Cuttlefish (20 page)

Late that afternoon, still in the misty rain, but thirty miles from the nearest island, the
Cuttlefish
came to the surface again. Tim was up
on deck, working. “One to six, haul! Heave away!” And under the sail-master's instructions, Tim and the others hauled up the mast again. Even the little foremast was deployed. Tim could never get over just how quickly they could turn the
Cuttlefish
from a submarine into a sailboat, with the outriggers out and the rubber inner pontoons inflated, and sails beginning to go up. Behind them the divers worked on the drogues, deploying their rubber pontoons so that they too could travel with minimum resistance above the water. There were quick-releases to be rigged on the pontoons and towlines to be checked, and the crew worked into the dusk; but soon, towing her four drogues, the
Cuttlefish
was under way again, sailing out into the wide Pacific, far from land or sight of man, far from hostile eyes and ships.

I
t had been two weeks since Clara had told him what his job was.

Up on the bridge, Tim stood to attention, looking straight ahead, although he felt as if he might just faint at any minute. If only he could faint. Or even die.

“Barnabas,” said Captain Malkis, his voice as heavy as lead and as cold as ice. “You were caught red-handed. We can't tolerate thievery on this boat. I'd like to put you off the
Cuttlefish
right now. Instead, however, I'll keep you aboard until we can put you off in someplace where you can do no further dishonour to yourself or the Free Submariners. But you will be confined to the brig from now on.”

“I wasn't stealing, sir,” said Tim, wishing his voice wouldn't crack.

“You were caught rummaging in a locked cabinet, by Lieutenant Ambrose. Are you calling him a liar, Barnabas? I will have you know I trust my officers.”

“No sir. I…I was looking inside the cabinet. But I wasn't stealing. I was looking for a wireless transmitter. Not to take anything. I swear. And the key was in the lock,” said Tim.

The captain sighed in exasperation. “You weren't aware, Barnabas, that after your last depredations, we'd set a trap, with Sparks's help, that rang a bell here in the bridge when that key was turned. We suspected it was one of you cabin boys.”

“Depredations, sir?” Tim wasn't even sure what the word meant.

“We know that you stole ten pounds and a valuable ring from the cabinet, earlier,” said the captain. “If you return them, I will be inclined to be slightly more lenient. Put you off in Australia where you can reform, and make a life for yourself.”

Tim swallowed and shook his head. “Search my gear, sir. Please. I haven't got any ring or any big money. I've got one pound and seven shillings and sixpence in my spare boots, that my mam gave me. I told her not to. But she said a boy had to have some money.”

The captain nodded. “Willis. Take Northham and go and search his cabin and his gear.”

So Tim stood waiting. At least he knew that they'd find nothing. And that proved to be the case. “Just precisely what he said he had, sir. Precisely where he said it would be,” said Lieutenant Willis.

The captain sighed. “He'd be a fool to keep it with his gear. There are other hiding places. And whether he had the proceeds of the previous theft or not, Lieutenant, he was caught red-handed this time. Take him down to the brig, please. After some time in there, he may decide that he prefers being landed in Australia. I'm very, very disappointed in you, Barnabas. I thought you were one of the more promising young crewmen I've had for some while. You are no longer a part of the
Cuttlefish
's crew.”

And that had hurt Tim far more than the idea of being put ashore on some island had. This was his family now.

Clara gaped at her mother when she was told. And then she found her voice. “But he really was looking for a spy. For a wireless transmitting set.”

“How do you know, Clara?” asked her mother.

“Because…because we talked about it,” said Clara, knowing she was admitting to doing precisely what she'd been told not to. “We tried to tell you and you wouldn't
listen
. So we had to try and find the transmitter. Tim wouldn't steal anything!”

“I know he once saved your life, dear, but how do you know how honest he is?” said her mother, repressively. “I hope Captain Malkis will relent. I'll ask, once he has calmed down. But for heaven's sake Clara, don't make things any worse, either for yourself or for him. You were expressly forbidden to talk to each other. He'd be in trouble about that too, and the captain might just go through with his threat of just casting him adrift if there was even one more point of evidence against him.”

Clara was furious. And silenced. The only way to help Tim now would be to actually present the captain with hard evidence that the transmitter existed. That someone was signalling to their enemies. So she took a deep breath and sat down to stare blindly at a chemistry textbook. No matter how angry she was, it wasn't going to help to rush in, so she waited.

The next day she asked her mother if by any chance she had any galena in her trunk of chemicals and books.

“Galena? Why?” asked her mother.

“We made a crystal radio in class with a vacuum diode. I asked you why they were called crystal radios, remember. And you said they used to work with a real crystal. Seeing as I am supposed to get back to my formal studies, and not just submariners studies, I thought I might try to make one.”

Her mother sighed. “The only radio signal you'll get out here is from Sparks. You're not going to find your imaginary transmitter. Well, you may pick up occasional shortwave or AM transmissions at night. But it will do you no harm, I suppose. It might turn your mind to other things. Yes, I have a small number of galena crystals. It was, oddly enough, one of the substances Fritz thought might be a catalyst.”

Clara knew it wouldn't turn her mind from what was obsessing it in the least, but she had to do something. And it gave her a reason to visit the engine room's tiny electrical workshop…which was next to the brig. In fact, they shared a drain, down which one could talk. Making the wire whisker and tuning coil had been a demanding and time-consuming exercise, even without the talking.

She really did hope that it wouldn't turn out to be Sparks who was informing. She'd had to ask him for various things for the project, like fine wire, and an earphone. He'd been delighted to find out she was making a crystal set. It was all she could do to stop him “helping” her, which would have put a stop to her talking with Tim. He did make her a buzzer to test the device, but she was firm. It was her project, and she'd show it to him when it was done.

