Southtrap

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Captain Jacobsen's letter lay on the cabin desk between Linn and myself like a testimony from the other side of the grave.

I had discovered the long envelope in my uniform pocket shortly after Wegger had left. I had removed my jacket at Linn's insistence in order to try and get my bruised shoulder comfortable and for her to examine it. The letter was the one I had picked up on my way to the Mayday call.

The big scrawling handwriting read:

Dear Captain Shotton, You were right in suspecting my story about the torpedo which Prestrud, Torgersen and I towed away under the Germans' noses. After our conversation today I realized that I am now the only one left who knows the truth and why we did what we did. I am writing this before tonight's celebration dinner in the hope that you will see me in a somewhat different light, and believe that what we did was right at the time. You were also Captain Prestrud's good friend — there is no need for me to repeat how happy I am about Linn and you. It is part of the reason for this letter.

Our torpedo contained ten million dollars' worth of gold bars which were in transit from the Free City of Danzig to the United States via Narvik. That is what made that torpedo so precious to us! After our escape, we hid the gold in the great cave on Prince Edward Island. We also left the quisling, Rolf Solberg, behind on the island. I still say — but no matter, it all happened long ago. Solberg was rescued by a British cruiser — you know how he returned to murder our companion Torgersen. Solberg did not mention the gold at his trial. I also want to confess that it was the intention of the three of us, Torgersen, Prestrud and I, to recover the gold after the war. However, when we learned that the island had been visited by a British cruiser we suspected that the gold might have been found and that our private expedition would be a waste of time. So it proved.

Prestrud approached the Tripartite Commission consisting of official representatives of Britain, France and the United States which handled wartime property seized by the Western Allies and was informed that ten million dollars' worth of Danzig gold was indeed in its safe keeping. The Commission also informed us that the Royal Navy had retrieved the gold, but gave no details, and refused to do so when we enquired subsequently. The Commission also informed us that the gold had been in transit via the port of Bergen; this was obviously a mistake since we knew that it was Narvik. But what does all this matter now? Of course the information put a stop to our expedition to Prince Edward Island, and the tragedy of Torgersen cast a lifelong shadow over us.

Now that I have told you the true story, I will enjoy tonight's occasion with an easy mind for the first time in many years.

Your good friend, Axel Jacobsen 'I was sure there was nothing underhand about this cruise!' Linn exclaimed. /.This proves it.'

'Linn,' I said. 'Wegger's out of his senses. His long stay on Prince Edward must have unhinged his mind. We're in the hands of a madman and a killer who will stop at nothing to get back to where he believes the gold hoard is still hidden.'

'It terrifies me to think what will happen when he finds the cave empty, John.'

'He obviously suffered hallucinations,' I added. 'Look at his story of the girl on Prince Edward he wanted to make love to. That isn't the product of a sane mind.'

'Sort of wish projection until it became real, you mean?'

'More or less.'

'What are you going to do now, John?'

'My first concern is for Botany Bay. I don't want to do anything which may make Wegger abandon them. In fact, I'm at a complete loss to understand why he's still carrying on. It only complicates his position.'

Those two thugs with their automatics wouldn't stop at anything,' Linn shuddered. 'John,' please be careful, for my sake!'

'I will, Linn, I promise you.'

The key rattled in the lock and the door was thrown open. Wegger stood well back, Luger at the ready. With him was Ullmann. There was enough hardware between the two of them to strafe a destroyer.

Wegger nodded to the huge man. 'Okay. I want to talk to them. Shut that door and keep guard, see? If you hear anything odd, come in at the double.'

'That I'll do,' Ullmann replied in a voice that was surprisingly light, considering his size.

Wegger shut the door. 'The ship is completely in our hands. There is no resistance.'

'That sounds like a stock terrorist bulletin,' I scoffed.

'Don't try and be funny, Shotton. It doesn't pay, in your position.'

'Does the bridge know what has happened?' I asked.

'Not yet. That's what I've come about. I'm giving you a last chance to reconsider, Shotton. You can make it very easy for yourself if you don't obstruct me. You can run the ship as if nothing had happened. Go along with me — and you pick up a million dollars.'

'Wegger,' I replied, 'the boot's on the other foot. It is I who am giving you a chance to reconsider.'

His eyes blanked and two thin, savage, white lines leapt into the furrows of his face, from jaw to cheekbone.

'What are you trying to say?'

'See here,' I answered. 'New information has come into my hands. If you think there's gold on Prince Edward, you're chasing shadows.'

