Jermain listened to their footsteps fading along the passageway and then sat down to read the folio. After a while he picked up a telephone and said, ‘This is the captain. I want all officers in the wardroom in fifteen minutes.’

  *  *  *

  The Temeraire’s wardroom ran almost the full width of the hull and was free of all the usual clutter to be found in the old-type submarines. The overhead pipes, the mass of complex wiring, in fact all but fittings essential for the comfort of the occupants, were discreetly covered by pleasantly coloured panels of bright plastic, and even the steel cupboards and bulkhead furniture were disguised in imitation graining to give the impression of well-polished woodwork. The lighting was concealed and carefully angled so that the whole wardroom was evenly lit, as if from an open sky. Only the gentle whirr of fans and the faint quiver of the toughened hull against its fenders reminded the silent officers of their other world.

  Jermain dropped into a chair at the head of the table and laid the folio in front of him. He glanced around at the eight expectant faces. Apart from the missing second-in-command, there was still one absent. He cleared his throat. ‘I see that the sub is adrift. But I shall have to carry on without our junior officer.’

  There were a few laughs, and then Lieutenant Drew, the anti-submarine officer, said gruffly, ‘I sent him ashore for some spares, sir.’

  Jennain nodded. It was strange how he never got used to Drew’s harsh Australian accent. He was a tough, restless man who seemed unable to relax at any time.

  He continued, ‘Any plans which you may have had must go by the board.’ He saw Kitson, the electrical officer, glance quickly at his golf clubs propped in one comer. ‘We have fresh sailing orders, and it will be up to each one of us to get the crew cracking in time.’

  Jennain had their full attention now. When he had first entered the wardroom he had immediately noticed the air of relaxed ease, almost of gaiety after the three months of strain and hard work. In addition to the rigorous trials there had been the irritations of having a mass of passengers. Technicians and surveyors from the dockyard, experts from the base, and engine specialists from Rolls-Royce. Every inch of space had seemed to be full of men with notebooks and slide-rules, so that tempers had become frayed and even small problems had provoked open clashes.

  Like his officers, Jermain had imagined that apart from putting right a few minor defects all these irritations had gone for good. The admiral had made it all sound so smooth, so easy. It was as if the Temeraire was a mere counter on a map, instead of being the most sophisticated and complicated weapons system ever to put to sea.

  He said, ‘We are going to Singapore, and we sail at first light tomorrow.’ He looked at Lieutenant Mayo, the heavily bearded navigating officer. ‘As soon as you’ve had lunch get straight over to the depot ship and collect everything you want.’

  Mayo was as dark and brooding as his deep voice, but like the rest of the Temeraire’s team was hand-picked for his job. He grimaced and plucked at his beard. ‘Singapore is it? God, that’s a bit hard!’

  Jennain looked next at Griffin, the doctor. ‘Is everyone fit, Doc?’

  Griffin was all arms and legs, so that he appeared to have difficulty in folding himself into his chair. He had round, liquid eyes, and seemed quite unmoved by the submarine’s sudden orders. He smiled vaguely. ‘I’ve not done a thing since I came aboard, sir. Apart from handing out a few pieces of Elastoplast and a couple of crates of contraceptives that is!’

  Mayo scowled. ‘The Black Pig is the best contraceptive ever invented! Christ, you never get ashore long enough to do any damage!’

  Jermain smiled inwardly. When he had first conned the Temeraire into the Gareloch from the builders’ yard a dockyard manager had said with awe, ‘God, look at this black pig!’ So the name had stuck.

  It was indeed fortunate that the doctor had no outstanding cases. A relief crew was at Rosyth awaiting the submarine’s arrival and would no doubt be on leave up to the exact time of takeover. The admiral’s orders made it clear that no delays would be tolerated. They sailed on time, no matter what.

