Then, with Germany’s honour restored, he would have time for his hobby once again.
For a few minutes he allowed himself to indulge his fantasy: visions of the naked bodies of the svelte boys with plucked eyebrows, painted lips and delightfully mincing gaits he had picked up in Hamburg’s red light district. What pleasure they had once given him! Now, as head of the North German Naval Intelligence Division, an organization which those damned Allies had banned, but which functioned all the same, he had devoted himself almost totally to the restoration of Germany’s former glory. Occasionally he would have a young sailor in his quarters but he hadn’t had a real love affair since Imperial Germany’s defeat in 1918.
He forgot the beautiful boys and concentrated his mind on the problem at hand. The damned Tommies had somehow got on to the plot. They had probably made the SA man they had kidnapped talk – the English were mealy-mouthed – all that talk about democracy and ‘fair play’ – but they were a hard, brutal people. They could make anyone talk. Now those two arrogant swine, Smith and Bird, who had crossed him before, had to be liquidated before they could poke their long English noses into Hitler’s intentions.
He sucked his thin, cruel lips. The English authorities would probably think it had been an accident. There had been several similar cases in the Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Railways, over the last few years. A heating system linked to coal gas was always very tricky. But even if that damned Secret Service of theirs thought differently, what could they prove? He smiled to himself. Nothing, absolutely nothing! He relaxed even more and closed his eyes. Beneath him the wheels seemed to be singing that triumphant new song of the Austrian Hitler and his party.
‘Heute gehort uns Deutschland und morgen die ganze Welt…’
Today Germany belongs to us. Tomorrow the whole world.
* * *
Smith was dreaming. It was 1918. His skimmer was going in at a terrific rate, skidding over the water, it seemed, as the Red, artillery blasted away on the quayside. Searchlights coned on the bucking, vibrating little torpedo-boat as it skimmed over the waves at forty knots. Behind him on the bridge, the three-striper, carried away by the frenzied unreasoning bloodlust of battle, was screaming. ‘Try this on for size, you Roosian buggers!’ and spraying the Red batteries with his machine gun. All was noise, chaos and sudden, violent death.
A dark shape was looming out of the red gloom and fog. Men were running along its deck in panicked confusion. A quick-firer started blazing away. It was their target. ‘Fire!’ someone called far far away. The Swordfish leapt as the first one-ton torpedo hissed from her bow. A second followed. The two deadly tin fish exploded right in the centre of the Spartak’s huge length. There was the creaking and rending of tortured metal. She was sinking… she was going under! They were sending the Soviet battleship to the bottom of Kronstadt harbour.
The huge Scot exploded into the compartment, kilt flying wildly. ‘Yon wee officer’s no too generous with his whisky!’ He chuckled drunkenly to himself, seeing again the look of total disbelief on the young subaltern’s face when he had seen his silver flask of whisky had been drained empty. The man had gone barmy, running to find his revolver, threatening to shoot the villain who had stolen his precious whisky. The Highlander chuckled. ‘He’ll no shoot Hamish Hamilton, dinna fash yersen!’ he addressed the two civilians who were slumped in a deep sleep. ‘Did ye hear that?’ he bellowed, when they didn’t react to his boast. ‘Did ye hear that ye broken-down civvies—’ He stopped short and sniffed hard. There was a funny odour in the compartment. ‘Have ye no washed yer feet this day?’ he demanded, suddenly feeling himself becoming dizzy. ‘I’ve a heid like an ox. A wee dram won’t knock old Hamish Ham-—’ He peered through half-closed eyes up to the rack.
There were two brown-paper parcels up there. From both there came a thin white trail of what looked like smoke. But Hamish Hamilton, who had been gassed on the Somme in 1916, knew instinctively it wasn’t smoke. ‘Gas!’ he exploded, feeling a red veil of mist threatening to overcome him.
With hands that already felt thick and clumsy, as if they were enclosed in boxing gloves, he fumbled with the leather strap of the outer door. Somehow he managed it. It swung open dangerously. For a moment he swayed there, as if he might pitch to the ground. Fresh, cold air came streaming in. The red veil vanished. He grabbed the first parcel in one huge hairy paw and threw it out into the night. The second followed. Then he went to work on the sleeping, ‘broken-down civvies’.
