He looked up, as the major cleared his throat a little impatiently. ‘But why have you given me this list, sir? I’m slightly puzzled.’
‘I shall imagine you’ll be puzzled even more by the time this business is over. Why did I give you the list? Easy. You’re going to pick your new crew from it. Now come on, Common Smith, let’s go and see old C.’
C’s room was large, but due to some trick of the lighting everything in it seemed to appear in silhouette. A line of telephones on extensions stood to the left of the great oak desk, which reputedly had once belonged to Nelson himself. To the right there was a smaller desk littered with maps, models of aeroplanes and submarines and a row of bottles which suggested chemical experiments. The evidence of scientific investigation seemed to Smith only to heighten the overpowering atmosphere of strangeness and mystery.
Smith waited a little nervously, as C continued to write at his desk, his naval jacket, for he had a naval rank (though it could vary from sub-lieutenant to admiral as the mood took him) slung over the chair behind him. He was a short man, going bald, what remained of his hair turning grey, his face hard and set as he concentrated on his task, staring at the paper through a gold-rimmed monocle.
Rumour had it that on one secret mission to France during the war he and his son had suffered a severe accident just behind the front (some said in front of it); C’s son had been killed instantly but C had lived, trapped beneath the wrecked automobile by his leg. Cold-bloodedly, he had sawn off his mangled leg with his penknife and had crawled to safety, with – as some said – German mounted Uhlans searching for what would have been one of the most valuable prizes on the Western Front.
C dipped his quill pen in the inkwell filled with green ink – and at the Headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, only C, the chief, was allowed to use ink of that particular hue – and signed the letter. ‘Sit down, Common Smith VC,’ he barked in that staccato fashion of his. ‘Glad to see you, my boy. Thank you for coming.’ Suddenly the stern countenance and eagle eye melted into the friendliest of smiles! ‘You have recovered from your last show, I take it?’
‘Yes sir,’ Smith answered eagerly. ‘I am very fit and well.’
‘Good, I am pleased, for you will need all your strength for what is soon to come.’ Abruptly he was very businesslike again and Smith could see he was a very worried man. There were dark circles of worry under his eyes which had not been there the last time C had briefed him and the others. He craned his head forwards for what C had to say.
‘Well, Smith, you are no longer on the beach. I have ordered you to be placed on active service once more for a special operation which I have in mind for you. Are you prepared to accept it, sight unseen?’ Smith didn’t hesitate one moment. ‘Naturally, sir, you need not even ask.’
‘Excellent, it was the reply I expected.’ C paused and stared at the young officer’s handsome face, those fine keen blue eyes and cleft chin which indicated pugnacity. He told himself that ‘Common Smith’ was the very finest type of Englishman. How sad that so many of his kind had perished in the recent conflict. ‘Well, Smith, I won’t lecture you. But you know just how dreadful the state of Europe is in this year of 1920. Two empires – the Russian and the German – have fallen apart. Into the vacuum have stepped warring factions from a dozen different nations and political ideologies. The Americans have run away from their responsibilities since the Armistice, the French are totally concerned with what they can gain from the situation, and so it is left to us to bring some sort of order out of the European chaos. But we are extended, seriously over-extended to put it frankly, Smith. Problems at home – strikes, Red agitators, Ireland, the employment of demobilised soldiers. Then the Empire, which is seething, spoiling for revolt. Troops and supplies are needed everywhere. Still, we simply cannot stand by and allow Europe to sink into chaos, or fall into the arms of the Russian Reds and those Huns who don’t know when they are beaten. We have to do what we can with our limited resources.’ He paused and glared at Smith through his monocle before saying with a slight smile, ‘End of Lecture.’
Smith returned the smile. Outside the sleet had turned to snow, great wet flakes coming down softly and sadly.
‘So we must make up for lack of resources,’ C continued, ‘with our brains and cunning. We must make other people work for us, do the donkey-work, while we pull the wires… the way we have always done. How else could a small island people like us have conquered a third of the world, eh?’
