‘You claim to be an E.R.A. Can you prove it?’
Trove it?’ Hartley was taken aback. ‘What do you mean – “prove it”, sir? I don’t have any certificates on me if that’s what you’re after.’
‘You could pass a practical test?’
‘A practical test?’ Hartley’s face cleared. ‘Of course, sir. I’ve never been in your engine-room but that’s no matter. An E.R.A. is an E.R.A. Take me to your engine-room and I’ll identify any piece of equipment you have. I can do that blindfold – all I have to do is touch. I’ll tell you the purpose of that or any piece of equipment and I can strip it down and put it together again.’
‘Hm.’ Patterson looked at Jamieson. ‘What do you think?’
‘I wouldn’t waste our time, sir.’
‘Neither would I.’ He nodded to the Bo’sun, who looked at Simons.
‘You L.T.O. Simons?’
‘Yeah. And who are you?’ McKinnon looked at the thin arrogant face and thought it unlikely that they would ever be blood-brothers. ‘You’re not an officer.’
‘I’m a seaman.’
‘I don’t answer questions from a Merchant Navy seaman.’
‘You will, you know,’ Patterson said. ‘Mr McKinnon is hardly the equivalent of the Royal Navy’s ordinary seaman. The senior seaman aboard, the equivalent of your warrant officer. Not that it matters to you what he is. He’s acting under my orders and if you defy him you defy me. You understand?’
‘No.’
McKinnon said in a mild voice:’ “No, sir,” when you’re talking to a senior officer.’
Simons sneered, there was a blur of movement and Simons was doubled over, making retching sounds and gasping for breath. McKinnon looked at him unemotionally as he gradually straightened and said to Patterson: ‘May I have an option as regards this man, sir? He’s an obvious suspect.’
‘He is. You may.’
‘Either irons, bread and water till we reach port or a private interrogation with me.’
‘Irons!’ Simons’ voice was a wheeze, a McKinnon jab to the solar plexus was not something from which one made an instant recovery. ‘You can’t do that to me.’
‘I can and if necessary will.’ Patterson’s tone was chillingly indifferent. ‘I am in command of this ship. If I choose, I can have you over the side. Alternatively, if I have proof that you are a spy, I can have you shot as a spy. Wartime regulations say so.’ Wartime regulations, in fact, said nothing of the kind but it was most unlikely that Simons knew this.
‘I’ll settle for the private interrogation,’ McKinnon said.
A horrified Margaret Morrison said: ‘Archie, you can’t -‘
‘Be quiet.’ Patterson’s voice was cold. ‘I suggest, Simons, that you will be well advised to answer a few simple questions.’ Simons scowled and said nothing.
McKinnon said: ‘You an L.T.O?’
“Course I am.’
‘Can you prove it?’
‘Like Hartley here, I haven’t any certificates with me. And you don’t have any torpedoes to test me with. Not that you would know one end of a torpedo from another.’
‘What’s your barracks?’
‘Portsmouth.’
‘Where did you qualify L.T.O.?’
‘Portsmouth, of course.’
‘When?’
‘Early ‘forty-three.’
‘Let me see your pay-book.’ McKinnon examined it briefly, then looked up at Simons. ‘Very new and very clean.”
‘Some people look after their things.’
‘You didn’t make a very good job of looking after your old one, did you?’
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘This is either a new one, a stolen one or a forged one.’
‘God’s sake, I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘You know all right.’ The Bo’sun tossed the pay-book on the table. ‘That’s a forgery, you’re a liar and you’re not an L.T.O. Unfortunately for you, Simons, I was a Torpedo Gunner’s Mate in the Navy. No L.T.O’s qualified in Portsmouth in early nineteen forty-three, or indeed for some considerable time before and after that. They qualified at Roedean College near Brighton – used to be the leading girls’ school in Britain before the war. You’re a fraud and a spy, Simons. What’s the name of your accomplice aboard the San Andreas?
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Amnesia.’ McKinnon stood and looked at Patterson. ‘Permission to lock him up, sir?’
‘Permission granted.’
‘Nobody’s going to bloody well lock me up,’ Simons shouted. ‘I demand – ‘ His voice broke off in a scream as McKinnon twisted his forearm high up behind his back.
‘You’ll stay here, sir?’ McKinnon said. Patterson nodded. ‘I won’t be long. Five, ten minutes. We won’t be needing .E.R.A. Hartley any more?’