His voice sounded like ice grating. 'You're lying, Shotton. How could you get any new information, locked in here without a phone?'

I pulled out Jacobsen's letter and read: '… Prestrud approached the Tripartite Commission consisting of official representatives of Britain, France and the United States which handled war-time property seized by the Western Allies and was informed that ten million dollars' worth of Danzig gold was indeed in its safe keeping. The Commission also informed us that the Royal Navy had retrieved the gold…'

He snatched the letter from me and shouted, 'You liar! You've concocted this! You're trying to con me!'

The door burst open and Ullmann poured in. He smelt of bilges and of Ullmann. He trained the Scorpion on Linn and myself. As far as his whale-like face could register any emotion at all, it was surprise.

'Get out, you stupid fool!' ordered Wegger.

'You called 'Get out!'

Ullmann retreated, bewildered, with the machine-pistol at the ready.

'Jacobsen wrote that, letter a few hours before you killed him,' I stated. 'Read it all for yourself. There's no gold on Prince Edward. You were out of your mind at the time, Wegger. The Royal Navy found it and turned it over to where it rightly belonged.'

He plucked at the letter, turning it round and round. 'Jacobsen never wrote this — why should he?' he demanded. 'You — you and the girl — you made it up. You're trying to put me off and lift the gold for yourselves!'

'Pull yourself together, Wegger. Or Solberg, whatever your name is. If you hadn't half-killed Jacobsen's wife you could get her to confirm his handwriting. Jacobsen and I had a discussion this morning. He realized I didn't believe his story. Subsequently he wrote me that. I found it at the door when the Mayday signal came in.'

The gold is there!' Wegger's voice rattled like an engine running at plus-maximum revs. 'I've seen it! I've lived with it! It's in Credit Danzig ingots — small bars, like slabs of chocolate. It is there, I tell you! The cruiser never sent anyone ashore! They took me aboard. When I told them the island was deserted they sailed away! They sailed away, I tell you!'

'Wegger,' I interrupted his outburst, 'you weren't in your right mind. You had a nervous breakdown, a mental black-out. You don't remember. There's a proper medical term for it…'

'Goddammit, I remember every smallest detail!' He thumped the desk and kicked the smashed telephone aside. 'I know! I was there!'

'Wegger,' I persisted, 'you've killed four men. You spent a life sentence in prison for one murder. Do you want to spend the rest of it inside too?'

He leaned with one hand on the desk and raised his pistol.

'Don't say that — not to me, Shotton! Do you know how it felt after all these years to have a deck under me again, to feel the wind? And the first smell of the ice? I died a thousand times in prison, Shotton. Nothing, but nothing, will ever put me inside again. Not you, nor anyone else!'

I believed him. He'd use the Luger on himself first.

'What do you intend to do when you find the gold gone, Wegger? You can't put the clock back. You can't bring Holdgate and Captain Prestrud and Jacobsen to life again.'

Linn said, 'At your trial they should have taken your mental state into account…'

'Don't try and soft-soap me, you little bitch! You and Shotton, you've put your heads together and are trying to con me! You're trying to say I'm mad, talk me out of it, that the gold isn't there. It is, I tell you, it is! We're going there. I'll show you it is! Ullmann! Ullmann!'

The thug came in. 'We're going to the bridge — now,' Wegger told him.

'And the girl?' the big man asked.

'There's nothing she can do.' He addressed Linn. 'Keep to your cabin, if you don't want to get hurt, see? That's what the other passengers are doing.' She glanced at me. She held her head back. She looked very fine and brave.

'I'll be all right, Linn.'

She held my eyes for a moment. They said everything I wanted to know. Then she stalked out.

For a moment Wegger stood undecided with Jacob-sen's letter in his hand. Then he crumpled it into his pocket.

'March!' he ordered. 'The bridge!'

The bridge was a haven of peace compared to the below-decks ferment. The news obviously hadn't reached it. Jensen, the quartermaster, was at the wheel. Petersen had the watch. The only noise was of the revolving scanners clearing the spray and rain from the bridge windows and the murmur of the log. The hands of the bridge clock stood at almost nine. In the bows, the blue-white beam of the searchlight cut a traverse on blowing whitecaps and dark menacing troughs.

Petersen came half to attention when he saw me, then his jaw sagged at the sight of Wegger's gun. Before he could say anything, Ullmann moved swiftly ahead of the binnacle and pointed his machine-pistol. Jensen let go of the wheel and started back, almost colliding with Wegger close to me.

