He had ordered half-hourly battery checks: the 0100 reading gave eight per cent remaining. He had been unable to snort since he'd got the box up off Vardo, at 2000 on 13 May, over seventy-six hours ago. If he had not bottomed almost continually, he would never have made it, particularly after tailing the Typhoon, grouped up for two and a half hours, at full speed during the last burst. This final caning of the battery had reduced things to this twitch level — but what was worrying him more than the running down of the battery was the parlous state of the life-support system.
Orcus was running short of candles, the vital element for oxygen replenishment, the burning of which supplied the oxygen and eliminated the lethal carbon monoxide. She was also down on her cog absorbent, and its rationing was causing splitting headaches. The air was foul and breathing was becoming an effort. If he had not at the outset banned unnecessary talking, movement and all cooking, they would now be in a mess. But the cold was getting them down most, with no heating and minimal heat from the reduced lighting.
'Captain in the control-room!'
He slid from his bunk in answer to the traditional summons. Sims, the OOW, was leaning against the door to the sound-room:
'Watcher's got a contact, sir: 350°, steam turbine and closing on a steady bearing. We're classifying.'
Farge went back to his cabin for his sweater and by 0136 sonar came up with the disquieting news that the counts were confirming the signature of a Leningrad ASW carrier. Five minutes later, the sound-room picked up three more contacts on the same sector, probable destroyers, all at slow speed.
'An ASW hunting group,' Farge murmured. 'Chris, shake Alastair, Number One, the Chief and WEO, please. I have the ship.'
Ten minutes later, Farge and his key officers were grouped round the chart table, Chris Sims again taking over the watch. David Powys had spread his battery graphs across the chart table.
'We're down to 67 per cent. The curve falls away sharply at the end.' His fingers followed the falling curve, traced the sharp dip to zero.
'At this discharge rate, how long have we got?' Julian asked quietly.
'Difficult to say, sir.' Powys was fiddling with his pocket calculator. 'Perhaps five hours, sir. We're hardly using anything at these revs, slow one, grouped down.'
'What speed are we making good, Alastair?'
'Four knots — and we've still got a bit of westerly set under us,' Murray said.
'Happy with your DR?'
'Reasonably so, sir. We switched SINS off after the flash report.'
Farge reached up for the dividers. 'Five hours at four knots,' he murmured. 'Twenty miles at the most, gentlemen.1 He measured off the distance from the latitude scale. Sticking one point of the dividers in the 0136 DR position, he traced out an arc to the west and south.
'Twenty miles short of Vardo,' he indicated, 'and…' The point of the dividers swung southwards, then began crossing the shallower bank where they had sighted the Norwegian fishing-boats aeons ago. A spur of the bank stretched north-west with soundings of 165 metres and less.
'Five hundred feet and less,' he said softly, leaving unspoken the thought in their minds. 'Everywhere else, it's deep water.' He looked up and met his senior officers' glances. Then he traced out a course to the centre of the spur. 'I propose we make for that bank,' he said. 'If we can reach it with what's left of the battery's capacity, we can try to snort there — as safely as anywhere else. We might suck in enough air to sit it out a bit longer on the bottom, while the heat passes over. If we're left in peace we might be able to stick it out until tomorrow's twilight.'
'Will you tell the troops of your intentions?' Tim Prout asked.
'Not yet,' Farge said. 'Nor the other officers. No point in worrying them.' He grinned ruefully. 'Miracles can still happen — and thanks, all of you.' He moved back into the centre of the control-room.
'Port ten,' he ordered Sims. 'Steer 206°. Remind the hands that Ultra Quiet State remains in force.' He walked slowly around his control-room, checking the gauges, having a word with the planesman and the watch-keeper on the panel. He turned to Sims:
'You have the ship, officer of the watch. Shake me if you're worried, and at 0400.' He stuffed his hands in his pockets and, shuffling in his slippers from the control-room, retired to his cabin.
Exhaustion brought Farge a fitful sleep but at 0315, with the two-minute reports from the sound-room filtering into his consciousness, he finally quit his bunk. Rubbing his eyes and smoothing back his hair, he sat himself at his desk. Pulling up his chair, he extracted his leather writing holder from his personal drawer, took out a few sheets of writing-paper and arranged them neatly in front of him. He held his pen poised for a moment as he closed his eyes. He could see her so vividly in his imagination, her fair curls, her laughing eyes, her soft smile. Then he bent over his desk and began to write.
'We should be crossing the bank now, sir,' Murray reported. 'Time, 0502.'
'Nothing from the sound-room?'
'Only the distant contact, sir. Still very faint,' Sims said.
Farge stood between his periscopes, hands behind his back, waiting for his men to reach their action stations. He could hear them struggling through the boat, many swaying as if they were drunk while they fought for breath.
'Take a quick sounding, pilot.'
The trace appeared, enough to show that Orcus was in 490 feet of water.
'Depth recorder switched off,' Murray reported.
Farge reached for the intercom:
'Captain speaking.' He kept his voice low, matter-of-fact. 'We've nothing much left in the box,' he said, 'and as you all realize, there's not much air. I haven't risked coming up before this, because a detection would definitely have been bad news. So we've got the choice: either sit on the bottom here at 490 feet and slowly snuff it, or risk sticking out our necks by getting in a quick snort. We've heard nothing for over nine hours — only a faint contact to the north. With luck, we may get in a bit of a charge and, what matters most, recirculate the air.' He paused. 'We're only twenty-five miles from the coast, but I reckon the risk is worth it. A quick charge is all we want, enough to take us north-west into the deep field again, where we can snort to our heart's content.' He said carefully:
'I don't want to raise your hopes. Vardo, Norway's main port up here, is our nearest point of land, but the Russians are in control of the coastline, as you all know. Pockets of the Royal Marines are still resisting in the mountains; remnants of 45 Commando are, I know, organizing resistance groups among the Norwegians.' He cleared his throat. 'Safari should have received our enemy report on the Typhoon, so we've done what's expected of us. I don't know what's waiting for us up top, but so far we've been lucky. Of one thing you can be sure: I shan't sacrifice the boat needlessly. If I'm forced to, I'll surface to give us a chance to bale out. Be ready for anything. Obey your officers; keep your heads; and don't hang about, because I'll be scuttling the boat if it comes to it. With God's help, we'll get out of this.' He turned to Bill Bowles. 'And thanks, cox'n, and all of you,' he ended quietly. 'No captain's ever been served by better men.'
He replaced the mike and turned to Prout:
'I'll come straight up,' he said briskly. 'Sixty feet.'