by Peter Cave
The lights finally dropped away behind them, and there was only the white tops of the waves to disturb the enveloping blackness of the sea again. Following Graham’s lead, the four microlights dropped down again to the twenty-foot level and resumed their former course.
The constant wall of noise which had been drumming into each pilot’s head since take-off changed slightly in tone. Donnelly’s engine dropped in revs, fired up to full power again for a few seconds, then spluttered and died as the carburettor sucked in nothing but vapour. Deprived of its thrust, the Flying Lawnmower sank rapidly towards the heaving waves.
Out in front, Graham had noted the change in engine noise and began a long, 360-degree sweep which would bring him back round to Donnelly’s landing point. There was no need for Willerbey or Williams to make a similar manoeuvre. After cutting their own engines, they simply glided down to join their grounded companion.
On the surface of the water, the swell didn’t seem quite as bad as it had looked from the air, Willerbey thought. The twin sections of the craft’s landing hulls tended to damp out the worst of the wave peaks, and the troughs were at the most no more than two or three feet deep. Dismantling the Flying Lawnmowers and converting them into windsurfers would be awkward but not impossible.
The first priority was to get the four craft lashed together. While still in their microlight mode, the machines were totally at the mercy of the wind and waves, with absolutely no directional control or method of propulsion. In that highly vulnerable state, there was the distinct danger that one or all the craft could be swept away into the darkness, with little chance of ever finding one another again. Hurriedly, Willerbey uncoiled from around his waist a long length of thin but strong nylon cord which had already been weighted at one end. Holding the bulk of the coil firmly, he tossed the cord over to Donnelly, who lashed it around one of his spars and passed it on to Williams. Having completed his turn, Graham landed in the water some twenty feet behind them and taxied to join them before finally killing his engine. He tied his craft up on Willerbey’s side and gently pulled the four craft as close together as possible.
Willerbey glanced over at him. ‘What do you reckon, Sarge? Do we use the rest of our fuel to continue under power, or shall we strip down now?’
Graham considered the first suggestion before rejecting it. Although they could certainly use the remaining life of each engine in turn to tow the four craft along in flotilla, the plan had one major drawback: noise. The homing device they were using to close in on their target was highly accurate for bearings, but gave only a very rough idea of actual distance. They had no precise way of knowing how close they were to their quarry, nor where the shadowing Russian naval ships might be. Besides, Martin had warned them that there could well be at least one submarine in the convoy. Its sophisticated and delicate sonar gear would be able to pick up any surface noise from a range of several miles.
He shook his head. ‘No, we’ve had our joyride. From now on we do it the hard way.’ He turned towards the other two men. ‘All right, let’s get moving.’
On training exercises they had all managed to get the process of strip-down and conversion to well under fifteen minutes. But that had been on a comparatively calm sea. Under the present conditions, with the four craft surging up and down like horses on a merry-go-round, the job took over half an hour. Finally, however, the twin pontoons of each craft had been locked together into a single hull, the wings unzipped and converted into a sail and the engines and all extraneous parts consigned to the waves.
Williams was the last to finish his task. ‘What a bloody waste,’ he lamented as he dumped the expensive hardware over the side. ‘I could have taken that home for my neighbour’s kid to play with.’
‘Fond of him, are you?’ Donnelly asked innocently.
Williams shot him an evil grin. ‘No, I hate the little bastard. With a bit of luck he’d have broken his bloody neck.’
‘OK, cut the crap,’ Graham barked. ‘We’ve got to get moving.’ He scrambled to his knees on the bucking hull of his windsurfer, grasping firmly the rope which would haul up the mast and sail. ‘Now, everyone listen good. Once we cut apart and get moving, try to stay abreast of each other. Make sure each one of you has everybody else in sight at all times. One of us gets lost out there, and there ain’t gonna be any time to send out search parties. Anyone who is stupid enough to get isolated will head straight for the Turkish coast and beach where they can. You pay your own fare home.’
Willerbey, Donnelly and Williams all stared out over the black expanse of open sea and took the warning to heart. Even with the protection of a group, the journey ahead of them was formidable. Isolated and alone, it would be sheer hell.
Graham climbed to his feet, spreading them apart for balance and bracing himself with the rope against the wild, rolling motion of the waves. He gave the others a few seconds to follow suit and began to haul the sail out of the water.
It took Willerbey two attempts and Williams no fewer than four duckings before they were all upright, grasping the wishbones of their rigs firmly and holding the sails neutral to the wind.
‘OK, let’s go,’ Graham yelled. Bracing himself, he dipped the forward edge of his sail into the wind and hauled back on the wishbone as it billowed out with a surge of power. As if suddenly yanked by a giant hand, the four craft seemed momentarily to jump out of the water, then climb to the top of the waves, skimming across them at ever-increasing speed.
30
Graham let go of the wishbone as the dark shape of the Russian ship came into view, allowing the mast and sail to fall into the water. He dropped to his belly on the flat hull, glancing sideways to check that his companions had followed his lead.
