Convoy North (A John Mason Kemp Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  ‘You mean —’

  ‘I mean only that I’m in a position to help. I’m not suggesting...anything crude. That can be left to the Russians, if you get that far. All I’m suggesting is that you take advantage of a kind of salvation. Not too strong a word, Colonel von Hagen. In Britain you’ll be treated properly, and after the war you’ll go back to Germany. If the Russians have custody of you —’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know very well, you have no need to elaborate, Lieutenant Phipps.’

  ‘Quite. Then perhaps you’ll —’

  ‘No.’ The German shook his head.

  ‘But surely —’

  ‘No. If you ask the reason, it’s this: I don’t believe your promises. I believe that even if I talked to you, I would still be handed over to the Russians. I believe this because I know my own value to them, and also, and over-ridingly, because it is the Russians whose waters we are in and who have the whip hand.’

  ‘Oh no. I assure you —’

  Von Hagen made a dismissive gesture. ‘Your assurances...no! You will tell me that pressures would be put on the Kremlin by Whitehall, that Winston Churchill himself would erupt like a volcano over his cigar, that the course of the war would be interrupted in the interest of my salvation. All that would be words only. Matters would not happen that way. I am not a fool, Lieutenant Phipps.’

  ‘I never suggested you were, though I had hoped...however, there’s something else.’ Phipps looked away for a moment. ‘You never married, Colonel.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But there was someone in London, before the war called you away.’

  Von Hagen’s face went white and he jerked a little, but he said nothing.

  ‘Marie-Anne de Tourville. A Frenchwoman.’ Phipps stubbed out his cigarette half smoked. He lit another and blew smoke towards von Hagen. ‘She’s still there. Completely unmolested, but under surveillance.’

  ‘Why under surveillance? She was never a Nazi sympathizer, that was separate from my activities, she knew nothing —’

  ‘We know that, Colonel. She’s clean.’

  ‘Then —’

  Phipps smiled. ‘She can be brought in on suspicion. We can do that at any time. We can always find charges.’

  ‘Trumped-up, of course.’

  ‘Of course. If you think that’s dirty, have a good look at your own hands and Herr Hitler’s, Colonel. Even the British can be beastly, you know, if pushed. We —’

  ‘This, then, is the threat?’

  Phipps said, ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I honestly don’t like it, but there it is, I’m under orders from a certain department of state —’

  ‘The monster Churchill?’

  ‘Not the monster Churchill, and I’m surprised at you of all people falling for propaganda. Mr Churchill knows nothing of this — there are many things he has to be kept in ignorance of.’ Phipps looked at his wrist-watch as if assessing how much longer he had before I. K. Tarasov began creating. ‘If you don’t answer the questions I shall put, then a message will go to London once we have reached Archangel. Mamselle de Tourville will be arrested on certain charges. She will be imprisoned without trial, held under Regulation 18b. She won’t be comfortable, Colonel.’ Phipps brought out a handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘Matters could become, well, fairly extreme.’

  II

  Kemp sat on in his cabin with Captain Brigger and I. K. Tarasov, the latter obviously furious at having been baulked — quite why, Kemp didn’t really know: Tarasov’s time was presumably to come unless he, Kemp, could find a way of keeping von Hagen aboard. The prospect of that looked so dim as to be invisible although Brigger could be an ally. But he would have no more effect than Kemp, probably — and of course he was under orders from the Admiralty even though he wouldn’t be liking them any more than Kemp. Kemp and Brigger meanwhile chatted of this and that, of prewar days largely, innocuous stuff, reminiscences of ships that had gone already in the war, men whom both had known, naval officers with whom Kemp had served when doing his RNR time annually aboard a ship of the fleet. I. K. Tarasov listened, no doubt hoping to pick up an indiscretion. His face, Kemp thought, was like that of a rat: the fur collar and the fur hat, still on his head, gave him the appearance in fact of a rat peering out of a ball of oakum...

  The Hardraw Falls moved on.

