“I see,” said Captain Griffith as the other rose to his feet. “A sticky wicket, eh? Would you like one for the road?”
“Thank you, no,” answered the man from the consulate. “I must be getting along. You sail at dusk. Good luck—and I hope we haven’t upset you. It’s probably all just a flap, but there are too many coincidences for us not to take it seriously.”
“I understand,” said the captain. “I’ll see you to the gangway. Terrors of the deep existed even for Columbus. We’ll manage one way or the other.”
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” said the man sitting on the bunk with his legs crossed. His eyes were closed and he flexed the muscles of his neck in a ripple that caused MacQueen to look again in disbelief. He tossed his jacket onto the other bunk and went into the toilet. When he emerged, his companion was standing on tiptoe on the deck and stretching towards the ceiling. He was a very compact five-foot-six, with enormous biceps.
“Have to keep the old bod in shape,” he said, stretching one hand towards MacQueen. He spoke with a Harvard accent that was overlaid on an unfamiliar twang. His smile was totally humourless and his dynamism ricocheted back from the walls. “The name’s O’Dwyer,” he said. “And you’re MacQueen, right? Got shot in the army? Better learn how to duck.”
MacQueen shook the proffered hand and marvelled that it was dry. Not a drop of sweat showed on the man anywhere. He noticed the butt of a pistol protruding from under the pile of pillows.
“Are you planning a gunfight somewhere?” asked MacQueen.
“Naw,” said his cabinmate. “It’s just habit.” He withdrew the gun, flicked the magazine onto the bed, and ejected a round from the breech. “Colt .45,” he said, balancing it with admiration. “Best person-stopper on earth.” He handed it to MacQueen.
“What were you just doing?” asked MacQueen. He hefted the heavy automatic and aimed it at his reflection in the mirror. He pressed the trigger…click.
“Charles Atlas stuff,” said his new acquaintance. “Dynamic tension—great for confined spaces.” He placed his right fist into his left hand in front of his chest and pushed hard. His muscles swelled and the cords of his neck stood out. “Pit one muscle against the other,” he explained. “You can’t lose.”
MacQueen laid the gun carefully on the glass top of the bureau. “Can’t lose what?” he asked. Suspicion flickered in O’Dwyer’s narrow blue eyes. Is this kid making fun of me, he wondered? MacQueen’s face was expressionless.
“You’ll have to start exercising that arm,” said O’Dwyer cautiously. “Why don’t you try it?”
“I like to swim,” said MacQueen. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Everybody smokes,” replied O’Dwyer. “Go ahead, I can’t stop you. I’m used to it, as long as it isn’t cigars. How tall are you?”
“About six-foot,” said MacQueen.
“Shit,” exclaimed O’Dwyer. “Even in those goddamn Cuban heels I can’t get over five-eight.”
MacQueen sat on his bunk, and O’Dwyer reloaded his automatic. He shoved a round into the breech and locked it with the safety catch.
“It’s no personal achievement,” said MacQueen. “I guess it’s in the genes.”
“Yeah,” agreed O’Dwyer. “Napoleon was shorter than me.” He started to chin himself on the doorframe. “Great for the fingers” he said gasping. “Only a half inch to grip.”
MacQueen watched the performance with incredulity. Charles Atlas always had an advertisement in the magazine Operator 13, but he had always thought it a joke. Apparently it wasn’t in some circles, he mused. Someone must pay for those ads.
31
The Lady Hawkins cast off her lines at dusk and eased into the yellow fog of Boston Harbour. The promenade deck was damp and the seagulls appeared and disappeared, screaming and descending with great flapping wings on any debris in the dirty water. MacQueen wore his overcoat and turned up the collar. A sturdy tugboat nudged the bow into the stream, its bells clanging and its long funnel emitting puffs of dark smoke. Its propellers churned the surface, and strange objects bobbed to the surface then sank again to the bottom. A chilly north wind was blowing, and MacQueen backed into the lee of a bulkhead. O’Dwyer had put on tennis shoes and was slowly running around the deck with a towel around his neck. MacQueen cupped a match with a wince and lit a cigarette. Two of the Frenchmen were standing disconsolately in their trench coats with felt hats jammed on their heads. They gesticulated to one another, and both seemed to be talking at the same time.
