‘How can you say such a thing? If you see something that we can’t see, then we’re all more stupid than you are.’
‘No. Because I know something that you don’t know.’
‘What is it, then?’ There was curiosity in her voice, but it was overlaid by a deeper apprehension. ‘What is it?’
McKinnon smiled. ‘Margaret, I would have thought that you of all people would have learnt the dangers of talking in public. Would you please bring Captain Bowen to the lounge.’
‘I can’t. He’s having his head bandaged.’
‘I rather think, Margaret, you should do what the Bo’sun suggests.’ It was the first time that Ulbricht had used her Christian name in company. ‘Something tells me that the Captain will need no second invitation.’
‘And bring your pal,’ McKinnon said. ‘What I have to say may well be of interest to her.’
She looked at him for a long and thoughtful moment, then nodded and left without a word. McKinnon watched her go, an equally thoughtful expression on his face, then turned to Jamieson. ‘I think you should ask one of your men to request Mr Patterson to come to the lounge also.’
Captain Bowen came into the lounge accompanied by Dr Sinclair, who had no alternative but to come for he was still only half way through re-bandaging Bowen’s head.
‘It looks as if we’ll have to change our minds again about our plans,’ McKinnon said. He had a certain air of resignation about him, due not to the change in plans but to the fact that Janet was firmly bandaging his cut palm. ‘It’s certain now that the Germans, if they can’t take us, will send us to the bottom. The San Andreas is no longer a hospital ship, it’s more of a treasure ship. We are carrying a fortune in gold. I don’t know how much but I would guess at something between twenty and thirty million pounds sterling.’
Nobody said anything. There wasn’t much one could make in the way of comment about such a preposterous statement and the Bo’sun’s relaxed certainty didn’t encourage what might have been the expected exclamatory chorus of surprise, doubt or disbelief.
‘It is, of course, Russian gold, almost certainly in exchange for lend-lease. The Germans would love to get their hands on it, for I suppose gold is gold no matter what the country of origin, but if they can’t get it they’re going to make damned sure that Britain doesn’t get it either, and this is not out of spite or frustration, although I suppose that that would play some part. But what matters is this. The British Government is bound to know that we’re carrying this gold—you’ve only got to think about it for a moment to see that this must have been a joint planned operation between the Soviet and British Governments.’
‘Using a hospital ship as a gold transport?’ Jamieson’s disbelief was total. ‘The British Government would never be guilty of such a pernicious act.’
‘I am in no position to comment on that, sir. I can imagine that our Government can be as perfidious as any other and there are plenty of perfidious governments around. Ethics, I should think, take very much a back seat in war—if there are any ethics in war. All I want to say about the Government is that they are going to be damned suspicious of the Russians and would put the worst possible interpretation on our disappearance—they may well arrive at the conclusion that the Russians intercepted the ship after it had sailed, got rid of the crew, sailed the San Andreas to any port in northern Russia, unloaded the gold and scuttled the ship. Alternatively, they might well believe the Russians didn’t even bother to load any gold at all but just lay in wait for the San Andreas. The Russians do have a submarine fleet, small as it is, in Murmansk and Archangel.
‘Whichever option the Government prefers to believe, and I can imagine it highly likely that they will believe one or the other, the result will be the same and one that would delight the hearts of the Germans. The British Government is going to believe that the Russians welshed on the deal and will be extremely suspicious not only of this but of any future deal. They’ll never be able to prove anything but there is something they can do—reduce or even stop all future lend-lease to Russia. This could be a more effective way of stopping Allied supplies to Russia than all the U-boats in the North Atlantic and Arctic.’
There was quite a long silence, then Bowen said: ‘It’s a very plausible scenario, Bo’sun, attractive—if one may use that word—even convincing. But it does rather depend on one thing: why do you think we have this gold aboard?’