  Lieutenant-Commander Ross, the engineer, rolled an empty glass in his strong hands and studied Jermain’s features for several seconds. The oldest officer aboard, he looked even older than his forty-four years. His craggy face was lined and grey from his trade, and he spoke with a sharp staccato tone used to carrying above even the most violent piece of machinery. Not that he had to worry about noise in the Temeraire. On her trials she had exceeded all expectations, and when running deep had eluded two stalking frigates overhead, in spite of the fact that both commanders had been given the submarine’s exact course and depth.

  Ross said sharply, ‘Bloody typical! Twenty million pounds of equipment and they want to throw it about like so much scrap!’

  Jermain shrugged. ‘I’d possibly agree with you, Chief, if I thought it would solve anything,’

  Ross added stubbornly, ‘I can just see it. We’ll get to Singapore and the base will have damn all! Just a few spares off the steam submarines from the First World War!’

  Jermain sighed and flicked over the pages of the folio. Ross was a good engineer. The best he had met. But he liked to have the last word.

  Sub-Lieutenant Luard, the supply officer, leaned back and dosed his eyes as if to get a better understanding of what the orders would mean to him. Normally he was a cheerful, buoyant member of the wardroom, and was quite oblivious of the crew’s friendly contempt. They had nicknamed him ‘The Ace’ because of his dashing, neatly cropped beard and his habit of wearing an obsolete submariner’s sweater on every possible occasion. He was said to look more like the old wartime submarine commanders than those gentlemen in question.

  He said wearily, ‘Thank God I’ve nearly finished stocking up!’ Luard was only recently risen from the lower deck, and in moments of stress displayed a distinct Cockney accent. At other times he managed to keep it well under control. In his mind’s eye he could see every item of food required to sustain eleven officers and seventy-nine ratings across thousands of miles of unseen ocean. Only that forenoon he had checked in some five and a half tons of fresh meat, six hundred dozen eggs and, most important, one hundred gallons of good navy rum. A nuclear boat was always supposed to be ready for a long cruise at any time, but nobody ever took it seriously. Until now. …

  Jermain said, ‘There’ll be a new number one coming aboard shortly. Some of you may know Ian Wolfe. He’s a first-class officer, and well able to take over at short notice.’ He listened to his own voice, and wondered.

  He had not seen Wolfe for over a year, and then only a brief moment. What was the real reason for his command being delayed? They had been friends for many years. At Fort Blockhouse, in the Mediterranean, wherever the Navy spread its influence, they were always bumping into each other.

  Then Wolfe had married Sarah, his sister, and the knots had strengthened even more. Until they had started working on the nuclear boats with the Americans at the Holy Loch.

  Looking back, it was hard to gauge the exact moment when things had started to go wrong. Jermain had returned from a long training cruise to find Wolfe beside himself with anxiety and despair. It had all seemed so confused and pointless. Sarah had left him, and it appeared that things had been bad for some time. When it became obvious that she had left him for another man, an American officer from the Holy Loch, Wolfe’s bitterness had changed to an all-consuming anger. He had shut himself off from Jermain’s friendship, and when the opportunity had arisen he had left for another course at the opposite end of the country. After that they had drifted apart. Sarah wrote an occasional brief letter, and when the divorce came and went without fuss or publicity, the letters became even less frequent. Jermain was still baffled. He and his sister had always been so dose. When their father had died just after the war, their mother had married again, and somehow along the way the threads of family had been broken for good. Jermain’s home was in Polruan, overlooking the old town of Fowey and the gentle, unchanging estuary. But now there was no home, and no link with the old life. Just the Temeraire. The Black Pig.

  He looked slowly around the table. ‘It seems likely that more pressure will be brought on the government to restrict the use of Singapore as a base in its fullest sense. Boats like ours which can go for a year without refuelling if so required are quite obviously the answer. The Americans have been working towards this ideal for some time.’ He broke off and stared at Lieutenant Oxley, the sonar officer.

  Oxley was a debonair, outwardly casual man who made everything he did appear easy. It was an act, but as he avoided making mistakes it was a harmless enough affectation. He would certainly be earmarked for command, if he stayed out of trouble. He asked in his quiet drawl, ‘But I still don’t see the jolly old point of our dashing off to Singapore right now, sir. I mean, what about our people’s leave and so forth? The lads aren’t going to like it at all!’

