"Alistair MacLean - San Andreas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

'Fear not,' Kennet said. 'Oberleutnant Lemp has long since been gathered to his ancestors, for whom one can feel only a certain degree of sympathy. However, he may have a twin brother or some kindred souls out there. As the Captain so rightly infers, we live in troubled and uncertain times.'

Batesman looked at Bowen. 'Is it permitted, Captain, to ask the Chief Officer to shut up?'

Kennet smiled broadly, then stopped smiling as the phone rang again. Batesman reached for the phone but Bowen forestalled him. 'Master's privilege, Third. The news may be too heavy for a young man like you to bear.' He listened, cursed by way of acknowledgment and hung up. When he turned round he looked - and sounded - disgusted.

'Bloody officers' toilet!'

Kennet said, 'Flannelfoot?'

'Who do you think it was? Santa Claus?'

'A sound choice,' Kennet said judiciously. 'Very sound. Where else could a man work in such peace, privacy and for an undetermined period of time, blissfully immune, one might say, from any fear of interruption? Might even have time to read a chapter of his favourite thriller, as is the habit of one young officer aboard this ship, who shall remain nameless.'

The Third Officer has the right of it,' Bowen said. 'Will you kindly shut up?'

'Yes, sir. Was that Jamieson?'

'Yes.'

'We should be hearing from Ralson any time now.'

'Jamieson has already heard from him. Seamen's toilet this time, port side.'

For once, Kennet had no observation to make and for almost a minute there was silence on the bridge for the sufficient reason that there didn't seem to be any comment worth making. When the silence was broken it was, inevitably, by Kennet.

'A few more minutes and our worthy engineers might as well cease and desist. Or am I the only person who has noticed that the dawn is in the sky?'

The dawn, indeed, was in the sky. Already, to the southeast, off the port beam, the sky had changed from black, or as black as it ever becomes in northern waters, to a dark grey and was steadily lightening. The snow had completely stopped now, the wind had dropped to twenty knots and the San Andreas was pitching, not heavily, in the head seas coming up from the north-west.

Kennet said, 'Shall I post a couple of extra look-outs, sir? One on either wing?'

'And what can those look-outs do? Make faces at the enemy?'

'They can't do a great deal more, and that's a fact. But if anyone is going to have a go at us, it's going to be now. A high-flying Condor, for instance, you can almost see the bombs leaving the bay and there's an even chance in evasive. action.' Kennet didn't sound particularly enthusiastic or convinced.

'And if it's a submarine, dive-bomber, glider-bomber or torpedo-bomber?'

'They can still give us warning and time for a prayer. Mind you, probably a very short prayer, but still a prayer.'

'As you wish, Mr Kennet.'

Kennet made a call and within three minutes his look-outs arrived on the bridge, duffel-coated and scarfed to the eyebrows as Kennet had instructed. McGuigan and Jones, a Southern Irishman and a Welshman, they were boys only, neither of them a day over eighteen. Kennet issued them with binoculars and posted them on the bridge wings, Jones to port, McGuigan to starboard. Seconds only after closing the port door, Jones opened it again.

'Ship, sir! Port quarter.' His voice was excited, urgent. 'Warship, I think.'

'Relax,' Kennet said. 'I doubt whether it's the Tirpitz.' Less than half a dozen people aboard knew that the Andover had accompanied them during the night. He stepped out on to the wing and returned almost immediately. 'The good shepherd,' he said. 'Three miles.'

'It's almost half-light now,' Captain Bowen said. 'We could be wrong, Mr Kennet.'