It was nine o’clock when he awoke. It was an unusually late awakening for him but he wasn’t unduly perturbed -dawn was still an hour distant. As he crossed the upper deck he noted that the conditions were just as they had been four . hours previously – moderate seas, a wind no stronger than Force three and still the same gently falling snow. McKinnon had no belief in the second sight but he felt in his bones that this peace and calm would have gone before the morning was out.
Down below he talked in turn with Jones, McGuigan, Stephen and Johnny Holbrook. They had taken it in turn, and in pairs, to monitor the comings and goings of everybody in the hospital. All four swore that nobody had stirred aboard during the night and that, most certainly, no one had at any time left the hospital area.
He had breakfast with Dr Singh, Dr Sinclair, Patterson and Jamieson – Dr Singh, he thought, looked unusually tired and strained – then went to Ward B where he found Janet Magnusson. She looked pale and there were shadows under her eyes.
McKinnon looked at her with concern.
‘What’s wrong, Janet?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. It’s all your fault.’
‘Of course. It’s always my fault. Cardinal rule number one – when anything goes wrong blame the Bo’sun. What am I supposed to have done this time?’
‘You said the submarine, the U-boat, would attack if the moon broke through.’
‘I said it could, not would.’
‘Same thing. I spent most of the night looking out through the porthole – no, Mr McKinnon, I did not have my cabin light switched on – and when the moon came out at about two o’clock I was sure the attack must come any time. And when the moon went I was sure it would come again. Moon. U-boat. Your fault.’
‘A certain logic, I must admit. Twisted logic, of course, but not more than one would expect of the feminine mind. Still, I’m sorry.’
‘But you’re looking fine. Fresh. Relaxed. And you’re very late on the road this morning. Our trusty guardian sleeping on the job.’
‘Your trusty guardian lost a little sleep himself, last night,’ McKinnon said. ‘Back shortly. Must see the Captain.’
It was Sister Maria, not Sister Morrison, who was in charge in A Ward. McKinnon spoke briefly with both the Captain and First Officer, then said to Bowen: ‘Still sure, sir?’
‘More sure than ever, Archie. When’s dawn?’
‘Fifteen minutes.’
‘I wish you well.’
‘I think you better wish us all well.’
He returned to Ward B and said to Janet: ‘Where’s your pal?’
‘Visiting the sick. She’s with Lieutenant Ulbricht.”
‘She shouldn’t have gone alone.’
‘She didn’t. You were asleep so your friend George Naseby came for her.’
McKinnon looked at her with suspicion. ‘You find something amusing.’
‘That’s her second time up there this morning.’
‘Is he dying or something?’
‘I hardly think she would smile so much if a patient was slipping away.’
‘Ah! Mending fences, you would say?’
‘She called him “Karl” twice.’ She smiled. ‘I’d call that mending fences, wouldn’t you?’
‘Good lord! Karl. That well-known filthy Nazi murderer.’
‘Well, she said you asked her to make it right. No, you told her. So now you’ll be taking all the credit, I suppose.’
‘Credit where credit is due,’ McKinnon said absently. ‘But she must come below at once. It’s too exposed up there.’
‘Dawn.’ Her voice had gone very quiet. ‘This time you’re sure, Archie?’
‘This time I’m sure. The U-boat will come at dawn.’
The U-boat came at dawn.
SEVEN
It was little more than half-light when the U-boat, in broken camouflage paint of various shades of grey and at a distance of less than half a mile, suddenly appeared from behind a passing snow-squall. It was running fully on the surface with three figures clearly distinguishable on the conning-tower and another three manning the deck gun just for’ard of that. The submarine was on a course exactly paralleling that of the San Andreas and could well have been for many hours. The U-boat was on their starboard hand so that the San Andreas lay between it and the gradually lightening sky to the south. Both bridge wing doors were latched back in the fully open position. McKinnon reached for the phone, called the engine-room for full power, nudged the wheel to starboard and began to edge imperceptibly closer to the U-boat.
