Cuttlefish

by Dave Freer

  The Cuttlefish's exhausts belched coal smoke, and the compressors started up. Up here, at the tip of the mast, the vibration from them was magnified. Down below the belt-chains were powered up and the submarine began to crank the outrigger-hydrofoils back into position to be the outer hull, shaping the submarine for travel on the surface, pushed by her screws. Underneath the boat itself the telescoping centre-board keel would be coming up. Tim could hear the sail-master's bellows as the sail crew folded and stowed the vast gossamer sails into the compartments inside the outer hull. Tim's task, however, was to keep watch until they had to take down and fold the mast, and strap it to the deck. For the dangerous port runs it was stashed inside the second hull, but they would, they hoped, be using it again in a day or so.

  They were due to pick up the drogues here, if the local weather—the garuas—cooperated. By the looks of the cloud buildup to the west, Tim had been lucky to see the islands, and the drizzly rain of the garua would soon resume. It was ideal cover, even though it meant that the rendezvous would be tricky. Picking up cargo was always a dangerous business. The drogues would be left at a sea-mount, anchored to the bottom, for the submarine to pick up. It was hard for observers to spot them, but it was also a good place for a trap: the submarine had to arrive at the drogues, sooner or later. It also required that the drop-off was precise. A buoy on the surface was easier to find, but it could easily be found by the wrong people, so that method could not be used. But finding something on the bottom, without a marker, was near impossible. The system the submarines had evolved was quite simple—the spot was marked with a buoy…but the buoy was merely attached to a lobster trap, with the drogue anchor dropped within yards of the buoy. It could still, Tim had heard from Big Eddie, take forever to find.

  Clara was on the bridge as Mate Werner took control of the submarine on the approach to the pickup point. She'd found that the mate was, since her Rivas exploits, actually easier to deal with than the captain. He let her up on the bridge, sometimes. He was a cautious commander. They crept in underwater, on the batteries, with only the periscope visible, and with heavy drizzle and fog cover overhead.

  It was unnecessary, this time. They found the buoy, and the divers went out, hooked up the line, and took an air hose to the big torpedo-like tubes of caliche—nitrates for the mines in Westralia. They would be towed like barges behind the submarine. The divers pumped enough air into their buoy section to make them neutrally buoyant, so they hung like whales in the sea, as they were pulled along. They did slow the Cuttlefish down, acting like sea-anchors, despite their shape, but it meant she could transport many tons of extra cargo.

  Late that afternoon, still in the misty rain, but thirty miles from the nearest island, the Cuttlefish came to the surface again. Tim was up on deck, working. “One to six, haul! Heave away!” And under the sail-master's instructions, Tim and the others hauled up the mast again. Even the little foremast was deployed. Tim could never get over just how quickly they could turn the Cuttlefish from a submarine into a sailboat, with the outriggers out and the rubber inner pontoons inflated, and sails beginning to go up. Behind them the divers worked on the drogues, deploying their rubber pontoons so that they too could travel with minimum resistance above the water. There were quick-releases to be rigged on the pontoons and towlines to be checked, and the crew worked into the dusk; but soon, towing her four drogues, the Cuttlefish was under way again, sailing out into the wide Pacific, far from land or sight of man, far from hostile eyes and ships.

  It had been two weeks since Clara had told him what his job was.

  Up on the bridge, Tim stood to attention, looking straight ahead, although he felt as if he might just faint at any minute. If only he could faint. Or even die.

  “Barnabas,” said Captain Malkis, his voice as heavy as lead and as cold as ice. “You were caught red-handed. We can't tolerate thievery on this boat. I'd like to put you off the Cuttlefish right now. Instead, however, I'll keep you aboard until we can put you off in someplace where you can do no further dishonour to yourself or the Free Submariners. But you will be confined to the brig from now on.”

  “I wasn't stealing, sir,” said Tim, wishing his voice wouldn't crack.

  “You were caught rummaging in a locked cabinet, by Lieutenant Ambrose. Are you calling him a liar, Barnabas? I will have you know I trust my officers.”

