*
Submerged, we made our way across the Indian Ocean, easterly towards the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java, crossing the immense deeps of the Sunda Trench north of Christmas Island. A nuclear-powered sub didn’t need to surface even to recharge batteries, of course. Cautiously we navigated between Belitung and Bangka, leaving Singapore to westward as we headed into the South China Sea. On past the South Vietnamese coast and into the Gulf of Tongking inside Hainan Island … a hell of a long run and a nail-biting one as the WUSWIPP deadline ran down inexorably and left me with a terrible feeling of helplessness. I filled in much of the time by further questioning of Ellum, but got nothing more out of him. As we neared our landing point, he grew more nervous, but that didn’t have to mean much: the nerves could have been due more to his increasing closeness to possible revenge from WUSWIPP than to an exposure of lies told to me and I was still convinced he’d spoken the truth in regard to where Nodd was situated. At the time he’d uttered about that, he’d been in the sort of condition when in my experience a man really coughs the facts, and in any case the Peking telephone call clinched, as I figured it, Nodd’s presence in China. There was considerable tension throughout the boat as Darrell brought the Hampton Roads towards the end of its voyage. The last stretch was taken at dead slow speed while Darrell searched around with his periscope just clear of the surface; he couldn’t in fact see a lot, since prudence had dictated the obvious: a night arrival. He wouldn’t let me take a look: he was the Captain, he had the responsibility for his boat, and he didn’t want to hit anything. He gave a commentary, with Rackstall listening closely. He had the China coast ip sight and he could see the lights of a town — from the chart, Pak-hoi. He could make out the long finger of Cape Pak-lung on his port bow. Between those two points was the bay, with Yamchow on a river at its head, which was our destination: around twenty-five miles to go to a nice, quiet spot for surfacing and launching an inflatable dinghy.
We crept on. Darrell reported some moon, which was unfortunate but couldn’t be helped. There was some cloud too, he said, so we might yet be lucky. He reported some lights from fishing craft as well, but these were distant, no worry. Otherwise everything was dead quiet and peaceful. Then he gave a startled whistle, threw up his periscope handles, and ordered the boat down in a crash manoeuvre.
“What’s up?” Rackstall asked hoarsely.
“Submarine on the surface, sir, heading towards us.”
“I’d like silence throughout the boat. Captain,” Rackstall said.
Darrell passed the order. As the boat steadied, men remained like statues. Necessary orders were passed in whispers or by hand signals. I glanced at Rackstall: he was reliving his war days. There was a good deal more tension now as the engine sounds were heard from above: the unknown submarine was passing smack overhead. When she’d gone, there were breaths of relief from all hands and I asked Darrell for an identification.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t wait too long to see.”
I said to Rackstall, “Could be your visitors, sir, the ones that shot up Roosenbacher.”
“Those lousy killers?” Rackstall said. I saw his fists ball, and saw the expression on his face. Badly, he wanted to surface and open fire. Simmering down, he said, “Well, we’d best resume, Captain,” and Darrell took his boat up again to periscope depth and on we went. The fishing boats dropped away astern and as we entered the bay for Yamchow there was nothing visible. It looked as though it could be a successful operation, at least to the extent of getting ourselves on to the Chinese mainland. When we were in position, Darrell surfaced enough to bring his casing awash and the inflatable dinghy was brought up, launched over the side, and held on a line from the casing. Miss Mandrake embarked first, and I stood ready, with gun, to see Ellum in. Then a hitch occurred: Rackstall said he was coming too. Obviously, he’d intended this all along though he hadn’t said so till now. I said I wouldn’t take him; if anything went wrong his presence would shatter the diplomacy that was so basic to the whole anti-Nodd operation. He argued, but knew he was on a loser. He was a much disappointed man and I eased the blow by saying he would be much better employed taking overall charge from the Hampton Roads. The plan was to be that the boat would lie off submerged, way back down the Gulf, closing each nightfall at periscope depth towards Yamchow to watch out for my party. It wasn’t much to rely on, but it was the best I could do, and I’m used to working on my own and seeking out my own escape routes, like any other agent. To the outsider, the risks no doubt appear appalling, but we get accustomed to them. So Rackstall remained aboard and off we went, into the blue, or rather the black of the night, with me wielding the paddle with great care not to make too much splash, and Felicity Mandrake covering Ellum with a revolver, and behind us the Hampton Roads slowly sank out of sight.
