Mrs McGregor had given them a fish supper at seven-thirty, and now an hour later was telling them about the loss of the battleship Vanguard in July of last year. It was a story she’d obviously recounted several times: she knew the names of all the Grand Fleet ships that had been in the Flow that night – four battle squadrons, in all twenty-eight capital ships, as well as two cruiser squadrons, near sixty destroyers and numerous submarines. ‘Five what they call flotillas o’ them things…’ Among the battleships, the Vanguard, one of the 4th Battle Squadron, with a crew of 1,000 men. ‘She were here, just below us here, on the eighth day of July. They’d brought her over from close off Flotta, and spent the night here – on what we call the Ophir coast. I remember admiring the looks of her, on a summer evening that was as beautiful as I’ve known, and ’twas next evening, the ninth, she returned to where she’d come from, wi’ the others of her squadron – two miles to the north of Flotta there. Well, I tell you, I was in bed and asleep when it happened. Folk such as gunners on the islands or sailors on the other ships, likewise farmers as happened to be up an’ doing, all told how they seen a great shoot of flames light the Flow, and islands with it, a sound like the crack of doom, and then another. I was woken then, all right – and at the window, and I swear to you I pray never to see the like – burning objects flying through the air, and the heather on shore set alight – the very sky you’d think was burning! Then the smoke – black as hell, and when it cleared – oh, my Lord, she’d gone!’
‘Were any of them saved?’
‘Aye. Out of a thousand men, three. An officer, a stoker and a Royal Marine, but the officer died next day. To this day ’tis not known what caused it. “Internal explosion”, they said. Oh, ’twas a dreadful thing!’
Her telephone rang. It was fixed to the wall in the hallway: had just rung again. Anne said, ‘Mr McGillivray calling back, perhaps.’ He and Mrs McGregor had the only telephones in this area, and she’d called him earlier to ask whether he could lay his hands on two ladies’ bicycles in good condition; he’d said he thought he’d be able to and would let her know in the morning.
She was saying, on her way to answer it, ‘He’d never, though – at this time of night…’
Sue said quietly, ‘Could be Sam.’
‘Could indeed.’
‘Hello?’
Silence… Then: ‘I will enquire whether she is disposed to take your call. It’s late, you know.’
‘Likes to put ’em in their place, doesn’t she?’
‘Mrs Laurie—’
‘Is Sam, anyway.’ She went through and took the receiver from her. ‘That you, Sam?’
‘Did I wake you all, or something?’
‘No, of course not. How are things?’
‘May not have woken you, but I’m about to shock you. Do you have transport that might get you down to the quay at Houton?’
‘When?’
‘Now. I’m about to leave the flagship in her picket-boat, making for some landing-place on Flotta, but if you two could face it we’d pick you up at Houton in half an hour. Seems a U-boat’s trying to get into the Flow – they have hydrophones and suchlike—’
‘What’s it to do with us?
‘Well, not much, but – having dragged you up here, and now leaving you on your own, I thought the chance of having a ringside seat, so to speak—’
‘To see it being sunk or depthcharged, or—’
‘Well, let’s hope so, that’d justify the whole trip, wouldn’t it? Are you game? I want to see it and I’m tagging along with the flagship’s torpedo officer. I’ve asked might we take you two along and the duty commanding officer said why not – he’s never heard of you of course, but on my personal responsibility—’
‘You’re an extraordinary man, you know?’
‘Right now, man in a hurry. Will you come? If so, wrap up well. Can’t hang around though, because—’
‘There’s a Mr McGillivray near here who has both a motor and a telephone. If he’ll turn out for us—’
‘Make him. Bribe him. I’ll foot the bill. Double his usual price, if that’d do it. But if you’re not at Houton when we get there we can’t wait, so—’
‘I’ll do my best. See you there, I hope. Bye.’ Hanging up, and turning to meet Mrs McGregor’s shocked stare. In the doorway, Sue was looking excited. ‘Mrs McGregor—’
‘He’ll no turn out this time o’ night! An’ what for, is it? Houton, I heard mention of?’
‘What’s Mr McGillivray’s number, please?’
Houton Bay was a base for seaplanes as well as for trawlers and that, Mr McGillivray told them. But he was more intent on asking questions than imparting information. Curiosity, even veiled suspicions, as to how and for what purpose two young ladies should come to be embarking in an American battleship’s picket-boat at such an hour seemed to have been a factor in his consenting to turn out.
