The Skipper's Dog's Called Stalin

by David Black

  Harbinson cast him a contemptuous look. ‘Cap’n Blackbeard’s,’ he said. Then after another drink, added: ‘It was French government reserves. So said Timothy. They’d sent it here to keep it out of the Jerries’ mitts. Some here, some to Canada. So he said. I got the impression HMG weren’t too happy about it coming here though. Which was why Fleming was so interested in what was happening to it. And me still being one of His Majesty’s subjects, he wanted me to help him out. Shows what he knew.’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ said Harry.

  ‘I’ve always been a pain in the arse, Mr Gilmour,’ Harbinson said. ‘So how smart would you call it to ask the local troublemaker, known to the police, as your secret snitch?’

  ‘I see,’ said Harry. ‘Instead of you watching them, they were already watching you.’

  ‘Aye.’ Harbinson considered this for a moment. ‘Although when I think about it . . . they were always expecting me to be running about, fomenting. So when I kept on at it, nobody was that surprised. So maybe he was that smart after all.’

  ‘So what were you doing?’ asked Harry.

  Harbinson guffawed. ‘Shoutin’ and bawlin’, basically. Pointing fingers and sayin’ “see youse!” In case Tassereau thought nobody was looking. Ah’m a hero of the revolution, me.’ And he reached out to clink glasses. ‘You know every time we do that, we kill a sailor,’ he added, back to his old evil self.

  ‘Are the Yanks here because of the gold too?’ asked Harry.

  Harbinson started laughing, a raspy, gurgly sound. ‘A don’t know. Ah’ve no been reading the intelligence updates they send me, Western Union.’

  ‘A Yank officer told me it was because they were worried in case Vichy might have let Jerry turn it into a U-boat base,’ said Harry, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘You know what they’re like with their Monroe doctrine. Permission not granted to fight your war over here in our hemisphere.’

  ‘Na. It’s the gold. The Yanks knew it was here,’ said Harbinson. ‘Our Timothy told me that much. It was supposed to have arrived here in secret. But you can’t keep a secret on an island. So they knew. And once they knew, they’d have got themselves involved all right. You don’t know what they’re like, but I do. They’ve been my neighbours since I was last sober. Can’t see shite but they want a bite of it. And now they’ve got it. Better them than Jerry, or Tassereau, or his pals. Anyway, one thing we can both be absolutely sure of; we’ll never know the half of what’s gone on, or why.’

  Harry said, ‘Too bloody true. Well I better collect Cantor and Lucie, whatever state he’s in, and get back to the boat.’ He stood to shake Harbinson’s hand, and then added a little sheepishly, ‘Look, if you see Lydia . . .’

  ‘Wait,’ said Harbinson, fumbling in his trouser pocket. ‘Talking about Lydia, I have something for you.’

  Harry sat again as Harbinson produced a small bundle of folded paper sachets, muttering to himself, ‘Lucky for you the Pascagoula had a whole packing case.’

  Harry could see they contained powders. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s about Lydia,’ said Harbinson counting them out and handing them to Harry. ‘A matter of some delicacy, as they say.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How can I put this . . .?’ sighed Harbinson, with a licentious glint in his eye. ‘She’s a girl with a lot of love to give, Harry. And the heartbreaking truth I have to tell you is, she didn’t save it all for you. If you’ll pardon the turn of phrase. You’re going to need these, if not right now, then certainly in the next few days. One in the morning and one at night.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Harry was on Radegonde’s bridge. Faujanet had the watch, but Captain Syvret was up too, glumly regarding another squall front approaching from the south-west. It was the third they’d encountered since just before midday. He’d read the weather forecast broadcast by the US Navy on Antigua that morning just after they’d sailed, and knew what was coming along behind it. Even without the forecast, the long, deep swell building from west-sou’-west would have told him. It was July, after all, and the season was getting going; although really big blows didn’t usually originate in the Caribbean Basin at this time of year. Likely it would just be a tropical storm if they were lucky; a hurricane if they were not. But as the beast still hadn’t lathered itself up enough yet to merit the name, they could always hope.

  Also, he wasn’t talking to Harry.

