Seaton reached through the door and helped him to fasten the face-piece and clip it tight. It was a bad moment for any diver, let alone one like Niven. But there was no more time. He patted his shoulder and ducked into the control room and carefully secured the watertight door, sealing Niven inside. It was up to him now.
Shut off from his companions, Niven was surprised at his own sense of self-control. He went through the motions like a robot, his breathing regular and unhurried.
He saw Seaton watching him through the thick glass scuttle and nodded. Then he reached out and opened the valve which enabled him to flood the compartment and leave the boat. The response came instantly, and the water pounded across his feet in a miniature tide-race. It was coming in fast, and the pressure against his limbs and then his waist and chest mounted noticeably. He kicked his flippered feet up and down and plunged his hands into the frothing water. For the first time he realised just how cold it was, and felt something like anxiety. Suppose he could not hold on because of the cold, or he was unable to work the cutter?
Grinding his teeth together he allowed the water to surge over his head. All at once it was very quiet. The pump had stopped, and he could barely feel the faint tremor of the motor as it held the boat against the net. It was like the training establishment. One movement at a time. He methodically unclipped the hatch, and using great care, raised it slowly above his head.
He felt slightly dizzy, his body temperature changing as the current swirled around his head and shoulders. Gripping the rim of the hatch, he allowed his body to arch up and out of the boat.
The pressure of water around his thighs and arms, the first sense of sickness which usually came to a diver under such conditions, faded as he took stock of his position.
How small the boat was now that he was crouching on her casing, It seemed impossible that she contained living men. People he actually knew.
He adjusted his oxygen, his jaw tight with concentration.
Don’t fumble. Keep your head.
He groped forward, his fingers aching as he released the heavy cutter from its bed inside the casing. He stared at the net, at the misty, ash-coloured surface above. It looked as if he was working in a strange, unreal world, encased under a muslin sky.
Niven swore to himself as his knuckles scraped on steel and a thread of blood wound ahead of him through the net. He stood up, the cutter resting on the mesh, his free hand paddling back and down to maintain his position.
Seaton would be watching him through the stick, he thought. He liked Seaton, although they seemed to have nothing but the boat in common. He was the sort of person he would like to speak with, to open his heart and tell about Decia.
One of his fingers slipped from the mesh, and he lost valuable seconds regaining his position. It both angered and frightened him.
Keep your mind on the job. Nothing else matters.
The cutter jumped in his grip as he started on the first part of the mesh above the submarine’s stem. The net was of very fine wire, but stronger for its size than any he had seen. He felt his heart banging against his ribs, and the cold dragging his legs down, probing into his groin like some obscene hand.
But he kept working, forming a large inverted V, which when completed would allow XE 16 to push through.
It was agony, and he had to squeeze his mind almost physically to keep it from straying into panic. If the cold finished him before he had done his work, the boat might never get free. In any case, he would not have the strength to re-enter the hatch.
What would he do? He worked blindly, another pair of strands curling away like hooks. Would he have the courage to let himself drift into a frozen death, or might he be unable to resist the temptation to try for survival?
He had a terrible picture of himself being dragged from the water, beaten and kicked, as they took him to see the recovered body of the German who had saved him from falling. And then the torture …
Niven was being pushed harder against the net as his strength ebbed with the persistent cold.
Just a few more strands. His mind was reeling as he set the cutter against the wire. Snap. Pause. Snap. Through his pain he thought it reminded him of the sound of a cricket ball. Lazy summer days. All the pink-faced cadets at Dartmouth. Seeking praise for their efforts. Admiration from the other chaps’ sisters. Congratulations from fathers.
He could see his own father. Grave and smiling. But the smile never really got beyond his mouth.
Niven looked up, screwing his face in agony. Christ Almighty. Just a bit more.
He stared at the dark shadow which had appeared by one of the buoys. Must be going mad. Yet he was sure it had not been there before.
It was changing shape even as he watched, and he felt despair adding its talons to the numbing water.
