San Andreas Page 9

  ‘Fine. Thank you. We have bridge control?’

  ‘Yes. I told the engine-room to cease and desist. Chief Patterson seemed quite disappointed—seems to think that he can do a better job than the bridge. What’s next on the agenda?’

  ‘Nothing. Not for me, that is.’

  ‘Ah! I take your point. Our idle hands, is that it? We’ll have a look at the chances of bracing the superstructure in a moment—a moment depending on how long it takes us to get defrosted.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ The Bo’sun looked over his shoulder. ‘I have noticed that Dr Singh doesn’t bother to keep the hospital’s private liquor cabinet locked.’

  ‘Well, now. A little something in our coffee, perhaps?’

  ‘I would recommend it, sir. Might help to speed up the defrosting process.’

  Jamieson gave him an old-fashioned look, rose and crossed towards the cabinet.

  Jamieson drained his second cup of reinforced coffee and looked at McKinnon. ‘Something bothering you, Bo’sun?’

  ‘Yes.’ McKinnon had both hands on the table, as if preparing to rise. ‘Motion’s changed. A few minutes back the ship started quartering a little, not too much, as if Trent was making a slight course adjustment, but now she’s quartering too damn much. It could be that the steering has failed again.’

  McKinnon left at speed, Jamieson close behind him. Reaching the now smoothly ice-coated deck, McKinnon grabbed a lifeline and stopped.

  ‘Corkscrewing,’ he shouted. He had to shout to make himself heard above the near gale-force wind. ‘Twenty degrees off course, maybe thirty. Something far wrong up there.’

  And indeed, when they arrived on the bridge, there was something far wrong. Both men paused momentarily, and McKinnon said: ‘My apologies, Mr Jamieson. It wasn’t the steering after all.’

  Trent was lying, face up, just behind the wheel, which was mindlessly jerking from side to side in response to the erratic seas striking against the rudder. Trent was breathing, no doubt about that, his chest rising and falling in a slow, rhythmic fashion. McKinnon bent over to examine his face, looked more closely, sniffed, wrinkled his nose in distaste and straightened.

  ‘Chloroform.’ He reached out for the wheel and began to bring the San Andreas back on course again.

  ‘And this.’ Jamieson stooped, picked up the fallen compass and showed it to McKinnon. The glass was smashed, the needle irremediably twisted out of position. ‘Flannelfoot strikes again.’

  ‘So it would appear, sir.’

  ‘Ah. You don’t seem particularly surprised, Bo’sun?’

  ‘I saw it lying there. I didn’t have to look. There are quite a few other helmsmen aboard. That was our only compass.’

  FOUR

  ‘Whoever was responsible for this must have had access to the dispensary,’ Patterson said. He was with Jamieson and McKinnon in the hospital’s small lounge.

  ‘That won’t help, sir,’ McKinnon said. ‘Since ten o‘clock this morning everybody aboard this ship—except, of course, the wounded, the unconscious and those under sedation—have had access to the dispensary. There’s not a single person who hasn’t been in the hospital area, either to eat, sleep or just rest.’

  ‘Maybe we’re not looking at it in the right way,’ Jamieson said. ‘Why should anyone want to smash the compass? It can’t just be to stop us from following whatever course we were following or that we might outrun someone. The chances are high that Flannelfoot is still transmitting his homing signal and that the Germans know exactly where we are.’

  ‘Maybe he’s hoping to panic us,’ McKinnon said. ‘Maybe he’s hoping we’ll slow down, rather than travel around in circles, which could easily happen if the weather deteriorates, the sea becomes confused, and if we have no compass. Perhaps there’s a German submarine in the vicinity and he doesn’t want us to get too far away. There’s an even worse possibility. We’ve been assuming that Flannelfoot has only a transmitter: maybe he has a transceiver, what if he’s in radio contact with Alta Fjord or a U-boat or even a reconnaissance Condor? There could be a British warship in the vicinity and the last thing they would want is that we make contact with it. Well, we couldn’t contact it: but its radar could pick us up ten, fifteen miles away.’

  ‘Too many “ifs”, “maybes” and “perhaps this” and “perhaps that”.’ Patterson’s voice was decisive, that of a man who has made up his mind. ‘How many men do you trust aboard this ship, Bo’sun?’

