“Give me a course to intercept if the target maintains course at six knots,” he said into the voice-tube.
“Aye aye, sir.”
It would hardly be different from the present course; on the surface the U-boat must have been making about twelve. He could have produced a close approximation in his head. The tube called him.
“Course zero-nine-six,” it said.
A trifling variation, but would make a difference of a full mile in ten minutes at this speed. He turned and gave the order to the quartermaster, and then turned back to the tube.
“Warn me when we are within two miles,” he said. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“Steady on course zero-nine-six,” said McAlister.
“Very well.”
About nine minutes to go; it would be best if the ship’s company were told of the situation. He addressed himself to the loudspeaker again.
“The U-boat has dived,” he said into the unresponsive instrument. “He appears to have dived, at least. We are going on looking for him.”
A more sensitive man that Krause, a man with the telepathic perception of the orator, might have been aware of the atmosphere of disappointment that pervaded the ship as he stepped away from the instrument. He looked at the clock again and strode out on to the wing of the bridge. The wind there was tremendous, what with
Keeling’s
twenty-two knots practically added to the northeasterly wind. There was dense spray flying, too, freezing cold. As he looked aft he could see the unfortunate men stationed at the depth-charge racks cowering for shelter; it was well that the routine even of battle stations allowed them regular relief. He raised his glasses. He could just make out in the murk, very vaguely,
Viktor’s
peculiar foremast, a speck of more solid grey in the general greyness. With
Keeling
leaping and rolling as she was, and with the spray flying, it was impossible to make out more detail than that, and although he swept the rest of the horizon astern with the glasses he could see nothing else at all. Radar would tell him instantly where the convoy was, but that was not what he wanted. He wanted to see with his own eyes what would be the condition of the battlefield if battle there should be, if miraculous good fortune should lead to a U-boat being located between
Keeling
and
Viktor.
He turned and swept the horizon ahead; the same grey murk, the same vague junction of sky and water. But should a U-boat surface within range of the 40-mm. guns her bridge would be visible enough to look-outs and gun crews and gunnery officer.
He came back into the pilot-house with his eyes on the clock. The messenger sprang forward, still holding out the sheepskin coat he had sent for long before. Long before? Not so long, measured in minutes. He put his arms into it and the weight of the coat pressed his clothes against his body. His body was cold but the clothes were colder still, chilled down to freezing-point by the forty-knot wind that had blown between its fibres. He shuddered uncontrollably at the contact. He could hardly bear it. Hands, limbs, and body were frozen; he found his teeth chattering. It had been folly to go out on the open bridge without being fully bundled up; he had not even put on his sweater under his uniform coat. If he had caught young Ensign Hart doing anything as foolish he would have bawled him out. Even now he was not properly clad; sweater, gloves, and scarf were all missing.
He mastered the chattering of his teeth and hugged the coat to him in the comparative warmth of the pilothouse so as to make the chilly contact as brief as possible, for warmth to creep back from his revivifying body into the thick woollen underclothing against his skin. He would send for the rest of his clothes in a moment. The voice-tube summoned him.
“Two miles, sir.”
“Very well.” He swung round, too cold to use the full formula. “Standard speed.”
“Standard speed,” repeated the hand at the annunciator. “Engine-room answers ‘Standard speed.’ “
That was self-evident at once. The churning vibration died away magically, to be replaced by a more measured beat that seemed by contrast almost gentle, and
Keeling
ceased to crash, shatteringly, into the waves that met her bow. She had time to lift and to incline to them, to heave herself up the long grey slopes and to corkscrew herself over them, so that again by contrast her motion seemed almost moderate.
“Get the sonar going,” ordered Krause, and the words were hardly out of his mouth before the first ping made itself heard through the ship, succeeded before it had died away by another ping, and by another after that, and another, so that the ear, already long accustomed to the monotonous sound, would soon have omitted to record it, were it not that on this occasion everyone in the pilothouse was listening to it intently, wondering if it would reveal an enemy. That monotonous ping, each ping an impulse, feeling out through the dark water in search of a foe creeping along in the depths; it searched slowly to the left, and slowly to the right, searching and searching. This was the hearing ear of Proverbs Twelve, taking over the task of radar’s seeing eye.
