SKELETON GOLD: Scorpion (James Pace novels Book 3)

by Andy Lucas

  As he was reading, a white-coated steward entered and presented him with a chilled bottle of San Miguel beer; a supply had been specially stocked before the voyage at Pace’s request. Although he was quite happy to drink a variety of beer brands, Spain’s premium beer remained his favourite.

  He hadn’t ordered one but he smiled his thanks and sampled a swallow of the cold, familiar liquid. The next thirty minutes passed in slow, meticulous concentration. The initial entries were fairly mundane, as the diary covered a period of nearly two years.

  The man’s name had been Paul Pringle but so eloquent were his words that Pace could almost feel his presence in the saloon.

  An experienced submariner from the early inception of the science, Pringle had been involved with Royal Navy submarines since 1912. Rising to the rank of lieutenant, he had been in line for his own command by the time the First World War broke out in 1914, whereupon he had been transferred to the command of a man named Captain William Barrett. Pringle described their submarine in unflattering terms several times throughout the diary; as a death-trap, an accident waiting to happen and a metal coffin. He had obviously been less than impressed.

  Pringle was very candid about his feelings within his entries but he kept operational specifics to a minimum, Pace assumed in case their boat was ever captured by the enemy. Although coordinates and destinations were omitted, there were often detailed comments relating to weather, distance and time, as well as less frequent lines relating to surface speed and diving runs. McEntire’s experts had found it fairly easy to work out where the submarine had gone to, and for how long. Sure, it wasn’t pinpoint accuracy, but they were confident of accuracy to within fifty miles.

  Pace had no idea how advanced submarines from that period actually were. He gleaned from the pages that it was a K-class, steam-powered vessel. Unwilling to read on until he knew a little more, he took a detour to the office and logged on to the internet. There wasn’t a great deal of information on this type of submarine but a few grainy old photographs showed them to be huge and surprisingly modern in appearance.

  Originally designed to accompany surface vessels into battle, the paltry speed generated by small diesel engines and the even worse performance produced by batteries whilst submerged, had convinced the Admiralty of the need for speed. In those days, one of the articles explained, submarines were seen as visually powerful warships and, therefore, they needed to start their attacks on the surface.

  Therein lay the problem. In order to keep up with a battleship on the surface, a submarine needed to be able to reach a speed of twenty-five knots. The only way of achieving this kind of performance at the time was for a submarine to run on steam; hence the K-class boats.

  Special, retractable funnels were built so that the submarine could run on steam while on the surface and the system had apparently worked very well, until the vessel needed to dive. Pace quickly scanned several documents on the computer screen in front of him, rapidly gleaning an understanding of how many accidents had occurred to K-class submarines, and how many men had lost their lives through technical failures linked to leaking and faulty funnel seals.

  Reputed to be hated by submariners of the day, they were considered to be an almost suicidal posting for a seaman; certain death within a year.

  Back in the saloon, he ploughed on through the diary. He knew that he needed to gather all the detailed information on the last run, but that could wait. He was more interested in getting a measure of the ghostly writer first.

  From what he read, it was clear that Pringle’s submarine was not assigned to the main fleet. Even without a great deal of detail, the operational runs seemed to be lengthy voyages, with clear references to secretive cargoes and to Scorpion. Pace idly wondered who named the project and what kind of sting it was supposed to suffer upon the enemy. There was no indication that the vessel had ever engaged the enemy, either with torpedoes or its surface guns.

  The final entries began in a fairly mundane manner, with general comments about leaving port and sailing for many weeks. Thoughts of loneliness, and of a family left behind, filled the yellowed pages with promises of a better future once the war was over; like millions of similar nautical journals penned since the earliest beginnings of human navigation.

  But something had gone terribly wrong with the final mission. The journal spoke of the submarine arriving at its unspecified final destination on time, having already successfully completed drops to two other bases. The handwriting was unchanged within the book up until that point, whereupon the last few entries were increasingly spidery, and not written in the ink.

  Correctly, and disturbingly, Pace recognised the dark, vaguely red script as blood; he didn’t know if it was from an animal or from Pringle’s own veins.

  It gave him a strange sense of unease, reading the words again, as though the long forgotten catastrophe might have happened yesterday, and to a friend. Having read his most intimate hopes and thoughts, Pace almost felt as if he knew Pringle.

  Slowly and carefully, Pace immersed himself in the last few pages.

  7

  Trying to bring the motorboat into shore was not an easy feat, even for an experienced sailor. Although Pringle had chosen to spend his working life aboard submarines, he had developed an early affinity with water, becoming an accomplished small-boat sailor before he reached his teens. He even had his own twelve-foot sailing dinghy that he kept moored up at the local yacht club in his home coastal town of Yarmouth, not that he managed to get home much anymore.

  It seemed like an eternity since he had last held his beautiful wife in his arms. As he tried to wrestle the boat onto a straight course in a crashing swell, the likelihood of smelling her soft, dark hair and feeling her warm breath against his cheek again seemed remote. Childhood sweethearts, they had only been married for a year before he was posted to Barrett’s boat. With the onset of hostilities between the great powers, the wonders of her smooth skin and warm heart were a distant memory.

