The realisation made him feel uneasy and sick. It was as if Archer’s crude rumour had been a picture of truth. Suppose Colquhoun felt that way about him? He screwed up his mind with unusual concentration. It was unnerving even to think of it. And he knew that it was not because Colquhoun would appear like the groping man in the car. He realised, even before be had time to think further about it, that he would have made no protest.

  Vaguely he heard Archer say, ‘The security blokes ’ave gone. That’s somethin’!’

  Leading Seaman Haley looked up and smiled. ‘I suppose they were on the game, too, eh?’

  Archer slammed back, ‘You mark my words, this is going to be a rough commission. What with the old man bustin’ a gut to show how marvellous the Black Pig is, an’ half the crew goin’ round the bend, I’m glad I’m a bloody A.B.’

  Haley said coldly, ‘Bloody marvellous. Like the time you fell off the rudder! A real nice piece of seamanship that was!’

  Archer was about to make a retort when the tannoy speaker came alive overhead.

  ‘Stand by for an announcement.’

  Archer said excitedly, ‘See? What did I tell you?’

  Haley growled, ‘Stow it!’

  Jermain’s voice came over the speaker, bringing silence to the crowded mess tables. ‘This is the Captain speaking. I have to tell you that I have just received a signal from the American Task Force to which we are now attached.’ He paused, and those nearest the speaker could hear the faint rustle of paper. ‘We are to proceed at maximum speed to a rendezvous point one hundred miles off the west coast of Korea in the Yellow Sea.’ His voice became less formal. ‘For the benefit of those who have not been reading the daily reports on the notice boards, it means we have to steam another two thousand miles to the north, without breaking the journey at Taiwan as cxpected.’

  A chorus of groans came from the listening seamen. Bruce muttered, ‘Strike me blind! It’s gettin’ like a flamin’ round-the-world cruise!’

  Jermain continued, ‘The object of this assignment is to patrol and, if necessary, intercept shipping which is reported as being used to ferry guerrillas and political agitators from the Chinese mainland to South Korea.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It means, of course, that the Temeraire will be on a full and active duty, with a possibility of action. This is a picked crew, and I expect nothing but the best from all of you. This is not the sort of work we had been expecting, but as you saw very clearly on our last patrol, when Lieutenant Victor lost his life, it is as real and deadly as any publicised emergency.’

  Another voice came on the speaker, and Lightfoot was again reminded of that night in Colquhoun’s cabin.

  Wolfe sounded unruffled and confident. ‘With regard to the captain’s announcement. General drill will commence at 1400, and all sections will test and exercise equipment. Damage control and fire-fighting parties will muster in the main crewspace at 1415.’ Some of the old sharpness returned to his tone. ‘Any defects in either equipment or personnel will be promptly dealt with. That is all!’

  Bruce said, ‘I should think it’s a bleedin-nough! Roll on my bloody twelve!’

  Lightfoot stayed silent. It was going on and on, with one crisis blending into another. It was like the ‘Flying Dutchman’ he had been forced to read at school. Only worse.

  Archer turned to go but added casually, ‘Well, mates, this will give us all a real good chance to get to know each other!’ As he passed he brushed against Lightfoot’s arm. The latter knew it was no accident, just as he knew that his own danger was still with him.

  *  *  *

  Jermain rolled up his chart and looked around the wardroom table at his silent officers. ‘Well, I think we’ve gone over all the known possibilities, gentlemen. Any questions?’

  Ross shook his head. ‘I still think this is more than ridiculous!’ He was speaking directly to Jermain, excluding the others. ‘If we had gone to Taiwan direct as originally planned we could maybe have used some of the American infra-red gear to check over the hull. I would have felt much happier.’

  Jermain nodded. ‘Our last patrol seemed to rule out any real danger of hull flaws, Chief. We threw the boat around a good deal. If anything was about to come adrift it would surely have happened then?’ He saw his words were having no effect. And why should they? He alone was taking the full weight of responsibility. Was it pride in the boat or personal conceit? He dragged his mind back to the lengthy coded signal. One part of it seemed to overshadow all the rest. But again, was it his own strain, his imagination which was giving it too much emphasis?

