Surface With Daring

by Douglas Reeman

  Brynjulf smiled gently. ‘Now, Lieutenant, this is my bargain. You have seen that great floating gantry in the harbour? It is the largest in Norway, and very new. I was one of those forced to build it. In turn, it will be used at the yard where they are to assemble U-boats in sections. But it is more than a mere crane, it has become a symbol. You can see it from all over the town, standing there like an idol from Nazi Germany!’

  Trevor groaned. ‘For God’s sake!’

  The Norwegian ignored him. ‘In addition, it supplies power to the dock and several smaller installations.’ He nodded slowly, his eyes like black olives. ‘I can see you understand, Lieutenant!’

  ‘You want me to destroy it.’

  ‘Yes. Then you can take the Quisling and his secrets away with you.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘We kill him anyway, and find another method of destroying the gantry.’

  Even the other men in the room had crowded closer to watch Seaton’s reactions.

  Trevor said, ‘You don’t have to decide just yet.’

  ‘But I do.’ He was suddenly angry. ‘I have a submarine and a company which relies on me. I didn’t come here to play games, or to discuss the ethics of war. I’m one of those who has to fight the bloody thing, in case you’d all forgotten. But, unlike you, I have to obey orders, I can’t go off and do little jobs here and there as I choose.’ He looked at Trevor and said bluntly, ‘I’d like to see this professor. It’s what I came for.’ He turned to Brynjulf. ‘Then, I’m leaving.’ He watched his face and added quietly, ‘And I’ll knock down the gantry for you. Satisfied?’

  Brynjulf looked at Trevor and spread his hands. ‘You see? A most reasonable young man.’ His face split into a grin. ‘I will see it is done!’

  Trevor sighed. ‘Very well. Tonight you can stay here, David. First thing tomorrow we’ll get you to meet Gjerde at wherever they’re holding him. After that it will be up to you.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘We always seem to be giving you a lot on your plate.’

  Seaton looked away. ‘I’d not forgotten that either.’ He thought of the devastated fjord, the scattered flotsam. ‘That girl who was with you. Is she all right?’

  Trevor nodded, his face expressionless. ‘Yes. She is my radio-operator. A very brave girl.’

  ‘I see.’ He did not see at all. In some strange way he felt cheated, excluded by Trevor’s news.

  Trevor said casually, ‘You’ll probably meet her before you shove off. She’s here in Bergen.’

  Brynjulf was busy passing instructions to his companions. Then he pulled on a heavy coat and said, ‘Take care, Lieutenant. You will be on the streets tomorrow. Watch your tongue, and every move you make.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will.’

  ‘Jens said you were a good choice.’

  Seaton looked at him. ‘You knew him then? I thought he was a fine man.’

  Brynjulf walked round the table and laid one hand on Seaton’s shoulder. ‘You see, my young lieutenant? You are not one of our sort. Maybe you are all the better because of it.’ He left the room without further explanation.

  Trevor lit a cigarette and said quietly, ‘He means that you are not made for this work.’ He held up his hand. ‘No, listen, David. Just now, he tricked you. He spoke of Jens, and you reacted as he knew you would to something or somebody familiar. You admitted you knew Jens, that you had met him before he died. Can you imagine what the Gestapo would have dragged out of you?’

  Seaton nodded. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a different war.’

  ‘No. Only the weapons vary.’

  ‘I’ll try and be more watchful.’

  Trevor smiled sadly. ‘You stay as you are, David. Leave the dirty work to us. Together, who knows what we might come up with?’ The moment of truth was past and he said, ‘Now, about tomorrow.’

  Brynjulf leaned against the wall and watched as Seaton gulped down some black coffee and finished the remains of a crude sandwich.

  It was very early in the morning and intensely cold.

  Brynjulf looked at his watch. ‘Better you not shave, Lieutenant. You will look more like a fisherman this way, yes?’

