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‘Whoever was responsible for this must have had access to the dispensary,’ Patterson said. He was with Jamieson and McKinnon in the hospital’s small lounge.

‘That won’t help, sir,’ McKinnon said. ‘Since ten o’clock this morning everybody aboard this ship – except, of course, the wounded, the unconscious and those under sedation – have had access to the dispensary. There’s not a single person who hasn’t been in the hospital area, either to eat, sleep or just rest.’

‘Maybe we’re not looking at it in the right way,’ Jamieson said. ‘Why should anyone want to smash the compass? It can’t just be to stop us from following whatever course we were following or that we might outrun someone. The chances are high that Flannelfoot is still transmitting his homing signal and that the Germans know exactly where we are.’

‘Maybe he’s hoping to panic us,’ McKinnon said. ‘Maybe he’s hoping we’ll slow down, rather than travel around in circles, which could easily happen if the weather deteriorates, the sea becomes confused, and if we have no compass. Perhaps there’s a German submarine in the vicinity and he doesn’t want us to get too far away. There’s an even worse possibility. We’ve been assuming that Flannelfoot has only a transmitter: maybe he has a transceiver, what if he’s in radio contact with Alta Fjord or a U-boat or even a reconnaissance Condor? There could be a British warship in the vicinity and the last thing they would want is that we make contact with it. Well, we couldn’t contact it: but its radar could pick us up ten, fifteen miles away.’

‘Too many “ifs”, “maybes” and “perhaps this” and “perhaps that”.’ Patterson’s voice was decisive, that of a man who has made up his mind. ‘How many men do you trust aboard this ship, Bo’sun?’

‘How many –’ McKinnon broke off in speculation. ‘The three of us here and Naseby. And the medical staff. Not that I have any particular reason to trust them – nor do I have any particular reason to distrust them – but we know that they were here, all present and accounted for, when Trent was attacked, so that rules them out.’

‘Two doctors, six nursing staff, three orderlies and the four of us. That makes fifteen,’ Jamieson said. He smiled. ‘Apart from that, everyone is a suspect?’

The Bo’sun permitted himself a slight smile in return. ‘It’s difficult to see kids like Jones, McGuigan and Wayland Day as master spies. Those apart, I wouldn’t put my hand in the fire for any of them, that’s to say I’ve no reason to trust them in a matter of life and death.’

Patterson said: ‘The crew of the Argos? Survivors? Guests by happenstance?’

‘Ridiculous, I know, sir. But who’s to say the nigger is not in the most unlikely woodpile? I just don’t trust anyone.’ The Bo’sun paused. ‘Am I wrong in thinking that it is your intention to search through the quarters and possessions of everyone aboard?’

‘You are not wrong, Bo’sun.’

‘With respect sir, we’ll be wasting our time. Anyone as smart as Flannelfoot is too smart to leave anything lying around, or at least to leave it in any place where it might be remotely associated with him. There are hundreds of places aboard where you can hide things and we are not trained rummagers. On the other hand, it’s better than doing nothing. But I’m afraid that’s what we’ll find, Mr Patterson. Nothing.’

They found nothing. They searched every living quarter, every wardrobe and cupboard, every case and duffel bag, every nook and cranny, and they found nothing. A rather awkward moment had arisen when Captain Andropolous, a burly, dark-bearded and seemingly intemperate character who had been given one of the empty cabins normally reserved for recuperating patients, objected violently and physically to having his quarters searched: McKinnon, who had no Greek, resolved this impasse by pointing his Colt at the Captain’s temple, after which, probably realizing that McKinnon wasn’t acting for his own amusement, the Captain had been cooperation itself, even to going to the extent of accompanying the Bo’sun and ordering his crew to open up their possessions for scrutiny.

The two Singhalese cooks in the hospital galleys were more than competent and Dr Singh, who appeared to be something of a connoisseur in such matters, produced some Bordeaux that would not have been found wanting in a Michelin restaurant, but poor justice was done to the food and, more surprisingly, the wine at dinner that evening. The atmosphere was sombre. There was an uneasiness about, even a faint air of furtiveness. It is one thing to be told that there is a saboteur at large: it is quite another to have your luggage and possessions searched on the basis of the possibility that you might be the saboteur in question. Even, or perhaps especially, the hospital staff seemed unduly uncomfortable: their possessions had not been searched so they were not, officially, in the clear. An irrational reaction it may have been but, in the circumstances, understandable.