Anne answered all his questions as the car jounced west and south. It was a Star, 15.9 horsepower, he’d told Sue. A big, heavy thing with very large, solid tyres and a flapping roof, canvas or somesuch. Its headlights weren’t up to much. Were masked, maybe, as cars’ lights were down south. But she gave him Sam’s name and rank and said as Sue had earlier that he was her fiancé, Miss Pennington here her chaperone who’d come all the way up from London with them, and told him that apparently a U-boat had been detected trying to get into the Flow, and Lieutenant-Commander Lance had had permission from the New York’s duty commanding officer, whatever that meant, to take them with him to some island down there. ‘Flotta, would it be?’
It might be, he said. Which case – aye, the Sound of Hoxa, mebbe, was where they’d try it, like as not. ‘But to be sanctioning the pair o’ye afloat – och, if ye’d excuse me sayin’ so—’
‘I agree, it’s extraordinary. But my fiancé’s an extraordinary man. Also conscientious – and having brought us all this way from London, he feels that if anything as exciting as that’s going on—’
‘It’s no’ back to the ship they’d be taking ye, then?’
‘I told you – that island—’
‘Aye. Flotta. Aye.’ Hauling left into that rather steep descent now. He was not a big man, although on the tubby side, and it took most of his strength to drag the wheel around. Sue meanwhile nudging Anne, muttering, ‘Your fiancé, indeed…’
‘Wasn’t that your idea?’
‘Seems to have become yours now. Method in his madness, maybe?’
McGillivray shouted, ‘D’ye ken how long ye’ll be detained on Flotta, then?’
‘Not the least idea. I see what you mean, though. We’ll ask him – if you get us down there in time, that is.’
‘If I do not, then I’d return ye to the guesthouse, eh?’
‘But I very much hope—’
‘There’s your boat!’ Jabbing at the rather tall windscreen. ‘If they’ve the eyes and sense tae see us—’
‘Mr McGillivray – would they have a telephone on that island?’
‘The Navy, on Flotta? Aye—’
‘If I telephone to you when we were starting back – could mean waking you up, disturbing Mrs McGillivray again—’
‘Could’nae help that, however. In for a penny – eh? Would ye have my number wi’ ye?’
‘No, but—’
‘I’ll gi’e it tae ye, then…’
The car grated to a halt on the quayside; the picket-boat had bumped alongside the jetty that stood out from it at right-angles. Mr McGillivray had thrust a square of pasteboard into Anne’s gloved hand – his telephone number, she assumed – and she and Sue were hurrying towards the boat with its thumping engine and gushing steam. Men were on the jetty – crewmen handling ropes, and Sam striding this way, yelling, ‘You made it, then!’
Anne grabbed Sue as she stumbled. The quay was wet – by the smell of it, fish-wet – which tallied with the shapes of trawlers berthed on the jetty’s other side – thumping against fenders, mooring-ropes thwacking in the surge. Fish, wet night air, seaweed, coal-smoke, steam… It was going to be a roughish trip, she guessed, the wind evidently having risen while they’d been lazing beside Mrs McG’s fire. Crewmen from the boat had thrown lines around bollards and were backing them up, not securing them, looking at herself and Sue as Sam guided them towards the stern where there was a shelter – cabin, if that was what they’d call it. Forward of that roofed section was deck-space and other crewmen – one in a cap with a shiny peak on it – petty officer, coxswain, whatever – and forward of that another raised section with the funnel slanting up out of it. They reached the stern, and a tall officer with a beaky nose put his arms up to receive Anne: ‘Easy, now, easy!’ Addressing her as if she was a horse, she thought: ought to let out a loud neigh. But she was on board, let go of him, and he was looking to give Sue a hand, but Sam had come thumping down like a ton of bricks and turned to bring her aboard with him.
‘OK there, sir?’
‘Sure, all aboard!’
‘Let go – shove off for’ard…’
The one with the nose was ushering them into shelter. Sam grinning at them: ‘Cut it fine, but—’
‘Came as fast as we could, that’s all. Could say you cut it fine.’
‘You’re really something, I’ll tell you that!’
‘Not so bad yourself, Sam.’
Sue said, ‘I’m afraid you’ve done it now, she’s gone on you.’
