San Andreas Part 18

'Of course - so that the sister or nurse in charge of Ward A can let us know if any unauthorised person comes into the ward. That unauthorised person will be in the same state of ignorance as we are at the moment - he will not know whether that transceiver is in working order or not. He has to a.s.sume that it is, he has to a.s.sume that we may be in a position to send out an SOS to the Royal Navy. It's obviously all-important to the Germans that such a signal be not sent and that we remain alone and unprotected. They want us and they want us alive so the intruder will do everything in his power to destroy the set.'

'Wait a minute, wait a minute,' Patterson said. 'Intruder? Unauthorised person? What unauthorised person. Dr Singh is dead.'

'I've no idea who he is. All that I'm certain of is that he exists. You may remember that I said earlier that I thought we had more than one Flanneifoot aboard. Now I'm certain. Dr Sinclair, during the entire hour before Lieutenant Ulbricht and his Focke-Wulf made their appearance - and indeed for some time afterwards - you and Dr Singh were operating on the two wounded sailors - now the two dead sailors - from the Argos. That is correct?'

'That's so.' Sinclair looked and sounded puzzled.

'Did he leave the surgery at any time?'

'Not once.'

'And it was during this period that some unknown was busy tinkering with junction boxes and fuses. So, Flannelfoot number two.'

There was a brief silence, then Jamieson said: 'We're not very bright, are we? Of course you're right. We should have worked that out for ourselves.'

'You would have. Finding Dr Singh's dead body and then finding out what he was is enough to put any other thought out of your mind. It's only just now occurred to me. More time to get over the shock, I suppose.'

'Objection,' Patterson said. 'Query, rather. If that set is smashed the Germans have no means of tracking us.'

'They're not tracking us now,' McKinnon said patiently. 'Battery leads are disconnected. Even if they weren't, smashing the transceiver would be far the lesser of two evils. The last thing that Flannelfoot number two wants to see is the Royal Navy steaming over the horizon. They may have another transmitter cached away somewhere, although I very much doubt it. Dr Sinclair, would you please check the other cardiac unit in the dispensary, although I'm sure you'll find it okay.'

'Well,' Sinclair said, 'there's at least some satisfaction in knowing that they've lost us.'

'I wouldn't bet on that, Doctor. In fact, I'd bet against it. A submarine can't use its radio underwater but you have to remember that this lad was trailing us on the surface and was almost certainly in constant contact with its sh.o.r.e base. They'll know exactly our position and course at the time of the sinking of the submarine. I wouldn't even be surprised if there's another U-boat tagging along behind us - for some d.a.m.ned reason we seem to be very important to the Germans. And you mustn't forget that the further southwest we steam, the more hours of daylight we have. The sky's pretty clear and the chances are good that a Focke-Wulf or some such will pick us up during the day.'

Patterson looked at him morosely. 'You make a splendid Job's comforter, Bo'sun.'

McKinnon smiled. 'Sorry about that, sir. Just reckoning the odds, that's all.'

'The odds,' Janet said. 'You're betting against our chances of getting to Aberdeen, aren't you, Archie?'

McKinnon turned his hands palms upwards. 'I'm not a gambler and there are too many unknowns. Any of your opinions is just as good as mine. I'm not betting against our chances, Janet. I think we have a fair chance of making it.' He paused. 'Three things. I'll go and see Captain Andropolous and his men. I should think that "radio" is a pretty universal word. If not, sign language should work. Most of the crew of the Argos survived so the chances are good that there is a radio officer among them. He can have a look at this machine and see if we can transmit with it. Lieutenant Ulbricht, I'd be grateful if you could come up to the bridge when it's time and take a noon sight. Third thing - if the lights in Ward A fail at any time, whoever is in charge is to press the panic b.u.t.ton immediately.'

McKinnon made to rise, stopped and looked at his un-= touched drink.

"Well, perhaps after all, a toast to the departed. An old Gaelic curse, rather. Dr Singh. May his shade walk on the dark side of h.e.l.l tonight.' He raised his gla.s.s. 'To Flannelfoot.'

McKinnon drank his toast alone.

NINE.

Less than ten minutes after McKinnon's arrival on the bridge the phone rang.

'Jamieson here,' the voice said. 'Things do keep happening aboard this d.a.m.ned ship. There's been another accident.'

'Accident?'

'Accident on purpose. Incident, I should have said. Your pal Lima.s.sol.'

'Lima.s.sol' was the name that McKinnon had given to the man whom he had discovered to be the radio operator of the Argos. Apart from this discovery, the only other thing that the Bo'sun had been able to discover about him was that he was a Greek Cypriot from Lima.s.sol.

'What's happened to my pal Lima.s.sol?'

'He's been clobbered.'

