San Andreas

NINE

Less than ten minutes after McKinnon's arrival on the bridge the phone rang.

'Jamieson here,' the voice said. 'Things do keep happening aboard this damned ship. There's been another accident.'

'Accident?'

'Accident on purpose. Incident, I should have said. Your pal Limassol.'

'Limassol' was the name that McKinnon had given to the man whom he had discovered to be the radio operator of the Argos. Apart from this discovery, the only other thing that the Bo'sun had been able to discover about him was that he was a Greek Cypriot from Limassol.

'What's happened to my pal Limassol?'

'He's been clobbered.'

'Ah.' McKinnon was not a man much given to exclamatory outbursts. 'Inevitably. Who clobbered him?'

'You should know better than to ask that question, Bo'sun. How the hell should I know who clobbered him? Nobody ever knows who does anything aboard the San Andreas. The Chief Officer was more prophetic than he knew when he gave this ship its new name. It's a bloody disaster area. I can only give you the facts as I know them. Sister Maria was on duty when Limassol sat down to have a look at the transceiver. After a while he stood and made the motion of screwing his forefinger against the palm of his other hand. She guessed, correctly, that he wanted tools and sent for Way land Day to take him down to the engine-room. I was there and gave him the tools he wanted. He also took a bridge-megger with him. Gave every impression of a man who knew what he was doing. On his way back, in the passageway leading to the mess-deck, he was clobbered. Something hard and heavy.'

'How hard, how heavy?'

'If you'll just hang on for a moment. We have him down here in a bed in A Ward. Dr Sinclair is attending to him. He can tell you better than I can.'

There was a brief silence, then Sinclair was on the phone. 'Bo'sun? Well, damn it, confirmation of the existence of Flannelfoot number two — not that any confirmation was needed, but I didn't expect such quick and violent proof. This lad doesn't hang around, does he? Dangerous, violent, acts on his own initiative and his mind's working on the same wavelength as ours.'

'Limassol?'

'Pretty poorly, to say the least. Some metallic object, no question, could easily have been a crowbar. I would guess that the attacker's intent was to kill him. With most people he might well have succeeded but this Limassol seems to have a skull like an elephant. Fractured, of course. I'll have an X-ray. Routine and quite superfluous but mandatory. No signs of any brain damage, which is not to say that there isn't any. But no obvious damage, not, at least, at this stage. Two things I'm pretty certain about, Mr McKinnon. He'll live but he's not going to be of much use to you — or anyone — for some time to come.'

'As Dr Singh said about Lieutenant Cunningham — two hours, two days, two weeks, two months?'

'Something like that. I've simply no idea. All I know is that if he does recover rapidly he'll be of no possible use to you for days to come, so you can rule him out of any plans you may have.'

'I'm fresh out of plans, Doctor.'

'Indeed. We seem to be running out of options. Mr Jamieson would like to have another word with you.'

Jamieson came back on the phone. 'Maybe this could' have been my fault, Bo'sun. Maybe if I'd been thinking a bit more clearly and a bit quicker this wouldn't have happened.'

'How on earth were you to know that Limassol was going to be attacked?'

'True. But I should have gone with him; not for his protection, but to watch him to see what he did to make the set work. That way I might have picked up enough to have some knowledge — rudimentary, but some — so that we wouldn't have to rely entirely on one man.'

'Flannelfoot would probably have clobbered you too. No point, sir, in trying to place the blame where none exists. The milk's spilt and you didn't spill it. Just give me enough time and I'll find out it was all McKinnon's fault.'

He hung up and related the gist of his conversation to Naseby, who had the wheel, and to Lieutenant Ulbricht, who had declared himself as feeling so fit that he no longer qualified as a bed patient.

'Disturbing,' Ulbricht said. 'Our friend seems to be resourceful, very quick-thinking and very much a man of decision and action. I say "disturbing" because it has just occurred to me that he may have been Flannelfoot number one and not Dr Singh, in which case we can expect a great deal more unpleasantness. In any event, it seems to rule out the crew of the Argos — none of them speaks English so they couldn't have known about the fake cardiac unit being in A Ward.'

McKinnon looked morose. The fact that none of them appears to understand a word of English — they're very good with their blank stares when you address them in that language — doesn't mean that one or two of them don't speak better English than I do. It doesn't rule out the crew of the Argos. And, of course, it doesn't rule out our own crew or the nine invalids we picked up in Murmansk.'

'And how would they have known that the tampered cardiac unit had been transferred from the recovery room to Ward A? Only — let me see — only seven people knew about the transfer. The seven at the table this morning. One of us could have talked, perhaps?'

