He saw the rain moving slowly away, and as if at a signal the wind too began to diminish. The sea’s surface smoothed itself under the gathering sunlight, so that it glimmered like milk beneath a low but impenetrable haze.

  The radar would have saved any further search, but to use it would certainly be asking for real trouble. Radar transmissions could be detected immediately, and any unfriendly warship in the vicinity would be quick to take an interest.

  Jermain tugged his cap over his eyes. There I go again. Was it caution or imagination?

  Victor spoke quickly, ‘There’s one of them, sir! Fine on the port bow!’

  Jermain rested his elbows on the screen and levelled his glasses. At first he thought it was a slow-moving aircraft. But as the haze twisted and danced across the lenses he saw that he was looking at the mast and upper yard of a small ship. Far beyond it was a second one, cut off and lost like part of a mirage.

  Jermain glanced briefly at the gyro repeater. ‘Steer one one zero,’ He stared hard at the floating masthead. Probably one of the trawlers. Yet it was apparently stationary and quite unmoved by the loss of a buoy and a few hundred feet of wire cable. Aloud he said, ‘I’d have thought there’d be a bit of excitement I After all, the Black Pig is no lightweight. It must have given them a bit of a jolt, too!’

  Victor said uneasily, ‘We’re getting a bit close, sir.’

  Poor bastard thinks I’m round the bend. Jermain turned and smiled. ‘Not quite what I expected. I must admit I’

  At that moment the haze seemed to fall apart like a transparent curtain and there, rocking gently above its own reflection, was the other ship.

  At first Jermain imagined that it was some sort of modern trawler. But even as he moved his glasses along her high, raked stem and over the compact bridge he saw the sudden flurry of foam beneath her stern and the telltale surge of power from the hidden screws.

  Abaft her squat funnel was a long, white-painted deckhouse, and as the ship gathered way Jermain saw the sides of the structure fall away to reveal the gun mounting which even now was swinging towards him.

  He shouted, ‘Diving alarm! Clear the bridge!’ He heard the lookouts stumbling down the ladder and Victor’s heavy breathing as he groped for the button.

  ‘AOOGAH! AOOGAH!’ The klaxon screamed its warning just as the sea lit up with a bright orange flash. The shell passed directly above the fin with the sound of tearing silk, and Jermain felt the shock-wave slashing at his shoulders as he tried to keep his glasses trained on the other ship.

  He yelled, ‘Hard a-starboard I Full ahead!’

  As Victor repeated his orders Jermain turned to watch the slender waterspout as it fell slowly on to the calm sea across the other beam. A few feet lower and the shell would have cut through the fin like a knife through butter.

  The water around the hull was already boiling in torment as the tanks were flooded, and the hydroplanes took control and thrust the submarine’s bows down.

  Another bright flash, and the whole hull shook like a mad thing as the shell exploded within twenty feet of the side. All at once the air was full of screaming splinters and the stench of salt and cordite. Water seemed to be falling everywhere, and Jermain almost fell as the deck tilted forward and down.

  He took a last quick look at the other vessel. She was moving fast and was barely a quarter of a mile away now. Just one hit was all she needed. Just one!

  Jermain jumped for the hatch and then stopped in his tracks his eyes fixed on Victor’s upturned face and the long pattern of blood which, poured from beneath his spread-eagled body. Victor was staring at him, his eyes filled with shocked horror and disbelief. He was opening and shutting his mouth, but no words came, and when he tried to move his legs towards the hatch the stream of blood became a torrent. It was then that he began to scream.

  Jermain forced his mind under control and with steady, deliberate movements lifted the other man’s legs over the coaming, shutting his ears to the terrible screams which went on and on and which seemed to exclude every other sound. And all the time Victor’s unblinking eyes were fixed on him, hating, pleading and despairing with each passing second.

  Hands reached up through the hatch, and with one final scream Victor was dragged down the tilting ladder. Jermain jumped after him, his shocked eyes only half taking in the water as it cascaded over the lip of the cockpit to shred away the bright scarlet stain from the steel plates.

  Behind him the two hatches slammed shut, muffled and final as the boat continued in her steep dive.

