by Nevil Shute
“That’s all right.” He wrote the names upon his pad. “Do you know if they were R.N., or R.N.R.?”
“R.N.V.R., they were — both of them. They had wavy rings.”
“I see. And what was in this newspaper?”
“It was an American newspaper — just a cutting, you know. It said that the captain of a Dutch ship had seen a submarine sunk in the Channel off Departure Point. It was on December 3, the paper said. That was the day that Caranx was sunk, wasn’t it?”
He eyed her seriously. She seemed to know the hell of a lot about Caranx. “I think it was,” he said.
“It said another thing, in the paper. It said that the submarine broke into two bits, with the bow and stern showing at the same time, like. But Caranx didn’t do that. She went down upright, with only the bow showing.”
“I think she did,” he said. This girl would have to be investigated.
“That’s what made me think there might have been two of them, you see,” said Mona. “And then, only the night before last, there was some officers from off a salvage ship in the bar, talking about submarines. And what they said was that the Germans carry British sailors’ clothes in their torpedo tubes sometimes, and fire them out to make us think that we’re attacking a British one.”
The red-haired officer opened his eyes a little. “They’re doing that now, are they?”
“That’s what he said. So then I got to wondering which of them was which, and if it really was the English one that—” she hesitated “ — that our people sank. So I came and saw Miss Hancock.”
“I see.”
There was a short silence. The commander sat motionless, staring at his blotting pad. Presently he said, “It’s been very good of you to come and put this to us, Miss Stevens. Very public-spirited. Now, I’m going to ask you to wait for about half an hour in Miss Hancock’s office while I see if I can get hold of any of these people—” He glanced at the pencilled names upon his pad. “Then we’ll have another talk.”
He smiled at her affably, and she went out with Miss Hancock. The commander waited till the door was shut, then lifted the telephone from his desk.
“I want the file on Caranx — the Court of Enquiry,” he said. “Send the signalman up with it.”
In a minute or two the signalman came in, a grey-haired sailor. The officer said, “Signalman, did you see a lady come in a little while ago, who wanted to see Miss Hancock?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She’s with Miss Hancock now, in her office. I don’t want her to leave the building. You’d better stay at the foot of the stairs.”
“Very good, sir.”
The red-haired officer turned to the file. Ten minutes later, he closed it and sat for a few moments staring out of the window at the elm trees in the middle of the Dockyard, at the rooks building in them. It was quite possible that there had been a second submarine. The evidence given to the Court was not inconsistent — in fact, it all pointed the same way. It would explain the very positive evidence of the pilot that there had been no marking on the hydrovanes, and it would explain why Caranx had answered no signals for an hour and forty minutes before she had supposedly been sunk. She was already at the bottom of the sea.
He opened the file again, and re-read the censure of the pilot in the findings of the Court. If this new story should turn out to be the truth, it meant the pilot had done well. Very well. In fact, he must have sunk the German that sunk Caranx. The Court would have to be recalled to reconsider its findings — to eat its words.
But now, what about this girl? He did not believe her story for one moment, that she had overheard the details of the sinking of Caranx by conversation in the bar. She knew the details far too well, almost as if she had had that very file of papers in her possession. There had been a leakage of information, a very serious leakage. Somebody who knew the whole thing had been desperately indiscreet, and not the least important part of the investigation would be to find how that barmaid got her knowledge of the proceedings of a secret Court.
He tucked the file under his arm, and went downstairs. He went into the office of the secretary to the Commander-in-Chief with a beaming, careless smile. He said to the paymaster captain, “Jumbo got any one with him?” In his younger days Admiral Sir James Blackett, K.C.B., had played centre forward for the Navy.
“I don’t think so. I’ll just see, if you like.”
“I wish you would.”
The paymaster captain went through the inner door behind the glass screen, that led to the Commander-in-Chief’s study. In a minute or two he reappeared. “Will you go in?”
He went through to the study. Admiral Blackett, white-haired and pale-faced, six foot three in height and massively built, was seated at his desk. A bright fire burned in the grate; the room was painted white, with tall windows. A large oil painting of Admiral the Earl St. Vincent hung above the fireplace.
Sutton said, “I’ve got the file on Caranx here, sir. Rather an odd thing has just happened about that.”
The Commander-in-Chief frowned. Caranx was still a sore subject. “What is it?” he asked tersely.
Ten minutes later he said, “Is the girl still here?”
The red-haired commander said, “She’s upstairs, sir. I thought it better not to let her go away.”
“Quite right. You might bring her down. I’d like to get to the bottom of this. I’ll see if I can get hold of Burnaby.” He lifted a telephone and spoke to his secretary.
Commander Sutton said diffidently, “Should I ring up Rutherford, over at Fort Blockhouse, sir?”
“I think you might. Ask him to come across.”
Ten minutes later, Commander Sutton brought Mona downstairs. “The Admiral wants to see you himself,” he said. “He’s quite a nice old stick.”
Mona followed him obediently; inwardly she was terrified. She would have got away if that had been possible, but she was caught in the grip of the machine. She steeled herself with the thought that they couldn’t eat her, anyway. She thought of Jerry, flippant and debonair. She must go through with it for his sake, and face whatever came.
