The Hansa Protocol

by Norman Russell

  Kershaw had spoken from the heart, but his words had also been designed to restore the wretched Lankester’s reputation. Word would soon get down to London that, far from being a traitor, Lankester had been engaged on a dangerous secret mission that had cost him his life. It wasn’t true, of course; but Lankester had earned his posthumous reward.

  There was an angry murmur from Kershaw’s audience. It was an informal gathering, not a parade, and one of the soldiers took off his greatcoat, stepped forward, and draped it over the inert form. Colonel Kershaw turned to Corporal Menzies.

  ‘Corporal,’ he said, ‘I want you to arrange a burial-detail. You, and four others from this company. Dig a temporary grave here, at the cliff top …. Have we a Union Jack on the premises?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Very well. Wrap Major Lankester’s body in the Flag, and bury him where he fell. Let the men fire a volley.’

  Just at that moment, a figure in naval uniform appeared on the path leading up from Craigarvon Tower. Holland, peering through the fine rain, saw that it was Captain Dawson. The captain looked with some bewilderment at the scene, as though he had stumbled unwittingly on the rehearsal of a dramatic sketch.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, saluting, ‘Commodore Cartwright sends his compliments, and would you care to step down to the Naval Quay. We are about to search the bunkers of HMS Fearnought and HMS Leicester.’

  It was just before eleven o’clock that Admiral Holland, who seemed to be just one of a dozen grimy labourers with shovels working in the vast coal-bunkers of HMS Fearnought, spotted the end of a green metal cylinder. It had been secured with wooden battens behind the two or three hundred tons of coal still lying in the bunker, a leftover from the long haul up from Portsmouth.

  Holland had arrived at the Naval Quay at ten o’clock. He had been formally piped aboard HMS Fearnought, had duly saluted the quarterdeck, and then demanded to be taken below. He had descended the steep companionways and iron ladders that took him down to the dim region of the coal bunkers. He had briefly introduced himself to the startled chief stoker, had asked to be provided with a set of overalls, and had immediately joined in the punishing work of moving a mountain of coal away from the bulkheads. It was many years since he had experienced such a sense of exhilaration.

  Holland turned to the chief stoker, a burly, muscular man who had crawled after him through the narrow tunnel into that particular chamber of the bunker.

  ‘Do you see that?’ the admiral whispered. ‘Open your lantern, and shine it over here.’

  The Chief Stoker did as he was bid, and looked at what the admiral had found. A device in the form of a blunt-ended cylinder, with a green-painted metal case. There seemed to be a small dial, perhaps a clock face, and beside it a set of knurled wheels – a combination lock. Beside the dial and the lock was a small recessed hatch, fitting tightly, and with no handle or other means of opening.

  ‘Looks like a shell to me, sir.’

  He spoke quietly, but his words reverberated down the tunnel, and were repeated by other voices back in the gloom. A shell!

  ‘It’s not a shell, chief stoker,’ Holland replied, ‘but it’s something very like one. It’s quite safe at the moment, but we’ve got to get it out of here, and up on to the quay. After that – and if we’re still in one piece – I’ll make them give us both a glass of grog!’

  The man grinned. For some time he had forgotten that this hard-working, friendly man was a rear-admiral.

  ‘I’ll hold you to that, sir!’ he said. In a moment he had begun to drag the device out of its wooden moorings. It clanged menacingly on the gritty steel floor of the bunker.

  ‘We’ll push it back down the tunnel sir, in front of us,’ said the chief stoker. ‘It’s heavy, but not as heavy as all that! Come on, sir, let’s get it to blazes out of here!’

  ‘So, Holland’ said Colonel Kershaw, ‘that’s that! It very much looks as though we’ve beaten them.’

  ‘It does,’ said Admiral Holland. ‘One device lodged in the Fearnought, and another in HMS Leicester. And little thanks to these polite colleagues of mine in the ward room! I think, Kershaw, that I’m going to teach Commodore Cartwright and his colleagues a few stern lessons. They all forgot their place, and my rank. Today’s success has been due to quite a different kind of sailor—’

  Holland, who had resumed his dark-blue service uniform, turned round and beckoned to a grimy, thickset man in the uniform of a petty officer. The man came forward, and saluted.

