‘Why isn’t she using her own set?’
It was against the wall by the door. ‘There’s no need. Apart from her codebooks, the station’s wireless has everything she could possibly want.’
As he applied more of the Glasgow Cream, the news broadcast went on to events in North Africa. One of the fiercest battles of the desert war was now raging at some strange-sounding place in Libya. In Russia, units of the Waffen SS had reached to within twenty kilometres of the Kremlin but were being held up by the intense cold of winter. The battleship Barham had been sunk in the Mediterranean by a U-boat. Off the west coast of Australia, the cruiser Sydney had encountered an enemy raider and, after a stiff exchange of fire, had gone down with the loss of all hands.
When the broadcast came to an end, there was some discussion among Huber and the others; little but disgruntlement amongst Bannerman and the three remaining crew members, one of whom was older than the other two of middle age and all of whom must surely be wondering what must happen to them.
It was Erich who came to escort her back upstairs. As he set the lantern on the floor next to her rucksack, he seemed at a loss for words, the light serving only to etch his uncertainty further.
‘Mary, where is whatever you’ve been hiding from us? Nolan and Galway won’t have looked thoroughly enough. The Irish are fools and will never be rid of the British, not in a thousand years.’
‘Nolan’s cleverer than you think. If I were you, I’d make sure they have the money and the weapons aboard that submarine. If not, you and the others will never get off this island. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep.’
She must hate him. ‘Are you really carrying our child?’
‘Would it have made the slightest difference?’
‘Ach, be sensible. The vice admiral is determined to take you and Hamish and the colonel with us, no matter what O’Bannion and the others say. There are places in the Reich, Mary, homes for such children. I would be only too willing to …’
‘To what, Erich? See that it is raised as a good Nazi?’
She would never listen. ‘I would have thought that after the raid last night you’d have seen the sense in what I’m saying?’
‘If you mean the cruelty, then yes, I witnessed it.’
The vice admiral had insisted that when he’d first met her at Tralane, he had been certain she had found a new strength in herself, a determination that could well make trouble for them. ‘The Reich will win, Mary. It’s stupid of you to think you can hide things from us. Now where is it?’
‘Or you will burn my other breast?’
‘Please, you know what I mean.’
‘Then understand that I’ve hidden nothing. Nolan and Galway were very thorough and are a lot smarter than you think.’
Kramer picked up the lantern and, walking past her to the light’s mechanism, held it high. She really couldn’t have hidden anything up there. To do so would have been to risk losing a hand or arm. Like all lighthouses, though, even those with the most antiquated of systems, there was a spare mechanism in case of breakdown. Here the reserve mechanism lay directly below the one in use and right at floor level and thus much easier and safer for her to get at. All that was needed, when the mechanisms were to be changed, was to swing the one above out of the way as it was lowered, and then to hoist this one up and into place.
He began to search in earnest. Silently Mary moved away. She couldn’t let him find the bomb. By a stroke of luck there had been a flange in among those turning gear wheels, one just big enough to hold it, but she had had to let the watch dangle from the wires.
Stumbling on the stairs, she saw him swing the lantern round, she now running up the rest of the way to push on the trapdoor as he yelled, ‘Mary, don’t! It isn’t safe!’
Around the light, both inside and outside the building, there were iron catwalks. Erich had to follow her. He must be made to think that she’d come up here and tossed whatever it was away or hidden it.
The light was huge, the reflectors brilliant, the hiss of the lamp blotting out all other sounds. Throwing her shoulder against the door, Mary tried to budge the thing but it was no use. The wind was far too strong. The light was coming around. Hot … it was so hot. She must cover her eyes, mustn’t look …
Bursting through the door, she stumbled out on to the catwalk to frantically grab its iron railing as the wind hit her.
‘MARY, COME BACK!’
‘I’M GOING TO JUMP!’
He must have heard her, for he gripped the edge of the door and the railing as if to launch himself after her. Then the door smashed shut behind him, shattering its window as he stumbled forward and the light came around. There were eighty, ninety … one hundred and ten feet to the rocks below but he would be far more used to heights and to the wind than herself, would know exactly what to do.
Grabbing her by the coat, Kramer shouted into her left ear, ‘Get back inside!’ but she broke away and ran from him, bouncing between railing and the outermost glass of the light. He couldn’t let her do this. ‘MARY!’ he shouted. Salt spray stung his eyes. ‘MARY!’ he called again.
She was over by the door. Ducking his head, Kramer threw up an arm to shield himself. Again he caught her by the coat, again she pulled away but this time the wind threw them both against the glass as the light came round and he pulled her down, shielding her from it, and let her bury her face against his chest.
Butted sharply under the chin, his head was thrown up, he unable to stop it. The light …
He screamed in agony and released his grip to tear at his eyes and stumble blindly away as she ran from him, ran for the door and tried to get it open.
Round and round the catwalk they went, Erich grabbing at the railing and trying to reach her until falling to claw at the iron decking.
