The Good Shepherd

by C.S. Forester

But as the messenger turned away the Filipino mess boy took his place, also with a tray in his hands; a white cloth covered it, and the humps and valleys of the cloth hinted at much beneath. When he lifted the cloth he saw marvels. Bacon and eggs—no, ham and eggs with hashed brown potatoes! Toast, jelly, and more coffee! Charlie Cole was a wonderful man.

Then a third cup of coffee, not swigged down madly like the first two, but drunk more at leisure, savoring it like a true coffee-hound, with the added pleasure of knowing that there was a fourth cup yet to be drunk.

Krause was not harassed by the thought of sin at having forgotten to say his thanks until his meal was nearly completed. That would be understood and forgiven him.

The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life. Krause’s severest and most unrelenting judge, of whom he went in fear, was Krause himself, but that judge had luckily never taken ritual sin under his jurisdiction.

“Can’t drink that now,” he said, and looked round for help. “Mr. Carling, would you have a cup of coffee?” “I could use it, sir.” Carling had been on the chilly bridge for two whole hours. He poured himself a cup and added cream and sugar to reveal himself as the sort of man he was. “Thank you, sir,” said Carling, sipping.

The meal had eased some of his weariness; he was deliberately seating himself so as not to incur more fatigue than necessary. A whole day of battle had made a veteran of him.

That much was easy, once the decision had been reached. But it might be well to add a heartening word, and it was strange how his mind, still capable of grasping and analyzing facts, balked like a stubborn mule at the demand for something further.

Krause would not willingly hurt any man’s feelings except for the good of the cause in which he was fighting, and it would emphatically not be for the good of the cause to hurt the feelings of the captain of the James. He sat with pencil poised trying to think of the right thing to say.

No inspiration came to him. There was only the hackneyed expression which he must use since his mind refused to think of anything better. GOOD LUCK. He was in the act of handing the pad back to the messenger when the next idea came. WE ALL NEED IT.

That would soften the cold official wording. Krause knew academically that a human touch was desirable in these relationships even though he himself had never felt the need of it. He would be perfectly content to do and die in reply to a badly worded order from a s...

“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.

Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. It was quite disgraceful that he had allowed sleep to creep up on him unawares. He had never had the experience before in his life. It was only thirty hours since he had been awakened in readiness for yesterday’s general quarters after two hours of perfectly sound sleep. There was absolutely no excuse for him to nod off.

A few minutes ago the pinging of the sonar had been a monotonous lullaby lulling him into unconsciousness. Now it was a hard persistent reminder to him to do his duty. I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids.

What was the use of radar at all if the ships he was supposed to protect announced their presence to enemies far beyond radar range?

He was quite calm even though he had a possible submarine not far outside the range of his guns, and the marked contrast between his condition now and his excitement when yesterday’s first contact was made was not due to the apathy of fatigue.

“Permission granted,” said Carling into a telephone. He caught Krause’s eye and explained. “I’ve given permission to shift steering cables, sir.” “Very well.” Krause’s standing orders left that decision to the officer of the deck, and Carling had given permission without consulting his captain, as he was entitled to do. If there were a sub just outside radar range it might not be the best moment to choose. But the change should be made daily, and at the present moment there were no contacts. And it was to Carling’s credit that he had accepted that responsibility; it was possible he had learned something in the last twenty-four hours.

It had not been a very exacting test, to lay Keeling on a course patrolling back again across the front of the convoy, but Carling had passed it quickly and correctly. If the navy was going to expand as prodigiously as apparently it was going to, Carling might easily be commanding a destroyer in battle in six months’ time—if he lived.

The most important objective was to drive the sub away from the convoy. To destroy the sub was an important objective but not the only one.

The analogy of the handicapped duck hunter who had to shut his eyes before shooting could be carried a little further. Seeing that only single depth charges could be used, it was as if the duck hunter, with all his previous handicaps, now had to abandon his shotgun for a rifle—for a smoothbore musket.

It was some sort of comfort to hear that something was only serious.

Krause was making these opening moves in the battle much as he might go through a ritual game to oblige some children; something that might as well be well done, but in which he felt no passionate personal interest.

Krause knew that there were men who did not go on even trying to produce their best when they were tired.

“I’d better fire single charges, sir?” said Nourse. It was a statement with a question mark at the end. Nourse could give his opinion but the responsibility was Krause’s.

The handicapped duck hunter had a choice; one shot with a shotgun or six with a rifle. Krause thought of all the patterns Keeling had fired without result.

The objective was to keep the U-boat down, slow, blind, and comparatively harmless until the convoy had passed on. But one well-placed pattern might destroy her, and this seemed as ...

The rat had doubled away from one terrier to head for the jaws of the other. A pity that both terriers were so nearly toothless.

“Torpedoes fired at you, sir!” said the Canadian voice, urgent, distressed. “I see you’ve turned.” “Yes.” “Good luck, sir.” Good luck to the man who might be dead in ten seconds’ time. Good luck to the ship which might be a sinking wreck or a pillar of fire.

That was a scream from the port lookout. Almost scraping alongside, not ten feet between them. Krause could have hit her with a rock if he had had a rock to throw. As it was there was nothing to throw.

