The Good Shepherd

by C.S. Forester

The Southland, immediately astern of Kong Gustav—Krause had checked the name on his list soon after dawn—was smoking badly, perhaps in the effort to steam an extra half knot to regain station, and several other ships were making more smoke than they should. Luckily with the wind from ahead, and blowing hard, the smoke was lying low and dispersing rapidly. In calmer conditions the convoy would have been surmounted by a pillar of cloud visible fifty miles away. The commodore had a signal hoist flying; almost for certain it was the signal so frequently displayed in every navy—“Make less smoke.”

Luckily they could not be aware of the other circumstances which rankled as badly in Krause’s heart, that he had been marked with the words—utterly damning although innocent enough in appearance—“fitted and retained,” and that he had been twice passed over for promotion and had only made commander with the expansion of the navy in 1941.

What they were aware of was that twice today at wild moments their commanding officer had vanished into the rear of the convoy. The fact that he had engaged in desperate action each time, that Keeling had been doing work that had to be done, and for doing which she was best situated at the moment, would not be so apparent to them. There might be heads wagging about the inexperience—or even worse—of their commanding officer. It was painful, horribly painful, to think about that; it was infuriating as well. Krause could have burst into a roaring rage, but it was very much his duty not to do so. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. It was his duty to stay unangered, to speak in a flat tone, with every word distinct, and with no trace of emotion.

“Order, counter order, disorder”; at more than one lecture at Annapolis he had heard that quotation, and during twenty years of service he had seen its truth demonstrated scores of times. He would let the routine continue.

The question of Keeling’s fuel supply would become urgent before long. He would have to appeal to London for help; he would have to break radio silence. He could take that bitter decision. He would have to do it. But—There were the German direction-finding stations; there were German submarines at sea. Doenitz would by this time be fully aware of the position, course, and even the composition of the convoy; that information would be relayed to him by the subs. At that rate there would seem to be no serious objection to breaking radio silence. But there was. The moment the German monitoring system informed Doenitz that the convoy had sent out a message he would ask himself the reason, and there could be only one reason—that the convoy was in such bad straits that it needed help urgently. It would be enough to prompt Doenitz to turn every available sub against the convoy. It would tell the captain who had fired on Viktor that his torpedo had hit home and that Viktor need no longer be reckoned with. If the convoy went plowing along in silence Doenitz and the sub captains could not be sure that it was still not in a condition to hit back. It was a very important point.

He had to call for help; he had to swallow his pride; he had to take the risk. His pride did not matter, but it was possible to reduce the risk to a minimum. If he were to send the message now Doenitz could employ the whole night in directing his subs to the attack. There were seven or eight hours of darkness still ahead, and during those hours there would be little that London could do to help him. It would be better to get the message off later, at one or two in the morning. That would still allow plenty of time for the Admiralty to get air cover over him at dawn, and it would cut down the interval as far as possible during which Doenitz could concentrate against him. Two in the morning would be early enough; his message would go straight through to the highest authority, he knew. Half an hour for that; half an hour for the Admiralty orders to go out; an hour for preparation. Two hours’ flight; he would have air cover at dawn. He would send the message at two in the morning—perhaps at one-thirty.

It was remarkable how nearly every merchant captain resented zigzagging. The almost universal feeling was that it was safer to get through the dangerous zone as quickly as possible; yet five minutes spent with a maneuvering board and a pair of parallel rulers working out an approach problem would convince anyone that zigzagging made the attacking submarine’s task considerably harder and postponed the moment when a shot might be got in. And an unpredicted change of course at the moment of firing usually meant a clean miss. Zigzagging lessened very appreciably the chances of a hit; it did not even need Krause’s experience

at antisubmarine school of a few minutes in a sub’s conning tower planning an approach to convince a thinking man of that.

Keeling drew away from the ships astern and entered the lane. Ships all round him. Battered ships and nearly new ships, with every color of paintwork and every style of build. There had been thirty-seven ships when he had taken over escort duty. Now there were thirty; seven had been lost. Heavy losses, no doubt, but convoys had known even heavier than that. He had brought thirty ships through. Out of his escort force he had lost a destroyer; a very grave loss indeed. But he had sunk two probables and a possible. Thou art weighed in the balance—in the balance—He came to himself with a start. While having the conn, while actually in charge of the ship, he had gone to sleep on his feet, here in a convoy