Seconds later he let out a startled, ‘Christ!’
Another fast-moving speck of light had caught his eye. It was coming in from the north-east on what looked very much like a collision course with Olufsen’s skimmer.
‘What’s the trouble?’ asked Sandstrom.
‘Just a moment.’ Nunn saw the two specks merge into one, then draw rapidly apart. ‘Christ!’ he repeated. ‘That was a near thing. Must have been another skimmer. Going at a hell of a bat. Nearly collided with Olufsen’s. It’s heading for the beach now.’
‘Holy Mother o’ Mary,’ said Boland. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Somebody’s in a flipping hurry,’ said Sandstrom.
The Kestrel was almost abeam of the Ostnes Beacon when Julie’s voice came from the companion hatch. ‘Coffee’s ready. Any offers?’
‘Plenty,’ said Nunn. ‘Bring it along.’ He kept his eyes pressed into the viewer. ‘Hullo. There’s a new contact astern. Just come clear of Kolnoy.’
There was tense silence in the cockpit as they waited, looking astern into the darkness wondering what was there, knowing it couldn’t be seen. After what seemed a long time Nunn said, ‘May be following us. Doing about thirty knots. Overhaul us in fifteen minutes if it is.’
Sandstrom said, ‘What d’you make of it?’
‘Haven’t a clue, Sven. It’s small and fast. Same sort of blip on the screen as a Gay Cavalier.’
‘The Norwegian gunboat?’
‘Probably,’ said Nunn. ‘Unlikely to be a Russian. We’re well inside territorial waters.’
A dark shape moved into the cockpit. ‘Come on,’ said Julie. ‘This coffee won’t keep hot for ever. Take a mug and I’ll pour.’
Nunn took one and used the opportunity to squeeze her hand. She filled the mug and he went back to the viewer. The blob of light on the screen was growing steadily larger. ‘Expect it’s coming to check up on us,’ he said. ‘Let’s look suspicious.’
‘Not difficult for you,’ said Julie.
They laughed though they were worried. They knew their principal role in Daisy Chain was over. Krasnov had been taken and was on his way. Now they were involved in the secondary role. ‘Make the stand-by signal,’ Olufsen had said at the final briefing in Kolhamn. ‘If the skimmer calls for help go to its assistance. If at any time the need arises, create a diversion.’
Once stopped for a search, the longer it took the better. At thirty knots the skimmer would soon be outside territorial waters and at the rendezvous with the submarine.
Nunn said, ‘Alter course thirty degrees to starboard, Sven.’
‘Thirty degrees to starboard.’ Sandstrom put the wheel over and the ketch’s bows swung right.
‘That ought to fetch them,’ said Nunn.
‘Like a bird in a mini showing her…’ Boland cut off short. ‘Sorry.’
‘I should think so,’ said Julie. ‘Really, what has the Navy come to?’
‘It’s always been like that,’ said Nunn. ‘Didn’t you know? Now let’s transmit the stand-by signal.’ He went below, switched on the VHF transmitter, took a cassette-player from the shelf, switched it on and turned up the volume. It was the Carpenters singing Close to You. He held the mike against the player, pressed the ‘speak’ button and gave the transmission thirty seconds before switching off.
Almost immediately three sharp blasts on a referee’s whistle sounded on Kestrel’s VHF speaker.
Julie came in from the cockpit. ‘That was great, Steve. We heard it on the cockpit speaker.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Come and be close to me.’
‘May I remind you, Lieutenant-Commander Nunn, sir, that we are being followed.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘We’re never left alone.’
Olufsen shouted, ‘We must be less than a mile from the Ostnes Beacon.’ The wind made by their own speed carried the words away as the skimmer pounded and leapt through the night. Above the high-pitched scream of the outboard they heard something approaching on the starboard bow. It came with frightening suddenness: first a sound like tearing linen monstrously amplified, then a dark shape shooting across their bows, twin wakes of tumbling foam marking its passage.
‘Christ!’ shouted Olufsen. ‘That was a near thing. No more than twenty feet ahead of us.’ The skimmer shook and bumped into the troubled water left by the intruder.
‘What on earth was it, Gunnar?’ Tanya’s voice was timid, tremulous.
‘A skimmer with twin outboards. Big ones. Must have been doing all of forty knots.’
Liang Hui said, ‘D’you think they saw us?’
‘I’m sure they did. Didn’t you see the swerve to starboard? But for that we’d have collided.’
‘What d’you make of it?’
‘Don’t know, Li. One thing’s certain. They’re heading straight for the beach. Hope they know when they get there.’
‘Very strange,’ Liang Hui said it solemnly. ‘At this time and place.’
‘A lot of strange things are happening at this time and place just now,’ echoed Olufsen.
When he estimated by dead reckoning that they had passed Ostnes, Olufsen altered course to the north-west. Clear now of the shelter of the land, the skimmer felt the swell and its motion at thirty knots had all the violence of a rollercoaster at a seaside fair.
In the next six minutes they covered three miles and he put their position as one mile off Randnes. Round that point the shore-line turned south and west to form the eastern side of Nordvag Bay. Still in thick fog, unable to see anything of the land, Olufsen piloted the skimmer into what he hoped was the centre of the bay. When he estimated they were half a mile offshore he closed the throttle. The bows of the skimmer dropped, it quickly lost way and he coaxed it inshore with short bursts of engine. They were still feeling the north-westerly swell and from ahead came the sound of breakers. Olufsen realized then that they were too far to the east, heading for the exposed side of the bay. He altered course to starboard, seeking the lee of the long slope leading down from Bodvag to Nordnes.
The skimmer edged forward, the swell diminished, they entered calm water and he knew that the western side of the bay lay close ahead. Slowing the skimmer down to bare steerage way he ran in for a few minutes before switching off the engine.
‘You’ve got the chart, the compass and VHF radio?’ he said to Liang Hui. ‘Run out of here at full throttle and steer north-east. In five minutes you’ll have done two-and-a-half miles. Alter then to north. Run on that course for twenty-five minutes. Allowing for the current, that’ll bring you near enough to the RV. You know what to do when you get there? Quite happy?’
‘Of course,’ said Liang Hui, putting a brave face on things.
‘If for any reason you can’t make it — engine trouble, some failure at the RV, whatever — call Kestrel on VHF and she’ll come to your assistance. You’ve got the code words for that and she’s got RDF. But remember it’s a last resort and risky. Okay?’
‘Yes. I don’t expect to have any trouble.
Olufsen said, ‘Goodbye and good luck,’ and shook hands with both of them in the darkness before climbing out and wading ashore, a bundle of clothing under his arm. When he called out that he’d reached the beach, Liang Hui started the outboard, opened the throttle and the skimmer moved out to sea.
Liang Hui was a man whose courage and determination had survived many tests but he was anything but happy. He had messed about in small boats in Hong Kong, crewed occasionally for yachting friends, but he profoundly mistrusted high speed in fog. It was one thing if you could see where you were going, but quite another to dash through the night at thirty knots with visibility down to fifty feet. He wondered if the Daisy Chain plan for the RV would work as well in practice as on paper. Bluewhale, with radar, sonar, SINS and highly sophisticated communications systems had a lot of technology going for it. Briggs had stressed that at the briefing. The submarine, he said, would have no difficulty in finding the skimmer unless there were heavy wind and seas in which case that sort of operation would be impracticable anyway. But there was no wind, just a long swell under a mantle of fog.