Алистер Маклин - HMS Ulysses

‘Sorry, old man,’ Turner apologized. ‘It seems things are pretty bad on the Sirrus .’

‘I see.’ Brooks shivered. It might have been the thin threnody of the wind in the shattered rigging, or just the iceladen wind itself. He shivered again, looked upwards at the sinking flare. ‘Pretty, very pretty,’ he murmured. ‘What are the illuminations in aid of?’

‘We are expecting company,’ Turner smiled crookedly. ‘An old world custom, O Socrates – the light in the window and what have you.’ He stiffened abruptly, then relaxed, his face graven in granitic immobility. ‘My mistake,’ he murmured. ‘The company has already arrived.’

The last words were caught up and drowned in the rumbling of a heavy explosion. Turner had known it was coming – he’d seen the thin stiletto of flame stabbing skywards just for’ard of the Ohio Freighter’s bridge. The sound had taken five or six seconds to reach them – the Ohio was already over a mile distant on the starboard quarter, but clearly visible still under the luminance of the Northern Lights – the Northern Lights that had betrayed her, almost stopped in the water, to a wandering U-boat.

The Ohio Freighter did not remain visible for long. Except for the moment of impact, there was neither smoke, nor flame, nor sound. But her back must have been broken, her bottom torn out – and she was carrying a full cargo of nothing but tanks and ammunition. There was a curious dignity about her end – she sank quickly, quietly, without any fuss. She was gone in three minutes.

It was Turner who finally broke the heavy silence on the bridge. He turned away and in the light of the flare his face was not pleasant to see.

‘Au revoir,’ he muttered to no one in particular. ‘Au revoir. That’s what he said, the lying . . .’ He shook his head angrily, touched the Kapok Kid on the arm. ‘Get through to WT,’ he said sharply. ‘Tell the Viking to sit over the top of that sub till we get clear.’

‘Where’s it all going to end?’ Brooks’s face was still and heavy in the twilight.

‘God knows! How I hate those murdering bastards!’ Turner ground out. ‘Oh, I know, I know, we do the same – but give me something I can see, something I can fight, something–’

‘You’ll be able to see the Tirpitz all right,’ Carrington interrupted dryly. ‘By all accounts, she’s big enough.’

Turner looked at him, suddenly smiled. He clapped his arm, then craned his head back, staring up at the shimmering loveliness of the sky. He wondered when the next flare would drop.

‘Have you a minute to spare, Johnny?’ The Kapok Kid’s voice was low. ‘I’d like to speak to you.’

‘Sure.’ Nicholls looked at him in surprise. ‘Sure, I’ve a minute, ten minutes – until the Sirrus comes up. What’s wrong, Andy?’

‘Just a second.’ The Kapok Kid crossed to the Commander. ‘Permission to go to the charthouse, sir?’

‘Sure you’ve got your matches?’ Turner smiled. ‘OK. Off you go.’

The Kapok Kid smiled faintly, said nothing. He took Nicholls by the arm, led him into the charthouse, flicked on the lights and produced his cigarettes. He looked steadily at Nicholls as he dipped his cigarette into the flickering pool of flame.

‘Know something, Johnny?’ he said abruptly. ‘I reckon I must have Scotch blood in me.’

‘Scots,’ Nicholls corrected. ‘And perish the very thought.’

‘I’m feeling – what’s the word? – fey, isn’t it? I’m feeling fey tonight, Johnny.’ The Kapok Kid hadn’t even heard the interruption. He shivered. ‘I don’t know why – I’ve never felt this way before.’

‘Ah, nonsense! Indigestion, my boy,’ Nicholls said briskly. But he felt strangely uncomfortable.

‘Won’t wash this time.’ Carpenter shook his head, half-smiling. ‘Besides, I haven’t eaten a thing for two days. I’m, on the level, Johnny.’ In spite of himself, Nicholls was impressed. Emotion, gravity, earnestness – these were utterly alien to the Kapok Kid.

