H.M.S. Ulysses Part 26

He broke off, waited impatiently for the answer.

"Radar-bridge. Course 312. Steady on course. Repeat, steady on course."

"Steady on course," Tyndall echoed. "Captain, commence firing by radar. We have him, we have him!" he cried exultantly. "He's waited too long! We have him, Captain!"

Again Vallery said nothing. Tyndall looked at him, half in perplexity, half in anger. "Well, don't you agree?"

"I don't know, sir." Vallery shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know at all. Why did he wait so long? Why didn't he turn and run the minute we left the convoy?"

"Too d.a.m.n' sure of himself!" Tyndall growled.

"Or too sure of something else," Vallery said slowly. "Maybe he wanted to make good and sure that we would follow him."

Tyndall growled again in exasperation, made to speak then lapsed into silence as the Ulysses shuddered from the recoil of 'A' turret. For a moment, the billowing fog on the fo'c'sle cleared, atomised by the intense heat and flash generated by the exploding cordite. In seconds, the grey shroud had fallen once more.

Then, magically it was clear again. A heavy fog-bank had rolled over them, and through a gap in the next they caught a glimpse of the Sirrus, dead on the beam, a monstrous bone in her teeth, scything to the south-east at something better than 34 knots. The Stirling and the Viking were already lost in the fog astern.

"He's too close," Tyndall snapped. "Why didn't Bowden tell us? We can't bracket the enemy this way. Signal the Sirrus: 'Steam 317 five minutes.' Captain, same for us. 5 south, then back on course."

He had hardly sunk back in his chair, and the Ulysses, mist-shrouded again, was only beginning to answer her helm when the W.T. loudspeaker switched on.

"W.T.-bridge. W.T.-bridge-----"

The twin 5.25s of 'B' turret roared in deafening unison, flame and smoke lancing out through the fog. Simultaneously, a tremendous crash and explosion heaved up the duck-boards beneath the feet of the men in the bridge catapulting them all ways, into each other, into flesh-bruising, bone-breaking metal, into the dazed confusion of numbed minds and bodies fighting to reorientate themselves under the crippling handicap of stunning shock, of eardrums rended by the blast, of throat and nostrils stung by acrid fumes, of eyes blinded by dense black smoke.

Throughout it all, the calm impersonal voice of the W.T. transmitter repeated its unintelligible message.

Gradually the smoke cleared away. Tyndall pulled himself drunkenly to his feet by the rectifying arm of the binnacle: the explosion had blown him clean out of his chair into the centre of the compa.s.s platform. He shook his head, dazed, uncomprehending. Must be tougher than he'd imagined: all that way-and he couldn't remember bouncing. And that wrist, now-that lay over at a d.a.m.ned funny angle. His own wrist, he realised with mild surprise. Funny, it didn't hurt a bit. And Carpenter's face there, rising up before him: the bandages were blown off, the gash received on the night of the great storm gaping wide again, the face masked with blood... That girl at Henley, the one he was always talking about-Tyndall wondered, inconsequently, what she would say if she saw him now... Why doesn't the W.T. transmitter stop that insane yammering?... Suddenly his mind was clear.

"My G.o.d! Oh, G.o.d!" He stared in disbelief at the twisted duckboards, the fractured asphalt beneath his feet. He released his grip on the binnacle, lurched forward into the windscreen: his sense of balance had confirmed what his eyes had rejected: the whole compa.s.s platform tilted forward at an angle of 15 degrees.

"What is it, Pilot?" His voice was hoa.r.s.e, strained, foreign even to himself. "In G.o.d's name, what's happened? A breech explosion in 'B' turret?"

"No, sir." Carpenter drew his forearm across his eyes: the kapok sleeve came away covered in blood. "A direct hit, sir, smack in the superstructure."

"He's right, sir." Carrington had hoisted himself far over the windscreen, was peering down intently. Even at that moment, Tyndall marvelled at the man's calmness, his almost inhuman control." And a heavy one. It's wrecked the for'ard pom-pom and there's a hole the size of a door just below us.... It must be pretty bad inside, sir."

Tyndall scarcely heard the last words. He was kneeling over Vallery, cradling his head in his one good arm. The Captain lay crumpled against the gate, barely conscious, his stertorous breathing interrupted by rasping convulsions as he choked on his own blood. His face was deathly white.

"Get Brooks up here, Chrysler-the Surgeon-Commander, I mean!" Tyndall shouted. "At once!"

"W.T.-bridge. W.T.-bridge. Please acknowledge. Please acknowledge." The voice was hurried, less impersonal, anxiety evident even in its metallic anonymity.

Chrysler replaced the receiver, looked worriedly at the Admiral.

"Well?" Tyndall demanded. "Is he on his way?"

"No reply, sir." The boy hesitated. "I think the line's gone."

"h.e.l.l's teeth!" Tyndall roared. "What are you doing standing there, then? Go and get him. Take over, Number One, will you? Bentley-have the Commander come to the bridge."

"W.T.-bridge. W.T.-bridge." Tyndall glared up at the speaker in exasperation, then froze into immobility as the voice went on. "We have been hit aft. Damage Control reports coding-room destroyed. Number 6 and 7 Radar Offices destroyed. Canteen wrecked. After control tower severely damaged."

"The After control tower!" Tyndall swore, pulled off his gloves, wincing at the agony of his broken hand. Carefully, he pillowed Vallery's head on the gloves, rose slowly to his feet. "The After Tower. And Turner's there! I hope to G.o.d..."

