‘A tangled story,’ Bowen said, ‘but not so tangled when you take the threads apart. This alters things more than a little, doesn’t it, Bo’sun?’
‘I rather think it does, sir.’
‘Any idea of the best course – I use that word in both its senses – to take for the future?’
‘I’m open to suggestions.’
‘You’ll get none from me. With all respect to Dr Sinclair, his ministrations have just about closed down a mind that wasn’t working all that well in the first place.’
‘Mr Patterson?’ McKinnon said. ‘Mr Jamieson?’
‘Oh no,’ Jamieson said. ‘I have no intention of being caught out in that way again. It does my morale no good to have it quietly explained to me why my brilliant scheme won’t work and why it would be much better to do it your way. Besides, I’m an engineer. What do you have in mind?’
‘On your own heads. I have in mind to continue on this course, which is due west, until about midnight. This will help to take us even further away from the Heinkels and Stukas. I’m not particularly worried about them, they rarely attack after dark and if we’re right in our assumption that we’ve slipped that U-boat, then they don’t know where to look for us and the absence of any flares from a Condor would suggest that, if they are looking, they are looking in the wrong place.
‘At midnight, I’ll ask the Lieutenant to lay off a course for Aberdeen. We must hope that there will be a few helpful stars around. That would take us pretty close to the east coast of the Shetlands, Lieutenant?’
‘Very close indeed, I should say. Hailing distance. You’ll be able to wave a last farewell to your homeland, Mr McKinnon.’
‘Mr McKinnon isn’t going to wave farewell to any place.’ The voice was Janet Magnusson’s and it was pretty positive. ‘He needs a holiday, he tells me, he’s homesick and Lerwick is his home. Right, Archie?’
‘You have the second sight, Janet.’ If McKinnon was chagrined at having his thunder stolen he showed no signs of it. ‘I thought it might be a good idea, Captain, to stop off a bit in Lerwick and have a look at what we have up front. This has two advantages, I think. We’re certain now that the Germans will sink us sooner than permit our safe arrival in any British port and the further south we go the greater the likelihood of being clobbered, so we make as little southing as possible. Secondly, if we are found by either plane or U-boat, they’ll be able to confirm that we’re still on a direct course to Aberdeen and so have plenty of time in hand. At the appropriate moment we’ll turn west, round a place called Bard Head, then north-west and north to Lerwick. From the time we alter course till the time we reach harbour shouldn’t be much more than an hour and it would take rather longer than that for the German bombers to scramble from Bergen and reach there.’
‘Sounds pretty good to me,’ Jamieson said.
‘I wish I could say the same. It’s far too easy, too cut and dried, and there’s always the possibility of the Germans figuring out that that’s exactly what we will do. Probability would be more like. It’s too close to a counsel of desperation, but it’s the least of all the evils I can imagine and we have to make a break for it some time.’
‘As I keep on saying, Bo’sun,’ Jamieson said, ‘it’s a great comfort having you around.’
TWELVE
The time wore on to midnight and still the Condors kept away. Apart from two men on watch in the engine-room, Naseby and Trent on the bridge and Lieutenant Ulbricht and McKinnon in the Captain’ cabin, two hospital look-outs and two night nurses, everyone was asleep, or appeared to be asleep, or should have been asleep. The wind, backing to the north, had freshened to Force four and there was a moderate sea running, enough to make the San Andreas roll as she headed steadily west but not enough to inconvenience one.
In the Captain’s cabin Lieutenant Ulbricht looked up from the chart he had been studying, then glanced at his watch.
Ten minutes to midnight. Not that the precise time matters – we’ll be making course alterations as we go along. I suggest we take a last sight, then head for the Shetlands.’
Dawn came, a cold and grey and blustery dawn, and still the Condors stayed away. At ten o’clock, a rather weary McKinnon – he’d been on the wheel since 4.0 a.m. – went below in search of breakfast. He found Jamieson having a cup of coffee.
‘A peaceful night, Bo’sun. Does look as if we’ve shaken them off, doesn’t it?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘Seem? Only “seem”?’ Jamieson looked at him speculatively. ‘Do I detect a note of something less than cheerful confidence? A whole night long without a sign of the enemy. Surely we should be happy with our present circumstances?’
‘Sure, I am. The present’s just fine. What I’m not so happy about is the future. It’s not only quiet and peaceful at the moment, it’s too damn quiet and peaceful. As the old saying goes, it’s the lull before the storm, the present the lull, the future the storm. Don’t you feel it, sir?’
‘No, I don’t!’ Jamieson looked away and frowned slightly. ‘Well, I didn’t, not until you came along and disturbed the quiet and even tenor of my way. Any moment now and you’ll be telling me I’m living in a fool’s paradise.’
‘That would be stretching it a bit, sir.’
‘Too quiet, too peaceful? Maybe it is at that. Cat and mouse, again – with us, of course, in the role of mouse? They have us pinned and are just waiting for a convenient moment – convenient for them, that is – to strike?’
‘Yes. I’ve just spent six hours on the wheel and I’ve had plenty of time to think about it – two minutes should have been enough. If there’s anybody living in a fool’s paradise it’s been me. How many Focke-Wulf Condors do you think they have in the Trondheim and Bergen airfields, sir?’
‘I don’t know. Too damn many for my liking, I’m sure.’
‘And for mine. Three or four of them acting in concert could cover ten thousand square miles in a couple of hours, all depending upon how high they are and what the visibility is. Bound to locate us – us, the most valuable prize on the Norwegian Sea. But they haven’t, they haven’t even bothered to try. Why?’
‘Because they know where we are. Because we didn’t manage to slip that submarine after sunset.’
McKinnon nodded and propped his chin on his hands. His breakfast lay untouched before him.
‘You did your best, Bo’sun. There was never any guarantee. You can’t reproach yourself.’
‘Oh yes I can. It’s a thing I’m getting pretty good at -reproaching myself, I mean. But in this case, not for the reason you think. Given only the slightest degree of luck we should have shaken him yesterday evening. We didn’t. We forgot the Factor X.’
‘You sound like an advertisement, Bo’sun. Factor X, the secret ingredient in the latest ladies’ cosmetics.’
‘What I mean, sir, is that even if we slipped him – moved out of his Asdic listening range – he could still have found us, Asdic or not, Condors or not. A good archer always carries a second string for his bow.’
‘A second string?’ Jamieson put his cup down very carefully. ‘You mean we have a second of those damned location transmitter bugs aboard?’
‘Can you think of any other solution, sir? Luck has made us too smug, too self-confident, to the extent that we have been guilty of gravely underestimating the ungodly. Singh or McCrimmon or Simons- all three of them, for all I know – have been smarter than us, smart enough, anyway, to gamble on the likelihood of our missing the glaringly obvious, just because it was too obvious. Chances are high that this won’t be a transceiver, just a simple transmitter no bigger than a lady’s handbag.’
‘But we’ve already searched, Bo’sun. Very thoroughly indeed. If there wasn’t anything there then, there won’t be anything now. I mean, transmitters just don’t materialise out of thin air.’
‘No. But there could have been one before we made our search. It could have been transferred elsewhere before that
– it’s entirely possible that any or all of the three Flannelfeet may have anticipated just such a search. Sure we combed the area of the hospital, cabins, store-rooms, galleys, everything – but that’s all we did search.’
‘Yes, but where else – ‘ Jamieson broke off and looked thoughtful.
‘Yes, sir, the same thought had occurred to me. The superstructure is no more than an uninhabited warren at the moment.’