Smith nodded, wondering when C would tell him what his mission was going to be. For he cared not for the great affairs of the world. What concerned him was action – pure and simple action.
‘Now then, Smith,’ C continued, as if he could read the other man’s mind, ‘you are wondering what your part in this affair is going to be, what?’
‘I was rather, sir,’ Smith agreed.
‘Then I shall tell you. You are going to be a gun-runner.’
‘What, sir?’ Smith snorted incredulously.
‘I am not in the habit of repeating myself, but for the benefit of Common Smith, I shall. You are going to be engaged in illegal and – I think – highly dangerous gun-running.’ He smiled coldly, pleased with the effect his words had had on the other man. ‘But before I go into details, let me introduce you to the chap who is going to help us obtain those weapons.’ He pressed the bell on the top of Nelson’s desk, and the signal light outside flashed to indicate that anyone outside was at liberty to enter.
The minute the officer entered, Smith knew he was a ‘Colonial’. He had seen enough of them getting drunk and angry in London nightclubs during the war to know the type instinctively: lean, hard-faced men, who spoke out of the sides of their mouths when they did say anything, preferring mostly to let their fists do their talking.
‘Captain McIntyre,’ C said, introducing the lean, craggy Army officer who wore his hat without wiring, with the ribbon of the Military Cross, and a suspicious bulge in his right pocket which Smith knew instinctively was that of a revolver, ‘of the German Control Commission.’
The officer saluted awkwardly and carelessly and added, ‘Yes, and late of the Canadian Hell’s Last Issue – Highland Light Infantry to you,’ he added for Smith’s benefit.
Smith told himself he had been right. The tough-looking officer was a ‘Colonial’ from Canada, but he felt he could trace a Scots’ accent beneath the Canadian twang. Smith felt he knew the type. Thousands of them had volunteered to fight for the ‘mother country’ back in 1914, coming over as privates, winning medals for bravery in those terrible battles of 1916 and 1917 – those who had survived that long being commissioned in the field to become temporary ‘officers and gentlemen’. Though this particular one could never be mistaken for a gentleman: he was too angry and tough-looking for that. Still, all the same. Smith liked the cut of his jib, as C motioned McIntyre to sit down.
Without asking permission to do so, McIntyre took out a silver cigarette case and lit up. C frowned, but said nothing to the Canadian. Instead he turned to Smith and explained, ‘Captain McIntyre serves in the Control Commission. He is stationed in Cologne at the headquarters of our zone of occupation. It is his job to ensure that his section of the German Army – Wehrkreis Seven1, isn’t it?’
McIntyre nodded moodily.
‘Is carrying out its Treaty obligations to disarm as speedily as possible.’
‘Frigging Huns,’ McIntyre said apropos of nothing, or so it seemed.
‘Captain McIntyre also does a little work for us,’ C added.
‘You mean spying, sir?’ Smith blurted out, hardly knowing he had said the words until he had.
C’s eyes twinkled for a moment. ‘I suppose you could put it like that, Common Smith,’ he agreed.
‘Frigging Huns,’ McIntyre said again in that moody fashion of his.
‘Now Wehrkreis Seven covers the area of Schleswig-Holstein – here.’ C rose and gestured to Germany on the big wall map of Europe. ‘To the extreme north, fri
nged by the North Sea and the Baltic, and bordering on Denmark. It is a very large area for one man to cover with only two sergeants and a Jewish chap who speaks German to help.’
McIntyre nodded his agreement, but said nothing.
‘But Captain McIntyre fortunately has other helpers – unpaid – who are only too eager to winkle out any secrets which the former Imperial German Army tries to hide from him. They call them the Eider Danes.’
Smith suppressed a laugh quickly. He had heard of an eiderdown but never of an Eider Dane. ‘The Eider Danes?’ he ventured carefully.
‘You may well smirk, Common Smith,’ C said. ‘But they are an unfortunate people, a minority who have been under the Prussian jackboot ever since Prussia annexed that part of Denmark on the River Eider in 1864. Fortunately for us, they are exceedingly pro-British and will do anything for us in the common fight against the Hun.’
