The weather changed just before the end of the middle watch. The seas did not change-FR77 was still butting into the heavy, rolling swell from the north, still piling up fresh sheets of glistening ice on their labouring fo'c'sles. But the wind dropped, and almost at once the snowstorm blew itself out, the last banks of dark, heavy cloud drifting away to the south. By four o'clock the sky was completely clear.
There was no moon that night, but the stars were out, keen and sharp and frosty as the icy breeze that blew steadily out of the north.
Then, gradually, the sky began to change. At first there was only a barely perceptible lightening on the northern rim then, slowly, a pulsating flickering band of light began to broaden and deepen and climb steadily above the horizon, climbing higher to the south with the passing of every minute. Soon that pulsating ribbon of light was paralleled by others, streamers in the most delicate pastel shades of blue and green and violet, but always and predominantly white. And always, too, these lanes of multi-coloured light grew higher and stronger and brighter: at the climax, a great band of white stretched high above the convoy, extending from horizon to horizon... These were the Northern Lights, at any time a spectacle of beauty and wonder, and this night surpassing lovely: down below, in ships clearly illumined against the dark and rolling seas, the men of FR77 looked up and hated them.
On the bridge of the Ulysses, Chrysler, Chrysler of the uncanny eyesight and super-sensitive hearing, was the first to hear it. Soon everyone else heard it too, the distant roar, throbbing and intermittent, of a Condor approaching from the south. After a time they became aware that the Condor was no longer approaching, but sudden hope died almost as it was born. There was no mistaking it now-the deeper, heavier note of a Focke-Wulf in maximum climb. The Commander turned wearily to Carrington.
"It's Charlie, all right," he said grimly. "The bastard's spotted us.
He'll already have radioed Alta Fjord and a hundred to one in anything you like that he's going to drop a marker flare at 10,000 feet or so.
It'll be seen fifty miles away."
"Your money's sake." The First Lieutenant was withering. "I never bet against dead certs... And then, by and by, maybe a few flares at a couple of thousand?"
"Exactly!" Turner nodded. "Pilot, how far do you reckon we're from Alta Fjord-in flying time, I mean?"
"For a 200-knot plane, just over an hour," the Kapok Kid said quietly. His ebullience was gone: he had been silent and dejected since Vallery had died two hours previously.
"An hour!" Carrington exclaimed. "And they'll be here. My God, sir," he went on wonderingly, "they're really out to get us. We've never been bombed nor torpedoed at night before. We've never had the Tirpitz after us before. We never------"
"The Tirpitz," Turner interrupted. "Just where the hell is that ship? She's had time to come up with us. Oh, I know it's dark and we've changed course," he added, as Carrington made to object, "but a fast destroyer screen would have picked us-Preston!" He broke off, spoke sharply to the Signal Petty Officer. "Look alive, man! That ship's flashing us."
"Sorry, sir." The signalman, swaying on his feet with exhaustion, raised his Aldis, clacked out an acknowledgment. Again the light on the merchantman began to wink furiously.
"'Transverse fracture engine bedplate,'" Preston read out. "'Damage serious: shall have to moderate speed.'"
"Acknowledge," said Turner curtly. "What ship is that, Preston?"
"The Ohio Freighter, sir."
"The one that stopped a tin fish a couple of days back?"
"That's her, sir."
"Make a signal. 'Essential maintain speed and position.'" Turner swore. "What a time to choose for an engine breakdown... Pilot, when do we rendezvous with the Fleet?"
"Six hours' time, sir: exactly."
"Six hours." Turner compressed his lips. "Just six hours, perhaps!" he added bitterly.
"Perhaps?" Carrington murmured.
"Perhaps," Turned affirmed. "Depends entirely on the weather. C.-in-C. won't risk capital ships so near the coast unless he can fly off fighter cover against air attack. And, if you ask me, that's why the Tirpitz hasn't turned up yet, some wandering U-boat's tipped him off that our Fleet Carriers are steaming south. He'll be waiting on the weather...
What's he saying now, Preston?" The Ohio's signal lamp had flashed briefly, then died.
"'Imperative slow down,'" Preston repeated. "'Damage severe. Am slowing down.'"
"He is, too," Carrington said quietly. He looked up at Turner, at the set face and dark eyes, and knew the same thought was in the Commander's mind as was in his own. "He's a goner, sir, a dead duck. He hasn't a chance. Not unless------"
"Unless what?" Turner asked harshly. "Unless we leave him an escort?
