The Man who Missed the War

by Dennis Wheatley

  There was one bad hitch over the construction of the cargo containers which prevented the completion of the rafts by the promised date; but they were delivered a week later, on July the 27th, and, after Philip, Eiderman and Thorssen had given them a very thorough inspection, declared to be satisfactory.

  Thorssen had in the meantime secured a crew, which he presented to Philip down at the dock. Their leader, Hans Auffen, who was to act as bo’sun, was a huge man with a cast in one eye. A small, scrawny-necked man called Dirk had been taken on as wireless operator and cook; a third, Jan Schmaling, admitted to being an engineer who had lost his ticket, and there were two others, both big, bovine-looking men with cropped heads and china-blue eyes.

  They all spoke some English and appeared willing enough, but they were as tough a looking bunch as could have been found on any dockside. As he surveyed them, Philip wished that he had taken the trouble to go down to the British Seamen’s Mission and try his luck there, before appealing to Eiderman. It was only now brought fully home to him that he would have to share extremely cramped quarters with five such habitués of the fo’c’sle for many weeks and, since that had to be, he would have much preferred them to be men of his own nation. However, he felt that it was too late to alter the arrangement that had been made for him, so, having satisfied himself that all the men fully understood for what they were signing on, he took them over one of the rafts, explained the sails and the beacons and gave instructions as to how the cargo was to be stowed.

  It was August the 8th before the loading was finally completed, and now it only remained to await a suitable wind. Thorssen had arranged that one of the ships in which he had an interest, the S.S. Regenskuld, then in New York harbour, should tow the launch and convoy down the Hudson and out to sea, releasing it only when there was no longer any danger of its fouling other shipping, or being driven back on to the shore through a sudden veering of the wind. Philip and Eiderman’s company were the only people interested in the venture, and Eiderman said that he was greatly in favour of keeping the whole thing quiet in case other people should muscle in on it; so, as there was to be no special send-off, Philip agreed that there was nothing to prevent his sailing the moment conditions were considered favourable.

  For three days he waited with an impatience that even Lexie could not banish; then, on the afternoon of the 11th Eiderman ‘phoned to say that he had just had a report in from the ‘Met’ people, who predicted fair to strong winds from the southeast for the next four to six days, and Philip agreed to sail that night.

  There was little packing left to be done, but Lexie insisted on going upstairs to help him with his bag and, when it was done, collapsed on the bed in floods of tears. Sitting down beside her, Philip somewhat awkwardly put an arm round her shoulders and drew her dark, curly head towards his. This was the first occasion on which he had ever held a weeping girl in his arms, and he felt considerably embarrassed, but he told her that he liked her much better than anyone else he had ever met, that he was not really going into danger, that he would send her a cable the very moment he arrived in England, and that, as soon as his business there was settled, he would be coming back to New York to arrange another convoy.

  She cheered up a little then, and after she had dried her eyes they kissed and hugged each other, and both agreed that they had been the most frightful fools to waste such countless opportunities during the past three months when they might have done the same thing. He said how wonderful her hair smelt, so she gave him the ribbon from it which he put away carefully in his pocket-book. Then Lexie bathed her eyes and they went downstairs, slightly pink of face.

  Jean was away from home dining in the country that evening; but Mrs. Foorde-Bilson produced, as by a miracle, three of Philip’s favourite dishes for dinner. Then she and Lexie accompanied him in their car, through the late dusk of the summer evening, across Jersey City and the river-ferry to the dock where the S.S. Regenskuld was moored.

  Eiderman was waiting for him with an apology for Thorssen’s absence. It appeared that the Norwegian had been prevented at the last moment from coming to see Philip off. Eiderman then announced his intention of going on the Regenskuld to see the Raft Convoy actually cast off in the ocean, and after Philip had made his farewells to Lexie and her mother the two men went on board.

