Lucia, being dragged into its bridge?
‘Christ, hold your—’
Crashing over, and another blast of machine-gun fire. Then it had gone again… But the one who’d gone over into the sea had to be Lucia – surely…
Back in sight. The swimmer had reached the boat, which was adrift and turning in the wash from the submarine’s screws. A man in it was leaning over the side, reaching down to help – helping her, only one still daren’t say it, daren’t count chickens… There was a second man in the boat as well: and the submarine was diving, air and spray pluming from its vents, its forepart already partially submerged.
A Lancashire mutter in his ears: ‘Should’ve had fucking bombs…’
‘Can you put this thing down?’
Goggled face turning his way for a moment. ‘Be a bit bumpy…’
‘But—’
‘Yeah.’ A nod. ‘OK – sir. We’ll have a go.’
17
‘So you’ll go up to Cairo – tonight, you say?’
Lucia nodded. This was in her flat, on the Monday evening. 22 December. She’d spent the past thirty hours tucked up in bed at the Seydoux house under doctor’s orders and with Solange, Candice and their mother in close attendance; but she was fully recovered now. Solange was with her here, and Dewar should have arrived by this time: he’d gone out to Rosetta again, had agreed to call in on his way back and give Currie a lift into town.
A whole lot of people were coming, in fact; Lucia told Currie, ‘They’re fetching us – Maman and Jules, should be well on their way by now.’
‘Fetch us?’
‘Solange will be with us for a few days. Or longer, if I can persuade her. So I’ll have lots of company.’
‘Splendid. And Mitch will have your note when he gets back.’
‘When…’
‘Yes. Whenever.’ One did not discuss ships’ movements, not with anyone at all outside the Service, but he happened to know – because he’d seen certain signals on the log and then checked with a man in Medway whom he’d met during the researches on Saturday night – that Spartan had been recalled and had given her ETA Alexandria as first light 24th; Mitcheson would be timing his arrival with the opening of the boom gate, the man had said.
So perhaps he’d be joining Lucia in Cairo on Christmas Day?
Currie told her: ‘I’ll probably meet him myself, when he does turn up. Break it all to him gently – all these horrors, eh?’
‘Not horrors now—’
‘He’ll be shocked.’ Solange tossed back her golden-brown mane. ‘Poor man!’
‘Poor man my foot, he’s a darned lucky man!’
‘You—’ Lucia, smiling at him – ‘are an exceptionally kind man, Josh.’
‘And you – while we’re swapping compliments – are a lot tougher than you look!’
‘That’s a compliment?’
He asked Solange: ‘Isn’t she amazing? Look at her! After what she’s been through!’
She’d travelled back to Dekhela on his lap, in the Walrus’s rear seat. It had been a tight squeeze and she’d been soaking wet, but she’d been in no state to be left on her own – shivering, and snivelling a bit – so he’d done his best to provide solace. At Dekhela when they’d climbed out of the Walrus he’d thought Dewar was going to have a heart attack.
Solange asked him: ‘What about the Egyptians who were driving the motorboat?’
‘Frank Dewar’ll tell you more than I can. That’s where he’s gone, out to Rosetta. The police there have them behind bars. We took their details and told them to go back in, then ’phoned the police to meet them. The one who owns the boat said some Italian had offered him a lot of money, but he didn’t know anything about him or who he was. He certainly did know Lucia was being kidnapped – his crewman gave Emilio a hand with her. He was rough too, you said. So presumably they can be charged with assault as well as kidnap.’ He added: ‘Dewar’s leaving them in police hands, but he has his own plans for them, I gather.’
‘He’s late, isn’t he?’
‘Slightly. But don’t worry, if you have to leave before he comes, I’ll wait down there and—’
‘I have to give him back his rug, the one you wrapped me in. It’s dry now, incidentally.’
‘I’ll see he gets it. But – Lucia, do you realize what could have happened?’
‘I could be on my way to Italy.’
‘And – I heard this the other night, from friends of Mitch’s – on the route they’ve reason to believe you’d have taken, lying in wait not for your submarine – no-one knew anything about that one – but to intercept the one that brought Emilio and his chums—’
‘Josh – better be careful!’ Lucia feigned alarm. ‘Don’t for heaven’s sake say anything you shouldn’t – I’m Italian, I’m not allowed to know anything—’
‘Oh, please ’
Shaking his head slowly: and appreciating that her irony was not unjustified. ‘Listen, now. As a staging-post en route to Italy they’d have taken you to Leros, in the Aegean. Group of islands called the Dodecanese. There’s a submarine base in Leros – Italian. I’m giving you the detail – see? Now – getting to Leros from here means passing through straits between Rhodes and Crete, and Mitch is – or was – on patrol there. So if the submarine that would have had you on board – and your brother, of course—’
‘I can guess what you’re telling me.’ She glanced at Solange. ‘Imagine…’
‘I’d much rather not!’
