San Andreas Part 7

'How do I feel, Chief?' Briefly and forcefully Bowen told him how he felt. He would no doubt have expressed himself even more forcefully had he not been aware that Sister Morrison was sitting by his side. He raised a bandaged hand to cover a cough. 'All's gone to h.e.l.l and breakfast, isn't it, Chief?'

'Well, yes, things could be better.'

'Things couldn't be worse.' Captain Bowen's words were blurred and indistinct: speaking through those blistered lips had to be agonizing. 'Sister has told me. Even the boat compa.s.s smashed. Flannelfoot.'

'Flannelfoot?'

'He's still around. Flannelfoot.'

'Flannelfeet,' McKinnon said.

'Archie!' It said much for the Captain's state of mind that, . for the first time ever, he had, in company, addressed the Bo'sun by his first name. 'You're here.'

'Bad pennies, sir.'

'Who's on watch, Bo'sun?'

'Naseby, sir.'

That's all right. Flannelfeet?'

'There's more than one, sir. There has to be. I know. I don't know how I know, but I know.'

'You never mentioned this to me,' Patterson said.

'That's because I didn't think about it until now. And there's another thing I didn't think about until now. Captain Andropolous.'

'The Greek master,' Bowen said. 'What about him?'

'Well, sir, you know we're having a little trouble with the navigation?'

'A little? That's not how Sister Morrison tells it.'

'Well, then, a lot. We thought Captain Andropolous might give us a hand if we could communicate with him. But we can't. Maybe we don't have to. Maybe if we just show him your s.e.xtant, Captain, and give him a chart, that might be enough. Trouble is, the chart's ruined. Blood.'

'No problem,' Bowen said. 'We always carry duplicates. It'll be under the table or in the drawers at the after end of the chart room.'

'I should be back in fifteen minutes,' the Bo'sun said.

It took him considerably longer and, when he did return, his set face and the fact that he was carrying with him the s.e.xtant in its box and a chart bespoke a man who had come to report the failure of a mission. Patterson said: 'No cooperation? Or Flannelfoot?' 'Flannelfoot. Captain Andropolous was lying on his bunk, snoring his head off. I tried to shake him but I might as well have shaken a sack of potatoes. My first thought was that the same person who had been to attend to Trent had also been to see the captain, but there was no smell of chloroform. 1 fetched Dr Singh, who said he had been heavily drugged.'

'Drugged!' Bowen tried to express astonishment but his voice came out as a croak. 'G.o.d's sake, is there no end to it? Drugged! How in heaven's name could he have been drugged?'

'Quite easily, it would seem, sir. Dr Singh didn't know what drug it was but he said he must have taken it with something he'd eaten or drunk. We asked Achmed, the head cook, if the captain had had anything different to eat from the rest of us and he said he hadn't but also said that he had coffee afterwards. Captain Andropolous had his own idea as to how coffee should be made-half coffee, half brandy. Dr Singh said that that amount of brandy would have disguised the taste of any drug he knows of. There was a cup and saucer by the captain's bunkside table. It was empty.'

'Ah.' Patterson looked thoughtful. 'There must have been dregs. I know nothing about those things, of course, but couldn't Dr Singh have a.n.a.lysed those dregs?'

'There were none. The captain could have done it himself - washed the cup, I mean. More likely, 1 think it was Flannelfoot covering his tracks. There was no point in making enquiries about who might or might not have been seen going into or leaving the captain's cabin.'

'No communication, is that it?' Patterson said. 'That's it. Only his own crew were around at the time.' Patterson said: 'a.s.suming that our saboteur has been at work again - and I don't think we can a.s.sume anything else - where the h.e.l.l would he have got hold of powerful drugs like this?'

'Where did he get hold of the chloroform? I would think that Flannelfoot is well-stocked with what he considers essentials. Maybe he's not only a bit of a chemist, too. Maybe he knows what to look for in the dispensary.'

'No,' Bowen said. 'I asked Dr Singh. The dispensary is kept locked.'

'Yes, sir," McKinnon said. 'But if this person is a professional, a trained saboteur, then among what he rates essentials I would think that a set of skeleton keys comes pretty high on his list.'

