Decoy

by Dudley Pope

  ‘A great big white flag,’ Ned said. ‘Lash it to the periscope. Get some chaps to work on it,’ he told the Croupier. ‘Four sheets sewn together, if there’s nothing else.’

  He turned to Jemmy. ‘Joan’s going to have to take her chance, and I’ve got to go down and play with the charts to see what time that plane will get back to England, and the soonest another one will come out. What brand was it?’

  ‘A Liberator, as far as I could see. Certainly not a Sunderland or Catalina: neither can make sharp turns like that thing did.’

  Ned went below and sat at the chart table, measuring distances with dividers. The Liberator probably had hundreds of miles to fly back to its base in the UK. Certainly with that news it would fly direct. At say two hundred knots. Four or five hours. A couple of hours to get the word to Admiralty, an hour for ASIU to react and get approval for whatever it proposed, and another five hours for a plane to get back here and find them. The position the Liberator reported would not be very precise. Thirteen hours before anything could happen that would affect them. He glanced at his watch. That would mean noon tomorrow.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The day began as though winter had stepped aside to let autumn return for a day or two. The air was cold but the wind had dropped to ten knots from the north-west, pulling broken cumulus clouds with it so that from time to time a weak sun played on the sea like a cinema usherette using a torch with weak batteries.

  Jemmy was on watch but Ned stood on the tiny bridge beside him, and both men were wearing thick jackets, the German equivalent of short bridge coats, instead of the usual oilskins. The lookouts were cheerful, the heavy binoculars coming up to sweep the four quadrants with something approaching eagerness.

  ‘You know what could mess everything up, don’t you?’ Jemmy said lugubriously.

  ‘Many things,’ Ned said. ‘The most likely being us sighting another blasted frigate and having to dive just before our plane comes back.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking. We’d need to get down fast before the frigate got a sight of our laundry.’

  The ‘laundry’ was the huge white flag sewn out of four sheets, and now streaming out from the periscope standard and slatting from time to time.

  ‘Aircraft red four five!’ a lookout called. ‘Sunderland.’

  Ned and Jemmy lifted their binoculars, and simultaneously saw the flying boat just beneath the cloud layer. ‘Flying boat,’ commented Jemmy. ‘Appropriate name. Just a boat hull with wings.’

  Ned’s finger hovered over the alarm button warning of air attack, but the warning was to prepare to dive.

  ‘Plug in the signal lamp and test it,’ Jemmy ordered. ‘And make sure there are no kinks in the flex.’

  He lifted his binoculars and looked at the flying boat again.

  ‘She’s seen us all right. Ah! She’s calling us up!’ he exclaimed as a white eye started winking.

  ‘I’ll take the call,’ Ned said, mimicking the pompous tones of a self-important businessman addressing his secretary.

  One of the lookouts passed him the signal lamp. He lined up the aircraft in the cross-wire sight, and squeezed the large trigger which switched on the light and then the smaller trigger in front of it which aimed the mirror. Dash: the Morse for ‘T’, the answering or acknowledging signal.

  ‘Who…is…Clare?’ the plane flashed, and Jemmy began chuckling.

  ‘That’s Captain Watts being cautious!’

  ‘What the hell do I answer?’

  ‘She’s your bird,’ Jemmy said unsympathetically.

  Ned aimed the lamp. ‘Future… Mrs…Yorke.’

  ‘She…sends…love,’ the plane signalled as it began a long, slow turn astern over the U-boat’s wake. Then, having made what was in effect a challenge, and been satisfied with the reply, began signalling again: ‘Will…drop…parachute…and…canister…one …mile…ahead…of…you…for…marker…dye.’

  ‘Box of chocolates from Captain Watts,’ Jemmy said, and then yelled down the hatch for the Croupier to come up and watch the fun.

  The Croupier arrived sleepy and surly, thinking he was being called on watch, and sprang completely awake when the Sunderland was pointed out.

  The plane’s signal lamp began again. ‘What…is…sea…state …wind…direction…and…strength?’

  ‘Wind…northwest…under…ten…knots…sea…strength… two,’ Ned signalled back.

