H.M.S. Ulysses Part 20

"You know d.a.m.n' well what I mean," Vallery said mildly. He was a man who was rarely heard to swear, to use the most innocuous oath. "You were with me on the bridge this morning."

For perhaps two minutes neither man said a word. Then Vallery broke into a fresh paroxysm of coughing. The towel in his hand grew dark, sodden, and when he leaned back on his pillow Tyndall felt a quick stab of fear. He bent quickly over the sick man, sighed in soundless relief as he heard the quick, shallow breathing. Vallery spoke again, his eyes still closed. "It's not so much the men who were killed in the Low Power Room." He seemed to be talking to himself, his voice a drifting murmur. "My fault, I suppose-I took the Ulysses too near the Ranger. Foolish to go near a sinking s.h.i.+p, especially if she's burning... But just one of these things, just one of the risks... they happen..." The rest was a blurred, dying whisper. Tyndall couldn't catch it. He rose abruptly to his feet, pulling his gloves on. "Sorry, d.i.c.k," he apologised. "Shouldn't have come, shouldn't have stayed so long. Old Socrates will give me h.e.l.l."

"It's the others, the boys in the water." Vallery might never have heard him. "I hadn't the right, I mean, perhaps some of them would..." Again his voice was lost for a moment, then he went on strongly: "Captain Richard Vallery, D.S.O., judge, jury and executioner. Tell me, John, what am I going to say when my turn comes?"

Tyndall hesitated, heard the authoritative rap on the door and jerked round, his breath escaping in a long, inaudible sigh of thankfulness.

"Come in," he called.

The door opened and Brooks walked in. He stopped short at the sight of the Admiral, turned to the white-coated a.s.sistant behind him, a figure weighed down with stands, bottles, tubing and various paraphernalia.

"Remain outside, Johnson, will you?" he asked. "I'll call you when I want you."

He closed the door, crossed the cabin and pulled a chair up to the Captain's bunk. Vallery's wrist between his fingers, he looked coldly across at Tyndall. Nicholls, Brooks remembered, was insistent that the Admiral was far from well. He looked tired, certainly, but more unhappy than tired... The pulse was very fast, irregular. "You've been upsetting him," Brooks accused. "Me? Good G.o.d, nol" Tyndall was injured.

"So help me, Doc, I never said-----"

"Not guilty, Doc." It was Vallery who spoke, his voice stronger now.

"He never said a word. I'm the guilty man, guilty as h.e.l.l."

Brooks looked at him for a long moment. Then he smiled, smiled in understanding and compa.s.sion.

"Forgiveness, sir. That's it, isn't it?" Tyndall started in surprise, looked at him in wonder.

Vallery opened his eyes. "Socrates!" he murmured. "You would know."

"Forgiveness," Brooks mused. "Forgiveness. From whom, the living, the dead, or the Judge?"

Again Tyndall started. "Have you, have you been listening outside? How can you------?"

"From all three, Doc. A tall order, I'm afraid."

"From the dead, sir, you are quite right. There would be no forgiveness: only their blessing, for there is nothing to forgive. I'm a doctor, don't forget-I saw those boys in the water... you sent them home the easy way. As for the Judge, you know, 'The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord', the Old Testament conception of the Lord who takes away in His own time and His own way, and to h.e.l.l with mercy and charity." He smiled at Tyndall. "Don't look so shocked, sir. I'm not being blasphemous. If that were the Judge, Captain, neither you nor I-nor the Admiral, would ever want any part of him. But you know it isn't so..."

Vallery smiled faintly, propped himself up on his pillow. "You make good medicine, Doctor. It's a pity you can't speak for the living also."

"Oh, can't I?" Brooks smacked his hand on his thigh, guffawed in sudden recollection. "Oh, my word, it was magnificent!" He laughed again in genuine amus.e.m.e.nt. Tyndall looked at Vallery in mock despair.

"Sorry," Brooks apologised. "Just fifteen minutes ago a bunch of sympathetic stokers deposited on the deck of the Sick Bay the p.r.o.ne and extremely unconscious form of one of their s.h.i.+pmates. Guess who? None other than our resident nihilist, our old friend Riley. Slight concussion and a.s.sorted facial injuries, but he should be restored to the bosom of his mess deck by nightfall. Anyway, he insists on it, claims his kittens need him."

Vallery looked up, amused, curious.

"Fallen down the stokehold again, I presume?"

"Exactly the question I put, sir-although it looked more as if he had fallen into a concrete mixer. 'No, sir,' says one of the stretcher-bearers. 'He tripped over the s.h.i.+p's cat.'

's.h.i.+p's cat?' I says. 'What s.h.i.+p's cat?' So he turns to his oppo and says: 'Ain't we got a s.h.i.+p's cat, n.o.bby?' Where upon the stoker n.o.bby looks at him pityingly and says:' 'E's got it all wrong, sir.

Poor old Riley just came all over queer, took a weak turn, 'e did. I 'ope 'e ain't 'urt 'isself?' He sounded quite anxious."

