Harbutt was the officer of the deck, the youngest of all the watch-standing officers, fresh-faced and pink-complexioned. His childlike eyes looked innocently out from his hood like a baby’s. He hardly looked old enough to entrust with a rowboat on the lake in Central Park.
“Mr. Harbutt!”
“Sir!”
“Increase speed. Try her with twenty-four knots.”
“Twenty-four knots. Aye aye, sir.”
Doubling the speed meant multiplying by four the rate at which they were overtaking the convoy. He could not judge yet whether their present course would take them clear of the right flank.
“Twenty-four knots by pit, sir.”
“Very well.”
The increase in speed was obvious in the way Keeling was meeting the seas. Like the rushing of mighty waters. From within the pilothouse he could feel and hear, rather than see, how she was taking it. Well enough.
“Messenger!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring me a cup of coffee. A pot of coffee. A big pot of coffee. And a sandwich. Tell the mess boy I want one of my specials.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
There was just light enough to see the rearmost ships of the convoy still plodding along. Now the T.B.S. calling him again. He had to unclip the hood and let it dangle round his face to get the earphone to his ear.
“Dicky to George! Dicky to George!”
“George to Dicky. Go ahead.”
“Asdic contact, sir. Distant contact, on our port bow.”
“Go after it then. I’m coming up behind you.”
“Eagle to George. Shall I join in, sir?”
Viktor and Dodge were three miles apart with the contact between them, nearer Dodge than Viktor. It would open a gap to call Viktor over. But the U-boat was only three miles ahead of the convoy. She only had to keep alive for twenty minutes to be in among it. If only he were up ahead where he could bring the weight of Keeling to bear.
“Very well, Eagle. Carry on. Good luck to you.”
He was in a fever of impatience.
“Mr. Harbutt, try her with another couple of knots. See if she can take it.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
They were close under the quarter of the last ship of the starboard column now, and overtaking her fast. Krause stepped out onto the port wing of the bridge to look at the convoy. Keeling took a deep roll as he did so, and his feet shot from under him. He saved himself from a bad fall by grabbing the rail, tried to stand, and lost his footing again as Keeling rolled the other way. This time his gloved hands almost lost their grip of the rail, and it was only by a convulsive effort that he caught himself again. The deck was glazed with ice as well as the rail. It called for the most elaborate precaution to stand at all. A wave smashed over Keeling’s port bow, clear over, rolling aft to burst in a leaping wall of water against the five-inch gunhouses, a solid lump flying aft to hit him in the face as he stood. Keeling wallowed deeply and flung herself up the face of the next sea with a lunatic’s strength. By the time Krause had recovered his balance and his breath they had passed the rearmost ship and were closing up on the next ahead. It was so dark now that the ship farther on still, a bare half mile from where he stood, was only visible as a thickening in the gloom. And it would soon be much darker than that. Keeling took another wave green on her bow, shuddering under the blow. Krause half slid, half walked back into the pilothouse.
“Slow her a bit, Mr. Harbutt. She won’t take it.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
There was just light enough to see the Filipino mess boy in his white coat. In his hands was a tray covered with a white napkin, as he had been taught to serve meals, and as he always would serve them, with U-boats on the horizon or not. He had obviously just tried to put the tray down on the pilothouse chart table, and had as obviously been shooed away by the indignant quartermaster in jealous charge of the chart and instruments there. Now he stood unhappily holding it, swinging with the heel of the ship; Krause knew exactly how, under the napkin, the cream—they still brought him up cream although they ought by now to know he never used it—and coffee were slopped over the tray cloth. And worse might happen at any moment. The tray soared up and swooped down in the half darkness as Keeling rose over a wave. Krause suddenly felt he could not bear the thought of that precious load falling to the deck. He grabbed at pot and cup, balanced himself, and poured the cup half full. He balanced again, pot in one hand, cup in the other. In that second there was nothing in the whole world that he wanted as much as that coffee. His mouth was dry even though his face was still wet. He sipped thirstily at the scalding stuff, sipped again, and drained the cup. He could feel the comforting fire of it all the way down his throat. He smacked his lips like a savage, poured himself another half cup, and, watching his moment, set the pot on the tray.
