Convoy North (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  SIX

  I

  In the submarine’s main control room the lieutenant in command stood by the housed periscope, with von Hagen under guard and ready to be taken up to the conning-tower as soon as the boat surfaced for the transfer. All was quiet, little sound beyond the hum of the motors and clicks from the gyro repeater as the coxswain moved the wheel from time to time. There was a curious feeling in the boat . no one cared much for having a Nazi agent aboard and there would be a strong sense of relief when he’d been disembarked.

  The air would be cleaner: there was dirt sticking in large quantities to any Jerry spy and word had gone through the boat that this one was particularly unclean in what he’d been up to in Norway. Not that he looked the sort of bastard the galley wireless said he was. He had a strong face but not a sadistic one; indeed he looked like anyone’s father, missed back home and anxious himself to get back to the wife and kids. Tall and thin with a haunted look in his face as if his world had come to an end, which of course it had. Get the sod back to the UK, and after the interrogation he might swing. Or they might keep him till the war was over and then hang him. None of the submarine’s ratings knew quite what the law in wartime said about captured spies but there was a general belief that they could be hanged, unless that applied only to traitors, British subjects caught out in passing information to the enemy. Whatever his future might be, the Jerry had been made aware since the pick-up that he wasn’t welcome. Loud comments and a fist now and again as the sod had been led from one part of the boat to another, to be taken to the heads and such. Not when an officer was present, because the orders had been very clear, but the officers couldn’t be everywhere at once.

  The submarine moved ahead for the rendezvous position; a little late. There had been some trouble with the diesels, causing delay, but now they were not far off. The lieutenant in command said as much to von Hagen.

  The German smiled. ‘You’ll be glad to be rid of me.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve been no trouble.’ This was true: von Hagen had been a model prisoner; and well enough aware of his unpopularity not to be arrogant, not to mention the name of his Fuhrer or refer in any way to the Third Reich. He might have been an Englishman: he spoke the language perfectly and had good manners, the manners of an English gentleman. In other circumstances he might have been a good friend: the lieutenant was almost sorry for him, facing at best captivity in the UK...it had occurred to the lieutenant to wonder why von Hagen was being put aboard a ship bound for Russia but he’d put the thought behind him. It wasn’t his concern. Just a matter of convenience, probably: the outward bound PQ was passing at the right moment, whereas the next homeward convoy out of Russia would have meant too much hanging about.

  ‘Coming up to the position, sir,’ the navigator reported. ‘Three miles, dead ahead as she goes.’

  ‘Right. Stand by to surface.’ As the boat moved ahead and the order was given to blow main tanks the lieutenant took up his position at the periscope, stood back as the great steel shaft surged up from its stowage ready to break through the sea into the wind and snow. He glanced briefly at the German’s face: it had a tight, defeated look, even a sadness.

  II

  ‘Submarine on the surface, sir, red eight five —’

  ‘Can you identify?’

  ‘She’s making the identification signal now, sir.’

  ‘Thank God,’ Kemp said, blowing out his cheeks. ‘Make the answer, Corrigan.’ He put a hand on Theakston’s shoulder. ‘I’d like the ladder down now, Captain. And the ship stopped for the transfer.’ He watched the bearing through his binoculars, dreading the moment he met von Hagen, or more precisely the moment when he had to follow his orders and put an old friend under threat and worse. The boat was only just visible as she made her approach, visible only from the white curfuffle at her stern, just a blur in the foul weather conditions. But within the next couple of minutes she was lying close off the merchant ship’s port side, nosing in to bring the fore casing up to the lowered fenders below the dangling jacob’s ladder. From the bridge Kemp saw the figures in the conning-tower, saw the fore hatch open and a man emerge followed by two others. The central one was obviously von Hagen, with a rifle at his back, a bayoneted rifle. Snow swirled with the wind, at times obscuring the submarine, but through it Kemp saw the German being propelled along the casing towards the jacob’s ladder, saw the rating in the lead reach out to grab for the line dangling from the foot of the ladder and haul it close. As he did so, a seaman aboard the Hardraw Falls sent a line snaking down to be caught by a man on the submarine’s casing and attached around the waist of the prisoner. When this had been done Kemp heard the shouted, rough command: ‘All right now. Up you go!’

