The rating intoned, ‘Signal from escort, sir. “What is your diving position and time?”’

  Jermain glanced at his watch and replied, ‘We will be abeam of Portpatrick at 1230. Ten miles offshore we’ll make the first test dive.’ He added, ‘Check with Lieutenant Mayo. With this damned wind in our teeth I may have to crack on speed a bit to make the correct area on time.’

  Wolfe eyed him evenly. ‘You always were a perfectionist. No wonder they gave you command!’

  Jermain smiled quietly. ‘I have my moments.’

  After a few moments the light passed his signal to the escort. Then he added, ‘Once in Singapore, I shouldn’t wonder if they fly you home for your own boat, Ian. You deserve it.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Wolfe watched a determined-looking gull circling above the corkscrewing periscopes. ‘It’s this trip or bust for me. I’ll never take a shore job.’ He forced a smile, but there were lines of strain around his eyes. ‘Can you see me in gaiters and sword at Whale Island? Or lecturing to a lot of bloody recruits?’

  One of the two bridge lookouts said sharply, ‘There’s a sail fine on the port bow, sir!’

  A sail? Jermain swung his glasses. ‘Out in this weather?’

  The brown hills and a solitary church steeple swam momentarily across the lenses, and then as the waves leapt into frightening size under the powerful glasses he saw the brief flash of dark red and a small flapping triangle of sail. It rose and dipped in the deep swell, but it was moving, and moving fast.

  Jermain said, ‘Damned fools! They’ll have one hell of a time trying to beat back!’

  A messenger at the intercom said, ‘Turning on to new coursej sir. Two one zero. Increasing revolutions for sixteen knots.’

  ‘Very good.’ Jermain seized the screen as a big wave broke across the bow and thundered against the foot of the fin. It was like a solid object, and he heard some of the men below laughing at each other’s reactions.

  Wolfe asked suddenly, ‘Do you think there’s more to our voyage than we’ve been told?’ He shrugged. ‘Or shouldn’t I ask at this point?’

  Jermain lifted his glasses again. The sail was fairly flying over the yellow-fanged waves. Like the fin of some giant shark. He felt vaguely uneasy, yet could not explain it.

  He said slowly, ‘As my Number One you have every right to know. But it’s all pretty vague. Apart from a few routine details I’ve told you all I know. But the Chinese are getting restless. The Americans seem to think they’ll try another push further north.’

  Wolfe groaned. ‘Not Formosa, surely?’

  Jermain shook his head. ‘Not this time. Something real is my guess. The games are over. The Chinese are getting tired of the cold war. They want to draw their little empire together with a piece of force.’

  Wolfe frowned. Jermain’s obvious interest made him realise just how out of touch he had become. ‘You mean Korea again?’

  Jermain did not answer. He said sharply, ‘That damned fool! He’ll be across our bows in a moment!’

  Wolfe followed his gaze. The dinghy was moving closer each minute, so that he could actually see the small varnished hull plunging like a polished walnut beneath the bright sail. He could see three, maybe four, figures aboard, their backs arched across the weather side to hold the boat on its careering course.

  ‘He might pass ahead.’ Wolfe looked at Jermain’s face. It was then that he realised something of the strain and responsibility which lurked behind those calm features.

  Wolfe asked quickly;, ‘Shall I signal the escort to head the boat off?’

  ‘No chance now. It’d take some time to turn round in this. The poor bastard is rolling his guts out as it is!’ He glared at the dripping compass repeater. ‘Alter course two points to starboard. Maybe the fool hasn’t seen us yet.’ His eye fell on the signalman. ‘Well, don’t stand there gaping, man! Flash up the escort and tell them our new course!’

  Jermain felt the tension growing around him. Below through the hatch he could hear the men whispering quietly. The captain was jumpy. The old man was losing the touch! He forced himself to grin. ‘Not that I should care, I suppose. The old Black Pig would push that dinghy over like a matchbox!’ The men laughed, but every eye rested on the red sail.

  ‘Dinghy’s going about, sir!’ The lookout caught his breath. ‘No it isn’t, sir! The madman’s coming straight for us!’

