The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park

by Richard Whittle

  All is quiet in the boat. There is no gentle hiss from the vents, no hum from the motors. In his head he runs through the electrical circuits, the switches, the breakers and fuses. It cannot fail like this, not all at once. Not accidentally.

  The shot and the screams come together, a weapon discharging and high pitched shrieks that can only be Peter. Powerless and wretched Theo beats on the bulkhead door. He was a fool, he should have let Fischer and his men have a go at Roth, he should have taken that risk for the sake of his son. Distraught, he leans on the door, his forehead pressed to the cold steel. He is the author of this nightmare. He should have left Peter at the farm.

  Theo doesn’t need instruments to tell him the boat is submerged. It is rising, slowly; the hydroplane servo controls have lost electrical power and the men trim the boat manually. It tilts steeply, bow first, and then levels off. The lights return unexpectedly, as do the familiar sounds of pumps and motors. Fresh, cold air blasts from the vents.

  Theo puts his ear to the door and hears the pulse of the boat, the mechanical noises. Missing are the familiar sounds of boots on gangways, the walking and talking, the slam of lockers and the clatter of pans. The boat sounds dead.

  Then, suddenly, the only sound is Peter, crying loudly, shouting and protesting. The shouts turn to coughs, long and loud. The boy is close, in the crew’s quarters. Roth’s padlock and chain clatter and fall. The locking wheel turns. The bulkhead door opens.

  Chief Engineer Lange is carrying Peter. The boy is shouting, protesting. When he sees Theo he twists round and reaches for him. Theo grabs him and hugs him.

  ‘No armed escort, Chief? No Roth? No Spengler? Are they getting careless?’ Lange looks grim. ‘What is it, Chief? What is happening?’

  ‘I have to report the death of a member of the crew, Kapitän.’

  ‘It shouldn’t have happened. He should have stayed – ’

  ‘Not Fischer, Kapitän. Fischer is very much alive, the bullet passed through his shoulder. It is the First Watch, Oberleutnant Ralf Spengler.’

  ‘Spengler? My god! Where is Roth?’

  Theo steps through the doorway. He doesn’t have to hold Peter because Peter is holding him, clinging crab-like with his arms, legs, feet and hands.

  Apart from the drone of motors the boat remains quiet. Crewmen off-watch lay slumped on bunks. Others lay in hammocks, slung up beside them. All appear to be sleeping. Cooks in the galley are preparing meals. When Theo approaches there is a clatter of pans, as if on cue.

  Theo speaks quietly to Lange, asks him again where Roth is, where Spengler is, and how this thing happened. Lange remains quiet, as do the cooks. Quiet, because they are listening.

  Outside Theo’s cabin Lange takes Peter from Theo’s arms and walks away quickly. Theo opens his cabin door and winces at the slaughterhouse of pillow feathers, blood and bone. He goes to the lifeless figure sprawled flat on his bunk. It is a clumsy, nasty death. The man’s one remaining eye glares up at him. Intending to close it Theo reaches down but takes a quick step back. Can’t bring himself to do it.

  He returns to the bunk slowly. Reaching down he retrieves his pistol from Spengler’s still-warm hand and wipes it in the bedclothes. To make it safe he releases the magazine, pulls back the slide, and catches a live round as it flies from the breech. Fingers working deliberately he presses the round back into the top of the magazine. He does these things slowly and deliberately, without thinking. His mind is elsewhere.

  Lange returns without Peter and stands in the doorway.

  ‘I hardly need to ask why, Chief,’ Theo mumbles. ‘I need to know who.’

  Lange shakes his head. His eyes are on the bunk. On Spengler.

  ‘He was an officer under my command,’ Theo continues. ‘I was responsible for him.’

  ‘Shot himself, Kapitän?’

  Theo glares angrily. He grabs the blood-soaked pillow from the bed and waves it at Lange. Feathers flutter down, red and white.

  ‘Through a pillow, Chief? Shot himself through a pillow?’

  He calms himself. With eyes not quite focussing he looks down at the dead man. He doesn’t want the detail. Doesn’t want to dwell.

  ‘Where is Roth?’ he asks. ‘I am surprised he hasn’t rounded everyone up and shot them.’

  ‘Not enough bullets in his Walther?’

  Again Theo glares. ‘Where is he, Chief?’

