But conditions in the convoy could generally be described as good, with only three ships badly out of station and only a certain amount of smoke being made. There was time for a rapid glance round the Keeling; it was significant that Krause’s first care had been for the convoy and only his second care had been for his own ship. He lowered his binoculars and turned to look forward, the wind hitting him in the face as he did so, and, along with the wind, a few drops of spray hurled aft from the heaving bows. Aloft, the “bedspring” of the radar antenna was making its methodical gyrations, turning round and round while the mast, with the rolling and pitching, was outlining cones, apex downward, of every conceivable dimension. The lookouts were at their posts, seven of them, all bundled up in their arctic clothing, their eyes at the binoculars in the rests in front of them, traversing slowly to left and to right and back again, each sweeping his own special sector, but with each having to pause every few seconds to wipe from the object glasses the spray flying back from the bows. Krause gave the lookouts a moment’s inspection; Carling, with his mind preoccupied with the duty of taking the ship to her new station, would not be giving them a glance at present. They seemed to be doing their work conscientiously; sometimes—unbelievable though it might be—lookouts were found wanting in that respect, tiring of a monotonous job despite frequent relief. It was a duty that had to be carried out with the utmost pains and method, without an instant’s interruption; a U-boat would never expose more than a foot or two of periscope above the surface of the sea, and never for more than a half a minute at most; search had to be constant and regular to give any chance, not speaking of probability, of the transient appearance being detected. A second’s glimpse of a periscope could decide the fate of the convoy. There was even the chance that the sight of torpedo wakes streaking towards the ship and instantly reported might save at least the Keeling.
This was as long as he dared stay out on the wing of the bridge; half his force was heading towards battle out there to port—Viktor had “peeled off” to join James some time ago—and he must be at the T.B.S. to exert control if necessary. Young Hart was approaching the port pelorus to take the bearings for Carling in his task of taking up station. Krause gave him a nod and went back into the pilothouse. The comparative warmth of it reminded him that in that brief time outside, without sweater or pea jacket, he had been chilled through. He stepped to the telephone; it was bleating and gurgling. He was overhearing the conversations between the British officers in James and Viktor.
“Bearing three six oh,” said one English voice.
“Can’t you get the range, old boy?” said another.
“No, damn it. Contact’s too indistinct. Haven’t you picked it up yet?”
“Not yet. We’ve swept that sector twice.”
“Come ahead slowly.”
From where Krause stood James was indistinguishable in the murk of the near horizon. She was only a little ship and her upper works were not lofty. Viktor was bigger and higher and nearer; he could still see her, but she was already vague. With visibility so poor and the ships separating rapidly he would not have her in sight much longer, although she would be prominent enough on the radar screen. Carling’s voice suddenly made itself audible; he might have been speaking before but Krause, concentrating on the T.B.S., had not listened to him, as what he was saying had no bearing on the problem in hand.
“Right standard rudder. Steer course zero seven nine,” said Carling.
“Right standard rudder. Course zero seven nine,” repeated Parker.
Keeling was at her new station now, or near it, evidently.
She swung round, turning her stern almost directly towards Viktor. The distance between the two ships would now be widening more rapidly than before. Keeling rolled deeply to starboard, unexpectedly; feet slipped on the pilothouse deck, hands grabbed for security. Her turn had brought her into the hollow of the next roller without the opportunity to lift to it. She lay over for a long second, leveled herself abruptly, and equally abruptly lay over to port as the roller passed under her keel, so that feet slipped in the opposite direction and Carling came sliding down upon Krause.
“Sorry, sir,” said Carling.
“All right.”
“Steady on zero seven nine,” announced Parker.
“Very well,” answered Carling, and then to Krause, “Next zigzag is due in five minutes, sir.”
“Very well,” said Krause in his turn. It was one of his standing orders that he should be called five minutes before any change of course on the part of the convoy. The turn would bring the convoy’s sterns exactly towards Viktor and James. It was nine minutes since James had peeled off; she must be more than three miles from her station now, and the distance would be increasing by a quarter or even half a mile every minute. Her maximum speed in this sea would not be more than sixteen knots. It would take her half an hour—and that half hour one of maximum fuel consumption—to regain her station if he recalled her now. And every minute that he postponed doing so meant she would spend five extra minutes overtaking the convoy; in other words, if he left her out there for six more minutes it would be a full hour before she would be back on station. Another decision to be made.
“George to Harry,” he said into the telephone.
“I hear you, George.”
“How’s that contact of yours?”
“Not very good, sir.”