Leave what escort, Number One? The Viking-the only effective unit we've left?" He shook his head in slow decision. "The greatest good of the greatest number: that's how it has to be. They'll know that.
Preston, send 'Regret cannot leave you standby. How long to effect repairs?'"
The flare burst even before Preston's hand could close on the trigger.
It burst directly over FR77. It was difficult to estimate the height, probably six to eight thousand feet, but at that altitude it was no more than an incandescent pinpoint against the great band of the Northern Lights arching majestically above. But it was falling quickly, glowing more brightly by the sound: the parachute, if any, could have been only a steadying drogue.
The crackling of the W.T. speaker broke through the stuttering chatter of the Aldis.
"W.T.-bridge. W.T.-bridge. Message from Sirrus: 'Three survivors dead. Many dying or seriously wounded. Medical assistance urgent, repeat urgent.'" The speaker died, just as the Ohio started flickering her reply.
"Send for Lieutenant Nicholls," Turner ordered briefly. "Ask him to come up to the bridge at once."
Carrington stared down at the dark broad seas, seas flecked with milky foam: the bows of the Ulysses were crashing down heavily, continuously.
"You're going to risk it, sir?"
"I must. You'd do the same, Number One.... What does the Ohio say, Preston?"
"I understand. Too busy to look after the Royal Navy anyway. We will make up on you. Au revoir!"'
"We will make up on you. Au revoir." Turner repeated softly. "He lies in his teeth, and he knows it. By God!" he burst out. "If anyone ever tells me the Yankee sailors have no guts, I'll push his perishing face in. Preston, send: 'Au revoir. Good luck.'... Number One, I feel like a murderer." He rubbed his hand across his forehead, nodded towards the shelter where Vallery lay stretched out, and strapped to his settee.
"Month in, month out, he's been taking these decisions. It's no wonder..." He broke off as the gate creaked open.
"Is that you, Nicholls? There is work for you, my boy. Can't have you medical types idling around uselessly all day long." He raised his hand.
"All right, all right," he chuckled. "I know.... How are things on the surgical front?" he went on seriously.
"We've done all we can, sir. There was very little left for us to do,"
Nicholls said quietly. His face was deeply lined, haggard to the point of emaciation. "But we're in a bad way for supplies. Hardly a single dressing left. And no anaesthetics at all-except what's left in the emergency kit. The Surgeon-Commander refuses to touch those."
"Good, good," Turner murmured. "How do you feel, laddie?"
"Awful."
"You look it," Turner said candidly. "Nicholls-I'm terribly sorry, boy-I want you to go over to the Sirrus."
"Yes, sir." There was no surprise in the voice: it hadn't been difficult to guess why the Commander had sent for him. "Now?"
Turner nodded without speaking. His face, the lean strong features, the heavy brows and sunken eyes were quite visible H.U. 257 I now in the strengthening light of the plunging flare. A face to remember, Nicholls thought.
"How much kit can I take with me, sir?"
"Just your medical gear. No more. You're not tra
velling by Pullman, laddie!"
"Can I take my camera, my films?"
"All right." Turner smiled briefly. "Looking forward keenly to photographing the last seconds of the Ulysses, I suppose... Don't forget that the Sirrus is leaking like a sieve. Pilot, get through to the W.T. Tell the Sirrus to come' alongside, prepare to receive medical officer by breeches buoy."
The gate creaked again. Turner looked at the bulky figure stumbling wearily on to the compass platform. Brooks, like every man in the crew was dead on his feet; but the blue eyes burned as brightly as ever.
"My spies are everywhere," he announced. "What's this about the Sirrus shanghaiing young Johnny here?"
"Sorry, old man," Turner apologised. "It seems things are pretty bad on the Sirrus."
"I see." Brooks shivered. It might have been the thin threnody of the wind in the shattered rigging, or just the iceladen wind itself. He shivered again, looked upwards at the sinking flare. "Pretty, very pretty," he murmured. "What are the illuminations in aid of?"
"We are expecting company," Turner smiled crookedly. "An old world custom, O Socrates-the light in the window and what have you." He stiffened abruptly, then relaxed, his face graven in granitic immobility. "My mistake," he murmured. "The company has already arrived."
