Swan pushed Kemp aside and groped for the handset by the twelve-pounder. But the canvas cover was frozen iron-hard, and with a sob he ran for the ladder, yelling to the nearest marine gun crew as he went. .
Kemp gripped the rail and peered down into the churning white wash. But he did not know where to look. Where would Biggs be? Below, staring up at, his ship as she faded into the darkness? Or already far astern, choking and crying out in terror? He began to fumble with a lifebuoy and was still struggling with its lashing as
Swan came aft again.
Swan said hoarsely, `Forget it. He'll have been sucked into the port screw.'
The other seaman, who was still standing transfixed with the knife in one hand, said brokenly, `We're turnin'! The wheel's gone over!'
Kemp stared at the ship's pale wake as it began to change into a wide sweeping curve. In a moment he would wake up. It was a mad dream. It had to be.
Right in his ear Swan said, `They'll have to go through the motions. Even if he missed the screws he'll be a block of bloody ice in minutes!'
A marine corporal from Number Six gun clattered on to the poop and snapped, `Captain's compliments, Mr Kemp, and he wants you on the bridge right away.' He looked at Swan. `You, too.'
The man with .the knife said in a small voice, `Worn't my fault, Hookey!'
Swan looked at Kemp with savage contempt. 'I know. You were obeying orders!'
Kemp tried to speak, his mind reeling with shock. `I....I'm sorry. I was only trying to....'
Swan gestured astern. `Tell him, sir! He'll be bloody glad to know you're sorry, I don't think!'
All the way along the upper deck Kemp was vaguely aware of silent, muffled figures watching him as he passed. No matter what had really happened, he was already condemned in their eyes. Their silence was like a shouted verdict.
As they reached the door at the rear of the bridge Kemp heard Lindsay's voice, very level, as if from far away.
`Another five minutes, Pilot. Then bring her back on course.'
Then Stannard's voice. `If he'd had a lifejacket on, sir, with a safety lamp
Lindsay had turned away again. `But he hadn't.' Stannard saw Kemp's outline in the door and shrugged. There seemed to be nothing left to say.
7
A Wren called Eve
The Chief of Staff looked up from his desk as Lindsay, entered the office, and then waved to, a chair. `Take the weight off your feet. I'll not keep you a minute.'
Lindsay sat. After the bitter air across the Flow as he had come ashore in the motor boat the office seemed almost tropical. It was evening, and with windows sealed and a great iron stove glowing pink with heat, he felt suddenly drowsy.
The grave-faced captain was saying into a telephone, `Very well, Flags, if you say so. Another draft coming in tonight, Get on to stores and find out about kitting them up. Right.'
He put down the telephone and shot Lindsay a brief smile. `Never lets up.' He groped in a drawer and took out two glasses and a bottle of Scotch. `The sun, had it been out today, would be well over the yardarm by now, eh?'
Lindsay relaxed slightly, hearing the wind hissing against a window, the clatter of a typewriter in the next room.
Benbecula had picked up her buoy that morning, and while he had stood on the bridge wing to watch a fussy tug assisting the forecastle party with the business of mooring, he had allowed a grudging admiration for the Flow. The snow had held off, and it was not raining either. In the hard morning light there had even been a kind of primitive beauty. The cold, pewter water and hunched brown islands were as uncompromising as ever, but seemed to say, we were here first, so make the best of us.
The whisky was neat and very good.
The captain said, `I didn't call you over until now because I thought you'd have enough-to do'. Anyway, it gave me time to study your report.' He smiled and some of his sternness faded. `You did damn well to have a crack at that raider. Against all sane instructions, of course, but I'd have done the same.'
Lindsay replied, `I wish I could have finished him.'
`I dare say. We had a couple of clear days recently and the R.A.F. got a reconnaissance flight going. Your raider is holed up in Norway, if you're interested. She's the Nassau, seventeen thousand tons, and fairly new.. Used to run to the East African ports.' He refilled the glasses. `Intelligence have reported she's completely converted as a raider.' He added wryly, `Of course, they didn't tell us anything about her until a few days,ago.'
