by Alan Evans
It worked. A moment of silence then a man rose from behind a rock to the left, his hands lifted above his shoulders. He started to walk towards Smith. As he approached, he spoke. “Ah sir. I’m very glad to see you—“
But Smith’s eyes were on the girl. A girl! He stared dumbfounded as she stepped around the motor car and walked towards him, holding herself stiffly erect, hands at her sides in the folds of her skirt, that ended just above her buttoned boots. He saw her face, pale under a mass of dark hair and the lips were a tight line and the eyes glared past Smith.
They were close now, the man’s hands coming down, one sliding inside his jacket. “I have my papers which will—“
The girl’s arm lifted from her side, straight, the barrel of the pistol like a pointing finger. She shot him.
The flame seemed to bum past Smith’s face as he started forward. He was momentarily blinded but his outstretched hand clamped on hers and tore the pistol from her. Sight returned and he saw her face again and it was rigid, without any emotion at all.
Smith swung away from her. The shot at point-blank range had kicked the man on to his back. He lay 1pread-eagled, eyes wide, a huge stain across his chest. Albrecht came running and dropped to his knees. When he arose he shook his head and started towards the man who lay by the motor car.
The girl said, “Luis is dead I” Her voice was flat, without emotion and Smith wondered was this really a woman?
Light glowed inland along the depression and they heard the sound of an engine. Albrecht stood up again and came back to Smith. He said softly, “He’s dead too, sir.”
The glow had grown and another motor car lurched around a bend in the depression and its lights swept the dark, wavered on the little group and the motor car halted. Smith held up his hand against the glare. The girl tried to run but Albrecht grabbed her. She fought him. “It’s the rest of them!”
Before the words could sink in the firing started. One shot, then a fusillade and Smith heard the air whisper around his head. He thrust Albrecht towards the beach. “Run for it!” He saw Albrecht running, the girl ahead of him, then dropped to one knee and lifted the pistol. He fired twice towards the lights and the shooting, aiming high but he heard a yell and the firing stopped. It was only for a few seconds but it gave him time to run up and across the plateau. As the firing started again he stopped and knelt and fired again, just one shot then the pistol was empty. He threw it away and started towards the beach, skidding down the slope in a shower of sand and pebbles.
Halfway down he met Buckley and two seamen, all three of them with rifles at the high port. Smith panted, “We’re being fired on and they may be following. Return the fire to keep their heads down but aim high! I don’t know who they are.” It was certain they had more right on this coast than he, even possible they were justified. Suppose they were police or troops? What a bloody mess!
They fell back towards the beach. Buckley jerked out, “There’s one.” A shadow lifted above the crest and spurted flame and sand kicked up a yard away. But then Buckley and the seamen fired a volley and the shadow ducked from sight.
They retired to the beach in good order, waded out to the pinnace and scrambled aboard. Smith gasped, “Return to the ship.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” The engines thumped slowly then gathered speed. The pinnace went astern then spun on her heel and headed out to sea. Smith watched the shore but he saw no one, there was no firing. It was still and silent, empty as they had found it, as if nothing had happened.
But it had.
The clouds humped black overhead now. Lightning flickered and thunder rumbled distantly. A flurry of rain blew in their faces. The sea was getting up and the pinnace pitched through it.
Smith asked, “Where’s the Doctor and – and—“
Somers answered, “He took the young lady into the cabin, sir.” He was intent on conning the pinnace but Smith could feel his curiosity and knew the seamen were watching him, too. They weren’t the only ones who were curious but Smith had to have answers to a number of questions and would probably have to be careful in finding some answers himself when he wrote his report.
He moved to the cabin but just then the girl blundered from it, staggered and almost fell then lurched to the side and hung over it, very sick. Smith stood beside her but did not touch her. When she raised her head he said, “I would like an explanation.” He said it stiffly, formally because this was a formal business; a man had been killed in front of him.
The girl said, “I’ll tell the Captain.” There was a trace of cockney in the accent.
“The Captain is dead. I am in command.”
Her face turned up to him, eyes searching. The lips trembled but the voice was still steady, tightly controlled. “What’s your name?”
“Smith. Commander David Smith.”
“You’re new.”
