Patrol to the Golden Horn

by Patrol to the Golden Horn (epub)

  ‘Right.’ He muttered as they started off again, ‘You’d make a navigator.’

  Young cypresses now, and old houses; little courtyards roofed with vines. A smell of dusty flowers: lights glimmering, passers-by fewer and flitting quickly through the quiet, near-deserted alleys.

  ‘Left here … I think.’ Burtenshaw whispered it as they paused; it wouldn’t do to be heard talking English. ‘The curved street, he mentioned – and the side-road across the hill behind it?’

  ‘Right.’ They were getting close now. ‘Look for a courtyard entrance and trees at the back of it before the house.’

  And the house would stand well back and have blue shutters and vines over a long veranda. The American had sounded as if he knew it well. The narrow curve of street was silent except for their own thudding footfalls. They stopped at an archway, tall and narrow with a curved top coming to a point. High, grey wall – and ten yards farther down, heavy wooden gates, shut. Nick slipped in through the archway with Burtenshaw close behind, looking back down the street to be sure no one had followed. Sweet-scented bushes: ahead, a cluster of feathery-looking trees stood out against the sky. The gleam of light from behind them must be coming from the house, and in the house – please God – they’d find the Grey Lady. The American had professed not to know any other name for her. He moved to the left; from the locked gates there was a carriageway to the house, and to walk along the side of it would be easier than groping through this perfumed jungle. Burtenshaw had stopped to change the rucksack from one shoulder to the other for about the sixth time; after the runs and the long uphill trek he was evidently feeling its weight. Well, he was the explosives expert. Approaching the trees and the house, Nick saw light pouring from an unshuttered window; he also saw what looked like an exceptionally large motor standing in front of the house. At closer quarters it turned out to be an open tourer – but a huge, swagger-looking contraption. This was the back end of it. Its long, silvery bonnet was bright and gleaming in the pool of light flooding from the window.

  Burtenshaw had grabbed his arm, hissed something in his ear. Nick stopped. ‘What?’

  ‘Mercedes Benz. German!’

  He thought, Oh God, what next… Then he rose over the quick reflex of despair: the mere presence of a Hun-made motor-car meant really nothing. Burtenshaw, he thought, tended to become alarmed too easily … There was an emblem of some kind on the motor’s near-side door; Nick stooped to examine it. Beside him Burtenshaw whispered, ‘That’s the German eagle! Must be some official—’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’

  Think, now …

  They’d raided the Maritza. And discovered there what might have led them here? In that case, the Grey Lady herself might be under arrest. But – not Germans, the raid had been made by the police, the dog-collar men, Mortimer had said. This was all guesswork: and Mortimer’s account, for that matter, had been only hearsay. The thing was, Nick realised, to get a look inside the house and see who might be in occupation. If this was the Grey Lady’s house and it was full of Germans, then he and Burtenshaw were on their own entirely. He began to creep quietly towards the window. His aim was to get to the side of it, keeping out of the light, and stand up slowly and look in. He was stooped like a baboon, passing between the motor and the house; he heard a sharp click and the headlamps sprang up like great floodlights. A man’s voice shouted some sort of command.

  The language matched the eagle crest. German.

  Nick had frozen, with one hand covering his eyes against that blinding glare. He thought, Finished … Burtenshaw, right behind him, had yelped like a kicked dog and now stood facing the lights, blinking, with his hands up at shoulder-height. That shout had come from the driving-seat of the Mercedes Benz. Ten to one the Hun would have a pistol or rifle aimed at them from behind that dazzle of brilliance. He’d shouted again: and this time another German answered – from the house, behind them. But – ten to one? One chance in ten would be better than none at all, and he might not be armed.

  ‘We’ll have to make a dash for it.’ Nick spoke out of the side of his mouth to the Marine. ‘When I say Go, shoot at the lights and run. Out through the arch and turn left. Make for the nearer park. I’ll go right and join you later.’ You had to move, that was the thing. The Germans were exchanging shouts as if in disagreement over something; or they were shouting at the Englishmen and getting angry at the lack of response. Of course, Nick realised, neither he nor Burtenshaw could easily be taken for English. He asked the Marine, ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘Well – it’s – it’s a bit difficult to—’

  A woman’s voice: a stream of – Turkish?

