Lieutenant-Commander Scovell stepped up on to the gratings, his face expressionless as he said, ‘First watchmen closed up, sir.’ He turned as two sheets of spray as high as B turret burst on either side of the forecastle.
Fairfax knew the first lieutenant disliked him for some reason, and guessed he was watching his every move.
He asked, ‘Did you pass the word to the lookouts?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Scovell glanced at the sky. It was less glaring already. Soon there would be a cool breeze, darkness, while the ship continued to hurl herself through the sea. Scovell added, ‘Nothing from W/T yet.’
He moved away to supervise his watch, leaving Fairfax with his thoughts and his anxieties.
Fairfax made to lift his binoculars but let them fall to his chest. What was the point? The bridge was shuddering and jerking like mad, and he heard Villar cursing quietly as some of his instruments rolled off the chart table.
Fairfax stared wretchedly at the horizon. It was beautiful now that the real heat had gone for the day. The horizon was shark blue, like a darker barrier to the rest of the ocean. Above, the sky was tinged with orange where it met the sea’s edge. It should have been one of the best evenings in his life.
He tried to think back clearly, see what he had done, calmly, like a spectator.
Andromeda
had been under way, standing clear of the mainland with a solitary patrol boat to see her clear, when they had received the signal about the missing aircraft. Signals had crackled through the atmosphere, some sort of a search had been ordered, but Fairfax knew from his orders and intelligence pack that there were few big aircraft spare for proper coverage. The eastbound
convoy around the Cape would soon be due and the westbound one would need air cover too if the raider was still on the rampage.
Andromeda
was ordered back to her temporary home at Williamstown. She had no part in the missing aircraft and would be needed for another patrol as soon as she was in position.
Quite suddenly Fairfax had made up his mind, although looking back it seemed as if it had been done for him. He had sent for Scovell and the engineer commander and had told them what he knew.
‘I intend to alter course and look for that Catalina. It may be afloat and only damaged. They’ll need help. There’s nobody else.’
Scovell had said in his precise manner, ‘Local patrols will be alerted. A flying-boat on the surface, even allowing for drift, should be visible.’
It had sounded like a challenge. As if Scovell was stating his own position before things went wrong.
Fairfax pounded his hand on the rail below the screen. Well, things had gone wrong all right. At maximum revolutions the ship had swung round and headed north-east away from her proper course. For two days they had kept it up with only rare reductions of speed while Weir and his men had checked or repaired some new strain or fault in their machinery.
Weir had been just as Blake had said. Like a rock. He had never complained, and when he had last spoken with him on the telephone Weir had said curtly, ‘It’s no a matter of choice, sir. You did the right thing, in my view.’
Fairfax removed his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. Weir’s view would not be the one laid out on the court martial table.
He thought of Sarah, how she would take it. Fair enough at first. But later, would she see his ruined career in the same light? If it had not been Blake,
Andromeda
would have maintained her proper course and speed. Fairfax knew it and everyone aboard would be thinking it.
Shoes scraped on the gratings and he saw Villar watching
the sea as it swept down the port side like a white-topped sluice.
‘What do
you
think, Pilot?’ Fairfax knew he should not involve the navigating officer but could not just sit there. Waiting, having the anxiety gnawing at his insides like hooks.
Villar regarded him calmly. ‘When I was with the Union Castle we lost a hand overboard. One of the ship’s orchestra, as a matter of fact. Blew all his cash playing poker and got himself pissed.’ The South African looked at him without any pity in his eyes. ‘Trouble was, he wasn’t missed until the next morning. One of the first class passengers wanted the idiot to play for his birthday!’
Fairfax turned away. Villar was a hard man. An excellent navigator, and he guessed he would be good to be with in a tight corner. But you would never know him.
Villar added, ‘The Old Man turned the ship round for that drunken bum. Found him, too.’ He shook his head. ‘Bloody fine, eh?’
Fairfax said quietly, ‘You are telling me there’s a chance?’
‘There’s always a chance, sir.’ Villar paused as he made to leave the gratings. ‘They’ll say you did right. You see, sir.’
Fairfax turned in the chair and beckoned to Sub-Lieucenant Walker.
‘Get Lieutenant Masters up here, will you, Sub?’
He returned to his thoughts. The Catalina must have crashed. He was wasting time as well as risking his own neck.