  “No sir. I…I was looking inside the cabinet. But I wasn't stealing. I was looking for a wireless transmitter. Not to take anything. I swear. And the key was in the lock,” said Tim.

  The captain sighed in exasperation. “You weren't aware, Barnabas, that after your last depredations, we'd set a trap, with Sparks's help, that rang a bell here in the bridge when that key was turned. We suspected it was one of you cabin boys.”

  “Depredations, sir?” Tim wasn't even sure what the word meant.

  “We know that you stole ten pounds and a valuable ring from the cabinet, earlier,” said the captain. “If you return them, I will be inclined to be slightly more lenient. Put you off in Australia where you can reform, and make a life for yourself.”

  Tim swallowed and shook his head. “Search my gear, sir. Please. I haven't got any ring or any big money. I've got one pound and seven shillings and sixpence in my spare boots, that my mam gave me. I told her not to. But she said a boy had to have some money.”

  The captain nodded. “Willis. Take Northham and go and search his cabin and his gear.”

  So Tim stood waiting. At least he knew that they'd find nothing. And that proved to be the case. “Just precisely what he said he had, sir. Precisely where he said it would be,” said Lieutenant Willis.

  The captain sighed. “He'd be a fool to keep it with his gear. There are other hiding places. And whether he had the proceeds of the previous theft or not, Lieutenant, he was caught red-handed this time. Take him down to the brig, please. After some time in there, he may decide that he prefers being landed in Australia. I'm very, very disappointed in you, Barnabas. I thought you were one of the more promising young crewmen I've had for some while. You are no longer a part of the Cuttlefish's crew.”

  And that had hurt Tim far more than the idea of being put ashore on some island had. This was his family now.

  Clara gaped at her mother when she was told. And then she found her voice. “But he really was looking for a spy. For a wireless transmitting set.”

  “How do you know, Clara?” asked her mother.

  “Because…because we talked about it,” said Clara, knowing she was admitting to doing precisely what she'd been told not to. “We tried to tell you and you wouldn't listen. So we had to try and find the transmitter. Tim wouldn't steal anything!”

  “I know he once saved your life, dear, but how do you know how honest he is?” said her mother, repressively. “I hope Captain Malkis will relent. I'll ask, once he has calmed down. But for heaven's sake Clara, don't make things any worse, either for yourself or for him. You were expressly forbidden to talk to each other. He'd be in trouble about that too, and the captain might just go through with his threat of just casting him adrift if there was even one more point of evidence against him.”

  Clara was furious. And silenced. The only way to help Tim now would be to actually present the captain with hard evidence that the transmitter existed. That someone was signalling to their enemies. So she took a deep breath and sat down to stare blindly at a chemistry textbook. No matter how angry she was, it wasn't going to help to rush in, so she waited.

  The next day she asked her mother if by any chance she had any galena in her trunk of chemicals and books.

  “Galena? Why?” asked her mother.

  “We made a crystal radio in class with a vacuum diode. I asked you why they were called crystal radios, remember. And you said they used to work with a real crystal. Seeing as I am supposed to get back to my formal studies, and not just submariners studies, I thought I might try to make one.”

  Her mother sighed. “The only radio signal you'll get out h
ere is from Sparks. You're not going to find your imaginary transmitter. Well, you may pick up occasional shortwave or AM transmissions at night. But it will do you no harm, I suppose. It might turn your mind to other things. Yes, I have a small number of galena crystals. It was, oddly enough, one of the substances Fritz thought might be a catalyst.”

  Clara knew it wouldn't turn her mind from what was obsessing it in the least, but she had to do something. And it gave her a reason to visit the engine room's tiny electrical workshop…which was next to the brig. In fact, they shared a drain, down which one could talk. Making the wire whisker and tuning coil had been a demanding and time-consuming exercise, even without the talking.

  She really did hope that it wouldn't turn out to be Sparks who was informing. She'd had to ask him for various things for the project, like fine wire, and an earphone. He'd been delighted to find out she was making a crystal set. It was all she could do to stop him “helping” her, which would have put a stop to her talking with Tim. He did make her a buzzer to test the device, but she was firm. It was her project, and she'd show it to him when it was done.

