Horse Under Water hp-2

by Len Deighton

  Tomas looked up at me; I hadn’t smiled.

  ‘It’s easy to be cynical now and see it as a put-up job, but at that time the propaganda pundits had got us all acting like the cast of a British film. You know what I mean?’

  ‘Don’t I just,’ I said.

  ‘Anyway, they had a couple of Kriegsmarine officers accompany me and they said could they use the apparatus. I wasn’t keen about that. They didn’t press it. They were professionals, just as you’re a professional. They knew what sort of process getting information really is.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘collecting information is like making cream cheese from sour milk. If you squeeze the muslin bag to force it — it’s ruined.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the way it went; they collected their information drip by drip, and all the while I was living in their officers’ quarters and had a servant and good food and they were telling me not to hurry and perhaps I would like to be sure that there were no other bodies near by. After they’d had a big funeral with lots of stuff about fellow-sailors challenging the mighty ocean deep and all that, I was sent down to Cuxhaven to a P.O.W. unit. The food was ghastly and I was treated like a convict. One night, when I was feeling as low as it’s possible to get, one of the German officers that I’d stayed with in Norway visited me, together with a man named Loveless.’

  ‘Graham Loveless?’ I asked. It was Smith’s nephew.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tomas. ‘I told them that I had been a member of the British Union of Fascists. They said that if I joined the Legion of Saint George (what was later called the Britische Freikorps) they could arrange that I lived with German naval officers. They said that I would only be called upon to use the underwater equipment to save life or property or against our mutual enemy — the sea.’

  Tomas looked at me and shrugged.

  ‘And you fell for it?’ I said.

  ‘I fell for it,’ said Tomas.

  ‘Then you met Giorgio Olivettini?’

  Tomas didn’t fall into the trap; he walked into it slowly and deliberately. He looked at me and said, ‘Yes, I saw him soon after that. He told you?’

  I tried a simple lie. ‘I guessed,’ I said, ‘when I saw you on the U-boat the night Giorgio died.’

  ‘That was you, was it?’ said Tomas. ‘Yes, I sometimes did a night swim for pleasure.’

  I knew he was lying. He had obviously been out doing his heroin-delivery service that night, but I said nothing.

  I poured a drink for both of us; the whisky helped Tomas to relax. He finally said, ‘It was a Moray eel.’

  I offered him some ice from the refrigerator. ‘It was a Moray,’ he said again. I put a cube into his glass and two cubes into my own. ‘It was a Moray,’ Tomas screamed as loud as he could scream, ‘a Moray, do you hear?’

  ‘O.K.,’ I said.

  ‘They tear you to pieces. Huge Moray eels as big as pigs, they have teeth like razors. They terrify me. There are thousands along this coast, many of them eight feet long. They live in the rocks as a rule, but these were living in the cracked pressure hull.’

  I remembered the gashes across Giorgio’s body. Perhaps it was true. Tomas began to speak quickly. ‘He was a lieutenant when I first met him. The Wehrmacht had a pretty low opinion of the Italian armed forces, but these frogmen were different. Everyone hung on their every word. It was funny really. Giorgio was the only person that understood what a farce the whole bloody war was. We both fought on both sides. He had a German medal and an American medal.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I saw him presented with a German Eagle Order of Merit with star.’

  He picked up his drink and sipped at it. ‘He was a fabulous underwater man.’ He drank some more. ‘Kill him, I couldn’t have killed him. You can’t imagine a trapeze man pushing another trapeze man off the wire, could you? Well, it’s like that.’

  ‘Tell me about the period immediately before V.E. Day,’ I asked him.

  ‘You know my real name, so you have read the court martial?’ asked Tomas.

  ‘It doesn’t give a clear idea,’ I said.

  ‘Loveless was a big man with the Germans,’ Tomas said. ‘People said that when the Germans won the war they’d make Loveless the Prime Minister of England. When Loveless said to me that it was all up, I knew it was all up. It was his idea to go to Hanover. I wanted to go farther south to the sector where the Americans were advancing, but Loveless said if we went to Hanover we wouldn’t have to worry any more, so I went. There was a Wehrmacht Archive Unit in Hanover and Loveless had got permission to examine certain of the documents.