  There was no sign of Trevor, and Seaton was getting tired of asking questions and never getting a straight answer.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I have a young guide for you. The son of a friend. His name is Thor and he has dreams of becoming a hero. His English is “not so hot”, as you would say, but his head is firmly on his shoulders. He will take you to a café by the fish market. It will be busy there. Better for you, and harder for the enemy to watch what is happening.’

  Somebody clattered past the house ringing a bicycle bell.

  ‘Time to go now.’ Brynjulf led him into the damp-smelling hallway. ‘Good luck. Once you have spoken with Gjerde, and he knows who you are, we will proceed with our plan.’ He shrugged. ‘I regret I had to bargain. But it was necessary.’

  A round-faced boy of about fifteen was waiting in the street.

  ‘This is Thor.’

  Brynjulf glanced quickly up and down the street and then stepped back into the house.

  Thor nodded. ‘We go.’

  Curiously, it seemed less dangerous in the early daylight. There were plenty of people about, bustling through the narrow streets towards the harbour and the shops. Seaton tried not to think about Drake and the others, out there somewhere, submerged and enduring the damp misery of waiting.

  A small scout car rattled past with four German soldiers inside it, looking neither right nor left, heads hunched down in their field-grey coats.

  Seaton watched them, surprised that he could without flinching. The enemy.

  Thor grimaced. ‘Pigs!’

  Seaton glanced at him. A pleasant-faced boy who could easily be scarred for all time by this sort of work. If he survived the war he might end up as some sort of gangster, his need of danger too strong for daily routine.

  Seaton caught the powerful aromas of fish, and remembered the van ride. The driver must have gone in a complete circle to make sure they were safe. They had reached this far in less time on foot.

  Some people nodded or called out to Thor, but were careful to avoid looking at his companion. Seaton wondered if they knew what he was up to.

  ‘There!’ Thor pointed across a small square. Jammed between two shops, as if for mutual support, was a café, its windows already steamed over and several people coming and going.

  ‘I keep watch. You go in.’ Thor was very definite, even if his English was poor.

  ‘Who will I meet?’

  Thor grinned. ‘All ready, Chief. You know when you get there.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled towards the next corner.

  In the next few moments everything was compressed into a fast-moving sequence, as in a dream or a nightmare.

  Seaton reached the door and was just beginning to push it open when it happened. There was a violent squeal of brakes and several harsh shouts. At that exact moment he saw the girl sitting at a table facing the door, exactly as he had remembered her and re-created her in his mind so often.

  No wonder he did not need to be told who he was meeting. Trevor would understand. Had understood.

  He saw her eyes widen, even found a split second to see a customer’s hand stiffen in mid air, coffee spilling unheeded across the table.

  ‘Halt!’

  Boots thudded on the street, and Seaton swung round, knowing he must keep away from her. He watched uniformed figures charging amongst the fish stalls, and a camouflaged Mercedes stopping further along the square.

  Then he saw Thor. He was walking towards him, hands in pockets, his face as white as death. Beyond him a helmeted soldier stumbled and almost fell headlong as he yelled again, ‘Halt! Hände hoch!’

  Thor kept walking, and when he knew Seaton had seen him and was not in the café he yelled, ‘Run! Trap!’

  The rattle of automatic fire was the last thing Thor heard. The bullets ripped him across the back and shoulder
s, hurling him face down on the wet snow, blood running amongst the cobbles in a bright scarlet mesh.

  Doors slammed on the far side of the square, boots grated and clattered as more soldiers ran towards the café.

  The man who had fired his automatic-pistol walked warily towards the spread-eagled body, as if he expected Thor to leap up and attack him. It was a German N.C.O. who looked like something left over from the Kaiser’s war. Fat and bulging in his greatcoat, his neck hung in folds across his collar.

  Then he bent over and pushed Thor’s body with his boot. The boy rolled on to his side, his eyes still wide open, blood flooding from his mouth.

  Seaton forgot everything but the look on Thor’s frozen features. He bounded across the cobbles and hit the N.C.O. in the stomach with all of his strength. He saw the man’s face change from anger to fear as his helmet rolled away and Seaton hit him again in the face, the pain lancing up his arm like a bullet.

