Forbes said savagely, ‘We go on, Pilot. There’s nothing else we can do now. We may weaken the structure in the end.’
Once again, he brought the ship round. The pounding was resumed as he came abeam. There was a stench of hot metal and expended explosive. But the concrete refused to yield. There seemed to be no weak spots anywhere. Forbes stood like a statue in the bridge wing. He had been a fool to try: all he had succeeded in doing was to take his ship and her company into a trap from which there could be no escape. If he withdrew now and re-entered the channel for the outer fjord, the alerted Luftwaffe would be waiting for him at the other end. If not them, then the Scharnhorst and the Hipper with their immense guns.
He tried once more: the result was the same. He was using pea-shooters. It was just no bloody use at all. He turned to Cameron. ‘Get the Resistance man back up here—Nordli.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Cameron left the bridge at the rush, sliding down the handrails of the starboard ladder as the ship came round under full helm. He found Jakob Nordli on the upper deck, shaking a fist towards the shore and swearing in his own language. Cameron said, ‘Captain wants you.’
‘What for?’
Cameron said, ‘I don’t know—’
‘I come.’ Nordli went up with Cameron to the bridge. He said, ‘Captain, you—’
Forbes broke in. ‘I take it you know the fjord pretty well?’
‘Very well indeed—’
‘Is there any way out, other than the way we came in?’
Nordli pursed his lips. ‘There is a connection with Skojafjord.’
‘What’s the connection like?’
‘Like the channel we came through. Enough water and just enough width perhaps.’
‘I see. And Skojafjord itself? Any German presence?’
‘I believe there is not, no. But if you go through, then the Germans will follow, yes?’
‘Very likely,’ Forbes said through set teeth. ‘But I’ll fight a rearguard action all the way if they do! It just occurs to me that there could be a way through to the open sea. Is there?’
Nordli said, ‘Yes, there is. But I do not know the waters, and it will be a very long way. I think there is little point, Captain.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Forbes said.
‘But it would be so much quicker to go back through the entry channel, Captain.’
Forbes gave a hard laugh. ‘Damn right! But the German heavy ships will be there by now. We’d be blown up before we passed Svalbard Point.’
‘They will be waiting for you wherever you come out,’ Nordli said. ‘A wireless message is all that will be needed—’
Not if I can manage to get lost somewhere,’ Forbes interrupted. ‘The northern fjords are something of a maze—right?’
Nordli agreed.
‘Then perhaps we’ll be lucky,’ Forbes said with a touch of defiance. ‘Any chance is better than a definite meeting with the bloody Scharnhorst!’
Nordli conceded; he nodded and gave the directions. Forbes brought the Castle Bay round and headed out across the fjord, making for the eastern side where, to the south of the supply road, the waters narrowed between the mountains, though there was still plenty of depth. This would bring him close to the German military garrison at the end of the supply road, which he would leave to port as he headed for the connecting channel for Skojafjord. That was the first of what might be many hazards. There could be no doubt at all that even if he could pass the garrison he would come under attack from other sources long before the night could conceal him and allow him to start the process of losing contact with the enemy. Vest Hammarfjord, however, stood clear enough: there was no attempt at interception until the Castle Bay came within range of the army batteries in the garrison to the east.
Not far off the entry to the narrow finger of water leading into Skojafjord, guns opened from the shore and spouts of water rose to port and starboard. Forbes immediately brought his own armament into action, lying and training by director control on the flashes and puffs of smoke. Luck, it seemed, was with them this time. As he waited for the bearings to come on for the turn into the mountain-protected finger, there was a huge explosion from the garrison area. Shock waves came out and a high, spreading column of black smoke lifted into the air, flame-filled and menacing. The batteries fell silent. Forbes called down to the Gunner in the fore well-deck.
‘What do you make of that, Mr Hanrahan?’
‘Don’t know for sure, sir,’ Hanrahan answered, ‘but I reckon it could be petrol.’
‘That’s what I thought. I’d go a stage further: aviation spirit?’
‘It might be, sir.’
Forbes, grinning now, turned to Cameron. ‘We won’t be leaving without making our mark after all,’ he said. ‘If that was aviation spirit, it’ll be the supply for the base. The loss of it may gum up the works for a while at least.’
‘Yes, sir. And that leads to another thought.’ Forbes raised his eyebrows. ‘What thought?’
‘Well, sir, that the experimental base must have storage tanks on site—’
‘And we could blow them?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But we bloody well didn’t, did we! They’ll be as well protected as the rest of the place.’ Forbes checked his bearings again. ‘You don’t like uncompleted jobs any more than I do, do you, Sub?’