'My cup overfloweth,' Bowen mumbled. 'As I said, all gone to h.e.l.l and breakfast. If the weather breaks down much more, and I understand it's doing just that, we can end up any place. Coast of Norway, most like.'

'May I speak, Captain?' It was Lieutenant Ulbricht.

Bowen twisted his head to one side, an ill-advised move that made him grunt in pain. 'Is that Lieutenant Ulbricht?' There was little encouragement in his voice and,,had his eyes not been bandaged, it was quite certain that there would have been none there either.

'Yes, sir. I can navigate.'

'You are very kind, Lieutenant.' Bowen tried to sound icy but his blistered mouth wasn't up to it. 'You're the last person in the world I would ever turn to for help. You have committed a crime against humanity.' He paused for some seconds but it was no pause for reflection, a combination of anger and pain was making speech very difficult. 'If we get back to Britain you will be shot. You? G.o.d!'

McKinnon said: 'I can understand how you feel, sir. Because of his bombs, fifteen men are dead. Because of his bombs, you are the way you are. So are the Chief Officer, Hudson and Rafferty. But I still think you should listen to him.'

The Captain was silent for what seemed an unconscionably long time. It said much for the regard in which he held the Bo'sun that probably no other man could have given him pause for so long. When he spoke his voice was thick with bitterness. 'Beggars can't be choosers. That's it, isn't it?' McKinnon made no reply. 'Anyway, navigating a plane is quite different from navigating a ship.'

'I can navigate a ship,' Ulbricht said. 'In peacetime I was at a Marine Schule - a marine school. I have a marine navigation certificate.' He smiled briefly. 'Not on me, of course, but I have one. Besides, I have many times taken starsights from a plane. That is much more difficult than taking sight from the bridge of a ship. I repeat, I can navigate.'

'Him! That monster!' Sister Morrison sounded even more bitter than the Captain but maybe that was because her lips weren't blistered. 'I'm quite sure he can navigate, Captain Bowen. I'm also sure that he would navigate us straight to Alta Fjord or Trondheim or Bergen - some place in Norway, anyway.'

Ulbricht said: 'That's a very silly statement, Sister. Mr McKinnon may not be a navigator but he must be a very experienced seaman and it would require only one glimpse of the sun or the Pole Star to let him know whether we were steering roughly southeast instead of roughly southwest.'

'I still don't trust him an inch,' Sister Morrison said. 'If what he says is true, then I trust him even less.' Her eyes were coldly appraising, her lips firmly compressed, one could see that she had missed out on her profession, she was well on the way to being the headmistress of Roedean with Ulbricht cast in the unlikely role of a trembling and errant pig-tailed third-former. 'Look what happened to Trent. Look what happened to that Greek captain. Why shouldn't the same thing happen to Mr McKinnon?'

'With respect, Sister,' McKinnon said in a voice notably lacking in respect, 'I have to repeat what Lieutenant Ulbricht said - that's a very silly statement indeed. It's silly for two reasons. The first is Naseby is also a bo'sun and a very fine one, too. Not that I would expect you to know that.' The Bo'sun put an unnecessary emphasis on the word 'you'. 'Trent, Ferguson and Curran can also tell the difference between north and south. So, I'm sure, can Chief Patterson and Mr Jamieson. There could be half-a-dozen others among the crew. Are you suggesting that by some mysterious means that pa.s.ses my comprehension - but not, it would seem, yours - Lieutenant Ulbricht is going to have us all immobilised?'

Sister Morrison parted lips that had been tightly, even whitely, compressed. 'And the second reason?'

'If you think that Lieutenant Ulbricht is in cahoots with the persons who were responsible for the destruction of his plane and, near as a whisker, the loss of his own life - well, if you believe that, you'll believe anything.'

If it is possible to clear a throat in a soothing fashion, Patterson did just that. 'I think, Captain, that the Lieutenant here might not be quite as black a villain as you and Sister think.'

'Not a villain! The black-hearted - ' Bowen broke off and when he spoke again his voice was quiet and almost thoughtful. 'You would not say that without a reason, Chief. What makes you think so?'

'It was the Bo'sun who first came up with the suggestion. I think I agree with him. Bo'sun, tell the Captain what you told me.'

