Hunter Killer

2 MORTAR – RIDE FOR A CORPSE

I could not believe that he was serious. It sounded like a circus display to me.

The C-in-C went on. You must have wondered about the special coffin-I think Loch Vennachar's engineering shop did a fine rush job.'

' You sound like a professional Undertaker,' I grated.

He shrugged. Commander Peace's burial demanded special arrangements. You must have wondered why your request to see the body was not granted.'

' I don't wonder any longer. Whose bloody-fool idea was all this?'

Mine'

I won't have any part in it,' I retorted. You and your your arrangements can go to hell.'

I did not seem to get through to him. It would look rather strange, would it not,' he went on blandly, if John Garland, Peace's friend and comrade-in-arms, sulked while the hero was given the honours and recognition due to him?'

Honours and recognition be-! There is still time to call off this whole silly farce'

Is there?' He was cool, sure of himself. ' Tell the Defence Minister not to come? Tell the top representatives of the Limuria Grand Alliance that John Garland claims the exclusive right to bury his friend as he-and no one else thinks fit? Reverse the chain of communications now in motion to relay the ceremony? Tell millions of television viewers..

I cursed myself for not having broken through the obstructions when I first heard of Peace's death. Now it seemed too late.

Don't you wish Commander Peace to be honoured?'

Not in this way.'

How, then, if I may ask?'

I… I I… all I know is that he should have been buried quietly at sea…' My voice trailed off.

The C-in-C rose to go. You have not made any of the constructive suggestions I had hoped for from someone so close to Commander Peace.' Bloody hypocritical bastard, thought. I think we may take it that the present arrangements will stand. Ackroyd will keep in touch with you. Can you have your things packed in, say, an hour? I must ask 21 you not to come aboard Bellatrix except during the formal lying-in-state hours. Naval guards will be posted with orders.'

He shrugged slightly. I hope you will not embarrass either

Me or yourself. I suggest you be as accommodating as pos sible, Mr. Garland.'

Captain Garland,' I reminded him.

He smiled, the iron hand in the velvet glove. To me, mister. Had you fallen under my orders-well, this interview might have proceeded somewhat differently.'

His remote, formal air was impenetrable. He picked up his cap and ground out his gold-tipped Benson and Hedges cigarette: The two officers matched his actions. A formal salute, and he was gone.

The steel coffin creaked gently under Bellatrix's quiet lift. What had an American Intelligence agent sought to find out with that stethoscope? Had he suspected that Peace might not be dead? I didn't want to look at the dead face again, but the tumult of questions hammering in my brain drew me to the coffin itself. Those heavy rivets! I fingered them. Had Loch Vennachar's engineers indeed fabricated the strange contraption? Could they have made it in a brief two or three days?

I was drawn to the glass trap. What secret big enough for the CIA to be interested in lay behind the closed eyes framed by the monkish cap? I had not noticed previously that Peace's head was pillowed on foam rubber. I wiped away the last of the whisky. The glass still wasn't clear. There seemed some condensation inside, but the humid climate would account for that. They must have embalmed the body. for it to lie another three days in state '-six in all since his death. Then I noticed that the entire interior was of foam rubber.

I took the stethoscope, adjusted the plugs in my ears, and listened. Nothing. That layer of foam rubber would have damped any sound, however. Although the admiral had said Peace was to be fired from a depth-charge mortar, the body did not seem to be strapped in. I calculated the width of Peace's shoulders against the size of the cylinder and recalled his height. Strange! The coffin was much longer and wider than necessary. I explored the, foot. There was a heavy flange. I ran my fingers over it. The metal was rough and painted, but I felt something. I looked round for some instrument, then went and fetched an ice-pick from the bar. With it I scratched and found lettering. It read: Cammell-Laird, Ltd., Shipbuilders, Liverpool.'

I reflected grimly that the key might well lie with the unconscious CIA man. Mac and I would have to make him talk. As far as Cammell-Laird's were concerned, the coffin was probably a stray section of casing or tubing from a submarine bearing their imprint. That would account for its shape and size. The C-in-C had been very much on the defensive with me, but he had warmed a little when he had spoken of the DNI.

