by Alan Evans
“Perfect.”
Thunder was left to herself.
Donoghue found orders waiting for him aboard Kansas, orders for the Atlantic and he called for steam from midnight onwards.
Commander David Cochrane Smith paced the deck of his ship, his mind busy. Davies had raised steam and the smoke hung low on the still air. Soon, now.
He remembered Sarah Benson going down into the boat and thought that he had seen the last of her and, now that they had made some sort of peace, he would have liked to have seen her again. But the chance was gone.
XII
Sarah Benson had not enjoyed the party. She suspected Smith had given it for reasons of his own, one of them probably that it was the last thing anyone would expect him to do. He had succeeded in that; she had seen the Chileans looking about them in baffled perplexity as the scrubbed officers sipped tea and that fat, pink-faced boy with the worshipping eyes had wound away at his gramophone. She had gone to the party as a duty, as an act of thanks and apology and that had been accepted. She had hated it. Tomorrow was in her mind.
She was wondering about Smith. The stories about a man who haunted parties did not ring true now. Smith was obviously a poor hand at parties, and except for the brief exchange with her his conversation had limped. And a devil with the ladies? No. So maybe the stories were only half-truths and there was another side to them?
Did it matter now? Thunder would sail out in the dawn, she was certain of that, and the cruisers would be waiting for her. If only Thunder could gain more time.
She stood on the deck of Ariadne and stared across at Thunder as the night came down. Ariadne’s deck was dotted with little groups of passengers watching as she did but she stood alone, a small, dejected figure. Cherry found her there.
She turned to him with hope. “Any news?”
Cherry shook his head gloomily. “Bad news or good, it depends on how you look at it. No diver. There are two working out of this port but both were hired for a job up the coast and went the day before yesterday. They won’t be back for a week. They were hired by Muller, not directly but through a couple of intermediaries and know ’em both. What makes it look good is they must have gone because Muller doesn’t want a diver operating here until he has one he can trust to keep his mouth shut. And that means something in the wreck. Before suspected it but now I’m certain. But without a diver I can’t prove it.”
Sarah asked, “What kind of proof?”
“I’ve thought about that.” Cherry paused. “Smith got a whole lot of stuff from her, log, ship’s papers, everything of that sort and it was all in order.”
“So …?”
“Wait a minute,” Cherry snapped testily, worried and on edge, “I’m getting to it. She was a collier for the cruisers and she had a first-class wireless. So — she’d send in code.”
“A book!”
“Right! And one of the places they didn’t get the chance to search was the wireless office. It’s in the superstructure and that’s where the book will be. If I only had a diver —” He groaned in frustration.
They were silent a moment, then Sarah said quietly, “I’m a good swimmer.” She was not boasting, simply stating a fact, staring out across the pool at the stained and battered Thunder.
“I daresay young lady, but I’m talking about diving.”
“So am I.”
Cherry explained shortly, “I don’t mean diving in. I mean diving under to a depth of ten or twenty feet into the superstructure!” His patience was stretched thin by the tension that tautened the nerves of both of them as the hours slid away.
It set her snapping at him. “I’m not a damn fool and don’t you dare treat me as one.”
“I’m not —”
“I know the diving you’re talking about and I can do it. I’ve swum around in that depth of water plenty of times.”
Cherry peered at her, upset and not liking the idea at all and his face showed it. He believed her. Once when he’d talked with her father that abrasive little man had said the girl could swim like a bloody fish. Cherry had worried himself sick over Sarah in the past but he’d had to put up with it because he needed her. But this —
Sarah still stared at Thunder and she spoke her thoughts aloud. “The Commander and I never got along very well. Maybe I’m partly to blame. But there’s a man who can make a decision. We can either sit on our rumps and do nothing; or —”
*
The sun dropped down behind the overcast in a red glow that faded and died. The town twinkled with lights and Thunder lay in a pool of radiance of her own making. Men worked on her decks, seemingly still repairing the ravages of the fighting that were visible to anyone who cared to look. Donoghue stood on Kansas’s quarterdeck, Corrigan by his side.
