by Alan Evans
Smith asked, ‘She was a member of the embassy staff?’
‘No.’ Blackledge’s answer was abrupt; he obviously did not want to be questioned about the woman.
But Smith persisted: ‘She has to go with the Russians? That seems dangerous. What purpose could she—’
Blackledge broke in forcefully. ‘Mrs. Ramsay goes because the Russians insist! I don’t know why they should but they do, and that is all you need to know!’
There was silence for a moment. Then Smith asked, ‘Why Audacity, sir? I know I made it plain I thought Q-ships had no chance against U-boats now, but I don’t see she’s any better fitted for this—’
Blackledge lifted a broad hand. ‘A conventional warship is out of the question. A Zeppelin patrols the Skagerrak so she would never get near the Sound without being seen and she could never force it. And besides—’
‘It seems to me, sir, that a submarine—’
Again the hand. Blackledge said with a trace of irritation, ‘We aren’t bloody fools! A submarine was considered. We passed them through the Sound into the Baltic in 1914. Since then, however, more patrols have been set up and mines laid. The Germans, Swedes and Danes mined the Sound between them. You’ll find details in your orders. The real point is that although the submarines sank a lot of ships in the Baltic, once Russia surrendered they didn’t have a base. We could see no way of getting them out without taking unacceptable risks so they were scuttled. A submarine might still get in, avoiding the mines by running on the surface in the shallows under cover of night and her chances could be as good as yours. But once she was in, there would still be the problem of contacting Robertson, the agent. Obviously a British submarine could not enter Kirkko so that would mean a rendezvous with him at sea to arrange the transfer of the gold to the Russians. We know when they will be ready, but not where. All that would be dangerous for Robertson, perhaps impossible, and if we lose him then the link with the Russians is broken. So it has to be Audacity.’
He watched Smith’s face for a moment, letting this sink in, then continued: ‘We believe that, posing as a neutral merchantman, Audacity will pass through the Skagerrak and Kattegat, and because of her draught of only four or five feet you can skirt the minefields closing the southern end of the Sound by steaming through the coastal shallows. And of course, as a neutral merchantman, you’ll be able to enter Kirkko quite openly. We’ve given you an additional officer, Lieutenant McLeod of the Royal Naval Reserve. He’s below in the wardroom now with his charts and kit. He sailed extensively in the merchant service in Scandinavian and Baltic waters before the war. He’s a very fine navigator and his knowledge of Swedish is good so he’ll be able to do any talking if you are questioned. He also has a smattering of the other Baltic tongues including German, but we hope you won’t need that.’
Blackledge paused, then looked away from Smith’s watchful stare and cleared his throat. He went on, stiffly, ‘Of course, it won’t be as easy as it might sound’—Smith thought, By God, it won’t!—‘but we believe it can be done. It must be done.’ That was said with finality.
Smith ran his fingers through his hair, thinking. He said, ‘The ship came into the dockyard a week ago. Ross tells me they’ve ripped the torpedo tubes and bomb-throwers out of her. Was that done with this job in mind?’
Blackledge nodded, ‘You won’t need them and it will lighten her, maybe save you just that inch or two of draught that could be vital. You won’t be taking the bomb-throwers’ crews, either.’
Smith thought, Lucky men. Not so the torpedo gunner and his staff who would stay aboard because they were also responsible for the ship’s electrics.
Blackledge said, ‘We knew of the possibility of this plot early in March but we hoped for positive assurances from the Bolshevik government that they would not allow their Fleet to be taken by the Germans. Those assurances did not come but now we have information that German troops and ships are gathering at Riga and Danzig. That may well mean an attempt is to be made to seize the Fleet by force. We dare wait no longer. While we waited, we made what preparations we could, chose the man and the ship. You and Audacity. You still have her three guns and you are carrying scuttling charges. There are six of them in the magazines.’
Smith broke in, protesting: ‘Scuttling charges?’
Blackledge replied grimly, ‘This ship must not be taken. If an enemy patrol tries to stop and board you, then you will fight long enough to be able to jettison the bullion.
