Greyhound (Movie Tie-In)

by C. S. Forester

  Krause had reached that decision standing in the pilothouse with Carling directing the ship as she patrolled round Cadena and Viktor. He was standing because he knew that if he sat down he would go to sleep. He had already caught himself once actually swaying on his feet. Krause had heard of the Mexican bandit who during the 1917 troubles had kept his district terrorized by his method of executing his enemies. He had hoisted them up nearly to the tops of roadside telephone poles, one to each. There with their hands bound behind them they were stood with their feet on the climbing supports and ropes round their necks attached to the tops of the poles. Each man stood there, and as long as he stood he lived. When he tired, when his foot slipped, the noose strangled him. Some of them would stand for days, an example to the whole neighborhood. Krause was in like case. If he sat down he went to sleep, and if he stood—if he stood, as he was doing now, it was unbearable. Feet and muscles and joints all cried out with agony. Unbearable? He had to bear it. There was nothing else to be said about the matter. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

  He must not go to sleep, and so he went on standing, and while he stood he forced his mind to think about the wording of the message he was going to send. A signal should convey all necessary information; then he should tell about Viktor’s helpless state, the unguarded condition of the convoy, the fact that he was dropping far astern, the need for fuel—nonsense; it would take all night to tell all his troubles. All he need say was something like “Help urgently needed.” They would know in London that he would not send any message otherwise; with all their experience they could guess his troubles. Then there was no need for the “urgently.” If it was not urgent he would not be asking. Then why say “needed”? The one word “help,” the mere fact that it was sent, would tell the whole story. And there was the faintest possible chance that a single word sent like that might slip unnoticed past Doenitz’s monitoring system. No. That was too wild a hope to be reckoned with, but the brevity of the message would be a serious handicap to the German experts trying to break the code. No, he had forgotten—he must be growing stupid. By cryptographic regulations all short messages must be “padded” with indifferent material up to a minimum length, which Dawson would know about. That was the decision of the cryptographic experts, and he could not contravene it. Yet the main conclusion he was reaching was sound enough. He must appeal for help; at zero-one-forty-five tomorrow he would send out the message with the one word “help” and leave the padding to Dawson.

  Having reached that decision, and ceasing to concentrate his mind on the matter, Krause found himself swaying on his feet again. This was quite absurd; he had been awake for less than forty-eight hours, and he had had two or even three hours of good sleep the night before last. He was a weak and beggarly element. He must not merely keep standing but he must keep thinking, or he was lost. Strange that he found himself longing for more action, for more need for quick thinking and rapid decision to key himself up again. But any further action could only be disaster. His command could face nothing further. He made himself stump up and down on his weary legs in the cramped pilothouse. It occurred to him to send for more coffee, and he told himself he would not be indulging in a slavish habit but taking necessary action to keep himself awake. But first he must go to the head; he put on the red spectacles and went down the ladders. He stumbled over the coamings like a farmer at sea, and it seemed to him as if he would never be able to drag his dead-weight body up those ladders again, and yet he did. He simply must not allow this lassitude to overcome him. When he reached the pilothouse he walked again; head up, chin in, chest out, shoulders back as he had done on parade at Annapolis. Until he had braced himself up he would not allow himself more coffee.

  It was really something of a relief to be summoned to the T.B.S. again.

  “Eagle to George. Do you hear me?”

  “George to Eagle. I hear you. Go ahead.”

  “Submit that we abandon ship, sir.” The cynical English voice was not cynical. It was grave; there was a little break in it before it went on. “Very sorry, sir.”

  “You have no choice?” asked Krause.

  “The collision mats weren’t large enough, sir. Nor was the handy-billy pump. The water’s been gaining on us steadily—we couldn’t keep it under and it came in faster all the time.”

  So it would; the lower the helpess hull sank the greater would be the number of holes below the surface and the greater would be the pressure forcing in the water.

  “We’ve fifteen degrees of list now and the main deck’s under water abaft the bridge, sir.”

  “I’m sure you’ve done all you can. Permission granted to abandon ship,” said Krause. “Tell your captain I have no doubt he has done all in his power to save his ship. And tell him I am sorry about his bad luck.”

  The tired brain was being driven to work normally, to choose carefully the right words to employ towards an ally.

  “Aye aye, sir,” said the English voice, and then the old nonchalance came back into it. “Well, good-by for now, sir, and thank you for a nice party.”

  Krause turned away from the T.B.S. unhappily. When he had first heard that voice he never dreamed for a moment that he would come to feel something of affection for its owner.

  FRIDAY. MIDWATCH: 2400–0400

  It was just light enough in the pilothouse to be aware of the change of watch, talkers handing over headphones, the wheel being relieved, Carling saluting.

  “Mr. Nystrom has the deck, sir.”