  From the house. Grey Lady? If so, free or captive?

  ‘We’re English! British officers!’

  Clutching at straws: and giving the game away. Why had he done it? He didn’t know. Except the urge to do something… The echoes of his shout rang through the darkness. Nobody answered: then the silence was broken by the snap of a rifle-bolt being jerked back. It convinced him that he’d blundered. He took a breath, knowing suddenly that this was as far as they were going to get. Then a new thought – that anything, even a bullet in the back, would be better than an interview with Bedri Bey. He murmured, ‘Stand by again and be ready to run like blazes. If I don’t meet you at the park try to get back to the Yanks.’

  The woman’s voice called again, but this time in very clear, educated English and from only a few yards away: ‘English, indeed … You certainly don’t look it.’

  Chapter 12

  The Grey Lady was tall, angular, authoritative. No beauty, but she had a certain charm that was entirely feminine. Forty, forty-five? About that, he thought. She wore a serge suite, and brogues; she could have been some country squire’s unmarried sister, organising a village out of its mind.

  She’d already had reports on the battlecruiser Yavuz’s preparations for sea, but the raid on the Maritza had disrupted her communications system and she hadn’t been able to signal Reaper.

  ‘Not that it matters now, since your submarine is waiting to torpedo her and you’ve arrived to play your part.’

  She seemed unaffected by the knowledge that she was talking to two amateurs. Nick had told her about Robins being killed, and he’d been quite open about his own and Burtenshaw’s lack of experience of this kind of clandestine operation. She’d shrugged it off: nobody had such experience, she said, until they found themselves involved in such work. And the business before them now, of sabotaging Goeben alias Yavuz, had nothing to do with the late Lieutenant Commander Robins. She was to have put Robins in touch with a certain individual in the Sublime Porte – Turkey’s ‘Whitehall’ – but otherwise she’d have had no dealings with him. Goeben was what mattered here and now.

  Nick gestured towards Burtenshaw. ‘Really his pigeon.’

  ‘Pigeon?’

  ‘Burtenshaw here is the explosives wizard.’

  ‘But you are in command of the operation?’

  He had to admit it. But had anyone, he wondered, ever been less qualified or trained for such command? He hadn’t the least idea what he was going to do. He didn’t say so now: there was a brisk impatience in her manner, a touch of steel in the large, really rather captivating eyes. Her contempt for cold feet would, he felt, be blistering. In any case, she proceeded now to solve the problem for him – casually, as if this sort of thing was only part of an ordinary day’s work.

  ‘I’ve sent the other two Germans – on foot, of course – to fetch uniforms for you from their barracks. You—’ she looked at Nick – ‘would do well to shave. You’ll find a razor in the bathroom upstairs. Shaving may be less important in your case, Mr Burtenshaw, since you are not so dark and it shows less. Besides, many of the German troops are quite shabbily turned out these days. Quite going to the dogs.’ She smiled, pleased about it. ‘But you must board Yavuz before sunrise, which I understand is the likely hour for her sailing. You’ll have little time for sleep, I’m afraid.’ Another smile. ‘
Never mind. We all have our small discomforts, do we not.’

  It was rather like sitting in some country parson’s study and being briefed on a plan to rob the Bank of England. You could listen and nod agreement from time to time, but if you really thought about it – about, for instance, the intention that they should actually walk on board a German battlecruiser within the next few hours … Better not to think. The only dividends from it were cold shivers and a sense of madness. Just listening to her was bad enough. The Mercedes Benz outside, for instance, belonged to the German C-in-C, General Liman von Sanders. She’d bought it from the general’s driver. The driver and another German soldier – one who spoke some English and acted as interpreter – were the pair who’d now gone to steal uniforms. The third Hun, a partner of the driver’s, was outside on guard, but the Grey Lady had the ignition-key on the table in front of her. She did not, she said, trust Germans.

