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They had all known it was coming. Now it was here, or soon would be. To have lived this long was the real bonus.

Had anyone else spoken such thoughts aloud, Sherwood would have torn him apart. Once. How could he have altered so much? He had believed it madness to consider a true friendship, let alone a marriage, in wartime. He could almost hear himself warning others against it. But that moment beside the parachute-mine had changed him.

He glanced around at the other shining figures in his party, the slender barrel of the after four-inch gun overhead.

Whatever happened to caution? To our disbelief in survival?

He smiled to himself as he recalled his unusual reserve when he had told Ransome, the day he had returned to the ship to take over Hargrave’s work.

‘I’ve asked her to marry me.’ He had grinned, surprised at his own shyness, his new faith.

Ransome had shaken his hand warmly and then said, ‘Snap!’

So the skipper had a girl too, although nobody had ever guessed it. The news was another precious secret, like the one they had shared in Sicily.

Stoker Petty Officer Clarke snapped, ‘The float, sir!’

The older hands could often sense such things. By the sound or the vibration of a sweep-wire.

Clarke exclaimed, ‘There’s somethin’ there!’ His eyes showed white in the gloom. ‘Better tell the Old Man, sir.’

Sherwood snatched up the handset. ‘The float’s no longer “watching", sir.’ He saw Guttridge peering down from the four-inch. The leading hand had come back from leave with a pair of black eyes. But he was a hard character, not a man to be laughed at.

‘Captain here.’ He pictured Ransome on the bridge, assessing it, making a plan, preparing another if it all went sour.

‘Recover the sweep.’ He hesitated. ‘Take it easy, Philip.’

Sherwood nodded to Clarke. ‘Bring it in.’ He heard the Buffer panting along the side-deck. ‘Clear the quarterdeck and take cover!’

He waited, half-expecting his limbs to defy him, to begin shaking.

‘Nice and easy, Stokes. It’s probably a bit of wreckage.’

Clarke said nothing, but reached out with a gloved hand to let the incoming wire slide over it. He remarked flatly, ‘Clean as a whistle.’

Sherwood waited. Even in the poor light he could see the wire, bright and burnished, proof, if any was needed with old sweats like Clarke on the job, that the wire had been running along the bottom.

‘Guttridge! Fall our the gun’s crew.’ Sherwood glanced around. He could barely see beyond the guardrail.

If it was a mine, it was coming in right now towards the counter.

‘Pass the word to the bridge, Buffer.’

The Buffer stood his ground and called, ‘Gipsy, tell the bridge. It’s probably a mine.’ To Sherwood he said affably, ‘I’ll stay with you, if you don’t mind, sir.’ He folded his arms and could have been grinning at him. ‘I ’ear congratulations is in order, sir?’

Sherwood gave a short laugh. Maybe that was it. They were all going quietly round the bend without realising it.

’Slower, Stokes!’

Clarke gritted his teeth. He could feel it now, as if he and not the winch was taking the full strain, like a fisherman with a marlin on his line.

Sherwood got down on his knees and winced as a rivet dug into his leg.

it’s there. It must be.’ He made up his mind. ‘Tell the captain.’ He reached up and added, ‘Give me that flashlight, Buffer. I’m going to have a look, and to hell with the bloody black-out!’

He switched on the light and saw several things at once. The float trying to rise to the surface as it floundered towards the winch, the otter already shining brightly in the beam while it moved nearer. Directly below his outstretched arm was the mine.

Sherwood heard Clarke give a gasp, and as if from a mile away someone calling to the bridge on the intercom. The deck seemed to tilt right over, and he guessed that one screw had been thrown into full astern to pivot the ship round.

He saw the mine sway towards him, but found he could watch it without fear. Seconds only to live. He shouted into the spray, 7 love you!’

Then the mine veered away, caught unawares by the violent change of course. It collided with the otter at the end of the sweep and the dark sea lit up to a vivid explosion.

Sherwood felt himself knocked flat by a solid waterfall which swept over the deck without making a sound. But as his hearing returned he caught snatches of cheering, and felt the Buffer thumping his back and yelling, ‘We’re goin’ to need a new float, sir!’

A seaman called, ‘All them dead fish! Pity we can’t ’ang about to net ’em for the galley!’

Sherwood staggered to his feet. His cap had vanished,as had the Buffer’s flashlight. A bloody close thing. There was nothing in the manuals about using a torch in enemy waters.

Down in the engine-room Campbell watched the revolution counters moving into unison again, and saw one of his stokers giving him a thumbs-up while the glistening machinery roared round within inches of his hand.

The whole place had boomed like an oil drum beaten by a giant hammer. Campbell looked for his E.R.A. and they exchanged quick grins.

Then he turned back to his dials, his lips moving to the tunc of an old hymn.

‘Sweeping, sweeping, sweeping, Always bloody well sweeping, Sweeping in the morning, And in the afternoon…’

Campbell wiped his streaming face. Alf Bone had been right to get out of it, he thought. Just for a split second back there…

He had felt his eyes fixed on the curved side, streaked with oil, each droplet quivering to the beat of the twin propellers as if it was alive.

Just for one agonising moment he had believed that which all of them dreaded had happened.

The telephone shrilled noisily beside his little metal shelf, where he kept his engine-room log.

‘Chief here.’ He had to press one grimy hand over his other ear.

‘This is the captain. All right? Sorry about the noise – don’t know what the neighbours will think.’

The Chief grinned and felt the tension draining away like sand from a glass. ‘We’re okay, sir. Let me know when you intend to do it again!’

On the bridge Ransome gave the handset to the boatswain’s mate. To Morgan he said, ‘Let’s hope that’ll be the last of them!’

Morgan removed his cap and allowed the spray to soak into his curly hair.

He had imagined that he actually saw the mine as Ransome had flung the ship hard over. Another moment, and – He felt his legs shaking. No casualties, no damage.

Then the boatswain’s mate turned from a voicepipe and said unsteadily, ‘Beg pardon, sir, but the gunnery officer is reportin’ the starboard guardrail ’as carried away in the – er – bang!’ It was all he could do to prevent himself from bursting into insane laughter.

Ransome climbed into his chair for the first time and nodded gravely.

‘Tell Mr Fallows that I shall indent for a new one when we return to harbour!’

Mackay hid a broad grin, and touched his young assistant’s arm.

‘Like a bunch of kids!’ But he did not hide his admiration, or his relief.

Long before dawn it was obvious to everyone that there was no last-minute change of plans. The full force of the attack was under way.

Throughout the night Ransome and the watchkeepers who shared the bridge with him had felt the air trembling to an unbroken procession of bombers flying toward the Normandy coast. There must have been hundreds of them, perhaps thousands.