Running Blind / The Freedom Trap

by Desmond Bagley

  My finger moved on the plan. ‘Forward of the engine room is Wheeler’s cabin, and farther forward are the crew’s quarters. Under that, extending for twenty feet, is a double bottom containing the main fuel supply—5,350 gallons of fuel oil. We know she’s just taken on fuel so the tanks are full.’

  I did a bit of measuring with my finger nail. ‘To penetrate that tank we have to ram a hole at least three feet below the water line—preferably deeper. Her plating is mild steel, five-sixteenths of an inch thick—to punch a hole through that will need a hell of a lot of power.’

  I looked up. ‘I’m going to build a ram on the boat you’re going to get me. At one time ramming was an orthodox naval tactic—all naval vessels had rams. But this is going to be a little different; it’s going to be a combination ram and fireship. The boat will be full of fireworks. When we ram the tank we let out the oil. It floats. The fireworks go off pop and set the oil on fire.’

  ‘So you’re going to smoke out Wheeler?’

  I looked at her in silence for a moment, then I said, ‘Don’t be silly, I’m going to burn the bastard out.’

  III

  It all took time, and we had little enough of that. I was right in thinking that I could get a suitable boatshed in Senglea, but moving in quickly was something else again. A few enquiries made in the district soon turned up just what I wanted but the dickering promised to be protracted and it was ten-thirty that morning before the deal went through and only then because of the production of a hundred pounds in crisp, British fivers.

  As time was getting short I sent Alison off to buy the boat, which I hoped wouldn’t prove to be as difficult and time-consuming as renting the shed. In the meantime I went to the scrap metal yard and rummaged about until I found what I wanted. I selected a few lengths of angle-iron, a lot of nuts and bolts and a steel bar, eight feet long and an inch and a half in diameter. I was also able to hire a welding outfit there, together with two full bottles of oxygen and acetylene and a pair of goggles.

  As I paid out for this lot I reflected that the expense account for this lark was going to raise some Treasury official’s hair. I could imagine him querying the purchase of perhaps a quarter of a ton of fireworks and acidly scratching out a memo asking Mrs Smith for further verification. But perhaps Mrs Smith also had training in cooking the swindle sheet.

  I got all my equipment to the shed and waited around for Alison. I stared across the Grand Harbour to Valletta and wished I could see through it and into Marsamxett Harbour where Artina was still anchored—I hoped. At one-thirty I was still waiting and coming to a slow boil. Time was wasting and I had a hell of a lot to do.

  It was nearly two o’clock before she arrived and the steam was blowing out of my ears. I caught the painter she tossed, and said curtly, ‘What kept you?’

  ‘I had to go to Sliema. Is she what you wanted?’

  I studied the boat. She was a sleek, Italian-built job with two 100 hp Kiekhaefer Mercury outboard motors. Her lines looked good and those big engines would push her along at a fair lick. Alison said, ‘I got more than thirty knots out of her on the way here.’

  ‘You brought her from Sliema? You must have passed Artina.’

  ‘She’s still there.’ I sagged a little in relief. ‘They’re doing a lot of work on her stern. When I passed they were hoisting out one of the propellers.’

  ‘Were they, by God?’ I laughed. ‘Then it will be an all day job.’ I jerked my thumb at the shed. ‘There’s a cradle in there. Help me get this thing up the slip and out of sight.’

  We ran the cradle down the slip, floated the boat into it, and then winched the lot into the shed. Alison looked at her watch. ‘I’ve arranged for the fireworks, too. They’ll be ready to be picked up at three.’

  ‘Then you’d better push off.’

  She hesitated. ‘Can you manage alone?’

  ‘I should be able to. There’s a block and tackle up there—I can use that to take the engines out.’

  ‘There’s a flask of coffee and a packet of sandwiches in the boat. And a bottle of whisky. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  She turned to go, and I said, ‘Alison, there’s just one more thing; see if you can get a big axe. A felling axe used for cutting down trees.’

  She looked puzzled and then doubtful. ‘I’m not sure they use those on Malta—there are not too many trees.’