‘Sue, really…’
The boat was off the jetty, engine pounding, rolling hard as they turned it across wind and sea. Sam had said, ‘I’m gone on both of you. But listen, this is Lieutenant-Commander Jack Ray, of the USS New York. Mrs Laurie, Jack, and Miss Pennington.’
‘Strange way to meet, but it’s a pleasure…’
‘How soon’ll we be there?’
‘Less’n half an hour. It’s about five miles, five-and-a-half, and the boat makes twelve knots flat out. Is a little rough, I admit – could take thirty-five minutes, say.’
‘Then what?’
‘I’ll tell you. Move further in, though?’
‘Rough, all right!’
‘Why it’s better to be inside.’ Sam added, ‘Irregular motion, and – heck, when she really hits one – whoops, hang on… Jack, you blind ’em with science?’
‘Sure.’ Ray was red in the face and had a moustache under his beaky nose. ‘See, there’s listening-out equipment – submerged hydrophones, and other detection gear – off Stanger Head, Quoy Ness and Roan Head – those are headlands on Flotta – and over to Hoxa Head the other side – all across Hoxa Sound, in fact. Know where I mean?’
‘More or less.’
‘We’ll be landing on a small pier – Vincent Pier they call it – just short of Roan Head and in shelter of a little island called Calf of Flotta. Fifty-yard walk from there to the control shack on Roan. Situation is that something like an hour ago, sea-bed indicator loops southeast of Stanger were activated by what must have been a U-boat. At the same time, however, an armed trawler patrolling down there was moving out from inside Hoxa Head, destination Switha and Gutter Sounds, which means it was heading to cross that same stretch of the main channel – and would’ve triggered the loops too – but visible anyway, showing lights to make her so. Uh?’
‘What’s an indicator loop?’
‘Loop of cable laid out on the sea-bed where an intruder’s magnetic field sets up an electric current in it and triggers reaction in galvanometers to which it’s connected. A galvanometer’s a dial with a needle in it. Needle jumps, see. Anyway, the U-boat announced itself in this way, then must’ve turned back on its tracks and – well, disappeared. They think it must have spotted the trawler and turned away for that reason. In which case it’s not likely to have been put off for long; when it sees the coast is clear it’ll make a fresh approach. That’s what we’re hoping for.’
‘And the trawler?’
‘Oh, gone. Up what the Royal Navy sometimes call the tradesmen’s entrance. That’s Gutter or Weddel Sound, after Switha. Big ships using Hoxa Sound, small-fry relegated to the narrower passage.’
Sue asked him, ‘Might the U-boat have any way of knowing it had triggered the indicator loop?’
‘I don’t believe so. And it’s sort of my business, d’you see – why I’m here, a chance of seeing the system in action, as distinct from just an exercise. I say a chance of seeing it in action, I’m not taking any bets.’
Sam put in, ‘He’s a torpedo specialist. In our Navy – not sure it isn’t the same in yours – torpedo expertise takes in mines, electrical gear associated with all that, explosives and so forth. Whoa-up…’ Grabbing for support against the heaviest roll yet. ‘Heck, maybe I shouldn’t have dragged you two out in this!’
‘Dragged us from a roaring fire and hot-water bottles waiting in our beds, incidentally. I’m still glad you did, though.’
‘Aren’t they something, Jack?’
‘Sure are. And you don’t have any claim on the little one, right?’
Landing at the Vincent Pier wasn’t too easy. This was the northeast coast of Flotta, and the small offshore island Calf of Flotta probably did provide some degree of shelter, but not all that much, and the tide fairly sluiced through that channel. The picket-boat’s coxswain knew his business, however, and they got ashore more or less dry. From there Ray had told him to take the boat 3–4,000 yards west, to the Royal Navy’s re-fuelling base in Weddel Sound – between Flotta and Fara – where they’d have good shelter as well as telephone communication with the shack on Roan Head.
