Betrayal

by J. Robert Janes

  At the entrance to the lighthouse there was a mudroom with oilskins, boots, sou’westers, lanterns and other gear. This inner door opened on to a short length of corridor whose brown linoleum led past the staircase to the light and came to a T-junction, on the left side of which was the wireless room, while to the right, another short length took one to the spacious kitchen, coal-fired stove, table and chairs.

  Beyond the kitchen, there were floor-to-ceiling lockers for the men and finally the sleeping quarters: two small rooms with bunks and dressers, the last of these being where Jimmy was now being held.

  Mary reached the corridor. The guard had been changed but Galway now stood at the far end with his back to her, Hamish being directly behind her. If only the door to the mudroom wouldn’t squeak, if only Galway wouldn’t turn—he mustn’t see her, not until she had darted outside, slamming the outer door behind her to run across the yard towards the outhouse that stood against a far corner of the wall.

  She was halfway there when he thrust the barrel of his rifle between her legs causing her to hit the ground with a shriek as he roared at her, ‘Just what the bloody hell do you think you’re on about?’

  Wild … he had the look of a madman. She tried to yell but his boot was pressed under her chin, hard against her throat, and the muzzle of his rifle was at her forehead. ‘I … I’m sick of using that bucket!’

  As he yanked her to her feet and propelled her towards the lighthouse, she shouted at him, ‘There aren’t any aircraft today. No one else could have possibly seen me!’

  ‘Woman, you were told not to go outside. By Gad, don’t you ever cross me again!’

  ‘Dermid, leave her. I’ll deal with it.’

  O’Bannion indicated that she could use the outhouse. He said he hoped she’d not been hurt, and when she was inside, closed the door and put the hook on. Then he started after Hamish, and Mary watched him through a crack between the boards until he suddenly disappeared from view and must have gone over the edge of the raised strand. She couldn’t let him get to Hamish …

  Scrambling up on to the seat, she braced herself and booted the door next to its hook. Bolting across the yard, racing for the stone wall, she went over this and down the embankment near the ruins of the first cottage, a sheer fifty feet of gravel and sand that ended against the wave-washed rocks, no time to think, just over and down, sliding, slipping, crying out and falling to skid the rest of the way on her back.

  Now the shore stretched before her in wave-washed ridges of rock that were strewn with boulders, tangled masses of netting, driftwood and kelp. She had to stop Kevin, couldn’t have him killing Hamish, was terrified of this and stumbled as she ran.

  O’Bannion caught her by the shoulders and shook her hard. Above the wind Mary heard him shouting, ‘Why, for Christ’s sake, why? Did you think I’d not be watching?’

  The foghorns began to shriek. With a curse, he ran from her, she hurrying now to follow and crying out, ‘Please don’t hurt him, Kevin. Please don’t. I’ll do anything you want.’

  The wind blew her words away. Stumbling blindly, at times falling, Mary hugged the face of the cliff which towered above her. Boulders and gravel were thrown about by the waves and as always now the cliff gave way beneath her when she tried to climb it. ‘HAMISH … DARLING, I’M COMING. KEVIN, DON’T!’

  It was no use. The sound of shots came to her and for an instant she cringed, only to then tear at the cliff face, to scramble up and up over the loose sand and gravel only to slide back down and try again until, dragging herself over the edge of the cliff, she lay there a moment unable to move.

  Dermid Galway and two others had raced from the lighthouse and were now halfway to the fog station. Kevin had gone inside the building …

  As she ran up the hill towards it, Mary felt her boots dragging at the ground. More than once she stumbled, the image of Galway firing his rifle at her so clear, she couldn’t understand why her legs wouldn’t move faster. The blasts from the foghorns were deafening as she burst inside the door.

  A harpoon was leaning against the wall among coils of rope and grappling irons, she thinking to take it up, to run at Kevin with it, since the cabinet that had held the flare pistol was empty. ‘Hamish … Darling, I …’

  Seized from behind, she was dragged from the building, and as the foghorns were silenced, drunkenly pitched across the turf. Still reeling, she saw them take hold of a little man whose face was grizzled, the dark eyes filled with uncertainty.