  The German stepped to the jacob’s ladder, unaccompanied but with the rifle aimed. The line was hauled taut as he climbed, tended by the man from the deck above: a prisoner could drop in the drink if he preferred the quick end in an icy sea. Alongside Kemp, Theakston commented on the precaution. ‘I dare say you’d rather he went,’ he said.

  Kemp gave a harsh laugh. ‘The answer to that is yes. But I suppose it’s cowardly of me to want that. Isn’t it?’

  ‘I’d not say so, no. There’ll be worse facing him in Russian hands.’

  Kemp thought: don’t, for God’s sake, rub it in! But Theakston had meant well. As von Hagen reached the deck, hands took him and helped him to find his feet. Leaning over the bridge rail, Kemp called down to the submarine co, ‘Thank you, Captain, and well done.’

  ‘Nothing in it, sir.’

  ‘So you say! Off with you now — and a safe journey home.’ Kemp waved a hand, the lieutenant saluted and passed the orders to take the submarine off the side of the Hardraw Falls. The boat was soon lost in the snow and the night; Kemp imagined she would probably submerge. The conditions would be a damn sight easier inside the hull than keeping a watch in the conning-tower. He said, ‘Well, there we are, Captain. Now let’s press on and rejoin the convoy.’

  Theakston went into the wheelhouse and passed the order down to the engine-room for full ahead. On the starting platform Sparrow gave a sigh of relief as the shafts began spinning and he felt the screws grip the water. Theakston had said the Commodore wanted the maximum possible speed in order to overtake the convoy. Sparrow was going to give him all he wanted: it wasn’t a happy feeling, to be on their own apart from just the one destroyer.

  On the bridge Cutler asked, ‘Do you want to see the German now, sir?’

  ‘No,’ Kemp said. ‘I’m remaining on the bridge and I don’t want him up here. I’ll see him when I go down, Cutler.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘As for you — go and get your head down.’

  ‘I’m all right, sir, thank you.’

  ‘Do as you’re told, Cutler. I don’t want an assistant half doped for lack of sleep.’

  III

  ‘A bloody Jerry,’ Petty Officer Napper said in a surly tone, ‘and it seems he’s being given a cabin! What’s the idea, might I ask?’

  ‘Commodore’s orders is all I know, same as you,’ Chief Steward Buckle said. ‘Don’t agree with ‘em myself, but there you are, eh? Treat the bugger proper, the Commodore said. Allocate him a steward, the Old Man followed up with. My arse! He’ll have to share Torrence with the Old Man and Kemp and they can make the best they can of it. I suppose he’ll be guarded?’

  ‘He will and all. My guns’ crews depleted, three ‘ands working in watches on the bugger’s door.’

  ‘Armed, of course?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Buckle scratched his head reflectively. ‘Well, that’s something. Take over the ship else, he could!’

  ‘Stretch of imagination. What d’you think my lads’d be doing, to let that ‘appen?’ Napper walked away, conscious that he was coming into his own: Po of the Guard — on a wanted spy! A bloody, stinking Hun with the rank of Colonel so he’d been told. One of Hitler’s thugs. Or maybe not quite that: he wasn’t Gestapo, anyway not one of
the ordinary ones. More like an infiltrator into the Resistance and doubtless responsible for a good many deaths and tortures. The way he’d been put aboard, he must be someone of importance...Napper preened himself. The Nazi would be good for a number of free drinks in Napper’s local when he got back home, so long as he was allowed to talk about it, that was, and most likely in fact he wouldn’t. The brass was hot on secrecy and Napper might have to wait for glory till after the war was over. So far he didn’t even know the Jerry’s name. No one did, except the nobs on the bridge presumably. And it rankled with Napper that according to Mr Cutler the Jerry was to be addressed as ‘sir’. Sir, to a Nazi!

  ‘You,’ Napper said, emerging up the ladder on to the after superstructure. ‘You, Able Seaman Grove.’

  ‘Me, Po?’

  ‘That’s what I just said, isn’t it? Now, Watch and Quarter Bill. Right?’

  ‘Watch and what?’

