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Title: Landfall. A Channel Story.
Author: Shute, Nevil [Norway, Nevil Shute] (1899-1960)
Date of first publication: 1940
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Ballantine, February 1977
   [second printing: edition first published July 1972]
Date first posted: 12 April 2014
Date last updated: 12 April 2014
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1173

This ebook was produced by Alex White
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






                                LANDFALL
                            A CHANNEL STORY

                              Nevil Shute





                                   1


The car, a chilly little open roadster, drew away from the dim bulk of
the dance hall. It accelerated with a crescendo of noise quite
disproportionate to its performance and made off down the sea front, its
one masked headlamp showing a feeble glimmer in the utter darkness.
Presently it took a turning through the park towards the town. The
steady rumble of the engine became intermittent; then there was a
crashing report and a sheet of yellow flame from the exhaust pipe. It
drew up to a standstill underneath the trees.

In the cramped seat the driver was conscious of the girl's shoulder
pressed against his own; only his heavy coat prevented him from feeling
the warmth of her thigh. He turned to her. "I don't know what's the
matter with it," he said. "It won't go any more."

She said, "Oh, yes, it will. Start it up again."

He said, "I'll try if you like. But I don't think it'll go. It does this
sometimes."

"Go on, and start it."

He pushed the starter. The lights, already dim, went down to a dull red
glow and the worn engine turned feebly. "It won't go," he said, and
there was a hint of laughter in his voice. "It's the rain or something."

She stirred beside him. "I can get a bus from the corner."

He said, "Don't go. There's a horse coming in a minute."

"What horse?"

"The horse that's coming to tow us home. It won't be long now. You can
give it a lump of sugar, but you must hold your hand flat. Otherwise you
lose a finger."

There was a light rain falling. In the darkness beneath the flapping
fabric of the hood she stared at him. "Whatever are you talking about?"

"The horse. You can stroke its nose, if you like. I'll hold it for you."

"Where are you going to get a horse from?"

He said, "It'll turn up. We've only got to sit here for a little while,
and it'll come."

"I'll sit here till the next bus comes."

"All right. What's your name?"

She hesitated. "You want to know everything, don't you?"

"Well, it's not much to ask. You're going to spend the night with me,
and you won't tell me your name."

She was startled and upset. "I don't know what you mean," she said. She
fumbled for the handle of the door.

There was laughter in his voice. "Well, you said you'd stay here till
the next bus came. It's after half-past twelve--there won't be any more
till morning. So you'll have to sit here all night. I do think you might
tell me your name."

She relaxed. "You do say the most awful things!"

"What have I done now? You've done nothing but pull me up all evening."

"You know what you said."

"I know. I asked you to tell me your name, and you won't tell me. I
believe you're an enemy alien and you think I'll put the police on you."

"I'll put the police on you if you don't take me home."

"I promise you I'll take you home the minute the horse comes. In the
meantime, I do think you might tell me who you are."

She giggled. "You've seen me often enough."

"I know I have. That's what's worrying me."

"I know who you are."

He turned to her, immensely conscious of her presence. "Do you?"

She nodded. "You come from Emsworth aerodrome. They call you Jerry,
don't they?"

"Oh--yes. Everybody calls me Jerry. How did you know that?"

"Never you mind. What's Jerry short for? Gerald?"

"No--just a name. The real one is Roderick Chambers. But you may call me
Jerry. Tell me, what is your name? I've told you mine."

She relented. "Mona Stevens."

"Mona." He paused, and then he said, "That's rather a nice name."

She was pleased. "It is, isn't it? I mean, there aren't so many Monas
about. Better than being called Emily, or something of that."

He turned to her. "Tell me, where do you work?"

She laughed at him. "Think hard."

"I am thinking. You aren't the old charwoman who cleans out my bedroom,
by any chance?"

"No, I'm not."

"I thought not. It's a pity."

She turned the subject. "I know what you had for supper tonight," she
said.

He stared at her. "What did I have?"

"Steak and chips, and then you had a bit of Stilton cheese. And you had
about three half cans of bitter."

He said, astonished, "You're a clairvoyant." She shook her head. "Then
you smelt my breath."

She turned her head away. "Don't be so rude."

He thought for a minute. "Well then, you were in the Royal Clarence
tonight, anyway." Recollection came to him in a wave. "Of course. You
work at the Royal Clarence--in the snack bar."

She mocked him. "Aren't you ever so quick?"

He said weakly, "I knew that all the time, of course. I was just pulling
your leg."

"You do tell stories."

"No--honestly. You don't think I'm the sort of chap who goes to the
Pavilion to pick up girls, do you?"

"Well, what else did you go to the Pavilion for?"

He said loftily, "I went there to dance."

She bubbled into laughter. "I'd like to have seen you dancing with them
other officers you came in with."

"You don't quite understand. We had a party all fixed up; the ladies
were to meet us there. There was Ginger Rogers and Merle Oberon and
Loretta Young--oh, and several others. Greta couldn't come."

She said, a little doubtfully, "I don't believe you. What happened to
them?"

"They didn't turn up. So then I looked around and you were the only
person in the room I knew, so I asked you if you'd dance with me."

"You do tell 'em. You never recognized me at all."

He said, "You hurt me very much when you talk like that."

"It'd take ground glass to hurt you."

A little shift of wind blew a few drops of rain from off the dripping
hood in onto the girl. "Here," she said. "It's raining in all over me.
Go on, and take me home."

"The horse will be here in a minute--then we'll all go home together.
You can have a ride on it, if you like. Look, I've got a rug here." He
reached round to the little space behind the seats, dragged a rug out
between their shoulders, and arranged it over her. It was quite
necessary to reach round her back to do so; she moved a little closer to
him and his arm remained around her shoulders.

She said, "What do you do out at the aerodrome?"

He said, "Fly aeroplanes."

"That's what them wings on your chest mean, isn't it?"

"That's it. I carry them as spares."

"Are you a squadron leader, or something?"

He said, "Or something. I'm a flying officer."

"What sort of things do you do when you go flying? Have you shot down
any Germans?"

"They don't come near these parts, thank God. All we do is go out over
the sea and report what ships we see."

"It must be frightfully exciting."

"We get bored to tears."

He turned to her; they drew a little closer. "You've not been at the
Royal Clarence very long, have you?"

"Six months. You don't notice, that's what's the matter with you."

He said, "We won't go into that again. What did you do before that?"

"Worked in the corset factory--Flexo's. I got there when I come away
from school, and stayed there ever since. But that's no kind of life, in
the factory all day. I was always onto my old man about it, and last
year he said, well, I was twenty-one and I could please myself. So then
I went to Mr. Williams at the Royal Clarence because my uncle knows him
at the Darts Club, and he spoke to the manager for me. So then I started
in the snack bar."

"It's more fun there, I should think, than making corsets all day long."

"Ever so much. But then, I wasn't on the corsets. I was on bras."

He said innocently, "What's the difference?"

"Why--a bras is what you . . ." She checked herself. "You know well
enough what it is. You're just being awful."

In the warm darkness underneath the rug his arm reached round her
shoulders and his hand lay at her side. He moved his fingers. "Honestly,
I don't know what it is. Is this one?"

"No, it's not. Give over, or I'll get out and walk home."

"I only wanted to find out."

"Well, look in the papers. There's pages of them in the advertising."

"I don't read the advertisements. I think they're low."

"Not half so low as what you're doing now. Give over, or I will get out
and walk. Really and truly."

"It's raining--you'll get soaked."

"That'll be your fault."

"You'll get double pneumonia, and die. You've not got enough clothes on
to go wandering round the streets at this time of night, in a howling
blizzard."

"Never you mind what I've got on--it's nothing to do with you."

"Have it your own way. I was going to buy you a beautiful ermine cloak
trimmed with--with birds of paradise. Still, if you take that line, I'll
have to get you something else. What about a stick of Southsea Rock?"

"You do talk crazy. I don't believe you've got a stick of Southsea Rock,
nor an ermine cloak, either."

He said, "I've got a cigarette."

With a number of contortions they managed to light cigarettes without
disturbing the position of his arm, which lay around her shoulders;
their movements shuffled them closer together. For a few minutes they
sat smoking quietly.

A figure loomed up on the pavement beside Chambers, a figure in a tin
hat and a dripping raincoat. It paused beside the little car; from the
driver's seat the young man recognized an air raid warden on his rounds.

The warden said, "I should move on and go home now, if I was you.
Getting a bit late, isn't it?"

Chambers said, "I can't. The car's broken down. We're waiting here till
a horse comes along to tow us home."

"You don't suppose I'll swallow that one, do you?"

"Well, the lady did. If it's good enough for her, it's good enough for
you."

The warden coughed, and spoke into the car. "I should make him take you
home now, Miss."

The girl did not speak. Chambers said, "I think you'd better go away and
leave off bothering us."

The warden thrust his thumbs into his belt. He was fifty-six years old,
and an accountant in his working hours. He said, "No parking allowed on
these common roads after blackout. We got to keep them clear, in case of
fire engines, and that. You'll have to move along. You can park in the
Station Yard if you're going on all night."

He had played his trump card, and he knew it. Reluctantly Chambers
reached out to the starter switch; the engine turned feebly and began to
fire on three cylinders; presently the fourth chipped in. The pilot
withdrew his arm from the girl's shoulders. "I think he's got us there,"
he said. "We'll have to go."

She nodded. "He's got a nerve," she said in a low voice. "Nothing to do
with him."

Chambers said, equally low, "It's not worth a row. Besides, he's right
about these roads. There's a notice up about it."

He let in the clutch, and the car moved away. The girl drew the rug
about her, and sat a little more erect. They drove into Portsmouth in
the utter darkness, a town without street lights or lit windows. The dim
light of his one shaded headlamp lit the road immediately before them;
everything else was black and silent.

He found her house at last, a building at the corner of a shabby street.
It seemed to be a second-hand furniture shop in rather a poor way; he
drew up by the side door of the shop.

She said, "I had a lovely evening, ever such fun. Thank you ever so much
for bringing me home."

He said, "I'm glad Ginger Rogers couldn't come. You dance much better."

"You do talk soft."

"Would you like to do it again?"

"All right."

"What about tomorrow?"

"If you like. Same time, at the Pavilion?"

"I'll have to shake off Loretta Young, but I can get rid of her all
right. I'll tell her I've got chicken pox. Half-past ten?"

"All right."

"Is this where I kiss you?"

"No, it's not."

"You're wrong."

Presently she got out of the car and stood for a moment in a shadowy
doorway, slim and erect, waving him good night. He started up the worn
engine of the little roadster again, and drove out of the city onto the
country roads.

The girl pulled the door behind her and bolted it, turned out the
flickering gas jet, and went up the narrow stairs to her room. She trod
softly on the oilcloth and shut her door furtively behind her, because
she did not want to wake her mother. Her mother never minded who she
went about with, but liked her to be home by midnight.

She had a room to herself, being the only one of the children still at
home. Her brother Bert was in the Navy, a leading seaman in _Firedrake_;
he was away from England. They thought he was somewhere in the South
Atlantic; it was six weeks since they had heard from him. It had had to
be the Navy, of course. Her father had served for nearly thirty years,
finishing up as a chief petty officer. He had a small pension, and the
shop made a profit of a few shillings a week, enough for them to get
along on.

Millie, her sister, had shared the room with her till the beginning of
the war; she had been working at the corset factory. A panic reduction
had thrown Millie out of work with a hundred and fifty other girls; she
had then joined the A.T.S. and was doing canteen work at Camp Bordon.
She looked very smart in her khaki uniform; Mona sometimes regretted
that she had not done the same. But it was more fun in the snack bar,
with everybody having a good time, and all the officers drinking with
their ladies, and that.

The room was cold; she undressed quickly and jumped into bed. Was that a
bras, indeed! The cheeky thing! Probably he only said it to tease her.
She never had heard anybody talk so silly, but it was fun being out with
him. She was glad he had asked her to dance again. He was ever so tall,
six foot two at least; the long blue greatcoat and the little blue
forage cap stuck sideways on his black hair made him look taller still.
She thought he was older than she was, twenty-three or twenty-four
perhaps. He had a very young face, with pink cheeks.

She liked him. She was glad to be going out with him again; it was
something to look forward to.

Jerry, they called him.

Very soon she was asleep.

Ten miles away Chambers turned his noisy little car in at the gateway
leading to the officers' mess, and parked it in the open-sided garage
barn. He draped the rug over the radiator in case of frost, and went
into the mess. It was a good mess, a solid building of red brick
designed by a good architect and put up about ten years previously. It
was overcrowded now; the aerodrome accommodated five squadrons instead
of the two that had been the establishment in peacetime. A cluster of
bedroom huts were springing up on what had been the tennis courts, but
Chambers had a bedroom in the original building. He had been there since
he had left Cranwell, three years previously.

There was still one light burning in the anteroom; he crossed the room
and studied the operations board. The weather report for the morning was
there; cloud ten tenths at a thousand feet. Sleepily he made a grimace;
still, it was December and you couldn't expect much else. He scanned the
other notices on the board. Battle practice in Area SQ from 1200 to
1400--that wouldn't worry him. Experimental flying in Area TD at
1000--that might be interesting. AA gunnery practice from Departure
Point in Area SL--that was off his beat. There was nothing that
concerned him.

He looked at his watch; it was half-past one. He went up to his room.

His room was comfortable enough, though furnished with a Spartan
simplicity. There was an iron bedstead with a clean white counterpane;
his batman had turned down the bed and put out his pyjamas. The walls
were cream distempered, and the paint was grey. There was a small basin
with running water, a small radiator and a large, painted tallboy for
his clothes. There was a double photograph of his father and mother on
the mantelpiece, and a couple of detective novels. There was a large
deal table in the window, and most of his private life revolved around
this table.

He kept his letters in its drawers, and his fountain pen, and his bottle
of ink, and all the oddments that he would have liked to carry with him
in his pockets if it had not been for spoiling the set of his tunic. On
it stood his wireless set, a jumble of valves, chokes and condensers on
a plain deal board innocent of any covering. He had put it together
himself; it got America beautifully. Beside it was his galleon. He had
bought the kit of parts to make the galleon a couple of months
previously and he was laboriously rigging the yards with cotton thread
according to the words of the book, and painting it with the little pots
of brightly coloured pigments supplied with the kit. It was about half
finished.

He ran his eyes over it lovingly; he liked the delicate, finishing work
with his fingers. It was fun to work at, in his long leisure hours. He
had thought of calling it the _Santa Maria_; that was what the book told
you to paint under the stern gallery. _Mona Lisa_ would go as well, he
thought, and it would leave a little more room for the lettering. Mona.

He switched on all the switches that controlled the wireless set, and
tuned it in to Schenectady. He heard a dance band faintly, overlaid with
background noise and echoes of Morse, and got his customary thrill out
of it. The room was cold; he slung his gasmask over the back of a chair
and started to undress.

In bed, he twitched the string that ran ingeniously round the picture
moulding to the switch at the door, and pulled the cold sheets round
him. She was a decent kid, that Mona. He had danced at the Pavilion
several times before, but had never wanted to meet his partners again;
usually he had been only too glad to get rid of them. This one was
different. She was dumb as a hen, of course, but all girls seemed to be
like that. It would be fun to spend another evening dancing with her,
provided no one from the mess happened to see them. He didn't want to
get his leg pulled.

Perhaps it was better, after all, to stick to beer.

He thought of her again, remembered the feel of her shoulders, and
drifted into sleep, smiling a little.

Five hours later he woke up with a start, as his batman snapped the
light on at the door. The man put a cup of tea beside his bed.
"Half-past six, sir," he said. "Been raining in the night, I see, but
it's stopped now."

The pilot sat up in his bed, and took the cup. "What's the wind like?"

"Blowing a bit from the northeast." The man took his boots and went out
of the room, leaving the light on.

Chambers got up, shaved and dressed, and went down to the dining room.
At one end of one of the long tables there were three or four young men
at breakfast, served by a sleepy waitress of the W.A.A.F. It was still
dark outside and the curtains were still drawn; in the cold light of a
few electric bulbs the meal was cheerless and uncomforting. He pulled a
chair out, and sat down to porridge.

Somebody said, "Morning, Jerry. What time did you get home?"

"Half-past one."

The other said, "I saw you--you were doing nicely. I got fed up, and
left."

The conversation flagged; the pilots ate hurriedly and in silence. They
had been on the morning patrol now for a month, and they were sick of
it. With the late, dark mornings and the cold weather the patrol over
the sea was unattractive, boring in the extreme, and a little dangerous.
There had been losses in the squadron, unromantic, rather squalid deaths
of pilots who had miscalculated their fuel and had been forced down in
the winter sea to perish of exposure or by drowning. To set against the
black side of the picture there were only long strings of meaningless
statistics gleaned each day, the names and nationalities of ships within
their area, the course and the position of each. It was uninspiring,
clerical work, meaningless until it reached the Commanders R.N. in the
Operations Room who daily made up the great mosaic of the war at sea.

This was the last morning patrol that the flight were to do. Tomorrow
they would have a change of timetable, and would take on the afternoon
patrol over the same areas of sea.

"Like the bloody threshing horse that takes a holiday by going round the
other way," said Chambers. In the three months since the beginning of
the war, nobody in the squadron had seen an enemy ship, or fired a gun,
or dropped a bomb in anger.

The pilots finished their breakfast, pulled on their heavy coats, and
went down to the hangar. The machines were already out upon the tarmac
with their engines running; grey light was stealing across the sodden
aerodrome. In the pilot's room the young men changed into their
combination flying suits, pulled on their fur-lined boots, buckled the
helmets on their heads. The machines they were flying were enclosed
monoplanes with twin engines; in summer they would dispense with
helmets. Now they wore them for warmth.

Each machine carried a crew of four, an officer, a sergeant as second
pilot, a wireless telegraphist, and an air gunner. They carried two
one-hundred-pound bombs and a number of twenty-pound, and had fuel for
about six hours' flight.

The officers gathered round the flight lieutenant, armed with their
charts, and heard the latest orders. Then they separated, and went to
their aircraft. The crews were standing by and the engines were running.
One by one they got into the machines and settled into their places; the
doors were shut behind them. There were four machines in the patrol.
Engines roared out as each pilot ran them up, chocks were waved aside,
and the machines taxied out to the far hedge and took off one by one in
the cold dawn.

Chambers sat tense at the controls during the long take-off. He knew the
machine well, but with full load it was all that she could do to clear
the hedge at the far end. It was easier than usual today; they had the
long run of the aerodrome and there was a fair wind. He pulled her off
the ground at eighty miles an hour three hundred yards from the hedge
and held her near the grass as she gained speed. Then he nudged Sergeant
Hutchinson beside him, who began to wind the undercarriage up with the
old-fashioned, cumbersome hand gear.

From time to time, as they gained height, the sergeant paused in his
task to wipe his nose. He had a streaming cold in the head, and he was
feeling rather ill. By rights he should not have been flying, but the
squadron were temporarily short of pilots, having despatched a number to
the Bombing Command.

Behind the sergeant, the young white-faced wireless operator unreeled
his aerial and made the short test transmission that he was allowed
before relapsing into wireless silence, only to be broken by orders from
his officer in an emergency. He sat with headphones on his head,
searching the wave length with the knob of his condenser, sleepy and
bored and cold. Behind him the corporal gunner sat in the turret playing
with the gun. As they passed out over the beach, the corporal fired a
long burst into the water to test the gun; the clatter mingled strangely
with the droning of the engines. Then he sat idly on the little seat in
the cramped turret, scanning the misty, grey, and corrugated sea.

Chambers passed over the control to Hutchinson, and moved from his seat
to the little chart table. He gave a course to the sergeant, who set it
on the compass. They flew on out over the Channel, flying at about seven
hundred feet, below a misty layer of cloud. Very soon they lost sight of
the other machines, each having taken its own course.

The young man sat at the chart table, staring out of the large windows
of the cabin. He had an open notebook before him; on the vacant page he
had written the date, the time of taking off, and the time of departure
from the coast. In the grey morning light the visibility was very poor;
unless they were to pass right over a ship it was unlikely that they
would see it. They were all on the lookout; there was nothing else to
do.

They flew on for an hour, gradually growing cold. The wireless operator
was the first to feel it as a bitter privation. He was a pale-faced lad
of nineteen with a home in Bermondsey; he had little stamina and hated
the monotony of the patrol. He had nothing to do, ever. The rules
against transmitting on the wireless were rigorous, and could only be
broken in emergency; in the three months of the war they had not
suffered an emergency. In three months he had done no useful work at
all, and he was sick of it. For this reason he hated the patrol, and
felt the cold more than any of them.

Chambers moved back into the first pilot's seat. "See the Casquets
pretty soon," he said. The sergeant nodded his agreement.

Five minutes later Hutchinson plucked his arm, and pointed downwards.
The young officer craned over, and saw through the grey mist a small
black rock awash in the sea, with white surf breaking on it. Then there
was a long black reef, then nothing but the sea again.

Chambers said, "For the love of Mike, don't lose it. Shove her round."
He moved back to the chart table, and bent over the chart. It might be
Les Jumeaux, or a bit of Alderney. He set a new course as they circled
round the reef; the sergeant steadied on it. Very soon an island rose
out of the mist, rocky and barren, with a lighthouse on it.

The machine turned away, and took a course back for the coast of
England, flying upon a course ten miles to the west of their flight out.
It was their job to cover the whole area in strips, so that at the end
of their five hours' patrol they would have an accurate report of
everything that floated in their zone. In theory, that was, for on
mornings like the present one they could see barely half a mile on each
side of their path.

They saw a ship before they reached the English coast, a collier with
the letters NORGE painted on her side. They circled her and swept low by
her stern to read the name, the HELGA. Then they resumed their flight.
The young officer produced a bottle of peppermint bull's-eye; they all
had one, with a drink of hot coffee from the thermos flasks. The drink
and the hot sweet refreshed them and brought back a part of their
efficiency; they were all suffering a lassitude from the raw cold.

They made their landfall, and turned back to the French coast. Backwards
and forwards they went as the grey morning passed, tired and bored and
numb. From time to time they saw a ship and noted the particulars, the
name, the nationality, the course, and the speed. In the gun turret the
corporal was sunk into a coma of fatigue. On and on they went, hour
after hour. Presently Chambers began to watch the clock above the chart
table; soon he would be able to turn for home.

At half-past eleven they left the area, at noon they crossed the English
coast again. As they passed the long, deserted beaches the four machines
of the outgoing patrol passed by them on their starboard hand; Chambers
waggled his wings in salute. Then they were above the aerodrome. The
sergeant lowered the wheels for landing and the pilot put the machine
into a gliding turn above the hangars. They made a wide sweep and
approached the hedge; the flaps went down and the ground came up to meet
them very quickly. The pilot waited his moment and then pulled heavily
upon the wheel; the monoplane touched ground smoothly but decisively and
ran on at a great speed. Chambers jerked up the lever that controlled
the flaps, waited a moment, and checked her gently on the brakes. She
ran for several hundred yards; then she was slow enough for him to turn
in to the hangars.

He switched off the engines, and an aircraftsman came up and opened the
cabin door. In the machine no one was in a hurry to get out. They were
too tired and too stiff to make a move at once. The corporal unloaded
the gun and put the magazines away; the wireless operator sat listless
at his little desk. The sergeant was entering the flying time and
details of the flight in the log books. The pilot made a few pencilled
notes in his book, and collected his charts.

Back in the pilots' room he slowly stripped off his flying clothing
before the stove. The other three were there already, writing their
reports. Matheson said, "See anything?"

"Not a bloody thing." The pilot shivered a little as he wriggled out of
the combination suit. "A lot of sea, and one or two mouldy ships."

He turned to the stove. Behind his back the door opened and the flight
lieutenant came into the little room, fresh-faced young man of
twenty-five, called Hooper.

Matheson said, "Jerry didn't see anything. What's it all about, anyway?"

"Blowed if I know."

Chambers turned towards him. "Has something happened?"

The newcomer shrugged his shoulders. "There's a cag on about
something--I can't find out what it is. You didn't see anything?"

"I saw one or two ships." He reached for his notebook; the flight
lieutenant looked over his shoulder. They ran down the list of names,
times, and locations.

"There's nothing in those," said Hooper. "Nothing unusual?"

"Not a thing. There never is."

"Well, something's happened. The Navy are creating about something."

The pilot turned back to the stove and huddled his chilled body over it.
"Blast the Navy," he said petulantly. "They've always got a moan."

The flight lieutenant took the notebook and went over to the squadron
leader's office. "Jerry's just come in, sir. Here's his book. He saw
nothing out of the ordinary."

Peterson took the book and ran his eye down the list of ships. "Damn,"
he said very quietly. "Didn't anybody see the _Lochentie_?"

"The _Lochentie_?"

"Yes." The squadron leader hesitated. "There's a blazing row going on
about a ship called the _Lochentie_. She's been torpedoed, somewhere off
St. Catherines."

"This morning?"

The other nodded.

The young flight lieutenant made a grimace. It was right in the middle
of the area covered by the patrol. "Is that what the Navy are raising
hell about?"

"That's it. You'd better come along with me."

They left the office in silence and walked down the road toward the wing
commander's office. Wing Commander Dickens was a small, dark-haired,
rather irritable man. He was an efficient officer, but one who was
inclined to stand upon his rank in the manner of an earlier day. He
believed in discipline, in rigid and unquestioning obedience to the
exact letter of an order. He had little or no use for initiative among
junior officers; their duty was to do the job that they were told to do,
and nothing more.

They went into his office as the telephone bell rang. He lifted the
receiver, nodding to them. A voice said, "Captain Burnaby upon the line,
sir."

"Oh . . . put him on." The wing commander covered the mouthpiece and
said, "Wait outside a minute." The squadron leader and the flight
lieutenant withdrew, shut the door behind them, and stood in the
corridor.

The wing commander waited uneasily for a few moments. He had not a great
deal of imagination, but he carried in his mind a very clear picture of
Captain Burnaby, R.N. A man of fifty still in the prime of vigour, over
six feet in height and massively built. A man with a square, tanned face
and bushy black eyebrows, a man outspoken and direct. A man who was
inevitably, always right. A man of influence, due for Flag rank; a man
who was deep in the confidence of the Commander-in-Chief. A man who had
very little use for the Royal Air Force.

Captain Burnaby was speaking from his office in the annexe to Admiralty
House. He said, "Wing Commander Dickens? About the _Lochentie_. I have a
signal from the trawler that is bringing the survivors in. The ship was
definitely torpedoed ten miles from St. Catherines, bearing one nine
two."

The air force officer said, "They're quite sure it was a torpedo, are
they?"

"Certainly--the track was seen. It happened at ten oh five. The vessel
disappeared at ten seventeen, leaving some wreckage and a boat which my
trawler got at eleven eighteen. Will you please tell me what reports you
have from the aircraft?"

The wing commander shifted awkwardly in his chair. "So far, the reports
to hand are negative."

"So far? Have all your machines got back?"

"The last one has just come in."

"Is his report negative, too?"

"Yes. The visibility was very bad."

"This action took place in the area covered by your morning patrol. Do
you mean that none of your aircraft saw anything of it at all?"

"Apparently not. The visibility was such that a machine could pass
within a couple of miles and see nothing, you know."

"I don't know anything of the sort. My trawlers found the place all
right."

The wing commander said weakly, "It's often clearer right down on the
water."

For three months both men had undergone the strain of a responsible
command in war time. In that three months neither of them had had so
much as one day of rest.

The naval officer said viciously, "I quite agree with you. That is
exactly what I always say whenever the usefulness of air patrol comes up
in a discussion."

There was an awkward pause.

The captain said, "What organization have you got to ensure that your
pilots actually patrol the areas they are supposed to?"

The little wing commander flared suddenly into a temper. "That's a
reflection upon my command. We'll get on better if we keep this civil,
Captain Burnaby."

The other said directly, "I'll be as civil as the facts permit. I have
to make a report upon this matter to the Commander-in-Chief, and I want
the facts. So far, I know that a valuable ship has been torpedoed, right
under my nose. I know that there are thirteen survivors living and that
nearly a hundred people have been killed, including several women. I
know that my trawler found the ship and saved the thirteen lives. I know
that my applications for more trawlers have always been turned down,
because it was said that air patrol could do the work more efficiently.
You tell me now that your patrol saw nothing of this wreck because of
the bad visibility. Now, have you got any more facts upon this matter
that you can give me?"

"No, I've not."

"All right, wing commander. I shall put in my report upon those lines."

He rang off; the wing commander put down the telephone, white with rage.
It was not the first time he had had a brush with Captain Burnaby. With
his reason he knew that the visibility had been too bad that morning to
expect results; with his quick temper he felt bitterly that he had been
let down. The duty of the pilots was to get results. They hadn't got
them.

He crossed to the door and opened it. "Come in," he said, and went back
to his desk. "Now, what about this ship? Has any one reported her?"

Squadron Leader Petersen said, "Nobody saw anything of her, sir. Are you
sure that she was in our area?"

"The Navy say that she was fifteen miles from St. Catherines, bearing
one nine two."

The flight lieutenant said, "What time did it happen?"

"At five minutes past ten." The little wing commander stared arrogantly
at the young officer. "Whose zone was that?"

Hooper thought for a minute. "That'd be Matheson, I think."

"And he saw nothing of the ship?"

"Not a thing, sir."

"Nor of the boat that was picked up?"

"He didn't see anything at all. The weather was very thick."

The wing commander said, "Well, I think that's a pretty bad show. This
squadron has been given a job of doing patrol. It's not been done. Say
it's the weather, if you like, although it's not too bad for flying.
Whatever the reason is, the squadron hasn't done the job that it was
told to do."

There was a tense silence in the office.

Dickens went on, "It's no use coming along now to tell me that the
weather was too bad to do your job efficiently. The time to tell me that
is before the patrol starts, not after they've made a muck of it. Tell
me before you start and I can do something--double bank the patrol,
perhaps."

There was another silence of strained nerves. He went on, "Well, that's
all for the moment. You'll be interested to know that I've just had
Captain Burnaby on the telephone, telling me that the coastal patrol's
no bloody good to him. Judging from this morning's performance, I rather
agree. That's all. You can go."

The squadron leader set his lips, and said nothing. The young flight
lieutenant stepped forward impulsively. "There's just one thing, sir,"
he said hotly. "I'd like to hear from Captain Burnaby why his ship
wasn't in convoy, as it should have been."

"That hasn't got a thing to do with you, Hooper," said the wing
commander. "Your job is the patrol and I'm not satisfied with that
patrol at all. You can go now. Send Matheson to see me."

They left him; the wing commander remained seated at his desk, tapping a
pencil irritably on his blotting pad. He would have to see the Air
Officer Commanding and tell him all about it--no good letting Burnaby
get his tale in first.

He brooded darkly for a time. That flight lieutenant had a nerve . . .
although, why hadn't the _Lochentie_ been in convoy, anyway? He would
put up the A.O.C. to find out that. He'd been too open with these lads
like Hooper; the result was that they all thought that they could run
the war. They'd have to learn that they'd got just one job to do, and
one only, without reasoning too much, or digging into everybody else's
job. He'd see in future that his orders were framed for their jobs
alone.

In the pilots' office the four pilots wrote their short reports.
Presently Matheson was summoned to see Wing Commander Dickens; the
others went over to the mess. Chambers went up to his room and had a
wash, yawned for a few moments before the glass, and went down to the
anteroom for a beer before lunch.

He found Hooper brooding sullenly alone over a tankard. "Dickens tore me
off a strip just now," said the flight lieutenant. "I'm fed up with this
job. Think I'll put in for a transfer."

Chambers said, "Where was the ship, anyway?"

"Bung in the middle of Matheson's zone. Thank your stars it wasn't
yours. There's the hell of a row going on."

"Am I out of it?"

"So far."

"That's a bloody miracle," said Jerry, and went in to lunch.

He went into the junior mess room after lunch, got himself a cup of
coffee and a copy of _For Men Only_, and stretched himself in an arm
chair before the fire. He turned over the pages of the little
publication and looked at the pictures, smiling a little. Presently the
eyelids drooped over his eyes and he slept, his long legs reaching out
towards the comfortable glow, his slim body at rest.

He woke an hour later, rested and refreshed. He had grown accustomed to
this sleep after his lunch since he had been on the morning patrol. He
stirred in the chair, and planned the remainder of the day. Tomorrow was
the change-over of patrol; he would not be flying till the afternoon.
Therefore, another late night wouldn't hurt him. He had arranged to meet
the girlfriend in the evening; he looked forward to that with some
pleasure. He might pick up Matheson or Hooper and take in a movie, and
go on to the Royal Clarence for ham and eggs in the snack bar. In the
meantime, he would have an hour or so for working on the galleon.

He spent the afternoon in his room, threading minute cords through
little blocks upon the yards and securing them with tiny dabs of
secotine. He was pleased with his work. His imagination showed the ship
to him as she would have been; she became real to him, magnified.
Studying the bluff lines of her hull, he felt that he could hear the
bubbling of the bow wave at her stern, see the long trail of eddies in
her wake. He could feel her deck heaving gently beneath his feet. He
could hear the yards creaking and complaining as she rolled. To him, she
was a real little ship. He was immensely pleased with her.

Presently he went down to tea, then got his car and drove into
Portsmouth. He had one or two small items of shopping to do. For one
thing, he wanted an electric torch; he was tired of falling over
bicycles each time he parked his car. But torches were scarce. He tried
three shops without success; the blackout had created a demand that had
swept torches off the market.

Finally he went into a large chemists and stood looking around him for a
moment, uncertainly. It did not look a likely place to buy a torch. It
was largely devoted to soap and perfumes, and all manner of feminine
cosmetics. He stood irresolute, a tall figure in an Air Force blue
greatcoat, pink-cheeked and rather embarrassed.

A girl came up to him from the beauty stand. "Can I get you anything,
sir?"

He said, "I'm not quite sure. I wanted an electric torch."

"I think we're out of torches. We have lamps."

He brightened. "A lamp would do. Could I see them?"

He followed her down the shop. "I didn't really think you'd keep that
sort of thing. Like trying to buy a lipstick at the ironmonger's."

She said, "We always keep a fancy line." She opened a carton. "This is
the only lamp we have at the moment."

It was a moulded glass rabbit, with red eyes. It stood upon a round
chromium base with a little handle; when you turned the switch a bulb
lit up inside it and the rabbit glowed with light.

The pilot said, "My God, that's wizard. Just look at its eyes! What sort
of battery does it use?"

He made her take it to bits to show him; then he bought it and took it
away, very pleased with himself.

He went on to a cinema and sat for a couple of hours watching a gangster
melodrama; at about nine o'clock he was in the snack bar of the Royal
Clarence Hotel.

It was the busiest hour of the day; the long room was crammed with
people. Most of them were young, most of the men were in uniform. There
were naval officers, a fair sprinkling of naval surgeons, a good many
sub-lieutenants and lieutenants of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve,
the Wavy Navy. There were lieutenants and captains of Marines, and
anti-aircraft gunners, and young Sapper officers. There were young Air
Force pilots with the drooping silver wings upon their chests, and young
Fleet Air Arm pilots with the golden wings upon their sleeves.

The room was filled with smoke, a smell of grilled food and a great
babel of conversation. There were two bars serving drinks, and a snack
bar with stools arranged around a grill. The centre of the room was
filled with tables and the walls were lined with settees. There were
perhaps a hundred people there, all talking and smoking and eating and
drinking.

Chambers took off his coat and hung it on an overloaded stand, and
pushed his way to the bar where Mona was at work. There were two other
barmaids with her, all immensely busy. She gave him a swift smile and
served him deftly with a gin and Italian.

He said, "Dancing?"

She smiled brilliantly, and nodded. He took his glass, and elbowed
backwards from the crowd into a corner.

A man behind his back said, "We never got that signal. I got it from
Purvis in T. 87. He flashed it to me by lamp, round about one o'clock."

Chambers turned; there was a little knot of R.N.V.R. officers standing
beneath a blue poster warning them not to discuss naval matters in
public places. He judged them to be off the trawlers that came into
harbour every night. Another said:

"We ought to carry more life-saving equipment. I'd have got more of them
if I'd had a couple of Carley floats."

"Couldn't the boat have got them?"

"There were only two proper seamen in the boat. They had all that they
could do to keep her head to sea, of course. The ones in the water were
just drifted away." The speaker paused, and then said very quietly, "It
was a stinking bloody mess. I've never seen anything like it."

"Much fuel oil about?"

"God, yes. They were covered with it--the ones that were in the water.
Just choked with the bloody stuff. I'd have picked up a few more of them
if it hadn't been for that."

"How many did you get in all?"

"Thirteen in the boat, and then we picked up seven from the water. We
got three bodies, too."

"The women were all in the boat, weren't they?"

"No--of the seven we picked up, there were three women and four men. But
two of the women died within ten minutes, and one of the men. They'd
been in the water over an hour."

Somebody said, "Christ. I suppose they were practically gone when you
got them?"

"Just floating in the life jackets, you know. To all intents and
purposes, they _were_ dead."

"What about another?"

"I don't mind."

One of the Wavy Navy pushed his way towards the bar. Another said, "I
don't understand why they only got one boat away. They weren't shelled,
were they?"

"Not that I know of. We'd have heard it, anyway. But she went down still
steaming ahead at about six or seven knots, as far as I could make out
from what they said. They never got her stopped to get the boats down."

"She just went on till she went under?"

"That's right."

"Christ."

Another said, "Who owned her?"

"I've no idea." And then another said, "Sanderson and Moore--Sunderland.
They had the _Lochentie_, and the _Glen Tay_, and the _Glen Ormond_."

Chambers turned to them. "I'm sorry--I heard what you said about the
_Lochentie_. I'm Coastal Command, patrolling in your sector."

The other nodded. "In an Anson?"

"That's right. Tell me--was it a submarine?"

"Must have been. Too deep for a mine--there's thirty fathoms of water
out there."

"Did you see anything of the submarine?"

"Not a smell of it. Did a bit of listening, but she'd been gone an hour.
Nothing to go by."

Another said, "She'd slip away ten miles and then lie quiet on the
bottom till nightfall. She might be anywhere."

Chambers said, "Can't you get her when she surfaces?"

The trawlerman shrugged his shoulders. "Got a couple of drifters out
there now on listening patrol. It's just a chance if they contact her in
the dark."

One of the others said, "What are you drinking?"

Chambers said, "I don't see why you should. Well, gin and Italian."

He turned back to the first speaker. "I was on the morning patrol," he
said, "but my zone was to the east of you. It was filthy visibility--we
couldn't see a thing. I'm afraid the chap who had that zone missed the
ship altogether."

The other nodded slowly. "An aeroplane flew near us twice while we were
picking up the boat. We heard it, but we couldn't see it."

One of them said, "It's a wonder you come out at all, this sort of
weather. Bill Stammers picked one of your Ansons out of the sea on a day
just like this, about a month ago."

Chambers said, "I know. Chap called Grenfell was the pilot. Flew right
in. He and the wireless operator ruined themselves. That's the one you
mean?"

"That's right. The other two were in a little rubber boat."

"Too bloody cold for that, this weather."

"You're right. Though for December, it's not as cold as it might be."

The pilot said, "We could do without all this blasted rain."

He stayed with them for a quarter of an hour, and stood a round of
drinks. Then he said, "Well, I must go and feed. I'll keep my eyes
skinned for your little friend when I'm out tomorrow."

The officer who had rescued the survivors said suddenly and harshly, "If
you see the bloody thing, give it everything you've got."

There was a momentary silence.

The young flying officer nodded soberly. "Okay," he said. "I'll do that,
with your love."

He went off to the grill.




                                   2


In the Pavilion the lights swung and changed colour on the dancers. The
floor was crowded. Most of the dancers were in uniform, sailors and
officers mixed indiscriminately. There was a sprinkle of khaki and of
Air Force blue, but most of the uniforms were naval.

Chambers swung the girl deftly in and out of the crowd of dancers on the
floor. They were laughing together in the changing lights. She still
wore the plain black frock that she had worn when serving in the bar; he
had not allowed her time to go back home to change.

    _I like to dance and tap my feet_
      _But they won't keep in rhythm--_
    _You see I washed them both today_
      _And I can't do nothin' with them._

They turned and sidestepped merrily in an open space.

    _Ho hum, the tune is dumb_
      _The words don't mean a thing--_
    _Isn't this a silly song_
      _For any one to sing?_

He said, "Don't sing that song. It sends an arrow right through my
heart."

She bubbled with laughter. "You do talk soft. What's it this time?"

"I had a date with Snow White. I broke it to come here and dance with
you."

"You do tell stories. It was Ginger Rogers last time."

"I know it was. They're all after me, because I dance so well."

"Do you tchassy in a reverse turn when you dance with Ginger Rogers?"

"We won't go into that again," he said with dignity. "I do it every time
I dance with Snow White. And what's more, Disney makes it look all
right."

She laughed again up into his face. "He must stretch out one of your
legs to make it look all right, like Pluto's tail."

Presently the dance came to an end. He took her back to the table which
they had left loaded with their overcoats to retain it, and bought
strawberry ices for them both. Presently she said, "What do you do when
you aren't flying?"

He said, "I'm writing my autobiography. It's the right thing to do that
when you're twenty-three."

She looked at him uncertainly. "You don't know how to write a book, I
don't believe."

"Any one can write that sort of book. I'm going to call it _Forty Years
a Flying Officer_."

The dance hall was built out upon a pier on the sea front. Beneath their
feet the tide crept in over the sand, menacing in the utter darkness.
Outside no lights whatever showed upon the waste of waters. On the
black, tumbling sea a very few ships moved unseen, unlit, and
stealthily. Twenty miles out two little wooden vessels lay five miles
apart, with engines stopped and drifting with the tide. In each of them
a man sat in a little, dimly lit cabin. Before him was an electrical
apparatus; he wore headphones on his head. From time to time he turned
the knob of a condenser.

He sat there listening, listening, all the winter night.

Over her strawberry ice the girl said, "No, but seriously, what do you
do when you aren't flying?"

He said, "I build ships."

She laughed again. "No--seriously."