Painted on the side of the U-boat’s bridge was a golden-haired angel in flowing white robes riding a white horse and brandishing a sword. The U-boat’s bow submerged again at a sharp angle and the bridge plunged forward into the water again.

before the U-boat could turn back into the sheltering embrace of her enemy the five-inch opened, like a peal of thunder in the next room, shaking Keeling’s hull as a fit of coughing will shake a man’s body.

There was long enough to note that Nystrom was steady, popeyes and all. His manner still had the faintly apologetic flavor that characterized it at other times and might excite prejudice against him.

“Nothing serious, sir. Most of his shells went right through without exploding.” At twenty yards’ range those German four-inch would be traveling at practically muzzle velocity. They would be liable to go right through unless they hit something solid like a gun mount.

“Seaworthy but not battleworthy,” said Krause. Those words would have had a dramatic, heroic ring if it had not been Krause who said them in his flat voice. “Oh, we’ve still got our Bofors, sir, and we’ve two depth charges left.”

“I’d like to send you home,” said Krause. “Sir!” said the T.B.S. reproachfully. Compton-Clowes knew as much about escorting convoys as he did, probably more, even despite his recent intensive experiences. Nothing could be spared, not even a battered little ship armed with Bofors and two depth charges. “Well, take up your screening station as soon as you’ve picked up the evidence.”

On the surface the U-boat had fought a good fight, handled superbly, far better than she had been handled under water. That might be a trifle of evidence for Naval Intelligence—the U-boat captain might be a surface ship officer given command of a submarine after insufficient underwater training and experience.

number four gun still has a round in the breech. Request permission to unload through the muzzle.” That was one way of asking permission to fire the gun off. A round left in the heated gun was too dangerous to unload in the ordinary way, and as a result of the chemical changes caused by the heat it would be unreliable in action.

“Permission granted, Mr. Fippler.” Think of everything; keep the mind concentrated so as to miss no detail. “Send someone first to warn the ship over the loudspeaker about what you’re going to do.”

shall have to take the service,” he said, coldly. “Yes, of course, sir,” agreed Cole. It would never do for the captain to be lounging on his stool in the pilothouse while someone else buried the ship’s dead. The profoundest respect must be paid to the poor relics of the men who had given their lives for their country.

In war men died and ships sank.

The commodore was blinking away, his light directed straight at Keeling; it must be a message for him. And it must be urgent, for it was almost too dark for Morse messages to be safe. The commodore was taking a chance transmitting in these conditions, and the commodore was not the sort of man to take chances. Someone came dashing down from the signal bridge with the pad. COMCONVOY TO COMESCORT. CADENA REPORTS VIKTOR HIT.

Napoleon long ago in the heat of battle had heard of the death of a favorite soldier and had said, “Why have I not time to weep for him?” Krause had fifteen seconds in which to feel sorrow. Then—

Eagle? Viktor on T.B.S.? A thrill of hope; Krause picked up the handset. “George to Eagle. Go ahead.” “We’ve got it in the engine room, sir,” said the lackadaisical English voice. “Cadena’s standing by. She’s taking us in tow.”

“And the captain asks me to say good-by, sir, in case he doesn’t see you again.” “Very well.” Never had that navy phrase been of more use than at this moment. But even so it was insufficient—it was only a stopgap. “Tell him I’m looking forward to seeing him in Londonderry.”

Krause found himself swaying on his feet again. This was quite absurd; he had been awake for less than forty-eight hours, and he had had two or even three hours of good sleep the night before last. He was a weak and beggarly element.

“George to Eagle. I hear you. Go ahead.” “Submit that we abandon ship, sir.” The cynical English voice was not cynical. It was grave; there was a little break in it before it went on. “Very sorry, sir.” “You have no choice?” asked Krause. “The collision mats weren’t large enough, sir. Nor was the handy-billy pump. The water’s been gaining on us steadily—we couldn’t keep it under and it came in faster all the time.”

“I’m sure you’ve done all you can. Permission granted to abandon ship,” said Krause. “Tell your captain I have no doubt he has done all in his power to save his ship. And tell him I am sorry about his bad luck.”

“Aye aye, sir,” said the English voice, and then the old nonchalance came back into it. “Well, good-by for now, sir, and thank you for a nice party.” Krause turned away from the T.B.S. unhappily. When he had first heard that voice he never dreamed for a moment that he would come to feel something of affection for its owner.

“Sonar reports loud breaking-up noises, sir,” said a talker. “Very well.” That was the requiem of a brave ship. It was two and a half years since Viktor had got away from Gdynia in defiance of all the power of the Luftwaffe, and had escaped from the Baltic in the teeth of the Nazi navy. For two and a half years she had fought a desperate fight; she had been the only home left to her exiled crew, and now she was gone.

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches; his good name, like his life, was at the service of his country.

“Ask the exec to come to the bridge.” He had hesitated before speaking. The sentence he had framed in his mind—‘My compliments to the executive officer and I would be glad if he were to come to the bridge’—had been ridiculously pompous, an echo of old battleship days in peacetime, and he had had to reframe it to suit wartime conditions in a destroyer.