‘I won’t be seeing you again,’ the Kapok Kid continued softly. ‘Will you do me a favour, Johnny?’

‘Don’t be so bloody silly,’ Nicholls said angrily. ‘How the hell do you–?’

‘Take this with you.’ The Kapok Kid pulled out a slip of paper, thrust it into Nicholls’s hands. ‘Can you read it?’

‘I can read it.’ Nicholls had stilled his anger. ‘Yes, I can read it.’ There was a name and address on the sheet of paper, a girl’s name and a Surrey address. ‘So that’s her name,’ he said softly. ‘Juanita . . . Juanita.’ He pronounced it carefully, accurately, in the Spanish fashion. ‘My favourite song and my favourite name,’ he murmured.

‘Is it?’ the Kapok Kid asked eagerly. ‘Is it indeed? And mine, Johnny.’ He paused. ‘If, perhaps – well, if I don’t – well, you’ll go to see her, Johnny?’

‘What are you talking about, man?’ Nicholls felt embarrassed. Half-impatiently, half-playfully, he tapped him on the chest. ‘Why, with that suit on, you could swim from here to Murmansk. You’ve said so yourself, a hundred times.’

The Kapok Kid grinned up at him. The grin was a little crooked.

‘Sure, sure, I know, I know – will you go, Johnny?’

‘Dammit to hell, yes!’ Nicholls snapped. ‘I’ll go – and it’s high time I was going somewhere else. Come on!’ He snapped off the lights, pulled back the door, stopped with his foot halfway over the sill. Slowly, he stepped back inside the charthouse, closed the door and flicked on the light. The Kapok Kid hadn’t moved, was gazing quietly at him.

‘I’m sorry, Andy,’ Nicholls said sincerely. ‘I don’t know what made me–’

‘Bad temper,’ said the Kapok Kid cheerfully. ‘You always did hate to think that I was right and you were wrong!’

Nicholls caught his breath, closed his eyes for a second. Then he stretched out his hand.

‘All the best, Vasco.’ It was an effort to smile. ‘And don’t worry. I’ll see her if – well, I’ll see her, I promise you. Juanita . . . But if I find you there,’ he went on threateningly, ‘I’ll–’

‘Thanks, Johnny. Thanks a lot.’ The Kapok Kid was almost happy. ‘Good luck, boy . . . Vaya con Dios . That’s what she always said to me, what she said before I came away. “ Vaya con Dios .”’

Thirty minutes later, Nicholls was operating aboard the Sirrus .

The time was 0445. It was bitterly cold, with a light wind blowing steadily from the north. The seas were heavier than ever, longer between the crests, deeper in their gloomy troughs, and the damaged Sirrus , labouring under a mountain of ice, was making heavy weather of it. The sky was still clear, a sky of breath-taking purity, and the stars were out again, for the Northern Lights were fading. The fifth successive flare was drifting steadily seawards.

It was at 0445 that they heard it – the distant rumble of gunfire far to the south – perhaps a minute after they had seen the incandescent brilliance of a burning flare on the rim of the far horizon. There could be no doubt as to what was happening. The Viking , still in contact with the U-boat, although powerless to do anything about it, was being heavily attacked. And the attack must have been short, sharp and deadly, for the firing ceased soon after it had begun. Ominously, nothing came through on the WT. No one ever knew what had happened to the Viking , for there were no survivors.

The last echo of the Viking ’s guns had barely died away before they heard the roar of the engines of the Condor, at maximum throttle in a shallow dive. For five, perhaps ten seconds – it seemed longer than that, but not long enough for any gun in the convoy to begin tracking him accurately – the great Focke-Wulf actually flew beneath his own flare, and then was gone. Behind him, the sky opened up in a blinding coruscation of flame, more dazzling, more hurtful, than the light of the noonday sun. So intense, so extraordinary the power of those flares, so much did pupils contract and eyelids narrow in instinctive self-protection, that the enemy bombers were through the circle of light and upon them before anyone fully realized what was happening. The timing, the split-second co-operation between marker planes and bombers were magnificent.