"Honestly, that's what I do. I'm making a galleon."

"Like what you buy in shops, in bits to put together?"

"That's right."

Her mind switched off at a tangent. "Wasn't it terrible about them
people in that ship today?"

His mind moved quickly. There had been no mention of the loss of the
_Lochentie_ in the evening paper. He said innocently, "What ship was
that?"

She said, wide-eyed, "The one you was talking about in the bar. You
know."

He said, "I never talk of naval matters in a bar. It tells you not to,
on the poster."

She said, "Don't talk so soft. You was talking to the officers off the
trawlers all about it, the ones what picked the people up out of the
water."

He said, "I knew you were a spy, right from the first. The next thing
is, I threaten to denounce you to the police unless you let me have my
way with you."

She said, "If you're going to talk like that, I'm going home."

He said penitently, "I'm sorry. I was only going by the books."

"Well, don't be so awful."

"Did you hear all that we were saying?"

She said, "Not all of it, because of turning round to get the things
from the shelves. But you'd be surprised if you knew what we get to know
behind the bar."

He nodded, serious for a moment. When old friends in the service meet
for a short drink and a meal, not all the posters in the world will stop
a few discreet exchanges on the subject of their work. Leaning upon the
bar, they say these things in low tones to each other, so low that
nobody can hear except the barmaid at their elbow.

He said, "Let's go and dance again."

They went out for a waltz. He was not a bad dancer, and like most girls
of her class she was very good. They were together well by this time,
and went drifting round the floor weaving in and out of the crowd in a
slow, graceful rhythm. A faint fragrance came up from her hair into his
face; he was quite suddenly immensely moved.

He said, "You've done something to your hair."

She laughed. "I had it washed." She paused, and then said, "Do you like
it?"

"Smells all right."

"You do say horrid things. I never met a boy that said such horrid
things as you."

He squeezed her as they danced. "It's the stern brake I have to keep
upon myself. If I told you what I really thought about you you'd slap my
face and go home."

She laughed up at him. "I'll slap it now, just for luck."

"Then I'll have you arrested. You can't do that to an officer in war
time. It's high treason."

Presently they went and sat down again for a time. He lit a cigarette
for her, and said, "What else did you do today, besides getting your
hair washed?"

"Did the shopping for Mother, before going to the snack bar. We open at
twelve-thirty, you know. Then in the afternoon I had my hair done, and
went home for tea."

"And back to work again."

"That's right. What did you do?"

He considered. "Did a spot of flying. Just scraped clear of a blazing
row."

"What about?"

"Only something to do with the work. Then I worked on the galleon for a
bit."

"How big is it?"

He showed her with his hands. "About like that."

"What are you going to call it when it's done?"

"Mona."

She was pleased. "You do talk soft--really you do. What else did you do
after that?"

"After that? I--oh, by God, yes--I came into Southsea and bought a
rabbit."

She stared at him in amazement. "A rabbit? Whatever are you going to do
with that?" And then she said, "You're just kidding again."

"You hurt me very much when you say that." He turned and rummaged in the
pocket of his long blue overcoat. "You don't deserve to see it."

He pulled out the carton. She bent across the table curiously, her head
very close to his. He opened it and took out the lamp, clicked the
switch, and the rabbit glowed with light.

She breathed, "Isn't it lovely! Wherever did you get it from?"

He told her. "I went in there to get a lipstick, and saw it on the
counter."

"A lipstick?"

"I've got it on now." He took the mirror from her bag and looked at
himself. "I think it's rather becoming."

"You are the silliest thing ever. You don't use lipstick."

"That's all you know. They told me it was kissproof in the shop. Do you
mind if I try and see?"

"Yes, I do."

They went and danced again. The dance was coming to an end; the
quickstep accelerated to a wild gallop round the floor. Then the music
stopped, the band stood up, the men drew stiffly to attention and the
girls tried to imitate them as _God Save the King_ was played. Then the
gathering of coats and bags, and they were out in the car park by the
chilly little roadster.

Chambers said, "I'm not quite sure how it's going to go tonight. It's
been rather bad recently."

The girl said, "It'll go if you want it to."

They got into it. "I expect you're right," the pilot said. "If it stops
we'll just have to sit and wish, and wait for it to start again."

She said, "I don't believe that it'd ever start that way. The only way
to make it start would be to get out and walk home."

He shook his head. "If it should stop--and mind you, I don't suppose it
will--we'd better try my way first."

The girl said, "We'll try yours for ten minutes. After that, we try
mine."

"All right."

The engine stopped beneath the trees a quarter of a mile away.

Twenty miles out to sea, a tired sub-lieutenant shoved his way into the
cramped, dimly lit listening cabin. The man with the headphones raised
his head. "Nothing yet, sir," he said in a low tone, half whispering.
"Single-screw steamer bearing east north east--that's all so far."

The officer put on the headphones. "Give you a spell."

They changed places and the listener went out; in the dim light the
officer sat down before the instruments and turned the condenser slowly,
searching round the dial. Outside in the utter darkness the waves lapped
against the hull; a small tinkling came from a loose shovel in the
engine-room each time the drifter rolled. These mingled with the hissing
in the headphones, and a rhythmic beat at one position of the condenser
knob that was the steamer, far away. There was no other sound.

In the imagination of the sub-lieutenant there came a vivid picture of a
German listener in a similar dim cabin curved to the shape of the hull,
slowly turning a similar condenser knob on a similar apparatus.

"Bloody thing must know we're here," the tired officer muttered to
himself. "He'll probably stay where he is until tomorrow night. . . ."

In the dark privacy of the little car parked snugly underneath the
trees, Chambers said softly, "The girl told me it was kissproof in the
shop. Shall I strike a match and see?"

The girl nestled closer into his arms. "No. You do talk silly."

A thought struck the pilot. "What about yours?"

"My what?"

"Your lipstick. I've got to go back to the mess before I can wash my
face."

She rippled with laughter, against his heavy overcoat. "Mine comes off
like anything. You'll look a perfect sight. All the other officers will
know what you've been doing."

"I'll get cashiered."

"What does that mean?"

"Sacked."

She said, "I'll wipe it off for you in a minute, when you take me home."

"In half an hour."

"In a minute," she said firmly.

"Then we've not got much time to waste."

Presently she said, "It's been a lovely evening, Mr. Chambers. I have
enjoyed it, ever so."

The pilot said, "My friends all call me Jerry."

"I can't call you that."

"Jerry."

"All right then. Now go on and take me home."

"Jerry?"

She laughed softly. "Go on and take me home, Jerry."

"When are you coming out with me again?"

"You haven't asked me yet."

"Tomorrow?"

"I can't tomorrow. Uncle Ernest, in the _Iron Duke_--he's coming to see
us tomorrow night, and I said I'd be home early. His ship came in
yesterday. He's Daddy's brother."

"What about Thursday?"

"All right." She wriggled erect in the seat beside him. "Let me clean
your face."

"Better do that when I get you home. It might get dirty again."

The worn engine of the little car came noisily to life and they drove
through the black, windy streets to the furniture shop that was her
home. There the engine came to rest, and the little car stood against
the kerb, motionless and silent. Five minutes later the girl got out
onto the pavement, stuffing a soiled handkerchief into the pocket of her
coat.

She turned back to the car, and stooped to the low entrance. "Good
night," she said softly. "It's been lovely."

"Good night, Mona," he said. "Thursday."

"Thursday," she said. "I'll be there."

She stood for a moment fumbling in her bag for her latchkey; then the
door opened, and she vanished inside. Chambers sat watching her till she
was out of sight, then started up the engine and drove off.

The girl ran quietly upstairs to her room and shut the door behind her.
It was not the first time that she had been kissed in a dark motor car
on the way back from a dance, but she had never been much moved by it
before. It had never produced in her such a mixture of feelings. She
felt safe with him, queerly safe, though with her reason she reflected
that his motor car was hardly a safe place for her. She understood him
better than she had ever understood the others; there was no guile about
him. His irresponsible talk sometimes puzzled her because she wasn't
used to it, but in this his mood was very like her own. She felt that
she could fall into his ways very easily. He never worried her at all.

She got into bed and pulled the clothes around her, happy and a little
thoughtful. She was not quite in love with him, but she knew that she
could be very deeply in love with him if she were to let herself go. She
did not quite know if she wanted to do that. She was a sensible girl,
and older than her twenty-one years in experience. She knew very little
of him, or his background. He had been to Cranwell, the cadet college;
she knew that. That meant he was an officer of regular Air Force, in it
for a career, not just a temporary officer for the war. She knew that
she was not quite of his social class, and she did not resent it. Her
father had risen from the lower deck and kept a little furniture shop in
a back street. They were different; you couldn't get away from that. She
knew that her father and mother would disapprove of her going about with
an officer, especially a regular officer. They'd say that no good would
come of it. Probably it wouldn't. But she was going to meet him
Thursday, all the same.

She drifted into sleep, happy and smiling to herself.

Chambers drove back to the aerodrome, still tingling with the warmth of
the girl's presence. He reflected semi-humorously as he went that he was
probably making a fool of himself. He had no sisters, and he had not had
a great deal to do with girls. His family comprised a widowed mother,
who lived in a suburb of Bristol, and an older brother.

Instinctively he knew that he was dangerously close to a real love
affair. Never before in his life had he thought much about marriage, but
he was thinking of it now. His reason told him that marriage was absurd.
He was far too hard up on his pay as a flying officer even to think of
it; moreover, from all he had heard, you didn't marry barmaids--you
seduced them. He shied away from that; he had a poor opinion of it as a
hobby, and he wouldn't have known how to set about it. It disturbed him
that he should feel rested when he was with her. He could say whatever
came into his head without fear of misunderstanding. She was young, and
she was healthy, and to him she was very beautiful.

He drove into the car park of the mess, moodily cursing his lot as an
officer. He didn't think that it would be a very good thing to marry a
barmaid if he wanted to get on in the Royal Air Force. He felt
resentful; the world should have been organized upon some different
basis.

He parked the car, draped the rug over its bonnet, and lit the rabbit
lamp to find his way through the bicycles. It glowed lambent in the
darkness of the blackout, a luminous ghost rabbit. Its red eyes led him
to the back door of the mess.

In the anteroom he paused and looked at the operations board. Cloud, it
appeared, was to be nine-tenths at two thousand feet during the morning.
That was better, but the wind with it was thirty miles an hour from the
south-west--not quite so good. Instinctively he visualized the
conditions; a wintry, gusty day with fleeting glimpses of the sun. He
ran his eye over the other notices; there was nothing new but one:

    No submarine is to be attacked tomorrow, December 3rd, in Area
    SL between 1200 hours and 1500 hours, in Area SM between 1400
    hours and 1530 hours, and in Area TM between 1430 hours and
    nightfall.

                                         A. S. Dickens, _Wing Cdr._

Chambers stared at this for a moment; he would copy it into his notebook
in the morning. It affected his own zone. He wondered sleepily what lay
behind it; it was like the wing commander to keep his own counsel. Damn
silly, Chambers thought, but discipline was frequently like that. There
was nothing else upon the board to interest him, and he turned away.

Then he remembered the _Lochentie_, and a gust of irritation at official
stupidity swept over him. "Let the bloody thing get away," he muttered
to himself. "Old Hitler just makes rings round us. . . ."

He went up irritated to his room, his nerves on edge, suffering a little
from reaction after an emotional evening. At school he had read a little
poetry of the more conventional sort, and a familiar stanza came into
his head as he undressed:

    _Ah love, could thou and I with Fate conspire_
      _To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire--_
    _Would we not shatter it to bits, and then_
      _Remould it nearer to the heart's desire._

He smiled a little as he put on his pyjamas. "Like hell we would," he
muttered to himself. He got into his bed, still smiling at the thought.
Very soon he was asleep.

Next day was the change-over in patrol. The flight, under Hooper, were
to take the afternoon patrol for the next month, the variation being
designed to break the monotony of the routine. Chambers was able to
sleep relatively late. He woke punctually at six o'clock, according to
the habit of weeks, and dozed in bed till eight; then he got up and had
a bath. He had finished breakfast by nine, and walked over to the
pilots' room in the hangar.

Hooper met him there. "Sergeant Hutchinson's gone to hospital," he said.
"What about it, Jerry?"

Chambers grunted. "Good job, too," he said. "He's been breathing
influenza germs all over me for the last two days. Who can I have
instead?"

The flight lieutenant said, "Nobody."

"Well, that's a bloody fine show. Am I supposed to go without a second
pilot?"

"I don't know who there is to send with you. Do you?"

There was a momentary silence. There had been a spate of transfers from
the station to the Bombing Command in the past week, to fill vacancies
that had resulted from an injudicious raid on Heligoland Bight. The
reinforcements from the flying training schools were due to reach them
in a day or two, but in the meantime there was a shortage of second
pilots.

Chambers said discontentedly, "I suppose that means I'll have to take
the thing alone."

"Send Corporal Sutton with you, if you like?"

The flying officer shook his head. "I've got Corporal Lambert for the
back gun, and the wireless operator. He can pass me up the charts."

The flight lieutenant understood this well enough. The presence of a
fourth man in the aeroplane who was not a pilot or a navigator was a
hindrance rather than a help; he tended to get in the way of the quick
movements of a pilot who was flying the machine and navigating at the
same time. It was better to make the radio operator hop around a bit.

Hooper said, "O.K. If you go alone today I'll let you have Sergeant Abel
for tomorrow." The offer meant that he himself would fly alone on the
next day.

Chambers said, "We'd better have a round of Santiago for it after
dinner." They were great hands with the poker dice.

He set to work to copy out the orders for the day into the notebook that
he would strap onto his thigh in the machine, including the order
prohibiting the bombing of submarines. "Thank God it's better visibility
today," he said when he had finished.

The flight lieutenant nodded. "Don't want any more _Lochenties_."

Jerry said sourly, "The whole sea might be stiff with _Lochenties_ and
submarines for all it matters to us. We're not allowed to bomb the
bloody things if we do see them."

He left the hangar and went back to the mess, irritated and a little
depressed. The mention of the _Lochentie_ had brought back to his mind
the memory of the conversation of the night before in the Royal Clarence
bar. He heard again the voices of the trawler officers describing what
they had seen. In his mind's eye again he pictured what had been
described. Old women in lifebelts washed and battered in a rough, grey,
breaking sea, dying of cold and choked with fuel oil. . . . And then on
top of that, this order about not attacking submarines!

He had a cup of Bovril and a few biscuits in the mess at eleven o'clock,
since he would miss his lunch. Then he went back to the hangar. The
aircraft were out upon the tarmac with the engines running to warm up;
the crews were moving about them. In the pilots' room the six pilots
were putting on their flying clothing, two for each of the other three
machines. He joined them, put on his flying suit, boots, helmet, and
muffler, and strapped his notebook to his thigh. Then he went out to
meet his crew.

They took off at eleven forty-five; the strong wind helped them off the
ground. From a thousand feet the visibility was about five miles, uneven
and much influenced by streaks of sunlight that came down occasionally
through the patchy clouds. The flight kept a loose formation till they
reached the coast, passing the morning patrol on its way back to the
aerodrome. At the coast they split up, each proceeding independently to
his own area.

Behind him, Chambers heard the clatter of the gun as Corporal Lambert
fired his usual burst into the sea to test the gun. He turned in his
seat and motioned to the radio operator; the lad left his seat and
handed him the chart that he required. The pilot spread it awkwardly
upon the folding seat beside him and picked off his course for the
French coast. He set it on the verge ring of the compass and climbed up
to fifteen hundred feet, the lower limit of the clouds.

All afternoon they swept backwards and forwards above the cold grey sea,
coming down near the surface to inspect each ship they saw, noting her
name and nationality, her course and speed. Once in each half hour they
approached the coast, the French coast to the south of them, and the
English coast to the north. They did not cross the land; they came near
enough to establish their position accurately upon the chart, then
turned to a reverse and parallel course. After three or four of these
flights Chambers had gauged the wind correctly, and each succeeding
flight took place exactly down the plotted line upon the chart.

The machine swept backwards and forwards over the grey sea all
afternoon. The crew grew gradually colder; they sucked peppermint
bull's-eyes, suffered the cold, and watched the clock. At this time of
year, in December, darkness would release them before their allotted
time; that was a compensation for the cold. Sunset that day was at 3.53.
They would land at about 4.15.

As evening drew on the brief patches of sunlight disappeared and the sky
became wholly overcast. The light began to fade. They reached the
English coast at about 3.25 and turned seaward once more; they would not
have time to do a full trip over to the French side but it was too early
to go home. They droned out over the darkening sea flying at about
sixteen hundred feet very close below the cloud ceiling. From time to
time they swept through a thin wisp of cloud.

Ten minutes later, Chambers saw a submarine.

He blinked quickly, and looked again. It was a submarine all right. It
seemed to be about two miles ahead of him, going slowly in a north
westerly direction, a short line upon the sea with a lump in the middle.
Something turned over in the pilot's chest as he looked at it, and the
thought flashed through his mind that he was within thirty miles of
where the _Lochentie_ had been destroyed. God had been kind to him. He
was to be the instrument of retribution.

He pulled heavily upon the wheel and shot the monoplane up into the
cloud base immediately above him. He throttled his engines in the dark
fog of the cloud and slowed the machine as much as he dared; they must
not hear him if it could be helped, or they would dive beyond his power
to harm them.

The sudden changes startled the crew from their semi-coma. Corporal
Lambert slid down from the gun turret into the cabin and stared forward;
the radio operator woke up with a jerk. The pilot turned in his seat,
his young face crimson with excitement.

"Submarine!" he yelled. "Up on the surface, about two miles dead ahead
of us!"

The corporal nodded, and slid back into his turret; he had the gun to
tend. The pilot turned feverishly to the chart. In spite of the
excitement, he must mind his orders. Area SM, up to 1530. . . . He shot
a glance at the clock on the panel in front of him; it was 1539. They
had turned at 1527--twelve minutes on the new course since they turned.
Say twenty-six sea miles. He slapped a ruler down upon the pencilled
line that he had drawn upon the chart. They were in Area SM still. Area
TM was a good two miles over to the west.

It was all right to attack.

In spite of having throttled back the engines the machine had climbed to
nearly two thousand feet, thickly enveloped in the cloud. The speed was
down to less than a hundred knots. The pilot pressed the stick a little,
and swung round for a quick glance up and down the cabin. In the gun
turret the corporal stooped down to look forward at him, and held one
thumb up cheerfully. Chambers turned forward, settled into his seat, and
pressed the machine into a dive.

She gained speed quickly. She broke from the clouds diving forty degrees
from the horizontal. The pilot looked round frenziedly to find the
submarine.

He saw her still upon the surface, well over to his left, a thin pencil
on the dark grey, corrugated sea.

The rush of air along the windscreen rose to a shrill whine. He could
not drop his bombs upon a turn and hope to hit; it was essential to come
down on her in a straight dive. He muttered, "Damn and blast!" and swung
the monoplane in its dive over to the right. He leaned forward, and
tripped two switches on the bomb release control, selecting a stick of
four of his small bombs and making the firing switch alive.

He shot a glance at the air speed indicator. Beneath the notice which
said, SPEED MUST NOT EXCEED 200 KNOTS IN DIVE, the needle flickered
between 230 and 240 upon the dial. He glanced again at the submarine and
judged his moment, then swung the monoplane towards her in a turn to
port, easing the wheel towards him very slowly as he did so.

The submarine loomed up ahead of him. She was nearly bow on to him, a
good position for attack but one which hid the sides of the conning
tower from his view. He concentrated desperately upon identification
marks. He dared not bomb unless he could see something to distinguish
enemy from friend. He could see no one in the conning tower; already she
was lower in the water, and she was moving ahead. She was going down.

British submarines carried identification marks upon the hydrovanes. He
could see the hydrovanes ploughing in a smother of foam as she moved
ahead in the rough sea; they were turned to press her down. In the split
seconds of the final stages of his dive he watched in an agony for the
colour of the metal in the foam. Then the trough of a wave came, deeper
than the rest. For an instant the port forward hydrovane was bare of
foam, streaming with water that showed grey paint underneath.

He cleared his mind of that, and for less than a second concentrated all
his being upon levelling the machine off. Then, as the bow of the
submarine passed out of view beneath the bottom of his windscreen, the
gloved hand on the throttles moved to the firing switch and jabbed it
firmly. The first stick of four bombs fell away as the monoplane swept
forty feet above the low grey hull.

The machine rocketed up to three or four hundred feet, and the pilot
threw her round in a steep turn. Behind him he heard the rattling
clatter of the gun as Corporal Lambert blazed away at the steel hull.
Then the submarine swung round into the pilot's view again as the
monoplane banked steeply round her.

One of the bombs had landed near the foot of the conning tower, or on
it; the superstructure was all wreathed in smoke. A stick-like object,
mast or periscope, had fallen and was poking sideways from the conning
tower; the pilot got an impression that the submarine had stopped her
engines. The deck was awash by this time; she was quickly going down.

There was no time to be lost. He had not hurt her seriously, and she
could still submerge beyond his reach. He swung his body brutally on the
controls and forced the monoplane towards her in a dive again. He leaned
forward quickly to the switchbox and selected four more of his little
bombs and one of his two big ones.

Again she loomed up very quickly in the windscreen. He pulled out of his
dive just short of her and jabbed the bomb switch viciously. There was
an instant's pause, followed by the clatter of the gun again, and the
detonation of the bursting bombs behind him. Then came a thunderous
explosion as the big bomb with delayed action burst under water.

Again the pilot forced his machine round in a violent turn. As soon as
the submarine came in view he saw a change. She was higher in the water
than when he had last seen her over the greater portion of her length,
but the stern was down. Beside the stern there was a great subsiding
column of water from the explosion of his big bomb; a great mass of foam
and bubbles was showing all around her.

He thrust the monoplane into a dive at her again. She was now end on to
him, badly damaged; he was attacking from the stern. He selected the
last of his big bombs and four more little ones, and came at her once
again. As the stern passed below his windscreen he pushed hard against
the button on the throttle box.

He rocketed up from her, and turned. His heart leaped as she came in
view. There was a great column of water close beside her, rather forward
of the conning tower; the bow was rising from the water. As he watched,
fascinated, the bow rose clean out of the water, grey and dripping, like
the nose of a monstrous, evil reptile. It was wholly repulsive, a foul,
living thing.

He stared at it for a moment, circling round. Suddenly a jet of brown
liquid gushed out from the nose, falling into the sea and completing the
illusion of a reptile. Chambers stared down with disgust and loathing.
It had ceased to signify a ship to him, ceased to have any human
meaning. It was something horrible, to be destroyed.

His upper lip wrinkled as he forced his machine round. From the look of
the thing he guessed that it was holed; he leaned forward and pressed
down all the remaining switches on the selector box. As he swept over it
again he pressed his bomb switch for the last time, and the whole of his
remaining bombs left the machine.

He swung the monoplane around more gently this time; he could do no
more. When the target came in sight again the bow was practically
vertical; the conning tower was well submerged. The sea was boiling all
around her, in part from the explosion of his bombs and in part from the
air that now was blowing from the hull. Slowly the bow slid down into
the sea. The light was fading; it was too dark to make out much detail.
Now there were only six feet left above the water.

Now there were three feet only. Now just the tip.

Now it was gone.

There was nothing left except a great circle of white, oily water on the
grey, rough sea.

He relaxed for a moment. The wireless operator was by his side, looking
over his shoulder through the windscreen. Chambers said, "That's
finished him."

Above the roaring of the engines the boy yelled, "Good show, sir. First
in the squadron!"

The pilot nodded. "It's probably the one that got the _Lochentie_!" he
shouted.

He turned and looked behind him. The corporal was leaning down from the
gun ring, crimson with pleasure, beaming all over his face, and holding
up both thumbs. The pilot grinned and held a thumb up in response, then
turned back to his work again.

At some time in the incident he felt that there had been a ship. He
circled round for a minute, peering into the gathering night. At last he
saw her. She was a trawler painted grey, in naval service. She was about
three miles to the south of him, headed towards the scene at her full
speed.

He swept low over her and circled round; from the little bridge above
the chart-house an officer was waving at him. He waved back in reply and
flew ahead of her, to dive onto the scene to show her where it was.
There was nothing there to see by now except a circle of oily water with
a great mass of white bubbles coming up. The trawler would buoy the
place, and pick up any wreckage that there was.

He flew back to the trawler, and stayed with her for ten minutes till
she reached the spot. Then, in the dusk, he set a course for home.

The corporal left the gun turret and made his way along the cabin to the
pilot. He was bursting with pride. "Poor old Sergeant, he won't half be
mad when he hears about this," he shouted. "Fair kicking himself, he'll
be."

Jerry broke into a smile. "Too bad he wasn't with us," he shouted in
reply. "After all this time."

"Serve him right. Shouldn't go catching colds."

He squatted down behind the pilot, staring ahead through the windscreen.
Presently they crossed the land; ten minutes later they approached the
aerodrome. The corporal wound the undercarriage down as the machine
swept low over the hangars; as they crossed the tarmac they saw men stop
and stare at them.

The corporal laughed. "They seen our bomb racks empty," he said
gleefully. "That's what they're all looking up at!"

The pilot brought the machine round to land; the flaps went down. The
hedge slid below them and the ground came up; Chambers pulled heavily
upon the wheel and the machine touched and ran along. It slowed and came
to rest; Chambers looked round behind, and turned into the hangar.

It was practically dark when he drew up upon the tarmac. One or two
aircraftsmen came running with unwonted energy; the corporal hurried
down the cabin and jumped out of the machine.

One of the men said, "What happened to the bombs, Corp?"

Corporal Lambert swelled with pride. "Fell on a bloody submarine, my
lad," he said. "Proper place for 'em too!"

The news ran from mouth to mouth. "Did you sink it, Corp?"

"Where did it happen?"

"Were there any ships about?"

"Did any other aircraft have a hand?"

"Did you get fired at?"

The crowd swelled quickly round the corporal "Officer sunk it, lads," he
said. "Mr. Chambers. I didn't do nothin' but fire the bloody gun, and
that's no flaming use against a sub."

"Was it the one what sunk that ship what was torpedoed yesterday, Corp?"

"I can't tell you that, lad. Officer thinks it was."

Chambers got down from the machine, clutching his maps. There was a
thin, spontaneous cheer from the crowding men. He was embarrassed, and
stood there in his flying clothes blushing a little, taller than most of
them.

"Thanks awfully," he said awkwardly. "We had a bit of luck this
afternoon. Pity Sergeant Hutchinson couldn't have been with us."

They cheered him again, more loudly this time. He pushed his way through
them and went towards the pilots' room; a dozen of them followed after
him. It was practically dark. Hooper came running out to meet him.
"Jerry--is this true?"

"True enough, old boy," he said. "We plastered it good and proper."

"Did you sink it?"

"Sunk it all right. It went right up on end; the bow was vertical."

"Bloody good show! Did anybody else see it?"

"There was a trawler about three miles away. I showed her where it
happened."

They went together to the pilots' room. There was a surge of pilots
around Chambers as he got out of his flying clothes, with a volley of
questions. He changed in a babel of voices and discussion; in the middle
his squadron leader, Petersen, came in.

There was a momentary hush. The squadron leader said, "Is this true that
you got a submarine?"

The young pilot straightened up. "Yes, sir. I don't think there was any
doubt about it."

He told his tale again. The squadron leader said, "Well, that's all
right. I'll just ring Dickens, and see if he wants to see you now, or
after you've made out your report."

He lifted the telephone, but the wing commander's line was engaged.

Hooper said, "I vote we go and break open the bar."

They surged over to the mess in a body, gathering other officers to them
as they went. The news spread through the camp like a running flame. It
was dark by this time, and work was over for the day. In the anteroom
Chambers stood flushed, and embarrassed, in the middle of a crowd of
officers, a pint pot of beer in his hand, besieged by questions.

In the babel of talk and congratulations the mess waiter pushed into the
crowd. "Wing Commander Dickens on the telephone," he said. "He wants
Squadron Leader Petersen and Mr. Chambers over in his office."

Chambers drained his can, and followed the squadron leader out of the
room. They put on overcoats. Outside the night was very dark, with a
thin drizzle of rain.

They groped their way over to the wing commander's office with some
difficulty; neither had thought to bring a torch. In the corridor they
paused for a minute, and tapped on the door. Dickens said, "Come in."

He was alone, seated at his desk. He got up slowly as they entered. He
said gravely, "Good evening."

He turned to Chambers. "I understand you sank a submarine this
afternoon?"

The young man was a little daunted by the heavy manner of the wing
commander. Surely there could be nothing wrong? He said, "I attacked
one, sir. I think she sank all right."

The wing commander took a paper from his desk and handed it to him.
"This signal has just come in."

Puzzled, the squadron leader looked over his shoulder and they read it
together. It was despatched from trawler T. 383. It read:

    Submarine destroyed by Anson aircraft 1541 hours area SM/TM.
    Recovered floating two British naval caps, one British naval
    jumper, two empty packets Players cigarettes. Returning to port
    immediately. Position buoyed.

There was dead silence in the office.

Dickens said heavily, "I'm afraid one of our own submarines is overdue.
H.M.S. _Caranx_ isn't answering any signals."

The telephone bell rang. The wing commander crossed to his desk and
picked up the receiver.

The operator said, "Captain Burnaby upon the line, sir."




                                   3


Captain Burnaby, as usual, was direct and to the point. He said, "I have
spoken to Fort Blockhouse, Wing Commander. They are sending Commander
Rutherford over to my office at once. Will you please come in
immediately and bring the pilot with you? You'd better come to my
office, in Admiralty House."

Dickens said, "Very good. I have the pilot with me now."

"Then I shall expect you at about a quarter to six." The wing commander
glanced at the watch upon his wrist; it gave a bare half-hour with
fifteen miles to go, mostly in traffic, in the darkness of the blackout.
The naval officer went on, "What has he to say?"

"He's only just come in, Captain. I haven't heard his story yet."

"Well, we won't waste time with it on the telephone. Get a car and bring
him in with you. In the meantime I have warned a salvage vessel to be
ready for sea at midnight, and I have a drifter standing by the buoy.
It's possible that some of them may still get out with the Davis escape
gear. T. 383 should dock in an hour's time, and we shall see then what
they've got."

"Is there still no answer from the _Caranx_?"

"The last signal was received at two o'clock. She should have passed the
Gate an hour ago."

There was a pregnant silence. The wing commander said quietly, "I'm very
sorry to hear that."

Captain Burnaby said shortly, "Quite so. I am sure that we are all very
sorry, Wing Commander. Now will you please get straight into a car and
come to my office, with the pilot of the aeroplane."

Dickens hung up the receiver, and turned to Chambers. "What letters did
the thing have on its conning tower?"

The pilot hesitated. Then he said, "I never saw them, sir."

Beside him the squadron leader said gently, "Why not, old boy? Didn't
you look?"

The pilot turned to him, flushed and anxious. "I never got a chance.
When I got out of the cloud he was over on the left, and going down
quick. I had to take him from the bow in the first attack. You can't see
the letters when you're on the bow."

Dickens said, "But after the first dive--you made several, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Didn't you see his conning tower when you came round?"

"No, sir. There was smoke all round it. It got a direct hit with the
first stick."

"But how did you know it wasn't a British submarine, then?"

"It had nothing on the hydrovanes, sir. No identification marks at all."

The wing commander stared at him. "But you said it was going down. Could
you see the hydrovanes?"

The boy hesitated miserably, irresolute. After a time he said, "Yes,
sir. I saw them clearly."

The wing commander got up from his chair. "We'll have to get along," he
said. "Come on. We'll talk down to the Transport."

Chambers said, "May I go and get my coat sir?"

"Yes--be quick." The boy turned to leave the room. Dickens called after
him, "Bring a torch, if you've got one--the battery's run out in mine.
Can't get about the Dockyard without a torch in the blackout."

"I'll bring mine, sir."

He left the room, and managed to slink in unnoticed through the back
door of the mess to fetch his coat. In the office that he had left the
wing commander put on his own coat. Then he turned to the squadron
leader.

"It doesn't look so good," he said.

Petersen shook his head. "It doesn't." He turned to the other. "Be
careful you don't get him rattled," he said. "He's a good lad, you know.
I should be surprised if he'd made a mistake like this."

The wing commander bit his lip. "It's the Navy I'm afraid of. They're
liable to tear him in pieces."

The squadron leader nodded ruefully. They left the office and walked
down towards the transport yard; a car was waiting for them there. The
squadron leader said:

"I suppose that notice about not bombing submarines this afternoon was
because _Caranx_ was coming in?"

"Yes." The wing commander hesitated. "I suppose I should have made it
clearer."

"We usually do let the pilots know what's going on," the squadron leader
said deferentially.

The wing commander bit his lip, and they walked on in silence. He had
framed his notice in that way because he had been irritated with Hooper,
because he thought that the junior officers were getting insubordinate
and should be disciplined to concentrate solely upon the job that they
were told to do. He reflected that his instructions had been carried out
to the letter. Chambers was blameless, technically. The notice had said
that no submarine was to be bombed in Area SM up till 1530; the action
had taken place at 1541 according to the trawler's signal. _Caranx_, if
it was she who had sunk, was late upon her schedule; she should have
passed that spot an hour before.

Still, if the pilot had known _Caranx_ was expected he might have taken
special care . . .

That was absurd. You couldn't fight a war if every order had to be
explained, to everybody. In this thing the whole fault lay with the
Navy. If _Caranx_ was dangerously late upon her schedule she should have
sent a signal; he could have changed his orders then.

His heart sank as he contemplated the future. If _Caranx_ really had
been sunk there were the makings of a blazing row that would go straight
up to the Cabinet.

Chambers was waiting for him at the car; they got into the back seat
together in the utter darkness and were driven into Portsmouth. They
said very little on the drive. The flying officer was frightened and
confused. He was not certain of himself. He was sure in his own mind
that the submarine he had sunk was not a British ship; he could not
satisfy himself with proof. Once Dickens said, "You're quite sure that
you saw the hydrovanes?"

The boy said, "I saw one of them, sir--the port one at the bow. It was
painted grey--not coloured, like ours are."

"But you saw it properly--clear of the water?"

"It had water on it, sir. But I saw the colour of the paint."

"You're quite sure of that, Chambers?"

"Yes, sir."

They relapsed into silence again. The wing commander sat brooding in his
corner. Ten minutes later he said, "How did you know which area you were
in?"

The flying officer explained the steps that he had taken. The wing
commander nodded in the darkness; it was reasonable. Still, it was very
near the knuckle. The pilot reckoned he was two miles to the east of
Area TM, but two miles wasn't much deviation in the thirty miles that he
had flown from his last known position. The older officer was sick with
apprehension. If this thing had occurred in Area TM their goose was
cooked. The trawler evidently had not known where she was, for she had
signalled Area SM/TM.

The car drew up to the Dockyard gate and put them down; no cars could
move about the Dockyard in the blackout. That rule had been made for
safety, following on the discovery of a terribly battered car upon the
concrete bottom of an empty dry dock, with two dead naval officers in
it. They were stopped at the gate by the Dockyard police, who telephoned
to Captain Burnaby for authority to pass them through.

Inside the Dockyard the darkness was intense. The wing commander said,
"Got that torch?"

Chambers pulled out the rabbit lamp, and lit it. The white rabbit glowed
luminous in the darkness; by its light they made their way over railway
lines and between railway trucks, past docks lined with empty, deserted
ships, past the caissons of dry docks sheltering the monstrous bulk of
great vessels ablaze with welding torches and vibrant with the clatter
of the riveters. Presently they turned down a quiet alleyway and came to
the Georgian building where their meeting was to take place.

Captain Burnaby occupied an office of an antique style. It was a tall,
white-painted room, with high windows between straight white columns
with clean, vertical lines. It was a room that had heard the affairs of
many frigate captains in its day. It was still redolent of them. The
framed charts upon the wall themselves were anything up to a hundred
years old; a coal fire burned brightly in the Georgian grate. A modern
touch was given by the battery of telephones upon a wide, old-fashioned
desk.

There were three naval officers in the room, who came forward from the
fire as the two Air Force officers came in. Captain Burnaby said grimly,

"Good evening, gentlemen. We've been waiting for you. Wing Commander
Dickens--this is Commander Rutherford, from Blockhouse. And Lieutenant
Commander Dale."

Dickens bowed slightly. He said, "This is Flying Officer Chambers."

The captain moved towards a green baize covered table, laid out with
paper and pencils for a conference. "This is not a formal meeting," he
said succinctly. "But I think we shall get on more quickly if we take it
as such." He seated himself at the head of the table, in the position of
a chairman, and motioned to the wing commander to take the seat at his
right. Chambers hurried to sit down beside the wing commander, leaving
his hat upon the captain's desk with the lamp inside it. The other naval
officers sat on the captain's left.

For a moment Chambers studied the naval officers, and his heart sank.
The massive, square-cut features of the captain were set in a grim
mould; the iron-grey hair and the bushy eyebrows were those of a
martinet, a hard, efficient man. In comparison, he thought he saw a
gleam of kindliness and understanding, even of sympathy, in the
appearance of Commander Rutherford from Fort Blockhouse, the submarine
depot. The last of the three was a dour, scornful young man with raised
eyebrows.

Burnaby said, "Well now, gentlemen, we're here to get the facts of what
occurred this afternoon. That's the first thing, before we can decide
what action we must take." He turned to the commander from the Submarine
Depot. "Rutherford, will you tell us first what orders _Caranx_ had?"

The commander said, "She had orders to proceed here from Harwich, sir."

"Quite so. On the surface, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes. She wouldn't dive unless there was a very good reason for it.
She was coming round to have--" He checked himself.

The captain said, "I don't think that's material." He turned to Dickens.
"She was coming back for certain work to be done."

The wing commander nodded.

The captain turned again to Rutherford. "Now, tell us her scheduled
route and times."

The commander took a paper from his attach case and laid it on the
table. "This is the operation order I made out," he said. "It's rather
long." He turned its pages over. "She was due to pass from Area SL to
Area SM at 1430, and from Area SM to Area TM at 1500. In the order for
closing the areas against attack I gave her half-an-hour margin each way
on those times." He paused, and then said, "She should have passed the
Gate between 1600 and 1615. If she was later than that she'd have to
anchor in the Roads."

The captain said, "Exactly." He picked up the sheets of buff typewritten
paper, and glanced them over rapidly. "This is a copy of what you sent
me. Yes." He scrutinized the list of copies sent out at the head of one
page. "I see. And this sheet went to Coastal Command of the Royal Air
Force."

He turned to Dickens, and put the paper before him. "This is the sheet
that you received, Wing Commander?"

Dickens nodded. "That's right."

The naval officer, pressing his point home, passed the paper to
Chambers. "And you saw this before you went out on patrol?"

The pilot took the paper. It began with a short statement that a British
submarine was to proceed upon the surface in a westerly direction. Then
followed a string of areas and times restricting submarine attack.

The pilot said, "I've never seen this."

Captain Burnaby's mouth set into a thin, hard line; the bushy eyebrows
drew together. He stared grimly at the young man. He said, "Can you
explain that, please?"

The pilot blushed, and hesitated. Dickens interposed.

"You saw a shortened version of it on the notice board?"

Chambers said, "Yes, sir. I took a copy of it in my notebook."

Rutherford said, "I don't see how it could be made much shorter than it
is."

The captain said mercilessly, "In what way was the notice that you saw
different from this sheet, Mr. Chambers?"

The young man said, "It was the same, I think, except for these first
sentences." He pointed to the typescript.

The wing commander said, "I think that's right. We left out that for
secrecy."

The naval captain stared at him for a minute. He was about to say that
he was not accustomed to his orders being hacked about, but he thought
better of it. Instead, he said to the pilot, "Was the notice that you
saw intelligible to you, Mr. Chambers?"

The flying officer hesitated. "I understood that no attacks were to be
made in certain areas at certain times," he said. "I didn't know why."

The commander from the submarine depot leaned forward. "You didn't know
that one of our submarines was coming in, then?" he said kindly.

The boy turned to him gratefully. "No, sir. I didn't know that."

There was a tense, pregnant silence for a few moments. Then Captain
Burnaby said, "Well, the Court of Enquiry will go into that, no doubt."

He picked up another paper from the table. "The signal from T. 383 gives
1541 as the time of the attack, in Area SM/TM."

Chambers interposed. "It was definitely in Area SM, sir."

"That is what I want to hear about next, Mr. Chambers. If she was in
Area SM you were clearly within your rights in attacking, subject to
reasonable care. In Area TM you could not attack at all."

The boy said, "No, sir. But she was in Area SM all right."

The naval captain eyed him keenly. "How did you establish that?"

"I set out the course and distance run from my last known position, on
the chart, sir. She was a good two miles inside Area SM."

"Have you got the chart here?"

"I'm afraid not, sir."

The sour-faced young lieutenant commander spoke up. "How far away was
your last known position?"

The pilot turned to him. "I made it about twenty-six sea miles."

Lieutenant Commander Dale raised his eyebrows slightly higher. "Two
miles drift wouldn't be much of an error in the sort of navigation that
you do, would it? I don't see how you can be so sure about the area."

Chambers said, "I wasn't two miles out."

Dale shrugged his shoulders. "The trawler doesn't seem to be so certain,
or she wouldn't have signalled Area SM/TM."

Burnaby turned to the pilot. "I take it that you plotted the position
carefully, upon the chart."

The boy hesitated awkwardly. The three naval officers sat staring at
him. At last he said, "I didn't pencil the position in. You can't do
that when you're flying the machine."

The captain said, "I understand you have a second pilot."

"I hadn't got a second pilot today, sir. He'd gone sick."

Lieutenant Commander Dale spoke up again. "How did you do the chart
work, then, if you couldn't leave the helm?"

"I had the chart on the seat beside me. I laid off the course and
distance run with a parallel ruler."

The young naval officer's upper lip curled slightly. "Working with one
hand?"

"Yes."

Dale turned to Captain Burnaby. "I don't see any proof of the position
here, sir," he said sourly. "You might be anywhere, working like that."

The captain said, "I quite agree with you."