  Harry had been quizzing him about the gold; about how much he knew about it; about whether ‘liberating’ Martinique, or getting their hands on the gold had been their mission all along. And now that the Yanks had it, had they succeeded or failed? Captain Syvret was not a natural dissembler, and it hadn’t taken him long to get exasperated, and then irritated, with his Royal Navy Liaison Officer.

  ‘In the first place,’ he’d finally snapped, ‘it’s got fuck all to do with you; and in the second place . . . it’s got fuck all to do with you in the first place!’

  This was a bad sign. Captain Syvret, Harry was forced to note, rarely swore. Also, while he might not have been quite polite, he was entirely accurate. It was nothing to do with Harry. So Harry had shut up. And that was where they were now, standing nonchalantly on either side of an uncomfortable silence, looking in opposite directions. The two matelots on lookout up on the bridge affected not to notice, but smirked at each other every time they took their ten-second binocular break, between their sweeps of the horizon. Faujanet was oblivious, and, being Faujanet was probably lost in some vague carnal reverie.

  Syvret called down the voice-pipe to alert them he’d be bringing Radegonde under helm in a moment; ordering her a few points to port to take the squall on the bow to save her being rolled all over the place and the lunch preparations sent flying.

  The sun had been well up when they’d finally put to sea from Fort-de-France. The crew were all on board, but the Fusiliers Marins were staying behind, manning their new post.

  There had been signal traffic during the night; Free French signal traffic, in Free French code, so Harry had no idea what Radegonde’s orders were. Cantor might have taken the Morse down, but it was Captain Syvret who had decoded it using his own books, and right now, he wasn’t sharing.

  The USS Pruett was hove-to, a few hundred yards off the harbour, by the time they were underway, which suggested that Durandal must be long gone. The US destroyer had hailed Radegonde to close with her for a chat. Durandal had indeed left the area. The US Navy Coronado flying boat out of Antigua had spotted her on the surface about fifteen miles south-south-east of Marie-Galante Island, a tiny outcrop between Martinique and the island of Dominica. She had been heading out into the Atlantic, but the big four-engined flying boat’s presence had sent her down, like she had a guilty conscience, apparently; at least that’s what Pruett’s officer of the watch had told them.

  He had news of the Pascagoula too; she was well on her way now, he said, heading for the Mona Passage and then off north to Nassau in the Bahamas to off-load her cargo and passengers. Harry knew she’d been loaded with sugar and bananas; no one mentioned gold.

  As for the Pruett, she’d be sticking around for a while to make sure Durandal didn’t double-back to cause any more trouble; at least until some Free French surface units turned up to deter her permanently.

  Cantor had confirmed Pascagoula’s movements; he’d been listening to her sparks, ‘gibbering on like a budgie on an overdose of Trill’– all of it en clair – with his head office, it sounded like. The passengers were not shaping up to be popular, apparently! But the sparks had gone quiet ages ago.

  From his last look at her course on the chart, Harry had reckoned Radegonde too was heading to pass between Martinique and Dominica, and then out into the Atlantic, when she wasn’t turning the other way to prevent the squalls catching her beam-on. And here came the next one, racing now, preceded by a wall of rain and black cloud; the first spits of it already stinging Harry’s face as he braced himself behind the periscope stands for the first buf
fets.

  Harry would be a liar if he said he didn’t find the violence of these damned storms completely exhilarating; that they filled him with a sort of child-like glee. The violence was untrammelled; Radegonde shuddered beneath his feet as she lurched downward into a precipitous hole in the water, and the air – indeed, the whole firmament – seemed suddenly to be filled with flying water and roar, as if the elements were trying to flatten the very steel fabric of Radegonde’s construction as if it were spring wheat.

  Harry was trying to see more, to experience more of the phenomenon, but the truth was, he was instantly totally engrossed in hanging on for dear life, with even his pressed shut eyelids being battered by the flying spray. He had no idea how long the assault lasted, and then it was gone. Lifted like a curtain so that all that was left was the water sluicing from the conning tower deck and off the hull’s casing.

  Harry, and everyone else on the bridge, were as wet as if they had been under water. They all had a look round to make sure they were all there, and to share the nervous laughter of the just reprieved. Captain Syvret unplugged the bridge voice-pipe and ordered the boat back on to her mean course, and, as she turned, the port lookout made the call.

  ‘Objects in the water, fine on the port bow!’

