A FLOCK OF SHIPS by Callison Brian

Author:Callison, Brian
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Steamship Publishing
Published: 2014-06-26T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

It was well past midnight before we were finally squared away after the collision. I’d gone forward to join the Fourth Mate and Chippie as they sounded the wells, finding our forepeak was making water fairly fast. Mallard obviously hadn’t gone down without any protest as, somewhere below our waterline, she’d lain us open too. This, in itself, wasn’t too serious and, after discovering all our other forward compartments were dry, I reckoned we’d been lucky. Thank God the corvette had been a wooden ship .

Still more than two days out of Cape Town. Another fifty hours of running the gauntlet of whatever lay ahead. Another fifty hours of walking the decks, subconsciously keeping your knees slightly bent in case the sudden vertical lift of the ship over the smash of a torpedo shattered your hip joints.

I knew then that it was unreasonable—that the death of Mallard had nothing to do with the enemy—but suddenly I became certain that they were watching us. Watching and waiting and, somehow, shepherding us into an area of their own choosing. That we weren’t a group anymore—we were a flock. A flock of ships.

But why? Why, in that case, didn’t they just sink us? They couldn’t possibly hope to capture our precious confidential bags without the Admiralty taking immediate steps to render the information valueless. Hadn’t the Old Man said that, even if we were sunk without trace, the information would still be regarded as captured? The questions battered unceasingly at my restless mind.

I brought it up again with Evans after we’d settled down on zig-zag three seven again, this time with Athenian steaming a good, safe, mile astern, and both of us going like bats out of hell. It was two a.m. and the night, for a blessed change, was black as the inside of a tar barrel. Charlie Shell had the watch, with Cadet Breedie and an extra hand as lookouts on the bridge. They were tired—we all were— but they were scared too, and fear provides its own adrenalin. Any one of the officers would have stayed up there for the next fifty hours if need be.

I was in the master’s cabin where we had gone to decide our next move. I sensed Evans would have much preferred to discuss the matter with Bert Samson, but Bert was ten cables away on Athenian, so he had to settle for me.

He didn’t laugh when I told him of my suspicions, but I could see he didn’t agree with me either. Shaking his head slowly he dismissed my argument, ‘Damn it all, why, John? Why should they want us farther south? Any plan they may have could equally well be carried out here, at this spot.’

Which was just what I’d been asking myself. Nothing made sense any more. I shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know. But there were those bloody queer lights, and the shot into Athenian. And that U-boat we sank. She was well south of where we might have expected her—usually they hang around the regular shipping lanes.

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