There was an awkward silence. The pilot stared at the glass ash-tray on
the green baize tablecloth, flushed and miserable. He began to feel that
they were all hostile to him; their minds were made up. He knew his
navigation methods hadn't been according to the book, but he had faith
in his position. He was used to rapid chart work under difficulties.

He tried to explain to them. He said, "I really don't think I was two
miles out in the position, sir. I made decent landfalls all through the
patrol."

The young lieutenant commander raised bored eyebrows slightly higher.
Rutherford, from Fort Blockhouse, nodded, but said nothing.

Captain Burnaby said, "Well, the trawler buoyed the place, so we shall
know before long where it actually happened. Now, Mr. Chambers, will you
tell us just what occurred, from the time when you first saw the
submarine until the moment when she sank."

The boy said, "I saw her first about two miles away. It was beginning to
get dark. I couldn't make out any detail--just that there was a
submarine there. Then I went straight up into the cloud."

They sat staring at him, silent, as he told his story.

The lieutenant commander, Dale, listened with all the overbearing
confidence of youth. He had little knowledge of the Air Force, or of
anything outside the Navy. He had entered at the age of fourteen and had
lived in, and lived for, the Navy ever since. He was efficient. He hated
inaccurate, slovenly work. He never made mistakes himself; they were
unnecessary, beastly things. Only damn fools made mistakes. Here was
this blushing, stammering young ass who had the insolence to say that he
could work out a position accurately working with one hand upon a chart
that was sliding about on a seat cushion. The result was that he had
made mistakes--not one, but a whole flock of them, and one of them had
caused the _Caranx_ to be sunk. He listened in a cynical, cold rage.

Rutherford listened sympathetically. He was closer to the disaster than
the others. He knew all the officers of _Caranx_ intimately, had messed
with them for months. Most of his service life had been spent in
submarines and he had known several disasters. He had come to realize
this one only an hour before, but already he had accepted with a numbed
acquiescence that never again would he meet Billy Parkinson, or play a
round of golf with Stone, or drink a beer with Sandy Anderson. Presently
he would have to write the letters, to Jo Parkinson and Dorothy Stone,
and to Anderson's mother at Dalry. From his experience he knew how these
things happened. Good men, honest competent chaps, made a mistake--a
hatch had been left open one time. As a young lieutenant he himself had
very nearly sunk his own submarine by doing the wrong thing with a
lavatory flush. If it were true that _Caranx_ had been lost by this
young pilot's mistake, the fault was rather in the system that put such
power into the hands of inexperienced young men. There was no blame in
his mind for Chambers. He had been older than that when he had had his
trouble with the lavatory.

Captain Burnaby listened with a mind overlaid with policy. Throughout
his service life the strategy and tactics of reconnaissance had been his
specialty. He had been in destroyers for much of his time, and had risen
to the command of a flotilla. Now he was in this shore job and in
intimate liaison with the Royal Air Force. For the first time in his
life he drew reports from a service that he did not control. He felt
like a horse in blinkers. He could not reach out quickly and pull in his
information as he had done all his life; he must ask another service if
they would get it for him, and they would only do so if they had the
time to spare, or so he felt. He was perpetually maddened and infuriated
with the restraint. He believed with all his heart and soul that the
existing system was totally wrong, that the aeroplanes patrolling the
narrow seas should be under naval control, staffed by the Navy, part of
the Fleet Air Arm. Most of the Admiralty, he knew, agreed with him. Dual
control was inefficient, and mistakes were bound to happen. One of them
had happened now, and a valuable unit of the Navy had been sunk by this
young fool. Perhaps after this the Cabinet would listen to the Admiralty
case. The _Caranx_ was a bitter and a serious loss, but if through her
the Navy were to gain control of its own air service she would not have
been lost in vain.

Dickens sat warily watching, sitting on the fence. He knew all that
passed in the simple, direct mind of Captain Burnaby; he realized the
political aspect of the matter to the full. He could not help his pilot
and he did not much want to. If Chambers had really sunk the _Caranx_ it
was a bad show, a piece of inefficiency discreditable to the Royal Air
Force. The pilot would have to suffer, as a matter of course. It was
much more important that the relations of the Navy and the Air Force
should not be impaired; in time of war there must be no internal
quarrels. He knew the Navy wanted their own coastal patrol; he believed
that they had too little experience of aeroplanes to take it over,
especially in a time of war. Dickens sat quiet, watching the naval
officers and their reactions, biding his time.

They heard him to the end in silence; only from time to time the captain
prompted him. He finished, and sat staring round at them unhappily.
"That's all I can remember," he said at last.

Captain Burnaby said, "I take it, then, you never saw the letters on the
conning tower at all?"

The pilot said, "No, sir--I didn't. I never bothered about them once I
saw that there was no identification marking on the hydrovanes." He
paused, and then said, "I did look for them once, but there was smoke
all round the conning tower."

The captain said, "Didn't you think it worth while to make certain?"

Chambers said, "I was certain, sir. It never entered my head that it
could be a British submarine. We're usually told when our own submarines
are in the Channel."

Rutherford said kindly, "You get notices about our own submarines pretty
frequently, do you?"

The pilot turned to him. "Almost every other day. That's why it never
occurred to us that this had anything to do with our own submarines. It
wasn't in the usual form." He paused, and then he said, "I'm quite sure
this was a German. There was definitely nothing on the hydrovanes."

Lieutenant Commander Dale said, "I wish I could be as sure as you are.
You said that one of the hydrovanes washed clear as she was going down?"

"Yes--it was free from foam."

"But it was clear--out of the water, I mean?"

Chambers said, "It wasn't dry, of course. There was water on it, but
there were no bubbles--no white foam."

"How deep would you say the water was upon it? Five or six inches--or
more?"

The pilot strained his memory to recall the instant flash that he had
seen in the last stages of his dive. "Not so deep as that. There might
have been an inch of water on it."

"It was getting dark, though, wasn't it?"

"There was light enough to see the colour of the paint."

"Even underwater, seen obliquely as you saw it?"

The pilot hesitated. "What I saw was grey paint."

There was a short silence. Burnaby said, "Well, we shall have to leave
that point."

Rutherford leaned forward. "May I ask him a few questions, sir?"

The captain leaned back in his chair. "By all means."

The submarine officer turned to Chambers. "Did you notice how many
jumping wires she had?"

"That's the wire that runs from bow to stern over the conning tower,
isn't it?"

"That's right. Did she have one or two?"

The pilot stared at the ash-tray in concentration. Then he raised his
head. "I can't say, sir," he said. "I didn't notice."

The commander pushed a paper and a pencil over to him. "Draw us a
picture, showing what she looked like, broadside on."

They leaned across the table and watched him intently as he drew. When
it was finished, Rutherford pulled the sketch towards him and examined
it critically.

"The one gun forward fits with _Caranx_," he said pensively, "but so it
does with most types. Are you sure this prolongation of the conning
tower towards the stern was there?"

The pilot hesitated. "I think it was like that."

Captain Burnaby said, "Is that similar to _Caranx_, Rutherford?"

The submarine officer shook his head. "_Caranx_ goes like this." He
sketched a line upon the drawing; the modification was not very great.
He turned to Burnaby. "Unless you know submarines, they all look much
the same," he said. "This doesn't look like _Caranx_--but then, who can
say?"

Burnaby said, "I'm afraid we're rather wasting our time, Commander. A
sketch like this would only be of use if it showed something
definite--two guns instead of one, or something like that. The rest of
the evidence is overwhelming."

The man from Fort Blockhouse nodded slowly. "One more question, sir."
The captain inclined his head. "What colour was this submarine you sank?
Was she light grey or dark grey?"

The pilot said, "She looked very much like any of our submarines--about
the same colour. She wasn't very light grey, like a battleship that's
been out in the Mediterranean. She was a sort of medium grey--on top,
that is to say. She was all rusty underneath."

The commander leaned forward. "She was what? Rusty?"

"Yes, sir. When she put her nose up, just before she sank--the bottom
was black paint all streaked with rust."

Rutherford turned to the captain. "_Caranx_ was only docked six weeks
ago," he said. "She shouldn't have been rusty after six weeks."

Burnaby stared at the pilot. "Are you quite sure of that?"

"Yes, sir. She was definitely rusty underneath."

The captain turned to the commander. "Is that very unusual, Rutherford?"

"It is, rather, sir. They go rusty very quickly in the tropics, of
course. I've seen it happen in home waters when they've had electrical
defects--you get electrolytic action sometimes. But it's quite unusual
to have a hull go rusty in so short a time. They're just like ordinary
ships."

"I don't see that we can get any further with this point, Commander.
Have you any other questions?"

"I can't think of anything else, sir."

Dickens looked up. "May I raise a point?"

"Certainly, Wing Commander."

"Somebody said that _Caranx_ didn't answer any signals after two
o'clock. That's an hour and forty minutes before she was sunk."

Rutherford said, "That's right. At two o'clock she reported herself off
Departure Point."

"When did she fail to take a signal?"

The submarine officer glanced at a paper in his hand. "She was sent a
signal asking her estimated time of arrival at the Gate, at 14.13. There
was no reply to that one. The last signal received from her was sent at
14.03 reporting her position."

The air force officer said keenly, "So that you must have been worried
about her before 15.41?"

Rutherford nodded. "In a way, we were. We should have been very worried
if she had been diving. But there was no reason for her to dive on a
passage of that sort. We thought it was probably a temporary wireless
failure. We kept on sending to her till we got the signal from T. 383."

Dickens turned to the captain. "It's a point to remember, sir."

Burnaby nodded. "Certainly. I think there is no doubt that she was late
on schedule, and that she became late after passing Departure Point. It
looks to me as if she had some accident or mechanical trouble which
delayed her, and cut the current off from her wireless. Is that likely,
Rutherford?"

The submarine officer shook his head. "I don't think that quite fits.
The wireless feeds straight from the battery."

There was a tap at the door. A signalman entered, and laid a slip of
paper in front of Captain Burnaby.

"The captain of T. 383 is outside, gentlemen," he said. He turned to the
signalman. "Ask him to come in."

They all rose from the table as the new officer came into the room. He
was a burly man, in shabby uniform. He wore seaboots and a thick, dirty
white sweater that rolled heavily around his neck beneath a very old
monkey jacket stained with salt. On his sleeve the blackening gold braid
ran in the undulating rings of a Lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. In his hand
he carried a half empty seaman's kitbag with some articles in it.

Burnaby said, "Good evening, Mitcheson. Is that what you picked up?"

The man said, "That's right, sir. I brought it right along, soon as we
docked, because I thought you'd want to see it. Hope you'll forgive me
coming in like this."

He spoke in an undefinable manner as a civilian, which, in fact, he was.
Twenty-two years before, as a young man, he had commanded just such
another trawler as the one that he had now, on just such duties. In the
years between he had longed for his naval uniform. He had had ups and
downs of fortune. He had been in the motor trade in Bournemouth and in
the wool trade in Bradford; for a time he had managed a laundry in
Cheltenham. He had managed a roadhouse near London, on the Great West
Road, and he had travelled in haberdashery. None of these ventures had
been a great success, none of them utter failure. All the time he had
longed passionately for the sea. He knew that he had been better as a
junior naval officer than in any of his other jobs. As war drew nearer
he made all his preparations, pulled all his strings and got himself
back into the Volunteer Reserve. War came and he was called up. Twenty
years slipped off him like a cloak. Gieves, the Naval tailors upon
Portsmouth Hard, gave him another sort of cloak, on tick. The Admiralty
gave him _Rosy and Kate_, of Grimsby. God gave him happiness, and he
went to work.

Burnaby said, "That's all right, man. Let's see what you've got."

The burly man looked round. "Where will you have them? They're all over
oil and water still."

Beyond the carpet there was a patch of linoleum by the window. "Put it
there."

The trawler officer untied the neck of the kitbag and turned it back. He
put his arm in and drew out carefully some pieces of sodden pasteboard.
Without a word he gave them to the captain.

Soaked through with fuel oil, and wet with salt water, there was no
mistaking them. They were the cartons of two packets of twenty Players
cigarettes, more or less intact. Burnaby turned them over in his hand.

"Can you be sure these came out of the submarine?" he said.

Mitcheson said, "When I got there, there was a great deal of air coming
up from something on the bottom, and there was a lot of oil about. These
were floating in the middle of the slick, near the clothing."

He turned the kitbag upside down and tipped its contents out onto the
linoleum. A dark blue mass that was a seaman's jumper fell out with a
sodden flop, and a seaman's cap rolled over to a corner. He reached into
the bag and pulled out another cap. "That's the lot, sir."

A smell of fuel oil penetrated the room. Rutherford picked up the
jumper. "Has it got a number on it?"

The trawler officer said, "I looked for that, but I couldn't find it."

Dale said, "It's probably a new issue."

They turned over the articles. There were no numbers on them, though one
of the caps had the initials A.C.P. inked on the leather band. All were
sodden with fuel oil; they dripped little pools of it upon the floor.

Rutherford said, "I can't see how they got so soaked in oil." He glanced
at Dale. "Funny, isn't it?"

The other nodded. "Looks as if they'd been blown into a tank by the
explosions."

Burnaby said, "Anything might have caused that."

Rutherford glanced at the trawler captain. "Is this all there was? Just
these things?"

The man said, "That's all we could see. It was just on dark, you know."
He hesitated, and then said, "As soon as I saw these I put a spar buoy
down, right in the middle where the air was coming up."

The submarine officer nodded. "What's the depth?"

"Thirty-five to forty fathoms, at low springs."

Rutherford said very quietly, "Christ. We'll never get a diver down to
her." He turned to Mitcheson again. "Did you hear anything upon the
hydrophones?"

"Not a thing. We listened for a quarter of an hour before the drifter
came up to take over. We heard the sound of air blowing out of something
on the bottom. But nothing else."

"No tapping?"

"No, sir. Nothing at all."

Burnaby said, "_Redeemer_ has been warned. She's loading two air
compressors now. She'll be ready to sail at midnight, with six divers on
board."

Lieutenant Commander Dale said quietly, "There's a gale warning, sir.
Came through about an hour ago."

There was a momentary silence.

Rutherford said wearily, "I doubt if it's much good. Keep the drifter
there, in case some of them get out with the Davis apparatus. But if
there's no more sound from her, I shouldn't think it's going to be much
good to send out the _Redeemer_. You'd need a flat calm and slack water
to put down a diver to that depth."

The captain said, "I know." He bit his lip; there was the risk to the
_Redeemer_ to be thought about. Salvage vessels were at a premium with
ships being torpedoed daily round the coast; it would not do to have
_Redeemer_ anchored in the middle of the Channel, a sitting target for
all passing German submarines. If there were any prospect of salvaging
_Caranx_ the risk must be taken; he dared not send the vessel out upon
the slender hope of salvage that appeared at present.

He said, "I shall keep _Redeemer_ standing by." He turned to Dale. "Send
_Redeemer_ a signal, ordering steam at half-an-hour's notice from
midnight onwards."

"Very good, sir." The young man left the room.

The captain turned to the trawler officer. "I don't think you need stay,
Mitcheson. You can leave that stuff there."

The man said, "All right," and turned to go.

"Let me have your written report as soon as possible."

"Very good, sir."

The door closed behind him. The Captain turned to his desk, away from
the sad heap of sodden clothing on the floor beneath the window. The
smell of fuel oil filled the room, a reminder in this quiet place of the
grim facts of war. For once, Captain Burnaby was tired. He was tired of
being responsible for the safety of ships. He was worn out with his
anxieties. He was tired of being stern with men to make them careful.
All he had done could not avert disaster. First _Lochentie_, practically
right beneath his nose in spite of his patrols, and now _Caranx_. God
knew, he had tried hard enough. He had not spared himself.

The two Air Force officers and the commander from Fort Blockhouse waited
patiently for him to resume the meeting.

Mechanically the captain reached for a cigarette from the silver box
upon his desk. His sleeve brushed an Air Force cap and overturned it
There was a metallic clatter on the desk. An object rolled over onto the
blotting pad and miraculously became alight. A moulded glass rabbit
glowed suddenly upon the writing desk, staring at the captain with
illuminated crimson eyes.

Burnaby stared at it, startled from his mood. Caranx was lost, and this
rabbit was a grotesque joke. It was no time for jokes. The swift,
choleric anger rose in him; he stared round at the officers beneath the
beetling, bushy eyebrows. "Who does this thing belong to?"

Chambers said, "I'm sorry, sir. It's mine." He stepped forward and
picked it up, switching it off.

The captain said icily, "I might have guessed that, Mr. Chambers." He
strode over to the green baize table and sat down again at the head of
it, suddenly furious. The others sat down in their chairs again.

Burnaby said, "Well, gentlemen, I shan't keep you much longer. You've
heard what has been said. I shall report to the C. in C. and he, of
course, will order a Court of Enquiry to be convened."

He stared grimly at Dickens. "I don't know what your view is, Wing
Commander. In my mind there is no doubt that _Caranx_ was sunk by this
young gentleman with you, who does not seem to me to be sufficiently
responsible to carry out the duties you entrust him with. The Court of
Enquiry will settle where the blame should lie for the accident, whether
with the captain of _Caranx_ or with the pilot. And we must try to get
the Court to make some recommendations that will prevent such valuable
vessels being lost like this in the future. I think that's all. Is there
anything else before we disperse, Wing Commander?"

Dickens said slowly, "I don't think so. From what I've heard I feel that
the blame does not rest solely on Mr. Chambers for this accident. The
only other thing I have to say is what I am sure you know already--that
we in the Air Force regret the accident most deeply."

The captain said coldly, "Thank you, Wing Commander." He got to his
feet, and the others rose with him.

Chambers said hesitantly, "I'd like to say one thing. If I did make a
mistake, I'm most frightfully sorry." He paused and then said, "It's
sometimes a bit difficult, when you've got to act very quickly."

The captain nodded shortly, a grim, square-jawed figure; the iron-grey
hair and bushy eyebrows were more formidable than ever. "No doubt, Mr.
Chambers," he said curtly. "But when you act quickly, you've got to be
right."

He bowed to them as they left the room. At his side the commander from
the submarine depot gathered up his papers. The captain stood staring at
the closing door, and then relaxed. "A bad business," he said quietly.

The submarine commander said, "Yes, sir." The only thing to do was to
look upon one's mates as ciphers, figures that left no more regret than
figures on a blackboard when they were rubbed out. Deep personal
friendships were no good in time of war. They were luxuries of peace
time, like the skiing holiday in Switzerland that he ached for in these
black months of the winter.

His mind reverted to the technical aspects of the case, and his brow
wrinkled in perplexity. "I can't make out why _Caranx's_ hull should
have been rusty," he said. "I wonder if any of this new de-gaussing
stuff is doing it? I hope to goodness we're not in for trouble there."

The captain nodded. Technical matters were impersonal and easy, a relief
to talk about. "You might have a word with Simmonds in the _Vernon_
about that." He was silent for a minute, and then said, "Funny the way
those things were soaked in fuel oil."

They glanced down at the sodden heap on the linoleum. The commander
said, "I suppose in a mixture of oil and water they take up the oil in
preference to the water."

The captain said directly, "Well, I thought it was the other way about.
I thought the surface tension of the oil was greater than the water, and
that in a mixture they would take up water rather than the oil."

The commander smiled. "I'm afraid you've got me there, sir. I should
have to look up the textbooks."

Captain Burnaby turned away, a little heavily. "I must be wrong about
it--anyway, it doesn't matter." There was a little pause. Outside the
rising wind whipped round the building with a faint moan in the utter
darkness. "We can't send out _Redeemer_," he said quietly. "I don't
think it's justifiable."

The submarine officer inclined his head. "I don't think it is." Thirty
miles away, deep under the black, wintry sea, young Sandy Anderson must
be already dead. That letter to his mother was going to be the worst one
of the lot, much worse than the ones to the wives. It would be foolish
to expose _Redeemer_ to the risk of a torpedo. Burnaby was right.

He said heavily, "The only thing to do now, sir, is to see that this can
never happen again."

The captain's lips set in a thin line, the bushy eyebrows drew together
in a frown. "I'll do that," he said grimly, "if I've got to put a naval
officer in every aeroplane of the Coastal Command."




                                   4


In the car on the way back to the aerodrome, creeping at slow speed
through the utter darkness, Chambers said to the wing commander beside
him, "I know it looks bad, sir. But I'm still absolutely positive that
there was nothing on the hydrovanes."

From the blackness of the seat beside him Dickens said, "I wonder if the
paint could have got rubbed off?"

"No, sir. I saw grey paint--definitely."

"I'm afraid you'll have a job to convince the Navy of that, in face of
all the other evidence."

The boy shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. "I can only tell you what I
saw."

They drove on in silence. In the chill blackness the wing commander sat
huddled up in his coat in his corner of the saloon, thinking ruefully of
the enquiries that would follow. He would not escape censure for his
modification of the order about _Caranx_. He had done it for the best,
or so he had thought at the time, but it would be chalked up against him
in the service. This static war might last forever; peace might come and
find a surplus of wing commanders in the Royal Air Force. He might be
forced into retirement at the age of forty, all through this young fool
Chambers.

He must see the A.O.C. and get his word in first, before the Navy.

They got back to the aerodrome at nine o'clock. The wing commander said,

"The A.O.C. will want to see you in the morning, Chambers. You'd better
get to bed. I expect you're pretty tired." He hesitated for a moment.
"You won't be going out upon patrol tomorrow."

The boy said quietly, "Very good, sir."

Dickens was suddenly compunctuous. "Don't take it too much to heart," he
said gruffly. "These things do happen, but they're soon forgotten.
Especially in war time."

"Thank you, sir."

They separated outside the mess. Chambers went round to the back and in
by the back door, and went straight to his room. In the corridor and on
the stairs he passed one or two of his fellow officers; he brushed past
them quickly with averted head, and they pretended to be too busy
themselves to stop to speak with him. He bolted into his bedroom, and
shut the door.

At the same time, Wing Commander Dickens was telephoning to the Air
Commodore from his office. "I've just got back from the Dockyard, sir,"
he was saying. "I'm afraid there's no doubt about it--they got clothes
and stuff up from her. But I think she was late on her schedule, so that
the pilot was quite justified in attacking. No, sir--as a matter of
fact, I've sent him up to bed. He really isn't fit for further
questioning. I thought perhaps you'd see him in the morning, when he's
had some sleep. Very good--I'll come right along now."

In his room. Chambers drew off his coat and gasmask and sat down upon
the bed, utterly miserable. It seemed to him to be incredible that this
thing should have happened to him. Accidents like this did occur from
time to time, he knew. Anti-aircraft gunners sometimes got our own
machines confused with enemy raiders, and shot them down. Single-seated
fighters had been known to do the same. More similar still, he had heard
a story of a submarine who had wirelessed to her home port:

    ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL 1500 HOURS IF FRIENDLY AIRCRAFT WILL
    STOP BOMBING ME.

Always before he had been scornful of these incidents, and had
considered that appalling carelessness had caused them. But he had not
been careless. At least, he didn't think so.

To add to his unhappiness, he was very hungry. He had eaten nothing
since the Bovril and biscuits that he had had before starting out on the
patrol, though he had sucked a few sweets in the machine and he had
drunk a mug of beer when they were congratulating him in the mess. He
did not care to go downstairs and forage round for food; he might meet
somebody and have to talk. In the room there was nothing to eat except a
bottle of malted milk tablets, sent to him by his mother to take out
with him upon patrol. He settled down, depressed, to empty the bottle.

It was too early yet to go to bed; he would not sleep. He turned to his
wireless set, the jumble of valves and condensers on a bare baseboard
that he had put together himself from an article in a magazine. He
turned it on, and the American voice brought him comfort. The words,
"This is station WGEA, an international broadcast station owned and
operated by the General Electric Company at Schenectady, New York,"
consoled him with a sense of achievement; he himself had conjured this
statement from the ether. Presently a talk for schools on the work of
the WPA in reducing distress in South Carolina penetrated his
consciousness, and took his mind from the submarine.

After a time he sat down at the table, and pulled the galleon towards
him on its stand. It was very nearly finished now; the sails were bent,
and there was little more than touching up left to be done. As the
woman's voice told him about the difficulties of the poor whites in the
South, his hands reached out mechanically for the brushes and the little
pots of paint.

There was a red cross of St. George to be painted on the lateen sail,
perhaps with a gold border. There was the name to go on the stern
gallery--_Mona_. He plunged into another gloomy train of thought. It was
very probable that he would never again see Mona, after the _Caranx_
episode. He could not face the bar of the Royal Clarence, filled as it
always was with naval officers. He could not show himself dancing at the
Pavilion, the man who had sunk _Caranx_. It would be impossible for him
to carry on in Portsmouth. If he were not cashiered, and that was quite
a possibility, he would have to put in for a transfer. He would apply to
be posted right away from the district. He would try and get to the
Bombing Command, and see some real war in Heligoland Bight.

For the name of the galleon, it would be better to stick to _Santa
Maria_. But he grew tired before he came to paint it in. Dance music
from Schenectady lulled him to a doze; the fine lines that he was
painting on the sail began to waver. Presently he put away his paint
pots, turned into his bed, and slept heavily for the first part of the
night.

Over his head the thunder rolled that night. In Whitehall at about ten
o'clock there was a bitter row between an Admiral of the Fleet and an
Air Marshal, which ended by each in turn seeking a private audience with
the Prime Minister, which neither got. All evening a string of questions
from the Air Ministry came to Air Commodore Hughes; he sat up with
Dickens until after midnight. On one point the Air Commodore was
adamant; he would not rouse the pilot to interrogate him again that
night.

At a quarter to twelve Operations had enquired how many hours the pilot
had done on Ansons. The Air Commodore swore softly. "What on earth's
that got to do with it? Tell the bloody fools, a hundred and fifty. It's
a good round number. Do they think I'm going to get him out of bed to
ask him that?"

Dickens gave the information, and replaced the receiver. "The Navy must
be raising merry hell."

The air officer nodded. "I'm sorry now I didn't go to Admiralty House
with you, and see Burnaby myself."

In the morning, after breakfast, he sent for Chambers. He greeted him
kindly. In the last war he had himself been a sub-lieutenant in the
Royal Naval Air Service; he knew a good deal about the difficulty of
identifying ships from the air.

"Good morning, Mr. Chambers," he said. "You had a bit of bad luck
yesterday, I hear."

"Yes, sir."

The Air Commodore took in the white, strained appearance of the boy.
"Sit down, Chambers. Tell me just what happened."

The pilot told his story once again, this time to a more sympathetic
audience. At the end of it the Air Commodore said, "One of the most
important points seems to be the position--whether you were really still
in Area SM."

Chambers said, "I'm quite sure I was, sir. I'd got the wind correction
taped. I'd made a half-a-dozen good landfalls in the patrol. I'm quite
sure the position was in Area SM."

The wing commander said, "Well, the Navy buoyed the place. They'll waste
no time in checking the position; if it's not in Area SM they'll raise a
scream fast enough."

The A.O.C. nodded. "Burnaby must know by this time. We'd have had him on
the telephone before now if it was out of Area SM."

Chambers said, "Has any one spoken to Corporal Lambert, to find out what
he saw?"

Dickens said, "I have. He didn't see the hydrovanes at all. For the
conning tower, he said what you said, that it was all covered with smoke
after the first attack. He thought he saw it once, and he thought that
there was nothing on it in the way of lettering. But he won't say for
certain that he didn't see a film of smoke, mistaking it for the side of
the structure."

The A.O.C. said, "His story really doesn't take us any further."

He eyed the pilot sympathetically. "I'm afraid there can be no doubt
that it was _Caranx_," he said quietly. "The clothing alone shows that.
But in my view, the Navy are alone responsible for this. You've got
nothing to reproach yourself with. The submarine was in the wrong place
at the wrong time, and either through negligence or accident she did not
advise anybody of her change in schedule. Further, it seems very
doubtful if her identification marks were properly in order."

The wing commander raised his eyebrows. "Are you going to say that,
sir?"

"Certainly, I am. If the Navy want a row, they can have it. I'm getting
rather tired of being blamed for their mistakes." He paused, and then
said, "We still haven't heard the reason why the _Lochentie_ wasn't in
convoy."

There was a short pause. Then the pilot said, "There's one thing, sir."
He hesitated. "I think it would be better if I put in for a transfer."

The air officer looked at him kindly. "Not so far as I'm concerned,
Chambers. If the Court of Enquiry dig up any more evidence, it may be
different. But from what I've heard so far, you have no reason to
transfer."

Chambers said in a low tone, "That's terribly nice of you to say that,
sir. But I don't think it would be very comfortable for any one if I
stayed on, after this."

The wing commander nodded. The air officer said, "That may be so. If you
go, where would you like to go to?"

"I'd like to go to the Bombing Command, sir. Somewhere away from this
district--in France, or in the north of England."

The air officer absently made a note upon his blotting pad. "I'll see to
that. You'd better go on leave until the posting." He thought for a
moment. "The Court of Enquiry opens at three o'clock this afternoon, in
Fort Blockhouse. I shall come to that, with you."

"Thank you, sir."

"I expect it will go on tomorrow. I'm not putting you under any form of
arrest, because I don't see any reason for it. Stay about the place in
case you're needed, but you won't go out on patrol. As soon as the Court
is closed, you can go off on leave until your posting. I shall want to
see you again before you go."

"Thank you, sir."

The Court of Enquiry sat that afternoon in a big lecture room opening
upon the garden quadrangle of the submarine depot. In the dark winter
afternoon a light snow was falling, powdering grass and flower beds. The
Court met under the presidency of a rear admiral, with Captain Burnaby
and a captain from the depot to support him. Air Commodore Hughes
attended for the Royal Air Force, with Wing Commander Dickens, but they
were admitted for courtesy and not by privilege. This was a naval
enquiry into the loss of a naval ship.

All afternoon the Court considered evidence. The witnesses were not
admitted to the hearing, but sat in constrained silence in an anteroom.
Rutherford gave evidence of the movements of _Caranx_. Chambers was
summoned, and told his tale once more, faltering a little under the cold
scrutiny of the naval officers. He answered several questions
uncertainly and with much hesitation; the enquiry produced nothing new.
At last they released him and sent for Corporal Lambert, who faced them
with cheery nonchalance.

"Never crossed my mind but what she was a Jerry," he said breezily.
"What's more, I still believe she was." But pressed upon that subject,
he had nothing to substantiate his confidence.

The wireless operator followed him, diffident and ignorant. He had seen
little or nothing of the submarine, being occupied in winding in the
aerial and hanging on to his seat. He had never seen a submarine before
except once in the distance, and he knew nothing of identification
marks. He thought that Mr. Chambers was a very careful pilot.

Lieutenant Mitcheson, R.N.V.R., followed, and told the Court how he had
heard the sound of bombing and had seen the splashes three miles to the
north of him in the fading light. He had turned towards the scene
winding in his sweep as he went. Far away, he had seen the bow of the
submarine rear up till it was vertical and slowly disappear, but he
could not distinguish details. The aeroplane had guided him to the spot.
When he got there, there had been a mass of escaping air bubbles coming
to the surface, and there was a great deal of oil upon the water. On the
hydrophones he had heard the rush of air escaping from something on the
sea bottom, but he had heard no other sound. He had immediately dropped
a spar buoy on the spot.

He had recovered certain objects floating in the middle of the slick,
the objects that he now saw on the side table. Those objects were all
that he had seen. When he recognized the objects as the clothing of a
British seaman, he had sent a signal on his wireless. Yes, that was a
copy of the signal that he sent.

Questioned by the President, he did not know the position accurately at
that time. It was somewhere near the boundary of Areas SM and TM.

By leave of the President, Captain Burnaby interposed that the position
of the buoy had since been accurately fixed. It was in Area SM, eleven
cables from the boundary.

Air Commodore Hughes half rose from his seat, and caught the eye of the
President. "May I draw the attention of the Court to the fact that that
position is very close to the point estimated by Flying Officer
Chambers?" he said. "It confirms our own opinion, that Mr. Chambers is a
careful and reliable officer. I should like the Court to give full
weight to the accuracy of his evidence on the position when they
consider his evidence upon the marking of the hydrovanes."

The Rear Admiral nodded. "I accept that point, Air Commodore. I was
about to call for evidence upon the painting of the hydrovanes."

But Rutherford, recalled, said that he had been on board _Caranx_
sixteen days previously, at Harwich. He clearly recalled that the
paintwork was in very good order. He recollected the appearance of the
hydrovanes, and they were clearly marked. He did not think it possible
that the paintwork could have suffered very greatly in the meantime. It
would be possible to get Harwich on the telephone and confirm that no
work had been done upon the hydrovanes or on the hull that would have
obliterated the marks.

The Court then adjourned till the next morning.

Chambers drove back in silence to the aerodrome with the two senior
officers, creeping along in the darkness in the Air Force car that had
waited for them outside the Court. In the blackness of the transport
yard they separated, and the pilot went up to his room. It was only
about six o'clock.

There was nothing for him to do, nothing to read. He shrank from going
downstairs to the mess, to meet with other officers, perhaps be
questioned. He sat down at his table wearily, and drew the model of the
galleon to him. But it was practically finished, barring the name.

Then he remembered, it was that night he had a date with Mona, to dance
with her at the Pavilion. He'd have to break it; he couldn't be seen
dancing at the Pavilion--the man who had sunk _Caranx_. At that same
time, he longed to talk to her. He wanted to be with her, to tell her of
the fearful mess he'd got himself into. She might agree to meet him
somewhere else.

At that time, Mona was taking off her coat in the passage behind the
snack bar. She was looking forward to the couple of hours of dancing
that would come after her four hours of work. She had made considerable
preparations for her evening. She was wearing new shoes and new ribbed
rayon stockings. She had bought herself a little blue bottle of scent in
Fratton Road, called Bal Masqu, and she had used it with discretion.
She had spent some time upon her fingernails, and she had bought a
little bunch of violets for the front of her dress. She walked into the
bar and began to arrange her glasses, humming a little tune.

Her friend, Miriam, said, "My, aren't we all got up tonight? Going
dancing?"

She nodded, eyes sparkling, "Mm."

"Got a date?"

"Mm."

Miriam, deeply curious said, "Who is he? Is he a sailor?"

It was on the tip of Mona's tongue to say he was an officer, but she
refrained. Instead, she tossed her head, smiled brilliantly, and said,
"Just somebody I know."

Her friend said, "My," again. And then, "Where did you get them
stockings, dear? I think they're ever so chick."

The first customers began to come into the bar, and they had no more
time for gossip. Once opened, the snack bar quickly filled with officers
with their wives or with their girls or else in parties of three or
four, all gravitating for a drink and a cheap meal before the last house
of the pictures. To the girls behind the bar, each evening had a
character of its own. Saturday night was always crowded and hilarious,
Friday was usually busy. The other nights took their colour from the
events of the day, or of the war. Gloomy nights of bad news alternated
with riotous nights when there was good news to report; the night of the
_Graf Spee_ had equalled any Saturday there ever was.

This was a curious, sullen evening. The officers stood about in little
groups discussing something in low tones, not drinking very much. In the
first hour it was evident that something had happened. Mona, out in the
passage to chase the bar boy to come and wash the glasses, met Miriam
looking for a new case of Four X.

Mona said quickly, "What's the matter with them all tonight? They're
like a lot of stuffed dummies."

Miriam saw her case, and darted for the bottles. "It's a submarine been
sunk or something," she said hastily. "One of ours. Here, give me a hand
with these, there's a dear. If you take two I'll bring the other four."

They went back into the bar and served the waiting crowd. The six
bottles of Four X were for a little crowd of six officers from the
trawlers that docked each night in the dockyard. They took their glasses
and resumed their conversation in the low tones that had spread a
furtive, sullen atmosphere into the grill that night.

One of them said, "I can't see why they didn't send out divers if
they've really got the place.

"Too deep, isn't it?"

"How deep can a diver go to, anyway?"

"Three hundred feet's about the record, isn't it?"

"I thought they went deeper than that."

"The truth of it is, they don't know where she is at all."

There was a faint, general smile. "As a matter of fact, they do know
that. Maynard said that there's a drifter standing by--Kitchen's
drifter. The one with the pink funnel."

Another nodded. "They know the place all right. It's in Area SM."

One said, "That's not what Rugson said. He said it was in Area SL."

"How did Rugson know? He only docked tonight."

"Rugson couldn't have known anything about it."

"Well, he did. He closed with Porky Thomas, T. 192, in the forenoon, and
Porky said he sailed right through the place this morning just after
dawn, and there was oil still coming up."

"Was Kitchen there?"

"I don't think Porky said anything about a drifter. Rugson didn't say
so."

"It couldn't have been the place. I know because Maynard said that
Kitchen was standing by all night, in case any of them got out. I think
he's out there still."

Somebody laughed shortly, and turned away. "Not much bloody hope of any
of them getting out now."

"Where did Rugson say this place of Porky's was, then?"

"Off Departure Point somewhere. In Area SL."

Somebody said, "That couldn't have been anything to do with _Caranx_.
They know where _Caranx_ is, all right. They got clothes up from her."

"Who said that?"

"I overheard Dale saying something about it. He said Mitcheson had
brought in clothes and stuff that came up in the boil when she went
down. I think that's right Mitcheson came in yesterday, but he wasn't
due to dock till Friday."

"Where's Mitcheson now?"

"I don't know."

Somebody said, "They opened the Court of Enquiry over in Blockhouse this
afternoon."

Behind the bar, in a pause between the serving, Mona said quietly to
Miriam: "You was right about that submarine. I heard them talking.
_Caranx_ they said the name was. One of our own. Isn't it awful!"

The other girl said, "Did you hear them say one of our own chaps did
it?"

"You don't say!"

"I thought I heard them say that. One of the Air Force aeroplanes, that
bombed it by mistake."

"Not really?"

"That's what they was saying just now."

"But how could that happen? They got markings to show they're English,
haven't they?"

"I dunno. That's what one of them was saying just now."

There was a momentary silence. Then Mona said, "Did _Caranx_ commission
here, do you know?"

"I couldn't say, I'm sure. Submarines do mostly, don't they?"

"I don't know."

A fresh spate of orders came and stopped their chat.

Towards nine o'clock Chambers crept into the city through the blackout
in his little roadster with the dimmed headlights. He had finished the
galleon, had painted MONA under the stern gallery in a wave of
sentiment. He had not cared to face the ordeal of dinner in the mess,
and he was very hungry. It was with difficulty that he had nerved
himself to go into the snack bar of the Royal Clarence, but he knew no
other way to get hold of the girl. If he nipped in and out quickly he
probably would not be recognized.

He parked the car, and went into the bar, cap in hand, his heavy
grey-blue greatcoat pulled up round his ears. He thrust his way directly
to the bar, blushing a little, and confused. Mona smiled at him, and he
took comfort from it.

"Half a can," he said. She turned and brought it to him.

"Look, Mona," he said quietly. "I can't go dancing tonight." He saw the
look of disappointment on her face. "I'm frightfully sorry, but I can't
make it." He hesitated, and looked at her appealingly. "Is there
anywhere we could go and have supper, or something, instead?"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw, or thought he saw, one of the Wavy
Navy staring at him. He said, "I want to have a talk to you."

"But why can't we go dancing, then?"

He said urgently, "I don't want to do that. I'll tell you afterwards."

She said, "We could go to the Cosy Cot, if you'd rather."

He knew the roadhouse at the entrance of the town, though he had never
been there. "That's all right," he said. "Where shall I meet you?"

"You know the back entrance round behind, in Clarence Lane?"

He said, "I'll find it. What time?"

"Five past ten."

The naval officers were talking in a little group, and looking at him.
He said urgently, "I'll be there. Thanks awfully, Mona." And with that
he turned, and made his way swiftly through the crowd towards the door.

She stared after him, puzzled and disappointed. The Cosy Cot wasn't half
so much fun as the Pavilion, with the music and dancing, and the lights,
and all. At her side Miriam said mischievously, "He ain't half
nice-looking, Mona. You never said he was an officer."

The girl said, "He doesn't want to go dancing, after all. He just wants
to go somewhere and eat."

"Well, dearie, he's got to eat sometime. Perhaps he hasn't had any tea."

She said discontentedly, "He could have had something to eat here, and
then we might have gone to the Pavilion. I can't make him out."

Her friend said, "Never mind, dear. I think he looks ever so nice." A
fresh wave of orders stopped their conversation.

Chambers shot out into the street again in fear of meeting any one, into
the black, unfriendly street. He was intensely hungry. It was
three-quarters of an hour before he could meet Mona, and it was snowing
a little in the darkness. He did not dare to go back into the grill-room
for a meal, nor to any place where he might possibly meet naval
officers. He got into his car and sat uncertain for a few minutes,
wondering where to go to. Finally he drove up to the railway station,
parked the car, and went into the buffet for a stale ham sandwich and a
glass of beer.

By five minutes to ten he was standing in the deeper blackness of the
lane behind the hotel, waiting for the girl to come. He stood muffled to
the ears in his greatcoat, cold and lonely, and uncertain of the
reception that he would get from Mona. It now seemed to him to have been
a piece of great foolishness to have come here at all. He'd only get a
flea in his ear from her--another flea to join the many fleas that his
ear now contained. He should have stayed in his room, taken an aspirin,
and gone to bed.

She came to him presently, within a minute of her time. He saw her first
as a slight, dim figure in the doorway, and stepped forward.

She said, "Is that you, Jerry? It's ever so dark."

He said, "It's me all right."

"Where are we going to? The Cosy Cot?"

He said suddenly. "Mona--look, there's something you ought to know
about. I mean, you may not want to come out with me when you know, so
I'd better tell you now."

She stared up at him, dimly seen; a little flurry of snow swept about
them. "Whatever are you talking about?"

He said, "Do you know anything about submarines?"

"They was talking about one of ours that had been sunk tonight, in the
bar. _Caranx_, or some name like that."

"_Caranx_ was the name." He hesitated, and then said, "Mona--I sank it."

She said, "Oh, Jerry . . ." There was a pause; she moved impulsively a
little closer to him. "You poor thing!"