"What had happened?" Tyndall queried.

"I let it go at that. Young Nicholls took two of them aside, promised no action and had it out of them in a minute flat. Seems that Riley saw in this morning's affair a magnificent opportunity for provoking trouble. Cursed you for an inhuman, cold-blooded murderer and, I regret to say, cast serious aspersions on your immediate ancestors, and all of this, mind you, where he thought he was safe-among his own friends. His friends half-killed him... You know, sir, I envy you..."

He broke off, rose abruptly to his feet.

"Now, sir, if you'll just lie down and roll up your sleeve... Oh, d.a.m.n!"

"Come in." It was Tyndall who answered the knock. "'Ah, for me, young Chrysler. Thank you."

He looked up at Vallery. "From London-in reply to my signal." He turned it over in his hand two or three times. "I suppose I have to open it some time," he said reluctantly.

The Surgeon-Commander half-rose to his feet.

"Shall I------"

"No, no, Brooks. Why should you? Besides, it's from our mutual friend, Admiral Starr. I'm sure you'd like to hear what he's got to say, wouldn't you?"

"No, I wouldn't." Brooks was very blunt. "I can't imagine it'll be anything good."

Tyndall opened the signal, smoothed it out.

"D.N.O. to Admiral Commanding 14 A.C.S.," he read slowly. "Tirpitz reported preparing to move out. Impossible detach Fleet carrier: FR77 vital: proceed Murmansk all speed: good luck: Starr." Tyndall paused, his mouth twisted. "Good luck! He might have spared us that!"

For a long time the three men looked at each other, silently, without expression. Characteristically, it was Brooks who broke the silence.

"Speaking of forgiveness," he murmured quietly, "what I want to know is, who on G.o.d's earth, above or below it, is ever going to forgive that vindictive old b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THURSDAY NIGHT.

IT WAS still only afternoon, but the grey Arctic twilight was already thickening over the sea as the Ulysses dropped slowly astern. The wind had died away completely; again the snow was falling, steadily, heavily, and visibility was down to a bare cable-length. It was bitterly cold.

In little groups of three and four, officers and men made their way aft to the starboard side of the p.o.o.p-deck. Exhausted, bone-chilled men, mostly sunk in private and bitter thought, they shuffled wordlessly aft, dragging feet kicking up little puffs of powdery snow. On the p.o.o.p, they ranged themselves soundlessly behind the Captain or in a line inboard and aft of the long, symmetrical row of snow-covered hummocks that heaved up roundly from the unbroken whiteness of the p.o.o.p.

The Captain was flanked by three of his officers-Carslake, Etherton and the Surgeon-Commander. Carslake was by the guard-rail, the lower half of his face swathed in bandages to the eyes. For the second time in twenty-four hours he had waylaid Vallery, begged him to reconsider the decision to deprive him of his commission. On the first occasion Vallery had been adamant, almost contemptuous: ten minutes ago he had been icy and abrupt, had threatened Carslake with close arrest if he annoyed him again. And now Carslake just stared unseeingly into the snow and gloom, pale-blue eyes darkened and heavy with hate.

Etherton stood just behind Vallery's left shoulder, s.h.i.+vering uncontrollably. Above the white, jerking line of compressed mouth, cheek and jaw muscles were working incessantly: only his eyes were steady, dulled in sick fascination at the curious mound at his feet. Brooks, too, was tight-lipped, but there the resemblance ended: red of face and wrathful blue of eye, he fumed and seemed as can only a doctor whose orders have been openly flouted by the critically ill. Vallery, as Brooks had told him, forcibly and insubor-dinately, had no b.l.o.o.d.y right to be there, was all sorts of a d.a.m.ned fool for leaving his bunk. But, as Vallery had mildly pointed out, somebody had to conduct a funeral service, and that was the Captain's duty if the padre couldn't do it. And this day the padre couldn't do it, for it was the padre who lay dead at his feet.... At his feet, and at the feet of Etherton-the man who had surely killed him.

The padre had died four hours ago, just after Charlie had gone. Tyndall had been far out in his estimate. Charlie had not appeared within the hour. Charlie had not appeared until mid-morning, but when he did come he had the company of three of his kind. A long haul indeed from the Norwegian coast to this, the 10th degree west of longitude, but nothing for these giant Condors Focke-Wulf 200s, who regularly flew the great dawn to dusk half-circle from Trondheim to Occupied France, round the West Coast of the British Isles.

Condors in company always meant trouble, and these were no exception.

They flew directly over the convoy, approaching from astern: the barrage from merchant s.h.i.+ps and escorts was intense, and the bombing attack was pressed home with a marked lack of enthusiasm: the Condors bombed from a height of 7,000 feet. In that clear, cold morning air the bombs were in view almost from the moment they cleared the bomb-bays: there was time to spare to take avoiding action. Almost at once the Condors had broken off the attack and disappeared to the east impressed, but apparently unharmed, by the warmth of their reception.