Southtrap

CHAPTER TWELVE

'… We therefore commit his body to the deep…'

I looked up from the service-book and nodded to the seamen at the rail.

They cast loose the lashings from the canvas thing on the board and started to up-end it over the Quest's starboard quarter.

'… looking for the resurrection of the body, when the Sea shall give up her dead…'

One of the men slipped on the thin coating of hail which covered the deck as his shoulder came under the body. In the brief moment of absolute silence before he regained his balance I heard the hail rattle against the canvas. I heard, too the faint whirr of Brunton's camera as he knelt on the deck recording the ceremony.

The thin rain was icy cold. The body hung in balance on the fulcrum of the rail. The ship's officers — Wegger, McKinley and Petersen — stood in a group facing it, their backs to the wind. I faced it, cap under my arm. Linn was next to me, the big hood of her soft brown-and-white Icelandic jacket half-hiding her face as the wind blew it against her cheeks. They were as white as the white woollen lining of the hood and the wide cuffs of the dolman sleeves. The three weathermen — Smit, T-shirt Jannie and Pete — grouped themselves behind Linn. After their stunned reaction earlier when I had confronted them with the news of Holdgate's death, I had given up the idea of even formally interrogating them.

For one mad, brief moment while the body hung in suspense I wondered if I shouldn't still call the whole thing off. In less than a second all Holdgate's secrets would be for ever beyond recovery in the black-green water which creamed against the Quest's quarter now that the way was off the ship.

Who had done it?

My glance went to the officers. Wegger's face was a mask. He appeared impervious to the bitter cold. McKinley, next senior, was shivering. Petersen looked as if he were about to pass out again. To keep his mind occupied I had ordered him beforehand to take an exact fix of the burial spot. With the heavy overcast sweeping almost at mast-level, it was an impossible assignment. But he had seemed grateful for the order, and his sextant was on the deck behind him.

Now the seamen got it right. The board went up, and Holdgate's passage was marked only by a small additional patch of white amidst the white foam under the stern.

I put on my cap and saluted. The others did the same.

'Mr Wegger,' I said formally, 'get the ship under way again, will you? I don't like the way her head's falling off in this wind.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Petersen picked up his sextant. He looked miserably at the sky and then at the sullen sea. McKinley's eyes were on someone in the group by the opposite rail. His hand went up to his head, flicking the water clear of his collar.

'Gretland,' I called to the carpenter who had headed the burial party, 'get that board back inside will you? Mr Smit here will show you where to stow it.'

Like Petersen, the met. man appeared grateful to have something to occupy himself with. 'It's okay,' he replied. 'Jannie and Pete and I can manage it. We don't need any help.'

'Good,' I said. 'Don't let anything happen to that board — we'll be needing it in just twenty-four hours from now to launch the buoy.'

T-shirt Jannie said, 'I didn't ever expect to have this sort of curtain-raiser with it. Holdgate was a good type…'

I didn't want a display of sentiment. To probe Hold-gate's murder I'd have to put aside human sympathy and act like a cold-blooded machine, if the necessity arose.

I replied tersely, 'Check all your gear, will you? Whoever got in and killed him could have smashed up something. That goes for Holdgate's instruments as well.'

'We'll check all right, you can be damn sure of that,' answered Smit.

There was a flurry at the stern. The Quest's screw had started to bite. It felt reassuring, normal and familiar.

'Coming, Linn?' I asked.

We headed for the forward superstructure along the windward side of the deck so as to avoid the passengers opposite.

I nodded towards the south-west quarter. 'There's an old saying for a gale down this way — long foretold, long last. Launching the buoy tomorrow could be tricky if the weather breaks the way I think it will.'

The high white polo collar of the jersey she wore under her jacket reached right up to her chin. A broad belt of rectangles — a typical Icelandic pattern — was knitted into the fabric down the front. The white colour was a perfect foil for her pale gold hair.

She said suddenly, 'Are you going to see Captain Jacobsen now, John?'

'In a few moments.'

'How did you get past Mrs Jacobsen?'