‘No, sir—’
‘This time, we’re both going to have to lump it, more’s the pity.’ Forbes, as the bearings came on, turned the ship to port and she came into the gloom of the high sides, moving through a fair depth of water. The feeling now was even more of being in a trap with the door about to close behind them as they moved deeper into Norway’s land mass. For the time being, as the imminence of actual attack diminished, the hands were fallen out from action stations, the ship going to second degree of readiness so that a hurried meal could be taken. Cameron, going down to the wardroom, found Jane sitting in a leather armchair with her legs drawn up. She said, ‘Hullo, there! How’s it going?’
He told her the score. ‘The Captain’s hoping to make the open sea,’ he said.
‘What are the chances, d’you think?’
He shrugged. ‘Jakob Nordli seems to think they’re fair, always provided we’re not attacked by the Luftwaffe in one of the open fjords. How about you, Jane?’
She said, ‘I wouldn’t know.’ She got to her feet and went across to a port and looked at the mountainside close by as the ship went past. She said. ‘It’s a pity we have to leave without blowing that place up.’
‘Yes.’ Cameron hesitated: he knew the girl didn’t like being questioned and one had to be circumspect with SOE agents. But he tried. He asked, ‘Did you get to know much about the base, Jane?’
‘Not my job,’ she answered, still looking out through the port. ‘We’re fairly departmentalized—right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing. They say it has to be like that, in case of being taken and put under pressure.’
‘Torture?’
‘Yes, torture. They aren’t civilized—the Nazis.’ The voice was as hard as ice. ‘I’ve not experienced it yet, but I know some who have. If ever I get a Nazi where I can kill him, believe me, I wouldn’t make it quick. If you think that’s unfeminine, you’re welcome to.’
Cameron said lamely, ‘It’s turned into that sort of war, hasn’t it?’ He paused. ‘But that base—’
‘I told you. I don’t know anything about it, except that it was supposed to be destroyed. Well, it hasn’t been, has it?’
‘And you’d like it to be—so would we all.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’
‘That’s all right. But look—when we caused that explosion ashore just now... the Captain thinks it could have been aviation spirit and that’s given me an idea. I suppose you don’t know how the base was kept supplied, do you? For instance, is there a pipeline either running round the shore, or submerged across the fjord?’
She said, ‘I don’t know, but I think not.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve seen tankers going across. Small ones, like coasters.’
‘Have you seen them discharging?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I have. Or I assume I have. I’ve seen them connecting up to something on the jetty. They lifted the ship’s pipes with a small crane thing—’
‘A derrick?’
‘Probably. Then they connected them to a shore pipe—I saw all this from a distance, across the fjord, through binoculars. I could have got it wrong.’
‘I don’t suppose you have. It sounds logical. Did you see where the pipe ran—in other words, where the storage tanks were?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I didn’t. But all the time it was going on, there was a man with a red flag standing back against the bottom of the mountain, behind the buildings at the southern end. I could just see him and he seemed to be turning some sort of wheel, or I think he was.’ She turned away from the port. ‘It didn’t seem awfully important, just part of the routine.’
***
‘Behind the buildings,’ Forbes said, and frowned, looking at Cameron through half-closed eyes. ‘Pity women aren’t more technically-minded! You’re suggesting that the aviation spirit tanks are situated right inside the mountain itself behind the base?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And that if those tanks could be blown there’d be a bloody great explosion leading to the collapse of the front of the mountain?’
‘Something like that, sir. I think there’d be a chance, anyway.’
Forbes gave a hard laugh. ‘So do I, Sub! If only we’d known earlier... God, the whole damn operation would have been chicken-feed! You just open the valve on the jetty and ignite the vapour and then up to heaven you go! And that, of course, would have been the snag—and still is. One of them, anyway. The second is how the hell do we get to the valve now? That is, assuming we have some volunteers for the suicide squad!’
‘I don’t think it’s quite suicide—’
‘You don’t?’
‘No, sir. I believe it would be possible to lay a fuse trail from the valve on the jetty, back towards the entry channel—a slow fuse that would give us time to get round the mountain and into the channel before the tanks blew. Then the mountain range would act as protection.’
‘By that time,’ Forbes said, ‘since the valve would have to be opened, all the spirit in the pipe would have run out or evaporated, wouldn’t it?’
‘Probably, sir, but there would still be traces and there would still be vapour. And the fact that the main valve—where Jane saw the man with the red flag—would be turned off, that wouldn’t stop the lot going up.’
Forbes nodded; this was probably true. There would be a flash right around the valve, in effect bypassing it. Aviation spirit was sheer murder to handle... he returned to his second point. ‘How do we reach the valve, Sub? I couldn’t hope to take the ship back in and get away with it, that’s obvious enough, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir. But a small party could make it back over the mountains. Jane knows of a route to the entry channel from the south-west corner of Skojafjord. She was taken across it by the Resistance to meet a contact and according to her we could reach the base inside four hours.’
‘From the original southern approach?’
‘Yes, sir. We know from Nordli that it hasn’t been mined.’
‘Up to when—yesterday?’
‘Early hours of this morning, sir. I doubt if they’re bothering now, with us having moved off northwards.’