Sonar notoriously could be inconsistent. There was much more than a faint chance that James was pursuing something that was not a submarine. Possibly even a school of fish; more likely a layer of colder or warmer water, seeing that Viktor was finding difficulty in getting a cross-bearing on it.
“Is it worth following it up?”
“Well, sir. I think so, sir.”
If there really was a U-boat there the German captain would be well aware that contact had been made; he would have changed course radically, and would now be fishtailing and varying his depth; that would account at least in large part for the unsatisfactory contact. There was a new German device for leaving a big bubble behind, producing a transient sonar effect baffling to the sonar operator. There might be some new unknown device more baffling still. There might be no U-boat there.
On the other hand, if there was, and if James and Viktor were recalled, it would be some minutes before the U-boat would venture to surface; she would be doubtful as to the bearing of the convoy, which would be heading directly away from her; she would certainly not make more than sixteen knots on the surface in this sea and probably less. The risk involved in leaving her to her own devices had been considerably diminished by those few minutes of pursuit. There was the matter of the effect such a decision would have on his British and Polish subordinates; they might resent being called off from a promising hunt, and sulk on a later occasion—but that reply to his last question had not been enthusiastic, even allowing for British lack of emphasis.
“You’d better call it off, Harry,” said Krause in his flat impersonal voice.
“Aye aye, sir.” The reply was in a tone that echoed his own.
“Eagle, Harry, rejoin the convoy and take up your previous stations.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
There was no guessing whether the decision had caused resentment or not.
“Commodore’s signaling for the change of course, sir,” reported Carling.
“Very well.”
This slow convoy did not zigzag in the fashion of fast convoys; the passage would be prolonged inordinately if it did. The alterations of course were made at long intervals, so long that it was impossible for merchant captains to maintain station on the difficult lines of bearing involved in the fast convoy system—it was hard enough for them to maintain simple column and line. Consequently every change of course meant a ponderous wheel to left or to right, only a matter of ten or fifteen degrees, but that was a major operation. One wing had to maintai
n speed while the other reduced speed. Leaders had to put their helms over gently, and it seemed as if the ships following would never learn the simple lesson that to follow their leaders round in a wheel to starboard it was necessary to wait and then to turn exactly where the ship ahead turned; to turn too soon meant that one found oneself on the starboard side of the leader, and threatening the ships in the column to starboard; to turn too late meant heading straight for the ships in the column to port. In either event there would be need to jockey oneself back into one’s proper place in the column, not too easily.
Moreover, in this wheeling movement of the whole mass, it was necessary for the ships in the outer flank to move faster than those in the inner flank, which actually meant—seeing that those on the outer flank were already steaming as hard as they could go—that the ships in the inner columns must reduce speed. The large mimeographed booklet of instructions issued to every captain laid down standard proportionate reductions in speed for every column, but to comply with those instructions meant leafing hurriedly through the booklet and doing a rapid calculation when the right place was found. And if the correct figure were ascertained there was still the difficulty of getting an unpracticed engine room staff to make an exact reduction in speed; and there was always the difficulty that every ship responded to the rudder in a different way, with a different turning circle.
Every wheel the convoy made was in consequence followed by a period of confusion. Lines and columns tended to open out, vastly increasing the area the escort had to guard; there were always likely to be stragglers, and experience had long proved that a ship straggling from the formation would almost certainly be sent to the bottom. Krause went out onto the starboard wing of the bridge and leveled his binoculars at the convoy. He saw the string of flags at the commodore’s halyard come down.
“Execute, sir,” reported Carling.
“Very well.”
It was Carling’s duty to report that hauling down even though Krause was aware of it; it was the executive moment, the signal that the wheel was to begin. Krause heard Carling give the order for the new course, and he had to train his binoculars as Keeling turned. The ship leading the starboard column six miles away lengthened as she presented her side to his gaze; the three “islands” of her superstructure differentiated themselves in his sight now that she was nearly broadside on to him. A heavy roll on the part of Keeling swept the ship out of the field of his binoculars; he found himself looking at the heaving sea, and he had to retrain the glasses, balancing and swaying with the roll to keep the convoy under observation. There was confusion almost instantly. The convoy changed from an almost orderly checkerboard of lines and columns into a muddle of ships dotted haphazard, ships sheering out of line, ships trying to regain station, columns doubling up with the tail crowding on the head.
Krause tried to keep the whole convoy under observation, even though the farthest ships were hardly visible in the thick weather; a collision might call for instant action on his part. He could detect none, but there must be some tense moments in the heart of the convoy.
