IN THE TUBE SPACE, Chief Petty Officer Rawlinson sat on a wooden seat which was shaped rather like the saddle of a motorbike. It was up between the tubes themselves, and pivoted, so that the T.I. could sit there and still reach the controls and the firing gear of all six tubes. He wore headphones which connected him directly with the Control Room. Behind him, on the wide step which ran behind the rear doors of the torpedo tubes, sat Able Seamen Hughes and Murchison. None of the three men had spoken during the last half hour. The compartment, over its deep, red-leaded bilges, smelt dankly of salt water.
A voice crackled in the T.I.’s telephone. ‘Tube Space!’ He answered, ‘Tube Space’, and the voice said, quickly, ‘Stand by one, two, three and four tubes!’
The T.I. jerked upright in his se
