the starboard wing of the bridge, found Naseby, asked him to check that the falls and davits of the motor lifeboats were clear of ice and working freely and then returned to the port wing where, every minute or two, he swept the horizon with his binoculars. But the sea between the San Andreas and the horizon remained providentially empty.
The San Andreas itself was a remarkable sight. Wholly covered in ice and snow, it glittered and shone and sparkled in the bright moonlight except for a narrow central area abaft of the superstructure where wisping smoke from the shattered funnel had laid a brown smear all the way to the stern post. The fore and aft derricks were huge glistening Christmas trees, festooned with thick-ribbed woolly halliards and stays, and the anchor chains on the fo’c’s’le had been transformed into great fluffy ropes of the softest cotton wool. It was a strange and beautiful world with an almost magical quality about it, ethereal almost: but one had only to think of the lethal dangers that lay under the surrounding waters and the beauty and the magic ceased to exist.
An hour passed by and everything remained quiet and peaceful. Another hour came and went, nothing untoward happened and McKinnon could scarcely believe their great good fortune. And before the third uneventful hour was up the clouds had covered the moon and it had begun to snow again, a gentle snowfall only, but enough, with the hidden moon, to shroud them in blessed anonymity again. Telling Ferguson, who now had the watch, to shake him if the snow stopped, he went below in search of some more sleep.
It was nine o’clock when he awoke. It was an unusually late awakening for him but he wasn’t unduly perturbed – dawn was still an hour distant. As he crossed the upper deck he noted that the conditions were just as they had been four hours previously – moderate seas, a wind no stronger than Force three and still the same gently falling snow. McKinnon had no belief in the second sight but he felt in his bones that this peace and calm would have gone before the morning was out.
Down below he talked in turn with Jones, McGuigan, Stephen and Johnny Holbrook. They had taken it in turn, and in pairs, to monitor the comings and goings of everybody in the hospital. All four swore that nobody had stirred aboard during the night and that, most certainly, no one had at any time left the hospital area.
He had breakfast with Dr Singh, Dr Sinclair, Patterson and Jamieson – Dr Singh, he thought, looked unusually tired and strained – then went to Ward B where he found Janet Magnusson. She looked pale and there were shadows under her eyes.
McKinnon looked at her with concern.
‘What’s wrong, Janet?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. It’s all your fault.’
‘Of course. It’s always my fault. Cardinal rule number one – when anything goes wrong blame the Bo’sun. What am I supposed to have done this time?’
‘You said the submarine, the U-boat, would attack if the moon broke through.’
‘I said it could, not would.’
‘Same thing. I spent most of the night looking out through the porthole – no, Mr McKinnon, I did not have my cabin light switched on – and when the moon came out at about two o’clock I was sure the attack must come any time. And when the moon went I was sure it would come again. Moon. U-boat. Your fault.’
‘A certain logic, I must admit. Twisted logic, of course, but not more than one would expect of the feminine mind. Still, I’m sorry.’
‘But you’re looking fine. Fresh. Relaxed. And you’re very late on the road this morning. Our trusty guardian sleeping on the job.’
‘Your trusty guardian lost a little sleep himself, last night,’ McKinnon said. ‘Back shortly. Must see the Captain.’
It was Sister Maria, not Sister Morrison, who was in charge in A Ward. McKinnon spoke briefly with both the Captain and First Officer, then said to Bowen: ‘Still sure, sir?’
‘More sure than ever, Archie. When’s dawn?’
‘Fifteen minutes.’
‘I wish you well.’
‘I think you better wish us all well.’
He returned to Ward B and said to Janet: ‘Where’s your pal?’
‘Visiting the sick. She’s with Lieutenant Ulbricht.’
‘She shouldn’t have gone alone.’
‘She didn’t. You were asleep so your friend George Naseby came for her.’
McKinnon looked at her with suspicion. ‘You find something amusing.’
‘That’s her second time up there this morning.’
‘Is he dying or something?’
‘I hardly think she would smile so much if a patient was slipping away.’
‘Ah! Mending fences, you would say?’
‘She called him “Karl” twice.’ She smiled. ‘I’d call that mending fences, wouldn’t you?’
‘Good lord! Karl. That well-known filthy Nazi murderer.’
‘Well, she said you asked her to make it right. No, you told her. So now you’ll be taking all the credit, I suppose.’
‘Credit where credit is due,’ McKinnon said absently. ‘But she must come below at once. It’s too exposed up there.’
‘Dawn.’ Her voice had gone very quiet. ‘This time you’re sure, Archie?’
‘This time I’m sure. The U-boat will come at dawn.’
The U-boat came at dawn.
It was little more than half-light when the U-boat, in broken camouflage paint of various shades of grey and at a distance of less than half a mile, suddenly appeared from behind a passing snow-squall. It was running fully on the surface with three figures clearly distinguishable on the conning-tower and another three manning the deck gun just for’ard of that. The submarine was on a course exactly parallelling that of the San Andreas and could well have been for many hours. The U-boat was on their starboard hand so that the San Andreas lay between it and the gradually lightening sky to the south. Both bridge wing doors were latched back in the fully open position. McKinnon reached for the phone, called the engine-room for full power, nudged the wheel to starboard and began to edge imperceptibly closer to the U-boat.
He and Naseby were alone on the bridge. They were, in fact, the only two people left in the superstructure because McKinnon had ordered everyone, including a bitterly protesting Lieutenant Ulbricht, to go below to the hospital only ten minutes previously. Naseby he required and for two reasons. Naseby, unlike himself, was an adept Morse signaller and had a signalling lamp ready at hand: more importantly, McKinnon was more than reasonably certain that the bridge would be coming under attack in a very short space of time indeed and he wanted a competent helmsman to hand in case he himself were incapacitated.
‘Keep out of sight,
