Finally, he gave in to the lurking sense of unease. He drained his malt whisky, grabbed his oilskin and a torch. He stumbled up the companionway. The wind howled and the icy raindrops lashed his craggy old face. He didn’t notice them. Instead he moved slowly across the slick, wet deck shining his torch suspiciously from side to side, the knowledge that something was amiss growing on him by the second.
But nothing seemed out of place. The pots of white paint they had used to paint the Swordfish were still neatly stacked. The fake sail which they had rigged that day to lend credence to the cover story that this was a pleasure cruiser was still expertly furled. All was in order.
‘Ach, ye silly old bletherer,’ he said to himself, in the fashion of lonely men. ‘Ye’re na mair than a daft Jessie—’ He stopped short. In a momentary lull in the howling wind, he caught another, strange sound. It was above him on the jetty. His reaction was very quick for such an old man. He flashed his torch up immediately. A small man in a long un-English-looking raincoat that came virtually down to his ankles was crouched there next to the pile of oil drums which they had used to fuel up the Swordfish that morning. ‘Hey,’ he challenged angrily, ‘what’s yer little game—’
Something flashed silver in the man’s suddenly raised hand. Ferguson didn’t hesitate. He flung the heavy torch straight at the little man. He yelped with pain. The knife clattered to the jetty. In that same instant, CPO Ferguson had hauled himself over the side. The little man, still holding his hand, which was running with blood, backed terrified against the drums. ‘Nicht schlagen!’ he shrieked with fear. ‘Bitte – nicht schlagen!’
‘A bluidy foreigner, eh. Well, tek that!’ Ferguson hauled back his fist and slammed it right into the little man’s terrified face. He went flying backwards, scattering the oil drums with a hellish clatter, unconscious before he hit the wet concrete.
Nine
Dawn!
Outside the storm had abated. To the east the sky was beginning to tint a faint pink. The sea was glass-calm, green and unruffled. It promised to be a nice day.
A weary Smith hoped it would be, for after what they had learnt this long, very long, night, the Swordfish would sail as soon as everything was ready and – and that wouldn’t be long. The crew, most of them hungover, were already busy about their duties under the supervision of jubilant CPO Ferguson, proud of his capture of the previous night. ‘Ay, wiel,’ he kept reminding them of how he’d knocked out the little German, ‘ye mind I was the Fleet’s middleweight in the old days.’ And even Ginger Kerrigan’s snide comment, ‘Yer mean under Nelson, Chiefie?’ didn’t put him off his stroke.
Smith and Bird had recognised the unconscious man, as soon as Ferguson had dragged him into the snug, trailing water all over the polished floor. Despite the bloody face and the broken nose, which was already beginning to swell rapidly, they had both exclaimed in unison, ‘It’s him – the little man on the train at Grantham!’
Without the slightest scruple they had rifled through his pockets, found the German passport with its eagle stamp, and a round metal badge the size of a half crown with a long number stamped on it and the word ‘Kriminalpolizei’, which they reasoned meant ‘criminal police’. ‘Something like our CID,’ Bird said. ‘Funny kind of CID though – trying to kill two handsome innocent types like ourselves!’ He had laughed, but there was no merriment in the sound.
An hour later two heavy, plodding constables and a sharp-eyed little plain-clothed detective had arrived to take the man away for further questioning. For, although there were no charges they could prefer against him – he had done nothing criminal – C, in answer to a hurried phone call, had ordered the German to be detained at His Majesty’s pleasure, which meant the local police would be able to hold him until the big boys from the Special Branch got to work on him.
But, in the meantime, helped by Ferguson’s constant threatening look, they had done their inexpert best to get what information they could out of the terrified, still bleeding prisoner. He was indeed a detective, but a very special one, it seemed.
By now they had given him a drink and a cigarette, and with a handkerchief, red with his own blood, clutched to his broken nose, he explained. ‘In the war I was no good for soldier,’ He tapped his skinny chest with his free hand, and coughed. ‘TBC.’
Smith nodded, ‘Consumption.’
