by Dave Freer
“So why are they looking for her?” asked Tim. Maybe everyone else knew?
Smitty shrugged. “Maybe she made King Ernest's new weskit the wrong colour.”
That got a chuckle from the mess-crew. The king was famous for setting the fashion, and his bright cravats, waistcoats, and odd-coloured knee-breeches were as much privately laughed at as publicly imitated. He was most unlike Duke Malcolm, who only appeared to wear military uniform. They said the duke even wore his shako to bed. And everyone knew that the duke really ran the British Empire.…
Tim decided to ask Clara the next time he met her, which happened while he was cleaning cabins. She was becoming quite friendly with all of them, although Tim didn't quite know what to make of the way she treated him. He wasn't really used to girls, and knew nothing about the way top-siders behaved.
“Oh, you're talking to me now,” she said, smiling to take at least some of the sting out of the words when he asked. “I don't really know. Mother won't tell me. And to be honest I don't know if I would understand. Or really want to.”
Tim was taken aback by that. “But why don't you want to?”
She sniffed. Pulled a face. “You didn't have to grow up being expected to also be a chemist. I want to do something else, thank you. And you? What do you want to be?”
Tim blinked. “I guess I never thought about it much back home. It was always about getting enough for dinner, really. My mam”—he swallowed, wishing he knew exactly what had happened in the tubes under London—“she said I should be a submariner, because they ate well.” He looked down at his feet. “I worry about her. I used to look out for her. She…she should get some of my wages. If…if she's all right.”
She squeezed his arm. “She will be, I'm sure. I worry about my dad, too.”
“Oh. Where is he?” he asked.
It was her turn to swallow, and pause. “In jail in Ireland,” she said quietly. “He's a rebel.”
She didn't know why she'd told him that. She'd lied about it often enough before. Been found out and been teased and bullied mercilessly. But here they would hardly know if she made something up.
“I'm sorry they caught him,” he said sincerely, without a single trace of the mockery she was used to about it, on his broad face. “You must be very proud of him.”
Clara blinked. For a moment she thought she was going to explode with fury and hit him. And then she realised he was not persecuting her. Not teasing. His brownish face really was earnest, and his voice showed no hint of the usual sneers she'd lived with. “Proud?” she asked, warily, almost tasting the word, attached to her father.
He looked rather confused at her response. “Well, um, yes. Aren't you? I mean, my mam said that Duke Malcolm's men would as soon shoot a rebel as look at him in Ireland. He must be very brave.”
Clara thoroughly embarrassed herself by bursting into tears.
Tim gaped. Then hastily said, “Here. I'm sorry.…” He reached a tentative hand out to her.
She shook her head. “Thank you,” she somehow managed to say, and then retreated to the heads to cry…and think.
Tim wondered if he should go after her. Women. The older lads were right. There was no understanding them. He went back to work, still wondering just what he'd said wrong. Only that “thank you” seemed, well, grateful. But exactly what was going on inside her head he was not too sure. Cotton, hay, and rags in a woman's head, according to the other lads, but his mam was as sharp as a tin-tack. She'd been a teacher once upon a time, before she'd had to flee underground with him as an unborn baby. But the Irish girl had got him thinking about this “what do you want to be” business. Now that he was well fed, food didn't seem quite so much of all that there was to life. Maybe he could add “safe,” he thought wryly as the “all quiet” light came on again.
They'd run hard and fast toward the Shetlands. They had days more running to get anywhere else that the boat could refuel. There were submarine lairs off Ireland, in the Hebrides, and several along the wild coasts of Norway. Of course the Royal Navy knew roughly where these were, if not their precise locations. It was just to be hoped that they didn't realise they were pushing on for the Faroe Islands. The weather helped in its own way, by getting worse. It kept the spotter airships at anchor and gave them lots of wind to run with. It also made using the engines during the day difficult, with the engine-snuiver catching too many waves, and the sub bouncing and pitching and rolling. So it took them three days to catch sight of the cliffs and mountains of the Faroe Islands. The weather chose to settle too, meaning near-windless conditions.