  The ship’s master, Captain Sorensen, received them on the quarter-deck and took them to his own day cabin, which he placed at their disposal; then he showed them two sleeping cabins in which bunks had been prepared for them, as it was proposed that the Regenskuld should not cast off her tow until six o’clock the following morning, when she would be well out in the open sea.

  It was just after ten o’clock when she left the dockside, drawing the launch after her, while five tugs followed in procession, each towing two of the rafts, the port authorities having stipulated that this arrangement should be followed, as a reasonable precaution against the rafts fouling other shipping in the crowded harbour.

  While still in the dock Philip and Eiderman had been standing in their shirt-sleeves on account of the torrid heat, but after passing the Statue of Liberty they struck a light breeze which forced them to put on their coats. Captain Sorensen remarked as they did so that to him it smelt like rain. Philip assumed that he was thinking of a thunderstorm, as the night was extraordinarily sultry, but otherwise clear, and looking back he could discern the molten silver of the foam churned up by the tugs glistening in the reflected glow of the million lighted windows of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.

  Eiderman had attended to all the clearance papers on Philip’s behalf, and for the best part of an hour they were busy in the cabin while these were being checked and handed over. When they came out on deck again the Regenskuld had passed the Narrows and was slowing down so that the tugs could come up with her and begin the complicated procedure of stringing the rafts into a single line. Though there seemed to be endless fussing to and fro and almost continuous hooting for a long time, they actually made a good job of it and had the whole convoy lined up ready to put to sea in just over an hour. Soon after midnight the tugs gave hoots of farewell, the Regenskuld replied and, taking the full strain on the towing cables, headed in a north-west by westerly direction, with Coney Island on her port quarter and the light of Sandy Hook flashing almost dead astern.

  They were going slowly now, not much over four knots, owing to the great weight they were towing. For another half-hour Philip and Eiderman strolled up and down the deck, then the latter suggested that, as they had to be up very early next morning, they might as well turn in, so they said good night and went to their respective cabins.

  Philip undressed and got between the sheets, thinking as he did so that these might be the last few hours of carefree rest he would enjoy for a long time to come; but for some time he could not get off to sleep. It was over-excitement, perhaps. The little scene with Lexie that afternoon had awakened in him long dormant emotions, and now there was the stupendous thought that, after all these many months of waiting, planning and disappointments, he was at last really setting out to prove his great idea, which might mean so much to Britain in her hour of need.

  At length he fell asleep, but only to become the subject of a most vivid dream. He was back in the Rectory library talking to the Canon. His fat little host was not seated, as was his wont, in his favourite armchair but walking agitatedly up and down.

  ‘You’re behaving like a blind fool, Philip,’ he said angrily. ‘Unless you rectify your mistake in time you’ll be dead in twenty-four hours. For goodness’ sake get up on deck immediately.’

  Philip woke with a start. Insistent, commanding, the Canon’s voice was still ringing in his ears, ‘Get up on deck immediately.’

  For a moment he lay still, trying to argue with himself that to leave his warm bunk on account of a dream was really the height of absurdity; yet he could not get rid of the feeling that something must be wrong with the string of rafts and that he ought to go up to have another look at them. Per
haps he had overlooked some vital factor which might yet be rectified at this eleventh hour before he entrusted himself and his crew to the launch and the ocean next morning. Getting out of bed he slipped on his dressing-gown and slippers and went up on deck.

  He found that the night was darker than before. There was no moon, and swiftly moving clouds now obscured most of the starry sky. When he reached the stern rail he could no longer see all the rafts and could only count five ever smaller streaks of foam where they ploughed up the sea; but, thousands of yards away, he could clearly sight the last beacon, although the raft that bore it was hidden from him.

  All seemed well, so after a moment he turned and began to make his way back to his cabin. It was then that he caught the sound of voices coming through an open skylight. He paused because there seemed something unfamiliar about them. Suddenly he realised what it was: someone down below was talking German!