  In the control room the men at the controls worked their wheels and instruments as if detached entirely from the huddled group around the foot of the bridge ladder. Two seamen trying to hold Victor’s thrashing body, Griffin, tense and controlled as he searched for the wounds, and the men who had carried the officer down the ladder, their clothes streaked with blood, their faces shocked and drained of colour.

  Jermain said tightly, ‘Three hundred feet, Number One. Alter course to one seven zero. Maximum revolutions!’

  He saw Wolfe studying his face and heard the confident clicks from the diving panel. He forced himself to watch the gauges, to listen to the efforts of his command to obey him.

  Like a far-off diesel train he heard the ship’s thrashing screws as she passed somewhere overhead. For an instant he felt something like madness sweeping through his mind, the urge to hit back, and kill and keep on killing until the sea was empty.

  ‘Three hundred feet, sir.’ He caught Wolfe’s eye and added flatly, ‘Tell the sonar to track the other ship. He might try and detect our position.’

  He saw Griffin stand up from the silent men by the ladder and knew that Victor was dead.

  The doctor said slowly, ‘Three splinters in his back, sir.’ He stared down at the dead man. ‘I don’t know how he survived as long as he did.’

  Jermain looked at Victor’s face. It was like a stranger’s. Not like a human being at all. Just an effigy. A thing.

  He replied, ‘Take him to the sick bay, Doc. I’ll be along later.’

  What was there to say? Jermain stared at the waiting men. They seemed shocked, dulled by the savage turn of events.

  Wolfe said quietly, ‘That was close, sir.’

  Jermain eyed him emptily. ‘They were waiting for us.’ He looked across towards the wardroom entrance where he could see the admiral silhouetted against the light. ‘It was no imagination. Neither was that submarine.’

  ‘Would you like me to take over?’ Wolfe sounded strained. ‘Poor old Victor.’

  Jermain felt the anger returning like a flood. ‘Just carry on with your watch, Number One.’ He did not recognise the harshness in his voice. ‘And get that blood mopped up. There’ll be time enough for grief and recriminations later on!’

  He forced himself to walk unhurriedly to the chart-room. Once there he leaned on the table and stared fixedly at the chart. He tried to focus his eyes, to visualise how and why such a trap had been sprung. Only Temeraire’s unexpected arrival and her tangling in the fish-buoy had averted what might have been much worse. Where better to destroy a loaded Polaris submarine than in the middle of a set exercise?

  Jermain found neither consolation nor pride in what had happened. His training, even his old instinct, did not allow for Victor’s sudden death.

  In his mind he could still picture those wide, desperate eyes, and in the silence of the chart-room he imagined he could hear the echoes of far-off screams.

  *  *  *

  Lieutenant Commander Ian Wolfe walked slowly into the wardroom and then paused uncertainly. The admiral was seated at the head of the empty table, a small book open in front of him. It was just after one o’clock in the morning, and the boat seemed silent and subdued as it cruised steadily towards Singapore. Wolfe was to take over his watch at two o’clock, yet for some reason felt unable to sleep. Ever since the previous morning when he had parcelled up Victor’s few belongings he had been feeling restless and vaguely apprehensive. He was not sure he knew the full reasons for this, but he was unwilling to take the risk of facing his innermost thoughts in the small world of his cabin.

  The admiral looked up and nodded towards a chair. ‘Take a seat, Number One.’ His eyes looked bright in the single reading light beside the table. ‘It seems too quiet to sleep.’

  Wolfe slumped in a chair and took a cigarette from a tin on the table. The last thing he wanted was to speak with the admiral, to take sides, to offer any sort of opinion on what had happened.

  Perhaps it was his lack of feeling over Victor’s death which troubled him most, he thought moodily. Over the whole boat there was an air of dejection rather than sadness. The swift horror of Victor’s fate hung over officers and men alike, yet there appeared to be more than sorrow. It was like watching guilty men, Wolfe decided.

  Victor had not been very popular in the wardroom. He had been withdrawn and defensive, and quick to show resentment if even a casual comment was challenged. Wolfe knew that some of the officers were now very conscious of his isolation amongst them, and were troubled because of it.

