San Andreas by Alistair MacLean

Author:Alistair MacLean
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9780642558268
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1984-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

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 paralleling 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, George,' McKinnon said. 'But try to keep an eye on them. They're bound to start sending any minute now.'

'They can see you,' Naseby said.

'Maybe they can see my head and shoulders over the wing of the bridge. Maybe not. It doesn't matter. The point is that they will believe I can't see them. Don't forget that, they're in the dark quadrant of the sea and have no reason to think that we're expecting trouble. Besides, a helmsman's job is to keep an eye on the compass and look ahead - no reason on earth why I should be scanning the seas around.' He felt the superstructure begin to shudder as Patterson increased the engine revolutions, gave the wheel another nudge to starboard, picked up a tin mug from the shattered binnacle and pretended to drink from it. 'It's like a law of nature, George. Nothing more reassuring than the sight of an unsuspecting innocent enjoying a morning cup of tea.'

For a full minute, which seemed like a large number of full minutes, nothing happened. The superstructure was beginning to vibrate quite strongly now and McKinnon knew that the San Andreas was under maximum power. They were now at least a hundred yards closer to the U-boat than they had been when it had first been sighted but the U-boat captain gave no indication that he was aware of this. Had McKinnon maintained his earlier speed his acute angling in towards the U-boat would have caused him to drop slightly astern of the submarine, but the increase in speed had enabled him to maintain his relative position.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.