"And sleep," Brooks added. "Why don't you have half an hour, sir?"
"Sleep!" Vallery seemed genuinely amused. "We'll have all the time in the world to sleep, just by and by."
"You have a point," Brooks conceded. "You are very possibly right."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SATURDAY EVENING II
MESSAGES WERE pouring in to the bridge now, messages from the merchant ships, messages of dismayed unbelief asking for confirmation of the Tirpitz breakout: from the Stirling, replying that the superstructure fire was now under control and that the engine room watertight bulkheads were holding; and one from Orr of the Sirrus, saying that his ship was making water to the capacity of the pumps, he had been in heavy collision with the sinking merchantman, that they had taken off forty-four survivors, that the Sirrus had already done her share and couldn't she go home?
The signal had arrived after the Sirrus's receipt of the bad news.
Turner grinned to himself: no inducement on earth, he knew, could have persuaded Orr to leave now.
The messages kept pouring in, by visual signal or W.T.
There was no point in maintaining radio silence to outwit enemy monitor positions; the enemy knew Where they were to a mile.
Nor was there any need to prohibit light signalling, not with the Stirling still burning furiously enough to illuminate the sea for a mile around.
And so the messages kept on coming-messages of fear and dismay and anxiety.
But, for Turner, the most disquieting message came neither by lamp nor by radio.
Fully quarter of an hour had elapsed since the end of the attack and the Ulysses was rearing and pitching through the head seas on her new course of 350intense cold.
And in spite of that cold, he was hatless, coatless, clad only in a pair of thin dungarees. He was shivering violently, shivering from excitement and not because of the icy wind-he was oblivious to such things.
Turner seized him by the shoulder. "What is it, man?" he demanded anxiously.
The stoker was still too breathless to speak.
"What's wrong?
Quickly!"
"The T.S., sir!" The breathing was so quick, so agonised, that the words blurred into a gasping exhalation. "It's full of water!"
"The T.S.!" Turner was incredulous. "Flooded!
When did this happen?"
"I'm not sure, sir." He was still gasping for breath. "But there was a bloody awful explosion, sir, just about amid------"
"I know! I know!" Turner interrupted impatiently. "Bomber carried away the for'ard funnel, exploded in the water, port side.
But that was fifteen minutes ago, man!
Fifteen minutes!
Good God, they would have-----"
"T.S. switchboard's gone, sir." The stoker was beginning to recover, to huddle against the wind, but frantic at the Commander's deliberation and delay, he straightened up and grasped Turner's duffel without realising what he was doing.
The note of urgency deepened still further. "All the power's gone, sir.
And the hatch is jammed!
The men can't get out!"'
"The hatch cover jammed!" Turner's eyes narrowed in concern. "What happened?" he rapped out. "Buckled?"
"The counter-weight's broken off, sir.
It's on top of the hatch.
We can only get it open an inch.
You see, sir------"
"Number One!" Turner shouted.
"Here, sir." Carrington was standing just behind him. "I heard... Why can't you open it?"
"It's the T.S. hatch!" the stoker cried desperately. "A quarter of a bloody ton if it's an ounce, sir.
You know, the one below the ladder outside the wheelhouse.
Only two men can get at it at the same time.
We've tried... Hurry, sir.
Please."
"Just a minute." Carrrington was calm, unruffled, infuriatingly so.
"Hartley?
No, still fire-fighting.
Evans, Macintosh, dead." He was obviously thinking aloud. "Bellamy, perhaps?"
"What is it, Number One?" Turner burst out.
He himself had caught up the anxiety, the impatience of the stoker. "What are you trying------?"
"hatch cover plus pulley, 1,000 Ibs.," Carrington murmured. "A special man for a special job."