…until, suddenly, the submarine holocaust ceased and the last mountain of spray fell back to the surface with an eerie, audible hiss, and everything was quiet again aboard Cyclops. It was completely dark now, with the pupils of our eyes contracted by the glare of Mallard’s funeral pyres, so we just stood there, staring blindly aft, for a very long time. We didn’t even move when the noise of a scuffle carried from the after well deck and a hysterical voice screamed, ‘Bugger you, Evans, you bloody murderin’ gutless bastard!’, then the sound of a man sobbing as he was forcibly led below.
Only eventually did the Old Man turn to me and I saw that his eyes were glinting with moisture. I drew myself up and bit my lip as we faced each other. In the wheelhouse the zig-zag clock dinged again, whereupon Evans squared his shoulders, lifted his chin.
‘You have the watch, Mister Kent,’ he said.
Very softly.
CHAPTER SIX
It was well past midnight before we were finally squared away after the collision. I’d gone forward to join the Fourth Mate and Chippie as they sounded the wells, finding our forepeak was making water fairly fast. Mallard obviously hadn’t gone down without any protest as, somewhere below our waterline, she’d lain us open too. This, in itself, wasn’t too serious and, after discovering all our other forward compartments were dry, I reckoned we’d been lucky. Thank God the corvette had been a wooden ship.
Still more than two days out of Cape Town. Another fifty hours of running the gauntlet of whatever lay ahead. Another fifty hours of walking the decks, subconsciously keeping your knees slightly bent in case the sudden vertical lift of the ship over the smash of a torpedo shattered your hip joints.
I knew then that it was unreasonable — that the death of Mallard had nothing to do with the enemy — but suddenly I became certain that they were watching us. Watching and waiting and, somehow, shepherding us into an area of their own choosing. That we weren’t a group anymore — we were a flock. A flock of ships.
But why? Why, in that case, didn’t they just sink us? They couldn’t possibly hope to capture our precious confidential bags without the Admiralty taking immediate steps to render the information valueless. Hadn’t the Old Man said that, even if we were sunk without trace, the information would still be regarded as captured? The questions battered unceasingly at my restless mind.
I brought it up again with Evans after we’d settled down on zig-zag three seven again, this time with Athenian steaming a good, safe, mile astern, and both of us going like bats out of hell. It was two a.m. and the night, for a blessed change, was black as the inside of a tar barrel. Charlie Shell had the watch, with Cadet Breedie and an extra hand as lookouts on the bridge. They were tired — we all were— but they were scared too, and fear provides its own adrenalin. Any one of the officers would have stayed up there for the next fifty hours if need be.
I was in the master’s cabin where we had gone to decide our next move. I sensed Evans would have much preferred to discuss the matter with Bert Samson, but Bert was ten cables away on Athenian, so he had to settle for me.
He didn’t laugh when I told him of my suspicions, but I could see he didn’t agree with me either. Shaking his head slowly he dismissed my argument, ‘Damn it all, why, John? Why should they want us farther south? Any plan they may have could equally well be carried out here, at this spot.’
Which was just what I’d been asking myself. Nothing made sense any more. I shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. But there were those bloody queer lights, and the shot into Athenian. And that U-boat we sank. She was well south of where we might have expected her — usually they hang around the regular shipping lanes.’
He shook his head again. ‘Coincidence, John. And lack of sleep, eh? Strain makes you start thinking out of all proportion.’
I still felt doubtful. ‘Maybe.’ Then I grinned wryly, ‘It’s ironic, but I guess the best thing that’s happened so far is that we were the target for that torpedo. Otherwise I’d probably be conjuring some deep-laid plot to dispose of the other ships first and isolate Cyclops—perhaps so as to get at those bags in the strong-room.’
The Old Man paced the carpet thoughtfully for a few moments, then swung abruptly. ‘Can you recollect where the escort was lying at the time those torpedoes were fired?’
Frowning, I thought back to our mad scramble up the bridge ladder as Cyclops heeled over under her emergency turn. The only thing I really remembered seeing was Curtis’s excited white face waiting for us, and our swinging masts broadsiding across the horizon.
‘Mallard?’ I queried doubtfully. ‘No, I can’t say I noticed right then. Does it matter?’
Evans shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But I registered, as we arrived topside, that she was broad on our port bow — and we were turning to port.’
I stared at him miserably, suddenly seeing it all again. The Third Mate’s incredulous, ‘A torpedo, Sir. A bloody torpedo for Chrissake,’ and the helmsman’s hands still spinning the wheel as we careered crazily round, and the corvette — also swinging hard — well out in a line with the break of our foc’sle. Yet if she’d been in that position relative to us at that stage of the manoeuvre, then…?
‘The escort was steaming directly abeam of us when the attack came, wasn’t she?’ I muttered, starting to feel sick again. ‘Which means she was smack between us and the U-boat. That bloody torpedo was fired at her, not us.’
So we were back to square one — and I’d invented another possibility. That we were, indeed, the specifically targeted ship. But a target for what? If they didn’t mean to sink us, then what? I couldn’t see them boarding us before we could destroy the bags. The crew then…? Could one of them be in on it? Impossible. The Old Man thought so too when I diffidently suggested it.
‘The crowd, John?’ He shook his head positively. ‘They’ve nearly all been with us since Voyage One in ’38. This is a happy ship, man; we don’t lose our sailors every pay-off like some. And they’re British to the last.’
Yet someone had fired that bloody gun back there. Someone who wasn’t quite as British as Evans liked to think, so who had joined us only recently. Who…? Then it hit me. Larabee! Our obnoxious little Marconi replacement, Larabee.
I must have spat it out loud because the Old Man looked at me in surprise. ‘Larabee?’ he said, raising his bushy eyebrows. ‘What’s the Second Operator got to do with it, Mister Kent?’
I noticed the disapproving ‘Mister,’ but I was committed now. ‘Larabee, Sir? Well, there’s just something about the man — he joined just before we sailed, he’s not an old hand like the rest. ’
‘Somebody had to replace Buxton, Mister.’
That was true. Buxton had been our previous Second, and he’d certainly needed replacing, having taken a dive under a Liverpool Corporation tramcar while navigating from one pub to another, but…
I shrugged. ‘Larabee also seemed to have a lot of sympathy with the idea of our heading farther south when I spoke to him.’