‘But what has this got to do with me – and gun-running, sir?’ Smith asked in complete bewilderment.
By way of an answer, C turned to McIntyre and said, ‘You tell him, McIntyre. Now the floor is yours.’
Three
Carefully the two of them, followed by the little interpreter, crept down the path from the heights at Geesthacht towards the broad silver snake of the River Elbe. Traffic had died away now, but further up the river there was the sound of a foghorn and the muted throb of engines. Obviously barges were still plying their trade on the great river despite the lateness of the hour.
They parted the last of the bushes and stared at the dyke on the opposite bank. Nothing stirred in the little village of Artlenburg. The Germans were all asleep. But, as they said in this part of Schleswig-Holstein, they roll up the pavements at six in the evening. The thrifty peasants and the bargees went to bed early.
McIntyre raised his night glasses and stared for a few moments at the stark outline of the foot-and-rail-bridge which spanned the Elbe to their left. For a while he thought it was deserted. Then he caught sight of the lone figure with a bayonet over his shoulder patrolling the far end. There were guards up there just as Per Kersten had said there were.
He lowered his glasses and turned to the Eider Dane, a thin nervous ex-schoolteacher, who had been forced out of his job by authorities on account of his pro-Danish views. ‘You were right, Per,’ he said in English, ‘the bridge is guarded.’
Dietz, the little interpreter, a wartime deserter from the Imperial German Army, who felt he was safe from retribution as long as he served the British Occupation authorities, whispered a translation.
Per cut him short with, ‘I understood, Herr Dietz, thank you,’ in heavily accented English.
Dietz looked grumpy and McIntyre hissed, ‘Come on, let’s cut along and have a dekko at those barges of Per’s.’ In silence, placing their feet down carefully, nerves jingling with tension, the three of them stole along the still bank, now white with hoarfrost. It was going to be a very cold night, for which McIntyre was grateful. It would keep people indoors, huddled around those green-tiled Kachelofen of theirs which reached to the ceilings of their living rooms.
For McIntyre knew the danger of his position. If they were caught, the Germans still smouldering from their defeat in the war, would show no mercy. They’d be quietly murdered, throats cut, weighted and thrown to the bottom of the Elbe. They would not be the first representatives of the Control Commission to be murdered since the Commission had come to Germany, and the nearest British troops were 150 miles away on the Rhine.
Now the outline of the three barges that Per had told him about loomed up. They were tied to the bank by thick hawsers, the icy water lapping and gurgling at their sides, and although McIntyre was no sailor, he could see straight away that they were heavily laden; they were very deep in the water.
He stopped and raised his night glasses. While the other two waited anxiously, the little interpreter shivering in the cold, he surveyed the three barges carefully. They were the usual type of Elbe barges, perhaps 150 foot long, with the funnel and bridge at the far end, allowing most of the space to be used for cargo. The question was: what was the cargo of these silent ships?
He lowered the glasses. ‘Well?’ Per asked in his strange flat English.
‘Nary a soul, as far as I can see,’ McIntyre whispered. He felt inside the right pocket of his civilian Norfolk jacket and slipped the safety catch off his big 38. Just in case. Hearing the sound Dietz did the same. He was a wanted man and as he had said often enough to McIntyre on their travels through Schleswig-Holstein, ‘Rather than let those sadistic chaindogs,’ he meant the notorious German military police, ‘get me, I’d rather shoot myself dead.’ To which McIntyre always answered in that tough, no-nonsense Scots-Canadian manner of his, ‘Nope, don’t shoot yerself, shoot the other bluidy feller!’
Now they were about fifty yards from the first of the barges. McIntyre sucked his teeth. This was the crucial phase, he told himself. It was like attacking during the war, heading for the enemy’s trenches, with the ‘heavies’ pounding hell out of ’em. But in the end, to avoid killing their own men, the barrage would have to cease. Then as they had made that last desperate charge, the Hun machine-gunners would pop up out of their dugouts and all hell would be let loose. Was there going to be trouble now?
