by Jeremy Duns
*
I was lost.
The Baltic lay beneath me, patches of ice glowing faintly in the moonlight, but I had no idea which part of Åland I was over, or even if I was over it at all. Templeton had marked Degerby on the chart, but the scale was too small and I had the growing sense that I was going around in circles. The wireless set wouldn’t help: Templeton wouldn’t have made it to his location yet and I didn’t dare land.
A sudden gust of turbulence slammed me against the side of the cockpit and I desperately tried to keep my hands gripped on the control column, fighting down the panic as my mind was filled with the consequences of failure. Templeton would have to send a signal back to London: man down, operation unsuccessful, please send replacement agent, this time make sure it’s someone with an ounce of bloody… And then, just as suddenly as it had hit, the wind subsided. I slumped back in the seat, my forehead soaked with sweat and my heart still racing, and managed to right the craft. Glancing down again, I realized I had dipped dangerously low. The ice was interrupted here and there by islets, and I glimpsed miniature coiled pine trees and pinkish rocks beneath the patches of ice. But there, over to the west, a lonely dot of orange light glowed like the tip of a cigarette. I consulted the chart, and did some quick calculations in my head.
Yes. It was Degerby.
I headed for it, lifting the nose but decreasing airspeed, and the shoreline began to take a sharper shape, until I could make out small wooden cabins dotted among the trees. A jetty came into view and I wheeled into a wind current and brought her down as gently as I could, the waves kicking up in a luminous curve of white spray. I lined up with the jetty and slowly brought her to a standstill, then climbed out.
I took in a lungful of air, savouring the freshness and the smell of the water, and then exhaled, my breath misting. I anchored, and took in my surroundings as the sweat finally started to cool on my skin. I was in a small bay, and it looked so peaceful in the moonlight, the water a perfect mirror reflecting the shoreline, that it was hard to imagine such a thing as war even existed. The wind had now vanished, as suddenly as it had appeared just minutes earlier.
The jetty led up to a rocky plateau, on which I could make out the outlines of some low buildings. I began walking towards them, but as I approached the shore I saw a silhouetted figure standing a few feet ahead of me. Before I had a chance to react, the figure had stepped forward, and the harbour lighting illuminated a stout man in a coat and cap with a deeply weathered face.
‘Kjell Lundström,’ he said in a deep baritone. ‘Chief Constable of Degerby.’
I offered him my hand. ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Dark. I’ve come about the German.’
His grip was hard, even through my thick gloves. ‘We have been expecting you. But I understood that Colonel Presnakov was to come by boat. We received no word of a seaplane.’
‘Presnakov is on his way,’ I said, replying in Swedish. ‘I’m a British officer from the Allied Control Commission in Helsinki.’
He didn’t answer for a moment, taking this in. Then he said: ‘I didn’t know Helsinki had been informed.’
‘A last-minute change of plan,’ I said. ‘Someone higher up the chain of command decided it was important, and it wasn’t my place to argue. I’m no happier about it than you are – I’d rather be asleep in my bed.’
He smiled at that, and I breathed an inward sigh of relief. My cover had, at least for the moment, been accepted.
‘Your Swedish is excellent,’ he said, as he helped me off the jetty and onto the rocks. ‘Have you been here before?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But my mother’s family has property in Eckerö.’
Lundström didn’t reply, but I sensed he was satisfied with that answer. Russians were hated in this part of the world, so he no doubt felt more comfortable with a Swedish-speaking Brit with connections to the place, however tenuous they might be. He led me up a narrow pathway through the pines until we reached a small wooden shed, painted red with white window frames in the traditional style.
‘Shall I show you the body, then?’ he said, and now it was my turn to smile – it was a truism that Finns never wasted words, and even though these islands were Swedish-speaking it seemed that some of the Finnish spirit had rubbed off.
‘Please,’ I said.
Lundström removed some keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.