  Tarasov spoke. ‘Your Lieutenant Phipps, Captain. He is taking a long time.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t he?’ BNLO said in a pleasant tone. Tarasov’s thin mouth clamped shut like a trap. He got to his feet, brushed impatiently past Kemp, and glared out from the square port at the barren sea and the desolate land sliding past in the distance. Maybe, Kemp thought, he was wondering if that terrible land was going to be so welcoming when he had to report that the British had interrogated von Hagen without his own presence, that he had been unable to shift the British Commodore...All at once Kemp was seized with a hatred of the land he was approaching, a deep loathing of its totalitarianism, as bad as that of Adolf Hitler with his tantrums in Berchtesgaden or wherever. If I. K. Tarasov was typical of Stalin’s secret police, which no doubt he was, then it would be a sordid act to hand over von Hagen, to deliver him into the hands of barbarism.

  There was a tap at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Kemp said. Tarasov turned round. One of the armed British naval ratings stood in the doorway. He addressed Brigger.

  ‘Lieutenant Phipps, sir. He’d like a word. Just with you, sir.’ Brigger got to his feet, lifting an eyebrow at Kemp. ‘All right, Commodore?’

  Kemp nodded. ‘Of course.’ BNLO left the cabin. Tarasov went back to his study of land and sea.

  III

  ‘Any luck, Phipps?’

  ‘Yes, sir. In the end.’

  ‘You used the woman angle, did you?’

  ‘I did. I went the whole hog. As far as the death penalty.’

  ‘On a charge of which she’s wholly innocent.’

  ‘Yes —’

  ‘You’re a hard customer, Phipps.’

  ‘We have to be, sir. We’re all bastards now, thanks to Hitler.’

  ‘What did he tell you, Phipps?’

  Phipps said, ‘There are German agents operating inside Russia — that’s not news to us, of course, and in a general sense it won’t be news to Tarasov either. The point is, these are specially infiltrated agents and von Hagen has the names and whereabouts — and the orders. The orders are simple, very straightforward. The agents are inside Russia to carry out an assassination.’ Phipps paused for effect. ‘Guess who?’

  BNLO’S mouth tightened. ‘Not —?’

  ‘Yes. Stalin. Stalin himself.’

  ‘So that’s why he has to be handed over!’

  ‘It’s vital to them,’ Phipps said. ‘If Stalin’s knocked off, that gives Hitler his chance against a Russia in extremis — the Kremlin couldn’t hope to hide it, not with all the hierarchy jockeying for position, in-fighting for the succession.’

  ‘But why should the British government — how could the Kremlin have known —’

  Phipps interrupted. ‘My guess would be that the Kremlin has picked up a little but not enough. They don’t know who, how or when. Von Hagen does. The Kremlin presumably knows he knows, hence the pressure on our war cabinet to cough him up.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’ The two officers were out on the open deck, in the bitter cold that currently they scarcely felt. BNLO walked up and down, with quick, rather nervous steps, with Phipps keeping step beside him. ‘Has von Hagen given you the details, the full facts — names and so on?’

  ‘Yes, he has.’

  Brigger said, ‘I don’t see why he caved in on your threat about the woman — or rather, I don’t see why he should believe you when you said she’d be left alone if he talked.’

  ‘That’s easy, sir. He knows she’s not involved in anything, just as we do. We really haven’t use at all for her other than as a lever. There’d be absolutely no point in not letting her go once he’d talked — he knows that.’ Phipps added, ‘We were just go
ing to be — er —’

  ‘Complete and utter shits,’ BNLO said, ‘if he hadn’t talked!’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. But now we haven’t got to be. Not in regard to the woman.’

  ‘And von Hagen? Surely we can pass his information to Tarasov ourselves?’

  Phipps shook his head. ‘There’s no change in his position, sir. The orders were very precise: he’s to be handed over in Archangel, whether or not he’s talked to us. I know it’s nasty, but it’s war. The Russians want do some pumping of their own.’

  ‘But —’ Brigger broke off suddenly as one of the ship’s crew came up the ladder from the after well-deck, moving at the double, eyes staring in what appeared to be terror. He flung past Brigger shouting out something about a bomb, and went on past the master’s alleyway to the bridge ladder, still shouting. The shouts penetrated Kemp’s cabin, where Tarasov came away from the port like lightning, pushed his way out of the cabin, and yelled an order in Russian at the uniformed security police waiting outside. As Kemp came out from the cabin behind him, making for the bridge, he saw Tarasov and his armed bully boys approaching the sentry on von Hagen’s cabin. Kemp, when he reached the bridge, saw that the man who had shouted was Swile and that caused him to smell a biggish rat. Seeing the Commodore’s approach, Theakston called to him.

