Engine intact.
We can make it.'"
Vallery closed his eyes for a moment.
He was beginning to appreciate how old Giles must have felt.
When he looked up again, he had made his decision.
"Signal:
'You are endangering entire convoy.
Abandon ship at once.
Repeat, at once.'" He turned to the Commander, his mouth bitter.
"I take off my hat to him.
How would you like to sit on top of enough fuel to blow you to Kingdom Come...
Must be oil in some of his tanks... God, how I hate to have to threaten a man like that!"
"I know, sir," Turner murmured. "I know how it is.... Wonder what the Viking's doing out there?
Should be hearing from her now?"
"Send a signal," Vallery ordered. "Ask for information." He peered aft, searched briefly for the Torpedo Lieutenant. "Where's Marshall?"
"Marshall?" Turner was surprised. "In the Sick Bay, of course.
Still on the injured list, remember-four ribs gone?"
"Of course, of course!" Vallery shook his head tiredly, angry with himself. "And the Chief Torpedo Gunner's Mate-Noyes, isn't it?-he was killed yesterday in Number 3.
How about Vickers?"
"He was in the F.D.R."
"In the F.D.R.," Vallery repeated slowly.
He wondered why his heart didn't stop beating.
He was long past the stage of chilled bone and coagulating blood.
His whole body was a great block of ice... He had never known that such cold could exist.
It was very strange, he thought, that he was no longer shivering...
"I'll do it myself, sir," Turner interrupted his wandering. "I'll take over the bridge Torpedo Control-used to be the worst Torps. officer on the China Station." He smiled faintly. "Perhaps the hand has not lost what little cunning it ever possessed!"
"Thank you." Vallery was grateful.. "You just do that."
"We'll have to take him from starboard," Turner reminded him. "Port control was smashed this morning-foremast didn't do it any good....
Ill go check the Dumaresq[2]... Good God!" His hand gripped Vallery's shoulder with a strength that made him wince. "It's the Admiral, sir!
He's coming on the bridge!"
Incredulously, Vallery twisted round in his chair.
Turner was right.
Tyndall was coming through the gate, heading purposefully towards him.
In the deep shadow cast by the side of the bridge, he seemed disembodied.
The bare head, sparsely covered with thin, straggling wisps of white, the grey, pitifully-shrunken face, the suddenly stooped shoulders, unaccountably thin under black oilskins, all these were thrown into harsh relief by the flames.
Below, nothing was visible.
Silently, Tyndall padded his way across the bridge, stood waiting at Vallery's side.
Slowly, leaning on Turner's ready arm, Vallery climbed down.
Unsmiling, Tyndall looked at him, nodded gravely, hoisted himself into his seat.
He picked up the binoculars from the ledge before him, slowly quartered the horizon.
It was Turner who noticed it first.
"Sir! You've no gloves on, sir I"
"What?
What did you say?" Tyndall replaced the glasses, looked incredulously at his blood-stained, bandaged hands. "Ah!
Do you know, I knew I had forgotten something.
That's the second time.
Thank you, Commander."
He smiled courteously, picked up the binoculars again, resumed Hs quartering of the horizon.
All at once Vallery felt another, deadlier chill pass through him, and it had nothing to do with the bitter chill of the Arctic night.
Turner hesitated helplessly for a second, then turned quickly to the Kapok Kid.