HMS Ulysses.

by Alistair MacLean.

CHAPTER ONE.

PRELUDE: SUNDAY AFTERNOON.

SLOWLY, deliberately, Starr crushed out the b.u.t.t of his cigarette. The gesture, Captain Vallery thought, held a curious air of decision and finality. He knew what was coming next, and, just for a moment, the sharp bitterness of defeat cut through that dull ache that never left his forehead nowadays. But it was only for a moment, he was too tired really, far too tired to care.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen, genuinely sorry." Starr smiled thinly. "Not for the orders, I a.s.sure you, the Admiralty decision, I am personally convinced, is the only correct and justifiable one in the circ.u.mstances. But I do regret your-ah-inability to see our point of view."

He paused, proffered his platinum cigarette case to the four men sitting with him round the table in the Rear-Admiral's day cabin. At the four mute headshakes the smile flickered again. He selected a cigarette, slid the case back into the breast pocket of his double-breasted grey suit.

Then he sat back in his chair, the smile quite gone. It was not difficult to visualise, beneath that pin-stripe sleeve, the more accustomed broad band and golden stripes of Vice-Admiral Vincent Starr, a.s.sistant Director of Naval Operations.

"When I flew north from London this morning," he continued evenly, "I was annoyed. I was very annoyed. I am, well, I am a fairly busy man. The First Sea Lord, I thought, was wasting my time as well as his own. When I return, I must apologise. Sir Humphrey was right. He usually is..."

His voice trailed off to a murmur, and the flint-wheel of his lighter rasped through the strained silence. He leaned forward on the table and went on softly.

"Let us be perfectly frank, gentlemen. I expected, I surely had a right to expect, every support and full cooperation from you in settling this unpleasant business with all speed. Unpleasant business?" He smiled wryly. "Mincing words won't help. Mutiny, gentlemen, is the generally accepted term for it, a capital offence, I need hardly remind you. And yet what do I find?" His glance travelled slowly round the table.

"Commissioned officers in His Majesty's Navy, including a Flag-Officer, sympathising with, if not actually condoning, a lower-deck mutiny!"

He's overstating it, Vallery thought dully. He's provoking us. The words, the tone, were a question, a challenge inviting reply.

There was no reply. The four men seemed apathetic, indifferent. Four men, each an individual, each secure in his own personality, yet, at that moment, so strangely alike, their faces heavy and still and deeply lined, their eyes so quiet, so tired, so very old.

"You are not convinced, gentlemen?" he went on softly. "You find my choice of words a trifle-ah-disagreeable?" He leaned back. "Hm...'mutiny.'" He savoured the word slowly, compressed his lips, looked round the table again. "No, it doesn't sound too good, does it, gentlemen?

You would call it something else again, perhaps?" He shook his head, bent forward, smoothed out a signal sheet below his ringers.

"'Returned from strike on Lofotens,'" he read out: "'1545, boom pa.s.sed: 1610, finished with engines: 1630 -provisions, stores lighters alongside, mixed seaman-stoker party detailed unload lubricating drums: 1650, reported to Captain stokers refused to obey C.P.O. Hartley, then successively Chief Stoker Hendry, Lieutenant (E.) Grierson and Commander (E.): ringleaders apparently Stokers Riley and Petersen: 1705, refused to obey Captain: 1715, Master at Arms and Regulating P.O. a.s.saulted in performance of duties.'" He looked up. "What duties? Trying to arrest the ringleaders?"

Vallery nodded silently.

"'1715, seaman branch stopped work, apparently in sympathy: no violence offered: 1725, broadcast by Captain, warned of consequences: ordered to return to work: order disobeyed: 1730, signal to C.-in-C. Duke of c.u.mberland, for a.s.sistance.'"

Starr lifted his head again, looked coldly across at Vallery.

"Why, incidentally, the signal to the Admiral? Surely your own marines-----"

"My orders," Tyndall interrupted bluntly. "Turn our own marines against men they've sailed with for two and half years? Out of the question! There's no matelot-boot-neck antipathy on this ship, Admiral Starr: they've been through far too much together... Anyway," he added dryly, "it's wholly possible that the marines would have refused. And don't forget that if we had used our own men, and they had quelled this-ah-mutiny, the Ulysses would have been finished as a fighting ship."

Starr looked at him steadily, dropped his eyes to the signal again.

"'1830, Marine boarding party from c.u.mberland: no resistance offered to boarding: attempted to arrest, six, eight suspected ringleaders: strong resistance by stokers and seamen, heavy fighting p.o.o.p-deck, stokers' mess-deck and engineers' flat till 1900: no firearms used, but 2 dead, 6 seriously injured, 35-40 minor casualties.'" Starr finished reading, crumpled the paper in an almost savage gesture. "You know, gentlemen, I believe you have a point after all." The voice was heavy with irony. "'Mutiny' is hardly the term. Fifty dead and injured: 'pitched battle' would be much nearer the mark."

The words, the tone, the lashing bite of the voice provoked no reaction whatsoever. The four men still sat motionless, expressionless, unheeding in a vast indifference.

Admiral Starr's face hardened.

"I'm afraid you have things just a little out of focus, gentlemen. You've been up here a long time and isolation distorts perspective. Must I remind senior officers that, in wartime, individual feelings, trials and sufferings are of no moment at all? The Navy, the country, they come first, last and all the time." He pounded the table softly, the gesture insistent in its restrained urgency. "Good G.o.d, gentlemen," he ground out, "the future of the world is at stake, and you, with your selfish, your inexcusable absorption in your own petty affairs, have the colossal effrontery to endanger it!"