'Ah.' McKinnon was not a man much given to exclamatory outbursts. 'Inevitably. Who clobbered him?'

'You should know better than to ask that question, Bo'sun. How the h.e.l.l should I know who clobbered him? n.o.body ever knows who does anything aboard the San Andreas. The Chief Officer was more prophetic than he knew when he gave this ship its new name. It's a b.l.o.o.d.y disaster area. I can only give you the facts as I know them. Sister Maria was on duty when Lima.s.sol sat down to have a look at the transceiver. After a while he stood and made the motion of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his forefinger against the palm of his other hand. She guessed, correctly, that he wanted tools and sent for Way land Day to take him down to the engine-room. I was there and gave him the tools he wanted. He also took a bridge-megger with him. Gave every impression of a man who knew what he was doing. On his way back, in the pa.s.sageway leading to the mess-deck, he was clobbered. Something hard and heavy.'

'How hard, how heavy?'

'If you'll just hang on for a moment. We have him down here in a bed in A Ward. Dr Sinclair is attending to him. He can tell you better than I can.'

There was a brief silence, then Sinclair was on the phone. 'Bo'sun? Well, d.a.m.n it, confirmation of the existence of Flannelfoot number two - not that any confirmation was needed, but I didn't expect such quick and violent proof. This lad doesn't hang around, does he? Dangerous, violent, acts on his own initiative and his mind's working on the same wavelength as ours.'

'Lima.s.sol?'

'Pretty poorly, to say the least. Some metallic object, no question, could easily have been a crowbar. I would guess that the attacker's intent was to kill him. With most people he might well have succeeded but this Lima.s.sol seems to have a skull like an elephant. Fractured, of course. I'll have an X-ray. Routine and quite superfluous but mandatory. No signs of any brain damage, which is not to say that there isn't any. But no obvious damage, not, at least, at this stage. Two things I'm pretty certain about, Mr McKinnon. He'll live but he's not going to be of much use to you - or anyone - for some time to come.'

'As Dr Singh said about Lieutenant Cunningham - two hours, two days, two weeks, two months?'

'Something like that. I've simply no idea. All I know is that if he does recover rapidly he'll be of no possible use to you for days to come, so you can rule him out of any plans you may have.'

'I'm fresh out of plans, Doctor.'

'Indeed. We seem to be running out of options. Mr Jamieson would like to have another word with you.'

Jamieson came back on the phone. 'Maybe this could' have been my fault, Bo'sun. Maybe if I'd been thinking a bit more clearly and a bit quicker this wouldn't have happened.'

'How on earth were you to know that Lima.s.sol was going to be attacked?'

'True. But I should have gone with him; not for his protection, but to watch him to see what he did to make the set work. That way I might have picked up enough to have some knowledge - rudimentary, but some - so that we wouldn't have to rely entirely on one man.'

'Flannelfoot would probably have clobbered you too. No point, sir, in trying to place the blame where none exists. The milk's spilt and you didn't spill it. Just give me enough time and I'll find out it was all McKinnon's fault.'

He hung up and related the gist of his conversation to Naseby, who had the wheel, and to Lieutenant Ulbricht, who had declared himself as feeling so fit that he no longer qualified as a bed patient.

'Disturbing,' Ulbricht said. 'Our friend seems to be resourceful, very quick-thinking and very much a man of decision and action. I say "disturbing" because it has just occurred to me that he may have been Flannelfoot number one and not Dr Singh, in which case we can expect a great deal more unpleasantness. In any event, it seems to rule out the crew of the Argos - none of them speaks English so they couldn't have known about the fake cardiac unit being in A Ward.'

McKinnon looked morose. The fact that none of them appears to understand a word of English - they're very good with their blank stares when you address them in that language - doesn't mean that one or two of them don't speak better English than I do. It doesn't rule out the crew of the Argos. And, of course, it doesn't rule out our own crew or the nine invalids we picked up in Murmansk.'

'And how would they have known that the tampered cardiac unit had been transferred from the recovery room to Ward A? Only - let me see - only seven people knew about the transfer. The seven at the table this morning. One of us could have talked, perhaps?'

'No.' McKinnon was very definite.

'Inadvertently?'

'No.'

'You trust us that much?' Ulbricht smiled but there was no humour in it. 'Or is it that you have to trust somebody?'

'I trust you all right.' McKinnon sounded a little weary. 'Point is, it wasn't necessary for anyone to talk. Everybody knows that Dr Singh and the two injured crewmen from the Argos are dead.' McKinnon made a dismissive little gesture with his hand. 'After all, we're going to bury them inside the half-hour. Everybody knows that they were killed by an explosive blast inside the recovery room and our newest Flannelfoot must have known that the transceiver was there and may have guessed, or suspected, that the case of the cardiac unit had been damaged sufficiently to reveal the existence of the transmitter. It had not, in fact, but that was pure luck on my part.'