  ‘Colonel Kershaw,’ said Holland, ‘I want you to meet Chief Stoker Reynolds, of Her Majesty’s Ship Fearnought. It was he and I together who saved the fleet today.’

  ‘Well done, Chief Stoker,’ said Kershaw, returning the man’s salute. ‘I don’t suppose you know who I am, but through me your Queen and country thank you.’

  The man flushed with pleasure, stammered a few words, and retired. Kershaw could see the profound respect for Holland reflected in the chief stoker’s eyes.

  Holland looked with distaste at the two identical devices that the soldiers were busy lashing to the carts. They gleamed a malevolent bright green in the dull morning light.

  ‘While Reynolds and I had a glass of rum together, we examined those sinister devices. We could see from the dials on the time-clocks that they’ve been set to explode at noon on Wednesday. Presumably they’ll be safe enough till then. I’m going back on to the Fearnought, Kershaw. There are certain things I wish to say. What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll haul these things back up to Craigarvon. There’s a remote field at the edge of the estate where they can be corralled in isolation until Wednesday. But first, I’m going to send a long telegraph message to Inspector Box in London, and another one to Mr Mack, at Home Office Explosions. I want them both to get up here, Holland, with all the speed they can muster.’

  Admiral Holland glanced briefly once more at the two green cylinders strapped to the carts.

  ‘I thought you’d agreed that we’d defeated them?’

  ‘I think we have, but I want the expert’s opinion. Better safe than sorry.’

  Oblivious to the driving rain and poor light, the swarming gangs of civilian labourers worked like automata at the coaling of the fleet. The noise of thousands of tons of coal thundering down the chutes from the decks of the battleships and cruisers was indescribable. It was as though all the demons of hell were shouting in triumph.

  The air was palpably thick with coal dust, which rapidly turned to black moisture in the rain, covering the decks of the ships and the faces of the men.

  HMS Fearnought, as the pride of the fleet, was coaled first. Within half an hour its bunkers were filled to the brim with hundreds of tons of finest furnace-coal. When, towards late afternoon, the light failed, the great fleet was ready to receive His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales on the coming Wednesday. A week later, the fleet would up anchors, and set its triumphant course for Portsmouth.

  In a wet, bleak field high above Craigarvon, Arnold Box watched Mr Mack, who was stooping down to peer at the two menacing green canisters that had been placed on trestles and surrounded with a wire mesh fence. Box, who was holding the elderly expert’s battered Gladstone bag, saw him clear the mist of rain away from one of the dials, and read the time set for detonation. Twelve o’clock. It was already nine o’clock on the morning of the 25 January.

  Box looked at the elderly man with open admiration. The journey up from London had been a frantic nightmare, achieved by the engagement of a cold and cheerless special train, which had twice been held up by signals, despite assurances that all lines would be clear. Had that been an example of railway muddle? Perhaps. Or maybe it had been something else. They had arrived, exhausted, at Craigarvon only half an hour earlier. In three hours’ time the Prince of Wales and his retinue would arrive to review the fleet.

  Mr Mack straightened up, and beckoned to Colonel Kershaw, who stood some way off. Box could see the anxiety in the elderly expert’s eyes as he launched int
o speech.

  ‘These cylinders, Colonel Kershaw, are what we call Sprengel’s Canisters. They’ve got two chambers inside, one containing nitric acid, and the other certain special chemicals. Neither the acid, nor the chemicals are explosive until they’re mixed. This little clockwork device here at the end can be set at any interval from fifteen minutes to a hundred and twenty hours. Like a clock dial, you see. And when you’ve set the clock, you fix it with the combination lock – those three little knurled wheels with numbers on them.’

  ‘And these Sprengel’s Canisters can lift the decks of a warship?’ asked Kershaw incredulously.

  Old Mr Mack shook his head violently.

  ‘Of course they can’t, Colonel! They’re used for blasting purposes, in mines and quarries. If they went off in a ship’s bunker, they’d certainly make a mess, but they wouldn’t raise the decks, let alone sink the ship. You can see where all this is leading, can’t you?’