The thought of the DNI decided me. I would go and visit the man whose fame behind the scenes was matched only by his anonymity outside the Service. He was, of course, Peace's friend. The C-in-C had said he had settled recently in Mahe. It would not be difficult to track him down in a small place like Port Victoria. Even at this late moment, I thought, he might be able to have some of the undignified extroversion of the funeral modified. He might also know Peace's secret. I started towards the engine-room, and as I did so I heard the naval guard of honour coming alongside.

Mac was wry. ' The bastard's still out. Nothing to be had from him for hours.' He looked down at his oil-stained hands. ' We may have softened him up a little, though.'

' We've got to be off Bellatrix soon,' I reminded him, looking at the muscular figure lying on the gratings. Mac had patched up the wound on his head and he looked corpse-like with the blood cleaned away.

' We can't carry an unconscious man past the guard,' I pointed out. ' We'll lock him up and come back in an hour or two on the pretext that we've forgotten something.'

Mac's voice was savage. ' And-question him.'

I nodded. ' He'll be tough, though. The CIA boys aren't given to shooting off their mouths, least of all to a couple of amateurs like ourselves.'

Mac said coldly: ' He tried to get at the skipper. That's enough for me. He'll talk-or else' He picked the man up under the armpits and half-pushed, half-threw him into one of the steel lockers. It had a latch, but no lock. It was the best we could do, with the guard already aboard.

I pocketed the Colt and went to the cabin. The naval party had grouped themselves with reversed arms round the coffin. The officer-in-charge frowned to see Mac and me still there. I packed quickly, leaving some of my things as security to be allowed back aboard. From my locker I took the cherished yachting cap I had worn with Peace on the Skeleton Coast. I decided to carry the old cap at the funeral as a token of sentiment, despite the fact that I would be in civilian clothes. A boat was summoned to take us ashore. Before it arrived, I went and stood at Peace's head. A long shaft of sun struck down over Morne Seychellois, enriching the sycamore panelling of the cabin. The curtains over the portholes shifted in the land breeze. It was all sunshine, softness and light: the

"bizarre grey coffin was as out of place as a Viking hand-axe on a silk cushion.

This was goodbye, yet I felt nothing. I would never look on Geoffrey Peace's face again. I tried to concentrate my thoughts on that square foot of rather dirty glass, but they kept wandering out across the gentle anchorage, listening to the sounds of the fleet, to the raucous note of a patrol-boat's loud-hailer keeping the curious at bay. I abandoned my silent farewell, telling myself that we'd looked death in the face together so often that now, when it had come in such common-place fashion, all I could do was to recognize the fact.

Ashore at the hotel, I traced the DNI easily, though the English receptionist had been a little stiff, saying merely that he lived in a cottage with a companion. She didn't elaborate. Now I walked beyond the town up a valley towards the mountains. They were striking the Union Jack at Signal

Hill, at the northern end of the red-soiled valley. It wasn't far. The high casuarina tree screen, with its tangled, lush undermat of plumbago, golden allamanda and hibiscus in which Creole negrillons played hide-and-seek, thinned to show me my objective. Here, indeed, were roses better than the DNI's in Kent, but there the resemblance ended. The cottage was topped by palm-leaf thatch and the slabs of pink coral of which it was built still held some of their underwater colour in the dying sun. My eye did not linger on its beauties. The object of the negrillons' interest was a Royal Navy petty officer with a sub-machine-gun at the gate. In the garden were more men with. 45 Smith and Wessons and a walkietalkie. The petty officer looked severely at me. ' Sorry, sir. No admittance. Orders.'

Tell the DNI it's John Garland-Commander Peace's friend. He'll understand.'

The man's voice held a new respect, but he remained adamant. Nothing I can do about it, sir. It isn't for the DNI to say who comes and goes. I have a list here-" he tapped his pocket-' and you aren't on it.'

