San Andreas

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘You have no cause to love our U-boats, our Luftwaffe, Mr McKinnon.’

  The Bo’sun shrugged. ‘We do send the occasional thousand bombers over Hamburg.’

  Ulbricht sighed. ‘I suppose this is no time for philosophizing about how two wrongs can never make a right. So we have nine unwounded. All of them mobile?’

  ‘The three exposure cases are virtually immobile. You’ve never seen so many bandages. The other six—well, they can get around as well as you and I. Well, that’s not quite accurate—as well as I can and a damned sight better than you can.’

  ‘So. Six mobiles. I know little enough of medicine but I do know just how difficult it is to gauge how severe a case of TB is. I also know that a man in a pretty advanced stage can get around well enough. As for mental breakdowns, those are easy enough to simulate. One of those three may be as rational as we are—or think we are. Come to that, all three of them may be. I don’t have to tell you, Mr McKinnon, that there are those who are so sick of the mindlessness, the hellishness, of war that they will resort to any means to escape from it. Malingerers, as they are commonly and quite often unfairly called. Many of them have quite simply had enough and can take no more. During the First World War quite a number of British soldiers were affected by an incurable disease that was a sure-fire guarantee for a one-way ticket to Blighty. DAH it was called—Disorder Affecting the Heart. The more unfeeling of the British doctors commonly referred to it as Desperate Affection for Home.’

  ‘I’ve heard of it. Lieutenant, I’m not by nature an inquisitive person, but may I ask you a personal question?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Your English. So much better than mine. Thing is, you don’t sound like a foreigner talking English. You sound like an Englishman talking English, an Englishman who’s been at an English public school. Funny.’

  ‘Not really. You don’t miss much, Mr McKinnon, and that’s a fact. I was educated in an English public school. My mother is English. My father was for many years an attaché in the German Embassy in London.’

  ‘Well, well.’ McKinnon shook his head and smiled. ‘It’s too much. It’s really too much. Two shocks like this inside twenty minutes.’

  ‘If you were to tell me what you are talking about—’

  ‘Sister Morrison. You and she should get together. I’ve just learnt that she’s half-German.’

  ‘Good God! Goodness gracious me.’ Ulbricht could hardly be said to be dumbfounded but he was taken aback. ‘German mother, of course. How extraordinary! I tell you, Bo’sun, this could be a serious matter. Her being my nurse, I mean. Wartime. International complications, you know.’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t see it. You’re both just doing your job. Anyway, she’s coming up to see you shortly.’

  ‘Coming to see me? That ruthless Nazi killer?’

  ‘Maybe she’s had a change of heart.’

  ‘Under duress, of course.’

  ‘It’s her idea and she insists on it.’

  ‘It’ll be a hypodermic syringe. Lethal dose of morphine or some such. To get back to our six walking unwounded. Widens the field a bit, doesn’t it? A suborned malingerer or ditto TB patient. How do you like it?’

  ‘I don’t like it at all. How many suborned men, spies, saboteurs, do you think we’ve picked up among the survivors from the Argos? Another daft thought, I know, but as you’ve more or less said yourself, we’re looking for daft answers to daft questions. And speaking of daft questions, here’s another one. How do we know the Argos really was mined? We know that tankers are extremely tough, heavily compartmented and that this one was returning with empty tanks. Tankers don’t die easily and even laden tankers have been torpedoed and survived. We don’t even know the Argos was mined. How do we know it wasn’t sabotaged so as to provide the opportunity to introduce a saboteur or saboteurs aboard the San Andreas? How do you like that?’

  ‘Like yourself, I don’t like it at all. But you’re not seriously suggesting that Captain Andropolous would deliberately—’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything about Captain Andropolous. For all I know, he may be as double-dyed a villain as is sailing the seas these days. Although I’m willing to consider almost any crazy solution to our questions, I can’t go along with the idea that any captain would sacrifice his ship for any imaginable purpose. But a person or persons to whom the Argos meant nothing might quite happily do just that. It would be interesting to know whether Andropolous had taken on any extra crew members in Murmansk, such as fellow nationals who had survived a previous sinking. Unfortunately, Andropolous and his crew speak nothing but Greek and nobody else aboard speaks Greek.’