  Kevin placed the muzzle of his revolver to the back of the man’s head and fired. Jimmy was next, and when he was dragged from the lighthouse, he screamed.

  Alone, huddled on the rough-hewn planking, propped against one of the massive, timbered posts that supported the light, Mary waited for them to decide what to do with her. For some time now there had only been the sounds of the wind outside and the endless turning of the antiquated gear wheels whose interlocking teeth swung the Inishtrahull light around and around above her.

  Poor Jimmy had been absolutely terrified and had had to be held by two of the others. Bannerman, Hamish and herself and the lightkeepers had been forced to watch. There would be no more trouble. Kevin had made sure of this. Nolan had wanted him to shoot her, too, but had been told to leave it, and would bide his time.

  Now, no matter how hard she thought about things, it all seemed utterly hopeless. Eventually Kevin would have to kill them, but would spare the others since there would be no advantage in the murder of those men, but had Bannerman been right? Would the Royal Navy and the RAF leave them alone long enough for that submarine to come in? Was there nothing she could do?

  Again Mary let her mind drift back to the fog station. There had been that narrow corridor but surely there should have been a room of some sort, with a switch or something to operate the foghorns?

  ‘The smoke, the boiler,’ she muttered. ‘Of course, that’s what was on the other side of the corridor’s partition, that’s why the man was there. He must have been servicing it.’

  A routine the crew would have to perform every day and night, the boiler would supply the steam that made the foghorns sound. There would be a lever one pulled down to lock the system open, after which the timing of each blast would be automatic, the steam building up and being released, only to repeat the cycle again and again.

  There would be pressure gauges, the boiler itself, sacks of coal and a firebox, a glass to indicate the level of water in the boiler. Surely someone on the mainland or on some ship would have heard the warning and understood it for what it had been, the day having been clear? But if she could manage to get back there, if … Would they let her live that long?

  Kevin would have to send men with the crew member each time the station was serviced, but that would still leave far too many of them here, and of course they would now be wary of just such a thing.

  From one of the windows, Mary watched as the sun went down behind lead-grey clouds. Well offshore, the tops of the waves curled over in masses of foam. Inishtrahull’s light would be seen from a distance of at least five miles, a beacon to the passing convoys that sought the North Channel into the Irish Sea, but a beacon also for German U-boats which would use it as a directional fix. There was no way the Royal Navy could have avoided such a thing. The rocks were far too menacing to have the light extinguished. Inishtrahull stood right out in that shipping lane.

  Faint traces of sooty smoke came to her from the west as she lay down on the floor next to her rucksack. She had to sleep, was exhausted.

  Through the pitch-darkness of the night, the sounds from the meshing gear wheels above her came, and beyond these, those of the breaking waves and the wind. Each time the beam of the light passed above one of the little windows on the staircase to it, she would see the darkness being pierced out there, the beam also giving brief glimpses of the room and its timbers. Then the light would pass on, the gear wheels would creak,
there would be a moment of utter darkness and again the light, and again.

  No voices filtered up from below, and when she pressed an ear to the floor, it was as if they’d all been taken off and she’d slept right through everything.

  The light came around again. There were two beams, their source the same, they at 180 degrees to each other, so there wasn’t much time between. A pale pinkish glow touched the glass, but died away and was taken over by the brilliance of the light. She must have been awakened by something …

  Stealthily Mary reached for the rucksack to close her fingers about its straps. She would only have time to touch the loose wire to its battery terminal and push the heel of her hand down against the one that ran through the crystal of the watch.

  ‘I’ve awakened you, Mrs. Fraser. Please accept my apologies.’

  It was Huber and he was standing just to the left of one of the windows.

  ‘Come and have a look at this.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘0120 hours.’ One twenty a.m.

  Still clutching the rucksack by its straps, she made her way over to him. The light came round and Mary saw how intently he watched the sea. He was smoking a cigarette and might not smell the gelignite …

  ‘Now, I think,’ he said.