'No.' McKinnon was very definite.

'Inadvertently?'

'No.'

'You trust us that much?' Ulbricht smiled but there was no humour in it. 'Or is it that you have to trust somebody?'

'I trust you all right.' McKinnon sounded a little weary. 'Point is, it wasn't necessary for anyone to talk. Everybody knows that Dr Singh and the two injured crewmen from the Argos are dead.' McKinnon made a dismissive little gesture with his hand. 'After all, we're going to bury them inside the half-hour. Everybody knows that they were killed by an explosive blast inside the recovery room and our newest Flannelfoot must have known that the transceiver was there and may have guessed, or suspected, that the case of the cardiac unit had been damaged sufficiently to reveal the existence of the transmitter. It had not, in fact, but that was pure luck on my part.'

'How do you explain the attack on the radio officer?'

'Easily.' McKinnon looked and sounded bitter. 'Flannelfoot didn't have to know where the radio was, all he had to know was that we had developed a certain interest in radio. Mr Jamieson tried to take some of the blame for the attack. Totally unnecessary when Mastermind McKinnon is around. My fault. My fault entirely. When I went down to find a radio officer the crew of the Argos were, as usual, in a corner by themselves. They weren't alone in the mess-deck — some of the injured men we picked up in Murmansk and some of our crew were there — but not close enough to hear us talking. Not that there was any talking. I just said the word "radio" several times, low enough not to be overheard, and this lad from Limassol looked at me. Then I made a motion of tapping my forefinger as if sending a signal in Morse. After that, I spun the handle of an imaginary electrical generator. None of this could have been seen except by the crew of the Argos. Then I made my stupid mistake. I cupped my hand to my ear as if listening to something. By this time Limassol had got the message and was on his feet. But our new Flannelfoot had got the message too. Just one little movement of my hand and he got it. He's not only violent and dangerous but very smart too. An unpleasant combination.'

'Indeed it is,' Ulbricht said. 'You have it right, you must have, and I can't see any reason for self-reproach. I used the right word back there — disturbing.'

Naseby said: 'Do you by any chance remember who exactly was in the mess-deck when you were there?'

'I do. Every crew member who wasn't on watch. On the deckside, only two were on watch — you and Trent down in the Captain's cabin there keeping an eye on the sextant and chronometer. All the off-duty engine-room staff. Two cooks and Mario. Seven of the seventeen invalids we picked up in Murmansk — the three who were supposed to be tubercular cases, the three who are supposed to be suffering from nervous breakdowns, and one of the exposure cases. He's so wrapped in bandages that he can barely walk so he doesn't come into consideration. A couple of nurses — they don't come into consideration either. And there's no doubt you're right, Lieutenant — the crew of the Argos has to be in the clear.'

'Well, that's something,' Ulbricht said. 'A moment ago you were expressing reservations against them which I found rather puzzling, as in that long talk in the Captain's cabin we had more or less agreed that the crew of the Argos was in the clear. The original suggestion, you may remember, came from you.'

'I remember. Next thing you know I'll be looking into the mirror and saying "and I don't trust you, either". Yes, I know I made the suggestion, but I still had this tiny doubt.

At the time I more than suspected that we had another Flannelfoot aboard but I wasn't certain until less than half an hour ago. It's impossible to believe that it wasn't our new Flannelfoot who blew the hole in the for'ard ballast room when we were alongside that sinking corvette. And it's unthinkable — and for me this is the clincher — that a member of the Argos crew would deliberately set out to murder a person who was not only a crewmate but a fellow countryman.'

'At least it's something,' Naseby said. 'Brings it down to our own crew, doesn't it?'

'Yes, our crew — and at least six allegedly physical and mentally disturbed cripples from Murmansk.'

Naseby shook his head sorrowfully. 'Archie, this trip is going to be the ruination of you. Never known you to be so terribly suspicious of everybody — and you've just said you could find yourself not even trusting yourself.'

'If a nasty suspicious mind is any kind of hope for survival, George, then I'm going to keep on having just that kind of mind. You will remember that we had to leave Halifax in a tearing hurry, in a cargo ship little more than half converted to a hospital. Why? To get to Archangel and that with all possible speed. Then, after that little accident when we were alongside that corvette it became equally essential that we be diverted to Murmansk. Why?'

'Well, we were listing a bit and down by the head.'

'We had stopped making water, weather conditions were fair, we could have reached the White Sea, crossed it, and made Archangel without much trouble. But no, it was Murmansk or nothing. Again, why?'