  ‘How many—‘ McKinnon broke off in speculation. ‘The three of us here and Naseby. And the medical staff. Not that I have any particular reason to trust them—nor do I have any particular reason to distrust them—but we know that they were here, all present and accounted for, when Trent was attacked, so that rules them out.’

  ‘Two doctors, six nursing staff, three orderlies and the four of us. That makes fifteen,’ Jamieson said. He smiled. ‘Apart from that, everyone is a suspect?’

  The Bo’sun permitted himself a slight smile in return. ‘It’s difficult to see kids like Jones, McGuigan and Wayland Day as master spies. Those apart, I wouldn’t put my hand in the fire for any of them, that’s to say I’ve no reason to trust them in a matter of life and death.’

  Patterson said: ‘The crew of the Argos? Survivors? Guests by happenstance?’

  ‘Ridiculous, I know, sir. But who’s to say the nigger is not in the most unlikely woodpile? I just don’t trust anyone.’ The Bo’sun paused. ‘Am I wrong in thinking that it is your intention to search through the quarters and possessions of everyone aboard?’

  ‘You are not wrong, Bo’sun.’

  ‘With respect sir, we’ll be wasting our time. Anyone as smart as Flannelfoot is too smart to leave anything lying around, or at least to leave it in any place where it might be remotely associated with him. There are hundreds of places aboard where you can hide things and we are not trained rummagers. On the other hand, it’s better than doing nothing. But I’m afraid that’s what we’ll find, Mr Patterson. Nothing.’

  They found nothing. They searched every living quarter, every wardrobe and cupboard, every case and duffel bag, every nook and cranny, and they found nothing. A rather awkward moment had arisen when Captain Andropolous, a burly, dark-bearded and seemingly intemperate character who had been given one of the empty cabins normally reserved for recuperating patients, objected violently and physically to having his quarters searched: McKinnon, who had no Greek, resolved this impasse by pointing his Colt at the Captain’s temple, after which, probably realizing that McKinnon wasn’t acting for his own amusement, the Captain had been cooperation itself, even to going to the extent of accompanying the Bo’sun and ordering his crew to open up their possessions for scrutiny.

  The two Singhalese cooks in the hospital galleys were more than competent and Dr Singh, who appeared to be something of a connoisseur in such matters, produced some Bordeaux that would not have been found wanting in a Michelin restaurant, but poor justice was done to the food and, more surprisingly, the wine at dinner that evening. The atmosphere was sombre. There was an uneasiness about, even a faint air of furtiveness. It is one thing to be told that there is a saboteur at large: it is quite another to have your luggage and possessions searched on the basis of the possibility that you might be the saboteur in question. Even, or perhaps especially, the hospital staff seemed unduly uncomfortable: their possessions had not been searched so they were not, officially, in the clear. An irrational reaction it may have been but, in the circumstances, understandable.

  Patterson pushed back his unfinished plate and said to Dr Singh: ‘This Lieutenant Ulbricht. Is he awake?’

  ‘He’s more than awake.’ Dr Singh sounded almost testy. ‘Remarkable recuperative powers. Wanted to join us for dinner. Forbade it, of course. Why?’

  ‘The Bo’sun and I would like to have a word with him.’

  ‘No reason why not.’ He pondered briefly. ‘Two possible minor complications. Sister Morrison is there—she’s just relieved Sister Maria for dinner.
’ He nodded towards the end of the table where a fair-haired, high-cheekboned girl in a sister’s uniform was having dinner. Apart from Stephen Przybyszewski she was the only Polish national aboard and as people found her surname of Szarzynski, like Stephen’s, rather difficult, she was invariably and affectionately referred to as Sister Maria.

  ‘We’ll survive,’ Patterson said. ‘The other complication?’

  ‘Captain Bowen. Like Lieutenant Ulbricht, he has a high tolerance to sedatives. Keeps surfacing—longer and longer spells of consciousness and when he is awake he’s in a very bad humour. Who has ever seen Captain Bowen in ill humour?’

  Patterson rose. ‘If I were the Captain I wouldn’t be very much in the mood for singing and dancing. Come on, Bo’sun.’

  They found the Captain awake, very much so, and, indeed, in a more than irritable frame of mind. Sister Morrison was seated on a stool by his bedside. She made to rise but Patterson waved to her to remain where she was. Lieutenant Ulbricht was half-sitting, half-lying in the next bed, his right hand behind his neck: Lieutenant Ulbricht was very wide awake.