‘Well – I can imagine it, very clearly. What you’re saying is that if you hadn’t come for me in your aeroplane yesterday, Josh—’
‘If we’d done our job properly you wouldn’t have been in that situation to start with. No – Solange is right, Lucia, this could really have been a horror scenario—’
Doorbell… Solange jumped up: ‘Major Dewar. I’ll let him in.’
‘Josh—’ They were on their feet too. Currie holding her two hands in his. ‘If it had gone like that, Josh – and I’d known about it—’
‘Well, you wouldn’t have, you’d simply—’
‘If I had…’
‘Another point, though, is that Mitch’s isn’t the only submarine up there. There are certainly two others on your brother’s route. It’s distinctly possible – well, even by now—’
‘Josh.’ She stopped him. ‘Remember, when Major Dewar asked me how I’d feel about being taken to Italy—’
‘Said you’d sooner die.’
‘It was the truth. Precisely how I felt – and would have felt. Point de blague, Josh dear. I’m telling you the plain truth. If I could have I’d have called out across the sea “Shoot straight, my darling!”’
Point de blague meaning – loosely translated – No bullshit. And there wasn’t any, she was absolutely serious. He told her quickly – the front door had banged shut, he could hear the others coming – ‘Listen – must say this, it’s important – in my most profound, sincere opinion, Ned Mitcheson is the luckiest man alive.’
‘You’re sweet, Josh. Much nicer than I knew before.’
‘Well—’
‘But lucky or not, he better stay alive – you know?’
‘Lucia!’ Dewar, with both hands out to embrace her. ‘Why, you’re looking wonderful!’
* * *
They went down to his car, leaving the girls to get themselves ready for their trip to Cairo. Currie said, ‘You were a deuce of a long time, weren’t you?’
‘Yes. Sorry. Local rozzers don’t move exactly fast, you know. Lashings of red tape. Anyway, I’ve been trying to prise information out of those two characters. Don’t actually believe they know much – if they did, I’d say they’re the kind would spill it.’ He pointed at the car: ‘Hop in.’
Currie got in and waited for him: Dewar pausing to put a match to his pipe. Puffing it into life as he climbed in, and started up. ‘Anyway – we’re leaving them in situ for the time being, they’ll be charged with this and that in due course, mea
nwhile the news will be allowed to leak out that they’re there, and we’ll see who comes to visit.’ He slowed, approaching the Ramleh road. ‘Stop in town for a celebratory glass or two, shall we?’
‘You know, that’s a damn good idea?’
‘I thought it was. So let’s think now – where…’
‘Simone’s?’
‘Ah. Well…’ Dewar took one hand off the wheel, shifted his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other – ‘Hate to say it, but that place has gone to the dogs. Damn fellow – built like Camera, calls himself her husband—’
‘I’ve an idea he may have buggered off by now.’
‘Really?’
‘Little bird whispered in my ear, week or two ago. Can’t guarantee it, of course, but—’
‘If you’re right—’ Dewar went through his drill with the pipe again – ‘well, you really are the bearer of glad tidings!’
‘Aren’t I, just.’ He laughed. Thinking of Simone, and this chap knowing her: when only the other day he’d registered the thought that anyone who amounted to a row of beans, sooner or later you’d ran into in her place… Laughing again, feeling really very pleased with the way things had turned out – in such contrast to the shattering setbacks elsewhere. Which in any case would be survived – if only because they’d have to be. He shouted over the car’s racket: ‘We’ll make it a party, eh?’
Dewar nodded. ‘Why not?’ Shifting the pipe again: ‘Why not, indeed?’ He added, glancing sideways: ‘Especially if you’re right and—’
Chuckling, then: ‘My word, yes!’ Eyes back on the Rue de Ramleh, bowling along it at his customary bone-shaking pace, glancing sideways again in only mild surprise as Currie began to sing his ode to King Farouk.
Acknowledgements
The man who escorted Luigi de la Penne ashore for interrogation was not the fictional Josh Currie, but Sub-Lieutenant Duncan Nowson, R.N.V.R., sub-lieutenant of the gunroom in H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth. My fictional reconstruction of the events of that night is based on his recollection of them. I am also indebted to the artist Hugh Bulley, a former fellow midshipman in QE (which I joined a few weeks after the ‘human-torpedo’ attack), for his help with recollections of Alexandria at that time, and Mr John Syms for his account of the damage-control battle below decks after the explosion. It was he who made the hazardous descent through the ship with live electric cables.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1993 by Little, Brown
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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United Kingdom
Copyright © Alexander Fullerton, 1993
The moral right of Alexander Fullerton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781911591467
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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