‘Ja, ja, Tuberklosis. So I became detective for Colonel Nicolai. Like your secret service.’
It appeared that during the four years of war he had worked as a detective for the wartime head of the German Abwehr, blackmailing, shadowing suspects and probably indulging in bits of petty thuggery here and there also.
Now there was no German secret service – officially – and he had begun to work for a Kapitanleutnant von Horn of the banned Naval Intelligence organisation. ‘Very bad man,’ he had exclaimed with some vigour. ‘I fear him.’ The man he described as his new boss was the man with the cropped skullcap of yellow hair that Smith had glanced at in the corridor and known instinctively to be the enemy.
‘Look,’ Smith had said, as the window panes rattled in the gale and the petroleum lamp had flickered, casting their shadows against the walls of the snug, ‘I’m ready to see that after a time you are quietly deported with no charges laid against you. There might be some money in it, too.’
‘Money, yes, I understand,’ the little man said eagerly, still trying to staunch the flow of blood.
‘What did this von Horn fellow tell you about us?’ Smith continued.
‘Not very much. He tells things only to his boys. You understand. He does this.’ He thrust the tip of his thumb between his two other fingers, the continental gesture for fornication.
Dickie Bird whistled softly, ‘You mean he has sex with boys?’ he exclaimed.
The little man didn’t understand the phrase. Instead he said, ‘Ja, Ja, Homosexuell. But he did tell me that he has fought against you in the Baltic and in the – er Mittelmeer.’
‘Mediterranean?’
‘Yes, before, and that you are bad men, very important English spies. You must be liquidated before you can cause trouble in Germany again – this year.’
The cross-examination had gone on a little longer, but had produced little else of importance, save that this von Horn had become a friend of the new right-wing rabble-rousers in Munich.
Now this dawn, with the sun beginning to slip a bright, blood-red over the lip of the sea, both Smith and Bird knew that their mission had been virtually compromised from the outset. Still, Smith was determined to go ahead with it. ‘We don’t want swine like this von Horn chap and his cronies to take over in Germany. Then we’ll be back to the bad old days before 1914 with the Huns throwing their weight about all over the place. The country’s got to have a chance of becoming a democracy.’
‘Agreed, old bean,’ Dickie said, ‘though sometimes I think Europe would have been a happier place if Germany hadn’t existed at all, but no matter. Look at it like this: So the Hun has twigged us. What can he do?’ Dickie answered his own question. ‘In Dutch waters nothing, at least officially. There’ll be a bit of a problem at Emmerich on the Dutch–German frontier, but with a bit of luck, we can pull it off. Once we’re in the Rhineland, we stick to the left bank, occupied by our own forces.’
Smith considered a few moments, his harshly handsome face set and tense. Outside Billy Bennett was singing in a highly untuneful bass, ‘Never bin done, queen of all the fairies, isn’t it a pity she’s only one titty to feed the baby on…’
‘I’m ready to have a go, Dickie. But I’m not risking the chaps’ lives without their approval. They’re a rough-and-ready lot, but they’re the salt of the earth, too. I’m going to put them in the big picture and ask them what they think.’
‘Good idea.’
A few minutes later Ferguson had ‘stood the men to’, and Smith was telling them what he knew. ‘I think we’re up against that chap and his hirelings who tried to wreck the Swordfish in France last year. N
ow we know that he’s a Hun called von Horn, something big in their intelligence and, I must add, an absolute swine who will stop at nothing, including cold-blooded murder.’ He looked grimly around the circle of their faces, but if he expected to find fear or apprehension on them, Smith was disappointed. They remained, as always, attentive, interested, calm.
‘Well,’ Smith went on, ‘I feel I must tell you this, lads, this von Horn chap knows we’re coming. How we will do it, he doesn’t know, but as I have said, he knows we’re off to Germany for this coming show. Now I want to put this to you. In view of the fact that we’ve already been rumbled and this snake von Horn is highly dangerous, do you want to go ahead with it?’ Swiftly he added, ‘I won’t take it amiss, if you say no. I value your courage and past loyalty too much for that. Well, what do you say, chaps?’