  Inserted in the patrol orders had been the phrase, ‘In response to the request of your Flag Officer Inshore Squadron you will proceed, etc., etc.’ It might merely have been a typical piece of American courtesy to a lonely unit of another navy Or it might have been their way of pointing out that Sir John Colquhoun had insisted on this early venture into well-tried and dangerous territory.

  He tried to put himself in Sir John’s state of mind. The admiral knew of Conway’s secret mission to meet envoys from North Korea at a time when East/West relations were strained to breaking point. He knew too that any success on Conway’s part would be a sign for further cuts in the Royal Navy’s strength and importance in this and adjacent areas. His own command would be reduced to almost nothing. Yet it seemed impossible that the admiral could use his authority to put the Temeraire in a position where she would be implicated in any sort of open clash. A man of his experience and undoubted skill must surely take the long view, with the country’s security as his first concern.

  He said slowly, ‘We will go to patrol routine and bring the men up to a first degree of readiness. I don’t imagine the Americans will give us much to do at first, but out here we must be prepared for anything.’

  Oxley drawled, ‘It seems that their main reason for wanting us is to use a protective screen of long-range sonar. We pick up the ships, and they move in surface craft to investigate and board if necessary, right?’

  Jermain smiled. ‘That just about sums it up.’ It was easy to picture Oxley in later life as an admiral. In spite of his apparent casual attitude to Service life he had a mind which he used to grasp at and use the bare essentials. The rest he discarded as no part of an officer’s requirements.

  That is how I should act and think, Jermain decided. I above all, with this valuable ship and trained complement should be able to ignore vague possibilities and personal standards. It is no part of my work. I am merely a part of a whole. A section of an over-all plan.

  Wolfe said suddenly, ‘Do you really believe the American Intelligence reports, sir? They see a Communist plot in everything!’

  ’They’ve had a lot to put up with, Number One.’ Jermain found time to marvel at the way Wolfe appeared to have dismissed completely the near disaster over Colquhoun. He seemed almost at ease, and while Jermain had been running through the orders he had been writing busily in his notebook. There was no sign of uncertainty or of his earlier strain. That at least was a good omen, he thought.

  Wolfe said flatly, ‘I’ll bet the top brass back in Whitehall are congratulating themselves over us. I can just see all the little flags being stuck in maps and memos being passed from desk to desk!’ He gave a tight smile. ‘When the Navy has been cut down to the Victory in Portsmouth Dockyard, Whitehall will still have its full quota of admirals and civil servants!’

  Lieutenant Kitson glanced uncomfortably at Ross and then blurted out, ‘Of course, if there is some sort of flaw in the hull it would be serious for the electrical department, sir.’

  Jermain guessed that Kitson and Ross had been having a private conference of their own. ‘I am aware of that. We’ll cross our bridges when we come to them.’ His tone was final. ‘Now, I shall lay off the new course and then inform the engine room of the calculated speed. My immediate guess is around thirty knots.’

  Jermain sighed. They were all writing in their notebooks again, the grim possibilities and doubts momentarily held at bay.

  Sub-Lieutenant Luard remarked vaguely, ‘I suppose I’ll have to check through all the menus again. If it’s not one thing it’s another.’

  The others stared at him, and then Lieutenant Drew said dryly, ‘Fair makes you sweat, doesn’t it? Here we are about to embark on a great campaign, and all you can think about is how many tinned sausages you’ve got to last the voyage!’

  They laughed, and Jermain decided it was time to end the conference If Drew, whose assistant had been killed, could still make jokes, things could not be too bleak.

  *  *  *

  For another two days the Temeraire thrust further northwards. Like a black shadow, her smooth whaleshape hastening through the depths at a speed which would leave most of her surface contemporaries astern, she moved through the Formosa Strait and up into the East China Sea. Only once a day did she swim upwards to periscope depth, when after a quick look round through her powerful eye the radio mast was raised and for brief moments she was once more in contact with the outside world. But again she was only listening. Like her nuclear power, her voice was silent.