  ‘I speak a little Greek, very little, schoolboy stuff—English public schools are high on Greek—and I’ve forgotten most of that. Not that I can see that it would do much good anyway even if we were to find out that a person or x number of persons joined the Argos at Murmansk. They would only assume expressions of injured innocence, say they don’t know what we are talking about and what could we do then?’ Ulbricht was silent for almost a minute, then suddenly said: ‘The Russian shipwrights.’

  ‘What Russian shipwrights?’

  ‘The ones that fixed the damage to the hull of your ship and finished off your sick-bay. But especially the hull repairers.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Moment.’ Ulbricht thought some more. ‘I don’t know just how many niggers in the woodpile there may be aboard the San Andreas, but I’m all at once certain that the original one was a member of your own crew.’

  ‘How on earth do you figure that out? Not, mind you, that anything would surprise me.’

  ‘You sustained this hull damage to the San Andreas while you were alongside the sinking corvette, before you sunk her by gunfire. That is correct?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘I told you. We don’t know. No torpedoes, no mines, nothing of that nature. A destroyer was along one side of the corvette, taking off her crew, while we were on the other taking off the survivors of the sunken Russian submarine. There was a series of explosions inside the corvette before we could get clear. One was a boiler going off, the others could have been gun-cotton, two-pounders, anything—there was some sort of fire inside. It was at that time that the damage must have happened.’

  ‘I suggest it didn’t happen that way at all. I suggest, instead, that it was then that a trusty member of your crew detonated a charge in the port ballast room. I suggest that it was someone who knew precisely how much explosive to use to ensure that it didn’t sink the ship but enough to inflict sufficiently serious damage for it to have to make for the nearest port where repair facilities were available, which, in this case, was Murmansk.’

  ‘It makes sense. It could have happened that way. But I’m not convinced.’

  ‘In Murmansk, did anyone see the size or type of hole that had been blown in the hull?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did anyone try to see?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Kennet and I.’

  ‘But surprise, surprise, you didn’t. You didn’t because you weren’t allowed to see it.’

  ‘That’s how it was. How did you know?’

  ‘They had tarpaulins rigged all around and above the area under repair?’

  ‘They had.’ McKinnon was beginning to look rather thoughtful.

  ‘Did they give any reasons?’

  ‘To keep out the wind and snow.’

  ‘Was there much in the way of those?’

  ‘Very little.’

  ‘Did you ask to get behind the tarpaulins, see behind them?’

  ‘We did. They wouldn’t let us. Said it was too dangerous and would only hold up the work of the shipwrights. We didn’t argue because we didn’t think it was all that important. There was no reason why we should have thought so. If you know the Russians at all you must know how mulish they can be about the most ridiculous things. Besides, they were doing us a favour and there was no r
eason why we should have been suspicious. All right, all right, Lieutenant, there’s no reason to beat me over the head with a two-by-four. You don’t have to be an engineer or a metallurgist to recognize a hole that has been blown from the inside out.’

  ‘And does it now strike you as strange that the second damage to the hull should have occurred in precisely the same ballast compartment?’

  ‘Not now it doesn’t. Our gallant—ours, not yours—our gallant allies almost certainly left the charge in the ballast room with a suitable length of fuse conveniently attached. You have the right of it, Lieutenant.’

  ‘So all we have to do now is to find some member of your crew with a working knowledge of explosives. You know of any such, Mr McKinnon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What!’ Ulbricht propped himself up on an elbow. ‘Who?’

  McKinnon raised his eyes to the deckhead. ‘Me.’

  ‘That’s a help.’ Ulbricht lowered himself to his bunk again. ‘That’s a great help.’