They had come up on the ship unexpectedly, approaching at a tangent which would have put them directly across its bows in less than a minute. The vessel was in virtual darkness, showing only a single light at the stern and a faint glow of illumination from the bridge. It was close, and its current course would bring it even closer before it started to move away from them again. Certainly too close for shouted conversation, Graham realized. He unwound the nylon cord from his waist, attached it to the mast as a safety line and rolled softly off the board into the water. With a slow, gentle breast-stroke, he began to swim over towards Willerbey’s rig.
Willerbey waited until the man had draped one arm over his board and pulled himself up until their faces were only inches apart. The ship had now passed its closest point to them and was beginning to pull away. ‘That’s not a freighter,’ he hissed quietly.
Graham shook his head. ‘Frigate,’ he whispered back. ‘Riga class at a guess, and doing about eight knots – which would be about right for a night convoy in these waters. Looks like we’ve sailed right into the middle of the convoy, and they’re shadowing our target a lot closer than we figured. The signal beacon suggests we’re right on top of her.’
Donnelly and Williams had paddled their boards over to join them, just in time to overhear the last part of the whispered conversation.
‘Shit, boss,’ Donnelly hissed. ‘How the hell are we going to get past half the Russian Navy?’
It was a good question, Graham thought. If his guess was correct, the waters immediately around them were busier than Cowes harbour in regatta week. And if the rest of the Russian fleet were in similar blackout operation to the frigate, getting through them was not going to be easy.
‘Our best bet is probably going to be in outflanking them,’ he whispered after a moment’s consideration. ‘We skirt the rest of the convoy wide, home in on the freighter at an angle and then sail straight into her bow-wave. Then we pick our way along the side to the stern using the shadow under her hull for cover.’
Williams nodded reflectively. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he conceded. ‘But can we outrun them in time? It’s going to be first light in under two hours. Then we’ll be sitting ducks. The bastards will be able to use us for target practice.’
‘If this wind kee
ps up – no problem,’ Graham murmured confidently. ‘With a bit of luck we can close in with over an hour to spare.’ He paused, adding the necessary proviso. ‘But that’s assuming we don’t run into any unexpected problems, so keep your bloody eyes peeled.’ He let go of Willerbey’s board and dropped back into the water. ‘Right, let’s do it,’ he hissed, beginning to swim back to his own rig.
Fired with a greater sense of urgency, all four men pulled up their sails on the first attempt and edged into the wind once again. Tacking off to starboard, Graham set a course which would take them directly across the wake of the Russian frigate. When they were clear of the main body of the Russian convoy, they could close in on the freighter on broad reach and at top speed.
Graham’s estimates turned out to be a little optimistic. Their diagonal course proved to be slow going, and there were three more emergency stops as other Russian ships came into view at varying distances. At one stage, they found themselves sailing directly across the surface footprint of a submarine, which had obviously passed by at periscope depth only moments previously. By the time Graham considered it safe to set a direct course for the freighter, they had already used up the best part of an hour, and their target had opened up a gap of at least five miles. It was going to be tight, they all knew. Dangerously tight.
* * *
The first ominous signs of the impending dawn were already apparent as they finally closed in towards the side of the freighter. The overall blackness of the night was much lighter now, fading to a distinct shade of grey at the horizon point, where the sea and the sky could now be clearly identified as two separate entities.
Graham led them in fast, at an acute angle to the main bulk of the ship. Docking with the hull was going to be a tricky manoeuvre, requiring split-second timing and precision. The prow of his board cut into the bow-wave of the large vessel roughly amidships, and for a few horrible seconds it seemed as though he must slam right into her side. Then he dropped his sail, allowing the forward impetus of the windsurfer to be cancelled out by the repulsing effect of the ship’s passage through the water. The board slowed and finally came to a stop only inches from the vessel’s hull, slipping smoothly down its side towards the stern but already being pushed away again. His safety line attached, Graham slipped into the water and kicked out desperately against the effect of the bow-wave, reaching the ship’s hull again and gingerly pressed his magnetic clamp into position against its metal plates.
As delicate as his movements had been, the sound seemed to echo over the water as though someone had struck a gong deep within the bowels of the ship. Graham felt his heart quicken, as a rush of adrenalin coursed through his system.
Fortunately the manoeuvre did not have to be repeated by his companions. Instead they each in turn homed in on his floating board, now strung out from the side of the ship on the safety line, attached themselves and let their own rigs become buoys for the next man in line. Moments later the four windsurfers were trailing out across the bow-wave like the tail of a flying kite.
The three Marines joined Graham in the water, swimming in line towards him until Willerbey could clutch on to his leg and form the second link in a human chain. Finally all four men breathed an inner sigh of relief for small mercies, even though they were only temporarily secure and far from safe. The tricky part was over; now came the dangerous bit.
Holding grimly on to the magnetic clamp with one hand against the powerful tug of the bow-wave, Graham secured the safety line attached to his board to the device and grasped it again with both hands. Turning his head, he looked towards Donnelly, on the end of the line.
