Free Battlecruiser (1997) by Douglas Reeman Page B

many of their countrymen. The margin between terrorist and freedom-fighter was a narrow one, and anything that might rouse the fury of the occupying forces should, some would suggest, be avoided.
    Other signals had been even more guarded. The main part of the troop convoy had been rerouted around Scotland, and would eventually be escorted into the Firth of Forth, where Sherbrooke had taken command less than a month ago. He was beginning to feel that he had been aboard for years.
    Stagg had received each report without comment, leaving Howe, his hard-worked flag lieutenant, to carry the messages back and forth like a trainee midshipman. Howe had even been provided with a rickety camp bed, which was placed in the small lobby adjoining Stagg’s quarters so he could be on call.
    With the radar out of action, they must return to port. By maintaining radio silence,
Reliant
was a law unto herself, but their lordships, roused from their beds by
Minden
’s reappearance and the rerouting of the big troopships, would soon call Stagg to account and order him to break off his search. Without radar, and in this dense fog, there was no sensible alternative.
    Sherbrooke considered the elusive
Minden
again. Next to
Prinz Eugen
, she was reported to be the best gunnery ship in the German navy: she had proved that when she had destroyed his command. He was almost surprised that he could contemplate it so calmly; but what had he really expected? This was what he was, what he had been trained for, year after year, from schoolboy to
Reliant
’s captain. Should he feel hatred, a desire for revenge, a blessing on whatever action he should decide to take from those men who had died with
Pyrrhus
?
    Circumstances, not strategy, turned
maybes
to brutal reality. The troopships were former liners, fast, and well able to outpace the U-Boat packs, provided their destroyer escorts could keep the enemy submerged. The cargo they carried was men, from Australia and New Zealand, and from Canada, like the new Walrus pilot who had brought his banjo with him.
    Like most serving officers, Sherbrooke was suspicious of too much optimism and confidence. But things were changing, and for the first time the German Afrika Corps was falling back, and on the defensive. The R.A.F. and the American squadrons based in England were hitting the enemy hard, and at his own back door. Factories, U-Boat pens and shipyards were bombed day and night, something which would have been impossible a short while ago.
    So the next step had to be invasion, the long haul back. They would need more men than ever before, and thedeployment of such numbers of troops was not something that could be kept a complete secret.
    It was unlikely to be sheer coincidence. The German High Command would consider
Minden
’s risk totally justified, like
Scharnhorst
slipping through the English Channel under the noses of the Royal Navy, and the mighty
Bismarck
breaking out of her lair to head for a more strategic base in occupied France. The Home Fleet had caught her, and had eventually put her down, but not before the German gunners had sent
Hood
to the bottom with one devastating shot.
    A voice said, ‘The admiral’s here, sir.’
    The door slammed back and Stagg strode into the dim glow of shaded lights and winking repeaters.
    Sherbrooke slid from the chair. ‘I’m waiting for the mechanic’s report, sir.’ He thought it strange to see Stagg so untidy, wearing a crumpled duffle coat which must have been the first thing he snatched up for the long walk along the upper deck necessary to avoid the sealed watertight doors.
    Stagg made a contemptuous sound.
    ‘Fat lot of use that’ll be! Just a potmess of technical jargon that nobody else understands!’ He stared round at the others. ‘I’ll skin those bloody radar people alive when we get back to base!’ He strode to the chart room and waited for Sherbrooke to close the door; in the chart lights he looked unusually strained, and his cheeks were