‘Not in wartime,’ said Hamish. He had moved himself closer to her.
‘Especially in wartime, Doctor. We have it on record, yes? Our U-boat captains log observations that might even seem trivial. Inishtrahull, as with the light on Tory Island, does keep in touch with the others. They relay chitchat back and forth all along the coast—Eire’s not in the war. These men are not under Base Derry’s command. In any case, it helps our boats to get a navigational fix, and so we record it. With a tanker in distress, a major storm, and a convoy that has been scattered by our boats, there is only more reason for them to do so, yet …’ He would give them a moment. ‘Yet, there is none of this.’
If Hamish could have done so without being seen, she knew he would have reached out to take her reassuringly by the hand. ‘It is wartime, Vice Admiral. Perhaps there are special orders in effect that negate such traffic.’
‘Even though I have said this can’t be so?’
‘Yes.’
She was lying—Huber was certain. They had, then, perhaps forty-eight hours left at most. The storm might abate slightly by morning but he doubted it. U-397 would have to surface several times in exceedingly rough weather. ‘I can’t call off the operation, Doctor. Far too much is at stake. I must ask again, Mrs. Fraser, did you contact Base Derry and is that not why Erich Kramer came after you and went to his death?’
‘I’ve nothing more to say, Vice Admiral, than that I could not possibly have done it. Erich came after me but only because of what I’d done to him. I … I was terrified he’d …’
Struck hard, stung by the blow, she was all but thrown off her feet, her eyes instantly smarting as she clutched her cheek half in shock at what he’d done, half in pain. ‘Hamish, DON’T! Darling, please! I’m all right.’
Nolan had closed the gap between them; Galway had levelled his rifle at Hamish after having jammed him against the wall. The smell of melting tar came back, the foghorns sounded, the wind shrieked.
‘You leave this to us, Vice Admiral. We’ll soon loosen that tongue of hers. Have we any feather pillows, Dermid? Of course we have.’
‘They’ll not be taking you with them,’ shouted Hamish, ‘not with that ankle of yours!’
The revolver was lifted, she screaming as the gun was fired, Hamish shouting, ‘You’ll hang, you bastard! Hang!’
The hammer was being thumbed back again. ‘Nolan, please don’t. Just take me to Kevin and I’ll tell him. I will, I promise.’
‘Mary, lass …’
‘Hamish, please just trust me.’
‘Come on, Dermid. Let’s take the slut into one of the other rooms and put an end to her. Kevin’s too soft.’
The two young men came with them and they took her through to the kitchen and then into the farthest of the bedrooms, closing its door behind them. At a nod from Nolan, they began to pull and push her, then to fling her from one to the other, Mary trying to keep her balance and fight them off, but they were too fast for her, there were too many of them. Round and round she bounced, faster, faster, all of them laughing at her now, all of them shouting, ‘You take her. No, you can have her first!’
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ she shrieked. Someone punched her hard, another grabbed her from behind, they all rushing in on her and trying to yank her trousers down as she shrieked at them to leave her alone and fought back but was grabbed again and forced to kneel shouting, ‘Please don’t. I’ll tell you everything.’
‘LIAM!’
‘KEVIN, YOU KEEP OUT OF THIS!’
‘LET HER ALONE, THE LOT OF YOU!’
‘THE DEVIL SAYS WE WILL. THE SLUT’S BEEN HIDING FAR TOO MUCH!’
The voices ceased. There was a soft, metallic click. Her chest heaving, Mary felt the hands that had been gripping her begin to lessen their hold and finally to slip away.
The bolt of a Thompson submachine gun had slid into place.
‘Kevin, don’t. It’s what she wants,’ said Nolan.
‘Then leave her be, Liam, and come and help us with the boats. Once they’re repaired, we’ll try to move one of them over to the lee shore.’
‘You’ll never do it.’
‘Not without the lot of you.’
As the Fraser woman got unsteadily to her feet, her gaze locked on his. By rights, he ought to kill her and the husband and get it over with and she knew this, knew he was arguing with himself.