  ‘Do your best.’ She left and I rescued the victuals before the bottle got broken, and then I uncoupled the steering cables on the boat and hoisted out the engines. I also used the block and tackle to turn the boat out of the cradle so that it lay upside down on trestles. I ate the sandwiches and drank the coffee while studying the problem; the whisky I left strictly alone because there was a job to be done, although I’d probably be glad of a stiff jolt before I set out.

  I proceeded to get my hands dirty. The hull was of glass fibre and I began to ruin it by drilling holes in carefully selected places. The idea was to position the ram so that it was at least three feet below the water line when the boat was planing at speed, and it had to be fixed to the hull firmly enough so that it wouldn’t come adrift on impact. If that happened then the momentum given by those big engines would be lost and the ram wouldn’t penetrate Artina’s steel shell.

  I cut up lengths of angle-iron and bolted them to the hull and through to steel cross-members which ran athwartship. Then I started to weld it up. It wasn’t pretty welding and would have won no prizes at a craft school but, by God, it was strong—I made sure of that. When I had got that far there were two steel triangles built into the hull, the apexes of which were a little over three feet below the bottom. I took the long steel bar and welded it to the apexes of my steel triangles so that it was parallel to the bottom of the hull and projecting two feet in front.

  Alison was back long before I had got that far and gave me a hand. It was hot and sweaty work and it took time. It was seven in the evening when I put the finishing touch to it. ‘Did you get the axe?’

  She produced just what I needed—a long-handled felling axe. I didn’t need the handle and wasted no time in fiddling but cut it off with the welding torch. Then I took the blade and welded it vertically to the end of the steel bar—that was the cutting edge of my ram.

  I stood back and looked at what I had done. Oddly enough it did look like a weird kind of hydrofoil, but I didn’t like to think of what all that heavy ironmongery hung under the boat would do to her planing characteristics. I began to worry about the speed I was going to lose and if I could get her to plane at all.

  ‘I could use a drink,’ I said.

  Alison poured some whisky into the cup from the vacuum flask and gave it to me. She looked at the boat, and said. ‘It’s going to be dangerous. I was wondering…’

  ‘Wondering what?’

  She turned to face me. ‘I was wondering if this can’t be done more simply—by the police.’

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ I said sardonically. ‘Can you imagine the local coppers believing us? Christ, Wheeler comes here every year and he’s a respected figure, a British MP and an eminent capitalist. He’s probably given prizes to the yacht club and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the sole support of a local orphanage. By the time we managed to convince anyone both he and Slade would have flown the coop.’

  ‘There’s still a body on Artina,’ said Alison. ‘That would take a lot of explaining away.’

  ‘Same objection,’ I said. ‘Forget it. Let’s have a look at the fireworks.’

  There were a lot of them and they were big; rockets that would go up under their own power and maroons designed to be fired from mortars. ‘This lot should add to the festivities,’ I said in satisfaction. ‘We must get the boat on to the cradle,’

  I had to cut bits away from the cradle to accommodate our strange craft and it was forever ruined for handling normal boats. More expense for the Treasury. I installed the engines and hooked up the steering cables and tested them. When I jumped to the ground the bo
at, now right way up, looked a bit more practicable.

  ‘How much did you pay for her?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Fifteen hundred pounds,’ said Alison.

  I grinned. ‘Guided missiles always are expensive. Let’s put the cargo aboard.’

  We filled up every spare inch of the hull with the big fireworks. Alison, as foreseeing as ever, had brought along a jerrican full of petrol and, after topping up the tanks, there was still half a gallon left, more than enough to start a fire to get things going. I now had a new worry; I had drilled a dozen holes in the hull to take bolts and had caulked them with putty, and I was wondering if I had sealed her tight. That couldn’t be tested until we put her in the water and that wouldn’t be until it was good and dark.

  ‘When do they start shooting off the fireworks for the festa?’ I asked.

  ‘Two hours after sunset.’