CPO Ferguson shot a hard look to left and right, as if he suspected there might be some waverers. He was wrong.
As one of the crew said, ‘We’re on, sir! No squarehead is gonna frighten off the good old Swordfish!’
Smith beamed at them, feeling that old warmth for these men of no education and few prospects who were prepared to risk their young lives for a pittance. ‘Thank you,’ he said thickly, so much moved that tears shot into his eyes.
Ferguson turned on the crew. ‘Well, come on,’ he snorted, ‘don’t just stand there like a lot o’ old biddies, gossiping afore the dramshop. Get back to yer jobs.’
Cheerfully, whistling and joking, as if they hadn’t got a care in the world, the men trooped back down to the jetty and their last few tasks on the Swordfish.
Four hours later they were on their way, plodding through a calm sea, sailing close to the coast, heading southwards, and still in sight of the land, each man on watch carrying out his duties in a quiet, routine manner, but without the usual banter common on board ships of His Majesty’s Royal Navy.
Smith felt the mood. It had always been like this, he knew, when they were setting off on a show. Suddenly, it seemed, the men realised that they might be leaving the Old Country for ever.
‘Penny for them, Smithie?’ Dickie Bird asked softly, as they stood together on the bridge, eyeing the flat mudbanks of the Lincolnshire coast.
‘The usual at these times,’ Smith answered, equally softly, pointing to the coastline. ‘Doesn’t look much does it? Mud, cliff, soggy fields and a few scruffy cows. But it’s England – our England.’
‘I know what you mean, Smithie,’ Dickie said, unusually serious for him, his normal bantering, affected tone vanished. ‘There’s no place like it in the whole wide world, is there?’
‘You can bet your bottom dollar on that,’ Smith said with sudden enthusiasm, his mood vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. ‘God, to think that that little island rules over one third of the world. All that red on the map! A while back this morning I had my doubts about this show. Not now. We British have always triumphed in the past, come what may. We’ll do it again now.’
‘Of course we will, Smithie,’ Dickie cried, infected by his old friend’s sudden change of mood. ‘We’ll show those bloody Huns who’s top dog. Now then, we can leave the helm to dear old Chiefie here—’
CPO Ferguson shot Bird a look, but said nothing. In all his years of service in the Royal Navy he had never got used to the strange ways of officers. They were a breed apart.
‘—And go and tuck ourselves around a large pink gin in the wardroom. We’re going to celebrate.’
‘Celebrate – what?’
‘The new show, you deuced ass. Come on.’
Grinning like schoolboys suddenly released from boring lessons, they went clattering down the steps towards the wardroom, while up on the prow a suddenly happy Billy Bennett began to sing: ‘And the mate at the wheel had a blood good feel of the girl I left behind me…’
They were on their way.
Book Two
The Plot Thickens
‘Wooden eye – stay alert.’
Old German Saying
One
They took Dietz at midnight.
Half an hour before he had seen the signal, the light being switched off twice in rapid succession. That meant her husband had gone to his job on the night shift at the post office. She opened the back door, looked sharply to left and right, and within minutes they had been writhing and twisting on the sofa in the ‘best room’ under the disapproving gaze of her elderly husband in the photograph on the wall above.
Dietz wasn’t a passionate man, but Klara, as she was called, was well endowed and had been deprived. It was she who took the initiative. Now, with her legs tucked around his skinny neck tightly, the sweat pouring off her naked body, she was gasping, ‘Albert… Just a bit longer…’ when the door burst open and there they stood.
Four of them. Big men dressed in leather overcoats, dark hats pulled well down over their foreheads, no expression on their lower faces.
Klara didn’t even scream. She couldn’t. She simply collapsed on the rumpled sofa, as the leader of the intruders tapped Dietz on the skinny yellow rump with the silencer of his pistol, saying in a low voice, ‘All right, the fun’s over. You’re coming with us.’