The pilot blew a mighty blast from the funnel that startled everyone. The terminal disappeared into the vapour, and the chorus of foghorns echoed the scale across the harbour in muffled and continuous cacophony. The captain appeared in a brief flash of gold braid on the port wing of the bridge, then disappeared back into the wheelhouse. They ponderously swung about, then slowly headed for the harbour approaches. The ghostly outlines of anchored merchant ships drifted past them through the mist. In the slow swells at the harbour’s entrance the pilot took his leave, clambering down a rope ladder into a waiting launch. Then the decks commenced to quiver as the engines gained power and the great screws forced the graceful, grey ship out into Massachusetts Bay. Darkness descended, and everyone retreated into the interior. The first officer took over the watch, the blackout was checked by the bosun’s mate, and the ship settled into the long swell of the ocean. Once past Cape Cod it would be rougher, but with a following wind it wouldn’t be too bad.
The bar was open and the ferry pilots were in their usual place. The French group were clustered in a corner drinking wine, the lady still wearing her beret. The room heaved gently and the aproned bartender polished glasses in front of a mirror that reflected back through the double doors and out onto the landing above the stairwell. There stood Admiral Hawkins, resplendent in his cocked hat, looking through a telescope. The railing cut off his lower half, but MacQueen knew it by heart. He wondered what Sergeant Cyples was doing tonight as he studied his own appearance in the bar mirror.
O’Dwyer’s reflection appeared beside MacQueen, who turned around. The American’s face was shining with vigour and his eyes were as deadly as ever. His face was set in his mirthless grin and his shoulders seemed ready to burst from his jacket.
“Have one on me, young fella,” he said. “Two beers.” He held up two fingers to the barman and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Just call me, Kennedy, sir,” said the barman. “Two drafts coming up.” The glasses were tall and tapered to a slight stem before widening into the base. They were cold, and a mere half inch of froth topped the golden liquid. Each glass was ensigned with the CNS house flag.
“You know how to pour, Kennedy,” said O’Dwyer, snapping a five-dollar bill and passing it across the bar. He threw a quick glance at the French table, then looked at the ferry pilots. They had produced a deck of cards, and one was dealing.
“Who are they?” asked O’Dwyer.
MacQueen told him, and he glanced at them again.
“Christ,” he muttered. “All sorts of freaks are for hire these days.” He put a foot on the brass rail and swallowed some beer. “Any music, Kennedy?” he asked.
“I’ve only got a Victrola,” said the bartender. “Sometimes Sparks pipes some music down from WT, but he likes the classical stuff.”
“Let’s hear it,” said O’Dwyer. It was Debussy, and the bartender turned it low. The French table immediately stopped talking and sat in sudden rapture. The card players didn’t notice, and O’Dwyer ignored it. “I like Benny Goodman,” he said. “He played at Carnegie Hall so he must be good. I just know what I like.” He stretched his neck in a nervous gesture and jutted his chin. He had both hands on the bar, with a lot of cuff showing. His black shoes were polished and his heels clicked on the parquet floor. He made MacQueen feel tired even when he was relaxing. The gong rang for dinner.
“Poker tonight in the Garden Lounge,” said one of the ferry pilots. “Everyone is welcome and the stakes aren
’t high. We take turns buying the drinks, and no beer.”
The engines rang “full steam ahead” and the ship shuddered more noticeably. The waves had started to crest in the black night, and fog whipped around the lookouts on the wings of the bridge. The captain hovered over his map table, calibrating their new route on the chart. The course was due east from Cape Cod, then angled into Bermuda. The first officer shouted the compass bearings to the helmsman down a brass voice pipe, and his orders were echoed back. The captain had broken open his sealed orders, and he gazed at the final sentence:
Immediately, on any visual sighting, you will take evasive action in the opposite direction.
That would free the field of fire for his four-inch gun, thought Captain Griffith, with a grim smile. At least they won’t blow our own funnel off.
“Steady as she goes,” said the captain. He would have a bite in his quarters and lie, fully clothed, on his bunk.