Divers can go down to sunken ships and that gold must not fall into enemy hands so you’ll ensure it’s scattered along the sea-bed. Its intrinsic value apart, if they found it they could well make a shrewd guess what it was intended for and such a suggestion could be very embarrassing, diplomatically.’
He waited. Smith sat looking at the fat envelope containing his orders. He could hear outside the cabin the bustle of the ship making ready for sea, men’s voices with that of Ross carrying above the rest, the tramp of booted feet. Smith asked, ‘May I state my objection, sir?’
Blackledge answered coldly, ‘You may.’
‘I don’t like the scheme, sir—’
Blackledge burst out, exasperated, ‘You aren’t supposed to like it! We don’t like it! But it seems you’re full of objections, Smith! You objected to going back to the Fleet and said you wanted an independent command so you were given Audacity. Then you immediately complained about her role as Q-ship! We told you to shut up because we knew what we planned for this ship, but now you don’t like that either! Well?’
Smith picked up his orders and tapped the envelope on the table. ‘If this scheme succeeds, sir, and the Russian Fleet is sunk or immobilised, then our involvement could change Russia from being just an unfriendly neutral into a belligerent on the enemy side. If it fails and is uncovered the same applies. And then they might well send their Fleet to fight alongside Germany.’
Blackledge said deliberately, ‘Those risks are known and the decision was taken in the light of them, albeit reluctantly.’ He stood up and asked, ‘Any other questions?’
Smith followed suit, sliding the envelope into his pocket. ‘When does the bullion come aboard?’
‘It was embarked tonight, before I told Ross you were sailing.’ Blackledge spoke quickly now, glancing at his watch as if eager to be away. ‘The Russian officers will be ready for the night of the fifteenth/sixteenth or soon after. They daren’t risk waiting in Kirkko or thereabouts so you must be there by then. Theoretically you should have time in hand, but the weather this early in the year, the minefields, navigational problems, German patrols, are not theoretical. All or any of them could delay you, but you must be at Kirkko on the fifteenth.’
Audacity sailed within the hour.
2—‘That bloody raider!’
‘That’s the Norwegian coast in sight to port, sir.’ The Scottish accent was soft, the voice deep. McLeod turned from the chart table to stand by Smith in the wheelhouse. With justification Ross had said the navigator was like a gorilla: he was so broad his arms hung out from his sides, ending in big, leather-skinned hands. But although those thick seaman’s fingers might look clumsy, that was deceptive. They were deft with a pencil and the other instruments of his trade. Indeed, Smith had often seen such hands mending a watch on a ship’s mess deck. McLeod stood nearly as tall as Ross but did not seem to because of his easy slouch.
Smith nodded. Norway was no more than a distant, darker line dividing grey sea from grey sky. The sun had risen an hour before but was still hidden behind cloud. Audacity steamed alone, rising and falling in a slow rhythm to a long swell. The escorting destroyers left her before sun-up because a Zeppelin patrolled the Skagerrak from dawn to dusk, and she would be suspect if seen in their presence. But there would be destroyers waiting for her, at a rendezvous outside the Skagerrak, every day for the next ten days. She only had coal for ten days’ steaming. She would be out by then—if ever. Audacity was pushing into the Skagerrak now, the North Sea astern, ahead of her the Kattega
t and then the Sound, the gateway to the Baltic.
Smith asked McLeod drily, ‘Is this a bit like you’re coming home?’
McLeod grinned, big white teeth showing through his beard. ‘Not really home, but I know it well enough.’ He was a lieutenant, Royal Naval Reserve, held a merchant master’s ticket and before the war had been first mate for a shipping line trading in the Baltic. He spoke Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish well but read them poorly, because he’d learnt them only by ear. He had told Smith at Rosyth, ‘I can manage some German but I have to think about it, work out first what I want to say.’ That wouldn’t matter because Audacity was now supposed to be a Swedish tramp, and McLeod her master.
His grin faded. ‘The Baltic isn’t a pleasure cruise this early in the year, sir. There’ll still be some ice about along the northern shores, though nothing to worry us. But we can expect fog, a lot of it.’
Smith wished that was all he had to worry about.
Wilberforce, the little steward, showed on the bridge outside then entered the wheelhouse. ‘Coffee, sir.’