I laughed a little ruefully. 'When I knocked at their cabin door I was confronted by a squat square person in a leather coat. I thought for a moment that it was the Captain.'

'She's pretty formidable, isn't she?' said Linn.

'I thought she'd throw me with a judo hold, or mule-kick me in the chest. But she just said flatly, "You're not going to see my husband." A lioness guarding her cub had nothing on her. You know, Linn, for one dreadful moment I found myself wondering whether she could have done it herself.'

Linn paused and eyed me. I wished at that moment I were alone with her in the Quest, in a wide, wide sea, without a thousand problems riding on my back.

'I think she'd be quite capable of such a thing if his well-being were involved,' she answered quietly. 'But is it?'

'I mean to find out shortly.' I glanced at my watch. 'He's due in my cabin in ten minutes.'

'With or without Mrs Jacobsen?'

'Without.'

'I don't know how you contrived it, John.'

'When she refused, I said. "I'm the captain." Captain Jacobsen was in the lounge section of their suite and he must have overheard. My luck was in. He emerged of his own accord. Being a sailor, he knew the significance of a visit from the captain. The rest was easy.'

It wasn't easy, though, when Captain Jacobsen knocked at my cabin door a little later — not to start with, anyway.

The first thing I did when I opened the door was to judge whether he tallied with Reilly's description. His hands were certainly big but his frame was more square and stocky than big. He'd gone to seed and his belly pushed his sea-cut jacket tight. If he really had a heart complaint, then he would have been better at sea, I reckoned, keeping himself trim instead of being cosseted by a domestic dragon. I closed the door behind him. I wondered whether a man-to-man approach mightn't pay off.

'A drink, Captain?'

It did. He grinned like a schoolboy playing truant. 'My wife won't like it, and the sun's not over the yardarm yet as you British say — schnapps.'

I poured two small glasses. I had warmed to him even before I felt the warmth of the fiery liquid down my throat.

'You didn't come to the burial service,' I remarked.

His eyes were bleached to pale blue from gazing too long at horizonless oceans.

'I wanted to, but my wife said the strain would be bad for my heart. I've buried quite a few men at sea in my time.'

'Then you know what it's all about.'

'Aye. It's worse in a small ship like a catcher when you know everyone personally, even if you are the skipper.'.

I said, watching closely for his reaction, 'This man was killed. Murdered.'

He held out his glass for more schnapps. His hand was quite steady. He sat like a judge considering his verdict. It was a ponderous silence.

Then he said, 'That makes the captain's position very difficult. Your position.'

'It does.'

'Why should you want to talk to me about it?'

I saw the opening I had been looking for. 'Because Captain Prestrud was also murdered.'

The glass fell from his hand and spilled some of its contents on him before reaching the carpet. He made no attempt to recover it. He gaped at me and his face became grey-blue mottled. He began to frisk his pockets.

I held out a pack of cigarettes.

'My pills — I should have a pill with news like this,' he replied thickly.

I retrieved his glass, which had not smashed. 'Another drink will do you more good.'

I pressed it upon him, together with the smoke. He lit up and inhaled deeply. 'This, too, is verboten. But the hell with that.'

Then he eyed me steadily. 'Is this true what you say about my old friend, Captain Prestrud?'

'Yes. He was pistol-whipped to death. The accident story was a blind so as not to upset the passengers.'

He sank the schnapps. 'His daughter told me…'

'I know what she told you. Why I asked you to come here now is to find out whether there is any connection between Captain Prestrud's death and Doctor Holdgate's.'

'Doctor Holdgate — I never heard the name.'

I believed him. I sketched in Holdgate's background — what I knew of it — quickly.

'It makes no sense, Captain Shotton,' he replied.

'It would make less sense to me if Captain Prestrud hadn't confessed something to me shortly before his death.'

I could have been mistaken but there seemed to be a spurt of fear in his eyes. Of caution, certainly.

'What did he say?'

'It is what he left unsaid, Captain Jacobsen. I believe you can fill it in for me.'

'I don't understand what you are driving at.'

