H. M. S. Ulysses (34 page)

Turner looked again at the
Sirrus
, occasionally swinging through a 40° arc as she rolled and crashed her way up from the west.

‘It'll be no picnic,' he agreed. ‘Besides, breeches buoys aren't made to accommodate the likes of our venerable chief surgeon.' Funny, Turner thought, how matter-of-fact and offhand everyone was: nobody had as much as mentioned the
Vectra
since she'd rammed the U-boat.

The gate creaked. Vallery turned round slowly, acknowledged Nicholls's sketchy salute.

‘The
Sirrus
needs a doctor,' he said without preamble. ‘How do you fancy it?'

Nicholls steadied himself against the canted bridge and the rolling of the cruiser. Leave the
Ulysses
—suddenly, he hated the thought, was amazed at himself for his reaction. He, Johnny Nicholls, unique, among the officers anyway, in his thorough-going detestation and intolerance of all things naval—to feel like that! Must be going soft in the head. And just as suddenly he knew that his mind wasn't slipping, knew why he wanted to stay. It was not a matter of pride or principle or sentiment: it was just that—well, just that he belonged. The feeling of belonging—even to himself he couldn't put it more accurately, more clearly than that, but it affected him strangely, powerfully. Suddenly he became aware that curious eyes were on him, looked out in confusion over the rolling sea.

‘Well?' Vallery's voice was edged with impatience.

‘I don't fancy it at all,' Nicholls said frankly. ‘But of course I'll go, sir. Right now?'

‘As soon as you can get your stuff together,' Vallery nodded.

‘That's now. We have an emergency kit packed all the time.' He cast a jaundiced eye over the heavy sea again. ‘What am I supposed to do, sir—jump?'

‘Perish the thought!' Turner clamped him on the back with a large and jovial hand. ‘You haven't a thing to worry about,' he boomed cheerfully, ‘you positively won't feel a thing—these, if I recall rightly, were your exact words to me when you extracted that old molar of mine two-three weeks back.' He winced in painful recollection. ‘Breeches buoy, laddie, breeches buoy!'

‘Breeches buoy!' Nicholls protested. ‘Haven't noticed the weather, have you? I'll be going up and down like a blasted yo-yo!'

‘The ignorance of youth.' Turner shook his head sadly. ‘We'll be turning into the sea, of course. It'll be like a ride in a Rolls, my boy! We're going to rig it now.' He turned away. ‘Chrysler—get on to Chief Petty Officer Hartley. Ask him to come up to the bridge.'

Chrysler gave no sign of having heard. He was in his usual favourite position these days—gloved hands on the steam pipes, the top half of his face crushed into the rubber eyepiece of the powerful binoculars on the starboard searchlight control. Every few seconds a hand would drop, revolve the milled training rack a fraction. Then again the complete immobility.

‘Chrysler!' Turner roared. ‘Are you deaf?'

Three, four, five more seconds passed in silence. Every eye was on Chrysler when he suddenly jerked back, glanced down at the bearing indicator, then swung round. His face was alive with excitement.

‘Green one-double-oh!' he shouted. ‘Green onedouble-oh! Aircraft. Just on the horizon!' He fairly flung himself back at his binoculars. ‘Four, seven—no,
ten
! Ten aircraft!' he yelled.

‘Green one-double-oh?' Turner had his glasses to his eyes. ‘Can't see a thing! Are you sure, boy?' he called anxiously.

‘Still the same, sir.' There was no mistaking the agitated conviction in the young voice.

Turner was through the gate and beside him in four swift steps. ‘Let me have a look,' he ordered. He gazed through the glasses, twisted the training rack once or twice, then stepped back slowly, heavy eyebrows lowering in anger.

‘There's something bloody funny here, young man!' he growled. ‘Either your eyesight or your imagination? And if you ask me—'

‘He's right,' Carrington interrupted calmly. ‘I've got 'em, too.'

‘So have I, sir!' Bentley shouted.

Turner wheeled back to the mounted glasses, looked through them briefly, stiffened, looked round at Chrysler.

‘Remind me to apologize some day!' he smiled, and was back on the compass platform before he had finished speaking.

‘Signal to convoy,' Vallery was saying rapidly. ‘Code H. Full ahead. Number One. Bosun's mate? Broadcaster: stand by all guns. Commander?'