  ‘Hard to distinguish sea conditions from a plane,’ Jemmy said. ‘Always looks smoother. Right, you men,’ he said to the lookouts, ‘you’ll find boathooks stowed under those gratings. Off oilskins and stand by on the foredeck.’

  He shouted down the hatch: ‘Steady as you go, quartermaster… Half ahead both… I want four seamen on deck sharpish, no oilskins!’

  The U-boat’s bow wave subsided and the growl of the diesel exhausts was muted. The Sunderland was now on the starboard beam, and Ned realized that she was cannily doing a complete circle round the boat to make sure there were no other vessels around.

  Then from dead ahead she dropped low, flew down towards the U-boat, passing very low, and then turned slowly over the wake.

  Now, unexpectedly, her signal lamp blinked again.

  ‘Reckon…I…can…land.’

  Was it a statement or a question? Ned raised his eyebrows at Jemmy and the Croupier.

  Jemmy nodded. ‘I’ve seen ’em landing at Calshot in far worse than this.’

  Ned signalled back a bald: ‘Yes.’

  The plane’s lamp flickered again. ‘Will…pick…up… Yorke …plus…rotors…and…manual.’

  Ned acknowledged the signal, and then added: ‘What…about …prize?’

  ‘Have…orders…to…stop…to…give…our…inflatable…boat…a…lee.’

  Ned acknowledged, gave the signal lamp to Jemmy, and – as four seamen came up the ladder and then scrambled past to go down the ladder beside the gun platform – said to the Croupier: ‘Let go below and sort that lot out.’

  The two of them stood in the wireless cabin, looking down at the Enigma machine in its case.

  ’Take the whole bloody thing,’ the Croupier said. ‘By the time we’ve packed up eight rotors and padded ’em, you’d have a parcel that size.’

  Ned nodded, his mind made up. He pulled off the heavy leather boots with their cork soles. Hazel had guessed what was going on and disconnected the lead from the Enigma to the electric socket that kept its battery topped up, closed down the lid, locked it with the key that had been kept in the top drawer, and put his wireless log on top.

  ‘There’s some useful decodes in there, sir,’ he said.

  By that time the Croupier had come back into the cabin with the Triton cipher manual. ‘Anything else?’

  Ned shook his head. ‘Lots of seabags. Put the cash register, log and manual in one and secure the opening. The put that bag upside down in another; and those two –’

  ‘I understand,’ the Croupier said impatiently and then, like a nanny addressing a small child, said with a grin: ‘Clean underclothes? You’re sure you don’t want to pay a visit? And comb your hair, you never know who will see you.’

  ‘Buoyancy,’ Ned said. ‘I want the seabags tied to something buoyant, so they won’t sink if the dinghy capsizes.’

  The Croupier bellowed into the control room.

  Hazell suggested: ‘One of those big Bakelite drums they store the salt herring in, sir? Lid screws down!’

  ‘Get one quickly,’ Ned said. ‘Don’t worry if you have to pour the fish in the bilge!’

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ the Croupier grumbled. ‘You’re flying away from all our cares and stinks.’

  Suddenly half a dozen empty seabags came flying though the doorway. ‘How many do you want?’ Yon called.

  ‘That’s e
nough,’ Ned yelled, noticing that the German seabags were made of rubberized material, not the thick canvas of the British type.

  The Croupier undid the four wingnuts which secured the Enigma box to the table and Ned held open the top of a seabag. The Croupier carefully slid the box into the bag, pushing down the wireless log on one side and the Triton manual on the other.

  ‘Ship’s log,’ Ned reminded him. ‘Our latest position is on the chart and the calculations for the star sight are on the pad.’

  As soon as the Enigma was padded they tightened the drawstrings, and while the Croupier held open another bag, Ned upended the sealed bag into it. They repeated this until the Enigma was inside four bags. By that time Hazell and Keeler had arrived in the wireless cabin, Hazell with the Bakelite herring tub and Keeler with an armful of different pieces of rope and light line.

  ‘Here, Ned: we can put this into the tub and screw down the lid: then it’ll be waterproof and float and we don’t need lashings! Look,’ the Croupier said. ‘Why don’t you go and say goodbye to our chaps forward and aft while we secure this?’