  ‘You ‘eard. Posting of the guard on the Nazi.’ Napper felt snappish: perhaps Watch and Quarter Bill was a somewhat grandiose way of referring to the posting of a sentry, but still, Grove had sounded a shade too supercilious. ‘You’ll take the morning watch on ‘is cabin, relieve whatsisname — Park. All right?’

  ‘Yes, Po.’

  ‘An’ after that, we’ll see.’ It was an intricate business, working out watchkeeping rotas, and it took time and thought. You couldn’t denude the guns just for a Jerry but on the other hand you couldn’t denude an important Nazi agent just for guns, which were pretty useless anyway, decoration mostly, bloody ornaments, though Napper would never have thus denigrated his job this time yesterday, before he’d become gaoler to a high-powered Hun. Napper, as he went down the ladder, was conscious of Grove’s long stare behind his back, but he didn’t know what Grove was thinking. Later, when he took over guard duty, Grove released his thoughts to Ordinary Seaman Park.

  ‘That Napper.’ He told Park about the Po’s reference to the Watch and Quarter Bill. ‘Anyone’d think he was chief gunner’s mate aboard the bloody Nelson or such...working out the watches for fifteen ‘undred matloes — port and starboard, red, white and blue, first and second parts thereof, blimey! Action stations, collision stations, fire stations, duties part of ship, duty ‘ands of the watch, who falls in when Both Watches is piped, ditto when Both Watches of the ‘Ands is piped. So on and so forth. And God knows how the daft bugger ever made leading ‘and, let alone Po.’ Grove sniffed. ‘He’d make heavy weather of being bosun’s mate of a dinghy, would our Napper!’

  Having taken over guard duties, Grove bent and peered, or tried to peer, through the slats of the jalousied door. By order of Kemp, the light was to remain on. Grove didn’t get much of a view but he reckoned the Nazi was on his bunk and probably sleeping.

  IV

  When the dawn came up, slowly and with difficulty, to reveal an iron-grey, overcast sky and a restless, leaden sea, the Hardraw Falls was snow-covered virtually everywhere from truck to main deck. There were black patches around the funnel casing and the funnel itself stood out and that was all except for the guns, kept clear by the hands on watch. It was a ship in outline only: no visible hatch covers, no anchor cables and no slips or clenches on the fo’c’sle. Even the ladders had their treads under the mantle of white. There was a thick layer on monkey’s island, and along the bridge wings Kemp’s footsteps led in pits three or four inches deep.

  And it was snowing still.

  So far no convoy: that was not surprising, though a landsman might think it so when only some thirty-five sea miles had been lost whilst waiting about for the submarine. A ship with only about a knot of speed in hand over and above the speed of the convoy might well take around thirty hours to catch up the tail end. Theakston, who had remained on the bridge all night with Kemp, yawned and rubbed hard at eyes that stung with lack of sleep. His face was blue with the cold he brushed snow from it with an automaton-like movement of a gloved hand. Blast the war, he thought: in peacetime he had never come this far north. Britain’s trade had never been with the Soviets. And now half his mind was in Whitby: so long since he’d had word about Dora. Alive still — or not? But no use thinking, worrying; he must concentrate on the bitter sea, on its potential for danger, on moving towards Russia. He said, zombie-like as Kemp came to rest at his side, ‘I reckon we just plug on...’

  ‘H’m?’

  ‘The convoy. Catching up.’

  ‘That’s about it.’ Kemp peered through the murk, through the whirling snow. He was as cold as charity but, although daylight had come, he was reluctant to go below. A ship’s bridge was familiar ground; in every sense of the phrase he knew exactly where he stood. When he went below he would step into an unfamiliar world the moment he confronted von Hagen: a web of broken promises, of bare-faced lies, of deceiving a man who would look upon him as a friend at court, a man he had sailed with so many times. Thus he lingered, postponing what he was under orders to do, and was there when Cutler came up.

  ‘Breakfast, sir.’

  ‘You’ve had yours?’

  ‘Sure I did, sir.’ Cutler hesitated. ‘The prisoner...he’s talked to the sentry. He’s asking to see you. Asking by name, sir: Captain Kemp, he said.’