'Get back!' snapped Wegger. 'Don't let her head fall off, you bloody fool! You won't get hurt unless you try anything on!'

Jensen stood there gaping.

'Jensen!' I ordered. 'Do as he says.'

The Quest started to plunge, — the spokes spun. I jumped forward and grabbed the wheel.

'Sir…!' whimpered Petersen. 'Sir…!'

I shoved Jensen into position and put the spokes into his hands again.

'Pull yourself together!' I told him. 'You'll get us all killed if you don't.' I indicated the gunmen. The ship's been hijacked. These men have taken over. You'll take your orders from them from now on.'

'Petersen!' snapped Wegger. 'That's it, the way Shot-ton says. Understood?'

Petersen looked almost as numb as when he had seen Holdgate on the plank.

'Yes… I mean, aye, aye, sir. But why…?'

'You don't have to know,' replied Wegger. 'Do your job and you won't get hurt.'

Petersen looked appealingly at me.

I simply said formally, 'Carry on, Mr Petersen.'

'Shotton,' said Wegger, 'get on to the engine-room. Tell MacFie.'

MacFie himself answered my intercom call.

'Chief,' I said, 'how are your engines standing up?'

'So far so good,' he replied. 'But I don't like the way the screw's racing. The shaft…'

'Mac,' I cut in, 'we both owe Reilly an apology. His ghost in the tunnel is for real.'

I heard Mac's long-suffering sigh. 'Laddie, I know you and the passengers had a ball tonight. Now forget about ghosts and go and sleep it off.'

I went on, eyeing Ullmann, 'Reilly was right about the Scorpion too. It looks very small in his hands. He's got it held on me at this moment.'

'Laddie 'He looks and smells as if he's been living in the bilges,' I added. Ullmann's face remained impassive to the crack.

Suddenly Macfie's tone changed. A new, anxious note came into it.

'You don't sound drunk. What are you saying, skipper?'

The ship's been hijacked, Chief. Wegger's taken over. He's here on the bridge in company with our bilge ghost. He's also pointing a gun at my head — a Luger.'

' Wegger said harshly, 'Cut out the bull, d'ye hear? Tell him to carry on as usual if he doesn't want to get shot.'

I had held the phone clear of my head to catch Wegger's words.

'You heard, Mac.'

His Scots accent thickened. 'I heard! Hijacked! Wegger! I'll be stuffed with a goose-necked spanner!'

'Chief,' I nodded, 'you've got the message. Take it from there, will you?'

'Aye, but…'

Persson hurried on to the bridge. He made a great effort to appear controlled but his eyes couldn't stay off the stubby barrel of the Scorpion.

He addressed me. 'Signal from Botany Bay, sir. Will you take it, or will…?' He indicated Wegger.

'We'll both come,' Wegger answered. 'I want to keep an eye on the radio, too.'

'It's still only the R/T operating,' Persson added.

'What does Botany Bay say, Persson?' I asked.

'Reception's still very bad, sir. Only a word or two here and there.'

It was worse than he had led us to believe. In the radio shack I tried the microphone. 'Botany Bay!' Cruise ship Quest here. Reply, reply!'

I missed the answer but Persson was smarter. 'It's Kearnay, sir.'

'Kearnay,' I asked, 'are you still afloat?'

'Fast,' wavered the disembodied voice '… no longer afloat… nipped…'

'How the hell can you no longer be afloat and signal me?'

'Fast… fast… list of fifteen degrees…' The rest of it was lost.

'Your message not understood,' I replied. 'What do you mean, nipped? You aren't in pack-ice! Repeat, please!'

I strained to catch the reply. It was hopeless.

'Kearnay!' I said. 'You're wasting your batteries and your breath. In another couple of hours we'll be that much closer. Signal me at midnight, on the hour exactly, will you?' I didn't look at Wegger for confirmation before I added: 'Meanwhile, I am proceeding to your position at all possible speed.'

A reply came back. It could have been 'aye' or 'ice'.

I returned the microphone to Persson. There was a tight pause. Then I said, 'Wegger, we'll have to work on the chart. There's nothing here at the moment.'

'Report at midnight,' Wegger told Persson.

Wegger and I went through to the chart-room. He was watchful and alert, and gave me no opportunity to jump him. But a moment later he gave himself away. I spread open Teddy's chart of the Southern Ocean. Botany Bay's position was only a tiny cross in a vast expanse.

I pointed to it and went into technicalities. 'That's as near as I can place the windjammer at this stage. It's about one hundred and ten kilometres west of the spot where the buoy should be launched. What's your onward course to Prince Edward Island from there?'