  Wolfe, on the other hand, had made little effort to increase his own personal contact with any of them. It was enough to perform his duty, to use the passing time to prepare himself for the real challenge which still eluded him. A command of his own. There was no room for stupid and empty arguments, no point in allowing himself to become involved.

  The admiral was watching him. ‘I suppose you’re wondering what will happen when we reach base?’ He raised one eyebrow and smiled. ‘I don’t think you have anything to reproach yourself for. You handled the diving of the boat very well indeed. I shall certainly mention the fact at the enquiry.’

  Wolfe pricked up his ears. So there was to be an enquiry now? He kept his voice non-committal. ‘I believe the captain has made a full report, sir. I can’t think of anything to add.’

  The admiral smiled. ‘Now then, Number One! You don’t have to prove your loyalty to me, you know! I admire you for it, but we must face the facts.’

  Wolfe stared at him. ‘Victor was killed by some sort of Chinese patrol boat, sir. It might just as easily have killed the captain, too.’

  ‘Quite so.’ The smile was clamped on the admiral’s face. ‘But I was referring to the whole affair.’ He waved his hands. ‘In my position you get to see the whole picture of operations like a panorama!’

  Wolfe tried to relax his stiff muscles. His headache had returned and he wanted to massage his forehead, but the other man’s unwinking gaze made him resist it.

  He said slowly, ‘I understand the Chinese were on some sort of operational patrol. When we surfaced and moved amongst them they opened fire. It’s not the first time there’s been such a clash, sir. The Americans are always running foul of these bloody scavengers!’

  ‘Maybe. But only the captain and poor Victor know for sure what really happened. And Victor is dead.’

  Wolfe stirred uneasily. You bastard. You dirty-minded little bastard! He tried to see beyond the admiral’s cold eyes, to be one jump ahead.

  The admiral said calmly, ‘I shall, of course, put in a good word for Jermain. There is no point in being vindictive. No point at all. But Temeraire is far too valuable to be used like a battering ram, don’t you agree?’

  The question came out with a snap, and Wolfe felt pinned down by the admiral’s relentless stare. ‘But the other submarine, sir? The one Oxley detected.’ Wolfe tried to avoid the point-blank question. It was an open challenge, to test which way his loyalty would go. He thought quickly of Jermain’s impassive face after Victor had died, of the sharpness in his tone. Perhaps he was rattled, even unprepared for his massive weight of responsibility. He tried to halt his line of reasoning, to blot out the picture of Jermain’s masklike features. He had been like a stranger, a man apart.

  The headache was getting worse, throbbing at his skull like insistent hammers.

  ‘The submarine?’ The admiral shrugged. ‘Underwater echoes are unreliable at the best of times, Number One. I can remember when I took my little S-boat off the Dogger Bank after a Jerry destroyer. I thought I was being tagged by an enemy submarine but at the same time I used my head and acted with the right spirit!’ His face was flushed. ‘Got him with a full salvo! A copybook attack!’ He became serious again. ‘I admire any man who tries to uphold the honour of the Service in front of a foreign power. But any man who invents a situation to cover his own mistakes is far more likely to bring discredit rather than praise!’

  Wolfe cleared his throat, ‘Do you mean the captain, sir?’ He regretted the question immediately. He saw the shutters drop behind the admiral’s eyes and cursed himself for his stupidity. He could not afford to take sides. There was neither time nor valid reason for it. Jermain had been a friend, a red friend. But that was long ago, when the Navy and all that went with it had been another, more enjoyable way of life.

  The picture grew in his racing thoughts like a spectre. After all, what had Jermain really done when Sarah had left him? Maybe he was bound to take his sister’s side. He could even be corresponding with her, sharing her other life just as he had once done. Did anyone know anyone any more? Jermain was a stranger like the others, a man out for himself.

  Wolfe felt the sweat gathering on his brow and said harshly, ‘I am not really in a position to say anything, sir!’

  The admiral gave a thin smile. ‘Of course not. You have your own future to contemplate. That is enough for any aspiring officer, eh?’

  Wolfe nodded, feeling sick. ‘I suppose so.’

