Читать книгу Alistair MacLean Sea Thrillers 4-Book Collection: San Andreas, The Golden Rendezvous, Seawitch, Santorini - Alistair MacLean, Alistair MacLean, John Denis - Страница 17

‘And what are you doing there?’ McKinnon looked down on the recumbent form of Janet Magnusson who, her face very pale, was lying on, not in, the bed nearest the desk where she normally sat.

‘I normally have a rest at this time of the morning.’ She tried to inject an acid tone into her voice but her heart wasn’t in it and she smiled, albeit wanly. ‘I have been badly wounded, Archie McKinnon. Thanks to you.’

‘Oh dear.’ McKinnon sat on her bedside and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I am sorry. How –’

‘Not there.’ She pushed his hand away. ‘That’s where I’ve been wounded.’

‘Sorry again.’ He looked up at Dr Sinclair. ‘How bad is badly?’

‘Nurse Magnusson has a very slight graze on her right shoulder. Piece of shrapnel.’ Sinclair pointed to a jagged hole in the bulkhead about six feet above deck level, then indicated the scarred and pock-marked deckhead. ‘That’s where the rest of the shrapnel appears to have gone. But Nurse Magnusson was standing at the time and caught quite a bit of the blast effect. She was thrown across the bed she’s on now – it was, providentially, empty at the time – and it took us ten minutes to bring her round. Shock, that’s all.’

‘Layabout.’ McKinnon stood. ‘I’ll be back. Anybody else hurt here, Doctor?’

‘Two. At the far end of the ward. Seamen from the Argos. One in the chest, the other in the leg. Shrapnel ricocheting from the ceiling and pretty spent shrapnel at that. Didn’t even have to dig it out. Not even bandages – cotton wool and plaster.’

McKinnon looked at the man, restless and muttering, in the bed opposite. ‘Oberleutnant Klaussen – the U-boat commander. How is he?’

‘Delirious, as you can see. The trouble with him – I’ve no idea. I tend to go along with your suggestion that he must have come up from a very great depth. If that’s the case, I’m dealing with the unknown. Sorry and all that.’

‘I hardly think there’s any need to be sorry, sir. Every other doctor would be in the same boat. I don’t think anyone has ever escaped from a depth greater than two hundred and fifty feet before. If Klaussen did – well, it’s uncharted territory. There simply can’t be any literature on it.’

‘Archie.’

McKinnon turned round. Janet Magnusson was propped up on an elbow.

‘You’re supposed to be resting.’

‘I’m getting up. What are you doing with that sledgehammer and chisel in your hand?’

‘I’m going to try to open a jammed door.’

‘I see.’ She was silent for some moments while she bit her lower lip. ‘The recovery room, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dr Singh and the two men from the Argos – the one with the multiple burns and the other with the fractured pelvis – they’re in there, aren’t they?’

‘So I’m told.’

‘Well, why don’t you go to them?’ She sounded almost angry. ‘Why stand around here blethering and doing nothing?’

‘I hardly think that’s quite fair, Nurse Magnusson.’ Jamieson, who was accompanying McKinnon and Sinclair, spoke in tones of gentle reproof. ‘Doing nothing? The Bo’sun does more than the whole lot of us put together.’

‘I’m thinking perhaps there’s no great hurry, Janet,’ McKinnon said. ‘People have been banging on that door for the past fifteen minutes and there’s been no reply. Could mean anything or nothing. Point is, there was no point in trying to force that door till there was a doctor at hand and Dr Sinclair has just finished in the wards.’

‘What you mean – what you really mean, Archie – is that you don’t think the people inside the recovery room will be requiring the services of a doctor.’

‘I hope I’m wrong but, yes, that’s what I’m afraid of.’

She sank back in her bed. ‘As Mr Jamieson didn’t say, I was talking out of turn. I’m sorry.’

‘There’s really nothing to be sorry about.’ McKinnon turned away and went into Ward A. The first person to catch his attention was Margaret Morrison. Even paler than Janet Magnusson had been, she was sitting in her chair behind her desk while Sister Maria carefully tied a bandage around her head. McKinnon didn’t immediately go to her but went to the far right-hand side of the ward where Lieutenant Ulbricht was sitting up in his bed while Bowen and Kennet lay flat in theirs.

‘Three more victims,’ Sinclair said. ‘Well, unfortunates, I should say. While the blast in Ward B went upwards I’m afraid it was slightly downwards here …’

McKinnon looked at Ulbricht. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Ulbricht had a thick bandage round his neck.