He broke off, made for the after end of the bridge at a stumbling run.

Once there he steadied himself, his hand on the ladder rail, and peered apprehensively aft.

At first he could see nothing, not even the after funnel and mainmast.

The grey, writhing fog was too dense, too maddeningly opaque. Then suddenly, for a mere breath of time, an icy catspaw cleared away the mist, cleared away the dark, convoluted smoke-pall above the after superstructure. Tyndall's hand tightened convulsively on the rail, the knuckles whitening to ivory.

The after superstructure had disappeared. In its place was a crazy ma.s.s of jumbled twisted steel, with 'X' turret, normally invisible from the bridge, showing up clearly beyond, apparently unharmed. But the rest was gone-radar offices, coding-room, police office, canteen, probably most of the after galley. Nothing, n.o.body could have survived there.

Miraculously, the truncated main mast still stood, but immediately aft of it, perched crazily on top of this devil's sc.r.a.p-heap, the After Tower, fractured and grotesquely askew, lay over at an impossible angle of 60, its range-finder gone. And Commander Turner had been in there...

Tyndall swayed dangerously on top of the steel ladder, shook his head again to fight off the fog clamping down on his mind. There was a heavy, peculiarly dull ache just behind his forehead, and the fog seemed to be spreading from there.... A lucky s.h.i.+p, they called the Ulysses. Twenty months on the worst run and in the worst waters in the world and never a scratch.... But Tyndall had always known that some time, some place, her luck would run out.

He heard hurried steps clattering up the steel ladder, forced his blurred eyes to focus themselves. He recognised the dark, lean face at once: it was Leading Signalman Davies, from the flag deck. His face was white, his breathing short and quick. He opened his mouth to speak, then checked himself, his eyes staring at the handrail.

"Your hand, sir I" He switched his startled gaze from the rail to Tyndall's eyes. "Your hand! You've no gloves on, sir!"

"No?" Tyndall looked down as if faintly astonished he had a hand. "No, I haven't, have I? Thank you, Davies." He pulled his hand off the smooth frozen steel, glanced incuriously at the raw, bleeding flesh. "It doesn't matter. What is it, boy?"

"The Fighter Direction Room, sir!" Davies's eyes were dark with remembered horror. "The sh.e.l.l exploded in there. It's, it's just gone, sir. And the Plot above..." He stopped short, his jerky voice lost in the crash of the guns of 'A'turret Somehow it seemed strangely unnatural that the main armament still remained effective. "I've just come from the F.D.R. and the Plot, sir," Davies continued, more calmly now. "They, well, they never had a chance."

"Including Commander Westcliffe?" Dimly, Tyndall realised the futility of clutching at straws. "I don't know, sir. It's-it's just bits and pieces in the F.D.R., if you follow me. But if he was there-----"

"He would be," Tyndall interrupted heavily. "He never left it during Action Stations..."

He stopped abruptly, broken hands clenched involuntarily as the high-pitched scream and impact explosion of H.E. sh.e.l.ls blurred into shattering cacophony, appalling in its closeness.

"My G.o.d!" Tyndall whispered. "That was close Davies! What the h.e.l.l!..."

His voice choked off in an agonised grunt, arms flailing wildly at the empty air, as his back crashed against the deck of the bridge, driving every last ounce of breath from his body. Wordlessly, convulsively, propelled by desperately thrusting feet and launched by the powerful back-thrust of arms pivoting on the handrails, Davies had just catapulted himself up the last three steps of the ladder, head and shoulders socketing into the Admiral's body with irresistible force. And now Davies, too, was down, stretched his length on the deck, spreadeagled across Tyndall's legs. He lay very still.

Slowly, the cruel breath rasping his tortured lungs, Tyndall surfaced from the black depths of unconsciousness. Blindly, instinctively he struggled to sit up, but his broken hand collapsed under the weight of his body. His legs didn't seem to be much help either: they were quite powerless, as if he were paralysed from the waist down. The fog was gone now, and blinding flashes of colour, red, green and white were coruscating brilliantly across the darkening sky. Starsh.e.l.ls? Was the enemy using a new type of starsh.e.l.l? Dimly, with a great effort of will, he realised that there must be some connection between these dazzling flashes and the now excruciating pain behind his forehead. He reached up the back of his right hand: his eyes were still screwed tightly shut.... Then the realisation faded and was gone.

"Are you all right, sir? Don't move. We'll soon have you out of this!"

The voice, deep, authoritative, boomed directly above the Admiral's head. Tyndall shrank back, shook his head in imperceptible despair. It was Turner who was speaking, and Turner, he knew, was gone. Was this, then, what it was like to be dead, he wondered dully. This frightening, confused world of blackness and blinding light at the same time, a dark-bright world of pain and powerless-ness and voices from the past?

Then suddenly, of their own volition almost, his eyelids flickered and were open. Barely a foot above him were the lean, piratical features of the Commander, who was kneeling anxiously at his side.

"Turner? Turner?" A questioning hand reached out in tentative hope, clutched gratefully, oblivious to the pain, at the rea.s.suring solidity of the Commander's arm. "Turner! It is you! I thought-----"

"The After Tower, eh?" Turner smiled briefly. "No, sir, I wasn't within a mile of it. I was coming here, just climbing up to the fo'c'sle deck, when that first hit threw me back down to the main deck... How are you, sir?"