It was thus that the irate little subaltern found him, busy slapping the faces of two civilians who appeared to be reluctant to wake up despite the rather too hefty blows that Private Hamilton was administering to them. ‘My God, Hamilton, what are you up to now? You’re an absolute disgrace to the Gordons! Stop that immediately!’
‘Dinna blether – Sir,’ Hamilton, stone-cold sober now, ‘gie us a hand, ye wee man. These two have been gassed. You take the one with the yellow hair and start slapping his face. He’s coming round already a bit. I’ll concentrate on this one. He’s worse off!’ He turned back to slapping Smith’s face.
Five minutes later Smith came round to find himself staring up at a red-faced Scot who smelled strongly of whisky, his head ached and his cheeks stung where Hamilton had slapped him back into consciousness.
‘Thank God, Smithie,’ Dickie Bird breathed fervently. ‘Thought you were a goner this time.’
Smith shook his head and next moment wished he hadn’t. ‘Not this time, but what happened?’
Between them, Hamilton and Dickie Bird told him and while a little voice at the back of his mind said grimly, ‘You’ve been rumbled,’ he forced a smile and, reaching into his pocket, brought out a sovereign saying, ‘Thank you very much, Private Hamilton, it appears you’ve saved our bacon.’
Hamilton actually blushed and said, ‘It was no big thing, sir.’ All the same he accepted the gold coin quickly. Then he swung them a tremendous salute and marched out.
Behind him the little English subaltern shook his head in mock wonder. ‘That man has a crime sheet as long as your arm. But brave. Won the Military Medal twice in the last show they tell me.’ He looked at them, curiously noting the cultivated air and accent of the two civilians. ‘I say, what are you two chaps doing travelling second class. Bit infra dig, what?’
‘Slumming… seeing how the other half lives,’ Dickie Bird said, his usual cheerful self again despite a splitting headache. ‘The age of the common man and all that stuff, you know.’
‘I see,’ the subaltern said, somewhat puzzled. ‘Well, I’ll be getting back. Good night.’
‘Good night and thank you very much,’ Smith said and then as soon as he had closed the door behind him: ‘Well, Dickie, it’s obvious they’re on to us. That little swine – if I could get my hands on his throat I’d wring it good and hard – planted whatever it was while we were out having that bloody tea.’
Dickie nodded, suddenly sombre. ‘Looks like it, old thing.’
‘Well, as soon as we get back to Withernsea, we’re going to disappear. We’ll find some little place where we can hole up – somewhere along that coast and do the refit, getting rid of the torpedo tubes and the like ourselves. CPO Ferguson knows the drill. Then as soon as we’re finished we sail for Holland—’
‘And down the Maas into the Rhine?’
‘Exactly. I don’t know how we’re going to do it just yet. But we’ll try to run across the German border at night, when their authorities won’t be able to get a visual on us—’
He stopped short. A tall man, with his yellow hair cropped so short that it looked as if he was wearing a cap of gold, was passing in the corridor. With eyes that showed no interest, he glanced momentarily into their compartment. Smith felt an icy finger of fear trace its way down the small of his back. Never in his life had he seen a face so evil. With the sudden, absolutely one hundred per cent certainty of a vision, he knew that it was, too, the face of the enemy…
Eight
Sta
ithes, on the Yorkshire coast, had proved ideal for the refit of the Swordfish. The cliff-top village of some 200 souls, mostly fishermen and their families, was very isolated. A post van creaked up the hills from Whitby once a day and there was a weekly bus to the Whitby market. This was the extent of the villagers’ contact with the outside world.
Not that they wanted much contact. They were a superstitious, taciturn lot who didn’t take to strangers easily. They were set in their own ways, which went back for centuries. Certain words couldn’t be used because they brought bad luck to the fishing. Women were never allowed on board their little fishing cobbles because women always brought bad luck and when the mood took the fishermen they simply wouldn’t sail. If asked why, they would reply, ‘Because today we’re not going out,’ and that was that.
The Swordfish had been anchored just around the bend below the cliffs on which the village was located and out of sight to prying eyes. Each morning, the crew sallied forth from the little inn at the edge of the jetty, which was the place’s only form of entertainment, their bellies replete with a hearty breakfast of smoked haddock and fried mashed potatoes and as much strong tea as they could drink. Even Billy Bennett, the crew’s glutton, was satisfied. ‘They’re a funny lot up here, the yokels are,’ he was heard to say, wiping the grease off his chin with the back of his big paw, ‘but they know how to feed an eating man some proper grub, that’s for certain.’ Then they would begin a hard day’s work, getting the Swordfish ready for her voyage across the North Sea.
