“Target altering course,” said a talker through the din.
The guns ceased firing as the blinded gunners lost their target. Krause took his hand from his eyes and peered forward.
“Ship dead ahead! Ship dead ahead! “
It was a yell from down below, which would have been audible even without the voice-tube.
“Left rudder! Hard over! “ shouted Krause.
He had seen that frightful thing at the same moment. The leading ship of one of the columns was far ahead of station, a full cable’s length at least. The dark looming shape was across their bows.
Keeling
leaned far over as she turned with the rudder hard against the port stop at high speed; talkers and officers staggered and struggled for their balance.
Keeling
turned abruptly; the whole ship seemed to groan with the strain put upon her.
“Left hard rudder,” came the voice of the helmsman in the darkness.
The dark shape ahead was coming nearer and nearer even though
Keeling
was swinging.
“Look-out reports ship dead ahead,” said a talker; the late warning was ludicrous in the tension of the moment.
Keeling
slithered on a wave, but she was round, the merchant ship’s looming, upper works close beside the bridge. Somebody was shouting from there at the top of his lungs, clearly audible. There was still danger that
Keeling’s
starboard quarter might crash into her even though her bows had turned.
“Meet her! Right full rudder! Meet her!”
The ship receded abruptly out of their field of vision;
Keeling
was now flying down the lane between two columns of ships. There were the huge lumps of the dark vessels close on either side.
“All engines ahead standard speed.”
The message was passed down.
“Engine-room answers ‘All engines ahead standard speed, sir,’ “ and the tension seemed to ease in the pilothouse as
Keeling’s
vibration died away.
There was the tiny glow of the repeater, the faint light showing through the letters of the annunciator.
Keeling
was churning in the seas tossed up by the convoy; it seemed as if in the sudden silence they could hear the bow waves o£ the labouring ships on either side. But not for more than two seconds did this quiet time endure. A rocket soared and burst on their starboard side. There were machine-guns firing. On their starboard quarter a great sheet of red flame suddenly shot to the sky, and the sound of a frightful explosion shook the pilot-house. The U-boat they had so nearly intercepted was in the next lane of the convoy to them, dealing out destruction. Pin-point jabs of orange fire on their starboard bow, growing suddenly shorter and brighter. A sudden violent irregular clatter all about them, a harsh, metallic twanging and a more musical sound of falling glass. Someone in the last ship of the column had sighted them and opened fire with a fifty-calibre machine-gun, unable in the darkness and excitement to distinguish between a destroyer and a U-boat. The burst had swept clean across the front of the pilot-house just above Krause’s head, smashing the glass. They could feel the cold air pouring in upon them. The first shots
Keeling
had ever received in battle--the first bullets ever to endanger Krause’s life--had been fired by the hand of a friend. But no time for any thought about the matter.
“Anyone hurt?” asked Krause automatically, but he did not stay for an answer.
The dark shape of the ship had vanished; they were in the clear now--and what was that far out on the starboard beam, illuminated by the flames of the burning wreck?
“Right full rudder!”
A U-boat’s superstructure, heaving up on a sea.
“Right full rudder.”
She had come down the next lane in the convoy neck and neck with
Keeling.
“Meet her! Steady as you go.”
A wave heaved up and the U-boat was gone. She must have been in instant diving trim--or had he not seen her at all? He was sure he had; a thousand yards ahead of where
Keeling’s
bows were pointing at this moment. He strained his eyes at the clock.
“Prepare to fire medium pattern!” snapped Krause over his shoulder.
A voice behind him spoke orders into a mouth-piece-- Pond, Lieutenant J. G., the make-learn assistant gunnery officer on duty.
“Commence sonar search.”
The U-boat under water would head for the sheltering noises of the convoy.
“Right standard rudder. Ease the rudder. Steady.”
“Sonar reports heavy interference, sir.”
Naturally, with thirty ships’ propellers all beating together. A thousand yards at twelve knots. Allow something for the U-boat’s travel. Three minutes altogether-- a desperately long time from the point of view of a man having to reach the predicted position of a U-boat; desperately short with so much to bear in mind.