Donoghue said, “So he’s hauling up to Stillwater Cove tonight. He’s not going to be interned. He’s going to make a running fight of it.”
Corrigan sniffed. “He can’t run. Those cruisers can give that old lady two or three knots. It sounds like he hopes to use the mist that comes up just before dawn, but …” His voice tailed away and he shook his head.
“That’s right. But.” Donoghue scowled. “That mist hangs around the river and its mouth and that’s all. It’ll give him a few minutes of cover, just a little time. He can’t evade that gunboat and they’ll be out there waiting for him when he comes out of the mist. The light will be behind him and he’ll make one hell of a target.”
“He’s just trying everything he can.” Corrigan paused, then said, “They’re still working aboard her. Looked pretty good to me, both the ship and the men I saw. She should be ready when she leaves, ready as she’ll ever be.”
Donoghue said heavily, “God help them.”
*
Cherry’s boat took him ashore and then returned to Ariadne. Cherry held a diplomatic post and could not be involved. He walked up to the consulate, to wait.
His boatman, Francis, handed Sarah Benson into the boat when she descended the accommodation ladder. He was an expatriate Geordie, squat and barrel-chested. He had not shaved for several days and smelt strongly of the tobacco he chewed. He wore dirty trousers and a singlet that was blackstreaked with oil, hair curling through the rents in it. Cherry had told him all about it and he disapproved but he started the engine and swung the boat away from Ariadne.
Sarah sat on a thwart and said tonelessly, “I think we can do without the lights in a minute.”
Francis shrugged heavy shoulders. “Don’t suppose anybody’ll take any notice of us; they’ll all be watching her.” He jerked his head at Thunder. “Still, does no harm to be careful.”
He extinguished the boat’s lights.
Francis was mistaken. One pair of eyes noted their progress, blinked as the lights went out then strained to follow the boat as it slid softly across the dark water. The eyes belonged to Friedrich Kaufmann who sat in his own boat below the quay. He was there to watch Thunder but now he watched the boat and saw it slow, drift it to the stub of Gerda’s funnel that still showed above water, and come to rest there.
Sarah Benson stared at the black water that flickered jewelled reflections from Thunder’s distant lights. She sat in pale gloom, the darkness thinned by those lights and shivered.
Francis clambered forward over the thwarts, crouched before her with the light line coiled in his hand and asked uneasily, “You did say you had done a lot of this, miss?”
“I’ve been swimming since I was able to walk, I can swim better than most men and that includes under water.” She stood up, setting the boat to rocking gently. “Let’s get on with it.”
She pulled the dress over her head. Under it she wore only drawers and a short chemise that tucked into the waist of the drawers. She took the line from Francis and knotted it around her waist while he muttered, “Remember, I keep it pretty taut so it won’t foul your legs. And if you get into any trouble —”
“I tug and keep tugging.”
“Right.”
Sarah
wondered what he could do about it if she ran into trouble down there. She knew that Francis, like many another fisherman, could not swim at all. Now he was muttering, “Remember what Mr. Cherry told you about the wireless cabin, the layout; it should be something like that.”
“I remember.”
“There should be a table, a drawer or two under it.”
She nodded. She was shivering uncontrollably now and annoyed with herself because of it. The night air was not cold. She said again, “Let’s get on with it.”
Francis hesitated. He had an idea of the dangers involved in entering a submerged wreck, without an airline, in pitch blackness. Moreover this was a girl only half his age and half his size, terribly vulnerable now as she stood with pinched face and shivered. This was a job to be done and this girl had volunteered but he did not like it.
He said, “Take care, bonny lass. And good luck.”
Sarah lowered herself over the side, gasped as the chill of the water took her breath, hung on and breathed deeply, then went under. Francis saw her legs kicking, waving pale below the surface, and then they were gone leaving a trail of bubbles.
She had expected blackness but it was far worse than her fears. She worked by touch alone, striking down until one hand scraped on iron and she fumbled her way along the superstructure, passed one door, closed, reached the second that was the wireless office and found it open.
