The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester Page A

depended on accurate manipulation or rapid thinking. Ellis down there could hardly fail to be aware that success or failure hinged upon his sole efforts, upon the delicacy with which he turned his dial, the deductions he had to make from a variation in the quality of the echo. That could make him stupid or clumsy or both. The fact that failure might mean a torpedo into Keeling’s side which would blow Ellis and his instruments into fragments, was not so important, Krause knew. Plain cowardice was far rarer than idiocy, just as plain courage was more common than nerve. Krause thought about Ellis as he knew him, sandy-haired, a most ordinary type of young man, except perhaps for the slightest hint of a cast in his right eye. He had addressed him personally a dozen times at most. Those few sentences exchanged at inspections and brief interviews could tell him nothing about the man upon whom now everything depended, the young seaman standing at attention, the young seaman indistinguishable in a line of others at quarters.
    The seconds were creeping on as Keeling rolled and pitched and staggered her way forward over the waves; Krause stood balancing on the heaving decks in the silence of the pilot-house--silent despite the din of wind and water outside. It was a surprise when the talker spoke.
    “Sonar reports contact, sir.”
    The talker was a short, stocky man with a misshapen nose; the large helmet, apparently over-large to accommodate his ear-phones, gave him a gnome-like appearance.
    “Very well.”
    Everyone in the pilot-house was doubly tense at the news. Watson took a step forward; other men fidgeted. No need to harass Ellis with questions; on the contrary, it might fluster him. Ellis must be presumed to know what was wanted of him until the contrary should be proved.
    “Contact bearing zero-nine-one,” said the talker. Ellis was passing the first test, then. “Range indefinite.”
    “Very well.”
    Krause could not bring himself to say more than those words. He shared the tenseness of the others; he could feel the beating of his heart and the sudden dryness of his throat. He looked over at Watson and jerked his thumb; he knew that hand would tremble if he allowed it to; this was buck-fever, unmistakably. Watson sprang to the repeater with the order to McAlister, staring down at the compass repeater.
    “Contact bearing dead ahead, sir,” said the talker. “Range still indefinite.”
    “Very well.”
    This talker was good at his job. Each word was uttered expressionless and distinct. It was like a schoolboy repeating a recitation learned by heart without any understanding at all. Emotion in a talker was a most undesirable quality.
    “Contact bearing dead ahead, sir,” said the talker again. “Range two thousand.”
    “Very well.”
    They were bearing straight down at the U-boat, then. Krause had his watch in his hand; it was an effort to read the sweeping second-hand.
    “Range nineteen hundred yards.”
    A hundred yards in fourteen seconds? With Keeling going twelve knots? There was something quite impossible about that figure. That was just her time to go a hundred yards, and the U-boat would hardly be lying still. Any other figure than that would be more promising. Those range estimates depended entirely on the accuracy of Ellis’s ear. They could be completely wrong.
    “Range eighteen hundred yards.”
    “Very well.”
    “No contact, sir. Contact lost.”
    “Very well.”
    It was to be guessed that the talker was repeating exactly word for word what Ellis down below was saying into his mouthpiece. On that evidence it was to be assumed that Ellis was not flustered, at least not as yet.
    “Captain to sonar. ‘Search on the starboard bow.’ “
    The talker released his button. “Sonar answers ‘Aye aye, sir.’ “
    “Very well.”
    What was the contact that had been made? Some will-o’-the-wisp effect of a cold layer? A pillenwerfer bubble released by a U-boat? It may have been a real contact