Anger and frustration boiled inside me. ' What the devil is all this?' I demanded. The negrillons, sensing a diversion, crept closer, chattering like monkeys. ' What's going on that 24 an armed guard has to be thrown round the home of a harmless old man?'

' I wouldn't say that-'e's very spry still.' The petty officer gave a quick glance round and dropped his voice. Maybe she keeps 'im young, sir,' he leered.

What do you mean?'

Young lady in there.' He grinned. Now wot's 'e got that I ain't?'

My concept of the DNI was shaken.. Peace had spoken of the dedicated aesthete; here was a sailor leching over an old man and his trollop. In St Brandon the islanders will tell you how the women who come from the Seychelles have corrupted the men. And, certainly, to see a sega danced on neighbouring Agalega is to understand how easy it is to obtain a poultry-keeper '-trial bride or sleeping partner, as you wish. Agalega pioneered the system of a husband selecting from among his friends several to share his wife under a gentleman's agreement that the right man is at the right place on the right night. And Agalegans, who consider themselves moral, point accusing fingers at Seychelles women! No wonder the receptionist had been prim when I had asked about the DNI

He was likely to be useless in the present crisis. My wish to see him left me..' It's nothing important,' I said.

The petty officer reacted to my tone. We all 'eard about

Commander Peace-you was 'is mate, wasn't you?' Yes-yes, you could call it that.'

He went on: Did you 'ear the radio today, sir? BBC?

We aint s'posed t'listen except on our own wavelength, but we did-was 'e really like that, sir?'

An iron band seemed to constrict round my head. If I didn't break free of this publicity build-up and sloppy patriotism, I should. He was a brave, cruel, heartless, determined, ruthless bastard who killed more men than he could remember,' I grated. But if I had thought he would have had to endure this bloody rubbish when he died, I would have killed him long ago with my own hands.

The petty officer gave a gasp. I swung on my heel and stalked down towards the town. I found Mac and, in a savage mood, I rowed out to Bellatrix. I rode rough-shod over the officer of the guard and Mac and I went to the engine-room. He let out an oath at the sight of the empty locker. An open porthole told its own tale. Either the intruder had been foxing us, or he had come round sooner 25 than we had expected. Silent, angry, we returned to the port.

•., The morning of the funeral broke crystal clear, as had done a million other mornings in Limuria. I had been awake since first light due to the clump and clatter of the television crews moving out their equipment. I dressed and looked out.

From seawards 'came the heavy revving of British and

American jet carrier planes. Bellatrix looked forlorn, guarded only by a small naval launch. The prying small craft were missing. The reason was on the radio. The BBC said: ' Last night the body of Commander Peace, the British naval hero who is to be buried today with full honours at sea in the

Seychelles Islands, was conveyed aboard H.M.S. Amirante. As listeners already know, Commander Peace will be committed to his final resting-place by the unusual method of firing his coffin from a destroyer's depth-charge mortar.

Television cameramen have been stationed aboard the destroyer Amirante and, by courtesy of the Admiralty, viewers in many countries will be able to see' the actual moment of firing..

With an oath I switched off. Cap under my arm, I strode down to the pierhead to the launch taking me to Loch Ven- nachar. They hadn't expected me early and I had the bridge to myself. A few cables' length away was Amirante. Cameramen, reporters, news commentators and Tv crews clustered round the stern depth-charge throwers. Peace's coffin was lashed to one of them, shrouded by a tarpaulin. I tried to watch the fleet, but my eyes always went back to that.

Two hours later I still stood alone on the bridge wing, as chief mourner who couldn't mourn. I had been treated by the C-in-C's staff as a sort of pariah, set apart by being

Peace's friend, but without the status of a relative. The Defence Minister and naval officers stood together in reverent silence as the Fleet Chaplain intoned the well-known words into a microphone. Black cassock and white surplice blew in the wind, a foil to naval blue and gold braid and black formal coats. The fleet steamed slow ahead. For miles ahead and astern was a superb array of missile cruisers, aircraft carriers, fleet destroyers and corvettes. In the centre, near Loch Vennachar, were the tall sails or conning-towers of six nuclear submarines. This was Britain's crack Limuria

Squadron. Parallel, a mile distant, was the American Seventh Fleet-the same ships in line ahead, but instead of six submarines, they had ten. Keeping precision station almost under my feet was Amirante, with Peace's body lashed to her mortars.

