H.M.S. Ulysses Part 18

A lifetime ticked agonisingly by. Nicholls and Carpenter looked at each other, blank-faced, expressionless. Tilted at that crazy angle, the bridge was sheltered from the wind. Carrington's voice, calm, conversational, carried with amazing clarity.

"She'd go to 65 and still come back," he said matter-of-factly.

"Hang on to your hats, gentlemen. This is going to be interesting."

Just as he finished, the Ulysses shuddered, then imperceptibly, then slowly, then with vicious speed lurched back and whipped through an arc of 90, then back again. Once more Nicholls found himself in the corner of the bridge. But the Ulysses was almost round.

The Kapok Kid, grinning with relief, picked himself up and tapped Carrington on the shoulder.

"Don't look now, sir, but we have lost our mainmast."

It was a slight exaggeration, but the top fifteen feet, Which had carried the after radar scanner, were undoubtedly gone. That, wicked, double whip-lash, with the weight of the ice, had been too much.

"Slow ahead both! Mids.h.i.+ps!"

"Slow ahead both! Mids.h.i.+ps!"

"Steady as she goes!"

The Ulysses was round.

The Kapok Kid caught Nicholls's eye, nodded at the First Lieutenant.

"See what I mean, Johnny?"

"Yes." Nicholls was very quiet. "Yes, I see what you mean." Then he grinned suddenly. "Next time you make a statement, I'll just take your word for it, if you don't mind. These demonstrations of proof take too d.a.m.n' much out of a person!"

Running straight before the heavy stern sea, the Ulysses was amazingly steady. The wind, too, was dead astern now, the bridge in magical shelter. The scudding mist overhead had thinned out, was almost gone.

Far away to the southeast a dazzling white sun climbed up above a cloudless horizon. The long night was over.

An hour later, with the wind down to thirty knots, radar reported contacts to the west. After another hour, with the wind almost gone and only a heavy swell running, smoke plumes tufted above the horizon. At 1030, in position, on time, the Ulysses rendezvoused with the convoy from Halifax.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

THE CONVOY came steadily up from the west, rolling heavily in cross seas, a rich argosy, a magnificent prize for any German wolf-pack.

Eighteen s.h.i.+ps in this argosy, fifteen big, modern cargo s.h.i.+ps, three 16,000-ton tankers, carrying a freight far more valuable, infinitely more vital, than any fleet of quinqueremes or galleons had ever known.

Tanks, planes and petrol-what were gold and jewels, silks and the rarest of spices compared to these? 10,000,000, 20,000,000-the total worth of that convoy was difficult to estimate: in any event, its real value was not to be measured in terms of money.

Aboard the merchant s.h.i.+ps, crews lined the decks as the Ulysses steamed up between the port and centre lines. Lined the decks and looked and wondered-and thanked their Maker they had been wide of the path of that great storm. The Ulysses, seen from another deck, was a strange sight: broken-masted, stripped of her rafts, with her boat falls hauled taut over empty cradles, she glistened like crystal in the morning light: the great wind had blown away all snow, had abraded and rubbed and polished the ice to a satin-smooth, transparent gloss: but on either side of the bows and before the bridge were huge patches of crimson, where the hurricane sand-blaster of that long night had stripped off camouflage and base coats, exposing the red lead below.

The American escort was small, a heavy cruiser with a seaplane for spotting, two destroyers and two near frigates of the coastguard type.

Small, but sufficient: there was no need of escort carriers (although these frequently sailed with the Atlantic convoys) because the Luftwaffe could not operate so far west, and the wolf-packs, in recent months, had moved north and east of Iceland: there, they were not only nearer base-they could more easily lie astride the converging convoy routes to Murmansk.

ENE. they sailed in company, freighters, American wars.h.i.+ps and the Ulysses until, late in the afternoon, the box-like silhouette of an escort carrier bulked high against the horizon. Half an hour later, at 1600, the American escorts slowed, dropped astern and turned, winking farewell messages of good luck. Aboard the Ulysses, men watched them depart with mixed feelings. They knew these s.h.i.+ps had to go, that another convoy would already be mustering off the St. Lawrence. There was none of the envy, the bitterness one might expect-and had indeed been common enough only a few weeks ago-among these exhausted men who carried the brunt of the war. There was instead a careless acceptance of things as they were, a quasi-cynical bravado, often a queer, high nameless pride that hid itself beneath twisted jests and endless grumbling.

The 14th Aircraft Carrier Squadron-or what was left of it-was only two miles away now. Tyndall, coming to the bridge, swore fluently as he saw that a carrier and minesweeper were missing. An angry signal went out to Captain Jeffries of the Stirling, asking why orders had been disobeyed, where the missing s.h.i.+ps were.

An Aldis nickered back its reply. Tyndall sat grim-faced and silent as Bentley read out the signal to him. The Wrestler's steering gear had broken down during the night. Even behind Langanes the weather position had been severe, had worsened about midnight when the wind had veered to the north. The Wrestler, even with two screws, had lost almost all steering command, and, in zero visibility and an effort to maintain position, had gone too far ahead and grounded on the Vejle bank. She had grounded on the top of the tide. She had still been there, with the minesweeper Eager in attendance, when the squadron had sailed shortly after dawn.

