Washington State sunk 0145 today.
Vectra sunk 1515, collision U-boat.
Electro sunk 1530.
Am being heavily attacked by twelve, minimum twelve, Focke-Wulf 200s.'
A reasonable assumption, I think, Commander," he said wryly, "and it'll shake their Lordships.
They're of the opinion there aren't so many Condors in the whole of Norway.
'Imperative send help. Air cover essential.
Advise immediately.'
Get that off at once, will you?"
"Your nose, sir!" Turner said sharply.
"Thank you." Vallery rubbed the frostbite, dead white in the haggard grey and blue of his face, gave up after a few seconds: the effort was more trouble than it was worth, drained away too much of his tiny reserves of strength. "My God, it's bitter, Commander!" he murmured quietly.
Shivering, he pulled himself to his feet, swept his glasses over FR77. Code H was being obeyed.
The ships were scattered over the sea apparently at random, broken out from the two lines ahead which would have made things far too simple for bomb-aimers in aircraft attacking from astern.
They would have to aim now for individual targets.
Scattered, but not too scattered-close enough together to derive mutual benefit from the convoy's concerted barrage.
Vallery nodded to himself in satisfaction and twisted round, his glasses swivelling to the west.
There was no mistaking them now, he thought-they were Condors, all right.
Almost dead astern now, massive wing-tips dipping, the big four-engined planes banked slowly, ponderously to starboard, then straightened on a 180
Two things were suddenly clear to Vallery, two things the enemy obviously knew.
They had known where to find FR77, the Luftwaffe was not given to sending heavy bombers out over the Arctic on random hazard: they hadn't even bothered to send Charlie on reconnaissance.
For a certainty, some submarine had located them earlier on, given their position and course: at any distance at all, their chance of seeing a periscope in that heavy sea had been remote.
Further, the Germans knew that the Ulysses's radar was gone.
The Focke-Wulfs were climbing to gain the low cloud, would break cover only seconds before it was time to bomb.
Against radar-controlled fire, at such close range, it would have been near suicide.
But they knew it was safe.
Even as he watched, the last of the labouring Condors climbed through the low, heavy ceiling, was completely lost to sight.
Vallery shrugged wearily, lowered his binoculars.
"Bentley?"
"Sir?"
"Code R.
Immediate."
The flags fluttered up.
For fifteen, twenty seconds, it seemed ten times as long as that to the impatient Captain, nothing happened.
And then, like rolling toy marionettes under the hand of a master puppeteer, the bows of every ship in the convoy began to swing round-those to the port of the Ulysses to the north, those to the starboard to the south.
When the Condors broke through-two minutes, at the most, Vallery reckoned, they would find beneath them only the empty sea.
Empty, that is, except for the Ulysses and the Stirling, ships admirably equipped to take care of themselves.
And then the Condors would find themselves under heavy cross-fire from the merchant ships and destroyers, and too late-at that low altitude, much too late-to alter course for fore-and-aft bombing runs on the freighters.
Vallery smiled wryly to himself.
As a defensive tactic, it was little enough, but the best he could do in the circumstances... He could hear Turner barking orders through the loudspeaker, was more than content to leave the defence of the ship in the Commander's competent hands.
If only he himself didn't feel so tired...
Ninety seconds passed, a hundred, two minutes, and still no sign of the Condors.
A hundred eyes stared out into the cloud-wrack astern: it remained obstinately, tantalisingly grey and featureless.
Two and a half minutes passed.
Still there was nothing.
"Anybody seen anything?" Vallery asked anxiously.
His eyes never left that patch of cloud astern. "Nothing?
Nothing at all?" The silence remained, oppressive, unbroken.
Three minutes.
Three and a half.
Four.