Clara felt she had to talk to Tim. At first it was a duty, as it was mostly her fault he was there, even if it was awkward talking to him. But she got so used to conversation that it was no chore after a few days. They talked of everything from tunnels to Fermoy and families and food.…They talked far more than she ever had to anyone. She was fairly sure Thorne and Sparks knew about it, because they always coughed or whistled before opening the door.

And she was amazed to find her crystal set actually worked. Sparks was very impressed.

Now she just had to find the wavelength the spy was using, and be on it at the right time. That was going to be even more difficult.

“Look, we've only got Sparks, and Nicholl is his trainee, but the radio's not manned 24/7. Sparks has his set times to check and send messages. So if it is someone else, it'll be when Sparks is not on duty, because they wouldn't want him picking up a strong signal by accident,” said Tim down the pipe. He had it easy. He could lie on the shelf and talk to her.

She had to bend nearly double to talk into the piece of tubing she'd “extended” the drain outlet with. “And it's probably not a very strong transmitter. More likely to be used when we're close to land, or to the Royal Navy ships.”

“We're due to pick up coal in American Samoa. That's close enough to Prussian Samoa for the Royal Navy, I think. All you'll have to do is work out when Sparks is going to be on…and listen the rest of the time. I guess I am going to be short of company,” he said, mournfully. “They'll put me ashore there, I think.”

Clara was glad he could not see her face. “No!” she said, firmly. “We'll catch him first. I'm sure it's Lieutenant Ambrose. He's second in command and responsible for the forward sector, with the escape hatch. He'd use that if we were bombed.”

“The officer in charge is supposed to be last out.” Tim sighed down the pipe. “Do you think you could get me a navigation book or something? You could just push it through the bars quickly and go away. I'm so bored, when you're not here. I can hide it easily enough.”

“Of course.” Clara did not say that she thought Lieutenant Ambrose would desert his post and escape. But that was what she thought. She'd taken a violent dislike to him since they'd locked Tim up. She could barely greet him now. She'd got the whole story, bald and unedited, from Lieutenant Willis. “Once the old man settles down, he's likely to agree to let the boy off somewhere decent. But he won't have a thief on his boat, miss. He's as straight as a die, is Captain Malkis. Reasonable about most things, but not that.”

“Tim's not a thief,” said Clara.

The lieutenant tugged his moustache. “Unfortunately, he got caught with his hands where they shouldn't be, miss. And he was very guilty-looking when they marched him into the mast.”

“He was guilty-looking because he'd been looking where he shouldn't have. Not because he had taken anything. He was looking for a transmitter,” Clara said, firmly.

“Not what the captain thinks, miss,” said Lieutenant Willis, without asking how she knew.

As they neared the secret coaling base on the American Possession of Samoa, Clara put in every possible hour that Sparks was off, scanning the radio frequencies. She got very excited at first, because she picked up a weak, regular signal. But it seemed just to be a kind of noise, not a message of any kind. She got her mother to listen to it, and then Sparks, seeing as he was off-duty and sitting in the mess, and she could ask innocently. “Aha! It's junk. They're charging the batteries. The brushes in the generator make sparks, which make radio signals. Fortunately for me, the frequencies are quite high, because they clutter up the airwaves. We use lower frequencies. You can barely pick those up beyond line-of-sight.”

She got weak signals and even music from New Zealand. She sat there, for hours on end, looking at a nav text, sliding the bar on the tuning coil, tiny bit by tiny bit. Over and over and over. Nothing. Just that weak interference at the top end of the slide.

And then she hit the jackpot.

Clear, loud, and in Morse code.

Which she had no idea how to turn into something she understood. The only Morse code she knew was SOS. Three shorts, three longs, three shorts. This wasn't that.

“Mother! Mother, you have to listen to this!”

Her mother looked up from her notepad with the unfocussed gaze that Clara knew meant her mind was wholly absorbed in what she was busy doing. “Not now, dear. I've nearly got it.”

“You must!” said Clara, thrusting the earphone at her.

“I don't have time for music right now, dear,” said her mother, not taking it.

“It's not music! It's Morse code! And it's coming from the sub.”

With a long-suffering sigh her mother took the earphone and listened.

“Not hearing anything, I am afraid,” she said, after a while.

She handed the earphone back to Clara, who hastily plugged it into her own ear. To hear…nothing. And Mother had already gone back to scribbling equations, her face intent.

Clara took a deep breath, got up from her bunk, took her little crystal set and walked to the bridge. She didn't walk very fast because she was still very wary of the captain, after Rivas. But it had to be done.

“Captain Malkis,” said Clara, very tentatively. “Can I talk to you, please, sir?”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “In a few minutes, Miss Calland. I am preparing to hand over the watch. Wait.”

She stood, quiet as a mouse, just watching from the doorway.

Eventually he closed his chart-case with a snap. “Right Miss Calland. What is it?”

“It's my crystal set, sir,” said Clara humbly, holding it out.

“Ah.” By his expression that appeared to be a more welcome topic than the one he'd thought she'd ask about. “Better ask Sparks. I have no knowledge of such things. He'll be on in half an hour with the new watch. He does a spell then.”

“Well, sir, it's just that I picked up a very clear signal. That means it's very close, in Morse code.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I'll tell the lookouts. Thank you. Did you get the message down?”

She shook her head. “I don't know Morse code, except for SOS, and I wasn't really expecting it. The thing is, sir, if there is no other ship in sight, it must have come from the submarine.”