by Ashton, Hugh
“How do you like that?” he exclaimed happily. “A left and a right. Both barrels. And my guess is that the ferry will stop to pick them up.” He seemed as happy about this last as he did about the sinking of the destroyer.
Brian shook his hand enthusiastically in congratulation, and Petrov stirred himself. “The risk was big,” he said in English. “But you won. Well done,” and extended his own hand.
When Horton had departed, Petrov spoke to Brian. “I do not know whether to be happy or not at this. Of course, it is always good to see the Germans defeated. But now they know we are here, I fear for our safety. Surely they will now be searching for us all the way to Russia?”
“I think not,” said Brian. “From what Commander Horton was telling me, the effect of these attacks has been to make the German fleet more afraid to show its face. They have no weapons against submarines, and we are actually in a stronger position now than we were before.”
“I hope you are right,” said Petrov. “I would like to smell good Russian air once more before I die like a sardine in a tin.”
-oOo-
Kolinski sat miserably on the deck of the ferry. His train journey to the port had been uneventful – presumably the money he had given the village stationmaster had been enough to keep the man’s mouth shut. While he’d been left overnight in the station office, he’d found paperclips to bend and use as picklocks to remove the handcuffs, but he had decided to keep wearing the bandage and sling as a disguise.
Buying the ferry ticket had been no problem, but even the slight swell in the harbour had upset his stomach and made him feel queasy. When the ferry had put to sea, he had been forced out of the saloon onto the deck, where he slumped into a seat conveniently near (but not too close) to the lee rail. He decided it was now safe for him to remove the bandage and sling. After all, he was now on a Swedish ship, where the German authorities had no jurisdiction. It was a clear, cool, moonless night, with what would have been excellent visibility if there had been anything more than starlight to see by.
He looked towards the bow, where he could just make out a few lights of what seemed to be an otherwise darkened ship ahead of them. Without any warning, there was a flash of brilliant light, followed a few seconds later by another flash. The rumbling sound of the two explosions followed a few seconds after that.
Immediately there was a shout from the ferry’s lookout to the bridge. “Mines ahead!” Almost immediately, the ferry turned hard to port, away from the stricken ship in front, from which flames now appeared to be leaping.
In a minute or so, the deck beside Kolinski was filled with passengers who had heard the noise of the explosions and felt the ship turning, and had made their way on deck to see what was happening.
One woman close to Kolinski seemed convinced that it was the ferry that was sinking, and kept hysterically asking her husband when the lifeboats were going to be launched. Though no-one else seemed to believe this, there were many anxious faces, and there was an almost palpable feeling of unease among the passengers.
Half a dozen sailors came through the crowd, headed by one of the ship’s officers.
“We’ve received an SOS from the ship ahead. They believe it was not a minefield, but torpedoes from a British submarine,” he told the passengers in Swedish-accented German. “We are perfectly safe,” he reminded them, pointing to the large Swedish flag, picked out by searchlights, floating from the main mast. “The British do not attack Swedish ships. We are perfectly safe,” he repeated.
“So why did the British fire their torpedoes? What is that ship?” came a voice from the crowd.
“She’s a German Imperial Navy destroyer. We’re going to launch our boats and take off some of her men. Most of her boats were destroyed in the blast. So I’m looking for some strong able-bodied volunteers to man the lifeboats and help save the lives of those men.”
Several passengers stepped forward, but Kolinski stayed where he was.
“Excellent,” said the officer. His eyes met Kolinski’s, and he looked Kolinski up and down. “We need a big strapping fellow like you,” he said. “Come on.”
“Can’t swim,” mumbled Kolinski.
“Doesn’t matter. You’ll have a lifejacket, and even if you do fall in, we’ll have you out of there in no time at all.”
Kolinski still hung back. A woman’s voice cut through the crowd. “It could be you out there on that boat. Shame on you for refusing to help those poor men.”