  She had arranged several days ago to buy the huge motor, not for the purposes of the present operation but because arms dumps had been established in various parts of the city, ready for an uprising by Christians and other anti-German elements, which would take place before the arrival of the British fleet. A large, fast vehicle had been needed to tour the dumps and collect the weapons quickly when the time came for action. She’d fixed it through a Greek henchman of hers named Themistoclé, and her plan now was that the motor should be used to take Nick and Burtenshaw, dressed as German soldiers and carrying baggage belonging to von Sanders, to Goeben/Yavuz just before she sailed.

  It was a very simple plan, and there was virtually nothing that could go wrong with it, she said. Nick asked her soberly, ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘Why, most certainly!’ She looked genuinely surprised. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘In more normal circumstances, I agree, it might seem – perhaps reckless. But this country is in a state of near collapse, and the Germans are nearly as demoralised as the Turks. They know we have the upper hand in Europe now, and they also know their Turkish allies will round on them as soon as they can do so with impunity. As for the Young Turks – our lords and masters – well, they’re said to be preparing to abandon the sinking—’

  The lights went out. In here, and outside too. No gleam through the trees, no glow above the distant roofs. In pitch darkness, the Grey Lady laughed delightedly. Nick wondered if she might be off her dot.

  ‘What a perfectly splendid coincidence!’ She laughed again. ‘I was on the point of mentioning that the Young Turks are rumoured to be getting ready to make a bolt for it – and in fact only this afternoon I was told that a plan had been laid for the fuses at the power-station to be drawn for an hour or two tonight, in order to facilitate the departure of those frightful rogues Enver, Talaat and Djemal. And – lo and behold!’

  Nick murmured, ‘Not beholding much, myself.’ Burtenshaw asked, ‘Doesn’t this mean it’s good as ended? The war – at least Turkey’s—’

  ‘Hardly that. I should say it marks the beginning of the end, and that it should gready help the progress of the armistice negotiations … Did you know that discussions were in progress?’

  They’d heard nothing of that sort, Nick told her. He explained to Burtenshaw, ‘We still have to dish Goeben. Long as she’s in fighting trim she could stop the Turks signing any armistice. She could keep us out, too – stop our minesweepers getting in, to start with.’

  ‘Very true.’ A match flared: they saw her face close to it, its harsh light darkening her deepset eyes, deepening the lines in face and neck. Then the gentler glow of candlelight spread through the room and she’d blown out the match, lost ten years of age and become softer, feminine again. Leaning towards the candle, peering at a little watch on a loop of chain: ‘High time those wretches were back here … Lieutenant Everard, you did not by any chance bring with you a parcel of sovereigns?’

  ‘Why yes, we did.’ Burtenshaw stooped to grope in his rucksack. Nick told her, ‘We didn’t know what it was for. But if it’s intended for you …’

  ‘Only too glad.’ Burtenshaw put the canvas bag on the table. ‘Weighs a ton.’

  ‘Heavier the better!’ She whisked it away, to a cupboard. Nick apologised, ‘Two sovereigns short, I’m afraid. We had to pay the caïque’s skipper something or they’d have cut our throats.’ She frowned at that; then she explained, ‘I was forced to pay three hundred for the motor. Exorbitant, of course; but they wanted five hundred to start with, and of course Themistoclé takes his commission. I could only scrape up a hundred, and I promised them the rest of it would be here within a day or so. So when you told me of Commander Robins’s death …’ She sighed, and smiled; you could see she’d been worrying about it. Nick was impressed by her not having mentioned the money until now. He told her, ‘We’d have lost it very quickly if the caïque’s crew had had a sight of it.’

  She had already apologised for the Lazz fishermen. Faced with the sudden emergency when she’d had Reaper’s distress call, she’d had to give Themistoclé his head, and that had been his easy answer to the problem. She said, ‘They’re all so mercenary. And once a German decides to sell out – well …’ She sighed. ‘There’ll be a price on the uniforms, of course, too.’ She’d glanced up at them, smiling suddenly: ‘I have a bottle of Kirsch here, if you’d care for some. Also from the Germans, I might say. Shall we have a glass now, while supper’s cooking?’