At the chaplain's wind-blown words,… Thou hast showed us terrible things and the wonders of the deep.. an officer stepped over and raised his hand to Amirante. If I disagreed with the C-in-C's publicity methods, I could not fault his ships. Amirante's engine-room bells rang. There was a quick thresh of water as her screws went full ahead.

Simultaneously, the tarpaulin was jerked from the coffin.

I looked for the last time towards Geoffrey Peace's body.

Only then did I feel the surge of my pent-up emotions at the sight of the armada of fighting ships, the long swell rolling in on the south-easter, the throb of powerful marine engines, the scream of carrier jets trailing wing-tip smoke.

… Thou sufferedst men to ride over our heads: we went through fire and water..

A dollop of sea creamed over the destroyer's stern, inundating the depth-charge throwers. Amirante raced down the line of ships. Recif Islet, a white, cuspate, guano-stained rock, fell astern and, fine on the starboard bow, was Frigate Island, where Peace had died. A flock of frigate birds circled over it, like a squadron of planes protecting a fleet. The swell was increasing-we were getting into the cyclone season-and the coral reefs and cays where Peace had spent his last hours were white. Amirante reached the head of the fleet. swung towards the American side and came round in a dramatic, full-ahead turn-a bone in her teeth, a splendid, unforgettable sight. The destroyer reached us. Her timing-and the chaplain's

– were split-second. As he spoke the sonorous last words,

Amirante was alongside. .. we therefore commit his body to the deep..

There was a sharp explosion, a puff of smoke at Amirante's stern. The ungainly coffin cartwheeled high into the air.

Cameras locked on the grey object as it hurtled upwards and news commentators, hanging on to the stern rails with one hand and with microphone in the other, gave their word pictures. Slowly the thing rose up and up. It arced downwards. I thought almost I heard the splash above the destroyer's engines. The C-in-C allowed the raw drama to sink in. The chaplain was silent, too, before the Benediction. An officer pressed a button at the rear of Loch Vennachar's bridge. The deck trembled and shook. Four missiles leapt from the cruiser's launchers in a flurry of flame. Four others rose from an

American cruiser. There seemed scarcely any time between the launch and a thunderous detonation overhead. Then a helicopter was over Peace's grave and a huge wreath floated down at the end of a parachute.

As it hit the sea, I felt a sudden impulse. Something of Peace for Peace's end. I reached out my hand' I wouldn't waste a good cap,' said a prim voice.

Peace had spoken of that voice a thousand times: didactic, precise. The DNI stood next to me, screwing up his eyes at the water. Like me, he was not in uniform.

I held my cap-the Skeleton Coast cap-uncertainly.

Ny anivon riaka,' he said, articulating the words with a slight forward throw of the lips, like an actor. He smiled. My Creole isn't the best, but it means, " that which is in the midst of the moving waters." Mam'zelle Adele says Creole was once a French patois, but no longer. Everything in Limuria seems to undergo a sea-change.'

Could this indeed be the man whose influence over Peace had been so great? I could not equate his blathering about an obscure language in an obscure ocean with his knowledge of submarines and underwater strategy, which, Peace claimed, was greater than that of anyone living.

He went on, ' You would not think that so scattered a community as the Limurian islanders could have a language with the subtletly of expression which Creole has. It's as diverse as their brede dishes-in South Africa there is almost the same word, bredie, which means rice with things like peppers and tomatoes. There are any number of nuances for bredes: brede giraumon, with pumpkin leaves; brede martin; brede malabar--!

No wonder Peace admired the Dm-they were equally heartless.

