‘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 Flanneifoot 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, Flannel-foot 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 southwest 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 un-= touched 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.
NINE
Less than ten minutes after McKinnon’s arrival on the bridge the phone rang.
‘Jamieson here,’ the voice said. ‘Things do keep happening aboard this damned ship. There’s been another accident.’
‘Accident?’
‘Accident on purpose. Incident, I should have said. Your pal Limassol.’
‘Limassol’ was the name that McKinnon had given to the man whom he had discovered to be the radio operator of the Argos. Apart from this discovery, the only other thing that the Bo’sun had been able to discover about him was that he was a Greek Cypriot from Limassol.
‘What’s happened to my pal Limassol?’
‘He’s been clobbered.’
‘Ah.’ McKinnon was not a man much given to exclamatory outbursts. ‘Inevitably. Who clobbered him?’
‘You should know better than to ask that question, Bo’sun. How the hell should I know who clobbered him? Nobody ever knows who does anything aboard the San Andreas. The Chief Officer was more prophetic than he knew when he gave this ship its new name. It’s a bloody disaster area. I can only give you the facts as I know them. Sister Maria was on duty when Limassol sat down to have a look at the transceiver. After a while he stood and made the motion of screwing his forefinger against the palm of his other hand. She guessed, correctly, that he wanted tools and sent for Way land Day to take him down to the engine-room. I was there and gave him the tools he wanted. He also took a bridge-megger with him. Gave every impression of a man who knew what he was doing. On his way back, in the passageway leading to the mess-deck, he was clobbered. Something hard and heavy.’
‘How hard, how heavy?’
‘If you’ll just hang on for a moment. We have him down here in a bed in A Ward. Dr Sinclair is attending to him. He can tell you better than I can.’
There was a brief silence, then Sinclair was on the phone. ‘Bo’sun? Well, damn it, confirmation of the existence of Flannelfoot number two – not that any confirmation was needed, but I didn’t expect such quick and violent proof. This lad doesn’t hang around, does he? Dangerous, violent, acts on his own initiative and his mind’s working on the same wavelength as ours.’
‘Limassol?’
‘Pretty poorly, to say the least. Some metallic object, no question, could easily have been a crowbar. I would guess that the attacker’s intent was to kill him. With most people he might well have succeeded but this Limassol seems to have a skull like an elephant. Fractured, of course. I’ll have an X-ray. Routine and quite superfluous but mandatory. No signs of any brain damage, which is not to say that there isn’t any. But no obvious damage, not, at least, at this stage. Two things I’m pretty certain about, Mr McKinnon. He’ll live but he’s not going to be of much use to you – or anyone – for some time to come.’
‘As Dr Singh said about Lieutenant Cunningham – two hours, two days, two weeks, two months?’
‘Something like that. I’ve simply no idea. All I know is that if he does recover rapidly he’ll be of no possible use to you for days to come, so you can rule him out of any plans you may have.’
‘I’m fresh out of plans, Doctor.’
‘Indeed. We seem to be running out of options. Mr Jamieson would like to have another word with you.’
Jamieson came back on the phone. ‘Maybe this could’ have been my fault, Bo’sun. Maybe if I’d been thinking a bit more clearly and a bit quicker this wouldn’t have happened.’
‘How on earth were you to know that Limassol was going to be attacked?’
‘True. But I should have gone with him; not for his protection, but to watch him to see what he did to make the set work. That way I might have picked up enough to have some knowledge – rudimentary, but some – so that we wouldn’t have to rely entirely on one man.’
‘Flannelfoot would probably have clobbered you too. No point, sir, in trying to place the blame where none exists. The milk’s spilt and you didn’t spill it. Just give me enough time and I’ll find out it was all McKinnon’s fault.’
He hung up and related the gist of his conversation to Naseby, who had the wheel, and to Lieutenant Ulbricht, who had declared himself as feeling so fit that he no longer qualified as a bed patient.
‘Disturbing,’ Ulbricht said. ‘Our friend seems to be resourceful, very quick-thinking and very much a man of decision and action. I say “disturbing” because it has just occurred to me that he may have been Flannelfoot number one and not Dr Singh, in which case we can expect a great deal more unpleasantness. In any event, it seems to rule out the crew of the Argos – none of them speaks English so they couldn’t have known about the fake cardiac unit being in A Ward.’