“This mission was laid on to find out about the gas, period,” Canidy said. “If it was used, we get evidence, then get the hell out. If it wasn’t used, we try to find out, one, if it was there, and, two, what the plans were for its use, then get the hell out.”
Tubes nodded.
“The answers are critical,” Canidy continued, “because—and this is me talking, not anything told to me from above—if nerve gas was or will be used, then everything that anyone is doing right now—at AFHQ, in London, wherever—is, basically, wasted effort. Roosevelt said he was against chemical or biological warfare—but would not hesitate to use it in retaliation. And we all know Churchill’s take on it; he’s for anything that ends the war yesterday.”
There was silence for a long moment, then Canidy went on: “So we get in and get the hell out.”
“And my part of that,” L’Herminier said, “is that after we drop you, we will go out and lay on the bottom. Then between 2100 and 0400 hours we will rise to periscope level and stand by for your signal—either light from shore or via the W/T—at fifteen minutes after every odd hour. If there is not one, we will lay on the bottom a second day, then the next night rise to await your signal at fifteen minutes before every odd hour.”
“And if you get nothing after that,” Canidy said, “you get the hell out of here, Jean.”
L’Herminier nodded solemnly.
“Reluctantly,” he said. “But we still will maintain the radio watch each night on the same alternating schedule. And return, if necessary.”
“Thank you, Jean.”
The submarine was on the surface of the Gulf of Palermo, its decks still slightly awash. The night was clear and quiet, the air cool and still.
Inside the sub, L’Herminier was at the periscope, scanning the immediate area one last time.
At the foot of the conn tower, Dick Canidy stood squirming into dark brown overalls made of a thick cotton fabric that was coated with a stiff, impermeable rubberized material. The outfit had close-fitting, almost-constrictive cuffs at the wrists and ankles. The gloves were of the same construction as the overalls. As was the full hood, the big difference being that it had a heavy rubber mask vulcanized to the rubber-coated cotton fabric. The mask had two thick glass lenses, and a pair of round air filters that protruded down from either side of the chin like two massively swollen moles.
L’Herminier turned the scope over to his executive officer, who continued the scanning, and walked over to Canidy.
“How are you doing?” L’Herminier asked.
“How do you think?” Canidy said, picking up the hood to put it on. “It’s hotter than hell in here.”
L’Herminier nodded sympathetically.
“That’s some spiffy suit—the real cat’s meow!” Jim “Tubes” Fuller said.
Canidy looked blankly at Fuller, who was holding the box of mice.
“You like it so much,” Canidy said, “it can just as easily be arranged that I hold the box while you go topside.”
Tubes smiled.
“Aw, that’s all right. You’re already in it and all. I wouldn’t want to stress out an old man.”
Canidy stared at him, then grinned. They both knew they were only a year or so different in age. While Tubes’s surfer mentality tended to annoy Canidy, he had found himself starting to like the guy. His laid-back personality certainly eased the gravity of the situation.
Which really isn’t all that grave.
This exercise borders on the academic. It’s purely precautionary.
The risk of gas poisoning at this point is extremely low.
Yeah, that’s right, Dick. Keep telling yourself that.
And keep discounting Rossi’s scenario that those munitions are leaching gas from the harbor bottom.
See where that gets you….
Canidy glanced at Frank Nola. He looked extremely emotional, maybe even scared. He remained silent, lost in thought.
Canidy heard L’Herminier’s encouraging voice.
“You should have no pressurization problem with the main hatch,” the commander said. “The secondary hatch might be a bit stiff. We do not use it hardly at all. I personally tested it, then had one of the crewmen lubricate the moving parts as well as the seal.”
Was that for my benefit, Canidy thought skeptically, or yours, Cap’n?
Oh, hell, it is Jean’s job to protect the boat and the lives of his crew.
“Thank you, Commander.”
Canidy, with some obvious effort in the heavy, stiff suit, clumsily made his way up the conn tower, his heavy leather boots clunking on the U-shaped metal bars welded to its side that served as steps.
When he got past the first round hatch, he sat on its lip and reached down with his right gloved hand.
“Okay, hand ’em to me,” he called down. The hood made his voice sound distorted, and he figured what Tubes heard was probably garbled beyond understanding.
Tubes, though, reached into the box and nabbed two mice by the nape of the neck—a male and a female, in case one proved more sensitive to poisoning than the other—and put them in a soft cloth pouch that had a pull-string closure. He tugged the pouch closed.
He held up the pouch, which now wiggled, to Canidy’s gloved hand.
“Adolf and Eva coming up,” Tubes said.
Behind the mask, Canidy grinned.
“Got ’em,” Canidy said.
“Good luck!” Tubes said.
Canidy nodded and gave a thumbs-up.
Then he swung he legs up and inside the hatch opening. Carefully, he put the pouch of mice in a corner behind him, then turned to reach for the hatch door.
The heavy steel door, two feet in diameter and mounted on a hinge, almost closed under its own weight when Canidy started to rotate it downward.
How much lube did that guy use?