Did the last ping sound different? Apparently not, for there was no report from sonar. Down below was Radioman First Class Tom Ellis. He was a graduate of the Key West Sound School and had been in the ship since the outbreak of war; presumably efficient when he came, he had spent the intervening months listening to pings, eternally listening, from watch to watch during all the time
Keeling
had been at sea. That was not to say he was more efficient than when he left the Sound School; it might mean the reverse. At Key West he had gone through a few hurried exercises. He had listened to the echo from a friendly submarine, had noted the variations of pitch as the submarine altered course under water, had taken the bearing and estimated the range; he had been hurried through a couple of lessons on enemy counter measures, and then he had been sent off to sea to listen to echoes. And never since had he heard one; the vibrations he had sent out had never bounced back to his listening ear from a submarine, friendly or hostile; he had no refresher exercise, and most certainly he had never played the deadly game of hide and seek with an enemy. It was humanly possible that now he would not recognize an echo if he heard one; it was certainly likely that he would not draw the instant deductions from the nature of the echo that were necessary if an attack were to be successful. A depth-charge dropped within ten yards of its target meant a probable victory; a depth-charge dropped twenty yards away meant a certain failure. The difference between ten and twenty yards could be accounted for by the difference between the prompt reactions of a practised operator and the tardy reactions of an unpractised one.
And that still left out of consideration the question of nerve; there was no way of knowing as yet whether Ellis was nervous or cool, which was not the same thing as being cowardly or brave. A man could grow flustered merely at the thought of failure, without even thinking as far as the possible censure of his division officer or his captain. Fingers became thumbs, quick wits became slow, in certain men, merely because much depended on accurate manipulation or rapid thinking. Ellis down there could hardly fail to be aware that success or failure hinged upon his sole efforts, upon the delicacy with which he turned his dial, the deductions he had to make from a variation in the quality of the echo. That could make him stupid or clumsy or both. The fact that failure might mean a torpedo into
Keeling’s
side which would blow Ellis and his instruments into fragments, was not so important, Krause knew. Plain cowardice was far rarer than idiocy, just as plain courage was more common than nerve. Krause thought about Ellis as he knew him, sandy-haired, a most ordinary type of young man, except perhaps for the slightest hint of a cast in his right eye. He had addressed him personally a dozen times at most. Those few sentences exchanged at inspections and brief interviews could tell him nothing about the man upon whom now everything depended, the young seaman standing at attention, the young seaman indistinguishable in a line of others at quarters.
The seconds were creeping on as
Keeling
rolled and pitched and staggered her way forward over the waves; Krause stood balancing on the heaving decks in the silence of the pilot-house--silent despite the din of wind and water outside. It was a surprise when the talker spoke.
“Sonar reports contact, sir.”
The talker was a short, stocky man with a misshapen nose; the large helmet, apparently over-large to accommodate his ear-phones, gave him a gnome-like appearance.
“Very well.”
Everyone in the pilot-house was doubly tense at the news. Watson took a step forward; other men fidgeted. No need to harass Ellis with questions; on the contrary, it might fluster him. Ellis must be presumed to know what was wanted of him until the contrary should be proved.
“Contact bearing zero-nine-one,” said the talker. Ellis was passing the first test, then. “Range indefinite.”
“Very well.”
Krause could not bring himself to say more than those words. He shared the tenseness of the others; he could feel the beating of his heart and the sudden dryness of his throat. He looked over at Watson and jerked his thumb; he knew that hand would tremble if he allowed it to; this was buck-fever, unmistakably. Watson sprang to the repeater with the order to McAlister, staring down at the compass repeater.
“Contact bearing dead ahead, sir,” said the talker. “Range still indefinite.”
“Very well.”
