The Captain was silent for what seemed an unconscionably long time. It said much for the regard in which he held the Bo’sun that probably no other man could have given him pause for so long. When he spoke his voice was thick with bitterness. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers. That’s it, isn’t it?’ McKinnon made no reply. ‘Anyway, navigating a plane is quite different from navigating a ship.’
‘I can navigate a ship,’ Ulbricht said. ‘In peacetime I was at a Marine Schule – a marine school. I have a marine navigation certificate.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Not on me, of course, but I have one. Besides, I have many times taken starsights from a plane. That is much more difficult than taking sight from the bridge of a ship. I repeat, I can navigate.’
‘Him! That monster!’ Sister Morrison sounded even more bitter than the Captain but maybe that was because her lips weren’t blistered. ‘I’m quite sure he can navigate, Captain Bowen. I’m also sure that he would navigate us straight to Alta Fjord or Trondheim or Bergen – some place in Norway, anyway.’
Ulbricht said: ‘That’s a very silly statement, Sister. Mr McKinnon may not be a navigator but he must be a very experienced seaman and it would require only one glimpse of the sun or the Pole Star to let him know whether we were steering roughly south-east instead of roughly south-west.’
‘I still don’t trust him an inch,’ Sister Morrison said. ‘If what he says is true, then I trust him even less.’ Her eyes were coldly appraising, her lips firmly compressed, one could see that she had missed out on her profession, she was well on the way to being the headmistress of Roedean with Ulbricht cast in the unlikely role of a trembling and errant pig-tailed third-former. ‘Look what happened to Trent. Look what happened to that Greek captain. Why shouldn’t the same thing happen to Mr McKinnon?’
‘With respect, Sister,’ McKinnon said in a voice notably lacking in respect, ‘I have to repeat what Lieutenant Ulbricht said – that’s a very silly statement indeed. It’s silly for two reasons. The first is Naseby is also a bo’sun and a very fine one, too. Not that I would expect you to know that.’ The Bo’sun put an unnecessary emphasis on the word ‘you’. ‘Trent, Ferguson and Curran can also tell the difference between north and south. So, I’m sure, can Chief Patterson and Mr Jamieson. There could be half-a-dozen others among the crew. Are you suggesting that by some mysterious means that passes my comprehension – but not, it would seem, yours – Lieutenant Ulbricht is going to have us all immobilised?’
Sister Morrison parted lips that had been tightly, even whitely, compressed. ‘And the second reason?’
‘If you think that Lieutenant Ulbricht is in cahoots with the persons who were responsible for the destruction of his plane and, near as a whisker, the loss of his own life – well, if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.’
If it is possible to clear a throat in a soothing fashion, Patterson did just that. ‘I think, Captain, that the Lieutenant here might not be quite as black a villain as you and Sister think.’
‘Not a villain! The black-hearted – ‘ Bowen broke off and when he spoke again his voice was quiet and almost thoughtful. ‘You would not say that without a reason, Chief. What makes you think so?’
‘It was the Bo’sun who first came up with the suggestion. I think I agree with him. Bo’sun, tell the Captain what you told me.’
‘I’ve had time to think about this,’ McKinnon said apologetically. ‘You haven’t. From what Dr Singh tells me about the pain you must be suffering, it must be a damn hard job to think at all. It’s my belief, sir, that the Lieutenant’s Luftwaffe have sold him down the river.’
‘Sold him down – what the devil is that meant to mean?’
‘I don’t think he knew he was attacking a hospital ship. Sure, he knows now. But he didn’t when he dropped the bombs.’
‘He didn’t know! Bomber pilots, I would remind you, Bo’sun, are supposed to have excellent eyesight. All those red crosses – ‘
‘I don’t think he saw them, sir. The lights were off. It was half dark. As he was approaching from dead astern, he certainly couldn’t have seen the crosses on the sides and he was so low the superstructure would have blocked off any view of the for’ard cross. As for the cross aft, we were “making so much smoke at the time that it might have been obscured, And I can’t imagine for a moment that Lieutenant Ulbricht would have made so suicidal an approach, so suicidal an attack on the San Andreas, if he had known there was a British frigate only a couple of miles away. I wouldn’t have put his chances of survival very high.’