“Shame, shame,” came the murmur from the crowd. Kolinski flushed. “Oh, very well,” he muttered, and stepped forward.
“Good man,” said the officer. “We’ll get you fitted up with a lifejacket. Come with me.” He led his party, including Kolinski, to one of the ferry’s lifeboats, and instructed them where to sit, giving basic instructions on how to row the boat. A sailor passed out lifejackets.
“Lower away,” called out the officer, when they were all seated in their places and wearing their lifejackets. The davits creaked, and the boat was slowly lowered towards the water. Even before the keel of the lifeboat touched the surface of the water, Kolinski started to feel miserably sick.
“Cast off,” called the officer in the stern, “and then all of you good fellows pull at my command.” Kolinski’s lifeboat and the others from the ferry, all crewed by a mixture of professional and amateur sailors, slowly splashed their way clumsily towards the burning ship. “Well done, men. Any of you want to sign on as permanent crew?” joked the officer in Kolinski’s boat.
-oOo-
Kolinski felt even more queasy than he had done on the ship. The motion of the small lifeboat made him feel sick, and only the fear of the probably infinitely deep water beneath him stopped him from leaning over the side and throwing up. The burning destroyer grew slowly closer as the men laboured at the oars.
“We’re there, ship oars,” ordered the officer after what seemed like an eternity. “Stop rowing and pull your oars inboard,” he explained. With some clattering and confusion, his orders were obeyed. “Ahoy!” he called to the destroyer. “We can take twenty men here.”
“Thank you,” came the reply. A searchlight shone from the bridge of the damaged destroyer, and the beam played over the surface of the sea before coming to rest on one of the other lifeboats. There was a splashing sound, and several men wearing lifejackets swam into the circle of light surrounding the boat. The lifeboat’s crew hauled them, dripping, out of the water and into the boat.
The searchlight’s flickering beam illuminated Kolinski’s boat. “Not sure how long this light will last,” came the shout from the bridge. “The generator is damaged.” With those last words, the light went out, but came on again after a few seconds, again pointing at Kolinski’s boat. More life-jacketed figures swam into the circle, and the men in the boat reached out to them.
Even Kolinski, terrified as he was, felt some sympathy towards these wet and oil-soaked sailors, and he reached out to one of them, whose pale face somehow reminded him of his younger brother.
Just as his hand made contact with the outstretched hand of the German sailor, the searchlight went out again. This time, it failed to re-illuminate, and the sailor, obviously surprised by the sudden darkness, grabbed hold of Kolinski’s arm and jerked hard. Kolinski was caught off balance and fell into the water.
At that moment, there was a rumble and a grinding sound, followed by several loud explosions from within the hull of the stricken destroyer, and all her lights went out.
Damn it to hell, thought Kolinski, who had lost contact with the German sailor when he fell into the water. Don’t they know that I’m here? His irritation was replaced by panic. The gold in the heels of his boots and in his belt was dragging him down, and the lifejacket was incapable of supporting his weight. There was no way he could remove his boots, or even his belt, which was inaccessible under the lifejacket.
He struck out in an untrained doggy-paddle, and soon found himself next to a German sailor, who seemed to be swimming easi
ly and calmly.
“Give me your lifejacket,” he growled in German.
“Go and fornicate with a goat,” replied the other. “You have a jacket already. Why do you need mine?”
For answer, Kolinski reached out to the other with one hand, desperately paddling with the other and kicking with his legs to stay afloat. Grasping a handful of the man’s hair, he pushed his face under the water. The German was in no state to fight back, obviously chilled by the Baltic water, and in a state of shock following the torpedoing of his vessel, and his struggling soon stopped. With some difficulty, Kolinski undid the tapes fastening the corpse’s lifejacket, and stripped it from the body.
Wrapping his arms around the extra lifejacket, Kolinski was able to relax his frantic paddling a little, and start looking for help. The destroyer was obviously sinking, and the men on her decks had started to jump into the sea, heedless of whether there was a lifeboat to receive them or not.