There was a momentary silence between them, as if to mark what she had
said. In that minute they both realized without words that their
relationship would never be again the casual, happy-go-lucky matter it
had been before she had said that.

She said, "Was it an accident?"

"A sort of accident." He hesitated. "I didn't want to go to the Pavilion
. . . in case people saw me. Would you rather I just took you home?"

She said, "But you want supper, don't you?"

"Oh, I'm all right."

"Have you had any supper?"

"I've just had a sandwich, while I was waiting for you."

The meals of officers were not very familiar to her. Tea did not bulk so
large in their life as it did in hers. She said a little doubtfully,
"Did you have tea?"

"Not today."

"Do you mean you've only had a sandwich since dinner? You must be
hungry."

He smiled down at her; there was infinite relief for him in her
concentration on mundane matters. "I daresay I could do something with a
steak and chips."

"I should think so. Let's go to the Cosy Cot. You wouldn't mind that,
would you? I don't think officers go there very much."

"I'd like that. Are you sure you don't mind?"

"Of course not, Jerry."

They turned and walked towards the little car. The flying snow had blown
into it a little and a thin powdering lay on the seat. It did not worry
either of them very much. The thin layer on the road made driving easier
in the blackout, and they made fair speed out to the Cosy Cot.

He drove into the car park, and stopped the little car outside the
blackened building, from which no light shone. He got out, and helped
the girl out from her side.

"Before we go in," he said huskily, "I wanted to say thank you." He took
her in his arms and kissed her; she strained up on tiptoe and kissed him
back.

"Poor old Jerry," she said softly. "Now, that's enough. Remember you're
hungry."

He released her, laughing. "I am so."

They went into the Cosy Cot. It was a long, panelled hall completely
filled with small tables, and thronged with people eating inexpensive
food and drinking beer. Most of them were in uniform, sailors and
soldiers and airmen; Chambers was the only officer to be seen. There was
a clamour of conversation and a haze of smoke; it was the
non-commissioned counterpart of the snack bar of the Royal Clarence
Hotel.

They found a table with some difficulty, and ordered a steak and chips
for Jerry and a fish and chips for Mona, with beer and cider
respectively. It came presently, poorly cooked, but Chambers fell upon
it ravenously.

The girl watched him in bewilderment as he ate. What he had told her was
that he had sunk the submarine, and it had been an accident. She did not
know exactly what he did, or what his duties were. But in her short life
she had met many men; she knew men far better than girls of a more
exalted social class. She knew and could distinguish good men from bad
men, silly men from flippant men, competent men who would get on from
the charming inefficient ones. She could have put nothing of this into
words, but she knew well enough. It was extraordinary to her that Jerry
should have made that sort of a mistake. In the terms that she had
gleaned from the movies, it didn't make sense.

Twenty minutes later they were sitting very close together over cups of
coffee, smoking cigarettes. Not far away from them a radio-gramophone
was churning out a long sequence of records that made private
conversation possible even in that crowded room--

    --_South of the Border,_
      _I rode back one day . . ._
    _There in a veil of white by candlelight_
      _She knelt to pray . . ._
    _The Mission bells told me_
      _That I musn't stay--_
      _South of the Border,_
      _Down Mexico way . . ._

She said, "Jerry, what happened?"

He turned to her. "I sunk it with bombs," he said. The strained, haggard
look that had left him for a little while came back as he spoke. "I
thought it was a German one. And later, they found out it wasn't. It was
one of ours."

"How awful! Didn't it have any marks on it to tell the difference?"

He said, "I'm quite sure it hadn't--I'm sure of that, still. But I
suppose it must have had. You see, they got clothes out of it."

"Clothes, Jerry?"

"Yes, a couple of packets of Players." And then, in a flood, the story
all came out. For the first time somebody heard the whole story,
unrestrained and unedited in the pilot's mind, told without fear or
thought of consequences. The girl listened without interrupting very
much, trying to understand the work he had to do. She was unused to
mental concentration. Other people had always done her thinking for her.
Here she felt instinctively, with all her being, was something she must
try to understand if she was to help him, and she wanted most terribly
to help him. She bent all her energies to the task of understanding.

Presently she said, "Where did it happen, Jerry? Was it by Departure
Point?"

He stared at her. "No--it was much more towards the island. What made
you think that?"

"There was some officers talking tonight. They thought it was there."

"Well, it wasn't." He hesitated. "Did they know who sunk it?"

"They knew it was an aeroplane what did it. I don't think any one knew
it was you."

He said bitterly, "They'll all know about it before very long."

There was a silence.

She said timidly, "They couldn't do anything to you for that, though,
could they? I mean, it was an accident."

He smiled a little. "I won't be able to stay on here, after this. I
don't suppose I'll be able to stay in the Air Force after the war's
over."

"Oh . . ." She said, "Will they send you away?"

He nodded. "I got it in before they did. I asked to be transferred away
from here, to some other job." He turned to her, miserable. "That's why
I wanted to see you tonight, Mona. I'm going away."

She looked up at him, bitterly disappointed. "When are you going?"

"Very soon--as soon as the Court of Enquiry is over. It'll close
tomorrow. I expect I'll be going the day after that."

"Where to?"

"I'm going to the Bombing Command. Either to France, or somewhere in the
north of England."

"You won't be round Portsmouth any more?"

He shook his head. "Not for some time. It's better to get away and make
a new start somewhere else."

She said, "I suppose it is."

He turned to her. "It's been fun going out together," he said quietly,
"and dancing. But for that, I should be glad to get away."

She said, "I've loved going out with you." Tears welled into her eyes,
but it would be absurd to cry.

He said awkwardly, "You know I told you I was making a galleon?"

She nodded.

"Would you like to have it?"

"I'd like it ever so, Jerry."

Desperately he sheered away from sentiment. "I mean, it's rather an
awkward thing to take in the car because it's so delicate, you see. And
I thought you might like to have it."

She said, "It's terribly nice of you to think."

He said, "I'll bring it to your house tomorrow."

She nodded. "I'll be home tomorrow afternoon."

For a time they sat disconsolate over the litter of their meal, not
talking very much, depressed by rather mournful dance tunes from the
radio-gramophone, all about thwarted love. Presently he paid the bill,
and took her home.

In the black street outside the furniture shop the car stopped for a few
minutes; then she got out and went indoors, and went up quickly to her
room. It was silly to be crying. He was a nice boy, terribly nice, but
she hadn't known him long. Not nearly long enough to cry about him, just
because he was in trouble, and because he was going away.

Chambers drove back to the aerodrome, tired and resentful. He had passed
the stage of being appalled at the loss of _Caranx_. He was still
positive that the submarine carried no markings, but marked or not she
had been out of position. In an impersonal way, he was sorry for the
people in her, but he was beginning to be sorrier for himself. He felt
that he had not been careless, that he had done his job as well as
anybody could. He felt that the Navy were making a scapegoat of him for
their own ends. A great deal of criticism had been given to his own
efficiency, but very little had been said of the undoubted fact that
_Caranx_ was in the wrong place.

He felt that he was being used unjustly as a pawn in a political
intrigue, that he was being disgraced and made to change his squadron
without proper cause. In normal times the change would not have worried
him at all, but leaving Mona hurt most damnably. Desperately seeking to
comfort himself, he reflected that in time he might feel that he was
well out of it. She wasn't his sort, really. He was getting dangerously
fond of her. He felt at home with her; that he could talk to her freely,
and she would understand.

To hell with everything! If he had to go, let it be quick. If the Navy
had to blacken his career, let them get it over and done with, and then
let him get away.

He drove into the yard, parked the car, and walked in the glow of the
rabbit lamp to the back door of the mess. Up in his room he turned on
his wireless to America and got a peculiar religious service in which
the Glory of God and the merits of Bergson's Baking Powder were given
equal prominence. It brought him comfort by diverting his mind to a
trail of wonder, and in time he slept.

Next day the Court of Enquiry sat in private, hearing no more witnesses.
At the end of a couple of hours their findings were committed to
typescript and sent by special messenger to the Admiralty, who in due
course approved them. The findings were:

    That H.M.S. _Caranx_ was sunk with all hands at 1541 on December
    3, 1939, by the action of an Anson aircraft under the command of
    Flying Officer R. Chambers, R.A.F.

    That the captain of the submarine was to blame for having
    departed from his time schedule without notification.

    That sufficient care had not been exercised by Flying Officer
    Chambers in identifying the submarine before attack.

    That no useful purpose would be served by attempting salvage
    operations before the conclusion of hostilities.

Captain Burnaby came out of the courtroom and walked with Rutherford
across the grassy quadrangle of the submarine depot to the commander's
office. Rutherford said heavily, "Well, that's the end of that." He must
get those letters written now, and then it would be over.

Burnaby said, "There's one more thing. The Admiral wants us to draft the
terms of the announcement for the Press Department."

The commander made a gesture of distaste. "All right, let's get that
over now."

They went into his bare little office. He took a signal pad and pencil
from the desk. "How shall we put it?"

Captain Burnaby drew his brows together in a frown. "An accidental
explosion, I should think."

"I suppose that's the thing to say." The commander turned the pad over,
and wrote rapidly upon the back of it. "Something like this?"

    The Admiralty regrets to announce that H.M.S. _Caranx_, a
    submarine of the 1933 class, has been lost with all hands due to
    an accidental explosion while at sea.

Burnaby took the pad from him and read it over for himself. "That'll
do," he said. "It's true enough. The Press Department can re-word it if
they don't like that."

He folded the sheet and put it in his pocket. Then he turned aside. "The
thing to do now," he said grimly, "is to make quite sure that this can
never happen again."

They discussed the methods of issuing time schedules for a few minutes.
At the end, the captain said, "What's this?"

The object was a large glass jar with a ground glass stopper, of the
sort that small confectioners use to keep sweets in. It stood upon the
desk. It was half full of a mixture of fuel oil and water, with a few
bits of cloth submerged and floating in the liquid.

Rutherford said, "You know we were talking about surface tension the
other night?"

"I remember. Whether cloth would take up oil or water from a mixture. Is
this an experiment?"

Rutherford took up the jar. "I thought it would be interesting to see."

"Which do they take up?"

"Water." The commander took off the stopper, put his hand in, and pulled
out a piece of cloth. He squeezed it, and a little stream of water ran
out.

Captain Burnaby stared at it for a moment. Then he said, "What does that
mean?"

"I don't know, sir. There are several points about this thing that I
don't understand."

The captain turned away. "In any case, it's all over now."

The commander thought, all except those letters.




                                   5


Market Stanton is a village on the Yorkshire wolds, ten miles from the
North Sea. In 1934 the population was about four hundred people, and
there was some talk of an aerodrome to be constructed on the undulating
farm land of the district. The population has increased of recent years,
and now stands at about two thousand five hundred, mostly airmen.

It lies seven miles from Beverley, the nearest town of any consequence.
Chambers got there in his little car in the fading light of a mid-winter
afternoon, and thought that he had never seen a place so desolate.

_Caranx_ to him now was only a dulled, shameful memory. His leave had
extended over Christmas; he had been at his home in Clifton for over
three weeks. It had not been a happy leave. He had not dared to tell his
family about _Caranx_, and he had had to submit to a certain amount of
mild hero worship in consequence. His mother had been particularly
trying. She had taken him shopping with her in the mornings, trailing
along behind her, tall and blushing, in order that she might show him
off to her friends.

She was very proud of him. "You remember Roderick?" she would say. "He
goes out flying every day to protect the convoys looking for submarines,
you know."

Usually the friend would say, "I hope he sinks them for us," or words to
that effect.

His mother would say triumphantly, "Of course he does. But you know,
they aren't allowed to say. We can't get a thing out of him."

This usually got him an admiring look.

She arranged tea-parties for him, two hours of the same purgatory. He
was fond of his mother and bore with it stoically, but he wished she
wouldn't.

No, it had not been a happy leave. He had been restless and distracted
over Mona. Their parting had been stilted and unsatisfactory.
Immediately the Court of Enquiry had risen he had been seized with a
blind urgency to get away, and there had been nothing to keep him. The
Air Commodore had seen him for a quarter of an hour, and had wished him
luck.

"I'm not entirely in agreement with the findings of that Court," he had
said. "I shall forward a note of my own with the papers for attachment
to your personal record."

Chambers had said, "Thank you, sir."

"The best thing you can do now is to get off at once and forget about
it."

He had anticipated that, and had made all his arrangements. He had
driven down to Portsmouth with the galleon balanced on the seat beside
him. In daylight the little furniture shop looked squalid and
depressing; the snow was melting on the pavement under a steady,
persistent rain. He rang the bell of the side door and her mother had
answered it, an untidy, pleasant-looking woman in a dirty apron, bulging
out of her clothes.

He felt foolish, and had said, "I'm sorry--could I speak to Mona?"

In a quick, shrewd glance she had taken in the tall figure in the
blue-grey coat, the fresh pink-and-white complexion, and she had
approved. She had said, "Half a mo', sir. I'll just give her a call."

The word sir had depressed him more than ever.

In a minute or two the girl had come to the door. He had said, "I'm
going off this afternoon, Mona. I just brought you down the galleon."

Desperately she had searched her mind for somewhere where she could see
him alone. But there was nowhere; her father was in the shop and her
mother in the kitchen. There was no parlour to the house. She had said,
"It's ever so sweet of you to give it to me, Jerry."

He had taken it from the car and put it into her arms; she cradled it
like a baby. "I can't ask you in," she had said unhappily. "There's
nowhere to go."

"I couldn't stay. I'm just going off on leave."

"Going home?"

"Yes. I live in Bristol, you know."

"Will you be coming back here after that?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so."

There had been an awkward, unhappy pause. The rain dripped steadily upon
the pavement at his feet.

He said, "If I get down to London any time, would you like to come up,
and we'd do something together?"

She hesitated. The fare would mean that she would have to draw upon her
tiny savings, but her mother might be able to help. She said, "I'd love
to do that."

He had smiled. "I'll write to you and fix up something."

So they had said good-bye, and he had driven off back to the aerodrome
in the little roadster, to collect his bags and start for Bristol. Mona
had taken the galleon up to her room and put it on the dressing-table,
where it was in the way. Later in the day her mother, wistful for a
daughter's confidence, had said a little timidly, "I did think that
officer looked ever such a nice boy, Mona."

She had turned away. "I shan't be seeing any more of him. He just came
round to say good-bye. He's going away."

She had gone out to be alone, and had walked for two hours through the
streets and down the rainswept, deserted seafront till the gathering
darkness and the rain had driven her home, to change her shoes and
stockings for her evening's work in the snack bar.

It had not been possible for Chambers to get to London before Christmas
without worrying his mother, and his posting to Market Stanton came at a
day's notice.

He found Market Stanton cold comfort. The aerodrome was deep in snow and
mud, alternately hard with frost and miserable with the thaw. The mess
was a brick building reasonably warm and comfortable; the bedrooms were
in wooden huts separated into cubicles of beaverboard, tiny and bleak
and quite unheated. Chambers suffered it for a couple of nights, then
motored seven miles in to Beverley to buy a paraffin heating stove and a
can of oil. This warmed his cubicle sufficiently to enable him to unpack
and erect his shortwave wireless set and re-establish radio
communication with America. The occupation eased the lonely ache that he
had suffered since he had left Emsworth. Presently, settling down, he
wrote to London for the kit to make a model caravel.

He did not find the work exacting. The aerodrome accommodated several
squadrons of Wellington heavy bombers, faster than the machines that he
was used to, and a good deal larger, but intrinsically much the same. He
flew one dual with a flight lieutenant for a couple of hours and learned
to land it in the swept lanes of the aerodrome; then he flew it solo for
a few hours more. Presently he was flying it confidently by night as
well as by day, and was ready to go on service as a second pilot.

Towards the end of January he flew over Germany.

The flight was curious to him, because it was almost completely
uneventful. It was just like any other night flight, lasting about eight
hours. The squadron chose a fine, frosty, starry night for the raid,
with a light northerly wind. The machines were loaded up with leaflets
printed in German for distribution over enemy territory. Each Wellington
had a different course to take. The full crew of five were on board and
full ammunition, but the bomb racks were empty and the machines were
loaded in the fuselage with the brick-like packets of the propaganda.
Past raids of that sort had shown them that it was unlikely that they
would encounter much resistance.

The pilots were amused and scornful of the job they had to do. "Hitler
doesn't give a ---- for the stuff," was the general opinion. "It's not
worth his while to waste his petrol sending up his fighters." They
expressed the view that the Fhrer welcomed the paper for sanitary
reasons.

Nevertheless, there were excitement and tension in the aeroplanes as
they took off.

They left the ground at about eleven o'clock at night, taking off singly
at intervals of about three minutes. Each of the big monoplanes taxied
to the end of the runway in practically complete darkness, guided only
by the flicker of flash lamps. Engines were run up for a last test with
the machines facing down the long swept path, the exhaust pipes
streaming long spears of blue flame in the cloudless, starry night. Then
when all was ready, the dim lights came on which showed the runway and
the machine took off; immediately it was clear of the ground the lights
were extinguished till the next machine was ready.

Chambers was in the third machine to go, serving as second pilot to a
flight lieutenant called Dixon. The flight lieutenant piloted the
monoplane for the takeoff; Chambers sat beside him in a little folding
seat in the passage that gave access to the bomb aimer's position in the
nose. Behind them were the wireless operator and the corporal gunner,
the latter sitting on the piles of propaganda leaflets. In the gun
turret at the very tail of the machine a sergeant gunner sat alone.

They came to the end of the runway and swung round as the lights were
extinguished and the second machine climbed slowly from the ground,
vanishing into the starry night, its tail-light visible as a wandering
star among the other stars. Dixon settled in his seat and slowly pushed
one throttle forward. In the shaded orange lights over the instrument
panels both pilots watched rev counter and boost gauge, the cylinder
head temperatures, and the many pressure gauges. They tested the
controllable propeller, and then closed down that engine and ran up the
other.

In the end, Chambers raised his thumb. The pilot nodded. Chambers
glanced back over his shoulder and nodded to the men behind, then
flashed the signalling lamp on the underside of the fuselage.
Immediately the lights came on, and the long runway stretched out
straight ahead of them, nearly three quarters of a mile in length.

The pilot pressed the throttles forward, and the machine began to move.
She gained speed slowly for the first few seconds; then the propellers
took hold of the air and they went trundling down the runway, heavy with
the fuel and load on board. At five hundred yards they were doing eighty
on the airspeed indicator, and the big monoplane was starting to feel
light upon the ground. The snow flew past them on each side. At ninety
the pilot eased the wheel towards him with a firm, slight pull; the
vibration from the runway ceased and they climbed very slowly from the
ground. They crossed the hedge with about ten feet to spare and flicked
the undercarriage switch; the hydraulic pumps groaned and clattered as
the wheels retracted. Then the lights behind them were extinguished, and
they went climbing up into the blue vault of the starry night.

Chambers left his seat, and went to the navigating table, stayed there
for a moment, and came back and set the course upon the compass. Each of
the machines had its own route to follow in the operations of the night,
independent of the others. Chambers set a course direct for Cuxhaven.

They went climbing up into the night. Two or three minutes after they
had crossed the coast they turned out the navigating lights and went on
out over the sea, a dim shadow moving across the firmament. Already it
was very cold in the machine. They shut up all the windows and turned on
the heating full; even so the temperature in the cabin fell below
freezing very soon. Chambers changed places with the flight lieutenant
and took over the piloting. At fifteen thousand feet they adjusted the
oxygen masks upon their faces and turned on the supply; immediately they
felt warmer. At twenty thousand feet they levelled out, stopped
climbing, and took up their normal cruising speed.

As they crossed the sea, seen dimly beneath them as a corrugated sheet,
the moon came up ahead of them. Its light shone upon the cockpit and the
wings and made them feel conspicuous; they would have preferred the
shadow of the night. Once they saw a ship on the water, heading roughly
north-east; they had no means of telling whose it was.

They saw land ahead of them at about a quarter to one, and picked up the
outline of the estuary of the Elbe at Cuxhaven. They followed the river,
checking their navigation by the ground to settle the direction of the
wind, until they came to Hamburg.

There was no doubt about the city. All round it the snow covered the
countryside; the city appeared as an untidy, speckled blotch upon a
field of white. In the bright moonlight they could see the docks and the
line of the river, and they made an effort to count the ships in sight
along the quays. The streets were faintly lighted. There were no
searchlights visible. They strained their eyes into the darkness for
enemy fighters, but in vain. Each minute they expected gunfire, but no
gunfire came.

To Chambers it was fantastic and unreal. It was incredible that that big
town below him should be full of Germans, fanatically devoted to their
Fhrer, hating England and the English with all the force of their
warped, virile souls.

Dixon leaned his head towards him, and moved the oxygen mask from his
mouth. "Not much wind," he said. "Get about five miles over to the west,
and we'll drop the stuff there."

He showed Chambers the map of the locality. The pilot nodded and swung
the bomber round, staring intently at the dim ground below. Presently he
found the wood that he was looking for and circled over it. He glanced
over his shoulder. Dixon and the corporal were shoving the brick-like
packets of leaflets down the chute. The pilot glanced over the side, but
he could see nothing of the paper cloud.

The flight lieutenant came along to him. "Berlin next stop," he said. He
set the new course on the compass for the pilot. "We'll probably run
into searchlights pretty soon. Like me to take her?"

Chambers grinned, "I'm all right. You take a spell after Berlin."

"All right."

Half an hour later, sure enough, the searchlights blazed out ahead of
them from somewhere near Spandau. Most of them were white in colour, one
or two were pale green and one or two violet. The machine flew on
steadily towards them, flying at about twenty-two thousand feet. At that
height they were very largely safe from searchlights; when the beams
caught them, as they did from time to time, the illumination of the
machine was not very great. The young men kept a keen, incessant lookout
for enemy fighters. They saw nothing. Swiftly they passed above the line
of searchlights, discovered a river and a dark, faintly glowing mass
ahead, and so came to Berlin.

They made a wide circuit of the city, tense and anxious. There were no
searchlights, no gunfire, no fighters. The main streets seemed to be
faintly illuminated by shaded street lamps, and away on the outskirts to
the east there was a pattern of light that they took to be the landing
lights laid out upon an aerodrome. They flew towards the west again,
discharged their leaflets at a spot where the wind would carry them down
into the city, and set a course for Leipzig, relieved and faintly
disappointed.

They got to Leipzig at about three o'clock in the morning; by that time
the moon was high. There they were fired upon, without searchlights.
Below them they could see the flashes of the guns, the long trails of
tracer from the shells, and the vivid bursts about their level. Dixon
was flying the machine, and climbed and dived alternately to change the
height by a few hundred feet. The others concentrated intently on the
work they had to do as the machine circled the city. None of the shells
came near. Chambers watched the flashes of the guns intently from the
forward gun position, marking the location of each battery upon a
large-scale plan of the city. They scattered their leaflets, and set a
course for Kassel.

Kassel was dark and silent; they circled it, dropped their leaflets, and
turned northwards for home. At Hanover and at Bremen there were
searchlights, and between Bremen and Wilhelmshaven there was an intense
barrage of searchlights and of gunfire. Dixon was still at the controls
and went through it in a series of dives and climbs coupled with
forty-five degree turns to port and starboard, designed to confuse the
sound locators and the gunners. One or two bursts came near them, and
the next day they found a small gash in the fabric of the rear fuselage
where a splinter had passed through, but they suffered no damage and set
a course for home over the North Sea.

It was a little after five o'clock in the morning. In spite of the
heated cabin they were all stiff with cold; with the relaxation from the
strain of being over Germany they began to feel their fatigue. Chambers
took over the controls and brought the bomber down to a more reasonable
height, about ten thousand feet; they took off their oxygen masks and
breathed naturally once again. Dixon got out the thermos flasks and
passed round mugs of coffee and a tin of boiled sweets; the drink
refreshed them.

Presently, as they flew, a faint tinge of grey came into the sky behind
them and the stars grew paler in the east.

They approached the coast of Yorkshire in a long descent, with
navigation lights alight and with their very pistol charged with a flare
cartridge showing the colour of the day. They made their landfall at the
mouth of the Humber and flew north a little up the coast before turning
inland towards Market Stanton. In the grey light of a frosty dawn they
came to the aerodrome and circled round it at a thousand feet. Dixon was
at the controls; he brought the big monoplane in low over the hedge and
put her down upon the runway.

They taxied into the hangar and cut the engines. The duty officer came
out to meet them, muffled to the ears in greatcoat and muffler. He
asked, "What was it like over there?"

Dixon said, "Bloody cold."

They handed over their notes and wrote a short report. Then they went
back to their respective messes. Chambers was cold and sleepy; about
them the camp was coming to life. He went to the breakfast table in the
mess and had a cup of coffee and a plate of very sweet porridge. Then he
went over to his bedroom, undressed and tumbled into bed, and slept till
lunch.

There followed ten days of stagnation, of routine duties and short test
flights, of reading the papers and waiting for orders. In this time
Chambers made a start upon his caravel, decarbonized his little car, and
brooded restlessly about the mess. It ended in a summons to the group
captain's office.

Two other pilots came with him; none of them knew beforehand what it was
about. They stood in a row before the C.O.'s desk, a middle-aged
officer, rather portly and going a little bald.

He said, "Good morning, gentlemen. I sent for you because I've been
asked to supply a volunteer for special duties. I don't know what the
work is, except that it's some sort of testing, to be carried out on
Wellingtons."

He paused, and smiled a little. "I want a volunteer," he said, "because
I understand that it's not quite so safe as--as flying over Germany,
shall we say. I sent for you three because you all have the basic
qualifications for the work, because you're none of you married so far
as I know. It's the sort of job that might lead to something. On the
other hand, it may go flat after a week or two."

One of the flying officers said, "Can we have some idea what sort of
work it is, sir?"

"Not much. It's out over the sea, and that's about all I know. I picked
you three because you've all had a good bit of experience over water,
and because you're all adequate pilots on the Wellington."

Chambers said, "Can you tell us what the establishment is?" It was
important for a regular officer to know that, to avoid stagnation in
promotion.

"I don't think there is any establishment. The pilot who gets this job
will be the first. He should be quite all right in that way."

One of them said, "Unless he falls in the drink."

The group captain said, "Unless he falls in the drink." He eyed them for
a minute. "I want a volunteer for this," he said, "because I understand
that it's a tricky sort of business. You'd better go away and let me
know this afternoon if any of you want it. If more than one of you are
keen to have it I shall have to choose somebody; I'll have to choose
somebody if I don't get any volunteers." He paused. "That's all for the
present."

They filed out of the office and walked over to the mess. Chambers said,
"Well, what does any one make of that?"

The other two were lukewarm. One of them said, "I put in a month ago for
posting to a fighter squadron. I was put down for fighters at the
F.T.S., and then they sent me here. I'm not so stuck on going on on
Wellingtons, myself."

The other was silent. His home was in York, and Market Stanton was near
enough to York for him to get home at week-ends and on half days of
leave, especially when the days got longer and one could motor later
before blackout. He said presently, "I'd rather go on here."

He turned to Chambers. "Do you want it?"

The young man shrugged his shoulders. "I don't care much either way. It
sounds as if it might be interesting."

"Bloody sight too interesting, if you ask me," said the first. "Fighters
are the thing to go for. Nice to fly, and you get a chance of acting on
your own. They're safe, too. Ruddy great engine in front of you to keep
the bullets off, and eight guns for you to hose him with. Safest job in
the war, these Hurricanes and Spitfires. I wish to God they'd ask for
volunteers for them."

The other said to Chambers, "Are you putting in for it?"

"I might do. Do you want it?"

The other shook his head. "I'd go if I had to, of course--if the C.O.
picked me. But I'd rather stay here." He hesitated, and then said, "I'm
getting married in the spring."

Chambers said, "Are you? Have a beer. The young people--they will do it.
Can't stop 'em. That lets you out of it, anyway."

The other said, "You want to get into a fighter squadron if you're
getting married. Safest job in the war, old boy."

Chambers sat down in a long armchair before the fire with a copy of
_Picture Post_. He did not dislike the idea of a change. The monotony of
sitting on the ground week after week waiting for orders for a raid was
irking him, as it was irking all of them. After the continuous patrol
that he had been used to on the Coastal Command the inactivity was
galling. The thought of more work was attractive, and test flying should
be interesting. He had been at Market Stanton for about six weeks, and
he did not care for the station. It was too far from a picture house for
his liking. It was twenty miles from a decent grill room. As he thought
about it his heart ached for the Portsmouth scene, where there had been
grill rooms, and pictures, and Mona, all within ten miles of the
aerodrome.

To hell with it. This place was no damn good. He'd put in for this job
and get away.

He presented himself before the Group Captain that afternoon. "I think
I'd like to put in for that job, sir," he said. "Can you tell me where
it would be?"

The C.O. said, "I don't know that myself, Chambers. I rather think it's
on the Clyde."

The boy nodded. Anything was better than Market Stanton. "I think I'd
like to have a stab at it," he said.

"All right. Are any of the others putting in for it, do you know?"

"I don't think so, sir. Neither of them seemed very keen."

"I'll give them the rest of the afternoon. If they don't show up by then
I'll put you forward for it."

"It means going pretty soon, sir, I suppose?"

"Almost immediately, I should think. We'll probably get a postagram
about it in the morning."

"I'd better start putting my things together, then."

"I should think so. I know they want somebody quite urgently."

Chambers went back to the bedroom hut and began to collect his scattered
belongings ready for packing. Before dinner he met the group captain in
the mess. "I put you in for that, Chambers," he said. "I sent off a
signal about it. We should hear by the morning."

The boy said, "I'll get ready to go, then, sir."

The C.O. said, "I'm sorry you're going, Chambers. You've done quite well
here. I was going to send you as first pilot, in charge of a machine,
next time we had a show."

"It's very nice of you to say that, sir."

"I mean it. I'm sorry you're going."

Chambers went back to his bedroom, and began to dismantle his wireless
set.

Next morning he was summoned to the C.O.'s office. The Group Captain
said, "I've got the postagram about your posting, Chambers. You're to
report to Titchfield aerodrome at once, to the Marine Experimental Unit.
Titchfield--that's somewhere down by Portsmouth."

The pilot swallowed something. "I--I've just come from there, sir."

"Have you? I thought you came from the Coastal Command."

"Yes, sir. I was at Emsworth aerodrome."

The group captain smiled. "Well, you're going back again to the same
part of the world. I hope you've enjoyed your trip to Yorkshire."

The boy stood dumbfounded. It was clear to him that the group captain
knew nothing of the reasons that had caused him to be moved from the
Portsmouth district. Now the die was cast, and he was shifted back there
again. In the stress of war the papers in his personal record had been
overlooked by Postings, if indeed his personal record had been consulted
at all before the appointment had been made.

Now was the time to make a protest, if one was to be made.

He thought of Market Stanton, and he thought of Portsmouth. It was two
months or more since _Caranx_ had been lost. There would be
embarrassment, perhaps, but he would be with a different unit on a
different aerodrome. In all probability he would meet none of the same
people. He hesitated, irresolute.

The group captain eyed him keenly. "What's the matter?"

"I didn't much want to go back to Portsmouth, sir. For a personal
reason."

The commanding officer said, "Well, it's done now, Chambers. Is your
reason very serious?"

The pilot hesitated again. If he braved it out and went back to
Portsmouth he would see Mona. He said slowly,

"I don't think so, sir."

The older officer stood up. "Well, you'd better take it, and get off to
your new job. I'm sure you'll do well in it. In war time we can't pick
and choose the postings as we used to do, you know. I'm sorry if it's
not quite what you wanted, but one has to take the rough with the
smooth."

Chambers nodded. "I know." And then he said, "What does the Marine
Experimental Unit do?"

"I haven't an idea--you'll find out when you get there. I've never heard
of it before."

"Is it a new unit, then?"

"It must be. It certainly wasn't in existence before the war."

"It sounds as if it might be interesting."

He said good-bye to his commanding officer, and went over to his bedroom
hut. His packing was very nearly finished. He strapped his bags, and
gave a tip to his batman; then he drove the little roadster round and
loaded everything he had into it. He went over to the mess and paid his
mess bill, and then to the adjutant's office to get petrol coupons for
his journey south.

He got onto the road directly after lunch.

Although his little roadster made a good deal of noise, it did not get
along the road very fast. It was getting dark when he arrived at Barnby
Moor; he stopped there for the night. Next day he went on down the Great
North Road, skirted round London in the early afternoon through Watford
and Slough, and came to Titchfield aerodrome on the edge of the
darkness. He drove straight to the adjutant's office and reported.

The adjutant said, "You're the Wellington pilot for the Marine
Experimental Unit, then?"

Chambers said, "Yes, sir. Can you tell me what it is I have to do?"

The adjutant said, "I'm not supposed to know anything that goes on over
in that hangar. But I can tell you, more or less."

He did so.[1]

That evening Mona walked to the snack bar in the grey dusk. It was the
first time in months that she had gone to work in daylight, but it had
been a fine light evening, and she was a little early. As she went she
was wondering whether to change her job. The snack bar was all right,
but since Jerry went she had been restless. Now with the prospect of
light evenings once again, specially when daylight saving came in in the
coming week, it did not seem to her a good thing to be starting work at
six o'clock.

She was restless with the spring. It might be fun to try it in a shop.
If she could get into a big shop, now, in the perfumery or the ladies'
gowns. . . . It might even be she could become a mannequin, and that led
to the films, or so she thought.

She arranged her glasses behind the bar. A few officers came in at six
o'clock and she was mildly busy; by half-past six the place was starting
to warm up. There was a lean, saturnine lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. there
that she knew as Mouldy James; she was not sure if the mouldiness was
his nature or whether it meant that he had specialized in torpedoes. As
a Portsmouth girl, born and bred, she knew it might be either.

Mouldy was with one or two others; they had a paper in their hands that
they were laughing over. At first sight she took it for a rude story in
typescript such as she knew men liked to circulate. Then she saw it was
a cutting from a newspaper. She caught the eye of Lieutenant James, who
grinned at her.

Business was slack for the moment. She said, "What's that you've got
there?"

The officer took the cutting and flipped it across the bar to her. "My
uncle in America sent it to me," he said.

She took it, wondering. "Is this a bit of an American paper?"

"That's right. He lives in Norfolk, Va."

"Just fancy." She looked at the print. "It's really just the same as our
papers, isn't it?"

"God forbid."

She smiled politely, not quite understanding what he meant. "What did
you mean by saying that your uncle lived in Norfolk, Vah?"

"Virginia. Just like you might say Portsmouth, Hants."

She said again, "Just fancy . . ." Then she read the cutting:

                          ACE WARTIME SKIPPER
                            SAW BRITISH SINK
                              NAZI U-BOAT

                 *        *        *        *        *

    Alex Jorgen, blue-eyed red-haired captain of Dutch motor ship
    _Heloise_ told _Star_ reporter of hairbreadth escape in
    England's blockade zone.

    Traversing English Channel on December 3, said Dutch captain, we
    saw a U-boat sunk by British off Departure Point. Violent
    explosion about two miles in-shore broke glasses in the
    steward's pantry, then bow and stern of U-boat appeared
    separately before vanishing forever.

    Jorgen said British were as bad as Nazis in the war on neutral
    shipping. On last voyage was forced to jettison 600 tons of
    rubber at Weymouth, British contraband control port, following
    navicert trouble.

Somebody came up to the bar, and said, "Two half cans, please."

She served him, and returned to the cutting. "I don't see what the
joke's about."

Mouldy Janies took the cutting back and put it carefully into his
notecase. "There isn't any joke, really," he said. "Only I know the
captain. I was in the Contraband Control when they brought him in. He's
the biggest liar that we ever got. He said the rubber was for
contraceptives."

She sniffed. It was the sort of joke the barmaid has to sniff at.

One of the others said, "His U-boat story is a bloody great lie anyway.
We never got one in these parts till January."

Mona opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it again. In a sickening
moment she realized that the date was the date when _Caranx_ had been
sunk, December 3rd. These officers had not appreciated that; quite
possibly they had none of them been in the district at that time. She
must keep her mouth shut, because of Jerry. He had gone out of her life
and she would never see him again, but she would not rake his trouble up
in idle talk.

She turned away and began rinsing out her glasses.

When she turned back to the bar, Mouldy James and his friends had gone
away; she saw them sitting up at the grill bar, eating. She served her
drinks listlessly, depressed. For some time now she had forgotten about
_Caranx_; the reminder of the submarine increased her restless urge to
make a change. Outside in the street there might still be a faint glow
of sunset in the blackness of the sky. It was too bad to be cooped up in
the snack bar every night.

In a slack moment, Miriam said, "You look proper down, tonight. Anything
wrong, dear?"

She said, "Everything. I'm getting to hate this work."

The other girl said, "Well, I don't know about that. It's regular. I
thought you liked it here."

"I did used to. I don't know."

She looked around the long room. In a far corner a group of three young
ladies, officers of the Women's Royal Naval Service, sat together at a
table, looking a little out of place and self-conscious. Mona said
"That's what I'd like to be. Join the Wrens."

The other girl followed her glance. "You won't get a uniform like them.
The ordinary uniform isn't half so nice as the officers'. I do think
they look ever so smart."

Mona considered this. There was good sense in what Miriam had said.
After all, it would be lovely if she got a job in the perfumery. . . .
She had a great craving for beautiful things, for silks, perfume, and
beauty creams in elegant white alabaster pots, all wrapped in
cellophane. She was sick of handing sloppy cans of beer across the bar.

Miriam was still looking at the Wrens. "You see that one in the middle?
That's Miss Hancock."

Mona looked idly across the room. "Who's she?"

"Her pa works in the Dockyard, or used to do before the war. He was
Captain of the navigating school. They lived inside the gates, just this
side of Admiralty House."

"How d'you know that?"

"My cousin Flora--she's in service with them. Before the war, I used to
go and have tea in the kitchen. But they won't let you in the Dockyard
now, not without you've got a pass."

Mona was mildly interested. "What does an officer do, like that Miss
Hancock?"

"I dunno what they do, I'm sure. She works in Admiralty House, along
with the Commander-in-Chief, so Flora says."

Mona said, "They get all the good jobs, officers' daughters and that. I
believe I'd like to try it in a shop, in the perfumery or something."

Her friend said generously, "Well, you might get in that. You make up
ever so pretty, really you do."

Mona shot a brilliant smile at her. "You do talk soft."

A very shy young pilot in the Fleet Air Arm saw it, and his heart turned
over. But his grill was ready, and in any case he would have been far
too shy to go and talk to the barmaid. Romance was stillborn.

The evening wore on, not very busily. In the intervals of serving,
Mona's thoughts drifted more and more from beer; in the bitter aroma of
the bar she savoured all the perfumes of Arabia. There were ever so many
different sorts of colours of lipstick and of powder; she did not know
them all, but she could learn. It would be lovely to get a job and go
round all the big shops demonstrating facial make-up, helping people to
look nice. A job in the perfumery would be the start, if she could land
one. She wondered what was the best way to set about it.

The bar closed at ten. At about quarter to ten she saw a tall young Air
Force officer come in through the swing doors, dressed in a long
grey-blue overcoat and forage cap, with black hair and pink cheeks
glowing with the sudden warmth of the room. She stared amazed. Jerry was
up in Yorkshire, or so she had thought. He couldn't be back here again,
but there he was.

"Are you just back on a holiday?"

He grinned at her across the room; she put a hand up to shoulder height
and waved at him. Then he hung up his coat and came to her through the
naval officers.

"Jerry!" she cried. "Whatever are you doing here?"

Behind her, Miriam watched entranced.

He said, "I came for half a can."

"But what are you doing down here?"

He looked into her eyes, laughing. "Buying half a can."

"Oh, you and your half can!" She served it to him.

He raised it to her. "All the best." He set it down again. "How've you
been?"

"I'm fine. How are you, Jerry?"

He said, "I got rid of my ringworm, but my cancer's troubling me a good
deal. I don't think I've got very long to live."

She said, "You look like it. Tell me, are you back at Emsworth?"

"I'm at Titchfield now."

"How long have you been there?"

"Three and a half hours. Nearly three and three quarters, now."

She said happily, "And you come right along . . ."

He nodded. "That's right. I couldn't miss my beer."

There was an interruption, and she left him to serve three double
whiskies and a crme de menthe for the lady. When she came back to him,
he said, "Doing anything afterwards?"

She smiled. "Nothing special."

He set down his can. "I don't want to go dancing at the Pavilion," he
said quietly. "Not just yet. And it's too late for a flick. Would you
like to go and eat something at the Cosy Cot?"

"I'd like that ever so."

"Five past ten, round by the back door?"

"That's right."

He grinned at her. "I'll be there."

He moved away, beer mug in hand; Mona went on with her work, humming a
little song about rolling down the cotton on the levee down South, which
she did not fully understand but which seemed to express what she was
feeling. Miriam came up and smiled at her.

"Got the boy-friend back again," she said. "You might have told me."

Mona said, "I didn't know he was coming. He went away to Yorkshire."

"You don't say. I thought he just went off, like."

Mona shook her head. "He got shifted away."

"What's he doing here now?"

"He got shifted back again."

"My! Going out with him?"

The girl nodded.

Miriam sighed a little. Some girls got all the luck. She herself had
been sedulously to the Pavilion, year after year, but she had never got
off with an officer like that. All she got were awkward sailors who
danced badly, smelt of beer, and never even made a dubious proposal such
as she had read of in books. Some girls had all the luck.

She said, "You be careful. He's got a naughty look about him."

Mona laughed. "You're telling _me_!"

The other sighed. "I'd leave home for him, any day," she said.

Chambers stood in the darkness of the alley, waiting. It was a fine
bright moonlit night, frosty and with a keen wind. In the shadows of the
alley the darkness was intense. He held the rabbit lamp in his hand.
When he heard Mona at the gate that led into the yard of the hotel, he
flashed the rabbit at her, and said, "Boo!"

She jumped back with a little squeal. He caught her in his arms, and
kissed her in the darkness of the alley.

She said breathlessly, "You and your rabbit! I didn't know what it was."

He held her to him, and said, "Me."

