‘I speak a little Greek, very little, schoolboy stuff- English public schools are high on Greek – and I’ve forgotten most of that. Not that I can see that it would do much good anyway even if we were to find out that a person or x number of persons joined the Argos at Murmansk. They would only assume expressions of injured innocence, say they don’t know what we are talking about and what could we do then?’ Ulbricht was silent for almost a minute, then suddenly said: ‘The Russian shipwrights.’
‘What Russian shipwrights?’
‘The ones that fixed the damage to the hull of your ship and finished off your sick-bay. But especially the hull repairers.’
‘What about them?’
‘Moment.’ Ulbricht thought some more. ‘I don’t know just how many niggers in the woodpile there may be aboard the San Andreas, but I’m all at once certain that the original one was a member of your own crew.’
‘How on earth do you figure that out? Not, mind you, that anything would surprise me.’
‘You sustained this hull damage to the San Andreas while you were alongside the sinking corvette, before vou sunk her by gunfire. That is correct?’
‘Correct,’
‘How did it happen?’
‘I told you. We don’t know. No torpedoes, no mines, nothing of that nature. A destroyer was along one side of the corvette, taking off her crew, while we were on the other taking off the survivors of the sunken Russian submarine. There was a series of explosions inside the corvette before we could get clear. One was a boiler going off, the others could have been gun-cotton, two-pounders, anything – there was some sort of fire inside. It was at that time that the damage must have happened.’
‘I suggest it didn’t happen that way at all. I suggest, instead, that it was then that a trusty member of your crew detonated a charge in the port ballast room. I suggest that it was someone who knew precisely how much explosive to use to ensure that it didn’t sink the ship but enough to inflict sufficiently serious damage for it to have to make for the nearest port where repair facilities were available, which, in this case, was Murmansk.’
‘It makes sense. It could have happened that way. But I’m not convinced.’
‘In Murmansk, did anyone see the size or type of hole that had been blown in the hull?’
‘No.’
‘Did anyone try to see?’
‘Yes. Mr Rennet and I.’
‘But surprise, surprise, you didn’t. You didn’t because you weren’t allowed to see it.’
‘That’s how it was. How did you know?’
‘They had tarpaulins rigged all around and above the area under repair?’
‘They had.’ McKinnon was beginning to look rather thoughtful.
‘Did they give any reasons?’
‘To keep out the wind and snow.’
‘Was there much in the way of those?’
‘Very little.’
‘Did you ask to get behind the tarpaulins, see behind them?’
‘We did. They wouldn’t let us. Said it was too dangerous and would only hold up the work of the shipwrights. We didn’t argue because we didn’t think it was all that important. There was no reason why we should have thought so. If you know the Russians at all you must know how mulish they can be about the most ridiculous things. Besides, they were doing us a favour and there was no reason why we, should have been suspicious. All right, all right, Lieutenant, there’s no reason to beat me over the head with a two-by-four. You don’t have to be an engineer or a metallurgist to recognize a hole that has been blown from the inside out.’
‘And does it now strike you as strange that the second damage to the hull should have occurred in precisely the same ballast compartment?’
‘Not now it doesn’t. Our gallant – ours, not yours – our gallant allies almost certainly left the charge in the ballast room with a suitable length of fuse conveniently attached. You have the right of it, Lieutenant.’
‘So all we have to do now is to find some member of your crew with a working knowledge of explosives. You know of any such, Mr McKinnon?’
‘Yes.’
‘What!’ Ulbricht propped himself up on an elbow. ‘Who?’
McKinnon raised his eyes to the deckhead. ‘Me.’
‘That’s a help.’ Ulbricht lowered himself to his bunk again. ‘That’s a great help.’
SIX
It was shortly after ten o’clock in the morning that the snow came again. McKinnon had spent another fifteen minutes in the Captain’s cabin, leaving only when he saw the Lieutenant was having difficulty in keeping his eyes open, then had spoken in turn with Naseby, Patterson and Jamieson, who was again supervising the strengthening of the superstructure. All three had agreed that Ulbricht was almost certainly correct in the assessment he had made: and all three agreed with the Bo’sun that this fresh knowledge, if knowledge it were, served no useful purpose whatsoever. McKinnon had returned to the bridge when the snow came.