They went through the secretary’s office into the study. The Commander-in-Chief was standing in front of the fire, a great tall man who dwarfed everybody else. He came forward as Mona came into the room.
Sutton said, “This is Miss Stevens, sir.”
The Admiral held out his hand. “How do you do, Miss Stevens.” Another officer entered the room behind them. “Oh, Burnaby, this is Miss Stevens — Captain Burnaby.” The captain bowed to the barmaid. “Miss Stevens has some evidence upon the loss of Caranx. I thought you might be interested to hear what she has to say.”
The iron-grey brows bent together in a frown. “I should indeed, sir.”
Commander Sutton intervened. “I have located Lieutenant James in T. 174, sir,” he said. “I think he is the officer that Miss Stevens knows as Mouldy James. The vessel is at North Wall. I spoke to him on the telephone, and he’s coming down now.” He paused. “Rutherford is on his way over.”
The Commander-in-Chief nodded. He turned to Mona. “Take a seat, Miss Stevens.” He drew up an arm chair for her before the fire. “Now, just tell us in your own words what you overheard during your work.”
Mona went through her story once again. From time to time they interrupted her with questions, shrewd, penetrating questions. Their questions were not hostile; rather they were designed to help her memory. She found that with their aid she remembered much more than she thought she had been able to. Commander Rutherford came in while she was being questioned, and took a chair by the wall.
Seated at the desk behind her back the secretary was taking notes.
Presently she got into difficulties.
It was Captain Burnaby who did it. He said, “There’s one thing that I don’t follow, Miss Stevens. This newspaper cutting that Lieutenant James had. Why didn’t he report the submarine which was said to have been sunk?”
She said, “I don�
�t think he paid much attention to it.”
“Then why did he keep the cutting? Why did he show it to you?”
She hesitated. She could not tell these officers, these men who were old enough to be her father — she could not tell them a low joke about rubber, especially when it wasn’t a very funny one. She said weakly, “I don’t know.”
The Commander-in-Chief looked down at her curiously. “He must have had some reason for showing it to you.”
She was silent. At last she said, “I think he just showed it to me, like.”
There was a short silence. To the officers her answer was unsatisfactory. It left an unexplained gap of motive; it indicated something that she wished to conceal. Instinctively they all came to the same conclusion; that she had started lying.
Presently Sutton said, “Where did you say that Caranx — or what we thought was Caranx — had been sunk, Miss Stevens?”
Mona said, “Just inside Area SM, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” The commander smiled at her; he did not want to frighten her. “But how did you know that? Who told you?”
She said, “I heard them talking in the bar.”
“You heard a great deal of detailed information in the bar, didn’t you? I mean, about the area, and the difficulty that the pilot had in identifying the submarine, and the way she sank. And then the clothes that were picked up — you heard about those, too. Somebody must have done a lot of talking in the bar. Who was it?”
She stared at him in dismay. It would never do to tell them about Jerry at this stage — she’d get him in an awful row. She said, “It was just officers, I think.”
“Several officers?”
“Yes — I think so.”
The Admiral said quietly, “Do you mean that the loss of Caranx was discussed in every detail by a number of officers in the bar?”
She was miserably silent. Then she said, “I suppose so.”
Captain Burnaby said, “Can you describe these officers to us?”
She shook her head. “I don’t really remember them.”
“But you remembered the others — Lieutenants Thomas and James.” His frown was terrible to her.
“Yes.”
“But you can’t remember anything about the ones who told you about Caranx?”
She shook her head.
The Admiral turned to the secretary. “Take Miss Stevens to your office for a few minutes and make her comfortable,” he said. “If you don’t mind, Miss Stevens . . .” Commander Sutton opened the door for her, and she went out with the secretary.
“She’s lying,” said Captain Burnaby.
The Commander-in-Chief said, “Yes, she’s lying some of the time. We shall have to check up on everything she has said.”
Commander Sutton said, “I feel that a good bit of it is true.”
Commander Rutherford said, “I agree with that, sir. Especially as regards the clothes. The fact that the clothes were soaked in fuel oil was always a mystery. Her story does at least explain that part of it.”
The paymaster captain came back into the room. “Lieutenant James is waiting, sir,” he said.
“Tell him to come in.”
Lieutenant James came in uneasily. In private life he was a young schoolmaster; all his life had been spent in schools and universities. He knew the atmosphere of Admiralty House very well; it was that of the headmaster’s study. The fact that he had been called there, ipso facto, meant that he was guilty of some misdemeanour, and he would have been much easier in his mind if he could have recollected what it was.
The Admiral’s first question did not reassure him in the least. The old man fixed him with a stony look, and said, “Lieutenant James, are you acquainted with the barmaid in the Royal Clarence Hotel?”
He was dumbfounded. “I — I go there sometimes,” he said.
“Did you ever show her a newspaper cutting?”
Recollection came to him. “I think I did once.”
“Have you still got the cutting?”
