Dangerous Waters (A Donald Cameron Naval Thriller)

by Philip McCutchan

  *

  Razakis seemed a little better; even a few short hours in a comfortable sick-bay cot had made a difference — that, and nourishing food. Pills provided by the doctor would take their effect in due course. The Surgeon-Lieutenant reported to Sawbridge and Cameron that the partisan leader was in not too bad a shape basically but really needed a much longer rest than he looked like getting. Razakis, notwithstanding the fact that his captured German VIP was being held by the partisans on the island of Kithnos, was far from anxious to be landed in Kithnos himself; he might not be able to reach the mainland from there, and it was the mainland he was aiming for, had been aiming for all along. Sawbridge, whose orders had stipulated no particular landing place, considered he had carte blanche to direct his course as events might dictate. After talking to Razakis again, it was in his mind to make a landing on Kithnos, find the German and bring him aboard, and then head well north with both the German and Razakis. Speed was vital to Razakis, and it was obvious that the closer to Russia he could be landed, the more chance he would have of evading the Germans, and the faster would be his journey to Moscow.

  In the meantime, Razakis was a source of wonder to the ship’s company; word about his daughter had spread, so had word of involvement at a high level, involvement of the Prime Minister himself, no less. Wharfedale looked like being right in on the making of history, though what that history might be no one apart from Razakis himself, the Captain, and Cameron, yet knew. Rumours abounded along the messdecks as the destroyer passed through the straits and entered the danger zone to the north of Crete, her plates vibrating to the tremendous thrust of her propellers under full power.

  ‘Probably gold,’ an able-seaman suggested darkly. ‘Them Greeks, they’re stuffed with it. Winnie’s going to nick the lot and flog it to the Yanks.’

  ‘Could be a plot to assassinate some sod. Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler...’

  ‘All the way from bleedin’ Greece? Bull!’

  ‘Think up something better, then.’

  Round and round, and mouth to mouth; the ship seethed, and the tension grew. Distantly, before they passed out of earshot, they heard the tremendous roar of the broadsides from Queen Elizabeth and Barham as the bombardment began. Gunsmoke seemed to darken the horizon astern as the great fifteen-inch guns roared out again and again, sending their shells hurtling across the miles of sea. In Wharfedale’s own sector, the air was strangely quiet; no doubt the Stukas were too fully occupied with the bombardment of Scarpanto and the troops in Crete to bother with a single destroyer, but attack would come before long. The Germans wouldn’t want a British warship penetrating the Aegean...

  During the afternoon watch, Sawbridge, after close study of the charts, went down with his navigating officer to talk to Razakis in the sick bay: he wanted to allow Razakis the maximum possible rest. He put his point about a Kithnos pick-up and an on-carrying to the north.

  He said, ‘Look, Razakis.’ He spread out the chart and placed the tip of a pencil on it. ‘I propose, subject to the course of events, to land you and this German there.’ The pencil rested on the port of Alexandropolis in the far north of Greece. ‘About four hundred miles from where we are now, maybe a little under that, but taking into account a deviation into Kithnos, four hundred’s about right. Say, eleven to twelve hours’ steaming, again disregarding Kithnos — we don’t know how long we’ll be delayed there, you see. From Alexandropolis you’ll have to go through Turkey and reach the Black Sea. Since we’re bound to come under attack before long in any case, I’m prepared to break radio silence and request contact to be made with the Kremlin, asking for a pick-up at, let’s say, Igneada in Turkey.’ Sawbridge sat back. ‘Now, how’s that?’

  Razakis was scowling. ‘Me, I do not agree. I do not like the Turks. I shall not be landed in Turkey.’

  ‘It’s your best bet, Razakis.’

  Razakis sat up in his cot. ‘Not so. The Turks already they are half in the Nazi camp! There is the non-aggression pact with Bulgaria, and they did not interfere when Hitler’s Nazis entered my country. The Turks are my enemies. Therefore I shall not land in Turkey, and that is my last word.’

