"Commander speaking.
Who is it?...
Lieutenant Grier-son.
What is it, Grierson?
Couldn't be good news for a change?"
For almost a minute Turner remained silent.
The others on the bridge could hear the faint crackling of the earpiece, sensed rather than saw the taut attention, the tightening of the mouth.
"Will it hold?" Turner asked abruptly. "Yes, yes, of course... Tell him we'll do our best up here... Do that.
Half-hourly, if you please."
"It never rains, et cetera," Turner growled, replacing the phone. "Engine running rough, temperature hotting up.
Distortion in inner starboard shaft.
Dodson himself is in the shaft tunnel right now.
Bent like a banana, he says."
Vallery smiled faintly. "Knowing Dodson, I suppose that means a couple of thou out of alignment."
"Maybe." Turner was serious. "What does matter is that the main shaft bearing's damaged and the lubricating line fractured."
"As bad as that?" Vallery asked softly.
"Dodson is pretty unhappy.
Says the damage isn't recent, thinks it began the night we lost our depth-charges." Turner shook his head. "Lord knows what stresses that shaft's undergone since.... I suppose tonight's performance brought it to a head... The bearing will have to be lubricated by hand.
Wants engine revs, at a minimum or engine shut off altogether.
They'll keep us posted."
"And no possibility of repair?" Vallery asked wryly.
"No, sir. None."
"Very well, then.
Convoy speed.
And Commander?"
"Sir?"
"Hands to stations all night.
You needn't tell 'em so-but, well, I think it would be wise.
I have a feeling------"
"What's that!" Turner shouted. "Look!
What the hell's she doing?" His finger was stabbing towards the last freighter in the starboard line: her guns were blazing away at some unseen target, the tracers lancing whitely through the twilight sky.
Even as he dived for the broadcaster, he caught sight of the Viking's main armament belching smoke and jagged flame.
"All guns!
Green 1101 Aircraft!
Independent fire, independent targets!
Independent fire, independent targets!"
He heard Vallery ordering starboard helm, knew he was going to bring the for'ard turrets to bear.
They were too late.
Even as the Ulysses began to answer her helm, the enemy planes were pulling out of their approach dives.
Great, clumsy shapes, these planes, forlorn and insubstantial in the murky gloom, but identifiable in a sickening flash by the clamour of suddenly racing engines.
Condors, without a shadow of doubt.
Condors that had outguessed them again, that gliding approach, throttles cut right back, muted roar of the engines drifting downwind, away from the convoy.
Their timing, their judgment of distance, had been superb.
The freighter was bracketed twice, directly hit by at least seven bombs: in the near-darkness, it was impossible to see the bombs going home, but the explosions were unmistakable.
And as each plane passed over, the decks were raked by savage bursts of machine-gun fire.
Every gun position on the freighter was wide open, lacking all but the most elementary frontal protection: the Dems, Naval Ratings on the L.A. guns, Royal Marine Artillerymen on the H.A. weapons, were under no illusions as to their life expectancy when they joined the merchant ships on the Russian run...
For such few gunners as survived the bombing, the vicious stuttering of these machine-guns was almost certainly their last sound on earth.
As the bombs plummeted down on the next ship in line, the first freighter was already a broken-backed mass of licking, twisting flames.
Almost certainly, too, her bottom had been torn out: she had listed heavily, and now slowly and smoothly broke apart just aft of the bridge as if both parts were hinged below the water-line, and was gone before the clamour of the last aero engine had died away in the distance.
Tactical surprise had been complete.