Due east, I think, it'll look as if we're covering the tail of the convoy and heading for the North Cape."
"Starboard 10," Vallery ordered.
The cruiser came gradually round, met, settled on her new course: engine revolutions were cut down till the Ulysses was cruising along at 26 knots.
One minute, five passed, then the loudspeaker blared again.
"Radar-bridge.
Constant distance, altering on interception course."
"Excellent!
Really excellent!" The Admiral was almost purring. "We have him, gentlemen.
He's missed the convoy... Commence firing by radar!"
Vallery reached for the Director handset.
"Director?
Ah, it's you, Courtney... good, good... you just do that."
Vallery replaced the set, looked across at Tyndall.
"Smart as a whip, that boy.
He's had' X' and' Y' lined up, tracking for the past ten minutes.
Just a matter of pressing a button, he says."
"Sounds uncommon like our friends here."
Tyndall jerked his head in the direction of the Kapok Kid, then looked up in surprise. "Courtney?
Did you say 'Courtney'?
Where's Guns?"
"In his cabin, as far as I know.
Collapsed on the poop.
Anyway, he's in no fit state to do his job...
Thank God I'm not in that boy's shoes.
I can imagine..."
The Ulysses shuddered, and the whip-like crash of 'X' turret drowned Vallery's voice as the 5.25 shells screamed away into the twilight.
Seconds later, the ship shook again as the guns of 'Y' turret joined in.
Thereafter the guns fired alternately, one shell at a time, every half-minute: there was no point in wasting ammunition when the fall of shot could not be observed; but it was probably the bare minimum necessary to infuriate the enemy and distract his attention from everything except the ship ahead.
The snow had thinned away now to a filmy curtain of gauze that blurred, rather than obscured the horizon.
To the west, the clouds were lifting, the sky lightening in sunset.
Vallery ordered 'X' turret to cease fire, to load with star-shell.
Abruptly, the snow was gone and the enemy was there, big and menacing, a black featureless silhouette with the sudden flush of sunset striking incongruous golden gleams from the water creaming high at her bows.
"Starboard 30!" Vallery snapped. "Full ahead.
Smokescreen!"
Tyndall nodded compliance.
It was no part of his plan to become embroiled with a German heavy cruiser or pocket battleship... especially at an almost point-blank range of four miles.
On the bridge, half a dozen pairs of binoculars peered aft, trying to identify the enemy.
But the fore-and-aft silhouette against the reddening sky was difficult to analyse, exasperatingly vague and ambiguous.
Suddenly, as they watched, white gouts of flame lanced out from the heart of the silhouette: simultaneously, the starshell burst high up in the air, directly above the enemy, bathing him in an intense, merciless white glare, so that he appeared strangely naked and defenceless.
An illusory appearance.
Everyone ducked low, in reflex instinct, as the shells whistled just over their heads and plunged into the sea ahead.
Everyone, that is, except the Kapok Kid.
He bent an impassive eye on the Admiral as the latter slowly straightened up. "Hipper Class, sir," he announced. "10,000 tons, 8-inch guns, carries aircraft."
Tyndall looked at his unsmiling face in long suspicion. He cast around in his mind for a suitably crushing reply, caught sight of the German cruiser's turrets belching smoke in the sinking glare of the starshell.
"My oath!" he exclaimed. "Not wasting much time, are they?
And damned good shooting!" he added in professional admiration as the shells hissed into the sea through the Ulysses's boiling wake, about 150 feet astern. "Bracketed in the first two salvoes.
They'll straddle us next time."
The Ulysses was still heeling round, the black smoke beginning to pour from the after funnel, when Vallery straightened, clapped his binoculars to his eyes.
Heavy clouds of smoke were mushrooming from the enemy's starboard deck, just for'ard of the bridge. "Oh, well done, young Courtney!" he burst out. "Well done indeed!" "Well done indeed!" Tyndall echoed. "A beauty! Still, I don't think we'll stop to argue the point with them... Ah! Just in time, gentlemen! Gad, that was close!"
The stern of the Ulysses, swinging round now almost to the north, disappeared from sight as a salvo crashed into the sea, dead astern, one of the shells exploding in a great eruption of water.