“And the captain asks me to say good-bye, sir, in case he doesn’t see you again.”
“Very well.” Never had that Navy phrase been of more use than at this moment. But even so it was insufficient-- it was only a stop-gap. “Tell him I’m looking forward to seeing him in Londonderry.”
“Aye aye, sir. The towing hawser’s going out now. They’ll be taking the strain soon.”
“Very well. Report results. Over.”
All the light had faded from the sky now. It was dark, but not solidly dark. It was possible to see, on the starboard beam, the two dark shapes that were
Cadena
and
Viktor. Keeling
was circling about them, her sonar searching the depths, her radar scanning the surface. Krause’s brain took up mathematics again. A circle a mile in diameter was over three miles in circumference; it would take
Keeling
twenty minutes to complete the circle. A U-boat two miles distant from her, well out of range of her sonar, would need twenty minutes at six knots to creep in those two miles to launch a killing spread at half a mile’s range before
Keeling
came round again. He was covering those two ships as effectively as was possible. And it was most necessary that he should. Destroyers were precious.
If he could possibly bring
Viktor
into port he meant to do so. She would be ready for sea again in one-tenth of the time it took to build a new one, and with all her valuable, irreplaceable equipment. And
Cadena
was full of men. She had saved many lives on this voyage; and big oceangoing tugs of her type were scarce and almost as valuable as destroyers. There could be no doubt that his duty lay in covering
Viktor
and
Cadena,
and in leaving the rest of the convoy to the two corvettes. There was some cold comfort to be found in the thought that in this matter he was not confronted by a dilemma calling for painstaking weighing of chances. The T.B.S. demanded his attention again.
“We’re making way now, sir. We’re making three knots and we’re going to work up to five, but the captain’s worried about the bulkheads if we do. She’s steering-- she’s steering after a fashion, sir.”
“Very well. Course zero-eight-five.”
“Oh-eight-five. Aye aye, sir.”
Thursday. First Watch
--
2000-2400
Harbutt saluting in the darkness. “Report having been relieved, sir.” The rest of the formula. “Mr Carling has the deck, sir.”
“Very well, Mr Harbutt. Good night.”
The T.B.S.
“Four knots is the best we can do, sir. The list gets worse if we make any speed. I fancy there’s a flap of plating sticking out from the hole, and it scoops the sea in and it’s bad for the after bulkhead.”
“I understand.”
“We’re learning how to steer her, sir.”
“I understand.”
Here in
Keeling
all was as still as the grave. Over there in that patch of blackness men were working with desperate haste. They were shoring up bulkheads, working in pitch darkness relieved only by the faint light of flashlights. They were trying to patch up leaks, with the deadly gurgle--gurgle--gurgle of water bubbling in around them. They were trying to steer, passing helm orders back from the bridge through a chain of men, struggling with a hand-steering gear while the ship surged unpredictably to port and to starboard, threatening at any moment to part the towing hawser.
“Mr Carlingl”
“Sir!”
A careful explanation of the situation, of
Cadena’s
course and speed, of the necessity to maintain a constant sonar guard around her.
Keeling
must describe a series of ellipses round her as she struggled on at four knots, each ellipse a trifle--an almost inconsiderable trifle--nearer safety. It would be a neat but easy problem to work out how to handle
Keeling
at twelve knots circling round
Cadena
at four.
There were other problems not so easy. With every hour that passed the convoy would be four or five miles farther ahead. It would be long days before
Viktor
could be brought into port. The question of
Keeling’s
fuel supply would become urgent before long. He would have to appeal to London for help; he would have to break radio silence. He could take that bitter decision. He would have to do it. But. . . There were the German direction-finding stations; there were German submarines at sea. Doenitz would by this time be fully aware of the position, course, and even the composition of the convoy; that information would be relayed to him by the subs.