“It's shaping up for a big blow,” said the old submariners as they packed the gossamer sails into the deck-hatch in the outer hull. At least the submarine could travel below the surface when the weather turned really bad. That helped a little, although they still rolled. Tim hoped it would hold off for a few more days. It would be wonderful to walk on land for a bit.
Clara had fought hard against the wait for nightfall, so that the Cuttlefish could come inshore, heading for the second largest island of the Faroes, Eysturoy. She'd done her best smiling at the officers on the bridge, and been granted a quick look through the periscope. In the moonlight it seemed entirely made up of cliffs, chasms, and peaks. There wasn't a light to be seen, but they still crept in, underwater, into one of the fiords. And then in a secluded bay, onto the surface. The submariners preferred marine caves, but this was so out of the way, and they needed to get alongside the coaling barge. The high walls of the fiord kept it still and dark and safe seeming.
Clara had even managed to slip out on deck—wishing she could go on land while the sacks of washed and desulphured coal dust were carried in. The high walls of the fiord cut down the light, and with scudding cloud blacking everything out intermittently, it was too dark to see much. By the race of the clouds across the moon, the weather, so steady before, was beginning to pick up.
The remoteness of the place nearly lulled the Cuttlefish's crew into a false security. It was only the sharp eyes of a lookout that saved them. “Airship!” he shouted.
Everyone looked up, and there it was, high and distinct, and unlike the wispy clouds. Silhouetted against the moon, it was long, silent, and sharklike, closing on them. “Close hatches!” yelled one of the officers. “All below.”
They scrambled and fell down the stair. Clara found herself under someone and hauled into the pit, as something made a ripping sound across the water, and a sharp metallic spang! sound. They all bundled through the hatchway. Then the captain said through the speaking tubes, “Secure the deck-shaft doors. Prepare to dive.”
Already the electric motors were throbbing, and a few moments later the vibration of the Stirlings' feed compressors cut in too as the boat angled down into the fiord. In the meanwhile Clara, various submariners, and two of the Faroese from the coaling barge untangled themselves and hastened to where they were supposed to be. Well, except for the two Faroe Islanders—big, blond-bearded, scared-looking men who didn't seem to speak much English. They were confused and afraid. Clara tried with her few words of German to help. The last place they'd be welcome right now would be the bridge, but short of their cabin she couldn't think of where else to take them. Fortunately, Tim came hurrying by. “Where shall I take these people to?” she asked, grabbing his arm.
He blinked at them. “Oh. The mess, I reckon. I'll ask the mate. He speaks their lingo.”
So Clara led them down to the mess. The sub was not diving anymore, but was plainly moving as fast as possible. There was a far-off boom of explosions, but they were some distance away. They waited. Clara tried to explain the “all quiet” light to the two Faroese. Quietly. It didn't stop her feeling guilty when the mate, Mr. Werner, came down as she was speaking.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Was trying to explain.” She pointed.
“I think you should get back to your cabin, miss,” he said sternly. “But it's not likely that the enemy are listening.” He spoke to the two Faroese in their own
language while Clara slunk off, feeling guilty. She met Tim again, this time carrying a tray and several empty cups. Whistling as usual.
“Shh!” She looked up pointing and saw that the “all quiet” light she was pointing at was off. “Oh. Sorry.”
He grinned. “As Cookie says, no worries. Sparky got his aerial up and picked up their transmissions. The wind is getting up and they report that they can't keep their station. Probably halfway to Norway by now. Said they were going to try to drop some troops, and they were talking to a ship. A dreadnought yet!”
“However did they find us?” asked Clara.
“That's got the captain in fair sweat too,” said Tim. “He thought we'd lost them at the Shetlands. And the Invincible George—the dreadnought—was steaming towards Bergen, so maybe we had. Anyway, I better run. Got to take those Faroes men up to the bridge, and bring more coffee. We've got a busy night ahead—got to get the rest of the coal dust on board and get gone.”