All the years of rigorous training, all the shared hardships and dangers, all the camaraderie of an exclusive and elite force were on the line now. One thing above all that an SBS man learned was that in a tight situation you had to be able to trust your fellow Marine with your life. That trust was now about to be tested to the full. The four of them were at their most vulnerable. One slip, one simple mistake or error of judgement and they would all be swept away from the side of the ship into the open sea, with little chance of survival or rescue.
Taking a deep breath, Graham nodded to Donnelly the signal that they were ready to make the next move. He held his breath deep in his lungs as the man turned his attention to Williams, setting up the next manoeuvre. Holding tightly to the man’s arm, he turned in the water so that Williams safely passed along the last of Donnelly’s clamps and he was able to change hands to relieve the tension.
Graham clipped the last of the devices to his belt and detached himself from Williams’ ankle. Reaching up with the one in his free hand, he placed it as high as he could then hauled himself up out of the water, taking his full body weight on the strength of one arm. Slowly, agonizingly, hand over hand, he began to climb up the stern of the freighter.
31
Graham reached the top of the stern and pulled his head up slowly and cautiously over the rim, scanning the immediate deck area for any signs of life. Everything was quiet. Having pulled himself over the edge, Graham swung his feet soundlessly on to the deck and dropped into the shadows between one of the stern capstans and the side of the hull.
Quickly but stealthily, he unwound sufficient coils of the vessel’s mooring rope and carried it back to the edge, then dropped it over the side for the rest of the men.
Light flared suddenly and briefly to the side of him. Graham whirled on the balls of his feet as a huge blond giant of a man stepped out of the gloom from where he had been sheltering against the wind, in the process of lighting a cigarette. The man gaped at Graham dumbly for a moment, still holding the extinguished match between his fingers as the freshly lit cigarette dropped from his lips to the deck.
Graham’s mind raced. His first instinct was to rush the man immediately, but his training kept him in check. The distance between them was too great, giving the Russian plenty of time to prepare himself for any frontal attack. Perhaps more to the point, the sounds of a fight would be sure to alert other members of the crew, and besides, Blondie looked more than capable of taking care of himself. Graham froze, awaiting the next move. It was not long in coming.
The Russian deck-hand’s initial surprise passed. His hand darted inside his shirt and came out clutching the butt of a 9mm Stechkin automatic pistol. So Pavlaski had been wrong about merchant seamen carrying weapons, Graham thought briefly. Or perhaps the Russians had known they were coming after all.
‘Who are you? What are you doing?’ the man barked in Russian, as he levelled the automatic at Graham’s belly, his finger tightening around the trigger.
Graham thought fast, the years of high-intensity training in adapting and reacting to unfamiliar situations coming to his aid. His body stiffened in a more than passable imitation of a Russian military salute.
‘Congratulations,’ he said quietly and calmly, in the man’s native language. ‘You have intercepted me successfully. This will look good on your work record, comrade.’
Graham was close enough to see a momentary look of doubt and confusion flicker across the Russian’s face. Obviously the man was not too bright, he realized with faint relief. He needed all the help he could get.
He allowed a thin smile to curl his lips, increasing the Russian’s sense of bemusement. ‘This is a military exercise to test the security of this vessel,’ he went on in fluent Russian. ‘You have done well. Now, please escort me to your captain so that I may pass on my commendation to him.’
This last master-stroke seemed to have done it, Graham thought, his hopes surging as the deck-hand’s apelike face twitched and jumped with uncertainty. Graham could imagine little gears and cranks turning slowly inside the man’s head.
The pistol in his hand quivered slightly, then dropped as sheer indecision made Blondie’s decision for him. He was a simple merchant seaman, not at all accustomed to the unusual degree of naval activity which had accompanied this particular voyage. It was not for him to question the strange ways of the Russian mi
litary. He was dimly aware that he had accidentally done something right, and was being praised for it. Now he was to be commended to his captain, and there was the ghost of a hope in the back of his mind that some sort of reward might be in the offing. In the circumstances, it would appear foolish to do anything which might spoil things.
Holding the automatic at his side, he nodded curtly in Graham’s direction, summoning him over. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I will take you to the captain.’
Graham smiled, moving towards the man. ‘This is a fine ship you have here,’ he said conversationally. ‘Yes indeed, a fine ship.’
Blondie just grunted, half turning to lead the way towards the bridge. It was the mistake which Graham had been waiting for. Leaping forward in a blur of movement, he closed the gap between them and brought the side of his hand down across the back of the Russian’s neck in a vicious chop. Apart from releasing a sudden hiss of breath, the big man collapsed soundlessly, folding up on the deck like some outsized rag doll.
Graham dropped to his knees beside the man’s crumpled form, every sense in his body in a state of full alert. If the conversation had been overheard by anyone, then they were in real trouble. His ears straining to catch the faintest sound, Graham was aware of Donnelly, Williams and Willerbey scrambling over the stern behind him, but other than that, the rest of the ship still remained as quiet as the proverbial grave. Taking the automatic pistol from Blondie’s fingers, Graham tucked it into his belt. Martin’s orders about no weapons were still very much in his mind, but circumstances had changed sufficiently for him to make a command decision. Now that crew members appeared to be armed after all, it seemed sensible to have a gun to at least brandish, if not actually use.