The Man who Missed the War

by Dennis Wheatley

  Philip listened to the drama fascinated and appalled, becoming every day more preoccupied and gloomy. For months past he had believed that war would come within a year, yet now that it seemed so near he endeavoured to persuade himself that it would be averted at the last moment. Somehow, he had always thought that he would be given time to prove his Raft Convoy and see it in production by the Admiralty before hostilities actually broke out.

  It was now the end of August, so he had been nearly three weeks at sea, had passed through one serious storm and covered over 1,300 miles of the Atlantic crossing, yet the string of rafts was still intact, and he had not been carried any material distance from the course he would have chosen; so he therefore considered that the feasibility of the project had already been established. But it would be another month at least before he could complete his crossing and provide physical evidence of his triumph. That meant that if war broke out now over the Polish crisis six weeks at the absolute minimum must elapse before the Admiralty experts had definitely satisfied themselves about the Raft Convoy’s performance, and placed orders for others to be made in the United States; and winter would then be coming on. It looked like spring now before the British Mercantile Marine could be given any substantial relief by Philip’s new weapon. And if there was war how would Britain fare during these long dark winter months ahead?

  He tried to interest Gloria in the news bulletins by telling her that the fate of every country in the world for the next two or three generations probably hung on what was happening in Danzig during these fateful days, but she simply was not interested.

  That man Hitler’s just a buffoon!’ she kept on repeating. ‘And what you’re so scared about I can’t think. I knew a German boy back home in New York, an’ he often told me that there’s nothin’ to be gotten out of wars either by winner or loser. That’s why the Germans don’t want another war; an’ ‘tis only the likes of you with your scaremongerin’ nonsense makes all this talk of war possible.’

  Next day Germany and Poland were at war.

  ‘Well,’ said Philip grimly, as he switched off the wireless. ‘How about it now?’

  She shrugged. ‘Poland is only a little place, so ‘twill all be over in five minutes.’

  ‘It won’t if Britain and France come in. And Poland is not a little place. It has thirty-five million inhabitants—people like you and me. Haven’t you got any sort of feeling for them? Can’t you conceive how frightful it will be for them to have their country overrun by those hordes of blood beasts and to be turned into slaves?’

  ‘Of course, I’m sorry for them,’ she replied hastily; ‘but I think they’re great fools all the same. They’d not have got in this mess if they’d been sensible people. But that’s just the trouble, an’ it’s always been the same in Europe. Quarrel an’ fight, quarrel an’ fight; an’ most times ‘tis sheer greed at the bottom of it. These Kings and such don’t give a fig how many of their people they kill so long as there’s another piece of land for the grabbin’. If I had me way I’d bang all their heads together!’

  On the 3rd of September Britain declared war on Germany, but Gloria was not in the least perturbed and only vaguely interested.

  In vain Philip tried to make her understand that the great forces now aroused in Europe could not leave America untouched. He tried to explain how Britain would be fighting America’s battle and giving her a chance to arm, and how, if she did not take that chance and Britain were defeated, Hitler would within a few years have the most powerful fleet that had ever dominated the oceans, and escorted by it and a colossal air force the German Army would invade and conquer America. But she refused to take him seriously.

  Europe and its war were as far removed from her as the war in Manchukuo had been from him. The fact that her father had been an Englishman gave her a natural bias in favour of Britain, but her feeling was a purely academic one, and she made it plain that she would regard anyone who might so much as lift a finger to draw the United States into the conflict on the side of Britain as an enemy of her country.

  With such a lack of sympathy between two people cooped up together at a time of crisis, it was hardly surprising that they found the next few weeks drag most appallingly. When it was fine—and they only met one other period of bad weather, which lasted for four days—they swam or fished together, but rather because to have done otherwise would have been to display open hostility, than from choice. Philip sat as a model for a number of sketches, most of which he thought very good, and an understanding was reached about the radio, by which it was agreed that news bulletins should be reduced to three a day. But neither of them seemed able to settle to anything for very long because, except when sketching, Gloria was intensely bored, and Philip was worrying himself silly about what was going on in England and how quickly he would be able to get into the war once he got there.

  After their third day out from New York no ship had passed within a mile of them, and, the first storm having driven them some way to the south of the main sea lane between America and Britain, they had not even sighted many ships after that; but now they were approaching Europe they began to see ships more frequently again.

  It was on the last evening of September that Philip said just after supper: ‘Well, Gloria, I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that your ordeal is nearly over. When I worked out our position as at midday today, I found that we were less than a hundred miles west by south of Land’s End.’

  ‘Well, what do you know; that is good news!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ve been mighty quicker than you expected, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve been lucky. If we’d been swept up to the north we might have taken several weeks longer and eventually landed up in the Faroes or Norway. As it is, the southern arm of the Gulf Stream, which is still powerful enough all these thousands of miles from the Amazon to give Southampton a double tide, has carried us right in. Tomorrow morning I mean to open up the wireless-sending apparatus and arrange for tugs to come out to tow us in. So if all goes well this will be your last night at sea.’

