Nicholls looked out over the port side. Half a mile away on the beam, the Cape Hatteras was blazing furiously, slowing to a stop. Some miles to the north, through the falling snow, he could barely distinguish the vague shape of the German cruiser, a shape pinpointed by the flaming guns still mercilessly pumping shells into the sinking ship. Every shot went home: the accuracy of their gunnery was fantastic.
Half a mile astern on the port quarter, the Ulysses was coming up. She was sheeted in foam and spray, the bows leaping almost clear of the water, then crashing down with a pistol-shot impact easily heard, even against the wind, on the bridge of the Sirrus, as the great engines thrust her through the water, faster, faster, with the passing of every second.
Nicholls gazed, fascinated. This was the first time he'd seen the Ulysses since he'd left her and he was appalled. The entire upperworks, fore and aft, were a twisted, unbelievable shambles of broken steel: both masts were gone, the smokestacks broken and bent, the Director Tower shattered and grotesquely askew: smoke was still pluming up from the great holes in fo'c'sle and poop, the after turrets, wrenched from their mountings, pitched crazily on the deck. The skeleton of the Condor still lay athwart 'Y' turret, a Stuka was buried to the wings in the fo'c'sle deck, and she was, he knew, split right down to the water level abreast the torpedo tubes. The Ulysses was something out of a nightmare.
Steadying himself against the violent pitching of the destroyer, Nicholls stared and stared, numbed with horror and disbelief. Orr looked at him, looked away as a messenger came to the bridge.
"Rendezvous 1015," he read. "1015! Good lord, 25 minutes' time! Do you hear that, Doc? 25 minutes' time!"
"Yes, sir," Nicholls said absently: he hadn't heard him.
Orr looked at him, touched his arm, pointed to the Ulysses.
"Bloody well incredible, isn't it?" he murmured.
"I wish to God I was aboard her," Nicholls muttered miserably. "Why did they send me------? Look! What's that?"
A huge flag, a flag twenty feet in length, was streaming out below the yardarm of the Ulysses, stretched taut in the wind of its passing.
Nicholls had never seen anything remotely like it: the flag was enormous, red and blue and whiter than the driving snow.
"The battle ensign," Orr murmured. "Bill Turner's broken out the battle ensign." He shook his head in wonder. "To take time off to do that now-well, Doc., only Turner would do that. You know him well?"
Nicholls nodded silently.
"Me, too," Orr said simply. "We are both lucky men."
The Sirus was still doing fifteen knots, still headed for the enemy, when the Ulysses passed them by a cable-length away as if they were stopped in the water.
Long afterwards, Nicholls could never describe it all accurately. He had a hazy memory of the Ulysses no longer plunging and lifting, but battering through waves and troughs on a steady even keel, the deck angling back sharply from a rearing forefoot to the counter buried deep in the water, fifteen feet below the great boiling tortured sea of white that arched up in seething magnificence above the shattered poop-deck.
He could recall, too, that 'B' turret was firing continuously, shell after shell screaming away through the blinding snow, to burst in brilliant splendour over and on the German cruiser: for 'B' turret had only starshells left. He carried, too, a vague mental picture of Turner waving ironically from the bridge, of the great ensign streaming stiffly astern, already torn and tattered at the edges. But what he could never forget, what he would hear in his heart and mind as long as he lived, was the tremendous, frightening roar of the great boiler-room intake fans as they sucked in mighty draughts of air for the starving engines.
For the Ulysses was driving through the heavy seas under maximum power, at a speed that should have broken her shuddering back, should have burnt out the great engines. There was no doubt as to Turner's intentions: he was going to ram the enemy, to destroy him and take him with him, at a speed of just on or over forty incredible knots.
Nicholls gazed and gazed and did not know what to think: he felt sick at heart, for that ship was part of him now, his good friends, especially the Kapok Kid-for he did not know that the Kid was already dead-they, too, were part of him, and it is always terrible to see the end of a legend, to see it die, to see it going into the gulfs. But he felt, too, a strange exultation; she was dying but what a way to die! And if ships had hearts, had souls, as the old sailing men declared, surely the Ulysses would want it this way too.