Tyndall sat in silence for some minutes. He dictated a W.T. signal to the Wrestler, hesitated about breaking radio silence, countermanded the signal, and decided to go to see for himself. After all, it was only three hours' steaming distance. He signalled the Stirling: "Take over squadron command: will rejoin in the morning," and ordered Vallery to take the Ulysses back to Langanes.

Vallery nodded unhappily, gave the necessary orders. He was worried, badly so, was trying hard not to show it. The least of his worries was himself, although he knew, but never admitted to anyone, that he was a very sick man. He thought wryly that he didn't have to admit it anyway-he was amused and touched by the elaborate casualness with which his officers sought to lighten his load, to show their concern for him.

He was worried, too, about his crew-they were in no fit state to do the lightest work, to survive that killing cold, far less sail the s.h.i.+p and fight her through to Russia. He was depressed, also, over the series of misfortunes that had befallen the squadron since leaving Scapa: it augured ill for the future, and he had no illusions as to what lay ahead for the crippled squadron. And always, a gnawing torment at the back of his mind, he worried about Ralston.

Ralston-that tall throwback to his Scandinavian ancestors, with his flaxen hair and still blue eyes. Ralston, whom n.o.body understood, with whom n.o.body on the s.h.i.+p had an intimate friends.h.i.+p, who went his own unsmiling, self-possessed way. Ralston, who had nothing left to fight for, except memories, who was one of the most reliable men in the Ulysses, extraordinarily decisive, competent and resourceful in any emergency-and who again found himself under lock and key. And for nothing that any reasonable and just man could call fault of his own.

On the bridge of the Ulysses, Tyndall watched the carrier vanish into the night, zig-zagging as the captain tried to balance the steering on the two screws.

"No doubt they'll get the hang of it before they get to Scapa," he growled. He felt cold, exhausted and only the way an Admiral can feel when he has lost three-quarters of his carrier force. He sighed wearily and turned to Vallery.

"When do you reckon we'll overtake the convoy?"

Vallery hesitated: not so the Kapok Kid.

"0805," he answered readily and precisely. "At twenty-seven knots, on the intersection course I've just pencilled out."

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Tyndall groaned. "That stripling again. What did I ever do to deserve him. As it happens, young man, it's imperative that we overtake before dawn."

"Yes, sir." The Kapok Kid was imperturbable. "I thought so myself. On my alternative course, 33 knots, thirty minutes before dawn."

"I thought so myself! Take him away!" Tyndall raved. "Take him away or I'll wrap his d.a.m.ned dividers round..." He broke off, climbed stiffly out of his chair, took Vallery by the arm. "Come on, Captain. Let's go below. What the h.e.l.l's the use of a couple of ancient has-beens like us getting in the way of youth?" He pa.s.sed out the gate behind the Captain, grinning tiredly to himself.

The Ulysses was at dawn Action Stations as the shadowy shapes of the convoy, a bare mile ahead, lifted out of the greying gloom. The great bulk of the Blue Ranger, on the starboard quarter of the convoy, was unmistakable. There was a moderate swell running, but not enough to be uncomfortable: the breeze was light, from the west, the temperature just below zero, the sky chill and cloudless. The time was exactly 0700.

At 0702, the Blue Ranger was torpedoed. The Ulysses was two cable-lengths away, on her starboard quarter: those on the bridge felt the physical shock of the twin explosions, heard them shattering the stillness of the dawn as they saw two searing columns of flame fingering skywards, high above the Blue Ranger's bridge and well aft of it. A second later they heard a signalman shouting something unintelligible, saw him pointing forwards and downwards. It was another torpedo, running astern of the carrier, trailing its evil phosph.o.r.escent wake across the heels of the convoy, before spending itself in the darkness of the Arctic.

Vallery was shouting down the voice-pipe, pulling round the Ulysses, still doing upwards of twenty knots, in a madly heeling, skidding turn, to avoid collision with the slewing carrier. Three sets of Aldis lamps and the fighting lights were already stuttering out the "Maintain Position "code signal to s.h.i.+ps in the convoy. Marshall, on the phone, was giving the stand-by order to the depth-charge L.T.O.: gun barrels were already depressing, peering hungrily into the treacherous sea. The signal to the Sirrus stopped short, unneeded: the destroyer, a half-seen blue in the darkness, was already knifing its way through the convoy, white water piled high at its bows, headed for the estimated position of the U-boat.

The Ulysses sheered by parallel to the burning carrier, less than 150 feet away; travelling so fast, heeling so heavily and at such close range, it was impossible to gather more than a blurred impression, a tangled, confused memory of heavy black smoke laced with roaring columns of flame, appalling in that near-darkness, of a drunkenly listing flight-deck, of Grummans and Corsairs cartwheeling grotesquely over the edge to splash icy clouds of spray in shocked faces, as the cruiser slewed away; and then the Ulysses was round, heading back south for the kill.

Within a minute, the signal-lamp of tine Vectra, up front with the convoy, started winking. "Contact, Green 70, closing : Contact, Green 70, closing."

"Acknowledge; "Tyndall ordered briefly;

The Aldis had barely begun to clack when the Vectra cut through the signal.

"Contacts, repeat contacts. Green 90, Green 90. Closing. Very close.

Repeat contacts, contacts."