The door now covered the hatch, making the small space in the tower completely dark. Working only by feel, Canidy next found the V-shaped iron handle on back side of the door—there was another above his head, on the main hatch door—and he began turning the handle clockwise. This tightened the threaded “nut” that was at the bottom of the V, which cinched the door snug to the hatch.
Watertight, airtight…and gastight.
Canidy stood. He reached his right hand above him, carefully waving it back and forth in the dark in order to locate the main hatch handle. On the fourth pass, he rapped his knuckles on it. He turned his hand around, grasped the handle, and pulled, turning the handle counterclockwise.
The handle didn’t budge.
Shit!
I thought Jean said there’d be no pressurization problem.
He reached up with his left hand, found the other end of the V-handle, then pushed it while pulling again on the right handle. Still no movement. Using the palm of his left hand, he started pounding on the left handle, trying to jar it, while his right hand pulled on the right handle. Suddenly, the left handle moved, causing his left hand to hit the thick metal of the submarine structure.
“Dammit!” he said, aloud, shaking his left hand to try to ease the pain.
He noticed that his voice, muffled by the mask and in the small space of the tower, sounded very strange.
After a moment, he reached up and spun the now-loose V-handle. There then came the sound of air hissing, and Canidy knew that that meant the air he was in was soon to be the air from outside.
No turning back now.
Here goes nothing….
He pushed on the main hatch door and it swung upward on its hinge.
There was some light coming from the stars, and he reached down and found the pouch of mice. He reached up through the opening and put the squirming pouch on the wet deck.
Don’t need to let them out…. They can breathe through the top of the pouch, if not through the fabric itself.
They’d probably go overboard if I did let them out.
And then this whole damn thing would really have been an exercise in futility…
>
Canidy scanned the area as he waited for the mice to stop moving.
He saw nothing through the thick lenses of the mask.
The pouch continued to wiggle.
That’s good news.
After some minutes, Canidy got tired of standing in the hatch. He climbed up and out, then sat with his legs crossed, staring down at the pouch.
It stopped moving.
Whoooa! What the hell?
He picked up the pouch and, with great effort due to the thick, stiff gloves, loosened the pull-string closure.
He held it up to one of the thick lenses of his mask and peered inside.
He saw a pair of fuzzy pink noses and a small forest of whiskers looking back.
As best he could tell, the mice were not moving.
He loosened the string some more, tugging at the top of the pouch.
He peered back in—and suddenly Adolf and Eva lunged for their freedom.
Shit!
Canidy next saw them running in circles inside the conn tower.
He stared at them, watching and waiting for what seemed like half an hour.
Then he said, “Fuck it. Close enough.”
And pulled off his hood and mask.
“I don’t smell anything,” Tubes said, standing on the wet deck.
“You wouldn’t,” Canidy said. “Tabun is odorless.”
“No. I mean corpses. If there were dead bodies, there would be the stench of the dead. It’s been—what?—eight, nine days.”
“Depends on the wind direction,” Canidy said. “But good point.”
Two crewmen were pulling the folding kayaks onto the deck. Canidy watched as the wooden-framed, canvas-hulled craft were assembled quickly and put in the water, tethered to the sub by a short line.
Canidy lowered his rubberized black duffel with the Johnson light machine gun, ammo, and other gear in his boat. He put one of the green suitcase radios in beside it. Then, after struggling to crawl in after them, he got to his knees and looked up at the sub.
“So this is your idea of bon voyage, eh?” Canidy said to L’Herminier.
L’Herminier shrugged.
“Jesus!” Canidy exclaimed. “This is akin to a high-wire act! I suddenly long for my little rubber boat…and I use the term boat loosely.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” L’Herminier said, “I understand that General Clark took a swim from one of these kayaks when the Seraph snuck him into North Africa before Operation Torch. At least you got aboard.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Canidy said. “I feel like I’m getting soaked just sitting in this thing.”
“He had the same sort of problem, apparently. Story is, he’d taken off his trousers to keep them dry and keep safe the gold coins he carried in the trouser pockets. Or so he thought. The seas were rather rough—nothing like this here—and it all went in the drink. Clark clung to the boat while his trousers and gold found the sea bottom.”
“Thanks, Jean. That really gives me a sense of encouragement.”
Once Canidy got settled in the kayak, L’Herminier called down, “You forgot something.”
Canidy looked up and saw one of the crewmen holding the box of mice, in which Adolf and Eva had rejoined the others.
“Like hell I did,” Canidy said. “Give ’em to Tubes. There’s room for more than one big rodent on his raft.”
“Hey!” Tubes protested.
Canidy looked at Nola and surprised himself by quoting, “‘But when it comes to slaughter / You will do your work on water.’”
Nola did not say anything at first, then asked, “What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure,” Canidy said. “But in a very warped way, Gunga Din, I think it means we now go ashore.”
“That’s Kipling!” Tubes said, putting the box of mice in his kayak beside the suitcase radio.
“Yeah, that’s Kipling,” Canidy said. “Now paddle. And on the QT. We’ll be in touch, Jean.”
