Just after dawn the next morning – still a very late dawn in those latitudes – Lieutenant Ulbricht gazed out through the starboard wing doorway at low-lying land that could be intermittently seen through squalls of sleety snow.
‘So that’s Unst, is it?’
‘That’s Unst.’ Although McKinnon had been up most of the night he seemed fresh, relaxed and almost cheerful.
‘And that – that is what you Shetlanders break your hearts over?*
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘I don’t want to give any offence, Mr McKinnon, but that’s probably the most bare, bleak, barren and inhospitable island I’ve ever had the misfortune to clap my eyes on.’
‘Home sweet home,’ McKinnon said placidly. ‘Beauty, Lieutenant, is in the eye of the beholder. Besides, no place would look its sparkling best in weather conditions like this.’
‘And that’s another thing. Is the Shetland weather always as awful as this?’
McKinnon regarded the slate-grey seas, the heavy cloud and the falling snow with considerable satisfaction. ‘I think the weather is just lovely.’
‘As you say, the eye of the beholder. I doubt whether a Condor pilot would share your point of view.’
‘It’s unlikely.’ McKinnon pointed ahead. ‘Fine off the starboard now. That’s Fetlar.’
‘Ah!’ Ulbricht consulted the chart. ‘Within a mile – or two at the most – or where we ought to be. We haven’t done too badly, Mr McKinnon.’
‘We? You, you mean. A splendid piece of navigation, Lieutenant. The Admiralty should give you a medal for your services.’
Ulbricht smiled. ‘I doubt whether Admiral Doenitz would quite approve of that. Speaking of services, you will now, I take it, be finished with mine. As a navigator, I mean.’
‘My father was a fisherman, a professional. My first four years at sea I spent with him around those islands. It would be difficult for me to get lost.’
‘I should imagine.’ Ulbricht went out on the starboard wing, looked aft for a few seconds, then hastily returned, shivering and dusting snow off his coat.
‘The sky – or what I can see of the sky – is getting pretty black up north. Wind’s freshening a bit. Looks as if this awful weather – or, if you like, wonderful weather – is going to continue for quite some time. This never entered your calculations.’
‘I’m not a magician. Nor am I a fortune-teller. Reading the future is not one of my specialities.’
‘Well, just let’s call it a well-timed stroke of luck.’
‘Luck we could use. A little, anyway.’
Fetlar was on the starboard beam when Naseby came up to take over the wheel. McKinnon went out on the starboard wing to assess the weather. As the San Andreas was heading just a degree or two west of south and the wind was from the north it was almost directly abaft. The clouds in that direction were dark and ominous but they did not hold his attention for long: he had become aware, very faintly at first but then more positively, of something a great deal more ominous. He went back inside and looked at Ulbricht.
‘Remember we were talking about luck a little while back?’ Ulbricht nodded. ‘Well, our little luck has just run out. We have company. There’s a Condor out there.’
Ulbricht said nothing, just went outside on the wing and listened. He returned after a few moments.
‘I can hear nothing.’
‘Variation in wind force or direction. Something like that. I heard it all right. Up in a north-easterly direction. I’m quite sure that the pilot didn’t intend that we should hear him. Some passing freak of wind. They’re being either very careful or very suspicious or maybe both. They have to consider the possibility that we might make a break for some port in the Shetlands. So the U-boat surfaces before dawn and calls up the Focke-Wulf. Pilot’s doubtless been told to stay out of sight and hearing. He’ll do that until he hears from the U-boat that we’ve suddenly changed direction. Then he’ll come calling.’
‘To finish us off,’ Naseby said.
‘They won’t be dropping any rose petals, that’s for sure.’
Ulbricht said: ‘You no longer think that it will be torpedo-bombers or glider-bombers or Stukas that will come and do the job?’
‘No. They wouldn’t get here in time and they can’t come earlier and hang around waiting. They haven’t the range. But that big lad out there can hang around all day if need be. Of course, I’m only assuming there’s only one Condor put there. Could be two or three of them. Don’t forget we’re a very, very important target.’