Fifty yards from the pier to the shack, someone had said, but by Anne’s reckoning it was more like 500. The men had flashlights, anyway, which helped, and there was no rain or sleet at this stage in the gusting, icy wind. There had been, on the way over. The shack, as it loomed up ahead of them, could by its looks have been a milking shed. Had not been, was of fairly recent construction – stone, like everything else on these islands – but that sort of shape, long and low, flat-roofed – also fitted with double doors against the wind. Once through them you were in warmth and a glow of light, smell of paraffin from a heater somewhere in the middle. Windows on one side – the side facing seaward, east and southeast towards the Sound of Hoxa – with curtains of blanket material covering them; and against the wall on that side a table or work-bench with what looked like electrical gear on it, also hand-drawn chart-sections – in bright colours and much enlarged – a child’s work, could have been. A loud-speaker on the wall above all that – wireless, maybe. No – loud-speaker…
Turning her back on all that anyway as three men converged from various directions – no, two converging, greeting Sam and Jack Ray, the other staying put, only glancing back over his shoulder. These two were a lieutenant with the wavy stripes of the Volunteer Reserve on the sleeves of his reefer jacket, and a warrant officer – slightly wizened – with a single narrow stripe on each sleeve. The lieutenant had small, rather crafty eyes – like a goat’s, she thought – and had told them his name but she hadn’t caught it; while the warrant officer, whom the lieutenant had introduced as Mr Showell, was a little stick of a man, jockey-sized with yellowish skin and thin, greying hair. Also a smell of whisky, she noticed, as they shook hands. The third member of the team, the one keeping his distance, was a leading seaman whom the lieutenant named as Derrymore. On one arm he wore a badge of crossed torpedoes with a star above them, on the other an anchor with a twist of rope around it. Except for him, they were all milling around, shaking hands and being affable, but he – Derrymore – was watching an assembly of clock-face gauges on the opposite wall. She wondered – studying them more closely – galvanometers?
There’d been a suggestion of making tea, but neither she nor Sue wanted any – there’d been rather a lot of it on offer at Mrs McGregor’s and they’d felt it might be considered ill-mannered to refuse. Here in the shack the Americans weren’t keen either, and Showell asserted that he already had tea practically running out of his ears. Special, high-proof tea, Anne thought, wandering over towards the leading seaman and asking him, ‘Is that a galvanometer, by any chance?’ He’d nodded. ‘Six of ’em, Miss. There’s six loops, see. Submarine triggers any one of’ em, tells us where it is, like. Then the chart-outlines on that work-top have the corresponding sections marked, mines an’ all.’
A hand on her elbow then, as Sue joined her. Sam, Ray and Wroughton, the RNVR man, were on kitchen-type chairs around a desk that had telephones and what looked like instructional manuals on it – at the door end, but set more or less centrally. The hand on Anne’s elbow was Warrant Officer Showell’s, who was offering, ‘Show you the scheme of it if you like, ladies. Derrymore ’ere needs to keep his eyes on them gauges.’ He’d winked. ‘Hard luck, lad.’
‘Mines, did he say?’
‘Bless you, Miss, bloody ’undreds of ’em!’
Nine thirty-five…
‘Time now?’
Winter, hunched at the search periscope. Otto told him – from the chart, but referring to his own old silver watch, which for some reason he’d always thought brought him luck – ‘Nine forty-two.’
‘So we’ll only have lost – what, hour-and-a-half, by the time we’re through. No real setback, eh?’
Except that you’d lost rather more than an hour-and-a-half, and that both motors were at half ahead instead of slow ahead, using twice the amperage you’d been consuming an hour earlier. Could begin to look like a very real setback, if you got into any trouble inside. Or on the way through, for that matter.
Evading the trawler, they’d back-tracked for only about two miles, but on turning again, taking a chance on it having left the area by this time, had found the tidal stream working against them instead of for them, consequently were needing twice the power now to make the same headway as before. Now, Switha’s North Traing (or right-hand edge) was still only about eighty on the port bow, Herston Head seventy to starboard. Hoxa Head when one picked it up would be about thirty degrees to starboard – and you wouldn’t see it at least until you had Herston abaft the beam. Had lost about an hour-and-three-quarters, therefore – as well as a lot of amps.
Which you were still losing, of course.
Winter said, ‘When I find Hoxa, I’ll alter to due north. Cut the corner until it’s abeam, then go round to 020.’
Virtually shaving Hoxa Head, this would mean. But that second alteration wouldn’t do. Otto, pencilling-in a revised track, suggested that 040 degrees, after Hoxa, would be better than 020.
‘Otherwise you’d come too close to Nevi Skerry – that’s off Roan Head on Flotta – and this other hazard northeast of it called the Grinds. Once past them – fine, you could come back to due north.’