Lifted away, she shielding her eyes, Mary was passed from hand to hand and taken down the stairs but again and again Erich screamed. Shuddering at what she’d done, horrified by it, she knew she hadn’t meant it to happen, not until that very last moment. They’d kill her now, they’d have no other choice and would force Hamish to witness it, but then the screams abruptly ceased, and only the sound of the light’s mechanism came to her above those of the wind and the breaking waves.
Later it was Huber who came to see her. ‘Erich has told us you tried to kill yourself and that he went after you. One hundred and eighty-six thousand candle power, Mrs. Fraser. You have destroyed his sight. Now where is it, please? We know you’ve been hiding something.’
‘The pocketknife Helmut Wolfganger had with him. You’ll find it outside on the ground.’
It would do no good to shriek at her in anger. What had been done could not be undone.
Rejoining the others, he drew O’Bannion aside and told him to have someone search for it in the morning. ‘It will have the eagle and swastika on it. I only hope for her sake she’s telling the truth. From now on she had best stay down here with the rest of us.’
‘Inishtrahull … Inishtrahull, are you reading us? Over.’
‘Inishtrahull here, Beaufort CC Derry zero-four-two, roger. Over.’
‘Lifeboat sighted to the north of you and drifting towards you, Inishtrahull. Can you do anything for them? They look half-frozen. Over.’
Again the wireless operator, one of the lightkeepers, pushed the key in. ‘Will try to assist. Estimate time of arrival. Over.’
The key was pulled back. ‘Snow’s icing us up, Inishtrahull. Should estimate three-quarters of an hour at most. Looks to be bearing straight down on you. Rudder must be lashed in place.’
Key in again. ‘Can you signal help is near? Over.’
Key out. ‘Am wagging wings, Inishtrahull, but there’s no response. Will advise Derry of sighting but ask them to maintain contact with you. Do what you can. You’ll need all the luck you can get. Over and out, chaps.’
The switch below the amplifier was thumbed up and off as an afterthought, but could she operate the set on her own?
Tensely she watched everything. With the overflight of the Beaufort, the others had all crowded anxiously into what she’d now learned was called the watch room. It was here that the men on duty wrote up the log, looked out to sea or manned the wireless set. From here they had also gone at dawn to draw the black curtains over the light, protecting its lamp from the converging rays of the sun—what sun? At evening, they’d pull those curtains aside and give the lenses a final polish before lighting the lamp. They had also gone out to the fog station, and in weather like this, both the foghorns and soon the light would be kept on all the time. No one had been able to find the pocketknife she’d said she had thrown, a piece of luck for her, since snow was sheeting across the bits of pasture and scattered ruins, even blotting out the fog station at times, and sweeping over the seven bodies that had been carried up from the rocks to be laid under weighted canvas. Huber had not been satisfied, of course, and cursed the weather, Bannerman telling him he couldn’t refuse to give assistance to the lifeboat, not a navy man.
Stung by such a reminder, the vice admiral turned from the windows. ‘Seaboots and oilskins, Colonel, and your word not to try anything. Do I have it?’
‘Have you line rockets?’ Bannerman asked of the man who had operated the wireless.
‘Sure and we have, Colonel, but they’ll be of little use.’
His name was Dan Flaherty. Plucking at the frayed left sleeve of his pullover, he gathered a handful to wipe his nose only to see her watching him and, thinking better of it, drag out the handkerchief he should have used.
In doubt as to what to do, Kevin O’Bannion glanced swiftly at Mrs. Tulford, then to Nolan and lastly herself. One of the lightkeepers had gone to the fog station with two of the men, the other one was still upstairs servicing the light with Dermid Galway.
‘All right, we’ll go,’ said O’Bannion. ‘The colonel, Dr. Fraser, myself and …’
‘You’ll need all that can be spared,’ said Flaherty, ‘myself included.’
‘Ursula will stay by the wireless, then,’ he said.
‘She’s a woman, for God’s sake!’ snorted Bannerman. ‘How the devil will she explain that to Base Derry when they contact us again, as they surely will?’
‘Liam will stay with her.’
‘Then tell him to tone down that Oxford accent or they’ll think they’ve rung up the reading room!’
Bannerman was enjoying their predicament. Hamish started to say something about hypothermia, but decided not to. They’d know the worst soon enough.
After the others had filed out of the room, Nolan sat down and leaned his crutches against the wireless bench. Erich was in one of the bedrooms. When Galway came downstairs with that lightkeeper, both would also have to join the others. Running everything through her mind, Mary watched the cove from the windows and tried to see the fog station through the snow. Ursula Tulford had set her pistol just to the left of the station’s Morse key. The suitcase set was still where the woman had left it, Nolan’s crutches the nearest to it. Somehow they would have to be distracted long enough for her to race upstairs, recover the bomb and then try to fit it into that suitcase.
‘So, it is only the three of us alone at last, Mrs. Fraser,’ said the woman.
‘Base Derry will be on to you, Mrs. Tulford. They know about us being here.’
‘That is not possible. For some time now they have been searching elsewhere. The raid the other night will only have confused things further. That Beaufort contact was merely routine.’
