North Strike

by John Harris

  He spoke with the self-assurance of someone who knew Magnusson would never do any such thing.

  As March dragged into April. Campbell seemed subdued by the waiting but Willie John remained as undiminished as ever. He was drunk and singing as he came aboard.

  ‘If it’s thinkin’ in yer inner hairt

  The braggart’s in ma step,

  Ye’ve never smelled the tangle o’ the Isles…’

  Magnusson grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into the saloon. There he cursed him until Willie John went pale.

  ‘By Christ,’ Magnusson snarled, ‘if I ever see you drunk aboard again, I’ll toss you over the side with a block of concrete strapped to your feet! You’re jeopardising the life of every man aboard with your brainless bloody drinking! From now on you stay sober! Understand?’

  Willie John, his body huddled inside a twisted oilskin, stared at him, his face pale, seedy, ugly and worried.

  ‘Lissen, bodach,’ he said, ‘I promise. ’Tis a damn fool I’ve been just, but I’ll swear off it. A dhuine, I’ve never been teetotal – God help me if I had tae be – but I swear this time I will be.’

  Fortunately no one had heard the carousing, but the Norwegian officials were not letting up on them and were always ready with another excuse to hold the ship. They had no sooner sorted one out when they found another, and finally the Finns took a hand.

  Ek Yervy appeared in Magnusson’s cabin, red-faced and smiling as usual, but there was an element of sadness about his big face.

  ‘I vould speak med you,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, speak away. What’s on your mind?’

  Yervy frowned. ‘De Finnish boys vant to go home,’ he said.

  Magnusson pushed a glass forward and Yervy sank the contents at a gulp. ‘You mean they want to leave the ship?’

  ‘Dat vot dey say.’

  ‘We can’t sail the ship without them!’

  Yervy shrugged.

  ‘What’ll happen to them?’

  Yervy shrugged again. ‘Dey seely fockers. Dey go back to sea, I expect. Dey seamen. You go to sea. You come back. You go to sea again. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. You can’t change it.’

  ‘But what about the ship?’

  Yervy shrugged. ‘Dey have girls, wives, mudders, liddle vuns. Dey are vorried. Russians have drop bombs on Viipuri and Helsinki. Dey want to see dere families.’

  It was a disturbing thought and Magnusson tried talking to the Finns, giving it them man to man. But there was a new element of distrust about the ship and the word ‘bastard’, used hitherto as a term of friendliness, suddenly took on deeper tones. The British and the Finns no longer played cards at night, and the naval ratings no longer taught the Finns uckers. The Finns were tight-mouthed and their smiles were gone. They had been happy to go along with the ship while the chances of returning home were slim but, now that their war was over, they were concerned only for themselves.

  The code letter came regularly, but there was nothing they could do, because it was impossible to send the lengthy explanation that the situation required without drawing attention to themselves. Finally, a Norwegian torpedo boat was stationed within a quarter of a mile of Oulu and it was possible, even with the naked eye, to see the radio direction finding apparatus on her bridge. They were being watched and from then on they didn’t even acknowledge the exasperated signals that kept arriving.

  It was while they were pondering what to do that Magnusson received a letter from Annie Egge in Narvik. It arrived, as arranged, via the poste restante, and she was clearly disturbed that they had not left. Obviously she had her informants in Bodø and was growing worried. It seemed to be time to speak to her.

  Going ashore, Magnusson telephoned from the office of her contact in the town. He was surprisingly pleased to hear her voice.

  ‘Why haven’t you left?’ she demanded, suspicious at once of his motives.

  ‘They’re on to us,’ he said. ‘They’re trying every trick in the book to keep us here. It’s pretty obvious that pressure’s being applied by the Germans. I think they’re up to something.’

  ‘So do I.’ She sounded nervous and worried. ‘I think they have designs on Norwegian independence. I think both sides do. We know you have troops ready.’

  ‘We wouldn’t come except to stop the Germans coming.’