Commander Turner smiled sardonically to himself. A pretty speech, Vincent boy, very pretty indeed, although perhaps a thought reminiscent of Victorian melodrama: the clenched teeth act was definitely overdone.

Pity he didn't stand for Parliament, he'd be a terrific a.s.set to any Government Front Bench. Suppose the old boy's really too honest for that, he thought in vague surprise.

"The ringleaders will be caught and punished, heavily punished." The voice was harsh now, with a biting edge to it. "Meantime the 14th Aircraft Carrier Squadron will rendezvous at Denmark Strait as arranged, at 1030 Wednesday instead of Tuesday, we radioed Halifax and held up the sailing. You will proceed to sea at 0600 tomorrow." He looked across at Rear-Admiral Tyndall. "You will please advise all ships under your command at once, Admiral."

Tyndall, universally known throughout the Fleet as Farmer Giles, said nothing. His ruddy features, usually so cheerful and crinkling, were set and grim: his gaze, heavy, lidded and troubled, rested on Captain Vallery and he wondered just what kind of private h.e.l.l that kindly and sensitive man was suffering right then. But Vallery's face, haggard with fatigue, told him nothing: that lean and withdrawn asceticism was the complete foil. Tyndall swore bitterly to himself.

"I don't really think there's more to say, gentlemen," Starr went on smoothly. "I won't pretend you're in for an easy trip, you know yourselves what happened to the last three major convoys-P.Q. 17, FR 71 and 74. I'm afraid we haven't yet found the answer to acoustic torpedoes and glider bombs. Further, our intelligence in Bremen and Kiel, and this is substantiated by recent experience in the Atlantic, report that the latest U-boat policy is to get the escorts first... Maybe the weather will save you."

You vindictive old devil, Tyndall thought dispa.s.sionately. Go on, d.a.m.n you, enjoy yourself.

"At the risk of seeming rather Victorian and melodramatic", impatiently Starr waited for Turner to stifle his sudden fit of coughing, "we may say that the Ulysses is being given the opportunity of-ah-redeeming herself." He pushed back his chair. "After that, gentlemen, the Med.

But first, FR 77 to Murmansk, come h.e.l.l or high water!" His voice broke on the last word and lifted into stridency, the anger burring through the thin veneer of suavity. "The Ulysses must be made to realise that the Navy will never tolerate disobedience of orders, dereliction of duty, organised revolt and sedition!"

"Rubbish!"

Starr jerked back in his chair, knuckles whitening on the arm-rest. His glance whipped round and settled on Surgeon-Commander Brooks, on the unusually vivid blue eyes so strangely hostile now under that magnificent silver mane. Tyndall, too, saw the angry eyes. He saw, also, the deepening colour in Brooks's face, and moaned softly to himself. He knew the signs too well, old Socrates was about to blow his Irish top. Tyndall made to speak, then slumped back at a sharp gesture from Starr.

"What did you say, Commander?" The Admiral's voice was very soft and quite toneless.

"'Rubbish,' repeated Brooks distinctly. 'Rubbish.' That's what I said. 'Let's be perfectly frank,' you say. Well, sir, I'm being frank. 'Dereliction of duty, organised revolt and sedition' my foot! But I suppose you have to call it something, preferably something well within your own field of experience. But G.o.d only knows by what strange a.s.sociation and sleight-of-hand mental transfer, you equate yesterday's trouble aboard the Ulysses with the only clearly, cut code of behaviour thoroughly familiar to yourself." Brooks paused for a second: in the silence they heard the thin, high wail of a bosun's pipe, a pa.s.sing ship, perhaps. "Tell me, Admiral Starr," he went on quietly, "are we to drive out the devils of madness by whipping, a quaint old medieval custom, or maybe, sir, by drowning, remember the Gadarene swine? Or perhaps a month or two in cells, you think, is the best cure for tuberculosis?"

"What in heaven's name are you talking about, Brooks?" Starr demanded angrily. "Gadarene swine, tuberculosis, what are you getting at, man? Go on, explain." He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table, eyebrows arched high into his furrowed brow. "I hope, Brooks," he went on silkily, "that you can justify this-ah-insolence of yours."

"I'm quite sure that Commander Brooks intended no insolence, sir." It was Captain Vallery speaking for the first time. "He's only expressing-----"

"Please, Captain Vallery," Starr interrupted. "I am quite capable of judging these things for myself, I think." His smile was very tight.

"Well, go on, Brooks."

Commander Brooks looked at him soberly, speculatively.

"Justify myself?" He smiled wearily. "No, sir, I don't think I can." The slight inflection of tone, the implications, were not lost on Starr, and he flushed slightly. "But I'll try to explain," continued Brooks. "It may do some good."

He sat in silence for a few seconds, elbow on the table, his hand running through the heavy silver hair, a favourite mannerism of his. Then he looked up abruptly.

"When were you last at sea, Admiral Starr?" he inquired.

"Last at sea?" Starr frowned heavily. "What the devil has that got to do with you, Brooks, or with the subject under discussion?" he asked harshly.

"A very great deal," Brooks retorted. "Would you please answer my question, Admiral?"

"I think you know quite well, Brooks," Starr replied evenly, "that I've been at Naval Operations H.Q. in London since the outbreak of war. What are you implying, sir?"