  ‘Report of ticking alongside Number One hold, Commodore. If the report’s right we may not have long to abandon —’

  ‘Unless we find the object,’ Kemp said. There was something in his tone that made Theakston look at him sharply and with a look of puzzlement. ‘I’d be obliged if you’d leave this to me,’ Kemp went on. Before quitting his cabin he had brought his revolver from the safe. Now he showed it, ostentatiously. ‘All right, Swile. We’re going on a bomb hunt, you and I.’

  IV

  It was no more than a hunch and Kemp was very aware of the risks as he went below to the tween-deck and the hatch leading to Number One hold with its cargo of high explosive. They could all vanish in one split second of fire and fury, all of them, Theakston and the bridge staff, the engine-room complement, BNLO, the Russians, von Hagen...but Kemp felt pretty sure inside himself. Bombs didn’t appear all that suddenly after so long at sea from the Firth of Lorne, although it could perhaps be possible for a device to be so timed that it didn’t start its tick until it was ready to detonate — but had there been no delays it would presumably not have gone off until some while after the Archangel arrival when it could have activated itself in a ship emptied of its cargo, not such a useful thing to do.

  ‘Now,’ Kemp said. ‘Where is it, Swile?’

  Swile put on a puzzled look. ‘Dunno, sir. Seems to have stopped.’

  ‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it? You’re an exceptionally brave man, Swile.’

  Swile made an indistinct sound and looked warily back at Kemp. Kemp said pleasantly, ‘You don’t look at all scared, Swile. Not like a man who’s about to be blown sky high.’

  ‘That’s cos it’s stopped bloody ticking, innit?’

  ‘Pull the other one, Swile. I didn’t come down with the last shower! This has something to do with the German agent — right? I’ve had reports —’

  ‘That bastard!’ Swile said — almost screamed. His face was contorted with hate. ‘Well, it worked, didn’t it? I looked into the alleyway as we come past — the Jerry had been hooked out by the Russians —’

  ‘Yes.’ Kemp, too, had noted the fact. It had worked only too well, but even if it hadn’t Kemp saw no way of keeping von Hagen aboard now. Dirt would have its course. ‘All right, Swile. This will be gone into later. For now, get out of my sight —fast!’

  Swile scuttled away. Kemp’s face was savage as he climbed to the well-deck and went on up to the bridge. On the way he went into the master’s alleyway and found Petty Officer Napper in red-faced argument with I. K. Tarasov.

  ‘You’d no right,’ Napper was saying. ‘I’m in charge o’ the prisoner —’

  ‘Shut up.’

  Napper bristled. ‘Don’t you speak to me like that, bloody civvy —’

  ‘Russian civvy. You are in Russian waters.’

  ‘Makes no difference! This is a British ship and you’d no right. Why, I —’

  I. K. Tarasov went up close to Napper and stared at him with his fish-cold eyes. ‘I am Colonel Tarasov. I am of the OGPU. I am powerful, and you are rude. If I lift my little finger —’

  ‘Sorry, sir, I didn’t know you was an officer, sir, I thought you was a civvy.’

  ‘Yes. So now you will do as you are told by me, and shut up. Yes?’

  ‘Yessir! ‘ Napper said, and saluted. Kemp went on towards the bridge. Napper had been so agitated that he hadn’t seen the Commodore, and Kemp saw no point in interfering — there was nothing to interfere about, the whole thing was a fait accompli now, and he felt weary to death with the voyage and the intrigue. He had almost to drag himself up the ladder to the bridge. There had been so little sleep, so much anxiety, so many things continually on his mind. He found Cutler on the bridge, standing beside Theakston. Theakston was looking grimmer than Kemp had yet seen him, his face stiff as he glanced round at the Commodore’s approach.

  He said, ‘It’s all over.’

  ‘Almost, yes.’

  ‘I don’t mean the voyage, Commodore. Brigger brought a signal from the Ministry of War Transport. It’s only just been sent up.’ Theakston’s voice faltered for a moment and suddenly Kemp understood.