‘Neither did I.’ Lieutenant Ulbricht spoke with feeling.
‘And the clincher, sir. Those four Heinkel torpedo-bombers. I know you didn’t see them, sir, even hear them, you were unconscious at the time. But Chief Patterson and I saw them. They deliberately avoided us – lifted over us and headed straight for the Andover. So what do you make of it, sir? A Condor attacks us – I’m sure it must have been with low-power bombs – and the Heinkels, who could have sent us to the bottom, didn’t. The Heinkel pilots knew the Andover was there: Lieutenant Ulbricht did not. The Luftwaffe, Captain, would seem to have two hands, with the left hand not telling the right hand what it was doing. I’m more than ever convinced that the Lieutenant was sold down the river, sold by his own high command and the saboteur who blacked out our Red Cross lights.
‘Besides, he doesn’t look like a man who would bomb a hospital ship.’
‘How the hell can I tell what he looks like?’ Bowen spoke with, understandably, some irritation. ‘A baby face with a harp can be no less of a murderer, no matter what he looks .like. But yes, I agree, Bo’sun, it does raise some very odd questions. Questions that seem to call for some very odd answers. Don’t you agree, Sister?’
‘Well, yes, perhaps.’ Her tone was doubtful, grudging. ‘Mr McKinnon could be right.’
‘He is right.’ The voice was Kennet’s and it was very firm.
‘Mr Kennet.’ Bowen turned to the bed on the other side of him and cursed, not too sotto voce, as his neck and head reminded him that sudden movements were not advisable. ‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘Never more awake, sir. Just that I don’t feel too much • like talking. Of course the Bo’sun’s right. Has to be.’
‘Ah. Well.’ More carefully, this time, Bowen turned back to face Ulbricht. ‘No apologies for what you have done but maybe you’re not the black-hearted murderer we thought you were. Bo’sun, Chief tells me that you’ve been smashing furniture in my cabin.’ x ‘No more than I had to, sir. Couldn’t find the keys.’
‘The keys are in the back left-hand corner of the left drawer in my desk. Look in the right-hand locker under my bunk. There’s a chronometer there. See if it’s working.’
‘A spare chronometer, sir?’
‘Many captains carry one. I always have done. If the sextant has survived the blast, maybe the chronometer has too. The sextant is functioning, isn’t it?’
‘As far as I can tell.’
‘May I see it?’ Lieutenant Ulbricht said. He examined it briefly. ‘It works.’
McKinnon left, taking the sextant and chart with him.
When he returned, he was smiling. ‘Chronometer is intact, sir. I’ve put Trent back on the wheel and Naseby in your cabin. There he can see anybody who tries to go up the bridge ladder and, more important, clobber any unauthorised person who tries to come into your cabin. I’ve told him the only authorised people are Mr Patterson, Mr Jamie-son and myself.’
‘Excellent,’ Bowen said. ‘Lieutenant Ulbricht, we may yet call upon your services.’ He paused. ‘You are aware, of course, that you will be navigating yourself into captivity?’
‘Not a firing squad?’
‘That would be a poor return for your – ah – professional services. No.’
‘Better a live prisoner-of-war than floating around and frozen to death in a rubber raft, which I would have been but for Mr McKinnon here.’ Ulbricht propped himself up in his bed. ‘Well, no time like the present.’
McKinnon placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Sorry, Lieutenant, it’ll have to wait.’
‘You mean – Dr Singh?’
‘He wouldn’t be too happy but it’s not that. Blizzard. Zero visibility. No stars, and there’ll be none tonight.’
‘Ah.’ Ulbricht lay back in bed. ‘I wasn’t feeling all that energetic, anyway.’
It was then that, for the third time that day, the lights failed. McKinnon switched on his torch, located and switched on four nickel-cadmium emergency lights and looked thoughtfully at Patterson. Bowen said: ‘Something up?’