  The privileged few who saw the periscope’s view of the outer world looked around with mixed feelings. Envy and suspicion, fear and excitement. As the submarine moved further north and away from the remaining shipping lanes each sighting report became a small event. The occasional patrolling frigate or destroyer, the dilapidated freighter and the ghostly silhouettes of junks, each became a need, a certain reminder that there Was another life beyond the confines of the Temeraire’s hull.

  The submarine seemed to have become smaller, and the past sir of casual acceptance had given way to a watchful tension. Men rarely bothered to discuss the possibility of returning home in some near future, and the general atmosphere had become brittle, even apprehensive.

  Jermain watched the change moving through his command and tried to block each problem before it got out of hand. Arguments flared over small things, and discipline tightened accordingly.

  Above all, waiting was the worst part. It gave men too long to wonder and distrust, it helped to break down the established pattern of routine.

  It was with something like relief that Jennain received the awaited signal even as he took one of his rare looks through the raised periscope. It was brief. The clipped brevity from that unseen chain of command seemed to add to the impression of tension and urgency.

  Temeraire would take up a patrol area between the jutting peninsula of Shantung Province in Red China and the twisting coastline of Korea, Less than two hundred miles separated the two countries at this point, so that the Temeraire’s patrol line would correspond almost exactly with the thirty-eighth parallel which cut Korea in half, and which had decided that men on one side of it would fear and hate their countrymen on the other.

  Eight hours after receiving the signal Jermain conned the submarine on to the first leg of the patrol, and like the remainder of his men, settled down to wait.

  10

  Decision

  Jermain leaned against the chart table and stared through the open door into the control room. From the back of his neck to the soles of his feet he felt as if every muscle was aching in unison, yet he knew that if he returned to his cabin sleep would still elude him.

  For five endless days the Temeraire had carried out her slow search of the patrol area. Back and forth. Up and down. If the sea remained empty, the radio frequency did not. Each time the submarine raised her radio mast the signals came thick and fast. It was as if the whole Yellow Sea was packed with invisible ships and impatient commanders. Unfamiliar routines and complicated code names became almost commonplace, and even the American voices on the acoustic radio had welded themselves into the daily pattern.

  As the coded signals poured in Jermain and his officers plodded through the intelligence reports and conflicting information without rest. Only the submarine herself stayed immune, and her smooth-running complacency helped to add to the frustration and strain of her crew.

  The Temeraire remained at periscope depth for most of the time now. There was not much point in exercising diving anyway. The Yellow Sea was mostly shallow, and even now there were less than twenty fathoms beneath the ballast keel.

  The narrowest point between the Korean coast and the Chinese mainland had been selected as the most likely area for infiltration. It would be quick and hard to detect. Along the Korean shoreline Jermain knew there was a waiting company of American warships, added to which there was a sprinkling of South Korean vessels. Then southwards there was a well-stretched chain of patrol ships, including several American submarines. But the plum piece of the line was the Temeraire’s. Alone at the northern end, she swept back and forth in complete silence, her long-range sonar probing and listening, while her periscope kept a regular watch for less formidable vessels.

  The next immediate link with the rest of the task force was a South Korean frigate. They had seen her only twice since the beginning of the patrol, and then only as a shadow or a smudge of smoke. She carried an American naval officer for liaison duties, and when the two craft were within range of the acoustic radio it was his voice which entered the submarine’s hull, like that of an old friend.

  As soon as Jermain contacted any suspicious vessel, all he had to do was whistle up the frigate and allow her to board and search it. It sounded simple.

  Only the previous day when they made a brief contact the American officer had said, ‘For God’s sake sight something soon, so that we can get the hell out of here! If I eat much more rice aboard this bucket I’ll be getting slant eyes!’ It was not exactly a correct form of signalling, but it showed the listening submariners that they were not the only ones dying of boredom.

  Oxley was the officer-of-the-watch and stood in the centre of the control room, his hands deep in his pockets. His eyes looked dark with strain, and Jermain wondered if he was beginning to doubt the efficiency of his sonar devices.

  Jermain heard a petty officer report, ‘Coming up to twenty-one thirty, sir.’ The end of another sweep. Time to make a turn on to a new course. The submarine was now at her nearest point to the Chinese mainland. The first time it had happened there had been an edge of excitement in the boat. Now there was nothing. It was just a fact and little more.