He and Naseby were alone on the bridge. They were, in fact, the only two people left in the superstructure because McKinnon had ordered everyone, including a bitterly protesting Lieutenant Ulbricht, to go below to the hospital only ten minutes previously. Naseby he required and for two reasons. Naseby, unlike himself, was an adept Morse signaller and had a signalling lamp ready at hand: more importantly, McKinnon was more than reasonably certain that the bridge would be coming under attack in a very short space of time indeed and he wanted a competent helmsman to hand in case he himself were incapacitated.
‘Keep out of sight, George,’ McKinnon said. ‘But try to keep an eye on them. They’re bound to start sending any minute now.’
‘They can see you,’ Naseby said.
‘Maybe they can see my head and shoulders over the wing of the bridge. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. The point is that they will believe I can’t see them. Don’t forget that, they’re in the dark quadrant of the sea and have no reason to think that we’re expecting trouble. Besides, a helmsman’s job is to keep an eye on the compass and look ahead – no reason on earth why I should be scanning the seas around.’ He felt the superstructure begin to shudder as Patterson increased the engine revolutions, gave the wheel another nudge to starboard, picked up a tin mug from the shattered binnacle and pretended to drink from it. ‘It’s like a law of nature, George. Nothing more reassuring than the sight of an unsuspecting innocent enjoying a morning cup of tea.’
For a full minute, which seemed like a large number of full minutes, nothing happened. The superstructure was beginning to vibrate quite strongly now and McKinnon knew that the San Andreas was under maximum power. They were now at least a hundred yards closer to the U-boat than they had been when it had first been sighted but the U-boat captain gave no indication that he was aware of this. Had McKinnon maintained his earlier speed his acute angling in towards the U-boat would have caused him to drop slightly astern of the submarine, but the increase in speed had enabled him to maintain his relative position. The U-boat captain had no cause to be suspicious – and no one in his right mind was going to harbour suspicions about a harmless and defenceless hospital ship.
‘He’s sending, George,’ McKinnon said.
‘I see him. “Stop,” he says. “Stop engines or I will sink you.” What do I send, Archie?’
‘Nothing.’ McKinnon edged the San Andreas another three degrees to starboard, reached again for his tin mug and pretended to drink from it. ‘Ignore him.’
‘Ignore him!’ Naseby sounded aggrieved. ‘You heard what the man said. He’s going to sink us.’
‘He’s lying. He hasn’t stalked us all this way just to send us to the bottom. He wants us alive. Not only is he not going to torpedo us, he can’t, not unless they’ve invented torpedoes that can turn corners. So how else is he going to stop us? With that little itsy-bitsy gun he’s got on the foredeck? It’s not all that much bigger than a pom-pom.’
‘I have to warn you, Archie, the man’s going to get very annoyed.’
‘He’s got nothing to be annoyed about. We haven’t seen his signal.’
Naseby lowered his binoculars. ‘I also have to warn you that he’s about to use that little itsy-bitsy gun.’
‘Sure he is. The classic warning shot over the bows to attract our attention. If he really wants to attract our attention, it may be into the bows for all I know.’
The two shells, when they came, entered the sea just yards ahead of the San Andreas, one disappearing silently below the waves, the other exploding on impact. The sound of the explosion and the sharp flat crack of the U-boat’s gun made it impossible any longer to ignore the submarine’s existence.
‘Show yourself, George,’ McKinnon said. ‘Tell him to stop firing and ask him what he wants.’
Naseby moved out on the starboard wing and transmitted the message: the reply came immediately.
‘He has a one-track mind,’ Naseby said. ‘Message reads: “Stop or be sunk”.’
‘One of those laconic characters. Tell him we’re a hospital ship.’
‘You think he’s blind, perhaps?’
‘It’s still only half-light and the starboard side is our dark side. Maybe he’ll think that we think he can’t see. Tell him we’re a neutral, mention the Geneva Convention. Maybe he’s got a better side to his nature.’