‘I’ll tell you what’s the matter with him,’ Sinclair said. ‘Luck. The devil’s own luck. A piece of shrapnel – it must have been as sharp as a razor – sliced through the side of his neck. Another quarter-inch to the right and it would have sliced through the carotid artery as well and then he’d have been very much the late Lieutenant Ulbricht.’

Ulbricht looked at McKinnon with little in the way of expression on his face. ‘I thought you sent us down here for our own safety.’

‘That’s what I thought, too. I was certain they’d concentrate their fire on the bridge. I’m making no excuses but I don’t think I miscalculated. I think the U-boat’s gun crew panicked. I’m sure that Klaussen gave no instructions to fire into the hull.’

‘Klaussen?’

‘Oberleutnant. The captain. He survived. He seems fairly ill.’

‘How many survivors altogether?’

‘Six.’

‘And the rest you sent to the bottom.’

‘I’m the guilty party, if that’s what you mean. I don’t feel particularly guilty. But I’m responsible, yes.’

‘I suppose that makes two of us. Responsible but not guilty.’ Ulbricht shrugged and seemed disinclined to continue the conversation. McKinnon moved to the Captain’s bed.

‘Sorry to hear you’ve been hurt again, sir.’

‘Me and Kennet. Left thighs. Both of us. Dr Sinclair tells me it’s only a scratch and as I can’t see it I have to take his word for it. Doesn’t feel like a scratch, I can tell you. Well, Archie my boy, you’ve done it. I knew you would. If it weren’t for those damned bandages I’d shake hands with you. Congratulations. You must feel pretty good about this.’

‘I don’t feel good at all, sir. If there were any survivors and if they managed to find a sealed compartment they’ll be gasping out their lives – now – on the floor of the Norwegian Sea.’

‘There’s that, of course, there’s that. But not to reproach yourself, Archie. Them or us. Unpleasant, but still well done.’ Bowen adroitly switched the subject. ‘Building up speed, aren’t we? Limited damage up front, I take it.’

‘Far from limited, sir. We’re badly holed. But there’s a large chunk of the U-boat’s casing embedded in that hole. Let’s just hope it stays there.’

‘We can but pray, Bo’sun, we can but pray. And regardless of how you feel, every person aboard this boat is deeply in your debt.’

‘I’ll see you later, sir.’

He turned away, looked at Margaret Morrison, then at Dr Sinclair. ‘Is she hurt? Badly, I mean.’

‘She’s the worst of the lot but nothing dangerous, you understand. She was sitting by Captain Bowen’s bedside at the time and was hit twice. Nasty gash on the upper right arm and a minor scalp wound – that’s the one Sister Maria has just finished bandaging.’

‘Shouldn’t she be in bed?’

‘Yes. I tried to insist on it but I can tell you I won’t be doing it again. How about you trying?’

‘No, thank you.’ McKinnon approached the girl, who looked at him with reproachful brown eyes that were slightly dulled with pain.

‘This is all your fault, Archie McKinnon.’

McKinnon sighed. ‘Exactly what Janet said to me. It’s difficult to please everybody. I’m very, very sorry.’

‘And so you should be. Not for this, though. The physical pain, I can tell you, is nothing compared to the mental hurt. You deceived me. Our greatly respected Bo’sun is exactly what he accused me of being – a fibber.’

‘Oh dear. Long-suffering Bo’sun back in court again. What am I supposed to have done wrong now?’

‘Not only that but you’ve made me feel very, very foolish.’

‘I have? I would never do that.’

‘You did. Remember on the bridge you suggested – in jest, of course – that you might fight the U-boat with a fusillade of stale bread and old potatoes. Well, something like that.’

‘Ah!’

‘Yes, ah! Remember that emotional scene on the bridge – well, emotional on my part, I cringe when I think about it – when I begged you to fight them and fight them and fight them. You remember, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I think I do.’

‘He thinks he does! You had already made up your mind to fight them, hadn’t you?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Well, yes,’ she mimicked. ‘You had already made up your mind to ram that U-boat.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Archie?’

‘Because you might have casually mentioned it to somebody who might have casually mentioned it – unknowingly, of course – to Flannelfoot who would far from casually have mentioned it to the U-boat captain who would have made damn certain that he would never put himself in a position where he could be rammed. You might even – again unknowingly – have mentioned it directly to Flannelfoot.’