  ‘That is exactly what the Germans are saying, and I think they might be one step ahead of you, because the cargo ships, Rauenfels and Alster, and the tankers, Kattegat and Skagerrak, are due here. Why? Rauenfels is carrying ammunition, I’ve heard, and the tankers are deep-loaded. They will not be discharging here, so why are they coming? Also, we now have news that the whaling factory ship, Jan Willem, is due any day from Murmansk. Why is she coming? She doesn’t carry ore, but she does carry large quantities of fuel oil. Why so much fuel oil suddenly in Narvik? And why does she carry twice her normal crew? I have heard also that Colonel Sundlo, the military commandant here, sympathises with the Germans and may even be a Nazi himself.’

  She’d obviously got good information, Magnusson thought; Cockayne had suspected the same thing.

  The following day, 4 April, they became aware of a sudden exodus of German ships from the port. Some of them had been there for some time, some had only recently arrived. As they left Bodø, Magnusson noticed that they all headed north.

  Just as suddenly the Norwegians seemed to lose interest in Oulu and it was clear that they were beginning to grow nervous. Magnusson stared about him. There was a strong breeze from the east blowing down the fjord, and they could see it stirring the snow from the trees. Behind them was a patch of black forest and he guessed that against it Oulu’s hull and spars were virtually invisible.

  He made up his mind. Something was on the move and the mission had now become dangerous. He stood on deck, staring at the shore. There was a smell of mud and crude oil, and a tang of damp and wet pine trees. There were a few fishing boats about, as well as some ships at the coaling jetty, and the line of marker buoys in the fairway dwindled into the distance like the corks on a fisherman’s nets. The RDF torpedo boat had moved away a little and he had long since noticed that after generations of peace the Norwegians’ discipline was not what it ought to be.

  He called the other two officers to his cabin. Campbell was set-faced and stiff but there had been no more querying of orders.

  ‘How about the water tanks?’ Magnusson asked. ‘Are they full?’

  ‘Practically.’

  ‘Radio frequencies?’

  Willie John shrugged. He had kept his promise to stay off the drink, but he was clearly not enjoying it and his face was grey and more haggard than ever. ‘Bang up tae date, boy,’ he said.

  ‘Admiralty charts?’

  ‘Amended to the minute.’

  ‘Let me have the times of the tides and moonrise and moonset. I’m going to slip away tonight.’

  During the day, Magnusson made sure they were seen ashore in Bodø. Leaving Willie John aboard with a grieving expression, he and Campbell spent a lot of time about the bars. Campbell’s enthusiasm for the deception was such that he even pretended to be drunk.

  ‘Don’t be a damn’ fool,’ Magnusson snapped. ‘You’re a rotten actor. Leave it to Willie John.’

  Noticing that certain faces kept cropping up regularly about them, he made a great show of mentioning how long they were staying.

  ‘All winter, if necessary,’ he said. ‘There is only a lost war to welcome us home.’

  That night the atmosphere aboard Oulu was tense. Magnusson assembled the whole crew and told them what he intended. To his surprise, the Finns, whom he had thought might insist on being put ashore, raised no objections. With the wind whistling down the fjord from the north-east, they would need only a little canvas to carry them to the open sea.

  Orders were given quietly. The anchor chain had been shortened; as the tide rose it lifted the ship and the anchor with it, so that the need for the winch was reduced, and the few metal
lic clinks as it turned were muffled by a sheet of canvas laid over it.

  ‘Up and down,’ Campbell called out softly.

  ‘All right,’ Magnusson said. ‘Loose the topsails.’

  Oulu was slowly beginning to slip away down the fjord, the dark patches of forest hiding her black spars, and they had gone a mile without a sign of movement from the Norwegian patrol boat.

  ‘Get the foresail on her and let’s have the anchor inboard.’ As the extra canvas filled with wind, Oulu’s speed increased. Once clear of Saltfjord, it was Magnusson’s intention to continue before it in a westerly direction. Any attempt to continue to do their job in the Leads now was clearly pointless, and they obviously couldn’t head further south because they’d be detained at Trondheim as they’d been detained at Bodø and there the Norwegians would probably be more meticulous.

  The weather had deteriorated by the time they reached the open sea. The clouds had come down, dark and threatening, and the night was ugly, the seas racing past Oulu’s sides as they tore along under shortened canvas.

