow fell off his fur helmet.

‘Sorry, sir. Can't make him out—too much noise from the
Vytura
. . .
I think he's humming, sir.'

‘Oh, God!' Vallery bent his head, looked up again, slowly, painfully. Even so slight an effort was labour intolerable.

He looked across to the
Vytura
, stiffened to attention. The red Aldis was winking again. He tried to read it, but it was too fast: or perhaps his eyes were just too old, or tired: or perhaps he just couldn't think any more . . . There was something weirdly hypnotic about that tiny crimson light flickering between these fantastic curtains of flame, curtains sweeping slowly, ominously together, majestic in their inevitability. And then the little red light had died, so unexpectedly, so abruptly, that Bentley's voice reached him before the realization.

‘Signal from the
Vytura
, sir.'

Vallery tightened his grip on the binnacle. Bentley guessed the nod, rather than saw it.

‘Message reads: “Why don't you—off. Nuts to the Senior Service.

Tell him I send all my love.”' The voice died softly away, and there was only the roaring of the flames, the lost pinging of the Asdic.

‘All my love.' Vallery shook his head in silent wonderment. ‘All my love! He's crazy! He must be. “All my love,” and I'm going to destroy him . . . Number One!'

‘Sir?'

‘Tell the Commander to stand by!'

Turner repeated the message from the bridge, turned to Ralston. ‘Stand by, LTO!' He looked out over the side, saw that the
Vytura
was slightly ahead now, that the
Ulysses
was still angling in on an interception course. ‘About two minutes now, I should say.' He felt the vibration beneath his feet dying away, knew the
Ulysses
was slowing down. Any second now, and she'd start slewing away to starboard. The receiver crackled again in his ear, the sound barely audible above the roaring of the flames. He listened, looked up. ‘“X” and “Y” only. Medium settings. Target 11 knots.' He spoke into the phone. ‘How long?'

‘How long, sir?' Carrington repeated.

‘Ninety seconds,' Vallery said huskily. ‘Pilot—starboard 10.' He jumped, startled, as he heard the crash of falling binoculars, saw the Admiral slump forward, face and neck striking cruelly on the edge of the windscreen, the arms dangling loosely from the shoulders.

‘Pilot!'

But the Kapok Kid was already there. He slipped an arm under Tyndall, took most of the dead weight off the biting edge of the screen.

‘What's the matter, sir?' His voice was urgent, blurred with anxiety. ‘What's wrong?'

Tyndall stirred slightly, his cheek lying along the edge of the screen.

‘Cold, cold, cold,' he intoned. The quavering tones were those of an old, a very old man.

‘What? What did you say, sir?' the Kapok Kid begged.

‘Cold. I'm cold. I'm terribly cold! My feet, my feet!' The old voice wandered away, and the body slipped into a corner of the bridge, the grey face upturned to the falling snow.

Intuition, an intuition amounting to a sudden sick certainty, sent the Kapok Kid plunging to his knees. Vallery heard the muffled exclamation, saw him straighten up and swing round, his face blank with horror.

‘He's—he's got nothing on, sir,' he said unsteadily. ‘He's barefoot! They're frozen—frozen solid!'

‘Barefoot?' Vallery repeated unbelievingly. ‘Barefoot! It's not possible!'

‘And pyjamas, sir! That's all he's wearing!'

Vallery lurched forward, peeling off his gloves. He reached down, felt his stomach turn over in shocked nausea as his fingers closed on ice-chilled skin. Bare feet! And pyjamas! Bare feet—no wonder he'd padded so silently across the duckboards! Numbly, he remembered that the last temperature reading had shown 35° of frost. And Tyndall, feet caked in frozen snow and slush, had been sitting there for almost five minutes! . . . He felt great hands under his armpits, felt himself rising effortlessly to his feet. Petersen. It
could
only be Petersen, of course. And Nicholls behind him.

‘Leave this to me, sir. Right, Petersen, take him below.' Nicholls's brisk, assured voice, the voice of a man competent in his own element, steadied Vallery, brought him back to the present, and the demands of the present, more surely than anything else could have done. He became aware of Carrington's clipped, measured voice, reeling off course, speed, directions, saw the
Vytura
50° off the port bow, dropping slowly, steadily aft. Even at that distance, the blast of heat was barely tolerable—what in the name of heaven was it like on the bridge of the
Vytura
?

‘Set course, Number One,' he called. ‘Local control.'

‘Set course, local control.' Carrington might have been on a peace-time exercise in the Solent.

‘Local control,' Turner repeated. He hung up the set, looked round. ‘You're on your own, Ralston,' he said softly.

There was no reply. The crouched figure on the control position, immobile as graved stone, gave no sign that he had heard.

‘Thirty seconds!' Turner said sharply. ‘All lined up?'