  Clara felt she had to talk to Tim. At first it was a duty, as it was mostly her fault he was there, even if it was awkward talking to him. But she got so used to conversation that it was no chore after a few days. They talked of everything from tunnels to Fermoy and families and food.…They talked far more than she ever had to anyone. She was fairly sure Thorne and Sparks knew about it, because they always coughed or whistled before opening the door.

  And she was amazed to find her crystal set actually worked. Sparks was very impressed.

  Now she just had to find the wavelength the spy was using, and be on it at the right time. That was going to be even more difficult.

  “Look, we've only got Sparks, and Nicholl is his trainee, but the radio's not manned 24/7. Sparks has his set times to check and send messages. So if it is someone else, it'll be when Sparks is not on duty, because they wouldn't want him picking up a strong signal by accident,” said Tim down the pipe. He had it easy. He could lie on the shelf and talk to her.

  She had to bend nearly double to talk into the piece of tubing she'd “extended” the drain outlet with. “And it's probably not a very strong transmitter. More likely to be used when we're close to land, or to the Royal Navy ships.”

  “We're due to pick up coal in American Samoa. That's close enough to Prussian Samoa for the Royal Navy, I think. All you'll have to do is work out when Sparks is going to be on…and listen the rest of the time. I guess I am going to be short of company,” he said, mournfully. “They'll put me ashore there, I think.”

  Clara was glad he could not see her face. “No!” she said, firmly. “We'll catch him first. I'm sure it's Lieutenant Ambrose. He's second in command and responsible for the forward sector, with the escape hatch. He'd use that if we were bombed.”

  “The officer in charge is supposed to be last out.” Tim sighed down the pipe. “Do you think you could get me a navigation book or something? You could just push it through the bars quickly and go away. I'm so bored, when you're not here. I can hide it easily enough.”

  “Of course.” Clara did not say that she thought Lieutenant Ambrose would desert his post and escape. But that was what she thought. She'd taken a violent dislike to him since they'd locked Tim up. She could barely greet him now. She'd got the whole story, bald and unedited, from Lieutenant Willis. “Once the old man settles down, he's likely to agree to let the boy off somewhere decent. But he won't have a thief on his boat, miss. He's as straight as a die, is Captain Malkis. Reasonable about most things, but not that.”

  “Tim's not a thief,” said Clara.

  The lieutenant tugged his moustache. “Unfortunately, he got caught with his hands where they shouldn't be, miss. And he was very guilty-looking when they marched him into the mast.”

  “He was guilty-looking because he'd been looking where he shouldn't have. Not because he had taken anything. He was looking for a transmitter,” Clara said, firmly.

  “Not what the captain thinks, miss,” said Lieutenant Willis, without asking how she knew.

  As they neared the secret coaling base on the American Possession of Samoa, Clara put in every possible hour that Sparks was off, scanning the radio frequencies. She got very excited at first, because she picked up a weak, regular signal. But it seemed just to be a kind of noise, not a message of any kind. She got her mother to listen to it, and then Sparks, seeing as he was off-duty and sitting in the mess, and she could ask innocently. “Aha! It's junk. They're charging the batteries. The brushes in the generator make sparks, which make radio signals. Fortunately for me, the frequencies are quite high, because they clutter up the airwaves. We use lower frequencies. You can barely pick those up beyond line-of-sight.”

  She got weak signals and even music from New Zealand. She sat there, for hours on end, looking at a nav text, sliding the bar on the tuning coil, tiny bit by tiny bit. Over and over and over. Nothing. Just that weak interference at the top end of the slide.

  And then she hit the jackpot.

  Clear, loud, and in Morse code.

  Which she had no idea how to turn into something she understood. The only Morse code she knew was SOS. Three shorts, three longs, three shorts. This wasn't that.

  “Mother! Mother, you have to listen to this!”