“Go with God,” L’Herminier said.
[ONE]
OSS Whitbey House Station Kent, England 1320 3 April 1943
A large rectangular platter on the side table held the remnants of the luncheon. What had been a small mountain formed from a variety of sandwiches that had been cut into quarters—sliced ham and turkey, chicken and tuna salads—now was almost completely gone. The large glass bowl of mayonnaise potato salad next to it had been practically scraped clean.
The kitchen staff had prepared fresh pots of coffee and hot water for tea and brought in clean cups and silverware. They now efficiently cleared the plates from the table and the large platter and bowl from the side table.
“I do hope you will excuse my ill manners,” Commander Ian Fleming said. “I shamelessly helped myself to too much food.”
“You should be ashamed,” Major David Niven said to him between sips of tea. “And should you not be, I am prepared to be ashamed for you. Such an example of an officer and a gentleman you are setting for the young Private Ustinov here.”
There were chuckles around the table from First Lieutenant Charity Hoche, Lieutenant Colonel Ed Stevens, and the Duchess Stanfield.
“I am quite impressionable,” Peter Ustinov said as he stole the last quarter square of tuna salad sandwich from Niven’s plate.
Niven looked at him in mock disgust.
“Well,” Commander Ewen Montagu said, motioning toward the typewriters at the table, “shall we get on with it?”
“So we shall,” Niven said and sat down in front of one of the Oliver typewriters, the Special Model 15.
“You’re going to do this?” Fleming said.
“And why would I not?” Niven said. “We could have Ustinov here do it, but, then, it would take forever with the way he hunt-and-pecks out the characters with his index fingers.”
“This first one is to be from the father to the son,” Montagu said, reaching into the box and producing a small stack of letterhead from a hotel in Wales. “He’s of course aware of the pending marriage, and, as a father would, is getting papers in order.”
Niven looked at the Oliver, then at the Hermes Model 5 beside it.
“Then I’d better use that one,” he said, getting up and sitting in front of the Hermes. “The Olivers should be used only for government correspondence.”
“Right,” Montagu said. He pulled out a second sheet of letterhead, then put it beside the Hermes. “Now, before you begin, you should know that the name of the solicitor firm is McKenna and Company.” He pointed that out on the new letterhead. “My wife’s brother F.A.S Gwatkin works there and agreed to provide this.”
“I think I can make that work, with some minor changes,” Niven said smugly.
“David,” Montagu said, “we really should be rather faithful to—”
Niven held up his hand and said lightly, “Trust me.”
“Last time I heard him say that,” Fleming said, standing up and stepping behind Niven to read over his shoulder, “I was a wealthier man.”
Niven turned to the Hermes. He picked up a sheet of hotel letterhead and fed it into the typewriter platen, rotating the sheet by expertly working the long, chromed carriage-return arm.
He placed his fingers on the keys of the typewriter in the practiced manner of a skilled typist. After again looking at the McKenna letterhead beside the typewriter, he stared at the ceiling in thought, then turned his attention to the blank sheet in the typewriter.
And began typing.
But, to everyone’s astonishment, not just typing—his fingers flew in a frenzy, the machine noisily making a rapid series of clack-clack-clacks . As he went, this was then punctuated by the ding! of the bell at the end of each line and then the rip-whir as Niven worked the carriage return that advanced the sheet one line and reset the platen for the typing to begin again at the left margin. And then came another chorus of clack-clack-clacks….
* * *
Black Lion Hotel
Mold, North Wales
13th April, 1943
My Dear William
I cannot say that this Hotel is any longer as comfortable as I remember it to have been in pre-war days. I am, however, staying here as the only alternative to imposing my self once more upon your aunt whose depleted staff & strict regard for fuel economy (which I agree to be necessary in wartime) has made the house almost uninhabitable to a guest, at least one my age. I propose to be in Town for the nights of the 20th & 21st of April, when no doubt we shall have an opportunity to meet. I enclose the copy of a letter which I have written to Gwatkin of McKenna’s about your affairs. You will see that I have asked him to lunch with me at the Carlton Grill (which I understand still to be open) at a quarter to one on Wednesday the 21st.
I should be glad if you would make it possible to join us. We shall not however wait luncheon for you, so I trust that, if you are able to come, you will make a point of being punctual.
Your cousin Elizabeth Charity
* * *
“Elizabeth Charity?” Fleming said, reading over Niven’s shoulder. “Who’s that?”
Niven nodded at the Duchess and Charity, who clearly also were wondering about the mysterious but familiar-sounding relative.
“May I finish without having my every period and comma called into question?”
They all suddenly looked like schoolchildren reprimanded by the headmaster.
Niven’s fingers flew on, the clack-clack-clacks filling the air:
* * *
Your cousin Elizabeth Charity has asked to be remembered to you. She has grown into a sensible girl, though I cannot say that her work for the Land Army has done much to improve her looks. In that respect, I am afraid that she will take after her father’s side of the family.
The Double Agents (AUDIOBOOK) (CD) Page 23