In any case, there were no lifeboats near Kolinski that he could see. He started to panic, calling out for help, but his voice sounded strangled, and came out as a weak bleat. Still, he thought, at least he wasn’t sinking. If he could only hang on until daylight, surely someone would see him? Mother of God, but it was cold. He wriggled his arms and legs to keep the circulation going, but the chill continued to seep through him. His teeth started to chatter, and a wave splashed against his face, filling his nose and mouth with salty water, making him cough and splutter. He could hear no noise from any of the boats that he was sure were still near him. A light wind started to blow, and a slight swell arose, intermittently hiding the ferry from him, where it had been constantly in his sight before. This increased his panic. If he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see him, and they wouldn’t know that he was struggling in the water.
A loud sound behind him made him turn his head. The destroyer slipped beneath the waves with terrifying speed, wrapped in a ferociously hissing cloud of steam as the water met the boilers and furnaces. He felt himself being inexorably pulled towards the place where she had gone down. But it was so cold. So damned cold. Prayers he’d learned as a boy floated up into his mind. Never mind being a good Communist, he needed something to pray to. Despite moving his arms and legs frantically to keep warm, counting the strokes as he did so, he found it hard to keep concentrating, and when he reached three hundred and fifty, he lost count. There was still no sign of any of the lifeboats, and when he could see the ferry again, it seemed to be stationary – no further away than it had been, but no nearer either.
He had started to wonder seriously whether he should let go of the looted lifejacket and untie his own, allowing the gold in his boots and his belt to drag him to a quick and merciful death, when he saw a strange sight. A stick or something like that, sticking vertically out of the water. Not that unusual, since there was all manner of floating debris from the destroyer surrounding him, but this stick appeared to be moving under its own power, leaving a wake behind it. In fact, it was that slight wake that had made him notice the stick in the first place. It was definitely moving towards him. Some sort of sea monster come to gobble him up? he wondered. He didn’t want to be too close to it, whatever it was, and he turned away from the stick, splashing with his arms and kicking his legs as hard as he could to get away from it.
-oOo-
Lieutenant-Commander Horton continued to gaze through the periscope.
“Just the one that I can see,” he remarked to his First Lieutenant. “And he’s swimming away from us like billy-oh.”
“Where’s he heading, sir? For one of the boats?”
“I think they’ve all returned to the ferry. No, he’s just swimming away from us, as far as I can tell.”
“Should I give the order to surface, sir? We can’t leave the poor bastard to drown or freeze to death.”
“Very good, Number One. There appear to be no enemy in sight, and the ferry isn’t going to do anything about us. Go ahead.”
The order to surface was passed down the boat, and E9 slowly raised herself out of the water.
“Two men on deck!” called the First Lieutenant. “Lifelines and boat-hooks and life-buoys. Man in the water.”
Two seamen sprinted up the ladder to the conning tower, and dropped to the deck, where they clipped their lines to the safety rail. From the top of the conning tower, Horton directed the helmsman below to steer E9 to a point where the drowning man could be picked out of the water. Indeed, he seemed to have given up his struggles some time ago, and it was unclear as to whether E9 would be in time to save his life.
By dint of skilful seamanship, the submarine was brought close to the floating body, and the two seamen used boat-hooks to pull the dripping weight onto the deck.
“He’s a right big ‘un, sir,” one of them called up to Horton. Bloody great weight is this bugger, begging your pardon for the language, sir.”
“I’ll send another man down to help you bring him in,” called back Horton.
As the three men manoeuvred the limp body up the ladder to the conning tower, Horton looked at the face.
“That’s no German face, I’d swear to it,” he said, half to himself.
The seaman carrying the head end of the apparently drowned man heard him as he climbed over the lip of the conning tower. “Begging your pardon, sir, but he was hanging onto a German Navy lifejacket.”
“But that’s not a German lifejacket that he’s wearing,” pointed out Horton. “That’s Swedish writing on there, or I miss my mark.”
