Smith asked quietly, “Have you told Graham and Ballard?”
Thackeray knew what he meant — the cruisers being sighted in the Indian Ocean. He smiled. “No. I thought I’d leave that to you.”
Garrick shouldered out of the cabin after Thackeray and Smith was left alone. He sat there for some time. Once he thought that Sarah Benson had believed and he wondered how she felt. Thackeray would tell her and Graham as soon as he set foot aboard the Elizabeth Bell.
He climbed up to the bridge. Aitkyne turned his back to the wind that hurled the rain in driving sheets, wiped at his streaming face and shouted, “They’re both of them on the move, sir! Must have had steam up!”
Smith nodded. They would certainly have had steam up. By now they would have abandoned hope of Thunder’s return within the time-limit he had set and been preparing to take him at his word and sail on their own initiative. They did not know of the cruiser’s sighting, that cable had been for Thackeray and Smith only.
He was aware that Garrick had muttered to Aitkyne and now both were watching him. They looked — sorry.
He said flatly, “Elizabeth Bell to lead at five knots, then Ariadne and we’ll bring up the rear.” The tramp was the slowest vessel. These were the dispositions he had decided before he reached Malaguay. He would play the game out to the end. “Make to Elizabeth Bell: ‘Act on instructions from Ariadne’. And to Ariadne: ‘Pass all my orders to Elizabeth Bell’.”
Thunder weighed and left her brief shelter and went to sea again but moving dead slow as she waited for the other two ships as they came beating out of the anchorage and plunging into the big seas outside. Ariadne led but as she came up to Thunder and the signal lamp flashed from the wing near Smith her speed fell away. Smith thought that Ballard would be annoyed at the slow speed. It was a comfortable speed for Elizabeth Bell in this weather but a funeral march for Ariadne. He saw in the lights on her deck the white faces of a few hardy souls who had braved the storm to demonstrate their loyalty. They stood in a huddled group on the deck below the superstructure and he saw them waving.
Elizabeth Bell followed close on Ariadne and narrowing the gap. Seas were bursting over her fo’c’sle. The signal lamp flickered again on Thunder and was acknowledged. No one waved on Elizabeth Bell but he saw Graham in the lighted wheelhouse lift his bowler, and abaft the bridge a figure clung to a stanchion, skirt whipping out like a flag. Sarah Benson. Smith wondered why she was on deck in this weather?
Thunder was increasing speed and Smith ordered, “Make to Ariadne: ‘Darken ship’.” And then he shifted restlessly as he came back to partial life and the thoughts stirred. He leaned over the rail, staring not at Ariadne but at the darkness astern, black, white-whipped sea and beyond the lights of Malaguay. No one on shore would see them now. “Mr. Wakely.”
“Sir?”
“I think I see a boat astern of us.”
Wakely was silent a moment, leaning beside Smith, then he said quickly, “Yes, sir. Looks like a big motor-launch — can’t make out a funnel — but I can’t make out much of her at all. She’s carrying no lights.”
Smith faced forward. “Watch her.” Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell had obeyed the order and their ports were covered and only navigation lights showed. “Make to Ariadne: ‘Turn in succession, four points to port’.” He waited as the signal was made and acknowledged and waited again as Ariadne passed it on. The minutes stretched out and then Garrick said, “Elizabeth Bell is turning.”
Smith nodded. Then Ariadne turned and finally Thunder and the three ships headed out to sea. Neither Ballard nor Graham would be pleased. This was not a course for Guaya. But they would draw the conclusion that Smith was taking a course far out of the normal trade route to evade pursuit.
Smith asked, “Well, Mr. Wakely?”
“She’s still there, sir. Wait a minute, though —”
They had been ten minutes on the changed course and whoever manned the launch would be having a rough passage in this sea.
Wakely called, “She’s turning! She’s dropping back!”
She was. Smith could just see the boat, broadside on and falling away astern. She came around further still, showed her stern and now he saw a faint, dim light in the well of her, possibly the compass. A moment later the darkness hid her.
He waited a further ten minutes and then ordered the return to their original course. He had one crumb of comfort for Ballard. “Make to Elizabeth Bell: ‘Proceed at best speed’.” Now he knew they were neither watched nor followed he would make the best speed he could. It would add another two or three knots. Ariadne was still far from stretching her legs but at least she would feel she was moving.
He left the bridge. Wakely stared at him as if he had second sight but he would not explain tonight. He would not explain that he had expected the Germans in Malaguay to watch his course and to suspect that once out of sight of the land he might change that course. So he expected the launch to be there. She would think she had caught him laying a false trail and that his course to Guaya lay well out to sea. But why had she trailed him if the cruisers were a world away?
He wanted to be alone.
He was on the bridge before dawn and Garrick came to stand beside him and together they drank hot coffee and watched the blackness over the tossing sea turn to grey. The navigation lights of Ariadne and Elizabeth Bell paled in that greyness as the ships took solid shape. Then it was full day and he could see his little convoy clearly, Ariadne heaving solidly, Elizabeth Bell plugging into the seas. Visibility was fair, no better than that, but it was enough.
Garrick hailed the masthead and the reply came back: “Nothing, sir, only Ariadne an’ Elizabeth Bell.”
Smith heard it poker-faced. That was all that was left of his calm pose. He could not converse casually because he did not want to face his officers. He did not want to see the embarrassment and the pity behind it. They were at last on his side but now he had to stand alone. He avoided them. He would not go below and they passed within inches of where he stood or paced the bridge but it was as if they moved in different worlds. The whole ship seemed to tip-toe around him. He passed the long hours of the morning in thought and at the end could remember none of it. Only at the end his thoughts turned to coal and his need of it.
He had sunk two colliers filled with prime Welsh coal. And men. My God, men!
But he still could not believe that his whole reasoning had been wrong.
It was long past noon and they would reach Guaya shortly after sunset. A sun that was bright but robbed of heat by the wind tightened his eyes. It seemed to smile on Thunder and on himself but it brought him no warmth nor comfort.
The call came down from the masthead: “Smoke bearing green one-six-oh!”