The Good Shepherd Read Online Free PDF Page B

had to word his signal like that, presumably; he was making requests of an associate, not giving orders to a subordinate. Let thy words be few, said Ecclesiastes; the officer drafting an order had to bear that recommendation in mind, but a retread admiral addressing an escort commander had to remember the Psalms and make his words smoother than butter.
    Krause went back into the pilot-house, to the T.B.S.
    “George to Dicky,” he said in that flat distinct voice. The reply was instant; Dodge was alert enough.
    “Leave your station,” he ordered. “Go and - - “ he checked himself for a moment; then he remembered that it was a Canadian ship he was addressing so that the phrase he had in mind would not be misunderstood as it might be by the James or the Viktor, and he continued --”go and ride herd on the convoy on the starboard side.”
    “Ride herd on the convoy. Aye aye, sir.”
    “Look to the Commodore for instructions,” went on Krause, “and get those stragglers back into line.”
    “Aye aye, sir.”
    “Keep your sonar searching on that flank. That’s the dangerous side at present.”
    “Aye aye, sir.”
    I say to this man “Go,” and he goeth; and to another “Come” and he cometh. But what of the “great faith” that centurion had? Dodge was already wheeling round to carry out her orders. Now there was more to be done. The front of the convoy had been inadequately enough screened already, and now nearly all of it was wide open to attack. So there were more orders to give, orders to set Keeling patrolling along the whole five-mile front of the convoy, her sonar sweeping first on one side and then on the other as she steamed back and forth in a stout-hearted attempt to detect possible enemies anywhere in the convoy’s broad path, while Dodge moved about on the right flank of the convoy, her captain shouting himself hoarse through his bull-horn at the laggards--the words of the wise are as goads--at the same time as her sonar kept watch behind him. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
    Krause walked from the starboard wing of the bridge to the port side as Keeling made her second turn about. He wanted to keep his eye on the convoy; he wanted to use his own judgment as to when Dodge would have completed her task on the right flank, and as to when Viktor would be available to take her share of the patrol across the front. Even on the wing of the bridge, with the wind blowing, he was conscious, when he thought about it, of the monotonous ping-ping-ping of the ship’s sonar as it sent out its impulses through the unresponsive water. That noise went on ceaselessly, day and night, as long as the ship was at sea, so that the ear and the mind became accustomed to it unless attention were called to it.
    The Commodore’s searchlight was blinking again, straight at him; another message. He glanced up at the signalman receiving it. The sharp rattle of the shutters of their light in reply told him that they had not understood a word and were asking for a repeat; he checked his irritation, for perhaps the Commodore was using some long-winded English polite form outside the man’s experience. But the time the message took to transmit did not indicate that it was long.
    “Signal for you, sir.”
    “Read it.”
    The signalman, pad in hand as before, was a little hesitant.
    “ ‘Comconvoy to Comescort,’ sir. ‘Huff-Duff‘ - - “
    There was an inquiring note in the signalman’s voice there, and a second’s pause.
    “Yes, Huff-Duff,” said Krause, testily. That was HFDF, high-frequency direction finding; his signalman had not met the expression before.
    “ ‘Huff-Duff reports foreign transmission bearing eight-seven range from one-five to two-zero miles,’ sir.”
    Bearing zero-eight-seven. That was nearly in. the path of the convoy. Foreign transmission; that could mean only one thing here in the Atlantic; a U-boat fifteen to twenty miles away. Leviathan, that crooked serpent. This was