The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester Page A

came the sharp rattle of the shutters of the lamp as his message was transmitted to Viktor .
    He looked aft and saw her ploughing along half a mile astern, rolling deeply in the trough, her odd foremast leaning far over towards the sea, first on one side and then on the other. She was nearly up to station, and he must give that order. He might just as well not have come out here into the cold, for all the good he had done, but it was a commanding officer’s duty to keep an eye on his command--and he would not have known any peace of mind until he had done so, duty or not duty. He was just able to relax his hands sufficiently to let the glasses fall from them on to his chest, and he went stiffly back into the pilot-house, to the T.B.S.
    “George to escort. Do you hear me?”
    He waited for the acknowledgments, Eagle to George, and Harry to George, and Dicky to George. Those code names were an excellent choice. Four distinct vowel sounds, impossible to confuse even with serious distortion. He gave the order in his flat voice.
    “Take up normal daylight screening stations.”
    The acknowledgments came in one by one, and he replaced the hand set.
    “Signal bridge reports your signal acknowledged by Viktor, sir,” said the messenger.
    “Very well.”
    He was about to send for his extra clothing, but Nystrom, the new officer of the deck who had just taken over, demanded his attention.
    “Permission to secure boilers two and four, sir?” said Nystrom.
    “Damn it, man, you know the routine to be followed when securing from general quarters. That’s for the officer of the deck to decide without troubling me.”
    “Sorry, sir. But seeing you were here, sir - -“
    Nystrom’s blue pop-eyes registered his distress. He was a young man frightened of responsibility, sensitive to reproach, and slow of thought. The Annapolis standards were not what they were, decided Krause, the graduate of twenty years’ service.
    “Carry on with your duty, Mr Nystrom.”
    “Aye aye, sir.”
    Dodge was turning away, a mile ahead of Keeling, to take up her station on the right flank. It was almost time for Keeling to turn ahead of the second column from the right. He looked aft; Viktor was already on station, with James moving out to the left flank. He decided to watch Nystrom take the ship into station.
    “Leading ship of the second column bears two-five-five, sir,” reported Silvestrini from the pelorus.
    “Very well,” said Nystrom.
    Ensign Silvestrini was a pert, little fellow newly graduated from officers’ school. Previously he had been majoring in modern languages at an Eastern university.
    “Left standard rudder. Steer course zero-nine-two,” said Nystrom, and the helmsman repeated the order.
    Keeling came steadily round to take up her station. Everything was well and in order. Krause decided not to send for his clothes. He wanted to get down to the head in any case, and at the same time the thought of a cup of coffee came up into his mind. Instantly he was yearning for it, hot, stimulating, comforting. One cup? Two cups. He was moderately hungry too; the thought of a sandwich along with the cups of coffee made a sudden appeal to him too. And a few minutes’ warmth, and the leisure to dress himself properly. It all seemed like an astonishingly good idea to him. Here was Watson with the noon position, unreported until now with the ship at battle stations. Krause acknowledged the report; the noon position was no news to him, closely coinciding as it did with the Admiralty’s predicted position for the assembling of a wolf-pack. But by the time he had glanced at it Ipsen the Chief Engineer was waiting with the fuel report for noon. That called for closer attention, and a word or two with Ipsen about the fuel situation, and even those few words were a trifle distracted, for Krause, while he talked, was aware out of the tail of his eye that Dodge was blinking a message to the ship. The message was at his elbow as he returned