She made no attempt to conceal the hurt in her eyes. ‘So you don’t trust me. You said you did.’

‘I trust you absolutely. I did say that.’

‘Then why –’

‘It was one of those then-and-now things. Then you were Sister Morrison. I didn’t know there was a Margaret Morrison. I know now.’

‘Ah!’ She pursed her lips, then smiled, clearly mollified. ‘I see.’

McKinnon left her, joined Dr Sinclair and Jamieson, and together they went to the door of the recovery room. Jamieson was carrying with him an electric drill, a hammer and some tapered wooden pegs. Jamieson said: ‘You saw the entry hole made by the shell when you went up to examine the bows?’

‘Yes. Just on – well, an inch or two above – the waterline. Could be water inside. Or not. It’s impossible to say.’

‘How high up?’

‘Eighteen inches, say. Anybody’s guess.’

Jamieson plugged in his drill and pressed the trigger. The tungsten carbide bit sank easily into the heavy steel of the door. Sinclair said: ‘What happens if there’s water behind?’

‘Tap in one of those wooden pegs, then try higher up.’

‘Through,’ Jamieson said. He withdrew the bit. ‘Clear.’

McKinnon struck the steel handle twice with the sledge. The handle did not even budge a fraction of an inch. On the third blow it sheared off and fell to the deck.

‘Pity,’ McKinnon said. ‘But we have to find out.’

Jamieson shrugged. ‘No option. Torch?’

‘Please.’ Jamieson left and was back in two minutes with the torch, followed by McCrimmon carrying the gas cylinder and a lamp on the end of a wandering lead. Jamieson lit the oxy-acetylene flame and began to carve a semi-circle round the space where the handle had been: McCrimmon plugged in the wandering lead and the wire-caged lamp burned brightly.

Jamieson said from behind his plastic face-shield: ‘We’re only assuming that this is where the door is jammed.’

‘If we’re wrong we’ll cut away round the hinges. I don’t think we’ll have to. The door isn’t buckled in any way. It’s nearly always the lock or latch that’s jammed.’

The compartment was filled with stinging acrid smoke when Jamieson finally straightened. He gave the lock a couple of blows with the side of his fist, then desisted.

‘I’m sure I’ve cut through but the damn thing doesn’t seem to want to fall away.’

‘The latch is still in its socket.’ McKinnon tapped the door with his sledge, not heavily, and the semi-circular piece of metal fell away inside. He hit the door again, heavily this time, and it gave an inch. With a second blow it gave several more inches. He laid aside the sledge and pushed against the door until, squeaking and protesting, it was almost wide open. He took the wandering lead from McCrimmon and went inside.

There was water on the deck, not much, perhaps two inches. Bulkheads and deckhead had been heavily starred and pock-marked by shrapnel from the exploding shell. The entrance hole formed by the shell in the outer bulkhead was a jagged circle not more than a foot above the deck.

The two men from the Argos were still lying in their beds while Dr Singh, head bowed to his chest, was sitting in a small armchair. All three men seemed unharmed, unmarked. The Bo’sun brought the light closer to Dr Singh’s face. Whatever shrapnel may have been embedded in his body, none had touched his face. The only sign of anything untoward were tiny trickles of blood from his ears and nose. McKinnon handed the lamp to Dr Sinclair, who stooped over his dead colleague.

‘Good God! Dr Singh.’ He examined him for a few seconds, then straightened. ‘That this should happen to a fine doctor, a fine man like this.’

‘You didn’t really expect to find anything else, did you, Doctor?’

‘No. Not really. Had to be this or something like this.’ He examined, briefly, the two men lying in their beds, shook his head and turned away. ‘Still comes as a bit of a shock.’ It was obvious that he was referring to Dr Singh.

McKinnon nodded. ‘I know. I don’t want to sound callous, Doctor, I know it might sound that way, but – you won’t be needing those men any more? I mean, no postmortems, nothing of that kind.’

‘Good lord, no. Death must have been instantaneous. Concussion. If it’s any consolation, they died without knowing.’ He paused. ‘You might look through their clothing, Bo’sun. Or maybe it’s in their effects or perhaps Captain Andropolous has the details.’

‘You mean names, birth-dates, things like that, sir?’

‘Yes. I have to fill out the death certificates.’

‘I’ll attend to that.’