The shadow must be a small boat, and the sudden extension, which even now was moving smoothly along the wires, was a frogman.
The man faded in shadow, and sobbing silently Niven attacked the last part of the V with the fervour of madness.
The net gave a quick jerk, and he watched with disbelief as XE 16 began to slide forward, the door he had cut in the mesh bowing away from her stem in submission.
Almost choking, Niven slammed the cutter into its pocket in the hull and began to drag himself to the open hatch. Seaton could not move yet for fear of catching his diver’s body in the jagged wires, but the current alone was pushing the hull steadily with a power of its own.
Niven had lost all sense of pain, and only his hands seemed to retain any sort of strength and purpose. He found the smooth rim of the hatch, and prepared himself for the last pirouette to take him round and into safety.
Something pale flashed past his face, and with sick horror he saw a man’s hand reach down and fasten to his wrist like a steel band.
Sobbing and retching, Niven clung to the hatch, while the other man, vague but immensely powerful, tried to wrench him free.
It was a screaming nightmare, and Niven wanted to cry out, to drown, anything to get away from the frogman. The man’s knee drove up between his legs, and then another blow from something metal brought blood across his eye-piece.
God, oh God! He was screaming inside himself. Help me!
Then his torn fingers reached down, remembering without his aid, and fastened around the diver’s knife.
Terror, hatred, humiliation; all these and other emotions flooded through him. Only when he felt the blade jar against solid bone, and watched the frogman’s blood foaming around him like dull smoke, did he realise what he had done. How many times he had stabbed him he did not know, and as the hatch started to close over his head he saw the man drifting away and down into darkness, one arm moving weakly in his trail of scarlet.
He heard the pump beginning to drag at the water, then a sharp pain in his forehead as he slipped and fell forward against the steel door.
Somebody was holding him, pulling at his suit and mask, and then just as quickly, there was darkness. Oblivion.
Seaton lowered his body across the tiny deck-space, loosening the collar and clasp and pushing Niven’s hair from his tightly shut eyes.
Drake said harshly, ‘Christ, look at the blood!’
Seaton felt the hull moving forward to the increased revs. It had been close. Bloody close.
He said tightly, ‘Not all his, thank God.’
He remembered hearing the net sagging against the stem, knowing Niven had done it, probably in exchange for his own life. Then the urgent scratching and kicking on the casing as Niven had met and fought with an enemy frogman. Hearing had been worse than watching.
Seaton ripped open the suit and ran his hands over Niven’s body. It was like ice, and almost blue from the water. But the heartbeats were strong enough, and the cuts and bruises were not adding much blood to the deck.
Seaton pulled some blankets across his limp body and returned to the periscope. It was not easy to leave him there, frozen and bleeding. But he had heard the thump of the cem
ent barge’s engines. There was more than one life at stake.
‘Periscope depth.’
Seaton waited, listening, preparing himself. The air around him was thick with the smell of the sea, as if Niven had come from the depths and nowhere else.
He trained the crosswires on the barge. God, she was making a pall of smoke. For their benefit. He gripped the handles tightly to steady himself as shock and emotion gnawed at his reserves.
God, it had been a near one that time.
He said, ‘Let her fall off to port, Alec. Steer two-five-zero.’
He was already swinging the periscope hard round, his foot dragging across Niven’s outflung arm, as he brought the lens to bear astern. He saw the line of buoys bobbing slowly into the distance, the tug and her net-laying lighters already lost in the murk of the fjord. It was hard to accept there was a net there. That they had come through it. He peered briefly towards the Hansa. As before, motionless, remote.
Seaton pressed the button. ‘Increase to eight-five-oh revs. That barge is faster than I thought.’
The deck vibrated to the barge’s engines, and then Seaton raised the periscope once again.
He had to fix the picture, form his conclusions, translate them in mere seconds.
And it was all there. The stab of a signal light from the boom-vessel, renewed frothing from the cement barge’s twin screws, the newly laid buoys rising above the choppy water like a line of beach balls.