The tubes and the gun were removed first. On the night that the operation was completed, a discreet truck from Hull arrived at midnight when the petroleum lamps which lit the fishermen’s cottages had long been doused. The tubes and gun were loaded as quickly and as silently as possible and taken away to the naval dockyard off Hedon Road in the port city.
Painting followed, while Ginger Kerrigan and Billy Bennett dismantled the mounts for the two Lewis guns and stowed them below. As Smith told Dickie Bird, ‘In an emergency we can always use the Lewis guns without the mounts. Any flat surface will do the job almost as well.’
Now, as the Swordfish was transformed into a brilliant white in the early summer sunshine, bright bunting and pennants were strung along the superstructure to give the impression of a small pleasure cruiser. A day later, the post van from Whitby brought with it a large consignment of parcels addressed to ‘Captain Shire’, which was Smith’s alias for the time of their stay in the little village.
That night in the locked ‘snug’, which the landlord had given to them for the duration of their stay for a ‘small consideration’, as he called it, the crew gathered after the evening meal to open the parcels. There were gasps, laughs and sharp intakes of breath as the men saw what they contained. There were white ducks and yachting caps, flannels, Oxford ‘bags’, multi-striped blazers that bore the colours of the older universities, even a selection of mufflers of white silk and foulards in dashing colours.
‘There you are – take your pick.’ Smith announced with a smile. ‘We’re off on a pleasure cruise – so we’ve got to look the part.’
CPO Ferguson’s craggy face creased in a look of dislike. ‘I’m no wearing yon gear,’ he announced firmly. ‘I’d look a real Mary Ann. It’s no right for a chief petty officer in His Majesty’s navy to wear the like o’ yon.’
‘Don’t be a spoilsport, Chiefie,’ Dickie Bird chided him. ‘Really spiving togs! I say, I’ve taken rather a fancy to those Oxford “bags”!’ He held up a pair of the grey flannel trousers with their huge flares. ‘I think I’d cut a rather dashing figure in those.’ He smiled inanely. ‘I’d have to beat the ladies off me in those.’
Grumpily, CPO Ferguson allowed himself to be kitted out in white flannels and a pink shirt, but he resolutely refused to wear one of the white silk mufflers. ‘I’m no havin’ yon thing,’ he persisted.
On the fourth day of their stay in the remote Yorkshire fishing village, with the weather changing now from sunshine to a grim grey day with the cold wind howling in straight from Siberia, Smith and Bird locked themselves in the ‘snug’ and discussed their plans. Hunched over their charts, Smith said, ‘I suggest we sail down the east coast as far as Harwich and from there set an easterly course for Knokke in Belgium. It’s a bit of a Belgian holiday resort and there is a casino there. We could gamble a bit. It’s the sort of thing holidaymakers on the grand tour of Europe would do, wouldn’t they?’
Dickie Bird’s face lit up. ‘I say, do you think his nibs—’ he meant C, ‘—would sub to a little flutter on the tables?’
‘C’s slush fund has provided us with five thousand in gold sovereigns. I think that should allow us to spend a few bob on gambling.’
Dickie whistled softly. ‘Five thousand! God, love a duck. That’s a fortune. His nibs must think this is an important show.’
‘It is,’ Smith said, face suddenly serious. ‘The point is that our government does not want Germany to go right with a strong government. We want no more trouble with the Huns this side of the twentieth century.’
‘You can say that again, Smithie.’
‘From Knokke,’ Smith continued, ‘we sail up the Waal – here – till we reach the German frontier at Emmerich – here. As I’ve said before, I intend to slip through their customs and immigration at night. I’ve got passports with faked names for the crew and ourselves, but the less contact we have with the Hun authorities the better. Thereafter, we’ll proceed down the Rhine till we reach Cologne. Cologne is a tourist town, so I’m sure we can tie up there for a few days without arousing any suspicions. Besides, we’ll tie up on the British Occupied bank of the Rhine – just in case.’
Dickie nodded his agreement as the wind rattled the little windows of the snug and the coke-and-wood fire crackled and burnt in the sudden draught.