‘Sir?'

‘Independent targets, independent fire all AA guns? Agreed? And the turrets?

‘Couldn't say yet . . . Chrysler, can you make out—'

‘Condors, sir,' Chrysler anticipated him.

‘Condors!' Turner stared in disbelief. ‘A dozen Condors! Are you sure that . . . Oh, all right, all right!' he broke off hastily. ‘Condors they are.' He shook his head in wonderment, turned to Vallery. ‘Where's my bloody tin hat? Condors, he says!'

‘So Condors they are,' Vallery repeated, smiling. Turner marvelled at the repose, the unruffled calm.

‘Bridge targets, independent fire control for all turrets?' Vallery went on.

‘I think so, sir.' Turner looked at the two communication ratings just aft of the compass platform—one each on the group phones to the for'ard and after turrets. ‘Ears pinned back, you two. And hop to it when you get the word.'

Vallery beckoned to Nicholls.

‘Better get below, young man,' he advised. ‘Sorry your little trip's been postponed.'

‘I'm not,' Nicholls said bluntly.

‘No?' Vallery was smiling. ‘Scared?'

‘No, sir,' Nicholls smiled back. ‘Not scared. And you know I wasn't.'

‘I know you weren't,' Vallery agreed quietly. ‘I know—and thank you.'

He watched Nicholls walk off the bridge, beckoned to the WT messenger, then turned to the Kapok Kid.

‘When was our last signal to the Admiralty, Pilot? Have a squint at the log.'

‘Noon yesterday,' said the Kapok Kid readily.

‘Don't know what I'll do without you,' Vallery murmured. ‘Present position?'

‘72.20 north, 13.40 east.'

‘Thank you.' He looked at Turner. ‘No point in radio silence now, Commander?'

Turner shook his head.

‘Take this message,' Vallery said quickly. ‘To DNO, London . . . How are our friends doing, Commander?'

‘Circling well to the west, sir. Usual high altitude, gambit from the stern, I suppose,' he added morosely. ‘Still,' he brightened, ‘cloud level's barely a thousand feet.'

Vallery nodded. ‘“FR77. 1600. 72.20, 13.40. Steady on 090. Force 9, north, heavy swell: Situation desperate. Deeply regret Admiral Tyndall died 1200 today. Tanker
Vytura
torpedoed last night, sunk by self.
Washington State
sunk 0145 to-day.
Vectra
sunk 1515, collision U-boat.
Electra
sunk 1530. Am being heavily attacked by twelve, minimum twelve, Focke-Wulf 200s.” A reasonable assumption, I think, Commander,' he said wryly, ‘and it'll shake their Lordships. They're of the opinion there aren't so many Condors in the whole of Norway. “Imperative send help. Air cover essential. Advise immediately.” Get that off at once, will you?'

‘Your nose, sir!' Turner said sharply.

‘Thank you.' Vallery rubbed the frostbite, dead white in the haggard grey and blue of his face, gave up after a few seconds: the effort was more trouble than it was worth, drained away too much of his tiny reserves of strength.

Shivering, he pulled himself to his feet, swept his glasses over FR77. Code H was being obeyed. The ships were scattered over the sea apparently at random, broken out from the two lines ahead which would have made things far too simple for bomb-aimers in aircraft attacking from astern. They would have to aim now for individual targets. Scattered, but not too scattered—close enough together to derive mutual benefit from the convoy's concerted barrage. Vallery nodded to himself in satisfaction and twisted round, his glasses swivelling to the west.

There was no mistaking them now, he thought—they were Condors, all right. Almost dead astern now, massive wingtips dipping, the big four-engined planes banked slowly, ponderously to starboard, then straightened on a 180° overtaking course. And they were climbing, steadily climbing.

Two things were suddenly clear to Vallery, two things the
enemy
obviously knew. They had known where to find FR77— the Luftwaffe was not given to sending heavy bombers out over the Arctic on random hazard: they hadn't even bothered to send Charlie on reconnaissance. For a certainty, some submarine had located them earlier on, given their position and course: at any distance at all, their chance of seeing a periscope in that heavy sea had been remote. Further, the German
knew
that the
Ulysses
's radar was gone. The Focke-Wulfs were climbing to gain the low cloud, would break cover only seconds before it was time to bomb. Against radar-controlled fire, at such close range, it would have been near suicide. But they
knew
it was safe.

