Blind Into Doom Submarine contact! "Missed astern, sir," Fawcett said. "He dived back into a cloud." Duncan barely heard him. He was listening for, dreading to hear, another sound, while he watched to see what action the screen would take. This was not his province. It belonged to Captain Sherwood. Though junior to himself both on the Navy List and in his command, Sherwood was senior officer of the escort group: U-boats were his business. His own destroyer, leading ship of the starboard screen, heeled on the turn so acutely that Duncan was able to see the whole of her upper- deck. Swinging with the same despatch and hard-over rudder, the second destroyer followed him round. "Standby for manoeuvring," Duncan said, and Pilot passed it down to the wheelhouse and thus the engine-room. If the U'boat had fired, a shoal of torpedoes could be heading for Warwick. James Edmond Macdonnell is one of the most prolific writers in Australia today, His books have been translated into many languages, selling in the millions throughout the world. And he is still writing... He served in the Navy before, during and after the War, climbing up through the hawsepipe from ordinary seaman to officer in the gunnery branch. This experience of both lowerdeck and wardroom provided invaluable insight into his fictional characters. He lives with his wife, two daughters and a son in the shorebound Sydney suburb of St. Ives, ISBN 0 7255 1078 1 but his main interest, apart from sports cars, lies in swapping stories, of varying degrees of truthfulness, with old shipmates THE COLLECTOR'S SERIES MAKES A COMPLETE NUM- BERED PAPERBACK LIBRARY SET OF J.E. MACDONNELL'S CLASSIC BEST SELLING NAVAL ADVENTURE NOVELS Index FORWARD .............................................................................. .6 Chapter One ............................................................................. .7 Chapter Two. ........................................................................... 12 Chapter Three. ........................................................................ 28 Chapter Four. .......................................................................... 36 Chapter Five. ........................................................................... 41 Chapter Six. ............................................................................ 50 Chapter Seven. ........................................................................ 57 Chapter Eight. ......................................................................... 64 Chapter Nine. .......................................................................... 70 Chapter Ten............................................................................. 74 Chapter Eleven. ....................................................................... 79 Chapter Twelve. ...................................................................... 87 Chapter Thirteen. .................................................................... 93 Characters: ....135837 Words: ......28497 Sentences: ........ 2534 Paragraphs: ........ 1021 BLIND INTO DOOM J.E. Macdonnell HORWITZ PUBLICATIONS BLIND INTO DOOM Distributed by: Cap_One Productions © April 2002 (Ver 1.0) Find me on Undernet in channels: Rockwarez, 0-day-warez, mp3ftp Australia, Bringing Australian Autors to the world. Programs Used: Adobe Pagemaker 7, Acrobat Writer, FineReader 5, Adobe Photoshop 4, Windows Write. This is a pre-release: the only checking has been by FineReader & Pagemaker on any spelling errors, when I find time I will read the book again and I will be checking it against the original Distributed by Horwitz Grahame Books Pty Ltd 506 Miller Street, Cammeray, Sydney, Australia, 2062 Copyright © 1972 by J.E. Macdonnell Classic edition 1979 Collectors edition 1986 National Library of Australia Card No. and ISBN 0 7255 1935 5 Printed in Australia by The Dominion Press - Hedges & Bell Sutton Road, Maryborough, Vic. 3465 Typeset by Love Computer Typesetting Typeset by Cap_One, Australia Published in Australia by Adobe Pagemaker 7 Printed to Adobe Acrobat *Recommended price only (he deserves the money buy the book, it is worth it) FORWARD In this book the main vehicle is somewhat larger than usual-we step up from two thousand tons of destroyer to ten thousand tons of heavy cruiser and so at the start I would like to make an explanatory point. It concerns the bridge. In a cruiser this term takes in the forebridge, the compass platform, and two steps down and behind it the plotting- office, as well as certain other positions. Since the captain, both in action and during happier times, alternates fairly frequently between these positions, I think it would be easier for non-naval readers if I simply referred to them as the bridge. After all, they are sited adjacent to each other in the one structure. The siting of more separate positions, such as the High Angle Control Position and the Transmitting Station, will be described as the story shifts to them. And as the story mentions of necessity certain well-known officers of high rank in high positions, these have been given their correct names; I believe it to be needless specious to place "Admiral Smith" as Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet instead of the actual incumbent, Admiral Sir John Tovey. However, this book is a work of fiction-though many of the incidents described did happen- therefore the conversations, the actions, the mistakes and so-forth of its characters are not meant to represent those of any actual persons, alive or dead. This applies particularly to my principal character, even though he is based, at least as regards nature and skill and fighting toughness, upon a captain under whom I served, but many thousands of miles away from the area dealt with herein. He is dead now, by vice of a simple accident in London shortly after the war, and it gives me pleasure to resurrect his memory through the following pages. CHAPTER ONE CAPTAIN Richard Duncan, D.S.O. and Bar, Royal Navy, looked upon his domain and found it good. Certainly the homeward-bound convoy was still several hundred miles from Liverpool, which placed it still under the threat of U- boat attacks and the attention of Condor reconnaissance aircraft, but Duncan was the type of man who thought of a bottle as being half- full instead of half-empty, and he was now thinking of the thousands of miles safely astern in lieu of those ahead. In her capacity as heavyweight cover for the convoy, cruiser Warwick steamed well to the north of it, but even without the glasses which hung round his neck Duncan could see his charge-the incredible whole thirty-eight ships of it-steaming in formation like the Home Fleet at drill. Well, not quite so precisely, he smiled a little at his fancy. And some of those funnels down there were producing smears of black which would never be tolerated in a warship. But the smoke had produced neither torpedoes nor bombs, and that was all that mattered. That, and the weather. It was mid-morning. Along with the rest of his men at stand- easy, Duncan was enjoying a sweet cup of coffee made with unsweetened condensed milk. The season was early summer. Even devotees might have thought thrice before entering the water off Bondi or Cottesloe, but Duncan was thinking how pleasant it would be to remove his serge jacket, for he had come through an Atlantic winter and spring (there were some who swore you couldn't tell the difference), and this weather was little short of heavenly. Duncan put down his thick cup-it would be inadvisable to use Sevres china here-on a small wooden shelf with sides reserved for his use, and stretched his arms. The officer of the watch noted this captainly gesture, as he did most of Duncan's, and felt like emulating it. He also felt oddly pleased and relaxed, for a captain's manner can affect his juniors in many subtle ways. Unaware of the effect he had produced, Duncan quartered the sea to the north of him, found it innocent of nasty objects like full battleships or the pocket variety-there had been times, and names - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 7 - like Bismarck and Admiral Scheer-then he looked at the sky. This was coloured a washy sort of pale blue, nothing like the cobalt tropics, yet Duncan found the sky most pleasant, for like the sea it was empty. Ahead lay a bank of cloud, low above the horizon and rising, but in his job the premature crossing of bridges was a practice definitely to be frowned upon. Seize today, Horace advised, and put as little trust as you can in the morrow. To which maxim of the Roman poet Duncan might have added: And don't worry your damn head off about cloud that probably holds nothing but moisture. Satisfied, he brought his eyes down and let them patrol over the ship. Many things, small yet each in its own way significant, caught his attention. The ship's grey upper-works were crusted with salt that returned a million winks to the sun's smile: since leaving Halifax the weather had not always been so benign. But quite easily it could change again, and there was no point in washing-down paintwork. Almost directly below him on the foretop hung one of the seaboats, a 32-ft. cutter. Near its bow he saw a group of three or four seamen, enjoying the ten-minute break and the weather with their overall tops rolled down. They were pale-skinned, but this wasn't the Mediterranean and Duncan took no notice of colouring. What he did notice was that one man leaned back against the top guardrail with his arms crossed. This attitude placed most of his weight, and his whole life, upon that wire. If he fell from that position on the deck he would surface just in time to be sucked down again by both port screws, and there chopped to pieces. It was against Captain's Standing Orders, as well as the dictates of commonsense, to lean or stand on a guardrail. Duncan waited a moment. The seaman, a heavy fellow, shifted his weight from one foot to the other but otherwise retained his leaning posture. Yet under the peculiar alchemy of discipline it was undesirable for the captain personally to correct a misdemeanour which did not urgently and obviously affect the safety of the ship. Duncan started his turn towards the officer of the watch. Movement caught his eye. He turned back and looked down. Coming along the foretop deck was a bow-legged leading-seaman. Though - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 8 - fully in Duncan's view, the chatting group had not noticed him. Duncan waited. He was somewhat disappointed and irritated, for he himself had rated Lusby leading-seaman, and Lusby was striding past the group. Now he also would have to be dealt with. Then the situation changed. Lusby halted and swung round, frowning as if at recognition of his own remissness. He spoke. He was captain of one of the twin 4-inch, and required to drill its crews. He spoke roughly, sharply and definitely. The seaman jerked away from the rail. "Use yer bloody melon," Duncan heard. "You wanna meet one of them choppers for Gawd's sake?" "Not me. I just wasn't thinkin'." "Nah, course you wasn't. I'm cox'n of the seaboat. It's nice'n clean. I don't want it all fouled up with blood and guts, now do I? Watch it, mate." Lusby moved on and Duncan turned away, smiling behind the hand stroking his nose. It was a good nose, big and with character, bending down to meet the straight firm lips of his breed. Naturally his face was weathered, bearing also those narrowed eyes and corner wrinkles of the seaman, yet at the same time refined. Not all officers were gentlemen: Duncan had that distinction. "Good man, Lusby," a voice said behind him. Duncan recognised the voice and so turned his head calmly, to see a rotund man of about his own age with the three rings of a commander on his sleeves. This face, too, held the marks of wind and sun and worry, and a crinkle-eyed geniality, for Commander Blake was an equable man. Mostly. "Yes," Duncan nodded, realising that Lusby had had a closer watcher. "I didn't hear you come up, Slippy." The nickname referred not to Blake's stealth of progress round the ship but to a certain facility he was blessed with which in his earlier days had allowed him to avoid the consequences of unseemly escapades he'd had a regular habit of getting into. Now, of course, he was more soberly inclined, helped to this frame of mind by the addition of a wife and seven children. He and Duncan had been shipmates a long time, from destroyers up through light cruisers and battleships, and when Duncan had been given Warwick a year ago - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 9 - he had specifically asked for Blake as his deputy. Neither man had found cause to regret it. "What's the strife?" asked Duncan. "On a morning like this?" Blake smiled. He looked across at the convoy, and just the smallest amount his eyebrows drew together. "Things have been too damned good." "Rubbish. Convoys have come through before without being attacked." "Of course. But without even the sniff of a U-boat contact? Or a plane?" "Blast you," Duncan said mildly. "This was such a pleasant morning." "Always pays to look on the gloomy side." "Not on the bridge, if you don't mind." Duncan gestured ahead. "What do you make of that?" Blake had noticed it as soon as he'd stepped on deck. "Nimbus," he answered professionally, "growing and sailing towards. Probably pelt down all afternoon." "But well before then you'll have taken your gloom off the bridge," Duncan jibed; Warwick's bridge was open. Blake chuckled. "It will wash the old girl down. Good thing, too. There's a moon tonight, and that salt will sparkle like a Christmas tree." The thought had already occurred to Duncan, as had the obvious, and silly, antidote. Soberly, he said: "You're right about that. Just in case your nimbus fails to deliver, it might be a good idea to hose down the funnels and upper-works." "Good," Blake nodded in agreement, "I'll get the Buffer on to ..." He frowned at the captain. "But the hoses use salt water." Then he saw the grin in Duncan's eyes. "Thought you had me there, didn't you?" he growled. "Didn't I? "Hmmmph. Are you doing rounds this morning?" Morning?" "Good Lord." Duncan was genuinely surprised. "Is it Saturday?" "If it's not, then several hundred scrubbing sailors will hate my guts." - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 10 - Duncan paused before giving his decision, looking up to the northward. At any minute that emptiness could be broken by the trucks of masts borne upon armour-clad platforms. But that was speculation; he had received no radio warnings of major enemy units breaking out from the Baltic or Norway. Of course they could have sailed unseen under cover of rain or fog. Still speculation. But captain's rounds were fact. For centuries the professional competence of every commander and first lieutenant in the British Navy had to be tested on Saturday mornings-weather and the enemy permitting. Normally on Atlantic convoys men were too weary every morning to do little else but clear up their breakfast mess and crawl into their hammocks after a horrible and sleepless night. Captain's Saturday rounds would have been a stupid and cruel imposition. But this convoy was different. Miraculous if you like, but still different. And Slippy had mentioned scrubbing sailors... Obviously both he and the men had been preparing the ship since breakfast. They would be cursing, a normal pastime, but they would be disappointed if he failed to inspect the results of their labours. Suddenly, even apart from that, Duncan wanted to see his men and let them see him-close up, speaking distance. "Yes," he said, and was rewarded by Blake's quick smile before the commander cancelled it and asked: "Usual time?" Had it been so long since Saturday rounds, Duncan wondered, that the age-hallowed time had to be checked? "Eleven," he nodded. "But we won't linger, Slippy." "Understood, sir." Both men, as naturally as eating, looked to the north, then Blake hurried off to pass the word. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 11 - CHAPTER TWO THE magazines of the shell-rooms were not on Duncan's itinerary. The Commissioned Gunner had those on his slop-chit, inspecting them daily and checking their air-conditioning systems kept the temperature steady, for cordite was stable only so long as it was kept from heating up. On this pleasant Saturday morning Duncan's interest was for the messdecks, the flats or compartments between-decks, and the 600 ft.-long upper-deck. This large area of wooden planks laid on four inches of armour plate was divided into four sections, or parts of ship-the foc's'le, running from the stem back to either side of the bridge structure; the maintop on the starboard side amidships; the fore top on the opposite side; and the quarter-deck aft. In easier times the whole reach of wooden planks was holystoned every Friday and washed down with salt water first thing on Saturday morning. Given any sort of sunshine and the decks dried to the whiteness of a hound's tooth. In some ships long canvas runners were laid down, and God help any man, especially a stoker with oily boots, who stepped off them. This sort of pristine cleanliness was a delight to see, even if a solid pain in the arse to achieve, but unhappily the moonlit decks were also a delight for pilots and bomb-aimers; now Warwicks wood was painted a dull sea-merging grey. This caused the four petty- officer captains of tops much distress, and their sailors vast pleasure; you have never known real toil until you have knelt all day with your bare knees on wet sand and a holystone the size of a large brick in each hand... rubbing, rubbing, inching your way along what seems to be a limitless stretch. Having those blasted decks painted was one of the few blessings of war. Captain Duncan started aft and worked forward. He was preceded by the Master-at-Arms (the senior of all ratings in the ship and almost as remote and awe-inspiring as himself), and followed by an entourage of officers. The inspection's ostensible function was to check the cleanliness of the ship, but as this was in the proven hands of Commander Blake and the captains of tops Duncan's examination - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 12 - was more apparent than real. Instead, his memory was at work. Here, in the wardroom flat, he saw not the polished cortisone but the score of bloodied bodies lying on it and groaning, waiting their turn at the surgeons' hands in the wardroom-cum-operating theatre. Down there, in the midshipmen's study flat, fire from the incandescent head of an exploding shell had raged so fiercely that the aluminium kit lockers had melted and also burned. That had been particularly nasty, with the cordite of X-magazine only yards away. He paused in the regulating-office flat, one of the largest `tweendeck spaces in the ship. Its deck and paintwork required the day-long attention of two men. Only one, the senior of the two, was in attendance. He was a two-badged able-seaman, and Duncan knew that he worked the long-handled scrubber each morning while his ordinary-seaman helper did the dirty work of wiping up on hands and knees. But that was the peculiar privilege of seniority, even though neither man had any real disciplinary authority, and to change this process might invite bloody revolution... The senior rating stood stiffly to attention, looked his lord in the eye, and snapped: "Regulating-office flat ready for inspection, sir!" Duncan nodded. His voice was pleasant. "So it is, Able-Seaman Ogilvie. One almost needs sun-glasses down here." This was praise unprecedented. Ogilvie's dutiful smile stretched uncontrollably into a grin. The entourage smiled. Blake's eyes held a gleam of mischievous malice. He moved outboard a little. "How is your leg?" Duncan asked. Ogilvie had been one of those men lying outside the wardroom, brought down from a pom-pom. He was so pleased at the captain's interest and memory of the event that involuntarily he flexed his right leg. "She's apples, sir. No trouble at all now." "Splendid," Duncan murmured, and moved on. Not Blake. He knew that Ogilvie was inclined to be jack-stroppish, and harder than was necessary on his ordinary-seaman minion. While Ogilvie watched him, frowning, Blake reached down behind a large - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 13 - electric motor which fanned air through the ventilation punkas. On the ship's side behind it he found what he expected, and in the dust, with his finger, he wrote the date. A brief wordless glance at Ogilvie and then he was through the watertight door into the next compartment, and let loose his grin. That paintwork would be spotless before next captain's rounds; before, in fact, two minutes had passed. And Ogilvie's self-esteem had been reduced a peg. Here, at the head of the ladder leading down to the stokers' mess, a happier memory for Duncan. It had been last Christmas Day, the messdecks decorated with gubbins ranging from old Christmas cards to fresh toilet paper. Across the hatchway he was now about to descend through had been stretched a cord: it supported half a dozen rubber condoms, extended, and a crudely lettered sign which proclaimed BOOM DEFENCE. Blake had frowned uneasily. The engineer-commander had glared blue bloody murder. Duncan had chuckled, then unhooked the cord and gone down to wish his stokers a merry Christmas. Now he came up again from the black-gangers' domain, back to the foretop messdeck, and noticed a stirring amongst his entourage. The bosun's mate broke through, momentarily more important than the lot of them combined. Duncan read the expression in his young face-urgent but not alarmed. "Yes, lad?" "From the officer of the watch, sir. It's started to rain." "Visibility?" "Still good, sir, and the convoy's still in sight." "Very well. "Duncan hesitated. He knew all eyes were on him, but was used to that sort of attention. His mind worked swiftly. Instinct urged him to get back up there, where he could see, and judge for himself. But the officer of the watch knew his business-visibility still good-and there was only the foc's'le messdeck left. They'd been scrubbing woodwork and washing paintwork and tidying-up all morning; it would be bad to disappoint them, so close to the area of their toil. "Tell the officer of the watch I shall be up in five minutes," Duncan said, and moved on round the big steel barbette of B-turret, its nourishing tooth which reached down to the shell-handling room. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 14 - He stepped over the hatch coaming and saw a familiar face waiting. "Foc's'le messdeck ready for inspection, sir," said Leading- Seaman Lusby. Duncan had enjoyed his perambulations. Lord knows his movements in this hostile area were circumscribed enough, consisting mainly of journeying between his sea-cabin and the bridge. He felt contented, almost happy, and so he said: "You were wrong, y'know." "Come again? Ah...beg pardon, sir?" "You wouldn't have dirtied the seaboat. Two propellers like those? There would have been nothing to pick up." Lusby had a face marked by more than weather. His nose was bent sideways by the fist of a Liverpool Irishman, while the slice from a broken beer bottle had puckered the left corner of his upper lip so that his eyetooth permanently showed. Now at Duncan's words all his teeth showed, and of them all only Blake knew why. Duncan moved forward towards the canteen flat, and Lusby thought, Blimey, you don't miss much, which was precisely what the captain wanted him to think, for upon such little things is power of command built and maintained. Duncan stepped into the canteen flat, almost in the eyes of the ship, and there behind his little counter on top of the half-door waited the brown-skinned, brown-eyed, bespectacled and perpetually worried face of Virgil Zammit the canteen manager. He was Maltese; but then, at a rough estimate, about ninety-nine point recurring of big-ship canteen managers were Maltese; and like most of his compatriots, Virgil Zammit had been attached to the Navy longer than most of the officers now present. "Well, Mr. Zammit, how is business?" Duncan smiled. He walked towards the canteen door held open for him and with jolting abruptness the action alarm jangled. Duncan whirled, remembering as he did so that the nearest access to the upperdeck was the wide ladder leading up from the galley flat. While men pressed back on each other, he ran. It was undignified progress, but he didn't give a damn about that, and neither did they. Blake followed him, then the rest. Duncan was panting when he made - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 15 - the bridge. His stare darted straight to the officer of the watch. "Focke Wulffe Condor, sir," the lieutenant answered, "bearing fine on the starb'd bow, heading towards the convoy. It came out of that cloud, suddenly." Duncan had his glasses up. Though flecked with rain, the lenses showed him the long slender fuselage and the four engines of an enemy which was hated almost as savagely as U-boats; the vulture which kept out of gun-range, taunting them with its immunity, while at regular intervals it signalled the convoy's position, course, speed and size; even designating the juiciest targets, which were the tankers. The officer of the watch came away from a telephone. "We've intercepted transmissions, sir." This was dread news, yet his tone was calm; fair enough, seeing he stated the obvious. Duncan nodded once, keeping his glasses up. Another voice, drawlingly slow, spoke beside him. It was the gunnery officer, Lieutenant-Commander Fawcett, and he did not always speak like that. "He seems pretty intent on the convoy, sir. I wonder..." "I was thinking the same thing, Guns. The rain, grey sea, grey hull. If he continues down this side of the convoy, looking towards it and away from us..." Fawcett had a close-shaven, manicured, gentle and almost effeminate look about him. He did not always look like that, either. "If we alter course at once, sir," he said in a slightly quickened tone, "we might get in close enough for the four-inch. Even if we only damaged him he'd have to turn back." With the convoy making a large alteration of course to throw-off any U-boats, Duncan mentally cemented his decision. No need to kill: just one shell bursting close enough would do it. He swung. "Starb'd thirty, Pilot, increase to thirty knots. Guns, warn the four-inch. Ten thousand tons takes time to swing. While she was about it Duncan had the Condor in his glasses and Warwick's manoeuvre in his mind. She was turning away from east towards south. Now the plane was on her port bow but still heading for the convoy, and still between it and Warwick. Plainly they had not been sighted else the German would have banked at once away from those deadly twin- - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 16 - barrelled four-inch. The remissness of the plane's crew was understandable-every man would be staring down at what had been found; counting, identifying, gloating. Thirty-eight ships, loaded to the plimsoll with cargoes beyond price, their fat bellies simply waiting to be ripped open by torpedoes. On the other hand, Warwick was only temporarily unsighted. Already her wake was piled up high, and the bow- waves. She was leaving a big white trail. From up there it must be standing out like a shout. Just one glance to the northward, from one German, and her detection was certain. But he had only a few minutes granted him, and every second had to be used to get his guns in range; and they must be fired before the plane turned left to pass round the rear of the convoy. Duncan glanced at the speed log. Its needle was creeping past 25. Good girl, he thought, feeling through his feet the shaking power of her. She had 80,000 horsepower in her eight boilers, and Chief would be using most of that to get her up quickly. Duncan looked aft past the Walrus amphibian on its catapult to the high-angle director. The steel box, young brother to the main- armament director above his head, was pointed at the plane. And below it the four grey barrels on the port side of the four-inch gundeck were aimed in the same direction, with their oily snouts cocked up to maximum effective elevation. Before raising his binoculars again he glanced at Fawcett. "Any minute now, sir," the gunnery officer drawled. Duncan hoped he was speaking metaphorically and not literally. An actual minute must see them sighted. Leading-Seaman Lusby was feeling the same fearing impatience. Even without Fawcett's warning it was obvious what the captain meant to try; just as plain was the time factor, and its shortness. Lusby's gun was P2 - the second, after, mounting on the port side. Behind P1, some ten yards to his right, stood Petty-Officer Copeland, officer of quarters of the gundeck and thus in charge of the whole eight guns; the conductor of this bassoon orchestra, now tuned-up but silent. Lusby had only brief and occasional interest for Copeland. For the umpteenth time his eyes ran over his own gun. It was a mark 16 - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 17 - mounting, the latest. The twins were beautiful guns, semiautomatic, firing a 351b. shell at better than two thousand feet per second, and each could deliver twenty rounds a minute. They were dual-purpose, capable of firing just as effectively at a surface target, and used fixed ammunition. Thus Warwick, if engaged both sides at once, could hurl from her 4-inch gundeck one hundred and sixty shells every minute. Lusby was not at the moment interested in statistics. He took in his men; all in overalls, anti-flash hoods, steel helmets, long fire- resistant gloves reaching to their elbows, and heavy boots. Considering their present target only the boots would be necessary, but vitally so-one of those heavy brass cordite cylinders ejecting from a gun and finding an unprotected foot could splinter its bones and leave him one loading number down. He was standing on a platform beside the breech of the left gun- the senior position. Apart from overall command of the gun's operation, it was his specific duty to check the left gun's loading and then, with the breech sliding shut, to slam the palm of his hand up under the firing interceptor and complete the electrical circuits to the gunlayer in the director. Given the differences in size, loading mechanism and so forth, the four-inch used the same fire-control principles as Warwick's main weapons. Lusby wiped his fingers over the brass nipples of the interceptor contacts. This was an automatic gesture-of all things, those points were kept free of grease, immaculately clean-and performed while his sight roved over the loading numbers. He had three to each gun. They stood in rear of the mounting, with ammunition like oversize rifle cartridges cradled in their arms. The noses of the shells were lowered, ready at a word to be thrust into the mouth of each automatic fuse-setting machine. Once in there the fuse forming the shell's nose would be set so as to explode correctly for height and range, within lethal bursting distance of the target. This was a miracle performed in the High Angle Control Position below the director, with the simple fuse-setting figure being the result of a logarithmic sum whose ingredients included enemy range, angle of sight, speed, barometric pressure, and even the wear in each barrel. And this sum was being continually solved, the fuse- - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 18 - setting constantly changing, as ship and plane drew closer together. No Army battery's predictor could equal Warwick's fire-control system, yet good though it was its answers could be upset, for even at two thousand feet per second shells take time to reach up ten thousand feet, and in that period a plane at three hundred knots can quickly dive or swerve. For this reason high-angle gunnery was not so accurate as surface shooting. Even so, Lusby's weapons enjoyed two advantages. First, their targets were relatively flimsy and carried an eager ally-high-octane fuel; second, four 351b. shells bursting together in the pen produced a great quantity of heated, tearing splinters, some of them larger than a man's fist. The four-inch were no rapid-fire machineguns, but neither did they fire bullets. Lusby's practised examination had taken only seconds. He pulled his gloves on tighter and looked up at the plane. Captain Duncan had hardly taken his eyes off it. The Condor was now almost right ahead, still out of the convoy escort's gun range but still steady on its original course. Duncan had no worry about the escorts-they were Navy, and to their captains his intention would be obvious-but he prayed that no merchantman skipper got jittery enough to flash a signal to him regarding the Condor. If this happened then at least some German eyes would turn curiously northward to check on the signal's addressee. Now the big plane was directly ahead, with Warwick's bridge masking the four-inch line of fire. Duncan had to turn in order to bring two of his anti-aircraft mountings back on the bearing. He could alter to port or starb'd. But the port-side guns, which included Lusby's, had been on the target; their crews would be tensed, wound- up for action. Their attitude of readiness might gain only a few seconds, but with four shells a lot could happen in only one second. "Starb'd twenty," Duncan ordered. By now she was moving fast, and that amount of rudder swung her to the right at once, yet without heeling her over too much. The stem sliced round and in a moment Lusby's trainer shouted "Target!" Then P1 reported on and the four guns were ready. Fawcett listened to a brief report. He looked at Duncan. The - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 19 - captain nodded. With no drawl in his voice at all Fawcett snapped: "Open fire!" The director was also ready. Its control officer said: "Commence, commence, commence." More urgently, running the words together, Lusby's phone number shouted: "Commence commence commence!" The port side of the gundeck exploded into action. Into the fuse-setting machine went the first shell; out, across and rattled into the breech. Rammed hard in by a fist with a leather pad protecting the knuckles, the rim at the base of the cartridge met the ejectors and freed them. At once, under tension of its spring, the shiny solid breechblock greased shut. In a swift arcing movement Lusby's hand slammed up under the interceptor, and his shout cracked across the deck. "Left gun ready!" Three other voices yelled as one. There was a split second while the director layer's mind said Fire and his muscles obeyed, then the gun deck shook. Brightly yellow against the grey, four muzzle flames lanced skyward and out from her side burst the brown smoke, to be whipped astern by the thirty-knot wind she was making. Lusby had not the slightest interest for all this. As though he were starving and the breech-block were a plate of meat, his eyes were riveted on it. There came the thud of closing, his hand whipped up, and the guns roared again. From the time of loading that first shell three seconds had passed. "Come on you bastards, get `em in!" Lusby shouted but silently in his mind. He knew they were loading fast.Again the guns recoiled and spat, and again and again. Now the waiting was over, and the crews swung into a smooth cycle of rapid efficiency. No man amongst them-not even the layers and trainers, who were intent on their director pointers-had any idea where the shells were bursting, or if they were bursting at all. There was no time for sightseeing; time only to fuse them, to get them in and away. At that moment their whole world was circumscribed to the small area around the rear of the guns. Petty-Officer Copeland could see where the shells were bursting, - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 20 - and Fawcett and Duncan, but none of these specialists uttered a word. It was good shooting, but not good enough, with the black bursts blossoming beneath the target. And now the Condor was alarmed; banking to swing away, lifting one of its great pinions and dipping the other. And exposing its belly. Lusby swore it was a shell from his gun, which of course was an absurd and indefensible claim. But they were all elated then, and so with obscene chiacking they allowed his claim. Duncan was not worried about which shell had "Condor" printed on it. He felt extremely worried about the target's turn-away, for it was futile to chase even with shells a target opening the range so quickly. And then, in half a breath, his concern was swamped gloriously in a surge of exultation. It was either a direct hit or a very close near-miss. No matter. Almost the whole of the Condor's belly became obscured by smoke. The impetus of speed carried her clear in an instant. Both parts of her. The forward section-wings, engine, cockpit-tilted and plunged vertically for the sea. The lighter after part, sliced clean through by the shell's dreadful scythe, dropped relatively slower, and spun like a flywheel with the resistance of air against the tail planes and rudder. "Cease firing," Fawcett drawled-formally, for Lusby's lot had already been given the word from the director. Duncan heard the order, but subconsciously. He was fascinated by that madly gyrating tail section. Did it hold men? Certainly the tail gunner. The poor devil would be pinned by centrifugal force against the side of his position, held immovable while he waited for the smash of impact. Or would the spinning have flogged his mind to unconsciousness? Duncan hoped it had. Someone shouted. His eyes flicked downward in time to see the white upthrust of the forward part's entry. That was all he saw, for the engines' weight had dragged the lot straight under. No point in looking for survivors, he was thinking, when a familiar voice spoke. "Captain, sir," said the navigating officer. "Is it your intention to take station on the other side of the convoy? By steaming straight through the middle of it?" Duncan's sight darted at the convoy. It was not that close. But, by God, it was safe! Even now lumbering round on the turn which - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 21 - would take it clear of the signalled area. And so Duncan was glad to play along with his navigator's jibing and obviously relief-based attitude. "Thank you, Pilot. What on earth would we do without you? Please come down to twenty knots and resume our covering position." "Aye aye, sir." Now it was Fawcett's turn. He stood there with a deadpan expression on his face as spurious as a seven-inch shell. Duncan waited, apparently watching the bow come round. Fawcett waited. At last he coughed, gently. Duncan glanced at him. "Cordite smoke, Guns?" "I expect it is, sir. There was, ah, rather a lot of it..." Duncan chuckled, a deep mouth-closed gesture that shook his belly. "All right, Guns, no need to put it in writing. Well done. You might pass that on to the gundeck." "Wilco, sir, thank you." "And secure action stations." The word was passed by P/A. Duncan leaned on the windbreak and watched men drop from the two manholes of B-gunhouse, noticing with secret pleasure the pleasure in their faces and the way they talked. Few of them would have seen the Condor, and none of them its end, but the main director would have passed the information to all turrets, even down to magazines and shell-rooms. Duncan felt pleased because he knew how they hated those big remote vultures, and so far as he knew no other escort had shot one of them down. There was one man who knew nothing of the Condor's fate. His action station was deep down in the Remote Control Position. Here, five decks down, were fitted a steering wheel, engine-room telegraphs, a repeat gyro compass and a voice pipe. It was an auxiliary control position, to be used in the event of the main bridge instruments being shot to uselessness. There was only one officer amongst the small group of men, yet in the whole ship he was junior only to the captain, for if the bridge were so badly damaged as to be inoperative it could be assumed that the captain would be similarly out of action, and the R.C.P. would have to take over the handling of the ship. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 22 - On receiving the order to secure, Commander Blake hoisted his tubby body up the vertical iron ladder and then climbed other slanting ones till he emerged on the upper-deck. The first things he noticed were that the rain had stopped and that Warwick was running directly away from the convoy, northward. Then he saw that the columns of merchantmen were lumbering round in a large alteration of course, and he knew well enough what that meant. But of the other thing he knew nothing. Walking forward along the deck, trying not to appear hurried, he passed at least fifty men, any one of whom could have told him the Condor's fate. But as a commander and deputy-lord of the ship must not appear to hurry when there was no longer an emergency, so must he not appear to be ignorant of something which everybody else knew. It was a subtle situation, to do with discipline, and only one man could solve it. Blake found him seated in his high-backed chair, smoking a pipe. "Bloody lovely," Blake growled. "I have a telephone in that hole you know, not to mention a voice pipe." Duncan was genuinely surprised. "Sorry, old chap, never occurred to me. It was only one plane, and took a few minutes. Anyway, I knew you'd be up." "Well, here I am." Duncan took a deep lungful of smoke and exhaled it slowly, which told Blake how relieved he was. "We shot him down," Duncan said. "Damn good shooting, actually, got him just as he started to turn away. Poor devil broke in half, sliced clean through. Must have been nasty, coming down." "Shocking, poor devils," Blake said, in a tone which told Duncan he was thinking it was nasty going down with U-boat torpedoes in your ship's belly. "He got a signal off?" "Yes." Duncan waved his pipe astern. "But the commodore's doing something about that." "Fine," Blake nodded, "providing all available U-boats are to the south. If there's a pack up north we could be running right into it." "An unanswerable assumption, Slippy, even if verging towards - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 23 - pessimistic." Duncan drew on his pipe again, just as deeply. "No doubt you're also thinking that now our friends know a convoy is in the area they'll send another Condor?" "That's right. Just as you're hoping that Coastal Command will send out something to deal with it." "Clairvoyance," Duncan smiled. "With that advantage, I'm sure you will have no hesitation accepting a small wager." "Which is?" "I'll bet you a bottle of Scotch we make Liverpool without sighting a U-boat or a Condor." "You're on. Trouble is, when will you settle? Scotch?" "Yes, that may have been a bit reckless. Let's say two bottles of stout." "Can't stand the stuff. Beer." "Done." There conversation was as idle as it reads, though far from pointless. Men relieved from the threat of death, either to themselves or their colleagues, do not usually incline towards polemics of philosophy; at least not practical fighting men like these. The wager was silly, of course-a U-boat could be lining-up a tanker at this moment-but joking about it eased the strain on taut-stretched nerves, and Duncan in particular needed that relief. If the Condor had not been shot down, then all the course alterations in the world would not have been worth a number; their effect nullified the moment they were made by the German's radio. Then the U-boats would have collected, hurrying for the kill at surface speed superior to the convoy's, and then some ships were certain to be blown open. This would have been especially hard for Duncan. The convoy had come so far, so safely, and it would be horrible to lose even one ship now. He had no responsibility as regards U-boat attacks, Warwick being unfitted to combat that sort of nastiness, but she was by far the largest ship of the escorting force, a comparative giant, and he was its senior officer, and the nature of the man made him feel an overall protectiveness towards those thirty-eight brave ships. Thus the Condor had worried his nerves raw, and so he was glad to talk even light-heartedly, especially that way, with his deputy and friend. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 24 - Naturally Blake had also been worried, but in the nature of things, less so. Such is the privilege of being not in command. Right now he was looking eastward, mentally seeing the drab, dirty and desirable port of Liverpool, and thinking of who was waiting there. He hesitated before speaking. But Duncan's wife, who had left him just before the war for some reason which Blake was quite unable to understand had returned to her husband. And that happy event had happened some months ago. As well, it seemed to Blake that not talking about her could be construed as a deliberate attempt to smooth a delicate subject, thus making the thing more obvious. Indeed, his silence might be taken as evidence that he disliked her. This was not the case. Blake said, he hoped not too casually: "I imagine you still have Celia cooped up in that paradise of dirt and rubble?" "Oh yes," Duncan answered at once, and knew he had spoken too quickly, just as he understood Blake's careful phrasing of his question. Under different circumstances Blake would have simply said, "Is Celia still in Liverpool?" but that could carry the implication that he believed she might have cleared out again. "We have a room at the Royal" Duncan went on. "It's bigger than the chart-table there, a little, and the service..." He stopped. Blake knew where he stayed ashore, for God's sake; every executive officer did. "Oh damn!" he said suddenly, and turned to look straight at Blake. "It's all right, now, Slippy. Everything." Blake very nearly said I wasn't thinking about that. Instead, he held his friend's gaze and answered: "I'm glad, Richard, for both of you. Bloody glad." He was glad, too when the navigating officer called from the binnacle: "We've reached our covering position, sir." "Thank you, Pilot. Put her on the convoy's course." "Aye aye sir." When Duncan turned his head back Blake was surprised to see him quietly smiling. He wondered if the poor devil was relieved to have it out in the open, at last. God knows he had gone through hell during her absence. Then Duncan surprised him again. "Can you - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 25 - guess," he said, "why Celia left me?" Blake snared at him, then: "I'm damned if I can!" he snorted. "That bloody young whippersnapper Gerard wasn't fit to lick..." "Gerard is dead," Duncan broke in on him quietly, "and saved the ship before he died." Blake nodded, regretting his outburst. Duncan had spoken the simple truth. Lieutenant Gerard had taken Celia to Europe just before Hitler marched, but after that he had joined Warwick as officer of A- turret; and in a fierce action had died while personally flooding the magazine, thus preventing the ship's forepart from being blown off. "It wasn't Gerard, Slippy," Duncan said, looking distantly over the bow. "Celia left him the day they landed in Naples. She told me that in my cabin after we'd picked her up from that freighter, remember?" Blake nodded again, mutely. Now he was regretting something else-his harsh treatment of Gerard while he'd been in the ship, believing him to be guilty of cuckolding the captain. Thank God Duncan did not know about that. "And then," Duncan said, even more quietly, "she told me the other thing. I can hear her now, Slippy, I remember every word. "I didn't run away with Dickie Gerard, Richard, I ran away from you'." Blake shook his head. He was a blunt man and he spoke that way."From you, just you? It doesn't make sense. I still don't understand." Duncan smiled a little. "Thanks, old chap, for the vote of confidence. No, not just me. It was me and the Navy." "I see," said Blake, and so he did. A peacetime officer, keen, ambitious, on the way up; one of the few who believed, like Churchill, that Hitler would unleash his murderous war-machine, and who snatched every opportunity to take his ship to sea while most of England took its ease; something a woman, especially one who had already endured the separations of naval life, would find it hard to understand. But though he liked Celia Duncan, even more so now that he had learned about Gerard, there was no doubt where Blake's prime loyalty lay. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 26 - "My God," he said, thinking of how they had rescued her from that freighter under threat of a German battleship's attack, "I imagine she feels differently about the Navy now!" Duncan's mouth tightened. But he had broached the subject, and his friend's feelings were understandable. "Yes, Slippy," he nodded. There were other aspects to be considered in Celia's change of heart, like patriotism and love of country, things on which Blake held no monopoly, but it was pointless to discuss these. "As I said, everything is all right now." He looked at his friend again, this time quizzically. "Perhaps you'll dine with us when we get back. Celia would like that." "So would I!" Blake said, suddenly and completely won over; regretful here, too, about his avoidance of Celia since the reconciliation. "The first...well, the second night in." "Done. And bring my two bottles of beer with you." "Now that," said Blake, his eyes quartering the sky, "we shall have to see about." Sailors, even cruiser captains, know full well that Fate must never be tempted by optimistic boasting about immunity from attack, especially during an Atlantic convoy. But sometimes Fate uses devious and delayed methods of punishing such disrespect. Captain Duncan was allowed, this time, to get away with it. The convoy which had escaped attack for so much of its long journey was granted immunity for the rest of it. They sighted a Sunderland and a Catalina, and that was all. Neither Condor nor U-boat nor German battleship interfered with this progress until at last Warwick sighted the first evidence of "home," the lofty Blackpool Tower, then the Bar Light Vessel marking the mouth of the Mersey River, and not too long after that she was at her berth. The time was two-thirty of a misty afternoon, colder than it had been out to sea. Duncan noted smoke climbing languidly from several parts of the city, with one column close to the double spires of the Liver Building, and felt selfishly grateful: his hotel lay well clear of all that ominous evidence of last night's Luftwaffe visit. "Commander," he said. "Sir?" "Usual leave" "Thank God for that," Blake muttered, and more loudly, "Aye aye, sir." - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 27 - CHAPTER THREE if he'd wanted one, Duncan thought, the nearest taxi would have been somewhere north of the Hebrides. It gave him minor pleasure to wave the driver on. The fellow stared at him as if to register his face permanently in his mind, but Duncan couldn't have cared less. It was splendid striding out like this with the road stretching ahead when for so long he had been confined to a few yards of tilting deck. In his greatcoat and gloves he even started to perspire a little, which was really something. The Royal Hotel was as commonplace as its name, grimly conforming to type even unto the potted palms and buttock-marked sofas in its foyer, but to Duncan as he ran up the steps and through the revolving door he was entering lotus-land. The wife of the licensee behind her desk did wear pince-nez, a high-throated black dress and a stony expression of which no Gorgon would have been ashamed. Yet she smiled. Oddly enough Duncan found nothing incongruous in this welcome, since it was always offered him. He never dreamed that his privilege was due to the tone which the accommodating of a Royal Navy captain gave to the place. He returned a genial smile to the thin stretch of her lips. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Wyatt. is my wife in?" "What a pleasure to see you again, Captain," Mrs. Wyatt said in a believedly refined voice. "You had a pleasant trip?" Good Lord, thought Duncan, where does she imagine I've been? He nodded, and repeated: "My wife?" Here, too, a pleasant chord was struck, for Mrs. Wyatt believed the captain's wife treated her as an equal: actually Celia thought of her as a grasping old skinflint, but was too well-bred to show it. "Yes, Captain, she is waiting in your room." "Thank you." They'd been given a first-floor room (Duncan thought it had been coincidentally vacant), and he took the stairs in preference to the aged lift. He strode along the worn carpet runner, put his hand out to the door knob and the door opened. "Hello, my darling," Celia said. Duncan caught his breath. Brown curly hair cut short, shining eyes in a pixey face, red lips showing white teeth... God, all his! - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 28 - He took her to him right there in the doorway. His kiss was hard and hungry. She responded just as eagerly. Duncan was feeling this, glorying in it, when he felt something considerably harder than his kiss digging into the base of his skull. He released her, moved into the room, closed the door and glanced down. "So that's how you knew," he smiled. Celia held up the telescope. "Wonderful," she said. "I picked up your ship way out at the Bar Light Vessel, saw you come ashore, even followed you along the street." Her smile was provocative. "You seemed in rather a hurry, darling." "Nonsence, just cold." In Duncan a memory stirred. "Mrs. Wyatt said you were waiting for me." He gestured. "She doesn't know about that?" "Of course. I let her look through it at your ship. How else do you imagine we're having dinner served in our room tonight?" Duncan's smile had drawn in. "Damned old busy body. Only my chief yeoman of signals and I knew you had a telescope-until now." "It matters?" "Of course. That thing's naval property." Her smile, too, had eased. "And you, Richard?" "Eh?" "You are naval property?" At once he was fearful, this man who had faced a German battleship. He could not bear to lose her again, this lovely tomboy, ten years younger than he. Surely to God he had earned the loan of a spare telescope! "Damn the Navy!" he said suddenly and with vehemence. "Come here!" She tossed the telescope into a chair and went to him at once, aware of what was really behind his denial of the Service he loved. He belonged to the Navy, but to her as well, now. "My God," she panted at last, arching back to look up at him, "those convoys wouldn't need to be any longer..." "You liked it," he charged, sure of himself again, seeing that look in her eyes, and the heave of her breasts. "Yes, my darling. But now?" - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 29 - "Why not?" he said thickly, and reached behind him to turn the key."Why not, fer Gawd's sake?" said Leading-Seaman Lusby. "What the hell's time gotta do with it?" He leered. "I got what you want, sweetheart. Right now, in fact." "In your pocket?" "And beside it. Here, feel." "Stop that. I'm no tart, y'know, doing things like that in public. You want me to get kicked out of here?" "Here" was the public bar of the Seamen's Arms. It sported chipped tables and smelled of stale beer, but at least it was honest, lacking the spurious gentility of the Royal. "What's your name?" Lusby asked. "Beryl. What's yours?" "Frank." She lifted her gin. "Nice to meetcha, Frank." He looked at her, hungry and judging. No film star, but sorta pretty with them red lips and big blue eyes. No chicken, neither, about thirty, but that meant ripeness, and he wasn't here to fiddle about with some gawky kid who didn't know what it was for. Bosomy, too, and fairly broad in the beam, but then for him they had to be. Didn't they ever! "Wotcher smiling at, Frank?" "You, sweetheart, with love." "I bet. It'll take more than that." "How much?" Her hesitation was brief. Already she knew he had just got in, and had watched him order double brandies before he spotted her. "I don't deal with every Tom, Dick and Harry, y'know. I'm particular." Lusby was impatient. "How much?" "A quid. Short time." He grinned. "Way I feel, she'll be short all right. You gotta room handy?" "Course." Fool, she berated herself, he's good for two quid, maybe a fiver, anxious like that. "How about another drink?" "After. We'll come back here and get a skinful, then back to the - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 30 - room again." This looked like a good easy day. She leaned forward but held her shoulders back, making her breasts jut. "We all have our little boast, don't we, Frank?" "Boast, eh? Come on." As they got up from the table Lusby saw her look meaningly at the barman. "No," Lusby said, "no other clients. If you're as good as you think you are you're engaged all night. Tell him." "Been around, eh, Frankie boy?" "Somewhat. I'll see you outside." Beryl was quick, fearing ardour might cool. Needless fear, with a man like Lusby, at sea so long. He took her arm and they walked about twenty yards to a block of grime-fronted flats. "Nice'n handy," Lusby grinned, and hoped that her flat was different to the outside, for whatever else sailors might be, they were tigers for cleanliness. She led him along a dim passageway and opened a door right at the end. He liked that, for on certain occasions, like now, he tended to be an unquiet lover. He also liked the room-cheaply furnished but neat and smelling nice. "If only them walls could speak," he muttered, and at her reproving glance he asked: "You run to a bath?" "Course." "Then let's get into it." "Wait a minute. What do you take me for? I had a bath before I went out." "Not you," Lusby lied, "me. I had a job to finish, didn't have no time for a shower before libertymen fell in." "Oh. Least you're honest. All right, I'll run the bath for you." "For us." She frowned at him. "You some sort of a crackpot? I do my business on the bed." "Where else?" Lusby wondered. "But I learned somethin' real good in Bombay, in a bath. Hop in with me and I'll show you." She hesitated, while he wondered if she really had had that bath before going out to work; if so, he was just wasting time. But he was - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 31 - a fastidious man, and he had to be sure. "It's worth another quid," he tempted her. And won. While she juggled the hot and cold taps he stripped to his underpants; seeing her bent over the bath, buttocks outlined; his forcedly celibate mind and body a whirl of hot need. Then she turned, one hand started to unbutton her dress. Lusby stood in front of her. Her gaze fell, seemed to be drawn down. She frowned, as if in disbelief, at his underpants. "Smack it about," Lusby said. "Here, I'll give you a hand." In a moment she stood before him naked. He gave a low whistle. "Jeez, not bad. Not bad...at all. Gawd, what could I do with you on a night watch!" She smiled, non-professionally pleased, then said: "Take off your underpants." "You take `em off." Beryl came forward, still looking down. When she had to tug the underpants out and over, she knew, even before she saw. "Oh my God," she breathed, "I've never..." But Lusby was against her, hot body hard against her white softness, his mouth down to her. Her hand went down-finding, squeezing, then guiding. "No," he said straight into her mouth, "no kneetrembler. Keep it for the bed." She opened her legs and pressed down and he entered between her thighs, underneath the blonde hair. Involuntarily he started to move. She worked with him, squeezing her thighs together on to his pole and wriggling sideways. Then suddenly he stopped. So did she, knowing that the slightest movement now, even a squeeze, would make him blow. Not quite reached, the point of ecstasy lowered, far and safe enough for Lusby to think. She smelled fresh and sweet, she had taken that bath, he was wasting his time. But the bath had been run. He drew back, very slowly, allowing the head to slide upward in the slot that was now wet, but not out of it. Just a little he pressed forward, caressing his glans over the clitoris, sending a shuddering shiver through her body. "How long you been a pro?" he asked, half-mocking. "Long enough. It's just the size." He drew clear suddenly. "In the bath, quick." She turned off the taps, bending over again. He came up behind and - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 32 - entered between her thighs again, gently sliding; one hand round in front low down, the other cupping her heavy drooping breast. And as he felt her shivering, Lusby felt both triumph and determination. An experienced pro, eh? How long since the last orgasm? A real one, not the groans and the shoving and nothing else? "Stop," she said, straightening up, causing him to withdraw quickly. "You wanna break it?" he grinned. "Why stop? You frightened?" "No, not if you're gentle." "I mean frightened of coming." "Yes," she said, this time professionally, and lowered herself into the bath. Lusby followed, but knelt in front of her, close. "I don't do that," she said, closing her lips lightly. "Never asked you to." "Then what are you waiting for? Wash yourself." He smiled, seeing her looking down, fascinated. "You wash it." Without demur she took up a cake of soap and started. Lusby leaned back with his elbows on the sides of the bath, his eyes closed. This was glorious. It was worth all those night watches, the watching and the waiting and the fear. He needed this, his mind needed it, just like a starving man needs food. The wave came up, starting to surge up his pole. For one fraction of a second he let it come, then he shoved himself back from her massaging hands into the water. "That was close," he panted, and started to wash his washed body. She watched him for a minute, then said: "Bombay." "Come again?" "You said you'd show me." "Oh, yeah." This was what he'd been aiming for, and now he had to carry through, even though he knew it was unnecessary. "lean back and open your legs." She obeyed. His hand went forward, but instead of entering his fingers played between the overlapping lips above the opening, finding the enlarged erectile clitoris and cleverly playing there. After a moment, "Oh," she breathed, "oh," and abruptly her hand pushed down, holding his. "What's up?" he said, "I haven't started yet." She shoved herself up. "Come on." Standing beside the bath they dried each other. Beryl fondled him, even now still fascinated. "Easy, easy," he said hoarsely, "you want me to spray the bathroom?" "I want it to be quick." He took her to him, resting it vertically against her belly, kissing - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 33 - her ear before sliding round to her open mouth. "Look, lovey, don't be scared. I won't hurt you." She moved her mouth away. "But I'm not big." "No difference. It's wet, and it stretches. I'll take it nice'n easy, you'll see. Come on." She moved ahead of him and lay on the bed; her head turned, watching him coming for her like a stallion. A quid, she thought, for that! It could split her, damage something inside... Then Lusby was on the bed beside her. She opened her legs and closed her eyes. Her whole body was tensed. After a moment she was astonished to realise he was not having intercourse, he was loving her: kissing her breasts until the nipples grew hard and jutting, while his hand caressed round and round on her belly, then up and down her inner thighs, giving her inexpressible pleasure; while her glands secreted and she felt the wetness coming inside. Until, whatever the size, big or small, she had to have it! "Now!" she jerked. "Oh, quick!" Lusby slipped his hand down. She knocked his hand aside and guided with her own, pulling at him so that he had to physically restrain his entry. And restrain his lusting mind. This he did by thinking of anything at all apart from what was below and waiting for him. A sailor's phrase slipped in: Once over the knob and it's all down hill. Then it was, and he'd been right about Beryl, about the wetness and the stretching. She cried out, once, and he halted, but she moved up under him, shoving, and after that he let her do it all herself, glorying in the tightness of sliding grip, until he felt the spasmic clutch of her orgasm and finally he could let his own waxing discharge burst free. A moment while they panted together, then her hands pushed weakly on his shoulders. He withdrew slowly, lingeringly, and rolled off her. She looked down. "My God, even now ..." Her eyes came up and she saw the triumph in his, but gentle, not boastful. "Yes," she nodded, "that's the first time I've come in ages. Ooooh ..." Lusby looked pleased. "With what you've got I had to," she went on, "to get the thing - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 34 - out of me." Lusby still looked pleased. He said: "That bath's still warm. How about it?" She stared at him. "For God's sake, sailor, give me a minute." "Anythin' you say." Lusby very lightly stroked the inside of her thighs again, and twisted his fingers through the hair. "Then we'll have a few grogs and maybe come back here again." Gently, Beryl kissed him. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 35 - CHAPTER FOUR CAPTAIN Duncan reached over to the bedside table, stubbed his cigarette out, then lay back and pulled the coverlet up. He closed his eyes. "No you don't" Celia said, tugging at the hair on his chest, "you have all night to sleep. Let's shower and go for a walk." "I told Slippy," Duncan said. "There's a dress I want to buy, and I want to buy it with my husband in attendance ... What did you say?" "Slippy Blake. I told him about us." Duncan kept his eyes on the ceiling. "About the reason for our break-up." "I see. Did you mention Dickie Gerard?" "Yes. I told him that you parted company immediately on landing in Naples." "What did he say to this revelation?" Duncan tensed inwardly. "That he was damned glad everything was all right, for both our sakes. I'm sure he meant it." He knew Celia was staring at him, but he did not look at her. She said, quietly: "You've wanted to tell Slippy for a long time, haven't you?" "Yes. Yes, I have." "Then thank God you did. Now we can forget the blasted thing! Oh my darling, everything is all right." Now Duncan looked at her, to see the wetness in her eyes. Gently, he kissed her. Celia back-handed the tears away and threw back the coverlet. "How about that dress?" "Dress?" Duncan smiled. "What's wrong with mink?" "Careful, sweetheart, or I'll..." The telephone jangled. "Damn," Duncan muttered. "It's probably only Mrs. Wyatt, asking about dinner tonight." Nearest to it, Celia took up the phone. "Yes?" she said, and after a moment handed it mutely to Duncan. "Duncan speaking," he said curtly, and then his tone changed. "Oh, good afternoon, sir. No, that's quite all right. I was just about to - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 36 - take a shower." There was a pause, while now Celia stared at the ceiling, her eyes quite free of tears. "Aye aye, sir," Duncan said, "half an hour. Goodbye." He handed the phone to Celia. She dropped it on the receiver. "That, my darling," she said, "presumably is bad news." "It was the Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches," Duncan said, getting out of bed. "But what he wants I have no idea." "Admirals don't usually telephone captains?" "Not usually." His frown which she knew was defensively hiding his worry, halted her. "My best uniform's presentable?" "Came back from the cleaner's the day after you left." "Be a good girl and lay it out for me." He rumpled her hair and strode into the bathroom. For several years Admiral Sir Max Horton had borne a terrible responsibility. As Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches, he had the task of delivering the British Isles from what Churchill called "the moral U-boat perils... which I still rate highest among the dangers we have to overcome." He had a strong face. "Hello, Richard," he greeted Duncan. His office in the headquarters building was not lined with the charts of the world, nor were there big perspex squares bearing the crosses and routes of convoys and their escorts; there was a separate special room for all that."Good afternoon, sir," said Duncan, and took the chair indicated. "It's been some time, eh?" "About two years, sir." "Yes." For a moment, as he looked out a window, the Admiral's eyes were vacant. "I would like to see more of my captains." Duncan knew he meant it. Though surrounded by men, Horton was lonely in his job. The buck stopped here. Duncan was pretty sure that the old seafighter would have preferred to be out there on a ship's bridge, tackling the enemy he only heard about. But then more shore-bound flag officers, no matter how vital their job, felt like that. Habits of more than thirty years are hard to forget. Yet Duncan said nothing of his thoughts. He sat there, cap in his lap, and waited. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 37 - "Good trip?" the Admiral said. In its essential details he knew as much about the voyage as anyone in the convoy, but this time Duncan could not presume on that and still keep silent. "Excellent," he nodded. "Quite without incident, except for a reconnaissance aircraft." "Which you shot down. Nice work, Richard. How did you manage it?"Duncan told him about the rain and the Condor's concentration on its bigger prize. He said nothing about his own quick reaction to those conditions, but with this man there was no need to. Like telling a drenched man it was raining. "It's not often we get a swipe at those vultures," the Admiral said, smiling, a gesture which Duncan matched. "But when we get our new escort carriers out in the Atlantic... However, I don't mean to waste your leave by discussing future strategy." Duncan would have been only too pleased to discuss just that, but Horton was speaking again. "Good trip," he repeated, "just a holiday cruise, eh? Nice and easy for all hands." Duncan had served with him in several ships, and anyway he was a full captain, so he had no qualms about saying: "I don't like the sound of that, sir, not one little bit." "Am I so damned obvious?" Horton wondered innocently, then his expression changed, "You deserved that worry-free trip, Richard. I'm afraid your next one will be somewhat different." "And colder?" "Decidedly." Duncan had qualms now; but if he hid them in front of his officers he would hardly reveal them before this one. "Murmansk?" "Yes. They're having rather a hard time up that way. On the last homeward-bound convoy from Murmansk, QPII, Edinburgh was hit by two U-boat torpedoes. One opened her amidships and the other blew most of her stern off, including the rudder. She had to be sunk finally by one of our destroyers." Duncan felt both regret and alarm. Edinburgh was a modern - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 38 - cruiser, mounting nine 6-inch and twelve 4-inch, and she'd been the flagship of a Rear-Admiral. That pair of torpedoes had brought a heavy dividend. "PQ 15 convoy, outward-bound at the same time," Horton went on, "was attacked by more than a dozen Junkers 88's and torpedo aircraft. They sank three merchantmen, including the Commodore's. Naturally I don't want to lose you, but with those damned aircraft operating from four bases in northern Norway, their need is greater than mine." The Admiral smiled, though with small effect on his eyes. "You did yourself a bad turn, proving the excellence of your A.A. gunnery against that Condor." Duncan smiled too, with a similar lack of mirth. "May I ask when, sir?" "You sail for Reykjavik at eight on the morning of the 13th." Today was the 10th. Duncan hoped he hid his disappointment. Three days, after weeks at sea. "Iceland," he said. "Better shake out the woollen underwear. On this last trip I almost shifted to tropical rig." The Admiral just nodded. He would not say he felt sorry for Warwick's company, even if he were. There were many ships, destroyers and below in particular, whose men would have thought three days in Liverpool came close to paradise. "You will operate from Rykjavik," Horton went on, "and sometimes Loch Ewe. Not much difference, eh?" "Am I that obvious?" Horton smiled naturally, then drew it in. "Warwick will sail either ahead of the convoys or just out of sight to port, though your stationing, of course, will depend on the C.-in-C., Home Fleet. Stock up with plenty of four-inch and close range ammunition-I understand their torpedo aircraft come in low and quite close. As for the rest, courses, composition and so on, you will be fully briefed in Iceland. Sorry I had to tell you so early in your leave, Richard, but I imagined you'd prefer to know sooner than later." "Of course, sir." "Well, old chap, that's about all." Horton frowned. "Unless Warwick needs repairs?" - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 39 - "No. She's ready and, ah, willing to go." Horton nodded, looking relieved. He stood up. They shook hands. "Goodbye, Richard, best of luck." "Thank you, sir. Goodbye." - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 40 - CHAPTER FIVE THOUGH his feelings urged him to hurry back to Celia, Duncan returned more slowly than he'd come. Three days-even less than that, now-were unlikely to put a sparkle in her eye. He had deliberately brought her to this dreary place of waiting in the belief, up till now justified, that after each convoy he would have a relatively long spell in port; waiting for one to unload and the next to form-up. But three days, seventy-two hours... He could not bring himself to admit the actual number of hours they had left. He did consider the possibility that circumstances up there in these gale-lashed northern waters might compel Warwick's sailing even sooner, even tonight. Admiral Tovey and the Germans waited on no man. The thought halted him. Looking around, he found himself outside a pub. It would be better, telephoning from here instead of in the room, where Celia could not help but overhear. He turned and walked into the pub. Through the noise of talk and laughter he failed to hear one patron ejaculate, "Jeez, if it ain't the Old Man!" But he did see, close on his right, a figure rise hastily from a chair. Duncan was so used to this gesture of respect that mechanically he noticed it here, and looked, and saw Leading-Seaman Lusby, and his expression of astonishment. The captain made a small negating gesture with his hand, smiled and inclined his head politely to Lusby's female companion, then threaded his way towards the phone booth against one wall. "Now what the hell," Lusby wondered, "is he doin' in a joint like this?" "Looks like he might want to use the phone, dearie," Beryl said. "You see him smile at me? Seems like a proper gent. Does he treat you nice, like?" "They don't come no better," Lusby said stoutly. "I've shipped with a few, real bastards some of `em, but he's the cat's perjamas. In fact," casually moving his left arm a little on the table, "he give me this `ere hook. That means I'm a leader of men." But Beryl was still looking at the captain, now opening the booth door. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 41 - "He looks a bit old, and tired, sort of." "O'course," Lusby's twenty-five years said to Duncan's thirty- eight. "You don't get command of no eight-inch cruiser wearin' nappies, now do yer? As for lookin' tired-sometimes, most times, in fact, he sleeps all nights on the bridge. It could be peltin' down cats'n dogs and he's still up there, lyin' on the the deck with a bit of canvas pulled over `im. Gawd knows how he stands it, but sure as hell he earns his pay." "Nice face, he has," Beryl said reflectively, "what I call refined. Married?" "You got no hope, sweetheart," Lusby teased her. "His wife's a smasher. Younger'n him, a real beauty she is, skin like a baby's bum." Beryl changed the subject. "All night, in the rain? It's that dangerous, out there?" Lusby gave a mock frown. "What've we got here, a flamin' spy?" "Yes," she flashed back, "one that's just learnt about a secret weapon. And how!" He grinned. "Speakin" of that little toy, feel like another bash?" "Now? My God, how long've you been at sea?" "That is a secret," Lusby said. "How about another gin?" "Make it a double, I'll need anaesthetic," she said, and smiled at him in a way that started to raise more than his hopes. His back, and his mouth, to the room, Duncan listened to the vacant humming of the wire, and then he heard: "Yes, sir? Fawcett speaking." "Ammunition, Guns." "We've already topped-up with four-inch, sir." "Get as much more as she'll take, also close-range stuff. But it has to be stowed securely." After a slight pause Fawcett said: "Aye aye, sir, right away." "Tell the Commander, Guns, but otherwise keep this to yourself." "Understood, sir." "That's all. Goodbye." Duncan came out of the booth. The bar was a smelly, crowded, and jolly place. He was tempted. A drink with Lusby and his girlfriend would be quite delightful. And, of course, in a public place like this, impossible. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 42 - He went out quickly, keeping his back to Lusby so that the leading- seaman would not have to rise, and stepped into the cold windy street. Four-ringed captains most assuredly earn their pay... But the sense of loneliness dropped from him as soon as he opened his door and saw Celia waiting. She was dressed, and her face held no demand, even though behind it he knew she was fearing. "You weren't long, darling." "Admirals have a habit of coming to the point." He smiled at her, patted her cheek and then walked to the window, staring out at the misty, ship-crammed harbour. From her position a little to one side she could see that this face was sombre. "A penny for them, Richard," she said softly. He turned slowly. "I was thinking of that stupid bet with Slippy, about getting in without any further sign of the enemy." She had known him a long time, and through him the Navy and its customs, and so instead of asking natural female questions, she said:"And now it has caught up with you." He was pleased at her perception; it made things easier. "Yes. We sail in three days." Now surprise filled him. He saw the expected clouding of her eyes, and then, almost at once, her smile, warm and tender. "Damn it all," he spoke his thoughts aloud, "you look pleased." "I am, darling. You see, this time you told me." He understood. Always before, mention of his sailing orders had been kept until the last minute. "I shouldn't have told you this time." His tone was gruff but she saw through that. And then it was her turn for surprise, for he slapped a fist into his palm and ejaculated, "Oh, hell!" She had no compunction about asking, "What is it, darling?" "I asked Slippy to dine with us tomorrow night, and I can't explain why I have to put him off." Not even your second-in-command, her heart sang, but you told me... She said, her arms around his neck: "Don't." - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 43 - "Of course I won't, at least not until sailing day." "Don't put him off." Duncan stared at her, and knew she meant it, and thought he had never loved her so much in his life as now. But this attitude, under the circumstances and concerning a Navy man, was too novel and too sweet for him to let rest. "You mean," he prompted, "you still want him to come?" "Yes. You told Slippy everything was all right. I want him to see for himself." Her look became arch. "And now, of course, I shall have to get a new dress, something really smart." "And damned expensive. That's your only reason." His voice was gruff again, and seen through just as easily. Not even a man of his talented self-control could hide the shine in his eyes, possibly because he wasn't trying very hard. "Ready?" she smiled, taking up her purse. "Ready and willing." The phrase recalled Admiral Horton's office, but momentarily. He was thinking of something much more important than all the Murmansk convoys in the world. They both had changed; she because he had. If only he'd said "Damn the Navy" sooner. God, what years they'd lost! "What's the matter, sweetheart?" He saw her worried frown and chased his away, kicking it overboard along with his moment of black regret. "The finest dress in the whole of Liverpool," he grinned. "Tomorrow night you'll make that bloody old bachelor green with envy, or else." "And the cost?" "Damn the cost!" "Richard, I love you." Duncan opened the door, and with inexcusable Lusby-like abandon he slapped her on the rump as she passed, and knew, with a surge of throat-constricting pleasure, that he had never been happier in his life. "Incidentally and in passing," Commander Blake said, "I may have seen a lovelier woman than Celia looked at dinner, but I doubt it." - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 44 - Duncan had his eyes on the Bar Light Vessel, noting the run of tide against its bows. "Thank you," he smiled politely-greatly pleased. "The food wasn't too bad, either," said Blake. "Altogether a damned nice evening. Makes a man start to think about considering marriage." "Don't go rushing into it," Duncan jibed. "Although, at your age, I wouldn't muck about too much." "Be damned. Fit as a fiddle." "Do you have anyone in mind?" ` "Hold on!" Warwick slipped past the light vessel and easily Duncan's mind slipped back to the dinner party. He was quite sure it had been the most pleasant of his experience. At first the attitudes of Celia and Slippy had been only outwardly unstrained, but then his bluff honesty and her natural vivacity had cast falsity aside and the atmosphere had become as smooth as Jamaica rum. Best of all, he remembered their parting last night. With his ship ready in all respects for sea, there was no official reason why he could not have come aboard at five minutes to eight this morning, instead of midnight last night. But he knew the officers and men expected him not to overstay their own midnight leave, and somehow Celia knew. Most significantly, she had made no fuss about the time of his departure. This helped him enormously. In earlier times there had been recriminations and anger, so that it had taken considerable effort for him to show a relaxed and cheerful disposition to his crew on sailing. But this morning it was vastly different; and again he thought of the wasted years. Then Warwick was through Liverpool Bay outside and into the Irish Sea, and her long length began to lift a little. This reminded Duncan of how she would be moving in a few days' time, and it was natural then that he should think of the mission. Other men were also wondering about this; he could feel the curiosity on the bridge. Certainly Fawcett had told no one but Blake about the need for extra anti-aircraft ammunition, yet the shells had to be handled, and of course the whole ship knew what they had taken on. Where the A.A. stuff was meant to be used was a different matter. Not the Atlantic, they knew, not against a few Condors. The next - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 45 - few minutes would tell them, for a turn to port to the southward, must mean the Mediterranean. There was hardly a man among her 650 men who did not hope for that turn to port; if they had to fight, then let it be in warm weather and mostly calm seas. Sitting in his high-backed chair, Duncan turned his head towards the binnacle. Every man on the bridge noticed the gesture. They waited. "Starb'd fifteen, Pilot," Duncan ordered casually, then added the course he and the navigating officer had already discussed. Men looked at each other, and away. These unhappy gestures Duncan noticed, but tradition and discipline prevented him commenting upon them as surely as a direct order from the Admiralty would have done. Of all men, a captain must accept his orders with good grace and unquestioning obedience, for in a ship, no matter how highly trained, mental infection can spread as swiftly as physical. Duncan left his chair and walked without hurrying to the P.A. mike. He spoke with calm deliberation. "Do you hear there. This is the captain. I hope you enjoyed your leave in Liverpool. We are headed for Reykjavik, one of our naval and air bases in Iceland," he went on at once, taking their attention from Liverpool and the delights of leave. "From there we will escort convoys both to and from Murmansk, returning sometimes to Loch Ewe." Here he did hesitate. Loch Ewe was well up north in Scotland, a lonely bay indenting a grim coast-no holiday resort-and the lesser educated men would not know its whereabouts. But learning about it from messmates would form a topic of conversation, probably ribald, and this might help to take some of the sting out of their disappointment regarding those cursed Murmansk convoys. Duncan's pause was brief. "Most of you will know that we have taken on extra anti-aircraft ammunition. The reason is simple. In northern Norway the Germans have established four air bases, also for a simple reason. From these bases we can expect Junkers 88's and torpedo aircraft. Our job, as before in the Atlantic, is to provide heavy cover against large enemy units, but mainly to protect the convoys from air attack. This duty-as - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 46 - Admiral Sir Max Horton personally told me-we seem rather good at performing. He was referring to a Condor, but I am sure our four- inch like 88's and torpedo planes just as much." "Many of you have been on Murmansk convoys before. I rely on these experts to advise those who haven't." Duncan thought of mentioning the cold and the ice, the fogs and the storms, but experience told him that the old hands would get these conditions across graphically enough, probably with sardonic enjoyment. This, too, would make for conversation; help to delay the will-weakening thoughts of security and home. "That's all," Duncan ended, and handed the mike to the bosun's mate. When he turned back to the binnacle Warwick was on-course, heading northward up past Ireland. Down below the messdecks were a buzz of conversation. "Now that," said Leading-Seaman Lusby, looking round his messmates who also comprised his gun crew, "is a luvverly bunch of coconuts, now ain't it?" Wise and shrewd he noticed that in the main they were more curious than despondent, waiting for him to expand on his statement, and in this attitude they represented a microcosm of the whole ship's company; worried, certainly, not being idiots, yet at the same time privately eager to experience a new experience, which is characteristic of sailors. Later, after the first convoy, after even a few days of it, their eagerness would lower to monotonous cursing and philosophic indifference. But now, Lusby knew, was the time to chivvy them along, to get them through that first day or so before they settled down to the dangers and discomforts of sea time. In his intention Lusby was not wholly swayed by love of king and country. Into it there came love of continued life, his life, and this wished-for state of affairs depended directly on his gun. In the next twenty-four hours the ship would have travelled almost five hundred miles, and God alone knew what might come after them, through that time and distance, and Lusby had no liking at all for a gun crew the half of which could be mooning and disconsolate over what they'd left behind. "I hope you blokes have left behind," he grinned at them, "any brass monkeys you mighta picked up in Bombay or parts east." - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 47 - "Why, Chief?" his phone number helped him, a lad of seventeen. "Because," said Lusby, looking at him seriously, "where we're goin' brass monkeys are likely to lose certain things what monkeys don't like to lose. I mean through freezin', you unnderstand?" "Oh," the youngster said uncertainly; he spoke rather better than the others. "He means balls," said the breechworker of the right gun, and looked at the phone number with wonder, "he means it'll be so bloody cold your piss'll freeze solid before it hits the pan. Not," said the breechworker, glancing at Lusby, "that a certain bloke needs any more length on the old wally-donger." "Now, now, enough of that," chided Lusby. "Look who's talkin'. Big man big dick, little man all dick, and you're a little man." "Jesus," said the breechworker, "I wish you was right." "Hey, Chief." Lusby turned to face down the scrubbed wooden table; the speaker was one of his loading numbers; big and fit but also under twenty. "What can I do you for?" Lusby asked. "Where's Loch Ewe, what's it like?" "Well, now." Lusby rubbed at his chin. "You been to Blackpool?" "Yes. `Bout a year ago, me Mum and Dad..." "You been to Brighton?" "Course." "And Hartlepool?" "No, but it's nice, I got a sister livin'..." "Not like none of them places," Lusby said, "Loch Ewe." "Oh?" "It's better. Leave'em all for dead. For hermits, that is and mountain goats. Good for deserters, too. Only the Old Man and the navigator knows where it is. You won't find the joint on no map." "But you know where it is," said the breechworker. "Your leader of men," quoth Lusby, "knows every thin'. Orter know that by now. Lemme see. Loch Ewe is just below Cape Wrath and opposite the Outer Hebrides-and Jesus, are they outer; One thing, me lads, you won't get no load o'jack up there, less you chase a hairy sheep." "Jack?" said the phone number. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 48 - "Gawd, you run away from kindergarten? said the breechworker. "He means you won't have no chance on gettin' a dose." But though bewildered, the phone number stuck to his guns. "A dose of what?" "No," said the breechworker, shaking his carrot-haired head, "I ain't gunna spoil such innocence. It's up to you, leader of men. You're in the chair." Lusby was saved from a dissertation on V.D. "All right, then," said the loading number, "what's Reykjavik like?" "Reykjavik?" Lusby said, frowning at him. "Reykjavik? Reykjavik I don't do no talkin' about. I don't even think about it. Lissen. Last winter, before you an' Hawkins joined the ship, we put in at ... No, I can't talk about it. It ain't decent. Like fartin' in church." He opened his tin of ticklers and started rolling a cigarette; looking gloomy, listening to the younsters' questions and the older hands' chiacking. They'd be all right, he thought, they had enough stuffing; just so long as they could stand one convoy. But then that was easy: they had to. Involuntarily, thinking of what lay ahead, of the three minutes they gave a man in the water before his heart froze to a stop, Lusby shivered. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 49 - CHAPTER SIX REYKJAVIK wasn't really all that bad: Eskimos, Laplanders and polar bears would have found it quite bearable. But closed-up as the duty A.A. gun while Warwick entered harbour, wearing as much clothing as they could and still walk, and still frozen to the bone, Lusby's crew squinted through the sleet at their new base and found it foul, and their leader vindicated. Yet Captain Duncan had other things to interest him, and these he found warming. The convoy was waiting-nineteen fairly large and therefore hopefully fairly fast ships-with its escort. This, he was thankful to note, comprised six destroyers, four corvettes-and a cruiser. He recognised her as H.M.S. Niger, a light cruiser of almost 6,000 tons and 33 knots. But it was her turrets which pleased him most. She mounted five of them, each carrying two 5.25-inch guns. And these big rifles were dual-purpose, designed to fight aircraft as well as surface ships: ten beauties added to his own eight 4-inch, not to mention the destroyers' 4.7's, which were also dual-purpose. "What are you grinning at?" Blake said beside him. "As if I didn't know." "Yes," Duncan nodded, "and her Bofors and oerlikons. I don't fancy the chances of torpedo aircraft getting in through that lot." "The torpedo aircraft," Blake reminded him, "and the Junkers 88's, are not likely to try." His fingers flicked at the mass of anchored merchant ships. "That's their target-and 5.25's are conspicuous by their absence." "Thanks," Duncan said drily. "Be a good chap and pour your cold water on someone else. All right, Pilot, there's our oiler, fine on the port bow." "I have her, sir." There had been a subtle change in the intonation of the captain's voice. Blake moved quietly back out of the way. A pair of tugs took command of Warwick's 600-foot length and without fuss edged her alongside the tanker. The big articulated hoses were connected and presently they began to pulse as Warwick drank in the fuel she had expended. There was no need to replenish stores-her class had been - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 50 - designed for long periods at sea. "Commander," Duncan said. "Sir?" "Have all executive officers muster in the wardroom, please." "Aye aye, sir." They were quick about it, yet as much through interest as the captainly order. Duncan had originated this sort of informal briefing on joining Warwick, having learned and enjoyed it under another captain. He stepped over the coaming into the ante-room-cum-bar of the wardroom; they rose and he waved them down again. Waiting for the bustle to cease, he looked them over. From experience he knew they were a good bunch, mostly-his secretary, for instance was rather too dapper for his liking, with a touch almost of the effeminate about things like hair cream, shaving lotion and carefully manicured hands. And the lieutenant in charge of the after, auxiliary director was too hard on his men, which to Duncan, seeing they were efficient, smacked of a lack of self-assurance. But the really important officers-gunnery, torpedo, navigation, signals and, of course, Blake himself-these had been harshly tested and found not wanting. Duncan had a pencilled list of ships' names in his pocket, but he had memorised them and hoped not to use the list. He spoke with calm authority, and pleasantly. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. Our convoy sails at first light tomorrow. It is designated PQ18. As some of you already know, convoys bound for Murmansk or Archangel carry the prefix PQ, while those homeward bound from Russia are QP. After delivering PQ18 to Murmansk, we escort back QP15 to Loch Ewe. Nothing complicated, you see." They smiled. A voice, rather too loud for the room, asked: "Whatever happened to 16 and 17, sir?" It was the control officer of the after director. "On that point, I'm afraid," Duncan answered, "the Admiralty did not see fit to enlighten me. Possibly because it is of no consequence to us." Blake grinned. "It seems," Duncan went on, "that our convoy is especially - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 51 - valuable, or else there is a possibility of major enemy units appearing on the scene. Whatever the reason, we have been given some pretty hefty cover. This comprises an American battleship and carrier, sailing under the Commander -in-Chief in King George V, plus one of our own carriers, a cruiser and ten destroyers." He waited for the surprised and pleased murmurs to die, then continued: "This comforting weight will sail below the horizon, awaiting any calls for help we may have to make, and will turn back when we are safely in range of Murmansk. This means, of course, that our own escorting force will have to look after the empty returning convoy by itself. However, remembering Niger's ten dual-purpose 5.25's, we should be able to manage that all right. Regarding the heavy covering force, I don't wish to make a special broadcast about it, but prefer that you pass the word amongst your divisions yourselves." He thought of explaining his reason-that overmuch emphasis on the Commander-in-Chiefs presence during the outward journey would highlight his absence on the way back, thus possibly giving the men the impression that they had been deserted. But his divisional officers were hardly sea scouts, they would understand all that. "I believe that covers it," he went on, "except for one detail which those of you who have already had the pleasure of a trip to Murmansk know about. Turn in early, get a good night's sleep. It is quite possible that you won't get another for some time. Good-day, gentlemen." At first light, ghostly bulges in the sleety greyness, the convoy began its voyage. The journey would extend for more than two thousand miles through one of the stormiest, most vicious areas of sea on earth; whipped by gales carrying as much snow and rain as air, fouled by fog and threatening with ice. The nineteen heavy merchantmen and their escorts put their bows into this sea and marched bravely across it. Once clear of Iceland on a northeasterly course and they were labouring. Even Warwick, her long length no use to her now; the forepart lifting, plunging down again to squash out wide whiteness on either side. And from this turbulent disturbance of the sea's lead- - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 52 - coloured face spray curved up over her flares and drove with a rattle like flung hail against the bridge. Duncan's face was covered by a woollen balaclava and scarf knitted by Celia so that little more than his eyes showed. And these, beginning to pain already, showed him the destroyers. Warwick and Niger were bucking, but the destroyers acted like demented things, for most of the time seeming to be half-awash. When they weren't, their decks streamed long white beards of returning water. Yet they were big Fleet destroyers, stout seaboats, and they could not only handle the sea but fight their guns in it: but an inexperienced landsman would never have believed that. Duncan's squinted gaze shifted to the corvettes. A many-sided genius named Churchill had suggested their design, had even given the class its name, and right here was the vindication of his judgment. Though displacing less than a thousand tons- possibly because of this-the corvettes were shipping less water than their arrogant colleagues the destroyers. Certainly they bucked, often lifting their forefoots clear of the water, but they were more on it than under it. Seeing the nearest one seem to stand on its tail, Duncan was reminded of a favourite story. Of all men who go down to the sea, Norwegian fishermen must surely be amongst the hardiest. Yet when a group of them went to sea in a corvette during an Atlantic gale, every manjack of them was seasick. Hearing the tale, Duncan had supposed it must have had something to do with the corvette's different motion. Now he smiled, knowing it had. Then a lash of spray smacked into his face and washed off the smile. For day after day the convoy bucketed on, with some men cursing the weather but wiser men blessing it. The sleet and lowering black cloud kept aircraft away, while the flashing waves kept U-boats down. At least that is what they supposed, for no enemy had been sighted. Nor was the Battle Fleet sighted. But they knew it was there, just before the horizon to port, bucking and reeling and waiting. Men aboard Warwick began to hope that this convoy would turn out like their last, preserved from attack. One vile, chilled morning, an officer of the watch ventured to mention this hope. Duncan smiled token agreement, but he knew better. So early? he thought, and the word mocked him. Early... They - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 53 - had been fighting this malignant wind and sea for almost a week during which he had hardly left the bridge, snatching sleep for a few restless hours at a time, eating food that was cold before it could reach his mouth. He felt weary to his bones, longing for uninterrupted sleep in a stable bunk. Yet Fawcett and Pilot and the others seemed spry enough. Was he getting too old for this sort of service? Had he already reached, passed, that point? His mind shivered away from the ugly prospect and occupied itself with relatively bearable considerations. It was too early to hope, no doubt about that. The weather could change tonight, even this afternoon. It only needed the wind to drop. The heavier the waves, the more weight they held, the quicker they lowered. A few hours could see the seas reduced enough for U-boats to chase them on the surface; that cloud could clear and allow reconnaissance aircraft an embracing view of this beautiful target. Submarines tonight, aircraft first thing in the morning. German Intelligence was as good as theirs. Maybe the enemy had no knowledge of the covering force, but most definitely he would have scouting planes up the moment the weather permitted. And then it would be hell all the way through to Murmansk. And suddenly, For God's sake! Duncan castigated himself for his gloomy thoughts. Warwick, Niger, the destroyers ... Between them they mounted more than fifty A.A. guns, and there were the Fleet's batteries, and the carriers' fighter planes. Was he that tired? That old ... ? Let the bastards come! And now, where before was castigation, he smiled at his swinging to the opposite extreme. Like hell let them come! Let them stay away and let his convoy deliver its tanks and food, its petrol and oil and planes and trucks to the Russians, so that they, ungrateful though they were, would be able to kill more Germans and help end this terrible bloody war. "Bosun's mate," Duncan said mildly. "Sir?" "I think more coffee is in order. No," Duncan countermanded remembering the food value in cocoa, "make it kai." "Aye aye, sir." He was drinking his sweet thick cocoa when the navigating officer informed him that they had come abreast of Bear Island, which was - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 54 - several hundred miles directly above Norway. Now the course was due east, and then straight south to their destination. Thinking about this, having a clear image of the chart in his mind, Duncan failed to notice the expression of concern with which the navigator covertly watched him. Pilot was thinking that never had he seen the captain look so drawn; cadaverous, almost. He hesitated. Certainly he was close to Duncan, but it was the depth of his concern which finally impelled him to speak. "It's been a hell of a trip, sir, but the weather's still lovely and foul. Why don't you snatch an hour or so in your bunk. I'll be up here." Duncan was surprised, then warmed. I'll be up here. You were almost always up here, he thought, bless you. He said: "I look that washed-out, Pilot?" "Of course not, sir. I mean, aren't we all? And if anything does happen, we'll need you fresh ..." Pilot stopped, aware of how close he had gone to the permissible limit. But instead of a glare Duncan gave him a small tired smile. "Thank you, old chap, but I think I'm good for a few days yet. When do we alter southward?" Pilot followed him to the chart-table. They reached the turning point. The mass of ships swung right and headed for Russia, and felt relief at once, for now that cursed wind was on the port beam instead of lashing into their faces. Ships rolled, but that was easier than bullocking into watery ridges that had seemed made of stone. The wind held, the waves reared, the cloud still lowered above them, and nothing came from those air bases in Norway. Then, just after lunch one rain-driven afternoon, Pilot reported: "Radar has the western edge of Kola Inlet, sir." Murmansk lay at the inner end of Kola Inlet. Thank God, Duncan wanted to say. He said: "Very well." And it was. A couple of Russian destroyers came out-now!-to lead these salt-covered battlers and their priceless cargoes in. Duncan stayed outside their priceless destroyers, patrolling up and down across the inlet until all the merchantmen should be safe inside. He still could not break radio silence, but the Admiralty was under no - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 55 - such restriction. The Battle Fleet, that signal from so far away told him, had turned back for base, which meant Scapa Flow. Duncan handed the signal back to the chief yeoman and looked at Blake. "That's that, Slippy. Now we're on our own." Commander Blake had less qualms than Pilot. "You should be in your bunk," he growled. "You want to kill yourself?" "My dear old chap," Duncan murmured, "once I get this floating fortress anchored, nothing could keep me out of it. Ah, there's the last one in. I think we might pipe special sea-dutymen to close-up." - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 56 - CHAPTER SEVEN DUNCAN knew nothing about what happened that night. Captain's Standing Orders required that he be informed of any significant changes in the weather, but a perceptive officer of the day went first to Commander Blake, and was not surprised to be told to leave the captain alone. Thus Duncan slept for an unbroken ten hours. Anchored off Murmansk, he felt safe enough to sleep in his bigger cabin aft instead of the less comfortable sea-cabin in the bridge structure-and God knows he had seen enough of that area. But being under the quarterdeck, and no matter how careful they were, the sounds reached him. He came fully awake at once; looked automatically at his watch, then frowned at the deckhead. Down through it penetrated a scaping, slithery sound, nothing at all like the familiar soft swish of scrub-deck brooms. But it must be, what else? Yet surely, he wondered, Blake would not be bothering about scrubbing decks here, after a trip like that? And the water would freeze into ice. "You're awake, sir," said his steward. "Here's something to warm the cockles." Duncan sipped the scalding tea gratefully; it was the first really hot drink he'd had since leaving Iceland. Now and again his eyes would flick upward, until finally he called: "Johnson, what's that damned noise up top?" "Sorry it woke you, sir. I heard the Commander say he'd keelhaul `em if they did." "You mean they're scrubbing down?" "No, sir, more like shoving. Why don't you duck up and take a look? It's really something to see. In all my eighteen years in the ..." "Yes, yes," Duncan said hastily. Johnson was a topflight steward, naturally, but when he started a sentence with those words it invariably grew into a discourse. "Pass me my robe." "And scarf, and seaboots," decided Johnson, and the man who could order six hundred to their deaths obeyed him without demur. Before Duncan reached the quarterdeck hatch he was gaspingly thankful for Johnson's order: the air pouring down was so chill it seemed to sear his lungs. Then he stepped out on the deck below the twin muzzles of Y-turret and stared about him with astonished delight. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 57 - He had seen snow before, of course-but never like this, not on a ship, where rain or spray sludges it away. The snow lay on every flat place which gave it a hold, making the turrets look like great iced cakes. But on the quarterdeck, more than a hundred feet of level space, it made a pure white fairyland, with the berthing bollards sticking up like black mushrooms. Half a dozen men had their backs to him, shovelling the snow with wide wooden rakes towards the ship's side. There was this scraping sound. Suddenly the man on the left-hand end of the line bent and picked up a double handful. Grinning, he hurled the snowball at his opposite number on the other end of the line. This man was quick. He ducked. Duncan did not duck. The white sphere took him on one shoulder and splattered over his robe. The thrower's grin did not wipe off; it froze where it was, while his eyes dilated. Of all the myriad sins in the Navy, he had just committed the worst. He had struck his captain. The other shovellers saw the horrified change in his face. They whirled round, and similarly froze. Duncan stepped forward, up close to the righthand man, the ducker. His face held thunder. His voice was colder than what they stood upon. "You were the cause of that," he said, and the ducker tried to swallow, but could not. The thrower found his voice. "Excuse me, sir," he started, and "Silence!" roared Duncan. He bent. His hands cupped the biggest snowball they could make and his arm went back. The ducker stayed rigid, imagining that the Old Man was so furious he'd temporarily gone off his rocker, and waited for the wet squash against his face. Duncan's hand swept forward. Halfway there and it changed direction. This time the thrower failed to duck. Fair and square, like those custard tarts in the films, the big ball burst on his face. "Carry on sweeping," said Duncan mildly. He let loose his grin and started to turn away. About three seconds before the last salvo was fired Petty-Officer Lewisham stepped on to his quarterdeck. It was his quarterdeck because he was captain of it, in charge of everything, including the - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 58 - men, thereon. Lewisham had a sharp eye for the malfunctions of sailors; he knew all the wrinkles, having at one time practised them. He saw a man in strange garb-but then none of them was dressed for Admiral's inspection-hurl a snowball, and saw it strike. And Lewisham did his duty."Belay that muckin' about!" he roared, startling three seagulls into flight. "That man! Here at the double!" That man completed his turn towards the hatchway. Lewisham was not familiar with the back of the captain's bare head, but sure as hell he knew his face. Like others before him, Lewisham's face turned rigid. For the first time in his vociferous life he was stricken dumb. Duncan walked up to him, kicking at the snow with his seaboots. "Yes?" he said. Lewisham found his voice, if not his vocabulary. "Captain, sir ... I ... ah ... um ..." Duncan kept his expression deadpan. "Believe it or not, Petty-Officer Lewisham," he said, "there are some things I am not permitted to do in my ship, but throwing snowballs is not one of them." "Yes ... Aye aye, sir!" "Carry on, please." Duncan walked back to the hatchway, flicked a glance at the grinning sweepers, and went below. He heard, in Lewisham's recovered voice, "Gawd strike me blind, what was that all about?" and then he was at his cabin door and out of hearing. "Well, sir," said Johnson, "did you like it?" "It is a long, long time, Johnson," he was answered, "since I enjoyed anything so much. A rather large breakfast this morning, I think." Warwick sailed from Kola Inlet at ten o'clock that morning. Though her men had perforce remained sober and celibate- Liverpool was a Riviera compared to Murmansk, and anyway the Russians allowed no British libertymen ashore-they'd had the benefit of an allnight in; and being hardy, and for the most part youngish, this had sufficed to recover them from the ordeal of the trip up. They were more or less happy even to be heading for Loch Ewe, but - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 59 - certainly they were alert, and for more than that Duncan did not need to ask. As he waited for the convoy to form up, he studied the list of ships which would be in his charge for the next couple of thousand miles. There were twenty five all told, and Duncan smiled at some of the names. Aldersdale was fair enough, even though it referred to an un-dale-like tanker of 10,000 tons. Thank God she was empty. Then there was Mary Luchenback and Nathaniel Greene-he was to remember those odd names-and Atheltemplar and Offa. It was a good thing the Navy had its ship-naming committee; imagine battleship Warspite sailing as Mary Luchenback ... But here was something more like it. A tanker called Black Ranger. Most appropriate. Fuel oil was generally thought to be brown, but have it spilled on your deck and it was as black as the commander's face. A small cough sounded beside him. Duncan looked up. "Yes, Guns?" Fawcett was smiling. "Allow me to congratulate you, sir." "Thank you, Guns, thank you very much. On what, precisely?" "On your precise shooting, sir. Direct hit with the opening salvo." "Oh. It's round the ship already?" "Unto the nethermost parts." Duncan nodded, but Fawcett knew the gesture meant "Good," just as he knew how morale had been lifted by that single snowball. Only a captain absolutely sure of himself and his men would have acted like that, and his men knew it. "Now that we've established my gunnery efficiency," Duncan said, "We'd better think about yours. Lord knows what last night's cold might have done to the armament." He looked at his watch, then back at the convoy emerging. "No time like the present. Close-up all armament. Every moving part is to be worked, and all communications checked. Quick as you can, Guns. This weather is too damned fine altogether." Fawcett had intended to do exactly as he'd just been ordered, once the convoy was out, but he was not the sort of man to claim a thing like that, certainly not to Duncan. He said, "Aye aye, sir, and spoke to the bosun's mate. The order was piped, men closed-up, and presently Warwick took - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 60 - on the appearance of a giant pincushion, with barrels weaving all over the sky as the hydraulic pumps whined. Bofors, too, and multiple pom-poms and oerlikons and point-five machine guns-all elevating and depressing and training through the full limits; even ready-use ammunition lockers on the 4-inch gun-deck were opened, for hinges could have frozen solid in last night's temperature. "The force of example," Commander Blake murmured, nodding to port. Duncan looked over there. Cruiser Niger was a similar bustle of freeing activity. For a moment Duncan was intrigued to see how fast her 5.25-inch turrets swung, and the twin barrels elevated. He mentioned this to Blake, adding: "It might be helpful if they sent out a bombing force. Not too large, of course, just enough for Niger to shoot the lot down. I doubt if they've seen a cruiser like her up this way. It would teach the bastards a lesson." Coarse language was not a habit with Duncan, and its use here told Blake that the captain was secretly worried about aircraft. So was he, for that matter. The German air bases at Barvik, Bardufoss, Tromso and Banak were marked on the chart, and the convoy would be in easy range of them. Blake smiled, suddenly and a bit nervily. "Never mind, maybe we'll have to deal only with U-boats." "For God's sake, Slippy. Remember those two bottles of beer?" Blake shivered, which wasn't hard. "Yes. Sorry. All right then, let's stick to facts. I know the German Air Command in Norway is called Luftflotte V, but what types of aircraft do they muster?" "Junkers 88's, bombers and dive-bombers," Duncan answered at once. "He 115 seaplanes and Heinkel torpedo aircraft, not to mention reconnaissance planes. There may be other types." "That will do for starters," Blake smiled without humour. "High- level, low-level, dive-bomber attacks, with torpedoes thrown in." "The Heinkels can be nasty," Duncan said, "but I consider the Ju88's the worst. Fast twin-engined planes, each carrying four 250- pound bombs. They might have been specially designed for slow merchant ships-for all I know they were." "All right," Blake growled. "But those 5.25's of Niger's must - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 61 - have a damned good range, and the ten of `em should put up a beautiful barrage, added to ours. Come to think of it, I'd sooner be down here than up there." "With that, Slippy, I have no argument," smiled Duncan, and at that moment the chief yeoman reported that all ships of the convoy were out. Duncan gave his orders, which the yeoman signalled. Warwick was to lead, screened by a destroyer on either side; the remaining destroyers and corvettes were to take station in equal numbers on both wings of the convoy, with Niger astern of it. In this position her formidable A.A. batteries would have a clear arc of fire on both sides. It was a strong disposition of forces, and would require a determined enemy to break through it. "Here we go, boys," Lusby said at his gun, watching a destroyer shear past to gain her ordered station, "once round the bay in the old Daisy May." "What do you think of our chances, Chief?" asked the phone number. "Chances?" said Lusby, "chances? There won't be none, me lad." "He means," said the breechworker of the left, "we're home and hosed. He says." "That's right." Lusby nodded with confidence. "Lissen. Our last Atlantic convoy? No risk. That convoy up here? Same again. This one? Ditto. She'll be a pleasure trip. We'll all be bored rigid. You mark my words." "How can you be so sure?" said the phone number. "One good reason, me hearty. The captain's lucky. He's proved it, ain't he? Two convoys in succession and what did we see? Sweet bugger all, that's what." The breechworker's lips curled in an amiable sneer, he was allowed that, being a two-badged able-seaman with eight years in. He said: "Third time lucky, eh?" Lusby nodded. "That right, Happy." The breechworker looked less than happy as he quartered the clear sky. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 62 - "I'm thinkin'," he muttered, "about that other three. Like big waves, and troubles, come in threes." There was no answer to that proven axiom of sailors. "Ah, pack up laughin'," Lusby growled. "Here, Taylor, you got your spare fuse-settin' gizmo handy?" From his bridge Duncan saw that all his escorts, and the convoy columns of twenty-five ships, were formed-up. Unlike a wagon-train starting out, there was no wave of a hand and a shouted "Wagons...roll!" Actually there was no starting signal at all, for the merchantmen were already at the ordered ten knots. But now, with the naval escorts in position, it had changed from a mass of ships to a convoy: designated, and to go down in the history books, as Convoy QP 15. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 63 - CHAPTER EIGHT ALL day they sailed, steadily through a calm sea, northward towards Bear Island and the ice-edge. When level with that iron outcrop of rock they would turn left to a westerly course, and finally southward to Loch Ewe. This roughly circular course would make their journey hundreds of miles longer than was normally necessary in peacetime, but this was war, savage and pitless, and right now their northerly heading from Kola Inlet was intended to take them directly and as quickly as possible away from those German air bases in Norway. The wind was logged as Force 3-officially a light breeze of from seven to ten knots. For seagoing ships like these it raised no progress problems, but it came straight off the ice-edge below Spitzpbergen, and struck as keen as a butcher's blade. Already Duncan's face was smarting, and his eyes starting to pain with the muscular effort of squinting against the wind's bitter touch. He glanced covertly about him, at Fawcett and Pilot and Blake, at the officer of the watch and the signal yeoman. Some moved their arms in circular motion, some rubbed gloved hands together. They were cold, which was natural. But none of them seemed to be aching...And again the insidious thought nagged rawly at Duncan's mind: was he past his prime for these conditions of warfare? In the Mediterranean or the tropics, no. There you had to handle your ship against Germans or Italians or Japs. But here he was up against the oldest, most savage enemy of all; a pitiless foe which turned normal tiredness into bone-aching weariness, of mind as well as body. Almost physically he shook the ugly thoughts out of his mind. Blake helped. "If this wind gets up," he said, "which it will, then we'll have ice for breakfast." "You could be right," Duncan agreed. He slipped from the chair, flexed his cramped muscles and started pacing across the bridge. It was easier this way with the wind on his cheeks, not having to stare into it. But each time as he turned he noticed that every other officer was looking ahead, straight into the wind. As before on the outward journey, Duncan rowelled himself for his stupidity. He was not supposed to be twenty-five or thirty like - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 64 - them, not expected to be able to fight Joe Louis. It was his brain, his experience and tactical skill-those were the qualities required of him here, and those he would never lose. He quickened his pace, beginning to feel warmer. Blake was proved right on both counts. In any sea change must be expected. In this chilled area it was as predictable as sunrise. The wind rose about midnight, lifting the sea with it. Warwick started to move, wetting her nose. Before dawn it was so cold that wherever the spray hit, it froze solid. The dawn came, palely wan and hesitant, as if reluctant to look upon the bitter scene. Squinting his eyes to slits, Duncan peered over the forward windbreak. What he saw afforded him neither astonishment nor delight, not like the snow, for ice he had seen many times before. Each turret was capped with a white sheath, which in places ran frozenly down their sides, like carelessly applied icing on a cake. And the big grey barrels were now white poles, and the identity of the anchor cables lost beneath the lumpy gleaming excrescences which had grown on them overnight. Like shaving cream, Duncan thought, or fairy floss. He was not worried about the ice, yet. There was insufficient to make her dangerously topheavy, while the first broadside would jump it loose. Yet it could serve a useful purpose. "Commander." "Sir?" "After breakfast we'll have this stuff chipped away. Put all available hands on to it." "Aye aye, sir." Like Fawcett, Blake had already decided on his course of action-the men would be better employed up her than loafing and grumbling on the mess-decks-but similarly he made no mention of it. Instead: "That cloud up there looks promising. We might have ten-tenths cover by noon." "Let's hope you're right," Duncan said. "In the meantime, I'll have breakfast." For the first time since leaving Kola Inlet the day before, Duncan left the bridge. Blake was pleased to see him go below for hot foot and drink. He knew the captain was tired; more importantly, he knew - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 65 - how much they all needed him. This time Blake was proved wrong. By noon the cloud had sailed over them, but in patches, nowhere near ten-tenths cover. Through the frequent gaps they could see the pale cold sky, and dreaded to see black things there. Men looked astern at the sky, more than at the sea. Duncan got regular and negative reports from his air-search radar, but the restlessness would not leave him. They had sighted no reconnaissance planes, but that didn't mean there'd been none. Radar could have missed; God alone knew what sort of temperature inversion might be up there in that frigid sky. He came to his decision. "Close-up the four-inch armament." Fawcett saw to it, and had words with the control officer of the high-angle director. In obedience, the director trained slowly from port beam to starboard, but searching aft. Down there, towards Norway, was where they would come from. Blake said: "Should we warn Niger about closing up her armament?" Duncan made another decision, this time instantly. "Tony Howard knows his business. I shouldn't be surprised if he's had those turrrets manned for an hour or more." "Of course." Blake did not know Niger's captain; he realised he should have remembered that Howard had not been sent along with those beautiful guns through knowing an Admiral's mother-in-law. "Four-inch armament manned, sir," Fawett reported. Duncan smiled faintly. "That was fast, Guns." "Yes, sir. I don't imagine they needed any urging." "Well now," Duncan said, rubbing his gloved hands together, "all we have to do is wait." At precisely the moment when he uttered that last word, disaster struck. Like most of them, Duncan was looking astern as he spoke, but low down, for that was where distant aircraft would first appear. Thus, at once, he saw the white column leap up beside Niger amidships, and a few shocked seconds later its mate spout further aft. He did not need Blake's shouted, "Torpedoes, by God!" That upthrust white had been lifted by forces greater than any bombs. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 66 - While the bridge team stared at Niger in stunned silence, Duncan whirled and spoke rapidly to the signal yeoman. Two destroyers curved round under hard-over rudders and surged back to the stricken cruiser. Just how stricken she was Duncan heard a minute later on the short-range R/T. The first torpedo had opened her cruelly amidships, which was bad enough, but the second had struck to more malignant purpose-it had blown off her rudder. For all practical protective purposes she was finished. Almost literally, so metallic was the taste in his mouth, Duncan felt the bitter irony of it. He had expected aircraft, he had a splendid ship especially designed to deal with them, and she had been crippled by a submarine. The reasons behind her tragedy-infinite variations in the thermal layers and the density of this terrible sea, factors which inhibited the efficient operation of asdic detection- these did not matter. All that did was the harsh fact that in a few seconds he had lost more than half of the convoy's anti-aircraft protection, at a time and in an area where he could expect to need it most. There was, as well, the equally harsh fact of Niger's fate. As Duncan strode to the R/T he stared aft, catching glimpses of her through the convoy lines, for now the convoy was making an alteration of course to try and escape the cruiser's Nemesis. She seemed to be still steaming, and still upright. "Niger this is Warwick," Duncan said. "Captain to captain." He knew Howard would be desperately busy, but he had to learn indisputable facts, not surmise from a lesser officer. Then Howard came through, his tone clipped and quick. "Howard, sir. Can you hear me?" "Go ahead." "Not too good, I'm afraid. Our pumps seem to be handling the intake, but I can steer only by main engines. So far as I know, all armament is fully operational." "Good. Speed?" "Three knots, perhaps five. No more." That was something-if only that damned U-boat could be kept down, if no aircraft found her. Duncan smothered speculation and gave his orders. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 67 - "Return to Kola Inlet. Destroyers Foresight and risk detaching more than two." "Understood, sir, and grateful. I'm sorry we've been of such small help." "Be damned to that. Just make the inlet. Good luck, old chap." "Thank you, and ditto." Duncan came back to the binnacle. Pilot had already altered Warwick's course to conform to the convoy's urgent swing. Duncan noted this, forgot it, and stared about him. But not all his experience could come up with a better disposition of the escort force, except for one minor change. He had two destroyers with him, ahead, and both sides of the convoy screened as adequately as could be achieved with the ships available. No possible alterations there. But astern, where Niger had steamed... "Yeoman, tell that last corvette in the starb'd screen ... what's her name?" "Daffodil, sir." "Tell her to take station half a mile astern of the convoy, and keep a sharp lookout for U-boat coming up on the surface." "Aye aye, sir." "Convoy's straightening up, sir," Pilot reported. "Very well, come round with them." Blake waited till the lumbering mass was back on its original course, then came up beside Duncan. "This is a turn-up, Richard," he said lowly. "I could think of a better term." "I bet. Do you think she'll make it?" "Three knots, no rudder, more than two hundred miles to go? And that bloody U-boat still undetected, almost certainly waiting another chance?" Duncan twisted in his chair and looked astern, seeing Niger slowly swinging round to the southward, and the busy circling destroyers seeming to mock her with their speed. He turned back, rubbing nervily at his chin. "Maybe another two destroyers..." Quietly, Blake said: "Do you want my opinion?" "I know it, Slippy. The greater good for the greater number. Twenty-five ships against one, with a hell of a long way still to go. Right?" "Exactly. Niger's valuable, but remember what these merchantmen can carry back." "Yes." Duncan's tone and face were bitter. "I'm also remembering - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 68 - the marked absence of Russian warships." He caught himself, and broke that dangerous trend of the conversation by looking again at Niger, now more than halfway to the horizon. She seemed so small back there, so lonely... "I pray to God she makes it," he muttered. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 69 - CHAPTER NINE JUST how fiercely and indomitably Niger tried to make it, Duncan heard from her captain. They were close together then, with plenty of time to talk. A ship with 62,000 horsepower in her boilers can be quite successfully manoeuvred with her four engines and four propellers. Steering her in that way is a totally different matter. Captain Howard found this out as soon as he had manoeuvred her around with one set of screws backing and the other going ahead. For now she faced southward, and where before the wind and sea had been ahead, now these risen forces came at her from the quarter, and the push and continuous slap of them against one side of her stern made her yaw almost uncontrollably. She moved, but seldom in the right direction. Howard knew he was in for the most frustrating and galling time of his life. He also knew that his ship stood in the gravest danger. Only a fool would have believed that a U-boat commander would leave such a valuable prize still afloat once he had crippled it, or that two destroyers were sufficient protection against him. And Niger herself, lumbering about like this at a mean three knots, make a 500-foot target no provenly competent U-boat could possibly miss. All the German needed was to decide when it was safe for him to attack. That time could occur tonight, or in the next minute. But Howard had neither the time nor the inclination to worry about possibilities. He was a practical seaman, and his experience said Tow. The signal was flashed to destroyer Forester, and after much hard work in the sleety cold the tow was passed. But a ship of 1,700 tons is not suitable for hauling another of more than 5,000, even less so one that cannot steer, and in rough following seas. The hawser came up out of the sea, straightened until it was a quivering bar, then snapped. It was pointless to repeat that manoeuvre. Howard's seamanship came up with another one. If his ship could not be towed, maybe she could be steadied. This required a drogue, and the drogue was Forester's tonnage. She came up close astern of Niger, took her wire, then slowly dropped back. Now the cripple was towing, and it worked; the wind and seas finding it much harder - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 70 - to punch Niger's stern aside with 1,700 tons hanging from it. For hour after slow hour it worked, all through the night, though a terrible toll was taken of Howard's body and nervous strength. He still had to steer his cripple, and in one four-hour watch alone more than sixty orders were passed to the engine-room. But they began to hope that the U-boat had given them up, possibly to chase a bigger prize, the convoy. So it had, though not before surfacing and activating its aerials. Howard, too, seeing his position could not be worse, also broke radio silence. The result of his signal was evident the next morning, when weary reddened eyes sighted four ships steaming to meet them. Elation turned to dismay when the helpers turned out to be British minesweepers. It was all the British Senior Naval Officer in Murmansk could send- those four, and a Russian tug. And the tug proved to be not nearly powerful enough to take Niger in tow. So on she laboured, with Howard and the engineer-commander half-dead with fatigue, until a little after noon that bitingly cold day there came upon her what the U-boat had signalled for. These new visitors were three, but how different to the minesweepers! Two of them were Z-class destroyers, Germany's latest, beautiful brutes mounting five 5.9-inch guns apiece, more than equalling Niger's own armament. The third destroyer was almost as modern and powerful, a K-class carrying five 5-inch. By this time, wishing to have both his destroyers free, Howard had attached one of the minesweepers to her stern wire. Just as well, though in the final analysis it served only to delay the end. The German flotilla was first sighted by one of the minesweepers. She carried one old 4-inch gun, but with this she opened fire at once; and in the final analysis this gutsy move served to save all the little ships, for through the dark of smoke-screens and the flurry of snow squalls the Germans assumed that the whole escort force was composed of destroyers. To the flat crack of that first 4-inch shell the British force reacted instantly. Both destroyers made smoke to try and obscure Niger and Howard slipped his minesweeper drogue. Then, with all his armament closed-up and his unsteerable ship circling at a desperate speed of eight knots, he joined the action. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 71 - As Howard had reported to Duncan, all his turrets were operational. They opened in rapid broadsides at the German K-class destroyer, a savagely vengeful fire that in a few minutes had blasted her open and left her sinking. "Shift target", went to the turrets. But now evil chance stepped in. Forester loosed a salvo of three torpedoes at one of the Z-class. They had just entered the water when she was struck by three shells. One of them killed her captain and the others brought her to a halt. And then came the torpedoes, fired by Forester's target. But these fish were meant for bigger things. Set deep, they speared under Forester and ran on. Two of them missed. The last one, very nearly at the end of its run, hit home. It struck Niger directly opposite her other gaping wound on the other side. So fierce, in such a place, the explosion came close to ripping her clean in half. She shook violently, and sagged with her back broken. Howard knew she was done. It was all done, the worry and the toil and the fruitless hope. He gave the order to standby to abandon ship. But destroyer Foresight was not finished, not yet. With his sister damaged, her captain steamed Foresight straight between Forester and the two German destroyers. The range was 4,000 yards, two miles. The enemy guns could shoot ten miles. Foresight was being hit continually. She made smoke and racked on speed, and looked like getting out of it. Then a 5.9-inch shell exploded in her boiler- room and she dragged to a stop. Now luck played its part-or common guts. In belted the little minesweepers, firing madly into the snow and smoke. Nothing less than destroyers would come in like that. Or so both German destroyers believed. They had the battle won. A few minutes would have sufficed for the minesweepers, then they could have swung their ten 5.9's on the temporarily-crippled Foresight and Forester. The British force would have been wiped out.Seeing those angry flashes stabbing at them through the murk, the German destroyers swung under hard-over rudders and fled into a snow-squall, and kept on fleeing. The little-ship captains were brave, - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 72 - but not idiots. They ceased firing, and over that violent arena silence fell.To the victors the spoils. Precious prizes, these; Howard called the minesweepers alongside Niger and they took off her crew. While this was in progress both Foresight and Forester succeeded in getting under way again. Seeing this, Howard gave his last order of that climatic action. As Forester had lost her captain, he asked Foresight if he had any torpedoes left. Yes, came the answer, one. "Sink Niger," Howard ordered. It was done. The depleted force set course southward. And so to some degree Duncan's prayer was answered-at least most of Niger's men reached Kola Inlet. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 73 - CHAPTER TEN CAPTAIN Duncan had his own worries. The cloud cover had stayed as it was-thick to the north, which was the safest direction, and patchy overhead and behind them, where lay the greatest danger. But for two hours after Niger's wounding, neither radar nor asdic had made any contact. Until now. Duncan was in his chair, his head bent to avoid the sting of spray, when a sound-powered telephone gave howling tongue. Fawcett took it, his head turned towards Duncan as he repeated the report. "Aircraft contact bearing Red two-five, angle of sight eight-oh, range three thousand yards." With mechanical rapidity Duncan's mind translated the given values into a mental picture. That was fine on the port bow, almost straight up, and quite close, certainly near enough to bomb. "How many?" he demanded. "One contact, sir." Shadowing plane, Duncan thought as he raised his binoculars. Or scouting? He couldn't see the plane, therefore it was possible they hadn't been sighted. Then into his lenses there slid a winged shape, crossing a clear patch of sky. His identification was instant. He115 seaplane. That meant reconnaissance. A lookout shouted and Fawcett made much the same report in his drawling voice. Duncan lifted one finger, keeping his glasses on the plane. Would it cross, and vanish into the next cloud, and fly on still ignorant? He knew his hope was foolish even before it fully formed. What else, when crossing a clear patch, would a trained reconnaissance pilot and observer do except look down? And who but blind men could miss more than thirty ships carving white wakes from the leaden sea directly below them? The seaplane banked and came straight towards the convoy. "What do you think, Guns?" "We could reach him all right, sir, providing he keeps..." "Yes," Duncan interrupted from beneath his glasses, "but he's not keeping on. In fact, there he goes." Duncan lowered his glasses from the wide reach of cloud into which the plane had ducked. "Well, - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 74 - that's that. Radar still tracking?" "Yes," Fawcett answered after a brief enquiry. "Have the crews man their guns, and the director..." He paused to look aft. The H.A. director was trained on that cloud and slowly turning. "If he shows again open fire. We might scare him off." "We might bring him down," Fawcett smiled. "True, but the damage is done. I can hear him jabbering now. But if we scare him off, and if... Yeoman, tell the convoy commodore we have a shadowing seaplane, and suggest that he standby for a large alteration to port." "Aye aye, sir." "Admittedly we haven't got the latest radar control system," Fawcett said, "but we could try a few salvoes on a radar bearing and angle of sight." "Shooting blind, into the cloud?" "Well, yes, more or less." "I'd prefer the director to get on to him. If we miss and he sights the bursts, we'll encourage more than deter him. "Pity about Niger," Fawcett said absently after a pause, "she has her gunnery radar patched into the high-angle control position. That'd fix the snooping bastard." "Not on the bridge, Guns, if you please." "Sorry, sir, it's just that... Oh, what's the use? We haven't got it and that's that." "You've got him!" Duncan said suddenly, pointing. "Quick, man!" Fawcett jumped for a phone. He had only to say "Open fire." The director was on and the port twins on the 4-inch gundeck had followed. Seconds for fuses to be set and the shells rammed home, then Warwick's midship section spat gouts of brown smoke. Four shells, Duncan thought; Niger could have sent ten, much bigger and more accurately. Damn and blast that U-boat! Not long afterwards, with a touch of superstitious awe, he was to remember that last thought. As the word U-boat formed in his mind his ears caught a distant banshee wailing. Forgetting the bursts he was waiting to see, he jerked his head round to starboard. From the destroyer over there, the one guarding his own starboard flank, scarves of white were pluming from her funnel, father to the siren - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 75 - sounds she was screeching. Submarine contact! "Missed astern, sir," Fawcett said. "He dived back into a cloud." Duncan barely heard him. He was listening for, dreading to hear, another sound, while he watched to see what action the screen would take. This was not his province. It belonged to Captain Sherwood. Though junior to himself both on the Navy List and in his command, Sherwood was senior officer of the escort group: U-boats were his business. Sherwood knew his business. His own destroyer, leading ship of the starboard screen, heeled on the turn so acutely that Duncan was able to see the whole of her upper-deck. Swinging with the same despatch and hard-over rudder, the second destroyer followed him round. Together they raced for a snow-squall off the convoy's starboard bow. "Standby for manoeuvring," Duncan said, and Pilot passed it down to the wheelhouse and thus the engine-room. If the U-boat had fired, a shoal of torpedoes could be heading for Warwick. There was no shoal of torpedoes. Just one. Aimed from an almost perfect firing position ahead and to the side of a mass of twenty-five ships, it could hardly miss. Perhaps half a minute after Duncan heard the siren, there came that other sound. Cavernous, booming, it thudded against his ears; but the eye sees quicker than the ear hears, and already Duncan knew he had lost his second ship. It was an enormous boil of black smoke. It came from, it totally obscured, the leading ship of the right-hand column. He knew her name-Aldersdale, the tanker whose name he had first noted on his list. She'd been emptied only of the cargo she'd loaded; she still carried hundreds of tons of her own fuel, and the torpedo had found it. "My God," Blake said in a hushed voice, "they'll have been incinerated." "Blasted to death, more likely, before the flames reached them." Duncan recognised his own casualness, but he had to speak that way, or the horror would mount, along with the sickness, and it was possible he would vomit. Like the young signalman over near the chart-table, Duncan - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 76 - turned his head, glad of the distraction, but the yeoman was already there, speaking rough, kindly words. The youngster wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stumbled away for a bucket and cloth, avoiding their eyes. "Convoy's turning to port, sir," Pilot said. "Very well, comply." Duncan returned his attention to the pair of destroyers. They had slowed down, on the hunt. If there was only one submarine those two would keep him under. If a pack, then some could be on the other side. But the commodore's large alteration should throw them off their aim. Abruptly, Duncan's mind was again distracted, much more forcefully this time, and by two almost simultaneous events. The port 4-inch gave cracking tongue and a moment later, still startled, he saw the sea behind Sherwood's destroyer heave itself up in a hugh white mound. They'd found the mongrel! "Got him!" Duncan recognised Fawcett's voice, though there was little enough drawl to it, and he assumed his ejaculation referred to the U- boat. He kept looking at Sherwood at work. Then Fawcett said, "Look, sir," and touched his arm. Duncan followed the gunnery officer's uplifted gaze, and a smile which Celia had never seen made his face savage. The seaplane was coming down in long circling swoops, while behind it a faithfully following spiral of black fouled the sky. "Nice work, Guns," Duncan said softly. "I suppose luck had some small part in it," Fawcett smiled, drawling again, "seeing he only showed for a few..." He stopped, for Duncan had turned away to watch the other drama. "No doubt, but good shooting just the same," Duncan surprised him, then he too fell silent, and together they watched. Not for long. Sherwood was playing that new and vicious game, letting his colleague signal ranges and bearings and courses while his own ship rushed in to the attack. Just the same, there was luck here, considering what this cold deep water could do to asdic transmissions. Duncan couldn't have cared less about that. He saw the white violence erupt again behind the destroyer's tail, watched - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 77 - her swing hard-over to commence another run. Then he saw her straighten before the turn was completed, pointing her nose for the convoy, and he knew; even before sighting the bright flickers from her bridge, which he read himself. "From Captain (D), sir," the yeoman said formally. `"Submarine sunk'." "Make `Well done'," Duncan ordered, also formally, covering his relieved and savage satisfaction. He thought of flashing his own screening destroyer, the ship which had first gained contact, but decided against it. The Navy's meagre measure of praise was so effective simply because it was meagre. "Well, well," Blake said with undeserving cheerfulness, "everything seems to be under control up here. I think I've earned myself a nice hot cuppa." "Yes, of course," Duncan said, but distantly, and Blake knew he was thinking of the night ahead. That might have been the U-boat that got Niger; it could also be one of a large pack strung out along their route. There was no cheerfulness in Blake's face as he walked to the ladder. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 78 - CHAPTER ELEVEN "ARE you awake, sir?" Duncan very nearly answered that silly but traditional question with a growled, What the hell else would I be, on this? He said, "Yes," and sat up on the stretcher whose canvas was frozen to the rigidity of a board, pushing away the equally soft canvas which had more or less protected him from the night's icy rain. He yawned, then shut his mouth so quickly that the click of teeth was audible. The air he'd drawn in seared like fire. "Weather?" he croaked. "Still down, sir," Pilot answered, "but I have a feeling there's fog about. Then fog was about, Duncan thought. He squinted up and said:"Don't you ever sleep, damn your bright young eyes?" "I had a couple of hours, sir," the navigator smiled, "in my bunk. Everything's clear on radar and asdic. It might be a good idea if you got your head down for a bit." "You, too?" "Sir?" "Nothing, except that you sound like a fussy old hen named Blake." Duncan realised that was going a bit far even for an officer of Pilot's standing. "Any kai handy?" he grunted to change the subject, then stood up, and would have fallen but for Pilot's quick hand. "Blood's turned to ice," he growled, "a man would be better off pacing all night." "Yes, sir," Pilot agreed diplomatically. He withdrew his hand, though ready to return it, and called to the bosun's mate: "Jug of kai for the captain." Waiting for it, Duncan stumped back and across the compass platform, feeling the pain of returning circulation, and the cold's venomous bite on his face. Celia's scarf and balaclava might have been made of gossamer. Over them he pulled the hood of his duffle coat, though with no appreciable benefit. His eyes, nose and cheeks remained clear, and on them the cold worked. God, what a forsaken place this was, he thought with hatred. The sea temperature never rose above 47 degrees F., and most times was well below that. Three - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 79 - minutes, the doctors gave you, before your heart was frozen stiff. How the hell did they know? Worked out on a Whitehall slide-rule, no doubt. A nice round three minutes. He must ask the next man they pulled out of the drink. Those poor devils in the tanker wouldn't have felt cold ... "Your kai, sir." Duncan halted and turned, made suddenly aware of the oddness of his thoughts. Was he light-headed, for God's sake? But there was the kai. Take it, man! He took the cup in both hands and raised it, feeling the steam like a blessing on his face. Then in the grey dawn light he saw the other face; so pinched, so young. "Have a cup yourself, lad," he said on impulse. In the mind of the bosun's mate God himself might have spoken. An order, yes, though that would be a rarity, but an invitation to drink the captain's own kai! "Ah..." he stammered. "I.." "Nugent, isn't it?" Duncan said kindly, and the boy would never know that he had helped bring the wearied mind of this infinitely aloof officer back to reasoned sanity. But why was he looking at him like that? "Yes, sir," he said. What a hellish devil's brew they were in, Duncan was thinking, to put such a child in a place like this, to kill or be killed. He should be with his mother. But he wasn't. He was on a cruiser's bridge in front of a captain who was coming close to making a fool of himself. Duncan made his tone normally matter-of-fact. "I can't drink it all, you know. No point in letting it get cold, is there? Pour yourself a cup. Perhaps the navigating officer would like one." "Yes, sir. I... would like one, thank you." "Then hop to it." That was enough. Duncan had made a friend for life, but he was thinking of discipline. He took his cup to the forebridge and looked out over the windbreak, sipping, aware that already the cocoa had turned from hot to warm. And aware of the sea. It gleamed greyly, as smooth as glass. Pilot had been right. In these windless conditions fog was almost a certainty. "I hope so," he said suddenly. "Sir?" Pilot queried, startled. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 80 - "Fog, old chap. Thick enough to knit a scarf with, eh?" "Well..." "Oh, forget your damned navigation. There's a devil of a lot of empty space to wander about in. Think of Ju88's and U-boats, grounded and blinded. Wonderful." "There is that to it, I suppose. If you forget twenty-five big blunt bows ploughing all over that empty space." "Twenty-four," said Duncan, and with that reminder the spell of lightness was broken. He looked at his watch, then at the frigid dimness about him. "Close-up for dawn action stations, please." "Aye aye, sir." A few minutes and the silent ship had bustled into life. Unwillingly. Duncan heard the curses and grumbles of men squeezing up through the manholes of B-turret below him, but was markedly unaffected thereby. From cold feet to numb toes his whole body ached for what they had just left-the warm fug of the messdecks, the blessed softness of a hammock's curve. God, when would this journey end? And when it did, the start of another... "Morning, sir," Blake said, saluting the captain on first sighting each day, as was the custom. "D'you mind me being here? I can get down to that hole fast enough if needs be." Duncan felt surprise. It was the only time he could remember that Blake had not gone straight to his action station in the auxiliary conning position. Why the change? "Sorry, sir," Blake said, a little stiffly. "I shouldn't have presumed..." "Nonsense, Slippy. I was thinking of something else. Stay by all means. Though I don't suppose," Duncan went on jibingly, annoyed at his earlier hesitation, "that you want this dispensation extended to cover rainy mornings with a Force 8 gale?" "Ah ha! Splendid. Nothing like bright sparkling humour before dawn. My Gawd," Blake ended lugubriously. The reports started coming in-main armament closed-up, the four-inch, the tubes, the engine-room... Then the final report: "Ship closed-up for action, sir." "Very well." Duncan had not checked the time taken to ready the ship, but - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 81 - from experience he knew it was short enough. Behind the whinges and curses lay a vastly greater force-the urge of self-preservation. His men knew all about that three minutes in the water business; they had no desire to prove it. Duncan looked astern. Just barely, brief faint strokes of whiteness, showing the bow-waves of the leading merchantmen. He was satisfied, knowing that his destroyers could be relied upon to inform him of any lost sheep or stragglers. Walking to his chair, he touched Blake lightly on the arm. For a few minutes they talked professionally in low voices about the likelihood of fog, of aircraft and U-boats, while the light grew and the foc's'le became visible, then Duncan said, with no change in his casualness of tone: "Slippy, I'd like to ask you a question." Blake nodded. "Shoot." "Tell me. How do you really feel about this lot?" His friend blinked at him. "You're serious?" "Quite." "You know, then." It was a statement. "Pardon?" "Come on, Richard. Why I came up here instead of going below." "I was somewhat surprised and curious, certainly, but that's all." "Then why ask me about how I feel?" "Simply because I want to know." "Right. Here it is, short and sweet. I'm sick to bloody death of it. Sick