*
It was a waiting hall: freezing cold and lit by a single bulb, with two low benches against one wall. There was a long table in the middle of the room, and on it, half covered in a tarpaulin sheet, lay the corpse. I asked Lundström how many others had seen it, and he told me that so far only himself, his son, who acted as his assistant, and the coroner who had conducted the autopsy had done so.
‘And the men who found him, of course. Two fishermen. They were out at Klåvskär when they saw something dark sticking up through the ice. One of them called me, so I took my son out to have a look.’
‘So it’s safe to walk on the ice at the moment?’
‘Oh, yes – it’s a few inches thick. We use picks to check it as we go along. That was what we used to get him out, in fact. Because what they’d seen was his head poking up through the ice, so we used a pick to cut him free. We put him on a sled and brought him back here for the autopsy. Drowning and exhaustion, the doctor said.’
I tried to imagine these grim tasks being conducted just a few hours earlier – the trek across the ice with the corpse on the sled.
‘How far away is Klåvskär?’ I asked.
‘It’s on the other side of this island.’ He reached into a pocket and brought out a chart, which he unfolded and held up to the light. He bit his lip while he searched it and then, after a few moments, pointed a stubby finger triumphantly at a spot to the east and gestured for me to take a look. ‘This was where they found him, in fact: Skepparskär.’ I stared at the minuscule dot. Templeton had been right. It couldn’t possibly be a provocation: there would have been no guarantee anyone would ever find the body in such a location.
Lundström folded the map back up and replaced it in his coat. ‘He will be buried in the village church tomorrow,’ he said. ‘They have a special section for foreigners washed ashore.’
I looked up. ‘Oh? Have there been many?’
‘This is the seventh this winter. We had one coming from Riga in almost exactly the same spot in November. The currents move from the Estonian coast straight here.’
So it wasn’t such an unusual spot to find a body. But still – two fishermen chancing by? I wouldn’t base a deception operation on it. And seven bodies in one place was not all that many. There must be hundreds, if not thousands, scattered around the Baltic from sunken ships.
I nodded at Lundström, and he leaned forward and drew the tarpaulin to one side, revealing the body. I caught my breath and crossed myself. My country and his might be at war, but this had nevertheless been a fellow human being, and ideologies no longer counted for anything – at least, not for him.
He had been a tall man, perhaps six foot. His cap and boots were missing, but the rest of his uniform was intact, although it had been unbuttoned, presumably for the autopsy. The body looked to be in good condition, the hands and feet bare but unscathed, and not even frozen. The head was another matter. This was what had caught the fishermen’s attention, and I understood why. It was a hideous shade of dark grey, and the left eye was badly disfigured, perhaps from having hit a rock or something similar. His throat, mouth and nose were covered in blood, some of which looked fresh. Lundström noticed my curiosity.
‘He was wearing a life-jacket, but it was frozen to his back. When we turned him over to take it off, the blood came pouring out of him.’
I nodded, and bent a little closer. Beneath the frozen horror I could make out the remnants of an aristocratic face, a sweep of hair, a moustache and a small beard. Templeton had told me that the Admiralty listed von Trotha’s date of birth as 1916 – could this man have been twenty-nin
e? It was hard to tell.
‘Did the coroner estimate an age?’
Lundström nodded. ‘Around thirty.’
I’d take his word for it.
There were no goggles or escape equipment. I tried to think what must have happened. Had he gone up to the conning tower to check something, and then they’d hit a mine? He could have been thrown into the air and then fallen into the sea, only for the currents to carry him up here.
I shuddered at the thought.
I lifted the identity disc from his neck and read: ‘Wilhelm von Trotha. Seeoffizer 1936.’ That must have been when he passed out. His effects had been placed in a wooden box next to him, and I sifted through them, feeling uncomfortably like a looter. There was a pocket watch and a wristwatch, both edged with rust.
‘We wound the watch,’ said Lundström. ‘It still works.’