'I've had time to think about this,' McKinnon said apologetically. 'You haven't. From what Dr Singh tells me about the pain you must be suffering, it must be a d.a.m.n hard job to think at all. It's my belief, sir, that the Lieutenant's Luftwaffe have sold him down the river.'

'Sold him down - what the devil is that meant to mean?'

'I don't think he knew he was attacking a hospital ship. Sure, he knows now. But he didn't when he dropped the bombs.'

'He didn't know! Bomber pilots, I would remind you, Bo'sun, are supposed to have excellent eyesight. All those red crosses - '

'I don't think he saw them, sir. The lights were off. It was half dark. As he was approaching from dead astern, he certainly couldn't have seen the crosses on the sides and he was so low the superstructure would have blocked off any view of the for'ard cross. As for the cross aft, we were "making so much smoke at the time that it might have been obscured, And I can't imagine for a moment that Lieutenant Ulbricht would have made so suicidal an approach, so suicidal an attack on the San Andreas, if he had known there was a British frigate only a couple of miles away. I wouldn't have put his chances of survival very high.'

'Neither did I.' Lieutenant Ulbricht spoke with feeling.

'And the clincher, sir. Those four Heinkel torpedo-bombers. I know you didn't see them, sir, even hear them, you were unconscious at the time. But Chief Patterson and I saw them. They deliberately avoided us - lifted over us and headed straight for the Andover. So what do you make of it, sir? A Condor attacks us - I'm sure it must have been with low-power bombs - and the Heinkels, who could have sent us to the bottom, didn't. The Heinkel pilots knew the Andover was there: Lieutenant Ulbricht did not. The Luftwaffe, Captain, would seem to have two hands, with the left hand not telling the right hand what it was doing. I'm more than ever convinced that the Lieutenant was sold down the river, sold by his own high command and the saboteur who blacked out our Red Cross lights.

'Besides, he doesn't look like a man who would bomb a hospital ship.'

'How the h.e.l.l can I tell what he looks like?' Bowen spoke with, understandably, some irritation. 'A baby face with a harp can be no less of a murderer, no matter what he looks .like. But yes, I agree, Bo'sun, it does raise some very odd questions. Questions that seem to call for some very odd answers. Don't you agree, Sister?'

'Well, yes, perhaps.' Her tone was doubtful, grudging. 'Mr McKinnon could be right.'

'He is right.' The voice was Kennet's and it was very firm.

'Mr Kennet.' Bowen turned to the bed on the other side of him and cursed, not too sotto voce, as his neck and head reminded him that sudden movements were not advisable. 'I thought you were asleep.'

'Never more awake, sir. Just that I don't feel too much like talking. Of course the Bo'sun's right. Has to be.'

'Ah. Well.' More carefully, this time, Bowen turned back to face Ulbricht. 'No apologies for what you have done but maybe you're not the black-hearted murderer we thought you were. Bo'sun, Chief tells me that you've been smashing furniture in my cabin.' x 'No more than I had to, sir. Couldn't find the keys.'

'The keys are in the back left-hand corner of the left drawer in my desk. Look in the right-hand locker under my bunk. There's a chronometer there. See if it's working.'

'A spare chronometer, sir?'

'Many captains carry one. I always have done. If the s.e.xtant has survived the blast, maybe the chronometer has too. The s.e.xtant is functioning, isn't it?'

'As far as I can tell.'

'May I see it?' Lieutenant Ulbricht said. He examined it briefly. 'It works.'

McKinnon left, taking the s.e.xtant and chart with him.

When he returned, he was smiling. 'Chronometer is intact, sir. I've put Trent back on the wheel and Naseby in your cabin. There he can see anybody who tries to go up the bridge ladder and, more important, clobber any unauthorised person who tries to come into your cabin. I've told him the only authorised people are Mr Patterson, Mr Jamieson and myself.'

'Excellent,' Bowen said. 'Lieutenant Ulbricht, we may yet call upon your services.' He paused. 'You are aware, of course, that you will be navigating yourself into captivity?'

'Not a firing squad?'

'That would be a poor return for your - ah - professional services. No.'