Forbes turned away and paced the bridge as the ship slid inwards towards Skojafjord, now only some five miles ahead. Four hours back to the base, say an hour to lay the fuse trail, and four hours back again. If the party left the ship at dusk they should rejoin by dawn, or maybe he could send them away before dusk so that they could return during the dark hours. There were so many imponderables: would the Luftwaffe attack and if so when? Where were the Scharnhorst and the Hipper, where were the handiest placed British battleships or cruisers? If he sent men back on a suicide mission—he still regarded it as that—he would be in breach of all his orders. But he was in breach of them already, and he had a very strong urge to bring this mission to a successful conclusion. Failure rankled, was sour in his mouth. But had he the right, the human right, to give the order—especially to the girl who would have to be the guide unless one of the Resistance men also happened to know the route? She was already on the Nazis’ wanted list and if she was taken she would face worse than death.
Forbes temporized. He stopped his pacing and said, ‘Get the girl up here, please, Sub. And Mr Hanrahan.’ While he waited for the two to come up, he spoke to Jakob Nordli about the mountain route. Nordli said he didn’t know it; he was a fisherman, and kept himself to the waters that he was so familiar with. He doubted if the other Norwegian aboard would know the route either; he was a fisherman from Nordli’s own village. This was confirmed when the man was sent for: the mountains were not his habitat. When Jane reached the bridge, Forbes put the position to her without trimmings. He said, ‘It appears no one knows the way but you. Would you be willing to act as guide?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Of course I would. It was my idea.’
Forbes said quietly, ‘I admire your courage, Jane.’ He turned to Cameron. ‘Sub, the commandos have lost all their officers dead or very severely wounded—you know that. As far as the leadership’s concerned we have to make this a naval occasion. I’d like you to take charge, all right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ Forbes put a hand briefly on Cameron’s shoulder, then spoke to the Gunner, who had arrived with the Resistance man. ‘Well now, Mr Hanrahan, what’s your view of the work-out? Can it be done, or not?’
Hanrahan said, ‘In theory, yes, it can be done, sir, that’s if we have the proper sort of fuses aboard and I’ve yet to check that. In practice, it’d be tricky—that is, from the point of view of the party approaching the pipeline connection. The Jerries are going to be nervy after what’s already happened and there’ll be a good watch kept, if you ask me.’
Forbes nodded. ‘Point taken, Guns, but I believe a small party would have a reasonable chance—one or two men, we wouldn’t need more than that, could swim submerged and it shouldn’t take long to open the valve and insert the end of the fuse-line—agree?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hanrahan said, and added, ‘There’s still the question of fuses.’
‘Tell me about fuses, then, Guns.’
‘Right. There’s the three main categories—slow burning safety fuses, quick burners, and electrical fuses. The slow jobs are used chiefly in mining and they consist of a core of compressed gunpowder covered with waterproof yarn—they burn at the rate of about a foot in thirty seconds. The quick burners, they consist of wicks coated with uncompressed gunpowder and burn almost instantaneously—thirty yards a second. Or faster—rapid detonating fuses made of nitrocellulose enclosed in lead, they burn at five thousand feet a second—’
‘Rather too fast, Guns!’ Hanrahan nodded and said with a grin, ‘Aye, I thought it might be, sir. Best are the electrical fuses but I’m pretty sure we haven’t got any. As you know, sir, I’ve reported before now on deficiencies in Gunner’s stores—’
‘Yes.’ Forbes cut short what could prove a lengthy diatribe: Hanrahan had been eloquent in the past about the way the old Castle Bay had been stored by the Naval Armament Supply department at her fitting-out port. There were shortages right throughout the Navy, and the Castle Bay had been given the dirty end of the stick when allocations were made and much of her Gunner’s stores were old and obsolescent if not downright obsolete. ‘We’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got, unless the commandos can help out—’
‘I’ll manage, sir,’ Hanrahan cut in briskly, sounding offended. He wasn’t going to be beholden to any pongoes; he had heard more than enough remarks already about how his shells had failed to penetrate the concrete buildings
. ‘I reckon the slow-burning fuse will do the job nicely, sir, especially since it’s waterproof and the party has to swim out. Only trouble is, it’ll be a lot to carry—we’ll need a good length for maximum safety, see, and they’ll have to take detonators, just to make absolutely sure—fulminate of mercury, which’ll go up when the fuse burns up to it.’
‘And have we got all these things, Guns?’
‘Detonators, yes, sir. I’ll check on the fuses. All right to carry on now, sir?’
Forbes nodded. ‘Yes, please, Guns—and let me know the score as soon as possible.’
***
‘Bastards,’ Mr Hanrahan said with extreme bitterness to his Gunner’s Mate. ‘Know what?’
‘What?’
‘I’d like to shove the whole bloody Armament Supply outfit into one of them concrete domes before Cameron blows it up.’
Under Orders (A Donald Cameron Naval Thriller) Page 13