Even as he watched, the last of the labouring Condors climbed through the low, heavy ceiling, was completely lost to sight. Vallery shrugged wearily, lowered his binoculars.

‘Bentley?'

‘Sir?'

‘Code R. Immediate.'

The flags fluttered up. For fifteen, twenty seconds—it seemed ten times as long as that to the impatient Captain—nothing happened. And then, like rolling toy marionettes under the hand of a master puppeteer, the bows of every ship in the convoy began to swing round—those to the port of the
Ulysses
to the north, those to the starboard to the south. When the Condors broke through—two minutes, at the most, Vallery reckoned, they would find beneath them only the empty sea. Empty, that is, except for the
Ulysses
and the
Stirling
, ships admirably equipped to take care of themselves. And then the Condors would find themselves under heavy cross-fire from the merchant ships and destroyers, and too late—at that low altitude, much too late—to alter course for fore-and-aft bombing runs on the freighters. Vallery smiled wryly to himself. As a defensive tactic, it was little enough, but the best he could do in the circumstances . . . He could hear Turner barking orders through the loudspeaker, was more than content to leave the defence of the ship in the Commander's competent hands. If only he himself didn't feel so tired . . .

Ninety seconds passed, a hundred, two minutes—and still no sign of the Condors. A hundred eyes stared out into the cloud-wrack astern: it remained obstinately, tantalizingly grey and featureless.

Two and a half minutes passed. Still there was nothing.

‘Anybody seen anything?' Vallery asked anxiously. His eyes never left that patch of cloud astern. ‘Nothing? Nothing at all?' The silence remained oppressive, unbroken.

Three minutes. Three and a half. Four. Vallery looked away to rest his straining eyes, caught Turner looking at him, caught the growing apprehension, the slow dawn and strengthening of surmise in the lean face. Wordlessly, at the same instant, they swung round, staring out into the sky ahead.

‘That's it!' Vallery said quickly. ‘You're right, Commander, you must be!' He was aware that everyone had turned now, was peering ahead as intently as himself. ‘They've by-passed us, they're going to take us from ahead. Warn the guns! Dear God, they almost had us!' he whispered softly.

‘Eyes skinned, everyone!' Turner boomed. The apprehension was gone, the irrepressible joviality, the gratifying anticipation of action was back again. ‘And I mean everyone! We're all in the same boat together. No joke intended. Fourteen days' leave to the first man to sight a Condor!'

‘Effective as from when?' the Kapok Kid asked dryly.

Turner grinned at him. Then the smile died, the head lifted sharply in sudden attention.

‘Can you hear 'em?' he asked. His voice was soft, almost as if he feared the enemy might be listening. ‘They're up there, somewhere—damned if I can tell where, though. If only that wind—'

The vicious, urgent thudding of the boat-deck Oerlikons stopped him dead in mid-sentence, had him whirling round and plunging for the broadcast transmitter in one galvanic, concerted movement. But even then he was too late—he would have been too late anyway. The Condors—the first three in line ahead, were already visible— were already through the cloud, 500 feet up and barely half a mile away—dead astern.
Astern
. The bombers must have circled back to the west as soon as they had reached the clouds, completely fooled them as to their intentions . . . Six seconds—six seconds is time and to spare for even a heavy bomber to come less than half a mile in a shallow dive. There was barely time for realization, for the first bitter welling of mortification and chagrin when the Condors were on them.

It was almost dusk, now, the weird half-light of the Arctic twilight. Tracers, glowing hot pinpoints of light streaking out through the darkening sky, were clearly seen, at first swinging erratically, fading away to extinction in the far distance, then steadying, miraculously dying in the instant of birth as they sank home into the fuselages of the swooping Condors. But time was too short—the guns were on target for a maximum of two seconds—and these giant Focke-Wulfs had a tremendous capacity for absorbing punishment. The leading Condor levelled out about three hundred feet, its medium 250-kilo bombs momentarily paralleling its line of flight, then arching down lazily towards the
Ulysses
. At once the Condor pulled its nose up in maximum climb, the four great engines labouring in desynchronized clamour, as it sought the protection of the clouds.