Silence for a moment, except for the bison’s hard breathing as he continued searching. Sound of the motors louder than it had been earlier, of course; before they’d had to speed up it had been a murmur, was now a thrum. The log’s continual clicking unchanged – as long as there was way on her, unending. Winter’s gruff answer then: ‘Yes. Forgotten that skerry. Although…’
Although what?
He’d thought better of it, or was keeping it to himself. Nine-fifty. It would be ten-thirty before he altered to scrape past Hoxa Head, Otto reckoned. Then you’d be where you had been when the trawler had put in its appearance. An hour and forty-five minutes could seem like a bloody week, he was realising. Actually, recalling, more than discovering – one had experienced this kind of phenomenon often enough before; what made it more noticeable now was being on the sidelines, more or less a passenger. Frustrating – having run one’s own show, made one’s own decisions for quite some time. In UB81, as a prime example, only eight or nine days ago, for God’s sake… And what did particularly irk one was not having tried to influence Winter in the really basic mistake he’d made, the decision to press ahead immediately instead of accepting a delay of twenty-four hours and starting with the battery fully charged. Should have tackled him head-on, made an issue of it.
Trawler coming back now, for instance, you’d damn soon be in serious trouble. And not having argued the point made it at least partly one’s own error. That was mostly what stuck in the gullet.
Too late for tears now, anyway. And – face it – so far was so good. No point giving oneself the bloody villies…
The English girl’s expression, to give oneself the ‘villies’. In Berlin, in the place where they’d tango’d, when he’d made some reference to Kaiser Willi having banned German officers from dancing anything so decadent, she’d joked, ‘If he could see us, might give himself the villies, mightn’t he?’ And he’d said, ‘A heart-attack, no less! The way you dance it, might blow an imperial fuse!’ Then he’d taken a bit of a grip on himself: the tango was one thing, subversive talk that might be overheard was quite another. ‘The villies’, though – she’d hit on pronouncing it with the ‘v’ sound, and found this screamingly amusing, had gone practically hysterical. Well, there’d been a strong element of that. Part of it – other than the fizz, as he recalled it – was that with his connivance she’d been passing herself off as German; there’d been a lot of anti-British feeling in Germany at that time, and an ingredient in her enjoyment of the evening had been the discovery that she could pass for a native – thanks to the Berlitz experience.
Despite her Spanish colouring, and all that blue-black hair…
But why think about her again, for God’s sake?
Past ten o’clock. Winter growling, ‘Herston Head’s coming up abeam. Eighty-five on the bow, say.’ Head back, blinking up at the bearing-ring. ‘Eighty-six.’ Back at the eyepieces. ‘Where you spotted the trawler – almost.’ Swinging left, then pausing to search again for Hoxa. Without success, evidently. Moving on, over to port to look for Stanger Head, which – assessing the position, from the log reading and the bearings he’d noted down – should be thirty-five or forty on the bow now, distance – oh, two miles, near enough…
‘Not coming, is he?’
The warrant officer had muttered it. Showell – old whisky-breath. Anne sighed: ‘D’you think not?’
She heard Sam comment to the lieutenant – Wroughton, who had green cloth between his wavy stripes, labelling him as a specialist in some technical sphere – ‘Surprising that he’d give up. Come this far, then be scared off by a trawler that hasn’t even said “boo” to him?’
‘It’s us as says “boo”.’ Showell again: quietly to Anne, who was beside him. Adding, ‘Fritz is a funny beggar, ain’t he, though. Speaking the lingo as you do, you’d agree with me there, I dare say?’
She smiled vaguely – enjoying the little man with his lined, parchment-coloured face and his attempts to entertain the visitors. They were at the work-table that had enlarged diagramatic chart-sections painted on three-ply and switch-gear and so forth all over it. Ten-thirty having passed, they’d had tea after all, she and Sue perching on stools and finding empty spaces for their Admiralty-issue mugs amongst all that. Sue had settled on Anne’s left; she’d been chatting with Derrymore for a while, the torpedoman then retiring to the far end of the shack to smoke a cigarette while drinking his tea, Showell at that time shifting round to face the display of dials on the other wall, the galvanometers. There was another device, here where Sue was sitting, a box-shaped thing with a circle of brass studs and a pointer that could be twisted around, clicking over each stud in turn and – according to Showell, ‘linking audial reception to this or that area of the sea approaches’. He’d added, nodding towards the loud-speaker on the wall between the curtained windows, ‘Hydrophones we’re talking about, of course.’
‘So you’d hear it, as well as see the needles jumping.’