“Put that tray on the deck and don’t take your eye off it,” he said.
“Aye aye, sir.”
He drank again. It was only nine hours since he had breakfasted, but he did not think a man could possibly feel so thirsty or so hungry. The thought of pouring unlimited coffee into himself, and then of eating to ease his savage hunger, filled him with exultation.
“Lookout reports gunfire on the port bow, sir,” said the talker.
Krause sprang to the T.B.S. He had been inattentive for three minutes. Eagle and Dicky were in rapid communication, the sentences snapping back and forth, straining at the leash of the trained manner; the English nonchalance was bursting at the seams.
“Bearing two seven oh from me.”
“I’ve got him on the screen.”
“I’m firing star shell. Stand by.”
Gunfire. Star shell. That meant a surfaced U-boat. And bearing two seven oh. That meant the U-boat was between the screen and the convoy, dashing in to charge. The darkness forward of the port beam was suddenly changed as the star shell burst high in the sky, the brilliant white light dangling from its parachute. Wave tops caught the light. Close on the port beam the leading ship of the starboard column of the convoy was silhouetted against it. Keeling was back in the battle again.
“George to Dicky! George to Dicky! I’m turning across the convoy’s bows. Look out for me.”
“Wilco.”
“I’ll take her, Mr. Harbutt.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Left full rudder. Meet her. Steady as you go.”
“Steady on course—”
Krause did not trouble to listen to the figure given. He was content to be able to see that Keeling was shaving as near as he dared across the shadowy bows of the advancing convoy. The star shell was extinguished. Reduce speed and start pinging? No time to spare for that; no need, with a sub on the surface. He rang the voice tube bell, but at the same moment action began.
“Sub bearing broad on starboard bow. Range three five double oh.”
“Captain to gunnery control. Do not fire without orders.”
Then down the voice tube. “See that we keep just clear of the convoy.”
He went to the T.B.S., and almost fell over the Filipino mess boy still standing guard over the tray. “Get below!”
Into the T.B.S. “George to Dicky. George to Dicky. Star shell again.”
Out on the starboard wing of the bridge he braced himself against the treacherous ice that glazed everything.
“Sub bearing zero four two. Range three two double oh.”
Bearing changing as well as range. Somewhere in the darkness just ahead the U-boat was crossing Keeling’s bows, heading for the convoy. Keeling dipped and plunged in the high sea. Then it came, the streak of gold against the dark sky, and the miracle of light hanging in the heavens, lighting the sea, the wave tops, the ships; dazzling white, as bright as moonlight. And there, on Keeling’s starboard bow, not two miles ahead, the slinking gray shape hurrying over the silvere
d water, the gray wolf running at full stretch for the flock.
“Gunnery control. Open fire!”
It would be a surprise for the U-boat; until the guns should open she would have no idea of the presence of the destroyer flying along across the convoy’s bows to intercept her. The guns went off with a blinding flash and a shattering crash. Krause clapped one gauntleted hand across his eyes while he kept his balance with the other on the slippery rail. Even though the range was so short it was rapidly changing; so was the bearing; and the sea was running high. But there was a chance that a hit might be scored. The burst of firing ended, and Krause looked again; he was one of the few men in the ship not blinded by the flashes. There was the gray shape; it was far nearer both to Keeling and to the convoy, and it was different—there was a noticeable white bow wave in evidence. The U-boat had altered course directly for the convoy. The star shell was still burning in the sky with hardly diminished light—the British certainly had the most efficient star shell Krause had ever seen. Flash and crash again, blinding and shattering. The starboard forty-millimeters were firing now as well, beating out a loud tonk-tonk-tonk against the frantic wang-o, wang-o, wang-o of the five-inch. Krause left his hand over his eyes and groped into the pilothouse.