‘Thank you, Bo’sun.’ Sinclair essayed a smile but it could hardly have been rated as a success. ‘As usual, I’ll leave the grisly part to you.’ With that he was gone, a man glad to be gone. The Bo’sun turned to Jamieson.

‘Could I borrow McCrimmon, sir?’

‘Of course.’

‘McCrimmon, go and find Curran and Trent, will you? Tell them what’s happened. Curran will know what size of canvases to bring.’

‘Needles and thread, Bo’sun?’

‘Curran is a sailmaker. Just leave it to him. And you could tell him that it’s a clean job this time.’

McCrimmon left and Jamieson said: ‘A clean job? It’s a lousy job. You always get the dirty end of the stick, McKinnon. I honestly don’t know how you keep on doing it. If there’s anything nasty or unpleasant to be done, you’re number one on everybody’s list.’

‘Not this time I’m not. This time, sir, you’re number one on my list. Someone has to tell the Captain. Someone has to tell Mr Patterson. Worst of all – much the worst of all – someone has to tell the nursing staff. That last is not a job I’d care for at all.’

‘The girls. God, I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t care for it either. Don’t you think, Bo’sun – seeing you know them so well, I mean –’

‘No, I don’t think, sir.’ McKinnon half smiled. ‘Surely as an officer, you wouldn’t think of delegating to an underling something you wouldn’t do yourself?’

‘Underling! God, that’s rich. Very well, never let it be said that I shirked my duty but as from now I feel one degree less sorry for you.’

‘Yes, sir. One other thing: when this place is clear, would you have a couple of your men weld a patch over this hole in the bulkhead? Heaven knows they’ve had enough practice in welding patches recently.’

‘Of course. Just let’s hope it’s the last patch.’

Jamieson left and McKinnon looked idly around him. His attention was caught by a fairly large wooden box in one corner and that only because its lid had been slightly sprung by the shock of the explosion. McKinnon, not without some effort, lifted the lid and peered for some seconds at the contents. He replaced the lid, retrieved his sledge and tapped the lid securely back into place. Stamped on the lid in big red letters were the words CARDIAC ARREST.

McKinnon, rather wearily, sat down at the table in the dining area. The injured sister and nurse, both looking as if they should have been in bed – they had been relieved by Sister Maria and Nurse Irene – were sitting there, as was, inevitably, Lieutenant Ulbricht, who not only gave the impression of having completely forgotten his narrow brush with death but was sufficiently back on balance to have found himself a seat between the two girls. Sinclair, Patterson and Jamieson were clustered round one end of the table. McKinnon looked consideringly at Ulbricht, then addressed himself to Dr Sinclair.

‘Not calling your professional competence into question, sir, but is the Lieutenant fit to be up and around?’

‘My professional competence is irrelevant.’ One could see that Dr Sinclair had not yet recovered from the shock of the death of his colleague. ‘The Lieutenant, like Sister Morrison and Nurse Magnusson, is uncooperative, intransigent and downright disobedient. The three of them would probably call it having minds of their own. Lieutenant Ulbricht, as it so happens, is in no danger. The injury to his neck couldn’t even be described as a flesh wound. Torn skin, more like.’

‘Then perhaps, Lieutenant, you would be prepared to take another fix? We haven’t had one since last night.’

‘At your disposal, Bo’sun.’ If the Lieutenant harboured any ill will towards the Bo’sun for the deaths of his fellow countrymen, he was at pains to conceal it. ‘Any time. I suggest just on noon.’

Patterson said: ‘You finished through in the recovery room, Bo’sun?’ McKinnon nodded. ‘Well, one gets tired of keeping on saying thank-you so I’ll spare you that. When do we bury them?’

‘Your decision, sir.’

‘Early afternoon, before it starts to get dark.’ Patterson laughed without humour. ‘My decision. Chief Engineer Patterson is your man when it comes to making decisions on matters that are of no importance. I don’t recall making the decision to attack that submarine.’

‘I did consult with Captain Bowen, sir.’

‘Ah!’ It was Margaret Morrison. ‘So that was what that two-minute conference was about.’

‘Of course. He approved.’

Janet said: ‘And if he hadn’t? Would you still have rammed that U-boat?’

McKinnon said patiently: ‘He not only approved, he was enthusiastic. Very enthusiastic. With all respect to Lieutenant Ulbricht here, the Captain wasn’t feeling too kindly disposed towards the Germans. Not at that moment of time, anyway.’

‘You’re being evasive, Archie McKinnon. Answer my question. If he had disapproved would you still have attacked?’