  Sawbridge said, ‘You could be wrong about them being half in the Nazi camp, Razakis. I’ve seen intelligence reports that suggest they’ve put out feelers to us —’

  ‘To the British? Yes, this also I have heard. The Turks are not to be trusted, and you British would be foolish to trust them.’ Razakis brooded, scowling still. He went on, ‘In any case, there is too much risk in your signal, Captain. I am a man accustomed to take risks, yes... but in this there is too much, I think. Suppose the Nazis break your cipher? Then they or their tools the Bulgarians will be waiting off Igneada. There is another thing also, and it is this: Comrade Stalin will suspect a trap. He is, after all, at war with your country.’

  ‘I take the point,’ Sawbridge said, frowning. ‘It’s the same consideration you spoke of earlier, Razakis... the Kremlin won’t act on your message unless it’s supported by your German friend. In which case, we’re going to go round in circles!’

  ‘Not I,’ Razakis said. ‘I shall go in a straight line! But not via Turkey.’

  ‘Something like eight hundred miles from, say, Athens to the Soviet border... hostile territory all the way, and the Bulgarian frontier to cross? Even if you get there at all, it’s going to take the hell of a long time, isn’t it?’

  Razakis shook his head. ‘Not so. There are many partisans in Greece and I shall have transport. In Bulgaria, too, I have many contacts.’

  ‘Maybe, but —’

  ‘You may leave that part to me, Captain. I can guarantee to be inside the Soviet Union within forty-eight hours of being landed, and that is quicker than if you were to offer to take me by sea all the way, even! All I ask of you is this, that you sail first to the port of Lavrion on the mainland, and then, when you have landed me, that you sail to Kithnos to pick up the German and bring him to me. It is on Kithnos that the Nazis will be expecting me, since the German is there — word of his presence may have reached the Nazis, you understand. They will not find him — but they will be on the watch for me.

  ‘And for us, too.’

  Razakis shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But I believe you understand. The matter is vital, and I must not be taken by the Nazis.’

  *

  Razakis must not be taken by the Nazis: that was true and was the nub of the whole operation. From it followed something more: Sawbridge had put it to Razakis that it would be best if he, Razakis, remained aboard the destroyer rather than be put ashore in Lavrion while the German was hooked away from Kithnos, after which they could both be landed together on the mainland; but Razakis had vetoed this. It seemed that he felt uneasy at sea and was loathe to have both himself and the German aboard the one ship at the same time. There might well be heavy attack on the Wharfedale off Kithnos, and if both he and the German were lost, so was the chance of convincing Russia of the Nazi threat. If one survived, the chance was there still. The German — Razakis had now revealed his name as Hermann von Rudsdorf, a highly-placed Party member in the German Foreign Ministry — could be taken into Russia by other partisans, and would be, if Razakis should be killed. When Sawbridge made the point that, once ashore, the two of them would be together all the rest of the way, Razakis said he was a landsman and a partisan and he knew how to remain safe.

  As Sawbridge remarked later to Cameron, Razakis was determined to be awkward. ‘He’s an obstinate bastard, Sub!’ Cameron grinned. ‘I’ve found that out already, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you have.’ Sawbridge paused. ‘Are you willing to try the German?’

  ‘Sir?’

  Sawbridge said, ‘I expect to be off Lavrion by 2300 hours — I’m reducing speed so as to make a landfall in darkness. After that, Kithnos. I’m asking you to go ashore and bring von Rudsdorf off. All right, Sub?’

  Cameron felt a sinking sensation in his guts; but he nodded and said, ‘All right, sir, of course. What are the orders?’<
br />
  ‘They’re best given by Razakis rather than me! I gather he’ll provide you with an authorization to his partisans and they’ll cough up von Rudsdorf — they’ll come back aboard with you in fact, acting as his escort. There’s a bar where you’ll make contact... you’ll need to have words with Razakis to finalize it all, of course, then you’ll have to play it your own way.’ Sawbridge lifted his glasses and examined the sea and sky. Nothing in sight; it was too good to be true and it couldn’t last. They were right into the Aegean now, slap into broadly land-locked and hostile waters, Greece and its Nazi occupiers to one side, the enigma that was neutral Turkey to the other, a very nasty trap that could be closed behind them at any moment if the wavering Turks should finally throw in their lot with Hitler. Distantly to the north-east lay the passage of the Dardanelles; that offered a direct entry into the Black Sea and contact with the Russians... it was quite a thought but it wasn’t on. No ship, surely, could get through the Dardanelles and the Bosporous against the Turkish guns that would open upon any threat to their neutrality — and if it did, then it would be blown sky-high by the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, who would scarcely believe that one of His Majesty’s destroyers could be steaming to their assistance. And in any case Razakis wouldn’t like it. Razakis, the landsman, wouldn’t like it at all, and no more, probably, would his friend Winston Churchill if he was engaged in negotiations with the Turks...