  “Very well, Mr. Carling.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  “Good night, Mr. Carling. I’ll take the conn, Mr. Nystrom.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  With a couple of helm orders he edged Keeling up closer towards the dark patch that was Cadena coming alongside Viktor. At one moment they distinctly heard a few words coming downwind and over the sea—someone was using a speaking trumpet and it had traversed in their direction.

  “Sonar reports loud breaking-up noises, sir,” said a talker.

  “Very well.”

  That was the requiem of a brave ship. It was two and a half years since Viktor had got away from Gdynia in defiance of all the power of the Luftwaffe, and had escaped from the Baltic in the teeth of the Nazi navy. For two and a half years she had fought a desperate fight; she had been the only home left to her exiled crew, and now she was gone.

  Four blasts from Cadena’s siren, startlingly loud in the night. F for Fox—rescue completed.

  “Come right handsomely. Still right. Meet her. Steady.”

  He took Keeling carefully up to within hailing distance of Cadena—watching like a hawk as she turned—and then stepped out to the bullhorn.

  “Cadena! Comescort.”

  The speaking trumpet hailed back.

  “Have you saved everyone?” asked Krause.

  “Yes, we’ve got ’em all.”

  That was a great relief. Krause had had a momentary mental picture of the British liaison officer with all his insouciance falling between the two grinding hulls with his bones snapping as the water leaped at him.

  “Course zero eight seven,” hailed Krause.

  “Eighty-seven,” said the speaking trumpet.

  “Make your best speed to rejoin the convoy.”

  “Twelve knots if I can,” said the speaking trumpet.

  “I’ll screen you ahead,” said Krause. “Use the modified zig plan. Number Seven.”

  “Modified zig? But—”

  “That’s an order,” said Krause. “Modified zig. Number Seven. This is zero minute.”

  “O.K. then,” said the speaking trumpet grudgingly. It was remarkable how nearly every merchant captain resented zigzagging. The almost universal feeling was that it was safer to get through the dangerous zone as quickly as possible; yet five minutes spent with a maneuvering board and a pair of parallel ruler
s working out an approach problem would convince anyone that zigzagging made the attacking submarine’s task considerably harder and postponed the moment when a shot might be got in. And an unpredicted change of course at the moment of firing usually meant a clean miss. Zigzagging lessened very appreciably the chances of a hit; it did not even need Krause’s experience at antisubmarine school of a few minutes in a sub’s conning tower planning an approach to convince a thinking man of that.

  “You heard that conversation, Mr. Nystrom?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take the conn, then. Screening position ahead of Cadena at five hundred yards’ distance.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Messenger! Bring me a pot of coffee.”

  Now that Viktor had sunk it was necessary to think again regarding his decision to appeal for help. At dawn he and Cadena would be close up to the convoy, so that the situation was greatly modified. And yet there was still the question of James’s fuel oil and the general helplessness of the escort. Despite the fact that Viktor would cause no further delay, tomorrow would be a long day; air cover might make a great deal of difference—all the difference. But London would be endeavoring to provide it in any case. Was it worthwhile now to break radio silence, to incur the incidential risks which he had already debated for the sake of the difference between certainty and likelihood? Was it? Krause tried to plod about the pilothouse. He had almost to repress a mutiny in his aching legs and feet as he did so. His mind was not mutinous; it was merely unwilling. He drove himself into weighing the pros and cons. The coffee would undoubtedly help.

  “On the table, messenger.”

  There was not enough light for him to see what he was doing, but he was practiced in pouring coffee into a cup in the dark. As always, that first cup tasted like nectar, and the last of the first cup tasted possibly even better than the first sip because of the delightful knowledge that there was a second cup to follow. He drank the last of the second cup lingeringly, like a lover reluctant to part from his mistress. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow—for within the next hour he had to reach a decision.

  “Take that tray back to the wardroom, messenger,” he said.

  The personal factor must be entirely disregarded. How Washington and London would be affected in their opinion of him must not influence him at all. It was his duty to think only about the convoy, about fighting the war. He must not spend a moment worrying lest he be thought of as an officer who went crying for help without sufficient justification. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches; his good name, like his life, was at the service of his country. Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west—what did he care about promotion? There is no discharge in that war. The Bible texts bobbed up in his mind as he tried to think. He could not ignore them.

  Again, was it merely his personal weakness that was inclining him to call for help? Was he subconsciously trying to relieve himself of responsibility? Head up, shoulders back. Krause grudgingly gave himself a passing grade after a short but merciless self-examination. At the same time and equally grudgingly he acquitted himself of the other charge, that he was unwilling to break radio silence because of the possible effect on his own career. “Fitted and retained.” Those words were as painful as the memory of Evelyn, but for all their damning negation, he would not allow them to influence his decision.

  The bell rang at the voice tube, and Krause forgot feet and legs and the problem of breaking radio silence as he sprang to answer it.

  “Captain.”

  “Cap’n, sir, there are pips ahead of us.”

  “Pips?”