Patterson pushed back his unfinished plate and said to Dr Singh: ‘This Lieutenant Ulbricht. Is he awake?’

‘He’s more than awake.’ Dr Singh sounded almost testy. ‘Remarkable recuperative powers. Wanted to join us for dinner. Forbade it, of course. Why?’

‘The Bo’sun and I would like to have a word with him.’

‘No reason why not.’ He pondered briefly. ‘Two possible minor complications. Sister Morrison is there – she’s just relieved Sister Maria for dinner.’ He nodded towards the end of the table where a fair-haired, high-cheekboned girl in a sister’s uniform was having dinner. Apart from Stephen Przybyszewski she was the only Polish national aboard and as people found her surname of Szarzynski, like Stephen’s, rather difficult, she was invariably and affectionately referred to as Sister Maria.

‘We’ll survive,’ Patterson said. ‘The other complication?’

‘Captain Bowen. Like Lieutenant Ulbricht, he has a high tolerance to sedatives. Keeps surfacing – longer and longer spells of consciousness and when he is awake he’s in a very bad humour. Who has ever seen Captain Bowen in ill humour?’

Patterson rose. ‘If I were the Captain I wouldn’t be very much in the mood for singing and dancing. Come on, Bo’sun.’

They found the Captain awake, very much so, and, indeed, in a more than irritable frame of mind. Sister Morrison was seated on a stool by his bedside. She made to rise but Patterson waved to her to remain where she was. Lieutenant Ulbricht was half-sitting, half-lying in the next bed, his right hand behind his neck: Lieutenant Ulbricht was very wide awake.

‘How do you feel, Captain?’

‘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 hell 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 compass 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 sextant, 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 sextant 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. I fetched Dr Singh, who said he had been heavily drugged.’

‘Drugged!’ Bowen tried to express astonishment but his voice came out as a croak. ‘God’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 analysed those dregs?’

‘There were none. The captain could have done it himself – washed the cup, I mean. More likely, I 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: ‘Assuming that our saboteur has been at work again – and I don’t think we can assume anything else – where the hell 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 hell 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? God!’

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 south-east instead of roughly south-west.’

‘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 pigtailed 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 passes my comprehension – but not, it would seem, yours – Lieutenant Ulbricht is going to have us all immobilized?’

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 damn 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 hell can I tell what he looks like?’ Bowen spoke with, understandably, some irritation. ‘A babyface 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.’

‘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 sextant has survived the blast, maybe the chronometer has too. The sextant 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 sextant 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 unauthorized person who tries to come into your cabin. I’ve told him the only authorized 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 bumped 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, butt 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 corkscrewing or whatever and that would only increase the strain on the hull. I suppose Captain Bowen has the structural plans in his cabin?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose he has but it doesn’t matter. I know the lay-out. I’m sure Mr Jamieson does as well.’

‘Oh dear. That means I don’t?’

‘Didn’t say that, sir. Let me put it this way. Next time I see a chief engineer crawling around the bilges will be the first time. Besides, you have to stay up top, sir. If an urgent decision has to be taken the bilges are no place for the commanding officer to be.’

Patterson sighed. ‘I often wonder, Bo’sun, where one draws a line between commonsense and diplomacy.’

‘This is it, you think, Bo’sun?’

‘It has to be, sir.’ Jamieson and the Bo’sun, together with Ferguson and McCrimmon, were in the paint store, a lowermost deck compartment on the port side for’ard. Facing them was an eight-clamped door set in a watertight bulkhead. McKinnon placed the palm of his hand against the top of the door and then against the bottom. ‘Normal temperatures above – well, almost normal – and cold, almost freezing, below. Seawater on the other side, sir – not more than eighteen inches, I would think.’

‘Figures,’ Jamieson said. ‘We’re not more than a few feet below the waterline here and that’s as much as the compressed air will let in. That’s one of the ballast rooms, of course.’

‘That’s the ballast room, sir.’

‘And this is the paint store.’ Jamieson gestured at the irregularly welded patch of metal on the ship’s side. ‘Chief Engineer never did have any faith in what he called those Russkie shipwrights.’

‘That’s as maybe, sir. But I don’t see any Russian shipwrights leaving a time-bomb in the ballast room.’