'How do you explain the attack on the radio officer?'

'Easily.' McKinnon looked and sounded bitter. 'Flannelfoot didn't have to know where the radio was, all he had to know was that we had developed a certain interest in radio. Mr Jamieson tried to take some of the blame for the attack. Totally unnecessary when Mastermind McKinnon is around. My fault. My fault entirely. When I went down to find a radio officer the crew of the Argos were, as usual, in a corner by themselves. They weren't alone in the mess-deck - some of the injured men we picked up in Murmansk and some of our crew were there - but not close enough to hear us talking. Not that there was any talking. I just said the word "radio" several times, low enough not to be overheard, and this lad from Lima.s.sol looked at me. Then I made a motion of tapping my forefinger as if sending a signal in Morse. After that, I spun the handle of an imaginary electrical generator. None of this could have been seen except by the crew of the Argos. Then I made my stupid mistake. I cupped my hand to my ear as if listening to something. By this time Lima.s.sol had got the message and was on his feet. But our new Flannelfoot had got the message too. Just one little movement of my hand and he got it. He's not only violent and dangerous but very smart too. An unpleasant combination.'

'Indeed it is,' Ulbricht said. 'You have it right, you must have, and I can't see any reason for self-reproach. I used the right word back there - disturbing.'

Naseby said: 'Do you by any chance remember who exactly was in the mess-deck when you were there?'

'I do. Every crew member who wasn't on watch. On the deckside, only two were on watch - you and Trent down in the Captain's cabin there keeping an eye on the s.e.xtant and chronometer. All the off-duty engine-room staff. Two cooks and Mario. Seven of the seventeen invalids we picked up in Murmansk - the three who were supposed to be tubercular cases, the three who are supposed to be suffering from nervous breakdowns, and one of the exposure cases. He's so wrapped in bandages that he can barely walk so he doesn't come into consideration. A couple of nurses - they don't come into consideration either. And there's no doubt you're right, Lieutenant - the crew of the Argos has to be in the clear.'

'Well, that's something,' Ulbricht said. 'A moment ago you were expressing reservations against them which I found rather puzzling, as in that long talk in the Captain's cabin we had more or less agreed that the crew of the Argos was in the clear. The original suggestion, you may remember, came from you.'

'I remember. Next thing you know I'll be looking into the mirror and saying "and I don't trust you, either". Yes, I know I made the suggestion, but I still had this tiny doubt.

At the time I more than suspected that we had another Flannelfoot aboard but I wasn't certain until less than half an hour ago. It's impossible to believe that it wasn't our new Flannelfoot who blew the hole in the for'ard ballast room when we were alongside that sinking corvette. And it's unthinkable - and for me this is the clincher - that a member of the Argos crew would deliberately set out to murder a person who was not only a crewmate but a fellow countryman.'

'At least it's something,' Naseby said. 'Brings it down to our own crew, doesn't it?'

'Yes, our crew - and at least six allegedly physical and mentally disturbed cripples from Murmansk.'

Naseby shook his head sorrowfully. 'Archie, this trip is going to be the ruination of you. Never known you to be so terribly suspicious of everybody - and you've just said you could find yourself not even trusting yourself.'

'If a nasty suspicious mind is any kind of hope for survival, George, then I'm going to keep on having just that kind of mind. You will remember that we had to leave Halifax in a tearing hurry, in a cargo ship little more than half converted to a hospital. Why? To get to Archangel and that with all possible speed. Then, after that little accident when we were alongside that corvette it became equally essential that we be diverted to Murmansk. Why?'

'Well, we were listing a bit and down by the head.'

'We had stopped making water, weather conditions were fair, we could have reached the White Sea, crossed it, and made Archangel without much trouble. But no, it was Murmansk or nothing. Again, why?'

'So that the Russians could place that explosive charge in the ballast room.' Ulbricht smiled. 'I recall your words -our gallant allies.'

'I recall them too. I wish I didn't. We all make mistakes, I'm certainly no exception, and that was one of my biggest. The Russians didn't place that charge - your people did.'

'The Germans? Impossible!'

'Lieutenant, if you imagine Murmansk and Archangel aren't botching with German spies and agents, you're living in Alice's never-never Wonderland.'

'It's possible, it's possible. But to infiltrate a Russian naval working party - that's impossible.'

'It's not impossible but it doesn't even have to be necessary. People are capable of being suborned, and while it may not be true that every man has his price, there are always those who have.'

'A Russian traitor, you suggest?'

'Why not? You have your traitors. We have our traitors. Every country has its traitors.'

