San Andreas Part 20

'Everybody. Not forgetting Curran and Ferguson.' Those two had been holed up in the carpenter's shop in the bows. 'Riot Act duly read. Anybody making the slightest sound after we stop - after the engines have stopped, rather -inadvertently or not, will be silenced. Talking only in whispers. Tell me, Bo'sun, is it really true that you can pick up the sound of a knife and fork on a plate?'

'I don't really know. I don't know how sensitive the listening devices on a modern U-boat are. I do know that the sound of a spanner being dropped on a steel deck is easily detectable. No chances.'

He went into the two wards, checked that everybody had been told of the need for absolute silence, switched on the emergency lamps and went down to the engine-room. Only Jamieson and McCrimmon were there. Jamieson looked at him and switched on an emergency lamp.

'Now, I take it?'

'It's as dark as it's going to get, sir.'

Even by the time McKinnon had reached the mess-decks the engine revolutions had fallen away. He sat down at a mess table next to Patterson and waited in silence until the engines had stopped and the sound of the generator had died away. With the complete silence and only the feeble light from the emergency lamps to illuminate the area, the atmosphere held the elements of both the eerie and the sinister.

Patterson whispered: 'No chance that the U-boat will think that their listening apparatus has failed?'

'No, sir. You wouldn't have to be a very efficient Asdic operator to know when engine revolutions are falling, then dying away.'

Jamieson and McCrimmon appeared, each carrying an emergency lamp. Jamieson sat beside McKinnon.

'All we need now, Bo'sun, is a ship's chaplain.'

'A few prayers wouldn't come amiss, sir. Especially a prayer that Flannelfoot hasn't got a bug sending out a location signal.'

'Please. Don't even talk about such things." He was silent for some moments, then said: 'We're heeling, aren't we?'

'We are, yes. Naseby is making a 180 turn, heading back the way we came.'

'Ah!' Jamieson looked thoughtful. 'So that he will overshoot us. Turning back on our tracks. But won't he do the same? I mean, wouldn't that be the first thing that would occur to him?'

'Quite honestly, I don't and wouldn't have the faintest idea as to what his first, second or tenth thoughts are. His first thought might be that our reversing course is so obvious a ploy that he's not even going to consider it. He might even think that we're carrying straight on for the Norwegian coast, which is so ludicrous a possibility that he may even be considering it. Or we might be heading back north-east again for the Barents Sea. Only a madman would do that, of course, but he'll have to consider the fact, whether we think he thinks we're mad or not. Alternatively - and there are a lot of alternatives - he may figure that once we figure we're clear of his Asdic clutches we'll just continue on our course to Aberdeen. Or some place in north Scotland. Or the Orkneys. Or the Shetlands. There are an awful lot of options open to us and the chances are that he will pick the wrong one.'

'I see,' Jamieson said. 'I say this in admiration, Bo'sun, and not in reproof: you have a very devious mind.'

'Let's just hope the Oberleutnant in charge of that U-boat out there hasn't an even more devious mind.' He turned to Patterson. 'I'm going up top to join Naseby and see if there's any sign of life around.'

'Sign of life? You mean you think the U-boat may have surfaced and is looking for us.'

'May have done.'

'But it's dark, you said.'

'He'll have a searchlight. Two of them, for all I know.'

Jamieson said: 'And you think he'll be using them?'

'It's a possibility. Not a probability. He's bound to know by this time what happened to his fellow U-boat this morning.'

Patterson touched his arm. 'You wouldn't - ah - be considering another possibility - another collision?'

'Heavens, no. I don't really think the San Andreas could survive another b.u.mp like that. Not, of course, that the captain of that submarine is to know that. He may well be convinced that we're desperate enough for anything.'

'And we're not?'

'It's a long way down to the bottom of the Norwegian Sea.' McKinnon paused reflectively. 'What we really need now is a nice little old blizzard.'

'Still the Condor, still the flares. Is that it, Bo'sun?' /It's not a thought that goes away easily.' He turned to Jamieson. 'Under way in half an hour, sir?'

'Half an hour it is. But gently, gently?'

'If you would, sir.'

McKinnon examined the sea from both sides of the upper deck but all was dark and quiet and still. He climbed to the bridge and went out on the wings, but even from this higher perspective there was nothing to be seen, no sweeping finger of a searchlight, nothing.

'Well, George, this makes a change. All is quiet, all is peaceful.'

'Is that a good sign or a bad one?' .

'Take your pick. Still quite a bit under way, aren't we?'

'Yes. I've just picked up our wake. And I've just located a couple of stars, one off the port bow, the other off the starboard. No idea what they are, of course, but it should keep us heading more or less west until we come to a halt.'

'Which should take quite a while yet.'

In just under fifteen minutes the San Andreas was dead in the water and fifteen minutes after that she came to life again, albeit very, very slowly. From the bridge any sounds from the engine-room were quite inaudible, the only indication that they were under way came from the very faint vibration of the superstructure. After a few minutes McKinnon said: 'Any steerage way yet, George?'