‘I don’t think, sir. I know. Only a few minutes ago, just after we had sat down to dinner, Sister Morrison here happened to mention Oberleutnant Klaussen’s constant delirious ramblings. In his delirium one word kept recurring—Edinburgh. Sister says he seemed to be haunted by that word. I should damn well think he was. It was not so very long ago that a U-boat sent the cruiser Edinburgh to the bottom on her way back from Russia. The Edinburgh was carrying at least twenty million pounds of gold bullion in her holds.’
‘Good God!’ Bowen’s voice was no more than a whisper: ‘Good God above! You have the right of it, Archie, by heaven you have the right of it.’
‘It all ties in too damn nicely, sir. It had been dunned into Klaussen that he was not to repeat the exploits of his illustrious predecessor who had dispatched the Edinburgh. It also accounts—the sinking of the Edinburgh, I mean—for the rather underhanded decision to use the San Andreas. Any cruiser, any destroyer can be sunk. By the Geneva Convention, hospital ships are inviolate.’
‘I only wish I had told you sooner,’ Margaret Morrison said. ‘He’d been muttering about Edinburgh ever since he was brought aboard. I should have realized that it must have meant something.’
‘You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with,’ McKinnon said. ‘Why should the word have had any significance for you? Delirious men rave on about anything. It wouldn’t have made the slightest difference if we had found out earlier. What does matter is that we have found out before it’s too late. At least, I hope it’s not too late. If there are any reproaches going they should come in my direction. At least I knew about the Edinburgh—I don’t think anyone else did—and shouldn’t have had to be reminded of it. Spilt milk.’
‘It does all mesh together, doesn’t it?’ Jamieson said. ‘Explains why they wouldn’t let you and Mr Rennet see what was going on behind that tarpaulin when they were repairing the hole in the ship’s side. They didn’t want you to see that they were replacing that ballast they’d taken out to lighten ship by a different sort of ballast altogether. I suppose you knew what the original ballast looked like?’
‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t. I’m sure Mr Kennet didn’t know either.’
‘The Russians weren’t to know that and took no chances. Oh, I’m sure they’d have painted the bullion grey or whatever the colour of the ballast was: the size and shape of the blocks and bars of the gold would almost certainly have been different. Hence the “No Entry” sign at the tarpaulin. Everything that has happened since can be explained by the presence of that gold.’ Jamieson paused, seemed to hesitate then nodded as if he had made up his mind. ‘Doesn’t it strike you, Bo’sun, that McCrimmon poses a bit of a problem?’
‘Not really. He’s a double agent.’
‘Damn it!’ Jamieson was more than a little chagrined. ‘I’d hoped, for once, that I might be the first to come up with the solution to a problem.’
‘A close run thing,’ McKinnon said. ‘The same question had occurred to me at the same time. It’s the only answer, isn’t it? Espionage history—or so I am led to believe—is full of accounts of double agents. McCrimmon’s just another. His primary employer—his only really true employer—is, of course, Germany. We may find out, we may not, how the Germans managed to infiltrate him into the service of the Russians but infiltrate him they did. Sure, it was the Russians who instructed him to blow that hole in the ballast room, but that was even more in the Germans’ interest than the Russians’. Both had compelling reasons to find an excuse to divert the San Andreas to Murmansk, the Russians to load the gold, the Germans to load Si
mons and that charge in the ballast room.’
‘A tangled story,’ Bowen said, ‘but not so tangled when you take the threads apart. This alters things more than a little, doesn’t it, Bo’sun?’
‘I rather think it does, sir.’
‘Any idea of the best course—I use that word in both its senses—to take for the future?’
‘I’m open to suggestions.’
‘You’ll get none from me. With all respect to Dr Sinclair, his ministrations have just about closed down a mind that wasn’t working all that well in the first place.’
‘Mr Patterson?’ McKinnon said. ‘Mr Jamieson?’
‘Oh no,’ Jamieson said. ‘I have no intention of being caught out in that way again. It does my morale no good to have it quietly explained to me why my brilliant scheme won’t work and why it would be much better to do it your way. Besides, I’m an engineer. What do you have in mind?’
