low off the sea astern. The first burst of cannon shell kicked fountains of water high into the air ten or fifteen yards to port. As the plane banked for a second run, the 13mm machine-gun firing from the rear of the cockpit canopy loosed off a long burst that ripped into the deck aft of the wheelhouse.
Harry Jago, in his bunk below trying to snatch an hour’s sleep, was awake in an instant, and making for the companionway. As he reached the deck, the gun crew were already running for the twin 20mm anti-aircraft cannon. Jago beat them into the bucket seat, hands clamping around the trigger handles.
Suddenly, as the Junkers came in off the water for the second time, heavy, black smoke swirled across the deck. Jago started to fire as its cannon punched holes in the deck beside him.
The Junkers was making its pass at close to four hundred miles an hour. He swung to follow it, aware of Jansen on the bridge above him working the Browning. But it was all to no purpose, and the Junkers curved away to port through puff-balls of black smoke and fled into the morning.
Jago stayed where he was for a moment, hands still gripping the handles. Then he got out of the seat and turned to Leading Seaman Harvey Gould, who was in charge of the antiaircraft cannon.
‘You were five seconds too late, you and your boys.’
The men of the gun crew shuffled uneasily. ‘It won’t happen again, Lieutenant,’ Gould said.
‘See that it doesn’t.’ Jago produced a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and stuck one in his mouth. ‘Having survived the Solomons, D-Day and the worst those E-boat flotillas in the English Channel could offer, it would look kind of silly to die in the Hebrides.’
The pilot of the Junkers, Captain Horst Necker, logged his attack as having taken place at 09.35 hours precisely. A hit-and-run affair of no particular importance which had served to enliven an otherwise boring routine patrol, especially for a pilot who in the spring of that year, during the renewed night attacks on London, had been employed by the elite pathfinder Gruppe 1/KG 66 with the kind of success that had earned him the Knight’s Cross only two months previously.
It had been something of a come-down to be transferred to KG 40 based at Trondheim, a unit specializing in shipping and weather reconnaissance, although the JU 88S they had given him to fly was certainly a superb plane – an all-weather machine capable of a top speed of around four hundred miles per hour.
His mission that morning had one purpose. To look for signs of a convoy expected to leave Liverpool for Russia that week, although the exact day of departure was unknown. He had crossed Scotland at thirty thousand feet to spend a totally abortive couple of hours west of the Outer Hebrides.
The sighting of the gunboat had been purest chance, following an impulse to go down to see just how low the cloud base was. The target, once seen, was too tempting to pass up.
As he climbed steeply after the second attack, Rudi Hubner, the navigator, laughed excitedly. ‘I think we got her, Herr Hauptmann. Lots of smoke back there.’
‘What do you think, Kranz?’ Necker called to the rear gunner.
‘Looks like they made it themselves to me, Herr Hauptmann,’ Kranz replied. ‘Somebody down there knows his business and they weren’t Tommis either. I saw the Stars and Stripes as we crossed over the second time. Probably my brother Ernst,’ he added gloomily. ‘He’s in the American navy. Did I ever tell you that?’
Schmidt, the wireless operator, laughed. ‘The first time over London with the port engines on fire, and you’ve mentioned it on at least fifty-seven different occasions since. I suppose it shows that at least one person in your family has brains.’
Hubner ignored him. ‘A probable then, Herr Hauptmann?’ he suggested.
Necker was going to say no, then saw the hope in the boy’s eyes and changed his mind. ‘I don’t see why not. Now let’s get out of here.’
When Jago went up to the bridge there was no sign of Jansen. He leaned against the Browning and looked down. The smoke had almost cleared and Gould was kicking the burned-out flare under the rail into the sea. The deck was a mess by the port rail beside the anti-aircraft gun, but otherwise things didn’t look too bad.
Jansen came up the ladder behind him. He was a tall, heavily-built man and in spite of the tangled black beard, the knitted cap and faded reefer coat with no rank badges, was a chief petty officer. A lecturer in Moral Philosophy at Harvard before the war and a fanatical weekend yachtsman, he had resolutely defeated every attempt to elevate him to commissioned rank.
‘A lone wolf, Lieutenant.’
‘You can say that again,’ Jago told him. ‘A JU 88 in the Hebrides.’
‘And one of the Reichsmarschall’s later models, to judge by his turn of speed.’
‘But what in the hell was he doing here?’
‘I know, Lieutenant,’ Jansen said soothingly. ‘It’s getting so you can’t depend on anyone these days. I’ve already checked below, by the way. Superficial damage. No casualties.’
‘Thanks,’ Jago said. ‘And that smoke flare was quick thinking.’
He found that his right hand was trembling slightly and held it out. ‘Would you look at that. Wasn’t it yesterday I was complaining that the only thing we got to fight up here was the weather?’
‘Well, you know what Heidegger had to say on that subject, Lieutenant.’
‘No, I don’t Jansen, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’
‘He argued that for authentic living what is necessary is the resolute confrontation of death.’
Jago said patiently, ‘Which is exactly what I’ve been doing for two years now and you’ve usually been about a yard behind me. Under the circumstances, I’ll tell you what you can do with Heidegger, Jansen. You can put him where grandma had the pain. And try to rustle up some coffee while I check over the course again.’
‘As the Lieutenant pleases.’
Jago went into the wheelhouse and slumped into the chart-table chair. Petersen had the wheel – a seaman with ten years in the merchant service before the war, including two voyages to Antarctica in whalers.
‘You okay?’ Jago demanded.
‘Fine, Lieutenant.’
Jago pulled out British Admiralty chart 1796. Barra Head to Skye. South Uist, Barra and a scattering of islands below it, with Fhada, their destination, at the southern end of the chain. The door was kicked open and Jansen came in with a mug of coffee which he put on the table.
‘What a bloody place,’ Jago said, tapping the chart. ‘Magnetic anomalies reported throughout the entire area.’
‘Well, that’s helpful,’ Jansen said. ‘Just the thing when you’re working out a course in dirty weather.’
‘Those islands south of Uist are a graveyard,’ Jago went on. ‘Everywhere you look on the damned chart it says Heavy Breakers or Dangerous Seas. One hazard after another.’
Jansen unfolded a yellow oilskin tobacco pouch, produced