‘Go back to the wireless and stay there with Ursula and Flaherty. Don’t try anything stupid.’
‘I haven’t hidden anything.’
‘Go on, damn you, woman! Just do as I’m telling you.’
The gun was still trained on Nolan and two of the others; a third man was to her left. As she stepped into the corridor, the gun went off. Cringing at the sound of it, she tried to duck and huddled on the floor.
As rapidly as it had started, the shooting ceased and again Mary heard the sound of the waves as they broke against the shore.
‘What … what has happened?’
It was Mrs. Tulford. The pistol she had held on the lightkeeper was in her hand, but there was no sign of Flaherty.
Pushing past her, the woman went into the room, Mary hesitantly following. Kevin still held the Thompson gun. The two men who were with Nolan were afraid to move, he leaning on his crutches but a few feet from them.
In a pool of blood that still spread, the other man lay shabbily on the floor. His legs and arms had been flung out. He still clutched the revolver he had tried to use against Kevin, who now said, ‘Cover him, Liam, and that’s an end to it.’
‘Not until she’s dead.’
‘DAMN IT, DO AS I SAY!’
‘You’ll not kill me, Kevin. Not after all we’ve been through and not when Belfast has charged you with bringing this all off and getting me safely away.’
‘For the love of Jesus, Liam, I’m begging you!’
‘And I’m waiting.’
O’Bannion swung the gun at hip level, Mary shrieking at him not to, but there was a burst of firing that smashed all sense of being. Cringing at the sound of the gun, she managed to turn away at last, but the firing seemed to go on forever, only to then abruptly stop.
Cartridge casings littered the floor; the stench of cordite filled the room as she waited for him to kill her.
Nolan had been flung back and now sat on the floor slumped against the wall. Blood rushed from between the fingers of the hand that gripped his stomach. Baffled by what had happened, he looked up at Kevin but even as he did, the light faded from his eyes. He tried to say something. Kevin started towards him but held himself back.
The gun was lowered. ‘Now cover them, the two of you, then come and give us a hand with the boats.’
Through a trapdoor in the kitchen, a steep and narrow set of stairs led down into the shed at ground level below. The last to follow him, Mary was in shock and held herself by the shoulders, Hamish looking up at her, he standing beside one of the curraghs with a tarbrush in hand and one of the lanterns hanging from a rafter nearby.
Bannerman had died in vain. So much had happened since, so many killed, and now this: men frozen into inactivity by doubt and fear, by the sound of gunfire from above and by the task that still lay ahead of them.
They’d never do it, but Kevin would force them to try, because he would have to. Nolan who had always done the unexpected, had known he’d never get off the island and that Kevin would have to leave him behind. He had defied that leadership in order to strengthen it, having given himself both to cheat British justice and to ensure that Kevin did what had to be done.
There were coils of rope, cans of paint, turpentined rags with tar on them—lots of these last. Clutching as many as she could when no one was watching, Mary carried them up the stairs and laid them on the floor next to the suitcase that held the Tulford woman’s wireless and the bomb.
1 Scuttled in
May 1945.
12
‘Inishtrahull … CC Derry calling Inishtrahull Light. Over.’
Again everyone was crowded into the watch room, everyone listening intently, Mary standing to one side. A day had passed, the storm showing no sign yet of abating. Dan Flaherty was at the wireless, and after a minute’s hesitation, he said, ‘Roger, CC Derry, we are reading you. Over.’
It all seemed so distant. ‘High frequency signals indicate enemy U-boat in distress, repeat distress Inishtrahull Sound. Contact using 7,782 kilocycles, report situation.’
Huber cursed the weather. Never had he experienced a storm such as this.
‘Are you still reading us, Inishtrahull?’ Had there been a hint of mockery in the Derry wireless operator’s voice? Uncertain of what to do, Flaherty looked to Huber for instructions but the vice admiral remained lost in thought.