“Target altering course,” said a talker through the din.
The guns ceased firing as the blinded gunners lost their target. Krause took his hand from his eyes and peered forward.
“Ship dead ahead! Ship dead ahead!”
It was a yell from down below which would have been audible even without the voice tube.
“Left rudder! Hard over!” shouted Krause.
He had seen that frightful thing at the same moment. The leading ship of one of the columns was far ahead of station, a full cable’s length at least. The dark looming shape was across their bows.
Keeling leaned far over as she turned with the rudder hard against the port stop at high speed; talkers and officers staggered and struggled for their balance. Keeling turned abruptly; the whole ship seemed to groan with the strain put upon her.
“Left hard rudder,” came the voice of the helmsman in the darkness.
The dark shape ahead was coming nearer and nearer even though Keeling was swinging.
“Lookout reports ship dead ahead,” said a talker; the late warning was ludicrous in the tension of the moment. Keeling slithered on a wave, but she was round, the merchant ships’ looming upper works close beside the bridge. Somebody was shouting from there at the top of his lungs, clearly audible. There was still danger that Keeling’s starboard quarter might crash into her even though her bows had turned.
“Meet her! Right full rudder! Meet her!”
The ship receded abruptly out of their field of vision; Keeling was now flying down the lane between two columns of ships. There were the huge lumps of the dark vessels close on either side.
“All engines ahead standard speed.”
The message was passed down.
“Engine room answers, all engines ahead standard speed, sir,” and the tension seemed to ease in the pilothouse as Keeling’s vibration died away.
There was the tiny glow of the repeater, the faint light showing through the letters of the annunciator. Keeling was churning in the seas tossed up by the convoy; it seemed as if in the sudden silence they could hear the bow waves of the laboring ships on either side. But not for more than two seconds did this quiet time endure. A rocket soared and burst on their starboard side. There were machine guns firing. On their starboard quarter a great sheet of red flame suddenly shot to the sky, and the sound of a frightful explosion shook the pilothouse. The U-boat they had so nearly intercepted was in the next lane of the convoy to them, dealing out destruction. Pinpoint jabs of orange fire on their starboard bow, growing suddenly shorter and brighter. A sudden violent irregular clatter all about them, a harsh metallic twanging and a more musical sound of falling glass. Someone in the last ship of the column had sighted them and opened fire with a fifty-caliber machine gun, unable in the darkness and excitement to distinguish between a destroyer and a U-boat. The burst had swept clean across the front of the pilothouse just above Krause’s head, smashing in the glass. They could feel the cold air pouring in upon them. The first shots Keeling had ever received in battle—the first bullets ever to endanger Krause’s life—had been fired by the hand of a friend. But no time for any thought about the matter.
“Anyone hurt?” asked Krause automatically, but he did not stay for an answer.
The dark shape of the ship had vanished; they were in the clear now—and what was that far out on the starboard beam, illuminated by the flames of the burning wreck?
“Right full rudder!”
A U-boat’s superstructure, heaving up on a sea.
“Right full rudder.”
She had come down the next lane in the convoy neck and neck with Keeling.
“Meet her! Steady as you go.”
A wave heaved up and the U-boat was gone. She must have been in instant diving trim—or had he not seen her at all? He was sure he had; a thousand yards ahead of where Keeling’s bows were pointing at this moment. He strained his eyes at the clock.
“Prepare to fire medium pattern!” snapped Krause over his shoulder.
A voice behind him spoke orders into a mouthpiece—Pond, lieutenant j.g., the makee-learn assistant gunnery officer on duty.
“Commence sonar search.”
The U-boat under water would head for the sheltering noises of the convoy.
“Right standard rudder. Ease the rudder. Steady.”
“Sonar reports heavy interference, sir.”