  Oxley grunted, ‘Very well.’ He glanced at the captain.

  Jermain walked stiffly into the control room, the sudden movement making his legs throb with pain. ‘Up periscope.’ He waited as the greased tube slid from its well and then pressed his forehead against the pad. The sea looked like deep purple satin, above which the sky seemed pale by comparison. He switched the periscope to full power and swung it gently in a slow arc. The darker line below the sky was not the horizon. It was the land. Nothing solid or distinct, bat just a hint of the vast, endless country beyond. He murmured, ‘Carry on.’

  Oxley said wearily, ‘Starboard fifteen. Steer two two five.’

  Jermain moved the periscope in rhythm with the boat’s gentle turn and wondered how long this uneasy peace would last. His hand slipped on the handle as the intercom suddenly barked, ‘Surface contact, sir! Bearing green one one five! Range twenty thousand yards!’

  Jermain swung round and met Oxley’s astonished stare. ‘Down periscope!’ Jermain had to lick his lips to clear their sudden dryness. ‘Close up action stations!’

  He stood for a few more seconds, his ears deaf to the yammer of alarm bells as he forced his mind to work like a slide-rule. Around and below him doors slammed shut and the narrow passageways were alive with running figures. The telephones and voice pipes crackled to life, and as Oxley vanished towards the sonar compartment Wolfe appeared in the control room, his face crumpled from sleep but his eyes alert and calm.

  Jermain said, ‘Contact the frigate at once. It may be another scare, Number One. But I have a feeling about this one.’

  Oxley’s voice came over the intercom. ‘Captain, sir. It’s a firm contact. Distorted but regular. Maybe three or four small vessels. Moving fast but parallel with us.’

  Jermain frowned. Moving fast. That would explain the sudden flurry of echoes hitherto undetected. Probably fast patrol boats. Just the craft for a swift crossing to the other side. And what better time to choose? With darkness closing down and the sea like a millpond.

  A messenger opened the radio-room door and scurried away with a signal pad. Before the door dosed again Jermain heard the distorted garble from the acoustic radio. The American sounded as if he was speaking through a heavy rainstorm.

  ‘Hello BLUEBOY, this is VIGILANT. Your message received and understood. Suggest you close contact and shadow. Listening out’

  Jermain walked slowly to the chart table. The frigate would be turning away now to contact and alert the rest of the waiting force.

  He watched Mayo’s hands moving across the chart like busy crabs. ‘Alter course, Pilot. We’ll move to the west to intercept.’ Mayo did not even look up. After a few more minutes he scribbled on his pad and called, ‘Steer two seven zero.’

  Jermain found that he could not stay still, and it took real effort to make his movements slow and controlled. ‘Increase to twenty-five knots. And tell the chief to be ready for maximum evolutions!’ He could imagine Ross sitting in his gleaming domain of steel and brass and wondered if he would appreciate what was happening. At least he would not have to worry about a deep dive. In these waters it was an impossibility.

  Oxley again. ‘Contact appears to be retaining same course and speed. Bearing now green nine zero.’

  Mayo said, ‘Contact’s moving ahead, sir.’

  Jermain nodded. ‘Increase to thirty knots.’ He felt the smallest tremble run through the deck plates and then nothing. The boat was responding like a thoroughbred.

  This brief excitement might make all the difference, he thought. A success, no matter how small, would bind the crew together and make all the other irritations fade away for good.

  ‘Range now fifteen thousand yards.’

  Jermain thrust his hands into his pockets and balled his fingers into tight fists. He watched the attack team bending over the plot table as the ranges and bearings poured through the headphones and intercom. The ultimate would be to close and challenge the other ships and, if necessary, to attack. But that was impossible, and the Temeraire’s men would have to be content to know that the rest of the plan had worked successfully on their work. Even now the far-off American ships would be wheeling into position to spring their trap. Jermain found himself wondering what Conway would think when he was given definite proof that the Chinese were far from eager to accept a peaceful solution to an undeclared war which they believed they were winning.