‘Of course not. Sorry about that, E.R.A. But we had to know.’
‘I understand, sir.’ It was quite apparent that he did not understand.
‘You don’t. But we’ll explain later.’ Hartley left, followed by McKinnon and Simons, the latter with his right wrist still somewhere up in the vicinity of his left shoulder-blade.
‘Ten minutes,’ Margaret Morrison said. ‘It takes ten minutes to lock up a man.’
‘Sister Morrison,’ Patterson said. She looked at him. ‘I admire you as a nurse. I like you as a person. But don’t interfere in things or presume to pass judgement on things you know nothing about. The Bo’sun may only be a bo’sun but he operates at a level you know nothing about. If it weren’t for him you’d be either a prisoner or dead. Instead of constantly sniping at him you’d be better occupied in giving thanks for a world where there’s still a few Archie McKinnons around.’ He broke off and cursed in silent self-reproach as he saw tears trickling down the lowered head.
McKinnon pushed Simons inside an empty cabin, locked the door, pocketed the key, turned and hit Simons in exactly the same spot as previously although with considerably more force. Simons staggered backwards across the corticene, smashed heavily into the bulkhead and slid to the deck. McKinnon picked him up, held his right arm against the bulkhead and struck his right biceps with maximum power. Simons screamed, tried to move his right arm and found it impossible: it was completely paralysed. The Bo’sun repeated the process on the left arm and let him slide down again.
‘I am prepared to keep this up indefinitely,’ McKinnon’s voice was conversational, almost pleasant. ‘I’m going to keep on hitting you, and if necessary, kicking you anywhere between your shoulders and toes. There won’t be a mark on your face. I don’t like spies, I don’t like traitors and I don’t care too much for people with innocent blood on their hands.’
McKinnon returned to the lounge and resumed his seat. Ulbricht looked at his watch and said: ‘Four minutes. My word, you do keep your word, Mr McKinnon.’
‘A little dispatch, that’s all.’ He looked at Margaret Morrison and the still visible tear stains. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. It’s just this whole horrible ugly business.’
‘It’s not nice.’ He looked at her for a speculative moment, made as if to say something, then changed his mind. ‘Simons has come all over co-operative and volunteered some information.’
‘Co-operative?’ Margaret said incredulously. ‘Volunteered?’
‘Never judge a man by his appearances. There are hidden depths in all of us. His name is not Simons, it’s Braun, “au”, not “ow”.’
‘German, surely,’ Patterson said.
‘Sounds that way but he is RN. His passport is a forgery – someone in Murmansk gave it to him. He couldn’t be more specific than that, I assume it must have been a member of what must now be that espionage ring up there. He’s not an L.T.O., he’s an S.B.A., a Sick Bay Attendant, which ties in rather nicely with the chloroform used twice and the drugging of Captain Andropolous.’ He tossed two keys on the table. ‘I’m sure Dr Sinclair will confirm that those are the dispensary keys.’
‘Goodness me,’ Jamieson said. ‘You have not been idle, Bo’sun, and that’s a fact. He – Braun – must have been most communicative.’
‘He was indeed. He even gave me the identity of Flannel-foot number two.’
‘What!’
‘Remember, Margaret, that I said to you only a few minutes ago that I would be proved wrong about something before the trip was over. Well, it hasn’t taken long for me to prove I was right about that. It’s McCrimmon.’
‘McCrimmon!’ Jamieson was half out of his seat. ‘McCrimmon. That bloody young bastard!’
‘You are sitting – well, more or less – next to a young lady.’ McKinnon’s tone of reproof was mild.
‘Ah! Yes. So I am. Sorry, Sister.’ Jamieson sat again. ‘But – McCrimmon!’
‘I think the fault is mainly mine, sir. I’ve been on record as saying that although he was a criminal, I regarded him as a trustworthy criminal. Serious flaw in judgement. But I was half right.’
‘I can accept that it was McCrimmon.’ Patterson’s tone was calm and if he was upset it wasn’t showing. ‘Never liked him. Truculent, offensive, foul mouthed. Two terms in Barlinnie, the maximum security prison outside Glasgow. Both for street violence. I should imagine that the feel of an iron crowbar in his hand is nothing new to that man. The Royal Navy would never have accepted a man with his record. One can only assume that we have lower standards.’ He paused and considered. ‘We pull him in?’