'So that the Russians could place that explosive charge in the ballast room.' Ulbricht smiled. 'I recall your words — our gallant allies.'

'I recall them too. I wish I didn't. We all make mistakes, I'm certainly no exception, and that was one of my biggest. The Russians didn't place that charge — your people did.'

'The Germans? Impossible!'

'Lieutenant, if you imagine Murmansk and Archangel aren't botching with German spies and agents, you're living in Alice's never-never Wonderland.'

'It's possible, it's possible. But to infiltrate a Russian naval working party — that's impossible.'

'It's not impossible but it doesn't even have to be necessary. People are capable of being suborned, and while it may not be true that every man has his price, there are always those who have.'

'A Russian traitor, you suggest?'

'Why not? You have your traitors. We have our traitors. Every country has its traitors.'

'Why should we — the Germans — want to place a charge in the San Andreas?'

'I simply have no idea. In the same way as I have simply no idea why the Germans have attacked, harassed and pursued us — but not tried to sink us — ever since we rounded the North Cape. What I'm suggesting is, it's very likely that the same German agent or agents suborned one or more of the invalids we picked up in Murmansk. An alleged psychiatric case or mental breakdown patient, who is sick of both the war and the sea, would make an ideal choice for the traitor's part and I shouldn't even imagine that the price would have to be very high.'

'Objection, Mr McKinnon. It was a last-minute decision to detach the San Andreas from the convoy. You can't suborn a man overnight.'

'True. At the most, highly unlikely. Maybe they knew a week or two ago that we would be detached to Murmansk.'

'How on earth could they have known that?'

'I don't know. The same way I don't know why someone in Halifax knew quite a long time ago that Dr Singh would be in need of a transceiver.'

'And you don't think it extraordinary that the Russians, if they were not responsible for placing that charge, should have brought the San Andreas into Murmansk apparently for the sole benefit of your mysterious German agents?'

'They're not my agents but they're mysterious all right. The answer again is that I simply don't know. The truth appears to be that I just don't know anything about anything.' He sighed. 'Ah, well. Close to noon, Lieutenant. I'll go get the sextant and chronometer.'

Lieutenant Ulbricht straightened from the chart. 'Still, remarkably, holding the same course — 213. Precisely 64ş North. Ideally, we should steer due south now but we're near enough to Trondheim as we are now, and that would only bring us closer. I suggest we maintain this course for the present, then turn due south some time during the night, midnight or thereabouts. That should bring us down the east coast of your native islands tomorrow, Mr McKinnon. I'll work it out.' 'You're the navigator,' McKinnon said agreeably.

In marked contrast to the conditions that had existed exactly forty-eight hours previously when the mass burial had taken place, the weather was now almost benign. The wind was no more than Force three, the sea calm enough to keep the San Andreas on an all but steady keel, and the cloud cover consisted of no more than a wide band of white, fleecy, mackerel sky against the pale blue beyond. McKinnon, standing by the starboard rail of the San Andreas, derived no pleasure whatsoever from the improvement: he would greatly have preferred the blanketing white blizzard of the previous burial.

Besides, the Bo'sun, the only other attendants or witnesses — by no stretch of the imagination could they have been called mourners — at the burial were Patterson, Jamieson, Sinclair and the two stokers and two seamen who had brought up the bodies. No one else had asked to come. For obvious reasons no one was going to mourn Dr Singh, and only Sinclair had known the two dead crewmen from the Argos and even then as no more than two unconscious bodies on operating tables.

Dr Singh was unceremoniously tipped over the side — not for him the well-wishing for his journey into the hereafter. Patterson, who would obviously never have made it as a clergyman, quickly read the liturgy from the prayer-book over the two dead Greek seamen and then they, too, were gone.

Patterson closed the prayer-book. 'Twice of that lot is twice too often. Let's hope there's not going to be a third time.' He looked at McKinnon. 'I suppose we just plod on on our far from merry way?'

'All we can do, sir. Lieutenant Ulbricht suggests that we alter course by and by to due south. That'll take us on a more direct route to Aberdeen. He knows what he's about. But that will be approximately twelve hours yet.'

'Whatever's best.' Patterson gazed around the empty horizon. 'Doesn't it strike you as rather odd, Bo'sun, that we've been left unmolested, or at least not located, for the better part of three hours? Since all communication from the U-boat has ceased in that time they must be very dense if they're not aware that something is far wrong with it.'