“Mr Pond!”
“Fire one! “ said Pond. “Fire two! “
Krause turned round to look at him, saw that Nourse was standing at Pond’s shoulder. Well and good. The “K” guns barked. Looking aft, Krause saw the sea in
Keeling’s
wake suddenly lit up from below with the bursting of the first depth-charge; the deep on fire, and again with the next depth-charge, and again, over a huge area, as the charges thrown by the “K” guns burst, thirty fathoms deep, at the same time as the next charges from the racks. The flame below the surface lingered on the retina; now it was gone. The foaming sea reflected faintly the red glare of the burning ship.
“Right standard rudder. We’ll fire another pattern as we go back, Mr Pond.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Ease the rudder. Steady as you go.”
The burning ship was a valuable point of reference in determining
Keeling’s
position and course. He would depth-charge the area between that beaten by the last charges and the receding convoy. It was the most likely area, but it could be wrong by a mile.
“Mr Pond!”
“Fire one,” said Pond. “Fire two.”
They were heading directly towards the burning ship; she grew larger and brighter as he looked at her, while the depth-charges thundered and flashed behind him. Flames were spouting from her, reaching far upward, and so thick about her that he could make no attempt at identifying her. Then a tremendous flash, reaching up to the clouds above, an explosion-wave which he could feel where he stood, and then the frightful crash of the explosion. And then nothing; darkness; silence, eyes blinded and ears deafened to everything until sensation came slowly back, with first the ears reporting the sound of
Keeling
cleaving through the sea and then the eyes dimly becoming conscious of the foam-flecked surface all about them. Silence in the pilot-house, broken only by someone’s nervous cough.
“Ship ahead, sir,” said the voice-tube. “Bearing one-seven-five, distance one mile.”
That would be
Cadena
doing rescue work. On that bearing they would pass her close on
Keeling’s
port bow. She would not long have resumed her place in the convoy before having to drop back again on this fresh mission.
“How’s the convoy?”
“Three ships well astern of the rest, sir. Nearest one bearing one-six-zero, distance two miles.”
It was remarkable--it was good news--that no more than three ships were out of station besides
Cadena,
seeing that a U-boat and a destroyer had both passed clean through the convoy and a ship had been torpedoed in the heart of it.
A cry from the sea--a scream; a human voice screeching for aid at the highest agonized pitch of anxiety and terror. The very fact that it came from some distance, faint and yet so clearly recognizable, accentuated the urgency of it.
“Object close on the port bow! “ reported the port side look-out.
It was something dark on the dark surface of the water, and from it came that wild cry again. Survivors--one survivor at least--floating on wreckage or a life-raft; lucky men who had flung themselves overboard before being caught in the flames, and who had found the life-raft floating there--probably they had thrown it over first-- and who had with further good fortune been left behind as the ship drifted on with her residual way so that the explosion did not kill them. Lucky men? It would only be a matter of minutes before they froze to death. Call
Cadena’s
attention to them?
Cadena
was a mile away, and the only way to inform her would be to approach her and hail her with the bull-horn. The chances were she would never find that tiny object; and would he be justified in bringing her back another mile, with a sub within torpedo range? No;
Cadena
was worth more than one or two or half a dozen lives even if they could be certainly saved. Save them himself? In the name of Christian charity? There was no Christian charity in the North Atlantic. It would be imperilling his ship.
Keeling
and her crew were worth a thousand merchant seamen’s lives --two thousand perhaps. Yet--how great was the risk? A life or two were intrinsically worth something. If he left them, if he passed by on the other side, his whole ship’s company would know about it sooner or later. What effect would it have on them? Not a good one. And international amity? Saving those lives would be something to cement Allied solidarity. If he saved them, the news would spread little by little in circles where Allied solidarity was precious.
“Right full rudder,” he said, and then down the voice-tube. “Give me a course to bring me back here.”
The order had come quickly; as the fencer’s quivering foil circles to meet the disengage and the lunge. And a hundred peace-time “man overboard” exercises had at least imbued his mind with the difficulties of the undertaking and the necessarily instant action that must be taken.