He felt for his wallet. “I should have it, sir.” He produced a slip of paper. “This is it.”
“Let me see it.” The young man gave it to him.
The Admiral read it through methodically, then passed it to Captain Burnaby. The other came to Burnaby and looked at it over his shoulder.
The Commander-in-Chief said, “What made you show this to the barmaid? Had you discussed submarines with her before?”
The young man was genuinely astonished. “Submarines, sir?”
“Yes, submarines, Mr. James. Were you in the habit of discussing submarines with this barmaid?”
A hideous vista of trouble loomed before the young schoolmaster. “I never did that, sir,” he expostulated. “It was quite another thing. We were having a joke about the rubber.”
“What was the joke?”
“I was with the contraband control when this ship was brought into Weymouth, sir. The captain said that his six hundred tons of rubber was for use in Holland as contraceptives, but he didn’t get away with that.”
The Admiral said dryly, “I imagine not, Mr. James.” Commander Sutton chuckled audibly: it was the kind of joke he liked.
The young man said, “No sir. I’ve got an uncle in Norfolk, Virginia, and he knew that I was in the contraband control. He sent me that cutting just for interest. As a matter of fact, it was more interesting than he thought. I kept the cutting as a souvenir.”
“Why did you show it to the barmaid then?”
“We were all laughing over it, and she asked what the joke was. So I showed it to her.”
Commander Sutton smiled broadly. “And you told her what the joke was?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Admiral said, “I see. Now, Mr. James, this cutting also mentions a submarine. Did you discuss that with the barmaid?”
“No, sir. Not at all.”
“Have you ever discussed this submarine story with anybody?”
“No, sir. I never thought about it much.”
They asked him a few more questions and sent him away, very much mystified. The Admiral laid the cutting on his desk.
Commander Sutton said, “I think that clears up one point, sir. She was lying when she said she didn’t know why he showed it to her, but that’s quite natural when you come to think of it. She didn’t want to talk to us about contraceptives.”
The Commander-in-Chief said, “That may very well be the case.”
Captain Burnaby said, “We still have the major point, how she came to know anything at all about Caranx. She was clearly lying when we asked her about that. I must say, I’m not satisfied. There’s been a very serious leakage of information, either from somebody who attended the Court of Enquiry, or from somebody else who had access to the papers.”
To the red-haired, red-faced, jovial Commander Sutton there came a sudden thought. It came to him because he was perhaps the youngest in years and in spirit of the four of them assembled in the room.
He said, “I should like to clear up this rubber point once and for all, sir. She’d probably tell me alone, when we should have difficulty if all four of us were questioning her. May I go and ask her one or two questions about that?”
The Admiral said, “By all means.”
Commander Sutton found Mona sitting disconsolate in the secretary’s office, behind the glass screen. He beamed at her. “Lieutenant James has just told us a funny story,” he said cheerfully. “He said that there was a low joke about rubber in that newspaper cutting, and that that’s why he showed it to you.”
She said, “That’s right. I didn’t like to say, in front of the Admiral, and all.”
He said merrily, “Well now, I think that’s rather funny. You know, we all thought you were hiding something terrible.”
“I wasn’t, honestly. Only that.”
He sat down on the arm of a chair. “Look, Miss Stevens — do you mind if I ask you rather a personal question? You needn’t answer it unless you want to.”
&nb
sp; She said, “All right . . .”
“Are you engaged — or going about a lot with anybody in particular?”
She looked down. “Sort of,” she said at last.
He smiled down at her, full of quite a genuine sympathy. “He’s in the Air Force, isn’t he?”
She was silent. It was no good trying to deceive these officers; they were too clever for her.
“Is he a pilot?” he said gently.
She nodded without speaking. They knew everything.
“Is he the pilot who sank Caranx?”
She raised her head. “He never did,” she said angrily. “You and your precious Court of Enquiry tried to make out he did, but that’s all wrong.”
He smiled at her. “We only want to get to the bottom of the thing,” he said. “We can’t do that if you hold out on the essential facts, because then we don’t know where we are at all. Look, tell me the whole of it. First of all, what’s his name?”
“Chambers,” she said, “Jerry Chambers. I don’t mean that — I mean Roderick Chambers.” He waited patiently while she collected herself. “He’s a flying officer.”
“And you’re engaged to him, are you?”
“Not properly. Sort of half and half.”
He thought for a minute. It was all becoming clear as crystal now. “I suppose when he was in trouble over Caranx, he told you all about it.”
“He had to tell somebody,” she said. “Who else was there for him to talk to? You was all against him.”
“I’m not blaming him, or you, or anybody,” he said. “I’m trying to help. Tell me, did you ever hear anything about Caranx except from Mr. Chambers?”
She shook her head. “Only from Jerry. They was talking about it a little in the bar the night it happened, or the night after, but not so that any one could hear.”
He smiled at her. “That clears up everything, Miss Stevens. Will you come in with me and tell this to the Admiral? I’ll help you.”
She got up reluctantly, and followed him back into the study. It was awful; she didn’t know what Jerry would say. But she was powerless to contend against these men.