He stood there staring uncertainly at the chart without replying. For a moment I thought he was working on the intricacies of a Great Circle course. Then my brain gave a print-out quicker than any computer — Wegger didn't know what he was doing! This was why he needed me. He could handle a course only if he were told where to sail! He didn't know how to work out a complicated one! It flashed through my mind that during the past few days I'd never seen him busy alone with the navigation of this ship — he'd always had Petersen or McKinley with him. My thoughts raced still further back, to our first interview. There hadn't been time before the Quest sailed for me to' verify his certificates. I'd taken them at their face value. Now I realized that they had been faked. Twenty-three years in gaol — that didn't give him much chance, especially at his age, to obtain a master's certificate.

'Wegger,' I said tersely, 'you can't kid me. You're bogus. You don't know what the hell I'm talking about!'

He put the chart table between us. His face was a tight mask. He lifted the Luger until I could see its blue rifling level with my eyes.

'If I didn't need you, Shotton, I would kill you.'

I believed him.

'You'll sail this ship where I tell you,' he went on, his voice full of menace. 'If I so much as suspect you're fooling me…'

I realized how close to the limit he was. I said steadily, 'Fair enough. Let's assume that Botany Bay is more or less where we anticipate. I then head Quest for the buoy's launching-point…'

He laughed, and I didn't care for it any more than I had for his threat.

'You're very casual and very clever about it — the buoy's launching-point,' he mimicked me. 'What do you take me for, you fool? You don't get me going anywhere near there.'

'Wegger! The launch is the most important thing…'

'Stow it!' he retorted. 'Don't try that on! Do you think I intend to give my position away? The one point in the whole of this ocean — ' he swept his hand across the chart — 'that's known, fixed, timed? The radio's been out for two, three days. No one knows where the Quest is. No one will ever know. She could be anywhere! You could search until you were blue in the face and the chances of finding a ship without anything to go by would be as remote as spotting a penguin's egg from the air at the South Pole!'

For his purposes, he was right. It made me more puzzled than ever why he should press on to Botany Bay. I decided that the less I said about the windjammer, the better.

I shrugged. 'Once the buoy and the balloon don't report via the satellite, the alert will go out. Then it's only a matter of time before they track down the Quest.'

'Only a matter of time!' he echoed. 'There'll be enough time to lift the gold and get clear.'

The gloves were off in earnest now. We were on our way. Wegger's way.

The Quest was on her way, too. When Wegger and I reached the bridge it was blowing a near-gale. The bow searchlight probably made the sea look even worse. The waves were heaping up in endless succession as far as the blue-white beam penetrated. White foam appeared in long streaks coming straight at the Quest. She was butting and lunging headlong at the rollers and throwing up clouds of spray; rising with a thrilling buoyancy which proved her to be the thoroughbred she was. But nevertheless we could not go on pitting her at full speed much longer into those hills of water rolling in from the south-west without something giving.

I went to a cleared window. The searchlight picked out an onrushing, foam-crested wall ahead. There was no escaping it. The Quest put her bows down. Then — up, up, up. Tons of water poured over the bow. The wind caught the burst and hurtled it back against the bridge windows. The ship rolled to port, staggered, lifted. It was probably the acute angle which threw the searchlight beam further ahead than normal.

The white thing hung in our path at the summit of the next hill of water, poised like an ungainly surfer.

I knew in an instant what it was.

I knew also we would hit it.

I spun from the window.

'Get that wheel down!' I yelled at the startled helmsman. 'Down! Hard aport! Hard, man!'

He didn't react; or perhaps time had stopped for me.

I threw myself at the wheel. I knocked his hands off the spokes, spun them, wincing at the shaft of pain in my hurt shoulder.

'Ice! Ice dead ahead! Hold on! We can't miss it!'

I held the wheel hard down, shifted head-on to face the menace out for'ard. The bridge phone rang. Wegger took the call.

'Crow's nest!' I heard the man's anguished voice vibrate in the earpiece clean across the bridge. 'Ice right ahead!'

It felt to me that Quest wasn't answering her rudder.

Her head scarcely seemed to have moved. The searchlight held the ice — it was a big growler — and kept on it like a stage spotlight. It hung poised at the top of the massive wall of water. Then Quest's bow seemed to shift a fraction. That meant the collision might be a glancing one. But it would still take the bow plating and rip the whole length of her starboard beam…

The ship's head went down deep into the the trough. She'd had the maximum bite the rudder would give. As the stern lifted, the rudder would grip less. The searchlight still held the growler. Finer, now, to starboard — the bow was swinging! Her head was swinging! But would it be enough…?