Lindsay nodded. He had been expecting the captain his name was Lovelace - to go for him, to attack him for taking independent action. But now hee could understand. As Benbecula had entered the boom gate he had been watching and waiting for orders to moor on some vacant buoy, wherever was convenient to the harbour-master rather than the returning A.M.C. He need not have bothered, as the Flow had been almost deserted.
The officer who had come aboard from the guardboat to collect Lindsay's despatchess and mail had said, `Several of the battlewaggons have sailed for the Far East and others to the Med. The shop window's a bit bare at the moment.'
So even if Benbecula had complied to the letter of her orders, to stand off and await assistance, there would have beenn little available. No heroics, Lovelace had said at their other meeting. Now it looked as if heroics were just about all they had.
As if reading his mind the captain said, `We're tightly'stretched. Things are getting bad in the Med. and we've had some heavy losses in Western Approaches. My operations staff will let you have all the backlog when you're ready for it.' He looked grave. `We have not.released the news of Loch Glendhu's loss to the public as yet. The less the enemy knows about our meagre resources the better. Of course, the German radio has been playing it up. They claim they sank a heavy cruiser. Maybe they really believe it, but my guess is it's all, part of the probing game. Testing our strength.'
Lindsay, felt suddenly depressed. The endless strain, the continuous effort needed to pull his new command into a fighting unit were taking their toll.
He said, `It all sounds pretty hopeless.'
Lovelace paused with the bottle in mid air above Lindsay's glass. `Come on, man, I thought you Scots could drink!' With his eyes on the bottle he added slowly, `Hard luck about losing that chap overboard. Still, you were damn lucky with your previous casualties. And with a partly trained company like yours I'd have expected ten times the number.'
`Yes.' He let the neat whisky burn across his tongue, recalling Kemp's pale face, his wretchedness as he had stammered out his story of Biggs' death. The leading hand, Swan, had been stiff, even angry. `Mr Kemp's got no idea of things, sir.'
Things, as Lindsay well knew, needed time to be mastered. Kemp had had very little. But he also lacked something else. Perhaps he did not care.
Lovelace asked, `What have you done about the midshipman?'
`Nothing, sir. It was an accident due more to ignorance than carelessness. I doubt Kemp will ever forget it.'
He thought of Fraser's reaction. `Just one of those things,' was all he had.said.
Lovelace nodded, apparently satisfied.. `Fine. I should keep Kemp busy, Make him jump about. If I transferred him elsewhere it would do him more harm than good.' He shot Lindsay a searching glance. `Unless, of course, you want him, shifted?'
`No. I'll see how it works out.'
`Good. Especially as I'll have to take some of your people anyway. Tobey, your boatswain, and a few other key ratings. I need them as replacements. You'll have to fill the gaps from the next incoming draft.' He smiled grimly. `Straight from the training depot, naturally.'
The telephone buzzed and Lovelace snapped, `I will see the commanding officer of Merlin in three minutes. Tell him to warm his backside on your fire until I'm ready.'
Lindsay stood up. `Any orders for me, sir?'
`Soon.' Lovelace looked distant again, already grappling with the endless complications of his office.. `I've told the maintenance commander to do all he can. The repair ship is standing by to help, b
ut anything she or your people can't manage will have to wait. I'm afraid a week is about all you can expect, so work along those lines. I hear you've completed refuelling, so you can allow local leave whenever it suits you.'
Lindsay picked up his cap. The whisky was burning his stomach like fire. All a question of priorities, and his old ship was very far down that list. A week, and back to patrol duty. Ice. Men being worn out by cold and endless discomfort. They were the dangerous times, when small personal needs blunted a man's vigilance. Maybe Loch Glendhu's people had been like that. Too tired, too beaten down by the seemingly futile patrol to see their peril until it was beyond their scope.
He said, 'Thank you for the drink, sir.'
Lovelace grinned. `My pleasure. I hear so much gloom that it's a real prize to meet somebody who's achieved something at last!'
