Night Sky (43 page)

The answer was work. Work always made him happy.

He paced his room and decided on some priorities.

The first was easy: he would make a success of the project even if it killed him.

The second was not so easy: Kapitanleutnant Geissler had to go.

And while he was about it he might as well have a third: to ask for another billet, one nearer other prisoners, somewhere with a bit of company. The request would probably be refused, but it never did any harm to ask.

He took a scrap of paper from the table and rummaged for the pencil stub which he always kept in his small bundle along with his other treasures: an eraser, a small slide rule and a picture postcard of Berlin – all possessions he’d been allowed to acquire while in the camp laboratory.

Taking up the pencil he wrote a work list for the next day, itemising each action in his neat handwriting made necessarily larger by the bluntness of the pencil.

When he had finished he regarded the list critically. It was not much, but it did at least make him feel that he had started.

He went to sleep immediately and woke early, his mind already busy. He jumped out of bed, examined his job list, then waited impatiently to be picked up for work. When the van finally deposited him at the factory door, he went straight to his office. He got out two blueprints of the Metox device, one in German, the other in French and, by comparing them, made a careful crib of all the technical words he would need for his conversations with the French technicians.

Next came the more difficult part: the Kapitanleutnant.

Geissler arrived sharp at eight, as he always did. David forced a warm smile, offered him a chair, and then, his heart in his mouth, dived straight in. ‘Herr Kapitanleutnant, may I ask you a great favour?’

Geissler looked a little suspicious. He murmured uncertainly, ‘Ask.’

David smiled briefly, then put on a suitably serious expression. ‘I need to get deeply into the operation here. I need to talk to the men – at length. I also … have a need to do everything at my own pace … In short, Herr Kapitanleutnant, I need to work on my own. Of course,’ he added hastily, ‘I will report to you regularly. Every day, if you wish! Every few hours, if you wish! But …’

Geissler had got to his feet and was holding up his hand, as if stopping some imaginary traffic. David stood up uncertainly. The officer shook his head and David’s heart sank. Then Geissler said, ‘Say no more. I understand perfectly. If you feel you will get better results on your own, then your request is automatically granted!’

The officer clicked his heels and left. David sat down in surprise. It had been so easy! He rubbed his hands. He felt a surge of excitement similar to those he had felt when starting new projects in the old days.

Next, to battle with the French language. David picked up his files and left his office. He was careful to avoid the director, an effusive, overbearing man, and went in search of the chief technician, a man called Gallois. He found him in a corner of the main workshop, staring disconsolately at some components on the bench.

David mustered his best French and said, ‘Good morning. May I have a word with you?’

Gallois looked up and then past David’s shoulder. ‘Ah! No lieutenant today!’

‘No.’

The Frenchman raised his eyebrows. ‘You are in charge, then?’

David wanted to say: Hardly. But he didn’t know the word and settled for, ‘No,
they
are always in charge.’

‘Ah! So what can I do for you?’

‘Could we talk, please, about the problems on the Metox?’ David spoke slowly and distinctly.

‘Certainly. I am at your service.’

David was rather pleased: the fellow seemed to have understood him. They began to walk towards the drawing office.

Suddenly the Frenchman asked, ‘You are German?’

‘Yes.’

There was short silence, then, ‘And you work for the German Navy?’

‘Work?’ David laughed. ‘I “work” for the people I must!’

‘But – you are employed by them?’

David frowned. He didn’t understand the verb. ‘Employed?’

‘Yes. You earn money?’

David smiled grimly. ‘Ha! No! No, my friend. I am a prisoner.’ A look of confusion came over Gallois’s face. David added, ‘A prisoner, just like …’ He searched for the word for labourers ‘… the workers I saw on the train.’

Understanding came over the Frenchman’s face. ‘Ahhh,’ he murmured.

The mention of the labourers reminded David. He stopped and faced Gallois. ‘Why are they brought here? What work do they do, all those people?’

‘They are Poles. They are building the U-boat pens. Great shelters of concrete to stop bombs …’ He threw out his hands to demonstrate a massive explosion.

They walked on.

The Frenchman asked, ‘Why are you a prisoner?’

‘I’m Jewish.’

The Frenchman nodded. ‘I see.’ And walked on in silence.

When they were sitting with the plans spread out in front of them, the Frenchman asked, ‘What happens if you cannot solve the problems? What if this Metox does not work very well?’

‘Ah!’ David snorted. He indicated with his head. ‘Back there, I suppose, to where I came from. But don’t worry. It won’t happen. We will make the thing work …’

They began with the problem of the aerial connection, then went on to the placing of the valves, and the suitability of the proposed amplifier.

To David’s surprise they managed to cover the three main problems within an hour, in each case arriving at agreement as to the necessary action to be taken. Strangely, David’s French seemed to have improved dramatically. He was elated.

David folded the large-scale drawing and beamed at the Frenchman. ‘A simple device, with simple problems. I knew we could sort it out!’

Gallois nodded slowly. ‘Yes, one can always sort these things out …’ He smiled ruefully.

David regarded him for a moment, then said impulsively, ‘Tell me, was my French so awful – when I arrived?’

The Frenchman looked down. ‘Awful?’

‘Yes, you know … No-one seemed to understand me.’

‘Oh, we never understand Germans very well.’

‘Ah.’ David frowned. Some confusing, unsettling thoughts drifted through his mind. ‘The matters we’ve been discussing …’ He paused and looked sideways at the Frenchman. ‘The problems with the Metox … why was it you were unable to solve them before …?’

Gallois made a face. ‘Ah! The Germans, they never provide the information and equipment we need … We’ve asked and asked …’ He trailed off and shrugged.

David nodded slowly. ‘Yes … quite …’ He thought of asking why the Germans had not responded to these demands, but something about Gallois’s manner did not invite any more questions.