I saw he was right: the hand was sweeping slowly around the face. How long could he have been in the water, then, for the mechanism not to have frozen? Templeton had said his last signal had been over a month ago. Was it possible he had been in the water that long? I picked through the rest of the items: a folding knife, a pen, several reichsmarks, a nail file. I glanced at his hands. His nails had turned black, but his fingers were long and slender. For some reason, I suddenly saw him as a character in a Tolstoy story, the officer in his dazzling uniform visiting his country estate, playing the piano and then returning to his naval base and to the bowels of his craft.
I took a deep breath and returned to the pile of effects. There was a gold tooth – a relative’s, perhaps? – a small mirror and, yes, there it was, just peeking out…
A booklet.
It was yellow, slim, with ‘SOLDBUCH’ printed on the cover in Gothic text. These, I knew from my training, were given to all German military, and contained the bearer’s service record, vaccination and other medical details, as well as space for their own entries. Templeton was hoping von Trotha might have written down what cargo his boat was carrying, and left clues as to where it might have sunk. I picked up the book and waved it at Lundström.
‘I’ll take this,’ I said. He nodded soberly.
I opened the booklet, and as I did, a loose sheaf fell out and fluttered to the floor. I bent to pick it up, and my heart started beating faster. It was an envelope.
Sealed orders.
There was a knock at the door, and I placed the envelope in my coat pocket. I nodded at Lundström, who went to open it. A boy with a pale bony face, perhaps a year or two younger than me, entered the room.
‘Pappa…’ He hesitated, as if unsure whether or not to interrupt.
‘Yes? Well, spit it out, boy!’
‘There is someone here to see you.’
He stood to one side, and another man walked into the room.
*
He was tall, fair-haired and wore a blue civilian suit and greatcoat, both of which looked like they had been made in Savile Row. He had a fleshy, sallow face and pale green eyes, which coolly took in the scene: two men hunched over a corpse. I felt myself shrink into my skin.
‘Who are you?’ said Lundström bluntly. ‘Jan, please leave us.’
Lundström’s son bowed briefly, and shut the door behind him. The wind whistling through a crack in one of the window frames suddenly sounded like a howling hurricane.
The man hadn’t shown any sign of having heard Lundström’s question. His eyes continued to scan the room, absorbing and processing all the available information, until finally he turned to Lundström, a fixed smile on his face, and extended a leather-gloved hand.
‘Jasper Smythe, Second Secretary at the British Legation in Stockholm. Who does the seaplane belong to?’
I stepped forward.
‘Me. Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Dark, from the Allied Control Commission in Helsinki. Would you mind if I see your papers? I wasn’t told of anyone from Stockholm being sent here.’
He looked at me with undisguised surprise.
‘Helsinki? I wasn’t aware—’
‘Please show me your papers,’ I said firmly, ‘and tell me who sent you here, and for what purpose.’
I moved my hand fractionally to my underarm. He registered the movement, and by a small inclination of his head showed he was not going to upset the precarious situation, and asked if he could remove his identification from his coat. I nodded in return, moving my hand to the barrel of my gun.
I shot him as soon as I saw the glint. The bullet hit him full in the chest, and a cloud of red mist rose from his coat, then dissolved, leaving his lapel splattered with blood. A moment later, his legs crumpled and he fell, landing on his knees. His eyes stared out, frozen in astonishment, and then he toppled forward, his head thudding dully against the floor.
The stench of cordite rose in my nostrils as I stared down at him, the sound of the shot still ringing in the air. My stomach was hollow, and my hands were shaking. With an effort I placed the Browning back in the holster. It had all gone terribly wrong, and I suddenly thought of how Templeton would react when I told him. He had said I must stop anyone who got in my way, but still I’d failed him.
I looked up at Lundström, whom I’d forgotten about, and saw fear in his eyes – he was worried he might be next. I quickly leaned down and pulled open Smythe’s coat, doing my best to avoid the widening pool of blood and matter. His left hand was a mess of gristle and bone, but the forefinger was largely intact, and it was wrapped around the trigger of a Luger.
‘He was going to shoot me,’ I said, as calmly as I could. ‘He was a Russian agent. You understand that, don’t you?’
Lundström pursed his lips together and drew his breath sharply. I recognized the gesture as one Mother had sometimes used. It meant yes.
