"Why the hell don't we turn back?" he burst out. "Who does the old man think he's kidding-us or the Germans?
No air cover, no radar, not the faintest chance of helpl The Germans have us pinned down to an inch now-and it'll be easier still for them as we go on.
And there's a thousand miles to go!" His voice rose. "And every bloody enemy ship, U-boat and plane in the Arctic smacking thek lips and waiting to pick us off at thek leisure." He shook his head in despair. "I'll take my chance with anybody else, sir.
You know that.
But this is just murder-or suicide.
Take your pick, sir.
It's all the same when you're dead."
"Now, Johnny, you're not------"
"Why doesn't he turn back?" Nicholls hadn't even heard the interruption. "He's only got to give the order.
What does he want?
Death or glory?
What's he after?
Immortality at my expense, at our expense?" He swore, bitterly. "Maybe Riley was right.
Wonderful headlines.'
Captain Richard Vallery, D.S.O., has been posthumously award"Shut up!" Brooks's eye was as chill as the Arctic ice itself, his voice a biting lash.
"You dare to talk of Captain Vallery like that!" he said softly. "You dare to besmkch the name of the most honourable..."
He broke off, shook his head in wrathful wonder.
He paused to pick his words carefully, his eyes never leaving the other's white, strained face.
"He is a good officer, Lieutenant Nicholls, maybe even a great officer: and that just doesn't matter a damn.
What does matter is that he is the finest gentleman, I say gentleman, I've ever known, that ever walked the face of this graceless, God-forsaken earth.
He is not like you or me.
He is not like anybody at all.
He walks alone, but he is never lonely, for he has company all the way... men like Peter, like Bede, like St. Francis of Assisi." He laughed shortly. "Funny, isn't it, to hear an old reprobate like myself talk like this?
Blasphemy, even, you might call it, except that the truth can never be blasphemy.
And I know."
Nicholls said nothing.
His face was like a stone.
"Death, glory, immortality," Brooks went on relentlessly. "These were your words, weren't they?
Death?" He smiled and Shook his head again. "For Richard Vallery, death doesn't exist.
Glory?
Sure, he wants glory, we all want glory, but all the London Gazettes and Buckingham Palaces in the world can't give him the kind of glory he wants: Captain Vallery is no longer a child, and only children play with toys... As for immortality." He laughed, without a trace of rancour now, laid a hand on Nicholls's shoulder. "I ask you, Johnny-wouldn't it be damned stupid to ask for what he has already?"
Nicholls said nothing.
The silence lengthened and deepened, the rush of the air from the ventilation louvre became oppressively loud.
Finally, Brooks coughed, looked meaningfully at the
"Lysol" bottle.
Nicholls filled the glasses, brought them back.
Brooks caught his eyes, held them, and was filled with sudden pity.
What was that classical understatement of Cunningham's during the German invasion of Crete," It is inadvisable to drive men beyond a certain point."
Trite but true.
True even for men like Nicholls.
Brooks wondered what particular private kind of hell that boy had gone through that morning, digging out the shattered, torn bodies of What had once been men.
And, as the doctor in charge, he would have had to examine them all-or all the pieces he could find...
"Next step up and I'll be in the gutter." Nicholls's voice was very low. "I don't know what to say, sir.
I don't know what made me say it.... I'm sorry."
"Me too," Brooks said sincerely. "Shooting off my mouth like that!
And I mean it." He lifted his glass, inspected the contents lovingly. "To our enemies, Johnny: their downfall and confusion, and don't forget Admiral Starr."
He drained the glass at a gulp, set it down, looked at Nicholls for a long moment.
"I think you should hear the rest, too, Johnny.
You know, why Vallery doesn't turn back." He smiled wryly. "It's not because there are as many of these damned U-boats behind us as there are in front-which there undoubtedly are." He lit a fresh cigarette, went on quietly: "The Captain radioed London this morning.
Gave it as his considered opinion that FR77 would be a goner-' annihilated' was the word he used and, as a word, they don't come any stronger-long before it reached the North Cape.