  ‘Kapitän, I have not seen him. I was in the latrines and somebody tied the door shut, I could not get out. I have asked the men but they say nothing.’

  ‘Where is Peter?’

  ‘He is safe. I left him with the bosun in the aft tube room.’

  ‘And Rydel?’

  ‘Unconscious again. He was delirious. We think he is worse.’

  ‘And Fischer?’

  ‘He has been patched up by the medic. He should be resting but he’s still working.’

  Theo shoves Lange into the gangway, steps out himself and closes the cabin door.

  ‘Come with me. Stay with me.’

  The control room is strangely normal. Theo is aware of Roth’s absence, there is so much more space. It was as if the man had always been there – a design fault – an oversize, unwanted fixture that came with the boat.

  The men are at their posts – the hydroplane operators, a lookout on the observation scope and another on the attack periscope. There is also the bosun, an engine room mechanic and two young ratings. All have their backs to Theo. He mutters his thoughts. In the quiet of the room they are easily heard.

  ‘Roth as well as Spengler, is that it?’ He raises his voice and addresses the men in the room. ‘Am I to hunt for the Sturmbannführer’s body as if we are playing a children’s game? Chief, in my absence you were the most senior officer. Tell me you had nothing to do with this madness!’

  He gets no such assurance. The control room crew sit minding their gauges and dials, far more attentively than is necessary. Nobody turns, nobody speaks. Theo, frustrated, storms down the gangway to the engine room with Lange at his heels. Theo is thinking of places and spaces. Places where Roth might be.

  Roth cannot have been dumped overboard because they were submerged. The bilges, then? He hopes not. Surely every other scrap of space on the boat is packed tight with provisions and spares, there is nowhere on the boat to hide a body.

  ‘Chief, why my bunk?’

  ‘He and Roth took turns to sleep in your cabin.’

  On Roth’s orders the weld on the aft tube room door has been cut off and the door now opens fully. Rydel hasn’t been moved. Face ashen, he lies on his back on the bunk. The bosun is there and Fischer too, his left arm strapped tight to his chest. Peter is sitting on a bunk and when he sees his father he slips down and runs to him. Theo looks hard at Fischer.

  ‘Where is Sturmbannführer Roth?’

  Fischer shrugs. ‘Kapitän, I do not know.’

  ‘Stand up straight when you talk to me!’

  Lewandowski looks down at the deck plates. It is a deliberate, unfaltering gaze. Beneath them, like in the bow tube room, there is space for torpedoes, torpedoes they do not have. The bosun frowns. Lifts Peter up and carries him from the room.

  ‘Lift the decking. Lift it, Fischer!’

  Fischer tries, but with only one good arm he does not succeed. Lewandowski stoops to help but the steel plates are too heavy, even for two men, designed to be lifted by torpedo hoists and this boat has none. Theo kneels beside Fischer and with help from Lewandowski and Lange they heave the plate up on its hinges, tip it right back.

  Three of the four torpedo bays beneath the deck are filled with sacks of potatoes. Taking up a large part of the fourth bay is what remains of Sturmbannführer Roth, a figure more hideous in death than in life. Theo stares down at the mess that was once the man’s head, shattered by the long wrench now lying beside it.

  Theo’s voice is a whisper. ‘Stoker Fischer... is this your work?’

  Though Lewandowski turns his face away Theo is sure the grisly scene is n
ot new to him. One blow from the wrench would have killed the man but there have been many more, an appalling act of violence done with great hatred. The side of the man’s head is missing. The skull and scalp lie in pieces.

  ‘I asked you a question, Fischer.’

  ‘I did it, Kapitän.’

  Theo looks pointedly at the man’s strapped-up arm. Fischer could have wielded the wrench. He could not have moved the body, nor lifted the deck plates.

  ‘They will hang you for this, Fischer.’

  ‘Soon there will be nobody left in our country to hang me, Herr Kapitän.’

  Theo turns on the man, but words fail him. He knows he should call the Bosun and have Fischer arrested, but chances are the bosun was part of this. Maybe Lange too, and Fischer’s engine room colleagues. Theo knows that to protect Peter he might have done the same thing, perhaps not so violently but who can say? He looks down at the body and fixes his gaze on the bloody mess. A trivial penance for letting it happen.

