Bowles leaned back, puffing at his pipe. There was no doubt that everyone felt better, now they knew what they were up against. After talking to his company, Farge had gathered the senior rates and the officers in the wardroom, where he explained his plans more fully: he and his officers would be studying the secret sailing orders while the boat was on passage to North Cape, which they should reach at dawn on the twelfth.
Farge was turning out a better CO than they had expected; he was a reserved bloke, difficult to know — but, as much as he could, he kept everyone informed of what was going on. With luck and God's help, the war might finish soon: whether it did depended, it seemed, very much upon two submarines…
'Safari's calling us.' The signalman at the after-end of the bridge was shouting above the wind buffeting the fin. 'Red 120, sir.'
Farge turned and saw the light winking on the port quarter: through his binoculars he could make out the blur of the nuke's silhouette.
'Take her on the lamp,' he said. 'For once, we want to announce our presence.'
Twilight was nearly gone and the north-easter was cutting through them. Safari was on time, exactly as Coombes and he had planned yesterday. Safari sailed this afternoon, deliberately trundling on the surface up the Sound, for prying eyes to see. After this brief rendezvous, she would alter south-west for the Little Minch. With her nav. lights burning, she would bumble southwards to be off Bara Head tomorrow morning where, hopefully, the habitual prowling Russian submarine would report Safari heading west into the Atlantic. The deception ploys were being carried out to the letter, while other Nato submarines were taking up their billets encircling the Barents.
'From Safari, sir,' the signalman called. ' "Interrogative?" '
'Make to her, "A.O.K."'Julian glanced at his watch: 'Date time group 092151 Zulu May.'
The lamp began clacking, the pencil beam cleaving the dusk. The umbilical cord was severed: no further contact with anyone until Orcus returned home… but Coombes knew now that Orcus' final bottoming drills were satisfactory; that she could dive immediately and be on her way. The success of Operation sow depended upon both submarines being scrupulously punctual and exact in the execution of their allotted commitments. The MOD'S deception plans were thorough — and not only were the diversionary ploys taking place at sea. Labelled crates of white tropical clothing had been dispatched to Orcus in Barrow; chart folios of the Indian Ocean had arrived, and curiously coded mail-bags had been delivered via British Rail and the Fleet Mail Office- this unnecessary junk, taken on board unopened, was taking up every inch of space; Farge's orders authorized him to ditch the weighted stuff as soon as Orcus was north of Rona. A variation of the same theme had been adopted for Safari, as Farge had learned from Coombes yesterday, when together they sifted through their secret sailing orders. Corrupt signals had even been dispatched — there was no end to the DGI'S skulduggery.
'Message passed, sir.'
In spite of modern electronics, signals were still being passed by eyeball methods. This paradox of modern warfare had developed because of the ability of both sides to pick up Through their EW apparatus the faintest transmission pushed out over the ether. The satellite had transformed communications, and the Soviet navy, with its centralized Moscow control, was more vulnerable than Nato's. This weakness had been recently demonstrated when Rosy Boyd, at the critical moment, forced the Soviet Northern Fleet to break off action when it had the Canadian convoy, HX-OS I, at its mercy: Boyd had knocked out their command ship — and from that instant the enemy's thrust had disintegrated.
The sailing orders, waiting below for Farge to digest, emphasized, as FOSM had done, the vital importance of Safari's and Orcus' communications. Safari would be counting upon Orcus' enemy report on the Typhoon: the MOD (and the Prime Minister and the President of the United States) would be waiting for Safari's signal of her Typhoon sinking, the signal upon which, exclusive of other kills the West might score, so much depended…. Safari was merging into the gloom, vanishing. Farge picked up the mike:
'Steer 230°. Diving in five minutes' time. Clear the bridge.'
He glanced at the silent, broad-shouldered figure standing behind him. Woolf-Gault, remarkably, had said nothing since surfacing. He now leaned across and yanked out the mike connection. He waited for the lookout and signalman to disappear through the upper lid before following them himself.
Farge peered carefully around the horizon: vis. was two miles but he could see only the lights of a couple of fishing-boats to the westward. With his nav. lights showing, he had been deliberately pointing in their direction, for almost an hour, hoping that Onus' course might be registered.
'Switch off navigation lights,' he ordered. 'Diving stations.'
Only the search periscope was raised, the control OOW and the navigating officer being down below and sharing it for their final fix. Farge felt the knotting in his guts, the instinctive urge to prolong these last few minutes on the surface. He shoved back the hood of his anorak in order to feel the breeze.
Yesterday's meeting with Coombes in Safari had been invaluable. Farge had gone straight to the point, so that they could then concentrate for the rest of the day upon their sailing orders — and Coombes had been as frank about his stepsister as Farge was of the woman he intended to marry. The latent jealousy which Farge harboured against Coombes evaporated as they talked of Lorna. Coombes apologized for his secrecy in the affair. It was evident to Farge that Janner and Lorna had always been very fond of one another; and this made Janner's approval of his future brother-in-law all the more satisfying-Farge even felt able to ask Janner to give Lorna the note he had hurriedly scrawled, should anything go wrong.
The remainder of the day, until Farge had to return to Orcus, had been spent wrapping up the operation. Each now understood to the smallest detail the other's intentions…. Drawing in to the depths of his lungs a last draught of this clean, soft air of the Hebrides, Farge crossed to the voice-pipe: he was tired, not only because of a leave spent with Lorna but also, since his second Northwood meeting, he had not wasted a second in briefing himself, and in planning how he was to achieve the objective expected of him. He'd dive Orcus now, turn to the north, ditch the weighted gear off Sule, then spend the next four days on passage to North Cape resting and planning for every eventuality.
Farge relished those final moments alone on the bridge. However often he had dived a submarine, there was always this kick of excitement, this realization that the lives of the men below lay in his hands. But today's dive was especially significant, a dive which could be their last. He sniffed the air, for an instant peering up at the darkening clouds sweeping above him. He leaned over the voice-pipe:
'Group up, half ahead together,' he ordered. 'Open main vents.
He watched the flying plumes of spray as the vents opened. He crossed to the upper lid and dropped through the dark hole, firmly grasping the longer handle and pulling the hatch shut over his head.