At that rate there would seem to be no serious objection to breaking radio silence. But there was. The moment the German monitoring system informed Doenitz that the convoy had sent out a message he would ask himself the reason, and there could be only one reason--that the convoy was in such bad straits that it needed help urgently. It would be enough to prompt Doenitz to turn every available sub against the convoy. It would tell the captain who had fired on
Viktor
that his torpedo had hit home and that
Viktor
need no longer be reckoned with. If the convoy went ploughing along in silence Doenitz and the sub captains could not be sure that it was not still in a condition to hit back. It was a very important point.
Yet with the convoy practically unguarded and
Viktor
so far from home, help was essential. It was very doubtful whether
Dodge
and
James
had sufficient oil to enable them to reach Londonderry.
Keeling
herself could do practically nothing to beat off a determined attack on
Viktor
and
Cadena.
He had to call for help; he had to swallow his pride; he had to take the risk. His pride did not matter, but it was possible to reduce the risk to a minimum. If he were to send the message now Doenitz could employ the whole night in directing his subs, to the attack. There were seven or eight hours of darkness still ahead, and during those hours there would be little that London could do to help him. It would be better to get the message off later, at one or two in the morning. That would still allow plenty of time for the Admiralty to get air cover over him at dawn, and it would cut down the interval as far as possible during which Doenitz could concentrate against him. Two in the morning would be early enough; his message would go straight through to the highest authority, he knew. Half an hour for that; half an hour for the Admiralty orders to go out; an hour for preparation. Two hours’ flight; be would have air cover at dawn. He would send the message at two in the morning--perhaps at one-thirty.
Krause had reached that decision, standing in the pilothouse with Carling directing the ship as she patrolled round
Cadena
and
Viktor.
He was standing because he knew that if he sat down he would go to sleep. He had already caught himself once actually swaying on his feet. Krause had heard of the Mexican bandit who during the 1917 troubles had kept his district terrorized by his method of executing his enemies. He had hoisted them up nearly to the top of roadside telephone poles, one to each. There with their hands bound behind them they were stood with their feet on the climbing supports and ropes round their necks attached to the tops of the poles. Each man stood there, and as long as he stood he lived. When he tired, when his foot slipped, the noose strangled him. Some of them would stand for days, an example to the whole neighbourhood. Krause was in like case. If he sat down he went to sleep, and if he stood--if he stood, as he was doing now, it was unbearable. Feet and muscles and joints all cried out with agony. Unbearable? He had to bear it. There was nothing else to be said about the matter. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
He must not go to sleep, and so he went on standing, and while he stood he forced his mind to think about the wording of the message he was going to send. A signal should convey all necessary information; then he should tell about
Viktor’s
helpless state, the unguarded condition of the convoy, the fact that he was dropping far astern, the need for fuel--nonsense; it would take all night to tell all his troubles. All he need say was something like “Help urgently needed.” They would know in London that he would not send any message otherwise; with all their experience they could guess his troubles. Then there was no need for the “urgently.” If it was not urgent he would not be asking. Then why say “needed”? The one word “help,” the mere fact that it was sent, would tell the whole story. And there was the faintest possible chance that a single word sent like that might slip unnoticed past Doenitz’s monitoring system. No. That was too wild a hope to be reckoned with, but the brevity of the message would be a serious handicap to the German experts trying to break the code. No, he had forgotten--he must be growing stupid. By cryptographic regulations all short messages must be “padded” with indifferent material up to a minimum length, which Dawson would know about. That was the decision of the cryptographic experts, and he could not contravene it. Yet the main conclusion he was reaching was sound enough. He must appeal for help; at zero-one-forty-five to-morrow he would send out the message with the one word “help” and leave the padding to Dawson.
