Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

84 JEFF EDWARDS
is the voice of experience talking; if there’s any fighting to be done, it will
all be political.”
“That’s very well,” Kensington said, “but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll
be keeping an eye out for German periscopes.”
“And so you should be,” said Bryce. “The Royal Navy needs earnest
young men like you, if only to offset the cynicism of broken-down old
wretches like me.”
Sub Lieutenant Kensington snorted. “Listen to you, playing the
Ancient Mariner. You may be more experienced than I am, but you’re not
more than five or six years older.”
“Too true,” said Bryce. “But they’ve been hard years, Young
Kensington. Very hard years. You should have a go at my life—never
knowing when the Exocet is going to drop in. She did it again last month,
the old bitch. Showed up for tea unannounced and didn’t leave for a
week.”
Kensington laughed. “Why do you call your mum-in-law the Exocet?”
“That woman is not my mum-in-law,” Bryce said. “She’s my wife’s
mum. She’s not anything to me. Not as far as I’m concerned.”
“But the Exocet?”
“Because,” said Bryce with a theatrical sigh, “she’s like a ruddy cruise
missile: you can see her coming, but there’s not really much you can do
about it.”
Sub Lieutenant Kensington laughed again. “Right.” He raised the
binoculars and resumed his search of the waves.
For all his enthusiasm, two hours later, Kensington was beginning to
admit to himself that the First Watch Officer might be right. German
submarines weren’t exactly leaping out of the water like trained dolphins.
And Bryce’s words, as cocky as they’d seemed at the time, did have a
certain logic to them. Surely the Germans wouldn’t let things escalate to
the point of military conflict. He yawned and raised the binoculars for
what seemed like the hundredth time.
He was still searching for periscopes, diligently (if tiredly) when he felt
a tap on his shoulder. A voice said softly, “Second Officer of the Watch, I
stand ready to relieve you, sir.”
Kensington smiled in the darkness; the arrival of one’s watch relief was
always an agreeable thing, but especially so after a long mid-watch. He
lowered his binoculars and turned toward the sound of the voice. In the
gloom, he could just make out the shape of the man waiting to assume his