  When morning came conditions were atrocious, with heavy seas and opaque snow squalls reducing visibility to nil. The wind had increased considerably and shifted to westerly so that it grew more and more difficult to make any way westward. By midday, the ship was battling against a gale and great rolling breakers were crashing over the unprotected bulwarks.

  In an excess of affection for the Finns for sticking to the ship, Magnusson allowed them rum. There was a lot of laughter and a warm stink of tobacco, spirits, oilskins and unwashed clothes in the forecastle when Willie John appeared, his face gloomy.

  ‘We have tae gae aboot!’ he announced.

  ‘What the hell for?’

  ‘We’ve been told tae watch for Jan Willem and yon other German ships.’

  They put Oulu about, everybody now in a bad temper, but then a staggeringly beautiful sky cheered them all up once more. A bank of black storm cloud edged with bright gold lay across a yellow sea that looked as if it were boiling, and to the south was an enormous rainbow as a squall of rain and hailstones struck the ship. Magnusson glanced at the barometer. It was falling steadily and he saw the air was filling with more huge masses of cloud as the sea surged and lifted.

  In the late afternoon the heavy chain to the fore royal parted and they just managed to get the sail in before it blew itself to shreds. As the wind increased and the seas rose higher, Oulu began to labour once more. Even as they rushed out on deck they saw the sky darken still further, menacing and ugly.

  ‘Alle man på däck! Resa upp! Everybody out!’

  The seas were charging up behind them, one after the other, filling the air with slashing spray as their heads tore away from Oulu, to leave her in a trough polished and veined like green marble. Below deck, they could hear the crash of crockery and tins from the galley. Squalls of hail that bit the flesh hit them, the chips of ice rattling against the sails and piling up in the scuppers like miniature snow-drifts. The sails were buckling and flogging in the wind, and there were already two men on the wheel.

  The spray was coming over the ship now like streamers of grey silk and the shrieking wind made them speechless. To look into it was impossible, and it was difficult to give or hear orders.

  The pandemonium increased, and the dim winter light could hardly penetrate the gloom so that they could see no more than a few yards of grey-green sea and white foam which vanished instantly in the spindrift astern. As the wind caught the ship again, she was laid over in a sea that looked like a whirlpool. Four sails had blown out, the foresail flailing in tatters round its belt rope.

  The strength of the wind was unbelievable. It seemed possible to lean on it, and its shrieking mingled with the shuddering and groaning of the hull and the roar of water thundering over the deck in torrents. As Magnusson watched, the poop sank into a trough and the whole horizon astern was blacked out by a towering marbled wall of water. Just when it appeared to be about to smash down and inundate them, the ship lifted and the wave burrowed beneath her, so that she slid, yawing, into the next trough. They were now running north-east and had almost reached the shelter of the Lofotens, with the worst of the storm behind them, when Magnusson’s attention was caught by a shout from Campbell. The sheets of the jibs had worked loose and the sails were flapping wildly in the wind.

  ‘Down haul! Out and make fast!’

  No one wanted to go out on to the jib boom because it was see-sawing wildly, one moment pointing at the sky, the next down towards the waves. Then Worinen grinned and, jumping the rail, he climbed out with hands that were as familiar with the work as they were with eating and drinking. Astermann joined him.

  The ship was tossing in the cauldron of the sea and the two Finns were already soaked to the skin. One hand for the ship and one for yourself, Magnusson found himself saying under his breath. And make sure it’s the stronger one for yourself. They were working like madmen, lashing the gaskets wherever they would hold, crawling about the dripping boom with the assurance of men who knew their job.

  Magnusson sniffed. The wind had changed and he turned to Yervy who was on the wheel with Myers. ‘Starboard,’ he said. ‘A quarter-point.’

  Slanting rain, driven before the wind, obscured the horizon. A big sea roared and fumed about the deck and every few minutes another wave hurled itself sickeningly against the windward side of the ship. Then, astern, he saw a mountain of water leaping towards them like a charge of cavalry, its forward slope streaked with white.

  ‘Hang on!’ he yelled. ‘Warn those two forrard!’