"I know that." She wriggled in his arms. "Give over now. You'll get me
all mussed up."

"That's the object of the exercise. Are you glad to see me?"

She stopped wriggling, and said quietly, "Ever so glad, Jerry."

He released her. "Let's go and get something to eat."

They walked across to the little car parked by the roadside. "You've got
the same car still," she said.

"That's right. Look out how you sit down. The bottom's coming out of
that seat."

They drove out to the Cosy Cot, sitting more closely together even than
was warranted by the cramped nature of the car. The roadhouse was only
moderately full; they got a table in a corner and ordered ham and eggs
and beer.

She said, "How long will you be here, Jerry?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't really know. Some time, I should
think."

"Is it flying out over the sea, like you did at Emsworth?"

He hesitated. "It's not much like that. It's a sort of an experimental
job."

"One of them you're not supposed to talk about?"

"That's it."

"I see." There was nothing new to her in that. When her father had been
working in the Dockyard towards the end of his career in the Navy, there
had been a period of four whole years when they had not known what work
he did when he went off each day. Those four years in his life were
still a sealed book to his wife and family.

He said, "Been dancing much?"

She smiled at him impishly. "Went to the Pavilion two or three times,
but I never got another officer."

"One's enough."

"That's right," she said. "Once bit, twice shy." They both laughed. "No,
I've not been there much."

"Still liking it in the bar?"

She shook her head. "It's all right, but I'd like to have a change. With
the summer, and the long evenings, and all."

He nodded. "What would you want to do?"

"I thought it might be nicer in a shop." She looked at him doubtfully,
wondering how he would react to that; he might regard it as a step down
in the social scale.

"What sort of shop?"

She said, "I'd like to sell perfume, ever so."

He nodded. "Not bacon or split peas?"

"Don't be silly. I don't mean a shop like that."

He said, "I was joking--sorry--tell me, why perfumes?"

"I don't know, Jerry. Only, that's what I'd like to do." He nodded with
understanding. She leaned forward to him. "Things like silks, and
evening gowns, and perfumes, and face powder. It'd be lovely to be
handling them sort of things all day." She considered for a moment. "Of
course, it's all right in the bar."

He smiled. "But you're getting restless."

"That's right."

He said, "It's the war. Nobody really settles down to any job."

Behind them the radio-gramophone was playing dance tunes, softly and
continuously.

She said quietly, "War is a fine time for men. I mean, all them chaps
that get called up. They get fun, and games, and work outside in the sun
instead of working a machine all day in the factory." She looked up into
his face. "I walked along the front today, and there was dozens of them
in the Fort, sitting about and smoking in a patch of sun, out of the
wind. They seemed so happy. I was ever so glad for them."

He smiled at her. "It may be a fine time for men, but it's a rotten time
for women."

She shook herself. "We're getting mouldy, Jerry. We'll be weeping salt
tears next."

"I know. It's all this beer we're drinking does it. We'd have been merry
as a grig if we'd been drinking gin."

She laughed. "Says you."

"We'll go and dance, next time."

She eyed him for a minute. "You wouldn't want to go to the Pavilion yet,
would you?"

"I don't know that I mind much, now." He stared across the room,
absent-minded for a minute. His new job with the Marine Experimental
Unit rather altered his diffidence about the Pavilion. The work, so far
as he had been able to assimilate it in an hour's discussion, was
definitely dangerous and of the highest value to the progress of the
war. One pilot, who was married and whose wife was having her first
baby, had asked if he might be excused from it. That was why a pilot had
been sent from Market Stanton. Chambers was pleased and proud to have
the chance of doing it; only a strong sense of discretion had prevented
him from pouring his news out to Mona. With this job he had walked
straight into the status of a test pilot, and a pretty responsible one
at that. It made a difference to dancing at the Pavilion, in his view.
It gave him back self-confidence. To hell with what the Navy chose to
think of him. He was one of the test pilots from the Marine Experimental
Unit.

Mona said gently, "Did you hear any more of that submarine thing,
Jerry?"

He shook his head. Behind them the radio-gramophone was churning out its
grievances.

    _Tonight, I mustn't think of him--_
      _Music, maestro, please--_
    _Tonight, tonight I must forget_
      _Those happy hours, but no hearts or flowers--_
    _Play that lilting melody_
      _Ragtime, Jazztime, Swing--_
    _Any old thing_
      _To help to ease the pain_
    _That solitude must bring. . . ._

He said, "It's all over now, and best forgotten. I suppose I sunk it. I
must have done it. But it was an accident, and it really wasn't my
fault. The thing was ten miles out of its position." He stared at her.
"I shall be sorry about it all my life," he said quietly. "But one must
go on. There's still work to be done."

    _He used to like waltzing--_
      _So please, don't play a waltz--_
    _He danced divinely_
      _And I loved him so_
      _But there I go . . ._

They sat together, without talking much. Mona did not pursue the subject
of the submarine; she listened absently while he told her of the flight
that he had made across Germany. There was something in her mind that
puzzled her; she could not exactly place it. Seeing Jerry and talking to
him in the Cosy Cot had brought back to her mind the details of the time
before when she had sat with him, listening to the same tunes on the
same radiogram. That was the time when he had told her about _Caranx_,
when she had sat straining to assimilate the story in order that she
could help him in his trouble. She sat there listening to him as he
talked, and the conviction grew in her that there was something
inconsistent, something wrong. She had heard of _Caranx_ again that
evening, and it was different. _Caranx_ was sunk by a number of bombs,
some large, some small; Jerry had told her all about it, and she had
strained to memorize the details. But the cutting in the newspaper had
said there was one big explosion. And what was that about the bow and
stern coming up in two separate parts? That wasn't what Jerry had told
her.

She would not worry him by raking it all up again. He had said that it
was best forgotten, and it was. American newspapers were bound to be all
wrong about the war; she had seen half a dozen movies of American
newspaper offices in which the heroine solved the mystery and married
the District Attorney. They had left her pleasantly thrilled, but with a
poor opinion of the American Press.

Jerry was right. _Caranx_ had been an accident that was best forgotten.

-----

Footnote 1:

What the adjutant said really doesn't matter a great deal. So far as I
know Chambers never spoke of it to any one, even to Mona. It was very
technical, difficult to understand, though interesting in its way. It
was purely by chance that I came to hear what he'd been doing. I found
it in a file at the Air Ministry when I was looking for something else,
and my tea got cold while I went chasing up that side alley. But the
file was marked SECRET and I had to sign for it, and so I think we'll
let it rest. It had nothing to do with _Caranx_, anyway.--N. S.




                                   6


Captain Burnaby sat in conference in his office in the Dockyard. He sat
at the head of the long green table, his massive, iron-grey eyebrows
knitted in a frown as he battled stubbornly with unfamiliar problems. A
stern pride had made him master every technicality that had come to him
in a long career. It was bad luck that electronic theory should have
crossed his path so late in life.

He turned to the civilian on his right. "If you can calibrate the
circuit in the trial runs, that's good enough," he said. "I don't see
where the difficulty arises."

The professor cleared his throat. He was a grey-haired, serious man of
fifty, dressed in a dark grey suit. He was not yet at home in the naval
atmosphere to which his work had led him. He did not understand their
processes of thought, and he was ill at ease.

"We can calibrate for any given frequency," he said. "The difficulty
lies in assessing the conditions as the aircraft nears the ship."

"But as I understand it, every ship has its own frequency."

"Yes--every ship of the same class has similar characteristics."

"And the frequency is always the same, from month to month and year to
year."

"That is so. But of course, it will be modulated by the direction of the
ship relative to the meridian."

"Oh . . ." The captain stared at the blotting pad before him in a giant
effort of concentration. It was impossible for him to admit that once
again he was out of his depth. The wing commander on his left came to
his aid.

"The course corrector deals with that, sir. The pilot sets the course of
the target ship upon the dial, you remember."

"Yes--yes," said Burnaby. "I see that." Now that his memory was
refreshed, he could recall that point.

The professor said, "But that's a relative correction, not an absolute
one. It has no bearing on our difficulty."

There was a short silence.

Burnaby turned to the civilian. "You say it's going to take three months
to do these calculations."

"At least that, I'm afraid. It means we've got to plot the influence
round several known ships, in three dimensions. From that we can
construct the diagrams for any other ship."

The naval officer cut through the difficulty with a swift question.

"Suppose we haven't got the time for that," he said. "Suppose I tell you
that this thing has got to be in service in three months from now? I
understand there's no production difficulty."

The wing commander nodded. "It could be used in three months' time," he
said. "Deliveries will be starting in a week or two."

The professor of physics looked helplessly from one to the other. "We
must find out the conditions before we can make it work at all," he
said.

The captain looked at him. "Can't we fly it over a known ship and poop
it off?" he said. "Poop off half a dozen of them, each with a different
setting?"

The wing commander said, "Surely we can bracket it like that?"

The civilian said slowly, "I don't think you can go at it in that way.
You see, you have to have a bursting charge to free the satellites. You
can't do it with a dummy."

Burnaby said, "I'm afraid I don't quite get that point."

"Well, if in fact the frequency is lower than the setting, it probably
won't work at all. If the frequency is high, then there's a danger that
the bomb will go off in the aeroplane. We can't take out the bursting
charge, you see."

The naval officer said slowly, "I see that."

There was a short silence. Burnaby sat marshalling his rather scanty
knowledge of the subject that they were discussing. Not for the first
time, he cursed these newfangled weapons. Things had been easier in the
last war. You got a bomb and stuck a simple fuse in the end of it. If
you hit it with a hammer, it went off. It was as simple as that. But
things were very different now.

He said, "I suppose if the bomb exploded in the aeroplane we'd lose both
the machine and the pilot."

The wing commander nodded. "We mustn't let that happen." He paused and
then he said, "But I don't think it need. We can go at this from the
low-frequency end, and work up gently. It should be all right that way
so long as we don't make any mistakes."

Burnaby said, "That seems all right, so long as we go carefully."

The civilian listened uneasily. For fifteen years he had worked in the
seclusion of a Cambridge laboratory upon the research that war had
switched to a new weapon. He was a practical man, and fully understood
the urgency with which the Navy drove on the development. But with that
understanding he had other understandings of his own. He knew that they
knew so little of the influences round a ship. Such things had never
been plotted or explored. He had made estimates, and if his estimates
were right the weapon would work. If not, either it wouldn't work at
all, or else it would be set off prematurely in the aeroplane.

He said, "I don't think we could possibly do that."

Burnaby stared at him. "Why not?"

"Well, think of the risk."

The wing commander said, "If we get it wrong, of course, we lose the
aeroplane. But I don't see any reason why we should go wrong."

The civilian said stubbornly, "It seems to me that we'll be taking very
great risks if we go at it that way."

Burnaby laid his arms down on the table and stared straight ahead of
him. "Let me get this quite clear in my mind," he said. "This is the
last stage of our development, isn't it? When these calibration trials
are done--however they are done--it can be used against the enemy. That
is right?"

Professor Legge said, "That's quite right."

The captain raised his head. "Mr. Winston Churchill was talking to the
Admiral about this yesterday," he said. "It's very important that this
thing should be in service in the spring. He wants three squadrons
fitted up with it."

The wing commander said, "We could do that all right."

Burnaby turned to the civilian. "In time of war one has to take certain
risks," he said. "One has to rush through experimental work in a way
that one would never do in time of peace. I grant you, we may lose the
aeroplane in these trials. But we should save three months."

Legge nodded. "Well, that's outside my sphere, of course. If you go at
it this way, we shall learn a great deal very quickly. But we may have
accidents."

The wing commander turned to Burnaby. "I agree with you, sir. I think
there's a case here for taking a bit of a chance."

The naval officer said, "Well, we'll take that as a decision then." He
swung round on the paymaster lieutenant at the desk behind. "Put that
into the minutes."

The young man nodded without speaking.

Professor Legge said, "The pilot must be very well instructed before
anything is done."

The naval captain nodded. "You must have a good, steady pilot for the
work."

The wing commander said, "The pilot came down yesterday, from Market
Stanton. I had a talk with him this morning. He seems quite all right."

"Good. Of course, you'll do whatever can be done to safeguard him, if
there should be an accident."

The wing commander made a grimace. "Not very much," he said. "But I
don't think it's so bad. There _is_ some risk in it--we all know that.
But if he was bombing ships in Heligoland Bight he'd have to take risks
of the same order. It's a different sort of risk. That's all."

Burnaby straightened up in his chair. "That's settled, then. Now for the
programme. I take it that you want to calibrate upon a battleship
first?"

The civilian nodded. "We shall have to have the biggest ship you've got,
lying across the meridian. That's the least sensitive combination. A big
ship, going east or west."

"I can't let you have a battleship before Tuesday of next week."

Legge said, "The more time I can have for computation between now and
the first trial, the safer we shall be."

They began to discuss the details of the programme.

That night Chambers picked up Mona at the back door of the Royal
Clarence Hotel when the snack bar shut, kissed her in the darkness of
the mews, and took her to the Pavilion. They went in a little furtively,
glancing suspiciously from side to side, prepared to leave at once if
they attracted any attention. Nobody took the least notice of them. They
sat for ten minutes at one of the tables, warily alert; then greatly
daring, they got up and danced.

They were very careful to avoid the floor until it was well crowded.
Presently they gained confidence as no one paid the least attention to
them. It became a game.

"You're not that important, after all," she said.

"There's nobody from Emsworth here tonight," he replied. "Or, nobody I
know."

"It wouldn't matter if there was."

"No. As a matter of fact, they've been shifting people round a good bit
in the Coastal Command; there may be nobody there now that I know. And I
don't think very many people in the Navy knew me by sight."

She said comfortably. "Anyway, nobody's paying any attention to us."

He grinned at her. "They will be soon."

She glanced at him suspiciously. This was the old Jerry come to life
again.

He said, "We'll dance the next one as an Apache dance."

"Not with me."

"It's quite easy; I'll show you the steps. It goes side step, chass
twice, reverse. Then I take your right arm and right leg and swing you
round."

"I daresay."

"It's quite easy--honestly."

"You can do it with that fat girl over there--the one that squints."

He said persuasively, "I'll buy you a strawberry ice afterwards."

"You'll buy me a strawberry ice before."

"You'll be sick if you have a strawberry ice before my Apache dance."

"I'm not going to. Go on and buy me an ice."

He called the waitress and she brought them ices. Presently he said,
"Are you doing anything on Sunday?"

She said, "Sometimes we go to church." That was quite true. Her father
and mother went each Sunday to the Cathedral, sometimes dragging an
unwilling daughter with them.

He said, "That's a pity."

"Why?"

"I thought it would be nice to take the car and go up onto the Downs,
and have a walk."

"All day?"

"That's what I had in mind. Take a few sandwiches for lunch, and have a
real walk." He grinned at her "I'm sorry you've got to go to church."

She said, "I'd have to be back by six, anyway. I'm on duty in the snack
bar then."

"Swap your day off with Miriam. She can do your church for you, too."

Mona said, "I know what it'll be. I'll go and get her to change her day,
and then you'll have to work, or something."

He shook his head. "I shan't be doing anything this week-end. After
Tuesday I shall be working every day." He was silent for a moment. Then
he said, "A walk'll do you good."

"It'll rain all day."

"No, it won't. I've arranged that."

She said, "You think of everything, you do."

At midnight the dance ended, and they went on to the Old Oak tearoom.
The Old Oak was an establishment that served teas languidly in the
afternoon, grills and ham and eggs later, and really came to life about
eleven o'clock at night. After the pictures young men and young women
went there to prolong the evening; it was unlicensed, but there was
generally a gallon or two of beer in a white enamelled jug beneath the
counter.

They sat there smoking and drinking coffee for an hour or more,
listening to the radiogram, reluctant to go home. He told her about his
radio set, and about the caravel that he was just beginning to build,
and about the place in Cornwall where they had spent summer holidays
when he had been at school. She told him about the pictures that she had
seen since he had been away, and about Millie who was in the A.T.S. at
Bordon, and about the lovely time that she had had last summer in the
holiday camp in the Isle of Wight, all on two pounds ten. And all this
was real and exciting to them; they could have gone on with it all
night.

A hundred and fifty yards away a man sat in a sitting room alone. A gas
fire hissed gently in the grate. One shaded light flooded the big table
at which the man was working, littered with sheets of paper, files, and
books. A little black calculating machine stood upon the table at one
side of him, an open attach case was on his other hand. Only the
scratching of his pen and the hissing of the stove broke the long
silence. The man was working quietly and methodically, covering sheet
after sheet with close rows of figures, pausing now and then to tot up
columns on the calculating machine. Slung casually across the back of a
chair were the general arrangement blue prints of a battleship; upon the
table were more confidential drawings.

In the stillness of the night he went on steadily, hour after hour.
Professor Legge was working against time.

The little car drew up outside the furniture shop at about a quarter to
two. In the room above the shop Mona's mother jogged her husband with
her elbow.

"Stevie," she said. "Stevie--wake up."

He stirred and rolled over. "Ugh--what's the matter now?"

"There's Mona coming in. It's ever so late."

"What time is it?"

"Nearly two. She did ought to be in before this."

They lay and listened. There was no sound from the car that had stopped
before the shop.

"Fine goings on," said her father.

Presently they heard her come in at the door, heard soft footsteps on
the oilcloth as she slipped up to her room. Then the car started
noisily, and went away.

He said, "Who is it, Ma?"

"I think it's that young officer, Stevie--the one in the Air Force."

"I thought he went away."

"I believe he's back, if you ask me. But Mona never tells me nothing."

He grunted. "She'll tell me something when I get her in the morning.
Coming in at two in the morning after being out with an officer. Fine
goings on!"

She said, "If it's the one I think, he's the one what gave her that
ship."

He was silent. He had seen the galleon when Mona had first had it; from
time to time since, when she had been out, he had crept up to her room
to look at it again. He admired it very much. As a young man in the Navy
he had once made ships himself, full-rigged ships inserted miraculously
into whiskey bottles. He had been taught the art by on old boatswain,
who himself had learned it from an older man. Now his fingers were too
stiff and clumsy for such delicate work; it was twenty years since he
had put a ship into a bottle. The galleon had stirred memories in him.
It was a bigger ship than he had ever tackled, and more complicated,
though it hadn't got to go into a bottle, of course.

He felt that Mona wanted checking. Two o'clock in the morning was no
time to come home. It made a difference, certainly, that the young man
had built a galleon. If it had been any one else, he'd have been really
angry.

He drifted into sleep, thinking of ships.

He caught her next day in the middle of the morning as she was dusting
out the shop.

He said, "Here, girl, what time did you come home last night?"

She stared at him, surprised at this attack. Then she relaxed, and
smiled. "I dunno, Dad. The milkman hadn't been."

"Well, I can tell you what the time was." He eyed her sternly. "It was
two o'clock. That's no time to come home. Your mother was proper fussed.
Where had you been to?"

She tossed her head. "Dancing at the Pavilion. After that we went to the
Old Oak. There's no harm in that."

He felt himself about to be defeated by his daughter, not for the first
time. He said, "Who was you with?"

She said curtly, "An officer."

He said, "Well, two o'clock's too late for you to come home, Mona. You
got to think of your mother, and what the neighbours say. You know the
way they talk. Make him bring you home by half eleven--anyhow by
midnight."

"That don't give much time for anything," she said discontentedly. "I
don't get off till after ten." She turned to him. "If he works all the
day and I got to work all evening, where are we, Dad?"

He hesitated. It seemed to him to be a reasonable point; she should have
time to meet a young man if she wanted to. He said, "Who is this
officer? Is he the one what gave you the ship?"

"That's right."

"I thought he went away."

"He came back again."

There was a little silence. The old man felt himself to be getting out
of his depth. In the interval when this young man had been away Mona had
been out very little, and when she had been late she had been home
before midnight.

He said weakly, "Well, two o'clock's too late."

She smiled at him. "Don't worry about me."

He was silent. He wanted to say all sorts of things to her, but could
not find the words to express himself. He wanted to tell her that it was
no good for her to get ideas into her head about an officer, especially
a regular officer as he understood the young man was. He wanted to tell
her that there were still classes in England, that there could be
nothing but pain to come to her from an association with an officer--a
real officer with a regular commission.

She realized something of all this that he was struggling to say,
perhaps. In regard to classes, her knowledge was more up to date than
his. She said gently, "You don't want to worry about Jerry. He's all
right."

"Flying officer, isn't he? With a regular commission?"

"That's right."

"Does he make many of them ships?"

"I dunno, Dad. He's making a caravel or something now."

His mind drifted from the subject, as an old man's mind is apt to do. He
asked, "Did he ever put one in a bottle?"

"I dunno. I'll ask him, if you like."

He considered for a minute. "T'ain't so difficult to make a ship the way
he done it," he said at last. "Not but what he made a good job of it.
But putting it in a bottle--that's what's difficult."

He drifted into reminiscences of ships and bottles, and the matter
lapsed.

At the aerodrome that morning Wing Commander Hewitt and Professor Legge
explained in detail to the pilot what the trials were to be. "It's quite
all right," the wing commander said, "so long as we go at it carefully.
But it's a bit tricky, as you see."

Flying Officer Chambers said, "I see what has to be done, sir. But I'm
afraid I don't understand it in the least." He turned to the professor.
"I don't see what makes the thing go off. Do you think you could explain
it to me, in very simple language?"

They retired into a vacant office, and sat down at a bare table. The
professor took a pad of paper from his case. "First," he said, "do you
know how a thermionic valve works?"

"More or less."

Legge sketched rapidly upon a sheet of paper. "Well, there's a valve.
That's the grid."

They worked on for two hours. At the end of that time Chambers was
mentally exhausted, though he had firmly in his mind the principles of
the device. He leaned back in his chair, studying the pencilled circuit
diagrams.

"I see," he said. "The milli-ammeter is what I've got to watch."

The other nodded. "You must watch it all the time," he said gravely.
"The modulator should maintain the current at about twenty-five
milliamps. If it goes higher, you must throw this switch." He laid his
pencil on the paper. "That breaks the primary circuit."

"If I don't do that, I suppose the current will go on rising till the
thing goes off."

"Yes. You must watch it very carefully, and throw your switch
immediately."

The pilot laughed. "Fun and games for everybody if I don't," he said.

The civilian was silent for a minute. He had lain wakeful in his bed for
the last two nights, in the grey dawn, tortured by a vision of what
might happen if the current in the circuit were allowed to rise. And
this young man now called it fun and games for everybody!

He said, "I've been thinking a good deal about this current rise. I had
arranged with Wing Commander Hewitt to put the switch on the instrument
panel, just by your hand."

Chambers said, "That's what the new thing on the panel is, I suppose?"

"Yes. But now, I think it would be better if we send up somebody with
you to watch the milli-ammeter, and throw the switch immediately it
starts to rise. In fact, I think I'll come myself."

The boy looked up at the professor. "I don't see that's necessary. It's
only just to throw the switch if it goes over twenty-five, isn't it?"

"Yes. But you'll have the machine to fly. This thing will want watching
very carefully."

"I'll put the machine onto the auto pilot. I shan't have anything to do
except to watch." He paused, and then he said, "How quickly will it go
up, if it's going?"

The professor turned to the litter of papers in his bag, picked out a
sheet, and made a little calculation. "For the battleship, I should
expect it to go up at the rate of ten milliamps in three seconds."

"And it goes off at forty milliamps?"

Legge nodded.

"Well, that's four and a half seconds. Time enough to get your hair
cut."

"Nevertheless, I think another man in the machine would be a help."

The pilot faced him, colouring a little. He was twenty-three years old,
but he had not yet quite got over blushing.

"I'm damn sure he'd be a bloody nuisance."

There was a momentary silence. The professor said, "Well, it's as you
like."

"There's two things that I'd like," said Chambers. "One's an armoured
seat in case that bloody bomb goes off under my backside. The other is a
beer before lunch. Let's go over to the mess."

Over the beer he spoke about the armoured seat to Wing Commander Hewitt.
"I've got very simple tastes, sir," he said. "Just a can of beer, and a
young woman to take to the pictures. My carpet slippers, and my old
armchair. But I would like the old armchair to be a steel forging, if we
could arrange it."

The wing commander nodded. "Bring it right down behind the legs, and up
behind the head."

"Something like that, sir."

"About three-eighths steel plate." The wing commander considered for a
moment. "I'll send Martin over to the Dockyard and get them going on it
right away."

For the next two days they worked on the machine. The seat was delivered
from the Dockyard in thirty-six hours; the pilot watched the men as they
installed it. It was a quiet, reflective time. He spent a few hours more
with the professor from Cambridge, and gained a clear impression of the
unseen influences around the ship that would release the weapon if all
should go well. He was interested and cheerful, looking forward to the
trials.

He said once to Hewitt, "What's the programme, sir, if this thing works
all right?"

"We're fitting up three squadrons with it. The manufacture is in
progress now."

"So all we've got to do now is to find out the adjustments, and then
we're all ready to go?"

"That's it. There'll be a bit of training to be done, of course."

The pilot was entirely satisfied. "Give Hitler a bit of a sick headache
when we start on him with this," he said with satisfaction. "Have we got
to wait till Tuesday before making a start?"

"The battleship won't be ready till Tuesday."

"We could start on a cruiser."

"The battleship is the least sensitive to start on."

The boy said, "I don't mind starting on a cruiser, if it means we could
get ahead this week."

The wing commander said, "I think we'll stick to the programme."

"All right, sir. In that case, can I take Sunday off?"

"I should think so. Get some exercise."

"I'll walk her till she drops." The wing commander laughed.

That was on Friday. He went to the snack bar that night, picked up Mona,
and took her dancing. She said, "We've got to be back earlier tonight,
Jerry. My dad was cross as anything when we got home at two o'clock."

"Did he beat you?"

"Don't talk so soft. Of course he didn't."

"I believe he did. You'd better show me the marks."

"He'd beat me all right if I showed you where the marks would be, if
there was any."

He let the vicious circle drop. "I'd just as soon get home to bed in
decent time myself, for the next few days. About Sunday."

"What about it?"

"Can you walk?"

"If I've got to."

"You've got to walk on Sunday. I've not got enough petrol to go riding
round all day."

She laughed at him. "Who said we were going out all day on Sunday,
anyway?"

"I did. I'm getting sandwiches from the mess."

"Where are we going to?"

He considered for a minute. "I think we'll take the car to South Harting
and leave it there, and then walk up onto the Downs."

"It'll rain."

"If it does, you'll get wet. That won't hurt you."

They went and danced again. He took her home when the place closed at
midnight, kissed her soundly in the car, and drove back to Titchfield.
In his bedroom he turned on the wireless and listened for a time to a
station that was dedicated to Enlightenment, and studied the handbook of
instructions for the manufacture of the caravel. Then he got into bed,
and slept at once.

Sunday was fine, a windy sunny day of late February. The little car drew
up outside the furniture shop at half-past ten, the hood down for the
first time in several months. Mona was waiting ready in her room. She
shot downstairs and out of the door into the car before there could be
any questions from her father; Chambers let in the clutch and drove away
with her.

In the shop her father and mother stood in the background among the
furniture, looking out of the window, seeing though themselves unseen.
They saw their daughter get into the car, saw the boy greet her, watched
the car move off.

Her mother said, "That's the one what gave her the ship. . . ."

The old warrant officer said, "He's a proper young officer, that one.
Not like some you see about."

She said, "I've never know Mona go so regular with any one, Stevie. I
think she's ever so serious about him."

He said, a little gloomily, "It's no use crossing her."

"But I think he looks nice."

"Oh, ay," he said. "But he's an officer. She'd never learn his ways."

"I dunno, Stevie. Mona's very quick." She turned to him. "You wouldn't
mind if she come back one day and said they wanted to be married?" She
was an incorrigible optimist.

"No," he said thoughtfully. "Not if that's what they wanted. In the old
days, if an officer married a barmaid he sent in his papers. That's what
they used to do."

She said, "Things is different now, what with the war, and everything."

He admitted that. "But if she wanted to do that, we'd see no more of
her, Ma," he said. "Officers is officers, and the lower deck's the lower
deck."

She was silent. The same thought had been lurking in the back of her
mind.

"Give them a fair crack of the whip," he said a little heavily. "Our
ways ain't officers' ways, and never will be."

The little car made its way out of the town into the country beyond.
Mona asked, "Where are we going to?"

He said, "South Harting. My doctor says I've got to get some exercise."

"You and your doctor! What are we going to do when we get there?"

"Leave the car at the pub, and walk to Cocking over the Downs."

"How far is that?"

"About seven miles. And," he said firmly, "seven miles back."

She stared at him. "I can't walk that far."

"Let's see your shoes."

She drew one up for him to see beneath the instrument panel of the
cramped little car; he peered down at it, and swerved violently to avoid
a lorry. They were broad-toed walking shoes. "I got them for the holiday
camp last year," she said.

"They're all right. You'll walk fifteen miles and like it."

"I've never walked so far before."

"You walk that far every night round the floor of the Pavilion."

"Don't be so silly. That's dancing."

"I'll borrow a mouth organ from the pub, and you can dance to Cocking,
then. But that's where you're going."

They came to South Harting presently, a village close beneath the Down,
a place of thatched cottages in one long street, a village pub with the
spacious rooms of an old coaching house, and a church that stood among
elm trees. Chambers parked the little car beside the stocks outside the
church. "This," he said, "is where we start to walk."

He was wearing uniform, as he had to. He had put on his oldest tunic and
slacks, spotted with indelible oil stains from the aeroplanes he flew,
and faded with much cleaning. He slipped his forage cap into his hip
pocket, and he was ready to walk. The girl wore a blue jumper and an old
tweed skirt.

She stared at the hill above them. "You're not going to walk up that?"

"My doctor says I've got to. It's part of the treatment."

"I think you ought to change your doctor."

They set off up the hill.

Three hours later they dropped down a muddy lane into Cocking, another
hamlet underneath the Down. They had seen a herd of deer, four
squirrels, and a woodpecker, and had attempted--unsuccessfully--to have
a ride upon a sheep. With the muddy winding of the track over the Downs
and through the woods, they had walked a good deal further than the
seven miles that he had guessed; they dropped down into Cocking tired
and footsore and hungry and thirsty and happy.

Mona asked, "Where do we go now, Jerry?"

He said, "To the pub, of course."

They found the village inn, a modest one devoted to the local farm
labour. In the private bar they ordered beer and shandy at a table
covered with linoleum, and unpacked their sandwiches, egg and sardine
and ham. He had taken pains over the provision of sandwiches, had
explained to the grey-haired sergeant of the W.A.A.F. in the mess that
his young lady was rather particular. She had said, in motherly fashion,
"All right, Mr. Chambers, I'll see to it that she gets what she likes."
It was by a narrow margin that she had not called him "dearie."

The sandwiches did not satisfy them; they topped up with a plate of
bread and cheese from the bar and a few chocolate biscuits.

Presently they began to walk again, more slowly this time, towards South
Harting by the lanes that ran beneath the Downs. They got back there by
tea time, having tarried a little while to try a pig with chocolate
biscuits.

At the Ship in South Harting they demanded tea, and were shown into a
large, upstairs sitting room that overlooked the village street. A
bright fire made it cheerful. They washed in an adjoining bathroom;
presently they sat down to their boiled eggs and tea and cake, refreshed
and pleasantly tired.

Chambers said, "I'm not going to change my doctor, not for you or
anybody else. It's been a good day, this."

The girl nodded, her mouth full. "I've liked it ever so," she said
presently. "Are your feet tired?"

"Not too bad. Are yours?"

She nodded. "I got heavy shoes on."

"Take them off for a bit."

She bent down and unlaced them, kicked them off and stretched her toes.
"That's better."

He said, "You ought to do this oftener. I'll speak to my doctor about
your feet. He'll probably say you've got to have a walk like this every
week."

"What about my church?"

"There's no church like the open vault of heaven. Ruskin or Thoreau or
Walt Whitman or somebody might have said that."

"If they're friends of yours they'd say anything. But really and truly,
I've enjoyed this ever so. I'd like to come again, next week or any
time."

He was silent for a minute. "I don't know about next week," he said. "I
shall be working pretty steadily from Tuesday onwards. When we start, we
shan't knock off for the week-end."

She said, "You and your work! I believe you just play about, out at that
aerodrome."

He grinned, and said, "Have another doughnut."

She shook her head. "I've finished."

He took one himself. "Honestly," she said, "what do you do all day?"

He eyed her for a moment. "I can tell you one thing that I did last
week."

"What's that?"

He said, "Made my will."

This was quite true. He had been to Smiths, the booksellers, and had
bought a will form in an envelope for sixpence. He had read the
instructions carefully, as carefully as if they had been for the circuit
of his wireless set or for the rigging of his caravel. Then he had sat
down and had written what he wanted to say upon the ruled lines of the
form, without erasures or alterations. He had folded it over and got a
couple of the batmen to witness his signature. Then he had sealed it in
an envelope and put it at the back of the drawer in which he kept his
collars.

Mona stared at him, uncertain whether to believe him. "No kidding?"

He munched the doughnut. "Not a bit. Show it you, if you like."

She was puzzled, uncertain of his mood. "I don't believe you made a will
at all." People didn't make wills till they were old, about to die.

He took a drink of tea. "Well, I did. I can't show it to you now,
because I haven't got it with me. But I'll tell you what's in it."

She was silent. There was something that she didn't understand.

His eyes smiled at her. He said, "Like me to tell you?"

She said quietly, "If you want to, Jerry."

He said, "I left everything to you."

In the short evening of the winter day it was already dusk. In the long
room it was getting dark; the flickering firelight was already brighter
than the windows. Outside the trees massed blackly against the deep blue
sky, which seemed to pale towards the whaleback of the Downs. It was
quiet outside in the village street. Quiet, and cold.

Mona said softly. "What did you do that for?"

He grinned at her, a little embarrassed. "It's not enough to bother
about," he said. "There's a couple of hundred pounds in War Loan, that
Aunt Mollie left me. That's all there is, really, except things like my
wireless set--and the car, of course. That's worth about thirty quid."

There was a silence. She leaned towards him, puzzled and distressed.
"But, Jerry, I don't want your money. Honest, I don't."

"I hope you're not going to get it. I shall be very much upset if you
do."

She stared at him. "But what did you want to make a will for, anyway?"

He leaned back in his chair. "Well, somebody's got to have what I've
got. In case I should get killed, or anything."

"So you thought you'd leave it all to me. . . ."

He nodded.

She got up from the table and came round to his chair. She stood by him,
looking down at him as he leaned back, balancing on the back legs of the
chair with one leg crooked beneath the table.

"Why me?" she said gently.

He began fingering the bottom edge of her jumper, and he was silent for
a moment. Then he looked up at her. "Because we've had a fine time," he
said, "ever since we met. Because you were so frightfully nice to me
after I sank _Caranx_. You know, you did a lot for me then. I wanted to
do something, if I could, to pay back what I owe you. Even if I was to
do myself a bit of no good."

Her eyes moistened. "You don't want to talk like that, Jerry."

He grinned. "All right--let's drop it. Let's talk about something else."

Her mother had quite rightly said that Mona was quick. "That's right,"
she said. "Let's talk about what happens if you live to be ninety." She
laughed down at him tremulously. "You're trying to make out you owe me
something. If you die, I get two hundred quid and your car."

He was uncertain what was coming. "And my wireless set," he said. "You
mustn't forget that. I got Chunking the other night."

"But that's all if you're dead. What do I get if you live to be ninety?"

With the hand that had been fingering her jumper he smacked her seat. "A
bloody good spanking. You can have the first instalment of it now, if
you like."

She looked down at him. "What do I get?" she repeated.

"If I told you, you'd slap my face and start out to walk home."

"It's twenty miles. I couldn't walk that far."

"You'd have to take a bus."

"There aren't any buses." There was a short pause, and then she said,
"You'd better tell me, Jerry."

He jerked forward in his chair, and got up. He took her hands in his and
stood there looking down on her, blushing pink. Her eyes were hardly
higher than the stained and drooping wings upon his chest. "All right,"
he said, "I'll tell you. If this was peace time and things were
ordinary, I should want you to marry me, Mona. But I don't want that."

She said in a small voice, "What do you want then, Jerry?"

He laughed. "Your mind runs in a groove," he said. "I don't want that
one, either. I want to go on as we are."

She was silent.

He said, "I've not got a lot of use for people who think they're going
to get bumped off next week, and so they take a running jump into a
honeymoon. If I got married I should want to have a kid or two and see
them growing up. And if I couldn't see beyond the middle of next week,
I'd just as soon lay off it altogether."

"I feel that way, too. It wouldn't be like being married if you didn't
have kids."

He grinned. "They'll want people like us when this war's over."

She looked up into his face. "There's one thing I don't understand," she
said slowly. "All this you say about you're going to be killed. What's
it all about?"

"Indigestion, I should think. I've been missing my Enos."

"Talk sensible, for once, Jerry."

"It does happen from time to time, even in the best conducted wars."

"Is this what you do at Titchfield very dangerous?"

He slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. He wanted to
make her understand, to see the matter in its true proportions.

"Look," he said. "There's a little bit of risk in every sort of flying
in war time, just as there is for ships at sea. When I was at Emsworth
three chaps from my squadron fell into the drink. A month ago I was over
Germany, down as far as Leipzig. This new job isn't any more dangerous
than any of the other things. But in a war, in any sort of job, things
do sometimes happen. That's why I made that will."

"I see."

There was a long pause. Presently she said, "I dunno if it's going to be
so easy for us to keep on the way we are now, Jerry."

He was silent. The feel of her shoulder warm beneath his hand had put
the same idea into his head.

She turned in his arms, and looked over to the window. "If we found we
couldn't, I don't want to jump into a honeymoon, the way you said. It
wouldn't do. I'd rather that it was the other way."

Gently he turned her back to him. "Is this what they call an improper
proposal in the Sunday papers?"

She giggled. "I suppose it must be."

"You mean, you'd rather that we went away together somewhere, for the
week-end or something?"

"That's right."

"I wouldn't know how to set about it."

"Nor would I. But we could learn."

They looked at each other, and laughed.

Chambers said, "I'd have to get a book about it, and read it up. I
suppose I'd have to get a wedding ring for you, and then we'd go to a
hotel and register as Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

"We'd want to have an engagement ring as well. It'd look awfully fishy
if I went with just a wedding ring."

"A very new one, too."

"That's right. Wouldn't it be awful if we got found out?"

He said, "They can't do anything to you for that. The police, I mean."

"Not even if you register with a false name? In war time?"

"I'm not so sure about that one. They might not like that very much."

"They could be terribly nasty, anyway."

He laughed down at her. "I don't think very much of your idea," he said.
"It's too risky and too complicated. It'd be a damn sight simpler to be
old-fashioned, and get married and have done with it."

She said, "I don't want to do that."

He asked gently, "Why not?"

"I dunno, Jerry. . . ." There was a pause, and then she said, "It
wouldn't do. I'd like to go on like we are. But if we found we couldn't,
then I'd rather we was Mr. and Mrs. Smith for a bit."

He said very quietly, "Every word you utter goes like an arrow to my
heart. A barbed arrow. I should say. You know, you're the Bad Girl of
the Family. The Scarlet Woman."

She smiled a little. "You do say awful things."

"Added to which," he said gently, "my pride's cut to the quick. Here I
am, Lord Jerry of Chambers Hall, Chambers, Chambershire, and you spurn
my suit."

She did not laugh. "That's it," she said softly.

He stared at her. "I believe you've got this wrong," he said. "Are you
thinking of our families?"

She said honestly, "That's right. We aren't really the same sort, Jerry,
and being married is forever. We'd want to be terribly careful, or we'd
be unhappy all our lives. Both of us."

"I am being careful. I haven't been so careful since I first went solo."

"Talk serious. I mean it."

"I know you do."

"Well then . . ."

She turned in his arms and faced him. "Look, Jerry," she said, "let's
talk sensible. You know how I feel about you. You can have anything you
want from me--honest, you can. And there's never been any one before,
either."

"I know that," he said.

"But I don't want to marry you--not for a long time, anyway." She looked
down. "It wouldn't do."

"Why not?"

She said, "I wouldn't marry you unless I could talk like the other
officers' wives, and dress like them, and play tennis and that and--and
sort of _think_ like them. I can't do any of them things. If we got
married now we'd be happy for a month, and then we'd be unhappy ever
after. That's not good enough."

He was silent for a minute. Then he said, "You're wrong. You won't be an
officer's wife, not when the war's over. I shan't be able to stay on in
the Air Force--not with the _Caranx_ business on the record. And in the
war, it doesn't matter a hoot."

She looked up into his face. "You'll stay in the Air Force," she said,
"and you'll go right up to the top. You'll be an air vice marshal before
you leave, or something of that. You will, Jerry--I know."

He grinned at her, but there was moisture in his eyes. "Fat lot you know
about it," he said. "Look, Mona. I want you to marry me, at once."

"I daresay you do," she said. "But I'm not going to."

They argued for a quarter of an hour and got no further. Presently she
said, "It's getting very dark, Jerry. If we're going to get on the road
before blackout, we'll have to go."

He took her in his arms and kissed her. "Next week," he said, "I've got
to do a little work. I'll have to get to bed early each night; I can't
be late. I'll make a date to come and take you dancing on Monday of next
week for certain. If we get a day of bad weather I'll come in during the
day, but don't count on that. Don't be worried if I don't turn up till
Monday week."

She said, "That's a long time to wait, Mr. Smith."

"Lord Jerry of Chambers Hall to you. I'll have no lse majest."

She laughed up at him. "Mr. Smith to me."




                                   7


"I don't see what he's getting so worked up about," the pilot said.
"He's only got to watch. God help him if he ever got into a real jam."

The wing commander turned, and glanced with the pilot at the civilian
pacing nervously up and down in front of the aeroplane. "He feels
responsible for this. He took it very badly when the Navy cut the time
short. Since then he's been working long hours on his distribution
curves."

The pilot said, "He looks as if he'll have a litter of them any minute."

Professor Legge had a headache. He walked up and down before the
aeroplane, anxious and fretting. From time to time he went round to the
tail and got into the cabin, inspecting the last adjustments that the
electricians were making to the apparatus, bothering them with his
evident anxiety.