“All engines ahead one-third speed. Make turns for six knots.”
“Six knots, sir. Engine-room answers ‘six knots.’ “
“Who’s the junior O.D.?”
“I am, sir,” said a voice out of the darkness. “Wallace, sir.”
“Get down to the port side quick. Get the lines ready. Put a couple of volunteers into bowlines ready to lower them overside.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Hail me the minute you’ve got ‘em out.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Seamanship now; with the rudder hard over
Keeling’s
speed was lessening fast. Charlie Cole’s voice up the tube coached him into position; but with the dark object spotted again he had to swing farther still to bring it on his port side to give it a lee; he had to time his next order exactly as the wind against
Keeling’s
broadside started moving her down, and the wind acting against her lofty forecastle would swing her; he had to allow for that, too.
In a “man overboard” exercise they would have a searchlight running, boats ready to lower, a life-buoy flare to indicate the spot.
“All engines back two-thirds.”
“All engines back two-thirds. Engine-room answers ‘all engines back two-thirds,’ sir.”
“All engines stop.”
“All engines stop. Engine-room answers ‘all engines stopped,’ sir.”
Several difficult seconds now, with
Keeling
rolling dead in the water, her sonar still pinging, the sound of the sea on her starboard side, the sound of the wind about them almost drowning the small noises that reached them from the port side. Silence in the pilot-house. Then Wallace’s voice from below:
“All aboard, sir! We got ‘em! “
“All clear overside?”
“All clear, sir. Ready to go ahead.”
“All engines ahead standard speed.”
“All engines ahead standard speed. Engine-room answers ‘ahead standard speed,’ sir.”
“Left rudder. Meet her.”
That was a necessary order to carry the stern of the ship clear from the abandoned life-raft as they left it behind.
Keeling
came to life again; the unnatural windy stillness was over. Down the voice-tube.
“Where’s
Cadena?”
“Bearing one-eight-seven, distance two thousand.”
“Right standard rudder. Steer course one-nine-zero.”
Cadena
must still be searching for survivors; with that distance and bearing she could not have been heading after the convoy while
Keeling
had made her circle.
“Objects on the port bow! “
“Objects on the starboard bow! “
Wreckage, bits of planking, gratings, hatch-covers, blown from the exploding wreck. No voices. Wallace looming up in the darkness beside him.
“We got four men, sir. Sent ‘em in to the doctor. Two of ‘em were burned, but I don’t know how bad. Couldn’t see ‘em, sir.”
“Very well.”
Perhaps it was very well that young Wallace had not seen the burned men. Krause had seen one or two in his life and never wanted to see another. He must remember that Wallace had done a clean, quick job.
There was the loom of
Cadena
on the port bow, half a mile away; careful observation necessary to determine which way she was heading; careful helm orders to come alongside within voice range. Krause went to the loud-hailer.
“Cadena!”
A faint reply, just audible; the quality indicated a speaking-trumpet.
“Comescort.
Keeling.
We got four survivors.”
“We didn’t get any,” said the speaking-trumpet.
“Head after the convoy now. Course eight-seven. Look out for stragglers ahead.”
“O.K.”
“Left standard rudder. Steer course zero-zero-zero,” said Krause to the helmsman.
Due north was a course as good as any. Somewhere in that direction might be the sub. he had pursued and depth-charged, more likely there than anywhere else, which did not mean very much. He could sweep in that direction as he headed for the flank of the convoy; he had that much time in which to make up his mind whether to continue to patrol astern of the convoy or go on round ahead of it again.
“Gunnery control reporting, sir,” said a talker in the darkness, and then into his mouth-piece, “Repeat, please.”
A few seconds delay before the talker spoke again.
“Gunnery control reports that they believed they made one or two hits firing on the sub the second time, sir.”
One or two hits; they had not prevented the sub from dashing into the convoy, from firing at least one torpedo, and from submerging when he was about to attack her again. Unless she had sunk when he thought her submerging? No; that would be too good to be true. A five-inch shell could go clean through the fragile superstructure of a sub before exploding, and without impairing her diving qualities in the least.