  Kneeling down, he peered beneath the raised, glass-filled mahogany frame and found that he could see one wall of a cabin. Against it leant his bullet-headed bo’sun, Hans Auffen, next to him stood the scraggy-necked Dirk, and then came one of the big, doltish-looking squareheads. But none of them was talking. They were listening with evident respect to someone else whom Philip could not see, yet whose voice he now recognised as Eiderman’s.

  Philip had been on the Modern side at his public school, so knew enough German to understand the gist of what was being said; but as he first concentrated on catching the words he got only the end of a sentence which had something to do with being able to reach Boston by Friday.

  ‘Jawohl, Herr Kapitan,’ Hans Auffen replied in a guttural voice, and every muscle in Philip’s body seemed to go rigid as he heard Eiderman go on:

  ‘It is important that you should all tell the same story on your return. While inspecting a raft, he slipped, struck his head, fell in the sea and went under, disappearing before you could get close enough to help him. Without a Captain you were not prepared to face the trip to Europe, and you could not tow the rafts back against the current; so you decided to abandon them and make for the nearest port. This is a very simple task so I shall accept no excuse for bungling. You have only to hit the young fool on the head and throw him overboard. I care nothing what happens to the rafts so long as he is prevented from carrying out this dangerous experiment.’

  ‘Heil Hitler!’

  5

  Desperate Measures

  The night was still warm but suddenly Philip was gripped by cold. In these last few minutes a chill seemed to have run right through him, turning his blood to water. He rose from his knees a trifle unsteadily and made an effort to grasp the full implications of what he had overheard. At first he could hardly believe his senses. It seemed impossible, unbelievable, that Eric Eiderman, whom he had come to know and like, could really have just given orders for his cold-blooded murder.

  Yet, even as he was beginning to doubt the evidence of his own ears, fresh sounds reached him from below. A sudden shuffling, a click of heels; then, like a rumble of doom, came the voices of the five who had been chosen to murder him raised in a baleful, unquestioning acknowledgment of their orders: ‘Heil Hitler!’

  Those menacing, fanatical syllables were, Philip realised, the key to the appalling situation in which he found himself. Eiderman was not a Norwegian born, but a German; and whether he was a naturalised American or not he was a secret agent of the Nazis. Having seen the article about the proposed Raft Convoy, he had been shrewd enough to realise at once that this was no mere attempt to undercut current shipping rates by the introduction of a new method of sea transport, but a device which, if successful, might in war-time defeat the blockade of Britain by submarines. Obviously, no price could be too high for Hitler’s secret representative to pay, if it would strangle such a scheme at birth, before the slow-moving British Admiralty became interested in it.

  Suddenly, Philip’s mouth twitched, and he was filled with silent laughter. It was caused by the thought that, although his own people would not listen to him, the Germans thought him dangerous enough for them to go to considerable trouble to kill him. It was the greatest compliment he could possibly have been paid, and seeing the funny side of it released the tension he was under, causing his blood to flow warmly through his veins again. Yet, the second that his mind turned to the future he became extremely perturbed.

  He saw now why Eiderman had expressed such interest and satisfaction when he had learnt that Raft Convoys Ltd. was a one-man venture unbacked by any of the big British shipping concerns; and why he had urged so strongly that the date of the sailing of the convoy should be kept secret. Naturally, he did not want any publicity given to the project which he could possibly stop, because the wider the knowledge of it became the more likely it was that someone else would attempt to interest the British Government in it after Philip had been eliminated. But that was of no importance now, the thing that mattered was—how far was Captain Sorensen a party to Eiderman’s designs?

  Philip felt that much hung on this: his life perhaps. One thing was certain: after what he had heard there could be no question of his sailing with that cut-throat crew. By thinking up some plausible excuse he must get the Regenskuld to tow the convoy back to New York, where, once safely ashore, he could have a showdown with Eiderman, and later secure another crew from the British Seamen’s Mission. Walking on tiptoe he made his way back to his cabin.