“I came aboard two weeks ago.” Then, realising: ‘’But how do you know—“
“I know the names of most of them. Garrick, Aitkyne, Kennedy—“ She shook her head as if to clear it. “My name is Sarah Benson. I suppose you could call me a spy.” She caught Smith’s stare and her lips twitched in bitter amusement. ‘’Cherry, the Consul at Guaya, will vouch for me.” Guaya lay a hundred-odd miles to the south.
She paused but when Smith only nodded guardedly she went on, “The German Intelligence agents are thick as fleas on a dogs back all up and down this coast. The last three months I’ve been all up and down it. I dug up a little bit here and a little bit there and maybe I dug too much because yesterday some fellers came looking for me. We had to run for it. Luis, the chap with me, a sort of chauffeur and handy man, he got shot. I had to drive the Buick. We were trying to reach Castillo so I could send a telegram to Cherry but they got word ahead of us somehow and headed us off.
“They drove us down the coast, trapped us. Then I saw the ship. I knew her. I’ve seen the old Thunder many a time since 1914. Luis used his jacket across one of the lamps to Hash a message but then they shot him again. Killed him. Poor Luis.”
Was there a catch in the voice then?
But she went on steadily. “The point is this: In this business you can sometimes find out what they know though you don’t go round stealing the plans and all that nonsense. More often you can find out what they want to know and that’s very important. I told you I’d been all up and down this coast the last three months. Well, everywhere it was the same. They wanted to know about Thunder. Where and when she made port. Where she headed. They have contacts of one sort or another in the telegraph offices and the shore wireless stations who pass them the information. If any ship at sea reports sighting you, the information goes to them.”
She paused again, her shoulders slumped as if the resolution was draining out of her now. She finished, “That’s all. What it was all about. They’re tracking you.”
Smith was aware again of the pinnace plunging and soaring, that they were close to the great black loom of the ship. Smoke from the four funnels rolled down to them on the wind. He believed her. More than that, he felt the prickling apprehension and the excitement building inside him as always before impending action. But action? Here? He asked, “Why?”
Her head moved negatively. “I don’t know. I don’t know for God’s sake!”
Lightning flashed again, close now and he saw Albrecht moving towards them. He saw the girl’s face, drawn, the mouth bitter. But he remembered her face as she shot the man who stood before her empty-handed, remembered the flash, the slam of the shot.
And she saw his reaction and turned from him. She had told him all he needed to know, she thought. She had not really told him about the wild ride on the bad roads with Luis sprawled on the floor of the Buick, his head on her knee and his blood on her hands. Nor of huddled behind the car while Luis exposed himself to send the signal, risked his life until they tore it from him. Of crouching and firing and sobbing with fear as the bullets smashed into the car. She had done enough; she was finished. She had been thr
ough a very bad time and she craved comforting and affection but Smith stood remote and stiff-faced.
Memory stirred. She said, “Smith. David- David C. Smith?”
Smith blinked. “That’s right. How—“
But then she crumpled and Albrecht caught her and she clung to him.
The pinnace tossed in the shadow of the steel wall of Thunder’s side until the big boat derrick swung out, the winch hammered and she was whipped up from the sea and swayed inboard. Sarah Benson, covered in blankets, was passed down to the deck and hurriedly aft to the Captain’s cabin in the stem. There were already two men in the sick-bay and Smith had not moved into the Captain’s cabin that was in fact a suite. The main cabin stretched the width of the ship with its long highly-polished table but a twelve-pounder crouched at each side as a grim reminder that this was a ship of war. The sleeping cabin lay to one side, further aft still was the day-cabin and this gave access to a stem walk that curved around the stem of the ship. A Captain - the Captain - could cut himself off from the rest of the ship and live in isolation. And so could Sarah Benson. Smith did not know what to do with her but she would not stay aboard his ship a moment longer than necessary.
He paced the bridge restlessly in the slanting rain that came in on the wind, swaying as Thunder rolled in the swell, acting the old bitch she always was in any bad weather. On the main-deck, where the crews of the guns lived and slept in the casemates, the sea would be coming in and swilling across the deck and the men would be cursing. Smith went over the girl’s story but it boiled down to that one phrase: They’re watching you.
Why? Why?