'Barely. We're about ten degrees off course right now. To the south. A couple of minutes and we'll be heading west again. I wonder, I wonder.'

'You wonder, I wonder, we all wonder - are we alone in the Norwegian Sea or do we have company, company that has no intention of making its presence known? I just guess and hope that we're alone. Beyond a certain distance a submarine is not very good at picking up a very slow-turning engine and prop. What it can pick up is a generator - which is why there will be no lights down below for another fifteen minutes yet.'

Just under half an hour after McKinnon had arrived on the bridge the telephone bell shrilled. Naseby answered and handed the phone to the Bo'sun.

'Bo'sun? This is Ward A. Sinclair speaking. I think you had better come down.' Sinclair sounded weary or dispirited, or both. 'Flannelfoot has struck again. There's been an accident. No need to break your neck, though n.o.body's been hurt.'

'We've been far too long without an accident.' The Bo'sun felt as weary as Sinclair. 'What happened?'

'Transceiver's wrecked.'

'That's just splendid. I'm on my way - at a leisurely pace.' He replaced the phone. Flannelfoot's at it again, George. It seems that the transceiver in Ward A is not quite what it was."

'Oh Jesus.' It wasn't an exclamation of shock, horror or anger, just a sign of resignation. 'Why wasn't the alarm buzzer pressed.'

'I shall no doubt find that out when I get there. I'll send Trent to relieve you. I suggest you broach Captain Bowen's supplies. Life aboard the San Andreas, George, is like life everywhere, just one d.a.m.ned thing after another.'

The first thing that took McKinnon's eye in Ward A was not the transceiver in the Cardiac Arrest box but the sight of Margaret Morrison, eyes closed, lying on a bed with Janet Magnusson bending over her. The Bo'sun looked at Dr Sinclair, who was sitting disconsolately in the chair that was normally occupied by the ward sister.

'I thought you said n.o.body had been hurt.'

'Not hurt in the medical sense, although Sister Morrison might take issue with me on that matter. She's been chloroformed but will be fine in a few minutes.'

'Chloroformed? Flannelfoot doesn't seem to have a very original turn of mind.'

'He's a callous b.a.s.t.a.r.d. This girl has just been wounded, once quite nastily, but this character seems to have been missing when they handed out humanitarian instincts.'

'You expect delicacy and a tenderness of feeling from a criminal who tries to murder a man with a crowbar?' McKinnon walked to the side of the table and looked down at the mangled remains of the transceiver. 'I'll spare you the obvious remarks. Naturally, of course, no one knows what happened because of course there were no eyewitnesses.'

'That's about it. If it's any use, Nurse Magnusson here was the person to discover this.'

McKinnon looked at her. 'Why did you come through? Did you hear a noise?'

She straightened from the bed and looked at him with some disfavour.

'You are a cold-blooded fish, Archie McKinnon. This poor, poor girl lying here, the radio smashed and you don't even look upset or annoyed, far less furious. / am furious.'

'I can see that. But Margaret will be all right and the set is a total ruin. I see no point in getting angry about things I can do nothing about and what pa.s.ses for my mind has other things to worry about. Did you hear anything?'

'You're hopeless. No, I heard nothing. I just came in to talk to her. She was crumpled over her table. I ran for Dr Sinclair and we lifted her into this bed here.'

'Surely someone saw something. They couldn't all have been asleep.'

'No. The Captain and the Chief Officer were awake.' She smiled sweetly. 'You may have noticed, Mr McKinnon, that the eyes of both Captain Bowen and Chief Officer Rennet are heavily bandaged.'

'You just wait,' McKinnon said sotto voce, 'until I get you to the Shetlands. They think a lot of me in Lerwick.' She made a moue and the Bo'sun looked across to Bowen. 'Did you hear anything, Captain?'

'I heard something that sounded like the tinkling of gla.s.s. Wasn't much, though.'

'You, Mr Rennet?'

'Same, Bo'sun. Again it wasn't much.'

'It didn't have to be. You don't require a sledgehammer to crush a few valves. A little pressure from the sole of the foot would be enough.' He turned to Janet again. 'But Margaret wouldn't have been asleep. She'd have been bound - no, he couldn't have come that way. He'd have had to pa.s.s through your ward. I'm not being very bright today, am I?'

'No, you're not.' She smiled again but this time without malice. 'Not our usual hawk-eyed selves this evening, are we?'

McRinnon turned and looked past the Sister's table. The door to the recovery room was about an inch ajar. McRinnon nodded.

'It figures. Why should he bother to close it when it would be obvious to anyone with half an eye - he must have forgotten about me - that there was no other way he could have entered. Mess-deck, side pa.s.sage, operating room, recovery room, Ward A - simple as that. Every door unlocked, of course. Why should they have been otherwise? Well, we don't bother locking them now. When did this happen, anyone know - sometime between engine start-up and the lights coming back on again?'