Down periscope. Check the course against the barge’s last bearing.
His voice said, ‘Alter course, Alec. Two five-five. Take her down to forty feet.’
He looked at the clock, feeling the hull sway and level off to the new depth. One minute. Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Niven groaned once and felt down vaguely to his groin. Then his hand fell palm upwards on the corticine deck, like a dead fish.
Seaton stared at it, his mind focused into a narrow shaft. Fifteen minutes. Even allowing for the set of the current they were making less than seven knots.
Just thinking it was like a criticism shouted out loud. He touched the periscope as if in apology.
The barge’s engines were fading now into a dull, sullen murmur.
Seaton glanced at the clock. Then he had to swallow twice to clear his throat as he said, ‘We’re through.’ He scrambled over Niven and opened the first aid locker as he added, ‘We’ll go down to ninety feet as soon as we clear the fjord. Thank God we’re not going back the way we came in.’
Drake said, ‘Bloody good show, Dave. You did it again.’
Seaton looked at him. Wanting to tell him about the hostages. To share it.
Niven opened his eyes and muttered in a small voice, ‘Are we? Am I?’
‘Thanks to you.’ Seaton wound a bandage round his head. It was a bad cut, and another where the frogman had hit him with something sharp. ‘We’re on the homeward run. Now all we have to do is find the right rendezvous.’
Niven’s head fell back and he whispered, ‘I didn’t want to kill him. I thought it would be different.’ He drifted into unconsciousness again.
Jenkyn said, ‘’E’s met more Jerries in the last two days than I’ve ever bloody seen!’ He added with something close to admiration, ‘Not bad though. For somebody like ’im!’
Drake grinned. ‘From you, Alec, that’s better than a V.C.!’
The hands of the control room clock dragged round. A full hour had passed since the charges had been laid beneath the Hansa’s keel.
Seaton thought about it, remembering how she had looked, what Jens and the others had said.
Even if the Germans found their dead frogman, and that was unlikely in the fjord’s deep ravine, it would be too late for them to discover what had happened. Nothing had followed the Hansa into the anchorage, and by the time they discovered the hole in the net and realised it had been made by an outward bound X-craft, the charges would have exploded.
‘Penny for them, Dave?’ Drake was watching him from the control panel, his fresh growth of stubble making his chin shine like gold.
‘I was thinking about those people back there. The sheer guts of what they’re doing every day of their lives.’
Drake watched him as if fascinated. ‘Thinking of one in particular, no doubt.’
Her voice seemed to penetrate the dripping hull. Goodbye, David. He wedged a kapok cushion under Niven’s head. ‘Yes, I suppose I was.’
Two more slight alterations of course, and XE 16 dived deeper to retain her secrets. With luck they would rendezvous with their towing submarine around midnight. Due to Venables’ preplanning and the Resistance in Norway, they had enough extra fuel to carry them to the next cross on the chart, even if they missed her.
Later on, while Drake was adjusting the trim to the new depth, and Seaton was making sandwiches with the freshly baked bread which Jens had sent aboard, they heard a sound.
Drake grappled with his controls and asked hoarsely, ‘What’s that?’
The sound rolled lazily around the hull, caressing it, raising and lowering it slightly before receding into the outer depths just as easily.
Their eyes met. All those miles astern, and yet they had felt it. From inside the fjord and around the headland, out and further still through the depths, until at ninety feet it had found XE 16.
Seaton looked at the clock. ‘Both charges.’
Jenkyn whispered, ‘Jesus.’
It was done.
Seaton dropped on to the locker and massaged his eyes. Somewhere, far away in his bunker, Venables would soon be on the telephone.
Mission completed. Target destroyed.
Must pull himself together. There was a long way to go yet.
He moved over to Niven and started to strip him, to pummel him with the last dry towel before dressing him in his sweaters and waterproof suit.
Next, Seaton took the helm, and Jenkyn made some hot cocoa.