  ‘When we act in this way we become like them. Like them, we set ourselves above laws of decency.’

  Fischer and Lewandowski hang their heads. Scolded schoolboys.

  ‘Where is his pistol?’

  Fischer gropes under a mattress. Passes Roth’s Walther to Theo and again hangs his head.

  Despite Theo’s disquiet he cannot bring himself to despatch the dead men with honours, which is what he should do. At dusk the remains of Spengler and Roth are lifted to the deck through the torpedo loading hatch and slid wordlessly from the deck by Lange and the bosun. Theo watches from the bridge as the bodies float away, arms and legs splayed like cloth dolls. It is not the way these things should be done.

  Theo’s cabin has been scrubbed clean and his belongings are again in their places. Peter, back in the aft tube room with Lewandowski, is coughing constantly and holding his head with both hands. Theo, alone in his cabin, opens the boat’s logbook and is relieved to see Roth made no entries. The entry Theo makes now is brief: ‘Sturmbannführer Ludwig Roth and Oberleutnant zur See Ralf Spengler lost overboard, believed drowned’.

  Theo spends time with Peter. Lewandowski says there is recurring mucus that makes the boy vomit. The medic has attended to Rydel and changing his dressings. He repeats to Theo there is nothing he can do for Peter, he is trained for first aid, he is not a physician.

  Theo, again in his cabin and alone with his thoughts, vows he will never return to mining. Mines are too dangerous for a man with a son. When this war is over he will return with Peter to his father-in-law’s farm. Together they will make the farm live again. He reaches for a telephone and calls Lange to his cabin.

  ‘This war will soon be over,’ he says when Lange comes. ‘The Soviets are closing on Berlin.’

  ‘Is that not enemy propaganda, Kapitän?’

  ‘That may be so, but it does not mean it is untrue. When Berlin falls it will be the end of Germany.’

  ‘And if that happens, what will become of us?’

  ‘When it happens, Chief. You know the procedure.’

  Lange shakes his head and smiles. ‘Operation Rainbow. What moron thought up that name? What if we are in mid-Atlantic when we get the message? Do we invoke Rainbow, open the sea cocks and scuttle her? Are we expected to swim home? And what if instead we decide to make for an enemy port? Who is to say we won’t be picked off by the bomb-happy British?’

  ‘What are our alternatives, Chief?’

  ‘Will you tell me our destination, Kapitän?

  ‘It was to be Buenos Aires, Argentina. Now, it seems, we are making for Hamburg. With these changes of course I doubt we have sufficient fuel to reach South America, which means I have decisions to make. Also, I have other problems.’

  ‘Peter?’

  Theo nods. ‘Stoker Fischer has two children of his own. He suspects Peter has bronchitis and fears it will develop into pneumonia. But my concern is not just for Peter, Chief. There is Rydel. His condition is worsening.’

  He has been sitting on the edge of his bunk. Now he stands up and brushes himself down with his hand as if shifting crumbs. It is a dismissive, topic-changing gesture.

  ‘However, Chief! Gamblers and guesswork! Pneumonia? Who knows? I have never known so many self-styled experts in such a small space. They thought we were going to Norway. They also thought we were to be carrying Göring, taking him somewhere safe and sunny.’

  Theo’s forced flippancy doesn’t fool Lange.

  ‘So Roth’s remark was right? We were to carry the Reichsmarschall?

  ‘No, that was never going to happen, it is what I was supposed to think. Have you ever seen the Reichsmarschall?’

  ‘I have seen photographs.’

  Theo sits down again. Lange has been standing, leaning back on the closed door. Theo waves him down into the desk chair.

  ‘I have seen Göring, Chief, I stood beside him. He is the fattest man I have ever seen. There is as much chance of getting an elephant into a matchbox as getting him into this boat – except perhaps by lowering him by crane through the torpedo loading hatches. I have been to his mansion, I have seen his specially designed lavatory seats. There is one on his personal train, it is three times the width of the one in the forward cabin, he would not even be able to get through the lavatory door. It was something you said to me on the Elbe, something about Roth’s size, about him getting stuck in the hatch and trapping us inside. That is when I realised I had been fooled about Göring.’

  Lange is frowning, struggling to understand. Theo knows he must confide in the man. Soon there will be things he will want him to do. Unorthodox things.