  ‘How do you feel, Captain?’

  ‘How do I feel, Chief?’ Briefly and forcefully Bowen told him how he felt. He would no doubt have expressed himself even more forcefully had he not been aware that Sister Morrison was sitting by his side. He raised a bandaged hand to cover a cough. ‘All’s gone to hell and breakfast, isn’t it, Chief?’

  ‘Well, yes, things could be better.’

  ‘Things couldn’t be worse.’ Captain Bowen’s words were blurred and indistinct: speaking through those blistered lips had to be agonizing. ‘Sister has told me. Even the boat compass smashed. Flannelfoot.’

  ‘Flannelfoot?’

  ‘He’s still around. Flannelfoot.’

  ‘Flannelfeet,’ McKinnon said.

  ‘Archie!’ It said much for the Captain’s state of mind that, for the first time ever, he had, in company, addressed the Bo’sun by his first name. ‘You’re here.’

  ‘Bad pennies, sir.’

  ‘Who’s on watch, Bo’sun?’

  ‘Naseby, sir.’

  ‘That’s all right. Flannelfeet?’

  ‘There’s more than one, sir. There has to be. I know. I don’t know how I know, but I know.’

  ‘You never mentioned this to me,’ Patterson said.

  ‘That’s because I didn’t think about it until now. And there’s another thing I didn’t think about until now. Captain Andropolous.’

  ‘The Greek master,’ Bowen said. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Well, sir, you know we’re having a little trouble with the navigation?’

  ‘A little? That’s not how Sister Morrison tells it.’

  ‘Well, then, a lot. We thought Captain Andropolous might give us a hand if we could communicate with him. But we can’t. Maybe we don’t have to. Maybe if we just show him your sextant, Captain, and give him a chart, that might be enough. Trouble is, the chart’s ruined. Blood.’

  ‘No problem,’ Bowen said. ‘We always carry duplicates. It’ll be under the table or in the drawers at the after end of the chart room.’

  ‘I should be back in fifteen minutes,’ the Bo’sun said.

  It took him considerably longer and, when he did return, his set face and the fact that he was carrying with him the sextant in its box and a chart bespoke a man who had come to report the failure of a mission.

  Patterson said: ‘No cooperation? Or Flannelfoot?’

  ‘Flannelfoot. Captain Andropolous was lying on his bunk, snoring his head off. I tried to shake him but I might as well have shaken a sack of potatoes. My first thought was that the same person who had been to attend to Trent had also been to see the captain, but there was no smell of chloroform. I fetched Dr Singh, who said he had been heavily drugged.’

  ‘Drugged!’ Bowen tried to express astonishment but his voice came out as a croak. ‘God’s sake, is there no end to it? Drugged! How in heaven’s name could he have been drugged?’

  ‘Quite easily, it would seem, sir. Dr Singh didn’t know what drug it was but he said he must have taken it with something he’d eaten or drunk. We asked Achmed, the head cook, if the captain had had anything different to eat from the rest of us and he said he hadn’t but also said that he had coffee afterwards. Captain Andropolous had his own idea as to how coffee should be made—half coffee, half brandy. Dr Singh said that that amount of brandy would have disguised the taste of any drug he knows of. There was a cup and saucer by the captain’s bunkside table. It was empty.’

  ‘Ah.’ Patterson looked thoughtful. ‘There must have been dregs. I know nothing about those things, of course, but couldn’t Dr Singh have analysed those dregs?’

  ‘There were none. The captain could have done it himself—washed the cup, I mean. More likely, I think it was Flannelfoot covering his tracks. There was no point in making enquiries about who might or might not have been seen going into or leaving the captain’s cabin.’

  ‘No communication, is that it?’ Patterson said.

  ‘That’s it. Only his own crew were around at the time.’

  Patterson said: ‘Assuming that our saboteur has been at work again—and I don’t think we can assume anything else—where the hell would he have got hold of powerful drugs like this?’

  ‘Where did he get hold of the chloroform? I would think that Flannelfoot is well-stocked with what he considers essentials. Maybe he’s not only a bit of a chemist, too. Maybe he knows what to look for in the dispensary.’

