The Minister began to glow again. He glowed for some minutes — and then, unaccountably, he felt a shiver run right along his spine. He turned suddenly and snapped, “Admiral, ask the tower when they will be ready.”
The Admiral looked surprised. “But you”
“I said ask them, Admiral Boronoff.”
“Yes, Minister.” The Admiral went to his desk and picked up a telephone. After a brief conversation he put the receiver back and said, “As soon as the ships berth, Minister, as ordered.”
The Minister nodded broodingly. He paced up and down the room for a while and then said, “Call them again, Boronoff. Tell them to advance the firing as much as possible and to fire when ready, without further orders.” He swung heavily round on Boronoff. “I have a curious feeling that all is not well…”
Twenty-five
“Five minutes, Chief, then I want the lot.”
Wilson spoke down the engine-room voice-pipe, crisply; then stared out ahead again, head sunk in his arms which were folded before him on the bridge screen. They were into the arrival channel now, with Moltsk ahead, coming in at twenty-five knots and sending up big bow-waves, proud grey ships of war bent on an errand of peace, all their guns and missile-launchers trained innocuously to the fore-and-aft line, tompions rammed home in the muzzles of the Lord Cochrane’s conventional, turreted armament.
The time had almost come.
One of the frigates — Petunia — was leading the fleet in. Behind her came the Flag, the great carrier towering like a huge grey-painted box behind the little frigate. Astern of the Flag, the Lord Cochrane, old-fashioned and solid, long, broad in the beam, with a knifing stem which clove the water back in wide swathes to port and starboard; astern again, the remaining frigates, all in Line Ahead. Their ships’ companies, caps on square, wearing their best Number One uniforms with gold badges and lanyards in place beneath their greatcoats, were already fallen in fore and aft for entering harbour. Divisional officers in kid gloves and wearing swords walked up and down the ranks, putting a cap straight here, jerking down the front of a greatcoat there, squaring-off their men before the Russian Minister and his entourage boarded for the formal inspection. On the carrier’s quarterdeck a ceremonial guard was fallen in with rifles and bayonets, to welcome the Soviet officials. On her flight-deck a Royal Marine band in white helmets played lively tunes, and another played brazenly on the quarterdeck of the heavy cruiser itself. On her fo’c’sle was fallen in such of her reduced complement as could be spared, carrying on the vital playacting as long as possible.
It was a perfectly normal and peaceful scene, such as had been enacted countless thousands of times over the long years as units of the Royal Navy entered the world’s harbours on their peacetime official visits. The Russian naval helicopter, already buzzing about overhead, would be able to find nothing whatever wrong, nothing out of place, except possibly for the matter of speed; and that speed, that twenty-five knots, was so essential to success that a chance had to be taken. It was, however, a fair and reasonable chance, for the ships were still some sixteen miles from the dockyard itself with the whole length of the channel yet to go — and Carleton, with his tongue in his cheek, had already warned Moltsk that he was a little late on his E.T.A.
On the compass-platform of the Lord Cochrane Shaw stood rigid, cool as ice as the moment of action approached. He could see the tower now, sticking up out of the sea like a great gasometer. He remembered when he had been on top of that tower, such a little time ago…
Ten minutes until to the actual moment of impact.
Shaw watched the clock in the fore part of the bridge, watched the direction of the ship’s head on the gyro-repeater in front of him, his hands gripping the sides of the gyro-standard. He glanced at the almost expressionless faces of the bridge personnel. The cruiser’s Captain was standing squarely, with his legs apart, his cap tilted forward, and his hands deep in his bridge-coat pockets, looking all round before swinging back to watch out ahead. He was whistling some nameless tune, flatly, between his teeth. Captains didn’t normally whistle on their bridges; a prerogative by custom of the Captain alone, it wasn’t one that was often indulged in — but today was different. The navigator was clearing his throat noisily, nervously, and rubbing his jaw; the displaced officer-of-the-watch, from whom Shaw had taken over for the run m, was tapping his fingers on the bridge-rail aft of the compass-platform and chatting over-brightly with the chief yeoman, something about a run ashore a few weeks ago in the Clyde, and a barmaid in a Rothesay hotel… the lookouts were scanning all around, phlegmatically going on with their work until they were ordered to clear the bridge and jump for what safety they could find.
There was a flutter in Shaw’s stomach now…
He looked up at the helicopter, passing low above the flagship. Three men waved from it, grinning down, all clearly visible, all nice and friendly, and a hand waved back from the carrier’s high bridge in reply. Then the machine was passing slowly aft along the flight-deck, over the carrier’s company lined up along the sides, over her own helicopter squadrons waiting — if the Russians only knew it — for the take-off order from Flying Control. But the Russians wouldn’t know it, because there were no pilots in sight and the walkways were empty. The moment the order came to clear the way for take-off and rescue of the Lord Cochrane's remaining men, the sailors on parade would scatter in seconds, jumping down into the walkways, and the pilots would race up from the briefing-room just beneath the flight-deck.
Somewhere aboard the carrier was Triska Somalin, who would remain well hidden throughout the fleet’s stay in Moltsk. Shaw smiled to himself as he recalled how dubious Careful Carleton had been about guaranteeing her a passage to England; Shaw had had to work hard for that, but the Admiral had given in gracefully enough in the end… and he wasn’t too bad really. He’d rallied round all right, as soon as he was relieved of the overall decision-making. The thing was being done now as carefully as Careful Carleton could make it; painstaking in detail always, he had excelled himself today and he had made a first-class job of it.
Nine minutes to go.
Shaw took a deep breath and said, “Warn the Flag, sir, please.”
“Very well, Shaw.” Wilson turned and nodded at his chief communications yeoman. Nonchalantly the man lifted a green anchor-flag to a little above chest level, held it for five seconds precisely, then lowered it out of sight. Shaw knew that glasses in the flagship would have been trained on the chief yeoman for the last five minutes or so and a moment later the flagship began to swing, almost imperceptibly, off course to port.
The tower was clearer now, seemed larger, tougher, so much more impregnable in these, the last few minutes. Would they do it after all, Shaw wondered, or would the concrete prove too much even for the steel stem of the heavy cruiser? There would be iron girders and beams, supports… Shaw sweated, eased his collar from his neck with a shaking hand.
Now the flagship had given them a clear track.
Just a little starboard wheel when they were ready to increase speed, and they would pass her clear. Now was the time of doubt, now was the time to wonder if the Russians in that infernal helicopter might begin to get suspicious too soon.