  Pushing away a pang of tangible loss, he resolved to bring the boat into the beach in one piece. He would like to have been blissfully ignorant of the nature of the desolate, unforgiving coastline, if he was lucky enough to survive the landing, but sadly he knew all too well what awaited him.

  He knew that the smooth, empty beaches were the gateway only to torturous deserts, uninhabited for the most part. He had no food or fresh water with him and the only other humans that might be nearby had already killed several of their crew and stolen the submarine. Any enemy left on the land would hardly welcome a survivor with open arms.

  It was as these depressing thoughts were forming in the back of his mind that something stung his cheek sharply. Instinctively his hand flew to the heavily bleeding wound and pulled out a large splinter of wood. Looking around, he spotted that a piece of the boat’s wooden engine housing was missing; doubtless part of that wood had flown up and hit him.

  As he watched, horrified, the reason for the hole became clear when a new line of huge holes suddenly stitched their way across the boat, as bullets from unseen weapons strafed the motorboat, narrowly missing him as he dropped low to the floor.

  Although the boat was careening up and down wildly in the grip of a heavy surge pushing it towards the beach, perhaps thirty feet away now, someone was pouring lead in his direction. They definitely want no survivors, he thought bitterly.

  Making a decision, Pringle threw himself up and over the side in one, swift movement. Sucking in a deep breath, he hit the surprisingly cold water and dove down deeply. Opening his eyes, he ignored the sting of the saltwater as he felt his outstretched fingertips dig into the sandy bottom a few seconds later.

  Twelve feet down, Pringle swam a parallel course underwater, keeping the beach on his right. After a minute, he allowed himself to slowly stroke upwards until his head broke the surface. Taking a fresh lungful, he dived straight back down under the water, staying as deep as possible to avoid the worst effects of the surging tide above him.
/>
  Pringle repeated this move half a dozen times until the chilly water and sheer exertion of fighting the waves finally sapped the last remnants of his stamina. This time when he surfaced, he rolled over onto his back and allowed the waves to sweep his body in to the shore, feeling the hardness of the beach grind beneath his shoulder blades a few minutes later. Without the luxury of time to rest, Pringle rolled over onto his front and lifted his head up just a fraction so that he could survey his surroundings.

  Frantic swimming had taken him nearly a mile from the motorboat’s last position. Although he would not have been able to spot it in amongst the crashing foam, at such a distance, there was nothing left of it to see anyway.

  His assailants had found their range and shredded it with a thousand rounds from two heavy machine guns, hurriedly set up at the water’s edge. The few bits of it that remained either floated as wooden fragments on the surface, or sank to the seabed if they were made of metal. The submarine was gone, the boat was gone, and his future looked grim.

  Waiting in the water was not an option, so he slowly made his way up the beach, wriggling on his stomach. Just as he started moving, he caught the sound of a gunshot, cracking in the distance out to sea. Suddenly focused, he strained his ears and was rewarded by a second shot, then a third. His heart lurched! Equally spaced, it told him that Barrett had somehow managed to sink the submarine. How? With what? He couldn’t say but it spurred his resolve to survive.

  With the sun burning lower, it was slow, sweaty work but after half an hour or so, he reached the thicker sand where the actual desert began sloping down towards the surf. There was no cover of any sort; no grass or bushes, only golden, scorching sand.

  Aware that he would soon start to dehydrate, Pringle hauled himself up over the lip of the sandy ridge and crawled a few feet further inland. The sand was deep here and it didn’t take him long to dig out a shallow pit for himself to lie in. Piling sand back on top of himself until he was totally covered, he lay on his belly with just a few inches around his mouth and nose open to the fierce heat, covering them with a piece of cloth torn from his shirt to act as both a sand mask and a sunscreen. He had a clear view of the sea shore and scanned the water until his eyeballs ached, hoping to spot Barrett.

  Stuck there until nightfall, when it would be safer to move, he resigned himself to helplessness and finally dozed off.

  Pringle did not know what roused him but he awoke to darkness. It was difficult to hear anything with his head buried beneath the sand but he strained his ears to pick up the slightest vibration. After a few minutes he risked moving his arms beneath the shallow sand cover, bringing them up to his face so he could pull the cloth mask off. Still no sound, so he slowly lifted himself up out of his scrape and dusted the sand off.

  The night was clear and bright. A full moon hung low in the sky and the stars were just beginning to put in an appearance, telling him that it had not been dark for very long. At this time of year, he mused, that would make it about nine o’clock. He hadn’t bothered to check his wristwatch because it was not waterproof. After his dunk in the sea, he knew it would be ruined. It was a great surprise to him, when he did cast a glance down to his left wrist, to note the hands moving perfectly normally in the moonlight.

  ‘Finally, a bit of luck,’ he muttered softly. ‘Now all I need is some water, food…..and a boat.’ The sound of his own voice cheered his spirits a little and he shook himself fully awake. He was going to need his wits about him if he was to survive.

  Turning very slowly on the spot, he scanned the horizon in every direction. To the east lay the parched African interior that he knew took the form of thousands of square miles of desert in this particular part of the continent, while to the west sat the vast emptiness of the Atlantic Ocean.