‘Thank you.’ Smith took the thick china mug and cupped it in his hands to get the warmth from it, sniffed at the aroma, sipped.
Wilberforce complained indignantly, ‘‘Scuse me, sir, but that chest o’ drawers what was fitted under your bunk—the dockyard mateys took them out and screwed on a panel instead.’
Smith nodded. ‘Modification.’
‘Don’t make a lot o’ sense, sir. I mean, we never used them drawers, but suppose we wanted to?’
Smith shrugged and said casually, ‘You know how it is, some designer gets a bee in his bonnet.’
Wilberforce shrugged in his turn and went away muttering.
The gold. One hundred thousand pounds of it at nearly four pounds to the troy ounce weighed three-quarters of a ton and the boxes of it just fitted under Smith’s bunk. It had been stowed before he or any of Audacity’s crew came aboard, but Blackledge had made Smith unscrew the panel and count the boxes. It had taken only a minute or two and then Smith had replaced the panel and signed a receipt. He thought it represented a hell of a lot of money. His own pay was only three hundred pounds a year and a lot of the men aboard drew less than a hundred. Audacity herself only cost fifty thousand.
He took his coffee out on to her bridge, stood by the starboard lookout and ran his eyes over the ship. A four-inch gun amidships on the superstructure was hidden by a mock cabin erected around it. The twelve-pounders on fo’c’sle and poop were turned on their swinging mountings and lay on their sides below the deck. She looked innocent enough, just one more three-island tramp among thousands ploughing the oceans of the world. The Swedish ensign flapped from the jack in her stern and big boards painted in the Swedish colours of blue and yellow hung against her sides below the bridge. Other boards bearing her adopted name, Lulea, were bolted to her bow and to her stern with her port of registration: Stockholm. There was a real Lulea, listed in the International Register of Shipping if anyone checked it, but she was thousands of miles away, in the Pacific.
He could find no fault with Audacity’s disguise and certainly it should serve here. On this course she could only be a neutral ship headed for a neutral, or German port. Enemy patrols would not stop her. The same would apply once she was in the Baltic. Passing through the Sound and the minefields at the mouth of the Kattegat, however, was another matter: a true neutral would make those passages through the swept channels under escort and that would involve official examination. Smith dared not risk being boarded. A demand to inspect Audacity’s cargo would strip away her disguise—her holds were empty except for the bedplates on which the bomb-throwers had been mounted—while a casual question addressed to any of her crew bar McLeod would instantly show they were not Scandinavian. There had been barely time to collect, certainly not to train, even a nucleus of Swedish-speaking men.
Smith told the lookout, ‘Keep your eyes peeled for that Zeppelin.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
The Zeppelin would see nothing suspicious but Smith did not like being observed unawares. Automatically he checked on the appearance of the lookout: modelled on a tramp’s crew, every man’s dress ranged from oily dungarees to ancient double-breasted suits. This particular sailor wore an old check ulster buttoned to the neck and a trilby crammed down on to his ears. He looked the part.
‘Ship! Port bow!’ That came from the lookout on the other wing of the bridge and Smith strode across past the front of the wheelhouse to join him. ‘Tramp by the look of her, sir.’
McLeod said at Smith’s shoulder, ‘Probably out of Oslo.’
Smith glanced at him, nodded. McLeod, of course, was a tramp’s master to the life: reefer jacket over a thick, blue woollen jersey, old blue cap pulled down to his eyebrows. Smith’s gaze shifted approvingly to the motor-boat hanging in its davits on the port side. It had replaced the original lifeboat, the twin of that on the starboard side, but was only slightly out of character, no smart launch but simply an open boat with an engine. Only the screw might give things away and the boat’s canvas cover had been adjusted to cover that. The motor-boat was there because it might be needed for a rendezvous with the Russians, if that were to be in some tiny cove where Audacity could not enter.
‘Ship forty on the bow, sir. Another tramp, I think, but mebbe bigger.’
McLeod said, ‘That one’ll be out of Kristiansand.’