  Flames erupted on the horizon. The billowing pillar of fire was brilliant, the night sky instantly lit up, giving but a glimpse of a tanker, Huber telling her the ship must be at least ten kilometres away.

  The beam of the light passed overhead. As quickly as it had come, the light departed and in three massive flashes of fire, the tanker rose up at its bow to slip beneath the waves.

  Huber caught the cry she gave and gripped her by an arm. There was a further explosion some distance to the north. As the torpedoes struck this tanker, the whole thing flashed into view, much closer than before. Huge detonations seemed to rock the surrounding seas as the light came round again and his hold on her tightened. Men would be spilling from that burning ship, the seas on fire. There’d be flames in their hair, a face would glisten in the heat, a hand thrown up.

  ‘Please don’t make me watch. I … I know what I’ve done. I’ve had nightmares about it and can only hate myself.’

  The flat and distant sounds of three massive explosions reached them.

  ‘So now we wait,’ was all he’d say, thought Huber, but had she lost that newfound resilience, that toughness? he wondered. Had she seen that for her and the husband there really was no longer any hope?

  Another ball of fire erupted on the horizon, a munitions ship this time, no chance for the men to escape—she’d know this—just a brief glow and then total darkness.

  ‘Why have you come up here?’ she asked, unable to hide the bitterness.

  He would not even bother to look at her. ‘Because from here there is a better view.’

  In the morning there were bodies washed up along the shore and an oil slick that stretched far out to sea; in the afternoon the overturned remains of a lifeboat. At 5.00 p.m., a destroyer of the Royal Navy stood off about a mile and Mary knew there would be an exchange of wireless signals. O’Bannion and the Tulford woman would have to watch the operator closely. If only the ship would come in and send a boat ashore, if only …

  But it turned away in the continuing search for survivors and she knew then that its captain had been told none had reached the island.

  At suppertime Huber brought her a mug of broth, four sea biscuits and a plate of stew. ‘Now do you see how things are?’ he asked. He wasn’t an unkindly man, not that she knew of anyway. He was simply a man at war, under orders and with a duty to fulfil.

  ‘Mrs. Fraser, it is time we had a little talk. Please eat, though, while it’s hot. Your husband has turned himself into an excellent cook but is worried and has asked that, your having seen how things are, you be told not to do anything foolish. Because of our position here, O’Bannion and as many of the others as possible will have to accompany us. We will, of course, put them ashore off the west or southwest coast, if at all possible, since of them only Nolan is to accompany us as agreed. If we can’t do that, however, they will all have to accompany us to the Reich, and we will then have to find some way of returning them.’

  ‘Why is it you’re telling me this?’

  ‘Because, my dear young woman, surprising as it may seem, we do not wish to see any further harm come to you or your husband. O’Bannion understands this clearly, but …’ Huber gave it pause. ‘For the moment has the upper hand, of course.’

  ‘Then what you’re saying is that if we behave, you’ll let us stay here. Is that it?’

  ‘And leave you to face British justice instead of a heroine’s welcome?’

  ‘Vice Admiral, you know very well what I mean?’

  A realist, was that it? ‘You, your husband and Colonel Bannerman will, I assure you, be taken to the Reich. Now please, eat while it’s hot. The first duty of any prisoner is always to fill one’s stomach.’

  ‘I thought that duty was to escape?’

  ‘Even though for yourself there can be none if we leave you behind?’

  Mary took a sip of the broth, then reached for the spoon. The stew was excellent and suddenly she found herself famished.

  Huber watched her eat. She was very thorough and that was a good sign. ‘Nothing further must happen. Just let us get off this island. I can assure you things will not be nearly so bad as imagined.’

  ‘Aren’t submarines cramped for space? Look, I know there won’t be much room.’

  ‘But, my dear lady, what you witnessed last night has a direct bearing on things. U-3971 has used its torpedoes and can now afford us all the room we need.’

  Could it be that simple? ‘When … when is it to come in?’

