Suddenly, the loudspeaker called again.
"Enemy 180
"28 knots?
He's on the run!" Tyndall seemed to have gained a fresh lease on life. "Captain, I propose that the Sirrus and Ulysses proceed south-east at maximum speed, engage and slow the enemy.
Ask W.T. to signal Orr.
Ask Radar enemy's course."
He broke off, waited impatiently for the answer.
"Radar-bridge.
Course 312.
Steady on course.
Repeat, steady on course."
"Steady on course," Tyndall echoed. "Captain, commence firing by radar.
We have him, we have him!" he cried exultantly. "He's waited too long!
We have him, Captain!"
Again Vallery said nothing.
Tyndall looked at him, half in perplexity, half in anger.
"Well, don't you agree?"
"I don't know, sir." Vallery shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know at all.
Why did he wait so long?
Why didn't he turn and run the minute we left the convoy?"
"Too damn' sure of himself!" Tyndall growled.
"Or too sure of something else," Vallery said slowly. "Maybe he wanted to make good and sure that we would follow him."
Tyndall growled again in exasperation, made to speak then lapsed into silence as the Ulysses shuddered from the recoil of 'A' turret.
For a moment, the billowing fog on the fo'c'sle cleared, atomised by the intense heat and flash generated by the exploding cordite.
In seconds, the grey shroud had fallen once more.
Then, magically it was clear again.
A heavy fog-bank had rolled over them, and through a gap in the next they caught a glimpse of the Sirrus, dead on the beam, a monstrous bone in her teeth, scything to the south-east at something better than 34 knots.
The Stirling and the Viking were already lost in the fog astern.
"He's too close," Tyndall snapped. "Why didn't Bowden tell us?
We can't bracket the enemy this way.
Signal the Sirrus:
'Steam 317 five minutes.'
Captain, same for us.
5 south, then back on course."
He had hardly sunk back in his chair, and the Ulysses, mist-shrouded again, was only beginning to answer her helm when the W.T. loudspeaker switched on.
"W.T.-bridge.
W.T.-bridge-----"
The twin 5.25s of 'B' turret roared in deafening unison, flame and smoke lancing out through the fog.
Simultaneously, a tremendous crash and explosion heaved up the duck-boards beneath the feet of the men in the bridge catapulting them all ways, into each other, into flesh-bruising, bone-breaking metal, into the dazed confusion of numbed minds and bodies fighting to reorientate themselves under the crippling handicap of stunning shock, of eardrums rended by the blast, of throat and nostrils stung by acrid fumes, of eyes blinded by dense black smoke.
Throughout it all, the calm impersonal voice of the W.T. transmitter repeated its unintelligible message.
Gradually the smoke cleared away.
Tyndall pulled himself drunkenly to his feet by the rectifying arm of the binnacle: the explosion had blown him clean out of his chair into the centre of the compass platform.
He shook his head, dazed, uncomprehending.
Must be tougher than he'd imagined: all that way-and he couldn't remember bouncing.
And that wrist, now-that lay over at a damned funny angle.
His own wrist, he realised with mild surprise.
Funny, it didn't hurt a bit.
And Carpenter's face there, rising up before him: the bandages were blown off, the gash received on the night of the great storm gaping wide again, the face masked with blood...
That girl at Henley, the one he was always talking about-Tyndall wondered, inconsequently, what she would say if she saw him now...
Why doesn't the W.T. transmitter stop that insane yammering?...