  ‘I’d like to ram Artina when the official fireworks are going full blast. It’ll help to confuse the issue.’ I sat down wearily and pulled out my ship plan; it was becoming worn and tatty and dirty at the creases, but it was still legible. ‘The trouble is that I might hit one of the main frames,’ I said. ‘In that case I doubt if I’ll get enough penetration.’

  The frames were about two feet apart; statistically I had a good chance of missing—the odds were on my side.

  Alison said, ‘If we’re going to do more underwater swimming we might as well do it comfortably.’ She got up and dragged some scuba gear from the corner. ‘I took the precaution of hiring this.’

  ‘That slipped my mind.’ I wondered what else I’d forgotten. I looked at the gear—there were two sets. ‘I’m going to do the swimming,’ I said. ‘Not you.’

  ‘But I’m coming with you,’ she expostulated.

  ‘For what? I don’t need you.’

  She flinched as though I had slapped her face. I said, ‘You’re right—it’s a dangerous operation, and there’s no point in both of us going. Besides, I need you for something else.’ I thumped the side of the boat. ‘Whether this works or not there’s going to be ructions when these fireworks explode. If I don’t get back someone must be around to have another crack at Wheeler—and you’re elected.’

  I reached out for the bottle and poured some more whisky. ‘You can try going to the police; they might be interested enough by then to take you seriously.’

  She saw the point, but she didn’t like it. She set her face in a stubborn mould and prepared to argue. I forestalled her. ‘All right; this is what you do. You wait here until nightfall and help me to get the boat into the water. Then you hop over to Ta’Xbiex and hire another boat—if you can get anyone to trust you.’ I smiled. ‘Looking as you do now I wouldn’t trust you with a kid’s bath toy.’

  She rubbed her smudged face and distastefully inspected her fingertips, ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll clean up.’

  ‘If you can’t hire a boat, steal one. There are plenty of loose boats at the Marina. Meet me at the seaward point of Manoel Island and then follow me in, but not too closely. When the balloon goes up watch out for Slade and Wheeler—they should be doing their best to jump overboard if all goes well. See they don’t get ashore.’

  ‘I lost the gun last night,’ she said.

  ‘Well, bat them over the head with an oar,’ I said. ‘I’ll be around somewhere so keep your oar away from me.’ I looked at my watch. ‘It’ll be dark enough for launching in about an hour.’

  That hour seemed to stretch out interminably rather like I’m told it does in an LSD trip; I wouldn’t know about that—I haven’t tried it. We didn’t talk much and when we did it was of inconsequentialities. The sun set and the light slowly ebbed from the sky until at last it was dark enough to take the boat down the slip without anyone seeing it. Once it was in the water it wouldn’t appear too abnormal.

  I patted the wickedly gleaming steel axe-head which formed the tip of the ram and went to open the big double doors of the shed, and we steered the cradle down the slip and into the water. I released the boat and we took the cradle away and I turned to see how my handiwork had turned out.

  It wasn’t too bad; she was down by the head but not by too much considering the weight of iron under her bows, and she appeared quite normal apart from the bits of angle-iron which showed above water on each side of the hull. In another ten minutes it would be too dark to see even that, but even if I was picked up by a light in the harbour I doubt if anyone would notice anything particularly odd about her.

  ‘That’s it,’ I said wearily. I was bone-tired; no sleep, a beating-up and a hard day’s work did nothing to improve me.

  ‘I’ll go now,’ said Alison quietly. ‘Good luck, Owen.’ She didn’t kiss me, or even touch me. She just walked away, picking up her coat as she went.

  I climbed into the boat and rearranged a few of the fireworks to make myself more comfortable. I put the scuba gear handy and checked my primitive system of fuses. Then there was nothing to do but wait another hour before I was due to move off.

  Again it was a long wait.

  ELEVEN

  I checked my watch for the twentieth time in fifteen minutes and decided that time had come. I put on the scuba gear, tightened the weighted belt around my waist, and hung the mask around my neck. Then I started the engines and the boat quivered in the water. I cast off the painter and pushed the boat away with one hand and then tentatively opened the throttles a notch, not knowing what to expect.

