The Tirpitz the name that no man mentioned without a far off echo of awe and fear, the name that had completely dominated North Atlantic naval strategy during the past two years.
Moving out at last, an armoured Colossus, sister ship to that other Titan that had destroyed the Hood with one single, savage blow, the Hood, the darling of the Royal Navy, the most powerful ship in the world, or so men had thought.
What chance had their tiny cockle-shell cruiser...
Again he shook his head, angrily this time, forced himself to think of the present.
"Well, gentlemen, I suppose time bringeth all things, even the Tirpitz.
It had to come some day.
Just our ill luck the bait was too close, too tempting."
"My young colleague is going to be just delighted," Brooks said grimly.
"A real battleship at long, long last."
"Sunset," Turner mused. "Sunset.
My God!" he said sharply, "even allowing for negotiating the fjord they'll be on us in four hours on this course!"
"Exactly," Vallery nodded. "And it's no good running north.
They'd overtake us before we're within a hundred miles of them."
"Them?
Our big boys up north?" Turner scoffed. "I hate to sound like a gramophone record, but you'll recall my earlier statement about them too -----, late as usual!" He paused, swore again. "I hope that old bastard Starr's satisfied at last!" he finished bitterly.
"Why all the gloom?" Vallery looked up quizzically, went on softly. "We can still be back, safe and sound in Scapa in forty-eight hours.
'Avoid useless sacrifice Merchant, Naval ships,' he said.
The Ulysses is probably the fastest ship in the world today.
It's simple, gentlemen."
"No, no!" Brooks moaned. "Too much of an anti-climax.
I couldn't stand it!"
"Do another PQ17?" [3] Turner smiled, but the smile never touched his eyes. "The Royal Navy could never stand it: Captain, Rear-Admiral Vallery would never permit it; and speaking for myself and, I'm fairly certain, this bunch of cut-throat mutineers of ours, well, I don't think we'd ever sleep so sound o' nights again."
"Gad!" Brooks murmured. "The man's a poet!"
"You're right, Turner." Vallery drained his glass, lay back exhausted. "We don't seem to have much option... What if we receive orders for a-ah-high-speed withdrawal?"
"You can't read," Turner said bluntly. "Remember, you just said your eyes are going back on you."
"'Souls that have toiled and wrought and fought With me,'" Vallery quoted softly. "Thank you, gentlemen.
You make things very easy for me."
He propped himself on an elbow, his mind made up.
He smiled at Turner, and his face was almost boyish again.
"Inform all merchant ships, all escorts.
Tell them to break north."
Turner stared at him.
"North?
Did you say' north'?"
But the Admiralty-----"
"North, I said," Vallery repeated quietly. "The Admiralty can do what they like about it.
We've played along long enough.
We've sprung the trap.
What more can they want?
This way there's a chance, an almost hopeless chance, perhaps, but a fighting chance.
To go east is suicide." He smiled again, almost dreamily. "The end is not all important," he said softly. "I don't think I'll have to answer for this.
Not now, not ever."
Turner grinned at him, his face lit up.
"North, you said."
"Inform C.-in-C.," Vallery went on. "Ask Pilot for an interception course.
Tell the convoy we'll tag along behind, give 'em as much cover as we can, as long as we can...
As long as we can.
Let us not delude ourselves.
1,000 to 1 at the outside... Nothing else we can do, Commander?"
"Pray," Turner said succinctly.