Cuttlefish (24 page)

It was true enough that she didn't know how to use it. But that didn't stop her wanting to. That was her mother coming along the trail. And it was her the mate had tricked, and all of her friends on the submarine he'd betrayed. She wanted to shoot him herself, right then.

They heard people come closer, panting up the slope. The mate came in sight first, then her mother, and then the man with the pockmarked face.

“Where is that man of yours?” asked the mate as they walked down across the bowl to the concrete slab.

“Probably sleeping. He's a lazy good-for-nothing. Disco!” shouted Pockmarks. “Hello! It looks like the door is open.”

“That
verdomde
girl must have got away again,” said the mate, running forward and into the pillbox.

The door swung shut behind him. And Clara saw her mother duck and head-butt the pockmarked man in the stomach. A shot rang out, the ricochet screaming off the pillbox. Pockmarks's rifle discharged too, as they fell in a struggling tangle. The men from the
Cuttlefish
arrived at a run, as did Tim and Clara.

Someone kicked the rifle away, and hauled them apart, just as the pockmarked man pulled a knife. Big Eddie hit him very hard, and he slumped and dropped the knife. Blood streamed from his head and down his face.

“Search him, and tie him up,” ordered Lieutenant Willis brusquely, as Clara hugged her mother. “We need to move out before it turns out that they have friends.”

“Sir. What about the mate?” asked Gordon.

“My job was to bring the hostage in, Gordon. Not to take revenge,” said the lieutenant. “We'll leave him barricaded in there.”

“Yessir. But he knows a lot about us, and he'll tell them we got away, if he gets out. If he doesn't, well, he'll starve,” said Nicholl.

Gordon looked at the barred pillbox door. “And the old man would like to ask him some questions, sir.”

The lieutenant nodded. “But getting him out without someone getting shot might be difficult. It's not worth it.”

“I have with me a vial containing a powerful lachrymal,” said Clara's mother. “Tear gas, you would call it. I brought it as a last resort to try and get us away again. Why don't you have someone drop it in the slit-window, Lieutenant? He'll be very glad to come out. And he won't be seeing well enough to shoot at anything.”

“An excellent idea,” said the lieutenant with a smirk of delight. “He's caused us all a few tears. It'll be his turn.”

“Lieutenant, there is their wireless set. Its light is flashing. Does that mean anything?” asked Tim, pointing to it.

Albert the diver picked up the headphones. Listened. Took them off his ears. “There is someone from the HMS
Forrest
calling, sir.”

Lieutenant Willis beamed. “Excellent. Let me talk to them. And then we can call Sparks on the ship. I know enough of our codes and frequencies to manage that much.”

The lieutenant did a passable imitation of the mate. “Ja, we have the Dr. Calland. But the Americans, somehow they are chasing us. We hide the wireless now. There are four American ships patrolling, ja. We call at nineteen hundred to arrange pickup. The marines search for us. Out.”

He fiddled the dials—got Sparks. “Willis. All fixed,” was all he said. He then pointed to Big Eddie, Gordon, and Tim. “Get down to the beach with the Callands and wave. Take the other two prisoners with you. They'll be watching from the boat, you can be sure. We'll sit on the pillbox until we see you heading out to sea. With luck we should be down soon. Either the tear gas or the hand grenade will sort Werner out.” It didn't sound as if he'd mind if it was the latter.

So they made haste down to the shore. Clara's mother held her hand very tightly. But right now, that was all right by her.

Tim was just incredibly glad to be going back to the submarine. He didn't really want to be that close to someone being shot or killed ever again. He had realised that the lieutenant planned to shoot Dr. Calland's captors. The man's life had barely been saved by Clara's mother attacking him. He had a bullet-creased scalp, which was bleeding freely, and was looking as terrified as his prisoner must have been once. Tim wondered if Clara's mum realised what had been intended, and how close it had been.

The sight of the sub surfacing again, close in, and the inflatable pontoon boat coming for them, was a welcome one. They'd be back on the
Cuttlefish
, alive and unhurt, soon. Still, Tim wanted all of the crew back. Alive and safe. He wouldn't stop worrying until they were.

It took another ten minutes before the others came down to the beach too, with the third prisoner. Ex First Mate Werner did not look very happy to be coming back to the ship, and that was without the fact that he was still racked with coughing and that his eyes were red and streaming.

He didn't get a lot of sympathy.