It was important, Smith knew it. He paused in his pacing to stare back along Thunders length, at her funnels that poured out smoke and soot and the big ventilator cowls that sprouted from her deck and marked her age like a woman’s grey hairs. He was uneasy.
*
They hove to again off Castillo and Knight came to him. Any further orders, sir?"
But Smith shook his head. Behind him Garrick glanced at Aitkyne, concerned. The story was all over the ship that there had been shooting ashore and men killed. So Smith should make a report to the authorities here.
He knew it. But there was the girl and her story. He was fishing in strange waters. He would take her back to her master- Cherry? That was it - at Guaya. After he'd talked to Cherry he would decide on his report and to whom to make it.
The pinnace crashed out of the night in bursting spray and Knight reported to the bridge... Telegram sent, sir. An' there was one for us, in code."
Smith nodded... Get on with it."
Knight went off to decode the telegram and Smith ordered a course for Guaya and went to his sea-cabin below the bridge. As he dragged off his jacket he caught the whiff of cordite that still clung from Sarah Benson's shot and he saw it all again, the man kicked back, the spattering blood and her face and he shivered.
*
Sarah Benson lay awake. Exhaustion claimed her but memory hinted then eluded her. Purkiss, the sick-berth attendant, brought her a cup of tea. He was twenty years old, nearly three years out from home and soft-hearted. He looked at her and was smitten. It was obvious and too good a chance to waste and she did not waste chances even when her eye lids dragged and her stomach rebelled. She pumped him. He talked to her about Gabriel, the sick-berth P.O., Albrecht the ‘orrible ‘un, Garrick and the others. And Smith. “Real mystery man. They shipped him out in a hurry - practically shanghaied him. There’s talk of a lady, a real Lady. They say he’s a reglar divil with —“
Albrecht came then but it-was enough. Memory functioned and the pieces clicked into place.
Her sister, Alice, was a governess in London and wrote her long weekly letters in copperplate about the War and Society and The Town. Sarah read them fascinated by an alien world. And one small item concerned a Commander David C. Smith, “a handsome, charming young gentleman they say…”
Sarah had looked to find a man in command of this ship because she felt Thunder might soon need a man. Instead there was this poodle-faking, social climber who had stared at her with horror as she shot the renegade Englishman. Oh, she knew the man and that he carried a pistol in a shoulder holster and his empty hands meant nothing. She had never before fired a shot in anger and the memory would haunt her the rest of her days. It haunted her now but she would not explain to Smith. He could think what he liked.
She was frightened, fear coming late to shake her, miserable. She was lonely, curled small in the bed and she cried herself to sleep.
*
Knight brought the decoded telegram to Smith. It came from the Consul in Guaya, Chile: "Request urgently your presence this port. Extreme importance." Cherry would not know Thunder's whereabouts. This telegram would be one of several sent to ports along the coast where she might call for news or orders. Smith handed it back to Knight without comment, grunted "Goodnight," trying to sound like a man who wanted his sleep and was unmoved by the adventures of the day or this telegram. But when Knight had gone he lay awake. "Extreme importance." "Request urgently." Cherry could only request but Smith would need to have a good reason to ignore that request. In the event it did not matter. He had to be rid of the girl and that meant Guaya and Cherry. Thunder had a rendezvous with a collier to the north but that was two days hence and she held coal now for eight days' cruising.
Cherry's telegram had come on the heels of the girl’s message but each carried its own warning. Of the same danger? What danger? The girl knew of no danger. Cherry spoke of none. But Smith was certain that danger was there. He lay wide-eyed, staring sightlessly at the deckhead above him with its slick of condensation and rust breaking through the white enamel in a red rash.
He slept, to wake sweating as the big ships roared down on him out of the night and a white-faced girl shot a man again and again.
If you enjoyed Seek Out and Destroy check out Alan Evan’s other books here: Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.
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Why not read the next instalment in the Commander Cochrane Smith series next?
Deed of Glory
Also in the Commander Cochrane Smith series:
Thunder at Dawn
Ship of Force
Dauntless
Seek Out and Destroy
Deed of Glory
Audacity
Eagle at Taranto
Night Action
Orphans of the Storm
Sink or Capture!
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