The last words were caught up and drowned in the rumbling of a heavy explosion. Turner had known it was coming-he'd seen the thin stiletto of flame stabbing skywards just for'ard of the Ohio Freighter's bridge.
The sound had taken five or six seconds to reach them-the Ohio was already over a mile distant on the starboard quarter, but clearly visible still under the luminance of the Northern Lights-the Northern Lights that had betrayed her, almost stopped in the water, to a wandering U-boat.
The Ohio Freighter did not remain visible for long. Except for the moment of impact, there was neither smoke, nor flame, nor sound. But her back must have been broken, her bottom torn out-and she was carrying a full cargo of nothing but tanks and ammunition. There was a curious dignity about her end-she sank quickly, quietly, without any fuss. She was gone in three minutes.
It was Turner who finally broke the heavy silence on the bridge. He turned away and in the light of the flare his face was not pleasant to see.
"Au revoir," he muttered to no one in particular. "Au revoir. That's what he said, the lying..." He shook his head angrily, touched the Kapok Kid on the arm. "Get through to W.T.," he said sharply. "Tell the Viking to sit over the top of that sub till we get clear."
"Where's it all going to end?" Brooks's face was still and heavy in the twilight.
"God knows! How I hate those murdering bastards!" Turner ground out.
"Oh, I know, I know, we do the same, but give me something I can see, something I can fight, something------"
"You'll be able to see the Tirpitz all right," Carrington interrupted dryly. "By all accounts, she's big enough."
Turner looked at him, suddenly smiled. He clapped his arm, then craned his head back, staring up at the shimmering loveliness of the sky. He wondered when the next flare would drop.
"Have you a minute to spare, Johnny?" The Kapok Kid's voice was low.
"I'd like to speak to you."
"Sure." Nicholls looked at him in surprise. "Sure, I've a minute, ten minutes-until the Sirrus comes up. What's wrong, Andy?"
"Just a second." The Kapok Kid crossed to the Commander. "Permission to go to the charthouse, sir?"
"Sure you've got your matches?" Turner smiled. "O.K. Off you go."
The Kapok Kid smiled faintly, said nothing. He took Nicholls by the arm, led him into the charthouse, flicked on the lights and produced his cigarettes. He looked steadily at Nicholls as he dipped his cigarette into the flickering pool of flame.
"Know something, Johnny?" he said abruptly. "I reckon I must have Scotch blood in me."
"Scots," Nicholls corrected. "And perish the very thought."
"I'm feeling-what's the word?, fey, isn't it? I'm feeling fey tonight, Johnny." The Kapok Kid hadn't even heard the interruption. He shivered. "I don't know why, I've never felt this way before."
"Ah, nonsense! Indigestion, my boy," Nicholls said briskly. But he felt strangely uncomfortable.
"Won't wash this time," Carpenter shook his head, half-smiling.
"Besides, I haven't eaten a thing for two days. I'm on the level, Johnny." In spite of himself, Nicholls was impressed. Emotion, gravity, earnestness-these were utterly alien to the Kapok Kid.
"I won't be seeing you again," the Kapok Kid continued softly. "Will you do me a favour, Johnny?"
"Don't be so bloody silly," Nicholls said angrily. "How the hell do you------?"
"Take this with you." The Kapok Kid pulled out a slip of paper, thrust it into Nicholls's hands. "Can you read it?"
"I can read it." Nicholls had stilled his anger. "Yes, I can read it."
There was a name and address on the sheet of paper, a girl's name and a Surrey address. "So that's her name," he said softly. "Juanita...
Juanita." He pronounced it carefully, accurately, in the Spanish fashion. "My favourite song and my favourite name," he murmured.
"Is it? "the Kapok Kid asked eagerly. "Is it indeed? And mine, Johnny."
He paused. "If, perhaps-well, if I don't, well, you'll go to see her, Johnny?"
"What are you talking about, man?" Nicholls felt embarrassed.
Half-impatiently, half-playfully, he tapped him on the chest. "Why, with that suit on, you could swim from here to Murmansk. You've said so yourself, a hundred times."
The Kapok Kid grinned up at him. The grin was a little crooked.
"Sure, sure, I know, I know-will you go, Johnny?"
"Dammit to hell, yes!" Nicholls snapped. "I'll go-and it's high time I was going somewhere else. Come on!" He snapped off the lights, pulled back the door, stopped with his foot half-way over the sill. Slowly, he stepped back inside the charthouse, closed the door and nicked on the light. The Kapok Kid hadn't moved, was gazing quietly at him.