Nolan watched the two of them closely. Mrs. Mary Ellen Fraser had betrayed herself by glancing again at the pistol. ‘What she means, my dear Ursula, is that the Brits have been trying to pull the wool over our eyes but that the storm has forced them to contact us.’
‘You’ll never get away with it,’ said Mary, turning from the windows. ‘They want that submarine, Mrs. Tulford, and are not about to let it go if you bring it in here.’
‘Kevin should have killed you in Dublin.’
‘But couldn’t force himself to.’
‘Is it that you still don’t bloody well know him?’ snorted Nolan.
‘That money they’ll be bringing from Berlin won’t be any good. It’ll be counterfeit. The Nazis …’
‘Stop it, this instant!’
The woman had snatched up the pistol. ‘Go on and shoot me, then. Erich called you a pack of fools, Nolan. Ask her if that’s not what she and Huber also think.’
‘Sure and they think us that, but the feeling’s mutual, so you see, we’re even.’
‘I’d still make sure I checked that money and counted it if I were …’
‘Oh I will. Now what’s up out there? Give us the benefit of a running commentary.’
‘See for yourself.’ Nolan didn’t bother to get up, nor did the Tulford woman, but it wasn’t good. Ten of them were out there, all bundled in whatever they could find, some in oilskins, all with life jackets. Hamish wore his overcoat, he having acquired gloves with gauntlets. Galway was beside him, the others huddled out of the wind behind the ruined chimney and wall of the cottage nearest the pier.
They had several coils of rope, line rockets by the look, and grappling irons but they’d never be able to fight their way out along the pier. Cold … it must be bitterly cold.
‘I’d best help them,’ said Mary.
‘You’ll go nowhere unless told to,’ said the woman.
‘Ah let her go,’ said Nolan. ‘It’s only the more for us to watch.’
Ursula Tulford stepped away from the wireless to stop her. Nolan laughed, but the set gave a flash of green, and the woman was forced to turn back.
Outside, the storm was rapidly building and in the distance, always evident now, there was the sound of the foghorns.
Hugging the innermost wall of the corridor, Mary went back along it until she could hear the two of them quite clearly at the wireless. Both were occupied. She’d never get another chance. Darting in, only to find the suitcase set both heavy and awkward, she managed to lug it upstairs and lay it on the floor. Yanking up an arm of her pullover, she reached well into the light’s mechanism …
The bomb came away. Nothing seemed to be missing. In the cove below, they’d formed a human chain to fight their way out along the pier. There was still no sign of the lifeboat. It could come in at any place or miss the island completely.
Springing the catches on the suitcase, the impossibility of what she had to do presented itself. The face of the wireless was an ordered mass of dials and switches with instructions in Deutsch, the one side for transmission, the other for receiving. There was simply no place for the bomb, none even for its battery.
Then she saw it and told herself to hurry. A catch, when opened, revealed a compartment for accessories—the earphones, Morse key, aerial wire on a spool and supply of cord with socket adapter if household electricity negated using the set’s battery, extra radio tubes in a protected case, even pliers, a screwdriver and a roll of electrical tape.
Though the sticks of dynamite were too long, their smell would be sure to give her away and she’d have to do something about that.
The light came round, the gear wheels meshed, the fog station let out another blast …
Unravelling the tape she had used to hold the sticks together, Mary peeled back the waxed brown paper and broke an end off each, allowing the rest to be tucked into the compartment. So far so good. Now for the battery—she could have used the set’s but there would be no time for this, and the other fit but just. Now she must wire it up.
Never mind that Nolan or the Tulford woman could come looking for her, never mind that they would kill her if they found out.
The smell …
Shutting her eyes, she forced herself to be calm. Taking the bare end of the wire, she found the hole in the crystal of the watch and slid it through until positioned just above the face. The resin she had used had hardened. A torn corner of electrical tape would have to do.
The gelignite was pliable—really like bread dough. Kneading each leftover piece, she packed the compartment, using them to securely hold the watch and dry cell battery, before taking off her scarf and wadding it carefully down on top of everything. Now all she needed to do was to push the stem in to start the watch, take care of the smell somehow, and dispose of what she’d had to remove from the compartment.
These last items she took up the stairs and hid them out on the catwalk. Closing the suitcase, she carried it downstairs only to find there was no one in the room. Nolan’s crutches were gone.
Setting the suitcase against the wall by the door, her head aching terribly from the smell, Mary noticed that some of the gelignite clung to her fingers and went through to the kitchen to clean it off before it was too late. With the smell, though, she could as yet do nothing.
Back in the watch room and still alone, she went over to the station’s wireless. Nolan and Mrs. Tulford must have gone outside to look for her. The keeper had had to tune things in using the central dial and then the one next to it. She mustn’t forget the key that would let her talk.
‘Derry … CC Derry, do you read me? Over.’
Nothing happened, not even static. In a panic, she ran her eyes over the set but there were so many dials and switches.
Her thumb nudged the switch on the handle of the microphone and at first she didn’t realize what it was.
Pushing it up, she said, ‘Derry … CC Derry. This is Inishtrahull calling. Do you read me? Over.’
Betrayal Page 38