‘On your own heads. I have in mind to continue on this course, which is due west, until about midnight. This will help to take us even further away from the Heinkels and Stukas. I’m not particularly worried about them, they rarely attack after dark and if we’re right in our assumption that we’ve slipped that U-boat, then they don’t know where to look for us and the absence of any flares from a Condor would suggest that, if they are looking, they are looking in the wrong place.
‘At midnight, I’ll ask the Lieutenant to lay off a course for Aberdeen. We must hope that there will be a few helpful stars around. That would take us pretty close to the east coast of the Shetlands, Lieutenant?’
‘Very close indeed, I should say. Hailing distance. You’ll be able to wave a last farewell to your homeland, Mr McKinnon.’
‘Mr McKinnon isn’t going to wave farewell to any place.’ The voice was Janet Magnusson’s and it was pretty positive. ‘He needs a holiday, he tells me, he’s homesick and Lerwick is his home. Right, Archie?’
‘You have the second sight, Janet.’ If McKinnon was chagrined at having his thunder stolen he showed no signs of it. ‘I thought it might be a good idea, Captain, to stop off a bit in Lerwick and have a look at what we have up front. This has two advantages, I think. We’re certain now that the Germans will sink us sooner than permit our safe arrival in any British port and the further south we go the greater the likelihood of being clobbered, so we make as little southing as possible. Secondly, if we are found by either plane or U-boat, they’ll be able to confirm that we’re still on a direct course to Aberdeen and so have plenty of time in hand. At the appropriate moment we’ll turn west, round a place called Bard Head, then north-west and north to Lerwick. From the time we alter course till the time we reach harbour shouldn’t be much more than an hour and it would take rather longer than that for the German bombers to scramble from Bergen and reach there.’
‘Sounds pretty good to me,’ Jamieson said.
‘I wish I could say the same. It’s far too easy, too cut and dried, and there’s always the possibility of the Germans figuring out that that’s exactly what we will do. Probability would be more like. It’s too close to a counsel of desperation, but it’s the least of all the evils I can imagine and we have to make a break for it some time.’
‘As I keep on saying, Bo’sun,’ Jamieson said, ‘it’s a great comfort having you around.’
TWELVE
The time wore on to midnight and still the Condors kept away. Apart from two men on watch in the engine-room, Naseby and Trent on the bridge and Lieutenant Ulbricht and McKinnon in the Captain’s cabin, two hospital look-outs and two night nurses, everyone was asleep, or appeared to be asleep, or should have been asleep. The wind, backing to the north, had freshened to Force four and there was a moderate sea running, enough to make the San Andreas roll as she headed steadily west but not enough to inconvenience one.
In the Captain’s cabin Lieutenant Ulbricht looked up from the chart he had been studying, then glanced at his watch.
‘Ten minutes to midnight. Not that the precise time matters—we’ll be making course alterations as we go along. I suggest we take a last sight, then head for the Shetlands.’
Dawn came, a cold and grey and blustery dawn, and still the Condors stayed away. At ten o‘clock, a rather weary McKinnon—he’d been on the wheel since 4.0 a.m.—went below in search of breakfast. He found Jamieson having a cup of coffee.
‘A peaceful night, Bo’sun. Does look as if we’ve shaken them off, doesn’t it?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘Seem? Only “seem”?’ Jamieson looked at him speculatively. ‘Do I detect a note of something less than cheerful confidence? A whole night long without a sign of the enemy. Surely we should be happy with our present circumstances?’
‘Sure, I am. The present’s just fine. What I’m not so happy about is the future. It’s not only quiet and peaceful at the moment, it’s too damn quiet and peaceful. As the old saying goes, it’s the lull before the storm, the present the lull, the future the storm. Don’t you feel it, sir?’
‘No, I don’t!’ Jamieson looked away and frowned slightly. ‘Well, I didn’t, not until you came along and disturbed the quiet and even tenor of my way. Any moment now and you’ll be telling me I’m living in a fool’s paradise.’
‘That would be stretching it a bit, sir.’
‘Too quiet, too peaceful? Maybe it is at that. Cat and mouse, again—with us, of course, in the role of mouse? They have us pinned and are just waiting for a convenient moment—convenient for them, that is—to strike?’