This talker was good at his job. Each word was uttered expressionless and distinct. It was like a schoolboy repeating a recitation learned by heart without any understanding at all. Emotion in a talker was a most undesirable quality.
“Contact bearing dead ahead, sir,” said the talker again. “Range two thousand.”
“Very well.”
They were bearing straight down at the U-boat, then. Krause had his watch in his hand; it was an effort to read the sweeping second-hand.
“Range nineteen hundred yards.”
A hundred yards in fourteen seconds? With
Keeling
going twelve knots? There was something quite impossible about that figure. That was just her time to go a hundred yards, and the U-boat would hardly be lying still. Any other figure than that would be more promising. Those range estimates depended entirely on the accuracy of Ellis’s ear. They could be completely wrong.
“Range eighteen hundred yards.”
“Very well.”
“No contact, sir. Contact lost.”
“Very well.”
It was to be guessed that the talker was repeating exactly word for word what Ellis down below was saying into his mouthpiece. On that evidence it was to be assumed that Ellis was not flustered, at least not as yet.
“Captain to sonar. ‘Search on the starboard bow.’ “
The talker released his button. “Sonar answers ‘Aye aye, sir.’ “
“Very well.”
What was the contact that had been made? Some will-o’-the-wisp effect of a cold layer? A
pillenwerfer
bubble released by a U-boat? It may have been a real contact broken off by some intervening condition. But it was important that they had made contact almost exactly at the point where contact was to be expected if the deductions he had made from the radar indication were correct. Then the U-boat had been on a course at a slight angle-to
Keeling
’s, crossing from port to starboard. The likeliest possibility was that she was still maintaining that course after letting off a
pillenwerfer;
but there was also the chance that she had been moving very slowly across
Keeling’s
bows--slowly enough for the reported range to have remained constant for a time--and had then taken sudden evasive action, going deep and turning; turning in which direction? The sonar pinged on monotonously; minutes were passing, precious minutes. Five minutes meant that
Keeling
was at the last indicated position; it also meant that the U-boat was half a mile or more from it. It might mean, too, that she was aiming a torpedo for
Keeling
’s vitals.
“Sonar reports contact, sir. Port beam, range indefinite.”
So he had been wrong in thinking she had continued her course to his starboard side; but there were no seconds to spare to think about it.
“Left full rudder.”
“Left full rudder,” repeated McAlister.
The desire to increase speed was passionate within him; he wanted to hurl
Keeling
down along the bearing of the new contact, but that was inadvisable. Already at this snail’s crawl he was going as fast as the sonar would tolerate.
“Report all bearings as relative,” he ordered. “Contact bearing port five-zero, sir.”
“Very well.”
Keeling
was still turning; she had not come round far enough, when the echo returned, to be pointing straight in the direction of the previous one.
“Contact starboard zero-five. Range twelve hundred yards.”
Excellent.
Keeling’s
speed might be a snail’s crawl, but that of the submerged U-boat was slower still.
“Contact starboard one-zero. Range twelve hundred yards.”
The U-boat was turning too. Her turning circle submerged would be considerably smaller than
Keeling’s.
“Right full rudder.”
“Right full rudder.”
Speed above versus manoeuvrability below. But with the rudder hard over
Keeling
would lose speed; two opponents evenly matched. Green water crashed over
Keeling’s
low waist as she heeled on the sharp turn.
“Contact starboard one-zero. Range steady at twelve hundred yards.”
“Very well.”
Turning exactly together. This high sea was reducing
Keeling’s
manoeuvrability; a moment’s smooth would give her the chance to come round more sharply, if only one would come.
“Range eleven hundred yards.”
They were cutting down on the U-boat.
“Bearing?” snapped Krause, to regret the question instantly. The talker could only repeat what was coming to him through his ear-phones.
“Bearing starboard one-zero.”
“Very well.”
Bearing constant, range growing less.
Keeling’s
greater speed was prevailing over the U-boat’s smaller turning circle. In time--in time--
Keeling
would cut across the U-boat’s track, would pass over her, would destroy her.