to my guts." Blake shrugged. His voice lost its vehemence, became resigned. "But the job has to be done. So what's the point in whinging?" "A very valid point, old fellow," Duncan murmured, and for a moment looked straight into Blake's eyes. "Knowing how you feel makes it easier for me. You see?" Blake nodded slowly. "Yes, I see-now. Though..." "Go on." "Well, I know you've been tired. That's understandable-worry, responsibility, the hours up here. But apart from that you've always seemed to be, well, indestructible. A tower of strength, dammit all. It never occurred to me you could feel like I do." "Which proves what a splendid actor I am," Duncan smiled. "Oh, - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 82 - don't worry. I haven't reached the collapsing stage, nor anywhere near it. But I am human, with all that implies about this sort of work. You realise that now. I'm glad you do," Duncan ended simply. Blake didn't know what to say. He felt a warmth of feeling, an affection so deep it approached masculine love for this quiet, lonely man whose iron strength of will and character upheld them all, but of these things he could not speak. The silence grew between them. Duncan rescued it from the edge of embarrassment. "Here endeth the confession," he said lightly, "and I for one feel the better for it." His tone changed to crispness. "All right, Guns, secure action stations." "Aye aye, sir." Duncan looked ahead, making up his mind. His sea cabin contained a bunk, an easy chair, a small table, Johnson's pantry and little else. It would have to be the day cabin. Should he risk it, so far away from the bridge? But his need was urgent, and the benefit would outweigh the risk. "Slippy." "Sir?" "Stay up here, ten or fifteen minutes." "Of course." "I mean take over. I'm crawling. If I don't take a hot shower you'll have a gibbering lunatic on your hands." "God Lord, is that all?" "It's everything." "Then hop to it. If I can't shoot `em down I'll clobber `em with snowballs." Duncan gave him a twisted jibe of a smile and hurried to the ladder, then down others and along the upper-deck at the same pace. He was not concerned with dignity. The shower, as hot as he could stand it, was pure bliss. He could have stood there all morning, feeling the aches warmed away. And he could not know how much he was to need the benefit of that steaming balm. Warned by Blake in the sea cabin, Johnson also had hurried aft, and had a complete change of warm clothing laid out for his Lord - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 83 - when Duncan emerged from the bathroom. "Clairvoyance," Duncan grinned, eyeing the clean dry gear with relish. "Commander," admitted Johnson. "You'll have breakfast here, sir?""No, in the sea cabin." "I will never," vowed Johnson, "put in for captain's rate." "Which is very wise of you. These are damned fine socks. Where did we get them?" "Present from a lady, sir." "Really? Decent of you to let me have... Oh. Blast your eyes, Johnson. D'you think I'd forget a present from my own wife?" "Yes, sir. D'you think I won't tell her?" "I know you won't, not if you want to set foot on dry land again." "To think I could've joined the Army," Johnson sighed. "God help the nation." It was the most pleasant ten minutes he had spent since leaving Celia. And it ended abruptly. He had just dragged on the thick duffle coat when the alarm clamoured. Ignoring the bridge phone-time wasted-he ran up the ladder and along the upper-deck, pushing surprised men aside. Blake heard his feet thumping on the ladder, and turned to meet the demand in his eyes. "Third ship in the port outer column," he said, "torpedoed." Duncan's eyes were already searching, first for the stricken ship and then the destroyers. "No contact," he said, more to himself. "But they know the direction, they should be altering out." "Hell," Blake jerked. "What?" "Sorry, sir. No U-boat. It was a Heinkel torpedo bomber." Duncan felt instant anger at the incomplete report. Recognising that the commander had more to do with seamanship and the ship's cleanliness than with fighting didn't help. But this was no time for recriminations. "What happened?" he snapped. "There was just the one plane," Blake told him, "as far as we - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 84 - know. Nothing on radar, not even now. He dropped out of that cloud," pointing, "straightened up and let go, then climbed back out of sight. Took only a minute. None of the destroyers had time to open fire." Concern had replaced Duncan's anger. He'd lost another ship, judging from the red-based smoke pouring from her. Worse than that, the enemy had found them again. "There's our fog, sir," Pilot said, "right ahead." Duncan snatched a glance over the bow. Now, he thought bitterly, now it comes. Another ten minutes would see them into it. He turned back. "Rescue ship, Yeoman?" "She's on the way, sir, almost alongside." "Right." The rescue ship was an innovation gained from the cruel lessons of the Atlantic; a fast roomy vessel specially attached to a convoy for picking up or taking off survivors. For the commodore to have sent her, the torpedoed merchantman must be severely damaged. "What ship is that?" Duncan asked. "I think she's... Excuse me, sir." Rapid flickers were coming from the commodore's ship. The yeoman read them without effort. "The Nathaniel Greene, sir. The commodore wants her sunk." Duncan remembered that name, too. Now it was to be wiped from the list, remembered only by the men who had served in her. He flashed orders to the nearest destroyer. The job had to be done quickly, for that smoke made a towering beacon. The destroyer swung, went in, swung again and moved out; leaving behind her a missile that ran straight. The torpedo exploded with a thumping roar that reached easily to Warwick's bridge. It was more than enough. Before her killer had resumed station in the screen the merchantman had rolled on to her side. There came a final upthrust as the boilers blew, then the smoke, unrenewed, wavered upward and vanished. "The fog's closing in, sir," Pilot warned. Thank God for that, Duncan thought; there was danger of collision, and the convoy would lose formation, but once in the clear again it could be reformed; and if the fog lasted long enough it might cover them till nightfall, with the break of day finding them close to or past the limit of enemy air strikes. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 85 - He thought of flashing a navigational warning to the convoy, but changed his mind. Most of these skippers had been at sea longer than he had; they would hardly retire to their bunks. "Secure action stations," Duncan said. "Post extra lookouts fore and aft." Behind him the convoy forced on to meet the fog, steaming brave and blind into doom. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 86 - CHAPTER TWELVE IT was a massacre. Though Duncan did not learn about it till later, when the terrible tally was complete, the ship whose name he had smiled over was the first to go. The Mary Luchenback, steaming in the port wing column, took a torpedo in her belly. She had steam there under great pressure. The boilers holding it went up with a force that shattered her body, and flung its iron parts over the ship next astern. Thunder reverberated through the fog. Reflected, it seemed to crash upon Warwick from all directions. Duncan felt as though he were in a huge cavern, which in effect he was; a dark cavern, holding him blind and helpless. He was beset by enemies, yet could see nothing to attack. Then how could they see? Blake offered a possible answer. "U-boat," he rasped, his nerves rubbed raw under the ominous promise of that gargantuan blast. "It has to be, firing on a sound bearing. The bastard only has to fire in the general direction." Duncan's forehead was ridged with worry. "All right," he said. "But why hasn't the screen made contact? We'd have heard a siren, a signal by R/T." "Unless he's got in between the screen and the convoy," Fawcett said. "A column of ships stirs up a lot of turbulence. Asdic operation here is dicey enough without that." Duncan thought he could be right. Actually, he was-with one ugly exception. There were three U-boats moving parallel with the convoy, warned by the Heinkel and waiting in the fog; their hydrophones filled with the tearing thrash of scores of propellers, giving the captains speed and range and bearing. With 40-knot torpedoes against 10-knot targets, all they really needed was the bearing. Wham. The blast thudded against Duncan's ears. His flesh crawled. This was murder. Firing a shotgun into a box filled with pigeons. Fearing to hear it, he listened for the next explosion, and heard fainter sounds which he could not identify. To the men in that stricken ship the sounds were frightfully loud. She had been hit in the forward hold, a huge empty space. Forcefully - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 87 - sea filled it with a tremendous weight. Already cut almost in two, the ship broke apart. It was the rip of tortured metal which Duncan heard, followed by the crack of splinting bulkheads. The divided parts of her body capsized and wallowed under. Mercifully, the doctors were right about those three minutes. Even before that time could elapse the men in the water were frozen into unconsciousness, and so they neither saw nor felt the bow of the next astern which ploughed through them, nor the chop of the screws. Three more times Duncan heard the booming strike of torpedoes, and once far back there in the slaughterhouse, he caught a glimpse of red briefly slashing the white opacity. It must have been a tremendous burst of fire to penetrate so far through the fog. Fuel oil? Or a destroyer's magazine? Rage filled him, so murderous that he almost failed to identify the next explosions. It was Fawcett's worried comment that served to bring the sounds back into the forefront of his consciousness. "They weren't torpedoes," the gunnery officer said. "Smaller, sharper." "Shells," Blake put in, "though it's hard to tell in this blasted muck." "No, not shells," Duncan said in a quiet tense voice that had them all staring at him. He looked upward, to where the lofty foremast disappeared above the director into the shroud of fog. "Put a man at the masthead, fast!" They guessed, then. A few minutes later they knew. The lookout in the crow's nest reported in a shaken voice that he was above the fog, that astern he could see other masts sticking clear, and that above them circled a flight of twenty Ju88 bombers. "Oh Christ," Blake groaned, then pulled himself together. "You'll scatter the convoy, sir?" Duncan shook his head. His face and tone were bleak. "No point. There'd be a massive pile-up. And they could follow the masts of those who weren't rammed." "Then there's nothing we can do" Fawcett said. "Nothing except ride it out," Duncan answered. "And hope to God we get clear of this bloody fog!" He ended savagely. They steamed clear of the fog an hour and three more sunken ships later. The thick whiteness paled, then eased to patches, and - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 88 - then Warwick was carving through open water. "There they are, Guns," Duncan said in a strangled sort of voice. "I want them." "Yes, sir." Fawcett gave him three in quick succession, taking the busy bunch above the convoy by surprise. Without speaking, his face granite- hard, Duncan watched the trails of flame quench themselves in the fog, and saw a group of four head in a fast straight run for Warwick. "Shift target," he said. "Open in controlled firing, standby for barrage." There was no need to designate the target. The director swung, the hot barrels followed. "Open fire," said Fawcett. The planes were coming from astern. Duncan swung her a little to keep his port-side guns bearing. The long grey barrels sniffed up and down, steadied, and belched. The crews had already swung into their smoothly rapid cycle of loading, so that Duncan felt no surprise when the first four shells burst all around the left-hand plane and tore it to pieces. He had full command of himself now, though the rage was still there, but held down. The guns roared again, less successfully. Untouched, the three planes came on. "Barrage long, long, long," Fawcett said. This time the four shells burst at a predetermined range, exploding a curtain of flying steel in front of the bombers. One was struck. It wobbled, while the bridge team watched hopefully, then it banked clumsily and headed away southward. The remaining pair bored on, and now the supercharged snarl of their motors shafted down in a crescendo of threat. "Barrage short, short, short," Fawcett said. They got the newly-fused shells off but the enemy's rate of approach was too fast. The black bursts flowered behind them. "Standby, Pilot," Duncan said. Pilot was already bent over the wheelhouse voice pipe, his head turned a little to watch Duncan. Two bombs dropped from each aircraft. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 89 - "Hard-a-port," Duncan said. The order snapped down the pipe, the wheel spun, the rudder swung over. It was a big rudder but she was no destroyer. Her 600 feet of length seemed to take an age before it turned, while men held their breaths and the bombs hurtled closer. Then they were dark streaks, and in the next second they struck. Warwick quivered. The fo'c's'le disappeared, hidden under a tossed carapace of white. But only water fell there; Duncan had turned just in time to save her. But not from the fourth bomb. The top of B-turret directly below the bridge was flat. It was covered with armour-plate. The bomb hit there, failed to penetrate, and exploded. A screaming scythe of splinters swept the bridge. Though Blake's ears were numbed by noise his bodily reactions remained unaffected, and for so solid a man these were quick. He caught Duncan before the captain was halfway to the deck. And very nearly vomited over him. Blake forced down his nausea. His hand faltered out, drew back. Then he summoned a ton's weight of resolve on his cringing muscles, tugged out his handkerchief, and with that covering Duncan's dangling left eye he gently placed it back in the bloody socket. Afterwards, when the surgeon-commander asked him why he'd bothered, he could only say that it seemed the thing to do, at the time. Now his mind was too sickened to think rationally, and he acted on mechanical impulse, formed the handkerchief into a rough bandage which he tied behind Duncan's head, keeping its contents in. He saw the redness seeping through, but he could do nothing about that; you cannot put a tourniquet around a man's neck. Yet there were others more fitted. Blake thrust himself up and his voice grated across the bridge: "First-aid party, at the rush!" Fawcett himself broadcast the urgent message. Pilot said: "We're still hard-over, sir." It took a moment for Blake to realise that the words were addressed to him. When he did, there came the other understanding. He was in command. It had been a long time since he'd given wheel orders. Unlike the - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 90 - second-in-command of a destroyer, he kept no watches. But he had been a destroyer's first lieutenant, and done a deal of watch-keeping after that, and the old training rushed back. "Midships," he ordered crisply, "starb'd twenty-five, resume original course." "Aye aye, sir," Pilot acknowledged, and hoped he kept the relief out of his tone. It was one thing to handle a ship; quite another to command her. A rush of feet sounded on the ladder. Blake saw they had brought a stretcher. "Sickbay," he snapped. "Quick and careful." They laid Duncan on the stretcher and took him away. Blake saw his head turn, voluntarily. He closed his eyes and gave thanks. Cracking sound jerked them open. His head swivelled. There they came, one after the other bursting from the fog, making their own brown fog as at last they saw and challenged their enemies. Pride surged hotly through Blake. He doused it and forced his mind to practical considerations. Six of them, he countered, the whole blessed flotilla: thirty-six 4.7's belching at the bombers. And Warwick? "Guns!" he roared, "what the hell are you waiting for? Get those bloody four-inch in action!" "I should be delighted to, sir," Fawcett drawled, and smiled-he had to act like that, having seen the captain-"if you will swing the ship so that the guns will bear." "Christ. Port twenty, Pilot. Straighten her up when the guns bear." Warwick swung again, and again her midships roared its defiance. Blake saw a Ju88 explode in a ball of fire. He didn't know if Warwick got it, didn't care. His sight was on more flames, this time a yellow flaring trail that doused itself in the sea. "How many left?" he demanded. "Eight, sir," the yeoman answered. "Seven," Blake corrected with hard satisfaction, seeing a wing rip off. "That's a fair tally, Guns." "I'd say excellent, sir. More than a fifty per cent loss. Then the yeoman reported the convoy breaking clear, and Blake's mind tightened as he started to count that other loss. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 91 - He counted up to nine, and waited, but nothing more showed. "My God," he muttered, "sixteen gone." "At least we've made some sort of record," Fawcett said. Blake swung on him. But nakedly through Fawcett's casualness the tension and the horror showed. Blake turned back. So had the bombers. He saw only six as they dwindled in ragged formation to the southward. "It's over, Guns." "Yes, thank God," Fawcett said soberly. "I hope to hell we're not found again before nightfall." They were spared that annoyance. - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 92 - CHAPTER THIRTEEN CELIA saw him at once as she stepped into the ward. He was the only one with a bandage over his eye. She came up to the bed smiling while her mind cringed at the gaunt tightness of his face. "Hello, my darling." In answer his arms went out. She sank into the chair and laid her face on his chest. They did not kiss; it was too deep for that. After a long close moment Duncan eased her back and with his one eye frowned at her. "You took your time about coming." "Well now," she said brightly; her eyes were bright, too, the shine of tears. "First there was a film I wanted to see, then a pair of divine shoes at Harrod's-I had to go to London for those, naturally- and then I thought perhaps I'd better trot along to the hospital and see my husband. Oh... darling..." "Stop it! For God's sake, you want me to... Sweetheart, please stop," he pleaded. She nodded, lips pressed together. She sniffed and turned her head away; using her handkerchief, giving Duncan the chance to blink rapidly. When she turned back she was smiling. "They wouldn't let me see you. I can't imagine why. What do you call them on board? Malingerers?" "Skulkers, lead-swingers." He frowned again, this time genuinely. "We've got to stop that, too." "Darling?" "Covering up, stepping all around it. We're too old in the tooth for that nonsense. I want it out and done with, right now. I've lost an eye, and that's that." "Yes," she said, numbly, then forced brightness into her face. "A black patch. You'll look like a pirate. Fascinating." "At least I'm not a cripple, not like poor old Howard." "Howard?" "He had Niger. Surely you heard?" She nodded. "A shell burst caught him across both legs. He refused to leave the bridge until the action was over, then they had to carry him aboard the minesweeper. By that time he'd lost too much blood and gangrene set in. They had - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 93 - to amputate both legs." "My God." "Iron clean through. He told me all about the action, but never a word about staying on the bridge. I got that from his first lieutenant," Duncan's thumb gestured. "That's him there, behind the screen." Celia was aghast. "Captain Howard?" she whispered. "It's all right, he's sleeping under sedation. The pain, you see." The word switched her mind from that captain to her own. "Does it hurt, darling?" "Of course the bloody thing hurts," he growled, then smiled. "I'll need lots of loving care." For the first time, gently and quickly, she kissed him. "About time," he smiled. "By the way, you're still stuck with the Navy. They're retaining me on the strength." He held her eyes and said, quietly. "Ashore." Her heart sang. She frowned coveringly. "I'm sorry, Richard. So sorry, for your sake." "Sorry be damned." He grinned like a boy. "God knows I've had enough seatime. Now here's another thing we'll get straight right away. I'm not one of those diehard glory clowns who turn all neurotic when they're held back from the foe. Foes," he said, taking her hand, "I have seen. Now your hero is headed for a desk job. There's a chap named Horton who seems to be making a pretty good fist of fighting the Battle of the Atlantic from behind a desk, and another by the name of Pound at the Admiralty, who happens to be the First Sea Lord and tells Fleets where to go. I'll be fairly creditable company." "Good Lord," she said, that singing inside her, "do you talk as much as that on the bridge?" "What's a bridge?" Celia knew it would not be as easy as all that, but he had fully accepted the situation, of that she was sure. Her mind was suddenly filled with a bright vista of endless days and nights, all of them spent together. "Heavenly," she whispered. "What was that?" "Nothing, my dear. My dear, dear Richard." She leaned forward and he came up to her, and this time the - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 94 - meeting of their lips was neither gentle nor quick. That was how the nurse found them. Being young, she turned away and left them. And so must we. THE END - J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 95 -