‘Yes, sir.' The figure stirred. ‘All lined up.' Suddenly, he swung round, in desperate, final appeal. ‘For God's sake, sir! Is there no other—'

‘Twenty seconds!' Turner said viciously. ‘Do you want a thousand lives on your lily-livered conscience? And if you miss . . . '

Ralston swung slowly back. For a mere breath of time, his face was caught full in the harsh glare of the
Vytura
: with sudden shock, Turner saw that the eyes were masked with tears. Then he saw the lips move. ‘Don't worry, sir. I won't miss.' The voice was quite toneless, heavy with nameless defeat.

Perplexed, now, rather than angry, and quite uncomprehending, Turner saw the left sleeve come up to brush the eyes, saw the right hand stretch forward, close round the grip of ‘X' firing lever. Incongruously, there sprang to Turner's mind the famous line of Chaucer, ‘In goon the spears full sadly in arrest.' In the closing of that hand there was the same heart-stopping decision, the same irrevocable finality.

Suddenly, so suddenly that Turner started in spite of himself, the hand jerked convulsively back. He heard the click of the tripping lever, the muffled roar in the explosion chamber, the hiss of compressed air, and the torpedo was gone, its evil sleekness gleaming fractionally in the light of the flames before it crashed below the surface of the sea. It was hardly gone before the tubes shuddered again and the second torpedo was on its way.

For five, ten seconds Turner stared out, fascinated, watching the arrowing wakes of bubbles vanish in the distance. A total of 1,500 lbs of Amatol in these warheads—God help the poor bastards aboard the
Vytura . . .
The deck speaker clicked on.

‘Do you hear there? Do you hear there? Take cover immediately! Take cover—immediately!' Turner stirred, tore his eyes away from the sea, looked up, saw that Ralston was still crouched in his seat.

‘Come down out of there, you young fool!' he shouted. ‘Want to be riddled when the
Vytura
goes up? Do you hear me?'

Silence. No word, no movement, only the roaring of the flames.

‘Ralston!'

‘I'm all right, sir.' Ralston's voice was muffled: he did not even trouble to turn his head.

Turner swore, leapt up on the tubes, dragged Ralston from his seat, pulled him down to the deck and into shelter. Ralston offered no resistance: he seemed sunk in a vast apathy, an uncaring indifference.

Both torpedoes struck home. The end was swift, curiously unspectacular. Listeners—there were no watchers—on the
Ulysses
tensed themselves for the shattering detonation, but the detonation never came. Broken-backed and tired of fighting, the
Vytura
simply collapsed in on her stricken mid-ships, lay gradually, wearily over on her side and was gone.

Three minutes later, Turner opened the door of the Captain's shelter, pushed Ralston in before him.

‘Here you are, sir,' he said grimly. Thought you might like to see what a conscientious objector looks like!'

‘I certainly do!' Vallery laid down the log-book, turned a cold eye on the torpedoman, looked him slowly up and down. ‘A fine job, Ralston, but it doesn't excuse your conduct. Just a minute, Commander.'

He turned back to the Kapok Kid. ‘Yes, that seems all right, Pilot. It'll make good reading for their lordships,' he added bitterly. ‘The ones the Germans don't get, we finish off for them . . . Remember to signal the
Hatteras
in the morning, ask for the name of the master of the
Vytura
.'

‘He's dead . . . You needn't trouble yourself!' said Ralston bitterly, then staggered as the Commander's open hand smashed across his face. Turner was breathing heavily, his eyes dark with anger.

‘You insolent young devil!' he said softly. ‘That was just a little too much from you.'

Ralston's hand came up slowly, fingering the reddening weal on his cheek.

‘You misunderstand me, sir.' There was no anger, the voice was a fading murmur, they had to strain to catch his words. ‘The master of the
Vytura
—I can tell you his name. It's Ralston. Captain Michael Ralston. He was my father.'

1.
The Dumaresq was a miniature plotting table on which such relevant factors as corresponding speeds and courses were worked out to provide firing tracks for the torpedoes.

TWELVE
Saturday

To all things an end, to every night its dawn; even to the longest night when dawn never comes, there comes at last the dawn. And so it came for FR77, as grey, as bitter, as hopeless as the night had been long. But it came.

It came to find the convoy some 350 miles north of the Arctic Circle, steaming due east along the 72nd parallel of latitude, halfway between Jan Mayen and the North Cape. 8° 45' east, the Kapok Kid reckoned, but he couldn't be sure. In heavy snow and with ten-tenth cloud, he was relying on dead reckoning: he had to, for the shell that had destroyed the FDR had wrecked the Automatic Pilot. But roughly 600 nautical miles to go. 600 miles, 40 hours, and the convoy—or what would be left of it by that time—would be in the Kola Inlet, steaming up-river to Polyarnoe and Murmansk . . . 40 hours.