  ‘No,’ Bowen said. ‘I asked Dr Singh. The dispensary is kept locked.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ McKinnon said. ‘But if this person is a professional, a trained saboteur, then among what he rates essentials I would think that a set of skeleton keys comes pretty high on his list.’

  ‘My cup overfloweth,’ Bowen mumbled. ‘As I said, all gone to hell and breakfast. If the weather breaks down much more, and I understand it’s doing just that, we can end up any place. Coast of Norway, most like.’

  ‘May I speak, Captain?’ It was Lieutenant Ulbricht.

  Bowen twisted his head to one side, an ill-advised move that made him grunt in pain. ‘Is that Lieutenant Ulbricht?’ There was little encouragement in his voice and, had his eyes not been bandaged, it was quite certain that there would have been none there either.

  ‘Yes, sir. I can navigate.’

  ‘You are very kind, Lieutenant.’ Bowen tried to sound icy but his blistered mouth wasn’t up to it. ‘You’re the last person in the world I would ever turn to for help. You have committed a crime against humanity.’ He paused for some seconds but it was no pause for reflection, a combination of anger and pain was making speech very difficult. ‘If we get back to Britain you will be shot. You? God!’

  McKinnon said: ‘I can understand how you feel, sir. Because of his bombs, fifteen men are dead. Because of his bombs, you are the way you are. So are the Chief Officer, Hudson and Rafferty. But I still think you should listen to him.’

  The Captain was silent for what seemed an unconscionably long time. It said much for the regard in which he held the Bo’sun that probably no other man could have given him pause for so long. When he spoke his voice was thick with bitterness. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers. That’s it, isn’t it?’ McKinnon made no reply. ‘Anyway, navigating a plane is quite different from navigating a ship.’

  ‘I can navigate a ship,’ Ulbricht said. ‘In peacetime I was at a Marine Schule—a marine school. I have a marine navigation certificate.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Not on me, of course, but I have one. Besides, I have many times taken starsights from a plane. That is much more difficult than taking sight from the bridge of a ship. I repeat, I can navigate.’

  ‘Him! That monster!’ Sister Morrison sounded even more bitter than the Captain but maybe that was because her lips weren’t blistered. ‘I’m quite sure he can navigate, Captain Bowen. I’m also sure that he would navigate us straight to Alta Fjord or Trondheim or Bergen—some place in Norway, anyway.’ />
  Ulbricht said: ‘That’s a very silly statement, Sister. Mr McKinnon may not be a navigator but he must be a very experienced seaman and it would require only one glimpse of the sun or the Pole Star to let him know whether we were steering roughly south-east instead of roughly south-west.’

  ‘I still don’t trust him an inch,’ Sister Morrison said. ‘If what he says is true, then I trust him even less.’ Her eyes were coldly appraising, her lips firmly compressed, one could see that she had missed out on her profession, she was well on the way to being the headmistress of Roedean with Ulbricht cast in the unlikely role of a trembling and errant pigtailed third-former. ‘Look what happened to Trent. Look what happened to that Greek captain. Why shouldn’t the same thing happen to Mr McKinnon?’

  ‘With respect, Sister,’ McKinnon said in a voice notably lacking in respect, ‘I have to repeat what Lieutenant Ulbricht said—that’s a very silly statement indeed. It’s silly for two reasons. The first is Naseby is also a bo’sun and a very fine one, too. Not that I would expect you to know that.’ The Bo’sun put an unnecessary emphasis on the word ‘you’. ‘Trent, Ferguson and Curran can also tell the difference between north and south. So, I’m sure, can Chief Patterson and Mr Jamieson. There could be half-a-dozen others among the crew. Are you suggesting that by some mysterious means that passes my comprehension—but not, it would seem, yours—Lieutenant Ulbricht is going to have us all immobilized?’

  Sister Morrison parted lips that had been tightly, even whitely, compressed. ‘And the second reason?’

  ‘If you think that Lieutenant Ulbricht is in cahoots with the persons who were responsible for the destruction of his plane and, near as a whisker, the loss of his own life—well, if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.’

  If it is possible to clear a throat in a soothing fashion, Patterson did just that. ‘I think, Captain, that the Lieutenant here might not be quite as black a villain as you and Sister think.’

  ‘Not a villain! The black-hearted—‘ Bowen broke off and when he spoke again his voice was quiet and almost thoughtful. ‘You would not say that without a reason, Chief. What makes you think so?’