  At a slow speed she didn’t handle too badly although there seemed to be something a little soggy about her response to the wheel. I switched on the lights because I didn’t want the harbour patrol to pick me up for running illegally, and went down French Creek into the Grand Harbour. Here, in time past, the British Battle Fleet had lain, line upon line of dreadnoughts and battle cruisers. Now, there was another, but odder, naval craft putting to sea, but this one was in an earlier tradition—more like one of Drake’s fireships.

  Across the harbour Valletta was all lit up and there were strings of coloured lights spangling Floriana. Tinny music floated across the quiet water punctuated by the thumping of a bass drum. The merry-making was well under way.

  I rounded the head of Senglea and steered to the harbour mouth. Nothing was coming my way so I decided to open up and see what the boat would do. The note of the engines deepened as I opened the throttles and I felt the surge of acceleration as 200 hp kicked her through the water. In terms of horse-power per ton of displacement this little boat was perhaps forty times as powerful as Artina; that’s where the speed came from.

  The steering was worse than bad—it was dreadful. The wheel kicked in my hands violently and my course was erratic, to say the least, and I went down the Grand Harbour doing a pretty good imitation of a water boatman, those jerky insects that run across the surface of ponds.

  The damned boat wouldn’t get on the step and plane and I don’t suppose her speed was more than twelve knots, and that wasn’t going to be enough. All the power going into the screws was doing nothing more than raising waves and I wasn’t supposed to be in the wave-raising business. In desperation I slammed the throttles hard open and she suddenly rose in the water and took off, picking up at least an extra ten knots in as many seconds. But the steering was worse and there was a definite lag between hauling the wheel around and the corresponding reaction.

  I throttled down again and she sagged into the water, and her speed dropped as though she’d run into a wall. This was going to be a dicey business. At a pinch I could get the speed, provided the engines didn’t blow up, but I didn’t know if I could steer her straight enough to hit my target. In spite of the flow of cooling night air I found I was sweating profusely.

  If the only way to get her to plane was to run the engines at full bore I’d better not try that again. There would be no more trial speed runs because I was scared of the engines packing up, and next time this boat would be at speed again would be the last time. As for the steering, I’d have to handle that as best
I could.

  I dropped speed even further and plugged on towards St Elmo’s Point. Fort St Elmo reared up starkly against the night sky as I passed between the point and the breakwater. Now I was in the open sea and the boat wallowed sickeningly. That heavy steel bar slung three feet under the water was acting as a pendulum. This lubberly craft was enough to give any self-respecting boat designer the screaming meemies.

  I rounded the point and turned into Marsamxett Harbour, glad to get into sheltered waters again, and headed towards Manoel Island. Valletta was now to my left and I wondered from where they shot their fireworks. I checked the time and found I had little to spare.

  As I approached Manoel Island I closed the throttles until the engines were barely ticking over, just enough to give me steerage way. Not far away a light flickered and I saw that Alison was in position; she had struck a match and held it so that it illuminated her face. I steered in that direction and made contact.

  She was in what seemed to be a small runabout driven by a little outboard motor. ‘That’s nice,’ I said. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘I took your advice; I stole it,’ she said, and laughed quietly. I grinned in the darkness. ‘It’s our duty to save government money,’ I said virtuously.

  ‘How did you get on?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s a bitch,’ I said. ‘As cranky as the devil.’

  ‘She was all right when I brought her from Sliema.’

  ‘That was a different boat. She’s damned near uncontrollable at speed. How much time have we got?’

  ‘About ten minutes.’

  I looked about. ‘I’d better get in position. We don’t want to stay here or we’ll be run down by the Sliema ferry—she’s coming now. Is Artina in the same place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ll be on my way. I’ll go right down Lazzaretto Creek and turn around so as to get a good run up. You keep clear on the other side of Artina? ’ I paused. ‘The steering is so bloody bad I might even miss her on the first pass. In that case I’ll turn around and have a go on the other side. Don’t be in my way or you’ll get run over.’