Lindsay left the office, and as he walked through the adjoining room he saw the officer who was waiting for the next interview. A full rank junior to Lindsay, yet. he commanded the Merlin, a new and powerful fleetdestroyer which was lying quite near to Benbecula's buoy. He watched Lindsay pass, his face curious. When he had left the room Lindsay could imagine the little scene. The young lieutenant-commander would ask politely who he was. The Chief of Staff's secretary would tell him. In the mind of the Merlin's captain a whole new picture would form. Nobody to bother with. Just the captain of that old A.M.C. Looked all right, and seemed bright enough, but with a command like her he must have something wrong with him.
He stood stockstill in the deserted passageway,, spent and despairing. Damn them. Damn them all to hell.
`Are you all right, sir?'
Lindsay swung round and saw the girl standing just inside the blackout curtain by the main entrance. As before she was muffled to the ears, and her feet and legs were encased in a pair of muddy rubber boots.
He stared at her for several seconds. `Yes, thank you.' He tried to smile, seeing the doubt and concern in her eyes. `A bit bushed, that's all.'
She took off her jaunty cap and shook out her hair vigorously. `I saw you come in this morning.' She was still studying him, her eyes troubled. `We all heard about what happened.'
`A door opened and closed with a bang and another Wren, also heavily covered in duffel coat and scarf, passed Lindsay without a glance. As she reached the door the Wren called Eve Collins tossed her an ignition key and said, `Thanks for relieving me early, Sue. Watch out for ice on the roads.'
The other girl paused and looked at Lindsay. 'Do it for me sometime.' Then she was gone, the blackout curtain swirling momentarily in a jet of cold air.
She said quietly, `I'm glad you made it back all right, sir.'
Lindsay recalled the flashing headlights on the shore, the signalman who had seen them.
He said, `One of the bunting tossers read your message when we left Scapa. It was nice of you to see us off.'
She grinned. `Thank him for me, will you? My morse isn't too hot.'
Then she saw his expression and added huskily, `Was he killed?'
`Yes.' He tried to shut it all from his aching mind. Ritchie's face. The wet oilskins by the rail. We commit his body to the deep.
He said abruptly, `I wonder if you'd care to have a drink with me?' He saw the sudden surprise and added, `Maybe we could get a meal or something?'
She replaced her cap very slowly. `I'm sorry. I really am.'
`You've got a date?' It was all suddenly clear. The other Wren relieving her early. Do it for me sometime.
She did not smile. `Something like that.' She looked away. `I can break it though.'
'No. It's all right.' He thrust his hands into his greatcoat pockets, trying to sound casual. That it did not matter. He did not even know why it had all become so urgent and important. `Forget it.
The curtain swirled inwards again and a R.A.F. flightlieutenant blundered into the lamplight, banging his gloved hands together.
`I guessed you'd take half the night to get changed! I've got a car outside. I'll run you to your billet.' He saw Lindsay and said awkwardly, `Oh, sorry!'
She said, `Jack, this is Commander Lindsay.' Then she turned to him again, her voice very quiet. `The fighter boys are giving a dance at the field. Why don't you come, too? It might be. a change from-' She looked at the flight-lieutenant. `What do you say, Jack? It would be all right, wouldn't it?'
`Of course.' He did not sound very enthusiastic.
Lindsay smiled. `I must get back to my ship. They'll be waiting to hear the news.' He looked at the R.A.F. officer and back to the girl. `But thanks again. Enjoy yourselves.'
Then he was outside in the darkness, the icy wind driving down his throat, making his eyes water like tears.
In the passageway the flight-lieutenant spread his hands. `So?'
She tightened her-scarf and frowned. `So nothing. He's a good bloke, that's all.'
He grinned. `A full commander, too. By God, Eve, I admire your sense of priorities!'
Out on the roadway Lindsay heard her laugh and the sound of the car driving away. He had made an idiot of himself, and it mattered. It mattered so much he could feel it like pain.
Aloud he said, `You bloody fool. You stupid bloody fool!'
Then he quickened his pace and turned once more towards the sea.
Lindsay was working at his desk when Goss, followed by Fraser, entered his day cabin.