  “Pips or a pip, sir. This screen’s getting fuzzier all the time. And the range unit’s acting up.”

  “But what is it you see?”

  “Just something, sir. Thought it was two pips, but now I’m not sure. But it’s right ahead of us, bearing around zero eight four—zero eight eight sometimes.”

  “It’s not the convoy?”

  “No, sir. That’s out of range. This pip’s about at the limit.”

  “Very well.”

  Not so well, of course. A pip. Something on the surface right ahead. A U-boat, going full out to overtake the convoy? Very possibly. A straggler from the convoy? Likely enough. It was something that must be dealt with. “I’ll take the conn, Mr. Nystrom.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Cadena’s making all of twelve knots, sir.”

  “Thank you. Right standard rudder. Steer course two four zero.”

  “Right standard rudder. Steer course two four zero, sir,” said the helmsman in the quiet of the pilothouse. A pause while Keeling turned; long enough for Krause to work out on which leg of the zig Cadena would be in three minutes’ time. “Steady on course two four zero, sir.”

  “Very well.” He had to go out on the starboard wing of the bridge to see the dark form of Cadena. “Right rudder, handsomely.”

  Cadena’s next zig was due now. As Keeling drew up to her his straining eyes detected her change of silhouette as she put her rudder over. “Meet her. Left rudder. Meet her. Steady as you go.”

  To come alongside a zigzagging ship within hailing distance in the darkness called for the most careful handling. The two ships came closer and closer together. Over there a light flashed momentarily. They were growing nervous, unable to guess what Keeling was trying to do. Someone had switched on a flashlight and pointed it at her.

  “Port lookout reports a light from Cadena, sir,” said a talker.

  “Very well. Right rudder, Meet her.”

  He reached the bullhorn just as the speaking trumpet voiced an anxious appeal.

  “Keeling!”

  “Comescort. I’m going on ahead of you. There’s something suspicious several miles ahead bearing about zero eight six true.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know and I’m going to find out. Maintain your present base course and keep a good lookout ahead.” A few more seconds for thought. “I’ll warn you if there’s danger. If you see me fire a gun make a radical change of base course, to zero four two true.”

  “O.K.”

  “Maintain that course for half an hour and then return to zero eight seven if you’ve heard nothing from me.”

  “O.K.”

  He hoped Cadena had understood, and then he remembered that on board her, probably on her bridge at that moment, were the Polish captain and the British liaison officer. They had heard him and would keep Cadena’s captain in line.

  “Good-by. Right full rudder. Steer course zero eight six. All engines ahead flank speed.”

  Krause’s orders were quietly repeated. Up here in the pilothouse everyone was aware of what was going on. Down below in the engine room they would be ignorant. They would be conscious of Keeling having circled; they would not be able to guess what new crisis demanded the increase in speed. Their troubles were minor ones. All they had to do was to obey orders. Krause allowed the engine room staff to disappear from his mind—a passing twinge of envy was left there like the passing swirl left by a sinking ship. These next few free minutes, while heading towards the unknown danger, he must think once more about breaking radio silence.

  “Permission to change the clocks, sir?” said Nystrom, looming up beside him.

  Change the clocks? Krause held himself back from a stupid repetition of the words. It was something he had forgotten all about, and yet something he should have remembered. They had just passed from one time zone to the next; they were an hour further forward into the day.

  “Mr. Watson’s orders?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Watson, as navigating officer, had been charged by Krause to alter the ship’s time at the most convenient moment.

  “Permission granted,” said Krause.

  Nystrom could not know that he had broken into an important chain of thought in his captai
n’s mind. Yet Nystrom’s request had a powerful bearing on the subject of Krause’s thoughts. Now the deadline he had once set himself for appealing for help was long past. He had been a fool not to think of that; even though it was only a nominal change and not an actual change—dawn was no nearer to them in actual minutes than it would have been if the time had not changed—the moral effect was profound. Besides, Krause was now reminded that the night was considerably shorter on an easterly course, heading for the sunrise. In any case, they were heading not only for the sunrise but towards a suspicious object, and at flank speed. He addressed himself to the voice tube again.

  “What do you make of that pip now?” he asked.

  “It’s still there, sir.”

  “Is it big, or little? Can’t you guess?”

  “I’d say it was big, sir. Perhaps it’s two pips like I said, sir. And I think it’s moving, sir. Keeping on the same course as us.”

  “But we’re overtaking it?”

  “Near as I can tell, yes, sir.”

  He would have to identify the thing before he took any further action; not so easy in the darkness. Ten to one it was only a straggler from the convoy. He tried to raise Dodge and James on the voice circuit, but had to abandon the attempt in exasperated disappointment. They were out of T.B.S. range, unless—unless—that was a horrible thought. He could put it aside in any case. They could not both have been sunk without the lookouts observing some kind of explosion reflected from the high cloud in the darkness of the night.