‘Lifebuoys gone, sir,’ the young lieutenant reported.
‘When’s the next zig?’
‘Three minutes, sir. Twenty degrees to port.’
Trevellion snatched his binoculars from the back of his captain’s chair and nipped out to the starboard wing. The ship was pitching heavily and he had to wedge himself into the corner. Just visible, the calcium flares were spluttering orange flames of smoke on each side of the wake.
He shouted into the bridge, sure that his communications yeoman would be there: ‘Yeoman, tell Phoebe to search for the missing man. She’s not to fall more than five miles astern of us and is to rejoin after ten minutes. Inform the flag lieutenant.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
As Pasco hurried in from the cold, he heard the projector clattering, saw the blue signal light flashing across the starboard quarter. Craddock was waiting for him by the entrance to Flyco.
‘Couldn’t be at a worse moment, sir,’ he said. ‘Between sorties and I’ve no standby. We’re stretched to the limit and arming with NDBS has thrown my roster out of phase.’
‘All right, Wings. Carry on with your flying. The Force comes first.’ The captain, sickened by the repetition of the hoaxer’s lunacy, walked to the for’d window. The night was black outside, the spray sweeping upwards in fine plumes and drenching even the bridge windows. In spite of what Trevellion had told his ship’s company, his instincts were to fly off an emergency Sea King for the missing man — more to soothe his own conscience, because search and recovery would be impossible in these conditions.
‘Message passed, sir. Phoebe is breaking away to search.’
‘Thanks, Yeoman.’
‘Altering twenty degrees to port, sir,’ the officer of the watch was calling.
‘Gloucester, Brazen, Koln, and Oileus conforming.’
‘Very good,’ Trevellion acknowledged from the for’d window. What was going wrong in his ship? One of the buzzes suggested that the hoaxer was in the overflow mess, 4N8. A disrated steward, Cole, had been acting in a ‘demented’ way because of family troubles. The commmander was keeping an eye on Cole, and Bellairs was one of the best executive officers Pascoe had yet encountered.
Trevellion wished he enjoyed the same confidence in his prickly Wings. Craddock must be one of the last of the old breed of pilots, but his inflexible methods were causing resentment: of that, Trevellion, always sensitive to atmosphere, was becoming convinced. Throwing the book at Lieutenant Gamble, Trevellion felt sure, had been intended to show that this was war, when humanity had to be left out of the scheme of things for the sake of efficiency. Discipline was a hard task-master sometimes; but, as Craddock had emphasized, war was war and he intended to instil a tough philosophy in his airmen.
‘Captain, sir?’
He turned to see Bellairs and Legge, the master-at-arms, standing behind him.
‘Not a hoax this time, sir,’ Bellairs said.
Trevellion said nothing. So he had allowed a man to drown, for the sake of the Force. ‘Phoebe might still pick him up,’ he said.
‘Don’t think so, sir/ the master said. ‘He was dead when he went over the side.’
The steady, square-set fleet chief hesitated.
‘Come to the chart house,’ Trevellion said, leading the way to the after end of the bridge. They sat on the chart house settee, the captain taking the high stool.
‘Leading Handler Foulgis, 4N8 mess, sir, missing from muster.’
‘How d’you know he was dead?’
‘He was murdered, sir,’ the master said quietly. ‘I’ve had two different versions each with a different motive.’
Trevellion listened to what had been discovered. Foulgis and Osgood hated each other’s guts apparently, but there were some odd anomalies in the evidence: things pointed towards Osgood but PO Kotta, it seemed, could not be ruled out as a suspect. Each man was accusing the other and there had been no time to interview anyone.
‘I’ve placed them both under open arrest,’ Bellairs said, ‘until they can see you, sir. They’re carrying on with their duties while we investigate.’
Trevellion nodded: the war had to go on.
‘John, see to the MOD signal for the next of kin, please. Report on the murder as soon as possible. Ask the chaplain to help them, if they need him.’
Bellairs saluted and the two men left. Trevellion felt a desolation he had experienced rarely in his life: how could men hate so intensely that they could kill their own messmates? Emotion must be running high somewhere and his ship’s officers had better get to the bottom of it. The muted defiance of the aircrewmen yesterday was serious: their motives were well-intentioned, but their protests had not gone unnoticed in the messdecks. Trevellion felt an unease which he had experienced once before in his service life, when he had joined Icarus at Bermuda. Those problems had soon sorted themselves out and he hoped that the same common sense would prevail in Furious. The aircrewmen were now carrying out their duties normally, in spite of Craddock’s determination to stick to his court-martial decision. The fact that such a fine bunch were kicking up a shindy indicated a serious blunder on the part of his controversial Wings … and Trevellion turned to stroll to the after end of the bridge.
The quiet efficiency of Flyco seemed undisturbed as Little F supervised the flying operations. The 0300 sortie was becoming airborne, the winking lights flashing, the batsmen’s torches wreathing in the violet lighting of the flight deck. 833 was increasing to full power on spot 4, the scream of her engines reaching even to the bridge.
These modern fliers were of similar fibre to their forebears, Trevellion thought. They shared the same denigrating humour, the identical unpretentious professionalism; and they held a similar disregard for danger as did their fathers … there she went, 833, lifting clear of spot 4, canting on her side, sheering over the carrier’s side, parallel for an instant, then forging ahead into the night. The others were following her swiftly, only seconds behind … an efficient bunch, kept so only by their own efforts. These next few weeks would prove whether these decades of training would stand up to the test of war.
Trevellion knew that soon he would be witnessing the first casualties. The battle reports from the Soviet attacks on the escorted convoys farther south were worrying: too many choppers were being lost, probably shot down by the mysterious Anvil.
‘The admiral’s in the ops room, sir,’ the flag lieutenant reported quietly behind him. ‘When you’ve got a minute, sir.’
‘Right, flags. I’ll be down.’ It was 0320 already: less than forty-five minutes before dawn, the hour when the enemy submarines must attack, if they intended to interfere with the convoy. It was surprising that they had not yet shown more aggressiveness, because night and low visibility were a decided disadvantage for ASW choppers.
The ops room crew was calmly going about its business, the glow from the displays providing much of the light in the compartment. The HCO was busy, monitoring the 0300 sortie and recovering the helicopters which had done their stint.
‘Morning, Pascoe.’ Rear-Admiral Roderick Druce was as fresh as an Olympic runner waiting for the ‘off’, as he chatted with the communications officer who was showing him the latest batch of messages. ‘It looks as if we’re in for our first smell of blood. Here, look at these, Pascoe,’ and he nodded at the communications officer.
Trevellion read the signals, all transmitted within the last hour. The Carrier Striking Force, having shielded the Canadian convoy by placing itself between it and the enemy’s Strike Group was due west of the Azores and capable of protecting all the convoys which were now half-way across. BO-EU 2 and PHLH 4 were entering the enemy submarine zones, which was the reason, Trevellion assumed, why the Soviet Strike had dramatically turned to the eastward, instead of getting in among the convoys. It was steering to pass north of the Azores and was thus leaving the first attacks on the convoys to the SSNS. The American admiral commanding the Carrier Striking Force had been proved right by waiting to engage the enemy … but the crunch could not be far off now.