  For a moment she was silent, then she said: ‘ ’Tis a great thing that you’ve done, and you’ve a right to be pleased with yourself. I’ve no doubt ‘tis your father will be killing the fatted calf for you by this time tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, I expect so, if he’s still stationed at Portsmouth, but he might have been sent to sea. Anyhow, my sister and dear old Pin, who’s been a mother to us both, will be at home; and I’m sure they’ll do their best to make you comfortable.’

  ‘Holy Saint Bridget!’ cried Gloria, surprised into her worst Irish. ‘An’ will you be after tellin’ me why they should be doin’ anythin’ of the sort?’

  ‘Oh well,’ he shrugged, ‘you don’t know a soul in England, do you? And now there’s a war on things may be difficult. In any case, I’m afraid you’ll have a certain amount of trouble with the immigration authorities as you haven’t a passport. We needn’t tell them you came aboard as a stowaway and we could say that your passport was in your handbag which got swept overboard in a storm. Anyhow, we ought to be able to fix that trouble somehow, but it may not be at all easy for you to get a permit to go to France, and you must have somebody to help you find your way around. So I think the best thing would be for you to come and stay with us for a bit, anyhow to begin with.’

  ‘ ’Tis very kind you are. Much kinder than I deserve, and I’ll try hard not to be a bother to your sister and Mrs. Pin. But I’ll be mighty bashful. Your father’s a captain in the British Navy, isn’t he, and I’ve never been inside a great house in me life, let alone stayed in one.’

  Philip laughed and tried to reassure her. ‘It’s nothing like a great house—just three recep, six bed and the usual offices, as the house-agents say! You’ll find old Pin an absolute dear—her proper name is Mrs. Marlow, by the bye. Anyhow, we’re not rich or terribly social, so there’s really nothing to be the least bit frightened of. Still,’ he paused for a second and went on more seriously, ‘there’s one thing
I must warn you about. I shall give you the address and all particulars of how to get there, but I may not be able to go with you, and it may even be some little time before I’m able to join you.’

  ‘And why would that be? If it’s to London about your rafts you’re going right away, I’d rather go with you.’

  ‘No. It’s not that. There was no point in my telling you before, but I’m wanted by the American police, so when we land I may be arrested and taken off to prison.’

  Gloria’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Holy Saints defend us now! What sort of crime have you been committing?’

  ‘I killed a man. I know you still think that Hitler is just a buffoon and that the Germans are nice, kind people, so I’ll tell you what happened to me. Then, perhaps, you’ll understand a bit better what slimy, unscrupulous swine we’re up against.’

  He told her the story of his negotiations about cargo with Eiderman, of how he had only learned at the eleventh hour on the Regenskuld of the plot against his own life, and described the final scene in which the German had been shot. He wound up: ‘You see now why I couldn’t possibly let you signal a ship that might have taken you back to New York. If the American police had learned that I was with the rafts during our first few days at sea, they would almost certainly have come out and picked me up. I don’t much mind what happens to me now, but, so long as my Raft Convoy idea remained to be tested, I couldn’t possibly afford to risk it.’

  She stood up, came round the table and laid a hand on his shoulder. Then, using the nickname of ‘Boy’ which she had taken to calling him on account of his youthful appearance, and in a soft voice that he had never heard her use before, she said: ‘Oh, Boy, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me about that dirty German and that the cops were after you because you’d bumped him off?’

  ‘What difference would it have made if I had?’

  ‘Why, all the difference in the world, you poor babe! Do you remember tellin’ me that first day how stowaways were made to work for their passage? Well, what would any girl have thought? “ ’Tis lucky he thinks himself to have gotten someone to cook and clean for him and niver a cent to pay for it. That’s why he won’t signal a ship, and if it’s drowned I am on account of his crazy venture not a fig will he care.” ’

  ‘I see,’ he grinned. ‘That was why you played me up, was it?’

  ‘Sure. I felt that by cookin’ an’ such I was earnin’ my keep, but I saw no reason at all to make meself pleasant beyond that. And all the time you were worried out of your wits that they’d come after us and get you. Poor boy! I certainly could kick meself now for the way I’ve been treatin’ you all these weeks.’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t been all that marvellous myself,’ Philip apologised; ‘but I thought you were just a cross-grained little devil whose one idea of fun was to make other people lose their tempers. Still, it’s nice to have found out that we might have been quite good friends, even if we have taken seven weeks to do it, and this is the last night of the trip.’

  They talked on for another half-hour or so a little awkwardly, before they both went to bed, feeling slightly ashamed of themselves, yet filled in some odd way with a happiness and excitement which was not altogether due to the fact that they expected to land safely in England the next day.

  First thing in the morning, Philip began to tune in on his wireless-sending apparatus. He was not a radio expert and at first the mass of traffic, mainly owing to the war, with which the air seemed to be crammed, confused him. But he kept on sending out the call-signs that his father had arranged should be allotted to him before he left New York, and eventually received a satisfactory answer; then he sent the message that he had prepared and, having received an acknowledgment, sat back to await a reply to his request for tugs.