"I'm sorry, Andy," Nicholls said sincerely. "I don't know what made me------"
"Bad temper," said the Kapok Kid cheerfully. "You always did hate to think that I was right and you were wrong!"
Nicholls caught his breath, closed his eyes for a second. Then he stretched out his hand.
"All the best, Vasco." It was an effort to smile. "And don't worry.
I'll see her if-well, I'll see her, I promise you. Juanita... But if I find you there," he went on threateningly, "I'll------"
"Thanks, Johnny. Thanks a lot." The Kapok Kid was almost happy. "Good luck, boy... Vaya con Dios. That's what she always said to me, what she said before I came away.' Vaya con Dios.'"
Thirty minutes later, Nicholls was operating aboard the Sirrus.
The time was 0445. It was bitterly cold, with a light wind blowing steadily from the north. The seas were heavier than ever, longer between the crests, deeper in their gloomy troughs, and the damaged Sirrus, labouring under a mountain of ice, was making heavy weather of it. The sky was still clear, a sky of breath-taking purity, and the stars were out again, for the Northern Lights were fading. The fifth successive flare was drifting steadily seawards.
It was at 0445 that they heard it, the distant rumble of gunfire far to the south, perhaps a minute after they had seen the incandescent brilliance of a burning flare on the run of the far horizon. There could be no doubt as to what was happening. The Viking, still in contact with the U-boat, although powerless to do anything about it, was being heavily attacked. And the attack must have been short, sharp and deadly, for the firing ceased soon after it had begun. Ominously, nothing came through on the W.T. No one ever knew what had happened to the Viking, for there were no survivors.
The last echo of the Viking's guns had barely died away before they heard the roar of the engines of the Condor, at maximum throttle in a shallow dive. For five, perhaps ten seconds-it seemed longer than that, but not long enough for any gun in the convoy to begin tracking him accurately-the great Fo
cke-Wulf actually flew beneath his own flare, and then was gone. Behind him, the sky opened up in a blinding coruscation of flame, more dazzling, more hurtful, than the light of the noonday sun. So intense, so extraordinary the power of those flares, so much did pupils contract and eyelids narrow in instinctive self-protection, that the enemy bombers were through the circle of light and upon them before anyone fully realised what was happening The timing, the split-second co-operation between marker planes and bombers were magnificent.
There were twelve planes in the first wave. There was no concentration on one target, as before: not more than two attacked any ship. Turner, watching from the bridge, watching them swoop down steeply and level out before even the first gun in the Ulysses had opened up, caught his breath in sudden dismay. There was something terribly familiar about the speed, the approach, the silhouette of these planes. Suddenly he had it, Heinkels, by God! Heinkel 111's. And the Heinkel 111, Turner knew, carried that weapon he dreaded above all others, the glider bomb.
And then, as if he had touched a master switch, every gun on the Ulysses opened up. The air filled with smoke, the pungent smell of burning cordite: the din was indescribable. And all at once, Turner felt fiercely, strangely happy.... To hell with them and their glider bombs, he thought. This was war as he liked to fight it: not the cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek frustration of trying to outguess the hidden wolf-packs, but war out in the open, where he could see the enemy and hate him and love him for fighting as honest men should and do his damnedest to destroy him. And, Turner knew, if they could at all, the crew of the Ulysses would destroy him. It needed no great sensitivity to direct the sea-change that had overtaken his men-yes, his men now: they no longer cared for themselves: they had crossed the frontier of fear and found that nothing lay beyond it and they would keep on feeding their guns and squeezing their triggers until the enemy overwhelmed them.
The leading Heinkel was blown out of the sky, and fitting enough it was 'X' turret that destroyed it, 'X' turret, the turret of dead marines, the turret that had destroyed the Condor, and was now manned by a scratch marine crew. The Heinkel behind lifted sharply to avoid the hurtling fragments of fuselage and engines, dipped, flashed past the cruiser's bows less than a boat-length away, banked steeply to port under maximum power, and swung back in on the Ulysses. Every gun on the ship was caught on the wrong foot, and seconds passed before the first one was brought to bear-time and to spare for the Heinkel to angle in at 60ø, drop his bomb and slew frantically away as the concentrated fire of the Oerlikons and pom-poms closed in on him. Miraculously, he escaped.
HMS Ulysses Page 30