‘Yes. No need to mention that to the Captain, though.’

‘Nurse Magnusson.’ Patterson smiled at Janet to rob his words of any offence. ‘I hardly think Mr McKinnon deserves either interrogation or disapproval. I think he deserves congratulations for a magnificent job well done.’ He rose, went to the cupboard where Dr Singh had kept his private supplies and returned with a bottle of Scotch and some glasses, poured a measure for McKinnon and set it before him. ‘I think Dr Singh would have approved of this.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ McKinnon looked down at the glass on the table. ‘He won’t be needing this any more.’

There was silence round the table. Predictably, it was broken by Janet.

‘I think, Archie, that that was less than a gracious remark.’

‘You think so now. Maybe. Maybe not.’ There was no hint of apology in his voice. He raised his glass and sipped from it. ‘Knew his Scotch, did Dr Singh.’

The silence was longer this time, longer and strained. It was Sinclair, embarrassed by the silence, who broke it.

‘I’m sure we all echo Mr Patterson’s sentiments, Mr McKinnon. A splendid job. But – to quote yourself, I’m not questioning your professional competence – you did take a bit of a chance, didn’t you?’

‘You mean I endangered the lives of all aboard?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ His look of discomfiture made it evident that he had thought it, if not said it.

‘It was a calculated risk,’ McKinnon said, ‘but not all that calculated. The odds were on my side, quite heavily, I believe. I am quite certain that the U-boat was under orders that we were to be seized, not sunk, which is why I am equally certain that the gun crew fired into the San Andreas without orders.

‘The U-boat captain, Oberleutnant Klaussen, was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was tired or immature or inexperienced or incompetent or over-confident – he may have been all those things at the same time. What is certain is that an experienced U-boat commander would never have put himself in a position where he was running parallel to us and less than a half a mile away. He should have stayed at a couple of miles’ distance – which in an emergency would have given him plenty of time to crash dive – ordered us to send across a boat, loaded it up with a half-dozen men with machine pistols and sent them back to take over the San Andreas. We could have done nothing to stop them. Even better, he should have closed up from astern, a position that would have made ramming impossible, then eased up alongside the gangway.

‘And of course, he was too confident, too sure of himself, too relaxed by half. When he saw us lowering the gangway, he was convinced the game was over. It never even occurred to him that a hospital ship could be used as a man-o’-war. And he was either so blind or so stupid that he never even noticed that we were steadily closing in on him all the time we were in contact. In short, he made every mistake in the book. It would have been difficult to pick a worse man for the job.’

There was a long and rather uncomfortable silence. Mario, unobtrusive and efficient as ever, had filled all the glasses on the table but no one, with the exception of the Bo’sun, had as yet touched theirs.

Sinclair said: ‘On the basis of what you say, the U-boat captain was indeed the wrong man for the job. And, of course, you wholly out-manoeuvered him. But surely the danger still existed. In the actual collision, I mean. The U-boat could have sunk us and not vice versa. We are only made of thin sheet plating: the hull of the submarine is immensely strong.’

‘I would not presume to lecture you on medical matters, Dr Sinclair.’

Sinclair smiled. ‘Meaning I should not presume to advise you on matters maritime. But, Mr McKinnon, you’re a bo’sun on a merchant vessel.’

‘Today, yes. Before that I spent twelve years in the submarine service.’

‘Oh no.’ Sinclair shook his head. ‘Too much, just too much. This is definitely not Dr Sinclair’s day.’

‘I’ve known a good number of cases of collisions between merchant vessels and submarines. In nearly all cases those collisions were between friend and friend or, in peacetime, between a submarine and a harmless foreign vessel. The results were always the same. The surface vessel came off best.

‘It doesn’t seem logical but it does make sense. Take a hollow glass sphere with walls, say, of a third of an inch in diameter, submerge it to a very considerable depth – I’m talking of hundreds of feet – and it still won’t implode. Bring it to the surface, give it a light tap with a hammer and it will shatter into a hundred pieces. Same with the pressure hull of a submarine. It can resist pressure at great depths but on the surface a short sharp blow, as from the bows of a merchant ship, will cause it to rupture. Admittedly, the chances of the submarine are not improved by the fact that the merchant ship may displace many thousands of tons and be travelling at a fair speed. On the other hand, even a vessel as small as a trawler can sink a submarine. Point is, Dr Sinclair, it wasn’t all that dangerous: I hadn’t much doubt as to what the outcome would be.’