'I should imagine that Admiral Doenitz's U-boat fleet commander in Trondheim is very far from dense. I've the feeling they know exactly where we are. I understand that some of the latest U-boats are quite quick under water and one could easily be trailing us by Asdic without our knowing anything about it.' Like Patterson, only much more slowly, he looked around the horizon, then stood facing the port quarter. 'We are being tailed.'

'What? What's that?'

'Can't you hear it?'

Patterson cocked his head, then nodded slowly. 'I think I can. Yes, I can.'

'Condor,' McKinnon said. 'Focke-Wulf.' He pointed. 'I can see it now. It's coming straight out of the east and Trondheim is about due east of us now. The pilot of that plane knows exactly where we are. He's been told, probably via Trondheim, by the U-boat that's trailing us.'

'I thought a submarine had to surface to transmit?'

'No. All it has to do is to raise its transmitting aerial above the water. It could do that a couple of miles away and we wouldn't see it. Anyway, it's probably a good deal further distant than that.'

'One wonders what the Condor's intentions are.'

'Your guess, sir. We're not, unfortunately, inside the minds of the U-boat and Luftwaffe commanders in Trondheim. My guess is that they're not going to try to finish us off and that's not because they've been at great pains not to sink us so far. If they wanted to sink us, one torpedo from the U-boat I'm sure is out there would do the job nicely. Or, if they wanted to sink us from the air, they wouldn't use a Condor which is really a reconnaissance plane: Heinkels, Heinkel Ill's or Stukas with long-range tanks could do the job much more efficiently — and Trondheim is only about two hundred miles from here.'

'What's he after, then?' The Condor was two miles distant now and losing height rapidly.

'Information.' McKinnon looked up at the bridge and caught sight of Naseby out on the port wing looking aft towards the approaching Condor. He cupped his hands and shouted: 'George!' Naseby swung round.

'Get down, get down!' McKinnon made the appropriate gesture with his hand. Naseby raised an arm in acknowledgement and disappeared inside the bridge. 'Mr Patterson, let's get inside the superstructure. Now.'

Patterson knew when to ask questions and when not to. He led the way and within ten seconds they were all in shelter except the Bo'sun, who remained in the shattered doorway.

'Information,' Patterson said. 'What information?'

'One moment.' He moved quickly to the side of the ship, looked aft for no more than two seconds, then returned to shelter.

'Half a mile,' McKinnon said. 'Very slow, very low, about fifty feet. Information? Shell-holes, say, on the sides or superstructure, something to indicate that we had been in a fight with some vessel. He won't see any holes on the port side.'

Patterson made to speak but whatever he had to say was lost in the sudden clamour of close-range fire by machine-guns, in the cacophonous fury of hundreds of bullets striking the superstructure and side in the space of seconds, and in the abrupt crescendo of sound as giant aero engines swept by not more than fifty yards away. Another few seconds and all was relatively quiet again.

Jamieson said: 'Well, yes, I can see now why you told Naseby to get his head down.'

'Information.' Patterson sounded aggrieved, almost plaintive. 'Bloody funny way they set about getting information. And I thought you said they weren't going to attack us.'

'I said they wouldn't sink us. Knocking a few of the crew off would be all grist to their mill. The more of us they can kill, the more they think they'll have us at their mercy.'

'You think they got the information they wanted?'

'I'm certain of it. You can be sure that every eye on that Condor was examining us very closely indeed as they passed by fifty yards away. They won't have seen the damage to our bows because it's underwater but they can't have helped seeing something else that's underwater up for'ard — our load-line. Unless they're completely myopic they're bound to have seen that we're down by the head. And unless they're equally dense they're bound to realize that we've either hit something or been hit by something. It couldn't have been a mine or torpedo or we'd be at the bottom now. They'll have known at once that we must have rammed something and there won't be much guessing about what that was.'

'Dear, oh dear,' Jamieson said. 'I don't think I like this one little bit, Bo'sun.'

'Nor me, sir. Changes things quite a bit, doesn't it? Question of the German high command's priorities, I suppose. A question of alive or dead. Is it more important to them that they take us more or less alive or do they take revenge for their lost U-boat?'

'Whichever they choose, there's damn-all we can do about it,' Patterson said. 'Let's go and have lunch.'

'I think we should wait a moment, sir.' McKinnon remained still and silent for a few moments, then said: 'It's coming back.'

And back it came, flying at the same near wave-top height. The second fly-past was a mirror image of the first: instead of flying stern to stem on the port side it flew stem to stern on the starboard side, again to the accompaniment of the same fusillade of machine-gun fire. Some ten seconds after the firing ceased McKinnon, followed by the others, left the shelter and went to the port rail.