She was still doing forty knots when, as if by magic, a great gaping hole appeared in her bows just above the water-line. Shell-fire, possibly, but unlikely at that angle. It must have been a torpedo from the U-boat, not yet located: a sudden dip of the bows could have coincided with the up-thrust of a heavy sea forcing a torpedo to the surface. Such things had happened before: rarely, but they happened... The Ulysses brushed aside the torpedo, ignored the grievous wound, ignored the heavy shells crashing into her and kept on going.
She was still doing forty knots, driving in under the guns of the enemy, guns at maximum depression, when "A" magazine blew up, blasted off the entire bows in one shattering detonation. For a second, the lightened fo'c'sle reared high into the air: then it plunged down, deep down, into the shoulder of a rolling sea. She plunged down and kept on going down, driving down to the black floor of the Arctic, driven down by the madly spinning screws, the still thundering engines her own executioner.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
THE AIR was warm and kind and still. The sky was blue, a deep and wonderful blue, with little puffs of cotton-wool cloud drifting lazily to the far horizon. The street-gardens, the hanging birdcage flower-baskets, spilled over with blue and yellow and red and gold, all the delicate pastel shades and tints he had almost forgotten had ever existed: every now and then an old man or a hurrying housewife or a young man with a laughing girl on his arm would stop to admire them, then walk on again, the better for having seen them.
The nesting birds were singing, clear and sweet above the distant roar of the traffic, and Big Ben was booming the hour as Johnny Nicholls climbed awkwardly out of the taxi, paid off the driver and hobbled slowly up the marble steps.
His face carefully expressionless, the sentry saluted, opened the heavy swing door. Nicholls passed inside, looked around the huge hall, saw that both sides were lined with heavy, imposing doors: at the far end, beneath the great curve of the stairs and overhanging the widely convex counter of the type usually found in banks, hung a sign: "Typist Pool: Inquiries."
The tip-tap of the crutches sounded unnaturally loud on the marble floor as he limped over to the counter. Very touching and melodramatic, Nicholls, he thought dispassionately: trust the audience are having their money's worth. Half a dozen typists had stopped work as if by command, were staring at him in open curiosity, hands resting limply on their machines. A trim young Wren, red-haired an3 shirt-sleeved, came to the counter.
"Can I help you, sir?" The quiet voice, the blue eyes were soft with concern. Nicholls, catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror behind her, a glimpse of a scuffed uniform jacket over a grey fisherman's jersey, of blurred, sunken eyes and gaunt, pale cheeks, admitted wryly to himself that he couldn't blame her. He didn't have to be a doctor to know that he was in pretty poor shape.
"My name is Nicholls, Surgeon-Lieutenant Nicholls. I have an appointment------"
"Lieutenant Nicholls... H.M.S. Ulysses" The girl drew in her breath sharply. "Of course, sir. They're expecting you." Nicholls looked at her, looked at the Wrens sitting motionless in their chairs, caught the intense, wondering expression in their eyes, the awed gaze with which one would regard beings from another planet. It made him feel vaguely uncomfortable.
"Upstairs, I suppose?" He hadn't meant to sound so brusque.
"No, sir." The Wren came quietly round the counter. "They-well, they heard you'd been wounded, sir," she murmured apologetically. "Just across the hall here, please." She smiled at him, slowed her ste
p to match his halting walk.
She knocked, held open the door, announced him to someone he couldn't see, and closed the door softly behind him when he had passed through.
There were three men in the room. The one man he recognised, Vice-Admiral Starr, came forward to meet him. He looked older, far older, far more tired than when Nicholls had last seen him-hardly a fortnight previously.
"How are you, Nicholls?" he asked. "Not walking so well, I see." Under the assurance, the thin joviality so flat and misplaced, the harsh edge of strain burred unmistakably. "Come and sit down."
He led Nicholls across to the table, long, big and covered with leather.
