Free Dive in the Sun by Douglas Reeman

he had made his decision he felt a new feeling of relief overriding his other fears.
    The compass got steadily worse, and once he surfaced the boat for the briefest period possible to try to fix his position.
    He opened the hatch, half blinded by the dazzling sunlight, and more than apprehensive about what he might find.
    The horizon was clear but for the thin white line of the distant headland. They were well off course, as he had feared, but still close enough inshore to pick out the twisted point marking the curve of the coast. Somewhere behind that line he knew he would find the village. As he swung his binoculars in a wide arc he saw a tell-tale wisp of smoke on the horizon, and even as he watched he saw three slim grey hulls scudding in a tight formation across the sparkling water. The sun beat down on his neck, warming his limbs and driving the stale, chilled cramp from his bones. Destroyers, and moving in fast. The hunt had started. In the far distance he could faintly hear the heavy drone of aircraft, probably taking off from the aerodrome at the rear of Vigoria.
    The hatch clanged shut over his head, and the boat began to dive once more.
    Duncan licked his lips. ‘Man, did you smell that air, George? I just can’t wait to get out of this can!’
    Taylor nodded, and watched the compass closely. Outwardly calm, he was vaguely troubled by the new turn of events and the fact that he didn’t feel the security he had hoped for. He had thought that the only thing that mattered was to get the skipper and Steve together again. They seemed to be hitting it off all right, and the skipper appeared to be something like his old self again, but—he fidgeted in his seat—there was something else. The danger? He scoffed at himself with disgust. What was danger anyway? You couldn’t see it; you couldn’t feel it; so what the hell!
    I hope we get back soon, he thought desperately. I don’t want Mum all worked up worrying about me. He sighed deeply, suddenly feeling his weariness. Everybody worrying about somebody else. Makes you sick! The compass swung lazily, mocking him, and he muttered obscenely under his breath.
    ‘Want me to take over?’ Jervis sounded strange, too.
    ‘No. I’m not dead yet!’ he answered shortly. Bloody regular officers, he reflected with sudden anger. Nice as pie when things were going wrong, but once out of a jam and they were trying to ram rank down your throat.
    Jervis sank down on the deck, feeling lost and at the same time in the way. He sat heavily on the coaming of the diving compartment watching the other three as if he was looking in from outside the boat and their world. The cold excitement of leaving the boat and cutting the net, followed by the nerve-stretching attack on the dock, left him weak and limp, and what might have been the greatest moment in his life, and the conclusion to a great episode in his career, had suddenly widened into something frightening and unreal. He watched Curtis searching through the lockers, a lock of his fair hair falling across his grimy face as he tossed unwanted articles aside with little grunts of impatient irritation and built up a small pile of equipment beside him on the oil-smeared deck.
    Duncan stared woodenly at his controls, his hands and shoulders moving slightly at each perverse swing of the little boat, but from the faraway expression in his eyes Jervis could tell that he was already scheming and plotting over the next few hours, which might well decide whether they would live or die.
    Jervis shook his head jerkily as a wave of fatigue brought the damp ache into his bones to replace his fading energy. He stared round at the unheeded and dripping hull, all at once realizing just how important the tiny boat was to all of them. It was not just a weapon of war, another machine of destruction, but the very breath of their existence. Take it away, or just abandon it, and they were all naked and out of their element. He wanted desperately to burst out