' You feel all this is appropriate to-?' I nodded towards the swiftly disappearing patch where Peace had been fired.

He seemed amused. You yourself wanted to give him his own sort of farewell-from what I hear-but now you object to anything but formal funeral conversation about the departed hero'

Departed hero! If a sneer is all Peace could expect..

He remained smiling, and gestured with his hand. It seemed wrong, too, that he should be smoking. ' I think you've missed your moment with that cap.'

Annoyed, thrown off-balance, I went to the dodger. The mocking and ironical words followed me. I raised the cap to throw it.

The camera crews are working hard to record the last dramatic gesture of Peace's comrade-in-arms.

I looked down-into a battery of 'cameras and telephoto lenses aboard Amirante.

It would be a futile gesture, anyway,' went on the cool voice. During our cpnversation we gathered speed and I doubt if anyone could locate the spot now where they fired our hero.'

I saw the reason now for his small-talk-he had saved me from contributing one more of the kind of histrionic gestures which I had so deplored.

Thanks,' I said. Thanks very much'

The clear grey-green eyes were expressionless. He said, with an almost conspiratorial air, Come on-let's give it to them-a smart double salute from two old comrades.' He flicked the cigarette-stub into the water. There's a fag-end for friend Peace-it's all right, don't look so startled, we're not being broadcast. Now!' He jumped smartly to attention and pistoned a salute which would have been the envy of a stars-in-the-eyes midshipman. I saluted too.

Well, that's that,' said the DNI. Wish we could get a Pink Plymouth in the wardroom, but I don't suppose everyone is as broadminded as to pour Glenfiddich into a dead man's face.'

I went cold. Glenfiddich! Only Mac and I had been there. Had the DNI heard from the CIA agent? What was the tie-up? I turned from watching the two fleets' complicated man-oeuvre to bring them back to port to find the DNI's eyes on me, unsmiling, hard. You came to see me a couple of evenings ago?'

It was a statement, a demand..

Yes.'

Why come to me?'

I wanted you to help stop this silly charade.'

I? A retired naval officer living quietly among the back-, blocks of the sea?'

Yes. You still carry a good deal of weight in high places'

My dear boy, you overrate me.'

I don't think so.'

He said quietly: ' The petty officer underrated Mam'zelle Adele.'

You mean to say-?'

Oh, come, Garland!' He was impatient, but pleased at his minor triumph in disconcerting me. I naturally heard all the petty officer said about myself and my young lady-I had him dismissed from the guard.'

How?'

` You can't live all your life surrounded by cloak-anddagger listening devices without taking some into retirement,', he replied. I had an ultra-sensitive mike in the post-box which recorded everything the petty officer said. There are others in the garden, too.' He was pedantic. ' Your outburst and character delineation of the late Commander Peace was apt, penetrating and very touching. You must hear the tape. I regret that the petty officer's Eliza Doolittle exclamation is a little blurred. But I was delighted to have the negrillons' patois a patois within a patois, as it were. Mam'zelle Adele says the language is perfect.'

The petty officer didn't seem so very far off the mark, the way he enthused about his Mam'zelle Adele. She must be a cut above the ordinary Seychelles good-time girl, though. A teacher of languages-well, that was as good a cover as any, even though it didn't deceive the locals.

He watched me closely. ' I couldn't make out why you suddenly went back without pressing your desire to see me.'

I could not tell him why. I improvised something about his being part of Peace's funeral circus, but I could tell he was not deceived.

The fleet split up for the difficult North Passage past St

Anne's into the main harbour. The lush green hills of Mahe were so close that I could pick out the DNI's cottage. Come and have a drink with me tonight,' said the DNI, with the peculiar type of authority the experienced clubman conveys with an invitation not to be refused. A drink and some dinner. I have some excellent turtle steaks from Agalega-the real thing, not the sort of mush they pass off as turtle in Mahe. Varra-varra to start with-I've never seen a fish look more like copper. Mam'zelle Adele will be delighted.'