‘It’s a gift not given to many.’ Ulbricht was gloomy. ‘This ability to cheer up people and lighten their hearts.’
‘I second that.’ Naseby didn’t sound any happier than Ulbricht. ‘I wish to hell you hadn’t gone out on that wing.’
‘You wouldn’t like me to keep the burden of my secrets alone, would you? No need to tell anyone else. Why spread gloom and despondency unnecessarily, especially when there’s damn-all we can do about it.’
‘Blissful ignorance, is that it?’ Naseby said. McKinnon nodded. ‘I could do with some of that.’
Shortly after noon, when they were off a small and dimly seen group of islands which McKinnon called the Skerries, he and Ulbricht went below, leaving Naseby and McGuigan on the bridge. The snow, which was now really more sleet than snow, had eased but not stopped. The wind, too, had eased. The visibility, if that was the word for it, varied intermittently between two and four miles. Cloud cover was about two thousand feet and somewhere above that the unseen Condor lurked. McKinnon had not heard it again but he didn’t for a moment doubt that it was still there.
The Captain and Rennet were sitting up in bed and the Bo’sun passed the time of day with them and Margaret Morrison. Everybody was being elaborately calm but the tension and expectancy in the air were unmistakable and considerable. It would have been even more considerable, McKinnon reflected, if they had known of the Condor patrolling above the clouds.
He found Patterson and Sinclair in the mess-deck. Sinclair said: ‘Singularly free from alarms and excursions this morning, aren’t we, Bo’sun?’
‘Long may it continue that way.’ He wondered if Sinclair would consider the accompanying Condor an alarm or an excursion. ‘The weather is rather on our side. Snowing, poor visibility – not fog but not good – and low cloud cover.’
‘Sounds promising. May yet be that we shall touch the Happy Isles.’
‘We hope. Speaking of the Happy Isles, have you made preparations for off-loading our wounded cripples when we reach the Isles?’
‘Yes. No problem. Rafferty is a stretcher case. So are four of the men we picked up in Murmansk – two with leg wounds, two frostbite cases. Five in all. Easy.’
‘Sounds good. Mr Patterson, those two rogues, McCrimmon and Simons or whatever his name is. We’ll have to tie them up – at least tie their hands behind their backs – before we take them ashore.’
‘If we get the chance to take them ashore. Have to leave it to the last minute – double-dyed criminals they may be but we can’t have a couple of men go down in a sinking ship.’
‘Please don’t talk about such things,’ Sinclair said.
‘Of course, sir. Have they been fed? Not that I really care.’
‘No.’ It was Sinclair. ‘I saw them. Simons says he’s lost his appetite and McCrimmon’s face is too painful to let him eat. I believe him, he can hardly move his lips to speak. It looks, Bo’sun, as if you hit him with a sledgehammer.’
‘No tears for either.’
McKinnon had a quick lunch and rose to go. ‘Have to go to relieve Naseby.’
McKinnon said: ‘Two hours or so. Perhaps earlier if I can see a convenient bank of low cloud or snow or even fog -anything we can disappear into. You or Mr Jamieson will be in the engine-room about then?’
‘Both, probably.’ Patterson sighed. ‘We can only hope it works, Bo’sun.’
‘That’s all we can do, sir.’
Shortly after three o’clock in the afternoon, on the bridge with Naseby and Ulbricht, McKinnon made his decision to go. He said to Ulbricht: ‘We can’t see it but we’re near enough opposite the south tip of Bressay?’
‘I would say so. Due west of us.’
‘Well, no point in putting off the inevitable.’ He lifted the phone and called the engine-room. ‘Mr Patterson? Now, if you please. George, hard a-starboard. Due west.”
‘And how am I to know where west is?’
McKinnon went to the starboard wing door and latched it open. ‘Going to be a bit chilly – and damp – but if you keep the wind fair and square on your right cheek that should be it, near enough.’ He went into the wrecked radio room, disconnected the transmitting bug, returned to the bridge and went out on the port wing.