He had worked hard for the last week, too hard for his health. Unaided,
he had covered in a week the research which he had estimated would take
six weeks. He had covered about half the ground that would have been
necessary to ensure safety for the enterprise. Now the trials were upon
him, and he could do no more.

In the mental fatigue and strain from which he suffered he had lost a
great deal of his sense of proportion. He had slept, in the last week,
for a total of about thirty hours. He had been compelled to go to
Cambridge to collect certain data, and he had visited the aerodrome
three or four times. For the whole of the rest of the week he had sat in
the sitting room of his Southsea flat, plodding through endless
computations with slide rule, graphs, and the little black comptometer.
His wife had helped him very much. She had brought him tea and biscuits
at intervals of two hours all through the night, had given him aspirins
to help him sleep, had slept little more than he had in the week. This
she had done without any understanding of the work, because for reasons
of secrecy he had told her nothing. All he had said was that he was
terribly afraid that they might have an accident, because the Navy were
in such a hurry. For Mrs. Legge that had been sufficient.

Now on the morning of the trial, fretting and apprehensive as he waited
for the adjustments to be finished, he blamed himself most bitterly that
he had not worked harder, had not got through more in the time. Passing
through London on his return from Cambridge he had slept a night at his
club. He had got to London no later than half-past eight at night,
having travelled and worked since dawn. There had been a train down to
Portsmouth at nine-forty-seven, which would have got him to his flat in
Southsea before midnight.

He might have got in three or four hours' more work before going to bed
that night. Instead, he had given up and slept at his club, travelling
down next day. Those hours now were lost forever. They might have made a
difference. There might be some new factor only a few hours ahead of
him, some presage of disaster.

He tortured himself with the thought that he could have worked harder,
got through more, if he had not been lazy. His laziness might mean the
death of this young man.

Wing Commander Hewitt came up to him. "Pretty well finished now, I
think. Professor. The car's waiting. It's about time we went down to the
pier." They were to watch the trial from a trawler.

The civilian hesitated, irresolute. "Just one moment," he said. He
walked quickly round the machine and went into the fuselage again. The
wing commander waited patiently till he reappeared.

"All right?"

"I think so. Just let me have another word with the pilot."

They crossed the grass to where Chambers was chatting to the flight
lieutenant. "You _will_ remember to keep looking at the milli-ammeter
the whole of the time?" Legge said. There was a note of entreaty in his
voice. "That really is very important indeed."

Behind him the wing commander winked at the pilot merrily. With a grave
face Chambers said, "I understand that, sir. It's all right up to forty
milliamps. If it goes over that I throw the switch."

Legge said, "That's it. It will be quite all right if you do that. Mind,
it ought not to go over twenty-five." He hesitated, and then he said, "I
wouldn't let it go quite to forty. Say thirty-eight."

"Very good, sir. I'll cut the switch at thirty-eight."

The professor sighed. "That's better, perhaps. You are quite happy now
about what you've got to do?"

"Quite all right, sir. I understand everything perfectly."

The wing commander said gently, "I think we'll have to get along now,
Professor."

"All right." Legge turned to the pilot again, and smiled with attempted
cheeriness. "All the best."

The pilot grinned. "We'll go out on a blind tonight if this thing works
all right, sir."

He watched the wing commander and the civilian as they walked over to
the car. He turned to the flight lieutenant by his side. "And we'll go
to the bloody mortuary if it doesn't. What about a beer before lunch?"

In the trawler a small party of naval officers were already waiting.
Captain Burnaby was there, and greeted them affably.

"Good morning, Wing Commander. Good morning, Professor Legge. I hope
we're going to see a good trial today."

The civilian licked his dry lips. It was incredible that these officers
did not seem to realize the risk of absolute disaster staring them in
the face. He said, "I hope so, too."

Burnaby turned to the air force officer. "Everything all right, Hewitt?"

"Quite all right, sir. The machine is ready to take off now."

"Very good." He turned to the R.N.V.R. officer in the little wheelhouse.
"You can cast off, Captain."

The trawler slid away from the quayside and headed for the Solent. Half
an hour later they were passing through the Gate; in the open sea
outside the island the trawler began rolling. It was a grey, cold day
with clouds down to about fifteen hundred feet. As soon as the vessel
left the quay the naval officers all bolted down below, and crowded into
the little cuddy, filling it with their gossip and tobacco smoke. Legge
followed them, but the motion of the vessel, the smoke, and the tension
of his anxiety combined to drive him up on deck again into the cold salt
air. He stood in a sheltered corner watching the flung spray drive past
him from the bows, cold and miserable, and feeling rather sick.
Presently the R.N.V.R. officer invited him into the wheelhouse; he sat
down on a bench inside the door behind the helmsman, and went on
torturing himself with mental calculations of the influences round the
battleship.

An hour later the trial took place.

The trawler lay rolling head to sea; every one was now on deck. Most of
the officers held field glasses in their gloved hands; Legge had no
glasses, but the captain of the trawler lent him his own. Half a mile
away the battleship lay, practically stopped, rolling very slightly in
the trough of the sea. Above her, circling around, was the twin-engined
monoplane.

Captain Burnaby said, "All right. Give him the light."

A signalman began flashing at the aeroplane with an Aldis lamp. In
answer, a red flare detached itself from the machine and floated slowly
down against a cold grey sky. Hewitt said, "He's ready now."

The aeroplane withdrew a couple of miles to the south, then turned and
flew straight for the battleship. Legge watched, tense and apprehensive.
The naval officers watched with interest, tempered with unbelief.

The machine came on . . . and on . . . and on. Nothing happened. Sick
with anxiety, Legge watched it fly over the ship, turn slowly, and fly
back towards the south.

There was a general relaxation, and a few faint smiles. Somebody said
aloud, "The bloody thing won't work."

The minutes crawled by. The machine returned, flying a little lower.
Again it passed over the ship, and nothing happened. Again it turned
towards the south.

Captain Burnaby turned to Legge. "What do you think can have happened,
Professor?" he said. There was a grim set to his face; he did not like
to be trifled with.

"I've no idea." The suspense was unbearable.

Hewitt said, "The pilot's probably just being very careful."

Again the monoplane approached the ship. But this time, that happened
which was meant to happen.

The machine roared down upon the trawler in a power dive, pulled out
twenty feet above her masthead, and went rocketing up from her in
exultation. On her decks the tension was snapped; every one was talking
at once. Burnaby said, "I do congratulate you, most heartily, Professor.
And you too, Hewitt. It went splendidly."

The civilian said weakly, "Thank you, sir." Above everything, he wanted
to go somewhere and sit quietly, and rest. He was desperately tired, too
tired to be pleased with the success.

The naval officers stood round in little groups, discussing in low
tones. What they had seen disturbed them very much. Ships were their
homes, their livelihood, their very lives. It hurt them and distressed
them to see a ship treated in the way that that one had been treated.

Somebody said ruefully, "There wouldn't have been much left of her if
that stuff had been loaded."

Another said, with doubtful optimism, "I should think the multiple
pom-poms would have got the machine. . . ."

The discussions ranged in low, uncertain tones, all the way back to
harbour.

The trawler made fast to the quay at about four o'clock. Burnaby said to
Hewitt, "I'll come up with you to the aerodrome, if I may. I should like
to see the installation in the aeroplane."

"By all means. We're going back there in the car."

They drove up to the aerodrome. Hewitt and Burnaby went straight into
the hangar to the machine; Legge turned aside, and went to the pilots'
office to find Chambers.

The pilot was reading a novel at the bare wooden table. He got up as the
professor came in.

The civilian said, "That was a great success, Chambers. Everyone was
very pleased."

The pilot blushed a little. "I'm glad of that, sir. It seemed to go all
right."

"It went very well indeed. What was the matter on the first two runs?"

Chambers said, "On the first one, the milli-ammeter went right up, sir.
It went to somewhere between thirty-two and thirty-six. It was jumping
about a bit, so I switched off."

A cold hand clutched again at the professor's heart. There was no ending
to the tension of this job.

"What happened on the second run?" he said quietly.

"On the second run it didn't work at all. The milli-ammeter stuck round
about eighteen. It never got over twenty, and nothing happened."

This was terrible. Legge's half-formed theories of the distribution
round the ship went crumbling into dust. They were just blundering in
the unknown.

"And the third time?"

"The third time, it went perfectly, sir. The milli-ammeter got up to
twenty-five quite a long time before, and stayed there steadily. I
didn't feel it go at all. I just saw the ammeter go back to zero."

The Cambridge man said absently, "It all went very well. The Navy
thought it was wonderful. In fact, I don't think they liked it much."

The pilot laughed. "I don't suppose they did. Hitler could give them a
sick headache, if he had it."

"Yes. As soon as we've got this to work, we'll have to concentrate on
the defence against it."

"How can you do that?"

"Increase the influence from the ship, or oscillate it rapidly."

The pilot thought for a minute. "That would mean my milli-ammeter would
go all haywire?"

The professor nodded. "The explosion would take place in the aeroplane."

The pilot laughed. "Bloody good fun. You can get another pilot when you
start on those experiments."

The civilian smiled faintly. "I shall want a lot more time for pure
research before we can begin on that."

Outside in the hangar, Wing Commander Hewitt crawled out of the fuselage
onto the stained, greasy floor. Captain Burnaby followed him, and
adjusted the brass-peaked hat upon his head. "I do congratulate you
again," he said. "It's very neat, and certainly it seems to work."

The air force officer nodded. "Would you like a word with the pilot,
sir? I haven't heard his story yet."

"Yes, I'd like to see the pilot."

The wing commander sent an airman to the pilot's office. Legge came with
Chambers out into the hangar. They walked round the tail of the machine,
and came face to face with Burnaby and Hewitt.

The wing commander said casually, "This is Flying Officer Chambers, the
pilot, sir. Captain Burnaby."

There was a terrible pause. The pilot slowly became crimson, blushing to
the roots of his hair, embarrassed and furious with himself for
blushing. The naval officer stood staring at him, foursquare, the grim
eyebrows knitted in a frown, the square jaw set firm. He did not offer
to shake hands.

He said at last, "Good evening, Mr. Chambers. Do you feel satisfied with
the trial today?"

The pilot said in a low tone, "Yes, sir." He cleared his throat. "I
think it went all right."

The grey eyes bored into him. "And do you feel competent to carry on,
and complete the series of trials?"

The pilot said huskily, "Yes, sir."

The captain swung round on his heel. "I'd like to have a word with you
alone, Wing Commander," he said. They walked together out onto the
tarmac.

Professor Legge turned to the pilot. "That was very queer of him," he
said.

"He's a queer fellow."

"You knew him before?"

The boy nodded. "I suppose he's telling Hewitt all about it now," he
said. There was a note of resignation in his voice. "I sank one of his
bloody submarines last December."

The civilian stared at him. "You sank a submarine--a British one?"

The pilot nodded curtly. "It was miles out of position. I took it for a
German."

"Oh . . ." The professor said no more. He felt himself in the presence
of a service quarrel that was far above his head, and which he could do
nothing to resolve. What the pilot had told him, so curtly and so
shortly, was entirely shocking, and must obviously have created the
bitterest feelings in the Navy. It was difficult to suppose that Burnaby
would consent to the trials proceeding in the hands of Flying Officer
Chambers. And with that thought there came to the professor the swift
corollary, that he would get more time. The trials could not proceed if
the pilot were to be changed; they would be held up for a few days, and
in that few days he could press forward with his calculations. It might
still be possible to mitigate the frightful risks that they were taking.

On the tarmac the two officers paced side by side in silence for a few
minutes. At last Hewitt said, "I didn't know a thing about this, Captain
Burnaby. If I had, I'd never have accepted him for this work. I can't
think what Postings were about."

The naval officer preserved a grim silence. He would not say what he was
thinking of the organization of the Royal Air Force.

The wing commander went on, "At the same time, there he is and we must
make the best of him."

Captain Burnaby stopped dead. "I hope you don't propose that these
trials should continue in his hands? In our view he's completely
irresponsible."

The wing commander turned and faced him. "I'll tell you what our view of
that is tomorrow morning, sir," he said coolly. "In the meantime I'll
get onto the Coastal Command right away and find out all about him.
Probably I'll go over tonight and see them at Emsworth."

"The trial tomorrow must be cancelled."

The air force officer said, "Not by us. We shall cancel it if we find
our pilot is unfit to do the work. If not, we shall be ready to proceed
tomorrow morning in accordance with the pro forma."

There was an angry pause. At last the captain said, "Do you consider him
to be a fit pilot, then?"

The wing commander said directly, "I've not made up my mind, and I must
see my A.O.C. If you had asked me that an hour ago, I should have said
that I thought him a very suitable pilot for the job." He paused, and
then he said, "His conduct of the trials to date has been both serious
and competent."

The captain gave him a long, reflective look. "I can't deny that," he
said at last. "At the same time, the trials have only just begun. We
very much object to going on with him."

Hewitt nodded slowly. "I see that. Will you leave it with me for this
evening, Captain? I must find out his record, and I must see his late
C.O.; after that we'll make up our minds. We'll run no risks by using a
bad pilot for sentiment. But to change him will set back these trials a
week, and I'm not going to do that because you don't like his face."

"No," said Burnaby. "But in our view he's not responsible."

"I understand that, sir. Tell me, where can I get hold of you tonight?"

"I live at Shedfield." The wing commander took down the telephone
number.

"Very good, sir. I'll get in touch with you on the telephone after I've
been to Emsworth."

He saw the naval officer to the grey-blue car with the airman chauffeur,
watched him drive away. He turned back towards his office, but Legge was
at his elbow.

The professor said, "Could you spare me a few moments?"

"Of course." They went into the office together.

The civilian said, "I've been talking to Chambers." He told the wing
commander of the vagaries shown on the milli-ammeter. "That means the
distribution round the ship is very far from what I had assumed. I'm
afraid it means we simply don't know what we're doing."

"But the thing worked all right, Professor."

"I know it did--at the third shot." There was strain in the civilian's
voice. "But don't you see--if he hadn't switched off on the first run it
would have gone off in the aeroplane."

The wing commander nodded. "I see that. But after all, that's what we
put the switch there for."

Legge picked up a pencil from the desk and rolled it absently between
his fingers. "I've got to tell you that I think this programme is
extremely dangerous. We simply don't know what's happening."

Hewitt said, "We're finding out very quickly."

The other could not deny that. "Going at it in this way, we learn a
great deal in a short time. But the risk is enormous."

There was a short silence in the office. At last Hewitt said, "If we
stopped the trials completely for a week--how would that suit you?"

"It's what I should like best. A fortnight would be better."

The wing commander smiled. "I couldn't give you more than a week, and
then only if the pilot had to be changed. The Navy don't like Chambers."

"I know. He told me about that."

"What do you think of Chambers, Professor?"

"I think he's a very good lad. Too good to be treated as we're treating
him in this programme."

The wing commander sighed. "I can't do anything about the programme," he
said heavily. "We made our decision at the last meeting that we'd do it
this way, and nothing's happened since to alter that decision. But if we
have to change the pilot, that does give us breathing space."

Legge left the office. Hewitt sat down at his desk, rang for the clerk,
and signed the papers in a couple of files. Then he put on his hat and
coat, and walked back to the hangar in the fading light. On the road he
met Chambers, going towards the mess.

He stopped. "I want a word with you, Chambers. Come back to my office."

In the office, he said, "Captain Burnaby told me about the spot of
bother you had in the winter."

The pilot was angry and defensive. "Yes, sir."

The wing commander said, "I hadn't heard of it before, and I'm very
sorry it's arisen now."

"Yes, I got posted away to Yorkshire. Then they posted me back here." He
hesitated. "Does Captain Burnaby want another pilot?"

Hewitt said, "This is an Air Force station, not a bit of the Navy. We
work in with the Navy and, in general, we do what they want, but only if
it's reasonable. I want to go to Emsworth tonight, to see Air Commodore
Hughes."

"He'll give me a good chit, sir. There was a lot of doubt about that
submarine. I still think it was a German."

"The Court of Enquiry didn't, Chambers."

The pilot said bitterly, "It was a Naval Court, sir."

There was a short silence.

The wing commander said at last, "What on earth possessed you to come
back here from Yorkshire?"

The boy faced him. "The usual thing," he said. "There was a girl down
here, sir, who'd been decent to me, that I wanted to see again. And
that's the truth of it."

The wing commander sighed. There was no answering that one.

Captain Burnaby drove back to the Dockyard in the Air Force car,
dismissed it, and walked up to his office, that old-fashioned, Georgian
building attached to Admiralty House, with ships in repair in docks all
round about it. He was angry with the Royal Air Force. He knew that it
had been the merest chance that had made Chambers into the test pilot
for these trials, but it seemed to him to be one of those chances that
should not happen in a well-regulated service. To him it was the
inefficiency of the Royal Air Force once again, an inefficiency that
existed largely in his own imagination. In his opinion nothing that the
Air Force did was right; the Coastal Command never would become
efficient until it became a subdepartment of the Admiralty. The daily
rubs that must occur in the liaison between two fighting services
irritated and inflamed his views; he was inclined to suspect antagonism
to the Navy where none existed. He was accustomed to work long hours,
never sparing himself; the strain of war was telling on him, making him
difficult.

He worked for a couple of hours, then left his office and walked down to
the Unicorn Gate, where his car was parked. In the blackout he drove
slowly through the town and out into the country, a heavy pouch of
official papers at his side. Forty minutes later he turned into his
little country house, put the car into a small wooden garage, and went
indoors.

He lived in a modest style, as he had done all his life. He had married
twenty years before, just after the last war; for most of that twenty
years he had lived in furnished rooms and scantily furnished flats. It
was not until he had achieved the brass hat of a Commander that he had
been able to afford a regular maid to live in the house. He had two
children, a boy of seventeen and a girl of fifteen, both at boarding
schools; their school fees made a heavy drain on his income. When he had
been promoted to captain he had moved to the little country house at
Shedfield without quite realizing how much it would cost him; in
consequence he had not yet escaped from the gnawing of anxieties about
money. He did not regret the move; it was proper that a captain should
live in the country, and his wife's delight in the garden was a pleasure
to him. But the wages of the second maid, and of the part-time gardener,
were a burden and a difficulty to him and did not help his attitude
towards the Royal Air Force.

Enid, his wife, came out to meet him in the hall. "Had a good day?" she
asked.

He slung his gasmask down into a chair, and laid the pouch beside it.
"No," he said. "The trials went all right. But you remember that young
Air Force cub, who sank _Caranx_?"

"Yes?"

"Well, he's back again. The Air Force have made him pilot for these
trials."

"Oh, Fred, I _am_ sorry. Whatever made them do a thing like that?"

He turned away. "I never know what makes them do these things. I told
them that they'd got to shift him out of it."

He turned away to go and wash. She said, "Come down and have a drink.
Dinner's nearly ready."

"In a minute."

They sat down together to dinner, served by a maid with fat red hands,
who breathed heavily as she handed the vegetables. He told his wife a
little of the successful trial that they had had, enough to please her
without violating the Official Secrets Act. She told him about the
garden, about the crocuses that were beginning to appear and about the
snowdrops. He saw very little of his garden in the winter months,
because he left the house soon after eight and did not return till after
dark. It pleased him to hear her talk about it.

They went into the drawing room after dinner and sat down before the
fire, with coffee. They listened to the nine o'clock news on the
wireless, and turned it off again. Enid got out her knitting; presently
she said. "I don't know how I shall get through this month, Fred. Do you
think you could let me have another five pounds?"

He raised his eyes from the buff paper he was reading. "Where's it all
gone to?"

She said, "There seem to have been a lot of things this month."

They had been married twenty years. He knew when she was trying to
conceal a small expenditure.

He frowned at her. It was the same frown that had made him cordially
disliked in the Royal Air Force, but long experience had robbed it of
all terror for her. She said placidly, "Repairing Jim's motor bike was
one thing."

He was mildly irritated; if there had been an accident his son should
have told him. "I never heard of this. What happened to it?"

"He ran into the back of the milk cart during the holidays, and buckled
the front wheel and the forks." She knitted on in soft contentment. "I
told him not to bother you about it, because it was just after _Caranx_,
dear."

He said irritably, "I can't go on paying out for that motor bike like
this. If Jim has accidents, he'll have to save up out of his allowance
and get the thing repaired."

"He couldn't have done that. It cost six pounds fifteen. But it's all
right; I paid it out of my own money. I told him he wasn't to bother you
by asking for the money for it."

"Well, how does that make you short now?"

"I had to have some new shoes and things, and there wasn't any money
left in my account, so they had to come out of the housekeeping."

Her tortuous reasoning in money matters was no novelty to him. "Jim's
got no business to go running into milk carts," he said. "He's got to
learn that damage has to be paid for. If he can't pay for it, he'll have
to sell his motor bike and find the money that way."

She laid down her knitting. "Don't be too hard on him, Fred."

He stared at her, surprised. "I'm not being hard on him, my dear. But
he's got to learn."

She said quietly, "I know he's got to learn. He has learned already,
from running into the milk cart. He'll never do that again. There's no
point in making him miserable by making him sell his motor bike." She
paused, and then she said, "You know, you _are_ hard on young people,
Fred."

He was silent. As a young lieutenant, when he had first been married, he
had thought what fun it would be to have a family, to watch his children
growing up. It hadn't worked out quite like that. A trip round the world
with Royalty had intervened, then a three years' commission on the China
Station. He had been home for a year, and then there had been a
commission in New Zealand. A couple of years in the Mediterranean
followed by another spell in China had filled all the twenty busy years.
In the pressure of work that falls to a successful officer he had had
little time to get to know his children. He knew very little of their
nature, or the reasons why they did odd things that seemed to him to be
so silly.

"Am I hard on them?" he said.

She gathered up her knitting, got up, and crossed the room to him. "A
little bit," she said. She kissed him gently on the forehead. "You're a
good father, but you don't know a lot about the young." She smiled at
him. "I think I'm going up. Don't sit up late."

He said, "I'm expecting a telephone call, and I've got a few things to
look through." He indicated a heavy pile of buff files lying on the
empty pouch. "I shan't be very late."

She left him, and he heard her moving about overhead. He sat there
working quietly by the dying fire until the telephone rang by his side.
He picked up the receiver.

"Hewitt here," it said. "I'm speaking from Emsworth. I'm just leaving,
Captain Burnaby, and as Shedfield's on my road I thought I'd look in and
see you, if you're still up."

"Certainly. Come in and have a whiskey, Wing Commander."

"I'll look in just for a minute. I'll be with you in about half an
hour."

He rang off, and the naval officer settled down again before the fire.
The papers on his knee failed to hold his mind. His thoughts drifted to
his son, the boy that he considered to be so full of promise, who went
and did a silly thing like running into the back of the milk cart.
Perhaps Enid was right in saying that he didn't understand the young.
These accidents that seemed to him to be so criminal, so desperately
wrong, perhaps they were just--youth. It might well be that no further
punishment or persecution was required, that the collision with the milk
cart was its own lesson.

It was quite true what Enid said; he didn't understand the young. A
great part of his life had been spent in dealing with them, moulding
them into the old naval form in the old naval way. He was too good a
technician not to realize that methods must change with the years. His
methods had not changed since he had left Dartmouth as a midshipman. He
had continued blindly on the old, worn tracks of rigid discipline
because he lacked the understanding to thrash out a method of his own
for dealing with young officers.

He sat there, deep in thought, before the dying fire. It had hurt him to
be told that he was hard.

Presently he heard a car upon the gravel of the drive outside. His
servants had both gone to bed; he got up and let Hewitt in himself. In
the drawing room he poured out a whiskey and soda for him.

The wing commander said, "I won't stay long, Captain. I've been dining
at Emsworth with Air Commodore Hughes, and we had a long talk about
Chambers. The air commodore feels that as this is a naval trial we must
be guided by your wishes. In view of his past record, if you feel that
you'd like a change of pilot we are quite prepared to make it."

The grim bushy eyebrows drew together in a frown. "Give my compliments
to Air Commodore Hughes," the naval officer said, "and tell him I
appreciate that very much. But as a matter of fact, I've altered my
decision. I want that young man to continue with the trials."




                                   8


The trials were resumed next day at the appointed time. On Chambers his
reprieve had a tonic effect. He had gone to bed miserable and resentful,
planning yet another transfer, this time to a single-seater squadron,
which he thought could never under any circumstances require liaison
with the Royal Navy. At midnight he had been roused by a batman, who
brought him a signal confirming that the trials would proceed as
ordered, and that the Navy had agreed to Flying Officer Chambers as
pilot. A great surge of relief came over him and he slept well, with
pleasant thoughts of Mona. In the morning he went straight to the wing
commander's office and heard of the surprising change in Captain
Burnaby. He did not understand it, nor did anybody else, but the new
atmosphere that it implied was very welcome.

Chambers put all other matters out of his head and concentrated on the
work in hand, keen and enthusiastic for the coming trial.

Professor Legge had got the news by telephone about midnight, and he
received it with the deepest disappointment. He had spent the evening
relieved and rested. His wife had seized upon the respite that a change
of pilot was to give him, and had made him take an evening off from
work. They had dined together in the snack bar of the Royal Clarence
Hotel on a grilled steak and a fruit salad; the professor had been able
to detach his mind sufficiently from distribution curves to take note of
the pretty barmaid serving drinks to the young officers across the bar.
From the Royal Clarence they had gone on to a movie, where they had see
a film called _Blondie Gets Her Man_. For seventy-five minutes all
thought of battleships, of electronic influences, and of explosives had
been swept from his mind, he had laughed almost continuously throughout
the film, and he was better for it. They had returned to their little
flat in Southsea in the blackout happy and amused. Mrs. Legge had
persuaded him to go to bed at once in order that he could be really
fresh to recommence the work next morning. He had agreed willingly, and
had gone to bed anticipating a long, restful night of sleep.

At midnight the telephone rang, to tell him that the trials would
proceed next day according to the programme. He slept very little after
that.

At nine o'clock he went on board the trawler in the Dockyard, worried
and resentful. There were more naval officers than ever this time, by
reason of the success of the experiments the previous day. Legge said to
Hewitt, "I thought this trial would be postponed. Is it still Chambers
flying the machine, or have you got another pilot?"

Hewitt smiled. "Burnaby took a less extreme attitude after all. So we
didn't have to change from Chambers, and the trial could proceed."

The professor laughed shortly. "That's very unfortunate from my point of
view. I hoped that we were going to get a bit more time."

The wing commander nodded. "I had that in mind as well. But I'm afraid
it's not panned out that way."

There were three trials to be carried out that day, each with the
battleship. Between each trial it was necessary for the aeroplane to go
back to the aerodrome for loading up. All day the trawler lay and rolled
a mile from the battleship, while a protective screen of three
destroyers kept guard to seawards on the alert for submarines. Between
each trial the civilian sat in the wheelhouse, cold and apprehensive,
and rather sick.

The first trial worked satisfactorily at the first attempt. There was
great satisfaction till the machine came out for the second trial, when
the device failed to work for three successive runs over the battleship,
functioning at the fourth attempt. On the third and last trial it worked
at the second attempt.

The trawler went back to harbour, and the battleship steamed out to sea
in the falling dusk, bound for some unknown destination. She had other
things to do besides serving as a lay figure for the trials of a secret
weapon. No other battleship was to be available for a fortnight; in the
meantime trials were to go on with a cruiser.

As the trawler steamed back to harbour, Burnaby held a little conference
with Legge and Hewitt in the reeling chartroom. "It works perfectly when
it does work," he said. "It's a pity that it isn't more reliable."

Legge said, "That isn't fundamental to it, sir. It can be made reliable
as soon as we find out exactly what the forces are to operate it. But at
the moment we're trying to do the exploration without records, and with
an explosive charge on board the aeroplane."

Burnaby said directly, "Do you feel that we shall not be able to get it
ready for service in this way?"

Legge said, "No, I don't feel that. I think this way is far the quickest
method of getting it ready for use in war. But I do think that we're
taking some appalling risks."

Hewitt said, "We did decide to take them, after a good deal of thought."

The civilian said, "I know. I suppose I'm not used to this sort of
thing."

Burnaby said, rather unexpectedly, "None of us are."

It was practically dark when Legge and Hewitt got back to the aerodrome.
Chambers was waiting for them there; together they went through the
results with him. "The milli-ammeter went up over thirty-five on the
first and third run of trial two," he said, "and on the first of trial
three. I switched off each time. I can't see why it didn't work all
right the second run of trial two."

There was a long silence. The civilian studied the pencilled sheet of
the pilot's notes carefully and methodically.

Hewitt said at last, "Does that mean anything to you Professor?"

The other said slowly, "I think so. I'd like to work upon this for a
bit. It's quite clear we want different modulation for the battleship,
and while we're at it we might drop the frequency a bit. How long did
Burnaby say that it would be before we had a battleship again?"

"A fortnight."

"That's good. I think we should be able to be more reliable by then."

Chambers turned to Hewitt. "A signal came through from the Dockyard
about the cruiser, sir. They want to know if the trial tomorrow is
confirmed."

The wing commander turned to Legge. "Is that all right, Professor?"

"Is what all right?"

"To go on tomorrow with the cruiser."

The civilian looked at them over his spectacles. "The current will rise
quicker if it's going up at all. That's because of the smaller absolute
size of ship, you understand. There won't be much longer than two and a
half seconds for throwing the switch."

Chambers said, "If there's two and a half seconds, that's all right,
sir. I had time to eat a banana today."

"Two seconds is a very short time, Chambers," Legge said seriously.

The pilot laughed. "It's the hell of a long time when you're sitting
with your hand upon the switch, wondering what that bloody little
needle's going to do," he said. "No, seriously, sir--I think it's quite
all right."

Hewitt said, "You're the sole judge of that, Chambers. If you feel that
time is rather short, just say so, and we'll have to tackle it some
other way."

The pilot said, "Two and a half seconds is quite long enough to throw
that switch out, sir. As a matter of fact there is no other way to do
this, is there?"

"Only by exploring and plotting the air all round a typical ship of this
size."

"Well, that's absurd. I mean, it'd take a month of Sundays to do that.
No, this is perfectly all right for me."

They discussed it for a few minutes longer, sketching a little in pencil
on a pad. Finally Hewitt said, "All right, we'll have the ship tomorrow.
I'll make a signal to the Dockyard. We've got her till the end of the
week."

The pilot said, "That's fine. We should be able to get somewhere with it
in that time."

They dispersed. Legge took the pilot's notes and went back in his car to
Southsea, driving slowly in the dark, with a new horror to sit by his
side. To him, two seconds was a desperately short time. He was a man of
middle age and his reaction times were getting longer with the years; it
was difficult for him to place himself in the position of the pilot, who
could operate the switch in one-fifth of a second. Disaster stared him
in the face, and drove him to his calculations for the cruiser as soon
as he got to his flat. The battleship problem was relegated to a corner
of his mind. He had a shrewd idea now of the source of all their
difficulties with that and he could see the means of overcoming them;
when next they went out to a battleship the thing would work right every
time. But that was now no longer of the first importance. In one night's
work he must now cover the ground of three months' steady research on
the cruiser if an accident were to be made reasonably impossible. No man
living could do that, but he must do what lay within his power.

Immediately he settled down to work, with blueprints, pad, and
calculating machine.

Chambers went back to the mess, and up to his bedroom. He had a little
electric stove in his room at Titchfield that he had bought at the local
ironmonger's and had adapted furtively to work from the lighting
circuit; it overloaded the circuit but warmed the room beautifully. He
turned on this and tuned the wireless to the Columbia system; for a few
minutes he listened to an agricultural expert answering queries about
hog disease in Iowa. Then he got out the caravel, and spent a happy hour
shipbuilding.

He dined in the mess, and played bridge for an hour or so, winning three
and twopence. Then he drank a pint of beer and had a game of
shoveha'penny with a flight lieutenant. By ten o'clock he was retiring
to his room; he was sleeping quietly by eleven. He slept till after
seven in the morning.

Mona, on her part, spent the evening in the bar, as usual. She was still
vaguely dissatisfied, though less restless than she had been before
Jerry had returned from Yorkshire. She still thought it would be nice to
be in the perfumery department of a big shop, but you couldn't do
everything. She knew very well that matters could not be static now
between Jerry and herself; she might end up as Mrs. Chambers or she
might end up as Mrs. Smith; beside either avocation the perfumery paled
into insignificance. If her life was in fact to be linked with Jerry's
she did not want his friends to know her as a girl that he had picked up
in a shop. In a confused way she had certain social grades defined and
ordered in her mind. She would do him less harm in his career if she
married him as a barmaid than if she married from a shop, or so she
thought.

These reflections mitigated the snack bar of the Royal Clarence to her.
She was tired of the smell of beer and of the stickiness of vermouth,
but she was able to bear with it phlegmatically.

That evening was fairly slack, being the middle of the week. In the
seven months that had elapsed since the beginning of the war she had
come to know a great many young naval officers by sight, habitues of
the bar, young men serving on ships based upon the port who came there
for a grill when their ships were in. That evening there was a little
party of new faces, a lieutenant commander R.N., two lieutenants
R.N.R.--men of thirty-five or forty, these, hard-looking toughs--and a
young sub in the R.N.V.R. This party joined up with a little group of
minesweepers; their gossip very soon told Mona that the newcomers were
off a salvage ship.

The salvage men drank whiskey. They talked a good deal of the war in
Finland, recently concluded; one of them had spent a good many years in
Baltic ports. They talked of football pools, and of magnetic mines and
how to sweep them up. This last discussion was in very low tones, so low
that the barmaid heard only a few words here and there. From that, by
natural transition, they went on to German submarines.

A trawler officer said, "I was at Sheerness the first three months. The
destroyers were at them every day, then. But it's eased off now. Down
here, we don't get hardly any. One a week--not more."

One of the R.N.R. salvage men said, "They're still getting a good few
around the estuary. Not like they were, of course, but still--a few. We
picked up one of them off the Goodwins, 'bout a month ago."

"Picked it up?"

"Yah. Took it in to Dover."

The trawlerman said, "Get any of the crew?"

The other shook his head. "There was plenty of them in it, but they were
dead. It had been depth-charged all to hell--the hull was split in three
places. We reckoned she'd been going home upon the surface in the night,
and hit the sands about low water. Then up comes the tide before she can
get off, and drowns the lot."

The trawler man said, "What's everybody drinking?"

He turned to Mona, "Same all round, Lady."

She busied herself with the whiskies. Somebody else asked, "Did they
learn anything useful from the submarine?"

"I don't know about that. We went off on another job. I only know that
there was one bloody funny thing we found."

"What's that?"

The man turned to the lieutenant commander. "Tell 'em about the torpedo
tubes, sir."

The naval officer smiled slowly. "Only one tube," he said. "I went in at
the first low tide to see if any of the tubes were loaded."

One of the R.N.V.R. officers said, "Grisly sort of job."

"Yes--it was rather." He was silent for a minute, thinking again of that
eerie journey through the black cavities of the dead submarine, flashing
an electric torch before him. The structure had dripped salt water on
him at each step; it had smelt abominably of fuel oil, salt water,
chlorine, and corruption; it had been slippery and very dark.

He said, "I opened the back doors of all the tubes. One of them was full
of fuel oil."

"Fuel oil?"

The officer nodded. "I opened the door and it all came out, all over the
floor and my boots and everything."

One of the trawler men said, "How did that stuff get into a torpedo
tube?"

The other laughed. "That's not the end of it. What do you think came out
with the oil?"

One of the R.N.V.R. officers, fingering his third whiskey, said gravely,
"A nest of field mice."

The naval officer said, "Well, you're wrong. Most of a British rating's
kit."

They all stared at him. "In the oil?"

"In the oil, in the torpedo tube. There was a hat, and a couple of
jumpers, and a shirt, and a pair of bags, and a lot of Portsmouth City
Council tram tickets, if you please. All sorts of stuff."

They were incredulous. "But how did that get there?"

The salvage officer laughed. "It's one of their tricks. They keep a tube
full of fuel oil and British sailors' stuff. If they get in a tight
corner they discharge the lot, blow the tube through with the compressed
air. We see a lot of oil and air come up and stop our depth charges.
Then we see a British matloe's hat floating in the oil, and we get all
hot and bothered, and stop bombing altogether. And while we're dithering
about, he gets away."

"How long have they been doing this?"

"God knows. We've only just cottoned onto it. This one on the Goodwins
was the first definite case we found of it."

Somebody said, "They're up to any bloody sort of trick you like."

Somebody else said, "I've heard of periscopes being stuck in a floating
barrel, but I never heard of that one."

Behind the counter the barmaid stood motionless, staring at them. It was
the clothes that came up in the fuel oil that had decided the Court of
Enquiry upon _Caranx_; Jerry had told her so. But for that they would
have given weight to what he said about there being no identification
marks. The officer had said that they had only recently come to realize
the floating clothes to be a German trick. What if it had been going on
some time? What if the submarine that Jerry had sunk had really been a
German one, as he had thought?

She must see Jerry, and tell him.

The officers went to their meal, and she went on with her work,
absently, in a dream. She served one gin and French to a subaltern who
had asked for three beers, and she served two bottles of Guinness
instead of two small whiskies to a couple of Marines. Then she broke a
sherry glass.

Miriam said, "That's the third glass gone this evening. Mr. Harries, he
won't half be cross."

"Sorry," said Mona. "I was thinking of something else."

There was more in it than just the clothes. There were other funny
things that she had heard. What was it she had heard about the slick,
with oil all coming up? Porky something. Porky . . . Porky . . . Porky
Thomas. That was the name. Porky Thomas had sailed through the slick
with the oil coming up, but she couldn't remember that he had said
anything about clothes. But Porky Thomas had said it was just off
Departure Point, and it wasn't off Departure Point at all. She had asked
Jerry that, and he had said it was much more towards the Island.

But some one else had said something about a submarine that had been
sunk off Departure Point, surely? In a newspaper--a newspaper cutting
about contraceptives. The one that that young officer had had--Jimmie
. . . Joey . . . James--Mouldy James. That said a submarine had been
sunk just off Departure Point, and on the same day, too. But Jerry was
quite sure it hadn't been anywhere near Departure Point. It seemed all
nonsense, any way you looked at it.

Somebody asked for two beers and a gin and Italian. She served him
correctly, and began to rinse some glasses. That newspaper cutting must
have been all wrong. After all, it was only an American paper, and they
weren't half so good as English papers. Everybody knew that. It was
obviously wrong, because it was wrong in another place as well. It said
that _Caranx_ broke into two bits when she was sunk, so that the bow and
stern came up separately, both at the same time. That was all wrong in
the paper; Jerry had told her just what happened. _Caranx_ had sunk by
going right up on one end, and going down straight, like that. The two
ends never showed at the same time.

You couldn't believe anything you saw in foreign papers, anyway. What
with the different way of sinking and the different place, it might have
been a different submarine, the way they wrote about it.

_It might have been a different submarine._

She stood stock-still for a moment. That was probably the truth of it.
They were sinking them the whole time. But then, Porky Thomas should
have known, and all the officers that were talking about Porky Thomas,
that same evening. Or was it the next evening? She had forgotten. Funny
they hadn't said about another submarine that had been sunk, the day
that Jerry had sunk _Caranx_. And Mouldy James, he hadn't seemed to know
about it, either.

But that was quite silly. If nobody had known about a second submarine
being sunk that day, who was it sunk it? Jerry hadn't sunk two. Whoever
sunk the second one must have known.

Well then, there couldn't have been a second one at all. But then, that
seemed to be all wrong, too.

A rush of orders came upon her then, and drove the matter from her mind.
It was something terribly important that she must talk over with Jerry
when she met him; she felt sure he would be able to resolve the puzzle
for her, and explain what it all meant. In the meantime there was a
crowd of thirsty officers to serve, and she must get on with her job.

She left the Royal Clarence at about a quarter past ten, and went home.
Her father and her mother were still up when she got home, sitting in
the little kitchen, one each side of the fire.

Her mother said, "We just had a cup of tea, dearie. Make yourself a cup;
it's still hot in the pot."

She shook her head. "I don't mind a cup of cocoa." But there was no
cocoa, and she prepared to go upstairs to bed.

She paused at the foot of the stairs. "Dad," she said. "You couldn't
sink a submarine without you knew it, could you?"

He took off his spectacles and stared at her. "Who couldn't sink a
submarine?"

"I mean, if a submarine got sunk, somebody would know who'd done it?"

"Should do, girl. Who's been talking to you?"

She said, "Nobody special. It's just what I heard in the bar. There was
one sunk, and no one seems to know who sunk it."

"Sunk in the Channel? In these parts?"

"Off Departure Point, they was saying."

"Off Departure Point." He ruminated for a while over this conundrum.
"The only thing would be, if it had been sunk by another German
submarine, by mistake, like. Nobody would know then who done it."

She shook her head. "I don't think that makes sense. It doesn't matter.
I was only wondering, because they was all talking about it."

He said, "That's the only way I knows as it could happen without anybody
knowing."

She went up to her room and got into bed, the problem still in the
background of her mind. Jerry would put it right for her. It was five
more days before she met him, unless the weather were to turn bad
suddenly. But there was not much chance of that; in fact, it was
unusually fine for the time of year.

Still, five days would soon go.

She slept.

Psychiatrists say that when you go to sleep with something on your mind,
some difficult problem, your subconscious mind continues working at it
all night through. Mona woke up at about three in the morning, and sat
bolt upright in bed.

It wasn't _Caranx_ that Jerry had sunk. It was a German, a German with
British sailor's clothes in her torpedo tubes. _Caranx_ had been the
other one, sunk off Departure Point.

The pieces of the puzzle fitted then, each one of them in its own place.
Jerry had been absolutely right when he had said he had seen no
identification marks upon the hydrovanes. Of course he hadn't; it was a
German submarine, as he had thought. It was steering the same course as
_Caranx_ from Departure Point, perhaps to try and make its way into
Portsmouth. But it was late; it couldn't have known _Caranx's_ time
schedule.

