Submarine

If Orcus had not bottomed for most of the time, she would be out of amps by now; it was sixty-six hours since the last battery charge. The last readings confirmed his fears: thirty-nine per cent remaining. How much longer dare he continue without charging? For the hundredth time since embarking on this hair-brained mission, the image of the most precious person in the world drifted into his imagination. He did not even have a snap of her, no photograph he could prop on his minute desk, as did most submarine cos, yet she was unbelievably close to him, his Lorna with the smouldering eyes. What would she be doing back in Spinneycombe? Kicking off her muddy wellies in the porch after seeing to her lambs? Would she be working those beautiful acres of Exmoor which she cherished with such devotion, or walking along the banks of the brook chuckling past the farmhouse? And on the long dresser against the wall to the right of the open hearth would she have filled the earthenware jug and the small vase with flowers as she had promised? She'd keep them always fresh, she'd said: the jug for everyone in Orcus; the vase, for herself and him. She was sure to have bluebells which she pinched every year from his father's spinney bordering the two properties.

And how would she be coping? Worrying herself silly, or serene, committing their future to the God in whom she trusted, to whom she would be constantly praying? Farge wondered whether she told her mother of their secret, of the miracle which even now might be burgeoning within her. The taut lines about his mouth relaxed and he drifted into sleep, his fingers reaching beneath his shirt for the small cross which Lorna had slipped into his bag at the Carnburn Hotel.

'Captain in the control-room!'

Julian Farge rolled from his bunk. It was 1604 as he scrambled through the doorway of his cabin to find Tim Prout waiting for him by the periscopes, a grin on his face:

'That's her! Chris is certain, sir.'

Farge crossed to the sound-room, watched the sonar team refining the contact: nine thousand yards, bang in the centre of the channel. Sims' face glanced upwards, his eyes shining:

'Can't be anything else: shaft and blade counts all tally. The Typoon's signature, sir.'

'Certain?'

'Positive. The only boat with that many reactors.'

'Carry on refining.' Farge moved swiftly to the centre of his control-room. He plucked the broadcast mike from its socket:

'Captain speaking,' he announced briskly. 'Action stations, action stations. We're on to our Typhoon. We'll unstick now, take a look, then tail her. Remember, Ultra Quiet State.' He paused, listening to his men pouring from their bunks. 'And good luck, everyone. That's all — until we've finished the job.'

He watched them hustling to their action stations: the attack team, the cox'n on his planes, the wrecker, CPO Tom Grady, calmly competent at his panel. David Powys closed up silently behind him, the action OOW.

'Break her out gently, chief,' Farge said. 'I must get an eyeball identification.'

'May I pump, sir?'

'On the way up to periscope depth. I'll stop at a hundred feet, for you to catch a trim.'

Farge's glance was everywhere, monitoring, checking, as they brought Orcus up from deep for the vital periscope sighting. Foggon took four minutes to correct his trim at one hundred feet, while the sonar team continued refining their prime contact. The first lieutenant, the attack team coordinator, stood behind his plotters, watching the display and presenting the picture to his captain.

'Happy, chief?' Farge asked. 'Don't dip me. If you break surface, you'll spoil our whole day.'

'Trim's fine, sir,' Foggon said.

'Periscope depth, sixty feet. Slow ahead together.'

Farge could feel the thumping of his heart as the submarine glided steadily upwards under Bowies' competent charge.

'Eighty feet… seventy…'

The picture from sonar and the plots was crystallizing in Farge's mind: five sweepers ahead of the Typhoon, range 4,200 yards; two destroyers astern, unidentified as yet…

Farge snapped his fingers, 'Up attack.'

The slender tube hissed from its well.

'Sixty-five feet.'

Farge opened the handles, pressed his forehead into the eyepiece, oblivious now to the murmured commands behind him.

'Put me on.'

'On,' the periscope reader called out. 'Red 165, sir.'

' Breaking.'

The grey-green undulations beneath the surface, the intensifying light…

'Fifty-eight feet.'

The lens broke through: there was the grey sky, the breaking wave crests.

'Bearing that… ' In those few seconds he caught sight of her a few degrees to port: a gigantic black whale, her long rectangular fin set well aft, a frothing wall of water pushing ahead of her rounded snout. Farge spun on his heel, his eyes transmitting to his brain the surface picture. He snapped shut the handles.

'Down periscope. Two hundred feet.'

'Fifty-seven feet, sir. Can I speed up?'

Wo. Flood Q.'

'Fifty-six.'

'I'm 030° on her starboard bow. Five sweepers ahead of her, estimated range three thousand yards.'