  ‘He went to the Archives and photographed the “Weiss List”.’ I nodded, hoping that Tomas would explain further.

  ‘It was about the size and shape of a paper-back novel. It had thick grey card covers. Inside were the names of British Nationals and their addresses. They were in alphabetical order. Between each section there were plain pages with pink ruled lines for additions. Each name was that of a person who would actively assist the Germans when they invaded Britain.’

  I said, ‘Did Loveless think that these people would be best to negotiate a German surrender through?’

  ‘Perhaps you are not following the story,’ said Tomas. ‘Loveless didn’t give a damn about the Germans and the sort of surrender that they were likely to get.’

  Outside it was blowing a Force 5 and in the warm, well-lit cabin it was easy to think that we were back again in that world of 1945.

  Tomas poured himself another drink and shouted to Augusto to cut the engine revs, and told me that we were just wasting fuel. We agreed that Augusto was a bright boy and that the Portuguese were natural sailors, and Tomas took a generous throatful of H.K.’s firewater and continued.

  ‘Loveless photographed the “Weiss List” (it was called that as an antonym for black list) and buried the prints in a garden in a badly bombed part of Hanover. We were held in a German prison for some time. The lights were on all the time, day and night, everything was white, tiles shining like false teeth and slamming doors that would echo like a thunderclap and the constant jangle of bunches of keys that the warders carried. Now and then the spyhole in the cell would flip open and the psychiatrist or the quack would be spying on you and you knew he was writing everything down and attributing reasons. They thought everyone was nuts except themselves. Apart from the odd eyeball the prisoners seldom saw a sign of any other human life. But now and again I would hear Loveless’s voice asking the guard some foolish question in order to let me know that he was still there. I finally got a chance for a short talk with Loveless when the R.N. sent two C.P.O.s to escort us back to the U.K. He was a Commander R.N.; they were very impressed and got us cabins on the Harwich ferry. Loveless told me that he intended to go into the witness box and reel off the name of every Englishman on the “Weiss List”.’

  ‘That must have made him popular,’ I said.

  ‘They didn’t want that at any price. They told him that if he would quietly plead guilty to the five charges they would do a deal with him.’

  ‘A deal?’ I said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Tomas. ‘He was told that if he pleaded guilty he would be sentenced to death but that it wouldn’t be carried out. They would declare him mentally sick.’

  ‘Why did he believe that?’

  ‘That’s what I asked him,’ said Tomas. ‘I make it a point of honour never to trust anyone.’ If he intended it as a joke he gave no sign; I nodded. ‘After sentence,’ Tomas went on, ‘the President of the court martial signs the sentence of death, seals it and it’s conveyed to the prisoner. But before sentence can be carried out the confirming officer examines the proceeds of the trial and ensures that no irregularities or illegalities have occurred. As you know a court martial isn’t like a civil trial. Most of the people present have never had legal training or even seen a trial before. It’s a shambles.’

  ‘Luckily I’m in no position to contradict your first-hand experience,’ I said,
‘but continue about this deal.’

  Tomas said, ‘One of the things the confirming officer checks is the mental health of the prisoner. Under Section Four of the Lunacy Act of 1890, a J.P. and two medical certificates are all a confirming officer requires to remove the record of the conviction and send the prisoner to a civil mental hospital. Admiralty Instructions are that after one month the Admiralty shall discharge him from the service.’

  ‘And Loveless believed that this would happen to him if he pleaded guilty?’

  ‘He did; you see, someone brought his daily medical reports and let him burn them. He was told that they would post-date others to show a symptom of mental trouble.’

  ‘You didn’t ask for the same treatment?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Tomas, ‘the officer preparing my summary of evidence before the trial mentioned the “Weiss List”, but I pretended that I didn’t know what he was talking about.’

  ‘Was Loveless tried before you?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, he pleaded guilty, was sentenced to death and came down to his cell. They weren’t ready to start my hearing, but next day they began. Then that night, the night of the first day of my trial, it happened.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  Tomas wiped his hands on a handkerchief with a dozen darns in it, sipped his drink and eased his shoulders back on the pillow as though about to doze off. I went closer and leaned across him.