  ‘Lifebelt, too, sir,’ Keeler said, ‘if what Hazell says is true. I’ve seen these bloody silly blow-up dinghies those airmen use. And I’ll put a line round this container so if the worst come to the worst –’ his voice dropped, as though it most certainly would, ‘you can grab hold.’

  Ned crouched as he climbed through the hatch in the forward bulkhead, and found the seamen and Marines guarding the prisoners completely unaware of what was going on. Conscious that by now the Sunderland was probably about ready to land, he explained that the Admiralty wanted to get him back to England quickly and had sent a Sunderland. A quick handshake all round, the Germans watching almost open-mouthed, wondering why the British leader was saying goodbye in mid-ocean, and he was scrambling aft, past the roaring diesels. As he hurried aft past the engine room telegraphs, he saw that Jemmy had gone on to slow ahead; then there was the confusion of explaining and saying goodbye to the men in the after torpedo room.

  He returned to the control room to find that Keeler and Hazell had already hoisted the herring tub into the conning tower and were shouting up to the bridge.

  Ned turned to Yon and was surprised to find he had the German Engineer Helmut with him.

  ‘Ned,’ Yon said carefully, ‘I’m not very struck on shaking hands with Germans, but –’

  ‘But Helmut has been a great help,’ Ned said.

  ‘Yes. So much so he might be victimized if he was put in the same camp as the rest of the crew.’

  ‘Leave it with me.’ Ned said. ‘He’ll be taken off the moment you dock, wherever that’ll be.’

  He shook hands with Helmut, and then with Yon. ‘I hope to see you in a few days!’

  He turned to the Croupier. ‘Seems a long way from the Citadel, doesn’t it? Still, we did it, even if it all drops overboard and sinks, or the bloody Sunderland gets shot down by a herring gull.’ He took the horseshoe-shaped lifejacket. ‘Come up and wave,’ he said as he climbed the ladder.

  He looked across at the quartermaster, Taylor. The sailor shook his head sadly. ‘Fer me, sir, I like staying on the surface, but in an emergency I don’t mind divin’. But I can see no occasion for ever going up in the air.’

  Ned grinned and slapped him on the back. ‘Just think, Taylor, in a few hours’ time I’ll be knocking back Naafi tea!’

  Jemmy was shouting down the hatch. ‘Come on Ned – all your luggage is ready on deck, the chambermaid’s been tipped, we’ve made a lovely smooth, and young Brylcreem is just landing on it with your taxi!’

  On deck, blinking in the bright sunshine, Ned saw that Jemmy had brought the U-boat round in a great curve, and her wake had made a smooth semi-lune of water. The Sunderland touched down well beyond it – clearly the pilot wanted the smooth area for boat work.

  One flurry of spray…another…another, as the underside caught the wavetops, and then the great plane was the plough, making a white furrow in the sea which was broadening out as she slowed down.

  ‘Not quite the way he said,’ Jemmy explained. ‘I called him up with the lamp and told him I could make it smoother. I hope their rubber dinghy hasn’t got a hole in it.’

  Ned looked down at the herring tub with its precious contents.

  ‘Is that making all the stink?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ned said. ‘Hazell wiped the inside, but the silly bugger forgot the outside.’

  Jemmy shouted orders down the hatch and slowly the U-boat came to a stop. ‘You’d better get down before we lose all our way, because she’s going to roll. And here –’ he held up the lifejacket, pulled it over Ned’s neck and tied the tapes.

  ‘Give my love to Joan,’ he said.

  The roar of the Sunderland’s engines was sharp, almost staccato, to ears accustomed for days to diesels. The rubber raft, rowed by four muscular airmen, was larger than Ned expected, and the seamen soon threw them a line. Looking down into the raft Ned was surprised to see a grey metal canister, which the airmen carefully handed up.

  ‘Commander Yorke, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All Admiralty orders, charts and so on are in here, and I am to hand them over to whoever takes command of the boat.’

  Ned grinned because he could imagine Captain Watts’ voice in London thundering over a scrambler telephone, and he said: ‘Jemmy – charts, orders and a stick of rock in here!’

  Seamen hauled the canister on board.

  ‘You next,’ one of the airmen said.