  Syvret ordered the turn stopped, and they veered away to have a look-see. Harry didn’t have binoculars with him, but Faujanet, who was fixed on whatever it was, began giving a running commentary.

  ‘It looks like a lifeboat,’ he said, ‘but it’s very, very low in the water . . .’

  And as they rose up on the long swell he got a better look: ‘and other . . . debris. Can’t make out . . .’

  Harry, squinting, could see that the debris spread for some distance; splintered angles of wood, and other stuff he couldn’t quite identify, like a lot of multi-coloured bobbing bundles. Cargo?

  ‘It is a lifeboat!’ called Faujanet, ‘. . . but it’s right down to its gunnels . . . it’s practically sunk. And there! There’s a bit of another one. It’s the bow. Sticking up vertical. Way over there to the right.’ Then he stopped describing and was so silent, Captain Syvret put his binoculars to his eyes. The two men fixed on the stuff strewn across the swell, not saying anything, until Harry felt his eyes begin to hurt from screwing them up against the sun’s glare. Syvret broke the moment, going to the voice-pipe and ordering a deck party up with boathooks and a scrambling net. Then he went back to looking again.

  Although the sun was back in the sky, Harry was conscious his clothes weren’t drying. The air was so humid, it felt muddy, and the orb of the sun was clung with a huge wind gall. He suddenly felt a sick dread in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘What do you see, Sir?’ he asked Captain Syvret.

  ‘Bodies.’

  What do you do? How are you supposed to react, to feel, as ordinary blokes going about your business, and then suddenly, you are confronted with an atrocity? In wartime, some might argue, it’s different. You wear your country’s uniform, and sail under its flag. And you engage the enemy. There are fights; full-scale battles; chance encounters. People die either way – your friends, shipmates; the enemy dies too. You have victories, defeats; sometimes it’s even hard to tell the difference. But that’s what happens. It’s war.

  Then you encounter something like this. They’re ordinary sailors, merchant sailors, not fighting sailors; men with homes to go to when they’re ashore; sons, brothers, fathers. Men who get their pay remitted, so that the people who need them, depend on them, love them, can buy their groceries and pay the rent. And here they are, bobbing in the middle of the sea. While their loved ones safe ashore are going about their daily business believing they are going about theirs: hauling on ropes, greasing an engine part, laying a course for the Mona Passage. But they’re not; they’re here, in the sea. And who would know, if you hadn’t found them? Floating, bullet-punctured on a scum of bunker oil and flotsam, their lifeboats shot to pieces. Lifeboats. Do you hear me? Think about that word; what it means. Their lifeboats. Shot to pieces.

  Radegonde wasn’t going to recover any bodies, Captain Syvret was specific about that. She did not have the space to hygienically store them. But she would look for survivors. The deck party on the casing, with boathooks, dragged the floating bodies close, but any examination was perfunctory; had to be. They did not have the time to haul each one aboard and check for pulse or breath. Why they did not have the time, Captain Syvret chose not to make clear right then. A lifebelt confirmed what everyone already knew; the ship’s name was painted on the cork, SS Pascagoula.

  Cantor, meanwhile, was given a series of signals instructions. Harry supervising, they radioed their find to Halifax in code for onward transmission to the US Navy. The news would find its way to Antigua, as would their request for any sightings of Durandal to be relayed back, through Halifax, to Radegonde; in code. Captain Syvret, apparently, did not want Durandal to think that Radegonde might be interested in her movements; and Harry was sure he didn’t have to wonder why.

  ‘We’ll leave it to Antigua to arrange for the recovery of the bodies,’ said Captain Syvret to a curious Harry on his way to begin transmission, but the Captain chose not to enlighten him any further. They were almost finished when Harry was hurriedly summoned back on to the bridge. ‘And the Captain says to bring your hat,’ said the matelot.

  When Harry got back up into the cloying, unmoving heat, Syvret was looking down on to the forecasing, just by the gun. A group of matelots had the semi-submerged bow section of a lifeboat up-turned, and half hauled on to the saddle tanks. He could see clearly how a tattoo of machine-gun bullets had separated the bow from the rest of the lifeboat’s hull. A figure in blue denim overalls was sprawled on Radegonde’s deck planking and one of the senior rates was stuffing wound dressing into a rip in a dark matted stain that covered the sailor’s whole hip. Harry absently noted that all the matelots down on the casing had removed their red pom-pom hats. They were in a pile by the gun mount.