  ‘What happened?’ I said again. Tomas had his eyes closed, he winced from the pain either of arm or memory.

  He said very quietly, ‘I heard Loveless screaming, he was shouting, “help me Bernie, help me,” and then there were the footsteps and jangle of a guard running and I heard a low voice that I think was the chaplain, I couldn’t hear what he said. Then I heard Graham’s voice again. It was high-pitched and more distinct than the others. “They’re going to hang me, Bernie,” he shouted, then he shouted “help me” again. There was a jangle of keys and a door clanged and it was all quiet.’

  ‘Did you shout to him?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Tomas. ‘I’ve thought about it, perhaps every day of my life since. But what could I say — “I told you so”, or “hold on I’m coming”, or “it’s all for the best” — what could I have shouted at him?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘there wasn’t much you could say, they hanged him anyway.’

  Somehow I knew it was all true.

  46 Little else to give

  Tomas and I sat looking at each other for a long time. When I finally said it I let it come as casual as can be. ‘So when you came out of prison you took a trip to a suburb in Hanover and bought a spade?’

  ‘I’d have needed more than a spade,’ said Tomas. ‘When I got back there I went to the house where Loveless had buried the “Weiss List”. The whole place was one great twelve-storey block of workers’ flats.’

  ‘So how did you get it?’

  ‘You make me laugh,’ said Tomas. I found it difficult to believe. ‘Don’t you realize even now that we have been outsmarted by a man who is cleverer than both of us put together?’

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘One man has access to that “Weiss List”, to the only copy that remains in existence. One man went to a lot of trouble to get it and even more to putting it somewhere where only he can get it.’ He paused; after a long silence he said, ‘The papers are inside a German Naval meteorological buoy[33] on the sea bed. To service the buoy one needed to have a radio recall unit which “called” the buoy to the surface by transmitting a radio signal to it.’

  ‘And that’s what you were trying to do just now.’

  ‘No,’ said Fernie, ‘that unit that da Cunha gave me was only a listening unit. We heard the buoy on the surface just as Senhor da Cunha heard it and gloated over it every evening. He had given me the listening unit.’ Tomas’s voice went very quiet. ‘He’d tricked me again.’ He looked up at me sharply. ‘It’s back on the bottom of the ocean now!’

  I nodded. Tell me about Smith,’ I said.

  ‘Smith was only one,’ Tomas went on, ‘da Cunha forced a lot of people on the “Weiss List” to send him money or gifts.’

  ‘But you soon got the idea,’ I supplemented, ‘you told Smith to arrange supplies of morphine so that your little partnership with Kondit would flourish.’

  ‘It wasn’t hard to guess, I suppose.’ Tomas nodded.

  I said, ‘What did da Cunha do with the money?’ There was no reply. I said, ‘Did he finance the Young Europe Movement? Did it all go to present-day Fascist groups?’

  Tomas closed his eyes, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m still a believer.’

  ‘And to finance his ice-melting laboratory experiments?’

  ‘Like many great men,’ said Tomas, ‘Senhor da Cunha has some childish weaknesses. His ice-melting machine is one of them.’ His eyes were still closed.

  Augusto’s voice from the wheelhouse sounded above the beat of the sea. We were nearing the coast.

  ‘I’ll come up,’ said Tomas. As he said it there was a thump like a heavy hammer being swung against the hull. ‘A piece of flotsam,’ said Tomas. Augusto had brought the throttles back to half-speed. Again there was a thump and a third immediately after. Augusto coughed and then fell down the ladder into the cabin. I caught him. Augusto was limp as he slid to the floor. The front of my suit was soaked in blood. Augusto’s blood.

  Tomas and I stood motionless as we processed the possibilities through our brains. I was thinking of nautical mishaps, but Tomas had a more practical bent. He knew the person concerned.

  ‘It’s Harry Kondit,’ he said. The boat purred gently towards the shore.

  ‘Where?’ I said.