‘If we find we’re attracting unwelcome attention after a few days we can move on along the Rhine, perhaps to Bad Honnef – here.’
For once Dickie Bird was serious. ‘You know, Smithie, it’s all very vague, isn’t it? Without McIntyre we’re pretty lost. I mean if he doesn’t find out anything, we’d just be waiting for something to happen – reacting after the event, as it were.’
‘Exactly, Dickie,’ Smith agreed, looking worried himself.
‘Let’s cross that hurdle when we come to it, Smithie,’ Dickie Bird said in the end. ‘We’re supposed to be going on a pleasure cruise, so let’s get some pleasure from it – at least at the start.’
‘Agreed. Now, talking of pleasure, what about having the men stand down when they come off shift tonight? They ought to have some fun before this new show starts.’
‘Yes, all work and no play does make Jack a dull boy. But where will they have fun in this rear end of the world? Perhaps there might be an exciting spelling bee going on at the Methodist church hall?’
‘Don’t be a silly ass, Dickie. You know what the chaps want? Wallop and tarts, as they’d put it. There’ll not be much of that here. I suggest we ring for a couple of taxis at the post office and ship them to – say - Scarborough. There’s always something going on down there. There are plenty of pubs at least and lots of young factory girls from the West Riding out for a laugh!’
Dickie Bird’s face lit up at the prospect. ‘I’m not snobbish, Smithie. I don’t mind mixing with the proles, especially if they’ve got big breasts.’
Smith laughed. ‘I’m sure you’re not. For a Harrow man, you’re remarkably free of prejudice, especially when it comes to the fairer sex. But you’re not going. Neither am I. They’re on to us. They know us. But the crew are anonymous. I think it’s safe to let them go.’
Dickie pulled a face. ‘I suppose you’re right. I guess we’ll have a high old time at the spelling bee tonight, what?’
CPO Ferguson saw them off, clad in their new finery and excited at the prospect of having a night on the town, with a contemptuous, ‘Ye look a right bunch o’ pansies. Mind yer don’t bend down in them fancy trews or it’ll
be the worse for ye.’
Ginger Kerrigan minced into the taxi and blew the irate Scot a hand-kiss. ‘Don’t wait up for me, Chiefie, cos I’m gonna be the belle of the ball tonight. Coachman, take it away.’
Ferguson shook his fist at the crew’s comedian and said, ‘And mind ye’s back by midnight or I’ll have the lot of ye on the rattle.’ With that, he stumped back through the rain and howling wind to the boat, where he was taking the first spell of the watch. Smith would follow him by midnight and at four, Dickie would relieve him. It was a duty they had taken on for themselves so that the men could sleep off their drunkenness without having to do a spell on watch during the night.
‘Come on,’ Smith said and shivered in the slick, gleaming oilskin, ‘let’s get back to the snug.’
‘Yes,’ Dickie answered, ‘we must step out of these wet things, Smithie, and into a dry Martini.’
‘Martini! They’ll never have heard of ’em here. Let’s compromise on a double pink gin.’
‘I’m your man on that,’ Dickie chortled. Thrusting his arm through Smith’s, they hurried back to the comfortable, yellow-lit fug of the little inn.
Back on the Swordfish, CPO Ferguson settled down to his pipe, his whisky and his Walter Scott, for he dearly loved the writer’s romantic tales of Scottish history. As he had often remarked to his fellow CPOs in the old days, when he was still serving in the regular navy, ‘Mind I’ve had women of most nations, but ye knew, there’s nothin’ better than a good buik by Walter Scott!’
Outside the storm raged fiercely. Protected as it was in the lee of the cliff, the Swordfish skittered back and forth at anchor and shook every time the wind buffeted her. Not that that worried the old salt. He had started off his career in the Royal Navy’s old sailing ships and had gone round the Horn twice before he was eighteen. He was used to worse storms than this.
Yet, he still could not concentrate totally. It wasn’t the storm; it was that old Celtic sense of foreboding of his. It had been that same sense of foreboding – looming danger – which had saved him before the Battle of Jutland back in 1916. On the spur of the moment, he had changed watches with another petty officer. Thus he had been on the deck watch and able to fling himself over the side when the old ship had been hit by that first tremendous German salvo. Had he stayed with his original watch he would be trapped helplessly below decks like the man with whom he had changed watches. He had gone to his death with so many of his poor shipmates.
Death on the Rhine Page 6