‘Aye, aye, sir,’ Craddock said ‘The machines will keep going longer than the crews at this rate It’s been non-stop for the past thirtv-six hours ‘
‘Yes, Wings, I know,’ Pascoe said quietly ‘Ease up all you can for the rest of today I’ll be needing every machine you can give me once we’re past Rockall We’ll be into the bottleneck then’
‘ETA Rockall, sir?’
‘2300 tonight, 0300 tomorrow morning for the convoy, if it can maintain its speed depends on the stragglers ‘
‘How much rest I can give the crews depends on your screening policy, sir I’ve got only one flight in the air at the moment’
‘I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve seen the admiral Use this lull, Wings, to arm every aircraft you can get into the air ‘
‘NDBS, sir3 We’ve only two left The nearest stock is flogging up the Minches in Resurgent ‘
‘I can’t tell you yet I hate the bloody things ‘ Trevellion glanced at his senior airman ‘But it’s the men who are our limiting factor now we’ve already lost two crews to Anvil Did Guard Cab Two sight anything before she was shot down9’
‘Dip Boss said he heard them, but their shouting was unintelligible he thinks they’d picked up a small echo on their radar from the sub-contact “Firm,” they reported before communication died ‘
‘We re four crews down altogether,’ Trevellion said ‘And supposing these boys have been contaminated9’
Craddock shook his head ‘They’ll keep flying, sir Whatever the PMO does to ‘em ‘
Trevellion left the after corner of the bridge and slowly retraced his steps to the ops room He knew, as they all did, that the only way to save a man contaminated by nuclear fall-out, was to carve out the contaminated flesh Trevellion paused outside, tried to shake off the astonishingly fierce hatred he felt for this utterly inhuman form of warfare ‘Love thine enemy,’ his Bible reminded him frequently, but what about loving anti Christ’ Trevellion stooped and pushed through the curtains into the gloom of the ops room Druce was hunched over the command displays. At his side the communication officer waited, message pad in hand ‘I’m considering whether to re-establish electronic silence, Pascoe,’ Druce murmured For the past tew hours it’s been to our advantage to swamp the air But take at look at this plot His stubby finger prodded the small-scale chart of the Northern and Western Approaches ‘This last fracas will seem like a tea-party compared with what’s to come ‘
Trevellion threw himself into his command chair He didn’t speak, absorbing the mass of information which the vast ops room presented to the command The plot and chinagraph pencil had been taken over completely by the case computer which tracked all echoes and threw them up on the displays, it even back-tracked, displaying whence ships and aircraft had come The compartment was huge, packed with the vital visual display units which were the end-products of the search and missile radars, the identification responders, the helicopters and fighter-tracking radars, and the EW and ECM systems, thirty officers and men were always on watch The direction officer fought the air war using his own electronics and radio frequencies This air picture was filtered and presented on the command display but, at the moment, only three blips were showing on Trevellion’s screen The three helos were eighty miles ahead of their Jez runs, screening the Force as best they could while the squadron prepared for the next round ‘We’d better take stock,’ Druce said ‘Has Phoebe come up with her report on Ungava Bay yet7”’
I’m waiting for her amplifying report, sir Doesn’t look too good ‘Shall I ask her, sir?’ the PWO, a senior lieutenant-commander asked from his display on the captain’s right ‘She’ll come up as soon as she can ‘
Druce had despatched the frigate to help the convoy’s hard-pressed team Phoebe, a point-defence frigate, with her Sea Cats and Exocets, was the right escort for the stricken container ship Though the frigate was a vital component of Force Q, Ungava Bay was at the core of the whole convoy, with her vital cargo of ammunition and transport for the Canadian Division Druce rasped ‘Five ships lost, Pascoe ‘ He did not look up from the display ‘And Valiant sunk by our own team Where’ve we gone wrong, eh?’
Trevellion did not reply at once In such a holocaust, it was impossible to analyse without knowing the details ‘How many enemy submarines d’you reckon we sank, sir3’
‘Conjecture only ‘ Druce was jotting on the pad at his elbow ‘The advanced screen definitely killed three Gloucester and Koln picked up survivors 831 sighted bits and pieces of another, so that’s definite ‘
‘And Brazen got a possible, sir,’ the PWO added “‘She had a riser and finished off the submarine with her fish They found nothing, but heard her breaking up at depth And our Nimrod’s confirmed a “probable” and “two possibles” ‘
‘That’s seven,’ said Druce ‘What about the other thirteen supposed to be on line B?’
‘The NDBS may have scared ‘em, sir,’ the PWO continued ‘Perhaps they let us roll over them3’
‘To live another day,’ Trevellion added, ‘or to overhaul the convoy and attack from the rear tonight’
‘They’ve got the speed — faster than our escorts in this weather,’ the PWO added ‘Darkness means nothing to ‘em,’ Druce said, ‘but it makes things bloody difficult for our Sea Kings ‘
‘What was the score against line A?’ Trevellion asked ‘815 sank one by torpedo,’ the admiral said ‘Impossible to say what casualties the NDBS inflicted, but they certainly discouraged the bastards We’ll have to wait for intelligence for reliable figures — if we ever find out ‘
‘No submarine within range could survive that heat,’ Trevellion said, ‘so the score depends on the concentration of enemy boats. The weather didn’t help them with visual sightings. They don’t hang around much, do they, when our Sea Kings are in the offing?’
Druce chuckled. ‘Maybe we’ve made our point,’ he said. ‘After the first salvo of nuclear missiles, 815’s NDBS seems to have dissuaded them. There’ve been no more missile attacks, though they must have been within range for at least an hour.’
The communications officer interrupted at the admiral’s elbow: ‘Phoebe reports that Ungava Bay is clearing away her damaged container boxes, sir. They’ve got power again and hope to free her rudder within two hours. They’re making good her damaged side, but the starboard castings of her turbine feet are fractured.
They won’t be able to make the speed of the convoy, sir.’
The convoy was already twenty-four miles ahead of the container ship who was drifting in the centre of a hornet’s nest: even if Phoebe stayed with her, the chance of them both being sunk was high. But if Phoebe remained with her, would not Force Q — and therefore the convoy — be even more at risk? Trevellion heard only the subdued voices of the operators at their work. ‘We can’t abandon her, sir,’ he murmured.