He had almost given himself away when the officer from the Pyramus had let the cat out of the bag. Somehow he had managed to keep his face calm, perhaps because he already knew half of Jermain’s secret.

  Now it was almost a pleasure just to sit and watch each moment as it arrived. Two birds with one stone, and what could be more just, or more final? Sarah’s lover destroyed by the man in whom she had confided against him.

  He watched Jermain answering one of the telephones. All his cunning could not help him now. Sucking up to Conway and seducing his daughter had come to no purpose. In addition he had made a bad enemy of the admiral by sticking up for his useless son. The thought of Colquhoun brought back the memory of that night in his cabin with such suddenness that he felt a quiver of blind rage run through him. The bloody insolence of it! And the incredible insult which followed when Jermain refused to take his part against that stupid, gutless little queer!

  Jermain said to the admiral, ‘The chief has reported some seepage aft, sir. But we’re three hundred feet deeper than the last time. I think it’ll be all right after all.’

  The admiral grunted, ‘It’s a good time to remember it!’

  Wolfe frowned. He remembered the admiral sitting at the table when he had gone to tell him of Jermain’s intentions. The admiral had said, ‘Well, if he’s right about these ships it looks like putting a seal on the Pyramus’s fate.’

  Then Wolfe had asked, ‘My next appointment, sir.’ He had tried to sound matter-of-fact. ‘When will it be confirmed, do you think?’

  The admiral had been evasive. ‘It’s not for me to say, Number One. Your commanding officer’s personal report will carry a good deal of weight. If it’s unfavourable,’ he had fixed Wolfe with a flat stare, ‘then of course that might well be the end of the matter for you. Of course, it can go either way. If a commanding officer is discredited in any manner,’ he had shrugged, ‘your case might be considered in a different light.’

  Wolfe balled his hands into tight fists. The admiral had been passing him a warning. It was obvious. Jermain had not been content to deceive him and drive a wedge between himself and Sarah. No, he had to ruin his career, too! He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. Well, nothing could help Jermain’s plans any more. In a short while he would be discredited by his own eagerness.

  Whatever the official report might say, Jermain would be remembered as the man who destroyed an American submarine. That, plus Conway’s death and his conflict with the admiral, would finish the destruction.

  He glared sideways at Mayo. You’ll change your tune, too! He tried to picture the faces of the officers when they all knew what Jermain was going to do.

  The navigating officer said, ‘We shall be up to the plateau in seventy-five minutes, sir. If you raise her to one hundred feet we can commence the search immediately,’ He looked worn out from his continued calculations.

  The admiral muttered, ‘I hope you’re right about all this, Jermain. With those A/S ships coming up astern, I want to find the Pyramus quickly and get it over with.’ He dropped his voice still further. ‘Do you wish me to tell the ship’s company what we have to do?’

  Jermain gave a small smile. ‘I think not, sir. After all, we don’t yet know, do we?’

  Wolfe moved restlessly in his seat. Go on, my friend. Try and wriggle off this one. There’s no one to blame, and nobody to help you now. You are completely alone!

  *  *  *

  Jermain peered down across Mayo’s shoulder at the crisscrossing pencilled lines on the chart. It was nearly two hours since the deep dive to avoid the bogus fishing boats, yet the searching sonar had recorded nothing. With the sureness of a whale the Temeraire had planed up from the incredible pressure of the deep valley, her hull seeming to quiver with relief as she crossed the steep-sided cliffs on to the plateau.

  Suppose the Pyramus had limped further north, seeking escape in the futility of the shallow coastal waters? It was too late to try another area. The bleeping buoys would be swaying through the dark water, like the sticks of blind men in an enclosed room.

  Mayo said gruffly, ‘There’s still a chance, sir.’ His pencil made another small cross. ‘But this is about our limit. We’re within twenty miles of the coast right now.’

  Jermain nodded. ‘І know. Thank God it’s pretty desolate hereabouts. Just a small town over there. All the same, I’ll bet they’ve alerted all the local patrols.’

  Mayo yawned. ‘It’s amazing to think we’re here like this. With some useless strip of coast and a whole pile of people intent on killing us if we even show our little fingers above the surface. Why the hell don’t we just declare war and be done with it?’