  The Wharfedale moved on, taking a wide sweep so as to avoid being sighted from the Kikladhes group of islands, steaming north through the Mirtoon Sea between Milos and the mainland. As the sun went down the sky, the peace — the peace that everyone aboard knew was very brittle indeed — stayed with the ship. Sawbridge, his nerves badly on edge as he went deeper into Greek waters, kept his ship’s company at action stations. On the compass platform, at the guns and torpedo-tubes, there was a curious silence as the men waited for the shooting to start, the gunners in their anti-flash hoods and gloves looking like members of the Ku Klux Klan.

  11

  SAWBRIDGE’S ETA was dead accurate: at 2300 hours he stopped engines well to seaward and a little to the north-east of the small port of Lavrion, ghosting along in the starlit night until the way was off the ship and she lay motionless, no more than a shadow. From the compass platform the land was closely scanned through binoculars; it looked deserted. Sawbridge picked up the bay which Razakis had indicated on the chart as being his most likely landing place. Nothing moved in the bay so far as could be seen, and there were no ships, no boats of any sort, in the vicinity.

  Again, too good to be true?

  Sawbridge turned to Razakis, now out of the sick bay and standing beside him on the bridge. ‘What do you make of it, Razakis?’ he asked.

  Razakis shrugged. ‘There is as ever the risk. Without taking risks, I get nowhere.’

  ‘You’re a brave man.’

  ‘No. I am a patriot. That is all.’

  ‘You want me to put you ashore now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sawbridge sighed. ‘Sooner you than me,’ he said, and passed the order to his First Lieutenant to drop a Carley float in the water. Drummond was half-way down the ladder from the bridge when what looked like an inferno broke out from the shore. First, a searchlight was beamed towards them, then another and another, great shafts of light that swept the destroyer from stem to stern, illuminating her like day and revealing her for what she was. Immediately the shore guns went into action, heavy artillery that sent big shells winging out across the water; their rushing wind and whine could be heard and felt as they travelled over the Wharfedale’s decks and exploded beyond her to throw up enormous waterspouts. To her Captain’s order, Wharfedale was already on the move and turning under full rudder for the open sea. Sawbridge, as his engines increased their thrust, zig-zagged between the shell bursts.

  Razakis demanded furiously, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Out,’ Sawbridge answered succinctly.

  ‘But I am to be landed —’

  ‘Over my dead body! I’m taking neither my ship nor you into that bombardment, Razakis, and you can shove that in your pipe and smoke it. What use would it be for you to land in the middle of all that?’

  Razakis didn’t answer, but turned his back and moved stiffly away to the other side of the bridge. Sawbridge, as the destroyer steamed fast beyond the range of the shore batteries without having been hit, pondered on the likelihoods raised by the sudden barrage. It seemed reasonable to suppose that they were being shelled simply as an enemy ship and not on account of Razakis. If the Nazis had known Razakis was coming in to land, then presumably they would have held their fire until he had done so and could be taken prisoner. They wouldn’t want to scare him off. After a couple of minutes Razakis came back and said, ‘I am sorry, Captain. I apologize.’

  ‘It’s all right, Razakis.’

  ‘Of course I could not land in such a bombardment, and you were right. But there will be other places.’

  ‘Not if all the Greek coast is garrisoned like Lavrion!’

  ‘All the Greek coast will not be.’

  ‘All the Greek coast could be, Razakis. To my mind, the risk’s too great —’

  ‘What, then, do you propose, Captain?’