“Dunno about that,” replied the AB. “All them funny languages ain’t English, and that’s all I know.”
Curiouser and curiouser, thought Horton. As the three men wrestled their load down the ladder, he decided to go below and see for himself. He whistled down the tube for the First Lieutenant to relieve him, and slid down the ladder.
“Where do you want us to put him, sir? Officers’ quarters?”
“No, put him in the sick bay.” In the case of E9, as with most submarines, the term “sick bay” was a euphemism for a foldaway cot with a small medicine chest mounted above it.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Horton made his way to Brian’s berth. “You gentlemen may be interested to know that we’ve picked up a survivor from the destroyer. Except that he probably isn’t from the destroyer.”
“What does this mean?” asked Petrov. “He is or he is not from the destroyer, surely?”
Horton explained about the lifejackets.
“Fascinating,” commented Brian. “It sounds like an interesting sort of riddle-me-ree. Mind if I – if we, rather – come along and have a look at the blighter?”
“I was going to ask you to do just that.”
“Good.” Brian swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and dropped to the floor. Petrov likewise stood up, and followed Horton, Brian bringing up the rear.
“He’s alive, sir,” said the boatswain. “Just about. He coughed up a lot of water just now. I think that’s all that was in him. He’s breathing easy now, but he’s dead to the world.”
“Good,” said Horton. “Let’s get those wet clothes off him and get him wrapped up in a warm blanket or something. My God,” looking at the recumbent figure, whose feet overhung the end of the cot, “he really is a monster, isn’t he?”
“I’ll start by taking off those boots,” said Brian. “His feet will hurt like the dickens if they dry on him like that.” He fumbled with the fastening and drew off one boot. “Got a bucket, bosun? This is full of water, judging by the weight.” A bucket was bought, and Brian turned the boot upside-down over it. A few drops of water dribbled out. “Odd. This boot’s much heavier than I’d expect. All at the heel end, as well.” He removed the other boot, and repeated the process. “Just the same.”
“Just a well-made pair of boots, that’s all,” said Horton. “Good leather and all that.”
“Afraid not, sir. They’re not well-made at all. See for yourself.” He passed one of the boots to Horton.
>
“You’re right about that. They’re pretty shoddy, and they are heavy.” Horton frowned. “Don’t worry about it just now. Let’s get the rest of his clothes off him and get him warm. Can you run some hot water off the engines and fill a bottle or something for him, bosun?” The boatswain left, with the three officers now the only ones near their mystery passenger.
Horton bent to unfasten the belt and spoke in a low voice. “There’s something really funny about this one. He’s not German, for sure, and something tells me he’s not Swedish, either.”
“I agree,” said Petrov, who had been straining to follow the conversation. “In my opinion, he’s a Russian.”
“What papers does he have on him?” asked Brian, searching through an inside pocket. “Ha!” He riffled through them. “Looks like a Swiss passport here, but the ink seems to have run. Can’t read any details. Ticket to Malmö from Travemunde. Ink’s run on that, too, so there’s no name to read there, either. Piece of paper with some writing on it in pencil. That’s lucky. Maybe there’s something for us there. Oh, in Russian, I think. Colonel, you may be right.” He passed the sodden scrap of paper to Petrov.
“Meet at the south end of Truda Bridge, 2 pm on the 29th. Password is ‘Hammer’, countersign is ‘Rock’. That’s in St. Petersburg – Petrograd, as we have to call it now.”
“And the 29th is over two weeks away,” said Horton.
“So we have a Russian, travelling through Germany with a Swiss passport and some very heavy boots,” remarked Brian. “Oh, and there’s a Russian passport too, in a hidden inner pocket. Paper’s so wet I daren’t open it, but I’m willing to bet that the ink’s run in that, too. And a couple of sheets of Russian letters, but I can’t make head or tail of what it’s all about. Typewritten. I’ll give those to you to look at, Colonel.”
