"Zum Teufel," the Kapitan murmured. What was the mad Britisher up to now, trailing him as a detective trails a criminal? Suppose the destroyer should stay there all day and all night too? The U-boat would have to surface about six o'clock tomorrow, her endurance exhausted.
And the Cecilie? Was the destroyer going to come all the way with him to his rendezvous? Had she, perhaps twelve hours ago, told the British Admiralty that there was a U-boat in the area? Naval information said that the British always made a sighting report immediately they had an enemy contact; thereafter they kept wireless silence unless they achieved a victory. But the message would have contained a geographical position at least one hundred and fifty miles away to the northeast, and over two hundred miles from his rendezvous with the Cecilie. There was no possible chance that the report would bring a hornets' nest about the ears of the ship he was going to meet. And if he could not sink the destroyer himself, he was sure that the Cecilie would be only too pleased to do so when she arrived.
At half past ten he spoke again. "Braun, where is he now?"
"Just the same, Herr Kapitan, coming slowly along behind us."
"I am going to see if he is asleep or not. Possibly some instrument is broken, and he waits while his men mend it. I am going to turn ninety degrees to port. I want to know if he follows me or not — you understand?"
"I understand, Herr Kapitan."
Von Stolberg went back to the control room. "Alter course to one-two-oh degrees."
He tried to appear nonchalant while waiting, but so great was the effort that he was forced to give it up and go back to the hydrophone cabinet. There was a repeater from the gyrocompass on the bulkhead above the complicated instruments. Looking at it, he saw it steadying on the new course. "Well, Braun?"
"He is still there, Herr Kapitan, as before."
Von Stolberg felt the hair on the back of his head rising. He smoothed his hand over his close-cropped head and retraced his steps to the control room. It was possible that another turn might yet catch his tracker unawares. "Alter course back to two-one-oh."
But the destroyer followed him around as confidently as before. There was evidently nothing the matter with her instruments, and this unwelcome knowledge was the only gain to set against the waste of a further fifteen minutes.
The Hecate, barely making steerageway through the glittering tropical waves, followed the enemy below. Lulled by the gentle motion, the sailors basked in the sun. Flying fish broke from the blue waters. A few small clouds chased themselves in a circle around the horizon.
The Doctor joined the Captain on the bridge, and they fell to discussing the pursuit.
"If I can keep on his tail," the Captain said, "he'll have to come up, whether I blow him to the surface or just wait. I admit it's a bit of a strain on the asdic team and the plot. But we've got a dam' good crowd."
"I'd like to see him blown up, please."
"What a bloodthirsty fellow you are. I'd much rather catch him alive. He's obviously going somewhere important to the German war effort. My job is to jam it sooner or later, and I'd just as soon have it later because we might be able to learn what he's after. We have already accompanied him for one hundred and fifty miles since I took your unguarded queen."
"Don't remind me."
"Want your revenge?"
"What — now?"
"I don't see why not. Go and get the board."
So the Captain and the Doctor sat down on the platform round the standard compass, and the chessmen were set out.
The bell from the asdic hut buzzed. The Captain was at the voice pipe in one bound. "Forebridge."
"Submarine altering course, sir. Bearing red one-oh. Range decreasing."
"Port twenty," the Captain called to the wheelhouse.
"Target still drawing left, sir. Red four-oh."
The submarine, half a mile ahead and turning, was forty-five degrees on the bow. As the destroyer came around after her, the target would draw ahead once more.
"Bearing now?" the Captain asked.
"Bearing steadying." A pause, and then: "Bearing drawing right. Red three-five."
The Hecate was swinging more quickly now. The bearings came down steadily. Red two-oh. Red one-five. Fine on the port bow.
" 'Midships," the Captain ordered, "how's her head, Number One?"
"One-two-five, sir."
"He's done a ninety-degree turn to port. Steer one-two-oh."
"Aye aye, sir."
"I bet it's just a wiggle to see if he can shake us off. He'll be turning back as soon as he finds out we're still behind him."
"Forebridge," from the asdic. "Submarine altering course — drawing right."
"Starboard twenty," the Captain said.
Dutifully the Hecate turned back to two-one-oh following the submarine. The Captain reseated himself before the board. "Your move, Doctor." The sun still shone and the Hecate ambled after her prey. And so the forenoon wore on.
At half past eleven the Hecate drew her sword again. The Captain explained his plan to the team. "I'm going to steam over her to get some idea of depth. Probably he'll think I'm attacking and he'll turn to port or starboard. When I come round again I will attack, but because I fancy he's wedded to this course of two-one-oh I think he'll turn back to it. So I'll keep that side of him. We might get him that way, because he'll turn into the pattern. Now get to your stations."
Shivering in every fiber of her slim body, the Hecate's speed increased. One run over the target provided an estimated depth of four hundred feet. The U-boat turned to starboard. The Hecate, swinging around and attacking up her enemy's stern, kept, as near as could be judged, seventy-five yards on her port bow, in order to catch her returning to her old course. The charges were fired and the Captain went to the view plot.
"Contact astern, green one-six-oh. Range four hundred — double echoes," announced the asdic.
The bearing and range at once suggested to the Captain that his enemy had double-bluffed him. Instead of turning to port and directly back to his course, he had turned a complete circle to starboard, and would have been far away from the bursting charges. The normal procedure would have been for the Hecate to turn to starboard too, but if he turned the other way and went straight for the target there was a possibility of having a beam-on shot at the U-boat instead of this wretched creeping-up-the-tail business. The double echoes almost certainly suggested that one was the U-boat and the other her wake.
"Port thirty."
The Hecate swung round. The target was on the port bow, the bearing steady. The Captain had not meant to fire another pattern so soon: after this one, he would have only fifty charges left. At the last moment before firing he had the instinctive feeling that the U-boat, surprised, was trying to take some violent evasive action — but he could not be certain. She was still there after the attack. Still on her course of two-one-oh.
The plot when consulted suggested that the firing of the charges had been a little late to be fully effective, and that with a crossing target they had passed too far ahead of the enemy. But it did suggest that the charges from the port thrower could have hit the enemy full on the nose.
Dutifully the Hecate took station astern of her quarry once more.
The British Captain was quite right. Von Stolberg had tried a double bluff. To avoid the first pattern, he had turned a full circle to starboard, and he had expected the Hecate to follow him round. Braun's anxious report, "Destroyer approaching from before the starboard beam," had taken him so completely by surprise that his immediate reaction was to think Braun's report wrong. Three precious minutes were lost while the German confirmed his worst fears, so that his only remaining course was to turn toward the enemy, in the expectation that the destroyer would have anticipated his turning away, and she would then fire late rather than early. "Starboard thirty," he ordered.