  Then something exploded against his head and he was falling, and there were boots closing in all around him like an angry black forest. More pain, all over, agonising, then, mercifully, nothing. Oblivion.

  Seaton did not know how long he was unconscious, and when his reeling mind slowly returned to him the pain almost finished him again.

  He lay quite still, knowing he was in a small, bare room without windows and that he was lying on a rough bed. There was a table and two chairs in the room, and he somehow knew there was a man standing just behind his head. His eyes moved painfully from table to wall. He found it hard even to do that, and his whole being throbbed with pain. He wondered if they had broken his ribs or given him some terrible internal injury. Then he tried to remember. Piece the fragments together. The girl’s startled eyes, and Thor walking with elaborate disregard for the bellowing sergeant. The clatter of gunfire, the figures standing around the little scene like waxworks, bonded together in that split second of death.

  Seaton heard someone whistling and a tap running. Feet clicked on the floor above, and he thought he could hear a typewriter. Where was he? Police station, or already in the hands of the Gestapo?

  With a start he realised that his overcoat was missing and so was his blue battledress jacket. He was wearing just sweater and trousers and his old scarred boots.

  So they knew. A British officer. Right here in Bergen. He tried again to think clearly, to prepare himself.

  Feet grated behind him and he saw his guard for the first time. A German soldier with a machine-pistol cradled on his forearm, pointing directly at the bed. He was young, on edge. Maybe he had been one of those soldiers at the café.

  The German moved away and pressed a button by the door. As if from miles away Seaton heard a bell ringing.

  More feet in the passageway, voices in low pitch. Then the door was flung open and an N.C.O. marched into the room, his eyes fixed on Seaton.

  ‘Stehen Sie auf! Schnell!’ He gestured with his pistol. ‘Up!’

  Seaton saw two more figures entering the room, but all but lost them again in a swirling mist of pain.

  ‘Take your time.’ One of the misty figures moved around him like a ghost. ‘You have had quite an ordeal.’

  The soldiers, confused by their superior’s polite attitude, struggled to assist Seaton to one of the chairs. He sank into it, gritting his teeth, trying not to faint.

  The picture swam vaguely in front of him, then settled and sharpened. The table was no longer empty. On it was his battledress, the tarnished stripes on the shoulders gleaming faintly in the overhead lights.

  In the chair was a naval officer, and just behind him another.

  The one at the table pressed his fingertips together and regarded Seaton for several long moments.

  ‘I am Kapitän zur Zee Hans Vogel. This is my assistant, Kapitänleutnant Gunter Habeit.’ He touched the crumpled uniform carelessly. ‘We know who you are, of course.’

  Of course. Like Venables. In fact, he was very much like him. Austere, coldly efficient. Intelligent. The lieutenant commander had a white-topped cap beneath his arm. So he was or had been a U-boat commander. Maybe from the Bergen base.

  The captain said evenly, ‘Now, before you try and tax your brain with some wild story, let me explain your situation.’

  Seaton felt sick, but made himself sit very erect and still.

  The voice continued in accentless English, ‘But for our arrival at the scene of your, er, arrest, you might have been kicked to death. As it is, you are a very fortunate man.’

  ‘That Norwegian boy was less so, Captain!’ He barely recognised his own voice. It was just a croak.

  ‘One of the bitter facts of war. The military police wanted him for questioning. He failed to respond to the challenge and was shot trying to escape.’

  Seaton felt a tiny warning in his mind. The captain was trying to draw him out. He recalled Trevor’s words about being tricked. Would he have heard of his capture? It seemed more important that the girl should know he had been trying to warn her. Save her.

  Captain Vogel said, ‘Both my assistant and I have served in Unterseeboote, which is why it was doubly fortunate that we were able to save you. Now I wish to give you some advice. Please take it, for all our sakes.’ He glanced at his assistant. ‘Gunter?’

  The other officer said harshly, ‘We wish to know what you are doing in Bergen. Where you came from, and the name of your ship.’ His accent was thick, his manner hostile.

