The steward emerged from the wheelhouse and stood at the rail. “What do you make of her, sir?”
Janvier shrugged. “God knows. Better get the captain.”
A third sailor appeared in the conning tower, a signaling lamp in his hands. The submarine moved in closer, nar-rowing the gap, and the lamp started to wink rapidly.
A reserve naval officer, Janvier had no difficulty in read-ing the signal for himself. When he had deciphered it he stood at the rail frowning for a moment, then went into the wheelhouse and unhooked the signal-lamp.
As he moved back to the rail, the light flickered again from the conning tower, repeating her request. As Janvier replied with the “Message received” signal, the captain came up the ladder from the well-deck, the quartermaster close behind.
Henri Duclos was nearly fifty, and after thirty years at sea, five of them as a corvette captain with the Free French Navy, he found it difficult to be surprised by anything.
“What’s all this?” he demanded.
“They’ve made the same signal twice,” Janvier told him.
” Heave to. I wish to come aboard. ”
“What have you replied?”
“Message received.”
Duclos went into the wheelhouse and came back with apair of binoculars. He examined the submarine for a moment and grunted. “She’s French all right. I can see the uniforms. Small for a sub, though.” He handed the bin-oculars to the quartermaster. “What do you make of her?”
The old man took his time and then nodded.”L’Alouette. I saw her in Oran last year when the fleet was exercising. An ex-U-boat. Experimental job the Germans were working on at the end of the war. One of those the navy took over.”
“So now we know who she is,” Duclos said. “The point is what in the hell does she want with us?” He turned to Janvier. “Ask her to be more explicit.”
There was a pause while the lamps flickered again and Janvier turned blankly. “She says: Imperative I board you. Matter of national importance. Please observe radio silence.
The lamp on the conning tower of the submarine was still. “What shall I reply, sir?” Janvier said.
Duclos raised the binoculars to his eyes for a moment then took them down. “What can you reply? If it’s important enough for them to send a blasted sub after us, then it’s important. Signal: Come aboard. ” He grimaced at the quartermaster. “I was looking forward to all that sun. My rheumatism’s been killing me lately. Let’s hope we don’t have to go into Brest.”
The quartermaster shrugged. “Stranger things are hap-pening in the Republic these days.”
“Which republic?” Duclos demanded sardonically. “Stand to all hands and get a ladder over the side.”
The quartermaster moved away and Janvier lowered the lamp. “They thank us for our co-operation.”
“Do they, now?” Duclos observed. “Let’s hope they aren’t wasting our time. Stop all engines.”
Janvier moved into the wheelhouse and Duclos took out his pipe and filled it from a worn leather pouch, watching the submarine as he did so. The forward hatch was opened and a large yellow dinghy hauled out and inflated. As thefreighter started to slow, the two vessels drifted together until finally the gap had narrowed to no more than twenty or thirty yards.
The submarine commander climbed down the ladder from the conning tower and paused at the bottom, watching the half-dozen sailors working on the dinghy. He was slim and rather boyish in his reefer jacket and rubber boots, and the peaked cap was tilted rakishly to one side. He glanced up at Duclos, smiled and waved, then walked along the hull and stepped down into the dinghy.
He was followed by half a dozen sailors, most of whom carried sub-machine-guns slung across their backs. Four of them paddled the boat across the narrow strip of water towards the ladder that had been dropped over the side of theKontoro. Two sailors, still standing by the forward hatch of the submarine, carefully paid out a connecting line.
“Carrying a lot of hardware, aren’t they?” Janvier said.
Duclos nodded. “I don’t like the look of this at all. It could be messy enough to rub off on all of us. Perhaps they’re after someone in the crew. An O.A.S. man trying to get out of the country or something like that.”