Convoy (37 page)

‘Any careless talk and we’ll have wasted our time, even if we escape with our lives. But if the Swedes are up to any nonsense and suspect any one of us is a menace to this insider business, then we’ll be quietly dropped over the side. The fact the
Echo
heard those transmissions won’t save you: the Swedes need only report that the lifeboat capsized and everyone was drowned as they tried to get us on board. So watch it, my lads; there’ll be booze aplenty when we’re back on board the
Marynal
, that I promise you, and I’ll be signing the chits.’

He suddenly felt frightened: until he heard himself speaking the words he had not consciously thought of the Swedes having a perfect alibi for drowning them: certainly the lifeboat capsizing alongside would be an excellent excuse…

It took nearly an hour to get up to the
Penta
, the lifeboat being like a tiny crab making its way over rippled sand towards some distant objective: the slide down from a crest meant a wearying plunge into the trough and an even more wearisome climb to the top of the next crest. The wind and sea were fine on the lifeboat’s port bow, a direction which ensured the boat’s bow sliced the top from each wave and flung the spray over the men crouching in the boat.

Mills sat four-square on the engine casing, grinning cheerfully to himself and occasionally blowing the salt water from his lips and wiping his brow with the back of an oily hand. Yorke wondered whether the unique situation where the engineer found himself in complete control of his engine and almost touching it, yet out in the fresh air (very fresh and plenty of it, with spray as well) was not so exhilarating and remote from the normal heat of the engine room that Mills hardly noticed he was soaking wet and cold.

The rest of them sat facing aft, many with the hoods of their duffel coats over their heads and seeming like rows of cowled monks undergoing some dire penance, the quilted kapok lifejackets they were wearing over the duffel coats giving them a faintly Chinese appearance. Chinese Franciscans accounting to the cardinal for their misdeeds.

Now the
Penta
was just moving, making a slow turn to port so that she would lie broadside to the wind and waves but without moving ahead. As she swung Yorke could see the cargo net already hanging down the port side, like a square fish net. The net would be made of thick rope, strong enough so that when used for cargo the net could lift a couple of tons or more.

‘Do you think they’ll try something, sir?’

The questioner was Cadet Reynolds, and the shine in his eyes showed more excitement than fear at the prospect. Yorke had intended his earlier warning to put the men on their guard, and he could see the nearest were listening for his answer.

‘The chances are fifty-fifty, I should think.’

‘What are they likely to do?’

‘They might try to capsize the boat as we go alongside. Either make up our painter and then go ahead so that each wave slams the boat alongside her until it smashes up, or just go ahead as we come alongside and leave the quarter wave to swamp us.’

‘There’s not much we can do about any of that, is there, sir?’ Reynolds commented ruefully.

‘Not much, but we can take some precautions. You have a deck knife? Right, I want you up in the bow. As soon as we get alongside the net, don’t pass the painter up to them: instead get a turn through the mesh to hold us just long enough to jump on to the net. As soon as each man is on the net he must climb like a mountain goat to make way for the next one. Don’t grab and hang on – the next roll of the ship will dip you into the water, and you could be crushed by the boat. Leap, grab and climb! Now, you get forward with your knife and as you go make sure everyone understands the instructions. If you see they’re trying to tow us, cut the painter, we can take a sheer away – I’m not stopping the engine until the last moment.’

There was nothing else that he could think of. Keeping the engine running until he was sure there would be no monkey business meant that Mills could shut it off or leave it to run until the fuel gives out. Anything else for the men? Nothing until they are on board the
Penta
: the lifejackets, like padded waistcoats, will stop the grenades falling out of duffel-coat pockets. They would also stop anyone getting one out, or extricating a revolver… And everyone in the boat was wearing a standard Ministry of Transport lifejacket.