  SIX

  It was shortly after ten o‘clock in the morning that the snow came again. McKinnon had spent another fifteen minutes in the Captain’s cabin, leaving only when he saw the Lieutenant was having difficulty in keeping his eyes open, then had spoken in turn with Naseby, Patterson and Jamieson, who was again supervising the strengthening of the superstructure. All three had agreed that Ulbricht was almost certainly correct in the assessment he had made: and all three agreed with the Bo’sun that this fresh knowledge, if knowledge it were, served no useful purpose whatsoever. McKinnon had returned to the bridge when the snow came.

  He opened a wing door in a duly circumspect fashion but, for all his caution, had it torn from his grasp to crash against the leading edge of the bridge, such was the power of the wind. The snow, light as yet, was driving along as nearly horizontally as made no difference. It was quite impossible to look into it, but with his back to it and looking out over the bows, he could see that the wave pattern had changed: the dawn was in the sky now and in its light he could see that the last semblance of serried ranks had vanished and that the white-veined, white-spumed seas were now broken walls of water, tending this way and that in unpredictable formless confusion. Even without the evidence of his eyes he would have known that this was so: the deck beneath his feet was beginning to shake and shudder in a rather disconcerting manner. The cold was intense. Even with his very considerable weight and strength, McKinnon found it no easy task to heave the wing door shut behind him as he stepped back into the bridge.

  He was in desultory conversation with Trent, who had the helm, when the phone rang. It was Sister Morrison. She said she was ready to come up to the Captain’s cabin.

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend it, Sister. Things are pretty unpleasant up top.’

  ‘I would remind you that you gave me your promise.’ She was speaking in her best sister’s voice.

  ‘I know. It’s just that conditions have worsened quite a bit.’

  ‘Really, Mr McKinnon—’

  ‘I’m coming. On your own head.’

  In Ward B, Janet Magnusson looked at him with disapproval. ‘A hospital is no place for a snowman.’

  ‘Just passing through. On a mission of mercy. At least, your mule-headed friend imagines she is.’

  She kept her expression in place. ‘Lieutenant Ulbricht?’

  ‘Who else? I’ve just seen him. Looks fair enough to me. I think she’s daft.’

  ‘The trouble with you, Archie McKinnon, is that you have no finer feelings. Not as far as caring for the sick is concerned. In other ways too, like as not. And if she’s daft, it’s only because she’s been saying nice things about you.’

  ‘About me? She doesn’t know me.’

  ‘True, Archie, true.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘But Captain Bowen does.’

  McKinnon sought briefly for a suitable comment about captains who gossiped to ward sisters, found none and moved into Ward A. Sister Morrison, suitably bundled up, was waiting. There was a small medical case on a table by her side. McKinnon nodded at her.

  ‘Would you take those glasses off, Sister?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s the Lothario in him,’ Kennet said. He sounded almost his old cheerful self again. ‘He probably thinks you look nicer without them.’

  ‘It’s no morning for a polar bear, Mr Kennet, far less a Lothario. If the lady doesn’t remove her glasses the wind will do the job for her.’

  ‘What’s the wind like, Bo’sun?’ It was Captain Bowen.

  ‘Force eleven, sir. Blizzard. Eight below. Nine-ninety millibars.’

  ‘And the seas breaking up?’ Even in the hospital the shuddering of the vessel was unmistakable.

  ‘They are a bit, sir.’

  ‘Any problems?’

  ‘Apart from Sister here seeming bent on suicide, none.’ Not, he thought, as long as the superstructure stayed in place.

  Sister Morrison gasped in shock as they emerged on to the upper deck. However much she had mentally prepared herself, she could not have anticipated the savage power of that near hurricane force wind and the driving blizzard that accompanied it, could not even have imagined the lung-searing effect of the abrupt 8o°F drop in temperature. McKinnon wasted no time. He grabbed Sister Morrison with one hand, the lifeline with the other, and allowed the two of them to be literally blown across the treacherous ice-sheathed deck into the shelter of the superstructure. Once under cover, she removed her duffel hood and stood there panting, tenderly massaging her ribs.