'Listen. What I want to know is what happened in these waters during the war. The incident took place very close to here. The German raider HK-33, which was also called the Pinguin, captured the entire Norwegian whaling fleet. You were there, Captain.'

'As you say, I was there.'

'Captain Prestrud was there also.'

'Aye, he was there.'

'A few hours before he died, Captain Prestrud started to tell me about it.'

'There's very little to tell. It was about the same time of the year — mid-January of 1941. Captain Kruder was the raider captain. He was a very clever man. We catchers were all grouped about the factory ships. He surprised us in the middle of the night. There was no fighting. Three of us — Prestrud, Torgersen and I — managed to escape. That's all.'

I poured myself another drink. 'That's laconic enough to be a Royal Navy despatch, Captain Jacobsen.'

'You think I'm lying.'

'I didn't say that. Your account is remarkable for its brevity. But it's the bits and pieces that are important to me.'

'Such as?''

'You escaped, you three. Fair enough. Where did you go?'

To Cape Town. It was the nearest friendly port.'

'You're going much too fast, Captain Jacobsen. You three gave the raider the slip — how?'

'We bluffed our way past. We didn't stop when Kruder signalled us to stop. We knew he was a humane man and wouldn't fire. He didn't.'

This checked with Captain Prestrud's account to me.

Then I fired my first broadside.

'What about the torpedo?'

He put down his glass and stared at me. The torpedo?'

If you can bluff a man at poker, you can bluff him at interrogation. Your hand can be empty. Mine was.

'You were at great pains, you and Torgersen, to guard Prestrud's flanks in order to. get the torpedo safely away.'

I didn't care for the throaty way he coughed. Perhaps his wife was right about his heart.

'It was a trick, a ruse-de-guerre, it was legitimate,' he answered thickly. 'Kruder used a Norwegian radio-operator — a quisling — to bluff us. Fair's fair. War makes things like that legitimate.'

'I'll come to that quisling in a moment,' I went on. 'Let's stick to that torpedo. What were you doing with a torpedo? None of you were warships. You couldn't have fired it if you'd wanted to.'

He smiled, and I knew I'd come unstuck somewhere. 'I think I could manage another schnapps,' he said, holding out his glass.

I poured it and he went on. 'We brought the torpedo with us from Norway. It was a German one. A souvenir, you could call it.'

'A torpedo — for a souvenir!'

He smiled again. 'Prestrud and Torgersen and I were all on the factory ship Pelagos in port at Narvik when the Germans attacked. That assault brought Norway to her knees.'

'Go on. This was all before my time.'

He became more animated, as if the memory of the action had given him a shot in the arm, a stimulant even more effective than the schnapps.

'You must have heard about it. The Royal Navy was superb in action during the First Battle of Narvik. One of your destroyer captains won a Victoria Cross.'

'Sorry. My history doesn't run to that.'

'Well, the Germans grabbed the port of Narvik. There was a whole squadron of their destroyers. Then the British broke in through the fjord in the snow and the mist — very brave, very daring. There was shooting, shooting, shooting. Every warship fired torpedoes. The harbour was full of torpedoes. It was all darkness and confusion and we snatched one before we escaped with the factory ship. A piece of cake, as you say, in all the smoke and shooting and snowstorms.'

'You — took — a live — torpedo — as- a- souvenir!'

'Yes. It was floating around near a quay.'

I sat and stared at him.

'You don't believe me?'

'I most certainly don't believe you. No one would be crazy enough to risk a torpedo with a live warhead which was liable to go up at any moment.'

He laughed. 'You're smart and you're tough but you're not very old and you don't know everything. I'll tell you. The Germans were using magnetic pistols to trigger the warheads. Narvik is very far north. In high latitudes the pistols were affected by the magnetic field. It would be just the same very far South. They failed to explode. It was safe enough.'

'Okay, I'll buy it,' I retorted. 'And subsequently this souvenir was valuable enough to you and Prestrud and Torgersen to risk your chances of escape by taking it along with you.'

He chuckled, and I realized I wasn't getting anywhere. 'Yes, we valued that torpedo a lot, Prestrud and Torgersen and I.'