We were alone, and felt it.
China was an immensity of hostile land mass, and although what remained of our British presence at Hong Kong was only some 350 miles easterly by crow-flight, it didn’t seem at all comforting. I found myself thinking back to days before my own, when there was a powerful China Squadron of the British Navy stationed in Chinese waters under a vice-admiral wearing his flag in a nice big cruiser. Now there was nothing to speak of, which was not a thought to dwell on. I turned my attention to the future rather than the past: we carried weapons, and we carried water and iron rations that with care and frugality should last us six days. Of the WUSWIPP deadline there was a mere two days to run, so on all counts we had to strike gold fast and to do it we had first of all to merge into the Chinese countryside, inconspicuous, invisible if possible. I don’t go in for disguises in such circumstances. If I’m operating in a Western country, maybe; for preference, not elsewhere, and certainly never in the Orient. If I sat in a sampan on a Chinese river, wearing coolie garments and topped with one of those curious wide-brimmed straw hats shaped like a shallow pyramid, I still wouldn’t look in the least like a Chinaman nor would Miss Mandrake look like my wife. And as for Ellum with his bruised face and navy-bandaged arm …
As Ellum came into my thoughts, we happened to be approaching our landing place, selected by me from Darrell’s chart: a small cove backed by rising ground and flanked by it as well, a little to the west, which was a word that brought some comfort, of the river that would lead to Yamchow. And Ellum decided that the moment of disembarkation was the right one for his break. So he broke. As the dinghy beached, up he scrambled and gave Miss Mandrake a hefty shove so that she went ashore with a rush and upside down while Ellum scarpered up the sand. Not wishing to bring the Chinese around my ears by gunfire, I chased. What’s more, I caught the bastard, bringing him down Hat and winded with a rugger tackle. His suffering face was now further damaged, for it had hit a rock. When the stars went out, he sat up to face my gun. I said, “I’ll do my best to avoid using it, but use it I will if you force me to. Meanwhile, you’ve proved one thing, haven’t you, Ellum?”
He used some filthy words. I said, “Without support, you wouldn’t run — not in China. You spoke the truth about Nodd’s whereabouts, Ellum. Now we just have to pinpoint the location and we’re not going to waste time, so get on your feet and get moving.”
He got up, groggily. Since I would have to navigate, I turned Ellum over to Felicity Mandrake again for safe custody and we headed away from the water, making into forest-covered hills that provided natural cover. I had a compass, and I had maps in a weatherproof case, and I had a pocket torch. Ellum had said Nodd had his base between Yamchow and Shangsze, and that meant we could have up to forty miles of tough country to cover, maybe much more if Nodd wasn’t on the direct line between the two points. Ellum had never set foot in China before, so he’d said, and I was prepared to believe that, so he would be no use as a guide. Nodd, and this I’d known from the start, was going to be a needle in a haystack and time was short and getting shorter. I had already made the decision that Nodd had to indicate his own whereabouts, and back in Diego Garcia Ellum had
given me his radio call signal, at any rate the one that had been used for contact with the temporary set-up in the Candars. I had not been able to extract any information from Ellum as to a call signal for Nodd’s actual operating base, and again I was prepared to accept that he genuinely didn’t know it: Nodd would probably have kept the information from Ellum until Ellum needed to have it, a time that had not come. But a transmission to an extinct station might be picked up here by Nodd’s communication team, and it could cause some consternation in the heart and mind of Professor Nodd. When we were well back from the water and fairly high up on a hill, I brought out a ballpoint and unscrewed the end, pulling out a transistorised receiver and transmitter combined, tiny but powerful, made in Japan for 6D2. Then I pulled a knife and laid the point, which was razor sharp, against Ellum’s throat. I said, “You’re going to make a broadcast to Nodd, in English. If you get a word wrong, you’re a dead man.” I felt his throat move against the knife as he swallowed, and he drew in his breath as the blade nicked his skin. I gave him the message, made him repeat it twice, then flicked the tiny transmit switch and he was on the air. He obeyed orders. He passed the out-of-date call signal and kept on passing it until he got a response, in a voice speaking heavily accented English and sounding both cautious and surprised. Then the message went out: Ellum from Diego Garcia had been put on a draft back to the United States and because of this suspected he’d been flushed by security. He had jumped from a US Navy vessel taking him back home across the Pacific and had been picked up by a junk bound for the Gulf of Tongking. He had been put ashore on the west bank of the entrance to the river below Yamchow, where he awaited pickup.