  Supper was a mutton pilaff, followed by bread with a kind of raisin jam called pekmes. She apologised for so strange a meal; food-rationing and shortages were a curse, and a cause of unrest particularly in the poorer quarters of the town. She introduced Celeste, the young girl who’d cooked the pilaff, as one of about sixty convent girls, mainly of French parentage, whom she’d rescued from Bedri Bey’s intention of turning them out into the streets. It would have meant the brothels. She’d found safe homes for all of them. Nick gathered, from as much as she told them, that by standing up to such moves as this openly and fearlessly she’d won the authorities’ respect, or at least their tolerance, while her charitable work among the poor had not only made her well liked in the city but had also cloaked her more clandestine activities.

  He’d dozed off. He came-to once, to hear argument or hard bargaining in progress between their hostess and the Germans. Then – only minutes later, it seemed – she was waking him and the electric lights were burning.

  So it hadn’t been a dream?

  ‘Time to put on these dreadful uniforms. They won’t fit at all well, but we can’t expect miracles.’ Dressing, he’d still been muzzy with sleep and a kind of horrified disbelief, but returning to the living-room he’d found more of Celeste’s thick, aromatic coffee ready, and it had brought him back to life – in no kind of comfort, but more or less clear-headed.

  The Grey Lady showed them two heavy leather suitcases. Her manner was brisk but entirely calm, and the effect of it, Nick found, was steadying.

  ‘These belong to von Sanders. Quite a nice man, really. No business at all being German. See – his name on them. One each to carry – otherwise they might wonder why there should be two of you. How fortunate that you should speak German, Mr Burtenshaw.’

  Nick was wondering how much German the Marine did speak.

  They were to go on board as the general’s personal servants. Ostensibly coming from so high an authority, they’d almost surely be let by without question. Germans were like that, she said. As a matter of fact, we English were like that too. Herman, the driver, who was a familiar figure behind the wheel of the easily-recognised official motor-car, would declare at the gangway that he was delivering the Herr General’s baggage as previously arranged. Nick and Burtenshaw would haul it up the gangway, and once inside the ship they – presumably – would know what to do. Herman would wait on the quay until nobody much was looking at him, and then drive away, and when anyone noticed that he’d gone they might assume the baggage porters had gone too.

  Burtenshaw was speechless:
numb – Nick thought – with fright.

  As a target area for the explosive charge Nick had first thought of the midships torpedo flat. If a biggish amount of guncotton could be detonated close against a torpedo warhead, or better still in the warhead store, the results might be rewarding. But access would not be easy. It would be four or five decks down and through armoured hatches, well below the waterline. Modern German warships were honeycombs of small compartments all subdivided from each other: this was why they tended to remain afloat even after substantial damage … On reflection, he’d decided it might be best to go for the steering compartment, right aft and in the bottom of the ship. To set the charge off there probably wouldn’t sink her, but with smashed steering gear she’d be immobilised, which would be enough for Reaper’s purposes. It would also make her a sitting duck for Wishart.

  He asked the Grey Lady how she could be sure Herman wouldn’t blow the gaff once she’d paid him.

  ‘He has at least as much to lose as you have, Lieutenant. He’d be shot out of hand.’ She was looking them both over, as that triggered another thought; she murmured, ‘Such a pity you haven’t your own uniforms to wear under those dreadful suits.’

  Nick caught the reference: the possibility of being shot. To be caught dressed as German soldiers would qualify him and Burtenshaw for ‘out of hand’ treatment, too … But they were starting now, actually walking out of the house. The guncotton, divided between the two cases, weighed very little. Climbing into the back of the car … If ever there’d been a truly madcap scheme, it was this one: and he, Nick Everard, was in command of it! Panic flared: but there was no time for panic … He told Burtenshaw as the Mercedes Benz backed out into the road with one of the Germans yelling advice to Herman, ‘Once we’re up the gangway, turn aft as if we’re heading for the admiral’s quarters where the luggage is supposed to go. Then duck inside and out of sight. We’ll need to get right aft and down as many decks as she’s got – that’ll be the deuce of a long way down.’