Submarine

'Rough on you, mate. War's a tough taskmaster: decisions inconceivable in peacetime are forced upon us in wartime.' Coombes stared pensively towards the doorway through which the last of the customers were disappearing.

'I'd like to hope that Woolf-Gault might turn out differently: but that's not likely, as you know.'

'We'd better go,' Coombes said, 'or I'll miss my shuttle to Glasgow.' He pushed back his chair. 'Share my taxi to Heathrow. You can take the tube into London for Euston.'

Chapter 8

Skye, 6 May.

The flashes from the lighthouse of the Point of Sleat were already tinged yellow with the advent of morning twilight. Orcus, having rounded Ardnamurchan at first light, was now ploughing up the Sound of Sleat to catch high water in Kyle Rhea. Farge felt relaxed: with the last of the flood under him and only two days after full moon, he could guarantee fifteen feet under her keel. The quick-flashing green light of Mallaig harbour faded on Onus' starboard quarter and an hour later the submarine was entering the approaches to the bottleneck of Rhea.

'I have the ship,' Farge muttered to the officer of the watch at his side on the diminutive bridge. Alastair Murray, the navigating officer, was bent over the bearing ring of the compass repeater as he checked his last fix.

'You have the ship, sir.' Chris Sims, sonar officer and the Third Hand, stepped back from the voice-pipe as his captain took over the conning. Above them, the radar mast twisted in its rings as the officer, on the plot in the control-room confirmed Murray's visual bearings.

'Control — bridge,' Farge called a few minutes later over the intercom, 'plot: are you happy with your position?'

'Bridge — control: yes, sir. On track, in the middle of the channel. We're up to time. You should sight the buoy any time now.'

Farge lowered his binoculars and spoke into the mike. 'We've got it. Cable party up top: prepare the anchor ready for letting go.'

The passage was narrowing as the submarine nosed into Kyle Rhea. It was dark here, cold and inhospitable, where the hills dropped into the dark, steely sea. High above the submarine, the tops of the larger hills scraped the base of the mist which was swirling up, towards the peaks where the rising sun was touching the mountains. The black water hissed down her sides as Orcus forged through the kyle which had been gouged from the rock by the eternal rhythm of the tides.

'Nothing to port, cox'n.'

'Nothing to port, sir.'

The passage was less than half a mile wide here: shags were perched on their favourite rocks; a seal stared in curiosity at its giant cousin, the gleaming, black submarine. As Orcus swung into the final bend of the kyle, Farge glimpsed the blue water of Loch Alsh sparkling ahead. Ten minutes later he brought his submarine round to the north-west: the rays of the sun were suffusing the hills and the loch with that magical, fragile luminosity which only Wester Ross and the Western Isles can produce. Below the fields, carved from the heather, the northern shore was sprinkled by a patchwork of white-washed cottages and crofts. Their slate roofs, still wet with dew, were glistening in the freshness of the new day.

'Steer 280°, cox'n.'

Farge again lifted his binoculars. There was the Balmacara hotel and to the west of it the inlet in which he would anchor tonight. He could see the road now, skirting the water's edge — and he grinned secretly to himself. If all had gone as planned, she would have travelled along it yesterday evening, on her way to the Kyleakin ferry. Then Orcus was through the worst of the Rhea narrows; there remained only the Kyle of Akin, the bottle-neck debouching into the open water leading to the Inner Sound. He was lucky to have CPO Bowles. He was as competent a helmsman as he was a cox'n, that key man in a submarine who was responsible for the well-being and routine of the ship's company. Yes, he was fortunate to have Bowles, particularly as Orcus' first lieutenant, Tim Prout, still lacked experience.

'Steady, sir. Course 280°.'

The fishing haven of Kyle of Lochalsh was coming rapidly into view: the brightly coloured trawlers and purse-net boats were nestled about the quays and he could distinguish the yellow upperworks of the fleet tenders huddled on the nearest jetties.

'Nothing to port.'

'Nothing to port, sir.'

There was no more than a cable between the rocky shore and Orcus as she slid through the Kyle of Akin. Farge glimpsed the red-painted ferry and its sleepy crew preparing for the first trip of the day. Behind the houses huddled about the hard, he spotted the hotel where Lorna should be sleeping.

'Fourteen metres, sir… fourteen, fourteen, fourteen and a half…' Murray was reporting as he monitored the depths.