He looked up to find the
Penta
very close: he had kept her in the corner of his eye as a grey mass ahead but while his mind raced on, trying out all the permutations of what might happen, he had not been examining her. Only a year or two old judging by the smoothness of the hull plating, built with a cruiser stern, a low squat funnel, the bridge section streamlined, and all the accommodation below it, instead of having the seamen berthed in the fo’c’sle, as they were in the
Marynal
. Swedish flag, no gun on the poop, topmasts removed, both lifeboats on this side fitted with engines so presumably the two the other side had them too. No framework of piping for fitting tropical awnings so the
Penta
probably had not been to the tropics before, although she would need some awnings this trip or else those blond Swedes would go bright red with bad sunburn. Two officers were standing out on the wing of the bridge watching the lifeboat approaching, with a dozen or so seamen standing on deck along the top edge of the cargo net.

He signalled to Mills to throttle back a little as the lifeboat came into the lee of the
Penta
, which was making a great wind shadow with the sea calmer as though they had suddenly arrived behind a breakwater.

There were now three Swedish officers out on the wing of the bridge, and Yorke thought he recognized the captain and the near albino he had seen at the convoy conference. Now the lifeboat was level with the
Penta
’s stern, heading in at forty-five degrees for the patch of the cargo net almost amidships abaft the bridge. Anyone out on the wing could look right down into the boat.

What had begun with Clare telephoning him at the Citadel, had finally led to this, to a Swedish ship hove-to 800 miles out in the Atlantic astern of a convoy and Lt Yorke, RN, about to try to board her with a motley crowd of ‘survivors’ who had grenades stuffed in their pockets just as schoolboys might have apples after a scrumping raid on a neighbour’s orchard.

They were almost alongside the net now: Mills was obeying the signal to throttle back even more, Yorke had the tiller over to port to keep the lifeboat’s bow nosing to starboard, nuzzling into the
Penta
’s side, the men along the starboard side were standing up, reaching over to the net as the boat leapt up and plunged down the ship’s side, lifting on a crest, dropping in a trough. A moment later half a dozen men were on the net and climbing, with more following as soon as there was no chance of their hands being stamped on.

More men slid across the thwarts from the port side and made the jump to the net and by then the first men were near the top. In what seemed only moments the lifeboat was almost empty. Four, three, two seamen…and now himself, Mills and Reynolds left. He signalled Mills to stop the engine and go up the net and was startled by the sudden silence as the noise died but was equally suddenly replaced by the whine of wind and the sucking and sloshing of the sea between the lifeboat and the ship.

Finally Cadet Reynolds at the bow was looking aft to Yorke at the stern. Yorke scrambled forward, shouting at the boy to get onto the net, and began untying the painter, but Reynolds stayed on the net and, instead of climbing up to safety, helped Yorke. He had tied a couple of half hitches using a bight of the rope, and the end caught in the net. Finally Reynolds handed Yorke the deck knife and Yorke sawed through the rope, climbing on to the net a few moments before cutting the last strands. Almost at once a wave caught the lifeboat’s bow and gave her a sheer away from the ship. Yorke began to scramble upwards, cursing the bulk of lifejacket and duffel coat. When he paused halfway and looked down at the boat, it was already twenty yards away and, with its grey paint, almost indistinguishable among the grey waves.

He scrambled over the bulwark and on to the
Penta
’s deck and for a few moments felt dizzy because suddenly the merchant ship seemed as stable as a rock compared with the tossing lifeboat. He found himself automatically balancing against violent pitching and rolling which no longer existed. Already several of his men had been led away and a young Swedish officer was waiting for him to recover before speaking.

‘You are in command of the boat, sir?’

Yorke nodded. ‘Second Officer Yorke.’ He held out his hand and as the Swede shook it diffidently said with the kind of hearty manner that the British were always portrayed as using by those who did not know them: ‘Were we glad to see you come in sight!’

The Swede, unsmiling and without any expression in his voice, said: ‘You will come to the bridge.’ He sounded, Yorke thought, like a ‘Speak your weight’ machine at one of the railway stations.

‘My men…?’

‘They will be given hot food and dry clothing. Come.’

Kom
. It was an order, not an invitation; but Scandinavians tended to be abrupt when they were nervous. The English was good; he could not really remember a Scandinavian accent in English well enough to distinguish it from good English spoken by the Dutch – or Germans, for that matter.