Tim found himself assigned to the loading crews as the submarine slipped back to where they'd left the barge. The captain had out-thought the airship crew. In the narrow fiord, it seemed obvious that the submarine would flee for the open sea. So Captain Malkis had made it look like that…and then headed farther up the fiord, while the airship wasted its small stock of drop-mines on the mouth of the fiord.
Well…that had saved them. But the barge had no such options. And right now, when they surfaced, it wasn't there.
“Must have sunk her,” said the lieutenant, waiting with them to start the reloading. “Hell's teeth. We need that fuel!”
“Loading crew to the deck to look for survivors,” said the captain's voice through the speaker-tubes.
So Tim found himself up on deck scanning the dark water. The captain decided to even risk a spotlight, and that shone out across the water. Someone spied floating debris, towards the shoreline. The submarine turned in towards it. And someone flashed a light from the shore. The spotlight swung over, to show three men waving. They edged closer, with the two Faroese on the submarine calling out to the men onshore.
A small boat was pushed into the water, and they paddled out. The Faroese sailors hugged each other…well, two of them did. The third man was one of their own crew, who had been down on the barge, collecting the next sack. “They shot up the barge, Lieutenant. Holed her. The locals tried to run for the beach. They were still shooting at us, even if they were trying to chase the submarine down. They've killed one of the local lads and wounded another.”
“And the barge?” asked Lieutenant Willis.
“Ach, we had to abandon her,” explained Submariner Daniels. “Couldn't have been thirty yards from the beach, but the airship had tried to come back and was being blown over those mountains there. The airship dropped a few parachutes, up there.”
“They'll be lucky to get broken legs if not necks, landing up there in the dark,” said Lieutenant Willis.
The rescued submariner nodded. “From what Harald—he's their captain, speaks a bit of English—says, they'll be lucky if the local fishermen don't get to them with gutting knives first.”
“Still, with us on the surface, the skipper needs that light off, and to be told about this. Jump to it, Daniels. To the bridge. And take this Harald with you. The rest of you, below, except the deck watch.”
Clara sneaked up to the bridge to find out just what was going on.
“She has a hole in her bow, ja. The fiord is steep sides, see. Even so close to the wall, it is deep water. Maybe…seven, eight fa'am,” said the Faroese man with a grizzled beard—an even bigger beard than the two men who had been trapped on the submarine. He shrugged fatalistically. “We troll with a gaff, we find her. But she is too heavy to pull out. It's our life-blood down there, ja. And they killed Thorvald.”
Captain Malkis sucked his teeth. “We've got divers aboard. We can try and patch her and refloat her. We need the coal.”
“Divers is goot. Maybe just take the coal out. Then we pull her out, ja.”
“The trouble is they have soldiers up there. And there is the garrison in Tórshavn,” said the mate.
The Faroese captain spat. “Them. Ha. They won't put to sea in the wind, ja. Like babies. So if they come it is overland, then over the Kollafiord. And then over the mountain. It could take…a day, maybe more. And, it will be going to rain soon.”
Captain Malkis nodded. “Very well. Can you take us as close as you can to where the vessel went down?” He looked up at the eavesdropping Clara. “And maybe our youngest diver can make herself useful by finding the divers for me, and telling them to report to the bridge.” As she left she heard the captain say, “Lieutenant Willis, I'll need two armed patrols on shore. As lookouts. The bad news is if we have to run, they'll be left here, if they can't get back in time. So pick men we can somehow spare.” Trapped and left behind here? That was quite a terrifying idea, thought Clara. Captain Malkis's next words rubbed it in. “Responsible and reliable men…but that we could still run the boat without.”
Tim looked at the rifle and the issue cutlass. It was the first time he'd ever held one, so he practised a swing with it. “Easy. You'll cut your own fool head off,” said Smitty. “Don't know why they bother. We're no match for the king's soldiers.”