  ‘I can, Mr Mack. These things were deliberately designed to deceive – no wonder that Colin McColl laughed when he revealed their whereabouts to poor Lankester! And if these things are merely decoys, then there must still be devilish devices hidden in the Fearnought and the Leicester. Mr Mack, we’re in your hands for the moment. What shall we do?’

  ‘The first thing to do, Colonel, is to render these canisters harmless.’

  Mr Mack opened his Gladstone bag, and produced a large claw-hammer, with which he smashed the glass pane covering each of the time-clocks. Kershaw and Box instinctively flinched. Mack had retrieved a tattered code-book from the bag, and was rapidly flicking over its pages in the rain. He suddenly gave a little cry of satisfaction, rapidly twirled the knurled combination rings, and slid open the recessed hatches, revealing a small brass ring, which he pulled. They saw him start in surprise.

  ‘They’re empty! There’s nothing inside the casings – no acid, no chemicals …. Colonel, I must inspect the magazines and shell stores in the Fearnought and the Leicester straight away. Box – will you come down with me below-decks? You know what I’m expecting to find, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. One of Ridgeway’s Limpet Igniters, attached to one of the shells. I’ll come down with you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Box. You’re a – a shining ornament, if I may say so. We’ll start in the Leicester first, Colonel Kershaw. It has just the one magazine, which doubles as a shell store. Mr Box and I studied some blueprints on the way up here. Now, it’s going to be a race against time, so I don’t want any obstruction, or jealous rivalries putting us all in danger of annihilation—’

  ‘There’ll be no obstruction, Mr Mack. I can guarantee that. And so can Admiral Holland. He’s down there now, at the Naval Quay, awaiting your instructions.’

  At ten o’clock, a small brass band assembled on the Naval Quay, ready to play suitable music when His Royal Highness appeared. Black clouds lay so low over the sea that it was impossible to see the horizon, or indeed across the sound. Someone had suggested that the band be protected by an awning, but this idea was negated, as not playing fair. A red carpet was rolled up in readiness. To have laid it out before the arrival of the Prince would have invited disaster.

  The Prince’s visit to the fleet was to be quite informal. Its purpose was simply to set his cachet upon the new naval policy, which, by unspoken assumption, would lay the foundation of Britain’s sea strategy in his own coming reign as King. Because of the informal nature of the visit, therefore, he would be accompanied only by a small suite of seventeen persons, and would arrive in a procession of four closed carriages with outriders found by the Gordon Highlanders.

  The band essayed a few mournful bars, and then entertained the incurious seagulls to a rather mournful waltz.

  In the dim interior of HMS Leicester’s magazine, Mr Mack, clad in a loose suit of linen overalls, slid on his back beneath the eighth shell rack. Box, crouching some feet behind him, heard his sudden sigh of satisfaction. He edged nearer to the elderly expert, pushing the Gladstone bag ahead of him. Above him, the copper ceiling of the chamber seemed to threaten him with the weight of the ship above. The magazine was only four feet six inches high at this point. Box thought briefly of the firelit office at King James’s Rents. He’d never grumble about its dilapidations again, ever ….

  ‘Mr Box, this is the one, this shell in number four cradle – can you see?’

  Mr Mack repositioned an electric lantern which was attached to a thick rubber cable leading to the ship’s generator, and the wicked limpet-like device sprang into Box’s view. Small, but deadly, it proclaimed its origin in prim white letters arranged in a semi-circle: Thomas Ridgeway & Co., Birmingham. In the confined space of the magazine, Box could hear the quiet but regular ticking of the clock mechanism. He vividly recalled the remarks that Mr Mack had made when he and Knollys had visited him at the Home Office.

  ‘When the time that you’ve set comes round, that steel rod in the centre there activates the fuse plate, and the shell explodes …. And the magazine’s a confined space, with armoured steel walls, so the force of the magazine going up blows the ship to pieces.’

  ‘Mr Box, will you hand me that little toffee hammer, and the half-inch chisel with the green handle? I’m going to defuse this thing. It’s just the one, thank goodness. Then you and I can go over to the Fearnought.’