‘One leads to the other, like.’
‘Does it always work?’
‘Course. No point ’aving it, else. Run exercises, don’t we. With our own subs, when there’s one ’andy.’
Needles all static now, though, and the speaker silent, except that on some circuits when they turned that thing around – which they did every ten minutes or so, checking each area in turn – there was the kind of sound you got when as a child you held a sea-shell to your ear. Sue had done it this last time – the instrument being more easily in her reach than in his, when she’d seen his intention and offered, ‘Give it a twirl, shall I?’ Showell then complaining over his shoulder to the others, ‘Being done out o’ me job ‘ere, sir.’
Ten forty-three. She’d heard Sam asking Wroughton whether that trawler’s primary concern would have been possible U-boat intrusions, and Wroughton’s reply, ‘Any kind of intrusion. Lots of back ways around these islands. U-boat might land saboteurs on the east coast of South Ronaldsay, for instance. Trek over with canoes, say.’
‘Oh, surely—’
‘If they had explosives with them? Any intrusion, though. Fast torpedo launches like CMBs, for instance. Hasn’t ever happened, but – can’t leave back doors to a major fleet anchorage wide open, can you?’
Showell asked her, ‘What made you learn German then, Miss?’
He kept calling her ‘Miss’, hadn’t noticed the ring she wore. She’d wondered whether he was married, but didn’t like to ask. She told him, ‘Wanted to make myself more employable, and I already spoke French, so—’
‘Get along well enough in English too, I notice.’
‘Eh?’ Glancing at him: realising it was another joke. His straight face and steady gaze told her nothing. She laughed – liking him, for some reason she couldn’t have explained – and he added quietly, ‘Lovely voice you have, if I may say so. Treat to listen to. Ever know a Fritz you took to, then?’
She nodded. ‘A girl in the language school I attended. We were good friends.’
A nod: it occurred to her that when he smiled he looked like a tortoise. ‘Dare say some of the girls is—’
‘Loop B active, sir!’
Derrymore. The needle in the second of the line of galvanometers had flicked up from its dormant position and was quivering. Wroughton was on his feet with a telephone and its receiver in his hands, Showell muttering, ‘Excuse us’ as he lunged past Anne and Sue to the control-box of the hydrophone equipment: getting sea-shell echoes on the first click, then a sound of – undoubtedly, engine sound on the second. He tried the third as well, got nothing, clicked back to the other. Definitely engine sound: and suddenly tremendously exciting. Wroughton was saying into the telephone, ‘Section B, yes. Propeller noise too, but muted – as yet. Passing Herston is my guess. Yes. Yes. Searchlights then but no sooner – don’t want him scared off again. But alert the Hoxa battery? Oh, and the Yanks.’
Showell muttered to Anne, ‘Gun battery. Six-inch guns.’ Forefinger stabbing at the chart-outline. ‘There.’
‘So where d’you think—’
‘There.’
Sam’s voice asked from the vicinity of the desk, ‘Alerting guns on the assumption he might surface?’
‘Less assuming than guarding against such contingency. If he’s going for your ships, decided to come up and go hell for leather—’
‘Hence’ – Jack Ray’s voice – ‘Alerting the Yanks.’
‘Exactly. Screws getting louder – notice?’
‘Starboard five.’
Muller echoed, ‘Starboard five, sir.’ Eyes on the gyro repeater, long arms moving to spin the wheel and put that much angle on the rudder. ‘Five of starboard wheel on, sir.’
‘Steer north.’ Bison’s head pulling back from the lenses, Muller acknowledging, bison growling, ‘I’d like Neureuther to see this. Would you mind, von Mettendorff?’
‘Of course not. Good idea.’
COs would often give their second in command or other senior men a chance to see the results of their joint efforts. A sinking, for instance: Otto had several times offered Claus Stahl a quick sight of an enemy going down, had on occasion given 81’s coxswain, Honeck, and her torpedo chief, Stroebel, the same treat. (The late Karl Stroebel, poor devil.) When there was time, and you didn’t have an enemy right at your throat, why not? And this break-in to the Grand Fleet’s hitherto inviolate lair was certainly an event worth witnessing. Fie put his watch in his pocket, heard Muller intone, ‘Course three-six-zero, sir’ as he started down the ladder.
