Cole got up, fixed himself another drink, and stood nursing it.
“You’re not going, are you?” Rebecca said.
“I don’t know what to do,” Cole said. “I know what I want to do, but for once in my life, maybe, I’m trying to figure out what the right thing to do is.”
“You don’t give yourself much credit, do you?”
Cole shrugged.
Rebecca stood and moved close to him. “I may never see you again,” she said.
“You could leave your husband,” Cole said, bitterly.
“Don’t let’s argue.”
“Sure. Okay. I’m pissed off at this whole goddamned deal. I don’t want to lose you but it looks like I’m going to. That makes me angry. Not at you. I couldn’t be angry with you if you smacked me in the head with a whiskey bottle.”
Rebecca laughed and then Cole did, too.
“I shan’t do that,” she said, pressing the palm of her hand against his cheek. “I don’t know what to do either,” she said.
“Yes, you do,” Cole said, setting the glass on the mantel. He gathered her to him and kissed her tenderly. She threw her arms around him and returned the kisses, each of them lost in the pleasure.
Chapter 15
“We’ve picked up something on radar approximately twenty miles, three points off the port quarter, running roughly southeast,” Trunburrow said without a trace of emotion. “Size is indeterminate but they appear to be moving at a considerable rate of speed.”
“‘They?’” Prader said.
“Radar says two, possibly three targets, but it’s difficult to tell. Speed twenty-five to thirty knots. We were lucky enough to pick them up that far away.”
The RDF 281 radar was temperamental and prone to detect ghosts, but to Prader it was a marvel of engineering. Eyes that see where no eyes before them could see — find an object in fog or rain; find a thing before it can be seen. Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous.
“Masthead report?”
“Nothing, sir.” The lookout in the fore masthead high above the Nottingham’s deck might have been able to spot a wisp of smoke with his powerful binoculars if it were not for occasional snow squalls or patches of fog — the vagaries of weather in the Strait.
“Well, do we know anything for certain, Number One?” Prader said peevishly.
“ ’Fraid not, sir. Except they aren’t ours.”
“We can’t be certain of that, Number One. This won’t be the first time that the right hand hasn’t told the left what it’s doing. Let the Flow know what we have. Where is Harrogate?”
“Eighty-five miles to the southeast, sir.” Nottingham ’s companion had experienced engine difficulties and had been instructed to return to Scapa Flow. Her replacement had not yet been dispatched.
“Very well. Yeoman? Have W.T. send to Harrogate: ‘Two, possibly three unidentified targets, twenty miles southwest of my position. Stand by.’ That’s all.” Prader turned to Trunburrow. “Action stations, Number One. Better to be safe than sorry.” He leaned over the voice tube to the wheel room, located below the waterline deep in the bowels of the ship. “Helmsman? Stand by to make a forty-five-degree course alteration, south-southwest.”
“Standing by, sir,” the helmsman said.
Prader positioned himself over the compass and nodded for Trunburrow to relay the orders to the helmsman. Number One suppressed his irritation at Prader. He was the captain, yes, but he had a way of issuing commands that made a fellow feel as if he were found wanting in every respect.
“Port twenty,” Prader ordered.
“Port twenty, aye-aye, sir.” Trunburrow relayed the command into the voice tube.
The helmsman repeated it and announced: “Wheel twenty of port.”
The harsh sound of a bugle over the Tannoy System called the ship’s crew to action stations.
Prader studied the compass needle edge slowly to complete the course alteration, ignoring the turmoil around him. “Rudder amidships. Steady.”
“Rudder amidships, aye-aye, sir.”
“Number One, send to Harrogate that we’re going over to investigate. Tell them to remain at their station should this be some sort of Jerry trick to draw us off. Have Sparks contact Scapa Flow. Give them the coordinates and the details. Ask them if Tirpitz has come out and see if they can scare up a few aircraft to keep track of these blighters.”
“Yes, sir,” Trunburrow said.
“Well, Number One,” Prader said, pleased with himself. “We’ll tag along with this ghost ship, keeping track of her and keeping well out her range until this whole matter is resolved. Where she moves, we move, so it’s simply a matter of keeping our eyes open and our wits about us. Eh, Number One?”
“Of course, sir,” Trunburrow said. The arrogance of the man was appalling and Trunburrow thought, but barely acknowledged, that once, just once, he’d like to see Prader truly shocked.
“FuMO’s picked up a target to the northeast,” Erster Offizier, I.O., Freganttenkapitan Kadow said to Mahlberg. “Hydrophone confirms it. ‘Steam turbine, high speed. Most likely a heavy cruiser.’” The Kapitan turned easily in his leather- covered elevated chair on the bridge of Sea Lion, throwing his arm over its back.
“So?” he said with a smile. “How far out?”
“Twenty-five kilometers.”
“Our British friends, no doubt.”
The bridge telephone rang and Wachoffizer Melms answered it. He listened briefly, acknowledged the message, and reported to Mahlberg.
“B-dienst reports Morse code message to Scapa from targets.”
Mahlberg nodded. “They’re sounding the alarm. They don’t know who we are or what we are, but they know that we shouldn’t be here. Let us sound our own alarm. Kriegsmarschzustand one, Kadow.”
Kadow saluted. Battle stations, Code 1. Now they might have a chance to find out what Sea Lion could really do. Of course it would not be a fair fight because overflights of Scapa Flow reported the presence of one aircraft carrier, three battleships, six light cruisers, four destroyers, two submarines, and a number of other vessels. Group North had been quite clear on this; the capital ships of the British Home Fleet were still in Scapa Flow. What Sea Lion found in the Denmark Straits was one vessel — a cruiser probably, meant to patrol the narrow passage between the ice pack and the vast minefields and sound the alarm. She had done her duty. Now the question was, would Kapitan Mahlberg take Sea Lion past the insolent ship and on to her assigned target or would he alter course long enough to destroy them?
To Kadow, the choice was simple: obey orders. Their objective was clearly defined and their instructions unambiguous. Everything else was a distraction. But he was not the Kapitan.
Kapitan zur See Mahlberg was considering the same options: test his mighty ship in battle against a lesser opponent — but nevertheless a test under combat conditions — or continue on to his ultimate target. He could do both, he reasoned, because his ship was fast and his crew well trained. He could do both because the Prince of Wales would be denied the opportunity to dash across the North Atlantic, the Nord See: he laughed to himself; the Mord See — Murder Sea. Prince of Wales would encounter a cordon of Admiral Doenitz’s U-boats, strung from the ice pack at the base of Greenland down into the Atlantic. Beaters to drive Prince of Wales south, prolonging her voyage so that Sea Lion could come up astern of the British vessel and prolong her voyage indefinitely.