"You could identify it again?" I asked.
"Why, yes sir…"
"Shut off everything, then. I may want you to listen later. But you will not use any of this listening gear without my express permission. Understood?"
"Aye, aye, sir," he replied. There was equal astonishment as I whirled round and entered the control room.
"I'll take over, Number One," I rapped out to John.
"Slow ahead both! Silent routine! Shut off, as for depth-charging. Absolute silence. No talking. And if anyone so much as drops a damn thing on the plating, I'll have his guts."
John gave me a penetrating look and rapped out a series of orders. Trout eased away from her deadly ocean paramour.
"Course, sir?" asked John.
"Hold her steady on one-six-oh. What's her speed now?"
"Three knots, sir."
"Hold her at that for ten minutes. And then I want just enough way on her to keep her even. Not a fraction of a knot more."
"Shall I sound action stations, sir?" asked John.
"You heard my orders," I snarled. The sweat was trickling down inside my shirt. I took a handkerchief and wiped it away. I saw young Fenton eyeing me apprehensively.
The minutes ticked by. The control room was as tense as if we had been under attack. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten… John gave an order in a low voice.
"Barely steerage way, now, sir."
We waited. I must give her a good half an hour so that we were well out of hearing before I broke surface.
"Take over for a moment," I said to John. I went back to my cubbyhole. I decided that I would navigate myself, using old Simon Peace's magnificently annotated chart.
Even far out in the ocean his soundings were better than the Admiralty's.
I knew exactly what I had to do. I must steer a course away out of immediate danger from NP I. I must also get to Curva dos Dunas before her. That meant a course as close as possible to the deadly one-six-oh degrees which I must assume she would follow. I would now take Trout to the surface and make a break at high speed for Curva dos Dunas, hoping to get there before NP I. I did some quick sums in my head. They had said NP I could do twenty knots submerged. Well, she might, but she had been cruising along gently at seven for the past few hours. I could catch her shortly after daybreak entering the channel, which would give me a good light for firing: it is always tricky firing on a hydrophone bearing alone. I took the detailed map of Curva dos Dunas. There were sixteen fathoms at the. entrance and it was very deep all the way in, although here and there buttresses of sand projected, like waiting claws, into the channel itself. There must be a hell of a tide to scour those channels, I thought. But… how many years ago had these soundings been taken? The Skeleton Coast is notorious for its upheavals, and even whole sections of coastline have changed their contours overnight. I couldn't think about that. I pored over the entrance. I would lie just southwards and… what depth would she come in at? Perhaps on the surface? Only the event would tell. She wouldn't know a thing until they heard Trout's torpedoes running; then it would be too late.
Were they quite oblivious of us? There was the sudden slowing-down which Bissett had noticed. What did it mean? Had they… no, I rejected the thought desperately. They couldn't have seen Trout's rendezvous with the warships! Dear God! I put myself in the boots of NP I's captain.
He is lying in a good position to sink a couple of British cruisers, and what happens? Suddenly a British submarine breaks surface and the warships sheer off like startled cats. His whole firing plan goes to maggots. He takes a cautious look and sees a strange sight indeed. The destroyers about as hostile as could be — towards one of their kind. But they would know Trout was in these waters, he argues. And what in the name of all that is holy is a submarine doing lying motionless on the surface while the destroyers circle and one goes in and drops a boat? Hunted as he is, he must jump to the immediate conclusion — these warships are looking for NP I, and so must the British submarine be. So they know about me! A cold chill runs down his spine. Must I justify NP I at all costs? Sink that nearest destroyer and the submarine? No, that would be too easy, and the others would be right on the trail. Beat it at high speed? Yes. Eighty feet, high speed away to Curva dos Dunas! And by the merest chance, I added grimly, Trout takes an identical course and bashes away merrily in the wake of the deadliest thing afloat, with not a caution or a care in the world! The thought of it made my insides turn over.
I'd had the let-off of my life, I thought without humour, and it's going to cost every man of that wicked U-boat his life. The half hour was up. I picked up the Admiralty chart to give to the navigator as a formality only. I left my own — old Simon's — in my cubbyhole. After all, I thought with the first lightening of spirits since the enormity of the whole thing had struck me, it is my island, and I'm going to protect my property, so why should everyone know about it?
John looked expectant as I came in. It was just after nine o'clock.
"Diving stations. Stand by to surface," I said briefly.
"Check main vents," rapped out John.
"All main vents checked and shut, sir."
"Ready to surface, sir."
"Surface. I want you on the bridge with me, Number One."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The hatch was nicked open and the usual sea, warm it seemed to me, slopped in. I scrambled up and immediately searched the horizon. Everywhere the sea was bathed in bright moonlight. And a good thing too, because neither I nor the men on watch had had time to get their eyes accustomed to the different light.
"Nothing in sight, sir," reported John formally.
"Good," I said, drinking in the beauty of the night, and looking half expectantly ahead, as if to find our lethal fellow-traveller along the line of Trout's forestay. The South Atlantic was as empty as it had ever been.
"Group up," I ordered. "Start the diesels. Full ahead together. Three hundred and twenty revolutions. Course two-five-oh."
Trout veered away at right angles to the previous course — NP I's course, leaning to the full power of the massive diesels, and tore away into the silver night.
VIII
the moon's silver began to give way to the first grey of the yet unborn day. Trout tore on. Sleepless and keyed to a high pitch, I remained all night on the bridge. My eyes were red with watching, and they always strayed back to NP I's imaginary track, now well to the north and west of Trout. John had come up during the night in cheerful conversational mood.
"What's all the buzz, Geoffrey?" he asked in his easy, competent way. "Making a real mystery of things, aren't you?"
I regretted to have to do it, but I resorted to that funk-hole of the man in command, rank. I simply said nothing but stared ahead into the night.
John at first did not catch on.
"Brushing up the old navigation all by yourself, too?" he laughed.
I realised that I would rouse some comment by navigating myself, but I simply refused to turn old Simon's maps over to the usual navigator. I said nothing in reply to John's sallies. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him freeze when he realised that we were no longer on the chummy basis on which we which always gone in to the attack. John had always been excellent in giving the crew a loudspeaker appraisal of a tricky situation, and I expect this was his way of putting it to me. He froze into immobility and, except for a few terse, necessary words changing the course after we were well away from NP I's track, there had been silence between us for the rest of the night.
I decided that I would approach Curva dos Dunas from the south, turning north and east once I crossed the seventy-five fathom mark. The more I looked at the ghastly coast, the more thankful I was for old Simon's charts. It was a hopeless conglomeration of broken water, shoals and rocks; everywhere were the terrorising words, "discoloured water." Once across the seventy-five fathom line, I decided to turn Trout north-east and thread my way to within fifteen miles of the coast, and then try and pick up my two only sure landmarks, the ten-foot projection which I had named Simon's Rock, and the distinctive three-topped hill with another high hill about seven miles to the nor'rad. If I could spot the tiny beach marked "sandy, white "on the chart, it would be a great additional help; otherwise the old sailor-man's only direction on the landward side were "dunas moveis" — shifting dunes.