‘But where?’ he managed to gasp, knowing that the game was up already. He had been a damned fool to cross over to the other side of the Rhine to have his fun with the neglected suburban housewife. McIntyre had always warned him about it. Now it had really landed him in the shit, as McIntyre would have said. ‘Are you the police?’
‘Don’t ask questions – just get dressed,’ their leader said in a voice devoid of emotion. Dietz could see he wasn’t even interested in Klara’s ample charms, as she lay there in sweat-glazed confusion, her legs spread widely.
Almost sadly Dietz got to his feet and reached for his long woollen underpants with the buttons at the back. He pulled them on slowly, his mind racing, wondering if there was any way out of the mess he had got himself into. But after a moment’s consideration, he realised there wasn’t. The window was tightly shuttered and one of the men in leather coats was standing in front of the door. He started to pull on his shirt.
The leader spoke to the woman. ‘Pull yourself together,’ he said sharply, ‘and don’t say anything of this. Or your husband will find out what his darling little wifey does when he’s away working at night. Clear?’
Suddenly Klara realised she was naked in front of four strange men. She closed her legs sharply. One hand went to conceal her breasts, the other to cover her pubic hair.
‘Did you hear me, bitch?’ the leader snarled, suddenly losing his temper. ‘Answer me!’ He slapped her hard so that her face slammed against the pillow.
‘I hear you,’ she said and began to cry softly.
‘Good. Now remember what I’ve said. Now you,’ he turned to Dietz, who suddenly was overcome by an overwhelming fear, as he realised abruptly just how dangerous these men were. ‘Get a move on. We haven’t got all day.’
Fingers like clumsy sausages trembling with fear, Dietz threaded the stud through his collar and wound his tie around his skinny neck. A minute later, he was outside in the deserted street. The leader whistled. At the end of the road, car headlights suddenly flicked on. A car motor started and a new Mercedes, all gleaming paintwork and polished chromium lamps, came rolling smoothly down the street towards them.
‘Get in,’ the leader ordered sharply and gave Dietz a push, which sent him flying into the back seat. A moment later the big black car was speeding away into the unknown…
* * *
‘Permission to speak, sir?’ Sergeant Hurt was an old sweat, but he was a guardsman, too. Now, after ten years of service and four years in the trenches, he had not lost his old Brigade of Guards’ habits. He slammed his right foot down hard and stood rigidly to attention in front of McIntyre’s desk.
The Canadian winced. ‘God Almighty, Hurt,’ he complained, as he had often complained before, ‘must you be so damned regimental?’
Hurt, whose keen blue eyes seemed to be fixe
d on a spot known only to him somewhere in the far distance, snapped, ‘No sir. Trained like that, sir part of the system, sir.’ Hurt always talked in short, staccato phrases.
McIntyre gave up. ‘All right, stand at ease and speak.’
Hurt’s right foot shot out and he slammed his ammunition boot to the floor, placing both arms behind his back. ‘Dietz didn’t report for duty, sir. This morning, sir. Should have been on at eight hundred hours, sir. Didn’t turn up, sir.’
McIntyre sat up. The Canadian didn’t like Germans on principle, but the little ex-deserter from the Kaiser’s army had been very useful to him as both an interpreter and a spy. ‘That’s funny,’ he said slowly. ‘Those Huns are a pretty punctual bunch as a rule.’
‘Yessir.’
McIntyre scratched his head. ‘What do you make of it, Hurt?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’ Hurt had learned in ten years of service never to volunteer opinions, especially to officers. That way, you avoided trouble.
‘Jerry bint outside, sir. Dietz’s bit o’ stuff, sir. She’s crying, sir. Can’t make head nor tail of what she’s saying, sir. She might know, sir.’
‘Bring her in, quick.’
‘At the double, sir!’ Hurt slammed his boot down with tremendous panache and again the Canadian winced.
Moments later he returned, ushering in a large, full-breasted woman with fading blonde hair, who looked red-eyed, as if she had been crying a lot. ‘The woman, sir,’ Hurt announced.
Death on the Rhine Page 7