  Griffin was standing just inside the door, his face deep in thought. He said, ‘That’s the stuff, Pilot. Us against the rest. The Good Guys against the Bad Ones!’

  The admiral brushed past him, his features lined with irritation. ‘Anything new, Jermain?’

  ‘Not yet, sir.’

  ‘For God’s sake, there’s not much time.’ The admiral glared at the chart. ‘We’ll just have to clear the area if we can’t make contact in the next hour.’

  Mayo said, ‘The A/S boats are coming straight up the Wantsai Valley, sir. Strung out like they are, they can flush out any submarine in their path, or so they seem to hope. The Pyramus could either try to avoid the sweep and risk running foul of the steep sides of the Valley. Or she could go ahead of them and get driven into shallow water. Either way, if she’s damaged, her chances are pretty small.’

  The admiral swung round. ‘I’m quite aware of that, Mr. Mayo! Although why you or anyone else should imagine the Pyramus is still afloat is quite beyond me!’ He looked at Jermain coldly. ‘One hour, Jermain.’

  The intercom crackled, ‘Contact, sir! Bearing green two zero, range four thousand yards!’ A pause, and then Oxley added firmly, ‘It’s stationary, sir. Definitely the Pyramus!’

  The admiral said, ‘How can he be so damn sure?’

  But Jermain was already in the control room, his voice crisp and urgent. ‘Start plotting. Alter course and follow sonar. Slow ahead!’

  He felt flushed, but his forehead when he wiped it was damp and cold. It must be the Pyramus, It had to be.

  Mayo reported, ‘Course three three zero, sir.’ He glanced at the gauges. ‘Depth now one hundred and fifty feet.’

  ‘Keep her at that. I want to get as close as I can.’ To the radio supervisor he said, ‘Start calling her up on the acoustic radio. Keep calling her codename until I tell you otherwise.’

  Harris’s voice sounded heavy. ‘Hello SUNRAY. Hello SUNRAY. This is BLUEBOY. Are you receiving me? Over!’

  The minutes dragged by as the Temeraire moved slowly along the bearing.

  Harris readjusted his headphones. ‘No reply, sir.’

  Jermain snapped, ‘Keep trying! Just keep calling her!’

  ‘Range now two thousand yards, sir.’ Oxley cleared his throat, the sound rasping round the control room like a thunderclap.

  Sir John Colquhoun played with the peak of his cap. ‘Tell Oxley to keep a constant watch for the ships too, Jermain. They may have increased speed. I don’t want to be caught napping!’

  Jermain ignored him. The dim hope he had been feeling was slowly giving way to sick apprehension. Try as he might he could not blot out the mental picture of the American submarine with its crew members lying or lolling at their controls, dead even as they waited for help which could never come.

  ‘Range one thousand yards, sir.’

  Haris looked round, his face taut and pale. ‘Maybe their set is smashed, sir?’

  Wolfe eased Jumself in his chair. ‘It’s no use. They’re finished!’

  Jermain glanced at him. ‘We’ll do another circuit, Number One.’

  Wolfe shrugged and said calmly, ‘Give me a course, Pilot.’

  ‘Hello SUNRAY, do you read me? This is BLUEBOY.’ Harris’s voice was getting hoarse, and his constant repetition sounded like an epitaph.

  The admiral said sharply, ‘It’s hopeless, Jermain.’ He appeared to have difficulty in keeping his voice down. ‘You’re just putting off the inevitable. You must realise that.’ He glanced at the dock. ‘You must haul off and put some distance between us and the Pyramus. Even allowing for the missiles being set at safe, there will be one hell of an explosion.’

  Jermain felt trapped. Around him he could see the waiting men watching him. Perhaps they guessed what was going to happen. He replied, ‘Just a bit longer, sir. We must make sure!’

  The admiral regarded him curiously. ‘I believe that the skipper is your brother-in-law, Jermain? I know it’s not easy for you.’ He looked across at Wolfe. ‘If you like, I could give the responsibility to the first lieutenant?’

  Jermain turned away, sickened. ‘Stand by to alter course to zero four five.’ He forced himself to add, ‘Tell Lieutenant Drew to prepare tubes One and Two for firing.’