I moved to the door and opened it.
‘Wait here,’ I told Lundström. ‘Don’t touch a thing.’
*
I pulled the Browning back out of its holster and crept down the path leading to the jetty, my heart thudding fast. Lundström had said he was expecting a Presnakov – had there just been a change of personnel, or had the NKVD taken over because they knew about the Winterlost, and sent an agent disguised as a Brit? More importantly, had ‘Smythe’ come alone?
As I neared the jetty, I saw that there was a small motorboat tied up next to the seaplane. There was nobody in it, and I searched it quickly: it was empty. A bird circled above me, then swooped down and lit on one of the seaplane’s pontoons, squawking some threat to the fish below. Then it lifted its wings and soared away, leaving just the sound of the waves lapping in the darkness.
I returned to the waiting hall, where Lundström was in the same position as I’d left him. He was in shock, but it passed as soon as I’d explained the situation to him: the Soviets would soon be wondering what had happened to ‘Smythe’, and would send someone else out to investigate. He immediately suggested that he arrange for Smythe’s body to be buried along with von Trotha’s in the nearby church. If the Russians sent someone else, he would deny all knowledge of having seen Smythe and they would have no choice but to take his word for it. They might suspect foul play, but there was always the possibility Smythe had suffered a mishap in the journey over here, and they wouldn’t be able to prove otherwise or kick up any sort of a fight – after all, the dead man had supposedly been a Brit, not one of theirs. By the look on Lundström’s face, he would enjoy stonewalling the Russians.
I agreed, and shook his hand, then returned to the seaplane. Von Trotha’s sealed orders revealed what Templeton had suspected: U-745 had been carrying a new form of mustard gas, Winterlost, which was stored in a special compartment in the vessel’s main storeroom. In the last entry in his notebook, dated 5 February, von Trotha had given his coordinates. I plotted them on the chart and found they were very close to a tiny island called Söderviken, just south of the Finnish port of Hanko. Presuming that the U-boat had been hit somewhere nearby, it might be in shallow enough waters for me to reach.
I took the wireless
set out of its suitcase and crouched on the jetty with it, shivering as the wind snapped the rod aerial back and forth. I sent the signal to Templeton to say I had the coordinates and that they were close by, but didn’t get any response. I checked the connections and sent the message again, and this time the ‘dah-dit’ came back in my earphones: proceed as planned.
I climbed back into the seaplane, stowed the set and strapped myself in, trying to steel my mind to the job ahead. It was coming up to six o’clock as I took off again, and a faint light was creeping into the sky. The ice stretched out for a few miles east of the archipelago, then broke up into open water. I flew as low as possible, looking for landmarks on von Trotha’s chart, but apart from the occasional islet or rock the seascape seemed almost featureless, and I started to worry I would get lost again. I considered taking one of the Benzedrine tablets to wake myself up, but decided that fatigue wasn’t the problem – if anything, I needed to calm down.
I finally spotted a small lighthouse and hovered above it as I searched for it on the chart. Having found it, I arrived about an hour later at the point von Trotha had marked, and landed in a squall of rain just as dawn was breaking. I climbed into the cumbersome diving suit and sealed it with the clamp, then went through all the checks with the breathing apparatus and the oxygen cylinders, fighting down my mounting sense of claustrophobia – Clammy Death, indeed. For one shaky moment, I fancied I saw a shape in the distance moving towards me over the water, but then it vanished; it was just a trick of the light. I remembered the lines of poetry one of the other lads at Loch Cairnbawn had always muttered to himself at this point:
Our plesance here is all vain glory,
This fals world is but transitory,
The flesh is bruckle, the Feynd is slee:
Timor mortis conturbat me.
I shuddered, then dismissed it from my mind. I had enough oxygen for six hours, I had used this type of equipment before, the Soviets were no longer a threat and the objective was at hand. I checked everything again one last time, then adjusted the mouthpiece and nose-clip, opened the cockpit door, clambered down to the pontoons and slipped into the dark water.