‘Point taken, Mr McKinnon. You see before you a rueful cobbler who will stick to his last from now on.’

Patterson said: ‘This ever happen to you?’

‘No. If it had, the chances are very high that I wouldn’t be here now. I know plenty of instances. When I was in the service, the trade as we called it, we had a maxim which said, in effect, never mind the enemy, just watch out for your friends. Back in the Twenties, a British submarine – the MI it was – was accidentally struck by a merchant ship off the Devon coast. All died. Not long afterwards the American SI was overrun by the Italian passenger liner City of Rome. All died. Some time later, another American submarine was overrun by a coastguard destroyer off Cape Cod. All died. The Poseidon, British, was sent to the bottom by a Japanese ship. Accident. It was off the north China coast. A good number of survivors, but some died from the diver’s bends. In the early years of the war, the Surcouf, crewed by the Free French and the biggest submarine in the world – so big that it was called a submarine cruiser – was sunk in the Caribbean by a ship in a convoy she was escorting. The Surcouf had a crew of a hundred and fifty: all died.’ McKinnon passed a hand across his eyes. ‘There were others. I forgot most of them. Ah, yes, there was the Umpire. Forty-one, I think. It took only a trawler, and not a very big one, to destroy her.’

Patterson said: ‘You’ve made your point, as Dr Sinclair says, you’ve more than made your point. I accept that the element of risk was not high. You’ll just have to bear with us, Mr McKinnon. Amateurs all. We didn’t know. You did. The fact that the U-boat is at the bottom of the sea is testimony enough to that.’ He paused. ‘I have to say, Bo’sun, that your achievement doesn’t appear to have given you any great satisfaction.’

‘It hasn’t.’

Patterson nodded. ‘I understand. To have been responsible for the deaths of so many men – well, it’s hardly a cheerful thought.’

McKinnon looked at him in mild surprise. ‘What’s done is done. So the U-boat’s gone and its crew with it. It’s no matter for celebration but it’s no matter for recrimination either. The next Allied merchant ship to have appeared on the cross hairs of Klaussen’s periscope sight would surely have gone to where Klaussen’s U-boat is now. The only good U-boat is a U-boat with a ruptured pressure hull at the bottom of the ocean.’

‘Then why –’ Patterson broke off, plainly at a loss for both thought and words, then said: ‘The hell with the pros and cons, it was still a splendid job. I didn’t fancy a prison camp any more than you. Well, I don’t feel as modest about your accomplishments as you do.’ He looked around the table. ‘A toast to our Bo’sun here – and to the memory of Dr Singh.’

‘I’m not nearly as modest as you think I am. I haven’t the slightest objection to drinking a toast to myself.’ McKinnon looked slowly around the other six. ‘But I draw the line at drinking a toast to the memory of Flannelfoot.’

McKinnon was becoming very expert at causing silences. This, the fourth such silence, was much longer and much more uncomfortable than the ones that had preceded it. The other six stared at him, looked at each other with questioning, frowning glances, then returned their exclusive attention to McKinnon. Again, it was Janet who broke the silence.

‘You do know what you’re saying, Archie? At least I hope you do.’

‘I’m afraid I do. Dr Sinclair, you had a cardiac arrest unit in the recovery room. Did you have another similar unit elsewhere?’

‘Yes. In the dispensary.’

‘And you were under strict instructions that, in an emergency, the dispensary unit was the one that was to be used first.’

‘That is so.’ Sinclair looked at him without understanding. ‘How on earth do you know that?’

‘Because I’m clever.’ The normally calm and unemotional Bo’sun made no attempt to conceal his bitterness. ‘After the event, I’m very clever.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s no point in you listening to me telling you how clever I haven’t been. I suggest you go – I suggest you all go – and have a look at the recovery room cardiac unit. The unit’s not there any more – it’s in Ward A, by the Sister’s desk. The lid is closed but the lock has been damaged as has the seal. You can wrench the lid open easily enough.’

All six looked at each other, then rose, left and were back within a minute. They sat in silence and remained in silence: they were either stunned by what they had seen or could not find the words to express their emotions.

‘Nice, is it not?’ McKinnon said. ‘A high-powered radio transceiver. Tell me, Dr Sinclair, did Dr Singh ever lock himself up in the recovery room?’

‘I couldn’t say.’ Sinclair shook his head quite violently, as if to clear it of disbelief. ‘May well have done for all anyone would know.’

