He became aware that Nicholls was no longer swearing in repetitious monotony, that he was talking to him.
"A tanker, isn't it, sir?
Hadn't we better take shelter?
Remember what happened to that other one!"
"What one?" Vallery was hardly listening.
"The Cochella.
A few days ago, I think it was.
Good God, no!
It was only this morning!"
"When tankers go up, they go up, Nicholls." Vallery seemed curiously far away. "If they just burn, they may last long enough.
Tankers die hard, terribly hard, my boy: they live where any other ship would sink."
"But-but she must have a hole the size of a house in her side!" Nicholls protested.
"No odds," Vallery replied.
He seemed to be waiting, watching for something. "Tremendous reserve buoyancy in these ships.
Maybe 27 sealed tanks, not to mention cofferdams, pump-rooms, engine-rooms... Never heard of the Nelson device for pumping compressed air into a tanker's oil tanks to give it buoyancy, to keep it afloat?
Never heard of Captain Dudley Mason and the Ohiot Never heard of..."
He broke off suddenly, and when he spoke again, the dreaming lethargy of the voice was gone.
"I thought so!" he exclaimed, his voice sharp with excitement. "I thought so!
The Vytura's still under way, still under command!
Good God, she must still be doing almost 15 knots!
The bridge, quick!"
Vallery's feet left the deck, barely touched it again till Petersen set him down carefully on the duckboards in front of the startled Commander.
Vallery grinned faintly at Turner's astonishment, at the bushy eyebrows lifting over the dark, lean buccaneer's face, leaner, more recklessly chiselled than ever in the glare of the blazing tanker.
If ever a man was born 400 years too late, Vallery thought inconsequentially ; but what a man to have around! "It's all right, Commander." He laughed shortly. "Brooks thought I needed a Man Friday.
That's Stoker Petersen.
Over-enthusiastic, maybe a trifle apt to take orders too literally... But he was a Godsend to me tonight... But never mind me." He jerked his thumb towards the tanker, blazing even more whitely now, difficult to look at, almost, as the noonday sun. "How about him?"
"Makes a bloody fine lighthouse for any German ship or plane that happens to be looking for us," Turner growled. "Might as well send a signal to Trondheim giving our lat. and long."
"Exactly," Vallery nodded. "Besides setting up some beautiful targets for the sub that got the Vytura just now.
A dangerous fellow, Commander.
That was a brilliant piece of work-in almost total darkness, too."
"Probably a scuttle somebody forgot to shut.
We haven't the ships to keep checking them all the time.
And it wasn't so damned brilliant, at least not for him.
The Viking's in contact right now, sitting over the top of him.... I sent her right away."
"Good man!" Vallery said warmly.
He turned to look at the burning tanker, looked back at Turner, his face set.
"She'll have to go, Commander."
Turner nodded slowly. "She'll have to go," he echoed.
"It is the Vytura, isn't it?"
"That's her.
Same one that caught it this morning."
"Who's the master?"
"Haven't the foggiest," Turner confessed. "Number One, Pilot?
Any idea where the sailing list is?"
"No, sir." The Kapok Kid was hesitant, oddly unsure of himself. "Admiral had them, I know.
Probably gone, now."
"What makes you think that?" Vallery asked sharply.
"Spicer, his pantry steward, was almost choked with smoke this afternoon, found him making a whacking great fire in his bath," the Kapok Kid said miserably. "Said he was burning vital documents that must not fall into enemy hands.
Old newspapers, mostly, but I think the list must have been among them. It's nowhere else."
"Poor old..." Turner remembered just in time that he was speaking of the Admiral, broke off, shook bis head in compassionate wonder. "Shall I send a signal to Fletcher on the Cape Hatterasl"