Villar came back, his face grim. ‘Signal from W/T office, sir. To
Fremantle
repeated
Andromeda
.’ He peered at a signal pad. ‘
Most immediate. Unidentified vessel reported in position latitude thirty-six degrees south longitude sixty east. Sighted by whaling supply vessel
Tarquin.
No further information
.’
Fairfax slid from his chair, his mind cringing. ‘Take over, Number One.’ Then he led the way to the chartroom where Villar’s yeoman was already plotting the latest sighting on his chart.
‘Where’s
Fremantle
?’
Villar’s brass dividers measured off the vast span of ocean, each metallic click like derision. ‘Too far, sir. Whereas
we. . . .’ The dividers moved remorselessly to the pencilled line of
Andromeda
’s original course.
Fairfax gripped his hands tightly behind his back. But for leaving to search for a crashed aircraft,
Andromeda
would have been within half a day’s steaming of the other ship’s alleged position.
As if to rub salt in the wound Villar added, ‘Very close to where the Dutchman
Evertsen
was sunk.’
Masters lurched through the door. ‘Ouch, sorry, sir, but the old girl’s rolling a bit.’
Fairfax asked, ‘Is your plane ready to fly off?’
Masters nodded. ‘Yes, sir. When?’
Fairfax was staring at the little pencilled crosses on the chart. Ignominy for trying to save life, whereas he would be well praised if he came on the raider. He looked at the widening triangle between
Andromeda
and her recommended course. Even now, if Weir could coax some more knots out of his over-worked screws, they might be able to track the enemy, especially if another report came through.
It seemed as if everything was going wrong. Whatever they tried to do the enemy knew in advance, or so it appeared. It was like hunting a blind man in a pitch-dark room.
Villar said softly, ‘Shall I lay off a course to intercept, sir?’
They were all looking at Fairfax. Masters, unusually tense, Villar, dark and watchful, and the young seaman named Wright who was the navigator’s yeoman.
Fairfax did not reply directly. To Masters he said, ‘Do you think the Catalina would break up?’
Masters looked at the chart. ‘No. The weather reports were good. Those milk-run pilots know their job and the planes are tough. If they had time to put down without crashing it must have been urgent. Fire maybe, in which case they would take to the life-rafts.’ His eyes were still on the chart, the vast span of the Indian Ocean. ‘I know the captain could take care of himself. I’m not sure about the others.’
Scovell ducked through the door, his gaze moving curiously across the little group at the table.
‘Sir? Chief’s on the phone.’
Fairfax nodded. ‘I’ll come.’
On the open bridge it felt clean after the oppressive atmosphere of the chartroom. He picked up the handset.
‘Chief? Commander here.’
‘I’d like to know if I can send some of my key ratings off watch. They’ve been working full-time for hours, and if we keep up these revs I’m going to need every experienced man I’ve got.’
‘Is it that bad?’
‘It’s no critical, sir, but I’ve never had her going at this speed for so long.’
Over the telephone Weir’s Scots accent sounded more pronounced.
‘Give me revolutions for twenty knots, Chief. Will that help?’
‘Aye. For the moment.’ The slightest hesitation, as if Weir hated to link his engineroom with the affairs of the bridge. ‘Is there no news?’
‘None.’
Fairfax replaced the handset and walked to the side of the bridge.
To Scovell he said, ‘We will reduce to twenty knots. Pilot, lay off a course to intercept that unidentified ship and check it by the hour. Get your assistant up here to help you.’ He turned towards Masters. ‘I shall want you airborne as soon as it is light enough for you to make a recce.’
Masters said, ‘Fine.’
Villar snapped to his yeoman, ‘Shiner, fetch Lieutenant Trevett, chop, chop! Can’t have all these Aussies sitting on their backsides, now can we?’
Scovell stood his ground. ‘So you’re not going after the raider yet, sir?’
‘Is that what you would have done, Number One?’
Scovell shrugged. ‘I’m not in command, sir.’
Fairfax felt the eyes watching from around the bridge. What did they feel? Contempt, amusement, anger, indifference? Whatever it was, it all seemed to flow straight from Scovell.
Fairfax said quietly, ‘No, you are not, Number One. But I think you just answered my question anyway. Well, don’t
worry too much. You will be whiter than white, whatever happens!’
