Free The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester Page B

aware of it. It would only mean delay, not merely unprofitable but dangerous.
    “Sonar reports no contact, sir.”
    “Very well.”
     
     
    Wednesday. Afternoon Watch--1200-1600
     
    The only thing to do was to fight a way through, to beat off the wolf-pack and lumber on ponderously across the Atlantic. He had at least had his warning; but seeing that convoy and escort habitually were as careful as if there was always a wolf-pack within touch the warning was of no particular force. There was no purpose, for that matter, in passing on the warning to his subordinates and to the Commodore. It could not affect their actions, and the fewer people who were aware how accurately the Admiralty was able to pin-point U-boat concentrations the better.
    “Sonar reports no contact, sir,”
    “Very well.”
    The plan then was to fight his way through, to plod doggedly onward, smashing a path through the U-boat cordon for his lumbering convoy. And this message which he still held in his hand? These few words from the outside world which seemed so impossibly far away from his narrow horizon? They must remain unanswered; there must be no violation of radio silence for a mere negative end. He must fight his battle while the staffs in London and Washington, in Bermuda and Reykjavik, remained in ignorance. Every man shall bear his own burden, and this was his--that was a text from Galatians; he could remember learning it, so many years ago--and all he had to do was his duty; no one needed an audience for that He was alone with his responsibility in this crowded pilothouse, at the head of the crowded convoy. God setteth the solitary in families.
    “Sonar reports no contact, sir, for thirty degrees on both bows.”
    “Very well.”
    He turned from the one problem straight back to the other.
    “Come right handsomely.”
    “Come right handsomely.”
    “Call out your heading, Quartermaster.”
    “Aye aye, sir. Passing one-three-zero. Passing one-four-zero. Passing one-five-zero. Passing one-six-zero. Passing one-seven-zero.”
    “Meet her. Steady as you go.”
    “Meet her. Steady as you go. Heading one-seven-two, sir.”
    Krause handed back the clip-board. “Thank you, Mr Dawson.”
    He returned Dawson’s salute punctiliously, but he did not notice Dawson any more. He was quite unaware of Dawson’s glance or of the rapid play of expression on Dawson’s young chubby face. Surprise succeeded by admiration, and that by something of pity. Only Dawson besides his captain knew what weighty news there had been in the message he bore. Dawson alone could feel admiration for the man who could receive that news with no more than a “thank you” and go straight on with what he was doing. Krause would not have understood even if he had noticed. There was nothing spectacular to him about a man doing his duty. His eyes were sweeping the horizon before Dawson had turned away.
    Contact was certainly lost, and they had searched for thirty degrees on either side of the course the U-boat had been following at the moment of the last contact. Now he had started on a new sector, to starboard and not to port, with no observational data at all on which to base his choice. But a turn to starboard would be towards the convoy, now just visible in the distance. If the U-boat had gone off to port she was heading away from the convoy’s path, to where she would be temporarily harmless. The course he had just ordered would carry Keeling back towards her station in the screen, and it would search out the area in which the U-boat would be most dangerous.
    “Steady on course one-seven-two, sir,” said Watson.
    “Very well.”
    “Sonar reports no contact, sir.”
    “Very well.”
    They were heading for the centre of the convoy now. Viktor was in plain sight on their starboard bow, patrolling ahead of the convoy, but James on the left flank was still invisible. Krause began to consider the matter of securing from general quarters; he must not forget that he was