In the little, shabby bedroom over the furniture shop the truth of a
naval tragedy came to the light. The German had sunk _Caranx_ off
Departure Point. The Dutch skipper in the newspaper had said the British
sunk a German submarine, but that was wrong. He had seen _Caranx_ sunk,
perhaps torpedoed by the German, as she moved upon the surface.

That was why Porky Thomas said he saw a slick, with oil coming up, just
off Departure Point. He _had_ seen such a slick; he had steamed through
the oil that came from the torn, shattered hull of a British submarine,
and he had never dreamed of it.

This was the truth, naked and undeniable. The submarine that Jerry sunk
had itself torpedoed _Caranx_ an hour previously.

She lay reclining on her pillows for half an hour, turning this theory
over in her mind. It must be true; there was no other way of it. And
with that conviction, there came to her deep happiness. She could help
Jerry, really help him in his work, in his career. He had not said much
to her of the setback he had suffered, after that first evening. Then he
had said that he was afraid he wouldn't be able to stay on in the Air
Force after the war. She knew what that would mean to him; the end of
his career. No more doing the work that he had chosen, that he was good
at.

But that was over now. He hadn't sunk _Caranx_, and she'd prove it.
Mouldy James and Porky Thomas and every one should be brought in to
help.

She lay back quietly, desperately happy. If she could help to rid him of
the slur of having sunk a British submarine, it wouldn't matter quite so
much, perhaps, if he married a barmaid. With _Caranx_ and a barmaid both
upon his record, he'd never be able to stay in the service after the
war. But if it were shown that he had really sunk a German submarine,
then things were different. A German submarine would be an asset on his
record, sufficient to outweigh even a barmaid, if she were very careful
always to talk nicely, and to learn to do the right things with a
visiting card. And that should not be very difficult to learn.

It was not Mona's way to lie awake. When she was happy, she usually went
to sleep, and she was sleeping quietly before so very long.

She caught her father in the shop next morning, after breakfast. "Dad,"
she said, "what would you do if you was me?"

"I dunno, girl."

"You know Jerry--Flying Officer Chambers, what takes me dancing
sometimes."

"I see him once," he said cautiously.

"Did you know about his trouble, Dad?"

He shook his head.

"He sunk a British submarine, with bombs, when he was on patrol. That's
what the Court of Enquiry said, but it's all wrong, Dad. Honest, it is."

His brow darkened; he was first and foremost an old naval petty officer.
"Let's get this right, girl," he said quietly. "What is it that you say
he done?"

"He sunk a submarine called _Caranx_, so they said. But he didn't do it,
really and truly."

It took him ten minutes to extract the story from her. It would have
taken anybody else half an hour, but he spoke her language and could
understand her processes of thought. In a quarter of an hour he had
completely absorbed the whole story; he sat there rubbing his chin
thoughtfully.

She said, "What ought I to do, Dad? I mean, some one ought to know about
it."

He said, "In a ship the officer of the watch would be the one to tell.
But with this--I don't know, I'm sure."

She was silent.

"It's not as if you know anything, really," he said. "It's just what you
suppose."

She said stubbornly, "I don't see that, Dad. Seems to me that it's the
only way it could have happened." There was a pause, and then she said,
"That Court of Enquiry never saw Porky Thomas or Mouldy James, or any
one. They never even knew about the clothes in the torpedo tube, because
that's only just been found out."

"I dunno what to say," he said weakly.

"Somebody ought to be told."

"The only chap to tell would be the young chap himself. The one what
takes you out."

She stared out of the shop window to the street outside. "I'd rather
tell some one different. He might not want to go raking it all up again.
But it's something that they ought to know."

"I don't know, I'm sure," he said.

That morning the trawler went out again, with Burnaby and Legge on
board, and a number of naval officers. As they went, Legge, tired and
worried, lectured them on the modifications he proposed to put in hand
for dealing with the battleship. They could not all follow his
reasoning, though one or two were able to discourse with him
intelligently. In half an hour he had satisfied them completely.

Burnaby said, "This seems to mean, then, that we're practically home.
When you get the new modulator installed, we're ready for war."

The civilian said hesitantly, "I think we shall be very near that stage.
But only as regards the battleship, you know. There'll be another set of
conditions altogether for the cruiser."

Burnaby said, "I quite appreciate that, Professor Legge. But as regards
the battleship alone, we're very nearly ready for service use?"

Legge said, "I think that is so."

The naval captain said, "I do congratulate you, Professor, both on the
thing itself and on the speed with which you've brought it along."

The civilian flushed a little. "I wish we didn't have to take such
risks."

"I know. But the solution for the battleship has justified the risks of
accident."

Legge said nothing. He could not bring himself to agree with that. In
his private view, these officers were too impatient for results. Granted
that the country was at war and that this device was needed more than
most, he could not feel that this slapdash method of full-scale
experiment so loved by the services was reasonable or scientifically
right. He knew very well that an accident in the early stages would have
turned them all against him, would have killed the weapon stone dead in
their minds. That possibility was now removed by the partial success
that he had had with the battleship, but that did not affect his view
that the method of experiment was totally unsound. They would have done
better to have spent more time upon research.

The trawler reached the area allotted for the trials and met the
cruiser. For half an hour they lay rolling a few hundred yards apart.
Then the bomber appeared flying from the land, the cinema photographers
made the final adjustments to their cameras, and the Aldis lamp flashed
for the trial to commence.

The machine approached the cruiser and flew over it. Nothing happened.
It passed above the ship and began to turn away; on the trawler the
officers relaxed the intensity of their observations.

Burnaby said, "That will be the modulation again, I suppose, Professor?"

Legge said, "I should think so, sir. We must expect it to be a matter of
trial and error, just as with the battleship."

The monoplane approached the ship again, flying steadily upon an even
keel, but on a different course.

This time, the device worked.

The monoplane swept down upon the trawler, circled around her very low,
the pilot waving merrily as she turned, and made off towards the land.
On board the trawler there was great satisfaction. True, it had not
worked first time, but it was generally realized that that was just a
matter for adjustment. Professor Legge was treated with considerable
respect. They made way for him in the little cuddy of the trawler at
lunch time to give him the best seat at the little table; a second trial
was to take place at two o'clock.

Back on the aerodrome, Chambers reported to Hewitt: "It worked all
right, sir, at the second shot. They're loading up again now for the
trial this afternoon."

The wing commander nodded. "Any particular reason why it didn't work the
first time?"

"None at all, that I could see, sir." He paused. "As a matter of fact,
it didn't go a bit as the professor said. You know he said that the
current on the milli-ammeter would go up suddenly, in two and a half
seconds."

The wing commander said, "Yes. He was very worried about it."

"Well, he's got it all wrong. It just went creeping up, very
slowly--much slower than the battleship. It must have taken seven or
eight seconds. I switched off when it got to thirty-six."

"That's funny. He was all wrong about the rate of rise?"

"Yes, sir. It went up very slowly." The pilot hesitated. "Do you think
we ought to let him know?"

"Send him a code signal by radio, you mean. We can't send that in
clear."

They glanced at each other. They had both had some experience of code
signals in the hands of wireless operators in training. It might very
well take three or four hours to get an intelligible answer to a cable
of that sort.

The pilot said, "I should think it would be all right if we just carry
on. After all, it only means there's that much more time to cut the
switch."

The wing commander said, "That's all it can mean. I should carry on, and
tell him tonight."

"Very good, sir."

Chambers went off to the mess for a quick lunch. At the table somebody
asked him, "How's it going?"

"Not so bad," he said. "Did the cruiser a bit of no good this
morning--or would have done if the thing had been real."

Somebody else said, "The Navy are all hot and bothered over it."

"And well they may be."

He walked back to the hangar. The machine was not quite ready; he put on
his parachute harness and his Mae West and stood waiting on the tarmac.
It was a fine, breezy, sunny afternoon; cold with the blustering cold of
March, but invigorating with the promise of summer to come. The flight
lieutenant came and stood by him.

"Bloody nice day," he said. "Going to flirt with death again?"

Chambers grinned. "Nice day for the ceremony. I always think rain spoils
a funeral."

"How's it going?"

"Not so bad. I think we've got it pretty well whacked now."

The flight sergeant came up to them. "All ready now, sir." The pilot
turned, and got into the machine.

Presently he took off, and flew towards the coast, on the alert for
other aircraft. As he passed out over the beach at about a thousand feet
he was turning over in his mind the morning's trial. He had a firm
impression that this hit-and-miss business of experiment was quite
unnecessary. There was some means of procedure that they could adopt,
somewhere, somehow, that would make this rather tricky method of
experiment obsolete. Some combination of the height and speed and
modulation and frequency which would ring the bell each time, delivering
the stick of chocolate with accuracy and regularity. He had a feeling
that the problem contained within itself a neat and accurate solution,
and a safe one, too. He knew that Professor Legge had the same instinct,
but neither had been able to formulate it in words.

Presently, far ahead of him upon the sunny, corrugated sea, he saw the
cruiser with the trawler lying at a little distance from her. He closed
them rapidly and circled round above the trawler at about a thousand
feet. In a minute the white flashes of the Aldis lamp showed from her
bridge; he turned away and flew south for a couple of minutes, getting
distance for his run towards the ship. Then he turned again, and made
for the cruiser.

He switched on current to the apparatus at the main switch and pulled
over the safety switch. The milli-ammeter showed sixteen or seventeen;
that was about normal at the beginning of the run. He glanced quickly at
the cruiser to check the direction, ruddering slightly to maintain his
course.

Then he glanced back at the milli-ammeter. Still only about eighteen; it
wasn't rising as it should.

The run was going to be another failure.

He shot another quick glance at the ship, corrected slightly with his
feet, and back to the dial of the ammeter.

The needle wasn't there.

For a moment, perhaps the fifth of a second, he was bewildered; then his
hand began to move towards the switch.

At the same moment he saw the needle in a different place, right up at
the far end of the scale. It was over fifty.

Quick as he moved his hand, the current passed along the circuit wires
more quickly. He never heard the detonation, or felt the burst of flame.
He saw, but did not feel, the structure of the cockpit dissolve round
him.

He felt no pain.

He saw the port engine fall out and go down, trailing a plume of black
smoke in its fall. He saw the flaming wreckage of the wings collapse and
leave him, and he saw but did not feel the fuselage rear up and go into
its long, uneven plunge tail first towards the sea.

He thought, "This is being killed."

And then he thought, "My God, we've been a pack of bloody fools."

Clear in his mind was what they should have done. It was so easy, such a
simple little trick. It would have freed the trials from all risk. It
would have saved his life.

He was being killed, and nobody would know. Another pilot would come
forward and would carry on the trials and he, too, would be killed. And
then another, and another one. He could have stopped all that, but he
was being killed.

As the wrecked fuselage plunged tail first into the sea one thought was
paramount, pervading every fibre of his being.

He must, _must_, try and live, to tell Professor Legge.

                 *        *        *        *        *

It is a horrible thing to see an aeroplane destroyed by an explosion
from within.

On the trawler, the naval officers stood stupefied. The detonation blew
the belly of the machine out downwards, and a sheet of flame shot
outwards from the fuselage, coloured a cherry red against the pale blue
sky. The big monoplane staggered, practically stopped. Then a round mass
that was an engine fell from the port wing and went down to the sea,
leaving a great plume of black smoke behind it in its fall.

The wrecked bomber put its nose up, and the port wing burst into flame.
Then the wing crumpled up and the whole port wing parted from the
fuselage, and hung for a time suspended by the hot air of its own
combustion. The remnants of the fuselage and the starboard wing dropped
backwards in a tail slide, and plunged down to the water, gathering
speed at every moment of its fall.

It hit the sea a few hundred yards from the cruiser, with a resounding
crash and a great sheet of spray. It bobbed up to the surface in the
middle of the foam of its own fall, and began sinking fairly slowly.
Above it the port wing hovered flaming, dropping streams of blazing
petrol to the sea. Then it, too, began to fall, quicker and quicker,
till it hit the sea a little way away.

A motor pinnace splashed down heavily into the water from the cruiser,
turned, and made for the sinking wreckage.

On the bridge of the trawler, Captain Burnaby stood staring at the
disaster. He moved once to speak to the captain of the trawler; the
R.N.V.R. lieutenant jumped for the telegraph and rang it to full speed.
The trawler turned slowly, and made for the floating wreckage.

Burnaby stood staring at the wreck through field glasses, grim and
silent.

By his side, Professor Legge stood white and sick, gripping the rail
before him with both hands. He had seen a boy killed before his eyes, a
boy that he had known, talked to, consulted with, a young man that he
had admired for his light-hearted courage. And his one reaction was a
feeling of relief.

Relief that it was over. The long, grinding tension of anxiety was
finished, for the worst had happened. There would be no need now to lie
awake at nights, worrying desperately if there was no more that he could
do. There would be no more arguing and pleading with the officers for a
more cautious programme, and no more rebuffs. This marked a period.

The tension of anxiety was snapped. Unnoticed a tear trickled down his
cheek to his moustache, but he only felt relief, an immense thankfulness
that it was over.

The motorboat was now beside the wreck.




                                   9


In the snack bar that night, Miriam said:

"I don't now what's come over you. You're looking pleased as a dog with
two tails tonight. What's it all about, anyway?"

Mona tossed her head. "Nothing to do with you."

The other smiled. "It's that Air Force officer you go out with. Meeting
him tonight?"

Mona shook her head. "He can't get off till next week."

"Well, then, what are you so pleased about? Got another one?"

"Don't talk so soft. It's nothing like that."

Miriam sighed, unbelieving, and broke off to serve a couple of whiskies.
The evening progressed along the usual lines. The bar was moderately
full; as the months went by the proportion of women in the bar tended to
increase. The W.A.A.F.s and the W.R.N.S. seemed to come more frequently;
sometimes they came with naval or air force officers, but frequently
they came in little groups of two or three of their own service. Then
they would sit at a table by themselves, rather self-conscious in so
masculine a place, drinking with care and feminine economy.

About eight o'clock Mona nudged Miriam. "There's those Wren officers you
know. The one in the middle, what you said was the daughter of the
officer at the Navigating School."

Miriam looked across the room. "Why, that's right," she said. "That's
Miss Hancock. I don't know who them others are with her."

"What's that Miss Hancock like? Do you know her?"

The other shook her head. "I never spoke to her. My cousin Flora was in
service there--that's how I know her. Flora said she was all right. A
bit stuck-up, like. But all officers' daughters get like that."

Mona said, "I suppose they do. Would she mind it if I went and spoke to
her, do you think?"

The other girl stared at her. "Whatever for?"

Mona regretted she had made the suggestion. "Just something I was
thinking about," she said weakly.

Miriam looked at her kindly. "She's all right," she said. "She won't
bite your head off." In her own mind, she had a very good idea what Mona
wanted to talk to Miss Hancock about. She wanted to get into the Wrens,
and she wanted some help. That was what she had been so excited over,
earlier in the evening.

"All right," said Mona with determination. "I'll go and try."

The white-coated waiter came with a tray for three glasses of light
sherry for the Wrens. Mona said, "Look, Jimmie, I'll take that along."

Miriam said, "Here, what about the bar?"

"Give a hand in the bar, Jimmie. I won't be a minute." She took the tray
and carried it over to the three Wren officers in the corner. She put
the glasses down carefully on the table before them, wiping the foot of
each with Jimmie's napkin, and waited while one of them fumbled in a
purse with finger and thumb.

She took the money, and said, "Please, is one of you ladies Miss
Hancock?"

The middle girl looked up. "I am Miss Hancock," she said. She spoke with
a public-school voice, clearly and very definitely. Mona was a little
damped.

She said diffidently, "Do you think I might speak to you alone, please?"

The Wren stared at her with amused astonishment. "Of course you can,"
she said at last. She got up from her chair, saying to the others, "Look
after my drink." She turned to Mona. "Where shall we go?"

There was nowhere they could go privately, except the ladies' room, and
that was probably full. Mona said weakly, "Just anywhere, I suppose."
They moved a little way aside from the other two watching Second Officer
Hancock with curiosity.

The two girls faced each other. "What is it?" asked the officer.

Mona said, "It's just something I overheard, Miss Hancock. You know, we
hear a lot of talk in the bar here of an evening--this and that, you
know. Sometimes you just don't know what to do for the best, whether to
tell any one or let it go. Or who you ought to tell."

"What did you hear?"

"It was about a submarine called _Caranx_."

The Wren frowned. _Caranx_ was a sore subject at Admiralty House, the
source of a great deal of bitterness. "What about _Caranx_?" she asked
sharply.

Mona said, "They all said that she'd been sunk by one of our own
aeroplanes. But I don't think that's right, honest I don't."

"There was a Court of Enquiry that went into the whole thing very
carefully."

Mona tossed her head. "Precious fine Court of Enquiry, if you ask me.
They never heard what Porky Thomas had to say, nor Mouldy James,
neither."

Miss Hancock was startled and impressed. "Who are they--Porky Thomas and
Mouldy James?"

"They're naval officers what come here of an evening, and talk free when
they've had a beer or two. Off the minesweepers, I think they are--both
of 'em."

"Do they know something about _Caranx_?"

Mona hesitated. "All they know is what they saw," she said at last.
"There was another submarine sunk that same afternoon, besides
_Caranx_."

The Wren officer fixed her with a cool, level stare. "You're not making
all this up?"

"Honest, I'm not. Porky Thomas saw the oil coming up from the bottom the
next morning, and Mouldy James had a cutting from an American paper
describing how the second one was sunk, and it was that same day. And
then there was the clothes, too."

"What about the clothes?"

"There was a salvage officer here only last night, saying about the
Germans carrying our sailors' clothes in their torpedo tubes, to shoot
out if they was depth-charged. I don't know his name, but he was off one
of the salvage ships."

"I see."

Miss Hancock was silent for a minute. Around them the crowd moved and
chattered, with all the clamour of a bar at nine o'clock at night. She
was impressed; the girl seemed to know something. Certainly she knew a
great deal more than it was right for any civilian to know in wartime.
It would probably turn out that it was all imagination; on the other
hand it was just possible that there was something in it. Miss Hancock
had seen and filed the minutes of the Court of Enquiry; she could
remember nothing about any other submarine, or about clothes being
carried in torpedo tubes, for that matter. She knew very well the bitter
feelings that had been raised by the affair of _Caranx_ between men
overstrained by war. If it were possible to show, even by inference,
that _Caranx_ might not have been sunk by our own action, the gain in
unity would be enormous.

"What's your name?" she said at last.

"Mona Stevens."

"Look," said the Wren officer, "we can't talk about this here. When can
you come to Admiralty House tomorrow?"

Mona said, "I'm on duty here from twelve till two, and then again from
six till ten, Miss Hancock. I could come any time between."

The other said incisively, "I come off watch at six bells. Could you
come and see me then, at the side entrance to Admiralty House? The
signalman will show you the office."

The barmaid looked at her helplessly. "Please--what time did you say?"

"Three o'clock in the afternoon. Come in at the main gate of the
Dockyard; I'll tell them to expect you. You'll have to sign the book."

"All right, Miss Hancock. I'll be there."

"I wouldn't talk about this too much."

"I won't do that."

Mona picked up her tray, and went to the bar. The Wren officer rejoined
her friends. One of them said, "You had a nice little heart-to-heart.
What was it all about?"

Miss Hancock was silent for a minute. Then she said, "She's got an idea
into her head which might be important. You know, there's no proper
organization for civilians who get to know things. They never know who
to see about it."

"What are you doing?"

"I told her to come to Admiralty House tomorrow afternoon."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Two miles away, in Haslar Hospital, Sister Loring was going on duty. She
was the night sister in Block B, Floor 2; each night at nine o'clock she
came to take over from Sister MacKenzie, the day sister. Sister Loring
went straight to the floor office and took off her cloak, hanging it on
a peg. There was a trolley there, loaded with the grim appliances for a
transfusion. She gave it a cursory glance, patted her hair before the
mirror and adjusted her cap, and crossed to the desk. The record sheet
was there, made out in MacKenzie's angular, crabbed handwriting. There
was no sign of MacKenzie.

The night sister glanced at the sheet. Everything seemed much as she had
left it before except for one new case, multiple injuries and burns.
That would be the transfusion, no doubt. The record showed an injection
of strychnine, one sixteenth of a grain, at eight-forty--twenty minutes
previously.

There was a quick short step outside. Sister MacKenzie came into the
office, and a glance told the night sister that she was in a blazing
temper. Her mouth was set into a thin, hard line of disapproval; her
high, angular cheekbones glowed pink.

"Evening, sister," said Loring. "Got a new accident case, I see."

"We have that," said the Scotswoman dourly.

The other glanced at her curiously. "Who is he?"

"A young air pilot. Been up to some daft fool trick, nae doubt."

"Bad?"

"Ay, he's bad all right. And if you ask me, Dr. Foster's oot to make him
worse. I doot he'll die before the morn."

The night sister nodded slowly. Such things were not a novelty to her.
More interesting was the rancour of the day sister against Surgeon
Commander Foster.

"Fractures, I suppose?"

"Ay--twa ribs and the right thigh. Maybe the pelvis, but it's early yet
to say. Burns on both hands and arms. Shock, of course."

The night sister glanced at the trolley. "When's the transfusion?"

"I dinna ken--you'd better ask that Commander Foster. I'll tell you when
it should have been, and that's two hours ago. Maybe the doctor will let
him have it in another two hours, if he's with us still."

"I see he's had strychnine."

"Ay, and a heavy dose. Did ever you hear the like! The laddie comes in
here conscious and all excited, and they give him strychnine!"

The night sister nodded; it did seem to be a very odd treatment for
shock. She would have said morphia, to put him to sleep, to rest while
the shock spent its force. She wrinkled her brows. Strychnine, surely,
would make him still more conscious. It sounded absolutely crazy.

"What on earth are they playing at?" she said.

The day sister shrugged her shoulders in eloquent, silent disapproval.
"There's another thing," she said with evident restraint. "A thing ye'd
never guess, if ye was to guess from now till New Year's Day."

"What's that?"

"He's got a visitor."

"A visitor!"

"Ay--a business visitor. And there the laddie is, at this very minute,
talking nineteen to the dozen about engineering and the Lord knows
what!"

Sister Loring stared at her. "But what on earth possessed them to let a
case like that have a visitor?"

"Ye may well ask that. I'm coming to think this place is turned into a
madhouse. There have been Navy officers and Air Force officers and all
sorts here this evening, talking with the doctor. Such craziness I never
met, in twenty years of service."

A gleam of light came to Sister Loring. "Is this visitor an officer?"

"Not a bit of it. There might be reason in it if he was. It's just a
civilian of some kind."

"How long has he been with the patient?"

Sister MacKenzie glanced at the watch upon her wrist. "Eight and a half
minutes. Commander Foster said ten minutes was the time he was to have,
but I'll no let him stay that long. It's time he was off oot of it."

She left the office, and marched a little way along the corridor to a
single room. Loring followed her; they entered with quiet precision
learned from the long years in the wards.

The Scotswoman said, "Your time is up now. Will you please go away."

In the bed the patient turned his head with difficulty. "I want a minute
or two longer, Nurse."

"And ye're not going to have it." She turned to the civilian. "I have
asked you to go away," she said with icy dignity. "Will ye please go at
once."

Professor Legge got to his feet. "Don't worry," he said to the still
figure in the bed. "I've got it all now."

There was no answer from the bed. Legge turned away; the sister marched
to the door and held it open for him. He went out; in the passage he
turned back to her. "What are his chances?" he asked softly.

She was still very angry. "One half of what they were before your
visit," she said. "And that's the truth I'm telling you."

She turned back into the room, and shut the door in his face. Professor
Legge went heavily towards the entrance. There was no ending to the pain
and anxiety of this work.

Half an hour later Surgeon Commander Foster straightened up above the
bed and removed his gloves; a nurse wheeled away the trolley, and Sister
Loring finished the bandaging. The surgeon said in a low tone, "Now the
morphia injection, sister. Half a grain."

"Yes, doctor."

Presently the surgeon went away. The sister stayed for a while with the
nurse, tidying the room and making all ready for the night. Once as she
bent over him to adjust the bedclothes the patient said, "I want Mona to
have my rabbit."

She smiled at him. "You go to sleep," she said. "I'll see that Mona gets
your rabbit. But you're not to talk any more."

There were few other patients in the ward, and she was with him most of
the night.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Next day, at three o'clock, Mona was at the Dockyard gate. The policeman
greeted her affably, and made her sign the visitors' book. He compared
the name written in the book with a pencilled list.

"That's right," he said. "Admiralty House. You know where that is, do
you?"

"Turn to the right, don't I?"

"That's it, miss. Big house on the right hand side, with pillars in
front, just before you come to the arch. You can't mistake it."

She walked on and came to Admiralty House, standing in the middle of the
Dockyard with a mown sweep of grass in front of it. One or two old
cannon graced the entrance, with one or two symmetrical piles of cannon
balls; the brass was very brightly polished, and the long flight of
steps that led up to the main door were very white. The perfection with
which the big old house was maintained externally gave it a queerly
masculine effect; it exuded discipline. Mona was slightly intimidated.

She saw a side door, and went in. A naval signalman came forward. "I
want to see Miss Hancock," she said.

He took her to a very small office on an upper floor; the Wren officer
got up to meet her from a desk littered with a typewriter and many files
and dockets of papers. "Afternoon," she said. "You got here all right?"
She cleared a bundle of papers from the only other chair, and offered it
to Mona.

The girl sat down upon the edge of it, a little nervously. "Yes, thank
you," she said.

There was an awkward pause.

Miss Hancock leaned back in her chair. "Well, what is it?" she said at
last. "You told me that you thought another submarine had been sunk on
the same afternoon as _Caranx_."

"That's right."

"But how did you come to know that _Caranx_ had been sunk at all?" Miss
Hancock had thought of that one in her bath that morning.

Mona had anticipated it. "They was talking about it in the bar, the
night it happened," she said. That was true enough, although she hadn't
heard what they said.

"Who was talking about it?"

"All the naval officers, I think. They all seemed to know."

Miss Hancock was silent. It was extraordinary how these things got
around. People talked too much.

She said, "Tell me again what Porky Thomas saw. What's his real name, by
the way--and his rank?"

Twenty minutes later she tapped at the next door but three along the
corridor, and then went in. Commander Sutton looked up from his desk,
red-faced, red-haired, and jovially plump. "Ha," he said, "what are you
doing here? I thought it was your watch below."

Second Officer Hancock was patient with him. The reference to her watch
below was part of a longstanding ridicule, aimed at the naval talk
affected by the W.R.N.S. It had reached its culmination the week before,
rather offensively in her opinion, when he had found her making tea.
"Tea!" he had roared for all the corridor to hear. "Sailors don't drink
tea! You want a tot of rum! That's the stuff to put hair on your chest!"
Since then there had been a coolness in the office.

She said, "There's a girl in my room that I'd like you to see,
Commander."

He said, "Is she pretty?"

She raised her head a little higher. "I don't know if you'd think so.
But she's got a story that I think you ought to hear."

He stared at her, slightly more serious. "Who is she, anyway?"

"She is the barmaid at the Royal Clarence, in the snack bar."

He burst into a guffaw of laughter. "Of course I'll see her. Any
time--anywhere. Lead me to her." He sobered himself and then said,
"Where is she now?"

"She's in my office."

"Go and get her. I say, do you know that one--'My Lord, there is a maid
without'?"

Miss Hancock said frigidly, "I know that one, Commander. I'll go and get
her."

She went back to her own office. "I want you to come and see Commander
Sutton," she said. "He's just along the corridor." She hesitated and
then said, "You mustn't mind his way. He thinks he's funny."

She need not have worried. Commander Sutton reserved his pleasantries
for young women who considered themselves his superior in the social
scale; with his inferiors he was both courteous and polite. He got up
from his desk as Mona came into the room. "My name is Sutton," he said.
"How do you do, Miss Stevens." He indicated a chair. "Would you sit
down?"

He offered her a cigarette, which she refused. "Well now," he said
jovially, "what's this all about?"

Miss Hancock said, "It's about the _Caranx_ accident, Commander. Miss
Stevens thinks another submarine was sunk on that same afternoon, off
Departure Point, and that that one was really _Caranx_."

"Oh . . ." The plump officer lit his cigarette with care, and laid the
match down carefully in the tray. Then he stared across the desk at the
barmaid, and all joviality was gone. "What makes you think that, Miss
Stevens?"

Mona said in a small voice. "It's like this. I work in the Royal
Clarence, in the snack bar."

"I know you do," he said gravely. "You've served me there."

She smiled weakly. "Yes, sir. And you know how people get to talking of
an evening, when they meet old friends. Not but what they're very
careful, but they forget about the girl behind the bar." She looked up
at him. "We get to hear ever such a lot of things--you wouldn't think."

He nodded without speaking.

"Well, the day after _Caranx_ was sunk all the naval officers, the young
ones I mean, they seemed to know all about it. And they was arguing
where it happened. And somebody said that somebody called Rugson had
told him that it was off Departure Point, in Area SL, I think it was."

The naval officer absently wrote "Rugson" on his blotting pad.
"Departure Point is in Area SL," he observed.

"That's what they said. And they said that an officer called Porky
Thomas had sailed through a lot of oil coming up from the bottom, just
off Departure Point, and that he told Rugson."

"This was the same day?"

"No, sir. That was the next morning, after _Caranx_ had been sunk."

"I see. It's all a bit second-hand, isn't it?"

Mona said, "I beg your pardon?"

"I mean, somebody told somebody something, and he told somebody else,
who told somebody else over a drink. It's not very good evidence, is
it?"

Mona looked him in the eyes. "I didn't think nothing of it till I saw a
newspaper that an officer called Mouldy James had." She smiled. "I'm
terribly sorry I don't know their proper names, Porky Thomas and Mouldy
James. I only know what people call them."

"That's all right." He wrote the names upon his pad. "Do you know if
they were R.N., or R.N.R.?"

"R.N.V.R., they were--both of them. They had wavy rings."

"I see. And what was in this newspaper?"

"It was an American newspaper--just a cutting, you know. It said that
the captain of a Dutch ship had seen a submarine sunk in the Channel off
Departure Point. It was on December 3, the paper said. That was the day
that _Caranx_ was sunk, wasn't it?"

He eyed her seriously. She seemed to know the hell of a lot about
_Caranx_. "I think it was," he said.

"It said another thing, in the paper. It said that the submarine broke
into two bits, with the bow and stern showing at the same time, like.
But _Caranx_ didn't do that. She went down upright, with only the bow
showing."

"I think she did," he said. This girl would have to be investigated.

"That's what made me think there might have been two of them, you see,"
said Mona. "And then, only the night before last, there was some
officers from off a salvage ship in the bar, talking about submarines.
And what they said was that the Germans carry British sailors' clothes
in their torpedo tubes sometimes, and fire them out to make us think
that we're attacking a British one."

The red-haired officer opened his eyes a little. "They're doing that
now, are they?"

"That's what he said. So then I got to wondering which of them was
which, and if it really was the English one that--" she hesitated
"--that our people sank. So I came and saw Miss Hancock."

"I see."

There was a short silence. The commander sat motionless, staring at his
blotting pad. Presently he said, "It's been very good of you to come and
put this to us, Miss Stevens. Very public-spirited. Now, I'm going to
ask you to wait for about half an hour in Miss Hancock's office while I
see if I can get hold of any of these people--" He glanced at the
pencilled names upon his pad. "Then we'll have another talk."

He smiled at her affably, and she went out with Miss Hancock. The
commander waited till the door was shut, then lifted the telephone from
his desk.

"I want the file on _Caranx_--the Court of Enquiry," he said. "Send the
signalman up with it."

In a minute or two the signalman came in, a grey-haired sailor. The
officer said, "Signalman, did you see a lady come in a little while ago,
who wanted to see Miss Hancock?"

"Yes, sir."

"She's with Miss Hancock now, in her office. I don't want her to leave
the building. You'd better stay at the foot of the stairs."

"Very good, sir."

The red-haired officer turned to the file. Ten minutes later, he closed
it and sat for a few moments staring out of the window at the elm trees
in the middle of the Dockyard, at the rooks building in them. It was
quite possible that there had been a second submarine. The evidence
given to the Court was not inconsistent--in fact, it all pointed the
same way. It would explain the very positive evidence of the pilot that
there had been no marking on the hydrovanes, and it would explain why
_Caranx_ had answered no signals for an hour and forty minutes before
she had supposedly been sunk. She was already at the bottom of the sea.

He opened the file again, and re-read the censure of the pilot in the
findings of the Court. If this new story should turn out to be the
truth, it meant the pilot had done well. Very well. In fact, he must
have sunk the German that sunk _Caranx_. The Court would have to be
recalled to reconsider its findings--to eat its words.

But now, what about this girl? He did not believe her story for one
moment, that she had overheard the details of the sinking of _Caranx_ by
conversation in the bar. She knew the details far too well, almost as if
she had had that very file of papers in her possession. There had been a
leakage of information, a very serious leakage. Somebody who knew the
whole thing had been desperately indiscreet, and not the least important
part of the investigation would be to find how that barmaid got her
knowledge of the proceedings of a secret Court.

He tucked the file under his arm, and went downstairs. He went into the
office of the secretary to the Commander-in-Chief with a beaming,
careless smile. He said to the paymaster captain, "Jumbo got any one
with him?" In his younger days Admiral Sir James Blackett, K.C.B., had
played centre forward for the Navy.

"I don't think so. I'll just see, if you like."

"I wish you would."

The paymaster captain went through the inner door behind the glass
screen, that led to the Commander-in-Chief's study. In a minute or two
he reappeared. "Will you go in?"

He went through to the study. Admiral Blackett, white-haired and
pale-faced, six foot three in height and massively built, was seated at
his desk. A bright fire burned in the grate; the room was painted white,
with tall windows. A large oil painting of Admiral the Earl St. Vincent
hung above the fireplace.

Sutton said, "I've got the file on _Caranx_ here, sir. Rather an odd
thing has just happened about that."

The Commander-in-Chief frowned. _Caranx_ was still a sore subject. "What
is it?" he asked tersely.

Ten minutes later he said, "Is the girl still here?"

The red-haired commander said, "She's upstairs, sir. I thought it better
not to let her go away."

"Quite right. You might bring her down. I'd like to get to the bottom of
this. I'll see if I can get hold of Burnaby." He lifted a telephone and
spoke to his secretary.

Commander Sutton said diffidently, "Should I ring up Rutherford, over at
Fort Blockhouse, sir?"

"I think you might. Ask him to come across."

Ten minutes later, Commander Sutton brought Mona downstairs. "The
Admiral wants to see you himself," he said. "He's quite a nice old
stick."

Mona followed him obediently; inwardly she was terrified. She would have
got away if that had been possible, but she was caught in the grip of
the machine. She steeled herself with the thought that they couldn't eat
her, anyway. She thought of Jerry, flippant and debonair. She must go
through with it for his sake, and face whatever came.

They went through the secretary's office into the study. The
Commander-in-Chief was standing in front of the fire, a great tall man
who dwarfed everybody else. He came forward as Mona came into the room.

Sutton said, "This is Miss Stevens, sir."

The Admiral held out his hand. "How do you do, Miss Stevens." Another
officer entered the room behind them. "Oh, Burnaby, this is Miss
Stevens--Captain Burnaby." The captain bowed to the barmaid. "Miss
Stevens has some evidence upon the loss of _Caranx_. I thought you might
be interested to hear what she has to say."

The iron-grey brows bent together in a frown. "I should indeed, sir."

Commander Sutton intervened. "I have located Lieutenant James in T. 174,
sir," he said. "I think he is the officer that Miss Stevens knows as
Mouldy James. The vessel is at North Wall. I spoke to him on the
telephone, and he's coming down now." He paused. "Rutherford is on his
way over."

The Commander-in-Chief nodded. He turned to Mona. "Take a seat, Miss
Stevens." He drew up an arm chair for her before the fire. "Now, just
tell us in your own words what you overheard during your work."

Mona went through her story once again. From time to time they
interrupted her with questions, shrewd, penetrating questions. Their
questions were not hostile; rather they were designed to help her
memory. She found that with their aid she remembered much more than she
thought she had been able to. Commander Rutherford came in while she was
being questioned, and took a chair by the wall.

Seated at the desk behind her back the secretary was taking notes.

Presently she got into difficulties.

It was Captain Burnaby who did it. He said, "There's one thing that I
don't follow, Miss Stevens. This newspaper cutting that Lieutenant James
had. Why didn't he report the submarine which was said to have been
sunk?"

She said, "I don't think he paid much attention to it."

"Then why did he keep the cutting? Why did he show it to you?"

She hesitated. She could not tell these officers, these men who were old
enough to be her father--she could not tell them a low joke about
rubber, especially when it wasn't a very funny one. She said weakly, "I
don't know."

The Commander-in-Chief looked down at her curiously. "He must have had
some reason for showing it to you."

She was silent. At last she said, "I think he just showed it to me,
like."

There was a short silence. To the officers her answer was
unsatisfactory. It left an unexplained gap of motive; it indicated
something that she wished to conceal. Instinctively they all came to the
same conclusion; that she had started lying.

Presently Sutton said, "Where did you say that _Caranx_--or what we
thought was _Caranx_--had been sunk, Miss Stevens?"

Mona said, "Just inside Area SM, wasn't it?"

"Yes." The commander smiled at her; he did not want to frighten her.
"But how did you know that? Who told you?"

She said, "I heard them talking in the bar."

"You heard a great deal of detailed information in the bar, didn't you?
I mean, about the area, and the difficulty that the pilot had in
identifying the submarine, and the way she sank. And then the clothes
that were picked up--you heard about those, too. Somebody must have done
a lot of talking in the bar. Who was it?"

She stared at him in dismay. It would never do to tell them about Jerry
at this stage--she'd get him in an awful row. She said, "It was just
officers, I think."

"Several officers?"

"Yes--I think so."

The Admiral said quietly, "Do you mean that the loss of _Caranx_ was
discussed in every detail by a number of officers in the bar?"

She was miserably silent. Then she said, "I suppose so."

Captain Burnaby said, "Can you describe these officers to us?"

She shook her head. "I don't really remember them."

"But you remembered the others--Lieutenants Thomas and James." His frown
was terrible to her.

"Yes."

"But you can't remember anything about the ones who told you about
_Caranx_?"

She shook her head.

The Admiral turned to the secretary. "Take Miss Stevens to your office
for a few minutes and make her comfortable," he said. "If you don't
mind, Miss Stevens . . ." Commander Sutton opened the door for her, and
she went out with the secretary.

"She's lying," said Captain Burnaby.

The Commander-in-Chief said, "Yes, she's lying some of the time. We
shall have to check up on everything she has said."

Commander Sutton said, "I feel that a good bit of it is true."

Commander Rutherford said, "I agree with that, sir. Especially as
regards the clothes. The fact that the clothes were soaked in fuel oil
was always a mystery. Her story does at least explain that part of it."

The paymaster captain came back into the room. "Lieutenant James is
waiting, sir," he said.

"Tell him to come in."

Lieutenant James came in uneasily. In private life he was a young
schoolmaster; all his life had been spent in schools and universities.
He knew the atmosphere of Admiralty House very well; it was that of the
headmaster's study. The fact that he had been called there, _ipso
facto_, meant that he was guilty of some misdemeanour, and he would have
been much easier in his mind if he could have recollected what it was.

The Admiral's first question did not reassure him in the least. The old
man fixed him with a stony look, and said, "Lieutenant James, are you
acquainted with the barmaid in the Royal Clarence Hotel?"

He was dumbfounded. "I--I go there sometimes," he said.

"Did you ever show her a newspaper cutting?"

Recollection came to him. "I think I did once."

"Have you still got the cutting?"

He felt for his wallet. "I should have it, sir." He produced a slip of
paper. "This is it."

"Let me see it." The young man gave it to him.

The Admiral read it through methodically, then passed it to Captain
Burnaby. The other came to Burnaby and looked at it over his shoulder.

The Commander-in-Chief said, "What made you show this to the barmaid?
Had you discussed submarines with her before?"

The young man was genuinely astonished. "Submarines, sir?"

"Yes, submarines, Mr. James. Were you in the habit of discussing
submarines with this barmaid?"

A hideous vista of trouble loomed before the young schoolmaster. "I
never did that, sir," he expostulated. "It was quite another thing. We
were having a joke about the rubber."

"What was the joke?"

"I was with the contraband control when this ship was brought into
Weymouth, sir. The captain said that his six hundred tons of rubber was
for use in Holland as contraceptives, but he didn't get away with that."

The Admiral said dryly, "I imagine not, Mr. James." Commander Sutton
chuckled audibly: it was the kind of joke he liked.

The young man said, "No sir. I've got an uncle in Norfolk, Virginia, and
he knew that I was in the contraband control. He sent me that cutting
just for interest. As a matter of fact, it was more interesting than he
thought. I kept the cutting as a souvenir."

"Why did you show it to the barmaid then?"

"We were all laughing over it, and she asked what the joke was. So I
showed it to her."

Commander Sutton smiled broadly. "And you told her what the joke was?"

"Yes, sir."

The Admiral said, "I see. Now, Mr. James, this cutting also mentions a
submarine. Did you discuss that with the barmaid?"

"No, sir. Not at all."

"Have you ever discussed this submarine story with anybody?"

"No, sir. I never thought about it much."

They asked him a few more questions and sent him away, very much
mystified. The Admiral laid the cutting on his desk.

Commander Sutton said, "I think that clears up one point, sir. She was
lying when she said she didn't know why he showed it to her, but that's
quite natural when you come to think of it. She didn't want to talk to
us about contraceptives."

The Commander-in-Chief said, "That may very well be the case."

Captain Burnaby said, "We still have the major point, how she came to
know anything at all about _Caranx_. She was clearly lying when we asked
her about that. I must say, I'm not satisfied. There's been a very
serious leakage of information, either from somebody who attended the
Court of Enquiry, or from somebody else who had access to the papers."

To the red-haired, red-faced, jovial Commander Sutton there came a
sudden thought. It came to him because he was perhaps the youngest in
years and in spirit of the four of them assembled in the room.

