A suicidal formation in submarine waters-a torpedo from port or starboard could hardly miss them all.
But weather conditions were heavily against submarines, and the formation offered at least a fighting chance against the Stukas.
If they approached from astern-their favourite attack technique-they would run into the simultaneous massed fire of seven ships ; if they approached from the sides, they must first attack the escorts, for no Stuka would present its unprotected underbelly to the guns of a warship... They elected to attack from either side, five from the east, four from the west.
This time, Turner noted, they were carrying long-range fuel tanks.
Turner had no time to see how the Sirrus was faring.
Indeed, he could hardly see how his own ship was faring, for thick acrid smoke was 'blowing back across the bridge from the barrels of 'A' and 'B' turrets.
In the gaps of sound between the crash of the 5.25s, he could hear the quick-fire of Doyle's midship pom-pom, the vicious thudding of the Oeklikons.
Suddenly, startling in its breath-taking unexpectedness, two great beams of dazzling white stabbed out through the mirk and gloom.
Turner stared, then bared his teeth in fierce delight.
The 44-inch searchlights I Of course! The great Scharnhorst and not the Tirpitz. It never caught the great ship. She was destroyed at her anchorage in Alta Fjord by Lancaster bombers of the Royal Air Force.
Searchlights, still on the official secret list, capable of lighting up an enemy six miles away!
What a fool he had been to forget them, Vallery had used them often, in daylight and in dark, against attacking aircraft.
No man could look into those terrible eyes, those flaming arcs across the electrodes and not be blinded.
Blinking against the eye-watering smoke, Turner peered aft to see who was manning the control position.
But he knew who it was before he saw him.
It could only be Ralston, searchlight control, Turner remembered, was his day action station: besides, he could think of no one other than the big, blond torpedoman with the gumption, the quick intelligence to burn the lamps on his own initiative.
Jammed in the corner of the bridge by the gate, Turner watched him.
He forgot his ship, forgot even the bombers, he personally could do nothing about them anyway, as he stared in fascination at the man behind the controls.
His eyes were glued to the sights, his face expressionless, absolutely; but for the gradual stiffening of back and neck as the sight dipped in docile response to the delicate caress of his fingers on the wheel, he might have been carved from marble: the immobility of the face, the utter concentration was almost frightening.
There was not a flicker of feeling or emotion: never a flicker as the first Stuka weaved and twisted in maddened torment, seeking to escape that eye-staring flame, not even a flicker as it swerved violently in its dive, pulled out too late and crashed into the sea a hundred yards short of the Ulysses.
What was the boy thinking of? Turner wondered.
His mother, his sisters, entombed under the ruins of a Croydon bungalow: of his brother, innocent victim of that mutiny, how impossible that mutiny seemed now!-in Scapa Flow: of his father, dead by his son's own hand?
Turner did not know, could not even begin to guess: clairvoyantiy, almost, he knew that it was too late, that no one would ever know now.
The face was inhumanly still.
There wasn't a shadow of feeling as the second Stuka overshot the Ulysses, dropped its bomb into the open sea: not a shadow as a third blew up in mid-air: not a trace of emotion when the guns of the next Stuka smashed one of the lights... not even when the cannon shells of the last smashed the searchlight control, tore half his chest away.
He died instantaneously, stood there a moment as if unwilling to abandon his post, then slumped back quietly on to the deck.
Turner bent over the dead boy, looked at the face, the eyes upturned to the first feathery flakes of falling snow.
The eyes, the face, were still the same, mask-like, expressionless.
Turner shivered and looked away.
One bomb, and one only, had struck the Ulysses.
It had struck the fo'c'sle deck just for'ard of 'A' turret.
There had been no casualties, but some freak of vibration and shock had fractured the turret's hydaulic lines. Temporarily, at least,
'B' was the only effective remaining turret in the ship.
The Sirrus hadn't been quite so lucky.
She had destroyed one Stuka-the merchantmen had claimed another-and had been hit twice, both bombs exploding in the after mess-deck.
The Sirrus, overloaded with survivors, was carrying double her normal complement of men, and usually that mess-deck would have been crowded: during action stations it was empty.
Not a man had lost his life-not a man was to lose his life on the destroyer Sirrus: she was never damaged again on the Russian convoys.
Hope was rising, rising fast.
Less than an hour to go, now, and the battle squadron would be there.
It was dark, dark with the gloom of an Arctic storm, and heavy snow was falling, hissing gently into the dark and rolling sea.
No plane could find them in this-and they were almost beyond the reach of shore-based aircraft, except, of course, for the Condors.
And it was almost impossible weather for submarines.
"It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles." Carrington quoted softly.
"What?" Turner looked up, baffled. "What did you say. Number One?"
"Tennyson." Carrington was apologetic, "The Captain was always quoting him... Maybe we'll make it yet."
"Maybe, maybe." Turner was non-committal. "Preston!"
"Yes, sir, I see it." Preston was staring to the north where the signal lamp of the Sirrus was flickering rapidly.
"A ship, sir!" he reported excitedly.
"Sirrus says naval vessel approaching from the north!"
"From the north!