Naturally, with thirty ships’ propellers all beating together. A thousand yards at twelve knots. Allow something for the U-boat’s travel. Three minutes altogether—a desperately long time from the point of view of a man having to reach the predicted position of a U-boat; desperately short with so much to bear in mind.
“Mr. Pond!”
“Fire one!” said Pond. “Fire two!”
Krause turned round to look at him, saw that Nourse was standing at Pond’s shoulder. Well and good. The K guns barked. Looking aft, Krause saw the sea in Keeling’s wake suddenly lit up from below with the bursting of the first depth charge; the deep on fire, and again with the next depth charge, and again, over a huge area, as the charges thrown by the K guns burst, thirty fathoms deep, at the same time as the next charges from the racks. The flame below the surface lingered on the retina; now it was gone. The foaming sea reflected faintly the red glare of the burning ship.
“Right standard rudder. We’ll fire another pattern as we go back, Mr. Pond.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Ease the rudder. Steady as you go.”
The burning ship was a valuable point of reference in determining Keeling’s position and course. He would depth-charge the area between that beaten by the last charges and the receding convoy. It was the most likely area, but it could be wrong by a mile.
“Mr. Pond!”
“Fire one,” said Pond. “Fire two.”
They were heading directly towards the burning ship: she grew larger and brighter as he looked at her, while the depth charges thundered and flashed behind him. Flames were spouting from her, reaching far upward, and so thick about her that he could make no attempt at identifying her. Then a tremendous flash, reaching up to the clouds above, an explosion-wave which he could feel where he stood, and then the frightful crash of the explosion. And then nothing; darkness; silence; eyes blinded and ears deafened to everything until sensation came slowly back, with first the ears reporting the sound of Keeling cleaving through the sea and then the eyes dimly becoming conscious of the foam-flecked surface all about them. Silence in the pilothouse, broken only by someone’s nervous cough.
“Ship ahead, sir,” said the voice tube. “Bearing one seven five, distance one
mile.”
That would be Cadena doing rescue work. On that bearing they would pass her close on Keeling’s port bow. She would not long have resumed her place in the convoy before having to drop back again on this fresh mission.
“How’s the convoy?”
“Three ships well astern of the rest, sir. Nearest one bearing one six zero, distance two miles.”
It was remarkable—it was good news—that no more than three ships were out of station besides Cadena, seeing that a U-boat and a destroyer had both passed clean through the convoy and a ship had been torpedoed in the heart of it.
A cry from the sea—a scream; a human voice screeching for aid at the highest agonized pitch of anxiety and terror. The very fact that it came from some distance, faint and yet so clearly recognizable, accentuated the urgency of it.
“Object close on the port bow!” reported the port lookout.
It was something dark on the dark surface of the water, and from it came that wild cry again. Survivors—one survivor at least—floating on wreckage or a life raft; lucky men who had flung themselves overboard before being caught in the flames, and who had found the life raft floating there—probably they had thrown it over first—and who had with further good fortune been left behind as the ship drifted on with her residual way, so that the explosion did not kill them. Lucky men? It would only be a matter of minutes before they froze to death. Call Cadena’s attention to them? Cadena was a mile away, and the only way to inform her would be to approach her and hail her with the bullhorn. The chances were she would never find that tiny object; and would he be justified in bringing her back another mile, with a sub within torpedo range? No; Cadena was worth more than one or two or half a dozen lives even if they could be certainly saved. Save them himself? In the name of Christian charity? There was no Christian charity in the North Atlantic. It would be imperiling his ship. Keeling and her crew were worth a thousand merchant seamen’s lives—two thousand perhaps. Yet—how great was the risk? A life or two were intrinsically worth something. If he left them, if he passed by on the other side, his whole ship’s company would know about it sooner or later. What effect would it have on them? Not a good one. And international amity? Saving those lives would be something to cement Allied solidarity. If he saved them, the news would spread little by little in circles where Allied solidarity was precious.
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