  Wolfe said quietly, ‘I’ll tell the hands to stand by for your announcement, sir. You’ll want to tell them now, I expect?’ His eyes shone like bright stones. ‘It’ll be something they’ll remember!’

  Oxley reported, ‘We are now passing the Pyramus, sir. Abeam to port, one thousand yards. She’s about eighty feet below our level of approach.’

  Jermain felt the blood pumping through his veins, fogging his mind and vision, blotting out all else but the picture of the Temeraire’s smooth shape passing the other submarine. Her slow backwash would reach out and caress the other hull, like a final salute.

  The admiral said, ‘Carry on, Jermain. You can pull away and fire when you’re ready. We can’t wait any longer. These are British sailors. I’ll not have them involved in more than this specific duty!’

  Drew’s voice said, ‘Bow doors open, sir. One and Two ready!’

  Jermain made himself walk to the chart-room where Wolfe had laid the public address handset on the table. He stared down blindly at the chart with its hopeful calculations and wasted efforts. But instead he saw Sarah’s face and heard her last words, ‘Bring him back to me, David!’ And Jill, relaxed in sleep as he had leaned across her body to answer that telephone.

  He picked up the handset. ‘This is the captain speaking.’ He saw the admiral’s shoulders relax slightly and watched his quick interchange of glances with Wolfe.

  ‘Hold it, sir!’ Harris swung in his chair. ‘For God’s sake!’ He turned his tuning dial, all else forgotten but the sudden wave of static on his speaker.

  The voice seemed to come from a long way off. Very small and tired. ‘This is SUNRAY. I am receiving you BLUEBOY.’ There was a break and the voice continued, ‘My God, I must be dreaming!’

  Jermain said, ‘Close the range, Pilot! Bring her round two points to port!’ He strode to Harris’s side. ‘Here, give me the handset. Chief!’

  He spoke very slowly. ‘This is BLUEBOY. There is not much time. Just give me your exact position.’

  This time it was a different voice, familiar in spite of the static. Jermain could picture him beside the cot looking down at the child, and wondered what sort of hell he had been suffering for these long, waiting days.

  ‘We dived deep to avoid a fishing fleet. There was an explosion, maybe from a single depth-charge. Damage was sustained in the engine room when a salt-water inlet pipe was partially fractured.’ He was speaking in sharp, staccato sentences. ‘There was also some damage to the sail and the diving planes. Speed was reduced and we could not run deep to avoid further contact with the enemy.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Whoever that was!’

  Jermain said, ‘Can you move?’

  ‘We have been carrying out repairs lying here on the bottom. We had to shut down the reactor to repair the cooling system and the fractured inlet pipe. We will have to use our batteries to restart the reactor, and as you know we can’t use our diesel generator submerged. It will take every drop of juice in every reserve battery to get it going. I’ve tried to cut down everything to save power. There’s no ventilation, and every other bit of machinery is off, too. The engine-room crew have been working without a break. Before the reactor cooled they were in a temperature of over one hundred and forty degrees.’ He added harshly, ‘Six of them are dead.’

  Jermain’s mind was working like a precision drill. ‘How long before you can start up?’ He made his voice calmer. ‘There is a strong force of anti-submarine craft sweeping up the Valley right now.’

  ‘Christ! I’d have run slap into them!’ He paused. ‘Give me eight hours. I can probably get “airborne” by then. My speed will still be down to less than ten knots because of the outside damage. But when you’ve been fighting to stay alive, that seems a helluva lot!’

  Jermain saw the admiral’s quick shake of the head. He knew what he was thinking. Eight hours. Even half that time would have been too long. The sonar buoys would sniff the Pyramus out long before that.

  Jermain said quickly, ‘Harris, connect this microphone to the public address system. I want the whole crew to hear it!’ He turned back to the microphone. ‘You will have to blow right up to the surface, right?’

  ‘That’s it. I’ll run up the snort and start my generators. That will see us back to base okay.’ His voice became suddenly tired. ‘Who are we kidding? The Reds’ll be here before I can get away. You can’t fight them all on your own. It was just a last crazy hope, but by God I won’t let the bastards take us or our ship!’