Behind the table, framed against huge wall-maps, sat two men. Starr introduced them. One, big, beefy, red of face, was in full uniform, the sleeves ablaze with the broad band and four stripes of an Admiral of the Fleet: the other was a civilian, a small, stocky man with iron-grey hair, eyes still and wise and old. Nicholls recognised him immediately, would have known anyway from the deference of both the Admirals. He reflected wryly that the Navy was indeed doing him proud: such receptions were not for all... But they seemed reluctant to begin the reception, Nicholls thought-he had forgotten the shock his appearance must give. Finally, the grey-haired man cleared his throat.
"How's the leg, boy?" he asked. "Looks pretty bad to me." His voice was low, but alive with controlled authority.
"Not too bad, thank you, sir," Nicholls answered. "Two, three weeks should see me back on the job."
"You're taking two months, laddie," said the grey-haired man quietly.
"More if you want it." He smiled faintly. "If anyone asks, just tell 'em I said so. Cigarette?"
He flicked the big table-lighter, sat back in his chair. Temporarily, he seemed at a loss as to what to say next. Then he looked up abruptly.
"Had a good trip home?"
"Very fair, sir. V.I.P. treatment all the way. Moscow, Teheran, Cairo, Gib." Nicholls's mouth twisted. "Much more comfortable than the trip out." He paused, inhaled deeply on his cigarette, looked levelly across the table. "I would have preferred to come home in the Sirrus."
"No doubt," Starr broke in acidly. "But we cannot afford to cater for the personal prejudices of all and sundry. We were anxious to have a first-hand account of FR77-and particularly the Ulysses-as soon as possible."
Nicholls's hands clenched on the edge of his chair. The anger had leapt in him like a flame, and he knew that the man opposite was watching closely. Slowly he relaxed, looked at the grey-haired man, interrogative eyebrows mutely asking confirmation.
The grey-haired man nodded.
"Just tell us all you know," he said kindly. "Everything, about everything. Take your time."
"From the beginning?" Nicholls asked in a low voice.
"From the beginning."
Nicholls told them. He would have liked to tell the story, right as it fell out, from the convoy before FR77 straight through to the end. He did his best, but it was a halting story, strangely lacking in conviction. The atmosphere, the surroundings were wrong, the contrast between the peaceful warmth of these rooms and the inhuman cold and cruelty of the Arctic was an immense gulf that could be bridged only by experience and understanding. Down here, in the heart of London, the wild, incredible tale he had to tell fell falsely, incredibly even on his own ears. Half-way through, he looked at his listeners, almost gave up. Incredulity? No, it wasn't that-at least, not with the grey-haired man and the Admiral of the Fleet. Just a baffled incomprehension, an honest failure to understand.
It wasn't so bad when he stuck to the ascertainable facts, the facts of carriers crippled by seas, of carriers mined, stranded and torpedoed: the facts of the great storm, of the desperate struggle to survive: the facts of the gradual attrition of the convoy, of the terrible dying of the two gasoline tankers, of the U-boats and bombers sent to the bottom, of the Ulysses, battering through the snowstorm at 40 knots, blown up by the German cruiser, of the arrival of the battle squadron, of the flight of the cruiser before it could inflict further damage, of the rounding-up of the scattered convoy, of the curtain of Russian fighters in the Barents Sea, of the ultimate arrival in the Kola Inlet of the battered remnants of FR77-five ships in all.
It was when he came to less readily ascertainable facts, to statements that could never be verified at all, that he sensed the doubt, the something more than wonder. He told the story as calmly, as unemotionally as he could: the story of Ralston, Ralston of the fighting lights and the searchlights, of his father and family: of Riley, the ringleader of the mutiny and his refusal to leave the shaft tunnel: of Petersen, who had killed a marine and gladly given his own life: of McQuater and Chrysler and Doyle and a dozen others.
For a second, his own voice broke uncertainly as he told the story of the half-dozen survivors from the Ulysses, picked up by the Sirrus soon afterwards. He told how Brooks had given his lifejacket to an ordinary seaman, who amazingly survived fifteen minutes in that water: how Turner, wounded in head and arm, had supported a dazed Spicer till the Sirrus came plunging alongside, had passed a bowline round him, and was gone before anything could be done: how Car-rington, that enduring man of iron, a baulk of splintered timber under his arms, had held two men above water till rescue came. Both men-Preston was one-had died later: Carrington had climbed the rope unaided, clambered over the guard-rails dangling a left-leg with the foot blown off above the ankle.