She dared not enter. She kicked up for the surface, broke into the air five yards from the boat and stroked towards it and clung to the side, gasping.
Francis stooped over her, peering closely and she panted, “About over there. But look, when I go down again I’ll have to find the thing all over. Take off this line, will you?”
“You’ve got to have a line!”
“I need it for something else.” And as he reluctantly picked at the knot, “The only way I can do it is to use the line as a guide.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Have you got a better idea?”
Francis had: pack the lot in. But he shook his head and she took the end of the line from him. Her breasts rose and fell under the now transparent chemise as she breathed deeply, then she was gone again.
That dive sufficed to mark the wireless office and she tied the line to the handle of the door.
On the third dive she followed the line and entered the office. After long seconds of awkward groping she located the desk and a drawer beneath. It was open and she felt a key in the lock but the drawer was empty. She turned to re-surface and found she had lost her bearings and went bumping around in the steel cell, fumbling for the door. She found it only when her lungs were bursting and lights wheeled across her eyes, kicked clumsily through it and up.
She paddled only feebly to the boat and clung to the side, exhausted. Francis said, “Good God! Here, let’s have you in.” He reached for her but she flapped at his hands.
“No! Leave me alone! Just give me a minute.”
He had to wait while she tried to fight down fear and fixed her mind on Thunder and the six hundred men aboard her … David Cochrane Smith. She said, “All right. I should have taken the slack of the line in with me. That’s what I’ll do. I found the desk and a drawer but it was empty. Must be another one.”
Francis said, “Wait a minute. The drawer was open?”
“That’s right. Key in the lock. Why? What is it?”
Francis said slowly, “If the feller in there had thought the ship was in danger or that somebody might get hold of the book he would have got it out ready to ditch it.”
“So it could be kicking around on the deck in there.”
Francis thought glumly, ‘Or lying at the bottom of the bay.’
Sarah said, “I’ll try the office again.”
Francis chewed his lip then said grudgingly, “Once more, then that’s the finish.”
“I’ll finish when I’m ready.”
He caught her eye and did not waste time on argument, but privily decided that this was the last dive and she would be hauled aboard whether she liked it or not.
He said, “It’ll be heavy, weighted so it would sink —”
“I know that!” She dived, and he waited.
She entered the office, taking the slack of the line with her in a loop around her wrist, feeling the light strain kept on it by Francis in the boat. She felt below the desk, around the chair bolted there, moved back towards the door… She felt rough canvas, a bag, a handle to it. It was weighty and rested on something. The thing moved, touching her arm as she lifted the bag. She felt at it with the hand that trailed the rope, meaning to push it away, but her hand clasped another, fingers groping.
Air exploded from her with shock. She kicked and went hand over hand up the line, banging through the door, iron stripping skin from her shoulders.
On the surface Francis felt her tugging and hauled in on the line, only to be checked as it tautened between him and the door below. Then Sarah burst up scarcely a yard away, threshed wildly one-handed, spat and took a whooping breath.
Francis thrust the boat away from the funnel and as it moved to her he reached over, grabbed her and manhandled her in over the side to lie gasping, shuddering. She still held the bag and Francis took it from her. “What happened?”
He had an arm around her, lifting her. With his free hand he reached to his hip pocket and pulled out a flat bottle. She accepted the bottle, gagged on the rum but felt it burn inside her. She shook her head or it shook despite her. Then: “There was a — that bag was lying on — a man.”
Francis said softly, “Oh, my God.”
Then the faint light around them was snuffed out. They turned as one to stare across the pool and saw Thunder, now a dark bulk except for her navigation lights, moving, slipping gently towards the channel.