“Yes…but we have to be able to fight back!” said Tim.
“Stop waving that thing around, Barnabas. It's not a toy,” said Lieutenant Willis, coming up to them. “And stop that perpetual whistling too. Right. Bosun. You're in charge of this lot. Here's the Very pistol. You're to use the green flare if, or when, you sight them, and retreat with all speed. Fire a few shots in their general direction and run. The red flare means you're in trouble. We probably won't be able to help you. You've got a local with you as a guide, but Olaf doesn't speak much English.” The Faroe Islander grinned at them and waved a large hand. He was even bigger than Big Eddie.
They took the Faroes' men's small boat in to the shore. It was so small they needed to do it in two shifts. The other patrol, heading for the farther shore, took the submarine's own rubber inflated pontoon boat.
It was still before dawn, but the sky was definitely lighter, as Tim, Olaf, the bosun, and three other submariners walked away from the pebble beach and up towards a higher point. Olaf said there was something there, but he was not very good at explaining. It turned out to be the ruins of a house, just unmortared stone walls, half collapsed, and the last little corner of a sod roof. It was on the highest point, just before a little secondary valley, and the bigger mountain beyond. They had a good view of the fiord, and out to sea, and some view up the steep slope. It was after dawn by now, but the sun would not be coming up onto them. The sky was heavy with cloud already clinging to the tops of the mountains. There were plenty of those. There actually wasn't a lot of the place that wasn't mountain, Tim thought. He was fairly warm from the slog up here, but there was an icy wind blowing and a drift of cold rain hazed everything briefly as they got to the ruin.
The warmth of the walk up soon went away. The rain came and went, the clouds getting heavier and lower. Below, in the small cove off the fiord, the submarine crew was working like busy little ants. Tim actually saw the barge come up, like a sort of big whale. The crew dragged it closer inshore with ropes. Tim wished he was down there. It looked like hard work, but it had to be warmer, and drier, than up here.
“You're supposed to be watching the mountain and the sea, Barnabas,” said the bosun.
“Someone is waving at us. Looks like Cookie,” said Tim.
“Bless his Westralian heart,” said the bosun, grinning. “Lieutenant said he'd organise some food for us. Run down, Tim. You can tuck that rifle into the dry here.”
So Tim put the rifle under the remains of the eave outside the ruin, and ran down the steep slope to the cove. Cookie was standing on the black sand with a sack. “Tucker and some hot brew, boyo,” he said with a grin. “They're coming on nicely here. I'm going to borrow the little boat and take some across to the other
patrol.
So Tim set off up again, carrying the food sack. It was steep, and another of the waves of rain came hissing down on him, obscuring everything. Still, it wasn't complicated. Just up.
A few yards short of the ruin, Tim slipped on a muddy tussock and landed on his knees, dropping the canvas food sack.
He started to get up when he heard something that made him freeze. “You'll all keep dead still.”
It wasn't a voice he knew. It took him a few seconds and a cautious look up to realize that it wasn't addressed at him, either. It was being said inside the ruin.
Tim's first instinct, once he'd got over freezing, was to run. His second thought was that he couldn't. Just couldn't.
He still had the cutlass.
Clara had quietly got herself up onto the deck at least. She knew well enough by now that they wouldn't let her help. Huh. She was as strong as…as Tim, anyway. She looked around to see if he was carrying sacks of dripping coal dust. The chief engineer was lamenting about how to get it dry, to get the salt out of it, and what the salt would do to his precious engines. She went on scanning the crew. No, he wasn't there. Could he be below? There were a few people not out working.
Then she realised: he must be one of the guards they'd posted. One of the ones that would be left behind if the submarine had to run. That made her mouth dry. She still had to talk to him, sometime, about what he'd said about her being proud of her dad. She was, now. Enormously. It was like some immense dam had broken inside her.