He swung back towards the chair, conscious of Scovell’s look of shocked surprise and his own petty victory.
A shadow moved up from the interior companion ladder. It was Moon, his jacket pale against the grey steel. He held out a small tray and uncovered a pot of coffee. He did it with a kind of shabby flourish, as if he was trying to convey something.
He said, ‘Made it meself, sir. From me special store. Just like the cap’n ’as.’
Fairfax took the cup in his hand, suddenly grateful for Moon’s private gesture.
‘Thanks. That was a nice thought.’
Moon blinked through the screen, his eyes watering in the breeze coming back from the bows.
Fairfax said softly, ‘It’s all right. We’re still looking. I’m not turning back.’
Moon dusted an invisible speck from his napkin. ‘Course not, sir. Told ’em you wouldn’t. Not your style, that’s what I told ’em, sir.’
Fairfax let out a long breath. It had been a close thing. But for Moon? He shook his head. Now he might never know.
Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander Edgar Bruce grunted with exasperation as he peered at Blake’s blistered shoulders.
‘Easy, sir, you can’t expect to carry on as if nothing had happened.’
Blake, naked but for a clean towel, sat in his day cabin, trying not to listen to the ship’s movements around him, to accept what had so recently been an impossible dream.
Andromeda
had steamed in a slow circle around their rubber dinghy, and as a motor boat had been lowered and sent to collect the four survivors, Blake had seen his men lining the guard-rails or standing up in the gun sponsons to wave and cheer.
It must have been a strange sight, he thought. Captain Quintin being carried across the quarterdeck by the
sick-berth attendants, the young American sailor, chin in the air with recovered pride although he had been almost blinded with emotion, and the girl, bare-legged, bloodied and yet so beautiful in the soiled drill tunic.
He glanced at Fairfax who had stayed with him since he had been hoisted aboard. If anything, Fairfax looked as if he had suffered with them, and even his great grin of welcome did not completely erase the strain from his face.
Blake said, ‘See that the American lad is well looked after. Let Masters have a chat with him, show him the recognition cards. I think the plane was an Arado 196, but Masters may be able to glean something I’ve missed.’
He turned and winced as the surgeon dabbed something on his back. ‘What did you make of Quintin, Doc?’
Bruce smiled. ‘He’s too old for this sort of lark, sir, but as tough as they come. He’ll not be up and about for quite a bit. But for the dressings he’d have lost a leg, no doubt about that.’ He stood back and wiped his hands. ‘There, sir, best I can do if you’re determined not to take it easy.’
Blake saw Moon hovering by the door. His face seemed to be all teeth and his eyes were lost in slits of obvious pleasure.
Blake said, ‘A shave and a clean shirt will do for the present, Doc.’ He hesitated. ‘How’s Second Officer Grenfell?’ Could it all change so swiftly? With death within reach he had called her Claire. This seemed like a betrayal.
‘I’ve put her out, sir. She’ll sleep like a top until tomorrow. I’ve got her in my cabin. I feel more at home in the sick-bay. I hardly ever left the blessed place when we were in the Med.’
‘She’s going to be all right?’
Blake knew Fairfax was watching him with sudden interest but he did not care.
‘I’ve examined her thoroughly. Nothing broken. Outwardly she’s as good as new.’ Bruce shrugged. ‘Later . . . well, we’ll have to see.’
Blake looked away, picturing the girl lying naked on Bruce’s table.
He said, ‘I’ll be returning to the bridge, Doc. Keep me posted.’
As the surgeon left Blake asked, ‘Any further sighting reports on the unidentified ship?’ He knew it was troubling Fairfax more than he had admitted.
Fairfax said, ‘No, sir. I guess the whaling supply vessel made off at full speed, just to be on the safe side. D’you think there’ll be trouble about it when we get in?’
‘We’ll worry about
that
later.’
Blake stood up and felt the deck reel under him. It had been like that since he had been hauled from the dinghy. Survivors rescued from life-boats after weeks, even days on the open sea could rarely walk properly for a long time after being picked up.
‘We know more than we did, Victor. The raider carries at least one seaplane. That gives her captain a far greater area to cast his net. Also, it can warn him about any threatening warships in his vicinity.’ He looked at his hands. ‘We also know that the man who commands the raider has no feeling for human life. The seaplane was merely an instrument. The German captain knew what he was doing.’