  ‘How much do you know, Chief? Do you know we are carrying valuable paintings?’

  ‘The cargo in the bow tube room? There have been rumours.’

  ‘There should have been more, enough to fill the whole of the space. I was led to believe the design of this vessel was changed to convey Göring and his treasures to Buenos Aires. No doubt our Kriegsmarine admirals were told the same story.

  ‘And they believed it?’

  ‘Evidently. I was told the SS has made plans to get our leaders out of Germany, against their will if necessary. The changes to this boat were commissioned by the SS, not the Kriegsmarine.’

  Lange shakes his head. His frown is fixed in place as if drawn in dark pencil. Theo continues.

  ‘I believe the true purpose of this boat was to take art treasures out of Germany. We were never meant to take Göring.’

  It wasn’t just Göring’s size that raised doubts in Theo’s mind. It was Walter, deciding at the last minute not to come – and having arranged, presumably a long time in advance, for Roth to take his place. There was no way Walter would have come aboard a U-boat, not with his fear of water.

  It is too much for Lange.

  ‘These are political matters, Kapitän, I do not understand them. There are decisions we must make. Are we to continue to Hamburg?’

  ‘Back into the fire, Chief? I think not. Either we take our chances with the British or we will make for Portugal. I understand the natives are friendly there.’

  ‘What will become of the paintings?’

  ‘Does that bother you? The sea is deep.’

  ‘I am a simple man. I wonder why people should go to such trouble with old pictures when our country and people are threatened.’

  ‘When this war is over there will be some very wealthy men.’

  ‘Or there would have been.’

  ‘No, my friend, there will be. I have been told that treasures such as these have been transported from our country for many years. Our shipment is but one small part.’

  Both men sit quietly. Finally, Theo speaks his mind.

  ‘Chief, I want to put Peter ashore. And Franz Rydel of course. I want you to speak to the officers and find their reaction, will you do that for me? And send Lewandowski to me.’

  ‘You will put it to the vote?’

  ‘This is a naval vessel, not a democracy. I said find their reaction, not tak
e notice of it.’

  ‘Shall I tell them Portugal?’

  ‘You can. But I have another destination in mind for Peter and Rydel. Perhaps Lewandowski also.’

  ‘And perhaps others?’

  ‘I think not. I am sure the men will prefer Portugal to Scotland.’

  Throughout the night they ride on the surface. A new course has been set. Theo has moved Peter to his cabin and he sits through the night with him, cradling him in his arms, listening to his shallow, difficult breaths. Soon the boy will be in good hands. As will Franz Rydel.

  As Theo had hoped, Marek Lewandowski has agreed to be put ashore too. It makes so much sense. Peter knows him and trusts him. The war will soon end, and when it does Theo will return to Scotland for Peter, perhaps stay a while with Morag and Sam – stay until his own countrymen’s resistance to the occupying forces has died down. And what then? Return to the farm? At least it is something to aim for.

  He considers Lange’s question about Walter’s paintings. Throwing them overboard would be an appropriate end for them – a kick up the arse for Walter for involving him in his crimes.

  He unbuttons his jacket, takes out his pipe, packs it tight with tobacco but does not light it. Not yet. Not in the boat.

  Peter stirs in his sleep and sits up. Trapped mucus blocks his lungs and he coughs it up while Theo looks on helplessly. He has made the right decision. Sam and Morag are good people, they will make him well.

  The pipe in his mouth is a temptation. The door is closed, they are running on the surface and the air in his cabin is good. The lighter Göring gave him still works, Lange found fuel for it. He goes to strike it but then sees sense. His son is ill. A smoke-filled cabin will not help him. In the dim cabin light the lighter is shiny, and as he is returning it to his pocket Peter reaches out and takes it from him, turns it over in his hands and fondles it. Strokes the gold eagle with the tip of his thumb. Feels the contours of its sharp-pointed wings…

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY

  KILCREG LAY IN THE GLOOM of a silvery sea mist. Visibility was so poor that Spargo, conscious of being close to the edge of the road and not being able to see it, took the bend on the hill at little more than walking pace. This would be his last trip, a visit driven not by emotion – lately he’d had his fill of that – but by a sense of duty. Rosie had asked to see him. It was a request he could not refuse.