Neureuther, also Leading Seaman Lehner and the Boy Telegraphist Rehkliger, all looked surprised to see him. At the hydroplane controls, Schnets and Napflein: Schnets prematurely bald, Napflein noticeably gap-toothed. Getting most of their names into his head had come easily enough: a physical feature or some characteristic or mannerism, to which you taught yourself to tie a name. In the hydrophone operator’s seat, for instance, Telegraphist Siebertz, as usual chewing gum. Otto told Neureuther, ‘Skipper wants you to take a look. Shortly passing through the narrows – spitting distance of Hoxa Head.’
‘We’re as good as in, then?’
He held up crossed fingers, but didn’t answer. Aware of some considerable degree of unreality. Glancing around at this and that and the faces watching him, thinking, Because we aren’t in – not even ‘almost’, not until we’re clear of that Hoxa peninsula and of Flotta’s east coast. He’d been about to ask Neureuther whether he was happy with the trim, refrained because Neureuther was already on the ladder – anyway, he could take it in for himself pretty well at a glance…
Looked good. Depth exactly ten metres, ’planes more or less amidships most of the time, bubble half a degree aft. Telegraphs showing half ahead, and over the chart table the small winking light that matched the ticking of the log indicating steady progress.
Progress towards what?
In the wardroom he told Emil Hohler, ‘Be as well to keep an eye on the trim. Neureuther’s taking a look at the scenery up top.’
‘Jawohl…’
Pleasant lad – open-faced and always cheerful. Otto sat down where he’d been sitting, telling himself, Take a grip, man, you’ve been in tighter holes than this. He nodded to Hintenberger, ‘All right?’
A grunt. He’d been killing time with that novel of Neureuther’s which Otto hadn’t found all that absorbing; turning it open on its face now. ‘How we doing?’
‘Approaching Hoxa Head. Show you on the chart here?’
Shake of the head. Head like a bird’s nest and face like that of an ape that had recently crawled through a hedge backwards. You could barely see the eyes – or expression under the matted beard. He asked him, ‘Will you shave off some of the undergrowth before attending my wedding?’
A shrug. ‘Might trim it. Long as I get to kiss the bride.’
‘One chaste kiss might be permissible. That is, if she permits it.’
In the shack, Derrymore had called sharply ‘“D” loop’s active, sir!’
Hydrophone effect much louder suddenly: you could recognise it as twin screws thrashing. Wroughton was using the telephone again: on his feet with a view over Showell’s and the girls’ heads to the windows from which a few minutes ago Showell had removed the blankets and muttered apologetically to Anne, ‘’Fraid you might find it a touch draughty now.’ Wroughton had said into the ’phone, ‘Searchlights on D dog, please. He’s on the line, entering from B baker. I’ll give it one minute.’
In response to which, fights blazed in the southeast now, probing out from several points on what might have been half a mile of coastline, fighting a wide area of crinkly seascape, silver beams sweeping, searching. Hydrophone noise suddenly much louder, Wroughton having to shout to be heard, ordering Showell to ‘Prime section D dog south’ – which he’d done, apparently, was now back on his stool, telling her – as she took her eyes off that now lit-up area of sea – ‘That’s the beggar as’ll finish ’em.’
Pointing at a switch with a large ‘D’ and a small ‘S’ on it, white capitals. Copper – a hinged bar about nine inches long, wooden handle. You’d push it over – Mr Showell would, his bony hand was ready to do so, close to it, right in front of her – to connect with a terminal that was also copper and shaped like a clip. There was a line of about a dozen similar switches over the full length of the workbench; but this was the one that mattered now, he’d said.
Behind them, Wroughton had passed the telephone to Derrymore, had a stopwatch in his hand. Beginning suddenly – shouting again – ‘Ten – nine – eight—’
Showell tilted his hand, inviting her, ‘Be my guest?’
‘What?’
Perfectly obvious, what. Pointing at it and nudging her with that elbow, whispering like a rasp of sandpaper, ‘When ’e says “fire” – shut it.’
Countdown continuing ‘—four – three – two – one—’
Hintenberger put a hand on the novel he’d been reading or trying to read, muttered through the motors’ steady thrum, ‘Load of codswallop. Trying to hide in it, sort of thing, but—’
‘Hide?’ Otto’s eyes on the small dark ones. ‘From what?’