  ‘Next time, Mr McKinnon—if there is a next time—I’ll listen to you. My word! I never dreamt—well, I just never dreamt. And my ribs!’ She felt carefully as if to check they were still there. ‘I’ve got ordinary ribs, just like anyone else. I think you’ve broken them.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ McKinnon said gravely. ‘But I don’t think you’d have much fancied going over the side. And there will be a next time, I’m afraid. We’ve got to go back again and against the wind, and that will be a great deal worse.’

  ‘At the moment, I’m in no hurry to go back, thank you very much.’

  McKinnon led her up the companionway to the crew’s quarters. She stopped and looked at the twisted passageway, the buckled bulkheads, the shattered doors.

  ‘So this is where they died.’ Her voice was husky. ‘When you see it, it’s all too easy to understand how they died. But you have to see it first to understand. Ghastly—well, ghastly couldn’t have been the word for it. Thank God I never saw it. And you had to clear it all up.’

  ‘I had help.’

  ‘I know you did all the horrible bits. Mr Spenser, Mr Rawlings, Mr Batesman, those were the really shocking cases, weren’t they? I know you wouldn’t let anyone else touch them. Johnny Holbrook told Janet and she told me.’ She shuddered. ‘I don’t like this place. Where’s the Lieutenant?’

  McKinnon led her up to the Captain’s cabin, where Naseby was keeping an eye on the recumbent Lieutenant.

  ‘Good morning again, Lieutenant. I’ve just had a taste of the kind of weather Mr McKinnon has been exposing you to. It was awful. How do you feel?’

  ‘Low, Sister. Very low. I think I’m in need of care and attention.’

  She removed oilskins and duffel coat. ‘You don’t look very ill to me.’

  ‘Appearances, appearances. I feel very weak. Far be it from me to prescribe for myself, but what I need is a tonic, a restorative.’ He stretched out a languid hand. ‘Do you know what’s in that wall cupboard there?’

  ‘No.’ Her tone was severe. ‘I don’t know. I can guess, though.’

  ‘Well, I thought, perhaps—in the circumstances, you understand—’

  ‘Those are Captain Bowen’s private supplies.’

  ‘May I repeat what the Captain told me?’ McKinnon said. ‘As long as Lieutenant Ulbricht keeps navigating, he can keep on broaching my supplies. Words to that effect.’

  ‘I don’t see him doing any navigating at the moment. But very well. A small o
ne.’

  McKinnon poured and handed him a glass of Scotch: the expression on Sister Morrison’s face was indication enough she and the Bo’sun placed different interpretations on the word ’small’.

  ‘Come on, George,’ McKinnon said. ‘This is no place for us.’

  Sister Morrison looked faintly surprised. ‘You don’t have to go.’

  ‘We can’t stand the sight of blood. Or suffering, come to that.’

  Ulbricht lowered his glass. ‘You would leave us to the mercy of Flannelfoot?’

  ‘George, if you wait outside I’ll go and give Trent a spell on the wheel. When you’re ready to go back, Sister, you’ll know where to find me.’

  McKinnon would have expected that her ministrations might have taken ten minutes, fifteen at the most. Instead, almost forty minutes elapsed before she put in an appearance on the bridge. McKinnon looked at her sympathetically.

  ‘More trouble than you expected, Sister? He wasn’t just joking when he said he felt pretty low?’

  ‘There’s very little the matter with him. Especially not with his tongue. How that man can talk!’

  ‘He wasn’t talking to an empty bulkhead, was he?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well,’ McKinnon said reasonably, ‘he wouldn’t have kept on talking if you hadn’t kept on listening.’

  Sister Morrison seemed to be in no hurry to depart. She was silent for some time, then said with a slight trace of a smile: ‘I find this—well, not infuriating but annoying. Most people would be interested in what we were saying.’

  ‘I am interested. I’m just not inquisitive. If you wanted to tell me, then you’d tell me. If I asked you to tell me and you didn’t want to, then you wouldn’t tell me. But, fine, I’d like you to tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know whether that’s infuriating or not.’ She paused. ‘Why did you tell Lieutenant Ulbricht that I’m half German?’

  ‘It’s not a secret, is it?’