‘But he did frequently go into that room alone?’

‘Yes. Alone. Quite often. He insisted on looking after the two injured men personally. Perfectly within his rights, of course – he was the man who had operated on them.’

‘Of course. After I’d found the radio – I still don’t know what made me open up that damned cardiac unit – I examined the lock, the keyhole part that Mr Jamieson had burnt away with his torch, and the latch. Both were heavily oiled. When Dr Singh turned that key you would have heard no sound of metal against metal or even the faintest click, not even if you were listening outside a couple of feet away – not that anyone could have had any conceivable reason for lurking outside a couple of feet away. After locking the door and checking that his two patients were under sedation – and if they weren’t he would make sure they very quickly were – he could use his radio to his heart’s content. Not, I should imagine, that he used it very often: the primary purpose, the essential purpose, of the radio was that it kept on sending out a continual homing location signal.’

‘I still can’t understand it or bring myself to believe it.’ Patterson spoke slowly, a man still trying to struggle free of a trance. ‘Of course it’s true, it has to be true, but that doesn’t make it any more credible. He was such a good man, such a kind man – and a fine doctor, was he not, Dr Sinclair?’

‘He was an excellent doctor. No question. And a brilliant surgeon.’

‘So was Dr Crippen for all I know,’ McKinnon said. ‘I find it as baffling as you do, Mr Patterson. I have no idea what his motives could have been and I should imagine that we’ll never find out. He was a very clever man, a very careful man who never took a chance, a man who totally covered his tracks – if it weren’t for a trigger-happy U-boat gun crew we’d never have found out who Flannelfoot was. His treachery may have had something to do with his background – although he spoke of Pakistani descent he was, of course, an Indian, and I believe that educated Indians have little reason to love the British Raj. May have had something to do with religion, if he had Pakistani roots he was probably a Muslim. The connection – I have no idea. There are a dozen other reasons apart from nationality and politics and religion that make a man a traitor. Where did those cardiac arrest units come from, Dr Sinclair?’

‘They were loaded aboard at Halifax, Nova Scotia.’

‘I know that. But do you know where they came from?’

‘I have no idea. Does it matter?’

‘It could. Point is, we don’t know whether Dr Singh installed the radio transceiver after the unit came aboard or whether the unit was supplied with the transceiver already installed. I would take long odds that the transceiver had already been installed. Very tricky thing to do aboard a boat. Difficult to smuggle the transceiver aboard, equally difficult to get rid of the cardiac unit that was inside the box.’

Sinclair said: ‘When I said I didn’t know where that unit came from, that’s quite true. But I know the country of origin. Britain.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Stencil marks.’

‘Would there be many firms in Britain that make those things?’

‘Again, no idea. Not a question that comes up. A cardiac unit is a cardiac unit. Very few, I should imagine.’

‘Should be easy enough to trace the source – and I don’t for a moment imagine that the unit left the factory already equipped with the transceiver.’ He looked at Patterson. ‘Naval Intelligence should be very interested in finding out what route that cardiac unit took between the factory and the San Andreas and what stopovers it made en route.’

‘They should indeed. And it should take them no time at all to find out where it changed hands and who made the switch. Seems damned careless of our saboteur friends to have left themselves so wide open.’

‘Not really, sir. They simply never expected to be found out.’

‘I suppose. Tell me, Bo’sun, why did you take so long in getting around to telling us about Dr Singh?’

‘Because I had the same reaction as you – I had to work damned hard to convince myself of the evidence of my own eyes. Besides, you all held Dr Singh in very high regard – no one likes to be the bearer of bad news.’ He looked at Jamieson. ‘How long would it take, sir, to fix up a push button on Sister’s desk in Ward A so that it would ring a buzzer in, say, here, the bridge and the engine-room?’

‘No time at all.’ Jamieson paused briefly. ‘I know you must have an excellent reason for this – what shall we call it? – alarm system. May we know what it is?’

‘Of course – so that the sister or nurse in charge of Ward A can let us know if any unauthorized person comes into the ward. That unauthorized 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 assume that it is, he has to assume 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? Unauthorized person? What unauthorized 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 Flannelfoot 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 shore 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 damned reason we seem to be very important to the Germans. And you mustn’t forget that the further south-west 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 button immediately.’

McKinnon made to rise, stopped and looked at his untouched 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 hell tonight.’ He raised his glass. ‘To Flannelfoot.’

McKinnon drank his toast alone.