Smith too thought the second ship was bigger and a merchantman. Dismissing both ships from his mind, he leaned in at the door of the wheelhouse to perch his empty cup on the shelf below the screen, then began to pace the bridge; standing was a cold business. He had read and reread his orders during the crossing of the North Sea, pored over the charts with McLeod, asked question after question and listened to his answers. He had to learn all he could very quickly and then make his plan.
He worked at it now. As he paced the bridge, however, other matters intruded on his thoughts. It had turned out McLeod was not additional to complement. Jeavons, the other lieutenant, had not reported to the ship—instead a message had come to the dockyard that he had been taken to the hospital that night in agony, with suspected appendicitis. With one officer fewer to stand watches, that would make life harder for Ross and McLeod, but Smith had expected to spend a lot of time on the bridge anyway. He had told them that Audacity was to enter the Baltic simply on a reconnaissance—and if anything happened to him they would find his orders locked in his desk—but he did not believe that they, or anyone else aboard, swallowed that story. After all, there was always Mrs. Ramsay who knew the true objective of this mission, and even though she could be relied upon to keep the secret, everybody would still speculate on her presence in Audacity’s wardroom.
But Blackledge had suggested the reconnaissance story before Audacity sailed from Rosyth: ‘It’s feasible insofar as it would be desirable to pass a force into the Baltic. It could inflict a lot of damage on enemy shipping, close that sea as a supply route for the enemy.’
Blackledge had also said, ‘If Audacity’s disguise is penetrated in the Baltic and you’re not immediately brought to action then you get rid of the cargo and afterwards do what damage you can, while you can, because you won’t get out. That’s in your orders, but how you do it is left to your own initiative.’
Or: When the game is up you’re on your own. But Smith had thought there was no profit in brooding on that.
He had met Mrs. Ramsay briefly in the wardroom before Audacity had sailed. She lounged in a chair, long legs crossed, her silk dress outlining them. Her face was made-up, her full mouth carefully painted. She looked up at Smith out of wide, dark eyes.
He bowed stiffly. ‘We’ll do our best to see you have a comfortable voyage, Mrs. Ramsay.’
‘Thank you.’ Her voice was low, husky. ‘Just get me there, Captain.’
‘I’ll try.
‘Try? Those are your orders, Captain.’
‘And I intend to carry them out. But there are other people between us
and the Baltic who also have their orders.’
Her lips parted in a smile sufficient to show very white teeth. She spread her arms. ‘Then I am in your hands.’
Their eyes held for a moment then they both looked away. Smith said, ‘Good night, Mrs. Ramsay.’
He had not seen her since. She stayed in her cabin. The North Sea crossing had been rough but she was not seasick. Wilberforce took her meals in to her and reported that she was eating heartily, sitting in her bunk and reading a novel. He smirked. He had never read a novel but he knew the sort of things that went on in them.
Smith thought he could easily have done without Elizabeth Ramsay. She was a distraction, even though unseen, and a complication in that she had to be transferred to the Russians with the gold. Why? he wondered. Blackledge said because she was known to the plotters and, more importantly, because they insisted. Before they went ahead they wanted the gold—and Elizabeth Ramsay. She was determined to go. Did she have a lover, or lovers, among them? The ‘Russian Whore…’ Did he believe that? Either way, she was another reason for his making haste to the rendezvous with the Russians. The sooner he was rid of this woman with the painted mouth and bold eyes, the better.
He forced his mind back to his planning: How to enter the Kattegat that was barred by minefields, and then on into the Sound…?
Some time later he was jerked out of his brooding by McLeod: ‘That first ship’s British and she’s going to pass us close.’
Smith halted his pacing and looked at her. She would not pass close enough to talk. Her ensign, the Red Duster, flew at her stern. She was old and work-worn, her side showing near as many patches of red rust as of black paint. She would be crammed with a much-needed cargo for Britain, probably making her way around the coast to join a convoy off Bergen for the crossing of the North Sea and meanwhile keeping close to Norwegian waters to be able to run into them for shelter if a German warship appeared. She was still taking a chance on U-boats. Their hunting grounds were the North Sea and Atlantic, but one could well turn up here and the men aboard that ship knew it. Those merchant seamen were brave. Many survived a ship, or ships, sunk under them and yet went back to sea again. Smith mentally lifted his cap to them.