‘Could’ve sworn I saw something like it in your noble visage, old friend. In fact right now—’
‘Well.’ Shake of the head. ‘Truth is, I keep thinking about my girl being scared for me. It really hurts to think it’s my fault she’s going through this. Powerful urge to – oh, to hug her, tell her don’t be—’
‘If you were in a position to do that—’
‘Of course – and the odds are she’s flat out, dreaming—’
‘Hear that?’
Bolt upright suddenly, eyes like gimlets, beard almost quivering, fists clenched on the table… Otto following the direction of his glance, then turning back. ‘Hear what?’
‘Something about searchlights?’
‘Oh.’ A shrug, and instant process of rationalisation – self-protective, but factual enough. Explaining to himself and to the engineer, ‘They do have some around these narrows. Like as not burn ’em all night – and since we won’t be surfacing – well, let ’em. What 1 was about to say – remember when we were on the bottom in 81, had the pump running and thought it wasn’t having any damned effect at all, then suddenly she did shift—’
Anne still hesitating. Behind her, Wroughton’s shout of ‘Fire the bloody thing!’ Shutting her eyes, pushing it over, opening them to a crackle of blueish fire as the thing closed. The shout had been directed at Showell, of course: only the three of them at this work-bench – herself, Showell and Sue – could have seen what had gone on.
No hydrophone effect now. Only a rolling burst of thunder – like a dam bursting, could have been – which Showell had reached to switch off.
‘Christ almighty…’
‘Ever see anything like it?’
Sam’s and Ray’s voices, from the other window. Anne on her feet, others around her grouped tightly, watching an acreage of sea in the southeast swelling in mounds of foam, dazzling white and silver where the searchlights fingered it, jet-black on the shifting slopes they didn’t reach. Wroughton had binoculars on it, as did Jack Ray, who’d muttered, ‘Like a submerged Vesuvius. Eh?’
‘Nothing’s coming up.’ Wroughton, half a minute later. Taking the glasses away from his eyes and addressing Showell then: ‘What took so damn long?’
Shake of the narrow head: ‘Sort o’ fumbled, near put me ’and across it. Sorry, sir.’
‘If there’s a next time, bloody don’t sort of fumble!’
Ray had slapped Wroughton on the back. ‘Unbelievable! And on behalf of the Sixth Battle Squadron—’
‘Any time.’ Wroughton laughed. ‘Any time!’
‘Couldn’t be any doubt you got him, I suppose?’
‘None at all. There’ll be divers sent down in the morning. No, don’t worry, he’s a goner.’ Ray was coming to shake Showell’s hand: pausing to clap Derrymore on the shoulder and thank him too. Anne asking Showed, ‘Tell me why?’ He shrugged. ‘Make up for the long wait you ’ad. Something you’ll remember us by, ain’t it?’ And Sue asked her in a whisper – five or ten minutes later, this was, after Wroughton had telephoned for the New York’s picket-boat to be sent back to the Vincent Pier – ‘Weren’t going to – were you?’
‘Couldn’t believe he meant me to!’
‘I saw your face, though.’ Still whispering – although there was no-one near them. ‘Never saw such a look… Tell you what my guess is – if you hadn’t known what’s his name was already done for, you couldn’t have – uh?’
‘Perhaps you know what you’re talking about. Sure I don’t.’ At least, didn’t think she did. Was still keeping her hands out of sight so their shaking wouldn’t attract notice. She’d felt she might faint, for a while. But Sam was drawing her aside. He’d been thanking Wroughton and the other two for having allowed him and the girls to clutter the place up – and congratulating them, and so on; asked her now, with a usefully steadying arm round her shoulders, ‘Wasn’t that right out of this world?’
‘I was saying earlier, you are an extraordinary man.’
‘What’d I do that’s extraordinary?’
‘How else did Sue and I get to be in this place, and seeing such a thing?’
‘Why, opportunity happened to present itself, and—’
‘Mrs McGregor and Mr McGillivray think you’re my fiancé.’
‘How come?’
‘Sue told her. She was asking a lot of questions, and that was the simplest answer, I suppose. Then Mr McGillivray seemed to be under an impression that Sue and I were here for immoral purposes somehow connected with the US fleet, so I told him the same.’
No smile, no reaction at all for a moment. Then: ‘They swallowed it, eh?’
‘Why shouldn’t they?’
‘Couldn’t get your mind around to the same concept, I suppose?’
‘Well…’
‘Well?’
She squeezed his arm. ‘London, Sam. Remember?’