“W
e will go on to one of the uninhabited islands on the Tonga group,” said the captain, “rather than take a chance that Werner told the Royal Navy about our coaling connection here. There is a small emergency coal supply hidden there. We can also leave our prisoners there. Well, possibly not together on one island. It appears that Disco was merely a local Samoan, and Avery's servant. Avery was the Imperial spy, who was here to watch Pago Pago. It's not much of a task, and he is a trader most of the time.”

He smiled to Dr. Calland. “We learned a lesson from one of our previous prisoners, and have had someone listening in to the cell from the electrical workshop. They're fairly nasty bits of work, but very small players in the larger scheme of things. We'll drop the two of them where they will have a few months to wait before someone comes to harvest coconuts for copra. Where, and with what, we leave Werner will depend on what he tells us. In the meanwhile Sparks still has the Imperials believing that Dr. Calland is a captive, and that Werner is being hunted by the Americans, rather than being with us, and a full day's sail away and heading farther off.”

Tim was waiting on table in the officers' mess. And eavesdropping shamelessly. He felt this was his business, now.

“The ex first mate…,” said Clara's mother, with a sigh. “What drove him to take such terrible chances? He could have been killed himself. I can't forgive him for what he was prepared to do, but I just can't understand how he could do it. It was insanity, with him in our midst, calling trouble onto the boat.”

”It appears, ma'am, to have been loyalty,” said Captain Malkis. “He is German, rather than Dutch, but he grew up in Holland, where he felt he was ostracised and persecuted. He grew up there, spoke the language fluently, and learned about the submarine trade out of Holland. But he felt a second-class citizen there. So he gave his loyalty to the people who he could identify with and he hoped would accept him. Duke Malcolm's men saw him as a potentially valuable spy and deployed him to join the Underpeople, and offer his experience.”

She looked at him over the tops of her glasses. “So he was prepared to risk his own life to do their spying?”

The captain nodded. “I gather he considers himself a patriot and a hero, ma'am. He'll have plenty of time to think on this. I have decided that we'll leave him on Pylstaart Island, to the south of the Tonga group. It is uninhabited since it was raided by slavers for the Peruvian nitrate trade. It lacks permanent water or a harbour. It is very rarely visited. We considered it as a base, but landing there is difficult in some weathers. There are coconuts, shellfish, birds. He can live there for many years, and although it is very remote, I imagine one day he will be rescued. I will not keep him on the
Cuttlefish
, and I will not take the chance that he is able to reach civilization too soon and pass on information about us.”

“It seems harsh.”

“Execution is the alternative, ma'am. He is a traitor to his submariner oath, and a spy for our enemies. The British Empire would shoot him, were our roles reversed,” said the captain, firmly.

“I suppose so,” said Dr. Calland. “I have a lot of sympathy for prisoners. And I gather he did refuse to kill me.”

“He'll be freer than any other prisoner, ma'am. The island is not unpleasant, just lonely.”

Dr. Calland nodded. “And then?”

“And then onward,” said the captain. “We have another twenty-five hundred miles to travel—a number of weeks, maybe even months, depending on the winds. Which brings me to raise the matter of Miss Calland with you, ma'am.”

He looked at Clara, who was attempting to look as demure and innocent as possible. Tim knew, all too well by now, that that expression was as real as a lead sixpence. So, by the look on the captain's face, did he, by now. “We know, from experience, that crews need to be kept busy. We do this, quite honestly, with make-work tasks and of course with the submariners working towards their various certificates.” He smiled. “The devil makes work for idle hands, Dr. Calland. We're not a vessel designed for passengers.” He waved apologetically. “It has led to problems and good things too, ma' am. But I hope that is behind us now. We just have a long, slow voyage left.”

Clara's mother wasn't fooled by the Miss Prisms-and-Prunes expression either. “I think you should put her to scrubbing floors, Captain. Or to washing dishes, along with the cabin boys,” said her mother, with an answering smile, glancing up at Tim, who just happened to be clearing the plates at the next table. Very slowly.

The captain nodded. “That was my thought, yes. A little discipline, ma'am. A little hard work. And to keep her mind occupied, I'll allow her to return to studying with the cabin boys, and the junior ratings, under Mr. Amos. They need the skills to keep the submarine intact, and who knows, it may prove useful to her too. She seems a resourceful young lady. I hardly need to remind you that the rules of conduct will still apply, young lady. Certain areas are off limits, including the officers' quarters. And no physical contact with any of my crew,” he said, waving a finger at Tim, who hastily took the soup tureen to the galley.

