Nillson marked X’s on the plotting board and drew lines between them, checked the blip again, then ordered the standby lookout to keep watch from the port bridge wing. His plot line had shown the other ship speeding in their direction on a parallel course, slightly to the left. He went out onto the wing and probed the night with binoculars. No sign of another vessel. He paced back and forth from wing to wing, stopping at the radar with each pass. He called for another heading report.

“Still ninety degrees, sir,” Hansen said.

Nillson started over to check the gyrocompass. Even the slightest deviation could be critical, and he wanted to make certain the course was true. Hansen reached up and pulled the lanyard over his head. The ship’s belt rang out six times. Eleven o’clock. Nillson loved hearing ship’s time. On a late shift, when loneliness and boredom combined, the pealing of the ship’s bell embodied the romantic attachment he had felt for the sea as a youngster. Later’ he would remember that clanging as the sound of doom.

Distracted from his intended chore, Nillson peered into the radar scope and made another mark on the plotting board.

Eleven o’clock. Seven miles separated the two ships.

Nillson calculated that the ships would pass each other porttoport with more than enough distance in between. He went out on the wing again and peered through binoculars off to the left. Maddening. There was only darkness where radar showed a ship to be. Maybe the running lights were broken. Or it was a navy ship on maneuvers.

He looked off to the right. The moon was shining brightly on the water. Back to the left. Still nothing. Could the ship be in a fog bank? Unlikely. No ship would move that fast in dense fog. He considered decreasing the Stockholm’s speed. No. The captain would hear the jangle of the ship’s telegraph and come running. He’d call that frostyassed bastard after the ships had safely passed.

At 11:03 radar on both vessels showed them four miles apart.

Still no lights.

Nillson again considered calling the captain, and again dismissed the idea. Nor did he give the order to sound warning signals as required by international law. A waste of time. They were on open ocean, the moon was out, and visibility must be five miles.

The Stockholm continued to cut through the night at eighteen knots.

The man in the crow’s nest called out, “Lights to port!”

Finally.

Later, analysts would shake their heads in puzzlement, wondering how two radarequipped ships could be drawn together like magnets on the open ocean.