Having reached that decision, and ceasing to concentrate his mind on the matter, Krause found himself swaying on his feet again. This was quite absurd; he had been awake for less than forty-eight hours, and he had had two or even three hours of good sleep the night before last. He was a weak and beggarly element. He must not merely keep standing but he must keep thinking, or he was lost. Strange that he found himself longing for more action, for more need for quick thinking and rapid decision, to key himself up again. But any further action could only be disaster. His command could face nothing further. He made himself stump up and down on his weary legs in the cramped pilot-house. It occurred to him to send for more coffee, and he told himself he would not be indulging in a slavish habit but taking necessary action to keep himself awake. But first he must go to the head; he put on the red spectacles and went down the ladders He stumbled over the coamings like a farmer at sea, and it seemed to him as if he would never be able to drag his dead-weight body up those ladders again, and yet he did. He simply must not allow this lassitude to overcome him. When he reached the pilot-house he walked again; head up, chin in, chest out, shoulders back as he had done on parade at Annapolis. Until he had braced himself up he would not allow himself more coffee.
It was really something of a relief to be summoned to the T.B.S. again.
“Eagle to George. Do you hear me?”
“George to Eagle. I hear you. Go ahead.”
“Submit that we abandon ship, sir.” The cynical English voice was not cynical. It was grave; there was a little break in it before it went on. “Very sorry, sir.”
“You have no choice?” asked Krause.
“The collision mats weren’t large enough, sir. Nor was the hand-billy pump. The water’s been gaining on us steadily--we couldn’t keep it under and it came in faster all the time.”
So it would; the lower the helpless hull sank the greater would be the number of holes below the surface and the greater would be the pressure forcing in the water.
“We’ve fifteen degrees of list now and the main-deck’s under water abaft the bridge, sir.”
“I’m sure you’ve done all you can. Permission granted to abandon ship,” said Krause. “Tell your captain I have no doubt he has done all in his power to save his ship. And tell him I am sorry about his bad luck.”
The tired brain was being driven to work normally, to choose carefully the right words to employ towards an ally.
“Aye aye, sir,” said the English voice, and then the old nonchalance came back into it. “Well, good-bye for now. sir, and thank you for a nice party.”
Krause turned away from the T.B.S. unhappily. When he had first heard that voice he had never dreamed for a moment that he would come to feel something of affection for its owner.
Friday. Middle Watch
--
2400-0400
It was just light enough in the pilot-house to be aware of the change of watch, talkers handing over head-phones, the wheel being relieved, Carling saluting.
“Mr Nystrom has the deck, sir.”
“Very well, Mr Carling.”
“Good night, sir.”
“Good night, Mr Carling. I’ll take the conn, Mr Nystrom.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
With a couple of helm orders he edged
Keeling
up closer towards the dark patch that was
Cadena
coming alongside
Viktor.
At one moment they distinctly heard a few words coming down wind and over the sea--someone was using a speaking-trumpet and it had traversed in their direction.
“Sonar reports loud breaking up noises, sir,” said a talker.
“Very well.”
That was the requiem of a brave ship. It was two and a half years since
Viktor
had got away from Gdynia in defiance of all the power of the Luftwaffe, and had escaped from the Baltic in the teeth of the Nazi Navy. For two and a half years she had fought a desperate fight; she had been the only home left to her exiled crew, and now she was gone.
Four blasts from
Cadena
’s siren, startlingly loud in the night. “F” for Fox--rescue completed.
“Come right handsomely. Still right. Meet her. Steady.”
He took
Keeling
carefully up to within hailing distance of
Cadena
--watching like a hawk as she turned--and then stepped out to the bull-horn.
“Cadena!
Comescort.”
The speaking trumpet hailed back.
“Have you saved everyone?” asked Krause.
“Yes. We’ve got ‘em all.”
That was a great relief. Krause had had a momentary mental picture of the British liaison officer with all his insouciance falling between the two grinding hulls with his bones snapping as the water leaped at him.
“Course zero-eight-seven,” hailed Krause.
“Eighty-seven,” said the speaking trumpet.
“Make your best speed to rejoin the convoy.”
“Twelve knots if I can,” said the speaking trumpet.