‘Believe U-boat is sinking, Inishtrahull. Over.’
There were murmurs of consternation, barely breathed curses.
‘Tell them we’ll make contact,’ said Huber resignedly.
Was the situation hopeless? she wondered, only to see Kevin O’Bannion snatch the microphone from the lightkeeper.
‘They could be lying, Vice Admiral.’
Grimly Huber acknowledged this. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘That we wait. That they may have located the sub, but that it may not be in distress.’
‘Switch to 7,782 kilocycles.’
Mrs. Tulford, who was keeping a close eye on things, was sitting right next to the lightkeeper. Flaherty did as asked, Kevin turning up the volume, they all hearing the S-O-S very faintly through the static, each of them knowing the sub must be on the surface. The S-O-S was being repeated every two minutes with an urgency that brought only dread and could not be avoided.
Huber knew he would have to contact Berlin, but first … ‘Get through to the boat. Request normal transmission in clear. I will talk to them.’
‘Is that wise?’ asked the Tulford woman.
‘Wise or not, we must know their situation. If all is lost, we must negotiate a surrender and try our best to save as many as possible.’
‘I will kill myself.’
‘You will do no such thing, and that is an order.’
‘Then the British will hang me. Would you wish this?’
Huber knew that what she had said was true. ‘Just contact them, Ursula. Let us see what we must do.’
At first there was no response but then a voice in thickly accented Deutsch came faintly through. ‘Something has jammed their starboard propeller,’ said Huber. ‘They think this may have been a gill net and are barely keeping their position against the wind and the seas. Once their batteries have been recharged, they will again submerge.’
Twice each day there would be a high tide, every six hours or so, the change from high to low or low to high, the two tides alternating, the currents sweeping strongly around the Irish Coast and into or out of Inishtrahull Sound and the North Channel.
It was Hamish who said, ‘They’ve another hour and a half to wait before the tide changes, Vice Admiral. They must know they’re too bloody close to the coast here, otherwise they would never have sent that signal.’
Huber said something in Deutsch into the microphone, the exchange too brief for her to catch.
‘When and if they can, Doctor, they will go down to the bottom and wait.’
‘Och, don’t be daft, man. The tidal currents are far too strong. The mud …’
‘They have no other choice.’
‘One hundred fathoms1 of water, Vice Admiral. Are you mad? Order them to continue with their S-O-S.’
‘I can’t.’
‘But … but there must be fifty or more men in that boat?’ Hamish was genuinely concerned for the welfare of men he did not even know, the enemy.
Lying on the bottom, anything could happen.
There had once been as many as ten cottages on the island, the ruins widely scattered, each family having had land of their own, such as it was. Below the hill on which the lighthouse stood, a road of sorts curved by the cove but ran on across the flat saddle of windswept terrain. It gave no ease of access to any of the cottages but simply went westward along the north coast from the gap in the outer wall round the lighthouse to the base of the rocky hill on which the fog station stood. In good weather a blindfolded person could have found his way between the two; in a storm like this, only when the wind abated considerably could one chance it, but at night that road would be something to follow, and once she and Hamish were inside the fog station, what then? she had to ask. Could they barricade the door and defend themselves long enough for help to reach them?
‘So you have noticed it too.’
Startled, Mary found Ursula Tulford standing beside her at the window. ‘The weather,’ said the woman. ‘It is clearing, yes? We can now see the other end of the island.’
The snow had stopped, the night had all but come down. ‘Why aren’t you at the wireless set?’
‘You jump too much, Mrs. Fraser. You betray your innermost thoughts. Escape for you and your husband is just not possible. U-397 is now out of danger and safely submerged. All wireless contact has ceased until the appropriate time.’
Unbidden, tears began to trickle down her cheeks and, though she wanted desperately to stop them, Mary found she couldn’t.
Ursula Tulford was unmoved. ‘I shall be glad to be home where I can be of greater use.’