  Two sharp taps of the hammer, a delicate manoeuvring with the chisel, and the purposeful ticking of the clock abruptly stopped. Mr Mack sighed with relief, and wrenched the magnetic igniter away from the shell.

  17

  Loyalties

  In the wardroom of HMS Fearnought, Commodore Cartwright addressed his assembled officers. If he was nervous, he contrived not to let it show in his voice. Nevertheless, he knew that Admiral Holland was still somewhere on board his ship, and that the Home Office explosives expert was already descending by means of the hydraulic hoists to the magazines.

  ‘His Royal Highness, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘will be accompanied by Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Caithness, the Lord Strathspey. Also present in the suite will be the Lord Treasurer of Scotland, Sir Wheeler Tuke, Baronet. The band-master has been instructed to strike up “God Bless the Prince of Wales” as the Prince steps down from his carriage—’

  ‘Is all well on HMS Leicester, sir? Sorry to interrupt, and all that.’

  The speaker was a senior captain, more used to the authority of his own bridge than listening to lectures on protocol. His words echoed what all the others were thinking.

  ‘What? Yes, all’s well there. And all will be well here, I’ve no doubt. So just shut up, will you, Bob? I want this reception to go off without a hitch.’

  Commodore Cartwright cleared his throat, and continued.

  ‘His Royal Highness will be conducted immediately to luncheon here, on the flagship, after which he will be taken by launch to HMS Leicester for his progress through the fleet. Every vessel in the fleet, gentlemen, will have steam up, and will be arrayed overall. It’s going to be a great “sea-ballet”, if I may put it like that, to show His Royal Highness something of the manoeuvrability of the new capital ships.’

  The assembled officers listened. Perhaps all would indeed be well, as the Commodore asserted. Certainly, by some miracle of human endeavour all trace of the grimy squalor of Monday’s coaling had disappeared, and everything shone bright and clean.

  HMS Fearnought boasted four magazines. Mr Mack and Inspector Box clung to the rails of the hydraulic hoist that was taking them, and Chief Stoker Reynolds, down into the bowels of the great battleship. They could hear the throbbing of the engines, the hissing of many pipes, and what was for Box the unfamiliar whine of electric generators. There was a smell of fresh oil in the hot air.

  Mr Mack spoke quietly, as though nothing particular was in train.

  ‘It’s half past ten. We have one and a half hours to search these four magazines’, he said, ‘and make all safe. Chief Stoker Reynolds, I want you to go into the two aft magazines now, with some of your
own men, and search through the cradles for any sign of the devices that I’ve described. You’ll do it more quickly that I can. I’ll wait here, by the hoist. If you find any, then shout for me immediately. When we’ve done here, we’ll go forrard.’

  Chief Stoker Reynolds and his men took just over a quarter of an hour to search the two aft magazines. Four separate summons took Mr Mack and Box into the copper vaults where the shells lay in their cradles. Four limpet igniters, each bearing the now-familiar inscription: ‘Thomas Ridgeway & Co., Birmingham’, had come to light. Three of them yielded successfully to Mr Mack’s toffee hammer and half-inch chisel.

  The fourth proved a tougher proposition, as the glass window had been replaced by a solid steel cap, secured by a bolted flange. Mr Mack worked away slowly and methodically, using a small hack-saw to cut through the bolt. The air was hot and close, and sickly with the smell of oil.

  At eleven o’clock the red carpet was unrolled along the quay, and the petty officer in charge glanced anxiously at the sky. The band, still denied an awning for form’s sake, endured the cold rain and the wind blowing off the German Ocean, and essayed a few tentative bars of ‘God Bless the Prince of Wales’.

  On the far side of the Sound, hidden from the fleet by the banks of low cloud, a little steam-launch moved away into the mist. On board were a pretty young woman, and an older woman of vinegary aspect. The launch set a firm course away from the anchored fleet and out to the open sea. After a quarter of an hour, the two women could just discern the rising bulk of a yacht, with lights dowsed but steam up, straining at its anchor. Soon, they would be safe in Heligoland, from whence they would be conducted by their jubilant friends to the glittering splendours of Berlin, the heart of the Reich.