Just that, then we went off the air.
It would be full of holes once put under the microscope and Nodd’s henchmen might well ponder on how Ellum had managed to avoid being eaten by sharks, but I knew they couldn’t afford to pass it up and that a posse would be sent pronto to investigate. All we had to do was lie low till near daybreak, then move back a little way towards the water for a nice view of any arrivals. As ever, of course, the plan held possible snags: there might be too many of the bastards, in which case we wouldn’t be able to risk an attack in order to capture a guide, and an attempt to follow wouldn’t have much hope of success since they would scarcely come all the way on foot if the distance was great. But no plan is certain of success. I told Felicity to snatch some sleep while I kept my gun on Ellum, and we waited through the night, which after a while became a wet one. The rain bucketed down, but ceased towards dawn, by which time we were wet through, and we enjoyed a spectacular sunrise over the Gulf of Tongking while we moved down towards the water’s edge, keeping in cover, watchful for what might appear. What did appear was totally unexpected, at any rate by me though I can’t speak for Ellum: three files of men, marching smartly, in some sort of denim uniform, not the uniform of the ordinary civilian but of the military, with red stars on the fronts of their peaked headgear. In rear was an NCO in command. As I cursed silently, Ellum took advantage of my surprise, squirmed away from my gun and leapt like a gazelle from cover, streaking towards the soldiery and yelling his head off, legs flashing in US Navy long khaki pants. The soldiers were nicely disciplined: one short, sharp order and they spread out, brought their rifles up to impassive faces, and opened fire. Very suddenly, Ellum’s yells ceased. He stayed upright for a moment, then crumpled in spreading blood. He was pretty obviously dead. As he fell the soldiers advanced at the double upon the spot he’d come from and though we made an attempt to withdraw it took them no time at all to dig us out from our cover. Six automatic rifles stared us in the eyes: they were Heckler and Koch 7.62mm assault rifles with banana clip magazines, German made and somewhat surprising to find here in China, but then arms do turn up in all sorts of weird places as a result of dirty deals and I’d heard that H & K’s had been seen in, for instance, Cambodia. There was nothing else for it and we came out with our hands up and I tried, in English, to offer excuses for our presence — uselessly, of course. I had no idea what the NCO was yacking about in so many words, but I couldn’t fail to get the drift. We were searched with extreme thoroughness and, along with our weapons, watches and whatnot, my ballpoint transceiver was removed. The NCO, who didn’t know what was in it, regarded it with interest and thrust it into a breast pocket as a spoil of war. Then we were marched away with guns in our backs, towards a metalled road where we were herded into an open truck. I could only guess at what our captors’ function might be, and my best guess was that they were a detachment on coastguard duty, or even Customs or some such. Illegal immigrants into Red China would be few and far between, but no doubt the authorities would have an eye to their revenue, and quite likely more fiercely so than at Dover or Newhaven. We travelled in company with Ellum’s riddled corpse, which was thrown in on the floor of the truck between Felicity and me. When we entered a town I fancied it must be Yamchow. The working day had started and we were much stared at as Westerners, persons now respectable owing to the trading developments. We proceeded through ramshackle outskirts of shanty huts Under a sun that would soon become ferocious. Reaching what seemed to be the town centre, where the buildings were of better construction, we passed on through to be driven eventually into a military barracks, or so I took it to be. There was a gate with a sentry, and there was a square, though no sign of men drilling or indeed of any other activity. The truck pulled up outside a long, low structure and Felicity and I were prodded out by the rifles and urged inside where a man, probably an officer, sat behind a trestle desk. A report was gabbled, the officer got up and went outside, probably to look at Ellum, then he came back in and I heard the truck driving off. The officer sat down again and spoke.