  Sir John Colquhoun eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Have you seen much action, Number One?’

  ‘The usual, sir.1 The headache tightened its grip. ‘I took part in the Suez campaign, and I was in Malaysia for a while.’ He shrugged heavily. ‘Yet one is never really expecting trouble until it happens.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The admiral closed his book with a snap. ‘But when these incidents occur, even in the Cold War, we must be ready. Instantly prepared for the unexpected! The country is too soft, too indifferent to care about what we are doing. It is a lonely, uphill struggle.’ He gave an elaborate sigh. ‘But we must accept our responsibilities and face them 1’

  Wolfe tightened his hands into fists under the table. If he told the admiral about his son’s mixing with the C.N.D., that might wipe some of the smugness from his words! But he knew he was only deluding himself. Men like the admiral left no room for manœuvre.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘I think FU get ready to take over my duty, sir.’ He noticed with surprise that the admiral’s book was a cheap thriller from the Temeraire’s library. He added hastily, ‘I’ll look in the sick bay and see that your son is all right.’

  The admiral opened his book. ‘Very well if you think it necessary.’

  Wolfe stared at the admiral’s lowered head and marvelled. He was even jealous of Jermain because of his own son, he thought. Suddenly Wolfe felt disgust for himself and the way he had failed to stand up to the admiral’s thinly veiled attack on Jermain.

  He walked quickly into the passageway and half paused beside the captain’s door. There was still a light in the cabin, and he could picture Jermain sitting at his little desk, his calm face intent on the never-ending stream of affairs which awaited his attention.

  Command of the Temeraire had been a culmination of hard work and dedicated concentration on Jermain’s part. Now, in the twinkling of an eye, everything had changed. A clash with the admiral, wilful damage and an officer killed. The list seemed endless, yet it was, Wolfe knew, only a beginning.

  He wondered if he would have behaved as Jermain had done under the same circumstances. It would be easy to save face, to admit a sonar fault and promise better for the future. Curiously enough, Victor’s death was the least important of the problems. The authorities would say it was unfortunate but unavoidable. A sad loss incurred in the path of duty.

  Wolfe remembered the empty cabin with its frayed bathrobe behind the door. The small bundle of personal effects which represented a man’s hopes and fears. A few well-thumbed photographs of a wife and children. All wrapped and sealed along with an official letter of grief.

  Wolfe rested his head on the cool metal and breathed out hard. It was stupid to think of it. It was nothing to do with him. He still allowed his mind to torture him a little longer. The animal-like screams ringing around the tower, the blood-splattered seamen on the ladder.

  He had thought it was Jermain who had been hit. But even now he was afraid to face what his reeling mind knew to be a fact. In some inexplicable way he had been sorry when he had seen that it was Victor and not Jermain who lay twisting on the deckplates.

  With a sob he hurried into his cabin and threw himself full length across his bunk.

  7

  Welcome Back

  Jermain returned the salutes of the marine policemen and walked briskly through the wide gates. Beyond the neat barriers of anti-terrorist sandbags he could see the tall white buildings and the painted sign, ‘Commander-m-Chief, Far East’. An admiral’s flag hung limp in the harsh sunlight above a circle of dried grass, and sailors walked to and fro with messages and folios on errands of varying importance.

  Jermain glanced at his watch and grimaced. He was five minutes late already, although he had left the Temeraire at her moorings with plenty of time in hand. He had not been to Singapore for several years, and he was stunned by the density of traffic in the jammed streets and the mad abandon of drivers and pedestrians alike. He had sat sweating in his taxi while an accident between another car and a rusty trishaw had been sorted out by an impassive policeman and the two gesticulating culprits. Above him, the hands of the Memorial Hall dock had moved slowly towards eleven o’clock, the time set for the preliminary enquiry at naval headquarters.

  Temeraire had docked in the early dawn, this time with neither fuss nor ceremony, and Jermain had been thrown into a full measure of work until the very last moment. Nobody aboard even pretended any more that the submarine would be returning home in the foreseeable future. The ratings received the waiting wads of home mail and retired to their messes in silence, aware perhaps for the first time that there was little hope of a quick reunion with that other, domestic, life.