A Bridge of Magpies

C H A P T E R E L E V E N

What we saw spread oul round Sang A next day underscored my discoveries of the previous night. The salvage part, at least.

It was a six-pointed pattern of cables and chains stretching out about half a mile to the main points of the compass with the black ship in the centre. It resembled a gigantic spoked wheel on the sea's surface-with Sang A as its hub. Half-a-dozen moorings had been made ready, and numbered buoys were in position-a typical preliminary salvage lay-out. It had all been done some time before the fog lifted. The Sang A crowd had certainly sweated out their hangovers. Echoes of the previous night hung a little drearily on the morning air between Jutta and me. I'd tried to fling away the thought of her possible duplicity, but the nagging suspicion of the torch affair still stuck.

She stared at Sang A- and across the channel to where the City of Baroda lay. I couldn't fathom the expression in her eyes.

She said, 'My search is snowballing into something far beyond what it originally was. I'm scared for the future.'

I replied-to reassure her -not to convince myself, 'There are too many ghosts around. Those salvage preparations are a complete give-away. The frigate will be along any time now and that will be that.'

She didn't answer. The sunlit anchorage seemed so peaceful; even the day was unnatural in its continued calm. It was hard to credit the other side of the Sang A coin. Why go then? Why not wait?'

I might have found a reply of sorts, before last night. Now I shrugged.

'I'm going aboard Sang A. Stay if you wish.'

'Never.'

We left it at that.

I rowed us out in the dinghy to Sang A. Her boats were fussing about. Some of the crew stood at the rails watching us approach, their dull, sullen fares so similar that I couldn't pick out individuals. If I hadn't seen them going to town the night before I couldn't have credited what a bunch of rowdies they could be.

We made fast. Emmermann and Kenryo were on the catwalk awaiting us. Even less than before did I like the look of Sang A's number one hatchet man. The whites of his eyes weren't white, but murky yellow.

I've been expecting you all morning, Captain Weddell.'

Emmermann smiled sarcastically. 'It would be unlike a gogetting headman to stand aside from this.' He indicated the preparations.

'That's what I've come about.'

`Salvage is no doubt within the province of island headmen also?'

`Don't beat about the bush, Emmermann. You know damn well you can't undertake salvage operations here.' '

So… now?'

Kenryo regarded me with his glum face and dirty eyes. I wanted to give a medal to the guy who'd smashed his nose. Now that I was near him I smelt the acrid odour of stale sweat and burned-out drugs. I wondered how good he'd be for a fight, without a drag.

But Emmermann wasn't out for trouble.

`Please to, come to the chart-room. J would like you to examine our legal papers.'

'They don't need vetting,' rasped Kenryo.

Emmermann aJmost apologized for him. 'Our informationwas that we would find a more… ah, accommodating headman on Possession.'

I directed my reply to Kenryo. 'There was. He's gone. He granduated to mainlining. They usually start soft.'

Kenryo's yellow skin had a sort of dull-oily gloss on it-and he didn't have jaundice. He spat over the side,

`So.. a' persisted Emmermann.

`Dope, booze-that's Possession?

He smiled indulgently at Jutta. 'I have some of the latter inside. We will use it for less serious purposes than the incumbents of Possession? In the chart-room he produced a bottle of schnapps and three glasses. Kenryo wasn't included. Maybe he didn't want to overburden himself with vices.

'Gesundheit!' . I raised my glass to Emmermann, wondering where all this sp urious bonhomie was leading to.

Emmermann kept it up. 'Documents! You shall see We have plenty.'

'Be specific,' I replied. 'Tell me what you're after. I know most of the wrecks around here -Maridahl, Nautilus, Lovely Amanda, Black Prince-and Auckland on the other side. None of them's worth a packet of matches.'

'All oldies, as the jargon has it.' But Emmermann's next words snapped Jutta out of her aloof and detached mood. '

No, Captain Weddell, we're searching for a submarine that aas lost here during the war. The U-160.'

Emmermann missed her reaction because he'd risen to open a wall safe. But Kenryo didn't. His eyes narrowed as hers came alight and bright colour rushed into her cheeks. He must have used a good brand of dope-to be so alert the ' morning after'!

Emmermann thumped down a wad of documents in front of me. If they were calculated to impress, they did. Parchment: stamped, watermarked, letterheaded, scripted, with red seals and ribbon. A couple of the documents were in Oriental writing which I imagined to be Korean. It looked good and convincing… I couldn't read a word.

'Right,' I said. 'You've done your homework. But as far as I'm concerned this is so much bumff. These are Sperrgebiet territorial waters. You can't operate here without authority. I can't find that authority among these-'. I indicated the pile of documents.

He pointed to a particularly impressive-looking one which sported a coat-of-arms and drop-lettered Gothic capitals. am authorized by the German Ministry of Marine to salvage any metals, machinery, fitments and tools from U-160 in consideration of the sum..

'Fine, fine,' I broke in. 'I'm not a maritime court. I have no discretion. You can argue with the fisheries frigate. She'll be here at any moment.'

'How d'ye know, if your radio's out of operation?' de. manded Kenryo.

Emmermann's temper showed through his smooth social facade, enabling me to side-step Kenryo's punch question. 149

'It may interest you to know that at dawn today the frigate was two hundred miles away. At the northern end of her patrol beat.'

That knocked me. It meant Denny hadn't sent my signal. Or, if he had, the warship couldn't possibly be at Possession by that day. It also revealed something equally disquieting- Sang A was monitoring the frigate's movements. Emmerman realized that at the drop of a hat Kenryo and I would be at each other's throats. He said in a conciliatory way, 'That's as may be. The important matter is that U-160 was sunk in the Possession channel during the war.