  ‘Your wife, Captain?’

  ‘Dead,’ Theakston said. ‘Three days ago...while we were flogging along the Kola Inlet. So many bloody miles away...not that it would have made any difference.’

  Kemp found no words to say. He laid a hand on Theakston’s shoulder and squeezed. His heart seemed like a ball of lead. Theakston’s voyage had been no easier than his own, and now landfall had brought its bombshell. It had always been Kemp’s own fear that something would happen to Mary while he was away at sea. Theakston turned away and went into the wheelhouse. Kemp remained where he was, with Cutler.

  ‘That’s rotten,’ Cutler said.

  ‘Yes.’ Kemp pushed it to the back of his mind: it had to be just one of those things and the Hardraw Falls was not far off the final stretch into Archangel. ‘What’s up with that ice-breaker, Cutler?’

  Cutler brought up his binoculars. ‘Stopped, sir.’ A moment later the Russian began signalling and Corrigan read it off.

  ‘Well?’ Kemp asked.

  ‘Stuck, sir. Stuck in the ice.’

  Theakston had heard. He passed the order to stop engines. Already, ahead of them, the cruiser escort was turning under full helm, beating it out before she stuck fast for the winter, her signal lamp busy as she moved past.

  Corrigan reported, ‘Neath to Commodore, sir: “I will wait outside the ice boundary.”’

  ‘Acknowledge. Add: “Much obliged but don’t bother.”’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Cutler said, ‘I guess he expects us to move out, sir — not to enter, but —’

  ‘Yes. But I think he’s over hopeful, Cutler. The damage — and the question of fuel. There may be a tanker in Murmansk, I suppose.’

  ‘If we could do it —’

  ‘If we could do it, Cutler, we could keep von Hagen and have the additional bonus of I. K. Tarasov. But that’s being over hopeful too. In any case, there’d be a Russian warship waiting for us off the Kola Inlet.’ Then Kemp added, ‘But I don’t think we’re going to make it out anyway. Look down there.’ He gestured down the ship’s side, and then astern. There were great chunks of broken ice tumbling in the wake of the departing cruiser and even as Kemp and Cutler watched the chunks froze into a solid, rocky mess, while similar things happened along the sides of the Hardraw Falls. A moment later the ship crunched to a full stop.

  V

  ‘Just our bloody luck!’ Napper said some motionless hours later. ‘God knows when we’ll get back to UK now.’ He glowered down at the solid freeze, which linked them all wit
h Archangel still many miles ahead. ‘I wonder if the buggers’ll send a quack out if Kemp asks for one?’ He was speaking to Able Seaman Grove, past impertinences forgotten in his hour of anguish. He was standing with his legs apart: it eased the ache a little, pressure was not a good thing, and when he moved it was still crab fashion.

  Grove said, ‘Dunno, Po. If they do they’ll likely take you to hospital, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘No! In bloody Russia?’

  Grove grinned. ‘Where else?’

  ‘They’re not getting me off of this ship! This ship’s England as far as I’m concerned.’ Petty Officer Napper gave a sound like a bleat and went below where he could no longer see Russia. If you tried, if you didn’t look, you might fool yourself in the end and of course with any luck they mightn’t have long to hang about, but his knackers could hardly wait till they made contact with civilization again. Before BNLO had gone ashore, or anyway gone down to the ice to embark aboard what looked like a horse-drawn sleigh, he’d assembled the crew and the naval party and told them he would make arrangements, or hoped he could, for such hands as could be spared to be transferred across the ice to Archangel and the train for Murmansk and a homeward convoy, but it might take time since they would have a low priority...Napper prayed that BNLO’S efforts would be successful. In Napper’s view the shore party had looked a right lot of Charlies setting off behind a horse, and the OGPU man had looked furious, in just the mood to tear strips off the local weathermen who’d been caught out by the advance of the ice. With Tarasov had gone the German spy and bad luck to him. Napper had been on deck when the party had left and he fancied he would never forget the look in Kemp’s face as von Hagen went over the side. Odd, that; such a hoo-ha over a rotten Nazi, just as though he’d been the Commodore’s brother or something...

  Napper rooted about in his medical stores and went off into a loud moan. One more squeeze and that would be the end of the lanolin.