“Aye aye, sir,” replied the first officer. “I’ll ring for your steward, he’s down below. If anything happens we’ll rouse you right away.”
The Lady Hawkins plunged and bucked through the dark night on this next leg of her voyage south. There were no stars to guide her, and other ships that were afloat wished her no good. There was nothing to be done about it, however, as a Lady can only do her duty. The salt spray hurled itself against the heavy glass windows of the bridge house. The helmsman stood, with his legs apart, tightly grasping the helm, his eye on the great brass compass that swung in a pedestal in front of him. In the engine room, the stokers checked their gauges and wiped their greasy hands on swatches of waste. In the fo’c’sle, the off-duty watch were finishing their supper. A lookout huddled unseeingly on the circular platform of the four-inch gun. And in second class the mother and her children groaned once more and lost all of the food they had eaten while in Boston Harbour. Man’s triumph over the waves is only conditional, and even then he insists on disputing possession of these vast wastes on the surface of the sea.
MacQueen, feeling slightly overdressed in a blue suit, went in to dinner. In the old days, everyone had worn dinner jackets or mess jackets, and the ladies wore long dresses. At eighteen he was already a throwback.
32
The ships of the German Kriegsmarine, at loose in the Atlantic, included two battleships, the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, as well as a “pocket battleship” named the Admiral Scheer, and a heavy cruiser, the Admiral Hipper. Each one of these mighty floating fortresses was happily engaged in sinking unescorted convoys and stray merchant ships. They were out to avenge the sinking of their sister, the Admiral Graf Spee, which they felt had been tricked into scuttling herself in Montevideo over a year ago. Now they had a base at the port of Brest, sticking out into the Atlantic Ocean from France. It was as vital to them as St. John’s became to their opponents.
It is difficult to believe that these gigantic ships could maraud the Atlantic with no molestation from the Royal Navy. With radio silence and no appreciable air cover, the main trick was to break loose. Submerged mines that could be lain by submarine or dropped by aircraft were a major menace, but once clear of these, the Royal Navy would have to mount a major effort—with little chance of success. It was already stretched to the limit and girdled the globe, so the Kriegsmarine had a free hand.
These ships were not operating as a unit, although the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau were a team. The Admiral Hipper was trying to avoid a run up the English Channel, so she was heading for the narrow gap between Iceland and Greenland, en route from Brest to Kiel. The pocket battleship Admiral Scheer was heading northwest from the Cape of Good Hope and a profitable foray into the Indian Ocean off Mozambique. She had captured a refrigerated vessel, the Duquessa, and had then replenished the food supplies of the auxiliary raiders Thor and Pinquin, plus the supply ship Nordmark, in time for Christmas. She had a further meeting with the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis and the blockade-breaker Tannenfels. She then went on to dodge a massive sea search led by HMS Glasgow and rendezvoused once more with the auxiliary raiders, and then with the submarine U-124, which had repairs for her radio system and the latest codes. Feeling victorious, she crossed the equator in March of 1941, heading on a collision course with CNS Lady Hawkins, just leaving Boston.
Kapitan zur See Theodor Kranke pursed his lips in a straight line and idly watched a green wave crash over his ship’s gigantic clipper bow, sweep past the triple eleven-inch forward gun turret, and pour along the port and starboard decks to cascade off the stern. The phrase “pocket battleship” was misleading, as in reality it was in the heavy cruiser class. The Admiral Scheer had been launched in the 1930s and named after a hero of the Battle of Jutland, occurring in May of 1916. She had another triple gun turret aft of her angle-capped single funnel, catapult-launched aircraft, and a great quantity of anti-aircraft and other armaments. She was painted a camouflage design of grey-on-grey, displaced 16,000 tonnes, and had a maximum speed of 30 knots. She was nothing short of a sea monster.
“This course will take us into the Neutrality Zone, Herr Kapitan,” commented the officer of the watch.
The kapitan stamped his foot on the deck. “With this under me,” he said, “I can go anywhere.”
No one was inclined to dispute the statement.