He said, "I should like to clear up this rubber point once and for all,
sir. She'd probably tell me alone, when we should have difficulty if all
four of us were questioning her. May I go and ask her one or two
questions about that?"

The Admiral said, "By all means."

Commander Sutton found Mona sitting disconsolate in the secretary's
office, behind the glass screen. He beamed at her. "Lieutenant James has
just told us a funny story," he said cheerfully. "He said that there was
a low joke about rubber in that newspaper cutting, and that that's why
he showed it to you."

She said, "That's right. I didn't like to say, in front of the Admiral,
and all."

He said merrily, "Well now, I think that's rather funny. You know, we
all thought you were hiding something terrible."

"I wasn't, honestly. Only that."

He sat down on the arm of a chair. "Look, Miss Stevens--do you mind if I
ask you rather a personal question? You needn't answer it unless you
want to."

She said, "All right . . ."

"Are you engaged--or going about a lot with anybody in particular?"

She looked down. "Sort of," she said at last.

He smiled down at her, full of quite a genuine sympathy. "He's in the
Air Force, isn't he?"

She was silent. It was no good trying to deceive these officers; they
were too clever for her.

"Is he a pilot?" he said gently.

She nodded without speaking. They knew everything.

"Is he the pilot who sank _Caranx_?"

She raised her head. "He never did," she said angrily. "You and your
precious Court of Enquiry tried to make out he did, but that's all
wrong."

He smiled at her. "We only want to get to the bottom of the thing," he
said. "We can't do that if you hold out on the essential facts, because
then we don't know where we are at all. Look, tell me the whole of it.
First of all, what's his name?"

"Chambers," she said, "Jerry Chambers. I don't mean that--I mean
Roderick Chambers." He waited patiently while she collected herself.
"He's a flying officer."

"And you're engaged to him, are you?"

"Not properly. Sort of half and half."

He thought for a minute. It was all becoming clear as crystal now. "I
suppose when he was in trouble over _Caranx_, he told you all about it."

"He had to tell somebody," she said. "Who else was there for him to talk
to? You was all against him."

"I'm not blaming him, or you, or anybody," he said. "I'm trying to help.
Tell me, did you ever hear anything about _Caranx_ except from Mr.
Chambers?"

She shook her head. "Only from Jerry. They was talking about it a little
in the bar the night it happened, or the night after, but not so that
any one could hear."

He smiled at her. "That clears up everything, Miss Stevens. Will you
come in with me and tell this to the Admiral? I'll help you."

She got up reluctantly, and followed him back into the study. It was
awful; she didn't know what Jerry would say. But she was powerless to
contend against these men.

In the study, Commander Sutton said easily, "I think we've cleared up
where the leakage came from, sir." He smiled. "Miss Stevens is engaged
to Flying Officer Chambers, the pilot who was responsible for sinking
_Caranx_--or what we think was _Caranx_."

The Admiral stared at her, with creases round his eyes that indicated
the possibility of a smile. "So that is where the leakage came from?"

Mona was silent, confused. Commander Sutton said, "Yes, sir. Miss
Stevens has assured me that she had no other source of information."

Rutherford said, "Well, that seems to clear up all the difficulties."

Captain Burnaby said nothing. One perfectly appalling difficulty was
opening before him.

The Commander-in-Chief said, "I agree with that. Now we can set to work
and analyze the evidence."

He turned to Mona. "I'm going to ask you to wait a little longer," he
said. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

She said shyly, "Yes, please."

"Come along with me."

He opened the door for her that led into the main hall of Admiralty
House, white, and very high, and pillared. "I think they're having tea
in the drawing room," he said easily. "My wife will want to meet you."

He opened the door. In the large, well-proportioned room a tea table was
drawn up before the fire; a solid, comfortable tea served in the old
aristocratic style. A middle-aged lady with grey hair brushed back from
her forehead was sitting on a sofa in the act of pouring out; another,
possibly a sister, sat opposite to her upon the far side of the
fireplace. Two children, a boy and a girl of school age, were digging
into the bread and jam.

The grey-haired lady looked up as the Admiral came in. "Ring the bell
for another cup, Jim dear," she said. She saw Mona behind him. "Oh
. . ."

The Commander-in-Chief said, "I haven't come to stay. I want you to meet
Miss Stevens, Muriel, and give her a cup of tea. Miss Stevens has just
been very useful to us, so be nice to her. I'm going back to my
conference."

Lady Blackett smiled. "Do come and sit down," she said to Mona. She made
room beside her on the sofa. She had become accustomed to the unexpected
in the way of visitors since she had become hostess at Admiralty House.
She did not know in the very least who Mona was, but then she had not
known a great deal about the young Siamese prince that she had had to
entertain the day before, or the twenty-three American journalists the
day before that.

The Admiral said, "I don't suppose we shall be very long," and went back
to his study.

He noticed at once that Rutherford was missing. Burnaby said, "He's
telephoning from the next office, sir. He won't be a minute."

In a few minutes Rutherford returned, a little red in the face. "I just
had an idea. I should have thought of it before. One of the caps that
was picked up when _Caranx_ went down was an ordinary rating's cap with
the initials A.C.P. inside the band."

"Well?"

"It just struck me to ring up Blockhouse and find out if there was a
rating on _Caranx_ with the initials A.C.P."

The Admiral nodded. "Was there?"

"No, there wasn't, sir. There was a man called Porter, an engine room
artificer, but his names were Thomas Edward."

There was a short silence. Captain Burnaby said at last, "So apparently
that cap did not belong to anybody on board _Caranx_."

Rutherford said, "Apparently not. It was careless of me not to have
thought of this before."

Commander Sutton laughed. "Well, that's another one."

The Commander-in-Chief moved over to the table; they grouped themselves
around him. "It's interesting, but it's a minor point. The first thing
that we must establish is the position where this other submarine was
said to have been sunk."

They sat down at the table and went into conference.

Half an hour later the Admiral rose from the table. "That's all then."
He turned to Rutherford. "I shall leave this in your hands, Commander.
Make your arrangements direct with Commander Hobson for the divers." He
turned to the secretary. "See that Hobson is informed."

The two commanders made as if to leave the room, but Captain Burnaby
hesitated. "There's just one more thing, sir," he said.

"What's that?"

Captain Burnaby was not easily put out, but he had not felt himself in a
position of such difficulty for many years. "It's about the Air Force
pilot who sunk _Caranx_, or what we thought to be _Caranx_," he said.

"What about him? You mean, the one that is engaged to this girl here?"

"Yes, sir. He happened to be the pilot who was doing the trials upon the
R.Q. apparatus yesterday. You remember, there was an accident."

"That was the same pilot, was it?"

"Yes sir."

To the two commanders, this was so much Greek; each guarded his own
secrets and knew little of the secrets of the other departments.

The Commander-in-Chief said, "He's in Haslar, isn't he?"

"Yes, sir. He's pretty bad."

"Dying?"

"I wouldn't like to say. He got through the night better than they
thought he would." The captain hesitated, and then he said. "He behaved
very creditably. He insisted upon seeing Professor Legge in hospital
last night, to tell him what happened."

The Admiral nodded. It was the sort of thing that one expected, but
still good to see. "I don't suppose that did him any good."

"No, sir. The hospital were very cross about it."

There was a short silence.

Commander Sutton said, "I don't think the girl knows anything about
that, sir."

"No," said the Admiral. "She'll have to be told."

The same thought had been in all their minds. Each of them had shied
away from it, a desperately unpleasant business that each hoped would
fall to some one else.

Burnaby said, "It isn't really necessary to tell her now, sir. It will
get through to her in due course in the usual way."

There was a little pause. Then the Commander-in-Chief said, "No. She'd
better be told tonight. She's deserved well of us, and so has the
pilot."

He turned to them. "Leave that with me, gentlemen," he said firmly. They
recognized their dismissal, and left the study.

Outside, the evening was closing in. A steward came in quietly and
closed the shutters, and drew the heavy curtains across the windows. The
Admiral turned to his desk and picked up the telephone. "Get me Surgeon
Captain Dixon, in Haslar Hospital."

He looked up from the telephone, and said to the steward, "Ask her
Ladyship if she would come and see me in here for a moment."

Lady Blackett came into the room as he was putting down the telephone.
"Did you want me, Jim?"

He got up to meet her. "I wanted a word with you alone. What's that girl
like, that I landed on you?"

She opened her eyes a little. "She's nice, Jim. Not quite from the top
drawer, you know. But she's got a very nice mind."

"Pretty, isn't she?"

"I think she's very good looking. Who is she?"

"She's one of the barmaids at the Royal Clarence Hotel."

She nodded; she was not surprised. "I thought it was something like
that. We had quite a heart-to-heart. She's half engaged to somebody in
the Air Force--an officer." She smiled quietly. "She was working up to
ask me if she ought to marry him, but she didn't get as far as that."

He nodded. "Is she up to scratch?"

"I think she is. I wouldn't mind receiving her. Things aren't like they
used to be, when we were married."

He turned back to the fire. "There's a bit of trouble about that Air
Force officer of hers," he said. "Flying Officer Chambers. He was on one
of the experimental jobs that the people at Titchfield are doing for us.
There was a crash yesterday, and he got very badly hurt."

She said quietly, "I'm very sorry."

"Yes. I've just been on to Haslar. He got through last night all right,
but he's still very ill. Multiple injuries, burns, and shock. I don't
quite know what to do about this girl."

"I'm sure she doesn't know anything about this."

"No. Should we tell her, do you think? It's not as if she was his wife."

She said, "I think we ought to tell her."

"That's what I thought. Normally, I wouldn't bother with it; I'd let her
go away and find out in the usual course of things. But these two have
deserved well of us, both of them."

"You'll give her a pass to go and see him in Haslar?"

"Of course." There was a pause, and then he said, "Is she alone in the
drawing room?"

"Yes."

He moved towards the door, a great massive figure in naval uniform, with
heavy rings of gold braid on his arms, with three rows of medal ribbons
on his shoulder.

She stopped him. "Let me do it, Jim," she said. "I'll bring her in to
see you for a minute presently." She smiled gently. "This is the sort of
thing that I can do a great deal better than you."

In the tall, spacious drawing room Mona sat alone before the fire. From
three of the four walls long portraits of bygone admirals in uniform
looked down at her, clothed in the fashions of an older day. Presently
she got up and began looking round; over the mantelpiece she read the
legend on a picture, Admiral Earl Howe. Each of the pictures had a title
under it; some of them she could remember vaguely from her history book
at school.

Jerry, she knew, would get up to the top of his profession. A hundred
years hence, Jerry's portrait might be hanging on a similar wall in some
far-distant, similar drawing room. She wondered what the wives of all
these admirals had been. Had any of them been barmaids? If she married
Jerry, would he ever have his picture on a wall like that?

The door opened, and she turned to meet the wife of the
Commander-in-Chief.

Lady Blackett came forward to the fire. "Sit down, my dear," she said a
little nervously. They sat down together on the deep, brocaded sofa.

"I'm afraid I've got bad news for you," she said.




                                   10


All morning the Dutch ship plugged along up Channel, driven at twelve
knots with a rumbling mutter from her Diesel engines. They had passed
the Lizard in the night; at dawn they had been inspected by a low flying
monoplane of the Coastal Command. The name HELOISE and the Dutch colours
painted on her side had satisfied the aeroplane; the pilot had waved
cheerfully at them, and had flown on his way.

They passed the Start at ten o'clock and went on, keeping a sharp
lookout for submarines. Once three destroyers passed to the south of
them, steering west and going at a great speed.

On the bridge Captain Jorgen stood scanning the waters. He had slept
little during the night; it was unlikely that he would leave the bridge
before his vessel docked at Rotterdam. He was nervous of submarines.
Without respect for neutrality the Germans had been sinking Dutch ships
at sight in recent weeks; a policy that was difficult to comprehend. In
successive voyages since the war began the _Heloise_ had brought from
America a considerable quantity of goods that had been destined for
Germany. Not all had passed the contraband control, but a good deal had
slipped through.

His first officer called his attention to a ship ahead of them as they
drew near to Portland. He inspected it through glasses; it had the
unmistakable outline of a destroyer. Moreover, it was steaming to meet
him. He swore softly to himself. For the last two voyages he had had a
navicert issued in New York, but that did not prevent the British from
stopping his ship for further inspections.

Presently the destroyer began signalling to him with a lamp. "What ship
is that?" Viewing him from the bow, she could not see the letters
painted on his side.

He answered; there was nothing else to do. Back came the signal,
"Request you proceed to Weymouth for examination."

Angrily he signalled back, "Have navicert therefore no examination
necessary."

Curtly the answer came, "Proceed to Weymouth." The destroyer took
station on his quarter and accompanied him in. Her bow guns trained on
him discouraged argument.

At half-past two the anchor rattled down in Weymouth Bay; the throbbing
of the Diesel engines died away to rest. The captain stood on the
bridge, staring angrily at the motor tender coming towards them from the
harbour mouth. He nursed a sense of grievance. His ship carried a cargo
of general merchandise, most of which was quite genuinely destined for
consumption in Holland.

He gave an order, and a pilot's ladder rolled down the vessel's side.
The tender drew alongside and made fast; he went down to the head of the
ladder to meet the officers of the Control.

The first to come over the side was a lieutenant commander in the
R.N.V.R. whom he remembered from his previous examinations. "Well?" he
said coldly. "What is it that you want?"

The other said, "We shan't keep you longer than an hour or two, Captain.
May I see your papers?"

Jorgen shrugged his shoulders. "It is no business for you," he said.
"Nothing whatsoever to do with you--you understand? Still, you are here,
and I have nothing to conceal. You may see the papers--alle, alle,
including the navicert which is supposed to make me free from these
delays."

Another officer climbed over the bulwarks, wearing the brass hat of a
commander in the Royal Navy. The first officer said, "Captain
Jorgen--may I introduce you to Commander Rutherford."

"So." The Dutchman bowed stiffly. "You are also of the Contraband
Control?"

Rutherford said, "No--I belong to another branch of the Service." He
looked around. "Could we go into your cabin, Captain? I shan't keep you
long."

"As you like." He turned, and led the way to the deckhouse.

The commander laid his hat and muffler on the table. He took out his
wallet, and extracted a small piece of newspaper. "Would you take a look
at that, Captain, and tell me if you've ever seen it before?"

The Dutchman opened his eyes a little wider, "_Ja_," he said. "I have
this in my book, also. My book of cuttings, you understand. So, exactly
the same. It comes from the _Star_, at Norfolk, in America."

"That's it," said Rutherford. "Tell me, is this account of the submarine
correct, Captain? Did you really see a submarine destroyed like this?"

"Truly. I have written it in the log."

The commander said, "My business is with submarines, Captain. May I see
that entry in your log? We are anxious to find out everything we can
about that sinking."

Jorgen reached down a volume from the shelf above his head, and opened
it upon the table. He turned the pages rapidly to December 3. "You are
able to read Dutch?"

"No--I'm afraid I can't."

"So." The captain laid his finger on the page. "There--the date. The
time, 1415, two hours and one quarter after noon--you understand? I will
translate. It says:

    " 'Strong detonation distance two miles on starboard side with
    indication of wrecked submarine. Sea moderate. Departure Point
    bears north thirty-six degree west.' "

Rutherford pulled an envelope from his pocket, and noted on the back of
it the time of the explosion, and the bearing from Departure Point.
"That is the bearing of the ship, I take it. Not the submarine?"

"Ja. I will show upon the chart the position of the submarine, if you
wish."

"We'll have a look at that later. Tell me first, what do you mean by
'indication of wrecked submarine'? Did you see the submarine before the
explosion?"

Jorgen shook his head. "It was sharp storm--what do you say?--a squall.
With rain and a little wind. It may be that the submarine was up on the
top of the sea, but we did not see, because of the rain--you
understand?"

The commander nodded. "Then passed the squall, all over. And at once, we
hear the explosion, that rattles the whole ship, very strong. We look,
and we see a very big tower of water, and then we see the two ends of a
submarine both at the same time above the water--like this." He
indicated with his fingers.

Rutherford nodded slowly. "Did you see the ship that sunk her?"

The captain said, "There was no ship at all. Not one in sight."

"What did you think made the explosion, then?"

The Dutchman eyed him narrowly. "How should I tell you what made the
explosion?" he said. "You know already everything about it."

The commander said, "If I knew everything about it I shouldn't be here,
Captain. Tell me, what did you make of it?"

Jorgen shrugged his shoulders. "Some say one thing, some say another
thing. For myself, I think first it is a mine, and then I think, another
submarine has fired a torpedo. Others think an explosion from inside.
But who can say?"

"Did you see any sign of any other submarine?"

The captain shook his head. "It was rough weather."

Rutherford got to his feet. "Have you got a chart, Captain? Could you
show me the position of the submarine, as nearly as you can?"

"Ja. That I will do now."

They went into the chart room, laid out the chart and drew rapidly upon
it with ruler and pencil. "That is our course. There, the position of
the ship. And _there_, the detonation."

The commander noted the position carefully upon his envelope, with the
reasoning that led to it. It was several miles off shore, but it was on
a shelf of the sea bottom. There were only fourteen fathoms of water
marked upon the chart. They could get a diver down there almost any time
if it was reasonably calm.

He stayed for a quarter of an hour longer, poring over the chart,
questioning the captain about the colour of the submarine, the general
appearance, and the nature of the explosion. He got no more information
than he had already gained. Once he said, "When the bow went up, you saw
the bottom of the submarine, I suppose."

"Ja--at the forward end."

"What colour was it, captain? The underwater surface?"

The other shrugged his shoulders. "The visibility was bad, you
understand, and it was two miles away. The bottom was dark in colour.
Black, perhaps."

"Would you say that it was rusty?"

"Who can say? It was black, I think."

The commander nodded.

"You didn't alter course, to go and investigate?"

The Dutchman shook his head. "I have my course given to me in the Downs,
to keep me clear of dangers. I cannot leave it. There may be mines."

That was quite true. Rutherford said, "You didn't report this to
anybody?"

"Why should I do that? My country is a neutral, and your war is not our
business. If I had been stopped and boarded by your navy, then I would
have said what I had seen. But I passed through your control before
that, in the Downs."

Presently they were finished. "That's all, I think, Captain," said the
submarine commander. "We won't keep you any longer." He glanced at the
lieutenant commander of the Contraband Control.

"His papers are in order, sir."

Captain Jorgen said, "You do not wish to keep me for examination?"

Rutherford said, "Not this time, Captain. We only stopped you so that I
could have this talk with you about the submarine."

The captain smiled. "So," he said. "If my ship is not to be examined, we
will drink Bols together."

Twenty minutes later the officers climbed carefully down the ladder to
their motor boat, not in the least assisted by the Bols. The boat
sheered off and made towards the shore; on board _Heloise_ men moved on
the forepeak and the chain began to grind in at the hawse. Presently the
engines rumbled out and regular, spasmodic puffs of fumes appeared from
the exhaust pipe in the funnel; then the vessel turned away and headed
eastwards up the Channel.

                 *        *        *        *        *

That afternoon, Mona crossed the ferry at the mouth of Portsmouth
Harbour and walked up to Haslar Hospital. In the past week she had been
twice before; the first time she had not seen Jerry at all. The second
time she had seen him for two or three minutes only, a tired figure
motionless in bed, that smiled at her with his eyes and said very
little. The sister had been with them all the time; she had left her
present of grapes and come away.

She passed the gate and walked across the garden quadrangle, bright with
spring flowers. She entered the hospital block and went up to the
sister's room, carrying her bag of grapes. Sister MacKenzie looked up
from the desk where she was writing up a temperature chart as the girl
came in.

Mona said, "Could I see Flying Officer Chambers?"

"Ay, he's expecting you. Ye can see him for ten minutes today, and not
one minute longer than that."

"How is he today?"

"He had a better night, the sister was telling me. He'll get along all
right, now, if he isn't wearied with his visitors."

Mona said, "I haven't got a watch. Would you tell me when it's time for
me to go?"

The Scotswoman said, "Have nae fear of that. I'll come and fetch ye oot
of it."

Mona walked along the passage, and entered the room. She said, "Hullo,
Jerry."

He smiled at her from the bed. "Hullo. You're looking very nice today."

She said, "Don't talk so soft. I brought you some grapes."

He was much better; there was no doubt of that. He lay in bed with both
arms bandaged to the shoulder outside the bedclothes; his hair had been
brushed and he had had a shave. He wore a vivid orange pyjama jacket,
cut short at the sleeves.

"That's awfully nice of you, Mona. The last lot were grand."

"How are you feeling, Jerry? You're looking better."

"It hurts like hell when they do my arms."

She drew a chair up and sat beside him. "It must do. Still, you're
looking better, Jerry."

"So I ought to. I've had Sister MacKenzie titivating me up for you for
the last half-hour. Do you like my taste in pyjamas?"

"It's kind of cheerful," she admitted.

He grinned at her. "That's fine. You're going to see a lot of them."

"If you start talking like that I'll go away."

"I won't talk like that, then. I'll just think it."

She laughed. "That's worse."

She sat with him for a few minutes, talking of little foolish things.
Presently he said, "What do you think of my hyacinths?"

She turned her head. A large basket filled with moss and growing
hyacinths, white and blue and pink, stood upon a table in the window.
They gave a pleasant sense of comfort and habitation to the bare
furnishings of the room.

"Who sent you those, Jerry?"

He turned his head upon the pillow to look at them, a puzzled frown
appeared. "It's a damn funny thing--I can't make it out. The wife of the
C. in C. sent them--Lady Blackett."

"Oh . . ."

He said, "I've never met the woman."

Mona said weakly, "I expect she sends flowers and stuff to every officer
that gets hurt."

"I'm damn sure she does nothing of the sort. What's more, she's coming
to see me tomorrow."

"Coming to see you?" This was terrible. She had given herself away so
utterly to Lady Blackett.

"Yes. She rang up Sister about an hour ago. She's coming tomorrow
morning."

There was a short silence. Mona said at last, "They're very pleased
about what you done to have this accident, Jerry. That's one thing I do
know."

"Are they? How did you hear that?"

She said cautiously, "There was a Commander Sutton talking about you. He
got to know that we was friends."

"Do they think it was a good show, then?"

"They do, Jerry--honest. They think you did terribly well."

He said, "Well, that's something to set off against _Caranx_."

She ventured, "They're wondering about _Caranx_, now. Commander Sutton
was saying that there was another submarine sunk in the Channel that
same day."

He stared at her. "Do you mean they think that there's a chance that the
one I sank wasn't _Caranx_?"

She nodded. "Something of that. I know they're looking into it again."

"Damn it," he said, "I always knew that bloody thing was German." There
was a pause, and then he said, "I bet this Lady Blackett knows all about
it. Wife of the C. in C.--she's sure to know what's going on. I'll have
to try and get a line on it from her."

Sister MacKenzie came into the room. "Time ye were gaeing along now,"
she said. "Ye've had more than the ten minutes."

Panic seized Mona as she rose to go. "Jerry," she said, "whatever Lady
Blackett says, you're Mr. Smith to me. You won't forget that?"

He stared at her. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "But you've got
that all wrong. I'm Lord Jerry and you're the Lady Chambers. Or you're
going to be."

The Scotswoman glowered at them in uncomprehending disapproval. It was
impossible to speak freely with her in the room, nor did Mona want to.
"You can call me what you like, Jerry," she said. "But you'll remember
what I wanted, just to be Mrs. Smith. That's all I ever wanted to be."
She bent and kissed him; then very quickly she made her escape from the
room.

Two days later, in the cold light of dawn, a trawler left the North Wall
and proceeded down the harbour. Lieutenant Mitcheson stood on the
bridge; as they passed _Victory_ drawn up in her dry-dock he called his
crew to attention, as was fitting. One day in the future there would
come Peace, a terrible day when they would take his ship away from him,
and he would have to go back to selling haberdashery, or else to the
motor trade. He put the thought away. There was, as yet, no sign of that
bad time on the horizon. For months, perhaps years to come, he would
have his three meals a day, his uniform, and his ship. He wished for
nothing more.

On the well deck forward of the bridge a squat box with two wheeled
handles was lashed down upon the hatch; by it the diver was smearing
vaseline upon the screw threads of his helmet with loving care. The
rubber suit was spread out on the hatch beside him with the long coils
of hose and line.

In the little cuddy of the trawler an elderly, grey-haired lieutenant
commander of the regular navy bent over a chart with Commander
Rutherford. "That's the place where we put down the buoy," he said.
"There's definitely something there--a wreck of some sort. We swept and
caught it twice--once going east and west, and the other time north and
south."

Rutherford nodded. "So you buoyed it."

"Yes. We put down a spar buoy."

"Any idea if it was a submarine?"

The other shook his head. "There was grey paint on the sweep wire when
we got it in. That's the only thing. From that, I'd say she hadn't been
down very long."

The commander nodded. The position that had been buoyed was about half a
mile to the west of the position he had got from the Dutchman, but in
poor weather that sort of error might quite well occur.

The morning came up calm and sunny. The trawler passed the Gate and
steamed away up Channel, over a calm, sunlit sea. Two hours later
Mitcheson said to Rutherford, standing beside him on the bridge,
"There's the buoy." It stood up, a threadlike spike, in the far distance
ahead of them.

It was still an hour and a half before the time of slack water, too
early yet for the diver to go down. The trawler drew up to the buoy,
slowed and manoeuvred for a few minutes, then dropped an anchor. Then for
a time she slacked out chain, manoeuvring with her engines as she did so;
presently she dropped a second anchor. In half an hour she was securely
moored beside the buoy.

The diver's crew appeared from below, and began their preparations. A
short ladder was made fast to the ship's side, and the shot rope was
streamed beside it to the bottom. With the deliberate care born of long
experience the diver got into his suit, the heavy boots were strapped to
his feet. The collar was laid upon his shoulders as he sat upon the
hatch, and the belt, furnished with the knife and the waterproof
lantern, was strapped to his waist.

He was a fair-haired, serious man of about thirty, smoking a cigarette.
He said to his mate, now polishing the windows of the helmet, "If I'm
down over dinner-time, tell cookie to keep a plateful hot for me. And I
don't want none of that fat."

"Or-right."

"What's he got for afters?"

"Plummy duff."

"I don't want none of that. Tell 'im I'll have a bit of bread and jam."

"Or-right."

"Partial to a bit of bread and jam, I've always been," said the diver
conversationally.

Commander Rutherford approached. "You've got it all clear, have you?" he
enquired. "If it's a submarine, we want the nationality to be
established definitely."

"Case it's _Caranx_, sir?"

"That's it. If you can get up to the conning tower, _Caranx_ had her
name on it in raised letter, towards the aft end, about five feet from
the deck. The letters were painted over, but you'd feel them with your
hands."

"I got that, sir."

The commander glanced over the side. "Are you going now, or will you
wait till the tide slacks a bit more?"

"All right if I go now, sir, I think." He turned to his mate. "Come on,
let's have it."

They lifted the dome onto his shoulders and screwed it home. Through the
front window he said to his mate, "Mind, I don't want none of that duff.
Ask if he's got any stewed fruit, or anything of that."

"Or-right."

Two men began to turn the handles of the pump; the air hissed through
the hose. His mate screwed the front window home and slapped the top of
the helmet with his hand. The diver sat for a minute adjusting the air
valve by his ear; then he got up with an effort and walked two steps to
the bulwarks. A couple of men helped him over the side onto the ladder.

He went down until the water rose above his head. Then, with the bright
copper dome of the helmet showing as a little disc upon the water, he
paused and adjusted the air valve that bubbled with a little sputter of
white foam. Then in slow motion he reached out and grasped the shot
rope, stepped off the ladder, and was gone. The hose and life-line payed
out slowly into the water.

On the trawler, the time dragged. The bubbles which showed where the
diver was wandered away to port and played about there, minute after
minute. In half an hour they did not move more than fifty yards from one
position. Presently they came back to the shot rope, and a series of
twitches gave the signal for a line to be sent down. A rope was lowered
with a hook upon the end of it; to the hook a canvas bag was lashed with
marline.

For half an hour longer the watchers on the trawler studied the bubbles
wandering to the surface, and the vagaries of the air tube and the
ropes. On the bridge and on the gun platform in the bow seamen were
posted to keep a vigilant lookout for submarines.

Once the old lieutenant commander said fretfully, "How long is he to be
down for?"

Rutherford said, "I left that to him."

The other was silent. He would have preferred to hurry the diver; it was
asking for it to stay anchored off the coast like this. A submarine
could come and take a pot shot at them from far off, and they would be
powerless to escape the torpedo. It was asking for trouble.

In the end there came a series of twitches at the hook rope. At the
bulwarks men began to pull it up. Rutherford and the lieutenant
commander went down to the deck; only Mitcheson stayed on the bridge to
guard the ship.

The rope came up slowly, fairly heavily laden. A metallic rod, eight
feet or more in length, broke surface with the hook. This rod was
furnished at one end with a handle and a broken plate through which it
passed; the other end was twisted and broken. From the hook the bag was
suspended, bulging with small articles.

These were all hoisted in and laid upon the deck. The diver's crew set
to work to take in the life-line and the hose as the man came up the
shot rope. Rutherford and the other officer bent to examine what had
been brought up.

The long rod passed through a broken plate close by the handle. This
plate was engraved with the words STARBOARD CENTRE.

The officers looked at it rather sadly. It was no more than they had
expected, but it revived the tragedy within their minds.

"What part is that?" said the lieutenant commander.

Rutherford shrugged his shoulders. "Looks like one of the ballast
cocks," he said. "We'll have to wait till we get to Blockhouse to
identify it positively."

They turned to the bag, unlashed it from the hook, and spread its
contents out upon the hatch. Behind them the trawler crew came round in
curiosity.

There were a pair of Ross binoculars with the broad arrow engraved on
them, considerably damaged by sea water. There was a brass handwheel the
steel shaft of which was snapped off short; the brass rim was engraved
with a double arrow and the words INCREASE and REDUCE. There was a
double-ended spanner marked at one end 1" and at the other 1". There
was a pewter coffeepot of British naval pattern, and there were three
table knives of the sort supplied for officers.

Rutherford said heavily, "Well, there's not much doubt about that, I'm
afraid."

The officer shook his head. "No doubt at all."

The diver came up the ladder presently, and paused with his head above
the bulwarks. Two men assisted him over onto the deck; he sat down on
the hatch. His mate unscrewed the front window, and removed the helmet.

The diver rubbed a hand over his face, and brushed the hair back from
his forehead. Then he saw Rutherford beside him. "It's a submarine, all
right," he said. "One of ours, too. See them words on the handwheel?"

The commander said, "Yes--I saw that. Is she very much damaged?"

"She's in two parts, sir--right in two separate pieces. You never saw
anything like it. The stern is upright, more or less, and the bow over
on the port side. I dunno where the conning tower's got to. I didn't see
nothing of that at all."

"You didn't see the name, then?"

"No, sir." He paused and then he said, "I reckon that's _Caranx_, all
right. I reckon she got torpedoed, too."

"Why do you think that? It might have been a mine."

"It didn't look like any mine _I_ ever saw, sir." The commander was
silent; this man had seen many damaged ships. "It was more local, if you
take me--more like a torpedo does. As a matter of fact, I did think I
saw the tail of a torpedo crushed up underneath the aft part, at the
break. But I wouldn't swear to that. I didn't go too near to all that
broken stuff with the tide running round it."

"Where did you get these things from, then?"

"Out of the fore part, at the break. That bit was in the lee of the
tide, if you get me, sir. I picked up everything loose I could lay me
hands on."

Rutherford questioned him for a few minutes. Then he said, "All right.
You can pack up your gear; I don't see anything to gain by going down
again."

"Very good, sir."

The commander turned aside. His friends were very near him, Billy
Parkinson, and Stone, and Sandy Anderson. Not very many fathoms from him
they lay resting in the sea, the sea that in their lives had brought
them so much pleasure and so much anxiety, so much joy and pain. His
mind drifted to a surf-riding party at Hong Kong with Billy and Jo
Parkinson and a dark girl that he might have married, but didn't. To a
cottage on the salt marshes near Bosham where he had had a meal or two
with Stone and his wife, to a week-end with Sandy Anderson on a five-ton
yacht in the Solent. In their lives they had taken pleasure from the
sea; that it now wrapped them close could not be altogether ill.

He turned to the old lieutenant commander. "Anybody got a prayer book on
board, do you think?" he said. "We'd better read the service before
getting under way."

The older man, his junior in rank, said, "I'll ask the captain. But do
you think it's wise to hang about here any longer?"

They had been anchored there for more than two hours, a sitting shot for
any submarine. Rutherford hesitated. "Tell the captain to get under
way," he said at last. "I'll read the service while he circles round the
buoy."

Presently the anchor winch began to grind in chain. The diver,
clambering out of the stiff rubber suit, said to his mate in a low tone,
"Nip down and tell cookie to keep my dinner a bit longer. He's going to
read the bloody service."

"Or-right."

"Did you ask him about the stewed fruit?"

"He ain't got none." The diver made a gesture of annoyance.

The second anchor broke surface; Lieutenant Mitcheson rang for half
speed ahead, and the trawler began to move. She turned in a wide circle.
Commander Rutherford went forward to the well deck and stood by the
bulwarks facing to the buoy. Then, in a level voice, he began to read
from Mitcheson's prayer book.

The men stood round him with bared heads, awkward and a little
embarrassed. Rutherford read on steadily, conscientiously, and rather
badly. He knew that he was bad at reading aloud. His friends had known
that, too; he thought they wouldn't mind.

    "I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me,
    Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which
    die in the Lord: even so saith the spirit; for they rest
    from their labours."

The trawler turned from the buoy, and set a course for home.

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the study in Admiralty House, Commander Rutherford made his report to
the Admiral. Captain Burnaby was there, and Commander Foster, jovial and
red-faced.

Rutherford said, "I think there is no doubt that the one off Departure
Point is _Caranx_, sir. The long handle was part of the ballast
controls, and the handwheel was the field control to one of the motors.
We identified that definitely."

Admiral Blackett said, "Was the other submarine really sunk? It's been
established that she didn't get away?"

"We had a sweep made yesterday," said Captain Burnaby. "Commander
Rutherford suggested that. There's definitely a ship there on the
bottom, but it's too deep to get a diver down to her, except under very
good conditions." He paused. "I think there can be very little doubt
that she is the submarine that Flying Officer Chambers sunk."

"I see."

The Admiral sat back in his chair. "As you would reconstruct the matter,
then," he said, "_Caranx_ was proceeding towards Portsmouth at
two-fifteen in the afternoon, in a squall of rain. Probably she was
running on the surface."

Rutherford said, "Certainly on the surface, I should say. She sent a
wireless signal at 14.03."

"Yes--on the surface. As the squall passed she was sighted by a German,
which unfortunately was in a position to torpedo her, and did so."

The officers nodded their agreement.

The Admiral thought for a minute. "The supposition is, that after that,
the German took up the course that _Caranx_ had been steering on, for
Portsmouth. And that he ran upon the surface as _Caranx_ had been
doing." He paused. "Why did he do that?"

Commander Foster beamed, leaned forward, and said keenly, "He was a
clever chap. He would have seen from her course that _Caranx_ was making
for the Gate, and he would have realized that aircraft and trawlers
would have been warned not to attack her. He may have hoped to get right
up into Spithead."

"So he proceeded on the surface, just as _Caranx_ had been doing. He
took a very bold course if he did that."

Commander Foster said, "I think he was probably a very bold man, sir."

Burnaby said, "That sounds like the truth of it, to me. He was doing his
best to behave exactly as _Caranx_ would have done, in an attempt to get
right close in to the Gate."

Commander Rutherford made a grimace. "He might have done a lot of damage
if he'd pulled it off."

The Commander-in-Chief nodded. "Yes, he might have done a lot of damage.
Unfortunately for him, he took too long to make up his mind. He was late
on his schedule."

Foster said, "It's a bit of luck that Air Force pilot got him." He
smiled broadly.

Admiral Blackett leaned forward to the table. "Well, gentlemen, that
seems to be the truth of it. I'm glad we've been able to clear it up;
it's always very unsatisfactory when things are left unexplained. Now,
is there any further business--any other points that anybody has to
raise?"

Captain Burnaby raised his head. "As a matter of fact, sir, the Court of
Enquiry ought to be recalled to reconsider its findings. That's a small
matter; I should think they'd run through it in half an hour. But I
think it ought to be done."

The Commander-in-Chief said, "I shouldn't waste much effort over that.
It affects nothing now."

Burnaby persisted. "They censured the pilot in their findings, sir. I
think that should be rectified with as little delay as possible."

The Admiral said, "I had forgotten that. All right, see my secretary and
get them recalled. You'd better get that done at once; we owe a lot to
that young man."

Commander Foster laughed out genially. "First of all he gets a strip
torn off for sinking _Caranx_, when what he really did was to save our
bacon for us. Then we go and blow him up in Burnaby's experiments."

Burnaby said, "That's another matter altogether. We might consider that
as well, sir, if you care to."

Admiral Blackett said, "Just as you like. He seems to have deserved well
of us on two counts."

Rutherford said, "How's he getting on, by the way?"

"Quite well," said Burnaby. "He'll be flying again in six months."

The Admiral leaned back in his chair. "For the submarine, he deserves a
mention in despatches. That's clearly in our sphere. Is every one agreed
on that?"

They nodded their agreement.

"For the experimental work, I take it that we owe him a good deal. That
is so, isn't it?"

Burnaby said, "That is correct, sir. The R.Q. apparatus will be ready
for service in a month from now. That's very largely the result of the
risks he took. I think he should get something for that, too."

The Admiral said, "Haven't the Air Force got a special decoration for
that sort of thing? It stays in my mind that they've got something of
the sort."

There was a doubtful silence. Foster said, "Is that the Air Force
Cross?"

The Commander-in-Chief said, "I believe you're right. Pass me that
_Whitaker's Almanack_ from the desk."

He turned the pages. "That's the one," he said at last. " 'For acts of
courage or devotion to duty when flying, although not in active
operations against the enemy.' " He paused. "That seems to cover it."

Commander Foster said, "Well, that's a matter for the Air Force, isn't
it? It's their decoration."

Captain Burnaby raised his head and stared at him arrogantly, the grim,
iron-grey brows knitted together in a frown, the jaw firmly set.

"I don't agree with you at all," he said. "This was a naval trial. The
Air Force supplied the pilot and the aeroplane, but apart from that they
had nothing whatever to do with it. The matter of a decoration is
entirely in our hands. It would be most improper for the Air Ministry to
put him forward for anything except upon our recommendation."

He turned to the Admiral. "I quite agree that he should have the Air
Force Cross," he said. "I suggest we make a recommendation in those
terms to the Air Ministry."




                                L'ENVOI


Dusk fell upon the convoy making westward from the land. There were nine
ships in all, guarded by destroyers ahead and astern. They steamed in
long zigzags at about fifteen knots, heading out into the Atlantic.

Flight Lieutenant Chambers, A.F.C., stood by the rail with his wife. He
leaned upon his stick, because he could not walk without it yet. It
would be some months before he would be fit to fly again; in the
meantime he had been posted to Trenton, Ontario, as a ground instructor.

In the six months since he had sunk his submarine he had changed a good
deal. He was thinner and he had lost a good deal of his fresh
complexion, replaced by a brown tan gained from lying out in his long
chair at the convalescent home. He bore himself with greater confidence.

Mona, too, was changed. In her, the alteration was less physical than
verbal. When it had become inevitable that she must marry Jerry she had
left the snack bar and had entered on a concentrated course of study.
Her general education did not worry her; her native wit told her that
she would get by as an officer's wife if she took pains with her
appearance and her speech. It was the latter that she had concentrated
on.

Madame Tremayne had been her standby, Professor of Elocution, Public
Speaking, and Deportment. Madame Tremayne, whose real name was Susan
Bigsworth, lived in undistinguished style in Fratton and charged two
shillings for each individual lesson. Her chief clients were young women
who aspired to be mannequins; Mona had known about her for some time.
She taught Mona a correct form of English that would have given her away
more surely than her mother tongue. From her Mona learned to abandon the
phrase, "You didn't ought to do that" and to say carefully, "You should
not do that." It was some time before she acquired familiarity with "You
oughtn't to do that."

They had been married for a week. In the swift movement of the war so
much had happened in that week that their marriage had not occupied
their thoughts a very great deal. They had anticipated a long period of
sick leave which they had planned to spend in Cornwall on their
honeymoon; instead of that they had received upon their wedding day a
posting to Canada. After the first shock they had welcomed it. When all
their life demanded readjustment a further change meant little to them.
They had their clothes and a few suit-cases; they had no other ties to
bind them to one place. They sold the little roadster with regret for
fifteen pounds, parked the wireless set and the half-built caravel with
Jerry's mother, packed the rabbit lamp among Mona's stockings, and
sailed. They were inured to change. Buckwheat cakes and maple syrup for
breakfast on the liner were just another thing.

Mona said, "Can you see the land still, Jerry? I can't, now."

"I think we've seen the last of it," he said.

She drew a little closer to him. "How long shall we be away in Canada,
do you think?"

In the uncertainty of war he could not answer that. "For all I know, we
may stay there forever." He smiled down at her. "Would you mind a lot if
it turned out like that?"

She looked up at him. "I don't mind," she said. "When you start fresh,
like getting married, I don't know that it makes a lot of difference if
you change your place as well."

He nodded. It was nearly dark astern; there would be no more to be seen.
In many ways he felt the transition more than she did. To her the move
to a less formal country was in itself desirable; there would be less
tendency to criticize her when she slipped in the word "like" unwarily,
or referred to "something of that." Chambers had deeper roots in England
than she had.

"We shan't see any more now," he said quietly. They turned and went
below.

                 *        *        *        *        *

So let them pass, small people of no great significance, caught up and
swept together like dead leaves in the great whirlwind of the war. Wars
come, and all the world is shattered by their blast. But through it all
young people meet and marry; life goes on, though temples rock and the
tall buildings start and crumble in the dust of their destruction.




                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES


Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.
Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.






[End of Landfall, by Nevil Shute]
