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torpedo-bomber?’
    â€˜They can still give us warning and time for a prayer. Mind you, probably a very short prayer, but still a prayer.’
    â€˜As you wish, Mr Kennet.’
    Kennet made a call and within three minutes his look-outs arrived on the bridge, duffel-coated and scarfed to the eyebrows as Kennet had instructed. McGuigan and Jones, a Southern Irishman and a Welshman, they were boys only, neither of them a day over eighteen. Kennet issued them with binoculars and posted them on the bridge wings, Jones to port, McGuigan to starboard. Seconds only after closing the port door, Jones opened it again.
    â€˜Ship, sir! Port quarter.’ His voice was excited, urgent. ‘Warship, I think.’
    â€˜Relax,’ Kennet said. ‘I doubt whether it’s the Tirpitz.’ Less than half a dozen people aboard knew that the Andover had accompanied them during the night. He stepped out on to the wing and returned almost immediately. ‘The good shepherd,’ he said. ‘Three miles.’
    â€˜It’s almost half-light now,’ Captain Bowen said. ‘We could be wrong, Mr Kennet.’
    The radio room hatchway panel banged open and Spenser’s face appeared.
    â€˜ Andover , sir. Bandit, bandit, one bandit … 045 … ten miles … five thousand.’
    â€˜There now,’ Kennet said. ‘I knew we weren’t wrong. Full power, sir?’ Bowen nodded and Kennet gave the necessary instructions to the engine-room.
    â€˜Evasive action?’ Bowen was half-smiling; knowledge, however unwelcome that knowledge,always comes as a relief after uncertainty. ‘A Condor, you would guess?’
    â€˜No guess, sir. In those waters, only the Condor flies alone.’ Kennet slid back the port wing door and gazed skywards. ‘Cloud cover’s pretty thin now. We should be able to see our friend coming up – he should be practically dead astern. Shall we go out on the wing, sir?’
    â€˜In a minute, Mr Kennet. Two minutes. Gather flowers while we may – or, at least, keep warm as long as possible. If fate has abandoned us we shall be freezing to death all too soon. Tell me, Mr Kennet, has any profound thought occurred to you?’
    â€˜A lot of thoughts have occurred to me but I wouldn’t say any of them are profound.’
    â€˜How on earth do you think that Condor located us?’
    â€˜Submarine? It could have surfaced and radioed Alta Fjord.’
    â€˜No submarine. The Andover ’s sonar would have picked him up. No plane, no surface ships, that’s a certainty.’
    Kennet frowned for a few seconds, then smiled. ‘Flannel-foot,’ he said with certainty. ‘A radio.’
    â€˜Not necessarily even that. A small electrical device, probably powered by our own mains system, that transmits a continuous homing signal.’
    â€˜So if we survive this lot it’s out with the fine-tooth comb?’
    â€˜Indeed. It’s out with –’
    â€˜Andover , sir.’ It was Spenser again. ‘Four bandits, repeat four bandits … 310 … eight miles … three thousand.’
    â€˜I wonder what we’ve done to deserve this?’ Kennet sounded almost mournful. ‘We were even more right than we thought, sir. Torpedo-bombers or glider-bombers, that’s for sure, attacking out of the darkness to the north-west and us silhouetted against the dawn.’
    The two men moved out on the port wing. The Andover was still on the port quarter but had closed in until it was less than two miles distant. A low bank of cloud, at about the same distance, obscured the view aft.
    â€˜Hear anything, Mr Kennet? See anything?’
    â€˜Nothing, nothing. Damn that cloud. Yes, I do. I hear it. It’s a Condor.’
    â€˜It’s a Condor.’ Once heard, the desynchronized clamour of a Focke-Wulf 200’s engine is not readily forgotten. ‘And I’m afraid, Mr Kennet, that