The seconds, the minutes were passing. The front of the convoy was an indented line. To all appearances there were not the nine columns that there should have been, but ten, eleven, no, twelve. On the starboard quarter of the commodore an intrusive ship appeared. Ships were straying, as was only to be expected, out beyond the starboard leader. If one single ship did not obey orders exactly, did not reduce speed at the correct moment, or turned too soon or too late, ten ships might be forced out of station, jostling each other. As Krause watched he saw one of the most distant ships turning until her stern was presented to him. Someone out there of necessity or from recklessness was turning in a full circle; squeezed out from his position he was about to try to nose his way into it again. And out there on that heaving expanse of water could be a U-boat, possibly one commanded by a cautious captain, hanging on the skirts of the convoy. An outlying ship like that would be a choice victim, to be torpedoed without any chance of one of the escort running down to the attack at all. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
There were flag hoists ascending the commodore’s halyards, presumably orders designed to straighten out the confusion. Inexperienced men would be trying to read them, through ancient telescopes, and with their ships heaving and swaying under their feet. Krause swung round to examine the port column over Keeling’s quarter. That was in the least disorder, as might be expected; Krause looked beyond them. In the haze on the far horizon he could see a dot with a line above it. That was Viktor, coming up at her best speed to resume her station—James, with her poor sixteen knots, must be far astern of her.
As Krause turned back to re-examine the convoy, a bright flash of light caught his eye, a series of flashes from the commodore. She was sending a searchlight signal, and her searchlight was trained straight at Keeling. It would be a signal for him: P-L-E—He fell behind with his reading of it, for the transmission was too fast for him. He looked up at his signalers; they were reading it without difficulty, one man noting the letters as read to him by the other. A longish message, not one of desperate urgency then—and for moments of desperate urgency there were far more rapid means of communication. Up above they blinked back the final acknowledgment.
“Signal for you, sir,” called the signalman, stepping forward, pad in hand.
“Read it.”
“‘Comconvoy to Comescort. Will you please direct your corvette on the starboard side to assist in getting convoy into order question would be grateful.’”
“Reply ‘Comescort to Comconvoy. Your last. Affirmative.’”
“‘Comescort to Comconvoy. Your last. Affirmative.’ Aye aye, sir.”
Comconvoy had to word his signal like that, presumably; he was making requests of an associate, not giving orders to a subordinate. Let thy words be few, said Ecclesiastes; the officer drafting an order had to bear that recommendation in mind, but a retread admiral addressing an escort commander had to remember the Psalms and make his words smoother than butter.
Krause went back into the pilothouse, to the T.B.S.
“George to Dicky,” he said in that flat distinct voice. The reply was instant; Dodge was alert enough.
“Leave your station,” he ordered. “Go and—” He checked himself for a moment; then he remembered that it was a Canadian ship he was addressing, so that the phrase he had in mind would not be misunderstood as it might be by the James or the Viktor, and he continued:
“Go and ride herd on the convoy on the starboard side.”
“Ride herd on the convoy. Aye aye, sir.”
“Look to the commodore for instructions,” went on Krause, “and get those stragglers back into line.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Keep your sonar searching on that flank. That’s the dangerous side at present.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh. But what of the “great faith” that centurion had? Dodge was already wheeling round to carry out her orders. Now there was more to be done. The front of the convoy had been inadequately enough screened already, and now nearly all of it was wide open to attack. So there were more orders to give, orders to set Keeling patrolling along the whole five-mile front of the convoy, her sonar sweeping first on one side and then on the other as she steamed back and forth in a stouthearted attempt to detect possible enemies anywhere in the convoy’s broad path, while Dodge moved about on the right flank of the convoy, her captain shouting himself hoarse through his bullhorn at the laggards—the words of the wise are as goads—at the same time her sonar kept watch behind him. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
Krause walked from the starboard wing of the bridge to the port side as Keeling made her second turnabout. He wanted to keep his eye on the convoy; he
wanted to use his own judgment as to when Dodge would have completed her task on the right flank, and as to when Viktor would be available to take her share of the patrol across the front. Even on the wing of the bridge, with the wind blowing, he was conscious, when he thought about it, of the monotonous ping-ping-ping of the ship’s sonar as it sent out its impulses through the unresponsive water. That noise went on ceaselessly, day and night, as long as the ship was at sea, so that the ear and the mind became accustomed to it unless attention was called to it.
The commodore’s searchlight was blinking again, straight at him; another message. He glanced up at the signalman receiving it. The sharp rattle of the shutters of the light in reply told him that the signalman had not understood a word and was asking for a repeat; he checked his irritation, for perhaps the commodore was using some long-winded English polite form outside the man’s experience. But the time the message took to transmit did not indicate that it was long.
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