'Why should we - the Germans - want to place a charge in the San Andreas?'

'I simply have no idea. In the same way as I have simply no idea why the Germans have attacked, hara.s.sed and pursued us - but not tried to sink us - ever since we rounded the North Cape. What I'm suggesting is, it's very likely that the same German agent or agents suborned one or more of the invalids we picked up in Murmansk. An alleged psychiatric case or mental breakdown patient, who is sick of both the war and the sea, would make an ideal choice for the traitor's part and I shouldn't even imagine that the price would have to be very high.'

'Objection, Mr McKinnon. It was a last-minute decision to detach the San Andreas from the convoy. You can't suborn a man overnight.'

'True. At the most, highly unlikely. Maybe they knew a week or two ago that we would be detached to Murmansk.'

'How on earth could they have known that?'

'I don't know. The same way I don't know why someone in Halifax knew quite a long time ago that Dr Singh would be in need of a transceiver.'

'And you don't think it extraordinary that the Russians, if they were not responsible for placing that charge, should have brought the San Andreas into Murmansk apparently for the sole benefit of your mysterious German agents?'

'They're not my agents but they're mysterious all right. The answer again is that I simply don't know. The truth appears to be that I just don't know anything about anything.' He sighed. 'Ah, well. Close to noon, Lieutenant. I'll go get the s.e.xtant and chronometer.'

Lieutenant Ulbricht straightened from the chart. 'Still, remarkably, holding the same course - 213. Precisely 64 North. Ideally, we should steer due south now but we're near enough to Trondheim as we are now, and that would only bring us closer. I suggest we maintain this course for the present, then turn due south some time during the night, midnight or thereabouts. That should bring us down the east coast of your native islands tomorrow, Mr McKinnon. I'll work it out.' 'You're the navigator,' McKinnon said agreeably.

In marked contrast to the conditions that had existed exactly forty-eight hours previously when the ma.s.s burial had taken place, the weather was now almost benign. The wind was no more than Force three, the sea calm enough to keep the San Andreas on an all but steady keel, and the cloud cover consisted of no more than a wide band of white, fleecy, mackerel sky against the pale blue beyond. McKinnon, standing by the starboard rail of the San Andreas, derived no pleasure whatsoever from the improvement: he would greatly have preferred the blanketing white blizzard of the previous burial.

Besides, the Bo'sun, the only other attendants or witnesses - by no stretch of the imagination could they have been called mourners - at the burial were Patterson, Jamieson, Sinclair and the two stokers and two seamen who had brought up the bodies. No one else had asked to come. For obvious reasons no one was going to mourn Dr Singh, and only Sinclair had known the two dead crewmen from the Argos and even then as no more than two unconscious bodies on operating tables.

Dr Singh was unceremoniously tipped over the side - not for him the well-wishing for his journey into the hereafter. Patterson, who would obviously never have made it as a clergyman, quickly read the liturgy from the prayer-book over the two dead Greek seamen and then they, too, were gone.

Patterson closed the prayer-book. 'Twice of that lot is twice too often. Let's hope there's not going to be a third time.' He looked at McKinnon. 'I suppose we just plod on on our far from merry way?'

'All we can do, sir. Lieutenant Ulbricht suggests that we alter course by and by to due south. That'll take us on a more direct route to Aberdeen. He knows what he's about. But that will be approximately twelve hours yet.'

'Whatever's best.' Patterson gazed around the empty horizon. 'Doesn't it strike you as rather odd, Bo'sun, that we've been left unmolested, or at least not located, for the better part of three hours? Since all communication from the U-boat has ceased in that time they must be very dense if they're not aware that something is far wrong with it.'

'I should imagine that Admiral Doenitz's U-boat fleet commander in Trondheim is very far from dense. I've the feeling they know exactly where we are. I understand that some of the latest U-boats are quite quick under water and one could easily be trailing us by Asdic without our knowing anything about it.' Like Patterson, only much more slowly, he looked around the horizon, then stood facing the port quarter. 'We are being tailed.'

'What? What's that?'

'Can't you hear it?'

Patterson c.o.c.ked his head, then nodded slowly. 'I think I can. Yes, I can.'

'Condor,' McKinnon said. 'Focke-Wulf.' He pointed. 'I can see it now. It's coming straight out of the east and Trondheim is about due east of us now. The pilot of that plane knows exactly where we are. He's been told, probably via Trondheim, by the U-boat that's trailing us.'

'I thought a submarine had to surface to transmit?'

'No. All it has to do is to raise its transmitting aerial above the water. It could do that a couple of miles away and we wouldn't see it. Anyway, it's probably a good deal further distant than that.'

'One wonders what the Condor's intentions are.'