The ruins of the cottages lay dotted over the saddle of the island. Mary saw them as giant stepping-stones to the fog station, but could she memorize their locations, could she and Hamish find their way across the island in the dark?
‘You will not get a chance to escape, Mrs. Fraser. If Kevin doesn’t kill you, I will.’
‘And Huber? What … what has he to say about it?’
‘That even though you are carrying Erich’s child, there can be no room for you and your husband.’
‘He promised there would be.’
‘Perhaps out of necessity the vice admiral thought to ease your mind, but U-397 must lighten itself considerably. Her starboard propeller shaft has seized and is bent. She can carry only so many.’
They would have to dump the guns and ammunition overboard as soon as the weather permitted. Men had died for those and Kevin wasn’t going to like it when told. ‘You’re not off the island yet, Mrs. Tulford. As soon as the wind drops, the RAF will start hunting for that sub again and when they find it, they’ll sink it.’
The woman left her. The two IRA who had witnessed the exchange averted their eyes. Flaherty and Angus, a man well into his seventies, continued to look at her. Then Angus, who was not a Scot and had the accent of the southwest, said, ‘This girl of ours is in need of comfort, Dan, and one of those biscuits.’
The tea was black, from an equally hidden store, and when she grimaced, Flaherty found the four precious sugar cubes he’d been saving for those times when the loneliness got to a body and one just had to have a little something.
Lint clung to them, but it was good pocket lint. ‘Thanks, you’re both being awfully kind.’
‘Sure and it’s not your fault we’re in this.’
‘But it is. All of it, and if I could make it right, I would.’
Flaherty handed her a clean white handkerchief, she taking it to wipe those lovely eyes of hers and wonder now at the six fat, snub-nosed .455 calibre bullets it held.
At midnight the wind had dropped sufficiently for one of the lightkeepers to venture out to the fog station. Galway and one other man went with him but when, nearly an hour later and half-frozen, they returned, it was to shake their heads. Only as the grey light of dawn finally came up did the spray no longer fly so far, and when, in between gusts, the tussocks had all but ceased their moving, it was as if the island could be at peace
again and now there were but a few hours left.
‘I want my wedding ring, Kevin. It was in my rucksack.’
O’Bannion led her upstairs and she saw again the mechanism which drove the light, saw that it had stopped.
The ring wasn’t in her rucksack. She insisted on searching for it. O’Bannion knew he oughtn’t to let her, that she was just stalling for time, but when the ring couldn’t be found, he went downstairs to ask Dermid for it, and reluctantly that one gave it up and she slipped it on her finger.
Galway had his rifle but there was a Thompson gun leaning against the wall just beyond the open door to the mudroom. By this and other things, Mary realized that they had all taken up defensive positions.
At noon a Beaufort flew near the island. It made three passes but kept well offshore. Continuing on out to sea, the plane was soon lost from view.
Huber had armed himself with Nolan’s revolver; Mrs. Tulford had her pistol. Always now when any of the lightkeepers went about their duties, two men went with them. The fog station was serviced, though its foghorns had long since ceased and were no longer necessary.
Mary knew it was coming soon. Whenever she could, she tried to catch a glimpse of Hamish. Once they were able to touch hands but only in passing, she to whisper, ‘The fog station. Take the wireless suitcase,’ his gaze one of puzzlement. ‘Do it, darling. Please!’
O’Bannion knew he had to kill the two of them, that for him there could be no other choice, and when she said, ‘It’s almost time, isn’t it?’ he saw that there was no longer any sadness in her, only a quietude he found unsettling. Was she like Queen Maev or Dierdre or Etain, he wondered, all three of whom had been slain either by others or by themselves?
Etain had been changed into a beautiful butterfly by the fairies and had been blown by the tempest into the drinking cup of Etar’s wife. The woman had swallowed the butterfly whole, and the thing had landed in her womb and become a mortal child, a beautiful girl with no knowledge of her past. Ah well …
‘There’s time enough,’ he heard himself saying. ‘I’ll try to give you all I can of it.’
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