His shoes squelched, and for the first time in twelve hours he remembered that they were full of water. The movement of walking made the sodden material of his trousers chafe on his knees. ‘Get yer knees
brarn!
’ was the ultimate scornful remark in the tropics to a newly-arrived sailor trying to throw his weight about. Legs in general and knees in particular were always the last parts of the body to get tanned. What the devil brought
that
to mind? The handrails of the
Penta
were painted a functional grey; there was none of the fancy ropework, the Turk’s heads, sewn and scrubbed canvas, that distinguished the
Marynal
. The ship had all the warmth of a frigid woman.

The bridge and accommodation of the
Penta
was like a small block of flats: once through a door there was little feeling of a ship – panelling in light-wood veneers, modern prints framed in bare wood. Stairs led upwards and Yorke followed the young officer. The stairs had carpets, and his shoes were leaving wet footprints all the way to the wheelhouse. Every piece of nonferrous metal was chromed. It looked smart and hygienic. Not one square millimetre of polished brass, not even the clock (with its inner circle for the contacts of the zigzag buzzer) or the boss of the wheel. The wheel itself was a circle of stainless steel with four spokes, not the varnished and carved wheel of the
Marynal
. The quartermaster did not lift his eyes from the compass; his round hat was on square and he looked ready for an inspection. Yorke followed the officer to the chartroom. The officer stopped on the threshold and yelped (although obviously he had intended to bark): ‘Second Officer Yorke, sir,’ and left. Yorke went in to find himself facing two men whom he recognized at once. The nearest was Captain Ohlson, once again hatless, his blond hair brilliantined flat on his head, the skull cap of omelette which had been so noticeable at the convoy conference, the nose large and the ears sticking out like jug handles. Four gold stripes on the sleeve of his jacket showed he was the captain.

The man beside him had also been at the conference, the officer who was almost an albino, his hair cut
en
brosse
, and so blond it was almost white, and the impression at the conference that he had no eyebrows had been correct. The face was almost gaunt, cheekbones high, lips as thin as Rizla cigarette papers. The eyes were the pale blue of glaciers and crime-novel murderers. Three gold stripes showed he was the chief officer.

Yorke knew they would not recognize him; at the convoy conference in Liverpool he had been smart and clean-shaven in mufti; now his face was bristly and dirty, his hair sodden, like a wet mop. No peaked cap, no uniform showing, only the kapok lifejacket and the dripping duffel coat.

He pretended a hearty thankfulness. ‘On behalf of myself and my men, Captain, I…’

‘What ship?’ the other officer interrupted.

Yorke ignored him. ‘I’m Second Officer Yorke, sir,’ he said to Captain Ohlson. ‘To whom am I…?’

The Swede nodded his head. ‘Ohlson, master of the
Penta
.’

‘And this gentleman?’

‘The chief officer, Mr Pahlen.’

Pahlen gave no sign that anyone else had spoken. ‘What ship, Yorke?’

Yorke deliberately looked at Ohlson. A provoked man often said more than he intended, and now was as good a time as any to start provoking Pahlen who, Yorke guessed, had the power in the
Penta
, even if not officially referred to as the master. Power or influence or something else that made Ohlson pay attention to him.

‘Excuse me, captain,’ Yorke said, with the stolid determination of a man unable to absorb more than one idea at a time: ‘My captain and my owners would want me to be sure to thank you on behalf of–’

‘Yes, yes,’ Pahlen interrupted, ‘we understand and…’

‘–my men and myself for the way you handled the rescue,’ Yorke said, as though Pahlen did not exist. ‘It’s not every day men get torpedoed, and to be rescued within twelve hours or so is either good luck or a good lookout on the part of the rescue ship, so thanks for the good lookout.’

‘Very well,’ Pahlen said abruptly, ‘now tell us your ship.’

Yorke raised his eyebrows, still looking at Captain Ohlson. ‘Captain, it beats me why your chief officer should be so concerned with the name of our ship. There’s no secret. She can only be one of three or four. But what the hell does he keep harping on it for? He sounds like the bloody Gestapo to me.’

Yorke’s eyes flickered to Pahlen in time to get his reaction to the word ‘Gestapo’ and saw that he was now eyeing Ohlson and clearly puzzled by this Englishman. Ohlson seemed to stand more erect – or was it Yorke’s imagination?