Russian shipwrights had indeed been aboard the San Andreas, which had sailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, as the freighter Ocean Belle, Ocean being a common prefix for American-built Liberty Ships. At the time of sailing, the Ocean Belle was neither fish nor fowl but was, in fact, a three-parts completed hospital ship. Its armament, at that stage, had been removed, its magazines emptied, all but the essential watertight bulkheads breached or partially cut away, the operating theatre completed, as were the cabins for the medical staff and the dispensary, already fully stocked: the medical store was almost finished, the galley partially so, whereas work had not yet begun on the wards, the recovery room and messes. The medical staff, which had come from Britain, were already on board.

Orders were received from the Admiralty that the Ocean Belle was to join the next fast convoy to Northern Russia, which had already assembled at Halifax. Captain Bowen had not refused – refusal of an Admiralty order was not permitted – but he had objected in a fashion so strongly as to be tantamount to refusal. He was damned, he said, if he was going to sail to Russia with a shipload of civilians aboard. He was referring to the medical staff aboard and, as they constituted only a round dozen, they could hardly have been called a shipload: he was also conveniently overlooking the fact that every member of the crew, from himself downwards, was also, technically, a civilian.

The medical staff, Bowen had maintained, were a different kind of civilian. Dr Singh had pointed out to him that ninety per cent of the medical staff of the armed forces were civilians, only they wore different kinds of uniforms: the staff on board the San Andreas wore different kinds of uniforms too, which happened to be white. Captain Bowen had then fallen back on his last defence: he was not, he said, going to take women through a war zone – he was referring to the six nursing staff aboard. A by now thoroughly irritated escort commander forcefully made three points that had forcefully been made to him by the Admiralty: thousands of women and children had been in war zones while being transported as refugees to the United States and Canada: in the current year, as compared to the previous two years, U-boat losses had quadrupled while Mercantile Marine losses had been cut by eighty per cent: and the Russians had requested, or rather insisted, that as many wounded Allied personnel as possible be removed from their overcrowded Archangel hospitals. Captain Bowen, as he should have done at the beginning, had capitulated and the Ocean Belle, still painted in its wartime grey but carrying adequate supplies of white, red and green paint, had sailed with the convoy.

As convoys to Northern Russia went, it had been an exceptionally uneventful one. Not one merchant ship and not one escort vessel had been lost. Only two incidents had occurred and both had involved the Ocean Belle. Some way south of Jan Mayen Island they had come across a venerable V and W class destroyer, stopped in the water with an engine breakdown. This destroyer had been a unit of the destroyer screen escorting a previous convoy and had stopped to pick up survivors from a sinking cargo vessel, which had been heavily on fire. The time had been about 2.30 p.m., well after sunset, and the rescue operation had been interrupted by a brief air attack. The attacker had not been seen but had obviously no difficulty in seeing the destroyer, silhouetted as it was against the blazing cargo ship. It had been assumed that the attacker was a reconnaissance Condor, for it had dropped no bombs and contented itself with raking the bridge with machine gun fire, which had effectively destroyed the radio office. Thus, when the engines had broken down some hours later – the breakdown had nothing to do with the Condor, the V and Ws were superannuated, overworked and much plagued by mechanical troubles – they had been unable to contact the vanished convoy.^*

The wounded survivors were taken aboard the Ocean Belle. The destroyer itself, together with its crew and unwounded survivors, was taken in tow by an S-class destroyer. It was later learnt that both vessels had reached Scapa Flow intact.

Three days afterwards, somewhere off North Cape, they had come across an equally ancient ‘Kingfisher’ corvette, which had no business whatever in those distant waters. It, too, was stopped, and so deep in the water astern that its poop was already awash. It, too, had survivors aboard – the survivors of the crew of a Russian submarine that had been picked up from a burning oil-covered sea.^* The Russians, for the most part badly burned, had been transferred, inevitably, to the Ocean Belle, the crew being transferred to an escort destroyer. The corvette was sunk by gunfire. It was during this transfer that the Ocean Belle had been holed twice, just below the water line, on the port side, in the paint store and ballast room. The reason for the damage had never been established.

The convoy had gone to Archangel but the Ocean Belle had put in to Murmansk – neither Captain Bowen nor the escort commander had thought it wise that the Ocean Belle should proceed any further than necessary in its then present condition – slightly down by the head and with a list to port. There were no dry dock facilities available but the Russians were masters of improvisation – the rigours of war had forced them to be. They topped up the after tanks, drained the for’ard tanks and removed the for’ard slabs of concrete ballast until the holes in the paint store and ballast room were just clear of the water, after which it had taken them only a few hours to weld plates in position over the holes. The equalization of the tanks and the replacement of ballast had then brought the Ocean Belle back to an even keel.