  The woman felt quite sick at the thought and had let him see this, so must believe emphatically that he had been lying to her and that she and the doctor would be shot. ‘In two nights and not before then, so please remember what I said. No trouble, and a secure future.’

  When he reached the ground floor, Mary overheard him telling Galway, ‘She clings to that rucksack as a drowning person does to a life preserver. Let her settle down and then find out what’s in it.’

  Galway hung the lantern from one of the beams as Nolan grinned and hobbled across the floor on makeshift crutches. ‘Surprised to see me up and about, are you? Ah and sure that husband of yours set this ankle of mine in plaster like a magician and gave me something to numb the pain.’

  Dragging the rucksack into her lap, Mary slid her hand inside it. ‘I want to see Hamish.’

  And wasn’t that voice of hers tight? ‘Thought you had us there for a while, didn’t you?’

  Did he mean the fog station or the barrow? ‘My burns are infected. Hamish had best look at them.’

  And wary as a little mouse. ‘Dermid, would you say the lady’s been hiding something in that sack of hers?’

  Gripping it tightly, she leaned away from them. ‘There’s nothing in this but my clothes.’

  Yanked to her feet by Galway, Mary reluctantly let them take it from her. A pair of woollen socks were tossed out, a flannel shirt, pullover, hiking boots, underwear, a forgotten packet of dried soup … When they came to the shortbread tin, Nolan glanced questioningly at her, for there were two loose biscuits lying on top of the thing with a scattering of crumbs.

  ‘I was hungry. I had to eat something, didn’t I?’

  ‘A whole tin of shortbread?’ Fay would have sorted the woman out, but Fay was no longer with them.

  Black electrical tape had been placed around the tin to seal it, but this had been removed and now only its stickiness remained.

  ‘I wouldn’t open it, if I were you,’ she said. ‘You see, if you listen closely you’ll hear something sloshing about in there and know soon enough if you …’

  ‘Jesus, Li
am, the slut’s pissed in it!’

  Galway flung the tin away, but the electrical tape was something they weren’t about to forget.

  It was Nolan who said, ‘You dismantled the bomb I fixed to that motorcar of your husband’s, or so he’s been generous enough to have told everyone. Full of praise he was, but that’s something of a puzzle, now isn’t it?’

  She would have to gaze steadily at them. ‘I wouldn’t know, now would I, my being held here alone?’

  They looked behind her, looked up into the timbers above, looked everywhere they could, she ready to dodge and run if possible.

  ‘Take off that coat,’ said Nolan. What the devil was she hiding? Above them the gear wheels meshed, the light came around, but she’d not have chanced a hand up there, would have lost it for sure.

  ‘It’s too cold to take off my coat.’

  ‘Do it!

  They were afraid, all right, afraid that she might just be able to stop them from getting away but couldn’t know of the bomb.

  Reluctantly Mary removed her coat and then, gently pulling up her things, let the sight of her breasts unsettle them. ‘Will I ever be able to suckle a child, Nolan, should you people let me live?’

  ‘Why the bloody electrician’s black tape?’

  ‘Ria. Mrs. Haney was simply determined to keep our girl Bridget from getting at the shortbreads she kept for my husband.’

  At 9.00 p.m. she was taken downstairs to see Hamish. Everyone was crowded into the wireless room. The BBC news broadcast had just started. Though security negated one’s completely trusting the accuracy of such reports, the War Office had had to admit something. Seven ships had been sunk in the raid, with a total loss of 32,000 tonnes of supplies and materiel, and 217 men. At least three U-boats had been involved, perhaps even four. Mr. Churchill’s comments were particularly vitriolic, the prime minister vowing to bring all those responsible to British justice no matter how long the war should last.

  As Hamish attended to her burns in a far corner, he managed to tell her that the Germans had used the attack to bring U-397 close in to the island but that the sub was now lying low. ‘The Tulford woman made contact during the raid, Mary. Och, there was so much wireless traffic, I greatly fear the signals went unnoticed.’