  ‘No, this smelly container next.’

  As the seamen handed it down to the airmen, Ned called to them: ‘That cask is what it’s all about. Whatever happens, that’s got to get to the Admiralty, even if we swim with it.’

  Once on board the Sunderland, the Australian pilot gave a brief explanation as he prepared for take-off. If the sea was rough, he was to parachute the metal canister down to them – it contained charts and orders; if it was smooth enough – and no one had expected that it would be – he was to land and take off Commander Yorke and hand over the canister to whoever was left in command.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Sunderland pilot pointed through the port side of the windscreen. ‘I imagine you recognize that lot, sir.’

  ‘Just about. Isle of Wight, the Needles, Lymington River, Yarmouth, Cowes and the Medina River…where are we going, Calshot?’

  The pilot nodded. ‘You’ve caused a fair commotion, sir. I’m to transfer you to a high-speed launch before I pick up a buoy!’

  ‘Suits me,’ Ned said. He tugged his beard. ‘The sooner I get scissors and razor to this lot, the better.’

  The pilot looked startled. ‘Why, it’s a splendid beard, sir: I thought all submariners had ’em.’

  ‘They do,’ Ned said, ‘but thank God I’m not a submariner.’

  The great flying boat made a leisurely turn. ‘Our runway,’ the pilot said, pointing to a double row of small round buoys on the surface of the sea. ‘And there’s your boat tearing up and down. Perhaps you’d go back and wedge yourself in for landing…’

  There was a full commander in the tiny cabin of the launch which, from the roar of its engine, was clearly powerful. Ned shook his hand but speech was impossible. By now the Sunderland’s crew had become very protective of the Bakelite herring container, and one of them, a sergeant, jumped down into the launch and gave brisk and positive orders.

  The commander left the cabin, the sergeant climbed back into the Sunderland, and the launch roared away. The commander came back into the cabin just as an alarmed Ned leapt up to make sure the container was safe.

  ‘Jesus,’ the commander shouted. ‘I’ve got three men here with Stens guarding what smells like a box of herrings. Been fishing?’

  ‘Yes, and hold on to the cask, sir. Where are we goin
g?’

  ‘The Hamble River: car and motorcyclists are waiting at Warsash for you. The C-in-C’s Humber, actually. I say,’ he said as a thought struck him, ‘you won’t put your – er, luggage – in the boot, will you?’

  ‘Not likely,’ Ned said. ‘That stays on the seat right next to me until I get to the Citadel! Why?’

  ‘Well, it has a certain pong about it. I was thinking that when the lady admiral – the C-in-C’s wife – next goes for a ride, she’s going to look at her husband in a strange way!’

  The drive to London began with two naval motorcyclists ahead making a way through traffic with their thumbs on their horns, and two motorcyclists behind returning all the rude gestures.

  But the Humber was warm and comfortable, the driver a three-badge AB, who drove with his mouth shut and his eyes wide open. The Marine sitting next to him, Sten across his knees, looked back from time to time, as if to see if Ned was still there. But Ned, his feet resting on the cask, was soon sprawled back, fast asleep.

  The depth-charges had finally smashed open the hull, rivets were popping, and he struggled to the surface to find he was half asleep with the car stopped by the Captain Cook entrance to the Citadel, and Captain Watts tapping impatiently on the window with his signet ring while the Marine guard was holding his Sten with complete nonchalance, waiting for orders from Ned.

  Ned unlocked the door from the inside and Watts pulled it open, eagerly reaching forward. Suddenly he stopped, and his face dropped.

  ‘Christ, I can just about recognize you behind that beard – but where’s the stink coming from?’

  Ned got out of the car and found the ground swaying beneath him. It would be a couple of days before he got his land legs back.

  He bent over into the car and handed out the cask to Watts. ‘Present, sir, from your loving nephews, Ned, Jemmy and the Croupier, and Yon Heath, too.’

  Captain Watts stepped back cautiously. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The bucket thing once contained German salt herrings. The seabags inside – there are several, one tucked in another, like a Chinese puzzle – contain –’ suddenly he remembered they were still standing by the Captain Cook memorial, ‘your Christmas presents.’