'I think it had to be that,' Sinclair said. 'It would have been the ideal time and opportunity. About ten minutes after start-up but five minutes before the generator came on Mr Patterson gave permission for people to talk normally and move around as long as they didn't make any loud noise. The emergency lights are pretty feeble at the best of times, everyone was talking excitedly - relief of tension I suppose, hopes that we had slipped the submarine, thankfulness that we were still in one piece, that sort of thing - and lots of people moving around. It would have been childishly simple for anyone to disappear unnoticed and return again after a minute, still unnoticed.'

'Had to be that,' the Bo'sun said. 'Anyone of the crew, or that lot from Murmansk in fact, anyone who was out there. Still no nearer the ident.i.ty of the man with the key to the dispensary. Captain, Mr Kennet, I am wondering why you didn't call Sister Morrison. Surely you must have smelled the chloroform?'

Janet said: 'Oh, come on Archie, you can see that their noses are bandaged up. Could you smell anything with a handkerchief to your nose?'

'You're just half right, Nurse,' Bowen said. 'I did smell it but it was very faint. The trouble is that there are so many medical and antiseptic smells in a ward that I paid no attention to it.'

'Well, he wouldn't have gone back to the mess-deck with a sponge reeking of chloroform. Hands too, for that matter. Back in a moment.'

The Bo'sun unhooked an emergency light, went into the recovery room, looked around briefly, then pa.s.sed into the operating theatre where he switched on the lights. Almost immediately, in a bucket in a corner, he found what he was looking for and returned to Ward A.

'A sponge - duly reeking of chloroform - a smashed ampoule and a pair of rubber gloves. Quite useless.'

'Not to Flannelfoot, they weren't,' Sinclair said.

'Useless to us. Useless as evidence. Gets us nowhere.' McKinnon perched on the Sister's table and looked in slight irritation at Oberleutnant Klaussen who was muttering away to himself, unintelligibly, incessantly.

'Is he still like this? Always like this?'

Sinclair nodded. 'Goes on non-stop.'

'Must be d.a.m.ned annoying. To the other patients and to the sister or nurse in charge. Why isn't his bed wheeled into the recovery room?'

'Because the sister in charge-that's Margaret, remember? - doesn't want him removed.' Janet was being cool and patient. 'He's her patient, she wants to keep a close eye on aim and she doesn't mind. Any more questions, Archie?'

'You mean why don't I be on my way or keep quiet or go and do something. Do what? Do some detecting?" He looked gloomy. 'There's nothing to detect. I'm just waiting till Margaret comes round.'

'Signs of grace at last.'

'I want to ask her some questions.'

'I might have known. What questions? It's as certain as can be that the a.s.sailant crept up behind her unseen and had her unconscious before she knew anything about it. Otherwise she'd have reached for the b.u.t.ton or called for help. She did neither. There are no questions you can ask her that we can't answer.'

'As I'm not a gambler I won't take your money away from you. Question number one. How did Flannelfoot know and he must have known - that, apart from Captain Bowen and Mr Kennet who are effectively blind at the moment, everyone else in Ward A was asleep? He would never have dared to do what he did if there was even a remote possibility of someone being awake. So how did he know? Answer, please.'

'I - I don't know.' She was obviously taken aback. That had never occurred to me before. But I don't think it occurred to anyone else either.'

'Understandable. Such questions occur only to stupid old bo'suns. You're just being defensive, Janet. Question number two. Who told him?'

'I don't know that either.'

'But maybe Maggie does. Number three. What solicitous member of the crew or pa.s.sengers made solicitous enquiries about the state of health of the patients in Ward A?'

'How should I know?'

'Maggie might know, mightn't she? After all, she would be the obvious choice to be asked that question, wouldn't she? And you said you could answer any questions that she could. Bosh! Question number four.'

'Archie, you're beginning to sound like a prosecuting counsel. I'm not guilty of anything.'

'Don't be daft. You're not in dock. Fourth question and the most important of all. Flannelfoot, as we all know to our cost, is no fool. He must have taken into account the possibility that someone would ask the question of Maggie: with whom, Sister Morrison, did you discuss the state of health of your patients? He had to a.s.sume that Maggie was in the position to put the finger on him. So my question is why, to protect his anonymity, did he not, after rendering her unconscious, slit her throat? A nice sharp knife is just as silent as a chloroform sponge. It would have been the logical thing to do, wouldn't it, Janet? But he didn't. Why didn't he murder her?'

Janet had gone very pale and when she spoke her voice was barely above a whisper.

'Horrible,' she said. 'Horrible, horrible.'

'Are you referring to me again? Goes well, I must say with what you last called me - a heartless fiend.'

'Not you, not you.' Her voice was still unsteady. 'It's the question. The thought. The possibility. It - it could have happened that way, couldn't it, Archie?'

'I'm more than mildly astonished that it didn't. But I think we'll find the answer when Maggie wakes up.'

The silence that fell upon the ward was broken by Bowen.