He opened a wing door in a duly circumspect fashion but, for all his caution, had it torn from his grasp to crash against the leading edge of the bridge, such was the power of the wind. The snow, light as yet, was driving along as nearly horizontally as made no difference. It was quite impossible to look into it, but with his back to it and looking out over the bows, he could see that the wave pattern had changed: the dawn was in the sky now and in its light he could see that the last semblance of serried ranks had vanished and that the white-veined, white-spumed seas were now broken walls of water, tending this way and that in unpredictable formless confusion. Even without the evidence of his eyes he would have known that this was so: the deck beneath his feet was beginning to shake and shudder in a rather disconcerting manner. The cold was intense. Even with his very considerable weight and strength, McKinnon found it no easy task to heave the wing door shut behind him as he stepped back into the bridge. He was in desultory conversation with Trent, who had the helm, when the phone rang. It was Sister Morrison. She said she was ready to come up to the Captain’s cabin.
‘I wouldn’t recommend it, Sister. Things are pretty unpleasant up top.’
‘I would remind you that you gave me your promise.’ She was speaking in her best sister’s voice.
‘I know. It’s just that conditions have worsened quite a bit.’
‘Really, Mr McKinnon – ‘
‘I’m coming. On your own head.’
In Ward B, Janet Magnusson looked at him with disapproval. ‘A hospital is no place for a snowman.’
‘Just passing through. On a mission of mercy. At least, your mule-headed friend imagines she is.’
She kept her expression in place. ‘Lieutenant Ulbricht?’
‘Who else? I’ve just seen him. Looks fair enough to me. I think she’s daft.’
‘The trouble with you, Archie McKinnon, is that you have no finer feelings. Not as far as caring for the sick is concerned. In other ways too, like as not. And if she’s daft, it’s only because she’s been saying nice things about you.’
‘About me? She doesn’t know me.’
‘True, Archie, true.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘But Captain Bowen does.’
McKinnon sought briefly for a suitable comment about captains who gossiped to ward sisters, found none and moved into Ward A. Sister Morrison, suitably bundled up, was waiting. There was a small medical case on a table by her side. McKinnon nodded at her.
‘Would you take those glasses off, Sister?’
‘Why?’
‘It’s the Lothario in him,’ Kennet said. He sounded almost his old cheerful self again. ‘He probably thinks you look nicer without them.’
‘It’s no morning for a polar bear, Mr Kennet, far less a Lothario. If the lady doesn’t remove her glasses the wind will do the job for her.’
‘What’s the wind like, Bo’sun?’ It was Captain Bowen.
‘Force eleven, sir. Blizzard. Eight below. Nine-ninety millibars.’
‘And the seas breaking up?’ Even in the hospital the shuddering of the vessel was unmistakable.
‘They are a bit, sir.’
‘Any problems?’
‘Apart from Sister here seeming bent on suicide, none.’ Not, he thought, as long as the superstructure stayed in place.
Sister Morrison gasped in shock as they emerged on to the upper deck. However much she had mentally prepared herself, she could not have anticipated the savage power of that near hurricane force wind and the driving blizzard that accompanied it, could not even have imagined the lung-searing effect of the abrupt 8oºF drop in temperature. McKinnon wasted no time. He grabbed Sister Morrison with one hand, the lifeline with the other, and allowed the two of them to be literally blown across the treacherous ice-sheathed deck into the shelter of the superstructure. Once under cover, she removed her duffel hood and stood there panting, tenderly massaging her ribs.
‘Next time, Mr McKinnon – if there is a next time – I’ll listen to you. My word! I never dreamt – well, I just never dreamt. And my ribs!’ She felt carefully as if to check they were still there. ‘I’ve got ordinary ribs, just like anyone else. I think you’ve broken them.’