  Sawbridge said, ‘I propose to pull out for Kithnos and do my best to embark von Rudsdorf. After that — we’ll see.’

  ‘Does this mean that you still have Turkey in mind?’

  ‘Maybe it does,’ Sawbridge answered.

  ‘I shall not land in Turkey!’

  Sawbridge said, ‘My ship goes where I say, Razakis, and you’re in my hands.’

  *

  It was believed that already the German armies were starting to garrison the more important of the Greek islands; they might or might not regard Kithnos as worthy of a garrison, but Sawbridge assumed they would do so since Razakis had spoken of the Germans possibly knowing that von Rudsdorf was being held there. Cameron was faced with the trickiest of missions and he would have the best hope of success by going in alone. Razakis, since he had not after all been put ashore on the mainland, was loud in his insistence that he should go himself, but Sawbridge vetoed this.

  ‘I’m responsible for you,’ he said. ‘You’ve already made the point, either you or von Rudsdorf has to live and get through to Russia. So you stay aboard.’

  ‘That young man of yours... he has little hope without me.’

  ‘That young man of mine,’ Sawbridge said briskly, ‘didn’t do so badly ashore in Crete and you know it. And the original plan didn’t envisage you being here at this stage anyway —’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Razakis interrupted. ‘Very well then, I must accept your orders. But if your Cameron fails to bring the German off, then he will face the anger of Winston Churchill himself, do you understand that?’

  Sawbridge grinned at the words and the furious face of the Greek. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I have every confidence in Cameron.’

  In under an hour after the precipitate departure from the mainland, the destroyer was off the northern point of the island of Kithnos, once again lying with engines stopped and the way off the ship. Sawbridge was surprised that there had been no follow-up of the artillery bombardment; he had more than half expected air attack, but that hadn’t come, and he supposed that the Stukas were still too heavily engaged around Cretan waters to be spared over the mainland; and indeed the sea bombardment of Scarpanto by the British battleships, plus the air strike from the Formidable, might well have destroyed many of the Stukas on the ground. In the meantime Kithnos, like the mainland earlier, appeared quiet and peaceful, though with that earlier experience in mind no one was taking too much for granted. After a close scrutiny of the distant shore, Sawbridge nodded to Cameron, waiting on the bridge with his body darkened all over with black boot-polish and wearing only a blackened pair of shorts and canvas shoes.

  ‘Off you go, Sub,’ the Captain said. He held out his hand. ‘The best of luck. I’ll move farther out once you’r
e away, and come back in four hours’ time, remember.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ It was a tight time-schedule, one that didn’t allow of setbacks encountered en route for the hideout where von Rudsdorf was being held. The Wharfedale had to be away from Kithnos before the dawn and that was that; like the landing in Crete, Sawbridge would go to sea if Cameron failed to show, and return after the next nightfall if he hadn’t been sunk in the meantime. Cameron went down the bridge ladder; a Carley float was already in the water awaiting him. With no delay he dived in cleanly, and came up right alongside the float. He heaved himself in and started paddling for the shore; as he moved away he heard the thrash of the screws as Sawbridge took the destroyer slowly astern, out again to sea. As he paddled, Cameron went again through the instructions given by Razakis: after he had landed, he was to follow a goat-track to a small village just under half a mile inland, due south of his landing point. There might be Germans around; if so, it would be up to him to keep clear of them. His goal was the first building he would come to on the outskirts — a bar run by a mainland Greek named Xarchios, who would be instantly identifiable by a deep scar running from below his left ear to the corner of his mouth, a scar upon which no hair would grow and which was wide enough to show clearly through the beard. To clinch the identification beyond doubt, Xarchios had a wooden peg-leg. He was a patriot, a partisan, a good friend to Razakis; he would lead Cameron to the hideout once he was in possession of the note from Razakis that Cameron carried wrapped in oiled silk in the pocket of his shorts, together with Razakis’s written authorization to hand von Rudsdorf over. Cameron was not to enter the bar itself, for obvious reasons, but was to gain entry to the private rooms in rear and attract the attention of Xarchios. Xarchios, a much experienced guerrilla fighter and undercover man, would understand and wouldn’t create any public disturbance over an intruder.