“I just hope those Frenchmen know how to navigate,” added the kapitan to himself. He was not an admirer of a navy who permitted themselves to be blown up in their own harbour, no matter how much treachery had been involved.
Capitaine Louis Blaison personally guided the world’s largest submarine into the Gulf Stream. They were steering north-northwest and cruising at a speed of 15 knots. He was sheltered in the curve of the remarkably dry conning tower, above the white-tipped ocean and under an infinite dome of stars. They were running with the prevailing winds, creating waves. Phosphorescence bubbled in their wake. The capitaine was careless about blackout precautions, and didn’t dare enforce too much discipline on his crew. They were quite aware that they had become a political football, and morale in the Surcouf was at a low ebb. The indignity of having a British liaison officer on board, along with two signalmen, only added to their discontent. They could listen to the powerful radio transmitter from St. Pierre et Miquelon when on the surface; it had warned that Canada was training commandoes to attack the islands, which was quite true.
“What are your plans for this cruise?” asked the Royal Navy liaison officer quietly. He had come up from below and stood beside the capitaine, who chuckled at this ironic Englishman.
The outline of the young British officer’s face was highlighted by the blue light from the conning tower that cut through the dark. He was obviously nervous and trying to cope with the ridiculous situation in which he had been placed with his men. A liaison officer in a poorly run submarine that seemed to be undecided in loyalty was hardly an enviable posting.
“My plans, mon ami?” The capitaine pretended to be surprised. “I have no plans, except to survive this stupid war, eh? What else can any of us do?”
The English lieutenant offered the capitaine a cigarette. He cupped a lighter in his hands and it cast a brief yellow flash. “Which side are you really on?” he asked.
The capitaine grunted, inhaled the smoke, and shrugged his shoulders. “Je suis un fataliste, m’sieur. I am a fatalist. What difference is it? We have two soldiers quarrelling over France—a marshal and a general, eh? One is supported by the Germans and the other by the British. There are two of them but only one France. Me, I am loyal to France.”
“But I am supposed to transmit orders to you from the Royal Navy…” said the disturbed Englishman.
The capitaine snorted and flicked his cigarette into the vast surrounding ocean. He didn’t like English cigarettes. “Tell that to the governor of Martinique, or of St. Pierre,” he replied. “The Royal Navy wanted to arrest us all in Bermuda, but they put you on board instead. We are what you call a hot potato, oui? I cannot abandon my men, and they cannot abandon the most famous s
ubmarine in the world, even though it is only a symbol now. To survive we have to be friends with everyone, and do as everyone tells us, without telling anyone. You, mon ami, are an embarrassment. That is all.”
Nothing in his previous experience had prepared Lieutenant Richard Barney, RNVR, for this extraordinary situation. He shared tiny quarters with his two sailors; restrictions on their movements were minimal, and he officially represented the Royal Navy. Yet they were all but ignored. No one had instructed him in his duties, and he had no idea what authority he might possess. On one side he appeared to be a hostage, and on the other an unwelcome intrusion. In the meantime, the sub was springing leaks and the crew was careless and truculent. The Surcouf was a maverick of the seas, and the capitaine fatalistically greeted each new dawn with surprised gratitude.
A French lieutenant casually saluted the capitaine. “There is an urgent message being decoded, mon capitaine,” he said. “I will take over the watch if you wish.”
“Merci, Gaston,” replied the capitaine. Lieutenant Barney followed him down the ladder. The capitaine faced him at the bottom, standing beside the periscope. “No farther, lieutenant,” he said. “I must request you to return to your quarters and remain there with your men. I will tell you if it is anything of importance.”
The Englishman looked into the unyielding eyes of this enigmatic Frenchman. There was nothing that he could do but obey. His frustration seemed unbearable, and he turned abruptly away. He was close to tears as a vision of his young family flashed across his mind.
The capitaine entered the small chart room. Condensation dripped from the pipes and everything trembled from the thrust of the engines and the continual motion of the ocean’s surface. A signals rating handed him a sheet of paper that merely contained a navigational fix in longitude and latitude. The capitaine measured his chart and drew a small X in mid-ocean. His second-in-command stood in the doorway. The message was from St. Pierre.
The Broken Sword Page 14