Quest barrelled into the roller. The searchlight blanked opaque. Water broke and roared. Where was the growler? For a fearful moment I thought it would fall bodily on the foc's'le deck.

The wave punched the swinging bow like an upper-cut to the jaw. No man-made force could have done what that huge wave did. It slammed Quest's bow aside. The searchlight beam held the growler like a bomber trapped in a night raid. The white menace cartwheeled.

Quest's bow slewed to port. Sweat poured off my hands on to the spokes. For a moment the growler hung suspended in the beam's maximum traverse. It was whiter than the white foam. Then it slid, yawed. Quest swerved aside.

It missed; it vanished into the night behind.

I still held on to the wheel. My legs felt as if they wouldn't hold me. Then I shifted the helm back amidships. When I handed over I scarcely recognized my own voice.

'Steady as she goes,' I told the white-faced helmsman. 'Keep her south-west by south!'

Then I rang the engine-room pointer down to three-quarter speed.

Wegger was still clutching the crow's-nest phone unseeingly in his damaged hand. The gun hung loose in the other at his side. His face was a grim mask of fear.

I relieved him of the phone. 'Crow's nest!' I said. 'That's the first of 'em — there are plenty more ahead. Keep your eyes skinned if you don't want an ice-bath tonight.'

The man's voice replied, 'I thought we'd bought it, that time.'

The Quest plunged on into the mounting storm.

By midnight, the scheduled time of Botany Bay's signal, the Quest's bridge and superstructure were streaked with long streamers of spindrift. It collected round the pulpit rail of the crow's nest like clotted cream. When it became thick enough, it blew clear in great dollops which smashed against the bridge windows like snowballs bursting. I had the look-outs replaced every hour. An hour was about all they could take in the freezing wind. The searchlight shifts were even shorter — forty minutes. The drenched and frozen crews were fed coffee laced with rum when they were relieved. The hands of the bridge clock were on midnight when Persson reported.

'Botany Bay, sir.' He did not address either Wegger or me directly, which satisfied protocol.

I looked my question at Wegger without speaking.

'Take it — I'll stay here,' he said. 'Report to me as soon as you've spoken to Kearnay. Ullmann, watch him.'

I went with Persson. The wind ripped and pummelled the ship. He opened the radio shack door for me.

'Linn!'

'John!' She came forward and kissed me. She smiled but her eyes looked tired and drawn. She was wearing her heavy Icelandic sweater and dark pants. 'I've brought you some coffee.'

'MacFie's own special?'

'Yes. I didn't want to bring it to the bridge. If I'd mentioned Wegger, MacFie would have put poison in his, for sure.'

She tried to smile. Then she said with a rush, 'I couldn't stay in my cabin as he ordered — you see, I heard them carrying Captain Jacobsen…'

'Where did they put him?' I asked gently.

She shuddered. 'In the sick-bay. Just like Holdgate. It's become a mortuary, for me.'

'And Mrs Jacobsen?'

'She's still unconscious.'

'Botany Bay, sir,' interrupted Persson.

Reception was hardly better than it had been earlier.

'Kearnay! This is Captain Shotton!'

I caught only isolated, out-of-context fragments. '… bow-sprit… ice…'

Persson whispered to me, 'She should be much clearer than she is, sir. Those batteries are packing up fast.'

'Kearnay,' I said, 'hold it. Save what power you've got for later. Just answer briefly. Are you still afloat?'

The reply was just audible. 'Not afloat… on the ice 'The ship!' I repeated. 'Is she afloat or has she sunk?'

I caught a word of the reply clearly and Persson and Linn both nodded confirmation as I repeated it.

'Iceport.'

The rest was lost in a surge of sferics.

The weather, Kearnay — what's your weather?'

Persson strained and repeated the fragmentary answer. 'Calm in here. Outside…'

'Outside?' I echoed. 'Outside where, Kearnay?'

The answer was as faint and indistinct as a dying man's whisper.

'Kearnay. Listen. I reckon I'm ninety, maybe one hundred and ten kilometres north-east of you. I'm using a searchlight. Watch out for it. Start firing those flares from three o'clock onwards. I'll be up with you thereabouts, depending on the weather.'

It was, in fact, nearer four o'clock when the phone from the crow's nest cut through the long tense silence on the bridge.

I snatched it up.

It was the look-out. 'Distress flares, sir! Fine on the starboard bow!'