  Jermain showed his teeth. ‘An understatement. However, it will be up to each of you to explain it to your own men. This is a picked crew. If you like, the cream of the Navy. They’re not children who have to be pampered with promises! I will address the men later, but I shall want you to tell them the bones of this change right away. There’ll be letters to write and various other arrangements they’ll want to make before we sail.’

  Ross said dourly, ‘Bloody poor show! They never have any respect for how the lads feel!’

  Jermain stood and picked up the folio. ‘There’ll be another briefing during the dog watches.’

  Mayo, the navigating officer, plucked his beard and said dreamily, ‘Sixteen thousand miles. I take it we’ll be going round the Cape?’

  Jermain nodded, satisfied that his bombshell had at last been accepted as unavoidable. ‘That’s so, Pilot. Should take about five weeks.’

  The petty officer steward poked his head around the curtained doorway. ‘Are we ready for lunch now, gentlemen?’

  Ross snorted. ‘I just lost my appetite!’

  Luard looked up from his notebook and scowled. ‘That’s typical! Rack your bloody brains to arrange a suitable and nutritious menu and you lose your bloody appetite!’

  Jermain walked back to his cabin, their laughter hanging in the air behind him. It all seemed smooth enough. Perhaps the admiral was right about the way to handle matters after all.

  He looked round the deserted control room and tried to think clearly about the days which lay ahead. He had told the others that the crew were the pick of the Navy. So they were. But they were also human, and like the boat had been under constant strain.

  He bit his lip and walked back to his cabin. There was so much to plan and arrange. There would be time for suppositions later.

  *  *  *

  By early evening the drizzle had ceased and the wind had all but blown itself out. In the grey light the Gareloch shone dully like old pewter, its surface broken here and there by querulous little clusters of gulls which rode up and down on the gentle swell in search of scraps from the anchored ships.

  Lieutenant-Commander Ian Wolfe paid off the taxi and stood for several minutes looking along the nearest wooden pier. But for a dockyard policeman near the barbed-wire gate at the far end the place seemed deserted, and beyond the gates and the low sheds of the wharves Wolfe could see the tall, stately hull of the depot ship, her ensign making a rare patch of colour at her stem.

  He sighed and picked up his suitcases. His trim, athletic build made him appear taller than he was, and at first glance his open face and even, impassive features did little to mark him apart from any other naval officer of his age and rank. But closer inspection laid bare the unnatural tenseness in the set of his jaw, a certain controlled hardness in his grey eyes which might strike a stranger as being more unexpected than a physical deformity.

  Wolfe felt tired and strained, and stared towards the distant town of Faslane with something like distaste. The long journey from the south of England had left him empty and irritable, and he had to quell the urge to speak his resentments aloud.

  He strode towards the pier, his steps ringing hollowly on the wet timbers, his eyes fixed on the distant flag. He had been in Chatham when he had received his fresh orders for the Temeraire. He wondered why the change of events had not affected him more. Collins, the officer who had been given command of Phoenix, the new nuclear boat building at Barrow, had taken what should have been his. Not that there was any point in laying the blame at his doorstep. Their Lordships were quite oblivious to personal hopes and thwarted ambitions. Officers came and went, slotted and docketed like so many items of equipment.

  It would be strange to serve with David Jermain again. He quickened his pace in time with his thoughts, his brain already exploring a new threat, a fresh change of fears. For months Wolfe had totally immersed himself in the study of his trade. He had ploughed fixedly through transistor theory, digital computing, Boolean logic and electronic circuitry, and the hundred and one other brain-wrenching problems he was required to master for his final command. And every hour of the day and night he was haunted by her face, the girl he had loved and lost to the American. Sarah, the strange, restless girl whose gipsy-style beauty had made him a slave at first sight when he had shared a leave with Jermain in the Cornish cottage.

  He had imagined that a total involvement with his work would ease, if not actually banish, the misery from his mind. He never found theory easy to absorb, and he was more at home on an open bridge than in a classroom. He had been shocked to find that the reverse had happened.