Then, munching their sandwiches and sipping their custard-thick cocoa, they settled down for the passage home.
8
The Unexpected
CAPTAIN CLIFFORD TRENOWETH STOOD WITH his hands clasped behind his back and stared fixedly through a window. Not that he could see much, for what with the room’s steamy heat and the slashing rain against the glass he could barely make out the track which led towards the loch.
A telephone jangled in the outer office, and seconds later Second Officer Dennison burst into the room without knocking. Trenoweth noticed she was wearing her large, round glasses, something she always tried to hide from him. So it must be urgent.
She exclaimed, ‘Oh, sir!’ Her eyes shone with excitement. ‘That was a signal from Flag Officer Submarines.’ Tears ran unheeded from under her glasses. ‘They’re back, sir!’ She seemed to realise what she was doing and pulled off her glasses, adding, ‘I – I’m sorry, sir, I thought –’
Trenoweth limped round the desk and took her arm. ‘Sit down.’ He silenced her protest. ‘Sit.’
She watched him as he opened a cupboard and took down some glasses and a bottle of whisky.
He said, ‘I’ve been saving this.’
‘I don’t usually drink, sir.’
‘You do now.’ He placed the glass firmly in her hand. ‘Tell me about it.’
She said, ‘They reached the Shetlands two days ago. The passage crew have taken charge of XE 16 and she will arrive here next week.’
Trenoweth breathed out hard. ‘I wish I’d known. I would have gone there to meet ’em.’ He grinned. ‘Though God knows how I’d have managed that!’ He raised his glass. ‘To them.’ He clinked it against hers. ‘And to you, Helen, for putting up with me. It can’t have been easy.’
She blushed and swallowed some whisky. Between coughs she said, ‘Once or twice you were a little difficult, sir.’
He beamed. ‘Never!’ And poured another glass for himself, remembering the morning when XE 16 had left the loch for Scapa and the Shetlands. After that, apart from the routine signals, silence. If Venab
les knew anything, he had kept it to himself in London.
She said, ‘Sub Lieutenant Niven was injured, although they didn’t say how. He’s being sent straight to Rosyth for treatment. Full report is following. The others are arriving here today.’ She looked at her wrist-watch. ‘At any minute. They must have laid on top-level transport for them. It usually takes longer to get from the Shetlands than it does to reach Cairo!’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘I’m so glad for them.’ She looked up, her lipstick smudged. ‘And for you too, sir!’
Trenoweth allowed the whisky to run through him like fire. Seaton and the others had done it. There had been times when he had found himself doubting, hating himself for not voting against Venables’ plan. It was all such a different sort of conflict. He recalled his other war very clearly. The narrow-hulled submarines coming back from patrol, flags flying, and probably a band to play them in. Even in this war there was much the same attitude with conventional submarines. But all this cloak-and-dagger stuff. Secret agents and underhand methods were not right for his young crews.
He said, ‘I shall go down to the pier. They’ll be coming over from the mainland in the tender.’ He looked at the dog, snoozing by the fire. ‘I’ll bet they’re ready for some leave.’
‘I’ll phone for your driver, sir.’ She was in charge again.
Trenoweth watched her admiringly as she brushed wisps of hair from her face. He had seen her lose her usual self-control, and he had been so confused he had called her Helen.
He prodded the dog with his stick. ‘Get up, Duffy, you lazy old sod! We’ve work to do.’
Second Officer Dennison watched the mud-spattered Humber rocking past the window, Captain Trenoweth very straight-backed in the rear seat, and wearing his best oak-leaved cap. The old dog would be sprawled beside the marine driver as usual.
She raised her hand to the car and then sat down weakly. Things would never be quite the same after today.
‘I thought I’d invite myself into your wardroom.’ Trenoweth chuckled at the age-worn joke as he limped heavily from the car. It had been worth the bumpy ride. Just to see them getting off the tender, watching their first reactions. ‘Splendid to have you back, and that’s no flannel!’
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