  Her mother looked up from her notepad with the unfocussed gaze that Clara knew meant her mind was wholly absorbed in what she was busy doing. “Not now, dear. I've nearly got it.”

  “You must!” said Clara, thrusting the earphone at her.

  “I don't have time for music right now, dear,” said her mother, not taking it.

  “It's not music! It's Morse code! And it's coming from the sub.”

  With a long-suffering sigh her mother took the earphone and listened.

  “Not hearing anything, I am afraid,” she said, after a while.

  She handed the earphone back to Clara, who hastily plugged it into her own ear. To hear…nothing. And Mother had already gone back to scribbling equations, her face intent.

  Clara took a deep breath, got up from her bunk, took her little crystal set and walked to the bridge. She didn't walk very fast because she was still very wary of the captain, after Rivas. But it had to be done.

  “Captain Malkis,” said Clara, very tentatively. “Can I talk to you, please, sir?”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. “In a few minutes, Miss Calland. I am preparing to hand over the watch. Wait.”

  She stood, quiet as a mouse, just watching from the doorway.

  Eventually he closed his chart-case with a snap. “Right Miss Calland. What is it?”

  “It's my crystal set, sir,” said Clara humbly, holding it out.

  “Ah.” By his expression that appeared to be a more welcome topic than the one he'd thought she'd ask about. “Better ask Sparks. I have no knowledge of such things. He'll be on in half an hour with the new watch. He does a spell then.”

  “Well, sir, it's just that I picked up a very clear signal. That means it's very close, in Morse code.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I'll tell the lookouts. Thank you. Did you get the message down?”

  She shook her head. “I don't know Morse code, except for SOS, and I wasn't really expecting it. The thing is, sir, if there is no other ship in sight, it must have come from the submarine.”

  The captain raised his eyes to heaven and shook his head. “Now I see where this is going. No, Miss Calland. Just no. I appreciate that he behaved with considerable courage and saved your life—”

  “And the submarine!” Clara thrust in.

  The captain nodded his acceptance of this point. “And the submarine. But there is no wireless transmitter on the ship besides this one here. I'm—”

  Clara surprised herself by starting to cry. “I did hear it. I know you don't believe me, or Tim, but I did hear it.”

  He was obviously trying to be patient and gentle, but he was looking an
gry at the same time. “It's possible that you heard something. The range on those devices is very variable, and I believe you can occasionally get atmospheric conditions that will let you receive a signal from many miles off. Now, I am sorry, Miss Calland, but we have to hand over in fifteen minutes. Please go.”

  So Clara went, dragging her feet down the steel narrow companionway, and along the gangway toward the officers' quarters. She felt that she'd just made matters worse. She was not ready to go back to their cabin. She was even less ready to make her way down to the workshop and tell Tim. She was so despairing that she almost bumped into the mate without seeing him.

  “What is wrong?” asked Mate Werner.

  “I picked up wireless transmissions from the spy and told the captain, and he won't believe me,” she said bitterly. “He just thinks I'm lying to help Tim.”

  The mate was silent for a moment, looking at her. “I have thought the captain was a little harsh on the young man,” he said, slowly, at last.

  “Harsh! It was just unfair,” said Clara furiously, letting it all burst out. “Tim would never take anything! Never. He was just looking for a wireless, which I told him to do. And he was right about where he was looking. It must be Lieutenant…Um.” She suddenly realised who she was talking to.

  “But you picked up a signal, ja?” asked the mate.

  “Yes. I made this crystal set. But the signal was in Morse code. I don't understand it,” said Clara. “And the captain, and my mother, they both wouldn't believe me.”

  The mate smiled. “But I know the Morse code. So too does the skipper.” He nodded slowly to himself. “Ja, well. I do not think you are making this up. Say nothing of this, because we do not know who we can trust. But it is likely you will get another signal, maybe. You must write the pattern down. Or when I come off duty, I will borrow your little crystal set, and see if I can hear anything. If it is true, we will catch them. And you do not worry about the junge, the young man. I have spoken with the captain. I will speak again. Not until we reach Australia will he be put off. And now I must go. I am on duty.”