The telephone rang shrilly, two rapid bursts, and Morrison pulled the receiver from its protective box.
Baird heard him say, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” He turned to Baird and ordered, “Draw up the paravanes.”
Baird nodded and a man on each winch cranked the handles quickly in a clockwise motion. The reduction gears spun rapidly and the paravanes, guided by other members of the crew, slowly rose and hung above the deck. Two men, one to each paravane, used cables to keep the paravanes from swinging with the motion of Firedancer. If they got away and fell over the side they could foul the ship’s screws.
“Swing out the davits,” Morrison called, and the long arms swung gracefully over the port and starboard sides. When they were fully extended they were locked into place with a pinion rod. “Play out the paravanes.” They went slowly down into the water, fat fish with teeth and wings.
Firedancer was not the only vessel sweeping the channel. The other two destroyers had been ordered to do so as well, and behind them, at a safe distance, steamed Prometheus and Prince of Wales. Once they proceeded down the swept channel, escorted by a dozen Royal Air Force fighters, they would sail into the North Atlantic and begin their voyage.
“Winston’s on Prince of Wales,” Hardy said to Number One.
“Churchill?”
“He’s with some American chap.”
“How do you—”
“My orders said nothing beyond the fact that Their Lordships direct Firedancer to accompany Prince of Wales and render any assistance necessary. We’re a small service, Number One, even with the Hostilities Only forced upon us by current condition. No secret remains a secret for very long. We don’t go blabbing it to the Germans, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t talk among ourselves. Prometheus knew beforehand, I’m sure of it, but his manner was always to ingratiate himself into Their Lordships’ confidence.” It was a Royal Navy custom to call a captain by his ship’s name, but Number One noted that Hardy said Prometheus as if it were distasteful to even form the word in his mouth.
“You’ll know more when I relay the orders to the other officers. Until that time keep the information to yourself.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damned waste of time,” Hardy said, watching the other destroyers in their synchronized movements to sweep the channel.
“Sir?”
“Bloody waste of ships,” Hardy said. “Prince of Wales can outrun anything on the sea, under the sea, or in the sky for that matter. We’re just giving the enemy more targets, that’s all. A flimsy Diddo and three destroyers alongside the most powerful ship afloat. What are we to do, I ask you?”
Number One knew better than to answer. Hardy was preaching his sermon. Nothing was right, everyone’s decisions but his were flawed. Their Lordships were once again demonstrating their incompetence and if it wasn’t obvious to anyone else, it was certainly obvious to Hardy.
Number One did not dare comment on how he felt: exhilarated, excited — marveling at this impressive flotilla as it made its way with professional grace toward the open sea. He enjoyed the majesty of it all — warships steaming in a precisely choreographed dance, Addis lights blinking rapidly, colorful signal flags streaming in the fierce Scottish wind, and above all of it, in a clear blue sky, racing clouds as gray and foreboding as the warships that filled the Flow. Even the green waters, subservient to the deadly vessels, parted in a white froth, cut in two by the bows of the ships as they sailed into the North Sea.
There could never be drama like this in the courtroom, Number One decided, no matter the results of great legal minds splitting points of law into razor-thin arguments. All paled before the ceremony of war, Number One decided — even the mundane duty of escorting vast herds of convoyed ships, countless dark shapes riding easily under the orange gaze of a newborn sun — even that was drama. Of course his mood would change when the fresh food was gone and what was served in the wardroom was a questionable mix of leftovers, or when he had been at action stations for so long that sleep was only a distant memory. Or when the sea battered Firedancer for days at a time or the unyielding cold stole every ounce of strength left to him. But now he enjoyed the view afforded him by the advent of danger, even if Hardy did not.
It might be a waste of time and ships, Number One thought. It might be as Hardy said: there was nothing out there to challenge Prince of Wales.
Chapter 14
Captain Morris Prader, DSO, took the cup of steaming tea in an enameled iron cup from Yeoman Uhl and wrapped both hands around it, grateful that, despite the open windows, they were at least within the closed compass platform of the cruiser. Had he captained a destroyer, he would have no protection.
Still, it was crowded on the platform with the officers and ratings of the Watch, including dour Lieutenant Trunburrow, his number one. They were sandwiched in among the steering mechanism, dozens of dials, gauges, the voice tube station, and the engine enunciator that jutted out over the red-and-gray-checkerboard linoleum block floor. The only compromise to the starkness of the platform were the two, high-backed chairs that sat to either side, away from the polished brass compass stand. The stand itself blossomed from the deck and bloomed gracefully into a white enameled dish that held the compass. The officer of the Watch could control the entire operation of the ship from the compass platform. And even when Prader made his appearance on the platform, and to the consternation of junior officers he was there at the most inopportune times, he let the officer of the Watch control the ship. All the officer need do was to recite the ever-changing manrta: “Wind, force two, southwest to northwest,” or whatever direction the wind happened to be blowing, “Barometer 30.10 to 30.20, unchanging. Visibility nine.” And the course and speed. Prader might dictate change in course or speed, fine-tuning the movement of his ship, or simply reminding his officers that he was in firm control of all that transpired on the vessel. He’d read an essay from that Polish chap who gave up the sea to write — nothing to Prader’s liking because it was all that philosophical and moral nonsense — but the one piece that he’d managed to wade through was “The Captain”: “To each man who commands comes a severity of life that denies him everything except duty. For his crew, the passengers, for the ship on whose deck he strides, he bears responsibility. He can no more relinquish this duty, than a mortal man can live without the heart that beats within his breast.” He could never remember that chap’s name. Never mind, it wasn’t important.
Instead, Prader would stroll, cup of tea in hand.
He’d stroll out to the bridge wings and look over the 40-mm Twin Bofors MKV mountings and if the gunners were there tending to their guns, he would chat them up. There they would stand, stiff and nervous as helclass="underline" ordnance artificers and ordinary seamen alike wondering: Christ! When is this bloody old fool going to move on?
He would, when it suited him.
Prader might show up in sick bay, looking over the eight beds all neatly made up, and speak briefly with the acting surgeon lieutenant, a very dedicated and serious chap. He might wander through the radar and fire-direction rooms and make his way aft, deep within the ship to the stoker’s mess, and from there through a 450-pound steel hatch activated by counterbalances to the transmitting station and number-two low-power room. In low-power room number two, surrounded by scores of switches, breakers, rheostats, and banks of hundreds of fuses that all hummed in expectation of action, he talked quietly with an electrical artificer and his assistant. They spoke the same language, a complicated, technical tongue that might as well have been heathen Chinese to the other ratings and seamen on board Nottingham. But this was Prader’s world — he was proficient in all things technical. He could read the sea well enough and he could certainly captain a ship because he enjoyed learning and he had learned these things in the classroom or on the ocean. But what excited him was the electronic and mechanical things that made the ship come to life — not alive, but fulfilling its expectation to operate. Nottingham, to Prader, was a vast complex machine, a wondrous example of man’s talents and ingenuity. He marveled at it, and took pride in its unexcelled ability to perform, and when Nottingham and her sister ship, Harrogate, were ordered up to the Denmark Strait, he was absolutely confident that she would do everything that she was designed to do.