`Sit, gentlemen.' He pressed the bell beside his desk and added, `Nearly noon. We'll have a drink.'
He watched Goss's heavy features as he selected a chair, noting the deep lines around his mouth and eyes. It had been a busy time for the whole ship, but the effect on Goss was even more noticeable. Captain Lovelace had been right about. the timing, he thought bitterly. A week is about all you car expect.
He looked at the two men and said slowly, `I have just received our orders. We are at forty-eight hours notice for steam.'
Fraser muttered, `A week and a day.- That's all they've given us.' Then he grinned. `Generous bastards!'
Lindsay turned to Goss. `What about you, Number One? Are you all buttoned up?'
Poor Goss, he had taken the time in harbour badly. Lindsay had watched him arguing with engineers and workers from the repair, ship, seen him following the mechanics and welders between the Benbecula's decks like an old hen trying to protect its chickens from a pack of rampaging foxes. But for Fraser's excellent- work on repairs while the ship had been returning to the Flow it was hard to see how they could have managed. The shell holes in the hull had been covered by new plates, and with the aid of fresh paint the outer damage would pass unnoticed to all but an experienced eye. Inboard, the repairs had been equally brief, a case of patch up and hope for the best, as one dockyard official had described it.
Jupp padded into the cabin and opened the drinks cabinet as Goss replied, `I've done my best, but it's nowhere near ready. Those butchers have made more mess than they've repaired. We should have gone down to Greenock or Rosyth.' He glanced at the nearest scuttle and added harshly, `The weather's worse, too.'
Fraser grimaced. `Proper ray of sunlight, you are!'
Lindsay said, `I believe we may be at sea for'Christmas.'
He watched his words affecting each of them in different ways. He had been at sea for nearly every Christmas he could remember, but this was different. Most of the ship's company had not, and after the' misery of the last patrol, Christmas in the Arctic wastes might seem like a final disaster. He followed Goss's stare to the scuttle. The sky was very pale and without colour. Inside the cabin it was humid with steam heat, but beyond the toughened glass the air would be like a razor.
Fraser asked mildly, `Is it definite, sir?'
Lindsay glancedd at Jupp's stooped shoulders and
smiled. `The chief steward informs me that it is so.' Jupp bowed over the-desk with his tray of glasses and eyed him calmly. `I saw the turkeys meself, sir. Bein' stacked up ready for Mr Barker's people to collect 'em.' He shook his head. `A sure sign.'
Fraser grinned
. `Very.'
Goss did not seem to be listening. `Same patrol?'
`No.' Lindsay held up-his glass to the light. `Further south-west than Uncle Item Victor. But that is just between us.'
Goss shuddered. `Nearer Greenland. There'll be ice about.'
The three of them lapsed into silence, so that the muffled shipboard noises intruded like whispers.
Lindsay watched as Jupp refilled his glass and wondered if the chief steward had noticed he was drinking more lately. He should have gone ashore, if only to stretch his legs or to find a change of scene. But apart from two official visits to the headquarters at Kirkwall he had remained on board immersing himself in the business of preparing his ship for sea again. He knew he had stayed too much alone, that it had solved nothing.
He realised too that something had to be done to break the gloom which. hung over his command likee a threat, .especially with the added prospect of Christmas at sea. He had granted shore leave as often as possible, but the libertymen had soon discovered the scope of enjoyment in Scapa was almost nil. There had been several fights, drunkenness and two cases of assault on naval patrolmen. Few of the defaulters brought before him for punishment had offered a reason for their behaviour, and he knew that all these things were just symptoms of frustration and boredom. The stark thrill of being spared Loch Glendhu's fate, of hitting at the -enemy, had soon vanished when back in harbour. Anywhere else and it might not have mattered. But here, in this dismal place it was taking its toll.
He said suddenly, `I thought we'd have a party before we sail. It will help make up for Christmas.'
Fraser eyed him curiously. `It'll pass the time.'
But Lindsay was watching Goss. `It's rather up to you, Number One. If you think you've too much on your plate we'll scrub round it, of course.'
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