  Wolfe watched spellbound. Through his glasses he could see the tense but determined faces below the sail, the way one of them was pointing at the submarine. It reminded him of an old painting of a whaleboat plunging on its quarry.

  ‘Slow ahead!’ Jermain ground his teeth as the eager wind pushed the sea heavily over the bows and swung the fin through one more sickening angle. He felt helpless, unable to control the four and a half thousand tons of steel below his skidding boots as it pushed on to some invisible meeting point on the sea ahead.

  Wolfe said, ‘Will you heave to, sir?’

  Jermain shook his head. ‘With this wind and sea running we’d slew right round.’ He waved his arm through the rain. ‘We’d be run aground in fifteen minutes hereabouts! It’s shoal water out there!’

  The bosun’s mate asked, ‘What orders, sir? Control room is asking for instructions.’

  Overhead, the slim attack periscope squeaked slightly in its mounting, and Jermain guessed that the O.O.W. or Mayo was already watching the start of the inevitable.

  Jermain said coldly, ‘Close up the emergency deck party. And signal the escort to stand by to pick up survivors.’

  Wolfe watched Jermain’s impassive face and felt strangely moved. What a rotten beginning, he thought. What a bloody senseless waste.

  *  *  *

  In the control room Lieutenant Oxley, the O.O.W,, stooped down to peer through the partly raised periscope, his sleek head shining in the bright lights. He pursed his lips and murmured, ‘Talk about David and Goliath!’ He straightened up and glanced quickly at the gyro repeater. ‘A collision course if I ever saw one!’

  Max Colquhoun looked pale and tired as he watched Oxley’s face beside the grease-smeared periscope. Apart from his general duties about the boat he was also assistant to Oxley in dealing with the complex sonar system which singled out Temeraire and her rare class. Temeraire’s function was to hunt and kill other submarines. To do this she had to be swift and silent, so silent that she remained undetected by her prey as well as by any possible hunter on the surface. Able to operate in great depths far below the isothermal barrier, she was virtually beyond the reach of any conventional sonar, yet could find and kill her enemies with calculated ease.

  Oxley said, ‘Come and take a look, Max.’

  Colquhoun took the training handles of the periscope and peered through the spray-dappled lens. He saw the dinghy instantly, and felt his stomach contract as if from a blow.

  The intercom barked, ‘Emergency deck party close up at the double!’

  Oxley grinned. ‘That’s you, Max! Watch you don’t get your feet wet!’

  Jeffers, the second coxswain, a squat, blue-jowled petty officer, was already climbing the ladder, his body deformed by his orange lifejacket, his cap tugged down over his eyes. He looked at Colquhoun and said, ȘT’ll lead the way, sir. It may be a bit dicky up top!’

  The little party assembled in the lower part of the fin, four seamen and the petty officer, all jammed together and staring at each other like strangers.

  Jeffers shrugged and knocked Off the clips of the screen door. The wind was Hke ice after the swaying warmth of the control room, and Colquhoun stared out at the curved deck with something like shock. Below decks the submarine seemed yast and remote. Standing in the narrow doorway it was like slanding on a partly submerged rock. He watched the hissing rollers breaking across the wet steel and the hostile sea beyond.

  ‘Right then!’ Jeffers stepped over the coaming and grasped the handrail which encircled the fin. ‘Let’s go and take a look at the silly bastards!’

  The dinghy was less than fifty feet from the port bow, and appeared to be higher than the submarine’s deck. As Colquhoun and his men appeared around the fin the boat’s occupants gave a small cheer, their voices whipped across the water like the cries of sea birds.

  Colquhoun could see the escort vessel plunging back along her course, her stem rising clear of the wavetops, while from her bridge came the metallic garble of a loud-hailer.

  The dinghy’s sail changed shape, and two of the occupants hoisted up a crude banner which whipped out stiffly like a sheet of metal in the wind.

  Jeffers groaned and dashed the spray from his face. ‘Bugger tne! They’re ban-the-bomb merchants!’

  Rider, one of the seamen, yelled, ‘Some of ’em have been hanging about the base for ages!’

  Jeffers snapped, ‘I don’t give a pig’s arse who they are! [They’re done for if they touch the Black Pig!’