'She wasn't sunk.' Jutta's reserved mood had now completely dissipated-like the fog. She was alert and animated. Up to then neither Emmermann nor Kenryo had regarded her as being in their league. They probably thought she provided me with Possession's only distraction.

Her words poured out. 'U-160 first sank the City of Baroda. She then sank the frigate which pursued her. The last that was heard from her was that she was making for the open sea. She was badly damaged and losing oil. But she was afloat.'

There was something-more imagined than reaJ perhaps-behind Kenryo's eyes I didn't care for. He spoke rapidly to Emmermann… all their attention switched away from me .. I wanted to yell at Jutta to stop.

• Emmermann's restraint was obvious. 'You are informed about U-160? How strange for a woman!'

… no, that part of it doesn't matter. I know however that Captain Schlebusch fired a spread of four torpedoes at the City of Baroda and then used the U-boat's two stern tubes against the warship. He got her too.'

Kenryo's voice had a dull, flat note, like a counterfeit coin's dud ring.

'U-160 sank. She is -' he thumped a heel on the floorboards -' right under us at this moment. We have located her.'

'That's what the buoys are for,' added Emmermann.

'Nor exclaimed Jutta. 'No! You're wrong! She got away. She..

'Yes?'

She had the sense, at least, not to reply to that bit of Emmermann's prodding. I tried again to signal her to play it cool but she was being driven along by some inner compulsion.

When she hesitated Emmermann repeated, 'She is here. Right under Sang A.'

'Transit sonar,' I jibed.

He looked startled but let it pass. He was far too interested in Jutta. He found a lead weight in the safe and brought it for her to inspect.

'Sounding lead,' he explained. 'Look! Look at what came up from the wreck below.'

Mixed in with the typical sand and shell of the channel floor were some red and grey flakes.

'Paint. Red lead underneath, with grey above it. U-boat grey.'

'No,' J said. 'British naval grey. Gousblom! Emmermann and Kenryo's attention switched back to Jutta when she added, 'Her magazine blew up. It's she you've located, not U-160:

'So now! So now!' They were only four short words from Emmermann but they said everything.

Kenryo addressed Jutta with the controlled menace of a panther stalking. 'You are extremely knowledgeable about naval matters.'

Emmermann helped himself to some more schnapps. 'Would you know what U-160 was carrying?'

'A couple of prototype torpedoes. Samples of new explosives. The latest counter-measures to Allied submarine devices. A Nazi agent.'

She had them riveted. If she went on they'd never let us off the ship. So I brushed aside the rest of what she had: 0 say. 'Technically, all of it was old hat within a year. Nothing that's worth salvaging in this day and age.'

'Her phosphor-bronze torpedo tubes are worth?100 apiece at today's prices,' replied Emmermann.

'She had six. Six hundred quid. That wouldn't even pay our way for a couple of days. It's aJso peanuts compared with your outlay.'

Emmermann looked across at Kenryo for the go-ahead: got it.

'Captain Weddell. We are men of the world. If I told you hat U-MO was carrying something which-if you choose to: co-operate-could help you to be comfortable for the rest of your life, would you believe me?'

'If you're going to say she had aboard Captain's Kidd's treasure or the Alabama's gold or a trunk-load of diamonds, you can keep it. It's just another Sperrgebiet yarn when the lights are low and the brandy goes round.'

'You are sensible not to be gullible. No. U-160 was carrying two hundred tons of liquid mercury, as ballast. In canisters. Attached to her keeL'

'So what?'

'In the early days of the war mercury was dirt cheap. Cheap enough to be ideal ballast. Germany bought a lot from Mexico at bargain basement prices. Today.

He let the rest of the sentence hang.

Kenryo compleled it. 'At today's prices two hundred tons of mercury is worth over a million dollars. Tax-free.' He gave a tight-lipped grin. 'With your co-operation.'

'See here, Captain Weddell,' Emmermann punched home the offer. 'We're not asking you to do anything. Anything, you understand? All you have to do is to sit and watch us from Possession-if you want to watch. If you agree in principle, we can discuss terms. We will be generous-I assure you.' He turned to Jutta. 'You have information about U-160. Information is also a saleable commodity. For example, if we knew more details of the action in the channel we could plot U-160's firing angles. We could obtain transits. That in itself, by narrowing down possible areas, would be worth thousands of dollars of search time.'

Something had come over Jutta since they'd started their talk about buying us. She'd been all fired up at the start-unstoppable almost -now she'd gone cold.

'I… I… need time to think:

Kenryo spotted the change in her, too. All I wanted was to get away. I rose to my feet. 'Well talk it over.. I was nearly thrown to the floor. Sang A shimmied under a hammer-blow concussion from outside. I felt as if someone had tapped me on the head with a rubber truncheon and at the same time thumped me in the diaphragm. There was a white photo-flash of light across the cabin. My ears reeled. We threw ourselves at the portholes.

A few hundred yards away a geyser-spout of water-it had a dirty-curly black top like a giant ostrich feather-stood up higher than Sang A's stack. One of the boats that had been fussing about was tumbling sideways out of the mess-men and timber falling in all directions.

'Christ!' I exclaimed. 'They've tripped one of U-160's old mines!'

They had indeed, with that wire sweep of theirs.

We rushed on deck; Emmermann and Kenryo shouting orders. They'd forgotten us amid the general uproar. '

Beat it!' I said to Jutta. 'Now's our chance!'

We slipped over the side and sneaked away in the dinghy towards Possession.

We'd gone nearly half-way when Jutta suddenly exclaimed, ' Struan! U-160 didn't have mercury ballast: she was built too late. She was a Class IXC boat. Mercury ballast was confined to earlier types,'