  It came three hours later. ‘Heartiest congratulations on success of your original and courageous undertaking. Regret no tugs immediately available but Pompey will pick you up further up Channel tomorrow. F.O.W.A.’

  As a sailor’s son, Philip knew well that Pompey was naval slang for Portsmouth, and he guessed that F.O.W.A. stood for ‘Flag Officer, Western Approaches’. Evidently his father had given the Admiralty full particulars of his enterprise, and they had passed the whole story on to the Admiral responsible for Atlantic waters who, unable himself to help, had passed on his request to bring Philip in to C.-in-C. Portsmouth. The delay was disappointing, but there was a certain exciting consolation in the thought that, instead of being taken into the Bristol Channel, Falmouth or Plymouth, he would be towed into the Solent and so complete his unique and perhaps epoch-making fifty-one day voyage by arriving virtually on his own doorstep.

  However, on going on deck round about eleven o’clock he had an uneasy feeling that the delay might prove extremely annoying as well as disappointing. The sky had been overcast all the morning, and now it was beginning to blow. By midday the familiar white horses that Gloria had learned to dread were topping the wavelets.

  By a rough calculation based on his observation taken the day before, and his now practised judgment of speeds, Philip reckoned that they were some sixty miles or less south-west of the Lizard and that, if they continued on their present course, they should pass some thirty miles to the south of it during the night. But the trouble was that the wind had changed. It was now blowing from the north, and they were still out in the open ocean, not yet having come under the shelter of the coast of Cornwall.

  Within an hour it was clear that the Raft Convoy was no longer making its way into the entrance of the Channel. In spite of the fact that Philip kept the launch heading north-east by east, they were drifting south. With the wind in its present direction there was no risk of his being driven on to the rocky Cornish coast, so he turned the launch north, head on to the rising seas. He could do no more now than prevent its rolling to some extent and hope that the storm would die down by the following day.

  They were cheered considerably about half past five by an aircraft bearing the red, white and blue circles of the R.A.F., which came down quite low overhead and circled round twice before flying off again in the direction of the English coast. It might have been coincidence but Philip felt certain that it was the long arm of the British Navy which had sent out an aircraft to locate them, and, now that they had to face another storm, it was comforting to think that they were no longer quite alone, but had friends ashore who were concerned for their safety.

  As night closed down dark and menacing, squalls of rain began to add to their discomfort. The wind had veered again, but not in their favour. It seemed that an ill fate had decreed that they should be caught in the first of the autumn gales, and that they were in for a real nor’-easter.

  Philip remained in the cockpit of the engine-room fighting desperately to keep the launch head on to the waves, which seemed to be increasing in size every moment. The storm was far worse than either of the two bouts of bad weather that they had struck while crossing the Atlantic and at two o’clock in the morning, loath as he was to do so, he decided that he must disconnect the launch from the chain of rafts, otherwise when the cables slackened the Number One Raft might be hurled right on top of them.

  Gloria was sick but refused now to remain in her bunk for more than a few hours at a time, and insisted on crawling along the deck from the cabin to the engine-room to bring him biscuits and a thermos full of hot coffee.

  When morning dawned, the sea was running mountains high, and for minutes at a time they could see no further than the great green valley across which they were sliding, while from the crests they caught only a swift glimpse of other crests breaking into great curving rolls of foam; but Philip managed to keep the Number One Raft in sight, and never let it become more distant than two crests away from him.

  At nine o’clock, Philip decided that he really must take a rest, but the launch began to roll so dangerously within five minutes of his leaving the steering-wheel that he had to hurry back to it. It was not, however, till two hours later that he
became really alarmed.

  He suddenly noticed that after each wave had broken over the bow of the launch the water was taking much longer to slide off. He guessed the cause in a second. The pounding of these great waves was so heavy that the forward compartment had sprung a leak again, where he had only been able to patch it, and had gradually filled with water. This, he knew, was serious, and he was now so tired that he could not keep the launch nose on to the storm for much longer. If he let up for more than a few minutes a cross sea might hit them, half-swamping the cabin and the engine-room; and, with the forward compartment useless as an airlock to help keep them buoyed up, the launch would go under.

  His brain was so numbed with weariness that it almost refused to function, but he knew that he had got to do something about the situation before very long, because otherwise he would not have the strength left to do anything at all. The launch could not live through another night of this, and probably not even another few hours. Waves were constantly breaking over the forward compartment, so there was no possible hope of pumping out the water, even if he could have reached it without being swept overboard. Yet, terribly aware as he was of the deadly peril which now menaced them, he was so exhausted that he could think of no measure which might avert the final catastrophe.

  Suddenly, above the screaming of the tempest and the thunder of the waves, he heard a voice. As clearly as though the words had been spoken in a quiet room, the vigorous tones of the dynamic little Canon smacked home in his ears.