I struggled to regain the advantage I knew I'd lost, but at what point in our exchange I did not know.

'Listen,' I resumed. 'When Captain Prestrud spoke to me for the last time he was definitely feeling guilty about something. Guilty enough to want to get it off his chest to a comparative stranger. It was something to do with your escape. What was it?'

Jacobsen froze. He said heavily, 'There was nothing for us to feel guilty about.'

'Torgersen knocked down the quisling radio-operator — did he kill him? Or did you and Captain Prestrud?' I pressed him. 'He mentioned having done something which was justified at the time. If that means killing a man in war-time…'

'No one killed him,' broke in Captain Jacobsen. 'He was only stunned. We took him along with us. That's all.'

He clammed up completely, and I began to be afraid that he would actually walk out.

I took a shot in the dark. Torgersen got killed later.'

'Aye,' retorted Jacobsen savagely. 'We ought to have killed that quisling Rolf Solberg at the time. Torgersen and I wanted to but Prestrud had a soft heart. We let him live. And thirty years ago today he killed Torgersen. It was after the first of our get-togethers.'

'Yes, Captain Jacobsen?' I said encouragingly.

'We three decided that after the war we would foregather once every five years on the anniversary of our escape from the German raider. The first celebration was held in our home port, Sandefjord.'

I gestured at the picture on the panelling that Linn had pointed out to me. Jacobsen nodded. That's the place. But our gathering was before Prestrud married and had a home. We celebrated it as comrades-in-arms should. Next day Torgersen was found in his hotel stabbed to death. I think Rolf Solberg must have been temporarily insane when he did it. He left clues everywhere. The police had no difficulty in tracking him down.'

Apparently unrelated circuits in my brain started to make contact.

'You say he was stabbed to death. What sort of knife?'

He thought a while and then replied, 'I don't think the police ever found the murder weapon. I can't remember it on exhibit in court when he was tried.'

'It wasn't a knife with a carved handle and a killer whale engraved on it?' I asked.

'No. I'm quite sure now. There was no knife exhibited at his trial.'

'You were at Solberg's trial, of course?'

'Prestrud and I were key witnesses. Solberg was sent to prison for life. He's probably still there.'

I fired my next question, 'What did you and the other two skippers actually do to the unfortunate Solberg?'

Jacobsen gave a half-roar, half-grunt, like an elephant seal. 'Unfortunate! We ought to've killed him! I said so then and I say so now! He got what he deserved.'

'What was that, Captain Jacobsen?'

He shrugged. 'It all happened a long time ago. There's no point dredging it up now.'

The man's silences were as solid as he was. I tried another tack.

'See here, Captain Jacobsen. Captain Prestrud tried desperately to tell me something, but he didn't make it. But he did warn me with all the strength he had left to stay away from Prince Edward Island.'

Questioning Jacobsen was like sounding unknown waters with a hand lead-line. You never knew when you would strike a shoal or deep water.

'He was my good friend and comrade for many, many years. It was a good thing he told you that.'

'Why, Captain Jacobsen? Why!'

He remained unresponsive and withdrawn.

I threw out a fresh probe. 'But in spite of that warning, this ship is bound for Prince Edward Island. And for tonight Captain Prestrud had planned another anniversary celebration of your escape — a very special one — thirty years to the day, as you said yourself. What is it about Prince Edward Island that meant so much to both of you?'

He replied sullenly, 'There's nothing there any more. Nothing!'

'Any more?' I pressed him. 'Any more? What was there, then?'

'Nothing.' But he was lying. He got to his feet.

I went quickly to the chart cabinet. He turned to see what I was doing, so that he faced away from the door.

It opened. Wegger took a step in. I looked up. 'Yes…?'

He wasn't looking at me but in Captain Jacobsen's direction. Without replying, he turned on his heel and was gone, banging the door shut behind him.

I was too preoccupied to worry about Wegger at this moment. I found the general chart showing the Sub-Antarctic islands. Jacobsen joined me at the table and I deliberately kept the chart flat while I stabbed it with my finger.