  The waving dinghy sailors froze as if they too had suddenly realised the depth and size of the great monster which pushed towards them. Arms waved, and there was some attempt to retrim the sail. But it was too late. Like a leaf in a milirace the little boat began to tilt.

  Jeffers snatched the grapnel and line from Rider. ‘’Ere! Let me ’ave a go!’

  There was a sodden thump as the boat’s drop-keel struck the curved bow, then it seemed to rush along the submarine’s deck like a thing gone mad. The grapnel fastened into the gunwale and the seamen took the strain.

  Colquhoun had a vague picture of staring faces and wet, shining oilskins as his little group struggled to pull the four figures clear of the stranded boat. From above he could hear the captain’s voice, sharp yet controlled, as he swung the hull slightly off course to ease the strain of the wind and jubilant spray.

  The four dinghy sailors stood dazedly against the fin, held in position by two of the seamen. Jeffers and the others manhandled the dinghy around the sheltered side of the swaying tower, the waves reaching at their skidding feet as they cursed and panted with their captive. More men appeared from the open door, and knives flashed in the dull light as they cut away the sail and rigging. Now that the immediate danger was over the seamen were even joking with each other and throwing pointed insults at the unexpected visitors.

  Jermain swung down the bridge ladder and steadied himself against the safety rail. It had been a near thing. His relief was giving way to a cold and unreasonable anger, and he snapped, ‘Signal the escort to come up astern! We can put these four aboard their dinghy and drop them back by line.’

  Jeffers rubbed his hands. ‘They’re lucky to be alive, sir.’

  Jermain ignored him and pulled himself around the fin to confront the dripping and exhausted figures who were still pinioned against the streaming steel. He stared at their faces. All young. All frightened but defiant. He started. One of them was a girl, her forehead bleeding from her hasty rescue.

  Jermain shouted above the wind, ‘I hope you’re satisfied? You damn nearly got killed!’

  One of the youths said, ‘It was worth it.’ He grinned in spite of his discomfort. ‘Thanks for being so decent about it.’

  Jermain pointed towards the madly swinging escort. ‘Save your excuses for him!’ He turned his back and climbed up the ladder to rejoin Wolfe behind the screen.

  Wolfe scowled. ‘Little fools! I hope the authorities clap ’em in jail for a bit!’

  Jermain fretted with impatience as the dinghy bobbed astern on a grass line towards the waiting escort. The little minesweeper had a scrambling net down. There would be another rough handling for the four youngsters before they were through. The dinghy would be a write-off. It was to be hoped that the brief demonstration would compensate the owner.

  He replied slowly, ‘Unlikely. It would be bound to get into the Press. I imagine that the admiral is unwilling for any extra publicity about our movements!’

  He broke off as he saw the girl in the tossing dinghy turn to blow him an impudent kiss. In spite of his anxiety Jermain grinned. ‘Well, they’ve got guts, whatever their motives!’

  Wolfe turned away, masking his anger. He was worried, too. He had been leaning over the screen as Jermain had gone down to the deck after the rescue. Even with the wind whining over the bridge he had heard one of the young men from the dinghy say to his friends, ‘Poor old Max! I thought he was going to have a fit when he saw us!’

  Max. Max Colquhoun. Wolfe recalled with sudden clarity the young officer waiting by the pier in deep conversation with the small group of would-be demonstrators. The connection was obvious.

  He wondered if he should mention it to Jermain. If an officer was stupid enough to blab about Temeraire’s movements he was a menace to everyone aboard. He thought of Jermain’s other problems and decided against it. He watched Colquhoun pass below with the relieved deck party and nodded to himself.

  I’ll be watching you, my lad. Just one false move. Just one.…

  *  *  *

  Lieutenant-Commander Colin Ross sauntered across the control room and paused outside the chart-room door. He was carrying a pair of disposable bootees which were worn by all persons required to pass through Checkpoint Charlie as a protection against possible contamination. He waited until Jermain looked up from the chart table and then gestured towards the bulkhead clock.

  ‘Are we in position?’

  Jermain smiled. In spite of the engineer’s abrupt manner of speaking, he knew that Ross was a reserved, even shy, man. He was showing all the usual signs to be expected before the first dive.