  While he dressed as swiftly and quietly as he could, he again speculated about the possible position of the Captain. If Sorensen were in the business, immediately he was asked to take his principal passenger and the rafts—which were the whole object of the trip—back to New York he would guess that Philip had smelt a rat, and send for Eiderman. Then the fat would be in the fire, and Philip felt that he might find himself in about as desperate a situation as he could possibly imagine. On the other hand, the more he thought about it the more unlikely it seemed to him that Sorensen was involved. From the little Philip had seen of him the old sea Captain did not seem at all the type who would agree to become accessory before the fact of murder. The odds were that he and his ship’s company were acting in perfectly good faith; but, even if that were so, he would be extremely surprised to receive an order to put back to port, and Philip began to rack his brains for a plausible excuse.

  After some minutes of hard thinking he decided to feign illness. He could say that before he had left London he had been warned by his doctor that he ought to have his appendix out, that he had ignored the warning at the time, but a sudden attack of acute pain in the last hour had brought it home to him that it would be absolute madness to chance a two months’ voyage on which no doctor would be available.

  A glance at his watch showed him that it was just after half past two. It occurred to him that the Captain might have turned in, but he thought that unlikely, owing to their proximity to the coast and the unusual shortness of the trip. Very quietly he closed the door of his cabin behind him and went up the companionway to the bridge.

  To his relief he saw Captain Sorensen standing near the binnacle, and the Captain, catching sight of him at the same moment, turned and came towards him.

  ‘Hello, jong man! What do you make opp herr?’ the short, thickset old sailor greeted him in a friendly voice. ‘Et iss aarly yet, an’ der iss anoder two-tree hour before we to your launch let you down.’

  ‘I know,’ replied Philip; and adopting a voice that he strove to keep clear enough to be comprehensible, yet low and panting to suggest that he was in serious pain, he went on to tell him the story about his appendix and ask that with as little delay as possible the Regenskuld should tow the whole convoy back to New York.

  ‘Dis iss bad,’ muttered the Captain sympathetically. ‘Kom into my cabin an’ I gif you der goot Schnapps. But for me to about ship der order from Mister Eiderman muss kom.’

  Philip followed him down to his cabin, now fairly certain in his mind that the Captain was not in the plot to murder him. He hated the taste of
the Schnapps but drank the fiery spirit off with a little shudder, then proceeded to reiterate his request.

  ‘I haf tell you,’ repeated the old sailor, ‘to about ship der order from Mister Eiderman muss kom.’

  ‘He’s certain to be asleep, so why bother to waken him?’ argued Philip. ‘And, after all, this is my show, I’m paying for the rafts to be towed out to sea just as I paid for the tugs and all the rest of it.’

  ‘Ja, ja, I not argue wid you over dat. You pay Eiderman maybe, but Eiderman charter der Regenskuld for der job, see? So he der boss roun’ herr ess, an’ eff you want me to about ship der order from Eiderman muss kom.’

  Realising that it was futile to argue further, Philip thanked the old fellow for the Schnapps and, still making a pretence of being in pain, by holding his tummy, retired to his cabin.

  It seemed that his choice now lay in waiting until six o’clock when everyone would come on deck and expect him to go over the side into the launch with the five Nazi assassins; or going along to tackle Eiderman then and there.

  On thinking it over, it seemed to him that if he waited until dawn he would be at a greater disadvantage, as Eiderman would then have at his disposal his five thugs, and perhaps even further aid if, as was quite possible, there were a number of other Germans among the ship’s company. If Eiderman found himself thwarted, he would be capable of doing all sorts of mischief with such a bunch at his orders, the least of which might be the scuttling of the launch and the sabotaging of the contents of the Number One raft. Moreover, to wait would give it away to Captain Sorensen that he had only been shamming illness, and by that he might lose the Captain’s goodwill. No; it would be better to tackle Eiderman now, while he was alone.