“Englees?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Who? Why come?”
I said, “I have nothing to say. I demand to see a representative of my country as a matter of urgency.” True, we would be disowned as operatives of 6D2, but not as British nationals wrongly arrested, and our men were always warned that in circumstances such as ours an appeal to a British diplomatic mission would be expected by one’s captors and its absence could arouse suspicion. Hence my probably useless appeal. In any case most of it was too much for his English, but he got the drift about not talking and he smiled nastily.
He said, “Speak soon.”
“Speak, nothing,” I said, and tried to squeeze Felicity’s hand. Something came down sharply from behind, and numbed my fingers. I said, “Please telephone the British Ambassador in Peking. I shall speak only to someone in our Embassy.”
The officer picked up a thin cane from behind the desk and flicked it across my face, both sides. It stung like hell, but I held on to my temper. I repeated my request, and the word ‘ambassador’ appeared to sink in. The officer got to his feet and walked up and down his office for half a minute or so, then swung round to face me. He said, “Persons from West — enemies of Chinese people?”
“No,” I said. “Peking and London are getting friendlier, while Moscow —”
“Unlawful landings. Only enemies come.”
“It can all be explained,” I said. I was sweating badly now. I was scared they would start taking it out on Felicity, but I was not prepared to mention Nodd to this provincial panjandrum, on the assumption that an enemy of Nodd’s was also an enemy of the People’s Republic. Once again, but now without any hope at all, I plugged the British Ambassador, and was doing so when there was an interruption. Another man, dressed in the regulation Chinese civilian outfit of plain cap and tunic of a drab greyish brown, stood in the doorway. He was a tall man, strongly built, with a high-cheekboned face, a man of obvious authority. The officer got to his feet and gave an obsequious bow. The newcomer seemed to ask a question, which the officer answered at a length that was cut into sharply with an order to the guards. At once we were seized again and with the rifles in our backs we were marched outside into the strong sunlight, across the dusty square, and into another building. We were
pushed along a smelly, dirt-littered passage towards a trap door set in the floor. One of the guards pushed past and lifted the lid, which swung up on a counter-balancing weight, and I saw greasy stone steps leading downwards. Commanded, obviously, to descend, we did so with care. The guards came down behind us and we found ourselves in another passage off which four heavy doors opened. An electric bulb glowed from behind a grille set high in a wall. A door was opened and we were literally flung into a cell, both of us together, and the door was shut and bolted.
9
That cell stank to heaven, or at any rate to its ceiling — there was no outlet to the fresh air at all, no window. It was close and foetid and there was dampness around somewhere. No furnishings of any sort, not even the sort of shelf to sit on that you associate with normal cells; and it was desperately small, no room to lie down, just room to sit against the wall and hug one’s knees in tight. From the neighbouring cells, sounds came coughing, belching and a mad-sounding voice raised in song. Sufficient explanation, perhaps, for Felicity and I being accommodated in one cell unit. Faint light filtered through a hole above the door from the single electric bulb in the passage, and we could just about see each other in the gloom. We were close enough to talk in whispers, which we did; the place looked far too primitive to boast a bug, other than the biting variety that was, but you can never tell and even though English was at a premium in the barracks a recording could be despatched to Peking.
I was more than a little worried about Ellum: not the man himself, but the various possibilities that might be deduced from his recent actions. Why had he tried to make a break just after we’d landed, and why had he dashed out towards the soldiers, unless he had had hopes of deliverance? If he had, then those hopes had been fatally shattered. But if he had had them, must that not indicate a positive involvement, known to Ellum, on the part of authority here in China?
Sunstrike_The next gripping Commander Shaw thriller Page 10