  His words came back from the Temeraire’s hull like an echo. In the torpedo space where the men waited beside the spare torpedoes, in the silent radio room, and amongst the gleaming machinery of the engine room, the men sat or stood listening to the American captain’s voice.

  Jermain made up his mind. ‘I think I can give you those eight hours, John. Nobody knows about us yet. It’s just you they’re after.’ He deliberately turned his back on the admiral’s grim features. ‘For the next eight hours I will become you. The bait. When I’ve led the search away from the area you must pull out all the stops and get the hell out of here. By the time they realise what’s happened you should be clear enough from the patrol area to whistle up air cover. Now, have you got that?’

  He waited, his heart pounding against his ribs.

  Hurtzig’s voice was muffled. ‘Received it loud and clear, I wish you could see my boys, David. I wish I knew how to speak for all of us.’

  Jermain said quickly, ‘Later will do. Just you get cracking at your end and don’t pay any attention to us. It’ll be getting dark up top soon, so you should be able to finish your battery charging in safety once the sea’s clear.’

  The static was beginning to fade out the other man’s voice. ‘Until the next time, David. Maybe I’ll have the right words by then. Over and out.’

  The admiral seized his arm and whispered fiercely, ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing? Do you know what you’re saying, man?’

  Jermain handed the microphone to Harris and then paused as a ragged burst of cheering echoed over the intercom. He met the admiral’s angry stare. ‘As you remarked earlier, sir. These are British sailors. I didn’t think they’d want to run away and leave men to die.’ His tone hardened. ‘Any more than they would want to kill them themselves!’/

  Sir John stared from his face to the microphone. ‘So that’s why you let the men listen! You deliberately invoked their sympathy!’

  Jermain said evenly, ‘If you will excuse me, sir.’

  The intercom crackled to life. ‘Faint hydrophone effect, bearing green one one zero, sir!’

  The admiral’s face went pale. ‘You see! They’re here already, you fool!’

  Oxley continued, ‘Single screw, sir. Maybe small diesel craft.’

  Jermain nodded. ‘We must take a look. Periscope depth, Number One. Starboard fifteen. Steer three zero zero.’ He made himself take time to look at the admiral again. ‘Look, sir, if I’ve done wrong I’ll be ready to face the consequences. But my orders,’ he paused, ‘our orders were to find and render assistance to the Pyramus. We’ve done the first bit. Now we can carry out the rest. Neither my orders nor the traditions of the Service allow for either cowardice or brutality, sir!’

  The admiral followed him into the chart-room. ‘How dare you speak to me like that!’

  Jermain pulled out a fresh chart. ‘Since we are alone, sir, I will just say this. I believe quite sincerely that you intended to destroy the Pyramus with or without waiting for her crew to make some effort to escape. She was too deep for her men to get to the surface, and in any case we might not have found them with a tide running. There was in your mind only the one alternative.’ He stared hard at the admiral’s stricken face. ‘Well, I can’t see it that way, sir. And if I’m required to answer to a court martial, I will be prepared to state these views.’

  A voice called, ‘Sixty feet, sir!’

  Jermain continued relentlessly, ‘No notice was taken of my earlier reports. They were shelved, in case we were “laughed at” by the Americans. No effort was made to understand the requirements and possible uses of my command in these waters, with the result we were operating in shallow water when the Malange was sunk.’ His voice became scathing. ‘My God, a frigate would have been better employed!’ He strode away, suddenly aware what the strain and anxiety had cost him.

  When he stooped beside the periscope he saw that the admiral was still standing beside the chart, like a man in a state of shock.

  ‘Up periscope.’ He swung it on to the bearing and waited for the lens to clear. The cloud was thicker and lower, and already the sea was patchy with dark shadows.

  Oxley’s voice called, ‘The ship has stopped her engine, sir!’

  Jermain stared at the small fishing boat which hovered in his cross-wires like a trapped insect. Even as Oxley finished speaking he saw the splash of white at her blunt bow as she dropped anchor and then swung easily on the calm water. Someone was hoisting a riding light, its brightness telling Jermain how quickly the night was closing in.

  ‘Down periscope.’ He nibbed his chin. ‘It’s a small motor fishing boat. No more than fifty feet. Just dropped anchor about half a mile away.’