The Condor was off the port quarter, climbing steadily and flying directly away from them.

'Well, well,' Jamieson said. 'We seem to have got off lightly. Bound to have seen those three shell-holes on the starboard side, weren't they, Bo'sun?'

'Couldn't have missed them, sir.'

'They could be gaining bombing altitude before turning back to settle accounts with us?'

'He could bomb us from a hundred feet without the slightest bit of danger to himself.'

'Or maybe he just isn't carrying any bombs?'

'No. He'll be carrying bombs all right Only the Focke Wulfs on the big half-circle from Trondheim to Lorient in France round the British Isles, or the ones who patrol as far out as the Denmark Strait don't carry bombs. They carry extra fuel tanks instead. The ones on shorter patrols always carry bombs — 250-kilo bombs, usually, not the smaller ones that Lieutenant Ulbricht used. The pilot of the Condor is, of course, in direct radio communication with Trondheim, has told them why they're not hearing from the U-boat any more, but still has been told to lay off us. For the meantime, anyway.'

'You're right,' Patterson said. 'He's not coming back. Funny. He could have spent all day — till nightfall at least — circling us and reporting our position. But no, he's off. I wonder why.'

'No need to wonder, sir. The Condor's exit is all the proof we require that we are being tailed by a U-boat. No point in having a U-boat and a plane tailing us at the same time.'

'Isn't there anything we can do about that damned U-boat?'

'Well, we can't ram him because we don't know where he is and we can be certain that there's no chance that he'll surface because he's bound to have heard by now — or will hear very soon — what happened to the other U-boat. We can, just possibly, shake him off but not at this moment. Sure, by shutting off our engines and generators we could make him lose contact but that wouldn't be for very long — he'd just raise his periscope, traverse the horizon and nail us again.'

'Not at this moment — you mean, after it gets dark?'

'Yes, I thought we might try then. We lie doggo for half an hour, then steam away on a new course at very low engine revolutions — the less racket we make the less chance there is of our being picked up. Might take us the better part of an hour to reach full speed. At the best, it's only a gamble and even if we do win that gamble it's still no guarantee that we're free and clear. The U-boat will just radio Trondheim that they've lost us. They still know approximately where we are and a Condor with a few dozen flares can cover an awfully big area in a very short time.'

'You do my morale a power of good,' Jamieson said.

'Their tactics puzzle me. Why do they have a Condor fly out here, fly back again and then, as you suggest, fly out here at dusk? Why doesn't it stay out here all the time and have another Condor relieve it. It doesn't make sense to me.'

'It does to me. Although we're still a long way from Aberdeen the German brass-hats in Norway may well be making a decision as to whether or not to try to stop us again. My feeling — it's no more than that — says they will. No way a Condor can stop us without sinking or crippling us. It's become quite clear that they have no wish to sink us or cripple us to the extent that we can no longer proceed under our own steam. The U-boat can surface about a mile off, watch carefully for even a couple of degrees deviation in our course — and they'll be watching for that very, very carefully — then proceed to pump shell after shell into the superstructure and hospital zone until we run up the little white flag.'

'You're a great comfort to me, Bo'sun.'

As McKinnon entered the bridge, Naseby handed him a pair of binoculars.

'Starboard door, Archie. No need to go outside. A bit for'ard of midships. Near enough west, I would say.'

McKinnon took the glasses, studied the area indicated for about ten seconds, then handed the glasses back.

'Mile and a half, I would say. Looks like a mirror only, of course, it's not a mirror, it's a U-boat's periscope reflecting the sun. We, George, are being subjected to psychological warfare.'

'Is that what you call it?'

'Meant to see it, of course. By accident, of course. Carelessness, of course. Slowly, very slowly, George, round to port until we're heading more or less due east, then keep it on that bearing. While you're doing that I'll call up the Chief Engineer and ask his permission.'

He located Patterson in the mess-deck, told him the situation and asked for permission to head east.

'Whatever you say, Bo'sun. Doesn't exactly get us nearer home, does it?'

'That's what will make the Germans happy, sir. It's also what makes me happy. As long as we're heading for Norway, which is where they want us anyway, and not to Scotland, they're hardly likely to clobber us for doing exactly what they want us to do. Come darkness, of course, it's heigh-ho for Scotland again.'

'Satisfactory, Bo'sun, very satisfactory indeed. Do we make the news public?'

'I suggest you tell Mr Jamieson and Lieutenant Ulbricht, sir. As for the rest, any more talk about U-boats would only put them off their lunch.'