While those repairs were being effected a small army of Russian carpenters had worked, three shifts in every twenty-four hours, in the hospital section of the ship, fitting out the wards, recovery room, messes, galley and medical store. Captain Bowen was astonished beyond measure. On his previous visits to the two Russian ports he had encountered from his allies, blood brothers who should have been in tears of gratitude for the dearly-bought and vital supplies being ferried to their stricken country, nothing but sullenness, indifference, a marked lack of cooperation and, not occasionally, downright hostility. The baffling sea-change he could only attribute to the fact that the Russians were only showing their heartfelt appreciation for the Ocean Belle having brought their wounded submariners back home.

When they sailed it was as a hospital ship – Bowen’s crew, paintbrushes in hands, had worked with a will during their brief stay in Murmansk. They did not, as everyone had expected, proceed through the White Sea to pick up the wounded servicemen in Archangel. The Admiralty’s orders had been explicit: they were to proceed, and at all speed, to the port of Aberdeen in Scotland.

Jamieson replaced the cover of the small electrical junction box, having effectively isolated the ballast room from the main power system. He tapped the watertight door. ‘Short in there – could have been caused by the blast or sea-water, it doesn’t matter – should have blown a fuse somewhere. It didn’t. Somewhere or other there’s a fuse, that’s been tampered with – fuse-wire replaced by a nail or some such. That doesn’t matter either. I’m not going to look for it. McCrimmon, go ask the engine-room to try the generator.’

McKinnon tapped the same door. ‘And what do we do here?’

‘What, indeed?’ Jamieson sat on a paint drum and thought. ‘Three choices, I would say. We can get an air compressor down here, drill a hole through the bulkhead at about shoulder level and force the water out which would be fine if we knew where the level of the hole in the hull is. We don’t. Besides, the chances are that the compressed air in the ballast room would escape before we could get the nozzle of the compressed air hose into the hole we drilled which could only mean that more water would pour into the ballast room. Or we could reinforce the bulkhead. The third choice is to do nothing. I’m for the third choice. It’s a pretty solid bulkhead. We’d have to reduce speed, of course. No bulkhead is going to stand up to the pressure at full speed if there’s a hole the size of a barn door in the hull.’

‘A barn door would not be convenient,’ McKinnon said, ‘I think I’ll go and have a look.’

It was a very cold and rather bruised McKinnon who half-climbed and was half-pulled up to the foredeck of the San Andreas, which, engines stopped, was wallowing heavily in quartering seas. In the pale half-light given by the again functioning deck arc lamps they presented a strange quartet, Jamieson, Ferguson and McCrimmon, wraithlike figures completely shrouded in snow, McKinnon a weirdly-gleaming creature, the sea water on his rubber suit, aqualung and waterproof torch already, in that 35° below temperature, beginning to harden into ice. At a gesture from Jamieson, McCrimmon left for the engine-room while Ferguson pulled in the rope-ladder: Jamieson took McKinnon’s arm and led him, the newly-formed ice on the rubber suit crackling as he stumbled along, towards the shelter of the superstructure where McKinnon pulled off his aqualung. His teeth were chattering uncontrollably.

‘Pretty bad down there, Bo’sun?’

‘Not that, sir. This damned rubber suit.’ He fingered a waist-high gash in the material. ‘Tore it on a jagged piece of metal. From here down the suit is filled with water.’

‘Good God! You’ll freeze to death, man. Hurry, hurrry!’ In what was left of his cabin McKinnon began to strip off his rubber suit. ‘You located the damage?’

‘No problem – and no barn door. Just a ragged hole about the size of my fist.’

Jamieson smiled. ‘Worth risking pneumonia to find that out. I’m going to the bridge. See you in the Captain’s cabin.’

When McKinnon, in dry clothing but still shivering violently, joined Jamieson and Naseby in the Captain’s cabin, the San Andreas was back on course and steadily picking up speed. Jamieson pushed a glass of Scotch across to him.

‘I’m afraid the Captain’s supplies are taking a fearful beating, Bo’sun. This shouldn’t increase the risk of pneumonia – I’ve left the water out. I’ve been speaking to Mr Patterson and the Captain – we’ve got a line through to the hospital now. When I told him you’d been over the side in this weather, he didn’t say thank-you or anything like that, just said to tell you that you’re mad.’

