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that, like many smaller warships,
Gladiator
had had to be content with a PO sickberth attendant. Had they any choice, most of the company would have preferred it to remain that way.
    And yet Ayres had barely spoken a dozen words to his cabin-mate and they had met only when passing one another to go on or off watch, or to exercise action stations. His experience must have scarred him deeply, Ayres thought; and felt a certain respect.
    The yeoman of signals snatched up his telescope, which he preferred to any binoculars, and stared across the grey water as a light blinked through the drifting spray like a bright diamond.
    â€œFrom
Cynara,
sir.
Good morning.”
    Treherne smiled. Things were moving again. Somehow he had known Ayres had been preparing to ask him about the convoy, or worse, what the North Russian run was like. “I’ll call the captain.”
    â€œNo need, Pilot.” Howard levered himself from the tall chair and banged his boots on the wet, wooden gratings. “God, I’m stiff. Any char about?”
    A boatswain’s mate spoke into a voicepipe and called, “Told the galley, sir.”
    Several of the tired-looking faces responded with grins. Tea from the galley would at least be hot when it got here. From the wardroom it would be full of salt-water by the time a steward had negotiated the deck and the unprotected ladders to the bridge.
    Howard crossed to the chart table and rested his elbows on the stained paper.
    About forty miles to go. He recalled their expressions in the wardroom when he had told them. A convoy to Russia. The newones looking at the others for explanation or hope. Number One grim-faced; the Chief, Price, probably thinking about the extra stress on his engines; Arthur Pym working his thin mouth in and out as he often did when he was troubled. Only Treherne had been his usual unperturbed self.
    Howard straightened up even as a young seaman in a streaming oilskin tumbled into the bridge with a steaming fanny of tea. Dirty enamel mugs were produced as if by magic, and Ayres found time to notice that the char-wallah was the young sailor called Nobby, the motor boat’s bowman.
    Despite his misgivings, Ayres told himself he was finding his way. Faces had names, or some of them did; Pym the old Gunner (T) hated his guts; the first lieutenant no longer noticed him at all.
    He heard the captain say, “Call up
Physalis,
Yeoman. Tell her to take station on
Cynara
as ordered for entering harbour.” He swallowed the sickly, sweet tea and said,
“Good morning
indeed! All right for some!” More grins, as he knew there might be.
    Howard stared abeam and thought he could see the other corvette as the lights blinked over the water.
    He saw Treherne explaining something to Ayres. Like a rock. A corvette could be Treherne’s for the asking. He had earned his own command. The true professional.
    He loosened the clinging towel around his throat. A good, hot wash—no shave, just a wash in the reeling sea cabin abaft the bridge. Another dream.
    He said, “Warn all the lookouts. We may sight a local patrol or some fisherman selling his catch to a U-Boat.” That was not so flippant as it sounded. To Treherne he added, “Begin the turn to the next leg in thirty minutes. I shall—”
    â€œRadar … bridge!”
    Petty Officer Tommy Tucker, the yeoman, pushed one of his young signalmen to one side and exclaimed,
“Shit!”
    Howard stooped over the voicepipe. “Bridge. This is the Captain.”
    The man hesitated, probably wondering if he were doing theright thing. “I’m getting an echo. Very faint, dead ahead—about two miles.” When Howard said nothing he continued, “May be a throwback from the shore. I—”
    Howard was thinking rapidly, his eyes on the red button by his hand. “McNiven, isn’t it?” A face took shape in his mind. “Keep watching. I’m looking at my radar-repeater