Which was how Clara ended up learning how to apply new layers of shellac to damaged French-polished mahogany. And how to put little cardboard cutouts around the various brass handles before applying Brasso, and how to polish in endless little figure-eight circles. And she got to sit the basic submariner ticket and elementary navigation examinations.

She passed them. She did well. Tim, however, did considerably better.

“I thought you couldn't do the maths?” she said. “You got ninety-eight percent for nav!”

Tim shrugged. He was adjusting to the new way things were, it seemed, quite cheerfully. “It was while I was sitting in the cell. All I could do was sit there and work out nav problems. I did all the calculations, too, over and over…and I sort of got it. It makes sense now. Anyway, you beat me at the electrical circuitry question.”

“I can't believe you didn't get that one. It was so obvious,” she said loftily, looking at him down her nose, which was quite a trick when you're sitting down.

Tim was used to being teased by now. “Yes, well, I couldn't believe you didn't get the water density question completely.”

Clara sniffed. “I forgot about the difference between fresh and salt water. Anyone could do that.”

They bickered amicably, while painting opposite edges of the cowling. The
Cuttlefish
had all her sails out, and was up on her hydrofoil hulls. Others of the crew were out in the sun, working on various tasks. Thinking back Clara found it hard to come to terms with the person she had been before, back in Fermoy. That girl would never have teased a boy, and would never have felt comfortable in breeches. It was as if that life had belonged to someone else.

“Did you ever talk to your mother about your dad?” asked Tim, cleaning his brush methodically.

“No. It's, well, I can't. But Mr. Amos told me a bit about the ICA, the Irish Citizens' Army. I think that was what my father was charged with supporting.”

Tim found that he'd evolved from just being a cabin boy to something of a favourite of Clara's mother. So he found a time when he could speak to her without her daughter around, while Clara was carrying coffee to the deck watch, and he was running an errand for Lieutenant Ambrose, and then supposed to be cleaning the cabin next door. He knocked, feeling nervous about this, but determined.

Dr. Calland smiled at him when she opened her door. “Hello, Tim Barnabas,” she said. “And what can I do for you?”

“Um. Can I have a word, ma'am?”

She looked a little perturbed. “Of course, Tim. Is Clara in trouble?”

Tim blinked. “Er. No. It's a bit awkward this, Dr. Calland. But we were talking…about our fathers. And well…Clara doesn't think you want to talk about her father. But she does want to know about him. She doesn't even really know why he was jailed. It…troubles her, a lot.”

Clara's mother blinked. Looked at him over the top of her glasses. “It was something I couldn't talk about back in Ireland, Tim. And to be honest with you, young man, not something I find easy to talk about now. I miss Jack very badly, still.”

“But I thought you were divorced?” asked Tim, feeling as if he was trespassing on private property, but was determined to press on.

She sighed. “On paper, yes. But paper really doesn't mean much, any more than being married on paper means much to some people. We'd agreed to divorce, for Clara's sake, if he ever got caught. And when things started to go awry, with Imperial security sniffing at his heels, we…we separated. It was safer for Clara. He made me promise to do it.…She always came first, for Jack, and for me. If I…if I had ever let on how I felt, or what I knew…well, Clara would have lost both parents. And I couldn't tell her, in case she accidentally gave it away. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.”

“Oh. Well, I think you should tell her now,” said Tim. “Because, you see, she thought that the piece of paper was important.”

Clara's mother nodded. “I'll try. It's not that easy, Tim. She's very like her father.”

“Like her mother too,” said Tim with a grin. “You wouldn't always guess what she was up to.”

“I can't tell her all of it,” said Clara's mother, seriously. “We could still be caught.”

“Well, ma'am, she loves her father. And you. It would mean a lot to her, I think,” said Tim, wondering how he'd blundered into a world he didn't really belong in.

Clara listened incredulously. “You mean you lied to me?”

“Yes,” said her mother. “It had to be done, Clara. To protect you, and to protect others.”

Clara stared at her mother, who was wringing her hands, with that creased look on her forehead. And it all erupted like a volcano inside her. “I can't
believe
that you…you lied to me like that! I thought you hated Dad for what he'd done. I
told
people that.” Clara knew she was shouting, and knew that in the submarine others could hear her. Didn't care.