'Where did all this take place?'

'Here. Quite close to Prince Edward Island.'

'Ah!'

I let the printed lettering at the top unroll itself into his line of vision. 'Teddy. Atlantis-Pinguin-Sibirien. January 14th 1941.'

He stared at it, shaken. 'Where did you get this?'

'It belonged to Captain Prestrud.'

He read the words aloud, "Teddy. Atlantis-Pinguin-Sibirien." These are all forgotten things from a long-forgotten past.'

'Maybe. But I'd still like to know about them. Teddy is the name of a ship, I know that much. And Pinguin was the raider which captured the whaling fleet.'

'Aye,' he agreed. 'Aye. The Teddy was a tanker, so it seemed…'

'So it seemed?'

'She sailed with us — eleven catchers and the factory ship Pelagos from Narvik after the battle. Outwardly Teddy was a tanker. But underneath…' He shrugged. 'It doesn't matter any more if I tell you. She was the flagship of the Free Norwegian Navy. She was fitted with gun positions and everything for a warship. Sol-berg — the bastard!'

'What did he have to do with Teddy?'

'He'd been her radio operator before the war. He knew she was a warship. When he went over to the Germans, he gave her away. The German Naval High Command was on the look-out for her. She was captured by the raider Atlantis in the Indian Ocean when she was on her way to protect the whaling fleet in Antarctica. Teddy was carrying the overall master-plan for the Free Norwegian Navy, and the details of the whaling fleet's rendezvous-point near Prince Edward. Atlantis seized the lot. As if that wasn't enough, Solberg also turned the Pinguin on to our fleet by chatting in Norwegian over the R/T and pretending to be another big factory ship called the Harpon which was due to join us from South Georgia.'

'Sibirien — what does that mean?'

'It was the code-name for the whaling fleet's Antarctic rendezvous-point. Sibirien — Siberia — cold. It was a large area of sea divided into grids in order to fix an exact rendezvous.'

'What area did Sibirien cover?'

'It was a big rectangular stretch with Bouvet as western terminal and Prince Edward as eastern.'

'So it all comes back to Prince Edward Island, doesn't it?' I said. «Not that that threw any light on Holdgate's death, I added to myself. Why a volcanologist whose only interest in Prince Edward was its rocks should have been brutally stabbed to death all this time after the events Captain Jacobsen was speaking of was incomprehensible.

Jacobsen was breathing quickly and shallowly. I realized that he had reached the limit of what he would answer. So I switched to another tack.

'There's something else I want to discuss with you — or rather Captain Prestrud's daughter and I both want to discuss it with you,' I said. 'It's about tonight's celebration dinner.'

'I do not wish to celebrate anything tonight,' he replied. 'These are old wounds you have re-opened.'

I picked up the phone and while I was waiting to get through to Linn, I said to him, 'I didn't open them, Captain Jacobsen. It was someone else who did. Someone on board my ship at this moment, and I'd give my left arm to know who he is.'

He eyed me keenly. 'I don't like the way you've handled this affair, but I think we are on the same side. I'm beginning to like you better now, Captain.'

Linn answered at the other end and saved me from the awkwardness of having to reply.

'Linn,' I asked, 'can you come to my cabin, please? Captain Jacobsen is here.'

'I'll be right down.'

She shook hands formally with Captain Jacobsen, and then came and stood next to me.

He surveyed the two of us. Either he was shrewder than I had thought or else our feelings were more obvious than either of us was aware of.

'So,' he smiled. That's the way of it, is it?' He gave me a warmer glance than any we had exchanged during the interview. He said to Linn, 'I am happy for the daughter of my old comrade-in-arms. You have made a good choice in this man.'

Linn answered quickly, to cover her confusion. 'I thought we were going to discuss the celebration dinner.'

Jacobsen said, still smiling, 'Before you came in, Linn, I told the captain I was in no mood to celebrate, but I feel different now. Everyone else will think we are celebrating the anniversary of a war-time escape but we three, we'll be thinking of your future.'

She touched his arm with spontaneous warmth.