  Kemp nodded: so von Hagen knew, or anyway had been struck by the name, which he could have heard one of the ship’s crew or the naval party mentioning. The German wouldn’t have been able to identify anyone on the bridge in the darkness of the embarkation from the submarine but if he’d picked up the name he would want to know if the Kemp aboard the Hardraw Falls and the Captain Kemp he’d known were one and the same. Kemp said, ‘All right, Cutler. I’ll go down to my cabin. Give me half an hour, then have the prisoner brought in. The escort to remain outside my door.’

  In his cabin Kemp washed and shaved and then his steward brought in his breakfast. He ate without appetite, making short work of it, wanting only to get to the coffee and cigarette stage. Precisely half an hour after he had left the bridge, the knock came at his door: Cutler.

  ‘Prisoner present, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Cutler. Bring him in.’ Kemp had stiffened as if expecting a physical blow. He lit another cigarette, with shaking fingers that he couldn’t hold still. From the door Cutler jerked his head, saying nothing. Von Hagen came in alone. Cutler said, ‘I’ll be outside, sir.’ Cutler had tact. The door closed behind him.

  Von Hagen’s eyes had widened with pleasure. ‘So it is you, Captain Kemp.’

  ‘Yes. A long time...’ Kemp held out his hand; the German took it in a strong grip. ‘The war brings changes, von Hagen. I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I. They were pleasant days, the days of peaceful sailing.’

  ‘Yes.’ Kemp gestured to a chair and offered his cigarette case and a lighter. The German drew in smoke thankfully as he sat down.

  ‘You asked to see me, von Hagen.’

  ‘To meet an old friend, if you were the same Kemp. That was all. Not to ask favours. I accept that we are enemies now.’ The German’s look was direct, no shifting away from Kemp’s eyes. ‘I’ve lost — that’s all.’ He paused. ‘Have the years, the years of war, treated you well, Captain?’

  Kemp shrugged. ‘Well enough — I’m still alive and that’s something.’

  ‘But not still with the Mediterranean-Australia Line. A Commodore of your naval reserve, I see. You are not captain of the ship?’

  Kemp said, ‘I’m the Commodore of the convoy, von Hagen.’

  ‘I was not told — I was told nothing. And you are returning from Russia, from Murmansk or Archangel — or should I not ask?’ Von Hagen gave a quiet laugh. ‘I am, after all, an enemy —’

  ‘Yes. But you may ask...and I shall answer.’ Kemp found the words coming with difficulty, almost as though he had developed a speech defect. ‘The convoy is not returning from Russia, Colonel von Hagen. It is out of Iceland...bound for Archangel.’

  The German’s face had reacted: there was total surprise, almost shock. ‘That will be dangerous for me, Commodore. The Russian
s...however, I am, of course, a British prisoner of war. But suppose the ship is searched, what then? British prisoner or not —’

  Kemp said steadily, ‘The ship will not be searched, that I can guarantee. The Russians are our allies, not our masters, and no search will be permitted.’

  Von Hagen relaxed and blew out his breath. ‘I’m relieved! The Russians and I don’t mix. If I were to be found, well, it would be the end after interrogation by —’

  ‘I realize that —’

  ‘But in British hands...it’s not to be welcomed, I need hardly say, but at least I know your people behave properly. As I said, Commodore — I’ve lost, and that’s the way it goes.’

  ‘Yes. You’re philosophical, von Hagen — very.’

  The German smiled. ‘I have no option, and I always look on the bright side. I always did, if you remember.’

  ‘I remember.’ Kemp did: sometimes von Hagen’s business trips had not been as successful as he’d hoped, but he’d never been disturbed. There was always another day, he used to say, always another chance. The same with women: von Hagen had had an eye for them, and he was an attractive man, but sometimes he’d made a wrong choice and ended up with the equivalent — or once the reality — of a slapped face, but that too he had always shrugged off and had come up smiling. He hadn’t much to smile about now but was taking it well — because he was bound for British hands, not Russian. No doubt there had always been the possibility of being taken by the Russians; at least he’d been spared that — or so he believed.

  Kemp licked at dry lips, searching for the right words, the best way of shattering an illusion. Before he had formulated what he was going to say there was an interruption. His voice-pipe whined and he answered. ‘Commodore —’

  ‘Bridge, sir, chief officer speaking. Weather’s clearing —’