  ‘Coming up, Chief.’ He tapped the chart. ‘Portpatrick is ten miles abeam. Is your department ready?’

  Ross sniffed. ‘All checked and compensated. I’ll be damn glad to get down. This motion is playing hell with my digestion!’

  ‘Very well. Sound off diving stations.’ Jermain picked up his glasses and walked briskly through the control room towards the ladder. The tannoy grated, ‘Diving stations! Diving stations!’ There was the usual flurry of padding feet, the click of equipment, and then the orderly shut down of all but essential traffic. Throughout the hull the various heads of departments reported their men closed up and standing by.

  Wolfe was standing straddle-legged in the centre of the space, the trim book in his hands. ‘Turn out the fore-planes!’

  Jermain asked, ‘All set, Number One?’

  Wolfe licked his lips. ‘I’ve just made another check, Captain, I’ve allowed for all extra stores and spares, as well as all other big items.’

  ‘Good. It’ll be different from the last time now that we’ve got rid of all the passengers.’

  Wolfe allowed his brow to relax slightly. ‘Ninety men aboard. That’s ninety multiplied by about one hundred and fifty pounds.’ He closed the book. ‘That should do it.’

  Jermain began to climb. ‘Very well. Rig for diving.’ He reached the surface navigating bridge and stared through the salt-smeared glass. The upper cockpit was empty, and here only the lookouts and the signalmen still waited until the last moment.

  The shoreline was almost hidden in a fresh rain squall, and Jermain wondered briefly if the dinghy sailors were being well looked after in the distant minesweeper.

  Below he heard the snap of metal as the watertight doors were moved and tested. If anything went wrong in the dive they would be slammed shut in an instant, sealing the compartments into separate zones of safety, or individual tombs.

  The intercom announced, ‘Hydroplanes tested and correct!’

  ‘Very good.’ A pause. A quick look round with the glasses, A brief picture of a jumbled town, far away, like an aerial map. A few gulls, a streamer of smoke from the escort’s short funnel.

  ‘Signal escort, Bunts. Am commencing first dive. Depth sixty feet?

  The light clattered, then there was an answering flash across the tumbling water. Jermain wondered if anyone in the distant town would see the light and spare them a thought. He found that his throat was dry. He glanced sideways at the signalman, a competent, trusting face. No sign of doubt or uncertainty.

  He snapped, ‘Slow ahead. Open main vents. Take her down to sixty feet!’

  He Hstened to his orders being repeated.

  ‘Clear the bridge!’ He stabbed the red button and heard the banshee klaxon echoing through his command. The lookouts vanished, and he pressed it a second time.

  Jermain felt the deck tremble very slightly and begin to tilt. He followed the others and slammed the hatch with the locking wheel. Down to the foot of the fin and another hatch to be sealed.

  In the control room all was quiet but for the gentle whirr of fans and the occasional creak of metal. It was hard to realise that the boat was diving but for the slight angle and the telltale needles on the gauges.

  Side by side the helmsman and planesman sat at their controls, their bodies hunched as if they were actually riding the Black Pig.

  Down, down. Thirty feet. Forty-five. Fifty.

  The planesman swung his controls and sighed, the sound very loud.

  The orders were passed, voices hushed as if in church.

  ‘Flood auxiliary tanks.’

  ‘Engine room reports that shaft seals are one hundred per cent, sir.’

  Jermain wiped his face with his hands. ‘Very good.’

  Although the hull was massively constructed to withstand the pull of eighty thousand pounds to the square inch, it had its weak points. The seals around the single shaft, for instance. But so far everything was fine.

  ‘Steady at sixty feet, Captain.’

  ‘Very well. Raise the radar mast and check on escort. Then make her a signal of our depth and speed.’

  The dials flickered, the lights on the panels winked and obeyed each set move.

  Jermain looked at his watch. ‘Pressure in the boat.’

  There was a mere hiss as air pressure was raised and measured.

  The tannoy said, ‘All compartments check!’

  Wolfe listened to the rapid replies. ‘No leaks, pressure constant, sir. All stations have checked.’

  Jermain nodded and felt a nerve jumping at the comer of his eye. He looked across at Mayo’s bearded face. ‘Ready, Pilot?’