Carrington would survive: Carrington was indestructible. Finally, Doyle, too, was gone: they had thrown him a rope, but he had not seen it, for he was blind.
But what the three men really wanted to know, Nicholls realised, was how the Ulysses had been, how a crew of mutineers had borne themselves. He had told them, he knew, things of wonder and of splendour, and they could not reconcile these with men who would take up arms against their own ship, in effect, against their own King.
So Nicholls tried to tell them, then knew, as he tried, that he could never tell them. For what was there to tell? That Vallery had spoken to the men over the broadcast system: how he had gone among them and made them almost as himself, on that grim, exhausting tour of inspection: how he had spoken of them as he died: and how, most of all, his death had made them men again? For that was all that there was to tell, and these things were just nothing at all. With sudden insight, Nicholls saw that the meaning of that strange transformation of the men of the Ulysses, a transformation of bitter, broken men to men above themselves, could neither be explained nor understood, for all the meaning was in Vallery, and Vallery was dead.
Nicholls felt tired, now, desperately so. He knew he was far from well.
His mind was cloudy, hazy in retrospect, and he was mixing things up: his sense of chronological time was gone, he was full of hesitations and uncertainties. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by the futility of it all, and he broke off slowly, his voice trailing into silence.
Vaguely, he heard the grey-haired man ask something in a quiet voice, and he muttered aloud, unthinking.
"What was that? What did you say?" The grey-haired man was looking at him strangely. The face of the Admiral behind the table was impassive. Starr's, he saw, was open in disbelief.
I only said, "They were the best crew God ever gave a Captain,'"
Nicholls murmured.
"I see." The old, tired eyes looked at him steadily, but there was no other comment. Fingers drumming on the table, he looked slowly at the two Admirals, then back to Nicholls again.
"Take things easy for a minute, boy.... If you'll just excuse us..."
He rose to his feet, walked slowly over to the big, bay windows at the other end of the long room, the others following. Nicholls made no move, did not even look after them: he sat slumped in the chair, looking dejectedly, unsee-ingly, at the crutches on the floor between his feet.
From time to time, he could hear a murmur of voices. Starr's high-pitched voice carried most clearly. "Mutiny ship, sir... never the same again... better this way." There was a murmured reply, t
oo low to catch, then he heard Starr saying, "... finished as a fighting unit." The grey-haired man said something rapidly, his tone sharp with disagreement, but the words were blurred. Then the deep, heavy voice of the Fleet Admiral said something about "expiation," and the grey-haired man nodded slowly. Then Starr looked at him over his shoulder, and Nicholls knew they were talking about him. He thought he heard the words "not well" and "frightful strain," but perhaps he was imagining it.
Anyway, he no longer cared. He was anxious for one thing only, and that was to be gone. He felt an alien in an alien land, and whether they believed him or not no longer mattered. He did not belong here, where everything was so sane and commonplace and real-and withal a world of shadows.
He wondered what the Kapok Kid would have said had he been here, and smiled in fond reminiscence: the language would have been terrible, the comments rich and barbed and pungent. Then he wondered what Vallery would have said, and he smiled again at the simplicity of it all, for Vallery would have said: "Do not judge them, for they do not understand."
Gradually, he became aware that the murmuring had ceased, that the three men were standing above him. His smile faded, and he looked up slowly to see them looking down strangely at him, their eyes full of concern.
"I'm damnably sorry, boy," the grey-haired man said sincerely. "You're a sick man and we've asked far too much of you. A drink, Nicholls? It was most remiss------"
"No, thank you, sir." Nicholls straightened himself in his chair. "I'll be perfectly all right." He hesitated. "Is, is there anything else?"
"No, nothing at all." The smile was genuine, friendly. "You've been a great help to us, Lieutenant, a great help. And a fine report. Thank you very much indeed."
A liar and a gentleman, Nicholls thought gratefully. He struggled to his feet, reached out for his crutches. He shook hands with Starr and the Admiral of the Fleet, and said good-bye. The grey-haired man accompanied him to the door, his hand beneath Nicholls's arm.
HMS Ulysses Page 33
