‘Archie!’ The girl reached across the table and caught his wrist. ‘Archie! What is it!’
‘Well, now that was a damn stupid thing to do, wasn’t it?’ The voice was calm, without emotion, the Bo’sun back on balance again. He wiped away the blood with a paper napkin. ‘Sorry about that.’
She twisted his wrist until the palm showed. ‘You’ve cut yourself. Quite badly.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Edinburgh, is it? He’s haunted by it. That’s what you said, Margaret. Haunted. So he damn well ought to be. And I should be haunted, too. All my life. For being so blind, so bloody well eternally stupid.’
‘How can you say such a thing? If you see something that we can’t see, then we’re all more stupid than you are.’
‘No. Because I know something that you don’t know.’
‘What is it, then?’ There was curiosity in her voice, but it was overlaid by a deeper apprehension. ‘What is it?’
McKinnon smiled. ‘Margaret, I would have thought that you of all people would have learnt the dangers of talking in public. Would you please bring Captain Bowen to the lounge.’
‘I can’t. He’s having his head bandaged.’
‘I rather think, Margaret, you should do what the Bo’sun suggests.’ It was the first time that Ulbricht had used her Christian name in company. ‘Something tells me that the Captain will need no second invitation.’
‘And bring your pal,’ McKinnon said. ‘What I have to say may well be of interest to her.’
She looked at him for a long and thoughtful moment, then nodded and left without a word. McKinnon watched her go, an equally thoughtful expression on his face, then turned to Jamieson. ‘I think you should ask one of your men to request Mr Patterson to come to the lounge also.’
Captain Bowen came into the lounge accompanied by Dr Sinclair, who had no alternative but to come for he was still only halfway through re-bandaging Bowen’s head.
‘It looks as if we’ll have to change our minds again about our plans,’ McKinnon said. He had a certain air of resignation about him, due not to the change in plans but to the fact that Janet was firmly bandaging his cut palm. ‘It’s certain now that the Germans, if they can’t take us, will send us to the bottom, The San Andreas is no longer a hospital ship, it’s more of a treasure ship. We are carrying a fortune in gold. I don’t know how much but I would guess at something between twenty and thirty million pounds sterling.’
Nobody said anything. There wasn’t much one could make in the way of comment about such a preposterous statement and the Bo’sun’s relaxed certainty didn’t encourage what might have been the expected exclamatory chorus of surprise, doubt or disbelief.
‘It is, of course, Russian gold, almost certainly in exchange for lend-lease. The Germans would love to get their hands on it, for I suppose gold is gold no matter what the country of origin, but if they can’t get it they’re going to make damned sure that Britain doesn’t get it either, and this is not out of spite or frustration, although I suppose that that would play some part. But what matters is this. The British Government is bound to know that we’re carrying this gold – you’ve only got to think about it for a moment to see that this must have been a joint planned operation between the Soviet and British Governments.’
‘Using a hospital ship as a gold transport?’ Jamieson’s disbelief was total. ‘The British Government would never be guilty of such a pernicious act.’
‘I am in no position to comment on that, sir. I can imagine that our Government can be as perfidious as any other and there are plenty of perfidious governments around. Ethics, I should think, take very much a back seat in war – if there are any ethics in war. All I want to say about the Government is that they are going to be damned suspicious of the Russians and would put the worst possible interpretation on our disappearance – they may well arrive at the conclusion that the Russians intercepted the ship after it had sailed, got rid of the crew, sailed the San Andreas to any port in northern Russia, unloaded the gold and scuttled the ship. Alternatively, they might well believe the Russians didn’t even bother to load any gold at all but just lay in wait for the San Andreas. The Russians do have a submarine fleet, small as it is, in Murmansk and Archangel.
‘Whichever option the Government prefers to believe, and I can imagine it highly likely that they will believe one or the other, the result will be the same and one that would delight the hearts of the Germans. The British Government is going to believe that the Russians welshed on the deal and will be extremely suspicious not only of this but of any future deal. They’ll never be able to prove anything but there is something they can do – reduce or even stop all future lend-lease to Russia. This could be a more effective way of stopping Allied supplies to Russia than all the U-boats in the North Atlantic and Arctic.’
There was quite a long silence, then Bowen said: ‘It’s a very plausible scenario, Bo’sun, attractive – if one may use that word – even convincing. But it does rather depend on one thing; why do you think we have this gold aboard?’
‘I don’t think, sir. I know. Only a few minutes ago, just after we had sat down to dinner, Sister Morrison here happened to mention Oberleutnant Klaussen’s constant delirious ramblings. In his delirium one word kept recurring — Edinburgh. Sister says he seemed to be haunted by that word. I should damn well think he was. It was not so very long ago that a U-boat sent the cruiser Edinburgh to the bottom on her way back from Russia. The Edinburgh was carrying at least twenty million pounds of gold bullion in her holds.’
‘Good God!’ Bowen’s voice was no more than a whisper: ‘Good God above! You have the right of it, Archie, by heaven you have the right of it.’
‘It all ties in too damn nicely, sir. It had been dunned into Klaussen that he was not to repeat the exploits of his illustrious predecessor who had dispatched the Edinburgh. It also accounts – the sinking of the Edinburgh, I mean – for the rather underhanded decision to use the San Andreas. Any cruiser, any destroyer can be sunk. By the Geneva Convention, hospital ships are inviolate.’
‘I only wish I had told you sooner,’ Margaret Morrison said. ‘He’d been muttering about Edinburgh ever since he was brought aboard. I should have realized that it must have meant something.’
‘You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with,’ McKinnon said. ‘Why should the word have had any significance for you? Delirious men rave on about anything. It wouldn’t have made the slightest difference if we had found out earlier. What does matter is that we have found out before it’s too late. At least, I hope it’s not too late. If there are any reproaches going they should come in my direction. At least I knew about the Edinburgh -1 don’t think anyone else did – and shouldn’t have had to be reminded of it. Spilt milk.’
‘It does all mesh together, doesn’t it?’ Jamieson said. ‘Explains why they wouldn’t let you and Mr Kennet see what was going on behind that tarpaulin when they were repairing the hole in the ship’s side. They didn’t want you to see that they were replacing that ballast they’d taken out to lighten ship by a different sort of ballast altogether. I suppose you knew what the original ballast looked like?’
‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t. I’m sure Mr Kennet didn’t know either.’
‘The Russians weren’t to know that and took no chances. Oh, I’m sure they’d have painted the bullion grey or whatever the colour of the ballast was: the size and shape of the blocks and bars of the gold would almost certainly have been different. Hence the “No Entry” sign at the tarpaulin. Everything that has happened since can be explained by the presence of that gold.’ Jamieson paused, seemed to hesitate then nodded as if he had made up his mind. ‘Doesn’t it strike you, Bo’sun, that McCrimmon poses a bit of a problem?’
‘Not really. He’s a double agent.’
‘Damn it!’ Jamieson was more than a little chagrined. ‘I’d hoped, for once, that I might be the first to come up with the solution to a problem.’
‘A close run thing,’ McKinnon said. ‘The same question had occurred to me at the same time. It’s the only answer, isn’t it? Espionage history – or so I am led to believe – is full of accounts of double agents. McCrimmon’s just another. His primary employer – his only really true employer – is, of course, Germany. We may find out, we may not, how the Germans managed to infiltrate him into the service of the Russians but infiltrate him they did. Sure, it was the Russians who instructed him to blow that hole in the ballast room, but that was even more in the Germans’ interest than the Russians’. Both had compelling reasons to find an excuse to divert the San Andreas to Murmansk, the Russians to load the gold, the Germans to load Simons and that charge in the ballast room.’