  But the wind blew the words from his mouth, and the green monster swept down on them just as the two men on the boom completed their task. Making fast with stiff fingers, they had finished their lashing and were just turning to edge back along the footrope when the wave hit the ship with shattering force. Curling over the side, it hung there for a moment then dumped itself on deck with a roar. Men grabbed for the lifeline, their feet in the air as it swept across, breaking almost to the mainyards. Oulu seemed to stop dead, shivering from stem to stern, and as Magnusson glanced round, counting heads, he heard the cook shrieking. ‘Man overboard,’ he was yelling. ‘Two! Two!’

  Men dropped from the lifeline like flies off a ceiling and forced their way to the port rail. There had been no time to stow the ropes, and buntlines and clewlines lay in confusion everywhere. Several were flung overboard but there was no sign of anybody in the heaving hissing sea.

  ‘Who is it? For Christ’s sake, who is it?’

  Campbell appeared, stumbling through the draining water, soaked to the skin, his oilskin ballooning in the wind. There was a cut on his cheek, the blood mingling with the sea water that ran down his face.

  ‘Worinen and Astermann,’ he yelled. ‘They were just coming off the jib boom!’

  Men were hanging over the side of the ship now and for a moment they saw two heads appear. The Finns were close and Worinen tried to grab the side of the ship. Blood started as the nails were torn from his fingers.

  Astermann managed to clutch a rope, but the ship was hurtling along at a good twelve knots and he was swung against the side, blood on his face. Then he was swept away again, and as the next huge wave roared by, the two men vanished from sight, hidden by the crest. As it thundered on, they reappeared further away, clawing at the air, their mouths open and yelling, but it was impossible to reach them, impossible to do anything but watch them drown.

  Wearily they pounded the cast-iron canvas, all of them taking more care than before.

  Magnusson found himself cursing Admiral Cockayne. The lark they had been enjoying when they had left Falmouth had finally vanished. Suddenly the venture was grim and ugly.

  ‘The whole bloody idea of using a sailing ship was ridiculous,’ he snarled.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Campbell said, unexpectedly consoling, his stiff face coated with rime, ‘they were the most experienced men on the ship. They’d been in sail all their lives.’

 
As Magnusson brooded, Yervy appeared alongside him. Magnusson stared angrily at him, expecting confrontation, an accusation that he didn’t know his job. Instead, Yervy’s voice was gentle.

  ‘I yoost want you to know,’ he said, ‘dat dere is no blame. All men below know it not you, Skepparen. Yoost big sea. Sometimes dey come.’

  The relief that flooded over Magnusson made him feel weak.

  ‘I don’t think it was anybody’s fault,’ he said. ‘The ship was well under control. It was a freak sea.’

  ‘Yah. Dat is it. A freak sea. De Finns t’ink you good styrman. Dey not angry. All same,’ he paused and ended with a shrug. ‘I t’ink dey leave you soon.’

  Ten

  They reached Vestfjord again in the late afternoon of 6 April, sneaking past the pilot station at Tranöy and into the fjord without being seen. The weather was still overcast and the wind was blowing ferociously, driving the low cloud past the mastheads at speed and bringing squalls of snow. In the gloom, they entered the narrow channel to a subsidiary fjord and dropped anchor in the lee of an island at the entrance to a small lagoon, allowing the ship to swing against the dark shadow of the land. They were all nervous and ill at ease, and Magnusson left a lookout on the deck with strict instructions to report if the harbourmaster’s launch was seen.

  They were close to the shore where they could see a stream clattering down the hillside, a black wriggling snake through the snow. The sea line was littered with fish-boxes that had floated in, shattered fish-baskets, and the usual old shoes, tins and sea-worn timber. The wind continued to blow hard, and the coarse winter grass along the shore bent under its blast. The smell of the snow filled their nostrils with dampness.

  Worried by the fact that they were back at Narvik when he wished to be at sea, Magnusson prowled round the ship. During the early evening the wind grew even stronger, setting the halyards slapping and the rigging humming. A furled sail broke loose and started to flap, and he had to send the sullen Finns up to secure it. Then the snow came again, soon developing into a tremendous whirling blizzard that shut out the land.