He set off again. Per and Dietz followed. He could hear the little ex-deserter’s teeth chattering, from fear or the cold, he did not know or care. Now his whole being was concentrated on getting to that first barge and finding out if what Per had told him was true or not.
They came level with the wheelhouse to the aft of the first barge. No sound came from it. No light. With a hand movement he indicated that Dietz should station himself in the white bushes and guard them. He crooked a finger at Per. The Eider Dane nodded his understanding. On tiptoe the two of them balanced their way across the plank which linked the barge with the bank. McIntyre drew his 38 and screwed on the silencer, not taking his hard eyes off the wheelhouse for a single moment. Then he went on, the deck planks squeaking under his weight. He cursed. Gingerly, very gingerly, he began to turn the handle of the door which led to the crew’s quarters below the wheelhouse.
A stale smell, the compound of unwashed feet, boiled cabbage and black shag pipe tobacco came wafting up to assault his nostrils. But the bunks were empty and the oil lantern was out. The place was empty. McIntyre gave a little sigh of relief. ‘All right, Per,’ he hissed, ‘let’s go and see what they’ve got in the hold.’
Now a little more relaxed, the two of them hurried along the white deck, hoarfrost dripping from the metal stanchions, their breath fogging on the icy air, to the hold cover. McIntyre found the bolt and pulled it open. ‘Ease the cover back a little, Per,’ he whispered, ‘and let’s have a look-see.’
Together the two young men pulled back the hatch cover enough for them to be able to peer inside. Carefully McIntyre thrust his torch through the opening, lying full-length on the freezing-cold wooden planks. He turned on the switch. The hard white light cut the darkness of the hold.
He whistled softly. Next to him, Per hissed, ‘Himmelherrje.’
McIntyre told himself grimly, the Eider Dane had a right to invoke the deity. The Huns were up to their damnable tricks again. There were enough shiny new Krupp cannon down there to equip a whole regiment of artillery. Per had been right after all. The Germans were using these civilian barges to hide their arms dumps from the prying eyes of the Allied Control Commission. It was a splendid dodge. Sooner or later Allied officers would always locate illegal arms depots. They were usually located near barracks or training grounds. But the floating dumps were different. The barges could sail up and down the Elbe from its source near the new Czech border all the way until it flowed into the sea. How could a handful of Allied officers check the whole length of the River Elbe?
Unconsciously he nodded his head in appreciation. The damned Hun was as wily as ever. There were no spots on him, as his ancient mother, long dead, had used to say back in the Gorbals when he ha
d still been a wee laddie. But still he and his allies were smarter. They would use those weapons to their own advantage. But first he had to find out exactly what the barges contained in the shape of hardware. He took a last look at the rows of medium artillery, noting that each armoured shield had its full ration of shells, before saying to Per, ‘Right, Per, you did a good job. Let’s have a look at the next one.’
‘Are we going, Captain?’ a frightened Dietz called from his hiding place in the bushes. ‘There’s some movement on the bridge.’
McIntyre grinned. The wee Hun’d be filling his britches soon. ‘No, not just yet,’ he whispered back. ‘Going to have a dekko at the other two.’
Crouched low, mindful that only a few hundred yards away there were German sentries on the bridge over the Elbe, the two men went the length of the first barge and then sprang the distance to the next one. Again they checked the crew’s quarters below the wheelhouse and again they were empty. McIntyre reasoned that when they had a chance the crews, who probably went up and down the Elbe all the time with their contraband cargo, spent the night ashore with ‘wine, women and song’ – or the German equivalent. All to the good.
They opened the hatch, this time with difficulty. The bolts were rusty and they seemed to make a devil of a noise before the two of them managed to draw them back and open the hatch cover. McIntyre flashed his torch inside. The hold was full of machine guns, again brand new and heavy with protective grease. His practised eye told the Canadian that there were enough heavy machine guns there to equip a brigade. It was just what C needed. He grinned abruptly. It was ironic really. The Huns were going to supply the weapons – unwittingly – which would be used to slaughter their fellow Huns. ‘No bad thing,’ he whispered to himself in the fashion of lonely men.
The Baltic Run Page 3