‘Which we won’t. We don’t even think about that.’
‘Remember her speed, Captain. All of thirty-three knots, and she’s a good fifteen miles off. Suppose she maintains that distance? She won’t be within range of your main armament, will she?’
‘No, she won’t!’ MacKail snapped. ‘But we can do our best to close, and hope at least to drive her into the rest of the squadron — like you said.’
‘Yes.… but she’ll know the Admiral’s waiting to the eastward. She’s almost certain to have picked up his signals to you.’
MacKail made a sound of exasperation, and exploded in an oompah. ‘You mean, you don’t think she’ll head east. Where in hell will she head for, Commander?’
Shaw answered, ‘South, I shouldn’t wonder. Or maybe she’ll swing west though I don’t think she will because if she does that she automatically shortens the range. If I were Lindrath — or Fleck rather, because he’ll be making all the decisions now — I’d stay on a southerly course and beat it right down across the Drake Passage to the high latitudes, I think.’
‘And the ice. Don’t forget the ice! That can crush a ship like a ripe tomato.’
‘I’m not forgetting the ice, Captain, but I still say she’ll go south. If she can keep out of range till she’s made her interference signals… well, Fleck will have done what he set out to do and probably he’s crazy enough not to worry about what happens afterwards. He’ll certainly put the Party before himself or any of the Moehne’s crew, I can assure you of that. And it’s the southerly course that gives him his best chance now.’ He took a deep breath. ‘If that’s what he’s going to do, it’ll be a race against time — and against the ice, of course.’
The cruiser was now steadied on her course and was racing ahead, picking up her speed again after the turn. MacKail said briefly, ‘It’s been a race against time all along. I’m not worried, not now I know where she is. I’m going in to get her.’
The contact remained at a distance of rather more than fifteen miles ahead, closing infinitesimally. The cruiser had lost a little distance after the first report, but she was very, very slowly making it up again now. Possibly the Moehne hadn’t got quite the speed Fleck had boasted of. As the bridge personnel waited throughout the night for the next dawn’s light to creep up over the sea’s rim, they were all silent and preoccupied. That contact might not be the Moehne and they all knew that it might not, despite MacKail’s confidence that it was her. Dawn alone would either prove or disprove that. Meanwhile the ship, whoever she was, maintained her course. She continued steering due South. As they swept down again the latitude of Cape Horn and then beyond into the Drake Passage, they were taken once again by the tearing westerlies and thrown over heavily to their port side by seas up to two miles long. It was a terrible wind to steam across, a screaming wind, which sent the solid water rearing up along the cruiser’s starboard beam, cliff-like and menacing. The sky was filled with it. The sea-valleys stretched into the distance all around, overlaid with spindrift. This would be kept up now all the way until they overhauled the ship ahead or brought her within range of their turrets. The sea was cutting the speed of both ships now; they couldn’t steam at their high speeds in a cross-wind and beam sea of such proportions. To do so would be suicide. But — the radar told them that the gap between them was still closing, if only very minutely. The North Dakota couldn’t do any better than that against the Moehne’s British-warship speed and construction.
At least the closing of the gap was an encouraging sign. Shaw wondered if Lindrath had something to do with that; perhaps the old man had eased his speed still further and had told Fleck that he was going ahead as fast as he dared, that something might give if the Moehne plunged on any faster… that if anything went wrong with her engines or her steering as a result of over-steaming, then she would broach to, and that would be the end of the plan.
If it was the Moehne…
It just had to be the Moehne.
As the early dawn broke angrily, Shaw strained his eyes ahead through his binoculars. Despite the high wind, there was low-lying misty cloud, a widespread overcast, which met the flung spray until it seemed that a curtain had been lowered over the heaving wastes of the sea. After some minutes, as the world slowly lightened, he could just make out a vague blur ahead, a blur in the middle of a seething whirl of flying spray. Everyone was watching through glasses now, waiting for Shaw’s opinion. He was the only man aboard who could positively identify the German. He watched ahead, his eyes aching, red-rimmed and dead weary. It was almost three-quarters of an hour later that an extra heavy beam sea took that distant blur and threw it bodily to port so that its bow came right round and for a few seconds, little more than that, Shaw was able to see her broadside. In order to be quite certain he waited until the same thing happened again and then he lowered his glasses and turned towards MacKail.
‘It’s the Moehne,’ he said.
He heard MacKail’s long breath of relief, felt the tension relaxing all around the bridge. Men smiled and joked; they were right on the beam and they were going to win out. It was Shaw himself who brought out the sour looks again when he said, ‘If we could call Washington they might have given us another few hours — seeing we’ve got the German almost in our sights! It’s one hell of a pity we can’t transmit…’
‘What’s the good of crying over spilt milk?’ MacKail asked. ‘Maybe the same sort of thing’ll happen to the Moehne’s aerials — only I guess it won’t somehow! Besides… he’ll be in our sights in around five hours, if we continue to close. Which we’ll do.’
‘And then?’ Shaw looked at him quizzically.
‘Then I’m going to blow him out of the water, Commander.’
They did indeed begin to close the Moehne a fraction faster as the terrible minutes dragged on into hours. The German wasn’t keeping up his speed. By 1100 hours, with one hour to go now, MacKail estimated that they were within range of his main armament and he passed the word to his guns’ crews once again to stand by.
Shaw, standing alongside MacKail, asked, ‘Are you going to fire to hit, or just put a warning shot over him?’
‘I said I was going to blow him out of the water, didn’t I?’ MacKail was staring ahead through glasses. ‘That stands. We have to chance his reactor.’
Shaw said slowly, ‘I’ve been thinking…’
‘So’ve I.’ MacKail looked round momentarily, his eyes raw with sheer lack of sleep. ‘About the people back in the States.’
‘I’ve done my share of thinking of them too. But I’ve got another idea. Look, Captain — I know we can’t call ’em by radio, but they could read one of the big signalling projectors from this distance, I should think…’
‘Sure they can — if they can read a light in English.’
‘They can read English all right.’
MacKail glanced sideways again, looking impatient. ‘What the heck’s got into you? You got something on your mind?’
‘Yes — this.’ Shaw spoke with decision, well aware that he was sticking out a very long neck aboard a U.S warship. ‘Would you make a signal by light telling them to ease down so that we can close them to a safe distance, and that if they refuse to do this and if they transmit—if they use their wireless at all for any purpose whatever—then you’ll blow them out of the water, the moment we pick up their first transmission?’