‘At least, we know where we stand,’ Druce said. ‘This gentlemen’s agreement to knock hell out of each other at sea makes good sense. Hopefully, things will remain static on the central European plain until we see how things are going.’
‘If the Kremlin and the Pentagon manage to keep control of events, sir.”
‘Let’s get down to.it, Pascoe,’ and Druce shoved the sailing orders across the table. ‘To ensure the safe and timely arrival of the convoy … where’ve I heard that before?’ He chuckled. ‘At least we haven’t been so damn silly as to heed the argument that independently routed ships will be safer.’ He spread the chart of the Atlantic Ocean across his bunk. ‘Sorry about this, Pascoe,’ he said.
‘I’ll go through the orders broadly; my staff can give us the details afterwards.’
‘The Canucs, sir, I understand?’
‘Yes. The Canadians have always accepted Norway as their responsibility. This convoy, HX-OS I, sails from Halifax at midnight tonight, Nova Scotia time, for Oslo. Eighteen ships, modern and all capable of twenty-six knots, carrying the Canadian Division and its equipment. Oslo will be ready for speedy unloading and disembarkment from 19 April onwards.’
‘Northabout, sir?’
‘Yes.’ Druce smiled ruefully. ‘I’m sorry, Pascoe, we haven’t been able to brief you earlier but it was difficult enough getting my staff and me here. Planning Linchpin’s been quite a headache…” He chuckled again as he pored over the chart, his stubby finger prodding at the vast ocean.
‘The Soviet Northern Fleet has been poised here, north of Jan Mayen island for some time now. It can push south through any of the gaps where our submarines are waiting. The Kremlin were on the hot line two hours ago telling the us President that ships of any nationality will be attacked if sailing in an Allied convoy — or even, if independently routed, they are carrying cargoes for Nato nations.’
‘That ought to encourage the fence-sitters,’ Pascoe said.
But Druce was tracing out the convoys’ routes, their tracks a network of converging black lines towards the Western and Northern Approaches of the British Isles.
‘Unloading at the ports may be as difficult as fighting through the convoy,’ the admiral said. ‘The Dutch are using troops at Europort: labour troubles can close the port as effectively as a hundred per cent mining operation.’
‘There’s not much point in delivering the convoys if we can’t unload ‘em,’
Trevellion added, as he perused the plans. The Mediterranean convoys CH-MA 6 and CH-GE 7, from Charleston to Marseilles and Genoa respectively, were the only others sailing tomorrow. BO-EU 2, Boston to Rotterdam Europort was sailing on 14
April; and NY-AN 5, New York to Antwerp on 16 April. The English Channel would be crowded from 21 April onwards, if the convoys were fought through successfully.
Druce touched the red circle six hundred miles east of Newfoundland. ‘Our rendezvous position with HX-OS,’ he said, ‘midnight, Monday, 14 April — your mean speed of advance is twenty-four knots, if you can sail within the next five hours.’ He looked at his flag captain. ‘D’you think the old lady can make it, Pascoe?’
There was a tap on the door and Jasper Craddock, cap under his left arm, stood in the doorway:
‘The airlift’s going better than I hoped, sir,’ he said, reporting to his captain. ‘I hope to be accepting the first of the squadron shortly before midnight and should be ready to proceed by 0045, sir.’ He turned towards the admiraclass="underline" ‘I don’t know whether I’ll be able to provide the screen, sir visibility is shutting down.’
Trevellion climbed to his feet and drew back the curtain which was across the scuttle. ‘What’s it like west of Land’s End?’
‘Probably worse, sir, according to the met. officer.’
‘Cancel the Sea Kings, Wings. We’ve got our full surface screen.’ Trevellion turned to his admiral for approval.
‘I agree, Pascoe.’ He was still scrutinizing the chart hanging on the bulkhead.
‘I’d prefer to use radar until we’re clear of the Longships and take no risks with the squadron. Very shortly we’ll be needing every aircraft which can fly.’
As Craddock stepped from the cabin, Druce’s steward began lowering the dead-lights and screwing up the wing-nuts on the scuttles. ‘Darken ship, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘Your supper’s ready when you are, sir.’
‘Thanks, Blair.’
‘We can talk about the enemy threat while we’re eating.’ Druce rose from his chair and ushered his guest into the minute compartment adjacent to his sleeping cabin. ‘This’ll be your last peaceful meal for some time, Pascoe,’ he said.
‘Reckon you’re going to be busy.’
Chapter 6
‘I have the ship, Pilot.’
‘You have the ship, sir.’
‘Half-ahead together,’ Captain Trevellion ordered. ‘Fifteen knots.’
The old ship was still oil-fuel fired, turbine-driven and telegraph-controlled, but ‘Old Fury’, as the troops called her, had come into her own during these last years of her life. Furious had held things together while waiting interminably for the new through-deckers, Invincible and Illustrious, to be completed.
‘Fifteen knots, sir. Course two-four-oh.’
The navigating officer was taking no risks in this deteriorating visibility and had proposed joining the traffic separation zone south of Wolf Rock, instead of cutting between the rock and Land’s End. The captain raised his binoculars to peer through the treated windows which cast no reflections. He identified the blur of light from the quick-flashing buoy fine on their starboard bow and at 0140 he brought Furious round; then he picked up the alternating white-red flashes of Wolf Rock sliding down the starboard side.
‘I’m going into the wings,’ Trevellion said. ‘You have the ship, Pilot.’
He was glad to leave the darkened bridge for a moment. The PPIS were giving an accurate position both of his ship and of the traffic streaming in both directions. Ahead of Furious was the screen, each ship navigating by radar in this foul weather-but, as soon as they were into the Atlantic, radio and radar silence would be imperative.
It was cold out here in the wings. A bank of fog suddenly shrouded the ship, curling across the lip of the flight deck, so that he could not see her great bows.
‘Reduce to eight knots,’ he sang out over his shoulder. ‘Double up the lookouts, Officer of the Watch. Start the foghorn.’
He knew that the young seamen could add little to the safety of the ship, but it would bring home to everyone that each man counted now. He would talk to the ship’s company tomorrow at dinner-time, to put them in the picture. By then he should know more himself, though Roderick Druce had given him an up-to-date resume at supper…
The long blast of the foghorn boomed suddenly above his head, its resonance making his eardrums vibrate. Then, as suddenly as the bank had descended, the ship broke through to clear weather and he stopped the horn. The red bow-light and the white steaming-lights of a big tanker slid down the other lane. He heard the melancholy wail of the diaphone from the Seven Stones. He shivered as the wind got up: a miserable, cold mizzle was superseding the patchy fog. It was 0340 already.
As he heard the blast from the horn of the Longships, away to the eastward, he sighted a patch of white light, fine on his starboard bow and on the edge of the northbound lane. The bearing was changing rapidly and even before he lifted his binoculars, he recognized a side-trawler. She was busy hauling her trawl and her string of white lights gleamed in the black water, the myriads of sea birds wheeling, a shimmering white cloud in the pool of light, as the ‘side-winder’ slid down the starboard side. To the north, a suspicion of twilight was showing, a faint lightening behind the night clouds strung above the horizon ahead. It was still dark in this dangerous bottleneck but, as soon as the carrier was clear and, provided the vis. held, he would fly-off his Sea Kings …