  The coastline ran pretty much north to south; hundreds of miles of lifeless beach that might look beautiful to the casual observer but actually offered little by way of food, drinking water, or shelter.

  Pringle knew that he had only one chance and it lay with the people they had come here to deliver their cargo to. Nobody on the submarine had ever gone ashore before; the boat had always come out and the transfer of cargo would take place at sea. He had no idea where the boat came from, or where it went to, in this apparent wilderness but he knew the base must be somewhere close by. It might be that their own people had turned against them, or could it be that the Germans had discovered their secret runs and were behind all the flying bullets? Somewhere, nearby, answers could be found, he was sure.

  Trudging back to the ridge he cast a loving look out over the shimmering ocean and felt a familiar surge of optimism that looking at the water always gave him. Somehow he would find the base, get the answers he needed, and get home to England.

  Knowing the compact sand of the beach would be easier underfoot, Pringle walked back down onto the beach and started to walk slowly back towards the area where his motorboat had been decimated. He knew he hadn’t come far so he moved quietly, scanning the darkness ahead as best he could.

  Finding the research base was actually far easier than he imagined it would be. So far away from civilisation, many miles from even the smallest native settlement, the builders had seen little need for concealment. After walking for three miles, a twinkle of light inland left caught his eye. Climbing back up the ridge he spotted a series of lights in the distance, standing out in the dark, barren landscape as brightly as a Christmas tree.

  Invisible to the eye from the sea due to its position in a deep depression in the land, drawing closer exposed it easily. Hurrying, heels kicking up sand as he quickened his steps, his ears soon picked up faint wafts of dance-hall music, floating out to entice him with an invisible, crooked finger.

  The base was larger than he had imagined, consisting of three, single-storey rectangular buildings set around a triangular, central courtyard. In the glare of dozens of distant electric lights, Pringle saw there was no perimeter fence.

  ‘Out here, why would you need one?’ he asked the empty air. ‘Anyone who comes here must have been invited. Except for today,’ he added belligerently, as if almost expecting a reply.

  Two of the buildings had a line of windows set into their walls; most lit, a few not. The third building had solid walls and remained sheathed in shadow.

  Making his way nearer, keeping low, Pringle closed the distance until he was barely five hundred yards away. He could clearly make out a small boat trailer; the boat that had been destroyed a few hours earlier. It was of a kind that could be pushed manually along the narrow-gauge set of rails that he saw snake away from the base, heading down towards the sea.

  He had no idea what was going on in the lit buildings. All he could be sure of was that there were still people here. That might mean a radio, or another boat. It would definitely mean he could get hold of some provisions.

  The evening air grew chilly as the night aged. By the time that midnight drew near, Pringle had been surveying the scene for well over two hours. He had kept low in the sand and was stiff from lack of movement. Not willing to risk exposure and a hail of bullets, he forced himself to ignore the grumblings of his body and maintained his prone position for another hour.

  The strange thing was that he hadn’t seen a soul for the entire time. No noise sounded above the drifting music and no hint of shadowed movement had crossed the inside of any of the brightly lit windows. The place looked deserted but he was sure there were people there. Maybe they knew he had escaped the sinking of the motorboat and were waiting out there; guns poised, ready. A trap?

  Even so, waiting was doing him little good at all. Better to just move now, while it’s still dark and the music will cover my steps, he thought. He stood up and shook out his tired muscles before setting off towards the windowless building that was facing him, moving at an easy lope.

  Nobody materialised out of the night to challenge him and Pringle reached the solid, brick-built structure without incident, pausing to listen. The spacing of the ex
ternal lights left little shadow anywhere. His only chance to stay hidden was to move quickly, crouching low to the sand, arms outstretched for balance. Moving around the outer wall, he peered around the corner and studied the central courtyard, breath held momentarily. A flagpole, proudly wearing a limp Union Jack at its tip, joined two twenty-foot high lighting poles in the middle but otherwise it was deserted. Entrance doors to all the buildings were clearly visible.

  Moving forward until a door handle knocked into his right elbow, he grabbed it and twisted. Locked. He wasn’t surprised. It was the building with no windows and probably built that way for a reason. The music was coming from the building closest to him and he noticed the door was unlatched, swinging gently on its hinges.

  With nothing to lose, Pringle stood up and made a mad dash across the courtyard, losing his footing in the deep sand at one point and crashing to an untidy heap on the ground. Up and running again in a flash, he reached the swinging door and stepped through, fists raised in front of him and ready to defend himself with the only weapons he had.

  8

  Nobody was home. In fact, despite two hours of slow, deliberate scouring of both unlocked buildings, he remained the sole human occupant.

  The interiors were luxurious, if empty. The first building he searched housed a well-appointed kitchen, pantry, reading lounge-cum-library, saloon with well-stocked bar, card room and even a billiard room; complete with full-sized table, overhead light and a dozen walnut cues. The second building was obviously the accommodation block. Several separate bedrooms were each fitted with deep, plush carpet and sported decent-sized beds and highly polished mahogany furniture. Three separate toilet and shower rooms served all the missing occupants.