'Better a live prisoner-of-war than floating around and frozen to death in a rubber raft, which I would have been but for Mr McKinnon here.' Ulbricht propped himself up in his bed. 'Well, no time like the present.'

McKinnon placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. 'Sorry, Lieutenant, it'll have to wait.'

'You mean - Dr Singh?'

'He wouldn't be too happy but it's not that. Blizzard. Zero visibility. No stars, and there'll be none tonight.'

'Ah.' Ulbricht lay back in bed. 'I wasn't feeling all that energetic, anyway.'

It was then that, for the third time that day, the lights failed. McKinnon switched on his torch, located and switched on four nickel-cadmium emergency lights and looked thoughtfully at Patterson. Bowen said: 'Something up?'

'Sorry, sir,' Patterson said. He had momentarily forgotten that the Captain couldn't see. 'Another blasted power-cut.'

'Another. Jesus!' The Captain sounded less concerned and angry than just disgusted. 'No sooner do we think we have cleared up one problem than we have another. Flannelfoot, I'll be bound.'

'Maybe, sir,' McKinnon said. 'Maybe not. I don't imagine the lights have failed because someone has been drugged or chloroformed. I don't imagine they've failed because someone wanted to douse our topside Red Cross lights, because visibility is zero and it would serve no point. If it's sabotage, it's sabotage for some other reason.'

'I'll go see if they can tell me anything in the engine-room,' Patterson said. 'Looks like another job for Mr Jamieson.'

'He's working in the superstructure,' McKinnon said. 'I was going there anyway. I'll get him for you. Meet you back here, sir?' Patterson nodded and hurried from the ward.

On the now relatively stable upper deck the lifelines were no longer needed as such but were invaluable as guidelines, for, with the absence of deck-lights and the driving snow, McKinnon literally could not see an inch before his face. He brought up short as he b.u.mped into someone.

'Who's that.' His voice was sharp.

'McKinnon? Jamieson. Not Flannelfoot. He's been at it again.'

'Looks like it, sir. Mr Patterson would like to see you in the engine-room.'

On the deck level of the superstructure the Bo'sun found three of the engine-room crew welding a cross-plate to two beams, the harsh glare of the oxy-acetylene flame contrasting eerily with the utter blackness around. Two decks up he came across Naseby in the Captain's cabin, a marlin-spike, b.u.t.t end cloth-wrapped, in his hand and a purposeful expression on his face.

'No visitors, George?'

'Nary a visitor, Archie, but it looks as if someone has been visiting somewhere.'

The Bo'sun nodded and went up to the bridge, checked with Trent and descended the ladder again. He stopped outside the Captain's cabin and looked at Naseby. 'Notice anything?'

'Yes, I notice something. I notice that the engine revs have dropped, we're slowing. This time, perhaps, a bomb in the engine-room?'

'No. We'd have heard it in the hospital.'

'A gas grenade would have done just as well.'

'You're getting as bad as I am,' McKinnon said.

He found Patterson and Jamieson in the hospital dining area. They were accompanied, to McKinnon's momentary surprise, by Ferguson. But the surprise was only momentary.

'Engine-room's okay, then?' McKinnon said.

Patterson said: 'Yes. Reduced speed as a precaution. How did you know?'

'Ferguson here is holed up with Curran in the carpenter's shop, which is as far for'ard as you can get in this ship. So the trouble is up near the bows - nothing short of an earthquake would normally get Ferguson out of his bunk -or whatever he's using for a bunk up there.'

Ferguson looked and sounded aggrieved. 'Just dropping off, I was, when Curran and me heard this explosion. Felt it, too. Directly beneath us. Not so much an explosion as a bang or a clang. Something metallic, anyway. Curran shouted that we'd been mined or torpedoed but I told him not to be daft, if a mine or torpedo had gone off beneath us we wouldn't have been alive to talk about it. So I came running aft - well, as fast as you can run on that deck - it's like a skating rink.'

McKinnon said to Patterson: 'So you think the ship's hull is open to the sea?'

'I don't know what to think, but if it is then the slower we go the less chance of increasing the damage to the hull. Not too slow, of course, if we lose steerage way then we'll start rolling or corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g or whatever and that would only increase the strain on the hull. I suppose Captain Bowen has the structural plans in his cabin?'