  ‘Put your cap on,’ said Captain Syvret, ‘so as he’ll see you’re Royal Navy.’

  As our new guest has just had a rather unpleasant experience at the hands of the French, thought Harry. What a considerate man you are, Captain, was what he was thinking, but didn’t say.

  When Harry got there, the sailor was fish-belly white and his eyes were rolling. Before Harry knelt, de Maligou, the Maître principal, stood beside him to talk in his ear. Harry could see the Frenchman’s own lighter overalls were smeared with the wounded sailor’s blood. ‘He’d wedged himself up in the lifeboat’s covered fo’c’sle when the shooting started,’ said the stony-faced senior rate, ‘but they put a few bullets in it anyway, just in case. His hip is shattered, and half his lights are hanging out under his overalls. He isn’t going to make it.’

  Syvret looked down on the tableau, his face as stony as his Maître principal’s; it was like watching a man’s last rites, and he thought young Gilmour, the tender way he cradled the man, could pass muster as a padre if he fancied a change of career. Syvret then leaned to open the control room voice-pipe and ordered a course change; there was nothing more they could do here, and it was time they attended to the other matter now outstanding.

  After it was all over, Harry found his Skipper at the wardroom table with a series of charts and an atlas spread out before him. Despite the heat, he had a huge mug of coffee too, that Harry had smelled from the next compartment.

  ‘Half of it’s brandy,’ said Syvret without looking up. ‘Want one? You probably need one as much as I do.’

  Harry sat down, but said nothing. Syvret leaned forward into the passage and called, ‘Another one of these!’ Then he looked over at Harry and said, ‘How is the poor bastard?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Well,’ said Syvret, looking back at the weather report he’d just received, ‘seeing as I am your Captain, a report would be good.’

  Harry recovered himself; he was really getting too lax aboard this boat. ‘Sorry, Sir.’ He pa
used. ‘It was a bit garbled, as you can imagine, but the gist is Durandal surfaced on them not long after first light, fired across their bows and ordered them to heave-to and prepare to be boarded. Any attempt to use their radio, and they’d be blown out of the water. With the big gun pointing at them, they did what they were told. The boarding party went aboard, and began to search the ship. Everything came to an abrupt halt when they met Tassereau’s entourage. They were immediately transferred to Durandal and then the Pascagoula’s crew were ordered to get into the lifeboats and stand off. Again they complied. Boom! Boom! And the Pascagoula was turned into steel confetti. Then they turned their machine guns on the Pascagoula’s boats. His boat disintegrated, he got hit, there was a very loud noise – the Durandal diving I presume – and then God knows how long after, we arrived. The end.’

  ‘And that was it?’ said Syvret.

  ‘All of it,’ Harry replied. ‘No mention of any cargo being transferred.’

  Syvret frowned at him.

  ‘Cargo,’ repeated Harry. ‘No cargo. There was no gold on Pascagoula, was there?’

  ‘No. I never said there was,’ said Syvret, and when that failed to stop Harry staring at him, he continued in a tired voice, ‘It’s still in Fort Desaix. I was ordered not to discuss it; and now I have. Happy? And there is no point in continuing to look at me like that. How the hell am I supposed to know what our political masters do, or what deals they make? Maybe they think now we’re all friends together, it’ll just be safer there. Maybe de Gaulle threatened the Americans . . . demanded the Statue of Liberty back. Or he told the British he’d put arsenic in Vera Lynn’s Ovaltine. If you know, do please tell me.’

  Harry remembered being back aboard HMS Trebuchet – his old Bucket – sitting in that dank, cold wardroom while they all discussed the finer points of Anglo-Soviet relations, as if they could second guess the inner workings of Whitehall and the Kremlin; trying to work out whether they should attack German transports in Soviet waters. He had been struck then by the sheer pathetic ludicrousness of their presumption that they could divine their masters’ intentions. And here he was again; where the path of the ordinary fighting sailor gets all mixed up with the convoluted imperatives of politics and grand strategy – and no prizes for guessing who gets fucked up at the end of it all. What was it about submarines that sooner or later you ended up here? The only answer to that was to stop worrying about it and just get on and do your duty.