  His superior said, ‘If you refuse, we cannot help. There are certain forces in Bergen who must be obeyed, even by us. You will be seen as a spy, a terrorist, and interrogated accordingly.’ There was something like pain in his voice as he said, ‘Believe me, I detest that such things should be. So give me some grounds to save you, and your safety will be guaranteed in a prisoner-of-war camp.’

  It was all suddenly crystal clear. There was no point in lying. Nor was there any need. If he broke under torture everybody’s life was in real danger.

  He said calmly, ‘I am the only survivor from a submarine.’ He saw the quick glances and added, ‘You will know about it, I imagine. The sinking of the Hansa in a fjord seventy miles north of here.’

  Vogel nodded very slowly. ‘Is that so? Tell me about it. I will judge the truth of the matter. But be warned, Herr Leutnant, time is short.’

  Seaton tried to shrug, but the pain numbed his shoulders like a vice.

  ‘It was an X-craft. We cut the nets after following some coastal craft through an outer boom. Then we laid our charges beneath the Hansa.’ It was amazing how easily it was coming to him. By reversing the sequence of events and omitting the first part altogether, he could almost believe it had happened. Then we hit an underwater obstruction, maybe a spur of rock. The boat started to flood, so I ordered the main ballast to be blown.’

  They were both staring at him, and even the two guards were listening fixedly, whether they could understand or not.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘We lost control, the boat began to founder. I got clear. The others went down with the hull. I expect she was destroyed in the explosions.’

  Vogel nodded. ‘That would explain why there was only one hole cut in the net where the dead diver was found.’ He sounded satisfied. ‘After that?’

  ‘I must have been found by some Norwegians and hidden. One had a beard, I remember.’

  He heard the lieutenant commander say quietly to Vogel, ‘Jens.’

  Seaton said, ‘I was told to come here and try to contact a neutral ship.’

  ‘You would have been captured anyway.’ The lieutenant commander smiled complacently. ‘So you were in command of the X-craft?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Vogel tossed the battledress across the table. ‘Your name is being damned by many, but it was a courageous deed on your part, one that any Unterseeboot officer would be proud of.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Others will hold very different views, I fear.’

  The door opened and a German sailor stamped to attention beside the table. He said something
very quietly to the captain and withdrew.

  Vogel sighed. ‘I am informed that the officer in charge of this military police headquarters has returned. I will see him at once and explain that you are to be moved immediately into the naval base until an escort arrives.’ He stood up, glad to be going. ‘Believe me, there was no dishonour in telling me the truth. One day you will know it.’

  His subordinate paused by the door. ‘Later you will be expected to answer more questions about your operations.’

  Seaton watched them leave. The ex-U-boat commander was probably from naval intelligence.

  He leaned back in the chair, shutting his eyes against the agony and the pitiless anger which made them smart with emotion.

  He heard voices, loud and violent, like dogs barking. Doors slamming, and boots clattering up and down the passageway.

  The two guards were getting uneasy and shifting their feet, obviously worried at what was happening elsewhere in the building.

  The door crashed open and a young, fair-haired officer in an olive-green uniform strode into the room. On his tunic he wore the death-head insignia of the Waffen S.S.

  He stood directly in front of the chair and placed one hand gently under Seaton’s chin, lifting it so that the light shone on his face.

  ‘So.’ He nodded. ‘The British officer. The brave gentleman, ja!’ His fingers were very smooth and smelt of fresh soap.

  Seaton watched him, seeing the pent-up fury and hatred. The man looked half mad, incredibly dangerous.

  He glared across Seaton’s head at the two soldiers and pointed at the door.

  Seaton heard the door close, felt the power of the other man closing round him like a trap.

  ‘And now, I tell you something.’ He walked slowly round the chair, his heels clicking on the bare floor. ‘You think that because of the “code”, the respect of one brother officer for another, that you will be safe.’

  Seaton tensed, expecting a blow or worse. He clung to one thought. That he had to stay silent for two days, no matter what. Give the others time to get clear, pass a warning to Drake.