Thanks, Captain Jacobsen, you've done me good. I needed cheering up. All the passengers are standing around in little groups talking in hushed tones, and the whole ship is drenched in gloom. This weather isn't exactly helping matters, either.'

'I was afraid it would be like this,' I said.

Linn said, 'I thought it might help to cheer things up a bit if we staged an exhibition of the drifter buoy and the balloon and the instruments in the main lounge this afternoon. Everyone's curious about them, and about the launching tomorrow.'

'How did the met. boys react?' I asked.

'Jumped at it,' she replied. They've been checking and rechecking everything until they're seeing double. They'd welcome a break.'

'Right,' I said. 'Follow it up with a good dinner and plenty of wine and it'll be just what the doctor ordered.

Captain Jacobsen broke in. 'When your father and I used to get together, Linn, one of us always made a speech. I'm the only one of the three left, so I will make tonight's speech.'

I felt uneasy at the suggestion. 'No skeletons out of the past, please, Captain Jacobsen.'

He grinned and shook his head. 'We'll forget all that — and we'll forget what's been happening aboard this ship — for a few hours anyway. As I said just now, it's what I'll be celebrating in my heart — that's what matters.'

His enthusiasm fired Linn. She said, 'I'll find some volunteers and we'll decorate the dining-room this afternoon.'

'I saw some cases of Kaapse Vonkel coming aboard just before we sailed,' I said. 'Cape Sparkle. Genuine Cape champagne. I'm told it's good stuff.'

Jacobsen rubbed his hands. 'When a man talks like that, the party's halfway to success.'

He looked years younger. I hoped the afternoon in close proximity to his wet-nurse wouldn't kill his mood.

That's fixed then,' I said. 'Linn, will you make arrangements with the cook? He'll need both his assistants — aspirant cooks as he calls them. His English isn't all that hot. You'd better stick to Norwegian when you're dealing with Klausen.'

'There's no knowing what he'll serve if I don't.' She smiled.

Jacobsen was getting up to go. At the back of my mind was something else I'd wanted to ask him. I remembered it as he reached the door. 'Wait a minute, Captain Jacobsen. There's just one more thing.'

I went to the safe and took out the leather-framed picture of the beautiful, strange-looking woman.

Jacobsen studied it intently, without lifting his eyes. An expression of tenderness came over his face; there might have been nostalgia there too, but there was no trace of his light-hearted mood of a few moments before.

When he did not speak, I asked, 'Do you know who she is?'

Jacobsen snapped the case shut and returned the picture to me. 'No one will ever know her,' he said, and left the cabin.

His emotion remained after he had gone, invisible and yet there, like a radio-active cloud from a nuclear satellite which has burned itself up on re-entering the earth's atmosphere. Dangerous, too, when fall-out begins.

Linn said thoughtfully, 'John, there's an awful lot of things I still don't understand about this cruise.'

I locked the picture away. 'You can't be more puzzled than I am. Even after talking to Captain Jacobsen.'

She came close and held the lapels of my jacket. 'But there's one thing I can see perfectly plainly — you're dead on your feet, John. You need sleep, and I intend to see you get some — now.'

I threw her a mock salute. 'Aye, aye, Captain Linn.'

She looked at the time. 'I'll have a tray of lunch sent in to you here right away. When you've eaten you're to go straight to your cabin and sleep.'

I knew she was right. I could feel the stresses catching up on me. Ahead of me was the dinner celebration followed by a night of what I believed would be piloting the ship through the first ice-fields.

'If I sleep, it'll be in here,' I told her. 'With one eye open, next to the phone.'

She didn't argue, but kissed me and went away.

I must have been in poorer shape than I thought. I did not hear the lunch tray arrive but I was roused by the imperative ringing of the phone. I swung myself off the couch. I was wide awake as soon as my feet hit the floor. Automatically I noted two things — first, that it was half-dark and that the ship's motion was increasing; second, that I had been covered by the penguin-skin rug.

I snatched the phone from its cradle. 'Captain here.'

'Sir! It's Persson! Come quickly! It's a Mayday!'