‘Captain Bowen is not often wrong and that’s a fact.’ McKinnon’s hands were shaking so badly that he spilt liquid from his admittedly brimming glass. ‘Any instructions from the Captain or Mr Patterson?’

‘None. Both say they’re quite happy to leave the topside to you.’

‘That’s kind of them. What they really mean is that they have no option – there’s only George and myself.’

‘George?’

‘Sorry, sir. Naseby, here. He’s a bo’sun, too. We’ve been shipmates on and off, friends for twenty years.’

‘I didn’t know.’ Jamieson looked thoughtfully at Naseby. ‘I can see it now. You’ve made arrangements for up here, Bo’sun?’

‘About to, sir. George and I will take turns here, looking after the family jewels, so to speak. I’ll have Trent, Ferguson and Curran spell one another on the wheel. I’ll tell them to give me a shake – if I’m asleep – when or if the weather clears.’

‘Cue for Lieutenant Ulbricht?’

‘Indeed. I would like to make a suggestion, sir, if I may. I would like to have some people keeping watch at the fore and aft exits of the hospital, just to make absolutely certain that nobody’s going to start sleepwalking during the night.’

‘Who’s going to watch the watchers?’

‘A point, sir. The watchers I would suggest are Jones, McGuigan, McCrimmon and Stephen. Unless they’re wonderful actors, the first two are too young and innocent to be criminals. McCrimmon may, indeed, have a criminal bent, but I think he’s an honest criminal. And Stephen strikes me as being a fairly trustworthy lad. More important, he’s not likely to forget that it was a naval minesweeper that picked him up out of the North Sea.’

‘I didn’t know that, either. You seem to be better informed about my own department than I am. I’ll arrange for Stephen and McCrimmon, you look after the others. Our resident saboteur is not about to give up all that easily?’

‘I would be surprised if he did. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Very much. I wonder what form of sabotage his next attempt to nobble us will take?’

‘I just have no idea. But another thought occurs, sir. The person you have keeping an eye on the aft exit from the hospital might also keep an eye on the entrance to A Ward.’

‘A Ward? That bunch of crooks? Whatever for?’

‘The person or persons who are trying to slow us and are doing their best to get us lost might think it a rather good idea to nobble Lieutenant Ulbricht.’

‘Indeed they might. I’ll stay in the ward myself tonight. There’s a spare bed. If I do drop off, the duty nurse can always give me a shake if anyone comes in who shouldn’t be coming in.’ Jamieson was silent for a few moments. ‘What’s behind it all, Bo’sun?’

‘I think you know as well as I do, sir. Somebody, somewhere, wants to take over the San Andreas, although why anyone should want to take over a hospital ship I can’t even begin to imagine.’

‘No more can I. A U-boat, you think?’

‘It would have to be, wouldn’t it? I mean, you can’t capture a ship from the air and they’re hardly likely to send the Tirpitz after us.’ McKinnon shook his head. ‘A U-boat? Any fishing boat, with a few armed and determined men, could take us over whenever they felt like it.’

^*Throughout the wartime convoy sailings to Murmansk and Archangel the use of rescue ships remained a bone of contention between the Royal Navy at sea and the Royal Navy on land – the latter being the London-based Admiralty which acquitted itself with something less than distinction during the long years of the Russian convoys. In the earlier days, the use of rescue ships was the rule, not the exception. After the loss of the Zafaaran and the Stockport, which was lost with all hands including the many survivors that had been picked up from other sunken vessels, the Admiralty forbade the further use of rescue ships.

This was a rule that was observed in the breach. In certain convoys a self-selected member of the escort group, usually a destroyer or smaller, would assign to itself the role of rescue ship, an assignment in which the force commander would acquiesce or to which he turned a blind eye. The task of the rescue ships was a hazardous one indeed. There was never any question of a convoy stopping or of their escorts leaving the convoy, so that, almost invariably the rescue ship was left alone and unprotected. The sight of a Royal Naval vessel stopped in the water alongside a sinking vessel was an irresistible target for many U-boat commanders.

^*It was neither appreciated nor reported that the Russians had a few submarines operational in the area at that time. One of them almost certainly damaged the Tirpitz sufficiently to make it return to its moorings in Alta Fjord.