H.M.S. Ulysses Part 35

"And Turner?"

"Sir?"

"I'm sorry." He smiled crookedly. "As old Giles used to say of himself, I'm just a crusty old curmudgeon. Bear with me, will you?"

Turner grinned sympathetically, then sobered quickly. He jerked his head forward.

"How is he, sir?"

Vallery looked at the Commander for a long second, shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Turner nodded heavily and was gone.

"Well, Bentley? What does he say?"

"Bit confused, sir," Bentley apologised. "Couldn't get it all. Says he's going to leave the convoy, proceed on his own. Something like that, sir."

Proceed on his own! That was no solution, Vallery knew. He might still burn for hours, a dead give-away, even on a different course. But to proceed on his own! An unprotected crippled, blazing tanker-and a thousand miles to Murmansk, the worst thousand miles in all the world!

Vallery closed his eyes. He felt sick to his heart. A man like that, and a ship like that-and he had to destroy them both!

Suddenly Tyndall spoke.

"Port 30!" he ordered. His voice was loud, authoritative. Vallery stiffened in dismay. Port 30! They'd turn into the Vytura.

There was a couple of seconds' silence, then Carrington, Officer of the Watch, bent over the speaking-tube, repeated: "Port 30." Vallery started forward, stopped short as he saw Carrington gesturing at the speaking-tube. He'd stuffed a gauntlet down the mouthpiece.

"Midships!"

"Midships, sir!"

"Steady! Captain?"

"Sir?"

"That light hurts my eyes," Tyndall complained. "Can't we put that fire out?"

"We'll try, sir." Vallery walked across, spoke softly. "You look tired, sir. Wouldn't you like to go below?"

"What? Go below! Me!"

"Yes, sir. We'll send for you if we need you," he added persuasively.

Tyndall considered this for a moment, shook his head grimly.

"Won't do, d.i.c.k. Not fair to you..." His voice trailed away and he muttered something that sounded like' Admiral Tyndall," but Vallery couldn't be sure.

"Sir? I didn't catch------"

"Nothing!" Tyndall was very abrupt. He looked away towards the Vytura, exclaimed in sudden pain, flung up an arm to protect his eyes. Vallery, too, started back, eyes screwed up to shut out the sudden blinding flash of flame from the Vytura.

The explosion crashed in their ears almost simultaneously, the blast of the pressure wave sent them reeling. The Vytura had been torpedoed again, right aft, close to her engine-room, and was heavily on fire there. Only the bridge island, amidships, was miraculously free from smoke and flames. Even in the moment of shock, Vallery thought, "She must go now. She can't last much longer." But he knew he was deluding himself, trying to avoid the inevitable, the decision he must take. Tankers, as he'd told Nicholls, died hard, terribly hard. Poor old Giles, he thought unaccountably, poor old Giles.

He moved aft to the port gate. Turner was shouting angrily into the telephone.

"You'll d.a.m.n' well do what you're told, do you hear? Get them out immediately! Yes, I said 'immediately'!"

Vallery touched his arm in surprise. "What's the matter, Commander?"

"Of all the b.l.o.o.d.y insolence I" Turner snorted. "Telling me what to do!"

"Who?"

"The L.T.O. on the tubes. Your friend Ralston!" said Turner wrathfully.

"Ralston! Of course!" Vallery remembered now. "He told me that was his night Action Stations. What's wrong?"

"What's wrong: Says he doesn't think he can do it. Doesn't like to, doesn't wish to do it, if you please. Blasted insubordination!" Turner fumed.

Vallery blinked at him. "Ralston, are you sure? But of course you are... I wonder... That boy's been through a very private h.e.l.l, Turner.

Do you think------"

"I don't know what to think!" Turner lifted the phone again. "Tubes nine-oh? At last!... What? What did you say?... Why don't we...

Gunfire! Gunfire!" He hung up the receiver with a crash, swung round on Vallery.

"Asks me, pleads with me, for gunfire instead of torpedoes! He's mad, he must be! But mad or not, I'm going down there to knock some sense into that mutinous young devil!" Turner was angrier than Vallery had ever seen him. "Can you get Carrington to man this phone, sir?"

"Yes, yes, of course!" Vallery himself had caught up some of Turner's anger. "Whatever his sentiments, this is no time to express them!" he snapped. "Straighten him up... Maybe I've been too lenient, too easy, perhaps he thinks we're in his debt, at some psychological disadvantage, for the shabby treatment he's received... All right, all right, Commander!" Turner's mounting impatience was all too evident. "OS you go. Going in to attack in three or four minutes." He turned abruptly, pa.s.sed in to the compa.s.s platform.

"Bentley!"

"Sir?"

"Last signal------"

"Better have a look, sir," Carrington interrupted. "He's slowing up."

Vallery stepped forward, peered over the windscreen. The Vytura, a roaring ma.s.s of flames was falling rapidly astern.

"Clearing the davits, sir!" the Kapok Kid reported excitedly. "I think-yes, yes, I can see the boat coming down!"

"Thank G.o.d for that!" Vallery whispered. He felt as though he had been granted a new lease of life. Head bowed, he clutched the screen with both hands-reaction had left him desperately weak. After a few seconds he looked up.

"W.T. code signal to Sirrus" he ordered quietly. "' Circle well astern. Pick up survivors from the Vytura's lifeboat.'"

He caught Carrington's quick look and shrugged. "It's a better than even risk, Number One, so to h.e.l.l with Admiralty orders. G.o.d," he added with sudden bitterness, "wouldn't I love to see a boatload of the 'no-survivors-will-be-picked-up' Whitehall warriors drifting about in the Barents Sea!" He turned away, caught sight of Nicholls and Petersen.

"Still here, are you, Nicholls? Hadn't you better get below?"