  ‘Firing his target rifle from the cliff-top,’ said Tomas. There were two more thumps and now, listening for it, I heard the gun crack a long way away. The floor was slippery with blood.

  Tomas was as calm as a Camembert. He said, ‘If we go up to the wheelhouse we get shot. If we stay here the boat heaves itself on to the cliff at Tristos and we drown.’ The boat lurched against the swell.

  ‘Can we get to the rudder control without going across the deck?’

  ‘Too slow, in this sort of sea we have to do something quick.’

  Without Augusto at the helm the boat was slopping and slipping beam-on to the sea. It was a plywood boat. I imagined it hitting the rocks and changing to firewood at one swipe. Augusto had stuffed a signal flag into his mouth. He bit on it hard instead of screaming through his punctured lung.

  Tomas was carrying the little refrigerator across the cabin, and up the four steps. How he lifted it I have no idea. It thumped into the wheelhouse and then Tomas climbed to the bridge, using it as a shield. He pushed it forward and I heard a great echoing clang as one of Harry Kondit’s bullets glanced off the metal. Tomas was lying full-length on the deck by now, with the lowest part of the control wheel in his hand. He pulled it and the boat began to answer. Through the port-hole I could see the rocks. They were very close, and after each great wave the water ran off the jagged fangs like a drooling monster awaiting its prey.

  The boat was well into the turn now. I shouted to Tomas to come back in; he yelled, ‘Do you want to go round and round in a bloody circle?’ He stayed where he was. Again there was a slam of metal hitting metal. The door of the refrigerator fell open and coke bottles, ice and smoked salmon came sliding down into the cabin.

  As soon as we were round far enough Tomas jammed a footstool into the wheel. He began to crawl back, but he had left it too late. The change of course that had reprieved the boat sentenced Tomas to death. The refrigerator was no longer a shield. H.K. pumped bullet after bullet into him; but with those Zeiss × 4 telescopic sights, one would have been enough.

  47 Relinquish

  A dozen spent 7-mm. rimless cartridge shells on the cliff-top was the only trace of H.K. in the vicinity by the time we had anchored the power boat. The weather had dragged the cloud base and the barometer well down, the fish
ermen were working on nets scattered along the strand like huge discarded nylons.

  I went up the beach to get Charly. Augusto needed a doctor quickly. When I reached the top of the steps I looked down from the high balcony. Augusto was still on the boat with eyes unseeing and his mind in neutral; he was holding Fernie Tomas’s hand very tightly. He wouldn’t let go.

  Charly was at the café with two plain-clothes pidemen.[34] She took the death of Fernie Tomas in her stride and wrote it into the narcotics investigation smoothly enough to allow me to escape entanglement.

  After what Fernie had told me, a lot of the unrelated ends began to tie themselves together. Not all of them did, of course, but that was too much to expect. There would always be unexplainable actions by unpredictable people, but the motives began to show. I knew, for instance, what we would find up at da Cunha’s house, but I went anyway.

  The furniture was shrouded and my footfalls echoed and creaked round the bookless shelves. Some of the big chandeliers were burning bloodshot in the bright daylight. I went upstairs, searching for the sort of room that I knew must be there. I had to break the lock in order to open it. The heavy oak door moved grudgingly. It was a long room, painted white. Fluorescent lights hung over the benches and a lot of equipment remained, showing that it had been a well-equipped laboratory.

  This wasn’t a hasty hole-in-a-corner pharmacy like the one H.K. had assembled in a spare corner of his factory. It was a large air-conditioned research lab. of the type that pharmaceutical companies build instead of paying income tax. I moved along the benches, looking at the meters, test-tubes, and electric vibrators. I examined the radiant-heat machinery and the complex array of thermometers for measuring conductivity of liquids. I didn’t find Senhor Manuel Gambeta do Rosario da Cunha, because he had been gone for a long time.

  Clive Singleton had returned from Lisbon in time to be told to pack everything up and head right back again.

  I told him that he had the most important task of all. He would be returning the underwater gear to London. It would cost me more than I cared to think about if anything happened to it. Charly was enjoying her performance as the narcotics investigator and Clive Singleton was more than ever her devoted slave.