‘Yes. I’ve just spent six hours on the wheel and I’ve had plenty of time to think about it—two minutes should have been enough. If there’s anybody living in a fool’s paradise it’s been me. How many Focke-Wulf Condors do you think they have in the Trondheim and Bergen airfields, sir?’
‘I don’t know. Too damn many for my liking, I’m sure.’
‘And for mine. Three or four of them acting in concert could cover ten thousand square miles in a couple of hours, all depending upon how high they are and what the visibility is. Bound to locate us—us, the most valuable prize on the Norwegian Sea. But they haven’t, they haven’t even bothered to try. Why?’
‘Because they know where we are. Because we didn’t manage to slip that submarine after sunset.’
McKinnon nodded and propped his chin on his hands. His breakfast lay untouched before him.
‘You did your best, Bo’sun. There was never any guarantee. You can’t reproach yourself.’
‘Oh yes I can. It’s a thing I’m getting pretty good at—reproaching myself, I mean. But in this case, not for the reason you think. Given only the slightest degree of luck we should have shaken him yesterday evening. We didn’t. We forgot the Factor X.’
‘You sound like an advertisement, Bo’sun. Factor X, the secret ingredient in the latest ladies’ cosmetics.’
‘What I mean, sir, is that even if we slipped him—moved out of his Asdic listening range—he could still have found us, Asdic or not, Condors or not. A good archer always carries a second string for his bow.’
‘A second string?’ Jamieson put his cup down very carefully. ‘You mean we have a second of those damned location transmitter bugs aboard?’
‘Can you think of any other solution, sir? Luck has made us too smug, too self-confident, to the extent that we have been guilty of gravely underestimating the ungodly. Singh or McCrimmon or Simons—all three of them, for all I know—have been smarter than us, smart enough, anyway, to gamble on the likelihood of our missing the glaringly obvious, just because it was too obvious. Chances are high that this won’t be a transceiver, just a simple transmitter no bigger than a lady’s handbag.’
‘But we’ve already searched, Bo’sun. Very thoroughly indeed. If there wasn’t anything there then, there won’t be anything now. I mean, transmitters just don’t materialize out of thin air.’
‘No. But there could have been one before we made our search. It could have been transferred elsewhere before that—it’s entir
ely possible that any or all of the three Flannelfeet may have anticipated just such a search. Sure we combed the area of the hospital, cabins, store-rooms, galleys, everything—but that’s all we did search.’
‘Yes, but where else—‘ Jamieson broke off and looked thoughtful.
‘Yes, sir, the same thought had occurred to me. The superstructure is no more than an uninhabited warren at the moment.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ Jamieson put down his cup and rose. ‘Well, heigh-ho for the superstructure. I’ll take a couple of my boys with me.’
‘Would they recognize a bug if they saw one? I don’t think I would.’
‘I would. All they’ve got to do is to bring me any piece of equipment that has no place aboard a ship.’
After he had gone McKinnon reflected that Jamieson, in addition to his engineering qualifications, was also an A.M.I.E.E. and, as such, probably able to identify a bug.
Not more than ten minutes later Jamieson returned, smiling widely and in evident satisfaction.
‘The unfailing instinct of your true bug-hunter, Bo’sun. Got it first time. Unerring, you might say.’
‘Where?’
‘Cunning devils. Suppose they thought it would be ironic and the last place we would look. What more fitting place for a radio device than a wrecked radio room? Not only had they used one of the few undamaged batteries there to power it, they’d even rigged up a makeshift aerial. Not that you would ever know that it was an aerial of any kind, not just to look at it.’
‘Congratulations, sir. That was well done. Is it still in place?’
‘Yes. First instincts, of course, were to rip the damn thing out. But then, wiser counsels, if I can use that term about myself, prevailed. If they have us on that transmitter, then they have us on their Asdic.’
‘Of course. And if we’d dismantled our set and stopped the engine and generator, they’d just have poked their periscope above the surface and located us in nothing flat. There’ll be a better time and better place to dismantle that bug.’