‘Well,’ said David brightly. ‘I am sure the project will be a great success!’

‘Without doubt,’ the Frenchman replied coolly.

David walked quickly back to his office, his mind already going through the letters he would have to write and telephone calls he would have to make, and realised with mild surprise that his stomach hadn’t been hurting at all today. In fact he hadn’t felt so well in months.

It was the challenge of the work. As he thought, it was just what he needed.

M
OTOR
G
UNBOAT
309 had two outstanding characteristics: she was wet and she was as explosive as a bomb.

The south-westerly Force 6 was revealing the first of her attributes: her speed was reduced to thirteen knots and she was twisting and bucking like a wild horse. Every few seconds she dug her nose deep into a wave and chucked a wall of cold, very solid, water back along her 110-foot length, up and over the open bridge, drenching the four men who stood there peering into the impenetrable darkness.

There was a loud thud and a particularly large wave flew up over the bows. Ashley ducked instinctively behind the reinforced glass screen. The water hit the bridge with a dull slap, showering spray in all directions. Ashley felt a rivulet of freezing water running down his back and reflected that things might be worse: an E-boat could at this minute be firing at them and igniting the perfect mixture of air and high-octane petrol in their fuel tanks. And what a lovely bang they would make, he thought. A nice big orange whooomph! And the Jerries wouldn’t have to worry about looking for survivors: there wouldn’t be any. Instant cremation.

All things considered, he’d rather be wet.

As if reading his mind, Jones, the coxswain, shouted, ‘When are we getting these new boats then, sir?’

‘Ah, cox, when indeed? According to the Master Plan we already have them!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But according to the grapevine, it’ll be some time at the end of the year.’

Jones blew the saltwater off his lips and exclaimed, ‘About bleedin’ time too, sir. This old girl’s as wet as Glasgow on a Saturday night! If I’d wanted to be a submariner, I would have bleedin’ well volunteered.’

Ashley smiled. ‘On the other hand, Jones, a diesel-powered boat could be a real bore! A dry bridge, reliable engines, non-explosive fuel – there’d be no feeling of adventure. That first pint back in Dartmouth wouldn’t taste the same at all!’

‘Ha!’ the coxswain retorted. ‘After a ride on the Hamoaze ferry, lemonade tastes like bloody champagne to me, sir! But, you know, sir, I wouldn’t mind about the weather, ’cept we’ve been having it all bleedin’ winter. Not a break ’ave we ’ad, not a single one.’

‘No, cox,’ Ashley admitted. ‘We can’t have been saying our prayers right.’

In fact, there had been breaks in the weather, but they had come during the full moon, or when 309’s engines were out of action, or when there was no operation planned. Whenever an operation
had
been set up it had blown Force 5 or more. Nothing unusual for winter in the English Channel, but uncomfortable, wet and – for this kind of job – dangerously slow. A delay on the outward journey meant a late arrival, a nervous wait at the pick-up point, and a mad dash to get back across no-man’s-land to British coastal waters before dawn.

Ashley peered at the luminous hands of his watch: it was already 2330 and, he guessed, another two to two-and-a-half-hours to the pinpoint. An 0200 arrival would give them only forty-five minutes – or an hour at the most – to make the pick-up. It would be horribly tight. In this wind it would take the beach party at least twenty minutes to reach the shore. Five minutes to sort out the passengers and get them loaded. On the way back they would have the wind behind them but it would still take, say, fifteen minutes. Horribly tight.

Worse, he had the unpleasant feeling the wind was freshening.

They’d had miserable luck all winter, one way and another. First they’d had an inexperienced navigator and, on one occasion, had waited at the wrong beach for over three hours. Then, a week or so later, the engines had started to play up. As the Chief, an inevitable Scot by the name of McFee, was always saying, ‘Seawater and petrol don’t mix.’ He did his best with the three supercharged Hall Scott engines but even he couldn’t make the damn things work when they weren’t in the mood. Bad weather made them especially temperamental; ‘Like a woman caught in the rain,’ the Chief said contemptuously. A week before, they’d packed up two miles off the Brittany coast, just as they were being opened up for the journey home. The Chief had managed to coax a couple of knots out of the starboard engine, just enough to get them out of sight of land before dawn. Eventually, water was found in the fuel system, was cleared, and they managed to get under way again, but not before getting a nasty fright from a patrolling E-boat.

Ever since, the engines had been giving trouble of some kind or another and they needed constant nursing to keep them going.

But at least they had got rid of the dodgy navigator: that was something. All they needed now was a break in the weather.

Ashley poked his head outside the screen: yes, he could swear the wind was increasing. The barometer was probably dropping through the floor. He reached for the voice pipe and called down, ‘Macleod! How’s the barometer?’

A voice came floating up, ‘The
Jimmy
’s in sick bay, sir! Elliott here.’

‘Sick bay!’ Ashley sighed and said ‘Bugger!’ under his breath. He put his mouth to the pipe again. ‘On my way!’

As Ashley climbed down the exposed bridge ladder he felt the MGB’s bows dive into a wave and instinctively flattened himself against the side of the boat. The action avoided the worst of the water: instead of pouring down his neck the sheet of water slapped into his back. As he made his way aft he felt the wetness seeping through his oilskins into his clothes. So much for oilskins.

He reached the door, yanked it open, and climbed down into the relative peace of the accommodation. The sick bay was not as grand as it sounded: it was an ordinary bunk which happened to be situated next to the locker housing the medical stores. The First Lieutenant was lying on the bunk, his face white and his breathing irregular. Two seamen were taking off his boots and covering him with a blanket. There was an ominous black bucket on the floor beside him.

Ashley looked at one of the seamen. ‘What’s up?’

‘Sick, sir. Chucking up and – the other, sir.’