  The early warnings had shown themselves in lack of sleep. Then he had made stupid mistakes and omissions in his work, and twice he had lost his temper with the hard-pressed instructors.

  But when he had found himself drinking just that bit more heavily each night in his quarters he had seen the warnings for himself. Almost guiltily he had contacted a private psychologist in London, and while his classmates enjoyed their brief weekends with their families or friends, Wolfe made his secret visits to the quiet consulting room in London.

  The thought of being discharged from the Navy had forced him to take this final step. He knew well enough that his career was the only thing holding him together.

  Now he was joining Jermain as second-in-command. For a ‘refresher’ prior to actual command, as the admiral had so dryly indicated. Or was it merely to satisfy the Staff that he was only fit for second fiddle? Or nothing at all!

  He stopped dead, the sweat like ice beneath his cap. He forced his nerves to return to normal with something like physical effort. It would be good to see David again, but for the nagging fear of his reminding him of Sarah.

  Wolfe often wondered what Jermain really thought about him and his sister. Jermain had never married, had seemed strangely content with the almost monastic existence of a naval officer. Yet Wolfe knew that it was largely because of Sarah that Jermain had missed several promising chances. He had seemed determined that she would never be alone, and had sent for her to live near whatever base his ship was using. Wolfe guessed that because of this close tie Jermain would be feeling a sense of loss in his own way.

  He noticed suddenly that there was a small group of figures huddled behind a hut at die side of the pier entrance. They were young teenagers in crumpled windcheaters and jeans, their bodies jammed together for warmth and comfort. Wolfe saw that two of them carried a rain-faded C.N.D. banner, and some of the others were listening to a raucous transistor radio.

  He realised it was Sunday tomorrow. The usual invitation to ban-the-bomb enthusiasts to congregate around the Holy Loch or the Gareloch and chant their slogans to all and sundry.

  Temeraire was probably the only British nuclear boat alongside at the moment, so this little gathering was no doubt for her benefit, he thought.

  He felt the old anger moving again. Any little thing seemed to set it going. These long-haired teenagers, for instance. They would chant and protest like sheep until the Temeraire sailed. Then it would be quite all right apparently for the other conventional submarines to stay in the Gareloch unmolested! As if being blasted to bloody fragments wasn’t bad enough!

  He swung round with a start as a young sub-lieutenant stepped from the group and saluted. He was a pale, almost delicate-looking youth, with the wide apprehensive eyes of a startled fawn. He said, ‘Can I give you a hand with the bags, sir? I expect you’ll be going aboard Temeraire?’

  They fell in step as the policeman opened the gates and glanced at their passes. Wolfe had thought he would resent an early intrusion to his brooding, but the boy’s casual acceptance seemed somehow soothing.

  His name was apparently Max Colquhoun, the Temeraire’s most junior officer. He had been despatched ashore for some spares and was now returning to the ship.

  Wolfe asked, ‘Have you been aboard long?’

  Colquhoun shrugged. ‘Since she commissioned. My first real appointment actually.’

  Wolfe smiled in spite of his tension. How the submarine service was changing, and changing fast. Gone were the days of oily hands, dirty sweaters and weeks-old beards. It was a dean, businesslike trade where young officers went in at the bottom and studied more like apprentices than junior watch-keepers of the old days. He asked, ‘You knew I was coming then?’

  Colquhoun sounded vaguely defensive. ‘The gatekeeper just told me.’

  ‘And those layabouts you were talking to. What the hell did you find to speak about?’

  ‘Nothing really.’ Colquhoun quickened his pace as a seaman ran down the brow from the depot ship to collect the bags.

  His voice sounded sharper, Wolfe thought, like a little boy caught out. He sighed inwardly. What the hell! The sublieutenant could chat to Jesus Christ for all he cared!

  On the other side of the big ship’s main deck Wolfe stood looking down at the dull-painted submarine. Inside that fat hull was escape. A complete isolation which was more definite than distance or time. This was all he required. The London psychologist could go to hell from now on.