Francis said, “She’s on her way.” He picked up an electric torch and crouched in the bottom of the boat, shading the light with his cupped hand. In the little glow he tugged at the straps of the bag that were water-soaked and stiff, then swore impatiently, took a clasp-knife from his pocket and sliced through the straps. The bag was waterproof and the book was dry. He opened it, riffled through the pages and sighed. His teeth showed as he grinned up at Sarah. “You got it. This is it. Their code-book.” He stepped light-footed aft and as he started the engine Sarah stared after Thunder, now a blurring shadow and thought, ‘This will make a difference, all the difference. This is his justification, this will give him time.’
*
Kaufmann blinked as Thunder slipped away but his eyes went quickly back to the boat moored over the wreck of the collier. The boat was also moving and there was no stealth about her now. The noise of her engine growled at him across the pool and she ran straight for the quay. His engineer asked, “We go?”
Their orders had been to observe Thunder and report but Kaufmann shook his head. He could catch the old cruiser at Stillwater Cove.
“No. You wait here.” And he leapt from the boat, ran up the steps to the quay and crossed it quickly to seek the shadows of the buildings. From that sheltering gloom he watched the boat sweep in, lost it as it ran in under the quay but heard the falter and die of the engine. A second or so later a girl climbed on to the quay, her dress clinging to outline the figure. She turned and called down to the boat, “I’m heading straight for the consulate. You follow when you’re ready.” She hurried across the quay and entered a narrow street.
Kaufmann hesitated only briefly while he reasoned. The girl carried under one arm a bag that still dripped silver drops as she crossed the quay. It had come from Gerda and she was hurrying to the British consulate. There was nothing conclusively menacing about that but it suggested — Enough. The mere possibility that they had found proof of Gerda’s real purpose was enough to merit action and Kaufmann’s course was clear. He could not follow the girl up that street but there were other ways to the British consulate. He broke into a run.
His way took him twisting and turning through alleys so narrow
that he blundered along in near total darkness. Once he tripped and sprawled his length but rose immediately and ran on, but limping now. He came out into a narrow street that ran on to a wider thoroughfare and there was light ahead of him there. The thoroughfare led to a square. Light spilled out on to the square from the windows of the houses that surrounded it but it did not reach the garden of shrubs and feathery topped trees that laid a dark shadow across the centre of the square. He ran to that darkness and into it, became part of it. He leaned against a tree and panted, wiped at his wet face with a handkerchief. He was a young and active man but the race had stretched him and the fall shaken him. He thrust away the handkerchief and closed his eyes for seconds, trying to regain his calm. That was essential.
The girl came hurrying around the square. As she opened the gate of the consulate and stepped on to the path leading up to the front door that door opened and Cherry came out. The sudden flood of light from the door set Sarah squinting as she approached but she could see Cherry in the act of thrusting something into his jacket pocket. It set Kaufmann to squinting as he stepped from the trees, the revolver held two-handed at arm’s length. It was a good shot for a man partly dazzled, whose breathing was still irregular. It was a distance of thirty feet and he missed Sarah by inches, but Cherry spun and fell as the shot crashed out.
Sarah was still for a shocked instant but Francis, trotting around the square, yelled and sprinted. She reacted and threw herself down so that the second shot slammed into the door-post. Kaufmann did not get another chance. Francis piled into him in a flying tackle that crashed Kaufmann’s head on the cobbles and sent the revolver leaping and skidding away.
Servants showed at the open door, peering out nervously. Sarah shouted at them from where she knelt on the path over Cherry, “Get a doctor! Quick!”
Cherry had been hit high in the chest and she snatched the handkerchief from his cuff to press on the wound. Then she saw the slip of paper, a corner of it sticking from Cherry’s pocket. She opened out its folds and read the telegram. For a moment she held it, taking it in, then crumpled it savagely and cradled Cherry in her arms. Cherry had been leaving to do his duty, reluctant though he might be. Sarah saw her duty differently. She peered down into his unconscious face and whispered, “We got the proof Smith wanted and I’ll see the Chileans have it.” Thunder’s wireless was wrecked but they could send a signal by the station at Punta Negro to Thunder where she lay in Stillwater Cove, waiting for the dawn. They could call her back. As for the telegram balled in her fist, she would find it — later.